Alleyways and Larger Areas

[Chava]

Whatever happened to good old-fashioned begging, Byz, or calling on a friend? Even if Hutchinson's story isn't true, it at least reveals that begging a sixpence from a casual acquaintance wasn't particularly out of the ordinary.

Well, yes. But I always interpreted that--if it happened at all--to be a coy indication of how much it might cost to borrow Miss Kelly for a few minutes.

[caz]

A fourth potential victim (Stride) arguably didn't need her doss-money at all (she'd earned some earlier, by honest means) and may have been socialising with "boyfriends" - rather than clients - on the evening of her demise.

Hi Sam,

I may have missed something here, but was Liz found with any money on her? If not, she must have already spent that doss-money (on food? cachous? the piece of velvet? something else?), in which case it doesn't take much guessing why she may have had to hang about near the entrance to a club after midnight.

Or was she robbed by her killer?

Love,

Caz
X

[Sam Flynn]

Oddly enough, Caz, I believe someone's started a thread on Liz's missing (or not) sixpence. It may have the answer to your question - coz I don't

[caz]

Great, Sam. Thanks for that. I'll pop along later to check out the latest Liz threads.

Love,

Caz
X

[Jeffery]

What if...

Maybe this is kind of a foolish question, but if he did choose his victims this way, then what would he have done if they didn't take him somewhere like that? Would he just say "Sorry, luv, I just ain't in the mood" and walk away? Or do you think he'd actually go through with... What they thought he meant...

And if he didn't know ahead of time whether or not he was really going to kill the women, what was he thinking when he found them? Do you think he picked up women more frequently and just hoped it'd work out that time? Or could it be possible, if that's how he chose them, that he didn't even plan on killing them? It almost sounds like a subconscious trigger as much as a concious preference.

Again, maybe it's kind of a silly thing to ask, but I wonder what you think.

[caz]

Hi Jeffery,

Sorry - I only just saw your post! Your questions are not 'silly' at all, but the reason nobody has attempted to provide any answers may be because the evidence doesn't help us to do so. We just have no way of knowing how many times the killer encountered women on the streets whom he considered potential victims, but didn't go on to attack them or even arouse their suspicions. What criteria he used to decide their individual fates must remain a mystery.

However, I do feel that the killer of Polly, Annie and Kate must have been governed to a considerable extent by the behaviour and co-operation of each prospective victim and that he had to respond accordingly. He may have had a relatively easy time of it with Polly (who joked about earning her doss money three times over and having a jolly new bonnet to help her do it again) and Annie (who had been out most of the night and was seriously unwell) and Kate (who had just come back from hopping and therefore had little personal experience of the streets under the ripper's rule. But there would have been limits to how much persuasion he could safely use with a woman who was reluctant to accompany him somewhere he would have felt more comfortable trying out new forms of mutilation and so on.

I think it's more than likely that this killer tried it on with many other women but failed to get them in the right place at the right time and yet didn't go past the point of no return with most of them. (Liz Stride may have been an unlucky exception.) Whether his usual backing-out routine could have involved doing the business, or coming up with a plausible excuse not to, those who survived an encounter with this man completely unharmed were presumably not in the habit of reporting vague suspicions to the police, or had no idea they could just have had a lucky escape from the Whitechapel Murderer.

Love,

Caz
X

[c.d.]

Hi Caz,

I have always wondered if Jack had done business with any of the victims on other occasions prior to his killing them. It might have given him a real sense of power that he could choose the time when they would die.

c.d.

[caz]

Hmmm. I quite like that idea, c.d. "I like you, and I'll be sure to look out for you again." He probably thought a woman would be putty in his hands after saying something like that, even when the 'fiend' was on everyone's lips and unfortunates were more wary of strangers than ever before.

Imagine his fury then, if he saw Liz and recognised her, but she didn't remember him or want anything to do with him this time. Did he go off in frustration to take it out on the first woman he found who was willing to take a chance with a stranger - a very unlucky Kate, lately returned to the area and just recovering from an almighty binge, and therefore not quite as sharp as she would otherwise have been?

Love,

Caz
X

[Jay Batsford]

Its an interesting point to make! How many woman on his travels through Whitechapel did JTR mark as potential targets what criteria had to be met before he made the the choice ''Thats my next victim'' ? Through my research i have noticed that most of his victims where looking for there last punter at the time he engaged relations with them, and most of them where heavily under the influence of drink i think it was Eddowes her self that said in passing to another prostitute that she herself might become a victim of the Whitechapel killer?

[Jay Batsford]

In one of the Profiles i have read on his personality a Expert in pinpointing where serial killers live in relation to where they kill has estimated that he lived or lodged less then 100 yards from where he dropped the bloody apron scrap! evidence has shown that in 1887 all the suspects lived within this area of Whitechapel most of them must of had a passing association with one another and more then likely with JTR.

[Jay Batsford]

Having looked at the data from a Geocrimonologist from texas state university who has a equation based on previous serial killer cases in the US and uses it to help the FBI locate the most possible locations for a serial killers base of operations used the places that the victims bodies where found in to locate the most likely area JTR came from! Flower street Whitechapel & Near by Dean street! All the victims had lived within 50yrds of these two streets in 1887 coincidence???????

[Sam Flynn]

the most possible locations for a serial killers base of operations used the places that the victims bodies where found in to locate the most likely area JTR came from! Flower street Whitechapel & Near by Dean street! All the victims had lived within 50yrds of these two streets in 1887 coincidence???????

Coincidence seems fine to me, Jay - almost everybody who was nobody in the East End lived in that area at one time or another. The slums of Whitechapel boasted a huge population density, and easily 10,000 people lived within a 50-yard radius of Flower and Dean Street at any one time. Given the transient nature of the population, it follows that significantly more (myriads, certainly, if not hundreds of thousands) would have established some sort of residential connection with the area over a comparatively short period of time.

The only thing that might make me consider whether there was something more than coincidence at work would be if all the victims resided at precisely the same lodging-house at the time of their deaths. Even then, it would be hard to rule out coincidence, given the sheer number of dossers some lodging-houses were able to accommodate.

(PS: Flower & Dean Street was actually one street.)

[BLUE WIZZARD]

Don't say prostitutes, say "casual prostitutes" or "vagrants". You don't want to sound like a Ripperologist!

Sam,

They considered themselves as Unfortunates not Prostitutes.

BW

[The English Gardener]

Sam,

They considered themselves as Unfortunates not Prostitutes.

BW

It was to a society too polite- or ignorant of the sheer want of a living of any kind- to use words like "prostitute" to whom they were "unfortunates". They may have considered themselves unfortunate. They may have referred to themselves as "unfortunates". But that wasn't because they denied that they were prostitutes. They were, believe me, all too aware of their profession. The kind of semantic acrobatics you would have them perform aren't ones that they themselves would have the fainest clue about.

[BLUE WIZZARD]

It was to a society too polite- or ignorant of the sheer want of a living of any kind- to use words like "prostitute" to whom they were "unfortunates". They may have considered themselves unfortunate. They may have referred to themselves as "unfortunates". But that wasn't because they denied that they were prostitutes. They were, believe me, all too aware of their profession. The kind of semantic acrobatics you would have them perform aren't ones that they themselves would have the fainest clue about.

They were Unfortunates because they had really no choice but to take up the trade of Prostitution, due to the fact that either their husbands died or left them, and the husband being the only source of income for their survival. so unfortunately they became prostitutes. not a trade they were in before but after. When times get really tough even men would prostitute themselves. That kind of desperation I hope no one should have to experience.

BW