Scotland Yard fights to keep Jack the Ripper files secret

Scotland Yard are fighting to protect the details of informants in the Ripper case from 123 years ago, people who are now long dead. They say that this is in order to reassure modern-day informants that their details will never be released, but it seems to me that this sounds more like an excuse than a reason.

Four thick ledgers compiled by Special Branch officers have been kept under lock and key since the Whitechapel murders in 1888.

Trevor Marriott, a Ripper investigator and former murder squad detective, has spent three years attempting to obtain uncensored versions of the documents.

But he has been repeatedly refused because the ledgers contain the identities of police informants – and the Metropolitan Police insist that revealing the information could compromise their attempts to gather information from “supergrasses” and other modern-day informants.

Last week, Mr Marriott took Scotland Yard to a tribunal in a last-ditch attempt to see the journals – containing 36,000 entries – which he believes contain evidence which could finally unmask the world’s most famous serial killer.

Scotland Yard fights to keep Jack the Ripper files secret

No one who was involved with the case of Jack the Ripper at the time is going to be alive now. The article reports that the information that is being withheld constitutes four thick ledgers containing over 36,000 entries including details of informants from 1888 to 1912. All of those informants must be dead now, have been dead for some time. It is suggested that their descendants might be at risk, but from who? Who would threaten the descendants of informants in the case of Jack the Ripper? The descendants of the victims? This whole line of reasoning seems a bit absurd in this case.

So why is this information really being withheld? Trevor Marriott believes that the files contain the names of four new suspects along with other evidence. The case is 123 years old, no one can now be prosecuted, but isn't it time that the mystery was resolved once and for all if that is possible?

peace
J

Why? Pretty sure anybody involved with the case has been dead for centuries? For crying out loud we know pretty much everything to do with any modern police case the minute the guy or gal for that matter is fried for the crime, pretty sure Jack the Ripper is frying right now, so release the dang files. It is not as if you revealed the names of informants in say a current investigation like many news papers tend to do.

reply to post by Golithion


Maybe there are family members of Jack the ripper still around today, family members who would not want to be linked with a serial killer.

reply to post by woodwardjnr


How does Ted Bundy's family feel? Or the Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz's family feel? Or the green river killer Gary Ridgeway feel? Releasing the name of suspects is not condemning the family. It was not their hands that committed the act.

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
reply to post by Golithion

 

Maybe there are family members of Jack the ripper still around today, family members who would not want to be linked with a serial killer.

royalty involved?????????

reply to post by skjalddis


I heard a long time ago the ripper was actually a member of the royal family! Just a rumor!

reply to post by Golithion


I guess it depends if that family is in the public eye in the UK, a Family much respected by the British who's weddings are watched by millions around the world.

Maybe the rumors of J-the-R being someone very important in society - even royalty - weren't so misplaced.

What are you going to do? Announce that the Queen's great uncle was suspected to be Jack the Ripper? I doubt it.

------

Edit: sorry. I'm slow typer, apparently. This theory was mentioned (multiple times!) while I was typing.

reply to post by woodwardjnr


That's true but that is only a rumor, the most pointent which reminds me I probably should get my Jack the Ripper book out to say this the most prominent suspect is a American born doctor actually, it is only rumor though that a Prince was involved all evidence though in the case, with how the organs where removed, and other things point towards someone in the medical field. So unless this Prince had medical training I doubt Jack the Ripper was him.

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
reply to post by Golithion

 

Maybe there are family members of Jack the ripper still around today, family members who would not want to be linked with a serial killer.

I don't know if it is true or not, but quite some years ago there were hints that the Jack The Ripper case involves a member of the royal family.

Could this serial killer have had royal blood?

ETA: scratch this - already posted

reply to post by Golithion


Your probably right, I dont know much about the Ripper to be honest, I remember seeing a documentary on it a few years ago that eluded to it being a member of the royal family, but having just done a little research, I see that evidence has been refuted.

The member of the Royal family in question was Prince Albert Edward Victor, Duke of Clarence, Queen Victoria’s grandson and heir presumptive to the throne of England. Prince Albert Edward Victor, or “Eddy” as he was affectionately known, most certainly was not Jack the Ripper. Indeed Royal records show that he wasn’t even in London on the dates of the murders. From the 29th August to 7th September he was staying with Viscount Downe at Danby Lodge, Grosmont, Yorkshire, which would rule him out as the murderer of Polly Nichols who was killed on August 31st. From the 7th to the 10th of September he was at the Cavalry Barracks in York, Annie Chapman was murdered on the 8th September. Between the 27th and 30th of September he was Abergeldie, Scotland, where Queen Victoria noted that he lunched with her on the 30th. The murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes occurred in the early hours of this morning, and to have committed the murders and be back in Scotland in time for lunch would be no mean feat today let alone then! He was back in London on 1st November, and on the 2nd he left for Sandringham where he remained until the 12th of November, which would rule him out as the killer of Mary Kelly on the 9th November.

www.jack-the-ripper-tour.com...

reply to post by Golithion


The suspect with royal connections was the Duke of Clarence, who ended up in an asylum. But that theory is well-known and has been gone over endlessly. I think that if evidence came out to prove it was actually him, it could hardly be that harmful, since so many people have thought it was him anyway.

The article states that Marriott has previously put forward the name of Carl Feigenbaum, a German merchant who was executed for the murder of a woman in New York.

peace
J

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
reply to post by Golithion

 

Maybe there are family members of Jack the ripper still around today, family members who would not want to be linked with a serial killer.

Oh yes. My first and only suspicion - Jack the Ripper was linked to British Royal Family. It's not a secret.

Scotland Yard had nothing to hide if the case had nothing to do with high profile people.

The royalty in question is Prince Albert Edward Victor and here's more on that, it comes from a book called JACK THE RIPPER: The Final solution. Written in 1978 www.casebook.org...

But I was wrong about the American doctor he was Russian named.Montague John Druitt www.jack-the-ripper.org... this site has some other interesting suspects in it as well as letters and list of officers in the case.

A list of the main suspects from Trevor Marriott's website:

With regards to the “Prime Suspects” who have been under suspicion for many years now, these these
being, Prince Albert Victor, Thomas Cutbush, George Chapman, Francis Tumblety, Aaron
Kosminski, Walter Sickert, Sir, William Gull, Michael Ostrogg, Montagu Druitt, and Joseph
Barnett. All the evidence linking them to the murders was thoroughly examined and he could
find no direct evidence to suggest any of them were Jack The Ripper.

Trevor Marriott

Trevor Marriott himself put forward the name of Carl Feigenbaum, a German Merchant who moved on to New York, as I mentioned above. Someone has already provided the info supporting why the Duke of Clarence could not have been the Ripper. I am not sure that the identity of any of those people as Jack the Ripper would warrant this kind of secrecy now, most of them are long forgotten.

peace
J

Originally posted by ressiv

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
reply to post by Golithion

 

Maybe there are family members of Jack the ripper still around today, family members who would not want to be linked with a serial killer.

royalty involved?????????

Maybe so. Otherwise why keep it a secret.
Look at Princess Diana.
She even wrote in a letter that her husband had warned she`d die in a car and it would be made to look like an accident.
That happened.
Verdict: Accident.

reply to post by skjalddis


It is an interesting theory and it could very possibly be true, but the modus operandi just doesn't match, How does a Sea man know not get to descriptive, how to remove a kidney from the front without damaging any of the other organs, or to be frank remove the reproductive organs with one stroke? This just screams to me of medical training, but it is also known that Faigenbaum's life is drifted in tons of obscurity and down right lies he pushed his life, with multiple aliases and the like. But it's interesting none the less.

It cannot be released because the royal family invoked a ruling long ago, saying it must never be made public.

why?
Because it was one of them.

reply to post by Golithion


Well, that was the suspect that Trevor Marriott put forward previously. What interests me about this development is that the Telegraph article has him saying that he believes that the files contain details of at least four NEW suspects. By new, I take it to mean that he is not referring to the list above or to the suspect he previously put forward himself.

Now if they are reluctant to disclose the info due to the identities of these new potential suspects, then why might that be.

Speculating here, but I do not think that anyone with links to the royal family would necessarily warrant that protection now - give how the Duke of Clarence was suspected for so long and what little effect that has had on the royal family - for that to be an issue it would have to be someone a little closer to the throne than he was, and he was pretty close. So what else might be that sensitive? My thoughts are:
- someone with close connections to a FOREIGN head of state - that *could* possibly have repercussions in the present, maybe cause some disgruntlement on the diplomatic front, offence taken by people with whom relations might already be difficult for other reasons.
- someone with close connections to government at the time, if it were actively and deliberately covered up. Perhaps someone in government who had a hand in parliamentary activity that could be viewed in a different light if it were known that they committed those crimes.
- someone high up in the police, evidence for which that was actively and deliberately covered up, which would be just plain embarrassing for Scotland Yard if nothing else.

peace
J