Leave now before it's too late!

[Darian1952]

I'm just kidding of course but I've come to the realization that after a 40 year fascination with this case, I'm driving myself to the asylum, oh I'm sorry, treatment centre.

My first post and last, will let you in on what I've learned in 40 years (I was fifteen when I started). My father happened to mention to me at fifteen that my great-grandfather had emigrated to Canada from Whitechapel in 1889. My dad threw in the JTR part that I had not heard of until that point. And so it began. I've been fortunate enough to have toured Whitechapel and the Black Museum, my police officer status getting me in.

Here's my take on all this. Barring some miracle of some sort, this will not be solved which is what I was hoping for. The study of incidentals, happenstance, and coincidence can take me no further.

The M'Naghten rules of 1843 clearly show JTR (imo) as not knowing the difference between right and wrong. He was clearly both legally and criminally insane. If we look at other famous serial killers over the last century, we can clearly see an attempt by those killers to conceal their crimes and avoid apprehension. I cannot see this by JTR. Although the act of serial killing is beyond the comprehension of normal human understanding, presumably *they* understand. Those killers wanted to keep killing and being apprehended would stop that. The only answer was to conceal the crime. JTR did not do this. You can't continue to leave bodies that are going to be found in a relatively short period of time, with any any reasonable expectation that you'll continue to get away with this.

It took 20 years and 48 victims to catch Gary Ridgway and even then it was through DNA. There is absolutely no evidence that JTR ran, fled or in any way whatsoever, demonstrated that he knew that what he was doing was wrong and attempted to avoid apprehension.

If we take the east end of London's population at the time, and use commonly accepted serial killer profiles, we're left with about what, 250,000 suspects? I believe it was Donald Rumbelow who once said and I'm paraphrasing, "At the end of the day, when all is said and done, and JackThe Ripper is asked to step forward we will ask, who are you?"

We also know that serial killers don't just stop killing on their own, ever. No folks, JTR either died, was incarcerated for another crime or institutionalized shortly thereafter. There really is no other alternative. The prostitutes were simply easy prey.

As long as my rambling may have been, it was actually quite short considering how long I've been following this case, and now it's your turn. If the identity of JTR is ever learned via some miracle, someone shoot me an email. Happy hunting!

[Pippin Joan]

Welcome, Darian! I hope this isn't your last post!

Thanks for your well-expressed post. You have some good points there. I do think it would be a tough call to pronounce JTR legally sane. However, I do think he tried to evade the police and avoid capture. He seemed to know how to catch people, where, and when, so that he would get away with it. Remember that criminal investigation had little resemblance to what we have today. The closest thing the police had to evidence was the confused descriptions of men seen with the victims before their deaths. If Jack was a relatively "normal" person during the day (and in the East End, that was a wide spectrum) no one had any suspicions about him. The average person in the East End did not lead a "regular" life, so unusual behavior was not unusual. Jack knew that if he was not seen killing someone, he was pretty well guaranteed to get away with it. Leaving a corpse in the street was the safest thing he could do. There was no forensic evidence there, and he certainly wasn't going to lug the corpse away to hide it.

One of the recent buzzes on the Casebook is the FBI report on serial killer profiling. It is suggested that there is no reason to believe that serial killers must keep on killing. Find that thread and see what was said. The most sure ways of quitting are certainly death and incarceration. If he went somewhere else, he could be responsible for other killings. I think he stopped for whatever reason, because the crimes seem to have escalated, and that pattern of killing did not occur elsewhere.

Come on, Darian! You've been interested the Uncle Jack since you were 15 - about the same time as myself. Did you read Tom Cullen's Autumn of Terror? Stay on the Casebook. It's a worthwhile experience.

[Limehouse]

I'm just kidding of course but I've come to the realization that after a 40 year fascination with this case, I'm driving myself to the asylum, oh I'm sorry, treatment centre.

My first post and last, will let you in on what I've learned in 40 years (I was fifteen when I started). My father happened to mention to me at fifteen that my great-grandfather had emigrated to Canada from Whitechapel in 1889. My dad threw in the JTR part that I had not heard of until that point. And so it began. I've been fortunate enough to have toured Whitechapel and the Black Museum, my police officer status getting me in.

