The Police Perspective-September 15th, 1888

[Michael W Richards]

Hello all,

Ive been browsing through the press reports and found an interesting bit from the East London Observer on September 15th, 1888.

In this issue a section covering the murder investigations made some very interesting comments about what the Police were considering as relates to the killer and the crimes. Now, there is no direct source quoted for the information, but it reads to me as if the reporter may have had some informal discussions, at least, with someone on the force.

Here is the section, and Ive highlighted a few points within;

"The area over which the police inquiries extend is gradually being lessened until now they are fairly convinced that they have formed a complete network round the hiding place of the murderer. Their reason this belief is, that the Hanbury-street murder having been committed at a time, and in such a manner, that the perpetrator could not fail to have stained his clothes with blood, and it was next to impossible for him to have walked far in daylight, and in a busy neighbourhood in such a condition without being recognised. The theories then at which the police have arrived are briefly these: 1. That the murderer resides or lodges at but a very short distance from Hanbury-street. 2. That the motive of the crimes not being plunder, the murderer belongs to the middle or even to the upper classes. 3. That the horrible mutilations on the bodies, inflicted without any apparent cause, point to the murderer as being either a man of deep and strong passions, or slightly demented, and not improbably suffering from a form of epilepsy. 4. That the clean manner in which all the wounds have been cut, the knowledge displayed, as in the Hanbury-street crime, of the vital parts, and the laying out of the viscera and heart by the side of the victim as if for inspection, point to the murderer as being - not a butcher, for the wounds would have been different - but one who is handy in the use of the knife, who has studied anatomy, and has not improbably used a dissecting knife before; and (5) that if the man is demented, he must have a special dislike against the class of unfortunates amongst whom he has found his victims. Acting on these theories, and working in and around the scene of the murder, the police are confident of eventually securing their man"

I believe the case made for assuming that the killer lived near Hanbury is a sound one myself, if Phillips was correct then he left in darkness, but if not, and Cadosche or Long were accurate, then he left in early daylight.

I also found it interesting that they associated the mutilations with either "deep passion" or perhaps some form of epilepsy, which would seem to indicate that the hand creating the wounds were not as precise as one would believe based on the remarks following, "someone who has used a dissecting knife before". Seems contradictory to me...how could any real skill be determined by cuts that appear to have been made by a hand perhaps affected by a physical affliction?

I also found it interesting that "plunder" was not suspected as a motive, despite having hard evidence that Chapman had rings wrenched from her finger and taken away. Also the suggestion of the culprits class....I wonder what evidence from the Tabram, Nichols and Chapman murders suggests a man of "middle or even to the upper classes"?

As I said, one cannot be certain of what kind of source these comments may have come from, but one thing to me seems like very sound thinking.....that Annies killer must have lived close to the Hanbury murder scene.

Which does help narrow down the potential suspects..if accurate.

Any thoughts?

Cheers all

[lynn cates]

clean

Hello Mike. Thanks for posting that.

I am curious about the "clean wounds." I have argued elsewhere that Polly and Annie's wounds showed knife skill.

Cheers.
LC

[Hunter]

Maybe they got the 'clean wounds' from the same place they got the viscera and heart carefully laid to the side.

[Damaso Marte]

Hello all,

Ive been browsing through the press reports and found an interesting bit from the East London Observer on September 15th, 1888.

In this issue a section covering the murder investigations made some very interesting comments about what the Police were considering as relates to the killer and the crimes. Now, there is no direct source quoted for the information, but it reads to me as if the reporter may have had some informal discussions, at least, with someone on the force.

Here is the section, and Ive highlighted a few points within;

