Did Jack only kill 3?

[John Bennett]

The police were naive in 1888 and people are giving them to much credit that is clearly evident by the fact that they thought they could obtain a picture of the killer by photogrpahing a victims eyes.

I don't think 'naive' is the word we should be bandying about here - this is 124 years ago; if you'd been a police officer then, who knows, you may have thought that was quite a good idea?

Although I believe many procedures/rules of law are effectively the same as they were in 1888, I doubt that anybody involved then has the mindset of today's police force.

[Jon Guy]

Hi Trevor

Maybe, but not as naive as the 1970`s Yorkshire Police who shifted the whole Yorkshire Ripper investigation off the back of a cassette tape, or was it the Met who didn`t follow up on rapist and murderer Robert Knapper

[Michael W Richards]

After catching up on the posts since my last Ive read the discussions about a few "suspects" for the Ripper crimes, none of which have any physical evidence linking them or suggesting their involvement in any one of the Canonical deaths. Suggestion someone is a likely candidate in a contemporary memo is, and was, meaningless without the evidence to back it up. See Ostrog and Warrens memo of mid October where he offers General Millen as the Ripper suspect. Suggesting someone who had a known mental deficiency and a violent temper is also meaningless for the same reason, and suggesting someone who was known to be rough with women is meaningless, unless of course there is evidence linking it with a Canonical death. Lots of men carried knives at the time, so, another insignificant characteristic.

I believe the study of these cases is more than merely identifying ill tempered men in Whitechapel during the late 1880's, or simply accepting the guesses of investigators, some of whom were not even part of the investigation in the Fall of 88, and from some sources we can see clearly should be taken with a grain of salt.

Was there a "Ripper" in Whitechapel in the Fall of 1888? Yes. That nickname is applicable to the murderer who killed some of the women in the Whitechapel Murder file. Some women were killed without apparent motive and then cut and splayed wide open open, some right on the street. The killing portion is obviously not the distinguishing characteristic, clearly, the acts that took place on Bucks Row, in the yard at Hanbury, in Mitre Square, and in Millers Court were horrific. They required some knowledge of anatomy and some skill with a sharp knife. Can we therefore say that these 4 murders should be grouped under one killer? Not credibly.

Because within that group are 3 middle aged women without having paid for a bed the night they are killed and 2 are seemingly attempting to earn their doss by prostitution,.... and one is in her mid twenties, and in her own bed and room, undressed, when she is killed. That factor alone should prevent the 5th murder from automatic assignment to the 5. Within the remaining 3 are there enough indicators to suggest that they may have been the work of the same man? Maybe.

Kate Eddowes murder is the only Canonical death that can be said to have similar characteristics to the murder of Polly and Annie, however, there are circumstantial questions, contrary physical evidence, and some questions as to the skill and knowledge required to accomplish what was done to her.

For me thats the baseline... after all this time. No one man to connect with any Canonical crime, some similar murders, and a plethora of bad guys, political intrigue and secret police in the mix.

Best regards,

Mike R

[Monty]

The police were naive in 1888 and people are giving them to much credit that is clearly evident by the fact that they thought they could obtain a picture of the killer by photogrpahing a victims eyes.

By the fact that someone committed suicide shortly after the death of mary and therfore their mindset was that, that person could have been the killer.

Or that Bloodhounds could be used to folow a scent many hours after the criminal had left the scene of the crime when half of Whitechapel had been marchging around Millers court.

By the fact that they went out on a limb sugesting the killer lived and worked in Whitechapel

By publishing samples of handwriting

By not stopping to think that could a killer really kill an mutilate someone remove a uterus and a kidney all in 5 minutes.

God knows how their thought processes worked as far as assesing the viabilty of suspects worked, and now the likes of Anderson and Swanson and MM have been put on a pedestal as people we should belive without question.

Tosh, what absolute tosh.

Firstly, its a myth that the Police did, or even contemplated photographing the eyes. I wish people will adhere to the facts, especially as they bang on about them all the time.

The suspicion of a person as the murderer after they have committed suicide is nothing new, and goes on today. Its called investigation.

Medical opinion is of the mind that murdering, mutilating and organ removal is possible within 5 minutes and noted, numerous times.


The constant misleading, ill informed statement bring into question the knowledge of those making said statements. How can one pass themselves of as an expert when they do not know what the hell they are talking about?

The ignorance just oozes.

