Religion drove Jack the
Ripper
PART ONE, JUDEO-CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES REQUIRE MURDER OF PROSTITUTES
PART THREE, DID THE VICTIMS KNOW THE KILLER?
PART SIX, THE RIPPER WAS A BUTCHER
PART
SEVEN, THE RIPPER UNMASKED
PART EIGHT, THE RELIGIOUS MOTIVATION FOR THE MURDERS
NOTE: I do not agree
with some of the conclusions on this site but include it as part of my website because
of its correct teaching on religion and its dangers and despite its flaws the
religious motivation for the Ripper murders is a real one.
Preface
There can be no
doubt that the first known serial killer of modern times, Jack the Ripper, was
driven by religion to commit his crimes.
As we will see, the Ripper was a Jew who killed his five victims as
human sacrifices to his God. It is
important that religion should not be given the prestige it has so that it will
never have such a dangerous influence ever again.
What is aimed
for in this study, is finding the facts about the Ripper. None of its conclusions or assertions are intended to justify the anti-Semitic fondness for
spreading rumour and slander on the Jews that they like to commit ritual murder
for instance. Though much religion is
harmful that is not to say that its members are dangerous and should be hated. Most Jews today are true humanitarians and a
Jew can do wrong like an atheist or anybody else can. One cannot stigmatise a whole section of
society because of the crimes of a few.
Judaism of the three world religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism,
is the one that has caused the least religious wars and the least mental
illnesses and its misogynistic tendencies are weak in comparison to its sister
faiths. Above all Judaism has learned
more from humanitarian theological liberalism than any other faith and many of
the Jews ignore the nastier commandments of God in the Old Testament. This must be remembered and the Jewish people
must be applauded for that.
PART ONE, JUDEO-CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES REQUIRE
MURDER OF PROSTITUTES
In
the Laws God gave the Jewish prophet Moses, it is clear that prostitutes should
be cruelly murdered. These laws start
off with, “The Lord said to Moses”. The
laws claim to be the very words of God.
The method favoured for destroying prostitutes was stoning them to
death. These Laws are part of scriptures
revealed by God. It would be illogical
to accept that these scriptures are true when they say there is one God, that
God is jealous and that he acted visibly to take care of
God
said, “The daughter of any priest who profanes herself by playing the harlot
profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire” (Leviticus 21:9).
Prostitutes
by default are adulteresses. “The man who
commits adultery with another’s wife, even his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer
and the adulteress shall surely be put to death” (Leviticus 20:10).
If
a man marries a woman and finds that she wasn’t a virgin when they married the
following is prescribed: “if it is true that the evidences of virginity were
not found in the young woman, Then they shall bring her to the door of her
father’s house and the men of the city shall stone her to death, because she
has wrought [criminal] folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s
house. So you shall put away the evil
from among you” (Deuteronomy 22:20-21).
Clearly when she could be murdered like that in front of her father’s
house the father and the family were not allowed to be upset over her death. They must rejoice in it. Children are to be loved conditionally on the
condition that they don’t seriously break the law of God. There can be no doubt that the Bible
encourages hatred of women who commit sexual sin. There is no doubt that scriptures like this
encourage psychopaths and religious maniacs.
Just because the Church claims the right to revere such scriptures,
people have to die!
Jesus
himself said that the Law, these teachings, are the heart of God’s word and
that no true prophet from God will contradict it. He said he didn’t come to repeal the Law of
Moses but to improve it. He tightened it
up. It forbade adultery but he forbade
even the desire for adultery. A woman
was brought by the Jews to Jesus accused of adultery. This crime was punishable by death by
stoning. He said that whoever was
without sin could cast the first stone. They all went away for they all had
sins. All this tells us is that only
people who aren’t guilty of those kinds of sin themselves have the right to
condemn a person to death for adultery.
To read it as an endorsement of letting her off the hook is totally
wrong and he didn’t say she shouldn’t be put to death. He did say that it was right to stone her if
the stoners were any better. Also
putting people to death without consulting the judges of
Christianity
incites to hatred against prostitutes for though it has no evidence that any of
its doctrines are true it still dares to accuse serious sinners of deserving
everlasting torment in Hell from which there is no release. This is slander when there is no evidence or
proof. If you love your son or your
father and you imagine that he will suffer horrendous torment in Hell forever
if he dies after sleeping with a prostitute then how could you possibly avoid
hating that prostitute? Many of the Jews
believed in eternal torment for serious sinners after death and in the bigoted
idea that adultery and prostitution were necessarily serious sins. If the Ripper agreed it would make him hate
prostitutes. Even if he didn’t he would
have still hated prostitutes for the prostitutes were baptised Christians and
were uncaring if their trade led men to Hell.
Judaism
and Christianity see how their God commands the destruction of certain sinners
in order to purge the sin from the midst of the people. They command then the hatred of sin. Jesus said that you should hate sin so much
that you should cut your hand off if it makes you sin to get across how much
one ought to detest sin.
Both
religions then teach that you should hate the sin but many forms of them teach
that that you must love the sinner. This
is absurd. You either hate the sin and
the sinner or you love the sinner and the sin.
Why? Because the sin is something
that the sinner causes and does. It is a
part of the sinner. You can hate
somebody’s sickness but not hate them for the sickness is something that
happens to them and isn’t their fault.
But sin is not sickness. It’s the
deliberate creation and willing of evil.
To say that John’s work is a disgrace is to say that John is a disgrace.
It
is not going too far to accuse Judaism and Christianity of self-deception and
hypocrisy in their teaching. We all know
by experience that loving the sinner and hating the sin they commit is
impossible. The teaching has a lot in it
even when so diluted, to incite to hatred against sinners.
The
Jewish and Christian scriptures both teach that if there is one commandment you
must keep it is the one to love God with all your heart and strength for God
gave this commandment to Moses (Jesus confirmed it). It implies this by saying this is the
greatest commandment. So love starts
with loving God not yourself or others.
The commandment that comes next is the next most important but
significantly it is not the most important, “you shall love your neighbour as
yourself”. So you are to love God more
than yourself or your neighbour. But we
know that if you are to be in anyway normal you must start with loving yourself
for failure to love yourself properly is reflected and manifested in cruel and
malicious actions towards others. The
commandments forbid this as sin which helps explain why those most devoted to these
commandments ended up thirsting for blood.
Despite the love of neighbour requirement, it is plain from the
commandments that religion is for God and not for man. Man may benefit but that is not what religion
is for. Benefits are side-effects. So it is a sin to seek any benefit in
religion. This advocates a pining for
death and suffering and blood which we see reflected in Jesus who refused to
take simple steps to avoid being crucified but embraced this terrible
death. To frustrate your natural need to
love yourself is to foment anger in yourself.
What,
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and powers and the next
most important commandment is to love your neighbour as yourself” really means
is, “We the ministers of God ask you to believe in God and put this belief
above everything else.” It is really the
belief that is being loved. This is the
pure stuff of bigotry and shows that God religion is intrinsically power hungry
and authoritarian. Rules come before
people. No wonder God religion has
produced so many charming psychopaths. There are Catholic priests and bishops
in
Judaism
and Christianity, when correctly understood, are not humanitarian
religions. People are helped not for
their own sake but for the sake of the faith and because the faith asks
it. If the faith asked one to murder them
then it would have to be done. The
underlying lack of value placed on the person is there whether believers murder
for the faith or not. If faith comes
before people then it is okay to kill in the name of faith and God and
religion. That is what the anti-humanitarianism
of these faiths is saying.
God
told Saul through Samuel that he wanted to punish the people of Amalek for blocking Israel when they were coming out of
Egypt by getting Israel to put them all to death and even the children (1
Samuel 15). When mercy was shown God got
angry. This was commanding war both for
revenge and obedience to the Lord.
Christians will say that revenge was not the only reason but one reason
and that the main reason was to eradicate their evil. But God would have stated the main reason if
that had been right and that is what a responsible and careful God would
do. God is condoning war for the purpose
of vengeance. Christians say that it was
good of God to command things like that because there is a life after death for
the dead babies who would have inherited the evil characteristics of their
parents had they not been killed and that the parents should have been killed
for they were irremediably evil (page 104, Christianity
for the Tough-Minded). Loads of evil
parents have good children and even the Bible does not say that the Amalekites were that bad.
Besides, God had founded no religion for them for the Hebrews did not
want them in theirs and there was no trace of the doctrine of a holy and nice
afterlife at that period of time. God
hadn’t revealed any of it so how could the afterlife justify what the Hebrews
did when they didn’t believe in it? What
right had they to kill over Samuel who was only one man claiming to speak the
word of God? And it is judgmental to
accuse the people God told
The
Jews and the Christians hold that the Old Testament in the Bible is the word of
God. God spoke the word and preserved it
for us. No other work is the word of God
and infallible except Christians add the New Testament in as well. When God had to put in his violent and hate
filled commandments and revelations into his word instead of more peaceable and
edifying substance then God has a definite predilection for violence. To adore his book as his word is to become as
bad as he is. Most of the violence in
the Bible is encouraged against women.
God reveals himself through his word.
God commands that God be adored and liked above all. That means his book has to be liked too for
you can’t love God and hate what he has said about himself and what he
wants.
There
was a lot in the Old Testament to make our suspect become Jack the Ripper. He
would have known it well. And the
example of the Christians who likewise tried to follow the great commandments
and ended up twisted and neurotic would have affected him too. He would have known of Christian preachers
who preached about the battle of Armageddon.
There the final earthly battle between God’s forces and his enemies will
take place. The Old Testament predicts
that the people of God will be armed and turn on those who are not the people
of God. In that day God will kill those
who disobey him such as prostitute and unbelievers and heretics but he will do
it through protecting his people as they slaughter the hated enemies of
God. Jesus was certainly not a pacifist
though he may not have lifted a sword against anybody when he was on
earth. He sanctioned the Law and the Prophets,
the whole Old Testament as the Jews have it.
The Law and the Prophets promise that one day this king, the Christ,
will come and lead the Church into bloody warfare against evildoers and
unbelievers. Jesus accepted such
declarations as referring to himself.
Joel
3 says that God will assemble the nations and have a judgment with them so he
will engage in direct communication and he calls his people to turn their tools
into weapons and Egypt shall be left in desolation as a result of the final
world war in which the Jewish people will be triumphant because God used them for
taking his revenge (verse 21). Other incitements to violence from God can be
seen in the book of Obadiah, Ezekiel 38-39; Zechariah 12 and 14; Daniel 2:44;
Revelation 17:14; Revelation 2:26-27; Revelation 19:14. Jews believe in the Old Testament passages
here and think that the Messiah when he comes will lead them into this
war. Jesus claimed to be this king and
that he would return as the Old Testament foretold. When Jesus was not a pacifist it is hardly
right to assume that he did away with the Old Testament God’s murderous and
bloodthirsty laws. He never needed to
fight when he was alive except when he caused a violent riot in the
Books
such as the Bible are dangerous to the minds of disturbed people. Because people promoted these books as correct
and without error for God wrote them and God doesn’t make mistakes, five
prostitutes in the East End of London had to be brutally slain in 1888. Those who never change their opinions love
themselves more than the truth. And Jews
and Christians when loyal to their faith, and not to some watered down version
of it do insist that it is a virtue never to change your mind about the Bible
being God’s true word.
PART
TWO, THE MURDERS
In
1888, the most infamous murders of all time took place in
The Murders
Mary
Ann Nicholls was murdered on Friday 31st August between 3.15 am and
3.45 am at Buck’s Row, Whitechapel. She
was found at 3.45 am by PC Neil. The
victim had bruising to her face and her throat was cut twice. There was a small amount of blood beside the
body and her abdomen was mutilated. At
the post mortem it was found that the knife used must have been moderately
sharp. Being a bit blunt, most of the
destruction it inflicted was down to the violence with which it was
wielded. No blood was found on the
clothes or on the breast. The lack of
blood and the swelling of the victim’s face indicated death by
asphyxiation.
The
second Ripper victim Annie Chapman was murdered on Saturday 8th
September 1888 in the yard adjoining
The
third Ripper victim Elizabeth Stride met her violent death at the hands of the
Ripper on 30th September, a Sunday.
At 12.45 am,
That
same night the Ripper made up for his failure to mutilate Stride. Mitre Square at 1.28-9 am was checked by PC
Harvey. There was nothing. But when PC Watkins checked the Square a
quarter of an hour later he found a body, the Ripper’s fourth victim. Catherine Eddowes
was found strangled with her throat cut twice.
This time the killer mutilated the victim’s face. The intestines were thrown over her right
shoulder. Part of the right ear was cut
and there was no bruising. The left
kidney and the womb were taken away by the killer. There was no evidence of a struggle. There was no spurting of blood. At 2.55 am, PC Long discovered a piece of
apron stained with blood and body matter in
The
fifth victim Mary Jane Kelly was butchered on Friday 9th
November. The other victims were murdered
in Whitechapel but she was murdered in Spitalfields. She was killed in her room 13 Miller’s
Court. She was found about 10.45 am the
next day. The mutilations were so
extensive that she had to be identified by her eyes and her ears. Strangely enough the hair was not examined
for identification purposes. The heart
was missing.
After
this, the most notorious murder in history and the annals of gore, the Ripper
stopped. One can see that with each
victim his fury increased reaching a macabre climax with the murder of
Kelly.
The
police surgeons and other surgeons who were familiar with the modus operandi of
the killings, had their disagreements.
But they did hold their belief that the killer had enough skill with the
knife to pass for a butcher or medical student (page 190, The Crimes of Jack the Ripper).
Dr Bond thought the killer showed no knowledge at all of cutting women
or animals up but we know that the killer was able to find Eddowe’s
kidney and take it away and when the killer cut away the uterus and the top of
the vagina and part of the bladder with one slash of the knife with Annie
Chapman we must beg to differ. As we
will see, the butcher possibility will take on more and more significance as we
progress through this examination.
Was Stride a Ripper Victim?
Many
Ripperologists contend that Elizabeth Stride was not
a Ripper Victim. But the fact remains
that both her and the woman killed later that night Catherine Eddowes carried the same throat wounds (page 14, Jack the Ripper Whitechapel Map Booklet 1888). The Ripper victims had their throats cut from
left to right and Dr Bond stated that Stride’s was cut from right to left. Dr Blackwell examined the neck and decided
that the throat was indeed cut from left to right as the others had been and
that Dr Bond was led astray by the fact that the killer didn’t use as much
force when he cut Stride’s throat as he had done with the others.
The
body was placed on its side while with the other murders the victims were laid
on their backs. It may be the killer
never intended to mutilate her. He knew
the woman had been attacked minutes before just a few feet away and seen so it
was too dangerous to spend time mutilating her.
There is no reason to believe the killer was disturbed though it is
possible. Catherine Eddowes
however was put on her side first by the Ripper for she had mud on one side of
her face off the ground. The Ripper then
put her on her back. When the Ripper
puts two women on their sides in the one night it shows they must have had the
same killer. The Ripper strangled Eddowes as she stood up.
Why did he place her on her side after?
He may have done this to have a look in case policemen were hovering
about and then he put her on her back to continue with his evil task.
Stride
was strangled to death like the previous Ripper victims (page 59, Jack the
Ripper’s Black Magic Rituals). This was
why there wasn’t much blood. Only the
Ripper would have cut the throat of a woman already dead. This was his only mutilation of her.
The
Ripper maybe didn’t intend to kill that night.
He was always prepared to kill but he didn’t expect the opportunity to
present itself. That was why he didn’t
indulge himself in mutilating Stride.
And that was why he needed a piece of Eddowes’
apron to wrap Eddowes’ organs in later on. In the other killings he already had
something with him to contain the organs.
That both killings looked like a wonderful surprise for the Ripper shows
that both were the Ripper’s work. The
closeness in time and place of the two killings strongly indicates the work of
the one man.
Very
near
That
night Israel Schwartz saw a man stop and speak to a woman near the gateway
where the murder later took place. The
man tried to pull her into the street but threw her down on the footpath. She screamed – but not loudly. Schwartz saw a second man standing lighting
his pipe watching this. The attacker
shouted Lipski at the other man and the other man
started to follow Schwartz but after a short time when Schwartz looked around
he saw that the man was gone. It is said
that it was Schwartz that the man was calling Lipski
to. But the man was attacking a woman
and was unlikely to notice that Schwartz was a Jew. And it was dark at the time. The man was not going to kill her and had no
reason to get Schwartz scared off for he had already seen it all.
The
man who threw Stride down on the footpath was not the killer. He does not bear any resemblance to the
descriptions of the Ripper (page 54, The
Crimes of Jack the Ripper). (It is important to note as well that the
thought that Aaron Kosminski killed Stride but none
of the other women and he was the one identified by a Jewish witness and that
this witness was Schwartz is false for neither of the two men looked like the
poor emaciated homeless incoherent madman.)
The
Ripper would have dragged her into the gateway not the street. She had cachous in her hand when she was
found as if she felt safe with the man who killed her. She would not have felt safe with a man who
had just been violent towards her. The
other man was trying to make sure Schwartz didn’t return for another look. That was why he followed him to scare him
away and make sure he was out of the way.
He was alone with Stride and he comforted her. The Ripper always made friends with his
victims. Then he violently induced
unconsciousness and cut her throat. The
killer was in a hurry. It seems that
only the Ripper would use the knife on a woman who had died by
strangulation. The knife was taken away
as it was in all Ripper crimes.
The
second man who was called Lipski then was probably
her killer. Lipski
was a nickname used as a form of insult against Jews. The second man then was a Jew. The killer of Elizabeth Stride was a
Jew. If she was not killed by the Ripper
then she must have been killed in a domestic but this can’t have been. Her man wasn’t a Jew nor did he look 35 as
the second man did.
Schwartz
told the press that the second man carried a knife.
Why
wasn’t the knife mentioned to the police?
Because Schwartz was a Jew and the second man was a Jew and Jews didn’t
squeal on Jews. The press was insistent
that during an interview Schwartz said the second man had a knife. It rings true for Schwartz was in a hurry to
get away from the scene. He didn’t shout
for a policeman after seeing a woman attacked so he was afraid. He had to have been more than just afraid of
the man, he had to have been afraid of the knife! Schwartz admitted running as far as the
railway arch when he realised the second man was following him. He was afraid of this man but gave no reason
for being afraid of him in his police statement. The knife explains the fear.
The
second man must have had a knife or been the killer or both when he never came
forward. He had no reason not to come
forward otherwise.
Schwartz
said to the papers that the second man tried to stop the attack on Stride. This is probably true for the attacker called
Lipski to him.
And we know that
Why
did the first man call the second man Lipski? Had he called him Murdering Jew which he
meant by Lipski we might have seen the reason. The reason was most likely because the
attacker was trying to get
Stride
was seen in
Stride and the Knife
The
main reason why some hold that Stride was not murdered by the Ripper is that
she was not killed with the same knife used on Catherine Eddowes
later that night. The knife was possibly
Stride’s own knife which many prostitutes had taken to carrying for protection
or perhaps the Ripper had two knives and on this occasion didn’t employ his
usual knife. Because she had been
attacked just minutes before her murder but not by the killer she may have
retained her knife in her hand. Did she
attack the killer with it and did he disarm her? Not likely – there are indications that she
trusted her killer. He may have just
taken the knife in case she would attack him and before she had a chance to think
she was rendered unconscious.
If
the killer used Stride’s knife then the killer didn’t use his usual knife for
two reasons. One was for speed. He had no intention of spending a second
longer by going to the trouble of getting his own knife out with this woman for
it was dangerous. This would indicate
that she withdrew her knife when the other man attacked her and she then let
the Ripper hold her knife for her because she trusted him and he was comforting
her. The second was because he knew it
could be told what kind of knife was used.
He didn’t want the police to think that anybody other than the man who
assaulted her earlier was the killer.
Both of these would indicate that the Ripper had been seen by
Schwartz. Who knows. Maybe the man who attacked Stride had a knife
that he dropped and which the killer used for speed. The killer would have carried a knife for
self-defence and another one for butchering any prostitutes if the opportunity
arose.
The
knife used on Stride had been sharpened for it made a clean cut, and it had no
point on it but was rounded (page 61, 62 Jack
the Ripper Black Magic Rituals). The
killer didn’t just happen to be carrying such a sharp knife and kill her on
impulse. The man carrying the knife
intended to kill and was experienced enough to know that he didn’t need a
pointed knife. Perhaps the Ripper
carried this knife and used it just because he got the opportunity. And having got the bloodlust maybe he
returned to his lair to get his favourite knife and then he set out with it in
search of a prostitute to kill with it.
Later that night Catherine Eddowes was found
murdered.
There
is no reason to hold that the Ripper used only one knife when he was
mutilating. The fact that the knife used on Chapman could have passed for a
butcher’s knife or an amputating knife may mean more than one was used. Perhaps he used a different knife when he
knew the knife would be seen as it was by Schwartz. He knew that the police were into trying to
find out what kind of knife he used on his victims.
The Ripper may
have carried two knives in case the opportunity to commit more than one murder
would arise. Maybe he was afraid of
losing a knife.
Was Kelly a Ripper Victim?
It
is thought that Mary Kelly was not a Ripper victim for she alone of the Ripper
victims was killed indoors. This proves
nothing. It is thought that since she
wasn’t strangled, her killer was someone other than the Ripper. It is thought that the mutilations this time
seemed more amateurish and not the work of the Ripper who seemed to be skilled
at slicing people up. The Ripper had the
chance in most of the other locations to take the women into empty sheds and
houses and slash them there. He didn’t
because he didn’t feel the need.
Mary
Kelly was so badly mutilated that she would have been better off having been
run over by a train. She was the worst
mutilated victim.
As
stated before, the Ripper’s rage intensified with each victim. The mutilations got worse each time. For example, he savaged Catherine Eddowes’ face but went further with the next victim
Kelly. His methods altered all the
time. For example, he was careful doing
some mutilations and careless doing others.
If somebody had murdered Kelly and was trying to frame the Ripper why go
to extremes to mutilate the woman?
Surely cutting her throat and removing her womb and opening her abdomen
would have been enough. Why would
another killer take away the heart? Why
not the uterus only as the Ripper might have done? He inserted Kelly’s left hand into her empty
abdomen reminiscent of when he carefully put Annie Chapman’s left arm over her
breast. He wished to leave signatures
that it was really him. No other killer
would have thought of this signature.
If
the Kelly murder didn’t show much skill it was because the Ripper was in a
frenzy.
Why
did the Ripper who used to leave the women openly on display for quick
discovery lock Kelly’s door? This
delayed discovery. It may have been that
the Ripper got a scare with the Stride and Eddowes’
murder and thought he had been seen.
