Casebook Blotter

Editor’s note: The following is a press release, reproduced by request of the author from:
http://www.islandconnections.eu/1000004/0/0/20371/article_tf.html

José-Luis Abad y Benítez from Santa Cruz has spent many years researching one of the greatest murder mysteries of our time, the identity of Jack the Ripper. The investigation has cost him dearly, but luckily he has been assisted by many people including a professor at the University of La Laguna.

Santa Cruz - 12.07.2008 - 118 years have passed since the Ripper’s last and most horrific crime, and since then there have been many suspects. James Maybrick, a Liverpool busi­nessman, was one of the first and the diary which bore his name was declared false. In the opinion of José-Luis, it was authentic, but only authentic in that the di­ary was written by Jack the Ripper, and this is where his theory differs from those of other investigators. He maintains that Jack the Ripper and James Maybrick were two separate people but that the Ripper iden­tified with Maybrick and his family. Other suspects over the years have been Queen Victoria’s grandson, the Duke of Clarence, but he had a perfect alibi. The Queen’s doctor was also a suspect, but this idea was discarded due to his state of health. José-Luis has a diploma in grapho-psychol­ogy from Madrid’s school of legal medicine and is a distinguished member of the Spanish Society of Graphologists. In his book which will be published within the next few months he will present more than 30 definitive forms of proof that there is no doubt who this psychopathic assassin known as Jack the Ripper really was.

It is certain that he was intelligent, he didn’t com­mit suicide, was not ar­rested and didn’t end up in prison or in a hospital. José-Luis claims that this is no hypothesis or theory, that he knows who Jack the Ripper was and that he is going to prove it to us. Island Connections will let you know when this book, which solves the biggest whodunnit of all time, is published.

A quick Casebook update this week - Jennifer Pegg has supplied us with a great overview of Robert D’Onston Stephenson as a suspect, and the various theories and claims surrounding him, which can now be accessed at:

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

Enjoy!

I just had to make a quick post about this one.  Finding a photograph (not just a drawing) of Francis Tumblety has been something of a holy grail for a certain group of Ripper researchers ever since the discovery of the Littlechild Letter.  For someone who was so overly fond of self-promotion it seemed inevitable that there must still be photographs of the fellow laying about somewhere.  I myself spent a few years idly poking around in various archives, hoping to find one.  But now the wait is over - researcher Timothy Riordan has found an early 1870s, true-blue photograph of Francis Tumblety and published it in the latest edition of Ripperologist magazine.

I won’t reproduce it here but if you want to see ol’ Frank’s photograph, I highly suggest you head over to the Ripperologist website and purchase a subscription (or just bug Adam to allow you to purchase just this issue if you must).

A fantastic find, and my congratulations go out to Tim.

So much for those who say there’s no longer anything “meaty” to discover in this field, eh? 

Just a couple of quick site updates to mention.

First of all, Robert Clack was kind enough to send in his article “Murder, Death and the Lodging House: The Strange Case of Mary Ann Austin”  which was originally published in Ripper Notes, October 2005 edition.  Austin, aged 28, was murdered in Dorset Street in May 1901.  Several of the players involved in the Kelly murder of November 1888 appear again in this case, including John McCarty and Coroner Baxter, and several newspapers at the time wondered if this was a “new” Ripper murder.  Clack covers all this and more in his article, which can be reached here:

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/rn-mary-ann-austin.html 

We’ve also got a couple of new blogs set up in the past week, including one for Rob Clack and another for Chris Scott.  The six most recent entries from all Casebook blogs show up as links in the left-hand navigation area of every page, but some readers have been requesting a better method of accessing individual blogs and posts that may not be featured in this area.  Its a great idea and I’m working on a better method of handling this, which will eventually live at the main blog page at:

http://blog.casebook.org

That’ll come shortly… stay tuned!

Dr. Gabriel Pombo has been kind enough to send along a copy of his new non-fiction book, La Leyenda de Jack el Destripado. This is, as far as I know, the first and only non-fiction Jack the Ripper title ever to be published in Uruguay. Unfortunately I’m not fluent in Spanish so all I can offer is that it has about 260 pages, several black and white illustrations, and comes with a nifty bookmark. (A quick flip-through found chapters devoted to Sickert and Maybrick, as well as several other suspects.)

If you’d like more information on Dr. Pombo and his book you can check out:

http://www.jackeldestripador.intermediosweb.com/libro_jack.html

And there is at least one online retailer offering the book for sale:

http://www.entrelibros.com.uy

Below is the cover art:

Hi folks -

This is my first post here so I’ll give a brief little into first of what you’ll find on the “Casebook Blotter.”

The plan, initially, is for this to a sort of the “hey, check this out” blog where I’ll make announcements on new content added to the site, as well as new or interesting forum threads, bits of Ripper news or any other related miscellania that catches my eye.

So… here goes:

New: Casebook Blogging Platform

The first big announcement of course is the launching of the Casebook Blogging Platform - a collection of Ripper and Victoriana-related blogs hosted on the Casebook and maintained by a variety of different researchers and enthusiasts. Each blogger has 100% control over what gets posted to their individual blog so its a chance for each researcher to really run their own show and direct research and conversations the way they want to, without having to deal with the sometimes obnoxious and disorderly problems that arise in an open forum format.

So far we’ve got seven bloggers signed up and ready to go, but the door is open for anyone who wants to try their hand at running their own blog. There’s no charge and no real restrictions, other than (1) a majority of the posts made to your blog need to have some connection, however tangential, with either Jack the Ripper, Victoriana in general, or true-crime and (2) blogs can not devolve into hateful or slanderous attacks on other people/organizations. Apart from those two rules, you’re welcome to post what you like, when you like - daily, weekly, monthly, whatever.

If you’re interested in trying out the new Casebook Blogging Platform, just send me an email at spryder@casebook.org and I’ll be happy to walk you through the process.

Site Updates

1. We’ve put up a new page in the Non Fiction section for Glenn Andersson’s new book Jack Uppskararen: Kriminalfall och Legend. Obviously, this one’s in Swedish so there’s not much I can offer about it other than to post the lovely cover art, but those of who have been on the site for a while are familiar with Glenn’s numerous contributions to the forums and to the study in general.
2. Ripper Notes #28 is now featured in our Periodicals section, with cover art, table of contents, and sample article, as usual. This issue we’re offering Dan Norder’s article Heartless: The Evidence for a Copycat Killer
3. The latest issue of Ripperologist magazine (#89) is also featured, along with its companion sample article, Mike Covell’s D’Onston Stephenson: Dissecting the incident off Flamborough Head
4. And finally, we’ve got a new article by Debra Arif that sheds new light on a little-known 1889 murder, The Murder of Elizabeth Jackson

Thanks to everyone for their contributions, as always!

- Stephen