Geographic Profiling

[Abby Normal]

Sure you are, Abby. It's not how street prostitution works.

'Unfortunates' hang out on street corners for a reason: so the punters, who are very often from outside the area, can find them.

Once found, the women do the rest. THEY are the experts when it comes to back alleys, police beats, etc. The punter? Not so much.

The cry of 'Lipsky' is a more sophisticated argument.

hi rj
no i agree with that too-and i lean toward the theory that the ripper let them lead them to the spots. its just I think he needed to know which spots they picked were OK too and all the other stuff-getting away in the nick of time, knowing the best escape routes. etc. etc.
and btw i picked on the druittists but hes a valid suspect to in my opinion. I just think more likely a local.

[Abby Normal]

What does 'local man' even mean in an area like East London? A large slice of the population is from somewhere else. Rent is cheap, so people flop their temporarily, and once you're there, you are a 'local.'

Violina was from Manchester, but was temporarily living near Hanbury Street. He is now a 'local chap.'

whats local? thats actually a good question. I would say someone who lives and or works in the immediate area of the murders for a couple of months prior, although probably could get to know it like the back of his hand sooner depending how much hes out and about. so I would consider lech a local, bury probably.
Its one of my main issues with chapman-did he live there long enough?
hutch is smack dab in the middle and fits the geo profile nicely. : )

but thats actually a good point and one for reflection.

[erobitha]

Sure you are, Abby. It's not how street prostitution works.

'Unfortunates' hang out on street corners for a reason: so the punters, who are very often from outside the area, can find them.

Once found, the women do the rest. THEY are the experts when it comes to back alleys, police beats, etc. The punter? Not so much.

The cry of 'Lipsky' is a more sophisticated argument.

A very rare day I agree with RJ, but there you go. You are correct on this.

A street prostitute no matter how drunk they are will not be led by a punter on the street. They are desperate not stupid. They will select the location. Jack needn’t be Houdini to escape the crime scenes. I see no compelling evidence of in depth street knowledge here.

[erobitha]

As it does from the St katherines and The London Docks 5 mins walk from Whitechapel!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Whitechapel station even closer. It was the heartbeat for travel into the area.

[JeffHamm]

I had been thinking along similar lines, RJ, and was reminded of the case of Colin Ireland, the Gay Slayer, who lived in Southend on the Essex coast, but picked up all five of his male victims in the same gay pub in south west London in 1993, and murdered them when they took him back to their homes.

Here's an eye-opening link to the basics of the series:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Ireland

A rare commuter series, granted, but when all the victims are in the same small area, geographically, when they encounter their killer, and the murders remain unsolved, there is simply no way of knowing all the factors which combined to determine the killer's choice of comfort zone, and his own close proximity to it may or may not come into it. It's not as if London didn't have a good transport network in 1888, to allow for anyone with murder and mutilation in mind to travel to where he could make it his territory and feel on familiar ground each time.

The argument often goes that if JtR came into the killing zone from anywhere outside, he could have found equally suitable victims in many other parts of London and would not have been restricted to that small area. But this misses the point because it takes no account of a repeat offender's character and foibles, which by definition will include repetitious behaviour when he finds something that has worked for him once, and the risks are worth taking to try it again.

Hi caz,

I had a peak into this. I couldn't get very specific details, but I was able to locate the Coleherne Pub where he met all 5 of his victims. This would be the anchor point, rather than his residence. While I couldn't get specific addresses for the victims, the local areas were mentioned, so I just entered those as the crime locations. The analysis should be relatively robust, particularly as the result is going to be a large area of London due to how spread out the offense locations were. The solid black line circle is what the literature would call the "crime range", basically the smallest circle that contains all of the offenses. That defines the size of the search area (and 80% of offenders are located within that circle, which is how the literature defines a marauder). That circle would be about 595 sqr Km. For the spatial analysis plots, each zone is 2.5% of that area, so each zone is just shy of 15 square km. Normally I apply an expansion of the crime range based upon the number of offenses, so typically I would expand it to the dashed circle (I won't go into details, but the short story is that few offenses tend to underestimate the crime range). I've not done that here, though. Anyway, based upon the very rough locations of the victim's residences, Rigel places the pub where they met Colin Ireland in Zone 4, Dragnet has the pub in Zone 1, and my own routines (Dr. Watson - the assistant, not the one who solves the cases), places the pub in zone 4. If I use the expanded crime range, those 4's become zones 3; but each zone is bigger. Underneath is exactly the same suggested search pattern).

