How to sort the Ripper

[Aldebaran]

The reason I use Soto is not that he stabbed his victims dozens of times, but because he cut off their penises. Which I think most people would say shows something extra in the way of sadism. He had both rage and sadism. Fury and method.

I think you're on to something here. There can't be that many varieties of serial killers, although each was propelled by some particular "trigger". With Soto it was the black boys. Freud would have undoubtedly said that cutting off the penises was very significant. It might signify that Soto had felt emasculated, himself, by the penis of the original black man with whom his wife had cheated and which had produced the resented child. There was fury there of long standing that could only be temporarily abated by the homicide and the act of the cutting.

In the case of Jack, it was the women, the prostitutes. And plenty of rage--but what was behind it? A uterus is an organ of regeneration, too. One might say it represents the mother more than any other organ possibly could. To cut it out of a woman deliberately could certainly mean a deep-seated fury toward the mother, rather than any other female. There have been murderers of women who targeted the vagina, stuck stuff up there as if mocking it. This indicates a contempt for women, certainly, but does not speak to a hatred of the mother in the same way that an excision of the uterus would. This last act, for me, indicates knowledge that goes beyond what the average man would have. Cutting off a penis requires none. But actually excising a uterus is making a point only because one can--without possibly even realizing why one would want to. Or perhaps JTR did realize it and did it on purpose. After all, he could have contented himself by merely ripping up the victim's body as much as time allowed in a haphazard way or as the whim of the moment dictated. In the same way as a person defaces an advertising poster on a subway or somewhere that features a person's photographed face. Showing a lack of respect for the face, he or she defaces it in a cutesy kind of way. But there is no actual rage behind that if it is not done to an actual human visage. I think, when the Ripper did that, it was a combination of anger and trying to be "cute".

[Rosella]

That makes what happened to this extremely rare bird even more intriguing doesn't it? Did he die, just lose interest, (retire to the seaside perhaps) or was he incarcerated in an asylum and was just not listened to? The asylum would be Colney Hatch you would think, an interesting destination.

[Ausgirl]

John, Robert -- I agree, "in some way" he likely did. But as has been pointed out, the lack of actual rape/lack of semen present is really unusual and puts JtR in a rare category (no rape) within a rare category (mutilators), within a rare category (serial killers). So not only was he maddenly never caught, he was also an extremely rare bird.

I guess I just dislike that this type of crime is labelled 'lust murder' and thought of as 'sexually motivated', not because those terms are incorrect as such, but because they tend to make the crime and the offender sound much simpler and more ordinary than I think they actually are.

[Robert St Devil]

Yeah, I think it's a distinct possibility. But... I remember posting some time ago in another thread, that I'd seriously questioned this very thing. Though I don't doubt he was getting a 'release' of some sort, it needn't have been overtly sexual. And if there's anything at all to my thought above, re the mutilation actually being a pre-sexual compulsion for some, which is only later conflated with actual sex, it stands to reason that for a very few, ejaculation is not an essential part of the act.

Perhaps the only thing about JtR's behaviour that I'm really sure of is that he wanted his victims dead, and really quickly dead. He wanted those dead bodies (for whatever reason), not their living forms, not their pain, maybe not even particularly their deaths. The warm, fresh prone body (or what's inside it..) was most important to him, he risked his own life over and again to achieve that goal and then enjoy it for a few moments. No semen ever found.. so maybe his release happened on some sub-sexual or even maybe non-sexual level.

And yeah, he also could have just done it in his pants..

But the dead body thing, there's no maybe about that. So I'm inclined to categorise him among the ones who kill quickly and enjoy the bodies later.

Hello Ausgirl. It makes you wonder how elaborate the fantasy would need to be if in fact the murders were a result of sexual mania. I would expect that this type of gratification would not be satiated within a short 3-month timeframe, and I would have expected for the public mutilations to have carried over to 1889 -or - at least, until his capture. The murders do have overtones of sexual deviance (eg. focusing on prostitutes, exposing the genitalia, the nature of Mary Jane Kelly's murder), but why the need for publicity?

However... England does have a phenomenal precedent for these types of public attacks on women that seems to occur every 100 years - from Spanko to The Monster to Jack the Ripper.

