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Paul Gibson
Sergeant
Username: Rupertbear
Post Number: 22
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 6:25 am: |       |
Hi Caz,
More a case of who you can keep in then get rid of as far as the medical gen goes...
I suppose Druitt could have done it, given his family background...I don't favour his candidature but he can't be ruled out on this score.
This isn't a thesis as such, but I have started a thread under D'Onston Stephenson, simply because he could have killed Eddowes and the seemingly unlikely theory spun around defiling crosses and black magic actually becomes a little more credible, if you take Kelly out of the equation.
Could Barnett have killed Kelly?
Did D'Onston do the others?
Worthy of debate if nothing more?!!
Paul |
Bruce Tonnermann
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 1:41 am: | |
Most of the contemporary, or viable, suspects may seem unlikely. It is, however, valid to examine them and dispose of them as suspects where possible, such as Ostrog. Others, like Kosminski and Druitt, remain firmly in the frame.
The point is, the contemporary officials were in a better position to know about suspects than any modern researcher or writer.
This unfortunate situation leaves the door wide open for the ridiculous sagas such as those of Prince Eddy and Maybrick to develop. They are propagated by the unscrupulous, more interested in cash and kudos than serious history.
But that is the nature of the subject and there are those who consider such antics as fun. I say let them get on with it but don't encourage them. |
BDM
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2003 - 10:27 pm: | |
Just finished Cornwell's defamatory attempt to invite Sickert into your bedroom as Jack the Ripper. I am a criminal lawyer which doesn't mean anything, but, I have reviewed thousands of cases and know that there needs to be some proof to bring a case to trial. Then we worry about the burden, Proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Her book doesn't even get the case into a court room. I didn't find one legitimate nexus between her theories about Sickert and Jack the Ripper. She has a fantasy of being the great investigator. What a waste of my time in reading about her investigative shortcummings. |
Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 75
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 7:31 am: | |
Hi BDM,
While I wholeheartedly agree that Cornwell's book leaves the case every bit as wide open as it was before she began her rather unwise trip into ripperland, I do wonder if today's readers, when picking up yet another book making a claim about the true identity of the killer, are entitled to expect it to 'get the case into a court room' this time.
If it's not obvious by now that such books are only ever likely to contain the author's idea of the best case that can be made against their suspect, and are not about to provide a definitive solution, perhaps it ought to be. Do we really need the equivalent of a health warning on the cover, saying "Have the smelling salts ready if you truly believe the 'Case Closed' claim"?
Are we not being just a trifle disingenuous when we accuse Cornwell and others before her of taking us for a ride when none of us have been taken for a ride - or at least would never admit it?
Love,
Caz |
Monty
Detective Sergeant
Username: Monty
Post Number: 51
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 7:50 am: | |
Oooo Caz,
naughty, naughty 
Are you including the Cornwell 'teenyboppers cult' in this ?
'Monty is ugly'...a lie
'Caz is 60 if she is a day'...a lie...we all know you're 21 
'Case closed'...a lie
A lie is a.....well... a lie.
Yeah, when I come across a book claiming to have the case licked then I expect it to have it licked, Case closed. Not to find out that the truth is far from such a statement.
Its a falsehood, a mistruth, a LIE !
I hate being lied to...Im kinda old fashioned that way.
Monty
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 76
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 8:28 am: | |
Hi Bruce,
You never really addressed the question I put to you. I observed that 'perhaps historians and researchers should simply have recorded the facts regarding who were suspected, when and under what circumstances, and left it at that.'
Then I asked you:
'Has a poor example been set whenever one has gone further and argued for one weak suspect and against another equally weak one?'
You say that most of the contemporary, or viable, suspects, as unlikely as they may seem, are fair game for examination, and disposal as suspects 'where possible'.
On that basis it ought to be child's play for some of the better-respected and responsible authorities on the subject to make mincemeat out of the original suspicions against, for instance, Tumblety and Druitt, if they so desired. A truly objective, disinterested and well-informed commentator would be able to argue equally well (if not infinitely more persuasively), for such suspects' innocence as for their guilt. So what is the justification, or excuse, for an author favouring one poor suspect, such as your own favourite Dr T (how did I guess?), over any other, apart from the obvious need to appeal to the publisher?
