How are we so certain the victims were all prostitutes?

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Michael W Richards;389585]

You can include Kelly in the list above. As many still seem unwilling to concede, establishing a consistent pattern of such behavior for many of the Canonicals is troublesome, and even infrequent participation in solicitous events cannot be accurately determined. Most of it is, as cd illustrates, merely presumptive, not conclusive.

Hi Michael,

In what ways would it be important to establishing such a pattern for hypothesizing anything about the killer?

Would it have mattered if they were soliciting and why would it have mattered, for the killer?

And what would the killer have thought? Would he have thought they were all soliciting? Is that probable, and why?

And if he did, or did not think so, why would that be of any importance?

Thats why I suggest that we can only use what is known about these women to conclude anything about their particpation in prostitution. And in the cases of the Canonicals, we have evidence that Polly, and Annie, were actively soliciting on the respective nights they were murdered. They as much as admitted so to close friends, and those witness statements are the only evidence in all 5 cases that any of them solicited on the nights they were killed, let alone on a regular basis.

Two out of five were soliciting. Is that some indicator for the type of women who became victims? Or is that just a coincidence? If it is a coincidence, is "soliciting" a meaningless variable?

What evidence is there that it would have meant something? For example, the murder sites of the two soliciting victims were very different. One was out in the street, and one was in a yard. What type of serial killer behaviour does this imply, given the "constant" of "soliciting" for those two?

It is assumed Liz Stride was soliciting, yet we have her on a street all but abandoned near 1am.

Why was she murdered in such a busy place? And the question is very relevant when we compare the murder site to that of Chapman.

It is assumed Sailor Man was a client, yet we cannot even be sure that the woman in that scenario was Kate, let alone that the interaction between them was part of any negotiations for fees.

If they were soliciting, there should have been clients. But is seeing women soliciting a trigger for the serial killer - or is it just a matter of the women being out in the streets late at night and therefore a matter of opportunity?

Under which circumstances, and from what evidence, could we construct a narrative - for each victim - where the killer would have thought that they were soliciting, whether they did or did not?

But I would also like to try a narrative where the killer did not care about the women soliciting. Under which circumstances, and from what evidence, could we also construct such a narrative - for each victim?

And the last credible witness to see Mary Kelly alive was Mary Ann Cox, and she saw her enter her room quite intoxicated before midnight, with company. The assumption is that the company was a client..which is pure speculation and contrary to the actual evidence that suggests Mary had little if any opportunity or interest in to turning her room into a squalor brothel since Joe, then Maria, left.

Why? She was obviously not able to pay the rent.

Its very important that any discussions about how the killer meets the victim include this bit of data, because as it stands, the ever present notion that the Jack the Ripper cases are about working street prostitutes being savaged by a stranger who was posing as a client does not have any actual support within the known evidence in 60% of the cases assumed to be by the mythical killer.

What would a serial killer in 1888 know about that type of women? What characteristics would he be able to assume they had?

That means of course that the evidence in the majority of so called Ripper cases do not show any link between street prostitution and the victims activities on the nights they were killed.

But as I have suggested by posing the above questions, there may have been other "links". Do you think it would be possible for us to make a list of such hypothetical "links", starting with the most important ones? Is there evidence from 1888 we could use for such a list?

And then we could use it to answer my questions.

Regards, Pierre

[lynn cates]

know

Hello CD.

"Unfortunates or prostitutes, they still went off to dark corners with men they didn't know to exchange sex for money."

How on earth do we know that?

Cheers.
LC

[kjab3112]

Hi Lynn

We have no evidence for any of the canonical five having intercourse.

Liz Stride's actions seem more along the lines of an escort type scenario, show me a good time you'll get some later.
Kate Eddowes was concerned she would be late for a meeting time when she'd sobered up "he'll give me a hiding".
Annie and Polly were desperate for money.
Mary Jane Kelly was reportedly back on the game, but the earlier return sighting had her returning drunk and singing, not exactly on the clock behaviour.

My personal belief is they all knew/had met Jack before and the fateful meeting was either prearranged (Kate, Liz, Mary Jane) or spontaneous desperation (Annie and Polly)

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
I believe without a doubt that Mary Kelly knew her killer, and well at that, the sheet initially placed over her head when attacked, gives a true indication of that.
Regards Richard.

[c.d.]

Hello CD.

"Unfortunates or prostitutes, they still went off to dark corners with men they didn't know to exchange sex for money."

How on earth do we know that?

Cheers.
LC

Hello Lynn,

Nice to see you back posting again my vocabulary has suffered in your absence.

I was actually making the point that there was no distinction between "unfortunates" and "prostitutes" with respect to exchanging sex for money.
Your point is a valid one however and your desire for proven facts is commendable but unfortunately they are rather rare in this case and we are left to determine what is more likely so. I don't consider it a great leap of faith to believe that a woman described by the police as an unfortunate or prostitute (take your choice) out late at night by herself on a weekend was soliciting.

c.d.

