The implications of the Double Event on Ripper victimology

[lynn cates]

simplicity

Hello Caz. No, it's not that it's too simple. I adore the simple; eschew the recherche.

But permit me to ask you this. Would the typical boyfriend be pleased that his significant other had earned 4d by turning a trick?

Cheers.
LC

[c.d.]

[QUOTE=lynn cates;153371]Hello DD. I think the time of the appointment was for 12:30--same as Liz. Hence her reaction.

But I like one thing you said. You referred to her "hiding" statement and its implications. If it were on the up and up and she were serious, then surely she would have gone straight home rather than turning left into Mitre sq.

Cheers.
LC[/QUOTE

On the other hand, she might have been able to avoid a hiding had she come home with money.

c.d.

[lynn cates]

but . . .

Hello CD. Ah! But, see above.

Cheers.
LC

[c.d.]

Hi Lynn,

By see above, I assume you mean your statement about the typical boyfriend. In a perfect world, I would agree with you. But I don't think that Kelly would have been shocked to find out that Kate was turning tricks (I'm thinking of the great line by Claude Rains in Casablanca). He might not have liked it but if he was the recipient of its benefits and it enabled him to have a few pints and something to eat he was probably okay with it.

c.d.

[lynn cates]

poor, corrupt official

Hello CD. As one Claude Rains aficionado to other, which line? He had several good ones.

Cheers.
LC

[c.d.]

"I'm shocked! shocked! to find out that there is gambling going on in here."

Substitute prostitution for gambling and I can see Kelly uttering the same line.

c.d.

[caz]

Hello Caz. No, it's not that it's too simple. I adore the simple; eschew the recherche.

But permit me to ask you this. Would the typical boyfriend be pleased that his significant other had earned 4d by turning a trick?

Cheers.
LC

Permit me to answer this with another question.

Why would the typical poor Victorian woman tell her stronger half that she had earned the money by 'turning a trick', if she already feared a hiding for coming home penniless with boozy breath, and knew he was also the type to show his displeasure if she admitted to selling herself for fourpence?

Would she not, in that case, have had the sense and the imagination to say the money had been begged, borrowed, stolen - or earned some other way?

Love,

Caz
X

[Canopy]

I doubt Jack knew his victims personally. I think that it is possible that he knew of them and also think it very likely that he knew of many other prostitutes that were not attacked. I think he planned how he'd kill rather than how, who and where...of "who and where" I suspect "where" comes before "who".

"Where" is of great importance as it determines the amount of risk he needs to take. "Who" is of lesser importance UNLESS he had some form of grudge against certain individuals (e.g. he'd taken the services of these women and knew not which had given him some disease, hence he had to wipe all of them out.) It is possible that he held grudges but I would suspect that one prostitute was as good as another to him and his motive was to "clean the streets" or similar.

I am pretty much of the opinion that these poor women ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time rather than being hunted down by a past (mentally disturbed) client.

I may be very wrong, however, that is what I see as the most likely explanation given the fact that the Ripper couldn't have known one of his victims was going to go get herself "locked up for being drunk" prior to her murder. If a meeting was to happen why kill the first with such little time to spare?

I am in agreement with caz with regards to victim selection - I think he took that he "stumbled upon" rather than "seeking them out".

All the best,

C.

[Bob Hinton]

Victim Selection

I think we can learn a valuable lesson from the Son of Sam murders. After he was caught investigators wanted to know how he selected his victims and asked Berkowitz about this.

He answered that he went out every night looking for victims, some nights he was lucky, other nights he wasn't.

I think the same could be said of JTR.

[curious4]

I think we can learn a valuable lesson from the Son of Sam murders. After he was caught investigators wanted to know how he selected his victims and asked Berkowitz about this.

He answered that he went out every night looking for victims, some nights he was lucky, other nights he wasn't.

I think the same could be said of JTR.

Hello Bob,

There is always the possibility that Jack "prepared" several possible victims, knowing the irregular life these women lived they could not be relied on to turn up for a pre-arranged meeting. I believe that he was disturbed after cutting Strideīs throat, and, frustrated, went on to a much more savage attack on Kate, who was possibly not as drunk as she made out, using the police cell as a safe place to wait before meeting Jack. She obviously wanted to keep the meeting quiet and to cover the question about the time threw out the line about getting a fine hiding when she got home - unlikely as she and her partner seemed to have been on the best of terms. Also he wasnīt really expecting her home that night.

??
C4

[Canopy]

Hello Bob,

There is always the possibility that Jack "prepared" several possible victims, knowing the irregular life these women lived they could not be relied on to turn up for a pre-arranged meeting. I believe that he was disturbed after cutting Strideīs throat, and, frustrated, went on to a much more savage attack on Kate, who was possibly not as drunk as she made out, using the police cell as a safe place to wait before meeting Jack. She obviously wanted to keep the meeting quiet and to cover the question about the time threw out the line about getting a fine hiding when she got home - unlikely as she and her partner seemed to have been on the best of terms. Also he wasnīt really expecting her home that night.

??
C4

Hello C4!

I have a problem in believing the theory that Jack 'prepared' several possible victims before hand. The reason behind my thinking is that Jack had 2 options in doing this: Either make the meeting place the same at different times OR make different meeting places for his possible victims. I think the second option unlikely as, given the fact that the meet would be unreliable at best, he wouldn't know whether to go "hither or tither" in order to satisfy his need to kill. The first option also runs risks - people could turn up early/late and go screaming "murder" in stumbling upon his bloody kill should this happen...a far more plausible answer would be that Jack "took whatever on offer" at the time.

This is just my thinking and maybe I'm very wrong - just makes more sense to me.

All the best,

C.

[JtRMordke]

If Jack had chosen to pre-select his victims, why drunken prostitutes?
I think what made the job easier for him was the fact that these were women with little or no family, they were intoxicated rendering them less able to resist and realise what was going on, and they were desperate. These important points mean that because nobody knew where they were and what they were doing on those nights, playing the part of a random man walking off with a prostitute to a dark corner to engage in what would have looked like sex, was all too easy. These women were at the wrong place at the wrong time, and Jack seized the opportunity to take whatever he could get his hands on. I think Jack was the kind of man to be frequently wandering the streets at night, seeking out potential victims without falling under too much suspicion from the police who would have been patrolling those streets like heck.
What's important to consider with the Stride murder is that JtR was taking risks. The place where he murdered her was busy and there was every possibility that somebody was going to go shooting round the corner as they did and stumble upon him mutilating the body. While some people may say that the location for this was untypical of him, I would say that being an opportunistic killer, Jack took what he could find (Stride) and tried to make the best of it without being caught. Frustrated that his murder had been disturbed, (The activity of the horse may well indicate that he was still lurking in the shadows when the cart stopped and the body was discovered, still bleeding out of the neck in a way that indicated it was but minutes fresh) I think Jack would have been shaking with anger that his main goal of performing post-mortem mutilations had been hindered, and because of this he felt an absolute screaming desire to fulfil his fantasy as he had tasted so briefly on Stride, but had had his opportunity for pleasure taken away.

[curious4]

Hello Canopy,
Replied once but it disappeared - try again! Good points, but I think different meeting places at different times - setting traps, as it were, and checking them. Although I do think that if he came across an available victim he would have taken the opportunity. Against that, if it is true that he was trying to implicate the Jewish population, perhaps the place was well chosen.

Hello Mord(ke),
Yes, great name for a Ripperologist lol. I think the risk-taking was a big part of Jackīs "thrill" - wanting to feel superior to those who wanted to catch him. I agree that he could well have been hiding in the shadows and even formed part of the crowd round the body for a time. As above, if he did want to implicate the Jewish population, however, he chose his places. Also I donīt think we can assume that the victims were all roaring drunk - not all the autopsies show alchohol in the stomach, or even the smell of alchohol.

Best regards,
C4

"In the mountains of madness there are small plateaux of sanity" - Terry Pratchett

[Phil H]

Can I belatedly throw in the thought that we should be very careful about treating the murders of Stride and Eddowes as a "double event" and then constructing any hypotheses on that foundation.

It is at least possible (pace the police in the 1880s) that the two women were killed by different hands. Stride was outside the normal "triangle" of the Whitechapel killings, unmutilated, and potentially the victim of her lover, Michael Kidney.

However, Eddowes is strongly identifiable as a classic JtR victim along with Nichols and Chapman.

That more than one killer was at work in London is indicated by the "domestic" elsewhere in the capital that very night; and in the wider term by the parallel "torso" murders which are not generally attributed to the Whitechapel murderer.

Further, if conceptually we abandon the idea of a "double event" it frees us mentally to consider the Eddowes case alone. No longer do we have a desperate, frantic "Jack" rushing around in search of someone to mutilate. He has time to stalk in his own "patch" and to alight on the still inebriated Eddowes, or to keep a pre-arranged meeting.

There is also a recent tendency to claim an "anti-Jewish" narrative under the murder sites - citing Clubs and other associations. I remain highly sceptical of this theory - the associations (to me at least) are very loose and unclear and I take the view that almost any spot in the East End in 1888 would have been close to some place which could be perceived as having Jewish associations (business, worship, abode, recreation, politics etc).

I am always interested in reading the views of others on the JtR case, but I do worry when the extrapolation is based on supposition and uncertain connections.

But please don't let me stop the discussion.

Phil

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Phil

Having made a study of the supposed Jewish connections to the case, I agree with you that the links are simply not sufficient to say that the Whitechapel murders were associated with the Jews.

I also think though that there simply aren't enough murders or enough data to conclude that Aldgate would be within the Whitechapel murderer's "patch" and areas south of the Whitechapel Road, e.g., Berner Street, not within his patch. You are saying it is dangerous to extrapolate. Well, I entirely agree and caution you about making that extrapolation.

All the best

Chris