Jack The Ripper (Compendium Thread)

What do you think is the most likely ?

  • The Ripper was a Freemason?

    Votes: 6 10.0%

  • The Ripper had medical knowledge?

    Votes: 8 13.3%

  • It was Maybrick?

    Votes: 4 6.7%

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

    Votes: 7 11.7%

  • The Ripper was foreign?

    Votes: 2 3.3%

  • It was Druitt?

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • None of the suspects yet put forward?

    Votes: 15 25.0%

  • It was a woman?

    Votes: 2 3.3%

  • Another?

    Votes: 16 26.7%
  • Total voters
    60
Ghost In The Machine

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Ronnie Jersey said:
Exactly - Patricia Cornwell's book was very interesting, but she ignored anything which did not pertain to her theory.
And it would have been so easy to come and go in those days, nameless and faceless.
Was there ever anything discovered about that 'Batty Street Lodger'?
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Oh I forget that. What was that story?
 
Ronnie Jersey

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Ghost In The Machine said:
Oh I forget that. What was that story?
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Something about a woman who took in a lodger, she was on Batty Street in Whitechapel.
At one point she came across the lodger's clothing, he had blood on his cuffs and sleeves, and she called police to investigate.
I just haven't been able to find the actual true story about it, and was wondering if anyone knows? The landlady thought this man was Jack The Ripper.
I enjoyed Cornwell's book for the extensive research she did, I believe she spent a million or more of her own money on that research.
Didn't believe it though.
 
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Ghost In The Machine

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Must admit I'm really enjoying Hallie Rubenhold's "The Five - The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper". It's a really interesting insight to the women's lives and quite a feat of research. Surprising how much has been uncovered about the women's lives. Currently have got upto Elizabeth Stride, who is just leaving Sweden for the UK. There's no evidence several of the women even were prostitutes and the terrifying descent they all (so far) had, from "respectable" lives to being alcoholics roaming the streets - is really well captured. It does feel like finally putting some personality on the women killed, rather than focussing solely on their killer and the writer doesn't linger at all on the actual murders, just tells their life stories leading upto that point.

Have listened to a couple of podcasts re Sutcliffe in recent months where the podcasters are no longer using the "Yorkshire Ripper" name and won't even refer to him by anything other than his initials, and this also seems in that spirit.

Book was recommended to me by an ex copper online friend from another forum.
 
Ghost In The Machine

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Ronnie Jersey said:
Something about a woman who took in a lodger, she was on Batty Street in Whitechapel.
At one point she came across the lodger's clothing, he had blood on his cuffs and sleeves, and she called police to investigate.
I just haven't been able to find the actual true story about it, and was wondering if anyone knows? The landlady thought this man was Jack The Ripper.
I enjoyed Cornwell's book for the extensive research she did, I believe she spent a million or more of her own money on that research.
Didn't believe it though.
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Now you mention it, Ronnie, I have a vague memory.

I still think my husband's great grandfather is in the frame. Manager of a posh gentlemen's club, not too far from Whitechapel, and a master freemason of a lodge not at all far from there... We have a photo of him and he looks sinister as all hell lol.
 
Ronnie Jersey

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Ghost In The Machine said:
Now you mention it, Ronnie, I have a vague memory.

I still think my husband's great grandfather is in the frame. Manager of a posh gentlemen's club, not too far from Whitechapel, and a master freemason of a lodge not at all far from there... We have a photo of him and he looks sinister as all hell lol.
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Does he resemble the composite picture they have made of Jack? LOL
Though it could look like almost anyone from that time, probably.

1652371915656.png
 
Ghost In The Machine

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Victory said:
Can you post the photo please?

P.S. If Danny Trejo was 170 years old he'd be in the frame!
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I can at some point but pretty sure that photo is in a box that's not easy for me to get to, right now. But will when I can (if I remember!) Box also has some Masonic paraphernalia in, from around that time - think he was a higher up in the London lodge and later ran one in Kent.
 
Ronnie Jersey

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Right now our History Channel is running 'American Ripper', a series on H H Holmes (Herman Webster Mudgett), who is suspected of being 'Jack the Ripper' by his ancestor. I don't believe it, but it's very interesting. He was a serial killer in the USA.
And Holmes was in England at the time of the murders (at least that's what they're trying to prove), and they found records showing that he left by ship after the last Ripper murder.
Interesting but doubtful.
 
