Why Hasn't the Case Been Solved?

[admin tim]

Why are the Whitechapel Murders still The Great Victorian Mystery? There must be a good reason.

You may vote more than once on this poll.

[Stan Reid]

I thought about saying -- Other-Because Jack was too "good" at it -- but decided for existing but undiscovered evidence -- wishful thinking perhaps.

[Adam Went]

Well I would have said "Because too many people who like to call themselves 'researchers' are too busy suggesting utterly ridiculous suspects that it stands in the way of moving the case forward in a constructive way against actual potential suspects....."

So I took two options and tried to find the medium.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Howard Brown]

I would suggest that it is possible that the Berner Street mystery has been solved, but all the other murders in the skein and murders such as Mackenzie's haven't been...Coles' murder, imho, was likely to have been committed by Sadler, who I feel is the best suspect in that murder.

I would also suggest that the murders won't be solved since those heavily involved in the investigation couldn't...so how could we ?

I would think our boy was too good at his game...which might be why Berner Street's murder doesn't fit...a position a year ago I wouldn't have embraced.

[Wicker Man]

It's a tough choice between the 1st and the last.
Certainly I see the killer as an unknown from our modern perspective. Whether he was totally unknown in 1888, or just overlooked is not clear.
I personally do not see a progressive killer as some suggest. The signature I detect starts with Nichols & ended with Eddowes, his technique was already learned.
I suspect he had killed before, perhaps in the military. Not necessarily a Brit. although he was familiar enough with the East end.

The case was not solved, for the same reasons the Torso murders were not solved. The motive was completely unexpected for the police to deal with at the time. This should not be seen as unusual, a good number of murders were not solved, thats just a sign of the times.

[Paul Kearney A.K.A. NEMO]

I would like to think that he appears in contemporary reports of suspects, or that evidence exists that is yet to be discovered

Part of the problems with research is bad contemporary documentation and reporting

However, I fear that JtR was a complete unknown and no evidence exists about him - hopefully he left some evidence in family papers or something

[Phil Carter]

Hello Tim,

Thank you for this poll.
I do not think any one name will ever be "Jack the Ripper". This I base on the thought that others have said over the years, that a multi-murdering single maniac tarred with the name "Jack the Ripper" (the name itself an invention) did not exist. The likelyhood of there being more than one killer responsible for these murders is possible.
Take Stride out of the C5, and you automatically have two murderers at large. Mary Kelly's murder has been questioned more and more over the years as to whether it pertained to the others as well.

It is my belief that anyone in charge under the pressure of catching "the killer" at the time would never in a month of Sunday's admit that they were actually searching for two or three different people. To be seen unable to catch one killer in the eye of the waiting world was bad enough. Imagine the reaction if it was let known that there were two or even three murderers in the same vicinity they couldn't catch? Add Emma Smith, Martha Tabram, Alice McKenzie, Francis Coles and the Torso killer(s) and look what you have. The shocking thought that X amount of killers were wandering around the streets of East London etc. How many of those others can reasonably be linked together? So how many murderers WERE running around free at the time? There HAD to be ONE murderer responsible for as many murders as possible in the eyes of the decision makers. Hence the naming of the infamous "C5". Saving face I believe it is called.

Reading Howards's comment about C3 made me think a little (thank you Howard). It is generally thought that C1 and C2 are most likely done by the same hand.

Supt. Thomas Arnold believed C4 was a "copy-cat" made to look like the work of C1 and C2. Did he say this because he believed that the killer of C's 1 and 2 was already locked up and could not have been the "Ripper"? Questionable. He did state that he believed no more than 4 of these murders was committed by the same hand.

That notwithstanding however, Sir Charles Warren wrote to Ruggles Brise on 19th September talking of "Isensmith" (sic) being in an asylum at Bow, and states that he seems a "very suspicious case , but the man at present is a violent lunatic".- Ref. HO 144/221/A49301C, ff 90-2 (Sourcebook, Evans and Skinner, ff. 131, 132)

Dr Percy Clark believed that one man was responsible for no more than 3 of the C5. Detective Inspector Edmund Reid states the police had no idea who the killer was.

Jack the Ripper was never caught because of the horrible possibility that as a single serial killer, he may not have existed. The newspapers bounced it into a single killer (as they did with the Boston Strangler in the 1960's I seem to recall, although apparently evidence of recent years shows this not to have been the case, that there were more than one killler responsible) and the police themselves helped spread that lone maniac idea throughout the autumn of terror of 1888.

The bottom line is that the police didn't have a clue whom they were searching for, because the witness descriptions for these 5 murders were different, and it is doubtful they could all be attributed to any one single person. Why? Because they were seeing different people. That is why, imho, the series of murders were not solved. I therefore vote other, in conjunction with yet to be found missing material, and the reluctance to see other possibilities by some over the years.

Thank you for allowing us to explain our thoughts on the matter.

best wishes

Phil

[Stephen Thomas]

You missed out 'the case was solved and covered up'.

Does MM imply that JTR is still on the loose?

As in he is sitting at home drinking tea with his feet up?

Ready to begin his business again any time?

Errrrr, no MM doesn't.

And if not why not?

Answer (duh), because the case was solved and covered up.

[admin tim]

You missed out 'the case was solved and covered up'.

That was intended to be covered by #7, which I have since clarified.

[Stephen Thomas]

Oh, OK. #7 it is for me then.

[Chris G.]

"Because critical evidence, which does exist, remains undiscovered."

-- This is very hopeful, and probably unrealistic considering that we know that the case files are missing, so it's problematic to say that there is evidence "which does exist" -- the opposite is probably true.

Look at it this way: even if we had those case files, the answer might not be obvious since it was not obvious to the original police officers who investigated the case and who had that information.

To me the best answer is "Because the murders were executed by an unknown for which no evidence or knowledge has ever existed."

Best regards

Chris

[Karen Sweet]

I, like most people with an interest in this case would love to think there is more evidence to be discovered out there and I honestly feel there will be more interesting, related discoveries made.

[admin tim]

Some other opinions.....

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/...d.php?t=176236

[Chris G.]

I, like most people with an interest in this case would love to think there is more evidence to be discovered out there and I honestly feel there will be more interesting, related discoveries made.

Hello Karen

No doubt there will be many discoveries to be made, although I somehow doubt whether any will reveal who Jack was. After 123 years of not knowing, including the years that the police were actively investigating the case, and still no definitive answer, I doubt if there will be one. In fact to think that there may be some sudden discovery of the key to the case seems entirely a romantic notion, in my view. But I suppose that is one of the allures of the Great Victorian Mystery!

Cheers

Chris

[Karen Sweet]

Hello Karen

No doubt there will be many discoveries to be made, although I somehow doubt whether any will reveal who Jack was. After 123 years of not knowing, including the years that the police were actively investigating the case, and still no definitive answer, I doubt if there will be one. In fact to think that there may be some sudden discovery of the key to the case seems entirely a romantic notion, in my view. But I suppose that is one of the allures of the Great Victorian Mystery!

Cheers

Chris

I agree with you Chris, that it is unlikely we will ever conclusively discover who the Ripper (or indeed Rippers) was, but I'm sure there are other little gems to find that will spark more debate and keep the mystery alive.
That is my hope anyway