My guest today is Randy Williams, a US Private Investigator, martial artist of some note and Ripperologist for more than 40 years.
Together with three of the world’s top criminalists and Forensic Scientists, Randy has written a novel around his own theory of the true identity of Jack the Ripper called “Sherlock Holmes and the Autumn of Terror.” In the book, which pits the famous sleuth against the Whitechapel murderer, Randy’s suspect(s) and the evidence against them are fictionalized into a wild romp through Victorian London.
But, Randy insists that he and his team have developed a significant amount of evidence – some new, and some that has been “hiding in plain sight” – that may convince you to seriously consider their unique solution to the age-old enigma.
MY FIRST MEETING WITH RANDY
I first met Randy over Skype when he contacted me last year regarding his new approach to the Ripper case and his upcoming novel.
Welcome Randy. Tell us a bit about your theory on The Ripper, and the book you’ve recently written on the subject.
Hi Richard!
First off, I’d like to thank you for allowing me to share my theory on your website. I regard it as the foremost page for unbiased Ripper information and discussion without petty squabbles or discord over who is right, and I think a lot of other people see it the same way.
Having said that, what I’m about to discuss with you will probably change all that and have your readers screaming for my head on a platter haha.
In any case, the theory I have developed surrounds a group of men I often refer to as the “Unholy Trinity” having committed the killings as a form of Socialist/Anarchist propaganda under the aegis of one of that political system’s founders and most furious proponents.
Three of these men can be directly linked to the Stride murder, where they “found” her body at the club stewarded by one and supported by the fourth, and were all arrested together for other violent crimes less than six months after the Double Event.
I believe the Eddowes murder was conceived as an ingenious ruse to provide an ironclad alibi for the group’s leader, removing all suspicion from him as that second murder took place 6 miles away at Mitre Square while he was with police at the first crime scene of that fateful night.
My book is entitled “Sherlock Holmes and the Autumn of Terror”, and it is available through all Amazon outlets.
Astute readers will recognise the alteration I made to the old favourite London Police Gazette sketch I chose for the cover.
Q. Why did you choose to present your case in the form of a Holmes novel, mixing fact with fiction rather than a clinical study of the facts of the case and the evidence you have used to support your theory?
The clinical version of our theory is in the works.
It’s called The Theotokos Murders: Jack the Ripper’s Terror of London.
But when the doctors and I discussed the best way to first present our theory to the public at large, we tossed around a number of ideas.
Firstly, we weren’t trying to compete with or to somehow outdo the great works already produced by people such as yourself and Donald Rumbelow, whose research we admire greatly. By the way, it is no coincidence that P.C. Daniel Rumbelowe figures prominently in the story and is of great help to Holmes, with a certain P.C. Jones among the officers to appear on the scene just in the nick of time.
As you and your readers well know, the story has been done in many ways, but not exactly like this that I know of.
Yes, Holmes has been called in to tackle the case in a number of books, movies and short stories, but never to my knowledge with an eye to presenting a real detective and a team of world-famous criminologists’ view of the actual facts of the case.
And. since all four of us have been Holmes fans since boyhood, and were all drawn into careers in Criminology and Investigation by our fascination with Holmes’ superhuman powers of deduction as well as with the Ripper case, it seemed a very natural way to approach the book for all of us.
By the way, all three of the doctors were previously approached individually by an extremely well-known and wealthy author of Ripper theory books, and all three refused to become part of that author’s work after reading their theory and its evidence (or lack thereof).
Yet, all three of them joined forces with me to present my case when they read what I had come up with, even before they helped me uncover yet more evidence against my suspects.
In any case, there would be naysayers to any presentation we’d have chosen; certain critics will disparage one’s work on the Ripper case regardless of in which format or how well you present it if it doesn’t go along with their own theory of the case.
So far, it seems that my main critics have a dog in the fight and would have crucified me no matter which approach I’d’ve taken haha.
Q. Speaking of the three doctors, who are very famous in the world of Forensics and Criminology, can you tell us a little bit about them?
With the greatest pleasure and pride.
My team is made up of myself and three of the most distinguished Criminalists in the world.
First off, we have Dr. Michael M. Baden, who was formerly the Chief Medical Examiner (Coroner) for New York City for over 25 years. He has been called in on a huge number of high-profile cases such as the Kennedy Assassination, Elvis Presley, John Belushi, the Claus Von Bulow case and countless others.
Dr. Baden was actually contracted in the 1960’s to go to England and try to solve the Ripper case himself, but he was unable to do so at the time due to the lack of evidence he was provided.
Dr. Henry C. Lee has assisted in the investigations of over 8,000 criminal cases including those of O.J. Simpson, JonBenet Ramsey and the Phil Spector case. His incredible powers of crime scene analysis were also largely responsible for the safe recovery and return home of kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart.
As for Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, he has been called in on cases ranging from the John F. and Robert F. Kennedy assassinations, Elvis Presley, JonBenet Ramsey, O.J. Simpson and Dr. Jeffrey McDonald to the Waco, Texas Branch Davidian fire.
All three have many more accomplishments than I can list here, and I believe that having their full endorsements should hopefully be enough for your readers to at least hear me out in this interview.
Q. Please explain the investigative process that led you to three of the men you call “The Four Jacks.”
I put together a template of characteristics and facts that are most commonly true of all serial murders in modern history, and then applied that template to all of the men even remotely involved with the case. I continued to follow each element on each man until he was discounted on at least 2 counts.
It was fairly quick work to eliminate all but 3 men who, coincidentally, were arrested together for multiple counts of assault in a violent crime that took place less than six months after the third and fourth “canonical” murders of Catherine Eddowes and Elizabeth Stride.
