Time of Death Analyzation

[JTRSickert]

Septic, wow! I salute you.

[Fisherman]

Tom W asks:

"Did the Ripper ever pick a 'venue' that wasn't risky?"

No, he did not. But then again, all choices involve risk, as long as there is even a remote chance of somebody stumbling upon the scene.
The matter of interest here is the LEVEL of the risktaking. If the Ripper felt that the only place open for him to kill was the open street (and that can of course be discussed), then there were two measures that he could take to minimize the risk that would always be there:

-he could choose locations that had the benefit of - at least during some hours - being abandoned by people to a very large extent, plus

-he could pick those very hours that optimized his chances of being alone with his prey

In the cases of Nicholls, Chapman and Eddowes (Kelly died inside, as we know), it can be argued that the Ripper employed these exact tactics. It does not mean that he avoided risktaking at these sites - but it does mean that he minimized the risktaking involved in killing out in the open streets.

Now, is this something that we can see in the Stride case too? NO, it is not. In this case, he abandoned BOTH of these parametres. He did NOT choose the optimal time, since people were still very much up and about. He did not choose the right spot, since the IWMEC would arguably have been the liveliest spot in all of Berner Street, with people singing, cheering and dancing.
Moreover, he did not employ his ordinary cutting technique, he did not eviscerate, he did not place his victim on the back, he may have cut her while she was still standing up ...

Whichever way we look, the deviations are there. Nothing much resembles the other canonical deeds. And the result of that has been that those who think that Jack did Stride, have to think up explanations to all of these deviations:
Maybe he wanted to kill twice, and therefore set out earlier.
Maybe he was not as meticulous as usual, choosing his striking ground.
Maybe he was resisted by Stride, resulting in a quick cut when he could not have his way.
Maybe he was interrupted by Diemschutz.
Maybe he finished the proceedings at a stage where he was not bloodied, in order to stay undetected on his futher explorations that night.
Maybe he was on his way to a safer striking ground, but could not resist Stride standing in the entrance to the yard.
And why must we accept that Jackīs thing would be the same thing over and over again? Why not allow for something else in Dutfields Yard?

Such goes the reasoning. The evidence is remoulded and reshaped, all in order to fit Stride into the tally. And this in spite of the fact that we have a witness telling us that a broad-shouldered manhad dealings with Stride AT MORE OR LESS THE EXACT SPOT WHERE SHE WAS FOUND DEAD FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER!

We have the opportunity to say "Oh, okay, so probably there was some sort of row that turned ugly, and BS man cut her and left".

Sooooo tediously trivial, I know. So unripperish. No flair, no "double event" no stuff for legends, no further proof of what an evil mastermind Jack the Ripper was.
A row, a sudden rage, a cut - thatīs all.

Canīt have that, can we? Sod the evidence!

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Colin, that is one impressive piece of work there on the timings.

...but I think it is far too much mathematics and far too little context.

Look upon it like this: A very late Jack the Ripper tour passes through Goulston Street at 2 AM in the morning and then the group comes back the same way two hours later, at 4 AM. At both occasions, the group stays in the street for half an hour. Before, inbetween and after these visits by the group, the street is more or less abandoned.

What would that do to your schedule, if we discuss a potential Goulston Street killer? Quite a lot, I would say. For the salient point is not at what hours Jack struck. That is in all probability secondary to the real issue: under what circumstances did he strike?

In the example above, we would get a good-bad-good-bad-good scenario for a killer who needed to kill in Goulston Street, making the mathemathics grounded on the times only a very shaky ground to stand on.
Itīs not until we ask ourselves WHY the night hours were of interest to Jack that we realize what prompted his choices.

It was not late at night because the streets were abandoned.

The streets were abandoned because it was late at night.

Arguably, if our Goulston street slayer was faced with a Jack the Ripper tour in the street at his chosen moment of killing, he would abandon the project. Likewise, I think that Jack would have left a strike against Stride outside a club swarming with lively and loud people unconsidered.

It is not the other way around - if the streets were totally empty and silent in either case, none of our two killers would start by consulting their clocks and ask themselves if the hour of the day allowed them to strike.

Once again, the hour was chosen to optimize the chance of getting the wanted circumstances. Therefore, the former factor is secondary and the latter primary. And scheduling things without adding the primary ingredients cuts the relevance short - althoug it offers interesting insights to the issue and allows us to see one particular parametre more clearly. Thanks for that!

The best,
Fisherman

[Septic Blue]

Would the analysis change significantly if the time of Annie Chapman's death were moved up 90 minutes to correspond to Phillips' time estimate?

