Jacob Levy

[tji]

Hi Abby

Dave is correct it was in Ripperologist 124.

Hi Greg

Thanks for the kind words and yes I am hoping to post up a summary of the asylum records sometime over the next few days. I know I said I would do it before and I apologize unfortunately things got in the way.

Hi Digger

Lol me too

[Errata]

Lets play a game.

Let's say that Levy did not have syphilis. Or that he did but accepted in the ways millions of others did. And let's say he had a mental illness that doesn't result in delusions, paranoia or violence. Say, severe depression.

We know his cousin (I thought he was his father's cousin, but in the end I don't think it matters) was unwilling to testify. We know Levy had a record of theft.

What makes this man a serial killer? Take away the two common notions about motive. What in his life points to this being a possibility? What warning signs are there? What puts this guy on your radar?

This isn't about right and wrong. We all to a certain extent rely on gut when combing through suspects.

So for example, nothing really puts this guy on my radar. The only thing that could have was the reaction of his cousin. But then I had to ask myself why he would protect his cousin (who was a disgrace) or why he would be afraid of him, and I couldn't come up with anything. I can say that if Levy had beaten the crap out of his cousin the guy's whole life then sure, but there isn't evidence of that. Basically, I never saw anything that made me think this guy was in any way special enough to make me think he could be a serial killer. Without a revenge motive or insanity, I can't find something to make him stand out from the hundreds of other guys in his neighborhood.

Clearly other people have read things that make them think this guy was or could have been a killer. But what I want to know is what makes this guy feel "off" to you. What pings your radar? There is something about this guy that people think is not right. I want to know what it is. I want to know why your gut reacts when mine doesn't.

[Scott Nelson]

Skilled use of a knife
Suicidal
Classed as insane, delusional
Violent
Mother died a couple of months before killings started
Brother committed suicide
Had criminal record, thief.
Lived in the heart of Whitechapel -- Middlesex St.

Not to say all serial killers have these traits/circumstances.

He's a pretty good suspect.

request: see if he knew George Bolam (cow keeper) or John Levy (cigar dealer)

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Hullo Erata. Scott if I may?

Cousin a winess who may have spotted "JTR". Brother lived in dwellings where apron was discovered. Not gonna go into GSG. I find the latter more interesting of the two. Now look at them in conjunction. Lied, GSG a message to JHL. Or threat/warning. Admission even maybe. Pure speculation. Something along those lines for me presently. Butcher I think is a big one. The murderer of at least some of these women was comfortable with a knife. Very comfortable. IMO.

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Oh, one more.

Middlesex Street. On every geoprofile map(I know, I know)I've seen Middlesex is a hot spot. Not ever the hottest, but still. And it isn't ever mentioned for some reason. FBI profile(again, I know, I know) number 3 for occupation is butcher. Just throwing some stuffs out there to be torn assunder.

[Errata]

Okay. I would challenge some of these things thusly. And by challenge, I mean ask questions..

I would agree that the Ripper was comfortable with a knife, but I would say that he was not that comfortable with a long knife. Most Butchers would be able to use a long knife with ridiculous ease. Jack appears to have some problems. Do you disagree? Do you think that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for some of the problems he had?

I would say that anyone suffering from Neurosyphilis would be a poor candidate. The first symptoms are tremors and loss of balance. So I would be leery of attributing murders to a man whose paranoia and delusions came from neurosyphilis. Someone who suffered from them before the onset of tertiary syphilis is a better bet. Which Levy evidently did. But mental illness follows a set of rules. If he wasn't violent and delusional in the asylum, say he was simply grandiose, but was with the onset of neurosyphilis, then I would say that mental illness should be taken off the table as a factor. If delusion is a factor, and he wasn't delusional until his brain had deteriorated to the point where he would have had problems holding onto a glass of water, then delusion can't be a factor. If that makes sense. So then I would want to know if delusion has to be a factor. Could it be simple revenge? Could he be like a majority of serial killers who have no particular mental illness, certainly no spectacular symptoms other than murdering people, they just engage in ragingly inappropriate behavior in pursuit of a goal? Could Levy simply be a serial killer without being a mentally ill serial killer? And if so, what would tell us that?

Violent is an extremely subjective term. And we all use it rather loosely. I would never consider a mental patient who fought off orderlies to be violent. I would consider him to be very scared. Now a mental patient who hid in another patients shower and then beat the crap out him while laughing, that I would consider violent. A guy who gets in fights isn't necessarily violent, but he could be. A guy who beats his wife is violent, even if he never lays a hand on anyone else. So there's a lot of grey. What do you consider violent? What did an asylum consider violent? Who in Levy's life deemed him violent, and how far did it go? Was he generally violent? Was he just stubborn so he never backed down from a challenge? Was he frightened? Was he angry? Did he prey on the powerless?

