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Stephen P. Ryder
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 2837
Registered: 10-1997
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 4:01 pm: |       |
Jack the Ripper: Crime Scene Investigation
by Dr. David J. Speare
ISBN: 1-4134-0984-9 (Trade Paperback)
ISBN: 1-4134-0985-7 (eBook)
Pages: 214
Subject: TRUE CRIME / General
Review forthcoming.
An excerpt from this book can be found at:
http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/book_excerpt.asp?bookid=19126
This book can be purchased from Amazon.co.UK at:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1413409849/casebojacktherip
Stephen P. Ryder, Editor
Casebook: Jack the Ripper |
Stephen P. Ryder
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 2861
Registered: 10-1997
| | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 10:14 pm: | |
An independently-published book by veterinary pathologist Dr. David J. Speare which purports to look at the Ripper crimes from a modern CSI perspective. There are no new findings or suspects here, but rather a re-telling of the five canonical murders, coverage of social conditions in London at the time, glimpses of modern serial killer behavior, and a review of several suspects. Dr. Speare doesn't attach much favor to any suspect, though he believes the Ripper diary is "worth a look."
Unfortunately, the book is in need of an editor. A few too many spelling and grammar mistakes break up the flow of reading, and a fair number of factual errors creep into the text. Perhaps most glaring was the inclusion of an entire chapter on George Chapman (instead of Michael Ostrog) as "the second suspect cited by Macnaughten (Sic)".
Nevertheless its a generally well-written book which covers all the bases and adheres to no particular theory. Recommended for novices as a general overview, with the caveat that there are some important errors peppered throughout the text.
Stephen P. Ryder, Editor
Casebook: Jack the Ripper |
Louis van Dompselaar
Sergeant
Username: Etaoin
Post Number: 12
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 12, 2004 - 5:36 am: | |
Dr. Speare, for whatever reason, seems to have used Cullen as the major source for al his 'facts', which is the main cause for the factual errors, which even goes as far as lining up Fairy Fay as a victim again. Judging from his list of 13 major sources, he doesn't seem to have bothered to check any recent, or official, source at all.
Also, there is some evidence he didn't check his sources against each other either, or that the chapters were written seperately. In his summary of the murders, a lot of factual errors are copied from Cullen, which are later plainly contradicted when he goes through them again, obviously using a different source at that point. A striking example is that he first notes Buck's Row wrongly as "dominated by Barber's horse butchery" (p. 24) and later on correctly identifies it in Winthrop Street (p. 69).
He also tends to pull out ripper folklore (mostly Cullen-based) as fact, a practice which should have long died out. Chapman's missing rings are again found at her feet, Kelly is pregnant again (although he later quotes from Dr. Bond's post mortem report!), and to him it is a definitely ascertained fact that the ripper washed his hands in Dorset Street after the Eddowes murder.
There are even some new ones. On page 75 he tells us about Chapman: "a wrapper with the letter M on it, and an address from Liverpool, was found near her body". The Liverpool address is, not surprisingly, missing in a later chapter.
As noted by Stephen Ryder, there are numerous spelling and grammatical errors, some of which should have been spotted by any decent spelling checker. There's also the consistent reference to "Spitalfield", which is annoying, as is the use of "London England" throughout.
Having waded through all that, I have just now come to what can be deemed his own contribution; a new look at the crime scene evidence from his point of view. So I might have to change my opinion after I've read that, although since he obviously used erroneous sources for this evidence, my hopes aren't too high.
Louis |
Dan Norder
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, January 16, 2004 - 10:28 pm: | |
A *veterinary* pathologist wrote a book about the forensics of Jack the Ripper?
Sounds like Diddles the kitten gets bumped up on the suspect list, and maybe the Jack the monkey theory too. |
Steven G. Harsch
Police Constable
Username: Mrsteve74656
Post Number: 7
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 14, 2004 - 8:07 pm: | |
Unfortunately, this is one of the worst Ripper books that I've come across. The HUGE amount of factual errors make it a very confusing read. There are instances where Speare has contradicting "facts" on the same page. And, for some reason I can't figure out, Martha Tabram has several different names in the book - in fact, on one page, he refers to her by three different names! And I agree with the previous post . . . it's very strange that a Beterinary Pathologist would try to use modern forensics to investigate the crime scene. I thing Mr. Speare was just cashing in on the "CSI" hype. LoL |
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