Catch me when you Can

[Michael W Richards]

"A statement which apparently gives a clue to the sender of the strange package received by Mr. Lusk was made last night by Miss Emily Marsh, whose father carries on a business in the leather trade at 218, Jubilee-street, Mile-end-road. In Mr. Marsh's absence Miss Marsh was in the front shop, shortly after one o'clock on Monday last, when a stranger, dressed in clerical costume entered, and, referring to the reward bill in the window, asked for the address of Mr. Lusk, described therein as the president of the Vigilance Committee. Miss Marsh at once referred the man to Mr. J. Aarons, the treasurer of the committee, who resides at the corner of Jubilee-street and Mile-end-road, a distance of about thirty yards. The man, however, said he did not want to go there, and Miss Marsh thereupon produced a newspaper in which Mr. Lusk's address was given as Alderney-road, Globe-road, no number being mentioned. She requested the stranger to read the address, but he declined, saying, "Read it out," and proceeded to write something in his pocket-book, keeping his head down meanwhile. He subsequently left the shop, after thanking the young lady for the information, but not before Miss Marsh, alarmed by the man's appearance, had sent the shopboy, John Cormack, to see that all was right. This lad, as well as Miss Marsh, gave a full description of the man, while Mr. Marsh, who happened to come along at the time, also encountered him on the pavement outside."..from the Echo, Oct 20th.

Ive wondered why Lusk seems to be singled out for contact, other than the obvious reason he heads a committee intent on finding the killer. And by what may be Irish factions. The timing on the above suggests that someone intended to send another correspondence, if Sam, as you mentioned, that second communication was sent, seems almost like a campaign. Wonder if Lusk had a reputation for being against the self rule movement.

[Sam Flynn]

Ive wondered why Lusk seems to be singled out for contact, other than the obvious reason he heads a committee intent on finding the killer..

Lusk had achieved recent prominence as head honcho of the Vigilance Committee, so writing to him was a pretty canny move by any hoaxer seeking publicity.

[Joshua Rogan]

Lusk had achieved recent prominence as head honcho of the Vigilance Committee, so writing to him was a pretty canny move by any hoaxer seeking publicity.

Or maybe a fellow member who didn't get to be in charge...?

[Sam Flynn]

Or maybe a fellow member who didn't get to be in charge...?

Possibly, but if it was a disgruntled colleague, I'd have expected Lusk to be targeted sooner than the 2nd week of October after his name, position and address had been introduced to the general public via the press.

[Joshua Rogan]

Possibly, but if it was a disgruntled colleague, I'd have expected Lusk to be targeted sooner than the 2nd week of October after his name, position and address had been introduced to the general public via the press.

Well, obviously, it would take a while to obtain a suitable kidney.

[Sam Flynn]

Well, obviously, it would take a while to obtain a suitable kidney.

No kidney required for the letter Lusk received on the 12th of October. (Unless you were being mischievous, in which case LOL )

[Harry D]

There were more than just the Ripper who had a beef with Lusk. Certain factions with illegal activities in Whitechapel who would not want the Vigilance Committee treading on their toes.

[Takod]

A letter from Lusk, giving his address, was published in the Daily Telegraph and Daily News (and possibly others) on the 1st October, urging the Home Office to reconsider its decision not to offer a reward. The same edition of the Telegraph contained articles underlining Lusk's position as head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, reporting that Lusk had written to the Queen with a petition requesting that she should lean on the Home Secretary to reverse his decision.

The Government response to Lusk, again including his home address, was published on 8th October in The Times, Daily Telegraph and the Echo, and possibly elsewhere. The same editions of those papers carried an account of Lusk's having seen a strange man in a deerstalker hat who had been prowling around Lusk's premises, and went on to give a description of the prowler that Lusk had provided to the police.

The activities of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee had been widely reported on since September, about which time posters had gone up advertising the Vigilance Committee's own offer of a reward. The posters had evidently printed George Lusk's name, but not his address.

I suppose all of this is publicity enough for "The Jack" to have read it and acted upon it.

I write you a letter in black ink, as I have no more of the right stuff. I think you are all asleep in Scotland-yard with your bloodhounds, as I will show you to-morrow night (Saturday). I am going to do a double event, but not in Whitechapel. Got rather too warm there. Had to shift. No more till you hear me again - JACK THE RIPPER

I have a hard time tying the killer and his crimes to the ownership of that name. One useful thing that this fraudulent letter does provide is "Got rather too warm there." - which indicates the rising of the police + vigilance presence.

