# Has anyone ever ACTUALLY deliberately left clues for police? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 22, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354 "2010-03-22T16:43:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/21 "2010-03-22T21:36:39Z")
Son of Sam? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/22 "2010-03-22T21:39:39Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Maybe my memory is wrong, but didn’t several of the crime scenes (of “Jack the Ripper”) show an attempt to taunt the police? Yes and no. His crime scenes were elaborately, perhaps even ritually set up, but AFAIK it wasn’t in order to taunt or misdirect the police - he simply was the kind of sick fuck who got a kick out of putting a dead woman’s breast in her mouth and similar. OTOH, he did purportedly write letters to the cops and newspapers, and one to the forensic doc who studied the piece of human kidney that came with his “From Hell” letter. A journalist later admitted however that he had written the letters the cops had singled out from the absurd mass of kook mail they got on the case. From Wiki : > [@](#): > > A journalist called Fred Best reportedly confessed in 1931 that he had written the letters to “keep the business alive”.[[108]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_ripper#cite_note-107) In 2009 [Kelvin McKenzie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_McKenzie), a retired newspaper editor, subjected the “Dear Boss” letter to handwriting analysis from [graphologist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphology) Elaine Quigley. She demonstrated, by placing a transparent copy of a known sample of Best’s handwriting over the letter, that he was almost certainly the author. From the deliberate way in which the letter had been written, she deduced that Best was writing to instruction: a theory that allowed McKenzie to speculate that [T. P. O’Connor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._P._O%27Connor), Best’s editor, was complicit in order to increase the circulation of his paper, _[The Star](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_%28London%29)_. As you can [see for yourself](http://www.casebook.org/ripper_letters/), the “Dear Boss” letter’s handwriting is significantly different from the later “Saucy Jack” and “From Hell” letters. ---
**Author:** ![Wakinyan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wakinyan/32/352_2.png) [@Wakinyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wakinyan)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/23 "2010-03-23T20:01:57Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Maybe my memory is wrong, but didn’t several of the crime scenes (of “Jack the Ripper”) show an attempt to taunt the police? No. > [@Kobal2](#): > > OTOH, he did purportedly write letters to the cops and newspapers, [snipped] There’s no evidence of that being the case. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/24 "2010-03-23T21:50:21Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I think that the BTK Killer, like the Zodiac killer, intended the letters to taunt the police rather than “specifically trying to help the cops track them down” as the OP suggests. Dennis Rader was a dumbass with an inflated sense of ego, who knew less about data retrieval on floppy disks than most 10 year olds. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/25 "2010-03-23T21:51:24Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > BTK killer was caught because he did not know Word documents can contain the name of the place that owns the software. He sent Word docs and a letter, so the cops looked at the file and found the name of the place he worked. It wasn’t where he worked, it was the church that he attended and was on the board of. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/26 "2010-03-23T22:04:30Z")
The Unabomber wrote a bunch of letters and a manifesto that was eventually published in several newspapers under threat of further murders. His own brother eventually recognized phrases from the manifesto and, after doing some research of his own, turned him in to the FBI. A fascinating story: [Ted Kaczynski - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber#Search) ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/27 "2010-03-23T23:07:53Z")
So the current thinking now is that none of the letters written to the newspapers or police during the reign of Jack The Ripper were actually written by the true killer? ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/28 "2010-03-24T03:03:48Z")
The Zodiac Killer’s letters and ciphers can be viewed [here](http://www.zodiackiller.com/Letters.html). Some have indeed been deciphered, others are still a mystery. It may be that some of them are simply garbled nonsense, but who knows. The famous “[My Name Is…](http://www.zodiackiller.com/MyNameIsLetter.html)” letter is among those left unsolved. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/29 "2010-03-24T05:29:19Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > So the current thinking now is that none of the letters written to the newspapers or police during the reign of Jack The Ripper were actually written by the true killer? That’s what I thought, and that is almost certainly the case of the letters that coined the term “Jack the Ripper” (in fact a newspaper man admitted to faking them, and the hand writing matches his) . But **Wakinyan** points out above the “[From hell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Hell_letter)” letter (which included part of a kidney) have never been shown to be a forgery. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/30 "2010-03-24T14:28:48Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > That’s what I thought, and that is almost certainly the case of the letters that coined the term “Jack the Ripper” (in fact a newspaper man admitted to faking them, and the hand writing matches his) . But **Wakinyan** points out above the “[From hell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Hell_letter)” letter (which included part of a kidney) have never been shown to be a forgery. I have a friend who is a Ripperologist. I made her a Jack troll and a plush half a kidney along with a “Fwom Heck” letter. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/31 "2010-03-24T20:21:23Z")
