Kates Cuts

[Abby Normal]

That means nothing; the case is so cold that we can't unequivocally find anyone guilty of these unsolved crimes, or any other for that matter. What chance do we have, if the contemporary police didn't succeed in doing so either? The fact that no-one has been indisputably connected to the crimes doesn't mean that there wasn't a serial killer at work.



..."relegated" to theory? If theory is good enough for Newton, Einstein or Feynman, then it's good enough for me.



If a handful of women are killed in the same small area within barely two months, with their throats deeply cut and their bowels extruded with organs removed, the most parsimonious explanation is that they were killed by the same hand. That might not be correct, but it is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis.

It is emphatically not "bias".

thank you sam for mentioning american physicist richard feynman! it warms my heart . if i may just add another great american theoretical physicist who nobodies heard about but even einstein referred to as " the greatest Mind in history".

josiah willard gibbs
1839-1903

[Sam Flynn]

130 years of trying has not connected the murder of one Canonical with another, nor with any solo killer

That means nothing; the case is so cold that we can't unequivocally find anyone guilty of these unsolved crimes, or any other for that matter. What chance do we have, if the contemporary police didn't succeed in doing so either? The fact that no-one has been indisputably connected to the crimes doesn't mean that there wasn't a serial killer at work.

ALL of it is presumed, assumed and therefore relegated to theory

..."relegated" to theory? If theory is good enough for Newton, Einstein or Feynman, then it's good enough for me.

Im not about to name all the names here who do so, read any thread and youll see the biases rise.

If a handful of women are killed in the same small area within barely two months, with their throats deeply cut and their bowels extruded with organs removed, the most parsimonious explanation is that they were killed by the same hand. That might not be correct, but it is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis.

It is emphatically not "bias".

[Michael W Richards]

I am well aware that there are people who think the Torso Killer was also the Ripper. I am well aware that there are people who add other murder victims to the C5. So far, none of them have attributed every period murder in or near Whitechapel to the same killer. The idea that there were "multiple killers working within a small geographic area at around the same point in time" is the default assumption, held by virtually everyone who has posted here.

So again, who are you having these debates with? Who is claiming that every period murder in or near Whitechapel was done by the same killer?

I disagree with you on the bold point above, there are many posters who believe that the Canonical Group, which is the victims presumed to be by the single killer known as jack the Ripper, should also include Martha, Emma, Alice and as you noted what I said, the Torsos...some which preceded the alleged series.

The problem for me is this....before anyone adds anything to this mythological kills list, they should be able to prove the ones most readily assumed were also by the same one man. As you know, or don't, 130 years of trying has not connected the murder of one Canonical with another, nor with any solo killer. ALL of it is presumed, assumed and therefore relegated to theory.

Im not about to name all the names here who do so, read any thread and youll see the biases rise.

[JeffHamm]

thanks jeff
totally agree.
interesting note: what are the only two direct sources of evidence that explicitely implicate a jew? the GSG and George Hutchinson. and there he is right in the primary zone. and right smack dab in the middle of the kill zone too. hmmmm

Hi Abby Normal,

Well, there's also Long, if you believe she saw Capman and JtR, who describes the man as "foreign looking", which apparently at the time indicated Jewish. And of course, the whole Leather Apron aspect early on was looking for Pizer, who was Jewish as well. However, much of that suspicion may reflect anti-Jewish sentiment at the time rather than any real evidence that JtR was Jewish. He might have been, but then, he might not have been. Hutchinson, like most named suspects, has what I would call "peripheral support", meaning there's one or two of his behaviours that draw attention to him making him a lead worth exploring, but in the end, there are so many "not JtR" ways to explain his behaviour (including his overly detailed description) that he's just one more on the list. We have, unfortunately, leads but there are far fewer ways to follow them up compared to a current case.

