THE RIPPER LETTER FOR JOSEPH HYAM LEVY

A newspaper in Whitechapel received a letter in October 1888 claiming to be from the Ripper. It was thought to have been intended for Israel Schwartz or Joseph Lawende.  If as the evidence indicates, the killer was a Jew, it is important how this letter was assumed to be directed at either of those men for they were Jews.  It is not considered authentic but that could be wrong.  Also the writer may still have known something.

Schwartz saw the attack on Elizabeth Stride but it is known this attack was not down to the killer.  She was killed after that by somebody else.

Joseph Lawende saw the killer take Catherine Eddowes into Mitre Square. She was found slaughtered shortly after.

Here is the letter:

You though your-self very clever I reckon when you informed the police. But you made a mistake if you though I dident see you. Now I known you know me and I see your little game, and I mean to finish you and send your ears to your wife if you show this to the police or help them if you do I will finish you. It no use your trying to get out of my way. Because I have you when you dont expect it and I keep my word as you soon see and rip you up. Yours truly Jack the Ripper.

PS You see I know your address

Genuine or not the letter was a threat and thus was a crime. The writer was never caught. And why has the recipient’s identity been a guarded secret? The letter was treated as revealing what only the killer could know.

Schwartz and Lawende both talked to the police about the man they thought was the Ripper. The letter was not meant for Lawende because Lawende wasn’t of much use to the police and didn’t do the Ripper much harm. Schwartz was not the man intended because he gave no indication of being able to identify the man he saw at the scene of the imminent murder of Stride and there was no reason to think he saw the killer. Also there was absolutely no doubt that the men there did see Schwartz but here the letter writer speaks as if the man had reason to think that the killer didn’t see him. The men who passed by as Eddowes flirted with the killer shortly before her murder acted as if they thought the killer did see them. This would mean that one of these men was the man intended in the letter.

The man intended had to have been Joseph Hyam Levy who spoke to the police but acted as if he was afraid to say too much. We know he knew the Ripper suspect Jacob Levy. We know that Joseph Hyam Levy behaved as if he recognised the man with Eddowes and tried to get away as quickly as he could from the scene. These coincidences show that the letter has authentic information. Joseph Hyam Levy did indeed play a “little game” with the police. The others didn’t. No hoaxer would have written a letter that fits facts that are so difficult to figure out. We must remember as well that Joseph Hyam Levy was very careful after he went to the police as if he were afraid of someone.

The letter is confirmation that Joseph Hyam Levy and the Ripper knew each other. If the Ripper did not write the letter he had got somebody else to write it.