"The area over which the police inquiries extend is gradually being lessened until now they are fairly convinced that they have formed a complete network round the hiding place of the murderer. Their reason this belief is, that the Hanbury-street murder having been committed at a time, and in such a manner, that the perpetrator could not fail to have stained his clothes with blood, and it was next to impossible for him to have walked far in daylight, and in a busy neighbourhood in such a condition without being recognised. The theories then at which the police have arrived are briefly these: 1. That the murderer resides or lodges at but a very short distance from Hanbury-street. 2. That the motive of the crimes not being plunder, the murderer belongs to the middle or even to the upper classes. 3. That the horrible mutilations on the bodies, inflicted without any apparent cause, point to the murderer as being either a man of deep and strong passions, or slightly demented, and not improbably suffering from a form of epilepsy. 4. That the clean manner in which all the wounds have been cut, the knowledge displayed, as in the Hanbury-street crime, of the vital parts, and the laying out of the viscera and heart by the side of the victim as if for inspection, point to the murderer as being - not a butcher, for the wounds would have been different - but one who is handy in the use of the knife, who has studied anatomy, and has not improbably used a dissecting knife before; and (5) that if the man is demented, he must have a special dislike against the class of unfortunates amongst whom he has found his victims. Acting on these theories, and working in and around the scene of the murder, the police are confident of eventually securing their man"

I believe the case made for assuming that the killer lived near Hanbury is a sound one myself, if Phillips was correct then he left in darkness, but if not, and Cadosche or Long were accurate, then he left in early daylight.

I also found it interesting that they associated the mutilations with either "deep passion" or perhaps some form of epilepsy, which would seem to indicate that the hand creating the wounds were not as precise as one would believe based on the remarks following, "someone who has used a dissecting knife before". Seems contradictory to me...how could any real skill be determined by cuts that appear to have been made by a hand perhaps affected by a physical affliction?

I also found it interesting that "plunder" was not suspected as a motive, despite having hard evidence that Chapman had rings wrenched from her finger and taken away. Also the suggestion of the culprits class....I wonder what evidence from the Tabram, Nichols and Chapman murders suggests a man of "middle or even to the upper classes"?

As I said, one cannot be certain of what kind of source these comments may have come from, but one thing to me seems like very sound thinking.....that Annies killer must have lived close to the Hanbury murder scene.

Which does help narrow down the potential suspects..if accurate.

Any thoughts?

Cheers all

I suspect they are implying epilepsy from the fact that there are wounds at all, rather than the type of wounds. I read this as Victorian ignorance about mental illnesses, rather than a hypothesis that the killer had an epileptic fit while mutilating Chapman.

[Damaso Marte]

I've lived in the city my entire life, so this is a 100% honest and earnestly asked question:

When a hunter field dresses an animal he has killed in the wild, does it resemble butchery or surgery more?

[Hunter]

Actually, neither really. It resembles more what a slaughterer does.

An animal is field dressed to retard spoilage of the meat and let the carcass cool down quickly. The butchering is usually done once the hunter gets home, unless he has to pack it out over a long distance.

[Michael W Richards]

Hi again,

I did note the mention of her heart as well Hunter, though that didnt persuade me that all the comments were in error.

On the issue of the "quality" shall we say of the cuts made on Annie...Im beginning to think that some of the mutilations showed what the medical experts might consider a logical sequence or progression toward the ultimate goal, which I assume, as Phillips did, was the internal abdominal organs. That might indicate some training, even if the cuts themselves were not surgically performed. He did mention "haste" as well, which may again reflect on the precision of the individual cuts. And of course, the available light.

The way a hunter, butcher, or slaughterhouseman would cut would likely show a logical progression towards accessing and removing the unwanted viscera and removing organs that are edible. In the case of Annie Chapman there is nothing he took that would be considered as "edible", particularly significant when the liver, heart, kidneys and any more acceptably edible parts were left behind.

What does anyone think about the proximity to Hanbury statement? I know that there were people out and about at that time who would have had smocks or aprons with bloodstains on them, perhaps the reason they felt he would be conspicuous with blood on him is related to the conjecture that he was middle or upper class.....someone who would be dressed quite differently and less likely to be blood smeared at 6am.

I myself think that the blood would cause him some concern leaving the scene, so the close proximity to Hanbury might be spot on.

Cheers

[Phil H]

But there was NO blood on the swing-ddor or its handle, in the passageway or in the street outside No 29. I never recall hearing about footprints made because he stepped in the blood. This was (in some ways) a carefull killer - aware of certain things - or lucky (of course). But so consistently lucky - such a man surely creates his own luck.

Because of the likelihood that the murderer was bloodstained at least on the hands and around the wrists and cuffs, I have come to the conclusion that the murder of Annie might have taken place in darkness - considerably earlier than the police estimate in your cited evidence.

