Did he have anatomical knowledge?

[packers stem]

Or, of course the clearly obvious answer...
He did have surgical skill..

[curious4]

Latvia?

Why Latvia? Very nice people the Latvians! Sure they don't go around practising their mutilation skills prior to entering London!

;-)

C4

[Abby Normal]

Like I said, Gein is not the Ripper. They did different things, they wanted different things. I'm not saying that the specifics should even be compared. I'm saying that self taught serial killers can and do reach a certain level of expertise. Gein is an example of that. The Ripper could be a different example of that.

But I will say that this killer has very sharp evolution, but without the extra bodies we would expect to see to account for that evolution. There should have been a couple of extra murders to build up to Chapman after Nichols. There aren't, unless they are somewhere else entirely, like Latvia. It's odd. He was "training" somehow in that interim. Maybe more in intent than skill if you think he had the chops, but he was learning to want what he did to Chapman. Learning the skills to do it maybe, learning the logistics. So it's not unreasonable to ask who or what was he learning on. And I have no idea. But it makes me think of Gein and his graveyards and his books, I gotta say. Not because that's exactly what Jack did, but because it's sort of the go to example for a jump in evolution.

It's fine if you don't buy it. I don't know that I do. It's an idea I'm running with for the moment.

Hi Errata
Thanks-no worries. Based on yours and Hunters responses, im mulling it over also. Im trying to see how a non medical person would learn dissecting on human bodies-like actually practicing on human bodies. If anyone else has any ideas how it could have happened please chime in!

I think the sharp evolution is between Tabram and Nichols personally.
Like he was learning the kill aspect of it-how to kill the most efficiently, quickly and quietly. I think Tabram was the trigger kill and it was a mess-like she didn't go down easily and he realized that he needed to do something quite differently going forward. Once he had the kill part down with Nichols (and was probably interrupted) he was off to the races with what he was really after-and got with Chapman.

[Trevor Marriott]

I'd like to pose you a question, Trevor. Clearly you don't think the mutilations were a means to an end, and that it was opportunistic organ thieves who really removed the missing organs from the victims. Then how does Mary Kelly's murder factor into all of that? She was completely butchered and her innards were almost ritualistically placed around the room. You can't put this one down to skullduggery in the morgue, and yet it leaves us with a killer who's gone from just slashing women open to full blown human dissection.

Don't tell me, different killer?

Well it depends on which scenario you want to believe, which fits in with what you believe happened.

A different killer is quite probable. Someone who knew that the abdomens were ripped open on the other victims and that in some case the intestines were apparently drawn out. Someone who perhaps had a motive for killing Kelly and wanted to make it look like the same killer who had killed the other victims?

For a start there was no suggestion that any form of anatomical knowledge was used to butcher Kelly. Now just supposing it was the same killer. He hasn't gone from slashing and opening women up because with the other victims is it suggested that he pulled out the intestines. All he has done is add more time to explore the anatomy with more light available to him and play with the body.

The clincher for me with regards to all the suggestions about the same killer who killed the others removing and taking away the organs from Eddowes and Chapman sinks without a trace with regards to the Kelly murder.

If the killer of Eddowes and Chapman had have had their organs removed at the crime scene, and had the killer of Kelly been the same killer. Then it begs the question why did he not take away any of the organs from Millers Court?

Now before you and others start jumping up and down saying the heart was missing that has never been conclusively proven and in fact on this site several month ago I posted evidential facts, which suggested that the heart was not taken away and now cast a doubt about specific evidence, which has been relied upon to back up the claims the heart was taken. May I suggest you trawl back over previous threads on the topic.

So what can we conclude? We can conclude that on that basis, that if the same killer killed Eddowes and Chapman then he did not remove the organs from Eddowes and Chapman at the crime scenes, given the fact that he could have taken away almost all of the internal organs from Millers Court.

As to skulduggery at the mortuary you must not forget the bodies were left for many hours before the doctors came back to do the post mortem. I am sure it would have been possible for some form of skulduggery to have taken place during those long hours.

My forensic pathologist Dr Biggs has a favorite saying "Anything is possible" and since it cannot be proved that the organs were found to be missing at the crime scenes that statement is quite relevant. You just have to open your mind

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Errata]

I'm sure I knew the answer to these questions at some point, but my brain is fried so I'm just going to ask.

1: Did Annie Chapman's midline incision also skirt her navel? I know it doesn't say so in her autopsy, and I would think that would be unusual enough to mention, but different reports have different amount of details, so I don't know.

2: What is it about the placement of the intestines that implies surgical skill?

[Hunter]

The section of skin containing the navel and the pubes was missing. The incisions on Chapman were like an inverted "Y" with the flaps of skin on the sides removed but remaining at the scene (over left shoulder I think - no notes at moment) and the "V" part removed and taken away with part of the bladder, vagina and whole uterus...basically, the killer cut a wedge in her pelvis and took it all with "one sweep of the knife.

So you might say the umbilicus was circumvented on both sides in a long narrow triangle of tissue.

Can't answer your second question as both a hunter and a slaughterer, or even a livestock farmer, would know to sever the mesentery membranes holding the intestines.

