Why Ada?

[DRoy]

Hi DRoy.

You might recall that Mrs Prater informs us that the women in these tenements did bring men home with them.

"... It was a common thing for the women living in these tenements to bring men home with them. They could do so as they pleased."

And, although this is surely a case of mistaken identity we do read of a sighting, or understanding, that bringing men home was not unusual:

"The man accompanied the woman to her lodgings, which are on the second floor, the little boy being sent to a neighbour's house."

Immorality is carried on in these houses, openly and with impunity.

Purely from an impartial point of view, a woman with a room to herself can make more money from a private liaison in a warm bed, than a quickie in some cold & less than private back alley.

Why wouldn't they bring men home?

Jon,

Thank you for the quotes! However, none of that relates specifically to MJK. Since she was sharing her bed with her unfortunate friends I'm not sure how often she would be bringing clients home. Regardless...

I was under the impression that they didn't take them home. I'm obviously losing my mind because I thought I read it many times that it was common practice for them to stay outside.

I'd imagine they would do so to avoid having to make the trek back to where they may pick up their clients, they'd be getting free drinks/food from clients if at a public house, avoid beatings if behind closed doors, etc, etc. I agree we can assume they'd be paid better money for a warm room and a bed but I've yet to read anything confirming as such. Obviously I am mistaken though.

Thanks again Jon.

Cheers
DRoy

[Wickerman]

Hi DRoy.

You might recall that Mrs Prater informs us that the women in these tenements did bring men home with them.

"... It was a common thing for the women living in these tenements to bring men home with them. They could do so as they pleased."

And, although this is surely a case of mistaken identity we do read of a sighting, or understanding, that bringing men home was not unusual:

"The man accompanied the woman to her lodgings, which are on the second floor, the little boy being sent to a neighbour's house."

Immorality is carried on in these houses, openly and with impunity.

Purely from an impartial point of view, a woman with a room to herself can make more money from a private liaison in a warm bed, than a quickie in some cold & less than private back alley.

Why wouldn't they bring men home?

[DRoy]

Wouldn't it be counter intuitive to use MJK as an example when Inquest testimony suggests she did bring a client home?

Jon,

I'm not disputing MJK took a client home (although we don't in fact know it was a client) but from what I've read prostitutes would work their trade outside. MJK apparently besides her girl friends, didn't bring customers there. When did she start to? Is it normal to? Etc

Dave,

I realize Rose said she brought the guy home and that Ada had many visitors but why does that mean we should insinuate she is a prostitute? Would prostitutes take people to their home? Wouldn't it have been difficult if Ada was married? If Rose didn't see Ada's husband, how does she know who it was that ran out of the house or who the many visitors were?

Cheers
DRoy

[DVV]

Ada DID bring the man home, if Rose is to be believed - and I see no reason to disbelieve her.

[Wickerman]

Wouldn't it be counter intuitive to use MJK as an example when Inquest testimony suggests she did bring a client home?

[DRoy]

I'm a little confused why people think she may have been a prostitute?

One of the reasons apparently is because Rose says that she has visitors but does that mean prostitution? She said she was married and was living in the same house as Rose and Rose's mother (although on seperate floors). It was my understanding that prostitutes wouldn't bring their clients home, at least that is what people say about MJK.

I suppose they could be returning customers but even then would they take them to their home?

Perhaps she was just promiscuous or they were just friends or even relatives?

Cheers
DRoy

[DVV]

Thanks Chava,

So I'm ready to teach English...
Have to be paid 100 shillings, of course, like who-you-know.

Amitiés,
David

[Chava]

Hi Shelley,

I'm not English so I can easily misunderstand miss Bierman...
But didn't she say, simply, that the man opened the door a bit clumsily, as someone apparently not accustomed to its mechanism ?
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Amitiés,
David

That's how I read it, David.

As for the taking of organs, I now believe that the Ripper's primary fascination was with the use of the knife. So further and more interesting things to do with it might lead to him swiping a few organs...

[DVV]

But with rose saying he was accustomed to

Hi Shelley,

But is it what she said ?

"He did not seem somehow to unfasten the catch as if he had been accustomed to do so before."
Eastern Post, 31 March 1888.

