The Focus Of The Police in 1888-1891

[Howard Brown]

........but one of my contentions is that the police approach was wrongheaded to begin with, that is, they were looking for a homicidal maniac, a certifiable individual.........

Words uttered by Chris George over on the Messrs Begg & Fido on SRA thread.

Throughout our study of the Case, we've seen a few Ripperologists suggest, even more emphatically than Chris does in his statement above....that the Police were on the wrong track because they were focused on a Jew or some "outsider", one not native to Britain, as being the Whitechapel Murderer.

Question:

What sort of individual do you feel the police (Not the rank and file citizen) were more focused on ?
Do you even think that the police were focused on one sort of individual ?

Where is the correlation between men being arrested who were not Jews,not lunatics, and guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the right time to be arrested ?

I'd have to differ with all due respect that the police were focused on one specific "type". Men with black bags were known to have been questioned, men with slouch hats, etc.

Back to you...

[Adam Went]

Chris George is just about spot on, IMO. It was generally felt that this could only be the work of a madman, somebody they expected to find completely out of touch with reality, somebody who should stand out simply because of his appearance of madness. This is backed up by the statements and suspects of some of the leading police officers of the day - look at the thoughts on Aaron Kosminski, just as one example.

While 120 years of experience allows us to know that probably the exact opposite was the case of the killer, that would have been the man they felt they were most likely to find. That "Average next door neighbour Joe" would turn out to be the killer was probably not an eventuality that was really given any serious consideration.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Howard Brown]

AW:
Thanks for getting the ball rolling.

I have to disagree that the police in the field followed a strict protocol of hunting down "crazy men" or "fishy looking Jews", when we know they brought in all sorts of gents...
But you are correct that the police officials back at HQ theorized some madman was carving up the scenery.

[Cris Malone]

Thanks for starting this thread How. I was getting the feeling that both Chris and myself were getting out of the parameters of the original thread but the discussion was interesting non-the-less.

Your last post hits the nail on the head. The guys on the ground were operating in an investigative manner (which indeed they should). In other words, following up leads from citizens, for the most part -i.e- witness descriptions, suspicious neighbors- etc. They even listened to the press to a certain extent ( Swanson mentions checking out the Wild West Show workers) But the men at the top were putting together a profile, if you will, which was more general. They do it the same way today (with a little more technology and a better understanding of criminal nature.)

After the murders were over, and no one apprehended, they were left with the suspects under surveillence or suspicion as the witness sightings and reports of suspicious persons had started to dry up. ( and the Buffalo Bill people had gone home LOL) A list of these individuals were compiled over the next couple of years and they were all "homicidal maniacs" of some degree. But we now know that "women haters' and 'self abusers' or 'suicides' are poor barometers to measure a serial killer. God bless them, they didn't know it. They were treading on new ground here and I will still say that the police by-and-large should be commended for their efforts. They had other clues, no doubt, of which now, we are not privy to. But because the various senior officials came to different conclusions, nothing obviously was concrete.

Lets back up a little... as an example of who the police were looking for. Let's say that Chapman was the last victim... for a minute. Well we know that they had already considered a lunatic with some medical experience because Warren submitted three names (early MM?) to the Home Office in September to give them a progress report. ( Anderson was still yodeling in the Alps I guess).

This is from Warren's report on the 19th of Sept. 1888, after explaining that 'they were on the job', he offers 3 suspects or leads.

1. The lunatic Isensmith; a Swiss arrested at Holloway who is now in an asylum at Bow...
2. A man called Puckeridge was released from an asylum on 4th of August. He was educated as a surgeon and has threatened to rip people up with a long knife...
3. A brothel keeper... writes to say that a man living in her house was seen with blood on him the morning of the murder...
... the first seems a very suspicious case, but the man is at present a violent lunatic.

Of course, Warren's first man was Jacob Isenschmid; but the point being is that they were already developing a profile of a 'lunatic'; albeit with 'anatomical knowledge' because of Phillips' assumption. Now if there had been no more murders, and some 'ripperologist' latched onto any of these suspects, they would have likely condemed an innocent man.