Kelly
was not strangled like the others. She
was attacked with a knife in her bed. In
this case the Ripper seems to have wanted to inflict pain or perhaps it was too
dark to attempt to find her neck. Perhaps
he knew that he could be heard in the next room and decided to omit the
strangulation for she would struggle.
Better just to kill her quickly with the knife. With the other women, they were dead first
and then he set about cutting them up.
Possibly he changed his modus operandi because unlike the others he
couldn’t get behind Kelly with her standing up.
He probably made a mistake in putting his hand over her mouth and so she
was still able to cry, “Oh Murder!” Had
this not happened she would have been making as much noise as she could to
raise the alarm. And then instead of
trying to strangle her he just slashed her throat. The sheet was found to be full of knife holes
as if it had been put over her face.
Kelly’s
clothes were found folded neatly on a chair.
This is such a mystery because they were untouched by any blood though
there was a mess all over the room. The
solution is that the Ripper had undressed and put his own clothes on top of
hers. The idea that Mary Kelly was not
the woman killed but she returned to her room and saw the gore and left her
clothes there and lit the fire is pure mad fancy.
The
Ripper didn’t use the pump next Kelly’s room to wash which reminds us of how he
didn’t use the water tap in the yard where he killed Annie Chapman either.
One
mystery with Catherine Eddowes is why when her neck
was cut the artery didn’t make a big jet of blood (page 72, Jack the Ripper’s Black Magic Rituals). There were no spurts on the pavement or on
the brickwork. Did the killer use his
red neckerchief to stop the spurts in case he would dirty his clothes? The blood wouldn’t have been seen on the
cloth. That was why he used a red
one.
The
red neckerchief reminds us of the red handkerchief that Kelly’s killer gave
her. The uproar over an earlier murder,
Stride’s, started soon after these men saw the man and woman. The men must have
soon heard that this murder had taken place.
So why didn’t they go to the police with this description that very
night?
The
book, Jack the Ripper’s Black Magic
Rituals, page 143 proves that there is a 500 yard radius from a centre
point which goes through the exact spots where Stride, Eddowes
and Kelly were found. This was not a
coincidence. The killer made sure there
was some mark so show that he was the murderer.
A perfect circle can be drawn with the three killing sites along the
circumference.
Kelly Murder Scene
PART
THREE, DID THE VICTIMS KNOW THE KILLER?
Evidence that some of the
Victims Knew their Killer
The
five murder victims may have known each other.
They didn’t live far apart. These
women walked the streets later than most prostitutes which makes it very likely
that they were known to each other. Women of the night tended to know each other especially prostitutes
that worked after dark (page 122, Jack
the Ripper’s Black Magic Rituals).
Some experts believe that Mary Jane Kelly and Annie Chapman knew one
another and were friends. Their source
is the People newspaper November 11th 1888. Also Kelly and Chapman lived on the same
street –
Did
they know the Ripper?
Mrs
Long saw Annie Chapman with a man at 5.30 am near the backyard where Annie was
later found murdered. At about that time
roughly a woman’s cry of, “No!” and a bump was heard against the fence of
number 29. Annie was found at 6.00
am. The bruises on Annie indicate that
she did hit herself perhaps against the fence.
Why did she call out, “No!”? The
Ripper worked here in broad daylight.
Despite
the possibly that the thump was something else and the “No!” was not from Annie
it is unlikely. Nobody came forward to
explain them in any different way and she was attacked about the time these
sounds were heard.
How
could Mrs Long who saw people going to and from all the time to the extent that
she would have paid no attention have been so interested in Annie and the man
with her? She even listened to what they
said. The man having said, “Will you?”
and Annie answering, “Yes.” She had a
good look at the man. That was
strange. It is hard to believe that she
hadn’t seen them together before. If she
had, that would explain her interest.
She was afraid to say too much in case the man would come after her
next. If the man had been a Jew there
was a danger of reprisals from the Jews if she said who he was. She knew more than she ever said.
Elizabeth
Stride was found holding her cachous in her hand. That she didn’t struggle or drop it indicates
that she trusted her attacker and was totally taken by surprise when he put his
hands round her throat. She had turned
down a client earlier that night. Sex
only takes minutes on the street so why did she do this? It may have been because she was saving
herself for a special client, the Ripper.
If not, then she must have trusted the man who was the Ripper when she
went into the Yard with him. Either way
she must have known and trusted him especially since she knew of the recent
murders and after she had been assaulted by another man on the street minutes
before.
Joseph
Barnett, Mary’s ex-partner, testified that Mary Kelly was afraid of a man or
men. He said that she asked him to read
the stories of the murders to her (page 104, Jack the Ripper’s Black Magic Rituals). Why did he say this? Her door was easily opened through a hole in
the window. Would she have left her room
so open to burglary and the risk of attack had she been afraid of someone? Barnett was undoubtedly lying. Barnett probably knew who the killer was and
wanted to point to him but in such a way that he wouldn’t get the blame for
saying who it was. But its possible
that Kelly was assured by Barnett that the Ripper would never touch her so she
might have been afraid of the Ripper but not afraid enough to make sure she was
safe in her room. Kelly may have known
the Ripper when Barnett her lover knew him.
Kelly
could read herself and would have and when Barnett still had to read the Ripper
murder accounts to her it shows she was obsessed with them a little. This was likely if she knew the killer.
Why
did the Ripper always take the money he paid the women for sex back? The women usually asked for the money and got
it before they went with the man. The
man was a lot less likely to pay if he got the goods first. No matter how much he was in a hurry, he
always took time to search their clothes and get the money off them again. He always stole whatever money they made – the tale of the farthings at Annie
Chapman’s feet however was a myth. The
stealing indicates that the Ripper did indeed kill the canonical five
victims. And the Ripper wasn’t exactly
extremely poor. He looked like a shabby
gentleman and sometimes dressed far finer than that. What happened when he had got other women to
the killing sites but wasn’t able to kill them for one reason or another? Did he have sex with them and then rob them? Hardly likely.
It looks more like the five women he murdered trusted him to pay after
sex. They knew him. They liked him. Our suspect had fallen into hard times or was
fearful of his finances getting worse and would have needed to take the money
back if he had given them any.
The
bizarre and rushed behaviour of the police and investigation in relation to the
Mary Kelly murder and the inquest would suggest that they knew who the murderer
was and didn’t want to shout about it.
This could suggest that the killer was a Jew and identifying him would
lead to backlash against the Jews. The Goulston Street message which was thought to have been
written by the Ripper by chalk on a wall to blame the Jews for the crimes had
to be washed off in case a riot would happen which shows how dangerous it could
be for Jews had the Ripper proven to be one of their number. Perhaps the Ripper was carted off to an
asylum so the police felt they should let the matter go.
The Man Hutchinson Saw
A
witness, George Hutchinson, who said he saw Kelly take a man he could identify
to her home Miller’s Court at 2.05 am on the morning she was murdered got a
very good look at the killer. He said
that the man was well dressed. The man
said to Kelly, “You will be all right for what I have told you.” Hutchinson heard Kelly say later to the man,
“All right, my dear, come along, you will be comfortable.” The man gave her a red handkerchief. Hutchinson thought something strange of the
situation and stood watching until 2.45 am but nobody came out. He went up the Court afterwards and all was
in darkness so the man and Kelly must have been asleep in bed.
The
amount of detail to many seems suspicious as does the fact that Hutchinson
didn’t come forward for three days. But
perhaps Hutchinson was one of Kelly’s clients and didn’t want to draw attention
to himself and her being friends. Maybe
he didn’t want to come forward and it took him three days to change his
mind. Inspector Abberline
accepted his testimony as valid which indicates that anything unusual was
explained. If he had been lying he would
told better lies than what he told. He
could have said for example that Kelly had went out again at the time he saw
her with the man and so that he didn’t know anything. He had no need to lie that he could identify
the man he saw with Kelly. That would
have got him in trouble if he was trying to cover something up.
The
view that Hutchinson was afraid of suspicion coming on himself and made up the
account for he had been seen keeping watch over Kelly’s room that night is
spurious. When he went forward after
three days and hadn’t been approached by the police before then there was
evidently nothing for him to worry about.
He knew other people who saw him walking behind the killer and Kelly on
that fateful night could come forward and contradict him if he told any lies.
Hutchinson
was able to give the police such a detailed description of the man that one
conclusion is unavoidable. He had seen
him before when he was able to take in all that. When you know somebody well, and you glimpse
them briefly you can describe them a lot more clearly than you can if they are
strangers. If this was not the case with
Hutchinson then we have to ask why Hutchinson lied for he must have made it all
up. If he lied, then he was the Ripper
himself or he was protecting the Ripper.
Hutchinson knew who the Ripper was – that we can consider proven. It is most likely that Hutchinson saw the man
with Kelly before. Hutchinson was seen
by a witness keeping vigil on Miller’s Court.
The Ripper would not have acted like that. He was not the Ripper. The Ripper didn’t loiter.
Hutchinson
was clearly concerned for Mary Kelly when he stood so long on the dangerous
streets at night watching her take the man who killed her to her room and for
long after. He must have made sure he
remembered everything clearly. He would
not have lied. Why did Hutchinson not
admit to having seen the man before?
What was he afraid of? Did he
know the killer? What made him so sure
that Kelly who had taken so many men back was in danger with this gentlemanly
looking client? He knew the killer. Hutchinson gave Kelly money. He gave her six pence shortly before she was
murdered. It appears that he could have
been one of her clients too. Perhaps he
didn’t want to name the killer for the killer could expose his sexual liaisons
with Kelly? Why was Hutchinson giving
her money when he had no regular job as the Scotland Yard letter of 12th
November 1888 states?
Hutchinson
saw that the man had a Jewish appearance (page 17, Jack the Ripper Whitechapel Map Booklet 1888). We know the Ripper was a Jew so the man he
seen must have been the Ripper.
Prostitutes would have been wary of Jewish customers since the Goulston Street message.
When Kelly went home with a Jew she probably knew and trusted this Jew.
Was
he suspicious because the man looked so respectable and seemed prepared to
sleep with a common prostitute? This is
unlikely for it wouldn’t have been that unusual. Slumming was popular then. The man didn’t fit the image of a killer such
as the Ripper who people pictured as a dirty, dishevelled, maniacal and ugly
monster.
Hutchinson
surely would have known if there was a light in Kelly’s room after she took the
man back. It was easy to see from where
he was standing at Dorset Street. He
would have had a look when he was that concerned and indeed he stood for a long
while watching her room and saw that it was all in darkness. He said he went up past the room and all was
quiet so the man she took back was in her bed sleeping with her. The man would have been seen leaving had he
just been with Kelly for sex. He planned
to spend the night there. He said to
her, “You will be all right for what I have told you.” What a strange thing to say? Evidently he didn’t want Hutchinson to hear
what their sexual plans were. He knew he
was listening and was being careful. It
sounds like he and Kelly were planning to have unnatural sex. He spoke to her as if it was something unusual
he wanted from her. Perhaps he asked her
to masturbate him. The police suspect
was believed to have suffered from an addiction to masturbation that made him
insane. He was less likely to suggest
sodomy and talk about it when a man was listening for she was drunk and giddy
and vulgar and he didn’t want to encourage her.
He might have been less careful when it was only masturbation he was
after. No semen was found at the crime
scene. This alone suggests the man she
took to her room was the Ripper. It was
the same with all the Ripper crime scenes.
Some
time between 3.30 and 4.00 am a cry of “Oh Murder!” was heard from Kelly’s
room. When prostitute Mary Ann Cox went
home at 3.00 am she saw Kelly’s room all in darkness.
What
Kelly said, “All right, my dear, come along, you will be comfortable”,
indicates that she intended to let the man sleep in her bed. It was the nearest to comfortable in her
room. There is no doubt from the
bloodstains that when she was attacked she had her face to the partition that
the bed was alongside. Her head was in
the corner of the room. She was attacked and the blood spurted up on the
wall. She was lying as if to make room
for somebody lying beside her. The idea
that the Ripper wasn’t taken to her room and he sneaked in is unlikely for he
knew she was a prostitute or he wouldn’t have been planning to kill her. He knew a prostitute could have a caller any
time or have a man in bed with her.
Kelly
though drunk took off her clothes in her room with her guest and folded them
neatly and put them over the chair. She
then slept alongside her companion for the night. The Ripper didn’t burn her clothes despite
burning nearly everything else he could get his hands on in the room in the
fire. But it seems she was very
comfortable with her guest. Kelly having
been afraid of the murderer would only have taken men she trusted back to her
room. She felt safe that night with a
man beside her in bed. It is hard to
believe she had her room unlocked when she was there alone so that the Ripper
could sneak in and attack her. This
takes us to the mystery of the key.
The Key Mystery
Mary
Kelly lost the key to her room. Joseph
Barnett her ex-lover and she had had a violent quarrel and the window next the
door ended up partly smashed on the 30th October. Without the key, she reached in through the
hole in the glass to unlock the door to let herself in. This was stated in
Joseph Barnett’s statement to the police which they accepted. But the door was found locked and the police
had to break it down after her mutilated body was seen through the hole by the
man collecting the rent.
It
seems that the door locked automatically when it was closed and one had to
reach through the window hole for the catch inside to open the door.
If
she had the Ripper with her in her bed then he didn’t need to know how to open
the door. If he crept in, he must have
been familiar with her room. He must have
observed how she opened the door at some stage.
Inspector
Abberline speaking at the inquest said that the
murderer did not lock the door behind him with the key. Nevertheless it is certain that the killer or
somebody had a key and locked the room (page 64, The Complete Jack the Ripper).
This must have been the situation because how else can the need to break
the door down be explained? If the lock
could be easily opened by putting one’s hand through the cracked pane as
Barnett said then why did the police break the door in? The police must have looked to see if there
was any way of entering the room without breaking the door in. You don’t do unnecessary damage at the scene
of a crime. The police must have known
if the door could really be opened by putting a hand through the window for
working out how the murderer could have got in is an important part of the
evidence. Possibly the police were
acting unprofessionally but there is no reason to think this. The neighbours would have known how Kelly got
into her room and could have told them.
So there are reasons why the police thought that it couldn’t be done and
so they didn’t try it. The suggestion
that the police didn’t believe Barnett but decided later at the inquest that
the door could be opened as he said is ridiculous.
The
landlord didn’t even have a key either! So without a key they just broke in.
It
seems that the police knew that Barnett wasn’t the killer and let him away with
his lies. After all they had considered
him a suspect in her murder. They wanted
the whole investigation rushed through as if it was unnecessary. They acted as if they already knew who the
Ripper was and there was no point.
Why
did Barnett lie? Why did he want to
protect the killer? Why did he act as if
the police guessing that the Ripper had the key could lead them to the
Ripper? The answer is that Barnett
probably set up her meeting with the Ripper.
Barnett worked at the Market and may have known our suspect who may have
supplied meats to the Market.
If
Joe Barnett was the Ripper or at least the killer of Mary Kelly it would have
been a crime of passion for he lived a normal life after her murder. He
wouldn’t lie beside her peacefully and then attack her. He did love the woman. He had no reason to go so far in the
mutilations. He had no reason to make it
look like the work of the Ripper – after all there were plenty of prostitute
killers about.
Most
likely the person who locked the door had to have been the killer. But what did the Ripper need the key
for? He didn’t know then that Kelly was
able to open the door by putting her hand through the broken glass. Was she really able to do this at all?
The
missing key story was a lie. Kelly used
the key and the Ripper locked the door with it and took it away with him after he desecrated her corpse. Did the killer take the key as a trophy
similar to his stealing Annie Chapman’s rings?
The
key was never lost. Kelly let herself
and the Ripper in with it. The Ripper
took the key with him. If as Barnett
said, the key fell out of the lock when the door was slammed shut during a row
it could have gone very far. She could
have got a new key soon if it had been.
And she wouldn’t have delayed if she was afraid of somebody like he
said.
Barnett
lied because he knew who had the key. In
his stupidity he thought the lie was necessary to protect the killer. As if the police were going to search all the
houses in Whitechapel for a tiny key!
However, if the police had already suspected the killer his lie would
have been far from stupid. This would
tell us that one of the police suspects was the killer. The police would certainly search the houses
of the suspects of the time. It would
tell us too that the killer was a local resident. He was not the American quack doctor Francis Tumbelty. He was not
Aaron Kosminski who nobody would have been afraid of
especially another man. He was not D’Onston for Barnett wouldn’t have been that afraid of
him. The killer had to have been a Jew
and Barnett was afraid of the Jews who were protecting the killer. He had to live among them. The killer was not George Chapman for he was
only 23 at the time of the killings while the witnesses saw an older man. And Chapman’s English wasn’t as good as the
English of the Ripper. A police suspect
Michael Ostrog was free to commit more murders after
the Whitechapel murders stopped and didn’t while a maniac like the Ripper
shouldn’t be able to stop. GWB the Australian suspect who according to his son
admitted to the murders saying he had been getting very drunk and then getting
the urge to gut prostitutes doesn’t sound very plausible. It doesn’t explain why the killings stopped
so soon after starting. Its only
hearsay.
Some
think that the Ripper stole the key and that was why it was missing. Let’s see
what the implications are.
The
Ripper must have been to her room some time previous to the murder. He must have known Kelly reasonably
well. He found the key and kept it which
was why it was missing. He locked the
door after he slaughtered her. Had he
got the door secured some other way he would have left blood marks on the
door. If you use a key you can avoid
blood marks if you are careful. You can
make sure only the key gets the blood.
The
Ripper had been planning to kill her for some time. She knew him and she trusted him. He either found the key after she lost it or
he was the reason she lost the key. He had stolen it. Either way she respected this man. She let him treat her room like his own. He didn’t have sex with her at any time. Perhaps he just paid her to sit and talk with
him. The Ripper didn’t do sex.
The
possibilities are that Ripper entered by stealth using her key – assuming it
had been lost and stolen by him. Or she
let him in and he slept beside her or he knew how to unlock the door through
the broken glass. Joseph Barnett had
visited her hours before her murder and would have known if the key had turned
up again for she would have been likely to hang it up on the same hook or nail
on the wall. Perhaps Kelly kept the door on the latch and the Ripper got in
easily and when he left he left it off the latch so that the door locked. This
is unlikely for she would have known that Hutchinson who was concerned and
keeping an eye outside that night could decide to send the police into her room
and she would be caught in prostitution so she would have locked the door so
that she might have some warning at least.
But how the Ripper got in doesn’t matter. What matters is that he had the key. He knew this woman and she knew him when he
went to such lengths.
The
murderer had waited a long time before striking Kelly. It seems he was waiting until he would be
sure that she was alone. He was waiting
until her lover had left her and a night in which she wouldn’t be sharing her
bed with her prostitute friends.
One
more thought, the Ripper didn’t wash at the pump next Kelly’s windows. If the Ripper didn’t know the pump was there
was it because Kelly let him in the door with the key which would have meant he
wouldn’t have seen it?
PART FOUR, THE RIPPER WRITES
Goulston
Street Graffiti
The
Ripper cut Elizabeth Stride’s throat and then not long later that same night he
killed Catherine Eddowes. The Ripper was seen by three men with
Catherine Eddowes just a few steps away from where
she was found murdered minutes later.
He cut off a piece of her apron and took organs away with him. Later the empty piece of apron was found in Goulston Street with a chalked message blaming the Jews
above it.
Why
did the Ripper cut off a piece of the apron?
If he had to clean his knife then why not just swipe it across her clothing? Why didn’t he take the whole apron? He took a piece because he wanted to ensure
that later it would have been matched up to the apron. He took the piece to put organs in. But that was not the only reason. He had planned to dump it at
The
graffiti at Wentworth Buildings,
Some
have suggested that since PC Long paid so much attention to the cloth and the
message before knowing about the piece of missing apron that he planted this
evidence having found the apron piece elsewhere and had written the message
above it himself. He knew a woman – Stride
- had been killed and he knew the Ripper could have struck again. That is the only explanation we need. Had it not been written by the Ripper or that
night people would have testified that it was there ages before Long saw
it. They would have said it was there
even at the time that Long said it wasn’t there.
The
coincidence between the writing being
found above the discarded apron piece would have to point to the Ripper being
the writer.
The
writing went:
The Juwes are
The men that
Will not
be Blamed
for nothing
PC
Long wrote the message down as follows:
And
spelled Jewes not Juwes. It was DC Halse who
corrected him and gave us the correct version including how the writing was
laid out on the wall. Notice how the
handwriting in both cases doesn’t differ too much. Halse however has
it as The Juwes are not the men that will be blamed
for nothing which is different from Long’s. But as Long studied the writing more than Halse did we can conclude that Long gave us the right
wording. The fact that Long thought Juwes was Jewes means not that he
didn’t look at it every well but only that he made a mistake anybody could have
made. Long made a note in his notebook
that it was Juwes not Jewes. DC Halse seems to
have preserved the layout for us because he stated that the writing was in
three lines. And besides why else would
he have started writing near the middle of the page? Perhaps significantly we see the cross. The writing is laid out like a cross. This was an extraordinary thing for the
Ripper to do when he was writing on bricks.
They
have not the capitalisations as they were.
The version as follows is what should be accepted.
The Juwes are
The men that
Will not
be Blamed
for nothing
Notice
here the strange capitalisations. The Juwes may be a spelling error. Notice the poor grammar. This was the way the man would write
normally. Why does he put the lines in
that way? Its like he writes poetry.
It
is not true that the message means that the Jews will not stand for being
blamed. The two negatives is a feature
of popular speech. It means that the
Jews will be blamed for something and should be. What the Ripper could have meant by Jewish
men being to blame is that their religion in the scriptures commands that
prostitutes be cruelly slain and that they are to blame for his actions for he
is a Jew. He was not suggesting that a
group of Jewish men were going around killing prostitutes. He was not suggesting that the Jews were as much
to blame as he was for protecting him from the police. Why?
What about the women? And there
is no reason for the Ripper to then think that Jews were protecting him. If they suspected him they could stop him
without resorting to Gentile justice.
It
was possible that he wanted to put the blame on the Jews who lived in Wentworth
Buildings because it would send the police off on a wild goose chase so that he
wouldn’t be suspected. This is the
answer to those who claim that a Jew wouldn’t have written such a message so
the Ripper could not have been a Jew.
The
writing was very small – it had to be squeezed onto a doorjamb. A vandal would
have written somewhere better and more prominent and written in bigger and more
conspicuous letters. In case there would
be any doubt, the cloth was placed below it then to make sure it would be seen
and linked with the Ripper.
The
Ripper must have gone to his lair after killing Eddowes
returned to the streets to leave this message.
The one hour and nineteen minutes delay between the murder and the
finding of the message shows this. Eddowes was dead by 1.45 am and when PC Long passed the
wall where the message later appeared with the apron piece below it at 2.20 am
he saw nothing. When he returned about
2.55, to his shock he discovered the items then. The view that he had been careless when he
went past at 2.20 and failed to see them is unnecessary. If we begin questioning testimony for no
reason we can end up anywhere.
