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Patterns formed by murder locations

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  • Patterns formed by murder locations

    Much has been made of patterns formed by connecting the dots on a map representing the murder sites.

    For proponents of only four victims, this is usually a cross. You can find this easily enough, but it depends on how you connect them. 4 points will make a cross, but also a square, rectangle, x, etc.

    Proponents of five victims mention a pentagram, an M, the Ichthys symbol, etc.

    Five points gives you a star, but a pentagram is a special star, which I don't see. The M is there, for Maybrick or Masons, but it could be reversed as a W, for Whitechapel, whore, women, and so on, ad infinitum. The explanation for the Ichthys symbol makes me ill, as it depends on a point not in the right place so they move it slightly.

    For others using more victims gives other emblems. The author of The Bell Tower, using JtR in San Francisco committing the bell tower murders, the symbol is a specialized cross with two bars, a long and a short one over the upright. There is a rumor, which means I cannot remember where I read it, that with more victims you can draw a masonic arc and compass.

    Frankly, I think the whole idea of a symbol formed deliberately by JtR with murder scenes is highly perfumed bs. The Ripper crimes were "crimes of opportunity". How could JtR made certain a victim was at a particular spot? I mean check Mitre Square. Eddows was in jail sleeping off a drunk, and when released walked through the square area and met history. If we believe the C5, the Ripper was fleeing the crime scene of Elizabeth Stride, so he ran to Mitre Square because he needed a victim there? Preposterous!

    How do we choose points to draw from in what order? It is like constellations. The Greeks and Romans must have been very drunk to imagine that certain stars formed the fantastic shapes they claimed! Even the Big Dipper and the Southern Cross depend on how you connect the dots.

    Any thoughts from anyone on these?
    And the questions always linger, no real answer in sight

  • #2
    Hello Raven ,

    Interesting post .

    How could JtR made certain a victim was at a particular spot? I mean check Mitre Square. Eddows was in jail sleeping off a drunk, and when released walked through the square area and met history.
    I was under the impression that when she was released from Bishopsgate Cop shop , she said she was heading home .. which is the opposite direction to Mitre Sq ?

    cheers

    moonbegger

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    • #3
      I agree with Raven that the whole drawing lines on maps business is almost certainly of no significance whatsoever. However, I did see an interesting programme about the Zodiac recently which was quite persuasive in suggesting that locations were chosen deliberately to form specific patterns and angles. It was suggested that when one particular location needed to be marked, Zodiac simply hired a cab, gave the cabbie the required location, and killed and left him on that spot. Easy. But in the Ripper case? Extremely doubtful in my view.

      Best wishes,
      Steve.

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      • #4
        a sign

        Hello Raven. I tend to agree with you about its being nonsense. I tried connecting the dots once and was quite certain I saw an extended middle finger.

        A sign?

        Cheers.
        LC

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Steven Russell View Post
          \However, I did see an interesting programme about the Zodiac recently which was quite persuasive in suggesting that locations were chosen deliberately to form specific patterns and angles. It was suggested that when one particular location needed to be marked, Zodiac simply hired a cab, gave the cabbie the required location, and killed and left him on that spot.
          The Zodiac is a special case. His entire motive was to terrorize a city. He got his kicks in seeing the panic the next day, and reading about himself in the papers. He not only wrote letters to the police (which matched writing left at the crime scenes), but sent cryptograms to newspapers to publish, for readers to try to decipher.

          Now, I'm not sure I believe the locations were meaningful, just because I think the Zodiac would have said something-- there might be a line in one of the letters about the police not connecting all the dots, or something.

          But Zodiac is the type of killer to do such a thing-- he'd do it just to keep people reading and studying him.

          Unless we want to theorize that JTR was a terrorist, which is possible, but I don't think likely, then I don't think we should be looking for shapes in the push pins.

          The only other sort of killer who would do such a thing would be some sort of religious zealot, conducting a ritual, but I think they exist only in fiction.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by lynn cates View Post
            Hello Raven. I tend to agree with you about its being nonsense. I tried connecting the dots once and was quite certain I saw an extended middle finger.

            A sign?

            Cheers.
            LC
            +1


            characters

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            • #7
              Hello all ,

              The same question was posed in the Telegraph, Oct 3rd 1888 ..

