Jack's Escape from Mitre Square

[jerryd]

Post #192 of this thread has a nice Goads map of that alley.

[jerryd]

Hi Jeff.

The alleyway you marked on the map is #75 Leadenhall. It led to the courtyard you see on your map. The courtyard was at the back of #36 Mitre Street. Bloodstains were said to be found on the door/window (IIRC) of #36.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Scott.

PC Langdon of the City force told of the Watkins story (standing aside to let a man pass in an alley shortly before the discovery of the murder) in a retirement article in 1912.

* City PC E.T. Langdon Retires ( With Article) - Jack The Ripper Forums - Ripperology For The 21st Century (jtrforums.com)

That's an interesting story. Again, many years off, and some details suffer (he describes Watkins beat as being 7 minutes total). But, let's start with the assumption that there's a grain of truth in here. We need enough time for the murder to take place, including mutilations, etc. Doctors of the day suggest times between 3 and 5 maybe more minutes. The encounter is supposed to happen not too long before Watkins finds the body.

I seem to recall some posts where it was stated that there's an alley in the vicinity of the circle I've drawn below. So if Watkins has to patrol that, this could be where he meets a potential JtR who has left the scene.




So, I have just now gone and run the simulation to the point that PC Watkins is around that spot, in the southern street (around 1:42:00 in the simulation). And the interesting thing is, look where JtR on the Southern route along Mitre Square is! If he instead turned into an ally in that region, he would be bumping into PC Watkins!

Problem is, I don't know if there really was an ally from Mitre Street to Leadenhall Street in that area, but I do have a recollection of someone indicating there was/might have been?

While I wouldn't want to over interpret this, it is a bit of a "hmmmm" moment, simply because something unexpected seems to suddenly fit. (honest, I didn't run the sim first then think of that location - I just figured if it happened it had to be near the end of his round, not the start, and that made me remember discussions about a potential alley around there, etc).



Ok, I was able to update the sim and add "passage Jack", and it might look something like this:


And the estimated locations of this JtR and PC Watkins are so close that it could very easily fit the story. If this ally way can be confirmed, then the recreation would suggest there is some plausibility for this encounter story.

- Jeff

[jerryd]

Thanks, but according to an old news story (which I have been unable to find - I think it was from 1950), the city police calculated that Watkins would have been facing the covered passage in St. James Place, where he presumably encountered a suspicious man emerging (shades of the Stephen White story). We don't know what Watkins told his superiors when he was debriefed.

Hi Scott.

PC Langdon of the City force told of the Watkins story (standing aside to let a man pass in an alley shortly before the discovery of the murder) in a retirement article in 1912.

* City PC E.T. Langdon Retires ( With Article) - Jack The Ripper Forums - Ripperology For The 21st Century (jtrforums.com)

[JeffHamm]

Thanks, but according to an old news story (which I have been unable to find - I think it was from 1950), the city police calculated that Watkins would have been facing the covered passage in St. James Place, where he presumably encountered a suspicious man emerging (shades of the Stephen White story). We don't know what Watkins told his superiors when he was debriefed.

Hi Scott,

Well, without knowing how they calculated that it's hard to compare things. But 7 minutes to get from Mitre Square and still be in SJP seems like he's pretty far behind schedule to complete the rest of his beat in the next 7 minutes. And, a story from the 1950s might not be the most reliable as to details. There's nothing in the contemporary statements that resemble this encounter, so even if it did run in the 1950s I would suspect this is just a myth. Certainly there's nothing like it in PC Watkin's testimony.

- Jeff

[Scott Nelson]

Thanks, but according to an old news story (which I have been unable to find - I think it was from 1950), the city police calculated that Watkins would have been facing the covered passage in St. James Place, where he presumably encountered a suspicious man emerging (shades of the Stephen White story). We don't know what Watkins told his superiors when he was debriefed.

[JeffHamm]

Just offhand Jeff, where would you place Watkins 7 minutes after he left Mitre Square (at approximately 1:30 am) assuming he then briefly checked out Sugar Bakers Yard and/or chatted with the fireman (or men) in St. James Place?

Hi Scott, that's at the 10m 27s mark of the video presentation of the simulation. At that point he would be heading along Heneage Lane.

If you jump ahead in the video, past my rambling, to about 9m 20s, that's where the simulation itself starts. You can see the times in the upper left corner.

- Jeff

[Scott Nelson]

Just offhand Jeff, where would you place Watkins 7 minutes after he left Mitre Square (at approximately 1:30 am) assuming he then briefly checked out Sugar Bakers Yard and/or chatted with the fireman (or men) in St. James Place?

[JeffHamm]

Good piece of work again Jeff. Obviously the timings are not as clear to work from as the Buck's Row ones.