One of the assaults they were arrested for that day took place on the very spot where Stride had been killed, just inside the gates of the International Working Men’s Educational Club!
This led me to the leader of that group of 3 men – Louis Diemschutz.
He claimed to have found the body of Elizabeth Stride just outside his home on the premises of the club where he was steward and where he lived with his wife Anna Sarah.
Historically, many murderers have pretended to “find” the body of their victim because they couldn’t wait to see the results and/or they wished to insert themselves into the investigation.
In this case, it was a bit of both, although primarily the latter, as well as a desire to draw the majority of the police to the first murder scene, leaving the streets much less patrolled to make things easier for his accomplices to commit the second.
He needed the body to be “found” at exactly 1AM in order for the rest of his plan to move forward.
And he definitely needed to bring his nemesis to his premises in order for that plan to succeed, which it did for 124 years.
Thousands of criminals have inserted themselves into police investigations since that day, but Diemschutz may well have been the first ever to do so.
He found one of the bodies in what I consider to be very incriminating circumstances, although he was never seriously considered a suspect for reasons that I’ll try to explain here.
As we now know, many killers attempt to insert themselves into the investigation, some by pretending to find the victim’s body. Some killers who are known to have inserted themselves into investigations include Ted Bundy, Dennis Rader (BTK), Edmund Kemper and Wayne Williams (the Atlanta Child Murderer) among many others.
Q. What evidence do you have against them, individually and as a group? Why are their professions relevant to the case, and what part did their lying about their professions play in them coming under suspicion?
I’ll start with my first suspect, Louis Diemschutz, whom I refer to as the “Jack of Hearts” and whom I consider to be the ringleader of the operation, (his surname which, by the way, I believe was a pseudonym meaning “Protector of Noble Women” or “Protector of Smoke” in Russian and German).
I have found at least 12 different ways he spelled his name, perhaps because he couldn’t remember from one time to the next how he had spelled it before, or perhaps as a method of preventing police from connecting him from one incident to the next. In any case, he was born in Russia and a traveller in costume jewellery, which will become important to my theory later; Tabram was shopping for costume jewellery at the time of her death, and Chapman was also known to buy and resell costume jewellery for extra cash.
He made many different and conflicting statements to newspapers and police regarding the position and contents of Stride’s hands (and indeed if he had taken any note at all of their position – he said he didn’t at one point of the Stride inquest, then turned around and gave a detailed description of their position and contents at another point), who touched or lifted her and when, the grapes, who ran where and when, what I call the “phony pony” story, the shaving off of his beard between the Double Event Sunday and his appearance at the inquest Tuesday, his knowledge of details he shouldn’t or couldn’t have known if he were truly innocent, etc.
My second suspect was young Isaac M. Kozebrodski (Kozebrodsky, Kozebrodske, Kosebrodski, Kozenbrodske, Kozeldrodske, Kohenbrodski, Gilyarovsky and “Isaacs”), a Polish-born 17-year-old machinist (he also claimed at trial to be a tailor) and International Working Men’s Educational Club member who once lived very close-by Mary Jane Kelly near the gas works in Stepney.
I refer to Kozebrodski as the “Jack of Spades (Knives).”
As my evidence has shown, Kozebrodski was by far the most brutal of the three murderers, and performed the worst of the mutilations on the victims, including the carving of his initials “IK” three times into the face of Catherine Eddowes.
Kozebrodski was arrested along with Diemschutz in the Socialist Riot of 1889 for assault on a number of people, including a policeman, whom he beat with a stick.
My third suspect is Samuel Friedman (Freedman, Friedenthal), a cap-blocker or hat shaper/maker, later listed in 1891 as a 47-year-old Polish tailor with a shop very close to the IWMEC. Friedman was also arrested in the same incident and, like Kozebrodski, happened to be at the club when Diemschutz “found” Liz Stride’s murdered body, and was instructed by Diemschutz to run for the police. This fact was not mentioned by Diemschutz nor Wolf Wess at the Stride inquest, but is mentioned in Diemschutz’ much more detailed account of the incident in the IWMEC’s Hebrew-language newspaper Der Arbeiter Fraynd (The Worker’s Friend).
I call him the “Jack of Clubs” – he used a club to beat civilians and a policeman in the riot, and was also a club member.
I believe Friedman to be the man smoking the clay pipe seen by Israel Schwartz as well as the last man seen speaking to Catherine Eddowes by Joseph Lawende, Joseph Hyam Levy and Harry Harris. Schwartz saw: a man age, 35; ht., 5 ft 11in; comp., fresh; hair, light brown; dress, dark overcoat, old black hard felt hat, wide brim; had a clay pipe in his hand Lawende saw: a man Age 30 to 35. Height 5ft. 7in., with brown hair and big moustache, dressed respectably. Wore a pea jacket, muffler and a cloth cap with a peak of the same material.
Remarkably similar descriptions of men wearing caps that sound to me like they could have been Friedman, a cap-blocker.
Finally, we have the man I call the “Jack of Diamonds” – Prince Pyotr Kropotkin, a member of the Russian aristocracy.
He is widely considered to be one of the greatest thinkers to emerge from Russia in the 19th century.
I refer to him as the “Jack of Diamonds” because I believe him to be – willfully or inadvertently – the organizer, the funding, as well as the driving force behind the murders, as the evidence I have gathered will show.
Prince Kropotkin was imprisoned twice for subversive political activity in Russia and France and expelled from Switzerland under suspicion of involvement in the successful conspiracy to assassinate Alexander II, the Tsar of Russia.
Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between workers.
