Police make bizarre legal battle to keep Jack the Ripper files secret... 'confidentiality'

Mail on Sunday ^ | 15th May 2011

[naturalman1975]

The Met Police is fighting a legal battle to keep files detailing the investigation into the notorious Jack the Ripper case secret - to maintain confidentiality for Victorian 'supergrasses'.

The documents are said to include four new suspects for the serial killings which terrorised Whitechapel in 1888 and have become one of the world's most infamous unsolved cases.

The historic ledgers have 36,000 entries detailing police interaction with informants between 1888 to 1912.

However, Scotland Yard reportedly believes disclosing the names could hinder recruiting and gathering information from modern informants, affecting terrorism investigations - and even lead to the Victorians' relatives being attacked.

Author and former police officer, Trevor Marriott, has tried for three years to see uncensored versions of the documents.

He has previously applied under the Freedom of Information Act and, when that was refused, he appealed to the Information Commissioner, which also rejected his attempt.

He has now appealed to the Information Tribunal, which is expected to release its decision later this year.

[MacMattico]

Like I said, I don’t think it was a Royal either, but you’re right there’s something embarrassing in those files. Maybe someone “high up” pointed the finger at another “high up” and there is a police report on that statement. Guilty or not, people would go wild with speculation. Still, release the info!

[cynwoody]

Where was Bush at the time?

Further away from Jack's likely relatives than the other candidate.

That's according to a BBC broadcast I heard via NPR before the 2004 election. Some stuffy twit from some peerage yearbook or something was claiming that successful candidates in the US were always those with bloodlines closest to British royalty. Too lazy to search for a link. Sorry.

[cynwoody]

My grandfather came to this country three years before the Wright brothers flew their first plane...and went straight into the PA coalmines.

Wales?

[Jeff Winston]

I hardly see how it matters, more than 120 years after the fact.

[PA Engineer]

If it was this Feigenbaum, what in the world is Scotland Yard trying to protect?

Maybe it had something to do with this:

“All the other records were there, but the crew lists for this vessel that relate to the three months of the Ripper murders in the UK were all missing.”

Maybe there was hush money involved?

[Jack Hammer]

Phony baloney. Opening the files would embarrass the Royal Family.

Period.

End of story.

[MacMattico]

Hmm... Interesting!

[FroggyTheGremlim]

Bush did it.

[Oztrich Boy]

to maintain confidentiality for Victorian 'supergrasses'.

Have these informants been relocated to the Canadian city or the Australian State? (Any other alternative would be silly)

[LRS]

IMO, the most interesting notion that Trevor Marriott floated, was that the missing organs and propossed surgical expertise performed on the bodies, were actually done post mortem for the black market organ trade, and not done by the killer(s). Now, I can see where had this been the case, there still would be coverup. (Not saying this was the case, but IF...)

[j.argese]

Apologies if you inferred Merrick could have been the Ripper. I was only setting the stage for a parlor game of “Related In Time and/or Location”. Similar to “6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon” or “What Do These 3 Things Have In Common”.

[TXnMA]

"Yeah, whoever is inhabiting the body of Obama, he could be hundreds of years old. "

How about ageless? (See tagline...)

[windcliff]

ping

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

The ripper was obviously somebody who only wanted to keep abreast.

One movie put forth that the Ripper was not other than this;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKGicNPeKtw

[rollo tomasi]

My money is on Don no soul Simmons

'Amazon Women on the Moon' is hilarious.

[MacMattico]

Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and Trevor Marriott is much more informed than I on the subject, but from reading other noted authors and primary sources on the Ripper murders, I personally don't think they had anything to do with the organ trade. The murderer seems to me to be someone much more consumed with rage and hatred as is evident by the slashing of facial features, sexual organs, etc. Someone that has a hatred of women and a hatred of prostitutes in particular. Maybe someone who had contracted syphilis from a prostitute and either had mental illness or was developing it because of the venereal disease. I don't think it was a doctor, as a butcher or anyone with even limited anatomical knowledge hacking away at a body could have removed these
organs. Also, contrary to popular belief, not all of the victims were missing organs, and of those that were the organs were probably not removed in great condition as the murderer seemed to hack and slash at will. If a doctor or person wanting to sell organs for research were to wish to kill prostitutes in order to procure these body parts, why not just lure the half-
starving, usually drunken, poor individuals into a place more conducive to killing someone with as little effort as possible and then removing as many
organs as you wish in a place with sufficient light? No, these women were slashed, in some cases beyond recognition, in dark alleyways they used to
serve their customers, by a psychotic individual that worked as fast as he could in order to fill some sexual deviant psychotic need, IMO. Think about it, if you're only after organs you could have probably taken them from a victim you killed and disposed of the bodies and no one would have noticed or looked to arrest you. After all, these victims were all from the lowest class that no one really cared about. It was only when society at large thought the Ripper may leave the slums that the papers began to run wild with the story, and because they were so graphic in nature.

