JTR: Not even the skill of a butcher?

[Doctor X]

perrymason:

Here is a trivia question: What case--in the books--did he lose?

Right, damn is this place addictive.

Anyways, I am not competent to comment on whether or not Mary Kelly was a bona fide Jack victim--I would just be parroting what others have said. I, myself, do not doubt it, but I am always willing to be shown otherwise.

To me, it seems Mary afforded him the opportunity to literally go nuts. All of his other killings he did in public places. With Mary, he could take his time and he basically dismantled her.

However, let me take your point and put Mary aside. Let us pretend she is not a Jack victim--I blame Dickens!! Bloody David Copperfield!

So now you have your three. Well, there is still a progression. With Katherine he goes so far as to slash up her face. With Annie, he does his first real removal. With Polly, he is getting started with his explorations. He also took "bits" with these victims as noted above.

So what, then, is his reason for taking a uterus or Kate's kidney? The problem is we can "read into"--eisegesis--meaning without justification. I can "make up" a reason for the uterus . . . sexual fixation on the belly . . . "seat of woman-hood" . . . blah . . . blah. Or it could simple be a damn easy thing to find! It could be a trophy! Another member in a private communication suggests maybe he ate them!

Jack that is . . . not the poster. . . .

Thus, with the kidney he may have actually wanted one . . . or as Dan Norder suggests above, Jack just may have located it and took it. Small enough to take with the other "bits."

Back to Mary Kelly--here he takes the heart. Why? Why not? Maybe it is different.

Anyways, it is getting late, so I should stop speculating. . . .

--J.D.

[perrymason]

Im sure its quite possibly as you suggest Sam, I dont claim to know differently, but as I was trying to get across, many of the wounds inflicted on Mary Kelly could be construed as acts of someone who was punishing, spiting, mocking or just taking out anger on the victim. Or they could be signs that the Ripper killer was wanting to mutilate more, so he moves indoors to do so.

The same duality applies to the removal and taking of organs, it was either "the everest" that he just stumbled upon, or he went in for specific things.

The 3 victims that had organ removals share the fact that all had the uterus cut free from the body,.. only in the last case, it cannot be considered relevant as an objective, because he removes almost everything abdominal from her...and doesn't take the uterus. The only relevance that might have, is perhaps that the killer who takes excised uteri wasn't in Millers Court that morning...because he showed no attachment to that particular organ. The two, partial and complete, he took before that point quite obviously had some meaning for him...otherwise why take uteri?

I think its important that we dont just disregard the sex of all his attributed victims...it could be as you say Sam, because they were there at the moment in the middle of the night when he goes killing, or he may have wanted female parts, and that why he goes out after midnight...to take them from gullible, weak, starving women..

My best regards.

[Sam Flynn]

The two, partial and complete, he took before that point quite obviously had some meaning for him...otherwise why take uteri?

...perhaps because there really is no other organ in the lower abdomen, apart from the urinary bladder, that could be smuggled away with relative ease.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Personally, I don't agree with the view that the Ripper happened to take the uteri because they were handy in that area where he ripped them up. The Ripper took a number of dfferent organs and body parts from his victims but in two of the cases (Chapman and Eddowes) the womb was taken apart from other stuff - I see that as an important issue.
Sure, two occasions isn't a very well founded base for any speculation about intent or 'pattern', but I see it as important nevertheless. To me the womb appears to have been the main target and then he just grabbed what he got hold of as far as the rest is concerned.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the Ripper needed to be medically trained in any way or that he possessed a great deal of anatomical knowledge besides what a butcher or slaughterer might possess.

All the best

[paul emmett]

Personally, I don't agree with the view that the Ripper happened to take the uteri because they were handy in that area where he ripped them up. The Ripper took a number of dfferent organs and body parts from his victims but in two of the cases (Chapman and Eddowes) the womb was taken apart from other stuff - I see that as an important issue.
Sure, two occasions isn't a very well founded base for any speculation about intent or 'pattern', but I see it as important nevertheless. To me the womb appears to have been the main target and then he just grabbed what he got hold of as far as the rest is concerned.

