What's your profile for Jack?

[Observer]

Theorising that Liz Stride knocked on the door of the IWEC, was received, and then murdered by one it's members, would such theorising constitute leaping ahead of the evidence ?

Thats your theory, not mine. Not a great one either. What the evidence suggests is that Liz Stride was intentionally at that location at that time dressed nicely....when almost all of the "prospective clients" she might encounter left that site an hour before she arrived.

And it is extremely suspicious that Morris Eagle, who passed the spot where Liz is found dead at some time that evening, couldnt remember seeing anyone. If Liz isnt in that passage at that time, then she is out on the street....something Morris would have noticed since the street was all but deserted.

Cheers

One thing, it's not my theory Michael, it's Lynn Cates theory. It's not often you're right, but you're wrong again. However, I'd agree, it's a ludicrous theory.

[GUT]

G'Day Errata

That's where we disagree, some alcoholics don't have control over whether they drink or not. And I believe from the psychiatry and psychology that I've studied that some killers fall into the same category.

Unfortunate as it is there are times when humans do not have control over what they do.

[Errata]

G'Day Errata



Not quite true, many serial killers kill outside their target group. It is presumed that this is when the "lust" is on them and they can't find their target victim.

Need to kill would be like, witnesses. Or self defense. Life ends or seriously takes a nosedive if that murder is not committed.

Serial killers are fantasy based killers, so thats a "want" kind of thing. They may compromise, but they aren't exactly a kettle boiling over. It's not like if they don't kill the next person they see they might go home and accidentally cannibalize mom or something.

Not dissimilar to alcoholism in some ways. You can't help feeling like crap and dealing with the cravings, but you have absolute control over whether or not you drink. A serial killer will feel intense discomfort during an externally forced hiatus, but even if they choose a victim against type it's still a choice.

On the other hand, it appears that the only lock on any serial killer's preference is sex. Some of them don't care, but those who care, care to the exclusion of the other sex. Dahmer didn't do women. Not ever. Bundy didn't do men. He might have shot a cop, but he wouldn't do his thing to a man.

[Damaso Marte]

Hi Damaso. That may be your approach. It's certainly the approach of some others. But it's not everybody's approach. There will always be things we don't know but there are also many things we do know. Or at least that some of us know and some others prefer not to know... for reasons I'll probably never understand.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

I'm not sure you know anything that the rest of us actually don't, at least not in the positive sense of the word. You may have a higher threshold for how much evidence needs to be behind a conjecture before you entertain that conjecture, but you don't have any special knowledge unless you're sitting on a lost or untranslated file.

[Lechmere]

I doubt that Jack the Ripper had a 'down' on whores.
But Strides likely active prostitution on the night of her murder is significant as it is the most obvious explanation for her going to her death in Duffield's Yard. The other alternative is that she was hanging around in that street late at night for no obvious reason and was attacked in the street and silently dragged into the yard and killed.

[GUT]

G'Day Errata

It's often a bit more complicated than that, depending on the killer's ritual and process, but yeah. Serial killers kill people they want to kill. They don't kill people they don't want to kill. It's sort of luxury murder, as opposed to necessity murder.

Not quite true, many serial killers kill outside their target group. It is presumed that this is when the "lust" is on them and they can't find their target victim.

[Errata]

Quite right, serial killers kill vulnerable people regardless of whether they were prostitutes.
My soon to be mother-in law was standing at a bus stop in Leeds a few streets, (less then 100 yards), away from where Jacqueline Hill was picked up by Sutcliffe at exactly the same time. She was a 20 year old student.

People like this ask 2 questions - 1) would i get a sexual kick out of killing this woman 2) can I do it and get away with it. If the answer is yes twice they will do it.
It so happens that prostitutes are the most vulnerable people in society.

Something else when I asked her what did everyone think when this guy was finally captured she said - we were all surprised he was just a lorry driver, we all thought he would have been someone more important.

