How to sort the Ripper

[Errata]

Hi Abby,

Could he possibly have been a mission killer, i.e. on the basis that he thought he was receiving messages from God to kill prostitutes? That's what Peter Sutcliffe claimed, although I'm not sure I believe him!

A mission oriented killer does no have to be quite so directed as that, though many are. It can also be a kind of revenge. It has come up that there have been killers who are acting out against the type of person who hurt them at some point. Prostitute mothers, problematic children, brunettes who spurned them... The kind of mutilation that comes from rage and revenge can be brutal and even apparently sexual in nature. But the psychology seems to be something a little more along the lines of "I'm taking from you what you wouldn't give to me, or what you exposed me to" and not actually sexual. There are of course sexual sadists who are motivated by revenge as well. Bundy may have been one. But they rape their victims. Either pre or post mortem.

[Errata]

absolutely. however, I think if it was its mixed with the Lust killer type.There seemed to be some sort of sexual component to his crimes.

he targeted sexual areas of the body and took away internal organs-more than likely to relive/prolong the experience and IMHO I think he probably used with masturbation.

Or eating. Which can be sexual, but usually isn't.

When a man's penis is taken by a serial killer, it's almost never sexual. It's an expression of extreme rage and the need to punish in the worst way they can think of. Even with homosexual killers. So it would be interesting if the factor of the sex of the victim is enough to completely change the meaning of the act of targeting organs of generation, or if it's an extension. And it's merely easier on male victim than female victims.

I would think that if the motivation was sexual, that other (easier) parts of the body would be targeted. Typically the external genitals are targeted, and almost always the breasts. Sometimes even the mouth. That didn't happen here. I don't know why not. He had the time on some of his murders, but he did not take the opportunity.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby,

Could he possibly have been a mission killer, i.e. on the basis that he thought he was receiving messages from God to kill prostitutes? That's what Peter Sutcliffe claimed, although I'm not sure I believe him!

absolutely. however, I think if it was its mixed with the Lust killer type.There seemed to be some sort of sexual component to his crimes.

he targeted sexual areas of the body and took away internal organs-more than likely to relive/prolong the experience and IMHO I think he probably used with masturbation.

[John G]

lust killer type

Hi Abby,

Could he possibly have been a mission killer, i.e. on the basis that he thought he was receiving messages from God to kill prostitutes? That's what Peter Sutcliffe claimed, although I'm not sure I believe him!

[Errata]

Errata,
A good site is MURDER UK.
Bushby? is a person who was arresred before he killed again.

Might be a good idea if you took the first? of the Ripper murders and made comparisons with single killers who might have turned into multiple ones.
Regards.

One thing I have noticed about the one off mutilators is that almost all either apparently make no effort to not get caught, or they turn themselves in to police at some point. I have no idea why this is, but it's really astonishing how often that happens. From leaving a literal blood trail to the guy who walked into a police station with a breast in a ziploc bag. Like whatever is wrong with them is somehow unsustainable. And it's not even a guilt thing. A lot of these guys aren't sorry in the classic sense. They appear to turn themselves in because they are either tired or it simply is what one does when one breaks the law. A sustained serial effort to mutilate people is apparently an enormous amount of work in some way, that most people aren't cut out to do. Which apparently makes the Ripper somewhat remarkable in the ranks of mutilators.

Thanks for the site. When I get through a few more of the more murder inclined US States I'll move to the UK. National temperament is a very real phenomenon, and it may be that I can't find a lot of US counterparts because the Ripper always had to be British to work. And perhaps Bundy could only have worked in the US. It seems unlikely, but there's not a lot I can rule out at this point.

[harry]

Errata,
A good site is MURDER UK.
Bushby? is a person who was arresred before he killed again.

Might be a good idea if you took the first? of the Ripper murders and made comparisons with single killers who might have turned into multiple ones.
Regards.

[Errata]

Hi errata

You included bundy and ridgeway as body dumpers, but didn't they return to the corpses for sex and other reasons?

I forgot this part.

Yes they did. Which is usually a body hoarder thing. But both Bundy and Ridgeway stashed the bodies in well out of the way places, putting quite a bit of distance between them and the bodies until the urge to relive it came over them. Also both occasionally had to choose between dumping a body or potentially hoarding it, when visiting the body would be impossible. And in those cases both chose a straight dump, rather than potentially changing things up with hoarding behavior. So they are body dumpers, even if the intent was not necessarily to divorce themselves from the corpse entirely, and instead was simply hiding it from prying eyes.

