Horror Photographer Joshua Hoffine Reveals His Newest Nightmare: Jack the Ripper

 

By Doctor Gash
August 30th, 2012


Fantastic horror photog Joshua Hoffine has been busy at work and has just revealed his latest project. Hoffine dug deep into the history of true crime and brilliantly selected Jack the Ripper as his newest subject.

Check out part one of Hoffine's Jack the Ripper two-panel photo project. As always, his vision and attention to detail come through as we enjoy his work. The second part of Jack the Ripper will be released on October 1. For more on this excellent photographer, check out JoshuaHoffine.com. Signed archival prints will be available for purchase though his website. And "like" Joshua Hoffine's Facebook Fan Page.

From the Press Release:

Joshua Hoffine, the internationally renowned horror photographer residing in Kansas City, reveals his latest masterpiece: Jack the Ripper.

Joshua Hoffine's work exploded on the internet and in numerous magazines and news outlets around the world in 2008 when he released his collection of photographs exploring the nature of childhood fears. Since that time he has cultivated a massive cult following for his meticulously staged photographic works regarding, as he puts it, "the psychology of fear."

Conceived as a two-panel diptych, Jack the Ripper depicts the moments "just before" and "just after" a grisly alleyway murder. "What makes Jack the Ripper compelling to me," Hoffine says, "is that nothing is known about him. Because he was never caught, we have no actual information about who he was or why he committed his gruesome crimes. What we have is not a historical or biographical portrait, but a communally imagined idea of Jack the Ripper as an aristocratic predator. As a boogeyman, he graphically symbolizes the idea of the wealthy and powerful preying on the poor."

 

 

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www.DreadCentral.com

 

New Ripper Theory: Was Jack the Ripper a cart driver from Bethnal Green?

Two Jack The Ripper experts believe they have found the identity of the Whitechapel serial killer.


 

A new theory suggests Jack The Ripper was the cart
 driver who told police he discovered the first victim.



Police discover the body of Polly Nichols

 

It has been the subject of macabre speculation for more than 100 years but now two Jack The Ripper experts believe they have found the identity of the Whitechapel serial killer.


Authors Christer Holmgren and Edward Stow believe the most likely suspect for Jack The Ripper is Charles Cross, a cartman who claimed to have found the first victim prostitute Polly Nichols on August 31 1888.


Cross was discovered crouching over the body by a witness Robert Paul.


He told police he had been walking through Bucks Row on his way to Pickfords’ depot in Broad Street at around 3am when he found the body of Nichols.


But Holmgren and Stow believe he could have been the killer, disturbed as he was mutilating the body of Nichols.


Related Articles:


Jack the Ripper: the suspects 31 Aug 2012


Jack The Ripper: The Daily Telegraph's report of Polly Nichols's inquest from 1888 31 Aug 2012


Jack the Ripper: Is this six-inch knife used by Victorian serial killer? 03 Nov 2011


Why does Jack the Ripper still fascinate? 31 Aug 2011


Paul claimed he had seen Cross standing by the body of Nichols when he had arrived but Cross later told police he had been standing away from the body in the road.

And all the subsequent murders took place between his home in Doveton Street in Bethnal Green and his work at Broad Street at times when he would have been walking to work.

Mr Stow said: "We think it Charles Cross, the first person who found that first body. He was seen crouching over Polly Nichols and he wast trying to cover up some of the wounds.

"He hasn't been the subject of a lot of investigation and has only crept up very vaguely in census records.

"We have found out that he gave a false name to the police. His real name was Charles Latchmere.

"The police at the time were looking for some sort of special individual. But most crimes turn out to be someone quite ordinary.

"He walked past every single murder scene on his way to work. He is the best suspect so far."

Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols was attacked as she walked home from a night walking the Whitechapel Road.

Her throat was slit twice from left to right and her body mutilated.



The body of second Ripper victim, Annie Chapman, was found on September 8 in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields. Her abdomen was slashed entirely open, and it was later discovered that the uterus had been removed.

Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were killed in the early morning of Sunday 30 September 1888.

Eddowes' body was found in Mitre Square, in the City of London, three-quarters of an hour after Stride's. The throat was severed, and the abdomen was ripped open by a long, deep, jagged wound. The left kidney and the major part of the uterus had been removed.

The final victim, Mary Jane Kelly was discovered lying on the bed in the single room where she lived at 13 Miller's Court off Dorset Street, Spitalfields on November 9 1888. The throat had been severed down to the spine, and the abdomen virtually emptied of its organs. Even her heart was missing.

The removal of the organs led the police to suspect he was an educated upper-class man, possibly a doctor or an aristocrat. Suggestions for the culprit included Prince Albert Victor, the grandson of Queen Victoria, and Sir William Gull, the Queen's doctor.

Holmgren and Stow made the claims on the anniversary of the first murder at a re-enactment in Bethnal Green.

Cross died in 1920 and was survived by his wife who eventually passed away on 12 September 1940 in Stratford.

 

www.Telegraph.co.uk

 

31.8.12

124 years ago tonight Jack the Ripper struck for the first time



Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols murder scene
at Buck's Row (now Durward St)
Whitechapel in London's East End.

In the early hours of 31 July 1888, Jack the Ripper committed the first of his 5 serial killings.

124 years ago tonight, the evil fiend of London's East End despatched Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols from her earthly existence in Buck's Row (now Durward St) Whitechapel.

May she rest in peace.

And may the quest to finally reveal who Jack the Ripper really was continue.

30.8.12

Jack the Ripper's final resting place near Spook Hill, Brisbane?

 

Spook Hill's Satanic Antigravity
As one of Brisbane's oldest cemeteries, Toowong Cemetery has been the subject of too many myths and legends to count. Aside from the usual cookie-cutter haunting ones that you can find in any cemetery in the world (and the occasional tombstone damage, which is more likely the work of teenage Goths than angry ghosts) Toowong Cemetery has its own unique urban legend.

 

Twelfth Avenue, more colloquially called 'Spook Hill', is a sloping road in the cemetery with a special property. Many people have reported that if you park your car in the middle of it, facing uphill, and let it roll, the car will actually roll uphill rather than downhill.

It's very likely - not kidding - that Jack the Ripper
is buried here, as well.

Unfortunately, there haven't been any actual ghost sightings on Spook Hill – which is spooky in itself, given the ubiquity of hauntings in Toowong Cemetery – but that hasn't stopped enterprising ghost-hunters from telling stories of their own.

 

Apparently a tombstone near the top of the hill marks the grave of a child who died in a car accident. His spirit draws all cars towards it, with such a powerful attraction that it overcomes even gravity.

 

The 'scientific' explanation isn't much better: there's a natural magnetic lodestone at the top of the hill, strong enough to drag even large metal objects (like cars). Sorry, scientists, but that's too outlandish even for us – we're going to have to go with the car-pushing ghost kid.

 

http://www.weekendnotes.com/4-spookiest-urban-legends-in-brisbane/
 

 

Multiple killer Frederick Bailey Deeming - a Ripper suspect - among the condemned in The Doomsday Book

The Doomsday Book: FREDERICK Bailey Deeming was a multiple killer who showed no remorse for his innocent victims.

Deeming was hanged in May 1892 after being convicted of the murder of his wife, Emily.

Six months earlier the gasfitter had also killed his wife and their four children half a world away in England. Frederick Deeming's notoriety has earned him a special place in the Doomsday Book, the macabre journal kept by jail authorities of deaths behind bars.

Was Frederick Bailey Deeming mad or just plain evil?
Like many serial killers before and after him, the true scale of Deeming's murderous rampages will never be known, especially during his extensive visits overseas.

What is known about the British-born Deeming - widely called the Windsor Murderer - is that he killed his first wife, Marie, and their four children at Rainhill, England, in late July 1891.

