If there was a time machine...

[miakaal4]

If there was a way you could go back to 1888 and view on of the JtR killings, (as much of one as you might want to see) with the purpose of identifying the killer, which victim would be your choice given that some of the murders may have been the work of someone else?

[lynn cates]

Annie

Hello Miakaal. Annie Chapman. Easy.

Cheers.
LC

[Jason]

ditto Lynn....the definitive JTR killing in my opinion.....though to be fair if i am in the area, i would probably stay for the rest of them as well

[Robert]

On the other hand, if you could climb into a time machine and go back to a previous Casebook thread on time machines, which thread would you visit?

[Jason]

defintely this one....as i cant be bothered looking for the others...besides i am busy getting ready for my time machine journey, just waiting for my astrakhan coat to come back from the cleaners then im off.....

[Robert]

Ok Jason, then just click on this link :

http://forum.casebook.org/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=242675

[RavenDarkendale]

Mary Kelly. It would settle the issue once and for all of were the witnesses that said she was alive after that body had to be dead were correct or whether those identifying the body were correct. I'm not at all sure it would decide the JtR debate, for that it would have to be Anne Chapman, I think.

Of course, you could always find if you went back in time that that your interference in the timeline was the catalyst that set off the murders, or even that you killed a particular victim yourself in some weird way. Best to leave the past alone...

[Jason]

Ok Jason, then just click on this link :
http://forum.casebook.org/newreply.p...ote=1&p=242675

i clicked it but it seems i am still in 2012....

[Robert]

That's because you said this is the thread you'd like to visit.

[Phil H]

A number of possibilities:

* the backyard of 29 Hanbury St - much earlier in the morning than usually talked about;

* Dutfield's yard from midnight on, before Stride appears;

* Miller's Court on the night before Kelly died;

* at the Seaside home for the Kosminski ID.

Oh, and Buck's Row just for the atmosphere - it was the first murder most of us read about, when I went there years ago it was still very atmospheric; and I be interested to see the whole affair play out.

If we could TALK to people at the time as well as watch - to meet Swanson in retirement and get the whole story from him. (At one time I'd have said Macnaghten, but I've gone off him lately.)

Phil H

[miakaal4]

Well for my part it would be Mitre Square. I would live to know how C.E. was killed and mutilated in such a short time.
And by the way the time machine will only send you back in spirit form. If I'd really gone back I would be so blown away by it all I would probably forget why I'm there!

[Bailey]

I don't think I'd want to see any of the murders, or even solve the crimes, but I'd love a few hours there and then with my camera...

[Richard E. Nixon]

With my luck I'd be arrested as the killer.

[Cogidubnus]

If I had a time machine, I wouldn't waste my time with 1888 - I'd go back just as far as 1947 and give my father in law a contraceptive....

All the best

Dave

[MajorParts]

If any form of time travel ever becomes a reality, it will be an image only thing.
When you think that looking through a telescope at something in space, say 120 light years away, you are seeing it as it was 120 years ago. So an idiots time machine (I say idiot because I don't know any scientific way of putting anything) would be like a camera that you could send off into space from a certain point on earth at more than the speed of light and return the images it captures even faster. Then you would view the results with pause and rewind etc. so, no sound and no inside rooms!
To answer the original question though, I would say Mary Kelly, simply because I would be fascinated to discover what she looked like prior to Nov 9th