Casebook Examiner No. 2 (June 2010)

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

There's a store near me which sells CD's and Video's.

Regards,

Simon

[Supe]

There is no debate: it should have been a stationery store in either American or British English. But if that was all that was found wanting (and please don't go looking for more) in an essay of more than 28,000 words that probably speaks well for the writer and the editors.

Having edited articles written in both American and British English for many years now, the differences between them in terms of punctuation, spelling and vocabulary are many but easily handled. One surprising difference I have noticed, though, is that Brits make no differentation between restrictive and non-restrictive clauses, setting off both with the word which.

Anyway, Maria raised some interesting questions in her post that go beyond "English as she is wrote" on either side of the Atlantic and I hope that when she gets to reading Casebook Examiner some of them will be answered.

Don.

[mariab]

I agree with all of you (esp. with Supe/Don), and Simon really cracked me up (with the reference to the shop selling “Cd's/video's“!! )
If you also throw in Aussie English and South African English, then the picture is complete! (Next week I have to write a paper for presentation in South Africa, and I'm trying to get in the vibe, but the only South African slang I'm familiar with is for food and drink, or surf lingo, which is not gonna cut it.)
By the by I just got Examiner 2, so I know what I'll be reading much later tonight...
Thank you all and kind regards,
Maria

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Maria,

Thank you for taking the time to comment on my work prior to reading it. Since many of the other commentators on this thread also commented prior to reading, I'm not sure you'll get a good idea of my work from reading these posts. The Le Grand theory does not at all require him to have had an accomplice, but I feel that since Le Grand is known to have worked with criminal accomplices, I would be remiss not to pursue this possibility, particularly given the evidence of Schwartz which places a man very much like Le Grand in the street with the another man. So the idea that the Ripper was a two-man team certainly existed in literature long before I started writing on Le Grand.

Barnett cannot be considered a 'suspect', unless you're of the mind that Mary Kelly was not a Ripper victim, and even then you'd have to overcome the fact that he provided an alibi for that murder which satisfied investigators. I'm aware of the argument that since the exact time of Kelly's death wasn't known that Barnett's alibi could be useless, but I'm certain the police would have required an alibi that covered the entire night and not just a few hours, and Barnett supplied that. At no time did he fall under suspicion of the Whitechapel murder series.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Stephen Thomas]

Here's an absurd story from my childhood about a man who goes into a stationers. He walks up to the clerk at the counter and says, "Are you the stationary manager."

"No," says the clerk, "I often hop around on one leg."

Very good, Simon

Did you hear about the sign in the chemist's shop window?

'We dispense with accuracy'.

[mariab]

