Casebook Blotter

Hi everyone -

Its been a while since the last Casebook update - sorry about that!  Its been a busy year, but I’m slowly catching up in getting new content up on the site.  And in that vein, two new additions were made today:

An Interview with Deborah McDonald

We do a brief question-and-answer session with Deborah McDonald, author of The Prince, His Tutor and the Ripper: The Evidence Linking James Kenneth Stephen to the Whitechapel Murders (2007).  Anyone with an interest in J.K. Stephen will definitely want to check this one out.

Elisabeth Gustafsdotters’ last Stride

Swedish Ripperologist Stefan Rantzow explores Elizabeth Stride’s Swedish background in Torslanda and elsewhere, and her various family connections in this insightful article. Includes photographs of the buildings where Elizabeth was born and baptized.

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!

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