Did a police officer see a ripper suspect, right after the 2nd of the double murders?

[Michael W Richards]

The murder of Kate Eddowes took place when almost every person in the immediate area was connected with the police...Pearce, Blenkinship, Watkins, Harvey, Marriott, Halse and Long.

I suspect she may have been used as bait, which would support the idea that some police were stationed to catch, or catch a glimpse of, any lone man leaving that area.

Cheers

[Rosella]

Yes, sorry John Watson, I knew White had died some months before the article appeared in the People's Journal in 1919. What I meant was if he had written the notes or sketch on which the article was based. That's a very big IF as far as I'm concerned, as I believe the article in the Journal was probably an imaginative piece by a journalist.

[Scott Nelson]

I think the story is a confusion of undocumented City Police testimony from PC James Harvey, who likely saw a man emerge from either St. James Place or, walking toward him east along Little Duke Street from Mitre Square.

[Damaso Marte]

I just read that old thread about the White "sighting" from 2009, and I must say the finest part was the suggestion, offered half-jokingly, that White may have been the Pipeman and was describing an encounter with Israel Schwartz.

Not that I believe in Pipemen, but that brought a smile to my face.

[Paddy]

EAST LONDON ADVERTISER
27 September 1919
DEATH OF FAMOUS EAST-END DETECTIVE.
OFFICER WHO JUST MISSED CATCHING THE MYSTERIOUS “JACK THE RIPPER.”

One of the smartest detectives the Metropolitan Police Force ever knew has passed away in exDetective-Inspector White who retired from the C.I.D. in 1900 after completing 27 years' service. After a few years he was promoted to a sergeant and was transferred from Kennington to Leman Street, Whitechapel.
There he made several important captures, among them being the arrest of the dynamitards, Cunningham and Burton, at the Tower of London at the time of the explosion there, for which service he was rewarded and commended by the Home Office.
In 1879 he discovered a Fenian arsenal in the New Cut, Lambeth, and captured the proprietor, who was sentenced to a long term of penal servitude.
His experience of murders, was perhaps unique. He was engaged on the whole of the Jack the Ripper crimes which caused such a grim sensation among East Enders. One night he was on what appeared to be a certain clue to the mysterious murderer of women in the Whitechapel region. He kept watch in an East End street, but the murderer's movements were not in accordance with anticipation. For about ten minutes only he left the street, and to his amazement he found on his return that a woman had been stabbed. He saw no man anywhere, and the mystery became even more baffling. As is well known, Jack the Ripper was never discovered.
Mr. White was also associated with the notorious case of Harry Alt, who murdered a German baker in Turner Street; Sullivan the St. George in the East murderer; Cronin the Limehouse assassin; Roman, who committed murder in Angel Court, Whitechapel; Seaman, who killed an aged Jew and his housekeeper in Turner Street; Karacrewski, the pole, who shot a man and woman dead in Brick Lane; and Kate Marshall, who killed her sister in Dorset Street, in the very house where the last Ripper murder was committed.
It is interesting to note that a son of his is a detective at the G. P. O. The funeral took place on Tuesday.

I agree with Steve and think it was Dutfields Yard and he was watching a suspect that lived near.
He also questioned Packer.

Pat

[Dr. John Watson]

White states (if it was White who wrote the article) '...altogether, the man was foreign.' Knowing what 'foreign' meant in the East End in those days, it's likely that White was hinting that the man he saw was Jewish.

Rosella: White did not write the article, unless he dictated it from the grave. The article attributes the entire story to an unidentified "Scotland Yard Man."

John

[Richard Patterson]

White states (if it was White who wrote the article) '...altogether, the man was foreign.' Knowing what 'foreign' meant in the East End in those days, it's likely that White was hinting that the man he saw was Jewish.

The area that White was in was the Jewish immigrant heartland of the East End. Many inhabitants there would have been foreign or resembled foreigners. What would have been foreign here would have been to have met a typical Englishman. When White described the man's voice, he did not say there was any accent, foreign, Jewish or otherwise. White's description of the voice seems to show it resembled the modulated tones of a cultured Englishman rather than an immigrant. Also if the man was indeed Jewish, why didn't White say he made a house-to-house search in the immediate area? Unless he knew that the man was 'foreign' to these parts, meaning having originated from outside the East End instead in racial/cultural sense to the general English population. This is concept is reinforced by White's who said, 'a voice altogether out of keeping with the squalid surroundings of the East End.'

