Druitt - A Link to the East End: The People's Palace

[Natalie Severn]

Quite possibly, Nats - but my point was more about the advent of the "commuting" serialist being made more of a possibility with the widespread adoption of the motor car.

Thats quite right Gareth.Sutcliffe too drove everywhere,including out of his immediate area!

[Ben]

But unfortunately his sexual urges drove him further than that.Where is the evidence that allows you to compare the victimology or quota of Bundy with the Ripper?

Oh for love of defaction.

Here we go hunting hobbyists.

You're honestly saying I can't compare sexual serial killer Jack the Ripper with sexual serial killer Ted Bundy, but you can compare Jack the Ripper with Neville Heath and poisoner Neil Cream?!? And the source for the killer not being interested in "connection" is.....?

The police and the press of Victorian England were right in at least one respect.Aaron Kosminski,Montague Druitt and the Sun Newspaper"s Thomas Cutbush were far more likely to have been the Ripper than any of your Ted Bundy"s!

According to you. And you are? Someone who reckons most serial killers are psychotics on missions from God.

Sutcliffe too drove everywhere,including out of his immediate area!

Yep, because he had private transport, and yet his actual base was effectively central to his "criminal map", so to speak.

I suspect the Ripper needed to be doing his "cutting up" on the street

I don't. I think he killed on the streets for want of better venues.

[Natalie Severn]

[QUOTE=Ben;22916]Oh for love of defaction.

Here we go hunting hobbyists.

You're honestly saying I can't compare sexual serial killer Jack the Ripper with sexual serial killer Ted Bundy, but you can compare Jack the Ripper with Neville Heath and poisoner Neil Cream?!? And the source for the killer not being interested in "connection" is.....?


Everything I said has been twisted up into a botched quote
so thanks ----

...no more exchanges

[caz]

Hi Ben,

Well thanks for ducking my questions.

I asked you a hypothetical question beginning with ‘if’ and you responded by saying my ‘if’ was implausible in the first place because (and I quote):

‘Most serial killers just don't fit the "if" you're conjuring up in this speculative scenario.’

What? ‘Most’ serial killers just don’t live or work anywhere that doesn’t already boast an endless supply of vulnerable potential victims on a par with 1888 Spitalfields?

I’m sure you didn’t meant to imply that.

You are so fixated on your locally grown ripper, living and working in the middle of his prey, that you couldn’t even see what I was asking you to consider. All I’m asking you is what you think a mutilating serial killer does, if he wants to attack lone females who can be left in situ with nothing to connect him with the crime, but doesn't happen to have any such golden opportunities on his doorstep. This is my speculative scenario, but I'm talking about lone females in 1888.

What about the mutilating serial killer whose daily life, or daily grind if you prefer, and his local surroundings, simply would not have given him access to any suitably vulnerable victims? Would he have given up the idea of offending, or would he have adapted in some way?

The killers take advante of the most readily available victims in their immediate environment, rather than deciding upon a specific victim and deciding "Ho hum, now where might I find some of those - bingo!".

If you've decided from the outset the Jack the Ripper was specifically targetting a specific type of victim, and then deciding where he might find some of those as opposed to the opportunistic marauder who takes advantage of the most available victims, then you're simply not learning from experience or those with more insight than you on the topic.

I’ve decided nothing of the sort. I’m stuck with the victims Jack decided to attack: vulnerable women he could get on their own. You have decided that any serial killer in 1888 would simply have plumped for ‘the most readily available victims in their immediate environment’, regardless of what their immediate environment was, and what that would provide in terms of victim type and opportunity. So presumably a hypothetical Druitt the Ripper, not exactly surrounded by vulnerable women he could take advantage of, would have decided to murder and mutilate schoolboys in Blackheath, clients in the City or cricketers in Dorset.

I also asked you what evidence you had of criminals using the Victoria home as a cover for their activities. You didn’t give me any evidence at all, just some waffle about lodging houses in general enjoying a ‘reputation’ for being ‘popular’ with criminals. You say ‘we know’ this was the case. How did ‘we’ acquire this knowledge, if not from criminals blabbing about it and giving the game away? How did you get to know the criminals’ secret, and in particular concerning the Victoria Home?

