Who Was the Body in the Thames?

[Dave James]

Hi Chris,

I'm currently reading Alex Butterworth's 'The World That Never Was', and in it he mentions a Metropolitan police internal journal called 'Moonshine'.

Do you know anything about this mag? Has any of it survived?

[Adam Went]

Hi How, all:

The insinuation made against the suspect was that he committed suicide immediately after the Miller's Court murder, as that was the final brain snap - essentially, he must have marched straight down to the Thames more or less, in a state of total insanity, and finished himself off there and then.

Yet we know that the facts are that this does not describe Druitt. We know he continued to work at Mr. Valentine's school until the end of November, 3 weeks after Mary Kelly's death - we also know that he continued to function in his roles with Blackheath sporting clubs until mid-December, two weeks after he had vanished and well over a month since the Miller's Court murder - this is completely at odds with what the suspicion against the killer was!! There is no escaping that, it's not as if Druitt disappeared on the 10th of November, and that is why another suicide is the most likely scenario, and unfortunately Macnaghten's failing, entangled memory dragged his name into it.

How can Druitt be considered a viable suspect if the man who committed suicide in the Thames after the Miller's Court murder was not Druitt in the first place!?

Cheers,
Adam.

[Howard Brown]

AW:

With nowhere else to put this, and since I know how you've been making an effort to deconstruct the Druitt-as-Ripper saga...has it occurred to you that the effort by SRA to establish the Polish Jewish suspect was his reaction or response to this issue with the timing of Druitt's drowning/suicide/murder/death ? Sorry for the interruption to the thread.

[Chris G.]

Hi How, all:

The insinuation made against the suspect was that he committed suicide immediately after the Miller's Court murder, as that was the final brain snap - essentially, he must have marched straight down to the Thames more or less, in a state of total insanity, and finished himself off there and then.

Yet we know that the facts are that this does not describe Druitt. We know he continued to work at Mr. Valentine's school until the end of November, 3 weeks after Mary Kelly's death - we also know that he continued to function in his roles with Blackheath sporting clubs until mid-December, two weeks after he had vanished and well over a month since the Miller's Court murder - this is completely at odds with what the suspicion against the killer was!! There is no escaping that, it's not as if Druitt disappeared on the 10th of November, and that is why another suicide is the most likely scenario, and unfortunately Macnaghten's failing, entangled memory dragged his name into it.

How can Druitt be considered a viable suspect if the man who committed suicide in the Thames after the Miller's Court murder was not Druitt in the first place!?

Cheers,
Adam.

Hello Adam

With all due respect, although the idea that the drowned man killed himself right after the Kelly murder has appeal, if we buy the notion that the killer was a nutter, I am not sure that it takes Druitt out of the frame if the murderer was in fact Druitt, a man who killed himself some three weeks later. The killer, if it was indeed Druitt, could have obsessed about what he had done for those three weeks, his work at Mr. Valentine's school possibly deteriorating in interval, leading to his dismissal, such that he decided to kill himself.

AW:

With nowhere else to put this, and since I know how you've been making an effort to deconstruct the Druitt-as-Ripper saga...has it occurred to you that the effort by SRA to establish the Polish Jewish suspect was his reaction or response to this issue with the timing of Druitt's drowning/suicide/murder/death ? Sorry for the interruption to the thread.

Hello Howard

Are you saying that Anderson preferred the Kosminski or Jewish candidacy because he didn't want the killer to be, if we view things through the lens that Jonathan Hainsworth uses, a jolly old Englishman and a gentile like himself?

All the best

Chris

Dear CG:

Due to the site problems with post times...I'll leave my answer to your question here.

My "idea", which is all it is and nothing more...was that Anderson might have taken it upon himself to "one up" Macnaghten with his preferred suspect....but in no way was the ethnicity of either man an issue. I sincerely and seriously doubt that Anderson at any time would be unprofessional to the extent if it meant fitting someone up because of what they were...not who...but what,as in race or ethnicity.
I could see one official pressing the case for "their" suspect as opposed to another's if the matter of obtaining a verdict in court was out of the question.

