Proof of Innocence?

[Caroline Brown]

Just to flag a little irk of mine. It has been recorded by many serial killers who have been subsequently interviewed after capture that, indeed, much express childhood trauma such as abuse or neglect. However, serial killers are usually narcissistic psychopaths, which means they want your pity if they can't have your adulation. it's an emotion they feed off in the hope it can be used to manipulate for their own gain.

There are some good studies around this. We need to consider that the record given to us by the killers themselves may be tainted somewhat. Thomas McArthur, the Canadian serial killer, had no childhood issues and did not commit his first murder until his fifties.

The so-called exceptional may not be all that exceptional.

I was going to post something similar, Jay, about the most privileged boys often becoming grown men - some of them, unfortunately for the rest of us, leaders of men - who are totally without scruples, conscience or humanity, and think a moral compass is something boy scouts keep in the heel of their shoes so they can find their way home after being buggered senseless by the scoutmaster.

Childhood abuse, my arse.

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris Phillips]

That’s very useful, Chris.

We should use the ‘Resources’ resource more often.

Yes - that section is new since we moved to the cloud hosting, and have had our own webspace as well as what vBulletin provides.

[R. J. Palmer]

It seems from another report posted later on the thread that membership of Blandford Cricket Club was beyond the means of farm labourers, so that idea was a bit of a red herring:
https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/pers...791#post588791

Well done. The burning question for me is why the matches kept running out of time.

Transportation is always a key issue when planning sporting events involving teams traveling from a distance.

Unless the B.C.C. was walking into the same brick wall over & over again and not figured out how to stop doing it, they had time constraints that kept them from starting earlier, or finishing later, or both.

The local train schedule could explain that.

[Caroline Brown]

Most Whitgift Cricket matches against other schools were played out on Wednesday afternoons...
which I can report as an Alumni. Even one listed and lauded as such.

You were at Whitgift, Ed?? Which years? And where were you living at the time?

My daughter was an Old Palace girl, but not until the 1990s.

Love,

Mrs Brown, formerly of Shirley and before that, Waddon
X

[Chris Phillips]

Well done. The burning question for me is why the matches kept running out of time.

Transportation is always a key issue when planning sporting events involving teams traveling from a distance.

Unless the B.C.C. was walking into the same brick wall over & over again and not figured out how to stop doing it, they had time constraints that kept them from starting earlier, or finishing later, or both.

The local train schedule could explain that.

Yes - what we see in those reports again and again is that the matches ran out of time. My main comment on those match reports was going to be as follows.

In the file of notes there were 53 matches for which scores were reported - 33 involving the first eleven, 17 involving other teams associated with the Club or the Recreation Ground, and 3 involving the Blandford Liberal Club Cricket Club (a separate club which was founded in 1889 to be based at Bryanston Park, but which did play at Blandford Recreation Ground at least once).

The most obvious conclusion that struck me was that two-innings matches (i.e. games in which each side had two innings) were the norm, though they were completed less than half the time.

Of the 53 matches, there were only 10 in which at least one of the sides didn't have a second innings. Of these 10, in two it is stated that time did not allow the match to be completed, in another it is stated that it was feared there would not be time to complete even the first innings, and in a fourth the crowd was in uproar after a disputed decision at the end of the first innings, "no further play for the day being attempted." I assume the implication there is also that time had run out. In two more matches the first innings was in fact not completed, despite having continued beyond the point when the winning team had been determined. In another, the first innings was stopped at that point, because the heavy rain and gale made it impossible to continue.

That leaves just three other one-innings matches, for which no reason was given for the ending of the match. In two of these the report was minimal, giving only the total runs for each innings, and not the individual numbers of runs (one was a Liberal Club match, not Blandford C. C.). The final one is the 30 August 1888 match we are interested in.

All things considered, I'd be very surprised if Blandford ever intended to play fewer than two innings. If Druitt's match was intended to have two innings, it ended prematurely for some reason. Almost always the reason given for that was time. One one occasion it was bad weather (which also caused some matches to be cancelled altogether).

[Christer Holmgren]

hi fish
yes you make some good points, as usual, but I cant discount druitt, or even give him a check mark against his validity as a suspect, based on his public persona, for the same reason I dont for lechs apparent solid background and life. I know about too many serial killers who before they were caught appeared normal or apparently exceeding in life. Ive never put much weight in that kind of argument. but we do know there were some problems appearing with druitt, apparently none for lech. But as you know I think both are valid suspects, so I should probably end this line of debate now, or Ill soon end up arguing with myself lol.

Ask yourself this, Abby: Are you aware of any man who embraced the options offered by his school years in the manner and to the extent that Druitt did, being elected to head various clubs and suchlike, excelling in many ways, getting glowing recognition of his achievements and being very popular with his fellow students - and then turning into a sexual serial killer? The many serial killers I have looked into have admittedly varied in this respect. Some have had a trouble free childhood and school period, some have had all sorts of trouble, and some have never been let close to a school at all. But noone has stood out in such a positive manner as Druitt did. Or, to put it otherwise, noone that I know of have so fully embraced the environment and norms of society and thrived the way Druitt did.

To me, that is a massive point against him as a serial killer. You may reason differently, but ponder this factor before deciding!

[Christer Holmgren]

I was going to post something similar, Jay, about the most privileged boys often becoming grown men - some of them, unfortunately for the rest of us, leaders of men - who are totally without scruples, conscience or humanity, and think a moral compass is something boy scouts keep in the heel of their shoes so they can find their way home after being buggered senseless by the scoutmaster.

Childhood abuse, my arse.

Love,

Caz
X

Nobody said that "the most privileged" men in society are likely to have suffered childhood abuse, Caz. What was said is that serial killers often are the victims of it. You will find it very hard to apply your behind to that.

[Gary Barnett]

I’m not sure if we’ve seen this already, scrolling back through nearly 700 posts is a real pain.

It was clearly desirable that paying spectators attended the Town Band performances, and any cricket matches played on the day the Band were scheduled to perform would have a set time to finish, some time prior to 7.00 it would seem.

[Abby Normal]

-- Does that mean you know of serial killers who were actually dentists, lawyers, surgeons, judges, university professors, business executives...? ('Family doctors' I needn't mention, as we know of Shipman; and killing your own elderly patients is probably a special case anyhow...)

Or is this kind of killer more a trope of film fiction than a psychosocial reality?

Genuine question, old bean!

M.

Hi Mark and Fish
No they generally arent in those professions point taken. but we also know druitt got sacked for "serious trouble". so during the fall/winter of 88 he wasnt exactly that great of a member of the upper echelons of society was he?

[Joe Chetcuti]

Back on Post #652, Roger spoke of D.J. Leighton's book on Druitt. Leighton reported of Druitt playing on Aug 3 & 4, 1888 for the Gentlemen of Bournemouth. They went up against Parsees, a team that was touring from India.

As Roger mentioned, Leighton went on to write on page 110 of his book about how "A couple of days later" Druitt played for the Gentlemen of Dorset against that same Parsees team.

Leighton wrote a little more about it later in his book. On page 192 we find this: (Tabram) was a prostitute and at the time most people believed she was the first victim of Jack the Ripper. This was the time when Montague played five days cricket as part of the Bournemouth Cricket Week between 4-11 August, including 6 August.

So far, there has been no luck in finding the Aug 6th scorecard. Bournemouth Cricket Week has a legitimate sounding title. Leighton's book had a number of cricket sources in his bibliography. Perhaps he found out about Bournemouth Cricket Week from one of those sources.

[Gary Barnett]

Back on Post #652, Roger spoke of D.J. Leighton's book on Druitt. Leighton reported of Druitt playing on Aug 3 & 4, 1888 for the Gentlemen of Bournemouth. They went up against Parsees, a team that was touring from India.

As Roger mentioned, Leighton went on to write on page 110 of his book about how "A couple of days later" Druitt played for the Gentlemen of Dorset against that same Parsees team.

Leighton wrote a little more about it later in his book. On page 192 we find this: (Tabram) was a prostitute and at the time most people believed she was the first victim of Jack the Ripper. This was the time when Montague played five days cricket as part of the Bournemouth Cricket Week between 4-11 August, including 6 August.

So far, there has been no luck in finding the Aug 6th scorecard. Bournemouth Cricket Week has a legitimate sounding title. Leighton's book had a number of cricket sources in his bibliography. Perhaps he found out about Bournemouth Cricket Week from one of those sources.

Thanks for that, Joe. This is from the Hampshire Independent of 11th August, 1888.

[Gary Barnett]

Thanks for that, Joe. This is from the Hampshire Independent of 11th August, 1888.

So, the match between Bournemouth and the MCC was scheduled for Mon 6th and Tue 7th but it was concluded on the Monday, so there was no cricket played at the ground on the Tuesday.

MCC records must surely be available.

[Joe Chetcuti]

Hello Gary,

Leighton claimed that Druitt participated in the Aug 6th match. So you would think that Leighton saw a scorecard for that match. These are the cricket books that he placed in his bibliography, so perhaps one of these books had the scorecard for Aug 6th:

* The Butterflies Cricket Club 1862-1962 (Arrowsmith, R.L.)

* Chats on the Cricket Field (Bettesworth, W.A.)

* Social History of English Cricket ((Birley, Derek)

* English Test Cricketers (Frindall, Bill)

* Great Characters of Cricket's Golden Age (Malies, Jeremy)

* Cricket - A Way of Life (Martin-Jenkins, Christopher)

* Winchester College Cricket (Noel, E.B.)

* Centenary of Marylebone Cricket Club (Perkins, H.)

* Famous Cricket Clubs (Powell-Jones, H.E.)

* History of Royal Engineer Cricket (Rait-Kerr, R.S.)

* Cricket's Strangest Matches (Ward, Andrew)

[Edward Stow]

Yes Mrs Brown I am an Old Whitgiftian. From the 1970s. I know that is hard to believe given my fresh face and cherubic complexion. I lived in Wallington.
To get home, sometimes, when we were being daring, we 'walked to Waddon' - and got the train from there. It was regarded as being daring as one had to walk through the Waddon estate in our Whitgift uniform, with the ever present danger of attack from marauding members of the working classes. I seem to recall there was one notorious family who lived there called Morris.

[Gary Barnett]

Thanks again, Joe.

Over on Casebook poster GUT had his to say about the 30th August match:


’…IF he was the killer the frustration of a game cut short, or needing to rush back to the city and miss social time in Dorset, could even be a trigger.’

The idea had occurred to me. How much greater might the frustration of losing out on a second day’s cricket against the mighty MCC have been?