Amitiés,
David

[Shelley]

DVV,
I beleive i put the exact words down that Rose used, and accustomed to may mean that he has used that same catch before of that house, but you could be right in your post. It could also mean, if it is a standard catch on doors used in the period, so the same meaning as i previously posted, after all he was wanting to get away quickly after commiting a crime that would definatley get himself collared by the Law, which i wouldn't think he would be fond of at all.....So he could have just hurried and got clumsy as you say. But with rose saying he was accustomed to, i read a little further and believe that she had seen him around before, plus Ada wasn't going to say that she was engaging in prostitution, she was young and covered it up by calling herself a semtress, it was a bit more widely accepted for older woman who were left by thier husbands, divorced or widowed to then turn to prostitution sometimes to get by.

[DVV]

It seems to me that this fair haired man had visited before, as Rose said that he had not unfastened the catch as he had been accustomed to.

Hi Shelley,

I'm not English so I can easily misunderstand miss Bierman...
But didn't she say, simply, that the man opened the door a bit clumsily, as someone apparently not accustomed to its mechanism ?
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Amitiés,
David

[Shelley]

Ada Wilson - at the time of the Ripper deeds not weighed into the calculations by anybody, it would seem - is often thrown forward as a possible "warming-up" victim of Jacks.

The possibility that she may have prostituted herself is an obvious one, as can be read between the lines in quite an emphatic manner in Rose Biermanns testimony. It goes like this:

"Last evening she came into the house accompanied by a male companion, but whether he was her husband or not I could not say. She has often had visitors to see her, but I have rarely seen them myself, as Mrs. Wilson lives in the front room, her bedroom being just at the back, adjoining the parlour. My mother and I occupy two rooms upstairs. Well, I don't know who the young man was, but about midnight I heard the most terrible screams one can imagine. Running downstairs I saw Mrs. Wilson, partially dressed, wringing her hands and crying, 'Stop that man for cutting my throat! He has stabbed me!' She then fell fainting in the passage."

Ada Wilson´s own account of what happened is a different one. She says that she answered a knock at the door, only to find a man outside demanding money. Not getting that money, he produced a clasp knife and stabbed Wilson in the throat, and made good his escape. Says Wilson, that is.

Was Ada Wilson covering up the fact that she was a prostitute, providing the assailant with a metamorphosis from punter to robber?

To begin with, are we certain that the man Rose Biermann claims accompanied Wilson into her house "in the evening", was the same man that stabbed her at midnight? In the passage I quoted I feel that it is implied but not substantiated.
Do we know how much time that passed inbetween the two events; coming home and getting stabbed? Was the man a casual punter?

Rose Biermann says something that may give a clue:
”I saw all that as I was coming downstairs, but as soon as I commenced to descend I noticed a young fair man rush to the front door and let himself out. He did not seem somehow to unfasten the catch as if he had been accustomed to do so before.”

What catch? Is it a lock mechanism Biermann speaks of? And is she saying that the man seemed accustomed to handling the lock in Wilson´s house? If so, we are not speaking about the random punter, but instead about somebody who probably knew Wilson and her lodgings. A pimp, perhaps, unsatisfied by her takings?

What the Ripper establishes somewhere along the line is the ability to subdue and kill, blitz-style. There is no need to accept that he would have reached that ability at the time of the Wilson attack, but we do know that his urges took him there eventually.
In consequence with this, I think it must be asked if a man with an inner urge to procure organs from the abdominal cavity, and developing a method to extremely swiftly allow for this urge to be satisfied, would not kill instead of wound?
To me, the Wilson attack does not seem to have been the prelude to an evisceration at all. Nor does it evince any interest in the abdomen. In short, I see one interesting detail, and one only, when it comes to Wilson: she may well have been a prostitute. But although it is a factor that cannot be looked away from, it is also a factor that shows us that Wilson led a vulnerable life, as any prostitute does. I think that any fair guess tells us that the average prostitute of the day was subjected to violence at occasions, and that quite a lot of them would have seen knifes drawn in threatening situations.

