our killer been local

[Lechmere]

Let me get this straight...
Are we being asked to entertain the idea that Hutchinson killed Eddowes at 1.45 am-ish, went back to the Victoria Home at 2.00 am-ish with the bloody apron, gained entry, picked up some chalk from the games room and went back out, dropped the apron, wrote the graffito and regained entry to the Victoria Home at 2.30 am-ish?

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby,

That's a thoroughly bloody good suggestion re the chalk! I'd never thought of that, but it makes perfect sense. I've always queried the likelihood of the killer having chalk conveniently secreted about his person, but if there was somewhere nearby from which to obtain a stick - such as the nearby Victoria Home lodging house where indoor games would have been played - I can easily envisage him making the minor excursion, thus accounting for the absence of the apron on Long's first visit.

All the best,
Ben

Exactly!

[Ben]

How do you mean, Ben? Before he even experiences his first murder fantasies?

I mean, at the very least, before he decided that the group of people with whom he had the most non-violent interaction, would be ideal targets to act out those "murder fantasies" on, Caz. Shipman may well have developed a murderous God complex before he became a doctor, yes, but his specific methods and fantasies may have developed once he came into contact with vulnerable elderly patients. There has to be an impetus behind the choice of victim and the decision to pursue them in particular for sadistic pleasure. Shipman was unlikely to have woken up one morning aged 12 and decided, on a whim, to put some octogenarians to permanent rest, and then made life and career choices accordingly. Just as there is a proven correlation between a troubled childhood and serial crime in adulthood, an eventual serial killer will have been affected by his environment. It's cause and effect.

I don't know how anyone could possibly know this, without the killer himself saying when he first imagined what it would be like to murder and mutilate a prostitute, instead of using her for sex.

But what's the realistic alternative? If we accept your suggestion that the killer harboured violent fantasies that specifically involved prostitutes before he was even at age where he could feasibly start using them for sex, he'd have attempted an attack when he first found himself alone with one, surely? And yet we don't see any such pattern with known prostitute killers, such as Stephen Wright, who by all accounts had non-murderous experiences with prostitutes for years before he starting killing any.

The ripper didn't really do any 'disposing' unless you include the torso cases, and while Colin Ireland didn't kill his victims in one small area, he did take the risk of picking them all up

Which, as I explained in my last post, doesn't compare in the slightest with what you're suggesting for Commmuter Jack, i.e. not just picking them up from a specific location and disposing them elsewhere (thus severely delaying and obscuring the recognition that all victims were picked up from the same location), but commuting again and again into the same pick-up location to kill and dump victims there and then. If it can be shown that any other serial killer in history did anything remotely like this (and perhaps try to explain the contrast with the great many proven examples of local "marauder" type killers who didn't), I'd be more inclined consider it as anything more than an extremely remote possibility.

If you are saying your local man had no choice but to stay in the area and keep on killing there, regardless of the growing risks, that suggests an OCD-like condition.

No, it doesn't.

It suggests that he only operated in his immediate locality because he lacked the private transport (or funds for public transport) that would have enabled him to seek out ripping pastures anew and alternative comfort zones. Harry also raised the excellent point that seeking out suitable victims was only half the problem. He also had to disappear from those streets very quickly, and in the full and clear realisation that it would only be minutes before the body is discovered and whistles start a' blowin. Not the cleverest moment to start hoofing it through unfamiliar streets all the way back to East Finchley! Lack of familiarity with other districts, plus a lack of transport to get him there in the first place, plus an urgent need to disappear from the streets and make good his escape offer us excellent reasons for a local offender to stick within the confines of his locale. A "commuter" with the means to commute and explore other comfort zones, on the other hand, would be quite the plonker to target such a tiny region time after time. And again, for that reason? OCD doesn't seem terribly convincing an explanation to me.

He was never caught, so that could suggest he was a shade brighter than the majority of identified examples who operated, clone-like, within their own environment.

It could suggest that, but it's very unlikely to, in my opinion. If there's a more obvious reason for Jack's escape is that the police were operating in an era that was extremely unenlightened on the subject of serial crime, when policing as an organized force was still in its infancy.

I tend to wade in when I see people arguing strongly that he was - without a shred of evidence.

