Justification?

[Pierre]

Would your view be different if Kelly,Eddowes (Conway) and Nichols had known Jack for over twenty years.
Especially if Eddowes and Nichols were his inpatients together with the same disease.
Chapman and Stride were a bit newer,if I can put it that way.
Known most of this for eight years now.

Serial killers rarely know their victims. If they did, they would be easy to trace.

Regards, Pierre

[Bridewell]

Do we have any reason to think they did not question prostitutes?

Scotland Yard will have assumed this killer was known to the women of the night, so questioning the friends and associates of the victims would follow as a matter of course for the investigation.
We don't know everything the police did, and certainly the press did not know every aspect of the police investigation.

I agree. In fact it's absolutely certain that they did stop and question them. The fact that there is no extant record of their doing so is unsurprising, given the passing of time and the lack of any positive outcome. One of the criticisms of the police in the early 1980's in Nottingham was that they (we!) weren't arresting prostitutes whenever they saw them on the streets. What the complainants didn't know was that prostitutes have always been a useful source of information - they know the local villains, have a vested interest in staying alert, and spend a lot of time on street corners watching the world go by.

[Bridewell]

Further to the above: Steve Wright, the Suffolk Strangler / Ipswich Ripper, was well known to, and is said to have used the services of, the local prostitutes. For that reason, it is believed that some of his later victims may have dropped their guard in his presence. They felt safe. I think it likely that JtR was known to some at least of his victims - as a 'punter'.

Probably local; probably in work; probably white; probably Gentile; probably quite physically attractive, superficially charming and plausible.

The above is pure conjecture obviously but seems reasonable as anyone fitting the narrow stereotype of a hideous nut job would surely have been identified at some point.

[DJA]

Serial killers rarely know their victims. If they did, they would be easy to trace.

Regards, Pierre

The fact that Jack's victims knew each other and him should make it a bit simpler.
Unfortunately most Ripperologists are tied up with the idea of an unknowable mentally unbalanced stalker. And there's a whole bunch of them Safer that way.

[Harry D]

The fact that Jack's victims knew each other and him should make it a bit simpler.
Unfortunately most Ripperologists are tied up with the idea of an unknowable mentally unbalanced stalker. And there's a whole bunch of them Safer that way.

While some are still taking their cues from Stephen Knight and the other fantasists.

[Elamarna]

While some are still taking their cues from Stephen Knight and the other fantasists.

Hi Harry,

To be fair to DJA, his theory has nothing to do with the ideas of Knight.
Yes he does believe the victims knew each other however he also says they knew the killer; that of course is very different to Knight!


Steve

[PC Fitzroy-Toye]

The baseline for me is, the area was a regular haunt for him and could of made him by that, a know face, I suspect whatever he did and whatever class he was from he was well turned out, and had strength and charm.

[DirectorDave]

@Bridewell/Wickerman.

Hi guys.

The Contagious Diseases Act of 1864 allowed women suspected of being a prostitute to be brought before a magistrate for him to decide if she should undergo a medical examination, if found to be diseased she could be forcibly confined to a hospital for up to 9 months.

The act was an attempt to stop venereal diseases spreading throughout the armed forces. The act was introduced in a few garrison and dockyard towns (It was extended to more of these towns in 1866 and 1869).

I'm not suggesting this is what happened in Whitechapel, however it does imo suggest that if police in one part of the country had this power just by suspicion the police in Whitechapel would not be averse to at least questioning late night street walkers.

If my last assumption is a bit of a stretch, this act at least demonstrates how little consideration was given to the freedoms of fallen women, or even those just suspected of being such.

*Edit* Perhaps I should have checked first, the act was repealed in 1886.

[Joshua Rogan]

Hi guys.

The Contagious Diseases Act of 1864 allowed women suspected of being a prostitute to be brought before a magistrate for him to decide if she should undergo a medical examination, if found to be diseased she could be forcibly confined to a hospital for up to 9 months.

*Edit* Perhaps I should have checked first, the act was repealed in 1886.

Interesting...wasn't Kelly supposed to have spent 9 months in an infirmary while she was in Wales?

[DirectorDave]

Hi Joshua,

Of the 18 districts covered by the act 15 are in England, 3 in Ireland.

"Lock Hospitals" treated VD are were around before and after the act and many hospitals had "Lock Wards".

The only reference I can find to Wales is "At the Cardiff Infirmary the rules exclude such cases, and none are admitted".