How to sort the Ripper

[Errata]

Florida surprisingly was also a bust. I moved on the the UK for now. Can any of you UK folk shed some light on one Kieron Kelly, specifically what he did with the corpses of the people he killed? He fits the type I think I am beginning to identify, but I don't have access to that important bit of information.

[Errata]

So if I alter my search requirements to allow rape as part of the crime, I come up with a Joachim Kroll out of Germany. He raped and murdered women, cut what can only be described as steak sized pieces out of them, and abandoned the bodies. He was not what I would consider conventionally sane, but apparently he blended well enough until it was to late.

I don't think I'm going to change my parameters to allow the inclusion of rape, but I thought this case was potentially interesting in terms of possible parallels to the Ripper.

There are also a remarkable amount of suicides attached to this killer. Like the whole village is in serious need on mental health care.

[Errata]

I'm late to this thread, but let me just say this is exactly the kind of data-driven approach to Ripperology that may actually shed light on the case and that I've been hoping to see for years. Good job!

Thanks! Though, I'd give my left eye for a searchable database meticulously documented. Ah well.

[Damaso Marte]

I'm late to this thread, but let me just say this is exactly the kind of data-driven approach to Ripperology that may actually shed light on the case and that I've been hoping to see for years. Good job!

[Errata]

Ugh. I've finished California and came up with two "maybes" that are really "probably nots". Not That I have the fastest system known to man. It's basically reading a third of Murderpedia.

It's the organ harvesting that doesn't make sense. What Harry says is right, what happened to Tabram makes sense, fits in the behaviors and psychology of body abandoners. Tabram is almost textbook. I don't know where the organ removal came from. It's almost like something else is driving that choice. Left to his own devices, it would be Tabram every time. But starting with Nichols we see interest in the organs, and after that... something changed that somehow did not change his habits with the body. Like he was taking orders or something. And some serial killers claim to do just that, but its a level of crazy that doesn't get you far in life. And Jack got far.

It's irritating. I don't think I'll solve it here. But it suggests to me that the part of the Ripper that just doesn't fit isn't that he wasn't a rapist. It is that he was taking organs. Because the people I'm finding close to what he Ripper did, had many things in common, but none took anything. Except Sota.

[Abby Normal]

I am thinking of the first murder,Tabram?
The intention here seems to be to kill.The killer just wanted to kill.My opinion.

If Tabram was a ripper victim, and I think she was, I think she may have been his trigger kill. As in she did something that pissed him off. Thus the anger and frenzied stabbing.


However, I think the beginnings of the sig is there, as possibly with Millwood earlier, with stabbing of private parts/abdomen and interest in what's under that skirt.

[harry]

I am thinking of the first murder,Tabram?
The intention here seems to be to kill.The killer just wanted to kill.My opinion.

[Errata]

Hi Errata,

Wouldn't Jack the Stripper, the Hammersmith Nude murderer, also fall into this category? His MO was certainly unusual: he abducted his victims, before asphyxiating them. He then stored their bodies for significant periods, before dumping them in sites all over London, including the River Thames. In fact, all the victims were stripped naked with the killer retaining their possessions.

I don't know a lot about the case, thought I know that theoretically some of it got wrapped up in the Profumo affair. But to be brief, yeah. I have no earthly idea what he was doing. I'm not entirely sure he did. He disposed of some of the bodies in the open, others were buried or hidden. But he did keep them, and I have no clue why. Maybe it was for artistic effect, maybe it was some odd quarantine procedure, maybe he was visiting them for a period of time.

One of the many benefits of Chase and Mullin being caught is that it let us know why they were doing what they were doing. We know why Chase thought he needed blood. Not knowing that makes a lot of his actions very mysterious, even contrary to good serial killing. Even with Mullin we know why he wasn't concerned with the corpses. It was the deaths that mattered. Not the bodies. Jack the Stripper? I got nothing. I can't even really sort him because if the dump sites were significant to him, that changes a lot of things. But I'm struggling to understand how such a man could be a dumper and an abandoner at the same time. So either he wasn't, and there are ways he would not be, or he was, and he was at best an exceptionally confused killer.

[John G]

And according to my method, Chase is the peculiar combination of body hoarder and body abandoner you only get with cannibals or harvesters. People who see a human corpse as a commodity, but have no emotional attachment. Where Mullin is a straight body abandoner. And from what I'm seeing, the body abandoner operates mostly on impulse, where body hoarders are supplying specific needs. And looking at these two killers you can see how they fit the characteristics of their respective categories. Mullin was an opportunist like most of his kind, and Chase was seeking.

