modus operandi analysis

[Iain Wilson]

Interesting and well-written article IMHO.

Agreed. My only real issue is with the data used for the comparison (and the error about the knife used on Stride). The actual accounts of the murders and the injuries is very good.

[Bridewell]

Robert D Keppel

Agreed. My only real issue is with the data used for the comparison (and the error about the knife used on Stride). The actual accounts of the murders and the injuries is very good.

Hi Ian,

They also assume that Stride was an interrupted JtR killing. I believe it was, but it's not a certainty. I thought the following was quite compelling in support of the single killer theory:

The initial analyses demonstrated that many of the individual characteristics and the combination of the signature characteristics observed in the Jack the Ripper murders were rare. In fact, murderers who stab and kill female prostitutes, leave their bodies in unusual positions, and probe, explore, or mutilate body cavities are extremely rare. It would be extremely unusual to find more than one of these killers, exhibiting that combination of signature characteristics, operating in the same area at the same time.

Robert Keppel is a retired US detective with a PhD in Criminal Justice and hands-on experience of investigating serial-killers. That doesn't guarantee he's right, but it does lend some authority to his opinion.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Iain Wilson]

They also assume that Stride was an interrupted JtR killing. I believe it was, but it's not a certainty.

They do make that assumption, but it does fly in the face of how they treat the other crimes. Stride's murder only meets three of their seven signature characteristics (incapaciting, being left in the open and planned). It states that the authors believe that her attacker was interupted, but gives no indication as to WHY they believe this.

Of particular interest to me is how they determine whether or not an attack was planned. The authors state that the Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes and Kelly murder were all planned, but the other five were not. Why? How have they determined this?

Likewise, if you follow the thinking the authors used to include Stride as a Ripper victim, why not MacKenzie? Her body was discovered at 1248am and the time of her murder was believed to be around 1234am. If we are to assume that the killer of Stride was interrupted, why not the same of Coles? I can't quite remember the timescales for Stride's murder, but wasn't the window similar?

If we go one stage further and apply the authors' signature characteristics to this crime, Alice MacKenzie actually seems MORE viable than Stride as a Ripper victim - if we're purely using signature analysis and make a similar assumption that her killer was interupted as was done with Stride - her murderer having displayed picquerism, the need to incapacitate, a need to leave the body being in the open, an attempt to pose the body and pre planning of the attack (for this final point I'm making the same assumption as the authors did on planning given that no indication is made of how they have determined which attacks were and were not pre-meditated).

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm playing devil's advocate here. I personally see Stride as a Ripper victim. However, the point I'm making is that the authors make no attempt to explain why they believe that Elizabeth Stride's killer was interupted, how they determine which attacks were planned and which weren't and why they have lumped her in with the other Ripper victims despite claiming to use signature analysis to make this determination.

[Barnaby]

I really like the article and also think Ressler makes a good point when he states how uncommon these types of murders actually are. This points to a single killer. These murders were as uncommon in Victorian London as they are now, so I think the overall conclusion is reasonable despite the comparsions groups differing by a continent and a century.

As many have argued on many threads, those who include Stride - myself included - as a Ripper victim do so because of the temporal proximity of her death to Eddowes. If Stride had been murdered in the months after Kelly, she no doubt would be among the victims excluded as JTR victims. Implicit in this argument is the fact that these types of crimes are relatively rare - exceedingly rare as this paper argues - and it's hard to imagine two knife-wielding fiends plying their trade within the same hour in the same area.

[Michael W Richards]

I really like the article and also think Ressler makes a good point when he states how uncommon these types of murders actually are. This points to a single killer. These murders were as uncommon in Victorian London as they are now, so I think the overall conclusion is reasonable despite the comparsions groups differing by a continent and a century.

As many have argued on many threads, those who include Stride - myself included - as a Ripper victim do so because of the temporal proximity of her death to Eddowes. If Stride had been murdered in the months after Kelly, she no doubt would be among the victims excluded as JTR victims. Implicit in this argument is the fact that these types of crimes are relatively rare - exceedingly rare as this paper argues - and it's hard to imagine two knife-wielding fiends plying their trade within the same hour in the same area.

Hi Barnaby,

I believe you categorized the murder of Liz Stride inaccurately, her murder was indeed quite similar in nature and in weapon choice to many attacks and murders throughout the East End during the "Ripper" years. Even some suicides.

Knife wielding fiends were common in the area, common to the period, and particularly common in the reports of violent crimes.

Whats improbable is that 2 mentally ill men intent on mutilating women were in the same square mile operating at the same time. What isnt clear is whether that was indeed the objective of the killer of some of the Canonical Group..it is obviously the case with Canonical victims 1 and 2.

Mutilation as an objective would be and still is quite rare among killers, but dismemberment and mutilation are not all that rare by killers seeking to conceal their activities. Killers who cut their dead victims up for example. As has happened in Canada, twice, in the past few months. Those acts were to dispose of the body and attempts at hiding the body and the murder, mutilation was not the driver that created the need to murder in the first place within the killer.

In these cases, anyone that killed a woman after Annie Chapman could conceivably "hide" their murder by imitating or replicating acts that the killer of Polly and Annie committed. Its very reasonable to me to assume that someone who could kill could also be drawn into further acts that he didnt seek out in order to hide from the authorities.

For example, hypothetically, lets say Kate did intend to go to the police with a name she felt was behind the Whitechapel Murders, and she is killed so she would remain silent. The mutilations done to her would then be for an entirely different reason than purely mutilation for mutilations sake.

Why? Why they were killed is far more important than how.

Cheers.