I,too, see the "selection" of the utrei as important. Indeed, I agree with all Glenn has said here, except the duality between "main target" and "just grabbed." The problem I have with this duality starts earlier in this thread, with the implicit assumption that JTR either focused on mutilation or organ selection. Clearly, Jack was concerned with mutilating, but does that imply that he wasn't concerned with uteri? It seems that, as Glenn and Michael have said, uteri meant something to JTR. Did they mean more than the thrill of the cut? I'm not sure.

But I do go further and say that for wombs it's not just two cases. MJK's uterus was exracted along with just abut everything else, but to me the fact that it ended up underneath, propping up, her head says something. He doesn't take it, but he leaves it in what I would call a privledged position. He now has time to pick and choose and he chooses to leave Kelly's womb under her head--with one breast and both kidneys. So we are back again to the kidneys, which I think are important to JTR, too. As important as the womb? No, I too think the womb was "the main target"--just like one could argue that mutilation was the main goal. I just feel that one goal doesn't preclude others. There could have been a main goal and yet other goals, a main target and yet other targets.

OH, I don't think that JTR had the skill of a surgeon, just the vision of an owl.

Happy Easter.

[perrymason]

Personally, I don't agree with the view that the Ripper happened to take the uteri because they were handy in that area where he ripped them up. The Ripper took a number of dfferent organs and body parts from his victims but in two of the cases (Chapman and Eddowes) the womb was taken apart from other stuff - I see that as an important issue.

Sure, two occasions isn't a very well founded base for any speculation about intent or 'pattern', but I see it as important nevertheless. To me the womb appears to have been the main target and then he just grabbed what he got hold of as far as the rest is concerned.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the Ripper needed to be medically trained in any way or that he possessed a great deal of anatomical knowledge besides what a butcher or slaughterer might possess.

All the best

Hi Glenn,

I think that about capsulizes how I see that specific act of his too. And the skill required to complete it. I think it would be very difficult to imagine he had no knowledge of internal workings also, and how he got that knowledge was probably not from a surgical teaching hospital.

It may not be as revealing as a patten in so few cases, but the mere fact that twice he takes an extracted uterus..even in partial form,..probably has some meaning for him, even perhaps to his motives for killing in the first place.

And the fact that one is left behind in Millers Court, already excised, is I believe important in that murder investigation.

A case could be made that Marys Kelly killer hated her. Some of the wounds, and the severity of the wounds to her facial features particularly, allow for that speculation. Is there any evidence in the prior murders that imparts some notion of perhaps his emotional relationship with the victim? Implications of rage, or just sheer madness? Well 3 out of the 5 had kind of the same specific sequencing, similar overall injuries, and the primary area of mutilation was just the abdomen. They just seem to have abdominal cutting, post mortem, as the focus.

But there was one other of the C4 whose wounds might speak to anger or mocking, or him just playing. One other. The one that uses 2 variations of the name Mary Jane Kelly the last 24 hours of her life...and she wasn't "a" Mary Jane Kelly at all. The next one was.

You'll notice that Kate fits in with the Sequencing, and the superfluous cuts. Which raises the interesting question....is it possible the last two, the only ones with truly meaningless cuts..in terms of achieving anything as a result beyond just making those cuts....were victims closer to him personally?

My best all.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

I,too, see the "selection" of the utrei as important. Indeed, I agree with all Glenn has said here, except the duality between "main target" and "just grabbed." The problem I have with this duality starts earlier in this thread, with the implicit assumption that JTR either focused on mutilation or organ selection. Clearly, Jack was concerned with mutilating, but does that imply that he wasn't concerned with uteri? It seems that, as Glenn and Michael have said, uteri meant something to JTR. Did they mean more than the thrill of the cut? I'm not sure.

