Similarities between the letter from hell and the writing
on the wall
With
thanks to AP Wolf and Sian Evans for their excellent posts on the casebook
forum pertaining to the from hell letter, Euan Macpherson for making us notice William
Bury
Comparison of the
handwriting inside William Bury’s basement flat to the letter from hell
Here I note the
similarities between 2 short passages of chalk writing found inside William
Bury’s flat immediately after the discovery of his wife’s body in Feb 1889 and
the infamous ‘from hell letter’ sent anomalously to George Lusk attached to a
human kidney in Oct 1888. Handwriting analysis is a skilled endeavour, I am a
layman and only able to point out similarities which I hope will justify in
depth professional work from an independent author.
If they are the same
written by the same hand then the significance should not be understated. It
simultaneously proves 4 facts hitherto disputed in the Ripperology community. 1
the from hell letter is not a fake. 2, the kidney attached
to the letter did belong to Catherine Eddows. 3, the writing on the wall in
Burys basement flat was Burys 4, Bury was very likely
Jack the ripper.
I have noticed from
reading around this subject it is easy to fall into the trap of favouring one
suspect to the extent where all rational regard for the facts becomes obscured.
I certainly favoured Bury as the suspect before comparing the handwriting, this
is based on his character from references of his trial, his proximity to the
crime scene, his association with prostitutes, simulates between his appearance
and witness statements, the fact he is the only suspect we know who used the
same modus operandi and his almost exact psychological profile match to the
Ripper.
Therefore whilst I am
confident that the handwriting is the same, the case for William Bury from a
more sceptical standpoint does not depend on it. The ‘from hell letter’ is
widely regarded as being unsavoury practical joke from a medical student. The
scrawling on the wall was dismissed at the time as being of a child’s. There
are only a couple of paragraphs of it, and if written by Bury, there is the
question of what level of intoxification was he in at the time.
Nonetheless please
review these notes and decide for yourself whether a match is plausible. We may find better examples yet of Bury’s
writing in the future that may prove or disprove this theory if we only wait a
while longer.
Exhibit 1; - the letter from hell
Exhibit 2; - possible handwriting of William Bury
1 in
black – from hell letter
2 in red – writing on the wall
Evidence
for
1
Whenever the writer begins a section of the letter he does so with a rare
flourish and flounce, for instance the 'F' in 'from' hell, and the 'M' from
'mister', the 'L' from Lusk 2 J as in Jack, R as in Ripper B as in back
These are all cursive capitals, and standard practice, except perhaps the /R/ in the chalk writing.
1 SOR –
actually Sir for if you study the writer's hand carefully you will see that
that the loop from the 'i' in Sir travels up with yet another flourish to meet
the 'r' 2 see the same
in ‘d’oor the d is looped upwards before forming the o, also the I in both
rippers, the flourish up back down and up, looks like an o.
Yes, this is true, and odd; I don’t know what to make of it.
1 also
note that other 'o's in the note are all very strong 'o's but all the 'i's are
without exception weakly formed 2 as above
The /o/ and /i/ do not match
significantly; there are a number of differences.
1 the
manner in which letters like 'I', 'F', 'Y' and 'G' intrude into text both above
and below the line of standing 2 f j p again intrude below the line of standing ‘ll’ in seller
intrudes above invading the next line.
The line spacing is wider in the chalk inscriptions
than in the letters and in no case in the former does a letter
overwrite another in the line below it, as happens several times in the hell
letter.
1 Some
words appear to be written with a casual strength, such as 'women', whilst
others have been laboured, rewritten and constantly improved upon - such as
'prasarved, (or an attempt at marinated – AP Wolf) 2
again the difference in strength and fluidity between
individual words see Jack and door vs seller and ripper.
This is not in my opinion significant.
1 Placement of the dot on the i
varies in height low F fried I as in is, to high I as in this, also
no dot used before some capitalised letters, as I in Sir, I in ripper,
The /i/
in the letter has a number of dot placements that are higher than anything in
the chalk writing.
1 Difference in spacing of the
words, some words are squashed together, 1, ‘from one’, and ‘it for you’ also 2 ‘is at’ ‘of this’ Whilst some words are comparatively generously spaced, 1 ‘the
bloody’ 2 ‘the back’
I do not think this is significant.
Other notes about the from hell letter
1) word ‘tother’ – William Bury grew up in
Can’t comment on this
2) Graphology
of the from hell letter – similar profile to Burys and the Rippers
I don’t know what this
means.
In a detailed analysis
and comparison of every letter in each of the documents, I have found no
significant strong similarities and a number of dissimilarities. There is no strong evidence
in the handwriting as it stands that the two sets of
documents were written by the same person.