Robbery as a Motive

[SirRobertAnderson]

Fisherman said something on the Mother Board that I just found extraordinary.

I don't doubt Jack took things from the victims, and those things might include money, but I've never considered robbery to have entered Jack's mind as a motive. (I realize this is not exactly what Fisherman is saying; just want to use it as a starting point.)

Anyone else have any thoughts on this ?



I think that the fact that Eddowes and Chapman were found with small items of their possesion lying around points to a killer who went through the pockets of his victims looking for money, and threw away the worthless bits and pieces. Though his focus must have been totally directed to the abdomens of the women, he still took the time and felt the need to look for money. It points very much to Jack being a man of decidedly small means.


Fisherman

[Magpie]

I've read that argument in a couple of books (usually when arguing for a "local nobody" type suspect). The argument points out that none of the victims had any money on them when found, the suggestion being that the Ripper took it.

Aninteresting idea, which Tom first proposed on casebook (we explored it in some depth), was the idea that the Ripper staged his attacks as robberies in order to reassure the victims and lower their resistance. I think the idea shows a lot of promise.

[Chris G.]

Hi Magpie and Sir Bob

I would concur that it looks as if the Ripper robbed his victims since they did not have money on them when their bodies were found. Also that this would appear to point to a poor man as the Ripper. Or else, looking at it another way, a penny-pinching well-off man. :happy:

Chris

[admin tim]

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?p=3810#post3810

So VOTE already!

[How Brown]

Taking a look at the location of where Nichols was murdered,I feel this was a blitz killing and that the Ripper didn't use any specific approach on her.

Likewise with Chapman,whom I feel Mrs.Long did see negotiating with her killer.

Stride is found with cachous in hand,no time to "reach for the sky" if approached with robbery as motive.

Eddowes' scenario is tougher to call and Kelly is killed indoors where the chances are robbery wasn't a motive. Just my opinion.

[jmenges]

I've read that argument in a couple of books (usually when arguing for a "local nobody" type suspect). The argument points out that none of the victims had any money on them when found, the suggestion being that the Ripper took it.

Robbery is mentioned as a partial motive for Bury in MacPherson's book with the point that he was a chronic alcoholic in need of anything that could get him even one drink.

JM

[Caroline Morris]

It points very much to Jack being a man of decidedly small means.

Or as Chris suggested, it could point to Jack being a small man who was decidedly mean. :)

One could argue that since he did not consider these women to be worth anything alive, he may not have seen why they should be worth a penny to anyone dead.

One could also argue that a man with money is the one who misses few opportunities to put pennies in his pocket, and takes up few opportunities to part with them.

But all this supposes that his victims had a bean on them to start with - or at least looked as though they might. I doubt either was the case.

If they had managed to earn - and retain - just a few pennies before Jack was out on the prowl, then they might have been sleeping under someone's roof instead of still out and about for him to encounter. He did seem to pick off those we know to have been in dire need of immediate funds for bed or booze. So I doubt any of them would have given Jack the impression that they already had money on them. I can't think of anyone less likely than poor, weary, sick unto death Annie Chapman, by the time she had been out all night, to look like she could possibly have had two farthings to rub together. :eek:

And if Jack thought otherwise, or was as poor and desperate as his victims, would he have had what it took to get away with it time after time?

Love,

Caz
X

[Robert Linford]

Hi Caz

The victims might not have had money, but was Jack trying to recover money he'd given them prior to the attack?

Robert

[How Brown]

This is a long shot,but there's no guarantee that if any coins were found in the backyard of Hanbury Street that they were definitely from either the Ripper or Chapman.

One thing that makes me ( just an opinion) lean towards a blitz-style killing in most of the murders....and not robbery....is this:

Mrs.Long states that the two people she saw outside 29 were talking loudly. My feeling is that the Ripper,while in this case not simply assaulting Chapman as I think he did Nichols on Bucks Row,was bereft of the ways of seductive or suggestive speech....and because of this,is in 'violation" of the proper manner of conduct in picking up a pross.

