Did Jack only kill 3?

[PaulB]

I think you will find Debs has done more benificial research and contributed more to this case the you ever will.

Rob

Actually, I hate to say it but that's not really much of an accolade. But Debs has in fact probably contributed more than the majority of researchers ever will, which is why she is so well-respected by everyone seriously interested in this case.

[Supe]

Simon,

Yes, that particular item is well covered in the article, along with the reasons for Taunton's outrage and observations on the best way to have used the hounds. I guess you would benefit as well from reading the article.

Don.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Daily Telegraph, 13th November 1888—

"About a fortnight ago this gentleman received a telegram from Leman-street Police-station, asking him to bring the dog to assist in discovering the perpetrators of a burglary in Commercial-street. The police then admitted that subsequently to the burglary they had been all over the premises, and Mr. Taunton pointed out to them that it was absurd to expect that the bloodhounds could accomplish anything under such conditions."

Regards,

Simon

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom,

" . . . the story was for public consumption so people would leave him alone about it."

I can dig that.

I feel the same about Abberline and his valedictory George Chapman theory, following which he left London and remained silent for the next twenty-six years.

Regards,

Simon

[Supe]

Trevor,

Oh so all the crowds that gathered outside Miller Court before the police dispersed them didnt matter did they. Do you know anyhting about how police tracking dogs or bloodhounds operate clearly you dont.

You really won't or can't read, correct? I specifically wrote "contamination WITHIN Miller's Court" was not a problem. And I would match my knowledge of how bloodhounds operate against yours any day. As someone one said of you, "Trevor wears his ignorance like a badge of honor." I quite agree.

Since your sole purpose is to garner attention and thus sell more books and lecture tickets I wonder why genuine researchers don't just ignore you and let you forever bray into the wind like some lost donkey.

Don.

[PaulB]

This who issue is getting blown out of all proportion the original issues were that is it right to stil continue with the long list of suspects when there is nothing to to show they were officially regarded as suspects. In the absence of evidence the officers opinions should be questioned especially when they were all supposed to be working on the same case but all gave differing opinions. .

How can you explain that ?

What's there to explain? Do you imagine that the opinions of these police officers have not been questioned? The trouble is, Trevor, that you're not very knowledgeable about this case, so you think you are coming up with new thoughts and new questions, when they are not new at all.

[Tom_Wescott]

It's a bit of a stretch to conclude that Macnaghten believed Druitt to have been Jack the Ripper. It's what he wrote, undeniably, but that he actually believed it is a moot point.

According to one press report, his daughter statedly he did not believe Druitt was the Ripper, but was his story for public consumption so people would leave him alone about it. But, of course, who knows how accurate this press report was, as it contradicts other press interviews with Mac's daughter.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Rob Clack]

I know all I want to know i dont need to know who lived at whatever street in Whitechapel, who they were married to, how many kids they had, what occupation they carried out, what the census records showed, when they died etc etc. but it seems some of you do how sad is that still it keep Debra gainfully employed

I think you will find Debs has done more benificial research and contributed more to this case the you ever will.

Rob

[Simon Wood]

Hi Paul,

It's a bit of a stretch to conclude that Macnaghten believed Druitt to have been Jack the Ripper. It's what he wrote, undeniably, but that he actually believed it is a moot point.

By playing the "from private information" card Macnaghten neatly absolved Scotland Yard from having had any official suspicion as to Druitt's guilt. But assuming for a moment his "private information" was credible, why no subsequent follow-up investigation to settle the matter once and for all? Also, why hedge his Ripperological bets by throwing Kosminski and Ostrog into the ring as also-rans, the latter with an iron-clad alibi?

Why should we believe Macnaghten, any more than we should believe Anderson who, for want of any other supporting evidence, appears to have stuck a pin in the Macnaghten memorandum and come up with a Polish Jew?

Regards,

Simon

[Trevor Marriott]

For all I know, Trevor, the knife threat was utterly unknown to the police and never at any time featured in anyone's suspicions against Kosminski. In fact, for all I know it never even happened. That reference was made by a private individual to the doctor who was responsible for committing Aaron and is not known to have featured at all in police thinking.

