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Jack The Ripper (Compendium Thread)

What do you think is the most likely ?

  • The Ripper was a Freemason?

    Votes: 7 9.7%

  • The Ripper had medical knowledge?

    Votes: 10 13.9%

  • It was Maybrick?

    Votes: 4 5.6%

  • The Ripper was 'of the same class' as his victims?

    Votes: 9 12.5%

  • The Ripper was foreign?

    Votes: 2 2.8%

  • It was Druitt?

    Votes: 2 2.8%

  • None of the suspects yet put forward?

    Votes: 17 23.6%

  • It was a woman?

    Votes: 2 2.8%

  • Another?

    Votes: 19 26.4%
  • Total voters
    72
Maybe im invoking a parallel to the 'Law of Fives' here but...

Re-reading the Eddowes entry in the 'Jack the Ripper A-Z' I noticed this...

'...She and [John] Kelly agreed to pawn a pair of his boots, and she took them to one Smith or Jones in Church Street, receiving 2/6d...and a ticket in the name of Jane Kelly.'

So we now have Mary Ann and Jane Kelly as known aliases for Catherine Eddowes.

A 'Kelly' hunter perhaps? :)

8¬)
 
A Good Candidate

harlequin - A "Kelly" hunter is precisely what's proposed in Prisoner 1167 the Madman Who Was Jack the Ripper by J.C.H. Tully (Hardcover - August 1997)

He annoints James Kelly, an upholsterer who was available for all the murders; who would have had a lovely ripping weapon in his upholsterer's knife; who was violently obsessed with his ex wife; who was not mentally acute by the time Mary Kelly was murdered; and who ended his days at Broadmoor, raving and insane, although in periods of lucidity he may have confessed to the Ripper murders.

He's a good candidate as candidates go, being the right type of fellow to fit most profiles, and also having been available, etc.

Tully's thesis is that James Kelly was hunting his wife, and killing those who knew her as he zeroed in on Mary Kelly, who was the wrong woman. By the time he got to her, he was hoplelessly insane, and very soon after that murder he showed up bloody and a mess at Broadmoor to turn himself in.
 
Yes, I feel James Kelly is as good a suspect as any (cf my earleir posts) and better than the majority...

The joke was actually about me maybe reading too much into that idea and being seduced :)



8¬)
 
To comment on yr post:-

JK handed himself into Broadmoor in 1927, decrepit, ill and deaf as a post! Chances are the deafness was the cause of him giving up the 'work', having fled the country, pennieless and losing his job as an upholsterer, in November 1888, to France.


8¬)
 
Scratching the Glitches

harlequin - You're quite right, thanks for the further details about Kelly. I read that book when it first came out and my poor memory's undergone several freeze-ups, crashes, rebootings, and clean re-installs since then, I fear.
 
Interesting Book

The book will be interesting to read but Stephenson's not a new suspect by any means. He's who Aleister Crowley named, for this precise reason. It's likely AC met him and that Stephenson made the claim at the time. Glory-seeking? Possibly. Crowley said he was shown a bloodstained knife, too, which he may or may not have come into the possession of.

In any case, should be an ineresting book. Well, series of books, if four new Ripper books are due by Autumn.

It'll be a wonder if one of them doesn't blame Bill Clinton, by the way.
 
D'Onston was 47 years old and 5 foot 10 inches. He was obsessed with the case and actually believed the Ripper to be Dr. Morgan Davies, who carried home internal organs from his victims secreted behind his necktie. D'Onston was in the London Hospital from 26th July to 7th December, being treated for neurasthenia. He was questioned by the police at least twice, as he was put forward as a suspect by a few people, but he himself maintained it was Dr. Davies.

A big no-no, really. How could he have crept out of London Hospital, butchered some hookers, then crept back without notice?
 
'"Why would a man suffering with a complaint that requires nothing more than a rest move from a renowned health resort by the sea to a dirty, acrid, polluted area like Whitechapel?" Edwards asked.'