Now, fast forward to Kelly's murder. Anderson has finally taken over the case and he calls Dr. Bond in to make a 'profile'. As Anderson states, the house to house search, following the 'double event' leads him to suspect a Jew that his family or friends are hiding. Unlike Chapman, Kelly is ripped to shreds and Bond tells Anderson that, despite Phillips' earlier assumtion, the killer possesed no knowledge whatsoever. This doen't dismiss entirely the medical aspect for some- i.e- Macnaghten- but it opens the door to any 'nutcase' now. For a while, the guys on the ground are still bringing in civillian generated suspects. A fellow fitting Hutchinson's description is arrested in December. Asylum records are still being searched and detectives are watching potential 'homicidal maniacs'- several it seems. An ID that wasn't an ID is made on somebody ( Kosminsky) and he and others are trailed until they are finally 'safely caged in an asylum'.

There are still other murders after Kelly. ( Mylett, McKenzie and Coles) but ain't it strange how Anderson reacts to them... Well, that's another thread. Anyway, the murders are over in Anderson's and Macnaghten's minds and the investigation centers around the 'homicidal maniacs'. At first, no one declares a 'definitely ascertainable fact'... But the press keeps asking questions... And as the Ripper killings gain historical notoriety the players involved are asked to offer their opinions. Whether they didn't give the murders much priority when they actually happened ( Anderson) or they were led to believe their two cents worth was important ( Macnaghten- via Simms) they started to become more concrete in their chosen suspects; despite the flaws that are apparent in their knowledge of the individuals they chose.

Macnaghten picks Druitt because he thought he was a doctor that commited suicide after Kelly and the family suspected him. Anderson evidently picks Kosminsky because of the ID that wasn't an ID, but a fellow Jew didn't want to send his own kind to the gallows. Littlechild brings up a woman hater (Tumbelty). Even Abberline picks Chapman, posthumously... which, considering the role he played in all of this should tell us something. Moore picks a foreign sailor and Sir Henry Smith ( who should have known about any suspect involved in a City CID surveillence) says they never knew who he was.

If their ideas about a 'woman hating' 'self abusing' 'homicidal maniac' were correct, or if one of them possesed real knowledge that we are no longer privy to, then one of them may have pegged 'Jack the Ripper'. But, considering what we now know about serial killers and the fact that their information and assertions were flawed... well, there you go. There 'ain't no pet suspect' here or a sensational conspiracy/coverup involving Fenians, spys or the police (except Anderson, alone, trying to cover his butt... maybe).

And I have just given the jest of an essay I was working on , but since this post is long and... what does a hillbilly from Tennessee know anyway. I reckon I'm safe.

[Paul]

I have to disagree that the police in the field followed a strict protocol of hunting down "crazy men" or "fishy looking Jews", when we know they brought in all sorts of gents...
But you are correct that the police officials back at HQ theorized some madman was carving up the scenery.

Hi Howard,
I agree.

Taking one case in isolation and basing generalisations thereon isn’t really a good idea, so citing a few memos relating to the Ripper investigation does not necessarily give us an accurate reflection of police knowledge and understanding at the time, especially when the official documents have been so severely culled that we don’t really know what advice was sought, what advice was given, or what discussion went on at the top.

I’m not sure that the police in 1888 really were as ignorant of what they were dealing with as some might think. We know that serial killers don’t stand out in a crowd, but Dr Bond realised this too, writing that the murderer ‘is quite likely to be a quiet inoffensive looking man, probably middle-aged and neatly and respectably dressed.’ Had Bond never voiced this opinion before? Had nobody ever voiced it? Was it something the police didn’t know? I suspect that they did know - Tumblety wasn’t manifestly insane, but was nevertheless regarded at a high level as being a good suspect.

The trouble is that the hypothesis can be summed up thus: The police looked for somebody manifestly insane, we now know that serial killers are not manifestly insane, ergo the police suspects were not Jack the Ripper.

But we don't know why suspicion fell on either Druitt or Kosminski. We certainly don't know that suspicion fell on them because they were insane. Their insanity may have had little or nothing to do with why they were suspected.

[Adam Went]

Some good thoughts being posted on here....

While it's difficult to compare Jack to a modern killer, perhaps we could say a good comparison would be with BTK, Dennis Rader? He actually compared himself to JTR in some of his communications, and was very much someone who led a relatively "normal" life outside of his crimes.

He was also yet another killer who turned out to have appeared in the police records during the original investigation of the case.....and there's a good percentage chance that Jack was the same. Somewhere, in a police file, his name is mentioned, whether we know of him or suspect him already or not.

