Why did Jack stop?

[Christine]

But most of us sane folks don't solve our problems that way. Say Jack had good, sane, reasons to dislike MJK, and he wanted to get rid of her. If you were in that situation, would you murder her? Or would you murder (and mutilate) four random women to divert suspicion? There has to be some other factor, some compulsion, or delusion to fuel that kind of behavior.

So say he's done this, and he's succeeded. Is his life likely to be any better? Probably not, because it almost certainly wasn't Kelly that caused his problems in the first place. To return to the facetious example I gave, would killing Kelly make Joe Barnett return Tumblety's love? No, because not only does Barnett find Tumblety creepy (and male, to boot) Tumblety now has to flee to America.

So now we're left with a delusional killer who has removed the object of his hatred, but his life isn't one bit better than it was. What is the most likely outcome now? In all probability he'll find someone else to blame for his problems, and direct his compulsions toward her. In other words, he has a longer than usual cooling off period, and then he starts killing again.

[paul emmett]

Although Jack may have had some sort of plan in his mind that successfully ended with the murder of Kelly, there's no good, rational reason for someone to act that way. To clarify: Jack might have thought that murdering five women (or four women) or performing certain acts would have summoned a demon, or cured impotence, or scared the prostitutes off the streets, but he was wrong.

There's no sane, logical plan that would culminate with Kelly, so if Jack had a goal, he failed to reach it.

Hi, Christine.

I agree with everything you said, except the last sentence here. All I had meant with my original brief question was that when a killer stops, after one or one hundred, one of the possible reasons for quitting has to be that at some level, conscious or unconscious, he has accomplished what he had set out to do.

But as for the sanity, or the lack thereof, of his "goal," that seems to be less clear. What if JTR had, for example, wanted to kill MJK, but didn't want the world to know that he wanted to kill HER. His desire to kill her might be as insane as we might feel all such desires are, but his plan would seem to me both logical and sane.

[Christine]

Why do we have to assume this?

Although Jack may have had some sort of plan in his mind that successfully ended with the murder of Kelly, there's no good, rational reason for someone to act that way. To clarify: Jack might have thought that murdering five women (or four women) or performing certain acts would have summoned a demon, or cured impotence, or scared the prostitutes off the streets, but he was wrong.

There's no sane, logical plan that would culminate with Kelly, so if Jack had a goal, he failed to reach it.

There are probably some exceptions. The obvious one would be that Kelly was "special," i.e., he knew her and had some particular reason to dislike her. But even this breaks down when you realize that the hatred of Kelly is not really due to Kelly's own failings, but to Jack's delusion and psychosis.

A specific example: say Jack was Tumblety, and he was madly in love with Joe Barnett and figured Kelly was the only thing keeping him from true happiness. So he kills Kelly, and now he and Joe can live happily ever after. Except it doesn't work, Joe dislikes him as much as ever, and he's still full of a compulsion to kill women.

[kensei]

Most serial killers we know of have stopped only because they got caught. We'll never know how many have been able to stop without ever being identified, or for what reasons. There is at least one example though of a killer who made himself stop for several years- Dennis Rader (BTK) was only caught when he decided to re-emerge and start sending messages to the police, and even then he didn't kill again. I think I recall hearing him say that since he was getting older he was concerned that one of his victims might manage to overpower him if he didn't stop.

As for Jack, there are so many theories- the torso killings were him, McKenzie and Coles were him, murders in France, or the U.S., or South America were all him, etc. etc.-- we'll just never know. I vaguely remember a purely speculative thread before the site crashed about what the maximum number of Jack's victims would be if all theories were correct. Wasn't it something like 60 or more?

[Lord Lucan]

A tricky question indeed. I have to go with the obvious choices, any of which could be possible. Died, ill health, moved, committed or perhaps there was some crazy thoughts running through his mind that his job was now complete (so back to normality).

[paul emmett]

If we assume that MJK was not the culmination of a campaign,the last act in some twisted plan, then why did Jack stop.

Why do we have to assume this?

[Dan Norder]

Before we can ask why he stopped we have to determine if he even did stop, and there's no good reason to think he actually did.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

Had he continued, he would have had his "trademarks" on his victims! Logically thinking, MJK's injuries wouldn't have been enough anymore for him, so he would have gone even further...

My guess is, that he was just a small piece of news on extra-pages. Telling about a dead victim of a minor accident. For example; run over by a horse-cart or something like that!

All the best
Jukka

[sdreid]

There are dozens of possibilities but scared straight by a near miss would be at the top of my list.

[truebluedub]

Since I accept that Coles and Mackenzie might have been Ripper victims I think it possible that the Ripper went on a lull. After that who knows.
Kind regards,
Chris Lowe

[Christine]

I have noticed how many of the "serious" suspects either moved away, went into an asylum, or committed suicide. Even Joe Barnett and possibly George Hutchison we can assume would have stopped because of his relationship to Mary Kelly.

Based on what's said in the The Macnaghten Memoranda and the Littlechild letter, I would postulate that the police knew--or thought they knew--who the Ripper was, but could not prove it. This would also go a long way towards explaining the police treatment of Barnett and especially Hutchinson. When this suspect went away, the police cut back on patrols and relaxed. The only problem is that they don't seem to have been in agreement as to which suspect this person was....

[brummie]

Just thought I would try and get an idea of the thinking of board members as to the reason the Ripper killings stopped

If we assume that MJK was not the culmination of a campaign,the last act in some twisted plan, then why did Jack stop. Did he simply die or kill himself,was he imcarcerated on some other matter and kept the secret to the end.Personally while not entirely convinced by the identification of Carl Feigenbaum as Jack Trevor Marriott in his book does produce reports of Ripper style killings around the world shortly after the last episode in London, and i am prepared to consider the possibilty that JTR just moved away from London to carry on his work elsewhere, leaving as a seaman or passenger.