Proof of Innocence?

[Gary Barnett]

You need to acquaint yourself better with the history of the subject.

As I pointed out, there has been a huge amount of research into newspaper information on Druitt, from the 1970s onwards, As you know, there were no "online sources" then,

To give just one example - on this page you can read a tribute to a researcher named Eric F. Hermes (who is now deceased), about whom I was originally told by John Ruffels (someone else who did a tremendous amount of research on Druitt when research used to be much more arduous than typing and clicking):

https://www.magickalmind.com/dorian/rippermain.html

The Meticulous Researcher: Like many Ripperologists, Hermes initially seemed hesitant to name his suspect. My man did extensive research on all of the serious subjects. He knew more about Montague John Druitt than Druitt had probably ever gleaned about himself. He knew what railroad ticket Druitt had in his pocket when, after 7 weeks, his body was finally fished out of the Thames. He knew about the fancy party in Wimborne where Druitt improbably was listed as a guest while his body most likely mouldered at the river's bottom. One problem was that Druitt's name appeared in a sportspaper (he played cricket) the day after one of the nights of carnage. Is this likely? Who knows?
...
The files multiply: One problem with research is that it begets more research. The increase is exponential. A file quickly turns into a filing cabinet. Hermes had amassed so much data that he probably would need to have published a 20 volume encyclopedia! The man has always had too much research integrity to select only the facts which fit his theory. ...

I thought Druitt was in court on the 27th November.

[Christer Holmgren]

The point is simply that - on the figures you quoted - someone who committed suicide is more likely to be a serial killer than someone who didn't, not less likely.

As you say yourself, statistics can really be used in a slippery way! And turning things upside down does not help - it remains that out of those who were defined as serial killers in the paper we are dealing with, 93,8 per cent did NOT commit suicide. And that does not mean that Druitt was more likely than not to commit suicide, it means that if he was a serial killer, he was very much expected NOT to kill himself.

While we are talking about that paper, it needs mentioning that David Lester is also responsibe for another paper in the same line, "Suicide in Mass Murderers and Serial Killers", The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, 2010.

In this paper, Lester writes "...Research carried out by the author on suicide in mass murderers and serial killers is reviewed. The incidence of suicide in rampage murderers (34.7%) is much higher than in serial killers (4.4%). Whereas all of the suicides in mass murderers occurred during attempts to arrest them, 52% of the suicides in the serial killers occurred after arrest."

So here we have another figure. And it is interesting to note that the material Lester worked from was 248 killers in North America who had committed two or more murders! That is what he defines as serial killers, and I think it must make us question the significance for us.

So what I did was to turn to Wikipedias list of serial killers, and I checked them. I took a look at the three top categories, +30 victims, 15-30 victims and 5-14 victims. There were 34 killers in category 1, 77 in category 2 and 117 in category 3, making up a sum of 228 serial killers. Out of these, 21 committed suicide, adding up to a percentage of 9,2.

Now, it should be mentioned that among these killers, we have for example cannibals like Joachim Kroll and Tamara Samsonova, who killed to eat people, Nikolai Shubin, who killed people who had beaten him in chess (!), Enriqueta Marti, who killed children in order to make potions to sell in markets and Jeanne Weber, a transient baby-sitter who killed children in her care and was declared insane. In other words, many of the killers on this list are not killers that are in any way compatible with the typical sexual serial killer who is legally not insane.

There is also an interesting difference between killers from the British speaking sphere and the rest. There are a total of 107 killers from USA, Great Britain, Australia and Canada on the list, and out of these, 5 only committed suicide, just about halving the total percentage to 4,7.

So lets have a look at these five!

Charles Ray Hatcher raped and murdered over 20 men in 1969-1982 (Yes, Hatcher was homosexual). Was declared a "manipulative institutionalized sociopath".

Maury Travis killed prostitutes in the St Louis area 2000 to 2002.

John Wayne Glover, Australia, killed six elderly women 1989 to 1990. He killed with a hammer. His motive was to steal money in order to entertain his gambling habit. No sexual motive was ever discerned.

Out of these three offenders, Hatcher and Travis seem to be the two that fit with what we describe as sexual serial killers.

We then have two more offenders:

Herb Baumeister strangled gay men in Indiana and Ohio 1990 to 1996.

Richard Trenton Chase killed six people in Sacramento, California in the span of a month as 1977 turned to 1978.

Interestingly, David Lester has these two men in his material of 248 killers. He speaks of Baumeister as a psychologically challenged man with homosexual tendencies, but he overall fits the bill of sexual serial killers. As for Chase, it is another matter. He killed not for lust but to enable himself to fill up on blood - he believed his own blood was turning to sand, and so he needed to drink other peoples blood.

So! Five killers from the British speaking area, and three of them qualify as sexual serial killers. 3 out of 107 makes 2,8 per cent.