Monty

[Trevor Marriott]

After catching up on the posts since my last Ive read the discussions about a few "suspects" for the Ripper crimes, none of which have any physical evidence linking them or suggesting their involvement in any one of the Canonical deaths. Suggestion someone is a likely candidate in a contemporary memo is, and was, meaningless without the evidence to back it up. See Ostrog and Warrens memo of mid October where he offers General Millen as the Ripper suspect. Suggesting someone who had a known mental deficiency and a violent temper is also meaningless for the same reason, and suggesting someone who was known to be rough with women is meaningless, unless of course there is evidence linking it with a Canonical death. Lots of men carried knives at the time, so, another insignificant characteristic.

I believe the study of these cases is more than merely identifying ill tempered men in Whitechapel during the late 1880's, or simply accepting the guesses of investigators, some of whom were not even part of the investigation in the Fall of 88, and from some sources we can see clearly should be taken with a grain of salt.

Was there a "Ripper" in Whitechapel in the Fall of 1888? Yes. That nickname is applicable to the murderer who killed some of the women in the Whitechapel Murder file. Some women were killed without apparent motive and then cut and splayed wide open open, some right on the street. The killing portion is obviously not the distinguishing characteristic, clearly, the acts that took place on Bucks Row, in the yard at Hanbury, in Mitre Square, and in Millers Court were horrific. They required some knowledge of anatomy and some skill with a sharp knife. Can we therefore say that these 4 murders should be grouped under one killer? Not credibly.

Because within that group are 3 middle aged women without having paid for a bed the night they are killed and 2 are seemingly attempting to earn their doss by prostitution,.... and one is in her mid twenties, and in her own bed and room, undressed, when she is killed. That factor alone should prevent the 5th murder from automatic assignment to the 5. Within the remaining 3 are there enough indicators to suggest that they may have been the work of the same man? Maybe.

Kate Eddowes murder is the only Canonical death that can be said to have similar characteristics to the murder of Polly and Annie, however, there are circumstantial questions, contrary physical evidence, and some questions as to the skill and knowledge required to accomplish what was done to her.

For me thats the baseline... after all this time. No one man to connect with any Canonical crime, some similar murders, and a plethora of bad guys, political intrigue and secret police in the mix.

Best regards,

Mike R

Excellent post I hope you are wearing your tin hat

[Michael W Richards]

And just a note for Tom since he snidely keeps posting tripe....you have no idea how much Ive read on the topic and period, what experts I've discussed it with, to what lengths Ive gone to find data, or what all Ive discovered as a result.

Some like to study, and some like to jump to conclusions before the proof is found and write stories about their opinions. You seem to feel Ive contributed nothing to the discussions, some would disagree, 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.

Because they are innocent until Proven Guilty...thats the part you seem to slide past in your stories.

Cheers,

Mike R

[Trevor Marriott]

Tosh, what absolute tosh.

Firstly, its a myth that the Police did, or even contemplated photographing the eyes. I wish people will adhere to the facts, especially as they bang on about them all the time.

Well perhaps you would care to tell where it did eminate from then

The suspicion of a person as the murderer after they have committed suicide is nothing new, and goes on today. Its called investigation.

So every person who commits suicide is a potential murderer. I think first you have to have some proof or evidence to work on some links to the victims some background. The antecedents backgrounds of Druitt and the victims could never be more apart. Besides where is the evidence to show that the police suspected Druitt other than the unreliable MM.

Medical opinion is of the mind that murdering, mutilating and organ removal is possible within 5 minutes and noted, numerous times.

Well that has been proved to be wrong !

The constant misleading, ill informed statement brings into question the knowledge of those making said statements. How can one pass themselves of as an expert when they do not know what the hell they are talking about?

The ignorance just oozes.

Monty

You only want to answer what it suits you to answer. I am still waiting for you to tell me the source for Kosminski attacking his sister with a knife which you were asked to disclose yesterday. or are you not able to do that because you did raise that matter did you not ?

[PaulB]

The MM is unreliable and unsafe so you cannot rely on that as being gospel.

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.

If MM thought Druitt were the murderer why did he not just refer to him why mention the others, by doing so he was weakening the case against the others mentioned who now have been elevated to prime suspect status, in fact more so that Druitt in most people eyes.

If those other names in The MM are the best he could come up based on 6 years investiagtive work by the police, and bearing in mind he does not give any reasons why he names them as "likley" Where did he pluck those names from ?

I am sure he didnt have different people personally give him information over a 6 year period.

