An incredible solution to who was the Ripper

[Richard Patterson]

I am writing here because I am happy to discuss the following. New evidence has come to light that may solve the Jack the Ripper serial murders. It shows that a ripper suspect, since 1988, lived in Whitechapel, where and when the prostitute murders happened. He lived down the street from the murder of the last victim, Mary Kelly. Not until now could this suspect be placed in the vicinity. He can now be shown to have been residing within a fifteen-minute walk to all the murders.

What makes all this so shocking and so newsworthy is that the suspect is the famed English writer Francis Thompson. Already it was known that he wrote about killing women with a knife. We knew he carried one, had medical training and harboured a hatred of prostitutes. I have written a manuscript that has all these facts and more. It shows on the night that Kelly was killed, Thompson could look down from his bedroom window to the covered passage. The one that led to her bed, where she would be stabbed to death and horribly mutilated.

I hope to have my manuscript become a book that explains how Kelly and Thompson once lived at the same address and may have even been friends. It’s website has a chapter from it and further details.

http://www.francisjthompson.com/

All the best.

Richard.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Richard Patterson

[Antilles]

Welcome to the board. What's your motive for Jack? Good luck with the book.

[ChrLzs]

What actual *evidence* do you bring? Don't send me to your webpage - you bring it HERE, and start with the most convincing and well-documented..

Otherwise you would be just spamming us, right?

Anyway, we all know JTR was Vincent Van Gogh.. you mean that isn't the case? Shocked, I am...

That link is to a thread that was all about spam - please make yours different, Richard...

[Keel M.]

I think you mean 1888 and not 1988.........?

Edited October 27, 2015 by Child of Bast

[Richard Patterson]

Welcome to the board. What's your motive for Jack? Good luck with the book.

Thank you. My motive for Jack was that a prostitute, who he had fallen in love with and had a relationship for a year, broke up with him not long before the murders began. As you are probably aware of, all the victims were prostitutes. His lover left him, when she found at he had become published in a magazine. She was aware that one of the poems he sent, 'Nightmare of the Witch Babies' was a about a man who wanders through London at night with a knife slaughtering women and cutting their wombs open to look for featuses so he could kill them. Jack (Francis Thompson) was living in Whitechapel and seeking his prostitute while carrying a dissecting knife, when the murders happened. He had trained as a medical student for six years. Thanks for wishing me luck with the book.

[Richard Patterson]

I think you mean 1888 and not 1988.........?

I know it looks like a typo and I certainly make my fair share of those, but it is 1988. Thompson was first named a suspect on the centenary of the Ripper murders. . The renewed interest in the murders that year caught the attention of Doctor Joseph Rupp an American forensic pathologist. His article, “Was Francis Thompson Jack the Ripper” was published in the UK journal, “The Criminologist” in 1988. Dr. Rupp gave an accurate surmise why people should stop pretending about this famous poet,

'Francis Thompson spent six years in medical school, in effect, he went through medical school three times. It is unlikely, no matter how disinterested he was or how few lectures he attended, that he did not absorb a significant amount of medical knowledge. Indeed, we know that he learned enough medicine to deceive his father, a practicing physician, for a matter of six years…The Ripper was able to elude the police so many times in spite of the complete mobilisation of many volunteer groups and the law enforcement agencies in London. If we look at Thompson's background, having lived on the streets for three years prior to this series of crimes, there is no doubt that he knew the back streets of London intimately and that his attire and condition as a derelict and drug addict would not arouse suspicion as he moved by day and night through the East End of London ... Francis Thompson was at least as good and perhaps a far better candidate for the role of Jack the Ripper than was the Duke of Clarence or any number of suspects that have been put forward over the past one hundred year.’

[Richard Patterson]

What actual *evidence* do you bring? Don't send me to your webpage - you bring it HERE, and start with the most convincing and well-documented..

Otherwise you would be just spamming us, right?

Anyway, we all know JTR was Vincent Van Gogh.. you mean that isn't the case? Shocked, I am...

That link is to a thread that was all about spam - please make yours different, Richard...

Evidence? Hmm. Where do I start? There is so much, that is why I needed a book just to contain it. The following has been checked and triple checked over my 20 years of research. The information I bring can all be shown to be true. If in doubt ask the staff who handle Thompson's papers at the Burns Library, Boston College. They will veryfiy everything you are about to read. There are also several biographies on Thompson by respected historians that can do the same.

If you think that anyone who lived right close to the murders, carried a knife and hated prostitutes might have been Jack the Ripper, then you think that Francis Thompson might have been Jack the Ripper. During the Whitechapel murders, this man was living 100 meters up the street from the last victim. He lived just where five women were being systematically knifed to death, while he carried with him a razor sharp dissecting knife. The murders had begun soon after his failed affair. She was a prostitute like all the Ripper victims where prostitutes. Both Jack the Ripper and Thompson wrote about wanting to kill these girls.

What most people do not know about Mr. Thompson was that up to the weeks preceding the murders he was a homeless bum. It was not until the eve of the murders before he could throw away the worn rags he had been wearing and buy himself a new suit. His editor, who was a keen follower of the Victorian sensation that was the Ripper murders, managed Thompson’s affairs. He took part in burning the most of the damming of Thompson’s written works including his letters. Those pieces in his work that talked about strangling women or that he was living in the Providence Row night Refuge, in 50 Crispin Street Spitalfields, where the murders happened, were carefully edited and cleanly removed. His editor, who became his literary heir and made fortune decades after Thompson’s death, insisted that his gentle poet could not harm a fly.