Cochise

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Ronnie Jersey said:
Right now our History Channel is running 'American Ripper', a series on H H Holmes (Herman Webster Mudgett), who is suspected of being 'Jack the Ripper' by his ancestor. I don't believe it, but it's very interesting. He was a serial killer in the USA.
And Holmes was in England at the time of the murders (at least that's what they're trying to prove), and they found records showing that he left by ship after the last Ripper murder.
Interesting but doubtful.
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I'm a bit puzzled by the whole H H Holmes saga. Legend has it he built a murder hotel in Chicago and killed dozens if not hundreds - but no actual evidence for that seems to exist. He was a conman and murderer but was only ever convicted of one murder. The JTR connection is pure fantasy.

Proving what country anyone was in prior to WW1 is difficult, as the modern passport system didn't exist. My paternal grandfather was Swiss by birth and quite happily living in Liverpool without any papers, and my grandmother Italian ditto. Was in some ways a much freer world back then.
 
Ronnie Jersey

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Cochise said:
I'm a bit puzzled by the whole H H Holmes saga. Legend has it he built a murder hotel in Chicago and killed dozens if not hundreds - but no actual evidence for that seems to exist. He was a conman and murderer but was only ever convicted of one murder. The JTR connection is pure fantasy.

Proving what country anyone was in prior to WW1 is difficult, as the modern passport system didn't exist. My paternal grandfather was Swiss by birth and quite happily living in Liverpool without any papers, and my grandmother Italian ditto. Was in some ways a much freer world back then.
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Holmes actually admitted to murdering 27 people, but they feel it is more like hundreds.
The JTR connection only came about I think because his distant relative, Jeff Mudgett, is looking for his 15 minutes of fame.
The series is interesting though, because quite a bit of it is on the Jack The Ripper murders, and the Chicago 'murder castle' of Holmes.
I think you're right, it was easy to drift about in those days, nameless and faceless. But this show did manage to find a ship's log, showing H H Holmes listed as one of the passengers in that time frame. Interesting that paperwork exists from those long-ago days.
I'd be more interested to know what he was doing in England, and where he lived.
 
maximus otter

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Ronnie Jersey said:
In this H H Holmes show, his body was exhumed from the grave, and on testing it, they found out it was actually him.
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Holmes was convicted of one murder, though he was suspected of eight or nine others.

His "Murder Castle" was, in fact unremarkable, and there's no evidence that he lured victims there to be tortured and murdered.

The whole theory that Holmes was JTR seems to be based on this flimsy evidence: that an investigation has shown that an "H. Holmes" bought a steamship ticket from Southampton to New York at some time after the Mary Kelly murder. Well, consider this:

"According to the data, Holmes is ranked #171 in terms of the most common surnames in America.

The Holmes surname appeared 156,780 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 53.15 would have the surname Holmes."

https://namecensus.com/last-names/holmes-surname-popularity/

Holmes poisoned his victims with gas or chloroform in order to gain insurance money, or to cover his tracks. He didn't stab them or mutilate them sexually as JTR did.

To say that I am unconvinced is the understatement of the epoch.

maximus otter
 
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Yithian said:
Likewise.

And for that reason, I think her murder is especially important—as I discussed upthread.

https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...er-compendium-thread.993/page-62#post-1808626
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This from the conclusion of Chapter 4 of Begg's Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History.

Whether or not Martha Tabram was murdered by Jack the Ripper is now debated, but it was undeniably accepted by the majority of investigators at the time and although Martha Tabram hadn’t been disembowelled or mutilated, a cut in the abdomen 3 inches long and 1 inch deep may have been an attempt at ‘ripping’ and the frenzy of the attack took it well beyond the league of ‘normal’ murder. The coroner concluded that the murder of Martha Tabram ‘was one of the most horrible crimes that had been committed for certainly some time past. The details were very revolting . . . and the person who had inflicted the injuries could have been nothing less than a fiend’. Young constable Dew, looking back with the benefit of perhaps more than just a modicum of hindsight, recalled that ‘Already I had formed the view that we were up against the greatest police problem of the century. A third heinous crime shortly afterwards proved how right this theory was’

I am chary of subscribing to any theory that discounts the beliefs of those much less removed in terms of geography and time from the murders that we ourselves are without citing grounds for such a dismissal. What the authorities of the time may have lacked in knowledge concerning psychological profiling and the pathology of sexual manias, they made up for in terms of chronic familiarity with the stark actualities of violence, assault and murder.

I think it noteworthy that Tabram's murder was not viewed with further sad resignation as 'violence as usual' or 'another drunken night in the depths of London', it stood out as particularly savage in an age where murder and brutality against women in particular could not be said to be at all rare.

I'd like to read counterpoints that seek to explain why Tabram was unlikely to be an early Ripper victim, because I'm frankly not seeing many.
 
maximus otter

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Yithian said:
This from the conclusion of Chapter 4 of Begg's Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History.

Whether or not Martha Tabram was murdered by Jack the Ripper is now debated, but it was undeniably accepted by the majority of investigators at the time and although Martha Tabram hadn’t been disembowelled or mutilated, a cut in the abdomen 3 inches long and 1 inch deep may have been an attempt at ‘ripping’ and the frenzy of the attack took it well beyond the league of ‘normal’ murder. The coroner concluded that the murder of Martha Tabram ‘was one of the most horrible crimes that had been committed for certainly some time past. The details were very revolting . . . and the person who had inflicted the injuries could have been nothing less than a fiend’. Young constable Dew, looking back with the benefit of perhaps more than just a modicum of hindsight, recalled that ‘Already I had formed the view that we were up against the greatest police problem of the century. A third heinous crime shortly afterwards proved how right this theory was’

I am chary of subscribing to any theory that discounts the beliefs of those much less removed in terms of geography and time from the murders that we ourselves are without citing grounds for such a dismissal. What the authorities of the time may have lacked in knowledge concerning psychological profiling and the pathology of sexual manias, they made up for in terms of chronic familiarity with the stark actualities of violence, assault and murder.

I think it noteworthy that Tabram's murder was not viewed with further sad resignation as 'violence as usual' or 'another drunken night in the depths of London', it stood out as particularly savage in an age where murder and brutality against women in particular could not be said to be at all rare.

I'd like to read counterpoints that seek to explain why Tabram was unlikely to be an early Ripper victim, because I'm frankly not seeing many.
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Tabram was stabbed 39 times. l would be slow to link her to JTR on the strength of just one of those wounds.

I find it easier to believe that she was the victim of a frenzy/overkill assault, quite possibly by a punter who was unable to “perform” due to overconsumption of alcohol. Tabram - no stranger to the bottle herself - makes a disparaging remark along the lines of “Call yourself a man?”, and the suspect, disinhibited by the booze, pulls a knife and vents his rage. Ugly, but regrettably not unknown.

maximus otter
 
Cochise

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maximus otter said:
Ugly, but regrettably not unknown.
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But isn't that precisely why the reaction of - presumably knowledgeable - investigators of the time is relevant?

Some of them at least must have been familiar with the typical violent rage murder of a woman. It was not exactly an uncommon type of murder although murder has always been relatively uncommon the UK.
 
DrPaulLee

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I'm catching up on "Jack the Ripper: hidden Victims." I must have missed something but the statement that the photo of Kelly's corpse was the only known picture of her surprised me. I know that a pre mortem picture of Chapman existed (and was shown in the series) but I didn't know about the other three.
 
Ascalon

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DrPaulLee said:
I'm catching up on "Jack the Ripper: hidden Victims." I must have missed something but the statement that the photo of Kelly's corpse was the only known picture of her surprised me. I know that a pre mortem picture of Chapman existed (and was shown in the series) but I didn't know about the other three.
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Kelly is one of the more enigmatic victims as very little is known about her except what she told others.
She may have been from Limerick, she might not. She may have been Welsh, maybe not. She might have spent time in France, not sure.
Her name is almost certainly not Mary Jane Kelly.
There is a book by a chap called Weston-Davies who surmises she may well have been his resourceful great aunt who fled some hassle and ended up in the east end.
The reality is that all the information purporting to be about MJK is actually that put out by herself. No one has ever managed to find her on reliable records such as census or parish records. Even her skirmishes with the law, AFAIR, are hard to pin down as Mary Kelly was a common alias and sometimes a pejoratve for Irish women in London.
As such, it is almost impossible to say if a photo exists of Kelly before, as she used many names in her short, tragic life.
I know that a second crime scene photo was resdiscovered realtively recently, but it sheds little light on things.
Check out Hallie Rubenhold's podcast based on her book, for the chapter about MJK.
 
DrPaulLee

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Was the second crime scene photo the one showing the contents of her body piled up on her bedside table?
 
Ascalon

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Ascalon said:
Thanks for that, I had never seen the Stride or Kelly photos. To be honest, I'm dubious. How have no other researchers found those before?
I need to see some attribution there before I'd consider those conclusive.
Click to expand...
I know, strange though that it looks like Stride, doesn't it?
 
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