It depends on how many murders the police were taking into account at this stage - three? Tabram, Nichols and Chapman? Certainly Nichols and Chapman appear linked and similar.

But the later murders, Eddowes and Kelly (which the police attributed to Jack) must surely have modified their thoughts as of 15 September.

Phil

[Michael W Richards]

But there was NO blood on the swing-ddor or its handle, in the passageway or in the street outside No 29. I never recall hearing about footprints made because he stepped in the blood. This was (in some ways) a carefull killer - aware of certain things - or lucky (of course). But so consistently lucky - such a man surely creates his own luck.

Because of the likelihood that the murderer was bloodstained at least on the hands and around the wrists and cuffs, I have come to the conclusion that the murder of Annie might have taken place in darkness - considerably earlier than the police estimate in your cited evidence.

It depends on how many murders the police were taking into account at this stage - three? Tabram, Nichols and Chapman? Certainly Nichols and Chapman appear linked and similar.

But the later murders, Eddowes and Kelly (which the police attributed to Jack) must surely have modified their thoughts as of 15 September.

Phil

Hi Phil,,

Did they view those murders with a jaundiced eye Phil? It seems to me that when investigating a murder that has followed another unsolved murder...or 2 or 3...within the same small area,... and finding differences with those earlier murders, one would have to ensure that the profile developed for the killer of the preceding murders isnt simply modified to explain away the later murders differences. My simplest example would be that there is no reason to assume that the killer of Liz Stride was the same man that killed Polly and Annie... based on the evidence and the profile created for their killer. Their killer obviously wanted to do more to a woman than cut her once. And lacking any evidence to suggest that he was interested in doing more to Liz but was somehow denied the opportunity, it would be prudent from an investigators standpoint to avoid simply assuming that this new murder was also done by the same individual anyway.

But was that approach taken? Was each new murder seen independently?

I believe that the Unsolved Whitechapel Murder file answers that question......there are some murders that clearly have no connection with the appointed Canonical Group, and there are the members of the Canonical Group. Together. In one file. There was and is no "Ripper" file. There is no separate investigation that encompasses specifically only those five murders....as if just those five were assumed by the officials as connected by one killer.

Each murder within that file is an independent record of an unsolved murder.

Its in that spirit that I ask why the profile mentioned in the September 15th article is no less valid, for at least those 2 murders, on October 1st? Why would a modern investigator just assume something that is not present in any evidence concerning the murder of Liz Stride...a continued pattern?

Does the killer change his spots based upon what we see in subsequent acts of violence, becoming as many would like to imagine, a completely unpredictable killer without any focus or patterns?

I know of one suspect who could very well have committed the murder of at least Annie Chapman, he was identified by witnesses as being seen that morning bloodied and acting very strangely....a few hundred feet from the murder scene. But he was unable to commit any more. He was institutionalized.

Does he become a less valid suspect for the Chapman murder, and perhaps the Nichols murder, just because other later murders are also unsolved?

Cheers

[Hunter]

You've raised some good points, Mike. I hope that some others will chime in and offer their opinions as well.

[Phil H]

Not sure what your thesis is here, because I was simply raising a few (to me) relevant points, not arguing for or against you.

But to pick up on some of what you wrote:

Did they view those murders with a jaundiced eye Phil?

I don't think I said they did! I think they were men doing their job as best they could. Certainly as of 15 September they had no inkling that they were involved in the most notorious case in history!

It seems to me that when investigating a murder that has followed another unsolved murder...or 2 or 3...within the same small area,... and finding differences with those earlier murders, one would have to ensure that the profile developed for the killer of the preceding murders isnt simply modified to explain away the later murders differences.

Would they have remotely understood that terminology - "profiling". Clearly they looked for similarities and differences, but as the evidence suggests it was often subjective - different doctors disagreeing with one another.

My simplest example would be that there is no reason to assume that the killer of Liz Stride was the same man that killed Polly and Annie... based on the evidence and the profile created for their killer.

Leaving aside the "profile" bit, I tend to agree. I think the police in 1888 leapt to a conclusion with Stride that may have been incorrect and misleading. I have come to the conclusion that "Jack" was probably north of Whitechapel Road when Liz was killed.

