Examination of a Motive

[Errata]

Errata, I suspect killing calms him in some way or relieves some anguish. I imagine the first mutilations are a product of his fantasy life. I think (at least between M2 and M4 the trophies calm him in the way killing did initially. I base this on event timing. Dave

No I agree. I think there is a definite reason he kills, as opposed to say, writing angry letters. But I don't think he realized he was angry or out of sorts and decided to go kill someone to see if it made him feel better. Ted Kaczynski killed people to try and stop the rampant spread of technology that was ruining the world. He also killed because it made him feel in control of a situation he felt was out of control. Both are equally true. One is a reason and one is a motive. Evil technology is why HE killed. Gaining control was why he KILLED. As opposed to writing angry letters. Well, he did write sort of the ultimate in angry letters, but that's beside the point. I think you are right about why Jack the Ripper KILLED. I'm still curious as to why HE killed. What made some guy decide to be Jack the Ripper? What drove this man to pick up a knife and round up a prostitute to kill and mutilate? What did he hope to gain? Not sexual gratification. Revenge? Applause? A thrill? To exorcise a ghost?

On a completely random note, James Gandolfini slurring his way through a Louisiana accent is as painful and compelling as a car wreck.

[protohistorian]

Errata he did not decide to be jack the ripper, he was reacting to things in the method he saw best. I suspect it was not until the M4 event that he internalized the scope of his actions in a way we would perceive as lucid. Only the M5 event represents what we know as jack the ripper and our unsub as a unified entity. Unsub did not set out to consciously be the ripper until the M5 event. Dave

[protohistorian]

Hi Proto
He is targeting the womb but also pludering? I am confused now Dave. But then again I confuse easily. : )

coherent unifying valuation schema

laymens terms please.

I am so sorry Abby, I just saw this part for the first time lo these many hours later.
coherent=clear
unifying= consolidating
valuation schema=a highly flexible value system regarding a specific item by a person, not unlike a fixed value system in function but much more pliable and reactive to environmental and psychological inputs.
Again, I am sorry for the delay. Dave

[protohistorian]

Abby, when the concept of valuation schemas was first put to me I had a hard time to. The example the professor gave is in the abstract, you have a ranking of say ice cream in relation to your favorite foods. This is a fixed value system based mostly on experience. The valuation schema allows you to re evaluate your position on ice cream based on things like how cold it is outside, or the bad dream you had about the ice cream man trying to touch you inappropriately. I hope this helps. Dave

[protohistorian]

Errata,"The first question is really a useful one for sort of tracking changes. Why did he kill his first victim?"

Without the true grouping of the crimes or a historically grounded suspect, I am afraid it is very hard to say.

lets assume the Macnaghten grouping is accurate and for our purposes lets begin the sequence with the the killers intent to kill only. For shites and giggles let us say the killer believes it will calm him psychologically. So the psychodyanamics of the killer going into M1 are a (as he perceives it) state of tortured psychology that can be calmed by killing.

The event happens, he gets away, it did indeed provide relief. whatever diathesis made M1 mandatory as a potential relief is still acting, but now the killer has a working model of how to relief that anguish. The killers psychological state decays until another event is required, except this time there is also fantasy related activity. Between M1 and M2 the killer comes upon one of either two conceptions, 1. I would like more time with the victim or 2. maybe a trophy will prolong that pleasant feeling that the M1 event gave him.

M2 goals in the mind are very similar to the M1 goals but a layer of fantasy driven additions are also present. M2 is looted for soft tissue trophies. This is the first trophy taking for unsub and I believe it is no coincidence it occurs before the longest temporal segregation in the Macnaghten sequence.

(insert enviromental cue mechanism here)
M3 is is the result of a much more pronounced (to the killer) need. A need so pronounced that things you and I would consider crucial, like selecting the proper space for the event, are given NO heed. Psychodynamically, the M3 drive is most like the M1 need, but inlike the M1, it is not as gratifying for our killer. I submit because the element he most enjoyed about M2 is missing, namely the plundering part. As the killer leaves the M3 space he is in more need of release by virtue of thwarted anticipation of his reward/release.

