What's your profile for Jack?

[Boggles]

I don't think it matters that much whether or not Stride was a prostitute

Quite right, serial killers kill vulnerable people regardless of whether they were prostitutes.
My soon to be mother-in law was standing at a bus stop in Leeds a few streets, (less then 100 yards), away from where Jacqueline Hill was picked up by Sutcliffe at exactly the same time. She was a 20 year old student.

People like this ask 2 questions - 1) would i get a sexual kick out of killing this woman 2) can I do it and get away with it. If the answer is yes twice they will do it.
It so happens that prostitutes are the most vulnerable people in society.

Something else when I asked her what did everyone think when this guy was finally captured she said - we were all surprised he was just a lorry driver, we all thought he would have been someone more important.

[Errata]

Quite right, serial killers kill vulnerable people regardless of whether they were prostitutes.
My soon to be mother-in law was standing at a bus stop in Leeds a few streets, (less then 100 yards), away from where Jacqueline Hill was picked up by Sutcliffe at exactly the same time. She was a 20 year old student.

People like this ask 2 questions - 1) would i get a sexual kick out of killing this woman 2) can I do it and get away with it. If the answer is yes twice they will do it.
It so happens that prostitutes are the most vulnerable people in society.

Something else when I asked her what did everyone think when this guy was finally captured she said - we were all surprised he was just a lorry driver, we all thought he would have been someone more important.

It's often a bit more complicated than that, depending on the killer's ritual and process, but yeah. Serial killers kill people they want to kill. They don't kill people they don't want to kill. It's sort of luxury murder, as opposed to necessity murder. But some killers are very particular. Bundy had a type, Kempur had a type. Hansen had a whole scenario that he had to have. So it's never the first person the killer sees, but because serial killers are very particular about certain aspects they tend to be very unconcerned with other aspects.

Your mother in law may have been perfectly safe even if Sutcliffe drove past because she may not have done it for him. There is a very creepy story out of North Carolina where an identical twin was picked up by a serial killer in the club both worked at. They caught him, and he had no interest in her identical twin. He wanted one, he didn't want the other and the reason was so nebulous even he couldn't articulate it. Which is why serial killers are scarier than sharks. We know if we splash around in shark infested waters we will get bitten. It has nothing to do with what we look like, what our purpose is, or whether the shark is even hungry. We will get bitten. Serial killers? Who knows man.

But your mother's response is typical. There are a lot of papers out there on "the banality of evil". It never stops surprising people, despite the fact that anyone could say, watch the '36 Olympics and see that Hitler was short.

[GUT]

G'Day Errata

It's often a bit more complicated than that, depending on the killer's ritual and process, but yeah. Serial killers kill people they want to kill. They don't kill people they don't want to kill. It's sort of luxury murder, as opposed to necessity murder.

Not quite true, many serial killers kill outside their target group. It is presumed that this is when the "lust" is on them and they can't find their target victim.

[Lechmere]

I doubt that Jack the Ripper had a 'down' on whores.
But Strides likely active prostitution on the night of her murder is significant as it is the most obvious explanation for her going to her death in Duffield's Yard. The other alternative is that she was hanging around in that street late at night for no obvious reason and was attacked in the street and silently dragged into the yard and killed.

[Damaso Marte]

Hi Damaso. That may be your approach. It's certainly the approach of some others. But it's not everybody's approach. There will always be things we don't know but there are also many things we do know. Or at least that some of us know and some others prefer not to know... for reasons I'll probably never understand.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

I'm not sure you know anything that the rest of us actually don't, at least not in the positive sense of the word. You may have a higher threshold for how much evidence needs to be behind a conjecture before you entertain that conjecture, but you don't have any special knowledge unless you're sitting on a lost or untranslated file.

[Errata]

G'Day Errata



Not quite true, many serial killers kill outside their target group. It is presumed that this is when the "lust" is on them and they can't find their target victim.

Need to kill would be like, witnesses. Or self defense. Life ends or seriously takes a nosedive if that murder is not committed.

