geometry, watson

[somerset]

Hullo all,

I'm sure most of you have looked over the map layout of the murders and noticed that the last four canonical deaths line up in a nice sprawling triangle. I hear this was Jack's secondary comfort zone, as after Nichols was killed, suspicions of a serial killer were stoked and Scotland Yard even added a few minds of their own to the emerging case.

I have also come across the idea, likely familiar or even tired, that the scenes of the crimes can be shown to form symbols of the occult. I have never really taken this too seriously, just as most on the case, but there's a lot floating out there I don't know about.

I'm new to the case and to the forum, so forgive me for being a little late to the ball game, but I am open to any thoughts on these points.


Cheers,
somerset

[Ausgirl]

Hi somerset, nice to meet you.

I tend to think that (if indeed all the c5 were actually killed by the same person..) anyone can read anything into a probably accidental and nowhere near precisely arranged set of points. Like inkblots. You can see whatever 'pattern' supports any theory, if you just squint hard enough and can give or take a yard or 10 discrepancy in measurements.

[GUT]

Hullo all,

I'm sure most of you have looked over the map layout of the murders and noticed that the last four canonical deaths line up in a nice sprawling triangle. I hear this was Jack's secondary comfort zone, as after Nichols was killed, suspicions of a serial killer were stoked and Scotland Yard even added a few minds of their own to the emerging case.

I have also come across the idea, likely familiar or even tired, that the scenes of the crimes can be shown to form symbols of the occult. I have never really taken this too seriously, just as most on the case, but there's a lot floating out there I don't know about.

I'm new to the case and to the forum, so forgive me for being a little late to the ball game, but I am open to any thoughts on these points.


Cheers,
somerset

G'day Somerset and welcome to Casebook, if I haven't already said it.

Personally I don't see much in it drop 5 stones on the ground and with a bit of imagination you will be able to make some sort of pattern out of them.

[Hakeswill]

Morning/afternoon Somerset,

I concur with our antipodean contingent: I doubt the locations were significantly geographical. It's not exactly the same phenomena but you might be interested in thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion , since it also refers to London (albeit during the Blitz) and the tendency to notice patterns where none necessarily exist.

I'd be interested to know if any murders have genuinely been demonstrated to have a geographical pattern like you suggest (particularly of a similar 'street-based encounter' nature rather than one with access to transport/dumping corpses. I suspect that the occult symbol angle owes more to post-murder speculation rather than pre-planning.

[MayBea]

Genuine geometric patterns in crime locations:

-The Zodiac planned his murders on radians from Mount Diablo.

-I remember individuals planning to make a smilie face across America (arsonists, I believe).

Obviously, for a local Jack, you have to look for a triangulation between residence, workplace and recreation. If he's unemployed or homeless, there might be no triangle.

Here you have triangles with no obvious triangulation based on a subject's presumed daily habits.

I see geometry based on something else. Does it have to be exact? Not if he didn't have a perfectly to-scale road map.

[MayBea]

... drop 5 stones on the ground and with a bit of imagination you will be able to make some sort of pattern out of them.

I tried it and it took me three tries to get one equilateral triangle and five tries to get two. That's 1 in 5 to get something similar to the Ripper murders, or 1 in 3 depending on your viewpoint.

Considering that the Whitechapel area is a whole lot larger and has impediments like buildings and law enforcement, I'd say the chances of randomness are much less than 1 in 5.

It's an intriguing aspect of the case which welcomes interpretation. What I don't think requires interpretation is that, if there's any geometry at all in the crime scene locations, the field of suspects narrows down considerably.

What do you see, somerset?

[GUT]

What I don't think requires interpretation is that, if there's any geometry at all in the crime scene locations, the field of suspects narrows down considerably.

ONLY if the geometric pattern wasn't other than sheer coincidence.

[GUT]

I tried it and it took me three tries to get one equilateral triangle and five tries to get two. That's 1 in 5 to get something similar to the Ripper murders, or 1 in 3 depending on your viewpoint.

But why were you looking to get those shapes.

The question started about signs of the zodiac, I repeat with a bit of imagination 5 stones, you could draw pretty much whatever you wanted.

And if you are referring to the sprawling triangle I note what somerset says, the last 4 of the C5 make this up. Try 4 stones to get a triangle, which when I plot it isn't even a dead on triangle.

[MayBea]

But why were you looking to get those shapes.

Actually, I'm a circle guy so I never saw triangles until I started following the recent triangle threads. I never even heard of the "Last Four Canonical" Triangle before.