It was if it did not matter that he has a childhood of arson like behavior, and acts of mutilation. Forgiven is his history of drug abuse, or that he consorted with prostitutes, and had prior run-ins with the police, who has said were ‘against him’. It is not worth noticing that he borrowed more than 4 times the amount of money needed, during his 6 years at medical school, to purchase extra cadavers. Giving him more than a hundred bodies to cut up for hour after hour, while all alone in the basement mortuary of his Manchester Medical College.

In 1964, the eminent American historian John Evangelist Walsh was researching the life of Francis Thompson for a planned book when he found in a bookshop a recently released book by the English author Tom Cullen. This true-crime non-fiction was called “Autumn of Terror: Jack the Ripper, His Crimes and Times” Inside it, Walsh read an account of a suspect that eerily matched that of Francis Thompson. Cullen wrote that the man talked his way out of suspicion when he was interviewed by two City police officers. They had been tipped off that their suspect would try to trick prostitutes to go along with him by giving them by offering highly polished pennies, made to look like farthings. A London newspaper reported that found with Chapman's body where two bright pennies. Upon questioning the man was found to be an ex-medical student. He had been in a lunatic asylum and he had spent all his time with prostitutes. Despite this history, he explained how he could never had done the crimes and the police accepted his alibi.

Walsh had only recently learned, in researching his own book, that Thompson had been living around that time in Panton Street, in Haymarket, while the police’s suspect was found walking in Rupert Street Haymarket. Both Rupert and Panton streets are very short and are joined at the same intersection. What was even more odd was that the description of the man and that of Thompson closely matched. Thompson was an ex-medical student, he had taken the summer of 1882 off from medical school because he had a mental breakdown. Thompson, only relationship had been with a prostitute while she resided in West End Chelsea, before she fled and hid from him, most probably in East End Whitechapel. To heap another bizarre similarity, Walsh already knew the tale of Thompson and the ‘miracle of the halfpennies’. In an earlier, 1913 biography on Thompson, written several years after his death, is this telling of a windfall of money that Thompson came to while he was living as a vagrant in London.

‘They came to him on a day when he had not even the penny to invest in matches that might bring him interest on his money. He was, he told me, walking, vacant with desperation, along a crowded pavement, when he heard the clink of a coin and saw something bright rolling towards the gutter… As he neared the place where he had found the first coin, he saw another glittering in the road. This, too, he picked up, and again thought he held a halfpenny. But looking closer he discovered it to be golden and a sovereign, and only after much persuasion of his senses would he believe the first-found one to be likewise gold.’

Walsh saw that both the police’s murder suspect and Thompson, told stories about of switching coins. What Walsh did about his discovery was regulate it to a footnote in the appendix to his biography, “Strange Life Strange Symphony. The Life of Francis Thompson.” The footnote, on this ‘most bizarre coincidence in Thompson's life’, read, told of Thompson and the Ripper, and how a suspect was found to be close to McMasters the Panton street bootmaker who Thompson had worked for before being fired when he injured a customer. Walsh’s footnote said,

‘During the very weeks he was searching for his prostitute friend, London was in an uproar over the ghastly deaths of five such women at the hands of Jack the Ripper… The police threw a wide net over the city, investigating thousands of drifters, and known consorts with the city’s lower elements, and it is not beyond possibility that Thompson himself may have been questioned. He was, after all, a drug addict, acquainted with prostitutes and, most alarming, a former medical student! A young man with a similar background and living only a block away from McMaster’s shop was one who early came under suspicion,’

Funnily enough, nobody seemed to take much store in this little footnote by Walsh even though descriptions of Thompson closely match that of the famed former FBI agent John Douglas’s 1988 forensic profile for the Ripper.

Douglas appeared with a panel of experts in the TV Movie “The Secret Identity of Jack the Ripper” They were asked to examine the five main suspects (none Francis Thompson) in the Jack the Ripper murders and determine who did it. As well as appearing on the show, the ex Special Agent looked at the probabilities and wrote a description of who we should be looking for if we are to find the ripper.

Douglas said that the ripper might have had a physical abnormality. Thompson said he was denied entry into the army because of his small chest. His addiction to morphine had made his arms and legs were thin and unsightly, Douglas said he would be single, like Thompson. He said he had an aversion to blood, as is said about Thompson and given as the reason he left medical school. Douglas said that he may have only had relationships with a prostitute and Thompson’s only relationship was with a prostitute. Douglas said the murderer was a local and so was Thompson. Like how his biographer, Walsh said the police might have interviewed Thompson for the murders but let him go. Douglas suggested the same thing for the ripper. Douglas told the ripper had knowledge of anatomy and may have had a job in the medical field. Thompson had trained as a surgeon for six years. Douglas described how the Ripper was absorbed in the ritual of the crimes. Thompson was recorded as governing his life with ritual down to small detail. Thompson was a loner and kept to himself, as too did the ripper in the Douglas’s profile. Douglas said the ripper would be in his mid to late twenties. Thompson was 27. He said the ripper would have a disheveled appearance. Thompson was widely described as appearing dingy and untidy. Douglas described the Ripper as nocturnal and known to cover large distances by foot. Thompson was a habitual long-range walker at night, often sleeping in until the late afternoon. Douglas thought the ripper would not have committed suicide and stopped murdering by being confined. In the week after the last murder, Thompson was put in a private sanitarium and then sent to a far away male-only country priory. He went on to live twenty more years.

