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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 **
Jack the Ripper: The Mystery Solved (Harrison)
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Media: Specific Titles:
Non-Fiction:
Jack the Ripper: The Mystery Solved (Harrison)
Author: Tommy Reynolds
Thursday, 19 November 1998 - 12:45 am |        | I have found one book that was written by an English Police Officer that is very informative and disproves a lot of the theories. It is called, Jack The Ripper: The Mystery Solved by Paul Harrison.
I believe it to only be printed in Great Britain. I borrowed it from a friend of mine that actly knew the author. He worked with him on assignments while in the miltary and stationed in England. It has pictures of the crime scenes (not the actual scenes - only where they occurred). It also goes into each murder and pinpoints all the similarities and differences. He takes some of the supposed Ripper murders and shows you that the Ripper did not commit them. Great book. Dry in places, but hey, that is English literature for you huh? |
Author: John Berger
Thursday, 19 November 1998 - 12:45 am | | Paul Harrison takes the reader on a believable and totally rational junket through serial killer identification and official police records of the murdered east end ladies.
Harrison earns a living as a police sergeant in Northamptonshire and applies his experience of actual crimes to sorting the real clues from heresy. He corrects published errors and shows the reader how cock-and-bull stories made by both police and media have confused Ripperologists for 100 years. For example, Harrison's knowledge of policemen's jargon explains the Goulston Street writing on the wall that has baffled armchair detectives. Why would a man running for his life stop, pull out a chalk and write in inch-high lettering "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing"? It is not a Semitic statement. Rather it refers to the City Police occupying the headquarters at Old Jewry. "The Jewes" was a nickname used by the majority of the Metropolitan officers when referring to the men from the City force. Harrison digs farther and finds that PC Alfred Long of `A' Division, Metropolitan police, after discovering Stride's body, probably planted the piece of apron and scrawled the message in reaction to the poor morale that existed within the Metro force under Sir Charles Warren. Long was later let go for drunkenness.
Harrison both defends and lambastes the police of the day, saying serial killers are tough to catch, even today, and ridicules the one upmanship between the City and Metro men. When Eddowes was killed within the City police jurisdiction, their cops ran through the Metro beats chasing clues. When Harrison applies modern techniques to the facts in this mystery, he brings out some new clues to the killer's name. Once the reason for homicide comes out, the slayer is easy to find. Harrison finds the strumpets were not slashed for money, lust, or elimination, but for jealousy. Further, the killer was a planner, making him a criminal of the psychopathic type who lived in Whitechapel or Spitalfields. He was aloof yet normal and unassuming.
Serial killing is remarkably consistent for all men who murder more than thrice. The FBI has analyzed the lifestyles of many serial killers and learned they are so similar in behaviour and background as to be almost identical people. Harrison compares a modern ripper (Peter Sutcliffe) to the Whitechapel man and finds both lived near their victims; both hunted and mutilated prostitutes; both were interviewed by police and released. One by one, the popular suspects are looked at and discarded. Men like Druitt, Chapman, Stephen, Kosminski, and others _ despite the stories _ don't fit the profile of a psychopathic and jealous killer.
By now, you're wondering why any man would be jealous of a drunken filthy harlot. This is why Harrison had to look hard at police inquiry archives until he found a man who had been arrested after the Kelly murder then let go despite a bad alibi in his testimony to Abberline. Perhaps Abberline was not paying attention as the suspect contradicted himself when explaining why he and Mary Jane Kelly broke up, or why he hated prostitutes. But the man went free and may have never killed again.
In 1887, Kelly had met and taken up with a nice young man named Joe Barnett who worked as a fish porter. His job was to cut open some 200 fish a day, after which he and Kelly would waste hours drinking in the Ten Bells with boozers and hookers. Although he tried his best to support the two of them, Kelly worked the streets while Joe sliced fish until news of a murdered prostitute scared her straight and moral ... for a week or so anyway. If hacking whores brought Kelly under his control, then so be it. She broke up with him for good October 28. Well, almost. They got back together for one last night of lovemaking on November 9. After removing and folding her clothing, she lay on the right side of the bed, leaving room for him on the left. He playfully pulled the bedsheet over her face and ... well, you know the rest. After a couple of hours, he quietly locked the door behind him and tossed the key.
The day after police let Barnett go, a journalist found him at the public house rather dispassionately discussing the recently departed love of his life, as any dissociated psychopath would. Barnett lived until 1927, when he died of lymphoma carcinoma.
Harrison's five years' labour has given a mound of data never published before. Do you know where Liz Stride's remains are buried? Try East London Cemetery, public grave #15509. His common-sense approach to crime and investigation is worth as much as solving the riddle of the Ripper.
Throughout the book I never felt Harrison fudged or twisted to condemn a good man. The facts are there and although I believe we'll never really know who the Ripper was, Harrison has stopped the press for many of us. |
Author: Stein Murray
Friday, 27 August 1999 - 06:02 am | | | I have just read your review of this book, what a load of twaddle but then what can we expect from people with no analytical background. i know the author personally, he will be pleased to receive your comments, I'll make sure he gets them tomorrow (28/8). By the way, what are your credentials? over here in UK we like to know a little about the 'self proclaimed experts' who talk a good job! I don't seem to recall reading a book or thesis by Stephen Ryder. |
Author: Malleus
Friday, 27 August 1999 - 06:24 am | | I have never seen such an ill-informed and inaccurate batch of posts as the ones above. Paul Harrison's book is full of avoidable errors, has a photograph captioned as George Yard Building, which it is not, and ends by selecting an historically incorrect person as the Joe Barnett of Mary Kelly fame (an error corrected by, amongst others, Bruce Paley).
This appalling standard of 'reviewing' Ripper books is typical of many whose standards fall dismally short of being wothwhile to anyone wanting to know the value of a book. Please stick to other hobbies gents and leave the reviewing to those who know what they are talking about. |
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