If you could witness any ONE of the murders...

[spyglass]

Hi all,

I think to be honest, I my self would be over taken by fear and so bottle it.
However if I was to be invisible , I still wouldnt be able to watch a murder but I guess I would like to see who leaves MJK's room.

[mariab]

For me, this question boils down to one thing: at which murder scene could I make the biggest contribution to our knowledge of the case?
I think the answer is Stride. If I see BS man kill Stride, then IMO that conclusively shows either that Stride is not a Ripper victim, or that everything we know about the Ripper is wrong. Either would be a major contribution. Seeing whether or not the killer was "interrupted" would have the same effect. And just by viewing the murder, I will be able to answer those two questions, no matter what the truth ends up being.

Even if Stride got solved and proved as interrupted, they're still be people calling her a "non canonical", claiming there were multiple killers running around and whatnot.
I'm with Sleek and Phil here. Eddowes all the way. Just to verify if my suspicions on several details pertaining to Berner Street and to the Double Event are correct. But I would want to be able to watch the killer until he dropped the apron piece and see if he indeed wrote the graffito, and see where he spent the time between Eddowes and the apron. If indoors, I would return to my time and check out that house in the censuses. Preferably I would want to spend 48 hours in Victorian Whitechapel and investigate things then and there, but with the knowledge and insight we have today. (Like in Back to the future, hoverboard optional.)
Oh, and I would insist in using my own watch from the 21st century to compare the different Victorian church clocks chiming the time.

Another case related encounter I'd give a LOT to be a fly on the wall during its occurrence is Israel Schwartz' interrogation by Abberline and what Abberline said to Swanson afterwards.

[Archaic]

Oh, and I would insist in using my own watch from the 21st century to compare the different Victorian church clocks chiming the time.

If you get to use your watch, then I get to use my cell phone camera!

Maybe then we could finally nail the guy.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Damaso Marte]

Oh, and I would insist in using my own watch from the 21st century to compare the different Victorian church clocks chiming the time.

I can't believe I didn't think of this!

So many of the threads here exist because of an assumption that people in Victorian London could tell what time it is with pinpoint accuracy!

[sleekviper]

Hello Phil,
I really would not know what I was watching as far as the actual actions, so would probably not spend much time observing. Guy cutting the heck out of a body in the dark is all I could make note of without knowledge as to whether any cut meant something or was just luck with a sharp knife. I see your point, I would just be worthless at trying to make a solid observation concerning what he was doing. I would watch to see how in the world he keeps track of that blade. I could move a turkey on a platter from one room to the next, go back for a carving knife, go back again for a fork, then look like a fool trying to remember where in the world I set that knife down that I had a mere few seconds prior. I am in the light, no pressure, with a dead bird; he was in the dark, constant pressure, with a live loose canon, and he is done while I would be scratching my head wondering where I put that knife. Sure would like to get a glimpse of the bottom of his shoes to see if some mint is trapped between the heel and arch in a spot of mud.

[JW-D]

If you get to use your watch, then I get to use my cell phone camera!

Maybe then we could finally nail the guy.

Best regards,
Archaic

Really cool 'cause you can use the LED display light as a flashlight. Of course, once I illuminated the bloody gore, I'd freak and drop my cell phone on the cobblestones and it'd shatter into a zillion pieces. Then the poor constables would go nuts trying to figure out why Eddowes or whichever victim was carrying bits and dabs of unidentifiable doo-dads in her concealed pockets or bonnet.

Best,
Janice

[mariab]

If you get to use your watch, then I get to use my cell phone camera! Maybe then we could finally nail the guy.

Absolutely. But I also want a hoverboard! I would wear my habitual 21st century threads (dark pants/sweat/Nikes) under a long black Victorian coat and some face-hiding headgear. I would use the hoveboard to hang upside down in the air and observe what the perp did to the apron, and take pics with a zooming camera lense. (John Woo could film it.) On second thought, Rob Clack might be required as a co-passenger on said hoverboard.

Actually, I've had a dream like this once – that I was running through a badly lit Whitechapel chasing the perp, but lost him on the stairs inside of some maze-like Victorian house, and was thinking to myself "If only I had studied those Goad maps better!". And recently I've had another dream, that I was driving a boat through the Seine and fishing out torsos with Rob Clack!

