Jack the Ripper: Unmasked [Hardcover]

This is, unfortunately, a prime example of what NOT to do when researching a subject. If this had been produced as a dissertation by one of my students I would have had no option but to fail it out right.

Yes, the author has done some research, but they have become so obsessed with their one point of view that they are unable, or unwilling, to see any alternative view, or contradictory information. The author picks a suspect (William Bury), declares his guilt and then finds bits and pieces of known information that might, if twisted, support his assertions. The true researcher is willing to look for information which disproves their theory, rather than looking for only the information that proves their thesis. Research which disproves a theory is just as valid as research with proves the theory, in many cases research which disproves a theory will be received with greater regard because of its honesty.

Mr Beadle sets out from the beginning to prove his thesis that William Bury is the Ripper and ignores completely any evidence that shows Bury was not his man. Bury has been mentioned as a suspect before, but has long since been ruled out.

Beadle's adaptation of general psychological theories and terms, as well as forensic and criminal psychological terminology, in order to add some kind of veritas to his argument is truly irritating, and so very, very wrong. Beadle's belief that Bury is the Ripper and the only true suspect is at the same obsessional level as fiction writer Patricia Cornwell's current Druitt fetish. His analysis of Bury is the worst kind of amateur rubbish I have ever encountered (and I've marked, graded and failed some trash during my career).

According to the author, Bury killed prostitutes whose names were the same as his mothers and sisters - good grief - lets be clear obsessional multiple murderers (like JtR, Bundy, etc) tend to obsess on one person, a mother, girlfriend, etc, and they go for looks rather than names. In all my experience I have yet to encounter, or hear of, an obsessional multiple murderer who has obsessed on more than one person (or has obsessed on a name or several names). How does the author cover the fact that the victims he lists all have different names, he doesn't. He simply justifies his theory by stating "Bury did ...." without reference to the slightest evidence to back up his statements.

Structurally, this book, if presented as a thesis or dissertation, would be thrown back at the author with a several choice words about layout and order. He jumps about all over the place. He starts talking about one thing, then gets distracted by something else, and forgets what he was talking about. I would suggest that he purchases a book in basis essay structure, and learns how to divide his work into organised sections.

How the author ever conned the publishers into putting this into print is beyond me - I can only assume they saw the "Jack the Ripper" in the title and saw the cash signs fly up in front of their eyes.

This is a book on the Ripper that should never cause the true Ripper researchers any bother, it is a bias irrelevance (harsh but true). If you are interested in seeing it, then I would suggest a visit to your local library to take a look at it, then you can decide if you waste your money on it, or to buy one of the more regarded books on the subject.

This is not the first time that this author has put forward William Bury as a suspect. His previous book, "Anatomy of a Myth" is an excellent work and should be on the bookshelf of anyone who is interested in the Jack The Ripper case.

This book does not actually advance the case for Bury any further in my opinion, despite the wealth of information that the author has discovered about him. However, we find out plenty about his life and mindset and it is a fascinating work.

Unfortunately there is not really enough evidence that Bury was the Ripper and at times the book overstretches in its attempts to convince the reader, particularly the claim that Bury chose victims with the same names as women in his family. 19th century England was not awash with a variety of female names and Marys, Elizabeths, Annies and Catherines could be found anywhere and everywhere.

I personally do not believe that Bury was the Ripper (the bungled murder of his wife does not match the Ripper's more organised modus operandi) but he was certainly the KIND of man the Ripper was and is a far more plausible suspect that Druitt, Tumblety, Sickert, Maybrick or any daft Royal conspiracy story.

Jack the Ripper unmasked? No, probably not. But this book is an excellent portrait of a very sick individual who could well have become a serial killer and for his research Beadle should be applauded.

Students of the case should read Beadle's aforementioned "Anatomy of a Myth" as it brilliantly debunks many of the ridiculous stories that have grown up around the case. Also recommended is Bob Hinton's "From Hell", which is the most convincing book on the case I have read.

Books about "Jack the Ripper" always attract interest and the past couple of decades have seen quite a few new names added to the list of suspects. Author William Beadle is well-placed (as chairman of the Whitechapel Society 1888) to present his choice of suspect - William Bury. The trouble is that he goes about doing so the wrong way and muddles the trail. Historically, certain murders are attributed to a serial killer dubbed "Jack the Ripper" by the press at the time. The line-up as to which of a dozen women murdered 1888-91 should be counted as victims of this killer is speculative and is sometimes pivotal to an author's argument for any particular suspect.

The problem with William Beadle's presentation is that is his anxiety to present his choice of suspect he repeatedly tells us what William Bury did, when he should be telling us what Jack the Ripper did, thus to distinguish in his narrative the sources of each episode. He presumably has access to material about William Bury, who lived in walking distance of Whitechapel in 1888. He became briefly famous in 1889 when, having moved to Dundee, Scotland, he murdered his wife and was hanged for the crime.

This book is useful for the information about William Bury as a potential "Ripper" suspect, but it can't be relied on because of the author's repeated use of William Bury's name in the context of what Jack the Ripper was doing. He should have been clear as to when he is quoting a "Ripper" source thus to separate out and make equally clear his "Bury" source material. That he hasn't done so makes the book much harder work to read than it needed to be. I would rather have had the sources separated and clearly presented so that I could read the book and evaluate this suspect, as I have with other suspects many times before. (I also follow Kennedy assassination matters - see The Grassy Knoll Badgeman for a new suspect in that regard; and for light reading, I turn to books relating to the Turn Shroud.)

As a suspect, William Bury is less far-fetched than most of the 202 people named so far. He was considered at the time (which puts him a long way up the list), but refused to clear up the crimes with a confession and the Metropolitan Police officers dealing with the case at the time were open-minded enough to leave the case open. That's when the mystery began; the case file was thin enough before bits got lost or pilfered or destroyed. Officers on the case mostly didn't commit their opinions to writing and in any event the feeling at the time was that, by mid-1889, whoever had done it had stopped. The "hands-on" officers fed their chain-of-command three suspects, all of whom were beyond re-investigation. This suspect wasn't one of them, nor did he make any of the "complete" Jack-the-Ripper books of recent years. Inspector Abbeline seems to have been unconvinced by any of the suspects who died shortly after the murders, as he surfaces in the early 1900s when the Chapman case hit the newspaper headlines hinting that Chapman might have been the Ripper.

This book does try to use later techniques of offender profiling and the psychology of serial sexual killers to clarify the sort of person the Ripper was and some of that material is helpful to people who, like me, follow this subject. An index would have been even more helpful, as would some illustrations.