The Ripper & surgical skill

[Mitch Rowe]

Hi everybody,

I know this is territory ploughed over several times but what is the current feeling regarding the Ripper and the likelihood that he had notable knowledge of the human anatomy? In other words, that he had medical/surgical training.
I came across a recent text which stated that many within the medical community of today who were familiar with the Ripper crimes believe he had no 'skill with a knife'. I, myself am a layman regarding this but it certainly seems like a fair assumption that someone who could locate the organs listed (if thats what he intended to do) -and do it with such apparent precision- was indeed someone with an understanding of dissection.
To conclude, who reading this feels the Ripper could have been a medically trained man?

Personally.. I have no opinion. Why? Because we are left with a hodgepodge of almost useless information/Conflicting Doctors Opinions.
But I would say that JTR was probably just a guy living in the eastend so the likeliehood that he had any sort of skill is as likely as if one selected any Man off the street at that time.

The only possible clue I have is that JTR cut flaps of skin off the bellys of two of his victims. Wich to me is highly unusuall for anyone. But I fail to understand what possible connection that has to anything. I only know that it is very strange.

[Fisherman]

Billy Bulger writes:

"I'm basing my argument on the premise that The Ripper did not murder Tabram".

Donīt do that, Billy ...!

The best,

Fisherman

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

IBut then anything Glenn argues here is tainted by his strange desire to try to make Mary Kelly be something other than a Ripper victim. I think his rationale in this thread goes something like this: Kelly was alone in a room mostly undressed, the killer did attack her chest unlike the fully clothed Ripper victims found on the street, and because we know that she wasn't a Ripper victim the Ripper obviously only attacked the abdomen. His demanding that Tabram have nothing in common with the other Ripper murders probably also plays a major influence as well. It's just an example of forcing the facts to fit his conclusions instead of actually bothering to make solid conclusions based upon the evidence in the first place.

Yeah right.
And you are - as we all know - the wonder of objectivity.

And what on earth does this have to do with Mary Kelly?

[perrymason]

I think the word "surgical" defines the only true answer, which is that there is no evidence that strictly a surgeon's level skill was needed, or used.

Then you can add lighting, time allowed, and accomplished activities within that time.

I think anatomical knowledge is indicated. And a Butchers level in the knife skills category. But when you have organ samples that must have been accessed by general medical students or surgical ones in a institutional environment, or a killer, or both... maybe it cannot be ruled out that the presence, or rather the lack of surgical skill present, is only a factor of the time and lighting available.

Which would make one wonder why great precision isnt shown when time and privacy were on his side.

Best regards.

[Becks]

I was wondering, what is the likelihood that your average Joe (or in this case, Jack ) would know what certain organs looked like, or where they were? Just curious...
I think 'surgical skill' is a label which has changed so much over the last 120 years. Back then, a surgeons skill could have amounted to he can pick up a knife and use it without somehow stabbing himself. Whereas now with the advent of advanced surgery, I think some people take a modern meaning to what back then could have been completely different. I don't personally think whoever JtR was had any great amount of surgical skill, if any at all. The mutilations seemed just so random, vicious and without any real point. I think if it weren't for organs being removed on various occasions, the surgical skill question would not have been raised as much as it has.
Just my two cents worth, I hope it makes sense and isn't a load of codswollop rofl.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Mike,

I think anatomical knowledge is indicated.

To an extent, but only in the sense that few men alive at the time (or before or since, for that matter) wouldn't have known roughly where a woman's womb was located.

Which would make one wonder why great precision isnt shown when time and privacy were on his side.

...perhaps for the same reason that no great precision or skill was shown when he had neither time nor privacy.

[Limehouse]

Did Jack actually want to display any skill in carving up these women? Even if he was a surgeon or similar (which I don't believe) would he have been bothered about how skillful he seemed if he was driven by the need/desire to hack these women up?

He may have had some anatomocal knowledge and this could have been gained in a variety of ways - perhaps through butchery of animals or just looking at diagrams of the huiman body and its contents (although these would have been difficult for the average person to access).

I think the points raised about the time available to the killer and the poor light at several of the locations is an important factor determining how the killer went about his business in terms of how 'tidfy' the results of his work were. However, ultimately, I believe the killer was driven by perverted sexual desire and anger that that he was not at all bothered about what the end result looked like as long as it transformed the women from their original state to slaughtered beast.

[Billy Bulger]

Billy Bulger writes:

"I'm basing my argument on the premise that The Ripper did not murder Tabram".

Donīt do that, Billy ...!

The best,

Fisherman

Ah Fisherman I thought it was safe at this stage to take for granted that the Ripper was'nt responsible for Martha Tabram's death lol. Has'nt it been long confirmed that that the Tabram murder was committed by a young soldier/grenadier? I know one could argue a similarity between her death and confirmed Ripper crimes but this seems a stretch to me; if anything Martha bears more in common with Emma Smith than the Canonical Victims.

[Ben]

Has'nt it been long confirmed that that the Tabram murder was committed by a young soldier/grenadier?

Oh, heavens no, Billy.

