UK UK - Jack the Ripper, London 1888, East End, in and around Whitechapel District UNSOLVED

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  • #141
  • #142
Although she most likely wasn't a Ripper victim, I believe it was 125 years ago (1887 November 9) tomorrow that Emily Horsnail was kicked and stomped in London. As I recall, she died the next day as a result.
 
  • #143
Claudette said:
Ok she didn't drink the blood, rumors were she bathed in it. Not sure if it's true or not. Either way, this was one messed up lady and this is what we know about her 400 years later, think about what truths have been lost since then.... http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/bathory/countess_1.html
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The thing about Elizabeth Bathory is that we don't know how much of it is speculation (the bit about bathing in blood is probably false) and how much of it is true. At the time of the trial several witnesses went forth to testify that their female relatives and acquaintances had disappeared and reportedly some men who were sent to her castle found a dying girl and saw her torture chambers. At the same time, Elizabeth's conviction was very politically convenient and many of the people who testified could have been attempting to make sure that they were on the "right side". Maybe she really did all of it but everyone overlooked it until they needed a reason to convict her. Who knows.

On-topic: the fact that they're not releasing the files is really suspicious. Of everyone's ideas here these is my :twocents::

- Ripper tours are a source of money - I don't know if the information they had on file would end the mystery, if they had a sure suspect then they would've arrested him back then. It seems more likely that people would still have to speculate but with more information available to them.

- Incompetence - I don't see this. Maybe the SY made mistakes but everyone is aware that in the 1800s, forensics was hardly what it is today and if they messed up on a case over 100 years ago it doesn't mean they still regularly mess up. I doubt it would have an effect on their image.

- Vanishing files - Yup, this one I can believe. It sucks but unless people had access to those files to begin with nobody would know that anything was missing so they could release what they have.

- Protecting people - Didn't the original article on pg. 1 mention that they were trying to protect informants? Informants wouldn't have been that high-up in Victorian society and whoever they reported wouldn't go after them now. HOWEVER, an important informant could have been someone with ties to high-society, tied in with something that would have been very inconvenient for SY or someone else, or perhaps a relative of someone who is currently important and powerful. If you're a CEO or a politician the last thing you want is to tell the world that your great-great-grandfather was a criminal. If they're trying to protect the identity of the murderer the only way they'd still care is if it's someone linked to an important family, not necessarily the royal family but another upper-class one.
 
  • #144
Continuing with the JtR quasquicentennial, there was the rather nebulous report of the London murder of a woman who supposedly went by the name of Fairy Fay on December 26 of 1887. No official account of the slaying has as yet been found. She was said to have been discovered dying with a spike in her abdomen after she was attacked on her way home from a pub in the East End. The earliest anyone has been able to trace back the name Fairy Fay was to a 1950 news publication. There have been at least four explanations given for the report. They are:

1-The event is totally apocryphal.

2-It is a recounting of the April 1888 murder of Emma Smith and somehow the date got confused.

3-It is an account regarding the attack on Margaret Hames that did occur around Christmas of 1887 but the crime was mistakenly reported as a murder when it was only an assault.

4-Researcher Trevor Bond has found a London hospital record of a Susannah Scanes who was admitted on December 26 of 1887 with a head laceration and who died the same day. Was she Fairy Fay?
 
  • #145
STANDREID said:
Continuing with the JtR quasquicentennial, there was the rather nebulous report of the London murder of a woman who supposedly went by the name of Fairy Fay on December 26 of 1887. No official account of the slaying has as yet been found. She was said to have been discovered dying with a spike in her abdomen after she was attacked on her way home from a pub in the East End. The earliest anyone has been able to trace back the name Fairy Fay was to a 1950 news publication. There have been at least four explanations given for the report. They are:

1-The event is totally apocryphal.

2-It is a recounting of the April 1888 murder of Emma Smith and somehow the date got confused.

3-It is an account regarding the attack on Margaret Hames that did occur around Christmas of 1887 but the crime was mistakenly reported as a murder when it was only an assault.

