Joseph Silver

[admin tim]

Now here's a new one:



http://images.chron.com/photos/2007/05/02/6112327/311xInlineGallery.jpg



Was pimp the notorious Jack the Ripper?
Parallels found in criminal who terrorized women in South Africa




JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — An eminent South African historian thinks he has stumbled on the identity of Jack the Ripper.
Charles van Onselen said at first he wasn't sure he wanted to publicize the conclusions he drew when he noticed parallels in the century-old, unsolved Ripper case and the background of Joseph Silver, who terrorized women as "King of the Pimps" in Johannesburg.
"I was left with a choice: I have got intelligent speculation, which I think is pretty long way down the track to proving that this guy was the Ripper. Do I include or exclude it?
"If I include it, it buggers up the book and people get excited for the wrong reasons. If I exclude it and a really sharp professional spots it ... I had to explore this possibility," he said.
The publicity around van Onselen's The Fox and The Flies: The World of Joseph Silver, Racketeer and Psychopath, published in April, has made much of Silver being Jack the Ripper, the serial killer who murdered at least five East London prostitutes in 1888.
Reaction from "Ripperologists" has been skeptical as van Onselen makes his case on circumstantial evidence.
Scores of people have been accused of the Ripper murders. Police put the number of likely suspects at just four, among them a poor Whitechapel resident named Kosminski who, like Silver, was a Polish Jew.
Van Onselen thinks Silver fits the psychological profile of the Whitechapel murderer and he places his subject at the center of the scene of the Ripper murders. The evidence that Silver was in Whitechapel at the time of the murders includes the birth of his daughter there.
As pimp and brothel keeper, Silver would have been familiar with the prostitutes working in the area, van Onselen said.
Silver, who was born in Poland, arrived in Johannesburg in 1898 fresh from a stint in Sing Sing for burglary, and a stay in London a decade earlier. In Johannesburg, Silver set up a string of cafes, cigar shops and police-protected brothels.
Silver wrote bold letters to newspapers and had an array of mocking aliases. Ripper taunted police with brazen letters to the papers. Silver was executed as a spy in Poland in 1918.
Van Onselen points to similarities between the subject of his book and the Whitechapel murderer, both psychopaths with a deep hatred of women.
"In terms of a template for this person, in terms of age, personality, mental illness, pattern for rest of life, this is the best fit there has ever been," he said.



Opinions?

[Debbie D]

I would like to read the book first but Amazon says it's not out until September 2007. :mmph:

I wonder if there is any evidence that there were similar killings in the other places he lived??

[Chris G.]

I would like to read the book first but Amazon says it's not out until September 2007. :mmph:

I wonder if there is any evidence that there were similar killings in the other places he lived??

Hello Debbie

This is the real bugbear with any suspect proposed who lived years after the Whitechapel murders, that most such suspects seem devoid of any similar murders elsewhere where the suspect lived for which they might have been responsible. It is the problem with Tumblety and Sickert for example. There might have been throat slashings etc but nothing resembling the unique signature of the Ripper, disembowelment etc, and there are often convicted felons who can be shown to have committed those crimes elsewhere anyway.

It is all very well fishing names out and pushing them forward as likely candidates but why should we believe the candidacy if the author cannot produce similar murders elsewhere? :violin: :gossip:

All my best

Chris

[Debbie D]

There might have been throat slashings etc but nothing resembling the unique signature of the Ripper, disembowelment etc, and there are often convicted felons who can be shown to have committed those crimes elsewhere anyway.Chris

I noticed this too.

I'm a bit of a book worm, and this book is right up my alley as far as crime & history. Maybe by September I will have forgotten about it.;)

[Tom_Wescott]

I've owned the book for a week or more now and have read most of the Ripper stuff. The author is an esteemed historian and just the notes section of his book is 100 pages or more. The case against the suspect is very week indeed, but it's still an exceptional read. Joseph Silver and Charles Le Grand led almost parallel lives, so I'm finding that end of it fascinating.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Stan Russo]

Debbie,

I agree with Chris on a few points, however, I think it must be stated that what he is internally ascribing to is an idea that 'JTR' would not have stopped his murders until he was either incarcerated or dead.

