What makes Druitt a viable suspect?

[JeffHamm]

Oh, come along Jeff,

"three or four hours only . . ."

In that remark, Dr. Bond lit a squib under under one of Jack the Ripper’s signature trademarks—that of his victims being discovered just moments after their dispatch.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

No he doesn't light anything of the sort. He's just saying that based upon the medical notes the victims must have died within the previous 3 to 4 hours, estimating time of death has a wide margin of error, and that's what the 3-4 hour maximum represents, just how inaccurate making that call can be. Look, if he had said something like "must have died between 3 and 4 hours previous", then clearly he would be wrong as that's not possible given that people had been through the locations and they weren't there, and Nichols and Eddowes had been seen alive at times that precludes the minimum of that range. But he doesn't give any minimum, he's only stating what looks to be a maximum. He's not even estimating how long they had been dead, but the longest period of time they could have been dead, that's a very different thing, and it doesn't contradict the evidence that they were killed much closer to the time of discovery than that because much closer to the time of discovery is not exceeding the maximum he stated the medical data would consider valid.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff, I realize Bond wouldn't have had all the information in the medical notes. Granted. But my point is why would he have broached the subject of "delay" without seeking out the relevant information? It would have been crucial. Simon said "underinformed," and to me, it almost looks as if Bond didn't bother to seek further information.

Yes, that sounds a little conspiratorial.

But recall that his opinion was commissioned by Anderson. And Anderson specifically stated that he wasn't happy with the existing medical opinions.

But a fairly LARGE part of those medical opinions (the alleged medical skill of the Ripper) was based on knowing, as closely as possible, the amount of time the Ripper had at his disposal, particularly at the Eddowes crime scene, but to some extent the Chapman and Nichols crime scenes.

If Bond was going to draw conclusions about the skill level of the Ripper, wouldn't he be required to have a better estimate of how much time the Ripper had than 0-4 hours? Can a surgeon operate at the same skill level in 5 minutes as he can in 4 hours?

So, in that respect, I agree with Simon. Although I think Simon is headed in a different direction, Bond's conclusions about the nature of the wounds was made independently of knowing precise details of the crime scene, and that is a serious--and strangely avoidable--drawback. Just my opinion. Have a good night.

Hi rjpalmer,

I think it depends upon why Anderson wasn't happy with the existing medical opinions and what he was hoping to rectify by asking Dr. Bond to go over things. If he thought the current opinions were too biased by non-medical aspects, and he wanted something that was just based upon the physical evidence and not influenced by doctors trying to play detective, then that would explain why Dr. Bond is not considering anything but the medical notes put before him and not seeking outside information. Or, maybe he was just requested to look over the notes, make some observations, but focus on just working out if it's the same person or not, or some other issue for which he felt he had enough from the notes to address but still made a few other rough observations on side-bar issues, and we're focusing on those side-bar points that weren't his major focus, hence him not going into great lengths to further refine those observations. Again, I'm speculating he was directed to look at something in particular and that we're unaware of that aspect of his directions.

I agree, though, not knowing the conditions under which the mutilations were performed would be lacking important information. But wouldn't the autopsy reports (the "notes") contain the information such as "body of woman found at x am in y location?" so knowing the time of day it was discovered and its location would provide some information of importance (sun coming up, dark of night, etc). And presumably Dr. Bond was aware of the gist of all the murder scenes, etc, and so was just focusing on the medical evidence. Not saying this would be best practice today, but it might have sufficed at the time.

Anyway, I don't want to get too far into speculating why the request might have been made as it was since it's unknowable.

- Jeff

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jeff,

How on earth could Dr. Bond have arrived at the conclusion that three or four hours passed between each of the Bucks Row, Hanbury Street and Mitre Square murders and their discoveries?

The evidence [for what it's worth] tells us different stories.

Regards,

Simon

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

How on earth could Dr. Bond have arrived at the conclusion that three or four hours passed between each of the Bucks Row, Hanbury Street and Mitre Square murders and their discoveries?

The evidence [for what it's worth] tells us different stories.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

He didn't come to that conclusion. He was saying that based upon the medical evidence the MAXIMUM amount of time since death was 3-4 hours - he didn't state a MINIMUM. He was not saying that "in the vicinity of 3-4 hours had passed". We know, from other sources of evidence, much less than 3-4 hours had passed, so we're well inside his "maximum allowable".

Also, though I don't think this is the best interpretation, it could be that his 3-4 maximum is based upon only one of the three he lists. Let's say he thought Nichols, most time is 30 minutes, Eddowes as much as 45 (though we know it must be less given Watkins patrol time; but less is fine since we're under the most), and Chapman, based upon medical information, could have been dead for up to 3-4 hours. Then the maximum for those 3 murders is the 3-4 hours due to Chapman. I don't think he's doing that, though, as he does mention Stride as being almost immediately. So I think if he's saying the medical evidence allows for a window up to 3-4 hours, and it's the police's job to narrow that down based upon other evidence. As long as the evidence keeps them under 3-4 hours, it would be consistent with the medical reports.

