Ripper Anatomy Class

[protohistorian]

fast and dirty Tabram math

The green rectangle is the torso as would be observed by an attacker. The area is 25,298 pixels square. The yellow square if the right lung and assuming the lungs were the same size, the left lung as well. This square is 1,581 pixels square. The light blue rectangle is the heart. This rectangle is 2552 pixels square. The red rectangle is the liver. This rectangle is 1710 pixels square. Given these values, one finds a lung is 6.24% of the torso, the heart is 10.08% of the torso, the liver is 6.75% of the torso. Given these values,as we can see in the last post, the focus of the Tabram attack was the left torso, and by a statistically wide margin. Dave

[protohistorian]

Tabram greatest wound density

The blue rectangle contains 11 wounds. Notice the liver is to the immediate left of this area and contains 5 additional wounds. Dave

[joelhall]

I'm juggling a couple of books here, and without any understanding of the multiquote option, never mind that I'm kinda thinking out loud, so please bear with me.

1:My dad's old medical textbook says that the average blood pressure is a little under 2 psi. Which isn't a whole lot, but clearly enough to cause arterial spurt. But it also says a completely severed carotid pulses out only about a foot, for maybe half a minute. The only pressure being exerted on it is that of the pulse. A small nick in the carotid can evidently result in the cartoonish spray we are used to from the movies. But when it is completely severed, it's not really a spray. I guess its about like rhythmically squeezing a garden hose shut. It pulses, but it doesn't shoot out really hard.

This is true, the average would be around 2 psi, slightly higher than this during a heart contraction. Diastolic would be below 2 psi, and systolic would be above 2 psi, in a person with a normal healthy range of blood pressure (around 2.3 according to the calculator at a systolic pressure of 120mmHg). I used the word spray, which is really as a generic term for a jet of blood leaving the artery, as it suirt, spurt, jet, etc. If you severe the artery the blood is going to spray out. The actual distnace of course depends on pressure. The higher the pressure the further it will go. Generally a foot is average, it can be as little as a few inches or as high at 18 inches in normal circumstances. This does not sound a great deal, but it is quite sufficient to cause tell-tale signs, and of course it may be even higher in some circumstances. It will still obey gravity and continue based on the height of the neck of course. During each heart beat the victim would lose on average 0.1L during the first few seconds, declining as the pressure and blood volume does.

If the pressure is raised significantly, say during combat, panic or heavy work and the artery becomes severed this could go even further than the normal ditance. The pressure here could reach 3 psi or more (systolic). During running apparently systolic pressure can rise to 200 hhHg (3.67 psi) or during more strenuous activities even as high as 300 mmHg (5.8 psi). I don't know how accurate these are how often they apply to the general population, but this can be quite telling.

Of course some people may be hypertensive, which is often difficult to tell unless it was known in life, or led to the cause of death. I'm not of course suggesting that they may have pressures as high as this. But we do have to remind ourselves of factors which affect the arterial spray. this could be narrowing of the arteries, or hardening, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, blockages of the blood vessels, etc.

Given the average, 14 inches from the ground seems about right for a normal pressure in the case of Chapman, taking into account the height of the artery from the ground. This is of course assuming she was still alive, and sadly, we do not know what pattern was produced on the wall, which could clear things up pretty quickly. This blood could well be from the artery, although we do not know for sure. To be honest I wouldn't think it particularly likely, but it simply mustn't be ruled out yet.

2: Yeah, he would have to be at the head and tilting back using the jaw, but since she isn't struggling I can't imagine why he would need so tight a grip as to bruise the jaw.

Simply because now the body is acting as a dead weight, and the head has to be held back whilst the cut is made. If he let the grip up the head would simply tilt forwards again, and the skin and tissues would not be as taut making them move during cutting and adding time. There's also another reason for the amount of force used - when working quickly and placing force behind the knife he would naturally use more force with the other hand. Like cutting meat, the more effort you put behind the knife the stronger you will hold onto the other side of the meat.

While cutting of course, the there is also the involuntary contraction of the muscles around the vessels to act against.

strengthening the grip is a fairly natural reaction especially when using hands in different directions.

[QUOTE=Errata;147994]3: Yeah I'm not sure the bending over totally works. In my head I see a taller man standing about at her shoulder as she bends over to pick up her skirts, grabs her jaw yanking her head back and cutting in almost a single motion. But something's not right about that either. Although gripping someone by the jaw and forcing their head back is a pretty good submission maneuver. As is bending someone backwards. Hmm.

