The locations

[The Good Michael]

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.

If he was detected, he would have the upper hand of knowing all escape routes like the back of his hand,

Hold on a sec Kemosabe. The world is full of people who have daily routes but never stray from them. That includes paper deliverers, milk men, bus drivers, students....the whole gamut. If a person were a killer who wanted to learn the streets for nefarious purposes and who happened to have a route that brought him noticeably close to victims, sure, why not. But having a route doesn't mean knowing what's around it unless one has a purpose for doing so.

Having a daily route, being up to no good, and wanting to be discreet are not interconnected unless you've already made up your mind that someone is the murderer. It's the cart before the horse here. Again, no one would typically just know everything about an area if they simply used certain routes to go to work or school or to the market. Perhaps an alternate route due to inclement weather or whatnot I can see. But most people pay very little attention to such things.

Cheers,

Mike

[Monty]

Kill on the spot you regularly frequent....Genius.

The evidence supports the victims chose the spot. Though the needs were different, both required seclusion, and the murderer knew that.

Monty

[Fisherman]

Hold on a sec Kemosabe. The world is full of people who have daily routes but never stray from them. That includes paper deliverers, milk men, bus drivers, students....the whole gamut. If a person were a killer who wanted to learn the streets for nefarious purposes and who happened to have a route that brought him noticeably close to victims, sure, why not. But having a route doesn't mean knowing what's around it unless one has a purpose for doing so.

Having a daily route, being up to no good, and wanting to be discreet are not interconnected unless you've already made up your mind that someone is the murderer. It's the cart before the horse here. Again, no one would typically just know everything about an area if they simply used certain routes to go to work or school or to the market. Perhaps an alternate route due to inclement weather or whatnot I can see. But most people pay very little attention to such things.

Cheers,

Mike

Hi Mike!

So you are seriously suggesting that a carman with twenty years plus of experience of criss-crossing through London would not necessarily know anything at all about the streets adjacent to his working route...?

Are you sure you thought that over before posting it, amigo?

On a general level, I agree - I have a walking route to MY job, that I follow every day, and I donīt stray from it, so I donīt pick up much about the streets adjacent to it.
But if I had picked up a taxi car at the end of that route and started driving around town, well - thatīs a whole different ballgame, Mike.

As for "Having a daily route, being up to no good, and wanting to be discreet are not interconnected unless you've already made up your mind that someone is the murderer", Iīd say that this borders on philosophy - because what I have made my mind up about - or not - does not in any way have some sort of influence on the given facts. I donīt propose something that was not there. Lechmere was a carman, and as a carman he would spend his days on whichever streets his work took him to, giving him a very superior knowledge of the layout and current state of the London streets.

It also deserves to be pointed out that there is no reason at all to postulate that Lechmere must have kept track of any other streets that the ones that would take him directly to his work and the streets he passed when walking that job trek. None of the "working route-victims", if you like (Tabram, Nichols, Chapman and Kelly) fell prey at a spot that was not visible from or directly situated on either Hanbury Street or Old Montague Street.

The fact that he would have known a lot about many, many other streets just the same is another thing altogether - but it was something that came naturally with his job.

All the best, Mike!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Kill on the spot your regularly frequent....Genius.
Monty

Genius? No.

But the fact that the term "comfort zone" is so often used in discussions of where serial killers work needs to be weighed in. The fact that we are very much aware that serialists often kill their first victims close to their homes is also something that may need to be given afterthought here.

As long as the police did not suspect Lechmere specifically, killing along his working route was no threat to him. And throwing in Stride and Eddowes into the game would have made things very much harder for the police.

Itīs only in retrospect that we know about the correspondence inbetween the Lechmere haunts and the killing grounds. The exact same thing has been the case in many a police investigation - itīs not until you find the killer that the pieces all fall in place.

That is not to say that Lechmere was the killer. But is is to say that the pieces all fall in place on a geographical level in his case - and in his case only, for all we know.

The best,
Fisherman

[Monty]

There is a difference between killing close to home and killing on a regular route, with the latter running a high risk of recognition.

The arguement that the sites were known to Cross because of his route does not condemn him, as the counter is equally valid.