[John Wheat]

To Ausgirl

I think Jack got off in some way through mutilating female bodies.

Cheers John

[Ausgirl]

To Ausgirl

I think its highly likely there was a sexual element to Jack's crimes. I think he probably did jizz in his pants and or masturbate when thinking about his crimes.

Cheers John

Yeah, I think it's a distinct possibility. But... I remember posting some time ago in another thread, that I'd seriously questioned this very thing. Though I don't doubt he was getting a 'release' of some sort, it needn't have been overtly sexual. And if there's anything at all to my thought above, re the mutilation actually being a pre-sexual compulsion for some, which is only later conflated with actual sex, it stands to reason that for a very few, ejaculation is not an essential part of the act.

Perhaps the only thing about JtR's behaviour that I'm really sure of is that he wanted his victims dead, and really quickly dead. He wanted those dead bodies (for whatever reason), not their living forms, not their pain, maybe not even particularly their deaths. The warm, fresh prone body (or what's inside it..) was most important to him, he risked his own life over and again to achieve that goal and then enjoy it for a few moments. No semen ever found.. so maybe his release happened on some sub-sexual or even maybe non-sexual level.

And yeah, he also could have just done it in his pants..

But the dead body thing, there's no maybe about that. So I'm inclined to categorise him among the ones who kill quickly and enjoy the bodies later.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Errata;374791][QUOTE=Pierre;374759]

It actually makes him odd, at least if you read through almost the entirety of Murderpedia, which I did. I don't recommend it by the way. Most serial killers rape. And Jack was a serial killer. Most post mortem purposeful mutilators have a sexual component in what they do, even if they don't actually rape their victim. Cutting off genitals, cutting out tongues, cutting off lips, whole heads, with some kind of sexual purpose behind it. Like Kemper. The body parts were for masturbation. Same with Dahmer.

(And yes, it could be that Jack was taking the uterus to masturbate with, but that would make him even more odd because the uterus is not something the either generates or classically represents lust. Breasts, a head, we get it. But a fist sized muscle? Most partialists focus on a body part that represents sex in some way. Breasts, legs, buttocks. I've never heard of one targeting an organ at all. But if Jack was the only guy who did, behaviorists would sell their souls for information on how that fetish develops. Solving these crimes would be a HUGE deal. You're in the social sciences. The link between the sexual gaze and certain body parts and arousal in our culture, and the one guy who crossed over though granted in a hideous way? We'd need to know everything about that guy to answer questions from why can't women wear comfortable bras to what body language precedes a rape. It's one of those big questions we have that is essentially unanswered.)

So Jack is odd for not being a rapist, at least statistically. But you are right in that his crimes are not about rape, and so rape would in fact be a strange thing to do when he kills the way that he kills.

What I have found is that Jack as a serial killer totally makes sense, up until the moment he takes an organ. And then it's off the rails. Because there are guys just like him, up to that point. So in reality, that's the odd part, because it doesn't fit the type of killer he proved himself to be up to that moment. He shouldn't have done that. I don't know why he did.

Hi Errata,

And since the hypothesis, reading your explanations above and your descriptions of the more common types of mutilators, can not be that this killer was a sexual fetishist there must be another hypothesis. And this hypothesis could be constructed from your observation that this serial killer makes sense up until the moment he takes an organ. It makes him "odd".

So what does the taking of an organ mean - an how could it be connected to the mutilations?

Here are some suggestions:

1. Trophy taker: As some other serial killers but in this case not with the sexual motive. So it is taking a trophy - why?

a) Getting to possess a part of the victim. Makes the serial killer symbolically own the victim.
b) Stealing from the victim. Makes the serial killer victimize the victim for a longer time. It can not be given back. He has is.
c) Getting something to remember the deed by. A souvenir. Demands a place for keeping the souvenir where the killer can come back / dwell to remember it.
d) Getting an item to prove his own superiority. Makes the killer feel grandiose. Possessing the item if a proof of his superiority over not only the victim but the police, the justice system and society.
e) Getting an item to consume it. Makes the killer prolong the act and feel superior.
f) All of these, or some, together.
g) Conclusion for the above: A reward for the killer.