A lot of serial killers I am learning really are very black and white with this, with relatively few killers blurring the lines. I think no matter what categories anyone chooses to apply, some people will defy classification. Humans are messy creatures who don't tidy up very well. I don't think we can find all the answers with one kind of classification, regardless which kind it is. There is always going to be something aberrant about this killer I think. He strays from traditional lust killers in many ways, he strays from the usual body abandoner in many ways, he strays from the simple classification of "organized" in many ways. Which perhaps is a signal to us that he was operating only partly based on his own preference, usually a sign of madness. I don't know. But what I am learning is that Jack has a lot in common with the guys who decide to punish but not sexually. Revenge or vigilantes. And some things different.

To be fair I'm also learning that there are apparently more sexual cannibal necrophiliacs in the world than non raping serial mutilators. Who knew, right? Despite the Ripper seeming somewhat more reasonable than Dahmer, there are apparently more Dahmers in the world. Unless they all live in Ohio which I haven't got to yet. Go big or go home, I guess.

[Abby Normal]

And the (your) Ripper goes...- where?

lust killer type

[Errata]

Hi errata
Thanks.



You included bundy and ridgeway as body dumpers, but didn't they return to the corpses for sex and other reasons?

I find classifying serial killers by motivation/reason for killing as the most useful and accurate way to do it. Ive gleaned the below categories for serial killers from books, experts and my own analysis:

Type:
1.Personal gain serial killer-Kill for usually financial or personal gain-black widow types. Bela Kiss would be an example of this as would Mudgett (partially).

2.Delusional type serial killer-if there mental illness is the main reason they kill. ex.-Chase, Mullins, gein

3. Mission serial killer. this is very rare. they kill as part of a larger plan or group with specific objective ex.-The "Zebra" murders, Unabomber.

4. Rape killers-The main motivation is rape and the killing is secondary and just to evade capture by silencing the victim.

5. Thrill killers-Kill seemingly for the pure joy of committing murder. but anger, jealousy and revenge probably play a large role.ex.-Zodiac, son of sam, Monster of Florence. seem to target couples.

6. Lust killers-the majority of the serial killers fall into this group. Sex tied up in a twisted way with death somehow is the major factor. several subgroups here including post mortem mutilators. ex. the ripper, BTK, bundy, Dahmer.
(still working out sub groups)

I think there can be some mix/overlap here between the types, such as mudgett (and someon like Panzram)being a mix of personal gain and Lust killer. maybe chase as delusional and mission. But I think we could pretty much accurately put every serial killer under one of these categories as their main reason/type.

I agree. It's a perfectly logical way to sort serial killers. The problem is that it doesn't work nearly as well if you start comparing within the same type. Lust killers are very different from each other, for example. And their behaviors often don't overlap.

We have in the Ripper a killer whose behaviors and motivations we don't know. Having someone as close to him as possible to compare him to might shed some light.

It's like sorting whales. We can absolutely call them a sea creature, and that does very nicely. Unless I want to find sea creatures that breathe air. Then I either need a hideously involved search that may turn up nothing, or I need to switch over to searching for mammals in the sea. How I sort depends on what I'm trying to find.

In this case, I'm looking for psychology and behaviors. For example, i would love to know if the Ripper was a guy who walked or ran away from his murders. I'll never know that, but if I find that body disportment (as opposed to motivation) gets me more people with behaviors in common, and the guys in the Ripper's particular column walk away, I can intuit that the Ripper might walk away. For instance. I'm not actually looking for that. Just that kind of thing.

I also have a cat name Mudgett. She has the mustache and the dress clothes, and stares in a creepy fashion. And I got away with it because no one knows the name, where they would recognize Holmes.

[Fisherman]

I think there can be some mix/overlap here between the types, such as mudgett (and someon like Panzram)being a mix of personal gain and Lust killer. maybe chase as delusional and mission. But I think we could pretty much accurately put every serial killer under one of these categories as their main reason/type.

And the (your) Ripper goes...- where?

[Abby Normal]

Display is body hoarding, not dumping. So, body hoarders try to add to their relationship with the corpse in some way. They need or want it for something. Body dumpers are trying to erase any connection to the corpse, physical or emotional, and body abandoners essentially have a switch thrown, and they walk away without consideration for the body at all.

And it's hard, because the Ripper is a post mortem mutilator, which would mostly make him a hoarder, except that he walks off without apparently noticing that there is a dead human lying there. He doesn't try to hide it, or take it somewhere (even if just dragging it). Nor does he show any signs of remorse and arranges the body in a more respectful way. It like a timer goes off and he walks away. Generally if it look like the killer could come back at any time and resume what he was doing, that's body abandonment.
And all of the victims looked like he had just stepped away for a moment. There is no finished quality to any of his murders.

