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Greg Hutton
Sergeant
Username: Greg
Post Number: 44
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 4:03 pm: | 
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I may be totally wrong here, but didn't Joe Barnett vanish for a number of years after the Kelly murder? If so, wouldn't that make him a major suspect? We appear to know a lot about him before the murders but next to nothing after them!
Regards,
Greg |
MelGpenna
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 12:33 pm: |
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Hmmmm.... Serial killers can stop killing? Anything's possible, but definitely improbable. (the great thing about the Jack mystery--ANY theory is possible! NOTHING can be excluded and no theory is too wild--truth is stranger than fiction)
Not to make light--but Druitt as a suspect? I can't help but giggle; looks like I could take him (and I'm a small woman)! What's he weigh? 110 lbs? Poor guy had to put ROCKS in his pockets just to drown himself!? (Mad man in a frenzy can have super-strength, like I said, anything's possible, but it hardly looks like he'd have the strength to practically cut someone's head off ... ) Or ... maybe it's just me! (Not for nothing either but I think there's a slight resemblance between Druitt & Princey ... coincidence or is Druitt a Royal 'plant'?) Interesting ....
Also--(this is profiling, but ...) usually serial killers victims are of their own class, race, etc. I agree with an earlier post about Jack probably not being ANY of the 'usual' suspects ... most are very colorful, at least semi-well-to-do and/or semi-famous ... Great stories, but probably *BUZZER* Thanks for playing, but .... |
AIP
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 3:46 am: |
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There were probably many lunatics of the time accused of being Jack the Ripper. The lunatic theory was one of the most popular at the time.
Having '...a poor memory and saying he "is accused of being JTR"' does not mean he was 'actually named as JTR in asylum records.' Or does John Carey know something else? |
John Carey
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 4:46 am: |
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Scott Nelson & "Restless Spirit"
Thanks for your posts.
Scott
You are right, my suspect is Newland Francis Forester Smith the insane barrister The relevant records for Holloway Asylum are in Surrey Local history Collection at Woking. The Cane Hill deaths and burial records are at Croydon Local History Library. When I first found Smith may initial reaction was “who is this?” until I searched further. He keeps turning up in the right place at the right time.
I am convinced the name of Mr Callaghan’s strange lodger “G Wentworth Bell Smith” was an alias - Wentworth Street and Bell Lane are, as we know, right in the heart of Ripper territory.
Regarding “Stone” there is a house at Stone in Gloucester, near where NFF Smith was born, known by local legend as” JTR’s house”.
Restless Spirit
As I am not registered as a Casebook user I find I am unable to use the email link. Please drop me a line with your address to
John.carey@defra.gsi.gov.uk
and I will post the Ripperana articles on to you.
Thank you both for your interest.
John
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Mr. Woodhead
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 12:51 pm: |
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John Carey
Many thanks for your beautifully written and most
interesting posting on Feb 23rd.I think that the
Swanson notes in Anderson's book could well refer
to your man and Swanson just got the name wrong.
Or maybe he deliberately gave the wrong name.I'm
new to the Internet but I have read most of the
JTR books as they appeared over the last 40 years.It seems obvious to me that JTR was caught
soon after the Kelly murder,possibly due to the
Hutchinson description.I don't know why some
writers seem to doubt that sighting as I can't
see a man like him going out of his way to give
false information in such a high profile murder
case.And Abberline,who would have checked him out,seems to have believed him.Police activity
just faded away after the Kelly murder when it
should have been increasing so Anderson's
assertion that JTR was caught and put in an
asylum always made perfect sense to me.But the
real clincher is Macnaghten's "canonical" list
of victims.How on earth could he be so categorical unless the police got the information
from the lips of Jack the Ripper himself? Alice
McKenzie would seem to me a more likely Ripper
victim than Elizabeth Stride but she isn't even
mentioned as a possible victim by Macnaghten.
The mystery of JTR is actually three mysteries
i.e who was he,why did he do it and why was there
a cover up? Because a cover up there undoubtably
was.JTR meets JFK eh? I suppose you know this already but policeman Harry Cox in the newspaper
article reproduced in the Evans/Skinner Sourcebook says that the suspect he was tailing
"became insane and was forced to spend a portion
of his time in an asylum in Surrey".I would love
to know more about the legend of JTR's room in
the Virginia Water asylum. |
Sir Robert Anderson
Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 246
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 9:21 am: |
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"Hmmmm.... Serial killers can stop killing? Anything's possible, but definitely improbable. "
Well, it does appear that this guy may have taken prolonged "holidays".
Cub Scout Leader Arrested in BTK Killings
By ROXANA HEGEMAN
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - A 31-year manhunt for a serial killer who taunted police with letters about his crimes ended Saturday when authorities said they finally caught up with the man who called himself BTK and linked him to at least 10 murders.
``The bottom line: BTK is arrested,'' Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams said Saturday, setting off applause from a crowd that included family members of some of the victims.
The suspect was identified as Dennis L. Rader, a 59-year-old city worker in nearby Park City, who was arrested Friday. Police did not say how they identified Rader as a suspect or whether he has said anything since his arrest.
BTK - a self-coined nickname that stands for ``Bind, Torture, Kill'' - stoked fears throughout the 1970s in Wichita, a manufacturing center with 350,000 residents, about 180 miles southwest of Kansas City, Mo.
Sunday, Feb. 27
Help Catch the BTK Killer! [Voigt]
BTK Killer's Writing Style Has Changed [Associated Press]
Professors Use BTK Killer Case in Courses [CNN]
City's 'BTK Strangler' claims he's killed 7 - Original Story- 1978 [The Wichita Eagle]
Police: BTK Killer Sent Three Packages [Netscape News]
Is Using BTK Case as Course Material a Good Idea? [Community]
Do you Hope they Caught Him? [Community]
Then the killer resurfaced about a year ago after 25 years of silence. He had been linked to eight slayings between 1974 and 1986, but police said Saturday they had identified two more, from 1985 and 1991.
Rader, a Cub Scout leader who was active at his Lutheran church, lived with his wife, neighbors said. Public records indicate they have two grown children. Messages left for family members were not returned on Saturday, and no one answered the door at the home of his in-laws.
A few neighbors recalled receiving small favors from Rader, but most interviewed Saturday said the municipal codes enforcement supervisor was an unpleasant man who often went looking for reasons to cite his neighbors for violations of city codes.
``A part of me was scared when I heard, because I talked to him. It's a little creepy,'' said Chris Yoder, 23, who once lived nearby.
Rader has yet to be charged, but a jubilant collection of law enforcers and community leaders told the crowd in City Council chambers they were confident the long-running case could now be closed.
``Victims whose voices were brutally silenced by the evil of one man will now have their voices heard again,'' Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline said.
Rader was being held at an undisclosed location, and it was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer. In Kansas, suspects generally appear before a judge for a status hearing within 48 hours of their arrest.
Prosecutor Nola Foulston said the death penalty would not apply to any crime committed between 1972 and 1994, when Kansas did not have the death penalty.
The BTK slayings began in 1974 with the strangulations of Joseph Otero, 38, his wife, Julie, 34, and their two children. The six victims that followed were all women, and most were strangled.
Along with his grisly crimes, the killer terrorized Wichita by sending rambling letters to the media, including one in which he named himself BTK for ``Bind them, Torture them, Kill them.'' In another he complained, ``How many do I have to kill before I get my name in the paper or some national attention?''
But he stopped communicating in 1979 and remained silent for more than two decades before re-establishing contact last March with a letter to The Wichita Eagle about an unsolved 1986 killing.
The letter included a copy of the victim's driver's license and photos of her slain body. The return address on the letter said it was from Bill Thomas Killman - initials BTK.
Since then, the killer had sent at least eight letters to the media or police, including three packages containing jewelry that police believed may have been taken from BTK's victims. One letter contained the driver's license of victim Nancy Fox.
The new letters sent chills through Wichita but also rekindled hope that modern forensic science could find some clue that would finally lead police to the killer.
Thousands of tips poured in, and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation gathered thousands of DNA swabs in connection with the BTK investigation. In the end, DNA evidence was the key to cracking the case, said Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
``The way they made the link was some DNA evidence, that they had some DNA connection to the guy who they arrested,'' Sebelius said in an interview with The Associated Press. She did not elaborate.
The two newly identified cases were similar to the early ones with one exception, Sedgwick County Sheriff Gary Steed said: The bodies had been removed from the crime scenes. One of the victims lived on the same street as Rader.
``We as investigators keep an open mind. But only now are we able to bring them together as BTK cases,'' he said.
On Friday, investigators searched Rader's house and seized computer equipment.
Authorities, who generally declined to answer questions in detail after announcing the arrest, had little to say about why BTK resurfaced after years without contact.
``It is possible something in his life has changed. I think he felt the need to get his story out,'' said Richard LaMunyon, Wichita's police chief from 1963 to 1989.
On the Net:
Wichita Police: http://www.wichita.gov/cityoffices/police
02/27/05 06:12
Sir Robert
"I only thought I knew"
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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Sir Robert Anderson
Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 247
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 9:27 am: |
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I don't want to stray too far off topic, but here's another BTK related story that seems to indicate that perhaps serial killers can change their approach over time, as well as take time off from killing.
Monday, Feb. 21, 2005
BTK Killer's Writing Style Has Changed
By ROXANA HEGEMAN Associated Press Writer
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - The letters and poems began arriving in 1974. Shot through with spelling and grammatical errors, they alternated between tortured rambling and cold-blooded, gleeful detail. Then, the BTK killer - since linked to eight unsolved killings between 1974 and 1986 - vanished. But he resurfaced last March with new letters to police and media and, although still enigmatic, they have taken a new tone.
The frequency of the new communications and the accompanying attention concern at least one researcher.
"For some of these killers, there is kind of a cycle that once the spiral begins to accelerate the next step is to kill and get a whole new generation of people scared," said Dirk Gibson, author of "Clues from Killers: Serial Murder and Crime Scene Messages."
The killer once raved about his inability to control a "monster" living inside him and gave graphic descriptions of his crimes. The few details released about the new messages indicate a businesslike, almost cordial approach.
Officials said last week the killer had recently sent at least three packages containing jewelry, and investigators were trying to determine whether any of it was taken from BTK's victims.
Along with a padded manila envelope sent to KSAS-TV in Wichita, the communications included a cereal box found in a rural area northwest of Wichita in late January and a package found a few days later that police identified only as Communication No. 7.
Gibson, who has studied more than 500 serial killers, said BTK loves the attention. That was already apparent in the 1970s, when the self-named BTK - the initials stand for "Bind, Torture, Kill - terrorized Wichita.
When one of his messages, a poem sent to the Wichita Eagle-Beacon on Jan. 31, 1978, was mistakenly routed to the classified ads department, BTK sent a letter to KAKE-TV days later complaining: "How many do I have to kill before I get my name in the paper or some national attention?"
Another letter to the newspaper also underscored BTK's need for recognition.
"P.S. How about some name for me, its time: 7 down and many more to go," it read in part. "I like the following. How about you? 'THE B.T.K STRANGLER, 'WICHITA STRANGLER', 'POETIC STRANGLER', 'THE BONDAGE STRANGER' OR 'PSYCHO', 'THE WICHITA HANGMAN', 'THE WICHITA EXECUTIONER,' 'THE GAROTE PHATHOM', 'THE ASPHYXIATER'."
KAKE-TV has also received communiques from BTK since his re-emergence, some of which contain messages for police.
But the tenor has changed: In a postcard sent earlier this month, BTK thanked the station for its quick response to two other messages and expressed concern for two news anchors after a passing comment one made on the air about having the flu.
Randy Brown, a senior fellow at Wichita State University's Elliott School of Journalism, was a reporter at the now-defunct Wichita Sun when the weekly paper first broke the story about BTK in the 1970s.
"This is a very different BTK than the original," Brown said. "The first letters were full of horrifying details of these crimes, ravings and very graphic information about the victims and the monster in his brain - ugly, nasty, scary, terrible kinds of things that people who saw them still have bad dreams about."
Although no recent deaths have been officially linked to BTK since he resurfaced last year, the case has received worldwide attention.
"It is hard to believe this is really the same twisted killer that was scaring the heck out of everybody - had a town completely on edge - in the late 1970s and 1980s," Brown said.
---
On the Net:
Wichita Police: http://www.wichita.gov/cityoffices/police
Sir Robert
"I only thought I knew"
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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Restless Spirit
Sergeant
Username: Judyj
Post Number: 21
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2005 - 12:38 am: |
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Sir Robert Anderson
These are my thoughts too concerning serial killers. I submitted a post re the exact same however at the time I couldn't remember the killer's name. It was the BTK killer. I had seen info on him on cold case files, I think.
It is certainly something to think about. Jack could have been killing on and off for some time.
He also enjoyed tormenting the police with his letters etc.,
regards
Restless Spirit
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Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 555
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2005 - 8:46 am: |
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Hi Sir Robert,
I naturally agree with you on the implications of the BTK case, as it confirms what I have been saying all along. There's also a thread about BTK in the Shades of Whitechapel area where it's being discussed.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
 Profile  Email  Dissertations  Website
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John Carey
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, February 28, 2005 - 6:28 am: |
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Mr Woodhead
Thank you for your interesting post. JTR’s room at Holloway is mentioned in Begg, Fido and Skinner’s A to Z 3rd edition – the writers assume it referred to the early suspect JWS Sanders. But I, and Jon Ogan contributing to Phil Sugden’s book, have separately shown that Sanders was in West Malling Place Asylum in Kent continuously from February 1887 to June 1890 then he was transferred to Holloway, so we can rule out Sanders as a suspect. Either Nick Warren or Martin Fido may be able to tell you more on what they know about JTR’s Room. Other local sources such as The librarian at Surrey record office have assured me the legend of JTRs Room at Virginia Water is true.
.
When Anderson and Swanson wrote about the suspect caged in an asylum ,it was twenty years after the event and they evidently no longer had the official records with them. It is very easy to forget names, facts and events when writing from memory. Swanson mentions the Seaside Home but does identify it precisely. Holloway asylum also had a building at Brighton known as the Seaside Home where inmates could be sent for a short holiday under supervision – Holloway asylum files in Surrey History Library confirm this was originally at 13 Powis Place, Brighton in the 1880s and then at Hove Villas, Brighton. Maybe this is what Swanson was referring to in his marginalia (nb Swanson did NOT say the Seaside Home was a police building. The authors of the A to Z assume it was).
To “AIP” - yes I have found out lots mote about NFF Smith from his birth in Cinderford, Gloucestershire on 15th September 1863, to his dysfunctional childhood, to his failed career as a barrister, and where he was in 1888, to his committal to the asylum and his death at Cane Hill asylum on 23 July 1898. These findings when taken together have convinced me that he matches the Ripper profile. My main findings are published in Ripperana numbers #24 and #45. which I would encourage you to read and then make your own judgement. Did you know for example that the Smith family had a history of homicidal behaviour, and that in 1858 NFF Smith’s uncle the Reverend Samuel Smith was sent to prison for four years for the attempted murder of John Leech of Croydon? A full report of his trial is in the Times for April 1858 (available on microfilm).
One last general thought for now – the police really should have had a good idea of the sort of man they were looking for. He was seen and described by enough witnesses –one that is not often quoted in JTR books is in The St James Gazette of 10 November 1888 and gives the following account by Mrs Paumier the chestnut seller in Widegate Street: It is worth quoting here:
“A Mrs. Paumier, a young woman who sells roasted chestnuts at the corner of Widegate street, a narrow thoroughfare about two minutes' walk from the scene of the murder, told a reporter yesterday afternoon a story which appears to afford a clue to the murderer. She said that about twelve o'clock that morning a man dressed like a gentleman came to her and said, "I suppose you have heard about the murder in Dorset street?" She replied that she had, whereupon the man grinned and said, "I know more about it than you." He then stared into her face and went down Sandy's row, another narrow thoroughfare which cuts across Widegate street. When he had gone some way off, he looked back as if to see whether she was watching him, and then vanished.
Mrs. Paumier said the man had a black moustache, was about 5ft 6in in height, and wore a black silk hat, a black coat, and speckled trousers. He also carried a black shiny bag about a foot in depth and a foot and a half in length. Mrs. Paumier stated further that the same man accosted three young women, whom she knows, on Thursday night”
That looks to me to be a very good description of a man seen face-to face in brad daylight. Did the police follow that up? If not, they should have done.
Reading Sir Robert Anderson’s book (the Met’s Assistant Commissioner, not the contributor to this thread) where he mentions the Ripper hunt, it looks to me that Anderson simply could not believe JTR was an Englishman from a good, Christian upper-middle class family. “Utterly Unthinkable” to attach any religious sentiment to JTR, he said. My conclusion is that by the time the police were finally closing in on Smith, his own family must have realised the game was up and packed him off to the asylum.
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