That may be because you don't regard a century's worth of insight into serial killer behaviour - at least that which pertains to geography - as "evidence" in the way that I believe we should.

All the best,
Ben

[Scott Nelson]

the very skankiest of the skanky...

I'm in a box of fruit loops

[Ben]

Great posts, Tom and Harry. Agreed entirely.

[caz]

The exposure and proximity to the intended victim type will always come first.

How do you mean, Ben? Before he even experiences his first murder fantasies? Are you seriously saying that Harold Shipman became a doctor first, and only when he found himself surrounded by vulnerable elderly patients did he start having fantasies about putting them to sleep, one after another? Surely it's more like that saucy chap on the Fast Show: "a girls' dormitory at one in the morning? With my reputation? Bingo!"

Did it mean that he sought them out in a non-criminal capacity first? Yes, almost certainly, but that doesn't mean he had any criminal designs on them when he did, at least not in the early stages.

I don't know how anyone could possibly know this, without the killer himself saying when he first imagined what it would be like to murder and mutilate a prostitute, instead of using her for sex. From an early age I suspect (ie before he was old enough to engage with them at all), but neither of us knows for sure.

The vast majority of known serial killers base their victim type on exposure to that type in a non-criminal, non-nefarious capacity, usually before it even occurred to them to make this "type" their prey.

Again, you know this how? Did Peter Sutcliffe say so, and you took his word for it? Did he say he would never have dreamed of harming a woman before being exposed to scores of prostitutes (and all the other minxes in short skirts), who were just begging to be attacked? I really don't think it can work like that. Surely the violent fantasies came first, and drove Sutcliffe time and time again into the various red light districts looking for easy prey.

There is, to my knowledge, not a single known example of a serial offender killing and disposing of his victims in a small neighbourhood to which he commutes to each time, and the reasons for this should be startlingly apparent. The tiny region in which Jack killed, mutilated and disposed of his victims became subject to more intense scrutiny as the murder toll rose, and yet we're expected to believe that a killer with means to travel didn't consider it prudent to "commute" to different places, as all commuter serialists have done.

The ripper didn't really do any 'disposing' unless you include the torso cases, and while Colin Ireland didn't kill his victims in one small area, he did take the risk of picking them all up (or was picked up by them) from the same pub, after commuting to Fulham from the Essex coast for the purpose. He was a commuter serialist who never went anywhere else to look for victims. The pub became his comfort zone, a tried and tested place where he felt safe to chat up the easy prey.

You seem to assume that all killers without one foot nailed to the floor are able and willing to change one comfort zone for another at the drop of a hat, but it doesn't always follow. Your argument that a non-local ripper would have moved his operations elsewhere rather than risk the same streets each time ignores the fact that your local ripper did risk the same streets each time, when nobody was forcing him out there with his knife. How was that any more 'prudent' than an outsider doing exactly the same thing, but nipping off between murders to somewhere nobody was ever going to look for him? If you are saying your local man had no choice but to stay in the area and keep on killing there, regardless of the growing risks, that suggests an OCD-like condition. So why could not a non-local man have had a similar condition, which kept him coming back to Whitechapel?

Any particular reason why it isn't the safer bet to assume he belongs with the overwhelming majority of serial killers with regard to the commuter/marauder issue?

Safer? I'd say the ripper himself would have been safer (from all those potential witnesses for a start) if he wasn't in the immediate vicinity at all between murders, and didn't return there after the last one. He was never caught, so that could suggest he was a shade brighter than the majority of identified examples who operated, clone-like, within their own environment.

But of course I have never argued that he wasn't a local man, or even that it was unlikely. I tend to wade in when I see people arguing strongly that he was - without a shred of evidence.

Love,

Caz
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[harry]

The problem for the killer was not in getting to the scene of the crime ,but in getting from it.In at least four of the murders there would be the need to pass along narrow streets in a part bloodstained condition.Streets that were patrolled by police officers that would take an interest in any person about in the early hours.The more streets to cover the greater the risk.A local would have fewer streets to contend with.

[Tom_Wescott]

Tom
You don't think the police regularly checked the local Lodging Houses after each murder?

So you are not with Wick when he quoted this...

"...we must keep our eyes on points of character rather than on such manifestly unsatisfactory and inadequate work as the searching of lodging-houses, which in all probability the murderer does not frequent."
Star, 10 Nov. 1888.

