Jack the Ripper

[gabriel]

Well OK. Go on with your theory. Who do you think Jack was trying to shock? Remember, Jack began in August and ended in November, in just a few days time actually. All the ideas about Jack killing in other countries is just that - an idea. Can't be proved or disproved. So I only consider what we know about Jack definitely, and that is that he killed in that short space of time. If I understand what you're saying, then I would expect Jack to be bobbing up like a cork.

It's really interesting to me, the whole idea of this ordinary looking bloke suddenly turning on his female victims. Imagine the rage that he must have had to control. This need not just to kill, but to mutilate, to destroy, must have been bottled up inside him. He was, IMO, literally waiting to blow.

[♫anna♫]

Non-exhibitionistic serial killers would generally strike in lonely areas especially if their target was solely the victim and not the community. I can only guess what made jtr strike as he did, but i feel my suspicions and assumptions are reasonable. No! we will, barring irrefutable DNA evidence, never convict anyone of being jtr!

I'm sure you'd agree that a jtr tour presenting common criminals like Bury and Chapman as prime jtr suspects would make less money than the conspiracy or "crazy ripper" orientated jtr tours.

[gabriel]

Nov 6, 2009 6:13:34 GMT ♫anna♫ said:

Non-exhibitionistic serial killers would generally strike in lonely areas especially if their target was solely the victim and not the community. I can only guess what made jtr strike as he did, but i feel my suspicions and assumptions are reasonable. No! we will, barring irrefutable DNA evidence, never convict anyone of being jtr!

I'm sure you'd agree that a jtr tour presenting common criminals like Bury and Chapman as prime jtr suspects would make less money than the conspiracy or "crazy ripper" orientated jtr tours.

Oh absolutely. The crazier the better. The crazier the more money. I don't know if there's anyone famous left from that time who hasn't been listed as a suspect.

Maybe it was Queen Victoria having a bad day.

[♫anna♫]

Nov 6, 2009 6:20:25 GMT gabriel said:

Nov 6, 2009 6:13:34 GMT ♫anna♫ said:

Non-exhibitionistic serial killers would generally strike in lonely areas especially if their target was solely the victim and not the community. I can only guess what made jtr strike as he did, but i feel my suspicions and assumptions are reasonable. No! we will, barring irrefutable DNA evidence, never convict anyone of being jtr!

I'm sure you'd agree that a jtr tour presenting common criminals like Bury and Chapman as prime jtr suspects would make less money than the conspiracy or "crazy ripper" orientated jtr tours.

Oh absolutely. The crazier the better. The crazier the more money. I don't know if there's anyone famous left from that time who hasn't been listed as a suspect.

Maybe it was Queen Victoria having a bad day.

Absolutely mad as a hatter or a dark scandal in the royal kingdom!

A cold blooded reptilian psychopath like Chapman or a mean spirited drunk like Bury would be a real disappointment that would implode the ripper cult, if one of them was jtr. Maybe the real ripper never made the suspect list, but i feel strongly he'd be a big disappointment to the money making ripper industry, if he's ever identified!

[gabriel]

This seems appropriate.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32861114/ns/world_news-europe/#storyContinued

Records shed light on Jack the Ripper victims
Most were formerly married women whose lives took bad turn

updated 1:41 p.m. ET Sept. 15, 2009
LONDON - The world is endlessly fascinated with Jack the Ripper — but what about his victims?

On Tuesday an online genealogy company published census information that casts light on the lives of the women murdered by the Victorian serial killer.

The company findmypast.com trawled records of Britain's 1881 census for information on the five women generally accepted as victims of the Ripper: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.


'Window onto the past'
The firm said the census data — available on its site and elsewhere online — provides "a small window onto the past" and dispels an image some people may have of the victims as teenage streetwalkers. Most were formerly married women with children who resorted to prostitution when their lives took a turn for the worse.

There is no record of Nichols or Kelly in the census, taken on April 3, 1881, suggesting they may already have been working the streets at that time.

Stride was recorded as 37 and living with her husband, a carpenter. Eddowes was 38, living with her husband and two children, her occupation listed as "charwoman."

Chapman was 40, married but living with her parents. She later moved out of London to live with her husband, a stud groom.

The women appear to have turned to prostitution after their marriages broke up. According to newspaper reports of the time, none of the victims was living with their husbands at the time of their deaths.

"Some people treat the Jack the Ripper story as a bit of a game," said Alex Werner, a Museum of London historian who curated a recent Jack the Ripper exhibition. "It wasn't a game. It was against real people in the East End, people who had fallen on really hard times, who had gravitated to the East End as a place where they could earn some kind of living as a prostitute."

Newspaper accounts at the time, which helped the Ripper's fame spread, touched on the women's fall from respectability.

