Scotland Yard fights to keep Jack the Ripper files secret

SteveJ

'Scotland Yard is fighting an extraordinary legal battle to withhold 123-year-old secret files which experts believe could finally provide the identity of Jack the Ripper':

Scotland Yard fights to keep Jack the Ripper files secret - Telegraph

Scoreboard Red

Interesting; I was just watching the 1988 Michael Caine mini-series about Jack the Ripper, quite awful acting but decent enough schmaltz.
I've been interested in the Ripper Murders ever since seeing that show as an eight year old when it premiered, have read countless books on the matter.
Still not convinced it was Sickert, the author seemingly convinced herself it was him though.

SteveJ

The notable thing about Sickert (in my opinion) is that there's no record of violence in his life's history at all, SB. Patricia Cornwell desperately wants to believe that he was the killer but it seems incredibly unlikely; her theory is widely discredited and discounted. Still, the union of art and murder is always intriguing.

Another theory which is ridiculed is the author Stephen Knight's notion of a 'Royal cover-up'. Though his evidence is patchy at best, his notorious book makes for a fascinating read, and some of his theories have the ring of, if not genuine truth, plausible credibility:

Jack the Ripper: the Final Solution: Amazon.co.uk: Stephen Knight: Books

Overall though, the Casebook website is extremely informative about the Ripper murders:

Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Main

Scoreboard Red

One of the most interesting aspects I've heard, and I think it was in a Colin/Damon Wilson book, was of a letter from 'an elderly gentleman' living in Melbourne in the 1950's who chronicled his memories living in the East End as a small child in the late 1880's and his father who told him when drunk he was the Ripper and had hidden in a dung-cart to escape capture by a policeman, it wasn't concrete or anything but very interesting what he said about it.

SteveJ

Yeah, there's a number of suggestive Australian leads. One I remember was a document titled The East End Murderer - I Knew Him, which has been searched for many times by experts.

ThatOldRedMagic

I became interested in the case in 1988, the 100th anniversary year. I read every book on the subject, and what is more went to the Public Record Office to view the file on the case, visited the sites of the murders and dug out old maps and records, including Kelly's Directories to see who was living where in the key areas of Whitechapel. The police file that is being withheld is, apparently, an invariable request from nearly every new Home Secretary; they all ask to see it, just for interest's sake.

The most striking thing about the case is that nearly every theory it has ever spawned seeks to portray someone famous or at least highly-placed as the perpetrator: the Duke of Clarence, Sir William Gull (the Queen's physician), John Netley (the Queen's coach-driver), Montagu John Drewitt (a barrister who was part of the Duke of Clarence's wider circle), Walter Sickert (famous artist) etc.

It is never in the interest of any of these writers to consider the most likely scenario: that the murderer was a nobody. It wouldn't sell the books. I came up with my own suspect, and although I say it myself, I feel my theory is at least as likely to be true as anyone else's. I researched it carefully and all the facts fit. Unfortunately it is based on a number of common-sense suppositions, but I still think it holds as much water as any other theory. If anyone is interested I'll put something together.

Hectic

Put it together, I'm interested.

ThatOldRedMagic

OK, here goes. Without reverting to my books I'll just give a general outline, so dates etc won't be quoted (you might tempt me to go back to my sources and put all the detailed stuff in if there's enough interest). Essentially, all five main murder victims lived and operated as prostitutes in one very tiny part of Whitechapel. Not only that, but three of them lived at one time in what was then called Dorset Street (it no longer exists, having been built on as a multi-storey car-park in the 1970s). The other two lived, at the time of the murders, within a few hundred yards of Dorset Street.

The first two supposed victims were killed in locations close to Dorset Street. It is not generally agreed that these were definitely victims of the Ripper. The first of the definite victims - those displaying his characteristic mutilation - was Mary Nicholls, who was killed some distance away from her temporary home in Thrawl Street, a road very close to Dorset Street. The second 'trade-mark' victim, Annie Chapman, was killed in Buck's Lane, not far from Dorset Street. The next occurrence was the famous 'double event'. On the night in question, Elizabeth Stride who lived in Dorset Street, was killed some way off from home, in Berner Street. The murderer was nearly caught in the act, and had to abandon the body before he could inflict his usual mutilation. He appears to have fled, but went west, to the boundary of the City of London, where he murdered Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square. Afterwards, a curious inscription was found written in chalk in the entrance to a block of flats in Goulston Street. A piece of Eddowe's dress was left by the inscription. The drinking fountain in Dorset Street was found to have blood all over it by the police around dawn. Anyone walking from Mitre Square to Dorset Street would probably have gone via Goulston Street. Lastly, his final victim, Mary Jane Kelly, was murdered not in a street, but in her little bed-sit in Miller's Court - an alleyway off Dorset Street. To me, common sense strongly suggested that the murderer lived in or very near Dorset Street.