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

If there ever was anyhting specific about Kosminski and Druitt and Ostrogg it would have been recorded and filed and would have contained enough detail for MM to expand on those likley suspects in 1894 he wrote the MM.

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.

The writing of The MM was to negate what the papers were saying about Cutbush. Surely if he was suggesting there were other preferred suspects why not disclose what those grounds were that would have been the ideal opportunity to row Cutbush out of it which was his intention.

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

Does that not show to you the fact that the police did not have a real clue. I think you need to take a step back and re asses all the facts surrounding this case right through till 1895 because clearly you are focusing solely on the MM and the marginalia and those two issues are clouding your judgement.

Now you are just being silly, Trevor.

You still hide behind these beliefs that these officers must have known more than they disclosed. Its a cop out its like the old chestnut of lost stolen or destroyed files. I am afraid that excuse cuts no ice with me and is wearing thin now.

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.

If there was nothing there in the first instance it couldnt have gone missing or been stolen or destroyed.

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.

[Errata]

I think there is a difference believing that the Police were under erroneous assumptions because they were incompetent, and believing that they were under erroneous assumptions because there is no possible way they could know what we know now. There is obviously great debate about whether or not Jack was a serial killer, if Jack existed at all. Perfectly valid and necessary questions. But the Police were functioning under the assumption that they had a serial killer. If that assumption was wrong, any conclusion they come to as far as suspects is also likely to be wrong. The Police at the time were also functioning under some very wrong assumptions about the nature of insanity. A belief that a literal raving lunatic was the only person who could commit such murders skews any investigation pretty far away from the truth. Kosminski is a perfect example. Obviously I can't swear he didn't do it, but people as poorly functioning as Kosminski are almost never serial killers. One-offs, sure. But someone as ill as Kosminski is as crippled as a blind man. A blind man can certainly kill, but hunting the alleys of Whitechapel and mutilating women without being noticed is probably outside the realm of probability.

If the Police were looking for a serial killer, one responsible for four to six murders, then naturally anyone with an alibi for one of those murders gets excluded. And we don't know what suspect was excluded for what murders. If a man had an alibi for Liz Stride's murder, he could easily have committed the other murders. But if the police were functioning under the assumption that all of the C5 were killed by the same man, he would be excluded. Hutchinson was engaging in what anyone today would consider suspicious behavior in watching Mary Kelly's place. And as he wasn't seen, he had no alibi for that span of time. He apparently was not considered a suspect in her death. A reasonable conclusion is that it is because the police assumed that Kelly's murder was one in a series, and he had alibis for one or more previous murders. But if a serial killer didn't kill Mary Kelly, then Hutch is back on the hook as a suspect.

If we question the number of women killed by one man, we have to necessarily question Police assumptions in the case. If they built their cases against certain suspects on a foundation of flawed assumptions, we have to question their conclusions. It's not that they were dumb. But we have almost 150 years of behavioral analysis, statistics, and forensic science on them. Why wouldn't we use it?

[Monty]

Whoa Trev,

Am I getting paid to do your research?

Others may jump at your every command, not I.

I'll give you a clue or two.

Crippen and a local GP.

Think you can figure it out from that? Or do you need help...again.


Monty


PS, your 'experts' gave opinion, not proof. Again, misleading.

[Trevor Marriott]

Whoa Trev,

Am I getting paid to do your research?

Others may jump at your every command, not I.

I'll give you a clue or two.

Crippen and a local GP.

Think you can figure it out from that? Or do you need help...again.


Monty


PS, your 'experts' gave opinion, not proof. Again, misleading.

Well it is is par for the course then it seems as if you and everyone else in your merry band wants to rely heavily on opinions of senior officers to prop up suspects why not my medical experts opinions ?

[Debra A]

Well it is is par for the course then it seems as if you and everyone else in your merry band wants to rely heavily on opinions of senior officers to prop up suspects why not my medical experts opinions ?

Why can't you just accept that several of us appear to disagree with your methods and conclusions, Trevor? Why do we have to be a 'merry band' or some sort of gang? I'm an individual with my own opinions (despite being a mere woman)
I don't rely heavily on the opinions of the coppers but I refuse to outright dismiss them or their suspects as you and Phil keep stamping your feet for us to do.
You obviously view things through pox tainted testicles old chestnut. I think Phil's right and the gravy train should start chucking people off...Casa Marriott first stop I reckon.

[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.

[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

[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.