The Grisly

[Bridewell]

Henry Flower;221804

]Bridewell, neither do I.

I was being flippant.

I know.

I think you're all lovely.

On behalf of us all - thank-you!

Regards, Bridewell.

[Cogidubnus]

who were the two mystery men on Bakers Row posing as Cross and Paul.

John and Ringo?

I was being flippant

I bet the dolphin costume was most becoming...unless you didn't do it on porpoise!

On a more serious note, what Simon says does demonstrate just how much our perceptions are framed around a 21st Century concept of time. In an age when people depended mostly on church clocks and even these often weren't synchronised it's all too easy for one witness to be 10 minutes out one way, a second witness 10 minutes out the other, and it starts looking like nonsense...all the more so when your witnesses have, as part of their agenda, self-aggrandisement, concealment, natural reticence or just sheer cussedness...

All the best

Dave

[Simon Wood]

Hi Dave,

I accept your point about the non-synchronisation of 1888 Londoners in general and witnesses in particular. The cost of reliable pocket watches was prohibitive and the accuracy of public clocks wanting. Even the 1880 country-wide adoption of "railway time" had done little to imbue the ordinary man and woman in the street with any great temporal sense.

It therefore seems incredible [to me at least] how so much testimony and evidence relied on accurate estimations of time.

A few random examples—

Emily Holland/Jane Oram—Whitechapel Church chimed 2.30 am as she talked to Polly Nichols.
PC Neil—3.45 am when he found the body.
Mrs Long/Durrell—5.30 am by the Truman's brewery clock as she passed 29 Hanbury Street.
Albert Cadosch—Passed Spitalfields Church at 5.32 am.
Inspector Chandler—First aware of the Chapman murder at 6.02 am.
Dr. Phillips—Summoned to Hanbury Street at 6.20 am. Arrived 6.30 am.
Joseph Lawende—1.35 am when he saw Eddowes and partner.
PC Watkins—1.44 am when he returned to Mitre Square.
Louis Diemschitz—1.00 am as he turned into Berner Street.
Dr Blackwell—1.16 am arrival at Dutfields Yard.
George Hutchinson—Spitalfields Church chimed 3.00 am as he left Dorset Street.

All these timings have in some way defined the Whitechapel murders/helped shape the concept of JtR's lightning surgical expertise and split-second getaway skills.

And yet, depending on which point/witness/scenario/theory is being promoted, these timings are either immovably set in stone or dismissed as infinitely tractable.

Do you believe that Ripperology often moves the goalposts?

Regards,

Simon

[Cogidubnus]

Do you believe that Ripperology often moves the goalposts?

It asks us to Simon...all the time

Dave

[Roy Corduroy]

All these timings have in some way defined the Whitechapel murders/helped shape the concept of JtR's lightning surgical expertise and split-second getaway skills.

Thank you Simon for clocking those. But for some of the murders, it doesn't really matter what time it is, does it? As shewed in this song -

On the sidewalk
Sunday mornin'
Lies a body
Oozin' life

Someone's sneakin'
Round the corner
Could that someone
Be Mack the Knife

Empress Hall 1956 (click)

And yet, depending on which point/witness/scenario/theory is being promoted, these timings are either immovably set in stone or dismissed as infinitely tractable.

Do you believe that Ripperology often moves the goalposts?

I see your point there.

And by the way Simon those pesky Dodgers of yours just swept my Cards. I'm so mad I could just **** little green apples.

Roy

[Tom_Wescott]

It's a fantastic story; one it is hard to believe a reporter either misinterpreted or invented, and which has dramatic and puzzling implications. Suddenly there were no PCs Thain and Mizen flashing answering lanterns, no PC Mizen fetching the ambulance, no Dr Llewellyn conducting a kerb-side examination, no slaughtermen standing by the body in Buck’s Row, no Inspector Spratling lifting up Polly Nichols’s clothes at the mortuary to discover she had been disembowelled, and no apparent evidence of Polly’s ulster and long dress having absorbed the blood so conspicuously absent from outside Mr Brown’s stable gates.

And then there's the THIRD version, in which Nichols was discovered by a young boy (Mrs. Green's son, perhaps?), who knelt down to check on the woman and realized she was dead when he stood and found blood on the knee of his pants. He then ran off in search of a constable, finding PC Neil.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[curious]

It asks us to Simon...all the time

Dave

It seems to me the original people who worked this case moved the goal posts -- which might somewhat account for the mess this is.


Considering time -- Perhaps because they did not have reliable clocks and watches they could tell time in other ways. I suspect this is a farfetched thought for city folks, but people's education once included telling time by the sun and movement of the stars. My dad was terrific and always very close. I was thinking right on the dot, but perhaps it was more like within 15 minutes. I found this ability of his fascinating. He was an old farmer at heart, so I'm guessing city folks might not have learned the same skill. But people of different eras had different skill sets from what we do today.

So, did city folks ever learn to tell time by nature?

[curious]

And then there's the THIRD version, in which Nichols was discovered by a young boy (Mrs. Green's son, perhaps?), who knelt down to check on the woman and realized she was dead when he stood and found blood on the knee of his pants. He then ran off in search of a constable, finding PC Neil.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Tom,
This is very interesting.

Is this version here on casebook or where might I find it?

Also, could he have discovered Nichols after Cross/Lechmere and Paul had left her?

curious

[Lechmere]

Lynn
Why the throat cuts?
In the frenzy of killing do not expect cold logical calculation behind each violent action.

