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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 **
Do the letters confuse anyone else?!?!?!?!?!?
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Letters: General Discussion:
Do the letters confuse anyone else?!?!?!?!?!?
Author: Fiona O'Hea
Friday, 14 January 2000 - 02:04 pm |        | The letters, supposedly written by Jack the Ripper, contained such bad spelling and grammar that if you believed them to be genuine you would have to rule out all of those who were well educated as suspects, for to say that they wrote like that puposely to hide their identity is a little far fetched, for if that was the case, just to lead the athorities on, they sort of defeated the purpose of writing the letters in the 1st place.
The idea that seems to be contained within all the letters is that this alleged "Ripper" wants to show off his intelligence getting the better of the athorities all the time and he plays with this idea that he's giving them a sporting chance by hiding little bits of information here and there in his letters.
Then if you rule out the possibility of the letters being genuine, how would the joker who actually wrote the letters [or at least some of them] obtain blood to use in place of ink.
Could anyone be so sick as to perhaps injure themselves just to create a frenzie among others by creating such a cruel hoax.
I myself am totally baffled by the whole thingand am torn between whether or not I believe the letters to be genuine.
Please enlighten me if you can, or if not give me more insight to ponder over. |
Author: ChrisGeorge
Saturday, 15 January 2000 - 02:42 am | | Hi, Fiona O'Hea:
The fact is that many of the Jack the Ripper letters, probably most of them, and possibly all of them, are hoaxes. We are talking about something like 2,000 letters here (there was a Y2K emergency in the Royal Mail in 1888!!! :-) not just the famous couple of Dear Boss letters and the Lusk "From Hell" letter.
In a recent communication to Dave Yost, Julian Rosenthal made the valid observation that one of the misspelled words in the Lusk letter is "knif" yet one would think if Jack was obsessed with the knife, that would be the one thing Jack or the letter writer would not misspell!
Jules wrote: "Just some thoughts on the 'From Hell' letter which you might want to throw around the room. I've been thinking about it being a fake for a few days now but couldn't quite put my finger on why. I reckon the answer's in the spelling. Whoever wrote this could spell the words 'piece' and 'fried' ok but gets stuck on 'knife', something Jack would have been obsessed with enough to know how to spell it properly. The other mistakes are just keeping in line with someone pretending to be illiterate."
Others have also noted the spelling oddities in the Lusk "From Hell" letter and have concluded that the letter was contrived by someone who was well aware of how to spell. The letter is written, in "stage Irish" -- "Sor".... "Mishter Lusk" and it would seem that it may have been written by someone from the British Isles, perhaps someone Irish. Jules has put his finger on the most glaring "mistake" in this communication.
As for the Dear Boss letter writer talking about writing in blood, and collecting blood in a ginger beer bottle, Bob Hinton has discussed the impracticality of doing what the writer claimed he did. This is one of a number of indicators that the Dear Boss series of letters may not have been written by the killer. We should also note the very neat writing, the almost prim language -- "red stuff" for blood and "the lady's ears" instead of "the bitch's ears" and so on.
Dear Boss lacks the real menace that the Lusk letter exhibits. The Dear Boss writer appears to be a poseur (and hence probably a hoaxer) while the writer of the Lusk ("From Hell") letter, if the half a kidney was indeed really from Kate Eddowes, may possibly have been the killer. I know Bob Hinton, for one, has stated that if any letter was genuine, it would be that letter.
Chris George |
Author: JackisBack
Friday, 21 January 2000 - 07:11 pm | | | I am sorry I missed this posting from Jules Down Under earlier this week, but I tend to agree with Jules concerning the points he expressed above. Thanks Chris for posting his observations. The handwriting of the Dear Boss Letter has always looked out of place to me. Whereas the handwriting of the Lusk Letter seems more appropriate to a deranged individual. You should see mine. |
Author: Myron James
Friday, 22 December 2000 - 05:50 am | | | It has always been my contention that the "From Hell" letter and the letter to Dr. Openshaw which followed were the only pieces of correspondence I'd seen in my intensive research into the Ripper case which seemed as though they may have been authentic. I'm convinced that these two letters were written by the same individual, and that he may very well have been the actual Ripper. The misspellings are deliberate and vary between the two letters. For example, the word "kidney" is spelled "kidne" in the first, "kidny" in the second, then spelled correctly in the post-script of the second. This, as I see it, is very significant, as the variant misspellings point to an individual with enough intelligence to pretend that he has no intelligence at all. The handwriting, itself, is also of key importance, particularly in the lower zones. Though it is more obvious in the "From Hell" letter, the handwriting in both samples displays lower zones indicative of sexual deviance (the lower zone being the zone which embodies the libido). The tails of P's and Y's cut down sharply, resembling daggers. This shows a tendency toward sexual sadism. This is displayed in most, but not ALL, cases in the lower zones. I felt that this should be pointed out because the handwriting changes frequently from one line to the next, particularly in the letter to Openshaw. This is the trademark of unstable personalities or persons under extreme distress. As for the authenticity of the piece of kidney, Dr. Openshaw found that it had come from an alcoholic woman of about forty-five (a fairly accurate description of Catherine Eddowes) and that it had been removed within the last three weeks. It was in an advanced stage of Bright's disease, as was the kidney which remained in Eddowes' body. And finally, upon examining the renal artery, generally about three inches long, he noted that two inches of artery remained in the body and one inch was still attached to the half kidney which had been posted to George Lusk along with the infamous "From Hell" letter. It is, then, probable that this kidney had belonged to Catherine Eddowes...in which case, the man who possessed it was indeed her murderer. The only question which still nags at me pertains to whether or not he really DID eat the other half...and I guess the world will never know the answer to that one. |
Author: Diana
Friday, 22 December 2000 - 07:24 am | | | Oh if the original Lusk Letter could only be found. Pictures reveal a dark stain which may well have been seepage from the kidney. It might still be possible to do a DNA analysis and compare with an exhumed Eddowes or relatives/descendants. |
Author: Jon
Friday, 22 December 2000 - 12:49 pm | | Hello Myron
Have you read the 'Ripper Letters' on the Main Menu? or alternately the 'Ripper Letters' section on this Message Board?
