Did the 5 canonical victims know each other?

[BillS]

One of the things that I always found attractive about Stephen Knight's Walter Sickert/William Gull/Netley theory was that the victims were not randomly chosen but were killed for a purpose. This explains why the murders started and, then ended. The latter ppoint is interesting since once they have started serial killers typically do not stop until they are caught.

I believe to suppport his theory he calims that the women all came from a very small area and drank in the same pub. Is this true? Is there any evidence that they did know each other, except for the fact that living in a small area they probably did have some social interactions?

Bill S

[perrymason]

Hi Bill,

Some did frequent some of the same places like The Britannia, but no link has ever been found to suggest that they specifically knew each other...and by extension, they might also know the man who killed them.

There is one case that intrigues me personally though, and its that Catherine Eddowes uses a version of Mary Kellys name and her address the night before she dies, on a pawn ticket for Johns boots...Jane Kelly of Dorset St. She also uses Mary Kelly of Fashion Street with Hutt in the Police Station Saturday night/Sunday morning.

With Mary being the next victim, and Kate effectively being identified as Mary Kelly, by herself,..... the night she is killed...it does make for interesting fodder.

Cheers.

[Elias]

I'd be more surprised if they didn't know each other to be honest. There was a much stronger community spirit in general in those days, and for these women, living in the same area, living out similar lives, it is highly likely they knew each other. But I think you could've picked out a group of 5 or so prostitutes from the east end at random at that time and found some link between them. I don't think it holds too much significance myself.

[Sam Flynn]

What militates against this premise is the fact that it sometimes took a comparatively long time to identify the victims. Even when an ID was obtained, the witnesses often knew the victim only by a nick-name or pseudonym, which in itself suggests a passing acquaintance, rather than a particularly close or long-standing friendship.

It may also be significant that not one "biographical witness" (if you get my drift) seems to have appeared in more than one case. Had the victims been friendly with one another, one might have expected at least one or two shared acquaintances to have come forward, if not to the inquest, then at least to the press. We see none of this - indeed, each victim (canonical or otherwise) seems to have had their own little cluster of friends.

[perrymason]

What militates against this premise is the fact that it sometimes took a comparatively long time to identify the victims. Even when an ID was obtained, the witnesses often knew the victim only by a nick-name or pseudonym, which in itself suggests a passing acquaintance, rather than a particularly close or long-standing friendship.

It may also be significant that not one "biographical witness" (if you get my drift) seems to have appeared in more than one case. Had the victims been friendly with one another, one might have expected at least one or two shared acquaintances to have come forward, if not to the inquest, then at least to the press. We see none of this - indeed, each victim (canonical or otherwise) seems to have had their own little cluster of friends.

Hi Sam,

Isnt there a connection that Pearly Poll has to more than one victim? Perhaps to Annie....I dont recall who.

Best regards.

[Sam Flynn]

Isnt there a connection that Pearly Poll has to more than one victim? Perhaps to Annie...

Indeed, Mike, it was reported that Pearly knew Annie. They shared the same digs, however, which might explain their acquaintance - if indeed it were true, and not based on hearsay, confabulation or press ingenuity. If not, it's one thing to "know" someone casually and quite another to "know" them as a friend, which is one of the cornerstones of some of the more sensational Ripper theories.

[perrymason]

Indeed, Mike, it was reported that Pearly knew Annie. They shared the same digs, however, which might explain their acquaintance - if indeed it were true, and not based on hearsay, confabulation or press ingenuity. If not, it's one thing to "know" someone casually and quite another to "know" them as a friend, which is one of the cornerstones of some of the more sensational Ripper theories.

Fair points Sam. For me Kates alias choice twice in her last 24 hours, and the fact that the next attributed victim was of the same name and street as the name on Johns boots pawn ticket is a possible connection...as you say, perhaps not more than an aquaintance or a name she has heard, but it seems to me the last 2 women on the Rippers list were both calling themselves Mary Kelly the night they died.

Cheers Sam.

[Suzi]

Hi all-
It is odd that Kate gave her name as Mary Ann Kelly or whatever...strangely poignant given the circumstances I suppose.

I do think it unlikely that the 'Famous Five' hadn't rubbed up against eachother over time though...the proximity of the lodging and lurking and general walking about (for whatever reason) would suggest that they probably were, at the very least -at the same pub, mingling with the crowd and would have known eachother at least by sight......maybe from the odd fight!!!!!

There is a strange thing though that all the inquest statements never feature anything from a barmaid/pub owner etc etc (Hmmmmmmmmm)

Mind you there is always a tad of a worry re our Pearly.............

Good point about the 'militating' Sam........in some cases it took days didn't it, to work out who the cadaver was!

Hmmmmmmmmm despite the 'My sister kiss' dream by the daft "Liz Stride Sister" story

Suzi x

[Jane Coram]

Hi BillS,

There are a few tentative connections between lodging houses which might suggest they vaguely knew each other by sight at least, but I doubt anything more. Polly and Kate were literally in a handshake of one another in Flower and Dean Street, at the White House and Cooney's respectively at the same time and could well have passed each other on the street at some time or other.

And they probably all did drink at the same waterholes and could have known each other vaguely from there, but there were a hell of a lot of people crammed into the area at the time and those lodging houses had a vast intake of transitory residents who probably had little interest in other people's business.

True, there was a communal kitchen in the houses, and there are some suggestions from press reports that people that went back to the same lodging house on a regular basis did get to be known there, but it seemed that although people might be familiar with people from their own lodging houses, they tended to be a bit tribal and not mix with people from the others that much.

It's possible that Pearly did know Annie......but there isn't enough evidence to suggest a stronger connection than passing acquaintances for the most part.

There have been quite a few connections put forward in the past between them though which are complete red herrings, for instance that Annie lived opposite Miller's Court and that Liz lived in Dorset Street as well.

Gets quite hard to disentangle fact from fiction, but Sam's points are good ones.....you would have thought that if they were all intimate friends, that they would have had at least some friends in common and more importantly the police would have made the connection themselves.

Best guess, they probably nodded to each other in the street, maybe even exchanged the odd word, but a conspiracy of close friends? I really don't think so.

Hugs

Jane

xxxx

[perrymason]

Hi again all, Suz, Janie.....we dont see you here much Jane...sadly, but good post.

I think you made a really good point about Dorset St, by far the only location that 4..or is it all 5?, can be connected with, at some point in their respective lives.

Id agree with the idea that we are not likely looking at murders with one common thread let alone acquaintance, hence not likely related to their all knowing or not knowing this one "person".

footnote to Suz....Jane Kelly of # 6 Dorset on the pawn ticket for the boots, and Mary Kelly of Fashion St to Hutt.

Cheers.

[Suzi]

Cheers Michael-

That's what comes of going out to celebrate a birthday one day early!!! The Mary's get a tad muddled..just before they turn into alligators!!!

Good points Janey...I imagine it was a passing 'ello c**k in the street too and maybe close friendships were few and far between,but that a lot of people just looked out for eachother,like Mary offering a floor/bed etc etc

Suz x

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Mike,

I think you made a really good point about Dorset St, by far the only location that 4..or is it all 5?, can be connected with, at some point in their respective lives.

The thing to remember is that Dorset Street housed a huge number of people at any one time - there are 895 definite "hits" in the 1881 census, for example. For simplicity's sake, let's take it to be 1,000 and make the generous assumption that an average person had 5 close friends in their immediate neighbourhood - that would give odds of 200:1 that person "A" was friendly with person "B", and the odds would get increasingly longer once one included friends "C", "D" and "E".

Even then, this only works if A, B, C, D and E all lived in the street at the same time, which we know wasn't the case. When it was, we had Annie Chapman living at the far Western end of Dorset Street and Kelly living at the far Eastern end, with several hundred people crammed into the dwellings in between. The greater the separation in terms of geography and time of residence, the longer the odds against victims being anything other than "nodding acquaintances" becomes.

The odds would shorten if there was some special factor that may have brought the victims together (in life) but, conspiracy theories apart, there was nothing to differentiate them from any number of the faceless, desperate poor that inhabited Dorset Street and many others in the vicinity.

[detective abberline]

Stephen Knight's theory was very attractive and ultimately flawed. The Masons/PAV/Gull conspiracy made for a very good fiction story but not the truth. It's quite possible - who will ever know - that the murder victims knew or even saw each other. In the end, it makes no difference. Jack didn't seek them out because they knew each other.

[jason_c]

There's no record of Kelly mentioning any of her friends had been murdered by the Ripper. Given our tendency to exaggerate, had a passing acquaintance been murdered the victm would soon have become Kelly's "murdered best friend". Its a good story to ellicit sympathy. The same goes for Eddowes.

[paul emmett]

In the end, it makes no difference. Jack didn't seek them out because they knew each other.

Because we can't be sure that their knowing each other didn't have something to do with the killings, I don't think we can conclude that it makes no difference if they knew each other or not. I feel, that is, that this IS a worthwhile thread. If one could prove that they did(or didn't), indeed, know each other, I think that would be heipful.