He was a very cruel man. He killed his own children, and you don't get anything crueller than that.



Emily Mather was bludgeoned to death by husband
Frederick Deeming on Christmas Eve, 1891.
He finds himself in the Doomsday book.
 

An illustration of the murder of Emily Mather.
 

Then in Melbourne six months later, he disposed of his new wife, Emily, in their rented house at Andrew St, Windsor.

Emily Mather Deeming's body was found buried under the hearthstone in one of the bedrooms. She'd been battered around the head and had her throat cut before being covered in cement.

After the gruesome discovery, British police were alerted and a search of the Rainhill house revealed the bodies of Marie and children Bertha, Marie, Martha and Sidney.

Deeming, 38, was both a fraudster and a murderer. While living in England, South Africa and Australia he lived his life under different names. He also did time for dishonesty.

In February, 1890 he married Helen Matheson in England and was convicted of fraud, but not bigamy.

By the following September, under the name of Williams, he had married the unfortunate Emily Lydia Mather and the two travelled to Melbourne, where they set up house in Windsor.

The marriage would not last the year. On Christmas Eve, Deeming killed Emily, hiding her remains in the scond bedroom.

Three months later, Deeming's evil double life was beginning to unravel when noxious odours filled the house. The owner of the house spoke to neighbours, who told her of Emily's strange disappearance.

Police were called in and the floorboards immediately lifted.

Soon after, the bodies of Marie and the four children were also located - all with their throats cut.

Within weeks, Deeming was picked up in Perth, in the company of another woman he'd met in Melbourne and planned to marry. He'd changed his identity to Baron Swanston, but detectives nailed him when they found some of Emily Mather's belongings, including her prayer book.

Newspaper stories of the time linked Deeming to Jack the Ripper, suggesting that he could be the notorious East London mass killer. Articles were published detailing how he had bought knives in the area.

Deeming, himself, allegedly told fellow prisoners while sitting it out on death row awaiting his execution. The link between Deeming's gruesome work and the Whitechapel killer was his insanity - he had a brain disorder caused by venerael disease - and the use of knives as a murder weapon.

Deeming was executed at the Old Melbourne Gaol. His death mask is on display there and also at the Black Museum at New Scotland Yard.

Deeming's home still 'haunted'

One hundred and twenty years later, the name of Frederick Deeming still sends shockwaves through law-abiding communities.

Sebastian Gurciullo, who curated the Deeming exhibition at the Public Archive of Victoria, told True Crime of the strange phenomena he uncovered while researching the killer's history.

The Windsor house might be haunted.

Mr Gurciullo said he had spoken to the previous owners who told him of the "strange feelings" coming from the house.

"They told me it was quite strange living there. They felt a strange presence. Once they found out the history of the place they felt quite uncomfortable and moved out," he said.

"It's one of the most bizarre and at the same time, disturbing cases I've come across.

"When I contacted them they were really spooked out that all this has happened in their house.

"They were considering leaving at the time.

Ronald Ryan is another of the
condemned faces in The Doomsday Book.

"He was really the serial killer of the age. He's up there with Jack the Ripper.

"He was an international killer, South Africa and South America (where he is suspected of involvement in a number of murders), England and Australia.

"If he'd been willing to do it in England, and if he'd been willing to do it is Australia...who knows?"

But Mr Gurciullo doubts Deeming and Jack the Ripper were one and the same.

"There are similarities in the killings and psycho pathological condition of the two murderers, such as the focus on women. But the killing of the children was out of the character of Jack the Ripper," he said.

"Also, Deeming was doing time when the Ripper killed one of his victims.

"At the time it was an interesting connection. There was a fair degree of public hysteria back then."

Emily Mather's headstone is also a warning to other young women.
 

Mr Gurciullo said he was struck by the ability of Deeming to carry out his crimes on different continents.

"He was extremely devious, but he was also sloppy in the way he approached his crimes," he said.