It's pure speculation, of course, but perhaps both letters were written by the same, Kilburn-based author?

Not a chance, unfortunately; it's like saying the From Hell and Dear Boss letters have the same writer. They are too different.

the more famous Lusk Letter is widely thought to be peppered with Irishisms (e.g. "Sor", "tother", "prasarved", "mishter")

Yes it is. Though I do wonder why do people never bring up that it says "one women" (plural) and most quote it as saying "one woman" (singular)

I believe the focus on the Irishisms to be a distraction from the overall content of the message; there are also some other useful things such as "Catch me when you can";

I read the letter as thus since it broadly has no punctuation, new lines have been fitted;

"From Hell
Mr Lusk
Sor,

I send you half the Kidne I took from one women
Prasarved it for you
tother piece I fried and ate
it was very nise
I may send you the bloody knif that took it out
if only you wate a whil longer.

Signed
Catch me when you can
Mishter Lusk."

It's a messy letter with terrible handwriting, there's no consistency, and as someone who also shares inconsistent handwriting - this does not mean that the writer is not a reader, nor incapable of understanding anything RE; Anatomy.

To add to the Letter's authenticity is the context of the kidne provided; We know that Spirits of Wine was quite a popular prasarvative, so there's nothing there.

Let's look at Pigs Kidne's, because these have been suggested, it's far easier to butcher a pig than one women, after all. Hoaxer walks into local butchers and asks for, say, two pigs kidne's. One of which he cuts in half and prasarves for his friend, Lusk, who of course he'd naturally wish to see in fits. Why are we under the impression that a butcher back then would have sold a Kidne with all the rather-awkward or nigh impossible-to-eat gubbins attached?

Better yet, the medical student theory; where a student of medicine finds himself alone with a Kidne, decides it will be a clever prank to play on Lusk, reads the press reports, reads the inquest testimony, cuts it in half at where he estimates the right place to be, and no one notices a missing Kidne from a jar. I'm assuming it's from a Jar because otherwise we have a medical student removing a Kidne from a corpse, which involves them being left alone with a body for long enough, which brings up its own set of questions, not that it is impossible, but that it is more unlikely; and here comes the problem of literacy, because if it's a student of medicine; that is, someone training to be a medical official, then their written literacy standards must surely be higher than the writer of the Lusk Letter.

On top of that, a medical student has the capacity to ham-up the "anatomical genius" avenue, for the Jack, claim the name "Jack" and much else, and chooses to vie on the low-literacy and low-input side, why, and what for? If you want something to be seen as authentic, or frightful, whilst being genuine, then surely emphasis must be placed on getting maximum output for your hoax, especially if you go to all the effort of snaring a kidne.

[Sam Flynn]

There were more than just the Ripper who had a beef with Lusk. Certain factions with illegal activities in Whitechapel who would not want the Vigilance Committee treading on their toes.

Quite possibly, and they all knew where he lived long before he got into the public spotlight via the papers. So why no letters until after he entered the public domain, and why was the first letter sent from Kilburn?

[bolo]

Hi all,

I always found the layout of the From Hell letter quite peculiar in contrast to orthography and grammar. The author got most words wrong but obviously knew about identation of the location and letter salutation. Some parts of the handwriting also give me the impression of having been intentionally "designed" to look weird.

About the "when", it has been speculated that, among other things, it could point to an author with a German, Austrian or Swiss-German language background (not necessarily a native speaker). In German, the English phrase "catch me if you can" means "fang' mich, WENN du kannst" (wenn = if). I don't say it would be significant in any way, just wanted to add it to this interesting discussion.

Lastly, there is the matter of Irishisms. Are there examples of their use in written communication outside of poetry, fiction and the From Hell letter?

Regards,

Boris

[Meerkat]

Not sure about the letters, always thought we will never know if the press sent them or if it was in fact the killer, from hell evidence of course like police do they have lost this amongst loads of other evidence to even determine if the kidney was in fact from a human...no wonder the brit cops funds are lowering as they cant even hold a piece of paper safely even in modern times.