This author having examined various profiles for the Ripper feels it was most eloquently stated by the world’s first criminal profiler. Dr. Thomas Bond. He was the closest real thing to the fictional Sherlock Holms. By the culmination of the murders Bond was called in to examine all the murders and make recommendations on who the police should be searching for. Bond, who also performed the autopsy on Mary Kelly, wrote.

‘I think he must be in the habit of wearing a cloak or overcoat or he could hardly have escaped notice in the streets if the blood on his hands or clothes were visible’

Thompson was known for his insistence on wearing a long dark brown inverness style coat, in all weather. Bond said,

‘he would probably be solitary and eccentric in his habits,’

As already told in Douglas’s profile, Thompson lived virtually as a hermit. Bond told that,

’also he is most likely to be a man without regular occupation, but with some small income or pension’

Thompson in 1888 was without regular employment and living homeless on the Street’s of London. His only income was cash given to him for the first publication of two poems and essays in a magazine, which was used to buy new clothes. Bond wrote that,

‘He is possibly living among respectable persons who have some knowledge of his character and habits and who may have grounds for suspicion that he is not quite right in his mind at times. Such persons would probably be unwilling to communicate suspicions to the Police for fear of trouble or notoriety, whereas if there were a prospect of reward it might overcome their scruples.’

Before 1888, Thompson had been largely homeless. His publisher and editor had taken Thompson into his home and offered to find him accommodation. Thompson rejected this offer telling him that he wished to remain on the streets to seek out his prostitute that had left him in June of 1888, after a yearlong relationship. When his editor had published Thompson’s first poem in April 1888, he knew precious little about Thompson. In an act of kindness to Thompson, in the weeks leading to the murders, the editor had invited this poetry-writing vagrant into his home. Here he bathed and fed him. The editor paid off his debts and also gave him money to buy new clothes and look respectable before he headed back to his lodgings less than a 2 minute walk from Mary Kelly’s lodgings and no more than 15 minutes to all the murder sites.

Thompson matches eyewitness of the descriptions of the murderer, so exactly that they are refuted by modern Ripperologists because they are too detailed. For example East Ender, Mr. George Hutchinson, was the last person to see Mary Kelly, the last victim alive. Hutchinson followed a man who was with Kelly for three city blocks and had a good look at him under a pub’s lamplight. Hutchinson saw her walk down an alley to her room with a man that looked like Thompson. Hutchinson said, the man was no older than his 35. Thompson was 27, but even with a new suit, his years living rough had worn him down. The man with Kelly was about 167cms Thompson was about the same height. Thompson matches Hutchinson’s description of the man having dark hair, and a heavy moustache. The same with the man’s attire, wearing a dark felt hat, a long dark coat, light waistcoat dark and dark trousers like Thompson. Both he and Hutchinson’s man carried a small parcel with a kind of strap round it. Both descriptions of Thompson and the man were being of respectable appearance that walked very sharp though softly. Hutchinson believed the man he saw lived in the area, and he had last seen him nearby a few days earlier. People have been quick to dismiss Hutchinson as a witness simply because his description was so detailed and also because it seemed hard to imagine anyone fitting this description in the East End. Hutchinson even described how the man wore a thick gold chain while Thompson, a practicing Catholic, never removed his consecrated chain and medal that he usually kept hidden, with his knife under his coat and shirt.

When Thompson was living in Whitechapel, as well as seeking out his fled prostitute lover, he was making jottings in his small notebook. Some of it was used in a story. He finished it in the autumn of 89, a year after the Whitechapel murders. His story’s sole narrator explains that he stabs am unconscious woman to death. The murderer, in his story, tells us what he is writing is a murder confession. As well as training as a surgeon, Thompson had spent several years before that studying to become a Catholic priest. In the Catholic seminary school, Thompson gained excellent marks and was an altar boy, but there was something between him and the priests and just before he was to take the religious vocation, he was dismissed. With Francis Thompson having been a Catholic student priest for several years, the use of a ‘confessional’ would have held special importance. At the story’s start the killer explained how it was only in the pages of his story that he could tell everyone what he had done and still escape capture by the police.

We would never assume that someone who wrote about committing murder was actually a murderer, but Thompson tells us that with him we should. He admitted that his written work reflected events in his own life. In a private letter to his editor, Thompson told of his fears that his writings would display more than art.

'I am painfully conscious that they display me, in every respect, at my morally weakest...often verse written as I write it is nothing less than a confessional, a confessional far more intimate than the sacerdotal one. That touches only your sins….if I wrote further in poetry, I should write down my own fame.’

Here are some notable parts of Thompson’s murder tale, ‘Finis Coronat Opus”, which is Latin for the “The End Crowning Work”, that details the ‘hero’ using a poniard which is a light long knife type weapon to kill unconscious victim as so did Jack the Ripper.

