|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
All Of The Police Too
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: Ripper Suspects:
All Of The Police Too
Author: Gregory Boston
Saturday, 11 January 2003 - 06:38 am |        | If the police knew the identity of the ripper, and didn't bring him to justice, then they are just as guilty as the actual ripper.
Silence is acceptance.
All of these notes, letters, books, and memoirs and several hints that the police knew the suspect.
Some say that the police didn't follow up with this suspect because he was insane and committed to an asylum. Others claim that the ripper died shortly after the killings.
Either way, the police have a responsibility to the citizens they serve to follow through with an investigation of this magnatude.
Silence, is truly, acceptance. |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Saturday, 11 January 2003 - 07:58 am | | | The police did not know. |
Author: Gregory Boston
Saturday, 11 January 2003 - 09:15 am | | | They had to have a minute inkling. |
Author: Brian Schoeneman
Saturday, 11 January 2003 - 01:02 pm | | Gregory,
I've done a bit of research into the police here, as it was part of my dissertation.
All of the comments of the major police officials who have named Ripper suspects, such as Littlechild, Anderson, MacNaughten, etc. were made after the fact, and most of them conflict. There was little or no consensus between the officials. In addition, there are no files or reports to the Home Office (as far as I am aware) that strongly support the theory that the police "knew" who the Ripper was.
MacNaughten wasn't even a member of the Met until after the death of Kelly. He was part of the mess that resulted in James Monro resigning as head of CID the same day as the Nichol's murder.
Anderson was appointed to Monro's position the day of Nichol's murder, worked for a week, and promptly went on vacation for a month, the day before the Chapman murder. Luckily, by that time Warren had placed Swanson in control of the case.
Littlechild was head of Special Branch, a semi-secret division of the CID that was primarily a domestic intellgience agency tasked with dealing with the Fenians. He wouldn't have had any direct access to the case.
Of all of the police officials who commented on their theories of who was the Ripper the ones I believe have the most credence belong to Swanson and Abberline. Sir Charles Warren, Commissioner of the Met during that time period, never went on record with a suspect (as far as I know).
Swanson was appointed by Warren (although some report it was through Anderson, but the Met paperwork is signed by Warren) to be the administrator of the case. Most of the reports to the Home Office came from him, and Warren was specific that any scrap of paper that came through the Met about the case was to go through Swanson's fingers. Swanson suspected Kosminski.
Abberline was assigned to the case from the CO Division of Scotland Yard as a Chief Inspector because he had previously been the Inspector from Whitechapel (H) Division. He did a lot of the leg work on the Ripper killings that occurred within the Met's jurisidiction (all except Eddowes). He suspected George Chapman.
However, in my opinion, Abberline summed up the whole situation regarding the police's suspicions of suspects best in his interview with the Pall Mall Gazette in 1903: ""...Scotland Yard is really no wiser on the subject than it was fifteen years ago."
Greg, be assured, there was too much politically invested in this case for the police to have not made an arrest had they sufficient evidence. They arrested dozens of men and held them for questioning throughout the course of the investigation - so many that the press even started poking fun at them for it. Stewart's book references that there were over 100 reports of men brought in for questioning about the murders. Not catching the Ripper indirectly led to Warren's resignation and it almost caused the government to fall. They didn't just let him get away.
B |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 12 January 2003 - 06:44 am | | Hi, Gregory and Brian:
The Whitechapel murders constituted the most famous murder case in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The case, of course, remains notorious, because the murderer was not apprehended, and it received so much coverage in the media at the time, as it has continued to do down to today in modern media, books, TV documentaries, fictional treatments in novels and movies, etc.
As such, given the notoriety of the case, it is natural that a number of different police officers in 1888 and the years afterward had various theories of the case just as many members of the public also had theories. Humans dislike unexplained phenomena and the natural inclination of the human mind is to want to solve mysteries. Some of the contemporary theories may have been based on valid hunches or on information about the killer or, rather, about the suspect that the person with the theory thought was the killer, but may not have been.
Gregory, further to Mr. Stewart P. Evans's remark above that the police of the day did not know the identity of the killer, the following might be of interest to you. Back in 1999, I interviewed Stewart Evans for Ripper Notes. I think you will find it pertinent to read his views on whether the case is solvable and his explanation for how different police officers could have different theories about the crimes:
"In my view, any chance of solving the case ranks at zero. All you will be left with is a list of names of viable suspects from which, if you want to have a suspect, you may select a name as the one whom you feels best fits the facts and circumstances. It is a balance of probabilities. And that is only if the police did actually have the actual killer as a suspect. Even they wouldn't know that for sure as they lacked the evidence, and this, of course, is why you see a lack of consensus among the contemporary police. The same happens today in an unsolved murder case. Inspector A may prefer suspect X, while Inspector B may prefer suspect Z. At the same time, Superintendent C might prefer suspect Y, or even Inspector A's suspect X. I hope that this may explain the reason why the police of the time didn't agree on a common suspect. There is simply not enough evidence in existence. There wasn't at the time, so there can't be now. And what facts we do have are often contentious or even ambiguous."
I think the above detailed opinion from Stewart Evans might help to answer your question, Gregory, informed as it is by Stewart's knowledge of the inner workings of the British police, which he gained as a serving police officer in the Suffolk constabulary, as well as by his knowledge of the case as a long-time student of the Whitechapel murders.
Best regards
Chris George
Co-Editor,
Ripper Notes |
|
|
|
|