Another point is that if someone were bending over in front of you and you in turn bent over them (I've an inkling it might look as if I'm going off topic here), your centre of gravity will be shifted much more than theirs. Once you cut the throat they will go down and you will be going after them, especially if you have their head in your hand. The taller someone gets the more off balance he will be bending over someone else, with only the other body for support.

4: If someone cut the throat of someone on their back, wouldn't the central point of the wound be the trachea with the edges of the wound roughly equidistant from the ears? So it would be a central cut with each edge about an inch from the ear?

No, it would be wherever the knife reached to in a visual sense, and of course depend on the length of the knife. The killers main point of attack may have been directly over the trachea, as this is obvious the most prominent part, but the knife itself as it cut downwards would enlarge the cut.

Another possibility of course is a sharp knife drawn from one side to the other, going deeper as it passed the centre of the neck. This would be a much easier and faster movement.

The other point is that with the head being tilted back, this changes the angle of attack somewhat. If you pull your own head back and draw your finger across, you will see that the knife would make a diferent cut to one where the head is in the normal position, pretty much from ear to ear. If the head is tilted to one side slightly it would be easy to cut the way this killer has.

And you brought up that seeing the knife would cause a struggle. People struggle like nobodies business when they are being strangled. Firstly, I'm not sure some of these women could be choked with just hands, which at least allows the strangler the ability to close in and limit the victims movements with his own body (although he's going to look like he was beaten with bats). Which would mean an arm around the throat, but opens it up to clawing and kicking and hitting. It takes 3 minutes to choke someone unconscious. 5 minutes to kill them. The witness said he heard a quiet "no" and something hitting the fence. He should have heard her kicking through the fence. Choking isn't quiet. It's just quiet compared to a gunshot. Anyone within 50 feet should have heard the fights these women should have put up. They shouldn't have a single fingernail left on their hands, broken toes from kicking, impact points from flailing arms and legs, scrapes and bruises everywhere. And they don't. And I don't know why not. But I can think of a reason they would get a knife to their throat and not scream. They wouldn't scream if they thought they were being robbed. Aside from happening all the time, they didn't have anything on them worth dying for.

This depends on what you know of strangling, and of course if a ligature was used it would make things even worse.

When high pressure is placed around the throat, it will effectively prevent sound by preventing air escaping the trachea. The normal instinct of someone being strangled is not to go nuts kicking every which way, but to reach for the neck and whatever is around it and pull it off. Any other movements are not going to be as forceful as you'd imagine. This is a natural reaction for good reason - it takes very little time to lose consciousness whilst being strangled, so you don't have long to remove the offending item.

According to forensicmed, syncope from strangulation can occur is as little as 7 seconds, the average being around 10-15 seconds. During the time of strangulation the muscles and brain will be increasingly starved of oxygen of course, meaning you will not be able to use a great deal of force to fight back, as you simply will not be able to keep exerting the same force, and with the lack of oxygen to the brain, you will not have time to think about much bar any natural reaction, involving trying to writeh out of the hold and prise the hands or ligature away.

As far as kicking goes, this could be fairly minimal and it would be much more likely to simply see the legs buckle underneath the victim as they become hypoxic. Given her poor respiratory health I doubt it would have taken long for her to pass out from being strangled. Of course the victim is only going to kick at something they can see. If the victim is dropped to the knees to be strangled kicking becomes much more difficult.

As for getting the knife to their throat without them screaming, this would be particularly difficult. When the knife neared the victim would move back, blood patterns would be seen where the victim had stood, and of course they would put up a struggle and scream.

Oh! But I did find one reason a tongue would swell and protrude without being strangled. And no matter what may have happened pre-mortem, may in fact be one of the reasons the tongue was swelling like that. Dry drowning.

Possible, likely causes being a hard blow to the solar plexus, or of course strong choking. Chapman suffered disease in her lungs, although the post-mortem tells us this had nothing to do with the cause of death, so pulmonary oedema was most likely not present.

This is a good point which I don't believe has been thought of before (or it may have), although I think the odds still point towards strangulation.

[protohistorian]

Tabram stab distribution

The colored numbers on the bottom indicate the number of stabs in organs outlined in color. Dave

[Errata]

The blood vessels don't work like a water balloon however, as our blood is inside vessels not sitting inside our bodies like a balloon holds water. Cutting different types of vessel has different effects.

