Whatever Happened To Jack The Ripper ? Death

[How Brown]

Thread devoted to the concept that sometime shortly after the last murder found in the files labeled as Whitechapel Murders....or even before the files closed in 1892....that the killer died from one cause or another.

The thread's focus will be on why you, Forums member and researcher, feel that there was, with the exception of Sir Robert Anderson, no closure to the Case. Obviously, Kozminski adherents will feel otherwise and Druittists as well.

Its not necessary to elaborate....but it would be gratifying to see Ripperologists, such as yourself, share your rendition of events should you feel he did die before he got the necktie party he so richly deserved.

[Magpie]

Hi How--interesting set of discussions, but I notice one possibility that is absent--that Jack laid low for a while and then started killing again with a change in location, method and/or victim that obsured the fact that he was still active....

[How Brown]

Mag:

Point taken and one I will remedy now. Thanks for that,sor.

[Nemo]

If the Ripper did die shortly after his last crime, thus ending his career, then we can probably include him in one of the following...

1. He died at work

Many lethal dangers existed for the working man in the LVP. Likely to be reported in the press

2. He died in an accident

Run over, drowned etc Likely to be reported in the press

3. He died of illness / disease

This may include an extended period of illness / hospitilisation. Probably no press report other than as a statistic

4. He committed suicide

Don't believe the psychologists who state that a serial killer would not commit suicide. He may have been pushed toward this action by the belief that arrest was imminent for example. This would probably be reported in the press if his body was found

5. He was murdered

He could have died in a robbery for example, or killed by someone who knew he was the Ripper for that reason. Probably in the press if his body was found

His death may not even appear in official records or even have occurred in England

If he died as a pauper there was a good chance that his body would be submitted to the physiologists / anatomists for (very fittingly) dissection

[Nemo]

I suppose within the work or accident related solution, we should include serious maiming, such as losing a leg or a hand...

[String]

If we assume the ripper was poor, I know a lot don't.
My favourite is illness just because it was so prevalent then and medical knowledge and availability was poor.
The accident option is appealing as a lot of people put this character in the slaughter business and certainly in the menial work bracket.
But my vote goes for dying soon after the killings for whatever reason.

[Magpie]

It's possible that Mary Kelly killed him too--even the slightest nick of his own knife while cavorting in Kelly's innards would have virtually guaranteed infection, blood poisoning and likely death....

[Nemo]

Hi Magpie

I was going to mention that in regard to Eddowes...

[How Brown]

Re infection as possible cause of death:

IF....the knife opened his skin and some of the awful offal from Catherine Eddowes ( ever consider the possibility that three weeks before, that this might have happened when he was eviscerating Mrs. Chapman ?) got into his system, he would have wound up dead in a very short span of time.

I know about infections, first hand,and would have, not could have,died, if I had had that same infection in 1888 within 10 days maximum. I asked that question to the doctor in the recovery room in 2006 and that was his response.

I also contracted lead poison in 1973 and came close to kickin' the bucket then...saved due to drugs that didn't exist in 1888. This isn't important,of course, in regard to the Ripper because lead wasn't what might have got into his system....but it is important for one reason, and that being I did not know I had had my skin punctured for the lead to get in my system and as a result, it didn't take that much in 1973 or 2006 to find me nearly knock knock knockin' on Hell's Door. All it took was a eensy schmeensy bit of bacteria and lead.

[Nemo]

Glad you're still here Howard

Septicaemia is a very likely scenario I think - almost probable

The infection / disease scenario might also apply to the blotches on the face of the suspect in the Kelly murder (and other mentions of suspects with a blotchy complexion)

There could be a number of reasons for this blotchiness - Infectious disease may be unlikely though, as I doubt Kelly would invite him home- unless he was a really good friend and / or she knew him as "harmless"

Besides birthmarks, what are the non-infectious alternatives for Blotchy's malady?

[Magpie]

I think I might have suggested some time ago that just such an infection might account for the absence of Ripper crimes in October.

[How Brown]

Mag:

Yes, you did mention that around two years ago . I dismember that.

Nemo

Septicemia or even gas gangrene...the latter is what I was really worried about back then.

By the way, I ain't alive old friend...I just ain't dead.

[Magpie]

I know about infections, first hand,and would have, not could have,died, if I had had that same infection in 1888 within 10 days maximum. I asked that question to the doctor in the recovery room in 2006 and that was his response.