[Archaic]

Absolutely. But I also want a hoverboard! I would wear my habitual 21st century threads (dark pants/sweat/Nikes) under a long black Victorian coat and some face-hiding headgear. I would use the hoveboard to hang upside down in the air and observe what the perp did to the apron, and take pics with a zooming camera lense. (John Woo could film it.) On second thought, Rob Clack might be required as a co-passenger on said hoverboard.

Actually, I've had a dream like this once – that I was running through a badly lit Whitechapel chasing the perp, but lost him on the stairs inside of some maze-like Victorian house, and was thinking to myself "If only I had studied those Goad maps better!". And recently I've had another dream, that I was driving a boat through the Seine and fishing out torsos with Rob Clack!

Umm... I think Rob's gonna be kinda nervous when he reads that.

Cheers,
Archaic

[mariab]

I don't think Rob is the nervous type. Steady hands for the and all that.

OK, thread highjacked!

[Beowulf]

Knowing there was nothing you could do I'd like to see Kelly.

I would very much like to know if he entered the room with her, slit her throat with her being on the farthest side of the bed...and I'd like to know, how is it she lay down and trusted him for only a whores wage.

I've often wondered if he did come in, her asleep, drunk, and cut her throat quick. Did he come in quietly after unlatching the door through the window? and how she didn't hear his approach.

How could she be so unaware if she entered into a contractual agreement with him in the room, and he pulling a knife so sudden as she had no time to stop him? Could she really have closed her eyes? That trust bothers me, if it happened that way.

Then to see when he pulled her across the bed, lifeless, for 'the doing', to see his face...was he entirely mad or entirely evil? Did he wear the grinning face of a devil or the face of a man lost in a strange world of madness, that included nothing of sadism but all of a lust to take away any likeness of a human being that might be looking out of her dead eyes, at him.

Did that make him start? Where did he start? Was it the condemning face or the vulnerable unresponsive body, did he enjoy his work or was it a necessary chore, dictated by an inner voice, a masters voice? Who was that master?

I'd like to see that face of his, as he slashed and dipped his hands in her body, was he talking? Did he laugh? Did he cry? Did he say anything that would've given away his mental map? Were there marks that were given for a particular reason? When he finished did he look finally satisfied, or creep away into the night like a thief? Did he look anguished, sorry, like a slave who has done a cruel masters bidding?

Did he take her heart?

[Harry the Hawker]

Good questions, Beowulf.

[Michael W Richards]

I was taken by the comment Maria made... "...claiming there were multiple killers running around and whatnot". A condescending and ill conceived comment.

There were at least 2 violent killers in London during the Ripper crimes, 1 in Bradford, and if the Canonical Group can ever be proven to be more than guesswork, then there are 7 or 8 unsolved violent murders in that same file that remain "unassigned". The Torso that washed up was of a woman killed in Late August, perfectly in time with the alleged Ripper start-up.

If you believe many senior officials, the "Ripper" was locked up before Alice MacKenzie's murder, and yet they responded with a surge in Police for the area in the same way they did when the "Ripper" murderer was supposedly still at large. The act suggests that if they were correct about Jack in the asylum, then they had yet another violent killer. Maybe the same man who killed a Canonical, or pre-Canonical.

Naivete aside, the problem with choosing a Canonical murder in order to catch the criminal is that one murder will not resolve the Ripper question. If its one mad killer on a given night, that doesnt mean the other 4 were killed by only one man, or that he was the same man.

I think if anything, the first murder would be revealing. Whomever killed Polly almost certainly killed Annie, then at least you might be able to solve 2 of them.

Regards,

Mike R

[Brenda]

.

I changed my mind, I would want to witness the Kelly murder just so we could settle the bolster debate once and for all!

[mariab]

I was taken by the comment Maria made... "...claiming there were multiple killers running around and whatnot". A condescending and ill conceived comment.

Hell, I was ill-conceived. (Before birth.)

[Debra A]

The Torso that washed up was of a woman killed in Late August, perfectly in time with the alleged Ripper start-up.

Mike, it was an arm that was washed up. The torso was dumped on land in the cellar vaults at the building site in Whitehall.