The Perfect Time to Solve A Crime

Hello ScoFans!
Another week, another blog. This week there was an overwhelming move to "The Perfect Time To Solve a Crime" In fact, with 62% of the vote, it now holds the record as the highest percentage of requests in the history of "Which blog would you like to read next?"

It was an absolute murdering.


Speaking of murdering, todays post is about a conversation I had with a coworker several weeks ago. A coworker who, like myself, doesn't mind a tale about serial killers (we'll call her SKF). When it comes to serial killers however, we both seem to have different strengths. I'm more about the domestic serial killers. I can tell you how many Australians have been locked away never to be released and how many victims each of them killed and injured. She seems to have more stats and facts on the international serial killers.

Five o'clock one Friday afternoon, and I forget why, the topic of conversation moved to Jack the Ripper.
"When are they going to tell us who that was anyway? Don't they have to release those records after a couple of hundred years?" SKF asked.
"Um, they don't know who it was. They can't release that information because the case was never solved"
"Are you sure? I thought they knew who did it but just couldn't release the identity until a few hunred years had passed"
"It was definetely unsolved"
"Wiki it"

Jack the Ripper is a pseudonym given to an unidentified serial killer[1] active in the largely impoverished Whitechapel area and adjacent districts of London, England, in late 1888.*

Having one win under my belt the discussion continued. She asked how many people he had killed. I had a feeling it was about 8 or 9. She felt that wasn't enough. She was sure it was more like twelve. Whilst an accurate figure is not available (there appear to have been a lot of unsolved murders happening around London at the time, it's hard to tell where the ripper ends and another killer begins), there are five universally agreed upon as the work of a single killer, but there were eleven invesitgated as part of the file.



Giving her the point for that one, we decided to see if we could work out who the mysterious Ripper could have been. Wiki provided us with a list of suspects, all we had to do was put on our sleuthing hats and determine the culprit. NKB (New Kid on the Block) piped up around this point, saying we were wasting our time, it was the prince that did it.

The theory was brought to major public attention in 1970 when Stowell published an article in The Criminologist which revealed his suspicion that Prince Albert Victor had committed the murders after being driven mad by syphilis. The suggestion was widely dismissed as Albert Victor had strong alibis for the murders, and it is unlikely that he suffered from syphilis.[38] Stowell later denied implying that Albert Victor was the Ripper[39] *

NKB was quickly overruled and ignored for later parts of the discussion, as his input was not seen as valueable. When the guy who originally put the theory forward denies ever agreeing with the theory, you should stop agreeing with it as well.

While we were looking through the suspects, one that amused everyone came up. I'm going to share that with you now before I continue.


Lewis Carroll (pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898) was the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. He was named as a suspect based upon anagrams which author Richard Wallace devised for his book Jack the Ripper, Light-Hearted Friend. This claim is not taken seriously by scholars. *

After discussing all the suspects for what must have been about three quarters of an hour, long after everyone else had gone home TIL (the illistrious leader) came out of his office to find the two of us hunched over a computer laughing and arguing. We explained to him that we were just about to go home, and had one simple task to accomplish before we left, which was to determine the identity of the ripper.


TIL: I like your optimism.
SCO: Because we're solving this after five on a Friday afternoon?
TIL: Not only that, because to your way of thinking, someone had already worked out who the ripper is, they have used evidence and research to support their theory, they have put it onto the Internet, and they have not realised that they have worked out who the ripper is so all that's left to do is for you to come along and find it.
SKF: We did work out what order the tax office is paying our stimulus payments in though.
TIL: Did you?
SKF: Yeah, it's by postcode.
TIL: Oh, I understand now. I see where you're coming from. You've already solved one difficult case this afternoon, so the next most difficult one in line is Jack the Ripper.
SCO: Exactly!
TIL: Well, you'll have to tell me about it on Monday. I'm tired. I'm going home.
SCO: Me too actually.


And just for those of you who are interested, I'll leave you the details of the suspect who was my personal favourite to have been the ripper.

Montague John Druitt (15 August 1857 – 1 December 1888)[3] was born in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England, the son of a prominent local physician. He was educated at Winchester College and New College Oxford.[4] He graduated from Oxford in 1880 and two years later was admitted to the Inner Temple and called to the bar in 1885. He practised as a barrister and a special pleader until his death. He was also employed as an assistant schoolmaster at George Valentine's boarding school, 9 Eliot Place, Blackheath from 1881 until he was dismissed shortly before his death in 1888.

