New Jack the Ripper suspect unveiled

[IndianaGreen]

New Jack the Ripper suspect unveiled

By Jerome Taylor

Monday, 5 October 2009

Pinning down the identity of Britain’s most notorious serial killer, Jack the Ripper, has occupied the minds of historians and conspiracy theorists alike for decades. Over the years, enthusiasts have pored over the evidence to draw up a list of potential killers that range from the plausible to the preposterous.

A Russian con-artist, a Polish barber, an Irish-American quack and even the eldest son of Edward VII have all been accused of being the man who, for one summer in 1888, brought terror to the heart of London’s East End before disappearing without a trace.

Now, historian Mei Trow claims to have uncovered another potential suspect, one who fits a modern forensic profile of the killer but has, until now, been overlooked by his fellow “Ripperologists”.

Trow believes mortuary attendant Robert Mann, who lived in the area where the killings took place and had a good knowledge of anatomy, would have been regarded as a prime suspect had the modern profiling techniques of today been available to the Metropolitan Police’s baffled officers at the time.

Using a profile of the Ripper drawn up by the FBI in 1988 to mark the centenary of his killings, Trow began looking for a local suspect who hailed from Whitechapel’s lower social classes, was the victim of a broken home, and was someone who had worked as either a butcher, a mortuary worker or a medical examiner’s assistant. He also used modern geographical profiling techniques that can pinpoint where a suspect might live depending on the nature and location of their killings.

It was while trawling through newspaper cuttings of the inquests into the first two Ripper slayings that Trow stumbled across the testimony of Mann, a former workhouse child who by the time of the slayings was in his fifties and working in a mortuary.

When Polly Nichols, the Ripper’s first confirmed kill, was found dead, her body was taken to a nearby mortuary on what was then Eagle Place. Mann opened the mortuary up and, according to the inquest, undressed the body despite being under strict instructions not touch Nichols. The Ripper’s second victim, Annie Chapman, was also taken to Mann’s morgue, which lay within walking distance of all the murders and had taught him how to wield knives in a surgical manner.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/new-jack-the-ripper-suspect-unveiled-1798095.html

[saracat]

1. I can't remember who it was but didn't Patricia Cornwell

indicate she solved this with DNA from and envelope? And wasn't it a well known writer?

[IndianaGreen]

3. I am sure there is a lot of DNA in any surviving evidence

There was no such thing as a CSI in the days of the Ripper. Preserving the crime scene was not something they were aware of.

[LeftinOH]

6. Patricia Cornwell spent lot$ of her own money to place the blame on Walter Sickert

-a well known painter. She even bought some of his paintings and had some torn up as part of her investigation.

[saracat]

11. Now I remember. He was a painter, not a writer.I read that a long time ago.

[sandnsea]

7. No

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20021122.html

[saracat]

14. Excellent article by Dean. I remember the story know.

[Mist]

9. Cornwell made a case for Walter Sickert, an artist. IIRC, there were many

who criticized her stringing together the evidence to arrive at Sickert as the suspect.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

12. She claimed it was the painter Walter Sickert

There's so much flawed methodology in her case that it's kind of a joke among serious Ripperologists.

The site below pretty much blows her argument to pieces.

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-pamandsickert.html

[msanthrope]

24. Cornwell's Ripper Book proved she couldn't write non-fiction, either.

Seriously, as a true-crime lover who has read lots of Ripper stuff, Cornwell's book was disjointed and incoherent....a joke.

[GTurck]

36. The book...

was "Portrait of a Killer". Cornwell believes that American artist Walter Sickert was Jack The Ripper. She lays out a pretty grim and convincing line of evidence. He was a strange child, a violent and domineering man and many of his pictures of women in odd positions seem to have been done from "Life" drawings of the women who were slain.

[imdjh]

2. One thing we do know (apart from it not mattering at all) is....

that you could drain Loch Ness and scour its bottom with an army of investigators, finding no trace whatsoever of a monster, refill the lake, publish the results, and a week later someone would claim to have seen the monster. Millions of people thousands of miles away, would simply refuse to believe that the lake had been drained.

[IndianaGreen]

4. We do know that Loch Ness was formed after the last Ice Age

which would exclude Nessie from being a dinosaur.

[paulsby]

53. not really

see for example, the celeocanth.

note: i do not believe the loch ness monster exists

[vadawg]

5. dude its not a lake, and the monster is real :)

[imdjh]

17. So is Chessie

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. Cases like Green River and BTK show us that these killers are

rarely some famous person, as so many of the Ripper analyses suggest, and far more likely an ordinary schmoe. I like this theory.

[LeftinOH]

10. One of Obama's ancestors, no doubt. He killed East end prostitutes

to distract several local policemen who would otherwise have been drafted & sent to East Africa (now Kenya) to put down a rebellion in the Obama family village- thereby allowing the Obama family to prosper and produce sons.

[saracat]

16. This response is nominated for stupidest use of a space on a discussion board.

[sakabatou]

29. *face-bludgeon*

[imdjh]

42. Obama's mother's family had already been here for 200 years when this happened.

Stanley Ann Dunham's ancestors were colonial farmers in Maryland. Adrian Gordy (circa 1650 in Somerset Maryland) is the common ancestor he shares with Jimmy Carter (Lillian Gordy Carter).

[ddeclue]

13. Unrecc'd for oh so irrelevant....

[saracat]

15. History is always relevant.

[ddeclue]

25. ehhh not so much when you are talking about unsolved crimes from 100+ years ago.

If they figure out who did it are they going to dig up his dead body and put it in a jail cell?