Overcrowding was Whitechapel’s other name. The houses and tenements were so packed with
people that people were out all night.
Had Long been wrong or lying somebody would have been able to say
so. The Ripper as well had to be careful
of the fact that a lot of people were out on the streets all night.
The
Ripper did not write the message while fleeing back to his lair. The Ripper may have gone back to his lair and
started thinking about how he had been seen at Mitre Square and how the police
could appear at his front door any minute.
He decided to fabricate evidence that he had fled in another
direction. So he decided to return to
the streets with the apron piece and also write the message. He didn’t take the piece of apron to clean
his knife in Goulston Street. You don’t put a dirty knife away inside your
clothes to clean it later with a rag. He
took the apron piece both because he wanted to put organs in it and also
because he planned to leave a message and he wanted the police to know he wrote
the message by dumping the apron piece below it. So he must have gone back to his lair to take
the organs out and then he took the apron piece out with him to go to Goulston Street. He
didn’t want to contaminate his person with the organs so he wrapped them up in
the apron cut off. This indicates that
the witnesses who saw him with Eddowes and who saw a
reasonably well-dressed man did in fact see the Ripper.
Did
the killer have a key to some premises in Goulston
Street to clean himself up so that he could leave the rag to misdirect police
away from his home direction? Without
the bloodstains the police would have paid no attention to him. Our suspect may
have had a butcher’s shop to wash at in Goulston
Street. He was once dragged up before
the law for stealing meat from his workplace 58 Goulston
Street. The killer wouldn’t dare carry the rag too far. It was dirty and smelly. He knew the police would be searching men on
the street. If the knives were taken to
a butcher’s shop nothing would be thought of them. Something would be thought if they happened
to be found in a doss house where privacy was difficult or at home.
The
killer looked dressed – he didn’t look like a worker when he was seen with Eddowes. So it looks like he went back home or to his
butcher’s shop to get chalk to write the message at Goulston
Street.
It
took a short time to write the message. What if the Ripper had been seen in the
doorway by residents? Why choose this
place and not somewhere safer along the street?
Why not some place where he could write the message bigger? Was the Ripper confident that if he had been
identified by Jews living in the building that they would not testify against
him? Yes - the Jews didn’t believe in
giving one of their own over to Gentile justice.
Would
a Jew spell Jew wrong? No. In the police transcript Juwes
is written like it was Juives with no dot above the i. Did the police
miss the dot? Juives
is French for Jews. It may have been a
mistake made by the killer in the dark.
He meant to write an e but it appeared like a u but then we would have Jewes. We must
remember that if it is a real spelling error, that to believe somebody living
in the East End and reading the papers could nevertheless spell Jew wrong is no
more difficult to believe than that a Jew could spell Jew wrong. He spelt the word nothing right so it is
hardly likely that he could misspell Jews.
If
it was Juives then the killer wrote the message. Nobody else would change the spelling of
Jews. A Dutch Jew like our suspect would
be more likely than a Polish Jew to know of Juives. Why did the killer write Juives
then? To give the misleading impression
that he was a Jew who also spoke French.
Our suspect didn’t speak French.
The real killer was unlikely to hint that he spoke French if he did
speak French. That would narrow things
down too much for the police. In any
case, the killer planned a lot of things carefully in advance.
Only
a Jew would be interested in scrawling down the French spelling of Jews.
A
possibility is, the killer was a Jew. He
wanted to boast of it. But he
deliberately spelt it incorrectly to make it seem that he wasn’t a Jew
reasoning that detectives would think a Jew wouldn’t misspell Jews. The killer had been seen that night by five
potential witnesses. He wasn’t likely to
have thought he couldn’t or shouldn’t even bother trying to hide the fact that
he was a Jew. So he decided then to put
out a little misinformation about what kind of Jew he was. The killer then probably did write Juives.
Concerning
the writing Detective Halse who saw it said, “It
looked fresh, and if it had been done long before it would have been rubbed out
by the people passing. I did not notice
whether there was any powdered chalk on the ground, though I did look about to
see if a knife could be found. There
were three lines of writing in a good schoolboy’s round hand. The size of the capital letters would be
about 3/4 in, and the other letters were
in proportion. The writing was on the
black bricks, which formed a kind of dado, the bricks above being white”.
So
it must have looked so fresh that they actually looked for chalk dust. Chalk dust can blow away easily which shows
that when they looked for it they were sure it was more than fresh. When one looks at new chalked writing very
closely one can see a lot of dust composing the writing that is just about
adhering to the surface. In a very short
time these come loose especially when there is a breeze.
If
you believe the allegation of some that the writing was seen to be slightly
erased then the following is how you must think. The Ripper put the apron piece in that
doorway to lay the blame on the Jews in the building for his crime for he knew
he had been recognised as a Jew at the scene of the Eddowes
crime and he wanted to create a false lead for the police. The Ripper took a change of heart – an
attack of guilt maybe for trying to get one of his own people suspected - and
most probably tried to erase it but was disturbed and made off. When the writing was fuzzy but legible
despite being so small it shows that the Ripper half-heartedly tried to erase
it. The idea that since it was written
in a doorway people coming to and from would have brushed against it is only
plausible if it had been there for a few days at least. And the building was a habitation of Jews who
would soon have washed it off. The
Ripper wrote it and changed his mind and wished to erase it. This tells us that the killer was indeed a
Jew.
If
the Ripper didn’t write the message, then someone who saw him plant the apron
piece there did.
What
about the man who on the day following the killing of Annie Chapman was
drinking with a prostitute called Lyons?
In a pub called the Queen’s Head, she and a friend noticed a large knife
in his trouser pocket. The man said to
Lyons, “You are about the same style of woman as the one that’s murdered.” Lyons asked him what he knew about her. This was his answer, “You are beginning to
smell rats; foxes hunt geese, but don’t always find them”. He then left and she followed him as far as
the church near Church Street. He turned
around and saw her and then he vanished into the street. It was decided that the man looked like a
picture of the suspected killer known as Leather Apron. The man was Jewish for the Leather Apron image
carried a Jewish appearance.
Furthermore, where he vanished was very close to Miller’s Court where
Mary Kelly was slaughtered by the Ripper.
His answer shows the same liking for leaving cryptic clues that the
Ripper had when he left the Goulston Street
message. It shows that he liked to boast
as the Ripper did. This man probably was
the Ripper. The foxes hunt geese but
don’t always find them seems to mean the Ripper hunts but doesn’t always get
women to kill. He didn’t mean that he
was one of the geese and the police were the foxes doing the hunting. He was unlikely to infer that he was one of
several serial killers in the East End for it wasn’t true. Lyons was a young prostitute. Was he so angry at her that when he got Mary
Kelly, another young prostitute, into his clutches that he took it out on
Kelly? Lyons could have become a Ripper
victim because the Ripper killed at the weekends. The day of her incident with
this man was a Sunday.
The
Ripper wouldn’t have gone far from his lair to plant the fake evidence at Goulston Street. He
couldn’t – not after two murders. Middlesex
Street would have made an ideal lair for him.
The Ripper dashed from Mitre Square to Goulston
Street. Middlesex Street was between
them but closer to Goulston Street. He wanted the police to think he dumped the
apron piece on his way further into the city while in fact his lair was
Middlesex Street. He knew that as soon
as he would get off Goulston Street that the apron
piece could have been found quickly. He
couldn’t have went far to get back to his lair.
The
man who attacked Stride that night called Lipski to
another man on the side of the road. The
witness made a report to the press that said that the other man had a
knife. Evidently the attacker was
calling the other man a Jew. Lipski was a Jew who had allegedly committed murder. The knife wasn’t mentioned in the police
report but if he had one that would explain why the other man was verbally
abused this way. This other man was
probably Jack the Ripper. This may have
inspired the Ripper to write the Goulston Street
message. The coincidence between the
Ripper being called a murdering Jew due to him having being seen with a knife
and the message appearing later and so soon after, indicates that the Ripper
did kill both Stride and Eddowes that night. The message was a taunt because the Ripper
had been correctly identified as a Jew near the scene of the murder of
Elizabeth Stride. We know a witness was
able to identify the Ripper but would not testify for both witness and Ripper
were Jews. This witness was not the
witness of the attack on Stride. The
attacker was not a Jew for a Jew would not use an anti-Semitic insult. Who the witness was will be uncovered
later.
Were
the witnesses who saw the Ripper afraid to give the Ripper a name because he
was a Jew?
PART FIVE THE RIPPER LETTERS
The Ripper gets his name
The Ripper was capable of
writing letters to the police to taunt them.
The writing on the wall at Goulston Street
proves that as does his making a mystery by laying out items near Annie
Chapman’s body.
The
Central News Agency on September 27th, 1888 received a letter claiming to be
from the murderer and calling himself Jack the Ripper. This was the first
letter ever signed Jack the Ripper and it gave the Ripper his gruesome nickname
for the first time. The Ripper could
have been inclined to write letters after what he left at Goulston
Street.
Dear
Boss,
I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I
have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track.
That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work
the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now.
I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny
little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over
the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red
ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for
jolly wouldn't you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give
it out straight. My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away
if I get a chance. Good Luck.
Yours
truly
Jack the Ripper
Dont mind me giving the trade name
PS
Wasnt good enough to post this before I got all the
red ink off my hands curse it No luck yet. They say I'm a doctor now. ha ha
“Keep
this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give
it out straight”, is certainly a sign that this letter probably came from the
real killer.
“My
knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance”. This all turned out to be true. The Ripper only killed at weekends and didn’t
seem to be able to slaughter whenever he wanted. This wasn’t known or figured out
at that time.
After
the letter was received Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes
were killed on the 30th September 1888. This letter was taken seriously when it
appeared that the killer of Eddowes had cut a lobe
off. Nowadays it is thought to have been
a hoax by an enterprising journalist.
Surely
a forger would want people to think the killer was a doctor or at least he
wouldn’t put people off the impression that he was? It was more frightening and controversial if
he was a doctor. And surely a forger
would encourage the belief at the time that the killer was a doctor? And of course the Ripper was not a doctor but
nobody knew that then. The letter writer did for he was the Ripper.
The
killer is said to be presented in the letter as a daring rascal and not as one
who delights in his “holy” crusade against prostitutes. But we have a letter this same person wrote
that does present the killings as a “holy” crusade. It is not a daring rascal that appears in the
letters – it is one who is sure that he won’t get caught as if God is
protecting him and one who enjoys his work, doing what he perceives as God’s
work. The view that the daring rascal
impression could only have been created by someone other than the killer who
would have been outraged at being seen that way is wrong. The killer did like to shock and might have
pretended to be a daring rascal to achieve that end.
This
letter speaking of the Chapman murder said, “Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal”. Did he mean he caught her by surprise? No for Chapman was heard saying, “No!” Then something was heard to hit against the
fence. He meant that he killed her
before she had a chance to scream. He
was right about this for the medical examination results that were confirmed
after the letter appeared showed that she couldn’t have screamed. Also there were people about and the killer
did such a good job of not attracting attention as he attacked her that it has
to be clear what he meant. He meant that
he should have been caught at work but wasn’t.
He probably heard people out and about in the other yards. Only the Ripper could have thought of
that. The writer was speaking from
memory. Nobody knew but the killer that
he should have been caught but wasn’t.
The
killer had been more daring with Chapman than with Nicholls. He took parts of Chapman away with him. This was only two murders so far. Only the killer would have been in a position
to write that he was going to do more killings.
And when it was only two murders nobody knew but the killer that the
killer was only out to kill “whores”. He
could just have been an evil person attacking prostitutes because they were
easy targets but who hoped to start killing any women he could get his hands
on. A lot of people thought at the time
that it was women not just whores the killer hated. Only the killer at that time knew different.
The
writer said he would kill if he got the chance.
We know that the Ripper couldn’t kill whenever he wanted – he always had
to wait to the weekend. Only the Ripper
could know that he wouldn’t be free to attack women when he wanted.
The
knife was sharpened after the Nicholls murder.
The letter boasts about the sharpness.
At that time only Chapman had been killed with the sharpened knife and
so we get the impression that the killer wrote the letter and is vowing to keep
his knife sharp from now on. A
journalist might have thought that since Nicholls was killed with a knife that
wasn’t too sharp that the Ripper didn’t care if the knife was sharp or not as
long as it did the job.
The
Americanism, Boss, was not contrived by any journalist for no journalist wanted
to advocate the notion that the Ripper was an American. Better to suggest a Whitechapel man as the
murderer and have everybody thinking they might know him or live beside him and
have everyone quaking with fear. Fear
sells papers. A butcher like our suspect
might have picked up the expression from American customers. The journalist forging letters from the
Ripper would want to support and inflame public opinion to make more stories
and get more papers sold. The letter had
to match what people thought of the Ripper for making unusual suggestions was
more likely to result in the letter not being taken seriously.
The
papers couldn’t risk saying things like that the Ripper was an American for
there would be a lot of embarrassment if he was caught and it was found he was
not an American. Like fortune tellers
they had to play safe and make safe guesses.
We
will soon see that the letters were written by a Jew. The journalist accused of writing the letter
was not a Jew and nor was he prosecuted even though Sir Robert Anderson of the
Criminal Investigation Division of the London Metropolitan Police said he could
name the person who wrote these letters!
Certainly the letters then might have come from the Ripper’s pen. Nobody could prove they came from anybody
else.
No
journalist would write, “I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer
bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant
use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha ha”. The journalist
would know that the police would expect the killer to be familiar with blood
and how it thickens. The killer is
afraid the letter might lead back to him and so if it does he can point to this
line as proof that he didn’t write it.
The
Ripper wrote in this letter that he wouldn’t stop ripping until he got
caught. This proved to be true for the
Ripper was certainly stopped from killing by his relatives.
The
letter writer wrote that the joke about Leather Apron gave him real fits. What did he mean? Surely a journalist wouldn’t write like
somebody who did the writing version of thinking out loud? The Ripper at that time was nicknamed Leather
Apron. Why does the killer think its
funny? A journalist would have wanted
people to believe the Leather Apron thing.
It is surmised that because a leather apron was found in the yard where
Chapman was slain which was assumed to have belonged to the Ripper until the
real owner claimed it that this is what the writer finds funny. “I have laughed when they [the police] look
so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather
Apron gave me real fits.” The police
believed at that time that the killer was a butcher and indeed even suspected a
mad Jewish bootmaker John Pizer
of the crimes. Pizer
was subsequently cleared. The killer is
laughing because the police suspected the wrong man. Now that wouldn’t be funny unless the killer
was a mad and Jewish himself. He
probably found it funny as well that he wore a Leather Apron as a bootmaker while he himself wore one as a butcher. This ties in with other things we know about
the killer and gives us greater certainty that the Ripper wrote the letter..
The
letter writer says that Jack the Ripper is his trade name. Trade name?
Butchers are rippers. He speaks
as if his ripping women is part of his job.
Is this a hint that he is a butcher?
The
killer didn’t seem to be particular about washing his hands. The letter writer was as bad for he admitted
to forgetting to wash the red ink off.
The
Ripper did indeed play funny little games as the letter writer says. The letter writer was the Ripper. At that time the only game was Annie
Chapman’s belongings laid out by the killer in some arrangement. After that they got stranger. Nicks in Eddowes
face, the apron piece planted at a spot bearing a message from the killer, and
the puzzles created in Mary Kelly’s room.
Only the killer would vow to play games in a letter and do so.
It
is thought that the promise about trying to cut the woman’s ears off reveals
the letter to be a fake because it was known because of the early morning
papers that the killer tried to do that.
But notice he says he didn’t have the time to cut them off. This was not known at the time. And we know the killer worked fast when he
slashed Eddowes for the policeman was approaching and
left himself very little time to get away.
The policeman may have missed him by seconds.
The
letter has every mark of being written by the killer.
This
letter was signed Jack the Ripper leading the world to use this nickname for
the uncaught killer who stalked the streets of the East End.
Sir
Robert Anderson was head of the Criminal Investigation Division of the London
Metropolitan Police in 1888. Anderson
said he knew the journalist who wrote the letter. But Anderson refused to identify the
man. You can’t admit that you know
somebody who has broken the law by giving false evidence and then not give a
name so that the man may be dealt with by civil justice. John George Littlechild
said it was believed to have been written by Tom Bullen
a journalist with the Central News.
Believed to shows that he wasn’t sure.
Anderson’s bizarre behaviour in this case shows a need to convince
everybody that the letter was fake. Why
go to that trouble unless your investigations show the letter is real and you
don’t want it to be real. For the police
to admit that they were getting letters from a killer they couldn’t trace or
stop would be extremely shameful.
The Postcard of 1st
October
Referring
to the previous letter the Central News Agency received the following which
became known as the Saucy Jacky postcard.
I
was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the
tip, you'll hear about Saucy Jacky's work tomorrow double event this time
number one squealed a bit couldn't finish straight off. ha not the time to get
ears for police. thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again.
Jack
the Ripper
It
may be authentic because though some think the writer got the information about
the double event from the early morning newspapers. Did the police really think so when they took
it so seriously? The postcard could have been posted on September 30th
just after the murder of Stride and Eddowes.
A
lot of people were saying that the killings may not have been related – not
much was known. But this message states
it as fact that the two women were Ripper victims.
And
it was true that Stride had alarmed people by squealing a bit.
A
witness said she screamed but not loudly when she was attacked on the
street. Perhaps it was this that the
killer meant – if so then he didn’t mean that she squealed when he attacked her
after he pretended to comfort her after the first attack and scaring that
attacker off. Because she had made a
noise just minutes before he didn’t dare start mutilating her especially when
there were people going to and from a club.
It
was not reported in the papers that Stride squealed a bit. The postcard is authentic.
He
writes that because she made some noise he couldn’t finish straight off – this
suggests that he killed her and left her there intending to come back to
mutilate her later if the coast was clear but that didn’t happen. This fits in with the observation that the
Ripper frustrated because he didn’t get the chance to mutilate her may have
went in search of another victim to glut his macabre urge.
And
it was true that the killer didn’t have time to deal with Eddowes’
ears. In the confusion after the murder,
nobody could have known that the killer was in such a hurry but the
killer. At that time nobody could say if
the killer really had killed both Stride and Eddowes.
The letter of 5th
October 1888
The
Central News Agency got a letter on the 5th October that was found
to be written by the same person as the writer of the previous letters (page
98, The Lodger).
In the name of God hear me I swear I did
not kill the female whose body was found at Whitehall. If she was an honest woman I will hunt down
and destroy her murderer. If she was a
whore God will bless the hand that slew her, for the women of Moab and Midian shall die and their blood shall mingle with the
dust. I never harm any others or the Divine power that protects and helps me in
my grand work would quit for ever. Do as
I do and the light of glory shall shine upon you. I must get to work tomorrow treble event this
time yes yes three must be ripped. will send you a bit of face by post I promise
this dear old Boss. The police now
reckon my work a practical joke well well Jacky’s a
very practical joker ha ha ha
Keep this back till three are wiped out and you can show the cold meat
Yours truly
Jack the Ripper
The
interpretation of this letter is that the Ripper believed that God approved of
his murders and was a Jew for he knew of Jewish doctrine and the curse on the
women of Moab and Midian. He knew the Old Testament well.
Is
it authentic?
Possibly
it was the work of a Jew because it doesn’t advertise its Jewish origin but its
origin can be easily seen and the “Dear Boss”, is contrived Americanism to
misdirect the police towards looking for an American killer.
What
hoaxer would think of capitalising the word Divine out of respect for God? What hoaxer would think of talking about the
light of glory? Judaism spoke of the
light of glory in memory of the glowing pillars of cloud in which God was
present with Moses and God’s people during the Exodus from Egypt in the Jewish
Scriptures.
The
Ripper suffered from a religious mania that made him hate prostitutes so this
letter rings true. It bears the marks of
religious mania. No journalist would think of a line like “the women of Moab
and Midian shall die and their blood shall mingle
with the dust”. Only a Jew would for it
is so Old Testament. It almost reads
like a line from the Bible. At that time
the Ripper was believed to be a sex freak who hated women.
The
suggestion in the letter that the Ripper didn’t harm anyone other than
prostitutes. It fits the psychological
profile of the killer as a man who seemed relatively normal at least most of
the time in daily life. No hoaxer would
have wanted people to think that the Ripper wouldn’t attack any of them.
The
real Ripper would indeed have thought that his dodging capture and the police
so far would have been a sign that God blessed his homicidal exploits. The inexplicability of the killer not being
caught was the main reason this case became the ultimate murder case.
A
journalist or journalists were thought to be the real writers of many of the
letters. A journalist would have wanted
people to think the Ripper maybe did or actually did commit the Whitehall
Murder. In this murder, the body of an
unknown and dismembered woman was found wrapped up in a package found in the
cellars of new Scotland yard. The killer
was never found. The letter starts off
by claiming that the writer was innocent of this crime which looks like he was
outraged at the thought that he ripped her up.
The real killer might react that way.
It was prostitutes he wanted dead.
To suggest to him that he could kill an honest woman might have offended
him terribly.
The
“show the cold meat expression” is like something a butcher would write. Our suspect was a butcher.
The
killer of Annie Chapman placed a piece of muslin, a small toothed comb and a
paper case containing a pocket comb placed in some kind of arrangement (page
161, Portrait of a Killer). He took
time to do this. The arrangement was
placed at Chapman’s feet (page 21, The
Crimes of Jack the Ripper ) and shows shows a
sick sense of mystery-mongering humour.
He might indeed have written some of the Ripper letters. It shows that his mind was so odd during his
mania that he suggestion that he couldn’t have written the Goulston
Street message is flawed.
Why
does he promise three murders soon? This
is a nasty joke and he says he is a joker.
A journalist wouldn’t want to give that impression for a journalist
would want people to expect three murders.
Now,
the Ripper put Stride and Eddowes on their sides
after killing them. This was two women
in one night showing he had no intention of mutilating them any further than
cutting their throats which he had done.
But he decided that he had done enough for one night and then started
knifing Eddowes.
The mutilations he inflicted on his victims were frenzied and he enjoyed
them. He would have thought that he must
go and find a third prostitute that night to kill so that he can mutilate her
to glut his overwhelming perverted desire for ripping. Why?
For he had been seen at the Stride and Eddowes
murder sites and it was too risky there to begin slashing. The Ripper thought of joking that he was
intending to commit three murders because he thought he would have done three
that night he killed Stride and Eddowes. That was the inspiration.
The
letter says the sender will send a bit of face.
Soon after, Kelly’s face was cut off.