I also have thought about Lechmere as a strong suspect but his statement tells me otherwise...and its the start of his statement where he claims to have seen what he thought was a tarpaulin in the street.

I am simply basing my theory of his possible innocence on what i have watched in other crime programs where totally innocent and unfortunate bystanders have found dead bodies, believing they are looking at rubbish/ a pile of old clothes or even a Mannequin in some cases.. its almost as if the normal people in this world do not see death like sadistic killers do with the brain taking over and telling us that it simply cannot be a dead body they are confronted with.

So i think Charles Cross aka Lechmere did in fact stumble across something unusual on his way to work seeing what he thought was a piece of plastic bundled up..., if his statement was something like ohh i found this woman at my feet and then another man came along... alarm bells would then ring for me.

I also think that somehow 2 and 2 would have been put together with this guy at the time with this being an early ripper murder or even guilty of nichols at least.

124 years later someone decides to piece things together to say he did it and thats with all the lost data...nahh

[The Rookie Detective]

In connection to possible suspect Charles Lechmere/Cross as being JTR, a thought, albeit a seemingly farfetched one: in the 'from hell'-letter (the only letter not bearing any resemblance to the other ones) the author signes off with the enigmatic 'Catch me when you Can'. Note that the Wikipedia-transcript writes the C's as capitals, and you'll observe that in the original the C's indeed appear to be somewhat larger than the other letters. Could it be a clue left by Cross in which he signes off with his actual inititals? Very curious as to what you think..

The author also used the elongation of his writing stroke to form an outline of a horse that sits right in the centre of the letter.


RD

[The Rookie Detective]

The author also used the elongation of his writing stroke to form an outline of a horse that sits right in the centre of the letter.


RD

Something like this...




A horse slaughterer?

Also, letter "h' in the word "catch" is noticeably lower than the rest of the entire phrase and the additional "h" added into the word "mishter" is also intriguing.


Did the author have the initials "h h" ?



RD

[Geddy2112]

Did the author have the initials "h h" ?

Behave yourself, the Yanks are not having our Serial Killer, they have enough...

Always wondered if that is blood on the letter if it could not be tested if the original still exists. Not sure to what end but it might throw out something.

[The Rookie Detective]

Behave yourself, the Yanks are not having our Serial Killer, they have enough...

Always wondered if that is blood on the letter if it could not be tested if the original still exists. Not sure to what end but it might throw out something.

Haha!

I wasn't thinking of Holmes...

I was thinking of Henry Hanslope, who lived in 11 Millers Court; the room on the ground floor opposite MJK's.

The late great Mr Chris Scott found a document proving that Henry Hanslope went from the workhouse to number 11 Millers Court.

This has recently been corroborated by Debra A who worked with Chris on this previously (And Debra's research capacity and knowledge base is unparalleled)

We know that he is listed aged 40

This places Henry Hanslope in 11 Millers Court at some point between 1888-1889

The only frustrating thing is that we can't place Hanslope in Millers Court at a precise date and time.

There was an unknown and unnamed man who was stopped by the police circa 10.30am as he left Millers Court.
He claimed to be residing at number 3 Millers Court and was on his way to get milk...and the police let him walk on after he claimed to not have heard anything about the murder.

My hypothesis is that this man.. was Hanslope.

Hanslope at the time was also a porter.

I believe he came from room 11 and not 3.


The reason why Hanslope should be considered is because...

he threatened to cut his wife's throat
he beat up his own mother
he tried/succeeded in raping his own teenage daughter.

He was repeatedly violent towards women

And at some point he DID live in the room that looked directly towards the window of MJK's room.

Anyone in room 11 would have been able to observe that access to room 13 was possible through the latch accessed by the broken window.

Now IF Hanslope WAS there at the time MJK was murdered; he may well have waited for her to be alone, snuck from his room 11 and accessed her room as she slept...and then attacked her as she lay in bed.

IF Hanslope was the Ripper, he may have killed her opportunistically having observed her over a period of a few days.

Hanslope was in and out of the workhouse on multiple occasions and so the likelihood of him having been the Ripper are greatly reduced by his repeated time spent in the workhouse.

That said; he wasn't in the workhouse the night Kelly was killed...and so the question then is...well where was he?


HH could very well be Henry Hanslope


Got to love a hypothesis that smashes the wheel rather than turns it.


haha!


RD