A.P. Wolf

[Natalie Severn]

No Ben.That is NOT what I asked at all.I asked for a serial killer"s name who had "volunteered-ie actually gone inside a police station during the height of the police hunt for him,with detailed information of a witness description,and spent four hours [actually closer to six hours according to my research]helping those police with a lengthy written statement followed by four hours walkabouts with policemen -inclusive.I dont believe you can give me one such instance.I know about the chaps you quote.Not one of them did that did they?

Ill help Ben.....

Without AP as a foil a lot of these discussions would be milktoast, and I applaud him and others for using the forum merely to discuss not promote.

Having said that, I will never sit down and have one brandy near a Brandy distillery with AP Wolf. You can quote me.

Best regards.

[Ben]

Dear Norma,

However,fair enough, if you are really bothered about taking up "Downonwhores" thread ,why not just answer with a single word-ie the "surname" of any other sexual serial killer who presented himself at a police station like Hutchinson did at the height of the ripper scare---and for several hours of interrogation at least

John Eric Armstrong, Gary Ridgeway, Nathaniel Code, Roger Fain, Colin Ireland, Joseph Koedatich... Plenty of them. Get Googling.

and providing further assistance by accompanying them on a[recorded ]two hour tour of Whitechapel -as Hutchinson did.

This is irrelevent because it wasn't something Hutchinson intended to do beforehand. It wasn't as though he volunteered to accompany police round the district. It was an unexpected outcome of the interview, although there are certainly cases of killers accompany police round a particular neighbourhood or premises - Huntley springs to mind. It's also irrelevent to keep mentioning the length of the interview of the number of police officials in attendance, since Hutchinson couldn't have exercised any control over either.

It doesn't particularly bother me that we're on a wrong thread for a Hutchinson discussion - I can cheerfully discuss in anywhere anytime. I'm rather more concerned that anyone searching the forums expecting to find a discussion on A.P. Wolf will find it seriously derailed.

Ben

[Natalie Severn]

Thankyou for the Barnett reminder.You may be right,I will double check later Glenn,
Best
Norma

[Natalie Severn]

Dear Ben,
When has the "wrong thread" ever worried you before might I ask?
However,fair enough, if you are really bothered about taking up "Downonwhores" thread ,why not just answer with a single word-ie the "surname" of any other sexual serial killer who presented himself at a police station like Hutchinson did at the height of the ripper scare---and for several hours of interrogation at least- giving the police a lengthy written statement-and providing further assistance by accompanying them on a[recorded ]two hour tour of Whitechapel -as Hutchinson did.
I thought it was recorded that Hutchinson was with police for four hours,whatever-at least two must have been spent answering police questions and writing a statement and another two spent [as is recorded] touring Whitechapel looking for Mr Astrakhan with the two policemen immediately after the interview.He also spent the next morning from 11.30 onwards,touring round Whitechapel accompanied by police ,again looking for Mr Astrakhan.
Best Norma

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Norma,

As far as the "four hours" are concerned, aren't you confusing this with the interview the police had with Barnett?

All the best

[Ben]

Hi Norma,

Why start a random suspect-related debate on a thread entitled "A.P. Wolf"?

Where are you getting "four hours" from?

And are you seriously suggesting that Hutchinson had some sort of control over the number of policemen in attendance once he entered the police station?

[Sam Flynn]

Why, Sam?
Because it changes the mind set we have of the killer.

How can speculating on mind-sets ever help to identify an individual, AP? It's not as if we have a database or "Dictionary of National Psycho-biography" in which we can look up certain traits in order to identify a list of candidates. Even if we had, we'd have to be sure that we'd identified the correct traits in the first place and, as we know, opinions on these matters are very much divided.

[Natalie Severn]

Ben,
Would you be good enough to name one other sexual serial killer you know of who volunteered,unsolicited, a FOUR HOUR INTERVIEW in a POLICE STATION with four policemen at hand to take his lengthy "WITNESS" STATEMENT?
Thankyou
Norma

[Ben]

But that is patently ridiculous Ben.