[MacMattico]

Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and Trevor Marriott is much more informed than I on the subject, but from reading other noted authors and primary sources on the Ripper murders, I personally don't think they had anything to do with the organ trade. The murderer seems to me to be someone much more consumed with rage and hatred as is evident by the slashing of facial features, sexual organs, etc. Someone that has a hatred of women and a hatred of prostitutes in particular. Maybe someone who had contracted syphilis from a prostitute and either had mental illness or was developing it because of the venereal disease. I don't think it was a doctor, as a butcher or anyone with even limited anatomical knowledge hacking away at a body could have removed these
organs. Also, contrary to popular belief, not all of the victims were missing organs, and of those that were the organs were probably not removed in great condition as the murderer seemed to hack and slash at will. If a doctor or person wanting to sell organs for research were to wish to kill prostitutes in order to procure these body parts, why not just lure the half-
starving, usually drunken, poor individuals into a place more conducive to killing someone with as little effort as possible and then removing as many
organs as you wish in a place with sufficient light? No, these women were slashed, in some cases beyond recognition, in dark alleyways they used to
serve their customers, by a psychotic individual that worked as fast as he could in order to fill some sexual deviant psychotic need, IMO. Think about it, if you're only after organs you could have probably taken them from a victim you killed and disposed of the bodies and no one would have noticed or looked to arrest you. After all, these victims were all from the lowest class that no one really cared about. It was only when society at large thought the Ripper may leave the slums that the papers began to run wild with the story, and because they were so graphic in nature.

[ThermoNuclearWarrior]

“Profilers tend to agree with this, that he was male, late 20’s, of Jewish decent, maybe a butcher or other type of skilled laborer that worked with knives and was definitely a sociopath.”

That might be correct, but I wouldn't take anything a “profiler” says to mean much because profiling is a pseudoscience. They like to go into detail and be very vocal on the minority of cases they are found to be correct about, but forget to mention all the cases they were completely wrong about.

How long did we hear from profilers about how serial killers never stopped killing and therefor the suspects in cold cases had either died, moved, or been imprisoned for another crime. Then they catch the green river killer and BTK killers who lived and worked in the exact same places they had when they were killing, and they had both stopped killing at the point of their capture.

The DC sniper case is another example of bad profiling. That was suppose to be a single white male in his 30’s who must have some type of military/sniper training because of the supposed "skill" it would it take to make those shots. And of course this person would have nothing to do with Islam.

I kind of went into a rant here, but there are a lot of profilers out there who seem very egotistical about their successes who don't even mention their many failures. When you look deeper into it you find out what a joke it is.

[LRS]

I quit reading ripper books some 20 years ago, along with books about other serial killers, because I just got sick of the subject. So, I am only going from that recent TV show about Trevor Marriott's book.

I gather from that show that Marriott was suggesting that the missing organs have been a “red herring”; that the White Chapel killer didn't kill for the organs, or take them. The killer wouldn't have had the time, nor the light to be doing such things. He was suggesting that the organs were removed during the autopsy. As for my use of the words “organ trade”, that trade in the 19th century would have been like the infamous Burke and Hare murders which had occurred in the late 1820’s, where Burke and Hare went from digging up cadavers to sell for the use to teaching future doctors, to producing the cadavers. The missing Ripper victim murders organs went to some medical school.

Now, I can see had this been the case, and Scotland Yard had been covering up evidence of this, I could see where the cover up would still be ongoing ( a bit of a black eye, for them and maybe some school or the coroner's office or someone's reputation or legacy)...

[LRS]

For anyone reading that last post of mine, let me include a Wiki link about Burke and Hare, in case they don't know what I am referring to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Port_murders