Using the following estimated times of death:

Stride: 12:50AM
Eddowes: 1:40AM
Tabram: 2:40AM
Nichols: 3:30AM
Kelly: 4:00AM
Chapman: 5:30AM / 4:00AM

… renders the following 'average' time of death:

Mean Time of Death: 3:02AM / 2:47AM

… having the following 'average' deviation:

Mean Absolute Deviation: 1 Hour and 18 Minutes / 1 Hour and 3 Minutes

… and the following 'standard' deviation:

Sample Standard Deviation: 1 Hour and 41 Minutes / 1 Hour and 18 Minutes

I realize that the concept of 'Standard Deviation' is something, with which many Casebook readers are totally unfamiliar. As stated above, …

… the concept of 'Standard Deviation' - I am still working on a meaningful explanation, so as to continue my "Informal Presentation of Geo-Spatial Analysis Project" - ; …

… but for now, the concept provides the best means of visualizing the extent, to which the Stride time of death would become a relative 'outlier'; if given the Chapman time of death adjustment.

The number of standard deviations (1:41 / 1:18), by which each of the estimated times of death deviates from the mean time of death (3:02AM / 2:47AM):

Stride: (-) 1.31 / 1.49
Eddowes: (-) 0.81 / 0.85
Tabram: (-) 0.22 / 0.09
Nichols: (+) 0.28 / 0.55
Kelly: (+) 0.58 / 0.94
Chapman: (+) 1.47 / 0.94

… but I think it is far too much mathematics and far too little context.

…

… the hour was chosen to optimize the chance of getting the wanted circumstances.

Point of Clarification:

The above analysis does not involve any assumptions regarding the perpetrator(s) of the murders under consideration. Its underlying assumption is that the 'dolly-mops' of the Dorset Street and Flower & Dean Street 'rookeries', in the Parish of Christ Church Spitalfields, were most vulnerable, in 1888, at a particular hour of each morning; and that the hour in question is perhaps discernable, by way of an understanding of the manner, in which the six times of death under consideration are distributed.

My analysis suggests very little - if anything, at all - regarding the perpetrator's (perpetrators') choices. It merely suggests that the vulnerability of Spitalfields 'dolly-mops' began to percolate each morning, at ~12:00AM; hit its peak, at ~3:00AM; and was more-or-less diminished, by ~6:00AM.

[lynn cates]

thanks

Hello Septic. Thanks for that. I feel as though I caused you to dip into your time well a bit too much. Sorry for that.

Yes, I understand standard deviation having had a class in probability/statistics as an undergraduate (that, in addition to the fact that I am a standard deviate--couldn't resist!).

The best.
LC

[Fisherman]

Many thanks for the clarification, Colin! Mathematics have a way of unnerving me ...

The best,
Fisherman

[JTRSickert]

Septic (or Colin, as it is). A very congratulatory effort! I seriously think you should get your analysis published in any further studies on the case...like maybe an article in Ripperologist magazine.

[c.d.]

Tom W asks:

"Did the Ripper ever pick a 'venue' that wasn't risky?"

No, he did not. But then again, all choices involve risk, as long as there is even a remote chance of somebody stumbling upon the scene.
The matter of interest here is the LEVEL of the risktaking. If the Ripper felt that the only place open for him to kill was the open street (and that can of course be discussed), then there were two measures that he could take to minimize the risk that would always be there:

-he could choose locations that had the benefit of - at least during some hours - being abandoned by people to a very large extent, plus

-he could pick those very hours that optimized his chances of being alone with his prey

In the cases of Nicholls, Chapman and Eddowes (Kelly died inside, as we know), it can be argued that the Ripper employed these exact tactics. It does not mean that he avoided risktaking at these sites - but it does mean that he minimized the risktaking involved in killing out in the open streets.

Now, is this something that we can see in the Stride case too? NO, it is not. In this case, he abandoned BOTH of these parametres. He did NOT choose the optimal time, since people were still very much up and about. He did not choose the right spot, since the IWMEC would arguably have been the liveliest spot in all of Berner Street, with people singing, cheering and dancing.
Moreover, he did not employ his ordinary cutting technique, he did not eviscerate, he did not place his victim on the back, he may have cut her while she was still standing up ...

