Is there a chance someone knows for sure the identity of the ripper?

[c.d.]

That is very interesting. Do you happen know any good literature on this? Or some sources?

Regards, Pierre

Hello Pierre,

By false leads I simply meant that none of them led to a suspect being charged as the Ripper.

[el_pombo]

Hello el_pombo

Yes, should there be anything there! You never know! Mind you, even if we did get a result, most of us wouldn't believe it!

Best wishes
C4

True, but it would at least give us so much more information with which to work!

Why can't they release the files with the informants names and details blacked out?

I find this very odd!

[Pcdunn]

We were corn millers from Portaferry,County Down.

Butchers from Scotland tarrying in London.

County Down and County Clare are where my Dad's ancestors came from, I'm told. They emigrated in the 1850s with the whole family, landing in New York, eventually wending west to South Dakota, where my grandfather seemed to have been fairly prosperous. He died years before I was born. Only clue to occupations I've located is that great-grandpa (aged 14 upon landing in NY) was said to be a merchant (or store-keeper, not sure which, really) in Iowa. Still hunting down the rest.

[SuspectZero]

In 1888 my mother's mother's father (my maternal great grandfather) Ike Singer married his wife Rebecca Kreutzner in Manhattan during the Great Blizzard of that year (in March). Ike was from Birmingham, England (he's my English ancestor), coming here about a year before. Rebecca/"Becky" was from the Polish portion of the German Empire of that period. Ike worked on a grain elevator. My mother's father's parents were from Hungary, and were married in the late 1880s (my grandfather Ben was born in 1891 in lower Manhattan). My father's father's family were in Russian Poland (and did not emigrate to the U.S. until the 1900s). My father's mother's family were in the U.S. (from Russia) and lived in Philadelphia.

No remarkable figures among these folk, just hard working immigrants or first generation Americans.

Oddly enough, years ago, while studying for a bar exam, I knew an English born lady taking the test, whose grand-mother (the lady claimed) was living in Whitechapel in 1888, and on the night of one of the murders (the lady did not know which) passed a man who seemed to be looking over at her in a peculiar manner - so that my acquaintance's grand-mother always felt she may have seen Jack the Ripper. But how could she tell?

Jeff

We have similar ancestry.

[Mayerling]

We have similar ancestry.

Probably many people on this board have similar ancestries to ours. It's actually rare to find someone with a notable in their family, or at least to know of one for certain. One of my mother's cousins on her mother's side was married to a man who was distantly related to an opera house impresario. And at college I knew a descendant of one of the unfortunate Salem "witches".

Really hard to find people like that.

Jeff

[JadenCollins]

We have similar ancestry.

I guess that's a typical thing for people who are from the states. We all have foreign/overseas ancestry.

[Errata]

Both my family trees terminate at my great grandparents. Between the Holocaust, the sort of common Jewish immigrant tendency to ignore the past pretty aggressively, the erasure of their backgrounds during the McCarthy era, and one spectacularly abusive man who single handedly erased his and his wife's past through many complicated means including murder... fun guy.

Yeah I got nothing past that point. Although I did have a several great uncle who was a Yiddish actor in London in the 1880s, who moved his family back to Austria in the 30s, which was a poor choice. I also have a completely clueless several great uncle who has three military graves due to an almost Scooby Doo set of circumstances befalling an immigrant during the Civil War.

Twice I have found someone with my family names (both of which are unusual), and there's a black family with our last name, but for the life of us we can't figure out how we are related. We keep in touch though. I found a girl with my mom's maiden name, and we tried to figure it out, but the best we got was that we probably were related somehow because the name is so odd.

I know where my family comes from, but I don't know when, or specifically where from. I don't know if I still have family somewhere. I don't know who died in the Holocaust, or survived, and I have no way of finding out. Although clearly Austria and Poland were no places for Jews to be during the war. I'm half Scottish, 1/4 Austrian and 1/4 Polish/Russian. My great grandmother was born in Russia and left Poland without ever leaving the house she was born in. Wonky borders.

But everyone in my family wanted to forget the past. And they did. Very successfully. So we have almost nothing to go on. So since they all wanted to be Americans so badly, I guess I'm just an American. Since for all intents and purposes, my family starts here in 1910.

[GUT]

Twice I have found someone with my family names (both of which are unusual), and there's a black family with our last name, but for the life of us we can't figure out how we are related.

I've got a few mixed race families with the surname of an ancestor, but since he was a slave owner (and probably trader) that's no real shock.

We have births recorded for him, by two women, other than his wife with whom he had 8, one was at the time a slave, the other not long freed and described as an Octavo (I presume of eighth blood not sure 1/8 what).

[Errata]

I've got a few mixed race families with the surname of an ancestor, but since he was a slave owner (and probably trader) that's no real shock.