And I ask these questions because I think they make a difference. There could be many reasons, many ways Levy could be the Ripper, I just want to hear what they are. With most suspects there is a very obvious reason they are a suspect (Klosowski for instance) and mostly an equally obvious reason why they probably aren't the Ripper. I will never accept Kosminski as a legitimate suspect, because the reason he is seen as a suspect is the reason he can't be one. He was a very sick man. Levy is different. In my heart I shy away from the idea that someone could be a suspect because they were Jewish, or because they were mentally ill. I don't think that's a good enough reason to build a case against someone. I can't be academically honest without admitting that. But I also know that Jack could have been a Jew. Could have been mentally ill. But I want to know the whys. And I want to know what place the case is coming from. If someone thinks it's Levy because they think Jack had to be a Jew, that's not good enough. Or if they think it's Levy because of the old wives tale about children with congenital syphilis coming out of the womb with death masks. Also not good enough. And I won't lie. Sometimes this gets personal for me. Sometimes I find it hurtful. And there is no place for that here. But more than that, I think that when we are talking about real people, we owe them the courtesy of not building a case against them based on assumptions and half truths. And some people do exactly that. I want to hear reasoned arguments. TJI has a reasoned argument, and even if I don't think in the end that it makes Levy a killer, I accept the logic of the argument. I have no problem with it. I have a problem with theories that pay no attention to the timeline of syphilis, that do not even remotely accurately represent mental illness, or are drawn up for the sole purpose of proving some long dead cop right. I think if we have the balls to say that someone could have been the Ripper, then we should have the balls to expose our reasons, our feelings, and our prejudices.

And now I'm getting both preachy and whiny, and really I just want a good, logical discussion.

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Hullo Errata!

Fine post as it is a usual occurence, it is kinda expected and appreciated. Gonna go real slow with this. First, problems? Is that not an interpretation? Depending upon perspective? Cutting up a freshly made dead human is not quite what any butcher is taught to do. Gonna stop and allow you to respond and explain what problems you are refering to.

[Scott Nelson]

Jack appears to have some problems. Do you disagree?

Problems using any particular type of knife? I don't think we'll ever know for sure.

As for the rest of your post, I couldn't provide any certain answers. The information Levy's records are open to interpretation.

As I've commented before, Mark King took a particular interest in Jacob Levy because he was the cousin of one of the "witnesses," Joseph H. Levy, and King thought Joseph's comments to the inquest and to the press revealed an evasive manner. Research on Levy's family and former residence at 36 Petticoat Lane hen brought Jacob Levy into the forefront.

[Errata]

Fine post as it is a usual occurence, it is kinda expected and appreciated. Gonna go real slow with this. First, problems? Is that not an interpretation? Depending upon perspective? Cutting up a freshly made dead human is not quite what any butcher is taught to do. Gonna stop and allow you to respond and explain what problems you are refering to.

On Polly Nichols we have a series of cuts That are parallel to each other, but of radically different depth. One cut was deep enough to expose the intestines. That's unusual. It is also my impression (which could be wrong) that throughout every murder, the throat cuts shallow up pretty steeply. Essentially going from a scratch to hitting bone. That's usually indicative or a person who does not have a lot of familiarity with a long knife. Chapman's murder was textbook, but I wonder that he took the bladder. It is right up against the uterus, but all things being equal, because the bladder is in front of the uterus, one would expect the bladder to be removed, then the uterus removed. It make me wonder if he accidentally cut through the uterus, and decided just to take the whole tissue block. Eddowes was butchered. He used a long knife on her face, he tries to cut off her nose, but he cuts into her cheeks so deeply that he cannot complete the severing. He has to do it again, cutting the nose lower than the initial cut. he accidentally severs her bowels trying to remove the uterus, spraying it everywhere. And he has a weird skip going from hip to peritoneum. It's like he was doing this in the bed of a truck that was moving.

A butcher knows some stuff. He knows how to use different kinds of knives. He knows what knives to use to accomplish any given task. His movement and adjustments are second nature. He also knows there is no benefit to doing that much damage to a throat. Cutting the artery on one side gets the job done. Which means the throat cutting is a fetish, which means it showed up elsewhere in his life. And to the best of my knowledge (and information is clearly limited) that wasn't the case. Butchers have seen it all. Nothing about the blood, the gore, the bits would register. But Jack had a pretty good sense of theater. He saw things in a not jaded to gore kind of way. Certainly Mary Kelly's killer staged an Oscar worthy scene calculated to provoke horror. To me that says someone who can still see it. The gore, the horror most people feel when confronted with blood and guts. Butchers and surgeons man, I swear to god they don't even see it. Like I don't even see the sculpture my dad gave me 10 years ago. Just part of the normal environment.