[Howard Brown]

Dear CG:

Expect something in your p.m box tomorrow pardner.

As to your question....
My "idea", which is all it is and nothing more...was that Anderson might have taken it upon himself to "one up" Macnaghten with his preferred suspect....but in no way was the ethnicity of either man an issue. I sincerely and seriously doubt that Anderson at any time would be unprofessional to the extent if it meant fitting someone up because of what they were...not who...but what,as in race or ethnicity.
I could see one official pressing the case for "their" suspect as opposed to another official's if the matter of obtaining a verdict in court was out of the question.

[Dave James]

Hi all,

I'm glad to see that there is a lot of considered response to our post. But, I think that the main point is being missed.

Whilst the secondary point was the exoneration of Druitt, the main point was to determine where the original story of the body in the river came from. There is a lot of 'evidence' to support an early telling of of this story, so, where did it originate?

We have hypothesised a transference of guilt for not solving the murders into, possibly, an unknown body, possibly, found in the river, possibly, soon after the last murder, possibly a 'Russian' medical student with all the attributes needed for a 'sexual maniac' killer. Or, at least, just a mad medical student!
All the early stories place this just after the last murder - even MM refers back to this story, before he even invented Druitt!

But, what I feel we are not addressing is the origin of the story - where did it come from? It seems to me that this story had some kind of currency from day one, and would seem to have been oft repeated, culminating in MM naming Druitt.

So, where do we go from here?

[Howard Brown]

Dave:

My apologies, because I was the culprit in detouring the thread.

I think it's necessary to know the approximate time when Macnaghten first heard the tale of the drowned man,DJ....hopefully in time, someone will be able to determine that. The newspapers which mentioned the theory in February of '91 are fine...but I'd wager MM heard of it in 1890,maybe before.
Who knows to what extent MM went to to ascertain the exact time of Druitt's death if his written belief is that he drowned in November ?
If Macnaghten learned of the story...say in 1890 or a stretch of time after the beginning of 1889..whenever,pick a date...it's not inconceivable that he was told incorrectly that Druitt drowned in November...let's say November 10th... and simply ran with it along with the Farquharson theorization.
Hope this helps and again,sorry for the derailing amigo.......

[Adam Went]

How:

Just quickly, I don’t think SRA’s suspicions were in response to anything (or anyone, like Macnaghten, for that matter) – Kosminski was and is a far better candidate for the Ripper than Druitt. I think for Macnaghten it was a case of his joining the force in 1889 and trying to succeed where the others have failed – imagine, he joins the force, solves the Ripper case, how big of a feather in the cap is that?! Only problem is that in the process he drags a number of stories and people into his theory, perhaps hears things from second and third hand sources, then blends them all into one big massive piece of non-sensical rubbish – that being the memorandum. Because we must remember that it was not just Druitt he made errors about, it was Kosminski and Ostrog as well.

Chris:

The key point again though is that Druitt’s dismissal/leaving of the school didn’t occur until the very end of the term – if he had been displaying sights of slipping into insanity and completely bizarre behaviour, it’s not the sort of thing that George Valentine would be saying “Not to worry, you can stick around until the end of the term and leave then.”

In fact, the only actual shred of evidence which lends itself to the idea that Druitt’s mind was on the way out was his very own suicide note! In every other way, outwardly at least, he continued a normal, routine life as he had done for several years previously throughout the latter half of 1888.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Chris G.]

Hi all,

I'm glad to see that there is a lot of considered response to our post. But, I think that the main point is being missed.

Whilst the secondary point was the exoneration of Druitt, the main point was to determine where the original story of the body in the river came from. There is a lot of 'evidence' to support an early telling of of this story, so, where did it originate?

We have hypothesised a transference of guilt for not solving the murders into, possibly, an unknown body, possibly, found in the river, possibly, soon after the last murder, possibly a 'Russian' medical student with all the attributes needed for a 'sexual maniac' killer. Or, at least, just a mad medical student!
All the early stories place this just after the last murder - even MM refers back to this story, before he even invented Druitt!

