Do post mortem mutilators typically communicate with the police?

[Ausgirl]

This is all pretty much along my own lines of thinking, as far as whether rape occurred or not.

My biggest tip toward a 'no rape' scenario is probably the matter of time. Some of those murders occurred in an extremely brief window of time, and not to say ejaculation -couldn't- happen in that time, as it most certainly could.. but IF the murders were in any way sexually motivated I rather think that IF ejaculation then happened, it must have been right quick.. or (to my thinking, more probably) happened back at home while the killer could take his time reliving the thrill of the murder in his head.

Just to kind of bend things back on-topic, I've also been thinking about the posing of the bodies.. I haven't much doubt they were actually posed, and that means the killer -wanted- to send some sort of message. So that's another reason why I think JtR could very well be the sort of mutilation killer who'd taunt police. Posing in itself is a form of communication.

[Errata]

Given that the wounds were certainly examined, are you suggesting a surgeon would not recognize semen if he saw it?

I'm inclined to think that the term 'no evidence of connection' is an indication of the more prudish view of conventional intercourse, that they are not suggesting there was no evidence of semen on the clothing.

A point of caution may be noted here. In many cases the victim was autopsied several hours after the murder. By that time any semen on the clothing would have dried sufficiently that a surgeon may only assume this is trace evidence of her calling in life rather than proof she was intimate with her killer.
So they may have seen such traces but it was only to be expected.

Firstly, I don't think they would recognize it if they saw it. They may have thought it looked like semen, but I don't imagine for a second that they would have thought it actually was. To this day that is the kind of thing that gets missed on autopsies all the time. It simply doesn't occur to the average person that semen would be in there. So even if they found it, they would assume it was something else. Secondly, I don't think semen would have survived in a visually recognizable state in the abdomen. Too many other fluids gels and bits in there.

[Wickerman]

Which is not to say the Jack did not have sex with them in unconventional ways. I doubt anyone would be looking for semen inside the abdominal wound for example.

Given that the wounds were certainly examined, are you suggesting a surgeon would not recognize semen if he saw it?

I'm inclined to think that the term 'no evidence of connection' is an indication of the more prudish view of conventional intercourse, that they are not suggesting there was no evidence of semen on the clothing.

A point of caution may be noted here. In many cases the victim was autopsied several hours after the murder. By that time any semen on the clothing would have dried sufficiently that a surgeon may only assume this is trace evidence of her calling in life rather than proof she was intimate with her killer.
So they may have seen such traces but it was only to be expected.

[Errata]

What's always confused me about the 'no sexual connection' thing is - weren't these women prostitutes (by and large) - so would there not have been at least -some- evidence of one or more having had sex at some point that evening, prior to JtR's attack?

It's just always seemed a bit iffy, to me, that they could be so sure.

Not, as I said, that think JtR raped his victims .. but still. Odd. Sorry to go bit off-topic.

On a living victim, if the sex was consensual or not, the fluids in the vagina break down the semen fairly quickly. Sort of releasing the sperm to do what it needs to do. Today that can be found with swabs and microscopes, but back then it couldn't. The only evidence of sexually activity to be found on a corpse was what had dripped out of the vagina onto the labia and inner thighs. Even when dried it was still evident. Prostitutes clean themselves up between clients. So that evidence would be gone by the next client.

Secondary indicators of intercourse were useless in these murders. Labial and vaginal tearing are indicative of rape, but they are also indicative of unwanted sex. Which prostitutes engage in. They consent, but as they are not turned on or whatever, the act is always hard on the anatomy in question. It's no indication that their killers raped them. The damage could easily have come from a previous client.

Which is not to say the Jack did not have sex with them in unconventional ways. I doubt anyone would be looking for semen inside the abdominal wound for example.

[Ausgirl]

What's always confused me about the 'no sexual connection' thing is - weren't these women prostitutes (by and large) - so would there not have been at least -some- evidence of one or more having had sex at some point that evening, prior to JtR's attack?

It's just always seemed a bit iffy, to me, that they could be so sure.

Not, as I said, that think JtR raped his victims .. but still. Odd. Sorry to go bit off-topic.

[Damaso Marte]

A while back I double-checked the inquest records to see if there was any mention of "sexual connection", and saw that in most of the cases they explicitly say there was no evidence of sex, and never do they say there's any evidence of it.

You're right, if the Ripper did not write any of the letters (and the consensus here is that he didn't), it sounds like a very lonely existence indeed. Perhaps he still enjoyed the fact that people were writing letters about him, and perhaps the escalation of mutilation was at least in part an attempt to rile up the city some more.

