Surgical knowledge?

[Ben]

Hi Tecs,

Given the densely populated area, it isn't at all surprising that any murder committed on the street should be discovered shortly after the initial attack. The killer would certainly have been aware of this, and yet he spent precious time engaging in generalized stabbing of the genitalia ("meaningless cuts" as Baxter might describe them). If his goal was to extract the uterus for sale to a specimen-collecting doctor, he was going quite the wrong way about it.

Regards,
Ben

[Tecs]

Hello Tecs. Thanks.

My lad reported that he was selling sheep entrails and heads at coffee shops. Now I recognise that sheep entrails go into haggis. But are you aware of any British dish that uses heads?

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn,

I can't add much more than the top post on this page.

Sheeps heads were used for years but have pretty much gone out of fashion now. It's not that long ago that, probably through neccessity, people munched on whatever they could get hold of. (My Nan used to love munching on pigs trotters. Us younger generation thought it was disgusting!)

On this point though, didn't Isenschmidt go aroung selling dressed sheeps heads?

regards,

[Tecs]

Hi, Tecs,
For awhile now, I have wondered about the "still breathing" assessment from Paul.

Could he not have been perhaps over excited at finding a dead body?

Or someone who was no good judge of such matters?

It is my understanding that bodies do sometime emit air or muscles may jerk a bit for sometime after death.

Isn't it possible this is what Paul was dealing with and not a woman so recently murdered?

It is a difference of a few minutes, but very important minutes.

Hi Curious,

Anything is possible but all of what you mention still points to somebody very recently dead ie maybe a couple of minutes. I agree totally that in the timescale we are talking about that actually amounts to a long time so who knows?

regards,

[Ben]

Hi Lynn,

Decapitation could be something new to such a one.

I'd be very surprised indeed if decapitation, or any other form of skeletal dismemberment, was anything new to a member of the butchering trade. I'd be equally surprised if any member of that trade should fail in their attempt at such a dismemberment, irrespective of how mad they were or how tangential it was to their main goal.

All the best,
Ben

[Jon Guy]

Hi Lynn

My lad reported that he was selling sheep entrails and heads at coffee shops. Now I recognise that sheep entrails go into haggis. But are you aware of any British dish that uses heads?

Hope this helps:

Sheep’s head dishes have an ancient pedigree and have had a particular association with the morning meal. They also have considerable “literary and political credentials.” (Hope 162)

In 1773, Dr. Johnson indignantly refused an offer of “some cold sheep-head for breakfast” on the Isle of Mull. His reaction delighted Boswell, who had encouraged their hostess in the offer from “a mischievous love of sport.” (Journey 406)

Enlightenment Edinburgh celebrated sheep’s head in both its rationalist and romantic phases. Ferguson wrote that “A gude sheep’s Heid/Wha’s hide was singeit, never fleed.” (that is, not ‘flayed,’ in other words cooked whole), and Burns did not confine his culinary odes to the haggis:

“O Lord, when hunger pinches sore
Do Thou stand us in stead

And send us, from thy bounteous store
A tup or wether head.”

-A Grace From the Globe Tavern, Dumfries, presumably for the table.

A ‘wether’ is a male sheep; ‘tup’ means ram. (dsl online) These enlightened sheep’s heads were served simply, garnished with carrot, onion and turnip, and napped with brain or parsley sauce after a long, slow simmer. (McNeill 184)

Powsowdie, or variously powtowdie or powsoudie, the traditional sheep’s head broth, was “the first Scottish dish encountered by the Wordsworths and Coleridge on their Scottish tour.” Dorothy Wordsworth wrote that they “ate heartily of it.” (Hope 162)

Sheep’s head continued to sustain the impecunious in the British Isles for centuries. In his poignant portraits of nine Chelsea Pensioners, Philip Ziegler describes the living conditions of one poor family with six children in Hampshire during the early twentieth century. He recounts circumstances of considerable deprivation and crowding but also notes that it “was a happy enough home.” (Soldiers 48-49) The family could not afford to buy fruit except perhaps for the odd orange at Christmastime, but like the urchins in Lark Rise, these siblings foraged the hedgerows and fields on their way home from school for berries, nuts and other wild foods. Potatoes were too expensive but their mother was both diligent and resourceful. She kept her children fed. “A cauldron of stew was almost always on the hob: a half sheep’s head provided its meager element of meat; Swedes, turnips and other root vegetables were added as they became available.” (Soldiers 48-49)

[curious]

Except that a warm body, possibly still breathing indicates that she has only just been killed/attacked.
Regards,

Hi, Tecs,
For awhile now, I have wondered about the "still breathing" assessment from Paul.

Could he not have been perhaps over excited at finding a dead body?

Or someone who was no good judge of such matters?

It is my understanding that bodies do sometime emit air or muscles may jerk a bit for sometime after death.

Isn't it possible this is what Paul was dealing with and not a woman so recently murdered?

It is a difference of a few minutes, but very important minutes.

