was her killer really a local

[Wickerman]

It would seem that he was spotted a few days later and when the witness moved towards him he fled. A Policeman was told about it and stated that "they were looking for someone quite different" than this ragamuffin man.

Yes, they were looking for Astrachan.

There is a follow up report which reads somewhat ambiguous.

The Evening News reporter asked the police about this incident and was given a curious explanation:
"(the blotchy character)...is a respectable citizen, and that he was, as a matter of fact, acting in concert with them.."

Given that the police were known to put reporters off by telling them untruths, we might wonder what was behind this rather strange response.

The police simply did not wish any publicity on the matter.

Courtesy of George Hutchinson. One wonders if Hutch hadnt stepped in with his 2 cents whether they might have apprehended and questioned that man who fled....the last man to be seen with Mary Kelly alive.

They had tried to locate anyone who had seen him on the night of the 8th, no-one had seen him in any pub, so they appeared to be at a dead end at that point.

[Wickerman]

Ok thanks wicker
So you have given up then on A-man being the Britannia/bethnel green man theory?

Yes, in my opinion, though the timing is tight, it seems to me A-man is in the clear, he left minutes after Hutchinson. but, the Britannia-man is still at the corner of Commercial St.
He was there at 2:30 (Lewis), and still there at "about 3:00" (Kennedy).

So then you have Mary Kelly taking three men home that night? Blotchy, Aman and Britannia/bethnel green man? Wow busy girl.

Two for sure, the third is a suggestion.
I mean, as opposed to her staying in after A-man, and her killer being someone who broke in and killed her.

re Blotchy:
I simply don't believe hutches Aman story and "witness" "Kennedy" is too much of a nebulous character to me to put any weight on.

Ok. but the problem with both is that we just have no further information on either of them. Which does not mean they did not exist, in fact Joseph Isaacs is the best candidate for A-man, and the Astrachan coat was associated with him for some reason.

"Mrs Kennedy", may, or may not, have been her real name. In her story of the Wednesday sighting she admits to possibly soliciting.
Apparently, both women (on Wednesday) attempted to coerce Bethnal Green/Britannia-man into buying them both a drink. Not something a woman would do unless she knew the man well enough, or was attempting to engage the man in some way or other.

So IMHO, Blotchy, whos description seems more of the average joe/white chapel male (by a most reliable witness )is the most likely last man seen with Mary Kelly and therefore her killer and JtR.

Indeed, but whether she was a "reliable" witness is to some degree tempered by the fact the police could not locate any establishment where Blotchy was seen, with or without a drink in his hand.

Something may be wrong with Cox's story.

[Michael W Richards]

If the killer was a "Blotchy" type character, who saw him everywhere else?

It would seem that he was spotted a few days later and when the witness moved towards him he fled. A Policeman was told about it and stated that "they were looking for someone quite different" than this ragamuffin man.

Courtesy of George Hutchinson. One wonders if Hutch hadnt stepped in with his 2 cents whether they might have apprehended and questioned that man who fled....the last man to be seen with Mary Kelly alive.

Cheers

[Abby Normal]

No-one has anything concrete, do they?

I class him as a Person of Interest, for the obvious reason we, today, know nothing about him except that he was there. That in itself makes him a suspicious character.

Other specific suspects? Do you mean like Kosminski?
He was never a suspect, read Anderson, he'll tell you himself, they suspected no-one at the time of the murders. Kosminski is an afterthought.

If you don't mean Koz, then I'm not sure who you mean.

Why "well-dressed"? - well, that is how they are described, more often than not, in Hanbury St., in Berner St., in Dorset St. even in Duke St. that suspect is not exactly your typical "dosser".
I'm just not so sure about the Berner St. victim.

If the killer was a "Blotchy" type character, who saw him everywhere else?

Ok thanks wicker
So you have given up then on A-man being the Britannia/bethnel green man theory?
So then you have Mary Kelly taking three men home that night? Blotchy, Aman and Britannia/bethnel green man? Wow busy girl.

re Blotchy:
I simply don't believe hutches Aman story and "witness" "Kennedy" is too much of a nebulous character to me to put any weight on.
So IMHO, Blotchy, whos description seems more of the average joe/white chapel male (by a most reliable witness )is the most likely last man seen with Mary Kelly and therefore her killer and JtR.