What was immediately striking was that on the 'double event' night, the murderer, having been surprised in the act, seems to have decided he was going to do his work that night come what may. Fearful of the fact that he had left one woman dead east of Dorset Street, he got himself in the other direction before selecting his victim. What then did he do? He made his way back to Dorset Street, leaving the message in Goulston Street en route, and finally washing the blood from his hands in the fountain in Dorset Street before enering his home. If he had been a single man, living alone, there would have been no need to remove the blood from his hands in the Dorset Street fountain - he could have done it in the privacy of his own home. This made me think he must a) live with others - probably a wife and family, and b) live in Dorset Street - the fountain there was his last chance too get cleaned up before entering his house. I need hardly add that any of the up-market candidates for the ripper put forward would scarcely have lived in such a district as Whitechapel. So why on earth would the Duke of Clarence, Walter Sickert et al proceed from killing Eddowes in Mitre Square, in the City, to such a place as Dorset Street? It is unthinkable: only because he lived in or near Dorset Street would he have gone back in the same direction that led to his first victim of that night. This at a stroke shows all of the efforts to ascribe the perpetrator to a smart individual are flawed; such a person would have gone home in a westerly direction; to the West-End, in fact.

Now, imagine a man who has a compulsive desire to mutilate women. He does it in the dark, because it gives him cover after his work is finished. But darkness involves a deeply unsatisfactory aspect: he is unable to admire his handiwork. This, I would submit m'lud, is what made him decide to murder Mary Jane Kelly in her little bed-sit. Not only could he take his time, but he would be able to see what he had done by better light. What makes me say this? The fact that Kelly had finished for the night; her last client had left her room, and the Ripper later got in and killed her, and lit a fire with her clothes in order to have better light to see his work. We know she had finished and gone to bed because she was found to have undressed and put her clothes away (unlike the prostitute who wanted to go out again and find more custom, who would have left her clothes where she could easily put them back on again.)

Most tellingly, however, as I say, the murderer had gathered up various of bits of random clothing and set fire to it in the fire-grate. Why? Surely so he could inspect and gloat over his grisly work by better light. But this did not satisfy him quite enough. He knew the body would remain undiscovered until morning, so what happened then? At 1045, Thomas Bowyer was sent round to Kelly's bed-sit by his employer, and owner of the house which contained Kelly's ground-floor bed-sit, John McCarthy, to see if he could collect the 2 months outstanding rent for the room. He knocked and getting no reply looked through a smalll side window, which was broken, and saw the body. He went straight back and told his master the news.

McCarthy went with him to Miller's Court and looked through the window. He then instructed Bowyer to go straight to the police station in Commercial Street (ten minutes walk away), but also insisted that he mentioned what he'd found to nobody on the way. It was November 11th and the Lord Mayor's show was scheduled that morning, making sure it took longer than normal to get to Commercial Street because of the crowds. McCarthy followed on later. (crucially important)

When they came back with the police, the door had to be forced. The key had been lost, and Kelly was in the habit of reaching round throught he side window, which was very close to the door, and sliding across the bolt on the inside of the door. McCarthy, as landlord, would have surely known this arrangemnent; he certainly knew the window Kelly used to reach through to the bolt was broken, as he and McCarthy had both looked through it to see the body, and yet he did not volunteer this knowledge to the police. He allowed them to break down the door. Had they known that he'd known how to get in, he might have come under suspicion.

Now - my case. Kelly had gone to bed, and the murderer was either known to her, or knew the arrangement with the bolt and broken window. Probably both. In either case, she either let him in or he let himself in while she slept. John McCarthy ticks all the boxes: he lived in Dorset Street, was landlord for several of the victims, and would have known the property in which Kelly lived intimately. If - as I believe - McCarthy was the Ripper, he would have fulfilled his desire - shown by his lighting a fire in the grate with Kelly's clothing - to see his mutilated victim closely. When he dispatched Bowyer to the police station he would have had an ideal opportunity to let himself into the bed-sit and, er, gloat for a bit. Had anyone come along, he was in the clear; Bowyer was the first to see the body. As to the timing, the Lord Mayor's show provided an ideal cover, almost as if he'd thought about this before hand when planning when to do the murder.

And there I rest my case, gentlemen.

Raees

Fascinating stuff.

