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** 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 **
Repercussions of the "Dear Boss" and Lusk Letters
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Letters: General Discussion:
Repercussions of the "Dear Boss" and Lusk Letters
Author: Yazoo
Sunday, 24 January 1999 - 08:44 am |        | Sometime after the receipt of the second "letter" -- the postcard -- the police, perhaps the public and the rest of the press as well, seemed to have concluded the "Dear Boss" letters were a hoax. I can't tell when the police made this determination.
The third "Dear Boss" letter and especially the fourth show signs of increasing frustration, anger, and manipulativeness.
Was the "Dear Boss" letter writer aware of the determination that his letters were being dismissed as a hoax? If he did, how did he know -- press reports or inside knowledge (from press or police sources)?
Was he trying to recapture police and public attention by changing the tone and content of his letters?
Does his failure to recapture that interest have anything to do with the Lusk letter and kidney being sent: 1) the fact that a different "audience" or addressee was selected -- hoping to revive interest by "going public" in a more direct manner? and 2) at last, evidence from the crime in the form of half a human kidney was sent with the letter -- providing the corroboration (via knowledge/evidence only the murderer would know or possess) that was promised by the "Dear Boss" series, that "moderns" would demand of any genuine communication from the murderer?
If the murderer(s) were in fact trying to communicate with their peers in society -- via the press and police first, later with Lusk -- does that fit with the evolving nature of what is arguably the "first" genuine serial killer?
Were all the participants in the actions of August to November, 1888, learning from one another what to do and say; how to act and react to each other's actions? Were the murderer(s) learning to try to use the press to increase whatever "benefit" they derived from committing the crimes while the press and the police struggled to learn what they could do with this unusual behavior in a murderer?
Didn't the police, the press, the public, and the murderer(s) all fail in what they attempted to do?
1) The murderer(s) failed in using the press to increase "thrills" -- or whatever -- in the murderer(s), and also to damage the pride and power of the police?
2) The police failed to use the letters to derive clues or theories about the nature or psychology of the murderer(s); perhaps where he worked or lived, etc.
3) The press failed to forge a working relationship with the police AND the murderer so that they got both the sensational story but also could be seen as helping the police, cementing their relationship -- to their own ultimate advantage -- between both groups (police and serial killers -- though, historically-speaking, the idea of serial murder was not yet known; the phenomenon first came to their awareness in the form of JtR)...all to the greater end of raising sales.
4) The public failed to demand such press/police cooperation, "enjoying" the petty rivalry between the two groups at the expense of failing to capture a murderer who was killing who they may/probably(?) perceived were the "less human," the "expendable" subgroups -- females and, especially, female-prostitutes.
Yaz |
Author: Caroline
Monday, 25 January 1999 - 04:11 am | | God Yaz,
We are gonna get there yet! And you wanted me to do a paper on those letters!
Nice work mate, keep it up, wonder how many people are sitting up and taking notice?
Love, Caroline |
Author: Yazoo
Monday, 25 January 1999 - 08:34 am | | Hey, Caroline!
Your paper, or whatever you want to call it, sounds more and more intriguing. And yeah, I'd like to hear other ideas on the letters besides a grunt that they're a hoax...so anybody should take a shot.
Yaz |
Author: Matthew Delahunty (Dela)
Monday, 25 January 1999 - 08:44 am | | Hi Yaz,
I found it interesting when I learnt that a Dear Boss letter was sent prior to the famous 25th Sept. letter. Yet in the 25th Sept. letter he adds the postscript about his name. Why? Perhaps both letters are hoaxes written by two different people working on the same project (ie, journalists told to create a hoax for sensationalism). My problem with it all being a hoax is that the author of the 25th Sept. letter, if it is a hoax, got very lucky in predicting the double event. And what's more the author had details of the murders which many people wouldn't have been aware of (as it was probably sent before or very shortly the publication of the first reports of the murder). Later letters though predict a triple killing which didn't occur. But I wouldn't automatically assume then it is a fake. Perhaps the Ripper intended to kill three in one night, but just didn't get the chance to with a closing police net and greater public awareness. |
Author: Yazoo
Monday, 25 January 1999 - 10:58 am | | Hey, Dela!
I've never revisited the timing issue (correlations between events and postmarks on the letters/cards), but I think it's been established that the writer didn't need any special knowledge...he could have taken it from newspapers of the previous night or the next morning.
If somebody has different info, lemme know.
Predictions or special knowledge would of course offer some validation for the letters being genuine, but I don't think we have such luck. Our letter writer was a dope -- if you ask me, which you didn't, but there you are -- and it may have been the first time we know of that a serial murderer tried to communicate his thoughts, feelings, ideas to the press/police/public. There was a lot to learn.