This is a philosophical approach to profiling 'JTR' that not everyone ascribes to. Within this approach, suspects such as Druitt and Edward Buchan become primary suspects while others such as Stephenson and James Kelly become secondary, due to the lack of continuation of such murders while they remained alive afterwards.

I do not know the story of Joseph Silver, yet at face value it would appear that he can be lumped together with Frederick Bailey Deeming and others who have been caught for crimes afterwards, then sugeested as 'JTR'.

Stan

[Chris G.]

Debbie,

I agree with Chris on a few points, however, I think it must be stated that what he is internally ascribing to is an idea that 'JTR' would not have stopped his murders until he was either incarcerated or dead.

This is a philosophical approach to profiling 'JTR' that not everyone ascribes to. Within this approach, suspects such as Druitt and Edward Buchan become primary suspects while others such as Stephenson and James Kelly become secondary, due to the lack of continuation of such murders while they remained alive afterwards.

I do not know the story of Joseph Silver, yet at face value it would appear that he can be lumped together with Frederick Bailey Deeming and others who have been caught for crimes afterwards, then sugeested as 'JTR'.

Stan

Hi Stan

I don't necessarily buy the profilers approach so don't ascribe that to me please. I do think that serial killers can lay low for years or even decades so I don't buy the commonly held view that the Ripper killed and had to keep on killing either. Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, and Dennis Rader, the self-proclaimed "BTK killer" are both examples of serial killers who were able to stop their killing for long periods. However, again, I think that anyone proposing a suspect who lived for decades afterwards has to explain why the suspect only did those Ripper-style murders in London's East End during a very narrow period. Is Joseph Silver's supposed white slavery sufficient to explain why he did the killings in London? Surely the lust to mutilate would have surfaced elsewhere. The Silver candidacy reminds me of the recent proposal of José Rizal, the Filipino doctor who was supposedly doing research in the British Museum in 1888 while, it is claimed, spending his time slaughtering on the streets of Whitechapel. Like Silver, he came to a sticky end some years later.

Chris

[Stan Russo]

Chris,

My apologies, however, the crux of what you are saying within your post describes a philosophical ideal not advocated by all.

I may be misinterpreting, but it came off clearly, from your post, that you ascribe to the ideal that to consider someone a suspect, they had to have continued their murderous ways until incarceration and or death.

In fact, your post continues that line of thinking to include the person from this thread, Joseph Silver.

"Why should we believe their candidacy if the author cannot produce similar murders elsewhere?", sounds like a pretty strong endorsement of that ideal.

Stan

[admin tim]

I scanned through this thing and when I saw that the 'Ripper Letters' figured prominently in the theory I kinda quit reading. :deadhorse:

[Debbie D]

Stan & Chris,

Just to clarify, I don't think that the ripper theory in this book is of any substance, but I would like to have this book as I like reading about crime, evil, etc. I agree with everyone that he is not a likely Ripper candidate.

Seeing as how it is not out until September, it doesn't look like I'll be reading it any time soon.:rant:

[Sam Flynn]

I scanned through this thing and when I saw that the 'Ripper Letters' figured prominently in the theory I kinda quit reading. :deadhorse:
That's a shame, because I doubt very much that van Onselen set out to write a "Ripper" book, and - in the main - the book doesn't really pretend to be one. The Fox and the Flies is overwhelmingly a factual biography of a singular rogue with an unfortunate "Ripper" chapter tagged onto it possibly at the last minute, and probably in an attempt to boost sales. Ignore the Ripper part and read the rest. I'm halfway through and it's good stuff.

[Chris G.]

Stan & Chris,

Just to clarify, I don't think that the ripper theory in this book is of any substance, but I would like to have this book as I like reading about crime, evil, etc. I agree with everyone that he is not a likely Ripper candidate.

Seeing as how it is not out until September, it doesn't look like I'll be reading it any time soon.:rant:

Hi Debbie

Here's an article on the book along with an excerpt both from Random House South Africa:

http://randomhouse-umuzi.book.co.za/2007/04/05/south-african-author-unmasks-jack-the-ripper/

Chris

[How Brown]

Tommy:

If its not too much trouble,please give us some parallels between Silver and Le Grand....if you have time,pal...if you have the time.