But, what I feel we are not addressing is the origin of the story - where did it come from? It seems to me that this story had some kind of currency from day one, and would seem to have been oft repeated, culminating in MM naming Druitt.

So, where do we go from here?

Hi Dave

We have to be careful that we are not either accepting a theory that was not based on fact but was rather just an idea of the Ripper's end, or transferring back in time the later ideas of a Ripper who killed himself right after the murders based on the Druitt story or some other drowned man.

I have a sense that is what is indeed happening, and there is no drowned man who exactly or nearly corresponds with the date of the Kelly murder, let alone a drowned Russian doctor, which sounds too good to be true and a concoction of later tales rather than being the truth.

As I stated earlier, it "sounds right" that the murderer killed himself immediately after the last murder, and it was one of the "facts" that Macnaghten initially uses in the memorandum, that the man was sexually insane, he disposes of himself after that murder, he was a surgeon or the son of a surgeon, and his family believe he was the killer.... Case Closed. There really doesn't have to have been an earlier drowned man other than the vague idea of that being a possible end for the killer.

All the best

Chris

[Caroline Brown]

Hi All,

Thanks to Debs, we do now have an earlier drowned man to play with - recovered from the water on November 24th, but no estimated date for when he went in - and wearing black and white check trousers, no less. Could this be another way of describing 'pepper and salt' trousers?

And when I wondered in my first post to this thread if the Dr. D mentioned by Sims could have referred to the earlier drowned man, I never dreamed that one would actually turn up with the letter D tattooed on his arm! That's quite some coincidence.

He was ‘unknown’ at the time of reporting, so I suppose it’s quite possible that there was speculation about D’s possible involvement in the murders, especially among those who considered Kelly to be the last of the series. I’m not sure a little detail like a tattoo would get in the way if anyone was determined enough to have a suicidal foreign medical maniac for Jack. It’s certainly intriguing. And of course, not actually being a doctor did no harm to Druitt’s chances of becoming a major suspect, so would it really matter whether DDD (Drowned Dr. D) mark 1 was a doc or a sushi chef?

Caz:

Monty had been carrying on with his legal work throughout his time at Mr. Valentine's, and indeed, when he was called to the bar in 1885 and rented chambers at King's Bench Walk, George Valentine was still a permanent resident at his school. It was not until the following year, 1886, that he ceased to be there full time, and thus Monty was often left in charge - so clearly, despite his increasing focus on his legal career, Valentine saw it was unnecessary to post somebody else in place of Druitt, or stay on more frequently at the school himself. Whatever Druitt's condition might have been by the latter part of 1888, in 1886, it's fairly obvious that there was nothing to suspect that he was spiralling downhill in any way, or was not giving the attention to his work at the school which was required.

It could even have been that after working for Valentine for several years, he had become a favoured member of staff and his slight lapses due to his other work were somewhat overlooked for the sake of keeping him on - if, however, when the end of term in November 1888 came, something was found which was a massive no-no - like alcohol or pornography in the possession of some of the students - this would have been looked upon more unfavourably and a dismissal would have been unfortunate but necessary. It surely has to be the most plausible explanation for why the dismissal coincided exactly with the end of the term.

The key point again though is that Druitt’s dismissal/leaving of the school didn’t occur until the very end of the term – if he had been displaying sights of slipping into insanity and completely bizarre behaviour, it’s not the sort of thing that George Valentine would be saying “Not to worry, you can stick around until the end of the term and leave then.”

In fact, the only actual shred of evidence which lends itself to the idea that Druitt’s mind was on the way out was his very own suicide note! In every other way, outwardly at least, he continued a normal, routine life as he had done for several years previously throughout the latter half of 1888.

