What's your profile for Jack?

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby,

I tend to agree with your last post.

I think my problem was essentially with the argument that the ripper may have selected only female victims because he had once been abused or dominated by a female. There are at least as many male abusers out there, and yet I don’t recall hearing a similar argument for male-on-male serial killers having had a male abuser in their past, explaining their gender choice.

When a specific gender is targeted, it is typically presumed these days - rightly or wrongly - to be an indicator of the killer’s sexuality (eg homosexual men will tend to select male victims), and we now know that our sexual inclinations are with us at birth, and therefore a matter of nature, not nurture.

If this is an accurate indicator that the ripper was born heterosexual (whether or not we believe the murders were sexually motivated), then he would presumably have selected female victims regardless of what or who may have buggered up his formative years and triggered, or nurtured his urge to kill.

In short, the mere fact that the Whitechapel victims were female can tell us little, if anything, about what motivated their killer(s) in the first place.

Love,

Caz
X

agree

[Errata]

I'm not sure why we always get on to Bundy and for that I apologize. Since we are profiling I guess it's at least indirectly related to the thread topic..

Anyway Errata, I still don't really buy the look-alike proposition. Perhaps he had a type for those he stalked but many of his crimes were ones of opportunity.

When the girl left the sorority house at midnight in the semi-darkness do you think he thought....."hmmm...let me see, is her hair parted down the middle, oh goodie, yes it is, tick that box, now let me see does she have nice white teeth and big hooters...hmmm, yes and yes again....Ok, wonderful I'm in...I'll approach this one....."

Of course not. It was simply, creature approaching, it's young and female i.e.; victim. Many of his were this way. Again, he trolled where there would be pretty young girls....he didn't go looking down the alleys in Chinatown...

Also, he was reading detective magazines, peeping in windows and wanking off long before he met the college girlfriend. I don't really believe in the trigger or going off the edge thing, at least usually, it's typically an evolution. Bundy, by his own admission, had been fantasizing and stalking for years.

We also don't know when he started, some think it was when he was 14 and the 8 year old girl down the street disappeared......He was a paraphilic who conflated sex and violence and evolved until he was ready to act on it........once he did he was addicted and enjoyed it......


Greg

Bundy is either a classic example or the world's most famous exception. He works as an example for a lot of reasons. A trigger doesn't mean something catastrophic happened. A trigger simply means that something happened that gave a serial killer "permission" to start killing. It can be the loss of a job, a breakup, a bad business deal, the death of a parent... it can be almost anything. But it is either so stressful that the killer gives himself permission to kill to relieve the stress, or the last thing anchoring them to society is gone. And it may be inevitable, but in most serial killers they fantasize and commit smaller crimes long before they start serial killing. But something happens that allows that person to stop trying to control themselves. Ed Gein's trigger was the death of his mother. While it was certainly traumatic for him, it's probably more fair to say that there were certain things he couldn't do with his mom around, that finally he could do. Like collect a box of vulvas. Moms are kinda strict about those things. Bundy's first kill was probably a low risk target. A runaway or a prostitute. It's pretty typical. But dominating a prostitute or a child is not going to give him the sense of superiority he wants. So he moves to co-eds.

When given the chance to exert a preference, he did. And those girls did look like his ex. She isn't the reason he started killing. But she did define his preference. And if my best friend can't date blondes anymore because of one bad girlfriend, I don't think it's out of line to say that women who looked like his ex provoked a certain reaction. They didn't have to look like her for him to get off, but if they did that was clearly better. Or else he wouldn't have established a preference of girls who looked like his ex. An ex he went to what we consider to be extreme lengths to cultivate and then humiliate years after their initial breakup. So he had some issues associated with her. It doesn't take a great leap of logic to think that maybe some of that spilled over into his murdering.

I am not saying this girl started him killing. I am not saying she inspired the murders, I am not saying that had she let him down easier none of this would have happened. It would have. I am saying that Bundy's resentment of this woman caused him to seek out women who resembled her when given a choice. He went to a lot of trouble to try and dominate and humiliate his ex. Given that his entire MO was based on dominance and humiliation, a long haired brunette with certain features clearly might be more appealing to him than a Chinese immigrant. He already had an association in his mind. It would be peculiar if he didn't act on it.

[Abby Normal]

I think too much is made of Bundy re-killing his girlfriend. They say something about girls with hair parted down the middle. Hello people, all girls in the 70's parted their hair down the middle, it's called a style...I was there...I think he simply looked for good looking college girls...it's a matter of taste and college campuses were places where he was very comfortable...

