Only a 0.000003 chance the Ripper murderer was not a religious fanatic

[Batman]

Doctors. 3.
Comas, September 27. Luke the Evangelist, October 18. Pantaleon, July 27.

Butchers. 2
George, April 23 & May 6. Peter the Apostle, June 29.

Since October 18th is for Luke who is patron of butchers and doctors etc., and nothing happened on that that date, then the pattern is not such a pattern anymore.

[Ausgirl]

I think when you use a knife to kill or cut into people, you might rightly expect the police to suspect occupations who carried knives and knew anatomy. Thompson, although himself a failed doctor and soldier, at the time of the murders looked like neither. I can not imagine why a murderer would leave clues in the hope it'd get spotted. That would be the opposite of clever.

Did he also used to be a midwife? He doesn't mention them in the comment you quoted. And the 'Jill the Ripper' theory wasn't really explored, as far as I know, until the 1930's. I don't know how he could have known about Abberline's conversation with his mentor. And it was the mentor who raised the idea of 'midwife' - IF it was a woman, *which he doubted*.

So no, I don't "police" suspected midwives. And I don't think it's at all a natural choice to make for someone capable of these crimes. I think it's a ridiculous stretch.

While sailors -- an *actual* heavy-contender suspect pool, men who wield knives by way of occupation, were highly superstitious and extremely distrustful of hospitals (as per reports from 1838) and a number of whom are therefore likely to have a basic knowledge of the body in case some serious accident happened at sea, and are FAR more likely a subset to contain a mutilating killer -- are completely ignored.

Not buying it.

[Richard Patterson]

Julius Caesar was not a Roman emperor.

Sorry. I was wrong. - general, statesman, Consul, and notable author of Latin prose.

[Richard Patterson]

Since October 18th is for Luke who is patron of butchers and doctors etc., and nothing happened on that that date, then the pattern is not such a pattern anymore.

What is before or after a pattern does not not a pattern make.

[Trevor Marriott]

Did he also used to be a midwife? He doesn't mention them in the comment you quoted. And the 'Jill the Ripper' theory wasn't really explored, as far as I know, until the 1930's. I don't know how he could have known about Abberline's conversation with his mentor. And it was the mentor who raised the idea of 'midwife' - IF it was a woman, *which he doubted*.

So no, I don't "police" suspected midwives. And I don't think it's at all a natural choice to make for someone capable of these crimes. I think it's a ridiculous stretch.

While sailors -- an *actual* heavy-contender suspect pool, men who wield knives by way of occupation, were highly superstitious and extremely distrustful of hospitals (as per reports from 1838) and a number of whom are therefore likely to have a basic knowledge of the body in case some serious accident happened at sea, and are FAR more likely a subset to contain a mutilating killer -- are completely ignored.

Not buying it.

Lo and behold we even have a sailor suspect who carried a long knife and used it to kill a woman in ripper like fashion

[Richard Patterson]

Did he also used to be a midwife? He doesn't mention them in the comment you quoted. And the 'Jill the Ripper' theory wasn't really explored, as far as I know, until the 1930's. I don't know how he could have known about Abberline's conversation with his mentor. And it was the mentor who raised the idea of 'midwife' - IF it was a woman, *which he doubted*.

So no, I don't "police" suspected midwives. And I don't think it's at all a natural choice to make for someone capable of these crimes. I think it's a ridiculous stretch.

While sailors -- an *actual* heavy-contender suspect pool, men who wield knives by way of occupation, were highly superstitious and extremely distrustful of hospitals (as per reports from 1838) and a number of whom are therefore likely to have a basic knowledge of the body in case some serious accident happened at sea, and are FAR more likely a subset to contain a mutilating killer -- are completely ignored.

Not buying it.

Abortion in 1888 was highly illegal, but so was murder and that didn’t stop the Ripper. Historical records show that although prohibited by law and also by the Catholic Church, abortions took place. These hidden, though sometimes necessary, practice in the 19th century of abortions were mostly carried out by midwives. This profession had been known to carry out this operation in secret for centuries. While you will not find midwives openly suspected, abortionists were, and most people, including the police knew that in the back streets of Whitechapel often the midwife & abortionist was one in the same. You might never buy it - it's priceless.

As to a sailor having basic knowledge of the body if a serious accident happened at sea - necessity does not always account for skill, since an obvious serious accident on a ship would a 'man overboard' and most sailors did not know how to swim.

[Richard Patterson]

Here's my $0.02 worth.

A lot of assumptions are implicit in a statistically based argument. The high level of 'improbability' of the event being random for example contains assumptions.