Well, here we go again. If I have to read another book that speculates about the killer's identity using this sort of vacant 'reasoning', I shall start putting bricks through publishers' windows.

I don't doubt that elements of the Ripper pack will soak this up, but the fact remains that without new forensic or documentary evidence, we are not going to find Jack the Ripper.

Since we can forget the former, the only hope is for some yellowed file to turn up in an attic and lead us in a new direction on the basis of informed contemporary opinion, not wild specualtion relying on ritual and the occult.

The likliehood of our ever finding JTR grows slimmer by the day.

What chance do we really have? Perhaps only if some 19th century house was taken apart, and a series of sealed jars found behind a bricked up fireplace that contained Kelly's heart, Chapman's uterus and Eddowes' kidney.

Even then I expect we would be arguing about where such a discovery would lead us.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really pleased that the thread has been resurrected, but my flutter of excitiment gave way to cynicism when I discovered that the Guardian story is just about a rehash of old conspiracy twaddle.
 
Half Empty

Conners 76 - So you're saying the glass is half empty?
 
I too think that we will never really know, and that we're finding patterns simply because we have little to go on. I wonder what would've happened if Peter Sutcliffe was never caught. Granted his methods were completely different, but I think that there would be just the same sort of speculations and endless patterns being brought out by the case.

The main thing that seems to draw out interest in JTR is his methods. If he had been caught, we would probably just put these down to his mental state and the case would be noted because of this somewhat bizzare element (even if we didn't find out his reasoning). But I doubt that people nowadays would go through so much discussion. I think that all of the discussions and theories since the time of the murders have actually compounded the situation, and added layers where they were not needed. They have made a mystery out of it, IMHO. It's the same with alot of conspiracy theories - if you let them stew long enough, the resulting mixture can be very potent.
 
Good Chance

Cockeyed optimist though I may be called for it, I'll hereby say I think one day we will know for certain who was Jack the Ripper. He may even prove to be a complete surprise, but I think he's on the list of standard suspects.

The proof will come along quietly until someone realizes what they've got and then there will be a flurry of articles, tests, questions, howls of pain, cries of foul, and so on. And when the dust settles, we'll know.

And it won't be any big deal.

And in case one thinks knowing his identity will in any way diminish the legend, rest assured all will be well. After all, we still savor discussions of Ed Gein and Ted Bundy and Liz Bathory and George Bush Sr. Right?
 
I once went on one of those tours of the JTR murder sites (those that still exist in some way). It was actually pretty effective at putting across how nasty the whole thing was without being ghoulish. And the tour guide knew her stuff too.
 
Ripper Tour

What time of day did you experience it? I've heard it's especially effective in early evening or at night.
 
Fraterlibre,

I'm afraid I think the glass ain't even half full.....in fact it's twenty past eleven and there's only a few dregs left in there.

I sincerely hope your optimism proves well-founded F, but I can't can't see what's left. Only a very chance event could put the proof our way....it isn't true to say that dilligent research will necessarily uncover the truth.

But it would be a start if someone comes up with a brand new and hitherto anonymous suspect who lived an ordinary-seeming life in the area at the time.

Jerry, I think the Yorkshire ripper analagy is a good one - made me think about whom we would be speculating would be the killer had he never been brought to justice. I mean, didn't the police interview Sutcliffe along with hundreds of others at the time and dismiss him?.....this could easily have hapened with Jack. But doubtless plenty of authors would have had the YR down as a noted occultist who died in 1996, etc etc.

__

I've never been on an official Ripper tour, but have wandered round the sites myself or with friends at all sorts of times since I became a Ripper geek.

It's weird when you stop at Goulston Street where the apron and chalk message were found, and look about you to see a thriving, colourful Asian market. Doesn't exactly put you in mind of Victorian London.

Nor does Mitre Sq, the only place where you actually stand on the spot of one of the murder sites (if you clamber on the flowerbed that is).