The Star newspaper's report on Sept. 27, 1888, on the death of Chapman, struck a sympathetic tone, describing how a woman who "had perhaps a happy and innocent girlhood, and was once a wife, had to turn out and seek the sale of her body for the price of a bed."

"A few hours later," the newspaper said, "she was found a corpse."

Horror on London's East End
The murderer's infamy spread quickly around the world. London newspapers reveled in the gore, which was spread across the country and to distant lands by telegraph. The killer was dubbed "Jack the Ripper" after a man using that pseudonym claimed responsibility in letters to the media and police.

No one was ever prosecuted for the murders, helping to fuel speculation about his identity that continues to this day. Among the suspects identified at various times are Francis Tumblety, an American quack doctor; Sir William Gull, physician to Queen Victoria; Victoria's grandson, Prince Albert Victor; and the artist Walter Sickert.

Andrew Cook, author of the recent book "Jack the Ripper," thinks the Ripper has always been a media creation. He argues that the crime could not have been committed by a single person.

Cook said the Ripper myth has been constructed from "layer upon layer of sediment, nonsense and crazy theories."

I've never heard of Cook. Must go looking but it's interesting to read a little of the victims' backgrounds.

[♫anna♫]

Thanks for remembering the victims Gabriel! It's always important to put the victims first and not the murderers. We go down a dark path if we don't. Hannibal Lector, the Hotel Bates killer, the Natural Born Killers, etc. don't exist in reality. Real life serial killers are just too banal and unspiritual to play their own roles in a Hollywood film. The same goes for female killers. The real life Bonnie Parker could have never played her own role better than Faye Dunaway did in the film "Bonnie and Clyde".

Of the victims i think of Mary Kelly the most. A red headed blue eyed tempermental Irish girl, whose husband died tragically. She came to London like so many others, who didn't know where to go. If she lived and became one of our great great grandmothers she most likely would have been forgotten. Ironic and tragic.

[gabriel]

Well, of course. The only reason we know anything about their lives is because they were Jack's victims. Some theorists have tried to intertwine the women's lives (eg the Masonic theory) and you can't say for certain they didn't know each other. At one time or another, all of them except for Nicholls I think lived in Dorset St. But there's nothing from the statements of people who knew them that indicates the women all knew each other. But they may have known each other by sight. It's perfectly feasible. Such a small area and they all patronized the same set of pubs.

This is a photo of Annie Chapman, the 2nd victim, with her husband not long after they were married. You'd never look at this woman and expect to see her lying mutilated in the back yard of a dump on Hanbury St.

[♫anna♫]

Probably the entire misery of the impoverished slum that Whitechapel was would have been virtually forgotten or ignored today if the ripper murders never occured. I don't think there's a slum anywhere today where people have to sleep standing up, if they don't have money. Anyone with the means or connections avoided Whitechapel, unless they were screwy like Sickert.

[gabriel]

They slept leaning on ropes. If they could afford a roof over their heads.
It happens still now, I know, but the concept of people not having a bed to sleep in and a roof over their heads is appalling.

It's not acceptable.

[♫anna♫]

I browsed through the Casebook forum, which is full of threads on the ripper and Whitechapel. A lot of information, but also plenty of misinformation. We can only speculate about many things too.

[june]

Nov 8, 2009 15:36:58 GMT ♫anna♫ said:

I browsed through the Casebook forum, which is full of threads on the ripper and Whitechapel. A lot of information, but also plenty of misinformation. We can only speculate about many things too.

I bet the Ripper was a Moor

[♫anna♫]

Nov 8, 2009 21:24:54 GMT @june said:

Nov 8, 2009 15:36:58 GMT ♫anna♫ said:

I browsed through the Casebook forum, which is full of threads on the ripper and Whitechapel. A lot of information, but also plenty of misinformation. We can only speculate about many things too.

I bet the Ripper was a Moor

Hi June!!
Careful about suggesting a money making theme for the ripper industry! I'm sure someone could tie up a bunch of random facts and rumors and make big money with a story about the ripper having been a Voodoo Witch Doctor! ;D

[gabriel]

In league with Queen Victoria. Maybe we could throw in a few Morris dancers. As a diversionary tactic.

[gabriel]

This is a small piece of a James Mason tour of London and he visits Hanbury St in 1967 and it's pretty much the same as it was a century ago. I've never seen it before. Fascinating.

[gabriel]

I offer another recent view of Dorset St.



You'd never believe that was one of the worst streets in London.

[♫anna♫]

Well Gabriel,
Somethings i wonder how my impression of London would have been, if i skipped the very factual and interesting Tower of London tour in favor of a Jack the Ripper tour! Are you active on the Casebook forum?