He wrote many books, pamphlets and articles, and oddly, mentions Jack the Ripper at least twice in his works, in which he advocates the strategic use of violence to promote Anarchy.
On both occasions, he praises Jack’s work and attempts to influence the reader to sympathize with him and place the blame on a corrupt government and legal system rather than the killer himself.
Kropotkin also contributed the article on anarchism to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition.
In early June of 1890 (less than seven months prior to what I believe to be the last Ripper murder), Prince Kropotkin visited the IWMEC in Berner Street with his close friend, the Russian anarchist author Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky (who had himself been exiled from Russia for the 1878 knife murder of the head of the Russian Secret Police and Gendarme Corps), and urged his fellow-countrymen (which would include Diemschutz) to return to their homeland:-
“…to Russia they owed their life work. It was the duty of everyone to return to Russia as soon as possible. Russia required their new thought, for it was on the brink of a great revolutionary change.”
According to the article in the June 9 issue of the London Evening Star, “a weirdly strange Nihilist dirge for a peasant martyr came after the speaking, the pathos of which brought tears to the eyes of the hearers.” And I believe his visit to the IWMEC was intended as a premise to lay the groundwork and create an excuse for Diemschutz’ eventual return to Russia once the mission for which he was specifically brought to England was completed.
It is for these reasons, and more, which are detailed in my video, that I believe Kropotkin to be the mastermind of the murders as a subversive political action against England.
Lest your readers become sceptical at this point, I hope they will visit my website and examine some of the evidence that led me to Kropotkin as mastermind.
As to the last part of your question, by the time he went up for sentencing on the Socialist Riot charges, Diemschutz had changed his stated profession from “Traveller in Costume Jewellery” to “Farrier” or “Horse Shoer.”
Q. What are the two bits of “Insider knowledge” you say Diemschutz had that only the killer could have known?
Only he and Kozebrodski knew of grapes in Stride’s hand as they mentioned in newspaper interviews on Sunday. Grapes that were not seen by any of the police officials or doctors on the scene, but evidence of which was found three days later by Private Investigators LeGrand and Batchelor.
He also made the following statement to the newspaper on Sunday morning; “She was a little better dressed, I should say, then the woman who was last murdered.” How did he know the condition of the previous victim’s dress (Chapman)?
Her clothing was virtually destroyed and covered in blood when she was found. And how did he suddenly become an expert on the killing that had happened just a week before the morning he “found” Stride’s body in the few hours just after his discovery? …and which then begs the question, exactly how did Louis Diemschutz know better than the police, who arrived on the scene after Annie Chapman was dead, and saw her with their own eyes, yet neither they, nor any other police or medical official could say with any certainty even what precisely was the quality of the clothing she was wearing, let alone that her mode of dress was worse than the way Stride had been dressed, or better for that matter?
Or did he mean that she was dressed at all, and that the other woman’s clothing had been considerably more in disarray?’ In either case, exactly how did he know?
Q. Give us an example of the new evidence uncovered by you and your team?
Here’s one – Samuel Friedman’s 1886 conviction I uncovered for “Indecent Assault” – which as I understand it was just a way of referring to rape back then without actually saying it. Criminologists know very well that serial killers almost always have some previous record of less-serious offences. Friedman did.
Criminal profilers often quote the maxim “Past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour.” And when I was once asked why then I was unable to provide evidence of Diemschutz and Kozebrodski having prior violent offences that precipitated the murders,
I pointed to the Socialist Riot of March, 1889. That person noted that the riot took place after the Double Event, so it couldn’t have been a predictor of future behaviour. To which I replied, “You are correct. But where was the prior violence before the riot?” My answer – the Double Event and all the other previous Ripper assaults and murders.”
Q. Why is there some confusion regarding George Yard?
According to his testimony, LD’s cart was kept in “George Yard – Cable Street.” When questioned by police, Diemschutz admitted keeping his horse stabled at what may have been a previous murder scene. He told police and news reporters he kept his horse and cart at George Yard.
This may or may not have been the same George Yard as the scene of the Martha Tabram murder that was not then – and to many is still not – considered a Ripper murder.
“The pony was not kept in the yard of the club, but in George-yard, Cable-street,” which later changed in a subsequent statement to “I keep my pony and trap in Cable-street.” Perhaps it was a mere coincidence that the two stables shared the same name, or perhaps he specified the Cable-street one to avoid suspicion of the Tabram killing.
Certainly the hour of her death (and many others) tallies with his usual hour of arrival after the market to stable his pony in “George Yard.” There is some question as to whether the stable he used was in a different George Yard than the one where Tabram was murdered.
There was an actual George Yard just north of Cable Street, and it was likely the location he was referring to (between Marmaduke Court, Grove and Cable Streets). Although that is certainly possible, and the two names may merely be coincidental, I believe that he realized his mistake in admitting that fact when he gave his statement to the police, and so added the words “Cable-street” in order to prevent police from connecting him to Martha Tabram’s murder, then later left off the “George Yard” part of it entirely; Note that he later changed that part of his statement to “I keep my pony and trap stabled in Cable Street,” leaving out “George Yard” for some reason. In any case, if he did keep his pony in George-Yard, Cable-Street, it would have been nearly on top of the location where the Pinchin Street Torso was later found.
Q. Can you explain your interpretation of Jack’s motive(s)?
The oldest in the book that were in play long before the Ripper killings, and those that are still the main motive of most terrorist groups today; race, religion and politics, though not necessarily in that order.
They wanted to bring the attention of the world to the plight of the Jews in Whitechapel under the “Sweating System,’ and they did so through the strategic use of the “sex sells” idea in a form of salacious propaganda – grisly prostitute murder – in the prurient Victorian era.
