Was the Ripper choosing to kill on dates devoted to Patron Saints?

[Pcdunn]

Hi, Busy Beaver-- Don't know if Jack was all that intelligent, but he surely was lucky!

[Busy Beaver]

Jack killed when the streets of Whitechapel were not going to be full of people coming and going, and when he was not working (if he worked) by wandering the streets on bank holidays and weekends. I am quite amazed by the fact that that in Annie Chapman's case as she walked down the roads, she only came across one person at 2.30am (that she happened to know) and continued to walk and do goodness knows what else until she was in Hanbury Street at 5.30am, where Mrs Long saw her with the man that could have been the Ripper. In Bucks Row, Polly Nicols only she and the Ripper were present before Charles Cross/ Lechmere turned into the row at about 3.40am, to find Polly's dead body and minutes after, Paul appears on the scene. You get my drift. Many people about, but nobody hears or sees anything conclusive. Which in my opinion is the most annoying of this whole case! If only Cadosch looked over the fence and PC Watkins just turned around the corner a few inches into Mitre Square it would probably be a whole different story.

[Errata]

Meh. We're talking about a religion whose main idol is a zombie. It's really not much of a stretch for them to elevate some dude to dragonslayer because he stepped on a gecko once.

*snort*

Not that I get to talk, my god is Mafia Boss running a 3-5 millennium protection racket...

As a theater kid, my suspension of disbelief is hyperdeveloped. So If I buy the essential truth that is Superman every time I read a comic (And I do), I have no problems with dragons. Until you get to the early medieval period and you get a bunch of writers referring to dragons like "She writhed and coiled under St George until he pierced her with his long lance" and you get uncomfortable because you realize that The Lives of Saints is beginning to read a lot like a Harlequin romance novel. And then the whole "oh a dragon symbolizes female sexuality, and apparently that results in death" thing happens, and it makes you want to wave your lady bits at the long dead guys who wrote this drivel.

[Pcdunn]

So the emphasis has shifted from Jack being a Jewish socialist or anarchist to a Catholic Fenian... Who says Jack was religious at all?

[Ally]

I gotta tell you, I was certain you would object to what I posted, but I was so sure it was going to be the dragon bit. Cause you're a practical dame, and well, dragons.

Meh. We're talking about a religion whose main idol is a zombie. It's really not much of a stretch for them to elevate some dude to dragonslayer because he stepped on a gecko once.

[Errata]

A). He didn't kill her.
B). She wasn't a prostitute.
C). She wasn't of ill repute.

She was a young Roman noblewoman who behaved exactly as Roman noblewomen did at the time. When her mother became a devoted follower of Jerome and his ascetic teachings, she joined her mother and fasted her dumb self to death because she was recovering from illness and too weak to bear the fasting.

Absolutely correct.

But I was presenting it in sort of Jerome's point of view, in terms of the aspersions to her character despite being merely Roman. Probably because she actively rejected the life her mother and sisters had chosen. And because of his fairly awful statement regarding her, in that she should not be mourned.

The Romans at the time developed the opinion that he killed her, through neglect if not on purpose, and threw him out of Rome, but the reason was an inappropriate relationship with the girls mother. Probably because causing the death of a girl through indirect means was not exactly a crime, but touching well bred Roman ladies was in fact a prosecutable offense.

I looked at it in terms of "What would a mission oriented serial killer find in St. Jerome that he might find significant". And it's not his association with librarians. It would be his complete indifference to the death of this girl. And for all we know he was saying she shouldn't be mourned because of one of those "Rejoice for she is with Jesus" kind of things, but some guy who hates "immoral" women isn't going to read it that way.

I gotta tell you, I was certain you would object to what I posted, but I was so sure it was going to be the dragon bit. Cause you're a practical dame, and well, dragons.

[MrBarnett]

London is positively lousy with churches named for saints (as opposed to Holy Trinity or Holy Rosary or some such). To give St George in the East special consideration you'd have to prove that there were no other churches of likely attribution closer to the center of the murders.

BTW- I respect Richard Patterson for admitting that his theory does not successfully explain the dates of the murders. I've seen a lot of theories held onto like grim death in the face of all sorts of reason and facts. Kudos to you, sir!

But we're not talking about the whole of London, we're talking about just the East End. And we're not talking about all saints, we're talking about patron saints of four specific occupations, so we go from being lousy with options to having just a handful.

There were approximately 30 ecclesiastical parishes in the borough of Stepney in 1903. If we look at only those that are a short walk from Jack's usual hunting ground of Commercial Street / Whitechapel High Street(Road) you cut that number in half. And if we concentrate on those towards the docks where Thompson spent much of his time, the number reduces even further.

St. George in the East, being the mother church of several of the docklands parishes as well as a large civil parish and registration district, and in addition being dedicated to St George, the patron saint of England, Knights and soldiers, would be a pretty obvious choice for Thompson if he was looking for a location to fit the scheme.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not convinced by the theory. But I think this slant plugs the hole left by the elimination of St Jerome and dovetails nicely with the anomalies of the double event:

The urge was so strong on the 29/30th Sept. he threw caution and strict adherence to saints days to the wind. As a result of an incautiously early start, he was forced to leave his work unfinished in Dutfields Yard and sought a second victim in the City of London, an area whose boundaries are clearly marked by the cross of St. George and a bloody knife.

[Ally]

A). He didn't kill her.
B). She wasn't a prostitute.
C). She wasn't of ill repute.

She was a young Roman noblewoman who behaved exactly as Roman noblewomen did at the time. When her mother became a devoted follower of Jerome and his ascetic teachings, she joined her mother and fasted her dumb self to death because she was recovering from illness and too weak to bear the fasting.

