WALTER SICKERT
For some reason, the artist Walter Sickert has surfaced on no less than three separate occasions with relevance to the Ripper murders. Firstly, as has already been pointed out, in connection to the Royal Conspiracy Theory. Secondly, with the painter’s claim that he knew the identity of the Ripper because he occupied his former rooms.
Sickert was a member of a group of artists known as the Camden Town Group, and, as such, he took up lodgings in a house owned by an elderly couple in Mornington Crescent, Camden. This was several years after the Ripper killings, and the couple told him that the previous occupant of the rooms was Jack the Ripper. According to the couple, the mystery lodger was a veterinary student who would stay out all night and then rush out to buy the papers on the morning following the murders. He was also, they said, in the habit of burning his clothes. Eventually the lodger’s health began to fail and he returned to his mother’s house in Bournemouth where he died a short while after.
The couple told Sickert the lodger’s name, which he allegedly wrote down in the margin of a copy of Casanova’s Memoirs which he gave to fellow artist Harry Rutherford. Unfortunately, Rutherford could not decipher Sickert’s handwriting and the book was eventually lost in the London Blitz during the 1940s.
Two connections to the Ripper murders are twice as many as most suspects ever got, but Walter Sickert now has a third, and that is as a candidate for the Ripper himself. In 2002, the author Patricia Cornwell published Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper – Case Closed, which was also publicised in a television documentary to coincide with the book.
In her book, Cornwell decides there is a definite link between Sickert and the Ripper on the grounds that she had forensic tests carried out on two separate letters; the first was an example of Sickert’s own correspondence, and the second was a letter allegedly sent by Jack the Ripper to Dr Thomas Horrocks Openshaw at the London Hospital on 29 October 1888. Dr Openshaw had recently analysed an item of human flesh, which George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee had received in the post on Tuesday, 16 October 1888. When Lusk first opened the package, he was shocked to discover this small piece of rancid flesh, which was later identified as part of a human kidney. Also enclosed was a note, which later became known as the ‘From Hell’ letter.
The tests showed a match of DNA profiles in the two pieces of evidence. Cornwell says that she is 100 per cent certain that Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper, and even goes so far as to stake her reputation upon this claim.
The Openshaw letter, however, is universally regarded as a hoax and had therefore no connection with the real killer. The DNA profiling might indeed show at best that Sickert was the author of one of the many hoax Ripper letters. The worst scenario, however, is that at some point in time, both sets of evidence were handled by two people who were in some way distantly related. Cornwell never managed to obtain a reference sample of Sickert’s own DNA, which means there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that any of the DNA samples were connected to the artist in the first place.
Last but not least, in this particular assertion, is that all the available evidence points to the fact that Walter Sickert was actually in France between August and October 1888, when the murders took place.
BLACK MAGIC
When the press couldn’t find a new suspect to hang the Ripper name on, which wasn’t very often, they delved into the realms of fantasy and black magic, which were always a good ploy to sell a story. The Ripper murders were perfect for such scaremongering; even the very nature of the killings fitted in perfectly with the belief that there was something ritualistic about them, and that they were linked to black magic.
Believers in the occult have long held the belief that the ‘Hand of Glory’ or ‘Thief’s Candle’ was something that could empower the holder with special magical powers. The Hand of Glory is the dried and pickled hand of a man who has been hanged, often specified as being the left (Latin: sinister) hand, or else, if the man was hanged for murder, the hand that ‘did the deed’.
According to old European beliefs, a candle made of the fat from a malefactor who died on the gallows, virgin wax and Lapland sesame oil – lighted and placed (as if in a candlestick) in the Hand of Glory, which comes from the same man as the fat in the candle – would have rendered motionless all persons to whom it was presented. The candle could only be put out with milk. In another version the hair of the dead man is used as a wick; also the candle is said to give light only to the holder. The Hand of Glory also purportedly had the power to unlock any door it came across. A Thief’s Candle is very similar, except that it does not necessarily have to come from a man.
