What SHOULD the police have done?

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

What should the police have done?

That all depends on what you think certain elements of the police were actually doing.

You don't need to be a criminal mastermind to pull off the mystery of the century - you just need to be in tight control of the ongoing investigation.

Regards,

Simon

[NickB]

Setting a trap for the killer, might have worked

From the Evening News, 2nd Feb 1949:

A London girl Amelia Lewis volunteered to act as a decoy for Jack the Ripper and was used as such. She is still alive and will be 82 in March - Mrs A. Brown of Adys Rd, Peckham.

[Monty]

Hello Neil,

1888 reality.

best wishes

Phil

Then they did all they could at the time.

Monty


PS re door to door. No door to door no Lewande.

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
Setting a trap for the killer, might have worked, I have mighty suspicions, that they may have used that ploy with Eddowes, with or without her knowledge, it seems a mighty coincedence that a woman arrested at 8pm, in a drunken stumour, should have been released from police custody some thirty minutes before meeting the infamous Ripper.
Did they set the whole thing up?
Could it be that Eddowes did have grave suspicions about a certain man, did she venture into a Aldgate pub on the afternoon of the 29th, where she knew he was a regular, and came on to him, knowing she was being shadowed by officers/officer, and play acted her drunkeness, venturing outside knowing she was going to be arrested, and taken to the cells.
Was it possible that the police informed intresting onlookers that 'we will let her sober up, and release her at 1am, before dragging her off to Bishopsgate nick, leaving her possible killer a avenue to explore.
I am obviously dismissing Stride as a victim by suggesting this.
The reason I offer this as a scenerio, is the route Eddowes took on leaving the cells being the opposite one would expect, also one could speculate that she was followed by a plain clothes officer upon leaving [ Bleinkensops man] and this policeman lost her, who by then had been joined by her killer.
It is even possible that a number of officers had been placed in position, at routes Eddowes was going to use, so that someone was always close by.
The police went very tight lipped with the press , after the discovery of the body, was that because they failed to do their duty proberly.?
And the city CD that was said to have had a good look at the suspect, was he the officer that may have followed Eddowes and a man.
If this scenerio is any where near right, naturally the man seen with Eddowes would have been Identified, but as he was not caught in the act, nothing could be proven, mayby that was why there was a lull in October, because he was being closely watched.
One could even suggest that no more Ripper murders occured, and the kelly murder was infact a domestic, like originally believed, and was copied as a Ripper crime.
All good B movie stuff, but it does fit a lot of points.
Regards Richard.

[dixon9]

i truely believe they did as much as they possibly could.They flooded the streets with officers,worked long hours etc.
The talk of a 'large' reward,anyone think this would have helped?My views are the use of a reward could have just given police more headaches, chasing up false information from people hoping for financial reward.

Dixon9
still learning

[Phil Carter]

Are talking in 1888 reality or 2009. Cos there is a difference.

Monty

Hello Neil,

1888 reality.

best wishes

Phil

[sdreid]

Used the dogs.

[Pinkerton]

Commicated with prostitutes

I don't know if the police extensively did this (if they did it has not been documented) but I always thought they should have spent a lot of time communicating with the prostitutes of the East End. They could have gotten a lot of information on clients who had abused them or worse in the past. This was ultimately what would help point the police in the right direction of the Green River Killer murders. I think there have been other serial murders of prostitutes in which this also contributed to the suspect's capture (can't remember any particular cases though off the top of my head).

The only problem was of course that the police didn't have a lot of time to build up any sense of "trust" with these women since the murders presumably ended only a few months after they began.

By the way I don't like the "condescending" attitude (I won't mention any names) of some posters on this thread to the person who started it. The person who started the thread is asking a legitimate question and stating his/her opinion. You can disagree without the "attitude" that some posters on this board regularly exhibit (patronizing and smug). This is one reason I rarely post to the boards much any more even though I've followed this website since the late 90's.

I'm just saying.

[corey123]

Profiling

Hunter,

Profiles can be wrong, but it is helpful. Profiles dont solve murder cases, they were never ment to catch criminals, they were ment to help narrow suspect lists.

