If the Police Had a Modern Understanding of Serial Killers

[ChrisGeorge]

If certain posters (not you I hasten to add ) want to take anything from the Napper case, they could do worse than looking again at their own presumption that the scene in Miller's Court could not have been the work of a serial outdoor offender behaving differently. It sure as hell had to be someone behaving differently, the only alternative being someone who never behaved in a remotely similar way before or since.

As for 'experts' trying to predict human behaviour, many ordinary people would have been predicting, by the second half of October 1888, that the worst was yet to come. It came pretty much on cue and was considered worse than the previous atrocities, which by definition made it different. The great ignorant unwashed of the LVP apparently saw no conflict with the idea that one offender might go on to display different levels and shades of behaviour. I think they had more sense in that respect than modern profilers, even if the prediction came true for the wrong reasons and the ripper was having an off-day when another man's behaviour changed beyond all recognition to destroy Mary.

Love,

Caz
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Hi Caz

You may have heard me say this before but the Ripper series of murders, if only five murders more or less (depending on the opinion of the commentator on the case), is so short that it's hard to generalize about this killer, and yet a lot of people do feel that they can generalize about him.

All the best

Chris

[Chava]

ChrisGeorge, I take your point. But at least, if you have the DNA, if you catch the bugger, you can nail him!

[caz]

Hi Chava,

I take it you haven't been up the A6 lately then.

Visitors to the A6 Murder threads under Other Mysteries might be forgiven for thinking that the correct procedure is to clear the bugger whose DNA you have because it's inherently unreliable, then nail any bugger of your choice whose DNA you don't have.

Love,

Caz
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