In short, they wanted to discredit the British Empire by showing the world the poverty, famine, homelessness, disease and prostitution that was going on such a short distance from Buckingham Palace.
Their choice of the IWMEC as the location for one of the two killings of their Tour de Force performance was also in my opinion a form of propaganda; the only reason anyone but the most elite historians even knows about that club today is purely thanks to the Double Event.
By the way, I’ve had a few people point out the absurdity (in their opinions) of the idea that three men might work together under the auspices of a fourth to commit a series of murders in order to further a political cause, and I would ask them to take a look at current events today in France, the USA, here in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.
There have already been multiple instances of just exactly that happening in very recent history. It was no different back in 1888.
Q. Can you explain the “Double Event” and your team’s theory on what really happened?
After committing the Stride murder with Kozebrodski’s help and Friedman standing guard across the road as detailed by eyewitness Israel Schwartz, Diemschutz ran back to the Board School around the corner, where he had earlier left his pony and costermonger’s cart tied off while he went walking to the Commercial Road to look for the first victim of the Double Event.
He then returned to the IWMEC on his cart, and pretending to find her body, Diemschutz ran into the clubhouse to tell the members – at least two of which were his accomplices, along with his wife.
As the men and Mrs. Diemschutz examined the body of Long Liz, he then sent some members running in absurd directions, with the exception of his two confederates, whom he directed to run towards the Commercial Road and on to Mitre Square, as he himself ran in the opposite direction “looking for a policeman.”
I think Louis wanted to delay the police as long as possible to give Kozebrodski and Friedman a broad window of time to find a victim and commit the second murder. By the time Diemschutz got back from his run down to the Beehive Pub at Fairclough and Christian Street, his friend Morris Eagle had already found two officers in Commercial Road and brought them back (not with Kozebrodski, though he later claimed to have been with Eagle at the time the PC’s were found), where Diemschutz pretended to be a concerned citizen, rattled by what he had seen.
Friedman and Kozebrodski arrived at Mitre Square and sought out a suitable victim. As instructed, they waited until 01:40 to commit the crime, thus ensuring that police would have certainly arrived at the IWMEC by then and that Diemschutz would have an ironclad alibi for that second murder, and therefore be presumed innocent of the first, thanks to the warning of a “Double Event” in the “Saucy Jacky” postcard I believe he sent out the day before.
After committing the Eddowes murder and making a stop just slightly off the most direct route back to the IWMEC at Goulston Street, Kozebrodski ran back to the club and snuck in through the back, or perhaps the roof, entering an upstairs room that had already been checked and sealed off by police. Friedman ran home, dropping the bloody knife wrapped in cloth on a doorstep on the corner of Brady and Whitechapel, just .09 miles from his home in Weaver Street, and located on the most direct route back there from Mitre Square. Kozebrodski would have been able to clean himself up in the Steward’s Dwelling or another room, then furtively descend the stairs to join the group of sequestered club members waiting to be examined and questioned by the police.
There were at least three distractions to those police that would have provided him that chance; the mysterious locked-from-within room, Diemschutz’ antagonistic encounter with Inspector Reid over the sale of some cigars, and the ridiculing by club members of a policeman using the photo of a recently “martyred” Chicago Socialist.
Q. Please explain the four coincidences you’ve uncovered between the Double Event and the Socialist Riot of March ’89 that piqued your curiosity and points directly at the “Four Jacks” and Mrs Sarah Anna Diemschutz?
The second murder, at Mitre Square, took place just in front of the Duke Street Synagogue run by Dr. Adler, despised by Prince Kropotkin and by the club’s members – the same synagogue at which Diemschutz and his club members assembled and were turned away by Chief Rabbi Adler just before the Socialist riot of March 1889, where he, Isaac Kozebrodski and Samuel Friedman – all three of whom were present at the “finding” of Liz Stride’s body – were arrested for violence against a boy and various adults, and then dragging a policeman to the very spot Liz Stride was found inside the club gates and injuring his leg with a kick after beating him with a club. Mrs. Diemschutz – who was also present when her husband found Stride – also participated in the assault on P.C. Joseph Frost by beating him with her hair broom.
One of the other adults that were beaten was an enemy of the IWMEC named Israel Sunshine, who lived in the Wentworth Model Dwellings at #119 Goulston Street!!
I wonder; could they have been trying also to lead the police and/or angry mobs to the doorstep of Israel Sunshine with that graffito? Or did Diemschutz just know the outside of that building from visiting Sunshine and note its resemblance to a school slate board as a perfect medium for writing in chalk?
So now we have the same four people who were the first out the door the night of the finding of Stride’s body, Diemschutz leading the group to the site of the Eddowes murder, then back to the site of the Stride Murder, a violent act against a policeman on the very spot where Stride lay murdered, and an act of violence against an enemy of the club who lived in the exact location where the Goulston Street graffito was left. I find those coincidences extremely compelling and in my investigative experience, when there are too many coincidences, they most often end up not really being coincidental after all.
Q, Could you explain to the readers what you’re calling the “Theotokos connection” to the various murders; the Double Event in particular.?
I have determined that the five canonical murders, as well as eight other murders and one attack, were committed on Christian feast days of the Eastern Liturgical bible; eleven of the thirteen victims I attribute to Jack the Ripper were attacked or killed on a Christian Feast Day of the Theotokos – the Greek title of Mary, the mother of Jesus used especially in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches. There are just twelve Theotokos days in a year, and collectively, they are known as “The Twelve Great Feasts.”
It’s my theory that the Ripper specifically chose sacred days of Theotokos tribute to do his killings as a direct attack on Christianity.
