6d. Did Liz spend it, or die for it?

[Cogidubnus]

Hi cd

Polly Nicholls and Annie Chapman certainly, Liz Stride I suspect only at need (when the cleaning and other jobs dried up), Catherine Eddowes there really seems no proof at all, Mary Kelly when she wasn't shacked up...

But is the point that a perpetrator THOUGHT they might be soliciting, or knew they HAD at some stage, or what?

Reverting to the thread, I don't see evidence of Liz Stride actively soliciting THAT night (her behaviour to me suggesting if anything a date or an appointment)...I do, however, see some evidence slightly suggestive that maybe someone wanted her to be soliciting that night...but to be fair it's all in the interpretation...

All the best

Dave

[Wickerman]

But is the point that a perpetrator THOUGHT they might be soliciting, or knew they HAD at some stage, or what?

Sutcliffe didn't always bother to ask, ...a woman alone, ...in the dark, ...where its quiet, .....good enough.

Regards, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

That is not clear with Liz, its not enough of an explanation for Kates behavior, and its not at all in the known and accepted evidence for Mary Kelly.

Hi Michael.

Mary Kelly has herself claimed a long tradition of prostituting herself. Chris Scott lists all the quotes from her and those she knew in his book, right up until the end when she warns Lizzie Allbrook, "not to do wrong and turn out as I have."
I'm puzzled why you think she wasn't.

I take it that only Liz Stride is the one where there is any doubt what she was doing that particular night, the other four (of the 5 Can.) are as near certainties as we can get.
I'm aware we cannot be sure with Eddowes, but she was headed down towards Aldgate, where they all congregated.
Incidently, MJK used to solicit in Aldgate too.

Regards, Jon S.

[RivkahChaya]

When I said it, I meant that with Polly Nichols, we have a pretty clear statement that she was going out trolling for Johns, unless that was really some jolly bonnet, that she could charge people just to look at it.

We know Annie Chapman desperately needed a place to stay, and that she had turned tricks before, but her health was so poor, some people have questioned that whatever her intent was when she started out, she might no have just curled up in the first doorway she found, and at any rate, we don't have an actual statement from her one way or another.

Liz Stride had certainly worked as a prostitute, but there seemed to be evidence she was trying to give it up, and her behavior that evening is of someone not headed out to bang grimy men in alleyways.

We have a general statement from someone who knew Eddowes that she wasn't a prostitute, although we don't really know how reliable it was; she does seem to have taken other work when it came her way. We also really have no idea what she was up to when she left jail. Maybe she was really hungry, and was going dumpster diving-- maybe that's why she was concerned with time-- maybe there was a particular eatery that gave out leftover food just after it closed, or tossed it, but it was still "fresh," and got picked through within minutes by other homeless people. (I'm not asserting that, just offering it as a reason she might not have been going home, but still, might not have been going to look for a John.) Anyway, she made a reference to "going home," so it may be that she already had a place secured for that particular night.

Mary Jane Kelly, from everything we know, was a professional prostitute. However, that does not mean she was on duty 24/7. There are cab drivers driving around in their cabs, who are not technically working, or available. You have to look for the on duty sign.

So, for Polly Nichols, we have positive information that she was definitely working the streets the night she was killed.

For Chapman, some reason that whatever she had done in the past, she may have been too unwell that particular night to perform professionally. I think her case is equivocal.

For Stride, we have good reason to infer that she wasn't soliciting. We also have reason to think she wasn't a JTR victim.

Eddowes is equivocal as well. It's my personal belief that she was not actively soliciting, but since she was out, late and alone, in an area where women did solicit, she may have been mistaken for a prostitute. Since we don't know what role "prostitute-victim" played for JTR, it is begging the question to insist that because she was killed by JTR, she must have been soliciting. On the other hand, it may have been enough for her to be mistaken for doing so.

MJK was a prostitute. Whether her killer picked her up while she was soliciting is another matter. If we could settle the TOD, we might be a longer way to settling this.

