What's your profile for Jack?

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Nicely said Errata and Deathtosnails. Simon, may you be so kind as to lay out what it is you do believe? I am quite interested.

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Oh...

And Jonathan H, which suspect do you refer to?

[caz]

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

Hi Simon,

I too disagree with Jonathan's claim that "JtR" was 'certainly' a tabloid construct.

I sit in the middle between you, with no firm belief either way. But to me it's this claim by the police that strikes me as being 'self-serving' (to borrow from Jonathan), and along the same lines as Anderson's 'definitely ascertained fact' concerning the killer himself.

In short, anyone who today parrots the claim that it is a definitely ascertained fact that "JtR" was 'a tabloid construct' should jolly well be obliged to back that up with evidence, just as Anderson should have backed up his claim, at least in the files if he could not do so publicly.

Or we should be within our rights to boil them in oil after removing their toenails with pliers.

Apologies for the slight deviation.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Not Friday's Child

Hi Errata,

You wrote to Abby:

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.

With respect, it was only you who appeared to be giving any weight at all to a supposed association between Bundy's ex and her physical appearance and his subsequent serial killing career. Abby and I, among others, were putting the case for his ex merely being an early victim of his need to dominate females one way or another.

In fact, wasn't it you who went into some detail to describe your personal profile of the ripper as someone who targeted victims who resembled his domineering and abusive mother, because of a subconscious desire to take the power back?

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.

Exactly. And my belief is that he had all this in him by the time he met his ex, explaining his behaviour when the relationship ended (and probably explaining why it ended).

I'm not saying the most terrible abuse doesn't happen to many, many children of both sexes, most of whom grow up relatively able to cope as adults, and not in the least bit violent themselves. But I actually wouldn't be at all surprised to find that convicted serial killers were all, without exception, very hard to parent from an early age, and were never going to be the loving and giving kind, either as toddlers, teenagers or grown-ups.

Love,

Caz
X

[Jonathan H]

To Digalittldeeperwatson

The young barrister, Montague John Druitt, whom Sir Melville Macnaghten, who rose to be Assistant commissioner of CID, went to his premature grave believing was Jack the Ripper.

Nobody else agrees here. I'm alone.

To Caz

You've completely misread my post, self-servingly if I may say so.

I was describing Simon's theory, wrongly as it turned out on this aspect, as that of seeing the Ripper as a tabloid construct.

Whereas I agree with Macnaghten that the Ripper was a single individual, Druitt, who killed five women, but that leaves about four women who were not (the Ripper name is an invention of two reporters, as Mac found out in mid 1890).

[Abby Normal]

Hi All,

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

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon
Someone killed those women. Who do you think did it? Do you think they were all killed by different men? What's your take?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Abby,

Someone killed those women. That's a fact, for certain.

But that they were all killed by the same person [or persons] is a doubtful proposition.

I believe I can shed some new light on one of the murders, and to this end I have written an article to be published across the next two editions of Ripperologist.

As to the other murders, it really is too early to say.

Regards,

Simon

[Errata]

Hi Errata,

You wrote to Abby:



With respect, it was only you who appeared to be giving any weight at all to a supposed association between Bundy's ex and her physical appearance and his subsequent serial killing career. Abby and I, among others, were putting the case for his ex merely being an early victim of his need to dominate females one way or another.

In fact, wasn't it you who went into some detail to describe your personal profile of the ripper as someone who targeted victims who resembled his domineering and abusive mother, because of a subconscious desire to take the power back?

Love,

Caz
X

Yeah, you're not wrong. I find I'm having trouble finding the words to explain what I mean, and I think my last attempt just went awry. I think that there are often direct correlations between victimology and the people or experiences in a killer's life. School shooters a la Columbine are a good example of that evolution in a very short period of time. You have bullied and tortured kids who seek revenge against their abusers, and who want to make everyone sorry for treating them that way. This being their motive, their opening moves make sense. They target the kids who were bullying them. They kill them, they feel powerful. But they don't go hunting everyone who actually hurt them, because the power shifts the victimology. Next they go after kids LIKE the kids who tortured them. Other popular kids, friends of the abusers, etc. The similarity is now enough. That shifts from getting their power back, being avengers, to being judges. That makes them feel more powerful, and distances themselves from every other kid in that school. That's when they start shooting anyone that moves.

Now serial killers and school shooters have different pathologies, but the evolution is still present. There are serial killers who fall into the first stage, of killing people who have directly hurt them. They tend to be spree killers, and we tend not to categorize them as serial killers, but technically they are. They are simply also something else. Quite a few serial killers fall in the second evolution, of killing people like people they want to kill. Sometimes it's very direct, like when a guy starts killing women who look a lot like his mean wife. Sometimes it's less direct, shooting wealthy people. In these cases, the victim selection is interesting, and may provide some insight into the killer's life, but it's not significant the way classic transference would be significant. The third evolution also tends to be a spree killer, but not always. And often it is accompanied by paranoia, or some kind of delusion.

