Kates Cuts

[Michael W Richards]

OK...the apron section isn't the real reason I started this thread, its the cuts made on Kate, to her face, and her body. The cuts to her body are reminiscent of earlier murders, however the facial cuts are not. It has never been claimed that Kates killer must have sought her kidney by virtue of the manner in which he cuts her, however it was stated that Annies killer did cut according to his final objective. It has never been said that Kate had no superfluous cuts...but it was said in Annies case "there were no meaningless cuts". It was said that Kates killer showed some anatomical knowledge, Annies murder prompted the police to seek out suspects in the medically trained field. Annies throat and body were cut, Kates throat, body, clothing and face was cut. Annies killer may have had 15 minutes with the victim after the throat cut, Kates may have had as little as 3-5 minutes. There was blood on the front of Annie and her clothing, there was not on the front Kates clothing....despite the fact she had her intestines removed.

These murders seem very similar, yet I don't sense the same commitment to objective based on the additional cutting.

[jmenges]

If id had said that about Herlock Sholmes during our long drawn out debates on the Chapman thread, i surely would have been banned ....... oh wait i was. For a lot less i might add.

cue, jmenges ?

I just saw this...

If you feel that a post is in need of moderator attention REPORT THE POST.
Simply typing the name of a mod in a sarcastic manner does not bring the post to my attention.
Implying that I should be some all-seeing eye and I’m therefore a hypocrite, will get you booted from the boards.


JM

[Abby Normal]

That's true, there is a definable maximum distance (within 30 minutes walking distance), though I think there are a few valid ways to reduce that. Such as, presumably he goes home not only to drop off the organs, but he has to grab chalk, probably spend some time washing up better, and change clothes, etc. If we allow for 15 minutes spent in his bolt hole (I just pulled that number out of a hat as something that seems reasonable without being overly reductive), then we have 45 minutes left for travel time. From Mitre Square to the graffiti is about a 5 minute walk (in a straight line rather than along streets, so that will be a bit of an underestimation but good enough for present purposes, so he could get apporximately 4x that distance away from Mitre Square, which is pretty far a field (one could get a bit more sophisticated, and start working out distances that allow for travel from Mitre Square to X then to Goulston street, etc, but we don't need to get too far down those rabbit holes, we could just place a circle centred on Mitre Square with a radisus 4x the distance from Mitre Square to Goulston Street as a very crude estimate.

But if he was able to get that far away from the area where the crime was committed, and wants to return to the streets and is willing to spend 20 minutes in public with the apron on him, then heading back towards the high risk area seems improbable to me. Rather, once he's gotten away from the danger zone, heading to some other distant location from his bolt hole (20 minute walk), and leaving his message with the apron, would seem more probable to me. That's why, to me, I think if he's got a bolt hole, then it's very close to Goulston Street. This is all very hypothetical, and there's no way to prove it nor do I expect anyone to stop considering alternatives,. While I'm presenting what I think is reasonable inferences, I'm not convinced I'm correct here. I agree, for example, that JtR may very well be of the sort that thinks heading back into the high risk area is no big deal, particularly if he was disturbed in his thinking, such as a Kosminski might be. His risk assessment thinking might very well be disturbed, and his choice of crime locations make that a very distinct possibility.



I agree. It's Long's testimony that he's quite sure it wasn't there an hour earlier that makes me reluctant to dismiss the notion that JtR fled home and then returned. It's the possibility he didn't recognize the apron for what it was, and mistook it for just random rubbish, that prevents me from dismissing the possibility he's mistaken, but that's why I'm suggesting it's a point where making too firm a conclusion either way is starting to get a bit iffy.


There used to be some threads on graffiti and its frequency, and quite a few posters of repute did argue that graffiti was common. I can't say whether those views were well founded as I don't know upon what sort of evidence it was based, but I recall it was more than conjecture. However, that being said, I do admit I myself can't provide any support for that, so I certainly can't expect anyone to just take my word for it.


True, but there was a fair bit of anti-Jewish sentiment at the time, particularly after the Pizer thing. There are differing reports on how recent the writing was thought to be by various police officers, so it's a bit hard for us at this point to really be sure of how recent it was written. Again, though, I'm not dismissing the possibility it was by JtR for much the same reasons as you mention above. I just also think there's a good case to be made that it might have been unrelated, so the only real thing I have a different point of view on is the "chance being unrelated = nil" part, but that's not a big deal.