It's often a bit more complicated than that, depending on the killer's ritual and process, but yeah. Serial killers kill people they want to kill. They don't kill people they don't want to kill. It's sort of luxury murder, as opposed to necessity murder. But some killers are very particular. Bundy had a type, Kempur had a type. Hansen had a whole scenario that he had to have. So it's never the first person the killer sees, but because serial killers are very particular about certain aspects they tend to be very unconcerned with other aspects.

Your mother in law may have been perfectly safe even if Sutcliffe drove past because she may not have done it for him. There is a very creepy story out of North Carolina where an identical twin was picked up by a serial killer in the club both worked at. They caught him, and he had no interest in her identical twin. He wanted one, he didn't want the other and the reason was so nebulous even he couldn't articulate it. Which is why serial killers are scarier than sharks. We know if we splash around in shark infested waters we will get bitten. It has nothing to do with what we look like, what our purpose is, or whether the shark is even hungry. We will get bitten. Serial killers? Who knows man.

But your mother's response is typical. There are a lot of papers out there on "the banality of evil". It never stops surprising people, despite the fact that anyone could say, watch the '36 Olympics and see that Hitler was short.

[Boggles]

I don't think it matters that much whether or not Stride was a prostitute

Quite right, serial killers kill vulnerable people regardless of whether they were prostitutes.
My soon to be mother-in law was standing at a bus stop in Leeds a few streets, (less then 100 yards), away from where Jacqueline Hill was picked up by Sutcliffe at exactly the same time. She was a 20 year old student.

People like this ask 2 questions - 1) would i get a sexual kick out of killing this woman 2) can I do it and get away with it. If the answer is yes twice they will do it.
It so happens that prostitutes are the most vulnerable people in society.

Something else when I asked her what did everyone think when this guy was finally captured she said - we were all surprised he was just a lorry driver, we all thought he would have been someone more important.

[Bridewell]

Prostitute Or Not

I don't think it matters that much whether or not Stride was a prostitute or, if she was, whether or not she was actually soliciting at the time of the attack. The idea that these women were attacked because they were prostitutes stems from the "down on whores" reference in the 'Dear Boss' letter - which most people agree is, in all probability, a hoax.

Even if they were killed for that reason, Stride would only have to give the appearance of being a prostitute (and only in the mind of the killer) to attract the killer's attention. I'm 60/40 on the side of Stride being a JtR victim, but no more than that. Certainly (for me) decisive evidence that Stride either was, or wasn't, soliciting for the purpose of prostitution wouldn't alter the balance of probabilities, because it may not have been what drove 'JtR' to select his victims.

[Lechmere]

Yes I largely agree.
Those who get all huffy about conjecture - on occasion - need to get a grip as conjecture is central to 'Ripperology' - although the conjecture should at least be drawn from facts and supported by facts.
I also agree that a broad type or types can sensibly be evaluated for the type of person we should be looking for - and perhaps as importantly the type we should not be looking for.
I think most contemporary 'police' suspects fall into the category of the type we should not be looking for. Study of these suspects is useful and interesting as it tells us about attitudes and prejudices at the time.
For example Tumblety is an interesting case. But more enlightenment would come from a study aimed at understanding how the police could have taken him at all seriously as a suspect, rather than trying to present him as a possible killer to an audience today.

[Errata]

True enough Errata - apart from...
We will never truly know how these women were killed or why, but that is no reason why this aspect should not be the basis for speculation and conjecture.
As this aspect will never really be resolved should that mean that looking for a suspect is invalid? I don't thinks so, but by the same token we will never truly know if any suspect did it.
Even if Kozminski's missing medical files were found and said 'patient raved about being Jack the Ripper' with a cover note saying 'Watch this patient closely as we think he is Jack the Ripper, signed DS Swanson' then this would still be some considerable distance short of proof that Kozminski did it.
Invariably the exact method and motivation of the killer only comes to light after the culprit is caught and interrogated. So catching the culprit comes first and 'Suspectology' is about 'catching' the possible killer.
Obviously the interrogation part is impossible along with any definitive proof.
But 'facts' can buttress a speculative case.