Of course the Star were basing their view on the very many reports that preceded that, in many papers, which mentioned the police's targeting of Lodging Houses.
Or are you saying this wasn't the case?

Did they bust in and search every man? No, they didn't. Did they speak with the lodging house keeper and his deputy? Yes, of course they did. Were the same police on the payroll of said keeper? Yes.

As for Hutch, I would not be so quick to assume he was a regular lodger in these houses most of the time.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Ben]

Correct and making enquiries at every door will take time, and PC Long is not a detective. He did what he was supposed to do, alert his superiors.

I'm afraid I call nonsense on that one, Jon.

Time was clearly of the essence in apprehending a murderer who was both on the run and clearly still in the vicinity of his recent crime. It would have been extreme folly to waste precious time waiting for "his superiors" to arrive on the scene, hold his hand, and give him the go ahead to do the bleedin' obvious.

No it isn't, but then there are some messengers who raise unrelated topics in an attempt to assassinate the character of a PC.

Let's not poo our pants with overly dramatic expressions of indignation here. I'm highlighting a pertinent fact that may well impact on the overall credibility of the witness in question.

What I do not do is try to misrepresent an opinion published in the press as if it is a fact, or that it is the result of inside information. The press were after all quite often wrong. This was just an opinion.

Exactly. Just an opinion. The Star's opinion. Not to be invested with any more worth that it warrants. That's not to say we shouldn't pay attention when they report on matters that obviously originated from police sources, but when they're offering their own, non-police-endorsed thoughts, I'm less inclined to pay heed.

No serial killer is going to try hide among a thousand eyes all watching each other and every move you make. People were turning in their friends, neighbours, strangers on the street, in fact anyone who looked strange, acted strange, or maybe someone they just didn't like.

This is where just a bit more insight into the habits and behaviour of known serial offenders would be advantageous to you, I strongly feel. The necessity for, and ability of, serial killers to blend into a crowd and become the proverbial "needles in a haystack" is axiomatic. In "normal life", most serial killers will not look or act "strange". This is why they evade detection for so long despite being "under the noses", so to speak, of law enforcement. The larger lodging houses could accommodate 500 lodgers per night, and if the ripper was one of them, how obscenely and implausibly unlucky would he have to be if one particular dickhead on the floor above had nothing better to do than single him out for random and irrational scrutiny? Exactly. It's nonsense, and it didn't happen. Moreover, the vast majority of lodgers were far too concerned with their own daily toil and the struggle for survival to be playing Poirot in the small hours.

There's no privacy in a lodging-house, sooner or later someone will notice the times you come in, or a blood stain, or that package you keep hidden, or maybe even your nonchalant attitude to those miserable wretches found all carved up.

Actually, depending on the lodging house, one could acquire a "private" cubicle for a couple of pence extra. As for "blood stains" and supposedly "nonchalant" attitudes towards the murdered victims, this is assuming a great deal on the basis of very little. I'd be quite surprised, personally, if the real killer was prone so such careless and self-incriminating lapses of judgement.

Those miserable wretches were their friends, those dossers, in their hundreds, were also on the lookout for that 'bastard' with a knife.

I have no idea what that's supposed to be based on, but it seems both black-and-white and sentimental to me. I honestly think - and no offense intended - that you have one or two severely tainted perceptions when it comes to matters ripper. You lump the victims and all working class dossers into the category of honest-to-goodness, might-have-picked-a-pocket-or-two strugglers, whereas you envisage the ripper as a well-dressed, possibly upper class outsider who slashed his way in and out of Poorsville with a twirl of his moustache. It's an approach to "ripperology" than belongs on the 60s and 70s, if you ask me, and it may explain why we clash a lot. But my sincere apologies if I've misread you.

Much safer, more practical, to have a room to yourself somewhere where you can rest in peace, not with one eye open.

Quite frankly, good luck finding many of those in that part of the East End at that time.

Incidentally, this thread was supposed to addressing the question of whether or not the killer was local, not whether or not he was a doss-house dweller. There are plenty of other threads which tackle the latter debate in great depth.

So, are we to consider that the killer did indeed take a different route, or did PC Long miss this piece of apron at 1:55 as well as at 2:20?

