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  • c.d.
    replied
    As a rule of thumb, attempting to blackmail a serial killer is generally considered to be a bad idea.

    c.d.

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  • JeffHamm
    replied
    Originally posted by Al Bundy's Eyes View Post

    Even if they had met, maybe said hello and exchanged pleasantries, it's a far cry from being in a dangerous blackmail ploy together.
    Agreed. I just don't see any evidence they were even that. The most I've seen is arguments to suggest they may have had the opportunity to cross paths, but that's a far cry from knowing each other even as acquaintances.

    - Jeff

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  • Enigma
    replied
    Originally posted by Al Bundy's Eyes View Post

    Even if they had met, maybe said hello and exchanged pleasantries, it's a far cry from being in a dangerous blackmail ploy together.
    Agreed, even if they were acquaintances it is a big step to say they conspired in a plot.

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  • Al Bundy's Eyes
    replied
    Originally posted by JeffHamm View Post

    Hi Trapperologist,

    I don't think anyone denies there was the opportunity for various victims to have met, the issue is whether or not they did. Nothing we have indicates any of the victims knew the names of any of the prior victims.

    - Jeff
    Even if they had met, maybe said hello and exchanged pleasantries, it's a far cry from being in a dangerous blackmail ploy together.

    Leave a comment:


  • JeffHamm
    replied
    Originally posted by Trapperologist View Post
    Mary and Kate knowing each other would not be uncommon either. "The Ten Bell was where several of the victims of Jack the Ripper drank most notably Catherine Eddowes and Mary Kelly." (Ghost-story.com). How could they not know each other from there if not from the Thrawl Street Mission especially if Mary was outside under the lamp with first dibs on gentlemen going in. Denial sounds like conspiracyaphobia.

    As for the City Missionary who said he knew Mary and one or two others, presumably including Kate, possibly just looking for publicity: If he really wanted publicity he could have mentioned how he "rescued" Millers Court witness Sarah Lewis through marriage, straightening her out so she was saved from being the Ripper's next victim. She was identified as one of the dozens he married off to their partners. He could have mentioned her anonymously. Although I can see how it's not much of a rescue if she walks off, like Mary, so she still could have been killed. Luckily she was staying with friends.
    Hi Trapperologist,

    I don't think anyone denies there was the opportunity for various victims to have met, the issue is whether or not they did. Nothing we have indicates any of the victims knew the names of any of the prior victims.

    - Jeff

    Leave a comment:


  • Trapperologist
    replied
    Mary and Kate knowing each other would not be uncommon either. "The Ten Bell was where several of the victims of Jack the Ripper drank most notably Catherine Eddowes and Mary Kelly." (Ghost-story.com). How could they not know each other from there if not from the Thrawl Street Mission especially if Mary was outside under the lamp with first dibs on gentlemen going in. Denial sounds like conspiracyaphobia.

    As for the City Missionary who said he knew Mary and one or two others, presumably including Kate, possibly just looking for publicity: If he really wanted publicity he could have mentioned how he "rescued" Millers Court witness Sarah Lewis through marriage, straightening her out so she was saved from being the Ripper's next victim. She was identified as one of the dozens he married off to their partners. He could have mentioned her anonymously. Although I can see how it's not much of a rescue if she walks off, like Mary, so she still could have been killed. Luckily she was staying with friends.

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  • JeffHamm
    replied
    Originally posted by etenguy View Post

    Wasn't Elizabeth Stride also called Long Liz?
    Oh well done, yes! So basically, the connection between Eddowes and MJK is hardly a rare or uncommon thing to find, so the coincidence explanation isn't pushing something that is actually a low probability explanation. There's all sorts of connections between names, and aliases, once we look for other examples. If such coincidences were very very rare, then we shouldn't see other examples, but they are all over the place once the data is looked at in order to put the idea to the test. It's not enough to come up with a story, that story has to be tested. Once we test the "the connection between Eddowes' aliases and MJK's name is so unlikely it can't be a coincidence", we find that assumption is actually false, and connection between names is actually quite common, because, as Sam points out, the names are very common names.

    - Jeff

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  • JeffHamm
    replied
    Originally posted by Sam Flynn View Post

    Yes, indeed. Because all these names were exteremely common.
    Exactly my point, and what is being made clear the more we explore the alternative notion that the similarity between Eddowes' alias and Mary Jane Kelly's name is informative, because that would imply finding other similarities should be hard to do. But it's not, there are many instances where names are in common, and if one gets creative, one can spot a pattern. But that's because humans are very good at spotting patterns, we're actually not good at spotting randomness (hence we see animals in the clouds, or shapes in TV static when that was still a thing, or shapes in tea leaves, etc). In other words, common names will be shared by many random people, that's sort of the definition of a common name after all, and that's the underlying idea behind the coincidence hypothesis. And, the results of these exercises is showing that the coincidence hypothesis works really well because we can find all sorts of shared common names.

    - Jeff

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  • Sam Flynn
    replied
    Originally posted by JeffHamm View Post
    Just to how how easy it is to find coincidences, there's also "Elizabeth Long", witness at Chapman's inquest, and the next victim is "Elizabeth Stride", there's two Elizabeths, first a witness then a victim, and going back to "Mary Ann Connolly" (Pearly Poll; witness) followed by "Mary Ann Nichols" (victim).
    Yes, indeed. Because all these names were exteremely common.

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  • etenguy
    replied
    Originally posted by JeffHamm View Post

    Hi etenguy,

    Just to how how easy it is to find coincidences, there's also "Elizabeth Long", witness at Chapman's inquest, and the next victim is "Elizabeth Stride", there's two Elizabeths, first a witness then a victim, and going back to "Mary Ann Connolly" (Pearly Poll; witness) followed by "Mary Ann Nichols" (victim). Basically, if one looks for connections, one can find them, doesn't mean those connections are important or informative though.

