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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2333
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 4:36 pm: | 
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Something that has always worried me in the matter of the Whitechapel Murders was the original, and total, confusion concerning the identity of certain victims, where witnesses swore blind that the victim was their own sister etc., and even identified the bodies by noting certain features such as scars and missing teeth.
However this was not exclusive to victims of the Whitechapel Murderer, as many other cases exist where similar cases of mistaken identity have occurred.
A classic example is that of Eliza Gorham found dead in her bed in a Common Lodging House in January of 1888.
The resultant quest for the woman’s true identity is indeed a lesson for us all, but more importantly perhaps is the fact that her true identity - or false as claimed by witnesses - was linked to other court actions in settlement of estates and the like, and it was in the best vested interests of the claimants to the woman’s identity to have her dead, whether she was or not.
This is not the only case I have found, as there are quite a few of a similar nature; so I do wonder whether the rush to identify the victims in the Whitechapel Murders might not be linked to the witnesses’ desire to have their relatives declared dead so that they could get their hands on the estate.
One mustn’t be quick to decry the value of such estates in the Whitechapel district, even amongst the very poor and ‘unfortunate’, as I chanced upon the most remarkable case of the pauper who had scratched his living out at Lambeth Workhouse for twenty years, and then walked out of the gates into court and picked up a cool £300,000 which had been his rightful inheritance the whole time he had been in the workhouse.
At that time in the LVP the pauper could have bought London with that vast sum.
So we ain’t talking peanuts here. |
Lex
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 5:56 pm: |
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Mr Wolf,
It's hard to see where you're going with this thread. I don't know which case it was where a witness swore that the victim was a sister.If we can't know the identities of any of the victims we're in real trouble. There are questions regarding the identity of the 'final' victim-Mary Jane Kelly- and there could be vested interests there if it meant protecting the real Mary Jane Kelly.
Regards, Lex Weissmuller |
Catherine Ann
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, August 28, 2005 - 7:20 pm: |
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Hi Lex! It was stated that a sister identified her estranged sister also nicknamed "Long Liz" in "The Killer Who Never Was." The sister was actually alive and well!
There is also another thread here under the Mary Kelly subject, somewhere, that points to the fact it was indeed Kelly in that room and mentions the possibility of it being a "romantic" notion the thought of someone pretty and young escaping the ripper. When reading it last night I felt more convinced by that writers arguments for it being Kelly rather than it not being Kelly. |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2682
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - 1:10 pm: |
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Just to update this a bit, and try to show where I am going.
Eliza Gorham was never found, as the woman found dead in the Common Lodging House was not her and was buried under another name.
Eliza Gorham just suddenly disappeared around Christmas of 1887, last seen outside her Common Lodging House; and I have been thinking to myself that she could very well be the elusive ‘Fairy Fay’. |
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