Serial killers are fantasy based killers, so thats a "want" kind of thing. They may compromise, but they aren't exactly a kettle boiling over. It's not like if they don't kill the next person they see they might go home and accidentally cannibalize mom or something.

Not dissimilar to alcoholism in some ways. You can't help feeling like crap and dealing with the cravings, but you have absolute control over whether or not you drink. A serial killer will feel intense discomfort during an externally forced hiatus, but even if they choose a victim against type it's still a choice.

On the other hand, it appears that the only lock on any serial killer's preference is sex. Some of them don't care, but those who care, care to the exclusion of the other sex. Dahmer didn't do women. Not ever. Bundy didn't do men. He might have shot a cop, but he wouldn't do his thing to a man.

[GUT]

G'Day Errata

That's where we disagree, some alcoholics don't have control over whether they drink or not. And I believe from the psychiatry and psychology that I've studied that some killers fall into the same category.

Unfortunate as it is there are times when humans do not have control over what they do.

[Observer]

Theorising that Liz Stride knocked on the door of the IWEC, was received, and then murdered by one it's members, would such theorising constitute leaping ahead of the evidence ?

Thats your theory, not mine. Not a great one either. What the evidence suggests is that Liz Stride was intentionally at that location at that time dressed nicely....when almost all of the "prospective clients" she might encounter left that site an hour before she arrived.

And it is extremely suspicious that Morris Eagle, who passed the spot where Liz is found dead at some time that evening, couldnt remember seeing anyone. If Liz isnt in that passage at that time, then she is out on the street....something Morris would have noticed since the street was all but deserted.

Cheers

One thing, it's not my theory Michael, it's Lynn Cates theory. It's not often you're right, but you're wrong again. However, I'd agree, it's a ludicrous theory.

[Elenahoyos66]

It is my unprofessional belief that the serial killer, formally known as 'Jack the Ripper', was a complusive and repetitive Lust murderer.

Serial killers generally form fantasies in which they enact out on (I mean, duh, how astute of me!), some motivations (I.E the stimuli in which they enact out on) could be Rage or Lust etc. For example, the man who would abduct women, strip them naked and dump them in the woods only to hunt after them like wild prey, was a Lust murderer because he recieved a certain sexual gratification off of it.

Or, we could also use the woman who would strangle infants in her care. Or the other woman who would posion her elderly dependent patients; she would hold them in her arms and watch them die. Her derived pleasure was not the act, the idea of posioning them to death, but more or less the fact that they would be dying - - she recieved sexual gratification from holding a dying person in her arms. It gave her a thrill.

As for with 'Jack', his modis operandi may be different (mutilation), but he is still a Lust murderer. The concept is to not necessarily even kill his victims, he possibly doesn't have an extreme hatred or anger towards them (possibly) - - what he is doing is studying the insides of women; he's fantasizing about their insides - - the genitalia and abdominal mutilations - - he is studying, he is curious, and each mutilation or act holds either some symbolic significance or relief which gives him sexual gratification.

It isn't the death that excites him, it isn't the idea of killing a frail woman, the fantasy in which he is enacting out on is not to cause fear or pain or torture, but to study.

So, in that way, we're dealing with a very twisted individual (once again, duh!)

One need only to look at Kelly; he defaced her, not so much to render her humanless, but because the facial mutilations in and of themself held some allegorical importance to him. Notice that the whole pelvic area is mutilated to a pulp and the hand is placed in the stomach.

I know this was mentioned somewhere before, but I agree that with that he is basically saying, "Thank you for letting me do this to you."

[Errata]

G'Day Errata

That's where we disagree, some alcoholics don't have control over whether they drink or not. And I believe from the psychiatry and psychology that I've studied that some killers fall into the same category.

Unfortunate as it is there are times when humans do not have control over what they do.