We have births recorded for him, by two women, other than his wife with whom he had 8, one was at the time a slave, the other not long freed and described as an Octavo (I presume of eighth blood not sure 1/8 what).

Unfortunately they have the last name of the family that got here well after they did. 1938 in fact. The Austrian Jewish family. Both families were in Harlem at the same time, but that's as close as we've gotten. They came from Mississippi, a place my grandfather couldn't pick out on a map. But as far as he knew, he was the first in his family to go to the US. So it's probably some weird synchronicity. But they are really nice. I went to a family reunion once when I happened to be in town. We are so not related. Great family, but definitely not my family. Republicans.

[C. F. Leon]

I've been thinking about this for some time, I believe there is a chance, as slim as it may be, that someone still alive knows the identity of the ripper but never came forward.

There are several possibilities, the police could have known the identity of the murderer and that information can still exist in the form of classified archives, or, for example, a relative of the murderer could know the truth. It's not impossible (although very unlikely) that a son or daughter of the murderer could still be alive (let's say he was 20 in 1888 and had a child when he was 60 - 1928 - that person would be around 88 years old by now), and a grandson or granddaughter are a good possibility. It could be a well kept family secret and could very well be the only way of finding the truth after so many years.

Of course, one would still have to prove the allegations of anyone who came forward.

I wonder if this has ever been taken seriously as a path of investigation in modern days.

Does anyone see this as a true possibility of solving the murders?

1) "Knows" or "knew"? No doubt SOMEONE KNEW: the killer at least. Plenty of people have CLAIMED that they knew, and that continues to this day- problem is that few people agree on the same person that they KNOW it to be.

2) That brings up: How would we historians, or at least the "Ripper Community" determine PROOF of the killer's identity. There's PLENTY to prove someone DIDN'T do it: too young, wasn't in London at the times, never crossed the Atlantic, very good alibis, dead by 1888, etc. But how could we at this remove PROVE a particular person was the culprit? Eyewitnesses? You have some reports as it is- much of which is contradictory, so you have to pick and choose. Fake diaries aside, the ONLY witness which might have actually seen an attack on a victim was I. Schwartz, and his testimony to convict a suspect is poor. Circumstantial evidence? That's what we're working with as it is. DNA, as some claim? If you really understand how DNA evidence works, this is very unlikely.

So, can we ever find out who "JtR" was? We can't even agree on how many victims he claimed! I have little doubt that the killer's name at least was on documents somewhere, census records, for instance (but THAT assumes he was in London in 1880 or 1890). He may have even been questioned during the search and released (or picked up for some other crime). But where? And so many records have been lost: it would be VERY helpful to have the inquest on Druitt's suicide (MOST of the inquest records have been lost), or the asylum records for Kosminsky. Why did McNaughten even MENTION Ostrog? There must have been something to bring suspicion on him, even if only momentarily. Same with Druitt, Kosminsky, Tumbelty, and others. We don't have a description of Hutchinson to see if he matches other witnesses reports. We don't have decent autopsy reports on most of the victims. Want me to go on?

I think that worthwhile effort may be spent in finding ANYTHING more about Kosminsky, Ostrog, or Druitt, especially WHY they were suspected. Any info on "Cohen" would be quite helpful. Also asylum/medical records of any of them. Anything to determine Mary Kelly's (or Alice McKenzie's) past would be helpful, but I don't believe that the killer was "AFTER" her, and that's why the murders ceased. Still, there was a reason that they stopped. Why?

The killer's was there SOMEWHERE. The key is to put the pieces together into the overall picture, and hope that the Germans, janitors, and "collectors" have left the important stuff to find.

[Graham]

In 1888 my mother's mother's father (my maternal great grandfather) Ike Singer married his wife Rebecca Kreutzner in Manhattan during the Great Blizzard of that year (in March). Ike was from Birmingham, England (he's my English ancestor), coming here about a year before. Rebecca/"Becky" was from the Polish portion of the German Empire of that period. Ike worked on a grain elevator. My mother's father's parents were from Hungary, and were married in the late 1880s (my grandfather Ben was born in 1891 in lower Manhattan). My father's father's family were in Russian Poland (and did not emigrate to the U.S. until the 1900s). My father's mother's family were in the U.S. (from Russia) and lived in Philadelphia.

No remarkable figures among these folk, just hard working immigrants or first generation Americans.

Oddly enough, years ago, while studying for a bar exam, I knew an English born lady taking the test, whose grand-mother (the lady claimed) was living in Whitechapel in 1888, and on the night of one of the murders (the lady did not know which) passed a man who seemed to be looking over at her in a peculiar manner - so that my acquaintance's grand-mother always felt she may have seen Jack the Ripper. But how could she tell?