The former is more likely than the latter, wouldn't you say?

Where are you getting "different route" from?

It doesn't matter whether or not you accept that the apron was there when Long first passed the spot, the logical reality is that be headed in the direction of home, or at the very least, a bolt-hole, after the murder. Of those who support the contention that Long correctly observed that it wasn't there first time, there seems to be an agreement that he made use of a building - possibly a lodging house - before venturing out again to deposit the apron. The only explanation that seems universally accepted as weak is the one that has the killer skulking around the open streets for far longer than was necessary, and for no obvious reason.

[Wickerman]

Hi Tom,

Perhaps "convinced" is a little strong, you're right, but there seems to be a fair few who consider it the more probable explanation that Long missed it. I hold no firm convictions either way. I just couldn't fathom why Jon felt that an absent apron on first passing by Long meant the killer must have taken an indirect route home.

All the best,
Ben

What I am saying Ben, is that the location of that apron, when found at 2:55, is no confirmation of the route taken by the killer.
Any reason we choose to entertain as to why it was not found until 2:55 is pure conjecture.
Although PC Long was never questioned about it, he must have passed that same address about 1:50-55, so either the killer had not reached that spot by then or, PC Long missed it twice!

Given the distance from Mitre Sq. to Goulston St., the killer can't have taken ten minutes, probably five or even less - it is difficult to see him idling his way through the streets, he must have been in haste or at least anxious to get away assuming he took that particular route.

Watkins finds the body at 1:44, and the killer has already left the square, so he could have reached Goulston St. before PC Long passed 119 Goulston St.
So, are we to consider that the killer did indeed take a different route, or did PC Long miss this piece of apron at 1:55 as well as at 2:20?

The former is more likely than the latter, wouldn't you say?

[Wickerman]

But Long didn't.

Correct and making enquiries at every door will take time, and PC Long is not a detective. He did what he was supposed to do, alert his superiors.

Shooting the messenger just isn't cricket, Jon.

No it isn't, but then there are some messengers who raise unrelated topics in an attempt to assassinate the character of a PC.

Yes, that was the Star's own opinion.

But you hate the Star, remember, and you chastise me on numerous occasions for quoting from them.

I have chastised anyone who misrepresents what is written.

Look Ben, what I quote from the Star is opinion. Whether it was the reporters opinion, or whether it reflects public opinion I do not know.
What I do not do is try to misrepresent an opinion published in the press as if it is a fact, or that it is the result of inside information. The press were after all quite often wrong.
This was just an opinion.

I dare say the comment made by Mumford, that the killer might be found in a lodging-house, is to be expected given that he said this early on before any real series of murders had taken place.
We might all make some comment that the police should look for a killer in those dens of iniquity that proliferate Whitechapel. It appears you still hold on to this line of thinking.

What this opinion does not take into account is, that it was not just the police against the Ripper, the whole citizenry were on the lookout for him too.
No serial killer is going to try hide among a thousand eyes all watching each other and every move you make.
People were turning in their friends, neighbours, strangers on the street, in fact anyone who looked strange, acted strange, or maybe someone they just didn't like.
There's no privacy in a lodging-house, sooner or later someone will notice the times you come in, or a blood stain, or that package you keep hidden, or maybe even your nonchalant attitude to those miserable wretches found all carved up.
Those miserable wretches were their friends, those dossers, in their hundreds, were also on the lookout for that 'bastard' with a knife.
Trying to hide among people who are watching your every move would be fatal, sooner or later you will slip up.

Much safer, more practical, to have a room to yourself somewhere where you can rest in peace, not with one eye open.

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

He picked on a specific type that would best allow him to fulfil his horribly violent fantasies - namely the Spitalfields unfortunate. So I'm not sure what you are arguing here.

I'm arguing that the majority of serial killers will base their choice of victim on the people they have contact with, and exposure to, in a non-criminal capacity. It would therefore by no accident or "coincidence" if a slum-dwelling Spitalfields man with violent fantasies choice to incorporate prostitutes into them. And what group more likely to interact (in whatever capacity) with prostitutes than the men who live amongst them?

