What are the chances of….?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Question: Do we sometimes place too much emphasis on the ‘what are the chances of….’ argument leading us to sideline or dismiss other reasonable possibilities? I think that we might all be guilty of this at times.

In this particular instance I’m talking about ‘what are the chances of Eddowes killer being someone other that the man seen by Lawende, Levy and Harris?’ Like most people I think it likeliest that the man in question was her killer but is another killer all that unlikely? Jeff is my usual ‘go to’ man on this kind of stuff so perhaps we might get his opinion on this too?

So can it really be considered particularly unlikely that Eddowes ran into 2 men that night? Things that might, on reflection, appear to be instances of ‘what are the chances of?’ happen regularly and a woman talking to one man, parting then meeting another can hardly be considered a freakish occurrence. The streets weren’t entirely deserted after all.

Perhaps the man was someone that she’d known and she’d tried to borrow some money from him but he was skint and they parted company (like Kelly and Hutchinson)?

Perhaps she just stopped a bloke and tried to ‘interest’ him but he was having none of it?

Remember, we don’t know how long they’d been talking when they were seen and when Lawende, Levy and Harris passed none of them looked back, so Eddowes and the man could have gone there separate ways straight away or after a few seconds with Eddowes heading down Church Passage to run into her killer? We know that timings are disputed but Eddowes could still have met her death at the hands of a second man at the same time that we assume that she met it at the hands of Lawende’s man.

So are we too quick to assume that the man seen by Lawende, Levy and Harris with Eddowes must have been her killer and why would it be particularly surprising if it wasn’t? Are we too easily dismissing a reasonable possibility?

[Abby Normal]

Question: Do we sometimes place too much emphasis on the ‘what are the chances of….’ argument leading us to sideline or dismiss other reasonable possibilities? I think that we might all be guilty of this at times.

In this particular instance I’m talking about ‘what are the chances of Eddowes killer being someone other that the man seen by Lawende, Levy and Harris?’ Like most people I think it likeliest that the man in question was her killer but is another killer all that unlikely? Jeff is my usual ‘go to’ man on this kind of stuff so perhaps we might get his opinion on this too?

So can it really be considered particularly unlikely that Eddowes ran into 2 men that night? Things that might, on reflection, appear to be instances of ‘what are the chances of?’ happen regularly and a woman talking to one man, parting then meeting another can hardly be considered a freakish occurrence. The streets weren’t entirely deserted after all.

Perhaps the man was someone that she’d known and she’d tried to borrow some money from him but he was skint and they parted company (like Kelly and Hutchinson)?

Perhaps she just stopped a bloke and tried to ‘interest’ him but he was having none of it?

Remember, we don’t know how long they’d been talking when they were seen and when Lawende, Levy and Harris passed none of them looked back, so Eddowes and the man could have gone there separate ways straight away or after a few seconds with Eddowes heading down Church Passage to run into her killer? We know that timings are disputed but Eddowes could still have met her death at the hands of a second man at the same time that we assume that she met it at the hands of Lawende’s man.

So are we too quick to assume that the man seen by Lawende, Levy and Harris with Eddowes must have been her killer and why would it be particularly surprising if it wasn’t? Are we too easily dismissing a reasonable possibility?

yes, but not in this case. peaked cap, herlock. peaked cap. and time frames too tight. they undoubtedly saw the ripper with eddowes.

[Herlock Sholmes]

yes, but not in this case. peaked cap, herlock. peaked cap. and time frames too tight. they undoubtedly saw the ripper with eddowes.

I’m not 100 convinced Abby but the odds certainly favour him. Surely many man would have owned a peaked cap?

[Wickerman]

Question: Do we sometimes place too much emphasis on the ‘what are the chances of….’ argument leading us to sideline or dismiss other reasonable possibilities? I think that we might all be guilty of this at times.
...
So are we too quick to assume that the man seen by Lawende, Levy and Harris with Eddowes must have been her killer and why would it be particularly surprising if it wasn’t? Are we too easily dismissing a reasonable possibility?

Hi Herlock!

Yes 'we' are, he's the Low-hanging fruit, the only man seen, while there could have been others, it is normal that he will be the one who gets the most attention.
Even McWilliam of the City force was not convinced the woman was even Eddowes.

For my part I give some credit to Blenkingsop on duty in St. James Place, who saw 'some people' pass him at 1:30 am., presumably heading towards Mitre Square.
If these 'people' were not headed for Mitre Square, his statement would have had no value. Likewise if we have 'people' passing through the square right at the time of the murder, then it is more than we have with Lawende's 'couple', who were not moving in any direction whatsoever.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock!

Yes 'we' are, he's the Low-hanging fruit, the only man seen, while there could have been others, it is normal that he will be the one who gets the most attention.
Even McWilliam of the City force was not convinced the woman was even Eddowes.