Thanks !

[Tom_Wescott]

Well, off the top of my head, both were pimps, brothel managers, woman beaters, who also worked as 'detective's agents' (Silver) or 'private investigators' (Le Grand). Both were involved in white slavery and adopted different aliases all the time, while both maintained a preference for a particular first name (Silver's was Joseph, Le Grand's was Charles). Both had similar facial scarring and Le Grand was likely a boxer in his younger years, just as Silver was. Both traveled through Britain, America, and France. Silver's travels may have been more extensive than Le Grand's, though given the scant info we have on Le Grand, that's impossible to say for sure. I've still not read most of van Onselen's book, so that's all for now. But these were definitely two extremely similar psychopaths. Given their age differences, I'm not suggesting they knew each other, though anything's possible.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[How Brown]

Wow... Thanks for that information Tom...they're almost like twins !

I see Sam Flynn recommends this book...would you,as in another example of Victorian underworld figures?

[Tom_Wescott]

Yes, I'd definitely recommend the book. And I don't believe the Ripper stuff was tagged on at the last minute as some have said. I believe the author is sincere in his beliefs, though I'm not convinced that some of the people he thinks are Joseph Silver under an alias actually are (such as Ripper suspect Joseph Isaacs).

One intriguing connection he made that I don't recall having read before was that soon after the Kelly murder Joseph Isaacs, the watch theif, fell under suspicion and was hunted down. Van Onselen suggests that this man, and not Fleming, was the other 'Joe' that Mary Kelly had recently been fond off and who was "ill-using" her.

Even though Joseph Silver doesn't make the best of Ripper suspects, the books trailing of him through South Africa, England, New York, Bueno Aries, in his pursuit of the white slavery trade, makes for some compelling and disturbing reading. And the author's sources are immense. He's been doing the research for this book since 1978.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Adam Went]

Hi all,

There was a big article about this theory in the newspaper reviews today (I can post up what it says if anyone's interested) and it's definitely an interesting theory. Silver is by far not the worst suspect ever mentioned, although I still don't think he's Jack.

For a start, Silver would have only been 20 (born in 1868) at the time of the murders, which is a bit out of line with with witness descriptions, generally around the late 20's - mid 30's...and what about Mrs. Long's "a man over 40.." ??!! Later on in life he committed burglary and sexual assault - as horrible as those crimes, particularly sexual assault are, that seems a bit backwards on the scale of things - to go from a series of brutal mutilation murders early on in life and then commit burglary and sexual assault later on. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Also, I only have this review to go on so admittedly I don't know the full story, but apparently Silver's daughter was born in London around the of the Whitechapel murders, which is "proof" he was staying there during that time - fair enough, except the murders occurred between August and November, a 3 month period in which he may not have been in the area the whole time.

That's just 2 points - there's several factual errors within this review as well, so it's difficult to judge the book without reading it first. Obviously the author, Charles van Onselen, has worked long and hard at this book and researching the life of Joseph Silver, but to suggest he's Jack the Ripper on the evidence he has is ambitious at best.
He's probably worth some more investigation though...

Cheers,
Adam.

[admin tim]

Was Jack The Ripper A Jew?


http://bp3.blogger.com/_pV56sneYkHA/RjmTV-7dVzI/AAAAAAAAADs/pxKI-kllYyE/s400/Silver.jpgIn the autumn of 1888, a homicidal maniac prowled the gaslit streets of London's Whitechapel district, slaughtering six prostitutes in an increasingly gruesome and bloody manner.

His deadly spree culminated with raving madness in the murder of Mary Jane Kelly, whom the killer virtually dissected in her shabby room in Miller's Court, heaping her body parts all around the room and taking away her sexual organs with him. After this, the killer disappeared into the London fog forever, but he left behind a name which has fascinated and terrified down through the ages--the name of the first recorded serial killer in the modern sense of the term. The name of Jack the Ripper.