[Richard Patterson]

Er ..what now? Jerome killed a prostitute?? When did this happen?

Read Errata's post #58. He might know. I don't have the exact date.

[Ally]

Also that St Jerome took the life of a prostitute and so did the Ripper,

Er ..what now? Jerome killed a prostitute?? When did this happen?

[Richard Patterson]

But what if the killings were politically motivated? Haven't some people argued that the Ripper was trying to stir things up? I am sure that if you did enough research you could find a connection between those dates and speeches by a particular politician or something in the same vein. Or again, it could relate to days when his favorite cricket team won. That is the problem when you start down that road. You have oh so many options.

c.d.

Correct. I don't think we can pin any one thing as a motive, chances are the killer was brought to his actions by a combination of factors, including political, personal, moral, and egotistical factors. (as well as how his cricket team) I try to show all these things, including cricket , is the case with my suspect because humans are not simple beings that one premise would suffice.

[Richard Patterson]

God knows I don't want to encourage a religious fanatic theory, but...

St. Jerome being the patron saint of Librarians does not negate him from the theory. He is not associated with the Ripper killings because of his patronage. However, Jerome the scholar and the man spent a large part of his life defining the role of women in a Christian society. Modesty, chastity, virginity, what they should wear, what they should want, how they should behave. Even what they should eat and drink.

And to top it off, he killed a young woman of ill repute. She was a typical Roman party girl who after a near death experience joined his little group of ascetics, and the privation killed her within a few months. He was disgusted at how upset her mother was, saying that the girl should not be mourned at all. It soon got him thrown out of Rome.

If ever there was a Patron saint of hyper controlling misogynists concerned more with moral order than the sanctity of life, it's Jerome.

And it gets weirder.

St. Raymond, is the patron saint of midwives because he was born via a caesarian that killed his mother.

Sept. 8 is the day of St. Adrian, but it's also the Birthday of the Virgin Mary.

Saint Theodore was essentially known for two things. he burned down a temple to the Mother Goddess Cybele out of all the temples in Amasea, and he killed a dragon. And in Christian symbolism, dragons represent female evil.

Jerome dictated how Christian women should act. The Virgin Mary represents the ideals he set forth. Theodore punished evil feminine forces. And Raymond came into the world when his mothers uterus was ripped out of her body (olden time caesarians were brutal).

And just to throw it out there, Martha Tabram was killed on St. Cajetan's day, a saint who founded a religious order whose purpose was to combat moral laxity.

I'm sure I could find connections with any five random saints, Christianity being what it is in it's relationship with women, but I see the appeal of drawing parallels.

Thanks for the encouragement. I've looked into the lives of the saints and how they bear a relationship to the Ripper crimes and my suspect Francis Thompson. For example that Saint Theodore set fire to a temple, while Thompson, when acting as an altar boy, set fire to his local church. Also that St Jerome took the life of a prostitute and so did the Ripper, and Thompson wrote of how they disgusted him, but my premise was upon the police seeking out suspects with occupations related to these saints and not the suspects whose actions mimicked them. I appreciate your valuable contribution. Thank you.

[c.d.]

But what if the killings were politically motivated? Haven't some people argued that the Ripper was trying to stir things up? I am sure that if you did enough research you could find a connection between those dates and speeches by a particular politician or something in the same vein. Or again, it could relate to days when his favorite cricket team won. That is the problem when you start down that road. You have oh so many options.

c.d.

[Errata]

God knows I don't want to encourage a religious fanatic theory, but...

St. Jerome being the patron saint of Librarians does not negate him from the theory. He is not associated with the Ripper killings because of his patronage. However, Jerome the scholar and the man spent a large part of his life defining the role of women in a Christian society. Modesty, chastity, virginity, what they should wear, what they should want, how they should behave. Even what they should eat and drink.

And to top it off, he killed a young woman of ill repute. She was a typical Roman party girl who after a near death experience joined his little group of ascetics, and the privation killed her within a few months. He was disgusted at how upset her mother was, saying that the girl should not be mourned at all. It soon got him thrown out of Rome.

If ever there was a Patron saint of hyper controlling misogynists concerned more with moral order than the sanctity of life, it's Jerome.

And it gets weirder.

St. Raymond, is the patron saint of midwives because he was born via a caesarian that killed his mother.

Sept. 8 is the day of St. Adrian, but it's also the Birthday of the Virgin Mary.

Saint Theodore was essentially known for two things. he burned down a temple to the Mother Goddess Cybele out of all the temples in Amasea, and he killed a dragon. And in Christian symbolism, dragons represent female evil.

Jerome dictated how Christian women should act. The Virgin Mary represents the ideals he set forth. Theodore punished evil feminine forces. And Raymond came into the world when his mothers uterus was ripped out of her body (olden time caesarians were brutal).

And just to throw it out there, Martha Tabram was killed on St. Cajetan's day, a saint who founded a religious order whose purpose was to combat moral laxity.

I'm sure I could find connections with any five random saints, Christianity being what it is in it's relationship with women, but I see the appeal of drawing parallels.

[GUT]

I have to be honest and say that I thought the theory was pretty far fetched to begin with. But I will also say that to his credit Richard didn't try to duck and weave like so many others when they begin to see the handwriting on the wall. And again to his credit, he retracted his premise. If only more people on these boards were as forthright.

All the best, Richard. It was an interesting theory at that. Keep trying.

c.d.

Agree 100% when it doesn't work say so and move on. If there are holes admit same, if some aspects are open to other interpretation make the concession but argue why yours is better, not just say "No that could never be".