So, Zone 4 means the search area is 10% of the crime range. Using the expanded ranges, 50% fall in zone 4 or lower, and again, with the expanded crime range the search area is reduced to 7.5% (but 7.5% of a bigger area remember).

Are the areas "small"? No. But the police, during their investigations, would probably have linked all victims to the pub, and yes, that pub is in the expected area of the analysis. Not in the highest zone, (except for with Dragnet), and not at the peak (the pale yellow areas), but again, this isn't about pinpointing or finding individuals, it's about suggesting locations to start searching and looking, not about shining a spotlight on someone's doorstep.

It's not going to solve a case, that's not what it does. It just prioritizes areas with regards to search, and it does so in a way that is useful. Curiously, Colin Ireland decided to commute to London because he had read about geographical profiling, and yet, while it doesn't indicate his residence (well outside of London), the pub he found his victims at does fall in the zone of interest (as do many many other areas).

So, does this sort of analysis extract useful information, yes. Is it so useful it will close a case by itself? Absolutely not. The real work still has to be done, this is just suggesting where that work might have a better chance of turning something up sooner, rather than later.


- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Sorry, when I say the analysis should be robust, I mean the fact I don't have the exact addresses for the crime scenes (the victims homes) shouldn't make a huge difference for the present purposes because it is a large crime range so the spatial analysis is going to end up suggesting a pretty big area anyway. One wouldn't do it this way, obviously, and if I can find the addresses I'll have a go with them to compare.

-Jeff

[caz]

youre not maybrick signalling again are you caz? ; )

well the druittists will agree with you anyway. No, the ripper was more than likely a local man who knew the area like the back of his hand. he knew the local peoples behaviors (including the prostitutes), the alleyways and courts and shortcuts, maybe even the police beats. No outsider could have gotten away with what happened on the night of the double event.
And the shout of lipski was an insult that another local like abberline even understood.

What do you mean 'again' Abby? You couldn't have got this more wrong if you tried. We agree the diary is a hoax, yes? But in any case its author doesn't have Maybrick commuting from Liverpool to London to commit the murders. The fictional 'Sir Jim' takes digs right at the centre of operations, in Middlesex Street, where he familiarises himself with the surroundings. I was actually using the case of Colin Ireland, a commuting killer, to show that the ripper was not necessarily operating close to where he lodged.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

hi rj
no i agree with that too-and i lean toward the theory that the ripper let them lead them to the spots. its just I think he needed to know which spots they picked were OK too and all the other stuff-getting away in the nick of time, knowing the best escape routes. etc. etc.
and btw i picked on the druittists but hes a valid suspect to in my opinion. I just think more likely a local.

Or someone who used prostitutes and was familiar with the routine, tending to return to where he felt most comfortable engaging with them, but anonymous to anyone else. Mostly finding his prey along the main roads, so even if she did take him off into an unfamiliar street, all he had to do was use his sense of direction to return to where they had picked each other up. It wasn't likely to be far off the beaten track.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

whats local? thats actually a good question. I would say someone who lives and or works in the immediate area of the murders for a couple of months prior, although probably could get to know it like the back of his hand sooner depending how much hes out and about. so I would consider lech a local, bury probably.
Its one of my main issues with chapman-did he live there long enough?
hutch is smack dab in the middle and fits the geo profile nicely. : )

but thats actually a good point and one for reflection.

Surely the point is, Abby, that whoever JtR was, he would have familiarised himself as much as he needed to, with the streets which his victims used. That would have applied regardless of how long he had been in the area, if living or working locally, or how often he visited, if coming in from outside. He wasn't obliged to start attacking women in totally unfamiliar surroundings, so we may presume he made himself familiar with them if he wasn't already.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Sorry, when I say the analysis should be robust, I mean the fact I don't have the exact addresses for the crime scenes (the victims homes) shouldn't make a huge difference for the present purposes because it is a large crime range so the spatial analysis is going to end up suggesting a pretty big area anyway. One wouldn't do it this way, obviously, and if I can find the addresses I'll have a go with them to compare.

