JTR a "local" man? Arguments for and against

[Sam Flynn]

I certainly think the b...... would have given Doorstep Street, Flowery Bean and Han-berry etc a wide berth if he was a regular at the Victoria (sponge) Hive.

At a conservative estimate, there must have been at least four or five thousand people living in that narrow segment of London whose origin was in Wentworth Street, and whose area covered Dorset and Hanbury Streets, Caz. We could multiply the number of residents by a factor of... erm... "several", if that area were extended east to Buck's Row and west to the City boundary. Within these areas, and outside his bee-like "buffer zone", the chances of Jack being recognisable by a random passer-by would approach zero, even during the day. The chances of his being recognised by the infrequent passers-by who were also active during the "sleepy" hours would have been smaller still.

[Sam Flynn]

At a conservative estimate, there must have been at least four or five thousand people living in that narrow segment of London whose origin was in Wentworth Street, and whose area covered Dorset and Hanbury Streets...

I can be a little more specific, at least in terms of the 1881 Census. Taking the area marked in red below into account...



...we find the following number of residents in each street:

Dorset St, 910
Whites Row, 323
Butler St, 228
Tenter St, 503
Freeman St, 319
Palmer St, 185
Tilley St, 72
Shepherd St, 390
Bell Lane, 285

...or 3,215 people.

Note that I haven't included Wentworth Street itself, which housed some 1,929 residents along its entire length. Assuming that that part of Wentworth impinging on the red polygon comprised a third of its population, that gives an additional 643 people living on the same "block" as the Workingmen's Home - at a conservative estimate.

Adding this to the above headcount means that there were at least 3,858 residents in the immediate area north of the Victoria Home. I haven't attempted to tot up the "neighbours" on that part of Commercial Street, or those parts of Thrawl, Fashion or Flowery Dean that abutted onto the area in question.

I'd feel fairly safe in assuming, however, that well over four thousand people lived in this area alone at any one time. That's quite some "buffer zone" for anyone wishing to maintain anonymity.

[KatBradshaw]

In all seriousness I would point you to the recent artitcle on serial killer profiling. It is very interesting. I personally believe the Ripper was local but not imediatley.

[Roy Corduroy]

Kat,

Yes you have a good point. We had our fun with it, and I'm sure the buzz won't wear off any time soon, but the basic approach is valid. The research is geared toward the modern era, with cars, cell phones, and those cell phone towers, which are as good as the little alert beacons they attached to the bees with a tiny spot of glue. But back in old Whitechapel and Spital Fields, with all those crooked passageways and such, the buffer zone could be just a "yard" away. All the murders and attacks, as best I can tell, happened in the dead of night except one, the attack on Annie Millwood who lived on White's Row.

So does nearby mean Shoreditch or Ratfliff Highway? It doesn't have to.

Roy

[Blackkat]

I often thought that he wasn't English, he may have lived there for a time, but wasn't from there.

[Sam Flynn]

So does nearby mean Shoreditch or Ratfliff Highway? It doesn't have to.

Especially when a few streets alone (see above) could contain more than 4,000 people - that's over 160% the population of my village, crammed into a few narrow thoroughfares. Under such conditions, straying just a hundred or so metres from home would be like visiting the next town in modern terms.

[Roy Corduroy]

Sam, that's a good way of putting it. Thank you for running the numbers on population density.

This is part of the area of the sweeps, which must have been a difficult task for police.


Roy

[Roy Corduroy]

I often thought that he wasn't English, he may have lived there for a time, but wasn't from there.

Good afternoon Blackkat,

I'm curious. Some foreign suspects were named through the years. Or did you have someone else in mind? A type of man, or someone from a certain part of the world? He would need to speak some English to chat up the women first I suppose. Please tell me more at your convenience.

Roy

[Paula Thomas]

My view is that Sam's figures from the census are probably underestimates. The census would probably not have got everyone on it. The reasons for this are

1. The population of the area was fluid.

2. The people of the area would not have been particularly receptive to some official nosey parker coming round asking questions.

3. The lodging houses operated a 'hot bed' system - beds were let out for eight hour shifts so three people would sleep in any one bed in one day.

4. I seem to remember reading (I think it was in a modern introduction to Jack London's 'People of the Abyss') that the population density in Whitechapel c. 1900 was a staggering 7000 per acre!!!

BTW Jack London's book is an excellent way to get an insight into what the area was like a few years later.

Paula

[Sam Flynn]

My view is that Sam's figures from the census are probably underestimates.

