Could the Ripper have led his victims to murder sites?

[Wickerman]

Originally Posted by Robert St Devil

Hello Wickerman.

How do you read ,,polly nicholls,,? Was the middle of Buck,s Row her ,back alley,? Or, did they find Mr. Brown,s Stableyard,s gates closed, and he decided to murder her there...

The attack on Nichols appears to have commenced before they arrived at a suitable location. That being the case we cannot determine who was leading who, nor what their destination was.
Given the M.O. of the Britannia-man and his method of trying to lure prospective victims into a secluded spot closed by wooden gates, the Nichols murder is certainly not inconsistent with him being the perpetrator.

It is necessary to draw attention to the apparent fact that this Britannia-man acted against accepted convention. Given that he appears to have chosen to lead his victims to a location of his choosing (through a wicket-door in closed gates), may hi-lite the probability that sexual activity was not his intent.
The difference in this move just might reflect the fact that the killer knew the police do not patrol private yards, plus from the victims point of view, a private yard closed by gates is unlikely to be on the patch of another prostitute.

[Yabs]

Probably a coincidence but I always found it weird that all the murders took place next to either a door or gates.

[YomRippur]

Originally Posted by Robert St Devil

Hello Wickerman.

How do you read ,,polly nicholls,,? Was the middle of Buck,s Row her ,back alley,? Or, did they find Mr. Brown,s Stableyard,s gates closed, and he decided to murder her there...

Hello YomRipper.

It,s the perfection of his acts that has made me consider your same question in the past. Moreso, he is lucky enough to find 4 women who lead him to sites that he deems suitable. What we can never know is how many other times he may have tried and passed on the opportunity, or whether he had frequented these women before and knew where they would take him. I can,t say that his random actions are out of character, but it is worth considering an alternative.

Or perhaps he did both: led some victims to his spots, and was led by other victims. The double event might indicate this. The killer might have led Stride to his chosen spot. But in the second killing that night, he apparently acted in such haste and abandonment that he didn't have time to get to his preferred location and was willing to follow Eddowes. After killing Stride, he fled to the city area and might have ended up somewhere less familiar to him. Thus, he might have deemed it safer to let Eddowes pick the spot.

The Goulston Street location might have been his preferred location for a killing that night (or a future date). He fled there after Mitre Square, showing that he deemed it a safe place to flee to. He even carried a chalk, showing that he had planned to write something. It's possible he had scouted out the Goulston Street location and deemed it a good spot at which to murder someone, write his riddle, and leave the dead body right next to it. But his plan was upset, and he had to kill somewhere else. So he did the next best thing and left only the victim's partial apron next to his riddle. (Of course, the killer might not have written the graffito at all.)

Let me digress a little by saying that if Goulston Street was indeed his scouted-out location for a potential killing, it would explain why there was a hiatus between the Stride/Eddowes and Kelly murders. He might have planned to murder someone at Goulston Street soon after the Dutfield's Yard murder, but he obviously couldn't do that after the attention he had brought to that place with his graffito. So he had to look for another location for his next murder, hence the delay.

Mitre Square also seemed the unsafest place of all the Ripper murder sites. Martha Tabram was killed inside a building, Stride and Chapman both inside a yard, and Kelly in her home. Mary Nichols was perhaps supposed to be killed inside the gated stable; perhaps the killer couldn't get the gate to open. So all these locations, including the Goulston Street stairwell, offered some degree of concealment. All except Mitre Square, which was a wide open area. This would indicate that Mitre Square might not have been one of the killer's pre-planned locations.

[Wickerman]

Originally Posted by YomRippur

Let me digress a little by saying that if Goulston Street was indeed his scouted-out location for a potential killing, it would explain why there was a hiatus between the Stride/Eddowes and Kelly murders. He might have planned to murder someone at Goulston Street soon after the Dutfield's Yard murder, but he obviously couldn't do that after the attention he had brought to that place with his graffito.

You seem to be suggesting he inadvertently sabotaged his own plan by dropping that piece of apron where he did.
Are you saying he didn't realize the attention that would cause for this location? Surely, the whole point of dropping that apron in Goulston St. was to draw attention to that place, assuming it was intentional.

Mary Nichols was perhaps supposed to be killed inside the gated stable; perhaps the killer couldn't get the gate to open.

Quite so, but Nichols may have been too drunk/tired, or the wicket-door too small for her to climb through.

So all these locations, including the Goulston Street stairwell, offered some degree of concealment. All except Mitre Square, which was a wide open area. This would indicate that Mitre Square might not have been one of the killer's pre-planned locations.

The murder spot in Mitre Square was adjacent to a gate giving access to houses by a private passage. The gate is drawn on Frederick Foster's diagram of the murder site drawn at the time.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Yabs

Probably a coincidence but I always found it weird that all the murders took place next to either a door or gates.

Or a wooden partition. A dysfunctional door.

[YomRippur]

Originally Posted by Wickerman

You seem to be suggesting he inadvertently sabotaged his own plan by dropping that piece of apron where he did.
Are you saying he didn't realize the attention that would cause for this location? Surely, the whole point of dropping that apron in Goulston St. was to draw attention to that place, assuming it was intentional.

Maybe he needed the attention at Goulston Street at that moment so he could flee more easily after killing Eddowes. But the attention also meant that he couldn't use that location again for his original purpose: as a murder site.

Originally Posted by Wickerman

The murder spot in Mitre Square was adjacent to a gate giving access to houses by a private passage. The gate is drawn on Frederick Foster's diagram of the murder site drawn at the time.

But if the killer had scouted out Mitre Square, he probably wouldn't have picked a location patrolled by two policemen, one of which even walked up the edge of the opening to the square that was mere feet from the murder spot. Mitre Square and Buck's Row were two locations furthest away from the other murder sites, so it's possible those were two of the less ideal locations for the Ripper. Note that Buck's Row was also less concealed than the other locations, and it also had a gate that could've been used but wasn't, just like in Mitre Square. That may be yet another indication of the killer's less thorough scouting of those two locations. If he had been more thorough, he probably would have made sure those gates could be opened (maybe they were both locked and he didn't know it). Or maybe they were not locked, but he decided not to open them because he didn't want to go inside places he hadn't scouted carefully.

[GUT]

Originally Posted by Yabs

Probably a coincidence but I always found it weird that all the murders took place next to either a door or gates.

But wouldn't it be hard to find a secluded spot, in that overcrowded area, that wasn't near one of those.

[PC Fitzroy-Toye]

I always thought seclusion was part of the "service", and in more populated area's I always consider the time, very low light if any at all, that would cast deep shadows, populated by people that see but don't see, its a slum area after all near perfect hunting ground for Mr "J".

[Michael W Richards]

Originally Posted by PC Fitzroy-Toye

I always thought seclusion was part of the "service", and in more populated area's I always consider the time, very low light if any at all, that would cast deep shadows, populated by people that see but don't see, its a slum area after all near perfect hunting ground for Mr "J".

One venue doesn't match the above scenario PC...The backyard at Hanbury at around 5:15am was neither a secluded area...(17 people living in that same house, and numerous neighbor's overlooking the yard), nor was very dark..with daylight coming on quickly. I would think on the sidewalk right on Bucks Row wasn't very "secluded" either.

[paul g]

I have always thought that maybe jack took the victims more than once and possibly took them to the murder sites to gain there trust on previous occasions . Just a opinion with little or no relavance