To be honest, suspects like Druitt particularly were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he hadn't committed suicide in Dec. 1888, his name probably would never have come up in relation to the case....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Paul]

To be honest, suspects like Druitt particularly were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he hadn't committed suicide in Dec. 1888, his name probably would never have come up in relation to the case....

Hi Adam,
Isn't that a bit too simplistic. Surely there was more than the time of Druitt's suicide to implicate him with the murders?

[Howard Brown]

Dear Cris:

Apologies if you were coerced into revealing anything from an intended essay...but your repartee with Chris George perspired me to start this thread. Thats a very fine post, one which I certainly can't expand on....
...except to mention that after the Chapman Inquest, we then see references in print regarding Americans,black baggers and doctors/medical students. My question is and has been whether we would have had references and subsequent interest/arrests on the three aforementioned "types' without Baxter ? Wouldn't police in the field therefore be more likely to have scrutinized those types a little more closely in their field duties ?

Seamen,who have been on my mind a lot lately(side note) also are featured in reports and frequently at that. Good of you, Cris, to mention them too.

AW...in agreement with Mr. Begg on Druitt. I doubt that Macnaghten would have simply pulled Druitt out of the obituary column and inserted him in the MM without some sort of reason. Thats not said facetitiously,since I used to think Druitt's candidacy was based on an anonymous rumor which escalated into something it wasn't.

[Cris Malone]

Hello How,

I'm about to go to work, but would like to quickly clarify something. The men on the ground, from day one, were investigating all leads for sure and some of these guys still believed in suspects of a more generiic nature- i.e- Moore and his seaman. Suspects that the press mentioned were followed up too.As I have stated, Abberline's boys were still chasing men that followed Hutchinson's description into December, which shows that Hutch wasn't discredited like some of the 'Hutch did it' people would like for us to believe. In the end, the main suspects mentioned by the guys at the top followed a certain pattern. Even Tumblety was a 'woman hater' as men of his character were perceived. I mentioned Warren's report of September as I believe it shows that pattern at the top being established. The 3 medical students that Abberline was investigating at that time were clasified as 'insane' medical students.

[Adam Went]

Paul & How:

Well it was convenient. People were looking for a reason why the murders stopped, whether it was that the killer died, got locked up, moved away or whatever. Then you have Druitt turn up in the Thames who was in the right age range and does have similarities to some of the witness descriptions, who was within the vicinity of the murder zone, who just happened to die a month or so after the MJK murder and who, by his own suicide note, felt that he was going a little crazy.....just a convenient suspect, really. Sort of fits the bill without there really being anything solid against him.

The Macnaghten Memorandum is riddled with errors to the point where it could almost be a work of fiction, and what he says about Druitt is no different. Given that it was one of the first memorandums/memoirs written by an officer after the murders, that sets a somewhat worrying precedent when you consider the others.

Anyway, just my opinion....take no notice. lol.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Cris Malone]

Interesting Adam. I don't know if convenient would be the correct term as far as motive of the top cops, although it may have turned out to be so. The wishful thinking hypothesis I agreed with on the other thread may have been painting everything with a broad brush as well.

I believe that Macnaghten really thought he had a good suspect but what is known for his reasons appear flawed. Of course, as Paul stated we don't know what 'family' information he posessed, but because the biographical information was incorrect I would assume that it was second hand.

I was fascinated by the 'lunatic' factor that seemed to dominate the final compilation (as we know it) of suspects and evidently the men under surveillence as well.

[Howard Brown]

AW:

Your opinion is just as good as anyone else's pardner...its best we bring up as many differing views or beliefs and air everything out.

Cris:

You said:
"I believe that Macnaghten really thought he had a good suspect but what is known for his reasons appear flawed. Of course, as Paul stated we don't know what 'family' information he posessed, but because the biographical information was incorrect I would assume that it was second hand."

The thought has occurred to me as it probably has to others regarding the possibility that Macnaghten may have or did know what profession Druitt was involved in from first hand information and yet intentionally misrepresented his ( Druitt's) chosen profession within the memoranda. In this scenario, Macnaghten learned details about Druitt from Farquarshon..but since they were only suspicions, he let it go at that and simply changed the occupation from barrister to doctor.
After all, the Memoranda wasn't intended to be scrutinized openly by the public since it wasn't created for the public. It was in its way a primer on the Case for the police department in order to respond to the subterfuge by Inspector Race. At least,thats the way I see it or what it represented.
Any criticism toward the above is welcome.