Love,
Caz |
Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 77
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 9:07 am: | |
Hi Monty,
Howzat for missing the point? I'm not saying a lie is any less of a lie for being an obvious one. I'd be happy if ripper authors only argued against suspects and not for them, or at least put "My theory" instead of "Case Closed". I'd also be happier not to see adverts claiming that a shampoo can penetrate my hair and feed it with vitamins.
False claims should always be discouraged, and outlawed if possible, but the more obviously false they are, the less harm they can do while we are stuck with them.
The true face of the ripper is as likely to be revealed in a new ripper book as a face cream is going to hold back the years.
Love,
Caz
|
Paul Gibson
Sergeant
Username: Rupertbear
Post Number: 26
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 8:28 am: | |
Aah Caz,
We disagree (well, let's face it, neither of us really knows) about the extent of anatomical knowledge required for the Eddowes murder, but we are as one over the issue of putting forward suspects...I would much rather play the "who can we get rid of" game and immediately thought of Sickert...it seems absurd that he was once topping the charts and I so wanted him ousted in favour of realistic suspects.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of chronology involved in the voting and it seems hard to imagine what a popular suspect Druitt once was - he's been buried because of more recent events, such as the unearthing of the Maybrick diary, the Littlechild letter and Ms Cornwell's "Walter the Artist - case closed".
I ruefully agree with the intimation in your conclusion...with all the cr*p that's been written in the last 50 years, it's more difficult than ever to discern a plausible theory from a palpable lie.
Do I detect a trace of fan mail for Melvin Harris in your use of "The True Face of the Ripper"?
I have a lot of time for his work than most, even if I can't fully get my head around his suspect.
Bruce,
Even sorting the wheat out from the chaff is such a difficult game because it's all so subjective. A passage in a book can strike a chord with one person but leave another responding "No way" out loud.
Dr T - maybe, just maybe, but had the Littlechild letter been discovered a few years earlier he wouldn't be talked about nearly as much.
Druitt - Used to be my favourite suspect but I've moved on...difficult to rule out but too many ifs.
Kosminski - No! No! No!
It's all just opinion isn't it...but it helps pass the time of today.
Hurrah for message boards!!!
Paul
|
Monty
Detective Sergeant
Username: Monty
Post Number: 54
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 12:43 pm: | |
Caz,
Not bad...Im glad you back tracked
Monty
 |
Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 81
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 3:35 am: | |
Hi Monty,
I must be going senile - I didn't know I back tracked. But thanks for cleaning up after me anyway.
(note - must change my brand of incontinence pants).
Love,
Caz  |
Bruce Tonnermann
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 11:06 am: | |
The Cornwell book, as with the Jack the Ripper diary books, is a mere exploitation of an infamous name in order to sell to publishers.
What may be obvious to certain posters or more informed readers of Ripper books, may not be obvious to the general public amongst the readership. Hence thousands of Cornwell's avid fans now believe that she has solved the Ripper case, as do many of the less informed public readership. So yes, Cornwell and the other tall story tellers are taking many for a ride. It is disingenuous to suggest that no one believes such books when it is obvious that many do.
As someone who has no 'favourite suspect', I see no problem with those who argue the pros and cons of real police suspects. It is a genuine and honest concept and, as long as they do not invent their own 'facts' but stick to opinion and interpretation it seems to be a good way forward.
In view of the dearth of contemporary factual data of a specific nature it is not easy to dismiss contemporary named suspects unequivocally. One leading Ripper author has given an example of how to do it. Philip Sugden has successfully dismissed Ostrog from the reckoning.
I have no illusion that the identity of the 1888 killers in the East End of London will ever be revealed. It is a patent impossibility. But I, like others, enjoy reading about the history of those days, and reading all about what is known of the crimes. If I wanted fiction such as the stories woven around the Royals, Sickert and Maybrick I would choose novels. |
Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 85
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 12:03 pm: | |
Hi again everybody,
Hi Paul,
I’m not sure how you conclude from what I have written that we disagree about the extent of anatomical knowledge required for the Eddowes murder. Just to clarify, I don’t feel qualified to offer an informed opinion. You may well be right, although at least one doctor on these boards gave his opinion that even a top surgeon would have the utmost difficulty if required to remove a kidney under similar conditions, and that this argued for a smash and grab operation on the part of a killer who may or may not have been Superdoc. So I remain undecided and confused.
