Ripperology: Questioning the Dogma

[Limehouse]

This is such an interesting thread - especially Sam's responses to Mahler - which I can quite relate to (but not the tent pole bit).

I think we have to look at each murder (or set of murders) as individual events. Some murders, or groups of murders, will have things in common with each other - but I agree it is unwise to attribute the motive of lust killing to all serial murders.

I would, however, place JtR quite firmly in the lust murder category. I would place him there because the act of stabbing and mutilation is quite characteristic of this type of personality. It was not the women themselves that incited the lust - it was the power and control that the murderer was able to exercise - along with the stabbing and mutilation that allowed him to achieve sexual gratification. I believe there was also a strong element of anger involved - possibly because the killer was attributing blame to the victim for making him do what he was driven to do.

In the case of the first case history, where the attacker killed the man on the bus, what strikes me is that the victim was in a vulnerable state at the point of attack. He was half asleep and an easy target - much like the Ripper's frail female victims. There was an opportunity to strike and exercise that power. Again, the severity of the attack suggests an element of anger. But it was not the vicitm himself that was sexually attractive to the killer - it was the vulnerability and the act of stabbing and slashing itself.

Peter Kurten is another classic lust murderer. He admitted to gaining sexual gratification from inflicting pain on his victims. Kurten had started young - by torturing animals. Kurten killed children, men and women and all of the killings provided a sexual thrill. So, for Kurten, it was not the victim's gender or race or age that drove him but their availability and vulnerability.

So, although I would not automatically categorise every group of serial killings as lust driven, there are certainly distinct characteristics that place some murderers into that catergory.

The rationale for this categorisation comes originally from the work of Richard Kraft Ebing. However, I was once taken to task very severely by dear old A P Woolf (whom I believe is still with us in a new disguise?) so I will say right now that I do not support ALL of Kraft Ebing's ideas but his theory in this area is a valuable tool for understanding this type of murder.

[Jon Guy]

None of these things would I ascribe to sexuality, sublimated or otherwise.

But if we introduced another person to the music and eating analogies they could become sexual. Not so sure about your rugby thing though, Sam.

Would the fowl taste so good if you were not hungry ? Even Robbie Williams "Angels" still makes me sweat when I recall that little minx from Sales at the xmas party.

Association.

As stated by Limehouse, each case will be unique.

[Jon Guy]

Considering the two examples offered by RJ., we have a voyeur observing a (half) sleeping person, the second has the victims being washed post mortem,
both examples have a sexual element, as well as the control aspect.

[Canucco dei Mergi]

"Sexual gratification" is certainly a dogma to be questioned as a motive for these murders but this is in my opinion only but a second level dogma.

The first level dogma to be questioned is just a step above the possible motive and indeed the motive as "sexual gratification" is only consequence of that first level dogma which would be the conception of the case itself as an affair of a serial killer.

There is no evidence, not even a remote clue that the whitechapel murders (all of them) where the fact of a single man praying women of the streets to kill them for whatever motive.

Indeed to draw this conclusion, Ripperologues (the ones rjpalmer cleverly refers to) had to mutilate the case for their own convenience.

Out of the whole of the Whitechapel murders victims they took some of them and built around the chosen ones the perfect modelisation of a serial killer case: the Jack the Ripper affair.

They butchered the facts not because this reflects reality but because they needed it to give a semblant of solution which indeed was only but a theory a priori based on nothing: the deeds of a mysterious killer that nobody has ever seen or heard (indeed we have the testimony of one of the victim speaking of three assailants and the testimony of a witness in another victim case -the woman Stride- speaking of two).

In the Whitechapel murders file we have a certain Emma Smith.
Do Ripperologues give us a solution which includes her case so different from the following ones ?
No.
They likely are unable to explain it by considering her with the others.
Worse, she really puts the dogma of the serial killer in danger (Didn't she say 'they were three' ?).
Do Ripperologues put in doubt the dogma - which should be the first thing to be done by the investigator - ?

No, they act the other way round: defending at all costs the model of the serial killer that they have build around the mutilated Whitechapel murders, they tell us that the case of Emma Smith is not pertinent to the case but just the fruit of the everyday violence in the East End.

Everyday violence in the East End ?
Thrusting a stick up the vagina of a woman in the middle of the road ?
They must be joking, you wonder why Rudyard Kipling or Emilio Salgari went so far to the Indian Jungle to describe the atrocities committed upon humans by Tigers and Thugs.

