The FBI Profile of Jack the Ripper & it's usefulness

[lynn cates]

oblivious

Hello Colin. Thanks.

"What is the likelihood of something putting their head out of the window and looking downwards in the middle of the night or very early morning?"

Sunrise, perhaps? Although I'm not quite sure how to calculate such events, I'd say rather high.

"Could you look out of that window and see a man standing in the yard of No.29?"

Possibly. But my point is, Would the slayer know that? And so my overarching position is that the killer is oblivious to time and space. Ergo, insane--or perhaps a millenial. (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[Barnaby]

5- There would have been many other women who confronted JtR and were not assaulted because the location was not secure enough.

This point interests me and reminds me of the Green River Killer. But outside of Leather Apron I can't think of suspects generated from working girls' chatter.

[lynn cates]

enough

Hello Barnaby. Perhaps one is sufficient?

Cheers.
LC

[SirJohnFalstaff]

This point interests me and reminds me of the Green River Killer. But outside of Leather Apron I can't think of suspects generated from working girls' chatter.

Maybe he didn't attack them. He just appeared as a client who changed his mind.

Funny, I was about to type "maybe he just paid for sex and left" but somehow, I don't see it. Maybe I saw too many Hollywood movies.

[Wickerman]

One of the oddities throughout the series is that none of the victims were found with any money on them.

Edit: Ah, my mistake. I forgot about the farthings.

[GUT]

One of the oddities throughout the series is that none of the victims were found with any money on them.

Edit: Ah, my mistake. I forgot about the farthings.

G'day Jon

Is that so odd though given their situation in life.

Prostituting themselves for a couple of p and, I imagine, spending it on booze, food or a bed as soon as they got it.

[Wickerman]

Hi GUT.

Ah, I'm sorry, the oddity that I mean is not that they lived from hand to mouth, spending it as fast as they got it.
The oddity, to my mind is that in order to accost the woman the killer must have shown good faith by handing her the fee (whatever it was).

Although proof is tough to come by it appears tradition dictates that the client must pay-up first before services are rendered. A prostitute who provides the service before she is payed is likely to be a very poor prostitute.

Where is the money he offered her?
Did he really rifle her clothing to get it back?
If so, he can't have been so pushed for time as we are led to believe.

[GUT]

Hi GUT.

Ah, I'm sorry, the oddity that I mean is not that they lived from hand to mouth, spending it as fast as they got it.
The oddity, to my mind is that in order to accost the woman the killer must have shown good faith by handing her the fee (whatever it was).

Although proof is tough to come by it appears tradition dictates that the client must pay-up first before services are rendered. A prostitute who provides the service before she is payed is likely to be a very poor prostitute.

Where is the money he offered her?
Did he really rifle her clothing to get it back?
If so, he can't have been so pushed for time as we are led to believe.

G'day Jon

Thanks for explaining, but see I've never been convinced that Jack was the customer.

[Wickerman]

G'day Jon

Thanks for explaining, but see I've never been convinced that Jack was the customer.

You may be right, after all it is only an assumption.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

If we take into consideration that the C5 are JtR victims.

I think Nichols and Stride are the only one that were attacked by a non customer.

Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly were probably in a very vulnerable position and somehow "isolated", indicating a possible transaction.

No?

[Defective Detective]

I, actually, find little of use in it.

For instance: the profile suggests, as these things always do, that the Ripper would have been a firestarter in childhood, part of the classic trifecta. But it also suggests that Jack came from among the social strata of Whitechapel - which I agree with.

These two propositions may be mutually exclusive. Bear in mind the differences between the late nineteenth century and the middle twentieth, when profiling began. In 1988, any child could get his hands on matches or a cigarette lighter. Things were different a century before. Lanterns were the province of the middle-classes; we often read of the Ripper's victims and their associates treasuring matches as though they were rare and valuable - which they were in the Whitechapel slum. Can a prospective serial killer in youth start fires in an obsessive fashion without regular access to fire-starting materials?

If not, that trait would be comparatively less useful in locating the Ripper. Even if the fire-starting impulse was there, the opportunity may not have been. I don't deny he may have been a firebug as a boy, but that looking for youthful firebugs in the decades before 1888 would not be as useful as it would be today in hunting for contemporary serial killers. Likewise torturing small animals: they would have been less available to a London street urchin of the 1850s or 1860s than to a small boy of the 1950s or 1960s.

[Rosella]

If a boy was caught by a policeman,or any adult really, lighting a small fire or swinging a cat around by its tail in London slums in those days, he would be more likely, IMO, to get a good swift kick up the behind or a cuff around the ears than be taken into custody.

[Rosella]

Just like to add though, maybe Jack did find fires very exciting. Wasn't there a red glow in the night sky from a huge fire in the London Docks on the night Polly Nichols was killed?

[Defective Detective]

If a boy was caught by a policeman,or any adult really, lighting a small fire or swinging a cat around by its tail in London slums in those days, he would be more likely, IMO, to get a good swift kick up the behind or a cuff around the ears than be taken into custody.

This is true. At the same time, it's difficult to imagine an East End child even having access to fire-starting materials in that period, at least frequently enough to register on the serial killer triad. Recall that Mary Jane Kelly had a single candle in her possession, and it was mentioned she was going to sent Maria Harvey out to buy another, as if it were some important thing. Even single match heads were, from my understanding, a comparative rarity.

Not to say Jack couldn't have started fires, but that material circumstances could very possibly have conspired to make it impossible for it to become habitual or ritualistic with him. The FBI dossier assumes the conditions of the 20th century in this regard, as in others.

[Magpie]

The FBI's profile is not any more helpful--or indeed any real improvement--than Bond's primitive attempt.