Final killing -planned ?

[Losmandris]

Things might not be as simple as a choice between a lone serial killer, unknown to everyone else in existence, and a grand conspiracy.

Walter Dew:

SOMEONE, somewhere, shared Jack the Ripper's guilty secret. Of this I am tolerably certain. The man lived somewhere. Each time there was a murder he must have returned home in the early hours of the morning. His clothing must have been bespattered with blood.

These facts alone ought to have been sufficient to arouse suspicion, and to cause a statement to be made to the police.

Suspicion, I have no doubt, was aroused, but that statement to the police was never made.

Why should anyone seek to shield such a monster?

Well, my experience has taught me that the person who remained silent may have been actuated by any one of a number of motives.

It might have been sentiment. It is asking a lot of a wife to give away her husband when she knows in advance that she is handing him over to the gallows. That also applies to a mother.

The motive which prevented the words of betrayal from being spoken might also have been fear. There were many simple-minded people living in the East End of London at this time, who, with the knowledge which would have led to the Ripper being caught and convicted in their possession, would have been afraid to use it. The very terror the murderer inspired might well have been his own safety valve.

Quite apart from these two possibilities it is an established fact that many law-abiding folk are reluctant to communicate valuable information to the authorities in murder and other serious cases.

And this, despite the fact that their silence renders them liable to severe punishment as accessories either before or after the fact.


Chief Inspector Dew was fairly certain someone knew Jack the Ripper, but did not act on that knowledge. Was Dew a grand conspiracy theorist?

One of a number of motives for not turning him in, might be the rewards of blackmail. Does supposing this possibility make me a grand conspiracy theorist?

More importantly, does your dichotomy have the potential for important clues to be avoided, in case of being branded with the dreaded label?

I presume that this is taken from a book he wrote, that he was trying to sell to as many people as possible?

Tristan

[Losmandris]

'Premature', Michael? Are you having a laugh?

When five female sex workers were murdered in the Ipswich area between October and December 2006, do you honestly think the police would have been taken seriously if they had suggested the possibility of different killers, ranging from Russian spies or double agents to anarchists or terrorists, had the crimes remained unsolved? Do you doubt that the murders were committed by one sad man, a frequenter of prostitutes, who became known as the Suffolk Strangler?

Have a safe weekend and keep taking the tablets.

Prize please for best post of the year so far! You have hit the nail on the head there Caz, nice one!

Tristan

[Michael W Richards]

'Premature', Michael? Are you having a laugh?

When five female sex workers were murdered in the Ipswich area between October and December 2006, do you honestly think the police would have been taken seriously if they had suggested the possibility of different killers, ranging from Russian spies or double agents to anarchists or terrorists, had the crimes remained unsolved? Do you doubt that the murders were committed by one sad man, a frequenter of prostitutes, who became known as the Suffolk Strangler?

Have a safe weekend and keep taking the tablets.

Premature was a statement about presuming any group of women within the Unsolved Files as part of a single killers manifest. There is insufficient evidence to do that. There may be a day when that changes, but until it does, its a bunch of women whose killings were not solved, not a Group of Five with the balance of that file Unknown.

As you are well aware, Im disinclined to compare any known series of killings by one man without some hard evidence that shows he killed more than 2 women. This Jack fellow I mean. The one who killed so he could go further, not because he didnt know right from wrong, or because he was some bestial presence lurking in shadows. The man I believe can legitimately be associated with that nickname killed Annies Chapman, of that I have no doubt, and since her murder and the predecessor are almost matching events in the most important facets of these crimes, I dont really have any problem with marrying Polly with the same man.

Youd like to Peter Sutcliffe your way into some argument that shows what can happen, but you dont even have a solid foundation for using that kind of extrapolated data, and without any more than 2 victims by this Jack fellow, you misrepresnting data that is known. Hes only a Double Homicide guy really, someone else killed some of the Unsolved Murders, maybe more than 1 or 2,.. but 2 for sure is safe territory on which to stand for Jack.

