How did he do it?

[Tom_Wescott]

Good observation, Errata. I agree.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Malcolm X]

he was deffo above average intelligence for sure..... you can see that via dutfields and the graffiti

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Malcolm. Do you suppose that's why so many play with the evidence and try to remove Stride and graffiti from the equation? To keep the Ripper the run-of-the-mill East End illiterate they presuppose him to be?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Malcolm X]

Hi Malcolm. Do you suppose that's why so many play with the evidence and try to remove Stride and graffiti from the equation? To keep the Ripper the run-of-the-mill East End illiterate they presuppose him to be?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

HI TOM

no, i think Stride is dismissed by many because she does not look like a JTR victim, until that is, you start wondering what the hell the Eddowes murder is all about/ very close time frame etc.

because it would be hard to convince anybody that Stride was a Ripper victim, if Eddowes died the next week, for sure !

JEWES is not a word that an illiterate would know, nor would the writing be so neat and clever, it's bang on the mark...... it's JTR playing games with the police instead.

[DVV]

Hi Malcolm

JEWES is not a word that an illiterate would know, nor would the writing be so neat and clever, it's bang on the mark...... it's JTR playing games with the police instead.

It's JtR playing imo too, but no need to be Thackeray to write the graffito.

[Ben]

Exactly, David.

There's absolutely nothing to prevent an East Ender with little education from having significant intelligence, and equally, there's no aspect of either the Stride murder or the GSG that would argue against a blue-collar worker being responsible.

All the best,
Ben

[lynn cates]

If looks could kill.

Hello Malcolm. What, exactly, does a "JTR victim" look like?

Cheers.
LC

[Errata]

Education is a result of opportunity. Intelligence is a result of anatomy.

Conversely, all the intelligence (or education for that matter) in the world doesn't mean anything without curiosity and creativity. It doesn't matter how efficiently your brain stores information or how much it stores if there is no impulse to acquire more information, or no talent for generating new thoughts.

An environment like the East End at that time tends to stifle curiosity. It just doesn't pay off in a situation of extreme poverty. There is no hope for advancement, socially or economically. Overcrowding forces people to become intensely private, and rampant crime makes minding one's own business an imperative for survival.

To be anything other than what is expected of you in such an environment (for good or for ill) requires an enormous amount of curiosity, creativity, dedication, and passion. That is true of someone who ends up curing cancer, and someone who kills people and wallpapers the house with their skin. Either way, they had the tools to not become just another poverty stricken drone.

So even if Jack was uneducated, even if he was illiterate, he was more than his peers. I think he would have stood out amongst his peers. Not as a potential killer, but as something of an oddity.

[Wickerman]

Why would a killer write an intelligent verse (GSG) in a round "schoolboy hand" only to follow up 2 weeks later with a semi-literate missive associated with a kidney?

In both cases the writing was associated with 'evidence', yet in one case he appears to be sufficiently educated, in the second case he pretends to be poorly educated.
Given that we have no idea whether the killer wrote either, or (my preference) neither, we cannot assume any particular level of education possessed by this killer.

Likewise with the anatomical question. Was he just a lucky "slash n grab" artists, or did he have sufficient anatomical knowledge, "only less indicated in consequence of haste" (Phillips).

Was he possessed of a polite, charming and apparently disarming disposition, or was he crude, ignorant and forceful in his approach to his intended victims?

Did he have a regular job, or was he unemployed?
Most of the murders took place near a weekend or a holiday suggestive of someone who might be employed, yet we only know of his successes, what about his failures?
This killer may have been out 3 or 5 nights every week but was just never presented with the required opportunity, so he passed on by.

What we end up doing of course is choosing the attributes we prefer to see in "our" own version of the Whitechapel Murderer due to the fact that the evidence is so debatable.

We don't know for sure when he started his murder spree, or how many he killed, nor when he stopped, or even "if" he stopped, by choice, was imprisoned or died.

The more we learn, the less we know.

Regards, Jon S.

[Scott Nelson]

What, exactly, does a "JTR victim" look like?

Well, Professor...remember those time-lapsed photos of the spider bite on the finger? I'd say somewhere in the middle of the sequence.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Errata,

Yeah, but poor people just aren't as smart as the rest of us.

because it would be hard to convince anybody that Stride was a Ripper victim, if Eddowes died the next week, for sure !

You would think so, except that Tabram is considered by 50% of the Ripper community to have been a Ripper victim, and her throat wasn't even cut. I honestly think a lot of it is just the need some feel to be 'different'. Had Macnaghten decided Stride wasn't a Ripper victim, many of these people would be arguing she was just to buck authority. Probably a bad example, but I'm sure you're picking up what I'm throwing down.

What, exactly, does a "JTR victim" look like?

Duh...Heather Graham.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Errata]

Hi Errata,

Yeah, but poor people just aren't as smart as the rest of us.

Poor people are way smarter than me. They know how to do things other than channel surf and eat bonbons.

[DVV]

You would think so, except that Tabram is considered by 50% of the Ripper community to have been a Ripper victim, and her throat wasn't even cut. I honestly think a lot of it is just the need some feel to be 'different'. Had Macnaghten decided Stride wasn't a Ripper victim, many of these people would be arguing she was just to buck authority. Probably a bad example, but I'm sure you're picking up what I'm throwing down.

Tom Wescott

Yes, and Macnaghten's "5 victims only" being a consequence of a misguided theory, it has little value as such.
In 1888, Tabram and Stride were considered Ripper victims

[Malcolm X]

A poor person who is also a criminal, is much more street wise and aware of danger than an intelligent person.

1.... he knows when someone is about to cause trouble
2.... he knows all about the police
3.... he knows where to run and hide to dodge the police
4... .he knows who to trust
5.....he know how to lie well
6.....he knows when it's safe to commit crime
7.....he can read your face like an open book

[Malcolm X]

it doesn't really matter who killed Tabram, just like who killed Coles/ torsos etc

as said, to me she doesn't look like a JTR victim, the M.O is totally different,

but then again so was Zodiac's, so it's a bit of this and that i'm afraid.