The number of coincidences

[MrTwibbs]

One major aspect of JTR is the sheer number or coincidences. does anyone else agree it almost has a supernatural or hint of something extraordinary for want of a better word

Some may not be so coincidental.

James Kelly. JTR suspect. shares same surname as Mary Jane Kelly
Jacob and Joseph Levy both live on Middlesex street. Jacob is a suspect, Jo is witness
Tumblety leaves around the time of the death of MJK
Druitt commits suicide a few weeks after dead of MJK
The bloody apron is found in Goulston street which falls between the boundary of city of london and met police?
The writing on the wall. Some believe it was already there...if so how coincidental it was above the apron and also mentioned Jewes(Juwes)
The whole Kosminski/Cohen scenario
The mention of a seaside home which is usually accepted as police seaside home but just 100 yards away was the Jewish Convalescent sea side home
When Eddowes is put in a cell the night of the murder she responds to the question of "what is your name" with the answer "nothing". Moments later the writing on the wall bears the word "nothing"
The Pinchin street murder was estimated to have taken place on 8th sept 1889...Chapman was murdered on 8th sept 1888. How bloody coincidental.lol
Thomas Cutbush shares the same surname as Charles cutbush who just happens to suffer from depression and is a detective who just happens to look after the pensions for Lodging houses such as crossinghams (remember we have no concrete proof TC and CC are related but I know many including AP suggest it.Its a bloody unusual name. I live near London and dont know anyone by that name)

Have I missed any out? these are just the ones that spring to mind

[c.d.]

Hi Mr. Twibbs,

It does appear that there are a great number of coincidences in this case. But I have to wonder if that is because it has been studied in such detail for so many years. If we held another case up to the same light, we might see the same number of coincidences.

c.d.

[Krinoid]

I too am amazed by the so called coincidences in the case,especially with The Dorset street location known to all the victims and the "Kelly" named used often which Beggs mentions in another footnote even though he says his issues with The Royal Conspiracy.
I looked at JTR the Facts Book by Beggs last night and one of his footnotes says he found an Annie Crook on Cleaveland street at the right place(when they couldn't find her previously) but it was a different Crook???What is the probability of that?
mark

[lynn cates]

es geht immer weider

Hello Mr Twibbs. Did you mention that there was a John and Katherine Kelly involved? How about that Kate gave her name as "Mary Kelly"? Or that both Kate and Liz had been "working amongst the Jews"? And both Liz and Kate had connections to Fashion st?

What about both Polly and Annie being killed a few yards from a Harrison/Barber horse slaughterer?

Cheers.
LC

[Phil Carter]

Hello Mr. Twibbs,

There are more co-incidences than you would think. I went through them years ago and came to about 40 or so. A good one I found was where the victims came from... Somewhere in Ireland (Kelly), Wolverhampton(Eddowes), Sweden(Stride), Paddington(Chapman), and for some of the time at least Lambeth (Nicholls). Not a lot of local stuff there..
Where they lived within the East End and the connections to the lodging houses..Flower and Dean Street and Dorset Street occur often in more than one of the victims stories. Here are some..
Nicholls lived at 56 Flower and Dean Street at the White House. Stride took lodgings in September 1888 at No.32. John Kelly slept at 52 Flower and Dean Street on the 28th September. Annie Chapman lived mainly from July onwards at 35 Dorset Street (Crossingham's) opposite Miller's Court, where Mary Kelly lived at 13 Dorset Street.

(All courtesy of the A-Z 1996 edition)

Co-incidences abound.

best wishes

Phil

[The Grave Maurice]

And what about the coincidence (mentioned several times on these boards) that the first letter of the surnames of the C5, if slightly rearranged, spell NECKS? The point, I think, is that you can find anything you want to, if you look hard enough.

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
Not to mention my infamous '39' theory, if its coincidences one is looking for.
its full of them... 26 Dorset street, room 13, dates of murders, letters of victims, Tabrams age/wounds, intresting ones involving Barnett/kelly, etc, etc.
Even a intresting letter, which could link Sadler, and most intrestingly flemming to that number, the latter twice.
Regards Richard.

[kensei]

Yeah, the fact that Tabram was stabbed once for each year of her life really jumped out at me too.