But even if the reference was a single line in an occurrence book, what difference does that make? If it was the reason why the police investigated, the police still investigated.



Why don't you ask Robert Anderson or Donald Swanson? Let's face it, Trevor, you are no cleverer than they were and if obvious questions occur to you, why do you suppose those same questions didn't occur to them - and were answered by them?

This who issue is getting blown out of all proportion the original issues were that is it right to stil continue with the long list of suspects when there is nothing to to show they were officially regarded as suspects. In the absence of evidence the officers opinions should be questioned especially when they were all supposed to be working on the same case but all gave differing opinions. .

How can you explain that ?

[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor,

Had you only read my article about the bloodhounds in the latest issue of the New Independent Review you might not have blustered so much. Then again, it could be innate.

As to the question of photographing the eyes, it was a popular misconception of the time and as such the police -- properly -- sought medical advice. At the Chapman inquest, in response to a question about retina prints, George Bagster Phillips replied: I have no particular opinion upon that point myself. I was asked about it very early in the inquiry, and I gave my opinion that the operation would be useless, especially in this case.

The police did not pursue that line of inquiry afterward. Phillips also opined about the uselessness of bloodhounds, but from ignorance, and after the hounds were secured he was present at the Hyde Park trials of Burgho and Barnaby, possibly to educate himself on the subject.

Moreover, bloodhounds do have amazing abilities and the problem with the Kelly murder would not have been contamination within Miller's Court (that was well controlled), but crowd control once they emerged into Dorset Street.

Oh so all the crowds that gathered outside Miller Court before the police dispersed them didnt matter did they. Do you know anyhting about how police tracking dogs or bloodhounds operate clearly you dont.

In any case, it was a vain hope since the bloodhounds had long since been sent back to Yorkshire, as had the hound hired by the Central News Agency been returned. But do yourself a favor, buy the magazine and learn a whole lot more.



Don.

I know all I want to know i dont need to know who lived at whatever street in Whitechapel, who they were married to, how many kids they had, what occupation they carried out, what the census records showed, when they died etc etc. but it seems some of you do how sad is that still it keep Debra gainfully employed

[PaulB]

And you have no evidence that specific files on these did exist for all you know the entries relating to Kosminski and his sister as an example could have been nothing more than a one line entry in an occurence book which someone has noticed and the mindset of the police at that time was along the lines of looking at every man who was involved in a knife incident involving a female.

For all I know, Trevor, the knife threat was utterly unknown to the police and never at any time featured in anyone's suspicions against Kosminski. In fact, for all I know it never even happened. That reference was made by a private individual to the doctor who was responsible for committing Aaron and is not known to have featured at all in police thinking.

But even if the reference was a single line in an occurrence book, what difference does that make? If it was the reason why the police investigated, the police still investigated.

There were many such incidents at the time of the murders some are recorded bui i guess through enqs all were eliminated. If Kosminski didnt surafce until 1891 it would have been almost impossible to totally rule him out because firstly he was mad and secondly how would he know or anyone else for that matter where he was or what he was doing three years previous at the time of the murders.

Why don't you ask Robert Anderson or Donald Swanson? Let's face it, Trevor, you are no cleverer than they were and if obvious questions occur to you, why do you suppose those same questions didn't occur to them - and were answered by them?

[Supe]

Trevor,

Had you only read my article about the bloodhounds in the latest issue of the New Independent Review you might not have blustered so much. Then again, it could be innate.

As to the question of photographing the eyes, it was a popular misconception of the time and as such the police -- properly -- sought medical advice. At the Chapman inquest, in response to a question about retina prints, George Bagster Phillips replied: I have no particular opinion upon that point myself. I was asked about it very early in the inquiry, and I gave my opinion that the operation would be useless, especially in this case.

