The locations

[RivkahChaya]

I realize that people have tried to connect the dots with the locations, and tried to make them symbolic in that way, but I have a different question about the locations.

Was there anything about then, aside from there offering relative seclusion, that would have been attractive? Leaving aside MJK for the moment, and assuming that JTR picked the locations, is it possible that any of them were meaningful to him in anyway, that they either were part of his fantasy, or else he wanted top desecrate them in some way? Desecrate is too strong a work, but leaving a corpse on the doorstep of the guy who just fired you would be a statement, to say the least.

Now, don't get me wrong: I am not suggesting the motive for any of these murders was to leave a mutilated corpse on someone's doorstep. I think JTR killed first and foremost because it satisfied some urge that was probably sexual; however, I just wonder who chose the locations, JTR, or the victims?

If Chapman regularly took customers to 29 Hanbury, you'd think Cadosche would have heard thuds against the fence before, and there's been a lot of speculation over why Eddowes would go toward Mitre Square after being released from jail, so possibly she was enticed there, or taken there unconscious.

So, Londoners, what, generally, do the locations mean to people?

[Phil H]

I don't think he did pick the locations, Rivkah - the women did.

One of the common features of all four outdoor (canonical) locations is the presence of a YIELDING wooden surface - stable doors in Buck's Row; the fence at No 29; and the doors behind murder corner in Mitre Square. (If Stride was a Ripper victim then there were double doors at Dutfield's Yard too - though somewhat public!)

As Scott Nelson's article in Ripperologist 130 suggests, JtR may have been familiar with the backyard of No 29, having dossed down on the stairs on ocassion.

I discount the sometimes proposed "Jewish" links of the sites as too vague and as probably true for any particular site in the East End.

Phil

[Nick Spring]

Definitely opportunistic i think and made the best of a quiet corner as per mitre square, with an escape route. However he may have been with some of these women on a prior occasion and knew in advance where they would go.

Hanbury Street was very risky but perhaps blood lust overrides all once he was engaged with a likely victim.

I think also that good knowledge of the area gave him confidence that he could escape.

[Bridewell]

Definitely opportunistic i think and made the best of a quiet corner as per mitre square, with an escape route. However he may have been with some of these women on a prior occasion and knew in advance where they would go.

Hanbury Street was very risky but perhaps blood lust overrides all once he was engaged with a likely victim.

I think also that good knowledge of the area gave him confidence that he could escape.

Hi Nick,

I don't see how good knowledge of the area would help him in the yard of 29, Hanbury Street. If someone entered the yard through the only access point he was cornered.

[RivkahChaya]

I don't see how good knowledge of the area would help him in the yard of 29, Hanbury Street. If someone entered the yard through the only access point he was cornered.

That's a good point that he would be cornered. Going inside, and hoping everyone was asleep would be his only option. I see now that it's pretty clear the women chose, or at least suggested, the locations. I didn't realize until recently that it was unusual for Cadosch to be using the outhouse in the middle of the night-- I had wondered before why he wasn't using a chamber pot overnight, because I didn't realize it was his intestines, rather than his bladder, getting him up.

I wanted to ask, because it occurred to me that if 29 Hanbury was a common place for prostitution activity, it was odd no one had heard anything before, but I guess that isn't the case; I have always thoroughly rejected the idea of the locations being symbolic in some large sense, like, forming a symbol if you connect them, that I realized I had not even allowed for them to be meaningful to the killer for some much more mundane reason, so I just wanted to see what other people thought, but I think those who responded are right, and the women picked the locations.

[Phil H]

See Sugden re dossers sleeping on the staircase of No 29.

I believe that No 29 may hold clues to the Ripper, since I don't think even a risk taker would follow a woman to a place he could not see, and which lay behind TWO closed doors. Therefore, I believe it is highly likely Jack had been there before and knew the layout.

I also think that the degree to which the yard was overlooked, not only by the windows of 29, but also those of adjoining properties, indicates that the murder took place earlier than dawn when it was still light and fewer people were likely to be stirring.

Scott Nelson hypothesises in his article, that Jack may have been the dosser on the stairs, would have used the privy in the yard and thus knew the lay of the land. I find that highly convincing though there is no proof, of course.

Phil

[Bridewell]

I didn't realize until recently that it was unusual for Cadosch to be using the outhouse in the middle of the night-- I had wondered before why he wasn't using a chamber pot overnight, because I didn't realize it was his intestines, rather than his bladder, getting him up.

Hi Rivkah,

Who has determined that Cadosch's problem was with his intestines, as opposed to his bladder - and on what basis? I think it much more likely that his operation was related to a urological complaint. Whichever was the case, I imagine that the first visit to the privy was to empty a chamber pot, and the second when he needed to use the toilet again before leaving for work.

[RivkahChaya]

A couple of other posters mentioned that it was intestinal. Or maybe it was his stomach-- vomiting. Maybe he was taking some kind of medication with mercury, and that will induce vomiting and diarrhea, and IIRC, was at one time given for urological complaints, and I'm pretty sure that was still the case in 1888.