In most or nearly all circumstances involving procurement,the client will conduct himself in a quiet,discreet fashion when making "the move" to acquire sexual services from a pross. That they were talking loudly...and in full view of Mrs.Long,this is not only somewhat unusual,but like virtually all illegal activities,one is usually less boisterous or in this case," loud" about their intentions.

I think that the Ripper was not only filled with hate towards women/prosses....but that he didn't want to expend any time even negotiating with them before he killed them. The loud chatter that Long remembered,to me,is indicative of this inability on the Ripper's part to be able to negotiate or...his indifference to the protocol of picking up a pross.

[Caroline Morris]

Hi Caz

The victims might not have had money, but was Jack trying to recover money he'd given them prior to the attack?

Robert

Very possibly, Robert. But if he was so poor that he couldn't afford to leave his money behind (but presumably couldn't use it for essentials either because he'd need it to attract each new victim), then it was one more thing he had to think about in the limited time he had with the bodies.

It may, however, have been more to do with the compulsions I outlined: not being able to abide the thought of leaving a penny piece of his own hard-earned money with these women who, from his point of view, were grabbing men's money the easy way. That mentality could apply as easily to a man of means as to one who barely scraped a living.

I was also taking Sir Robert's lead at the top of the thread and considering the possibility of a robbery motive, which would not apply if he were simply recovering his own outlay and not expecting any more where that came from.

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris G.]

Hi all

I certainly don't think robbery was a major motive for Jack but I do think it is possible that it is one of the things he did. But only after he had achieved his primary aim of killing and, in most victims, disemboweling and also, in the cases of Eddowes and Kelly, disfiguring.

Chris

[Joe Chetcuti]

Did Barnett or anybody else claim that there were objects stolen from Kelly's place by her killer?

[Robert Linford]

No Joe, I'm not aware of anything arising on that score.

Robert

[Instructor 173]

Do a time study of the amount of time that the Ripper had to egage the women, kill them and then when their bodies were found. In some of the incidents, his attack was done so fast that he was down to minutes! The speed of the attacks indicate that he was NOT there to rob them. Jack was there to specifically KILL THEM. Anything else was secondary. I tend to believe that Jack killed the first two to throw off investigators or as ruses. The third victim was NOT killed by JtR. Victim # 4 was known to use the alias of "Mary Ann Kelly" and he was actually trying to get Mary Jane Kelly. Instead of getting the right Mary Kelly, JtR killed off the wrong Kelly and then had to make it right by finally killing off Mary Jane Kelly. No, robbery was NOT the :nono: main motive. JtR was there for some other reason.

[Chris G.]

Do a time study of the amount of time that the Ripper had to egage the women, kill them and then when their bodies were found. In some of the incidents, his attack was done so fast that he was down to minutes! The speed of the attacks indicate that he was NOT there to rob them. Jack was there to specifically KILL THEM. Anything else was secondary. I tend to believe that Jack killed the first two to throw off investigators or as ruses. The third victim was NOT killed by JtR. Victim # 4 was known to use the alias of "Mary Ann Kelly" and he was actually trying to get Mary Jane Kelly. Instead of getting the right Mary Kelly, JtR killed off the wrong Kelly and then had to make it right by finally killing off Mary Jane Kelly. No, robbery was NOT the :nono: main motive. JtR was there for some other reason.

Kelly is a common name and common alias. As shown on the mother board, another prostitute of the era in Manchester also called herself Mary Kelly. Given the number of victims, in fact, it would be surprising if there was not another victim who used the name Kelly. So I think might be a stretch to believe that the killer mixed up the women and killed the wrong one. It is probably a coincidence that Eddowes used as one of her aliases the name Mary Ann Kelly and that the next woman killed was named Mary Jane Kelly.

Chris

[How Brown]

Dear Instructor 173:

You mentioned, "Jack was there to specifically KILL THEM. Anything else was secondary."

If I may be so bold as to take your comment one step further...I believe that the Ripper was not there to kill them,specifically...but to mutilate them and killing them only the means to facilitate this feat.

Had he been there only to kill them,the mutilations would have been unnecessary risk factors and a spontaneous decision to engage in evisceration....unless of course,he was in a frenzy after he killed them and he was momentarily oblivious to the extra risks.