The Wikipedia list leaves us with many household names when it comes to sexual serial killers from the British speaking sphere, and I am happy to list them:

Samuel Little
Gary Ridgway
Ted Bundy
John Wayne Gacy
Earle Nelson
Patrick Kearney
William Bonin
Larry Eyler
John Paul Knowles
Robert Hansen
Randy Kraft
Jeffrey Dahmer
Robert Yates
Carrol Cole
Carl Eugene Watts
Arthur Shawcross
Peter Sutcliffe
Richard Ramirez
Joseph De Angelo
Will Suff
Dennis Nilsen
Kennet Bianchi
Angelo Buono
Clifford Olson
Anthony Sowell
Andre Crawford
Lonnie Franklin Jr
Bobby Joe Long
Ed Kemper
Dennis Rader
Joel Rifkin
Kenneth McDuff
Richard Cottingham
Keith Hunter Jasperson
Rodney Alcala
Ivan Milat
Kenneth Erskine
David Carpenter
Derrick Todd Lee
David Berkowitz
Tommy Lynn Sells
Steve Wright

These are all men where we can sense at least some mental kinship to the man who killed prostitutes in London back in 1888, and as such, they should be our best comparison when it comes to suicide rates. These killers will be psychopaths to an extremely high degree, with lots of them having traits of narcissism, a description that is not proven for Jack the Ripper but one that is seemingly extremely likely.

42 men, all of them best described as sexual serial killers. Their suicide rate amounts to zero.

In my book, that counts for a whole lot. Others may disagree, of course!

[Chris Phillips]

I thought Druitt was in court on the 27th November.

I think 7 weeks is based on the time between the murder of Mary Jane Kelly and the discovery of Druitt's body (as in the Macnaghten memorandum).

It's obviously a blunder by Hermes's eulogist, as the train ticket he is talking about was dated 1 December.

[Christer Holmgren]

A little more information on Maury Travis. He actually left a suicide note. In it, he wrote that he did not want to spend the rest of his life in prison and he did not want to be executed by injection. Instead, he wrote, he had decided to take his own life. He stated that he left the note to prove that ”you guys didn’t kill me.”
This is in perfect line with the suggestion that sexual serial killers who commit suicide are likely to do so on account of how they have been incarcerated, not on account of any remorse. Which is logical enough, since the typical psychopath is blissfully unaware of how remorse feels.

[Chris Phillips]

As you say yourself, statistics can really be used in a slippery way! And turning things upside down does not help - it remains that out of those who were defined as serial killers in the paper we are dealing with, 93,8 per cent did NOT commit suicide. And that does not mean that Druitt was more likely than not to commit suicide, it means that if he was a serial killer, he was very much expected NOT to kill himself.

As I said, the point I'm making is a very simple one.

The question is - does the fact that Druitt committed suicide make him more or less likely as a suspect? The answer is that it makes him more likely.

The fact that only a minority of serial killers commit suicide is irrelevant. That would give us the answer to a quite different question - given the fact that Druitt was a serial killer, which is likelier: that he killed himself or didn't kill himself?

[Edward Stow]

Notwithstanding any work done in the 1970s without the benefit of the interweb, there remains huge gaps in our knowledge in areas around Druitt's life - gaps that I think can be readily closed. Not necessarily via clicking buttons.

Gary, i mentioned the horse slaughter issues as that research was - intentionally by you or not - relatedň to a certain suspect.
None of that research has detracted from that suspect although I guess in an ideal world it could have assisted his suspect status even more.

[Christer Holmgren]

... and more on Charles Ray Hatcher. When jailed, he confessed and requested a death sentence. It was only when this was denied that he hanged himself. We therefore have signs of the prospect of a life time in jail is what led up to Hatchers suicide. Not an inability to live with the cormes committed, as suggested by MacNaghten for Druitt!

[Christer Holmgren]

As I said, the point I'm making is a very simple one.

The question is - does the fact that Druitt committed suicide make him more or less likely as a suspect? The answer is that it makes him more likely.

The fact that only a minority of serial killers commit suicide is irrelevant. That would give us the answer to a quite different question - given the fact that Druitt was a serial killer, which is likelier: that he killed himself or didn't kill himself?

Yes, it IS simple: As a rule, sexual serial killers are quite unlikely to kill themselves. Therefore, the by far likeliest thing is that Jack the Ripper did NOT take his own life. As a consequence of that, we should look for him among the ones who chose to live, not the ones who chose to die. Consequentially, suspects who did away with themselves are worse suspects than those who did not.

We can all juggle with statistics. Exclude one element and include another and we can go anywhere we like to.

[Caroline Brown]

I’d say that every single suspect mentioned in the case is more likely to have been innocent than guilty. Also, I don’t see a single sign suggesting that Druitt was gay unless we conclude that every unmarried man was likely to have been gay?

You suggest Fish that the small percentage of serial killers that commit suicide probably did so because of fear of apprehension and incarceration. This might be the case but I don’t think that it can be stated as a fact and we also have to consider that Druitt might have felt that an arrest was close. If he confessed to a family member for example he may have believed that they would go to the police? Also, in the suicide note he compared himself with his mother. This could be read as being about his mental condition alone of course but it could indicate a fear of incarceration in an asylum. Isn’t it possible that someone with an unbalanced mind might have preferred death to a lifetime in an asylum?