But at least there are some contemporary buildings left en route.
 
Re: Ripper Tour

FraterLibre said:
What time of day did you experience it? I've heard it's especially effective in early evening or at night.
Click to expand...

It started more or less at sundown at the time (late April, I think it was). By the time the tour finished it was dark.
 
Conners_76 said:
Jerry, I think the Yorkshire ripper analagy is a good one - made me think about whom we would be speculating would be the killer had he never been brought to justice. I mean, didn't the police interview Sutcliffe along with hundreds of others at the time and dismiss him?.....this could easily have hapened with Jack. But doubtless plenty of authors would have had the YR down as a noted occultist who died in 1996, etc etc.
Click to expand...

That's the thing - Sutcliffe was only caught because he made a mistake that was noted by the arresting officer, who in turn forund the evidence that would help get a conviction. He was passed over by the police, as you point out. Had Sutcliffe continued his killings and then stopped (for whatever reasons) and was not caught, I've no doubt that all sorts of theories would've been created, in the same manner that has happened with JTR. For instance, his use of a hammer in his attacks could've been seen as having Masonic symbolism.
 
Ooh, That Smell

Sutclifef's tastes and excesses would have developed in tandem. Myra testified that once he knew anal sex hurt her, he coudn't get anough of it, for instance. Had he not been caught he would probably have become so odd a person that he'd have been noticed regardless what he did.

As for the notion of Jack the Ripper having lived a normal life, you may be right, but only in context of the times. In 1880s Whitechapel there was such a wide range of behavior and activity considered normal that virtually anyone could pass there more or less unnoticed.

The murders themselves tell us he was a disintegrating personality likely unable to take much care of himself at least most of the time. Were this happening today he'd be considered a street person, a homeless wanderer of some kind, a dweller in sewers, etc.

Someone, in short, only those desperate prostitutes would even get near.
 
That's an interesting point F....I suppose's Sutcliffe's veneer of normality may have unravelled before long.

On the other hand, we do have examples of serial killers who become dormant for a time, or who keep the appearance of sanity for many years.

I don't understand why Jack couldn't have seemed 'normal' at the time of the killings by a pretty typical definition of the term.

Sure, he must have at least seemed like a loner and a somewhat dysfunctional person, but I know plenty of those here in suburbia in 2002, and I don't feel compelled to accuse them of murder!

Moreover, he was able to plan and carry out the murders with remarkable cunning, making good his escape on each occasion. I don't doubt Jack was destined to fall apart and either die, expose himself as a criminal or be sent to an institution, but need this have happened in 1888?

Plus, the argument that he killed prostitutes because they were the only people who would indulge him can be countered with the suggestion that he targeted them precisely because of the ease with which anyone could get access to them and persuade them to go to relatively secluded locations, or that he bore a grudge against 'fallen women'.
 
Different Types

There are different types of serial killers, it seems. Some, called Organized, actually learn from mistakes and get better at what they do. These are the persuasive, charismatic ones, like Ted Bundy, who will indeed appear normal, who will go dormant at times, and who will be very difficult to spot, let alone catch.

Disorganized types, on the other hand, tend to excess. They are disintegrating personalities, likely to kill in their own comfort zones, likely to be unable to care for themselves even to ordinary standards of grooming and behavior, and likely to explode into increasingly worse fits of violence until they suicide or are caught simply because they no longer even try to cover up their crimes.

Ripper was the second type, most forensic profilers agree. His excesses got worse as they progressed and so on. As FBI profiler John Douglas pointed out, the Ripper would not have moved from the excesses of what he did to Mary Kelly to a self-contained, controlled, normal-looking bloke out for a stroll -- who ever left that scene of carnage would themselves have looked alarming, bloody, and wild.

This is why I say he was likely someone who would stick out rathe glaringly in today's street scenes. Well, in all but the very worst, of course.
 