[kjab3112]

Richard

My reading was that they were incapacitated by direct carotid artery pressure with some form of gag to muffle any residual scream (+/- chloroform or ether) before the throat was cut. The thought of the sheet being used to disguise who he was killing hadn't occurred

Thanks

Paul

[c.d.]

The question of whether or not these women were prostitutes and whether they were actually soliciting the night they were killed tends to get lumped together.

The police described them as unfortunates or prostitutes. I don't think they simply pulled that description out of a hat. In order to aid in catching the killer they needed to identify some connection among the victims. So I think it is a reasonable assumption that they had some basis for making that determination. We also know that the police considered the idea of dressing up as prostitutes. Why do that if it was non-prostitutes that were being attacked?

Now as to evidence that the women were in fact actively soliciting the night they were killed, what evidence would that be? Was it a requirement that they let someone know of their intentions or were they required to sign some document? Proving that they were in fact soliciting is difficult but it is much easier if we rely on what is more likely so.

Some have argued that if it can be shown that they were not ACTIVELY soliciting then they could not have been a Ripper victim. That argument would seem to fall short given the fact that these women were poor and had a fondness for alcohol. Even if they were not actively soliciting, we have no way of knowing their response to being approached by Jack with a reasonable story that he just got paid and wanted to have a good time and was willing to double the going price.

In conclusion it would seem that all of these women had at least some connection to prostitution even if it was only on occasion. Is that simply a coincidence and not significant? Even if a case can be made that they were not actively soliciting, is it really such a strong case that it would absolutely eliminate them as a Ripper victim?

c.d.

[lynn cates]

hints

Hello KJAB. Thanks.

Quite. Of course, Polly and Annie hinted at it--verbally.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Faith without works is dead.

Hello CD. Thanks.

But IF one makes a leap of faith (as per Kierkegaard), there should be some results.

After 125+ years, where are they?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

victimology

Hello (again) CD. Nice argument.

No, it would not eliminate them as "Ripper victims." But it might render moot the talk about victimology and all the women of the same walk.

Cheers.
LC

[Joshua Rogan]

Hi,
I believe without a doubt that Mary Kelly knew her killer, and well at that, the sheet initially placed over her head when attacked, gives a true indication of that.
Regards Richard.

Isn't it possible that, if she was awake enough to cry out when attacked, she pulled the sheet over her own head in an instinctive attempt (sadly futile) to protect herself?

[SirJohnFalstaff]

I wouldn't think they were prostitutes in the traditional sense. Only when times got tough. Eddowes went hopping, Chapman was reported to selling sewn trinkets of sorts. I don't know about Nichols and Stride if they did anything of the sort.

Kelly was probably the only prostitute by trade and most likely a maneater based on Barnett's testimony. She apparently only went out on the streets when she didn't have a man taking care of her.

Columbo

I disagree, only Eddowes seem to evade all allusion of prostitution, even casual.

Tabram was known to rely on the trade when times were rough.
Nichols was indeed solliciting for her doss money the very night she was killed.
Chapman was known to bring a man back to the doss house.
Stride had several convinction for prostitution in Sweden.
Eddowes, like I said, I can't find anything that points into prostitution.
Kelly was at one point a high end prostitute in a west end bordello.

[Madam Detective]

To be honest, I think it's questionable whether any of them were actually prostitutes, but rather, I think it's a case of how society construed them - women who had sex outside of marriage were seen as fallen. It was as black and white as that. However, a great many poor people's marriages fell apart or their spouses died and they took up with someone else - or a succession of other people, much as we would today. Unfortunately, women needed to rely on men in the Victorian era - being footloose and fancy free wasn't a state to which any woman would aspire for social and practical reasons. The canonical five were branded as prostitutes by the police because they were down-and-outs - they were degraded in every way - poor, alcoholic and shacking up with someone to whom they weren't legally married was part and parcel of what made them reviled by the newspaper reading public. I don't feel there is any real substantial evidence to make a case for them being called prostitutes. The witness statements are all extremely woolly - so much so that they are constant source of dispute on this forum. Can we believe anything anyone said? I have a hard time believing that anyone could recognise anyone's face at night on the streets of pitch black Whitechapel. And in the case of Elizabeth Stride and MJK, who we know were prostitutes - does having been one once mean that you are forever tarred with that brush? That's pretty damning.

[Errata]

To be strictly fair, few serial killers target prostitutes BECAUSE they are prostitutes. They target prostitutes because prostitutes are not super safety conscious, are vulnerable, they go off with strange men, and are less likely to be missed. So any women who also fit those criteria even if they are not selling sex are also likely to be targets. Homeless women for example.

[drstrange169]

Hello Madame Detective,

Point well made.

"Prostitute" is a word loaded with connotations, many of which may well not apply in these cases.