Tabram to Nichols isn't remotely a stretch when the more dramatic "changes" adopted by other serial killers are taken into account.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Oh, heavens no, Billy.

Tabram to Nichols isn't remotely a stretch when the more dramatic "changes" adopted by other serial killers are taken into account.

Well, that certainly is a matter of opinion, and as you know i don't subscribe to that for one moment.
It is most likely that Tabram was in fact killed by a soldier client, and since a soldier was found at the right time in the vicinity of the crime scene tit is a perfectly logical solution. It's a violent knife attack, that's all, and have very little of importance in common with the Ripper killing of Nichols only three weeks later. How anyone can consider the killing of Tabram as a work of the Ripper will never cease to amaze me.

All the best

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Did Jack actually want to display any skill in carving up these women? Even if he was a surgeon or similar (which I don't believe) would he have been bothered about how skillful he seemed if he was driven by the need/desire to hack these women up?

He may have had some anatomocal knowledge and this could have been gained in a variety of ways - perhaps through butchery of animals or just looking at diagrams of the huiman body and its contents (although these would have been difficult for the average person to access).

I think the points raised about the time available to the killer and the poor light at several of the locations is an important factor determining how the killer went about his business in terms of how 'tidfy' the results of his work were. However, ultimately, I believe the killer was driven by perverted sexual desire and anger that that he was not at all bothered about what the end result looked like as long as it transformed the women from their original state to slaughtered beast.

Considering the very difficult circumstances on the crime scenes - darkness, limited amount of time and a high risk environment - it would actually fit a slaughterer or butcher quite well, because they were often used to work under poor conditions (often at night) and with rapid speed.
And since the mutilations wouldn't require any additional anatomical or practical knowledge besides what could be required by a slaughterer/butcher, it would be a logical choice.
Not to mention the fact that the area was littered with a number of slaughterhouses.

All the best

[Suzi]

Hi all-

Now Martha- I would love to have her in there as No.1- but somehow the multiple stabbing (with however many knives) make her someone/something apart-- somehow I cannot relate this one to Polly, Annie , [Liz]- and Kate -
It's a different m.o. almost to be dismissed- but there again so is Mary Jane Kelly!!!

As to the soldiers - whoever they were-/Pearly Poll and the rest of it...well someone got away with something-fascinating/sad as it may be-- whoever it was I doubt it was Jack!

Suzi

[Ben]

Well, that certainly is a matter of opinion, and as you know i don't subscribe to that for one moment.

Not quite, Glenn.

When I mentioned that the changes adopted by other serial killers have been greater than the so-called differences present in Tabram and Nichols, I was stating fact, rather than opinion.

When you state that Tabram was "more likely" to have been killed by a soldier rather than a client, that's where we stray into "opinion" terriroty, and afraid I disagree with it, just as I can't possibly agree that there's "very little of importance in common" between the murders.

I hold no strong opinion as to whether they were killed by the same person, but in terms of knowledge acquired from other cases, there's more support for the view that they were. Certainly, more police officials from the time included her than excluded her.

But this ain't a Tabram thread.

All the best,
Ben

P.S. On a more topic-related note, the killer's failure to decapitate at least one victim (and almost certainly more) militates against a butcher-as-culprit.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

When I mentioned that the changes adopted by other serial killers have been greater than the so-called differences present in Tabram and Nichols, I was stating fact, rather than opinion..

Yes, among serial kilers who repeatedly changes their modus operandi, but I don't consider the Ripper to be one of those since he showed a rather consistent behaviour pattern and signature in at least three murders during a very short period of time.
Again, the Tabram murder is most certainly different from the rest, and so is the personality of the perpetrator. Prostituties leads very dangerous lives and comes across very nasty individuals. Tabram's killer is pretty much a pussycat compared to many killers in London before and after the Ripper murders. Tabram was most certainly not a Ripper victim.

P.S. On a more topic-related note, the killer's failure to decapitate at least one victim (and almost certainly more) militates against a butcher-as-culprit.

Well it's certainly more likely than a medical man or a surgeon and that was the point.
We also don't know why he failed to decapitate her. You also have to consider the difficult circumstances on the crime scene. he had to be quick, and he might even have felt interrupted. Maybe the killer didn't carry the right tool with him. Who knows?

All the best

[Ben]

Yes, among serial kilers who repeatedly changes their modus operandi, but I don't consider the Ripper to be one of those since he showed a rather consistent behaviour pattern and signature in at least three murders during a very short period of time.

Only if you fine-tune the killer's MO to only encompass the most similarities, Glenn. Many other serial killers have had a few that were remarkably similar, but they were also responsible for murders that weren't remotely so. Excessive post-mortem mutilations on a Whitechapel prostitute with a knife to slightly different excessive post-mortem mutilations on a Whitechapel prostitute with a knife isn't a great leap in comparison to most MO changes.

We can't say that the killers had different personalities; that's psychological insight we don't have, and who is Tabram's killer a "pussycat" in comparison to, besides "Jack the Ripper"?

Tabram was most certainly not a Ripper victim.

Oh, come on, that's ridiculous. She probably was. Certainly, no criminologist or expert in true crime have ever ruled Tabram out.

Best regards,
Ben