GEORGE HUTCHINSON

Having secured a victim, how did the Ripper decide upon a murder site? He might or might not have had
an intimate knowledge of the maze of side streets and labyrinthine alleys of the East End. Yet, for reasons of
security, he could not allow the woman herself to select the precise location at which they were to conduct
their business. A much better solution would be for him to suggest a location which he had previously scouted
and selected as ‘safe’ and with which the victim herself was familiar. Certainly, knowledge of the site proposed
would have served to quell any fears the woman might have had during that terrible autumn and to preclude any
suspicions that might have otherwise arisen.
The Great Social Evil by John Leech, 1857
among whom to choose.
Some Ripperologists believe that the Ripper must have
investigated potential murder sites beforehand for suitability,
possibly via practice runs during the intervening weeks between
murders. With such a transient population in the East End, the Ripper
could not afford to check the sites out too early in advance, for the
attendant risks would be too great. If the Ripper surveyed a site
that was not suitable for his needs, he would discard it, at least for
the while. It is possible, though unlikely, that the Ripper had taken
a prostitute to each of the sites for a practice run, but there may
have also been numerous ‘dry runs’, during which he was unable to
secure a suitable victim on his terms and conditions. It is, of course,
possible that the Ripper selected a murder site and waited nearby
for a suitable victim, knowing that time and probability would be
on his side in that area of the East End. Or the Ripper might have
gone to view the prostitutes’ ‘parade’ around St. Botolph’s Church
and engaged a possible victim from among the available candidates,
knowing that his favoured site or sites would be but a short walk
away in any direction from the main thoroughfares surrounding that
location. If so, then the Ripper probably picked up his victims as
close to the murder sites as possible, as a long walk would pose all
manner of risks at that time of night and undoubtedly cause the
victim to become uneasy and suspicious, not to mention increase
the likelihood of running into a patrolling constable. In case there
were no suitable candidates to be found at or near the location he
desired, he might simply have ‘trolled’ for a victim in the area,
knowing that he would surely encounter a goodly number from
Of course, it is difficult to imagine a location less desirable for public killing and mutilation than the backyard
of the rooming house on Hanbury Street where the Annie Chapman murder was committed. Who would have
selected that particular location, especially during the early daylight hours, when some residents of the house
were already awake and preparing for work? Did a desperate Ripper choose it after a fruitless search the preceding
night for the ‘perfect’ victim to take to his original intended murder site, thus throwing caution to the wind? Was
this location one of Annie Chapman’s regular ‘business stops’? Most likely, the rooming and doss houses in that
area of the East End were very much alike in appearance, construction, and arrangement, so that both the Ripper
and Chapman would have known in general what to expect even without having been there before.
A novel theory presented recently on the Casebook Message Boards 14 is that the Ripper took Chapman to the
backyard at Hanbury Street not for purchase of sex, but ostensibly to retrieve some goods from the outhouse
there. As was stated earlier, virtually anything is possible, and this postulation cannot be discounted. After all,
some of the victims were known to have engaged in some minor craft or trade to earn money however and
whenever they could, and an unsuspecting Chapman was likely to have followed the Ripper willingly at that
early morning hour if there was an apparent chance to earn money by some handicraft work or other honest
labour such as that described in the earlier example of ‘palaver’. Such a pretext could go far in explaining the
selection of that particular location at that time of day, a combination which must have been highly unusual for
a commonplace ‘immoral act’.
14 Ryder, Stephen: www.casebook.org.
Ripperologist 146 October 2015 37