In October 1888 the East London Advertiser suggested that the Ripper murders were carried out in order to obtain the necessary body parts to manufacture what they described as Diebslichter, which is German for a Thief’s Candle.
The following month the Pall Mall Gazette ran an article suggesting that the murders were being conducted in accordance with a medieval spell that would permit the murderer to attain ‘the supreme black magical power’.
In 2001 Ivor Edwards published his book Jack the Ripper’s Black Magic Rituals, in which he argues that each of the five murders were carried out at a specific location, in order to map out the shape of a sacred symbol known as the Vesica Piscis, as part of a black magic ritual. Edwards went on further to name the magician-killer in question as Robert Donston Stephenson (alias Roslyn D’Onston Stephenson), who was a journalist and writer interested in the occult and black magic. He admitted himself as a patient at the London Hospital in Whitechapel shortly before the Ripper murders started, and left shortly after they ceased. He authored a newspaper article which claimed that black magic was the motive for the killings.
This was not the first time that Robert Donston Stephenson had been named as the murderer. Aleister Crowley (known as the world’s wickedest man) had claimed that Stephenson was the killer based on information supposedly provided by his friend Baroness Vittoria Cremers. Crowley is hardly the most credible of witnesses to anything, and Stephenson’s interest in the occult was centred on his attempts to revive the worship of female deities, a point of view that seems rather at variance with the activities of Jack the Ripper.
Although Ivor Edwards provides us with a great deal of information concerning the magic symbols and their use throughout history, there is nothing that actually connects such symbols to the Ripper murders.
WAS JACK THE RIPPER A WOMAN?
Not such a preposterous notion as it might seem upon first being presented with the idea. Most people automatically assume when hearing of a murder that the culprit is a man, and indeed most murders are carried out by men, but there is also a proportion that are carried out by women.
When Inspector Abberline was investigating the murder of Mary Kelly, he interviewed a number of witnesses, including Mrs Caroline Maxwell, who lived in the area. Mrs Maxwell testified that she had seen Mary Kelly twice on the morning of Friday 9 November 1888. The first occasion was between 8 a.m. and 8.30 a.m., at which time Mrs Maxwell claimed that Kelly looked quite ill as she stood near the entrance to Miller’s Court. Mrs Maxwell stated that she was sure of the time because her husband returned from work at around eight each morning. The second time Mrs Maxwell saw Kelly was an hour later, when Mrs Maxwell claims she saw her speaking with a man outside the Britannia public house.
These sightings do not appear to be strange or unusual in any way, until we take into account the medical evidence supplied by both the police doctor and the coroner, who both state that the time of death for Mary Kelly was estimated to be between 3.30 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Friday 9 November 1888. This time was estimated based on the medical evidence such as temperature of the body and stiffness of the joints.
If the medical evidence is accurate, and we have no reason to suppose otherwise, then it would have been impossible for Mrs Maxwell to have seen Kelly at these two later times, as by then she would have been dead for at least fo
ur hours!
Mrs Maxwell also vividly described the clothes she saw on the woman she believed to be Kelly that morning: ‘A dark shirt, velvet bodice and a maroon-coloured shawl.’ When asked if she had ever seen Kelly in this outfit before, she replied that she definitely remembered her wearing the shawl.
Abberline had no reason to distrust Mrs Maxwell as a witness, but maybe she had made a mistake with the times and clothing? Mrs Maxwell, however, was adamant that both the times and the clothing were as she had said. The problem definitely perplexed Abberline; so much so, in fact, that he allegedly approached a colleague about it, and asked if he thought that they should be looking elsewhere, as maybe it was a case not of Jack the Ripper at all, but of Jill the Ripper.
Abberline’s assertions were based upon the fact that it was possible that the killer dressed up in Kelly’s clothes in order to disguise herself, therefore accounting for Mrs Maxwell’s later sightings of Kelly that morning.