You will find we have quite the selection of theories on those coorespondance.
And as for the renal artery, it was stated that on examination the kidney was actually trimmed up clean - no artery remaind, therefore Smith's statement is taken with as much salt as everything else he says.
Chris G. might have some guidance for you as he has made a study of the Ripper letters and I'm sure will only be too pleased to advise.
Regards, Jon |
Author: David M. Radka
Friday, 22 December 2000 - 08:56 pm | | Great idea, Diana. Reversing it, perhaps the reason the Lusk letter went missing is because DNA testing became possible. When was it first noticed missing? Does this date coincide with the beginning of DNA technology? Would anyone care to comment?
David |
Author: Christopher T George
Saturday, 23 December 2000 - 08:10 am | | Hi Myron:
As Jon has indicated, the facts about the Lusk kidney are not as clearcut as you have portrayed them. The information about the renal artery being attached to the kidney matching what remained in Eddowes, as first reported, apparently was mistaken since we are told that it was trimmed up. Moreover you cannot know from a kidney that "it had come from an alcoholic woman of about forty-five"--it would be enough to be able to determine that it was human; you certainly could not determine that it was from a female or male, or the person's age. The possibility of evidence alcoholism is another matter, and there does seem to have been indication of nephritis, for which "Bright's disease" is an older term. Christopher-Michael DiGrazia has written an excellent article on the myths and facts about the Lusk kidney that we published in Ripper Notes. You can read "Another Look at the Lusk Kidney" on the Casebook Productions site at http://www.casebook-productions.org/rn/vol1/rn4_article2.htm
I do agree from my reading of the Lusk and Openshaw letters that they were sent by the same individual. This is evident because the same type of wordplay and mispelling occurs in both, and as you note the handwriting is remarkably similar between the two missives. It is also interesting that a number of observers make a big point that the Lusk letter is not signed "Jack the Ripper." On the other hand, if we are right and they were both written by the same person, the Openshaw letter is signed "Jack the Ripper" so the point about the Lusk letter being not so signed is moot. These are both letters sent by an individual who is playing with the authorities. Could he have been Jack?
Chris George |
Author: Diana
Saturday, 23 December 2000 - 09:35 am | | | If it was Jack the profilers are going to have to revise mightily. Most of them felt that Jack wouldn't do that. Profilers have been wrong before. If you look at the Goulston Street Graffito with its French overtones, and rounded hand, I think it is possible to conclude that the Graffito and the letters are mutually exclusive. That is, if he wrote the GSG, he didn't write the LL or the Dear Boss and if he wrote the LL or the DB he didn't write the GSG. |
Author: Diana
Saturday, 23 December 2000 - 09:38 am | | Just another thought -- maybe any discussion of the letters should include the GSG. Although we haven't thought of it that way before grouping the GSG with the letters for purposes of analysis
may yield some interesting results. |
Author: Jon
Saturday, 23 December 2000 - 11:14 am | | Unfortunately Diana, all we know about the GSG, as far as style goes, is a written description. This is a subjective view and of little use for comparisson sake.
Don't worry about profilers being wrong, anyone who ferrets through your garbage to try determine your personality is only a cut above palmists, psychics and tealeaf readers.
Trying to determine what you'll do by what you've done has limited application. Though it does make interesting reading.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Christopher T George
Saturday, 23 December 2000 - 11:55 am | | Hi, Diana:
I think anyone who considers the letters has to consider the Goulston Street graffito. The downside of that though is that we no longer have an exact copy of either the wording or the handwriting. Drat that Charles Warren!!! I am not saying the GSG was by the killer, mind you, I am just saying that it would be foolish to discount it just in case it was by the murderer.
As for the GSG being written in a "round hand," a "round hand" simply means copperplate writing, and the writing of the original Dear Boss letters are in pretty good copperplate style. They look as if they were written by a clerk. Look, for example, at the roundness of the "D" in "Dear Boss." And as for the Lusk and Openshaw letters not being in the same handwriting as Dear Boss, at least one of the (supposed hoax) JtR letter writers realized this discrepancy, and boasted that he (or she) was able to write in five different hands.
Chris George |
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