Why do you think Jack stopped?

[lynn cates]

class

Hello Beowulf. If the letter refers to Kosminski, as some suppose, it would be helpful if a link could be found between Aaron and either Martin Kosminski or Jessie Kosminski. They were fairly high up with respect to class; Aaron, seemingly less so. And it would seem that few of the lower social classes would be noticed by one of the peerage.

Cheers.
LC

[Scorpio]

Since this seems to be touched on in quite a few threads, I thought it might be worth starting one of its own (I can't find a dedicated one). Basically, I would be interested in hearing everyone's opinions on why the murders stopped (if, indeed, you believe that they did). I'll outline the major reasons that are usually posited, along with my own thoughts on their pros and cons, and would welcome all or any discussion on alternatives and opinions.

1. Suicide. I often see this suggested (primarily with regard to police suspect Montague Druitt killing himself shortly after the crimes). Personally, I find it most unlikely: the killer seemed happy enough to let his crimes escalate, which would suggest a lack of remorse. I'm also unfamiliar with any known cases of serial killers who have committed suicide BEFORE getting caught or suspected, but I'm happy to be corrected on this point. To play Devil's advocate, however, it is possible that a killer in 1888 might have been more likely to have been conflicted over his actions than one operating today; religion and church played, I would imagine, a more significant role in people's lives then, and the general lack of knowledge about psycopathy may well have led to the Ripper loathing himself because he didn't understand himself.

2. Death by some other means. Mortality was, of course, much higher in 1888 than today, and it is possible that the Ripper simply died of one of the many illnesses which would have been endemic in lower class Whitechapel. However, I do find it somewhat stretches credulity to believe that Jack conveniently dropped dead soon after committing his 'climactic' crime.

3. Conviction for some other crime. Possible, of course, but I tend to think that a canny operator like Jack would have been unlikely to have been caught for something else. Further, it would presumably have to have been something serious, as a minor offence would only have incapacitated him for a short time (after which we might reasonably expect him to have resumed ripping), whilst only a serious crime (another murder) would have sent him to the gallows. The problem there is that a controlled killer like the Ripper would, in my opinion, have been unlikely to have committed a murder in a slapdash and 'unfamiliar' manner which might have led to his arrest.

4. Moving away from the area. This seems fairly popular and plausible a theory. People, for example, suggest a trip to America might have been possible, with the Carrie Brown murder cited as evidence that the Ripper continued his work on the other side of the Atlantic. However, I think that we can also question why there was never another 'series' of murders matching the Ripper killings in another fixed location. Was he perhaps simply afraid to start up again in an unfamiliar setting?

5. He simply stopped. It is not unknown for serial killers to stop either for good or for varying lengths of time. As Mary Kelly was such an 'extreme' kill, it might be argued that the Ripper felt gratified enough to stop killing, having achieved his ultimate thrill. My problem with the notion of a break or a full stop, however, is the fact that the canonical victims were all killed within such a short time frame. I just find it hard to accept that the Ripper murders sprung up in August 1888 (and with such a level of savagery) only for the killer to have tired and/or achieved his ultimate goal within a few short months. Were they more spread out (over years rather than months) I could understand their 'drying up', but Jack seemed to take to his task with alacrity, and it's therefore hard to envision him considering his work 'complete' only months after beginning.

6. He didn't stop, but changed MO. This, I think, is quite possible (within reason). If one accepts that Jack MIGHT have exhausted the 'ripping' method during the Kelly murder, I find it entirely possible that he sought some other means of satisfaction. If he didn't stop altogether in 1888 (for whatever reason) then I believe he could well have changed his method, and moved onto something akin to the Elizabeth Jackson murder. However, I'm afraid that I can't quite see him moving on to poison or another such variant method - his pleasure seems to derive from mutilation, and I would tentatively suggest that any future crimes with Jackson-type mutilations should be examined if one believes that he didn't actually stop killing in 1888.