Two equally insane men, with not completely different kinds of insanity even, and even so Chase is at the mercy of his need for the corpse, where Mullin is free to walk away. It's kind of interesting how much that one point of the corpse which seems so outside the mindset of a killer actually molds the killer. I mean think about this. Ever wonder how long Chase spent at a crime scene looking for a bucket? How much he pushed his own safety by hanging around for so long in search of a bucket? Not part of his fantasy at all, a bucket is at best a tool to allow him to complete a fantasy, yet he really did need a bucket. He could have finished an hour earlier but for the bucket. A prop he needed to deal with the corpse. Not commit the murders or rapes.

Hi Errata,

Wouldn't Jack the Stripper, the Hammersmith Nude murderer, also fall into this category? His MO was certainly unusual: he abducted his victims, before asphyxiating them. He then stored their bodies for significant periods, before dumping them in sites all over London, including the River Thames. In fact, all the victims were stripped naked with the killer retaining their possessions.

[Abby Normal]

Keep in mind that I am no expert.


I don't think the point was killing these women. If killing is what he wanted to do, he would have spend more time doing it.

From what I read so far, the women died in a few minutes.

This was only to make sure they collaborate, so he could mutilate them.

Which makes me think his "insanity" category is in the no empathy at all. Very detached.

I agree. at the very least he was a sociopath-with the main characteristic being feeling no empathy toward other people. and it seems he was not into the torture aspect of it-quite the opposite-he was very clinical in the way he dispatched his victims. He wanted it done quick and easy so he could get at what he really wanted-their bodies.

the ripper was mainly a post mortem type Lust serial killer.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Keep in mind that I am no expert.


I don't think the point was killing these women. If killing is what he wanted to do, he would have spend more time doing it.

From what I read so far, the women died in a few minutes.

This was only to make sure they collaborate, so he could mutilate them.

Which makes me think his "insanity" category is in the no empathy at all. Very detached.

[Errata]

And according to my method, Chase is the peculiar combination of body hoarder and body abandoner you only get with cannibals or harvesters. People who see a human corpse as a commodity, but have no emotional attachment. Where Mullin is a straight body abandoner. And from what I'm seeing, the body abandoner operates mostly on impulse, where body hoarders are supplying specific needs. And looking at these two killers you can see how they fit the characteristics of their respective categories. Mullin was an opportunist like most of his kind, and Chase was seeking.

Two equally insane men, with not completely different kinds of insanity even, and even so Chase is at the mercy of his need for the corpse, where Mullin is free to walk away. It's kind of interesting how much that one point of the corpse which seems so outside the mindset of a killer actually molds the killer. I mean think about this. Ever wonder how long Chase spent at a crime scene looking for a bucket? How much he pushed his own safety by hanging around for so long in search of a bucket? Not part of his fantasy at all, a bucket is at best a tool to allow him to complete a fantasy, yet he really did need a bucket. He could have finished an hour earlier but for the bucket. A prop he needed to deal with the corpse. Not commit the murders or rapes.

[Abby Normal]

I would also add Herbert Mullins to the classic delusional type, for all the above same reasons as Chase, with no secondary type because there was no sexual component to any of his crimes.

[Abby Normal]

I would put chase firmly in my delusional type serial killer category as he was obviously batshit crazy and it was insanity that was the main reason for his killing. perhaps, just perhaps, secondary lust type as he had sex with a couple of the victims corpes.

He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, was institutionalized, had a long history of bizzare behavior and mental illness. his MO was all over the place, disorganized and had no real plan or ruses.

his mental illness made him think there was something wrong with him, which he needed to drink blood and eat raw flesh to help make him better, which led to the murders.

poster boy for my delusional type serial killer category.

[Errata]

I was struck by your phrases "perfectly sane" and "imperfectly sane", Errata.
My first thought was, Well, is anyone really ever "perfectly" sane? Don't we all have little hang-ups, mild aberrations, downs, depressions, and other moods?

Then I thought about "imperfectly sane", and thought, What a wonderful turn of phrase! I can certainly relate to it.

I refer to myself that way all the time. I never rant, I never rave, but I do have bouts of dickensian oddity.