M4 is a fast killing to achieve the reward with great speed. This is the second trophy event. Something about the M4 crime was different for the killer or some change has taken place so that the trophies do not work like the M2 trophies. With diminished reward from the trophies and whatever happened psyodynamically within the killer at the M4 event, our conception of a wilful killer mutilator is united with a heretofor was a psychopathology based on reward seeking/pain relief. Going in to the M5 event the psychodynamics of the killer are what we as ripper scholars would recognize as a ripperlike mindset. Dave

[Errata]

lets assume the Macnaghten grouping is accurate and for our purposes lets begin the sequence with the the killers intent to kill only. For shites and giggles let us say the killer believes it will calm him psychologically. So the psychodyanamics of the killer going into M1 are a (as he perceives it) state of tortured psychology that can be calmed by killing.

No I get that. But I dont think the killer sat down and said "I think killing will calm me psychologically." There is something the guy thinks or feels that rationalizes or precipitates this act. Unless his first kill was either an accident or an impulse, and even then there is most likely something that focuses his target group of victims and his methods. For example:
They deserve it.
No one will miss them.
I'm doing them a favor.
I'm doing the world a favor.
It's all their fault.
They are dangerous.
Or the more ahhh... eclectic examples:
God told me to.
I need to save them.
I need to become them.
The devil needs uteruses to inseminate to bring his demon hordes unto the earth.

I guess its kinda sort of the difference between why people kill, and why people think they kill. Why people kill is really not that big of a mystery. They kill because they get something out of it. Relief, sexual gratification, positive reinforcement, accomplishment. I'm sort of interested in what they get out of it, and what they think they get out of it. They get relief, then why do they think they feel relieved? Because they eliminated a threat? If so, what do they perceive as a threat? Prostitutes are threat because they transmit disease? Well, that's kind of useful.

It's not that dissimilar to religion I suppose. Clearly people believe in some faith or another because it makes them feel better. Because it offers an alternative to scary death, or moral absolutes so you don't have to wade through them yourself. But that's not why religious people think they are religious. They are religious because they believe in Christ the Savior, or that the only way for salvation is through this one faith, or that proof of divinity is all around us, or that pissing off a snake and not getting bit is proof that you are stronger than the devil. Why a guy is religious is not interesting or mysterious. Why a guy is Jewish, or a Snake Handler, or a Pagan, that is interesting and mysterious.

[protohistorian]

Errata the precipitating diathesis could be anything from a whoring mother, ala manson to I am so damned angry someone has to die, ala every workplace shooter. That is a lot of ground to cover. I do not see anything in the crimes themselves that points to a singular diathesis. For the sake of harmonizing our progression however, lets say it is rage against a whoring mother. Analogs of this diathesis triggering a fatal psychpathology range from Henry Lucas to Manson. It is interesting to note that both of these examples are less than gifted cognitively, and both say they felt compelled by external forces to due heinous crap. I would not describe either as being similar to the cloak wearing stalker of prostitutes of the myth we know. Dave

[protohistorian]

Just to clarify that last line on the last post. They do not resemble our myth, not because the ripper could not have been this way, but because the myth making machinery was in situ during the crimes and the Victorian cultural undercurrent of grandiosity very quickly established a Ripper archetype with absolutely no conception of who the ripper actually was. The myth was completely fabricated, having as it's sole factual element a string of actual murders. Dave

[Errata]

Errata the precipitating diathesis could be anything from a whoring mother, ala manson to I am so damned angry someone has to die, ala every workplace shooter. That is a lot of ground to cover. I do not see anything in the crimes themselves that points to a singular diathesis. For the sake of harmonizing our progression however, lets say it is rage against a whoring mother. Analogs of this diathesis triggering a fatal psychpathology range from Henry Lucas to Manson. It is interesting to note that both of these examples are less than gifted cognitively, and both say they felt compelled by external forces to due heinous crap. I would not describe either as being similar to the cloak wearing stalker of prostitutes of the myth we know. Dave

Well, I agree with a lot of that. I think there are things one can exclude using the information at hand. I think it wasn't sexual. I think it wasn't personal (the specific victims). I think it wasn't about money, or robbery. I don't think he was psychotic. I don't think it was about religion. I don't think it was about torture or necrophilia. Or cannibalism.