Almost certainly, Paula, and for most of the very good reasons you suggested. I'm also pretty sure my "guesstimate" of 643 residents for that part of Wentworth is way too low, judging by the number of premises in that segment compared to those along the remaining two-thirds of the street.

[Blackkat]

Well.. In my opinion he wasn't from London. I don't give much credibility to any of ths suspects named. I think our Jack is still unknown. I have received a lot of heat from this forum about profiling murderers, and I still stand on the fact that I believe profiling is a plus and does (in most cases) help, but I'm in the majority this time around. I don't think that Jack lived in the Whitechapel area no matter what profilers say.

I do believe that Jack was from outside of England, and yes, he knew the English language. Did he move into the whitechapel area when he came to London? I don't believe in the "bee" theory. That goes back to profiling, and again this is the one area that I won't and can't back the profile technique on where he lived.(holy crap hear the gasps of shock that I don't. )

Good afternoon Blackkat,

I'm curious. Some foreign suspects were named through the years. Or did you have someone else in mind? A type of man, or someone from a certain part of the world? He would need to speak some English to chat up the women first I suppose. Please tell me more at your convenience.

Roy

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

“If his comfort spot remained a comfort spot regardless of how hot it got for him there, his reasons for staying put and carrying on ripping did not include having no other option.”

Yes, but the more astute observer will ask himself how it became a “comfort spot” in the first place, and I’ll ask again, what majority group of people are likely to feel most comfortable in the locality in which the murders were committed? The people who lived there or were based there, obviously. You can come up with any number of speculative scenarios involving outsiders having good reasons for developing an intimate association with the murder district, but the individuals in question would still be in the minority, rendering your hypothetical outsider-theory a “remote possibility” as opposed to a “safe assumption” (with a nod to your earlier coinages). Added to which, the majority of serial killers operating in a concentrated, walkable locality also tend to be locally-based.

Not such an amazing coincidence there, all things considered.

“You are surely not suggesting that any chap wanting sex, or the chap who wanted to mutilate, thought he would be doing either of those things at the point where he waited for a prostitute to come to him.”

No, but it would still eradicate the need to venture into deepest darkest Spitalfields or St. George-in-the-East, either in the company of a prostitute or in search of one. Eyewitness evidence also militates against the idea that the prostitutes accompanied the killer deep into the East End after escorting them from the City, particularly in the case of Stride where the probable assailant approached her on site.

“Are you sure it’s not misleading to argue that Sutcliffe lived ‘centrally’ in relation to the crime sites?”

Yes, very sure. Plot his murders on a map and you’ll notice that he lived centrally in relation to that map. I suggest that Jack was similarly domiciled; the only difference being that Sutcliffe’s criminal “map” was wider on account of his ownership of a car. The transport factor enabled Sutcliffe to cast his net further in a manner that wasn’t immediately practicable to car-less Jack. The latter’s crime locations were, in all probability, conditioned to a large extent by his limited transport options (no, I didn’t use the phrase “dirt poor” suggest that he was either penniless or homeless).

“I would have expected him to make the best of it and walk to where he could most easily find suitably vulnerable victims”

Well, what you “would have expected” and what actually happens in similar serial cases tend not to mesh up very well, and I’m afraid one’s personal expectations tend to carry less weight when they have no basis in historical fact. If a serial killer travels on foot, he tends not to travel far to commit his crimes. When he has a car, he travels further. That’s what experience tells us. Why is anyone’s guess, but if serial killers operate where they feel comfortable, they’re probably not going to walk very far to unfamiliar territory. They didn’t have sufficient incentive to travel there all the way on foot to become familiar with that “new” territory in the first place.

“What you ought to bear in mind, but stubbornly refuse to do, is that all this actual experience from other cases strongly supports is an argument for locally-based offenders not getting away with it like Jack did.”

No, it doesn’t, because you’re making the irrational inference that locally-based offenders were caught because they’re local, which is another unfortunate extension of the whole “Let’s use the fact that Jack wasn’t caught to justify an unlikely theory” line of reasoning. He wasn’t caught because the authorities in 1888 didn’t know anything about serial killers. You can be “connected” to your crimes if you’re clumsy or unlucky enough to leave those “connections” lying around, but don’t fall for the fallacy that locally based killers are the more stupid ones. Their “localness” has absolutely nothing to do with their capture. One can be endowed of high intelligence, cunning and all the rest of it but still make the very best of limited circumstances. It’s also a gross error to attribute all of Jack’s ability to evade capture to skill. Luck played a significant role.