Does anyone remember a story of a man who came across documents that convinced him that his father had been a serial killer, who had never been caught? I thought that was the Zodiac killer, but did Z have a reputation for a precise approach? The father was a doctor. ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/32 "2010-03-24T20:41:15Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > Does anyone remember a story of a man who came across documents that convinced him that his father had been a serial killer, who had never been caught? I thought that was the Zodiac killer, but did Z have a reputation for a precise approach? The father was a doctor. You might be thinking of Steve Hodel, son of Dr. George Hodel, who was convinced his father committed the Black Dahlia murder. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/33 "2010-03-24T20:55:20Z")
Mr. Moto, that clip was confusing. Newspaper story sequence being what it is, I was having trouble figuring out how he was executed, _then_ wrote an insulting letter to prosecutors, so he could be reconvicted. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/34 "2010-03-24T21:31:24Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Mr. Moto, that clip was confusing. Newspaper story sequence being what it is, I was having trouble figuring out how he was executed, _then_ wrote an insulting letter to prosecutors, so he could be reconvicted. Paul Powell was executed Thursday night. He was captured almost immediately after the crimes mentioned, tried and sentenced to death. The sentence was appealed and the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that since there had been a rape and attempted murder of one girl, and a murder of another, capital murder did not apply. Capital murder requires an aggravating offense - since the only known aggravating offenses happened against another victim who survived the attack, the death sentence was overturned. Powell was given a life term and returned to prison. He then sent a profane and taunting letter to prosecutor Paul Ebert and others in the Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney office. In it he boasted that he tried to rape the murder victim as well. This provided evidence of an aggravating offense. A new trial was obtained and Paul Powell was sentenced to die in 2003. I have come to oppose the death penalty for various reasons. However, I will say that if all prosecutors approached capital cases the way Paul Ebert does, there wouldn’t be much controversy over the practice. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/35 "2010-03-24T21:42:36Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > I have a friend who is a Ripperologist. I made her a Jack troll and a plush half a kidney along with a “Fwom Heck” letter. I don’t know why exactly, but I think that is just adorable! ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/36 "2010-03-24T21:45:50Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > That’s what I thought, and that is almost certainly the case of the letters that coined the term “Jack the Ripper” (in fact a newspaper man admitted to faking them, and the hand writing matches his) . But **Wakinyan** points out above the “[From hell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Hell_letter)” letter (which included part of a kidney) have never been shown to be a forgery. Wait, They fucking _lost_ the ‘From Hell’ letter!? ---
**Author:** ![Jeffrey\_A.Huegerich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@Jeffrey\_A.Huegerich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeffrey_A.Huegerich)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2012, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/37 "2012-01-08T07:41:25Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > The killer of [Mikki Jo West](http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Mickey_Jo_West) left several notes in local shopping malls pretending to be somebody who knew the killer, and named a suspect. > > Now, the world will never know exactly why Marvin Lee Irvin decided to name himself as the killer, seeing as nobody was looking for him at the time, but maybe he was trying some double bluff. This didn’t exactly fool the authorities, though. When I was a teenager I lived with Marvin and my mother for a summer. This was after his first murder and before his last two. It was a very strange time in my life. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/38 "2012-01-09T11:18:59Z")
I think that if ever I become a serial killer, I WILL leave coded clues for the police, which if they do actualyl manage to decypher them will identify someone that I don’t like as the killer while at the same time insulting the cops mothers. ---
**Author:** ![TenderLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/919ad9/32.png) [@TenderLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TenderLeaf)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/39 "2012-01-09T13:51:03Z")
Interesting topic. I’ve heard about a few mentioned but the most memorable I can think of right now is [From Hell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Hell_letter) ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354/40 "2012-01-09T18:13:34Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > I have a friend who is a Ripperologist. I made her a Jack troll and a plush half a kidney along with a “Fwom Heck” letter. awwwwww, cute =) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-deliberately-left-clues-for-police/533354.md?page=3)