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

[Fisherman]

Hi again Abby,

I'm not particularly fussed whether Stride and/or Kelly were soliciting or not when they encountered their killer. But it was likely to have been something about where the victims were and what they were doing at the time that made them appear easy prey. So even if they had not been planning to solicit, and were hoping to find a new partner, we know that their killer (ripper or not) had a very different agenda, which required the victim to play ball to a certain extent. If Kelly's killer had shown her a decent amount of money, for instance, I'm not sure she would have refused on the basis that he was a stranger who probably just wanted sex and was never going to be her Mr. Right.

Love,

Caz
X

Better, Caz - much, much better!

The best,
Fisherman

[Wickerman]

The very fact that this murder took place where it did, and remains unsolved, leads me to doubt that Kelly's killer had any prior connection with her or with Miller's Court. I certainly don't think a copper, on his own patch or away from it, would have risked an indoor killing like that if Kelly knew him by name or by sight.

Hi Caz.
Some good points you raise.

I'm inclined to agree with the above quote, that the meeting between Kelly and her killer was chance, and he was not a frequent customer.

[Bridewell]

Hi Caz.
Some good points you raise.

I'm inclined to agree with the above quote, that the meeting between Kelly and her killer was chance, and he was not a frequent customer.

Absolutely. If he was a frequent customer one or more of the residents of Millers Court might see and recognise him.

[Bridewell]

How about letting a punter come to her room in daylight?
Regards Richard.

I'm surprised how few people give credence to that possibility.

[Wickerman]

I find it amazing that whenever discussions come up on who killed Kelly that Blotchy is never mentioned. NEVER. Why people? He is the last credible suspect seen with Kelly .....

Hi Abby.
Ok, lets list all the credible points associated with Blotchy.
Who was able to substantiate Cox's story?
Who saw Blotchy in any pub?
Who else saw Blotchy with Kelly anywhere?
Why no pot found in Kelly's room?

Have we found anything credible yet?

...and discounting hutches dubious story,

But that is bias talking. The story is only dubious if the police say so. As they actually met him and saw first hand his emotions and his demeanor, surely they know better than anyone in our time who only have the written word to go by?

....she is never seen alive again after being seen by a credible witness entering her home with him, never seen out later that night,...

But why would you promote something that is not true?

...and blotchy is never seen leaving.

Agreed, but did he even exist?

He never comes forward and is never found.

More evidence of the same...

He matches the description given by another credible witness, Lawende , of a rather fair haired man and dressed the same.

I think if you compared the two descriptions side by side, you'd have a lot of explaining to do

I think it rather shortsighted that he is so often left out of the equation and The MK/blotchy sighting can tell us something.

Do you really think a man carrying his own beer mug to a date is contemplating murder & mutilation?

Oh and he's the last person seen with her alive.

Not true Abby.

[Errata]

Absolutely. If he was a frequent customer one or more of the residents of Millers Court might see and recognise him.

Although 80% of people are murdered by someone they know. And several serial killers have killed someone they know. Even someone they are related to.

As for being recognized... this is not a tiny little town. And someone nearby committing a crime is generally a good excuse for not paying attention to the people coming in and out of their house. My neighbor is a dealer. I couldn't even a little recognize one of his customers, because I make it a habit not to look. I live in an apartment building with 12 other households, and I can recognize maybe four people. I don't pay attention to them. I don't care what they do as long as they are quiet about it. How many people would really recognize a friend of their neighbor?

Especially give the amount of traffic. Lets say this guy is a regular. He shows up the third Wednesday of every month. And let's say Kelly is active prostitute. So she sees 2 or 3 men every night for three weeks out of the month. Thats like 50 men. And that may be a very conservative number. So throwing a couple of regulars in there is going to get lost in the revolving door of men. Why would her neighbors pay attention to these men? It's more like "oh there goes Mary with some dude". It's not like she introduces them around... And some of her neighbors are plying the same trade, so they have a bunch of men coming in and out. It's not really a situation that lends itself to keeping track. Assuming someone even wants to.

[Wickerman]

We can't compare the social activities of the late 19th century, to today.
Even in my youth everyone in the street knew everybody's business. Watching your neighbors and gossiping on the doorstep was the norm for the mothers in the street.