I'm juggling a couple of books here, and without any understanding of the multiquote option, never mind that I'm kinda thinking out loud, so please bear with me.

1:My dad's old medical textbook says that the average blood pressure is a little under 2 psi. Which isn't a whole lot, but clearly enough to cause arterial spurt. But it also says a completely severed carotid pulses out only about a foot, for maybe half a minute. The only pressure being exerted on it is that of the pulse. A small nick in the carotid can evidently result in the cartoonish spray we are used to from the movies. But when it is completely severed, it's not really a spray. I guess its about like rhythmically squeezing a garden hose shut. It pulses, but it doesn't shoot out really hard.

2: Yeah, he would have to be at the head and tilting back using the jaw, but since she isn't struggling I can't imagine why he would need so tight a grip as to bruise the jaw.

3: Yeah I'm not sure the bending over totally works. In my head I see a taller man standing about at her shoulder as she bends over to pick up her skirts, grabs her jaw yanking her head back and cutting in almost a single motion. But something's not right about that either. Although gripping someone by the jaw and forcing their head back is a pretty good submission maneuver. As is bending someone backwards. Hmm.

4: If someone cut the throat of someone on their back, wouldn't the central point of the wound be the trachea with the edges of the wound roughly equidistant from the ears? So it would be a central cut with each edge about an inch from the ear?

And you brought up that seeing the knife would cause a struggle. People struggle like nobodies business when they are being strangled. Firstly, I'm not sure some of these women could be choked with just hands, which at least allows the strangler the ability to close in and limit the victims movements with his own body (although he's going to look like he was beaten with bats). Which would mean an arm around the throat, but opens it up to clawing and kicking and hitting. It takes 3 minutes to choke someone unconscious. 5 minutes to kill them. The witness said he heard a quiet "no" and something hitting the fence. He should have heard her kicking through the fence. Choking isn't quiet. It's just quiet compared to a gunshot. Anyone within 50 feet should have heard the fights these women should have put up. They shouldn't have a single fingernail left on their hands, broken toes from kicking, impact points from flailing arms and legs, scrapes and bruises everywhere. And they don't. And I don't know why not. But I can think of a reason they would get a knife to their throat and not scream. They wouldn't scream if they thought they were being robbed. Aside from happening all the time, they didn't have anything on them worth dying for.

Oh! But I did find one reason a tongue would swell and protrude without being strangled. And no matter what may have happened pre-mortem, may in fact be one of the reasons the tongue was swelling like that. Dry drowning.

[protohistorian]

stature from skeletal assemblages

How tall was a Victorian on average? Dave

[protohistorian]

Tabram

5 wounds (left lung)
2 wounds (right lung)
1 wound (heart)
5 wounds (liver)
2 wounds (spleen)
6 wounds (stomach)
Dave

[Errata]

There are occasions of men strangling THEMSELVES to death, by accident, for sexual pleasure. I dimly remember a politician in Burgess Hill , Sussex,
killing himself by accident with a pair of tights and an orange in the mouth..
how does this work ?

Okay, I don't know how I missed this before but you just TOTALLY saved my sanity. For YEARS I have been recounting the story of this guy as a reason why you have to prepared for any and all questions if you are going to let your kid watch the news. A: nobody believed me and B: everyone from my parents to teachers to occasional web searches has denied this ever happened.

I could kiss you.

[protohistorian]

Tabram context

listed injuries:
5 wounds (left lung)
2 wounds (right lung)
1 wound (heart)
5 wounds (liver)
2 wounds (spleen)
6 wounds (stomach)

Images with red objects have the red object as the heart. Of note, the sternum does not completely cover the heart, the intercostal spaces are greater than the ribs, and on the silhouette, the heart is 9.52% of the boxed area.

[joelhall]

Here's why I may call Shenanigans. I haven't decided yet.

Firstly, I am pretty sure the blood on the wall by Chapman was a cast off and not an arterial spurt. There is no reason for there to have been arterial spurt in any of these women. Spray requires a small cut, or a stab. A long deep wound just pours blood out. Akin to a water balloon. Puncture it with needle, it sprays. Stab it with a knife, it just empties. And the "hesitation marks" don't seem deep enough to cause spray.

The blood vessels don't work like a water balloon however, as our blood is inside vessels not sitting inside our bodies like a balloon holds water. Cutting different types of vessel has different effects.

