Pinching the "Canon" fuse

[Roy Corduroy]

I disagree with your suggestion that it was a different murderer because different coroners and different doctors, operating in different jurisdictions and Phillips testifying under changed circumstances, did not say exactly the same things that were said in previous cases.

Roy

So you are taking statements made by Baxter/Phillips in the Nichols/Chapman cases, and declaring that if these statements were not made in the Eddowes/Kelly cases, then those weren't victims of the same murderer.

That, my friend, is flawed logic, because the cases did not involve the same coroners, a different doctor in the Eddowes case, and as for Phillips, he hardly spoke at all in the Kelly inquest.

Got it?

Your mix and match doesn't jibe.

Roy

Hi Roy,

I dont see the call for the patronizing attitude, since I am the one using professional mens quotes and not suggesting I know better than the attending physicians who gave the opinions,.....

...on the above part in bold, are you suggesting that equally skilled and trained medical practitioners in London at the time were incapable of arriving at the same conclusions as their peers when faced with the same input data? Do you know personally which ones were the really skilled ones....and which ones we shouldnt bother to listen to?

.....the facts are that the Coroners and the men that performed the autopsies on the first 2 Canonical Murder victims saw evidence of something that was not seen by similarly trained physicians while examining some later victims. Ive read the examination details and so have you, so Im sure that you have no problem admitting that "kidney" is not a nickname for a uterus, and that men who examined the women deserve to be respected unless otherwise indicated. I respect Bonds opinion on the Kelly case.....so Im not showing any disrespect there.

The men made the comments, whether you or Sam like it or not, and those same observations were not made with later victims by different men because there simply were no reasons present to do so.

The officials HAD to guess in public what was going on....we dont. We can be more objective.

Best regards

[Roy Corduroy]

Hi Michael,

Let me help you out with some useful information.

You see, Catherine Eddowes was murdered in the City of London, and her inquest was held there. Dr. Brown, who examined her said "I cannot assign any reason for the parts being taken away." Mr. Baxter said nothing, of course, because he was not at the inquest, it not being his jurisdiction.

Likewise in the case of Mary Kelly, her case was in the jurisdiction of coroner McDonald, so again, Baxter said nothing. And Dr. Phillips spoke hardly a word at the inquest.

So you are taking statements made by Baxter/Phillips in the Nichols/Chapman cases, and declaring that if these statements were not made in the Eddowes/Kelly cases, then those weren't victims of the same murderer.

That, my friend, is flawed logic, because the cases did not involve the same coroners, a different doctor in the Eddowes case, and as for Phillips, he hardly spoke at all in the Kelly inquest.

Got it?

Your mix and match doesn't jibe.

Roy

[Sam Flynn]

Sam, from Wynne Baxter......

"....This is a matter of some importance when we come to consider what possible motive there can be for all this ferocity. Robbery is out of the question; and there is nothing to suggest jealousy; there could not have been any quarrel, or it would have been heard. I suggest to you as a possibility that these two women may have been murdered by the same man with the same object, and that in the case of Nicholls the wretch was disturbed before he had accomplished his object, and having failed in the open street he tries again, within a week of his failure, in a more secluded place"

But - again - that's Wynne Baxter, offering his own (non-medical) opinion, Mike! This same Wynne Baxter, you'll remember, was at that very time vociferously punting his pet "Cash For Uteri" theory, so he had a vested interest in coming out with speculation like that.

Speculation though it is, he was only commenting at the point when two abdominal mutilation murders had occurred - so the fact that he said that at the time of the Nichols inquest can have no bearing whatsoever on such murders of a similar nature that were yet to happen.

It's no earthly good going by what anyone thought immediately after Chapman, is it? Anyone with half a brain would have revised their opinion when the next bodies turned up without a kidney and heart respectively and their faces slashed.

Caz
X

Actually Caz I would think anyone with half a brain and no requirement to have something to tell the press corp regarding a murder would look very closely at the decidedly different situations in some of the murders that Fall....rather than just arbitrarily adding them to a killer they knew nothing about and could prove no responsibility or guilt for any crime. And Phillips thought Eddowes was killed by someone else, since you mentioned him.

Sam, from Wynne Baxter......