Anyway, I look forward to all and every personal opinion or theory about when/why/how/if Jack stopped killing after Mary Kelly!

Here are a few more bones( of contention )for the stew-pot.
Perhaps the cessation of murder after such a busy temporary phase can be taken as sign that all the victims associated with JtR, were killed by different
people. The murder spree was a domino- effect situation that would eventually burn itself out if no single dedicated individual were present.
Or, the killer(s) felt that the murder of Kelly brought closure for some unspecified reason.

[kensei]

Hi Kensei, he wasn't "found to have been incapable of having killed Frances Coles", the Court couldn't prove his guilt. The common belief that the Whitechapel murderer could only be caught red-handed was quite true, and I don't think the police was convinced he was innocent.

Hi DVV, I was referring to the testimony that Sadler was probably too drunk to have committed the crime. I guess I could've worded it better.

[DVV]

I just can't help but think- if James Thomas Sadler was found by the court to have been incapable of having killed Frances Coles, then who else that she just blunders into by chance in Swallow Gardens is going to cut her throat for no other reason than to kill her? No robbery, no rape, just the snuffing of a life. The mysterious and anonymous stranger still haunting the East End.

Hi Kensei, he wasn't "found to have been incapable of having killed Frances Coles", the Court couldn't prove his guilt. The common belief that the Whitechapel murderer could only be caught red-handed was quite true, and I don't think the police was convinced he was innocent.

[Beowulf]

Or did he change the locations of his killing ground and continue to kill ?

Yes, I was thinking that, and particularly in remembering your book and the mention of similiar murders in South America.

I do think the other strong possibility is he was placed into an asylum. In House's book he reprints the contents of a letter sent to Anderson referring to a female informant and makes for a consideration of that possibility.

"My dear Anderson,

I send you this line to ask you to see & hear the bearer, whose name is unknown to me. She has or thinks she has a knowledge of the author of the Whitechapel murders. The author is supposed to be nearly related to her, & she is in a great fear lest any suspicion should attach to her & place her & her family in peril.

I have advised her to place the whole story before you, without giving you any names, so that you may form an opinion as to its being worth while to investigate.

Very sincerlely yours,
Crawford" (26th Earl of Crawford who took an interest in the Ripper crimes)

Question is did this letter refer to and lead to Kosminski being a suspect and finally to his admittance to an asylum?

[lynn cates]

thanks

Hello Jon. Thank you for those kind words about my theory.

Actually, sometimes there is a good bit of entertainment hereabouts.

Completely agree with your Kelly remark. I don't mean to sound perverse, but "What to do for an encore?"

Cheers.
LC

[Wickerman]

..... and it was seriously considered in the media at the time, suggested as a "growing trend" in the way to dispatch that annoying "woman".

"A brutal man getting into a furious quarrel with a woman in some wretched slum of the East end might have been content a few months ago with kicking her to death, or cutting her throat. Now, however, when such a man has quarrelled with a woman and killed her, it is quite possible that he will not be satisfied until he has followed the new Whitechapel mode, and gashed and disembowelled her. Therefore it is not to be hastily assumed that all the murders were done by the one hand, or that the last murder was the work of the same criminal as any of the former. What we are fairly warranted in believing is that it is a crime which comes of the same impulse; which would not have been committed in such a way of the preceding crimes had not given it inspiration. The natural inclination of everybody would be to hope that the murders and the mutilations are the work of some solitary wretch with a positive mania for women's blood. It would be better that such were the explanation than to have to believe that one murderer hacked a woman to pieces, and that several other murderers followed and improved upon his example."
Daily News, 10 Nov.

Regards, Jon S.

[Hunter]

I happened to see something on tv just tonight about a certain gunslinger and outlaw of the American west (the name escapes me now) who it was said killed over 40 men in his life, the first when he was only 15 years old, and claimed that every one of them deserved it but one of them was a man he shot only because he was snoring.

That would have been John Wesley Hardin. He ended up being shot in the back of the head in a saloon. No one wanted to face him and try that.