According to Donald McCormick, author of The Identity of Jack the Ripper, published in 1959, the colleague of Abberline whom he spoke to regarding this theory was a man he called Abberline’s mentor, Dr Thomas Dutton. McCormick goes on to say that Dutton answered that he believed it was doubtful, but that if it were a woman committing the crimes, the only kind of woman capable of doing so would be a midwife.
The main problem with Donald McCormick’s version of these events is that there doesn’t seem to be any record of Abberline knowing anyone named Dr Thomas Dutton, or being mentored by such a person.
This does not necessarily mean, however, that the theory of Jill the Ripper, as opposed to Jack the Ripper, is out of the question; in fact, there are several points which add credibility to the theory. Firstly is the fact that whilst all of London was searching for Jack the Ripper, his female counterpart would be free to walk the streets of Whitechapel with considerably less fear of capture or discovery than a man would. Secondly, if she was a midwife, as has been suggested, it would be a perfectly common sight to see her no matter what time of the day or night. Thirdly, based on the theory that the murderer must have a good knowledge of anatomy, a midwife would fit into this category perfectly.
Another writer, William Stewart, was one of the first to write about the possibility of Jill the Ripper in his book Jack the Ripper: A New Theory, published in 1939. Stewart’s theory, in following with the conversation between Abberline and Dutton over fifty years earlier, was that the killer had been a midwife, possibly an abortionist. He claims that it is perfectly feasible that ‘She might have been betrayed by a married woman whom she had tried to help, and sent to prison, and as a result, this was her way of revenging herself upon her own sex’.
Stewart also suggests that a midwife would have had the knowledge to have been able to produce a state of almost instant unconsciousness in a patient, and particularly in a person who had been drinking. This method was frequently used on patients in those days by midwives, and involved pushing on the pressure points until the patient, or possibly the victim, passed out.
Mary Kelly was three months pregnant at the time of her death, and according to Stewart, she could barely afford her lodgings, let alone a baby, so she decided to terminate her pregnancy by calling in an abortionist. The abortionist/midwife was admitted into the room by Kelly, which is why Kelly was found stripped naked, as she had taken her clothes off in readiness for the abortion.
The abortionist killed Kelly almost immediately, cutting and hacking at her body until hardly anything recognisable was left of her. When she had finished her grizzly work, she took off her bloodstained clothes and burnt them in the open fireplace. She then dressed herself in Kelly’s clothes, which had been neatly folded and left on a chair, and escaped the scene.
This could possibly explain the sighting by the witness, Mrs Maxwell, who said she saw Kelly at eight the next morning, and again about an hour later. We know she couldn’t have seen Kelly at these times, but she could have seen someone else, possibly the midwife/abortionist, dressed in Kelly’s shawl, which she said she was sure she had seen Kelly wearing on other occasions.
But why would the midwife/abortionist want to remove organs from her victims?
Stewart claims that the particular mutilations practised by the killer held a psychological fascination and horror for all women, and the midwife would be no exception to this rule.
Stewart was not content with just naming the type of person he thought the Ripper was, but continued his assertions by suggesting that the modus operandi between his mad midwife theory and a woman named Mary Pearcey were too similar not to be taken seriously. In October 1890 Pearcey had stabbed her lover’s wife and child to death and cut their throats. She then placed their bodies onto a handcart and wheeled them into a secluded street.
The two striking similarities here, according to Stewart, were, firstly, the savage throat cutting, and secondly, the modus operandi of killing in private and then dumping the bodies in a public place. This, he says, also explains why there were no witnesses who heard any of the Ripper victims scream.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, had his personal theory on the possibility of the Ripper being a woman. He said he was sure the Ripper was a man, but that he disguised himself as a woman in order to avoid capture and become more readily accessible to other women. Contrary to this suggestion, a potential female Ripper would not be more accessible to other women; in fact, she would be at something of a disadvantage to her male counterpart. As far as the Whitechapel murders were concerned, the victims were all prostitutes, and as such they would be plying their trade to men, not women. Prostitutes are willing to go with men who are complete strangers to them, but are usually wary of women, unless they personally know them. Bearing this in mind, there seems to be no good reason for believing that Jack the Ripper was a woman.