Think Dennis Rader, if he had never been caught. A century later, he would look like a family man, employed at ADT and later for Park City, and active in his Church and Boy Scouts. There would be nothing that would raise any red flags. So maybe Hutchinson is similar? Or maybe, the vast majority of people that don't raise red flags are simply those without flags to raise? Hutchinson's behaviour can range from "JtR, inserting himself into the investigation" (which is not uncommon behaviour for serial killers) to "genuine witness who tries to be overly helpful and contaminates his own memory with his efforts to recall details" (which is also not uncommon) and even to "genuine witness and Astrakhan Man is real and Hutchinson had a photographic memory" (which is uncommon, and in my view, highly unlikely, but I'm just covering all bases here).

Also, Hutchinson lives east of the GSG, which means, if he made it home, then went back out to get rid of the apron, he went back west towards the crime scene (towards increasing risk). But, he doesn't head that far West, so while it would be risky it's not a long journey and JtR is certainly not the best at situational risk assessment. All of the crime locations are so over the top in terms of risk that arguments that he must have been really astute to recognize he could get away with it, implying good situational awareness, are all attributing luck with intention - the crime locations are all so risky that his getting away was by luck not design in my view, and his willingness to commit the offenses where he did imply poor, rather than good, risk assessment. Of course, that's just my interpretation/opinion, and others certainly draw a different one.

I'm in the process of testing out a slightly different algorithm for part of the analysis. Initial testing shows some improvement, but I think it's mostly for cases where the offender is located a bit further from zone 1 (so reducing the larger errors). There could be, however, a bit of a drop in the number of cases that fall in zone 1 (Rader drops to zone 3 or 4, for example; that's still within 7.5-10% of the total search area, which is still a good result). I'm still working on it, and trying to work out better estimates for some of the probability distributions, so the below is more for interest's sake. Basically, it favours the northern hot spot, so isn't splitting zone 1 into a north and south version (though the southern portion is still an area of high interest). Hutchinson is in Zone 8 (worthy of note). Interesting, the pub at the west end of Dorset Street is in the peak area of Zone 1 (the pinkish section in the yellow region), and I believe there were "sightings" from there. Also, and this is just me, I find it interesting that the high interest area extends up towards and beyond Hanbury Street. That area intrigues me, as I tend to think JtR must have been awfully close to home after the Chapman murder as the sun was coming up - the longer he was in the street the greater the chance he would have been spotted post murder - assuming he had to have some blood on him that would have been visible. Also, again if we trust Long, she came from Brick Lane and JtR was backon to her - so if that indicates he too had originally come from the East, that area looks good - but of course, people's position in a conversation is not always indicative of their original direction of travel). It's also interesting that it appears to be the area where no suspects have been identified, and given that the case is unsolved, maybe that's why? This is all very speculative, and no, I don't "believe" it, rather, it's one of the many hypotheses that I like to consider at times.

Anyway, I've got a lot more number crunching to do, but I wouldn't expect a dramatic change in the general pattern. And I've got another approach to test out as well, and that could end up being the best option. Sigh, it's a complicated problem to solve, but in some ways, that's what holds my interest. ha ha


- Jeff

[Fiver]

You havent been reading very closely fiver, there are a bunch of posters here who add victims to the Canonical Group, which by itself cannot be a proven "series". Check some Torso related threads.

I am well aware that there are people who think the Torso Killer was also the Ripper. I am well aware that there are people who add other murder victims to the C5. So far, none of them have attributed every period murder in or near Whitechapel to the same killer. The idea that there were "multiple killers working within a small geographic area at around the same point in time" is the default assumption, held by virtually everyone who has posted here.

So again, who are you having these debates with? Who is claiming that every period murder in or near Whitechapel was done by the same killer?

[Abby Normal]

There's a few proposed suspects that rank fairly highly. Barnett, Hutchinson, and PC Sagar's suspect (he mentions monitoring a butcher I think it was in Algate, and here on casebook it was narrowed down to the indicated location). In the C5 analysis, he's right in zone 1 (the southern one). About 50% of the time, if the offender is a marauder, they live inside the orange region, and about 33% of the time inside the yellow/pink region (zone 1). So, provided JtR was a local, if your suspect is in there, then this sort of analysis would suggest they are worth further investigation. Just remember, this isn't evidence they were JtR, lots of people live in that area. It doesn't solve the case, and it's not evidence, it is just a suggestion where evidence is probable to be found.

