Hyam Hyams: Portrait of a Suspect

[Brenda]

.

Why is someone supporting the guy's head in the first photo? To me he sort of looks like he's not alive.

[Pierre]

You have stumbled upon one of the frustrating things about Ripperology. There are so many loose strings that may or may not be a part of the cloth. Hyams lived near the shop where a man inquired as to Lusk's address. If it was Hyams, why didn't she know him? Did the man who asked for the address send the kidney? Was it Katherine Eddowe's kidney? Was the man who sent the kidney Jack the Ripper?

Hi,

I agree that the amount of sources surrounding the case is making it hard to acchieve any reliability in the theories about it.

Another problem is the 19th century views on the case. It is almost like a curse.

They thought Jack the Ripper was a foreigner, a jew, a doctor, a lunatic, they thought he sent certain letters, they thought this and they thought that.

And their thinking still dictates what ripperologists of today will be able to think, because 19th century thinking was like a curse to the sources as well: it favoured some sources and ignored others and sometimes , as a consequence, sources were destroyed.

So what we have to look for today is evidence connecting the murderer to each murder case. We need strong data that cannot be interpreted in to many ways. It must exclude other interpretations. And we have to use both the newspaper archives as well as sources from inquests and external data not produced in relation to the murders.

History must have coherence and rely on solid data, that is data with high validity. You often need 1-3 sources to have good evidence for one hypothesis. And each such hypothesis must throw light on the whole theory.

There is no use in speculationg in the killers motives or in his background before you find data that kick back. You have to be really surprised and at first you shouldnīt understand the data - but if it is reliable and valid data you will very soon see the meaning of it.

I have had that "kick back" from eleven (11) data sources and each time I was surprised to put it mildly. The sources gave me information that I first didnīt understand in some cases. I had to read about a certain phenomenon to understand it. And in some cases it was just showing me direct evidence even though the probability for finding that type of evidence was extremely low.

I have been trying again and again and again saying that I have made the wrong interpretations, that certain evidence MUST mean something else, that there MUST be another explanation. And I have looked for it and havenīt found it.

And perhaps the most frightening thing is - to get back to the post of Patrick - that all the data taken together gives a coherent theory with motives, methods, explanations of things questioned by ripperologists in the past as well as a chance to perhaps get proof.

So all these bits of data that Patrick mentions are of course frustrating if you are looking for a killer. And I have heard of people working thirty years or more with trying to understand who he was. I would never do that and one reason is the huge amount of data. On the other hand, thanks to it, I might have found him.

I would also like to give my view, for what itīs worth, on the kidney:

If Jack the Ripper was the dismemberment murderer he liked to distribute pieces of the victims in London. Looking at it from this perspective it could be a possible hypothesis in a theory of his interest in doing so.

But the problem we will have to deal with then is the Lusk letter. If you have the hypothesis that the killer signed his letters with "Jack the Ripper", he did not do so in this one. And if you have the hypothesis that the killer had at least more than an average education or was well educated, it is hard to think he would express himself in such a way as did the author of the Lusk letter.

On the other hand, if one thinks that he did not sign his letters "Jack the Ripper", the Goulston Street graffito could have some connection to the Lusk letter. Perhaps someone could come up with more evidence for a killer in the style of such a one that could have been the author of the Lusk letter. But from the point of view of my own theory, the author of the Lusk letter is not the killer.

Regards Pierre

[Mayerling]

Hi,

I agree that the amount of sources surrounding the case is making it hard to acchieve any reliability in the theories about it.

Another problem is the 19th century views on the case. It is almost like a curse.

They thought Jack the Ripper was a foreigner, a jew, a doctor, a lunatic, they thought he sent certain letters, they thought this and they thought that.

And their thinking still dictates what ripperologists of today will be able to think, because 19th century thinking was like a curse to the sources as well: it favoured some sources and ignored others and sometimes , as a consequence, sources were destroyed.