The murderer made no effort to cut off the face of Catherine Eddowes whose murder had just taken place not long
before. The Ripper said he planned to
kill three women the next day. For this
reason the letter was thought to be inauthentic. But what does he mean by Jacky being thought
to be a practical Joker? Its that he
didn’t intend to kill three women at all.
The letter puts divine in as Divine so God means something to him.
The
letter writer didn’t mean it when he said he would rip three up. But what did he mean by “Keep this back till
three are wiped out and you can show the cold meat”?
Perhaps
the only way the Ripper could kill three women was indoors. Mary Kelly and a prostitute named Julia and
Mrs Harvey were three women who often slept in Kelly’s room at 13 Miller’s
Court.
The
“cold meat” expression shows that he intends to kill a woman or women indoors
for only that way can he present them for display like meat. And only that way can he make sure they are
cold meat when found for he can close the door behind him or lock it.
It
looks as if he means he will kill three and the police can show the
bodies. But the police never showed
bodies. It could mean “Keep this back
till three are wiped out” and until after “you can show the cold meat”. Mary Kelly was left as a heap of cold meat
and put on display by the Ripper and the police for she had to be identified
with difficulty and was left to be found by the public. Only the killer could write a letter
expressing an intention to probably kill indoors and leave women displayed as
cold meat when it actually happened with one woman, Mary Kelly. It was probably due to circumstances beyond
the Ripper’s control that he didn’t manage to kill two more in a similar way.
This
letter was determined to have been originated by the same person as who wrote
the postcard on October 1st
saying he had no time to get the ears cut off to post to the police. Indeed the killer of Eddowes
the night before apparently had tried to do that. It said the first one squealed a bit and she
couldn’t be finished straight off.
Clearly then the letter writer was claiming that Stride squealed which
was why he didn’t take time to mutilate her.
But he doesn’t necessarily mean she squealed with him. He must have been present when she squealed
when she was attacked by a man who may or may not have been the Ripper. An
earlier letter than this one dated 25th September contained a
promise to cut the next victim’s ears off and post them to the police which was
an accurate forecast. It was posted only
two days before the murder of Stride and Eddowes. He had no time to mutilate Stride but may
indeed have tried to cut Eddowes ears off. A lobe was cut off suggesting this was a
possibility. The Ripper didn’t succeed
for time was slipping away.
These
are the only letters which may show knowledge of the murders and so which were
written by the killer. The author knew of the religious element to the murders
which has been proven to exist only recently.
Therefore he was the murderer.
Notice
how the letter above makes grammar errors, starts a new line with small
letters, has poor sentence construction at times. It has all the same
characteristics as the Goulston Street message. The letter explains how a Jew could put the
blame on a Jew by writing nasty graffiti on a building there inhabited by
Jews. He believed they weren’t doing
anything wrong if they killed prostitutes and should be praised for it.
If
the letters are hoax letters then what hoaxer would send letters in which he
admits to being a joker? The whole point
of the letters was to boast about the murders and that can’t be done if they
are not taken seriously. The real killer
would boast but then say he was joking and make jokes in case the letters get
traced back to him or he says something that ends in his getting captured. He doesn’t want to look like the killer.
Would
it be too much to suggest that ^ cut into each of Eddowes
cheeks make ^^ when put together an M for Moabite or Midian? Is the letter trying to get at that? Did the killer put his mark on her to show
she is a Moabite or a cursed person in his view? The marks stood for something – the Ripper
despite being in a hurry and knowing the policeman could catch him at any
minute didn’t put them on her face for nothing.
The Letters and Goulston Street
Analyse
The Juwes are The men that Will not be Blamed for
nothing.
Notice
how its correctly capitalised at the start.
But The starts off with a capital letter as does Will and Blamed. There are no punctuation marks. It is written with bad grammar, it should
have been The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for anything. It follows popular speech.
Compare
this with lines from the letters.
“I
keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet.” It follows popular speech and bad grammar and
betrays carelessness with punctuation.
It should be I keep hearing that the police have caught me but they
won’t catch me just yet. Here’s the
whole letter with the errors explained.
Dear
Boss,
I keep on hearing [should be I keep hearing that] the police have caught me but
they wont [won’t] fix [catch me – fix me is popular speech] me just yet. I have
laughed [I laugh] when they look so clever and talk about being on the right
track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and
I shant [shan’t] quit ripping them till I do get
buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How
can they catch me now. [no question mark] I love my work and want to start
again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the
proper red stuff [popular speech] in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to
write with [no comma] but it went thick like glue and I cant [can’t] use it.
Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. [should be ha ha
and then full stop] The next job I do [no comma] I shall clip the ladys
[lady’s] ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly [no comma]
wouldn't you. [no question mark] Keep this letter back till I do a bit more
work, then give it out straight. My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to
work right away if I get a chance. Good Luck. [capitalised luck unnecessarily]
Yours
truly
Jack the Ripper
Whoever wrote
this letter wrote the message at Goulston
Street.
I
was not codding [joking] dear old Boss [unnecessary
capitalisation] when I gave you the tip, you'll hear about Saucy Jacky's work
tomorrow [no full stop] double event this time [no full stop] number one squealed
a bit couldn't finish straight off. ha [no capitalisation] [Didn’t have] not
[bad sentence construction] the time to get ears for police. thanks [no
capitalisation] for keeping last letter back till I got to work again.
Jack
the Ripper
Whoever
wrote this wrote the first letter and admits it and it shows all the
characteristics of the Goulston Street message. The capitalisation has been watched for some
reason with this letter. The killer
probably heard that the police were on the look out for somebody that wrote the
way the Goulston Street message was written.
In the name of God hear me I swear I did
not kill the female whose body was found at Whitehall. If she was an honest woman I will hunt down
and destroy her murderer. If she was a
whore God will bless the hand that slew her, for the women of Moab and Midian shall die and their blood shall mingle with the
dust. I never harm any others or the Divine power that protects and helps me in
my grand work would quit for ever. Do as
I do and the light of glory shall shine upon you. I must get to work tomorrow treble event this
time yes yes three must be ripped. will send you a bit of face by post I promise
this dear old Boss. The police now
reckon my work a practical joke well well Jacky’s a
very practical joker ha ha ha
Keep this back till three are wiped out and you can show the cold meat
Yours truly
Jack the Ripper
This
letter too deliberately avoids the strange capitalisations of the Goulston Street message.
We know he was contriving this because the first letter has the same
bizarre capitalisations of the Goulston Street
message. A hoaxer wouldn’t do that.
The Lusk Letter
Scholarly
analysis has decided that the infamous Lusk Letter which claimed to be from the
killer could well have been really his work.
Mr George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, which patrolled
the streets trying to capture the Ripper, got a parcel in the post containing
half a human kidney. There was a letter
in the parcel.
From
hell.
Mr Lusk,
Sor
I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you tother piece
I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the
bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer
signed
Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk
Let’s
examine this curiosity.
The
letter sought to give the impression that the kidney came from Catherine Eddowes. Upon
examination it was thought it could indeed have come from Eddowes. This of course could not be proved. The kidney carried signs of Bright’s Disease – and Catherine Eddowes
had Bright’s Disease.
Dr Openshaw stated that the kidney belonged to
a woman of Catherine Eddowes’ age and was in a
similar diseased state to the remaining kidney.
Major Smith of the City Police said that two inches of renal artery were
left in Eddowes when her kidney was removed and the
kidney portion received by Lusk still had one inch left on it as if it would
fit in her body. Some doubt the declarations at the time that the kidney was
indeed human. It was preserved for
several days before it was sent raising the question of why the killer or the
sender took so long to send it. To many,
the reason would be that he wanted to think carefully and took his time to
think and be sure he wasn’t leaving a trail to himself. He believed that what he was sending should
convict him as the killer should he be found to be the sender of the parcel.
The
killer disguised his writing and wrote to give the false impression of being
very illiterate. The spelling is mostly good and easy words are misspelled – he
obviously misspelled on purpose. Why
spell hell right and spell nice wrong?
Nice is a more commonly known and used word than hell. Again you have the strange capitalisations
that took place with the Goulston Street
message. It is interesting that the only
three words relevant to a butcher, kidney, preserved and knife are spelt
wrongly. The writer was trying to hide
his occupation. He tried too hard and
gave himself away! From hell may
indicate a religious interest.
The
Ripper appeared attached to his knife like it was his friend. That he said he
might send it if Lusk could wait a while shows that he planned to stop killing
soon. This turned out to be true. The killer killed Kelly and there were no
more murders. He writes as if he planned
to keep the knife to kill one more woman and then think about posting the knife
to Lusk. The killer may even have used a
kidney from his butcher’s shop to post to Lusk.
If
the Ripper indeed ate a diseased piece of kidney then was it because he didn’t
care for he was already diseased like a syphilitic?
The
letter was not written to the police or the papers to keep the papers and the
world blazing with speculation and to create a big sensation. It was sent to Lusk to create a
Whitechapel-confined mystery. The killer
was a local man. The absence of effort
to make publicity with this letter lends support to its authenticity.
PART SIX, THE RIPPER WAS A BUTCHER
The Ripper
was a Butcher
We
have a suspect who was a butcher from Aldgate, Whitechapel.
The
Ripper was a butcher by trade.
When Mary Ann Nicholls was murdered it
was determined that the knife used to mutilate her was moderately sharp (page
30, The Lodger). A medical student or a mad doctor would have
a very sharp knife. A butcher would have
a blunter one that needs frequent sharpening.
That was why the knife was sharper later.
Nicholls
had slight stomach mutilations. Just
eight days later Annie Chapman was found dead with severe mutilations. Why the difference? The Ripper must have been practicing between
these crimes so that he could go a lot further with the second victim.
Blood
marks were found at the Annie Chapman murder scene as if the killer battered
his coat against a wall to shake blood off.
A piece of paper crumpled up with bloodstains on it looked like he wiped
his hands with it (page 199, Portrait of
a Killer). But why didn’t the Ripper
use the water tap where a leather apron was found in the yard to clean his
hands? (page 31, The Complete Jack the
Ripper). There is only one possible
answer. He was afraid that if people
thought he used the tap, that the apron might be his. This indicates that the Ripper needed an
apron in his work life. Butchers often
wore leather aprons. A butcher was suspected
of being Jack the Ripper just because he wore a leather apron.
We know the Ripper could
have been a butcher. Eddowes
was described as having been cut up like it was the work of a butcher. Dr. George Bagster
Phillips gave the following testimony at Annie Chapman’s inquest:
"He
should say that the instrument used at the throat and abdomen was the same. It
must have been a very sharp knife with a thin narrow blade, and must have been
at least 6 in. to 8 in. in length, probably longer. He should say that the
injuries could not have been inflicted by a bayonet or a sword bayonet. They
could have been done by such an instrument as a medical man used for
post-mortem purposes, but the ordinary surgical cases might not contain such an
instrument. Those used by the slaughtermen, well
ground down, might have caused them. He thought the knives used by those in the
leather trade would not be long enough in the blade. There were indications of
anatomical knowledge”.
He
was a butcher and experienced in cutting and ripping. Doctor Brown and Doctor Sequeira
who had been present at Catherine Eddowes’ post
mortem stated that her killer showed as much knowledge of the human body as you
would expect from a butcher. A doctor or
surgeon cuts into bodies slowly for they have to take their time. A butcher would be an expert at cutting with
some skill rapidly. If the Ripper had been
a doctor or surgeon he would have shown more concern for giving himself time to
cut up his victims.
The
Ripper kept one step ahead of the police by checking out the beat times. He knew he had to work fast. Annie Chapman was extensively mutilated in
about two minutes. Only an expert at
cutting flesh up fast could manage all this.
And only a butcher would have that kind of practice.
A
big problem with the people who originally investigated the murders and examined
the bodies is that it never occurred to them that the Ripper used great speed
in mutilating the women. They thought it
took time. You read in the book Jack the
Ripper’s Black Magic Rituals that Ivor Edwards the
author believes that Chapman was seemingly cut up in less than two
minutes. Edwards offers as proof for
this the speed with which he was able to cut sheep and cattle when he worked
for the Fresh Meat Company (page 43, Jack the Ripper’s Black Magic Rituals). He also believes that Eddowes
was mutilated in two minutes as well (page 81, Jack the Ripper’s Black Magic
Rituals). Incredibly he still thought
that the Ripper was a surgeon. No surgeon could mutilate Chapman so quickly for
surgeons have to take their time.
Butchers and slaughtermen would be adept at
gutting and mutilating rapidly. A slaughterman or butcher would be a better candidate for
having being the Ripper.
Butchers
used chalk to write on message boards.
The killer carried chalk. A
butcher could carry chalk.
A
butcher could have a good excuse for being seen with blood on his person. There was a water pump in the yard very close
to the window that Kelly allegedly put her hand through to open the door. The Ripper didn’t use this pump to wash. The question then is, why not? He had committed his messiest murder – he
left Kelly all in pieces over her room -
and he didn’t wash. Even if he
covered up his clothes he still wanted to get the blood washed off in case the
police got a suspicion about him. Only a
man who was known as a butcher who worked or brought meat to the market like
our suspect did could dare go out with any blood on him. Even if he was covered up well the police
could stop him and search his body and look for blood marks say under the nails
for example. Nobody would have seen him washing in the dark. The killer had to have been somebody that
would have been taken for a butcher at the Market if blood was seen on him. The
Ripper then was not the witness George Hutchinson or Joseph Barnett, Kelly’s
lover who have been accused of the crimes through the years. Somebody more than familiar with Miller’s
Court would not have forgotten about the pump to wash at. Again we see the Ripper doing what he did at
the Annie Chapman murder scene. He just
didn’t wash though there was running water available probably because there was
a butcher’s apron there and he didn’t want people to think it was his for it
would be a giveaway. These things though
small are signatures pointing to a butcher having been Kelly’s murderer.
A butcher could
carry knives without anyone worrying about it
Nobody
would pay any attention to bloody body parts stolen from the prostitutes bodies
being found in the Ripper’s lair if he
was a butcher. They would think the
parts were animal parts. The parts must
have been discovered by someone for the Ripper was insane at times and had to
have been careless sometime. They would
smell as well. The Ripper had to wrap Eddowes organs in a piece of her apron that he cut
off. Not exactly careful!
A
butcher would be in the habit of cleaning his hands. The Ripper left no marks on Mary Kelly’s door
when he exited.
A
butcher would have the stomach to perform the murders. The Ripper’s acts were so sickening that you
would expect the Ripper to have thrown up at some stage when he had thought of
what he had done.
The
fact that the Ripper at times was good at ripping and not so good at other
times suggests that he was better at ripping animals. A butcher who wasn’t experienced at ripping
up people might do a good job at this one night and be bad at it the next. The Ripper may have been in a frenzy when he
slaughtered Mary Kelly for it was concluded by the doctor that the killer had
no surgical skills. The Ripper intended
to desecrate Kelly not extract her organs to take away trophies which could
have been why he seemed so unskilful.
The
Mary Kelly photograph shows her lying on her bed and what remained of her face
turned towards the window from which the photograph was taken. It is impossible to deny that the killer
ripped her up without having planned it this way for the horrid display
couldn’t have been achieved better. A
butcher would be good at displaying meat.
Only a butcher was likely to stand in that room and plan the murder in
such a way that the horrific results of his work could only been seen in all
their gore from the window. It is as if
he knew that the photographs would have been taken through that window. Only a butcher would have been any good at
it. The Ripper closed the door in the
hope that whoever discovered the murder would see through the window – have the
most shocking view of the corpse possible.
This would indicate that the Ripper had a lot of familiarity with her
room. He didn’t plan these things on the
spot.
Furthermore,
the Ripper must have put the table with Kelly’s innards on it back in its place
to make the display complete. The table
would have had to have been moved when the Ripper was mutilating Kelly’s head
and upper body for it would have been in the way.
The
Ripper never left any bloody footprints anywhere. A butcher would be experienced at watching
this. The murderer of Kelly, the
bloodiest and most gruesome murder, left no prints on the floor. All this caution in relation to the Kelly
murder points to the possibility that he was seen with or near the previous
murder victims Eddowes and Stride or was interviewed
by the police or both.
Officers
at the scene of the Chapman murder believed that the knife used on her may have
been an amputating knife or a well-ground butcher’s knife, narrow and thin
(page 54, The Lodger).
Kelly
was lying in a sleeping position when attacked.
From cuts on her hands and cuts on the sheet as if it was slashed as it
covered her face it seems she struggled a bit with her attacker. The hands showed evidence that she grabbed
the knife in a struggle with the killer.
A faint cry of, “Murder”, was heard between 3.30 and 4.00 am. Only somebody used to killing animals could
cope with a struggling woman. There were
people living all around her. A wooden
partition separated her room from somebody else’s so why where there no big
thuds against the partition? Why did the bed not make a lot of noise as they
struggled? She was not strangled like
the other victims for the killer just cut her artery in the bed. Remember there was some annoyance when she
was heard singing hours before. This man
handled her like a frightened calf knowing it was facing its death. He was a butcher, a slaughterman. He applied his skills to handling violent
animals to handling her. Nobody but a
butcher who had experience as a slaughterman could
have been that lucky.
There
is evidence from a photo of Kelly’s murder that some piece of her was hung from
the ceiling. A butcher would be inclined
to do that. The killer took care to put
parts of her on the table just like a butcher would put meat on a table.
We
must remember as well that with Catherine Eddowes
that a section of her intestines was placed by her left side between the arm
seemingly by design. This is what is
stated in the report given by Doctor Brown.
A
butcher’s habits die hard. When he had
the time and the sufficient clarity of mind he laid the body parts out tidily
as a butcher would. And sometimes even when he was in a hurry he took time to
lay out the innards – this was by force of habit.
The
Ripper can be named.
PART SEVEN, THE RIPPER UNMASKED
Jacob Levy
Jacob
Levy, an Aldgate butcher, was Jack the Ripper. The Ripper planned his killings
in advance for he knew when to clear off before he was found by policemen on
their beat. Only a man living in
Whitechapel like Levy could have been the murderer.
He
was a butcher and we know the Ripper was a butcher.
Jacob
Levy had a conviction for theft. He had
worked at 58 Goulston Street and stole meat from his
employer.
The
killer was a thief for he stole back the money he gave the prostitutes and took
Annie Chapman’s rings. He could have
stolen clothes and jewellery to make himself look like a gentleman.
He
was a Jew. He was so confident that he
wouldn’t be caught that he even boasted of his Jewishness
when he scrawled that the Juwes are the men who will
not be blamed for nothing at
The
killer wrote that the Jews were responsible and tried to rub it out having had
second thoughts. Therefore what the
message said was true.
The
killer liked to boast. He wrote letters
that only the killer could have written and which indicated a Jewish writer.
The
killer probably had a wife for he only killed at weekends as if he wasn’t that
free. Why did the killer take Annie
Chapman’s two imitation gold rings which were made of brass? This may indicate that the Ripper was poor or
wanted trophies. But why Annie? He didn’t take the belongings of the other
victims. He took Annie’s organs so what
would he want with these other trophies?
Did he want the rings to give to his wife? The best suspect, Jacob Levy, had a
wife. His taking the rings again shows
that he thought very strangely and could have written some of the strange
letters and the strange message at Goulston
Street.
The
Ripper was not afraid of syphilitic blood which was a danger with
prostitutes. He had to have actually cut
himself while mutilating at some stage but even then the blood was possibly
dangerous. The Ripper was probably syphilitic
for he had no fear of cutting himself or getting syphilis from the victims’
blood. Did he have syphilis
already? Was he dying anyway? The answer was yes on both counts for our
suspect. The Ripper may have had sex
with prostitutes in the past. He acted
like a man who thought that whatever he could catch from a prostitutes’ blood
didn’t matter for he had already got it from them through sex anyway.
Jacob
Levy suffered from syphilis and it took his life in 1891.
He
didn’t have much respect for fallen women.
This was hardly surprising since he probably caught syphilis from
Whitechapel prostitutes. The Ripper was good at talking to prostitutes - he was
able to charm them and approach them and even make them feel safe with him.
This was a man who had used prostitutes a lot in the past. Something had happened to change his liking
for prostitutes into hatred. Levy fits
the bill for being the Ripper at this point as with many others as we shall
see.
The
Ripper would have probably seemed sane – at least some of the time - in
ordinary life. What this points to is
that the Ripper believed he was doing God’s work and was protected. The reason the police didn’t catch the killer
was due to their conviction that he was a maniac. Levy seemed sane most of the time so he would
have escaped suspicion.
The
Ripper from the descriptions did not look like a man whose health was ruined by
syphilis but our suspect got physically seriously ill only after the
murders. The Ripper knew he had to
pretend at times to be about to have sex with the prostitutes he met and he
wouldn’t have got far if he seemed ill .
Levy was physically healthy looking at the time of the killings. The Ripper was a very fit man. Levy was described as very healthy and fit
and it was much later and near the time of his death that he got very
physically incapacitated with his syphilis.
The Ripper could climb fences with agility and dodge the police. He could move quickly from one place to
another.
The
Ripper was not killing the prostitutes for sexual perversion. He never had sex with them and no semen from masturbation
was found at the crime scenes. His
frenzy was hatred of prostitutes. Not
necessarily women. The suspect Aaron Kosminski can be eliminated for he suffered from compulsive
masturbation in public. He would have
been found masturbating over the bodies had he been the killer. Levy wasn’t having sex with his wife for he
went out walking at night and she said he paced up and down the bedroom floor
and of course they only had two children so they didn’t have much sex together
prior to the onset of his bizarre behaviour either..
The
Ripper showed signs of anger against female genitalia. He performed mutilations in the genital area
of four of his victims- he may not have had a chance to do this with Catherine Eddowes the exception.
This is most probably a sign of a man who contracted syphilis from
prostitutes and attacked the genitals of prostitutes to release his anger. He took trophies – parts of the bodies of
these women to satisfy his feeling that he was stronger than these women, that
he was in control. There is no evidence
that the Ripper got any sexual enjoyment out of doing this. The fact that he took Eddowes’
kidney – an organ nobody would associate with sex - and engaged in abdominal
mutilations and ripped intestines out shows that the crimes were motivated by
anger not perverted sexuality. This man
was not a sex killer of any description.
He was angry with the bodies of prostitutes and his attacks on the genitals
suggest that the basis of his anger was something that happened to him as a
result of sex with prostitutes. Our suspect, Jacob Levy, would certainly have
felt anger against prostitutes for giving him syphilis. For those who question that that was how he
got the disease they must remember that syphilis was caught mostly by men who
went with prostitutes. Our suspect had
only two children which suggests that he cheated on his wife with a
streetwalker and didn’t have sex afterwards with her for he suspected syphilis. Why else wouldn’t there have been more
children than that? A man like him would
have hated the female genitalia that left him waiting for death.
