Risky kill-sites - how and why?

[FrankO]

This is also how I assess that Jack would have operated, and a reason why I am a little sceptical that he would choose to attack Chapman in daylight in a yard with an amphitheatre of potential witnesses arising to start their day, and persist with a witness only feet away on two occasions.

Hi George,

I understand that, but what if he hadn't been able to find a suitable victim until rather late in the morning? Would he just let his desire to mutilate go? Or what if he wanted to be able to see what he was doing this time, after having failed to pull and cut out innards & organs, quite possibly hindered to some extent by Nichols' stays? After all, he was driven by his desire to mutilate, so maybe it was important to him this time around that it was getting light.

The best,
Frank

[GBinOz]

Hi George,

I understand that, but what if he hadn't been able to find a suitable victim until rather late in the morning? Would he just let his desire to mutilate go? Or what if he wanted to be able to see what he was doing this time, after having failed to pull and cut out innards & organs, quite possibly hindered to some extent by Nichols' stays? After all, he was driven by his desire to mutilate, so maybe it was important to him this time around that it was getting light.

The best,
Frank

Hi Frank,

It is my understanding that there was no shortage of women plying their trade in the early hours (1-3am), including Annie. Had he shifted to wishing to add the visual aspect to his mutilations we might have seen that revealed with Stride and Eddowes. It seems to me that he preferred the cover of darkness, and Annie was available from about 2am. JMO.

Best regards, George

[Damaso Marte]

It is also possible that the victims had some knowledge of where you could safely commit crimes in Whitechapel with (relatively) low risk of witnesses or policemen seeing it and that the Ripper simply relied on their knowledge.

Whatever it was, the Ripper clearly took steps to minimize his chances of being caught and for this reason I strongly believe he was legally sane: he knew that what he was doing was considered wrong by society.

[Fiver]

Hi Frank,

It is my understanding that there was no shortage of women plying their trade in the early hours (1-3am), including Annie. Had he shifted to wishing to add the visual aspect to his mutilations we might have seen that revealed with Stride and Eddowes. It seems to me that he preferred the cover of darkness, and Annie was available from about 2am. JMO.

Best regards, George

There's a resource on the site - Weather Conditions for the Nights of the Whitechapel Murders.

For the Chapman murder "2% of the Moon's visible disk was illuminated", cloud cover was 50%, and sunrise was at 5:23am. Between the basicly no moonlight and the significant cloud cover, the Ripper may have needed to wait until just before sunrise to see what he was doing.

[FrankO]

Hi George,

It is my understanding that there was no shortage of women plying their trade in the early hours (1-3am), including Annie.

Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. He still may not have seen Annie until he saw her in Hanbury Street, or he still may not have felt comfortable enough with any woman he met earlier in the night, either before going to a 'location of business' or even after getting there.

Had he shifted to wishing to add the visual aspect to his mutilations we might have seen that revealed with Stride and Eddowes.

We might have seen that with any victim, George, but we only possibly see it with Annie and Mary Jane. With Annie I see it as a possibility for the reason given in my previous post and what I'd like to add to that is the fact that striking again after only a week might suggest he wasn't all that satisfied with what he did to Nichols, hence a bit more desperation and more caution to the wind.

It seems to me that he preferred the cover of darkness, and Annie was available from about 2am. JMO.

I haven't been following the "John Richardson" thread where I think you're contributing, but you're suggesting an earlier time of death then? Possible, of course, but I think there's better evidence for the later time. JMO too.

All the best,
Frank

[FrankO]

It is also possible that the victims had some knowledge of where you could safely commit crimes in Whitechapel with (relatively) low risk of witnesses or policemen seeing it and that the Ripper simply relied on their knowledge.

Whatever it was, the Ripper clearly took steps to minimize his chances of being caught and for this reason I strongly believe he was legally sane: he knew that what he was doing was considered wrong by society.

Agreed all around, Damaso.