So what we have to look for today is evidence connecting the murderer to each murder case. We need strong data that cannot be interpreted in to many ways. It must exclude other interpretations. And we have to use both the newspaper archives as well as sources from inquests and external data not produced in relation to the murders.

History must have coherence and rely on solid data, that is data with high validity. You often need 1-3 sources to have good evidence for one hypothesis. And each such hypothesis must throw light on the whole theory.

There is no use in speculationg in the killers motives or in his background before you find data that kick back. You have to be really surprised and at first you shouldnīt understand the data - but if it is reliable and valid data you will very soon see the meaning of it.

I have had that "kick back" from eleven (11) data sources and each time I was surprised to put it mildly. The sources gave me information that I first didnīt understand in some cases. I had to read about a certain phenomenon to understand it. And in some cases it was just showing me direct evidence even though the probability for finding that type of evidence was extremely low.

I have been trying again and again and again saying that I have made the wrong interpretations, that certain evidence MUST mean something else, that there MUST be another explanation. And I have looked for it and havenīt found it.

And perhaps the most frightening thing is - to get back to the post of Patrick - that all the data taken together gives a coherent theory with motives, methods, explanations of things questioned by ripperologists in the past as well as a chance to perhaps get proof.

So all these bits of data that Patrick mentions are of course frustrating if you are looking for a killer. And I have heard of people working thirty years or more with trying to understand who he was. I would never do that and one reason is the huge amount of data. On the other hand, thanks to it, I might have found him.

I would also like to give my view, for what itīs worth, on the kidney:

If Jack the Ripper was the dismemberment murderer he liked to distribute pieces of the victims in London. Looking at it from this perspective it could be a possible hypothesis in a theory of his interest in doing so.

But the problem we will have to deal with then is the Lusk letter. If you have the hypothesis that the killer signed his letters with "Jack the Ripper", he did not do so in this one. And if you have the hypothesis that the killer had at least more than an average education or was well educated, it is hard to think he would express himself in such a way as did the author of the Lusk letter.

On the other hand, if one thinks that he did not sign his letters "Jack the Ripper", the Goulston Street graffito could have some connection to the Lusk letter. Perhaps someone could come up with more evidence for a killer in the style of such a one that could have been the author of the Lusk letter. But from the point of view of my own theory, the author of the Lusk letter is not the killer.

Regards Pierre

Hi Pierre

Interesting message from you as always. However one point I would somewhat argue against. It's not just the Jack the Ripper Mystery that has people latching onto one particular set of clues or another to build a theory on. It is many mysteries like that. The Black Dahlia Case is like that, with many suspects being suggested. So is the Zodiac Case. If the circumstances get murky and are horrifying enough people will try to grasp any set of the facts (or quasi-facts, for many facts I think are just accidental results of the site of a killing) to settle the matter. I live in New York City, and have lived here all my life. In the late 1970s we had the "Son of Sam" Case where for a year or so several shootings and murders of young people occurred in the boroughs. I noticed at the time how many suggestions were made by the public (through the media) on how the police should proceed, and how the police seemed helpless. The breakthrough in that case was an accidental parking ticket given to David Berkowitz, which somehow led the police to focus on him as their suspect. He may have had some accomplices (this is still debated, and Berkowitz hinted as much), but the main person involved was caught - but accidentally.

I think chance plays a role in these mysteries. Inept original investigation due to poor training or ridiculous inner-police rivalries. Racial stereotyping, be it against Jews, Latinos, African-Americans, etc. Social fears - connected to the previously mentioned stereotyping. Again sometimes, as with Berkowitz, something just falls into place and leads to the rest (or most of the rest), or sometimes it just never is stumbled on.

I actually am hoping (despite your supposed misgivings about how your investigation is turning out) that you do link up the five or so killings, that your work does produce a resoundingly sound and final explanation.

Again I do wonder - have you been contacting the other websites dealing with this case.