Alot of so called "criminal profilers" use the wrong kind of profiling. Yet there are some forms of profiling that works.

Have you heard of the "railway rapist"? He was a rapist and killer who was caught with help of a criminal profile. It does help. If profiling did not help the FBI agents at quantico would not spend so much time into teaching it, let alone funding the Behavioral Science Unit.

So profiling does have its weak points, but so does all things. However saying it helps none whatso ever is ignorant. Like I said, why would a federal organization spend so much on profiling if it was worthless?

Yours truly

[Supe]

Pontius,

1. they should have taken more victim photos, including crime scene photos.

And just precisely what might those photographs have told the police? A scene-of-crime forenics sweep today often provides valuable clues but SOC photos are more beloved of prosecutors than investigators, providing a hedge against defense charges of site contamination.

3. they should have held back most information from the press.

In fact, they revealed very little to the press and most analysts are of the opinion that better press liaison efforts would have aided the investigation.

4. they should not have given the press any of the letters and should not have had the press to post copies of the Dear Boss letters in newspapers.

Of course, since many of the letters were sent directly to the press or private individuals, this would have been rather difficult, wouldn't it? Moreover, releasing handwriting and textual samples to the public is still a valuable tool and led directly to the discovery of, among others, the Unabomber.

5. they wasted a lot of energy doing door-to-door interviews. they would have been better off knowing the alibis of everyone working in the meat trade and the areas surrounding the Tabram, Nichols, and Chapman murders.

In fact, the police interviewed everyone in the slaughtering and allied trades and did conduct door-to-door interviews in all the Canonic 5 murders as well as Tabram's. I assume your wasted energy remarks refer to the massive October house-to-house interviews, but remember that effort was forced upon the Met police by an MP and the Home Office. That it may have turned up anything positive remains uncertain.

7. once the "Polish Jew" was indeed locked in an asylum, they should have gotten access to him to either find out if he was the killer or exclude him as a suspect.

However efficacious that might have been, it would have been patently illegal.

And so on.

In fact, Sox is correct: the current success rates with serial killers, given all the investigatory advances gained in 12 decades, remain dismayingly low.

Don.

[Hunter]

Hello All,

Most other serial killers murdered more victims over a longer period of time allowing the odds of more mistakes being made by the perpetrator and as Sox pointed out it still took a long time to find a suspect. Ted Bundy was caught, then escaped and killed more.

If the Whitechapel murders had continued for some length of time I believe that Jack would have been aprehended . For so few murders, of a kind that hadn't been seen before, the police did the best that they could do outside of declaring marshal law.

If I had to add anything to what was done, it would be fingerprinting. Even though it wasn't official practice at that time, it was known and would have been useful. As far as more photographs are concerned, they would be of more interest to us, today, than useful back then. A GSG photo may have helped eliminate some of the hoax letters- if it was written by the murderer.

Correy mentioned profiling. They did profile. I just believe it was the wrong one . Even today, I can't think of a single case that profiling helped catch a serial killer. They got the Atlanta murders and the DC snipers wrong. Hard evidence is what solves a case and either by accident or design Jack didn't leave much.

Before we try to second guess the 1888 officials we should look at ourselves. Heck, we can't even agree on who this man called Jack even killed.

[corey123]

Hey david and Graham,

Obviously they needed Inspector Gadgit. Seriously

[DVV]

What about the Pink Panther ?

Amitiés,
David

[Graham]

It's obvious - they should have called in Sherlock Holmes. 1888 was a bit of an idle year for him, so he'd have had time to nail the Ripper and be back in Baker Street for a pipe and a shot of 7% solution whilst taking the piss out of Watson.

I mean, what on earth was Swanston & Co thinking of?

Graham

[DVV]

8. they should have made some effort to locate Joseph Fleming.

Oh yes, Pontius,

Paradoxically, they would have done this and perhaps caught the Ripper, had they believed in a "domestic" murder in Miller's Court.
Of course I'm biaised, for I firmly believe in Flem-the-Ripper...

Amitiés,
David