Here's my take on all this. Barring some miracle of some sort, this will not be solved which is what I was hoping for. The study of incidentals, happenstance, and coincidence can take me no further.

The M'Naghten rules of 1843 clearly show JTR (imo) as not knowing the difference between right and wrong. He was clearly both legally and criminally insane. If we look at other famous serial killers over the last century, we can clearly see an attempt by those killers to conceal their crimes and avoid apprehension. I cannot see this by JTR. Although the act of serial killing is beyond the comprehension of normal human understanding, presumably *they* understand. Those killers wanted to keep killing and being apprehended would stop that. The only answer was to conceal the crime. JTR did not do this. You can't continue to leave bodies that are going to be found in a relatively short period of time, with any any reasonable expectation that you'll continue to get away with this.

It took 20 years and 48 victims to catch Gary Ridgway and even then it was through DNA. There is absolutely no evidence that JTR ran, fled or in any way whatsoever, demonstrated that he knew that what he was doing was wrong and attempted to avoid apprehension.

If we take the east end of London's population at the time, and use commonly accepted serial killer profiles, we're left with about what, 250,000 suspects? I believe it was Donald Rumbelow who once said and I'm paraphrasing, "At the end of the day, when all is said and done, and JackThe Ripper is asked to step forward we will ask, who are you?"

We also know that serial killers don't just stop killing on their own, ever. No folks, JTR either died, was incarcerated for another crime or institutionalized shortly thereafter. There really is no other alternative. The prostitutes were simply easy prey.

As long as my rambling may have been, it was actually quite short considering how long I've been following this case, and now it's your turn. If the identity of JTR is ever learned via some miracle, someone shoot me an email. Happy hunting!

Great post Darian. Hope you keep on posting. There's a lot there to work with.

[George Hutchinson]

Hi Darian.

I can name you at least three SKs (well, four technically) who managed to stop killing.

Bela Kiss, Fred & Rose West, Dennis Rader.

They are a very rare breed indeed, but not unheard of. I would also suggest that if JTR had no understanding that what he was doing was wrong, he would have continued mutilating his victims until someone came upon him doing it, or at least would not leave the scene of the crime. Walking away (instead of running) to avert suspicion suggests, to me, an awareness of his acts.

PHILIP

[The Grave Maurice]

Interesting post. In my view, JtR would have been found sane under the McNaghten rules...but who knows? It's just speculation on both our parts. Anyway, you should hang around. This site can use all the Canadians it can get. Besides, nobody likes a quitter.

[Fisherman]

Philip writes:

"I can name you at least three SKs ...who managed to stop killing...They are a very rare breed indeed"

They are rare, alright - but perhaps not all THAT rare. What we are often forgetting about is all the serial killers who stay uncaught. These killers often display a spree over a few years or even shorter spans of time, and then the killings seize. I think we must accept that a significant amount of these killers simply chose to quit killing.
In the end, it is of course to a large degree a question of incentives. If the advantages in not killing weighs out the disadvantages, well then there you are! I don´t think it´s such a big deal, really.

The best,
Fisherman

[Simon Wood]

Hi Fisherman.

If some SKs choose to stop killing and thus remain at liberty, how do we know about them?

Regards,

Simon

[needler]

Darian.....please don't leave. It's nice to have a touch of sanity wandering around now and then. I really don't consider myself sane as I've been chasing this guy since I was 10 and I'm almost 63, so you get to do the math. Clearly, you and I agree that the Ripper's REAL identity most probably will never be determined. Frankly, I don't give a damn! I'd wager he's a dead guy, anyway, so how can we hurt him now?? As an aside, I am NOT a believer in the death penalty.....NOPE, I think those who might qualify should be locked up with Billy Joe Bob Bubba Fred and his band of Merry Men for the rest of their lives. I want 'em to suffer indignity, misery, discomfort and (we can only hope) a great deal of pain .... AND I want 'em doctored to stay alive a LOOOOOOONG time. There's no way death is enough; it's too easy, and since we'll all croak anyway it's not a great surprise to anyone. And NEVER let it be said the female is kinder than the male of the species....on this subject I am adamant.....make 'em suffer BIG TIME every day for years and years and years.

