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

[Bridewell]

In 1988, any child could get his hands on matches or a cigarette lighter. Things were different a century before. Lanterns were the province of the middle-classes

Not exclusively so. Albert Cadosch's youngest daughter set fire to her nightdress when she overturned an oil lamp. (She was not 'playing with matches' as claimed in the article). She was lucky to survive and bore the scars for the rest of her life. She was most definitely working class.

[Errata]

it was all about the knife, and what it/he could do to the female body. the organ removal was for reliving it.

Maybe, but the pursuit of a purely tactile sensation would involve quite a bit more knife work. The pursuit of a specific visual or aesthetic would require a specific kind of "canvas". So he would still be all over the place.

And an organ is never a trophy. It's always significant. If an organ is a trophy, any organ is a trophy. And not only do we not see that here, I can't recall seeing it anywhere. This is not easy. Cutting out the uterus is difficult and rather messy. Never mind the stench.

[Errata]

Hello Errata

Well, obviously not in jam jars! And I believe the "pickling" was in formaldehyde (not that I ever opened one to smell it). These were purpose made, like the ones you used to see in old museums, and not for freak shows, these were for teaching purposes.

Best wishes
C4

No, fetuses were totally pickled in formaldehyde. But the fetus that was in the jar was not pickled. Just in a jar that "resembled those used for pickling". But I seem to recall the wording was such that it was trying to carefully say that the fetus was not pickled, despite the fact the jar was used for pickling.

[Jon Guy]

it was all about the knife, and what it/he could do to the female body. the organ removal was for reliving it.

I`d say that the ripping of the skin was the main buzz.
Sawing through the throat, ripping open the abdomen, removing the flesh off the arms and legs, removing the breasts, and mutilating the face.

[Abby Normal]

Serial killers are extremely compulsive by nature. Not that there aren't people who would rip the face off of anyone they encounter, but they aren't serial killers. They end up as mass murderers or spree killers.

Serial killers do what they do for a reason. Not a good reason, but a reason. They obey the rules of their fantasies. Which sounds like delusion, and rarely is in fact delusion. But mostly it is a lack of... not impulse control exactly, but the inability or unwillingness to resist compulsion. They "want" to do something, it turns into "need", they do it. It satisfies them.

Jack the Ripper did not kill only to procure organs. He killed because he had an elaborate fantasy in his head that he needed to recreate. The fantasy gave him pleasure or relief, acting on it... more so. The fantasy included taking organs. He did. But one of the interesting parts of this mystery is that Jack has a tough time prioritizing. Take the Eyeball Killer. Just from the name you know what his priority was. He had an elaborate fantasy, but if he could not replicate that, he would still take the eyes. The eyes were the most important part. You can tell what murder victims were his by, if nothing else, the fact that the eyes were removed.

Jack the Ripper is tough. If we accept that he killed 5 or 6 women (the C5 plus maybe Tabram) then we have some real problems figuring out what this guy was after. Was he targeting middle aged prostitutes? Maybe, except that Kelly was not middle aged, and we don't know that all of these women were working prostitutes. Women with brown hair seems like way too big a victim pool, and two victims did not have brown hair. Nor were they all the same body type. It might have been a voice thing, but we have no way of knowing that.

And if we look at the murders themselves, the problems get bigger. Any idiot can see that if a man takes the time to burrow in there and grab a uterus, thats significant. But if that was the purpose, why did he fail 3 out of 5 times? If it's important, if that's what makes it worth it, he doesn't leave that behind. And he did. And he evidently spent just as much time sawing away at the throats of these women (after they were dead) as he did getting into the abdomens. The throat cut was not just a way to kill. He kept going. And going. The throat is significant. The abdomen is significant. Facial mutilations are significant. The posing may be significant. And I can't even a little think of any other serial killer with so many primary focuses. If these women had been been alive when these things were done, that might make sense to me. It's a basic form of torture. But they were dead.

Eyeball Killer had a fantasy, but the eyeballs were the focus. For Damher, the victims body type and the desire to control his victims were the focus. For Bundy, it was victim type and sadism. Son of Sam, terrorism. For Gein, this was the only acceptable contact with women that he had. For Jack... the organs, the throat the abdomen, the face, the post mortem behavior, the rush... and too many focuses is no focus. Jack had no focus. Everything was apparently equally important, so nothing was important, and that doesn't happen. So we are clearly missing something. I mean, we are missing a lot, but the statement that the Ripper only killed to procure organs is just massively untrue. And frankly, kind of dumb.

Every time I think about this particular aspect, I become convinced that there are two killers working together, despite the fact I really don't believe that to be true.

it was all about the knife, and what it/he could do to the female body. the organ removal was for reliving it.

[curious4]

Normal fetuses rarely got pickled. They rarely get pickled today. Conjoined twins, sure.

Though it is worth pointing out that the fetus was not pickled. Merely in a jar resembling a pickle jar. And really crammed in there to boot, since a 5 or 6 mo. old fetus does not easily fit in the average pickling jar.

Hello Errata

Well, obviously not in jam jars! And I believe the "pickling" was in formaldehyde (not that I ever opened one to smell it). These were purpose made, like the ones you used to see in old museums, and not for freak shows, these were for teaching purposes.