Was each new murder seen independently?

I think it was initially by the police - press need to create a series and a frenzy apart.

But I think they came to find the frenzy (Tabram) and the long incisions in very personal areas (Nichols, Chapman then Eddowes) as a sort of "signature", very quickly.

I don't think Victorian men were remotely as conscious as we are of sexual organs, did not expect to see a woman's pudenda on display. I'm not saying they were innocent or priggish - most were married and these women were prostitutes. But this was a pre-Freudian age, were sexuality was neither understood nor common currency in polite society. Even husbands and wives probably saw each other naked rarely if at all. So the display of such violently and openly sexual atrocity must have been rare and particular...

There is no separate investigation that encompasses specifically only those five murders....as if just those five were assumed by the officials as connected by one killer.

The "canonical five" appears to have been a concoction of Macnaghten. There was evidently no concensus in the 1880s and after. I think MM had misled the field ever since. Mckenzie to me is ripe as a "weak" Ripper victim.

Its in that spirit that I ask why the profile mentioned in the September 15th article is no less valid, for at least those 2 murders, on October 1st? Why would a modern investigator just assume something that is not present in any evidence concerning the murder of Liz Stride...a continued pattern?

I think we have to be careful here. I doubt that in 1888 many policemen thought there wasmore than one man capable to doing such work and doing it in such similar ways. But I have argued elsewhere the possibility that MJK was a "copycat" victim - killed and made out to look like the way "Jack's" work was described. So I suppose I both agree and disagree with your view.

Does the killer change his spots based upon what we see in subsequent acts of violence, becoming as many would like to imagine, a completely unpredictable killer without any focus or patterns?

For myself, I can readily see a pattern and a progression - Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes - then a dropping off to Mckenzie. (Illness?) I don't see that as unrealistic. I have rejected Simon Woods' recent attempt to isolate Chapman because I see no reason to do so and no logic (bar sophistry) to do so.

I know of one suspect who could very well have committed the murder of at least Annie Chapman, he was identified by witnesses as being seen that morning bloodied and acting very strangely....a few hundred feet from the murder scene. But he was unable to commit any more. He was institutionalized.

Well, Eddowes might have been by a different hand, but I'd say it was 75:25 against. MJK I am prepared to accept as by an "intimate", as I see fundamental differences in her death and injuries. So maybe you are not without reason.

I believe the modern tendencies to "deconstruct" the Ripper myth useful and valid. I agree that I think the police did leap to conclusions on occasion (not the least being the so-called "double event") but they were there and we were not.

A very useful topic to debate, so long as one has an open mind.

phil

[Ginger]

I've never found the supposed butcher/surgeon dichotomy all that convincing. Simply because a butcher/hunter/slaughterman has no professional interest in the abdominal organs doesn't mean that he won't have taught himself where they are and what they look like, especially if he's reasonably intelligent and of ordinary curiousity.

I myself have never cut up anything but a preserved rat in a biology course, but I'm fairly sure I could remove the womb from a corpse in a businesslike manner. Common sense tells one that it has to be attached to the vaginal passage, so the only place it can really be is right above the vagina.

There was also an ongoing social movement at the time to bring education to the labouring masses with lectures, study clubs, and libraries, so I'm sure that Jack would have had some access to books, diagrams, etc, showing the inside of the human body. Given that his purpose in committing these crimes seems to have been to gratify his desire to open up dead women and poke around in their bellies, I'm sure that if he was at all literate, he'd have spent hours daydreaming over the diagrams in the anatomy books.

To digress somewhat, I've long been convinced on the ground of probable motive that Jack wasn't a medical man. A doctor, medical student, etc., has better, safer, and more relaxed opportunities to cut up dead women and look around inside of them.

[Phil H]

Ginger - your post appears to lean towards a literate, book-reading "Ripper".

I was particularly struck by this pasage in your post:

I myself have never cut up anything but a preserved rat in a biology course, but I'm fairly sure I could remove the womb from a corpse in a businesslike manner. Common sense tells one that it has to be attached to the vaginal passage, so the only place it can really be is right above the vagina.

Medical students apart - and some were contemporary suspects - how many Victorian youths would have cut up even a rat?

