What's your profile for Jack?

[DVV]

Yes, Colin.
That's much better !

All the best

[Errata]

Oh, I know that. It's not proveable but an interesting thought.

I'm actually hard pressed to think of something worse than having a condition that causes you to murder people and then getting better. Because people do get better from these things. The brain can make a bridge between two previously severed connections. If I hadn't landed in a looney bin while still ill, getting better would certainly put me there.

[Abby Normal]

This sort of thing?

[ATTACH]15307[/ATTACH]

Probably. There is a picture of Chapman with one of victims wearing a peaked cap like this.

[Beowulf]

Hi Abby et al,

I've never got a good visual on the peaked cap. Do you think it more of
a newsboy that is soft enough to peak with your fingers or a more rigid
sailor type hat that came to a point?


Don't laugh, this may be the key to the case...



Greg

I've always been unsure of that image as well, glad you brought it up. Adding a visual to this group. Self portrait by Andre Derain. French artist from the period.

[Beowulf]

It's not uncommon in serial killers. Serious frontal lobe injuries can result in psychopathology. And there are a lot of delusions that come about from the effects of a head injury. Anyone with a head injury that resulted in a loss of consciousness could have sustained brain damage significant enough to cause delusion or psychopathy, at least on a short term basis.

Oh, I know that. It's not proveable but an interesting thought.

[Bridewell]

To Greg : more for a yachtman.

This sort of thing?

[DVV]

To Errata : JF could well have the capgras.

To Robert : agreed.

To Greg : more for a yachtman.

[GregBaron]

Not all peaks are created equal...

My bet is the ripper was wearing a peaked cap that night.

Hi Abby et al,

I've never got a good visual on the peaked cap. Do you think it more of
a newsboy that is soft enough to peak with your fingers or a more rigid
sailor type hat that came to a point?


Don't laugh, this may be the key to the case...



Greg

[Abby Normal]

Sorry to disagree, Abby, but the ‘you would say anything but your prayers’ remark was more likely a jocular response to an exaggeration or patent falsehood uttered by Stride, a woman who we know was prone to gilding the lily.


Personally, Abby, since there remains considerable doubt that Stride was even a Ripper victim, I have long thought it unwise to include the Berner Street crime in any serious attempt to evaluate the Whitechapel Murderer’s personality and behavioural characteristics.

Hi Garry
Thanks for the response but I disagree. The mans statement would make no sense unless it was preceded by a Stride comment that contained the word prayer in it.

Also, there is little doubt in my mind that Stride was a victim of the ripper. A man wearing apeaked cap was seen by several witnesses that night-the broad shouldered man seen attacking Liz and the man talking to Eddowes along with the man who was heard making the prayer statement. My bet is the ripper was wearing a peaked cap that night.

[Errata]

Fleming thought one of the medics was an old Jewish acquaintance ("Isaacs") with whom he used to play coconut shy in Bethnal Green.
He was about to be released when he started ranting like this.
And finally died in Claybury 25 years later.

Off the top of my head I would say that's more a symptom of institutionalization than delusion. Like those old murderers who are released from prison and then rob a liquor store so they can go "home". It is not impossible that whatever was waiting for him on the outside was worse than the institution. I can't swear that's what happened, but the coconut shy part makes me suspicious. When people confabulate and think one person is another person, they usually use someone of great familiarity. So if the medic was his brother or Prince Albert, that would ring more true to me. "Some dude I kinda know" seems like a stretch, unless of course there was an uncanny resemblance between the medic and Isaacs.

I think mental illness or neurological disorder is likely somewhere in the mix. But not the typical ones. I don't think he was Schizophrenic, Bipolar, Manic, whatever. I don't think he was recognizably mad, and while there are many mental illnesses that fly below the radar, those same illnesses have to be spectacular for murder to be involved. Nor do I think any of the spectacular problems were in play, because frankly people notice those and comment on those. Capgras does not fly below the radar. But obsession can be masked, psychopathy can be masked, any number of issues involving paranoia are masked as a matter of course, disinhibition is a common result of a brain injury but can easily be masked by simply compartmentalizing one's life. Another common result of brain injury is explosive rage. So while I don't think Jack was "mad" in any way recognizable at the time, I think it's entirely probable that there was a condition that contributed to these crimes. I think the impulses were his, but I think it's possible that he lost the ability to control them through no fault of his own. Capgras always leads to violence, which is perfectly understandable if you look at it from the Capgras sufferer's point of view. It doesn't come from a person's deep seated desires to murder those close to them. It's self defense. I don't think Jack is like that. I think he had the desire. What he lacked was the permission or confidence to carry it off. Getting nailed in the forehead and losing the ability to empathize could have given him the permission he had otherwise lacked. For example.