The Intercession of the Theotokos or the Protection of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, is a feast of the Mother of God celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches. The feast celebrates the protection afforded the faithful through the intercessions of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary).
In Russia it is celebrated on October 1 as the most important solemnity after the Twelve Great Feasts – and the Double Event occurred on the eve of this feast!
The feast is commemorated in Eastern Orthodoxy as a whole, but by no means as fervently as it is in Russia – the home country of both Kropotkin and Diemschutz. Looking at the idea of the murders being a direct attack on Christianity, I did some research on the subject of Christian feast days.
As I already mentioned, eleven or twelve of thirteen or possibly fourteen victims were attacked or killed on a Christian feast day of the Theotokos, of which there are only twelve in a year. Even more strangely, the position in which Catherine Eddowes’ body was left with outstretched arms was in my opinion intended to mimic that of Mother Mary in a Theotokos icon, but instead of the baby Jesus that is normally pictured in a circle over her midsection, she was left (in Mitre Square!) with that area ripped to shreds and her womb taken away as if in some bizarre reference to the “blessed is the fruit of thy womb” portion of the Hail Mary prayer.
And besides its also having been a Theotokos day, Mary Ann Nichols was murdered on the day of The Afterfeast of the Beheading of John the Baptist, while Millwood – one of the two not killed on a Theotokos feast day – was killed during the feast days of The First and Second Findings of the Precious Head of John the Baptist as well as a day that honours Christian martyred saints (Anthony, Alexander and Hypatius).
By the way, doctors had the opinion that the killer had attempted to “saw off” the head of Mary Ann Nichols.
Even the woman whose body parts began washing up on the shores of the Thames on the thirty-first of May, 1889 – Elizabeth Jackson – one I have my doubts about having been killed by the same group, could very well have been murdered on the day before (May the thirtieth) which as it turns out fell on the on the first possible day of the moveable feast day of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in that year.
The only victim not included in these above was Alice Mackenzie. Mackenzie was, however, killed on the Christian feast day of the Martyrs of Compiègne – sixteen Christian women who were beheaded on July 17, 1794, during the Reign of Terror in France, which was also a day Christians honour martyrs such as Great Martyr Marina of Antioch in Pisidia and Martyrs Speratus and Veronica and Companions.
That links every victim to some sort of Christian feast day, with two linked to a biblical beheading and another linked to the beheading of sixteen female Christian martyrs.
By the way, Prince Kropotkin was an authority on the French Revolution, and wrote a very in-depth treatise on the subject, which included two mentions of martyrs beheaded in 1794 during the Reign of Terror in France. As another point of interest, in the early 1800’s, Kropotkin’s own mother Ekaterina Nikolaevna Kropotkina commissioned the building of the stone Church of the Intercession of the Theotokos in the Ryazan region of Russia.
Thus, we can be quite sure of Kropotkin’s familiarity with the term Theotokos and so the days of the “Twelve Great Feasts” and the Intercession of the Theotokos in particular, a very special day in Russia upon the eve of which I believe the Double Event was planned to occur. Yet Kropotkin was not a Christian in adulthood, and in fact opposed it vehemently.
It certainly seems odd that all thirteen or even fourteen of the attacks and killings occurred on days of Christian feasts, and all but two of those fourteen on feast days of the Theotokos, of which there are only twelve in a year!
Yet not even one out of all fourteen happened on a day of any import on the Jewish calendar. It’s as though the killer chose his days carefully and was either unwilling to defile a Jewish holy day, or was otherwise occupied on important Jewish feast days.
A mathematics professor friend of mine has told me that using the control factors of 12 Theotokos days in a year, over the three-year period of the 14 attacks and murders (12 in 1888), the odds against those dates being chosen by chance and happening to fall on Theotokos days works out to a figure expressed by 7 followed by fifteen zeroes to one. Those odds become yet more astronomical if we increase the control factor to 365 x 3 or more precisely, to the exact number of days (365 x 3 = 1,095 – 12 = 1,083) that passed from the attack on Annie Millwood to the murder of Frances Coles– nearly 3 years to the day. I believe that using a factor of twelve out of three hundred sixty-five is sufficient to model the problem.
So, using the binomial distribution to find that the probability of twelve of the fourteen crimes occurring on twelve Theotokos days and two not on those days at random works out to .00000000000000013.
Thus, the probability against this occurring purely by chance would be: 1 – .00000000000000013 = .99999999999999983.
Mathematically, that amounts to an astronomical ratio expressed by a figure of seven followed by fifteen zeroes to one against it being purely coincidental, thus removing all doubt it was therefore fully intentional. With these figures essentially establishing the equivalent of a DNA match, we can safely conclude that there is a correlation here and that in terms of probability, the likelihood of the dates falling on those particular Christian feast days unintentionally is as near to zero as is imaginable. As we know, two different Marys were killed on Theotokos nights. One (Mary Jane Kelly), whose heart and womb were also removed, lived in Christ Church, and it was not only the Theotokos, but also Michaelmas – The day Christians celebrate the angel Michael’s defeat of Lucifer.
Coles was murdered on Saint Valentine’s eve as well as a Theotokos feast day. And oddly, Catherine Eddowes (who wore a Michaelmas dress on the night she was killed) carried a pawn ticket on the day of her death in the name of “Mary Ann Kelly.”
LIST OF 13 VICTIMS AND THEIR THEOTOKOS CONNECTIONS
1) Millwood – The feast day of The First and Second Findings of the Precious Head of John the Baptist.
2) Wilson – Icon of the Mother of God of “the Sign.”
3) Smith – April 3 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Synaxis of the Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos “The Unfading Rose” (“The Unfading Blossom, The Flower of Incorruption”).