I remember that--ouch.

I had something similar--the ER doctor told me I was hours away from it going from a nasty infection to full-on flesh-eating disease--all from something than started out looking like a zit.

[How Brown]

Buddy...Mag...you had a case of the fair to middlin' Creepin' Gleet.

I have a cure for that.

Kiss this four times a day....http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/Photo%20Thanksgiving/gleet.jpg......... and it will heal up. I swear to God it will,my man !

[Nemo]

Funny you mentioned gangrene Howard, I was just reading that a person with gangrene in the body often has a red face - If Magpie is correct about an injury and infection during October, he may have had such signs evident in November

Howard - you should hope that she never visits these boards - lol

[Caroline Morris]

Excessive alcohol and/or drug use could account for a blotchy complexion. And many a modern serial killer goes out to do his thing while high on both.

Would Jack not have been in a seriously weakened state by November, if he'd got blood poisoning from Kate?

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris G.]

Funny you mentioned gangrene Howard, I was just reading that a person with gangrene in the body often has a red face - If Magpie is correct about an injury and infection during October, he may have had such signs evident in November

Howard - you should hope that she never visits these boards - lol

Excessive alcohol and/or drug use could account for a blotchy complexion. And many a modern serial killer goes out to do his thing while high on both.

Would Jack not have been in a seriously weakened state by November, if he'd got blood poisoning from Kate?

Love,

Caz
X

Lots of imaginination being expressed here. However, how about if blotchy face was just a customer of Mary Jane's and Jack came along later? The red face might be explained by having an outdoors job and being exposed to the elements -- a job as a sailor, for example.

C

[Nemo]

I think John Cleary / Arnold had a red face due to a boil

I suppose many people would have spots and the like at the time, though "spotty" might apply

If he had red cheeks or similar from being outdoors a lot, he might be described as "ruddy"

Flushed would also be a description of a red face, possibly "bloodshot" or similar

Having a "blotchy complexion" refers to something else I think

It implies a patchy appearance, not just a red face

How much notice would have been taken of such a countenance in regard to the man possibly having a contagious disease?

ie You would think the people in general would have been expert at spotting someone with the syph, TB or similar in order to protect themselves and their household

[SirRobertAnderson]

Would Jack not have been in a seriously weakened state by November, if he'd got blood poisoning from Kate?

Septicemia would have killed him in short order, no question.

So if he cut himself butchering Eddowes, we have to eliminate him as a suspect for Kelly. Of course, that would suit some theorists just fine.

However, if he slipped up in Millers Court, well then we have a tidy answer for why the killings stopped.

Personally, I am at serious risk while cutting my morning bagel, and I've had some training with knives. I have no idea how Jack avoided injury in Mitre Square, especially since visiting it in the wee hours during the Conference. And I would imagine there is a heck of a lot more ambient light nowadays then in 1888.

[How Brown]

Just to echo Bob's comments, people might not give it much mind, but its incredibly easy to become infected and its impossible to adjust to...because it will kill you. You can't be half-pregnant and you can't be half-infected and live with what he'd have come into contact with.

Thats yet another scenario worth considering ( It seems that most of the time when we all get together to discuss a possible infection as a result of Jack's work at a site, we inevitably settle on Eddowes )....that he got nicked in Miller's Court.

Briefly, since I've had two serious infections, the first three days for an infected Jack would have have been a gradual problem for him to use his arms, since if he did get nicked and infected, it entered his hands. His hands would start to enlarge and the fingers, by becoming closer to each other, would become like one big mitten.

He'd have a high fever and probably what I had, an inordinate thirst.
4th day, he'd likely start hallucinating. 5th day, probable death.

I'd rather have a broken arm for a year than septicemia again for 3 days. Its that bad.

[SirRobertAnderson]

J

Thats yet another scenario worth considering ( It seems that most of the time when we all get together to discuss a possible infection as a result of Jack's work at a site, we inevitably settle on Eddowes )....that he got nicked in Miller's Court.


It might explain the fire. Jack starts to get down to business, nicks himself, and figures if he's really going to go to town, he'd better have some light.

[How Brown]

Not so sure that the thought of becoming infected would have crossed his mind, Bob....since people handle waste material everyday without giving a second thought to contracting infection. We also clean ourselves without considering infecting ourselves through an opening in our skin....trust me.:whistle:

I was referring, of course, to the millions upon millions of mothers who change their children's diapers numerous times a day. I never saw a woman change a diaper with a glove on.

Contracting infection by way of body material for whatever reason isn't such a high concern. Nurses I met who had to come attend to me told me a few ways people contracted infections that you wouldn't think of. One was via the nose with body material. 'Nuff said.

[Adam Went]

Dettol didn't exist in 1888, then?

Cheers,
Adam. ;-)

[How Brown]

A soap like Dettol ( I know you were kidding buddy...) couldn't do jackshit towards preventing an infection once the material hits the blood stream.

I took a very highest powered non-Penicillic drug known as clyndomycine to fight the 2006 infection and it didn't faze it. It caused severe diarrhea like Biaxin does, but thats about it when an infection settles in.

[Adam Went]

It would be interesting to find out what the normal treatments were for infections in 1888. I imagine they would have been a lot more deadly then than they are now.

Perhaps JTR took a "break" in October because he was receiving treatment for an infection/other illness? I know this has been brought up before.

Cheers,
Adam.

[How Brown]

AW:

Its amazing to me that we see people walking around after having their hands cut off or arms severed in industrial accidents....but a simple slash on the wrist (longitudinally, not necessarily laterally) will usually result in someone bleeding to death. No reason for mentioning that, its just that Adam reminded me of something along those lines. Useless Fact # 2,000,000.

I would think amputation and blood letting were tried, but like syphilis in 1888...there was no remedy to successfully combat blood infections like septicemia.

In short, AW...had he contracted septicemia, he would have died. No two ways about it.

[SirRobertAnderson]

Not so sure that the thought of becoming infected would have crossed his mind, Bob....

Actually, I was just thinking along the simple lines of "Damn, I need some light to avoid cutting myself again."

It has the twin advantages of explaining the fire and the cessation after Kelly.

If it was a really nasty cut he might have tried to cauterize it.

Just throwing some ideas out there.

[Adam Went]

Maybe, just maybe....JTR cut himself while mutilating Catherine Eddowes, and he tore off the piece of apron to use as a kind of temporary bandage to stem the bleeding. Perhaps it was Jack's blood on the apron, not just Cathy's.

As a project, it might be an interesting idea to see how many names could be dug up in hospital records and what not of men from the East End in their 20's or 30's who died due to septicemia in November - December 1888, and see if any of them could be a potential suspect?

Cheers,
Adam.

[How Brown]

Bob:

Keep tossin' those ideas out by all means because its quite possible that the reason the Ripper ceased was a result of an infection..

I just felt at the time I posted that response, that while in the midst of cutting her into chunks, any slight injury he may have sustained wouldn't register with him....probably afterwards, but not during the actual mutilation.

By all means, Bob....its possible that what you said could be true.

[How Brown]

AW:

It would be a nice thing if such a project could be undertaken.

I'd be interested...right off the bat...in the London Hospital because of its proximity to the crimes...and may have been the "locals" first selection. I understand ( without the actual source at hand) that treatment was not exorbitant in cost and that the LH might have been a natural choice due to the lower costs. Again, I am working from memory and I might be only near the facts and not definitive.

[Adam Went]

I guess the question then is, how complete are the records of the London Hospital that remain today?
It's always possible that if JTR did go there for treatment, to avoid bringing suspicion on himself, he gave a false name, false address, false age, false reason for the injury - which makes it almost impossible to uncover the truth, but then again, we just might get lucky with an investigation like that.

I've just considered one other point though, and that is it seems unlikely that if JTR did injure himself during a murder, that it was a serious injury. In all the murders there appeared to be no trail of blood leading away from the murder site - it was largely for this very reason that the idea the victims were killed elsewhere and then dumped was given little value. If JTR had seriously injured himself, and was bleeding, you would think there would be a trail of blood. So based on that, I'd say he either didn't injure himself at all, or if he did, it was fairly minor.

Cheers,
Adam.

[How Brown]

AW:

If they have registers ( Mike Covell may be the best to ask...or Rob Clack and Monty...) of patients which Mike has seen and so have those two guys, with the complaints listed...anyone entering with an infection might be listed....but they may not or will not appear on the list of outpatients, since blood diseases were fatal if involving what we think it involved.

