The Schwartz/BS Man situation - My opinion only

[c.d.]

Yo, Harry D.,

Just noticed your picture appears to have had a sex change. What is up with that? Did you finally get the money for the operation?

c.d.

[Harry D]

Yo, Harry D.,

Just noticed your picture appears to have had a sex change. What is up with that? Did you finally get the money for the operation?

c.d.

My avatars are gender-fluid. You know how important wokeness is to me.

[Herlock Sholmes]

[JeffHamm]

Those are valid points. Bury's arrival in the East End and sudden departure do seem to align with the spate of attacks and the last canonical murder. If not for McKenzie and the potential links between the Whitechapel murders & Thames Torso series, I would be fairly satisfied that Bury was JTR. Of course, none of us could definitely state the identity of the killer, Bury would be the only known suspect who inhabited the East End at the time with a history of post-mortem abdominal mutilation whose movements line up with the killings.

Did Bury up sticks to Dundee because he was feeling the heat from the police, or did he just want to take his wife as far away as possible from her family, so he could continue to manipulate and abuse her with impunity?

Was Ellen Bury's murder premeditated and Bury had some half-baked, wetbrained idea to pass her off as a Ripper victim, or did he just happen to share the same pathology as the murderer roaming loose back in London? Maybe the Ripper murders had imprinted on Bury's mind in some way. Jane Beadmore's killer made a similar claim.

Putting those questions aside, within a couple of months in 1889 we have a Ripper-like murder AND a Torso murder take place in Whitechapel. And that's not forgetting Elizabeth Jackson's murder a month or so earlier. That's two flurries of activity in 1888 and 1889 where the Ripper murders and Torso murders overlap. I don't think anyone in good faith could fail to appreciate the significance of this.

Hi,

I've had a quick look through Bury under the suspects part of the boards. Other than it being known he was in the East End, do we know where his residence was at the time? Just wondering how much detailed information we have on him. Do we know where he worked and lived, for example? Just wondering how much is known about him during the time of the murders, other than the vague "was in the area" type thing?

- Jeff

[Aethelwulf]

I believe he first appears working for james martin as a sawdust merchant in Oct 87. He was sacked for debts I think. He was sleeping in the stable at the time he met Ellen. When he got his hands on her dosh (think it would have a value today of £40K) she bought him a horse and cart (and a second horse as the first was a duffer). They lived at Spanby Road in Bow (2.5 miles from Whitechapel) where Bury stabled his horse and travelled around selling sawdust, although it seems he just got wasted. There are accounts of him assaulting his wife in Whitechapel, so he was going there. He also caught an STD in May 1888 and gave it to his wife. So we know he used prostitutes but not where. There is the well known line 'the police later established he was away away from home on the nights the murders took place' - he was known to go missing for days at a time. After two nights away in Dec 1888 Ellen found him on the streets in Bow at 5.30 am - I think he said something like what are you doing here and smacked her in the face. He was up and about and violent at the right sort time (he also killed ellen about 2-3 am).

Anyway, I am biased. The best advice I can give you that I found informative is to read the trial notes (http://williambury.org/blog6/documents/trial-notes/)- they sound boring but they are actually very interesting and give a real insight into bury. They also give a fairly unbiased overview. I would then recommend reading the FBI profile - the similarity is uncanny. Although biased, the Bury ID page does give a good summary of why Bury is so suspicious (http://williambury.org/blog6/the-bury-id/).

[c.d.]

My avatars are gender-fluid. You know how important wokeness is to me.

That made me laugh.

c.d.

[Michael W Richards]

Those are valid points. Bury's arrival in the East End and sudden departure do seem to align with the spate of attacks and the last canonical murder. If not for McKenzie and the potential links between the Whitechapel murders & Thames Torso series, I would be fairly satisfied that Bury was JTR. Of course, none of us could definitely state the identity of the killer, Bury would be the only known suspect who inhabited the East End at the time with a history of post-mortem abdominal mutilation whose movements line up with the killings.

Did Bury up sticks to Dundee because he was feeling the heat from the police, or did he just want to take his wife as far away as possible from her family, so he could continue to manipulate and abuse her with impunity?

Was Ellen Bury's murder premeditated and Bury had some half-baked, wetbrained idea to pass her off as a Ripper victim, or did he just happen to share the same pathology as the murderer roaming loose back in London? Maybe the Ripper murders had imprinted on Bury's mind in some way. Jane Beadmore's killer made a similar claim.