The nature/nurture argument is a bit silly too because you can't have one or the other, they're codependent......part of the same puzzle......we're all a unique combination of this symbiosis...I also think the Freudian mommy thing is overdone...There's no evidence Bundy was physically abused, he may have been neglected. I think some people get their wires crossed concerning normal sexual attraction. Some link it with violence for some unknown reason. What's terrifying is that the psychopath will act on it...

We do know that psychopaths have retarded emotional development. It's like they're stuck in the narcissistic child state and their amygdala and frontal cortex indicate abnormalities when exposed to certain situations. They're basically sharks with little emotional life at all. Whether this is strictly a genetic thing or develops through life is unknown. I certainly believe in a genetic component but more evidence is needed...

The human mind/brain is the most complex thing that we know of and our understanding of it, I'm afraid, is in its infancy...


Greg

[/QUOTE]Hi Greg
Completely agree. And I also have never bought the whole Bundy getting revenge on his girlfriend thing and picking victims that looked like her-I dont how many times I have seen that misguided idea blindly repeated. Besides he got revenge on her anyway by winning her back and then dumping her. He killed his victims because he liked to and picked them because they were young, pretty and perceived to be happy and successful.

Now, if someone wants to put forth that his girlfreind dumping him may have been some sort of trigger I may listen to that, but his fantasy and desires (and early crimes and possibly murder) started wayyyyyy before his girlfriend dumped him.

Just like the ripper probably.

[caz]

I once read an interesting article in a print journal, which I haven't been able to locate again, by a psychiatrist, formerly in clinical practice, later in research into what makes people violent, who had gathered a huge amount of raw data on both people abused as children who had not become abusive, and also people in prison for violent crimes, both those who had been abused as children, and those who had not. His initial analysis showed that people abused as children committed violent crimes at a statistically higher rate than those who had not, but were still not the majority of people who had been abused as children.

His criteria for abuse were stringent, and included, IIRC, at least two ER visits, or one overnight hospital stay, or a third-party report to child services, and this was dealing with adults who had been children between something like 1940-1970.

Anyway, he started looking for commonalities between the non-abused, and abused violent inmates, and discovered that nearly all of them had a documented closed-head injury with loss of consciousness. Many of the abuse victims got their head injuries as the result of parental abuse, while the others had fallen out of trees, been in car accidents-- it varied greatly. There were very few head injuries among the non-violent adults abused as children.

So, it would seem that being abused puts you at risk for becoming violent, but only in that it increases your risk for sustaining a head injury.

It's possible that car seat and bike helmet laws could decrease the number of future serial killers.

Hi Rivkah,

This is all quite fascinating, but the fact remains that as least as many girls as boys are the victims of some kind of childhood abuse, and presumably as many girls suffer head injuries as a result of abuse or accident. So there must be some other factor at work here, because girls hardly ever grow up to become the kind of violent serial offender who will often 'take it out on' complete strangers.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I didn't know we knew this! Wow!

Well most of us know that our sexual leanings are chosen for us before we are born, Greg. But then some continue to think evolution is not a proven scientific fact and we were all created in God's image. So we can never please everyone.

I think too much is made of Bundy re-killing his girlfriend. They say something about girls with hair parted down the middle. Hello people, all girls in the 70's parted their hair down the middle, it's called a style...I was there...I think he simply looked for good looking college girls...it's a matter of taste and college campuses were places where he was very comfortable...

I agree with you here. It was a matter of personal taste.

The ripper similarly felt comfortable walking the streets in the early hours where his victims also walked. If we look at the age range, state of health and impoverished circumstances of the Spitalfields victims, it's pretty much what we would expect if the killer was simply picking on lone and vulnerable females at random - those who were too weak, too sick, too drunk or too broke to put up any resistance. And that, to my mind, makes it impossible to conclude anything about his victim choice connected with his childhood.

...I also think the Freudian mommy thing is overdone...There's no evidence Bundy was physically abused, he may have been neglected. I think some people get their wires crossed concerning normal sexual attraction. Some link it with violence for some unknown reason. What's terrifying is that the psychopath will act on it...

Yes, I agree with this. But look at how it was interpreted by Littlechild, who linked homosexuality with sadism and masochism. I sincerely hope nobody would do that today.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I'm not sure why we always get on to Bundy and for that I apologize. Since we are profiling I guess it's at least indirectly related to the thread topic..

Anyway Errata, I still don't really buy the look-alike proposition. Perhaps he had a type for those he stalked but many of his crimes were ones of opportunity.