That he didn't mutilate Stride ( whom I think was a Ripper victim...) is probably,not definitely,a result of hearing someone...perhaps,but not definitely Diemschutz, approaching Dutfield's Yard. That would in a way counter the comment of him being "oblivious to the extra risks" above.

The mainstream belief...is that the Ripper approached the victims...engaged in small talk in order to get them to accept his intentions of a sexual liason...and then kills,mutilates,and leaves.

I am not so sure,Instructor,about this anymore....and have strong feelings ( feelings only,of course...) that at least 3 of the murders ( Nichols,Stride,and Eddowes ) were out and out blitz assaults. Chapman differs,because of the need to get her in the back yard before killing her.

What are your views on this by the way?

[Joe Chetcuti]

I don't mean to turn this into an Liz Stride thread but...

Howard since you think that Stride was a Ripper victim, I am curious to know if you believe Israel Schwartz's testimony? If you do believe it, do you think the man who Schwartz saw attacking Stride was the Ripper?

[How Brown]

Joe:

I/we don't know if Schwartz's testimony is completely accurate....possibly he added or subtracted from it...but I don't think he would have gotten involved had he not felt what he saw was important and germane to the murder.

I don't think either BS or Pipe Man were Stride's killer since they were "that" close to Schwartz as he passed them by.

How about you,buddy?

[Joe Chetcuti]

I think Schwartz saw the man who would kill Stride a few minutes later. But unless some new material is presented that seriously casts doubt upon Schwartz, I'll believe his testimony.

When I looked for the man who murdered Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes, and Kelly...I didn't look for a man who applies his technique by attempting to pull his victim into a public street before throwing her down on a footway. (Thus making her scream three times in front of witnesses.) I don't think of Stride as a Ripper victim.

Of the six Whitechapel murders that occurred between Aug 7th - Nov 9th, I think Schwartz was the first 'witness' to see a killer. He certainly may have been the only witness to see a killer. But to get back to this thread's topic: No, I don't think Stride's killer had any interest in robbing her of her cachous nor of anything she owned.

[How Brown]

Joltin Joe:

Thanks for giving me the idea of a new thread. I'm a'gonna put her up shortly.

Like you,I don't believe that Schwartz fabricated the incident. I think it was a little gutsy on his part to even come forward.

For one thing, had it been a mere robbery as opposed to a murder involving a throat slashing,I am not so sure Schwartz would have bothered to come forward. I think because of the severity ( a murder ) and the possible link ( to the other WM ) he did exactly that.

[Instructor 173]

A few years ago myself and two other people took a look at the five main murders attributed to JtR. Four of the five murders when done using time factors showed that JtR had 30 minutes or less from the time he supposedly first met the victims until the times that the dead bodies were found. One attack SEEMED to have been completely done in less than15 or 20 minutes. So, Howard, your idea of a blitz attack does seem to be right on the money.

Here's what we did... We took a look at all the witnesses' statements and tried to figure out an approximate time for when the victim was last seen alive. Then we used the approximate time of when the dead woman's body was discovered. We narrowed things down depending on how the timing of events were referenced. For example, if a witness said that they saw Stride alive and talking to a man at 2:00 a.m. we used that time of 2:00 a.m. for our experiment. If the witness said that they saw Stride alive between 1:50 to 2:10 a.m. we would split the difference and use 2:00 a.m. as our time estimate. If a witness said something like I saw Stride alive at about 2:00 a.m. give or take 10 minutes then we used 2:10 a.m. as our time.

Here's the rules:

1. All time factors are ESTIMATES. They are NOT set in stone. So you've got to understand that right from the start that you're working with approximations.
2. When working with a series of estimates you are looking for general items which are repeated. In other words, you're looking for things that occur more than once in all the attacks. If you have 5 attacks in which a knife is used, then you have a killer, without a doubt, who is comfortable using a knife. If you have a knife used in 3 of the 5 attacks then that tells you that your killer may use a knife in specific or certain situations and a different means of killing in others.
3. You look at the speed of the attacks by determining how many minutes passed between the dead body was found and the last time the woman was known to be alive.