    - Jeff
    Wasn't Elizabeth Stride also called Long Liz?

    Leave a comment:


  • JeffHamm
    replied
    Originally posted by etenguy View Post

    I find myself in complete agreement with you. The danger is that once you have developed your hypothesis (or story), it is too easy to fall into the trap of relying on selective data or ignoring inconvenient facts or generating data to fit your story rather than the other way round. Developing an Aunt Sally to then test it against all the data you have before evaluating the likelihood of its veracity is a tried and trusted methodology.
    Hi etenguy,

    Just to how how easy it is to find coincidences, there's also "Elizabeth Long", witness at Chapman's inquest, and the next victim is "Elizabeth Stride", there's two Elizabeths, first a witness then a victim, and going back to "Mary Ann Connolly" (Pearly Poll; witness) followed by "Mary Ann Nichols" (victim). Basically, if one looks for connections, one can find them, doesn't mean those connections are important or informative though.

    - Jeff

    Leave a comment:


  • Roy Corduroy
    replied
    Originally posted by DJA View Post
    Mary Ann Kelly,29,was laid in the mortuary of the church that she was baptized in.

    Guess who the Vestry medical officer was!
    Guess who the Vestry medical officer was!
    Gimme a minute ...

    I got it! - He was Jack the Ripper. Your suspect, Dr. Sutton.

    Honestly, you should write an article for Ripperologist. Or simply start a thread here under Suspects. Named Dr. Sutton. Just like George Hutchinson Suspect has about 4,000 threads. Or Walter Sickert. Or Charles Lechmere has a couple thousand threads. Even Fogelma has a suspect thread or two.

    Because the way you do it now DJA it is like a jigsaw puzzle. Except you give us pieces here and there. I DON"T hAVE ALL the Pieces of the JiGSAw puzzle on the same table. Some are in the bedroom Under the bed, some pieces are in the parlor playing Ouija, some are in the den, on the front porch, out back of the Jewish Soup Kitchen, at London Hospital in Ward 16, upstairs from the Elephant Man's private domain. Well you get the idea. The pieces are all over the place.

    Because I know you must have given this a lot of time and thought. So why not bring it to completion and allow us the pleasure.

    Roy



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  • etenguy
    replied
    Originally posted by JeffHamm View Post

    Yes, much of this has just been an exercise in speculation, but I think the posts are careful to be clear on the fact that's what's going on here. There's nothing inherently wrong with doing so, provided one doesn't forget that's what one is doing of course. The idea of such activities is to see what the best "story" (or hypothesis if you will) one can generate when considering some set of evidence in isolation, in this case the multiple instances of victims with the name (or alias) including Mary, Ann, or Jane (particularly Mary Ann), and some include Kelly as well. Other than that, pretty much all else is ignored other than the order of the murders themselves. Then, and this is the critically important part, once you find the best "story", you then reintroduce the rest of the evidence we have. Once we do that last step, all the stories are shown to be lacking. The idea is, if you can show even the best, or most plausible, story that is based upon the names being an important "clue" is still worse than just considering it a coincidence, then that ends up being a way to decide if coincidence is the best explanation. It's not enough to just conclude a coincidence is the best explanation if it is not put to the test somehow. This kind of exercise is just one way to actually put that hypothesis to the test as it must be better than even the best "not a coincidence" theory. And so far, that's how it is turning out. Probably not a surprise to most, certainly not to me anyway, but assuming it would be the best and actually testing if it is the best explanation are two different things.

    - Jeff
    I find myself in complete agreement with you. The danger is that once you have developed your hypothesis (or story), it is too easy to fall into the trap of relying on selective data or ignoring inconvenient facts or generating data to fit your story rather than the other way round. Developing an Aunt Sally to then test it against all the data you have before evaluating the likelihood of its veracity is a tried and trusted methodology.

    Leave a comment:


  • JeffHamm
    replied
    Originally posted by c.d. View Post

    Yeah, this pretty much sums it up for me. But Sam, you forgot to include his next question -- "say, by any chance have you ever gone by the name of Mary?"

    Posts seem to be going off the deep end of late. People are using speculation as the basis for even more outlandish speculation.

    c.d.
    Yes, much of this has just been an exercise in speculation, but I think the posts are careful to be clear on the fact that's what's going on here. There's nothing inherently wrong with doing so, provided one doesn't forget that's what one is doing of course. The idea of such activities is to see what the best "story" (or hypothesis if you will) one can generate when considering some set of evidence in isolation, in this case the multiple instances of victims with the name (or alias) including Mary, Ann, or Jane (particularly Mary Ann), and some include Kelly as well. Other than that, pretty much all else is ignored other than the order of the murders themselves. Then, and this is the critically important part, once you find the best "story", you then reintroduce the rest of the evidence we have. Once we do that last step, all the stories are shown to be lacking. The idea is, if you can show even the best, or most plausible, story that is based upon the names being an important "clue" is still worse than just considering it a coincidence, then that ends up being a way to decide if coincidence is the best explanation. It's not enough to just conclude a coincidence is the best explanation if it is not put to the test somehow. This kind of exercise is just one way to actually put that hypothesis to the test as it must be better than even the best "not a coincidence" theory. And so far, that's how it is turning out. Probably not a surprise to most, certainly not to me anyway, but assuming it would be the best and actually testing if it is the best explanation are two different things.

    - Jeff

    Leave a comment:


  • JeffHamm
    replied
    Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes View Post

    You beat me to it Jeff.
    To be fair, I'm sure that's not what Trevor means, but the way it is written seems to say pretty much that, so his intent has gotten lost in the ether I suspect.

    - Jeff

    Leave a comment:

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