Can we definitively conclude that Alice McKenzie was not killed by the Ripper?

[Fiver]

They didn't have proof. They had strong suspicions, but they couldn't follow through once the suspect had been permanently confined.

If they didn't have proof, then they didn't know who the Ripper was. And how would a suspect being confined prevent the police from continuing to seek evidence against a suspect?

[Fiver]

Ive always wondered about the coincidental timing of these crimes and the gathering of double agents and spies and anarchists in town during the Parnell Commission hearings. Interesting coincidence.

Wouldnt it be a dynamite movie if the actual truth is that one of the dangerous anarchists in town at that time, someone perhaps on the Government payroll to provide information, is the guy that did some of these? Does the government risk exposing the fact that it was not uncommon to provide funds to groups and individuals who had causes contrary to the governments own. To groups and individuals that had bombed train stations....plotted to blow up the Queen.....

That reads like the plot of an especially bad thriller. No sane government would fund terrorism against itself. If a lone insane and highly stupid individual suggested it, they would be removed unless they could find other insane and highly stupid people to support a ludicrous plan that would probably blow up in their faces.

Back in the real world, the purpose of getting informants within terrorist organizations is to prevent those organizations from killing people. This means cutting deals with unsavory people. If an informant was discovered to be a serial killer, that would be an opportunity. They could publicly produce the evidence, which gives them credit for taking down a monster and gives the government an excuse to hunt down other members of the terrorist organization as possible accomplices to the murders. It also discredits the organization the government was trying to take down, leading to that organization losing funding and recruits.

The killer would be unlikely to reveal he was a government informant, that would make his own organization actively want to silence him. It could also be dismissed by the government as the ravings of a madman. Or you could avoid any chance of the killer talking by having them killed resisting arrest.

If for some unfathomable reason the government want to make themselves look like bumbling failures but still get rid of the killer, they just leak evidence of his serial killings to the organization he belongs to. Unless that organization is composed entirely of idiots, they will then eliminate the serial killer in their ranks.

[Scott Nelson]

If the police had proof of the Ripper's identity, it would have been stupid and illogical for them to not reveal the Ripper's identity.

They didn't have proof. They had strong suspicions, but they couldn't follow through once the suspect had been permanently confined.

[Fiver]

Without knowing what specific circumstances would account for such an action, you can't say it didn't happen.

Simple logic says it didn't happen. The police would have gone from reviled to praised if they had caught the Ripper. It would have made careers. If the police had proof of the Ripper's identity, it would have been stupid and illogical for them to not reveal the Ripper's identity.

[Fiver]

Everything about the murder of Stride points to her not being a Ripper victim

It's not that simple/

"In the absence of motive, the age and class of woman selected as victim, and the place and time of the crime, there was a similarity between this case and those mysteries which had recently occurred in that neighbourhood. 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; but there had been the same skill exhibited in the way in which the victim had been entrapped, and the injuries inflicted, so as to cause instant death and prevent blood from soiling the operator, and the same daring defiance of immediate detection, which, unfortunately for the peace of the inhabitants and trade of the neighbourhood, had hitherto been only too successful." - Coroner Baxter

[Michael W Richards]

Yes because the Police are well known for solving infamous crimes but not telling anyone.

You are not as naive as that post suggests. We have ample evidence throughout modern history of information held back by the authorities based on various reasons. National Security would be one. So would self preservation.

Just ask the CIA why they denied ever knowing about Oswald, while in fact he had been an informant of theirs for years. National Security...self preservation...have powerful influences on the truth sometimes.

[Michael W Richards]

Technically, yes.

I believe they did not close the case, but I dont see that its impossible that some of them knew what happened.....perhaps it was the differences in the legal system as compared with France....as was voiced by one of these same men.

[Michael W Richards]

Hi Michael,

No, I'm not suggesting a conspiracy. The police had to allow the suspect to be confined without a trial due to a lack of incriminating evidence, his diagnosed insanity and family pressure on police. I think it was best thought that only a few senior police officials should be 'in the know.'

I think thats a reasonable take Scott. Perhaps there was a small contingent of Senior Officers who did know the answers here, maybe Monro was on the money with his "hot potato" line. But that would mean it was some of the senior men assigned to the cases, the same men who offered various stories of what they "knew". Like Anderson....and Arnold, and Abberline, and Macnaughten, and Smith, and Swanson, or Littlechild,...Im sure you get my point. If there was a small group who "knew" what happened, it would likely consist of at least some of these men. Yet they all gave different takes on what the investigations revealed..if anything.

[Scott Nelson]

That situation would suggest a conspiracy of some kind Scott, Im fairly sure you are not suggesting that the killer alone would know the actual facts. If the answer to this riddle was known "with reasonable certainty" and no word of it made public, nor prosecution of the suspected person, then it seems probable that would require multiple individuals having the knowledge.