As for your question: ‘Do I detect a trace of fan mail for Melvin Harris in your use of "The True Face of the Ripper"?’
I wrote that the true face of the ripper is as likely to be revealed in a new ripper book as a face cream is going to hold back the years, because I believe this is true of all books whose authors claim their suspect is Jack, or most likely to be Jack, whether it be Cornwell’s or Harris’s. You say you have a lot of time for Harris’s work, even if you can’t fully get your head around his suspect. And Brian, on another thread, wrote this:
‘I can forgive people who use facts and have performed good research into the case when they claim to have found the Ripper, even if their case isn't rocksolid. This is especially true if they've made Ripper study part of their life's work.’
Well, I’m sorry but I detect a flaw in this logic. Imagine two books on a serious medical issue, one written by someone who is known to have spent years in the field, studying the subject matter and gaining a reputation for producing good and thoroughly-researched work, the other tackled by an author who is famous for churning out ‘Doctor in Love’ novels. The medical issue concerns a condition for which several treatments have been considered and tested. Not one of these has been able to effect an actual cure, nor is there any indication that it could in the future. Which of these books do you expect to provide the reader with better, more accurate information and responsible, qualified opinion? If you open both and find the authors giving very different views on the condition and its treatment, it’s really no contest - you reject the novelist in favour of the specialist. But what if they both claim that a treatment they favour is in fact a cure, or, equally misleadingly, argue the pros and cons of the known treatments, suggesting that one is more likely to produce a cure than any of the others? You’d rightly be disappointed and angry with both of them to find this simply isn’t the case, and that there is no supporting evidence for arguing that one treatment is any more likely than the others to cure the condition.
Both writers would be quacks, wouldn’t they? But who would be the bigger quack? And who would you most likely have put your faith in?
Love,
Caz
PS Bruce, glad to hear you have no ‘favourite suspect’, although you don’t half remind me of someone who has pushed his own likely ‘cure’ in the past. 
Arguments that favour one totally ridiculous suspect over another, real police suspect or otherwise, don't do much for me I'm afraid, whoever puts their name to them and gets them published. |
Monty
Detective Sergeant
Username: Monty
Post Number: 62
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 12:53 pm: | |
Caz,
Ok, ok I shall do the Gentlemanly thing and back track.
Sorry.
Geez...sarky women !
Monty
|
R.J. Palmer
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 57
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 6:26 pm: | |
Caz--Might we not do well to remember that:
A] the real Ripper is quite likely to be a "ridiculous" suspect...
and
B] the surviving 'case against him' might be overwhelmingly weak???
Something to ponder...
Years ago there's was a chap in Statford that some say wrote King Lear and a few other works of some merit.
There's no documented evidence that this chap ever attended school, nor is there the slightest inkling of how he knew about law, medicine, Northern Italy, or how he just happend to develop the widest vocabulary in the English language.
When he died he left no books, maps, or any other evidence of his wide learning. The townspeople knew him as a money lender, a farmer, and a bit of a Philistine. His own daughters were.....gasp.....illiterate.
No doubt you can see where I am going.
So ridiculous is this bloke's 'candidacy' that dozens of scholars have spent their lives attempting to prove he was really Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, or the Earl of Oxford.
Now, as for Whitechapel. Some shake their heads at Ripper suspects such as Monty Druitt. But, hey, what? Despite Monty's complete lack of a compelling historical record, who is to say that he wasn't the man that so many seek? RJP
|
John Ruffels
Sergeant
Username: Johnr
Post Number: 49
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 7:21 pm: | |
And "Willie-Wag-A-Dagger" might have been a suspect if he'd lived in Victorian times.
Didn't he leave his wife his second-best bed in his Will?
I liked JTR bibliographer "Alexander Kelly's"
summing up of Ripper authors: they do fantastic research for most of their book then go and spoil it all in the last chapter with a vertiginous leap into an improbable solution.
Its the publishers.
Personally, I think the best part of most Ripper books is the author's demolition of other authors' theories.
You just know that bit's genuine. |
Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 87
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 5:54 am: | |
Hi RJ, All,
Bruce says he has no illusion that the identity of the 1888 killers in the East End of London will ever be revealed. It is a patent impossibility.
