Did JTR live in a lodging house?

[Chava]

Not sure what you mean. He did carry the organs in his pockets as he escaped from the crime scene. I'm not suggesting that he carried them secreted about his person for any length of time afterwards.

Ben, you don't know this for sure and neither do I. I believe that he carried material from Eddowes' body in the piece of apron, but whether he stashed that in his pickets, or whether he stashed anything in his pockets, is a matter of interpretation rather than of fact. For all we know, he had a handy American-cloth parcel to carry stuff in.

We don't know his means for certain, or where he was likely to have lived, but we can make educated guesses in that regard on the basis of what we've learned from past cases, and combine it with our knowledge of the social and geographic set-up that formed the backdrop to the Whitechapel murders.

Well that's the thing. An educated guess is still a guess.

[Ben]

Hi Chava,

Yes Ben. But even the poorest man in the doss-house isn't going to eat a piece of meat that has been preserved in spirits of wine (thanks for that, by the way, Gareth!).

True, but I don't believe for a moment that the killer did preserve the kidney is spirits of wine, so that's rather a moot point. I'm not suggesting for a moment that he either carted the organs around the streets or stashed them in storage for days at a time. That's most implausible -they'd rot vert quickly. More likely in my view, the organs were cannibalized not long after the murder, with the inedible bits cast onto the great fire.

Hi Mike,

The type of room that Im talking about was likely available all over the area, small cheap, dirty and hardly ever tended to by an outsider.

Yes, but these would come under the catergory of lodging houses, and they wouldn't have been nearly as suitable for his intentions as a larger, busy doss house. If there are a fewer people to monitor your movements, there's a greater chance that any unusual activity would be noted, as it apparently was in the alleged Batty Street account. The greater the number of lodgers, the greater the chance of the killer's actions and movements passing unnoticed. If he wasn't doing anything concpicuous or openly dodgy, there was simply no incentive to single out a specific individual 27 beds to the left.

The sort of rooms you appear to be envisaging; single rooms which weren't part of a lodging house and which didn't have a landlord/lady on site would have been incredibly rare if they existed at all.

Carrying something he knows he could hang for in his pocket sounds to me like a man playing a game of "catch me when you can"

Not sure what you mean. He did carry the organs in his pockets as he escaped from the crime scene. I'm not suggesting that he carried them secreted about his person for any length of time afterwards.

Despite your sound argument about hiding in plain sight, it is not preferable to hiding where no-one knows where you are.

I disagree. It doesn't matter if people know where you are as long as they don't know who you are, and what you've done. Hiding in plain sight is by far the most viable form of "hiding" in a densely populated urban environment such as Whitechapel and Spitalfields. He may have desired a nice little hidey-hole with just him and no landlord or other lodgers, but they were a rare commodity in that district, and time and again we learn that many of the serialists who do have private accomodation (and lived alone) killed and disposed of their victims there, not in the streets. It's not a case of "choosing" his environment. On the contrary, I think he was making the best of a lack of "choice".

We don't know his means for certain, or where he was likely to have lived, but we can make educated guesses in that regard on the basis of what we've learned from past cases, and combine it with our knowledge of the social and geographic set-up that formed the backdrop to the Whitechapel murders.

Best regards,
Ben

one more thought Ben....

If you wanted to sell me on the idea that after he dumps his take at a safe house he then slips into a ward bed in a lodging house....I would go along with that kind of hiding in plain sight.

Cheers again.

Hi again Ben,

The type of room that Im talking about was likely available all over the area, small cheap, dirty and hardly ever tended to by an outsider. Not the type like on Berner, where the man hands his shirts over to be laundered. A bolt hole would be by choice, a place no-one else would likely see someone coming or going. A lodging house ward, by neccesity, is a place that many can see anyone in the room come and go.

If he has a place to leave all his "Jack" personna, then when he leaves that room, he leaves "Jack" behind...allowing him to act and behave like a man with nothing to hide...which is precisely how this killer must have acted during the day. Carrying something he knows he could hang for in his pocket sounds to me like a man playing a game of "catch me when you can", and personally, I dont think this was any game to him, nor do I believe that he had any desire to be caught.

Despite your sound argument about hiding in plain sight, it is not preferable to hiding where no-one knows where you are. Its is a choice. You think he would choose that environment, I dont. You may think he had to....I dont agree with that either. We dont know his means at all.

We only know he knew the East End well, and could blend in there. That could be said about anyone predisposed to being in that area often, not just local residents.

Cheers Ben.

