How "safe" were the respective murder sites?

[Sam Flynn]

An obvious one, Iīd say. To me, much hinges on the [Berner St Club] door. If he knew that it was used by the clubbers, heīd be a fool to use the yard. If not, I fail to see why it would not seem an ideal place to kill and eviscerate for him.

Stride's murder was committed in a natural bottleneck just within the gates, which was an incredibly risky spot to choose (or be lured into) in order to commit an evisceration murder. That "bottleneck" puts it on a par with Hanbury Street, but at least the latter didn't have alternative exits and entrances, unlike Dutfield's Yard with its side doors and outhouses. Dutfield's was made even riskier in my view, by the comparative bustle in and around Berner Street and the Clubhouse itself; such conditions didn't seem to apply at sleepy Hanbury.

[Fisherman]

lynn cates:

Hello Christer. Thanks.

"That means that he did not award either Long or Cadosh any credibility at all."

What it MEANS is that the culprit had not been caught. Or so it was thought.

Not at all, Lynn. Did you not have a PhD in logic...? Listen here:

"Up to the present the combined result of those inquiries did not supply the police with the slightest clue to the murderer".

How does that mean that the killer has not been caught? That may be something that FOLLOWED from the fact that the police were clueless, but it is not the inherent meaning of the sentence at all.
The inherent meaning is that the police awarded Long no credibility at all. If they had believed her, they would have had a clue. But they didnīt.
Now, THEREīS logic for you.

"He went on to say: "Again if the evidence of Mrs. Long is correct that she saw the deceased at 5:30 a.m. then the evidence of Dr. Phillips as to probable time of death is incorrect."

Yes. And Phillips SAID as much.

Phillips said what?

"And there goes Mrs Long."

No, there goes a journalist whistling past the graveyard. (No offense.)

Hey, what about my question? The police had lots of time on their hands after the inquest to ask Phillips whether Baxter had interpreted him correctly. They came up with a decision that Phillips was correct and Long was wrong.

How could they do that, if Phillips allowed for a TOD at 5.30? Logic, please.

"Farewell to her!"

I'll split the difference. Farewell, Christer. Good luck in finding the first piece of evidence for the carman.

Iīve already added more evidence to that already presented, Lynn. Youīll be hearing of it in days to come.

Good luck in doing the same in Issyīs case, by the way! (heh-heh)

The best,
Fisherman

[lynn cates]

whistling

Hello Christer. Thanks.

"That means that he did not award either Long or Cadosh any credibility at all."

What it MEANS is that the culprit had not been caught. Or so it was thought.

"He went on to say: "Again if the evidence of Mrs. Long is correct that she saw the deceased at 5:30 a.m. then the evidence of Dr. Phillips as to probable time of death is incorrect."

Yes. And Phillips SAID as much.

"And there goes Mrs Long."

No, there goes a journalist whistling past the graveyard. (No offense.)

"Farewell to her!"

I'll split the difference. Farewell, Christer. Good luck in finding the first piece of evidence for the carman.

Cheers.
LC

[Fisherman]

Hello Christer. Thanks.

I'll cut through your chutzpah and rhetoric and conclude. (heh-heh)

At inquest--which obviously builds on all the previous speculation--Baxter had two difficulties:

1. He needed to explain the difference in Phillips on the one hand and Long/Cadosh on the other.

2. The fifteen minute gap between Long and Cadosh.

The latter does not concern us here. The first was neatly solved when Bagster, himself, held out for his possibility of having committed an error, GIVEN the unusual conditions.

Perhaps you would do well to emulate his example? (heh-heh)

Now, back to the issue of safety.

Cheers.
LC

Absolutely true - Baxter DID misinterpret Phillips, as people often do when they are positioned to try and make all evidence fit together. Thatīs what they do at such times - they fit it. Up.

But that doesnīt answer the question I posed to you, does it? Forget about Baxter. Tell me why Swanson was of the meaning that Long and Phillips were mutually excluding each other in the report he wrote.

