Double event victims - Throat wounds

[Harry D]

Hello, Lynn.

I will overlook your condescending tone and get straight to the point.

If she was NOT related, then two knife killings of women happened close together in space time which were UNRELATED. Why can you not grasp that?

Oh, I grasp that perfectly. One of them wasn't committed by the Ripper. Then we have a THIRD throat slashing by an unknown perp. That leaves us with around 1/3 of the knife murders on women for that year all happening within a day, and all committed (in your opinion) by a different hand? What are the chances of that happening? A simple coin toss doesn't seem to tell me.

[Lechmere]

Sarah Brown wasn't killed within walking distance of the other two - at least the perpetrator would not realistically have been able to walk from Regency Street to Berner Street, locate and pick up Stride and then kill her.
But the killer would have had enough time to walk from Berner Street to Mitre Square with a little time to spare to locate and pick up Eddowes.

Brown's killer was immediately apprehended, by giving himself up - it being a domestic. It seems that the police investigated whether Stride and Eddowes were 'domestics' and came away with a negative answer.

It is a coincidence that three women were killed by a knife in the same city within a few hours.
Does the Brown killing have any bearing on how the other two should be viewed? Hardly.
If anything the fact that there was another knife murder - a domestic - makes it exceptionally unlikely hat two other unrelated domestics would have happened on the same night. Not that such probabilities tell us anything useful.

The consensus of opinion in 1888 was that Stride and Eddowes were killed by the same person.
Later day theorists, usually operating thousands of miles from the scenes of the crime and with little understanding of just how close Berner Street was to Mitre Square and how relatively distant Regency Street was, have a lot to prove to suggest the 'Double Event' crimes were unrelated.

[Abby Normal]

I think this thread might need Colin Roberts for a refresher on statistics and their implications on real life.

[c.d.]

Lynn seems to have gone from his usual sarcastic self to being downright pissy. What's up with that?

c.d.

[Lechmere]

He's suffering from Melancholia Isenschmiditis.

[Mr Lucky]

I thought it might be worth looking at the evidence from the Brown case from Old Bailey online site;-

First the wounds described by the Doctor who performed the PM
LAUNCELOT ARCHER , M. R. C. S., 38, Vincent Square I was called to the house, and found the woman dead lying on her right side, her right arm extended, and her head resting on it—there was a large quantity of blood round about her head on the floor—her dress was also stained with blood—I turned her partially over, undid the upper part of her dress, and found two gashes in her neck, one merely a flesh wound; the other went nearly back to the spinal column; that was the fatal wound—I afterwards made a post-mortem examination—it was such a wound as might have been inflicted with this knife—I did not see the prisoner till at the police-court—his trousers were shown to me there; they had stains on them, which I think were blood stains.

"Gashes" - the word the doctor used to describe the wounds.

From the Inquest -
Dr Archer " The deceased received two wounds in the neck one of three inches in length and the other two and a half inches in length " - Reynolds's Newspaper 7 October 1888

To go back to the trial. Here a policeman repeats what John Brown said himself, about the attack on his wife
THOMAS BROWN (Policeman A 88) About 11 on 22th September I was on duty at Rochester Row Police-station—the prisoner came there with Constable Powell; he said, "I have stabbed my wife at No 11, Regent's Gardens"

"Stabbed" - the word the killer used to describe the action he had done to actually cause the injury.

[Michael W Richards]

Because we can be sure that Sarah Brown wasn't killed by the Ripper, so the argument's moot. I'm not sure what part of this you're struggling with, Lynn?

If you believe that all three were separate crimes, then you've got THREE unrelated throat slashings all happening within 24 hours. Now that IS incredible!

Hi Harry,

I suppose the question is how many similar events (victims of a slit throat) in one evening constitute consideration of more than one killer? Is it a geographical issue? Must all the victims have similar wounds to be considered by one killer?

The reality is Harry that historically we do in fact have 3 separate slayings by knife during that so called Double Event night, so your position is just predicated on a belief that 2 of the events were linked to one man, which isn't a proven fact, at all.

In the Whitechapel Unsolved murders file for the period concerned there are 2 entries for the night of September 30th, 1888, and another solved murder on the books for the same night. All 3 victims were killed by knife wounds to the throat, at night.

If Jack the Ripper didn't decide to just kill someone by a single slit to the throat, then yes, we have 3 separate kills, with 3 killers. If not we have at least 2 men that killed a woman on the same night using a knife to the throat.

I believe that the premise that is often used here, that of "Well, just how many homicidal maniacs could conceivably be have running around Whitechapel at the same time?" The factual answer to that is, based on historical data, is that there are 11 unsolved murders of women for the period in question, all involved women and knives, and none have been linked by evidence with any other. So potentially, we have 11 killers.

I don't suggest that is what I believe personally, I can see lots of reasons in the evidence with marrying some murders under a single killer. But not ones that... based on solely the physical and circumstantial evidence..do not resemble any other within that file. Like the murder of Liz Stride.

Cheers Harry