[Chava]

Yes Ben. But even the poorest man in the doss-house isn't going to eat a piece of meat that has been preserved in spirits of wine (thanks for that, by the way, Gareth!). And it's documented that men in doss-houses and workhouses were at pains to try and keep their pitiful belongings close to their person at all times because other inmates were always trying to steal 'em. (See Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell.) Which means that (1) he trundles round the East End clutching his nasty little box of bits to himself at all times or (2) he leaves it lying around for some nosy venal codger to find it and work out the truth, thus ensuring for himself at the very lease a lifetime of free booze, and ensuring a hangman's noose for our boy.

I just don't see how he would allow himself to run that risk. And I equally don't see him finding a little nook or cranny off the beaten track that he would use as a hidey-hole for his trophies. Because, if it was found, a canny copper might stake it out and wait for the biggest catch in Met history to swim into his net.

[Ben]

Hi Mike,

I just dont see why this would be a preferable scenario for us to embrace to one that allows him to change virtually unnoticed, leave his organs if he is keeping them, and come and go using his own key.

It's preferable because the over-crowded nature of the district meant that private houses with keys (etc) were extremely hard to come by. If we're dealing with a local agent here - and we almost certainly are - he was unlikely to have had a domestic set-up that allowed him the sort of privacy that allowed Gacy, Dahmer and Nielson to both kill AND store bodily parts where they lived. They didn't need to kill on the streets.

JTR might have preferred a private home, but we have to assess the likelihood of him having one in that area. There are two demonstrably successful forms of evading capture and justice; one is to avoid being seen, the other is to avoid being noticed. It is the latter strategy that would have proved most successful in a densely populated district known for its "vicious and semi criminal" element.

As I mentioned, abandoned buildings really didn't exist in the area. Such was the extent of povery and homelessness in the district that no abandoned building was likely to remain so for long. Most men in the district were working class and far from wealthy, but that doesn't mean they had to be "dirty" or "scruffy".

That speaks of a possible schedule....something poor people dont have

Oh but they do, Mike. Poor people are by far the most likely group to adhere to a schedule; working at arduous, menial tasks for long hours and very little pay, and if they were out of work, their daily hours would be filled by the pursuit of work. There's nothing in the ripper's schedule that remotely hints at someone from the wealthier classes - quite the reverse, if anything, nor is there any reason to think he left the area between murders.

Best wishes,
Ben

Hey Ben,

Lets put it this way, Im sure your argument holds water, in that he might get away with carrying human organs on him in a "crowd"...I just dont see why this would be a preferable scenario for us to embrace to one that allows him to change virtually unnoticed, leave his organs if he is keeping them, and come and go using his own key.

Its the best scenario for a man that is keeping his organs, not eating them, and it eliminates a score of people who would see him come and go...like the bunk mates in the ward for example.

Its not just whether he could carry organs into a ward, its why would he? The answer to that can only be because he could not afford another place, even though he could easily have found some spot in abandoned warehousing that was free, ,...and for me, the evidence is far from concusive that this killer was desperately poor, somewhat poor, or even marginally employed. What the suspect was wearing when seen with a victim is an indicator of lower class men, yes,...but only Lawendes man is most likely the killer of a victim in his presence, he is not described as dirty and scruffy, and even if he was that could be easily a facade.

Poor people wouldnt have any restrictions on when they could kill, they would be unable to leave the area, so the frequency would be based soley on his whims. The killer of the Canonicals killed only within the same 10 day window, starting the end of the previous month to the 9th of the next. That speaks of a possible schedule....something poor people dont have, and it also means he might actually leave the area for sometime after a kill, what of the organs then?


Best regards Ben

[Ben]

Hi Mike,

where you eat, and in this case, bringing the evidence in the form of any bloodstains or pocketed organs to a place that, as you say, has lots of tenants means that he is at greater risk of being caught by someone

No, the absolute polar opposite occurs. The more tenants, the greater the chance of getting away with naughtiness unnoticed. That's why we have expressions like "Hiding in plain sight" and "Needle in a haystack". The more individual pieces of hay, the more the needle is concealed, and the same is true of lodging houses. If he wasn't doing anything conspicious, there was little chance of him being singled out for random scrutiny in a 400 strong lodging house, especially if there was private cabins available, as there were in the Victoria Home for instance.

People did bring pocketted meat back to their busy lodging houses to cook and consume in the lodging house kitchen - unpleasant pices of meat. They did it all the time. That's what the vast, foul-smelling lodging house kitchens were for. It doesn't matter about the "psychological" implications of bringing home organs if, to the eyes hundreds of lodgers, he wasn't doing anything unusual.

The man becomes less capable and quite thick headed every assertion that has him doing something that might have got him caught....like carrying organs about in his pocket, or bringing organs to a bed inside a ward full of men, or writing taunting letters.

None of that makes him thick-headed at all. It makes him a risk-taker who made the most of less-than-ideal situations. The act of bringing organs into a lodging house when other lodgers were bringing home their meaty treats entailed far less risk than committing murder on the streets, but if he was a member of the working class poor, he was forced to persevere in spite of those factors.

