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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
You are new to Ripperology, I take it?
Eh, 1986, I believe, was my first encounter. So, no, I've no excuse :)
There isn't a single cast iron case that has been made public by the police.

Of the many suspects, there are about 30 that have plausable motives, means, ability to get to the locations etc.

Some motives quite conspiracy based and even esoteric, others sheer bloodlust or psycopath.

The one constant in all this is that someone will write a book or make a documentary, whereupon reading / watching it in isolation it seems cast iron.

Then you read / see the next one and that also is very convincing.

In part because the author / director is themselves genuinely convinved they are right.

And then another book / documentary is released, also very convincing

And so it continues...
..the industry that is JTR!
 
Eh, 1986, I believe, was my first encounter. So, no, I've no excuse :)

..the industry that is JTR!
Circa 1978 for me. My Grandfather gifted me a 1st edition of Donald McCormack’s “The Identity of Jack the Ripper” first published in 1959, and sadly lost in a house move several years ago.

Strange book to gift a 7-year-old boy. I was hoping for the Roy of Rovers 1977 Christmas annual lol.
 
I could quite well believe the ripper may have been a police officer called John Smith, or Jones, Cooper , Shaw or Clark/e.
But Bowden Endacott? Nah! Too far fetched.

Yes, ridiculous. Very obviously a coded message - given that 'Bowden Endacott' and the author's name ('Rod Beattie') are an anagram of:

Wot? Not I created ded on beat!

(Okay, I've one letter over - and the spelling is atrocious; but, let's face it - grammar was never Dear Boss's strong point.)

Anyway, about that bkoo I'm wtringi.
 
Just as a thought. I personally don't agree that Mary Kelly (the last victim, although the names Mary and Kelly crop up in other parts of the sequence) was not a Ripper victim.

However, the circumstances of her murder were somewhat different to the other (3 to 7) murders attributed to JtR. If she wasn't a Ripper victim, does that not put Tumblety and his apparent interest in female organs right in the frame?

https://www.casebook.org/suspects/tumblety.html

It's not unknown for a homosexual male to have a morbid non-sexual interest in female anatomy.

I don't subscribe to this theory (or any other, frankly) but it is an interesting possibility.
 
Just as a thought. I personally don't agree that Mary Kelly (the last victim, although the names Mary and Kelly crop up in other parts of the sequence) was not a Ripper victim.

However, the circumstances of her murder were somewhat different to the other (3 to 7) murders attributed to JtR. If she wasn't a Ripper victim, does that not put Tumblety and his apparent interest in female organs right in the frame?

https://www.casebook.org/suspects/tumblety.html

It's not unknown for a homosexual male to have a morbid non-sexual interest in female anatomy.

I don't subscribe to this theory (or any other, frankly) but it is an interesting possibility.
I agree, MJK is more than likely a JTR victim.
IMHO, MJK is a stronger candidate than Stride as a victim.
However, I think Tumblety is an entirely fanciful candidate for JTR.

While there is an argument that a killer can go outside their usual victim pattern, such as you have observed, the sheer prominence of Tumblety in the East End precludes him.

He was a six-foot or so figure, with a broad American accent, fashionably dressed in the latest clobber and sporting a large handlebar mustache. While the eye witness testimony for a suspect is conflicting, there isn't a single acount of anyone remotely fitting this description.

Bearing in mind the average height of someone in the East End would have been between 5' 5" and 5' 7", so someone 6' or over would have been visible from the other end of the street.

What's more, Tumblety, when he did come to police attention, was generally easy to track, until he gave them the slip and headed for the boat. Even then, he was reacquired and tracked on board to be intercepted on landing.

He was a canny mountebank, and probably a mysoginist, but he is very unlikely to be JTR, unless he was a secret master of disguise. for which survives no evidence at all.
 
Bearing in mind the average height of someone in the East End would have been between 5' 5" and 5' 7", so someone 6' or over would have been visible from the other end of the street.

This is an important point.

Most males in the East End would have been between five foot two and five foot eight or so.
(Though no doubt quite strong from physical labour, and Boxing with it's resultant conditioning was much more widely practiced by young men than today.)

Anyone taller than six foot would have been a rarity.

Bow legs from rickets would have played a part.
Some poor access to sunlight in a foggy smoggy London, with Vitamin D deficiency, not helped by poor diet from poverty.

The issue was noted when men were called up for service in World War One.

There was even a "Bantam Battalion" for men who were originally deemed too short to be enlisted.
This attracted men from all over the country

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-Bantam-Battalions-of-World-War-One/#:~:text=But some of those keen,34 inches (86.36cm).
 
Another self-appointed investigator - with a book to sell, of course - has 'solved' the case by declaring Hyam Hyams as "Jack the Ripper".
Apparently Ms Bax Horton's book has been endorsed by Paul Begg, "a leading Ripper authority", but hasn't gone so far as to say case closed.

Source: Yahoo! News/The Telegraph. Link: https://uk.yahoo.com/style/jack-rippers-identity-revealed-newly-172321978.html
 
Another self-appointed investigator - with a book to sell, of course - has 'solved' the case by declaring Hyam Hyams as "Jack the Ripper".
Apparently Ms Bax Horton's book has been endorsed by Paul Begg, "a leading Ripper authority", but hasn't gone so far as to say case closed.