When the girl left the sorority house at midnight in the semi-darkness do you think he thought....."hmmm...let me see, is her hair parted down the middle, oh goodie, yes it is, tick that box, now let me see does she have nice white teeth and big hooters...hmmm, yes and yes again....Ok, wonderful I'm in...I'll approach this one....."

Of course not. It was simply, creature approaching, it's young and female i.e.; victim. Many of his were this way. Again, he trolled where there would be pretty young girls....he didn't go looking down the alleys in Chinatown...

Also, he was reading detective magazines, peeping in windows and wanking off long before he met the college girlfriend. I don't really believe in the trigger or going off the edge thing, at least usually, it's typically an evolution. Bundy, by his own admission, had been fantasizing and stalking for years.

We also don't know when he started, some think it was when he was 14 and the 8 year old girl down the street disappeared......He was a paraphilic who conflated sex and violence and evolved until he was ready to act on it........once he did he was addicted and enjoyed it......

Greg

I agree with you entirely here, Greg. It's all a bit chicken and egg, which is why some are taken in by the idea that it was the girlfriend trouble that set him off, while others (me included) see the girlfriend trouble as inevitable for someone like Bundy, and something that could be turned into an excuse for himself and an explanation for the profilers, for his subsequent violence against other young women, whether they were clones of the girlfriend or just similar in the broadest sense.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

When given the chance to exert a preference, he did. And those girls did look like his ex. She isn't the reason he started killing. But she did define his preference. And if my best friend can't date blondes anymore because of one bad girlfriend, I don't think it's out of line to say that women who looked like his ex provoked a certain reaction. They didn't have to look like her for him to get off, but if they did that was clearly better. Or else he wouldn't have established a preference of girls who looked like his ex. An ex he went to what we consider to be extreme lengths to cultivate and then humiliate years after their initial breakup. So he had some issues associated with her. It doesn't take a great leap of logic to think that maybe some of that spilled over into his murdering.

I am not saying this girl started him killing. I am not saying she inspired the murders, I am not saying that had she let him down easier none of this would have happened. It would have. I am saying that Bundy's resentment of this woman caused him to seek out women who resembled her when given a choice. He went to a lot of trouble to try and dominate and humiliate his ex. Given that his entire MO was based on dominance and humiliation, a long haired brunette with certain features clearly might be more appealing to him than a Chinese immigrant. He already had an association in his mind. It would be peculiar if he didn't act on it.

Hi Errata,

I'm not sure you can even go that far. Chicken and egg. He chose his girlfriend because he was attracted to women with her looks. His preference for those looks were established when he saw her. And if he was already fantasising about dominance and humiliation, it was pretty inevitable that when they broke up his resentment would manifest itself in that way. I don't think you can conclude that it was her looks which caused an association in his mind between a relationship gone bad and women with similar looks. If he had always been drawn towards her type, she was just one - possibly not even the first - of the long line of women who suffered because of who he was.

Love,

Caz
X

[Semper_Eadem]

Hi Semper,

A similar case is that of the artist Kim Noble (not the male comedian of the same name):

http://kimnoble.com/

She claims to have suffered sexual abuse as a child, though not at her parents' hands.

Maybe females tend to turn their pain in on themselves, or manage to block it out completely, while some males choose to turn it outwards and inflict suffering on others?

I use the word 'choose' deliberately here, as we are talking about a male killer (or killers, hi Lynn ) who got away with murdering and/or mutilating each female victim because nobody was ever seen in the act. I don't think that was merely a lucky accident each time, on the part of a madman who didn't know or care about any potential witnesses.

Love,

Caz
X

How you been? Thanks for the example. I posted this and totally forgot about it. Sorry I am so late replying.

I think if JTR was a Jeffery Dahmer type of serial killer. Martin Fido could argue this way better then I could. I will try though.

I think the killer was in control enough between his frenzies to sense when someone might have been coming down the street. I'm sure he had an animal like cunning in his arsenal. Maybe I was too vague when I used the term mad man or crazy because if JTR was fall down nuts they probably would of caught him sooner.

Geo~

[Abby Normal]

Hi Errata,

I'm not sure you can even go that far. Chicken and egg. He chose his girlfriend because he was attracted to women with her looks. His preference for those looks were established when he saw her. And if he was already fantasising about dominance and humiliation, it was pretty inevitable that when they broke up his resentment would manifest itself in that way. I don't think you can conclude that it was her looks which caused an association in his mind between a relationship gone bad and women with similar looks. If he had always been drawn towards her type, she was just one - possibly not even the first - of the long line of women who suffered because of who he was.