Now I got that off my chest, I return briefly to why I'm still hangin' around here and have been known to help in staging Ripper conferences a bit, too. It truly is that I LOVE the folks we meet here and at the conferences. You can sit at dinner, discuss Kelly's last day and NOT terrify or nauseate your dinner partners.....no small feat these days. You'll always be surprised here, so stick around. You might enjoy just watching for a while (in which case you'll have to change your ID to Voyeur1952)

Hope everyone is enjoying December, and cheers!

Judy

[George Hutchinson]

I have a feeling Darian might be as good as his word, but I also have a feeling he reads the boards and wasn't just in and out.

PHILIP

[perrymason]

Hi Darien,

You have a nice conversational way of expressing yourself, we always need more of that here. Maybe you can refresh the interest, and drop the serial killer of just 5 women search, and look at these independantly, in a whole new light. I realize that a serial killer is one who kills more than 2 people.. often, or seemingly so, they are random choices, and therefore very difficult to chase down a killer. But in at least two of the Canonicals we have very legitimate suspects who need not be the Ripper, and very likely victim profiles that are not attributed to Jack...for me one of the most glaring is Alice MacKenzie. In fact there is evidence to suggest that one woman was a victim of a brutal assault, and another perished at the hand of a mentally ill ex lover perhaps. If ever provable, now we are down to three. And in those three, only one has all her organs. Maybe a bad venue choice, maybe not.

Not only is the search for the killer called the Whitechapel Murderer, Leather Apron and Jack the Ripper still an addictive subject matter, but there is also always the possibility that his victim list went beyond November 9th, and wasnt "Canonically" as many as thought prior to that night.

The start dates and stop dates given us are guesses....just well meaning, well informed professional men trying like hell to find something out about this killer...and having virtually no evidence to work with. This episode in part led to the resignation of Charles Warren no less, and took place at the same time as an assassination plot against Lord Balfour was to be carried out by East End Fenians.

If you wave goodbye to a single mad drooling man with a knife, and embrace the fact that some 8-9 other unfortunates came to their death during that period, some in very savage, and therefore similar to the C5, fashion, you have a whole new area to study, and perhaps some real killing time frames. If he changed to garrotting and clubs for example, and killed men too, he could have lived to be 100 and got away with them all.

Best regards.

[Monty]

Isnt the question of 'can Serial killers choose to stop?' rather an unanswerable one, as Simon states?

They either continue undetected, die, lay dormant or are captured.

Monty

[Darian1952]

You're right, I have been reading the boards for years >>>>

I have a feeling Darian might be as good as his word, but I also have a feeling he reads the boards and wasn't just in and out.

PHILIP

In the history of this country (Canada) we haven't had many serial killers, Robert Pickton and Clifford Olsen were both caught, as were Paul Bernardo and Karla Holmoka.

We have the canonical victims but we also have the canonical suspects most of whom can be eliminated if for no other reason than commons sense. Add to that the absurdity of some of them, combined with who was or wasn't in town at the time and we're left with very few. And where did these names come from in the first place? For the most part, what remains of 120 year old documents which isn't very much.

You have 120 year old Victorian thinking. If you think someone's nuts, commit them to the asylum. Take the night of the double event. One might argue that nobody would commit a second murder "properly" when he was interrupted in the first. Well, Richard Ramirez did it, but even Ramirez would have the brains to not commit the second murder had he been seen committing the first. It's my personal opinion (and professional if you like), that none of the known witnesses, Schwartz, Lawende et al actually saw JTR. If they saw him, he saw them. Bodies are found minutes later. Only someone who was truly crazy would commit a vicious murder within minutes of being seen. Criminals like anonymity, period.

Even if we were able to go back in time and take modern technology with us, he would be difficult to catch probably, given everything we know about the place and people who lived their during that period. This is not a slight on those who enjoy discussing minute details of the case. I'm just saying from a personal standpoint, *I* can see no useful purpose in discussing these minute details when everything we know, may very well be wrong.

Having said that however, I know Kim Rossmo personally having worked with him, and I think geographic profiling in this case is invaluable. The dissertation on geographic profiling as it pertains to Aaron K. was an outstanding piece of work.

The Zodiac, Lizzie Borden and The Black Dahlia are all cases that fascinate us. We're not satisfied until someone is caught and convicted, myself included. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to call a taxi to take me to the asylum

Regards,

D.