[RivkahChaya]

reev-kah chai-yah? The latter like the tee and yes in German?

No. The "ch" in "Chaya" is a glottal fricative. It's a sound that doesn't exist in English, so most Americans just say it like an "H." Hardly anyone ever uses my middle name. It gets used when I'm called to Torah, and then it gets pronounced correctly, my aunt uses it, and sometimes people who know another Rivkah use it to differentiate. Those are generally Jews who know how it's pronounced (it comes from the Hebrew word for "life," so it's like being named Vivien). The second syllable is sort of pronounced like the German word for yes, but not quite that emphatically. The first syllable is the one that's stressed.

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

An attempt

reev-kah chai-yah? The latter like the tee and yes in German?

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Thanks.

That helps somewhat. Which way is the way you wish people would say it to you?

[RivkahChaya]

Not an unreasonable line of thinking at all. Also, how is your name pronounced? Tired of guessing at it when I read it. Starting to bother my OCD.

Well, it depends, really. "Rivkah" is my actual first name, which varies in pronunciation, depending on where you are and where you are from. If you are calling me to Torah, or are a native Israeli, than it's usually "reev-KAH." People who are Yiddish speakers say it more like "RIF-keh." Most Americans pronounce it "RIV-ka."

Chaya is my middle name, which my parents hadn't the sense to spell "Haya." Most people say it sort of like "HIGH-yuh." The "ch" is a glottal fricative that doesn't even exist in English. However, if you know how the word Hanukkah/Chanukah is actually pronounced, it's the same first letter.

A detail often lost in the foggy mists of vague details latched upon by many who question the concept.

Yes. I suspect even members of the royal family didn't go out on an ordinary evening dripping jewelry.

"Well-dressed" may simply have meant that his clothes were new and unpatched, fit well as though they were tailored, or at least altered for him, and matched, and perhaps his trousers had creases, and his shoes were polished. When pretty much all you do is work and sleep, you don't get to polish your shoes or iron your clothes, so he either had free time, a wife who didn't have to work full-time, or at the very least, could afford to give the landlady he rented a room from a couple of extra pennies a week to do things like iron his clothes. If his clothes were very clean, then he owned more than just what he was wearing, which wasn't the case for a great many people in the East End.

I'm sure there were some people like that. McCarthy, for example, may have been much better dressed than the people he spent most of his time around, and I'm sure Abberline was as well. W. Somerset Maugham spent a lot of time in the East End when he first became a doctor, and he was probably well-dressed relative to his patients. I'd guess a lot of the news reporters writing about the Ripper were better dressed than the dossers.

[Wickerman]

The "well-dressed" description has to be taken in context. He was probably just well-dressed for the area, and wouldn't be described that way in Belgravia.

A detail often lost in the foggy mists of vague details latched upon by many who question the concept.

[Wickerman]

Hi wicker
Thanks.
Why have you latched onto such an ambiguous "suspect" then for jack the ripper? I don't understand how you can argue so passionately (and with such detail and research)for this ,and against other more specific suspects, when you don't have anything really more concrete than a well dressed suspect?
Why a well dressed ripper , wick why!?!

No-one has anything concrete, do they?

I class him as a Person of Interest, for the obvious reason we, today, know nothing about him except that he was there. That in itself makes him a suspicious character.

Other specific suspects? Do you mean like Kosminski?
He was never a suspect, read Anderson, he'll tell you himself, they suspected no-one at the time of the murders. Kosminski is an afterthought.

If you don't mean Koz, then I'm not sure who you mean.

Why "well-dressed"? - well, that is how they are described, more often than not, in Hanbury St., in Berner St., in Dorset St. even in Duke St. that suspect is not exactly your typical "dosser".
I'm just not so sure about the Berner St. victim.

If the killer was a "Blotchy" type character, who saw him everywhere else?

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Thanks RC

The "well-dressed" description has to be taken in context. He was probably just well-dressed for the area, and wouldn't be described that way in Belgravia.