Love,

Caz
X

Well said. Plus the "looks like his girlfriend" idea is so subjective. You would first have to agree that they all(or most) looked like his girlfriend. personally i dont think they looked like his girlfriend. And as Greg pointed out-that hairstyle, long straight parted down the middle was such a common hairstyle. I have five older sisters and if you look at a family picture from the 70's guess what? All of them-long straight parted down the middle.

Not sure who the person who first proposed that theory-but IMHO the "looks like his girlfriend" theory is such self serving psycho babble at its worst. i think misguided speculation like that actually misleads more than it enlightens and it has been repeated ad nauseum over the years.

[Errata]

Well said. Plus the "looks like his girlfriend" idea is so subjective. You would first have to agree that they all(or most) looked like his girlfriend. personally i dont think they looked like his girlfriend. And as Greg pointed out-that hairstyle, long straight parted down the middle was such a common hairstyle. I have five older sisters and if you look at a family picture from the 70's guess what? All of them-long straight parted down the middle.

Not sure who the person who first proposed that theory-but IMHO the "looks like his girlfriend" theory is such self serving psycho babble at its worst. i think misguided speculation like that actually misleads more than it enlightens and it has been repeated ad nauseum over the years.

I seriously think you are giving the association a lot more weight than it deserves. We aren't talking about some subconscious desire to kill his ex, nor are we talking about a rigorous selection process. Any time we get hurt, we form an association. It's why certain songs make us sad, etc. If you're in a bar, and a song that reminds you of getting hurt comes on, you don't flee the bar. You just think about the hurt for a few seconds. It doesn't make you do anything, it simply prompts recall. We're talking about the same thing with Bundy. It doesn't fuel his actions, it merely influences his choice of victim when given a choice.

And yes, Long dark brown hair parted in the middle with an oval face could easily be his type. And that may have been why he dated the ex in the first place. But Bundy was a power/dominance rapist and murderer. It isn't about sexual attraction, it isn't about love, it isn't about reassurance. He was a sadist. He is targeting women to hurt them. His goal is to hurt them, humiliate them, control them. That's what he's getting out of it. So he isn't choosing women he wants to date. He's choosing women he wants to hurt. That there is an association between those women and his ex girlfriend is interesting, but not significant. Once he lost control, say, everything after his escape, he lost any preference. Which is a good sign that it was a preference and not a need. If the looks were important he would have kept that aspect.

And the only possible use of this information is to establish that he has a preferred type, which is only useful in warning potential victim pools. And even that is of a limited use. An association like this has the potential to identify a suspect if the killer is locked on to a specific type. In the case of Bundy, it's merely trivia. A classic example of a killer with a preference, but not a classic example of a killer locked into a type. And killers can be locked into a type for any number of reasons. But it certainly isn't part of being a serial killer, Dahmer proved that.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

How can a "profile" be ascribed to someone who may not have existed?

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

Simon,

You and I have ended up at oppoiste ends of the spectrum, which means that some times we are in alignment, as extremes can end up meeting each other.

As I understand it, and correct me if I am wrong, you adhere to the theory that there was no 'Jack the Ripper' just a series of unconnected murders (or perhaps involving an element of copycatting) and that the concept of a single fiend is a tabloid construct (his name certainly is) later used by police for their own sell-serving reasons -- hence no need to bother with a single, agreed-upon 'suspect'.

And I am at the other end of the spctrum arguing that it was solved in 1891, albeit posthumously, by a single police chief -- at least to his satisfaction -- and thus there is no mystery. That this solutiuon, very broadly, was shared with the public from 1898. That's as close as we can get, and the solution may have been wrong but it was at least thoroughly checked out.

I suppose we agree, therefore, that a 'profile' is totally redundant but for opposite reasons: because either he did not exist or because he was positively identified.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

I look forward to someday meeting you in the middle.

In the meantime let me just say that I do not believe JtR was a tabloid construct.

Regards,

Simon

[Errata]

Hi All,

How can a "profile" be ascribed to someone who may not have existed?

Regards,

Simon

I think the actuality of Jack the Ripper is not necessary for profiling. Strict profiling is a matter of statistics and interpretations. If I were an actual profiler, I never would have given the profile I did, because my profile is not statistically likely. I could make up a series of murders right now and get a good profile on the killer. That he doesn't exist might ruin my arrest record, but it doesn't make the profile invalid. Merely unnecessary. But a profile can at least in theory also expose the lack of a serial killer just as easily as the presence of one.

It's not magic, it's not psychology, it's not science. It's statistics. And anyone who has ever studied government knows that statistics apply perfectly well to fictional constructs

[Deathtosnails]

And on top of all that it gets the brain working and a bit of fun can be had.

Nothing wrong with a bit of speculation and outright biased guesswork