Does The Killer Scope Out Locations Before He Kills?

[Michael W Richards]

Hi Abby,

Doesn't it depend on one's perspective? From the killer's point of view, any dangers he could foresee were outweighed by the urge to go to town on Kelly.

From Kelly's point of view, she would not have been thinking it was 'the safest place' for the ripper to carve her up, would she? Quite the reverse, she would have felt safer indoors, with or without a male companion, than she'd be outdoors alone, where the killer had attacked all his victims to date.

Love,

Caz
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Funny you would write that but not take it into serious consideration with Kellys murder. So uncharacteristic of the known facets of the Ripper.

[c.d.]

Funny you would write that but not take it into serious consideration with Kellys murder. So uncharacteristic of the known facets of the Ripper.

Based on how many killings? Hardly a large enough database to draw hard and fast conclusions as to what the killer might or might not do.

If he wanted the luxury of more time alone with the victim then killing indoors would be the answer.

c.d.

[Michael W Richards]

Based on how many killings? Hardly a large enough database to draw hard and fast conclusions as to what the killer might or might not do.

If he wanted the luxury of more time alone with the victim then killing indoors would be the answer.

c.d.

ALL of the previous killings, including the other ones in the Unsolved File, were outdoor murders. Just what sort of ratio is at your comfort zone?

[c.d.]

ALL of the previous killings, including the other ones in the Unsolved File, were outdoor murders. Just what sort of ratio is at your comfort zone?

You are correct. All of the other killings were outdoors. But what does that tell us? Only that the others were outdoors. Period. It does not in any way confirm that the killer will not deviate from that.

c.d.

[Robert St Devil]

Apologies, in my earlier post I mistakenly said Helson's words were from 4 October, when they were in fact reported on the 4th September. So yes, they predate poor Annie's death.
Dr Llewellyn's description of Polly's wounds are vague and frankly incomprehensible, but the press reports are pretty consistent in describing a central wound from crotch almost to breastbone, others on each side almost as long, at least one of which extended from the crotch along the top of the thigh and over the hip. Tell me that description doesn't match the wounds visible in Kate's mortuary photo.

Helson also said (in the MA) that "The stays were shorter than usual, and did not reach the hip". So would have been no impediment to removing the pelvic organs, had the killer progressed that far. They certainly didn't stop her intestines from protruding.

Thanks for the clarification, Joshua, I know that you are always on-point when it comes to citing periodical sources so I simply figured that you were citing an Oct 4 interview.

I still base the manner of cuts on Dr Llewellyn's description; yes, I agree tho that they are vague. {Take into consideration that he was so reserved about mentioning his initial observation of a cut across her private parts before the members of the inquest that he chose the much more sterile & dismissive description of "several incisions across her abdomen"}. I have the cuts being more like a block shaped U: I_I : with 2 deep cuts running along either side of her abdomen and a cut along her privates.

[Michael W Richards]

You are correct. All of the other killings were outdoors. But what does that tell us? Only that the others were outdoors. Period. It does not in any way confirm that the killer will not deviate from that.

c.d.

No, it merely demonstrates that all the killings in the Unsolved File are in contrast with this one murder in at least that factor. Considering that Marys murder also has other incongruities with just the Canonical Group, it strongly suggests that this was not a serial killer/mutilator who killed strangers as he met them outdoors.

[c.d.]

No, it merely demonstrates that all the killings in the Unsolved File are in contrast with this one murder in at least that factor. Considering that Marys murder also has other incongruities with just the Canonical Group, it strongly suggests that this was not a serial killer/mutilator who killed strangers as he met them outdoors.

Well it is not like moving from killing outdoors to killing indoors requires suspension of the laws of physics. And again we are dealing with a very small database from which to draw conclusions. And if we take into account that the killer might have wanted more time alone with his victim ( a very reasonable assumption) then moving indoors would seem a logical extension of his M.O.

And no I don't believe that other incongruities associated with Mary's killing warrant the conclusion that it was someone other than Jack who killed her and are certainly no reason to arrive at "strongly suggests."

c.d.

[Chava]

i think there were a couple of other sightings of a man with reddish hair too-someone suspicious being followed after chapman I beleive?

Lawende's man in the Eddowes killing sounds suspiciously familiar--fair complexion; fair/sandy/full moustache. Lawende estimates him as an inch or two taller. But we don't know how tall Lawende himself was and I think that tends to make a difference when someone is estimating someone else's height. Also there is a reference somewhere to him having sandy eyelashes but I can't find that right now. Both guys are broad-shouldered as well.