Annie
Chapman and Kelly were displayed with legs apart in a mock sexual
position. The Ripper wanted to mock
their sexuality and make a display of them.
This could be interpreted as, “Here they are ready for sex but I want to
put you off the idea of having sex with them”.
This interpretation would surely indicate that the Ripper considered
prostitutes dangerous and to be objects not people.
The
attacks on the womb especially with Annie Chapman suggest a desire to punish
the womb for being the source of life.
The Ripper removed her uterus and the top of her vagina and took them
away. He removed the uterus when he
killed Catherine Eddowes as well. The Ripper did not hate his own life – he
didn’t want to end up hanged. He didn’t
want to attack the womb because it was the seat of his life that he wished he
had never been born. But his anger may have been roused by the fear that since
he had syphilis he might have given this killer disease to his children when he
fathered them with his wife. Jacob Levy
had a wife and children.
The Ripper wasn’t very
tall because almost all the women he attacked were between 5 feet and 5 feet 2
inches tall. Annie Chapman was five foot
tall, so was Catherine Eddowes. Stride was 5 foot 2 inches tall as was
Nichols. Kelly killed indoors was 5
foot 7 but she was attacked in bed when she was drunk and trapped in a corner
so a smaller man wouldn’t have been put off by her height. The man seen with Eddowes
seconds before her murder was five foot three.
So was Jacob Levy.
The
Ripper was definitely a stocky man according to witness reports. Levy was stocky.
Jacob
Levy suffered from the feeling that he was possessed by forces that urged him
to be violent. He heard voices that said
religious things to him. There was a
religious element to the Ripper murders.
He
heard screams in his head. Due to his
psychosis, he may have not been sure if he committed the murders or not.
Levy’s
conscience tormented him a lot. Had he
caught syphilis from prostitutes he might have tried to deal with his
conscience by killing them to punish them for being bad women and seducing
him. He blamed them to cope.
The
killer took an attack of conscience and regret when he tried to obliterate the Goulston Street graffiti he wrote. Perhaps that is what happened when he killed
Elizabeth Stride when he cut her throat.
He felt so bad that he decided not to mutilate her abdomen but later the
madness came over him again and he made up for it with Catherine Eddowes. He
strangely took time to pull Mary Ann Nicholl’s
clothes back down to spare her modesty.
We
have a Ripper letter which shows that the killer was outraged at the thought
that he killed a woman who may not have been a whore and shows the signs of a
guilty conscience.
He
was once prosperous and so would have had nice clothes to put on. The Ripper’s wardrobe ranged from shabby
gentleman’s clothes to being well-dressed.
The
Ripper knew Goulston Street well. Levy used to work there.
Mary
Kelly took her killer back to her room.
The killer was beside her on the bed for she was tight next the
partition on the bed to make room for him and she had told him he would be
comfortable meaning all night. When she
still wasn’t asleep despite having had drink and a late night it may indicate
that whoever lay beside her was restless.
Levy suffered from sleeplessness according to his wife.
We
have to explain the Ripper’s incredible eyesight. Lighting in the streets at night was
extremely poor and he kept out of it while killing. A man suffering from sleeplessness like Levy
would soon become adept at seeing things in the dark that nobody else would
see. What else would he have to do to
keep occupied during long night hours?
Did
the man attacking Stride who called Lipski to the
murderer really say Levy? Schwartz,
whose language was Hungarian and he didn’t have much English might not have
heard the man properly. Or the language
barrier may have led to a misunderstanding. The man was struggling with Stride
at the time and might not have been speaking clearly or might have been
tipsy. Schwartz stated that he seemed a
little drunk. Lipski
was a common insult so Schwartz might have more assumed that he said that than
heard him say it. The evidence for
holding that he didn’t say Lipski might be seen in
the fact that the man he called to was standing at a distance and was just
lighting his pipe.
Jacob
Levy had to have been questioned by the police at some stage for he was out on
the streets after dark due to his insomnia.
He had to have been a suspect.
When
Jacob Levy died of general paralysis of the insane brought on by syphilis in
1891 on 29th July, the Jack the Ripper case was rapidly closed. This
was very odd for many detectives and policemen at the time thought the Ripper
liked to take longer gaps between murders and was still killing. This can only be explained by the police
having proof that when Jacob Levy died Jack the Ripper also died. This makes no
sense as nobody agreed on how many murders were committed by the Ripper
then. There were killings still being
attributed to the Ripper. The only
explanation that makes sense is that the police knew that the Ripper was dead.
Jacob
Levy perhaps ended up being confused with the Polish Jew, Kosminski,
a major police suspect. Kosminksi was not the Ripper for he was totally incoherent
to talk to and ate scraps off the street.
Not the kind of man who could get a prostitute to go with him or be good
at dodging the police. To assert that
the police possibly mixed Levy and Kosminski up is a
controversial assertion and one that now demands to be examined.
The Kosminski
Suspect
Assistant
Chief Constable Macnaghten wrote in 1894 about the
suspect Kosminski,
“Kosminksi, a
Polish Jew, and resident in Whitechapel.
This man became insane owing to many year’s indulgence in solitary
vices. He had a great hatred of women,
especially of the prostitute class, and had strong homicidal tendencies; he was
removed to a lunatic asylum about March 1889.
There were many circs connected with this man which made him a strong
‘suspect’.”
Machnaghten was responsible for the destruction of
some of the most important files on Jack the Ripper. He stated that he burned them to protect the
murderer’s family. (page 88, The Complete
Jack the Ripper). His daughter
however claimed that he lied about burning the papers to avoid being pestered
by questions about them.
It
is totally ridiculous to imagine that Macnaghten
needed to burn papers that he read and studied to stop questions! It was what he remembered about the Ripper
and the papers that the questioners wanted to know about. Why didn’t he just have the papers locked
away somewhere where nobody could get to them?
It was easy enough to have papers locked away for years so that nobody
could get them until it was safe.
But
it seems that Macnaghten did burn the papers as he
said. When Macnaghten
felt he should destroy the papers it shows he KNEW who the Ripper was. It shows something more important: Kosminski was the Ripper’s nickname not his name. Why burn papers to hide the Ripper’s identity
and protect his family if Kosminski was the real name
of the Ripper as he had stated in 1894?
It doesn’t happen.
The
itinerant Aaron Kosminski was an outcast from his
poor family. To imagine needing to hide
evidence to protect his family is ridiculous.
Revelation of the Ripper’s identity would do a business family
harm. It would do even more harm if the
family was Jewish. Jacob Levy was once a
well-to-do butcher who blamed his wife for his failures. His family were still successful
butchers. They were Jewish.
Here
are the seeming errors in his account.
#1 The name Kosminksi
itself could be an error. We know the
killer went to an asylum. The killer’s
name could not have been Kosminski for the only
candidate in the asylum records, Aaron Kosminski, was
not the Ripper. Some say another Kosminski was enrolled in asylum records under a false name
such as David Cohen. If it is true as
some sources say, the Ripper was identified when he was already committed to an
asylum, then there was no need to hide his name then. And the police were not going to declare him
to be the Ripper to convict him for they couldn’t convict an insane person so
there was no need to hide his identity. Kosminski was not the Ripper’s real name. It may have been his nickname or the name he
used. This is perhaps where the police
got it from. The name may have been
created to hide the Ripper’s identity.
We know that the police thought it was expedient to keep his identity
under wraps.
The
asylum had no reason to give the suspect a false name but the police had.
#2 Macnaghten wrote
that Kosminski was put in an asylum in March
1889. In fact Aaron Kosminski
was committed in March but in the year 1891.
The
solution to the “errors” is that the man he was thinking of was not Aaron Kosminksi and Kosminski was not
the killer’s real name. The Ripper could
not have been committed in March 1889.
The date fits no known suspect.
Anderson’s Suspect
Sir
Robert Anderson who was head of the Criminal Investigation Division of the
London Metropolitan Police in 1888 declared in 1910 in Blackwood’s Magazine,
Part 6, that the case of Jack the Ripper had been solved back then in 1888.
"One
did not need to be a Sherlock Holmes to discover that the criminal was a sexual
maniac of a virulent type; that he was living in the immediate vicinity of the
scenes of the murders; and that, if he was not living absolutely alone, his
people knew of his guilt, and refused to give him up to justice. During my
absence abroad the Police had made a house-to-house search for him,
investigating the case of every man in the district whose circumstances were
such that he could go and come and get rid of his blood-stains in secret. And
the conclusion we came to was that he and his people were low-class Jews, for
it is a remarkable fact that people of that class in the East End will not give
up one of their number to Gentile justice. And the result proved that our
diagnosis was right on every point. For I may say at once that ‘undiscovered
murders’ are rare in London, and the ‘Jack-the-Ripper’ crimes are not within
that category. And if the Police here had powers such as the French Police
possess, the murderer would have been brought to justice. Scotland Yard can
boast that not even the subordinate officers of the department will tell tales
out of school, and it would ill become me to violate the unwritten rule of the
service…"
A
footnote added: -
"Having
regard to the interest attaching to this case, I should almost be tempted to
disclose the identity of the murderer and of the pressman who wrote the letter
[‘Dear Boss/Jack the Ripper’ letter] above referred to, provided that the
publishers would accept all responsibility in view of a possible libel action.
But no public benefit would result from such a course, and the traditions of my
old department would suffer. I will only add that when the individual whom we
suspected was caged in an asylum, the only person who had ever had a good view
of the murderer at once identified him, but when he learned that the suspect
was a fellow-Jew he declined to swear to him."
His
reasons for not saying much more was that “no public benefit would result from
such a course, and the traditions of my old department would suffer”. He also said in 1910 that the killer was a
low-class Polish Jew. He disclosed that
“when the individual whom we suspected was caged in an asylum, the only person
who ever had a good view of the murderer at once identified him, but when he
learned that the suspect was a fellow-Jew, he declined to swear to him.” He added that the killer was "a sexual
maniac of a virulent type", that he lived "in the immediate vicinity
of the scenes of the murders". He
said that the man’s “utterly unmentionable vices reduced him to a lower level
than that of the brute". Anderson
was not referring to Aaron Kosminski who showed no
sexual deviances in the asylum. Kelly’s
murderer may have suggested sodomy to her.
Anderson wrote, “For I may say at once that ‘undiscovered murders’ are
rare in London, and the Jack the Ripper crimes are not within that
category”. Also, “In saying he was a
Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact”.
Incidentally,
when Anderson says that no benefit would come from naming the forger of the
letter we have to be sceptical. If the
forger was caught he should have been convicted. If he was not, then Anderson and the police
had no proof that he was the forger.
Thus we cannot listen to those who say Anderson refuted the authenticity
of the Ripper letters.
Did
Sir Robert Anderson have the same person in mind as Macnaghten?
Or did they mistakenly think they had the same person in mind? Anderson was
unlikely to resort to secrecy if the suspect had been named as Kosminski by Macnaghten in
1894. People would only assume it was Kosminksi Anderson meant.
Either Kosminski was a false name – after all
we know it was agreed that the Ripper shouldn’t be named to protect his family
- or a nickname for the Ripper or Kosminski was not
identified as the Ripper. That Macnaghten didn’t have to fear a libel case years before
and Anderson did, indicates that Macnaghten had a
different name but not necessarily person in mind from Anderson.
Insane
people couldn’t be hanged. Anderson by
saying that the killer was an inmate of the asylum when identified and that the
witness didn’t want to swear to it for the killer was a fellow-Jew was
indicating that the killer wasn’t insane all the time so the killer might still
have ended up at the end of a noose.
But
it is far more likely that Anderson was wrong about the killer having being
identified while he was in an asylum.
Anderson
says that the witness who identified the suspect without hesitation refused to
testify against him in the murder trial they hoped to have when he learned that
the suspect was a Jew. The words, “but
when he learned that the suspect was a fellow-Jew he declined to swear to him”
tell us that the witness didn’t know who he was asked to identify or that he
didn’t know the killer. The latter is
doubtful because the witness must have known the killer to be able to identify
him months and years after seeing him at the scene of a crime. The
witness must have known the suspect when he was so sure it was him after
getting only a quick look at him. There
had to have been rumours about who this suspect was among the Jewish
community. The witness would have known
a Jew by his appearance. It seems then
that he didn’t know who the suspect was until he met him. Chances are the Jews in such a small area as
Whitechapel all knew each other. And we
can’t believe that the police knowing that Jews didn’t tell on each other would
tell the witness that the suspect was a Jew as well!
A
house to house search of the Whitechapel area in October 1888 led Anderson to
declare: “The conclusion we came to was that he and his people were low-class
Jews… and the result proved that our diagnosis was right on every point".
The result can only refer to the positive identification of the killer by a
fellow Jew. He speaks of proof
here. This identification must have
taken place after the Kelly murder. It
may have been the reason the killer stopped killing.
Swanson and the Ripper
Chief
Inspector Donald Swanson, head of the Ripper investigation, wrote in 1910 that the Ripper was identified at the Seaside
Home and was returned to Whitechapel and later he went to Stepney Workhouse and
then to Colney Hatch, Lunatic Asylum. He wrote that Kosminski
was this man and he died soon after.
"After
the suspect had been identified at the Seaside Home where he had been sent by
us with difficulty in order to subject him to identification, and he knew he
was identified. On suspect’s return to his brother’s house in Whitechapel he
was watched by police (City CID) by day & night. In a very short time the
suspect with his hands tied behind his back, he was sent to Stepney Workhouse
and then to Colney Hatch and died shortly afterwards
– Kosminski was the suspect – DSS"
Aaron
Kosminski never went to Stepney Workhouse - there is
no record of it (page 63, Jack the
Ripper’s Black Magic Rituals). And
neither did Jacob Levy so this error made by Swanson doesn’t worry anybody. Its
just a mistake and need not be considered in working out who he meant.
He
wrote that the suspect had been identified by a witness at the Seaside
Home. And that the killer had been
identified by a witness who wouldn’t testify against him because both suspect
and witness were Jewish. He said the
witness did this "because the suspect was also a Jew and also because his
evidence would convict the suspect and witness would be the means of murderer
being hanged which he did not wish to be left on his mind. And after this identification which suspect
knew no other murder of this kind took place in London."
Swanson
wrote that the witness would have been the cause of the murderer being hanged
had he testified that this man was indeed the murderer. Swanson then is hinting that the police did
know who the killer was but just needed a sworn identification to prove
it. How else could a sworn
identification be sure to lead to the gallows?
Identifying somebody as the killer doesn’t mean that your word will be
taken for it. There must be evidence to
support what you say.
Because
of religion, justice couldn’t be done for the five murdered women. Religion not only took their lives but it
sought to protect the murderer.
The
witness made it clear that he didn’t want the man hanged so he must have been
certain that the suspect was indeed the killer.
The suspect was watched by police when he went back to his brother’s
home in Whitechapel day and night showing the police were sure he was the
killer but had no proof. Soon the
suspect had to be taken with hands tied behind his back to Stepney Workhouse
and then the asylum at Colney Hatch where he died
soon after. Then we are finally told, “Kosminksi was the suspect”.
Aaron Kosminski was totally and permanently
insane and couldn’t be hanged anyway.
The witness had nothing to fear from testifying. Jacob Levy wasn’t always insane and wasn’t
thought to be insane at the time and would have hanged.
After
the identification, the killer didn’t kill any more. Swanson speaks as if the identification put
the killer off committing any more murders which fits his saying the killer was
sent back to Whitechapel. Aaron Kosminski was too irrational to think like that so our
Ripper wasn’t insane all the time. The
identification must have taken place after the killing of other women who were
thought to be victims of the Ripper such as Frances Coles and Alice
McKenzie.
Those
who think Kosminksi is Aaron Kosminski
say that Swanson erred in saying that Kosminski died
soon after being committed. Aaron Kosminski lived decades after. The solution is that the Kosminksi
was not Aaron.
Why
didn’t the reports give Kosminksi’s first name? Not even an initial was given in the Machnaghten report, though it gave a first name to another
suspect and the first initials of another?
There is no proof that Kosminski carried the
first name Aaron. It has been down to
the fact that the only Kosminksi that went into an
asylum was an Aaron Kosminski that led to the theory
that Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper. This person matched some of the things these
men said about him. But so did several
other Ripper suspects.
Matches and Mismatches
What
Macnaghten, Anderson and Swanson and said carries
more weight than all the modern speculations about the Ripper put
together.
None
of what they said points the finger at Aaron Kosminski. The hatred of women, hatred of prostitutes,
the insanity, the Jewishness, and the other facts
about Aaron prove nothing. The only
matches with Aaron Kosminski is first, that Swanson’s
Kosminski was incarcerated in Colney
Hatch. Aaron Kosminski
was indeed put there. The second is that
Kosminksi was a Polish Jew. Aaron Kosminski was
a Polish Jew.
Anderson
says the suspect was caged in an asylum when identified. Swanson says he was staying with his brother
and wasn’t put in the asylum yet. This
is not necessarily an error. There might
have been two identifications. Perhaps
the police wanted to make sure the witness was able to pick the suspect out of
an identity parade. After all it had
been a long time since the witness saw the suspect at a crime scene.
The
errors make it possible that Aaron Kosminski was
confused with Jacob Levy.
It
seems that Jacob Levy is the best fit for being the Kosminksi
suspect and was mixed up with Aaron Kosminski.
Here
are the similarities in the accounts and reports that exist between Aaron Kosminski and Jacob Levy and they can account for a mix-up.
Kosminksi and Levy were Jews.
Kosminksi was a Polish Jew and Levy was a Dutch
Jew.
Kosminski was committed in March1889 according to Macnaghten and Jacob Levy in August 1890. This is pretty close. And even more so when the correct year of the
Kosminksi admission was 1891! It’s
easier to make a mistake and say 1889 when you should have said 1890. And especially when they are adjacent
years. It is unlikely then that he was
thinking of 1891!
Nobody
knows when the killer was identified at the Seaside Home Brighton. But it happened after the Home opened in
March 1890 and before the killer was committed.
The killer was identified and sent home before he was committed under a
police watch. He couldn’t have been home
long – the police wouldn’t have went to such a huge expense. Jacob Levy having been committed in August
1890 and possibly identified in March 1890 is the best match. The records are confused but it seems this
scenario sorts it out.
Kosminksi and Levy both lived in Whitechapel.
Levy
lived with a friend and Aaron with his brother.
Levy’s friend must have been related to him when he was willing to take
in a man prone to fits of insanity. It is possible that Levy stayed temporarily
with a brother or just now and again.
Both
hated women.
Both
were insane but only Levy would have had sufficient sanity and intelligence to
commit the crimes.
Both
wandered the streets and could have been out the nights the women were
murdered. Levy was very restless at
night and paced back and forth a lot.
Eventually his wife would have told him to go and do his pacing outside
instead of disturbing the house. She
said: “he does not sleep at nights and wanders around aimlessly for
hours.” So like Kosminski
he was probably on the streets when the murders took place.
Both
engaged in masturbation. Levy didn’t
give his wife syphilis indicating that he was using masturbation. The Ripper didn’t have sex with his victims –
even the pretty Mary Kelly - indicating that he may have preferred masturbation
the solitary vice. Kosminski
would have probably masturbated at the crime scene but Levy didn’t for his
masturbating wasn’t compulsive like Levy’s.
Both
would have looked about the same age.
Levy was born in 1856. Aaron Kosminski was twenty-five in 1891 making him born in
1866. Aaron Kosminski
had maltreated himself so severely that he would have looked ten years
older. He would have passed for Levy’s
age. Levy had an easier life than Kosminski who would have been aged prematurely by poverty
and his maltreatment of himself and by the horrors he experienced in Poland
before coming to England. Kosminski knew he was mentally ill and believed at times
that if he starved himself he would get better.
All this would have made him look older.
Some
would say that both had violent tendencies.
Levy did have stronger violent tendencies than Kosminski. Kosminski lifted a
knife to his sister but in the asylum there were no instructions for keeping
him away from people he could endanger.
It seems to have been a misunderstanding or something for it was thought
to be a once-off. It can be said then
that what the reports said about the Kosminski
suspect matches Levy better. Kosminksi sounds like a lunatic who was easily restrained. Could he have been the man who was able to
strangle struggling prostitutes and cut their throats and exercise such
violence that Annie Chapman’s head nearly came off? The Kosminksi
suspect was taken from Whitechapel to the Seaside Home, Brighton, for identification
with his hands tied behind his back as if he could be uncontrollable. This was not Aaron Kosminski.
Levy
was not always insane unlike Aaron Kosminski so he
could have been found guilty of the crimes and hanged. Does this explain how a witness could
identify the Ripper and refuse to testify in case he would be hanged?
Now
to the objections to the hypothesis that Jacob Levy was the suspect and was
misnamed or nicknamed as Kosminski.
- Levy
was not a Polish Jew. If he used
the nickname Kosminski he might have been
thought to have been a Polish Jew.
He might have thought he was a Polish Jew during his
delusions. Kosminksi
was a common name among Polish Jews and this could have led to the idea
that the Ripper was Polish.
- Levy
was committed to the City of London Asylum, Stone, Kent where he died. Kosminski was committed to Colney
Hatch. After that Kosminksi went to Leavesden
Asylum for Imbeciles, where he died in 1919.
New
Ripper suspect Hyam Hyams,
is thought to be this man who was sent to Colney
Hatch. Hyam Hyams was taken there under restraint but he never went to
Stepney workhouse. But his case is
important if but for one reason. There
is no doubt that all who named Kosminski were
confused. Hyam
Hyams could have been confused with Jacob Levy as
both were known to Ripper witness Joseph Levy.
Hyams was related to Joseph Levy’s wife. Is this confusion where the idea that the
Ripper went to Colney Hatch came from? He could not have been the Ripper because he
didn’t hide his violence towards women, his wife and his mother and was an
uncontrollable maniac. And he lived too
long after ending up in Colney Hatch to have been the
Ripper. While Swanson and Anderson could
err about where the Ripper ended up they couldn’t err too much about the time
of his death. Both stated that the
Ripper passed to his reward in Hell soon after the crimes. That is the one thing that mustn’t be
ignored.
- Levy
never went to the Stepney Workhouse but according to Swanson the Kosminski suspect did before being signed into Colney Hatch.
However we know that Aaron Kosminski was
never in Stepney Workhouse. So he
has that in common with Levy.
Swanson made an error which has no relevance to the case.
- Macnaghten’s
suspect entered the asylum in March 1889.
This
was an error.
We
can dismiss these as refutations of the hypothesis that Jacob Levy was the
Ripper for five important reasons.
- There
is no doubt that the facts about the killer were confused with the facts
concerning somebody else for what they wrote fits nobody exactly.
- There
are similarities between what we know of Jacob Levy and the police
suspect.