"....This is a matter of some importance when we come to consider what possible motive there can be for all this ferocity. Robbery is out of the question; and there is nothing to suggest jealousy; there could not have been any quarrel, or it would have been heard. I suggest to you as a possibility that these two women may have been murdered by the same man with the same object, and that in the case of Nicholls the wretch was disturbed before he had accomplished his object, and having failed in the open street he tries again, within a week of his failure, in a more secluded place"

In summation at the Nichols Inquest.

What I am saying, and I would think it should be beyond dispute, is that there is no evidence linked to any one criminal for the murders of the 5 women cited in the "Canon" ....and by doing what Caz just suggested.....just arbitrarily changing the killer profile every time a new body is found that doesnt match the prior patterns established,... all that is being done is to add non-matching characteristics and traits and behaviors to a killer by the first 2 murders, we can tell by the opinions offered and the wounds analyzed, wanted uteri.

If a man robs banks in October 2009 in London and a bank manager is run over in 2009 in October in London, must they be related too?

Best regards

[caz]

Hi Perry,

What were the thoughts of your medical men after Eddowes and Kelly?

That is surely the question you need to answer.

It's no earthly good going by what anyone thought immediately after Chapman, is it? Anyone with half a brain would have revised their opinion when the next bodies turned up without a kidney and heart respectively and their faces slashed.

Or are you claiming that your medical men thought Eddowes and Kelly were killed by two further mutilating murderers with different motivations?

Love,

Caz
X

[Mascara & Paranoia]

Hear, hear!

[Sam Flynn]

From Phillips, at the Chapman Inquest, along with all his comments regarding the skill required to perform the acts on Annies body after .....

".....The whole inference seems to me that the operation was performed to enable the perpetrator to obtain possession of these parts of the body."

Yes, but that's not saying he was "after the uterus", is it? And it's not Dr Llewellyn, either - so what you said, regarding both doctors' opinions, on oath, wasn't strictly true, was it?

This is not a suggestion of a "slash and grab" Sam, none of the medical men involved with those 2 murders thought that.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggg gggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

What "2 murders"? You've just quoted Bagster Phillips, that's all - ONE medical man. You have NOT substantiated your claim that Rees Llewellyn also said "under oath" that the killer was - in your words - "after the uterus". Yet, according to you, that becomes "none of the medical men involved with those 2 murders". What weird sort of algebra allows you to do that?

Besides, as I've said before - "opinions", whether under oath or not, are NOT THE SAME AS EVIDENCE.

The fact that they were "under oath" doesn't mean that their opinions were any more valid, Mike. Enough people have been wrongly convicted by the opinions of "expert witnesses" to prove that beyond question.

Besides, where did either Llewellyn or Bagster Phillips state that the killer was "after the uterus" anyway? I can't think of anything of the kind being discussed "on oath" at the Nichols inquest, so - even if it weren't for his pathetic "left handed killer" suggestion - we can rule out Llewellyn's opinion on this matter for starters.

As far as Annie Chapman is concerned, we at least have this: "The conclusion that the desire to possess the missing abdominal organ seems overwhelming"... but that was the (non-medical) coroner Wynne Baxter who came up with that typically opinionated statement, not Bagster Phillips.

From Phillips, at the Chapman Inquest, along with all his comments regarding the skill required to perform the acts on Annies body after .....

".....The whole inference seems to me that the operation was performed to enable the perpetrator to obtain possession of these parts of the body."

This is not a suggestion of a "slash and grab" Sam, none of the medical men involved with those 2 murders thought that.

Best regards Sam

[Sam Flynn]

To M & P, you didnt properly note that I am not the "one" making the guess that the killer of Polly and Annie was after the uterus, the men that examined those victims did.....under oath at the Inquest.

The fact that they were "under oath" doesn't mean that their opinions were any more valid, Mike. Enough people have been wrongly convicted by the opinions of "expert witnesses" to prove that beyond question.

Besides, where did either Llewellyn or Bagster Phillips state that the killer was "after the uterus" anyway? I can't think of anything of the kind being discussed "on oath" at the Nichols inquest, so - even if it weren't for his pathetic "left handed killer" suggestion - we can rule out Llewellyn's opinion on this matter for starters.

As far as Annie Chapman is concerned, we at least have this: "The conclusion that the desire to possess the missing abdominal organ seems overwhelming"... but that was the (non-medical) coroner Wynne Baxter who came up with that typically opinionated statement, not Bagster Phillips.