Jeff

I was born in Birmingham and lived there until I was about 25. In my younger day there were lots of Jewish and Polish people living and working in Brum (how Birmingham is referred to in the UK - from its early name of Bromwicham). Many of these people worked in the jewellery trade which was big business until quite recently. My mother's family originated in Ypres, Belgium, and fled to England during the Huguenot persecutions, where they became silk-weavers in Whitechapel before moving to Worcestershire some time during the early 19th century.

I can't remember where I read it, may have been Colin Wilson, but there was the preposterous story, which evidently some people actually believed, of a young Whitechapel woman taking a hot dinner to her husband on the night of a Ripper killing, and running slap-bang into the lad himself as he wiped the blood off his knife....yeah, sure. I think this woman was actually named, so I wonder if her descendants ever lived her story down.

Graham

[el_pombo]

1) "Knows" or "knew"? No doubt SOMEONE KNEW: the killer at least. Plenty of people have CLAIMED that they knew, and that continues to this day- problem is that few people agree on the same person that they KNOW it to be.

2) That brings up: How would we historians, or at least the "Ripper Community" determine PROOF of the killer's identity. There's PLENTY to prove someone DIDN'T do it: too young, wasn't in London at the times, never crossed the Atlantic, very good alibis, dead by 1888, etc. But how could we at this remove PROVE a particular person was the culprit? Eyewitnesses? You have some reports as it is- much of which is contradictory, so you have to pick and choose. Fake diaries aside, the ONLY witness which might have actually seen an attack on a victim was I. Schwartz, and his testimony to convict a suspect is poor. Circumstantial evidence? That's what we're working with as it is. DNA, as some claim? If you really understand how DNA evidence works, this is very unlikely.

So, can we ever find out who "JtR" was? We can't even agree on how many victims he claimed! I have little doubt that the killer's name at least was on documents somewhere, census records, for instance (but THAT assumes he was in London in 1880 or 1890). He may have even been questioned during the search and released (or picked up for some other crime). But where? And so many records have been lost: it would be VERY helpful to have the inquest on Druitt's suicide (MOST of the inquest records have been lost), or the asylum records for Kosminsky. Why did McNaughten even MENTION Ostrog? There must have been something to bring suspicion on him, even if only momentarily. Same with Druitt, Kosminsky, Tumbelty, and others. We don't have a description of Hutchinson to see if he matches other witnesses reports. We don't have decent autopsy reports on most of the victims. Want me to go on?

I think that worthwhile effort may be spent in finding ANYTHING more about Kosminsky, Ostrog, or Druitt, especially WHY they were suspected. Any info on "Cohen" would be quite helpful. Also asylum/medical records of any of them. Anything to determine Mary Kelly's (or Alice McKenzie's) past would be helpful, but I don't believe that the killer was "AFTER" her, and that's why the murders ceased. Still, there was a reason that they stopped. Why?

The killer's was there SOMEWHERE. The key is to put the pieces together into the overall picture, and hope that the Germans, janitors, and "collectors" have left the important stuff to find.

Hi, C.F.Leon!

Thank you for taking the time to write that excellent reply! I agree with most of what you say, but, nevertheless, I think a definitive evidence - one that would be sufficient for a conviction in a modern court - could still exist and could still be found, and that someone may know who the killer was even without first hand knowledge.

For example, if the classified JTR files from Scotland Yard were to be released and they contained not only the killer's name ( in the form of "we are absolutely sure the killer is /was...") but also all the evidence gathered by the police at the time, would you consider the case closed?

Of course, this wouldn't convince 100% of people, but there's also people who aren't convinced the earth is round!

All the best!

[Mayerling]

I was born in Birmingham and lived there until I was about 25. In my younger day there were lots of Jewish and Polish people living and working in Brum (how Birmingham is referred to in the UK - from its early name of Bromwicham). Many of these people worked in the jewellery trade which was big business until quite recently. My mother's family originated in Ypres, Belgium, and fled to England during the Huguenot persecutions, where they became silk-weavers in Whitechapel before moving to Worcestershire some time during the early 19th century.

I can't remember where I read it, may have been Colin Wilson, but there was the preposterous story, which evidently some people actually believed, of a young Whitechapel woman taking a hot dinner to her husband on the night of a Ripper killing, and running slap-bang into the lad himself as he wiped the blood off his knife....yeah, sure. I think this woman was actually named, so I wonder if her descendants ever lived her story down.

Graham

Now if only that young wife had been in Liverpool, taking something up to her just returned husband James....oh well.

