Plausibility of Kosminski

[Phil Carter]

Because anyone who believed the Ripper was locked away in an asylum couldn't be absolutely sure said person was the killer. So any suspicious men at liberty had to be chased and investigated. This does not mean that anyone already locked up couldn't have been the Ripper.

Hello Scott,

I apologise for the delay, I missed this posting of yours.

I may have the answer that stops this train of thought, excellent though it is.

If what you say above is a given.. i.e. true.. then how do you account for the many comments from police officers involved at the time and even up to Reid's comments saying that the police had no idea and no clue to go upon as to the identity of the killer?

Surely, the conclusion of the person being dead or locked up in afterthought only arises if they couldn't find the killer and named/psuedo-named (i.e "a madman") in the first place..ergo "the killer" was either "locked up" or "dead". It's called covering backsides for the inefficiency of NOT catching the killer in the first place. There were a lot of ego's knocking around here. Anderson and how brilliant he was, with his "moral certainty" assuredness, included. Nothing busts an ego like a pronounced failure.

"We didn't fail.. we knew all along".. without any evidence to actually prove them right.


kindly

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi Norma,

You couldn't have two more differently contrasting murders than those of Emma Smith and Martha Tabram, yet "some of the Scotland-yard experts in tracing criminals and fathoming crime incline to the opinion that one man is responsible for the two crimes" [Echo, 10th August 1888]. Given the known facts, how the cops might have arrived at this mind-numbingly nonsensical conclusion is anyone's guess.

Three weeks later the cops reportedly believed Polly Nichols, the first of the victims to have her throat cut, to be the third victim of the same perpetrator, and in this belief they were certainly aided and abetted by the Star's airbrushing of the facts. And then, lo, along came the lone maniac Leather Apron to fit the bill, of whom at the moment the less said the better. Off topic, as they say.

Annie Chapman was the game-changer, ushering in whole new levels of gratuitous mutilation. Given what would follow, by rights she should have been considered the first victim of Jack the Ripper. But somebody later waved a magic wand, and Polly Nichols made the transition from being the third victim of a lone maniac [allegedly the mythical Leather Apron] to becoming the first victim of the equally mythical but wholly new-and-improved Jack the Ripper.

We're all missing a beat in the mystery of the Whitechapel murders. The old and tired serial-killer trope has long outstayed its welcome. Attempting to pin five murders on a troubled barrister, an insane Polish Jew, a man with an iron-clad alibi or any other poor unwitting sod we care to name will forever remain an exercise in futility.

Whether we care to admit it to ourselves or not, the SY5 have a lot to answer for.

Regards,

Simon

[lynn cates]

probability

Hello Norma. Whilst we are discussing probabilities, let's try calculating this.

What would be the probability, calculated in 2009, that some bloke would be driving through the countryside of Devonshire and have a bale of hay fall on his vehicle and crush him to death?

Assume that he is also very famous, say, a rock and roll icon. Assume further that he is NOT a rock guitarist but a rock cellist. Finally, assume his cognomen begins with a vowel, not a consonant.

What are the odds?

And yet, I daresay Mike Edward's family are little concerned with such calculations.

Cheers.
LC

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Simon,
You make good sense. However for me there was a certain rhythm ,a bravado the way he carried out the attacks----and escaped,Houdini like into the darkness.
In the case of Mary Ann Nichols he operated between two policemen on a beat that passed the crime scene every fifteen minutes.In Annie Chapman's case he was virtually trapped in that backyard with a sole exit during the murder and mutilating-with people moving about both in the house and in the backyard but again he escapes with the ease of a cat burglar-----next he is nearly caught in Dutfields Yard again people are in the street and in the yard itself--but he isn't caught but the poor woman is discovered dead -if not mutilated.As for Mitre Square---it all took place in ten minutes or less and again we see the two policemen on their 15 minute beats popping in and out of Mitre Square while an ex policeman sweeps up a few yards away!
I don't know about Mary Kelly but the very fact that whoever killed her was never seen arriving or leaving ....anyway that the pattern I see and to me it seems like a pattern created by one man.
Best,
Norma

[Simon Wood]

Hi Norma,

Please don't think me rude, but you appear to have been completely swept up by the myth.

The time has arrived for cooler minds to prevail.

Regards,

Simon

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Norma,

Please don't think me rude, but you appear to have been completely swept up by the myth.

The time has arrived for cooler minds to prevail.

Regards,

Simon

Now Simon you really do flatter yourself if you think you are one of the 'cooler minds'!

[Simon Wood]

Hi Norma,

Please be assured that self-flattery has nothing to do with me not subscribing to all the traditional JtR balderdash.

Stay cool.

Regards,

Simon

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Norma,

Please be assured that self-flattery has nothing to do with me not subscribing to all the traditional JtR balderdash.

Stay cool.

Regards,

Simon

I don't know what you mean by 'traditional JtR balderdash' unless you mean that you have now embarked on a trajectory of 'unconventional ' JtR
balderdash........???

jeez-so many people with a bee in their bonnets on here!

Norma

[Simon Wood]

Hi Norma,

The truth is often unconventional.

Regards,

Simon

[mariab]

unless you mean that you have now embarked on a trajectory of 'unconventional ' JtR balderdash........???

Or on a trajectory of “alternative Ripperology“, he he. :-)

Mr. Wood, you know that the discrepancies in the MO (esp. if we count Millwood, Smith, Tabram along the C5) might pertain to a “learning curve“ for the killer, which is to be expected. Recently it's been discovered that also a knife was used in the Emma Smith attack.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Maria,

"Learning curve" is probably the most tired trope in the mystery.

How was the knife employed in the attack on Emma Smith?

Regards,

Simon

[mariab]

"Learning curve" is probably the most tired trope in the mystery.

What, are you expecting the perp to have gone from law abiding citizen to an experienced killer with no transition?

How was the knife employed in the attack on Emma Smith?

There's going to be an article by someone else appearing about this in a couple weeks, thus the only thing I'm entitled to say is that the knife was employed somewhere around her face.

By the by, it'd be SO neat if you could find the answers to the following:

Whose high-level confidence at Scotland Yard did Maclean enjoy? Why was the story dropped into his ear at this particular time? Why the poo-poohing of Farquharson's year-old suicide yarn?

[Scott Nelson]

Simon Wood aka "Simon Whitechapel"?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Maria,

You're right, it would be SO neat. But alas . . .

By golly, you really have grasped the hang of Ripperology.

Allow me to suggest that it would be even neater if someone could discover a scintilla of evidence to suggest a direct line between [insert name of JtR's first victim here] and, for the sake of argument, the Millers Court victim.

At the moment the mystery is running on nothing but wishful thinking.

Regards,

Simon

[Simon Wood]

Hi Scott,

That's Simon D. Whitechapel to you.

Regards,

Simon