For my part I give some credit to Blenkingsop on duty in St. James Place, who saw 'some people' pass him at 1:30 am., presumably heading towards Mitre Square.
If these 'people' were not headed for Mitre Square, his statement would have had no value. Likewise if we have 'people' passing through the square right at the time of the murder, then it is more than we have with Lawende's 'couple', who were not moving in any direction whatsoever.

Hi Wick,

Yes it’s an obvious assumption but I thought about it recently and couldn’t help wondering what was so ‘unlikely’ about the possibility of Lawende’s guy not being the killer? Once the three men passed we have no way of knowing what happened next so yes they could have headed down Church Passage together or they could have gone their separate ways.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Welcome back Herlock!

To toast your return, I've had the Scoundrels tobacconist whip up a new recipe, "expelee non grata", a blend of aromatic fire cured Kentucky leaf, Cavendish tobacco and a generous helping of powered blackball. A fine blend of the prosaic with the mellow. Quite.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Welcome back Herlock!

To toast your return, I've had the Scoundrels tobacconist whip up a new recipe, "expelee non grata", a blend of aromatic fire cured Kentucky leaf, Cavendish tobacco and a generous helping of powered blackball. A fine blend of the prosaic with the mellow. Quite.

Cheers Al. Very appropriate.

[Lewis C]

Hi Herlock!

Yes 'we' are, he's the Low-hanging fruit, the only man seen, while there could have been others, it is normal that he will be the one who gets the most attention.
Even McWilliam of the City force was not convinced the woman was even Eddowes.

For my part I give some credit to Blenkingsop on duty in St. James Place, who saw 'some people' pass him at 1:30 am., presumably heading towards Mitre Square.
If these 'people' were not headed for Mitre Square, his statement would have had no value. Likewise if we have 'people' passing through the square right at the time of the murder, then it is more than we have with Lawende's 'couple', who were not moving in any direction whatsoever.

Hi Wickerman,

This might be the most likely scenario by which the man Lawende saw wasn't JtR: the woman may not have been Eddowes. I also think that it's possible that it was Eddowes, that she and the man parted right after Lawende passed them, she went into Mitre Square where JtR ambushed her. But I still think the most likely scenario is that the man Lawende saw was JtR.

[Enigma]

Hello Herlock, good to see you back again and in sparkling form too.

Your near namesake said, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. We can't eliminate the chance that Eddowes met a second man in Mitre Square. Therefore though it seems improbable in the time frame and might not be the truth, it remains a possibility.

Regards, Gazza

[Abby Normal]

I’m not 100 convinced Abby but the odds certainly favour him. Surely many man would have owned a peaked cap?

yes but not at two linked crime sites. bruh trust me on this one, theres alot of mysteries abound re the ripper, but this aint one of them.

[Losmandris]

I do agree that this could be a bit of a case of tunnel vision here. As do I believe is the case with many aspects of these crimes. Yet it does seem the most likely scenario. Considering just how unreliable eye witness statements are, I question how much value this sighting adds to narrowing down who the murderer was or any other great import to the case as whole. Apart from another potential witness. You may say it helps with the timelines but I suppose only in the sense that if we believe that Lawende 'did' see JtR then the timeline for the murder would play out accordingly. If he didn't it would have been slightly different.

To cut to the chase I probably think he did see JtR. Though I would not put much reliance on his description. The other possibility which I could learn toward if pushed, would be that JtR is lurking in the shadows and watching. He only makes an appearance to quickly proposition his victim, murdering them forthwith.

[JeffHamm]

Working out things like "what are the chances Lawende and co. misidentified Eddowes?" is not as simple as it may seem. Identification accuracy by eye-witnesses is influenced by how the identification viewing is conducted, and factors with regards to viewing conditions, time since the incident, and so forth. Generally, though, identification rates are ok, but not infallible, and given the sighting was at night, no particular reason to take note, and so on, there is a good case to be made in terms of the man and woman not being Eddowes and JtR.

But, there are points in favour the other way around too. For one, we know the couple are there when Lawende and co walk by, and PC Watkin's patrol at that time tells us that Eddowes has not been murdered yet. The location of the couple is close enough to the crime scene that they could walk to it in sufficient time for the murder and mutilations to take place before PC Harvey patrols Church Passage and at which time the couple seen by Lawende and company have left and no doubt Eddowes is dead where she's found a couple minutes later when PC Watkins does his next patrol.

There are no other statements specifically mentioning a couple comprising a male and a female, other than Blenkinsop's newspaper report of someone asking him if he saw a couple. He doesn't confirm that he did, but he does allude to there being people around. Unfortunately, that is so vague that we don't know if "people" includes a male and female couple. He also doesn't indicate anyone was seen coming or going from the passage to Mitre Square.