As to why "Jack the Ripper" -- Alex came up with an interesting parallel from Punch magazine, where a columnist(?) signed himself "Jack-in-the-Box" or something equally, and typically for Punch, not very funny (American savagery, I know!). It fits as a hypothetical origin for both the hoax crowd and people -- like me -- who see JtR as very real but very much a participant in his own press creation.
Anyway...
Yaz |
Author: Christopher T. George
Monday, 25 January 1999 - 12:50 pm | | Hello, Matthew Delahunty (Dela):
The double event is not predicted in the September 25 Dear Boss letter but in the Dear Boss ("Saucy Jack") postcard postmarked and received by the Central News Agency on Monday, October 1, i.e., the day after the "double event"--Stride and Eddowes murders--on the morning of Sunday, September 30. So Yaz is right: there is a chance that someone read about the two murders in the newspapers on Monday morning and could have got the communication off in time for it to be postmarked that same day. In any case, the postcard does not necessarily prove prior knowledge of the double murder.
Chris George |
Author: Matthew Delahunty (Dela)
Monday, 25 January 1999 - 11:42 pm | | Sorry Chrisgeorge, you're right - I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote about the 25th Sept. letter. It must have been some argument I read somewhere which I've since mixed up.
The point about the timing of the postcard is that I can't recall any newspaper article of 1 October which gave in depth detail of the murder to allow the writer of the postcard to know that Stride's ears had not been clipped off. This led me to the conclusion that the writer of the letter, if a hoax, would have to have been a journalist or policeman who had greater knowledge than the general public. If you can point me to a 1 Oct. article which described murder I'd be more than happy.
Dela |
Author: Bob_c
Tuesday, 26 January 1999 - 06:10 am | | Hi Dela,
Good point about the writer and that bit about Strides ears. He did write about not having chance because she 'squealed a bit', which according to Schwartz if he saw the real attack was true.
So, if we assume Jack, or at least the writer mentioned about the ears not just as an excuse for not sending Eddowes lugs to the police, he knew that she had 'squealed' and that her ears were still on. He knew that fairly early on the 1st October or he couldn't have got the card away early enough. There are two points there, both which could indeed indicate Jack or a crony indeed being the writer (Food for my aprrentice theory/other more person theories.
Indeed, I am now prepared to consider seriously that to which I have until now a little pooh-poohed, that the letters may well have been from Jack. Thanks Dela,
regards,
Bob |
Author: Yazoo
Tuesday, 26 January 1999 - 07:38 am | | Hey, Dela and Bob,
Let me play Devil's Advocate.
A part of Eddowes' ear had been severed. I don't know if he took that part of the ear away with him or not. This would seem to refute the card writer's claim about not having cut off the ears. Also, the writer seems to be referring only to the "first" victim. He may have also thought that the cutting of a piece of Eddowes' ear as an accident, or the letter writer did not see that action performed by himself or a second man, or he did not consider a piece as the whole ear. He may be consistent in his claim and he may not...dpends on how you characterize what happened to Eddowes' ear.
And I don't quite follow the thought that, since Stride's ears had not been cut off, that would indicate a greater knowledge of the crime. JtR had never cut off an ear before or after the part he cut from Eddowes (I think this statement includes Kelly), so the claim about not having time to cut off the ears could be the hoaxer following-up his own false, but pretty safe, prediction. I don't think there was a detailed story about Eddowes on October 1 -- and there is a corresponding silence about the second murder or any details in the card that was sent. All the writer seems to know is that a "Double Event" occurred. The writer never refers to the part of Eddowes' ear that was cut off, or to the second victim at all -- matching the press silence about it.
The "squealed a bit" part is more relevent to Stride, but Sugden (page 203) quotes the Star newspaper story about what Schwartz saw, which contains a reference to a "quarrel" between the attacker and Stride. That story ran on October 1. Not squeals, I admit, but a quarrel.
So the letter/card writer may have got some things right and some things wrong, in both a positive and negative sense. But he may not have known or cared that the 1888 police (or more likely, we "moderns") would be searching his writing for such specialized knowledge as means of authentication.
Yaz |
Author: Matthew Delahunty (Dela)
Tuesday, 26 January 1999 - 08:10 am | | Hi Bob,
Something just occurred to me when you mentioned your apprentice theory. IF the letters were from Jack (or one of the Jacks) then it is quite possible that the postcard was written before the murder of Eddowes took place.
Just something to ponder over.
DELA |
Author: Bob_c
Tuesday, 26 January 1999 - 10:39 am | | Hi Yaz, Hi Dela,
Yaz, I took the bit about the ears pertaining only to Stride, because the writer wrote 'squealed a bit, no time to collect ears for the police'. It was testified that Stride cried out as she was attacked, so IF Jack, then he would probably have meant her.