The last bit implies JtR decided to write a message while at the crime scene, which is unknowable. He might have, he might not have. If he wrote it, he obviously made the decision to at some point. The cutting of the apron, and the descriptions of the stains on it appearing to reflect that something (hand or knife) was wiped on it, does seem to indicate that's what it was used for, and really, that's an entirely plausible reason. If he's fleeing because PC Harvey's patrol of Church Passage, then bolting and getting out of there will be his first priority. He later wipes and cleans up, and by that time, he could about 5 minutes away, and drops it. It's not that he spent 5 minutes wiping up, rather, he fled for a few minutes, cleans up, drops it, and continues (this is the "didn't go home first" idea). If he did go home first, then again, flee for a few minutes, clean up a bit on the way (since he seems to have wiped something on it), then at some point later, go out and get rid of the soiled material. I suppose he could have used it to wrap up the organs in that case, wiped up after taking them out, etc.

Anyway, there are a lot of scenerios that could happen once one starts getting too detailed in filling in the gaps between the bits of evidence. As a result, I think "good stories" can be built around either road in the divergence, meaning the divergence between "dropped during the escape" vs "dropped after making it home first". I suspect the latter makes the graffiti more probable by JtR (but not conclusively so) and the former makes it less likely (but also not conclusively so), as they are different issues.

- Jeff

hi jeff again good and well thought out post. I think the apron whether or not you believe its connected to the GSG or not is one of the only clues we have o the ripper-ie. where he lived. id like to explore this a bit.

But if he was able to get that far away from the area where the crime was committed, and wants to return to the streets and is willing to spend 20 minutes in public with the apron on him, then heading back towards the high risk area seems improbable to me. Rather, once he's gotten away from the danger zone, heading to some other distant location from his bolt hole (20 minute walk), and leaving his message with the apron, would seem more probable to me.

can you clarify and or elaborate on this point some more-im a bit confused as to your meaning.

[JeffHamm]

"But if he was able to get that far away from the area where the crime was committed, and wants to return to the streets and is willing to spend 20 minutes in public with the apron on him, then heading back towards the high risk area seems improbable to me. Rather, once he's gotten away from the danger zone, heading to some other distant location from his bolt hole (20 minute walk), and leaving his message with the apron, would seem more probable to me."


can you clarify and or elaborate on this point some more-im a bit confused as to your meaning.

Sure. Ok, we have roughly an hour from the crime to the point the apron is found. And, I'm suggesting something in the vicinity of 15 minutes of JtR being in his bolt hole (washing up, changing clothes, putting his trophies away, etc). So there's 45 minutes left for hiim to "get there and back again". It takes 5 minutes to get to Goulston Street. To keep it simple, if he heads to Goulston Street first (5 minutes), he now has to get to his bolt hole and back to Goulston street within the remaining 40 minutes, so after he gets home, he's free but he now spends as much as 20 minutes in the street with the apron, and heads back towards the crime scene, going from safe to risky locations. If he headed away from Goulston street, he can only travel for 20 minutes to get home, as he needs 25 minutes to head back to Mitre Square area and then beyond to Goulston. (No, I don't mean he actually goes to Mitre Square, he would avoid that, but in that direction).

Again, as a really rough illustration of what I mean, Let's just go with he's got 45 minutes to travel to his bolt hole and back, starting from Mitre Square, and we'll split that into his "going home" and "coming back" trip (so 22.5 minutes each way). The actual shape would be a bit more of an oval, but this is just a rough illustration. So, at an average walking speed (3.1 mph), he can get a shad over a mile away in 22.5 minutes. As in, anywhere in side the red circle (roughly drawn). The Green circle is centred on Mitre Square and to Goulston Street.

Now, once he's gotten that far away, if he wants to get rid of the apron and leave a message, heading back to Goulston Street is to head back towards a high risk area (toward the Green Circle) while carrying evidence (the apron). And to drop it off in Goulston Street, he has to be willing to be carrying that apron for another 22.5 minutes (roughly). If he were somewhere on the circle, and wanted to dump the apron, and was willing to walk for 22.5 minutes with it, then heading in almost any direction except back into the heart of where the police will be is far more probable. Think of risk like a hill, Mitre Square will be a high risk place for him, and that risk will decrease with distance - he's probably going to head "down hill". It levels out at some distance of course, but hopefully that makes a bit of sense.