[Errata]

Interesting. So, I should add to my profile JTR possible head injury

It's not uncommon in serial killers. Serious frontal lobe injuries can result in psychopathology. And there are a lot of delusions that come about from the effects of a head injury. Anyone with a head injury that resulted in a loss of consciousness could have sustained brain damage significant enough to cause delusion or psychopathy, at least on a short term basis.

[DVV]

misidentification

Perhaps, since I imagine if you feel like someone you love is replaced with an imposter that has to feel like persecution. I would certainly think paranoia would work it's way somewhere int to description. Today it is categorized as a "delusional misidentification disorder".

Fleming thought one of the medics was an old Jewish acquaintance ("Isaacs") with whom he used to play coconut shy in Bethnal Green.
He was about to be released when he started ranting like this.
And finally died in Claybury 25 years later.

[Beowulf]

Capgras Syndrome, or Capgras Delusion is a neurological disorder common in paranoid schizophrenia, sometimes resulting from a profound head injury or dementia, somewhat similar to prosopagnosia, but instead of face blindness, it consists of emotional blindness connected to a face. Sufferers believe that their loved ones are in fact imposters.
It's really only considered remarkable when the sufferer was not otherwise delusional. Otherwise it just tends to be shuffled into a general pattern of madness. Michael Cleary was likely not otherwise delusional, or they simply would have reported that in his madness he burned his wife alive. Likely this was brought on by a head injury, thyroid problems, or some kind of toxicity. But, not simple superstition.
And yes. I did a paper on Capgras. And I felt a desperate need to apply the knowledge I've been hanging on to for the last 15 years. Maybe now I can clear that out and make room for something else, like cupcake recipes or advanced thermodynamics.

Interesting. So, I should add to my profile JTR possible head injury

[Errata]

Now that's interesting.
I suppose capgras was unknown in 1888.
How do you think it would have been called ?
Delusions of persecution ?
(That's in Fleming's file, who knew - at least - one of the victims)

Perhaps, since I imagine if you feel like someone you love is replaced with an imposter that has to feel like persecution. I would certainly think paranoia would work it's way somewhere int to description. Today it is categorized as a "delusional misidentification disorder". Mostly it is the very caricature of madness. What is more classic in literature, folktale or urban legend than a guy thinking his wife has been replaced by an alien or a demon so he murders her?

But Capgras (the man who named the disease) was alive at the time and had been researching (if my High School French holds up) psychoses of interpretation... wait you're French, I can just paste this. Les Folies raisonnantes, Les Psychoses à base d'interprétations délirantes, and Délire d’interprétation de Sérieux et Capgras. Serieux being his mentor. Now most of those papers date to the turn of the century, but the behaviors had been described previously, just not organized into an actual categorized separate disease. But the condition is quite rare, and it occurs predominantly in women.

The major downside to this theory is that Capgras only is applied to people the sufferer knows well. He never thinks his bus driver is an alien, he thinks his kids are. It because when we see the face of someone we care about we have an emotional recognition. People with Capgras have no emotional recognition, so they try to explain why their loved one looks like their loved one but is clearly a stranger. Because if they were not a stranger they would have that emotional connection. So if Jack killed because he had Capgras, he had also killed his family before moving on to friends, assuming he was friends with these women. So Jack killed his wife, his kids, his parents, before he killed these prostitutes. If he had Capgras.

But if you want to read up on a really fascinating disorder, try Jumping Frenchmen of Maine, which I think would make a great killer in a book. There's another good one where people get jolted on the subway, or trip over an object, and think that their soul fell out but I can't remember the name of that one offhand.

[Robert]

I think he was a brusque sort of fella.