You need to think these theories through.

Anyway, this isnt a Cross thread. So best move on.

Monty

[Phil H]

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.

Unless Annie was killed at much the same hour of the morning as was Polly - c 3.30am. It would have been darker, fewer people around, less risk.

The curious thing to me about his escape from No 29 is that there were NO bloodstains - handprints or footprints - despite what he had done. How did he do it?

Phil

[RivkahChaya]

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

What witness hasn't? Anyway, in order to deliberately lie in a way that is useful, Cadosche has to know what is going on. Some witness who are questioned by police don't even realize they are doing it, but are actually doing something similar to what psychics do when they give "cold readings." This is, essentially, giving back to the police information the police have given them, with embellishments. Part of police interrogation training now includes not giving suspects any information about the crime, but this is a new addition to police training. There's a show on youtube showing how New York City police fed a confession of a brutal rape and attempted murder to five teenagers, and got four of them to give it back, resulting in all five spending many years in prison. I think it's called "The Central Park Jogger: what went wrong?"

But the fact that the term "comfort zone" is so often used in discussions of where serial killers work needs to be weighed in. The fact that we are very much aware that serialists often kill their first victims close to their homes is also something that may need to be given afterthought here.

I've heard "comfort zone" used on TV a lot, but do police and the FBI really ever say that?

At any rate, if memory serves, many people who become very calculating serial killers nonetheless commit their first murder on impulse. Jeffrey Dahmer killed a guy in his (Dahmer's) own home, and not only was it not planned, it was almost an accident. Now, Dahmer had been killing, dissecting, and skinning animals for years, so, you know, tick-tock, but still, Dahmer says he was in shock for a while, after killing this guy, and didn't kill another person for a long time; it took months for the creeping realization to take a hold, that he liked killing a person, and even then, he fought the idea, and used to get drunk a lot, until he was too drunk to leave his apartment, so he wouldn't go looking for someone to kill. Talk about wrestling with your demons.

What was my point? Oh, yeah, that killing in a "comfort zone" might be a matter of coincidence. David Berkowitz, after all, lived in Yonkers, and used to go to Queens to shoot people.

[Prosector]

In the discussions about escape routes from the back yard in Hanbury Street it is worth remembering that the police thought that he may have hopped over one of the fences and made his way out through the hallway of an adjoining house - they were probably also left unlocked at night like 29. If you look at the contemporary photographs these were typical London back yard fences, a little under 6 feet high and, at least on one side, with two horizontal rails, easy enough for a reasonably fit man to scale. I believe that the Ripper had recce'd all the sites in advance and chose them (except for the last one) precisely because they did have at least two escape routes.

Prosector

[Fisherman]

There is a difference between killing close to home and killing on a regular route, with the latter running a high risk of recognition.

The arguement that the sites were known to Cross because of his route does not condemn him, as the counter is equally valid.

You need to think these theories through.

Anyway, this isnt a Cross thread. So best move on.

Monty

It is not a Cross thread, no - itīs a thread discussing the locations. And many, many serialists have killed and/or dumped victims in comfort zones. Killing in areas you are not accustomed to carries problems with it - how to escape, what to expect etcetera, etcetera. Avoiding doing so is to avoid an unneccessary risk.

Since you brought it up, Monty, I donīt think that anybody has suggested that Lechmere should be condemned because he happened to have each and everyone of the Ripper killings happen along his routes. The geographical implications are more useful to rule somebody out than in - that is to say, if the killings had taken place around St Jamesīs park, we would all be inclined to see that as an implication of innocence on Lechmereīs behalf. And that is because we all know that having the killings happen in a zone that you frequent is compatible with you being the killer. You, and anybody else who have had reason to use the zone in question at the crucial removes in time.

All of this is very, very basic - but since it is coupled to Lechmere of all people, it is questioned and/or ridiculed anyway. Genius, was it...?

Maybe other people than me ought to think things through, Monty.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

I've heard "comfort zone" used on TV a lot, but do police and the FBI really ever say that?

