"No one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer" - Macnaghten

[Darian1952]

I agree. If we look at Jack as a modern day serial killer, he wouldn't be a drooling, raving lunatic, wandering the streets eating out of the gutter. In all likelihood, he was average, came across as average and was probably employed. In this day and age, we get the usual, "He was a quiet man, kept to himself, helped neighbours out when asked and would help kids fix their bikes."

If nothing else in 30 years as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, I learned one thing; criminals of any sort want anonymity. Jack would be exceedingly cautious. His eyes in all likelihood would dart about looking for any potential witnesses and particular, police officers. If he felt that anyone could identify him at a later date, he wouldn't go through with the crime.

P.C. Smith, Lawende, Marshall, Schwartz, et al, did not see Jack. They saw someone, but not him. Whomever P.C. Smith saw, that individual saw Smith, guaranteed. You don't murder someone within minutes of yelling out, "Lipski!" and drawing attention to yourself or any other such nonsense.

I personally believe Macnaghten knew this too. It's not that he wasn't aware of "witnesses" at the date of his memornadum, he honestly believed that no one in fact did see him.

With all due respect,
DM

[Monty]

Pretty confident statement there Darian,

Wasn't a spectre, someone saw him. Quite a few people I'd wager.

Monty

[Jonathan H]

But the police did think there was a key witness!

To Darian52

This is the danger of quoting from a source, but not providing its context; in which various factors are pushing and pulling in different directions.

The quote about no witnesses is from an internal document by Macnaghten which he never sent to the Home Office, and which does not enter the extant record [I]until 1966.

It had no impact internally or externally, in its own time.

It is a 'Report' which seeks to give the quite false impression that the 'police' knew at the time that Kelly was the last victim, and that the person who killed her obviously could no longer function as a normal person.

Even the abnormal Cutbush still functioned too well, for too long, to be her killer -- or so claims Macnaghten. Whereas M. J. Druitt had killed himself perhaps the same night, and 'Kosminski' and Michael Ostrog, both allegedly violent madmen, had been sectioned soon afterwards.

Most of the above is actually a discreet, deflective mixture of fact and fiction.

What Macnaghten was careful not to reveal was that a Whitechapel witness, almost certainly Joseph Lawende, had been used to look over Tom Sadler the possible murderer of Frances Coles, and perhaps the Ripper too. To mention him would be to expose the fact that Scotland Yard were not certain -- as late as 1891 -- that 'Jack' had ceased.

In the quite different, alternate version of this document Macnaghten introduced the claim that a beat cop did see a man who resembled the Polish Jew suspect with the fourth victim (thus introducing all the ingredients of the later 'Seaside Home' mythos: a Seaman replaced by a Jewish suspect, a Jewish witness who said no, and a police presence with the suspect).

This notion that there was one very good witness -- a policeman no less -- was disseminated to the public on behalf of Macnaghten by Major Griffiths and George Sims. The latter further claimed, in 1907, that the alleged policeman witness had later seen the Polish suspect and thought there was some resemblance, but not great enough for an arrest.

In his own 1914 memoirs, Macnaghten now claimed that the beat cop might have seen the killer, but his description was not at all satisfying. In effect, he mothballed a tale he had created.

So what does all that mean?

Macnaghten perceived that Lawende had sighted Montague Druitt chatting smoothly with a victim, and the police chief was careful how to to play this bit of data -- depending on the intended audience.

Macnaghten was prepared to put on file that Druitt was a minor suspect should the tale of the surgeon's son resurface in Dorset and thus Scotland Yard could assert that they -- at least -- knew about him. But he did not want Lawende's sighting of Druitt with Eddowes to be preserved, officially, because that would expose them to the charge that the killer had got away in 1888 (in fact, Mac had never heard of Druitt until 1891).

Better to say there were no witnesses at all.

But with literary cronies, ones with a better sense and memory of the case than Liberal politicians -- and who might recall that one key witness was used by police as late as 1891, and maybe even 1895 -- it was better to parachute 'Kosminski' into the Eddowes sighting and then make the witness a cop, a neat inversion of the true ethnicity of the witness and suspect.

Is all that a fact?

No, it's an interpretation of limited, incomplete and contradictory sources.

Sir Melville Macnaghten is a very enigmatic source -- a sly charmer even deceased for 89 years -- and thus capable of multiple interpretations due to the suggestive, contradictory sources he created, and which were written about him, and those written, anonymously, on his behalf.

As John Updike wrote about President Reagan, Mac was like God: you could never be sure if he knew everything, or nothing ...?

[Darian1952]

Pretty confident statement there Darian,

Wasn't a spectre, someone saw him. Quite a few people I'd wager.

Monty

There's no doubt it's "possible". I'm basing my statement on actual experience more than anything.

[Darian1952]

I think when you only post once every four years >>

You get demoted. I went from Sargeant to Cadet!

[curious]

There's no doubt it's "possible". I'm basing my statement on actual experience more than anything.

I believe what you are saying that the killer would not have killed had anyone seen him with a victim?

So, are you envisioning a lurker, a stalker, hiding in the shadows, who quickly slid into place when the man last seen with a victim departed?

curious

[K-453]

If he felt that anyone could identify him at a later date, he wouldn't go through with the crime.

Exactly this is the problem I have with Lavende's sailor.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=6122

[Bridewell]

This was, as it is now, an inner-city area where there is street activity around the clock to a greater or lesser degree. Dozens of people must have seen JtR. They just didn't realise who he was.

Logically, MacNaghten's "Nobody ever saw the Whitechapel Murderer" statement is probably intended to mean, "Nobody ever saw the Whitechapel Murderer in circumstances which left no doubt that he was that individual", i.e. Nobody ever caught him in the act.
Even then, it can only be taken as an indication that nobody came forward who had done so. It's possible that someone saw him and kept quiet about it for some reason.

Yours aye, Bridewell.

[Wickerman]

I believe what you are saying that the killer would not have killed had anyone seen him with a victim?

So, are you envisioning a lurker, a stalker, hiding in the shadows, who quickly slid into place when the man last seen with a victim departed?

curious

Society was different then, and expectations were less keen. So long as the suspect was not drawing attention to himself with the woman, any passers-by will likely not remember him, or not interfere.
Concern was more for 'that moment in time', which is not the same as today. On that basis I wouldn't rule out Lawende's suspect.

I only have doubts about Lawende's sighting because he did not identify Eddowes body as the woman he saw, he never saw her face. On that basis alone there must always remain a large degree of doubt that this was the killer.

Regards, Jon S.

[DVV]

You don't murder someone within minutes of yelling out, "Lipski!" and drawing attention to yourself or any other such nonsense.
DM

Another nonsense would have been to let Stride alive. Of course, the assault witnessed by Schwartz wouldn't prove he was JTR. But Schwartz escape does not necessarily means Schwartz was an absolute coward, it also indicates something very violent, something unusual, was going on.
I believe BSM was JTR, out to kill that night, and I wouldn't be surprised if such a man had felt almost as if "caught red-handed" when he realized Schwartz was there watching. Hence that quick murder, and escape.
Actually, everybody ran. Schwartz, Pipo, Jack.

[Cogidubnus]

Initially overwhelming

So BSM was JtR ryling out AK (wrong build) and MJD (too wiry)....OK...TTFN...

Cheers

Dave

[Heinrich]

Of course Jack the Ripper was seen by people; they just didn't know he was the killer. I have no doubt the police even interviewed Mary Kelly's murderer.

[lynn cates]

red-handed

Hello David. The only suspect caught red-handed was Aaron Kosminski. (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[DVV]

Hi Lynn. Does it work in French ? - "pris la main dans le sac".

[Bridewell]

Blimey!

Of course Jack the Ripper was seen by people; they just didn't know he was the killer. I have no doubt the police even interviewed Mary Kelly's murderer.

Blimey, Heinrich, we're in mortal danger of agreeing on this one!

I'm whole-heartedly with you on the first sentence. I think my version of the second would be "I wouldn't be surprised to learn the police even interviewed the murderer".

Regards, Bridewell.