[Abby Normal]

Lawende's man in the Eddowes killing sounds suspiciously familiar--fair complexion; fair/sandy/full moustache. Lawende estimates him as an inch or two taller. But we don't know how tall Lawende himself was and I think that tends to make a difference when someone is estimating someone else's height. Also there is a reference somewhere to him having sandy eyelashes but I can't find that right now. Both guys are broad-shouldered as well.

yes. so we have blotchy, lawendes man, wilsons man, and as i said another red haired man that was acting suspiciously and being followed after the chapman murder. does anyone know what that sighting was?

[Joshua Rogan]

yes. so we have blotchy, lawendes man, wilsons man, and as i said another red haired man that was acting suspiciously and being followed after the chapman murder. does anyone know what that sighting was?

Mrs Fiddymont's?

https://wiki.casebook.org/mrs-2.html

[DJA]

Lawende's man in the Eddowes killing sounds suspiciously familiar--fair complexion; fair/sandy/full moustache. Lawende estimates him as an inch or two taller. But we don't know how tall Lawende himself was and I think that tends to make a difference when someone is estimating someone else's height. Also there is a reference somewhere to him having sandy eyelashes but I can't find that right now. Both guys are broad-shouldered as well.

Where did you get that lot from?

[Abby Normal]

Mrs Fiddymont's?

https://wiki.casebook.org/mrs-2.html

yes thats the one! thanks JR!

joseph taylor was the witness:



Resident of 22 Steward Street, Spitalfields.

Was passing the Prince Albert public house in Brushfield Street when he was alerted to a suspicious man who had just been seen by Mrs. Fiddymont and Mary Chappell in the pub.

Joseph Taylor states that as soon as his attention was attracted to the man he followed him. He walked rapidly, and came alongside him, but did not speak to him. The man was rather thin, about 5ft. 8in. high, and apparently between 40 and 50 years of age. He had a shabby genteel look, pepper and salt trousers which fitted badly, and dark coat. When Taylor came alongside him the man glanced at him, and Taylor's description of the look was, "His eyes were as wild as a hawk's." Taylor is a perfectly reliable man, well known throughout the neighbourhood. The man walked, he says, holding his coat together at the top. He had a nervous and frightened way about him. He wore a ginger-coloured moustache, and had short sandy hair. Taylor ceased to follow him, but watched him as far as Halfmoon-street, where he became lost to view.^[1]

[Michael W Richards]

Mrs Fiddymont's?

https://wiki.casebook.org/mrs-2.html

To my mind an excellent candidate for Annies murderer too. He could not have gone on killing though...so for many he is set aside. Pity.

[Michael W Richards]

The murder sites were not all similar. Nichols is killed on the street, Chapman and Stride in yards, Eddowes in a square, Kelly indoors. Martha, if you include her, was killed in an even more fundamentally different kind of location.

If the killer were selecting the scene of the crime, would you expect them to be more similar to each other?

Excluding Kelly they all have at least one common characteristic...they are outdoors. So its a matter of separating the wheat from the chaff...which of the outdoor murders seems most connected by the killers actions and activities?

For me thats Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and MacKenzie.

[caz]

I suspected he killed Tabram for ages. But the MOs are markedly different. Bayonet vs knife. Frenzied stabbing vs not-at-all frenzied cutting. And more than that--because I am a Mr Blotchy fan--I think his MO had been carefully thought-out over a long time...

I'm a Blotchy 'fan' too, Chava [perhaps not the right word!], but not to the extent of ruling out suspects on that basis. Similarly, I'm nowhere near 100% on Tabram, but when I compare Robert Napper's murder of Rachel Nickell in the summer of 1992 [outdoors, 49 stab wounds] with that of Samantha Bisset in November 1993 [in her own home], I find it impossible to rule out Tabram on the differences in MO between her murder and that of Mary Kelly:

'On 15 July 1992 on Wimbledon Common, Napper stabbed the young mother Rachel Nickel forty-nine times in front of her son Alex, then aged two, who clung on to his mother's body begging her to wake up. Napper was questioned about unsolved attacks on other women during the year, but was eliminated from inquiries.

In November 1993, in the Bisset home in Plumstead, Napper stabbed 27-year-old Samantha Bisset in her neck and chest, killing her, and then sexually assaulted and smothered her four-year-old daughter, Jazmine Jemima Bisset. In her sitting room, Napper mutilated Samantha's body, taking away parts of her body as a trophy. The crime scene was reportedly so grisly that the police photographer assigned to the case was forced to take two years' leave after witnessing it.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Napper

The differences between Tabram and Kelly could be put down to the location, time available, the killer's experimentation, his relative experience and desired outcome.

I am also open to the same man inflicting the terrible injury on Emma Smith, which caused her death.

Love,

Caz
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