our killer been local

[pinkmoon]

Hi,

I'm not totally convinced about Druitt but I have an interest in him anyway as he lived fairly locally to me. and loved cricket.

However there is just something there about him. He may have been familiar with the area, plus his chambers were not far away.

Best

Nick

The fact that he died soon after last murder and the fact that he was named by high ranking police officer and also he fits in with local gossip of the killer drowning himself like I said best of a bad bunch in my view and if you take the goulston graffiti as work of our killer would not a school teacher carry chalk with him.

[pinkmoon]

I would think that one bit of evidence might compel you to assume he was based in the immediate area Caz....If this Ripper fellow killed Kate Eddowes, and the cloth he took from her apron was used to take the excised viscera with him...(which makes infinite more sense than he used it to wipe his hands and then held on to it until Goulston Street), ....it would make sense that he only discarded it when he was very near his home. Less time for any staining from organs transferred to his pocket.

Which would be in the "kill zone" if you will.

I believe its almost impossible to imagine someone not being very familiar with the layout of the streets as they were then to have made successful escapes. Its not that he wasnt caught leaving....he wasnt even seen fleeing anywhere....even if he did so at a saunter. It would have been striking to see someone casually leaving the immediate murder area just as people were rushing in to see what the commotion was all about. Like the CC film of the young Boston bomber....he was casually walking in the opposite direction of the event, and that was suspicious enough to look further into him as a suspect.

Cheers

We have to take into account the poor light at some of the murder sites also it's not impossible that he was seen fleeing but it wasn't reported to the police stick my neck out a bit further still and maybe he was even disturbed by some person who again never came foward.Our killer did not have super human powers it is quite possible he was seen by someone.

[Graham]

Peter Sutcliffe murdered relatively close to his home, albeit in a much more mobile age than the Ripper, yet even though he was questioned by police more than once, it was his confession that eventually nailed him. It always seemed to me that Sutcliffe actually wanted to be caught, for some deep psychological reason unknown to me, but that luck was always on his side. As I think that luck was on the side of the Ripper, who most certainly did come close to being caught red-handed on more than one occasion. He most surely did have an excellent knowledge of the area, and I think almost certainly lived locally, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to so effectively 'disappear' from the scenes of his crimes. The exception to this (of course, it always is) is Mary Kelly's murder - even after her killer had done his worst there was no real need for him to scarper out of her room as fast as his feet could carry him. He could have stayed there until he felt up to leaving, and then just sauntered out of Miller's Court as many a previous client of Mary Jane had done so.

I've read that the surest way of getting nicked after a crime, be it robbery or mugging or even murder, is to hot foot it away. The best way of attracting attention is to run. The Ripper shows every sign of being a cool character, given what he got up to, as he plainly didn't attract any attention immediately following each murder. Hanbury Street was 'waking up' at the time Annie Chapman was killed, yet still no-one saw anyone suspicious leaving the premises. Or - if someone was seen, then perhaps he was seen by someone who knew him but felt unable to consider that he was the murderer.

Could the Ripper have been a known public figure like a watchman or a lamplighter or a street-sweeper? Or one of those poor souls who collected dog faeces ("pures") for the leather industry? Someone who was so much a part of the local scene as to be almost invisible?

I walked Whitechapel in 1970 before the area was redeveloped, and even taking into account unrepaired bomb-damage from WW2 and more recent demolition, the place was an absolute maze of alleyways and side-streets once you were away from the main thoroughfares. Doing a disappearing act wouldn't have been difficult, providing you knew the lie of the land.

Graham

[Lechmere]

A sound summary Graham.

Pinkmoon - the chalk clue is one that has interested me.
School kids would also have used chalk, not in Druitt's school but in poorer ones. Also he wouldn't have been teaching that day - Saturday - would he?
I can think of someone who would likely have been visiting one of his kids on that night a couple of hundred yards from Berner Street, with Goulston Street being on his direct route back to his house from Mitre Square.

[Fisherman]

Maybe, Fish, but if they were wary of the risks, then it suggests a local man whom they knew enough to trust and who therefore had never ill-used them in the past, or gained a reputation for ill-using local women in the past.
That would be quite a transformation for Jack.

Of course you will doubtless quote examples of killers whom no prostitute ever dreamed could act in that way. But on that particular issue I would have thought that the odds favoured a softly-spoken 'gentleman.'

Why would I say what you expect me to say, Robert?

What I WILL say is that we cannot possibly know that Jack would have had some sort of evil reputation amongst the prostitutes of the East End. If this had been the case, the women would have mentioned this and he would most certainly have been subjected to close scrutiny by the police.

And yes, he could have been - but maybe he was let to go just the same if the evidence was not there. But as you can see from the Pizer affair, any person with a sinister reputation of manhandling and/or threatening prostitutes would have stood a very fair chance to do the rounds in the press.