Putting those questions aside, within a couple of months in 1889 we have a Ripper-like murder AND a Torso murder take place in Whitechapel. And that's not forgetting Elizabeth Jackson's murder a month or so earlier. That's two flurries of activity in 1888 and 1889 where the Ripper murders and Torso murders overlap. I don't think anyone in good faith could fail to appreciate the significance of this.

The fact that there seems to be more than one serial killer operating at a time when odds favoured the random murderers not the criminal investigators, is often misunderstood, but the 70 and 80s in California is an illustration of how different killers with different drives might co-exist within a given population and does offer some possible insight. Some of those killers were influenced by what they read about other murders.

[JeffHamm]

I believe he first appears working for james martin as a sawdust merchant in Oct 87. He was sacked for debts I think. He was sleeping in the stable at the time he met Ellen. When he got his hands on her dosh (think it would have a value today of £40K) she bought him a horse and cart (and a second horse as the first was a duffer). They lived at Spanby Road in Bow (2.5 miles from Whitechapel) where Bury stabled his horse and travelled around selling sawdust, although it seems he just got wasted. There are accounts of him assaulting his wife in Whitechapel, so he was going there. He also caught an STD in May 1888 and gave it to his wife. So we know he used prostitutes but not where. There is the well known line 'the police later established he was away away from home on the nights the murders took place' - he was known to go missing for days at a time. After two nights away in Dec 1888 Ellen found him on the streets in Bow at 5.30 am - I think he said something like what are you doing here and smacked her in the face. He was up and about and violent at the right sort time (he also killed ellen about 2-3 am).

Anyway, I am biased. The best advice I can give you that I found informative is to read the trial notes (http://williambury.org/blog6/documents/trial-notes/)- they sound boring but they are actually very interesting and give a real insight into bury. They also give a fairly unbiased overview. I would then recommend reading the FBI profile - the similarity is uncanny. Although biased, the Bury ID page does give a good summary of why Bury is so suspicious (http://williambury.org/blog6/the-bury-id/).

Thanks for that Aethelwulf, I found Spanby Road is East of Whitechappel, as you say, about 2.5 miles, it's not a long street, which is helpful for us as anywhere on the street is good as any other. A few hundred feet doesn't really change a 2.5 mile journey. So, he's not too far away, but doesn't reside in the thick of it either. As you say, we know he was, at least on occasion, in Whitechappel, we don't really know how frequent that was (I'm sure there were places for him to drink nearer to home), nor do we know where he was when he went missing for days. He might have been in Whitechappel, sure, but he might not have been. This is what I mean when I mentioned before, we just don't have enough information about any of the suspects to really draw any conclusions. We are lucky if we have a few starting points, like residences, workplace, but once we start trying to connect someone who doesn't live right in the crime area, like Bury, we have to rely on the fact he could have been there - sure, he could have, but that doesn't mean he was.

Anyway, I'm going to have a poke around in the links you mentioned. And don't worry, I'm used to reading suspect based information and will try to separate fact from opinion and spin. Sadly, much like opening a bag of crisps, there's often scant little of the former product, but a whole lot of the latter packaging.

- Jeff

[Harry D]

One thing that does cast a little doubt on Bury would be the lack of attacks/murders closer to home. Would the concentration of attacks in Whitechapel not suggest it was a local to the area? I suppose you could make the argument that he didn't want to crap on his own doorstep, so to speak, but wouldn't he have encounters with prostitutes in Bow? What sort of area was Bow in the late 1880s?

[Aethelwulf]

One thing that does cast a little doubt on Bury would be the lack of attacks/murders closer to home. Would the concentration of attacks in Whitechapel not suggest it was a local to the area? I suppose you could make the argument that he didn't want to crap on his own doorstep, so to speak, but wouldn't he have encounters with prostitutes in Bow? What sort of area was Bow in the late 1880s?

Ada Wilson lived 1 mile away from Bury. Could have been him given the attacker was after money, similar to the way bury sole money from ellen. Description is similar and it sounds like a penknife was used, perhaps the one Bury had under his pillow. I reckon the presence of a survivor so close to home who could ID him would scare him off.

Also, say Bury went back to finish her off and committed a ripper style murder and the police were doing door to door. It wouldn't be long before they hit on a friend of a friend of a friend of Elizabeth Haynes who very likely repeated her story of Bury kneeling on his wife and threatening her with a knife while she screamed he was about to kill her. Bury's reaction to her threat of the police - he said he was sorry and wouldn't do it again - was he worried about what else he'd done if the police came calling?