[Adam Went]

Cris:

Well Macnaghten had Michael Ostrog in his list, and that should be an indication right off the bat before you even read any further that the memorandum is going to be filled with inaccuracies. In any case, Macnaghten didn't become involved until 1889, after the actual murders were over and done with.

I don't think these officers fully understood the weight that their opinions would carry into history, bad suspect or not.

Other than that, some good posts and thoughts by yourself and How.

Cheers,
Adam. :)

[Cris Malone]

The thought has occurred to me as it probably has to others regarding the possibility that Macnaghten may have or did know what profession Druitt was involved in from first hand information and yet intentionally misrepresented his ( Druitt's) chosen profession within the memoranda. In this scenario, Macnaghten learned details about Druitt from Farquarshon..but since they were only suspicions, he let it go at that and simply changed the occupation from barrister to doctor.


Hmm... Since it was a confidential memo and since Druitt's name is mentioned I don't see any advantage at that point to intentionally alter any other information. Let's face it, he even gets the time of death wrong. We now know that Druitt continued to work up until his suicide at or near the first week of December. That's what troubles me about Druitt and Kosminsky. They're being implicated but the men that do so really know almost nothing about them... and then there's the madman factor that's thrown into the mix.

Adam,

A very good point and by that time he's looking at a list of 'lunatics'. The suspects investigated by the men on the ground while the murders were going on had been cleared for the most part except for a few 'profile' suspects being shadowed... which were also lunatics.

I remember Forbes Winslow suggesting that the cops should get medical personel to go with officers so they could point out the 'depraved' men to them. I mean come on... if JTR was someone of that measure he would have been caught after the first 2 or 3 murders. As far as this aspect of the investigation was concerned ( and it was a big one) I think they were barking up the wrong tree.

[Paul]

Well Macnaghten had Michael Ostrog in his list, and that should be an indication right off the bat before you even read any further that the memorandum is going to be filled with inaccuracies.

Why?

I don't think these officers fully understood the weight that their opinions would carry into history, bad suspect or not.

Very few of what we now regard as historical documents were written with future generations in mind.

[Adam Went]

Cris:

Definitely agree with you.
There can't be too much criticism of the police effort in 1888 as they certainly did try hard and they had few, if any of the detection tools that modern day homicide detectives have access to. But in other regards, as you say, they were looking in the wrong place. Hindsight is a wonderful thing though, and many of these officers had exactly that.

Paul:

Why?

Because Ostrog is a really, really bad suspect. He might have been many things but a killer was not one of them. I don't think many people would argue with that today.The Macnaghten memorandum is there in black and white for anyone to see the inaccuracies for themselves.

Very few of what we now regard as historical documents were written with future generations in mind.

A fair point, and you're right. I'm not blaming them for it. Although some of them did live long enough to know that the interest in the case wasn't going to go away any time soon and that their opinions on it might well be given serious weight. I mean you still had some officers writing their memoirs and talking about the case in the 1930's!

Cheers,
Adam.

[Nemo]

I think Ostrog as a non-suspect is with the benefit of hindsight

As far as I can make out, Ostrog was considered a mentally ill surgeon released from an asylum around March 1888

His whereabouts during the Ripper murders was not ascertained, so I suspect his possible imprisonment in France was not known at the time

That alone makes him a viable contemporary suspect

[Cris Malone]

Ostrog is a good example of the point I've been making. While it can be said that there is some evidence to suspect Druitt or Kosminski, there is nothing but suspicion as far as Ostrog goes because he fits the lunatic profile and he wasn't accounted for... That's it... And this was one of the top three suspects ?- let alone a viable alternative to Cutbush.

[Chris G.]

Thanks for starting this thread How. I was getting the feeling that both Chris and myself were getting out of the parameters of the original thread but the discussion was interesting non-the-less.

Your last post hits the nail on the head. The guys on the ground were operating in an investigative manner (which indeed they should). In other words, following up leads from citizens, for the most part -i.e- witness descriptions, suspicious neighbors- etc. They even listened to the press to a certain extent ( Swanson mentions checking out the Wild West Show workers) But the men at the top were putting together a profile, if you will, which was more general. They do it the same way today (with a little more technology and a better understanding of criminal nature.)