3. When we read that the Ripper went to Colney Hatch we are left with the impression that he died
there. Aaron Kosminski
was there a while but was longer in to Leavesden
Asylum for Imbeciles, which was his abode until his death in 1919. If they had meant Aaron Kosminski
one would expect them if they were going to mention an asylum they would have
mentioned the one he was longest in.
- There
is one thing no mistake could have been made about: the time the Ripper
died. Aaron Kosminksi
was committed to an Asylum in 1891 not 1889 and lived for several years
after. The Swanson Kosminski suspect died according to Swanson soon after
being committed which may indicate 1891.
Levy died in 1891. Whatever errors that our writers made one thing
is certain: they could not have made a mistake concerning the Ripper
having died and at least roughly when.
You don’t forget things like that.
Aaron Kosminski may have been mixed up
with their suspect but he was not the suspect.
We
will see later that there was a reason to have Jacob Levy identified at the
Seaside Home and none to have Aaron Kosminski or
anybody else identified there.
Jacob
Levy was the Kosminski suspect. His being given the name Kosminksi
may be due to it being a confusion with the real Kosminski
or a nickname or just a name the police used to hide the Ripper’s
identity.
What
detectives living in the times of the Ripper believed matters more than what
any modern Ripperologist believes. Levy is a better match for the Kosminksi suspect than anybody else. We know the Levys
who may have been related to him were close to the Kosminskis.
Was Aaron Kosminski the Kosminski Suspect?
Aaron
Kosminski was just days locked away in an asylum when
the police began searching for Jack the Ripper as a result of the Frances Coles
murder of 13th February 1891. So it proves they didn’t know who the
Ripper was then and that they had no proof that it was Aaron Kosminski. He wasn’t
put away until two years had passed since the last Ripper murder. He couldn’t have been the Ripper for he was
not the suspect identified by a Jewish witness.
If he had been he would have been put away sooner. The witness who identified the Ripper would
not have been taken to identify a madman.
Aaron
Kosminksi was so insane that the police wouldn’t have
been allowed to have him identified as the killer after his incarceration in an
asylum. Jacob Levy would have been a different case with having attacks of
insanity.
Aaron
Kosminski was not a sexual maniac whose vices were so
unmentionable that he was lower than a brute.
He suffered from compulsive masturbation but the way Anderson speaks of
the Kosminski person is as if he was an extreme and
unusual kind of pervert. Perhaps
somebody that had sexual fantasies about mutilating prostitutes. Kosminski had lived
on the streets which wouldn’t have been the case had he suffered from extreme
sex addiction. The Ripper showed no sign
of any sexual interest in the prostitutes he slain. Levy may have got his
syphilis from prostitutes while Aaron hated them and women in general and so he
would not have had any depraved sexual desire to have sex with fallen
women. Kosminski
wasn’t syphilitic so it was unlikely that he was ever with prostitutes.
Anderson
speaks of the Ripper in the past tense as if the Ripper were dead. Aaron Kosminski,
the only person that could have been referred to by Macnaghten
if Macnaghten was using Kosminksi
as a real name was still alive then when Anderson wrote in 1910.
The
evidence for Kosminski’s guilt is non-existent but
there is evidence for Levy’s.
Aaron
Kosminski was not the suspect.
The
Ripper was known on the streets. He may
have used the name Kosminski to persuade women that
they didn’t know him at all or to mislead them.
There is no evidence for the view that Kosminski
was Nathan Kaminsky who was put away for syphilis
treatment in March 1888. Martin Fido thinks his name was also David Cohen who was totally
violent. The Ripper of course was
not. He was only violent when he wasn’t
being watched.
The
Ripper victims had different names. Mary
Ann Nicholls was often known as Polly Nichols.
Annie Chapman as Annie Sivvey. Catherine Eddowes
was also known as Catherine Conway.
Worse, her other name was Mary Ann Kelly! Mary Jane Kelly was Mary Jeanette Davies by
marriage. So it stands to reason that
the Ripper may have had more than one name too.
I think Jacob Levy was also known as Kosminski! No real Kosminski
fits the bill for being the Ripper.
We
know the statements about the killer are confused and we know that Kosminksi can’t really be the name of the killer. If the suspect was Jacob Levy then Jacob Levy
was Jack the Ripper.
According
to Detective Inspector Edmund Reid, the Ripper died before the year 1896. It was declared that, "The mania was of
a nature which must long ago have resulted in the death of the maniac - an
opinion that is borne out by the best medical experts who have studied the
case”. This suggests that the killer
suffered from a killer disease such as syphilis and mania like Jacob Levy
did. They were surprised he lived as
long as he did. Aaron Kosminski’s mania and sickness
had no reason to kill him. Aaron Kosminski was not Jack the Ripper.
Levy
was described as suffering from mania and hearing voices. This must have taken a religious form at
times. Aaron Kosminski
showed no tendency towards religious mania.
Religious extremism was a leading feature of the Ripper’s mania.
The Identification of the
Ripper
We
need a positive identification to prove who the Ripper was. And the men investigating the murders said
there had been one. There is much
confusion about who the witness who made the identification was. But it can be cleared up. Joseph Hyam Levy
saw the killer with Catherine Eddowes and it is most
likely that the man he saw was his close neighbour Jacob Levy. Joseph Hyam Levy
didn’t want to say anything about the killer but he may have changed his mind
later when he identified him,
Griffiths
who must have consulted Macnaghten and others wrote
in 1898 that there was some evidence that the killer was a Polish Jew who was
known as a lunatic who was roaming around Whitechapel at the times of the
murders and who was put into an asylum afterwards for his urge to kill. It says the policeman at Mitre Court meaning
Mitre square where Eddowes was found murdered got a
glimpse of him and agreed that the person was the murderer. Anderson wrote in 1910 that the only person
who got a good look at the killer identified the suspect without hesitation but
wouldn’t give evidence against him. It
is thought that this was the policeman.
But we read the policeman got a glimpse while somebody else got a good
look. And a policeman would have to give
evidence.
We
know a Jew identified a fellow Jew as the Ripper but refused to testify against
him in court.
Who
was this witness? It was not Israel
Schwartz for he didn’t see the killer dispatching Elizabeth Stride. He saw a man with a knife who scared him
away. When Schwartz said so much about
this man he would have identified him and had him hanged. He even talked to the papers.
It
was not Joseph Lawende the Jew who saw the man with
Catherine Eddowes that same night minutes before her
murder. He said he couldn’t identify the
man. The witness had to have been the
Jew, Joseph Hyam Levy, who was in his company. This man acted so strangely that undoubtedly
he knew more than he let on.
The
Assistant City Police Commissioner in 1888 was a Major Henry Smith. He wrote that he interviewed one of the Mitre
Square witnesses who he described as a sort of hybrid German. Lawende was a
Polish Jew so he was not the interviewee. It had to have been Joseph Levy who
was a Dutch Jew. Lawende
was more loquacious and prominent at Eddowes Inquest
than Joseph Levy so when the name wasn’t given we can assume the witness didn’t
want it to be given and so it was Joseph Levy who didn’t want any attention at
all. When Joseph Levy was interviewed he
must really have known a lot more than he wanted people to think. He must have known the killer. The three witnesses spoke German. But that doesn’t make them hybrid
Germans. Joseph Levy was the best candidate
for being the hybrid German or mistaken as one.
Joseph
Hyam Levy and two friends, Joseph Lawende
and Harry Harris, saw a man and woman standing talking to one another near
Mitre Square. Minutes later Catherine Eddowes was found dead and mutilated in the a corner of the
Square. Joseph Levy said to Harris: “I
don't like going home by myself when I see these sort of characters about. I'm off!”.
He stated that somebody should keep a close eye on Mitre Square.
What
a strange reaction! He should have been
used to seeing characters like that all the time. Why would he feel he would have been in
danger from them? Why would he feel the
need to get away so fast? There could
have been nothing upsetting about seeing Eddowes and
the Ripper talking because neither of them looked out of the ordinary. Why would he say that Mitre Square especially
would have to be watched? Prostitutes
had their haunts everywhere.
Joseph
Levy admitted to being afraid yet he didn’t take with his friends the quickest
way back to his house in Hutchinson Street that night which was through the
smaller streets. This street juts off
Middlesex Street. He took the longest
way back because it was better lit. He
must have been afraid. Was he afraid he
might see Jacob Levy ripping up a woman in one of the darker streets? Probably he was afraid of seeing an
undiscovered victim slain earlier that night lying somewhere. Or was he afraid because the Ripper lived on
Middlesex Street and the Ripper had seen him and he had seen the Ripper with Eddowes? He knew the
Ripper would take the back streets to return to his lair. The Ripper knew he had been seen. He went to the trouble of putting Catherine Eddowes on her side and then he changed his mind and put
her on her back to mutilate her. Like
with Stride, he wasn’t going to go any further and the desire to mutilate Eddowes took over and he gave in to his frenzy.
The
answer is that Joseph Hyam Levy already suspected the
man of being the killer. That was why he
wanted to get away. He knew the man who
was with Eddowes.
He was the one who in the later reports written by police was the Jew who
was able to identify the suspect without hesitation as being with Eddowes and being her murderer. Instead of wanting to help the woman, he
wanted to get away. He didn’t want to be
involved. He worried that he might have
to identify the killer. He wanted to be
off the scene to avoid that. However he
did identify the killer later.
Joseph
Levy was indeed the witness for he behaved so strangely from the start that he
would have been the type of man to identify the killer and then refuse to
testify in court against the man. The
witness told a strange lie in saying he didn’t want the man put to death over
his testimony. If so then why didn’t he
just say that the man was not the Ripper? The witness then acted like Joseph
Levy – true to form! And even more so
when he lied that he wouldn’t testify in court against the killer for it would
lead to the killer being hanged. But
surely he knew that a man suffering from mental illness couldn’t be hanged –
even if he wasn’t committed yet! True to
form again!
Was
the real reason Joseph Levy didn’t want to testify in court concerning who the
murderer was because he didn’t want to bring shame on his own family? His reasons for not testifying don’t hold
water.
Joseph Levy and Jacob Levy may have been
related. They were neighbours bearing
the same surname living just about sixty yards apart and both were butchers by
trade. Jacob Levy’s father’s name was
Joseph. This may indicate a blood
relationship because families tended to name new children after living or dead
close relatives. We think that Jacob Levy used the nickname Kosminski
or because the police wouldn’t name the Ripper they just called him Kosminski to hide his identity. Interestingly, Joseph Levy supported the
Martin Kosminski application to be accepted as a
British citizen in 1877. If Joseph Levy
was related to the Ripper, did he want to cover up for the Ripper in case he
would be suspected of being an accomplice?
Who knows? Perhaps he knew the
true story if at any time Jacob Levy tried to give him body parts to sell in
the shop!
The
crimes were so horrific and the men were afraid for their female
relatives. The possibility that the
killer hated women not just prostitutes was popularly accepted. They often thought he only went after prostitutes
late at night because they were easy targets.
Joseph Levy then would have identified the killer even if it meant
telling on a fellow Jew but not if the killer were a relative. When he talked to the police at all it shows
he was thinking about telling all but then his reluctance to bring shame on his
family took over. Perhaps he knew Jacob
was insane at times and hoped some other way to stop the killings could take
place without having any police involvement.
If he was related he might have thought of such a way. He must then have been in a position to talk
to the family indicating a family relationship.
Why
did Joseph Levy get away with not testifying?
The police needed a solution to the Ripper murders case for they had put
themselves before world ridicule over their mishandling. Did he get away with it because the man he
identified was a relative? It seems
so! Or more likely it was because he was
afraid of repercussions from Jacob Levy’s family. He couldn’t betray a fellow Jew and the police
understood that.
Did
Joseph Levy confront the Ripper after he had seen him with Catherine Eddowes the night she was killed? Did he find the organs the Ripper took? Was that why the Ripper didn’t steal women’s
uteri since Eddowes died? He didn’t take any parts of Kelly away with
him. The organs might have been found by
Joseph Levy on a butcher’s premises.
Something put the Ripper off taking Kelly’s organs. If he took her heart
that wasn’t characteristic of him.
The Evening News issue 9th October 1888
printed the following, “Mr Levy is absolutely obstinate and refuses to give the
slightest information and he leaves one to infer that he knows something but
that he is afraid to be called on the inquest. At the inquest Levy admitted
observing a man and a woman at the entrance to Church Passage though he did not
take any particular notice of them although he described the man as having been
three inches taller than the woman and when pressed under cross examination he
denied thinking her appearance as `terrible' and went on to add that he was not
exactly afraid for himself".
Joseph Hyam
Levy had forgotten what he said about the pair being a sinister looking pair
which was why later he denied saying the woman looked terrible in
appearance. Evidently, when he said the
pair looked sinister what he really thought and meant was that it was the man
he didn’t want to have to look at. The
reason was not the man’s appearance but who he was. He knew him.
From Lawende, we know that there was nothing
sinister looking about the man. But if
you know something bad about somebody you will think of their appearance as
terrible. This explains why Joseph Levy
thought the man looked sinister too and why he started to tell lies later on
denying that he was shocked by the pair.
Joseph Hyam
Levy lied about not paying much notice.
He didn’t want to have to say too much about the man he saw for he had
taken a lot of notice. He took so much
notice because he recognised the man with Eddowes.
That was why his memory was so clear that he was able to identify the suspect
without any doubt with the police later.
His saying that the man was three inches
taller than the woman gives us the height of Jacob Levy. Jacob Levy was five foot three making him
three inches taller than Eddowes.
When you see a couple together especially
at night you don’t think of what height they are. He was sure the man was three inches taller
which may indicate that he already knew what height the man was. But not too much can be read into this for
witnesses did often give varying heights.
What does Joseph’s behaviour throughout
the affair tell us?
He knew the Ripper was at work. He knew the Ripper was a Jew which was why
though he had two men with him he didn’t try to disturb him or scare him
off. He didn’t want the Ripper to be
caught and hanged. Jacob Levy was Joseph
Levy’s neighbour – they almost lived on the same street. Joseph Levy may have heard a confession from
the man himself or seen proof before then that he was the killer. But, whatever, Joseph knew!
You don’t pay too much attention to
unmarried men even ones you know who are going with prostitutes. But you do pay attention to married men you
know doing it for they are hurting their wives and children. Joseph Levy’s behaviour suggests that the
Ripper was a married man. Our suspect
was married.
It
was dark at the time. It was hard to
recognise people in the poor street lighting unless they were family or
neighbours. As stated, Jacob Levy was a neighbour of Joseph Levy’s. If the man with Eddowes
showed a reaction to Joseph Levy observing him that would prove to Joseph that
the man was indeed the man he knew.
He
insisted to the police that he wasn’t exactly afraid of the man for
himself. He talks like he knew the
Ripper was only a danger to women. He
knew the Ripper.
The
killer was seen by Joseph Levy on 30th September. No murders took place until Friday 9th
November the slaughter of Mary Kelly in her room. The entire month of October and over a week
of November saw no Ripper murders. This
was a long gap for the Ripper. Some
think it was because the Ripper may have cut himself while slashing Eddowes and had to recover.
It is unlikely that he would have cut himself that badly. And when he took bigger risks every time it
shows that he wasn’t thinking of what could happen. He just wanted to kill and mutilate. If he had been seen at Mitre Square that
would have shook him up. At that point
he made up his mind to kill no more women until he got them indoors. He didn’t want Kelly found too quickly while
the other victims were laid out in a gruesome display. Had he not been seen at Mitre Square he would
have left Kelly’s door open or perhaps dragged her out of the room into the
passage.
Another
possibility is that the Jews tried to handle the Ripper their own way and
managed to stop him killing for several weeks. One night he got away and cut up
Mary Kelly. When they didn’t do a good job it looks like it was the Ripper’s
family that tried to control the problem.
Jacob had a wife and two children and relations living with him.
Either
way, the killer had been seen and he knew it.
Joseph
Lawende, one of the men with Joseph Levy made a
statement about the appearance of the killer.
He saw the woman facing the man chatting. She had put her hand on his chest. The man was medium build and looked like a
sailor. He wore a pepper and salt
coloured jacket which was loose and a grey cap and wore a red neckerchief. He was about 5 foot 7 about 30 with a fair
complexion and a moustache. He said he
wouldn’t be able to identify the man again.
William Marshall saw a man looking like a sailor talking to Elizabeth
Stride not long before her murder. But
this was a different man – not the killer.
Jacob
Levy was born in 1856 so his age at the time of the murders was 32!
Lawende and Joseph Levy would have discussed
what to say to the police and would have talked to each other about the man
they had seen. Joseph knew the man so here
Lawende must have been pretending to have known
nothing about the man. Lawende said more than Joseph Levy would have had agreed
with him saying. But out of respect for
Levy he didn’t say too much. Lawende’s behaviour was also suspicious.
Mitre
Square was called Court by both Joseph Levy and by Griffiths, a friend of both
Anderson and Macnaghten, who wrote a book called
Mysteries of Police and Crime, in 1898.
Is it because of Joseph that Griffiths and those he consulted ended up
calling a murder site the wrong name, Mitre Court rather than the correct Mitre
Square? If so then it certainly looks
like that what he told the police made a huge impression on them! Griffiths said that the killer was confined
to an asylum and was identified by the police constable in Mitre Court who got
a good look at him at Mitre Court. This
was an important mistake. Joseph Lawende was not the witness for Griffiths could not have
made the mistake of thinking such a well-known and prominent witness had been a
policeman for he wasn’t. But he could
have made the mistake that Joseph Levy was a policeman for Joseph was less
known and indeed tried to keep a low profile.
The
killer believed he had been seen. Was
that why he left the message at Goulston Street: “The
Juwes are the men that Will not be Blamed for
nothing” blaming the Jews for the murders?
Was his game then to take the Jews down with him if he went down? What supports this contention is that if he
was seen by a Jew he could trust not to go to the law about him then what could
be more true than that the Jews are to blame?
Why write the Juwes and the men: plurals? Why not write, “The Juwes
are not to blame for nothing”? It was
easier to write. It was quicker. And there was little room on the area where
he wrote. He wrote in the words “are the
men who are not to be blamed for nothing” to emphasis the plural and that it
was men.
There
can be no doubt that the killer took a piece of Eddowes
apron intending to use it later to leave a false trail away from his lair. When he found it necessary to do that he must
have been seen at Mitre Square. Jacob
had only a hundred metres after that to go in the direction he really intended to
get home. He could have been there and
back again to plant the apron piece. He
went back to think about where to put it.
Levy worked in Goulston Street so Goulston street would have come to mind for him. The Ripper wanted to mislead the police but
at the same time give a clue. He had
confessed to being a Jew on the graffito.
Was he trying to say something by choosing Goulston
Street as where he would leave these clues?
Why the Seaside Home?
Kosminski was identified as the Ripper at the
Seaside Home in Brighton. This does not
mean that the Ripper was committed there only that he was brought there. Jacob
Levy, who we think was Kosminski, could have been
brought there. Swanson wrote that there
was difficulty with getting the suspect there.
Evidently the difficulties were not in restraining him if insane or
transporting him there. If he had been
that awkward he would have been committed in which case there would have been
no point in trying to get him identified.
It must have had to do with different police jurisdictions and the red
tape. It has been pointed out that
Joseph Hyam Levy lived at a point near Middlesex
Street probably on the boundary between the City Police and the Metropolitan
jurisdictions. Jurisdiction problems
could have come up if he was the identification witness. But Swanson says the difficulties were to do
with the suspect. It was not that the
suspect didn’t want to go for he wouldn’t have known who the witness was going to
be. The answer is simple. The killer
lived in Middlesex Street. One half of
the street was City Police jurisdiction and the other was Metropolitan. Jacob Levy is the only possible Ripper
suspect to have lived there. Sion Square where Aaron Kosminksi
lived couldn’t have had this problem.
Jacob Levy was Jack the Ripper.
Joseph Levy abandoned his butchering
trade in 1891. He left the place where
he lived. He left Hutchinson Street and
the Middlesex Street vicinity. He ran a
loan office with a partner at Mansell Street,
Aldgate. It looks like he was advised by
the police to do this. If so, then the
Ripper and the Ripper’s family probably lived on Middlesex Street and was a
butcher. He may have had to get away
from butchers and Middlesex Street simply because he had revealed to the police
who the Ripper was. The City Police
watched a suspect working in Butcher’s Row, Aldgate.
When
did the witness who had to have been
Joseph Levy identify the killer at the Seaside Home? Nobody knows.
The Seaside Home opened at Brighton in March 1890. Jacob Levy was committed in August 1890 to
the asylum. If the killer was identified
before he was put in an asylum then the identification took place between March
1890 and August 1890, when Levy was committed.
Now
why did the identification take place at the Seaside Home in Brighton? This was very far away from London. Joseph Levy moved to Brighton and he
travelled to Brighton a lot before the move.
The killer was taken to the Seaside Home to be identified by Joseph Levy
because Joseph Levy was associated with Brighton. It is said that the killer was taken there to
avoid press sensationalism and to keep the affair quiet. But they didn’t have to go so far away. And the affair wasn’t intended to be kept
quiet, they wanted to reveal the Ripper to the world. They couldn’t stop the witness from speaking
out – he did make an identification but not a sworn one.
If
the witness lived near the killer’s family or if he was related to the killer
an identification far far away would be in
order. And when the police went to all
that trouble it proves they knew that the witness was worth taking
seriously. They had other reasons for
believing what he said apart from any testimony he would have given.
The
identification was some several months after the killing of Mary Kelly in
November 1888. So the witness took a
long time to come forward or perhaps he did before that but owing to one delay
and another and to police red tape it didn’t happened sooner. It proves then that the witness did more than
just see the killer but he knew the killer personally. How else could he remember him so well? Under no other circumstances would the police
accept the testimony of a witness identifying a person some time after the
event. So the witness knew the killer
and red tape did delay the identification.
Did
the identification take place before or after the suspect was committed to an
asylum? The sources disagree but it
probably took place before. A lunatic
couldn’t be identified as a killer unless the doctors had reason to think the
man wasn’t insane all the time. Swanson
said that the killer was taken to the Seaside Home for identification and then
back to his brother’s house at Whitechapel.
Then the house was watched by the police day and night. This shows that the killer was sick. How do we know? If he had still been dangerous he would have
been taken to an asylum soon after the identification. It would have been cheaper to do that than
watch the house. According to Swanson,
the killer went to Stepney Workhouse Infirmary later on with the hands tied
behind his back and later to an asylum.
Jacob Levy was sick from syphilis while Aaron Kosminski’s
health was quite good despite his insanity.
Kosminksi did indeed stay with his brother and
Levy didn’t. How do we solve that
difficulty? Maybe we can just say there
was confusion.
Kosminksi could not have been the man watched by
the police because if he had been, the asylum would have been told to keep him
away from other inmates.
Swanson
wrote that there were difficulties getting the suspect to the Seaside Home.