The best,
Fisherman

Fisherman,

It seems to me that this fair haired man had visited before, as Rose said that he had not unfastened the catch as he had been accustomed to.
The mention of the man that Ada had let in before seems to me that it is possible it was a different man ( hence her saying ' she answered a knock at the door to a man that demanded money '), so it is possible that this fair haired man that attacked Ada, no one knew that Ada had let him in perhaps, the catch being unfastened suggests to me that Ada may well have expected a quick in and out dealings with the fair haired man, perhaps collecting some cash from her, perhaps a gang member in the area. Plus i think people didn't want the Law finding out about those that may have been involved with prostitution, it was a serious business back then i believe. I don't think he intended killing Ada, just a heavy threat to secure perhaps a better amount of cash for the next time around.

[Ben]

But with all due respect, Ben, you cannot deal with something that is case-specific until you´ve got a case. And, once more with all due respect, you have not got that.

No, Fisherman, I'm talking about the case-specifics with serials in which the perpetrator has come forward. Their propensity to do so is dependant upon the situation they found themselves, and whether they entertained realistic fears that an incriminating link may be established between the offender and the crime or crime scene, unless they were doing so out of arrogance and the thrill of it. If the offender did not find himself in any such predicament, they don't apply in any battle of statistics to try to determine how many come forward, and is therefore useless as a barometer for assessing the popularity of this trait.

I'm still not sure you're understanding this.

If you want to assess the popularity of that behavioural trait, you have to first identity the serial killers who ever found themselves in the predicament that would occasion such behaviour. Identify that subset, and that you can start playing with statistics, but until then, it's irrelevent, bearing in mind also that serial killers are also a "subset" of the population.

If you argue that the number of people with dyed blue hair arranged in a Mohawk style comprise a small number of the total population, you'd be correct. But if you examine how many people with blue hair arrange it in a Mohawk style, you'll find that the number will not be small. Of course people with blue Mohawks are rare in comparison to the total population; so are serial killers, but you're not making serial killer observation in comparison to the total population. You're looking at what occurs within that subgroup, and you should do the same thing when contemplating serial killers who have come forward with "an intend to fool" and only consider those who had reason to do so in the first place.

The figure you will come up with is niether tiny nor indicative of a rare creature. Non-hobbyist expert experience tells us so, otherwise they would not place all their investigative eggs in that basket to predict that outcome successfully. If those serial killer were such "rare" creatures, we'd have to accept that the investigators simply engaged in wild, stab-in-the-dark guesswork and got incredibly and undeservedly lucky.

and such a look tells us that even if there is a possibility that a serial killer would inject himself into an investigation, the chance that he would refrain from it is much, much bigger.

No, that's isn't the case. You're mistaken, since a serial killer's propensity to come forward of refrain is based on individual circumstances as I've sought to reinforce ad nauseum.

I come from a crossroads where I have already chosen to believe more in a killer who did NOT inject himself into the investigation, and that is a stance I have opted for without taking ANY of the "case specifics" into account.

Fine, I respect that, but your reasoning behind that decision ought to have nothing to do with statistics, since they cannot possibly be applied here. Of those who found themselves in a certain predicament common to a fair number of serial killers (I'd imagine), the act of coming forward is not rare. Quite the opposite, or else that behaviour would not be successfully predicted.

In the case we're talking about here, someone was seen loitering outside the crime scene in a similar manner to other serial killers who have staked out indoor dwellings. That's suspicious behaviour. He's an obvious suspect. Then someone comes forward and effectively assumes the identity of that man. The suspicious behaviour already noted is not lessened because of this. Given the striking paralells between this and other serial killers who have come forward to legitize incriminating links to crimes, I think I'm onto a good thing here, and statistics are not against me.

I offer the suggestion that Martha Tabram received her coupe de grace from a Ripper who formed his MO as a result of it - it is a theory that is easily challenged statistically; serial killers in general are not scavengers from the outset

Exactly, so it's completely wrong to rule out a theory for reasons that would rule out yours. If you recongise that "statistics" is damaging to your own personal theory, it makes no sense at all to rule out alternative ones on that very basis.

All the best,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Ben writes:

"statistics don't go against my way of thinking, because statistics are useless in the absence of case-specifics"

Ben, the reason we are not communicating here is that we are applying different tools at different levels of the process.
You keep telling me that statistics do not apply, since we need to recognize that we are dealing with something that is case-specific. But with all due respect, Ben, you cannot deal with something that is case-specific until you´ve got a case. And, once more with all due respect, you have not got that. And the inevitable outcome of it all is that your reasoning would fit the nuclear accelerator in Cern - it goes round in perfect circles.