(Sigh) No it isn't.

Other serial killers have come forward with false information when they could have left town instead, and for various reasons. Maybe they thought they'd attract more suspicion by making themselves conspicuously absent in the wake of a recent murder? Maybe there was some characteristic-of-serial-killers bravado at play? Maybe they were more interested in creating an image of a helpful witness if ever their name cropped up in the future? Maybe they were more interested in creating a false scent?

Reasoning why is all very well, but of more immediate interest to us is the fact that it happens anyway.

Hutchinson's statement would have fulfilled two purposes, one of which was reactive: "I was there because..." and the other was proactive "...I was a scary Jewish man with a knife-shaped parcel". He was at once "legitimizing" his presence near a crime scene and deflecting suspicion in a convenient direction. Who can say which one was prioritized more?

Doesnt sound like a guilty ripper bothered about being recognised by any Whitechapel residents

By that stage it wouldn't have mattered, would it? He'd got his story in first. He'd nailed his colours to the "helpful witness" mast and sowed the seeds of an erroneous preconception. If Lewis saw him in the streets while he was out on an Astrakhan hunt with the coppers and blurted out "I saw him at 2:30!", Hutchinson would say "Yes, just as I told you".

This really isn't a Hutchinson thread.

Best regards,
Ben

[Natalie Severn]

But that is patently ridiculous Ben.All Hutch had to do was leave town.He had nothing to lose.Nobody knew who Sarah Lewis was talking about,she never named him.So if Hutch was a tad bothered about how she may squeal if she copped sight of him leaving the temporary address at Victoria Home---------all he had to do was leave town for a few months.What had he to lose?
I thought the reason he was supposed to present himself for " four hours of intense Police interrogation" followed by a lengthy written statement in the presence of four Commercial Street Police Officers at Commercial Street Police Station [after admitting he had been at the entrance to Millers Court on the night of the murder] was because he got a "serial killers" special buzz out of it---like we know sexual serial killers do? On top of that he agree to be accompanied by two police officers [one Abberline]while they toured Whitechapel"s Petticoat Lane area[adjacent to the Victoria home] looking for the man.Doesnt sound like a guilty ripper bothered about being recognised by any Whitechapel residents--- people who may ,after all, have seen him around the other murders at the time they were committed.

[Ben]

Why not? Why only Mary Kelly?

I've just told you, Norma.

I can't understand this bizarre habit people have of repeating the original "objection" as though it were never addressed. Why did Hutchinson come forward after the Kelly murder, but not the others? Well, it's my contention that he discovered he'd been seen and came forward to vindicate his presence at the crime scene, so let's see how that might impact on the earlier murders.

1) Martha Tabram - If he was responsible for that murder, it is clear that no witness had described him, and if there were no witnesses, there was no need to legitimize his presence at (or interest in) the crime scene.

2) Polly Nichols - Similar story. No witnesses, no need to explain his presence.

3) Annie Chapman - Witness had described an older, foreign man, despite having only acquired a rear view.

4) Elizabeth Stride - How can he possibly have come forward as a witness if he was the man seen by Schwartz: "Yes, that was me hurling the victim the ground at around the same time she died, and yes, that was me hurling anti-semitic insults at a passer-by, but no, I didn't kill her!". It wasn't feasible.

5) Catherine Eddowes - Similar problem. If he was the man observed by Joseph Lawende at al, then he was seen ten minutes before the discovery of the body, effectively precluding the possibility of slipping in a "Mr. Astrakhan" somewhere between Lawende's sighting and the body discovery. So no possibility of pretending to be a witness there. Then there's the fact that Lawende lived in Dalston, was visiting a Jewish club in the City, and was less likely to encounter Hutchinson again. The same may be true of Israel Schwartz in St. George-in-the-East.