It's probably in the eye of the beholder to great extent, and I don't know which one he was. I chose body abandoner to start with and see what I found. Which isn't much because it's the rarer of the three for serial killers. If this proves useful in any way, I'll try and find similar body hoarders. But I really don't consider this a dump, because nothing about these crime scenes makes it look like the killer did anything to distance himself, either physically or emotionally.

I think Soto is an interesting find though. It's not what I thought I would get.

Hi errata
Thanks.

Body dumpers are trying to erase any connection to the corpse, physical or emotional,

You included bundy and ridgeway as body dumpers, but didn't they return to the corpses for sex and other reasons?

I find classifying serial killers by motivation/reason for killing as the most useful and accurate way to do it. Ive gleaned the below categories for serial killers from books, experts and my own analysis:

Type:
1.Personal gain serial killer-Kill for usually financial or personal gain-black widow types. Bela Kiss would be an example of this as would Mudgett (partially).

2.Delusional type serial killer-if there mental illness is the main reason they kill. ex.-Chase, Mullins, gein

3. Mission serial killer. this is very rare. they kill as part of a larger plan or group with specific objective ex.-The "Zebra" murders, Unabomber.

4. Rape killers-The main motivation is rape and the killing is secondary and just to evade capture by silencing the victim.

5. Thrill killers-Kill seemingly for the pure joy of committing murder. but anger, jealousy and revenge probably play a large role.ex.-Zodiac, son of sam, Monster of Florence. seem to target couples.

6. Lust killers-the majority of the serial killers fall into this group. Sex tied up in a twisted way with death somehow is the major factor. several subgroups here including post mortem mutilators. ex. the ripper, BTK, bundy, Dahmer.
(still working out sub groups)

I think there can be some mix/overlap here between the types, such as mudgett (and someon like Panzram)being a mix of personal gain and Lust killer. maybe chase as delusional and mission. But I think we could pretty much accurately put every serial killer under one of these categories as their main reason/type.

[Errata]

Hi errata
fascinating post.

I would put the ripper more in the body dumping category though. left bodies on display and took away body parts-so much interest in body (or parts of it) post mortem.

I think he "looks" like an abandoner because he didn't have a car.

Display is body hoarding, not dumping. So, body hoarders try to add to their relationship with the corpse in some way. They need or want it for something. Body dumpers are trying to erase any connection to the corpse, physical or emotional, and body abandoners essentially have a switch thrown, and they walk away without consideration for the body at all.

And it's hard, because the Ripper is a post mortem mutilator, which would mostly make him a hoarder, except that he walks off without apparently noticing that there is a dead human lying there. He doesn't try to hide it, or take it somewhere (even if just dragging it). Nor does he show any signs of remorse and arranges the body in a more respectful way. It like a timer goes off and he walks away. Generally if it look like the killer could come back at any time and resume what he was doing, that's body abandonment.
And all of the victims looked like he had just stepped away for a moment. There is no finished quality to any of his murders.

It's probably in the eye of the beholder to great extent, and I don't know which one he was. I chose body abandoner to start with and see what I found. Which isn't much because it's the rarer of the three for serial killers. If this proves useful in any way, I'll try and find similar body hoarders. But I really don't consider this a dump, because nothing about these crime scenes makes it look like the killer did anything to distance himself, either physically or emotionally.

I think Soto is an interesting find though. It's not what I thought I would get.

[Abby Normal]

The Preface:

I have been espousing of late the idea that it is more informative to sort serial killers by the way they treat the body than other methods used. It's not my theory, I cannot for the life of me remember whose theory it is, but a very smart person whose name escapes me. When I find it again, I will correctly attribute it.

So the way it boils down is this: There are body hoarders, body dumpers, and body abandoners.

Body hoarder have a relationship with the corpse, to the point that it is almost as, if not far more important than the actual murder itself. Dahmer, Gein, Kemper, all body hoarders.

Body dumpers are just that. They get rid of the body, hiding it (sometimes poorly) either to not get caught or to disassociate themselves from the corpse, or even the crime itself. Bundy, Suff, Ridgeway, all body dumpers.

Body abandoners have no relationship with the body whatsoever. Once he murder is over the corpse has no value, and they simply walk away. Son of Sam is the perfect example,

End of Preface

So how do we sort Jack? It's not entirely clear whether he walked away from the bodies, or whether his intent was to display them in a way (which would put him in the body hoarder category). One of the benefits of sorting serial killers this way is that other behavioral traits tend to line up. Rapists are almost always body dumpers. Mission oriented killers are almost always body abandoners. Body hoarders tend to be at least a little fetish-y, which is not something I necessarily see in Jack, but we'll put the proverbial pin n that. But mission oriented serial killers walk away. It would make sense for Jack to be a body abandoner, which would make him more likely to be a mission oriented killer.

So I got to thinking that when we sort serial killers, we are comparing them to each other. But the usual suspects don't really compare with Jack. Different styles, different treatment of the corpse, different timing. So what do we get if we say that Jack was a body abandoner? Who does he compare to.

So I've been sorting through multiple murderers, looking for body abandoners. My first search was way to broad, so narrowed it down to New York, Florida, and California. And if you fear being serially killed, don't move to Florida. But it was still too much so I just went with New York, mostly because that information was already on my hard drive.

Finding a body abandoner is not easy. I'll just say that. Finding one who is also a mutilator is even harder, and finding a body abandoning mutilator who did not turn himself in is frankly not recommended. Out of hundreds of killers, I found one guy.

We turn in our hymnals now to Murderpedia because I got lazy.
Erno Soto (also called Charlie Chopoff) was a man who became obsessed with the biracial boy his wife conceived while they were separated. And apparently he became incredibly fixated on how this child ruined his life. Every couple of months, Soto would stalk a black child, take them or allow himself to be taken somewhere private, stab the child dozens of times, cut the penis off and walk away with it.

I give you our Jack Analog. What we see in Soto we can expect in Jack. In doing so I am challenging one of my own fairly strong assertions that Jack was sane. Because Soto was not. He was in and out of hospitals, mostly through his own wishes. But Soto suffered from a dangerous obsession, one I am not at all convinced that Victorian medicine was equipped to recognize. Had Soto told his story to any Victorian doctor, his rage would be seen as reasonable. Even expected. And psychiatry had a hard time recognizing the problem with any obsession over a person in someone's life. It' why we didn't get anti stalking laws until almost the 90s. So I'm not sure Soto would be seen as ill.

There was another man, Vincent Johnson, who also fit a lot of my criteria (though he was not a mutilator. He was the Willamsburg Strangler. He targeted prostitutes every couple of months, was a mission oriented serial killer, similar timeline, body abandoner. I think he's also worth a look, despite not being a mutilator.

Anyway, I leave this here for perusal and comment. I'm going to finish looking through California and god help me Florida. But I think the reason we have a problem coming up with a comparison for Jack is that the most important aspects of his crimes are relatively rare. And certainly don't appear in the famous serial killers we know to compare him to. By looking for a different aspect of his crime, I think we have a better chance at finding guys like him. So we can maybe understand him better.

Hi errata
fascinating post.

I would put the ripper more in the body dumping category though. left bodies on display and took away body parts-so much interest in body (or parts of it) post mortem.

I think he "looks" like an abandoner because he didn't have a car.

[Abby Normal]

Well it's a tough one to argue, because Jack pre dates forensic science, which a mid 80's to modern day killer could change his behaviour for, like leaving a body where it lay for fear of dna transfer. These days hiding or destroying the body is part and parcel if a killer has any hope of getting away with it. Jack even pre dates finger prints, which more or less rules out a comparison to crimes from the late 1800's to modern times, as a suspect could change his behaviour in an attempt to destroy fingerprints (or blood type) left behind.

In Jacks time, if you didn't have compelling circumstantial evidence, especially witness identifications, you pretty much had to be caught red handed. He could have left blood, semen, hair follicles, fingerprints and more behind, (and likely did leave some sort of dna behind) but there would have been zero ability to connect it to any one person. Hell, he could have left the knife behind, and unless it was engraved with his initials, the police still wouldn't be able to to link it to anyone.

So in that respect, he can only be compared accurately to serial killers of his era, or earlier.

Sutcliffe is the closest in my opinion, of the modern day killers. He did "mutilate" & stab the stomach, genitals & back sides of some of his victims. And he disemboweled at least two victims. He didn't take organs away with him though, so in that respect, yes, Soto follows that MO.

This conversation sort of reminds me of Pierre's post, about JtR being an extremely rare serial killer. Seems he was right.

Hi Pandora
the closest to the ripper ive found is William Suff, the riverside California Prostitute killer. He primarily used a knife in the murders, post mortem mutilation, targeted private parts, took away body parts, left some bodies posed and out in open, evidence of cannibalism of body parts.

nasty character he was

[Michael W Richards]

The only reason we have a legend of Jack the Ripper is because a killer in late 1888 first killed then mutilated strangers, women, in public. Murders that do not fit that profile shouldnt be assumed as JtR's.