Not-So-Shabby Profiling 101

[Caroline Brown]

Though Leadenhall Market is itself just a suggestion for the place where the goose was bought, described by Dickens only as "the Poulterer’s, in the next street but one, at the corner".

Oh, I'd love Dickens to have been thinking of Leadenhall Market. I used to love walking through it when I worked near the Monument in the late 1970s, and enjoyed many a lunchtime half of Youngs ordinary in The Lamb.

Love,

Caz
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[R. J. Palmer]

Though Leadenhall Market is itself just a suggestion for the place where the goose was bought, described by Dickens only as "the Poulterer’s, in the next street but one, at the corner".

True enough, and as charming as these Dickens Detectives are, it is something of a fool's errand since as a writer of fiction it is entirely possible that Dickens had no specific street in mind and simply made it all up out of his imagination.

Returning to the 1951 Alaistair Sim's movie, multiple websites state that the exterior of Scrooge's house was filmed at No. 8 Scandrett Street, Tower Hamlets. The house still exists. One can easily find it on Google Earth and people have posted side-by-side comparisons showing this is correct.

So, it's a mystery why anyone came up with the address No.45 Lime Street.

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

This is certainly a real case of something that people want to be real. A feel good story about a humbug clerk who is transformed overnight by the spirit of Christmas....

Then there are always the "Say it ain't so, Joe!" kinds of things. Say it ain't so, Jimbo!

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

Though Leadenhall Market is itself just a suggestion for the place where the goose was bought, described by Dickens only as "the Poulterer’s, in the next street but one, at the corner".

I found the archived post about the Tiddley Boyar decipherment of the Diary phrase "left but two" which I mentioned in post 56. It comes out as Leg Before Wicket.

I see now Boyar is not suggesting the Diarist used the phrase as Scrooge did. Scrooge said next but one to mean the one after the first or next one.

Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Message Boards: Archive through August 27, 2004

[Gary Barnett]

Oh, I'd love Dickens to have been thinking of Leadenhall Market. I used to love walking through it when I worked near the Monument in the late 1970s, and enjoyed many a lunchtime half of Youngs ordinary in The Lamb.

Love,

Caz
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Ah, Youngs!

I used to frequent the Lamb and Jon Ash Rare Books nearby.

Leadenhall Market had a celebrated resident, a ginormous gander named Old Tom who was so famous that when he died in 1835 obituaries were carried in the press.

https://www.lambtavernleadenhall.com

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

Hi Gary,

Thanks for coming over to our meager dwelling where our holiday fare is only wild goose chased down with sour grapes and lemons and with hardly any solid meat on it.

It's a great gulf in this field you had to cross. Maybe I can return the favor and come over for some horse meat. Sounds more substantial. As I said, I like the horsey set for a killer profile.

Of course, I was thinking more of horse riders and not horse slaughterers. But I see value in going the latter direction, even if I think it's more in line with an extortion of Mary Kelly's gentleman, after the fact of the murder without being an accessory or perpetrator. I see a great gulf here too between the criminal classes and the Whitechapel Fiend where others see them all as part of the same circle of crime.

I agree with what Wolf V had to say about what was Chief Inspector Byrnes ultimate fallback method of solving the Carrie Brown murder which was shaking the criminal classes:

Gang members had to rely on the discretion of their mates or would have to deal with a fence in order to dispose of stolen goods. All this human interactivity could potentially lead to information being passed to Chief Inspector Byrnes but what to do when the crime is a sexually motivated mutilation murder and the murderer confides in, and is known by, no one?

Casebook: Jack the Ripper - The New York Affair, Part II

[Caroline Brown]

This hits the jolly old nail on the head for me, Markus.

Although I believe Jack craved some form of public recognition for his sexually explicit crimes, committed in a repressed late Victorian society, to do more than frighten the horses [see what I did there?], he would not have hinted in private about his darkest urges to anyone around him. He knew only too well that this went far beyond anyone's definition of the vicious, semi-criminal classes associated with the worst streets of Whitechapel. His murders were exceptionally rare, making him stand out from even the most violent East End gang members, all villains together, sharing their tips for getting one over on the coppers. Might that camaraderie between villains have made Jack envious, because he could never join in or hope to gain their approval for his brand of depravity? Or would he fancy himself above it all, preferring to be in his own one-member club?

The serial killer, John Reginald Christie, was happy enough to brag to his fellow prison inmates about the women he murdered, but he couldn't bring himself to admit to killing baby Geraldine, which is arguably because he was aware that this would repel the most hardened criminals and risk his personal safety.

The only friends Jack could expect to confide in were the newspaper headlines - until Mike Barrett allegedly came up with the genius idea of giving him a special friend, in the form of Sir Jim and his diary, sworn to secrecy and loyalty until Jack was ready for him to reveal all.

Love,

Caz
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[Gary Barnett]

Hi Gary,

Thanks for coming over to our meager dwelling where our holiday fare is only wild goose chased down with sour grapes and lemons and with hardly any solid meat on it.

It's a great gulf in this field you had to cross. Maybe I can return the favor and come over for some horse meat. Sounds more substantial. As I said, I like the horsey set for a killer profile.

Of course, I was thinking more of horse riders and not horse slaughterers. But I see value in going the latter direction, even if I think it's more in line with an extortion of Mary Kelly's gentleman, after the fact of the murder without being an accessory or perpetrator. I see a great gulf here too between the criminal classes and the Whitechapel Fiend where others see them all as part of the same circle of crime.

I agree with what Wolf V had to say about what was Chief Inspector Byrnes ultimate fallback method of solving the Carrie Brown murder which was shaking the criminal classes:



Casebook: Jack the Ripper - The New York Affair, Part II

Feel free to pay Knackerdom a visit any time you feel a little peckish. It’s all I’m really focusing on at the moment, but any mention of Dickens grabs my attention.

