The FBI Profile of Jack the Ripper & it's usefulness

[sdreid]

Regarding solving the case, like most profiles, it's virtually useless if not counterproductive.

[Michael W Richards]

Thanks for the supporting voices Simon ad Trevor.

To John G I would say that in the case of the so-called Ripper murders the first 2 murders in that series have specific features not seen in more conventional murders of the period. They were committed within a 10 day period, they were both murders of prostitutes while they worked...allowing for random murder theorizing...they both were cut in the throat unusually deep and twice, and they both had their abdomens mutilated after the killing cuts. Both victims were assumed to have been on the ground when the cuts occurred, both victims exhibit possible evidence of strangulation or garroting...perhaps to facilitate their lying down compliantly and quietly...and both victims were homeless at the time of their deaths due to lack of funds. These 2 murders based on the MO, Signature and Activities, were almost certainly the work of one person. This person was nicknamed before any further murders occurred as "Jack the Ripper. In my opinion, and in the opinion of some others, this is where any legitimate "series" ends.

In the Canonical Five, this is also where the vast majority of the similarities and the kill frequency ends. Its almost a month to the next kills, and more than a month until the last, and in none of the final 3 cases can we say with conviction that the women were certainly homeless that night, that they were soliciting, that they were almost certainly killed by someone posing as a client, or that their killer had a focus on mutilation on the female abdomen, post mortem.

Im just writing about what happened, not what most criminologists and historians have added to those basic facts over the years.

Its not enough to investigate these as a series based on opinions.

Cheers

[John G]

You'll forgive me if I have a different take on Michael's post. I think if anyone does not accept the C5 as having been the work of one man it is because they arbitrarily assign rules of conduct that a serial killer must somehow follow and attribute importance to differences in the killings which are not significant. For them, Jack has to act like a robot not a human being.

c.d.

I absolutely agree. I would tend to focus on the statistical rarity of these crimes rather than looking for exact comparisons between different murders, which I regard as a seriously flawed approach.

As I've mentioned on the Tabram thread, murder itself was relatively uncommon in late Victorian Whitechapel. Focusing on the years either side of 1888, there were no murders at all in 1886 or 1887, one murder in 1889 and one in 1890. Moreover, the type of murders that occurred in 1888 are themselves extremely rare.

Thus, modern research suggests that fewer than 0.1% of murders involve trauma to the genital area and 0.05% involve the combination of posing and mutilation. Considering the murder rate of the period, you could therefore expect a Tabram- style murder less than once every 2,000 years and a MJK Murder once every 4,000 years!

Frankly, I think the argument that an entire army of throat cutters, mutilators and uteri removers suddenly descended upon Whitechapel in 1888, only to disappear again by 1892, is simply untenable. I mean, what happened to all of these dangerously unstable individuals: surely they couldn't all of drowned in the Thames or found themselves caged in an asylum.

It has been argued that you can't empirically assign a murder to a killer without an arrest. Well that obviously accords with common sense, however, it shouldn't prevent us from making sensible judgements based upon the rarity of the crimes and of similarities contained within the MO.

This more flexible approach takes into consideration that serial killers are not "robots" and that their Mo can change for a variety of reasons. For instance, the police were originally reluctant to confirm that Jean Jordan was a Yorkshire Ripper victim; they pointed out that there was no evidence that she was a prostitute, she was more severely mutilated than any previous YR victim and she'd been decapitated, unlike any other victim.

Of course, we now know that Sutcliffe did kill Jordan. He explained himself that he'd severely mutilated her- an act that made even him vomit- because he was furious at not being able to find an incriminating £5 note and that he'd decapitated her because he was trying to disguise the fact that she was a YR victim- he didn't want the police to know that he'd crossed the Pennines.

In fact, despite the fact that the first murder to be attributed to him was in 1975, as early as 1969 he admitted to a friend that he'd followed a women to her house and attacked her with a sock containing a brick. To my mind it is therefore very likely that he committed other murders between 1969 and 1975 but wasn't charged with them because they must have differed in some significant aspect from his mature MO.

And what about Anthony Hardy the Camden Ripper. He was convicted of 3 murders, the first of which he committed at the age of 49- pretty old for a serial killer, strongly suggesting that he must have committed earlier murders, but possibly displaying an MO with different characteristics. In fact, the police believe he may have committed up to another 8 murders that bare some similarities to the ones he was convicted of- I believe he's also suspected of being a serial rapist. Why wasn't he arrested for these crimes? Because despite the similarities there simply wasn't enough evidence to directly implicate him.