Hi Adam,

None of this argues against my suggestion that by the autumn term of 1888 Druitt’s mind could well have been less on his school commitments and more on either his legal work or a growing sense of unease about his mental condition - or both. His suicide note (quite apart from the family history of mental instability and his subsequent plunge into the icy waters of the Thames) is surely more than a ‘shred of evidence’ that his mind was ‘on the way out’, unless you have stronger evidence that someone else wrote it, or invented it, or that he was mentally as sound as a bell when he died. Valentine would have regarded it as ‘serious trouble’ for his school if Druitt was no longer willing or able, for whatever reason, to perform his duties to the required standard. But until he could appoint a replacement, Druitt would have been better than nothing, which would explain why he was retained and paid until the end of term.

Pornography is another possibility, but I don’t like the coincidence of it only rearing its ugly head at the end of term. We have to work with what we’ve got: ‘serious trouble’ but apparently not serious enough for instant dismissal unless it only came to light when everyone was leaving for the Christmas hols. (By the way, has the last day of term been established, as it does seem rather early? These days, I don't think even the posh schools break up until about a week or two before Christmas.)

Alcohol a ‘massive no-no’? Don’t think so, Adam. This was London in 1888 remember. If they’d made it illegal for minors to drink beer they’d have probably gone thirsty. Clean drinking water was a rarity and milk wasn’t much better. Obviously if Druitt got the boys rat-arsed on rough gin it would be a different matter, but there’s not even a hint of that sort. Pupils and their parents might not have blabbed publicly about pornography, but wouldn’t the word soon have spread if a master was getting the boys drunk at the school?

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris G.]

Hi All,

Thanks to Debs, we do now have an earlier drowned man to play with - recovered from the water on November 24th, but no estimated date for when he went in - and wearing black and white check trousers, no less. Could this be another way of describing 'pepper and salt' trousers?

And when I wondered in my first post to this thread if the Dr. D mentioned by Sims could have referred to the earlier drowned man, I never dreamed that one would actually turn up with the letter D tattooed on his arm! That's quite some coincidence.

He was ‘unknown’ at the time of reporting, so I suppose it’s quite possible that there was speculation about D’s possible involvement in the murders, especially among those who considered Kelly to be the last of the series. I’m not sure a little detail like a tattoo would get in the way if anyone was determined enough to have a suicidal foreign medical maniac for Jack. It’s certainly intriguing. And of course, not actually being a doctor did no harm to Druitt’s chances of becoming a major suspect, so would it really matter whether DDD (Drowned Dr. D) mark 1 was a doc or a sushi chef?

Hi Caz, Debs, Adam, Dave, How, et al.

A joke here: maybe the tattooed "D" stood for dead.

And sorry to pour more cold water on the "drowned man" idea, but might I point out that there were probably far more drowned people pulled out of the Thames than drowned people that had any connection to the Whitechapel murders? In other words, finding a drowned man at the right period is interesting but might not be sufficient to form a link to the crimes. But I think you know that.

Chris

[Adam Went]

Caz:

So what would have been stopping Valentine himself from returning to the school to replace Druitt until the end of the term if he was that concerned? As you say, whatever it was, it was not serious enough for instant dismissal - it almost strikes me as some kind of mutual agreement between Druitt and Valentine that he would finish up at the end of the term, though of course i've got no evidence at this point to support that.

The end of school terms is when all the cleaning up gets done, and especially at boarding schools when the students are packing up their belongings to return home for the break - if there happened to be another member of staff lingering about while this process was taking place, who noticed that in the chambers there was pornography lying about, or alcohol for that matter, and Druitt had been responsible for the care of the children at the time, how is that going to reflect on him?

I would suggest Valentine knew about Druitt's increasing involvement with the legal and sporting sides of his life but he was a good member of staff, perhaps even a personal friend and he kept him on just the same - after all he'd been there for some 7 years - but with the discovery of something illicit in the school, upon the news reaching Valentine, he knew that it had gone too far and that something would need to be done.

If it was anything serious-serious, like molesting the children for example as has been suggested in the past, not only would Druitt have had to be fired on the spot but there would also be further investigations - and yet we hear nothing? Valentine does not testify to the "serious trouble" at the inquest? Whatever it was, it's pretty clear it did not pertain to anything involving Druitt's death, and also quite clear that it really wasn't that "serious" at all.