Incidentally, I don’t reject the idea that the killer ate - or at least tried to eat - some of the bodily parts he took from the scenes. But I imagine he would have wanted a bit of privacy while doing it, even if it wasn’t an absolute necessity. I doubt he would have relished the idea of a lodging house being his next port of call after each murder.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

All I’m asking you is what you think a mutilating serial killer does, if he wants to attack lone females who can be left in situ with nothing to connect him with the crime, but doesn't happen to have any such golden opportunities on his doorstep.

I've already told you. In the majority of cases, the killer will seek out the most readily available type of "lone female" within his own residential, cultural and economic orbit, if lone females were his "bag". I honestly can't envisage a scenario in which a serial killer is literally devoid of any locally-based "suitably vulnerable victims".

If the killer decided upon a specific type of "target" prior to embarking on his killing spree, that may increase the likelihood of the offender travelling in search of that target, but experience to date hasn't demonstrated a propensity amongst serial killers to dream up an ideal target and then make a bee-line for the source. More commonly, they take advantage of whatever falls within easy reach; usually victims they have dealings with on a non-criminal basis. For example, it's no coincidence that prostitute killers tend to be prostitute users. This is why I tend to get exasperated by the insistence that Jack targeted "middle age prostitutes", and that Kelly isn't a ripper victim on account of her being younger and having private accommodation etc etc. All nonsense.

So presumably a hypothetical Druitt the Ripper, not exactly surrounded by vulnerable women he could take advantage of, would have decided to murder and mutilate schoolboys in Blackheath, clients in the City or cricketers in Dorset.

There were vulnerable women everywhere, and prostitution was rife throughout London. Even if there were literally no vulnerable women in the general vicinity of Blackheath (which isn't remotely the case), there were plenty of other options besides a tiny localized pocket of Whitechapel and Spitalfields for "commuting" purposes.

You didn’t give me any evidence at all, just some waffle about lodging houses in general enjoying a ‘reputation’ for being ‘popular’ with criminals. You say ‘we know’ this was the case. How did ‘we’ acquire this knowledge, if not from criminals blabbing about it and giving the game away

Well, Charles Booth's poverty map is one of the more reliable indicators, with Dorset Street (with its extensive supply of truly grotty lodging houses) being referred to as "vicious and semi-criminal". Then there's the numerous other East End grot-spots that boasted a high concentration of doss houses, and the readily available contemporary press reports concerning the nature of these less-than-esteemed establishments. The ruffians who beat up Sadler went straight into a doss house after duffing him up.

But of course, if you wish to believe that your average Spitalfields lodging house was vice-free, be my guest...

But I imagine he would have wanted a bit of privacy while doing it, even if it wasn’t an absolute necessity.

Wanted privacy? Probably. Got it? Probably not. He probably didn't relish the prospect of killing on the streets either, but if, like a very hefty chunk of the local male populace, he lived in a doss house of shared accommodation, he had to make the most of the limited options he had available.

Best regards,
Ben

[caz]

If the killer decided upon a specific type of "target" prior to embarking on his killing spree, that may increase the likelihood of the offender travelling in search of that target, but experience to date hasn't demonstrated a propensity amongst serial killers to dream up an ideal target and then make a bee-line for the source. More commonly, they take advantage of whatever falls within easy reach; usually victims they have dealings with on a non-criminal basis. For example, it's no coincidence that prostitute killers tend to be prostitute users. This is why I tend to get exasperated by the insistence that Jack targeted "middle age prostitutes", and that Kelly isn't a ripper victim on account of her being younger and having private accommodation etc etc. All nonsense.

Hi Ben,

Sorry - again - for such a belated response!

I agree that the serial killers we know about (because they allowed themselves to be linked to their crimes and ultimately identified) tend to go for victims they have had dealings with (or come into contact with, or had experience of) on a non-criminal basis. I absolutely agree with you about it being nonsense to conclude that Kelly wasn't a ripper victim, on the basis that previous victims were older and killed in outdoor locations.

But if you can so readily imagine Jack allowing himself to be picked up by his victims, in locations and circumstances that were already second nature to him because he had done it all before when picking up prostitutes for more conventional reasons, you must surely be able to imagine a whole bunch of reasons why Spitalfields would have been his haunt of choice for either activity, whether he lived or worked there permanently during 1888, or tended to dip in and out of the same familiar places whenever he fancied another dirt cheap, anonymous session of personal relief.

Have you never heard of regular drinkers who will pass any number of pubs to get to a favourite watering hole - and in the 'good' old days would even drive there and back when they could have chosen from several more salubrious hostelries within walking distance and not risked losing their licence or being convicted of killing someone while under the influence? Sometimes, a particular place can be a draw that only the person drawn to it can really understand. There are pubs everywhere, and drinking is still rife throughout London. But I wouldn't be in your shoes if you went into any one of them and tried telling all the regulars to play the game and bugger off to one of their more 'local' locals.

Well, Charles Booth's poverty map is one of the more reliable indicators, with Dorset Street (with its extensive supply of truly grotty lodging houses) being referred to as "vicious and semi-criminal". Then there's the numerous other East End grot-spots that boasted a high concentration of doss houses, and the readily available contemporary press reports concerning the nature of these less-than-esteemed establishments. The ruffians who beat up Sadler went straight into a doss house after duffing him up.

But of course, if you wish to believe that your average Spitalfields lodging house was vice-free, be my guest...

Of course I wasn't claiming that your average Spitalfields doss house would have been vice-free. That's just silly. But so is having to drag in a couple of ruffians holding up Booth's famous "vicious and semi-criminal" description of Dorset Street, in lieu of any better support for your original claim that lodging houses, specifically the Victoria Home (for the purposes of your pet theory), were used as a successful cover for criminal activity, such as sidling in with a recently used murder weapon, an assortment of trophies and very possibly bloody pockets and sleeves. Not much of a cover when everyone including Booth was aware of all the criminal comings and goings. But I also thought that if you wanted to frequent the Victoria Home you had to provide some indication of your non-ruffian status.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

Replies are welcomed and appreciated, however tardy.

you must surely be able to imagine a whole bunch of reasons why Spitalfields would have been his haunt of choice for either activity, whether he lived or worked there permanently during 1888, or tended to dip in and out of the same familiar places whenever he fancied another dirt cheap, anonymous session of personal relief.

Oh, indeed I can. Nor argument there. It is still, unfortunately, a numbers game to an extent. Of all the men who enjoyed a close or close-ish familiarity with the district and its inhabitants, the vast majority would have been those living there. That's not to negate any number of potentially good reasons for non-locals to become acquainted with the locale; merely a reminder that they were dwarfed, numbers-wise, by the local populace. This no doubt goes a long way to explaining why most serials committed within a small, easy-walkable locality tend, pretty much without exception, to have a local offender as the culprit, rather than a visitor, and as I've demonstrated elsewhere, it's simply wong to claim that the offenders were caught because they were local.

in lieu of any better support for your original claim that lodging houses, specifically the Victoria Home (for the purposes of your pet theory), were used as a successful cover for criminal activity

With respect, Caz, my point about the nature of doss houses is wholly and unambiguously supported by historical fact. They allowed their occupants to become the proveriab needles in a haystack precisely because there wasn't the manpower capable of recording and monitering the movements of so many men (approx. 400) coming and going at irregular intervals on an average night. Back to my beautifully germane and applicable Sadler example; why would the geezers wot duffed him up bolt straight into a lodging house unless they felt in afforded them with some form of security from the cops?

If it was an insurmoutable challenge to gain entry with a used weopon, they wouldn't have "enjoyed" the reputations they did for being essentially meccas for the criminal element in the district. Same with trophies - just a man bringing home with his not-exactly-choice-cuts meat victuals, or a butcher perhaps. I'm sorry, but of all the arguments used against the majority-endorsed "Joe local" theory, that's one of the most ill-founded.