I mean, we're from Tennessee. We're used to seeing snakes. I can't even come up with a way to make someone really freak out with a snake, and it wouldn't even occur to me to try. It's a snake. Like many others. My friend from Scotland levitated to the roof of my house when he saw a 6 inch rat snake. I don't get why snakes provoke horror. I don't see it. That's what I mean. I don't think a butcher sees what we see. I KNOW surgeons don't see what we see. For us it's weird and horrible. For them it's Thursday. There's no theater in it being Thursday. But Jack had some drama to him.
And frankly, if Jack had been a butcher I think he would a: have no problem with taking a head and b: been able to get into the abdomen without a bunch of cuts or varying depth. Gutting an animal, whether it be bovine or human should have been easy to a butcher. It wasn't easy for Jack. It wasn't an "I could do this blind" kinda thing.

[Scott Nelson]

He also knows there is no benefit to doing that much damage to a throat.....Nothing about the blood, the gore, the bits would register. But Jack had a pretty good sense of theater. He saw things in a not jaded to gore kind of way.

It was probably rage in every case. No accidental slips of the knife. He cut where he wanted and took what he needed.

[tji]

Hi Eratta

The problem is it is not our job to convince you, we have put the facts and hypothesis there for you and it is upto you to make up your mind.

If you disagree then again that is your choice however if you disagree because you tell us our research is incorrect then we will argue the toss with you.

I don't feel the need to go into the explanation of syphilis again (see other boards where we have had this discussion), however, if, after you have read the asylum records I will post and you still have the questions then we will take it from there?

Hi Scott

Yes Mark King did seem to think along the same lines, would love to have a peak at his research, but he doesn't seem to come onto the boards as far as I know? (i.e some people changed their name after the 'big crash')

We actually have a G. Bolam foods - it is like a meat/butchers supermarket. Be good to know if he is descendant from 'your' Bolams.

As to the John Levy, I haven't come across him in the research I have done on the Levy's, but I don't mind having a look into him and his family, it's not that I am nosey or anything - just naturally curious

[Errata]

Hi Eratta

The problem is it is not our job to convince you, we have put the facts and hypothesis there for you and it is upto you to make up your mind.

If you disagree then again that is your choice however if you disagree because you tell us our research is incorrect then we will argue the toss with you.

I don't feel the need to go into the explanation of syphilis again (see other boards where we have had this discussion), however, if, after you have read the asylum records I will post and you still have the questions then we will take it from there?

I swear to god, I'm giving up after this. But first I feel the need to say one thing. YOU have put out facts.YOU have put of a hypothesis. YOU have done work on this. Not everybody else has. Not everybody has thought this through the way you have. And not everyone agrees with your reasoning, even if they agree with your suspect. Someone comes in here and repeats the twaddle about syphilis babies and I shouldn't challenge that? I shouldn't want to hear other explanations as to why this guy is a good candidate? I know why YOU think he's a good candidate. But not everybody who thinks he is a good candidate believes that for the same reasons you believe that. Yours is not the only argument. I shouldn't want to hear others?

It isn't someone's job to convince me. But if someone states an opinion, it is not unusual for me to what to know why.

And I'm done. It's not that I don't care, it's that I don't care nearly enough to cause umbrage.

[GregBaron]

Will the real Leather Apron please stand up...

Below is a description from Lloyd's contained in Simon Wood's fine article
"One Lone Maniac Too Many" about Leather Apron in the latest ripper...132

Aged 30 years; height, 5ft. 3in.; complexion dark, sallow; hair and
moustache black; thick set; dressed in old and dirty clothing; and is of Jewish appearance...

Sounds like our VIF Jacob..................just sayin..


Greg

[lilyofthevalley]

geographic profile?

I'm curious to see what geographic profiling could tell us in connection to Jacob Levy. When I look at the map Middlesex street is right at the triangle between Eddowes, Chapman and Stride. So for the sake of argument, if Levy was JtR and he did use his very direct surroundings as his hunting ground, Buck's Row seems to be a bit further out. Is there any information about Levy that could explain why he would be there at that time of night?

[lilyofthevalley]

David Canter names Middlesex street as the area where JtR may have lived: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCdskRH-B6s

But of course other profilers have pointed to other streets as well if only it was that easy, but I do find Levy a very interesting suspect.