Chris:

I've asked the question before about just how many suicides there were in the Thames for men aged between about 20 and 50 between November 9th, 1888 and December 31st, 1888....it'd be an interesting research topic for somebody who had the time and interest to take it on. Where's Colin Roberts when you need him?

I have to say though that i'm more than a little disappointed with any good student of the case when they still say, in 2010, that Druitt is a viable suspect.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Caroline Brown]

Secrets Never to be Told

Hi Adam,

I don't know what would have been 'stopping' Druitt's employer from returning to the school himself to replace Druitt. Maybe he wasn't sitting twiddling his thumbs elsewhere but was otherwise occupied?

We are still stuck with the words 'serious trouble' and an end of term 'dismissal' for it, followed almost immediately by Druitt doing away with himself, after expressing his fears that he was going the same way as "mother". So you tell me.

Oh wait, you did tell me - although you have no evidence for any sort of 'mutual agreement' between personal friends. Yet you assert that it's 'pretty clear' that the serious trouble really wasn't that "serious" and had no connection with Druitt's death, or Valentine would have gone into detail at the inquest. But that very much depends on the nature of the serious trouble, and the fine line drawn between how much the inquest needed to know and how the school's good name (or the Druitt family name for that matter) might have been adversely affected by the details being broadcast to all and sundry.

The inquest had Druitt's own words to explain why he did it, and it was self-evidently tied up with deeply personal and family mental health issues. What else did the inquest need to be told in order to reach the correct verdict? That he had been caught screaming at Valentine's boys to stop trying to electrocute him, for example? How would that have been the action of a concerned personal friend?

I've already explained why the presence of alcohol would be unlikely to have got Druitt fired if he had otherwise remained a loyal and trusted employee. And if anything truly unacceptable had been found, either 'lying about' or in the boys' possession, it wouldn't follow that Druitt had supplied or encouraged it, and could in fact support my suggestion that he was becoming too self-absorbed to notice if his young charges were getting up to all sorts under his nose.

Someone else has already tried to put you right over this molesting business, but still you cling to your strange notion that in 1888 a master in an English prep school would inevitably have been fired on the spot, followed by further investigations, and that Valentine would have felt obliged to reveal all at the inquest.

Back in the real world, you couldn't be more wrong. But then what do I know? My grandparents were all schoolchildren in 1888 (just two generations ago for me); my mother, born in 1917, taught at a boys' prep school in the 1960s, while my brothers attended another prep school; my mother's father and various other maternal relations were teachers in the private sector. Nobody talked publicly about it, and you wouldn't hear it discussed much by adults behind closed doors either. But it was pretty much a given that molesting went on and blind eyes were turned, while the affected pupils were too ashamed, too embarrassed, too frightened or too compliant to speak up.

The boys all knew who the rogue masters were, including those who were left alone, and they would discuss it freely among themselves. I got to hear all the tales from my brother when we grew up but there was no way either of us would ever have brought up the subject with our parents. There was one particular master at my brother's senior school who made a career out of 'befriending' boys from each new intake. The other staff must have been aware of it. All the boys certainly were, but nobody was prepared to blow the whistle. He was only eventually forced to leave when he openly lost his temper with a pupil and struck him. That was the 'massive no-no' - an assault that the school couldn't sweep under the carpet. But this was in much more recent times. In 1888, and right up until at least the 1970s, there were no problems with corporal punishment for the most trivial of reasons.

Having said all that (because it seems to be an essential addition to your education about us Brits ), there is no evidence that Druitt was into boys, any more than he was into ripping up menopausal women. His viability as a ripper suspect hangs on Macnaghten's 'conjections' based on 'secret' information that he admitted was not recorded anywhere for posterity. In short, if he knew any secrets about Druitt they were not the sort for telling.

Love,

Caz
X

[Adam Went]

Caz:

I don't know what would have been 'stopping' Druitt's employer from returning to the school himself to replace Druitt. Maybe he wasn't sitting twiddling his thumbs elsewhere but was otherwise occupied?

