JTR a "local" man? Arguments for and against

[Sam Flynn]

Your "starter for ten", from MrP

Given the close quarters the locals were living under and men with kidneys and uterii......I just do not see someone dossing in a doss house not being detected by the locals who already demonstrated their willingness to turn in their own.

My first take on that would be: "he who plunders locally can jettison locally". My second take on that would be: "he who carries organs an appreciable distance increases the risk of being caught in possession of incriminating evidence".

[Mr Poster]

hi SamF

My first take on that would be: "he who plunders locally can jettison locally".

I have no problem with that...in so much as he would jettison if about to be apprehended. Were he not.......why would he? Why take it just to dump it? Assuming he wasnt in impending danger of being nabbed.

My second take on that would be: "he who carries organs an appreciable distance increases the risk of being caught in possession of incriminating evidence"

He could carry it to the end of the earth and it would still be less risky than stuffing it in his pocket and sleeping in a crowded room full of semi-criminal men.

Have another:

Why would a skanky local commoner be so worried about wiping shite off himslef or his knife?

Why would a skanky local be concerned about avoiding a few splatters of blood?

Wht do the descriptions of less than local folk (not including GH) by witnesses not raise any eyebrows at all at the time...if non locals did not frequent the area at all, as we are so often asked to believe (by people who are mostly desperately trying to establish their credibility by positioning themselves as far as possible from anything remotely "toffish")?

We know the "girls" were well used to non local types down there.....which means they were hardly unaccustomed to such characters.......which means they were not the minority we are led to believe they were......which does not mean it is probable that nyone ws killed by a local at all.

p

[Mike Covell]

Surely an Englishman could not commit these barbaric atrocities!

[paul emmett]

Hello, Sam, MrP.

I think you both make good points: I'm going for local and living alone. I see JTR as familiar with the neighborhood and the women. Just the fact that he gets away suggests to me that he knows his way around and he doesn't have so far to go. Then there's Eddowes's apron AND the time it was discovered.

Have good days.

[Mike Covell]

I agree, knowledge of the area was something the killer must have had, I also believe the killer had knowledge of the poilce officers movements.
Either that or the killer was really lucky!

[Monty]

Guys,

Dew states that the PCs stopped/searched strangers in the area whereas locals came and went relatively freely.

Also, the policy of observing couples must have an impact on a PCs thought process.

Monty

[Mr Poster]

Hi ho folks

Have a few more points......

GH's description (correct or not: its irrelevant to this point) raises not a twitch of disbelief from the fuzz. UNlikely one would think unless such characeters were not unkonw down there.

GH doesnt say he was surprised to see such a man...just surprised he was with Jelly.

Packers man (lying bastard that he was) raises not a jot of disbelief.

All these people:

Margaret Hayes, "The man was dressed in a dark suit and wore a white silk handkerchief round his neck....The quarter was a fearfully rough one. "

Maxwell: I should have noticed if the man had had a tall silk hat, but we are accustomed to see men of all sorts with women.

Lewis: His hat was a high round hat. He had a brownish overcoat, with a black short coat underneath. His trousers were a dark pepper-and- salt. He had a shiny leather bag with him.


Pall Mall Gazette 4 November 1889: A NIGHT SPENT WITH INSPECTOR MOORE.
Suspicion has rested, so the inspector said, on people in every class of society - on club men, doctors and dockers, members of Parliament and members of the nobility, common sailors and learned scientists.

Bit odd that? That apparently finding all sorts down there didnt amaze the police at all? Wouldnt ya think?


William Marshall,: Did he look well dressed? - Yes, very decent. What class of man did he appear to be? - I thought he might work at some respectable business, not hard work.

and I could go on. mention after mention of respectable, well dressed, non-scumbag types down in Whitechapel. Accosting women, being seen with them, out and about at all hours, carrying bags, parcels, knives and doing everything people do.

In this festering pit where we are assured only locals and semi-criminals went.

And yet we are expected to ignore the repeated appearance of folk who were obviously not local villainous types or fish porters or anything else.

Im not saying they were toffs, and Im not saying they were Rippers.

But they were there...and were often with women. Some of them whores.

So tell me.......what sort of crazy logic suggests that the overwhelming probability is that these women were killed by a local gurrier?

There is none. None whatsoever.

The killer did not need local knowledge (indeed Inspector Moore is quite clear on that': "What makes it so easy for him" - the inspector always referred to the murderer as "him" - "is that the women lead him, of their own free will, to the spot where they know interruption is least likely. It is not as if he had to wait for his chance; they make the chance for him.

There is no evidence he was local.

p

[Sam Flynn]

Pall Mall Gazette 4 November 1889: A NIGHT SPENT WITH INSPECTOR MOORE.
Suspicion has rested, so the inspector said, on people in every class of society - on club men, doctors and dockers, members of Parliament and members of the nobility, common sailors and learned scientists.

