The Double Event

[jerryd]

The ELO refers to him being a labourer in a cocoanut warehouse. The business probably sold cocoanuts to costermongers.

Daily News, Oct 1: Jews and Socialists frequent the club, and until an early hour in the morning dancing and singing often take place within its walls. The house is in charge of a man and his wife, who sleep on the premises. The man possesses a pony-cart, with which he is usually out during the greater part of the day, selling, it is said, cocoanuts and sweets.

Part of a detailed description of the costermonger's attire:

A well-to-do 'coster,' when dressed for the day's work, usually wears a small cloth cap, a little on one side.
The costermonger, however, prides himself most of all upon his neckerchief and boots.

Does that remind you of someone...?

age 30 ht. 5 ft. 7 or 8 in. comp. fair fair moustache, medium built, dress pepper & salt colour loose jacket, grey cloth cap with peak of same colour, reddish handkerchief tied in a knot, round neck, appearance of a sailor.

Sailor, or coster?

Horner & Sons located in Mitre Square most likely dealt in the sale of Cocoa-nuts/cocoanut oil and also breath sweets such as the kind found on Elizabeth Stride.

On a side note, Mr. Horner was a director of the newly formed (1888), Flameless Explosives Company which dealt in dynamite.

Good Words - Google Books (pages 272-276)

[jerryd]

Where Wentworth meets Commercial st. there is a Cocoanut Wharehouse.



Notice the Victoria Home in the bottom right corner, facing onto Commercial street.

Hi Wick.

I believe your map is about where Isaac Lewis Jacobs was tracked down by Constable Andrews. Jacobs referred to it as, Cocoanut Place.

"About ten minutes to 1 this morning I left home to buy some supper in M'Carthy's in Dorset-street. I had occasion to pass Newcastle-place into Old Castle-street. When I got to Cocoanut-place a constable ran up to me."

[jerryd]

A coconut dealer !

Hi Dickere.

He probably didn't deal in coconuts, but cocoa-nuts and there is a difference, believe it or not. (Excerpt below taken from here, ‘Coconut’ vs. 'Cocoanut' | Merriam-Webster

The spelling cocoanut is rarely used in contemporary texts, the shift to coconut prompted possibly by a need to distinguish the word from an entirely different plant product, the cocoa nut.

The words “Cocoa” or “Koko,” etc., should never be used as an abbreviation for the name “Cocoanut,” as “Cocoa” describes an individual product of chocolate, and the word “Koko” implies same.
— V. L. Price, Confectioners' and Bakers' Gazette, Volume 36, 10 Jan. 1915

Cocoa nut is the obsolete name for the cacao nut, which itself is not technically a nut; it is, rather, the seed of the cacao tree. Cacao is the seed used in making cocoa; its name derives via Spanish from the Nahuatl cacahuatl.

[Scott Nelson]

Norah Christmas probably tried to wash Cohen's bloodstained clothing. Good luck with that. She then pops up at 35 Middlesex Street in the 1894 directory.

[Wickerman]

A coconut dealer !

Where Wentworth meets Commercial st. there is a Cocoanut Wharehouse.



Notice the Victoria Home in the bottom right corner, facing onto Commercial street.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Not just any laundry. That was the laundry of Norah Christmas!!!

I knew her father Scott. Chubby guy, long white beard.

[Scott Nelson]

How close was 253 Whitechapel Road, in 1888, to Spectacle Alley?
We already know something about that address...

Baxter: [/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE]What is No. 253?
Coram: A laundry.

Not just any laundry. That was the laundry of Norah Christmas!!!

[erobitha]

The ELO refers to him being a labourer in a cocoanut warehouse. The business probably sold cocoanuts to costermongers.

Daily News, Oct 1: Jews and Socialists frequent the club, and until an early hour in the morning dancing and singing often take place within its walls. The house is in charge of a man and his wife, who sleep on the premises. The man possesses a pony-cart, with which he is usually out during the greater part of the day, selling, it is said, cocoanuts and sweets.

Part of a detailed description of the costermonger's attire:

A well-to-do 'coster,' when dressed for the day's work, usually wears a small cloth cap, a little on one side.
The costermonger, however, prides himself most of all upon his neckerchief and boots.

Reminds of the UKTV programme Voices of Victorian London from a few years back. They dramatised extracts from Henry Mayhew's book:

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Was that a real job? Surely not!

The ELO refers to him being a labourer in a cocoanut warehouse. The business probably sold cocoanuts to costermongers.

Daily News, Oct 1: Jews and Socialists frequent the club, and until an early hour in the morning dancing and singing often take place within its walls. The house is in charge of a man and his wife, who sleep on the premises. The man possesses a pony-cart, with which he is usually out during the greater part of the day, selling, it is said, cocoanuts and sweets.

Part of a detailed description of the costermonger's attire:

A well-to-do 'coster,' when dressed for the day's work, usually wears a small cloth cap, a little on one side.
The costermonger, however, prides himself most of all upon his neckerchief and boots.

Does that remind you of someone...?

age 30 ht. 5 ft. 7 or 8 in. comp. fair fair moustache, medium built, dress pepper & salt colour loose jacket, grey cloth cap with peak of same colour, reddish handkerchief tied in a knot, round neck, appearance of a sailor.

Sailor, or coster?

[Joshua Rogan]

Daily News 1 Oct;

"Access to Mitre-square is gained from three sides - Mitre-street, Duke-street, and St. James's-place - and the neighbourhood is given over to small houses and shops, chiefly inhabited by dealers in foreign fruits and nuts, grapes, peaches, cocoanuts, almonds, &c."

[erobitha]

A coconut dealer !

Was that a real job? Surely not!

[Dickere]

A coconut dealer !