Whichever way we look, the deviations are there. Nothing much resembles the other canonical deeds. And the result of that has been that those who think that Jack did Stride, have to think up explanations to all of these deviations:
Maybe he wanted to kill twice, and therefore set out earlier.
Maybe he was not as meticulous as usual, choosing his striking ground.
Maybe he was resisted by Stride, resulting in a quick cut when he could not have his way.
Maybe he was interrupted by Diemschutz.
Maybe he finished the proceedings at a stage where he was not bloodied, in order to stay undetected on his futher explorations that night.
Maybe he was on his way to a safer striking ground, but could not resist Stride standing in the entrance to the yard.
And why must we accept that Jackīs thing would be the same thing over and over again? Why not allow for something else in Dutfields Yard?

Such goes the reasoning. The evidence is remoulded and reshaped, all in order to fit Stride into the tally. And this in spite of the fact that we have a witness telling us that a broad-shouldered manhad dealings with Stride AT MORE OR LESS THE EXACT SPOT WHERE SHE WAS FOUND DEAD FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER!

We have the opportunity to say "Oh, okay, so probably there was some sort of row that turned ugly, and BS man cut her and left".

Sooooo tediously trivial, I know. So unripperish. No flair, no "double event" no stuff for legends, no further proof of what an evil mastermind Jack the Ripper was.
A row, a sudden rage, a cut - thatīs all.

Canīt have that, can we? Sod the evidence!

The best,
Fisherman

Ah, c'mon.

c.d.

P.S. Please see the literally thousands of previous posts in rebuttal to your argument.

P.P.S. Please provide absolute concrete evidence that someone other than Jack killed Liz. Thank you.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hello Tom. A fascinating conjecture. But what would have precuded a scream (a natural Victorian lady's reaction) or a faint (also quite natural)?

I doubt I would feel at ease if I were a lady being robbed.

I thought that was obvious. If a man put a knife to your throat and said don't scream, and you screamed, you'd deserve what came next.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Cap'n Jack]

Tom, I gotta just say I have nothing but admiration for a chap like you who has been flogging a dead horse now for at least five years.
You need some kinda medal.

[lynn cates]

Lewis Carroll

Hello Tom. I see your point. But doesn't a knife to your throat in conjunction with an admonition not to scream strike you as analogous to Lewis Carroll's old saw "Now don't be nervous or I'll have you shot"?

Human nature just seems to indicate a likely scream forthcoming.

(I say, does anyone notice the thread's posts going backwards? The clock again, I dare say.)

The best.
LC

[Fisherman]

C.d writes:

"P.S. Please see the literally thousands of previous posts in rebuttal to your argument."

Over the years, many, many more people have seen Liz Stride as a Ripper victim than those who have voted for the opposite. That is correct, c.d. There was a time when almost nobody would opt for the latter suggestion. But times change, insight is gained, old prejudice comes to an end sooner or later and today we are faced with another situation altogether than was once the case. The scales are tipping over, c.d. - it is but a matter of time. So Iīll just sit tight and remind you every once in a while, and we shall see what time brings...!

"P.P.S. Please provide absolute concrete evidence that someone other than Jack killed Liz."

I have done so many a time, c.d. Proof I cannot give you, but evidence is abundant. And that makes my situation a lot better that yours - you have no proof either, and the evidence is all against you

...not that you care much about that, though!

See you īround, c.d!

Fisherman

[perrymason]

I think that Colins analysis shows us that the murders did occur and were most likely to occur during the hours that a traditional streetwalker would be most active, after all the more "genteel" entertainment was over around 12 and before the markets and streets were busy doing their morning routine.

Couple that with the days of the week the murders occur on and you have a pretty good case for a local man when he was off work. The schedule if you will is too consistent to be by someone without some kind of responsibilities during the week.

Best regards all.

[Tom_Wescott]

Lynn,

Are you aware that most people who are mugged do not scream or fight? In fact, authorities always tell us to just give them the money. People just don't scream in these situations. Look at the Labianca killing. A bunch of hippies with knives running around their house, yet they don't fight to escape. Why? They're told if they cooperate, they won't get hurt...it's just a robbery.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[perrymason]

Lynn,

Are you aware that most people who are mugged do not scream or fight? In fact, authorities always tell us to just give them the money. People just don't scream in these situations. Look at the Labianca killing. A bunch of hippies with knives running around their house, yet they don't fight to escape. Why? They're told if they cooperate, they won't get hurt...it's just a robbery.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Most people are not career prostitutes who for some 25 years have been facing some of the dirtiest, meanest clients and have themselves been brought up on charges that suggest drunk and disorderly conduct.

She was no wilting violet. Nor was Kate, for my money.

The evidence suggests that Liz turned away from her soon to be assailant perhaps while alone with him in Dutfields Yard...this woman was no wuss.

Cheers Tom.