The Jack the Ripper Mystery is Finally Solved — Scientifically

[John Wheat]

I find it odd that there's no consensus on this, then, tbh. If only a medically trained professional could have done that procedure on Kelly, then surely Chapman is the best suspect we have bar none, yet that's never remotely been the case for some odd reason.

Chapman is a crap suspect. It's highly unlikely a serial killer could go from doing what Jack did to poisoning.

[Doctored Whatsit]

I would just remind everyone of RJ's comment, with which I fully concur, that the medical profession would have been very keen to disavow any connection of their profession with these horrendous murders. This should be kept in mind when looking at the opinions (rather than the facts of the autopsy) of the likes of Bond.

I understand the point being made, that the police surgeons would have been reluctant to identify JtR as a doctor, one of their own kind. However, they were experienced professionals and the idea that they deliberately deceived the police by steering them towards people like butcher/slaughterers is surely extremely unlikely. They would look like complete fools if JtR had subsequently been caught in the act and proved to be a doctor!

Parts of the m.o. like knowing exactly what you are doing, calmly and methodically laying the victim down, slitting the throat from behind, turning the head to allow the blood to flow without getting any on his person, as he would have done hundreds or thousands of times, would have been almost routine to a butcher/slaughterer, but totally new to a doctor. Whereas a rapid "slash and grab" would be par for the course for the former, but entirely novel to the doctor. I understand how the police surgeons would genuinely believe that someone like a butcher/slaughterer or a very experienced hunter might have been the guilty party. Phillips and Brown considered the killer used a knife, very sharp, 6 -8 inches long and pointed, and I think they had a slaughterer's sticking knife in mind.

[rjpalmer]

the idea that they deliberately deceived the police by steering them towards people like butcher/slaughterers is surely extremely unlikely

No one suggested that they "deliberately deceived the police." That's overly simplistic.

What I suggested is that they were distancing their own community and their own profession from a horrific association.

I just wonder if that was more convenient than rational.

But I don't see it as "deception"---more of a psychological blind spot. As fate would have it, the other Victorian London serial killer of downtrodden women WAS a fully qualified medical man trained in the UK and in the colonies. Dr. Thomas Neil Cream.

So, maybe their denials were foolish...after a fashion.

[Patrick Differ]

I understand the point being made, that the police surgeons would have been reluctant to identify JtR as a doctor, one of their own kind. However, they were experienced professionals and the idea that they deliberately deceived the police by steering them towards people like butcher/slaughterers is surely extremely unlikely. They would look like complete fools if JtR had subsequently been caught in the act and proved to be a doctor!

Parts of the m.o. like knowing exactly what you are doing, calmly and methodically laying the victim down, slitting the throat from behind, turning the head to allow the blood to flow without getting any on his person, as he would have done hundreds or thousands of times, would have been almost routine to a butcher/slaughterer, but totally new to a doctor. Whereas a rapid "slash and grab" would be par for the course for the former, but entirely novel to the doctor. I understand how the police surgeons would genuinely believe that someone like a butcher/slaughterer or a very experienced hunter might have been the guilty party. Phillips and Brown considered the killer used a knife, very sharp, 6 -8 inches long and pointed, and I think they had a slaughterer's sticking knife in mind.

Hi Doc- i agree with your assessment here. There would be little motive for these Doctors to not agree that a medical person could be responsible for these murders. In fact they were very technical in their post mortem.

Was the method of murder related to a job skill? It appears so. The victims were stnned, bled out, and gutted. To me that says either butcher or hunter. However Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes illustrate repeatability. More in sync with a Butcher or Slaughterer.

I think that more than the gutting, the stunning, laying the victim down, and cutting of the throat to bleed out might speak more to an actual job skill. One again that was repeated.

One last point I come back to without reconciliation is the fact that Detective Robert Sagar, who trained to be a Doctor before switching professions, followed and believed the murderer was an insane man working on butchers row but living with his brother, and eventually put in an asylum " by friends".

Again the Butcher is put forward. Was that Jacob Levy?

From a circumstantial evidence perspective it might be the man Sagar was following. First of all Levy lived at 36 Middlesex Street on London side yet all murders except Eddowes were in Metro. He was a legacy butcher who was convicted of theft, served prison and asylum from 1886 to 1887. The killer apparently disappeared after killing Eddowes. Levy fits that potentially since he lived only 4 blocks East of Eddowes and also had ties to Goulston Street with both family and the man who sent him to prison, Hyman Sampson.

Sagars comment that the man they followed from Butchers Row to his brothers house and who fits the admission to an asylum by friends is also Jacob Levy.

Levys wife referred to the family Butchers legacy business at 36 Middlesex as "HER" business. And lamented that Jacob, a once shrewd businessman, could no longer run a business and continued stealing. However he was no longer an actual threat. This timeframe was 1889 and the beginning of 1890 before he was admitted to Stone Asylum.

