Francis Thompson. The Perfect Suspect.

[Richard Patterson]

Karl,

The fact remains that many people back then and today see that the Whitechapel murders were committed by someone who necessarily had anatomical knowledge. That Thompson possessed several years in medical training, surely could not hurt the chances of him being a suspect, like everything else about Thompson.

Richard

[Karl]

Karl,

The fact remains that many people back then and today see that the Whitechapel murders were committed by someone who necessarily had anatomical knowledge. That Thompson possessed several years in medical training, surely could not hurt the chances of him being a suspect, like everything else about Thompson.

Richard

The thing is, apart from the Eddowes kidney, nothing points to anatomical knowledge at all. And even in the Eddowes case, there is clear evidence of lack of surgical skill. Not everyone agrees that the "canonical five" were all committed by the same person, either. I personally don't - Elizabeth Stride, in particular, doesn't seem very Ripperish. But even if we stipulate that they were all victims of the same killer: anatomical knowledge/surgical skill is still hotly debated, and by no means established - so it can hardly be described as fact. And because it is still debated, you cannot use someone's surgical skill to boost their status as suspects any more than you can use someone's lack of surgical skill to boost their status as suspects.

[Richard Patterson]

The thing is, apart from the Eddowes kidney, nothing points to anatomical knowledge at all. And even in the Eddowes case, there is clear evidence of lack of surgical skill. Not everyone agrees that the "canonical five" were all committed by the same person, either. I personally don't - Elizabeth Stride, in particular, doesn't seem very Ripperish. But even if we stipulate that they were all victims of the same killer: anatomical knowledge/surgical skill is still hotly debated, and by no means established - so it can hardly be described as fact. And because it is still debated, you cannot use someone's surgical skill to boost their status as suspects any more than you can use someone's lack of surgical skill to boost their status as suspects.

Karl,

You are right that whether the murderer had anatomical knowledge or not is still hotly debated. The debate began with the first murder and still continues. When I wrote that people see that the murderer had anatomical knowledge, I should have qualified my statement by adding that not all people see this and that people also believe that the murderer had no medical skill. I do not think either of us will end the debate on if he did or did not in this thread. All I can say is that my suspect Francis Thompson did have considerable anatomical knowledge having studied for several years at a college that emphasized practical learning in dissection and what were then new techniques in organ removal. Did the Ripper have medical knowledge? I could provide a list as long as your arm from professionals and experts stretching back to 1888 that state that he did, as I am sure you could do the same showing that he did not.

Richard

[Karl]

Yes, I suppose we may add a horse to the list of Ripper victims. We'll never set this matter to rest, no matter how firmly we believe one way or the other.

[SuspectZero]

Hello John.

Interesting question and on the face of it I saw a strong possibility. Thompson had a thing for names. Thompson’s sister was named Mary and so was his mother. The root of Thompson’s conflict with his doctor father was over his remarrying. After the death of Mary, the mother, Dr. Charles Thompson, became engaged to a woman named Anne. What I think is more than a coincidence is that almost all the victims shared the same names as with members of Thompson’s family. As you know two of the Ripper’s victims were named Mary, and another was called Ann. In the 1901 murder, the victim does too with, her name being Mary Ann Austin. Thompson’s sister, Mary, changed her name to Mother Austin, when she became, before this murder. Thompson, who had spent most of his post 1888 life in country monasteries, was living in London in 1901. Details of the 1901 murder are reminiscent of the Ripper, with the focus on mutilation of the reproductive organs. In addition, Thompson’s relationship with his prostitute lover ended when she fled him at the start of June, and the murder of Mary Ann Austin occurred on June 1st.

Despite these things, I am not convinced Thompson killed Mary Ann Austin. The perpetrator slept with the victim. I know that Thompson had a sexual relationship with a prostitute in before 1888, but I think it would have been out of character for Thompson to sleep with an unknown. Also Thompson was living in London, but in Elgin Avenue, on the other side of the city. It still is interesting, that this 1901 murder might have been done by the Ripper, or Thompson, or both, if they are one and the same. I will look into it and find the exact circumstance of Thompson’s movements and mental state during the Austin murder, see if there are any correlations worth presenting.