[Fleetwood Mac]

It didn't help that the Chief Investigating Officer became obsessed with one singular clue, (Geordie/Wearside Jack...)

It didn't, no. It was very poor police work and incompetent on the part of the person who made that decision.

Apart from that though, the criticism of the police is unjustified (with the exception of making a distinction between innocent women and the other women, which was appalling).

Look at it from another angle, they got close to him, which is indicated by the number of times they interviewed him. So, the police work was fit for purpose in that respect. Where it fell down was the means of storing information and they were inundated with statements which meant Sutcliffe was lost in the system.

That same police force would have caught Sutcliffe much earlier had they had access to today's means of storing information. They would have had Sutcliffe's prior record, the number of times he was interviewed and so on in one place at the click of a button.

The fact he was interviewed and let go a number of times is not a sign of incompetence. It simply meant that they had nothing on him, or at least they thought they had nothing on him. They did have the information they needed, but as I say, it was lost in a system of hundreds of thousands of bits of paper.

You're absolutely right that Sutcliffe was no great criminal mind.

They generally are not intelligent men or women.

And, it's probably a lot easier to gain the trust of a woman than we assume. We know that person was a murderer and that subconsciously clouds our assessment of what a victim should have thought prior to being attacked. If you read the accounts of those women who survived Sutcliffe's attacks, which I'm sure you have, they relay that they did not think there was anything suspicious about Sutcliffe when they were approached, with one even saying that he had a calming effect.

Interestingly, they brought a profiler in late on in the case and that profiler got it absolutely right in terms of where Sutcliffe lived.

The reason I say it's interesting is because Sutcliffe was almost certainly murdering and assaulting women much earlier than was thought at the time of Sutcliffe's arrest. So, how did that profiler get it right? That profiler worked from accepted assaults and murders, and profilers tend to rely on the earlier locations of the attacks to make that judgement. This particular profiler did not know about all of Sutcliffe's attacks, i.e. the earliest ones, and it follows that there may be something else in the pattern of a serial killer's locations that can identify broadly where a serial killer lives.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Whatever it was, the Ripper clearly took steps to minimize his chances of being caught and for this reason I strongly believe he was legally sane: he knew that what he was doing was considered wrong by society.

I reckon just about everyone would agree that he took steps to reduce the risk of being caught, but in terms of the details: what steps and when you say 'minimise', what is meant by that, almost eradicating the risk at one extreme or merely using the dark as cover at the end of the spectrum?

There is nothing to suggest that he did anything more than use the dark as cover and could hear approaching footsteps. And, when you look at other serial killers, they really are not that cunning and do not consider as much as what some on this thread believe Jack considered. They observe, approach, disarm, employ a ruse and kill; all done away from prying eyes. That's it. 'Nothing more complicated than that.

On the legally sane point, I agree but for a different reason. The minds of serial killers are most often psychopaths as opposed to being insane.

[Paul Sutton]

It didn't, no. It was very poor police work and incompetent on the part of the person who made that decision.

Apart from that though, the criticism of the police is unjustified (with the exception of making a distinction between innocent women and the other women, which was appalling).

Look at it from another angle, they got close to him, which is indicated by the number of times they interviewed him. So, the police work was fit for purpose in that respect. Where it fell down was the means of storing information and they were inundated with statements which meant Sutcliffe was lost in the system.

That same police force would have caught Sutcliffe much earlier had they had access to today's means of storing information. They would have had Sutcliffe's prior record, the number of times he was interviewed and so on in one place at the click of a button.

The fact he was interviewed and let go a number of times is not a sign of incompetence. It simply meant that they had nothing on him, or at least they thought they had nothing on him. They did have the information they needed, but as I say, it was lost in a system of hundreds of thousands of bits of paper.



They generally are not intelligent men or women.

And, it's probably a lot easier to gain the trust of a woman than we assume. We know that person was a murderer and that subconsciously clouds our assessment of what a victim should have thought prior to being attacked. If you read the accounts of those women who survived Sutcliffe's attacks, which I'm sure you have, they relay that they did not think there was anything suspicious about Sutcliffe when they were approached, with one even saying that he had a calming effect.