At any rate, if memory serves, many people who become very calculating serial killers nonetheless commit their first murder on impulse. Jeffrey Dahmer killed a guy in his (Dahmer's) own home, and not only was it not planned, it was almost an accident. Now, Dahmer had been killing, dissecting, and skinning animals for years, so, you know, tick-tock, but still, Dahmer says he was in shock for a while, after killing this guy, and didn't kill another person for a long time; it took months for the creeping realization to take a hold, that he liked killing a person, and even then, he fought the idea, and used to get drunk a lot, until he was too drunk to leave his apartment, so he wouldn't go looking for someone to kill. Talk about wrestling with your demons.

What was my point? Oh, yeah, that killing in a "comfort zone" might be a matter of coincidence. David Berkowitz, after all, lived in Yonkers, and used to go to Queens to shoot people.

And where did Dahmer first kill? In his home, yes. And that is the heart of a personīs comfort zone, the centre of the radius representing that area, normally.
All you need to do, Rivkah, is to ask yourself why serialists so very often are tied namewise to a certain area; the Green river killer, the Genessee river killer, the Trailside killer. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

If serial killers had done their homework, they would never kill and/or dump people at the same general sites over and over again. The Long Island killer, if he had dumped all his victims in different states or cities or at least on different shores, how would we discern him if his MO varied? Right, we would not. But since he regards Long Island as his comfort zone and chooses to dump his victims there, we can see that we have a serialist at hand.

This will have changed over the years - we can travel by car today, and so we can have a lot bigger comfort zones than the ordinary East-Ender could have back then. Also, the papers offer all serialist a crash course in how to avoid getting caught, by reporting about these things, and how a killers comfort zone is likely to give him away. Change the sites and swop MO:s and you will probably never get caught if you are cautious. My own personal bet is that there are more than one guy out there that has taken advantage of this. Maybe Berkowitz used Queens to kill because he wanted his own doorstep clean. But he STILL chose a comfort zone - Queens - to kill in! Others, like Robert Hansen, have killed very far from home - but in a restricted area nevertheless - a comfort zone. A home away from home, if you like.

More or less every time a serial killer is caught, it reveals a logical pattern, applicable to the area/s where he has killed. Sutcliffe lived in the vast area in which he killed and travelled through. Rifkin killed in his home town, Ramirez did too, Dahmer too, Gacy too, Ridgway too, Kroll too ... I can go on and on. Where are the examples of people who fly in somewhere to kill, only to leave afterwards? Thatīs right, there are none. There are drifters, of course, and they are often hard to catch. Itīs not until some coincidence serves them on a plate to the police that we can see afterwards that their routes have had victims strewn along them; Rezendes, Toole and Lucas, Panzram to some extent ... Once they are caught, we can see the line drawn in the sand. And the line the Whitechapel victims produced is a line along which Lechmere had very good reasons to move. Geographical connections are useful evidence - and the more victims that can be tied to such a geographical line, and the more complex that line is, the bigger the chance that a man that fits in every respect geographically is the culprit.

I hope Iīve made myself clear.

The best,
Fisherman

[GregBaron]

Uncomfortable zone...

Hey y'all,

Bundy killed wherever he could pick up attractive young women from his Volkswagen. He trolled college campuses but wasn't opposed to high schools, state parks or ski resorts. He drove all over the place looking for victims. His comfort zone may have been his Volkswagen or the woods where he committed his atrocities.

I also recently viewed a crime show that profiled a European serial killer who traveled to the U.S. West Coast for business - it was there in Caliifornia that he killed. I can't recall his name though..

So I'm not sure how far we can take this comfort zone thing. I'd call it more of a restriction zone. Most killers are restricted to certain areas for logistical reasons.

The poor of Whitechapel traveled mostly by foot and so the ripper was most likely restricted by how far his feet could take him while in the mood to kill. But we can't be certain that someone didn't come by train, hansom or boat to do the dirty deeds...

I don't think a comfort zone discussion gets us too far...