“If Shipman had cut the throats of his elderly victims before mutilating them, he would have been a hundred times more stupid to ‘operate’ only on his own patients, if he could have commuted into a different practice or practices to do so.”

“Could have” being the operative phrase. If he was in a position to commute with relative ease, yes, fine, it might have been churlish in those specific circumstances not to take advantage of that, but if he was in no such position, but had to make do with limited options (like the majority of killers who target a specific region), we can’t really accuse him of any stupidity. Then again, Gary Ridgeway targeted a pretty specific territory, but still didn’t get captured for decades (thanks to DNA, not his localness).

“You can’t keep forcing all non-local suspects to sod off to other victim-rich areas within walking distance of Aldgate and then insist that your local suspect would have been stuck with Miller’s Court or nothing.”

I don’t. I say that non-local suspects were in a better position to become familiar with, and thus take advantage of, other “victim-rich” areas than locally-based offenders with little to no money or transport. The Kim Rossmos of this world and others with extensive insight into the topic don’t tell outsiders to sod off, but they recognise that the outsider-Jack hypothesis is very much an “outside” possibility, and as David Canter acknowledged in Criminal Shadows, “the commuters are rare”. They know better from experience; experience that shouldn’t be brushed aside with the usual “Jack wasn’t caught because he was different and special” mantra.

“I just don’t see her going off cheerfully with anyone who looked so poor themselves that they would not normally have spared a copper to help her out, let alone the going rate for her company.”

Perhaps, but I never envisaged a dirt-poor vagrant. That’s the other, slightly more plausible, extreme from Jack the Toff. No, I was thinking more along the lines of a regular punter; ordindary, working class, not wholly without employment prospects; one of the masses.

Best regards,
Ben

[Nicola]

Hello,everyone.


I have had many arguments with my friend about this one!

He firmly believes that Jack came from the outside. I believe just the opposite. Either he lived there or at the very least,he was someone born and raised there,who returned to hunt where he felt most comfortable.


From what I've read about WhiteChapel,it was a maze of alleys and twisting streets. I cannot believe that an outsider who wasn't from the area or lived there would be able to navigate the way JTR did. He came,he killed,and he disappeared. He was able to avoid detection and escape the eyes of vigilantes and police alike with ease. He seemed to know what street to take,what area to hide in. A person who was lived elsewhere would not know these things. I live in a completely different area from where I grew up but if I were to go home,I would instantly know where I was. The streets might have changed but familiar landmarks remain. I would know where I was at and how to get from here to there. JTR knew where he was,where to go,and where to hide. To me,that speaks of someone who knew the area like the back of his hand.

The idea that he was a stranger from elsewhere who managed to escape each and every time speaks to blind luck.I believe in luck but there is a limit. I don't think someone armed with a lucky clover plus a rabbit's foot could kill and escape five times without getting lost or caught. He knew the area to a t because he lived there.

I also think he was a born and bred Englishman. Given the times,an obvious foreigner would have stuck out like a sore thumb. I don't think he was well off at all. He was average,fit in,and aroused no suspicion because he was one of them.

[Mrsperfect]

Help Wanted!

I gotta say guys...........

This is an excellent thread! I have had to go back quite a few pages to catch up, but I see that no one has discussed the possibility of Jack having a favourite pub that he liked to go to.

These murders happened rather late at night, where was Jack at say 7pm? Many people have their favourite pubs. Drink gives people courage to do things they may not do when sober.

The other thing I am puzzled by is the frequent shifting of abodes by the people in 1888. It struck me as unusual that MJK had a permanent address. How is the victims addresses relevant, if they were not killed in their own homes?

If the women were known to wander no further than two streets away, then it may be important. Surely they would go further afield, the later it got and the more desperate they became? So why does it matter?

The other thing I don't understand is the 'local Jack' terminology. What's the distance when the suspect is no longer 'local' .......2 miles, 4 miles, 10 miles?

Regards

Eileen

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Eileen,

The other thing I don't understand is the 'local Jack' terminology. What's the distance when the suspect is no longer 'local' .......2 miles, 4 miles, 10 miles?

When one considers that over 4,000 people crammed into a few streets back then, the definition of "local" might be seen only in terms of less than a dozen blocks. Consider the following.

1. Over 4,000 people lived in the area covered by the red polygon...



2. That same area seen in the context of a red box enclosing the "C5" murders...



(The longest side of the big red box in the above diagram is approx one mile.)

3. That same section of the map, superimposed on much of the rest of the East End...