What is needed for arterial spray is simply severence of an artery whilst the heart is beating. The blood in the arteries comes direct from the heart and aorta, and is under high pressure, rising with the heart's contractions. Larger arteries show large spray with ups and downs corresponding with the beat of the heart, whilst the smaller ones and capillaries how more sustained squirting under lower pressure. In the case of the carotid arteries being severed blood could, depending on the blood pressure of the victim, spray quite far - up to a couple of feet - and would continue for at least 30 seconds.

If the arteries are cut and the heart is beating there is going to be blood sprayed from them. The oozing blood comes from veins. In Kelly's murder the spray on the walls is quite noticable.

Secondly, finger marks on the jaw. Strangling doesn't make those happen, and gripping the jaw to tilt up the neck is unnecessary on the ground, not to mention awkward. Even crouching behind the head on the ground, which would require tilting the head, does not require such force as to bruise the jaw. Were any of the victims' noses broken? That could argue for atypical strangling. Also scrapes on the back of the head could argue for the head being tilted on the ground, but I don't think I have seen that anywhere.

This is absolutely correct. Of course, I've not seen any suggestion that the marks on the jaw are connected to strangling. the killer would have been at the head end of the body, tilted the head back and slaiced across the throat with a sharp knife. Except of course in Kelly's case.

Thirdly, lack of blood on the front of the clothes absolutely rules out a throat cut while standing upright. I had never thought of that before. Excellent point. However, there are still two standing positions that could accomplish a blood free bodice. The first, and to my mind the most likely is bent over forwards. It's terribly easy to get someone to bend over by dropping something, but more likely is that bending forward was how these women plied their trade. If the throat's were cut while the victim was bent over, the blood would pour straight down, and if you catch the body as it falls and flip it over, she is now lying on her back in her blood, and any remaining blood would leak out the sides. What would negate this theory is if there was no blood on the front of the neck, or no spotting on the chest or bodice. So if that is the case let me know. The other position of course is bent backward. Grab someone by the lower jaw and bend them backwards, cut the throat, and just lower them to the ground. The problems with this are that you are going to be covered in blood, and it requires a bit of force with a still conscious person.

If you cut someone's throat whilst they are bent over you have two options - to do it from behind or from the side. If you attempt it from the side, then they will notice the blade and try to fight you off. This will result in defensive marks on the body among other things, which are absent.

Doing it from behind poses a bigger problem - you must lean over them, and it is quite a hard task to achieve, especially whilst standing and bent over. Doing this would result in the victim falling face down with you on top of them... and of course blood would be on the chest and clothes, as blood obviously obeys gravity. Pulling the head back in this position would allow the venous blood to ooze down onto the chest of the victim.

Fourthly, the cuts themselves seem inconsistent with having been done on the ground. Several of the cuts seem deep at the ear, which seems extremely difficult with the point of your knife hitting the ground an inch beyond the ear. I would expect a cut straight across the front of the neck, and very deep given the extra force in leaning over someone. Essentially I would expect a body weight behind the cut.

Very simply a sharp blade drawn across the throat could go quite deep - again think of the shochet at work. With the killer at the top of the head pulling the head back under the jaw and drawing the knife from left to right would make a very clean cut - and allow the killer to put his weight behind the blade to get deep.

Why I am not yet calling Shenanigans:
I have no idea why else a victim's tongue would be protruding.
I'm clearly not as versed in the facts of these cases as you guys are.
I can prove none of the above.

The tongue swells at the root and protrudes with strangulation, which lowers the blood return from the head by compressing the veins in the neck, and therefore increases blood pressure inside the head. Strangulation, especially with a ligature, can also cause haemorrhaging of the tongue.

As for proof it's all there in front of us really, the hardest part is being able to understand what the clues mean.

What would be really useful would be if we could see the relative depths of the throat cuts. If it is deeper by the ear than in the front, that says one thing. Uniform depth another. I'm not even sure that information is available.

There is inormation in the inquests that cuts were made so deep the vertebrae were hit by the blade. Given this I think its fair to say that the cuts were straight at the base, made by a sharp, straight bladed knife, which would of course have a variable depth given the circular shape of the neck - the two end points of the cut would indicate the depth of the cut across.

This is a bit like slicing and orange half way down. The cut itself is straight, but relative to the surface of the organe it varies in depth along its length.