So IF he was a frequent user of prostitutes, then he had managed to behave well enough not to attract attention. That is the better guess, anyhow.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Peter Sutcliffe murdered relatively close to his home, albeit in a much more mobile age than the Ripper, yet even though he was questioned by police more than once, it was his confession that eventually nailed him. It always seemed to me that Sutcliffe actually wanted to be caught, for some deep psychological reason unknown to me, but that luck was always on his side. As I think that luck was on the side of the Ripper, who most certainly did come close to being caught red-handed on more than one occasion. He most surely did have an excellent knowledge of the area, and I think almost certainly lived locally, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to so effectively 'disappear' from the scenes of his crimes. The exception to this (of course, it always is) is Mary Kelly's murder - even after her killer had done his worst there was no real need for him to scarper out of her room as fast as his feet could carry him. He could have stayed there until he felt up to leaving, and then just sauntered out of Miller's Court as many a previous client of Mary Jane had done so.

I've read that the surest way of getting nicked after a crime, be it robbery or mugging or even murder, is to hot foot it away. The best way of attracting attention is to run. The Ripper shows every sign of being a cool character, given what he got up to, as he plainly didn't attract any attention immediately following each murder. Hanbury Street was 'waking up' at the time Annie Chapman was killed, yet still no-one saw anyone suspicious leaving the premises. Or - if someone was seen, then perhaps he was seen by someone who knew him but felt unable to consider that he was the murderer.

Could the Ripper have been a known public figure like a watchman or a lamplighter or a street-sweeper? Or one of those poor souls who collected dog faeces ("pures") for the leather industry? Someone who was so much a part of the local scene as to be almost invisible?

I walked Whitechapel in 1970 before the area was redeveloped, and even taking into account unrepaired bomb-damage from WW2 and more recent demolition, the place was an absolute maze of alleyways and side-streets once you were away from the main thoroughfares. Doing a disappearing act wouldn't have been difficult, providing you knew the lie of the land.

Graham

A very good post, with which I agree all over. Of course, it tallies very well with my picture of how the killer escaped in the Nichols case - not by hot-footing it, but instead by staying calm.

But no matter if he was as cool as a cube of ice, if he had not had a reason to be where he was, he would have attracted attention just the same. But just like you say, there were occupations that allowed for a high degree of invisibility, occupations that were a ticket to an unquestioned presence on the streets of the East End in the early morning hours.

Once again - look at what Halse did when encountering two men on the streets close to the Eddowes murder site: he established that they could account for themselves and their presence, and then he let them go.
Lamplighters, street-sweepers and the likes of them were just such people, just as you say.
And carmen walking to their jobs were just as protected from suspicion.

The press and sensationalists invented the top hat and cape ghostly character that has graced the cover of hundreds of books and articles ever since that autumn. And that kind of character made it all the more odd that the killer was never seen. And all the while, as that fictitious character did the rounds on the East End streets in people´s minds, how easy would it not be to do the same rounds clad in a cap and a sacking apron, nodding good morning to the few people you met as you made your way to job as a middle-aged, family father carman, trusty looking and with a working record of more than twenty years.

Even today, people tell me on these boards that such things should be enough to clear a man from suspicion.

That is why the local man, with a reason to be on the streets in the early morning hours, is by far the best bid we will ever have for the killer´s role.

The best,
Fisherman

[Barnaby]

That is why the local man, with a reason to be on the streets in the early morning hours, is by far the best bid we will ever have for the killer´s role.

Why isn't this UNIVERSALLY accepted among Ripperologists? Seriously. Is it not sexy enough? We poke fun at Van Gogh was the Ripper threads but many posit theories that are far less probable than the local man hypothesis. Why?

Certainly it may be the case that Jack wasn't local, but it is much more likely that he was. And so I wish theories positing otherwise include the caveat "This account of mine - while possibly true - is less likely than Jack being a nondescript local man with an occupation providing him a good reason to be walking the streets." I guess that wouldn't sell many books. In fairness, I have a strong interest in James Kelly as the Ripper, and he certainly knew the area. But I would be the first to admit that there are problems placing him in Whitechapel at the time of the murders and even if he was, he would have reason not to be seen walking the streets being an escapee and all. Therefore, he is a less probable candidate.

An interesting line of thought would be to evaluate Fisherman's theory of a carman against other occupations. That is, was Jack more likely to be a carman or a street cleaner, etc? Are there ways to begin answering these questions (time of day on streets, dress, is knife work part of the job, sheer numbers of people employed in that occupation, etc.)? In what nondescript occupation would Jack most likely be employed?

[Nick Spring]

The fact that he died soon after last murder and the fact that he was named by high ranking police officer and also he fits in with local gossip of the killer drowning himself like I said best of a bad bunch in my view and if you take the goulston graffiti as work of our killer would not a school teacher carry chalk with him.

Yes a named suspect counts for something.

Personally I don't think the graffito was anything to do with the killer but they should have waited and taken a photograph of it.

cheers

Nick

[Nick Spring]

Why isn't this UNIVERSALLY accepted among Ripperologists? Seriously. Is it not sexy enough? We poke fun at Van Gogh was the Ripper threads but many posit theories that are far less probable than the local man hypothesis. Why?

