What SHOULD the police have done?

[protohistorian]

With a worldview dominated by thinking like 'people in a social class all behave the same', or 'those poor all manifest similar traits', and 'whatever happens is God's will', the Victorians were very poorly equipped conceptually for the reality of certain people (for varied reasons) hunt other people. They had no effective frame of reference for this. They could not even see these events as requiring three basic elements, a killer, a victim, and a space to interact. If they had grasped this much they would have realized that the only variable they could influence is the space of interaction. The victorian mind however saw more police as the answer and not the removal of the victim pool. Removal of the victim pool would require seeing the victims as humans, and even more repugnant than that, excepting the activity of prostitution as created by the victorian legal system as the genisis of the observable victim pool. In short, they would have to accept certain very dearly held beliefs as contributing factors. If all is God's will, and God says prostitution is wrong, the self righteous would never except such a proposition of reality. Dave

[harry]

Perhaps the police should have been more unorthodox.A friend of mine was having great success at detecting wrongdoers,so much so that the boss asked him one day the secret of his success.My friend stated it was on account of his wife."Your wife",replied the boss,"how does she help".
"Well",said my friend,"If I wake up in the morning and she is lying on her left side I concentrate on dark haired people,if she is lying on her right side I concentrate on light haired persons"
The boss thought for a moment then said,'I suppose if she is lying on her back you select bald headed people".
"No",said my friend,"If she is lying on her back,thats the mornings I am late for work".

To answer what the police might have done differently,one would have to know what they were doing.Basically I suppose it ws using preventive and detection methods,and as Monty points out,one would have to apply that to 1888,and not present day.Profiling,or in the terminology of that day,'charisteristics of the crime',was in evidence,and is spoken of by,I believe,Anderson.So profiling itself is not a new thing,the name was invented to lead people to the belief that an entirely new method of crime detection had been invented.It failed then as it so often does now.

[Hunter]

The police investigated each murder as an individual case. It was standard procedure. Barnett was interrogated for four hours after the Kelly murder, despite all of the previous murders that had taken place. That some of the murders were invariably linked is understandable considering the constricted location and time-span of the so-called canonicals; let alone the victimology and the fact that their throats were cut... a discernable pattern, if you will... If they happened today, such a possible link would be made.

Not conclusive by any means, but a logical thesis nevertheless. The type of mutilations inflicted on four of them was extremely rare indeed.

[Phil Carter]

lone killer...police mistake?

Hello all,

When I posed the original question on this thread, I had, in the back of my mind something that bothered me. Allow me to explain..

From a very early stage DURING the spate of murders, from both the press and the police, the idea that ONE lone killer was responsible for these murders was formed. It seems, at no point in time, did any policeman ever believe that there was more than one murderer involved, UNLESS we turn the clock forward until AFTER the Kelly murder, when as if by magic, and with a little help from Dr. Bond's writings to Anderson, and Sir MM in his references to it, a "canonical five" is formed, thereby making every other murder by another hand.
Ignoring the canonical victims for a moment, let us now look at the remaining victims. Just how many different murderers are we talking of here from 1887-1892?

You see, something struck me, that we bracket together 5 mureders as by the same hand, saying that this is a likely scenario, by quoting different statistics, for example, of how unlikely two murderers in the same area at the same time would be, yet forget that Smith and Tabram, for example, not to mention McKenzie and Coles, or the Torso murders even, all happened at the same point in time and some in the very same area, yet THESE are undoubtably by a different hand. Yet how many different hands, one can ask? So just how many murderers were there floating about Whitechapel etc, carving up women? If 5, for example, I come back to the original question. What should the police have done, if anything, that they didn't do. Doesn't that indicate that the fixed idea of a lone killer was flawed right from the start?

In my mind, one plausible answer is to NOT presume that one murderer was responsible for the murders from an early stage onwards. The views of the press didn't help by promoting this idea this either.