Of course they have control. They have to buy it, pour it and drink it. All conscious actions. They don't have control over their heartbeat or blinking, but a bottle of vodka they do have control over. And in fact because it requires positive action, not drinking is easier than drinking. It is the literal path of least resistance. To say that they don't have control is to say that they are doomed to end up in a gutter. That their biology has selected them to die, so we might as well just get it over with and spare them the pain of a failed liver. Of course they have control. Some merely choose not to exercise it.

And the only serial killers who even remotely resemble what you describe are the Schizophrenic serial killers, of which I think there are three. Mullin was so delusional he thought he was saving the world through murder. Which still makes it a conscious choice, but an understandable one if you look at it from his point of view. Serial killers may feel very very bad if they don't kill, they may even have all the psychological symptoms of withdrawal. But they all have a choice. They all have control. They exercise that control every minute of every day, otherwise they would be hip deep in the corpses of people that they know and see on a regular basis. There comes a time when they choose not to exercise that control. But nothing about the act of murder is unconscious or involuntary. They choose to act. They may do it because they are in desperate pain or horribly agitated, but they do choose. Every time. There is nothing ever found in any serial killer brain that would even remotely suggest that their behavior was any less voluntary than say, opening a soda can. Poor judgement is not the same as having no control.

[Boggles]

You may have a higher threshold for how much evidence needs to be behind a conjecture before you entertain that conjecture

Yes good comment - this is basically sums up the driving force behind most of the differences of opinions and lively debate i see on these threads. Each of us have our own threshold, depending on life experience, motivations, knowledge of serial killers and so forth. But I dont think Stride as a ripper victim is much in the way of conjecture

Now Farmer being a ripper victim is very much conjecture. I am personally very interested in this attack given the circumstances and amount of witness testimonies, did you know this was the only ripper related event where a distingishing feature was seen on the attacker? Serial killers can get slack towards the end. Also Mylett is very interesting for me.

Oh well I guess only one man ever knew for sure.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Damaso. That may be your approach. It's certainly the approach of some others. But it's not everybody's approach. There will always be things we don't know but there are also many things we do know. Or at least that some of us know and some others prefer not to know... for reasons I'll probably never understand.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Damaso's reply...

I'm not sure you know anything that the rest of us actually don't, at least not in the positive sense of the word. You may have a higher threshold for how much evidence needs to be behind a conjecture before you entertain that conjecture, but you don't have any special knowledge unless you're sitting on a lost or untranslated file.

Hi Damaso. You misunderstood my meaning. I wasn't saying I know more than everyone else I was saying that for some reason certain people prefer NOT to know things, if that makes sense. For instance, there was this long debate on here about Stride being a prostitute, with certain parties saying there was no evidence for it. So I posted actual evidence that she was. Everyone shut up. But the debate will begin anew at some point as though that evidence doesn't exist. So it's a case of certain folks KNOWING something...just like you and I know it...but pretending they don't. That's what I have a hard time understanding.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

Yes good comment - this is basically sums up the driving force behind most of the differences of opinions and lively debate i see on these threads. Each of us have our own threshold, depending on life experience, motivations, knowledge of serial killers and so forth. But I dont think Stride as a ripper victim is much in the way of conjecture

Now Farmer being a ripper victim is very much conjecture. I am personally very interested in this attack given the circumstances and amount of witness testimonies, did you know this was the only ripper related event where a distingishing feature was seen on the attacker? Serial killers can get slack towards the end. Also Mylett is very interesting for me.

Oh well I guess only one man ever knew for sure.

Hi Boggles. You're not the only one interested in these seemingly sidebar cases. They're all connected to the same addresses on George Street. I don't think these connections have been properly appreciated. That's not to say all these attacks and murders were one may, but there may be a relation there.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Boggles]

I don't think these connections have been properly appreciated.

And I think that if there is a general feeling amoung many contributors of doubt wrt Stride and the GSG they may never be

[Tom_Wescott]

And I think that if there is a general feeling amoung many contributors of doubt wrt Stride and the GSG they may never be

Hi Boggles. Typing with your foot while eating your lunch? I wonder if your point might have been lost.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott