Local killer for local people................

[Elamarna]

15 /20 mins from Covent Garden to Spitalfields! Dont think so, double that. It may look a short distance on a map but it will take longer than that. I am a Londoner and have done alot of walking in London. From Covent Garden you could go down the Strand to the City or along the Embankment. Trafalgar Sq is in the wrong direction. Walking in London is quite stressful.

Miss Marple

Hi Miss Marple


Yes Trafalgar square is West of Covent Garden not East, however I was merely mentioning that it was on a straight line walking route to Whitechapel as one poster has suggested that the killer rented a room in that area.


And yes 15 minutes may on reflection be just a bit too short.
I did work for 20 years in the Aldwhych and have walked to Whitechapel in under 30 mins.

It's about 2 miles so only a mile every 15 minutes, I have never walked very fast and have seen and know people who could do the journey much faster than me at a very brisk pace
So maybe it would be fairer to say 20-25 minutes.

The main point still holds that central London is relatively small.

Thank you for the correction to the careless mistake.

Stressful walking in London?
I know some see it like that, I don't I like the crowds, each to there own I guess


Steve

[miss marple]

Spitalfields would have been pretty busy. The street markets for instance such as Petticoat Lane were busy. The pubs and music halls would have been full. There were certain times when Eastenders would have a little holiday, hop picking in Kent in the autumn or going to Epsom Downs for Derby Day in the Spring but in November, Lord Mayors day was probably a chance to turn a penny locally. The majority of men were annoymous. The average East End man was 5.6 moustarche, , bad teeth, smoker, second hand clothes, flat cap or bowler, no particular visual signs, If Jack was such he was invisable.
George Hutchison's astrakhan man is a typical flash harry, he was signing a Jewish cliche [ Jews dominated the tailoring trade and were better dressed. Real Astrakhan would have been very expensive, and usually only used for collar and cuffs and was worn by the extemely wealthy flash types in theatre, music hall, foreigners, sporting men but by the end of the 19th century very high quality fake astrakhan was being produced. The idea that such a type would roam the East End flaunting gold jewellery is crazy. Such types were usually found in the West End with their gambling clubs decent brothals and taverns. Jack London when researching PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS dressed like a working man.Anyone with gold jewellary would be mugged. Thats off topic a bit but the East End may have been a small area but it was a busy one.

Miss Marple

[miss marple]

Elamarna.
I think the quality of footwear makes a difference! I find Central London very stressful and I have done markets in Covent Garden and Spitalfields. The constant flow of traffic and tourists. I am a good walker, people complain I walk to fast sometime I will try the route and time it.

Miss Marple

[Elamarna]

Elamarna.
I think the quality of footwear makes a difference! I find Central London very stressful and I have done markets in Covent Garden and Spitalfields. The constant flow of traffic and tourists. I am a good walker, people complain I walk to fast sometime I will try the route and time it.

Miss Marple

Good idea. I used bottom of the Aldwhych too Aldgate station as my base.

At 4mph which is brisk above average speed it should take about 29 mins not allowing for modern day traffic.

On the night of the London Bridge attack I walked from the Minories to Blackfriars Bridge in 18 minutes. I was going as fast as I could these days.


Steve

[kjab3112]

Google maps gives distances as:
Aldwych to Aldgate 1.9 miles
Aldwych to Tower Hill 2 miles
Aldwych to Whitechapel 2.6 miles

The timings though I think are excessive (averaging three miles an hour).

My personal feeling is that an outsider would have been more obvious and thus less likely with London being very much a series of adjacent villages and so would arouse the suspicion of a working girl. Somebody who worked at the local markets though would count as a local

Paul

[Harry D]

Problem is, he'd need to get back to base pretty quickly to avoid detection after the event. That at least suggests a local bolt-hole, if not a local residency.

I don't think he would, Sam. All he'd have to do is keep his head down and stick to the backstreets. Once he managed to get out of the hot-zone, he would've been relatively home and dry, wouldn't he?

[Pierre]

If the killer wasn't local, what reason did he have to keep returning to Whitechapel? It was far from the only place in London to find prostitutes.

One could for example hypothesize that he would not be recognized in Whitechapel.

