Why not always indoors?

[Batman]

I believe that if the killer had not been disturbed by someone coming in the distance Nichols would have displayed much more mutilations, like that of Chapman. The difference between Chapman and Nichols is large in terms of degree of mutilations, but the difference between Chapman and Eddowes is quite small, if any at all. One could even say that if the killer felt more comfortable (under less time pressures) what he did to MJK would have been also present with Chapman, Eddowes and likely Nichols too.

I believe the best forensic pathological interpretation of this is that JtR wanted to dehumanize his victims by assaulting their feminine properties as much as possible. His knife (penis) is the mechanism by which he did this for his own satisfaction.

If we are actually looking for a revenge motive, then the best answer seems to be that JtR had syphilis contracted through prostitution use and because his own maleness was being assaulted by a slow and painful degrading, he was going to turn the tables. Hence why Eddowes face displays some notion of a design like a woman with advanced syphilis. It's not a bad suggestion, but at the same time meant that JtR must have been sexually functional in some sort of normal way at some time. Maybe he was and this was a trigger event that changed all that.

The question I would have is why JtR didn't attempt indoor mutilations until MJK? This in itself may be a clue. He tried and was nearly caught. I seem to recall quite a few witness testimonies involving strangers with knives being chased out of women's rooms when they turned nasty in the months before the Nichols murder. So there were women with rooms who could turn a trick.

I am not so sure disorganized offender taking any old opportunity makes sense that much with these murders. Maybe some but if MJK was his fantasy why outdoors so much before it??

[gnote]

I do agree that we would have seen much worse destruction and mutilation with previous victims had they occurred indoors.

I think the answer as to why not always indoors might be quite simple. The Ripper was an opportunist who preyed upon the lowest class of prostitutes. These women rarely had their own private lodgings to take a client. They were easy targets and he wasn't going to wait around for a more ideal location.

Whether or not Jack started to seek out a victim that would allow him execute his fantasies further, or just got "lucky" with MJK is yet another question.

[Batman]

Tabram's murder occurred indoors and likely wasn't done right (whatever 'right' is, but in this context I mean stab wounds to the neck + strangulation seems very amateur). I suspect the environment would have been pretty close to pitch black. Even passers by didn't seem to see the body at first. So the light levels must have been very low and probably had some impact on what the killer could and couldn't do.

Alternatively the other bodies where discovered quite quickly because outdoors the visability was a little better, but not by much. So maybe this explains why Nichols, Chapman, Stride and Eddowes where killed outdoors.

Maybe this is also a reason why JtR didn't kill for a long time during the foggiest times in London that year. Anything that made things darker would have hindered his objective, not made it easier. It seems he put his visual needs before security.

With MJK he may have used light from the fire to see what he was doing.

So I think Tabram's murder may have some explanatory power with respect to the topic question.

[Michael W Richards]

Tabram's murder occurred indoors and likely wasn't done right (whatever 'right' is, but in this context I mean stab wounds to the neck + strangulation seems very amateur). I suspect the environment would have been pretty close to pitch black. Even passers by didn't seem to see the body at first. So the light levels must have been very low and probably had some impact on what the killer could and couldn't do.

Alternatively the other bodies where discovered quite quickly because outdoors the visability was a little better, but not by much. So maybe this explains why Nichols, Chapman, Stride and Eddowes where killed outdoors.

Maybe this is also a reason why JtR didn't kill for a long time during the foggiest times in London that year. Anything that made things darker would have hindered his objective, not made it easier. It seems he put his visual needs before security.

With MJK he may have used light from the fire to see what he was doing.

So I think Tabram's murder may have some explanatory power with respect to the topic question.

Its time you actually read and understood these cases Batman, and really this should have been done before you started posting at all:

1. Tabram was not killed indoors.
2. Stride, Eddowes and Tabram were found because the bodies were left where people would have had to have passed them, the light had no bearing on why they were found.
3. Check the actual weather for London in October of 1888.
4. There is no evidence that a fire was used for light for the killer in room 13,and there is evidence the fire was out before 1:30.

You really do need to study the fundamentals before you argue points with people here, some of who are life long researchers and authors on the subject.

[Batman]

Its time you actually read and understood these cases Batman, and really this should have been done before you started posting at all:

You don't even believe there is a serial killer called JtR do you? Am I right about that?

That's certainly not mainstream in any sense of the historical research contemporary or modern.

