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Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Message Boards » Suspects » Cutbush, Thomas » Thomas the Imitator? « Previous Next »

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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 1836
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 2:05 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

So, it is an interesting situation we find ourselves in here.
For we have a young man called Thomas Hayne Cutbush, once employed in a tea warehouse - we can’t yet say it was Kearley & Tonge - somewhere in the Whitechapel area (possibly Mitre Square or The Minories, again we can’t yet say) from where he was dismissed for his violent behaviour.
He threw an old man down a long flight of stairs, concussing the poor old chap.
‘Poor gentleman has fallen down the stairs,’ he announced to the concerned workers gathered around the inert body.
It was only when the ‘poor gentleman’ recovered a week later in hospital that he was able to report that THC had in fact hurled him down the stairs when the ‘poor gentleman’ told THC off for spending hours looking at himself in a mirror.
The year of his dismissal remains uncertain, as both his auntie and mother testified that he had been unemployed for two years at the time of his trial in 1891, but we do know that he managed to find employment after his dismissal from the tea warehouse, as a traveller for a commercial guide to the Whitechapel area, but how long that employment lasted we do not know.
We can only guess that he stopped working sometime between 1886 and 1888.
Therefore the series of tea warehouse fires might or might not fit into what we know about THC’s life.
Hopefully this should be factually established in the near future.
I am inclined to see a bonding of criminal activities when it comes to THC.
His writing of threatening letters to people in authority, the self-made pornography, his efforts to kill both his mother and aunt, the wild meanderings at night, and his childish efforts to stab women with toy daggers and the like. All this does point to a very complicated young man who wouldn‘t have held back from useful imitation.
In fact I really see THC as being led by imitation, just as a very young child would be.
And one must also take into account that THC might have been playing copycat here after reading press reports in 1891 about another young man who was doing exactly the same thing.
Then again THC might have been playing copycat right down the line, with the toy dagger just like Colicitt, with the fires he read about in the newspaper, and also with the crimes of Jack the Ripper.
Perhaps THC was really a cat amongst the pigeons.
I want THC to be Jack the Ripper, but if he was just an imitator I don’t mind.
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Sir Robert Anderson
Inspector
Username: Sirrobert

Post Number: 263
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 2:38 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

"I want THC to be Jack the Ripper, but if he was just an imitator I don’t mind."

AP - there is honor in a Bronze or Silver Medal. THC is definitely a medalist of some fashion in this Case...
Sir Robert
"I only thought I knew"
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert

Post Number: 4215
Registered: 3-2003
Posted on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 3:21 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

AP, of course it's possible that THC was only a copycat. For instance, suppose he hears from Uncle Charles about Kosminski and how he had attacked a female relative, and then been admitted to a workhouse infirmary. Maybe that's when THC decided to attack his relatives, with the result that he too was admitted to a workhouse infirmary.

Robert
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 1839
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 4:27 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Robert, you know me, I like to throw cats amongst the pigeons, just to see them fly.
I don't know whether THC was an imitator or not, but it does seem possible, given his nature and character, and I do like to throw buckets of tar at THC just to see how much of it sticks.
Not a lot lately.
In fact I reckon the young lad's legs have positively sprouted in the last few months, and he now walks around on legs that could almost support a figure of the stature of Jack.

Sir Robert
THC is certainly in the running.
We are getting to the same stage as the modern police did in the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, and it would be derelict of us in our duty to ignore the many references in our information system that do point directly to Thomas Hayne Cutbush as being in some way involved in the crimes of Jack the Ripper.
We should at least bring him in for questioning.

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