[Michael W Richards]

One thing that does cast a little doubt on Bury would be the lack of attacks/murders closer to home. Would the concentration of attacks in Whitechapel not suggest it was a local to the area? I suppose you could make the argument that he didn't want to crap on his own doorstep, so to speak, but wouldn't he have encounters with prostitutes in Bow? What sort of area was Bow in the late 1880s?

Its my belief that the street knowledge for that particular area made all the difference. Short turns, connecting lanes, dead ends, ...orienting himself on a mental map. I believe the egress success was due to local knowledge rather than his cunning.

[JeffHamm]

One thing that does cast a little doubt on Bury would be the lack of attacks/murders closer to home. Would the concentration of attacks in Whitechapel not suggest it was a local to the area? I suppose you could make the argument that he didn't want to crap on his own doorstep, so to speak, but wouldn't he have encounters with prostitutes in Bow? What sort of area was Bow in the late 1880s?

Hi Harry D,

It suggests someone who has some sort of tie to the area, though it may not be their residence (although that would be the most common "tie"). Bury's sawdust delivery would familiarize him with quite a large area I would think, so that would predict a much more broad pattern of offending, but his habit of disappearing from home for a few days means his whereabouts are unknown. That leaves open the speculation he would disappear to Whitechappel, etc. There's no evidence for that other than he is reported as being seen in Whitechappel with Ellen I believe? When Ellen did find him during one of his vanishings, she found him in Bow, which seems to point to his extended binges being close to home. But, that's not proven to be what he always did either. Like all suspects, we generally don't know where they actually were, and so the tendency is to think "well, they could have been in Whitechapel", and ignore the fact the "could have been elsewhere, and elsewhere is huge!".

Bury's interesting, but really, in the end, he's a violent drunk, and they are were not exactly rare then, nor even now. He did end up murdering Ellen, but it looks like drunken personal rage (hit her with something, then stabbed her her in the abdomen, didn't cut her throat though, etc). He then kid her body in the trunk, for what looks like disposal. I suspect he found he couldn't move it as he also packed it with books, which would add to the weight considerably. At that point, he appears to have given up. I'm not sure that fits with either a "cunning psychopath JtR", where fleeing and taking on a new identity type thing might seem like "a good idea", or a "psychotic JtR", who wouldn't be as careful to try and conceal the body, but if they did, once "out of sight out of mind" so once he got her in the trunk, he would be likely to consider that taken care of. Also, either of those JtR's, if faced with being unable to move the trunk, would have no problem with cutting her up into more easily transportable portions. He's got his own place, and knowing the damage JtR could do in a few hours, or less, in Miller's Court, having the privacy of his own place would afford him the time to take care of things once and for all. So, depending upon which view of JtR you may hold (presuming it's one of those two most commonly offered options - psychopathic vs psychotic) I think some of his actions tend to not fit easily. He's got a pony and cart (I presume he still had it in Scotland?), so he could easily have hidden the body, scattering bits of it far from home.

There's always exceptions, of course, so it's not like I'm suggesting the above is definitive. Rather, I'm not sure I would place as strong a weight on his murdering Ellen as is often done. It's not to be ignored, and it is something that makes him interesting, but there are some important differences that can't be overlooked.

- Jeff

[Aethelwulf]

Bury's interesting, but really, in the end, he's a violent drunk, and they are were not exactly rare then, nor even now. He did end up murdering Ellen, but it looks like drunken personal rage (hit her with something, then stabbed her her in the abdomen, didn't cut her throat though, etc). He then kid her body in the trunk, for what looks like disposal. I suspect he found he couldn't move it as he also packed it with books, which would add to the weight considerably. At that point, he appears to have given up. I'm not sure that fits with either a "cunning psychopath JtR", where fleeing and taking on a new identity type thing might seem like "a good idea", or a "psychotic JtR", who wouldn't be as careful to try and conceal the body, but if they did, once "out of sight out of mind" so once he got her in the trunk, he would be likely to consider that taken care of. Also, either of those JtR's, if faced with being unable to move the trunk, would have no problem with cutting her up into more easily transportable portions. He's got his own place, and knowing the damage JtR could do in a few hours, or less, in Miller's Court, having the privacy of his own place would afford him the time to take care of things once and for all. So, depending upon which view of JtR you may hold (presuming it's one of those two most commonly offered options - psychopathic vs psychotic) I think some of his actions tend to not fit easily. He's got a pony and cart (I presume he still had it in Scotland?), so he could easily have hidden the body, scattering bits of it far from home.