It just made sense when someone said it that he wouldn't keep walking out to the privy just to pee, meaning pulling on pants and boots (one assumes), when he could just use some kind of chamber pot, but that he would go out for something that created more of an odor, and that you really wouldn't want in the room where you were trying to sleep.

[Phil H]

It also wasn't the "middle of the night" when Codosche went outside.

If you think about the time Cross and Paul were up and heading to work. By the time Cadosche says he was in his yard, half the East End was getting up or out and about.

Phil

[Phil H]

To add, Rivkah, that I think chamber pots would have been used for both purposes in the C19th.

I can remember as a child in the mid 50s using the earth closet of my grandparents' (later my aunt's) cottage in a village in rural Lincolnshire. This was before sewage was introduced to the village c 1958. The privy was down the garden path some distance from the house itself - not unlike Cadosche's.

But no one would have thought of using it at night, even in the days of electric torches.

Every bedroom had a china chamber pot, or "guzzunda" (goes under) under the bed). It had a small amount of disinfactant in it which would have offset the smell a bit. But they were used for all purposes after dark.

I don't think smells were something that concerned ordinary people then as much as they would today.

Phil

[RivkahChaya]

I don't think smells were something that concerned ordinary people then as much as they would today.

Phil

Probably not, but the smell of vomit, or of one's fecal matter when one is sick, can be especially penetrating, and if you are already not feeling well, there is sort of a feedback loop, with bad smells.

The fact is that he did bother to make his way to the privy that night/early dawn, when it either wasn't his habit, or it was such a rare occurrence, that he didn't have a chamber pot, and yeah, I'm aware that people had them well into the 1950s. My father recalls having them, because he lived in a house where the plumbing had been retrofitted, and frequently froze in the winter, and I know Jewish people who remembered using them before there was city water operating on gravity, because using the toilet (well, flushing it), meant turning on an electric switch, so they used them on Shabbes. I never found it hard to simply not flush, when we had well water, but I guess if you had grown up without plumbing, it didn't bother you.

All I was getting at was that if Cadosche usually got up a couple of times in the night/early am, then it's odd a thud against the fence would stand out in his memory; I'm forced to think that either it was unusual for him to go out at night, or that he was questioned after he already knew about the murder. If the latter is the case, then his memory may not be especially reliable, because people do "reform" memories to fit with new information about the past. If Cadosche already knew there was a dead body on the other side of the fence, then he may have been prepared to say he heard a thud against the fence at that exact spot, during his second time out, even if he really just heard a thud somewhere, and wasn't really aware of the location at the time, or heard a thud one of the times he went out, and wasn't sure which, but figured it must have been the time of the murder.

Elizabeth Loftus has been studying human memory for many years, including the many ways in which people remember things wrongly, or even remember things that didn't happen at all. You might be interested in her work, as she has testified quite often as an expert witness in criminal cases that have relied mainly on witness testimony. She has also pretty much debunked the "repressed memory syndrome" phenomenon, where people supposedly can experience PTSD without remembering the initial trauma, even though the theory behind it is that the memory was suppressed in the first place to prevent the person from experiencing trauma. I'm not making that up.

[Phil H]

Are you aware, Rivkah, that Cadosche's integrity as a witness has been called into question? I think there's a thread on it.

Phil

[Nick Spring]

Hi All, I do believe that the murderer had prior knowledge of these sites from previous visits. It makes some sense in that he was never caught on the spot.

Still highly risky but an urge to kill became too strong. Does this infer a degree of planning rather than random attacks?

Hanbury Street i agree does perhaps hold some clues to all this but i'm not sure what.

I'm not sure what the backyard had at the very back as an escape route, maybe through a broken fence over a wall.

To go back through house just doesn't make sense, in terms of people were in the house and timing wise would have been stirring for the day. Also he couldn't know what would greet him once he was out in the street.

It is curious.

[Nic1950]

Hi all,

Great thread! His knowledge of the streets is not being questioned, it's clear to me that he has frequented most places including Hanbury Street. It is possible he had been there before but what reason? I don't think he checked it out for a possible murder site but maybe with someone else, looking for someone, it may even have been common knowledge that it was used for dossers/ prostitutes etc. The locations have definitely not been planned by Jack but maybe have been selected at that moment when he was with his victim " lets go down here as it is quiet" maybe the victim proposed the idea. I think he has gone out with full intent to murder and has used women who as part of their profession have be alone at some point and together with his knowledge of the streets and theirs it got the perfect location.
Thanks
Nic

[Fisherman]

Opting for Lechmere, I find myself agreeing with a number of things said here.

The women chose the spots - yes, perhaps so, but only within a limited area; his working trek route and itīs immediate surroundings. He would know that most prostitutes had nearny spots to go for business, so he never risked to be taken very much astray from his work route.

The killer was familiar with the spots where he killed - yes, emphatically so, since they belonged to his trodden routes to work and his motherīs place.

He would also of course be aware of the changing circumstances connected to the spots. If the lights were out in a certain street, he would know this. If there was ongoing surveillance for some reason at some spot, then he would know this too.

If he was detected, he would have the upper hand of knowing all escape routes like the back of his hand, being a carman and walking on well-known streets. If he was not detected, he would in all probability stay on the route to work, since that provided him with a reason for being there.

All the best,
Fisherman