After the murders were over, and no one apprehended, they were left with the suspects under surveillence or suspicion as the witness sightings and reports of suspicious persons had started to dry up. ( and the Buffalo Bill people had gone home LOL) A list of these individuals were compiled over the next couple of years and they were all "homicidal maniacs" of some degree. But we now know that "women haters' and 'self abusers' or 'suicides' are poor barometers to measure a serial killer. God bless them, they didn't know it. They were treading on new ground here and I will still say that the police by-and-large should be commended for their efforts. They had other clues, no doubt, of which now, we are not privy to. But because the various senior officials came to different conclusions, nothing obviously was concrete.

Lets back up a little... as an example of who the police were looking for. Let's say that Chapman was the last victim... for a minute. Well we know that they had already considered a lunatic with some medical experience because Warren submitted three names (early MM?) to the Home Office in September to give them a progress report. ( Anderson was still yodeling in the Alps I guess).

This is from Warren's report on the 19th of Sept. 1888, after explaining that 'they were on the job', he offers 3 suspects or leads.

1. The lunatic Isensmith; a Swiss arrested at Holloway who is now in an asylum at Bow...
2. A man called Puckeridge was released from an asylum on 4th of August. He was educated as a surgeon and has threatened to rip people up with a long knife...
3. A brothel keeper... writes to say that a man living in her house was seen with blood on him the morning of the murder...
... the first seems a very suspicious case, but the man is at present a violent lunatic.

Of course, Warren's first man was Jacob Isenschmid; but the point being is that they were already developing a profile of a 'lunatic'; albeit with 'anatomical knowledge' because of Phillips' assumption. Now if there had been no more murders, and some 'ripperologist' latched onto any of these suspects, they would have likely condemed an innocent man. . . .

Good luck with your essay, Cris. It looks as if it is going to be very interesting.

Some good thoughts being posted on here....

While it's difficult to compare Jack to a modern killer, perhaps we could say a good comparison would be with BTK, Dennis Rader? He actually compared himself to JTR in some of his communications, and was very much someone who led a relatively "normal" life outside of his crimes.

He was also yet another killer who turned out to have appeared in the police records during the original investigation of the case.....and there's a good percentage chance that Jack was the same. Somewhere, in a police file, his name is mentioned, whether we know of him or suspect him already or not.

To be honest, suspects like Druitt particularly were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he hadn't committed suicide in Dec. 1888, his name probably would never have come up in relation to the case....

Cheers,
Adam.

Hello Adam et al.

Basically I think the police did a good job investigating suspicious circumstances that might lead them to a suspect. Man reported to have blood on cuffs, man seen accosting women in the murder district or elsewhere in the city of London, man with wild eyes carrying a parcel, and so on. But I still think that the premise that they were working under the preconception that whomever the killer was had to have been a lunatic was the one big flaw in their investigation. The police had an incorrect mindset, and that would appear to me to be one of the reasons they did not get their man.

On the other hand, have modern police done any better with say the BTK Killer, Dennis Rader, or the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway? These guys were out there for years, undetected. And even when the police have a suspect's DNA the police of today don't necessarily apprehend the man, if the DNA is not in any database. This is the case, for example, in the case of a rapist known to have committed rapes in a number of states on the U.S. East Coast, as we reported in "I Beg" in Ripperologist 113. As we said, "American police have been struggling to identify and apprehend a man who has been terrorising women in various East Coast states over the last 13 years. They have his DNA and they know a lot about it him but they just can’t get their man. . . ."

Again, though, getting back to the police of 1888, it would appear that the killer was not a man who acted like a madman or who made silly mistakes such as getting blood on his clothes. Unless of course he was a slaughterman with an already bloody apron. . . but it would have been foolish, one would think, for a victim to go with such a man, and no such man was noticed in or around the murder locations.

All the best

Chris

[Adam Went]

Hey Nemo, Cris and Chris:

You all make some good points, and the Macnaghten memorandum is probably a good example of where the police were at, in 1894 atleast.....Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog were all (or perceived to be) mentally ill, and that seems to have been a major factor in their being suspected, by Macnaghten anyway. It is one thing that they all have in common.

I'm not sure about Gary Ridgway, but I know that they really only caught up with Dennis Rader through luck and his own stupidity for starting to communicate with them again. Had he not done that, he might well still be at large. You do need an element of luck in any police hunt.

