How Many Hands Does A Killer Have?

[Lucifer Sam]

Hi there, this is my first ever post so please go easy on a benign dimwit such as myself and apologies in advance if this has been covered elsewhere recently.

The thing I've noticed with Ripperology is it's more a case of what you're willing to dismiss rather than what you're willing to accept so I've been considering the well worn debate about the possibility of the 5 canonical victims being murdered by different people.

Excluding of course the gang who attacked Emma Smith it does seem likely there were several murderers operating (no pun intended) in Whitechapel at that time and if we're going to dismiss Tabram as a Jack the Ripper victim then we clearly have 2 active murderers in the same locale already.

I perfectly understand why some exclude Liz Stride as being canonical but the thing that bothers me about the other 4 not being the work of 1 man is that these women weren't just murdered and cut up a bit, their bodies were actually sliced opened up and their organs thrown about and all bar Kelly it was done on the streets. Which gets me to thinking although Whitechapel in 1888 was a nasty vice and poverty ridden **** hole, how many people back then could actually stomach doing that to someone? Of course butchers would be used to cutting up annimals but what were the chances of two people in the same area at the same time being capable of murder followed by such extensive and brutal mutilation on another human being?

The talk of copycat killers is interesting and the more the press fed the public who knows who's imagination they were firing. Now I know some consider Kelly to be the work of a copycat or at least someone trying to disguise her murder as the work of Jack the Ripper but again the extremity of what happened in Miller's Court was so brutal could any copycat or anguished ex-lover etc be capable of sinking to those depths, or does it seem to be the work of a person that's recently been getting kicks out of carving up dead prostitues? As we see in the copycat killings over the next few years although the women were murdered in similar ways their murderers could never bring themselves to mutilate them to the extremes that the Ripper went to in 1888 save a slight bit of protruding intestine here and there.

I'm sure there are lots of you just waiting to tear me to pieces over this but I'm not trying to start any arguments by saying what is right and what is wrong. There are so many inconsistencies and so little facts meshed together with all kinds of myths and rumours about Jack the Ripper we will never know the full story.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that murdering somebody is one thing but carving them up, removing their organs and either taking them away or placing them around the room is something else entirely.

All the best!

[Mascara & Paranoia]

I think you're on the right track and agree with everything you said.

Focusing on those canonical 5, I think it's (relatively) safe to say that Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly were almost certainly Ripper victims (the 'almost' being for Kelly, the other three we know for sure are Jack's).

It's definitely possible for Stride to have been killed by another person entirely separate from the Ripper (and not due to the lack of mutilations; the dissimilar and 'superficial' throat wound [in comparison to the other victims'], the busy area where she was killed, the man likeliest [I'm not saying the broad-shouldered man was her killer, just that he's got to be the main suspect in that particular murder] being rough with her in full view of potential (and one or two actual) witneses just minutes before she was murdered/found et cetera). Though adding her to the list of Ripper victims does seem to fit 'nicely' with the Double Event and going to Mitre Square and 'explaining' the facial mutilations on Eddowes. Personally though, I don't buy it. I think it was coincidental that Stride was killed on the same night as Eddowes. For all we know, after killing Chapman earlier that month and the press taking an interest in the case, Jack might've planned to kill his next victim outside of Whitechapel to avoid being caught, as people would've been more vigiliant by then in his usual haunt, and then once things started to die down, go back to doing his thing in Whitechapel again a month or so late with Kelly.

Speaking of which...

I can understand why there would be doubt over Kelly's murder, it is different to the others; it's the first and only one committed inside, she's been far more extensively mutiliated to the point of being completely hollowed out and her sexual organs were left with the body by the killer. But having said that, her being more extensively dismantled is probably due to being inside as opposed to on the street where he would've had less time. As for presumably taking her heart instead of a uterus, well, he took a kidney last time. Maybe he didn't want this woman's uterus for whatever reason and decided on something else? It's not exactly out of the realm of possibility. As for a copycat, that just seems a bit ridiculous to me. If that was the case then you've got an even worse killer at large than the Ripper himself, even if it was just a one-off.

That said, I don't think the Ripper case is as mysterious or enigmatic as it's made out to be. So the killer was never caught. So? It was relatively 'easy' not to in those days as long as you were cautious; there was no CCTV, no forensics, most of the detective work relied on witnesses and hearsay and going door-to-door and inquiring about the people who seemed the type to commit the crime. It just seems like a usual serial killer case to me (though one of the eerier ones); three or more victims murdered within a month or so of each other, the killer never caught. I don't think the Ripper was a mastermind or the case was crammed with all these intricate stories and conspiracies, I think he just posed as a client, got his victims in a relatively lonely area, slit their throat, cut them open, did whatever he wanted to do quickly, then walk away from the crime scene undetected. It doesn't really take a criminal genius to pull that off.

