Yesterday channel Prime Suspect JtR documentary.

[Ozzy]

I'm sure many of you will know about it but it might be news to one or two of you.
I believe Mike has blogged it as well.

The documentary Prime Suspect: Jack the Ripper is on the Yesterday channel on Wednesday 7th March at 9:00 pm UK time.

http://uktv.co.uk/yesterday/item/aid...isplayVideo/hi

It's the one about Deeming. I first heard about it being made in the first half of 2011. I was wondering when we'd see it.

[PaulWilliams]

This was shown in Australia a few weeks ago. I didn't feel that it provided any worthwhile new material.

Deeming's conviction in Hull, under the name Lawson, in 1890 and alleged confessions to the Whitechapel murders, first the last two then all of them, following his arrest in Australia were both widely reported in the British Press in March and April 1892. As he was in jail at the time of Frances Coles' murder this would invalidate the confession had it been genuine. No official source, as far as I'm aware, has confirmed either confession and later newspapers discredited them.

As evidence of Deeming's presence in London in 1888 the documentary cited the statement of the dressmaker who said that she was with him, under the name Lawson, on the night of the double event and then the following day. What the documentary didn't say was that several other people came forward following Deeming's arrest in Australia to report sightings of him in the late 1880s. Under various aliases he was accused of fraud and/or theft in Bedford, Bradford, Cardiff, Galshields, South Africa, Sydney and other places. He allegedly had a fight with his wife at a Cheltenham hotel and committed bigamy in New Zealand. In terms of connections to the Ripper murders he apparently used a stileto to demonstrate the Ripper's technique to a theatre usherette in Everton, to whom he was attracted; showed a knife to a London bus driver in 1889 and was in Southsea with his wife when summoned to London on the day of Mary Kelly's murder. None of these stories, unless supported by other evidence, can be assumed to be more valid than any of the others and it is quite wrong to prioritise any of them above another simply because they fit a preconceived idea.

DNA testing on a stamp from the Openshaw letter, chosen for reasons unexplained, revealed that it was female. Instead of informing viewers about the women who were prosecuted for sending Jack the Ripper letters the documentary suggested, without any evidence whatsoever, that Deeming's wife had licked the stamp.

As someone known to have killed several people with a knife Deeming is a plausible historical suspect at least until his whereabouts in 1888 can satisfactorily be ascertained.