How well did Jack know the East End?

[Sam Flynn]

I was always HIGHLY motivated to get to a major artery for extraction.

You and Jack, both

[Sam Flynn]

If our killer knew the area very well why didn't he seek out someone like Mary Kelly in the first place?

In an overcrowded district like Whitechapel, single occupancy rooms were in a decided minority. By contrast, it wouldn't have been uncommon to find a desperate waif wandering the streets alone. A local killer would have known both those facts. Indeed, if Kelly hadn't been one of the few to have a pad of her own, chances are she'd have been butchered on the streets like the others. It was her misfortune, and the killer's luck, that her domestic circumstances were such that he could really go to town on her.

[Errata]

I think there's a big difference between wandering with no care in the world and getting away from a major crime, where getting caught would result in execution.

There's also a slight psychological difference between doing an immediate act in a risky location, and doing it in a risky location where you have no idea about the local circumstances - how quiet it tends to be where you end up if you turn left or right, where there is a cut through that you could lose someone who tries to follow.

Well, no 18 year old girl in her right mind wanders about the big cities of Europe more that slightly drunk without a care in the world. Especially in Prague where at that time being caught by the wrong people absolutely did result in execution. I was always HIGHLY motivated to get to a major artery for extraction. And yeah I screwed up some, but mostly I could navigate. Especially in Paris and London where at worst I had to head towards the river. Any idiot could get out with at least a small degree of area knowledge.

But thats not the problem. There is no way in any of the cities I got lost in could I have found some surefire way of finding a woman alone. I had a hell of a time finding payphones, and this was back when payphones were everywhere. Fleeing is easy. Finding victims is the hard part if you don't know the area.

[pinkmoon]

If our killer knew the area very well why didn't he seek out someone like Mary Kelly in the first place?By finding a victim with their own room he could spend as much time indulging himself as he wanted I think he came across his victims by chance and they took him to places that offerd a small degree of privacy.

[Sam Flynn]

Can we keep this a suspect-free thread? The question can be addressed perfectly well without inviting... what was it we used to call it? oh, yes... "kudzu"

My 4d: Jack would have known the immediate area rather well. He may also have had a knowledge of police beats, as he certainly seems to have been in the right places at the right time. The only exception, perhaps, was Mitre Square - if we could re-run history, Harvey and Watkins might easily have caught him in the act. Perhaps, therefore, his knowledge of the westernmost part of his patch (i.e. the City) wasn't as well-honed as his familiarity with "Whitechapel" itself.

[Lechmere]

The most complex and unfamiliar part of Lechmere's post mid June walk would probably be the bit he claims to have taken between Doveton Street and Bucks Row.

[Lechmere]

I think there's a big difference between wandering with no care in the world and getting away from a major crime, where getting caught would result in execution.

There's also a slight psychological difference between doing an immediate act in a risky location, and doing it in a risky location where you have no idea about the local circumstances - how quiet it tends to be where you end up if you turn left or right, where there is a cut through that you could lose someone who tries to follow.

Lechmere would have been well acquainted with all the streets in that neighbourhood after 20 years as a carman based in a local depot - with other Pickfords offices in the general area also, and after having lived virtually all his life in the area. Different things will have given him cause to have got to know he whole area of the crime scenes.
Little map books were issued to cabmen and I have no doubt a carman would have had one as well.
He may not have know the top end of Bethnal Green or the Limehouse area or much of Poplar or Bow, but the Whitechapel and Spitalfields areas would have been very much in his normal stamping ground.

[MrBarnett]

Having been lost in some of the finest cities in the world, I can say with a certain authority that finding a way out is much easier than say, attempting to locate a specific address. Cities herd people towards large arteries. There is more light, more sound, more movement. Even in the dead of night. Towards warehouse districts is always wrong, towards businesses like bars and restaurants is always right. Towards a river is also almost always right.

Give me an address to locate in London, and I promise you I wont find it. Drop me in the middle of London blindfolded, and I can find my way to a major road, and therefor a cab. As long as Jack's sense of direction wasn't totally absent, he didn't need to know the area to escape from it. On the other hand, he did need to know it to find women to solicit who were on their own.

Hi Errata,

I couldn't agree more. Most of my working life was spent in the West End of London. My route home was via Liverpool Street station and I often walked between the two - for fun! Once you grasp the major East/West routes and have some idea of where the river is , you can wander to your hearts content through a myriad of little streets and alleyways without fear of getting lost and always trending in the right direction.

No need for detailed knowledge, just a reasonable sense of direction and a familiarity with the main routes (which Lech, for example, would have got through his job).


MrB.

[MrBarnett]

Hi Ed,

Hanbury Street is another example of a bad choice of location for a murder. If anyone comes to the back door and discovers you, you are trapped in the yard. If the victim makes a noise and you lose your nerve, or someone sticks their head out of a window and tells you to f off you have to run back through the building and out into Hanbury Street blind (i.e. you have no idea whether the street is empty.)

I see little if any evidence of thought being given to the locations by Jack. Dutfields Yard strikes as somewhere the woman might choose as just about as safe as it gets. A dark, quiet corner to get the business done but close to a busy club, should she need to cry for help.

MrB

[MrBarnett]

Getting swiftly to a second kill site that night also speaks of local knowledge.
I have little time for suggestions of different killers.

A limited amount of local knowledge for JTR in general, I agree. But possibly even less for Lech in particularc, given that his route for much of his working life had probably been Commercial Road/Whitechapel High Street/ Aldgate...' he wouldn't have needed to have explored much beyond that to have sought out Eddowes.

I am totally with you re the double event. One killer, disturbed because he acquiesced with the wrong choice of venue the first time.

MrB

[Lechmere]

If he wanted to use smaller roads to effect his escapeople he would need to know the area. Just heading by instinct to the biggest main road could be risky. Once st the main road you would want to head in the right direction as well.

[Errata]

Having been lost in some of the finest cities in the world, I can say with a certain authority that finding a way out is much easier than say, attempting to locate a specific address. Cities herd people towards large arteries. There is more light, more sound, more movement. Even in the dead of night. Towards warehouse districts is always wrong, towards businesses like bars and restaurants is always right. Towards a river is also almost always right.

Give me an address to locate in London, and I promise you I wont find it. Drop me in the middle of London blindfolded, and I can find my way to a major road, and therefor a cab. As long as Jack's sense of direction wasn't totally absent, he didn't need to know the area to escape from it. On the other hand, he did need to know it to find women to solicit who were on their own.

[Lechmere]

Getting swiftly to a second kill site that night also speaks of local knowledge.
I have little time for suggestions of different killers.

[Lechmere]

It perhaps suggests greater confidence in that location - maybe he knew when most people left the club. Maybe it was more of an impulse attack.
Maybe we went out not especially intending to attack that night but the mood came on him.
Or all of the above.

[MrBarnett]

It is not always necessarily the case that a suitable location for a sexual assignation will be a suitable place to kill, rip up and escape unseen.

Your'e not wrong there. I would suggest that some of the locations were so iffy as to preclude any suggestion of a risk assessment by the killer. Take Dutfields Yard. Short of knocking on the door of the club and asking if they had a spare bed, could they have chosen a riskier place at that time and in that general area?

MrB