Bachert & The Sauce

[R. J. Palmer]

(Btw.: There was a James Robert Palmer, butcher, 67 Whitechapel High Street :-) )

Hi Karsten, well that could explain my family's bad karma; we can trace our ancestry back to a Whitechapel butcher. ;-)

I finally found No. 4 Whitechapel High Street in the 1891 census; Mr. Knight appears to have either moved along, or maybe his assistant lives on the premises, and Knight lives elsewhere (?). The name looks like Phillip John Jackson.

No. 1 is listed as the 'Three Tons,' and No. 5 is empty, due to "fire on premises." I'll post the image.

[R. J. Palmer]

Here's No. 5 and 6 High Street. Lealter 'carcass butcher' with one s.

[Jerry Dunlop]

Bachert had a butcher friend according to his incident with passing bad coin in December, 1890. According to the arrest record (post #10 https://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=18823) ; Bachert, Henry Norman and John Smith aka Huddy were acquitted. If I'm reading the record correctly, it looks like John Smith was a gas fitter so as Bachert states in the clip below; he, his butcher friend and another were acquitted. That leaves Henry Norman as his butcher friend?

Also, Detective Thick of Maitland Street spoke of his good character? Is that Johnny Upright?

[Karsten Giese]

Hi RJ!

Hi Karsten, well that could explain my family's bad karma; we can trace our ancestry back to a Whitechapel butcher. ;-)

Do you think that Bachert had something to do with Sagar´s Butchers Row suspect?

[Chris Phillips]

Just to put my penny-worth in - I think Sagar might have been talking about somewhere outside the strict boundaries of "Butchers' Row" (some of his other reported reminiscences contained geographical inaccuracies) and I don't think it necessarily needs to have been within the City boundaries (if Swanson can be believed, the City CID were watching at least one address in Whitechapel). But I think he clearly implied his suspect was Jewish, and Thomas Davis doesn't sound Jewish to me.

[Karsten Giese]

Thanks, Chris! I quite agree with you. If Sagar and Swanson talked about the same suspect, and if Sagar was not quite correct (Whitechapel not Aldgate) then it may be that Swanson was more exactly when he mentioned the brother´s house in Whitechapel (not St. George in the east, not Mile End Old Town, not Spitalfields, not City of London).

[Chris Phillips]

I only wish that someone with greater skills than mine could ferret out the truth behind this report:

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-discussions/suspects/general-suspect-discussion/3546-1905-sunday-chronicle-report

[Karsten Giese]

It's puzzling me for years, Chris... If the "well-known Scotland Yard detective" spoke about "Kosminski" and about the Butcher business it is hard to believe that he did mean Aaron Kozminski.

Do you know this press report:

https://www.casebook.org/press_reports/walthamstow_and_leyton_guardian/w890810.html

[R. J. Palmer]

Thanks, Chris. The article from New Zealand sounds a lot like Sagar and his suspect; Sagar retired in 1905 and began 'making the rounds,' so the publishing date generally fits with other statements he made in the press earlier that year.

For instance, here is an interview with Sagar from January 1905 (published in the London Daily News) that alludes to a suspect seen shortly after the Mitre Square murder. You've probably seen it. Once again, the suspect is later sent off to an asylum--so presumably it is the same man. Sagar has a few of the elements garbled, of course. Kelly = Eddowes.

[Scott Nelson]

It's puzzling me for years, Chris... If the "well-known Scotland Yard detective" spoke about "Kosminski" and about the Butcher business it is hard to believe that he did mean Aaron Kozminski.

Do you know this press report:

https://www.casebook.org/press_repor...n/w890810.html

Thanks for this reminder, Karsten.

The newspaper story implies that the man was confined between the murders of Mary Kelly and Alice McKenzie.

For some reason I still opt for David Cohen, whose European name could have been Kosminski.

[Chris Phillips]

Thanks, Chris. The article from New Zealand sounds a lot like Sagar and his suspect; Sagar retired in 1905 and began 'making the rounds,' so the publishing date generally fits with other statements he made in the press earlier that year.

For instance, here is an interview with Sagar from January 1905 (published in the London Daily News) that alludes to a suspect seen shortly after the Mitre Square murder. You've probably seen it. Once again, the suspect is later sent off to an asylum--so presumably it is the same man. Sagar has a few of the elements garbled, of course. Kelly = Eddowes.

Thanks. I think the snag with the idea that it's Sagar is the description of the detective as "Scotland Yard" rather than "Old Jewry." I've always thought it sounded very like Anderson himself, even though the details are hard to reconcile with Anderson's later pronouncements, or with Aaron Kozminski's circumstances, as Karsten says.

[Anna Morris]

Thanks for this reminder, Karsten.

The newspaper story implies that the man was confined between the murders of Mary Kelly and Alice McKenzie.

For some reason I still opt for David Cohen, whose European name could have been Kosminski.

I agree and I still reject Aaron K. as the suspect. I don't know to what extent a name based on place could have been loosely applied or used to obscure an actual name. Where I am from, we used to refer to a certain class of people as _____-ites, meaning from a little town that had lots of criminals. What if someone referred to a suspect on his way to an asylum as 'a Kosminski', meaning 'from Cosmin'?

[Chris Phillips]

It's puzzling me for years, Chris... If the "well-known Scotland Yard detective" spoke about "Kosminski" and about the Butcher business it is hard to believe that he did mean Aaron Kozminski.

Do you know this press report:

https://www.casebook.org/press_repor...n/w890810.html

I don't remember having seen that before, though an insane medical student was certainly mentioned from time to time press reports.

I wonder how hard it would be to identify this suspect (assuming he really existed). On the face of it, the tramlines narrow things down quite a lot:
http://sharemap.org/public/Trams_in_London#!webgl


And it seems the parish was one with a rector rather than a vicar.

I suppose it would be possible to cross-check lists of butchers in the appropriate parishes, death registrations and the central registers of admissions to private asylums. Not that I'm volunteering ...

[Chris Phillips]

Thanks for this reminder, Karsten.

The newspaper story implies that the man was confined between the murders of Mary Kelly and Alice McKenzie.

For some reason I still opt for David Cohen, whose European name could have been Kosminski.

I'm curious about one aspect of that report - "... there yet remains the contingency that this latest murder was the work of a fresh assassin, and Dr. Phillips inclines to that opinion from the nature of the mutilations."


The Times report of the Mackenzie inquest at Casebook has Phillips saying "I may volunteer the statement that the injuries to the throat are not similar to those in the other cases." In his MEPO report he says he cannot satisfy himself that the perpetrator is the same, but this press report goes a bit further even than that. Had Phillips's opinions been made public elsewhere?

[Roy Corduroy]

Good morning Chris,

I only wish that someone with greater skills than mine could ferret out the truth behind this report:
https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...ronicle-report

Jacob Levy comes to mind.

Welcome back,

Roy