The Jack the Ripper Mystery is Finally Solved — Scientifically

[Mike J. G.]

Dont be silly Mike, and please do stick on point . Its never been about what your claiming in regards to Chapman .Ive never said just because the evidence we have on Thompson cant be disproven, that therefor must make him the Ripper ! Only that its makes him a Much Better suspect than most others . I hope that clears up your misunderstanding .

I couldn't be more on point, Fishy.

As for being silly...

You're acting like a fanboy for Richard's theory and are demanding, like a spoiled child, that everyone needs to disprove his theories, and then you're asking me not to be silly when I spin your own demands back onto you.

That's awkward, mate.

It's been demonstrated to you, and Richard, countless times, how none of this mental gymnastics amounts to anything remotely resembling science. Rather than admit that these are merely theories based on questionable foundations, you just keep doubling down and insisting that people prove these theories wrong.

As for Thompson being a better suspect than Chapman, you opt to avoid addressing that by saying it's not on topic while simultaneously claiming that Thompson is a "much better suspect than others."

I'm not interested in coming here for petty squabbling, but I'll always call it as I see it, and what you're doing here amounts to average childish trolling.

Richard's theories (not facts ) as shown by Fiver, Herlock and others, seem to consist of: "I believe X and Y to be the case, therefore we can speculate that..."

And then he calls that science and you applaud him for it and ask that it be disproven. You're presumably old enough and intelligent enough to know how daft that is...

Yet here we are.

Thompson cannot be proven to have been in the area during the murders.

Thompson cannot be proven to have been violent towards anyone.

Thompson cannot be proven to have carried a knife.

Thompson cannot be proven to have been in enough good health to commit multiple murders and flee the scene.

...

Chapman can be proven to have been in the area during the murders.

Chapman can be proven to have been violent towards women.

Chapman had used a knife to threaten his wife.

Chapman was physically capable of pulling the murders off and had a place in the area to flee to afterwards.

So basically, while I don't believe it was Chapman, he's still a far more likely suspect than Thompson.

Keep mind, this is a THEORY. It'd do you and Richard well to begin to understand the gulf of difference between established fact and personal speculation.

No offence to you, Fishy, but you can't accuse me of being silly when you're in here waffling this sort of mush.

[Mike J. G.]

And it looks like even the scalpel bit is wrong.



Thompson said he had used a dissecting-scalpel to shave, not that he carried a scalpel during the time he was homeless.

Richard's hanging a lot of his theories on the idea that Thompson carried that scalpel...

To be honest, if Thompson had a bolt hole in Whitechapel, it wouldn't even be an issue whether he carried a knife on his person or not, but it's being pushed that he spent time on the street and had this scalpel on his person daily in order to shave... Yet the evidence Richard is basing that on has been shown to be questionable.

I'm sure some more numbers and mathematics are on the way in order to counter these points, though!

[Fiver]

If you want to keep arguing that “Smith’s suspect was Thompson and therefore Thompson is proven innocent,” show the document that names him. Otherwise, you’re just moving the alibi from the man who earned it (Puckridge) to the man who was never asked for one (Thompson). That’s not following evidence—that’s erasing it.


A reasonable request under the circumstances . Anyone ?

Nobody is arguing that way. Here's what people are actually arguing.

* Smith's suspect was proven innocent.
* Puckridge matches 3 of the 5 points and is probably the innocent suspect.
* Thompson matches 1 the 5 points and is clearly not the innocent suspect.
* Therefore Thompson could be the Ripper.

The one erasing evidence is Richard.

* Richard ignores that Smith's suspect was proven innocent.
* Richard ignores that Puckridge matches 3 of the 5 points.
* Richard incorrectly claims that Thompson matches all 5 points, when he only matches one.
* Richard ignores that if he can prove that Thompson was Smith's suspect, then he would be proving Thompson was not the Ripper.

[Observer]

I've just read Thompson's Hound of Heaven, and I have to say that I agree with the genuine genius of Paul Dirac when he said that

The aims of physics and poetry were fundamentally opposed, asserting that science seeks to make new, difficult concepts understandable to everyone, while poetry aims to make simple things incomprehensible.

Thompson's poem is the epitome of the above, a real doozy.

As for my tastes in poetry, I'm more inclined towards

There was an old man of Kentucky....

Twas on the good ship Venus

You get the drift

[Observer]

I forgot the incomparable

She was on the bridge at midnight

[Herlock Sholmes]

As long as we agree with ''Your Facts'' , is that it ? . Sorry but we,ve all been down that road before . Not interested

Im fairly certain Herlock that Richard has already successfully covered these point you,ve bought up .... again . But im sure he would only be happy to brouch them a 2nd time [or 3rd for that matter] . As far as voting in favour of Richards post just to spite you or anyone else is of course ridiculous, but none the less expected from you .


Evidence must be disproven with Evidence, not speculation ,opinion or accusations of ''Invention Things'' .

No. Facts are facts. This isn’t about interpretation or opinion. It’s about truth and lies. I prefer the former.

That Thompson was at anytime involved in an ‘trick’ involving coins is a lie and I challenge anyone (including Richard) to prove me wrong.

That Thompson was in a lunatic asylum is a lie. The suggestion that hospitals were sometimes called lunatic asylums is a lie.

That Major Smith would expect to find Thompson in Rupert Street is a lie. Smith clearly wasn’t talking about a ‘general area’ or a ‘nexus’ he was talking about a specific location and anyone that says that Thompson had any connection whatsoever is telling lies.