The police in 1888 did do a lot of things right, like increasing patrols, having plain clothes officers, going door to door questioning people, etc but there were other methods that they didn't embrace and perhaps, in the mind of some officers atleast, limited themselves for the type of man they were looking for....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Howard Brown]

Thanks for the thread idea, AW.

Let me ask this before I go set the thread you've perspired me to set up:

With all due respect, I'm not necessarily sold on the suggestion ( and I know you weren't pushing this as some sort of definitive statement....) that the Macnaghten Memoranda is where the heads of the Met/City Police were at at the time of its construction in early 1894..
In fact, Macnaghten...in my view.. could very well have used any other set of three "better" suspects than the ones he chose and we just as easily could be discussing the validity of those three or more in 2010,if not for the fact that he simply selected three out of an unknown quantity of available names.

[Cris Malone]

While Mac may have had more suspects to pick from, I don't believe he would have picked the weakest ones to make his case. Either Griffith or Sims ( I don't remember which) mention that they were the top suspects. Mac picks Druitt, of course, so he was certainly his top suspect and Kosminsky was definitely up there as well. I don't know why he put out Ostrog's name, because to me, Cutbush is a better suspect than he is. Cutbush at least was dangerous and was on record for assaulting women. Ostrog was just a thief that faked insanity to stay out of jail- and it worked despite the objections of the police. I could not find any other reason that he ended up on a suspect list. His case is in the 'Old Bailey'.

There was concern by some that the lunatic theory was problematic. I have posted an article written at the time of the murders over on the Archives thread that finds fault wth it, but in writing this 'rebuttal' the author is giving notice that the 'lunatic' theory was prevalent.

I find it hard to believe that the 3 names mentioned by Mac just happen to be 'lunatics' by chance.

Now I rekon I'll have to find another subject for an essay. LOL

[Howard Brown]

I don't know why he put out Ostrog's name, because to me, Cutbush is a better suspect than he is.--C.Malone

That "why",Cris,is a million dollar question.
Its why I mentioned that ( without any proof of course) there may have been better suspects considering Macnaghten would have been hard pressed to explain the basis of including Ostrog considering the absolute absence of violence towards women in his career.
Think "filler".

[Adam Went]

How:

You have a good point, I just think it's unfortunate that some authors would use the Macnaghten memorandum as gospel on the case when it is clearly so filled with inaccuracies. I mean, we all make errors, but the memorandum was beyond that. Especially given that it was only written 6 years after the murders.

Interestingly, to offer an example, two other leading suspects in the case which were later mentioned by officers in the case, Tumblety and Klosowski, did not get a mention by Macnaghten. I don't think there would be too much argument that both of them are better suspects than Michael Ostrog, and perhaps even M.J. Druitt.

Having said that....and this might be a little more controversial but I'll throw a suggestion out there.....what if Macnaghten was concerned that the memorandum might happen to become public knowledge? By 1894, Druitt was dead and Kosminski and Ostrog were locked up. Other suspects, like Tumblety and Klosowski, were very much alive and free men. Just wonder if this might have been a concern in the mind of Macnaghten at the time?

Just a thought....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Paul]

How:

You have a good point, I just think it's unfortunate that some authors would use the Macnaghten memorandum as gospel on the case when it is clearly so filled with inaccuracies. I mean, we all make errors, but the memorandum was beyond that. Especially given that it was only written 6 years after the murders.

Interestingly, to offer an example, two other leading suspects in the case which were later mentioned by officers in the case, Tumblety and Klosowski, did not get a mention by Macnaghten. I don't think there would be too much argument that both of them are better suspects than Michael Ostrog, and perhaps even M.J. Druitt.

Having said that....and this might be a little more controversial but I'll throw a suggestion out there.....what if Macnaghten was concerned that the memorandum might happen to become public knowledge? By 1894, Druitt was dead and Kosminski and Ostrog were locked up. Other suspects, like Tumblety and Klosowski, were very much alive and free men. Just wonder if this might have been a concern in the mind of Macnaghten at the time?

Just a thought....

Cheers,
Adam.

On what grounds would Macnaghten have suspected Chapman when he wrote the Memorandum?

[Adam Went]

Paul:

On the same grounds that Abberline, Godley and Neil did years later. But I see your point, and fair enough. I was merely using Chapman as an example.

Cheers,
Adam.