[Ausgirl]

Well.. we can't know whether JtR ever had sex with his victims (I don't think he did, too much says otherwise) - but the swiftness of his 'blitz' style attacks, designed to kill quickly, and with all the major body injuries occurring post-mortem, I have to assume that he wasn't one of those fellers who gets off on the victim's terror. Rightly you say 'they never saw the knife'.

So if rape and terrorising are off the table, what was he all about? He terrorised half of London, really.. and if even one of the JtR letters are genuine, public terror could feasibly be viewed as part of his motive, or at least consequential one which grew as he went along, a la Zodiac.

Really, I'm thinking the mutilation was piquerism - an alternative for sex, with a subject who could never complain to him or talk to anyone. An impotent necrophile, who liked his bodies warm? Who knows.

Hints of cannibalism, too - and in the case of documented mutilator/cannibals (Albert Fish et al) there's some who wrote letters to victims/police and kept extensive journals.. Reaching out, in their own way. It'd be a terribly lonely existence, perhaps it comes from that need as well as narcissism for the boasty ones.

[Damaso Marte]

The Ripper is often called the first modern serial killer, but the more I read about other serial killers, the more I think that title belongs to the Torso Killer and not Jack.

Jack did not engage in any sexual activity with his victims, not before killing them, not after killing them, despite the fact that his victims were not just female, but "unfortunate". He did not appear to take any pleasure in torturing his victims - it appears that they all died very quickly and, apart from perhaps Mary Kelly, never saw the knife. And of course he did not dismember, merely mutilate.

Perhaps he wanted to do some of these things but couldn't - maybe he was impotent, maybe he was a dosser who didn't have the privacy to torture and dismember. Or he was just a very different sort of beast from those mentioned upthread.

[Ausgirl]

I think there's a pretty clear distinction between postmortem mutilators with sexually related (or other psychopathological) motives and those who chop up a corpse purely for expedient disposal.

Where the Thames torso murders are concerned (if this what you mean by 'other threads', if not sorry), there was mutilation evident on some of those corpses which goes beyond absolute necessity, ie, genital and abdominal mutilation, suggesting another motivation besides pure necessity being involved.

Also the repeated and 'neat' disarticulation of the bodies -might- have more to do with ritual than it does expedience. Otherwise, why open up the joints, etc, as if dressing an animal, when a few hardy (if less skilful) chops with a cleaver would do just as well. That care was taken is in itself a potential sign that the disarticulation and dismemberment had greater significance to the killer.

I'm presently (and as I get time) collating some information on the methods of dismemberment among cannibalistic societies as well as the difference between dismemberment among say, mob hits (purely practical, on the whole) and those committed by sexual sadists where mutilation is also present - hopefully to gain some insight into what would motivate the type of cuts made in the torso cases.

Anyway, where JtR is concerned, the question of whether the mutilations had other motives besides sexual gratification has always interested me.

[Michael W Richards]

Is there any distinction between... lets say a dismemberer and a post mortem mutilator? I don't see why there should be myself but perhaps others disagree with that perspective. The rationale used by the killer is really what needs to be determined, and if that's so, then we have to consider that some serial mutilators perform those acts attempting to more handily dispose of the body...or to hide it.

Which seems to indicate that at least in some of the post mortem mutilation cases that occur are contrived and calculated acts.

Funny...suggesting that sentiment in a different thread might get puzzled responses from people who couldn't imagine someone cutting someone up unless it was connected directly to a form of the mental illness present.

Cheers

[Ausgirl]

Elizabeth Short's killer sent a taunting letter to the police, with some of her belongings.

Ed Kemper took it one step further and actually made drinking buddies of the local PD.

I don't think it's at all accurate to say that post-mortem mutilators don't communicate with police, when clearly there are those among them who do.

So to me it makes more sense to say that -some- mutilators communicate with police, and others don't.

I do think JtR enjoyed a 'game' of sorts with police, being that the murders were mostly committed within a stone's throw of regularly-walked police beats, in an atmosphere that was pretty far from isolated and may have even had him missing being caught by gnat's whisker - all very high-risk behaviour.

So in my mind, it's not a stretch from there to suppose taunting letters might be quite in keeping with the above character.

[Abby Normal]

I'd probably agree Abby. These type of serial killers don't like to be caught. I always think they are ashamed in a way. Bundy would talk (usualy in a third person way) about his crimes, except about necrophelia.
They wont like talking about that kind of stuff because they may be ashamed, or like to keep that fantasy to themselves. Either way I doubt they'd like to communicate to the police or newspapers about it, or anything else.

The one possible exception may be the 'from hell' letter. It's interesting that he doesn't sign it jtr. Was he trying to distance himself from that name? It's possible things were getting a bit hot for him around that time, hence the gap between September and November. Maybe the vigilance committee were doing too good a job for his liking?
I only give it a sight chance, but it's the only letter I give any credence to.