All there was to talk about was why the coalman was at Mrs Jenkins for an hour, and how is Mr Smth's lumbago, and who was that little hussy on the corner talking to last night?
Their neighbourhood was their world, and they took notice, especially the women.

[Errata]

We can't compare the social activities of the late 19th century, to today.
Even in my youth everyone in the street knew everybody's business. Watching your neighbors and gossiping on the doorstep was the norm for the mothers in the street.

All there was to talk about was why the coalman was at Mrs Jenkins for an hour, and how is Mr Smth's lumbago, and who was that little hussy on the corner talking to last night?
Their neighbourhood was their world, and they took notice, especially the women.

I'm taking you never lived in crime ridden neighborhoods? Because nothing deters interests in neighbors more than the possibility of being called as a witness.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby.
Ok, lets list all the credible points associated with Blotchy.
Who was able to substantiate Cox's story?
Who saw Blotchy in any pub?
Who else saw Blotchy with Kelly anywhere?
Why no pot found in Kelly's room?

Have we found anything credible yet?



But that is bias talking. The story is only dubious if the police say so. As they actually met him and saw first hand his emotions and his demeanor, surely they know better than anyone in our time who only have the written word to go by?



But why would you promote something that is not true?



Agreed, but did he even exist?



More evidence of the same...



I think if you compared the two descriptions side by side, you'd have a lot of explaining to do



Do you really think a man carrying his own beer mug to a date is contemplating murder & mutilation?



Not true Abby.

Hi wicker
Of course you are posing all the above with the idea that hutch is to be believed and cox is not. I think most reasonable people with knowledge of the case would would go with cox.

[Abby Normal]

Hi again Abby,

I'm not particularly fussed whether Stride and/or Kelly were soliciting or not when they encountered their killer. But it was likely to have been something about where the victims were and what they were doing at the time that made them appear easy prey. So even if they had not been planning to solicit, and were hoping to find a new partner, we know that their killer (ripper or not) had a very different agenda, which required the victim to play ball to a certain extent. If Kelly's killer had shown her a decent amount of money, for instance, I'm not sure she would have refused on the basis that he was a stranger who probably just wanted sex and was never going to be her Mr. Right.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi caz
I see what you are saying but perhaps the ripper was changing tactics as the series went on. Instead of going after broken down street harrigans that he found literally down and out on the streets by chance he started going after ones that weren't quite as desperate that he met in the pubs like stride and Kelly. The evidence seems to point that this is the case. Perhaps he was doing this as a kind of escalation, looking for more attractive women or just refining his method, or because as the series went on and women became more cautious he felt he needed to put in more persuading time. And this would perhaps lead to him now mingling with and going after women he may have actually known or at least been familiar too,to some extant. Of course they could have still been total strangers when they met but to me it seems stride and to a greater extant Kelly may have met their killer in a pub who they had seen around before and felt comfortable hanging out with.

[Wickerman]

Hi wicker
Of course you are posing all the above with the idea that hutch is to be believed and cox is not. I think most reasonable people with knowledge of the case would would go with cox.

The point I'm making Abby is, on what basis?

Cox's story was never verified, and in fact was in conflict with Prater.
So why is her story any more reliable than Hutchinson's - who, by the way does find corroboration in Sarah Lewis.
But where is Cox's corroboration?

To claim Cox IS reliable, is not true - we simply do not know.
And, so long as another witness does claim to see Kelly on the streets at "about 3:00 am" - which is another unverifiable claim, where is the difference?

[Wickerman]

I'm taking you never lived in crime ridden neighborhoods?

Happily no.

Because nothing deters interests in neighbors more than the possibility of being called as a witness.

That I would take issue with, talking about the 19th century again.

Sure, some may have the "I don't want to know" attitude, but the majority do want to know, though whether they choose to come forward as a witness is a whole other issue.
Even your average witness could have had conflict with the law in the past, so not every one is withholding information, or not coming forward, for the same reason.

[Errata]

Happily no.



That I would take issue with, talking about the 19th century again.

Sure, some may have the "I don't want to know" attitude, but the majority do want to know, though whether they choose to come forward as a witness is a whole other issue.
Even your average witness could have had conflict with the law in the past, so not every one is withholding information, or not coming forward, for the same reason.

I mean, maybe if it was a small town. Or maybe if it was some quiet neighborhood where she was the only one acting differently. But we're talking about like 800,000 people crammed in a couple square miles, and a couple other women in her building doing the same thing. So you imagine each woman has 30 different men in every month, times three, there has to be a point where you no longer keep track. And it's a busy throughway they are living in, and I think there are two other apartment buildings on either side. There is a lot of traffic. And no one identified Hutchinson as being there, and he was there quite a bit. Of all the people who described seeing some man, none of them said they saw this regular on the streets. I think they were minding their own business as hard as they could.

I know of the tradition of neighborliness. I grew up with it. But it is not and never has been a universal phenomenon. It is a privilege of safety and security. A middle class suburban neighborhood in the 50s is a perfect example. New York City on the other hand runs about 50/50. And destitute neighborhoods with high crime have never been like that. It's certainly not like that in Detroit. Most of us were privileged to have grown up with memories of that kind of vigilance. But it was never universal.

Her neighbor said she heard screams. Other witnesses said they heard screams. None of them checked to be sure everyone was okay. They didn't even check when they awoke the next morning. And despite the fact that her neighbor heard the scream coming from Kelly's side of the wall, she did nothing. Didn't check on Kelly, didn't check the next morning, didn't report it to the police, didn't report it to the landlord. And the cops saw nothing strange about it. That alone argues for the idea that everyone kept to themselves as much as possible.

[Wickerman]

... There is a lot of traffic. And no one identified Hutchinson as being there, and he was there quite a bit.

To the best of our knowledge, no-one was asked if Hutchinson had been seen. Although, I would not be at all surprised if Abberline did not locate Sarah Lewis and bring her to Commercial St. to identify Hutchinson.
Though I'm not sure why you think he was at Millers Court "quite a bit", true he did claim to have known her "about 3 years", but this doesn't mean he had been to Millers Court before.
We may have a link that connects both Hutchinson & Kelly to a house in Pennington St.

Her neighbor said she heard screams. Other witnesses said they heard screams. None of them checked to be sure everyone was okay. They didn't even check when they awoke the next morning.

To be fair, Prater said the "cry" seemed to come from the Court, she didn't say "inside the same house".
Lewis made a similar assumption, that the scream came from outside, not from within Kelly's room.
Neither had any reason to suppose their neighbour had been harmed in any way, and according to Prater such screams were not unusual.

[Errata]

To the best of our knowledge, no-one was asked if Hutchinson had been seen. Although, I would not be at all surprised if Abberline did not locate Sarah Lewis and bring her to Commercial St. to identify Hutchinson.
Though I'm not sure why you think he was at Millers Court "quite a bit", true he did claim to have known her "about 3 years", but this doesn't mean he had been to Millers Court before.
We may have a link that connects both Hutchinson & Kelly to a house in Pennington St.

I'm sure no one was asked if they saw Hutchinson. But I am also sure they were asked if they saw any men hanging around. And even if they knew Hutch and had a fair idea that he was harmless, they would have said something. If for no other reason that that the police were looking for every possible witness, and Hutch hanging out at her door for a couple hours puts him in a good position to have seen something. But either they didn't see him, which given his own statement seems unlikely, or they didn't "see" him.

To be fair, Prater said the "cry" seemed to come from the Court, she didn't say "inside the same house".
Lewis made a similar assumption, that the scream came from outside, not from within Kelly's room.
Neither had any reason to suppose their neighbour had been harmed in any way, and according to Prater such screams were not unusual.

I'm not sure it matters. Neither of them apparently even looked out the window to try and see something. They heard the cries. The cries were not uncommon. Crime in the neighborhood was not uncommon. They didn't check. They didn't check the next morning. They didn't make sure they knew where the women of their acquaintance were. They didn't talk about it amongst themselves. They didn't contact the police. The went about their business like it never happened. Despite knowing that there was some guy out there mutilating women.

People who care about their neighbors check on them. They talk to them. They talk to other neighbors about them. These neighbors didn't do that.They could not be bothered to find out if someone within earshot lived or died. They did not keep track of their neighbor's guests. They minded their own business. Not terribly unlike the Kitty Genovese case in New York.