Thanks for the interest.

I know I'm rather late to this discussion by a couple of years but Thompson's prostitute love was named Ann. That seems like a big coincidence to me.

[Richard Patterson]

I know I'm rather late to this discussion by a couple of years but Thompson's prostitute love was named Ann. That seems like a big coincidence to me.

Thanks SuspectZero,

You are never too late to contribute to discussion.

It is an interesting point that you make, that Thompson's prostitute love was named Ann. However her name is a matter of convention rather than literal truth. Nobody has so far been able to determine this prostitute's actual name. Thompson kept that detail to himself, and her existence and past remains as mysterious as Mary Kelly's, the Ripper's November 9th 1888, victim.

The assigning of the name of Ann for Thompson's prostitute is derived from Thomas De' Quincey's prostitute. De'Quincey was a writer who died in 1859, the year of Thompson's birth. Thompson much admired De'Quincey and many circumstances of Thompson's life mirror his. (Both lived poor in London, were dependent on opium, wrote to the same genre and both had a brief relationship with a prostitute.)

Many authors have dubbed Thompson's prostitute Ann, because they have seen the parallels between Thompson and De'Quincey's life and since we know that De'Quincey fell for a prostitute named Ann, biographers on Thompson have applied the name, Ann, for Thompson's unknown prostitute.

Who knows SuspectZero. Thompson's prostitute may have also been called Ann, since Thompson was so keen to replicate De'Quincey's life, though I only speculate that this might be the case.

Thank you for your interest.

PS. Don't neglect examining my official website for my book, which holds a great deal of information on Thompson, my book, and the theory.

http://www.francisjthompson.com/

[Harry D]

Great review of Richard's book on Amazon:

One more tome to add to the already crammed shelf of Ripper books where the author basically picks a suspect then works tirelessly to bend all the facts to fit the theory.
There are hundreds of better Ripper books, this one will just confuse newcomers to the subject and annoy the old hands who will spot all the mistakes and false assumptions being made.
Also, it's written in an artificially flowery way that becomes annoying very quickly. If you want a well-written and concise presentation this is not for you!
On another note, I personally am thoroughly jaded by seeing people's names dragged through the mud just to create another pointless Ripper book. This author desecrates the memory of poet Francis Thomson in the same way that Walter Sickert and Lewis Carroll have had their names and reputations impugned on next to no evidence at all.
In this particular case the evidence amounts to Thomson being in the district at the time (along with thousands of others) and a strange, biased reading of his poetry. It should really be a criminal offense to make such allegations without any worthwhile reason.

Couldn't agree more!

[Richard Patterson]

Thanks for posting this review Harry D. Perhaps it should be a criminal offense to make such allegations, but that does not make Thompson any less a suspect for the Ripper crimes. I am heartened that you couldn't agree more that Thompson lived in Spitalfields, at the time of the murders. There is hope for you yet.

[Roy Corduroy]

"a strange, biased reading of his poetry"

Luckily no one died from Tchaikowsky's 1812 Overture

[Richard Patterson]

Out of the more than 100 Ripper suspects ever named, only one can be shown to have had a knife at the time of the murders, where they occurred - Francis Thompson. In 1888, he was a mentally ill, drug addicted man who carried a razor- sharp dissecting knife, kept from his years of studying medicine. He had already been in trouble with the police and had a history of arson, theft, and mutilating. His sole purpose for living in the Providence Row refuge, less than 100 yards from where Jack the Ripper victim, Mary Kelly, was killed was to find a prostitute who had humiliated him. He had already written about ripping their stomachs open.

But don't worry about any of that because it all comes down to interpreting his poetry.

[Abby Normal]

Out of the more than 100 Ripper suspects ever named, only one can be shown to have had a knife at the time of the murders, where they occurred - Francis Thompson. In 1888, he was a mentally ill, drug addicted man who carried a razor- sharp dissecting knife, kept from his years of studying medicine. He had already been in trouble with the police and had a history of arson, theft, and mutilating. His sole purpose for living in the Providence Row refuge, less than 100 yards from where Jack the Ripper victim, Mary Kelly, was killed was to find a prostitute who had humiliated him. He had already written about ripping their stomachs open.

But don't worry about any of that because it all comes down to interpreting his poetry.

It comes down to he has absolutely no connection to the ripper murders whatsoever, either as a suspect, person of interest, witness or even peripheral character, like so many after the fact modern “suspects”.

But I guess he may have been in the area, so at least he’s got that going for him.

But a very interesting character, that’s for sure.

[Richard Patterson]

It comes down to he has absolutely no connection to the ripper murders whatsoever, either as a suspect, person of interest, witness or even peripheral character, like so many after the fact modern “suspects”.

But I guess he may have been in the area, so at least he’s got that going for him.

But a very interesting character, that’s for sure.

No contemporary suspects had any connection to the murders. Which is why none were charged. The Ripper was not caught because nobody was found to have any real connection to the murders.

Thompson, unlike most suspects, was said to be in the area. His editor, who rescued him from the streets days after the murder of Mary Kelly, held a keen interest in the Ripper murders, and discussed them with dignitaries. Thompson's biographer John Walsh believed Thompson may have been questioned by the police on suspicion that he was the Ripper.

These things, as well as him resembling several eye-witness descriptions of the Ripper makes him more connected to the murders than most of the other 100 suspects.

[SuspectZero]

Out of the more than 100 Ripper suspects ever named, only one can be shown to have had a knife at the time of the murders, where they occurred - Francis Thompson. In 1888, he was a mentally ill, drug addicted man who carried a razor- sharp dissecting knife, kept from his years of studying medicine. He had already been in trouble with the police and had a history of arson, theft, and mutilating. His sole purpose for living in the Providence Row refuge, less than 100 yards from where Jack the Ripper victim, Mary Kelly, was killed was to find a prostitute who had humiliated him. He had already written about ripping their stomachs open.

But don't worry about any of that because it all comes down to interpreting his poetry.

Hi Richard,
Love your research on Francis Thompson. All well done. However one thing that is not correct, is your statement above. There was another suspect who admits to carrying around a knife at the time of the murders and in the neighborhood of the crimes - George R. Sims (yes he was a suspect), in a story by Percy Cross Standing for Cassell’s Magazine.

[Fisherman]

It says something about how we go about trying to solve the case when it becomes a core issue whether somebody had access to a knife or not. 99 per cent of the grown population did.
If we could establish the exact type of knife the Ripper used, then it could be useful to look at who carried such a knife along with himself - but we don´t know these things in any detail either.
Thompson was in the habit at some stage of carrying a scalpel along with himself, I believe - and correct me if that is wrong, Richard, please! - and a scalpel tallies poorly with the weapon that killed Chapman, for example, just as it is a bad fit for the Nichols murder too, I believe.
But that is somewhat beside the point, since I am sure that Thompson too could well have had access to for example a kitchen knife.

If Thompson - or any other suspect - had been known to wield his blade ferociously in public, it would become another story, of course. But this is not the case.

All in all, I don´t think that accessibility to an appropriate weapon poses any obstacle at all to any suspect at all, and consequently, I fail to see why a proven accesibility would make for any useful evidence at all. A drastic comparison would be how all of the suspects carried hands, and so either one of them could have strangled or partially strangled the victims.

[GUT]

Hi Richard,
Love your research on Francis Thompson. All well done. However one thing that is not correct, is your statement above. There was another suspect who admits to carrying around a knife at the time of the murders and in the neighborhood of the crimes - George R. Sims (yes he was a suspect), in a story by Percy Cross Standing for Cassell’s Magazine.

Or Richardson sitting on hi# back step

Or Kelly

Or ......

Probably any number of other possibles.