[Wickerman]

Hello Jon. If I believed that I'd give it up as a rum job.

Cheers.
LC

Huh!
You mean you're not here for the entertainment?

I firmly believe that, firmly.

I admire your position though, in proposing & standing by your argument in not ascribing them all to the same hand.
I do see sufficient cause to believe that, and it was seriously considered in the media at the time, suggested as a "growing trend" in the way to dispatch that annoying "woman".

Not having a suspect, nor a theory, I can appreciate different aspects of peoples arguments. It's how to stitch them all together thats the problem.

If it was one killer, I'm not sure what "Jack" could do to upstage the Kelly murder, being also an attention grabber on the day of the Lord Mayor's show.

Quote:
He may have wrote the press and tried to brag about his crimes,
with clues and jokes and challenges and funny little rhymes.
The games are done, the Rippers won, he never came no more,
and who he was and where he’s gone, we never knew for sure.

http://www.casebook.org/diversions/fiction.smyth3.html

Maybe he took Warren's resignation as an admission of defeat?

[kensei]

Hello all, can't believe I never gave my two cents' worth back when this thread began ten months ago. Why do I think Jack stopped? I don't think he did. I think he would have had to lay low for a while after Mary Kelly and live off the high of that event until he felt safe again, but I do believe he went on in a toned down manner, like a rock band that peaks early with a giant hit but continues to record and to tour and still has credibility but never quite matches the greatness of that one grand song. (Sorry if that sounds like I'm giving JTR any kind of praise. I'm not- he was a worthless pile of despicable filth.)

Of my three favorite suspects, number three is William Bury. If it was him, he killed at least once more (his wife), then met his own end by hanging. Number two is James Kelly, and he is a complete wild card, suspected of continuing his vendetta against prostitutes even in America. I like to consider Alice McKenzie and Frances Coles as possible Ripper victims though, and Kelly doesn't fit for Coles because he was definitely not in England at that time. So many questions.

But my number one suspect is the notorious "unnamed local Eastender," someone who truly escaped justice even as a suspect. I happened to see something on tv just tonight about a certain gunslinger and outlaw of the American west (the name escapes me now) who it was said killed over 40 men in his life, the first when he was only 15 years old, and claimed that every one of them deserved it but one of them was a man he shot only because he was snoring. What if the Ripper was someone like this, a wild and untamed spirit with a hatred of whores for whatever reason, self-taught in the use of the knife on the human body through whatever source, who simply slipped through the cracks as a suspect because he was a complete nobody? Such a man could have begun his violent campaign against the unfortunates well before the name Jack the Ripper was ever heard and finished it long after, probably eventually succumbing to some typical dismal East End fate himself.

I just can't help but think- if James Thomas Sadler was found by the court to have been incapable of having killed Frances Coles, then who else that she just blunders into by chance in Swallow Gardens is going to cut her throat for no other reason than to kill her? No robbery, no rape, just the snuffing of a life. The mysterious and anonymous stranger still haunting the East End.

[lynn cates]

rum job

Hello Jon. If I believed that I'd give it up as a rum job.

Cheers.
LC

[The Grave Maurice]

Ahem, we will never know.

Pessimist.

[Wickerman]

.... We may never know.

Ahem, we will never know.

[Lord-z]

It is not unusual for serial killers to take a break, or just stop. Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, could go years between murders, and was caught when he was gearing up for a new murder, after a 13 year break. The Zodiac Killers only confirmed murders happened over 10 months, from 1968-1969, after that, just a few letters and a couple of suspected murders over the next couple of years.

The Ripper was the most wanted man in the West End. It might have been a good idea to lay low for a while. As to why he never got back to murdering, who knows. Perhaps he did, but not in a way we have recognised. The Zodiac claimed 37 victims, instead of the 5 "cannonical" the police are certain of, so he might have been active a lot longer than recognised. Likewise, perhaps the Ripper just changed to something else. We may never know.

[DVV]

Thanks for that, my dear.