Also, Annie Chapman and Emily Dimmock (the Camdentown murder of 1907, loosely linked to the Ripper case by those who consider Walter Sickert a suspect) occurred at #29 Hanbury Street and #29 St. Paul's Road respectively.

[Bob Hinton]

Very interesting but,

Coincidences are only relevant if they are relevant. Allow me to explain. If you have two occurrences, that are rare to the nth degree, then they might be relevant, if not then they are not.

Let me tell you about some coincidences that are incredibly rare. Whilst in Australia many years ago I was having tea at a girls house when a friend of hers who had set off round the world three years before, turned up on her doorstep. Talking to him I found out he had met my sister in Windsor two weeks previously. That is a coincidence. However if he had just come back from the next town along the coast and was doing a job in my parents’ house and met my sister that would not be a coincidence of any great import.


Another one. I bought my first car in 1975 from my brother who lived in Swansea. I was at the time living in Portsmouth. A year later I moved up to Hull and to my surprise the chap who lived next door to me had a car with the next registration after mine. My car was DFE 234 G registered in Coventry in 1969, his car was DFE 235 G. They were the same make and model and had come from the same showroom in Coventry. Do you want to try and work out the odds of two vehicles being sold in Coventry, one going to Swansea, Portsmouth and then Hull, the other going from Coventry to Manchester and then to Hull ending up within feet of each other seven years later?

Now let’s have a look at your coincidences and see whether they are worthy of further investigation.

1. James Kelly. JTR suspect. shares same surname as Mary Jane Kelly

True but how common was the name Kelly in the East End of London at that time? A quick flick on the census records how there were in excess of 36,000 people with that name in 1881 and 38,000 in 1891. Now if the name was Oberduberowski you might have something.

2. Jacob and Joseph Levy both live on Middlesex street. Jacob is a suspect, Jo is witness


Again the census shows over 11,000 Levy’s in London and since Middlesex Street was in an area heavily populated by Jews, it would have been more of a coincidence if there wasn’t more than one person with the name Levy living there
.
3. Tumblety leaves around the time of the death of MJK

And so did tens of thousands other people.

4. Druitt commits suicide a few weeks after dead of MJK

And so did tens of thousands of other people.

5. The bloody apron is found in Goulston street which falls between the boundary of city of london and met police?

No it doesn’t. A place cannot fall ‘between’ two boundaries unless it straddles both. Goulston Street is well in Met police territory.

6. The writing on the wall. Some believe it was already there...if so how coincidental it was above the apron and also mentioned Jewes(Juwes)


See 2 above. The building in question was mainly occupied by Jews. You say the writing was above the apron, logic dictates it has to be above something. What about the cigar butts or the orange peel or the broken piece of glass?

7. The whole Kosminski/Cohen scenario

??

8. The mention of a seaside home which is usually accepted as police seaside home but just 100 yards away was the Jewish Convalescent sea side home


Logic dictates seaside homes have to be at the seaside. What about the home for fallen women that was right next door, or the Charity For the Relief of Impoverished Members of the Legal Profession?

9. When Eddowes is put in a cell the night of the murder she responds to the question of "what is your name" with the answer "nothing". Moments later the writing on the wall bears the word "nothing

I believe she answered ‘nothing’ when questioned by the arresting officer much earlier in the evening. When she was locked up I believe she said her name was ‘Mary Kelly’. How many other examples of graffiti had the word ‘nothing’ in them?

10. The Pinchin street murder was estimated to have taken place on 8th sept 1889...Chapman was murdered on 8th sept 1888. How bloody coincidental.lol

Not really it’s a 1 in 365 chance that a murder would be committed on the same day. However you have to show how many murders were committed on the same day throughout the UK for the long arm of coincidence to be raised.

11. Thomas Cutbush shares the same surname as Charles cutbush who just happens to suffer from depression and is a detective who just happens to look after the pensions for Lodging houses such as crossinghams (remember we have no concrete proof TC and CC are related but I know many including AP suggest it.Its a bloody unusual name. I live near London and dont know anyone by that name)

Well he would if they were related, have you any proof they weren’t? I think you are bit askew on the Crossinghams connection. I believe the police officer Cutbush looked after the pension for retired police officers in their lodgings, not common lodging houses.