The tightly clustered nature of the murder/disposal locations tells us that the Whitechapel murderer was, in all overwhelming probability, a marauder type of killer - someone whose movements were restricted by a lack access to transport. Using David Canter's definitions, this would mean an individual living somewhere within the circle transcribed by the outermost crime scenes. If the ripper did not conform to this model, he would be "very rare" according to statistical evidence, and it isn't hard to see why.

Serial killers who travel considerable distances in search of victims obviously have access to transport, and one of the advantages of this is that it enables them to seek these victims in different locations. This, in turn, prevents any one area from attracting all the attention, panic, and police/vigilantee activity that would inevitably result if the killer was unimaginative enough and stupid enough to make use of his transport only to commute again and again into the same tiny locality. Moreover, since there is no evidence of this happening at any point in all history (to my knowledge at least), this scenario fails to get my vote for that reason too.* Conversely, there is compelling historical precedent for serial offenders living in the areas where they killed, especially in cases where the murder/disposal locations are all within close walking distance of each other.

As I've already observed, prostitution ran rife throughout London. Some people seem have convinced themselves that Spitalfields was the mecca for all prostitutes in London, and that if a depraved killer was interested only in the very skankiest of the skanky to have his grisly way with, they could be found in Spitalfields and nowhere else, thus compelling him to take the ludicrously unnecessary risk of "commuting" into the same tiny region kill after messy kill.

But this is quite the mistaken impression.

Were there appreciably fewer prostitutes in Lambeth or Stepney, for instance, and were they any less skanky? I rather think not.

All the best,
Ben

*Colin Ireland is a commuter in the sense that that he picked up his victims from the same location, but this differs significantly from the suggested "commuter Jack" premise insofar as his actions didn't draw instant and unambigious attention to West Brompton as the centre of operations for a serial killer on the prowl in the way that killing, mutilating, and leaving his victims on the streets unquestionably would.

[Ben]

Hi Abby,

That's a thoroughly bloody good suggestion re the chalk! I'd never thought of that, but it makes perfect sense. I've always queried the likelihood of the killer having chalk conveniently secreted about his person, but if there was somewhere nearby from which to obtain a stick - such as the nearby Victoria Home lodging house where indoor games would have been played - I can easily envisage him making the minor excursion, thus accounting for the absence of the apron on Long's first visit.

All the best,
Ben

[caz]

I think history and experience should pretty much dispense with any serious consideration that it's too "coincidental" for a prostitute killer to be found living where his victims live and work. It's rather backwards reasoning to my mind, and predicated on the false notion that serial killers pick their victim type at random.

Hi Ben,

But that's exactly what I meant by 'coincidental'. I don't think the ripper picked his victim type 'at random' at all. He picked on a specific type that would best allow him to fulfil his horribly violent fantasies - namely the Spitalfields unfortunate. So I'm not sure what you are arguing here. He was either in Whitechapel by accident or design when he began acting out his mutilation fantasies on his non-random victim type. Are you saying he most likely decided on his victim type according to where he happened to be living at the time? He still needed a victim supply, wherever he was based. What if he had been living in leafy Blackheath (or Romford ) and not Whitechapel as you believe? What would his victim type have been then, if he had only been able or willing to kill close to home? Would he not have offended at all, or would he still have gone for the easiest prey he could find there, putting up with fewer potential victims and even fewer opportunities?

To be continued...

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Something about Whitechapel

Harold Shipman was an Angel Of Mercy. Different pathology, different criteria.

Hi Errata,

Since we don't know anything about the ripper, and what gave him the need or desire to play God and take human lives, I'm not sure you can say that Harold Shipman was different, or how he was different.

Ted Bundy's victims all bore a superficial resemblance to a woman who rejected him. While the rejection did not make him a killer, it certainly makes sense that after this breakup his violent fantasies began to star her.

Again here, you may be getting it the wrong way round. Bundy's violent fantasies most likely began before he was even old enough to date anyone, so when he did, the physical type he happened to be attracted to sexually would also be the type he had the fantasies about, which could have made relationships difficult and been the underlying cause of this woman's rejection. In short, she could have subconsciously seen the light before his fantasies became too blurred with reality. I suspect the woman herself, and his rejection of Bundy, had very little to do with it, and he would have acted out his fantasies on women of the same type if he'd never met her.