Yet he thinks it's quite ok for established ripper researchers to argue that one theory is more likely to provide a solution to the mystery than another.
I see this as a contradiction, summed up neatly in John Ruffels's excellent post above.
To see one's ripper research in print, author after author has chosen to please the publisher with a proposed solution which is as improbable, or even more improbable, than any that have gone before. By Bruce's own argument, not one of these can responsibly, genuinely, honestly be described as a 'probable' solution, or more 'probable' than all the others, because it is 'a patent impossibility' - the proof just isn't about to materialise. Every theory is limited by lack of evidence to the author's subjective argument. The best we may be able to hope for is that new evidence will emerge to take suspects out of the frame completely, or, as John says, that a powerful argument will succeed in demolishing a few theories.
A] the real Ripper is quite likely to be a "ridiculous" suspect...
I'm pleasantly surprised by your open-mindedness here, RJ, but I find myself disagreeing. I think it's highly unlikely that any of the known suspects is the real Ripper, and very probably has never come to our attention. How many serial killers could legitimately have been described as "ridiculous" suspects before they were finally convicted? Looking back, even though they may not have raised the suspicions of friends and family at the time, it's usually a case of "the clues were there", or "there was always something about him". No one says "I still think Fred West/ Bundy/Christie/Brady/Sutcliffe made a "ridiculous" or even an unlikely suspect, at most it's a case of "he seemed so normal" or "who'd have thought?"
B] the surviving 'case against him' might be overwhelmingly weak???
But weak isn't the same thing at all as unlikely or ridiculous. The surviving case against each and every suspect is 'overwhelmingly weak' as it stands, but there is a limit to what any missing information could have done to make any one of them stronger. We know the case was never solved, and we know that whatever evidence there may have been at one time, it wasn't there in the quality and quantity needed to stop nearly every senior policeman theorising and coming up with a different name! So isn't it more likely that any missing information could only help us eliminate more of the police suspects?
So ridiculous is this bloke's 'candidacy' that dozens of scholars have spent their lives attempting to prove he was really Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, or the Earl of Oxford.
Er yes, an interesting parallel.
An overwhelming majority of the public have never doubted since day one that Willy was the bloke wot wrote all those words, and they probably never will doubt it. They don't want to doubt it. Scholars who try to prove how ridiculous this is, and who think the public need to be protected from such falsehood, are themselves seen as ridiculous cranks. I have no idea if the more discerning Shaky enthusiasts could be misled by these scholars.
But I don't think that an overwhelming majority of the public claim to know or care who the real ripper was, and most will go to their graves firmly believing he was never identified and that the mystery remains unsolved. I'm not trying to suggest that all the scholars and novelists and armchair tecs who have ever tried to push a solution are eventually seen as ridiculous cranks, but it makes you wonder, don't it? 
I mean, in a field where one of 'em has been known to take on false identities to attack the credibility of another, it can be hard to tell the genuine and honest from the charlatan.
But then, we are not talking about fake cures for a serious illness here, but non-solutions to a famous Victorian murder mystery. So I can't get too precious about the so-called 'viable' versus the valueless.
Love,
Caz
|
R.J. Palmer
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 59
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 9:42 am: | |
Caz-- I'm up early, let me give a muddled response.
"I think it's highly unlikely that any of the known suspects is the real Ripper."
But this, surely, is anti-Stratfordian, coming very close to rubbing elbows with the long-haired cranks that plump for Christopher Marlowe. It is saying that, because the extant case is weak, the said candidate is not likely to be the man.
Ahem. Once again, there is nothing in the legitimate historical record that would even begin to suggest that the Bumpkin from Statford was capable of King Lear. How could the man that created Cordelia, Ophelia, Miranda, or Portia have raised illiterate daughters? On the face of it, it's ridiculous.
The Whitechapel murderer did his dark deeds in the middle of the night. He disguised his actions. If one is to very reasonably argue that the extant 'case' against the actual murderer is probably either non-existant or overwhelmingly weak, then how can one, at the same time, argue with confidence that the suspect has not already been named?
He, of course, could be among us.
How do we know what we know?
There is a phase the historian goes through where he is very...er...how do I put it?....sensible.
Many here are very sensible. Phil Sugden, whom I admire, is very sensible.