[YankeeSergeant]

Several killers

I see no problem with more than one killer or even two in the Whitechapel/Spitalfields area during the "Autumn of Terror". Were they all serial killers? No. Obviously there will always be questions about who was a victim of Jack the ripper or even if there were more than one person committing the murders. here is my take and bear in mind that this is strictly opinion
Emma Smith- Victim of a gang of men.
Martha Tabram: Victim of one man and one weapon the difference in wound pattern accounted for by difficult removal of the weapon.
Nichols Chapman and Eddowes; Jack the Ripper.
Stride: a likely but not necessarily victyim of Jack.
Kelly Again highly likely but possibly not. I believe she was but qualify that by wondering about the differnece in venue (Indoors t rather than out) This may be explained by the fact she was younger and prettier than the other victims and could demand a room indoors (hers) rather than a quick knee-trembler in an alley or garden.

[Scorpio]

Only Long Liz really bucks the trend in the killers signature, but there are compelling reasons why this may be so. The killer departed from, or experimented with,his basic MO and was unable to indulge in his signature mutilations as a result. Kelly certainly belongs to the five, as her death indoors was the product of opportunism not un-ripperean agoraphobia.

[kensei]

Hi LuciferSam,
I too agree with much of what you say and have been feeling for years that the extremity of the Ripper murders was so severe and people with hearts and minds capable of committing them so rare (thankfully!) that more than one appearing in the same place at the same time is highly unlikely. It is for that same reason that I have seriously wondered if the East End torso killings were done by the same hand as the Ripper murders, and if by copycat killings in later years you mean Alice McKenzie and Frances Coles I wonder if those were both our boy as well. After all, would his explosive attack on Kelly mean that all future victims would have to be that extreme too? McKenzie's murder was similar to Nichols', and Coles' similar to Stride's.

YankeeSergeant, I agree with what you suggest about Tabram being killed with a single blade and not two, the popular theory being due to misinterpretation of some random fluke (though we won't get much agreement here, but debate is a good thing). I feel Tabram was Jack's first murder, with Annie Millwood and Ada Wilson possibly but not definitely his first efforts at "practice." I agree with most that the Emma Smith attack had nothing to do with Jack even though it was considered the first of the "Whitechapel Murders."

[Fisherman]

Kensei:

"I agree with what you suggest about Tabram being killed with a single blade and not two"

Tis I can´t resist, Kensei, so I´ll give you your debate. Or at least a start to it.

Have any of us seen Tabrams trunk and the holes in it?

Did Killeen do so?

Did he, or did he not, tell us that he was of the opinion that two blades had been used, and that the smaller blade in fact not could have produced the hole in the sternum?

And that´s it, as far as I´m concerned. Thanks for your time - I´m outta here!

The best,
Fisherman

[kensei]

On Tabram, I'm well aware of the doctor's conclusions and I have respect for his position. And I hold that it's possible that he was right, that a second blade might have been brought out for some kind of symbolic final deathstroke or something. But apart from that, the whole "38 stab wounds from one knife and just one from a second" seems incredibly odd. If there was more than one assailant it seems unlikely that one of them would have gotten in only one strike, and if there was just one who had two blades the whole 38 and 1 thing has to be counted as not impossible but certainly odd and unlikely. I'm not suggesting for a moment that Killeen was incompetent, but even today modern forensics are often questioned. It's said that juries today have been tainted by t.v. shows like "CSI" and expect forensic evidence to be absolutely scientifically infallible, and it's just not. Much has been written about how fingerprints, blood spatter, and other such evidence is not quite as exact a science as we've been led to believe. And that's in the 21st century. In the 19th, no matter how esteemed an expert may have been testifying, can we really place 100% faith in his opinion? He was looking at a bunch of hacked up flesh and trying to make sense of it. Maybe Killeen was right about the two weapons, and maybe he was wrong. And if he was wrong, I'm totally willing to let it slide and forget and forgive. There will always be fine details that play volleyball with each other. I still think only two people were present on that landing in George Yard- Martha Tabram and Jack the Ripper, no matter how many blades he had on him.

Ugh, it's close to six in the morning where I live and I'm tired and I hope we haven't deviated too much from LuciferSam's original point.

[Fisherman]

Kensei:

"I hold that it's possible that he was right"

That´s reassuring! For a second there, I thought you may rule him out totally.

"... But ... the whole 38 stab wounds from one knife and just one from a second seems incredibly odd."

It IS odd! But the same thing would have applied if the killer had painted Tabram´s body green or something. It would have been odd too, but that would not have made her any less green, would it? If things generally do not happen, we should take the overall stance that they ought to be ruled out in favour of things that generally happen. But that only applies up to the instant where the evidence tells us that the less ordinary thing HAS happened. That is why the usefull word "odd" is at hand in our vocabularies; it covers things that deviate from the general picture.

But yes, let´s not stray away from the true topic of the thread!