2. Honour mutilator. Typical for nose cutting and genitalia cutting. Used historically in many contexts, not only by serial killers but by killers killing only one time: Why?

a) The motive is to degrade the victim.
b) Showing society what the victims are "worth": lowering their human value.
c) Showing society what the women are "worth": lowering their female value.
d) Revenge. Having been wronged by a woman - getting it right by degrading women.
e) Having a strong notion of what is right and wanting to show the justice system he is right and they are wrong.
f) All of these, or some, together.
g) Conclusion for the above: Putting things right.

3. Not a traditional abandoner (!). Why?

a) Taking items for keeping or consumption.
b) A displayer: "to arrange something or a collection of things so that it can be seen by the public". Positioning of the bodies is important. Wanting the bodies to be found in specific places and in specific positions.
c) Circulating in the "displaying area". Seeing the places where he put his victims on display. Not abandoning the place.
d) All of these, or some, together.
e) Conclusion for the above: The taking of an organ means staying in touch with the victims, being close to the victims.

I ended up with four guys who met all three criteria.
1: they are a mutilator.
2: They are not a rapist.
3: They abandoned the corpses of the people they killed

Did they take items from the bodies as well?

Another question if I may: Which one, if any, of the three suggestions above, would "solve" the problem (or shed light on it) with Jack the Ripper seeming "odd"?

Kind regards, Pierre

[Errata]

Hi there,

Not a very good comparison, since they were caught. So this problem would be relevant for all comparisons. If we think Jack the Ripper was not caught, comparisons with serial killers who did get caught would imply a lower external validity.

Regards, Pierre

In an endeavor designed to find out the possible motives and limitations of an unknown killer using analog killers with known motives and issues, exactly how is it useful to compare an unknown killer to other unknown killers?

[Errata]

Do you mean that he would've confessed to someone?

Maybe he did, but he was locked in an asylum at the time and the doctor/nurse he confessed to didn't take him seriously? Or they didn't care because, hey, the guy's locked up right? I'd daresay that mental patients admitting to being Jack the Ripper were dime a dozen back then. We know the police had their hands full with drunks and attention-seekers claiming to be the killer.

Confession has such a guilt related meaning. I mean more that they would talk about it, because in Schizophrenia it's not uncommon for the interior monologue to be embarrassingly exterior. But yes. I think he would talk. Were he in an asylum, a place where it was assumed that Jack would eventually end up, I would think it would rate a phone call so to speak, if a patient started talking about murder. And despite the severely altered mental state, they would still retain knowledge of the details, and so would conceivably betray themselves. At which point you would expect the police to stop looking, which they didn't for a long time.

Best guess was that he wasn't scooped up. Which meant that he was either incredibly lucky, or not that ill. That whatever was going on, at least he could maintain the veneer of sanity to the general public. Which require a ton of sacrifice, and now we see those sacrifices as a sign that mental illness may be a factor, but they didn't know that back then. But if he was not so ill that he could maintain when it came down to it, then we go back to murder being a choice, not a compulsion. Potentially a choice for crazy reasons, but still a choice. Ergo, not insane.

And as it happens, about 30 percent of the mutilating killers I looked at did confess. They did turn themselves in. About another 30 percent simply didn't deny it when they got caught. It happens with mutilation murders an astronomical amount more than any other type of murder. So it's fair to say Jack was statistically going to cough it up at some point. That he didn't speaks to not only the idea that he wasn't sick, but also that the cops never talked to him.

In the end, who the hell knows? He could defy the odds a thousand ways, my research could be flawed somewhere, or my gut feeling could just be dead wrong. Maybe he sat cackling on a throne of garbage mocking the police. Or maybe no one believed him and no one wrote down what he was saying for that to get the attention it deserved. But I'm leaning more towards him not being all that sick.

[Harry D]

Are you suggesting I compare the Ripper to killers who WEREN'T caught? How would that work?

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Harry D;374819]I don't rule out the idea that the killer was some kind of paranoid schizophrenic. When I look at the state of Mary Kelly's corpse, you certainly get the feeling this was committed by a guy who had completely lost touch with reality. Although, I know Errata isn't convinced the Ripper was a schizo because someone like that wouldn't have been able to get away with the murders. I beg to differ. It's not like the Ripper wasn't a man living on the edge, killing in the locations that he did. Take 'BS Man', for instance, he was seen by no less than two witnesses accosting a woman outside a busy social club moments before her corpse is found. Hardly the actions of a smooth criminal, and yet he somehow got away with it.