This suggests they had a reason for taking him there. He talks as if the difficulties could have
been averted had he been taking somewhere else.
Taking him there had something to do with the witness. Maybe the witness was unwell so the killer
had to be brought to him and not the witness to the killer.
Joseph
Hyam Levy identified the Ripper Jacob Levy at the
Seaside Home. It was all very secret so
that the Ripper was nicknamed Kosminski. This led to the error that the Ripper was
Polish for Kosminski was generally a Polish
name.
The “Ripper Letter” for
Joseph Hyam Levy
A
newspaper in Whitechapel received a letter in October 1888 claiming to be from
the Ripper. It was thought to have been
intended for Israel Schwartz or Joseph Lawende.
You
though your-self very clever I reckon when you informed the police. But you
made a mistake if you though I dident see you. Now I
known you know me and I see your little game, and I mean to finish you and send
your ears to your wife if you show this to the police or help them if you do I
will finish you. It no use your trying to get out of my way. Because I have you
when you dont expect it and I keep my word as you
soon see and rip you up. Yours truly Jack the Ripper.
PS
You see I know your address
Schwartz
and Lawende both talked to the police about the man
they thought was the Ripper. The letter
was not meant for Lawende because Lawende
wasn’t of much use to the police and didn’t do the Ripper much harm. Schwartz was not the man intended because he
gave no indication of being able to identify the man he saw at the scene of the
imminent murder of Stride and there was no reason to think he saw the killer.
Also there was absolutely no doubt that the men there did see Schwartz but here
the letter writer speaks as if the man had reason to think that the killer
didn’t see him. The men who passed by as
Eddowes flirted with the killer shortly before her
murder acted as if they thought the killer did see them. This would mean that one of these men was the
man intended in the letter.
The
man intended had to have been Joseph Hyam Levy who
spoke to the police but acted as if he was afraid to say too much. We know he knew the Ripper suspect Jacob
Levy. We know that Joseph Hyam Levy behaved as if he recognised the man with Eddowes and tried to get away as quickly as he could from
the scene. These coincidences show that
the letter was authentic. Joseph Hyam Levy did indeed play a “little game” with the
police. The others didn’t. No hoaxer would have written a letter that
fits facts that are so difficult to figure out.
We must remember as well that Joseph Hyam Levy
was very careful after he went to the police as if he were afraid of someone.
The
letter is confirmation that Joseph Hyam Levy and the
Ripper knew each other. In that case,
the Ripper was most probably Jacob Levy.
Joseph Levy was the only Ripper witness who seemed to need protection.
The
facts make it plain that Joseph Levy must have identified Jacob Levy as the
Ripper!
PART SEVEN, MIDDLESEX CONNECTION
The Middlesex Street
Connection
Jacob
Levy resided in Middlesex Street Aldgate.
There
is an alleged FM scrawled in blood plainly to be seen in the photo of Kelly’s
murder. The F doesn’t show up clearly in
the oldest photos and may not exist. But
the M is a different story.
The
M was clearly written on the wall in Kelly’s blood. Is this confirmation for the M on Eddowes face? Is it
telling us what street the Ripper lived on? Jacob Levy lived in Middlesex
Street.
If
there was an FM written on Kelly’s wall, did it stand for From Middlesex
meaning From Middlesex Street? When
three places, the Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly sites,
where we know the Ripper was at work are so close together chances are he’s
living close to all three.
Of
the first four Ripper victims, the site where Chapman was killed was the second
nearest to Middlesex Street. The Ripper
didn’t even wash at the tap where there was a butcher’s leather apron. So he refused to do what he needed to do. Why?
That the Ripper didn’t want anybody to think the apron may have been his
may indicate that his workplace or home wasn’t very far away. The killer must have preferred to have blood
smears on his person which should have been washed off to taking a chance with
the apron for some reason.
When
Annie Chapman was found dead a piece of envelope was discovered by her head
nearby. It contained two pills and
carried a Sussex Regiment seal in blue.
On the front the letter M was written by hand where the address started
and lower down Sp which must be Spitalfields. The postmark read London August 23 1888. There was what seemed to be the beginning of
a 2 (page 47, The Lodger). So it
appeared to be a 2. What if it was a
3? William Stevens saw Chapman drop her
box of pills in Dorset Street, and then she picked up paper from the floor to
put two pills in it. He thought this was
the same piece of envelope that was found. Chapman had pieces of muslin and
cloth in her pocket so why would she need the envelope? Would she really pick a dirty envelope off
the floor? Not when she was clean enough
to take pieces of cleaning cloth around with her. And why such a small piece? As we will see later the Ripper tore
something off it. We can be sure that it
was not because he wanted to take it and ended up tearing a piece of it because
he couldn’t get a grip on it in an attempt to take it away. That is absurd for he was able to get it out
of the pockets so there was nothing for it to catch on to.
Annie
Chapman had no place to stay and she would have taken all her pills with
her. She needed more than a piece of
envelope for holding her pills.
Therefore the piece of envelope found was not hers. She carried plenty of cloths with her to use
instead. They were found. The Ripper left it as a clue. The man who testified that the piece may have
been what she took to wrap pills in had to have been wrong. Nobody pays much attention to little things
like that. The Ripper took the paper the
pills were in and he took her rings. Two
pills were dropped which led to the story that she only took two pills out with
her. Inspector Chandler wrote,
“Enquiries were made amongst the men [of the Sussex Regiment] but none could be
found who corresponded with anyone living at Spitalfields
or any person whose address commencing [sic] with ‘J’. The pay books were examined and no signature
resembled the initials on the envelope.”
He also wrote, “enquiries were made amongst the men but none could be
found who are in the habit of writing to anyone at Spitalfields,
or whose signatures corresponded with the letters on the envelope.”
The
envelope when it was treated this way was regarded as a clue. It shows that the police didn’t believe the
solution to the mystery given by the man who said he saw her lift a piece of
paper to put her pills in. Perhaps she
did lift the piece of envelope. If so
then the Ripper found it in her pocket which he ripped open. It is said that the Ripper intended to make
her murder look like a robbery which was why he did this. Not likely.
No robber goes to the trouble of cutting the victim up and mutilating
them.
The
police seemingly found the writing on the envelope to have been faked. Here is the solution. The Ripper found a piece of envelope in her
pocket. He took his pen and wrote his name and address further over to the
left. At this stage it overlapped with
what was really on the envelope. So he
tore a piece of the envelope to ensure that only the J for the name the M for
the address and the Sp for Spitalfields would be
left. The only person who is a perfect match for this clue was Joseph Barnett
of Miller’s Court Spitalfields the lover of Mary
Kelly. He was not the Ripper. And the room number couldn’t have been left
out for people came and went all the time.
What the Ripper may have written was Jacob Levy, Middlesex Street Spitalfields.
Middlesex Street is not in Spitalfields but in
Whitechapel but Spitalfields would still have got to
him and he would have received letters in the past addressed to him using Spitalfields not Whitechapel. It wasn’t important. Maybe he put in Spitalfields
to avoid giving too much of a scent. No door number means that the Ripper was
well known in his street. He lived there
permanently and didn’t need a door number.
Jacob Levy was well known in Middlesex Street.
Some
say there was a mark that was guessed to be a 2 on the envelope as well (page
47, The Lodger). What if it was a 3 for both numbers have an
open circle at the top? Jacob Levy lived
at 36 Middlesex Street. Why was no Mr or
Mrs written on the envelope?
Professionals would put in one of these words where applicable. They are missing because the Ripper wrote a
clue on the envelope. The Ripper due to
his insanity and the euphoria he experienced when he glutted his urge to gut
women felt that nothing could hurt him.
That was why he was so daring and confident.
If
the envelope was a clue pointing to 36 Middlesex Street, Spitalfields,
then Jacob Levy was indeed the Ripper.
If
she had all her pills with her, did the Ripper take them thinking they might
have been syphilis medications?
Middlesex
Street is in Aldgate. The night
Catherine Eddowes was murdered was a very wet night
and yet she went towards Aldgate instead of trying to go home or to find a
friend to take her in. Did she intend to
meet a man from Aldgate who had a house there who she thought could give her a
roof over her head? When Elizabeth
Stride’s body was found some time before, she was found to have been soaked to
the skin. The Ripper may not have asked Eddowes to turn her back to him to lift her skirt for sex
so that he could grab her round the throat from behind. He may have just grabbed her once she went in
front. She would have known about the
empty houses in Mitre Square that they could use or shelter in. She believed he lived nearby and trusted him
especially when she would have heard the whistles and cries of murder in the
street after the discovery of Stride’s body.
She may have thought he lived in the Square. Mitre Square wasn’t far from Middlesex
Street. It would have been suspicious if
a man from further away had been soliciting.
The police were questioning all men seen with women and so the killer
knew he had to be near his lair. It was
because he was near his lair that he had to plant the apron in Goulston Street to make it seem that the Ripper fled in a
different direction to the direction he really fled in. The Ripper fled from Mitre Square to his lair
in Middlesex Street. He must have done
for he had to go through Middlesex Street to get to Goulston
and we know he had to stop somewhere on the way to tidy himself up and get
cleaned which was why over a half hour after killing Eddowes
the apron piece and the graffiti in Goulston Street
had still not appeared. Logically we
will see that he must have had his lair on Middlesex Street.
The
Ripper only had a short distance to go that dangerous night to Goulston Street.
There were too many police about to go any further and if he had been
able he would have planted it further away.
He planted the apron piece there to make it seem like the Ripper had
gone the opposite direction of Middlesex Street. Then he returned to his lair. Middlesex Street was between Mitre Square and
Goulston Street with Goulston
Street and Middlesex Street being very close together. That says it all. It gets better. The Street connecting Middlesex Street and Goulston Street was a smaller street called New Goulston Street. The
apron piece was found just three doors away from where you leave New Goulston Street into Goulston
Street. The small side street New Goulston Street was the route the Ripper took from his lair
in Middlesex Street because the other routes Wentworth Street and Whitechapel
High Street were simply too well lit and swarming with police for they were
major streets. Goulston
Street itself was a major Street so the Ripper didn’t want to stay on it too
long. He didn’t have far to go to plant
his fake evidence and that was how he planned it. To get out of Goulston
Street again the Ripper had to return to Middlesex Street through New Goulston Street. It
was the only way to avoid the busier and more important roads. No suspect explains why these routes were
chosen better than Jacob Levy.
The
killer of Stride fled in the direction of Aldgate. He had killed Stride. He had no guarantee that he could kill again
that night. It was too dangerous to kill
a second time so soon after Stride would have been found murdered. He acted like he could make a fast getaway if
a second opportunity came up – he could only do that if he lived in Aldgate and
knew it thoroughly. And even more so
when at night there were a lot of people about for the houses were so small and
uncomfortable.
After
killing Stride, the Ripper would have taken the direct route of Commercial Road
and keeping west and then walked left to enter Aldgate High Street. Ten or fifteen minutes would have got him to
the next crime scene, Mitre Square, where he killed Eddowes. Now her death took place only maybe 45
minutes after that of Stride. The Ripper, we know, at this stage wouldn’t kill
just anywhere. He had chosen the killing
site on a map. So he had to get to Mitre
Square and talk a prostitute into going into the Square with him. This took time unless he had already set a
date and time with Eddowes. But in any case the
Ripper needed to be there as early as possible.
If
you draw a straight line from the Stride murder site to that of Eddowes you can work out the quickest way from the first to
the second. The killer passed Middlesex
Street. Did he go to Middlesex Street to
get his knife for it seems he may not have had his knife when he killed
Stride? That done did he then kill Eddowes just a short walk from Middlesex Street? He left to clean up after he killed Eddowes for he went back out on the street to plant the
apron piece in Goulston Street. He was frightened that night. He had been seen twice. Goulston Street
where the apron piece was planted was so near Middlesex Street that you would
expect him not to wander too far from his lair.
The
Ripper perhaps carried one knife at a time.
When he killed Stride if he used a knife it was her knife or his own
that he carried with him for self-defence.
Stride was relaxed with him so he had time to get his favourite and
usual knife out if he wanted. He didn’t
have it with him. It seems that the
Ripper used the knife and took it away to near where he murdered Eddowes later that night to deposit it and get
another. He had to change knives in case
the police would search him and find the bloodstained knife he used to kill
Stride on him. So he got his clean knife
and murdered and mutilated Catherine Eddowes with
it. Middlesex Street would have been the
ideal place for the Ripper to keep his knives.
The Ripper made it quickly from the scene of the Stride murder to where
he killed Eddowes and Middlesex Street was between
the two spots tempting us to believe he stopped on the way to where Eddowes met her death to get a new knife and wash his hands
and perhaps change his shirt as well.
The Ripper would have known that blood could be seen on him or on his
cuffs and witnesses did see him with Catherine Eddowes. He would have needed to take every
conceivable precaution that night.
The
knife Stride was killed with was a shorter knife than that used on any of the
others. In the last hour of Elizabeth
Stride, the Ripper let his knife be seen by Israel Schwartz for he knew from
the police reports published in the papers about what kind of knife they
associated with the Ripper and what he was holding up wasn’t it. His special knife was never seen and he made
sure he never forgot it even if he had to rush off. It had to be taken for it would tell the
world too much about him. A butcher’s
knife would mean the killer was a butcher.
We
know that Catherine Eddowes behaved strangely the
night of her murder. Despite the murder of Elizabeth Stride which she must have
heard about she still went with a client.
She knew the man. What may have
given her additional assurance was seeing that Joseph Levy and possibly the two
men with him seemed to know the man but made no effort to give her any
warning. She could have thought she was
safe because of this. Why did Eddowes hang around so much at Aldgate and close to it as
her time on earth drew to a close? Jacob
Levy lived at Aldgate. It looks as if
she intended to meet him. At 8.30 pm she
caused a drunken disturbance outside number 29 at Aldgate High Street. She was held in a Police Station until 1.00
am. Instead of turning right to go home
she went back to Aldgate. She was slain
in Mitre Square and last seen by the three witnesses including Joseph Levy who
had been drinking in the imperial Club, 16-17 Dukes Place Aldgate.
Catherine
Eddowes was murdered by a man who lived in
Aldgate. She knew the man. Had the man been from anywhere else it would
have been strange if he had agreed to meet her in Aldgate. She wouldn’t have met him unless there was
nothing suspicious about him. This was a
woman going into dark Mitre Square with a man while the cry had gone up all
over Whitechapel about the murder of Elizabeth Stride. This eliminates a lot of
Ripper suspects who would have been so insane or dangerous that she would not
have met up with them. Jacob Levy was
sane a lot of the time. He was able to
work. He even cried about the terrible
things he felt inspired to do.
She
believed she knew the Whitechapel killer. She said that but that was more
likely than not to be just drunken talk.
She didn’t know him when she went into that corner of Mitre Square with
him to meet her death.
Two
of the murders, Eddowes and Kelly, were nearest
Middlesex Street. The other murder sites
don’t seem to worry about any vicinity or proximity. Coincidence?
No. When the two most daring
murders the Ripper committed seem to be centred about the Middlesex Street area
it may indicate he lived there. That was
his lair. You feel safer the closer you
are to your lair. Some would say Stride
was a risky murder. Not when the killer had scared the witness Schwartz off and
when there was another man for the blame to be put on. Middlesex Street is nearly half way between
the Eddowes and Kelly murder sites. Eddowes’s was a
daring murder for it was the one the Ripper went furtherer with in relation to
mutilating the woman out doors when police were going to and from. Kelly’s was daring for the woman was slain
despite the killer having been watched going to her room by a witness. The Eddowes murder
is the most daring of all and it took place so near where our suspect lived and
when the police were already scouring the streets for the killer after the
Stride murder. That has to say
something.
The
man who saw the suspect with Mary Kelly shortly before she was murdered, George
Hutchinson, believed he saw the same man on Middlesex Street. And Jacob Levy
lived in Middlesex Street. He lived there with a man called Isaac Barnett. Mary Kelly plied her trade as a prostitute at
Aldgate (page 70, The Complete Jack the
Ripper).
Catherine
Eddowes had an ^ shaped incision cut on both sides of
her face below her eyes. This shows the
killer though he was rushing went to the trouble of making these marks. It was dark and he needed to be in the
shadows for there were police about. He
must have struggled to see what he was doing.
So why did he make the marks when it was so difficult? They were made to say something. Were they arrows pointing in the direction
where the killer lived? No – they don’t
look like arrows. He was in the mood for
being arrogant that night as we know from the message he left later at Goulston Street as a clue.
Those who favour the Jew Aaron Kosminski as
the Ripper might see the ^ as a hint of the A for his first initial. It would have been too bold to actually put
in the missing stroke to make a proper A.
But this like the arrows would also be a pointless clue.
I
used to argue the following on the knowledge that religion was involved in the
crimes. Perhaps the marks were made
because the triangle is the symbol of the Trinity, a doctrine considered
blasphemous by Jews for it has three persons being God. Jews were taught that this symbol is pagan in
origin and that the root of the doctrine is in paganism. Were these symbols indications of the desire
to defile the Christian doctrine? The
killer may have not realised that it needed to be a complete triangle not just
two sides. When one joins up the first
murder site the second and the third on a map a near perfect equilateral
triangle can be drawn. When one joins up
the second and the third and the fourth which was Eddowes
you also get the same effect. The two
triangles marked on Eddowes face may indicate these
two triangles. Had he completed the
triangles on her face they would have been equilateral. Some might say this can’t be coincidence. In any case, why triangles? Perhaps it was to desecrate the symbol of the
Trinity.
The
marks look like an M that isn’t put together in case its too obvious that its
an M. The M is most likely to refer to
the street where the Ripper lived than his initial. There are fewer streets that start with m
than men with an initial m. The M
interpretation is the most likely. Our
suspect lived in Middlesex Street. Were
the two marks making up an M for Middlesex?
He
thrust his knife once through both the lower eyelids. Was this the work of a religious nut who
wanted to symbolise the blindness of Christians in their failure to see that
his religion was true? If so the killer
was most probably a Jew. The stabbing of
the eyes indicating no sight or blindness and the adjacent triangles may
indicate that Christians are blind to believe in the Trinity.
It
is tempting to believe that Mary Kelly who walked the Aldgate streets was
slashed so much about the face for the Ripper had often seen her there. There was something about her face that he
hated. He also knew Catherine Eddowes who haunted the area too and cut up her face but
not to the extent that he did Kelly’s.
The
Ripper’s lair was probably his own home for after the previous killings the
cheap lodging houses were all searched by police. Two hundred of them at least were searched
following the killing of Annie Chapman (page 58, The Lodger). The ideal lair
would be a house with a butcher’s shop attached or a butchers shop. Then the killer could hide the stolen organs
among the meats.
Ripper
suspect Jacob Levy lived in Middlesex Street where he worked at number 111,
which was a butcher’s shop. This was the
ideal street for being the Ripper’s lair and there are many indications that it
was indeed his lair.
There
is more, Detective Constable Robert Sagar stated, 'We
[the City Police] had good reason to suspect a man who worked in Butcher's Row,
Aldgate. We watched him carefully, there is no doubt that this man was insane,
and after a time his friends thought it advisable to have him removed to a
private asylum. After he was removed, there were no more Ripper
atrocities'. This is very likely to
refer to Jacob Levy who worked there as a butcher. Levy was living with friends when he was
committed. Levy himself said that he
should be committed for he had violent impulses. The fact that the man was watched at work
might explain why no crimes happened during the surveillance. Levy wasn’t committed until several months
had passed since the final Ripper murder so he might have been unable to kill
for the police were keeping a close eye on him.
It shows that he was not so insane that he couldn’t work. This was true of Jacob Levy before his mental
deterioration worsened.
Daily News 19th
October 1888
The
main details in the Daily News of Friday 19th October 1888 are as
follows. A John Lardy with two friends
followed a strange looking man from near the London Hospital on the 18th
October who didn’t like them following him. He hid in a doorway at the Pavilion
theatre and came out when he thought they had gone. He seemed to be keeping his right hand in his
coat pocket as if holding something very important there. He bought a newspaper and read the notices in
a shop window very carefully. He then went
to the Aldgate direction where Jacob Levy lived. He got to the corner of Duke Street which
leads to Mitre Square. Then he turned
when he noticed they were still following him. He walked back to Leman Street
and then he reached Royal Mint Street and into a house on King Street. He came out in disguise and looked to be
about forty to forty-five years old and looked like an American and was wearing
a false moustache and had long black hair and was about five foot eleven. The article stated that the man may have been
the one arrested at Bermondsey.
The
man was disguising himself so not too much can be paid to his appearance. The right boots could make him taller
too. And it is only assumed that he was
the same man arrested later on.
The
man was intending to go to Aldgate where Levy lived and because he was being
followed he went somewhere else. He
didn’t go up Middlesex Street in case he was being followed but went on further
just in case. Then near where Eddowes was killed he turned and went in a completely
different direction. There can be no
doubt that Aldgate was his real direction.
Was
this the Ripper? Possibly. Does this story give us the answer to the
question of what burned in Mary Kelly’s grate?
The Ripper’s disguise?
PART EIGHT, THE RELIGIOUS
MOTIVATION FOR THE MURDERS
The Cross
The
book Jack the Ripper’s Black Magic
Rituals proves that the murders of Ripper Victims, Mary Ann Nichols, Annie
Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes were
planned on a map. The four murder sites
make a near perfect parallelogram when they are joined up by lines on a
map. The book shows how this isn’t
imagination. On page 149 we see how
between the Nicholls and Chapman murder sites there is 930 yards as the crow
flies. And between Chapman and Eddowes there is 930 yards as the crow flies. Between Eddowes and
Stride there is 950 yards and in case there should be any doubt that Mary Kelly
was a Ripper victim the Ripper made sure she was exactly 950 yards away from
the Stride site. But he did that just
for show for Kelly was outside of the pattern he was trying to make. As page 149 shows, the distance of 930 yards
between murder site one and two and 930 yards between two and four and 950
yards between four and three and the exact same distance between three and five
just cannot be coincidence. The people
who doubt that Stride and Kelly were Ripper victims have to be wrong. The
reason the killer didn’t make them all 930 yards was simply because some
adjustment was necessary and he didn’t want to end up killing some of them too
openly. They had to be killed in the
right place with the right amount of cover.
The book says the killer’s plan couldn’t be improved on.
The
first murder took place marking the east compass point. This was to desecrate Christianity which sees
the east as sacred and the most sacred and meaningful direction Jesus will return from the east. It is the direction in which he lived when he
was on earth. Next is Chapman for due
north and Stride for due South and Eddowes for due
west.
The
directions may indicate that the symbolism is not a parallelogram but a
cross. Why else would the Ripper have
gone to the trouble of using a compass?
What
is more they make up a cross that is almost perfect.
