Casebook Blotter

Elizabeth Stride And Jack The Ripper: The Life and Death of the Reputed Third Victim
By Dave Yost

As soon as the newspapers hit the streets on October 1, 1888, Elizabeth Stride became world renowned as the third victim of Jack the Ripper. Reportedly, Stride was killed only an hour before fellow victim Catherine Eddowes, becoming a key player in the legendary “double event” of Jack the Ripper’s brief but notorious killing career. This book tells the complete life story of Elisabeth Gustafsdotter, beginning with her birth in Sweden during the winter of 1843. The author describes Stride’s reported “habitual drunkenness,” her brief career as a prostitute, and the public aftermath of her untimely death. Period photos and sketches are included throughout the work, along with several appendices and an index.

Dave Yost works in the engineering and design fields. He is a coauthor of The News from Whitechapel (2002) and lives in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

Buy this book now on Amazon.com

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.

One of our forum regulars, Pinkerton, came across this interesting title and posted it to our message boards recently. Its not due to be published until September 2008 but the description alone should have more than a few Ripperologists champing at the bit to pick up their own copy.

From the publisher’s web site:

Halfway up Commercial Street, one block away from Spitalfields Market, lies an anonymous service road. The average pedestrian wouldn’t even notice it existed. But unlikely though it may seem, this characterless, 400ft strip of tarmac was once Dorset Street – the most notorious thoroughfare in the Capital; the worst street in London and the resort of Protestant fire-brands, thieves, con-men, pimps, prostitutes and murderers, most notably Jack the Ripper.

Spitalfields as a whole is now a vibrant and fashionable place to live, work and play; the home of artists and artisans, just as it was when the Huguenots settled there. However, as dusk falls, the seemingly indelible, sordid side of this fascinating part of London begins to emerge once again as the unknowing descendants of Mary Kelly, Mary Ann Austin and Kitty Ronan and others begin to ply their trade around the hallowed walls of Christ Church. All signs of Dorset Street, ‘ the worst street in London’, may all but have disappeared from the map but its legacy is too powerful to ever be entirely erased.

This book chronicles the rise and fall of this remarkable street, from its promising beginnings at the centre of the 17th Century silk weaving industry through its gradual descent into iniquity, vice and violence to its final demise at the hands of the demolition men. Its remarkable history gives a fascinating insight into an area of London that has, from its initial development, been a cultural melting pot – the place where many thousands of immigrants became Londoners. It also tells the story of a part of London that, until quite recently, was largely left to fend for itself, with truly horrifying results.

More information at:

http://www.ianallanpublishing.com/product.php?productid=60065&cat=1327&page=1

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: