Did JTR ever change his M.O. intentionally?

[Errata]

A case could be made to suggest the throat cuts were all different.

- Nichols (two cuts - one short, one long).
- Chapman (one circular wound, overlapping).
- Stride (one short cut).
- Eddowes (ear-to-ear wound).
- Kelly (direction & number of cuts undetermined).

It might also be worth noting that neither Phillips (with Chapman), nor F. G. Brown (with Eddowes), actually say how many cuts were applied.
Both doctors only describe the extent of the wound, as found.

You also have to wonder how much of the variance is due to differences in the height and neck circumferences of the victims, and whether the killer was behind the head, on the side, or on the chest of the victim.

[Wickerman]

A case could be made to suggest the throat cuts were all different.

- Nichols (two cuts - one short, one long).
- Chapman (one circular wound, overlapping).
- Stride (one short cut).
- Eddowes (ear-to-ear wound).
- Kelly (direction & number of cuts undetermined).

It might also be worth noting that neither Phillips (with Chapman), nor F. G. Brown (with Eddowes), actually say how many cuts were applied.
Both doctors only describe the extent of the wound, as found.

[c.d.]

Hello Lynn,

Analogies and financial arrangements aside, I simply don't see glaring dissimilarities in the cuts. Yes, the cuts are different but I think those differences can be accounted for by any number of factors as Errata and I have enumerated. Additionally, I believe that the cuts were simply a means to an end and not the end itself and so consistency would not be required or striven for.

If you want to argue that the cuts indicate a different killer, then you will need to show that all throat cuts by a particular individual will always be consistent no matter what factors or circumstances are brought into the equation. And if you want me on board, you will need to support that with crime statistics indicating that throat cutting, like the speed of light, is a constant.

Good luck with your task.

c.d.

[lynn cates]

method

Hello CD. Thanks.

Some of us are devotees of the notion of workmanship. I once taught a night class in logic, with low enrollment. Take for session--$600. Later, I taught a prestigious day class in medical ethics, high enrollment AND TA. Take, $4650. But the quality of lecture NEVER changed. If I were in it for money, I'd be a fool.

I am suggesting that a professional has a method of proceeding, whether or not s/he is aware of it.

Cheers.
LC

[Errata]

Hello Errata,

Yes, you make all good points. One also has to ask if the killer were trying to leave his calling card as it were, as if he were saying yes this is MY work, or did he not give a damn as long as he achieved his desired end.

c.d.

We know that serial killers are matching a fantasy in their head when they kill. We also know that fantasies can change. But it is still a learning process. A killer might go straight in with a long blade, pierce the colon and get sprayed with effluvia, and decide that was an unpleasant enough experience not to repeat. Next time he uses a shorter blade and makes oblique cuts. Which changes the cuts, but not the purpose and does not reflect a change in the fantasy. Even if a serial killer thinks he is an artist, it's not like painting. It's more like music. You hear a Mozart piece and you know it's Mozart because it sounds like Mozart. But it doesn't sound exactly like the last Mozart piece you heard. It's not the same brush strokes. It's the same themes.

Signature injuries are more in line with hit men than serial killers. Not that serial killers don't have preferences... but anyone who is going to cut a woman's throat and then remove her uterus with an inappropriate knife for the job is going to look like Jack the Ripper. It's not the cuts that make the man, so to speak. It's the fantasy, whatever that is. It's why these women were found in similar poses, it's how he prioritizes what he does, it's where he puts his time and where he puts his care. And while knife cuts can tell us those things, they don't have to be the same to tell us the same story. If they were the same the story would be that he was obsessive/compulsive. And if he were that would be everywhere in those murders, and it's not.

Consistency and sameness are found far more often in tv shows and movies than in real life. I think inconsistency in cuts is very normal. Now if a body popped up where the killer used a shovel, that might raise some alarms.

[c.d.]

Hello Errata,

Yes, you make all good points. One also has to ask if the killer were trying to leave his calling card as it were, as if he were saying yes this is MY work, or did he not give a damn as long as he achieved his desired end.

c.d.

[Errata]

I don't quite understand how knife cuts have now become the equivalent of fingerprints in that they are always going to be the same. Before I jump to the conclusion of a different killer, I would want to know if there are any factors that could account for the same killer using different cuts. Could it be attributable to him using a different knife, cutting from a different angle, the position of the victim as he cut, movement and struggle from the victim etc.?

Again, before I leap to the conclusion of a different killer, I would also want to know if the same killer using different cuts is unique in the annals of crime or is it fairly commonplace?

Any knife cut that kills the victim is successful be it consistent or not.

c.d.

Whether or not knife cuts are a factor sort of depends on the killer. If he's an OCD type, then of course you would expect a certain consistency and order to his cuts. Anyone with a specific training in either surgery, butchery or even field dressing would also have fairly consistent cuts.

But that being said, as some who uses a knife a TON, a whole lot of things affect cutting. External and internal influences. Aside from the causes you listed, there's also the amount and quality of light, nerves, decaying edge quality, slippery handle, hell if my blood sugar is low I cut like crap. And one can never underestimate how much simple curiosity or a sudden whim can alter what a person does. If a guy thinks "hey I wonder if I can pop her head off?" it doesn't mean he NEEDS to do it, but he might think it's worth a try.

[Errata]

What you say above is true, today.

The serial killer who thinks on his feet (so to speak) is a product of necessity.
The need to police your work, to cover your tracks, to always have an 'out' was not a necessity in 1888.
Judging the IQ (or intelligence?), of someone who was not required to use it (when compared with today's forensic world), is a hard call to make.

I disagree. One of the many factors that killers of average intelligence fail to consider is the people they are surrounded by when they aren't killing. They have an imperfect veneer of normalcy. Now today, people have "issues" and whatnot, and we brush off the idea that creepy dudes are in fact bad people. Not so in 1888.

And he did need contingency plans. He was killing in the open. It's ridiculously easy to kill without getting caught, but on the open streets of a major city it's a lot harder.

It's also worth pointing out that he was able to kill without getting so caught up in it that he was not alert for patrols. Which can be for a number of reasons, but with the ability to process information from various sources simultaneously (which is a function of IQ) it's a lot easier.

[c.d.]

Hello Lynn,

I am not sure if that one is up to your usual analogy standards but I will respond anyway. If the cross hatching painter was paid the same as the clean strokes painter, would he really care if the job he did was not up to the previous standard?

The throat cutting was simply a means to an end. I don't think consistency in the cuts was the goal itself.

c.d.

[lynn cates]

analogy

Hello CD.

"I don't quite understand how knife cuts have now become the equivalent of fingerprints in that they are always going to be the same."

Although I cannot speak for anyone else, I would say that technique is part of a brand. If one house is painted with clean vertical strokes and another with cross hatching that leaves gaps and runs, I would at least suspect that the professional who painted the first house were NOT the tyro who did the second.

Cheers.
LC

[Wickerman]

... A serial killer with a high IQ is more likely to police his evidence, he is more likely to have contingency plans. He is also far more likely to recognize when something is "wrong" and abort. His ability to plan and adapt quickly obscures his motive. These guys are very hard to read until they get caught and start talking about it.

Which is where I think it applies to Jack. To bring it around again to the topic at hand.

What you say above is true, today.

The serial killer who thinks on his feet (so to speak) is a product of necessity.
The need to police your work, to cover your tracks, to always have an 'out' was not a necessity in 1888.
Judging the IQ (or intelligence?), of someone who was not required to use it (when compared with today's forensic world), is a hard call to make.

[Wickerman]

To Gut and Wickerman

I agree with you. All I did was give some examples of serial killers with high IQ's there are obviously more than I listed e.g. Bundy, Russel Williams, Ian Brady, Dennis Nilson. I did put an etc at the end of my sentence.

Cheers John

Actually John, it was not your comment I was responding to.

[c.d.]

I don't quite understand how knife cuts have now become the equivalent of fingerprints in that they are always going to be the same. Before I jump to the conclusion of a different killer, I would want to know if there are any factors that could account for the same killer using different cuts. Could it be attributable to him using a different knife, cutting from a different angle, the position of the victim as he cut, movement and struggle from the victim etc.?

Again, before I leap to the conclusion of a different killer, I would also want to know if the same killer using different cuts is unique in the annals of crime or is it fairly commonplace?

Any knife cut that kills the victim is successful be it consistent or not.

c.d.

[FrankO]

- Phillips refused to offer any opinion on the Nichols murder.

Good point, Hunter. And since he didn’t give an opinion about the knife skills and anatomical knowledge of Nichols’ murderer, how can one conclude that only the murders of Nichols and Chapman constitute the profile of the Ripper in the sense that the Ripper was probably trained or educated to use the knife in the operating or dissection room and that, consequently, at least Eddowes was killed a different hand?

It’s only logical that Phillips, on the basis of Chapman’s murder, tried to rationalize the murders of Nichols and Chapman, as he – or no one for that matter – didn’t have any experience with or knowledge of the type of killer the Ripper was. It was only natural that he sought a motive behind the murders (as did coroner Baxter) that we normal people could understand. My view is that it may very well have clouded his opinion.

There were differences in the cuts on all of the victims... All of them.

As you and others have pointed out, there were differences between all of the canonical victims and there may be a number of plausible explanations for this, rather than just the one that Micheal suggests: that they were killed by different hands. One important explanation for Chapman’s possibly ‘neater’ performed mutilations may be that it was getting light and the murderer could (better) see what he was doing.

The evisceration of Eddowes is far more similar to Chapman than Nichols is...

I would add that the cut that opened Eddowes’ abdomen seems more similar to Nichols than to Chapman’s (see Tom Wescott’s dissertation here: http://www.casebook.org/dissertation...d-wounds.html).

All the best,
Frank

[Hunter]

Since Phillips found no objection with linking the Stride murder to the same hand that initially killed Polly... then Annie, as that and other quotes suggest, the differences seen in the cuts made on Catherine Eddowes would therefore exclude that killers candidacy for all 3 previous "Canonical" murders.

The point has been made several times before but I'll make it again - just for jolly I guess - Phillips refused to offer any opinion on the Nichols murder. He only opined on the murder cases that came under his personal observation. And there's nothing to suggest that he agreed with Baxter on Stride. In fact, he made a point of how "dissimilar" the throat cuts were. There were differences in the cuts on all of the victims... All of them. The evisceration of Eddowes is far more similar to Chapman than Nichols is... So what's the point? This doesn't even make sense.

The fact that any physician could make any kind of remark concerning the likely medically trained-level status of the killer of C1 and C2 in relation to Strides single cut is beyond me personally, but the knife used perhaps might help differentiate that one a little more definitively.

What?

That is not to say that 2 men could not have been involved in all of those killings and alternated doing the actual cutting, just that it would seem Phillips believed that the 4th Canonical victim was cut differently than the previous women...less skillfully.

Again... I'll ask... Where does Bagster Phillips say this?

The issue of the object is also revealing, in that the organ that was successfully removed in its complete state in Mitre Square had nothing to do specifically with women. The first kills wounds suggested that killer did have that focus.

Nichols had no organs removed and there's no forensic evidence that her killer ever intended to do so. So what's your point? Are you so wrapped up in your ain't no Ripper agenda that you are totally blind to basic facts?