Facial Mutilations

[Wickerman]

Hello Jon. Thanks.

OK, try this. Hold a surrogate knife in your hand and try doing this with a pillow. Obviously, you will need to do a walk around. But surely the fence impedes on the other side?

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn.
Precisely, which is why I wrote that he had to step to his/her right side to complete the cut.

Try visualize this.
The Killer stands behind victim, his back to house wall, fence to his left, body in sitting posture, supported by his knees.

Chapmans body is the 'clock', she (propped up) is facing the bottom of the yard - this is 12:00. The fence is at 9:00 to her body.

The killers first cut, right handed, begins at 9:00, round to 12:00, and finally terminates at about 4:00 (behind right ear).

He steps to his right (her right side), still holding the head by the hair.
Now he is facing the fence.

He re-places the knife at 4:00 (the start of the second cut), drags it around to 9:00 (passing below the previous cut), then terminating the cut at 1:00.

[lynn cates]

walk around

Hello Jon. Thanks.

OK, try this. Hold a surrogate knife in your hand and try doing this with a pillow. Obviously, you will need to do a walk around. But surely the fence impedes on the other side?

Cheers.
LC

[Wickerman]

Hi Lynn.

I suspect this conflict is due to Baxter interpreting what Phillips has said.
Though in part this is true, from below the left ear, to the right side of her larynx, it was cut in two places.

[lynn cates]

front

Hello Jon. Thanks.

"I take "carried entirely round and again in front of the neck," to mean circumscribed (a circle)."

But why interpolate the word, front? And why would Baxter say "cut in two places"?

Cheers.
LC

[Wickerman]

I've just spent the last half hour composing a post virtually identical to the one you have just posted Jon. It's obsolete now so I won't bother!

You are correct though, it would be difficult indeed to perform the cuts to the neck described by the doctors without pulling the body up from the prone position. I perceive the cut as a spiral as you do, but two cuts not one, the killer breaking off, and staring again to complete the spiral. Hence the notching of the spine in two places. They were not parallel cuts in my opinion. Nothing like the cuts which Nichols received to her neck.

Sorry about that Obs.

I'm without my scanner, so this may come out blurred..
But I draw the spiral cut, as I see it.
Then apply the spiral to the neck
Finally show the left side (of her spine) where the two cuts are but a half inch apart, where the cuts pass one below the other.



I agree that two cuts must have been evident, but that is due, as you say, to him stopping and starting again in the same location.
Only I see this stop and start being on her right side, not the left.

If you begin to cut the throat on her left, and drag it around the front, you must stop somewhere on her right side (assuming you are standing at her back), your leg prevents you from cutting any further.

Hi Lynn.
I see what you are saying, but I take "carried entirely round and again in front of the neck," to mean circumscribed (a circle).

[lynn cates]

spiral out of control

Hello Jon.

"The difficulty with this kind of cut is it cannot be done with the body flat on her back."

Precisely.

Carried entirely round means from one side all the way to the next. After that, the second cut is described. Same as with Polly--a longer and a shorter.

If it were a spiral, obviously the killer would need to set her up (as you correctly suppose) and he'd have blood all over his trousers.

Cheers.
LC

[Observer]

I've just spent the last half hour composing a post virtually identical to the one you have just posted Jon. It's obsolete now so I won't bother!

You are correct though, it would be difficult indeed to perform the cuts to the neck described by the doctors without pulling the body up from the prone position. I perceive the cut as a spiral as you do, but two cuts not one, the killer breaking off, and staring again to complete the spiral. Hence the notching of the spine in two places. They were not parallel cuts in my opinion. Nothing like the cuts which Nichols received to her neck.

[Wickerman]

"The incisions of the skin indicated that they had been made from the left side of the neck on a line with the angle of the jaw, carried entirely round and again in front of the neck, and ending at a point about midway between the jaw and the sternum or breast bone on the right hand. There were two distinct clean cuts on the body of the vertebrae on the left side of the spine."

I'm intrigued as to how this is being interpreted.
It appears to describe a spiral action, with overlap below the left ear and across the front until the end terminates on the right side of the throat just passed the center point.

The difficulty with this kind of cut is it cannot be done with the body flat on her back.

It would be possible to achieve this by raising up the body into a seated position. The killer stands behind supporting the body with his knees, while he grabs the head by the hair and circumscribes the neck, beginning under the left ear, with the knife in his right hand.
From this position the cut will run across the front and end just behind the right ear, where he pauses...

He will need to adjust his position, perhaps by stepping to her right while still holding the head by the hair.
Then he can complete the circumscribed laceration, cuting across the back of the neck and around beneath the left ear again, but a half inch lower, then across the front - the cut tapers off downward towards the breastbone due to him letting go of the hair and the body fall backwards as he withdraws the knife.

[lynn cates]

how

Hello Harry. Thanks.

You mean reasoning? (Logic is the discipline that STUDIES reasoning.)

You are focusing on what was done. But the key to understanding is HOW it was done.

Cheers.
LC

[Observer]

Would you suppose Harry that the two deep parallel cuts administered to Chapman and Nichols were born of a desire to efficiently kill, and disable those two unfortunate women? Or do you suppose the reason to have been born of a fevered mind, which in the process of hallucination perceived Nichols and Chapman to have been sheep, and thus needed to be butchered?

To boot, as John Guy rightly points out,t there is no evidence that Chapman received two parallel cuts anyway.

[Observer]

Logic?

[Harry D]

Hello Harry. Thanks.

Depends on other data as well.

Cheers.
LC

You have the data, Lynn.

Going by your logic, those two murders would have been committed by the same killer due to the ritualistic deep, parallel cuts, notwithstanding that Eddowes had facial mutilations whereas Nichols did not, Eddowes had been eviscerated, Nichols had not, etc.

[lynn cates]

depends

Hello Harry. Thanks.

Depends on other data as well.

Cheers.
LC

[Harry D]

What if it was Nichols & Eddowes who had the parallel throat cuts, Lynn? Would Chapman be one of your odd ones out?

[lynn cates]

redundant

Hello CD. Thanks.

"Why is it so hard to accept that it could simply be a means to an end?"

But why the redundancy? On any account you prefer, a single cut suffices.

Cheers.
LC