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

This hits the jolly old nail on the head for me, Markus.

I think, if anyone, it was Wolf Vanderlinden who hit it on the head for you. But I do think he was just talking about why someone like NY Chief Inspector Byrnes would shake down the criminal class to find a prostitute killer. He's barking up the wrong tree so to speak. I'm not sure Wolf was thinking of how a serial killer might want to brag about his deeds rather than about the fact that he just doesn't, so no use looking for a stool pigeon.

As for me, I was always more inclined to the idea of a secret identity like a superhero who is quite content in keeping it a secret. M Night Shyamalan does that in his Glass trilogy -- equating serial killers and superheroes. Even the superhero doesn't even know he's a superhero. The supervillain doesn't even know he's the Beast with over 20 personalities.

So it's back to post 1 with your theory on why James Maybrick or someone in Liverpool would more likely record their London crimes. This point has merit but why would someone like JM also be more likely to want to be IDed as Jack the Ripper.

The Diary, as you point out, is a very different story -- it's Bruce Wayne as the Joker and wanting everyone to know he's the Joker. Even signing his real name and knowing it would eventually be revealed.

[Caroline Brown]

Don't forget, the diary is signed 'Jack the Ripper', and the name James Maybrick is never mentioned.

We know the real JM had been living a secret double life with a long-term mistress, and it would be interesting to know if she had a nickname for him that nobody else used. The diary version of James, featuring a second secret double life as a serial killer, adopts the name Sir Jim for his alter ego as a supervillain.

The Barrett hoax believers point out that there is no evidence that anyone outside of the diary ever used the name "Sir Jim", and that therefore the discovery that someone did refer to him as "Sir James" [close but no cigar] is not evidence of anything and not even much of a coincidence. I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but are they missing the point? Was 'Sir Jim' meant to be unique to the diary, a name known only to its supposed creator?

I did understand Wolf's point, but was just letting my thoughts run on from it as usual.

Love,

Caz
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[R. J. Palmer]

But I do think he was just talking about why someone like NY Chief Inspector Byrnes would shake down the criminal class to find a prostitute killer.

Uh, pardon my intrusion, but that's not what he wrote, is it? I don't see how you managed to come to that conclusion out of this:



Wolf V isn't saying that Byrnes would "shake down the criminal class" to find a sex killer; he's saying quite the opposite: that Byrne's standard methods wouldn't work for finding a sex killer. In robbery cases, there would be fellow gang members to shake down or turn into informers, or police 'moles' among the fences and pawnbrokers and money launderers who might have seen something. Or even narks who noticed someone who was suddenly 'flush' with cash.

In a sexually motivated crime, committed by a murderer working alone, the police wouldn't have any of those same luxuries. And the police wouldn't even necessarily find their man among the criminal class. That's what WV is saying.

His statement was merely a commentary that Byrne's force was good at catching thieves, but not so good at catching motiveless killers. It doesn't tell us anything at all about what sort of killer the police were looking for in the Brown case, though, if I understand Vanderlinden's theories, it might tell us something about the sort of man or class that Byrnes would allegedly 'fit up.'

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

Wolf V isn't saying that Byrnes would "shake down the criminal class" to find a sex killer; he's saying quite the opposite: that Byrne's standard methods wouldn't work for finding a sex killer.

Okay I see you are correct again, RJ. I missed the part about Wolf saying this was a sexually motivated mutilation if that’s what you mean.

The point WV was making, I believe now, is that a serial killer or killer of “opportunity” or even a real “lust murderer” is almost always working alone.

He also said the neighbourhood criminals wouldn’t know him. I’m not sure that he doesn’t believe that questioning the locals wouldn’t help if he was also local but not a known criminal.

WV already knows the station, class and sojourn of the killer in this case. A sailor/farmhand working for a businessman and who just arrived in the country.

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

I’m reading Jay’s Maybrick novel. He has him as a lust murderer. But he has him “imprinting” at an impressionable age. That at least, makes sense and has precedent.

That of course can happen to anyone. It’s not restricted to a lower class.

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

As to the idea of Jim as Jack craving attention because he’d have no gang or other recourse. He needs to talk about the crimes. He wants local recognition but then he wants even more. Why?

Why isn’t his famous alter ego enough to satisfy him? Why does he need his real identity revealed?

It seems a little unprecedented. But isn’t it uniquely plausible because his brother was Michael Maybrick?

Maybe the Diarist was a Michael McGear fan!

[Caroline Brown]

Jim was a total nonentity, compared with his superstar brother, until he died in mysterious circumstances. He became famous by leaving this life for the next.

Up until that point, the jumped up 'Sir Jim' was basically writing the diary of a nobody - another rather insightful aspect of this supposedly modern hoax.

I do suspect the real James was very aware that he wouldn't make old bones, and may well have hastened his own end in a way that would elevate his 'nobody' status to the victim of a faithless American wife, inspiring worldwide pity for an English gentleman born, who didn't deserve this cruel fate. Poor Jim.

A similar sentiment was expressed by whoever said no Englishman could have committed the Whitechapel murders. Jack could have been American, Irish or Polish, but not 'one of us'.

I guess Wolf could always pop in to clarify exactly how Byrnes would have perceived the problem in Carrie Brown's case. Would he have tried 'shaking down the criminal class' in the hope of finding his man, or did he appreciate why this method was unlikely to work due to the solitary nature of the crime? I don't know enough to answer my own question, but I agree with Markus and RJ that predators like this almost always act alone, or at most with just one other person, who is not just in on the killer's terrible secret, but jointly culpable.

Love,

A much more fortunate Carrie Brown
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