"A master of disguises, he seemed to be able to easily slip around and change his appearances and personalities, his back story and whatever. He could create a whole new character seemingly without much effort.

"He was a very cruel man. He killed his own children, and you don't get anything crueller than that."

But even after all this time, the unanswered question remains: "Was it a mental condition or was he just so evil. Was he mad...or just bad?"

 

www.heraldsun.com.au

 
22.8.12

 

Jack the Ripper-linked grave trashed in Australia



The shared gravestone of Bessie and Walter Porriott,
at Toowong cemetery, was recently vandalised.



The grave of one of a handful of people who may be Jack the Ripper - London's Whitechapel serial killer of prostitutes in 1888 - has been vandalised in Brisbane's Toowong Cemetery.

The Sydney-based family of English conman Walter Thomas Porriott - known to London's police as Andrew John Gibson - in 1997 accused Porriott of being Jack the Ripper.

A lot of people around the world believe this is the final resting place of Jack the Ripper.

Porriott was a convicted killer who lived in London when the five murders attributed to Jack the Ripper took place.

The shared gravestone of Bessie and Walter Porriott at
Toowong cemetery. Walter is believed by some to
have been Jack the Ripper.



The five Jack the Ripper murders took place between August and November 1888.

Porroitt sailed to Brisbane on November 9, 1888, the day the fifth prostitute was killed, according to Ipswich councillor Paul Tully, who is an amateur historian and Jack the Ripper blogger.

"There is a lot of circumstantial evidence, but nothing has ever been proved and probably I think Jack the Ripper will go down in history and no-one will ever be able to identify who he really was," he said.

Despite the FBI in 1988 preparing a profile of Jack the Ripper, no-one has ever been convicted of the killings.

Porriott had served 10 years in jail for killing a woman when he posed as a gynaecologist.

He was buried in Toowong cemetery, on this day 60 years ago - August 30, 1952.

Cemetery records wrongly show his age when buried as 59 - impossible given he fled London 64 years earlier in 1888 - but the conman is considered to have been in his 80s when he died.

His wife Eliza, "Bessie", was 77 when she died on June 26, 1957.

Jack the Ripper's first victim, Mary Anne Nichols, was murdered on August 31, 1888.

Today, Cr Tully - who for four years has been researching his own book about Jack the Ripper - told journalists he did not really believe Walter Porriott was Jack the Ripper.

"There has been vandalism in the cemetery. That is absolutely appalling," he said.

"This is an historic grave. A lot of people around the world believe this is the final resting place of Jack the Ripper."

But Cr Tully does not.

"It is a theory that I don't really subscribe to, but it has never been disproved," he said.

Cr Tully thinks Porriott was evil, but not Jack the Ripper.

"He was an evil man, an imposter, a conman, a fraudster. He served 10 years in jail for the killing of a woman when he posed as a gynaecologist," Cr Tully said.

"But he really did not have the same modus operandi as Jack the Ripper."

Cr Tully this morning said he was unsure exactly when Porriott's grave was vandalised.

"No; it happened fairly recently. The damage is quite recent. But until yesterday I hadn't been here for about a year."

However, Cr Tully said he still has his own idea of who Jack the Ripper was, which he would reveal in his own book.

"My theory relates to a person in Australia who had connections to the Brisbane area and to the northern rivers district of New South Wales," he said.

"It is a theory that I have been pursuing since 2003."

In 1988, the FBI prepared a profile of Jack the Ripper on the 100th anniversary of the killings.