The best,
Fisherman

[kensei]

One last before bedtime. The point of this thread is how likely it is for more than one killer to have been involved. How likely is it that more than one man with serious mental issues to a degree we can scarecely imagine was walking around the East End of London in mid-1888? How likely is it that the person who stabbed Martha Tabram 39 times is the same person who completely disasembled Mary Kelly? Were there multiple people capable of violence in general? Absolutely, they were everywhere, and violence in the East End was a way of life. But with what the Ripper did- my god, I pray that there are only a handful of people in all of human history who are capable of such horrific acts. I'm going to bed now. God bless everyone.

[Fisherman]

He was truly horrific, Kensei, no doubt about it. And I concur that we should not look for one killer per deed in the cases that portray his mentality.

Sleep well!

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Given the rarity of unsolved unprovoked knife attacks on women in this period in England, given the close proximity in geographical area and in time that these attacks took place, given the similarity in choice of victim (opportunist selection, female, drunk, prostitute, past their prime), time of attack (night), type of attack (knife), then it is in my opinion almost certain we are looking at one culprit for the whole lot, unless there is good reason on a case by case basis for thinking otherwise.

Millwood – first failed attempt
Wilson – tried something different, again failed
Smith – gang attack – not him
Tabram – perfecting his technique
Nichols – getting into it properly
Chapman – getting used to it
Stride – slightly different area due to police and vigilantes, almost caught, messed it up
Eddowes - making up for incomplete Stride attack
Kelly – unexpectedly led to a room after picking her up and street and making most of situation
Mylett – furthest outside area. Knife not used. Police thought she wasn’t even murdered. Not him
McKenzie – back to basics
Pinchin Street – another Kelly-like opportunity, but dealt with in a new way
Coles – big gap in time line, slightly out of area and I think Sadler did it – not him

If somehow the culprit were identified and it was found that he was responsible for all the attacks (including Smith, Mylett and Coles) then I wouldn’t be surprised. There are however aspects of the Millwood and Wilson cases that I am not so sure about. I have no problem in putting eight murders down to him though.

[Scorpio]

Given the rarity of unsolved unprovoked knife attacks on women in this period in England, given the close proximity in geographical area and in time that these attacks took place, given the similarity in choice of victim (opportunist selection, female, drunk, prostitute, past their prime), time of attack (night), type of attack (knife), then it is in my opinion almost certain we are looking at one culprit for the whole lot, unless there is good reason on a case by case basis for thinking otherwise.

Millwood – first failed attempt
Wilson – tried something different, again failed
Smith – gang attack – not him
Tabram – perfecting his technique
Nichols – getting into it properly
Chapman – getting used to it
Stride – slightly different area due to police and vigilantes, almost caught, messed it up
Eddowes - making up for incomplete Stride attack
Kelly – unexpectedly led to a room after picking her up and street and making most of situation
Mylett – furthest outside area. Knife not used. Police thought she wasn’t even murdered. Not him
McKenzie – back to basics
Pinchin Street – another Kelly-like opportunity, but dealt with in a new way
Coles – big gap in time line, slightly out of area and I think Sadler did it – not him

If somehow the culprit were identified and it was found that he was responsible for all the attacks (including Smith, Mylett and Coles) then I wouldn’t be surprised. There are however aspects of the Millwood and Wilson cases that I am not so sure about. I have no problem in putting eight murders down to him though.

Lechmere,what about Annie Farmer?. She was a terminal failure i reckon. McKenzie?. I dont believe serial killers have reverse gears. Interesting list though.

[Lechmere]

Yes for completeness I should have included Annie Farmer but only to reject her as an unsuccessful victim. I think she faked it.

As for reverse gears – he still killed McKenzie viciously with a knife. The attack was similar to Tabram (which is why I used the expression ‘back to basics’). I don’t agree that it is the case, by any means, that serial killers always get more ‘extreme’ in their methodology. The often ‘chop and change‘.

[Scorpio]

Yes for completeness I should have included Annie Farmer but only to reject her as an unsuccessful victim. I think she faked it.

As for reverse gears – he still killed McKenzie viciously with a knife. The attack was similar to Tabram (which is why I used the expression ‘back to basics’). I don’t agree that it is the case, by any means, that serial killers always get more ‘extreme’ in their methodology. The often ‘chop and change‘.

Annie Farmer faked cutting herself?. I am not sure that i can accept this explanation, but I agree that serial killers change,or stop for extended periods for one reason or another, but i dont think they regress.

[Sally]

Well...

I tend to see one killer too and broadly agree with Lechmere on this one. As for going into reverse gear - well, there are factors which might affect the killer's MO, I expect, so I don't know about that. I'm unsure about Coles, I think she might be included. I'd also want to consider the outside runner, Mary Ann Austin, sliced up at good old Crossinghams in 1901.

I think the killer was a local man, I don't think he lived in Whitechapel itself, but just ouside. His first kills were probably closest to where he was living.

I don't accept the multiple killer theory, and I do think Stride was a Ripper victim.