Now I’m not trying to dampen your enthusiasm but whenever you think you have a coincidence put it to the test like I have, and I think you will soon have a different view.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Bob,
I find the Cutler street letter intresting, as it not only states the number 39, but it would give us another coincidence ie, Thomas Sadler worked there [street] prior to the murders, and also was a resident at The Victoria home at some point, which has its entrance showing number39.
Not only that, he used to live in Bucks Row.
A possible connection also to Fleming/Flemming, was the Tibett relationship with a brawny giant, who also had connections to Cutler street, and the latter resided at the Victoria home at the time of the murders, and may indeed have been the lover of Mjk , but that is conjecture.
Regards Richard.
For those of you not aware of that letter it states' Jack the Ripper wishes to give himself up, will Abberline communicate with him at number 39, Cutler Street, houndsitch, with this end in view...Jack The Ripper. This is written with the blood of Kelly, all Long Lizs blood is used up.
Intrestingly uses the name Long Liz.. Victims names
TABRAM
NICHOLS
CHAPMAN
LONG LIZ
EDDOWES
KELLY
which of course is another coincidence? 39 letters

[Bob Hinton]

Very interesting but,

But here again we are seeing another example of what I refer to as ‘forcing’. Let us take Richards points one by one.

Thomas Sadler worked there [street] prior to the murders

And so did a lot of other people. Where else did Sadler live in London? Is there a firm connection between him at the canonical five?

resident at The Victoria home at some point, which has its entrance showing number39

Partially correct the numbers on the Victoria Home actually read 39 – 41. You have forced the 39 but failed to explain the 41.

communicate with him at number 39, Cutler Street, houndsitch

And other so called Ripper letters mention a myriad of places.

TABRAM
NICHOLS
CHAPMAN
LONG LIZ
EDDOWES
KELLY

Yes this works perfectly if you pick and choose what victims to use and what names to call them by. Now try it with the canonical five and use their real names.

Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes and Kelly. Now it comes to 32. Now if you remove two of the victims who some people believe were killed by other killers, Stride and Kelly you are left with Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes and by an amazing coincidence each letter has exactly 7 letters and if you add them all up you get 21 and if you add 2 and 1 together you get the very powerful magic number 3!

If however you use the names they were known by, Polly, Annie, Long Liz, Catherine and Mary all those letters add up to 30 and if you add 3 and 0 you get 3 again!

So you see if you ‘force’ things you can get anything to mean anything.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Bob,
All valid points for the prosecution, and I accept the many alternative views, however 39-41 Commercial street[ Victoria home] clearly shows the 39 as the main entrance, even if the premises occupied number 41.
If someone was asked at the time, what number was the Victoria home, they would obviously state the number of the main entrance, not number 41, which was taken over to increase size.
Numerology is a maze of many coincidences, and of course, all theories connecting them to the Whitechapel murders, may simply be intresting, and only that.
However many serial killers work to a pattern, that are developed within their deranged minds, so mayby Jack did?
Regards Richard.

[Rubyretro]

I totally agree with every word you've written, Bob.

Then again, I personally know of two totally amazing coincidences -that were just that : pure coincidences (one where my two stepdaughters were involved in a murder investigation in a youth hostel in Kracow, and my brother gave me a short story to read -that he'd written- relating the same story with little differences. Turned out that the story had been related to him by a friend who had stayed at the same hostel, two weeks after the girls.
The second one was a friend of my dad who lost a golf ball stamped with his business logo and name, on a course in Catalonia, Spain, and it was handed back to him in England by a friend who'd found it on a course near Malaga).
I can't help thinking that if these types of coincidence appeared in the Ripper
case, there would be lengthy discussions on their significance -where there is none.

At the same time -some of the coincidences related to the Ripper case, might NOT be coincidences at all. How can we know, without other elements?

[Bob Hinton]

Hi Bob,
clearly shows the 39 as the main entrance, even if the premises occupied number 41.
If someone was asked at the time, what number was the Victoria home, they would obviously state the number of the main entrance, not number 41, which was taken over to increase size.
.

Not quite. Mrs Charles Garnett who visited the home in November 1888, a short time after the murders wote an article about her time in Whitechapel and her visit to the home. She makes it quite clear the home was numbered 39-41.

Extract below.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Bob,
'Passing through a side door entrance on Dorset street?
How on earth could one descend into the kitchen of the Victoria home from there?
Clearly someone has made a boo boo, or was she confused with Crossinghams?
Regards Richard.