our killer been local

[Wickerman]

Jon,
I said the same on another thread, intending it to apply to most current Ripper discussions.

You're probably right Graham.

There is evidence that the killer did not use the main thoroughfares to make his escapes. This holds especially true for the Eddowes murder when, in all likelihood, he took the most direct route to the apron disposal location .....

Well, you see, there we go again, taking assumptions as fact. No-one knows the route he took.

The apron was found over an hour later, neither you nor me have any idea which route the killer took. If the piece of apron had been found within ten minutes of the murder then you could quite readily make that assumption - but it wasn't.
For anyone to believe the direct route was the route he took, you also have to believe PC Long did not see the apron at 1:55 or 2:20, not only missing it once, but possibly twice, - and there is nothing convincing about that scenario either.

I strongly disagree with the suggestion that a non-local ripper could afford to be a bit relaxed and casual about his escapes because he could not be pinned to the crime scene. At the very least, he could forget any future ripping if caught literally red-handed with a sharp knife and an overcoat-load of fresh innards.

All part of the thrill, the uncertainty of what will happen next is part of his makeup. If he was the type to play it safe, he would not mutilate these women in the open, directly under the windows of sleeping witnesses.

I'm utterly perplexed, if I'm honest, by the resistance expressed by some towards the obvious, likely, and mainstream view that the ripper was a local man. The vast majority of serial killers with a "criminal map" similar to the ripper's in terms of distribution have turned out to be local.

If you recall, the police turned lodging-houses inside out, and conducted house-to-house searches, all to no avail.
No-one is saying this killer 'had' to be an outsider, what is being said is, he did not 'have' to be an insider.

[harry]

Missed

If the police turned lodging houses inside out,how did they miss Hutchinson,and if they missed him, how many more were missed.As for needing no prior knowledge to move around an unfamiliar area,why is it that so many visitors today ,ask directions even in daylight,and with maps to guide them.

[Tom_Wescott]

Well, the police didn't turn all lodging houses inside out. But what Wick is true - he need not have been local, but would had to have been comfortable moving around the East End. Had a connection to the place.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Damaso Marte]

If the killer didn't go directly to the apron drop site from Mitre Square, that raises the question of where, why, and how the killer managed to linger in the heart of Whitechapel for hours after a murder.

[Tom_Wescott]

If the killer didn't go directly to the apron drop site from Mitre Square, that raises the question of where, why, and how the killer managed to linger in the heart of Whitechapel for hours after a murder.

It wasn't so much hours as minutes. I would imagine he went somewhere and unloaded the kidney, changed clothes/hat, etc. and ventured back out with chalk and the apron. In short, whatever he looked like when he deposited the apron was not what he looked like when Lawende saw him.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Ben]

Well, you see, there we go again, taking assumptions as fact. No-one knows the route he took

You've just finished lecturing me, very tediously, on the most successful way of ensuring that the "atmosphere on Casebook discussions" improves, and yet here I find you accusing me, irritatingly and completely without foundation, of passing assumptions off as facts. But look at the very careful terminology I used:

"There is evidence that the killer did not use the main thoroughfares to make his escapes"

I'm not saying it's a fact. I'm just saying there is evidence. Please acquaint yourself with that crucial, if rather obvious, distinction.

"in all likelihood, he took the most direct route to the apron disposal location"

You see? Likely as opposed to definite.

For anyone to believe the direct route was the route he took, you also have to believe PC Long did not see the apron at 1:55 or 2:20, not only missing it once, but possibly twice, - and there is nothing convincing about that scenario either

Not to you perhaps, but an appreciable number of serious and well-respected authors and researchers consider it a perfectly "convincing" scenario that PC Long, who failed to investigate the occupants of the Wentworth Model Dwellings and who was dismissed a year later for being drunk on duty, may have missed it. At the very least, the idea receives no less mainstream support than the notion that the apron was absent when Long first passed the spot.

Even if the apron wasn't there first time around, how does this argue against him taking the most direct route? If anything, it strengthens the argument for him making first for a bolt hole, and then venturing out again briefly to deposit the apron. It makes considerably more sense than envisaging him skulking around the very streets the police were searching, and for considerably longer than he needed to be there.

All part of the thrill, the uncertainty of what will happen next is part of his makeup.

You were just criticizing me for warping assumptions into facts. Awk...ward...