But when one gets a bit older, and a bit crankier, I suppose, one becomes even cynical about the sensible people. What right do they have, I sometimes ask myself, to be so sensible? Do they really know much more than the cranks?
While I very much like your distinction between 'the ridiculous' and the merely 'weak', it seems to me that a great many here & elsewhere confuse the two.
For instance, I think you'll recall Ivor's contempt for the Druitt theory.
But how exactly is the case against Druitt [or Cohen or Kosminski or Tumblety or D'onston or Bury] really much different than the case against the Statford bumpkin?
In Aesop's fable the blind man grabs hold of the elephant's tail and proclaims that the elephant is very much like a piece of rope.
50 years of research have given us a handfull of documents pertaining to Mr. Druitt. A couple of legal cases. A boring list of cricket statistics. A sulky photograph, some school reports, and a letter or two. About the same amount of "stuff" we have on the Bard. But, again, who is to say that we aren't gripping firmly to the elephant's tail in thinking his candidacy is 'weak' or [as Ivor would probably have it] 'ridiculous' because all we see is a manic-depressive cricket player that topped himself one bleak winter afternoon? While I certainly sympathize with the impulse, it's really playing the long-haired Baconian crank, demanding that things must be what they appear to be---when, in fact, things are very often not at all like they appear to be.
With someone like Dritt, all we can really do is to point out that Macnaghten wasn't the best of sources. But this doesn't equate, unfortunately, with him being wrong.
Personally, I find it very difficult to say that Martin Fido, Dan Farson, Melvin Harris, or several others 'failed' to identify the murderer. Any one of them may have identified the murderer. A better way to look at it is to critique whether or not they pursued a legitimate line of inquiry.
Oh, and by the way. I think the murderer has probably been named--the police net was very wide. What they lacked in forensic skill they made-up for in human intelligence [by which I mean man-power.] But that's just optimistic me.
Cheers, RJP
|
R.J. Palmer
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 60
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 10:03 am: | |
P.S. An example of a 'ridiculous' suspect would be John Gacy. A part-time clown, an activist in local politics, a dude that posed with, I believe, first lady Roslyn Carter. Had his repulsive crimes gone unsolved, someone naming him 100 years later might suffer something similar to what those who currently plump for D'onston Stephenson suffer.
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Bruce Tonnermann
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 3:53 pm: | |
Because a historical mystery is incapable of a positive solution supported by unequivocal evidence does not mean that whatever information has survived the years should not be looked at and studied. Even if we accept the premise that the true solution cannot be proved, that does not mean that authorities on the subject should not assess what they do have and suggest possible answers. For many years this has been the accepted way of looking at this case and has been enjoyed by many. Most read the available material, make their own judgments and decide on their own preferred solution. It is true of many other mysteries of crime besides the Ripper case.
Any who think that it is better to prefer Gull or Maybrick as the Ripper, as opposed to Druitt or Kosminski, merely leave a large question mark over their own reasoning. But everyone to his own. The big attraction, for many, of this particular mystery has always been the fantasies woven around it. The majority of people prefer bunk to debunk, they always have.
So it is fine for any authority to have his opinion on this case and to write about it if he or she wishes to. Each will be judged upon the merits of the case he presents. Some presentations will be honest and others dishonest and misleading. Probability will always be a question of opinion.
To sum up, yes I believe it is an impossibility to prove the identity of the East End killers of 1888 but that does not preclude anyone who wishes to propose a possible solution from doing so. Personally I prefer to read about suspects with a factual foundation rather than the fairy tales of modern fantasists or hoaxers. |
Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 100
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 10:34 am: | |
Hi Bruce,
Because a historical mystery is incapable of a positive solution supported by unequivocal evidence does not mean that whatever information has survived the years should not be looked at and studied.
Has anyone suggested otherwise?
The problem is, one authority's preferred solution is the next one's idea of an unworkable theory.
I don't see too many authorities favouring Gull or Maybrick over Druitt or Kosminski, and certainly no one here on the boards is currently showing signs that they 'prefer' the two you mention, so not too many large question marks being left around here as far as I can see.
If you are talking about the reasoning of the general public, who may be persuaded by modern fairy tales, that's another question. But I'm really not sure what's to be done about it, no matter how much we moan and groan. I suppose one way would be for the authorities on the subject to expose all the fantasists and hoaxers to those who are being deceived by them, with enough proof to convince them never to be so fooled again.