So I think we really have just one definite "yes," a definite "no" on the woman who may not have been a Ripper victim, two probable "no" (there's no good way to make that plural) on women he nonetheless may have mistaken for prostitutes, and a "possibly done for the night" on the one pro in the group.

Now, is that because "prostitute" was relevant for the killer in some way, or is it because in a desperately poor area, nearly every woman had been paid for sex at some point in her life?

[lynn cates]

good

Hello Rivkah. An excellent, intelligent post.

Cheers.
LC

[MsWeatherwax]

Now, is that because "prostitute" was relevant for the killer in some way, or is it because in a desperately poor area, nearly every woman had been paid for sex at some point in her life?

I think it's as likely as anything else we speculate on that JTR was just looking for vulnerable, unaccompanied women whom he judged to be easily overpowered. Whether they were prostitutes (or not) may not have been relevant to him in the slightest.

As you say - the area he operated in, and subsequently the class of people who lived there likely had as much to do with his victim selection as any desire to systematically kill prostitutes.

[RivkahChaya]

I think it's as likely as anything else we speculate on that JTR was just looking for vulnerable, unaccompanied women whom he judged to be easily overpowered. Whether they were prostitutes (or not) may not have been relevant to him in the slightest.

As you say - the area he operated in, and subsequently the class of people who lived there likely had as much to do with his victim selection as any desire to systematically kill prostitutes.

This is what I'm saying. There have been serial killers who targeted prostitutes, and were eventually captured, and the reason for targeting prostitutes was never psycho-sexual, or a sense of morals gone awry. I very specifically remember one killer who said he targeted young prostitutes, because they tended to be runaways, and therefore were unlikely to be reported missing-- or, reported from the area he took them from-- there might be a two-years-old report in another state when they first ran away, and this was well before there was a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or a computer database.

I mean, when you think about what we know of the personal lives of the C5, if their bodies hadn't been left out in the open, or MJK in her own room, but had been buried or dumped in the Thames, how long do you think it would have been before someone who knew them thought something untoward might have happened to them, as opposed to them just being off somewhere voluntarily?

If the papers hadn't decided to make a circus of the case, with hoax letters probably sent by journalists, JTR probably could have killed several more women, and for all we know, he moved on because of the media circus, and the fact that there was a real police investigation, which doesn't generally happen when anonymous, possible prostitutes are killed late at night in bad parts of town.

[Michael W Richards]

Hello Michael,

But even if we assume for the sake of argument that only 2 of the victims were soliciting at the time, doesn't the evidence show that it is much more probable than not that all of the C5 engaged in prostitution at some point?

c.d.

Hi cd,

I would think timing is everything when youre assuming a random act, and in the case of Jack the Ripper, the assumption that he only killed females out alone on the streets late at night while they solicited is only validated by those first 2 murders.

To Jon, as I said, the timing is everything...I didnt say that Mary Kelly wasnt a prostitute and in fact have said many times that she is the one among the 5 that seems to have embraced it as a profession. What I said was we have no reliable evidence that suggests Mary was working on any streets on the night she was killed, and in fact, the location of her murder seems to validate that by itself.

Rivkah makes an interesting point in her last post...why didnt we see some or all of these victims hidden or discarded?

Cheers all

[c.d.]

Hello Michael,

Even if we can say with absolutely certainty that some of the victims were not actively soliciting, the problem is that we don't know how they would react if approached by a potential client. As John Douglas noted in his FBI Ripper profile, prostitutes at the time did not dress any differently from other women unlike today. Since they were not holding an open/closed for business sign a potential customer might approach them especially if he was a former customer or had seen them previously soliciting. All of the C5 seemed to live hand to mouth, would they pass up a chance at a few extra coins?

Kate was afraid to come home without money and Mary had rent due. Having a customer come to them especially if he was willing to pay a little extra might have seemed like a Godsend even if it was their night off.

c.d.

[Wickerman]

To Jon, as I said, the timing is everything...I didnt say that Mary Kelly wasnt a prostitute

Ok Michael, sorry about that.