His body was found floating in the River Thames off Thorneycroft's torpedo works near Chiswick on 31 December 1888. Medical examination suggested that his body was kept at the bottom of the river for about a month by stones placed in his pockets. The coroner's jury concluded that he committed suicide by drowning "whilst of unsound mind". Some modern authors suggest that Druitt was homosexual, and that his dismissal from his post at the boys' school was due to this and may have driven him to suicide.[5] His mother suffered from depression and died in an asylum in 1890.

His disappearance and death shortly after the fifth and last canonical murder (which took place on 9 November 1888) and alleged "private information" led Assistant Chief Constable Sir Melville Macnaghten to name him as a suspect in a memorandum of 23 February 1894.

However, Macnaghten incorrectly described the barrister as a doctor and his age is incorrectly given as 41 (he was 31 at the time of his death).[6] On 1 September, the day after the first canonical murder, Druitt was in Dorset playing cricket, and while he could have used his city legal chambers as a base from which to commit the murders, most experts believe that the killer was local to Whitechapel, whereas Druitt lived miles away in Kent.[7] Recently some[specify] have expressed doubts whether he committed suicide or was murdered. Recent research shows that between the Kelly murder and his death, he had been involved as legal representation in a court case. Inspector Frederick Abberline dismissed Druitt as a serious suspect.*

I don't know why the inspector dismissed him as a suspect, so without knowing his reasoning behind it I'll just assume that I am far smarter than he was, and that he was onto the wrong thing and I am onto the right thing.


* From Wikipedia

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Before I leave you today, I was given another few awards this week. Some of you must really be enjoying my once a week blogging (though some of you have protested, wanting more. You greedy bastards) so I'll wrap those up in this awards ceremony.

Frst cab off the rank is an award I received whilst drafting last weeks blog. It's the "International Bloggers Community" award, and I think is for being from a different country to the person who gave it to you. Yes, I had to work hard for this one.


Now for the Q & A that comes with it.
1. The person who tagged you: ChinkyGirlMel
2. His/her site's title and url: http://chinkygirlmel.blogspot.com/
3. Date when you were tagged: May 17 2009
4. Bloggers you tagged: (to give this a truly international flavour, I'm immediately disqualifying anyone in the United States or the UK. Let's face it, those places are just like little Australia's)

Sameera - India
Random Hiccups- South Africa
Badriyyah - Malaysia


And on a side note, for those of you still unfamiliar with ChinkyMel's work, head over to her blog and have a look around. You might remember a post a few months ago when I discussed inflaters and deflaters, well she is 100% an inflater. Her blog and her comments can brighten your day.


Then from PinkNic, who I have only recently started reading and who keeps me (and 200 odd other people) entertained with her regular "Wordless Wednesdays" and "Reader of the Week" every Sunday as well as posting entertaining tales on ever other day, and the girl in stiletto who is my peep, she is a sexy awesome doctor, and she is hilarious, I received...

Yes, it's the fabulous fucking blog award. Now, I hear snickering from around the globe, as some of you remember what I did last time I received this one. So, for those of you who are interested, go and read "In this Post I Say "Fuck" ninety-three times" That post was a favourite among my readers at the time (because I just told them it was) so if you feel like it, go back and enjoy.

And when I did that last week, I was told that is not the way I am supposed to treat the award the second time I get it. I am supposed to do it again. Well, I forget to mention PinkNic did give me a little something else...

That gives me the right to do as I please with the awards this week. And I think it's about time I was recognised for my constant spitting in the face of the cool kids who set the blogging rules. I'm sorry, did you say something about not posting on weekends?

There is a lyric in the song "Nothing Else Matters" which says

Never cared for what they say

Never cared for games they play

I never cared for what they do

I never cared for what they know

which I think sums up the way I feel about cool kids everywhere (as well as people everywhere)

Anyway, that's enough ranting today. I will just point out to everyone that there is an award there about defying the blogging Gods. I think taking an award that wasn't given to you, would indeed defy the blogging Gods. So I'll just set today's awards down, turn around and face this way..

Wait! I'm going to throw a video at the bottom here. A few days ago Andhari put some of the funnier moments from Supernatural on her blog. I think, if you're going to talk funny Supernatural moments, you have to include...

This happened because Jared Padalecki who plays Sam (who you can hear laughing in the background) was supposed to tap the roof of the car as Jensen was playing his air drums, but it didn't happen, so Jensen just kept going.