Thats some great work Colin and I thank you for posting it based on a suggestion I made.....seems Im a little late to the game on this.

To M & P, you didnt properly note that I am not the "one" making the guess that the killer of Polly and Annie was after the uterus, the men that examined those victims did.....under oath at the Inquest. Im just not discarding that theorizing in favour of some made by the man who saw only Mary Kelly in death, and men that did not have the experience or skill sets to make such determinations as they lacked medical expertise.....just like most of us actually,..... I can speak for myself anyway.

Im not a physician and I didnt see one Canonical...but a medical man who saw several stated in his opinion that Annie was killed for her uterus.

Not that he took her uterus after he killed her....he killed her for the uterus.

Best regards Colin, M & P.

5-15%
Geographical Location/Range:
My thinking is to start to look at events within a 50% larger circle than is made using the less than square mile he actually kills in.....say 1.5 square mile radius with somewhere near the Commercial and Wentworth intersection as the central point.

Er-Er-Erm!

[ATTACH]6861[/ATTACH]
Figure 2: Isolating the Murder-Site 'Center of Minimum Distance' (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009

The process of isolating the murder-site 'center of minimum distance' begins with the construction of a 'Convex Hull' (white); i.e. the smallest convex polygon (in this particular instance; an irregular pentagon), in which the six murder-sites are contained. Its construction is simply a 'connection of the dots', in which the Tabram murder-site is by-passed in order to maintain convexity. It is analogous to wrapping a rubber band around an arrangement of push-pins depicting the murder-site locations on a bulletin-board map; in as much as the centrally located push-pins (e.g. the Tabram murder-site) would not come into contact with the rubber band, and hence would not affect its polygonal 'shape'.

Of Note; The Area of the 'Convex Hull' (White): 782,065.96 Square-Yards, i.e. 0.25 Square-Miles

Conventional wisdom dictates that the 'Macnaghten-Five' victims of 'Jack the Ripper' (i.e. those, which comprise the supposed 'Canon': Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes and Kelly) were all murdered within an area of 'one square-mile'. As the measured area of the 'Convex Hull' would indicate; this assessment is actually too conservative. But, as the 'Convex Hull' in this particular case is an irregular polygon, depicting the 'tightest possible fit'; it would be somewhat inappropriate to base the 'size' of the 'Ripper's killing field' on its measured area.

As demonstrated later in this project; the 'Ripper's killing field' can be justly defined by its as yet undetermined Murder-Site Mean-Center (i.e. 'Mean-Center'; as opposed to 'Median-Center'), along with its corresponding 'Circle of Greatest Single Deviation' (0.72 Square-Miles) or 'Ellipse of Greatest Single Deviation' (0.53 Square-Miles). Using a 'happy medium' of 0.63 Square-Miles, it can be rightly asserted that the 'Macnaghten-Five' were murdered within an area of approximately 5/8 of a square-mile; that being substantially less than the convention of 'one square-mile'.

[ATTACH]6862[/ATTACH]
Figure 27: Cumulative Probability Distribution (Greatest Deviation: Polly Nichols) (Circular) (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009

Red: Greatest Deviation (Polly Nichols) 0.00 - 1.38 Standard Deviations
- Radius: 843.50 Yards
- Area: 0.72 Square-Miles
- 'Expected' Distribution Accumulation: 77.30% *
* Were these murders to have continued ad infinitum; the 'expectation' would be that 77.30% would have occurred within the specified circular area. This can be loosely interpreted, to mean that the 'probability' of the impending subsequent murder occurring within this circular area; would have been 77.30%.

[ATTACH]6863[/ATTACH]
Figure 25: Cumulative Probability Distribution (0.00% - 90.00%) (Circular) (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009

…

Red/Orange/Yellow/Green/Aqua: 0.00% - 90.00% Stipulated 'Expectation' of Distribution Accumulation *
- 0.00 - 2.02 Standard Deviations
- Radius: 1,234.67 Yards
- Area: 1.55 Square-Miles
* Were these murders to have continued ad infinitum; the 'expectation' would be that 90.00% would have occurred within the specified circular area. This can be loosely interpreted, to mean that the 'probability' of the impending subsequent murder occurring within this circular area; would have been 90.00%.

"Area: 1.55 Square-Miles"

There's your circle, having an area of ~1.50 square-miles, Michael!