Think of it this way, when the police go into to dust for fingerprints, they don't dust randomly. There are locations and things that are more commonly places where you will find prints, so they start there. Random dusting would mean dusting carpets, couches, etc, which are not going to produce a finger print because there's such a low (0%) chance of finding one. They'll look at smooth surfaces, glasses, mirrors, windows, walls, etc, where prints have a higher probability of being found. But that helps to prioritize where to search, and so prints are more likely to be found if you follow that priority list. Specific information at a crime scene will influence that priority list as well (just like specific information about a crime series will produce different maps). But it still requires real evidence to solve the case, and high probability zones, like zone 1 let's say, only contain the offender 33% of the time (although it only makes up 2.5% of the total search space, so much better than chance), and 50% of the offenders are found after only searching around 10% of the total search space. These are much more efficient search strategies, but they are not "proof" for any individual, though if you have a list of individuals (like we do for JtR), it can be a good way to rank them in terms of priority.

Just want to make sure it's clear what these provide, as they are often over-hyped in media and entertainment. While that might generate interest in them, in the long run it's counter-productive because when they don't live up to the hype, people view them as useless. They aren't useless, but they aren't magic either.

- Jeff

thanks jeff
totally agree.
interesting note: what are the only two direct sources of evidence that explicitely implicate a jew? the GSG and George Hutchinson. and there he is right in the primary zone. and right smack dab in the middle of the kill zone too. hmmmm

[Michael W Richards]

Nobody thinks that all women killed in the Whitechapel area at that time were victims of the same killer, so I'm not sure who you're having these debates with.

You havent been reading very closely fiver, there are a bunch of posters here who add victims to the Canonical Group, which by itself cannot be a proven "series". Check some Torso related threads.

[Fiver]

By including non-Canonical victim locations you provided a map that in and of itself proves multiple killers working within a small geographic area at around the same point in time. Something so often debated by people who want to have some mythical madman as the sole killer in that area at that time.

Nobody thinks that all women killed in the Whitechapel area at that time were victims of the same killer, so I'm not sure who you're having these debates with.

[JeffHamm]

When I said want its because there is no evidence at all to connect this elusive madman to any non-Canonical murders, and only opinion that connects one to another within the Canonical Group. When you cant prove just 5 by 1 man after 130 plus years of trying, its kind of a bad joke to then add more to the same list anyway.

The case is unsolved, whenever a series of cases are unsolved it is not proven that any two are actually connected, that is always an assumption that one makes based upon the evidence at hand. With modern investigative techniques, there are things that greatly improve making that inference of course (if you found matching DNA from the perpetrator between a number of different offenses you can be pretty sure it was the same person, except of course, if you have a set of identical twins both committing offenses). Ballistic analysis can link offenses to the same weapon, but not necessarily the same offender directly, though that becomes an increased probability.

We don't have anything like that with JtR, we only have things like the behaviour that was involved (possibly including strangluation to some degree, throat cutting, and mutilations, at least in 4 of the C5) and we have the type of weapon used (knife), crime scene locations (generally outdoors, but generally locations a prostitute might take a client), and details of the victims (all poor, all living a hand to mouth existence and apparently in need of money, all alcoholics or at least heavy drinkers, all having a high probability of engaging in causual prostitution on occasions), and all (except Emma Smith), apparently killed by a single person. The consideration of Tabram for example, being earlier is because her murders shows some similarities (similar victimology, similar type of location, excess violence, some indications of possible strangulation - protruding tongue etc) but some differences as well (no throat cutting, no multilations, two weapons which may suggest two rather than one attacker, etc), and later victims, like McKenzie, do show attacks on the abdoment, etc but they are less "determined"? might be the best word. People discuss and consider the evidence we have, it's not possible to be conclusive with what we have, but there are good, valid, and reasonable arguments to be made both for and against various victims.