Now, these only apply when sexual sadism isn't the issue. With Bundy, sexual sadism was the issue. He was going to do what he did to those women no matter what they looked like. I happen to think that because he was a power/dominance rapist that he would be especially attracted to someone who reminded him of the woman who broke up with him because he wasn't good enough for her. In the grand scheme of things, I don't think that is significant. It's a bit of trivia that explains why he gravitated toward a type. Simple sexual attraction does not spark sexual sadism. They can think a girl is hot and have no desire to hurt her. There is an X factor, and I'm not sure we know what it is, but about half of sexual sadists are unable to choose who they would hurt based on photos. They have to see them in situ. Some of them can't even pick out their own victims from those photo arrays. So that's a mystery.

I don't think Jack the Ripper killed because he was a sexual sadist, I don't think he saw them as potential sex partners. That means his victims are significant for another reason, and that puts us back into the evolution. I think it's the substitution evolution. Given what I see in the murders, it's not sexual, it's about the organs of generation, he saws through the necks, he's meek enough to be non threatening and go unnoticed, I think it's a domineering mother. And there is a kind of abuse that would make sense for that kind of targeting. I think the resemblance is far more significant to Jack than it ever was to Bundy. But Bundy did have a type, so he crops up in these conversations. It is not analogous, but it's a handy example. That's what I mean about it not being significant to Bundy, but still being significant to these murders. Basically, Bundy is an example, but not a good one for this exercise. I personally would have gone with Ed Gein, but that's not how the conversation flowed.

[Bridewell]

the Ripper name is an invention of two reporters, as Mac found out in mid 1890's

You say "found out". Is that as in "definitely ascertained fact" or as in MacNaghten's opinion? To the best of my knowledge nobody has ever determined the authorship of the letters giving rise to the 'Jack the Ripper' soubriquet, although theories abound.

[GregBaron]

Stuff...........counter Stuff...

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.

Actually evolution is what gives this idea pause. There's no natural selection value in homosexuality. It doesn't pass along genes (or doesn't want to).Why then is it here? It must be cultural e.g., we needed better hairdressers.......Sorry, couldn't resist..

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.

Thanks Caz. I agree with your agreement...

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.

Nobody certainly with any rational leanings...

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.

It's nice to be agreed with sometimes Caz.............especially by someone whose posts I greatly enjoy and usually find quite convincing...

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.

Abby, I second your motion........Bundy wanted victims, he liked young pretty girls.............Imagine that?

As to the other murders, it really is too early to say.

Darn, 125 years is a rush to judgement.....

You have bullied and tortured kids who seek revenge against their abusers, and who want to make everyone sorry for treating them that way.

I don't mean for it to be Errata torture day but this Columbine reference is also a myth. Eric Harris was a bona fide psychopath who recruited a depressed loser to assist him in his evil plans. Harris especially, bullied as much as he was ever bullied....



Greg

[Errata]

I don't mean for it to be Errata torture day but this Columbine reference is also a myth. Eric Harris was a bona fide psychopath who recruited a depressed loser to assist him in his evil plans. Harris especially, bullied as much as he was ever bullied....



Greg

No worries, I'm a big girl. When I say "A la Columbine" I mean school shooters killing their peers, as opposed to school shooters who target authority figures or where total strangers bust in and start killing kids. While Harris was in fact a psychopath, that's actually not enough to create a school shooter. He was bullied mercilessly, there are a lot of documented accounts, including some kids confessing to throwing a cup full of **** on him. And I don't know if that's enough to make a school shooter or if there was something else as well, but that's another topic for another day.

Psychopathy, which is somewhat relevant, doesn't make someone a killer, or even a serial killer. It usually makes them a criminal, often a violent criminal, but it does not automatically equal murder. Psychopaths actually make very good embezzlers and white collar criminals. So there is a tendency to for people to say "Oh.. well he was a psychopath. Case Closed." when in terms of motive and explanation, it isn't closed at all. Psychopathy isn't enough. I mean, it is for the psychopath but while we don't have to reach very far to see how a psychopath becomes a criminal, we have no idea why one becomes a murderer instead of a rapist, or a loan shark, or a blackmailer. So psychopathy is part of it, but not the whole part.

But as for the shooter metaphor, it was not meant as a discourse on the state of mind of the shooters, merely to show the evolution from an organized killer to a disorganized one. They go in with one motive and end with another due to the lightening fast evolution of the crime. But because it is so fast, you see each kind of victimology. A "regular" serial killer can stay in the first or second evolution for months, years, even decades before devolving. Which by necessity means more selective with prey.