There's always exceptions, of course, so it's not like I'm suggesting the above is definitive. Rather, I'm not sure I would place as strong a weight on his murdering Ellen as is often done. It's not to be ignored, and it is something that makes him interesting, but there are some important differences that can't be overlooked.

- Jeff

I would say you have somewhat oversimplified the injuries Ellen suffered - it is these most of all that have drawn attention to Bury. He has done three things we know JtR did to some or all of his victims: strangulation, abdominal trauma, genital trauma. The stomach wound was ragged with a foot of intestine protruding, the genital injury is bizarrely identical to a wound on Eddowes - I find it hard to believe something this graphic was reported in the press so it is a strange thing for Bury to hit on by chance, but not impossible. He also made several other incised wounds - some of these the medical men could tell had been done a longer time post-mortem due to the lack of hemorrhage. Bury went back to the body to make further cuts, surely for his own sexual gratification. Cutting and probing for pleasure is something that is picked up on in the JtR signature paper of Keppel. Whatever caused the original fight was one thing, but the injuries seem to be of a highly perverse sexual nature (I am no expert (thank god)). The man that did this was inhabiting the east end and tallies with the FBI profile of the killer more closely than any other, and does a flit that marks the end of unanimous verdicts on ripper crimes. He is very short, with broad shoulders, a Jewish look and dresses respectably. Though not impossible this is a coincidence, the odds must be very low.

There is always the McKenzie/Coles/Torso card - but there is major problem here. A renowned expert involved with Bundy and the Green river killer looked at 11 of the Whitechapel crimes, including the aforementioned, and said they (coles/mck/torso) could not be linked by signature analysis (Ellen Bury was not included in the analysis BTW). The conclusion was C5+ tabram. Who has the credentials to say his team were wrong? Fishermen says the torsos are ripper related - why on earth should we take the word of a journalist (no offence) over an expert in the field? One verdict has been published after peer review, the other unchallenged. Science is there to be falsified so I suggest those who think otherwise start typing and submit a paper for review.

Certainly, Bury's actions in Dundee are odd - what on earth is he doing living with the body for 6 days? Remember though, he was not the idiot often thought. He had a good education, achieved a good job as a factor's clerk and the Reverend Gough who knew him said he was 'very intelligent'. He must have thought out his options. His options were not great. Flight would have resulted in manhunt and he had no money so would have been reduced to criminality to get by and probably apprehended. He could have disposed on the body - I may be wrong about this, and I can't remember the source - but did he not ask a neighbour for a 'chopper'? In the end he chose to brazen it out as suicide and very nearly got off the hook. Is this not something we are told over and over Lechmere did - approach the police, play games, 'the physco'. I don't believe that, I think he'd just concluded his best bet was to bluff it through. Also, some of Bury's odd actions could be to do with killing his wife rather than a stranger.

Final point - the ref to bury missing and turning up in Bow dates to after he sold his horse and cart in early dec 88. There has been speculation this was triggered by the police's confidence that the very good description of the man that attacked Farmer (who carried a whip and closely resembles Bury) would result in his captur

[JeffHamm]

I would say you have somewhat oversimplified the injuries Ellen suffered - it is these most of all that have drawn attention to Bury. He has done three things we know JtR did to some or all of his victims: strangulation, abdominal trauma, genital trauma. The stomach wound was ragged with a foot of intestine protruding, the genital injury is bizarrely identical to a wound on Eddowes - I find it hard to believe something this graphic was reported in the press so it is a strange thing for Bury to hit on by chance, but not impossible. He also made several other incised wounds - some of these the medical men could tell had been done a longer time post-mortem due to the lack of hemorrhage. Bury went back to the body to make further cuts, surely for his own sexual gratification. Cutting and probing for pleasure is something that is picked up on in the JtR signature paper of Keppel. Whatever caused the original fight was one thing, but the injuries seem to be of a highly perverse sexual nature (I am no expert (thank god)). The man that did this was inhabiting the east end and tallies with the FBI profile of the killer more closely than any other, and does a flit that marks the end of unanimous verdicts on ripper crimes. He is very short, with broad shoulders, a Jewish look and dresses respectably. Though not impossible this is a coincidence, the odds must be very low.