The FBI's 1988 profile suggested Jack the Ripper:
was a white male, 28-36 years of age;
was of average intelligence, lucky not clever;
was single, never married, and had difficulty in interacting with people in general and women in particular;
was nocturnal and not accountable to anyone;
blended in with his surroundings;
had poor personal hygiene, and appeared dishevelled;
was personally inadequate with a low self image and diminished emotional responses;
was a quiet loner, withdrawn and asocial;
was of lower social class;
lived or worked in Whitechapel, and committed the crimes close to home;
had a menial job with little or no interaction with the public;
was employed Monday to Friday, possibly as a butcher, mortician's helper, medical examiner's assistant, or hospital attendant (the proximity of London Hospital was noted in the profile);
was the product of a broken home, and lacked consistent care and stable adult role models as a child;
was raised by a dominant female figure who drank heavily, consorted with different men, and physically, possibly sexually, abused him;
set fires and abused animals as a child;
hated, feared, and was intimidated by women;
internalised his anger;
was mentally disturbed and sexually inadequate;
desired power, control, and dominance;
drank in local pubs prior to the murders;
was seen walking all over Whitechapel during the early morning hours;
did not have medical knowledge or surgical expertise;
was probably interviewed by police at some point;
did not write any of the “Jack the Ripper” letters;
did not commit suicide after the murders stopped.

www.BrisbaneTimes.com.au

30.8.12
 

Vandals destroy Jack the Ripper's reputed grave in Australia

Desecrated grave of Walter Thomas PORRIOTT
at Toowong Cemetery Brisbane Australia which
 many people believe is that of Jack the Ripper.
  Picture taken 29 August 2012.

 

Vandals have struck at Brisbane's historic Toowong Cemetery destroying a grave believed by many historians across the world to be the burial place of London's serial killer Jack the Ripper.

Sixty years ago today Walter Porriott of New Farm was buried at Toowong by his wife Bessie.

In 1997 his relatives went public across Australia with the sensational claim Porriott was Jack the Ripper who murdered five street prostitutes in London in 1888.

Jack the Ripper's first victim Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols was found murdered in the streets of Whitechapel in London's East End 124 years ago tonight on 31 July 1888.

No one was ever brought trial despite hundreds of suspects being identified by the police and the public.

Porriott was in London at the time of the murders and sailed for Australia on 9 November 1888 on the day of the last murder.

For the past century and a quarter, thousands of so-called Ripperologists around the world have tried to crack the case.

Theories have included suspects such as a member of the royal family, a doctor, a lawyer, an artist, a Polish Jew and another Australian suspect Frederick Deeming who was hanged in Melbourne in 1892 for murdering his wife.

On the eve of today's 60th anniversary of a Porriott's burial, his grave has been desecrated with the tombstone ripped from its base and smashed into the concrete surrounding the gravesite.

In 2008, a mystery image appeared on the cross above Porriott’s grave depicting a side-on view of a capped man with an arm raised above his head and a dagger in his hand.  This was featured on Australia television.  (See first link below.)

President of Australia's Whitechapel Society Paul Tully described the vandalism as a sickening and senseless attack.

Tully described the evidence against Porriott as the Whitechapel killer of London’s East End as "paper thin".

“He was an evil impostor, thief, conman, jailed killer and bigamist who had more than 20 wives during his lifetime.

"He was a loner in his wife Bessie's family with no name ever placed on his tombstone just the pitiful words: Bessie and her Husband.

"Maybe the family didn't really know who he was as he used dozens of aliases over the years."

Tully said Porriott's crimes and modus operandi were not those of a serial killer.

Tully, who is believed to have the largest private collection of Jack the Ripper books and memorabilia in Australia, is writing his own book on the world’s first recognised serial killer.

“I personally do not believe Walter Porriott was Jack the Ripper but this theory has never been completely refuted.”

WHITECHAPEL SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA – RipperAustralia@gmail.com

LINKS:

Is Australia's Walter Porriott Jack the Ripper? http://jack-the-ripper-1888.blogspot.com.au/2008/09/is-australias-walter-porriott-jack.html   (This link includes the original TV video on Walter Porriott from 2008.)

Mystery image of Jack the Ripper appears in Australia - http://jack-the-ripper-1888.blogspot.com.au/2008_08_01_archive.html
(This link includes pic of Porriott’s gravesite in 2008 and the original Bulletin article of 30 December 1997 where the family exposed Porriott as Jack the Ripper.)