You know where the vagina/womb is because since 1945ish the taboos on discussing/picturing that area of the female body have relaxed to the point of extinction.

Personally I doubt an unmarried man would have known much about the female anatomy, internal or external. Even married couples rarely if ever were naked in bed. An artist - interestingly enough given some recent suspects - might have done so from seeing nude models. But a working class man.

Someone else might be able to provide information on the womb - I seem to recall (I maybe wrong) that the whole womb, conception "thing" was not worked out until quite late on.

I'm really just seeking to point out that we should not assume that today's knowledge would have transferred directly to the mindset of the 1880s.

The past was another country.

Phil

[Ginger]

The Royal Society of Medicine has some nice articles about public anatomical museums in Victorian London - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1676337/ and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2175054/ . There was apparently a great and accepted public interest in human anatomy, including sexual anatomy, during the first few decades of Victoria's reign. This stemmed at least partly from a holdover of the Enlightenment ideal of knowing God by studying his work (an argument that still arose during period discussions about evolution and geology), and got an apparently substantial boost during the scandals about the Resurrection Men, particularly the Burke and Hare case.

By the 1870s these were being legally persecuted, not so much in a spirit of prudery, as from a widespread feeling that information which might prove beneficial and enlightening to one of middle class upbringing would prove only of prurient interest to the lower classes. By Jack's time the public museums had all been closed, but the information, once out there, could probably not be so easily suppressed. Earlier in the century there had been popular, low cost, illustrated books dealing with sexual anatomy, and I'm sure those were still obtainable without much trouble on the used book market.

The putting of fig leaves onto public statues, etc, was of course a well-established custom all through the century, but it is perhaps best understood as an established. somewhat ironic custom, more than as an expression of public modesty, especially early in the century. George Cruikshank, a solid middle-class favourite for his illustrations to Dickens' tales, drew a famous cartoon in 1822 during the reign of Geo IV, poking quite ribald fun at the practice. http://laudatortemporisacti.blogspot...1_archive.html has a (smallish) reproduction with some of the commentary reproduced about 2/3 of the way down the page. Humour like that doesn't spring from ignorance of the subject.

Even with Victorian fashions, it was still the case that pregnant women 'show', providing another way to locate the womb, regardless of one's knowledge of sexual anatomy. Horses were everywhere, in the city and in the country, and butchers' shops often killed cattle and sheep on the premises (it was often the only way to ensure customers that meat was fresh, and from a healthy animal). Remember too that John Richardson (he of the Hanbury St. cellar steps) was raising rabbits, apparently a popular pursuit. These were almost certainly meat animals rather than pets, and it seems probable that the buyer would have bought the whole rabbit, and then been expected to do the cutting up.

I think that the Victorian man's general knowledge of female anatomy, especially if he grew up prior to the 1870s, was probably about as good as ours, even if he associated sex more with love and reproduction than sport, and even though it may have been the fashion to pretend ignorance in mixed company.

Edit: And I'll not argue it in detail, as I know much less about the period, but the first half of the 20th century had some creepy, spookily repressive attitudes toward sexuality. It's a mistake to see those as being a holdover from an earlier period, though. Those are just something peculiar to that time.

[Phil H]

I'm sorry but I remain unconvinced by your idea - Ginger.

Clearly sex has gone on through the ages - otherwise we wouldn't be here!! But I talked to an elderly woman (in her 80s) in the early 1990s. She was shocked by something she had seen on TV and burst out - "My husband and I NEVER kissed like that!" (meaning open mouth) and "I never saw him naked in all my married life - he always locked the bathroom door!" Yet she had children. Nudity and frank sexuality shocked her nonetheless.

I don't know where you live, but in the UK, Victorian attitudes to sex and nudity cast a long shadow - I can recall things from the 1950s and they were a LONG WAY from today's permissive society.

Before accepting what you say, I would need to see examples of the type of books you mention and something to demonstrate that they were in circulation in areas of society where "Jack" might have laid his hands on them. I exempt medical students who would necessarily have had access to such material - and they were clearly in the police's eye at the time.

Druitt, I suppose, from a "medical" family might have had access to such books. Tumblety who knows. Kosminski - could he even read English?

Sorry to be so sceptical,
Phil