Which makes any discussion of comparing large numbers of victims by a single maniac superflous.

[MrBarnett]

Some even claim Emma Smith for the same killer. Why? She described her killers. An almost identical attack on a young woman had taken place in Backchurch Lane a few years before.

But the attack was motivated by lust and it took place in the East End, we are told, so it must have been committed by the same man who killed Tabram (1 out of 39 wounds to her ‘lower part’ = a lust killing) and for the same reasons she must have been killed by the individual who slew Nichols...

[caz]

What I was attempting to highlight was the fact that the these particular years in that particular place were bound to be violent. Too many influences for that to be avoided. The fact that less than half of the Unsolved Murders were suggested as connected by one killer, some which include this throat slitting that for some reason people consider a rarity. Its a rarity now, but not then. Cheap, easiest to obtain and to conceal weapon.

The Trump reference is apt I think, especially for the half hearted coup attempt, because it demonstrates just how influential and dangerous incorrect ideas and false premises can be now that we are so socially mediated. The populous of any civilized city, in this case the great city of London, contains all sorts of elements intent on crime, insurrection, revolt, revolution..for a variety of reasons. All these flash points were there...poverty, density, predjudice, unsatisfied with the government, the Industrial Revolutions' gears were coming loose. There were other killers than someone who sought to mutilate the victims after he kills them, its right there in the stats, I think that its much more prudent to try match one with just one other than use a premise that attempts to link one with all. Its the least probale answer.

But what has any of this to do with the apparently motiveless, unsolved murders of several women, regardless of how many were separate crimes, and how many - or how few - could have been the work of a single repeat offender?

In every decade since then, we Londoners have witnessed or experienced the same or similar social and political elements you mention, and we have also seen a rise in the numbers of serial killers, active alongside all other unconnected murders at any one time. So I simply don't accept your logic that because there were other murders committed besides the C5, that is a good enough reason not to consider more than two at most as the work of the same cut throat. The fact that you concede that one man was almost certainly responsible for the two murders you personally consider to have the most similarities - those of Nichols and Chapman - shows up the fragility of your argument against a repeat offender, who would have been seeking more opportunities as the circumstances allowed.

Robberies have always been far more commonplace than murder, but if five branches of Barclays Bank were targeted, one after another in the same area of a large city, by someone with a gun demanding cash, it would be common sense to consider the crimes could well be linked, either to one robber or the same gang. If two branches were targeted on the same day, where the gunman fled empty-handed from the first, for no clear reason, but a killing [sorry] was made from the second, it would be ridiculous for the police to conclude that because most robberies are individual, unlinked crimes, these bank jobs were probably no exception.

[caz]

Der Arbeter Fraint, Oct 5:

The first murder occurred on Saturday night about a quarter to one.
…
At about one o’clock the steward of the club, Comrade Louis Dimshits, came with his cart from the market. He was the first to notice the dead body.

So the paper knew when the murder occurred, but also claimed the body was 'discovered' at 1am.
Please explain this gross anomaly.

What 'gross anomaly'?

If 'about' 12.45 was even roughly in line with Dr Blackwell's estimated time of death, then a discovery at 'about' 1am would be perfectly in line with that, would it not?

As nobody witnessed the murder itself, or the killer fleeing the scene afterwards, the actual time he struck, prior to the body being found, had to be an educated guess, based on the estimated timings given by the last witness to see the victim alive.

What's so difficult to grasp about this?

[rjpalmer]

The reason police are a lot less eager to 'connect the dots' than us armchair profilers is that there are several cases on record where a man has been wrongly furnished with an alibi, because some detective assumed his suspect couldn't have killed 'x' because he had an alibi for 'y.'

And if you're going to clear the books by charging your boy Jack with every murder you think is related, than there is a great deal of probability that you will be allowing some other reprobate to walk the streets a free man. Some folks in Boston think this happened in one or more of the 'Strangler' cases.