Regarding the timings, another reason why it is difficult to reconcile them is that some people probably lied about the time for a variety of reasons.
What reasons?
Some might say that a particular person may have lied because he was the guilty party!
Or they may have been guilty of something else and was covering their own tracks.
In the case of policemen or people working, they may have been skiving or negligent in their duties and so they needed to lie in order to protect themselves.

With regard to this, we have PC Thain who seems to have skived in leaving his cape with the three butchers of Winthrop Street and seems to have popped in to tell them about the murder instead of just focussing on attending to his duties (fetching Llewellyn?)
We have PC who carried on knocking up instead of rushing off to attend to the corpse (but in his defence I believe Cross deliberately minimised the situation).
In the Eddowes case we have PC Long and the mystery of when the apron appeared.

Regarding the different versions – it is common in a wide variety of sensationalist cases for widely variant versions of what happened appearing initially.
People have lurid imaginations and in the absence of firm stories all sorts of tales get told. I remember watching live coverage in the early hours of the morning on the news of the death of Princess Dianna ad they identified completely the wrong part of Paris of the scene.

[lynn cates]

twin cuts

Hello Lechmere. Thanks.

"In the frenzy of killing do not expect cold logical calculation behind each violent action."

Very well. But surely our analysis must be logical? Something in at least broad outline?

After all, the twin cuts were made in both the first two cases. That does not seem random.

Cheers.
LC

[Lechmere]

Do you mean the first two cases being Nichol and Chapman?
I would say Tabram was almost certainly the first case.
I see trial and error and progression.
Maybe the throat cut was to obliterate evidence of strangulation? Who knows. I would not presume to exactly know the mind of a serial killer!

With Nichols I base my assumption that the abdominal wounds were committed first, on Llewellyn's judgement and on the lack of blood from the throat wound compared to the abdomen.

I also base my assumption on an examination of what would make sense on the ground.
I think the Ripper would have been more concerned with being discovered from a westerly direction – from the direction of the School where there was dead ground just 50 yards away.
Polly lay parallel with the gate to Brown’s stable yard with her feet to the west and her head to the east.
I think he faced west standing above her head lifted her skirts (which were loose about her body and so will have risen clear giving access to her stomach) which will have acted as a shield from splash.
I think then he cut her throat facing the same way – hence the confusion over whether the cuts were carried out by a left-handed person.
This is why I think he did not notice Paul until he was dangerously close. If you prefer this is why he didn’t notice Cross until he was dangerously close – the difference being that Cross didn’t notice the Ripper’s departure. This is why he didn’t leave the stomach wounds on display (which I am fairly sure was an important part of the process for him).
After cutting the throat he noticed someone approaching (Paul or Cross) and whipped his blade, and threw the dress down in the process.

[Rubyretro]

I would not presume to exactly know the mind of a serial killer!

Very good post, and I agree with it in general....not so sure that you wouldn't make a good serial killer.

[Lechmere]

A good serial killer - or a good bad serial killer.

[lynn cates]

punctus contra punctum

Hello Lechmere. Thanks.

"Do you mean the first two cases being Nichols and Chapman?'

Yes. I should have said, "canonical."

"I would say Tabram was almost certainly the first case."

But she makes no difference to my question. And she was never slashed.

"I see trial and error and progression."

OK. Trial and error in WHAT? Killing? Well, they all were successfully killed.

"Maybe the throat cut was to obliterate evidence of strangulation?"

Perhaps. But it did not work as Polly and Annie were easily seen to have been strangled.

"Who knows. I would not presume to exactly know the mind of a serial killer!"

Indeed. But "serial killer" is merely an assumption.

"With Nichols I base my assumption that the abdominal wounds were committed first, on Llewellyn's judgement and on the lack of blood from the throat wound compared to the abdomen."

Well, given her strangulation, I'm not sure there should have been much blood anyway.

"I also base my assumption on an examination of what would make sense on the ground.
I think the Ripper would have been more concerned with being discovered from a westerly direction – from the direction of the School where there was dead ground just 50 yards away."

But why assume that the assailant had ANY fear? He may have been a lunatic.

"Polly lay parallel with the gate to Brown’s stable yard with her feet to the west and her head to the east."

Correct.

"I think he faced west standing above her head lifted her skirts (which were loose about her body and so will have risen clear giving access to her stomach) which will have acted as a shield from splash.
I think then he cut her throat facing the same way – hence the confusion over whether the cuts were carried out by a left-handed person."

Perhaps the confusion lay with Llewellyn himself in reconstructing the murder?

"This is why I think he did not notice Paul until he was dangerously close."

But why assume he noticed Paul at all?

"If you prefer this is why he didn’t notice Cross until he was dangerously close – the difference being that Cross didn’t notice the Ripper’s departure. This is why he didn’t leave the stomach wounds on display (which I am fairly sure was an important part of the process for him)."

But again, that depends on a late 20th c psychological analysis pertaining to a serial killer. Again, why assume one?

"After cutting the throat he noticed someone approaching (Paul or Cross) and wiped his blade, and threw the dress down in the process."

Not bad, but this is purely conjecture based on a certain type. Not bad, but . . .

Cheers.
LC

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE]

A good serial killer - or a good bad serial killer.

Evidently a well good baaaad serial killer...twerp.