Oh I dunno - alot of 'weird' people that are about on the streets here in London are pretty much ignored. I once saw a guy dressed (I guess) as King Arthur get on the tube. Aside from a few sidewards glances, people pretty much ignored him. Unless people really do something to draw attention to themselves, they get ignored, as far as I can tell.

I think that saying JTR would've looked wild, etc when he left the scene of his last murder is pure conjecture. I think it only adds to the already warped picture of him. We like to think that there was something about him that gave him away in some way, whereas this may not have been the case. Peter Kurten used to revisit his murder scenes to take in the shock of people who were there. No-one guessed that he was the murderer.
 
It's Curtains, Kurten -- Nyah-ha-haa...

No, it wasn't pure conjecture on Douglas's part, it was 25 years of experience with serial killers, and the fact that he'd founded the Behavioral Science section of the FBI, where they went to school on these things. In other words, it was the voice of reason, authority, and experience, which is why I cited it. To think of someone literally ripping a woman apart and draping parts of her on the walls, then stepping out into the street neatly dressed and of orderly demeanor is far more fantasic than some of the theories of who he may have been.

You mention German killer Peter Kurten -- an Organized killer, the opposite type, a Ted Bundy sort of killer. In fact, he parallels Bundy in many specific ways, and it's an interesting comparison and contrast.

Oh, as for weird folks: King Arthur on a subway is one thing, but had he been covered in blood with wild eyes rolling about in his head, I'm sure he'd have made some sort of impression. Even in NYC.
 
...but why is it so fantastic? If he was a sexual sadist, who derived erotic satisfaction from his mutilations, then carrying them out would be a warped kind of 'release' for him.

He could walk out into the street having vented his fury and recovered his appearance of normality. There is the fact that he must have had some blood and other matter on his clothes, but at 4AM, there were numerous slaughtermen wandering around in the same condition.

Many of the other people around at that time would have been too drunk to care anyway, or were there for underhand reasons of their own, i.e. visiting prostitutes, and would have avoided paying attention to passers by.
 
No Offense

Whatever.

I'll stick with the guy with 25 years experience, though.
 
easy Tiger!

I wouldn't presume to put my half-arsed speculation above the thoughts of your 25-yr-experience-chap, but I thought I may may as well throw the cat in amongst the pigeons all the same..
 
Hey, why not? The opinions of an FBI guy of 25 years experience are only as valid as anyone else's. We should feel free to question them, especially in the spirit of lively debate:)

Mind you, that's easy for me to say - I don't like Douglas much;)
 
Bridge-building 101

Helen - How, exactly, would "anyone's" opinion be as valid as that of someone with 25 years' experience?

Were I to build a bridge, I would consult the professonal bridge builders, not anyone who happened to be passing by.

You must be infomred in order to be entitled to an opinion, and the more informed one is, the more weight must be given to that opinion.

The specious, politically correct nonsense that "any opinion is as good as any other" is demonstrably empty and need not be addressed further. My point about Douglas was simply that I would be prone to giving him the benefit of the doubt, given his experience.

In now wise was I advocating swallowing ANYthing ANYone says, EVER, without questioning it, and to interpret it that way would be insulting were one given to such emotionalism.

"Once I was informed, I was entitled to have an opinion on it."
--Bono, of U2
 
absolutely H!

At any one time, we can't all be fully briefed on what every expert has to say, but the odd intelligent guess could throw something up all the same.

Anyhow, what's your beef with Douglas, Helen? Do you disagree with his methods / conclusions / choice of deodarant?
 
Nah, it's the way he does his tie!:D

I just find Douglas' attitude tiring. He comes across as highly arrogant, opinionated, and so up himself it's untrue. Ressler makes for a much more well informed read; he comes across as warm, human and approachable. Douglas I just find irritating.
 
I'd Agree

I'd agree, Douglas is an arrogant prick and Ressler much more human.

This says not a thing about their relative skills, of coruse. And in truth, they often disagree on minor points.

I wasn't factoring in whether I liked the guy, though. I just want a good bridge.
 
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