Jack the Ripper and Black Magic: Victorian Conspiracy Theories, Secret Societies and

[The Good Michael]

Well anyone who is likely to have been the ripper may have in fact been the ripper would he not ?

Whats your problem ?

Littlechild was answering in 1913 (I believe) something that Sims mentioned about a doctor D. If I say Winston Churchill was more likely an opium smoker than Mother Theresa or Shirley Temple, it doesn't mean he was an opium smoker.

Mike

[Trevor Marriott]

Littlechild was answering in 1913 (I believe) something that Sims mentioned about a doctor D. If I say Winston Churchill was more likely an opium smoker than Mother Theresa or Shirley Temple, it doesn't mean he was an opium smoker.

Mike

and I wonder what planet you are on ?

[The Good Michael]

and I wonder what planet you are on ?

The one that would like you to go back to Neptune where similar idiots dwell.

[Trevor Marriott]

The one that would like you to go back to Neptune where similar idiots dwell.

Now now name calling will get you banned from the playroom

[Stewart P Evans]

Problem

Excuse me didn't Littlechild say he thought your old friend Tumblety was likley to have been the ripper.

Now I know that you sometimes have a problem with words, but it shouldn't be too difficult for you to look these things up before you post and get it right.

Littlechild wrote, "...but amongst the suspects, and to my mind a very likely one, was a Dr. T." I cannot in any shape or form see that as Littlechild claiming to know who the Ripper was. Perhaps it's just the way that you want to see it so you can make spurious points.

Please stand in the corner of the classroom with your pointed hat on until you get it right.

[Chris]

Now I know that you sometimes have a problem with words...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ0nFQgRApY

[Trevor Marriott]

Now I know that you sometimes have a problem with words, but it shouldn't be too difficult for you to look these things up before you post and get it right.

Littlechild wrote, "...but amongst the suspects, and to my mind a very likely one, was a Dr. T." I cannot in any shape or form see that as Littlechild claiming to know who the Ripper was. Perhaps it's just the way that you want to see it so you can make spurious points.

Please stand in the corner of the classroom with your pointed hat on until you get it right.

Its not the way I want to see it. Its the way you and others see it. You and others have wrongly assessed and evaluated the little known facts surrounding Tumblety for one purpose and one purpose only and that is bolstering his suspect viability which is poorly deserved.

In any event he was locked up on remand when all of you say he was roaming free so out of the window goes another prime suspect, and another pointer as to why these officers from way back then should not be regarded in the high esteem that some regard them in and automatically believe what they wrote or said when it came to naming likely suspects.

If you want to discuss this further put on your pointed hat and join me in the corner.

[mklhawley]

Its not the way I want to see it. Its the way you and others see it. You and others have wrongly assessed and evaluated the little known facts surrounding Tumblety for one purpose and one purpose only and that is bolstering his suspect viability which is poorly deserved.

In any event he was locked up on remand when all of you say he was roaming free so out of the window goes another prime suspect, and another pointer as to why these officers from way back then should not be regarded in the high esteem that some regard them in and automatically believe what they wrote or said when it came to naming likely suspects.

If you want to discuss this further put on your pointed hat and join me in the corner.

Hi Trevor,

I wrote a nonfiction book titled, Searching for Truth with a Broken Flashlight. The central issue is the evolution creation controversy, but I'll tell you, it would fit so well here. Would you like a free copy?

I'm in the corner, but my hat's a soft yankee slouch hat.

Mike

[Chris]

In any event he was locked up on remand when all of you say he was roaming free ...

People who can't distinguish between personal opinions and established facts have to spend double time in the corner.

[Trevor Marriott]

People who can't distinguish between personal opinions and established facts have to spend double time in the corner.

And it is an established fact I can assure you

[Chris]

And it is an established fact I can assure you

Tisn't.

[Stewart P Evans]

'Little Known Facts'

Its not the way I want to see it. Its the way you and others see it. You and others have wrongly assessed and evaluated the little known facts surrounding Tumblety for one purpose and one purpose only and that is bolstering his suspect viability which is poorly deserved.
In any event he was locked up on remand when all of you say he was roaming free so out of the window goes another prime suspect, and another pointer as to why these officers from way back then should not be regarded in the high esteem that some regard them in and automatically believe what they wrote or said when it came to naming likely suspects.
...

It is not a case of wrongly assessing and evaluating 'the little known facts'. It also amazes me to think that you presume to know more than ex-Chief Inspector Littlechild who stated that Tumblety was 'amongst the suspects' and thought that he was 'a very likely one'. Littlechild was there at the time with full knowledge of the facts and you are making your claims based on your own interpretation of what you describe as 'little known facts' over a 100 years later.