4) Tabram – Valaam Icon of the Mother of God.
5) Nichols – Placing of the Honourable Cincture (Sash) of the Most Holy Theotokos (395-408) also: Restoration of the Church of the Theotokos at the Neorion (port facilities) in Constantinople (c. 920-944). also: The Afterfeast of the Beheading of John the Baptist.
6) Chapman – September 8 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Feast of The Nativity of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary.
7) Stride – The Intercession of the Theotokos or the Protection of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary.
8) Eddowes – The Intercession of the Theotokos or the Protection of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary.
9) Kelly – November 9 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos “She Who is Quick to Hear” of Mt. Athos (10th century) also: The 8th was Michaelmas.
10) Mylett – Novgorod Icon of the Theotokos, “Deliverance of the Drowning” (“Rescuer of the Drowning”).
11) Mackenzie – Feast day of the Martyrs of Compiègne.
12) Hart – September 8 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Feast of The Nativity of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary.
13) Coles – Appearance of the Iveron Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos (“Panagia Portaitissa” or “Gate-Keeper”), Mt. Athos (9th century) Note: Although I have left her out as a definite Ripper victim here, Elizabeth Jackson’s body parts began to wash up on the shores of the Thames river on 31 May, 1889, putting her possible murder date at May 30 (while Diemschutz was in jail for the violence at the Socialist riot), which is the earliest day on which the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary can fall, while July 3 is the latest; it is celebrated 20 days after Pentecost.
This would mean that if she is in fact a Ripper victim, her murder might have been pre-planned and carried out by Kozebrodski and Friedman alone, accounting for the distinctly different M.O. from the other murders. Or perhaps Diemschutz had them commit the murder while he was incarcerated in order to establish yet another ironclad alibi for himself if he was worried about being looked at again after going to jail.
Q. How do eyewitness statements and descriptions compare to your suspects?
Diemschutz fits them perfectly in a number of ways.
Firstly, he (or his accomplices) fits the physical descriptions given by every single eyewitness. Not just generally (age, foreigner of Jewish heritage, build, mode of dress, well educated), but also down to specifics. Eyewitness descriptions are always very close to the same with the exception of ages ranging from 19 to 25-30 to 45. Deimschutz was 26 at the time of the murders and, according to his own testimony at the Coroner’s Inquest, described himself as a “traveller in costume jewellery.”
The Ripper was described as wearing a thick gold chain with a large red gemstone hanging from it, as well as a horse shoe tie pin – all items of what had to be costume jewellery uncommon at the time, particularly around the impoverished East End of London. From Emma Smith’s testimony and evidence of two knives being used on Martha Tabram, we know that both of them were killed by multiple offenders. And a description given by Smith of one of her attackers being about 19 tallies well with Kozebrodski, who would have been 17 or 18 at the time. Friedman would have been 41-42 in 1888, accounting for those witness descriptions of an older man.
Witnesses Barnett and Hutchinson’s descriptions of Jack also match Diemschutz. He is a perfect fit for the sighting reported and described by Matthew Packer; “25-30 years old” – again, Diemschutz was 26 in 1888. Diemschutz and Friedman both fit the descriptions given by Israel Schwartz during the “Double Event” of the attacker and the man seen standing in the street as the assault took place.
The shouting of “Lipski!” between them would indicate Jewish Socialists as Lipski was being held up at the time as an example of English repression against the Jews.
Schwartz’ drastic changing of those descriptions when asked again later was the result, I think, of his having been visited by Friedman in the interim and warned to redirect the police towards a Gentile.
And as I said before, Friedman also fits the description of the man seen talking to Eddowes in front of Adler’s synagogue by Joseph Lawende. Lastly, the description given of Jack at the Mary Kelly scene fits perfectly with the artist’s rendering taken at the Stride inquest, in which the suspect was by then clean-shaven, other than the “carroty” moustache.
Q. What first caused you to suspect multiple killers?
Quite a few things, actually. For one, Kozebrodski and Friedman were with Diemschutz when he “found” the body of Liz Stride, as was his wife, and all three were also with him during the Socialist Riot as I have already pointed out.
Then we have Emma Smith’s Testimony; Before she died, she was able to tell the police that she was attacked by at least 3 men, one of them 19 years old. As you know, Isaac Kozebrodski was 17 at the time. She described the youngest one as the one who raped her and then used a foreign object to jab into her vagina – this is consistent with my theory that Kozebrodski was by far the most brutal of the three.
Next would be Martha Tabram’s Murder. According to Dr. Timothy Killeen, 2 knives were used – one 9” blade and one 6.”
In all the serial murder cases I have studied, I have never seen two knives used by one killer, though it is common for two weapons to be used when there are multiple attackers, such as “Hillside Stranglers” Buono and Bianchi, the “Chicago Rippers” or Herzog and Shermantine.
With that in mind, let’s look at the Double Event weapons; Stride was killed with a 9” blade only, while Eddowes was killed with only a 6” blade. There is also eyewitness testimony as to their being at least two men involved in the Double Event. Israel Schwartz saw an accomplice smoking a pipe in the street during the Stride murder. He also stated in his first account that the man accosting Stride had nothing in his hands.
Wouldn’t the Ripper have had a knife in one hand?
Or would that not be necessary if Kozebrodski were just behind the woman in the shadows of the club’s entry lane, with his own knife in hand? I believe Schwartz may have known all three men and was threatened by Friedman to stay quiet when he chased him away.
Note also that witness Joseph Lawende saw a man that very closely fit the description of the clay pipe smoker (Friedman) speaking to Mitre Square victim Catherine Eddowes, possibly to lure and then distract her for Kozebrodski to murder, and to assist in the abduction of the victim. This would help explain how that murder was done so quickly and without any screams heard from the victim.
