Jack the........ Police Officer??

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Richard

I suspect you're right...of course it's a possibility we ought to acknowledge, but not a highly likely one

All the best

Dave

[Errata]

If he was well known to the women of the area , then his face may well have been trusted . It also stands to reason that he may have well been recognisable in his civilian clothes . No one is saying he slayed them in his uniform.

I think if he was recognizable to the ladies, that would be more a hindrance than a help. Sure they would have no problem going off somewhere with him if they knew he was a cop, but then after the murder everyone would say "Oh we saw her go off with Steve" or whatever. Anonymity is really the way to go on this.

Which doesn't mean it wasn't a cop. It would just mean it was a cop from a different precinct. And one who didn't insert himself in the investigation. Which is smart. If the same cop kept finding bodies, and it's a cop from the theater district, that would stand out. Being a cop would help him arrange his murders to foil the investigative process. But not being from the area means he isn't getting away through some little known alley. And that would also be a red flag. If only 30 people know of a yard you can cut through to a main street, and if were determined that Jack used that yard, that would have gotten him caught.

And thats the kind of specific area knowledge that foils criminals all the time. When I was a stupid kid I was running from the cops (when staying would have gotten me a lecture but nothing more) And I cut through a tunnel system under a local hospital. So narrowing down teenage girls who knew about those tunnels was not that hard, and they were at my door within two days. And the truth is, if Jack had really known the area, there were a ton of places, very private places, he could have taken his victims. Some guy never locks the backdoor of his shop, or the third warehouse on the right is empty and you can get in through the windows... these are things thieves know, kids know, the homeless know, but prostitutes don't. Jack either didn't know, or chose not to use that knowledge. And in the end it may sound insane for him to murder someone in the street under a bedroom window, but using a space very few people use would have been suicidal. So it may have been dumb, but it was less dumb than giving himself away by exposing how much he knew about the neighborhood.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Errata

I kind of get what you're saying...when I was a teenager I briefly ran with a gang who had the knowledge that a particular house was unoccupied (and had been for nearly twenty years), yet still had all the original furnishings and possessions of the family who'd lived there. We also had the expertise to restore the (long cut off) power...and for a while we used it as a sort of occasional clubhouse...

We knew this, we knew the rather obscure access to the property, and shared it with nobody, particularly with anybody who lived nearer (it was two patches at least away from ours) yet there was evidence of at least one other mob visiting...

But the local neighbours didn't seem aware of youthful gangs visiting, (we were careful), there were no visits (at least that we heard of) from the police, nor any encounters from the local thuggery...who'd have loved some of the (absent) family possessions...

So I guess what you're saying is that it isn't just local knowledge, but local knowledge held explicitly by a particular type of person? Is that right?

All the best

Dave

[Bridewell]

Evidence?

A full decade after the Autumn of Terror an unfortunate who has a knife wound claims that she has been attacked by a police officer. The newspaper article itself doesn't appear to offer much credence to her tale which seems to be directly contradicted by a police witness who saw her the same night. Even if there is a shred of truth to what she said - which must be doubtful - I don't see how it constitutes evidence that the same individual was responsible for a series of fatal attacks which took place more than ten years previously.

[Errata]

Hi Errata

I kind of get what you're saying...when I was a teenager I briefly ran with a gang who had the knowledge that a particular house was unoccupied (and had been for nearly twenty years), yet still had all the original furnishings and possessions of the family who'd lived there. We also had the expertise to restore the (long cut off) power...and for a while we used it as a sort of occasional clubhouse...

We knew this, we knew the rather obscure access to the property, and shared it with nobody, particularly with anybody who lived nearer (it was two patches at least away from ours) yet there was evidence of at least one other mob visiting...

But the local neighbours didn't seem aware of youthful gangs visiting, (we were careful), there were no visits (at least that we heard of) from the police, nor any encounters from the local thuggery...who'd have loved some of the (absent) family possessions...

So I guess what you're saying is that it isn't just local knowledge, but local knowledge held explicitly by a particular type of person? Is that right?