On Jacob Levys admission to Stone it says by " Friends". But the friend was his brother in law and older Sister Elizabeths husband Isaac Barnett. They lived in the same block at #87 Middlesex.

What happened to Jacobs wife and 5 children in 1890? Their business failed and they moved in with Elizabeth and Isaac.

Does this closely fit Sagars commentary? I believ it does.

A convicted lunatic butcher likely suffering neurosyphilis and exposure to a Victorian Asylum for 11 months ? A man who fell in complete disgrace in a community he grew up in. Blaming prostitutes for his fall. Blaming everyone but himself. And when his mother dies in May 1888 from a year long illness does he blame himself. Does he use his skill as a butcher and shrewdness as a businessman to lure his victims. Were they a means to an end? Did Jacob Levy set out to prove he was still " The Master Butcher"?

The pieces for Levy are all there but to date impossible to prove. If he were not Sagars man then there was a second lunatic just like Levy being followed. Levy was born and raised in Whitechapel and Butchers Row would have been like another home.

[Lewis C]

I was talking about the Medical Procedure /Technique used to remove Mary Kellys heart ,and why thompson was abetter than bury becasue of it . You can feel free to discuss motive about any of the murders if you like . Im just giving you the facts as per Dr Bonds post mortem report .

Lets be also clear where Dr Bonds is concerned, at no point did he ever say the ''Internal Organs'' that were removed from of Mary Kelly abdoman showed no medical skill or knowledge . The ''quote'' being used by some to describe Bond saying the ''killer had no such skill'' is used by Dr Bond with the specific use of the words ''The Mutilations'' Not the internal organs .

You mentioned means, motive, and opportunity with regard to Bury vs. Thompson, and I addressed one of the 3 things that you mentioned, motive. After that, you talked about the medical technique.

[Lewis C]

Hi Lewis,

My premise is just an opinion based on considerations which are for me ongoing. As I mentioned, I am not entirely convinced that JtR is not a composite term being applied to the crimes of more than one person. It would be fair to comment that most posters would accept that the mutilations visited upon Chapman and Eddowes indicate that the same murderer was involved. However, this is from the Echo Oct 1, 1888:

THE OPINION OF THE DOCTORS.
Although there appears to be very little doubt that both this crime and the murder of the unfortunate in Berner-street about the same time is the work of the miscreant who perpetrated the previous tragedies, the doctors are of opinion that the murder in Mitre-court is a "brutal imitation" of the Hanbury-street murder. At the post-mortem examination, there were- it is stated- indications of an attempt having been made to remove the organ alluded to, but nothing was missing from the body. It is also asserted that there are indications discovered that mutilation was evidently meant in the case of the Berner-street victim.

Then there is the comment by Wynne Baxter in his summation of the Stride Inquest and referring to her injury:

There had been no skilful mutilation as in the cases of Nichols and Chapman, and no unskilful injuries as in the case in Mitre-square - possibly the work of an imitator;

I asked my daughter, an experienced theatre nurse, to look at the autopsies of Chapman and Eddowes and she asked if there was any theory that these murders were by different people. In her opinion the Chapman injuries were what would be made by a butcher and the Eddowes injuries by someone experienced in the dissection of human females. My hesitancy about her opinion is that the mobilisation of Chapman's intestines is traditionally considered a medical procedure. I am in the process of re-examining Prosector's comments in this regard.

To come back to your question. My understanding is that Oswald Puckeridge was a pharmacological chemist. I have Chapman (Klosowski) as a person of interest, but I would consider someone like Thompson as worthy of consideration for the Eddowes and Kelly murders.

We don't know, and probably never will, how many killers were involved in the Whitechapel murders, nor how many would fall within the appellation of Jack the Ripper. My current opinion is that there were at least four, but that is JMO. YMMV.

Cheers, George

Hi George,

So I think you're saying that Kelly's murderer must have had surgical knowledge, but that Kelly might not have been killed by the same man that killed others thought to have been killed by the Ripper, so you're claiming surgical knowledge only for Kelly's murderer, and maybe Eddowes', not necessarily for the killer of the other victims.

It seems that your daughter has the opposite view from the doctors of the time. She thinks Eddowes' murder showed more skill than Chapman's murder. The doctors of the time thought that Chapman's murder showed more skill.

Here's a source for Puckridge having surgical training: https://www.casebook.org/ripper_medi...orley/152.html

[Herlock Sholmes]

Lets be also clear where Dr Bonds is concerned, at no point did he ever say the ''Internal Organs'' that were removed from of Mary Kelly abdoman showed no medical skill or knowledge . The ''quote'' being used by some to describe Bond saying the ''killer had no such skill'' is used by Dr Bond with the specific use of the words ''The Mutilations'' Not the internal organs .

But it’s not possible that Bond would have been saying that “he had no medical skill as evidenced by the mutilations but he might have had medical skill for the organ removal.” Surely that can’t be what you imply from what Bond wrote Fishy? Clearly when talking about medical skill he had to have been talking about everything that the killer had done; including the organ removal. It can’t have been otherwise.