So, your mission, should you decide to accept it, (insert theme from 'Mission Impossible' here) is to review all of your (literary evidence as it were) literature, find out when the victims were last seen alive and when the bodies of the dead women were first found. Using the gap between the two time elements you will then determine an APPROXIMATE TIME AMOUNT for Jack the Ripper to kill and mutilate his victims.

In other words, I would like for you to cross-check me and give me your idea of maximum/minimum time factors. I encourage you to input on this idea of mine.

This is the sort of stuff that I do that leads me to believe that JtR was deliberately up to something.

Ready. Set. Go!

[How Brown]

Dear Instructor:

Ironically,the reason that I had this epiphany (don't laugh folks...) about how the murders occurred is directly due to Ivor Edwards who appeared on "Is It Real?" a few months back.

As Ivor stood on Bucks Row ( I, of course, knew already where Nichols was found...on the pavement and in the open...), it dawned on me that I had not been paying attention to the Bucks Row location as well as I should have. Ivor simulated Nichols' attacker lunging out at her from a narrow passage or at least laying in wait for the victim to approach him from his vantage point.

It hit me like a ton of bricks,Instructor...

As I mentioned earlier....there is no tangible evidence or proof of any kind that the Ripper and Nichols traipsed down Bucks Row together...and yet we have all had this mental picture of the Ripper and Nichols strolling down the road amiably until the moment he acts upon his intentions. In fact,most of us...not all,perhaps....have this idea that in all the scenarios ( Stride's included for those who feel she was a Ripper victim...), the Ripper approached,suggested,directed,and realized his objective in a similar,non-threatening pattern.

This is not necessarily so and in fact,upon reflecting on the crimes and elements from within each scenario...I am led to believe that there wasn't any attempt to engage in small talk...rather to get to the matter at hand.

I hope others will assist in this thread and give us their impressions and views on the elapsed time for each murder.

Gavin Bromley....where are ye?

Great post,Instructor....thank you,sor.

[Instructor 173]

Howard, you need to go ONE STEP farther... Can you guess what that step is? I await your answer...

[How Brown]

Dear I-73:

Hmm....

Locations,perhaps? Whether one or more men were involved?

I'm sort of stumped,Instructor...

What other factor did you have in mind?

[Instructor 173]

Here's what I tend to think...

SOME of JtR's attacks were based primarily off of location. SOME of his attacks were done based off of opportunity.

In other words, if his attack was based off of a place that he had chosen along a street, he was in a hurry so when he attacked his victim he did so in a fury. That's why I think that you may be right in how vicious his attacks were. I also think that in 1 or 2 of his attacks he may have seen his victim talking a potential male, walked beyond the chatting couple, hid in a darkened area and waited for the male to leave. If the woman came towards him he would wait until she was close and then savagely strike. I think that this is one reason why so many of the descriptions about the suspect are varied. It would be like you talking to a potential victim and I see you. Chris George comes into the area and also sees you talking to the female and walks beyond you two. He sets up and kills her after you leave the area. When the police investigate, I give them your description instead of Chris' because YOU were the one I saw with the dead woman.

If an attack was based off of oppotunity, like with MJK, he took his time because he felt safe and pretty sure that he would not be disturbed in his actions. What bothers me about the attack on MJK was that only ONE attack gets attributed to him as being indoors. For some reason, I feel that the attack on MJK was NOT his first indoors attack. I think that somewhere previously, prior to London in 1888 and MJK, that he had attacked and killed somebody. It might have been in the military duty somewhere or even in another country that we have yet to identify but the death of Mary Kelly MUST have took so long a time and most killers would have rushed their actions unless they had prior experience or something...

Any way, there's some ideas to kick around and discuss.

[Chris G.]

Here's what I tend to think...

SOME of JtR's attacks were based primarily off of location. SOME of his attacks were done based off of opportunity.

