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Richard Brian Nunweek
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 1490
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 4:20 am: | 
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Hi,
As this was the first correspondence that the police received that was not outside graffiti, i have been reading it with intrest.
The words 'I have found the woman that i wanted that is Chapman and I slautered her' are intriquing as they imply that the killer of the previous women ie Tabram , Nichols, was after Chapman.
Therefore is it not possible that the killer of stride , Eddowes and Kelly was not the killer of the others.
Infact if one eliminates Stride as a pure coincedence we are left with the final two victims, both being horribly mutalated and most importantly facially.
These two victims have some intresting connections by the surname Kelly, and the very fact that Eddowes had stayed in the shed at 26 Dorset street.
Of course people will say 'Yes but the mutalations on Nichols and Chapman were the M.O of the last two', however as we have been talking about copycats for years now is it not possible that sequence i ended after the Chapman murder, and two more murders were repeated in the style of the perpretrator of the others .
That someone was after a person called Kelly and killed the wrong one in Mitre square, but made no mistake on the 9th November.
All tonque in cheek, however that letter' I have found the woman i wanted that is chapman' intriques me especially as it was the first letter to the police.
Regards Richard. |
Glenn G. Lauritz Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 4075
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 6:10 am: |
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Richard,
The letter you are referring to arrived to the police two days before the Dear Boss letter arrived at the Central News Agency.
There is no reason whatsoever to take it seriously, and neither did the police. As stated in Evans & Skinner's Letters From Hell, it does not contain any information that only the police knew about, and the writer himself/herself states that he/she has been following the press reports.
The letter is littered with crude and silly sketches of coffins and knives and there is nothing to indicate that it wasn't just another hoax, nor does it contain any information that the author easily could have obtained from the papers. Don't take this the wrong way, but as usual you jump to conclusions based on questionable sources.
There is nothing to be 'intrigued' about.
As for the name Kelly, that is a load of rubbish. Prostitutes generally wore a lot of fake names and we can't draw any wild conclusions from Eddowes using the name Mary Kelly. Nothing rule out that they knew each other but then again nothing proves it either. I would assume that Mary Kelly was not an uncommon name or alias.
Also, please NOTE: we don't even know if 'Mary Kelly' in fact was Mary Kelly's real name!
I can only repeat the value of critical source evaluation, Richard.
All the best
(Message edited by Glenna on September 30, 2005)
G. Andersson, writer/historian
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Richard Brian Nunweek
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 1491
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 4:03 pm: |
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Hi Glenn,
As this was the first correspondence addressed to the police before any press possible involvement, i felt it worthy of mention.
I agree it is full of blocking out of names, addresses etc, and presents a description and drawing of a knive with description amongst others, however it is not unreasonable to suggest that as this was the first of many precending hoaxes that it might have been authentic.
The wording is clear, it states that the killer[ if written by the killer?] was after the woman Chapman and was plaqued with remorse.
Utter rubbish mayby... but We can not dispute that Stride has its doubters, and that the last two victims had the same surname, because they both lived with a man named Kelly.
Yes Glenn , it was stated by McCarthy to the Times November 10th 1888, that the deseased who he knew as Mary jane came to live with a coal porter?, named Kelly and often posed as his wife so became known as Mary kelly, if Eddowes shared the same address during the ripper period on occasions albeit the shed who also lived with a Kelly that may be reason to connect the two last victims, to a searching assassin.
I agree entirely that Kelly was not Marys real name it was simply the name that she inherited whilst with Barnett, and I suggest that the only time the name Barnett was released to the inhabitants ie McCarthy and court dwellers was after the murder when Barnett revealed his actual surname.
That in itself is not suspiscious as most of the people in that position in that area used various names to occupy accomodation.
I still believe we have a long way to go , and a definate swing in beliefs to get on the path that leads us to a possible plausible suspect.
Regards Richard. |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 1492
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 4:28 pm: |
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Hi Glenn,
Just a further point , i accept that the only time Eddowes could have stayed at the shed was prior to the 31st august 88, as she and Kelly went hop picking on the 1st sept, but if the first killer stopped after the 8th sept[ that is the writer mayby? of the 24th sept letter] then that is irrelevent, what is relevant is that Eddowes living with a Kelly met her death shortly after her return from the kent trip, and even suggested mayby tonque in cheek or mayby not that she could claim the reward.
Question is .
What is the conection to a woman living with a man named Kelly that results in the death of victims [ possibly[ 5 and 6.
Regards Richard. |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 2205
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 4:54 pm: |
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I also found this letter interesting - does anyone know if any work has been done on the original to see if the name and address in the letter which have been blocked out can be deciphered? Or indeed if there is anything written behind the blocking out? |
Sir Robert Anderson
Chief Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 531
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 5:26 pm: |
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"The letter is littered with crude and silly animations sketches of coffins and knives.."
I have to say that of all the letters, this is the one that makes the hair on my neck prickle. I don't think the sketches are silly; they're pretty damn disturbing to me. Of course, this hardly addresses authenticity....
Sir Robert
'Tempus Omnia Revelat'
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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Glenn G. Lauritz Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 4076
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 5:37 pm: |
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I don't know, Sir Robert... there are other letters that are just as crude and 'disturbing' as this one. Can't say it stands out that much from some of the others.
I would say that writing fake letters in a murder case is a disturbing character trait for any individual.
And yes, I find the drawings rather silly and a bit 'over the top'. Which is one reason why I don't believe in it.
The other reason is, as stated earlier, that it doesn't contain any information that couldn't be obtained from the press. In my experience and in my personal opinion this is a typical crank or hoax letter, although we will never be able to prove it either way.
The only interesting thing about it, is that it is the first one we know about that is related to the Ripper case.
The police never seems to have given it much credence, probably because they in other cases had received similar types of letters.
We should be quite cautious about doing any kind of theorising with the letters as foundation.
All the best
(Message edited by Glenna on September 30, 2005)
G. Andersson, writer/historian
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Glenn G. Lauritz Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 4077
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 5:49 pm: |
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Chris,
Above the blocked passages, it is added 'name', 'address' etc.,
which seems to indicate that the letters indeed does contain such information under the blocked parts.
Whether or not what is hidden underneath has been subjected to examination or not I cannot say, but I guess Stewart Evans would be the one to ask about that.
All the best
G. Andersson, writer/historian
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2603
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 6:26 pm: |
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If you look at the Pinchin Street Torso dump, you'll see that the police had a legion of letters to deal with after that.
It does seem that the folk of Whitechapel liked to write a letter, or two. |
Glenn G. Lauritz Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 4078
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 7:18 pm: |
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Indeed, AP. Indeed.
A rather sinister hobby. High profile murder cases does seem to bring out the worst in people.
All the best
G. Andersson, writer/historian
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John Ruffels
Inspector
Username: Johnr
Post Number: 464
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 7:57 pm: |
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So, I think the point Richard was originally making was that further, closer,examination needs to be made of the first letter. Good point in my opinion.
And as Glenn has said, writing anonymous letters doesn't make you the Ripper.
A.P.s point about other highly publicised London murder cases promoting scores of unhinged and vindictive letter-writers is valid too.
If the letters from the Pinchin Street Torso case have been preserved, or a MEPOL file survived, perhaps it would reveal anonymous scribblers refined their art and graduated from the PST case to JTR.
I have often thought if Montague Druitt turns out not to be JTR, then he might have been suspected as a mischievous anonymous letter writer.Although this is hardly what Macnaghten accused him of. |
John Savage
Chief Inspector
Username: Johnsavage
Post Number: 502
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 10:15 pm: |
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Hi All,
The National Archives at Kew have a number of these letters which are all available on microfilm. I looked through them some years ago, and my impression was that almost all of them were clearly hoaxes written by cranks, if I had been a policeman working on the case I would have been minded to bin the lot.
But I would urge anyone interested in the case to go to Kew, if they have the opportunity, and see for themselves.
Rgds
John |
Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 917
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 12:13 am: |
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Hi Chris,
Quite a while back Stewart Evans sent me a large version of the image, which I adjusted in Photoshop to accentuate the tonal differences in the blacked out areas to see if we could read the text below. I found a number of distinct loops and whirls, but not quite enough to put real words together. Plus the JPEG compression used in the photo ended up being sharpened drastically too, so it was difficult to get anywhere... but then the process is basically trying to read black text on a black background. The main chance is to highlight the difference of how light shines on it to try to read indentations... if the letter writer covered up the writing underneath with straight back and forth lines (or close to it anyway), it should work in theory. Of course if he varied it with scribbles and loops and whirls and straight lines all bets are off unless the writing material underneath is of a different composition.
I posted samples here but don't recall if that was old boards or current boards. At some point I'd like to try again with a different version of the image.
Last time around I thought someone said that Cornwell had tested the letter and found the word "Jack the Ripper" under the name section, which, if true, would be the earliest record of use of that name (ignoring the alleged Sept. 17th letter with no provenance and widely assumed to be a modern hoax). Of course rumors about Cornwell having said something are even less reliable than what Cornwell actually said... I tried looking through her book to see if it's mentioned. Got through quite a few pages about her views on the letters and tests she tried to run without finding a reference to this letter. I had to stop because the ridiculousness of it all was eating away at my brain.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
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