Why Ada?

[Ben]

But it would be careless not to mention the fact that statistics are on my side big time too - the average serial killer will not go to the police and inject himself into an ongoing investigation.

Ah, I wouldn't agree with that reasonong at all, Fish.

In relation to the number of serial killers that we know about, the killers who do "inject themselves into an ongoing investigation" must comprise a significant percentage or else the investigating authorities would not actually predict that outcome and lay traps to snare uncaught offenders by anticpating that very strategy. Besdies which, the number of serial killers who do come forward is dependent upon the predicament they found themselves in. If there were no incriminating witness sightings, there'd be no reason to resort to that strategy unless they were just in it for the thrill and bravado.

In any case, it's impossible to make any progress in the ripper case if you rule out any activity that runs contrary to that of the "average" serial killer, because there really isn't any such thing. No serial killer is in allignment with MOST others in everything they do. Instead, you have to register behavioural traits that hold true for am appreciable percentage of them.

As Frank pointed out, the majority of serial killers don't start out as scavengers, nor do the majority suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, but you don't rule out Fleming on that basis.

I have nothing much against a suggestion that there may have been other attacks before the Tabram slaying, but I don´t think we can point to a single attack, radically different from what was evinced later on, and say that - for example - the Wilson incident was exactly what we could expect from a fledgling Ripper.

It isn't radically different.

The first attempts of other serial killers will very often be radically different to later ones, and will often include a completely different weapon and victim-type. I suggest that Wilson seems the ideal candidate for the ripper's faltering early steps because it involved a knife to the throat, and an apparent attempt to inveigle his victim under a false guise. That isn't radically different at all. That's pretty similar. The only difference is the scale of the attack and the level of experience evinced by it. None of this should be remotely surprising if the killer was operating five months before he did the others.

Best regards,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

But did Napper know any of his victims personally, as Hutch claimed to know Mary Kelly who, like Ada Wilson, was attacked in her own home?

Difficult to say at this remove in time, but I think the operative word as far as Hutchinson is concerned in "claimed" (...to have known Kelly). Strictly speaking, we don't know how true that was.

I think you have to be careful about grabbing hold of elements from the Napper case that would appear to support your ripper theory if there are also elements that are in stark contrast

Well, pursuant to the observation I just made to Fish, not every detail needs to be similar in order for some form of congruity to be recongnised. I was chiefly highlighting Napper's preferred approach of loitering for prolonged periods outside the victim's flat, surveying the scene before striking, and suggested a similarity with the wideawake man.

That comparison doesn't become invalidated on the grounds that he didn't inject himself into the investigation, not least because that's situation specific. I suggest that Hutchinson came forward because he found himself in a predicament that could occasion such behaviour. If Napper was never in that type of predicament, the issue of pre-emptive action is rendered moot. He was seen attacking people, yes, but he was hardly likely to come forward on that basis.

My point about the trophies is that a killer with no fixed abode, who had to make do with a packed lodging house as and when he was in funds, would have known beforehand that he had next to no chance of enjoying any spoils undisturbed.

Significantly, the Victoria Home boasted the facility of private "cabins" (more like cubicles, really) which enabled any killer ensconced therein to marvel at his trophies without being seen. But if he had cannibalistic designs upon the organs, again, he wouldn't have been disturbed because, with hundreds of other men cooking and eating their meat goodies, he wasn't doing anything conspicuous or unusual. He would have been enjoying privacy the only way possible for an impoverished nonentity: hiding in plain sight.

Now back to Ada.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Ben writes:

"Ah, I wouldn't agree with that reasonong at all, Fish."

I´m amazed, Ben! Really?

"No serial killer is in allignment with MOST others in everything they do. Instead, you have to register behavioural traits that hold true for am appreciable percentage of them."

...which is why I suggest that of all the accounts I have read about serial killers, a very tiny amount of them have actively injected themselves in ongoing investigations. Since it is a trait that is sometimes there, it stands to reason that the police will keep an eye open for such things, but let´s face it - it´s not as if it is something that happens more often than not, is it?

"As Frank pointed out, the majority of serial killers don't start out as scavengers, nor do the majority suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, but you don't rule out Fleming on that basis."

No. And I don´t rule out the possibility that Fleming masqueraded as Hutch - I just say that my gut feeling tells me that he did not and statistics say that the average serial killer (they exist in the statistical world, Ben, though perhaps not in the real one) does not inject himself in the ongoing investigations of his own crimes.

Furthermore, I avoid allowing only for things that bolster statistics, since I have a sneaking feeling that not all serial killers read "The statistical Handbook of Serial Killers traits" before they set about their killing.

You may call my thoughts on a scavenging Ripper statistically implausible if I may call your thoughts on a masquerading Fleming the same. Sort of.

The best!
Fisherman

[Ben]

...which is why I suggest that of all the accounts I have read about serial killers, a very tiny amount of them have actively injected themselves in ongoing investigations.

But it isn't a tiny minority, Fish.

If it was a tiny minority, the people with actual expertise in the topic wouldn't lay traps to (successfully) snare offenders after predicting that behavioural trait. It is also depends on individual circumstance, and whether or not the offender ever found himself in that sort of predicament. The "more often than not" thing is irrelevant, since there is no serial killer on earth whose behavioural patterns and idosyncracies all fall into the "More often than not" catergory. What we do instead is look for behavioural traits that we know from historical precedent and expert knowledge crop up with noted frequency.

There's no such thing as an "average" serial killer, and if there was, it's irrelevant for determining how many inject themselves into their investigation since we don't know how many found themselves in a "Hutchinsonian" type predicament in the first place. If we wanted to get ultra nitty-gritty, we'd need to determine how many serial killers did find themselves in such a predicament, and then discover how many of those inserted themselves under false pretences.

Until then, it's safer to leave "statistics" out of this. Whatever my thoughts may be on your scavenger theory, it has nothing to do with statistics.

Back to Ada.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Ben writes:

"But it isn't a tiny minority, 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.

"The "more often than not" thing is irrelevant".

THAT is an interesting wiew, discussing statistics, I´d say!

Ben, you are doing this very much your way! Listen to this qoutation:

"What we do instead is look for behavioural traits that we know from historical precedent"

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. And I also humbly suggest that heaps of these killers would have stood a chance of conning the police - had they chosen to give it a try. Since they did not, they urge us to take this fact into consideration every time we suggest that a serial killer may have done so.

No matter how unique a killer Fleming was - if it WAS him - he lived in a world that offered and offers us serial killers to investigate, and the statistics we collect about them are always - always! - applicable to any general discussion concerning serial killers.

You work from a presumption that tells us that IF Hutch was Fleming, and IF he did the deed, and IF he heard about the inquest, and IF he was alarmed by the possibility that he had been spotted und so weiter, und so weiter... 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 - it belongs to the discussion - at least as long as I´m discussing it.

All 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

[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]

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

[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.

[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]

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]

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

[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]

Thanks Chava,

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

Amitiés,
David

[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