[The Station Cat]

One could for example hypothesize that he would not be recognized in Whitechapel.

What credence do we hold in the fact that people close to him, new exactly what he was up to, but turned a blind eye for whatever reason?

[Sam Flynn]

I don't think he would, Sam. All he'd have to do is keep his head down and stick to the backstreets. Once he managed to get out of the hot-zone, he would've been relatively home and dry, wouldn't he?

He'd have to have been in the open, even if he were down a back-street, when - at the height of the scare - the streets were manned by extra policemen and even vigilantes. And he'd have had to confront this reality almost certainly with bloody hands, an incriminating weapon and bits of his victims' anatomy about his person. The sooner he got to ground, whether bolt-hole or home, the better.

And, again, there were plenty of other places in the East End alone - never mind the rest of London - where he could have found victims aplenty.

He was based locally, of that I have very little doubt.

[Sam Flynn]

One could for example hypothesize that he would not be recognized in Whitechapel.

Not too difficult, even for the locals. It's dead easy to remain anonymous in London, even to this day.

[c.d.]

How local is 'local?' Theorists have posited that he had to live in Whitechapel to be familiar with the labyrinthine streets and escape routes, but he could've lived on the outskirts or frequented Whitechapel enough to know the area.

Hello Harry,

There is always the possibility that he chose an area for his kills days beforehand and scouted it out to familiarize himself with possible escape routes.

c.d.

[c.d.]

"He'd have to have been in the open, even if he were down a back-street, when - at the height of the scare - the streets were manned by extra policemen and even vigilantes. And he'd have had to confront this reality almost certainly with bloody hands, an incriminating weapon and bits of his victims' anatomy about his person. The sooner he got to ground, whether bolt-hole or home, the better."

Hello Sam,

Good points. This begs the question why stop to write some obscure message (to us anyway) on a wall? I never thought about it before but with all that funk on his hands there is no mention of some of it being transferred to the wall which I believe was white. And he also managed to keep the writing neat with all that adrenaline pumping through him and in constant fear of being seen.

c.d.

[andy1867]

"He'd have to have been in the open, even if he were down a back-street, when - at the height of the scare - the streets were manned by extra policemen and even vigilantes. And he'd have had to confront this reality almost certainly with bloody hands, an incriminating weapon and bits of his victims' anatomy about his person. The sooner he got to ground, whether bolt-hole or home, the better."

Hello Sam,

Good points. This begs the question why stop to write some obscure message (to us anyway) on a wall? I never thought about it before but with all that funk on his hands there is no mention of some of it being transferred to the wall which I believe was white. And he also managed to keep the writing neat with all that adrenaline pumping through him and in constant fear of being seen.

c.d.

Had he not supposedly washed his hands before..err..hand lol..in a street sink or something, I seem to remember seeing or reading something about blood being found in a trough near the scene

[Sam Flynn]

Had he not supposedly washed his hands before..err..hand lol..in a street sink or something, I seem to remember seeing or reading something about blood being found in a trough near the scene

That was a dubious, and almost certainly bogus, story peddled by Major Henry Smith in his self-aggrandising memoirs From Constable to Commissioner.

[Wickerman]

The idea that such a type would roam the East End flaunting gold jewellery is crazy. ......Anyone with gold jewellary would be mugged.

Miss Marple

Yes, it's off-topic but misguided. Muggings did happen, attacks on strangers walking through the streets at night did happen. Possessions taken from these victims did happen.
These victims had to be there for these crimes to take place, right?
According to you they would not there because no-one would be so stupid to risk their safety, so how come these victims exist?

John Kolinsky, a German, walking through Commercial Rd. at 4:30 am on Feb. 12th, 1888 was seized by the throat and struck a violent blow to the eye, accomplices cut his pockets and removed £4 14s from him.

A man attacked in Wellclose Sq., his watch stolen. Nathan Henry was attacked in Turner St. after midnight and was relieved of his possessions, 4s.

How can you seriously claim the story is absurd because the man would get mugged, when men were getting mugged all the time?
Crimes like this happen because the victim, like all of us proceed under the false impression that, "it'll never happen to me".

Anyway, you were correct in saying that it was off-topic, I'll give you that.