The police did not pursue that line of inquiry afterward. Phillips also opined about the uselessness of bloodhounds, but from ignorance, and after the hounds were secured he was present at the Hyde Park trials of Burgho and Barnaby, possibly to educate himself on the subject.

Moreover, bloodhounds do have amazing abilities and the problem with the Kelly murder would not have been contamination within Miller's Court (that was well controlled), but crowd control once they emerged into Dorset Street.

In any case, it was a vain hope since the bloodhounds had long since been sent back to Yorkshire, as had the hound hired by the Central News Agency been returned. But do yourself a favor, buy the magazine and learn a whole lot more.

Don.

[Tom_Wescott]

Project Turdburger: Extreme Edition

You seem to feel Ive contributed nothing to the discussions, some would disagree,

Nobody disagrees with me, Mike. Your record speaks for itself. Sure, a tiny handful are polite to you. But that's all.

but at least Ive not wasted anyones time publishing essays that answer no questions but instead accuse or "exonerate" people who, it would seem at this point in time, were and are quite innocent of any Canonical murder.

My essays answer questions, Mike. Often questions no one has thought to ask yet. Your ignorance of the fact that numerous authors accused and in some cases even "convicted" Michael Kidney of the murder Stride, I feel, displays your level of knowledge and what you bring to our discussions of the case, which is merely annoying distraction. And no, I don't just speak for myself when I say that. But you are correct in that Kidney can now be universally accepted as innocent of the crime of Stride's murder. You're welcome.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Trevor Marriott]

I am not relying on it being Gospel. I am saying that there exists a source in which a senior and informed policeman expresses his belief that Druitt was the murderer, but that we don’t know and therefore can’t assess the evidence on which that belief was based.



Fair questions, but irrelevant. The fact is that Macnaghten did believe Druitt was Jack the Ripper and he did mention the other two.



Yep. But Macnaghten chose not to expand, probably because such as expansion was inappropriate in a report primarily intended to refute a newspaper's allegations against Cutbush, and because there was no point in expanding on three men whose identities would never be publicly revealed anyway.



No. The purpose of the report was to refute allegations against Cutbush, not to argue the merits of one or more preferred suspects.



Now you are just being silly, Trevor.



The trouble with you, Trevor, is that either you don't listen, you don't understand, or you are working an agenda of your own in which reality doesn't matter. You see, to use an analogy of your own. if a landlady had advanced one of these men as a suspect then the police would have investigated and paperwork would have been generated. It would have been put in a file and stored among the case papers. I have seen and been through more than enough case papers to know how the system works, Trevor.

So there would have been files.

And files HAVE gone missing. We know they have. We know people who have seen them In some cases we have copies of what they contained.

Reason dictates that if Druitt, Kosminski, Ostrog, and so on were investigated then papers would have been generated, there would have been files, and since those files no longer exist it follows that they either never existed at all (which is highly unlikely; Ostrog was a career criminal and there can be no doubt that case papers existed about him), or they have gone missing.

Now, and this is the crucial point, I a not and never have said that information about Druitt, Kosminski, Ostrog, and so on, was in missing files. Do you understand? I haven't said that. You, however, have said that it wasn't. You have said such information never existed.



And here you are pretty much saying it.

The only old chestnut that's wearing a bit thin is your argument that no information existed about Druitt and Co. and it is growing thin simply because you don't have the remotest idea what was or was not in those missing files, yet based on that ignorance you feel able to say that they did not contain info about Druitt and Co. Not only do you lack any evidence for that conclusion, it's a conclusion that flies in the face of reason.

And you have no evidence that specific files on these did exist for all you know the entries relating to Kosminski and his sister as an example could have been nothing more than a one line entry in an occurence book which someone has noticed and the mindset of the police at that time was along the lines of looking at every man who was involved in a knife incident involving a female.

There were many such incidents at the time of the murders some are recorded bui i guess through enqs all were eliminated. If Kosminski didnt surafce until 1891 it would have been almost impossible to totally rule him out because firstly he was mad and secondly how would he know or anyone else for that matter where he was or what he was doing three years previous at the time of the murders.