[Trevor Marriott]

I'm sure I knew the answer to these questions at some point, but my brain is fried so I'm just going to ask.

1: Did Annie Chapman's midline incision also skirt her navel? I know it doesn't say so in her autopsy, and I would think that would be unusual enough to mention, but different reports have different amount of details, so I don't know.

2: What is it about the placement of the intestines that implies surgical skill?

The removal of the intestines would not be needed to remove a uterus this would be known to anyone with anatomical knowledge.

Modern day pathologists suggest that different methods were use to enter the abdomens and remove the organs from Eddowes and Chapman. So that suggests two different people. Put that with the fact that the victims went to two separate mortuaries so what can we deduce? The organs were removed at the two different mortuaries by two different people using two different methods.

If the same killer then he would have used surely used the same entry method

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[curious4]

Frenzy

In the last two killings (Eddowes and Kelly) the killer appeared to be in a frenzy. If this is so, wouldn't all skill and knowledge be forgotten?

Best wishes
C4

[John Wheat]

Thats exactly what I what I have been trying to get the masses to understand for several years now but some wont and don't want to take notice.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

To Trevor

Would Carl Feigenbaum have had the necessary medical training to have been Jack the Ripper then?

Cheers John

[Hunter]

I noticed someone has placed a question mark by my post. While most of the papers did not publish Mr. Phillips' testimony detailing the abdominal mutilations of Annie Chapman, one - the Morning Advertizer - did. Below is a transcript that explains the flaps of skin. The same was apparently done to Kelly:


..he said the abdominal wall had been removed in three parts - two from the anterior part. There was a greater portion of skin removed on the right side than on the left. On adjusting these three flaps it was evident that a portion surrounding and constituting the navel was wanting. The womb itself and two thirds of the bladder were absent from the body and could nowhere be traced. It was apparent that these absent portions, together with the division of the large of the large intestine, were the result of the same incising cut, and hence his opinion that the length of the weapon was at least five or six inches, and probably more. The wounds generally confirmed him in his opinion that the instrument must have been of a very sharp character. The removal of the abdominal wall indicated certain anatomical knowledge, as did the cutting in three portions of the abdominal wall, and the non cutting of the intestine. Also the way in which the womb was removed showed this in a more marked degree.

[Errata]

In the last two killings (Eddowes and Kelly) the killer appeared to be in a frenzy. If this is so, wouldn't all skill and knowledge be forgotten?

Best wishes
C4

Depends on the person. And the habits formed. Someone highly trained and schooled probably can't NOT go by their training. They might get sloppy, but they don't forget. Someone less trained or poorly trained might forget technique, but likely not knowledge. Someone with only cursory knowledge and no training might forget everything and just start hacking away. And some of it just depends on how they store memory. Anyone who learned through movement couldn't forget during a physical act, where those who learned from hearing very well might. There's a lot of factors in how much of yourself you can lose, and what you lose when you "lose it".

Assuming it was a genuine frenzy. It likely wasn't, since there is still quite a bit of control displayed. Frustration, anger, need, maybe. Frenzy by definition is a total loss of control. Kemper and his mother, for example. I think there is still control. And not a small amount.

[curious4]

True, perhaps frenzy is the wrong word. But I don't think you could call the way he chopped up poor Mary controlled.

Best wishes
C4

[Errata]

True, perhaps frenzy is the wrong word. But I don't think you could call the way he chopped up poor Mary controlled.

Best wishes
C4

It was terribly controlled. Carefully extracting the organs and dividing them into piles. Extracting the heart from the pericardium.

It was controlled. It was not however particularly sane as a layperson would define it.

It was excessive, it was overkill, it was unnecessary. It was almost ritualistic. Gluttonous. Orgiastic. Like he reveled in it. But still meticulous in a lot of ways. Still controlled.

[Trevor Marriott]

It was terribly controlled. Carefully extracting the organs and dividing them into piles. Extracting the heart from the pericardium.

It was controlled. It was not however particularly sane as a layperson would define it.

It was excessive, it was overkill, it was unnecessary. It was almost ritualistic. Gluttonous. Orgiastic. Like he reveled in it. But still meticulous in a lot of ways. Still controlled.

There was no care, no anatomical knowledge shown, the body was simply butchered.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Sleuth1888]

I stand by my opinion that the Ripper possessed no noteworthy medical knowledge, but perhaps may have had a rough anatomical understanding.

In my own opinion it seems likely that the Ripper would have been an unimportant, hardly interesting local man. Maybe a butcher, maybe a slaughterman. But in all likelihood not a medical man as far as the term goes to refer to a surgeon or certified doctor.

A butcher and slaughterman would both have possessed some anatomical knowledge which would aid the execution of cold blooded murder.

There were most likely hundreds of employed men in 'bloody' trades in Whitechapel whereas only a handful of people working in Whitechapel would have had medical knowledge, those being doctors.

So the logical conclusion would be that the Ripper would have had maybe some anatomical knowledge but virtually no bonafide medical knowledge. Because the vast majority of people in Whitechapel (to which Jack belonged) at that time where not doctors.

And one can only imagine the slating I would get on here if I asserted that the Ripper was a well respected doctor working at the London Hospital who carried his equipment in a black bag and wore a respectable Cape.