Wescott article in “Examiner“ 2

Tom,
I've just received Examiner 2 and I'll also back order Examiner 1, so I'll definitely read your article on Le Grand and the one in Examiner 1 on Stride (I have the feeling that also the latter is by you, but no time to check on this now.) Apologies for having commented before reading the article (!), but I just couldn't resist. By the way I'm pretty certain I've read a dissertation on Le Grand on casebook about a year or two ago (probably during my very first browsing of the site), but no idea by whom, and on a quick search yesterday evening I wasn't able to locate the dissertation, but I'll definitely look again when I get some free time.
I KNOW about the assumption of the existence of 2 perps being old, and I know of Schwartz having described a man ressembling Le Grand's appeareance. (I'm probably missing a lot of important details though, which I'm sure that you've covered in your article.) And I'm even open to the idea of 2 perps, that's why I'm saying that this specific theory would fit with Le Grand as a suspect and with counting Emma Smith as an early victim. Therefore I'm very interested to see what all you write about Schwartz, Lawende, and the 2 unidentified men (Pipeman and Broad Shoulders) in both your articles in Examiner 1 and 2. I'd also have to admit I'm not completely 100% convinced of the fact that Stride was a Ripper attack, but I'm mostly leading unto this conclusion.
As for Barnett, I'm considering him as a suspect for ALL Ripper victims, perhaps starting as early as Anni Milwood!! (So shoot me! ) You KNOW that his alibi is completely flimsy and for too short a time, plus almost the entirety of the info he gave to the police is not corroborated! I know that the police released him very quickly (MUCH too quickly), but I'm refusing to imagine them having a valuable reason for that if I can't find something concrete to corroborate against pertaining to their actions. (And to find new info on this is now very hard in itself, after so many years.) By the way, I very much hope that more information about the police's suspicions of Le Grand and about the questioning of witnesses such as Barnett, Hutchinson, Schwartz, Lawende, etc. would be contained in the classified Special Branch ledgers which discuss the Whitechapel murders. Any idea of when these sources would be available? And what about some Scotland Yard transcripts which would be available in 2029, is this correct?
In short, I need to read your articles and the article on Tumblety first, but right now my list of suspects would go like this:
1) Barnett or Hutchinson or someone local with a similar “low profile“.
2) Kaminsky/Cohen or some unidentified Jew (but NOT Kosmisky).
3) Le Grand or Tumblety (but I need to read the Examiner first to get access to all the new relevant stuff).
4) Perhaps even Chapman, though I'm fully aware of the small probability of this.
Gotta go shower now (it's 32°C and burning over the roofs of Paris) so I won't be available for quite a while, but I might read Examiner 2 already tonight (after finishing all else I have to do).
Thank you, congratulations for a very thorough research (that I can already see without reading the article), and best regards,
Maria

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Maria. Unless I'm mistaken, Examiner 1 is free to download. Yes, that Stride article is by me. After reading it, you might find yourself a little more confident that she was a Ripper victim. I don't know that Barnett's alibi was 'flimsy' or that everything he said was a lie.
The essay you read some time back on Le Grand was written by Gerry Nixon and is discussed in my essay. Due to space constraint, and the fact that I'm writing a book, I could not include everything I wanted to say about Le Grand, but I feel the essay is a good primer to bring everyone up to speed on him. If you have any thoughts after reading it, feel free to share.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[mariab]

Le Grand as a lone perp

By the way (still without having read Examiner 2, which is a bit premature in itself, if not idiotic!! ): I would rather tend to want to consider Le Grand as a lone perp. My problem is, I can totally see one perp being interested in collecting organs from the victims, but why would 2 perps want to do this? To put “the fear of God“ into the poor “unfortunates“ who were active without a pimp? It's a bit of on excessive overkill, just to scary the women of Whitechapell. To harvest female organs for black magic purposes?!! (And I think there has been a book selling this theory not a while ago.) It doesn't add up too much with 2 perps. So yes, Mr. Wescott, I understand your correction (about the Le Grand theory not necessarily requiring 2 perps.)
Best regards,
Maria

[mariab]

To Tom: Thank you so much for the info, I'll attempt to download Examiner 1 much later tonight, and (at some point) I'll read all of this. Actually I DO completely consider Stride as a Ripper victim, I was just trying to be “scientific“ (in a very pedantic fashion), and to say that “we can never know for certain, unless we were there“ etc..
Thank you also for the Gerry Nixon info.
As for Barnett: If someone today were being asked by the police “Where were you last night when your girlfriend's been brutally murdered?" and he replied “For 3-4 hours last night I was in my bed, all alone.“, then this is a casebook flimsy alibi.
Tom Wescott said: I don't know that Barnett's alibi was 'flimsy' or that everything he said was a lie.
That's right, you don't know and I don't know either. We also have no corroboration if everything he said about Mary Kelly is true. That's why he should remain a prime suspect.
Thank you very much, the best of lucks for your book (which I'm sure will turn up as a major contribution), and I promise to read the Examiners soon,
Maria

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Maria. Barnett has never been a 'prime suspect', so I'm not sure how he would 'remain' one. I was being polite by saying I don't know that Barnett's alibi was flimsy. Put another way would be to say I disagree with you. I think it's perfectly reasonable for a man to be in bed in the middle of the night. And while he may have been in bed alone, I don't believe he claimed to have been in the house alone, and his presence in the house would have been confirmed by the police.

