Three cases of interruption?

[Fisherman]

Gideon Fell writes:

"I thought that all 39 wounds were punctured wounds."

They are referred to as such by Killeen. But a wound that is one inch deep and three inches long, can hardly be a punctured wound. And that was the appearance of the wound to the lower body.

The best,
Fisherman

[Gideon Fell]

Gideon Fell writes:

"I thought that all 39 wounds were punctured wounds."

They are referred to as such by Killeen. But a wound that is one inch deep and three inches long, can hardly be a punctured wound. And that was the appearance of the wound to the lower body.

The best,
Fisherman

The police reports referred to 39 punctured wounds so they obviously accepted that in their official reports. At only an inch deep (not enough to even get through the body fat) the wound you describe was one of the shallower ones, hardly an attempt to open up the abdomen. More a case of the smaller knife slipping or dragging in the wound (maybe in the frenzy of stabbing) creating the extra length I would have thought.

[Fisherman]

Gideon Fell writes:

"At only an inch deep (not enough to even get through the body fat) the wound you describe was one of the shallower ones, hardly an attempt to open up the abdomen."

Well, at any rate it does not seem to be a very determined cut, I´ll give you that. But I think we need to keep in mind that this may well have been the Rippers very first attempt to cut an abomen open, and with zero experience on his hands - if that was the case - who knows how much force he applied? Also, there is a clear possibility that he was interrupted by Tabram making some sort of sound or moving - Killeen tells us that she lived through the stabbing.
Don Souden has, much the way you do, suggested that the appearance of the wound in question owed to the knife hitting and skidding of bone structure, and that is a possibility, of course. But in the same manner, there remains a distinct possibility that it WAS a hesitating cut to the lower abdomen. Given that the human skin is stretched over a distance of many square feet, it is just too much of a coincidence to my taste that Tabram sustained the only cut to her body at exactly the place where the Ripper focused his interest.

At the end of the day, you just have to take your pick. But I think it will be hard to argue against the fact that cuts give away much less information about the blades that caused them than stabs do.

The best,
Fisherman

[Gideon Fell]

To me this sounds as if it was the lowest of the stab wounds and the downward thrust into the lower abdomen extended the initial entry wound as the knife went over the pubic bone. But it was still a stab or puncture wound initially, hence the description of 39 stab wounds.

In one press account it states that Tabram was 'being throttled while held down', presumably with the left hand while he stabbed with the right. In the photograph the swollen appearance of the face and slightly protruding tongue bears this idea out. I think it was suggested on here before that as the initial 38 wounds failed to kill the woman he finished her off with the fatal wound that pierced the sternum and entered her heart.

The 'effusion of blood between the scalp and the bone' indicates a more superficial head injury than if the blood had been between the bone and the brain. This was probably caused by the killer banging her head back onto the hard floor when forcing her down.

[Fisherman]

Hi Gideon!

There is nothing about the description of the cut that allows us to determine how it came about,I´m afraid. When the doctors who described the cut necks of the canonical victims wrote their reports, the told us in which direction the cut had travelled - but in the case of Tabrams cut, that information is not there. The obvious implication is that Killeen said nothing of it, since he could not deduct anything about it from the appearance of the wound – leaving us with the very obvious possibility that it was a cut.

My contention is that as this cut represented only one 38:th of the total of wounds that Killeen ascribed to the smallish blade, it was simply counted into that tally and therefore is sorted into the list of "punctured wounds". One must keep in mind that Killeen never said that these wounds were all inflicted by the same blade. He only said that they may have been, whereas wound number 39 may not.

As for the throttling/suffocating, I think you will have to admit that the question has divided people in two camps. And when such is the case, it is always due to the fact that there is no conclusive proof around to go by.
My own stance is that she may well have been throttled, at least to some degree. As for the effusion of blood, it may well have come about in the manner you describe - and it may just as well have rendered her helpless/silent/unconscious, as far as I understand.

The best, Gideon!
Fisherman

[Gideon Fell]

So it's all back to square one - down to personal interpretation and speculation.

[Fisherman]

Gideon Fell writes:

"So it's all back to square one - down to personal interpretation and speculation."

I think, Gideon, that you are being somewhat unfair here. Unless I remember wrong, you have just offered that possibility that the knife at the "cut" wound would have hit the bone structure and skidded off. That is a reasonable wiew - it could have happened that way. But since we do not know where the blade entered her body, there is no telling if there was any bone structure to skid against, is there?
Now, does that mean that I should speak of interpretation and speculation on your behalf? I think not. I think, as I said, that the evidence existing allows such an interpretation.
We do not know how the wound looked; it may have been inch-deep only at the one side, it may have been of an equal depth throughout, or the middle of it may have been the deepest part. It may have been slightly jagged or not, it may have run from her head down to her toes, just as it may have run from side to side, rendering your suggestion more or less worthless.

The lesser the material offered, the bigger the room for interpretation - that goes without saying. And since we both add guesswork and interpretation here, maybe we should just settle for allowing the counterpart the same things that we allow ourselves?

The best, Gideon!
Fisherman

[Uncle Jack]

the Ripper took over after the initial stabber had left the stage, having provided our man with something he had long wanted - a woman ready to cut up and eviscerate.