That is why if, as has been the case in the last 25 years or so, we denounce Elizabeth Stride as not being a canonical victim, likewise Mary Kelly,
then how do we denounce Stride, for example, and not accept she was killed by a different killer. Therefore, I opine that the police must have considered this too, yet we hear and read nothing official nor even in the press to question it.

It seems that the idea of a mad, lone killer had already taken hold. That is a mistake I believe the police made that may have been crucial to these murders. For the sheer fact of the matter is that different policing methods etc do not account for thinking. I would hazard to say that people think pretty much the same, when investigating possibilities. Yet apparently, the police decided to ignore all other scenarios other than a lone killer.

Just how many killers were there? And why would this be ignored for so long?
Thank you for your thoughts.

best wishes

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi Ben,

Many thanks. Interesting that the Echo story appeared the day before GH's enhanced description.

You're quite right. The Echo had no reputation for being unscrupulous. And nor did the Star, come to that, which boasted a stellar editorial team. Radical, most definitely, but not unscrupulous.

Thanks again.

Regards,

Simon

[Ben]

Here you go, Simon:

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/echo/18881113.html

And the relevant extract:

From latest inquiries it appears that a very reduced importance seems to be now - in the light of later investigation - attached to a statement made by a person last night that he saw a man with the deceased on the night of the murder. Of course, such a statement should have been made at the inquest, where the evidence, taken on oath, could have been compared with the supposed description of the murderer given by the witnesses. Why, ask the authorities, did not the informant come forward before? As many as fifty-three persons have, in all, made statements as to "suspicious men," each of whom was thought to be Mary Janet Kelly's assassin. The most remarkable thing in regard to the latest statement is, that no one else can be found to say that a man of that description given was seen with the deceased, while, of course, there is the direct testimony of the witnesses at the inquest, that the person seen with the deceased at midnight was of quite a different appearance.

All the best,
Ben

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

I've read the Star, 15th November 1888, account of Hutchinson's story being discredited, but not the Echo version.

Could someone oblige?

Many thanks.

Regards,

Simon

[Ben]

Look at the supposed Hutch discrediting which was only proposed by 2 unscrupulous tabloids with no corraboration.

...And which mysteriously tally not only with eachother but with with all subsequent police memoirs, reports and interviews that address the subject of witness descriptions.

And it wasn't the newspapers themselves that proposed it.

And the Echo had no widespread reputation for being "unscrupulous".

[Barnaby]

Barnaby,
Yeah, Utopia is an amazing, well, utopian phantasy!
Come on, Barnaby, you're talking about a TV show here, not reality.

OK, Maria. You win. But I'm going back to watching Dexter and Criminal Minds now to get some ideas of how to solve this damn case.

[Hunter]

An ecellent post, Trevor (Bond).

We seem to fail to realize ( because we have all the time in the world to speculate) just how rapid these murders took place and the necessary response afforded the police at the time.

By the Kelly murder they had caught on well, but their actions following that even, are looked on as incomplete or incompetent or even conspiratorial. Its damned if you do and damned if you don't. For the first time they gained effective control of the crime scene and completely shut down the access of the press. They, no doubt witheld information because they were trying to catch a killer! The media was left to interview whoever they could find with the result that much spurious information was printed. Yet we have Ripperologist that hang their hat on this stuff. Look at the supposed Hutch discrediting which was only proposed by 2 unscrupulous tabloids with no corraboration. And yet, such as this is used to help implicate people for murder, for heavens sake.

[mariab]

Hello Trevor,
great for Coles. I'm so teribly sorry, as a feeble newbie I'm afraid I have no idea about the Fleming-aka-James Evans connection!! And I need to read up more on the details on John Kelly. I'm better acquainted with the details on Michael Kidney (what an unfortunate name!) as it happens, due to the fact that a lot is published currently on the Stride case.
I'm just back from being out (shoppping, dinner at an Aussie Cafè where I had crocodile steak, and we saw Salt again, which for me must have been the 5th time or so...!)