              SIR - In examining the chart representing the locality of the Whitechapel murders, published in your issue of to-day, it is curious to observe that lines drawn through the spots where the murders were committed assume the exact form of a dagger, the hilt and blade of which pass through the scenes of the sixth, second, first, and third murders, the extremities of the guard making the fourth and fifth. Further, the spot where the portion of the apron belonging to the victim of the Mitre-square tragedy was picked up lies in the imaginary line which forms the hilt of the dagger. Can this possibly afford a clue to the position of the next atrocity? - I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
              moonbegger

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              • #8
                Originally posted by RivkahChaya View Post
                The only other sort of killer who would do such a thing would be some sort of religious zealot, conducting a ritual, but I think they exist only in fiction.
                Well, Richard Ramirez the Night Stalker was killing for the glory of Satan, and Charles Manson was trying to start a race war from which he would arise as the Messiah... but neither of them placed their crimes on the map in any kind of pattern.

                Comment


                • #9
                  [quote=RivkahChaya;238219]
                  Now, I'm not sure I believe the locations were meaningful, just because I think the Zodiac would have said something-- there might be a line in one of the letters about the police not connecting all the dots, or something.
                  [quote]

                  He did say something in one letter about radian angles and, I think, in another, superimposed crosses over his crossed circle symbol which corresponded to murder sites. These have been deemed significant by some but I don't know enough about Zodiac to offer a worthwhile opinion. Seemed persuasive in the documentary I watched but who knows...

                  Best wishes,
                  Steve.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by kensei View Post
                    Well, Richard Ramirez the Night Stalker was killing for the glory of Satan, and Charles Manson was trying to start a race war from which he would arise as the Messiah... but neither of them placed their crimes on the map in any kind of pattern.
                    I forgot about Ramirez-- but to address that, I'm not sure I actually believe it, because he said a lot of really whacked out things between his arrest and his trial that seemed like a set up for an insanity plea.

                    I'm not really sure what Manson meant by messiah, either. I think he might have been a little closer to the original Jewish meaning, of a military leader, with no special religious status, than a Jesus-like figure. But I also think Manson makes up a lot of stuff as he goes along, just to sound as crazy as possible.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Steven Russell View Post
                      He did say something in one letter about radian angles and, I think, in another, superimposed crosses over his crossed circle symbol which corresponded to murder sites. These have been deemed significant by some but I don't know enough about Zodiac to offer a worthwhile opinion. Seemed persuasive in the documentary I watched but who knows...

                      Best wishes,
                      Steve.
                      You are right. I think at the time police thought it would lead them to other bodies of earlier victims, and maybe close some missing persons cases. It didn't.

                      But you are right that he did that. It added information to the "profile" (that word wasn't in use at the time) that he had experience with navigation or cartography (the police were pretty sure he'd been in the military). Whatever the coordinates were, they were real places, and they were reasonably local, but I think the conclusion was that they were meant to send the police on a snipe hunt. However, I think they did patrol those places for a while.

                      Someone tried to interpret them cryptographically, to see if they would serve as a key for one of the undeciphered cryptograms, but nothing came of that, either.

                      The Zodiac was a terrorist in the original sense of the word, and keeping people guessing over which threats were real and which weren't was part of the game for him.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by RivkahChaya View Post
                        I'm not really sure what Manson meant by messiah, either. I think he might have been a little closer to the original Jewish meaning, of a military leader, with no special religious status, than a Jesus-like figure. But I also think Manson makes up a lot of stuff as he goes along, just to sound as crazy as possible.
                        Some direct Manson quotes from a late-80s interview he did with Geraldo Rivera:

                        "I'm Jesus Christ. Whether you want to believe it or not, I don't care."

                        "I never killed anybody. Anybody that knows anything knows that. I never killed anybody."
                        RIVERA- "Would they be dead if it wasn't for you?"
                        "What do you mean? The world wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me! If it wasn't for me you'd all be gone!"

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          It IS interesting and sometimes good entertainment to see if we can make the murder spots pattern look like a unicorn, like some starsign or like the outline of Merlinīs hat.
                          But is it not more useful to see if the murder spots correlate with the paths a suspect would reasonably have moved along...?

                          Just asking,
                          Fisherman

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            still the one?

                            Hello Christer.

                            "But is it not more useful to see if the murder spots correlate with the paths a suspect would reasonably have moved along...?"

                            Possibly. But that depends on whether you seek only one killer.

                            Cheers.
                            LC

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Fisherman View Post
                              It IS interesting and sometimes good entertainment to see if we can make the murder spots pattern look like a unicorn, like some starsign or like the outline of Merlinīs hat.
                              But is it not more useful to see if the murder spots correlate with the paths a suspect would reasonably have moved along...?

                              Just asking,
                              Fisherman
                              You do that, Fisherman? Really?

                              Please tell me you don't look for a Masonic symbol....

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