The Singers were (and may still be - apparently Ike had some siblings) in the glove trade, of all things (regular "leather apronettes" perhaps...who knows?)
For some reason (Ellis Island, a desire to be different...again who knows?) Ike changed his last name to "Wolf" when he came here. So my maternal grandmother's last name was "Wolf", not "Singer". Odd, but he was here in 1888 - a point that was somewhat brought up in passing by C. F. Leon just before as a reason to discard people as suspects.

Oddly enough, due to my last name and a curious resemblance in a picture I have seen, there is a chance of a long-distant relationship with a murderer from England in the earlier part of Victoria's reign. But if it exists it certainly would require a genealogist to set it straight, and as I have little sympathy with this bloody minded dimwit I can't see wasting money on finding out. Really deep minded genealogical searching is time consuming and expensive. A college friend of mine from Rhode Island had a mother whom while she was living did such a thing as a hobby. She found a connection with the wealthy Brown family who founded "Brown University" and she even traced back to a "Henrician" literary and political figure. But the latter was a curious point that she really could never quite settle, even with surviving documents, because things were missing. She was never able to finish her work when she died several years back.

About 1997 I was looking into the story of the second British Train Murder of Frederick Gold in 1881. Naturally I was interested in the story of the convicted killer Percy Lefroy Mapleton. I have a theory or two about his actual father (not Commander Mapleton, by the way), but I stumbled into a genealogical study of the Mapleton family in the 42nd Street Library in Manhattan, and Percy is on it - as the family's official "Black Sheep". I tried to contact the author, but never heard from the fellow, regarding photographs they had of Percy - something of a rarity. But oddly enough there is a secondary problem I noticed regarding family memory blindness:

The author of the book gushed over their connection to another party - they were related to the noted Anglo - Australian explorer Edward John Eyre. Eyre's discoveries in Southern Australia included the now empty "Lake Eyre" and several other sights he found on a set of Spartan style journeys in the 1830s. He also was Lieutenant Governor of New Zealand in the early 1850s (and the first to climb the highest mountain in New Zealand during his term in office). Then he served as a Lieutenant Governor in several Caribbean islands (Antigua, and then Jamaica).

All this was mentioned - but no more. Don't forget, Percy was the "Black Sheep" of the family. They failed to mention the "controversy" involving Eyre's term as Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica: his handling of the 1865-66 rebellion there, in which there were a large number of executions, including the so-called ringleader who was a member of the Jamaican colonial assembly (a fellow named "Gordon" whose name is proudly displayed on their Parliament Building today, to give you an idea of how they see him - like the Manitobans regarding Louis Riel). Eyre left for England and a storm - it literally split the intellectual and political elite into two camps who either wanted Eyre tried for, found guilty, and executed for mass murder (this was led by John Stuart Mill), or the ones who supported him as a good and effective public servant (led by the likes of Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle). Not until two attempts were made to bring Eyre to trial did the matter die down in 1868 (I suspect the growing interest in doing justice to one "Tom Castro", claiming to be "Sir Roger Tichborne" transferred interest after 1868). It knocked the props out from Eyre, who retired to an estate he purchased in England and died under a cloud of imposed social obscurity (sort of like J. Bruce Ismay in the wake of the "Titanic" sinking escape) in 1901.

But this illustrates how families do ignore bad truths or unpleasantness. I am certain if the Mapletons knew of the great explorer they had to know about what his post 1865 career and reputation was like. Even though he never was tried, it was in tatters. The best biography I've read of Eyre is called, "The Hero As Murderer". How could you ignore that? If a family did know or suspect "X" was the Ripper, how many would be willing to discuss it?
I would hope they would, but most likely they won't. Especially, unlike Percy and Edward, that person's final stages did not generate so much unpleasant heat.

Jeff

[harry]

I am eighty eight (88) years old.My grandfather was born about 1864,he lived until 92 years of age.Our ages overlapped by many years,and there would be others in the same position.So it is possible a person still living might have information of the ripper period that was handed down.Not direct evidence,but maybe of a kind that would be persuasive.

[el_pombo]

I am eighty eight (88) years old.My grandfather was born about 1864,he lived until 92 years of age.Our ages overlapped by many years,and there would be others in the same position.So it is possible a person still living might have information of the ripper period that was handed down.Not direct evidence,but maybe of a kind that would be persuasive.

Hi, Harry!

Precisely what I think too! You could have met JTR, he could have given you the crime weapon, items from the victims, even the removed organs if he had kept them preserved in a solution. He could have described every murder in great detail and you could have written it all down.

Like you say, it could all be a fabrication, but if it wasn't, maybe someone would find a way to prove it was true!

There's probably a lot of people who believe they're related to JTR based on family myths, but maybe one of them has the real answer!

Be it as it may, I still think our best chance to beat the case would be to find an official document unequivocally stating the name of the killer, I'd sure like to have a look at those classified records.

All the best!