Best wishes
C4

[Fisherman]

At the inquest for the Whitehall torso the worker from the building says it would be very hard for someone who doesn't work in the building to have access to where the torso was dumped. How did the killer get down in to the vaults? Was he a worker in the building? It seems there is some believe that the torso was intended to be buried like the limb had been and the vault was only a temporary hiding place. What do you think...how could the ripper gain access to the vaults? The carpenter said he kept his tools in the vault because it was safer than the lockers. This means no one would be able to sneak in. Kind of sounds like the torso killer may have worked in the building? It was very dark in the vault and the carpenter was down in the vault a few times...he noticed the parcel but did not realize it was a torso. Hm suspicious. He felt that was the safest place to keep his tools...that meant very few people had access to the vault.
http://www.casebook.org/official_doc...whitehall.html

Anybody who scaled the fence surrounding the building project had access to the vault. Or anybody who knew how to open the unlocked door leading into it - it had some sort of cleverly constructed solution with a string or something. I donīt recall it exactly, but it was something along those lines.

If it had been impossible, I donīt think the killer would have placed himself in the kind of predicament it would have represented to be one out of a small bunch of men where the police would know that they had their killer.

It was a very bold and risky thing to do, nevertheless, placing that torso in the vault of the New Scotland Yard!

The best,
Fisherman

[RockySullivan]

From the Whitehall inquest:
"A piece of paper was shown to me as having been picked up near the remains, and it was stained with the blood of an animal. "
+1 for butcher. Also Ernest edge gives testimony that the torso was not there on Saturday and that he stood in the exact spot where the torso was found. This is in contrary to the Police report that area was stained black around the parcel and it must have been there for sometime perhaps weeks.

[Errata]

Yes, you will be very much on the money here, curious4 - it was an era of freak shows and such things and with a large interest in the creations of nature, so one should not be too put off by what would have been the equivalent of todays computerized school lessons. But still ...!

Just like you say, this would have been why it was not very much covered in the press - and one must accept that the fetus in question (the one floating in the Thames, that is) may have come from a school shelve!

Thanks for the somewhat icky lesson, anyhow!

The best,
Fisherman

Normal fetuses rarely got pickled. They rarely get pickled today. Conjoined twins, sure.

Though it is worth pointing out that the fetus was not pickled. Merely in a jar resembling a pickle jar. And really crammed in there to boot, since a 5 or 6 mo. old fetus does not easily fit in the average pickling jar.

[RockySullivan]

At the inquest for the Whitehall torso the worker from the building says it would be very hard for someone who doesn't work in the building to have access to where the torso was dumped. How did the killer get down in to the vaults? Was he a worker in the building? It seems there is some believe that the torso was intended to be buried like the limb had been and the vault was only a temporary hiding place. What do you think...how could the ripper gain access to the vaults? The carpenter said he kept his tools in the vault because it was safer than the lockers. This means no one would be able to sneak in. Kind of sounds like the torso killer may have worked in the building? It was very dark in the vault and the carpenter was down in the vault a few times...he noticed the parcel but did not realize it was a torso. Hm suspicious. He felt that was the safest place to keep his tools...that meant very few people had access to the vault.

http://www.casebook.org/official_documents/inquests/inquest_whitehall.html

[RockySullivan]

Perhaps I misread the summary of Liz Jackson case but wasn't another baby found wrapped in cloth on land tjat was believed to be the missing baby?

[Fisherman]

Hello Fisherman,

Yes it wasn't something you wanted to look at exactly. My point being that the Victorians did a lot of pickling - from exotic animals upwards, so finding a pickled fetus in the Thames wasn't that much of a big thing. Before the days of X-rays and scans it was a way to find out what things looked like. And disrespectful, yes, perhaps, from a modern perspective, but I think it was seen as making a contribution to science. The fetuses were (presumably) from miscarriages and people were less sentimental then. Dickens talks of seeing a neighbour's sextuplets laid out on a dresser and looking like pigs' trotters to his childish eyes.

Best wishes
C4

Yes, you will be very much on the money here, curious4 - it was an era of freak shows and such things and with a large interest in the creations of nature, so one should not be too put off by what would have been the equivalent of todays computerized school lessons. But still ...!

Just like you say, this would have been why it was not very much covered in the press - and one must accept that the fetus in question (the one floating in the Thames, that is) may have come from a school shelve!

Thanks for the somewhat icky lesson, anyhow!

The best,
Fisherman

[curious4]

Sharing

Hello Fisherman,

Yes it wasn't something you wanted to look at exactly. My point being that the Victorians did a lot of pickling - from exotic animals upwards, so finding a pickled fetus in the Thames wasn't that much of a big thing. Before the days of X-rays and scans it was a way to find out what things looked like. And disrespectful, yes, perhaps, from a modern perspective, but I think it was seen as making a contribution to science. The fetuses were (presumably) from miscarriages and people were less sentimental then. Dickens talks of seeing a neighbour's sextuplets laid out on a dresser and looking like pigs' trotters to his childish eyes.

Best wishes
C4

[Fisherman]

It was some time ago, but yes, human and in all stages of development. Don't think they were ever used in my time, though. Just sat there on the shelves. It was a very progressive school for young ladies. That my headmistress or the previous one was JTR wouldn't have surprised me at all. We lived in terror of them!

Honestly, it's true! Tumblety would have felt quite at home.

Best wishes
C4

Yikes! Thatīs creepy, to say the least. And grossly disrespectful of the ones in the jars too, I would say.

Thanks for sharing. Not that I couldnīt have done without it, but then I suspect that goes for you too!

All the best,
Fisherman

[RockySullivan]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickled_punks