Surgical expertise, anatomical knowledge. So on and so forth..

[Abby Normal]

What happened to Eddowes was not surgery, Abby; it was not even butchery. If anything, a surgically-trained person, or a butcher, might easily have taken longer.

Not if they didn't want to get caught.

[Sam Flynn]

Not if they didn't want to get caught.

Whatever. We're obviously never going to agree on this.

[elmore 77]

If I was JTR and I was a doctor and Phillips had said what he did I would probably try to hide my skill.They say I'm a doctor now ,ha ha.

[Michael W Richards]

....There's good evidence that Phillips himself re-evaluated his earlier opinion after the Kelly murder. Her abdominal flaps had been removed similar to Chapman's (which was part of the reason he thought he had seen some knowledge in her case) but the rest of the carnage indicated that his assessment of the Chapman murder may have been incorrect.

After the close of the Chapman inquest, Phillips avoided the press, but in 1910, his former assistant, Percey Clark, gave a telling interview to the ELO. He claimed that the earlier assumption of medical skill was incorrect. I do believe he was reflecting the opinion of the man whose practice he took over after Phillips' death. The only reason why I believe many Ripperologists haven't considered this is they either aren't aware if it or it's Inconvienient for their pet theories.

Just to correct the part in bold, heresay doesnt mean anything in terms of what Phillips felt at the time, or later, he never publicly renounced his professional opinion on this matter as far as I know. And I can help you with your Stride question...Liz Stride was not mutilated because her killer did not show any interest in doing so.

And thats supposed to be the same man that killed 2 previous women just so that he could mutilate them?. Funny how people want to settle for answers that make no sense logically, maybe because they fit a premise or theory they want top believe in. Without any evidence of an interruption or some kind of incomplete action...of which neither exist in Strides case, one must accept that the killer evidently wanted only to kill Liz Stride.

Thats not who killed Polly then Annie, obviously.

[elmore 77]

^
Or he realised,a little late in the piece, that it wasn't a safe bet and decided to try elsewhere

[Jeff Leahy]

^
Or he realised,a little late in the piece, that it wasn't a safe bet and decided to try elsewhere

Agreed that seems like the most probable explanation...but ripperologists like to complicate things

Yours Jeff

[c.d.]

Hello Michael,

How do you know whether or not Stride's killer wanted to mutilate her?

And for about the ten millionth time something could have spooked her killer for which there would be NO EVIDENCE.

c.d.

[Abby Normal]

Whatever. We're obviously never going to agree on this.

Hi Sam.
Probably not. However, I never even considered before that the ripper didn't have some kind of medical experience. But because of arguments by posters like you Hunter and others I realize it is a possibility now

[Errata]

There's a funny thing about medical knowledge in that often you don't know you have it until the need arises. When I was 25 I set my first dislocated shoulder. And five minutes before I did, I would have told you I didn't know how to do that. I'd seen it once or twice. Read about it. But I couldn't do it until my friend dislocated his shoulder 25 miles away from the nearest hospital. And I was dumb enough to think that at bare minimum, I couldn't make it worse. Which I could have. Got it in one. My dad was horrified and slightly proud that I was setting dislocations among my peer group.

So Jack could easily have been in the peculiar situation of having the information he needed, but not realizing it. He might not have known he could do it until he did do it. Maybe he stood over his work and said "Holy crap, where did THAT come from?" Which makes you wonder, what did he think was going to happen when he put a knife to these women? Was he just going to stab around but then he got a bright idea and surprised himself with his own cutting skills? We assume that he collected medical knowledge for the specific purpose of using it, but what if he didn't? Most of us don't. So if he was like most of us, whatever plan he had going in, at least at the beginning, didn't involve anatomical knowledge and medical skill of any sort, because it didn't occur to him that he had it.

I wonder what that original plan would have been.

[Jeff Leahy]

So Jack could easily have been in the peculiar situation of having the information he needed, but not realizing it. He might not have known he could do it until he did do it. Maybe he stood over his work and said "Holy crap, where did THAT come from?" Which makes you wonder, what did he think was going to happen when he put a knife to these women? Was he just going to stab around but then he got a bright idea and surprised himself with his own cutting skills? We assume that he collected medical knowledge for the specific purpose of using it, but what if he didn't? Most of us don't. So if he was like most of us, whatever plan he had going in, at least at the beginning, didn't involve anatomical knowledge and medical skill of any sort, because it didn't occur to him that he had it.
.

Hi Errata

I guess the answer to that is how you see the murders in general. Those who tend to discount or minimise the number of victims, tend to consider a fully formed killler appearing on the streets with a single objective..

I'm not convinced that serial killler behave like this and of course I believe Jack was a loan serial killer.

So i see a killer that learns and experiments as he goes along, effected by his environment. Geography, lighting and of course the victim herself.

That why I see a big curve from say the attack on Annie Millwood....random stabbing to the buttocks.... The violent onslaught to Martha Tabram... The total destruction of MJK

A growing learning and experimenting serial killer, ever changing

Yours Jeff

[Errata]

Hi Errata

I guess the answer to that is how you see the murders in general. Those who tend to discount or minimise the number of victims, tend to consider a fully formed killler appearing on the streets with a single objective..

I'm not convinced that serial killler behave like this and of course I believe Jack was a loan serial killer.

So i see a killer that learns and experiments as he goes along, effected by his environment. Geography, lighting and of course the victim herself.

That why I see a big curve from say the attack on Annie Millwood....random stabbing to the buttocks.... The violent onslaught to Martha Tabram... The total destruction of MJK

A growing learning and experimenting serial killer, ever changing

Yours Jeff

I tend to agree with you. Which is why I see gaps in evolution between certain murders. Gaps where I would expect to see two or three more victims. Which I find mysterious.

But on the other hand, serial killers are not all one thing, and a lot of them display immense leaps in skill and changes in behavior for seemingly no reason.

Ed Gein was a fully fledged... whatever he was before he ever harmed a living soul. His activities were confined to the dead, and only when the dead could no longer provide him with the materials he needed did he kill. There could be some of that "outside" practice with the Ripper.

Jeffrey Dahmer made several leaps in his career. His first murder was bludgeoning a hitchhiker who was about to leave. His next murder was with his bare hands in a hotel, and he carried the body out in a suitcase. Like a different kind of killer. Then he was drugging his victims and choking them, and then the acid vats came into play. Like he didn't have an arc at all. He landed in different styles until he found one that worked. And Jack might be a bit of that as well. His other victims could be strangulations, or even drownings for all we know. He may come into this phase of his career more fully formed in a lot of ways than we can necessarily see.

Or even John Wayne Gacy. Who was a serial killer, but was really a rapist who didn't want to go to jail. One criminal activity fueled another. And that may be Jack as well. Not a rapist, but perhaps he attacked a few women, got in a bit of trouble, and decided that killing them was preferable to them talking. A fully formed violent criminal, just not necessarily a serial killer at first. Which would give him a certain amount of sophistication going in to his first actual murder.

It's hard to know. I don't *think* he was like Gacy, but I can't rule it out. And I don't think he was like Dahmer, but again, I can't rule it out. I feel like if he was like Gein we would know. That would have been noticed, and there would be reports. But then I would have thought that a small town like Plainsfield would have noticed someone was decimating the graveyard, and they didn't. So who knows?

Whatever Jack is, he's his own thing. Obeying some rules of serial killers, defying others. There is no template he would fit neatly into. None of them do. Maybe he was a washed up doctor. Maybe he was the son of a washed up doctor who grew up in hospitals much like I did. Maybe he was a really bright guy who read to his mother in a hospital every day and that's where he observed, and therefor learned everything he needed to know. Or a bookstore clerk who obsessively read medical texts. Or a hunter who reflexively treated human corpses like animal carcasses. Whatever he was, even if he was a surgeon, he likely wasn't thinking "I gotta make sure I cut up this woman in a surgical fashion". And he was fast. Crazy fast. He was operating on instinct. Which doesn't tell us what he is, raises a lot of questions about how the hell he got so fast, and almost ensures that with a modicum of neatness he is going to look trained, whether he is or not.

Did he evolve? Maybe. Many serial killers do. But many don't. Many are chasing the fantasy, so they try and get the same result every time. When they stray it's usually because of an emotional trigger. Like Kemper and his mother. Had Kemper continued killing, he would have done it the same way. He never would have repeated what he did to his mother. That was special, not part of the fantasy. And maybe Mary Keller was to the Ripper what Mother was to Kemper. And whether or not he evolved depends entirely on whether or not his needs were being met. And if he was a mission oriented killer they likely were, but were he a sexual sadist they likely were not. If he was punishing these women, then that's a solid maybe on whether or not that was doing it for him. And we have no way to know.

It all depends on the why. And the answer to that is long gone. But if we can't hypothesize that as thoroughly as we can Dahmer, or Gein, Or Kemper, then we won't be able to answer these questions. Even the question of whether or not Jack was medically trained. It's always going to be a guess, but it's a very important guess we need to make. We need his story. And we are forced to make it up as we go, but nevertheless, it's the key. His story is the key.

[elmore 77]

[QUOTE=Errata;363411] And he was fast. Crazy fast. He was operating on instinct. Which doesn't tell us what he is, raises a lot of questions about how the hell he got so fast, and almost ensures that with a modicum of neatness he is going to look trained, whether he is or not.

Gold medallist fast,perhaps?

[Errata]

[QUOTE=elmore 77;363415]

And he was fast. Crazy fast. He was operating on instinct. Which doesn't tell us what he is, raises a lot of questions about how the hell he got so fast, and almost ensures that with a modicum of neatness he is going to look trained, whether he is or not.

Gold medallist fast,perhaps?

Well he certainly wasn't dithering or planning. It's the kind of speed you see with supreme confidence or absolute disregard for consequences. It's unclear which he had and why.

[elmore 77]

[QUOTE=Errata;363418]

Well he certainly wasn't dithering or planning. It's the kind of speed you see with supreme confidence or absolute disregard for consequences. It's unclear which he had and why.

I'm sniffing around Bond at the moment,I think there's more to him than meets the eye.He was a gold medallist surgeon(whatever that is)

[Jeff Leahy]

[QUOTE=elmore 77;363415]

And he was fast. Crazy fast. He was operating on instinct. Which doesn't tell us what he is, raises a lot of questions about how the hell he got so fast, and almost ensures that with a modicum of neatness he is going to look trained, whether he is or not.

Gold medallist fast,perhaps?

Yep he worked quickly alright, and as Errata says there could be all sorts of reasons for this...

However my preferred theory is that Jack had experience killing, butchering and dissecting animals. Possibly cutting ofal and delivering pet food (Hanbury Street was a pet food shop)

The sharp 6 inch blade likely to be that of a boot maker.

But thats simply my preferred theory

Yours Jeff