You have formed your opinion, but it is only that, an opinion which I'm sure you feel is well supported, and I would agree with you that your opinion is defensible. I do not agree with you when you suggest it is a "bad joke" and employ other pejorative sophistry as if that is a valid defense of your opinion. It's not, and it is incorrect to suggest that the interpretations of others, who might consider the possibility other victims may indeed have been by the same person, are indefensible. There is a true state of things (either at least some of the offenses were committed by one person, whom we refer to as JtR, or none of them were, which makes JtR a myth), we just don't know what it is.

The fact the case remains unsolved might not be because the same person didn't commit all the C5, but because they also committed some of these other crimes, and by not including them we're overlooking something. In contrast, it might be because we're including too many. Or, we might have the right set. Any of those are possible, and defendable, and worth considering and keeping an open mind to.

But the case is unsolved, in my view, primarily because the evidence we have is insufficient to solve it, no matter which of those three descriptions is true. More, and new, evidence is required, and that may come from a better understanding of the individual crimes, and the events surrounding them, or it may come from a better understanding of the victims (if MJK is ever "identified" and her background revealed, maybe more information on "other Joe" for example, that may lead somewhere - or it may not, right now the information is unknown so we have no idea if it is or is not informative), or it may be new information that arises from a "suspect focused" line of research that results in clear links between the "suspect" and the crimes somehow. Maybe the "suspect file" will be recovered, and a fresh look at that information will reveal something. Who knows, certainly not me as I'm no fortune teller.

The one thing I do know, though, is that anybody who states categorically that they know exactly which victims are the only victims of JtR, is overstating their case.

- Jeff

[Michael W Richards]

I'm not sure "want" is quite the right descriptor of the majority of people's reasons for including/excluding various victims. There are those who have drawn a conclusion (not always a firm conclusion mind you), that various non-C5 victims may be part of the series. I've tried to put together a general map that includes all of the Whitechaple murders, in part as a general resource. When I get time, I'm going to do a better one using the online maps as they are so nicely detailed, but this is good for now. In this thread, apart from the image of the 6 different analyses above, we're just focusing on analysing the C5, and one analysis based upon leaving out Stride, as she is the most contentious. Mind you, opinions range from "include all of these and all torso's from the past 20 years" to "only Nichols and Chapman by the same person". I've tried to do various combinations so that there's a version most people might have one to consider, if they choose to.

- Jeff

When I said want its because there is no evidence at all to connect this elusive madman to any non-Canonical murders, and only opinion that connects one to another within the Canonical Group. When you cant prove just 5 by 1 man after 130 plus years of trying, its kind of a bad joke to then add more to the same list anyway.

[JeffHamm]

thanks jeff
this is cool. and theres my favored suspect right in the thick of it.

I'm just starting exam marking, so will be a while before I get the chance, but I've worked out some things that I think have the potential to improve the predictive performance of Dr. Watson. Once I get the chance to implement the changes to the code, I can do the analysis to see if things do get better, get worse, or just move sideways. Given the complexity of the problem, it's hard to know how a change with regards to a predictor will interact with all the others. Sometimes it's redundant with what is already included, sometimes it interferes, and occasionally it results in an improvement. If it does result in an improved performance, I'll update things here and we can re-look at this. Most likely, it won't change things dramatically. Hopefully it won't just be another idea that gets shown to be inadequate.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

I suppose I should have specified that I meant the late 1880's, the small geographical area is of course indisputable. People seem to want to add murders to the Rippers list from early spring 1888 with Emma to as late as 1889 with Alice, so that's the gist of my comment. Some even want to have him making Torsos early in the 80's, …. go figure.