Serial killers are if nothing else fetishists. They seek to relive the same experience over and over. Usually their first kill. So the 5th victim isn't the telling one. It's the first. If there was a subconscious association, if there was a preferred type for whatever reason, it shows in the first. Basically, the first victim is the person this guy screwed up his courage to go from fantasy to reality. It's a huge step, and it's one that requires quite a prod. It's why possible triggering events are considered psychologically important. But because these guys are stalkers and peepers, they almost never grab a random person for their first kill. It might have nothing to do with looks. It could be voice, perceived morality, what they drive, where they shop. But something makes that person incredibly attractive to the killer. The first is almost never about availability. For some reason a lot of these guys think it's more bad ass to say they just grabbed the first person who walked by, but more in depth interviews usually show that there were potential victims rejected before their first kill.

Just understand this. There is a pathology to these crimes. There is an element of biology, sociology, physiology, genetics, psychology... And of all of the components that makes someone become a serial killer, psychology gets the most crap. Mostly because most people cannot separate out reason and blame. Trying to subconsciously kill one's own mother is a perfectly valid reason to kill. But there is nothing that ever showed up in any psychological book in the history of man that excuses murder. Nothing mitigates a serial killer's guilt. And I'm not remotely interested in finding a way of mitigating a serial killer's guilt. I want to know what is going on in their heads. Because every symptom, every delusion, every psychotic break could have been detected before they killed. We don't know how many serial killers we prevented by court ordered counseling after a divorce or a death or abuse. We have no idea how many people step up to that line, but then step back. But the answer to that lies in psychology. That's what I want to find. Because the only thing that would make these monsters victims is if they were doomed from birth to be serial killers. That they had no choice.

[caz]

To Caz

You've completely misread my post, self-servingly if I may say so.

Ha ha, Jonathan. It's you who completely misread mine. When I wrote "JtR" I thought it was obvious I meant the name. You claimed that the name (ie "JtR") was 'certainly' a tabloid construct, completely swallowing and parroting police claims to have found out it was 'an invention of two reporters'.

Some evidence would be nice rather than the usual leaps of faith.

My oil is still boiling and my pliers are strong.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I don't think Jack the Ripper killed because he was a sexual sadist, I don't think he saw them as potential sex partners. That means his victims are significant for another reason, and that puts us back into the evolution. I think it's the substitution evolution. Given what I see in the murders, it's not sexual, it's about the organs of generation, he saws through the necks, he's meek enough to be non threatening and go unnoticed, I think it's a domineering mother. And there is a kind of abuse that would make sense for that kind of targeting.

Again, and I'm sorry to push you on this, Errata, but why a domineering mother and not an abusive father? Would an abusive father have led this same killer to target male victims if you are right about your 'substitution evolution'? I don't know of any such cases, do you? So why not an abusive father who maybe knocked seven shades of crap out of his mother on a regular basis, and his mother just meekly put up with it while little Jack watched in fascination, growing up with no respect for women because they let men do whatever they like to their bodies?

I'm not saying I believe this any more than your own theory, but I still see the whole gender thing as an indication of the killer's sexuality rather than whether an abuser in his past was male or female.

I suspect the killer was heterosexual and used prostitutes before he started killing them, so it would have been a simple enough progression, and the selection process could have been pretty much identical. I too doubt he would have seen his victims as potential sex 'partners' as such, but there would have been a fine line for him between using a living prostitute's body for thruppenceworth of impersonal sexual relief and going on to enjoy - even prefer - using his knife on one.

Beyond that, it need only have been a matter of picking his opportunities when they arose, and choosing the knife option when and where he thought he could get away with it. The victims (all of them, whether Jack killed them or not) are entirely consistent with this basic process. They don't need to resemble anyone in the dark or be of a certain age - or include Kelly as one of their aliases.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Actually evolution is what gives this idea pause. There's no natural selection value in homosexuality. It doesn't pass along genes (or doesn't want to).Why then is it here? It must be cultural e.g., we needed better hairdressers.......Sorry, couldn't resist..

Hi Greg,

Ooh, how very dare you? Who's treading a fine line now?

There's no natural selection value in people who are born sterile either, or with conditions which prove fatal before they reach puberty. So why are they here? That's not cultural, and it's not a lifestyle choice either. If it's intelligent design, the designer must have an awful lot of off days or be some kind of sadist. Mother Nature sadly has never claimed to have a conscience or to treat us all equally.

Love,

Caz
X

[GregBaron]

Darwin never lies...

Hi Greg,

Ooh, how very dare you? Who's treading a fine line now?

There's no natural selection value in people who are born sterile either, or with conditions which prove fatal before they reach puberty. So why are they here? That's not cultural, and it's not a lifestyle choice either. If it's intelligent design, the designer must have an awful lot of off days or be some kind of sadist. Mother Nature sadly has never claimed to have a conscience or to treat us all equally.

Love,

Caz
X

This is true Caz but it's still hard to explain 3.8% of the population from a Darwinian perspective. And in case you're misenterpreting, I'm a convinced Darwinist.

If you want to see a witty answer to Intelligent Design, search Youtube for Neil Degrasse Tyson. He's terrific..


Greg