That word has been so battered over the years, "conspiracy". Everyone rolls their eyes and assumes paranoia or an active imagination. But from where I sit the actual answer to the riddle is one that could have been known to several individuals, likely Senior officials.

Hi Michael,

No, I'm not suggesting a conspiracy. The police had to allow the suspect to be confined without a trial due to a lack of incriminating evidence, his diagnosed insanity and family pressure on police. I think it was best thought that only a few senior police officials should be 'in the know.'

[Scott Nelson]

I stand by what I have said. The Police did not solve the Ripper crimes.

Technically, yes.

[Michael W Richards]

Reasonable certainty about who he was and not being able to prove it in a court of law does not translate to 'solving' the crimes. And everyone at Scotland Yard did not necessarily have to know about it.

That situation would suggest a conspiracy of some kind Scott, Im fairly sure you are not suggesting that the killer alone would know the actual facts. If the answer to this riddle was known "with reasonable certainty" and no word of it made public, nor prosecution of the suspected person, then it seems probable that would require multiple individuals having the knowledge.

That word has been so battered over the years, "conspiracy". Everyone rolls their eyes and assumes paranoia or an active imagination. But from where I sit the actual answer to the riddle is one that could have been known to several individuals, likely Senior officials.

Ive always wondered about the coincidental timing of these crimes and the gathering of double agents and spies and anarchists in town during the Parnell Commission hearings. Interesting coincidence.

Wouldnt it be a dynamite movie if the actual truth is that one of the dangerous anarchists in town at that time, someone perhaps on the Government payroll to provide information, is the guy that did some of these? Does the government risk exposing the fact that it was not uncommon to provide funds to groups and individuals who had causes contrary to the governments own. To groups and individuals that had bombed train stations....plotted to blow up the Queen.....

In that context, take a fresh look at the senior men appointed to the Ripper Crimes. See a lot of Homicide investigators? Arent virtually all these men from Intelligence gathering and secretive National Defensive organizations working at the highest levels of government, and focused on infiltrating agencies like the Irish Self rule factions and labour organizers.

Did someone just mention Millen? Didnt one of those same men mention him in connection with the crimes also?

[John Wheat]

Reasonable certainty about who he was and not being able to prove it in a court of law does not translate to 'solving' the crimes. And everyone at Scotland Yard did not necessarily have to know about it.

I stand by what I have said. The Police did not solve the Ripper crimes.

[Fiver]

When we strip down to the bare bones of the McKenzie murder, it is strikingly obvious that she was either a Ripper victim OR the victim of a Ripper copy cat.

Agreed.

Either way; the moment that the slightest cut was inflicted on her abdomen; superficial or not; then McKenzie falls into the pool of Ripper (or Ripper copy cat) victims.

Mckenzie is far more likely to be a Ripper victim than Stride based on all of the criteria for determining the killers MO and identifying their key signature etc...

A modern group of signature analysts disagrees with you. They concluded that the Ripper killed Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes, and Kelly.

[Fiver]

The label of the "Canonical 5" is one of the biggest reasons why the case has never been solved.

If nobody can determine who the Ripper victims actually were, then the efforts in trying to solve the case was doomed from the offset.

Nobody can determine with 100% certainty who all the victims of the Ripper were, but that is true regardless of how many people you theorize were victims.

The Ripper murders will probably never be solved, but this is due to lack of evidence, not due to the Canonical Five being the most popular theory. Thomas Arnold though there were four victims. Walter Dew thought there were seven. Edmund Reid thought there were nine.

What dooms any attempt to solve the case is a lack of evidence. None of the people seen near the victims shortly before their deaths have been identified. And it's quite possible that none of them were the Ripper. There were no fingerprint records and no means of finding latent prints. There was no means of distinguishing animal from human blood and blood types were unknown, let alone DNA typing.

Even today, with modern tools it is not easy to catch serial killers. A study shows that the most common methods of identification were "victim survived, DNA, turned in by an associate, family, or friend, fingerprints, prior offending history, body found in home, and being arrested for an unrelated charge". Many of those are due to luck.

There may have been Ripper victims that survived. If so, they didn't report it or the report wasn't connected to the Ripper. DNA and fingerprints weren't available. No one who knew the Ripper turned him in. No one was identified by prior lesser offenses. The Ripper didn't kill at home and didn't leave trophy organs casually lying around for small children or house guests to find. If arrested on an unrelated charge, the Ripper didn't confess and the police didn't find anything incriminating on his person or in the place that he lived.

Even if modern forensic techniques were available in 1888, odds are the Ripper wouldn't have been identified by forensic evidence.

[Scott Nelson]

Yes because the Police are well known for solving infamous crimes but not telling anyone.

Reasonable certainty about who he was and not being able to prove it in a court of law does not translate to 'solving' the crimes. And everyone at Scotland Yard did not necessarily have to know about it.