C-5: Killed While Soliciting or Not?

[Packers Stem]

So you think someone took the body out through the window?

Technically , a wooden shutter .
Big one at that , door sized

[Robert Linford]

Hi Matt


I don't think the women were sleeping (except Kelly) but I do agree that there's nothing wrong with speculation - put up a suggestion and see where it leads.


I can't write much now because I am on a bloody laptop and I swear I can hear Mrs Slocombe's voice issuing from it, saying "I do not respond to any man's finger."

[Sam Flynn]

I also said that I think it more likely that she simply collapsed from exhaustion than sit down.

I don't find either is likely. Neither is it likely that Jack the Ripper happened to walk through the quiet and obscure side-street that was Bucks Row at precisely the right time to find a worn-out woman handily dozing on a public pavement, and completely at his mercy.

[Matt Hood]

Your point was about her being drunk and tired, not the experience of being homeless at a particular point in history. I don't think anyone needs to have experienced homelessness, drunkenness, or lived in Late Victorian Whitechapel, to know that an open pavement in a public thoroughfare is not a place conducive to sleep. One also doesn't need to have experienced homelessness to know that Polly would have found plenty more suitable places for a rest and/or a sleep all around her.

No, my point was about Mary Ann Nichols being tired and drunk, who happened to have that lived experience.


Also, I haven't said that Nichols would choose to sleep on the footpath gin Buck's Row. The most I've said that she may have chosen was to sit down for a rest when she needed one, where she may have passed out due to being more tired than she realised. I also said that I think it more likely that she simply collapsed from exhaustion than sit down.


Anna Morris has mentioned a couple of times about thinking it worth exploring scenarios other than the accepted one and I happen to agree. It still is more likely that Nichols met her killer while she was ambulatory, if not of totally sound mind, but that doesn't mean there can be no value to speculating about other possibilities. Indeed, I was under the impression that was rather the point of discussing a "question without an answer" to misquote the name of the sub-board.

[Sam Flynn]

Unless one has been a practically homeless, alcoholic inhabitant of one of the poorest and crime ridden districts of the age, where the only options are to get 2p for a hang on a line, 4p for a bed for the night, throw oneself on the mercy of the casual wards or workhouses or walk the streets until someone wants to pay for an upright down an alleyway, I don't think a comparison can be made.

Your point was about her being drunk and tired, not the experience of being homeless at a particular point in history. I don't think anyone needs to have experienced homelessness, drunkenness, or lived in Late Victorian Whitechapel, to know that an open pavement in a public thoroughfare is not a place conducive to sleep. One also doesn't need to have experienced homelessness to know that Polly would have found plenty more suitable places for a rest and/or a sleep all around her.

[Matt Hood]

I've been drunk and tired many times (along with my peers, I was a very heavy drinker in my twenties and thirties) and I've felt inclined to have a nap in various places, including park benches and bus shelters, but never has my judgment been so impaired that I've rested and fallen asleep on a public pavement.

Unless one has been a practically homeless, alcoholic inhabitant of one of the poorest and crime ridden districts of the age, where the only options are to get 2p for a hang on a line, 4p for a bed for the night, throw oneself on the mercy of the casual wards or workhouses or walk the streets until someone wants to pay for an upright down an alleyway, I don't think a comparison can be made.

[Sam Flynn]

She's drunk and tired. Her judgement was impaired.

I've been drunk and tired many times (along with my peers, I was a very heavy drinker in my twenties and thirties) and I've felt inclined to have a nap in various places, including park benches and bus shelters, but never has my judgment been so impaired that I've rested and fallen asleep on a public pavement.

[Gary Barnett]

You say that as though you believe the house was searched .... any evidence that they were on the day ?
Yards etc were searched I believe .
As for blood , have a look how close the shutters were to the spot .
No guarantee that blood should drip carrying a body a couple of feet .
It was dark Gary .... and wet.
A drop of blood could easily be missed had there been one or two but there didn't need to be any

So you think someone took the body out through the window?

[Packers Stem]

Was any blood found in the empty house or between it and where Kate’s body was found?

You say that as though you believe the house was searched .... any evidence that they were on the day ?
Yards etc were searched I believe .
As for blood , have a look how close the shutters were to the spot .
No guarantee that blood should drip carrying a body a couple of feet .
It was dark Gary .... and wet.
A drop of blood could easily be missed had there been one or two but there didn't need to be any

[Anna Morris]

It always seemed like Kate had a purpose in mind after she got out of jail but it is hard to put together. She had gotten extremely drunk earlier, been detained, and who would she be meeting at the time when she got out? For what purpose?

We could wonder if she had been partially paid for a job of some kind and if she had used that money to buy drink, quickly becoming drunk and subsequently detained. Was she unable to complete a job for which she had been paid?

We could also wonder if JtR´s method of hunting was to offer jobs rather than sexual encounters. The C-5 were unfortunates, not professional prostitutes.* Might something other than sex for a few coins have drawn them away with Jack? I have suggested earlier that maybe some of the women knew a man they could go to for help if they were in desperate need. I do not have any clear ideas about this but as I mentioned before, some of us are interested in a JtR who limped or had difficulty walking.

*(If a woman was truly an unfortunate, selling sex only when desperate, would men have approached her just because she was walking down the street? Unless she was trying to sell herself, wouldn´t she have needed to approach possible customers? It has been pointed out in other threads that professional prostitutes dressed or acted in certain ways to attract customers. I would think women like Polly and Annie would have tried to get friendly with men in a pub or leaving a pub. I could imagine the women asking the man for a ´treat´ which seemed to mean drink and he concluded business by asking the woman to ´walk with´ him.)

When I was a young women, tough little teenage girls where I lived knew they could trade small amounts of work or sometimes sex acts, with several very old, crippled men in town. What the girls got in return were cigarettes and alcohol. The girls knew they could go to these men if they needed anything, including a place to stay.

Ted Bundy perfected the fake handicapped act to lure healthy young women to places of vulnerability but there is nothing new under the sun.

[Gary Barnett]

Now picture this scenario Gary .
She attends the pre arranged meet in Aldgate and is escorted to an empty house in Mitre Square .
Think 'Jack the Hat' with the Krays

Was any blood found in the empty house or between it and where Kate’s body was found?

[Packers Stem]

Now picture this scenario Gary .
She attends the pre arranged meet in Aldgate and is escorted to an empty house in Mitre Square .
Think 'Jack the Hat' with the Krays

[Packers Stem]

And why go back to somewhere where she knew she would be roused by a City copper every 15 mins?

Surely the reason she returned to where she had been arrested must have had something to do with why she was there earlier in the evening.

I agree Gary

[Gary Barnett]

Kate did have shelter .
All she had to do was what most drunk people would do lying in a dry Bishopsgate cell.
Stop singing , asking the time and asking to be released and just roll over and go back to sleep .
She was determined to be released and I don't think it was to look for a quick penny or two or to curl up and sleep in the rain in mitre square

And why go back to somewhere where she knew she would be roused by a City copper every 15 mins?

Surely the reason she returned to where she had been arrested must have had something to do with why she was there earlier in the evening.

[Packers Stem]

Kate did have shelter .
All she had to do was what most drunk people would do lying in a dry Bishopsgate cell.
Stop singing , asking the time and asking to be released and just roll over and go back to sleep .
She was determined to be released and I don't think it was to look for a quick penny or two or to curl up and sleep in the rain in mitre square