Thus, theoretical arguments aside, there's a lot more danger in assuming similar cases are related, than in assuming they aren't. Besides, the law insists that each case is tried on its own merits--as it should be.

We have to climb the ladder one rung at a time.

[caz]

Things might not be as simple as a choice between a lone serial killer, unknown to everyone else in existence, and a grand conspiracy.

Walter Dew:

SOMEONE, somewhere, shared Jack the Ripper's guilty secret. Of this I am tolerably certain. The man lived somewhere. Each time there was a murder he must have returned home in the early hours of the morning. His clothing must have been bespattered with blood.

These facts alone ought to have been sufficient to arouse suspicion, and to cause a statement to be made to the police.

Suspicion, I have no doubt, was aroused, but that statement to the police was never made.

Why should anyone seek to shield such a monster?

Well, my experience has taught me that the person who remained silent may have been actuated by any one of a number of motives.

It might have been sentiment. It is asking a lot of a wife to give away her husband when she knows in advance that she is handing him over to the gallows. That also applies to a mother.

The motive which prevented the words of betrayal from being spoken might also have been fear. There were many simple-minded people living in the East End of London at this time, who, with the knowledge which would have led to the Ripper being caught and convicted in their possession, would have been afraid to use it. The very terror the murderer inspired might well have been his own safety valve.

Quite apart from these two possibilities it is an established fact that many law-abiding folk are reluctant to communicate valuable information to the authorities in murder and other serious cases.

And this, despite the fact that their silence renders them liable to severe punishment as accessories either before or after the fact.


Chief Inspector Dew was fairly certain someone knew Jack the Ripper, but did not act on that knowledge. Was Dew a grand conspiracy theorist?

One of a number of motives for not turning him in, might be the rewards of blackmail. Does supposing this possibility make me a grand conspiracy theorist?

More importantly, does your dichotomy have the potential for important clues to be avoided, in case of being branded with the dreaded label?

Dew's observations were made in an era before much was known about the ability of many serial killers to operate under the noses of everyone, including close family members, friends and work colleagues, without giving anyone the least cause for suspicion. Often, after capture, people will comment that he was a "loner" or an "oddball", or was just not particularly sociable or likeable, but rarely does anyone say: "I always suspected him of those murders". It's far more common for people to suspect relatives, neighbours or other associates, who turn out to be completely innocent.

[caz]

The reason police are a lot less eager to 'connect the dots' than us armchair profilers is that there are several cases on record where a man has been wrongly furnished with an alibi, because some detective assumed his suspect couldn't have killed 'x' because he had an alibi for 'y.'

And if you're going to clear the books by charging your boy Jack with every murder you think is related, than there is a great deal of probability that you will be allowing some other reprobate to walk the streets a free man. Some folks in Boston think this happened in one or more of the 'Strangler' cases.

Thus, theoretical arguments aside, there's a lot more danger in assuming similar cases are related, than in assuming they aren't. Besides, the law insists that each case is tried on its own merits--as it should be.

We have to climb the ladder one rung at a time.

I agree with that, if we are talking about scores of cases with little reason to link them to one criminal. But we have been climbing the C5 ladder one rung at a time since 1888, and we are no nearer to putting a single person in the dock for any one of those five cases.

[rjpalmer]

Dew's observations were made in an era before much was known about the ability of many serial killers to operate under the noses of everyone, including close family members, friends and work colleagues, without giving anyone the least cause for suspicion. Often, after capture, people will comment that he was a "loner" or an "oddball", or was just not particularly sociable or likeable, but rarely does anyone say: "I always suspected him of those murders". It's far more common for people to suspect relatives, neighbours or other associates, who turn out to be completely innocent.

Well, Caz, and my apologies for injecting politics into the discussion, in the age of Trump, it seems equally possible that raving psychopaths walk among us, and a huge swath of the population simply doesn't have the ability to recognize them.

