A general consensus as to what the Ripper may have looked like?

[kensei]

Others have argued that the probablity of two murderers killing in such a short space of time makes it likely that Stride was JTR's - I've argued this in the past, too.

On reflection, though, a more appropriate comparison is comparing the likelihood of two murderers in a such a short space of time with one murderer killing once and 12 minutes away killing again. Both are highly unusual instances of human behaviour.

Ted Bundy kidnapped and killed a victim at Lake Sammamish, then returned and kidnapped and killed a second from the same place, all within a few hours. It's not unprecedented. But highly unusual instances of human behavior? Yes, absolutely.

[Sister Hyde]

Others have argued that the probablity of two murderers killing in such a short space of time makes it likely that Stride was JTR's - I've argued this in the past, too.

On reflection, though, a more appropriate comparison is comparing the likelihood of two murderers in a such a short space of time with one murderer killing once and 12 minutes away killing again. Both are highly unusual instances of human behaviour.

True.

And about the double murder event, I think the wounds inflicted on Eddowes leave no doubt on who did her.

[kensei]

True.

And about the double murder event, I think the wounds inflicted on Eddowes leave no doubt on who did her.

I agree with that statement, Sister- the same person who laid Annie Chapman's intestines on her right shoulder the same way, and the same person who escalated his interest in attacking the face weeks later with Mary Kelly, and took her heart as a trophy just as he'd taken Kate's uterus and kidney.

[Phil H]

I don't necessarily follow the link from eddowes to Kelly. As I said in another post recently, MJK strikes me as being potentially the victim of someone trying to reproduce injuries he had read about but not seen.

On the "double event", don't forget there was a third murder that night elsewhere in London - a proven domestic. Was that a coincidence too, or should it have been attributed to JtR? (Just kidding to make a point.)

I see no reason, on that basis why Stride should not have been a "domestic" - the murderer being Michael Kidney.

No other JtR murder was south of Whitechapel High St/Road, and if one omits Stride from the list, lots of things about the Eddowes killing make more sense. "Jack" has more time, for one thing.

Phil

[Sister Hyde]

I agree with that statement, Sister- the same person who laid Annie Chapman's intestines on her right shoulder the same way, and the same person who escalated his interest in attacking the face weeks later with Mary Kelly, and took her heart as a trophy just as he'd taken Kate's uterus and kidney.

Yes, the pattern of the slaughtering on Kate was unequivocal, same hand as Chapman, while for Stride it wasn't so obvious, either because it just wasn't the man, or because the man was disturbed.

[kensei]

Phil-
The problem I have with Michael Kidney being the murderer of Elizabeth Stride is that the area may have been small but it wasn't that small, and if Liz was out working the streets that night and moving from place to place, how easy would it have been for Kidney to go out looking for her and actually find her? Especially before cars.

[Sister Hyde]

I don't necessarily follow the link from eddowes to Kelly. As I said in another post recently, MJK strikes me as being potentially the victim of someone trying to reproduce injuries he had read about but not seen.

I see no reason, on that basis why Stride should not have been a "domestic" - the murderer being Michael Kidney.

Phil

I was feigning not to have noticed the MJK remark not to generate an argument about convictions, but you're not afraid. You're a trooper!

[Phil H]

The problem I have with Michael Kidney being the murderer of Elizabeth Stride is that the area may have been small but it wasn't that small, and if Liz was out working the streets that night and moving from place to place, how easy would it have been for Kidney to go out looking for her and actually find her? Especially before cars.

I addressed this same point in another thread a while back: there are several possibilities.

a) accident - most unlikely but not impossible;

b) tip-off - a mate saw Stride and her beau and told Kidney;

c) Kidney followed Liz and watched her (stalking).

There may be more, but that covers the main possibilities I thuink. I don't see it as an issue at all.

Phil

[lynn cates]

Baxter and Bagster

Hello Sister.

"Yes, the pattern of the slaughtering on Kate was unequivocal, same hand as Chapman"

Ah! But that's not what the inquest team thought!

Cheers.
LC

[Sister Hyde]

Hello Sister.

"Yes, the pattern of the slaughtering on Kate was unequivocal, same hand as Chapman"

Ah! But that's not what the inquest team thought!

Cheers.
LC

and it wouldn't be the first time the inquest team was not unanimous on something.

[curious4]

Hi Curious,

Now that's a good one too! Of course, I think when people were saying "he looked like a foreigner", it was meant in a pejorative way, or at least in a cliché way, unless what they meant was that he "sounded" foreigner, because of an accent or so, because otherwise, unless you are swarthy or show "exotic" features, your nationality isn't written on your forehead.
For the option of the word "foreigner" being employed about someone from outside the "area", I don't know how that could be judged, clothing maybe? clothing indicating either the trade or the class of the person?

Cam

Hello Sister Hyde,

I take it simply to mean someone from outside the area in this context - I think the residents would recognise someone as an outsider. Again from my newspaper skimmimg, Daily Standard 13.9.88, a woman who had reportedly lived in the area for twenty years states that (she believes) the murderer "did not belong to them" (the people who lived there).

Hello Phil H,

Can´t prove or disprove what you say about the word foreigner always being used to designate a Jew but do you have any evidence to back this up. After all not all immigrants were necessarily Jewish and if they meant Jew, why not say so?

With the best will in the world,
C4

[Sister Hyde]

Hello Sister Hyde,

I take it simply to mean someone from outside the area in this context - I think the residents would recognise someone as an outsider. Again from my newspaper skimmimg, Daily Standard 13.9.88, a woman who had reportedly lived in the area for twenty years states that (she believes) the murderer "did not belong to them" (the people who lived there).

And what would such an assertion be based on? the clothing? language level?

[Phil H]

From my reading of period books, I seem to recall that the Victorians had a variety of words for foreigners, often precise but by today's standards perjorative:

lascars, coolies, levantines, orientals etc, and others for those of African or Carribbean origin.

I think they would have talked of Frenchmen, Germans, Italians quite specifically.

Also, I don't have the source here, wasn't Hutchinson's description of Astrakhan Man amended from Jewish to "foreigner" for publication? That seems a pretty specific parallel, if so.

Phil

[Sister Hyde]

Also, I don't have the source here, wasn't Hutchinson's description of Astrakhan Man amended from Jewish to "foreigner" for publication? That seems a pretty specific parallel, if so.

Phil

I think the police was afraid that anti-semitic attacks would suddenly increase in the district as well, so using the word "foreigner" instead of "jewish" seems like the right "euphemism".

[GregBaron]

Euphemisms...

I think the police was afraid that anti-semitic attacks would suddenly increase in the district as well, so using the word "foreigner" instead of "jewish" seems like the right "euphemism".

I think you're right on the money here Sister Hyde. The word Jew, if spoken in a certain tone by a Gentile, is a pejorative in itself not unlike "Lipski" at that time.

To Kensei:

Despite the unreliability of witnesses, darkness and other drawbacks, I have a hard time thinking Mrs. Long and Lawende described the same person.

Long - dark, foreign, 40-something
Lawende - fair mustache, sailor, 28

Neither may have been the culprit.........

Greg