Katy's Celebrity/Popular Suspects- Prince Albert Victor

Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward or 'Eddy' was the grandson of Queen Victoria and one of the most famous Jack The Ripper suspects. The Prince had supposedly met a girl named Annie Crook who was a Catholic girl and of low social standing, he apparently secretly married her and had a child with her but when the royal family found this out the prince was ushered abroad and his wife was forced into and asylum and had an operation, which was performed by Sir William Gull, to wipe her memory. The child was left with Annie Cook's friend Mary Kelly. Mary Kelly's friends, Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman and Elizabeth Stride, all knew about the relationship between Annie Crook and the Prince as well as about the child, as they couldn't keep this quiet Sir William Gull was again asked for help. A Dr. Thomas Stowell published an article in 1970 accusing the Prince of being Jack The Ripper, basing his theory upon some papers of Sir William Gull. Thomas Stowell claimed Sir William Gull was treating the Prince for syphilis, the disease supposedly caused the Prince to go insane and commit the Whitechaple murders, however, none of this could be proven as Thomas Stowell burned his papers and then died shortly after publishing his theories and Sir William Gull's papers have not been found. A key factor is that the royal records show that the Prince was not anywhere close to London for the most important murder dates.

http://www.casebook.org/suspects/eddy.html

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/ripper/suspects_18.html

Jack the Peg-Leg!

I discovered this picture yesterday of a crazy Jack the Ripper toy
It's hilarious! Does anyone actually know which suspect this is supposed to be based on because i don't think i've yet come across a suspect with a wooden leg....

has anyone else?

Thoughts on Pieter's post

Good post,
I think you’re completely right in thinking that the fabrication of Jack the Ripper was purely just to have someone to blame. I think the police thought up whatever they could to simply enable people to sleep at night. Not only that, but they also did it in a way to disassociate the British public with the crimes in any way they knew how... hence the foreigners.
I personally believe that it was perhaps the falsity and twisting of actual witness accounts (in favour of the police) that probably cost them catching the actual ripper. I reckon that over time, as fear and lack of police awareness began to surface, the growing public anxiety caused the police to leap into every and any fact they could find to keep people from losing their heads and creating national panic.
This could perhaps also explain why there are so many clashing facts about the same suspects.Maybe if we have time you could lightly brush on this subject in the presentation, just in case we end up way under time, I doubt we will, but it’s a good point to make just in case.

Thoughts on Otti's post

Good piece Otti,
I've just been going over some thoughts on the Ripper and came up with the following; no quotes, just my opinion based on a lot of stuff on Jack we've heard in class and read in books etc.:
I'd like to think that Jack is just used as a brand nowadays. He is an established name in history, since companies are trying to exploit basically everything, jack couldn't escape from that.
Additonally I think that people always need something in their livces to be afraid of; swine flu, the government, foreigners, bums, criminals, terorrism anything. So 'back in the day' the fear could have been embodied in Jack the Ripper.
Jack could be any person, and that is his great advantage. His crimes could be blamed and appointed to any group or person the larger part of society dislikes.
This could possibly be an explaination for the suspicion of the royal or governmental system. Lower class whitechapel was apparently not very fond of the big class difference and the deprivated area of the city.
Regardless of which theory one prefers, it always comes down on the fact that people need somebody to point the finger at, and blame for their state of being.
One seldom points the finger at oneself and regularly finds a different factor to blame.

Presentation Handout

Hey I need atleast four quotes and atleast four references for the bibliography to write on the presentation handout before we do the presentation tomorrow
So far the aims we have are to show a portion of the wide scope of varying ripper suspects and to question exactly why they were even considered on the ripper case.

Can you bring some some quotes and references tomorrow?

Katy

Reaction on the elephant man.

Still I do not understand where the need came from to accuse people that were different. I quote you PB: "Apparently people like to think of the Ripper as somebody or a group they don’t approve of, like immigrants and jews" , or the elephant men. Or as I said in my previous post people just were not used to 'strangers' in their city and were afraid of them. So is it approving over being afraid?

I found a letter from someone that has a different view towards the jews: "The crimes identified with "Jack the Ripper" were of a nature that it would be difficult for any Jew - "low-class" or any class - to imagine the work of a Jew. Their callous brutality was foreign to Jewish nature, which, when it turns criminal, goes into quite a different channel".
This letter considers Jews not to be smart enough to be the suspect in such crimes, completely the opposite of what others said. "It couldn't be a british person as they don't commit such horribe crimes."

If we look again at the question: why does society wants to have a Jack the Ripper? Could it not be, just to have certainty about something. That having a killer is easier than having no killers and leave the murders unsolved. But then we still have the question; Why did we made an icon of him? Why do we have to sell, games, videos, music, toy's of him?

Anyone something to say about this?

The Elephant Man

The graphic novel From Hell By Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell connects a lot of legendary people from the time to the Whitechapel murders. The usual suspects like Walter Sickert and the Royal Conspiracy were named just as Oscar Wilde. He claimed to know the identity of the ripper although he never gave any clear evidence.
The most special one named to have something to do with the Jack the Ripper case was Joseph Merrick better known as: the Elephant Man.
On casebook.org is an extract from: Jack the Ripper: A suspects guide. In there is a pece on Merrick and why he could be the Ripper.
At the time he was in the hospital, thus being able to get (surgical) knives, he hated women because he couldn’t get laid due to his crooked exterior. And he couldn’t be recognised by passers by because of his hood he had to wear.
Naturally he couldn’t be the ripper, he could hardly walk due to his disfigurement. He was prejudiced, disrespected and bullied and couldn’t get a job because of his physique. The only people who liked him were the circus audience where he could get a job as a freak.
Apparently people like to think of the Ripper as somebody or a group they don’t approve of, like immigrants and jews which flooded the London streets in the 19th century.
The Elephant Man is obviously seen as a monster due to his horrendous appearance and must therefore been disposed of. He didn’t fit in the society and only got saved from a miserable life in the slums of the arena by Sir Frederick Treves whom was very interested in him because of the medical side of the story.

He died on April 11, 1890 in the London Hospital in, and you won't beleive this, IN Whitechap el! This could of course be a case for why the killing stopped after that time. If it wasn't for the fact that it did so two years earlier