Ripperologues proning the 'serial killer' conception of the case seem here to have forgotten their reproach to the few others advocating other possibilities: don't make the facts stick to your theory.

We have a mistery: the Whitechapel murders.
Ripperologues (and Scotland Yard) have created a fairy tale based on mutilated real facts: the Jack the Ripper affair.

Their strength: no credible alternatives up to this day.
Their weakness: Hercule poirot's definition of the truth: a theory that puts every single event in its proper place, a theory that explains everything.
When you think about all the events in the Whitechapel murders affair that Ripperologues qualifie (explain...ahem...) as 'coincidences', 'mistakes', 'misunderstanding' and other 'non pertinent to the case' or 'fake created by entrepreuneurial journalists', you get aware how far we are from Poirot's satisfaction.

Excuse-me for refraining from expanding on the treatment of the Tabram and Stride murders, not to speak of the trunk found in the cellars and the one in December.

I could but...the sense is already there with the woman Smith.

1888 has been a cruel year for women in Whitechapel.
They were not the only ones to suffer.
Detectives of Scotland Yard found that year that to be a Detective could be of a great frustration.

Thank you gentlemen.

Canucco dei Mergi.

[Sam Flynn]

But if we introduced another person to the music and eating analogies they could become sexual.

Possibly, Jon, although the central experiences (e.g. being moved by a powerful passage of music, eating excellent food) are of themselves be extremely pleasurable and, even if another person were present, not necessarily sexual - even in a promissory sense.

[Limehouse]

With respect Canucco dei Mergi, I would say it was the press that created the fairy tale of Jack the Ripper. The press, and the public's thirst for the story, created the myth.

The reality in the serial killer theory lies not only with the theories around the behaviour of such killers but with the physical evidence itself - that at least four of the victims - Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly probably met their deaths at the hands of the same killer. Whether this killer was also responsible for the murders of Smith (which I doubt), Stride (which is certainly possible) and Tabram is open to debate according to which doctors you read and accept as credible.

The terrible injuries inflicted on Emma Smith differ greatly from those suffered by Chapman et al. Women like poor Emma were not very much valued by the gangs of men who controlled and preyed on prostitutes and who exercised terrible punishment on those who would not conform.

[Limehouse]

Possibly, Jon, although the central experiences (e.g. being moved by a powerful passage of music, eating excellent food) are of themselves be extremely pleasurable and, even if another person were present, not necessarily sexual - even in a promissory sense.

Also, I feel that when we are talking about sexual gratification being gained from killing and mutilating, we are dealing with a very peculiar type of learned behaviour - more like an extreme fetish rather than a healthy sexual appetite
(as it were!).

[Canucco dei Mergi]

I must qualify my previous message on one point: when I say that there is not an inch of an evidence or a tiny clue to ascertain that all the Whitechapel murders were committed by a single man that we could define a serial killer, I obviously intend that this is also the case if we consider the restricted Whitechapel murders list (the women Nichols, Chapman, Stride (for the ones who accept her), Eddowes and Kelly) as created by Ripperologists promoting the serial killer conception of the affair to build upon the Jack the Ripper 'fairy tale'.

I must also apologize for my english, but no doubt you got aware that english speaking I am not.

Thanks again.
Canucco dei Mergi.

[Limehouse]

Please do not apologise for your English. It is perfect, and you make some very interesting points. There is good grounds for suggesting that various agencies have created a 'Ripper industry' by promoting the image of a stalking maniac creeping through the fog-bound streets of Whitechapel. However, I personally feel there IS sufficient evidence to point to a serial killer. What you may call him/her - the Whitechapel murderer or east end killer seem most appropriate - is somewhat relevant because, as you say, Jack is a fairy tale but a murderer or murderers certainly existed.

[Canucco dei Mergi]

Thank you 'Limehouse' for your answer and for your respect.
Do not think I am lacking the same for you, on the contrary.
Nevetheless, I must state here something in respect of your answer that could certainly be misunderstood for arrogance and lack of 'savoir vivre'.
Believe me, it is not.

What you say in your message is nothing else but fabricated truth by the 'official' Ripperology which finds its origins in the bewildering McNaghten Memo.

If I use the word 'fabricated' is because there are no other word available to me to define something that finds nowhere else but only in its proper wishful thinking its justification.