-Statistics don´t apply, since it is case-specific.
-In this particular case, a serial killer is masquerading as an innocent witness, thus going against any statistics telling us that serial killers generally don´t inject themselves into the ongoing police investigations.
-Since this is the case, it would be useless to apply statistics, since statistics would be leading us wrong.

Voilá!

But there is a catch, is there not? To achieve this image of yours, we have to accept that Fleming DID masquerade as Hutch, and there is nothing tangible around to prove such a thing, is there? And what happens if this is the case? Well, what happens is that we have to take an unbiased, unprejudiced, unihavealreadymadeupmymindish look at things, and such a look tells us that even if there is a possibility that a serial killer would inject himself into an investigation, the chance that he would refrain from it is much, much bigger.

This, Ben, is where our respective efforts lead us in different directions. You lock onto a target and you lock your ears and eyes simultaneously, and you end up with a picture where the circumstances are interpretated as being such that it would be statistically lunacy not to acknowledge that the type of killer you present would inject himself into the investigation.
And it is a picture of a killer that I readily recognize as a viable candidate for the Ripper title, no doubt about it. But recognizing this, I come from a crossroads where I have already chosen to believe more in a killer who did NOT inject himself into the investigation, and that is a stance I have opted for without taking ANY of the "case specifics" into account.
If, after that, the details that surface around the specific case urge me to reconsider, I do so. To my mind, however, there is not very much to go on to bolster such a supposition, and therefore I won´t go there.
If I had felt that gut feeling, telling me that it all DID happen the way you suggest, I would have joined you - but I would have recognized that in doing so, I would be presenting a scenario that was at a statistical disadvantage. I would be forced to admit that I believed I was dealing with a creature that is truly rare - a serial killer who actively and by his own initiative injects himself into the actual and ongoing police investigation. Not just send notes, not just communicate with the police, but actually placing himself in the hands of the police with the intent to fool them. That is and remains a very rare thing!

Actually, this approach is exactly what I am using when I offer the suggestion that Martha Tabram received her coupe de grace from a Ripper who formed his MO as a result of it - it is a theory that is easily challenged statistically; serial killers in general are not scavengers from the outset.
Then again, it can be argued that the Ripper may be one of the very, very few serial eviscerators who have ever been presented with the kind of opportunity that Tabram offered. Who knows, maybe this is the one and only occasion in history where a potential killer and eviscerator has been given a chance like this, and IF my guess is correct, then we have a 100 per cent outcome in favour of eviscerators not being able to withstand such an opportunity as was offered in this particular case!
Moreover, I have yet to see another theory that offers answers to so may particulars and that tallies so well with what we know about the Ripper as the scavenger theory does, and therefore I favour gut feeling over statistics and in spite of lacking proof. I imagine much the same applies to you and Flemchinson!

NOW I´ll happily return to Ada!

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Hi Fish,

It is in fact ................per cent! Fill in the correct amount, Ben, and I will listen! I think you will end up as lofty as the word "tiny" is.

No. I wouldn't. Because that would make a nonsense of of established historical precedent which tells us that experts in the field of criminology have predicted that their uncaught offender will inject himself into the investigation and laid traps accordingly, with successful results. They wouldn't do that if the percentage of serial killers coming forward was tiny.

And again, IT IS SITUATION SPECIFIC.

I suggest that historical precedent tells us that in lots and lots of cases, in fact "more often than not", serial killers have refrained from injecting themselves in investigations.

It depends on the circumstances, and whether an independent witness gave them an incentive to come forward. Take away the witness and you take away the incentive. That's why it's useless to try to determine the popularity of this behaviour in relation to the total number of serial killers. You need to first determine whether they found themselves in the relevant circumstances that would occasion such action, and then discover how many of those came forward with false information.

There is no single serial killer in history whose behavioural patterns ALL correspond to what happens "more often than not", which is why dispensing with some mythical "average serial killer" is so essential. You don't rule out Fleming on the basis that serial killers are not paranoid schizophrenics "more often than that".

And viable though it may be, it is still just a theory of yours, and therefore we should try and avoid to fall into the trap of ruling out statistics or anything else that may go against your thinking

But statistics don't go against my way of thinking, because statistics are useless in the absence of case-specifics.

Back to Ada!!

Best regards,
Ben