Source: Yahoo! News/The Telegraph. Link: https://uk.yahoo.com/style/jack-rippers-identity-revealed-newly-172321978.html

Begg is indeed a leading Ripper authority (sans the scare quotes); now that Sugden and Fido have left us, it's pretty much him and Rumbelow at the head of the pack. Though, to be clear, Begg has not said that this new book has identified the Ripper:

Paul Begg, a leading Ripper authority, has endorsed it. “This is a well-researched, well-written, and long-needed book-length examination of a likely suspect. If you have an idea of the sort of man Jack the Ripper might have been, Hyam Hyams could be it,” he said.

Ever focused on the key points, I was wondering: 'Bax' as a christian name?? But it turns out her name is Sarah Bax Horton.

 
Another self-appointed investigator - with a book to sell, of course - has 'solved' the case by declaring Hyam Hyams as "Jack the Ripper".
Apparently Ms Bax Horton's book has been endorsed by Paul Begg, "a leading Ripper authority", but hasn't gone so far as to say case closed.

Source: Yahoo! News/The Telegraph. Link: https://uk.yahoo.com/style/jack-rippers-identity-revealed-newly-172321978.html
That's funny, in all my reading around this case, I've never heard that physical description by eye witnesses.

I shall have to dive in again.
 
Begg is indeed a leading Ripper authority (sans the scare quotes); now that Sugden and Fido have left us, it's pretty much him and Rumbelow at the head of the pack. Though, to be clear, Begg has not said that this new book has identified the Ripper:

Paul Begg, a leading Ripper authority, has endorsed it. “This is a well-researched, well-written, and long-needed book-length examination of a likely suspect. If you have an idea of the sort of man Jack the Ripper might have been, Hyam Hyams could be it,” he said.

Ever focused on the key points, I was wondering: 'Bax' as a christian name?? But it turns out her name is Sarah Bax Horton.

Hmmm Interesting regarding the name Bax Yith.

I do know a Bax family who hail from Bow, which is not a million miles away from the actual crimes scenes.

Related to the officer who was stationed at Lemen Street....? Who knows. It's possible I suppose.
 
Have had a chance to peruse Casebook a bit, though not yet consulted Sugden, but I still can't see eye witness descriotiions with the oddly specific physical chareacteristics described.

The Yahoo article states:

"Witnesses described a man in his mid-thirties with a stiff arm and an irregular gait with bent knees, and Ms Bax Horton discovered that the medical notes of Hyams – who was 35 in 1888 – recorded an injury that left him unable to “bend or extend” his left arm as well as an irregular gait and an inability to straighten his knees, with asymmetric foot dragging. He also had the most severe form of epilepsy, with regular seizures."

If someone has a reference on this, feel free to jump in, I'm struggling to see where this came from.
 
She was the great great granddaughter of a police sergeant stationed there during 1888 - Harry Garrett. Always possible, true, but how many sergeants were there in Leman Street at the time?

“H Division was responsible for the policing of Whitechapel. H Division was run by a superintendent constable and a chief inspector, with a hierarchy of policemen working under them including inspectors, sergeants, constables and detectives. In 1885 the division was run by a superintendent, a chief inspector, 27 inspectors and 37 sergeants. The sergeants supervised around 500 constables, who went out on the beat. The number of police in H Division went up and down. At its peak during 1888, there were 575 police officers, including constables and detectives, for the population of about 37,000 in Whitechapel.

Leman Street Police Station was the main station for H Division and the Whitechapel area. Unfortunately, most of the records of this police station at the end of the 19th century have not survived. However, the 1881 Census lists two sergeants, 42 police constables and six prisoners staying there on the night of the census.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zrx94xs/revision/6

Edited to add:

List of H Division personnel during the JTR period; no Garrett listed.

maximus otter
 
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So her GGGrandad's being there might - just might - be either a false memory or even a family legend.
 
Having gone through my 1997 (IIRC) edition of Sugden's Complete History... I still can't find anything that had eye witness reports of bent knees, dodgy arms, or otherwise.
The two main descriptions of the killer are one of eithe wel dressed or 'shabby' genteel, or a vaguely sailor looking chap (with Eddowes). There were also suggestions of a down at heel local-ish looking man, but again, rather vague.

I can find no specific reference to what this authoer is talking about at all.

A hook to buy the book? Maybe, but I'm not biting.
 
I'm by far a scholar in the subject, but as soon as I saw the news report I couldn't help thinking "Here we go again ..."
I'm not convinced on the surface 'sell' and I'm sure as hell not paying good, folding money on the book.
As Forteans, we all think strange things happen but ...
This lady discovers a link with a copper in the Ripper case, decides she's going to 'do research', discovers medical records of an inmate of a lunatic asylum who fits a previously overlooked witness identification, and writes a book saying she's solved the mystery?
Possible? Sure.
Probable? Nah.
 
In the day, it was foreign-looking or Jewish considering the mix of cultures then in the area. Or not a toff 'slumming it' but a working class bloke from a working class area?
 
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