There is always the possibility that the inevitable 'He always seemed like such a great guy,' says more about the dim-wittedness of the commentator than the actual private behavior of the psychopath in question.

[caz]

Where Trump was concerned [and I use the past tense deliberately] I suspect it was much more the unwillingness to see what he was, and how it would all end in tears, than the inability. Surely, millions of your own countrymen couldn't have been that dim-witted - could they?

Serial killers [in the JtR sense] have the sense not to advertise. They keep their psychopathic deeds anonymous for as long as possible, unlike Emperors wearing no clothes.

[rjpalmer]

Surely, millions of your own countrymen couldn't have been that dim-witted - could they?

I will diplomatically decline to answer.

But I suspect that many of us who are living through these strange times are wondering if there might be a sort of 'color blindness' when it comes to a certain type of dangerous personality.

The urge to flock to the largest primate pounding wildly on his chest might have served an evolutionary purpose, and now its poisonous downside is still in our DNA.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Dew's observations were made in an era before much was known about the ability of many serial killers to operate under the noses of everyone, including close family members, friends and work colleagues, without giving anyone the least cause for suspicion. Often, after capture, people will comment that he was a "loner" or an "oddball", or was just not particularly sociable or likeable, but rarely does anyone say: "I always suspected him of those murders". It's far more common for people to suspect relatives, neighbours or other associates, who turn out to be completely innocent.

Catherine Eddowes supposedly said: I have come back to earn the reward offered for the apprehension of the Whitechapel murderer. I think I know him.

This is not corroborated and is only one anecdote, but on the other hand, do you have any evidence that people nowadays are more likely to be aware of something odd or unusual about people who turn out to be serial killers?

As you suggest, there are many false positives, and being wise in hindsight is not evidence for being more 'switched-on', but it is evidence for people rationalising away their ignorance, after the fact.

[DJA]

Serial killers had been around well before Jack the Ripper, the term being coined mid 20th century.

List of serial killers before 1900 - Wikipedia

[Michael W Richards]

But what has any of this to do with the apparently motiveless, unsolved murders of several women, regardless of how many were separate crimes, and how many - or how few - could have been the work of a single repeat offender?

In every decade since then, we Londoners have witnessed or experienced the same or similar social and political elements you mention, and we have also seen a rise in the numbers of serial killers, active alongside all other unconnected murders at any one time. So I simply don't accept your logic that because there were other murders committed besides the C5, that is a good enough reason not to consider more than two at most as the work of the same cut throat. The fact that you concede that one man was almost certainly responsible for the two murders you personally consider to have the most similarities - those of Nichols and Chapman - shows up the fragility of your argument against a repeat offender, who would have been seeking more opportunities as the circumstances allowed.

Robberies have always been far more commonplace than murder, but if five branches of Barclays Bank were targeted, one after another in the same area of a large city, by someone with a gun demanding cash, it would be common sense to consider the crimes could well be linked, either to one robber or the same gang. If two branches were targeted on the same day, where the gunman fled empty-handed from the first, for no clear reason, but a killing [sorry] was made from the second, it would be ridiculous for the police to conclude that because most robberies are individual, unlinked crimes, these bank jobs were probably no exception.

Ill respond by only this Caz, since I can be long winded....we dont know that any of them, save the first 2 Canonicals, lacked motives beyond killing. In those 2 cases the motive is revealed. He killed so he could cut more. He coveted. In contrast, Liz Strides killer killed her. Killings are not similar, all are unique in some way or another, but the core element, the motive for doing the act, is why the killer kills. Until you can figure out why any of these women were killed you wont know what motivations were there.

I can see man killing to obtain female internal organs, ill tempered man in a violent encounter with a woman, someone being silenced, and someone close to the victim either seeking revenge or punishing in some way. The basics seem plausible to me, because evidence that might support those ideas actually exists.