I'm not sure "want" is quite the right descriptor of the majority of people's reasons for including/excluding various victims. There are those who have drawn a conclusion (not always a firm conclusion mind you), that various non-C5 victims may be part of the series. I've tried to put together a general map that includes all of the Whitechaple murders, in part as a general resource. When I get time, I'm going to do a better one using the online maps as they are so nicely detailed, but this is good for now. In this thread, apart from the image of the 6 different analyses above, we're just focusing on analysing the C5, and one analysis based upon leaving out Stride, as she is the most contentious. Mind you, opinions range from "include all of these and all torso's from the past 20 years" to "only Nichols and Chapman by the same person". I've tried to do various combinations so that there's a version most people might have one to consider, if they choose to.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

thanks jeff
this is cool. and theres my favored suspect right in the thick of it.

There's a few proposed suspects that rank fairly highly. Barnett, Hutchinson, and PC Sagar's suspect (he mentions monitoring a butcher I think it was in Algate, and here on casebook it was narrowed down to the indicated location). In the C5 analysis, he's right in zone 1 (the southern one). About 50% of the time, if the offender is a marauder, they live inside the orange region, and about 33% of the time inside the yellow/pink region (zone 1). So, provided JtR was a local, if your suspect is in there, then this sort of analysis would suggest they are worth further investigation. Just remember, this isn't evidence they were JtR, lots of people live in that area. It doesn't solve the case, and it's not evidence, it is just a suggestion where evidence is probable to be found.

Think of it this way, when the police go into to dust for fingerprints, they don't dust randomly. There are locations and things that are more commonly places where you will find prints, so they start there. Random dusting would mean dusting carpets, couches, etc, which are not going to produce a finger print because there's such a low (0%) chance of finding one. They'll look at smooth surfaces, glasses, mirrors, windows, walls, etc, where prints have a higher probability of being found. But that helps to prioritize where to search, and so prints are more likely to be found if you follow that priority list. Specific information at a crime scene will influence that priority list as well (just like specific information about a crime series will produce different maps). But it still requires real evidence to solve the case, and high probability zones, like zone 1 let's say, only contain the offender 33% of the time (although it only makes up 2.5% of the total search space, so much better than chance), and 50% of the offenders are found after only searching around 10% of the total search space. These are much more efficient search strategies, but they are not "proof" for any individual, though if you have a list of individuals (like we do for JtR), it can be a good way to rank them in terms of priority.

Just want to make sure it's clear what these provide, as they are often over-hyped in media and entertainment. While that might generate interest in them, in the long run it's counter-productive because when they don't live up to the hype, people view them as useless. They aren't useless, but they aren't magic either.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

By including non-Canonical victim locations you provided a map that in and of itself proves multiple killers working within a small geographic area at around the same point in time. Something so often debated by people who want to have some mythical madman as the sole killer in that area at that time.

The maps presented earlier here are only based on the C5, with one of them excluding Stride. The non-cannoicals are indicated on the underlying map but not entered into the analyses I've presented in this thread (so the non-Canonicals are not included in these analyses). In other threads, I have explored alternative linkage theories, and including them doesn't really change the focus a great deal, but then. I've updated the analysis routines a bit since I did these, but it's been fine tuning a few parameters. However, adding in and taking out offenses isn't a way to do linkage, so just because these don't change much isn't support that any or all of these should be included. If you enter any random set of locations you can still do maths on them, and it will produce a jeopardy map, it just won't mean anything. Linkage, the deciding which offenses are committed by the same offender, is done before the profile, not as part of the spatial analysis of those locations.

[Michael W Richards]

It's not quite the same point in time, though. Tabram apart, the other non canonical murders were separated by several months from the C5, all five of which happened within the space of two and a bit months.

I suppose I should have specified that I meant the late 1880's, the small geographical area is of course indisputable. People seem to want to add murders to the Rippers list from early spring 1888 with Emma to as late as 1889 with Alice, so that's the gist of my comment. Some even want to have him making Torsos early in the 80's, …. go figure.