Oh I agree. I just embrace the idea of admitting that conjecture is the core of the case.

And I think catching the culprit as a first priority really has a pretty short shelf life. Once a case goes cold I think we have to use our knowledge of what happened to backtrack to a type, and then look for the killer amongst that type of man (or woman). We don't have the option of strolling around the neighborhood and seeing if anyone matches a physical description. There are about 1 million men in the suspect pool, and at this remove we don't know anything about any of them, or even who is and who isn't in that pool.

For all we know Kosminski had no thumbs, which would make being this kind of serial killer awkward at the very least. We might assume that would be in his hospital records, but actually something like that probably wouldn't be there. It requires no treatment, it requires no special care, it didn't happen on their watch and anyone who looks at him would see he had no thumbs so why write it down? I mean, he probably had thumbs. But if he didn't, which would eliminate him as a suspect, we wouldn't know about it unless we saw him. And at this far a remove, we don't have that option. Even if his brother wrote a letter to a doctor saying "Aaron's lack of thumbs is really bothering him today." that wouldn't survive 130 years. This case is so cold it's arctic. I think we need to know how to eliminate suspects before we can identify them.

[Lechmere]

True enough Errata - apart from...
We will never truly know how these women were killed or why, but that is no reason why this aspect should not be the basis for speculation and conjecture.
As this aspect will never really be resolved should that mean that looking for a suspect is invalid? I don't thinks so, but by the same token we will never truly know if any suspect did it.
Even if Kozminski's missing medical files were found and said 'patient raved about being Jack the Ripper' with a cover note saying 'Watch this patient closely as we think he is Jack the Ripper, signed DS Swanson' then this would still be some considerable distance short of proof that Kozminski did it.
Invariably the exact method and motivation of the killer only comes to light after the culprit is caught and interrogated. So catching the culprit comes first and 'Suspectology' is about 'catching' the possible killer.
Obviously the interrogation part is impossible along with any definitive proof.
But 'facts' can buttress a speculative case.

[Errata]

Damaso
You hit the nail on the head. But many are uncomfortable to admit it. And the 'made up story' debates are far from confined to suspects. It is very rare for these matters to be satisfactorily resolved by the discovery of an actual fact.

Most of what we attach to this case is made up or assumed. We don't even know how these women died. We don't know how they were attacked, we don't know how they were subdued, we don't know if they were restrained, or how. We don't know how he found his victims, we don't know what he wanted in a victim. We don't know his method, we don't know his motive, we don't know what he considered important. We have no idea how these women died, why they died, or in some cases even when they died.

Much less who killed them. The theories on suspects are all well and good, but how do you even pick a suspect if you don't even know what happened to these women? And the answer is that we don't. There are men who could slash a throat but not choke a woman the size of Chapman. So if Chapman was strangled then it wouldn't be that suspect. But we don't even know if she WAS strangled. We can all make very logical arguments for a certain suspect, but since everything we think we know is in fact a guess there's really no point in finding a suspect until we know what happened. This case is a palace of "what if". And no one can cap off the case with a suspect and claim it is based on fact when the entire structure is built on assumption.

[Lechmere]

Damaso
You hit the nail on the head. But many are uncomfortable to admit it. And the 'made up story' debates are far from confined to suspects. It is very rare for these matters to be satisfactorily resolved by the discovery of an actual fact.

[Tom_Wescott]

Ultimately the answer to every interesting question about the case is "we don't know". I appreciate the methodological purity that some posters bring to this forum, but Ripperology is the art of making up stories and then debating their plausibility.

Hi Damaso. That may be your approach. It's certainly the approach of some others. But it's not everybody's approach. There will always be things we don't know but there are also many things we do know. Or at least that some of us know and some others prefer not to know... for reasons I'll probably never understand.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott