The signature of Jack

[NOV9]

Hi ob,

I don't agree with the mutilations being part of his MO. He didn't have to mutilate them, the victim was already dead. If a need to kill was his motivation it would have been satisfied before the mutilation took place.

He HAD to mutilate them....it was his driving force and he needed to do it, to satisfy himself, death of the victim was probably incidental.

If Stride was a victim then this would make the point very well...he had killed but his satisfaction only came from the mutilations, so he was compelled to find another victim...

Additionally he pretty well stuck with the cutting the throat scenario, because it worked well, he didn't find the need to experiment with ways of killing each victim.

The mutilations however progressed even though there was no real requirement for him to change them. He was compelled to change the type of mutilation to satify his fantasy. I think even the police realised this at the time, although they couldn't put it into the fancy words that psyhcologists do these days.

Obviously this is only my own opinion...being only an armchair psychologist!!

Kevin

You and Natalie Severn, have a good handle on signature, and the power control of the killer.

Now I'm going to introduce another factor, the stressor or the trigger that usually gets the killer going, I know that fantasy is the starter, but the stressor or trigger is what he needs to act out his fantasy.

What made him attack at that moment?

I know that this will start it all buzzing again, but this is how you get into the mind of the killer, break him down into small pieces.

I am the stressor for a few people here, watch and see what I mean.

NOV9

[Doctor X]

I am sorry, who are you again?







Yours truly,

--J.D.

[NOV9]

I am sorry, who are you again?







Yours truly,

--J.D.

HI Doc,

[caz]

Caz, may I just say that I thought yours was a brilliant post!

I particularly like the sentence:

"If the buzz could have been as basic to begin with as having a living creature in his hands that he knew he could do whatever he liked with, as time and place allowed, then everything that he actually chose to do when in this position each time (together with the feedback from the world at large) may have been by-products of that initial buzz, adding to it or modifying it, or even taking away from it if something he tried did nothing for him or left him particularly vulnerable."

...one of the reasons being that it mentions the element of feedback. In another post on the thread, Doctor X throws forward a handful of suggestions to explain the excesses Mary Kellys killer exhibited, namely curiosity, rage and/or progression.
I for one would have liked to see the feedback issue added to that tally. I have always believed that the progression that is there in the deeds has a twin, so to speak, in a progression of the communicative elements of the murders. My guess is that not only did he allow himself to indulge as he went through the series; he was also urged on by societys reaction to his appearance on the arena, the Kelly killing being the ultimate showpiece. It was a spectacular deed, and I feel that it was meant to be exactly that. Had it not been for the response evoked by his actions, I do not believe that the Millers Court killing would have looked the way it did.

...but please donīt ask me to prove it all - long as I canīt put the question to our man I of course cannot. I just feel that this aspect of the killing is one of the more overlooked ones, and I am not at all sure that it is deservedly so.

The best, Caz!
Fisherman

Hi Fisherman,

Many thanks for your kind words. I've only just returned to this thread and really appreciate your comments. I have always felt that once our man started to be aware of how the world was reacting to him and his murderous activities, he could no more have remained uninfluenced by that reaction than anyone else. Nobody has any problem with people taking up their pens by the hundred to send in letters claiming to be the killer, so why should they expect the man himself to be indifferent to his own publicity, or to carry out subsequent offences totally unaffected by it? Unless he lived under a stone and only crawled out for each kill, he would have known he was playing to the crowd, whether he was a willing or resentful performer or didn't give a stuff either way. The ripper hoaxers were on the outside looking in, while he was on the inside looking out. But they were all getting the same news and would never be the same individuals again.

If the killer chose to do more of the same, less of the same, or something entirely different and unpredictable, it could have been because of how the public saw him and were expecting him to act, but equally it could have been in spite of the public reaction.

But how does one judge which unsolved murders were not committed by him, from the few judged to be definitively his work? I can see how a crime can be linked to a specific offender if he leaves certain identifying characteristics, ie a discernible signature. But why is it assumed to work the other way round? How is it even possible to ascertain, solely on the basis of what X did or did not do when murdering A, B and C, that X did not murder D?

What X has done is to prove himself capable of murdering for none of the usual motives. How would that disqualify him, for instance, from murdering someone for a rational motive, such as ensuring his continued freedom to offend? I don't suppose Christie murdered his wife to get his wicked way with her dead body. I presume it was because he feared she could be the means of him being hanged for his other murders if he didn't silence her.

This is just one of the ways in which people's notions of signature being able to indicate a non-Ripper victim could lead them right up the garden path and leave them there, tending only weeds.

Love,

Caz
X