In other words, if his attack was based off of a place that he had chosen along a street, he was in a hurry so when he attacked his victim he did so in a fury. That's why I think that you may be right in how vicious his attacks were. I also think that in 1 or 2 of his attacks he may have seen his victim talking a potential male, walked beyond the chatting couple, hid in a darkened area and waited for the male to leave. If the woman came towards him he would wait until she was close and then savagely strike. I think that this is one reason why so many of the descriptions about the suspect are varied. It would be like you talking to a potential victim and I see you. Chris George comes into the area and also sees you talking to the female and walks beyond you two. He sets up and kills her after you leave the area. When the police investigate, I give them your description instead of Chris' because YOU were the one I saw with the dead woman.

Hey, wait! I won't be the fall guy! :croc:

In fact, some of what you are saying has some bearing on the profilers' idea about whether the Ripper was organized or disorganized. That is, he was disorganized because he performed blitz attacks or he was organized because he brought his knife along with him. Talk about confused thinking! :confused:

I think you might be correct that it was quite possible that somewhere, possibly in another country, he killed indoors prior to the Mary Jane Kelly murder.

All the best

Chris

[Instructor 173]

The longer I look at JtR, Chris, the more I feel he knew EXACTLY what he was doing and that he had a plan of some sort...

In one attack he deliberately looks disorganized. In another he's obviously well organized. In one attack he appears rushed. In another he takes his time and it shows. In one attack it looks like its based off of location. In another attack it looks like he bases it off of opportunity. The attack on Mary Jane Kelly was done indoors AND took a pretty good amount of time to do the mutilation. I know that some people say that JtR could have mutilated MJK in a few minutes in a frenzy but I don't really think that was the case. Most people who kill do it in a hit and run manner. In other words, they kill a person, panic a bit and then they blindly flee away hoping that the police won't catch them. Very few really take their time to kill and mutilate their victims like JtR did with Mary Kelly. Sure, some do but not very many. Probably only 1 or 2 murder cases a year involve people who are deliberate in their actions or cases that involve the few professional killers.

By the way, Chris, you make such a nice fall guy. I'd almost say that you make "a distinquished looking fall guy." Live with that one if you can... LOL.

[How Brown]

I apologize for detouring the premise of the thread even further....but oh what the heck,huh?

I-73 and C.G....and everyone else,of course :

What are your feelings about the February/March assaults on Millwood and Wilson?

I-73...I tend to think the Ripper went out on each occasion with the same sort of premeditatation and intent...but had to improvise when the original plan developed a kink or snag. The same result was achieved...yet a slight shift in how the result was achieved.

[Instructor 173]

More than likely both of those women were victims of JtR. Remember, when you have several factors repeated in, especially location of attacks, the odds increase that the same guy did them. With both women they were attacked by a man with a clasp knife, they were in the Whitechapel area and they were probably both prostitutes. We don't know for a fact that they actually were prostitutes BUT the key is the area and they were victims of a man with a knife in the right TIME LINE. So the timing of the attacks on the women, use of the knife and the area of where the attacks happened would indicate a better than average probability that JtR did attack Millwood and Wilson. One other thing... Some killers are attracted to their victims by a key physical attribute. In the area where I live, years ago we had a guy who used a hammer to attack young women who had medium length dark hair. He was involved in about a dozen attacks that started off with him squirting motor oil on the clothing of girls who walked by him. If you looked at all of the victims, they could easily have passed for sisters because they all looked so much alike. I think that the suspect's name was William Rheinbold or Rheinboldt. He's in prison because he beat a young mother to death in a small town just west of where I live. What was sort of different was my middle sister, a police dispatcher at the time, made the link to the victim and Reinbold because of the photo of the dead woman. As soon as she saw the photo of the dead woman she remembered that Reinbold hated woman with dark hair that went down to their shoulders really bad. She passed up the information to a detective and by pure luck I got to work on the edges (follow-up work) of a case that my sister correctly named the suspect. By the time everything was done, the case involving Hammerhead, as we called him, involved about 7 or 8 police agencies and multiple (5 or so) states. I've noticed that none of JtR's victims seem to be blondes so maybe he had a dislike for women who had brown hair or something. We'll never know for sure but I would say, yes, Wilson and Millwood probably were victims of the Ripper.