Certainly it may be the case that Jack wasn't local, but it is much more likely that he was. And so I wish theories positing otherwise include the caveat "This account of mine - while possibly true - is less likely than Jack being a nondescript local man with an occupation providing him a good reason to be walking the streets." I guess that wouldn't sell many books. In fairness, I have a strong interest in James Kelly as the Ripper, and he certainly knew the area. But I would be the first to admit that there are problems placing him in Whitechapel at the time of the murders and even if he was, he would have reason not to be seen walking the streets being an escapee and all. Therefore, he is a less probable candidate.

An interesting line of thought would be to evaluate Fisherman's theory of a carman against other occupations. That is, was Jack more likely to be a carman or a street cleaner, etc? Are there ways to begin answering these questions (time of day on streets, dress, is knife work part of the job, sheer numbers of people employed in that occupation, etc.)? In what nondescript occupation would Jack most likely be employed?

Hi Barnaby,

Good points.

The problem with the whole case is we just don't know.

You can say local man makes sense and to a certain degree that is logical.

Likewise a person living outside who knows the area well is just a valid.

There are lots of theories but at the end of the day it is all supposition.

However that said, one of the theories already posited may be correct and a local man, Carman, Butcher, Hairdresser etc may be the one.

Best

Nick

[Robert]

I see that this thread, about whether or not the killer was a local, is gradually changing into a thread about whether the killer could possibly have been a carman....even perhaps a carman named...oh...how about Lechmere? Or Cross?

I wonder how that could have happened?

[Graham]

Obviously, whoever the killer was, he must have been someone fairly invisible in the area and community in which he operated; that is, someone whose presence on the streets at almost any time of day or night wouldn't draw attention to himself or cause undue alarm. The most obvious candidate would, of course, be a policeman in uniform, and this is an old theory. At least, in the Victorian era a serving policeman was, for want of a better word, 'monitored' by his superiors who, one presumes, knew roughly where he was and what he might have been doing at a given time. A policemen was also not anonymous - his existence and his duties were all down on paper. But somehow I don't think our man was a copper.

Another thing that occurs to me: it is accepted that all the victims, with the possible exception of Eddowes, were prostitutes 'on the game' and open for business, no pun intended. I would suspect - and here I must confess my complete ignorance of prostitutes and their modus operandi if they had one - that even though they might be desperate for a few coppers they would give prospective customers a swift once-over before concluding a deal. Maybe it's 21st century bias, but I'd have thought that a prostitute even in 1888 might be more inclined to accept business from a man who was at least fairly respectably dressed - i.e., someone who looked like he had the money to pay for her services. I may be completely up the creek here, of course, but I don't somehow think any prostitute would be all that interested in, or impressed by, some scruffy shabbily dressed tramp-like character. And I wonder if there might have been a touch of snobbery even amongst East End whores, who could boast to their friends that they'd been with a real toff. But I'm sure all this has been discussed before, way back on this Forum.

There's a website based on the 1891 Census listing all known occupations in Victorian London, at www.census1891.com/occupations.htm. I'm sure this site is well-known to many. It's a long, long list, but giving it a quick scan one occupation suggests itself as a possibility; that of bailiff. These people apparently worked around the clock, were on the streets, I'd assume they'd be fairly well-dressed, and could also be quite well-known in any debt-ridden neighbourhood such as the East End. I'm also assuming that a bailiff's duties in the LVP would roughly tally with those of a present-day bailiff.

I'm sure that there are loads more occupations which would fit the bill, it's just that I haven't gone all through that list. Hopefully I'm not being seduced by the age-old top-hat, cloak and Gladstone-bag image, but I do feel that our man might have had even a small degree of outwards respectability about him.

Graham

[Steve S]

How local is local?.....Back in the '70's I socialised in the East End...Visited it for work most days...But lived about 8 miles away......

[Nick Spring]

How local is local?.....Back in the '70's I socialised in the East End...Visited it for work most days...But lived about 8 miles away......

Hi Steve,

I guess in this context local means living in or close to the vicinity.

8 miles is still close, Blackheath to Whitechapel must be nearly 8 miles

cheers

Nick

[Fisherman]

I see that this thread, about whether or not the killer was a local, is gradually changing into a thread about whether the killer could possibly have been a carman....even perhaps a carman named...oh...how about Lechmere? Or Cross?

I wonder how that could have happened?

That happened because it was suggested that a man with an occupation that allowed for him to be out and about on the East End streets in the early morning could be the killer, together with the supposition that whoever he was, he would probably have been cool enough to stay away from hot-footing it after his killings.

That was an exact match for the Lechmere theory, and therefore, it deserved mentioning that there is such a man at hand, who answers the description.

Alternatively, I may have violated the unwritten rule not to mention Lechmere because I´m a drooling idiot who cannot stay away from doing so whenever the opportunity arrives.

Is there anything more I can answer for you, Robert? I´m a charitable soul, so don´t hesitate to ask.

Yours,
Fisherman

[pinkmoon]

Yes a named suspect counts for something.

Personally I don't think the graffito was anything to do with the killer but they should have waited and taken a photograph of it.

cheers

Nick

Hi Nick ,for over twenty years I took the graffiti and ripper letters seriously but I have now changed my mind.I do harbour the possibility that the lusk letter might be geniune but the rest no way.