I don't know about Colin Ireland, But I do know that Jeff Dahmer's original fantasies centered around a man who jogged through the neighborhood every day. In fact that man was his first attempted victim. Dahmer did not understand homosexuality at that point, ans the fantasy actually scared him. Not for the violence or the intention, but because he didn't understand why it centered around a man. His initial fantasy was in essence the fantasy he tries to live out when he started killing.

Again, how do you know Dahmer was instinctively attracted to this jogging man as a specific individual, rather than a type? From what you say, even Dahmer himself didn't understand the attraction! The time was apparently just right for him to start acting out his fantasies, and this intended victim happened to tick all the right boxes, without Dahmer quite understanding why, although jogging past every day evidently made him a tempting prospect. I doubt Colin Ireland was prompted into commuting from the Essex coast to a gay pub in west London to pick up all his victims because some individual nearer home had caused him grief and just happened to be gay.

It is not unreasonable to assume that the Ripper's fantasy centered around someone common in his life.

It's not unreasonable to wonder if this could have been the case, but yes, I do think it's unreasonable to assume it was.

Because he chose to kill prostitutes, and did not target any other women who were technically as vulnerable, we can assume that it was important to him that the women he killed were prostitutes.

Only important to him in as much as street prostitutes were more vulnerable then, because their very business demanded they go off with men into just the sort of locations where the Whitechapel victims were found. They were like lambs to the slaughter by comparison with the few other women who ventured out late at night on their own, who would have avoided the darkest alleys where possible, and would not have invited conversations with men they didn't know well.

It is a fair assumption that he stalked the neighborhood for awhile, familiarizing himself with the faces.

It is fair to speculate that he did so, but it is equally fair to speculate that he was a habitual user of the neighbourhood prostitutes and had familiarised himself that way, whether he was based there during the murders, had ever been based there, or came in from a less prostitute-rich neighbourhood nearby.

It might explain why he killed some women who were not actually soliciting.

Now that is an assumption too far - we don't know which ones he definitely killed, nor can we assume any of those were not up for earning a few pence when they met him. If he killed anyone who was not willing to go with him (a possibility with Stride), I acknowledge that he may have targeted her on the assumption that she was a prostitute. It's even possible that she didn't quite fit the bill as a lamb to the slaughter, causing him to leave her dead but not ripped, and go in search of the right stuff.

He knew their faces from his research.

Look, there is no evidence that even the victims themselves knew each other's faces, so we cannot say if the ripper had seen any of them before the moment he engaged with them as likely prey.

If he was trying to match a fantasy in his head, something all fetish killers do, then we can assume that the woman of his fantasy was a prostitute.

Now while that is quite possible, it certainly wouldn't point more to a local killer than a non-local one. On the contrary, if his fantasy was that specific, why not go the whole hog and assume that it was the lowest class Spitalfields variety he was after (which was what he got) and simply went where they could be found.

Whether it was someone he knew well, or just a woman he walked past every day, there is no way to know. But the environment in the fantasy is also important. For Bundy it was the woods. Dahmer had to be in his own place. Kemper needed cars. The Ripper likely needed Whitechapel. And if he was tying to stay as close to the fantasy as possible, that would mean his "muse" and his interaction with her was in Whitechapel.

Now you're talking. So you are saying basically what I have been saying - that it wasn't so much chance that brought him to a place where he could best fulfil his horribly specific fantasies - it was something within him that attracted him there (whether it was just for his murderous activities or for living and working too): a combination of the environment and the type of victim who floated his evil boat.

Which doesn't mean he was a local boy, he could have simply passed through every day. But he knew the area enough to need it for his fantasy.

Agreed. I have not argued otherwise.

A man may become a teacher to have access to children, but typically thats not where he kills them. The school is for the access. The scene is for the fantasy. Bundy picked up women all over the place. Killed them all over the place. But dumped them in the woods. That was for the fantasy. The Ripper killed and dumped in Whitechapel. The fantasy has to center around that, or he would have killed elsewhere. Whitechapel was not the only neighborhood of whores.

Again, agreed. He was attracted to Whitechapel as a murder location. He may have lived there anyway, like many thousands of other men, but he didn't just decide one day that because the prostitutes he saw around him would be so easy to murder, it would be a jolly wheeze to do so.

Love,

Caz
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