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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **

Dr. Robert D'Onston Stephenson

Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: Pictures From Various Threads: Dr. Robert D'Onston Stephenson
Author: Kevin Braun
Monday, 02 September 2002 - 04:07 pm
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I hope this one works. Must be under 200kb. Due to my scanner's limitations, I cut off part of SITE 4 lower left, and part of the London Hospital, upper right below SITE 1.

myimage


Above is from a Vesica Pisces poster sent to me by Ivor J. Edwards. Many thanks Ivor. I have just been beeped to go back into work. Yellow marks the path JtR may have taken. IMHO these murders were planned.

Take care,
Kevin

Author: Richdewar
Tuesday, 03 September 2002 - 09:27 am
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Hi all,

If the odd circles in the middle of the pattern are supposed to reflect where the killer "planned" to attack, it appears he forgot, neglected, or could not complete the pattern.

Regards,

Rich

Author: Ivor Edwards
Tuesday, 03 September 2002 - 06:32 pm
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Rich, Where did you get that idea from out of a xmas cracker? You have me in stitches here my friend.

Author: Richdewar
Wednesday, 04 September 2002 - 10:59 am
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Ivor,

The point is the map really shows no real pattern - unless you super-impose your own theory.

Regards,

Rich

Author: Ivor Edwards
Wednesday, 04 September 2002 - 07:05 pm
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Rich, Every side street in which a murder was committed is laid out in the same manner from the centre point. Note how straight the routes are from the centre.With all due respect if you cannot grasp basic facts then I certainly have no intention or desire to debate the matter. It is for you alone to make up your own mind without any assistance from me.

Author: Richard P. Dewar
Thursday, 05 September 2002 - 11:22 am
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Ivor,

What does that demonstrably show - other than that the murders took place on side streets near main streets? This is what one would expect from someone who is familiar with the area - but not intimately comfortable with each street.

They are not laid out the same from the center point - they are of different distances. The center point, quite obviously is arbitrary.

What is obvious, and not too mysterious at all, is that the killer struck his victims about the same distance from busy streets - this was to assure privacy and give the killer a quick path back to one of the main streets.

Regards,

Rich

Author: david rhea
Thursday, 05 September 2002 - 12:57 pm
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I have a question. Are Auliff's statements as given in the last issue of 'Ripperologist' all correct? Is this a consensus that most of us would accept? Where does one find that D'Onston was converted to Christianity by Victoria Woodhull, and spent his last years in America?Where does one find information about English mercernaries (Excursionists) fighting with Garibaldi?I really want to know.

Author: Caroline Morris
Thursday, 05 September 2002 - 01:10 pm
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Actually Rich, Ivor,

One might expect the murders to take place on side streets near main streets, in exactly the same way as we would expect prostitutes to solicit on the main streets and take their customers to suitable side streets - the only difference being Jack was a customer with requirements the women weren't expecting until it was too late.

IMHO :)

Or is that too simple?

Love,

Caz

Author: Ivor Edwards
Thursday, 05 September 2002 - 02:09 pm
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Rich,I wish you would pay attention to what I say the first time.The sites are all laid out on the same principle from the centre point. And this statement has got nothing to do with distances at all which you mention.I get fed up explaining this and going over it a dozen times.

Author: Ivor Edwards
Thursday, 05 September 2002 - 02:18 pm
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Caz,
It is all very well you saying that now but at the time and much later it was assumed Jack was ducking and diving down the back alleys etc. It was not assumed he was solely using the main roads and side streets because the prostitutes were told to keep to the main roads by the police where it was believed they would be safe. Also many experts on the case believed he was a local man because he knew the back streets so well where it was assumed he moved around the area.So most people did NOT expect the murders to take place in the manner you incorrectly describe.No one has ever pointed out the layout of the sites before from the centre.

Author: Richard P. Dewar
Thursday, 05 September 2002 - 02:54 pm
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Hi Ivor,

What is your evidence that "it was not assumed he was solely using the main roads and side streets."

Are you saying no one assumed this? How do you know this?

Caz has quite accurately pointed out, as I have, and how anyone would unless you are looking for some design or pattern, that the murderer more than likely travelled down main roads and committed his killings in nearby side streets. That is a quite natural and logical conclusion and requires no supernatural hypothesis.

Regards,

Rich

Author: R.J. Palmer
Thursday, 05 September 2002 - 02:59 pm
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David--D'Onston wrote a pamphlet in 1892 dedicated to Victoria Woodhull. He had attended one of her lectures, and evidently became a follower of her philosophy, at least for a time. I am unsure of whether it is correct to consider Woodhull a 'Christian' in any normal sense of the word. She was originally known as a Spiritualist, but used elements of Christianity. Most of her biographies focus on her early life, with little mention of her life after she moved to England. But some bloke up in the north of England recently wrote a book on her which might shed some further light on this aspect.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned, to my knowledge, but Woodhull is best known as a feminist. Indeed, she is somewhat of a heroine in the American woman's movement. [The only biography of Woodhull that uses D'Onson's pamphlet is "Other Powers" by Barbara Goldsmith, where it is mentioned in the bibliography]. So what we have is the rather curious fact that a candidate for "Jack the Ripper" was, four years later, associating himself with one of the most prominent women rights activists of the 19th Century. Curious, indeed!
I have been wondering if D'Onston might have had some social connection to Woodhull. Collins & Woodhull have some odd similiarities, which makes me wonder whether there was a group of American spiritualists in London, with which D'Onston associated himself? Don't know, but it seems possible.

Author: Howard Brown
Thursday, 05 September 2002 - 04:23 pm
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That comment about Stephenson associating with Woodhull reminded me of that gladhanding photo of John Wayne Gacy and Rosalyn Carter...There's a pair,huh?

Author: Ivor Edwards
Thursday, 05 September 2002 - 05:46 pm
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Rich, Read the police reports of the day, newspaper articles, and other archive information held at Kew.

Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 06 September 2002 - 05:47 am
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Many thanks for the info, RJP. I've been wondering, ever since I first heard of it, what was the source for the suggestion that Victoria Woodhull, as it were, converted Donston to christianity.
All the best,
Martin F

Author: Caroline Morris
Friday, 06 September 2002 - 06:47 am
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Hi Ivor,

Presumably, owing to where each body was found, it was assumed that as long as prostitutes kept to the main roads they would be safe, because the killer was unlikely to launch an attack on them there.

And obviously, again owing to where subsequent victims were found, that advice was not heeded - most likely because, ironically, their very survival depended on drumming up business along the main thoroughfares, but actually conducting it in the side streets and alleyways, or, in Kelly's case, back in her room.

Now, you may be right, that a common assumption was that Jack was 'ducking and diving down the back alleys etc', where he was fortunate enough to encounter unfortunates who, unaccountably, were doing their soliciting there, contrary to all common sense, from both the commercial and self-preservation angles.

But it makes little difference whether such strange assumptions were common or not. When I compare the idea that the victims met Jack by chance on the main roads, and that they led him to a location they considered would be okay, where he then attacked them, with your own theory, that the women were lured, against police advice, to an exact site of Jack's own choosing, calculated beforehand on a map (and presumably taking into account the police beats, since the women would be no help to him here, being like fish out of water), I will continue to prefer the simpler and more logical of the two, unless when I read your new book, the evidence is a lot more compelling that practice of the black arts determined where those poor women spent their last moments on earth.

I can't say fairer than that, can I?

Have a great weekend all.

Love,

Caz

Author: Ivor Edwards
Friday, 06 September 2002 - 01:25 pm
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Hi Caz, No you certainly can't say fairer than that.


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