Greg

[Nic1950]

Hi

I agree that we can't focus on a comfort zone but I do think he was local, maybe had work around Whitechapel, grew up there, had family there, whatever it was he knew the place. He knew the people, the routines and the habits. That's where his confidence was, the place he knew best, the people he knew best, that's why he escaped. And let's not forget, being local also meant he was given the heads up on policing and patrols, maybe being in the centre of all the gossip, hype and media gave him a kick too. Given all the benefits of staying local, where else would he be? Everything he needed to know was on his doorstep!
Thanks
Nic

[Monty]

It is not a Cross thread, no - itīs a thread discussing the locations. And many, many serialists have killed and/or dumped victims in comfort zones. Killing in areas you are not accustomed to carries problems with it - how to escape, what to expect etcetera, etcetera. Avoiding doing so is to avoid an unneccessary risk.

Since you brought it up, Monty, I donīt think that anybody has suggested that Lechmere should be condemned because he happened to have each and everyone of the Ripper killings happen along his routes. The geographical implications are more useful to rule somebody out than in - that is to say, if the killings had taken place around St Jamesīs park, we would all be inclined to see that as an implication of innocence on Lechmereīs behalf. And that is because we all know that having the killings happen in a zone that you frequent is compatible with you being the killer. You, and anybody else who have had reason to use the zone in question at the crucial removes in time.

All of this is very, very basic - but since it is coupled to Lechmere of all people, it is questioned and/or ridiculed anyway. Genius, was it...?

Maybe other people than me ought to think things through, Monty.

The best,
Fisherman

Im fully aware this isnt a Cross thread Christer, hence my comment in my previous post. I think you will find it was you who drew this witness into the thread, as you do in every other thread.

And you continue to do so.

I merely pointed out your supporting arguement that the locations are on Cross's routes, and therefore supports Cross as the killer, can work against as well as for.

Monty

[Fisherman]

Im fully aware this isnt a Cross thread Christer, hence my comment in my previous post. I think you will find it was you who drew this witness into the thread, as you do in every other thread.

And you continue to do so.

I merely pointed out your supporting arguement that the locations are on Cross's routes, and therefore supports Cross as the killer, can work against as well as for.

Monty

With respect, Monty, this thread is about the locations. It is therefore not SPECIFICALLY a Lechmere thread, but unless you think otherwise, I would suggest that his relation to the murder locations is as viable to discuss as anybody elses.
I fully understand that you dislike Lechmere being mentioned - you leave us in no doubt about that! - but I think you need to focus a little more on the aims of the different threads before you habitually recommend Lechmere to be banned from the discussion.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Hey y'all,

Bundy killed wherever he could pick up attractive young women from his Volkswagen. He trolled college campuses but wasn't opposed to high schools, state parks or ski resorts. He drove all over the place looking for victims. His comfort zone may have been his Volkswagen or the woods where he committed his atrocities.

I also recently viewed a crime show that profiled a European serial killer who traveled to the U.S. West Coast for business - it was there in Caliifornia that he killed. I can't recall his name though..

So I'm not sure how far we can take this comfort zone thing. I'd call it more of a restriction zone. Most killers are restricted to certain areas for logistical reasons.

The poor of Whitechapel traveled mostly by foot and so the ripper was most likely restricted by how far his feet could take him while in the mood to kill. But we can't be certain that someone didn't come by train, hansom or boat to do the dirty deeds...

I don't think a comfort zone discussion gets us too far...


Greg

I think I gave an answer to the phenomenon of serialists who kill on other grounds than their home ones in my former post. And yes, there will always be exceptions to the rule. They remain rules nevertheless - serial killers can almost invariably be tied to specific working areas where they either procure victims, kill them or dump them - and often all three parameters are present in the same area.

Bundy, by the way, had a small collection of haunts that he preferred for dumping victims (mainly Issaquah, Washington). Many were found in that same area, roughly - a comfort zone, where he felt at ease and protected from detection. But in Bundyīs case, the police got on his trail, and he would have felt the eart burn under his feet. At that stage, he moved his business, and sought out new comfort zones.

All in all, though, todayīs modern world with all itīs offerings of quick transports will mean that the comfort zones will grow immensely. To an 1888 serial killer in the East End, a man of perhaps few fundings, the area would be very much smaller. But one should expect to see relevance in the sites when one finds the killer - thatīs what normally happens as Iīve described earlier.

All the best,
Fisherman