...and in fact have said many times that she is the one among the 5 that seems to have embraced it as a profession. What I said was we have no reliable evidence that suggests Mary was working on any streets on the night she was killed, ...

Reliable? no, but we do have an opinion...

"A young woman who goes by the name of "Margaret" says-"I saw Kelly the night before (Thursday) in Dorset-street. She told me she had no money, and intended to make away with herself. Shortly after this a man of shabby appearance came up and Kelly walked away with him." This was the first occasion, it is said, on which the deceased was ever known to take a strange man to her room."

"First time", likely means since she took up with Barnett, and we might wonder if this woman "Margaret" saw Kelly take up with Blotchy.
This woman appears to have witnessed Kelly soliciting on this particular night.

Regards, Jon S.

[c.d.]

Hello Jon,

I never saw that before. What is the source for this?

c.d.

[Wickerman]

Sorry, I normally provide a source.

Morning Advertiser, 12 Nov. 1888.

Regards, Jon S.

[RivkahChaya]

As John Douglas noted in his FBI Ripper profile, prostitutes at the time did not dress any differently from other women unlike today. Since they were not holding an open/closed for business sign a potential customer might approach them especially if he was a former customer or had seen them previously soliciting. All of the C5 seemed to live hand to mouth, would they pass up a chance at a few extra coins? [emp. added]

Then what is the point of discussing whether or not they were prostitutes? If there was no outward indication, then it could not be the reason JTR targeted them, and discussing psycho-sexual, or moral-outrage-gone-postal motives is entirely pointless. If he used asking them if they were available as a pretext for approaching them in the first place, it's just silly. There are a lot better pretexts for approaching a stranger: "Did you drop this coin?" "Can you direct me to Dorset Street?" "Do you know the time?" Asking a woman you do not know if you can pay her (a paltry 4d) for sex is likely to get you slapped, or to make her scream and bring people running toward you.

Now, if there is any evidence that he was a prior client, or that he stalked these women, then maybe he knew-- in which case, I think we can definitely rule out Stride as a victim, but that still pushes forth the question of why prostitutes? If it really was psycho-sexual, or moral outrage, I would think he would target less iffy prostitutes as these, and look for women who lived and worked in brothels, or at least a string of 5 Mary Jane Kellys.

[caz]

There must have been some reason why all the victims were described as being of the 'unfortunate' class. Whether or not their killer could distinguish between women who would, or would not, go off with a strange man at the drop of a billycock, he managed to end up alone with his victims in semi-private locations, suggesting the women were there willingly, and therefore may have approached their killer rather than the other way round. It would have been far easier for him to let his victims approach him and select themselves if there was a good chance of him mistaking an unwilling woman for a willing one.

For me that tells its own story. Women minding their own business and not begging or soliciting, particulary after the first two horrific murders that year (Smith and Tabram), were surely unlikely to put themselves in the vulnerable position of being alone with, or walking off with, any man they didn't know or trust. I don't buy that Nichols was walking alone down Buck's Row when attacked; that Chapman was sleeping in the yard where her killer happened upon her; that Eddowes was taking the air in Mitre Square when struck down. Stride may well have been trying to get doss money - we know she had sixpence earlier but nothing when she was found dead. MJK may well have invited her killer in to help with her back rent. She too had no money when found.

It's a pattern of sorts, which I'd be reluctant to put down to pure chance.

We had to walk to Whitechapel from Bank Station on Saturday because of planned engineering works on the underground, and without even thinking we passed close by several murder locations on the way: Eddowes; McKenzie; MJK; Chapman; Tabram; Smith. The idea that all these murders were committed so close together in time and space by different killers for different reasons seems sillier every time I'm in the vicinity.

The victims were all vulnerable and desperate and dare I say it - available. There for the taking. A bit like Dr. Harold Shipman's patients, who invited him in to make them feel better.

Love,

Caz
X

[Hunter]

Stop looking at the obvious, Caz. That no longer has a place here... Got to be more complex and convoluted.