[tnb]

Maria,

I was not doubting that the Fleming-Mary Kelly link was known in 1888, the connection of which I was speaking was the Fleming-aka-James Evans one, which palpably wasn't.

There are great holes in the records (as we all know) and to an extent what you read into them is a matter of faith, in the Victorian police that is. I completely agree that the partners of the victims should have been strongly looked at; to my mind, being inclined to give the LVP police the benefit of the doubt (a rare position, I know) that actually tends to steer me against a lot of the speculation about Kidney, or John Kelly, for example - as I tend to believe that somewhere in those missing files they must have looked into them pretty early on, and been convinced that the real culprit(s) lay elsewhere. That said, I do think John Kelly was a bit of a 'character', shall we say!

Coles situation going well, I don't want to derail this thread but suffice to say keep your eyes peeled fairly soon...thanks for the ongoing interest!

[mariab]

Trevor Bond wrote:
However, bear in mind that at the time the police didn't know that there would be a Kelly murder, that it would be the last (arguably) etc etc - and they certainly didn't know that someone would turn up the Fleming/ James Evans connection years down the line. There is a question of resources here,
Hello Trevor, I hope you're fine. How's the Coles gravestone situation going? I hope fine.
Trevor, the Joseph Fleming connection was already known to the Whitechapel Police during the interviews with Mary Kelly's girlfriends. The reason why the police didn't insist on Mary Kelly's boyfriends was that they “profiled“ the assailant wrong, as they firmly believed that a “civilized Englishman“ would be incapable of such “bestiality“. Which is a bit naive historically, since so many Victiorian men abused their girfriends/wives at the time, if not Ripper-like. Were I a Victorian policeman, I would have insisted more on the boyfriends. But then again, I'm extremely paranoid by nature!

[tnb]

With all due respect to all concerned, there seem to be two 'traps' that people fall into when discussing this kind of question:

Firstly, while claiming to be looking at the question in terms of, to borrow Neil's excelllent point, '1888 reality', people are still actually looking with their 21st century heads on, in terms of the usefulness of their suggestions. In other words, people suggest things which could have been done at the time, but would have been pretty useless then, such as profiling without any way of searching records; or worse, they suggest things that would be done nowadays as a matter of course but with seemingly no thought as to why it would be any use. This is the trap for instance that I recently discussed on a GSG thread where a recent author had claimed the erasing of that was considered 'the biggest blunder in the whole case'. Why?

The second trap is that people engage in - excuse the phrase- 'backward thinking'. This is most apparent, and again with the greatest of respect, when people make suggestions relating to the Kelly murder. It is all well and good (if debatable) to say that, looking back, the police should have spent more time interviewing Hutchinson, Barnett etc etc, or tracing and/or speaking to Fleming, because of all the various reasons that Kelly's death has taken on an increased importance over the years. However, bear in mind that at the time the police didn't know that there would be a Kelly murder, that it would be the last (arguably) etc etc - and they certainly didn't know that someone would turn up the Fleming/ James Evans connection years down the line. There is a question of resources here, then as now, and it is all too easy to say 'well don't waste time on Pizer, spend it all tracing LeGrand's background' (just for example) with what we now know. The problem is that at the time the police had NO way of knowing that one person or angle would prove more valuable than another, and to put all the effort that would have been needed to interrogate Hutchinson to the level some people seem to want them to have into everyone they spoke to would have meant they would probably have still been working on Chapman witnesses in 1890!

The only way to theorise on this is to take yourself back to the start (Smith, Tabram, MAN, wherever) and try to think what you would have put in place then, pre-emptively, that may have proved useful in the end. As Neil says, with what they had and what they knew, the police at the time did about as good a job as they could. Personally, the only thing I would suggest is a slightly larger house-to-house area, and perhaps consider some 'special rules' for lodging houses, perhaps from October 1888. Even those are debatable as to whether they would have been any use.

[mariab]

Barnaby,
Yeah, Utopia is an amazing, well, utopian phantasy!
Come on, Barnaby, you're talking about a TV show here, not reality.