Proof that Thompson was living in Whitechapel, just off Dorset Street.

[Richard Patterson]

Richard,

You've had correspondence with Martin Fido about Thompson, haven't you? I believe he regards him as a minor curiosity in the Ripper case, right?

I don't recall having correspondence with Fido. To me its probably a minor curiosity that he has taught at Boston university while in nearby Boston College is the Francis Thompson Room in the Burns library, and the largest collection of original papers and letter on my suspect. I can't say what Fido's views are on my suspect. For what it is worth, here are my views on mine.

He is the only one who had combined all four main traits that people look for in the Ripper - ability, opportunity, motive, and a weapon. As to Ability, Thompson trained as a surgeon for 6 years, at Owens Medical College Manchester, where he cut up hundreds of cadavers. There he was taught the very new and rare technique of heart removal called the Virchow method. This entails the removal of the heart via the pericardium. Doctor Thomas Bond, who performed Mary Kelly’s Autopsy, told the killer had used this method to remove her heart. In regard to opportunity, Thompson lived at the Providence Row Night Refuge on 50 Crispin Street, Whitechapel. This was opposite Dorset Street, less than 100 meters from where, Ripper Victim, Mary Kelly was killed. Thompson was able to walk the streets at all hours. Being homeless for 3 years in the East End, he was part of the landscape and could come and go without rousing suspicion. Of his motive, Thompson had a resentment of prostitutes. At the start of June 1888, his year-long relationship with an unnamed Chelsea prostitute ended angrily and suddenly. After he told her his first poems were to be published, she said she did not want the attention and she threatened to leave him. She since disappeared without a trace. His weapon was not only a knife but a dissecting scalpel. He carried this perfect weapon for the Ripper crimes, under his coat. Here’s what the FBI and CID might consider to be the traits for the Ripper. The prevailing profile, upon serial killers is that they are apparently harmless, yet alluring, drifters. Of noted intelligence, they are is their twenties and feel intense isolation, preferring to kill relative strangers, near to their current area of habitation. Unlike pretty much every other named suspect, Thompson fits this profile perfectly. During the murders Thompson, who was living in Whitechapel, was aged-27. He was of a largely homeless man who of noted intelligence, who had attracted a prostitute into a relationship. Having run away from home, Thompson had cut off all ties with his past and was living an isolated existence. Of course for everything there are exceptions to the rule but Thompson’s match to the profile is exceptional. Added to this he wrote ‘stories’ and ‘poems’ about killing women by stabbing and mutilating them.

[Wickerman]

Richard,

You've had correspondence with Martin Fido about Thompson, haven't you? I believe he regards him as a minor curiosity in the Ripper case, right?

In all fairness Scott, the real killer is more than likely among those who we would view as a minor curiosity, either that or a complete unknown.