We might think that his conclusions do not fit with some of the evidence we have, but unless we have copies of those notes, we don't know what information he was working with. But I doubt it includes police beats, and previous patrol times, and so forth. How much of the crime scene description he has is also unknown, but given the increased public concern and attention the murders were getting, I wouldn't be surprised if the later crimes had more of that information as the doctors who conducted the autopsies probably started doing more crime scene based analyses as part of their reports. The examination of Nichols at the crime scene appears to have been pretty cursory compared to Chapman's, for example.

- Jeff

[John G]

Thats a bit of a bold statement John.

As someone that didn’t live locally he would have found it easier to familiarise himself with a smaller area so he might have felt less confident over a wider one.

It's a statement that accords with the evidence. And no serial killer, or other offender, in history, has ever behaved in the way you suggest. Thus, we're talking about an incredibly small area, just one square mile. There's no reason whatsoever why someone from outside of the Whitechapel district would enter Whitechapel, spend time familiarizing himself with the area, and then just confine his activities to that one tiny location, despite a dramatically increased police presence.

That's why the geographical profile strongly indicates a local perpetrator. A marauder-a killer who commits crimes in an area he frequents I his day-to-day life. Not a commuter killer, who commits crimes in an area he does not routinely frequent: http://www.wesleyenglish.com/geoprof...ck-the-ripper/, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...d-experts.html,

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jeff,

All I will say, and I mean no disrespect, is that it is no small wonder that this mystery has not been solved.

Regards,

Simon

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

All I will say, and I mean no disrespect, is that it is no small wonder that this mystery has not been solved.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

None taken. I agree, actually. Much of the evidence we have is not as specific as it first appears to be. A lot we only have through newspapers, which are blurred versions at best, and fabrications at worst. There are a lot of great ideas that point in various directions where one could then search out for evidence that would provide us with the constraints we need. But we can't do that 131 odd years later, and we're left either having to make a choice and assume our interpretation is correct, or we simply try and see where all the possible indicators point and maybe prioritize them somehow. I really don't think the information we have is sufficient to constrain our interpretations very much, but there are some things that can be ruled highly improbable I think.

- Jeff

[rjpalmer]

Anyway, I don't want to get too far into speculating why the request might have been made as it was since it's unknowable.

It's hardly unknowable, Jeff; when Robert Anderson wrote to Bond on Oct 25 (note: BEFORE the Kelly murder) he stated exactly why he was making the request.

I quote from Deconstructing Jack, pg, 412-413 by someone called S. D. Wood.

Anderson to Bond: "the difficulties of conducting the enquiry are largely increased by reason of our having no reliable opinion for our guidance as to the amount of surgical skill and anatomical knowledge probably possessed by the murder or murderers."

Uh, no reliable opinion?

At the Chapman inquest, Dr. Phillips stated the murderer showed “certain anatomical knowledge”

In his notes on the Eddowes murder, Dr. Brown wrote, and I quote...

“It required a great deal of medical knowledge to have removed the kidney and to know where it was placed.”

The two previous experts seemingly agreed the Ripper had medical knowledge. So clearly Anderson is calling them unreliable.

Now ask yourself, if your new boss wants a third opinion, and implies that the former two opinions were unreliable, does it take a rocket scientist to figure out which way is up?

It is not my place to suggest that Dr. Bond wasn't giving his honest opinion but is it really so surprising that the end result was...

"Not the skill of a butcher."


PS. I find it hard to believe that anyone living in London in Oct 1888, let alone a Police Surgeon, who took an interest in such cases, wouldn’t know that Nichols and Eddowes were found in the public streets, and the beats in the East End were far less THREE OR FOUR HOURS!

So why mention the possibility of a three or four hour delay when it couldn’t possibly have been true???

But this is a Druitt thread, so I'll leave it at that.

[JeffHamm]

It's hardly unknowable, Jeff; when Robert Anderson wrote to Bond on Oct 25 (note: BEFORE the Kelly murder) he stated exactly why he was making the request.

I quote from Deconstructing Jack, pg, 412-413 by someone called S. D. Wood.

Anderson to Bond: "the difficulties of conducting the enquiry are largely increased by reason of our having no reliable opinion for our guidance as to the amount of surgical skill and anatomical knowledge probably possessed by the murder or murderers."

Uh, no reliable opinion?

At the Chapman inquest, Dr. Phillips stated the murderer showed “certain anatomical knowledge”

In his notes on the Eddowes murder, Dr. Brown wrote, and I quote...

“It required a great deal of medical knowledge to have removed the kidney and to know where it was placed.”