‘If confession indeed give ease, I who am deprived of all other confession, may yet find some appeasement in confessing to this paper…. I swear I struck not the first blow, Some violence seized my hand, and drove the poniard down. Whereat she cried; and I, frenzied, dreading detection, dreading, above all, her wakening, struck again... Silence now, at least; abysmal silence; except the sound (or is the sound in me?), the sound of dripping blood; I shall be seized, I shall be condemned, I shall be executed; … I am at watch, wide-eyed, vigilant, alert. Oh, miserable hope!.... Nothing happened; absolutely nothing…. I fear no longer: the crisis is past, the day of promise has begun, I go forward to my destiny; I triumph…What crime can be interred so cunningly, but it will toss in its grave, and tumble the sleeked earth above it?... I do not repent, I cannot repent; it is a thing for inconsequent weaklings. If this fame was not worth the sinning for—this fame, with the multitude’s clapping hands …Yes I, murderer, worse than murderer,’

Some people might think Thompson’s story was inspired by the Ripper killings that happened where he lived in Spitalfields, but Thompson was also writing about killing women with a knife, a year before the murders. The public never got a chance to read his “Nightmare of the Witch Babies. Unlike his “End Crowning Work” story completed within a year of the Whitechapel murders, before the murders, in February 1887, amongst the pieces sent to the editor, Wilfrid Meynell, his editor helped him out was “Nightmare of the Witch Babies”. Although it managed to somehow escape the flames, it was never published. It was about a man who hunts down women by night. The narrator, finding these women are impure, delights in killing them by ripping their stomachs open in the hope to find a fetus and kill that too. Here is part of the gruesome litany of violence and blood that is Thompson’s poem, in which he kills one woman in much the same way as Jack the Ripper would do 18 months later.

'Two witch-babies,

Ha! Ha!...

A lusty knight,

Ha! Ha!

Rode upon the land…

What is it sees he?

There he saw a maiden

Fairest fair,…

'Swiftly he followed her

Ha! Ha!

Eagerly he followed her

Ho! Ho!

Lo, she corrupted

Ho! Ho!

Comes there a Death

And its paunch [stomach] was rent

Like a brasted [bursting] drum;

And the blubbered fat

From its belly doth come

It was a stream ran bloodily

Under the wall

O Stream, you cannot run too red…

It was a stream ran bloodily

Under the wall.

With a sickening ooze-Hell made it so!

Two witch babies, Ho! Ho! Ho!

Researchers on Thompson, who stumbled on this piece, must have concluded that it was a mere flight of fancy, since poets often rely solely on creative imagination. The same does not apply to Thompson. He explained that his poetry was factual when he wrote in a letter to Meynell, his editor,

‘The poems were, in fact, a kind of poetic diary; or rather a poetic substitute for letters.’

On November 9 1888. On the night, that Mary Kelly was killed Francis Thompson was near. He had a knife. He knew how to cut up dead bodies. He had a history of childhood violence, low-level arson, being responsible for two church fires. Even as a child, he would mutilate and behead his sister’s dolls. His feelings of hatred towards prostitutes where made clear when he wrote, not long after the murders, about them.

'These girls whose Practice is a putrid ulceration of love, venting foul and purulent discharge- for their very utterance is a hideous blasphemy against the sacrosanctity [sacred ways] of lover's language.’

Thompson spent most of his life after the murders in far off male monasteries. When he lived in London, it was under the watchful eye of his landladies whom his editor, Wilfrid Meynell, paid to watch him and report it all back to him. In 1907, when he was 47-years-old he was tricked into going to hospital by a scheme of the editor. Despite pleading to the doctors, that he was not ill, Thompson was placed in an isolation ward of a London private hospital. He was medicated with heavy amounts of opium, which contained the drug morphine. One week after entering the hospital Thompson was dead. The term morphomania, was given, in his death certificate, to show the cause of death was from a drug overdose. His editor said that Thompson’s conditioned rapidly worsened because the poet had tuberculosis. Even though this disease is typified by the coughing up of mucus mixed with blood and before entering Thompson did not even have a cough. The Hospital Chaplin refused to give Thompson last rights so he was replaced. Though even the replacement chaplain refused to vouch for the name. A will was hastily drawn up by the husband of Meynell’s daughter’s and signed by Thompson only hours before he died. It gave all monetary rights to Thompson’s works to Meynell. A patient, who knew none of the men, witnessed the will. Hardly anyone attended Thompson’s funeral. His death was kept secret from the press for a week giving Meynell time to prepare a statement. Within three years after Thompson's death, his poem the “Hound of Heaven” had sold 50,000 copies and he was on his way to becoming famous. Much of what else Thompson wrote disappeared, was destroyed or vanished. Meynell burned many of Thompson’s paper including a series of memoirs, detailing his time on the streets, during the years 1885 until 1889, which he completed in 1901.

He lived in Providence Row, a few yards from where Mary Kelly was killed. He had surgeon training and he carried a razor sharp knife. Right before the 'Ripper' murders a prostitute, he had fallen in love with, severed their relationship and fled him. Right after the murders, he was placed in a private sanitarium. A poet who was also a murderer? If he is indeed Jack the Ripper and has gone to hell, he will not be lonely. He will join the ranks of the other infamous serial killers who were also poets, such as Israel Keye, Dennis Nilsen, Joel Rifkin, Ted Bundy, Jack Unterweger, Dennis Rader, and the Zodiac Killer?

Edited October 28, 2015 by Richard Patterson

[ChrLzs]

While I appreciate the effort you seem to have gone to, I doubt if many folks here will get enthused enough, for example, to go and chase down the unnamed staff at some library, nor cross-check any of the 'quotes' and 'facts' you have offered - without references or cites.... Shouldn't you be quoting page numbers and giving a proper biblio of book titles/authors for all those 'facts'?

What I would much rather see instead of a wall of text, is that you pick out the absolute BEST evidence and show the FULL provenance, right back to source documents, of that evidence.