Who is Walter Porriott? - http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_is_Walter_Thomas_Porriott

120 years of notoriety: Was Jack the Ripper a Londoner with 20 wives who fled to Australia? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1051015/120-years-notoriety-Was-Jack-Ripper-Londoner-20-wives-fled-Australia.html

 

30.8.12

 

New Ripper theory: The Man Who Would Be Jack

CRIME WRITER: PCSO David Bullock
will get the hard copy of
The Man Who Would Be Jack
in his hands after 18 years.

A COMMUNITY support officer has swapped crime fighting for crime writing after completing an 18-year project on Jack the Ripper.

PCSO David Bullock, 36, patrols Windsor town centre during the day, but his love of writing and fascination with the Ripper case led him to research the character of Thomas Hayne Cutbush. He was a man suspected, but never tried, as being the unidentified serial killer who terrorised London prostitutes in 1888.

Mr Bullock began researching Cutbush's background in 1994. Once he finally gained unprecedented access to files from the suspect's time at the high security Broadmoor Hospital, in Crowthorne, in 2008, he knew publishing a book was possible.

Speaking to The Observer, Mr Bullock said: "That moment really was a big thing for me and from there I started to look seriously at putting a story together.

"Examining the notes from Broadmoor was amazing. It gives a lot of new insight into Cutbush's anger and his paranoia that people were after him.

"The process of writing the book was brilliant. It was hard, but anything worth doing you have to put your all into it."

While uncovering the details of Cutbush's life and character, The Man Who Would Be Jack explores the story of Inspector William Race, who first suspected the 25-year-old, and his relationship with two newspaper journalists who helped him to identify crucial eye-witnesses.

Mr Bullock added: "Inspector Race took an incredible risk by going to the press because his superiors refused to look into Cutbush. By going to the press he re-ignited the interest in the case and a lot more information was uncovered."

The Man Who Would Be Jack will be released on Tuesday, August 14, and will be available in Waterstones and at www.amazon.co.uk

www.windsorobserver.co.uk

6.8.12

Was Brisbane's Walter Porriott Jack the Ripper?

Walter Thomas Porriott is a man many believe to be the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper. Porriot was a convicted killer, rogue impostor, backwater quack and man of a thousand identities and is believed to be buried with his wife in a grave in Brisbane, Australia that merely reads: "Bessie" died 25th June 1957 and her husband. This was because he was so despised by the family. 

Quote from http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24264777-1248,00.html 

Porriott, whose legally acknowledged name was Andrew John Gibson, was buried amid family shame beneath his ever-faithful last wife Eliza "Bessie" Porriott on a hill with Brisbane city views at the Toowong Cemetery.

His story continues to fascinate new generations of crime sleuths around the world more than a century later - tonight marks the 120th anniversary of the Ripper's first grisly slaying in the dark back streets of industrial-era England.

While Ripper fanatics continue to debate the true identity of Jack the Ripper, some are convinced there is strong evidence implicating Porriott in the string of five prostitute murders.

He was a habitual bigamist who broke as many hearts as he did bank accounts by the time he died in 1952.

His actual birth name and date of birth - he was believed to have been in his 80s when he died, although officially he was recorded to be 59 - are just some of the secrets he took with him to his grave.

But Brisbane City Council records reveal that he now lies beneath "Portion 7A, Section 185, Grave Number 9/10".

In 1997 Porriott's Sydney-based great-grandson, Steve Wilson, publicly claimed he had little doubt his late relative was the infamous serial killer.

Porriott was in England when all five "confirmed" murders were committed and when he sailed to Australia in November 1888 the murders stopped, among other pieces of supporting evidence.

Porriott was also known to be a misogynist - he particularly hated prostitutes - who spent his life marrying women in order to fleece them of their assets before fleeing.

Despite all his family's suspicions, many Ripper enthusiasts, known internationally as "Ripperologists", are divided over Porriott's guilt.

www.wiki.answers.com