The man seen by Lawende speaking to Eddowes was “Age 30 to 35. Height 5ft. 7in., with brown hair and big moustache, dressed respectably. Wore a pea jacket, muffler and a cloth cap with a peak of the same material.” His friend Joseph Hyam Levy was reluctant to give information to the police, who strongly believed he knew more than he would say. Did he recognise Friedman and fear him, or was he intimidated later?
Lastly, there was the Goulston Street Graffito.
The message left upon the wall mentions “Juwes” and “men” – both plural.
Q. Can you explain your take on the facial mutilations done to Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square? And why “Mitre” exactly? What about the position she was left in brings to your mind the blasphemy of an important Christian prayer?
As I’m sure most of your readers are aware, the Mitre is the formal headdress worn by the Pope and other high officials of the church. I believe it was chosen as a morbid joke that went unnoticed, spilling the “tainted” blood of an unfortunate on the head of the Head of Christianity.
This leads me to the palms-out posing of Eddowes’ body I mentioned before in what is known in Theotokos Icon paintings of the Mother Mary as the Orans position. And where the baby Jesus normally appears in many of such paintings, there was instead a hideous gaping wound where her uterus had been removed – “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” In her facial mutilations, I see two distinct possibilities, though I’m more inclined to that of Isaac M. Kozebrodski “doodling” his initials into her face three times, in the manner a teen might carve his initials into a tree or picnic table. The cuts made on Eddowes’ face show 3 distinct carvings of the initials “I.K.” clearly cut across each eye and cheek and the mouth and chin.
As the carvings were made in pitch dark, the letters are as clear as possible, done as they were in a hurry. When the victim’s face is viewed as if from a kneeling position to the right of her body, as Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown said he believed the killer to have done during the mutilations, three sets of the initials “IK” can be clearly seen.
The three “I’s” are cut vertically through each eye and the mouth. Two “K’s” are formed by the junctures of the eyelids with the upside-down “Vee’s.” The same can be seen with the mouth – “I” vertical, “K” sideways with juncture of lips forming the spine of the K. And although I believe it possibly to be unintentional, we can also see Kozebrodski’s middle initial “M” formed by the two inverted “Vees” under each eye and on the chin. A simple experiment, albeit a bit morbid, can be performed on one’s own eye. Tracing down with your finger, draw an “I” through it vertically, then sweep the juncture of the eyelid and finish the K with your finger drawing an upside-down “Vee” under the eye.
When this action is performed, the initials become obvious.
The same procedure can be performed on the mouth. When this experiment is done, it is seen that you can’t get the tops of the inverted Vees to touch the junctures of the eyelids or the lips – the design has to go lower so that you can press against bone.
And in the darkness of Mitre Square, I think it would come out just like that.
But for those that don’t see what I do, there is another possibility – the Roman Numerals VI VI VI (666) can also be seen in the cuts made to her face.
Q. What is your take on the Ripper’s letters? Which, if any, did he write in your opinion?
I believe the “Dear Boss” letter, the “Saucy Jacky” postcard as well as the “From Hell,” Openshaw and McCarthy letters were dictated by one and written by at least three of my “Four Jacks”
Q. Why do you feel propaganda played into the crimes? I notice you refer to martyrdom quite a bit in your novel and the essays on your website. In what way do you feel martyrdom played a part in the killings?
Let’s start with another question – Why did the Ripper choose prostitutes?
Besides their relative accessibility, I think they were chosen for a reason – the salacious nature of prostitute murders as a form of propaganda to gain the most attention possible; very negative propaganda against England. I believe they were chosen to act as martyrs to the Rippers’ cause.
As we know, Communist/Socialist beliefs at the time were extremely anti-prostitution, and the subject of their victimization in society was often brought up in Anarchist literature as well as in the works of Karl Marx.
I don’t believe they hated the prostitutes themselves fundamentally, but I think they looked at the victims as a sort of martyr, whose deaths would eventually help thousands of others of their kind if their plan was successful.
Remember that in the Arbeiter Fraynd, all the victims were referred to a “martyrs” by Diemschutz and Woolf Wess.
I believe their Christianity played a part as well. I have been able to confirm 13 of the 14 possible victims as Christian. Additionally, Emma Smith was followed, attacked and killed walking past a Christian church. Chapman was killed near St. Olave’s – a Christian church that had just recently been converted to a synagogue (and was extremely close to Friedman’s home in Weaver Street).
I believe they were trying to shine a negative light on London’s most impoverished, disease-ridden area for the rest of the world to see instead of the usual high-society images of palaces, carriages, fountains, polo games and royal festivities.
By performing the series of killings, they made the world see England in a whole different light. Their actions promoted the Anarchy Kropotkin preached (race riots and racially-motivated violence) and threw the light of the world on England’s unseemly underbelly in order to end the so-called British “Sweating System” that exploited their people.
And as I mentioned previously, I believe the IWMEC was chosen as the location for the first of the Double Event murders as a form of propaganda to bring attention to the club, as it has continued to do for over 125 years.
Q. What do you believe was the killer’s actual intention in leaving the bloody apron segment and cryptic message on the wall, and why there, exactly?
I believe the original intention was to leave the severed ear promised in the “Dear Boss” letter and again referred to in the “Saucy Jacky” postcard on Israel Sunshine’s doorstep below the graffito, but Kozebrodski dropped and lost it in the folds of Eddowes’ garments, where it later fell out at the mortuary in Golden Lane.