Nowhere near enough to rule our Druitt imo. And this isn’t coming from a man who believes that he was definitely the killer. I just think that over the years he’s been to easily dismissed and imo nothing has changed.

Hi Michael,

I wonder how much difference the era JtR was living in would have made to how he viewed his own crimes and guilt, compared with modern serial killers. I don't believe his psychopathy would necessarily have been different from later versions of himself, but his perceptions of self could have been influenced by what the people around him at the time thought about the 'monster within'. For instance, if he read that 'experts' were saying his mind would surely give way after Miller's Court, would he have laughed it off, knowing how little understanding they had of men like him, or might he actually have believed it and been terrified of what lay ahead for him? If a doctor tells someone they have a serious condition which can only get worse, will that person know any different?

While the vast majority of known serial killers do not kill themselves unless cornered, and few are described these days as hopelessly insane, they are products of their time, and will have a different understanding of how others see them. So I wouldn't be surprised if JtR fell victim in some way to his own publicity and believed the picture portrayed.

Love,

Caz
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[Gary Barnett]

Notwithstanding any work done in the 1970s without the benefit of the interweb, there remains huge gaps in our knowledge in areas around Druitt's life - gaps that I think can be readily closed. Not necessarily via clicking buttons.

Gary, i mentioned the horse slaughter issues as that research was - intentionally by you or not - relatedň to a certain suspect.
None of that research has detracted from that suspect although I guess in an ideal world it could have assisted his suspect status even more.

The horse slaughtering research on here is barely related to JTR, let alone a single suspect.

[Edward Stow]

Gary
All roads lead to Lechmere.
You should know that.
And I intend to do a horse slaughter episode on the House of Lechmere... with a guest appearance ideally

[Edward Stow]

Were 'experts' publicly being quoted as saying that the culprit's mind had given way after the murder of Mary Kelly and before Druitt's death?
This isn't a leading question, I actually don't know.

[Christer Holmgren]

Hi Michael,

I wonder how much difference the era JtR was living in would have made to how he viewed his own crimes and guilt, compared with modern serial killers. I don't believe his psychopathy would necessarily have been different from later versions of himself, but his perceptions of self could have been influenced by what the people around him at the time thought about the 'monster within'. For instance, if he read that 'experts' were saying his mind would surely give way after Miller's Court, would he have laughed it off, knowing how little understanding they had of men like him, or might he actually have believed it and been terrified of what lay ahead for him? If a doctor tells someone they have a serious condition which can only get worse, will that person know any different?

While the vast majority of known serial killers do not kill themselves unless cornered, and few are described these days as hopelessly insane, they are products of their time, and will have a different understanding of how others see them. So I wouldn't be surprised if JtR fell victim in some way to his own publicity and believed the picture portrayed.

Love,

Caz
X

I think what must be weighed in is how a psychopath is unable to feel remorse for what he has done. We know that psychopaths cry on funerals - they have learnt to emulate the behaviour of non-psychopaths. But they dont feel sad as such, they only try to give the impression of being like everybody else.

So the question is if they would be so interested in emulating feelings as to kill themselves - because they thought that it was expected of them? If this was the case, why would todays society NOT impose that same burden on todays serial killers? We have seen Ridgways trial, where devastated relatives siad they wanted him to suffer and die.

Has he complied?

Your thought is an interesting one, but I don´t think it works very well.

[Chris Phillips]

Yes, it IS simple: As a rule, sexual serial killers are quite unlikely to kill themselves. Therefore, the by far likeliest thing is that Jack the Ripper did NOT take his own life. As a consequence of that, we should look for him among the ones who chose to live, not the ones who chose to die.

We can all juggle with statistics. Exclude one element and include another and we can go anywhere we like to.

I'm not "juggling". I'm explaining the statistical fallacy you've fallen into.

You're trying to tell us Druitt is a bad suspect because he committed suicide, on the basis that only a minority of serial killers commit suicide. That is, you're trying to tell us that the probability that he was a serial killer is lower, given that he committed suicide, than it would have been if he hadn't committed suicide. But in fact, purely as a simple piece of arithmetic, the opposite is true.

Consider a simple analogy. In the UK at the moment, the highest rate of COVID-19 infections is among young children under 6. That means that the probability that someone is infected is higher, given that they are under 6, than it would have been if they had been over 6. (Just the same as if you replace "infected" with "serial killer" and "are under 6" with "committed suicide".)

In that analogy, your argument would be that of all the people infected, only a minority are under 6. You would argue on that basis, that if someone were under 6 they would be less likely to be infected. But in fact the opposite is true!

Please just have a think about it before (or preferably rather than) responding.

[Caroline Brown]

in case no one responds to the second instalment of Mrs Brown's boy, the equivalence would be Mr Brown traveling to East Street Market in Walworth to hopefully meet some future Mrs Brown, when the barely knew each other and at a place neither had been before, on the spur of the moment. Less prosaic.

Right, so in your opinion a serial killer's desire to travel to where he knows he can find vulnerable women to murder and mutilate and will not be recognised, would be weaker than Mister Brown's desire was, to travel a similar distance to see a woman he had only seen twice before?

I'll take that.

Love,

Mrs Brown
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