Interestingly, they brought a profiler in late on in the case and that profiler got it absolutely right in terms of where Sutcliffe lived.

The reason I say it's interesting is because Sutcliffe was almost certainly murdering and assaulting women much earlier than was thought at the time of Sutcliffe's arrest. So, how did that profiler get it right? That profiler worked from accepted assaults and murders, and profilers tend to rely on the earlier locations of the attacks to make that judgement. This particular profiler did not know about all of Sutcliffe's attacks, i.e. the earliest ones, and it follows that there may be something else in the pattern of a serial killer's locations that can identify broadly where a serial killer lives.

The Home Office review that took place before Sutcliffe's fortuitous arrest is devastating. It's partly captured in The Long Shadow, but fully covered in the brilliant book Evil Beyond Belief. What I'm saying now is based on the book.

The review's biggest point was that the most senior officers, especially Holland and Oldfield, were spending their time immersed in the paperwork and not thinking strategically. Not forming an overview. Of course, the Wearside tape blindsided them. But Oldfield in particular was not doing his actual job. Working insanely hard, but unwilling to listen to those lower down who were putting the overall picture together. Even worse with the Chief Constable, who simply played office politics, shuffling people around to protect himself.

One PC took all the photofits into senior officers - most significantly, merging the more rural hammer attacks to the Ripper murders. He handed in a a file on Sutcliffe, collating all the sightings and doing what you say would now be done by a database trawl. It detailed the worrying interviews, his car (from the tyre enquiries), his working for a firm not eliminated from the payroll/fiver enquiry and his inadequate alibis. Also their general feeling that he was the man.

The bloke was threatened with disciplinary action, if he pursued this.

One of the Home Office reviewers did a neat bit of geographical profiling, based on his wartime experiences as a bomber navigator. He was a scientist, from either Harwell or Aldermaston. He used pins and thread, noting the times and distances, correctly realising that the killer was acting earlier the further he was from 'home'. It pinpointed a small area between Bradford and Leeds where Sutcliffe lived.

As I said, the massive mistake (just behind the tape) was to not links the more rural, often non-fatal, attacks with the Ripper murders.

Another junior officer observed that not a single one the many survivor statements had the attacker with a Wearside accent. All said he had a local accent. The tape was widely dismissed by the more junior - excellent - people doing the real detective work. This badly affected their confidence and morale. But they were given a bullet point list, with the accent first on it, to use in narrowing suspects.

The FBI warned that the tape was fake. The DCI from the NE said it was, also based on his clever work on the number of kills mentioned on the tape and the date it was sent. The Home Office review almost pleaded with the investigation not to discount people based on accent.

So it's not true that they were so overwhelmed with paperwork that they couldn't get him. He was identified, but those leading the enquiry were too stubborn and - frankly - obsessed, to see it. He wasn't hidden in the system. When he was arrested, the junior officer who'd been threatened says he said - before being told the name - 'Was it Sutcliffe', only to be told it was, and collapsing in anger.

Incidentally, computing was used - albeit crudely compared to now. They were given access to mainframes, I think at Harwell, but it never progressed much.

[A P Tomlinson]

They generally are not intelligent men or women.

And, it's probably a lot easier to gain the trust of a woman than we assume. We know that person was a murderer and that subconsciously clouds our assessment of what a victim should have thought prior to being attacked. If you read the accounts of those women who survived Sutcliffe's attacks, which I'm sure you have, they relay that they did not think there was anything suspicious about Sutcliffe when they were approached, with one even saying that he had a calming effect.

Interestingly, they brought a profiler in late on in the case and that profiler got it absolutely right in terms of where Sutcliffe lived.

.