-Jeff

Cheers Jeff. The subject is certainly intriguing, and I did wonder if a killer might deliberately try to get round geographical profiling in this way, by putting a large distance between himself and where his victims of choice could be found and picked up.

Colin Ireland's case had an added layer of difficulty for the police, as the victims themselves were 'commuters' to that same pub, coming from individual locations in all directions, where they were actually murdered. I believe Ireland himself phoned the police at one point, frustrated that they had not yet realised the murders were linked, because they hadn't made the connection with the pub where all the victims drank. But that was still a focal point for the series, as was the small area of Spitalfields in 1888, created by the killer himself. Ireland could have targeted gay men in Southend, or anywhere up and down the country, but tied himself to one place he could grow familiar and comfortable with, when he had murder in mind. I wonder if he'd have frequented that particular pub for any other reason?

Love,

Caz
X

[JeffHamm]

Cheers Jeff. The subject is certainly intriguing, and I did wonder if a killer might deliberately try to get round geographical profiling in this way, by putting a large distance between himself and where his victims of choice could be found and picked up.

Colin Ireland's case had an added layer of difficulty for the police, as the victims themselves were 'commuters' to that same pub, coming from individual locations in all directions, where they were actually murdered. I believe Ireland himself phoned the police at one point, frustrated that they had not yet realised the murders were linked, because they hadn't made the connection with the pub where all the victims drank. But that was still a focal point for the series, as was the small area of Spitalfields in 1888, created by the killer himself. Ireland could have targeted gay men in Southend, or anywhere up and down the country, but tied himself to one place he could grow familiar and comfortable with, when he had murder in mind. I wonder if he'd have frequented that particular pub for any other reason?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

The Marauder/Commuter distinction, as used in this literature, tends to refer to whether or not the offender is found in the crime region circle. Personally, I think it's a bit of an arbitrary distinction, in part because it conflates the spatial analysis with locating an offender's residence. While the residence is very often a strong anchor point, and so tends to end up within the space highlighted, it isn't always (as in this case). Interestingly, a case in Toronto, Canada in 2018 (Bruce McArthur), was similar in some ways to Colin Ireland. McArthur was meeting men in an area called the Gay Village of Toronto, and burying the bodies in planters where he had his gardening business. He didn't own that property, but had his gardening business located there. The property itself was owned by friends of his. Anyway, I was able to find some information on that case as it came out, marking off the locations of the last known sightings of his victims, and also the location where one of his victim's car was found abandoned. That too showed the Gay Village, and locating the bar that Bruce was known to frequent, though I think he may have been banned from it at one point as well. Anyway, McArthur's home residence, where I think the actual murders happened, is well out of the area (again, in that sense he's a commuter, but the bar in this case is the location of familiarity, that's the anchor point). Now, again, like the Colin Ireland case, we're really plotting out space locations of the victims (their residences, with McArthur where the victims were last seen), so we're not using information about the offender's choices but the victims. It suggests what might be a common area for those victims, and so the offender just had to share that area, and now there's opportunity for the offender to meet all of them.

Here's the McArthur analysis, the bar is the blue square at the bottom of zone 1. Mallory Cresent is where the bodies were found. I didn't enter that as a location because if you have the bodies in planters at a house, you don't need a profile to figure out who the people of interest are. But, if I do include it, the secondary area in the north shifts to the location of the bodies, and the bar slides into zone 2 type thing.



Anyway, the Colin Ireland case reminded me of the McArthur case so I was curious to see how it would turn out. The Ireland case, based upon the victim's residences and not the locations they were last seen, results in a much larger crime range, resulting in a much larger area of interest of course, but that's hardly surprising.

And yes, Ireland called the police, and made sure they found the bodies and knew they were linked. McArthur, however, was not interested in his crimes being found out. Sadly, with McArthur, the police hadn't even linked the dissappearnces of McArthur's victims as indicating anything was going on, while the gay community in Toronto were worried about a serial killer amongst them (due to the missing cases). I think McArthur had 8 victims, but I've only been able to find information on 5.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Hmmm, I just double checked and Dragnet again does the best with the McArthur series too (the bar is well inside zone 1, above it's just over the border in zone 2, and for Rigel it is slightly further into zone 2 as well). While two does not a trend make, it might be Dragnet's routines are better suited when the locations are things more influenced by the victim's choices (i.e. last known sightings; or in the Colin Ireland case, their residences) as the offender's choice of location, after the meeting, is no longer in their control.

With regards to JtR, the crime scene locations could therefore be viewed as data pertaining to the victim's behaviour as much as JtR's decision making about where he goes to look for victims. If the analyses are reflecting information more from the victims than JtR, which one could argue is the case, then the fact the area of interests tends to reflect areas in which the victims all tended to reside makes a certain level of sense. When considering JtR as coming from outside the immediate area, then those highlighted areas are reflecting where JtR goes to find victims, as per the Ireland and McArthur cases - the anchor point could be simply the density of victims is high there. It would still mean he spends time in that area, looking for victims, but the anchor point need not reflect his residence per se.

At the moment, there's no great way to separate out marauder vs commuter type patterns, though there is work being done on that. As I recall, one of the ideas had to do with working out the size of the crime range (smallest circle area), on the basis that commuters tended to result in smaller crime ranges (so small area, high density) because they were going to a particular area only for criminal activity, so their range tended to be more focused and limited, while marauder's know a larger area as they spend their normal day to day routines there as well. That's not going to help us much, though, as the ability to travel is much greater now than it was in 1888, so what is currently viewed as "a small area", reflecting "short distances" would be a very large area in 1888. JtR's area is pretty small though, even in 1888 terms, so if my recollection is correct on indications of "greater chance of commuter", then I think one might want to consider that possibility as being more reasonable than is often argued for. Doesn't mean he has to come from outside the area, only that the pattern does not make that an unlikely situation. But if he does, there are no good routines for estimating where a commuter is likely to be located, at least as far as I know.

- Jeff

[erobitha]

Hmmm, I just double checked and Dragnet again does the best with the McArthur series too (the bar is well inside zone 1, above it's just over the border in zone 2, and for Rigel it is slightly further into zone 2 as well). While two does not a trend make, it might be Dragnet's routines are better suited when the locations are things more influenced by the victim's choices (i.e. last known sightings; or in the Colin Ireland case, their residences) as the offender's choice of location, after the meeting, is no longer in their control.

With regards to JtR, the crime scene locations could therefore be viewed as data pertaining to the victim's behaviour as much as JtR's decision making about where he goes to look for victims. If the analyses are reflecting information more from the victims than JtR, which one could argue is the case, then the fact the area of interests tends to reflect areas in which the victims all tended to reside makes a certain level of sense. When considering JtR as coming from outside the immediate area, then those highlighted areas are reflecting where JtR goes to find victims, as per the Ireland and McArthur cases - the anchor point could be simply the density of victims is high there. It would still mean he spends time in that area, looking for victims, but the anchor point need not reflect his residence per se.

At the moment, there's no great way to separate out marauder vs commuter type patterns, though there is work being done on that. As I recall, one of the ideas had to do with working out the size of the crime range (smallest circle area), on the basis that commuters tended to result in smaller crime ranges (so small area, high density) because they were going to a particular area only for criminal activity, so their range tended to be more focused and limited, while marauder's know a larger area as they spend their normal day to day routines there as well. That's not going to help us much, though, as the ability to travel is much greater now than it was in 1888, so what is currently viewed as "a small area", reflecting "short distances" would be a very large area in 1888. JtR's area is pretty small though, even in 1888 terms, so if my recollection is correct on indications of "greater chance of commuter", then I think one might want to consider that possibility as being more reasonable than is often argued for. Doesn't mean he has to come from outside the area, only that the pattern does not make that an unlikely situation. But if he does, there are no good routines for estimating where a commuter is likely to be located, at least as far as I know.

- Jeff

This is all very interesting stuff Jeff. Correct me if I misunderstood, am I thinking that the dragnet approach has been ther most accurate against the crimes you have checked thus far, providing the data points are accurate? Is there sense of using last known location / pick-up points instead of murder scene locations as that may have been the victim's choice? Would that make much difference? Is the liklihood the killer engaged with the victims closer to where they were last seen alive as opposed to found dead is my point?

If we use the Ireland and MacArthur examples of pubs, would one not assume such an establishment could be the anchor point here too? For example, The Ten Bells actually would fit quite snugly.

[erobitha]

I believe that PC Long was telling the truth regarding the apron. In other words I feel Jack had a bolt hole somewhere in/near Aldgate, possibly a place of work. [ Robert Sagar ]. So after a failed attempt to mutilate a woman in a first comfort zone he moved to a second before heading home. In essence that's why I wanted to see what a Geo profile threw up IE without Kate but with Martha and possibly Emma which Jeff has kindly shown.
Regards Darryl

Like 46 Lime Street perhaps, a 5 minute walk from Mitre Square. A shared building for numerous shipping merchants.

[caz]

Hmmm, I just double checked and Dragnet again does the best with the McArthur series too (the bar is well inside zone 1, above it's just over the border in zone 2, and for Rigel it is slightly further into zone 2 as well). While two does not a trend make, it might be Dragnet's routines are better suited when the locations are things more influenced by the victim's choices (i.e. last known sightings; or in the Colin Ireland case, their residences) as the offender's choice of location, after the meeting, is no longer in their control.

With regards to JtR, the crime scene locations could therefore be viewed as data pertaining to the victim's behaviour as much as JtR's decision making about where he goes to look for victims. If the analyses are reflecting information more from the victims than JtR, which one could argue is the case, then the fact the area of interests tends to reflect areas in which the victims all tended to reside makes a certain level of sense. When considering JtR as coming from outside the immediate area, then those highlighted areas are reflecting where JtR goes to find victims, as per the Ireland and McArthur cases - the anchor point could be simply the density of victims is high there. It would still mean he spends time in that area, looking for victims, but the anchor point need not reflect his residence per se.

At the moment, there's no great way to separate out marauder vs commuter type patterns, though there is work being done on that. As I recall, one of the ideas had to do with working out the size of the crime range (smallest circle area), on the basis that commuters tended to result in smaller crime ranges (so small area, high density) because they were going to a particular area only for criminal activity, so their range tended to be more focused and limited, while marauder's know a larger area as they spend their normal day to day routines there as well. That's not going to help us much, though, as the ability to travel is much greater now than it was in 1888, so what is currently viewed as "a small area", reflecting "short distances" would be a very large area in 1888. JtR's area is pretty small though, even in 1888 terms, so if my recollection is correct on indications of "greater chance of commuter", then I think one might want to consider that possibility as being more reasonable than is often argued for. Doesn't mean he has to come from outside the area, only that the pattern does not make that an unlikely situation. But if he does, there are no good routines for estimating where a commuter is likely to be located, at least as far as I know.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I presume the ability to travel back in 1888 would have depended on the killer's personal and financial circumstances, because transport was readily available to anyone with the time and the money to use it. Even a dirt poor local killer could have walked a fair distance from where he lived or worked to find victims beyond Spitalfields if that had suited him, which is why I think it was probably a personal choice to keep dipping into the same small pool, regardless of his means and whether or not he lived among his prey.

Another point to make about Colin Ireland is that even when they worked out that the victims were all linked to that one pub, the police had to identify the killer in order to learn that he didn't just live round the corner and use the pub as his own local. If he only went there when his object was murder, how would any witnesses be able to do more than give a description of anyone seen drinking and chatting with one or more of the victims? I believe Ireland was only caught after his image was captured on cctv, sitting next to a victim on the tube, as they travelled back to the victim's home. Without this modern technology they would have had no idea where to begin looking for a killer like Ireland, while London Underground trains had been running for 25 years by 1888.

Love,

Caz
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