My own 'personal opinion' leaned toward circles, arcs, or even a spiral. A general arc or circle around or near a residence or workplace is know (Hillside Stranglers, Nightstalker). It's not plotted or planned but just an outward radiation and sweep of the terrain.

But now, going by "the Facts", including testing probability, I have to say there's straight line geometry which is too coincidental for 5 murders, by someone we know used inverted Vs in Mitre Square.

[Robert]

Could someone please make a list of all these triangles that have been discovered, and mail it to Tottenham Hotspur FC.

[MayBea]

Could someone please make a list of all these triangles that have been discovered, and mail it to Tottenham Hotspur FC.

Good idea, Robert.

This triangle puzzle can be used to test future goaltenders to prove they are good at geometry and can triangulate the trajectory of the incoming ball!

[somerset]

ahright, ahright

Hullo all,

SSA John Douglas writes in his 1988 profile of the Ripper: "After the first homicide at Whitechapel Station, the subject moved slightly across town (one-fourth of a mile). If a line is drawn from crime scenes 2, 3, 4, and 5, a triangular configuration is formed. This is observed in other types of serial crimes. This triangular configuration is viewed as a secondary comfort zone for the Ripper. This movement is caused when a subject believes that the investigation is heating up in his primary comfort zone. The primary comfort zone would be the location of the first homicide in the vicinity of Whitechapel Station."

Triangle or no triangle, comfort zones or no comfort zones, we never caught him and there's reasons why. Forget D'Onston Stephenson and the black magic, and then the shapes and inkblots and stones and clustering illusion while we're at it: how precise or how slapdash were the sites of the murders, whether there were five victims or three or eleven or nineteen? If we're open, we may find something underneath these scattered dots on the map (if someone hasn't already), and I'm not talking geometry now. Was there anything at all significant to the subject about Buck's Row or Hanbury or Mitre Square or anywhere we think he struck?

Originally Posted by MayBea
What I don't think requires interpretation is that, if there's any geometry at all in the crime scene locations, the field of suspects narrows down considerably.

I see what you're saying there, MayBea, and good eye on the home/work/play triangulation note, but it seems to me that after so many years of so many levels of study and speculation, it may never be that simple. A few names come to my mind when we discuss the Ripper, but just as with every other broached, not one has enough blood on his hands or if he did he tossed the gloves in the round file before walking in for our line-up. The odds are in the favor of never finding the bloke, at least by the rest of my years, but the hunt will always be well worth it.


Cheers,
somerset

[MayBea]

The geometry is therefore definitely there. Three points make a triangle, no matter how you cut it.

Even Douglas who believes in the unknown local, disorganized killer calls it a triangle.

but the hunt will always be well worth it.

That depends who you're hunting with. I'd like to go hunting with Crowley wearing a triangle on his head!

[Batman]

Classic geoprofiling

1. The early crimes means the killer didn't hide his location well and can be geoprofiled.
or
2. Prostitute killers travel to red light districts.

However 1 is a classic example of geoprofiling.

A simple method not using the standard formula is to join the extreme points with a line.

Nicholes to Eddowes
Stride to Chapman.
Stride to Kelly.



The circle in the middle tells us that the murderer did not murder here because it was too close to where they lived.

• Nichols - NE
• Chapman - N
• Stride - SE
• Eddowes - SW
• Kelly NW

So these points are always going to generate some sort of shapes. However modern geoprofiling using the formula produces a hot zone that happens to be...

George's Yard.

Around the corner you have the death of Martha Tabram. The attack on Emma Smith.

Plus a bonus problem that non other than George Chapman worked in George's Yard a few years after the killings stopped.

[Trevor Marriott]

1. The early crimes means the killer didn't hide his location well and can be geoprofiled.
or
2. Prostitute killers travel to red light districts.

However 1 is a classic example of geoprofiling.

A simple method not using the standard formula is to join the extreme points with a line.

Nicholes to Eddowes
Stride to Chapman.
Stride to Kelly.



The circle in the middle tells us that the murderer did not murder here because it was too close to where they lived.

• Nichols - NE
• Chapman - N
• Stride - SE
• Eddowes - SW
• Kelly NW

So these points are always going to generate some sort of shapes. However modern geoprofiling using the formula produces a hot zone that happens to be...

George's Yard.

Around the corner you have the death of Martha Tabram. The attack on Emma Smith.

Plus a bonus problem that non other than George Chapman worked in George's Yard a few years after the killings stopped.

What an absolute load of twaddle !

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk