The clue of the coins

[Donpayasos]

Depends how poor. It's not like his victims had the price of a night's lodging on them.

And if the crimes were related to a distaste for prostitution, then taking the money might have been abhorrent to him. We're not dealing with a wholly rational person here.

I would say that it's pretty likely that the killer was local, and that he was probably from a social class just above that of his victims. This tends to be the case, though there could certainly be an exception. He had probably had dealings with prostitutes, which suggests he some money to spare.

The coins left by the victims seem to form some kind of statement: if the victims were murdered because they were prostitutes, the killer is presumably saying: Look, these are the ill-gotten gains, and this is what happens to you when you earn money this way. A crime scene deliberately arranged like this is making some kind of statement, though it's often an incoherent one.

[pinkmoon]

Surely to God if he was a poor local he would take the time and remove the coins

[Donpayasos]

Yeah, he evidently didn't need the pennies. So he couldn't have been completely desperate for cash. Or he may have regarded the money as tainted by prostitution. Sheer speculation, of course.

[pinkmoon]

Does anyone out there have ready access to The Times' contemporaneous coverage of the murders? If so, there's something they might like to check.

Quite some years ago, I read through the Times coverage as part of my research into a Ripper-related project. I found something that seemed to be unremarked-on elsewhere. Forgive me if I have this wrong and send someone on a wild goose chase, but to the best of my recollection this is genuine fresh information not dealt with elsewhere. By all means prove me wrong.

I was startled to read mention of coins being found arranged neatly at Polly Nichols' crime scene, something I had not read of elsewhere. The Annie Chapman site was, to the best of my knowledge, the first place where the victim's pocket change had been arrayed in view.

My first thought was that the paper had simply made a mistake (the press reporting was full of errors, as anyone who studies the case knows), but the report appeared BEFORE the Annie Chapman murder, so it wasn't possible that the reporter had transferred a detail from the later crime scene.

If someone can check the Times coverage after Nicholls' death and before Chapman's, they can see if I'm right. Apologies again if I'm wrong.

It doesn't really prove anything about the killer except that the coins thing happened more often than though. It doesn't even prove that the same guy killed both women, since Chapman's killer could have taken the MO from the Times. But I think that would be unlikely.

Can anybody confirm this memory of mine?

He took poor Annie's organs and rings but left her money could this mean that our killer was not a pauper.

[Donpayasos]

Does anyone out there have ready access to The Times' contemporaneous coverage of the murders? If so, there's something they might like to check.

Quite some years ago, I read through the Times coverage as part of my research into a Ripper-related project. I found something that seemed to be unremarked-on elsewhere. Forgive me if I have this wrong and send someone on a wild goose chase, but to the best of my recollection this is genuine fresh information not dealt with elsewhere. By all means prove me wrong.

I was startled to read mention of coins being found arranged neatly at Polly Nichols' crime scene, something I had not read of elsewhere. The Annie Chapman site was, to the best of my knowledge, the first place where the victim's pocket change had been arrayed in view.

My first thought was that the paper had simply made a mistake (the press reporting was full of errors, as anyone who studies the case knows), but the report appeared BEFORE the Annie Chapman murder, so it wasn't possible that the reporter had transferred a detail from the later crime scene.

If someone can check the Times coverage after Nicholls' death and before Chapman's, they can see if I'm right. Apologies again if I'm wrong.

It doesn't really prove anything about the killer except that the coins thing happened more often than though. It doesn't even prove that the same guy killed both women, since Chapman's killer could have taken the MO from the Times. But I think that would be unlikely.

Can anybody confirm this memory of mine?