4-Researcher Trevor Bond has found a London hospital record of a Susannah Scanes who was admitted on December 26 of 1887 with a head laceration and who died the same day. Was she Fairy Fay?
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This is really interesting. I've read about Fairy Fay but I didn't know that the earliest records date back to the 1950s. I wonder if it was reported based on anything published at the time that may be lost to us by now.

Scenario #4 strikes me as a bit of a stretch. Why would the hospital list head laceration in her admission record? I suppose it's possible they didn't list all the injuries but a spike in a patient's abdomen would have been more glaring and more likely to be listed as the cause of admission. They could have mentioned the head laceration if it was determined to be the cause of death but I wonder if autopsies at the time would have been able to determine it to such an extent or if they would even consider it instead of attributing it to the abdominal injury. London was a big city so it is not implausible that two different people could have died from different causes on the same day. Do you know what area the hospital was in? If taken to a hospital, Fairy Fay would have been admitted to an East End hospital - if she was already in critical condition when she was found there would have been no helicopters to take her to a more distant hospital without compromising her safety.
 
  • #146
I believe the earliest mention of a Fairy Fay as a possible Ripper victim was a 1950 October 29 Reynolds News entry by Terence Robertson.

The Susannah Scanes record was in the Royal London Hospital Archives. I don't know if that hospital is in the east end or even if it's a specific hospital. I suppose the archives could be a general record of all London hospitals.

Regarding the discrepancy in the injury reports, it's possible, like you said, that the head injury was listed because it was the actual cause of death. There is just a single line in the archives per patient so there's no room to add many details. It is also possible that the abdominal injury was a false report.
 
  • #147
  • #148
  • #149
February 25 will mark the 125th anniversary of the attack on possible Jack the Ripper Victim Annie Millwood (~38). She was stabbed several times in the lower body and legs by, her account, a strange man with a clasp knife. After about a month she died.
 
  • #150
STANDREID said:
February 25 will mark the 125th anniversary of the attack on possible Jack the Ripper Victim Annie Millwood (~38). She was stabbed several times in the lower body and legs by, her account, a strange man with a clasp knife. After about a month she died.
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Standreid I hope this isnt a stupid question but im curious:If you were a betting person would you put money on one of the known suspects or the Ripper being someone who never made the suspect lists of Ripperoligists and is now lost to history?
(That is if you dont mind saying,feel free to decline.)
I always liked Druitt but he seems to have fallen out of favor with most students of the case as near as I can tell.
How about the Maybrick 'Diary' ?
I have to admit I go back and forth on that though I realize most consider it a hoax.
I would be curious to hear what someone as knowledgable as you might think.
 
  • #151
Hi Kline:

My feeling is that the diary is a hoax.

I would bet that Jack hasn't been named yet although he's probably at least on a census somewhere so he would not exactly be lost to history.
 
  • #152
STANDREID said:
Hi Kline:

My feeling is that the diary is a hoax.

I would bet that Jack hasn't been named yet although he's probably at least on a census somewhere so he would not exactly be lost to history.
Click to expand...
Thanks Standreid.
I agree.
I kind of liken it to the Tate/Labianca murders if Manson had gone undetected.
'Experts' would have alist of high profile suspects as long as your leg each one taking their turn as the in vogue 'favorite' from time to time and new more obscure violent loonys from California in the late 60's(and there was certainly no shortage of those)would continue to be uncovered in the archives.
Then if we were told who was responsible we would all go "Charlie who...???"
I tend to think its probably the same case with 'The Zodiac'.
 
