Jack the Ripper Tech

[Rick Mattix]

On another note, when did London police begin photographing suspects? I think the first NYPD mugshots were in the 1880s?

[Rick Mattix]

I've read or heard that two or three centuries back burning was the preferred method of execution for women as it was considered indecent to hoist them in the air and expose their privates.

[sdreid]

On a somewhat related topic connected to long drop mishaps, there was a report that Edith Thompson's female organs fell out through her vagina when she was hanged in 1923 and that as a result all women who were executed in Britain after that had to wear a preventative device similar to a chastity belt.

[sdreid]

Yes, if I remember correctly, Ketchum gained weight while waiting on an appeal and the hangman neglected to shorten his original drop height calculation to compensate.

[Rick Mattix]

Black Jack Ketchum was decapitated by the noose when hung for train robbery in New Mexico in, if I remember right, 1902. By some accounts he was charged with "molesting a train" which I've always found kinda humorous. If you can find the old 1949 book Desperate Men by James D. Horan there's a grisly photo of Ketchum's headless body under the scaffold.

[sdreid]

The long drop had been around for quite a while prior to 1888, but sometimes it was so long that the prisoner ended up in two halves under the gallows...odd it is that the USA never quite got the hang of hanging (pun intended) as did the Brits.

There were also some hangings in Canada where the convict's head was torn off. One was a woman around 1938. The hangman apparently made the mistake of believing a female when she told him her weight.

[sdreid]

They also had visual aids like the microscope. I haven't seen that any serious attempt was made to look for hairs, fibers and such though.

[sdreid]

Color photography had also been invented so they could have had 3-D color crime scene photos! - but didn't.

[sdreid]

Stereoscopic photography was available and would have made crime scene pictures even more beneficial. In fact, I think it's still mostly a missed opportunity today.

[sdreid]

Although not in common use, they also had the pantelegraph, a primitive wire photo/fax machine.

[sdreid]

Another investigative tool they had was time-of-death science mostly, in that era, involving body temperature readings. It wasn't too accurate but it was better than nothing in most cases.

They also had a primitive sort of photocopying.

[sdreid]

There's another investigative tool that could have been tried but I don't believe was and that would be sketch artist renderings of suspicious individuals as per the witnesses. If some looked alike, that would have possibly been important or, for that matter, if they didn't look the same.

[sdreid]

Graphology was in its infancy in 1888 but an analyst could have at least compared the GSG to the letters and other examples, that is if a photo of the message had been taken.

[sdreid]

Again it doesn't apply in this case but another forensic science that was developing at this time was firearm ballistics.

Hi gents,

What of these "telephone" boxes that were set up throughout the East End that Fall as a trial for police use....does anyone know if they used them even once?

We know they didnt use crime scene photography for 80% of the Canonicals, we know that they didnt try fingerprinting for clues even though it was not admissible in court yet, we know that they washed off a potentially important clue from a wall before recording it with a photo, we know that the bloodhounds were not used in an active role the night of any murder....and we know that Dutfields Yard was washed down by 6am....meaning they did all their onsite inspections by artificial light.....so.....

Even had they better tools, whose to say they would have used them properly, or at all?

Best regards Stan, all.