Options
Jack the Ripper Programme Channel 5 17th Nov 14
tiacat
Posts: 22,521 Forum Member
✭✭✭
Is anyone else watching this. I have never heard this name. I wouldnt call myself a Ripperologist but am very interested in these crimes and have read a lot about them but Ive never heard of this man
0
Comments
It hasn't been 'agreed' at all. Could be 5, could be 6. Could be less, could be more.
What is more annoying is how these programmes claim to 'reveal' the killer rather than simply proposing a suspect.
I disagree. I think Martha Tabram was a victim, one of the patterns of the killings were the dates. The first weekend at the end of the first week in the month, or the end of the month. She was killed at the end of the first week in August and for me that fits the pattern. The style of the body being left in the same way fits too.
As theories go it was quite interesting, his route to work and the victims locations was convincing , however it failed to explain why he suddenly stopped killing after Kelly's murder, did he move away ?
Hey ho, another ex-copper author getting his snout in the Ripper trough.
Not at all. Some people include Tabram as a Ripper victim. Some don't believe Stride was a Ripper victim. Some believe all 6 were.
Obviously it glossed over some obvious potential objections to the theory being proposed but I'll be interested to hear what other Ripperologists have to say about it.
They should have pointed out that Holmgren's theory presumes Tabram as a Ripper victim in addition to the canonical five, instead it was blithely asserted as uncontested fact.
Looks like they stuffed up and the DNA matches 99% of the European population.
Also even if DNA is found on one victim it's hardly proof of anything other than that person was in contact with the victim at some point.
The programme gave a reasonably good prima-facie case, but if I were a juror I think I would struggle to convict the accused even on the "balance of probabilities" let alone "beyond reasonable doubt". I would want to watch, see, or be reminded of, the various other documentary programmes and theories and suspects who have been proposed.
I think the programme over-emphasised the similarities and was too light in dismissing the possibility that he was just coincidentally in the vicinity. Lots of other men living in the area would have had similar journeys to work and locations where they worked or lived.
The big elephant-in-the-room which was not explained, and hardly mentioned, by the programme is: why did he stop? Most serial killers carry on killing - often at an increasing rate, and with increased frenzy - until they are stopped, or caught, or killed. Are we supposed to believe that this man killed 6 women with a few weeks and then just stopped, and lived a conventional life for the next 30 years?
Still, it was a much better theory than some of the rubbish which has been proposed over the years.
But sadly, we're all looking back from a different time. Perhaps this man genuinely WAS in the wrong place at the wrong time, had a fear of police (so lied), didn't know how to deal with police or was on the run for something else (so lied), had mental issues (so lied/diffused) or was just another quirky character living on top of other strange little people shuffling together in the gloom.
It assumed he was guilty in hindsight when in actual fact several circumstances could have been the luck of the draw and his own personality traits, which were not researched.
He is a likely contender, no doubt. But I don't think it's a given and you dearly need to see stuff in the context of the times in which it happened, which we ever really can. I read a book by an author who puts forward that the Ripper murders are strategically satanic/occult from start to finish, right down to the paths trodden and streets chosen and that too is very compelling - different murderer, different name, but all equally convincing.
Totally agree, and knowing lots about victorian social history as I do, the early life he experienced would not have been out of the norm for most poor victorian Londoners. People did move all over the place lots of the time, and people did tend to remarry after their spouses death, although Im not sure how they came to the conclusion that his mother was a 'dominant' force in his life, where was the evidence for that?
So for me, motivation was missing (although it would be this long after the murders) and as you say the reason for the lack of criminal behaviour after the killings. It might be that there were more murders after which havent been categorised as Ripper murders but Im not sure how much evidence there is for that.
Was this based on the DNA from Lizzie Stride's shawl? Cos if it didn't then it was hardly relevant. Not that I am saying that theory is correct. It's just it seems to be we can expect a 'new' definitive answer every few months, all positively, definitely, without a doubt, no other theory need to be looked ever again gives us the name of the Ripper.
Let's be honest we will never really know and it's not going to mean a lot today anyway. Gave up reading Ripper books when I bought two about ten years ago and they both spent most of the time trashing the theory in the other book I had bought. Gets a bit annoying like that these days.
You can catch up with it here http://www.channel5.com/shows/conspiracy-the-missing-evidence/episodes/episode-3-616
I found it interesting and fairly convincing.. until the next theory comes along. This is the description of the programme
Yet it has always seemed to me the work of a completely different madman [ and in the infested streets of East London in 1888 one could throw a brick and hit 4 or 5 bona fide fruit loops ]. It's indoors, the prostitute [ ? ] is young and attractive and has her own room, the multilations are incredible beyond belief, must have taken 2 hours, and if it hadn't been for her rentman the murder might not have been discovered for days.
Not always, there have been theories that the killer moved to a different country and continued his killing spree there.
I thought I was reasonably well-read on the subject but had never heard of Tabram before last night
I've had a lifelong morbid fascination for the whole Ripper phenomenon, living a short distance from where it all happened and having seen, before demolition and redevelopment, most of the original Ripper landmarks.
I missed the C5 programme last night, but there is one on tonight at 9pm on London Live, called Murder Casebook, so I will watch that.
I thought this was interesting enough but it seemed to be looking for evidence to back up a theory rather than examining the evidence impartially. As someone else mentioned, there must have been many men whose journey to work took them various routes through the East End, and claims of "suspicious behaviour" - such as moving from his home and leaving his daughter with his mother - didn't quite add up. With large families among the poor, this must have happened quite often.
It was plausible but not really compelling. The voiceover saying the man was going to write a book on his "findings" was telling - identifying a new suspect and writing a book on Jack the Ripper is very lucrative.
One thing - it was blessedly free of people in dodgy wigs "acting" out the scenes. It did take a more measured approach.
I had started a thread on General on this very topic before I spotted this one.
When I have time I will check on what Casebook thinks of it all.
http://www.casebook.org/
Yes, thats another thing I was thinking, just casually walking to work and then spotting someone you think needs to die, and then carrying on your way to work afterwards.