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Hi Andrew,

That's not right though, is it? Your loading the deck in your favour. The evidence is that that knife was stated not to be the murder weapon.

For all we know, it may well have been the murder weapon, dropped by Schwartz or Goldstein, smuggled out of Berner St, planted or whatever else. But you can't claim "evidence", when what evidence there is actually claims the total opposite.

'As there is a theory' would be more accurate.

Hi Al.

To me, 'theory' is a stronger word than 'evidence', as I think of a theory more in the scientific sense than the common sense.
A theory is model of the world with substantial evidence supporting it. I guess the more common use of the word 'theory', is closer to what is probably better described as hypothesis. So go ahead and mentally substitute 'theory' for 'evidence' - that's fine by me.

The murder weapon was regarded as being too long to have inflicted the wound as described, as she was found lying on her left side.
So did the murderer place the victim on the ground, and then pull on the bow of the scarf to lift the victim to a point that he could cut on the left side side and avoid arterial spray? Sounds plausible, but which way would that leave the scarf turned?

Blackwell: The deceased had round her neck a check silk scarf, the bow of which was turned to the left and pulled very tight.

It was the 'wrong' way, so that theory doesn't work too well. Most likely she were cut when lying on her back, and the murderer got sauce on his shirt. Yet if she were on her back when murdered, the constraint on the size of the knife is lifted. So the knife smuggling theory still has legs.

Thomas Coram: I live at No. 67, Plummer's-road, and work for a cocoanut dealer. On Monday shortly after midnight I left a friend's house in Bath-gardens, Brady-street. I walked straight down Brady-street and into Whitechapel-road towards Aldgate. I first walked on the right side of Whitechapel-road, and afterwards crossed over to the left, and when opposite No. 253 I saw a knife lying on the doorstep.

My understanding is that Spectacle Alley is now called Whitechurch Passage. How close was 253 Whitechapel Road, in 1888, to Spectacle Alley?
We already know something about that address...

Baxter: What is No. 253?
Coram: A laundry.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

As there is evidence for the Dutfield's Yard knife being dumped, it could be argued that Goldstein is the least likely of the 3. Yet there is this curious story - https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...922#post756922

Hi Andrew,

That's not right though, is it? Your loading the deck in your favour. The evidence is that that knife was stated not to be the murder weapon.

For all we know, it may well have been the murder weapon, dropped by Schwartz or Goldstein, smuggled out of Berner St, planted or whatever else. But you can't claim "evidence", when what evidence there is actually claims the total opposite.

'As there is a theory' would be more accurate.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff.

Thanks for the considered response.

I find the suggestion that he could be charming in between bouts of psychosis much harder to accept that he was simply psychopathic. All the women were street smart. They were desperate not stupid.

To that end it’s likely he was fulfilling a certain lust need with the post-mortem mutilation. That’s was his ambition. His parcel was most likely to carry home whatever he was able to harvest rather than bloody his clothes. The knife would not be that easily accessed if he had to take it from a parcel and as time was of the essence he would need fast access to it.

The inside sleeve does appear cumbersome I admit in hindsight. During my own research I did find that fighting knives from the military came with leather sheaves you could attach to a belt. Soldiers had the same problem - how could they access the knife quickly on the battlefield.

I’m not suggesting he was a soldier - I’m suggesting he may have been good friends with one.

Hi erobitha,

Pscyhopathic does tend to be easier to imagine, partly because we often presume that psychosis manifests as a babbling idiot (the gutter feeding Kosminski type). However, psychosis is not always so Hollywood, and the disturbed and bizarre thought patterns can be there and yet the person can still be charming and appear normal, at least during relatively short interactions. And while I agree, the victims were all street smart, and desperate, many were also dunk, or at least impaired (Chapman, while not drunk, was very ill, and had apparently been wondering the street for much of the night; Nichols was last seen drunk, Eddowes had just been released as being able to care for herself - so not sober, but just not drunk enough to require being held). Stride was apparently seen in the Bricklayers Arms earlier, so presumably had been drinking (though there's no indication she was impaired - was that why things "went wrong" perhaps, and JtR, if it was him, left after only cutting her throat), and finally Kelly was possibly drinking that night as well, her singing, and some other statements I think suggest that possibility, particularly if one accepts the sightings in the morning as genuine). So, Stride stands out as the one murder that seems to have "gone wrong" for JtR (again, if it was him), and she's also the one for which there is the least evidence of being impaired.

I like your idea that the parcel was for carrying away organs, that's an interesting idea. And yes, I agree, that the parcel containing knives would be awkward, and unless it just unrolls, not the most efficient system. A single knife, carried in his pocket, strikes me as being easily concealable, and also not particularly slow to access. All evidence points to their throats being cut while prone, with JtR on the right side of the victim, and cutting the left side of the throat to direct the blood away from him, except Kelly. In her case, there's no room on her left side (she's on the bed, and the wall is there), so her killer is on her left side but cuts her right side of the throat, again, keeping the blood spray away from him. It would be more awkward in that case, as I see him using his left hand to hold the head (probably hand over mouth or on chin) to turn the head away from him, then drawing the knife with his right hand to cut the throat. To do that with Kelly has the right hand having to cross under the left arm, and would be a bit more cumbersome but still entirely possible. So I see the same basic MO, it's just situational differences that required him to be on Kelly's left side instead of her right, other than the left/right reversal, he basically did the same thing in all 5 murders (in terms of the killing stroke).

Anyway, I think either psychopathic or psychosis is entirely possible, and that one of those is likely (just don't know which would be more probable; I get the feeling that post-mortem mutilators like JtR are more often psychotic than psychopathic, but I can't recall where I came across that information, nor do I recall what the odds were; probably not so great that one would want to make a call though).

- Jeff