Did JTR ever change his M.O. intentionally?

[Hunter]

Why, Jon... naturally, we think we are. Any more questions? Make 'em harder please.

[lynn cates]

"We kept tabs of their every move--by reading the colour supplements."

Hello Jon. Thanks.

Neither.

Cheers.
LC

[Errata]

Hi Lynn.
(sorry for this, but...)

We non-surgeons use abridged newspaper reports from the Inquests. Dr Bond, experienced surgeon, used the Autopsy notes.

Who is in a better position to judge?

Whoever comes up with the right answer?

Sure Bond is in a position to know. But that doesn't mean he did. We don't know how he came to the conclusion that he did, and his process could have been faulty. He may have thought he knew what would show whether or not it was the same man, but modern forensics might know that whatever he concentrated on isn't actually the clue he needed.

We know things Bond didn't know. Many of us look at different aspects of the crimes and see them as the most important clue as to whether or not the same guy was responsible. We could all be right. We could all be wrong. We could all focus on something different and still come to the same conclusion. Just because we don't have what Bond had doesn't make him right and us wrong. It makes him more capable of finding the right answer...

But think of all the times you have had all the information you need to make a judgement and still got it wrong. Had a friend stab you in the back, and it was there in front of you the whole time, you just didn't see it. Judgement is not infallible. We are lucky if we go through life with a 50/50 record on accurate judgement. Not because of the information available, because of our ability to see it in the right way. Bond may have gotten it right. He certainly had more pieces of information to go on than we do. But him having the information doesn't mean he WAS right. If he has 80% of the puzzle and gets it wrong, and I have 10% of the puzzle and get it right, then it doesn't matter how much more qualified he is, or how much more information he had access to. He would still be wrong and I would still be right.

[Wickerman]

Just because we don't have what Bond had doesn't make him right and us wrong. It makes him more capable of finding the right answer...

Which, places him in a better position to judge....
You got there, eventually.

[Errata]

Which, places him in a better position to judge....
You got there, eventually.

A better position from which to judge doesn't make him right.

[Michael W Richards]

Michael

Thomas Bond, the forensic pathologist to the Metropolitan Police, was certain that the canonical five were all the work of one man. He did the first and arguably the best criminal profile of Jack. I see no reason to disagree with him. The difference in the case of Liz Stride was because the killer was disturbed and botched the initial cut (' number one squealed a bit couldn’t finish straight off. ' - recognise it?). The difference in the case of MJK was that she was different. The killer had personal reasons for treating her as he did - or so I believe.

Prosector

Dr Bond saw a single victim of the Canonical Group and Phillips saw 4, for one, and there is zero, nada, zilch physical evidence that suggests Strides killer was interrupted, or that one occurred.

Bond didn't believe that the first 2 women were killed by someone very knowledgeable, despite the fact that those murders prompted inquires about medical students and physicians. Bond used an assumption that Mary was killed by Jack to discount any skill and knowledge ideas, since she wasn't necessarily killed by someone who knew diddly about killing or dissections. But who is to say that Mary wasn't killed by some less skilled, and that the man who killed Polly and Annie wasn't skilled? You? Me? Bond?

Ill stick with a very reputable physicians opinion about finding those attributes in the first 2 murders, since he actually examined the corpses, and let Bonds opinion on the 1 corpse he did examine stand unchallenged.

If Bond was so trustworthy then explain his comments on why he discounted Alice McKenzie as a Jack victim. Compare those with his comments on Kelly.

To accept Bonds opinion you must believe that he was able to determine with greater accuracy than the physicians who examined the previous women what type of wounds were made and with what skill level...despite having nothing but their notes to use as his source of information.

I don't see Bond as a more respected professional than Phillips, so I see his contradiction of Phillips findings based on his review of the notes as an exercise in ego.......like you see around here quite a bit.

Cheers

[Wickerman]

A better position from which to judge doesn't make him right.

Quite true.
However, regardless how many opinions are offered up, nobody will ever know the right answer, that is, how many victims fell to the same hand.
So the question of right and wrong is mute.

At this remove in time the best we can do is to identify who was in a better position to judge.
Primarily, this nomination must go to Dr Phillips, but secondly, and only in consequence of one doctor reviewing all the autopsy reports, the second nomination must go to Dr Bond.

No-one in our time will ever be able to confirm the right answer regardless how much research is put into it.

[c.d.]

I would take the doctors' opinions with a large grain of salt. I have read too many trial transcripts in which experts (in a number of different fields) who have credentials out the wazoo have absolutely been ripped to shreds upon cross examination. It turned out that they based their expert opinions upon certain assumptions or failed to take certain facts into consideration or failed to give them the weight they deserved.