The two previous experts seemingly agreed the Ripper had medical knowledge. So clearly Anderson is calling them unreliable.

Now ask yourself, if your new boss wants a third opinion, and implies that the former two opinions were unreliable, does it take a rocket scientist to figure out which way is up?

It is not my place to suggest that Dr. Bond wasn't giving his honest opinion but is it really so surprising that the end result was...

"Not the skill of a butcher."


PS. I find it hard to believe that anyone living in London in Oct 1888, let alone a Police Surgeon, who took an interest in such cases, wouldn’t know that Nichols and Eddowes were found in the public streets, and the beats in the East End were far less THREE OR FOUR HOURS!

So why mention the possibility of a three or four hour delay when it couldn’t possibly have been true???

But this is a Druitt thread, so I'll leave it at that.

Hi rjpalmer,

He would also have the inquest testimony of Dr.s George William Sequeira and William Sedgwick Saunders, who both testified that in their opinion there was no evidence that any particular organ was being targeted, and that there was no evidence of any great anatomical knowledge shown (I'm paraphrasing their testimonies as presented in The Times), and they both testified immediately after Frederick Gordon Brown, who testified the amount of knowledge necessary could be gained by someone in the habit of cutting up animals. (and in Evans and Skinner, page 207, the quote from Brown reads "It required a great deal of ["medical" - deleted] knowledge to have removed the kidnesy and to know where it was placed, such a knowledge might be possessed by some one in the habit of cutting up animals ...")

And yes, Phillips indicates he believed there was evidence of anatomical knowledge shown in Chapman's case.

So there seemed to be almost as many opinions as doctors, which would make the information unreliable (not questioning the doctors per se, but clearly, opinions varied. It could help to have one person familiarize themselves with all the cases, and from that extract, hopefully, an opinion based on all the data. Obviously, he was convinced all the cases were linked.

I don't think he was so much trying to get a particular result, rather, just a stable and consistent one (i.e. reliable in terms of stability and consistent over the cases, rather than one that changes from case to case).

And again, the margin of error in terms of the length since death is very wide. He may know that the deaths could not have been 3-4 hours previous based upon other information, but that's not how interpreting medical evidence would work. Whatever he based it upon, could very well be consistent with times much longer than the known time of death, but it is still consistent with it, so he, as a professional, has to say that. He's not stating he thinks they were killed 3-4 hours previously, only that the information he has is consistent with a range of times of deaths between 0 (presumably because he doesn't state a minimum) and 3-4 hours. He's stating the upper limit of a range, I don't understand why people find that difficult. The deaths all fall within that upper limit, so there's nothing problematic. It's like, if I had your plane receipt, and I notice you have not paid an excess baggage fee, then I know the heaviest your suitcase could be would be 22 kg (or whatever the limit is these days). Just because other evidenced tells me your suitcase was only 5kg, doesn't change the fact that based upon your receipt alone all I can conclude is that the upper limit of your baggage weight is 22 kg, because after that you would have had to pay a fee. That's all he's doing, so I don't understand why this seems to be a problem?

But yes, perhaps not ideal for a Druitt thread.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

It's a statement that accords with the evidence. And no serial killer, or other offender, in history, has ever behaved in the way you suggest. Thus, we're talking about an incredibly small area, just one square mile. There's no reason whatsoever why someone from outside of the Whitechapel district would enter Whitechapel, spend time familiarizing himself with the area, and then just confine his activities to that one tiny location, despite a dramatically increased police presence.

That's why the geographical profile strongly indicates a local perpetrator. A marauder-a killer who commits crimes in an area he frequents I his day-to-day life. Not a commuter killer, who commits crimes in an area he does not routinely frequent: http://www.wesleyenglish.com/geoprof...ck-the-ripper/, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...d-experts.html,

If, and of course it’s only an if, Druitt had been using prostitutes in that area before he began killing them then he would have become familiar (to an extent) with the area. He then kills in that same area. What’s strange about that? Not that I’ve ever subscribed to the “killer must have had local knowledge” idea but I realise that many do. What if he had a bolt hole in the area? Wouldn’t it have been logical not to have strayed too far from it?

We know that the killer wasn’t deterred by the increased police presence and so it doesn’t really increase or decrease whether the killer might have been local or not with any significance.

Personally I don’t think profiling helps. It may (or may not) help police by potentially focusing a search for a killer but it’s not much use in what we’re doing here. If a profiler says something like “we think the killer has a 75% chance of being local.” That doesn’t allow us to eliminate the 25% which might be were the killer actually is. I’m not big on solving crimes by equation.

[Sam Flynn]

If, and of course it’s only an if, Druitt had been using prostitutes in that area before he began killing them then he would have become familiar (to an extent) with the area.

Why would someone like Druitt - or any outsider, really - have chosen the filthiest, most rundown part of London to procure the services of prostitutes? There were pockets of prostitution throughout the city, some of them "south of the river" and/or closer to Druitt's home than Whitechapel, without actually being on his doorstep.