Bit odd that? That apparently finding all sorts down there didnt amaze the police at all? Wouldnt ya think?

Inspr Moore didn't say that those "sorts" were knocking about Whitechapel. Moore was talking about those people on whom suspicion had rested - in which case he may as well have added Portuguese sailors, pork butchers, slipper makers, members of Buffalo Bill's Circus and Liverpudlian cotton-merchants to the list.

[Sam Flynn]

The killer did not need local knowledge, indeed Inspector Moore is quite clear on that': "What makes it so easy for him is that the women lead him, of their own free will, to the spot where they know interruption is least likely.

All Inspector Moore said there was that the women led the killer to where they were murdered - he doesn't say that he believed the killer lacked local knowledge at all.

There's more to getting away with murder than simply arriving at the scene, MrP. The killer also needs to know the safest and quickest escape routes after he's committed his murders (or dumped his victim's apron).

[Mr Poster]

Hi SamF

Fortuitous indeed for him then that all the sites were virtually an easily remembered hop skip and jump from the main throughfares.

Coincidental that all the killings occurred when people had a reason to be in Whitechaple (drinking weekends, festivals, parades)? As opposed to beijng killed midweek by the local chap?

That a thorough serahc of the local area showed nothing and that despite the willingness of the local populace to endure such indignities and that being indicative of their willingness to help....our local man managed to avoid detection all th ewhile living in this ants nest of gossip mongers?

Nothing at all to suggest a local man yet.

Nothing to prove it wasnt.

But there is no overwhelming probability that it was a local scumbag.

p

[Sam Flynn]

Coincidental that all the killings occurred when people had a reason to be in Whitechaple (drinking weekends, festivals, parades)?

What earthly reason would any outsider have for venturing into that dump during the holidays? We're talking about Whitechapel and its environs, not Christmas at Dingley Dell. And all those crowds (if they existed) to negotiate...

All the more reason to suppose that it wasn't an outsider, I'd say.

That a thorough search of the local area showed nothing and that despite the willingness of the local populace to endure such indignities and that being indicative of their willingness to help....our local man managed to avoid detection all the while living in this ants nest of gossip mongers?

The gossip-mongers came forward with plenty of suggestions, MrP. Who's to know they weren't right once in a while - although the odds were against them. They stood no chance if they were on the lookout for conspicuous oddballs with waxed moustaches, leather bags or aprons, bear-like brains or eyebrows that joined in the middle.

[Debra A]

Does anyone know what prompted the jury to ask about a tall silk hat of Maxwell?

Maxwell: I should have noticed if the man had had a tall silk hat, but we are accustomed to see men of all sorts with women.

[Mr Poster]

hi ho Debra A

No idea. Perhaps GH was present after all.........alternatively perhaps she was trying to get across that Kelly was a whore...the bit about being seen with all sorts of men being indicative of being one?

Maybe the inquest scribe did not manage to get everything down on paper or something?

Hi ho SamF

What earthly reason would any outsider have for venturing into that dump during the holidays?

We know the pubs were well turned out and the place wasnt entirely a dump. I imagine that the variety of pubs, music halls, children for sale, freak shows, and just seeing how the riff raff lived was sufficient to attract people in the same way that the exceedingly skuzzy areas of hamburg, Berlin, Amsterdam etc. are well known for attracting tourists. Take a walk round the back of teh Storting in Oslo sentrum in the summer and all you will see are the imported trafficked whores and the drug dealers and......the tourists who come to see them.

They stood no chance if they were on the lookout for conspicuous oddballs with waxed moustaches, leather bags or aprons, bear-like brains or eyebrows that joined in the middle.

I take it thats why they were offering up the Leather Aprons and the Scrbbies then? Its not like they were handing up businessmen now is it?

p

[Sam Flynn]

We know the pubs were well turned out and the place wasnt entirely a dump

Do we know that, MrP? I shudder to think what a typical Spitalfields watering-hole really was like on the inside.

Besides, what happened after closing-time? Unlike the scuzzy areas of Hamburg, Berlin and Amsterdam today, it's not as if the area was replete with glitzy night-clubs and casinos catering for middle-class gamblers, now, was it?

As I've said before, we should avoid the temptation to think of Whitechapel/Spitalfields as "THE" red light district of London, anymore than it was the entertainment capital either.

[Stephen Thomas]

Fortuitous indeed for him then that all the sites were virtually an easily remembered hop skip and jump from the main throughfares.

A point not known by many and forgotten by some, MrP. Dreadful Dorset Street was literally a stone's throw from prosperous Bishopsgate. Not exactly down the docks was it?

You'll no doubt remember the case of the fellow arrested and cautioned for soliciting prostitutes on York Way by Kings Cross Station in London in 1991, who just happened to be Sir Allan Green who was then the Director of Public Prosecutions in the UK (US equivalent Attorney General). And apparently he was a regular 'offender'.