The Press never dissociated (or marginally so) the Whitechapel murders as they are today.
The women Smith and Tabram murders were always considered as mysterious as the others and you find newspapers till the end of the year that considered their case as suspicious as the others.
The serial killer theory was never advanced by the Press as the truth but merely as a possible explanation among others.
The most tantalizing because the most acceptable to the reason.

Today we are used to think about it as the solution beyond any doubt for the frenzied work of Ripperologues from the 60s and on after the 'discovery' and publication of the McNaghten memo (and I would add the Colin wilson's articles on the subject - what else could you have expected a specialist of serial killers speaking about anyway ?).

There is no reality lying in the women killed that you cite if not the one you are looking for.

You want to prove that there was a serial killer in Whitechapel in 1888 ?
Well, you extrapolate from the Whitechapel murder list the four or five women you name because their body bring the supposed stigmate of a serial killer and you say: 'see, I am right'.
But you have proved only one thing: that to be able to advance and support the serial killer conception of the affair you have to drop more than half of the very peculiar murders that occurred and were registered in the police file that year in Whitechapel and surroundings.
But you do it for your convenience, not because it was 'reality'.

Then once your mind is forged in a certain way, it is your being selfconvinced that leads your thinking, not facts as they are anymore.

You doubt the killers of the woman Smith were the same than the one of the woman Nichols because these conception of the serial killer has led you to think that way not because Mary Ann nichols could testify that 'there was only one chap who did me that Sir' or because a passing witness saw her being cut by one single guy leaning on her prostrated body.

If the injuries inflicted on the woman Smith were different than those inflicted on the women Nichols and Chapman it is not because they were killed by different hands necessarily.
You are again led in this way of thinking by your preaccepted idea of the case as a serial killer one.
An idea which is given by Ripperologist (and Scotland Yard behind the scenes) as a notion not worth to be discussed anymore.

But if you are a real investigator minded researcher you should open another way of thinking which procede simply by the natural logical thinking: if the women Smith, Nichols and Chapman were killed by the same hands, why were they in such a different way ?

Even if you find this impossible it has the merit to bring the thought to some other path, because if you find it impossible it is not because it is so but possibly just because you don't see a link, the link.

Every locked door is difficult to open till the moment you use the key.
But if you don't even look for the key....

Thanks.
Canucco dei Mergi.

[perrymason]

Hi all,

Just a few comments on Canucco's 1st post....

"There is no evidence, not even a remote clue that the whitechapel murders (all of them) where the fact of a single man praying women of the streets to kill them for whatever motive."

Although the grammar is a bit off, I believe the sentiment, being that there is no evidence to link any one womans murder to anothers, let alone to base conjecture on what this "serial" killer's motivations might be. We dont have a definable "series" at all...we have five women linked by investigative opinion, out of a possible 13 or 14 murders of unfortunates, during the year 1888 and beyond.


"Out of the whole of the Whitechapel murders victims they took some of them and built around the chosen ones the perfect modelisation of a serial killer case: the Jack the Ripper affair."

I would argue that Canucco, the "chosen" group is hardly a revealing portrait of a serial murderer, I believe it is the group that was killed during the height of the alledged spree....I think timing helped create the list, because by the varying attack styles, locations, actions taken and injuries inflicted, we do have not clarity.


....."because they needed it to give a semblant of solution which indeed was only but a theory a priori based on nothing: the deeds of a mysterious killer that nobody has ever seen or heard....."

I like that point, the press and the investigating officers combined instilled some superhuman characteristics into the murderer...creating the possibility or the myth that he was "un-catchable". "Without a trace"..."not a shred of evidence"...

"Their strength: no credible alternatives up to this day.
Their weakness: Hercule poirot's definition of the truth: a theory that puts every single event in its proper place, a theory that explains everything.
When you think about all the events in the Whitechapel murders affair that Ripperologues qualifie (explain...ahem...) as 'coincidences', 'mistakes', 'misunderstanding' and other 'non pertinent to the case' or 'fake created by entrepreuneurial journalists', you get aware how far we are from Poirot's satisfaction."

Again, I liked the above, I think it is honest and fairly accurate.

"1888 has been a cruel year for women in Whitechapel.
They were not the only ones to suffer.
Detectives of Scotland Yard found that year that to be a Detective could be of a great frustration."