Not an unreasonable line of thinking at all. Also, how is your name pronounced? Tired of guessing at it when I read it. Starting to bother my OCD.

[Abby Normal]

Hi wicker
Thanks.
Why have you latched onto such an ambiguous "suspect" then for jack the ripper? I don't understand how you can argue so passionately (and with such detail and research)for this ,and against other more specific suspects, when you don't have anything really more concrete than a well dressed suspect?
Why a well dressed ripper , wick why!?!

Bumping for wicker

[RivkahChaya]

Ignorant of the culture? Perhaps intimate instead. Possibly the killer knew where to avoid and had certain areas he hunted in. Also a big sharp knife and maybe a real nasty streak in him. Perhaps she was known to him but not the other way around. Why would she bring him back to her place? Alcohol money and rain pop in my head rather quickly. If he was in some way familiar with her he might have felt quite safe in her room. Maybe he also cared less about the risk and more that he wanted to kill her. If it was the same perpetrator as the previous murders, he had been acting with almost impunity.

That, plus he, and others like him, were the reason such areas were dangerous. The knife he carried to murder women could also be used defensively if he were mugged. Or for all we know, offensively to mug other men, or to cut purses or wallet pockets. Most serial killers who have been caught turned out to earn their livings honesty, but not all of them did, and we don't know about the ones who were never caught. Thieves can be more transient than people with steady jobs, so it's at least possible that uncaught killers may have on the whole earned their livings dishonestly-- or at least in much greater numbers than the ones who were caught.

The "well-dressed" description has to be taken in context. He was probably just well-dressed for the area, and wouldn't be described that way in Belgravia.

[Abby Normal]

No name, though the police may have had it and not realized.

There appears to be a slender thread concerning someone who may be this same person.

Paumier mentions a man who accosted some women on the Thursday night (8th), and then in the press on the 10th (below) we read of a similar man being handed over to police on a similar charge.
No doubt the police had to get a name from him.

A man was arrested last night in Whitechapel on suspicion of having committed the Dorset-street crime. He was pointed out to the police by some women as a man who had accosted them on Thursday night and whose movements excited suspicion. He was taken to Commercial-street police-station, followed by an immense crowd.
The Northern Echo, 10 Nov. 1888.

We have to wonder how many similarly dressed men were accosting groups of women (recall Lewis & Kennedy?), in the same area, on the same night, and on successive nights.

Hi wicker
Thanks.
Why have you latched onto such an ambiguous "suspect" then for jack the ripper? I don't understand how you can argue so passionately (and with such detail and research)for this ,and against other more specific suspects, when you don't have anything really more concrete than a well dressed suspect?
Why a well dressed ripper , wick why!?!

[Ben]

"Mrs. Kennedy" was not a genuine witness, but rather a women who had learned about Sarah Lewis' evidence and attempted to pass it off as her own experience, which is why her account is suspiciously near-identical to that of Lewis. Fortunately, both police and press cottoned on to this, and she was promptly discredited, hence her non-appearance at the inquest. Had she been a genuine, non-plagiarizing witness, her claim to have seen a man talking to Mary Kelly at 3.00am would have been extremely significant and she would have been the most crucial inquest witness.

But that didn't happen.

Britannia man was mentioned by Sarah Lewis, and there is not the slightest suggestion that the woman she saw talking to him was Mary Kelly. Indeed, we can be pretty confident that it was not.

As for Astrakhan man, it is even less likely that he'd dress up in his finery and bling if he was local to the area, since a local would know full well what a bad area it was for both petty and serious crime, and that there were inevitable consequences to be expected for those imprudent enough or insane enough to advertise their wealth in such an area.

While there may have been a few tall tales doing the rounds involving well-dressed men with black bags and shiny top hats, there is very little reason to take them seriously, especially as most of them appeared only in the early pre-inquest press reports and amounted to second hand hearsay or worse. If some of these were similar, it was only because certain sensationalist perceptions of the ripper's appearance were popular at the time, and a posh, upper-class ripper was - and is! - so much more interesting than the likely reality that he was an impoverished, relatively shabby local. Hence, this image was pandered to by those who wanted to sell bogus "ripper encounters" to the press.