ThatOldRedMagic

I feel (re-reading my piece above) that I haven't put sufficient stress on this little matter of the lost key, for I feel it is crucial to understanding my case. Whoever did the murder not only knew how to get in - or at least had the confidence of Kelly, so that she would let him in - but he actually took the trouble to re-bolt the door as he left. It is striking that the murderer not only re-bolted the door, but that he knew the arrangement for doing so through the broken side-window. And any murderer who was going to high-tail it back to some distant home would surely not have bothered - after all, throwing the bolt took a little time and might even have made some sound. McCarthy, however, needed it locked for his escapade he'd planned for the next morning. It was important that Bowyer couldn't get in, so that he, McCarthy, could go round and go throught the charade of peering through the window before sending Bowyer to the police station, giving him his window of opportunity, if I may make so dreadful a pun.

No casual ripper suspect would have known about the lost key and bolt-reached-through-the-broken-side-window routine. McCarthy - the owner of the property - would. In re-locking the bolt after he's done the murder, the ripper provided a big clue. Whoever it was wanted the body undisturbed until morning. And what a 'co-incidence' that McCarthy should send Bowyer round for two month's rent on the very morning of the murder.

Red Defence

It's been a very interesting read has that, but I know little about the Ripper murders so I can't talk about it in any depth.

I have a question or two though if you don't mind....did any of the prostitutes who were murdered ever take customers back to their room?

How long had the door key been missing?

ThatOldRedMagic

Yes. There was a doss-house at number 56 Flower-and-Dean Street (just by Dorset Street) which allowed men and women to sleep together. Mary Ann Nicholls used this. Kelly, of course, had her own room and took clients back to it. The crucial point is that she had finished for the night and undressed and gone to bed, bolting the door (one assumes) from the inside. The ripper either knew how to reach through and unslip the bolt (and must have known the key was missing, otherwise, had the door been locked via a key, unslipping the bolt alone would not have got him in) or, just possibly I suppose, knew her well enough to be let in. She was last observed around 2a.m. and so the latter scenario I feel is unlikely - why should anyone, landlord or not, be let in to to her room at such an hour?

The key had been missing for an indeterminate time. She had originally moved into the bed-sit with a boyfriend that year (1888 of course). Her bed-sit was actually the partitioned-off rear of number 26 Dorset Street, where McCarthy lived. He ran a grocer's shop from the Dorset Street premises.

SteveJ

That strikes me as a sensible and credible theory, ThatOldRedMagic.

Canuckred64

What happened to John McCarthy after Mary Jane Kelly's murder? The murders stopped so if McCarthy was Jack why did he stop killing?

Red Defence

So could it have been a customer of hers who had been taken back to her room occasionally (or just once) who knew the only way to get in was by reaching through the broken window and slipping the bolt? He could have visited her after she had gone to bed and slipped the bolt himself.

The bit about the partitioned off bit of the shop is interesting...was there any access from the shop to the bedsit?

ThatOldRedMagic

Yes, that is an interesting aspect. I'm no criminal psychologist, so cannot comment on the likelihood of serial killers packing their trade in, so to speak. I trawled through Kelly's Directories and discovered that Dorset Street was re-named Duval Street not long after the murders: it had become something of a rubber-necker's paradise; a tourist-site. McCarthy continued to live there for many years. If I remember rightly, until about 1920 in fact. Maybe he stopped once he'd gone through the whole deal. I imagine that seeing the whole deed in all its gory detail, when he'd let himself back into the bed-sit while Thomas Bowyer was en route to the police station, had given him a kind of - is 'closure' the right word? As I say, it's not my field of expertise.

The deed was certainly the most gory of them all. The body was grotesquely mutilated. According to Dr Thomas Bond's notes made at the scene, the whole of the surface of the abdomen and thighs was removed, and the abdominal cavity emptied of its viscera. Both breasts had been cut off and one placed by her right foot, the other beneath her head, along with her kindneys. The face had been hacked beyond all recognition. The flaps of skin from the abdomen and thighs were placed neatly on the bedside table. Her liver had been placed between her feet and her intestines by her right side on the bed. Oh - and there is a police photograph of this taken at the scene. I've got a copy somewhere.

ThatOldRedMagic

There was no access from within. I've just dug out a plan of Miller's Court and the house where McCarthy lived and Kelly's bed-sit. Yes, of course it could have been a client returning. But it's the business of McCarthy's chioce of sending Bowyer round, and then claiming not to know how to get in that I find incredible. He owned the property; it was common knowledge that Kelly had lost the key and he lived just yards away from her door, and would have known about the window and bolt routine. He'd have inspected the flat regularly as all landlords do. Then telling Bowyer to go to the police and mention nothing until he got there - and McCarthy following him to the police station ten minutes later. And the killer's clear desire to see his handiwork by good light - even Inspector Abbeline who was in charge of the case testified that he thought the fire had been lit to throw light on the scene.