Thanks. No, there's not as many testable statements about time, and the as usual, the ones we have are a bit inexact, like how long the 3 fellows waited out the rain was given as between 3 and 5 minutes. Since having done that one, though, I came across a paper that was looking at eyewitnesses memory for how long something lasted. They would basically time how long an event happened, say a bowling ball coming back down the return track, and would ask people to estimate how long that was at some point later, as if they are a witness recalling a duration, etc. For durations less than an hour, people tended to overestimate how long it was, and after about an hour, they tended to underestimate the duration. That means if someone gives an estimate of 5 minutes, we know they are most likely to have actually overestimated the true time, but by how much? I used their data to work out the reverse relationship, and we can see that an estimate of 3 - 5 minutes would, on average, mean the true durations are around 2m 02s to 3m 37s, but it's the upper and lower markers for the confidence interval (the range within which 95% of the data falls) that shows just how shockingly bad people are with time. (My reverse engineered table is shown at the end of this message). While the average real duration for a 5 minute estimate might be 3m 37s, you have to consider a range from 1m 38s out to 15m 06s in order to have a 95% chance of including the real value! But, given the averages, this would suggest that the 5 minute max I've used is more likely to be too long than not, and really, I should have used the 3m 37s (the longest average estimate of the duration associated with a testimony statement of 5 minutes). Meaning, there's good reason to suspect there was another 1m 23s available at the murder scene.

If we consider people estimating the time of day simply being them estimating the duration since they last saw a clock, then the real variation starts to emerge. This is why I've been quite impressed with how well things do seem to line up and why I'm not at all concerned about the idea that Paul might have been out by 6-7 minutes. That's still in the expected range, just a bit on the longer side.

So, if, and probably when, I redo Mitre Square, I think PC Harvey's location is based upon him estimating he hears Morris 3 or 4 minutes after patrolling Church Passage at 1:41 (I think he gives the time for that patrol). That would suggest the real (average) interval is probably closer to 2m 02s or 2m 49s, but he has to get to roughly the same location, so maybe he was going a bit faster than I have him. And, I would adjust Leve and Lawende's leaving time based upon the correction for an estimate of 5 minutes.

But really, all we have are PC Watkin's patrol duration (14 minutes), his time of discovery, PC Harvey's post office clock reading (1:28), his time of the CP patrol (1:41; he might also say 1:42, I have to check my notes again), and his estimation of how long it was (and where he was) at the time he hears Morris's whistle. We also have Lawende & co's time to leave the club (1:30) and their rain delay (3-5 minutes). So while we have a number of times and such, they are also mostly independent, so it would be pretty hard for them to show a conflict.

As such, I've just taken them at face value. PC Harvey's statements at least do line up as shown, he ends up in both Church Passage and where he said he should be, if I set him at a constant slow pace. I'm not sure what would be gained by redoing it all, other than it shows there was probably a bit more time available for the murder to take place.

- Jeff

[drstrange169]

Good piece of work again Jeff. Obviously the timings are not as clear to work from as the Buck's Row ones.

[JeffHamm]

Oops, I think I refer to the 3rd fellow as "Harvey" when of course his name is Harris.

[JeffHamm]

Not to restart this thread, but I've been able to work out how to make a recording of the simulations that I've worked on so you can see it play out in real time. Basically, the original post that started this thread, but now in "movie format". I've redone it though, so it's a different graphic.

I blither on for about 9 m 30s before starting the simulation itself, so if you want to skip my summarisation of things, jump to there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-ChOnScPeo

Anyway, this really just covers things already discussed in this thread, so you can probably already find your answers here. I just wanted to add this here to keep it with the relevant discussions already had. I know some of the decisions and conclusions I suggest in the video are not universally accepted, but we've covered those ad nauseum here, so I probably won't be inclined to go over it all again (nor do I suspect anyone else would be interested in repeating conversations we've already had).

- Jeff

[Scott Nelson]

Gavin Bromley mentions it in one of his Mitre Square articles, but appears to attach no major significance to it.

[Juniper4576]

Hi Juniper4576,

That incident has been mentioned a few times, but it will be scattered about, showing up in different threads and topics. After Eddowes' was found in Mitre Square, there was a lot of police activity in the area checking people in the area. Without anything more to go on, odds are this is simply one of those random checks. I can't recall if there's a specific time associated with this story to try and place it in the temporal sequence of events, but it would be after Eddowes was found. Certainly, a man with an umbrella would not be unusual, given we also know it had rained quite heavily for a period time of time around 1:30.

NBFN indicates the newspaper and date where the story can be found, which is a really good habit to get into. You can find a lot of the newspaper stories archived here on Casebook, so I would suggest you start with that if you're interested.

- Jeff

Cheers Jeff, I sure will

[JeffHamm]

Is there anymore on this in a forum or the casebook?

Hi Juniper4576,

That incident has been mentioned a few times, but it will be scattered about, showing up in different threads and topics. After Eddowes' was found in Mitre Square, there was a lot of police activity in the area checking people in the area. Without anything more to go on, odds are this is simply one of those random checks. I can't recall if there's a specific time associated with this story to try and place it in the temporal sequence of events, but it would be after Eddowes was found. Certainly, a man with an umbrella would not be unusual, given we also know it had rained quite heavily for a period time of time around 1:30.

NBFN indicates the newspaper and date where the story can be found, which is a really good habit to get into. You can find a lot of the newspaper stories archived here on Casebook, so I would suggest you start with that if you're interested.

- Jeff