But kudos to you for at least returning to the forum. That's a big step ahead of most folks who magically and suddenly appear here, trying to push their wares. Good luck with it.

[Richard Patterson]

While I appreciate the effort you seem to have gone to, I doubt if many folks here will get enthused enough, for example, to go and chase down the unnamed staff at some library, nor cross-check any of the 'quotes' and 'facts' you have offered - without references or cites.... Shouldn't you be quoting page numbers and giving a proper biblio of book titles/authors for all those 'facts'?

What I would much rather see instead of a wall of text, is that you pick out the absolute BEST evidence and show the FULL provenance, right back to source documents, of that evidence.

But kudos to you for at least returning to the forum. That's a big step ahead of most folks who magically and suddenly appear here, trying to push their wares. Good luck with it.

Thank's for the kudos, but the kudos goes also to the good people here on this forum. You could have all ignoed my initial post, as much as you thought I might simply post and ignore your respones. A staff member, at the Burns Library, which hold the worlds largest collection of Thompson's letters and papers, that anyone is welcome to contact is Christian Dupont. He is the Burns Librarian and Associate University Librarian for Special Collections. The library telephone number is (617) 552-4861.

I am happy to give the best evidence, but perhaps you might want to be more specific. For simplicity the evidence can be places in 4 broad categoies.

1 Means - How he did it such as skill to perform the act and knowledge of the area.

2 Motive - Why.

3 Opportunity - How he committed the crimes without avoiding capture or later arrest.

4 Weapon - Showing how he obtained a knife, and that he was carrying it.

In the wall of text nothing is said that can not be backed up. There is no secret file, or hidden chest. I can give book, and page number for all of it. I'm sorry if I sound evasive but I am happy to give a specific answer and showi my source for anything detailed that you might care to ask. Without wanting to look like I am blind siding forum members with another wall of text, here is a compilation of some of my sources. I'm from Australia but I have literally travelled the globe in research, all of which I am glad to share. Not wanting to seem to be plugging anything but I do have a Facebook group where members, and not all believe me just yet, have asked me the very questions that you ask. Anyway here is a proper blibliography. Cheers.

'The Poems of Francis Thompson'. London University Press. 1960. Reprint of 1913 edition. Beverly Taylor 'Francis Thompson'. 1987. G.K. Hall & Company. , Blunt. Wilfrid Scawen 'My Diaries. Being a Personal Narrative of Events 1888-1914'. Part Two 1900-1914. New Knopf. York. Alfred A. 1822. Uncut edition. , Boardman. Brigid M. 'Between Heaven and Charing Cross'. The Life of Francis Thompson.' 1988, Connolly. Rev. Terence L. S.J., Ph.D. 'Poems of Francis Thompson.' 1941 Appleton Century-Crofts, Inc. New York. , 'Francis Thompson, In His Paths.' The Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee. , Darrell. Figgis. (1882-1925) 'Bye-Ways of Study.' 1918. Talbot Press. , Megroz. R.L 'Francis Thompson the Poet of Earth in Heaven, A Study in Poetic Mysticism and the Evolution of Love-Poetry.' 1927. Faber & Gwyer. , Meynell Everard. 'The Life of Francis Thompson' 1913 1st edition. & 1926 5th revised. Burns Oats & Washbourne. Ltd. , Meynell. Viola. 'Francis Thompson and Wilfrid Meynell'. 1952. London. Holis & Carter. , ‘Francis Thompson and Wilfrid Meynell’ A memoir by Viola Meynell. London Hollis & Carter, 1952. ,The 'Works of Francis Thompson'. Vols. I,II,III. London. First Impression, May 1913. , Thompson. Francis 'Selected Poems'. London. Burns and Oats. Ltd. , Thompson. Paul Van K.. 'Francis Thompson a Critical Biography''. 1973. Gordian Press, New York. , Walsh. John Evangelist 'Strange Harp, Strange Symphony'. The Life of Francis Thompson. 1987, Walsh. John Evangelist 'The Letters of Francis Thompson'. 1969. Hawthorn Books, Inc. , Jackson. Holbrook. 'The Eighteen Nineties A Review of Art and Ideas at The Close of the Nineteenth Century.' 1913. , Merry England Nov, 1888 edition. London. , Dew Walter. Chief Inspector. 'I Caught Crippen.' 1938. , Harrison Michael 'Clarence, Was He Jack the Ripper?' 1972 . W. H. Allen. 1972. , Leyton Elliott 'Compulsive Killers'. The Story of Modern Multiple Murder'. 1986. , Evans Stewart P. & Skinner Keith. 'Jack the Ripper. Letters From Hell' 2001. Sutton Publishing. , Fido. Martin 'The Crimes Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper'. Copyright Martin Fido. 1987. , Howells Martin & Skinner Keith. 'The Ripper Legacy. The Life & Death of Jack the Ripper.' 1987. Begg Paul, Fido Martin & Skinner Keith. 'The Jack the Ripper A-Z'. Headline. , Rumbelow Donald. 'The Complete Jack the Ripper.'. 1975. Penguin Books. The Revised Edition. Sphere Books. Ltd. , Sudgen. Phillip 'The Complete History of Jack the Ripper'. 1995. Robinson Publishing Limited. London. , Washington Mews Books. , Wilson. Colin & Odell Robin. 'Jack the Ripper' Summing Up and Verdict.' Bantam Press 1987 & Wilson. Colin & Seaman. Donald. 'The encyclopaedia of Modern murder.' 1989. Pan Books & Also Wilson and Seaman 'The Serial Killers. A Study in the Psychology of Violence.' 1990. Unwin. , The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Companion. Stewart P. Evans & Keith Skinner. Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc New York, 2000. 'Altick. Richard D. 'Victorian Studies in Scarlet'. 1970. J. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. , Farmer. David Hugh. 'The Oxford Dictionary of Saints.' Oxford University Press. Oxford. 1978. , FFinch. Michael 'G.K. Chesterton A Biography'. 1986. Harper and Row. Publishers. Inc. 10 East 53rd Street, Fishman. William J. 'The East End 1888'. 1988. Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. , Heath-Stubbs John. 'The Darkling Plain'. Eyre & Spottiswoode. London. , Kuntiz. Stanley. J. 'British Authors of the Nineteenth Century'. 1936. H.W. Wilson & Company. , Lowndes Marie Belloc. 'The Lodger'. 1913. Methuen & Co. Ltd. First Four Square Edition reprints. December 1966. , Palmer. Alan. 'The East End'. 1989. John Murray. Ltd. , Microfiche of 1888. 'Times' also for August 31 dock fire. Also Australian 'Argus' 1888. Stowe John 'Survey of Westminster' mdxcviii, inc maps. , Bible Old and New Testaments. Various Internet Sites including 'The Ripper Casebook'. The Victorian State Library, La Trobe University Library, Melbourne Salvation Army Archives, The British Library, British National Art Library. , Moorehead Caroline ‘The Lost Treasures of Troy’. 1994. Phoenix Giants. London. Also the Kew Archives, the Whitechapel Society and the staff of Burns Library in Boston College and the Ripperologist fraternity.