He was a pretty nervous, shy, character in day to day interactions with women. This would have put the victims in a position where they thought they were in control. His general demeanour would have put them at ease, as they were probably of the view that the Ripper would be an aggresive, brutish man. They would probably have lined up to get in a car with someone as timid as Sutcliffe would have appeared - up to the point where his switch was flicked.

It was a computer system that allowed them to move so quickly.
The Hendon National Computer Database was how they were able to determine the plates didn't match the car. I'm not sure off the top of my head if it was networked, or whether SY Police phoned Hendon, though I doubt it would have been networked in 1981...
If they hadn't been able to find that out, there's a chance he may have been let go, and the cops would have continued on with the job of the evening, which was Sgt Ring teaching the young PC how to catch prostitutes.

[Paul Sutton]

My apologies, to whoever reads my last post.

The Sutcliffe book is Wicked Beyond Belief.

Evil Beyond Belief is the one on Shipman.

I guess I've given away that I spend too long reading on serial killers!

[Fleetwood Mac]

One PC took all the photofits into senior officers - most significantly, merging the more rural hammer attacks to the Ripper murders. He handed in a a file on Sutcliffe, collating all the sightings and doing what you say would now be done by a database trawl. It detailed the worrying interviews, his car (from the tyre enquiries), his working for a firm not eliminated from the payroll/fiver enquiry and his inadequate alibis. Also their general feeling that he was the man.

Who was this?

PC Andrew Laptew?

[A P Tomlinson]

Who was this?

PC Andrew Laptew?

I think that is who Pauls talking about, but I don't think Laptew was quite THAT forthcoming with his notions. (But I would be happy to be wrong about that because I'd love to learn more about it.)
He submitted a report after he and a colleague interviewed Sutcliffe over the reports of his car being seen several times in the red light district and matching the description given by witnensses, and a general match to the type of car that used the tyres that left a print at one of the scenes. But after a handwriting analysis didnt match the Geordie/Wearside Jack letter, he was discounted and the report was stuck in files with the other seven or eight interviews, (though probably nowhere near them in the system).

I think a few of the TV dramatisations and maybe even a documentary or too may have "over-egged the pudding" in regard to how heavily he pushed his theory.
He was very upset by the way the press later made a big deal out of his story, making it out that he was constantly telling superiors that they were wrong and that he was right, which wasn't true and I think that was where the "dossier" story originated. One of the Sunday Papers I think it was.
He subsequently approached... (again, I THINK it was...) Dick Holland, about the links he made, and when Dick heard that he wasn't a Gerodie he pretty publicly gave Laptew a MAJOR bollocking. After which he kept his thoughts to himself.
It needs to be made very clear that NO blame should be put at Laptew's feet for the murders that occured afterward. He was a relatively green DC being told by very experienced senior officers that he was wrong and to focus on the work they gave him! It was the 1970s... A DCI or DI could have a "hunch" but a DC better keep his gob shut and carry on with the door-to-doors.

The conversation with Holland MIGHT have included a full dossier like Paul says. I'd certainly be very interested to read more on that if so.
But as far as I'd always understood it, apart from that interview report, he had only really voiced his opinion and what he showed Dick Holland (MIGHT have been George Oldfield but I don't think so,) amounted to 2 (again.. I THINK...) pages with some hand written bullet point notes. And the stuff that has appeared on TV has largely been a perfectly understandable application of dramatic license.

[Paul Sutton]

I think that is who Pauls talking about, but I don't think Laptew was quite THAT forthcoming with his notions. (But I would be happy to be wrong about that because I'd love to learn more about it.)
He submitted a report after he and a colleague interviewed Sutcliffe over the reports of his car being seen several times in the red light district and matching the description given by witnensses, and a general match to the type of car that used the tyres that left a print at one of the scenes. But after a handwriting analysis didnt match the Geordie/Wearside Jack letter, he was discounted and the report was stuck in files with the other seven or eight interviews, (though probably nowhere near them in the system).