Now, if his bolt hole is in the area, then he could have gotten there quickly, and also made a dash back out to get rid of the apron. If he is right in the high risk zone, he's not going to want to spend a lot of time carrying the apron knowing the police will be out searching people. That's why I think, if he dropped it after being at home, there's a good chance he lives very close to Goulston Street. Not necessarily in the Green circle, that's mostly to illustrate the idea that heading back towards that centre location is to go "uphill" in terms of risk after having successfully gotten away from there.

- Jeff

[Abby Normal]

Sure. Ok, we have roughly an hour from the crime to the point the apron is found. And, I'm suggesting something in the vicinity of 15 minutes of JtR being in his bolt hole (washing up, changing clothes, putting his trophies away, etc). So there's 45 minutes left for hiim to "get there and back again". It takes 5 minutes to get to Goulston Street. To keep it simple, if he heads to Goulston Street first (5 minutes), he now has to get to his bolt hole and back to Goulston street within the remaining 40 minutes, so after he gets home, he's free but he now spends as much as 20 minutes in the street with the apron, and heads back towards the crime scene, going from safe to risky locations. If he headed away from Goulston street, he can only travel for 20 minutes to get home, as he needs 25 minutes to head back to Mitre Square area and then beyond to Goulston. (No, I don't mean he actually goes to Mitre Square, he would avoid that, but in that direction).

Again, as a really rough illustration of what I mean, Let's just go with he's got 45 minutes to travel to his bolt hole and back, starting from Mitre Square, and we'll split that into his "going home" and "coming back" trip (so 22.5 minutes each way). The actual shape would be a bit more of an oval, but this is just a rough illustration. So, at an average walking speed (3.1 mph), he can get a shad over a mile away in 22.5 minutes. As in, anywhere in side the red circle (roughly drawn). The Green circle is centred on Mitre Square and to Goulston Street.

Now, once he's gotten that far away, if he wants to get rid of the apron and leave a message, heading back to Goulston Street is to head back towards a high risk area (toward the Green Circle) while carrying evidence (the apron). And to drop it off in Goulston Street, he has to be willing to be carrying that apron for another 22.5 minutes (roughly). If he were somewhere on the circle, and wanted to dump the apron, and was willing to walk for 22.5 minutes with it, then heading in almost any direction except back into the heart of where the police will be is far more probable. Think of risk like a hill, Mitre Square will be a high risk place for him, and that risk will decrease with distance - he's probably going to head "down hill". It levels out at some distance of course, but hopefully that makes a bit of sense.

Now, if his bolt hole is in the area, then he could have gotten there quickly, and also made a dash back out to get rid of the apron. If he is right in the high risk zone, he's not going to want to spend a lot of time carrying the apron knowing the police will be out searching people. That's why I think, if he dropped it after being at home, there's a good chance he lives very close to Goulston Street. Not necessarily in the Green circle, that's mostly to illustrate the idea that heading back towards that centre location is to go "uphill" in terms of risk after having successfully gotten away from there.

- Jeff

got it-makes sense and I agree. either way you slice it-whether he dropped the apron off on his way to his bolt hole(and long missed it first time) or went home first and then went back out to drop the apron, I think he lived somewhere east of mitre square and I would venture either north or south of goulston street. I hesitate to say he lived east of goulston street because if he went home first and headed back out-then he would be headed back west (toward goulston st) and back toward the danger zone of mitre square. for psychological reasons he may fear to do this, unless, of course, the wentworth buildings is where he knew he wanted to specifically go and drop the apron off.

so I would posit the ripper lived near goulston street (perhaps somewhere within a 5-8 minute walk max) either north or south of it. perhaps west as secondary possibility.

so on your graph I would draw circles, or ovals, north and south of where the green line intersects the blue line (if that is indeed the location of the gsg). which would have a radius of no more than a 5-8 minute walk to the gsg location. I think these would be the two primary locations where the ripper lived (or had a bolt hole).

I also don't think he would live within a couple blocks of the GSG because then it would be too close to home.