Edited October 28, 2015 by Richard Patterson

[rashore]

Welcome to UM Mr. Patterson Please, take time to read the site rules, check out some threads, and enjoy your time here on UM

You have an interesting thread going on here. I will have to read it a bit more in depth when I have the time to do so. Hope you stick around to continue your discussions with us.

[supervike]

Best of luck with the book sir. It looks like you have really done your research, and it makes for a compelling explanation for the Ripper. Really fascinating.

[Antilles]

Richard, I did read what you've posted. The Tom Cullen reference and the 'Autumn of Terror', I remember the story about Chapman and the objects at her feet or around her body. It depends on who you read as to what was found. Stephen King had the full Masonic finger pointer but I have heard about the 2 pennies. Now, I can't remember where I read this but I have read that the coins found near her weren't money at all or were bits of tin sprayed to look like money. Apparently, this was an old dodge around Whitechapel. The johns would pay the pros with what might have looked like money in the dark but wasn't. On the ground was a piece of muslin, the corner of an envelope with a couple of pills in it, and a comb. The police report doesn't mention anything about money - that only appears in the press reports. Proper crime scene reporting wasn't their strong suit then. Anyway, looking forward to hearing more from you.

[Timothy]

One thing it is not, is an incredible solution.

Maybe in your opinion, but it fails to impress on most...

[Richard Patterson]

One thing it is not, is an incredible solution.

Maybe in your opinion, but it fails to impress on most...

I guess different people have their own idea on what incredible means. I bring a suspect that lived in Whitechapel, where and when the prostitute murders happened. We can say on the night that Kelly was killed, Thompson was able to look down from the room where his bed was, down to the covered passage- the one that led to Kelly’s bed. I present an ex-medical school student, who until the end of 1888 kept a dissecting knife under his coat. He was also taught a rare surgical procedure that was found in the mutilations of the victim. Before the murders and after the murders he was writing about killing prostitutes with knives. Perhaps you have not read on other ripper suspects so you cannot compare. Perhaps you have and know of another suspect that shows parallels to these murders to a far greater degree. I myself suggest that, compared to anyone thus named, the connections that I have found connecting Thompson to the killings are incredible. Of course, the word might mean differently to different people. Maybe I should say the news is not incredible but credible. Thanks for giving your opinion. I enjoy independent and critical thinkers.

Edited October 29, 2015 by Richard Patterson

[Richard Patterson]

Richard, I did read what you've posted. The Tom Cullen reference and the 'Autumn of Terror', I remember the story about Chapman and the objects at her feet or around her body. It depends on who you read as to what was found. Stephen King had the full Masonic finger pointer but I have heard about the 2 pennies. Now, I can't remember where I read this but I have read that the coins found near her weren't money at all or were bits of tin sprayed to look like money. Apparently, this was an old dodge around Whitechapel. The johns would pay the pros with what might have looked like money in the dark but wasn't. On the ground was a piece of muslin, the corner of an envelope with a couple of pills in it, and a comb. The police report doesn't mention anything about money - that only appears in the press reports. Proper crime scene reporting wasn't their strong suit then. Anyway, looking forward to hearing more from you.

Antilles, I'm glad you did read it. Thanks for that. You are right. Of course there is much debate about the truth of the coins. There is no police file that says that coins were found with the body, and at the time only the press reported it. The idea of scaming prositutes or anyoe using subsitute for couns with value is certainly not uniqe to the ripper. It would been an old con. What to me gives the whole Hayarket story by Cullen credence is that Sir Major Henry Smith, the head of the City police, said that he sent his men to Haymarket to intrview this suspect, because the Ripper victims were found with such coins, and the tip about th Haymarket ex-medicl student was a good lead. So The head of the city police saw truth in the story. Of course Major Smith's memories came out some years after the murders. The whole thing though was enough to interest Thompson's biographer, who when he wrote it, did not know about Thompson being in Providence Row, a few meters from where Kelly was killled. Thank for showing an interest. It is really appeciated.