It was very likely to have been McCarthy, I feel. And the inscription in Goulston Street intrigues me also. It said:

'The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing'- somewhere in there is John McCarthy's name, or some such clue: he was playing with them by then, I suspect.

ThatOldRedMagic

Well my interest in all this has been re-awakened! I just found this on John McCarthy: Casebook: Jack the Ripper - McCarthy, Kelly and Breezer's Hill

It also appears that he owned a pair of indiarubber-soled shoes - something that caused comment in 1881.

McLovin

You should post more TORM.

ThatOldRedMagic

I've hardly posted in ages. Been finishing my new book (7-days a week, 12 hours a day for months) It's done now and i can relax for a bit.

SteveJ

Ha, I really admire you for that workrate. It takes me about 2-3 hours to write a single paragraph.

Pronewbie

Thank you, ThatOldRedMagic, for your part in making this thread so informative and interesting!

golden_blunder

It strikes me that you know too much ThatOldRedMagic

also you've got the word "Old" in your name

so, just where were you in 1888? Can you account for your whereabouts on those evenings? Hmmmm, i think i've cracked a 123 year old case Sherlock!

SteveJ

ThatOldRedMagic

Nice one!

peterstorey

Cornwell is a self-publicising loon (apart from being an incredibly shit writer). Her main 'evidence' against Sickert, seemed to be that he painted a dingy room in Camden Town which might have been a prostitute's.

ThatOldRedMagic

Is correct.

SteveJ

I agree, Peter. I think the Sickert-as-Ripper theory is just one example of the 'novelisation' of the East End murders, something which is endemic in Ripper research. Elements such as Sickert's (supposed) habit of 'dressing-up', and the so-called clues in his art, are absolutely irresistible to a writer - of fiction or otherwise. And that's apart from the ready-made Romantic backdrop of Victorian London (the fog, the gaslight, the costumes, the clichéd sauciness of the 'unfortunates' etc etc). No wonder there's often a 'narrative' aspect to Ripper research...

peterstorey

There was a BBC programme a few years back that had a suspect who was incarcerated in a prison or mental institution, shortly after the last murder - which would account for them ceasing.

Adzzz

Where did McCarthy get the knowledge of anatomy and surgery necessary to mutilate the bodies as he did?

ThatOldRedMagic

That 'knowledge of anatomy' line is a popular red-herring. A medical expert at the time of one of the inquests first suggested the killer would need medical knowledge. The reality is that once you've opened the body-cavity of any large mammal (if I can put it so coldly) the various bits more or less fall out and a quick cut is all that is needed to separate the various organs. I've done it myself with numerous deer and a few farm animals. People - then more so than now- knew what kidneys and lungs and livers and hearts looked like. They ate offal regularly for one thing.

ThatOldRedMagic

An intersting fact is that a prostitute staying at number 23 Miller's Court - the room directly above Mary Jane Kelly's - was murdered rather horrifically in 1897 (if I remember the year right) and John McCarthy was her landlord. So maybe they didn't entirely stop.

SteveJ

I've often wondered if the victims were murdered elsewhere, then placed outside after mutilation.

ThatOldRedMagic

Spot on.

Adzzz

Yes but didn't he place organs within wombs and other more vile things? This is one of the confusing things right? Plus, you'd have to have experience to do what he did in the dark. I imagine the smell alone would stop you in your tracks so it suggests whoever did it was familiar or experienced. Now if you could find out that he had history as a butcher or something I reckon you'd well be onto something very good indeed.

ThatOldRedMagic

Very doubtful. Two were seen just minutes before their mutilated bodies were discovered. He worked fast did our Jack...

SteveJ

Ah, right. Thanks for the info, mate.

Red Defence

That roughly what I was thinking as I read through it. The butcher bit in particular.

ThatOldRedMagic

I've had to go back to the sources for this, but the police surgeon himself, Dr Thomas Bond, said in his combined report on all five murders that (and I quote) 'in each case the mutilation was inflicted by a person who had no scientific nor anatomical knowledge. In my opinion he does not even possess the technical knowledge of a horse-slaughterer or a butcher or any person accustomed to cutting up dead animals'.

As I say, for some reason the red-herring about medical knowledge has passed into legend. Clearly the police surgeon, who examined the bodies, was under no such misapprehension.

Adzzz

Thanks for taking the time to do that. I think then your theory is very good indeed. As the saying goes the victims always tend to know their murderer, so McCarthy fits this down to the ground presumably.

Only on RedCafe could someone figure out a 123 year old mystery renowned around the world.

Take a bow ThatOldRedMagic.

EDIT: "Knows who Jack the ripper was." Would be a good tagline for him, I reckon.