Iīll point you to it, and to what Swanson had to say on the matter.

In his report of the 19:th of October (I think), Swanson listed what the police had done in order to secure any leads. He concluded that:
"Up to the present the combined result of those inquiries did not supply the police with the slightest clue to the murderer".

That means that he did not award Long any credibility at all, and that he ruled out that Cadosh had heard the killer.

He went on to say: "Again if the evidence of Mrs. Long is correct that she saw the deceased at 5:30 a.m. then the evidence of Dr. Phillips as to probable time of death is incorrect. He was called and saw the body at 6:20 a.m. [sic] and he then gives it as his opinion that death occurred about two hours earlier, viz: 4:20 a.m. hence the evidence of Mrs. Long which appeared to be so important to the Coroner, must be looked upon with some amount of doubt, which is to be regretted."

And there goes Mrs Long. Farewell to her! Swanson correctly concluded that she had nothing to do with the Chapman case other than in the capacity of a misinformant.

So the police decided that Phillips could not have been an hour of the mark. They did not have the same type of task as Baxter did, and therefore not the same reason to sacrifice facts for a consensus that the police would never allow for anyway.

The best,
Fisherman

[lynn cates]

good old Watson

Hello CD. Thanks.

In which case you will have a long wait as "Lynn" would NEVER make the mistake of asking for proof regarding an empirical object. Having a PhD in logic, he seems to understand the difference in a deduction and an induction.

Of course, he MIGHT ask for evidence. In which case HE would have a long wait as NONE should be forthcoming. (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

emulating the good doctor

Hello Christer. Thanks.

I'll cut through your chutzpah and rhetoric and conclude. (heh-heh)

At inquest--which obviously builds on all the previous speculation--Baxter had two difficulties:

1. He needed to explain the difference in Phillips on the one hand and Long/Cadosh on the other.

2. The fifteen minute gap between Long and Cadosh.

The latter does not concern us here. The first was neatly solved when Bagster, himself, held out for his possibility of having committed an error, GIVEN the unusual conditions.

Perhaps you would do well to emulate his example? (heh-heh)

Now, back to the issue of safety.

Cheers.
LC

[c.d.]

Hello John G,

Schwartz never said that he witnessed "an attack." So that is your own word. According to Schwartz, he simply saw a woman being pushed to the ground. And we don't know if the pushing was intentional or not. As for Liz being frightened enough to leave the scene, I think being hassled by drunken men was a common occurrence for prostitutes doing business in Whitechapel and would simply have been just another day at the office.

c.d.

P.S. I am now waiting for Lynn to say what proof do we have that Stride was a prostitute?

[lynn cates]

Tempus fugit.

Hello John. Thanks.

Well, WHICH police? Perhaps not at Lehman station.

Don't think you want to bring Spooner into the discussion? May not be advisable--especially as regards time.

The article written by the anarchists held out for 12.45. And they should know.

Cheers.
LC

[Hakeswill]

A far more likely explanation is that Schwarz was wrong about the time. As I noted on another thread there is no evidence that Schwarz had a watch, or evidence that he referred to a watch at the time of the assault.


Very possible that Schwarz was confused regards time, but for the sake of debate:

Schwartz had lived on Berner St so would have presumably been aware of the same clock in the Harris' tobacconists that Diemschutz used to make his tim estimate.

I'm also not sure where Schwartz was coming from - if it was from something that had a fixed 'end' he may have based his time estimate on that.

[Fisherman]

lynn cates: Hello Christer. Thanks. Did not think you could resist.

It was you, I think, who could not resist - but who ought to.

"So what is it that Phillips acknowledges?"

That the other witnesses COULD be correct after all. Correct?

No, wrong - he acknowledges that although he opts for more than two hours, it could actually be that little.

Seriously, you've gone down this dubious path before. And nothing has changed.

