ripper suspects

[tali122]

i get utterly convinced by every jack the ripper suspect- due to cinema portryal i firmly believed it was sir william gull- and now i find that it is claimed he suffered a stroke during that time period - so now i have doubts - so who is the most likely ripper suspect when all the evidence is weighed up

[southerngirl]

Can't remember the guy's name, but there is quite a lot of evidence pointing towards an American doctor, who went back to the States shortly after the killings stopped.

I'm sure someone else will remember his name, but from everything I've read and seen, I'm convinced it was him!!

[shammydodger]

Southerngirl

I believe you are thinking of Francis Tumblety. He certainly was being actively sought and was tracked across the Atlantic. Then, rather suddenly, the police appear to have dropped their interest in him. I would have to dispute the term "evidence" when relating to him and, indeed, the overwhelming majority of Ripper suspects, contemporary or otherwise. "Supposition" might be a better term.

It's all a bit of a parlour game now. Well, it would be, if mountains of money weren't being made by dodgy books containing dubious "research." My own "likeliest suspect", for what it is worth, is Kosminski, who was one of the 3 men named in an 1894 document, 6 years after the killings were thought to have ceased. One of the senior officers on the case, Donald Swanson, appears to have concurred with this (or, rather, I concur with him) and in the absence of any damning evidence against any other suspect, I would rather go with what the senior officers of the time believed than what someone comes up with 100 years after the fact. Still, each to their own opinion!

[Narolines]

Try looking here: http://www.casebook.org/intro.html
Plenty to read and think about......

[spinchimp]

I think it was an outbreak of hysterical suicides.

[WaldoMcFroog]

Go and read 'From Hell' by Alan Moore (not to be confused with the exrementally dire film of the same name that claims to be based on it whilst completely missing what Moore's actually saying). Not only is it a superbly realised version of the Ripper story, but his extensive notes and reflections on the Ripper story are worth the cover price alone.

The fact is we're unlikely to ever know. If there were a definitive answer it would have come to light. The Ripper is now an industry and every week someone will publish another rehash of the same old facts with some remarkable new insight such as 'Kosminski wore red underpants, therefore he did it'.

[tali122]

now i read that there could be several jack the rippers operating and not one lone individual

[shammydodger]

Like I said, tali, a parlour game. It's a lucrative industry, along the same lines as "Who shot JFK" and "Was Marilyn Monroe murdered?" You can introduce your own suspect, select some "evidence" that fits or, at least, can't be easily refuted, and hey presto, isn't my bank account swelling!

[PurpleParis]

I have done a lot of reserach into this over the years and I too was convinced for a while of Withy Gull's guilt, I am still unsure. He did have a stroke but it I thought it was a minor stroke and not the stroke that eventually killed him. But I think another prime suspect would have to be James Maybrick. He rented a flat in Middlesex Street, this street was the boundary between the Metropolitan police force and the City. He was supposedly 'murdered' by his wife Florence shortly after the murders ceased, I do not think he was murdered by her, he was an arsenic eater anyway, I think he overdosed himself. Or did he??? Did she find out what he had done????

[Kialouanne]

I too believe it was James Maybrick. I also believed Florence knew. Did you know at Florence’s trial the judge basically told the jury to be lenient with her as he believed her to be not-guilty. Florence then done something rare and asked to speak to the judge in private, this wish was granted. Next day the judge was completely different to her and basically told the jury to send her to prison. Did Florence feeling that she had an ally tell the judge of her suspicions about Maybrick and was judged a liar buy the judge? Who knows.

A few years back a diary was uncovered, a diary that has been pronounced a hoax and then renounced as real and then a hoax again and then real again etc. The diary was said to be wrote by the Ripper himself and contained facts that might not have been generally known to the public at the time of writing. Guess where the diary turned up all those years later? With the future generation of Florence Maybrick’s illegitimate son! Circumstantial yes, but these and many other reasons make me believe that James Maybrick either was or thought he was, Jack the Ripper!