All the best

Dave

Yes, but not any particular kind of person. I knew the tunnels because my dad was a doctor at that hospital, and I grew up running the halls. So anyone who knew the hospital knew those tunnels. So finding a blonde 14 year old daughter of an employee with a penchant for stupid pranks was in the end not that hard.

If a butcher never locked his back door, that wouldn't be common knowledge. But if someone used his shop to commit a crime, clearly whoever did that had that knowledge. Narrowing the suspect pool down to the maybe 20 people who knew that. So it's a bad idea. But if you're going to axe murder someone, an empty shop where you KNOW you won't be interrupted is hard to pass up.

But these kinds of things do generally get out to mildly nefarious types. Especially public ones. I know every public place in this city where people go to shoot up. I know because of a needle exchange, but dealers know these places, fences know these places, thieves know these places. Under a bridge seems kind of obvious, but why only under three bridges, when there are maybe a dozen downtown? Why the playground next to a police station and not the abandoned one in the middle of nowhere? Why one storm drain and not another? These aren't places some tourist stumbles into. If I commit a crime on the junkie playground, I betray myself as someone who knows the junkie playground. Using the steam tunnels, I betrayed myself as someone who knew the steam tunnels.

And everyone knows places in their hometown where they could kill someone without notice. I live by a river. There are maybe three or four places along the river you could get away with killing someone. Anywhere else and you'd be filmed or caught. Everyone who lives here knows that. Kill someone in one of those places, and you've betrayed yourself as a local.

[Jason]

I have always considered the month of October 1888 to be massively intriguing. The significantly raised levels of policemen on the streets , two coppers on a beat ...etc did this interrupt his routine ? Quite possibly .....

[richardnunweek]

Hello Jason.
Well it certainly stopped his regular routine in its tracks.
After the double event the Ripper scare became hysteria , and the killer would have had to think seriously, when and how. his next victim was to be dispatched
That is why I believe his intention was to be selective , and because of that possibly singled out Mary Kelly who he knew not only had a room of her own , but was living alone since Barnett left.
Because of this he had no need to venture out at night into the guarded streets, he had a safe place to commit murder in daylight
Which is my honest opinion happened.
Regards Richard.

[Jason]

Quite possibly the case Richard , but would a seemingly risk-oblivious individual been able to subdue the urge to kill for five weeks ? There was plenty of other street ladies still working in October , and what better message to send out to the community or police than to kill when they were supposedly out in numbers ? I am not sure he would have been so controlled . I think it more likely that his daily environment was suffocated by the influx of numbers , in particular the possibility of having a beat partner .

[downonwhores]

Peter Vrosky

Has anyone read Peter Vrosky's Book Serial Killers in which he provides evidence that Jack wasn't the first so-called modern serial killer but he actually copied to a tee serial killers that occured from the 1870's to early 1880's in Italy. All the victims were prostitutes and were strangled first then had their throat slit and mutilation of the genital area including the removal of the kidney and the uterus removed. Sound familiar? Could Jack have been a sailor or immigrant from the mainland of Europe like most of Whitechapel was as that time then Jack could have copied the killings after reading about them in the newspapers or possibly in the ports where they occured if Jack was an immigrant or sailor? I'd like your opinion.

[curious]

That is why I believe his intention was to be selective , and because of that possibly singled out Mary Kelly who he knew not only had a room of her own , but was living alone since Barnett left.

Regards Richard.

Hello, Richard,
So you're agreeing with Errata here. The killer's knowledge of those two things must narrow down the number of people who could possibly be the killer.

Are you saying that you believe it was someone who knew Mary Kelly well -- perhaps even a neighbor?

curious

[Wickerman]

But such details as Kelly, "...was living alone since Barnett left" could have been learned through conversation in the early minutes of their first meeting.

Kelly: - "No, not down any back alley, I have a room and a bed"
Stranger: - "Oh really, you mean you live alone?"
Kelly: "Since my man left yes, I have to make ends meet on my own now".

[curious]

But such details as Kelly, "...was living alone since Barnett left" could have been learned through conversation in the early minutes of their first meeting.