Nope. Nothing at all. Iīm still correct and you are still wrong.

No offense. I recognise your need for an early kill.

I have no such need. Why would I? Lechmere could have moved through Hanbury Street at any time during working hours too. So there goes that argument of yours.

Now, my question: If the police agreed that Chapman could have been killed as late as 5.30, then why do they say that Phillipsī estimation rules out Longs testimony? Why not just say that Long was right, and Phillips allowed for it - if that had ever been the case?

Any answer to that one, Lynn?

The best,
Fisherman

[John G]

Hello John. But if the BS story be true, and, as you seem to suggest, he killed Liz, what was happening between 12.45 and 1.00?

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn,

Personally I regard Schwarz as a reliable witness and so did the police at the time. However, I also believe that Stride must have been killed very close to 1:00am. This is supported by the fact that, when Eagle et al. closely examined the body, it was noticed that blood was still trickling from the neck. Moreover, according to Spooner Stride's face was still warm to the touch.

The question then is whether Schwarz witnessed a separate assault on Stride. I would argue that this is very unlikely because it would mean that Stride must have been attacked twice, in more or less exactly the same location, within the space of a few minutes. Frankly, having been attacked by Man A I can't see Stride hanging around for a quarter of an hour or so, on the same spot, waiting to be attacked by Man B or a repeated attack by Man B! And if she did she must have been extremely unlucky!

A far more likely explanation is that Schwarz was wrong about the time. As I noted on another thread there is no evidence that Schwarz had a watch, or evidence that he referred to a watch at the time of the assault. Even if he had a watch as he was a poor man it probably wasn't very expensive, and therefore very accurate.

And it is worth noting that, in terms of estimating the time, Edward Spooner reckoned that he arrived at the murder seen at around 12:35am. Now considering that Stride's body had already been discovered by then, and around 15 people had already assembled in the yard, he must have been around half an hour wrong with his estimate. In fact, what is all the more remarkable is that he still gave 12:35am as his ETA when subsequently questioned at the inquest!

Cheers,

John

[lynn cates]

same

Hello Christer. Thanks. Did not think you could resist.

"So what is it that Phillips acknowledges?"

That the other witnesses COULD be correct after all. Correct?

"Exactly." (heh-heh)

Seriously, you've gone down this dubious path before. And nothing has changed.

No offense. I recognise your need for an early kill.

Cheers.
LC

[Fisherman]

MrBarnett: Hi Fish,

It feels comfortingly retro to be discussing Lech after all that shawl malarkey.

Who would have thought it?

Aren't you forgetting the privy in the Hanbury St backyard? Isn't it just as likely that someone would use that as that someone would stroll along Bucks Row at 3.45?

No, I am not forgetting one single privy - there was one in Dutfields Yard too. But people normally donīt use privys at three o clock in the morning. They MAY, but normally, they donīt.

Similarly with Dutfields Yard, there was a privy, a side door to the club and the printing works further down that made it a dangerous place in which to operate. And he compounded the risk there by attacking much earlier. And, if we are talking Lech, he made the possibility of detection even greater by acting in the area of the East End where he was best known.

There were risks, but I want you to look at it the other way around: what better opportunity would there have been if he wanted to kill in Berner Street? What other venue was out of the way, dark and secluded? I think we must work from an assumption that the killer may not have known about the side door, thinking that the clubbers had a useful front door leading directly out to Berner Street.

Obviously we don't want this to morph into a Lechmere thread, but I wonder at what point you think the killer decided upon the locations. Did he already know them as a result of previous dalliances or did he make the decision on the spot?

I think he on each occasion allowed the prostitute to lead the way, only to evaluate risks and chances as he arrived to the chosen spot. Maybe he at some stage said, "Hey, what about the backyard behind here?", whoīs to say?

Personally I think the latter is more likely. His blood was up, the immediate area was dark and secluded,and his first thought was whether he could kill and mutilate without disturbance. Subsequent flight was a secondary consideration.