Finally, we have no reports as to the activity in Mitre Street at the appropriate time. PC Watkins doesn't report seeing people about, so the streets appear to be quiet at the time, but that doesn't mean Eddowes and JtR couldn't have entered Mitre Square from that side, but we have nothing we can point to beyond the fact that people could enter Mitre Square from Mitre Street. That's not a lot to hang your hat on.

In the end, we have to take the evidence we have, and see where it leads us. My own view is that it suggests that the Church Passage Couple has the most evidence to support the suggestion that was indeed Eddowes and JtR, but at the same time it is not conclusive. The next best supported idea is that Eddowes and JtR were among the "people" seen by Blenkinsop, and he may simply have not observed them entering the passage to Mitre Square (or they went round to Mitre Street and entered that way). The least supported idea is that Eddowes and JtR were not seen by anyone but came up Mitre Street and entered the square that way.

I don't think we can put actual numbers on those in a meaningful, and we must not forget that just because the most evidence we have surrounds the Church Passage Couple that in part reflects the fact that witnesses of that couple were located and their testimony survives. Blenkinsop's press statement is short on details, and we have no record of any other statement he might have made. That's a shame, as it would be nice to be able to assess his information further. However, he wasn't called at the inquest, and maybe that's an indication he had nothing further to add that what we see in the papers.

Anyway, a lot of the time the "What are the chances ..." type of argument end up in subjective ideas of what those chances are. We make assumptions around things like "What are the chances JtR would do this under these circumstances? ...", which of course is impossible to assess. There's no way we can estimate how likely JtR was to do something we think is stupid - he's going around and disembowelling random women in the streets? What are the chances of just doing that? JtR's decision making is unlike ours, and he's likely to do things that we think are way too risky - his whole series of murders are stupidly risky so clearly his risk assessment is different to ours. If the evidence points to JtR having done something, that regardless of our perceived risk, JtR appears to have ignored our advice and gone ahead and done whatever anyway. It might be useful to consider the things he did, under the conditions in which he did them, in order to get an idea of his risk assessment ability. If it starts to look like he's making all sorts of weird and outrageously stupid choices, then perhaps that points towards the irrational thinking of schizophrenia, strengthening the indicates towards a Kosminski type of suspect. Or, if it looks more like he's willing to take some risks, but ones that may be more calculated as necessary; meaning the risks might be large but they are necessary to take given his desire fulfil his goal of mutilation requires him to take large risks).

JtR is potentially spotted at 4 of his crimes; Chapman (possibly by Long), Stride (multiple potential sightings), Eddowes (possibly by Lawende and company), and Kelly (possibly by Hutchinson). I recognize all those are debatable, and that's not the point here. What I want to focus on is that if any of those sightings are actually of JtR, then he went on to murder despite having been seen in company with his victim. That is a big risk. It also doesn't seem necessary, as he could have easily moved on to find a different victim. It appears he was able to find Nichols, for example, without them being seen together, but after that he seems to be spotted all the time with his victims. (Is that part of the thrill for him? Or is he just so overconfident that it doesn't seem like a risk to him? Or is he mentally unstable and unaware of just how risky it would be to kill someone after having been seen to be with them? I don't know, any of those work, and I'm sure there are other explanations too; yes, including the idea that he wasn't actually seen with the victims, and he kills them only after they leave the company of the man they were spotted with - the sort of thing that gets brought up when Pipeman becomes JtR).

Anyway, even if we could work out that something has only a 1% chance, well, if everything else in the evidence points to that 1% thing having occurred, then it looks like this may be that 1 in a hundred. Rare events do sometimes happen after all.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Well balanced as ever Jeff.

[Aethelwulf]

Question: Do we sometimes place too much emphasis on the ‘what are the chances of….’ argument leading us to sideline or dismiss other reasonable possibilities? I think that we might all be guilty of this at times.

Hi Herlock, i'm certainly invested in the what are the chances argument as I use it a lot. My latest thinking is what are the chances that Bury had a basically similar signature as the ripper (cutting stabbing and proping at the abdomen and privates) and the exact same method as the cord strangler (cord mark all the way around the neck apart from a small gap on the left side of the neck in both cases) and not being involved? as well as being out those nights when the police knew where he was staying and police thinking it was him. As jeff says rare things happen - people win the lottery every week and the odds are tiny.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock, i'm certainly invested in the what are the chances argument as I use it a lot. My latest thinking is what are the chances that Bury had a basically similar signature as the ripper (cutting stabbing and proping at the abdomen and privates) and the exact same method as the cord strangler (cord mark all the way around the neck apart from a small gap on the left side of the neck in both cases) and not being involved? as well as being out those nights when the police knew where he was staying and police thinking it was him. As jeff says rare things happen - people win the lottery every week and the odds are tiny.

Hi Wulf,

I find myself using “what are the chances of..” regularly too and it got me thinking about how it could possibly lead any of us to eliminated something that’s possible. I’d say that it’s about keeping the options open.