1. Tabram was not killed indoors.

Tabram's body was lying on a landing above the first flight of stairs. Now in my universe a landing above the first flight of stairs is usually indoors. From what I have read none of the major authors have ever mentioned this being an outdoor event. Can you cite sources on this being an outdoor event. Thanks.

2. Stride, Eddowes and Tabram were found because the bodies were left where people would have had to have passed them, the light had no bearing on why they were found.

I don't understand what point you are trying to make. They where found because that is likely where they took their 'client' JtR or met JtR (Stride). MJK took her client to her room. I doubt he 'selected' his area of attack at all or even for the public to see what he did. I think in Eddowes case she is well out of the way in a corner where you needed a police lamp to see (later on a street lamp on a wall was attached, see. Philip Hutchinson).

What I am proposing is that Tabram was a botched amateur attempt that has several factors explaining why he did what he did outdoors later.

I am also not discounting the earlier clients with rooms who where assaulted by men with knives in 1888 or close to thereabouts.

3. Check the actual weather for London in October of 1888.

Plenty of october articles about the 'pea-soup fog'.

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/echo/18881008.html

First words there in that Echo article are about the fog. 8th October.

Why, when do you think London England experiences fog and not?

4. There is no evidence that a fire was used for light for the killer in room 13,and there is evidence the fire was out before 1:30.

MJK was burning the clothes in her room then because she didn't want to use the garbage can?

You really do need to study the fundamentals before you argue points with people here, some of who are life long researchers and authors on the subject.

Who actually reject your hypothesis of a ghost JtR. I don't think raising their existence helps you actually... but likely supports my case.

[Michael W Richards]

You don't even believe there is a serial killer called JtR do you? Am I right about that? That's certainly not mainstream in any sense of the historical research contemporary or modern.

No I don't believe the story as many have chosen to accept it, and although not a mainstream view, it is one that gains in momentum.

Tabram's body was lying on a landing above the first flight of stairs. Now in my universe a landing above the first flight of stairs is usually indoors. From what I have read none of the major authors have ever mentioned this being an outdoor event. Can you cite sources on this being an outdoor event. Thanks.

Indoors: In a dwelling or room.
The stairs were wrapped outside the building.

I don't understand what point you are trying to make. They where found because that is likely where they took their 'client' JtR or met JtR (Stride). MJK took her client to her room. I doubt he 'selected' his area of attack at all or even for the public to see what he did. I think in Eddowes case she is well out of the way in a corner where you needed a police lamp to see (later on a street lamp on a wall was attached, see. Philip Hutchinson).

Each of the three victims I mentioned were killed in a place where people would be passing by shortly thereafter, as people woke, or as a function of their passage through an area.

What I am proposing is that Tabram was a botched amateur attempt that has several factors explaining why he did what he did outdoors later.

The most important feature of the first 2 so-called Ripper murders was the double cut throat wound. The second was the abdominal mutilations. The third was the similarity in the execution and mutilation of both those women. Martha Tabram was stabbed repeatedly with a small pen-knife, and a second larger wound indicates a second assailant. I don't see why anyone would pursue a possible linkage when it appears there is none.

Plenty of october articles about the 'pea-soup fog'.

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/echo/18881008.html

First words there in that Echo article are about the fog. 8th October.
Why, when do you think London England experiences fog and not?

I don't disagree there was fog, only that it wasn't preventing anyone from working the streets.

MJK was burning the clothes in her room then because she didn't want to use the garbage can?

Why would you assume MJK burned them?

I was a bit brusque with you but the point bears consideration.

Cheers

[Batman]

The stairs were wrapped outside the building.

Cheers

Can you cite sources on this please?

Thanks

[Rosella]

Surely a thick 'pea-souper' would keep Jack in his hidey-hole while it lasted and probably those prostitutes who could also stayed indoors.

Some of these fogs were described as so thick you could hardly see your hand in front of your face. Having been in one as a small child on a visit to London before the Clean Air Act I can attest to that!

The last thing Jack would have wanted when about to attack a victim would have been a police officer looming out of the fog.

[Batman]

http://www.casebook.org/press_report.../18880809.html
DID NOT SEE THE BODY.
Elizabeth Mahoney said she lived at 47, George-yard-buildings. It was an artisans' dwellings' house, and one of the rules was that all the lights should be put out on the staircase after eleven o'clock. Witness went out on Bank Holiday and returned with her husband about two o'clock on Tuesday morning. She afterwards went down the staircase again to get something for supper. She saw no one on the staircase, and heard no noise, but she admitted that she had no light with her, and it was possible for her to pass up the staircase without being aware of the body of the woman lying there.

Michael W Richards hasn't sourced his outdoor claim and all the August papers on CB refute it so we can dismiss the claim Martha was killed outdoors like the rest. She obviously was killed indoors on concrete steps.

The above supports my hypothesis that she was killed indoors in total darkness. It even emphasised.

So back to point. Visibility is an extremely important factor in why JtR choose outdoor locations.... Because of botched indoor amateur attempts.

[Rosella]

Well, yes, except that Buck's Row and Dutfield Yard, (at least near the side door) were in almost total darkness.

[Batman]

Well, yes, except that Buck's Row and Dutfield Yard, (at least near the side door) were in almost total darkness.

They are very dark indeed... but I think not as dark as indoors with Tabram with enough visable night light to see what he was doing.

Buck's Row witnesses for example described seeing what looked like some tarpaulin for some distance before they could see it was a body.

Dutfield Yard is dark also, but Schwartz was able to describe Stride's attacker. Also JtR didn't complete what he had planned for Stride so the light factors play a minimal role.

I think accepting Tabram opens doors like this.

[Michael W Richards]

http://www.casebook.org/press_report.../18880809.html
DID NOT SEE THE BODY.
Elizabeth Mahoney said she lived at 47, George-yard-buildings. It was an artisans' dwellings' house, and one of the rules was that all the lights should be put out on the staircase after eleven o'clock. Witness went out on Bank Holiday and returned with her husband about two o'clock on Tuesday morning. She afterwards went down the staircase again to get something for supper. She saw no one on the staircase, and heard no noise, but she admitted that she had no light with her, and it was possible for her to pass up the staircase without being aware of the body of the woman lying there.

Michael W Richards hasn't sourced his outdoor claim and all the August papers on CB refute it so we can dismiss the claim Martha was killed outdoors like the rest. She obviously was killed indoors on concrete steps.

The above supports my hypothesis that she was killed indoors in total darkness. It even emphasised.

So back to point. Visibility is an extremely important factor in why JtR choose outdoor locations.... Because of botched indoor amateur attempts.

Have you ever seen pictures of many Lodging Houses of the era? They have staircases that lead up the various floors and have landings. That is precisely where street whores would take their clients, not into the house, but to the stairs and landings, likely covered. Did you see pictures of Hanbury St, did you read how prostitutes used the yard with clients...not any stairs on the inside? Sometimes you have to use logic in the absence of definitive statements.

From Alfred Crow;" As he was passing the first-floor landing he saw a body lying on the ground. He took no notice, as he was accustomed to seeing people lying about there. He did not then know whether the person was alive or dead. He got up at half-past 9, and when he went down the staircase the body was not there."
"

[Amanda]

Very likely...

Hi Michael,
I think you're spot on.

We're also looking at an area & era where rooms, sometimes even beds, were often paid by the night.
If a prostitute returned to her lodgings without the doss money, and the landlady refused her a bed on credit, she might have hung around in the yard or on the stairs waiting for a male resident to take pity on her & pay the fee for services rendered.
There are so many scenarios...

Amanda

[Batman]

ttp://www.casebook.org/press_report.../18880809.html

Elizabeth Mahoney said she lived at 47, George-yard-buildings. It was an artisans' dwellings' house, and one of the rules was that all the lights should be put out on the staircase after eleven o'clock.

There is no evidence this was an outdoor event. Indoors is anywhere inside a building with a roof. The staircase has lights. This was not an outdoor staircase. It was made of concrete.

Even the sketches of the place in later newspapers show it to be indoors.

I don't get why you think this was an outdoor event.

No blood was found anywhere else but on the landing where she had been murdered lying down.

[Rosella]

From 'The London of Jack the Ripper Then and now'. Page 31.

'It is difficult today to understand the plan of the building (George Yard Buildings) and unfortunately there are no known INTERNAL images of it, but it appears that a large archway in the front wall preceded a short alley. At the end of the alley an open doorway led to the staircase to the upper floors, which turned back on itself at the landings.

Because of the easy access to the building and the relatively extensive open floor area outside individual's dwellings, it was not at all unusual for the homeless to ENTER the building and sleep on the floors of the corridors to protect themselves from the elements.'

(My capitals.) not shouting, but it seems clear that the staircases and landings were inside the building. Unlike tenement buildings in North America it was quite rare for British domestic architecture to feature outside stairs, fire escapes etc. There were a few but they certainly weren't common and don't seem to have been a feature of George Yard Buildings.