It always had to be. He could never know what the venue would look like after the kill, could he? Somebody could have arrived in for example Hanbury Street, outside nr 29, and yelled "I am Jesus, gather round everybody!". That would have changed the game.

Then again, he could just have walked out of the front door, taken a sharp right turn and walked on - Jesus and his disciples would have no reason to move into the back yard.

On the whole, though, I totally agree: "...his first thought was whether he could kill and mutilate without disturbance". Thatīs exactly what I am saying. He prioritized seclusion over flight openings.

But with this, it also followed that he actually chose the safest places to kill. That is synonymous with places where he could kill and mutilate without disturbance.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Accepting the problems of making comparisons between separate murderers, looking at a similar case like that of Robert Napper could be useful here. What might be considered extraordinarily risky to a normal person could simply be a culmination of opportunism and psychotic behaviour (like Napper on Wimbledon common), but when the opportunity arose to operate indoors there was (lie JTR) an escalation in behaviour.
Personally, I think that it was a combination of "need" and opportunity that resulted in the JTR locations; when these factors outweighed caution then he struck.

Yes, Hakeswill, exactly so. It is that simple.

What we do is to confuse our own way of looking on it with how the killer worked. We would have chosen Bucks Row since it would allow us to run like the frightened rabbits we are.

A refreshing way to look upon it would be to view the question from another angle. Letīs say that we were forced to undress for ten minutes. What venue would we choose to do so, Buckīs Row or the Hanbury Street backyard?

I think we would all choose the backyard, since we would bank on it being more secluded. And once the crime was not as sinister as killing and eviscerating, we would be able to see the advantages that came with seclusion.

The best,
Fisherman

[MrBarnett]

Haha! Well, you would pick up on that, Mr Barnett!

And yes, I think we all know that Buckīs Row was very sparsely trafficed at the relevant hour - but there was nevertheless always the risk that somebody would pass through it. As evinced by the odd carman and that other carman!
There was also a couple of guys in Brady Street at around that time, roughly.

Nobody would walk through the backyard of Hanbury Street to reach their jobs, though, and no PC would come through it. So in this respect, it was a much safer and less risky place to kill than Buckīs Row.

Other parameters also speak of Bucks Row as being a worse choice - there were people quite close inside New Cottage and Essex Wharf who could overlook the spot. In Hanbury Street, you would need to lean out of the windows to see what was going on, more or less.

What we do when we discuss levels of risk is to imagine a scenario where somebody comes along as the killer is at work. But - and this is the important bit - those risks varied inbetween the venues. If the (odd) killer did for Chapman at around 3.30 as I think, then nobody would come out into the backyard. He would in all probability be left undisturbed.

He could never bank on such a thing in Buckīs Row.

Itīs only when we make the assumption that he would be caught out, that the cul-de-sac murder spots begin to look like the risky ones. In fact, it stands to reason that he chose them since he thought they were LESS risky than other spots, weighing all parameters in and prioritizing getting time with the victim over having more than one flight opening.

The best,
Fisherman

Hi Fish,

It feels comfortingly retro to be discussing Lech after all that shawl malarkey.

Aren't you forgetting the privy in the Hanbury St backyard? Isn't it just as likely that someone would use that as that someone would stroll along Bucks Row at 3.45?

Similarly with Dutfields Yard, there was a privy, a side door to the club and the printing works further down that made it a dangerous place in which to operate. And he compounded the risk there by attacking much earlier. And, if we are talking Lech, he made the possibility of detection even greater by acting in the area of the East End where he was best known.

Obviously we don't want this to morph into a Lechmere thread, but I wonder at what point you think the killer decided upon the locations. Did he already know them as a result of previous dalliances or did he make the decision on the spot?

Personally I think the latter is more likely. His blood was up, the immediate area was dark and secluded,and his first thought was whether he could kill and mutilate without disturbance. Subsequent flight was a secondary consideration.

MrB