But I do go further and say that for wombs it's not just two cases. MJK's uterus was exracted along with just abut everything else, but to me the fact that it ended up underneath, propping up, her head says something. He doesn't take it, but he leaves it in what I would call a privledged position. He now has time to pick and choose and he chooses to leave Kelly's womb under her head--with one breast and both kidneys. So we are back again to the kidneys, which I think are important to JTR, too. As important as the womb? No, I too think the womb was "the main target"--just like one could argue that mutilation was the main goal. I just feel that one goal doesn't preclude others. There could have been a main goal and yet other goals, a main target and yet other targets.

OH, I don't think that JTR had the skill of a surgeon, just the vision of an owl.

Happy Easter.

Hi Paul,

Just to clarify - when I said 'main targets' I meant that I believe the womb to be the main target as far as the organ taking is concerned. I don't necessarily believe the organ taking as such was his main objective for the murders - I believe that was the mutilations.
But in the context of trophee taking, I think the womb was of certain interest to him.

And Happy Easter to you as well.

All the best

[Sam Flynn]

I don't think that JTR had the skill of a surgeon, just the vision of an owl.

...or the fingertip sensitivity and dexterity of you and me

[paul emmett]

Glenn, that was clear: main trophy.

Sam, that isn't clear: I have a "touch" of arthritis.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Sam, that isn't clear: I have a "touch" of arthritis.

Bah, you guys come back when you have a lack of B12 and B6. I tell you - it's MS and Alzheimer's next.

In case anyone's wondering: I am desperately trying to raise from Constable to Detective.

All the best

[Sam Flynn]

In case anyone's wondering: I am desperately trying to raise from Constable to Detective.

Just keep taking the vitamins, Glenn, and you'll soon get there

[The Good Michael]

I think that these arguments come down to one of two concepts:

1. Either JTR just cut and grabbed as quickly as he could (freakishly fast was the original thought), or 2. he set out to take, in some cases the uterus and in one case, the kidney.

If number one is true, he could have been anyone who had a predilection for murder, cutting, and grabbing.

If 2 is true, and if things were done "freakishly fast", some knowledge (abattoir) may have been necessary.

I opt for 1, but if any part of 2 is true, I might be singing a different tune.

Cheers,

Mike

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Hi Mike,

Personally, I don't think the choice of the uteri was a coincidence, but that's just me. As for the rest of the organs, I assume them to be smash and grab items, especially since many of them appears to have ended up in bad condition or in pieces.
So I would say some kind of combination between 1) and 2).

----------------------------
Sam,

No luck yet. Maybe I buy the wrong brand of vitamins.
What's the limit for Detective?

All the best

[Sam Flynn]

Sam,

No luck yet. Maybe I buy the wrong brand of vitamins.
What's the limit for Detective?

I'm not sure, Glenn. Still wincing after my demotion from Commissioner - I feel like Sir Henry Smith, but in reverse.

[perrymason]

Good morning all,

Glenn, I believe its either 125 or 150 posts, so you're due for promotion soon old chap.

I side with you that the uterus in particular, even when only a partial one, was a "prize" to this killer. Its one of the factors I use in assessing Mary Kelly, is there continuity in that respect....and for me it appears that the killer of Mary had no such attachment to that organ. It seems as if her killer knew The Ripper cuts the organ from the body of previous victims....which if he reads wouldn't be a problem...but didnt know what "meaning" it might have held to the real Ripper, so he just placed it like the other bits..here and there. Truthfully if he had taken the uterus, Id be half way to buying Jack as Marys killer.

On the thread title, I really cant see how you could eliminate some skill with a knife, or dismiss the fact that he did take the same organ twice.

Id buy a Butcher....or Hunter....Butcher working on cattle boats...not a Tailor, as Doctor X pointed out well in terms of scissors usage, or a rural man, farmer who comes in at the end of the month to sell goods or cattle.

But I also dont think its impossible that this man had some rudimentary knowledge of surgery.....in which case a Tumblety type might fit the bill. And "Burke and Hare" might not be ludicrous.

My best regards all.