JtR's Ideal Victim Type

[mariab]

I agree with Chava about victim selection, and I guess we won't know, unless we find out who he was, if it was sheer opportunism or if it was more personal – i.e., if he had mother issues, being perhaps abandoned by his mother, or if he had witnessed women engaging in prostitution as a little kid, ensuing in some kind of trauma (kinda like Mary Bell). The same about sane (sociopathic) or insane (schizophrenic), we can only speculate about this in relation to the different suspects.
Ruby, I agree with you that Hutchinson (regardless of if he might have been the Ripper or not) went through a very cunning gamble when he came forward as a “witness“, but, as you say, possibly in his own mind it was the only way to “clear himself“, since he had been seen waiting for hours in the rain outside of Mary Kelly's dwellings. But then again, everybody knew that the Metropolitan Police was desperate and would grab the opportunity to lay the blame for the murders on some “foreigner“, Jew, Irishman/American, or visiting sailor.
By the way, the only likelihood in which I'd be prepared to take Hutchinson's testimony at face value would be if he has possibly seen an overdressed Tumblety. I'm sure that Stewart Evans would agree with this! But this thread is going way off topic now...

[Mycroft]

[QUOTE=mariab;143336]I agree with Chava about victim selection, and I guess we won't know, unless we find out who he was, if it was sheer opportunism or if it was more personal – i.e., if he had mother issues, being perhaps abandoned by his mother, or if he had witnessed women engaging in prostitution as a little kid, ensuing in some kind of trauma (kinda like Mary Bell). The same about sane (sociopathic) or insane (schizophrenic), we can only speculate about this in relation to the different suspects.


Hi there, my no.1 suspect, Jacob Levy, fits all of that. His much loved mother died, not long before the killings started,he suffered from syphilis more than likely caught from the local prostitutes and died he in a mental asylum. (Also,he lived locally, matched the height given by witnesses and was a butcher, as well as many other little coincidences...it's him I tell you!!!)

[mariab]

Yes, Jacob Levy is a viable suspect (was he perhaps identified together with Eddowes before her murder?), but then again, many-many inhabitants of Victorian Whitechapel have been abandoned by their alcoholic mother/have witnessed prostitution with possible traumatic effects when they were children/have been ailing with syphilis. For instance, Barnett's mother disappeared when her kids were still small, leaving Barnett to take care of the family as a boy, and Eddowes' steady boyfriend John Kelly was treated for syphilis. So it's really hard to say...

[corey123]

Hello All,

Narcissism, has nothing whatso ever to do with him being a Lust Killer. Garza, I believe you mmisunderstand the use of the term. Lust murdering is neither a motive nor a method of killing. It is rather a classification. It means the killer attacks places of their satisfaction. It doesn't have much to do with whether they are female or male, but rather the area's subject to attack.

It does however, set a likely gender to the killer, of coarse this case the killer is a male. Tis is due to(also where Lust murderer comes in) the attack preference(ie. throat, abdomen, private areas).

Narcissism is a personality defect and has nothing to do with Lust. It actually can explain why he attacked those areas.

I don't believe Jack the Ripper was a mastermind, but the murders were premeditative and were performed in a fairly organized maner.
This characteristic makes it hard to conclude that he was schizephrenic. Now if the murderer was Jacob Ineschmid, then perhaps he was, but I truly doubt this is the case.

Maria,

When Ruby said he was charming and clever, this means that allthough not actually extreamily intellegent, he was smart enough to create a loving self image, and was seen by that image.

And of coarse you can look at the murders witha "learning curve" however, the results would differ by how you choose to look at it. In truth, Jack the Ripper was smart, and I am using the generic term of Intellegnce.

[Errata]

We have a saying down here I am fond of which is "I may be dumb, but I ain't stupid." And God help us, there are a lot of those types out there. Uninformed, incurious, not knowledgeable, ill educated. Clever, but not smart. Capable of learning at normal to high speeds, but lazy. Adaptable, but unmotivated. So you get these people who are seemingly incapable of anything more challenging than working a drive through window, but are highly sophisticated killers. Killing, like a few other hobbies has an insanely acute learning curve. If you don't want to get caught, or killed, you adapt quickly. People can motivate themselves for things they enjoy. How many people out there dropped out of school because they were "Attention-Deficit" yet can concentrate on a complex video game for a solid day? How many kids are making bad grades, yet can recite from memory every Pokemon ever known to man? It would not surprise me in the least if Jack the Ripper displayed little intelligence and even less motivation in his daily life. But I think that looking at the murders, he may be dumb, but he ain't stupid.

[Barnaby]

[QUOTE=Rubyretro;143264][QUOTE].

I absolutely can't accept that he was a Schitzophrenic, because I personally know a Schitzophrenic and believe Me, people would turn to look at him in the street (for example: the person that I know has been a brilliant sucessful business man, but despite having a home and comfort, he has been known to draw out loads of money from a distributer, throw the money up in the air for
passers by, and then go barefoot to beg. Someone like him would be incapable of 'planning' violence -although he can be scarily 'out of control' violent). [QUOTE]

John Nash of A Beautiful Mind is schizophrenic. The Unabomber is as well. Plenty of highly intelligent paranoid schizophrenics out there.

[Barnaby]

Replying to some earlier posts, I think most of us would like it if Jack turned out to be a highly intelligent offender. After 120+ years, if Jack turned out to be a cognitively challenged person who couldn't even articulate his motives had he been questioned, I for one would be disappointed. That's not glorifying Jack. That's trying to rationalize time spent on hobby.