Best wishes

John

[GUT]

Using the FBI methodology, would the murders of Abby and Andrew Borden, committed an estimated hour and a half apart, make Lizzie Borden a serial killer, (if she was guilty, of course?)

I'm not sure than an hour and a half would count as a down time in between.

[Rosella]

Using the FBI methodology, would the murders of Abby and Andrew Borden, committed an estimated hour and a half apart, make Lizzie Borden a serial killer, (if she was guilty, of course?)

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Hi Simon 3

FYI
from wiki:
A serial killer is a person who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time (a "cooling off period") between the murders. Some sources, such as the FBI, disregard the "three or more" criterion and define the term as "a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone" or, including the vital characteristics, a minimum of two murders.

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi All,

What is the minimum number of victims required to qualify as a serial killer?

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon 3

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

What is the minimum number of victims required to qualify as a serial killer?

Regards,

Simon

[lynn cates]

sacred number

Hello CD. OK, but what is sacred about the C5? In fact, many people who are convinced that there was a serial killer about in the East End are inclined to add Tabram or McKenzie or Coles.

Stewart Evans has said that, if he had to swear, he would say three.

Cheers.
LC

[c.d.]

You'll forgive me if I have a different take on Michael's post. I think if anyone does not accept the C5 as having been the work of one man it is because they arbitrarily assign rules of conduct that a serial killer must somehow follow and attribute importance to differences in the killings which are not significant. For them, Jack has to act like a robot not a human being.

c.d.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Michael,

Many thanks for your refreshing gust of common sense.

Regards,

Simon

[Trevor Marriott]

Almost every one consulted over the years about these crimes began with a premise that they were looking for the killer of the five Canonical victims,...as if that group was an established run of murders by one man. It isn't, never was, and might never be. Its five murders, among some 11 in the Unsolved Murders file from the period.

If people could detach themselves from the JtR urban legend they might be better able to see the facts as they are, not as they have been assumed to be.

Ive spoken with detectives who work on serial murders, one whom worked on one of Canada most famous cases. Ive been informed that without an arrest, many murders cannot be empirically assigned to any single killer....so why have we been assuming that 5 of that 11 should be? Particularly when the physical evidence doesn't support that argument.

Cheers

Excellent post Michael right on the money.

[Michael W Richards]

Hey all,
Wanted to get your thoughts about what you think about the FBI profile of Jack the Ripper written by FBI Agent/Profiler John E. Douglas. What do you think we can derive from it? How can we use it as a tool in our search for the Ripper?
I know there are things in there which some may poo poo and some who think profiling is useless. But I would add FBI profilers were instrumental in helping Kansas police to catch Dennis Rader, known as the BTK Killer.

Here is the link for the FBI "Jack the Ripper" profile:

http://vault.fbi.gov/Jack%20the%20Ripper

-Paul

Almost every one consulted over the years about these crimes began with a premise that they were looking for the killer of the five Canonical victims,...as if that group was an established run of murders by one man. It isn't, never was, and might never be. Its five murders, among some 11 in the Unsolved Murders file from the period.

If people could detach themselves from the JtR urban legend they might be better able to see the facts as they are, not as they have been assumed to be.

Ive spoken with detectives who work on serial murders, one whom worked on one of Canada most famous cases. Ive been informed that without an arrest, many murders cannot be empirically assigned to any single killer....so why have we been assuming that 5 of that 11 should be? Particularly when the physical evidence doesn't support that argument.

Cheers

[SirJohnFalstaff]

I've been trying to find the price of matches in 1888 and been unsuccessful. If they were sold in boxes of fifty at a time at say 3 pence a box, that wouldn't be beyond a working man's pocket.

Some people made matches at home, in order to sell them.

[Rosella]

I've been trying to find the price of matches in 1888 and been unsuccessful. If they were sold in boxes of fifty at a time at say 3 pence a box, that wouldn't be beyond a working man's pocket.

I know Cadosch had not been well, but if he was in full time employment there would have been boxes of matches in his home, and, as that news item shows, there were some used to light the oil lamp.

Unfortunately, those sort of accidents when there were lots of open fires and oil lamps and candles in the home, were extremely common.