If I may Canucco, Id like to amend that list.....

-1888 was a cruel year for homeless women in Whitechapel
-10's of thousands during that period suffered due to the poverty and the harsh environment of London's East End.
-The dectectives of Scotland Yard and all of Metropolitan London at this time were taxed with the investigation of these womens murders, an assassination plot to be carried out that Fall on Lord Balfour, the pending Parnell Commission Hearings, marches and demonstrations by the socialist poor, strikes, sagging relations between the rank and file constables and senior police, sagging relations between the police and locals, in-fighting among senior police ....and a trunk of a woman left at the new offices of Scotland Yard.

A busy time indeed, and time waits for no one.....they gave an answer that was unprovable by both sides of the argument....for or against a serial murderer...because no evidence existed to make any assumptions about who, how many, and why.

Good posts all, and liked your premise and construction RJ.

Best regards all.

[DarkPassenger]

I think the only dogma which has been over-arching and has warped the Ripperological world since time immemorial (okay, since 1888!) is the idea that Jack the Ripper and his murders cannot be "simply" a serial murder case - it has to be something more than that. The idiotic notion that the Ripper was part of a Royal conspiracy, or that it was Satanic or Masonic conspiracies, all smack of romanticising the crimes beyond reason.

There is little evidence in existence of the killer himself - in fact, pretty much nothing at all. We know he killed at least five prostitutes in Whitechapel, and the likeliest scenario is that he was just a serial killer.

There are still people around who fail to understand the concept of a serial killer - David Wilson reports in his book Hunting Evil that he got e-mail after e-mail suggesting similar idiotic theories in relation to the Suffolk Strangler - it was the KGB, it was a Satanic ritual, etc. etc...

The evidence suggests a bog-standard serial killer, and that's probably what JTR was.

[Dan Norder]

Hey DP,

Yeah, that's it exactly. All too many people want to treat the case like it's some work of fiction and propose all sorts of silly plot twists, surprises, cover ups and dramatic narratives to explain the murders. They don't want to look at what we know about actual real-world serial killers. They don't want to be bothered to learn anything about criminology, psychology, history or forensic science. They want to be treated as if they have some sort of special insight without having to commit to serious study or being honest about the evidence. I'm sorry, but someone who doesn't even understand what the term "lust murder" even means isn't in any position to try to argue about it, and so forth and so on.

Anyone can say they are fighting dogma, but most of those who do are just frustrated because their own completely baseless ideas are not treated seriously by anyone with any expertise in the topic. And that's certainly often the case on these boards.

[Roy Corduroy]

Robert, thank you for starting this interesting thread on motive. You are questioning whether the murderer was, in fact, "turned on" sexually by murdering.

In my opinion, the study of what some like to call ‘Ripperology’ is hopelessly grounded by its adherence to outdated and superficial dogma. And that dogma is the erroneous and antiquated belief that crimes such as the Whitechapel murders can be adequately explained by the murderer’s need for ‘sexual gratification.’ In other words, the false dogma of ‘lustmord.’ Yes, let me assure you that I am painfully aware that this belief is widely held--not to mention aggressively promoted--by many if not most Ripperological pundits. Books have been written and careers made by those promoting this belief.
R Palmer

In order to know what you are questioning, what are the specific examples of books or essays promoting lustmord as the motive?

Roy

[Limehouse]

I think the only dogma which has been over-arching and has warped the Ripperological world since time immemorial (okay, since 1888!) is the idea that Jack the Ripper and his murders cannot be "simply" a serial murder case - it has to be something more than that. The idiotic notion that the Ripper was part of a Royal conspiracy, or that it was Satanic or Masonic conspiracies, all smack of romanticising the crimes beyond reason.

There is little evidence in existence of the killer himself - in fact, pretty much nothing at all. We know he killed at least five prostitutes in Whitechapel, and the likeliest scenario is that he was just a serial killer.

There are still people around who fail to understand the concept of a serial killer - David Wilson reports in his book Hunting Evil that he got e-mail after e-mail suggesting similar idiotic theories in relation to the Suffolk Strangler - it was the KGB, it was a Satanic ritual, etc. etc...

The evidence suggests a bog-standard serial killer, and that's probably what JTR was.

I agree totally but I would be interested to hear what Canucco dei Mergi thinks [B]was[B] going on in Whitechapel and Spitalfields when these women were killed.