The theory that Tabram was murdered by someone else then Jack chanced upon her, in a random stairway, is something I find hard to buy, if I am honest. Of course I welcome any theory. I find it more likely that the Ripper strangled Tabram and, thinking she was either dead or unconcious, began to mutilate her (hence, the three inch wound in the lower area of the body) but was surprised when she awoke and began to panic, which caused him to panic, in case she made any noise, causing him to stab her in a frenzy.

Regards, Fish.

[caz]

Hi Adam,

Maybe the theory is not too much more of a stretch than Jack, out looking for his fourth victim (if we have no good reason to completely discount Martha as #1), coming across an unfortunate being treated a tad roughly by some loutish passer-by and finding the temptation to finish the job there and then too much to resist, despite the busy club location not being conducive to an 'Annie' follow-up worthy of the name.

Do some posters perhaps forget that Mitre Square was actually only the second location in which Jack mutilated to the extent of removing body parts and taking them back to his lair? If he was desperate by the end of September to repeat, even 'improve' on his performance in that Hanbury St backyard, it would have been a very precarious juggling act between waiting for a more secure environment opportunity, free of bodily function-challenged early risers who could peep at him through or over fences (or equally, free of club members darting in and out to answer their normal calls of nature) or having to contemplate failure and going home empty-handed instead of red-handed.

If nothing else, Jack would have been more acutely aware than anyone, in the immediate aftermath of each of his crimes, of how close to the wind he had sailed, and how best to fine-tune his act next time if he wanted to carry on dodging the growing numbers of people who would be on his tail.

First off, his knife or knives had to be kept very sharp. So it's at least possible that if a different one was used on Kate (and I don't think the evidence decides that either way) it was because the killer wanted a freshly sharpened blade and didn't want to fanny around getting the first one sharpened, so used the 'spare' he had on him for emergencies. Nearly decapitating a victim, for instance, with a knife that would have been unsuitable if that had been his purpose, could presumably have left him with a blade so blunt he could have ridden on it bare-arsed to Bristol. I'm not saying this was the case with Liz, but certainly after Annie, if not from the start, he might have realised that two sharp knives would be infinitely better than just the one.

Love,

Caz
X

[Mascara & Paranoia]

I don't buy into Jack carrying two knives on him at all. Wouldn't it make more sense to carry as less as possible, so that he could have more storage for his organs? Not mentioning the risk of when escaping from a crime scene had he bumped into someone he could've A) been easily caught and/or B) might've gotten stabbed himself with his own blades. Plus there's no evidence to support it, other than if you add Stride and Tabram to his list of kills, which I think is just a way to turn Jack into some kind of anti-hero with a cool body count. Stride and Tabram are very likely just one-off murders by completely different people to Jack, and I don't see how adding them into the mix is really helping as, to me at least, they're 'obviously' not the handiwork of the Ripper.

[caz]

Stride and Tabram are very likely just one-off murders by completely different people to Jack, and I don't see how adding them into the mix is really helping as, to me at least, they're 'obviously' not the handiwork of the Ripper.

But M & P, how useful is it really for the purposes of a debate, for any of us to say that: "to me at least" a particular fatal knife attack was 'obviously' not the handiwork of the man who killed Polly, Annie and Kate, or 'obviously' was his handiwork?

I know from the documented details of at least three genuine double events that the man who killed Liz could very well have gone on to kill Kate.

What evidence does anyone have that he didn't - much less could not have done?

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Uncle Jack writes:
"I find it more likely that the Ripper strangled Tabram and, thinking she was either dead or unconcious, began to mutilate her (hence, the three inch wound in the lower area of the body) but was surprised when she awoke and began to panic, which caused him to panic, in case she made any noise, causing him to stab her in a frenzy."

Works all the way up to the point where he suddenly swopped weapons - in the middle of a frenzy...?

The best,
Fisherman

[Mascara & Paranoia]

@ caz:

But the only evidence that indicates Stride as a Ripper victim is the sole fact that Jack was in Aldgate (or thereabouts) shortly after her death and that Eddowes was killed on the same night. That's just a coincidence as far as the actual physical evidence tells us; the throat wounds are completely different. Jack was a little bit cocky in the sense that he did his thing outside, but I doubt he was so deluded as to attempt to mutilate someone in that yard; he would've ran enormous risk of being caught. Was he really so uncontrolled that he would do something so reckless as that? Going by his previous kills, I'd say no; he did not want to be caught. If Jack was interrupted at any one of the canonical murders, it would've been with Polly. Stride (and more so Tabram) seem like the work of different killers.

[Tom_Wescott]

Jack was a little bit cocky in the sense that he did his thing outside, but I doubt he was so deluded as to attempt to mutilate someone in that yard; he would've ran enormous risk of being caught. Was he really so uncontrolled that he would do something so reckless as that? Going by his previous kills, I'd say no; he did not want to be caught.

Correct, the Ripper did not want to be caught. That's why he killed Stride under pretty much the same circumstances in which he killed Chapman - He was in the dark of a yard and positioned himself right next to the exit. He may well have been more confident in Hanbuary Street, which is why - like you said - the throat wound was not as severe. However, it did get the job done, and in only one stroke, did it not? He was also working in extreme darkness in Berner Street, whereas he was not in Hanbury St. The two killings are exceptionally similar. And in Berner Street, he did not have 17 windows overlooking him as he did in Hanbury Street.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Mascara & Paranoia]

But in Hanbury Street, the people who lived in those rooms were asleep. In the Berner Street yard people were very active in that club; it was a lot more riskier than the venue of Chapman's murder. That's what I'm saying.