First you say that Tumblety was 'locked up on remand'. By this, of course, you mean locked up at the time of the Kelly murder on 9 November. The Central Criminal Court calendar shows only bare facts and states that Tumblety was first detained on 7 November. The problem that arises, of course, is whether he was in custody for a full seven days until 14 November, when a warrant was issued or if he was released prior to that committal appearance. Certainly on a murder charge he would not be bailed but gross indecency was a misdemeanor, not a felony. Several of the contemporary press reports state that he was initially arrested as a Whitechapel suspect (and we know that he was a suspect from Littlechild), which charge could not be proved, and that the police fell back on the indecency charges in order to get him to court. Power to hold Tumblety in police custody without a warrant and court appearance would be for only 24 hours. However, if he was initially arrested on suspicion of complicity in the murders, which he and several newspapers claimed, he might well have been re-arrested on the indecency charges and held a further 24 hours. And two days, or thereabouts, is the time which Tumblety claims he was detained.

I appreciate all the contra arguments that have been endlessly trailed out (you have copied others in this), but they are all based on personal interpretation and opinion, just as the arguments for his release on bail are. That is far from established fact by either side. Trouble is you claim everything that you think to be fact.

Moving along, another point to be established, for your argument to be more viable, is that Kelly was definitely a Whitechapel victim. As an ex-policeman you should know that with any unsolved murder (which Kelly's is) it is not safe to presume that any particular individual is the murderer without the offender actually being brought to book. The qualified historian Alex Chisholm has presented a very good argument for Kelly not being a Ripper victim. Added to that Bernard Davies' grandfather, an ex-Met Inspector, was seconded to the Whitechapel murders investigation and stated, from personal knowledge, that some of the detectives working on the Kelly murder felt she was not a Ripper victim. I make no claim that she was not a Ripper victim, although I realize there are great differences in the MO, but I keep an open mind she may, or may not, have been a Ripper victim. We simply do not know for certain.

Also there is the evidence that there was an involvement of the 'Irish Party' in the murders and that opens up a whole new field of speculation. In that scenario, if not the killer (or one of the killers) he could have been involved in a peripheral way. His constant use of aliases could well have played a part. I could go on, but I don't wish to bore anyone and I am simply trying to show that your certainty that this one aspect clears Tumblety of any suspicion is misplaced. As an ex-policeman you should know that.

[Robert]

Hi Stewart

On the twin assumptions that
1. Tumblety was the Ripper
2. He was at liberty on Nov 9th

then wouldn't any changes to the MO be perfectly understandable? After all, he intended to leave the country (probably never to return) and this was to be his swan song.

[Stewart P Evans]

Alex Chisholm

If Alex Chisholm's excellent assessment of the Kelly murder has appeared on these boards before it would have been a long time ago. It is well worth revisiting. Part of his essay 'A Revision of History' runs as follows.

Murders prior to, and after, the canonical five quickly lost their association. I would question whether these five retain their cohesion largely due to their occurrence within the period of great hysteria. I would query Stride's association before raising a more controversial dismissal of Mary Kelly. Again the timing and coverage of this murder seem to provide the central link, although in this instance the press may have played an even more significant role. I would contend that whoever killed Kelly, for whatever reason, need not have murdered the other victims but may simply have taken advantage of the opportunity to evade detection by making the crime appear to be the work of Jack the Ripper.
Much Ripper hunting centres around Kelly, the last victim and the most excessively mutilated, but this is perhaps a distortion of history. As has occasionally been proposed, Barnett may well have killed Kelly (for domestic or other reasons) but this does not require the production of elaborate theories to connect him with the other murders. These murders were a major popular spectacle, the reports of which Barnett read to Kelly. It may well be that following a violent outburst resulting in Kelly's death, he sought to conceal his involvement by making her death resemble what he believed a Ripper killing would look like. In doing so, however, drawing on sensational but sketchy reports of extreme mutilations which provided his only knowledge of the crimes, he managed to create the worst example of Ripper excess. Although the police questioned him they were actually looking for the Ripper, and if Barnett could satisfy them he was not connected with the other murders, then he could not have killed Kelly.
In this way the most notorious act of the Ripper, and therefore his defining moment, could be seen to have been largely a press creation. 'Jack' may have stopped killing for any number of reasons before Kelly's murder but has remained undetected because of it. Such a hypothesis could provide an explanation for the considerable difference between this and the other crimes, with Kelly's mutilation resulting from the partially informed perception of the other murders - her killer being someone whose only familiarity with the Ripper crimes came from nothing more than sensational press reports. And therefore, given the prominent position occupied by Kelly within the Ripper legend, it would not be too implausible to accredit the press as paradoxically being both the creator of Jack the Ripper and also the main impediment to his capture. This would of course mean that throughout the intervening years the search for Jack the Ripper as the murderer of at least five women including Stride and Kelly, has always been doomed to failure.

[Stewart P Evans]

Yes...

Hi Stewart
On the twin assumptions that
1. Tumblety was the Ripper
2. He was at liberty on Nov 9th
then wouldn't any changes to the MO be perfectly understandable? After all, he intended to leave the country (probably never to return) and this was to be his swan song.

Yes, this could well be the case. Alas, as with most things in this case, it is only speculation. The simple answer is, unfortunately, we are never going to know the identity of the murderer for certain.