Thanks for the well wishes and I hope you enjoy the Examiners. Don Souden has done an excellent job with this journal, even surpassing the job he had previously done at Ripperologist magazine.

[Roy Corduroy]

Good afternoon Tom. I posted this on the other forum, but it may have gotten lost, with the thread drifting off-topic. Your thoughts, or anyone, please.

Quoting Tom's article -

"Feeling themselves unqualified for the task of investigation, the WVC at some point in September hired two private detectives who [hold] themselves out as experts in the unravelling of mysteries (3) The men gave their names as Charles Le Grand and J. H. Batchelor."

note (3) is the Morning Advertiser, Oct 3.

I don't see a confirmation of their September hiring in the source article. This is new to me. I thought the two first entered the scene after the double event, not in September.

Roy

[mariab]

Stephen Thomas from the Ramsey case?!

Stephen Thomas, is your pseudonym related to the Colorado detective who was responsible for the Ramsey case back in the '90s, and who quit the CPD over disillusionment with the way the DA treated the case and for lack of evidence, and who later wrote a book and confronted the Ramseys on CNN's Larry King live? I can hardly imagine that you are the REAL Stephen Thomas!! (“Will the real Stephen Thomas please step up?“!)
I'm just asking because I was thinking of starting a thread on “Other Mysteries“ about the Ramsey case – or do you all consider this as a particularly dumb idea?
(There's even a thread on the Zodiac killer and one on the identity of Shakespeare, although I feel very disrespectful against olf Will by mentioning these 2 threads together! )
Best regards,
Maria

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Roy,

I'm aware that other writers have said that Le Grand and Batchelor were hired in October, but I don't believe there's a source for this. It's assumed to have been the case because that's when they first publicly surfaced. I could not tell you the exact date they were hired, but since they first showed up on the scene Oct. 2nd or even earlier, and were subsequently described by the police as being jointly employed by the WVC and the press (in this case Evening News), I figured it more likely that they were employed in September as opposed to the first of October. But anything is possible.

I would have to go back and read my 2006 Ripper Notes article to completely refresh my memory on why I concluded they were hired in September, but I think that's pretty much it.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

I'm just asking because I was thinking of starting a thread on “Other Mysteries“ about the Ramsey case – or do you all consider this as a particularly dumb idea?

There are already threads on the Ramsey case, and I'm pretty sure our Stephen Thomas is a different one. If not, his contributions to the Ramsey threads leave much to be desired.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[mariab]

Barnett as a suspect

Most profound apologies if this thread is drifting off-topic, this is most certainly entirely my fault (as a newbie), what with the long discussion of the spelling of “stationary“ and my asking about Stephen Thomas.
To Tom:
Barnett has been considered a prime suspect retroactively, since at least the Paley book (which I'm fully admitting I haven't read yet, because it's not in my budget right now, but I'll definitely will order it at some point in the near future), plus there have been several threads on him as a suspect on casebook. If I'm not mistaken, an Aussie poster named Leanne and someone called Richard are true believers in Barnett's candidacy as a prime suspect, and they are writing a book about him – I think?
I totally got it that you were disagreeing with me while being polite (and thanks for that!) about Barnett's alibi being “flimsy“, but look what you write:
Tom said: “I don't believe he claimed to have been in the house alone, and his presence in the house would have been confirmed by the police.“
“Would have been confirmed“ is not enough for me! But, please, don't misunderstand in any way my insisting on Barnett here: I'm not at all fixed on him as a “prime suspect“. I could totally consider, and on equal or even better terms, someone unknown, or some Jew, or your Le Grand, or even Tumblety as a good candidate for the Ripper. Re. Barnett I'm just refusing to let the suspicion on him go away just because the police didn't suspect him. That's all!
Thank you, and many apologies again for moving the thread away from the subject,
Maria
PS.: Also,Tom, just for the sake of argument, it wouldn't necessarily “be perfectly reasonable for a man to be in bed in the middle of the night“ in 1889's Whitechapel, esp. for someone without a day job as Barnett!