Hi SL
Thanks for the response. Sending letters and/or communicating to the police and press just does not seem to be part of their behavior. One because, as you say, they really don't want to get caught or talk about it and two because it just does not seem to be part of what gets them off.

Per from hell letter. I have never bought the idea that a human kidney would be relatively easy to get a hold of even for a medical person. And again as you say, the fact that he does not sign it JtR, when the majority of other hoax letters were, lends to its credence IMHO.

[Stephen Lee]

I'd probably agree Abby. These type of serial killers don't like to be caught. I always think they are ashamed in a way. Bundy would talk (usualy in a third person way) about his crimes, except about necrophelia.
They wont like talking about that kind of stuff because they may be ashamed, or like to keep that fantasy to themselves. Either way I doubt they'd like to communicate to the police or newspapers about it, or anything else.

The one possible exception may be the 'from hell' letter. It's interesting that he doesn't sign it jtr. Was he trying to distance himself from that name? It's possible things were getting a bit hot for him around that time, hence the gap between September and November. Maybe the vigilance committee were doing too good a job for his liking?
I only give it a sight chance, but it's the only letter I give any credence to.

[Abby Normal]

Thanks for the interesting responses.

I would think that the ripper being a post mortem serial killer type would point to the writings (letters and possibly the GSG) being not from the killer.

Either that or they were (or at least one of them) and the ripper was highly atypical, even for a serial killer.

[Errata]

Errata, I think I what you're getting at, if I may be so presumptuous.

Some killers are terrorists. Some are essentially rapists, with death or corpse fetishes that often go beyond necrophilia, to eating parts of bodies, or keeping bones as trophies, or extreme sadists, who aren't satisfied with S/M role-playing, and whose tortures usually lead to the victim's death, or who just don't care about the victim, and care about not getting caught, so they dispatch them at the end.

Some may be both, particularly if they get off on the panic they create.

It's kind of like basketball. You can have shooters, you can have movers, you can have defense masters, but you never see a guy who is spectacular at all three. There's no inherent reason that there aren't people who can be spectacular at all three, it's just about what a person wants to concentrate on. Michael Jordan could put a ball in the basket, but his passing was atrocious and frankly, the man committed more traveling fouls that anyone in the history of man. People were just too mesmerized to call him on it. Isiah Thomas could move a ball like nobodies business, but hardly the best shooter out there. My old idol Kareem Abdul Jabbar was a positive genius when it came to not letting an opponent get a shot off but not really a sharer. Magic Johnson is one of the best all around players ever, but while he is certainly famous and hall of fame material, he has never been considered the best at any part of the game.

Serial killers are like stars. Which is an odd thing to say, but I mean it in two ways. First off, I mean statistically. I used to be an actor, and as it happens 1 in 1000 actors will work enough to support themselves solely by acting. Literally just making a living. And a person is ten times less likely to achieve any kind of recognition, and the odds of becoming a star of stage or screen is less likely than getting hit by lightening. I imagine the numbers are similar for sports, writers, artists, etc. So these people are rare. As are serial killers. The second way serial killers are like stars is that they have some serious focus. These are not people who half-ass their way through. It's something they put all of their energy into, something that requires all of their time, something they wrap their lives around. It why there are rarely good all around players who are highly ranked in all areas. It's why serial killers typically cannot keep up with their normal lives while killing. The lose their jobs, they become itinerant, they lose their relationships, etc. All of their focus is on creating the fantasy. And it's rare for the the fantasy to be very multifaceted. These just aren't people who split focus well.

And it may be a human brain thing. The more important something is, the more single minded it is. If a truck is about to squash you, very few people can split focus and say to themselves "Holy crap I have to get out of the way" AND "I need to get the license plate number of that truck". Everybody focuses on getting out of the way, but not a lot of people at all retain the focus to be a good witness and get the tag numbers. If you are late to work, you're focus is on getting to work, and if that means you are impatient and yell at your wife, cut people off, even disobey traffic laws, so be it. You are single mindedly pursuing the goal of getting to work quickly. Things that are important to us that also create an emotional reaction makes us slaves to those goals. They are more important that any social convention, any nicety, any concept of right and wrong. Fear is a great creator of single minded intensity. So is lust, hurt, need, anger, acclaim and outrage. And it's complicated, because if you are hurt, you are likely also angry and outraged. But the voice in your head is saying " I am in pain." not "I am in pain, and I am angry, and outraged, and maybe a little hungry...". Despite the presence of other potential motivators, we really just focus on one. I can't see why serial killers would be any different. Despite other things that could certainly contribute to their state, they really only focus on one. Simply because the ability to split intense focus is pretty rare.