Thats why he chose the weakest prey, and thats why I dont believe he "dared" fate to catch him by carrying on him evidence of murder while in the company of others.

But according to you, he dared fate by kiling on the streers because he wanted to (in contrast to my view that he had no other option), so he was willing to risk the company of others there. If he was a lodger, he simply had no option but to kill in the streets and return home with the organs, and such a domestic set-up would not have made him "thick".

As far as the Lodger story goes, that man was thick enough to leave evidence about if he was Jack, and it remains one of the reasons the story is not more widely accepted

That's because he was only one lodger with only him to focus on. He couldn't have lost himself in the crowd as a doss house dweller could. Besides which, the lodger story you referred to involved the man leaving his bloody shirt behind to wash, and nothing of the kind would have occured in a larger house.

Best regards,
Ben

....On the night of the Eddowes murder, I now believe he carried the kidney etc off with him in a piece of cloth he cut from her apron. Deposited it somewhere safe. Then ventured out again to get rid of evidence that he knew for certain would incriminate him if he were caught with it. So I also believe he had somewhere private to conceal his little momento without the concern of someone finding it while he was out.

I think thats the first time Ive read something from someone other than me that precisely sync's with my own conclusions to date, its great to have you aboard Chava.

I dont really understand what objections there are to this scenario, unless the favoured suspect by each individual is elminated by such conjecture....such as a poor man unable to secure another room, or that the favoured suspect is known to have been a ward style lodger.

I believe that this idea is one of the only signifigant contributions Pat Cornwells book makes...a bolt hole.

If not, as Chava indicated, there are at least 3 occassions where organs left with the killer, if he didnt drop them off and keep them, then "Burke and Hare" is a real possibility for one or more, something Im sure you Sam and others wouldnt want to entertain. If he isnt eating the organs, he is trying to sell them, or is keeping them, at least thats how I see the options here.

And if the letter and package you mentioned was from the killer....you have those three options narrowed to one.

Best regards folks.

[Sam Flynn]

I'm not gonna bet that Gareth! But I'm pretty sure it was Eddowes's kidney. For reasons that don't have much to do with the kidney, and everything to do with the wording of the letter...

OK, Chava, but let's not get too much into Lusk Letter territory on this thread

[Chava]

I'm not gonna bet that Gareth! But I'm pretty sure it was Eddowes's kidney. For reasons that don't have much to do with the kidney, and everything to do with the wording of the letter...

[Sam Flynn]

There's the problem of the organs he keeps as trophies.

We don't know that he kept them, Chava. It might have been sufficient to his twisted needs merely to remove the organs and discard them at his earliest opportunity. They wouldn't have lasted long once the stray dogs, cats and alley-rats of the East End got wind of them.

The Eddowes kidney--at least I believe it to be the Eddowes kidney--was preserved in wine.

... spirits of wine, Chava. Not the same thing. A technicality - however, you can bet your bottom shilling that it wasn't Eddowes' kidney.

[Chava]

There's the problem of the organs he keeps as trophies. The Eddowes kidney--at least I believe it to be the Eddowes kidney--was preserved in wine. So he keeps this stuff around. In a common lodging house, he wouldn't be able to maintain his stash privately. Or at least keeping it private would be a major concern.

On the night of the Eddowes murder, I now believe he carried the kidney etc off with him in a piece of cloth he cut from her apron. Deposited it somewhere safe. Then ventured out again to get rid of evidence that he knew for certain would incriminate him if he were caught with it. So I also believe he had somewhere private to conceal his little momento without the concern of someone finding it while he was out.

I think it's entirely possible he rented a room in a family's house. He may even have had a wife and kids of his own, and therefore his own house. (However I think this is unlikely, because I believe he was impotent.) But I doubt he was in a lodging house. Too many people crowded too close together for comfort. He's got a knife and a few trophies he must conceal. Because if he doesn't, someone will put 2 and 2 together and get the jackpot!

You really ought to read People of the Abyss, Mike, if you haven't already.

Im sorry to say I havent yet, but I can understand your reference without having read it......perhaps I should have phrased it "you dont bring murder evidence to your own home". That things such as meat in pockets of tenants of lodging houses, I can buy...based on my understanding of the conditions....but having meat that was taken from a human being earlier is something else, even if only psychologically.

I dont think there is any reason to omit the possibility he used a place somewhere to transition....and as I said earlier, there are many reasons to surmise that would have been a very advantageous thing to do. Does he do things that are in his own best interest?....I think his elusiveness and "clean" murder sites suggests yes, he did.

All the best Sam

[Sam Flynn]

Heres my take on this particular issue...you dont s*** where you eat

You really ought to read People of the Abyss, Mike, if you haven't already.