INSPECTOR ABBERLINE AND THE POLICE FORCE
As far as I know, no one thus far has suggested that Inspector Abberline was Jack the Ripper, or that the murders were the result of a police conspiracy to embarrass the then unpopular Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Charles Warren, and force him into resigning. If no one has brought up these theories, then you might well ask why I have brought it up.
The simple reason I have used these two examples as possible future theories, is that no one has any real proof as to the identity of Jack the Ripper, and in all probability, no one ever will.
On 26 June 1976 an article was first published in the Evening News and later re-published in the book. The Ripper and the Royals by Nigel Morland, where the author recalled visiting Abberline when the inspector was living in retirement in Dorset. Morland claimed that Abberline told him that the case was shut. ‘I’ve given my word to keep my mouth permanently closed about it,’ said Abberline. ‘I know and my superiors know certain facts. The Ripper wasn’t a butcher, Yid or foreign skipper, you would have to look for him not at the bottom of London society at the time, but a long way up.’ Given Abberline’s other statements about the identity of the Ripper not being known, this alleged statement should be treated with considerable scepticism and caution.
On 10 November 1888, which was the day subsequent to the final Ripper murder of Mary Jane Kelly, The Times newspaper: proclaimed in its editorial: ‘When evidence is not to be had, theories abound.’ Even with all the modern – day technology we now have, no further evidence has surfaced regarding the true identity of the Ripper, and just as The Times stated all those years ago, theories are still continuing to abound.
9
The Double Event
T hree days after the arrival of the ‘Dear Boss’ letter, yet another event took place which shook not just the public’s imagination but also that of Inspector Abberline and indeed the whole police force. What happened on this date was to later become known as the Double Event. It started at approximately 1 a.m. on Sunday 30 September 1888.
26-year-old Louis Diemschutz, a Russian Jew who lived with his wife in rooms above the Internatio
nal Working Men’s Educational Club, had been hard at work all day as a stallholder, selling cheap imitation jewellery. He travelled by pony and cart to various markets around London and this particular Sunday had been set up in a street market at Westow Hill, Crystal Palace. Street markets around this time would often last late into the night, and the Westow Hill Market had not finished until almost midnight, which then left Diemschutz quite a long drive home.
By the time Diemschutz drove his pony and cart into Berner Street it was almost 1 a.m. As he turned the cart into Dutfield’s Yard, all he could think of was unloading his unsold stock and hopefully having something to eat, before taking his pony and cart back to the stables at George Yard, Cable Street. He looked up at the International Working Men’s Educational Club, which was on the corner of Dutfield’s Yard and Berner Street, and smiled to himself as he heard the singing and laughing coming from an open window there. He would have liked to have joined in, but by the time he had taken his pony and cart back to the stables and walked home, it would probably be closed; even though he acted as a sort of steward there, he couldn’t control the opening hours, much to his chagrin.
There was no street lamp near to the entrance of the yard, so Diemschutz didn’t notice that the gates were wide open until he had jumped down from his cart with his key, ready to open them. No one else normally used the yard that late at night, but who was he to complain, he thought, as he jumped back up onto the cart again and ordered the horse on.
Just a few steps into the yard, his pony suddenly shied to the left and started whinnying, refusing to go any further. Diemschutz started to get angry, as he had had a terrible day’s trading and now just wanted to get his work done and eventually have something to eat with his wife, before retiring for the night. He shouted at the horse a couple of times, trying his best to coax it further into the yard, but it was useless, it just wouldn’t move. ‘Stupid animal,’ he grumbled, ‘probably nothing more than a damned rat or something.’
Abberline: The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper Page 11