Both sides produce experts with equally impressive credentials who arrive at completely opposite conclusions.

c.d.

[c.d.]

"Dr Bond saw a single victim of the Canonical Group and Phillips saw 4, for one, and there is zero, nada, zilch physical evidence that suggests Strides killer was interrupted, or that one occurred."

Hello Michael,

You do realize that an interruption could have occurred with no resulting physical evidence don't you? I mean it happens all the time.

c.d.

[Michael W Richards]

"Dr Bond saw a single victim of the Canonical Group and Phillips saw 4, for one, and there is zero, nada, zilch physical evidence that suggests Strides killer was interrupted, or that one occurred."

Hello Michael,

You do realize that an interruption could have occurred with no resulting physical evidence don't you? I mean it happens all the time.

c.d.

Its also possible that Liz Stride fell into someone who at the time happened to be holding a knife at just the right height and angle to inflict that wound, maybe twisting her scarf by catching it on something the man was wearing.

There are an almost infinite number of possibilities here cd, I prefer to stick with the ones that are indicated by the physical evidence.

Cheers cd

[Wickerman]

I would take the doctors' opinions with a large grain of salt.

And you are well within your rights to see it that way. So who is in the best position, in your opinion, to be able to judge, if not the doctors?

Both sides produce experts with equally impressive credentials who arrive at completely opposite conclusions.

And what conclusion does someone without credentials arrive at, and why should we believe them?

[c.d.]

Hello Wickerman,

I certainly was not implying that my opinion is superior to that of the doctors of the time. They would be in the best position to judge. The problem is that we don't have the details of how they formed their opinions. Hence my admonition to not take their conclusions as being the word of God.

c.d.

[Michael W Richards]

Hello Wickerman,

I certainly was not implying that my opinion is superior to that of the doctors of the time. They would be in the best position to judge. The problem is that we don't have the details of how they formed their opinions. Hence my admonition to not take their conclusions as being the word of God.

c.d.

When you have an autopsy report to use as reference, you get the straight goods.....where a cut starts, how deep it goes, how long it is, what organs and tissues were impacted, yada yada...and you get an opinion on how the victim died based on the wounds. But the story that can go along with that information is for me the most critical part, because it reveals the physicians impressions of the injuries as a whole for one, and because it is from someone who inspected the actual wounds. Physicians may differ on what an autopsy report reveals about the manner in which the knife was used or the objective of the knife user, largely because any absolute proof can only be ascertained by viewing the actual cuts.

Bond didn't see evidence in the reports to validate Phillips opinions on the skill and knowledge of the killer of Polly and Annie, but he didn't have the benefit of the first hand experience with the cuts themselves either.

Bond saw 2 possible Canonicals....Mary and Alice. His comments on any other victim are relevant as opinion, but they do not supersede the opinions of the attending physicians... in my opinion.

Unless of course there is evidence that there was some incompetence or a lack of evidence to support the "story".

Clean excision of a uterus in near dark conditions seems to support Phillips.

Cheers

[Sam Flynn]

Clean excision of a uterus in near dark conditions seems to support Phillips.

Phillips' own report contradicts Phillips! He painstakingly noted that Annie Chapman's abdomen was opened by (asymmetrically) cutting away three flaps of flesh; that a spit of flesh containing her navel went AWOL; that the killer left one-third of the bladder inside the body; and that her colon had been inadvertently cut through. Yet, apparently, because Phillips saw that the uterus was removed with that famous "one sweep of the knife", he overlooks all the mess and collateral damage elsewhere.

Methinks there's an elephant in the womb.

[Wickerman]

Hello Wickerman,

I certainly was not implying that my opinion is superior to that of the doctors of the time.

No, I do understand that, that you were not offering your own in place of theirs.
My question was just, who else do we have to listen to?
Doctor Phillips never gave his conclusions on the subject, though some reporters were not adverse to suggesting he had.

They would be in the best position to judge. The problem is that we don't have the details of how they formed their opinions. Hence my admonition to not take their conclusions as being the word of God.

Even if we did have an exhaustive autopsy report, who else here is qualified to interpret it?
We would be unlikely to have the autopsy, and the doctor's interpretation of it. I'm not altogether sure they wrote their conclusions down except, in brief, for presentation at the Inquest.
Other than that we would have an extremely detailed description of mutilations, organs & tissue structures using 19th century medical terminology which most of us would be at great pains to translate, never mind interpret as to it's overall implications.