It is indeed a very significant component of my "Geo-Spatial Analysis", in as much as those who were actually investigating these murders, in late November 1888, should have perceived a 90.00% probability that any impending subsequent murder would occur within the specified area.

The specified circular region is in fact, the portion of East London that I have dubbed the "General Vicinity of the Murder 'Locale'", as part of my effort to define those areas, which were 'local', to the mystery of 'Jack the Ripper'!

It is also notable that the specified circle encompassed the entirety of the "Jewish East London", of the 1880's/1890's.

--- Click the Above Link to View the Map of "Jewish East London" ---


Figure 1: Murder 'Locale' - Immediate Vicinity; General Vicinity (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009

Red: Greatest Deviation (Polly Nichols) 0.00 - 1.38 Standard Deviations
- Radius: 843.50 Yards
- Area: 0.72 Square-Miles
- 'Expected' Distribution Accumulation: 77.30% *

* Were this series of murders to have continued ad infinitum, the expectation would be that 77.30% would have occurred within the specified circular area, i.e. within 1.38 'Standard Deviations' of the murder-site 'Mean-Center' (green dot).

This can be loosely interpreted to mean that in late November 1888, the perceived probability of any impending subsequent murder occurring within this circular area, should have been 77.30%.

Red/Aqua: 0.00% - 90.00% Stipulated 'Expectation' of Distribution Accumulation *
- 0.00 - 2.02 Standard Deviations
- Radius: 1,234.67 Yards
- Area: 1.55 Square-Miles

* Were this series of murders to have continued ad infinitum, the expectation would be that 90.00% would have occurred within the specified circular area, i.e. within 2.02 'Standard Deviations' of the murder-site 'Mean-Center' (green dot).

This can be loosely interpreted to mean that in late November 1888, the perceived probability of any impending subsequent murder occurring within this circular area, should have been 90.00%.


Figure 2: Murder 'Locale' - Immediate Vicinity; General Vicinity; Broad Vicinity (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009


Figure 3: The 'East End' (1888) (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009

Purple: The City of London
Yellow: The Parish of St. John at Hackney
Red: The 'East End' (1888) …

The Parliamentary Borough of Shoreditch
- The Parish of St. Leonard Shoreditch

The Parliamentary Borough of Bethnal Green
- The Parish of St. Matthew Bethnal Green

The Parliamentary Borough of Tower Hamlets
- The Liberty of Norton Folgate
- The Old Artillery Ground
- The Parish of Christ Church Spitalfields
- The Hamlet of Mile End New Town
- The Parish of Holy Trinity ('Minories')
- The Parish of St. Mary Whitechapel (portion within the County of Middlesex)
- The Liberty of Her Majesty's Tower of London
--- [The Liberty of the Tower]
--- [The Precinct of Old Tower Without]
--- [The Tower]
- The Precinct of St. Katharine
- The Parish of St. Botolph without Aldgate (portion within the County of Middlesex)
- The Hamlet of Mile End Old Town
- The Parish of St. George in the East
- The Parish of St. John of Wapping
- The Parish of St. Paul Shadwell
- The Hamlet of Ratcliff
- The Parish of St. Anne Limehouse
- The Parish of St. Mary Stratford Bow
- The Parish of Bromley St. Leonard
- The Parish of All Saints Poplar


Figure 4: Murder 'Locale' in the Context of a Larger 'East End' (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009


Figure 5: Murder 'Locale' in the Context of a Larger 'East End' (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009

The following two perspectives (i.e. "Deviations from Murder-Site Mean-Center" (Circular & Elliptical)) enable a comparative analysis of each victim's 'viability', on the basis of geography.

I can provide the applicable statistics, for each of the two perspectives, but must defer doing so, until later this week.


Figure 6: Deviations from Murder-Site Mean-Center (Circular Perspective) (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009


Figure 7: Deviations from Murder-Site Mean-Center (Elliptical Perspective) (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009

I think he walks to kills and thats supported by the tight grouping of alleged victims.

"supported by the tight grouping of alleged victims"

That's actually not the case, Michael!

The relative proximity of each of the murder-sites to the murder-site mean-center, in this instance, clearly affords the very distinct possibility that the murderer walked to each of the murder-sites, from his 'base of operations'. But that is all that it affords! It does not indicate an increased 'probability' that the murderer operated in a pedestrian manner.

[caz]

Hi Perry,

So you're not selling anything here, but you'll wager hard cash on no canonical group of five.

Well that's fine then because I also believe that five wasn't the number. I'd plump for this killer attacking more than five women.

...we have...the opinions of the two medical examiners as to the purpose for the murders...

But where is your evidence that they did not revise their original theory as more bodies were found with different wounds?

Methinks you place too much significance on words in a letter Caz, and bits of ear.

I don't know what you mean. All I was saying is that whoever wrote about clipping ears off on the next job seemed to have a better grasp of what the killer was about than your medical examiners. Within hours of the letter landing on a policeman's desk another unfortunate was being ripped like a pig in the market. But for the first time the knife went way above the abdomen, to attack the cheeks, ear and nose. So it was very far from obvious by that point that the killer's main aim was to extract and sell wombs.

.....How is it that a man who kills for uteri and one who kills for a heart kills for the same reasons? How could you know that from just those facts?

I don't know that. It's just one perfectly logical alternative possibility that you seem determined to reject for no good reason. You don't know that at least four different killers were responsible for the six victims from Martha to Mary. But that's what you are trying to get us to swallow.

You keep saying what the evidence does and doesn't suggest to you. But it allows for a lot more alternatives than you are prepared to consider. Who is to say that the murders were precisely what he wanted and needed to do? Your opinion is no better or worse than anyone else's and the evidence is just not clear enough to tell us who is right or wrong. What you think is more 'credible' will not necessarily appear remotely credible to others.

Nobody will ever 'put it all together' with mere theory, Perry. It will take a whole lot of new evidence - enough to make individual theorising redundant.

Love,

Caz
X

[Mascara & Paranoia]

Gotta step in here due to the irony.

that doesnt make assuming these five women were all killed by the same man somehow more credible...it just makes it match the opinions of the men that didnt solve the murder cases.

So, one man assuming that Jack's main goal in the Polly/Annie murders was to obtain a uterus is to be treated as tantamount to 'evidence' by you, yet another assumption isn't because it doesn't sit right with your theory? Right.

The only thing we can be sure of is that it's mostly all just speculation and is not to be treated as absolute proof of any one theory without actual evidence, and your doc assuming that Jack's main objective with his mutilations was to harvest a uterus or uteri is NOT evidence - it's a theory, and not even one that holds that much weight or water or whatever that saying is.

Hi Caz and Mike,

Im not selling anything here, but if I was to suggest that the killer might have killed Polly and Annie based on preconceived notions of selling the parts he gets, then we have a verified story concerning an American doctor the previous year to use as support...and the opinions of the two medical examiners as to the purpose for the murders. This isnt some Royals deal ....it has evidentiary support me hearties. And historical.

Methinks you place too much significance on words in a letter Caz, and bits of ear.

As to this paragraph Caz.....

"Even if ten unfortunates turned up with their wombs missing, an eleventh could be killed by the same man, with the same motivation, for all the brightest medics in the world would know, and he could have decided to ring the changes and pinch a heart this time - maybe because, ooh I don't know, he had no thick layers of clothing to fight his way through, or he had more time, more light, or an easier and safer place to work in, and perhaps a bed to work on. What did the same doctors think when Kate's kidney was taken and she was mutilated above the neck, and when Mary's womb was removed but left at the scene? Did they stick rigidly to womb harvesting as the killer's evident goal and exclude Kate and Mary as a result? Or is it more likely that they revised their original ideas as more bodies were found?"...

.....How is it that a man who kills for uteri and one who kills for a heart kills for the same reasons? How could you know that from just those facts?

How did Annies killer need more time by the evidence? I can see when assessing the prior, that that was likely the case as the contemporary medical men thought...the ones who examined the women....but what evidence is there that the first and second murders were not the entire world of Jack the Ripper...whose to say he changes like a child changes out of church clothes...fast and to anything handy. Whose to say, as you and Mike and apparently some of the authorities of the period seem to suggest his chameleon-like motivations are something the evidence suggests....(which it does not, by the way, a Canon does).....that the murders he actually committed werent precisely what he wanted and needed to do.

You add a failed attempt and a bloodbath to Jack because they did....that doesnt make assuming these five women were all killed by the same man somehow more credible...it just makes it match the opinions of the men that didnt solve the murder cases.

Its still possible someone may put it all together one day, and Ill wager hard cash on no Canonical Group of 5... right now.

Best regards