To
draw a line from Chapman and Stride makes a line that points due north and
south. To draw a line from Nicholls to Eddowes makes a line from due east to west. The points of the compass are made out (page
13, 59, 150, Jack the Ripper’s Black
Magic Rituals). One thing is for
sure, a killer who takes into consideration the four directions when planning
the killings is planning some kind of human sacrifices.
The
arms of the cross when drawn go due north, due south, due east, due west. This is because the first four victims were
killed at nearly the same distance apart and at the four points of the
compass (page 140, 150, Jack the Ripper’s Black Magic Rituals). Therefore it seems that the cross, not a
parallelogram, was what was intended. It
explains why no killing was made at the place where the lines intersect to make
sure we knew it was a cross. It wasn’t
necessary.
Some
say that the view that the Ripper was a black magic killer who was desecrating
the cross in this way was unlikely.
Why? Because we don’t have a
victim at the spot where the two lines of the cross intersect. Such a victim would be necessary to show that
it really was a cross. Maybe the killer
just didn’t think it would make out a parallelogram and just cared about making
a cross. The cross is the most likely
understanding of what the killer wished to symbolise. Maybe he was making the cross for himself not
for us to see it. Some people might
shape out a cross by making just four points after than making another point of
where the lines they draw meet. The
chief reason for holding that it was a cross that was intended is seen from the
fact that the parallelogram isn’t a likely symbol. It has no common religious significance. So it could have been the cross that was
intended. As the parallelogram is
composed of two equilateral triangles it would seem that the triangles could be
the symbolism intended. But then why two
joined together making a parallelogram?
Why not a triangle here and a separate one somewhere else? The killing sites were possibly chosen to
make a parallelogram or a cross. If it
was a parallelogram then why the killer made this symbol is a mystery. But it shows that the first four victims were
indeed Ripper victims. The cross
interpretation says the same thing. Both
whatever they indicate, certainly indicate that the Ripper murders were
religiously motivated.
The
Kelly murder is an exception to this symbolism despite the book’s attempts to
assume symbols to get her site included.
Its implausibility is shown by the books admission that the killer had
to move the centre point to choose her site (page 141). The book shows that
murders three and four and five allow a circle to be drawn through them. But though this is true when you look at the
circle you think it may be coincidence.
Jack has a coincidence here so the parallelogram is hardly likely to be
a coincidence. The circle is found if
you put the point at a certain spot in the middle of the junction of Commercial
Street. If the circle was planned then
the killer chose this spot. It was not
at random. He would have had to record
all the places in the area that would give sufficient cover for killing the
women and then choose the ones that were plotted along the circumference of the
circle. The same must be the case for
the parallelogram or cross. He had to be
sure of all the places which gave good cover and then plan the cross
accordingly. The murder sites had to be checked out before he set out to work
on the map.
Why
five murders? Jesus Christ had five
wounds.
The
argument of the book that the killing sites show a very complex Vesica Piscis, the Christian
symbol of the fish is without foundation.
We must not get carried away with the fact that symbolism is shown. But even if it is the Vesica
Piscis, it does our argument that the killer was a
Jew who wanted to desecrate Christianity no harm. In fact it, supports it.
The
book concludes that the black magician Roslyn D’Onston
Stephenson was the killer for he had suggested the idea that nobody else had
thought of until recently that the Ripper performed the killings as a result of
a plan he made on a map. Some dirty ties
were found in his room hidden in a box like they were trophies and he had
claimed that the killer took away body parts from the victims tucked in behind
his tie. Vittoria
Cremers said she examined two ties and found stains
in the back of them like something had congealed. She said she examined the others and didn’t recall
how many and the same stain was found on the back of them. So she must have examined at least four
ties.
The
real killer wrapped up Eddowes parts in a piece of
her apron. He didn’t mutilate Stride so
how could he have a bloodstained tie to keep?
Stephenson
said there were five Ripper victims which was correct and which nobody was sure
of until recent years. It is possible he
knew the Ripper. He claimed that he knew
the Ripper. But he said a lot of things
that were not true. If he was the Ripper
and wanted to boast of his crimes by writing to the police and the papers as
many believe but without giving away too much then why didn’t he leave a
confession behind him? He could have
done this the time he vanished.
He
said that the killing of Kelly had nothing to do with the Ripper. He said there
were seven victims. The real killer
would not draw attention to the planning on a map. It could lead police to him. Why pretend you think there were seven ripper
murders to cover up that you know how many were really committed and then
mention how the murders were planned? (page 183). He was not the murderer. We can be sure of it that if the murders were
motivated by black magic and Stephenson was guilty of them he would not have
revealed this motive to the police and the public.
Human sacrifice and Jacob
Levy
In
1910, Anderson wrote concerning the Ripper, “In saying that he was a Polish Jew
I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact. And my words are meant to
specify race, not religion. For it would outrage all religious sentiment to
talk of the religion of a loathsome creature whose utterly unmentionable vices
reduced him to a lower level than that of the brute."
Study
this declaration. He writes that he
cannot say the Ripper had a religion though he calls him a Jew. He says he means to specify the race of the
Ripper not his religion as if he doesn’t want to insult the Jewish religion by
saying the Ripper was a Jew. Now why
would it be an insult to Jews to say the Ripper was a Jew and not an insult to
Polish people to say the Jew was Polish?
He doesn’t want to speak of the Ripper as religious because the Ripper
had depraved religious beliefs. Anderson
felt that to say that a Jewish fanatic who lived as if brutally killing
prostitutes were a Jewish religious duty was a Jew is to insult the Jewish
faith. That is where he was coming
from. He was not necessarily hinting
that the Ripper suffered from a religious mania. The killer could have been a religious
extremist and the way Anderson speaks of him shows that the killer was
considered evil rather than insane.
Anderson never named the Ripper but we know that for him the Ripper was not
Aaron Kosminski for Aaron Kosminksi
showed no signs of religious extremism.
Judaism
follows the Law of Moses which is in the first five books of the Bible. These books endorse the torture and murder of
apostates from God’s religion, homosexuals and kidnappers to name but a few
categories. These killings are senseless
therefore the killings are really about human sacrifice. Unnecessary killing in the name of God is
really human sacrifice no matter if it is called execution or not.
Pope
John Paul II forbade capital punishment except in extreme circumstances though
tradition and the Bible, the voices of God according to the Church, command
that it be deployed more than that.
Catholics say that he is not saying capital punishment is wrong full
stop but only that it is not necessary today and the Bible regulations are only
meant to be carried out if the Church runs the state which it does not. The capital laws of the Bible were never
necessary and God could not object to Christians using the state to kill people
their God wants dead like heretics, homosexuals and adulterers. For him to object now, would be the same as
saying he was wrong to go so far. If
killing those people was right then, then it is always right. The pope is both condoning the crime of
capital punishment and saying he does not – another crime. The Catholic view that capital punishment was
encouraged by God to protect the state and its members is misleading because
the Bible laws could have done that without commanding the killing of those
people and also because the Bible says these killings are punishment. Now could they be punishment if you need them
to protect others? That would not be
punishment but self-defence. The laws of
the Bible had nothing to do with protecting but about showing the people who
was boss, God and about God getting his own back on those who ignored his law.
In
Genesis 22, human sacrifice is declared not to be intrinsically immoral in the
sight of God. God tells Abraham to take
his son, Isaac, up Mount Moriah and offer him up as a
burnt offering. A burnt offering is
killed first by having its throat cut and then it is cooked and often eaten in
a communion rite. Abraham obeyed God and
when he had drawn out his knife to kill the boy, God’s messenger came to tell
him not to do it for God had not been serious.
So God had lied in telling Abraham that he wanted Abraham to kill the
boy. But at the same time his command
shows that he approves of human sacrifice for Genesis regards God as good and
therefore unable to command immorality.
Leviticus
27:27-29 was thought to command human sacrifice.
Verse 27 talks
about redeeming, buying things back.
Verse 28 says
that nothing devoted to God by the owner, be it man or beast or field, can be
bought back.
Verse 29 says
that no one who is doomed to death can be ransomed or saved but must be put to
death. The Amplified Bible puts notes in
brackets to cover up what this really says.
It would have us believe that the verse is about people doomed to death
because they have committed a capital crime and is saying that you cannot save
a person from it by money in justice.
The verse
afterwards says that all that is offered to God is holy.
I believe that
Leviticus is really permitting human sacrifice here and does not intend the
meaning alleged by the Amplified Bible and the believers.
The context, the
verse before and after, does not mention the death-penalty but what is offered
to God as a sacrifice, not necessarily a dead sacrifice. Sacrifices can be alive when offered and then
killed as blood sacrifices. And it is
certain that the Law sees death as the only suitable fate for such
offerings. The Law makes a difference
between the death penalty and sacrifice because the first is only for those who
have been wicked.
The context is
about holy sacrifices and criminals could hardly be one of these for not all of
them repent.
The sacrifices
will be slaves, children and wives who were thought to be a man’s property.
Ransom means to
buy back. How can you buy back a capital
criminal for he has not been sold?
What
has all this to do with Jack the Ripper?
The
first four Ripper victims made a cross on the map. The religious symbolism indicates the killing
of these women as human sacrifices.
Were
the first four Ripper victims human sacrifices to God? Levy’s surname is in memory of the tribe of
Levi, the priestly tribe of Israel which offered blood sacrifice by cutting the
throats of animals and possibly people.
The Ripper victims had their throats cut.
Leviticus
7:4 demands the mutilation of an animal to get its kidneys. Catherine Eddowes’
kidney was taken.
The
killer took the uterus of Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes. That he didn’t do the same with Nichols or
Kelly indicates that he did not take the uteri to satisfy some perverted sexual
craving or to strike at the seat of life.
He did not take them for trophies.
He took none of Nichols or Kelly away with him. The Kelly murder was his masterpiece in his
twisted mind. That he took nothing
indicates that he didn’t want trophies.
When he took organs it was for some ritualistic purpose – occult or
religious. He probably burned the organs
he took to fulfil the law of sacrifice.
However he believed this was optional due to the circumstances – he was
not a priest acting in the comforts of a distorted legalised parody of
religious freedom - but did it anyway to fulfil the Jewish Law.
The
Ripper cut off Mary Kelly’s breasts and left them on a table. Why go to that trouble when he threw the rest
of her everywhere? Leviticus 9:21 calls
on the priest to take the breasts and use them as a wave offering to the Lord:
“The breasts and the right thigh Aaron waved for a wave offering before the
Lord, as Moses commanded”. The killer
took Kelly’s amputated breasts in his hands reminding us of this. He flayed her right thigh down to the
femur.
The
killings were human sacrifices and also motivated by God’s call to revenge:
“”Rejoice with His people, O you nations, for He avenges the blood of His
servants, and vengeance He inflicts on His foes and clears guilt from the land
of His people” (Deuteronomy 32:43).
There can be no doubt that this is speaking of revenge in all its
ugliness for the nations referred to believed in revenge more than Israel did
though Israel promoted revenge too.
Jacob
Levy was dying of syphilis. He most
probably got it off the prostitutes who frequented his area. He would have seen himself in the role of the
avenger, the man who had the right to kill in revenge without divine or
legitimate civil penalty according to the book of Numbers chapter 35. All prostitutes in his mind were as bad as
each other and spreading death and so they ought to be slain.
It
is possible that because Jews suffered because of Christian anti-Semitic lies
such as the story that Jews murdered Simon of Trent and cut open his abdomen
that the Ripper avenged this slander by killing Christian prostitutes the same
way.
The
surname Levy was related to the Jewish saint Levi who left the Jewish Tribe of
Levi after him. The Tribe of Levi was
the priestly tribe that offered animal and occasionally human sacrifices to God
and perhaps Jacob Levy felt his surname was a call from God for him to
sacrifice prostitutes as if he were one of those priests.
The
Ripper liked to leave clues so was his Jack a hint that he was a Jacob? To take Jac from
Jack and at the K for Kosminsky gives you Jack! Coincidence?
If not then the Ripper did write the Dear Boss letter of October 5th
in which he claimed a religious motivation for the murders.
The Complete Jack the
Ripper discusses the
argument given in Robert Odell’s Jack the
Ripper in Fact and Fiction that the murderer was a Jewish ritual slaughterman or a shochet (pages
156-163). These slaughtermen
cut the throat of animals down to the bone like the Ripper did. But these men according to The Complete Jack the Ripper had much
the same expertise as a trained butcher.
A letter by R Hull dated 8th October 1888 stated that as a
man who worked as a butcher, R Hull, was sure that there was “nothing done to
yet to any of these poor women than an expert butcher could not do almost in
the dark.” He also asserted that the
times it was supposed took for the Ripper to cut the women up should be reduced
to one third of the time supposed for the Ripper as a butcher would have been
able to work fast. He stated that
butchers are good at keeping blood off their person like the Ripper who didn’t
have much blood on him. The shochet idea is possibly true even though the first four
Ripper victims were strangled while the rules required the killing to be done
by cutting the throat. Kelly however was
killed by a cut to the throat suggesting that the Ripper treated her as a shochet would a sheep or a pig. The human sacrifice motivation came to the
fore and was made evident in the Kelly murder.
Being an indoor murder the Ripper was able to keep the rules properly
which he couldn’t have done with the other victims who were killed outdoors.
What burned in Kelly’s
grate?
The
Ripper created a roaring fire in Mary Kelly’s room. Seven hours after he had gone the ashes were
found to be still warm (page 64, The
Complete Jack the Ripper).
Did
he burn his bloodstained clothing? But
he never worried that much about his clothing before. He left the scene of Annie Chapman’s murder
in daylight and a man was seen in a pub soon after with bloodstained
clothes. No evidence of buttons
belonging to a man or zips were found in the ashes. What was found was parts of a woman’s
bonnet. There was no need for a lot of
blood. Just take the coat off. Go and kill the woman. Then put on an apron or take more clothes off
to perform the mutilations. Then wipe
the blood off and put the clothes on over any smears. The woman shouldn’t spout blood when she is
dead. Bloodstained clothes don’t burn –
they smoulder.
The
remains of Mary Kelly lay on the side of the bed next the door. The bed was tight against a partition. It seems that the Ripper climbed over her so
that he knelt between the partition and the body on the bed to perform many of
the mutilations.
Did
he burn clothes in the room for light?
There was a candle there and he didn’t use it. He would have had to cut the clothes up first
and put them on for throwing clothes on a fire can put it out. The Ripper was good at working in the dark
and was always in a hurry when he ripped women up. He didn’t need a fire to see. There was a candle there.
Was
he not afraid of burning the place down or drawing attention by having such a
big fire that late at night? The fire
was started at night for nobody spoke of a great smoke coming out of the
building in daylight.
The
fire was so hot that it melted part of the kettle. Did the fire melt the kettle that night? It probably did for Kelly needed her kettle
and wouldn’t have kept a bad one for long.
She sometimes got money from
Hutchinson which would have gone towards a new one if it had melted some
time before. A good second-hand kettle
would have been easy to come by. Kelly would have lit big fires especially when
she was drunk and during winter.
Whatever caused the heat to be so intense that it could melt the kettle
was nothing ordinary. The killer brought
something flammable into the room that he used – alcohol maybe? Why did he do this?
Whatever
the Ripper burnt could have been evidence of some kind. It would point to his identity if it was
found.
Some
believe the Ripper entered Kelly’s room dressed as a woman to avoid
detection. He burned his female outfit
and dressed as a man to leave. This is
hard to believe. Why not wrap it up and
take it away? Better to go dressed as a
woman and leave dressed as a woman as well.
When
he took the knife away with him why not whatever he was wearing? Her killer was the man she took back and he
was not in disguise as a woman. He had
oilskin like a parcel with him to wrap bloodstained clothes in to take them
away. What did he wear to leave if he didn’t
go out in his bloodstained clothes? Did
he have a change of clothes with him?
The
Ripper had a change of clothes with him.
Because he knew Hutchinson was curious about him and watching he changed
his appearance and burned the clothes that Hutchinson saw him in. Hutchinson saw the face of the Ripper. He probably cut off the buttons and the zips
and took them away with him. The red
handkerchief that he gave Kelly as Hutchinson watched was not found in the
room. Did he burn it? Maybe because Hutchinson did see him give it
to her. If the killer had been another
man he was unlikely to throw her handkerchief on the fire when he didn’t touch
her clothes.
The
Ripper burned the clothes that Hutchinson saw him wearing. There were clothes that belonged to Kelly’s
friends in the room. He burned these
clothes with his own to make sure that all trace of his clothes was gone. This would suggest that the Ripper didn’t
burn his clothes with alcohol or something as some have surmised. It suggests that he was a well-known
face. Why else would he be so afraid
that he could be traced by his clothes.
One more thought, there were no traces of zips or metal buttons that
belonged to male clothes. He cut them
off first.
The
Ripper probably got the fire going so ferociously by burning some of Kelly’s
fat on the fire as a sacrifice.
Leviticus
7 requires that the parts of sacrifices that are not eaten should be burned on
the altar. Did the killer burn some part
of Mary Kelly in the fire he caused in her grate? It would have been impossible to put her all
back together so this was possible. Was her hearth his altar? Probably he burned a little of her fat – no
wonder the fire burned so furiously that it was able to melt the kettle. “And they put the fat upon the breasts, and
Aaron burned the fat upon the altar” (Leviticus 9:20). The killer didn’t burn the breasts for he
knew that it would be hard to burn them no matter how big a fire he created. So he considered himself exempt from this
requirement. The permission to eat the
thigh and the breast given in the Bible couldn’t apply for Jews had an
abhorrence of eating human flesh and eating blood was forbidden. The killer only loosely exercised his grisly
and black priesthood.
The
killer burned clothes on the fire. This
would have filled the room with smoke but not if he burned Kelly’s fat with the
clothes (page 106, The Crimes of Jack the
Ripper). The smoke would have gone
up through the gaps in ceiling into the flat above and disturbed its
occupant. The killer must have planned
beforehand what he was going to do. Only
a butcher would think of something like this.
Only someone that was used to burning rags and rotten entrails with the
help of fat would have got it so right.
It
was a bit strange that the Ripper didn’t burn any of Kelly’s clothes. They were found neatly folded in the room.
Why
did the Ripper not bring a big dark coat to cover his clothes and disguise
himself? Because the papers spoke of
witnesses talking about a man dressed that way.
This may prove that these witnesses did indeed see the Ripper.
The
killer attacked Kelly and gave her the fatal wound. Perhaps, then he changed clothes into ritual
robes and mutilated her as a human sacrifice.
He went into a frenzy and his robes were dirty so he decided to burn
them. She was his offering as a priest
of God. This was the only chance he had
to kill her garbed as a priest. He burned other clothes with the robes to make
sure all trace of the robes was gone.
Did
the killer burn his clothes because he had stolen them? If that was his reason then he knew George
Hutchinson had got a good look at him. And whatever we conclude there can be no
doubt that the killer was the man that Hutchinson watched so closely and the
killer knew that he had better destroy his clothes because of that. His behaviour proves that the Ripper himself
knew that Hutchinson could give a detailed testimony about him so the clothes
had to be reduced to ashes. The Ripper
was also afraid to take his clothes home, this suggests that his family or
friends were keeping an eye on him. He
was afraid to even wrap the clothes up in a parcel and carry them through the
streets.
George
Hutchinson saw the killer carrying a parcel – presumably a change of
clothes. The Ripper having had a change
of clothes shows that he planned to kill Kelly well in advance for he made
preparations.
Last but not least…
Last
but not least, Number 36 Middlesex Street, is what you find along the line if
you draw it from where Catherine Eddowes was killed
and where her apron piece and the chalked message were found in Goulston Street.
Number 36 was the residence of Jacob Levy in 1888. We know the killer was trying to tell us
something by killing according to a pattern on a map. Had this pattern been discerned in time, the
murder of Catherine Eddowes could have been
averted. By then, the killer had struck
at three places and by working it out on a map one could see where the fourth
murder was going to happen. The killer
laughing that nobody had seen the pattern and taunting the police would have
told us where his home was. The line
starts with Eddowes who had symbols that make an M –
M for
The
fact that the street map we have was not meant to be accurate matters not. The killer had this map and treated it as if
it were accurate.
For
the first time since the murders, a suspect with a real case for his guilt has
been named. A suspect has been found
whose likelihood of guilt is far greater than any other Ripper suspect. The close runner-up, Rosyln
D’Onston Stephenson, cannot be proved to have been
right about his claim that the Goulston Street
message was the French word Juives not Juwes for the police missed a dot above the i, He was the first
to suggest a pattern for the killings but his deductions were incorrect. He said some things about the killings that
were found to be correct but he also said things opposite to them as well so
what he got right can be explained by chance.
The Maybrick diary has been proved to have
been a hoax. Patricia Cornwell despite
confidently naming artist Walter Sickert as the
Ripper has imagined the Ripper-like images in his paintings and accused him of
nearly every unsolved bloody murder that took place in England during his
life.
Case Closed
If
the Ripper murders were not solved by the police, that doesn’t prove that they
didn’t know who the Ripper was. It is
possible for even the police to know that somebody is guilty of a crime and be
unable to prove it. And even more so
when you are talking about the nineteenth century! The Ripper murders officially speaking are
unsolved. Unsolved crimes are more than possibilities: they are facts of
life. But for a criminal like Jack the
Ripper to leave no trace of who he was is near-impossible. One of the known 150 plus Ripper suspects was
the Ripper. We can be confident that he
was most likely one of the obscure and most ordinary suspects. Jacob Levy was an ordinary man. He is a suspect that doesn’t appeal to the
sensationalists.
Jack
the Ripper and Jacob Levy were one and the same. Case closed.
Works
Consulted
Internet
Jack
the Ripper Casebook – www.casebook.org
particularly http://www.casebook.org/suspects/jacoblevy.html by Mark King
Books
The
Crimes of Jack the Ripper, Paul Roland, Arcturus Foulsham, 2006
The
True Face of Jack the Ripper, Melvin Harris, Michael O’ Mara Books Limited,
London, 1994
The
Complete Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, Star,
London, 1979
The
Lodger, The Arrest & Escape of Jack the Ripper, Stewart Evans and Paul Gainey, BCA, London, 1995
Portrait
of a Killer, Patricia Cornwell, Little Brown, London, 2002
Jack
the Ripper’s Black Magic Rituals, Ivor Edwards, John
Blake, London, 2003
Jack
the Ripper, Scotland Yard Investigates, Stewart P Evans and Donald Rumbelow, Sutton Publishing, Gloucestershire, 2006
Christianity
for the Tough-Minded, John Warwick Montgomery Editor, Bethany Fellowship Inc,
Jack
the Ripper Whitechapel Map Booklet 1888, Geoff Cooper and Gordon Punter, ripperArt, 2003
Sunday, 30 March 2008