our killer been local

[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.

[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

[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

[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

[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.

[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.

[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

[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]

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

[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.

[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.

[Graham]

Jon,

I just think some are making a mountain out of a molehill

.

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

And as any reader of the Sherlock Holmes stories will know, the police in those days usually needed a murderer to be nabbed red-handed in the act before he could be given up to justice with a good chance of getting his just desserts; it needed a Holmes to solve a case remotely, so to speak...........

Graham

[Ben]

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 - Gravel Lane, Stoney Street, New Goulston Street etc - which would reasonably have necessitated a prior knowledge of those alleyways and where they led to. The sort of knowledge that a non-local probably wouldn't have had. 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.

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.

[Wickerman]

Well how local is local? I live in the American south, so anything within a half hour drive is local. We're a little spread out. Now I know the neighborhoods of New York, and there is a certain separateness that they are proud of, but everybody knows Manhattan no mater where they live in the city. And most people know about three neighborhoods really well. By modern standards, anyone in the city of London was local. And I'm not entirely certain that this guy had to know Whitechapel really well. I mean, I navigate most cities based on three or four major streets (sites really, but whatever). If the killer needs to get away, and the major thoroughfare is south, how local does he have to be to head south? Or even just retrace his steps? We have sort of already conceded the point that he's not picking the kill site, so all he has to do is follow someone. He doesn't betray any special knowledge of the area. Now I can understand why a German sailor fresh off the boat couldn't commit these crimes, but why not some guy a dozen tube stops down? Why does he have to be more local than London? Prostitutes are not choosy. They will go off with anyone who has money. They don't need to know him, or even be familiar with him.

The idea that he had to know Whitechapel to get away so completely every time, has really been overblown.
In those days to be caught you really had to be seen standing over the body. So long as the killer was not seen with the body, and made it around the nearest corner, he was as good as scot-free. It wouldn't matter where he went after that. He could have simply stopped at the nearest coffee-stall in Whitechapel road and observed the hue and cry from behind a hot cup of steaming coffee.

I just think some are making a mountain out of a molehill.

[Bridewell]

Quite possible that our killer had visited the area and used the services of the prostitutes for a long time .This would explain how willing they seemed to be to go off with him however that dosnt mean he lived locally.

But nor does it mean that he didn't.