  • #153
As for the 'diary' I tend to think it has to be a hoax...to me the unmistakable 'Novelistic Arch' it has is almost a giveaway....real life doesnt generaly unravel itself in such handy 'Ready For Stage Adaption' begining,middle,end form.
However If it is a hoax I think it has to be a MODERN hoax...I dont believe a hoax writer even as late as the 1920's could have or would have written in such a cold blooded graphic fashion.
Thats why I was surprised it wasnt immediatly proven false due to the physical materials used.
Also the things it choose to emphasize(Trivial stuff that would mean nothing to ost people) and the things it choose to completly ignore(not catering at ALL to the things generations of Ripperoligists would want to know or would batten on)gave it kind of a credibilty to me.
I mean he breezes through(or ignores) in throwaway fashion nearly iconic aspects of some of the main murders then spends pages raving about some obscure lost to history guy who worked in his office.
But at the end of the day I just cant buy someone 'finding' Jack the Ripper's personal Diary.
 
  • #154
April 3 will be the 125th anniversary of the attack on Emma Smith that resulted in her death the following day. She claimed that she was assaulted by a gang that included an individual who appeared to be a teenager. One of the men sexually penetrated her with an unidentified foreign object that resulted in the mortal injury. No evidence was found to confirm her story of the gang attack but it can't be discounted either. Was this a Jack the Ripper murder? If it was a gang attack, was one of the men Jack the Ripper? Most students of the case don't think the Ripper killed Smith but it is the earliest case to be detailed in Scotland Yard's Jack the Ripper file.
 
  • #155
The earliest murder I've heard mentioned within the case was Emma Jackson who was found dead with her throat cut in her room on April 4 of 1863 - 150 years ago Thursday. Emily Dimmock (1907) is the latest murder I've heard anyone try to tie to the case which makes a 44 year span! Almost certainly, neither murder was the work of Jack the Ripper although they are very much alike.
 
  • #156
Wednesday is the quasquicentennial of the murder of Martha Tabram. Her stock seems to go up and down regarding the possibility that she was a Ripper victim. Right now, that stock appears to be on the upswing although I still have my doubts.
 
  • #157
This coming Saturday, 125 years ago, Mary Ann Nichols, the first of Jack the Ripper's canonical victims, was murdered on Bucks Row. Her throat was twice cut deeply back to the spinal column and her abdomen was slashed open. When last seen alive by a friend, she was alone. Two men on their way to work early in the morning found her lying in the street. Rest in peace Polly.
 
  • #158
This coming Sunday morning, it will be 125 years since Jack the Ripper's second believed victim, Annie Chapman, is murdered. If the body count is right, this is when Jack the Ripper became a serial killer.

At dawn, Annie Chapman was found in the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street next to the steps from the back door. She had been seen talking to a man in front of that address about a half hour before her body was discovered. As with the previous victim, her throat was cut deeply from front to back but her abdomen was not just sliced open this time. She was cut fully open and her intestines were wrenched out then thrown over her shoulder. There were also body parts that were removed and taken away by the killer; those being her uterus, the upper part of her vagina, most of the bladder and a flap of skin that included the naval. Two rings she was wearing were also gone. Police now realized that they were dealing with a new type of killer. The man she was seen with was never found and may well have been the murderer.
 
  • #159
Well, this is fortuitous. I was just sitting on my porch, having ciggie and thinking about Jack the Ripper (as one does... :D ) - in particular about Annie Chapman.

With a spare thought for poor Patty Cornwell and her Sickert fixation. The though was - what if Sickert wasn't the Ripper, but had a fair idea who it was...? He wasn't the nicest man, and seemed to get a fair amount of mileage amusing himself with the case. And I can totally see where Patricia could get hooked in to the idea that he had -something- to do with the murders. Frankly, the man makes my hair stand on end, let alone some of his creepy-🤬🤬🤬 art.

However, I don't think he was himself the Ripper. But there's something so smug about him I have to wonder if he knew.. If there was somebody, a confidant, a student, whom he suspected or knew was culpable for at least some of the murders.

Just a passing fancy, from the porch. ;)

Is there a dedicated JtR thread or sub-forum here? I looked back a bit on search, but this was the closest thing to a discussion thread I could find.
 
  • #160
I don't think there's a dedicated general JtR thread here although I don't know why. It's only the biggest case in the history of the world.
 
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