Excuse me for the late reply, Christer; I had other things on my mind.
I haven’t said it’s not a viable suggestion, Christer. However, I simply see very little reason to believe that it did happen. But I’m glad that we agree that she was aware of what was happening, if only for a few seconds.
Then we see eye to eye on this, too!
We can only judge it by the looks and by the looks of it, it IS such a murder, meaning that the perpetrator, for whatever reason, did things so that it ended up looking like “such” a murder.
That is correct, Christer. If the Ripper were to have had a go at another victim indoors, he would very likely not have done the exact same things, but I doubt that it would have looked a great deal different from what he did to MJK, considering what he did to his previous victims. But, you're right, we can't be sure of it.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a savage type of attack, as in, done by someone who isn’t much in control of himself; it’s an attack on those parts of the body that are attractive to the murderer, but I believe he may also do things for shock value or to make it, to his own mind at least, some sort of work of art. Jack Owen Spillman is an example of a killer who seems to fit this description and Samantha Bisset’s murder by Robert Clive Napper as well, as far as the “work of art” is concerned.
When talking about “such” murders, he does say that evisceration (removal of the viscera from the abdominal cavity) may take place and gives examples of evisceration cases and one in which inner organs were taken out and taken or thrown away, but, no he doesn’t mention whether they remained (or should be expected to remain) undamaged during or after that.
He does say that ‘posing’ and ‘propping’ of the body may be expected, but doesn’t talk about posing of body parts in this respect. However, as an example he described a case that involved a victim whose breasts were cut off, one placed on the victims face and the other on her vagina. In another case he gave as an example of such murders, the perpetrator (Jack Owen Spillman) had cut out the vaginal area from one of his victims and placed in her mouth, while he had also cut off her breasts, which he transported to the bedroom and placed them on end tables on either side of the bed where the daughter's body was found. With the daughter of this victim he had done more or less the same; he put the excised piece of skin containing the vaginal area on the side of her face.
Actually, he does say that in “such” cases this is what sometime happens in cases of disorganized killers (“extreme assault of the face”), but he also says that anything a disorganized killer does may also be done by an organized one and vice versa. He also has an example of a killer who killed a victims somewhere and then brought her to an outdoors location and placed her in a degrading position, belly down, legs spread. The offender then scalped the victim and hung her hair on some debris at the scene. He also removed her breasts and eviscerated the victim's body.
I don’t argue with you on this one, because I, to a large degree, agree with your view.
It is, indeed, a very interesting case, Christer. Especially reminiscent of the London torso murders and, much less so, of the Ripper murders.
I think you’re exaggerating a little here. Plus I’m not claiming to know the reason for why the Ripper did what he did to his victims; I’m just establishing that what was done to Mary Jane Kelly corresponds with what can be expected in “such” cases and that the prior murders are in line with what was done to her. At least according to what Vernon Geberth wrote about it.
Originally posted by Fisherman
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When it comes to the arm wounds, I always had a hard time regarding them as being defensive wounds. They are in the wrong place to be defensive wounds; normally, such wounds end up on the inside of the lower arm, not on the outside. This makes them so much the more interesting, since they seem to have been inflicted with no practical reason at all.
But we do not know that it IS a "such" murder, do we?
Not do we know if the killers intention was always to produce "such" murders.
The kind of murder you are referring to is a savage type of sexual attack with the intent to damage mainly the sexually oriented parts of the body, and I do NOT think myself that this was the case. If the element IS involved, then I believe it is only a partial explanation to what we see.
Now, Vernon Geberth; did he also say that "such" murders involve the taking out of inner organs in a manner that left them whole and seemingly undamaged? I bet he didnīt.
Did he urge us to expect the kiler to fashion a makeshift pillow from a breast, two kidneys and the uterus and put it under the victims head? Hardly.
Did he say that we should expect the face to have been more or less cut away in "such" cases?
Ironically, I believe the reason that the Kelly murder has always been looked upon as the pinnacle of evil and the most gruesome sight a policeman could encounter, is that the killer took great care to style the body scene in minute detail. What looks like mayhem is a carefully executed exhibition, if you ask me. But that is another matter!
If we are to draw close, then why not take a look at the Kingsbury Run killer, active 1934-39? Most victims were dismembered and found in pieces.
But in June of 1936, a victim was found with the body intact but for the head, that had been taken off. The body had, however, also been emptied of all itīs blood, like the 1873 torso victim. And in July of 1937, the killer had, around ten victims into the series, suddenly added a new element: he had gutted the abdomen and torn the heart out from that victim, a victim who was dismembered, by the way. The victim Edward Andrassy, found in September 1935, was found with the body completely intact - but beheaded and emasculated.
True, it is not the exact same - but the elements are there to a significant degree.
True, it is not the exact same - but the elements are there to a significant degree.
Because the damage furthest removed from the core interests of a killer are the ones least likely to appear on a victim, and that means that such a victim should not be put forward as the best representation of what the killer will do if given the chance. Plus when we only have one single example in a series of these damages, we cannot know what is the reason for them being present.
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