Maybe the bastard got lucky and he didn't get infected although he got cut. If I had a dollar for everytime I got cut in one way or the other, I could buy a friggin' Maserati. Yet, I've only had two major infections, one from a cause that I learned about and the other, I am not certain of.

[Adam Went]

How:

If they aren't on the outpatients because they died from the infection, then there should still be death certificates in existence. The problem, I think, might not be the lack of records, but as I mentioned in my last post, how common it was for people to give false names and addresses back then. A man as cunning as JTR surely would have done the same, so we'd be basing it solely on what the admittance was for, how long it lasted, a description of the patient, and so forth.

If he did get cut, it's not just an infection to worry about, there's also tetanus....these days we have vaccinations for it, but I'm not sure if they would have existed in 1888. He may have been lucky enough to avoid infection if he immediately bandaged it up, and left it covered until the gash had healed.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Sam Flynn]

These are the data for all male admissions to the Whitechapel Infirmary, relating to bacterial infections, from 1st October 1888 onwards:

http://www.btinternet.com/%7Egareth.h.williams/images/bacterial-admissions.JPG

Sorry if the font's a bit small, but I had to keep the image to a reasonable size.

[Nemo]

Nice post Sam

Isn't the supposition that he died though?

"Cured" doesn't really tell us anything

As shown by Sam's table, a visit to the hospital would have sorted him out for a "poisoned hand"

Is there a table of patients that died during treatment?

[How Brown]

Exactly the sort of list that we need Sam. Very nice of you to go to the trouble,old pal.

Let me ask this, as Nemo suggests it too....these "bacterial infections" listed would encompass which sort of infections, surely not septicemic ?

Thanks very much again.

[Sam Flynn]

Isn't the supposition that he died though? "Cured" doesn't really tell us anything

As shown by Sam's table, a visit to the hospital would have sorted him out for a "poisoned hand"

Is there a table of patients that died during treatment?
Deaths from 9th November onwards:

http://www.btinternet.com/%7Egareth.h.williams/images/infirmary-deaths.JPG

I should point out that the left-hand column ("Date") refers to the Date of Admission to the Infirmary.

[Sam Flynn]

Exactly the sort of list that we need Sam. Very nice of you to go to the trouble,old pal.

Let me ask this, as Nemo suggests it too....these "bacterial infections" listed would encompass which sort of infections, surely not septicemic ?
I categorised them myself, How, for my own delectation. And - yes - septicaemia would be covered under the "bacterial infection" category.

[How Brown]

Sam:

Without pencillin, how could septicemia be treated and eliminated ?

[Nemo]

Thanks Sam

It must be that Frank Kelly from Thrawl St...

[How Brown]

Sam:

Either the nurse who told me that septicemia...or the type I had and to the extent I had ( Being a hardhead, I waited 5 days after the initial symptom appeared to get treated ) was untreatable in the 1880's was mistaken, or I spoke out of turn on this disease. I know she told me that because I personally made a point of bombarding the medical people with questions on the Case while in one of those jazzy backless gowns.

I stole this from a website on the illness:
*******************************

Septicemia, sometimes referred to as bacteremia, is a syndrome that results from an acute invasion of the bloodstream by certain microorganisms or their toxic products.


Description of Sepsis - Septicemia

Any pathogenic organism can cause septicemia and septic shock. Septic shock is most commonly caused by gram-negative bacteria. Staphylococci, streptococci and other gram-positive organisms are less frequent, as are fungi and certain rare viruses.


Fever, chills, tachycardia (http://www.healthscout.com/ency/68/729/main.html) (rapid heart beat), and tachypnea (rapid respirations) are common acute symptoms of septicemia. When hypotension (low blood pressure (http://www.healthscout.com/ency/68/74/main.html)) and signs of inadequate organ perfusion develop, the condition is termed septic shock.
Unfortunately, with the spread of the microorganisms, the tissue injury and the development of organ failure, septic shock has a mortality rate as high as 40 to 60 percent in patients with severe underlying disease (immunosuppression). In patients with no underlying disease, the mortality rate is about 5 percent.

[How Brown]

Nah, Neems...he didn't have balls.
Just one and it was so swollen, it up and kilt him.

[Adam Went]

Well that research turned out to be surprisingly easy! Haha. Thanks, Sam.

Doesn't look like too many of those people fit the bill....John Monckton sounds promising, until you see he wasn't discharged until well after the MJK murder.

Might have to label this one, further investigations required!

Cheers,
Adam.