Hypothesis: the killer chose specific dates relating to Saint's days associated with Butchers/Doctors

Null hypothesis: the dates were coincidental with these dates

So what assumptions must be made for the hypothesis, and how likely are they? It assumes killer could have potentially chosen any days in the year, or in fact any year since the Saints days would fall on different days in other years. I feel that the fact that the murders occurred on weekends or Bank Holidays to be a convincing argument that the killer was employed during weekdays. If so, does this mean he had to wait until the Saints day's conveniently fell on the times when he would be off work?
What if we use the assumption (not unreasonable) that some event was the catalyst for the murders (I'm thinking along the lines of stressful events that are often mooted as being the tipping point for such crimes). This would further pin the killer down to a certain time period, so for the C5 (we could put Martha Tabram in here too since the timing is so close), we're looking at a time period running from 7/8/88 to 9/11/88, or a total period of 93 days to everything in, assuming that he wanted to complete the task all in one year. Suddenly four Saint's days appearing in one 93 day block starts to look a bit closer to being randomly possible, particularly if you take out Mondays-Thursdays if the killer couldn't operate on those days for whatever reason.
But if the days were relevant, could the killer have chosen a different year? In 1885 31 aug, 8th and 30th Sep fell on weekends, so that would have worked too. If he'd waited until 1894 he could have got a similar pattern. The hypothesis would have us accept that these days were significant to the killer but we also have to build in when the killer was 'free' to commit the crimes. If he had no particular timing constraint e.g. a job then it makes the hypothesis slightly more plausible. If the timings of the killings are influenced more by other factors such as availability, psychologically inciting events and also of course whatever brought the killings to an end then the apparent unlikelihood of the events being explained by specific Saint's days recedes.
There is a problem with using such probabilistic approaches, namely that the events were all rare. There aren't that many killers running around (thankfully) to see if there are enough to fit patterns, and to start assigning probabilities to an event occurring. Consider two cases that are often compared with JTR - Cummins and Napper. What are the chances that causally unrelated cases would occur within a few miles of each other rather than being randomly distributed around the whole of the country? The answer most likely to do with related to a function of the large metropolitan build of London, but you could make a probabilistic argument that since all cases occurred within the areas most densely populated with churches their must be some theological basis for the crimes. I don't feel that would be a reasonable claim.
To sum up, to look at probabilities you must also consider how likely or unlikely other scenarios are, and demonstrate (not easy) that a claim is more likely than other possible scenarios, or at least more than could be explained by other possibilities. I remain unconvinced by your suggestion but absolutely open to changing my mind.

Keep going and good luck.

Thanks for all that. When looking for a suspect to match the astronomical odds I have given, we should therefore be seeking someone not restricted by the time constraints met by an employed person, like Francis Thompson.

[Richard Patterson]

Even if you are correct, and the dates were selected by their association with saints, there would still be no proof that he was a religious fanatic. It could just as easily be a pissed off agnostic sending a message. Or a twisted joke. Patterns happen all the time, purposefully or accidentally. But just because a pattern exists doesn't mean there is only one explanation for that pattern. And just because it's a popular theory doesn't make it a right one. Any theory that the killer was a zealot is not going to come from the dates of the murders. It's going to come from the murders themselves.

You could be right in saying the killer could have been an outraged agnostic or a prankster, but it is reasonable to first suspect an agnostic choosing just any religion to antagonize or a joker also plucking a religious doctrine out of a hat? No of course it is reasonable to first assume the killer was a Catholic who saw more significance in following these dates. Once we discount Catholic suspects with deep knowledge of saint's, then we can look for your agnostics or pranksters or whatever.

[lynn cates]

third man theme

Hello Richard. Don't forget member of the first triumvirate.

Cheers.
LC

[Richard Patterson]

Hello Richard. Don't forget member of the first triumvirate.

Cheers.
LC

Et tu, lynn.

[Batman]

Since October 18th is for Luke who is patron of butchers and doctors etc., and nothing happened on that that date, then the pattern is not such a pattern anymore.

Your premise is that the subject of some patrons has been preselected by a religiously motivated person for the times he will murder but there is a subject date where nothing happened so the preselected pattern wasn't followed at all.

Also it isn't a 1:1 ratio for saint/subject. There are often many subjects attributed to each saint.

[Ally]

There's only a .000000000003 percent chance that anyone will take anything said on this theory seriously.