Yes, the Victoria Home checked to see if any new lodgers were of known bad character. If they weren't, no problem, in they went. Honestly, if Dennis Rader or Gary Ridgeway wanted to crash at the VH, their non-ruffian selves would be greeted with open arms.

Best regards,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

They allowed their occupants to become the proveriab needles in a haystack precisely because there wasn't the manpower capable of recording and monitering the movements of so many men (approx. 400) coming and going at irregular intervals on an average night.

...what's to say the Ripper didn't go "home" on those nights, anyway? Why decamp to a doss-house shortly after the known time of a murder and arouse suspicion, when he could hide somewhere until daybreak, before quietly slipping back into society the next day?

[Ben]

That's a reasonable possibility too, Gareth.

Either way, a doss house was far less problematic than any other form of domestic set-up. Sheer numbers made it less feasible for any suspicions to home in on one specific individual 27 beds to your left, which wouldn't have been true if you lived with only a handful of other people. It's analogous to performing a clandestine drug exchange in a crowded grotty nightclub, versus doing it in a small pub with only a handful of people around.

Best regards,
Ben

[Sara]

Let's not forget the doctors who performed the canonical post-mortems or at least some of them were adamant that the Ripper had excellent anatomical knowledge and probably had experience of surgery. This points not only to a man of higher than labouring class, but to very few of the suspects (and Druitt is not among them - though the equally middle-class Cutbush is).

I'm not sure the matter of 'locality' is the essential matter here, so much as the fact that the Ripper goes after prostitutes.

That may either be a matter of 'moral compulsion' so to speak, or it may be a matter of convenience - respectable women just didn't walk around on their own, let alone go down alleys with strange men. A murderer on a moral mission to kill prostitutes would necessarily have to go where they might be found. He might work in the area without necessarily living there - although a good knowledge of Whitechapel is evident imo, it need not indicate he lived nearby.

Sutcliffe was able and willing to search out his prostitute victims in red light districts, as was the Ipswich killer. These are better comparisons imo than Cream. The extreme violence of JtR's crimes involving sexual mutilation however do seem to indicate an urge of a different nature - it wasn't simply *death* which motivated JtR . I really don't think we can rule out psychosis here.

By the way people should always bear in mind how far people people walked as a matter of course in Victorian England. It was quite normal to walk six or more miles to see friends and back home again, of an evening - try reading any artist's or writers biography for examples. Even much later people walked miles daily - a late friend who grew up in Blackheath during the war told me he would often walk into central London and back for an evening out with his friends. During the tube strike in the 80s I'd walk to work from near Stamford Bridge to a Bloomsbury publishers almost every day - and back! - that's about 10/12 miles

There were trams going down the Mile End Road - it would be easy enough to put a blood-stained jacket into a bag and just vanish (provided trams were running). But on balance given the time of night most murders happened, I'd agree that Jack probably lived locally... and I owudl guess in one of the many single room tenements of the area. Although it's also true that many people were walking the streets and dossing in doorways or in squares etc all night; so anyone wandering about or curled up on a pile of rags would hardly attract attention

[Ben]

Let's not forget the doctors who performed the canonical post-mortems or at least some of them were adamant that the Ripper had excellent anatomical knowledge and probably had experience of surgery.

Not quite, Sara.

Only Dr. Phillips believed that that killer of Chapman "probably had experience of surgery". He believed that Chapman and Eddowes were killed by different people, and as far as I'm concerned, if he was wrong about that, he could easily have been wrong about the level of skill he attributed to Chapman's killer, especially if there was no second opinion available as there was with other "canonical" murders. Either way, Phillips was in the conspicuous minority as far as "surgical skill" went.

So to seek out out a "higher-class" suspect on that basis would be quite the wrong thing to do, in my view.

A murderer on a moral mission to kill prostitutes would necessarily have to go where they might be found.

Which was everywhere in London, and certainly other areas boasted a higher concentration of prostitutes than Whitechapel and Spitalfields. I'm also very doubtful that JTR was on a "moral" mission to kill prostitutes, or even that prostitutes were his target per se.

Best regards,
Ben