Jeff

[Pierre]

Hi Pierre

Interesting message from you as always. However one point I would somewhat argue against. It's not just the Jack the Ripper Mystery that has people latching onto one particular set of clues or another to build a theory on. It is many mysteries like that. The Black Dahlia Case is like that, with many suspects being suggested. So is the Zodiac Case. If the circumstances get murky and are horrifying enough people will try to grasp any set of the facts (or quasi-facts, for many facts I think are just accidental results of the site of a killing) to settle the matter. I live in New York City, and have lived here all my life. In the late 1970s we had the "Son of Sam" Case where for a year or so several shootings and murders of young people occurred in the boroughs. I noticed at the time how many suggestions were made by the public (through the media) on how the police should proceed, and how the police seemed helpless. The breakthrough in that case was an accidental parking ticket given to David Berkowitz, which somehow led the police to focus on him as their suspect. He may have had some accomplices (this is still debated, and Berkowitz hinted as much), but the main person involved was caught - but accidentally.

I think chance plays a role in these mysteries. Inept original investigation due to poor training or ridiculous inner-police rivalries. Racial stereotyping, be it against Jews, Latinos, African-Americans, etc. Social fears - connected to the previously mentioned stereotyping. Again sometimes, as with Berkowitz, something just falls into place and leads to the rest (or most of the rest), or sometimes it just never is stumbled on.

I actually am hoping (despite your supposed misgivings about how your investigation is turning out) that you do link up the five or so killings, that your work does produce a resoundingly sound and final explanation.

Again I do wonder - have you been contacting the other websites dealing with this case.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

youīre making a great point here. I agree that people tend to grasp at what they see and hear when trying to figure out cases like the ones you describe. And it also seems clear that chance has a role in it.

And this probably makes it even more difficult when it comes to researching an old case like the Ripper case, since we donīt just have a lot of different sets of more or less unreliable data but also very old data. So it is really a challenge.

Coming back to your question, I havenīt been on any other Ripper website and Iīm not planning to do so. Thanks for sharing your experiences from New York, I really appreciate that.

Regards Pierre

[Pierre]

I think the nose and brow seem very similar, indeed.

Well, how common is the name Hyams?

Pierre

[Brenda]

.

I feel that the man pictured on our left may very well be deceased.

[Rosella]

^ I know what you mean, Brenda, as I have seen those post mortem photographs where relatives support a dead family member.

However, there are also photos around that were taken of prisoners (for ID purposes) and sometimes these men and women screwed up their faces and wriggled (for obvious reasons) so a decent portrait of them could not be taken. Police and warders (several of them sometimes) would hold their heads and bodies in place so the photographer could do his job.

It could well have been the case also in mental institutions when a photo had to be taken and a patient wouldn't 'cooperate' and sit up straight for whatever reason, and so had to be held in place.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Rob,

Thanks for reposting the recently jtrf posted photo. I do not think it the same person, personally.

However, I went back and read through this entire thread carefully. Perhaps it is only me, but it must have occurred to others here that from the snippets of information given, timing and condition of this poor fellow, he actually seems a far far better person to have in mind when comparing prices on the infamous Swanson marginalia. In fact, that being the case, the mention of the police in the document you posted on the thread becomes very interesting indeed.
Ignoring the fact that "Kosminski" was the suspect. .or the name of the suspect in the marginalia, much else is quite similar to this fellow's antecedent past.
Possible?




Phil

[Scott Nelson]

Well, yes Phil. I've always thought so.

[Phil Carter]

Well, yes Phil. I've always thought so.

Hello Scott,

In which case, given that the police were apparently very aware of both Kosminsky and Hyams, the most obvious question is...why on earth would Swanson write the name of the wrong person in the marginalia in the first place?

I wonder what would have been the result if the discovery of the marginalia in the early 1980's involved "Hyams was the suspect"?

It would rather have put the name Kosminski out in the pasture I would think.

Now, if, as it seems, Hyams fits the bill far better than Kosminski does re the marginalia..Some people have an awful lot if back peddling to do IMHO. Not least, those proponents of the insistence that everything is hunky dory with the marginalia itself. For as a side note, the antecedents of Hyams were unknown at the time... All eyes on Swanson methinks.



Phil

[tji]

Am I missing something here?

As far as I am aware we know Hyams is an unlikely suspect, we know the Hyam Hyams who was put forward as suspect is not in fact the Hyam Hyams who went into the asylum and thanks Debs and Rob research/findings weakened the case more or less completely against him as a suspect.

[Scott Nelson]

Phil,

Hyams makes an interesting modern suspect, but he's not Anderson's (and Swanson's) Polish Jew suspect. Hyams could have been the Ripper without any connections to modern theorizing.

Swanson could have written in his marginalia notes, "Abrahams was the suspect - DSS", or "Cohen was the suspect - DSS".

Or as I suspect, "Kosminski" was the non-anglicised name of Cohen. Better to use Kosminski to identify the fact that he was a Polish Jew immigrant.

[Scott Nelson]

Hi Tracy,

Debs discovered that the Hyam Hyams who grew up on Mitre street was different from the one who went to the asylum. Also that the asylum-bound Hyams was not the "terror of the city police", but rather terrified of the police (apologies , trying to quote from memory).

This doesn't mean that the Colney Hatch Hyams couldn't have been the Ripper.

[tji]

Hi Scott

Debs discovered that the Hyam Hyams who grew up on Mitre street was different from the one who went to the asylum.

Sightly awkward here - that was actually me

Also that the asylum-bound Hyams was not the "terror of the city police", but rather terrified of the police (apologies , trying to quote from memory).

Yup this was all Debs (and Rob C I believe. )

This doesn't mean that the Colney Hatch Hyams couldn't have been the Ripper.

Valid point, but the info that Debs found showed that he wasn't actually as menacing and vicious as led to believe if I remember correctly.
Take away the fact that he didn't live in Mitre Street, wasn't 'the terror of the Police,' didn't die for many years after the killings etc, doesn't make for a strong suspect. Admittedly still stronger than some suspects put forward......

[Debra A]

(I Posted this on jtrforums http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread....747#post281747, and thought I'd also post it here to see if there was any additional response. Several people seem to think these are not the same person, but I am not so sure... and I am interested in robert Linford's comment: "On second thoughts, this depends on whether Ancestry's Colney Hatch records are complete. If they are, then (barring a fairly bad mistranscription) this is Hyam, because there is no one else that it could have been.")

I found this photo of "H. Hyams" a couple years back at the LMA, when looking through one of the Colney Hatch photo books (I am embarrassed to admit I didn't note which book this was in).

I didn't think much of it at the time... or rather, I made a mental note of it, but never followed it up.

Anyway, the photo I am talking about is the one on the left, labelled "1896. H Hyams." Comparing this to the known photo of Hyam Hyams at right, it looks to me like the same person. Has this photo been discussed before. I do not remember seeing it.

Rob House

This is the H Hyams in the photograph posted by Rob House-His name was Henry Hyams:

Entry No. 2357 Admitted Wednesday 18 November 1896, Hyams, Henry, age 47, admitted from 3 Tenter Street North, single, occupation traveller, complaint-influenza, Religion -Hebrew, discharged 6 December 1896 To Colney Hatch Asylum, Brother Morris Hyams 14 Spellman Street, Whitechapel
Whitechapel Infirmary Admission and Discharge book 1896-1897 St. B.G./Wh/123/29

HYAMS, Henry Colney Hatch 12573 Colney Hatch Hospital		Whitechapel Union	16-Dec-1896 47	Single Brother Traveller	GP Unknown	1 week Died 25 December 1896 of GP. Duration: considerable. Photo No PM	See original patient card in the JGSGB Library Dr Carole Reeves