[JeffHamm]

got it-makes sense and I agree. either way you slice it-whether he dropped the apron off on his way to his bolt hole(and long missed it first time) or went home first and then went back out to drop the apron, I think he lived somewhere east of mitre square and I would venture either north or south of goulston street. I hesitate to say he lived east of goulston street because if he went home first and headed back out-then he would be headed back west (toward goulston st) and back toward the danger zone of mitre square. for psychological reasons he may fear to do this, unless, of course, the wentworth buildings is where he knew he wanted to specifically go and drop the apron off.

so I would posit the ripper lived near goulston street (perhaps somewhere within a 5-8 minute walk max) either north or south of it. perhaps west as secondary possibility.

so on your graph I would draw circles, or ovals, north and south of where the green line intersects the blue line (if that is indeed the location of the gsg). which would have a radius of no more than a 5-8 minute walk to the gsg location. I think these would be the two primary locations where the ripper lived (or had a bolt hole).

I also don't think he would live within a couple blocks of the GSG because then it would be too close to home.

Hi Abby Normal,

Yes, I think that's a very reasonable hypothesis (the Grafitti would be on the green circle at roughly 45 degree angle north east; the blue line is just directly east so I could scale the bigger circle). The notion of "not too close to the graffiti" is what's called a buffer zone, basically, the notion is that the offender will create space between their anchor point (residence in this case) and important points (like where they offend, and in this case, where they get rid of evidence). That creates pressure, if you will, to travel outward, but travel is a risk with evidence, so there's a pressure to not travel too far. That pressure is greater in the high risk areas.

Anyway, I've added two blue circles, roughly 5 minutes walk in radius, from the Grafiti (so the far edge would be 10 minutes), one north and one south of the GSG, to represent roughly what I think you've just described above. You have just produced a geographical profile - you've used the spatial information about the offense locations, and used psychological aspects of risk avoidance, and so forth, to try and estimate where the offender's anchor point might be based upon a set of calculations. That's what geographical profiling software basically attempts to do, only through mathematics rather than conscious reasoning. That's because the conscious reasoning is based upon logical principles and influences, which means they produce regularities in terms of distances, direction of travel, and so forth, and those can all be described by maths.

So here's your profile:

[JeffHamm]

Now, compare that with the output from Dr. Watson, which is based upon all of the C5, but doesn't include the location of the Goulston Street Graffiti (which is the yellow square marker). And look, there are two peaks, one northish and one southish of the GSG, and they would both fall inside your blue circles.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

I should have done this above, but can't edit that post anymore, but I've drawn those two zones you've described directly onto the Dr. Watson output. Note, I have to draw each circle by hand, but have done my best to make them appropriately scaled. To do that, I centre them on Mitre Square and size them to reach GSG (the solid yellow dot) then move them to have the lowest or highest point at the graffiti since the graffiti is a distance that would be about 5 minutes walk.

Anyway, below are two profiles generated by Dr. Watson, the first including all of the C5, the one on the right leaves out Stride since her inclusion is probably the most debatable (realizing that there are debates about others as well of course, but trying to cover every combination and permutation would be a bit much for this). While the peak location clearly shifts, that's not entirely surprising because the spatial layout is very different without Stride (her location creates "importance", if you will, to the south east, and if she's not a victim of JtR, that area becomes devoid of offenses and the overall pattern becomes a more crescent shape). However, what we just did was base our inferences only from two locations from one particular offense (Eddowes). Dr. Watson has no idea about the graffiti as I've not entered that location (in part to avoid biasing the analysis with respect to Eddowes case - part of me thinks adding that location might be ok as it's more information, and part of me thinks it might skew an analysis towards offenses that one just happens to have more locations to enter. Until I get enough cases where I could compare what doing that sort of thing has on the analysis, I can't say whether it would be a good or bad idea, so to err on the side of caution I leave them out.)

But notice, whether Stride is included or not, the northern zone of interest you suggested always contains zone 1. Even the location of the peak back to the GSG is more or less close to due south, a direction avoiding heading west, into the heart of the danger zone. I think it's interesting how, through spatial and psychological reasoning based upon just that one offense, that northern zone area you suggest is also consistently one that the spatial analysis of the offenses, without the graffiti, also highlights.

Now, that being said, some offenders can do strange things and are "not like the others", so this is not proof that JtR has any association with that area, but rather, it just suggests that your line of reasoning fits with the kind of spatial behaviours that most marauding offenders demonstrate.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Sigh, and because I can't help myself, I've done the C5 profile and inputted the location of the GSG as well, just to see. And interestingly, that results in a peak zone that is just slightly west of the GSG, and extends up into that northern zone you mentioned (I've not drawn those circles in this time). The zone contour lines get messed up when I shrink the image to make for a managable file size, unfortunately, and I forgot to turn them off (as above). Anyway, as you can see, as information gets added, the profile of course changes (different input different output), but they are similar, or stable, in many ways as well, as they should be.

Ok, I'll try and stop now.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Oh, and if Stride is left out and the graffiti is included, the end result with the GSG is similar to the version without the GSG and without Stride, though zone 1 tightens up around the peak a bit, but nothing major changes overall. In some ways, the peak area in that version appeals to me, as a location very close to Chapman makes sense to me given it appears she was killed as dawn was breaking. But really, none of those north peaks are really so far away that it's out of the question.

- Jeff

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby Normal,

Yes, I think that's a very reasonable hypothesis (the Grafitti would be on the green circle at roughly 45 degree angle north east; the blue line is just directly east so I could scale the bigger circle). The notion of "not too close to the graffiti" is what's called a buffer zone, basically, the notion is that the offender will create space between their anchor point (residence in this case) and important points (like where they offend, and in this case, where they get rid of evidence). That creates pressure, if you will, to travel outward, but travel is a risk with evidence, so there's a pressure to not travel too far. That pressure is greater in the high risk areas.

Anyway, I've added two blue circles, roughly 5 minutes walk in radius, from the Grafiti (so the far edge would be 10 minutes), one north and one south of the GSG, to represent roughly what I think you've just described above. You have just produced a geographical profile - you've used the spatial information about the offense locations, and used psychological aspects of risk avoidance, and so forth, to try and estimate where the offender's anchor point might be based upon a set of calculations. That's what geographical profiling software basically attempts to do, only through mathematics rather than conscious reasoning. That's because the conscious reasoning is based upon logical principles and influences, which means they produce regularities in terms of distances, direction of travel, and so forth, and those can all be described by maths.

So here's your profile:

thanks jeff! very interesting. can you do this one, but on a map where we can see the streets labeled? and also has tje victims locations. just stick with c5.

[Abby Normal]

Now, compare that with the output from Dr. Watson, which is based upon all of the C5, but doesn't include the location of the Goulston Street Graffiti (which is the yellow square marker). And look, there are two peaks, one northish and one southish of the GSG, and they would both fall inside your blue circles.

- Jeff

very interesting indeed
your maps and mentions of peaks and dual locations made me think of superpositions in quantum mechanics. i wonder if we can input this info into shrodingers equation, solve and collapse the wave function to a single point where tha ripper lives. ; )

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

very interesting indeed
your maps and mentions of peaks and dual locations made me think of superpositions in quantum mechanics. i wonder if we can input this info into shrodingers equation, solve and collapse the wave function to a single point where tha ripper lives. ; )

An interesting theory Abby, but the down side would be that you could pinpoint his location, but be unaware of his movements, or predict his movements without ever being certain of his position.

[Abby Normal]

An interesting theory Abby, but the down side would be that you could pinpoint his location, but be unaware of his movements, or predict his movements without ever being certain of his position.

loo. true.

Heisenberg walks into a bar. bartenter says whatll ya have. heisenberg says i dont know.

[JeffHamm]

thanks jeff! very interesting. can you do this one, but on a map where we can see the streets labeled? and also has tje victims locations. just stick with c5.

The victim locations are the red squares, and there's a white line linking them as well (in chronological order). Trying to get the street names visible, with the jeopardy map overlay, is tricky as the map has to be large enough to see the street names, but zoomed out enough to show all the locations and have enough surrounding area to do the calculations properly. But you can get the idea by eye-balling key locations, such as in the C5 alone, the southern peak is directly below the GSG and north-east of Mitre Square, the northern one is north-west, basically, running north and south along Goulston Str, which runs from NW-SE.

Here's the map without an overlay. It's a bit messy as it has locations of various suspects (some, like Chapman's, reflect locations they weren't in at the time of the murders, but I didn't realize that at the time I placed them). There was a threat a while back where I listed various profile rankings for suspects (which zones they were in, etc). I was developing and improving some of the routines during the course of that threat, so the profiles change a bit over time, which can be interesting to see. Anyway, you might be able to use this, in conjunction with the overlay maps, to get an idea of what streets/area specifically things indicate. Might be easier if you print out copies, and go old school with a ruler are protractor though.

- Jeff