His identity may have been accidentally discovered now. And ser-prise, ser-prise, Sergeant Carter--he may have been a Jew.

Yahoo News reports that "An eminent South African historian believes he has stumbled on the identity of Jack the Ripper. Charles van Onselen said at first he wasn't sure he wanted to publicize the conclusions he drew when he noticed parallels in the century-old, unsolved Ripper case and the background of Joseph Silver, who terrorized women as 'King of the Pimps' in Johannesburg....The publicity around van Onselen's The Fox and The Flies: The World of Joseph Silver, Racketeer and Psychopath, published in April, has made much of Silver being Jack the Ripper, the notorious Victorian serial killer who murdered at least five East London prostitutes in 1888." (I make it six; I have always been inclined to give the Ripper Martha Tabram as his first victim.)

Yahoo News goes on: .."Van Onselen, an acclaimed biographer who specializes in South Africa's criminal history and who took nearly three decades to research the book, only makes his Ripper case in the final 25th chapter, written in the last 36 months. While the book has been well-received, reaction from Ripperologists has been skeptical as van Onselen makes his case on circumstantial evidence." (Of course, after 119 years, that's about all the evidence anyone is ever going to find.) "To his doubters the author said: 'How many coincidences do you want to mount up in your mind simultaneously until you start saying this is a real possibility?'"

The Yahoo article summarizes: "Scores of people have been accused of the Ripper murders, but no one has ever been proven guilty and London police put the number of most likely suspects at just four, among them a poor Whitechapel resident named Kosminski who, like Silver, was a Polish Jew. At the time, Londoners speculated the killer was Jewish, leading to fears of an anti-Jewish backlash. Van Onselen believes Silver fits the psychological profile of the Whitechapel murderer and he places his subject at the center of the scene of the Ripper murders. The evidence that Silver was in Whitechapel at the time of the Ripper murders includes the birth of his daughter there, van Onselen said. As pimp and brothel keeper, Silver would have been familiar with the prostitutes working in the area...."

Even in the nineteenth century, organized crime in the Western world was largely the purlieu of the Jew. Yahoo goes on: "Silver, who was born in Poland, arrived in Johannesburg in 1898 fresh from a stint in Sing Sing for burglary and a stay in London a decade earlier. Shortly after arriving in Johannesburg, Silver set up a string of cafes, cigar shops and police-protected brothels. Silver was litigious, wrote bold letters to newspapers and had an array of mocking aliases. Jack the Ripper is believed to have taunted police with brazen letters to the papers. Van Onselen, the son of a detective, tracked Silver across Africa, the Americas and Europe, 'staggered by how mobile this guy was.' In the end, Silver was executed as a spy in Poland in 1918."

Since the new Soviet regime was trying to take over Poland and actually sent an army into Poland commanded by the young Joseph Stalin, and since Soviet Bolshevism was almost entirely Jewish, I think we can imagine who Silver was spying for.

"Van Onselen points to similarities between the subject of his book and the Whitechapel murderer, both psychopaths with a deep hatred of women. Silver had bitter, violent relationships with women all his life. 'In terms of a template for this person, in terms of age, personality, mental illness, pattern for rest of life, this is the best fit there has ever been,' he said."

At the time of the murders in 1888, the East End of London was teeming with Jewish immigrants, and it was clear from the killer's ability to move around in the area while going unnoticed that he was familiar with Whitechapel and the Spitalfields area, and that he was someone who belonged sufficiently so as not to excite suspicion. After the murder of Catherine Eddowes on the night of September 30th, 1888, the Ripper even chalked a mocking message on a wall over a public tap where he washed the blood off his hands and left several bloody rags: "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing." Of course, this could simply mean that the killer was just plain half-educated and almost illiterate--or that English was not his native language.

Finally, the frenzied and bloodthirsty nature of the attacks indicated a kind of ferocity and hatred directed against weaker and highly vulnerable victims which has always been the mark of the Jew down through history, a kind of glory in bloodshed for its own sake which is very Jewish--and five of the six victims were slaughtered kosher-style, with a single powerful slash across the throat, before the killer began his ghastly mutilations. This is another reason why the authorities at the time were suspicious of Jews, and why if through some historical fluke the identity of the Ripper ever does become known, he will more than likely be "of the Mosaic persuasion," as they said back in 1888.