There is always the McKenzie/Coles/Torso card - but there is major problem here. A renowned expert involved with Bundy and the Green river killer looked at 11 of the Whitechapel crimes, including the aforementioned, and said they (coles/mck/torso) could not be linked by signature analysis (Ellen Bury was not included in the analysis BTW). The conclusion was C5+ tabram. Who has the credentials to say his team were wrong? Fishermen says the torsos are ripper related - why on earth should we take the word of a journalist (no offence) over an expert in the field? One verdict has been published after peer review, the other unchallenged. Science is there to be falsified so I suggest those who think otherwise start typing and submit a paper for review.

Certainly, Bury's actions in Dundee are odd - what on earth is he doing living with the body for 6 days? Remember though, he was not the idiot often thought. He had a good education, achieved a good job as a factor's clerk and the Reverend Gough who knew him said he was 'very intelligent'. He must have thought out his options. His options were not great. Flight would have resulted in manhunt and he had no money so would have been reduced to criminality to get by and probably apprehended. He could have disposed on the body - I may be wrong about this, and I can't remember the source - but did he not ask a neighbour for a 'chopper'? In the end he chose to brazen it out as suicide and very nearly got off the hook. Is this not something we are told over and over Lechmere did - approach the police, play games, 'the physco'. I don't believe that, I think he'd just concluded his best bet was to bluff it through. Also, some of Bury's odd actions could be to do with killing his wife rather than a stranger.

Final point - the ref to bury missing and turning up in Bow dates to after he sold his horse and cart in early dec 88. There has been speculation this was triggered by the police's confidence that the very good description of the man that attacked Farmer (who carried a whip and closely resembles Bury) would result in his captur

Hi Aethelwulf,

I'm aware of Kepple's paper, thanks, but as it doesn't include Bury, it's a bit tangential. The wounds post-mortem just mean after she was dead, not necessarily long dead. It appears to have been a drunken fight, and the thought was he hit her in the head with a poker or something like one, and then strangled her, and stabbed her in the stomach/genital region. While there were intestines protruding, that could very well have occurred when he put her in the box (not the wound itself of course). But, her wounds were less sever than even Nichols, though by no means minor scratches either. What I'm getting at, is in a drunken rage, which the fight appears to have started as, it appears he stabbed at her as well. Yes, some similarities with Eddowes, but that wound wasn't common between known Ripper victims, and the more common indications are missing - no deep throat wound, no complete opening of the abdomen, no removal of organs, no facial mutilations which were appearing in the last two of the C5. He's a character that it is easy to speculate over, but there's nothing really linking him and his known crime, against someone he knows, whom he had be violent towards in the past, makes it difficult to rule out a domestic violence attack. As I say, he's a good suspect and better than others, which is about as much as one can say really.

Anyway, we're getting well off topic now. I'll continue reading up on him as I find the time.

- Jeff

[Harry D]

According to the doctors, the mutilations on Ellen Bury were inflicted closely after death.

If Bury had considered staging Ellen's death as a Ripper murder, wouldn't it have made more sense to do this in London? You could argue that his drunken, addlepated mind was clutching at straws. However, he could've left the box in the house and done a runner. Who knows how far he would've got before anyone discovered the body. Instead, Bury chooses the worst possible option. He mutilates the body, stuffs it into a box, then approaches the police with a suicide story. He might as well have confessed right there on the spot. Does this sort of behaviour match up with an elusive serial killer?

If the mutilations were not for staging, the only other explanation is that Bury shared the same paraphilia as JTR. This doesn't necessarily mean they must have been the same man, though. Like I said, maybe Bury had been influenced by his exposure to the killings, in much the same way as Jane Beadmore's murderer. It's difficult to get a grip on Bury's thought process. His own version of events certainly doesn't stack up, nor do his actions.

Also, another key dissimilarity between William Bury & JTR is anger. Bury was your typical angry wife-beating drunk. With the possible exception of Tabram, none of the Whitechapel murders evinced anger. None of the victims were battered or beaten. The killer was more interested in what was going on inside the victims than anything else. People might point to the gruesome overkill of Mary Kelly, but even in that case rage doesn't appear to be the motivation, it was more of a violent deconstruction of the victim. You wouldn't, for example, compare JTR to Peter Sutcliffe, who bludgeoned his victims to death and stabbed them furiously.