I think prostitutes were specifically targeted. Female servants also ran about at all hours, and none were killed in this manner. I think uteruses were also specifically targeted.

I sort of see it like this. It was too controlled for unfocused rage. It was too uncontrolled for complete depersonalization (If he regarded them as no more than animals). Death was too quick for sadism, mutilation too specific for cannibalism. Choking them before cutting their throats seems to show a certain amount of empathy. Leaving skirts up and legs exposed seems to show a lack of respect. Staging the scene could indicate a message he is trying to get across. Lack of ritualism can indicate religion is not a factor, either rationally or psychotically. The victims weren't robbed, and if someone is getting paid to kill a woman, he does so as quickly and safely as humanly possible. The timing seems to widely spaced for thrill killing, or even terrorism. It is also not evenly spaced enough for time to be a critical factor, for mysticism or schedule conflicts. He didn't rant and rave to someone about the evils of these women, or about killing, or about a dog being a god who requires human sacrifice. Being a close mouthed psychotic is extremely difficult.

So I think there is stuff we can still glean. Even pissed off at the world workplace shooters choose their workplace for a reason. They could choose a bar, some do. They could choose a mall, some do. They choose their workplace because they think it is the root of their problem.

Manson didn't kill because he had a whoring mother. It may be why he is a killer, but not why he killed. He killed to maintain control over his flock after Tex Watson went off the rails. He got one upped. He couldn't maintain his divinity while being one upped. As far as Henry Lucas goes, he certainly killed his mother, who probably deserved it. But he confessed to about 600 others. Including Jimmy Hoffa. Jimmy Hoffa. Clearly his lack of intelligence is not the issue. The lack of intelligence on the part of the Texas Rangers seems to have more bearing on that case.

[protohistorian]

Errata, we will likely never know why exactly did he hunt on each night. The short answer is whatever restraining mechanism he was using failed. It could be something as small as a conversation he mis interpreted and fumed over.For the M5 sequence the generic answers are:
M1 psychological relief
M2 coveting the M1 release sensation
M3 profound (and I suspect unexpected and sudden) reinstatement of the need that fueled M1.
M4 same as M3 with heightened anticipation of reward following M3
M5 genuine hunting of humans for sake of pleasure, not need fulfillment, for enjoyment.
Dave

[curious]

Hi Errata
Thanks! As I said to Proto on his last post- I say to you too-Wow. Not bad, not bad at all! William Bury anyone? perhaps James Kelly? D'onston??

Do you have anyone in particular in mind?

William Bury has long been a "very likely" suspect to me.

Then, there's Jacob Levy whose mother had a couple of children prior to marrying his father. Who knows how that stigma might have affected the family.

Perhaps she was not a prostitute, but . . .

curious

[curious]

M5 genuine hunting of humans for sake of pleasure, not need fulfillment, for enjoyment.
Dave

If he had reached this level, why quit?

curious

[protohistorian]

Well Curious, I suspect that he made a commitment to be content with the long lasting heart trophy rather than risk further hunting. He chose to forgo the risky pursuit of genuine pleasure for the much safer contentment offered by the heart of M5, and the anguish relief it provided. Dave

[curious]

Hi, Dave,

Making a commitment . . . etc.

that just doesn't ring true to me.

curious

[protohistorian]

Hello Curious, I think the killer is conflicted between what society has conditioned him to believe is proper behavior, and the relief killing gives him. I think this is particularly acute in the M5 event,and that the facial mutilations are his method of dehumanizing his victim to lessen this conflict. I suspect this conflict is also a chief motivator for excepting the less pleasurable state of a trophy rather than experience this conflict again with another victim. Dave