[Adam_Douglas]

I recently checked a book out of the library that pointed to a suspect I have never heard of before... "The Fox and the Flies" - and it fingers a guy called Joseph Silver as the killer.

I was certainly convinced that the young Silver was a deeply disturbed and violent man, certainly capable of murder and brutal violence.

He was a Polish Jew, and in appearance and age at the times of the crime seems to fit with some witness statements (but not others - but as the statements differ so much no suspect could fit them all)

I didnt read the whole book (as I had to check it back into library) but I read the chapter suggesting that Silver was the the Whitechapel murderer. Unfortunately there doesnt seem to be any strong evidence to sustain the accusation, and more critically (unlike for example Bury)

I only read one chapter, and after looking at a summary of the whole theory on another website I read that the author didnt definitely prove even Silver was in London in 1888.

If THAT could be proved however, he certainly is a stronger suspect to me than many.

A man who has proven links to prostitution.
A man, who at that time in his life matched the pyschological profile we would expect of the killer in some ways - petty crime, age, alleged locatility, social class.
A Polish Jew (many police said that the leading suspect was a Polish Jew, and many of the witness statements and contemporary speak of Jewish suspects - although this could be motivated by anti-semitism)
A man who certainly had knowledge of the Old Testament (as some believe that the manner in which some of the women were killed and displayed may reflect to a passage of the Torah)
A man who from future evidence could certainly be said to be violent, deeply disturbed, and to enjoy power games. A man certainly capable of murder.

____

Against Silver:

The evidence (certainly I have read) is mostly of the type to say "he is the kind of man capable of these crimes.

He lived for a long time after the crimes appeared to end (he moved away perhaps, but my feeling is that - while some killers may stop or have long gaps between murders - the regularity (and the horrific mutilation of the last victim) of the murders in 1888 show a creschendo of violence which surely could only end in the death or incapacity of the killer.

There are a great many other people of known violence who could just as easily be "the kind of man capable of these murders"

...

I would like to buy the book and read the whole thing and may well do so after next pay day.

To me, while I cant yet say that Silver is a strong candidate - we can say that a Polish Jew matching the description of some witness statements, who was known to be violent, brutal, to exploit women, to be linked to crime and prostitution, IF he can be proven to have been in London at the time of the murders seems to be a far better candidate to me than the likes of Sickert, the son of the Prince of Wales, William Gull, etc...

[How Brown]

Dear Adam:

Thanks for the overview of the book on Silver. I haven't purchased that one yet,nor read it.

By all means, if you were considering doing a review of the book... something that brings up his behavior with women and prostitutes in particular...and his location on the evenings in question, please do so.
Thanks again.

[Adam_Douglas]

I'm gonna get a copy after pay day, and they'll I'll be able to give a version of the full story!

[Mike Covell]

It's not a bad book, well researched, well referenced and well written but the whole Silver as JTR seem's a little tacked on at the end. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book, but it, like many others, offers no real facts into why Silver was Jack.

Worth getting though.

[How Brown]

Doylestown (Pa) Intelligencer
May 3,2007
*********

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[JTRSickert]

In my opinion, just another candidate for the alleged "Polish Jew" suspect theory. First came the Jack Pizer/Leather Apron, then Aaron Kosminski, then "David Cohen", and now, Mr. Silver.

That being said, I've never been fully convinced that John Pizer was the the infamous "Leather Apron" of legend in Whitechapel, since we really only have Sargeant Thicke's testimony to corroborate it. And, since Joe Silver was described as the so-called "king of Pimps" who terrorized women in South Africa, if it could be proved that he was in London shortly before the murders, then there might be a connection between himself and the "Leather Apron" scare going around the Whitechapel neighborhood; and that is only if there can be definitive evidence if Silver was n London, which there isn't ane even if there was, that may lead to a connection to only the "Leather Apron" legend...not necessarily the Ripper.