If he was the type to play it safe, he would not mutilate these women in the open, directly under the windows of sleeping witnesses

This is just presumptuous. If he was anything like the vast majority of Whitechapel denizens and had not the luxury of a private pad, he had no choice but to murder and dispose of them on the streets. Who's to say that if he did have his own home and lived there alone, he wouldn't have dispatched and disposed of his victims there, like Nielsen, Gacy, and Dahmer did.

If you recall, the police turned lodging-houses inside out, and conducted house-to-house searches, all to no avail.

Nope.

No evidence at all that the police turned lodging houses "inside out" (as though that would have told police anything at all about the likelihood of being a lodging house occupant!). Just forget it. Most lodgers were absent from the homes during the day, and during that absence they generally didn't leave possessions lying around, especially not those of a potentially incriminating nature.

I'm not saying that the killer "had" to be local, but it's the safest and most likely explanation given the evidence and what we know, or ought to have informed ourselves, about known serial killers.

[Damaso Marte]

It wasn't so much hours as minutes. I would imagine he went somewhere and unloaded the kidney, changed clothes/hat, etc. and ventured back out with chalk and the apron. In short, whatever he looked like when he deposited the apron was not what he looked like when Lawende saw him.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

But where would he have unloaded the kidney (or changed out of his sailor outfit, even!) if he was not a local.

[Tom_Wescott]

Early suspect, James Mumford, advised that if they wanted to find the killer they should "look to the lodging houses." He may have been right.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

But where would he have unloaded the kidney (or changed out of his sailor outfit, even!) if he was not a local.

Hi Damaso. If he was not local, then he likely had some measure of funding, and rooms were cheap in the East End.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Nick Spring]

Lodgings

The killer would have blended in.

If he was local that's not a problem, if he was from outside he would have 'dressed down' and blended in accordingly.

As mentioned rooms were cheap and he would been able to blend in more easily in the east end with its cosmopolitan mix than other areas.

Best

Nick

[Lechmere]

The police regularly searched the lodging houses which must make it less likely (although of course not impossible) that the culprit lived in one.

Is Mumford an authority on that subject?

As all the murders occurred in one small area and there were other poorer districts and prostitutes could be found walking the streets in many other quarters, it is fairly evident that the time and space distribution coincided with the murderers lifestyle and habits.

[Ben]

The police regularly searched the lodging houses which must make it less likely (although of course not impossible) that the culprit lived in one.

That's simply not the case, Lechmere.

That statement would only hold true if there was the remotest chance of anything incriminating being left there by the killer during the day (i.e. if the killer was especially clumsy and incautious). The larger lodging houses were popular with the criminal fraternity because they enabled their residents to become, in essence, needles in a haystack.

[Lechmere]

It simply is the case that the lodging houses near the crime scenes were checked regularly. The 'search area' also took in the biggest concentration of lodging houses.
The police would ask about irregular movements and suspicious characters and the deputies were primed to keep a look out.
Normal criminals were not part of that equation. I dont doubt that normal crims were very vocal against the Ripper just as criminals nowadays don't like 'nonces'.

That doesn't make it impossible that the Ripper lived in a Lodging house but logically it makes it less likely than if no notice was paid to lodging houses. This surely is obvious.

[Ben]

It simply is the case that the lodging houdes near the crtime scenes were checked regularl . The 'search area' also took in the biggest cocentration of lodging houses.

I'm not disputing that lodging house checks occurred. I'm saying it's grossly unrealistic to expect any such checks to bear fruit, even if the police unwittingly alighted upon the real killer's bolt-hole at some stage during the investigation. This held especially true for the larger doss houses that could accommodate as many as 500 lodgers on any one night. In such establishments, with multiple comings and goings at all hours of the day and night, monitoring the behaviour of any one of these (randomly selected for special scrutiny because...?) would have been extremely difficult.

If the real killer didn't engage in outwardly "suspicious behaviour", he would not have attracted the attention of any deputy looking out for same.

That doesn't make it impossible that the Ripper lived in a Lodging house but logically it makes it less likely than if no notice was paid to lodging houses.

Notice was paid to everywhere within the house-to-house search zone.

[pinkmoon]

If the kidney sent to Mr lusk was genuine then would our killer have been able to stash it in a common lodging house before he posted it?.