I think the apron was chosen as a valid substitute and was cut in half in order for it to be positively matched to the victim and therefore to draw attention to that graffito just as the severed ear had originally been intended to do. With my opinion of the Ripper’s love for a word game, I’d imagine that last-minute substitution and its subtle reference to John Pizer may have given him “real fits.”
As for the message itself, it has similar sentence structure to the Hebrew translations of the Arbeyter Fraynd newspaper with its odd use of double negatives. On my website, you can see the 1000+ anagrams I did of the message, two of which are quite startling to me.
But if your readers don’t want to consider my anagram analyses as valid, perhaps they would consider this: The message can also be interpreted “as is” in the following ways, depending on whose version you accept: “The Juwes are not the men”: The Jews as a race are in fact not the men to be blamed. Note: the killer used the plural “men” and not “man,” thus giving another reason to suspect multiple offenders through “leakage” of information. “that will be blamed for nothing”: Could this refer to the fact that the Jews were already being blamed, and would continue to be, despite this message? Or could this be a tactic used by the killer to deflect suspicion from the Jews in the same way the “Dear Boss” and Lusk letters and “Saucy Jacky” postcard attempted to give the reader the impression they were written by an illiterate Irishman? Or “The Juwes are the men”: Although “The Jews” per se were not to blame, the men who were in fact guilty were Jews. “that will not be blamed for nothing”: the men that are to be blamed would not in fact be blamed for “nothing.” They should instead be blamed for “something” or “everything.”
Q. Can you explain the connection you’ve found between the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes?
I believe Louis Diemschutz – an extremely literate man and head of an “Educational Club” was also an avid reader of Sherlock Holmes stories, the first of which initially appeared just a few months prior to the first Ripper murder in November of 1887 in Beeton’s Christmas Annual magazine and then again in serialized versions that were extremely popular at the time.
In that first story, A Study in Scarlet, Holmes is at first confounded by two coded messages written in blood upon the wall over two murdered corpses.
I think Diemschutz had at least one coded message written by Kozebrodski on a wall the night of the Double Event, and possibly another in Hanbury Street, though that fact cannot be verified – it was mentioned in a newspaper account just after the murder, but police discounted it as having been written at some time before the killing by an uninvolved party (it reportedly said, “Five. 15 more and I give myself up”).
I think either or both graffiti was a veiled reference/tribute to the Rache message in Study.
And although neither of the Ripper’s message(s) was written in blood as were those in the Holmes story, his letters did at least appear to be; some were scrawled in red ink and pencil to look like blood; in one, the writer tells the recipient that he had tried to use real blood he had collected in a ginger beer bottle, but that it had coagulated before he could use it to write.
Note that when Mary Ann Nichols was killed, there was a distinct shortage of the expected amount of blood at the scene, and although her throat had been deeply gashed, the front of her garments remained remarkably free of blood. Why? Was this when the killer collected the blood he referred to in the Lusk letter?
Although having no possible bearing on the Ripper’s actions in his crimes, in what I consider by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be in the vein of a “story ripped from the headlines” as is a popular theme in today’s TV crime dramas,
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box, (set by Doyle in August of 1888!), features Holmes assisting a client when she receives a parcel in the post that contains two severed human ears packed in coarse salt.
Of course we all know that on October 16th George Lusk, the president of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, received a three-inch-square cardboard box in his mail. Inside was half a human kidney preserved in wine.
Was the Holmes story loosely based on what Doyle had read about the Lusk parcel and letter? If so, it is strictly an amusing side note, and if not, I find it an odd coincidence that the woman whose kidney was sent to Lusk, also had her ear cut off as proof for the police that the murder was done as the second of a “Double Event” promised in the “Saucy Jacky” postcard.
Q. What’s the next mission for you and your team?
Besides the factual, case-study version of our theory and an audio version of Sherlock Holmes and the Autumn of Terror with a very special guest celebrity Ripperologist narrating, there is an interactive Virtual Reality game version of my book being developed by a company called Natural Records Studios that allows you to take part in the investigation as you very realistically walk the 3-D streets of 1888-92 Whitechapel.
They are building in Virtual Reality a very young me and a very old me.
The player will travel back in time to 1938 to meet the eighty-some-year-old Detective Inspector Williams who wrote a book on his theory of Jack the Ripper’s identity earlier in the 1930’s.
The premise is that the player had read that old book in 2017, believed in its theory and then went back in time to fetch the Inspector as an old man with full knowledge of the truth of the case to take him back to 1888 to prevent the murders.
If you win, Diemschutz and company hang, haha.
On another note, my team is also preparing to take on the mysterious death of Bruce Lee. My martial arts instructor was the late great Ted Wong, who was Bruce Lee’s top student as well as his son Brandon’s godfather. He passed on to me his own personal belief that his master had been murdered and why he thought so, so it is very natural for me to head up a new investigation in the name of my master and Grandmaster. Additionally, Dr. Baden actually worked on Lee’s autopsy, and Dr. Lee is a huge fan of Bruce Lee himself, and would love to use his cutting-edge Forensic technology to re-evaluate Lee’s toxicology from 1972 in search of exotic poisons not included in the tox screens that were performed on Lee back then.
Q. How can anyone interested in finding out more get in touch with you?
Primarily through the page I made on Facebook for the book.
WATCH RANDY’S VIDEO
Randy has also compiled an interesting video on his theory.
A BIG THANK YOU TO RANDY
Thanks Randy for sharing your unique new theory with me and my readers. I’m sure it will stir up some good healthy debate as it is quite thought-provoking.
It is I who must thank you, Mr. Jones, for once again giving me an opportunity to get my theory out to people who know the case inside and out.
And I’d like to thank any of your readers who actually made it all the way through to this point for giving me their valuable time and attention.