"Site" unseen?

[Guest]

Hi all,

Ive always been fascinated by the methodology used in at least 3 of the Canonicals murders....how it seems that while acting as a client and being led somewhere quiet he manages to subdue the women without any appreciable noise and get them flat on their back on the dirty or wet ground and all the while they are unresisting.

I know that chloroform and ether were looked for, how they would detect the use of it Im not sure because they couldnt do blood toxicologies then.

What if.....an injection was used, into the neck, subcutaneously, and he just held them as they passed out backwards into his arms. Would the severity of the throat cuts impact the ability to identify an injection site on the neck?

So all know....needles of some kind or another had been used for centuries to administer medicines, and in the LVP they were doing injections that did not have to be arterial.

Best regards all.

[lynn cates]

implication

Hello Mike. That would imply a good deal. 1. An intelligent Ripper. 2. One with at least a modicum of medical training. 3. One with access to hypodermic syringes and needles, not to say the soporific drug.

Any good suggestions for a suspect who fits?

The best.
LC

[Sam Flynn]

Because nobody heard - or reported - any appreciable noise doesn't mean that the victims didn't "squeal a bit". As to ether or injections... it doesn't take that long to cut a throat, so the use of any "anaesthetic" would seem to have been rather redundant, indeed it strikes me that fiddling about with a bottle of chloroform or a (Victorian) syringe would take longer than whipping a knife out.

[Sam Flynn]

1. An intelligent Ripper. 2. One with at least a modicum of medical training. 3. One with access to hypodermic syringes and needles, not to say the soporific drug.

... well, that just about rules out the Ripper, then. Good work, Lynn

[perrymason]

Because nobody heard - or reported - any appreciable noise doesn't mean that the victims didn't "squeal a bit". As to ether or injections... it doesn't take that long to cut a throat, so the use of any "anaesthetic" would seem to have been rather redundant, indeed it strikes me that fiddling about with a bottle of chloroform or a (Victorian) syringe would take longer than whipping a knife out.

Youre missing the salient point here my friend, a knife is not even used until such time as the victims are on their backs not resisting...he had to get them to that lying down stage without much noise and with very little scuffle and no knife...none appeared to have struggled much.

As for knowledge of syringes, knowledge of pharmaceuticals, and access to both, despite Sams protests Lynn , that fits in very well with what was surmised about the Ripper in the earliest killings. It was suggested he had some medical knowledge, had some skill with a knife, and they sought the whereabouts of 3 medical students at that same time, students who were thought to be of unsound mind. How many Ripper suspects are so because of some medical knowledge? Isnt there a package that appears that would necessitate either a Ripper stealing a kidney or someone with access to a sample of the left kidney of a deceased human?

In fact there is a great deal of evidence that warrants inclusion of students or practitioners in the medical field as suspects for a killer of SOME of the Canonicals.

Sam seems to think the skill level should be assessed based on the entirety of the series, or at least with the inclusion of murders that obviously show no particular skill or knowledge of anything anatomical or surgical.

If you remove the murders that are as such, you get what the doctors who examined the women surmised....a killer who showed some talent and some skill.....and at least one medical authority thought that the knife used was a surgical instrument.

That kind of man could access the needed equipment and have the knowledge how to use it.

Best regards

[Sam Flynn]

Youre missing the salient point here my friend

... saline point, surely, Mike? As in (a) injection; and (b) pinch of salt

[perrymason]

The way I figure this Sam is that there is no specific mention of any investigation of the corpses specifically for injection sites, and intramuscular or subcutaneous injections could be administered into the neck. Or the back. Or into the abdomen he cuts into for that matter.

They checked for ether or chloroform...that should tell us something right there. They thought that was possible, and took tests or measures to rule it out.

Did they, or could they, do the same for an injection site? One that was on a place he later cuts? They couldnt test the blood for toxicity....so how would they know if a drug was administered or not?

All the best Sam

[Mrs. E. Nigma]

Hello, everyone! I've been reading these boards for a few months now, and finally decided to post a response to something. That being said, wouldn't just choking them do the trick? Can't really scream while being strangled.

[lynn cates]

comparison

Hello Mike and Sam. I believe the current thinking is that the victim swooned after being choked for 60 seconds, plus or minus 30. that would do the trick.

On the other hand, it would be interesting to compare the time of the drug with the time of the strangling.

(Some medical knowledge fits nicely with m'lad from Blackheath.)

Cheers, chaps.
LC

[The Good Michael]

Why not just carry around a somewhat sedated Taipan snake and force it to bite a victim? She's got no chance of survival, and probably after just a few minutes. Better yet, a poisoned blade, but something that won't cause necrosis of the tissue. Or... a very large, mutant brown recluse spider. Who needs injections?

Mike

[Harry the Hawker]

Hello, everyone! I've been reading these boards for a few months now, and finally decided to post a response to something. That being said, wouldn't just choking them do the trick? Can't really scream while being strangled.

Hear hear.

[Mascara & Paranoia]

Nichols and certainly Chapman seemed to have been strangled prior to having their throats cut, Eddowes seemed to have been caught off-guard somehow.

The bruising to Nichols' jaw seem as though the Ripper held her head as he slashed her throat, either to keep her still or to prevent her head from rolling around the ground as he cut into her neck.

As far as I can remember there wasn't any signs of a struggle with Eddowes. The bloke sweeping inside the warehouse didn't hear choking or gurgling, so it seems as though the Ripper cut her throat quickly and cleanly and with the minimum of fuss. And we know Chapman was asphyxiated at some point during her death.

Regarding injections and chloroform, I think people give the Ripper far more credit than he deserves. Just because he wasn't caught doesn't make him a genius. Murder was a lot easier to get away with back then for a number of reasons. The man responsible for the murders was nothing special, especially in the Machiavellian sense.

[perrymason]

Hi again,

I hear all the rationales for excusing an idea like this one, but I dont hear anyone addressing that we do have to have something, some method or technique, that allowed him to get grown women on the ground on their backs without resistance. Despite the indications of choking, might the swelling and puffing also be caused by a reaction of some kind?

Smezenen has told me that based on his training in the military and some research on his own he has identified a hold that might force the victim into unconsciousness within seconds. I think thats the time frame were looking for....he wasnt in this for the battle with his prey, he overwhelmed them and almost cut their heads off to be sure he killed them while they lay helpless below the blade. He may even have chosen middle aged women because of their probable strength and ability to fight him off.

The evidence seems to indicate that before the knife is used the killer in the cases of C1, C2 and C4 most identifiably, subdued the women without much fuss or any discernible noise. He killed Annie in a backyard facing several other backyards some with open windows by witness testimonies, and there were 17 odd people in the house he was killing at....at almost dawn. There were people feet away from where Polly was killed that slept peacefully. The Pearces in Mitre Square, and another policeman who I just discovered also lived in the square at that time, heard nothing from that echo chamber of a murder site...neither did Morris with his door open at the time.

There was for the most part silence or a reasonable approximation of it. Yet he physically gets them on the ground while preventing them from resisting his subsequent knife to the throat.

I believe the choke hold that smezenen has identified or something similar, or some form of sedative was administered in a way that was undetectable or untraceable. Even with a hand over the mouth the logistics of manhandling these women to the ground while maintaining an appearance of little if any struggle seems a little difficult to imagine.

But not if they were made to be unconscious very rapidly. Even in the case of Liz Stride a comment like "she look as if gently lain down"....should alert us to the possibility the women were rendered unconscious by some method.

The reason for this thread is that I recently discovered that the administration of medication using other than arterial injection was just becoming a more used practice among medics at the time....particularly students.

Best regards all

[Sam Flynn]

The evidence seems to indicate that before the knife is used the killer in the cases of C1, C2 and C4 most identifiably, subdued the women without much fuss or any discernible noise.

All the evidence indicates is that nobody recalled hearing much noise. That's not to say that there wasn't any, or that it vaguely registered and was dismissed. Don't forget that there are at least two separate instances during the Whitechapel Murder series in which potential witnesses said that cries in the night were comparatively common, hence eminently ignorable. As to "fuss", we simply have no idea what might have gone on just before the victims succumbed.

[perrymason]

All the evidence indicates is that nobody recalled hearing much noise. That's not to say that there wasn't any, or that it vaguely registered and was dismissed. Don't forget that there are at least two separate instances during the Whitechapel Murder series in which potential witnesses said that cries in the night were comparatively common, hence eminently ignorable. As to "fuss", we simply have no idea what might have gone on just before the victims succumbed.

As I pointed out Sam we have open doors and windows and wide awake potential witnesses at those 3 sites. The only contentious sounds are the "no" in the backyard at Hanbury and the "oh-murder" in Millers Court. Yet in the 3 cases I mentioned, none showed any sign of struggle and none of those attacks we can say with any kind of authority were heard by anyone.

All the best G