Kelly: - "No, not down any back alley, I have a room and a bed"
Stranger: - "Oh really, you mean you live alone?"
Kelly: "Since my man left yes, I have to make ends meet on my own now".

Don't think you could write dialogue . . .

But since that was her business, I suppose it could have happened that way. She wouldn't be protecting herself the way most single women would have.

OR since she appears to have been mostly undressed, perhaps it was someone with that knowledge.

and that thought opens up possibilities.

Getting back to this thread: Do you think there were police officers who knew Kelly well enough to have that knowledge? Didn't Dew's comments seem to suggest that? Don't officers normally know about the notorious characters on their beats?

curious

[Wickerman]

Don't think you could write dialogue . . .

But since that was her business, I suppose it could have happened that way. She wouldn't be protecting herself the way most single women would have.

I cant see her saying, "we could be interrupted any moment by my man", being good for business.
In her attempt to make her client feel comfortable she will obviously expose herself to danger. That fact is commonly understood.

OR since she appears to have been mostly undressed, perhaps it was someone with that knowledge.

Being undressed is likely the result of the chosen location - the bed.
Sex in a bed fully clothed is hardly practical.

Getting back to this thread: Do you think there were police officers who knew Kelly well enough to have that knowledge? Didn't Dew's comments seem to suggest that? Don't officers normally know about the notorious characters on their beats?

curious

Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor.
Richman, poorman, beggarman, thief.

Adding a policeman to this list doesn't make him any more likely than the next man, there are thousands of possible suspects. What is needed is not guesswork, but justification to suspect anyone.

[Bridewell]

Adding a policeman to this list doesn't make him any more likely than the next man, there are thousands of possible suspects. What is needed is not guesswork, but justification to suspect anyone.

Well said!

[Errata]

Hello, Richard,
So you're agreeing with Errata here. The killer's knowledge of those two things must narrow down the number of people who could possibly be the killer.

Are you saying that you believe it was someone who knew Mary Kelly well -- perhaps even a neighbor?

curious

My feeling has always been that Mary Kelly's murder was far more personal than the others. Enough so that it makes me doubt whether or not she was killed by the Ripper. Or if the Ripper was literally building up to the victim he wanted most, which was her. Which happens occasionally. But there is a lot of symbolism that can be read into her mutilation that would point to someone who knew her. Maybe even was obsessed with her.

And if you think about it, a cop is kind of a perfect candidate. It is true that when a stalker reaches a certain level of crazy, it becomes "Oh, she's tying her apron in a double knot instead of a bow. That's how she tells me that she loves me". But it is worse (rage wise) when the victim actively engages the stalker, smiles, is polite, laughs, even flirts a little. Which is exactly how a known prostitute would treat a cop. Be nice to him and maybe he won't bust you. Bat your eyelashes and laugh at his jokes and maybe he won't notice how drunk you are, or the john you were taking back to your place. Even today vice cops have to constantly be told to not form individual attachments. It's too easy to respond to some damsel in distress fantasy.

And if you are looking at a cop to be the Ripper, and it needs to not be a local cop (because they would be too recognizable), and if Mary Kelly's murder was the product of an obsession.... Mary Kelly didn't start her career in Whitechapel. She started in the theater district. If a cop became obsessed with her, it could have been there. So he wouldn't be local to Whitechapel.

I mean, if I was writing this story I would have a cop from that district become obsessed with her, become enraged when she allowed alcohol to lay her so low, get increasingly jealous of johns, and when she has to move to a cheap district I would write that it triggered a psychotic break in that cop. I would write that he blamed drinking and other prostitutes for laying her so low. I would write that seeing what Kelly was destined to become (an old alcoholic syphilitic barren whore) that he felt the need to obliterate that image. He killed Chapman and Eddowes, etc. Because they were what she would become, and he hated that. And he was angry at her for being on that path. And what her lifestyle was robbing him of. And finally, confronted with a drunk object of his obsession with a john, he finally decided that the only way she wouldn't be ruined is if she was dead. And he punished her for not choosing him. For not being what he wanted her to be.

Pure fiction, but that's how I would write it.