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Hello, all.
A thought struck me like a bolt from the blue (or a knife from the black) as I was on my way home this afternoon. It regards speculation I've read that the Ripper may somehow have known his victims, either socially or 'professionally', and could therefore have targeted them, for whatever reason, because of it.
The basic theory is this: that the Ripper either knew or knew of each of his victims; that he targeted them, and them alone; that his work was finished after he killed these particular women, and his murders ceased. Whether he be a local client enraged at having contracted a sexually-transmitted disease from one of them or a royal physician covering a deeper conspiracy, this idea has floated around in some form or fashion in numerous, unrelated Ripper theories.
The more I dwell on the Double Event, the less likely I think this is. Assuming that both Stride and Eddowes were Ripper victims - a proposition I admit has been challenged in recent years but which I nevertheless feel comfortable in saying is the consensus stance among Ripperologists - it is a theory exploded almost before it has been established in the first. And the reason for it is essentially the same as that offered by those who discount Elizabeth Stride as a victim altogether.
It's well known that Jack the Ripper was hard-pressed on the night of September 30th, 1888. After polishing off Elizabeth Stride in Berner Street, he'd have had to take a fifteen minute trip into Mitre Square to hunt for his second victim of the night, Catherine Eddowes, and done so in a way that wouldn't have attracted attention from anyone out enjoying Whitechapel's nightlife.
I have no problem with this idea; as of now I am not convinced by the notion that Stride was killed by an unknown assailant. However, this sequence of events does call into question any theory which posits a direct and intimate link between the Whitechapel murderer and his victims. The East End is a big place, and the prostitutes there at the time were quite renowned for not sticking to any one particular place within it for fear of the constabulary. If the Ripper had premeditated his murders with the intent of killing Stride and Eddowes in particular, he ought to have considered sticking to his usual spacing between them; for while he was busy with Stride, he would have had no way of knowing that Eddowes would have been anywhere near the vicinity of Mitre Square. If Jack the Ripper were hunting these two women of all the prostitutes in Whitechapel, he was remarkably lucky to have found them both on the same night at all.
This is especially true when one considers that Eddowes had just left the Bishopgate police station, ostensibly to return home. If I may be permitted to enter the realm of fantasy for a moment, let us say that not only did the Ripper know Eddowes, but he had arranged to meet her in Mitre Square before her arrest in Aldgate High Street. Even assuming this were the case, Jack ran a great risk that the woman, at the least hung over from a night of heavy drinking and wanting to put as much distance between her cell and herself as possible, would have simply gone home to James Kelly. It makes no sense to me.
A thought struck me like a bolt from the blue (or a knife from the black) as I was on my way home this afternoon. It regards speculation I've read that the Ripper may somehow have known his victims, either socially or 'professionally', and could therefore have targeted them, for whatever reason, because of it.
The basic theory is this: that the Ripper either knew or knew of each of his victims; that he targeted them, and them alone; that his work was finished after he killed these particular women, and his murders ceased. Whether he be a local client enraged at having contracted a sexually-transmitted disease from one of them or a royal physician covering a deeper conspiracy, this idea has floated around in some form or fashion in numerous, unrelated Ripper theories.
The more I dwell on the Double Event, the less likely I think this is. Assuming that both Stride and Eddowes were Ripper victims - a proposition I admit has been challenged in recent years but which I nevertheless feel comfortable in saying is the consensus stance among Ripperologists - it is a theory exploded almost before it has been established in the first. And the reason for it is essentially the same as that offered by those who discount Elizabeth Stride as a victim altogether.
It's well known that Jack the Ripper was hard-pressed on the night of September 30th, 1888. After polishing off Elizabeth Stride in Berner Street, he'd have had to take a fifteen minute trip into Mitre Square to hunt for his second victim of the night, Catherine Eddowes, and done so in a way that wouldn't have attracted attention from anyone out enjoying Whitechapel's nightlife.
I have no problem with this idea; as of now I am not convinced by the notion that Stride was killed by an unknown assailant. However, this sequence of events does call into question any theory which posits a direct and intimate link between the Whitechapel murderer and his victims. The East End is a big place, and the prostitutes there at the time were quite renowned for not sticking to any one particular place within it for fear of the constabulary. If the Ripper had premeditated his murders with the intent of killing Stride and Eddowes in particular, he ought to have considered sticking to his usual spacing between them; for while he was busy with Stride, he would have had no way of knowing that Eddowes would have been anywhere near the vicinity of Mitre Square. If Jack the Ripper were hunting these two women of all the prostitutes in Whitechapel, he was remarkably lucky to have found them both on the same night at all.
This is especially true when one considers that Eddowes had just left the Bishopgate police station, ostensibly to return home. If I may be permitted to enter the realm of fantasy for a moment, let us say that not only did the Ripper know Eddowes, but he had arranged to meet her in Mitre Square before her arrest in Aldgate High Street. Even assuming this were the case, Jack ran a great risk that the woman, at the least hung over from a night of heavy drinking and wanting to put as much distance between her cell and herself as possible, would have simply gone home to James Kelly. It makes no sense to me.
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