We know that witness descriptions weren't being withheld until after the double event, and anyone who has ever picked up a book on serial killers should know that they will often alter their tactics as they follow investigative progess. The circumstances change so they adapt accordingly. Other serialists have come forward in the wake of only one murder, not the others, so I'm not sure why any similar scenario involving Hutchinson should necessitate him coming forward for all of them or not at all.

Best regards,
Ben

[Cap'n Jack]

Why, Sam?
Because it changes the mind set we have of the killer.
Not bold but frightened.
Not sexual but special.
Not in the meat shop but in the sweet shop.
Happy with a bun.
Well read.
Not certain but certainly confused.
Not a predator, but the imagined prey.
As we watch some great stage play looking out for the central actor, this chap is swapping lightbulbs in the changing rooms.

[Natalie Severn]

These are the kind of question that spread around them a force equal to the one needed for the protons to stick together in the nucleus.
The answer would be nothing less than an atomic explosion in Ripperology.
The amount of energy rendered free would destroy anything known in 1888 in Whitechapel straight up to Whiteall.

Why behave like that over this particular murder ?


I only hope that it is not copyrighted.

-------------not really Canucco, if Hutchinson slaughtered Polly Nichols in Bucks Row and had a serial killers compulsion to "insert himself into the inquiry" then this, his first " success" in the series ,his pride and joy,ought by that same reasoning have prompted an urge to give a similar statement as he gave to Abberline about the man with an asrakhan coat approaching Mary Kelly,an hour or so before her murder?
You know----Yes Mr Abberline,I saw the victim being approached by a man in an astrakhan coat as she passed Osborne Street on the Whitechapel Road.They were laughing like old friends and I saw them entering Woods Buildings about 1.30 am.I knew her from when she lived in Thrawl Street.
Or maybe better still Hutch could have "witnessed" Mr Astrakhan approach Annie Chapman,as she walked away from him at Brushfield Street.He also "knew" Annie from their common drinking place,"the Britannia" on the corner of Dorset Street.As he returned late that night from Romford, he saw Annie at the corner of Brushfield Street.She asked him for sixpence so she could get herself a room at Crossinghams Lodging house, but he didnt have a cent being out of work himself etc.so she went on up Commercial Street towards Hanbury Street.That was when he saw Mr Astrakhan approach Annie as though he knew her.He offered her his handkerchief and the last he saw of them was as the laughing pair crossed Commercial Street and entered Hanbury Street.


What"s the problem if Hutchinson murdered these women? You can easily see this sexual serial killer "inserting himself" into the inquiry---for the hell of it so to speak----or out of intense curiosity to see how the case was going from the inside.Why not? Why only Mary Kelly?

[Sam Flynn]

I agree to a certain extent that the 'why' is more important and interesting than the 'who'. The trouble is, too many of these 'why' theories have lead to ridiculous consipracy theories involving royals, royal surgeons, royal tutors etc.

The worst thing about the "why" approach is that it is doomed to fail. Let's just say, for argument's sake, that we construct a plausible "why" along these lines:

"Jack was a man who, having been dominated and beaten by his 24 year-old mother, ran away at the age of 9 to live with his 50 year-old grandmother, who had always protected him. Unfortunately his grandmother informed his parents, and Jack was taken back home. From this incident, his hatred of his mother transferred onto his grandmother. This became generalised to a hatred of women of his grandmother's age, whom he set out to kill. After doing so four times, he heard that his own grandmother had died of a heart attack. Overcome with remorse, he realised that it was in fact his mother's ill-treatment of him that had caused all this evil to be visited on him in the first place. He therefore sought a victim who reminded him of his mother to exorcise his inner demons, which he succeeded in doing at Miller's Court..."

All very neat, with "whats" and "whys" aplenty. The problem is, how are we going to find any of those "whats and whys", without first finding a "who"? The Censuses deal with the "whos", and even those data are incomplete. Those who would aspire to use a "why-based" argument to track down the Ripper haven't got a hope, I'm afraid, because not only do we lack the biographical data, but there are many possible "whys" to begin with - and all of them, by definition, speculative.