How do you protect the public from being misled by fantasists and hoaxers, if they are happy to be misled because the authorities are busy preferring their own solutions which they have no more chance of ever proving?
Love,
Caz |
Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 101
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 10:44 am: | |
Hi RJ,
But this, surely, is anti-Stratfordian, coming very close to rubbing elbows with the long-haired cranks that plump for Christopher Marlowe. It is saying that, because the extant case is weak, the said candidate is not likely to be the man.
Of course, we start from a different place - Willy is there in position, whether pretender or not, with cranks rushing in to replace him with their own idea of the real thing. The ripper begins as an unknown, and only one (at most) of all the names connected with the case can possibly be the successful candidate. The extant case against every one of them is weak, so this plus simple maths tell this long-haired crank that the candidate of any theorist's dream is indeed 'not likely to be the man'.
But the likelihood of ‘the man’ being among the names we have is a slightly different matter. There were infinitely more men in the area at the right time than have ever been named in connection with the case, so the extant evidence against the named does nothing in my view to suggest the ripper is as likely (or more likely), to be among the named as the unnamed. What has survived is a variety of characters plucked out by individual cops as their personal idea of who Jack might have been - it doesn't do much for the theory that good evidence against one of these characters may have gone walkabout, unless it went walkabout before any of the top cops could know about it. This fact, for me, lessens even more the chances of Jack being one of this limited bunch mentioned in police memoirs etc, making me think he is to be found among the vast number of gents who never came to particular attention.
Of course, the ripper could be lurking on our list somewhere. But at present I don't feel we have the right sort of evidence to think it more likely than not. Statistically, he probably isn't. If we start invoking missing evidence to support the chances being even, or in favour of him being there, it’s a bit risky when we only have three options, none of them promising: missing evidence that would eliminate rather than incriminate a suspect; no missing evidence pointing either way; missing evidence against a single suspect that, unaccountably, was not reflected in the surviving theorising of the top cops collectively.
Yes, I see what you mean about Gacy. But it isn’t just the known activities of a ripper suspect that would make him seem 'ridiculous'. There are other factors, including the reasoning behind the suspicions, and the murder scenarios we are asked to consider - D'Onston creeping out of his hospital bed after mapping out the murders precisely, then happening upon a suitable victim who would accompany him to a spot that was perhaps unfamiliar to her. Or Tumblety looking guilty because he once collected wombs and went AWOL after the 'last' murder, despite the fact that Kelly's womb wasn't taken away. If the theories work better with D’Onston or Tumblety never paying a visit to Miller's Court, the 'ridiculous' Barnett theory can always be wheeled in to fill the void.
At least Druitt did the decent thing, turning up to play cricket shortly after recovering from one fatal bout of sexual insanity, and later jumping in the river to provide them with a dead man to explain why the killing had to stop.
Love,
Caz
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R.J. Palmer
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 62
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 12:18 pm: | |
Caz---I'm certainly not going to argue that the case has been proven. And I am really not going to argue that the case can be solved by sifting through the extant evidence. But one needs to differentiate between the dancer and the dance.
For instance, I don't plump for Stephenson/ D''onson, and don't wish to argue his case, but it seems to me that he has a bit more to offer than you're suggesting. Stephenson injected himself into the investigation [enough to earn a place in the official files] and he presumably kept the act up long enough to still be spouting the story years later. A weirdo, at the very least. Unlike Maybrick, Cream, Carroll, et al., he can be placed in the East End. That certainly doesn't make him the Ripper. But I can readily imagine the real man that committed these crimes wanting to brag about them to someone. And what is the harm in telling a couple of 'dotty old ladies?' Surely, no one would believe them, anyway, would they?
What I would want from the Donson supporters is independent confirmation of some of his tall tales. If they could produce, say, a murdered Chinese gold miner in Sacramento, and an old mining claim with Stephenson's name on it, then there would be better reason to believe Cremer's yarns.
They do, however, have other hurdles to overcome.
I think you mistake Tumblety, but it touches too close to my 'serious' [snort] research, so I don't wish to comment. I'd only suggest that Tumblety's odd personality was a fact entirely independent of his initial arrest for suspicion--something that the critics of the theory have overlooked.