[protohistorian]

I have my broom ready Errata! Dave

[Errata]

The Chapman case is even more telling, as there is blood spray evidence. Where the victim was lying on the ground on the fence next to her were blood smears in line with the neck, 14 inches from the ground. If of course the victim had been killed standing, the blood would be found higher up on the wood, going in a downwards direction when the body was lowered.

she also had swelling to the face and a protruding tongue, which was put down to strangulation.
.

Here's why I may call Shenanigans. I haven't decided yet.

Firstly, I am pretty sure the blood on the wall by Chapman was a cast off and not an arterial spurt. There is no reason for there to have been arterial spurt in any of these women. Spray requires a small cut, or a stab. A long deep wound just pours blood out. Akin to a water balloon. Puncture it with needle, it sprays. Stab it with a knife, it just empties. And the "hesitation marks" don't seem deep enough to cause spray.

Secondly, finger marks on the jaw. Strangling doesn't make those happen, and gripping the jaw to tilt up the neck is unnecessary on the ground, not to mention awkward. Even crouching behind the head on the ground, which would require tilting the head, does not require such force as to bruise the jaw. Were any of the victims' noses broken? That could argue for atypical strangling. Also scrapes on the back of the head could argue for the head being tilted on the ground, but I don't think I have seen that anywhere.

Thirdly, lack of blood on the front of the clothes absolutely rules out a throat cut while standing upright. I had never thought of that before. Excellent point. However, there are still two standing positions that could accomplish a blood free bodice. The first, and to my mind the most likely is bent over forwards. It's terribly easy to get someone to bend over by dropping something, but more likely is that bending forward was how these women plied their trade. If the throat's were cut while the victim was bent over, the blood would pour straight down, and if you catch the body as it falls and flip it over, she is now lying on her back in her blood, and any remaining blood would leak out the sides. What would negate this theory is if there was no blood on the front of the neck, or no spotting on the chest or bodice. So if that is the case let me know. The other position of course is bent backward. Grab someone by the lower jaw and bend them backwards, cut the throat, and just lower them to the ground. The problems with this are that you are going to be covered in blood, and it requires a bit of force with a still conscious person.

Fourthly, the cuts themselves seem inconsistent with having been done on the ground. Several of the cuts seem deep at the ear, which seems extremely difficult with the point of your knife hitting the ground an inch beyond the ear. I would expect a cut straight across the front of the neck, and very deep given the extra force in leaning over someone. Essentially I would expect a body weight behind the cut.

Why I am not yet calling Shenanigans:
I have no idea why else a victim's tongue would be protruding.
I'm clearly not as versed in the facts of these cases as you guys are.
I can prove none of the above.

What would be really useful would be if we could see the relative depths of the throat cuts. If it is deeper by the ear than in the front, that says one thing. Uniform depth another. I'm not even sure that information is available.

If anything above is wrong or physically impossible let me know. I don't have a suspect or a theory. For me it's all about method and motive. I have a pet motive, but it isn't influenced by the throat cuts. This is just trying to understand something that seems so bizarre.

[joelhall]

Don't mention it.

Actually, a couple of years ago I never believed Stride to be a victim of the series, but after so long you tend to forget details you read, so I cannot for the life of me now remember why I thought this, so have pretty much just lumped her together with the others. I shall have to have a look at it when I find the time. This isn't easy as Laura and I are both suffering from 'baby-induced fatigue' here

I'm going to go into (much) more detail about each murder at a later date, to help clarify why I think what I do. I will be posting each of these separately however, as they won't be short articles, especially the Eddowes and Kelly murders.

[Fisherman]

You´re welcome, Joel. You are not the first one who has casually counted Stride into the Rippers tally, in spite of the numerous differences involved in her case - her position in the yard being one such parameter.

Can I please take the opportunity to thank you for your participation on this thread? I am just catching up reading it, but it is already quite apparent that your efforts have resulted in some excellent information!

The best,
Fisherman

[joelhall]

Joel Hall:

"Stride was of course found back down in the wet dirt, with non on her front, so we know that she was lowered onto her back."

She was no such thing, I´m afraid - Stride was found on her left side, resting on her upper left arm, and the crime scene evidence suggests that she was never on her back. There was lots of mud on the left side of her clothing, but none on her back. The left side of her face, as well as her hair, was also matted with mud.

The best,
Fisherman

Ah, this is what happens when I google instead of putting in the effort to reach for a book (which happen to be right behind me) Still Sunday for me I'm afraid, that's my excuse A more accurate reason would be that in all honesty I've not looked very closely at any of the murder yet besides Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly.

Thanks for clearing that up fisherman.