I would compare the Ripper to two other serial killers & paranoid schizophrenics: Robert Napper & Richard Chase. Napper mutilated a woman and took part of her abdomen as a trophy, and Chase splayed open one of his victims and removed several internal organs.

Hi there,

Not a very good comparison, since they were caught. So this problem would be relevant for all comparisons. If we think Jack the Ripper was not caught, comparisons with serial killers who did get caught would imply a lower external validity.

Regards, Pierre

[Harry D]

It's not that I don't think he couldn't have gotten away with the murders, as much as I don't think that he would have kept that secret throughout his illness.

Do you mean that he would've confessed to someone?

Maybe he did, but he was locked in an asylum at the time and the doctor/nurse he confessed to didn't take him seriously? Or they didn't care because, hey, the guy's locked up right? I'd daresay that mental patients admitting to being Jack the Ripper were dime a dozen back then. We know the police had their hands full with drunks and attention-seekers claiming to be the killer.

[GUT]

It does. Frankly most mission oriented killers are usually at least a little bit mad. And many of course fly right past that goalpost into effing lunacy. It depends on the mission frankly. If he's out to eliminate prostitutes one by one (a problematic argument I know) then that's rational as far as the reasoning goes. No delusion involved, no apparent psychosis. If he is hearing from higher power that he has to do this... it might not be schizophrenia, but it's definitely delusional (with the assumption that god does not in fact want women murdered). The problem is lots of people pick up a single delusion somewhere along the line, and it isn't schizophrenia, which is a very specific neuropsych disorder. Most of those single delusions just make people racists or something. It doesn't make them kill. But delusions can be spectacularly intense, and someone having one cannot make decisions based on rationality. So yeah they might kill. Depends, as they say, on what the voices are saying. Practically speaking, people who hear voices are about 300 times more likely to kill themselves than others. But those who are simply dealing with abberant beliefs and not commanding voices don't have more leeway per se, but their interpretation of certain truths can be loose.

I'll go a step further and say that at the time of the killing, most killers are a little bit mad.

[Errata]

Of course Jack may have raped on days off from serial killing, he may have raped women earlier in his life or he may have sexually abused his wife etc.

Sure. But a majority of serial killers rape their victims. In fact it looked like about half of the people who were raping and killing were killing so they wouldn't go to jail for the rape. These guys are really serial rapists who learned how to not leave witnesses. And there's a lot of those guys. Jack isn't that guy. Whatever he does in his free time, he doesn't bring it to work apparently.

[Errata]

Hi Errata,

If he was a mission orientated killer do you think this strengthens the possibility that he was mentally ill? I would also note that Sutcliffe claimed to be mission orientated, i .e. actiing on divine instructions, and this was accepted by the psychiatrists who diagnosed him as schizophrenic. Nonetheless, there was evidence of a sexual component to his murders, even though he denied this, and he didn't rape any of the victims, and the psychiatrists conceded that if he was driven by a sexual motive then he wouldn't be schizophrenic. And the jury obviously disagreed with the psychiatrists' diagnosis as they convicted him of murder.

It does. Frankly most mission oriented killers are usually at least a little bit mad. And many of course fly right past that goalpost into effing lunacy. It depends on the mission frankly. If he's out to eliminate prostitutes one by one (a problematic argument I know) then that's rational as far as the reasoning goes. No delusion involved, no apparent psychosis. If he is hearing from higher power that he has to do this... it might not be schizophrenia, but it's definitely delusional (with the assumption that god does not in fact want women murdered). The problem is lots of people pick up a single delusion somewhere along the line, and it isn't schizophrenia, which is a very specific neuropsych disorder. Most of those single delusions just make people racists or something. It doesn't make them kill. But delusions can be spectacularly intense, and someone having one cannot make decisions based on rationality. So yeah they might kill. Depends, as they say, on what the voices are saying. Practically speaking, people who hear voices are about 300 times more likely to kill themselves than others. But those who are simply dealing with abberant beliefs and not commanding voices don't have more leeway per se, but their interpretation of certain truths can be loose.