[JeffHamm]

If, and of course it’s only an if, Druitt had been using prostitutes in that area before he began killing them then he would have become familiar (to an extent) with the area. He then kills in that same area. What’s strange about that? Not that I’ve ever subscribed to the “killer must have had local knowledge” idea but I realise that many do. What if he had a bolt hole in the area? Wouldn’t it have been logical not to have strayed too far from it?

We know that the killer wasn’t deterred by the increased police presence and so it doesn’t really increase or decrease whether the killer might have been local or not with any significance.

Personally I don’t think profiling helps. It may (or may not) help police by potentially focusing a search for a killer but it’s not much use in what we’re doing here. If a profiler says something like “we think the killer has a 75% chance of being local.” That doesn’t allow us to eliminate the 25% which might be were the killer actually is. I’m not big on solving crimes by equation.

Hi Herlock,

Profiling does not solve cases. As you say, it just helps prioritize a search space based upon a probability distribution. There is predictive information that can be derived from crime locations (geographical profiling), but predictive just means it is better than randomly searching. And sometimes, of course, low probability events do occur, so there will be times when an offender is not in the area suggested to be the "hot spot". And regardless, even when the profile "gets it right", there will still be lots of people in that area. The police still have to find evidence and solve the case. Profiles can, and have, helped but like anything, they are just another piece of information to be considered, and sometimes to be rejected.

And yes, most geographical profiles start with 20-25% failure rate because the routines are based on profiling the 75-80% of cases that are marauders. They're not crime solvers, they are information about spatial probabilities that can be used to help prioritize how to search the area.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Why would someone like Druitt - or any outsider, really - have chosen the filthiest, most rundown part of London to procure the services of prostitutes? There were pockets of prostitution throughout the city, some of them "south of the river" and/or closer to Druitt's home than Whitechapel, without actually being on his doorstep.

I honestly can’t answer that one Sam. Maybe for whatever reason he wanted to target the dregs of society; the lowest of the low? Maybe he felt that god (or the voices in his head) were telling him to rid the streets of these women?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

Profiling does not solve cases. As you say, it just helps prioritize a search space based upon a probability distribution. There is predictive information that can be derived from crime locations (geographical profiling), but predictive just means it is better than randomly searching. And sometimes, of course, low probability events do occur, so there will be times when an offender is not in the area suggested to be the "hot spot". And regardless, even when the profile "gets it right", there will still be lots of people in that area. The police still have to find evidence and solve the case. Profiles can, and have, helped but like anything, they are just another piece of information to be considered, and sometimes to be rejected.

And yes, most geographical profiles start with 20-25% failure rate because the routines are based on profiling the 75-80% of cases that are marauders. They're not crime solvers, they are information about spatial probabilities that can be used to help prioritize how to search the area.

- Jeff

Hello Jeff,

Exactly. It’s a useful tool to aid an ongoing investigation that might reap benefits or at least reduce the chances of the police wasting time. We’re not going to arrest the killer or prevent further murders though so as we’re probably never going to get a ‘result’ that we can look at retrospectively to see how accurate any profile was. And as you say there’s a substantial failure rate.

That said, I certainly understand and accept the point made by Sam and others. We agree or disagree of course. Many believe that the ripper must have had local knowledge but I’ve never really felt that this had to have been the case. Just because he evaded capture under tight circumstances doesn’t mean that he planned his murders with almost military precision (noting police beats etc.) I think the fact that he killed in a backyard with only one exit and (possibly) in a yard at the side of a club with only one exit shows that he was willing to make on-the-spot judgments about risk. If he had to flee the scene of a murder, perhaps after hearing someone approach, he would have known that he’d have had at least a few seconds to get a street or two away before a police whistle was blown. And when another Constable heard that whistle and headed toward it he wouldn’t have known the reason for it. It could have been a colleague being attacked so how much attention would he have paid to some anonymous figure shuffling along in the dark on the opposite side of the road getting further and further away? Then of course we have to factor in simple good fortune. I accept that local knowledge would have been an advantage but I don’t feel that it was a prerequisite for the ripper (whoever he was.)

[miss marple]

You can only frame Druitt if you leave Martha Tabrum out. I have always been convinced that Tabrum was a ripper victim and the only interesting thing that came of of the BBC doc was the HOLMES computer placing Tabrum as a victim, which suggested Jack had a base in Spitalfields and had a range of about a quarter of a mile in his murders. Like many serial killers he had a comfortable zone, which suggests he was a local, plus the fact of running back to Spitalfields after the Eddowes murder.
lf Druitt was a serial killer i believe with his background and interests he would have been more likely to murder prostitutes in posher parts of London, or near the river,that is if he was interested in women, he may have been gay,

Miss Marple