Having said that, I don't see any evidence of above-average intelligence here. He would have really had to screw up to get caught, and he almost did that at least once!

[corey123]

Hello Errata,

Good ol'Tennessee God bless it.

I agree, when I said I was using the generic term of intellegence this is exactly what I ment. Basic understanding of the 7 learning catagories, math/logic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, music, language, body movements. Also the preference of other types og learning over others is too true. In school, I hate math, but I love psychology. In math, I am a math wiz but I still hate it, but I have already read the whole psychology textbook and its only the second nine-weeks. This is due to something called reinforcement value, which is the preference of certain types of reinforcement over others.

Barnaby,

I agree, there are some very talented schizephrenics, I know one personally, and when on his medicen, he act's normal. However, you have to realize(correct me if I am wrong)there were no such medication in 1888.

Also you are right again, Stride was the slip up and if Jack the Ripper was of High to superior intellegence I don't believe that would have happened. Nor do I believe Eddowes would have been killed.

Yours truly

[Errata]

John Nash of A Beautiful Mind is schizophrenic. The Unabomber is as well. Plenty of highly intelligent paranoid schizophrenics out there.

The only problem is, high functioning or not, schizophrenics do have episodes. In the past 60 or so years, we have hospitalized schizophrenics if necessary during these episodes, barring clear and present danger, we have released them once they have stabilized. Not so in Victorian times. Typically, if they went in symptomatic, they stayed in. Given that the general populace viewed the mentally ill as incredibly dangerous and some even thought it might be contagious, it seems unlikely that a condition as occasionally obvious as schizophrenia would go either unremarked or unpunished.

[Errata]

Also you are right again, Stride was the slip up and if Jack the Ripper was of High to superior intellegence I don't believe that would have happened. Nor do I believe Eddowes would have been killed.
Yours truly

Remind me to someday tell you about the argument that can be made for Jack the Ripper being a cognitively latent or mentally retarded man.

[corey123]

Hello Errata,

There isn't one. A person with a boarderline to low intellegence couldn't commit the crimes of Jack the Ripper.

Nevertheless, I would love to hear this argument. It is always good to keep an open mind, no matter my opinion.

[Raoul's Obsession]

on the issue of Jack's intelligence...

I think it depends largely how much knowledge the victims/prostitutes had about police beats and their times. If they had a good knowledge of times and could judge their sessions with clients accordingly then there really isn't a lot of need to ascribe a great deal of intelligence to Jack. It seems his job was to chat them up and slice them up - end of story. He certainly didn't make much of an attempt not to be seen and the GSG wasn't exactly Shakespearian in quality either. Appart from him having some medical knowledge (maybe) and our 21C knowledge of serial killers having above average IQ - there isn't a lot to point to a super smart offender. I'm happy to be conviced of the opposite if someone is wishing to point out why.

[Rubyretro]

It seems his job was to chat them up and slice them up - end of story. He certainly didn't make much of an attempt not to be seen and the GSG wasn't exactly Shakespearian in quality either. Appart from him having some medical knowledge (maybe) and our 21C knowledge of serial killers having above average IQ - there isn't a lot to point to a super smart offender. I'm happy to be conviced of the opposite if someone is wishing to point out why.

[/QUOTE]

I'm only just reading Bob Hinton's book (I ordered it, got it sent to my Mum's
to send on to France, and it got passed around all my Family in England -who were glued to it- before it got to Me !). There is a quote which sticks in my mind : something along the lines of a top golfer hitting a fab shot, and a reporter later saying ' the last shot was really lucky !' and the golfer replying 'yes, and the more I practise, the luckier I get !'. I think that sums
Jack up pretty well.

I think that he made sure/was lucky that he wasn't seen, and the more so as time went on.

I am not sure that he even wrote the GSG (who would waste time, in a hurry,in the pitch black, with a bit of chalk ? -I don't think so - particularly if you weren't a very fast, confident, writer..? ).
Opinions might vary as to what it actually read (no photo), how long it was there, and what the meaning was. I DO think that he knew that it was there
though, or at least knew that the inhabitants of the building were mainly Jewish, and he threw the apron bit there on purpose, to stir up even more trouble for the Jewish Community.

I think that, on balance, he had a high IQ.

[Raoul's Obsession]

Having thought about this a little more deeply I'll put forward what I think are the aspects of the case requiring a deal of intelligence.

1. Choice of prostitutes as a victim class. While plenty have done it since Jack I can't think of too many before him. Did offer him a degree of safety.

2. Ability to convince women (even at the hight of the ripper scare) that he was safe enough to accompany down a dark alley way (while also concealing his weapon)

3. Ability to subdue and kill victim quickly and quietly with minimal sound and minimal blood spraying onto himself.

4. Decent knowledge of escape routes

I'm sure there are probably a few more as well.

Rubyretro - I take your point about the GSG - that debate about that goes on and on and I thought I'd put it in there for the believers. As for your first quote - I think you are right in saying that practice makes perfect and certainly Jack got 'better' as he went. But at the same time, even stupid people learn and I don't think that implies that he was smart from the beginning. On the surface of it, to me at least, I would say that he wasn't the cognitively challenged individual that some here have suggested but I wouldn't go as far as to suggest that the guy was a genius either.

[Mr. Candlebridge]

I just see JtR as an opportunist with a motive. There must have been some pre-planning involved...and since I am assuming that the prostitutes had some staked territory and some regular circuits, the murderer could probably make a construct of a "safe" plan. A local could easily know the shadowy spots and escapes, and a commuter would have to have some time on his hands.
It is hard for me to say if there was a particular preference of victim...other than the commonality of their occupation.