[Timothy]

I guess different people have their own idea on what incredible means. I bring a suspect that lived in Whitechapel, where and when the prostitute murders happened. We can say on the night that Kelly was killed, Thompson was able to look down from the room where his bed was, down to the covered passage- the one that led to Kelly’s bed. I present an ex-medical school student, who until the end of 1888 kept a dissecting knife under his coat. He was also taught a rare surgical procedure that was found in the mutilations of the victim. Before the murders and after the murders he was writing about killing prostitutes with knives. Perhaps you have not read on other ripper suspects so you cannot compare. Perhaps you have and know of another suspect that shows parallels to these murders to a far greater degree. I myself suggest that, compared to anyone thus named, the connections that I have found connecting Thompson to the killings are incredible. Of course, the word might mean differently to different people. Maybe I should say the news is not incredible but credible. Thanks for giving your opinion. I enjoy independent and critical thinkers.

Some of your argument is compelling. And yes I have never heavily involved myself in this case. However with all you have presented, I still feel the argument is 'gripping at straw'.

I can't see much more past that.

[Antilles]

I guess different people have their own idea on what incredible means. I bring a suspect that lived in Whitechapel, where and when the prostitute murders happened. We can say on the night that Kelly was killed, Thompson was able to look down from the room where his bed was, down to the covered passage- the one that led to Kelly’s bed. I present an ex-medical school student, who until the end of 1888 kept a dissecting knife under his coat. He was also taught a rare surgical procedure that was found in the mutilations of the victim. Before the murders and after the murders he was writing about killing prostitutes with knives. Perhaps you have not read on other ripper suspects so you cannot compare. Perhaps you have and know of another suspect that shows parallels to these murders to a far greater degree. I myself suggest that, compared to anyone thus named, the connections that I have found connecting Thompson to the killings are incredible. Of course, the word might mean differently to different people. Maybe I should say the news is not incredible but credible. Thanks for giving your opinion. I enjoy independent and critical thinkers.

To be honest, John Douglas' profile of the Ripper could be applied to a lot of suspects. Kosminski and Charles Cross are just 2. Not that I'm disagreeing with Douglas, I'm not. I think he's right on the money although I think discounting Jack killing himself is wrong. However. Everything you say about Thompson fits perfectly with a psychological profile of Jack. I can only agree with you there. But you haven't said what is your proof that ties him to the murders and until then, well, I can only take your word for it. I can't discuss the particulars with you when I don't know what they are.

But OK, let's say that Thompson was Jack. You talk about the rare medical procedure he was taught that is obvious in the murders. Well, are you counting Liz Stride and do you subscribe to the Canonical 5? If you do, then what is the surgical procedure in the mutilations? Stride wasn't mutilated and, to be honest, most of the surgeons who examined the victims believed there was no surgical skill involved at all. According to Dr Thomas Bond, the killer showed no surgical or anatomical knowledge in any of the murders, not even the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse slaughterer.

Now myself, I think Bond was wrong about the last bit but he was there. He saw what was left of Kelly. I wasn't. But I'm happy to consider his being wrong and what those implications might be.

[Richard Patterson]

To be honest, John Douglas' profile of the Ripper could be applied to a lot of suspects. Kosminski and Charles Cross are just 2. Not that I'm disagreeing with Douglas, I'm not. I think he's right on the money although I think discounting Jack killing himself is wrong. However. Everything you say about Thompson fits perfectly with a psychological profile of Jack. I can only agree with you there. But you haven't said what is your proof that ties him to the murders and until then, well, I can only take your word for it. I can't discuss the particulars with you when I don't know what they are.

But OK, let's say that Thompson was Jack. You talk about the rare medical procedure he was taught that is obvious in the murders. Well, are you counting Liz Stride and do you subscribe to the Canonical 5? If you do, then what is the surgical procedure in the mutilations? Stride wasn't mutilated and, to be honest, most of the surgeons who examined the victims believed there was no surgical skill involved at all. According to Dr Thomas Bond, the killer showed no surgical or anatomical knowledge in any of the murders, not even the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse slaughterer.

Now myself, I think Bond was wrong about the last bit but he was there. He saw what was left of Kelly. I wasn't. But I'm happy to consider his being wrong and what those implications might be.

Hi Antilles. Douglas's profile does show similarities to Cross and Kosminski, but I have compared his profile for the Ripper, with other suspects too and Thompson scores a match more of the particulars than them. I have no proof that ties him to the murders, all I can do is prove that when it comes to means, method, motive and opportunity Thompson, unlike anyone else ever named, shows all of them. I do subscribe to the canonical five and I do include Stride, even if this is not popular to many modern theorists. You have put me in the first time position of saying I can't discuss the specifics of the similarity of the specifics of the wounding on the victims and the rare method of dissection that Thompson was taught, because that will be revealed in my book. Sorry. I can say that it was taught to Thompson and not to Bond who missed it under the apparent carnage done to Mary Kelly. As a side, I have written a better summary of the theory which I have sent to one publisher. You are welcome to read it. It contains more details on why Thompson may have been the Ripper.

-----

'The theory was first proposed in 1988, on the centenary of the murders, when the article titled, 'Was Francis Thompson Jack the Ripper?’ came out in the Criminologist. The writer was, forensic pathologist, Dr Joseph C Rupp, M.D., Ph.D. He was the Medical Examiner for Nueces County, Texas.

My manuscript details new research that shows Thompson, whose fame grew soon after the murders, lived in Whitechapel. He was there when all the prostitutes were murders. It presents new evidence that, on the night that the 5th victim, Mary Kelly was killed, he could look from the room that had his bed, to the covered passage, that led to the room that had her bed. The manuscript provides latest information on how, supposedly, Mary Kelly and Thompson stayed at the same address and also that a fellow writer and friend of his believed Thompson and Kelly were friends.

The book will be the culmination of twenty years of research around the globe, and will show he kept a dissecting knife under his coat, and he was taught a rare surgical procedure that was found in the mutilations of the victim. The content will be on how, before and after the murders, he wrote about killing female prostitutes with knives. It will seek the lie in his alibi that he was only in Whitechapel seeking out a prostitute who had jilted him. The book will cover his life and how, before the murders, he showed signs of religious mania, pyromania and the urge to mutilate females. It will discuss his nervous breakdown in 1882, and his trouble with the police in 1885 until 1889. It will look at the drug habit he formed in1879. It will explain why, before 1888, he was rejected from the priesthood, he failed six years of medical school, he was kicked out of the, army, and why he was fired from his jobs at a medical instrument factory and shoemaker.

My manuscript describes how the editor, who rescued Thompson from homelessness in Mid-November 1888, had a keen interested in the Ripper murders. It tells of the circumstance behind his editor tightly controlling Thompson’s finances and his movements, and friendships. The manuscript looks at Thompson’s reclusive life after 1888, and the strange circumstances of his death in 1907. It examines the unauthorized alteration and destruction of Thompson’s personal papers after his death.

The book aims to, for the first time, explain every clue that the Ripper left behind. I hope the book will shine the spotlight of truth on the hidden face of the Ripper and expose his secret motive.

---

Thanks for writing Antilles. It is good to talk with someone who knows the case well.

[Regi]

I don't know much about the actual and precise details of the case but there's a thread here with an article which reports where experts determined where The Ripper must have lived. The article reports that the location no longer exists but I wonder if it's the same location as what you're referring to as having been nearest to the last victim.

Also, what's your impression of the letters/messages supposedly (I don't know if it was eventually believed/determined they were phoney or not) written by The Ripper?

Edited October 30, 2015 by regi

[Keel M.]

I am writing here because I am happy to discuss the following. New evidence has come to light that may solve the Jack the Ripper serial murders. It shows that a ripper suspect, since 1988, lived in Whitechapel, where and when the prostitute murders happened. He lived down the street from the murder of the last victim, Mary Kelly. Not until now could this suspect be placed in the vicinity. He can now be shown to have been residing within a fifteen-minute walk to all the murders.

So you have a suspect who was well over 100 in 1988?

[Richard Patterson]

I don't know much about the actual and precise details of the case but there's a thread here with an article which reports where experts determined where The Ripper must have lived. The article reports that the location no longer exists but I wonder if it's the same location as what you're referring to as having been nearest to the last victim.

Also, what's your impression of the letters/messages supposedly (I don't know if it was eventually believed/determined they were phoney or not) written by The Ripper?

I'm not sure if I know of the article you mention but I have read articles by experts on where the Ripper may have lived. These suggest that it follows the usual pattern of the killer living close to the murders. The location that my suspect, Francis Thompson, lived at still exists. This is surprising considering all the new buildings that are springing up in that area. I am one of the few who still believes the Ripper letters where written by the Ripper or somebody who knew the Ripper's identity. I devote a chapter of my book entirely on the Ripper letters.

[Regi]

^So sorry, I should have provided the article!

It doesn't sound to me like it's the same location.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10880601/We-know-where-Jack-the-Ripper-lived-experts.html

[Richard Patterson]

^So sorry, I should have provided the article!

It doesn't sound to me like it's the same location.

http://www.telegraph...ed-experts.html

Thanks for the article. Flower and Dean Street, where these experts say the Ripper lived, is pretty much centered around the killing zone and I can see the sense in what they say. My suspect lived in Crispin Street, about 130 meters west of Flower & Dean. Not the same street as the experts suggested, but pretty close and also close to the murders, which is the signature pattern of serial killers.

[Regi]

^ Of course I'd read it was Crispin...

I'm not sure about your info re: the signature pattern of serial killers, but I appreciate your reply.

[Antilles]

I'm not sure if I know of the article you mention but I have read articles by experts on where the Ripper may have lived. These suggest that it follows the usual pattern of the killer living close to the murders. The location that my suspect, Francis Thompson, lived at still exists. This is surprising considering all the new buildings that are springing up in that area. I am one of the few who still believes the Ripper letters where written by the Ripper or somebody who knew the Ripper's identity. I devote a chapter of my book entirely on the Ripper letters.

Richard, I hold the opposite view. I do not believe any of the Ripper letters are genuine.

Now, as to Crispin Street. I've walked the Spitalfields area over a number of years in my slight fascination with Jack. Dorset St/Durward St runs perpendicular to Crispin St which was the site of the Women's Refuge (still is, it's just not a women's refuge anymore). You have me intrigued enough to ferret out my street photos and have look at the views I took there a few years ago. As you say, the building work there has pretty much wiped out any original buildings but you say where your guy lived is still there.

You agree with the Canonical 5 so the mutiliation must be in the throat slitting. Am I right?