And Druitt wasn't otherwise occupied with his legal and sporting activities?

We are still stuck with the words 'serious trouble' and an end of term 'dismissal' for it, followed almost immediately by Druitt doing away with himself, after expressing his fears that he was going the same way as "mother". So you tell me.

Well if we were to believe the likes of Martin Howells and Keith Skinner, William Druitt could have forged the suicide note himself. I've got serious doubts about that but i've also got serious doubts that he wrote the suicide note with the complete intention of doing away with himself.

Yet you assert that it's 'pretty clear' that the serious trouble really wasn't that "serious" and had no connection with Druitt's death, or Valentine would have gone into detail at the inquest.

Maybe because Valentine didn't testify to anything at the inquest?

I've already explained why the presence of alcohol would be unlikely to have got Druitt fired if he had otherwise remained a loyal and trusted employee. And if anything truly unacceptable had been found, either 'lying about' or in the boys' possession, it wouldn't follow that Druitt had supplied or encouraged it, and could in fact support my suggestion that he was becoming too self-absorbed to notice if his young charges were getting up to all sorts under his nose.

So what if said other member of staff who came across it questioned the offending student/s, and they said "Mr. Druitt allowed it" or "Mr. Druitt knew it was here" or something similar? Yes, Valentine would have known Druitt was busy elsewhere, but if this reached the point where he was not carrying out the duties he was being payed to do correctly, then it would come time for a dismissal - actually, to me, it almost seems like Valentine gave his long term employee the option to either walk away or be dismissed. Again, i've got no evidence, but it makes more sense than the suggestion he was molesting children or went missing on the nights of the Ripper murders.

I've mentioned elsewhere before that when Druitt's name first entered the public arena via the research of the likes of Dan Farson in the 50's/60's, it's entirely possible that some of the former students at Mr. Valentine's would still have been alive and remembered who this M.J. Druitt was - if he had infact been responsible for any serious wrongdoing or they had any "dirt" on this new Ripper sensation, why did not one of them come forward? Why do we never hear any shred of evidence against him for those sorts of accusations, anywhere? Ever?
I'll tell you why. Because there is none, because it didn't happen.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Cris Malone]

Great thread guys. Kudos to Dave and Adam for providing the catylist for seeking to determine the origins of the 'Drowned Doctor' story.

I've mentioned elsewhere before that when Druitt's name first entered the public arena via the research of the likes of Dan Farson in the 50's/60's, it's entirely possible that some of the former students at Mr. Valentine's would still have been alive and remembered who this M.J. Druitt was - if he had infact been responsible for any serious wrongdoing or they had any "dirt" on this new Ripper sensation, why did not one of them come forward? Why do we never hear any shred of evidence against him for those sorts of accusations, anywhere? Ever?
I'll tell you why. Because there is none, because it didn't happen.

I would not want to accuse Montie of anything that real evidence can't substain ( let alone accuse anyone of being the most infamous serial killer in history), but Caz's points in her previous thread are noteworthy.

If some of Druitt's former students were still alive in the 1950s and if they had been aware of any serious wrongdoing on Montie's part, it would be highly unlikely for them to want to rehash any dreadful event that included them. There are probably some things that have happened to all of us in childhood that few people will ever know. They may not have been aware of Farson and his findings.

We simply don't know what finally drove Montie to this desperate act. I've been around long enough to have had personal friends to commit suicide, and had no idea why they did it. On the surface, they appeared 'OK' to me until I found out about their death. There was always speculation from everybody and the usual clinical diagnosis of depression... in an effort for loved ones to find closure, I guess.

However, as Dave pointed out, this sidebar debate is not the point of this thread... so I will regress and say that Chris' earlier point could very well be true. My personal view is that a lot of parlor talk and gossip caught Macnaghten's attention ( hence the inaccuracies) and Mac simply started connecting the dots to configure with his own theory. He sure spent a lot of ink substantiating that theory in drawing his conclusions.

But, lets see what turns up.