Synopsis: Imagine you were a police officer and had been dominated as a child by an abusive mother who didn’t really want you and as an adult had been served bastardy orders twice, firstly by a woman in whose house you lived and then by a woman you had a relationship with.
Then, to top it all after you had become a police officer in another city you arrested a woman you thought was a prostitute, whose subsequent actions caused you to be accused of perjury and you ended up in court at the Old Bailey. Although you were found not guilty, it ruined your career and left you seriously in debt and though you were still a policeman you were taken off the streets and assigned to a menial job guarding a museum.
As a police officer you were in a perfect position to take revenge on those people you thought had ruined you, prostitutes.
This book contains the complete reason Jack the Ripper came to be. It sheds new light on the mystery of the killer. After all, who is going to suspect a policeman going about his daily duties of being one of the world’s most infamous serial killers.
In this addition to the Ripper library, author Beattie posits his own thoughts on who Jack the Ripper could have been. In this instance, his prime suspect is a policeman, of dubious antecedents, by the name of Bowden Endacott. And suspects a plenty have been suggested in the past of the list provided by Wikipedia is anything to go by - yet police office was not mentioned.
Beattie says that "... a police officer is the only person who could have walked the streets at night knowing that he would not be questioned or suspected of being the killer ...". In fact, this is a most plausible scenario.
His reasons for putting forth Endacott as his suspect are numerous and include factors of his childhood (a domineering mother and possibly, unwanted as being one of her last children); his being a compulsive liar; dubious police career which culminated in the "Cass Case" of 1887.
Beattie then put forward that in addition to the five traditionally accepted Ripper victims, that at least one, if not more victoims could be attributed to him - whilst at the same time, suggesting that Stride was not one of the five. Beattie also suspects that Endacott had an accomplice, possibly a doctor or at the very least, another man. Again, this is a reasonable assumption, regardless of the true suspect and was worthy of more study.
Unfortunately, Beattie offers no real conclusive proofs - in fact, his case could literally have been made for any police officer who walked the beat at that particular time. Endacott just had more notoriety due in no part to the Cass Case and his consistent and blatant lying. Beattie failed to convince me that Endacott was the most plausable suspect.
What I would have preferred is more substantial proofs against Endacott to convey Beattie's argument or at the very least, for Beattie to have developed and put forth a more-detailed case built around the potential of a police officer being the suspect.
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