[The Good Michael]

Here's a list of saints for the first 12 days of August:



St. Hope
St. Sofia
St. Alphonsus
St. Charity
St. Peter in Chains
St. Almedha
St. Alphonsus Marie Liguori
St. Arcadius
St. Verus
Bl. Thomas Welbourne
St. Secundel
St. Dominic Van Honh Dieu
St. Eluned
St. Ethelwold of Winchester
St. Exuperius of Bayeux
St. Friard
St. Jonatus
St. Justin
St. Leontius
St. Leus
St. Rioch
St. Mary the Consoler
St. Peregrinus
Bl. Martyrs of Nowogrodek

August
2

St. Eusebius of Vercelli
St. Peter Julian Eymard
St. Alfreda
St. Betharius
St. Boetharius
St. Theodota
St. Thomas of Dover
St. Rutilius
St. Maximus of Padua
St. Peter of Osma
St. Plegmund

August
3

St. Lydia Purpuraria
St. Abibas
St. Aspren
St. Waltheof of Melrose
St. Trea
St. Senach
St. Dalmatius of Constantinople
St. Euphronius
St. Gamaliel
St. Faustus
St. Peter of Anagni

August
4

St. John Vianney
St. Agabius
St. Aristarchus
Bl. William Horne
St. Tertullinus
St. Eleutherius
St. Epimachus
St. Euphronius
St. John Baptist Vianney
St. Lua
St. Raynerius of Spalatro
St. Peregrinus, Maceratus, and Viventius
Bl. Frederick Jansoone

August
5

St. Abel
St. Addal
St. Afra
St. Venantius
St. Theodoric
St. Cantidius
St. Cassian of Autun
St. Emygdius
St. Eusignius
St. Gormcal
St. Nouna
St. Memmius
St. Paris
St. Eusignius

August
6

St. Agapitus
St. Hormisdas Pope
St. James the Syrian
Martyrs of Cardena

August
7

St. Cajetan
St. Cajetan
St. Claudia
St. Agathangelo Noury
St. Albert of Trapani
St. Victricius
St. Secundus
St. Carpophorus
St. Donat
St. Donatian
St. Donatus & Hilarinus
St. Donatus of Besancon
St. Faustus of Milan
St. Hyperechios
St. Peter, Julian, and Companions
St. Acirianus
St. Basicicus of Kemet (Egypt)
Bl. Edmund Bojanowski

August
8

St. Dominic
St. Hormisdas
St. Altman
St. Ternatius
St. Eleutherius & Leonides
St. Ellidius
St. Emilian
St. Gedeon
St. Famianw
Bl. John Felton
St. Leobald
St. Marinus
St. Mary MacKillop
St. Mummolus
St. Myron
St. Mary of the Cross MacKillop

August
9

St. Edith Stein
St. Nathy
St. Amedeus
St. Amor
St. Autor
St. Bandaridus
St. Samuel of Edessa
St. Secundian
St. Serenus
St. Candida Maria of Jesus
St. Domitian of Chalons
St. Firmus & Rusticus
St. Julian
St. Romanus Ostiarius
St. Rusticus
St. Numidicus
St. Maurilius
St. Phelim

August
10

St. Laurentinus
St. Lawrence - Martyr
St. Blane
St. Agilberta
St. Aredius
St. Asteria
St. Thiento & Companions
St. Deusdedit of Canterbury
St. Acrates (Aragawi)
St. James of Manug

August
11

St. Philomena
St. Clare
St. Susanna
St. Lelia
St. Alexander of Comana
St. Attracta
St. Taurinus
St. Tiburtius
St. Chromatius
St. Digna
St. Equitius
St. Francis of St. Mary
St. Gagericus
Bl. Lawrence Nerucci
St. Rufinus

August
12

St. Jane Frances de Chantal
St. Euplius
St. Anicetus
St. Anthony Peter Dich
St. Just
St. Cassian of Benevento
St. Eusebius of Milan
St. Hilaria
St. Jambert
St. James Nam
St. Just
St. Macarius & Julian
St. Merewenna
St. Michael My
St. Murtagh
St. Porcarius
Bl. Karl Leisner
Bl. Isidore Bakanja

What this proves is that not only is the post correct with regards to the JTR victims being killed on saints' days, but it also proves that anyone ever murdered anywhere in the world must have been done so for religious reasons. Great work! Oh, and I didn't list Orthodox saints.

Mike

[Ally]

As Richard's list has both Orthodox and Catholic saints, it's a big ole load of hooey. Someone who was a religious "fanatic" wouldn't pick his "saint day" from the wrong religion and randomly stick in an Orthodox like Theodor if he were a Catholic fanatic, and he wouldn't pick the majority of Saint Days on the Catholic spectrum if he were an Orthodox fanatic.

Just idiotic. Because religious fanatics... they are obsessed with their saints, unless they need to kill someone really bad so they'll just adopt another religion's saint for the purpose.

[Robert]

When the saints go marching in I don't want to be in that number - I'd get trampled underfoot.