Eddowes ear was indeed cut. Dr Fred. Brown, who inspected the body at the scene and later, reported that at the mortuary, as her body was being carefully undressed, a bit of ear fell from the clothing. If that was the missing piece, or just a part of the missing piece, is apparently not recorded.
I've gone quite deeply into Schwartz's testimony. If he meant what has been translated, then he saw Stride & consortium a while before Stride got attacked. I believe he would have testified that they had quarreled and then she was pulled, then pushed to the ground, where she screamed. You don't need to know the language to know when people quarrel, even when they aren't hacking at each other with axes.
Dela, I doubt that because the double event was mentioned on the postcard. Jack II could, of course, written the card as Jack I set off to carve up Eddowes, but it must be assumed that Jack I could not guarantee a killing before he left to do it. Of course, IF the double Jack theory has anything in it, there could be substance even in that.
Regards,
Bob |
Author: Matthew Delahunty (Dela)
Tuesday, 26 January 1999 - 09:42 pm | | Hi Bob,
Having thought about it again I admit that it does seem unlikely. But we don't know exactly when the letter was written so we should question when it could have been (before eliminating it).
Dela |
Author: Rotter
Saturday, 13 February 1999 - 04:55 pm | | | Just to disturb things a bit--and since I have nothing of any substance to add--I think we attribute the early letters to the Ripper because they are the best ones, and we imagine the Ripper to be interesting enough to write well. What if the Ripper picked up the papers, saw the letters and was surprised and tickled enough to go and write his own--and those are the later, boring ones? |
Author: Yazoo
Saturday, 13 February 1999 - 05:10 pm | | Hey, Rotter!
For all we know or can prove about any of the letters, your suggestion may be right. The irony of your idea certainly tickled me.
Yaz |
Author: Matthew Delahunty (Dela)
Sunday, 14 February 1999 - 08:28 am | | I'd like to know what people think of the alleged Dear Boss letter of the 17th Sept. It was written in blue ink and the handwriting bears no resemblance to the 25th Sept letter and the postcard, but it is written in a similar style. Some experts have dismissed it as a likely hoax. Well, here's a theory - the 17th Sept letter is actually real (by this I mean not necessarily written by the murderer, but wasn't a letter-day hoax) and was sent to CNA. Some enterprising journalist sees it and thinks it's not genuine. But it has a good name signed down the bottom and apart from the messy writing it's not too bad. The journalist thinks, "I can do a better job" and so goes to work copying the style (but in red ink to make it look better) to produce what we all know as the Dear Boss letter and the later postcard. The handwriting is in a neat style, suggesting to the readership that here is an authentic letter (not one written by a poor troublemaker) and that the murderer is one of them (ie, well-off and intelligent) - that's bound to sell more papers than a poor Jew theory which the cops have! The journalist has the inside knowledge of the 30th Sept murders which most members of the public know, so he can hastily write the postcard on Oct. 1 with enough detail to make it look authentic.
I am not saying I believe in this but it's a possibility I thought I'd float.
Dela |
Author: Matthew Delahunty (Dela)
Sunday, 14 February 1999 - 08:32 am | | I agree with Rotter that perhaps just one of the letters which hasn't been highlighted amongst the thousands the police received may actually be the work of the Ripper. That's, of course, if you believe the current well known letters are hoaxes - I'm not convinced either way.
Dela |
Author: Yazoo
Sunday, 14 February 1999 - 11:31 am | | Hey, Dela!
The curious choice of sending the letters/card to the CNA is that the CNA -- to my knowledge -- didn't own or sell newspapers. They sold stories to other papers, in the main -- I think -- to non-London papers.
It's also curious that the CNA didn't publish the letters or cards until contacting the police and then the police publishing posters around the area asking for help in identifying the handwriting. By that time, whatever mercenary advantage a CNA-conspired hoax would have had was lost.
Still, nothing can or probably (never say never) will be proved regarding the letters and card, one way or the other. I just wonder what help the letters/card might provide if you include them in your thinking about the murderer or at least the atmosphere surrounding the case. Whatever conclusions are made about a suspect would probably have to be letter-independent...I'm sorry to say.
Yaz |
Author: Guy Hatton
Sunday, 14 February 1999 - 12:05 pm | | In reply to Dela's last-but-one posting:
Interesting idea, Matthew - except that the "Dear Boss" letter of 17/9/88 doesn't
just resemble that of 25/9/88 - it also echoes elements of the Lusk "From Hell"
letter of 16/10/88, thus making it much more likely that it was written by some
prankster after the content of the two "real" letters had been made public. I
personally also find its appearence in the official files at such a late date, and its
discovery in a file which had allegedly become sealed extremely suspicious. |
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