Druitt, ah well. A cricket game is not an alibi. The crimes most similar to the Ripper murders took place in the United States in the mid 19th Century. They are now entirely forgotten. In these crimes, the convicted murderer did not wander out in a fit of mania and dispatch the first woman he encountered. The murders were, in fact, premeditated. In his last repulsive & tragic crime, he killed and mutilated a school girl. He had stayed up most the early morning hours lying in wait. The crime scene was as horrible as Miller's Court. Yet, within the hour, he made his way across a river and let his presence be known miles away--an attempt at an alibi. He calmly chatted with neighbors. He was not a raving lunatic; he was outwardly 'sane' and even won a retrial.
Yes, in the end, Monty may have been the butt of a malicious school boy's rumor. By why, then, was the rumor so wide-spread? Whittington-Egan wrote somewhere that there is some indication that Warren himself became a Druittist. If it was only a yarn, it must have been a damned good one.
What I guess I'm really arguing against is inductive reasoning, or, at least a certain sort of reasoning. If it's bogus to take a few small facts about a bloke and expand them outward into a magnificent edifice of guilt, it is equally illogical to expand them outward and suggest complete innocence.
Of course, you do have the odds on your side. I won't argue that. And if no one has convinced you....why, then, no one has convinced you.
Cheers, RJP
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Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 103
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 27, 2003 - 6:50 am: | |
Hi RJ,
No problem with anything you say here. One observation though. You write, when considering D'Onston:
...I can readily imagine the real man that committed these crimes wanting to brag about them to someone.
Yes, so can I. Equally, I can imagine the real ripper as a complete social misfit, who may or may not have read about himself in the papers, but who may have been quite incapable of articulating to another living soul his inner thoughts and compulsions, and how they translated into actions, even if he believed he understood what made him tick.
I do wish you well with your Tumblety research. And who knows, something may turn up to add weight to the theory that this colourful charlatan could have been the blood-thirsty slayer of East End prostitutes.
Yarn or no yarn, I'm struggling to imagine what kind of evidence there could have been to link Druitt directly with the ripper crimes - rumours or even proof of skeletons in his cupboard of a violent/sexual sort would not be nearly enough on their own. I agree that to pronounce him much maligned rather than guilty we still have to fill in too many gaps using our imagination and gut feeling. So I do see that it is wrong for me to argue that Druitt is innocent on the grounds that the alternative is too 'ridiculous' to contemplate.
I'll just stick with innocent because there is no (surviving) evidence to suggest otherwise. Even Macnaghten only saw Druitt as one of three suspects who were a better bet than a fourth (with not a whiff of Tumblety or D'Onston). And if he didn't possess information that made the case against Druitt any stronger than that in his own eyes, I have to ask myself what, if any, existed, who had it and why did they only let a hint of it reach the authorities instead of giving it out straight.
Love,
Caz |
SirRobertAnderson
Detective Sergeant
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 60
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 27, 2003 - 8:59 am: | |
Bruce sez:
"As someone who has no 'favourite suspect', I see no problem with those who argue the pros and cons of real police suspects."
The problem I have with this the incomplete nature of the police record. Bits and pieces surface from time to time - just look at the Littlechild letter! It's at the heart of the case against Tumblety as a viable "police suspects" but it only recently came to light. And we know that there WAS at one point a rather substantial police file on Doctor T.
D'Onston, too, for that matter.
Who knows what else is missing? Where are Abberline's notes on his interrogation of Hutchinson? Barnett?
Might there not be additional, substantial police suspects of whom no record remains?
Sir Robert |
Alan Smith
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 27, 2003 - 8:51 am: | |
When the question arises as to whether or not we will ever know the identity of Jack the Ripper, the only hope seems to be either the discovery of new documentary evidence, or the revelation of existing evidence which researchers are refused access to (e.g. Kelly files).
What we tend to ignore is the relentless march of technological progress. New scientific methods are currently resulting in convictions for crimes committed 30 or 40 years ago which had the police of the time beaten.
The internet or DNA testing would have been akin to Star Trek in the minds of our Victorian forefathers, so it would be naieve in the extreme for us to believe that our future generations will not develop capabilities beyond the comprehension of our little minds.
All will be revealed, unfortunately it may be too late for most of us. (Unless technology allows us to be preserved for ever)
Alan |
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