[lynn cates]

heads up

Hello Tecs. Thanks.

My lad reported that he was selling sheep entrails and heads at coffee shops. Now I recognise that sheep entrails go into haggis. But are you aware of any British dish that uses heads?

Cheers.
LC

[Tecs]

Hello (again) Tecs. Thanks.

"What do you propose did happen that is simpler?"

That he accomplished his object and left. The decapitation in Annie's case was not successful and so he abandoned it (possibly even thinking that he DID succeed at it).

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn,

Yes, all is possible.

Interestingly, in the one case where Peter Sutcliffe attempted to decapitate a victim he too didn't succeed. He admitted later that he wanted to leave the head somewhere like the side of a motorway just to confuse the police, in other words no deep pyschological reason just a killer "arseing around" if you'll excuse my language and unintentionally flippent words.

Then again, Sutcliffe is a complete liar from start to finish so you have to take everything he says with a dose of salts as Liz said in that excellent and factual drama Jack the Ripper featuring Michael Caine......

regards,

[lynn cates]

object lesson

Hello (again) Tecs. Thanks.

"What do you propose did happen that is simpler?"

That he accomplished his object and left. The decapitation in Annie's case was not successful and so he abandoned it (possibly even thinking that he DID succeed at it).

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Can the leaper change his spots?

Hello Tecs. Thanks.

Yes, I can understand how Baxter's theory was motivated. Along with the clean cuts, several indicators suggested a chap who knew what he was about.

And I agree that the uterus theory was not a massive leap in reasoning; however, it was a leap.

Cheers.
LC

[Tecs]

Looking back through the last few pages of posts I find I'm in complete agreement with Hunter and Errata on this issue. The "butcher" argument is seriously weakened by the evident failure of the killer to decapitate Chapman, despite an obvious effort on his part to do so.



But why, Tecs?

As you acknowledge, there must have been a point in time when he thought that organ extraction might be a worthwhile thing to try. He didn't require a week to come up with the idea, nor did he require more than ten seconds. The notion of the serial killer as a ready-made product who gets everything perfect from the outset is effectively refuted by other serial cases. Even the most "organized" serial offenders with apparently fine-tuned "MOs" will have started off a more chaotic footing, and their earlier crimes will often bear little relation to their later ones. When modern commentators attempt to rule out Tabram, for instance, on the grounds that her murder involved stabbing as opposed to slashing, they are flying in the face of everything we ought to have learned about serial killers over the decades.

The vast majority of serial killers discover their specific likes and dislikes as they explore and escalate. Andrei Chikatilo did not eviscerate his earlier victims but did so with some of the later ones. Jeffrey Dahmer experimented with vampirism at some point during his killing spree but abandoned the practice shortly thereafter. In short, there is absolutely no reason to think that JTR had organ extraction as a preconceived agenda before he killed everyone, and certainly no good reason to think he was interrupted in Buck's Row.

All the best,
Ben

Hi Ben,

Yes, I can't disagree with that on the whole. Except that a warm body, possibly still breathing indicates that she has only just been killed/attacked. So de facto, the killer can't be too far away surely? If he's not too far away then the possibility that he was disturbed must be high?

And then if a body turns up a week later in similar circumstances and with the uterus removed, it's not a huge jump to look back to the murder last week and say "She had abdominal mutilations too didn't she? Maybe he was trying to get her uterus, however ineptdly."

Regards,

[Tecs]

Hello Tecs. Thanks.

Not sure why that is the simplest answer. There are many simpler.

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn, again

I'm intrigued.

What do you propose did happen that is simpler?

regards,

[Tecs]

Hello Cris.

"The idea that the murderer was interrupted in Bucks row started with Wynne Baxter. For his anatomical specimen theory to have been workable, the killer had to have been interrupted in his quest for a specimen to sell."

Precisely. Another case of a recherche theory resulting from forcing the facts.

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn,

I agree it may have been a retrospective theory but I don't think it's trying to force the facts.

Puzzled by finding a women with abdominal mutilations in the street, the police are then presented with a body with a uterus removed.

Knowing that Nicholls appears to have been only just dead when found, it's not a massive jump to wonder if the killer was disturbed.

And it's not crazy to then wonder if someone has heard of the price of uterus specimens and taken up the enterprise.

regards,

[lynn cates]

agreed

Hello Cris.

"The idea that the murderer was interrupted in Bucks row started with Wynne Baxter. For his anatomical specimen theory to have been workable, the killer had to have been interrupted in his quest for a specimen to sell."

Precisely. Another case of a recherche theory resulting from forcing the facts.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

per capita

Hello Ben.

"The "butcher" argument is seriously weakened by the evident failure of the killer to decapitate Chapman, despite an obvious effort on his part to do so."

Well, it might be if that had been a primary goal and not a furtive attempt of a delusional mad chap--especially one who worked as a cutter up. Decapitation could be something new to such a one.

Cheers.
LC