I think a few of the TV dramatisations and maybe even a documentary or too may have "over-egged the pudding" in regard to how heavily he pushed his theory.
He was very upset by the way the press later made a big deal out of his story, making it out that he was constantly telling superiors that they were wrong and that he was right, which wasn't true and I think that was where the "dossier" story originated. One of the Sunday Papers I think it was.
He subsequently approached... (again, I THINK it was...) Dick Holland, about the links he made, and when Dick heard that he wasn't a Gerodie he pretty publicly gave Laptew a MAJOR bollocking. After which he kept his thoughts to himself.
It needs to be made very clear that NO blame should be put at Laptew's feet for the murders that occured afterward. He was a relatively green DC being told by very experienced senior officers that he was wrong and to focus on the work they gave him! It was the 1970s... A DCI or DI could have a "hunch" but a DC better keep his gob shut and carry on with the door-to-doors.

The conversation with Holland MIGHT have included a full dossier like Paul says. I'd certainly be very interested to read more on that if so.
But as far as I'd always understood it, apart from that interview report, he had only really voiced his opinion and what he showed Dick Holland (MIGHT have been George Oldfield but I don't think so,) amounted to 2 (again.. I THINK...) pages with some hand written bullet point notes. And the stuff that has appeared on TV has largely been a perfectly understandable application of dramatic license.

Yes, that's the Geezer!

I can't recommend the Bilton's book enough. It's so good I reread it. In fact, I should correct one thing I said - as it's unclear from the book, whether Laptew mentioned the 'payroll fiver' enquiry. And what a great bit of work that was - again, pulled just before it could have yielded fruit. Worth reading what they did, using experts from the BoE.

Incidentally, i bought the book in the Hastings True Crime museum - a bit of a daft place, but good fun. Of course, Chapman lived in Hastings Ol Town for a bit.

All the best,

Grimesby Roylott

[Fleetwood Mac]

Yes, that's the Geezer!

PC Andrew Letlew was interviewed as part of a recent documentary, when I say recent I mean probably within say the last 15 years.

He did not put it across as you put it across in an earlier post.

According to Letlew, two police officers, including Letlew, went to interview Sutcliffe at his home. I can't remember why but I'm pretty sure it was routine door to door enquiries as opposed to any lead.

PC Letlew, and his colleague, were not happy with Sutcliffe. They noticed the gap in his teeth, they noticed that his shoe size was about right, and they did not like the couple. PC Letlew and his colleague both felt there was something sinister about him, and that his wife was strange also.

I could be wrong on this one because I'm going from memory, but I don't think PC Letlew mentioned any photofit in this interview.

When they left Sutcliffe's home they said to one another that he demands a good look and so PC Letlew filed a report.

By the way, this was after senior police officers had decided to put their eggs in the Wearside Jack basket.

According to George Oldfield, he never saw that report, it was simply one of thousands that were popping up on a weekly basis and passing his desk. Neither Oldfield nor PC Letlew mentioned anything about threats of disciplinary action in their interviews. PC Letlew didn't get a response nor chased a response, in his own words.

Speaking of the police, senior Northumbria police officers sat down and analysed the letters. They believed that there was nothing in those letters to conclude that the author was the murderer. The difference was that Northumbria police were able to look at it objectively because they hadn't been under pressure for 5 years, they hadn't been inundated with statements, we're talking hundreds of thousands of bits of paper here; they hadn't been working through the night trying to catch this murderer for years. They were detached from it and they gave it a detached appraisal. West Yorkshire senior police officers clutched at that straw because they were getting nowhere, they were desperate and they put two and two together and got five when in a different situation they wouldn't have been so quick to arrive at five.

It was extremely poor police work to believe those letters were authored by the murderer. Senior West Yorkshire officers made a big mistake. But, let's not forget that those police officers weren't the murderer. And, it is not remotely the reason why they didn't catch Sutcliffe earlier.

Sutcliffe was extraordinarily lucky because nobody turned the corner at the right time and all of his details, including his known record and the number of times he was interviewed, were scattered among hundreds of thousands of bits of paper.