Respectfully,

[Hatchett]

Hi,

It is a long time since I have read that, many years in fact, and I did find it interesting. Thanks for posting it.

Best wishes.

[Rosella]

White states (if it was White who wrote the article) '...altogether, the man was foreign.' Knowing what 'foreign' meant in the East End in those days, it's likely that White was hinting that the man he saw was Jewish.

[Richard Patterson]

Hi,

I dont think the description points to a homeless man who has been walking the streets. It is so vague that it could be applied to a host of people. There is nothing there that makes me think of Thompson.

Best wishes.

You every right to have this opinion.

Respectfully,

[Hatchett]

Hi,

I dont think the description points to a homeless man who has been walking the streets. It is so vague that it could be applied to a host of people. There is nothing there that makes me think of Thompson.

Best wishes.

[Richard Patterson]

If one believes the White story at all....Only Dutfield's Yard has the physical properties described AND a reason for Special Branch to be around........

It could have well been Dutfield’s Yard. This would not lesson the likelihood that White spoke with Francis Thompson. I accept that White may have been in Berner Street. It is supported by the fact that on October 30th 1888, this senior police officer, under direct orders from Sir Robert Anderson, was there was making enquirers door to door.

White may have encountered, moments after, and very near, a Ripper murder, a suspect that matches in appearance and manner, Francis Thompson. This match isn’t changed by which of the cluster of 5 murders White was discussing. This homeless East End poet, who walked the streets at night, is the same man who happens to be Casebook’s 12th most popular suspect. Regardless of whether Thompson, who could have easily have been walking the streets on each occasion, was the Ripper or not, this matching description suggests, at the very least, that White’s encounter was with an identifiable person and someone who was known to be in the East End. This alone strengthens the credibility of White’s report.

Respectfully,

[Dr. John Watson]

It should be remembered that the article mentioning White's sighting is attributed not to Sgt. White himself, but to "a Scotland Yard man," and was published after White's death in 1919. A to Z suggests that while the story "cannot be attached with certainty to anything known about the Ripper murders," there may well be some kernel of fact to it, and the alley description has been interpreted to fit Mitre Square, Berner St., or my favorite, Castle Alley!

John

[Steve S]

If one believes the White story at all....Only Dutfield's Yard has the physical properties described AND a reason for Special Branch to be around........

[Richard Patterson]

If I'm not mistaken, White's story concerns an encounter near the scene of "Clay Pipe Alice" McKenzie's slaying in Castle Alley. This matter has been discussed at length, I'm quite certain, and whether or not you believe White's claims, the alleyway he talks about is almost certainly Castle Alley, and the circumstances he describes of the officers on surveillance there fit with the actual situation the night she was murdered.

John

Thanks John,

David Bullock in his, “In The Man Who Would Be Jack: The Hunt for the Real Ripper”, that White was speaking about Alice Mackenzie ‘s murder. Bullock gains his information from an “Evening Star” report. This seems to incorrectly state that two detectives had been posted there to watch for the murderer, because White did not expressly tell he was with another detective. White attributed the murder on the night he encountered his suspect as another of the Rippers. Most experts disagree that the Ripper committed the Mackenzie murder. At her murder inquest Coroner Baxter told, ‘it is clearly an imitation of the other cases’. This supports the idea that it was a copycat murderer & not Jack the Ripper. Dr. Phillips told that that her injuries did not suggest the work of Jack the Ripper. Although James Monro, the Police Commissioner thought Mackenzie’s murder was ‘identical’ to the Jack the Ripper murders, he did not state it was the Ripper. Robert Anderson said, ‘the murder of Mackenzie was by another hand." Why would have White said the murderer was the work of the Ripper if he encountered his suspect on the night of Mackenzie’s death. It would be more likely not that of Mackenzie. A look on a map of the proximity of Eddowes’ murder with that Mackenzie, shows that White could may have well be describing either murder when he says he was situated behind Whitechapel Road.

Yours, Richard.