:shrug:

[msanthrope]

28. Events from 120 years ago tell us about ourselves. Even murders.

If you cannot imagine, at all, what these murders might tell us about the social history of the time, and its relevance to us today, I feel bad for you. Seriously. I used to teach history, and every yer I would get a student that just could not 'get' why learning about things past was important.

[ddeclue]

30. I love history - this isn't history this is trivia.

:P

Now go dig him up and put him in a jail cell for the rest of his um... death...

:rofl:

[msanthrope]

32. The death of women is trivia? It's funny?

Women who were of the underclass, women who had no political power, no voice? They are trivia?

Ironically, and not in a good way, you highlight the class and gender divisions that Shaw wrote about when he decried the murder of these women, and the bungling of the case by upper-class men, who could not see beyond their own prejudices.

If you love history, then it should have been apparent to you that the search for the Ripper is like all historical questions--you may never find the 'truth' but you will find out truths about the lives of the people who lived then, and about yourself.

[saracat]

37. This is exactly the problem with society today. Women are considered

"trivia" and so are our interests and concerns. That is why "choice" isn't considered a major issue.That is why the FOCA Bill can't even get out of committtee and the president doesn't make it a priority.

[imdjh]

18. rec'd for spite

[Lex]

21. 2nd that

:thumbsup:

[msanthrope]

26. I wish I could unrecc posters. Seriously, who are you to decide if this

is relevant or not to "General Discussion?"

I'm sorry you don't take social history seriously, but those of us who appreciate the context of the Ripper killings, the lives and livelihoods of the people of Whitechapel of the late 19th century, do find it relevant.

You might wish to read Shaw's observations on the Ripper killings for an introduction to the class and social ramifications of these murders--I can't imagine that class warfare is not relevant to a political discussion board, but perhaps you have an answer for that.

[ddeclue]

31. I am ME - welcome to democracy.

this is trivia not history and irrelevant to the current political issues of the Democratic Party.

[Lex]

33. you don't get to decide

and that is fortunate for the rest of us

[ddeclue]

46. I certainly DO get to decide what I want to unrec - get over it.

[Lex]

52. of course, but you don't get to decide what is relevant or trivial to DU - get over it

unrec yourself to death for all I care

[ddeclue]

54. I get to decide what I think is relevant or trivial and express that opinion on DU - get over it.

[msanthrope]

34. Crime against women is irrelevant to the current issues of the Democratic Party?

Really?

Murdered women are trivia?

As I reflect back on the 15th anniversary of the passage of VAWA, the social historian in me can recognize that we are still battling against the attitudes that hampered the Ripper investigation, namely, the idea that women who are not societally 'pure' are up for grabs. Look at how we fight against crime directed at women, particularly women of the underclass, and you tell me we've advanced to the point where the Ripper investigation can tell us nothing....

[saracat]

35. And they say there is no misogyny on DU!

[msanthrope]

38. No.. Not at all. Dismissing dead women as trivia should not make live women uncomfortable.

No.

Not at all.

[imdjh]

41. I don't think most people would think of Jack The Ripper as "crimes against women"

.... in the sense of a societal crime. Perhaps that's your point, that they ought to, but it would be betrayed by the fact that we're still talking about someone who in the greater scheme of things was not a spectacular killer.

I frankly have never given much thought to the sex or social class of Ripper's victims, which is odd when you consider that the probable reason he's even still in the social consciousness is because of the speculation that he himself was upper class. From a feminist angle, I'd say that the commonality of his victims was that they were prostitutes and that that is not necessarily misogynist when you consider that if he had killed male prostitutes in that time we might not even know that he had existed.

[ddeclue]

45. This isn't current and very little relevance to modern crimes against women.

Its only interest is prurient and trivial. It is a distraction from real MODERN DAY issues.

[demwing]

51. Then don't read

You've written X amount of posts posting about posts that waste your time. :)

[NoodleyAppendage]

19. Sounds plausible to me. Serial killers often take trophies or return to the scene of the crime.

The ability to admire the handiwork after the killing would be particularly appealing to an erotomanic sociopathic killer.

J

[The Straight Story]

20. It was bush

:)

[thereismore]

22. Rings true to me, but I don't know the details. One question: why did he stop? nt

[Bolo Boffin]

50. Wasn't the last one the most gruesome?

I think it was in a room where the Ripper had plenty of time to indulge whatever desires were driving him. Maybe he was done.

And I say that without knowing anything more about Mann's life than the OP article says. I'm looking forward to the TV special

[IndianaGreen]

23. Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed premieres on Discovery Channel, Sunday 11 October, 9.00pm

We will have to wait and see....

[msanthrope]

27. Thanks--DVR'ed it.... n/t

[BootinUp]

40. Apparently that showing is on the UK channel

not on US Discovery channel. A show on Ardi is scheduled in my area at that time.

http://www.popfi.com/2009/10/05/jack-the-ripper-revealed/

[proteus_lives]

39. Man, people never get tired of this story.

It's amazing how some stuff/events/people imprint themselves so deeply on society.

[BMD]

43. Hmm..

Interesting. I was actually reading up on Jack the Ripper a few days ago. Funny how those things happen.

[mzmolly]

44. I think it was the Polish Barber who had a violent history

toward women.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2879704&mesg_id=2879704

[shadowknows69]

47. Dick Cheney? I know he's old, but wow!

[Bolo Boffin]

48. What an intriguing hypothesis.

The Ripper was killing people, knowing that they would be brought to the mortuary he was working at? I would like to look at the evidence, but it's a fascinating idea.

[Uncle Joe]

49. I wonder if they found any of Mann's correspondence;

which may shed clues?

[mdmc]

55. --