Since you like the royal conspiracy take on the ripper cult these 2 videos might interest you. I find the first video with a discussion of the ^^ marks below Catherine Eddowes eyes thought provoking, but don't agree with the take the video has..

The second video is the trailer for the film "Murder by Decree". A ripper fiction movie.

[gabriel]

I visit Casebook now and then.

Thanks for the vids. The Masonic conspiracy one was quite interesting.

Jack the Ripper tours would have to be one of the most visited attractions in London for visitors. And of course no-one is going to mention the painfully obvious truth.

That Jack was a bloke from the East End with serious mental problems who took his anger and frustration out on prostitutes.

He wasn't the 1st serial killer and he's not the last but he was the one to make such a lasting impression and a lot of profit for writers ever since.

[♫anna♫]

I believe the ripper was legally sane, but chose evil, which is an addiction in itself! Insane people just don't get away with murders like this.

Here's another wacky freemason ripper video suggesting that the ripper was aided by a carriage driver and the murders were ritualistic with the intent of preserving social male dominance. I feel the video's tendency to tell it's story like a musical is the kind of cult bunkem that sets other serial killers off.

[gabriel]

That was an interesting vid Anna. I think it was a music video. What do you think?

Such a small area the Ripper chose for his killing field. He had to have known it intimately. That terrific short vid I posted a few days ago with James Mason. He's actually in the back yard of 29 Hanbury St as it still was 80 years after the murder. It's all been demolished but if you want to see one of JTR's murder sites, as it was, that's your chance. The back door, the step, the 5ft paling fence. Even the 1st shots as he walks along Hanbury St. The way Mrs Long was taking as she went towards the markets.

She said the man and Chapman were on the pavement as she passed by. Well, the pavement is one metre wide, probably less. So how could she have failed to see his face? I've always wondered about that.

However, she was in a rush and I guess she didn't take a lot of notice. More's the pity.

[♫anna♫]

I guess Whitechapel was similar to some of the modern day mean street areas. People minded their own business, if they wanted to avoid trouble. You're right that the witness could have identified Mrs. Chapman's murderer, but maybe there would have been 2 murders if she gazed into the ripper's face.

Here's another walk through Whitechapel focusing in on the area where Mary Kelly was murdered and another suspect theory is presented.

[gabriel]

Thanks for that Anna. When he walks up Hanbury St towards the group of tourists on the JTR tour, he's walking where James Mason had been 40 years before. If you look at the buildings on the other side of the street, you get some idea of what the area looked like.

The video - well, I don't don't think Joe Barnett was JTR. But hey, he's as likely as many of the other suspects.

[♫anna♫]

Nov 13, 2009 7:25:07 GMT gabriel said:

Thanks for that Anna. When he walks up Hanbury St towards the group of tourists on the JTR tour, he's walking where James Mason had been 40 years before. If you look at the buildings on the other side of the street, you get some idea of what the area looked like.

The video - well, I don't don't think Joe Barnett was JTR. But hey, he's as likely as many of the other suspects.

Whitechapel even today is an unattractive area and when me and my sister were halfway between Whitechapel and Picadilly Circus we went to Picadilly Circus and the tower of London. Actually i never had much interest in the ripper mystery, until you posted this thread and woke up my detective side.

I kind of toy with the Barnett=2nd ripper theory. Everyone knew the ripper would be blamed for a murder like that. Speculation of course, but that's about all we have on the case now!

[gabriel]

Well, I'm grateful I woke up your detective side. Barnett as Jack. It's an Agatha Christie plot. IMO. Murdering all these other people as a sideshow until you get your real victim. It's really the Masonic theory without the word Mason in it.

[♫anna♫]

Nov 13, 2009 7:55:41 GMT gabriel said:

Well, I'm grateful I woke up your detective side. Barnett as Jack. It's an Agatha Christie plot. IMO. Murdering all these other people as a sideshow until you get your real victim. It's really the Masonic theory without the word Mason in it.

Well Gabriel, it doesn't help my insomnia. ;D
Of course accusing Barnett of killing those other women is far fetched to say the least. He would only be a suspect in Mary Kelly's murder.

I looked through the Casebook forum and noticed deviations from the standard jtr story such as the claim that Liz Stride's murder was random. I believe Martha Tabram's murder was jtr's first kill, but that deviates from the jtr orthodoxy too.

[gabriel]

Yeah, Stride's murder has been described as a domestic that had nothing whatsoever to do with Jack. H'm. What's the odds of 2 prostitutes being killed by 2 different men, in the same manner in the same area within an hour and a half of each other ? That's why Jack really went to town on Eddowes. Because he was disturbed with Stride.

Tabram is a fairly strong possibility of being an early one of Jack's. The only thing I have against the theory is Dr Killeen's clear statement that 2 weapons were used. That's not Jack's MO. Well, not the mature Jack, anyway.