All of these are proven, rock solid, 100% facts. They are from the exact same source that Richard uses. It’s just that I’m reading them and relating the information honestly.

[Lewis C]

Dont be silly Mike, and please do stick on point . Its never been about what your claiming in regards to Chapman .Ive never said just because the evidence we have on Thompson cant be disproven, that therefor must make him the Ripper ! Only that its makes him a Much Better suspect than most others . I hope that clears up your misunderstanding .

That doesn't make him a better suspect than most others (though he could be anyway for other reasons) because the vast majority of suspects in the case cannot be proven innocent. Cream, Ostrog, Van Gogh, and Prince Albert Victor have been proven innocent, and I think that we can now add Oswald Puckeridge to that list. If not, he's the closest thing to it. I don't believe that there are any others.

[Fiver]

That doesn't make him a better suspect than most others (though he could be anyway for other reasons) because the vast majority of suspects in the case cannot be proven innocent. Cream, Ostrog, Van Gogh, and Prince Albert Victor have been proven innocent, and I think that we can now add Oswald Puckeridge to that list. If not, he's the closest thing to it. I don't believe that there are any others.

Robert Anderson - not in England at the time of some of the murders.

Jacob Isenschmid - confined to a hospital during the Double Event.

John Pizer - was talking to a police constable at the time of the Nichols murder.

James Thomas Sadler - at sea at the time of the first four of the C5 murders.

Walter Sickert - not in England at the time of some of the murders.

Robert Donston Stephenson - confined to a hospital during the murders.

[Herlock Sholmes]

On the subject of Francis Thompson allegedly almost excessive desire for dissection. It’s stated that he regularly asked his father for additional money for corpses. I suggested that it was more likely that he was after money for drugs but, just to show that this isn’t just my own opinion, this is an excerpt from a letter written by Francis’s sister Mary. The letter was written to show that her father had always treated Francis with kindness and generosity:

”You asked if he had all he required at home, and I replied in the affirmative. But I did not say how often he asked for and was given money for use in connection with his studies, and which he never used for that purpose. Many a time he asked my father for £3 or £4 for dissecting fees; so often that my father remarked what a number of corpses he was cutting up, astonished somewhat, yet never doubting and always giving what Frank asked for. Then again, when going to London for examination, he was believed and trusted by us regarding the amount and mode of paying the fees required. Frank said he had to take it with him, £5 or £7 - I forget exactly the amount. Of course, he must have used the money - I know it cost my father about £10 each time he went for his supposed examination. I feel sure he must have spent an amount on opium in those days even, though he probably expended some of the money on other things, such as cricket bats, balls, and wickets, music books, etc., which he brought home with the most wonderful tales of their having been given to him. Whatever he told us we believed. And I think that all these things he was never reproached with, unless in a general way when it was first found out.”

As I said, this was written by a sister who loved her brother and who certainly had no axe to grind. Does this really portray Thompson as a man almost obsessively needing corpses for dissection? Clearly it shows an addict coming up with any excuse that he can to get money from his father. The fact that he not only spent his money on drugs but on other items (that he claimed were given to him) shows a man that might easily be called a ‘wastrel’. The fact that his sister used the telling phrase “…each time he went for his supposed examination” shows us that Thompson wasn’t actually attending his examinations but was happy to take the money from his father for them. And if a student is deliberately avoiding examinations it is only reasonable to assume that he wasn’t doing the work that would allow him to pass them.

Thompson studied for 6 years and it seems unlikely that he would have been allowed to continue studying had he done no work at all or that he had avoided every single examination, so is it possible, and I’m only making a suggestion here, that he avoided (at least to some unknown extent) one aspect of his studies or at least did far less work on one aspect which left him unable to sit examinations? Could this have been surgery? In his book, Walsh said that Thompson had a ‘horror of the dissecting room’. Walsh doesn’t strike me as a man to simply make things up as he had absolutely no reason to. So might this have been true and that it was something that Thompson wasn’t prepared to admit to his father?

The picture that we get from his own sister certainly isn’t one of the rigorous student; of the zealous dissector of corpses. She gives us a rather more real and more rounded one based on personal experience and real knowledge of a poor student, of an addict spending more time in pursuit of pleasure (or to be fair, I tend to think that Thompson believed drugs to have been a means of ‘unlocking’ his poetic imagination) of someone quite willing to lie to his father to get his fix. Someone one not doing the work required to sit exams. That he would still have had enough medical/anatomical knowledge to have committed the ripper murders (despite us not being able to agree on what, if any, level was required) remains uncontested of course.

[Lewis C]

Robert Anderson - not in England at the time of some of the murders.

Jacob Isenschmid - confined to a hospital during the Double Event.

John Pizer - was talking to a police constable at the time of the Nichols murder.

James Thomas Sadler - at sea at the time of the first four of the C5 murders.

Walter Sickert - not in England at the time of some of the murders.

Robert Donston Stephenson - confined to a hospital during the murders.

I wasn't counting Pizer, Sadler, and Isenschmid as suspects because I thought they were cleared shortly after the crimes were admitted, but I do accept that all 3 had alibis. I didn't know that anyone had ever considered Anderson a suspect, but I agree that he had an alibi. In the cases of Sickert and Stephenson, I thought that there was at least a theoretical chance that Sickert went to England to commit the murders and returned to France, and that Stephenson left the hospital to commit the murders and returned without anyone noticing or thinking anything of it, though I'll agree that both scenarios are highly unlikely.

[Fiver]

I didn't know that anyone had ever considered Anderson a suspect, but I agree that he had an alibi.

The original version of the Royal Conspiracy had Anderson instead Sickert.