Was William Bury a Mason?

[Sam Flynn]

Perhaps on a drunken whim? Perhaps there is a suggestion that he wasn't quite in full possession of his faculties in his his decision to stuff her into a trunk that was a little too small.

[Wyatt Earp]

I agree with you. I firmly believe that Bury lied to Parr. I firmly believe that Bury killed Ellen. I don't think there was ever any real questions in hardly anyone's mind.

The fact that he immediately mutilated her points to his being the Ripper -- as I see things. I believe the reason she was less mutilated than the other victims was because she was his wife and because perhaps he came to himself and realized that he would be recognized as the Ripper.

In my opinion, it is also because she was his wife that he hung around for a week trying to weigh his options.

If Bury was Jack the Ripper, then:
a. he had already left one country to attempt to get away from talk of the Ripper. Unfortunately, even in a different country, the Ripper was a topic of conversation.

b. The Ripper was able to go undetected because he could walk away from his victims and they were not associated with him in any known way.

c. However, now that he had murdered his wife, that anonymity was gone.

d. Because the Ripper was known in a different country, and now Ellen was tied directly to him, Bury did not think he could re-locate without being found. (This is one place his believing himself to be more prominent than he actually was worked against him.) In Bury's mind, now that people knew who the Ripper was, there would be no place to hide.

Anyway, it took him a week to come up with the lame action he finally settled on as the least bad of a bad lot of options and go to the police.

To me,the timing of the mutilations is quite telling as it suggests that he mutilated by reflex, managing to stop himself and pull back.

curious

Some great points, curious.

[Wyatt Earp]

(BTW, he did not "cut open her abdomen" - her abdominal wounds were minor).

There was an incised wound from which a foot of intestine was spilling out. It is correct to say that he opened her abdomen.

...his being the Ripper. He wasn't, of course, not least because Ellen was by no stretch of the imagination "ripped", when Bury had every opportunity to do so.

In Serial Violence: Analysis of Modus Operandi and Signature Characteristics of Killers, Keppel and Birnes write, “All aspects of the ritual may not be present in every crime. The time available, mood of the offender, and external circumstances, such as a roommate coming home, may all prevent the full repertoire of desired behavior from being enacted. Each of these factors can result in the ritualistic aspects of the crime being diluted, modified, or interrupted, depending on the internal state of the offender and the contingencies of a particular crime.” In Dundee the salient circumstance was that the murder, possibly unanticipated, occurred at the Ripper’s residence, and he could not therefore go to town on the victim’s body without revealing to the world that “William Bury” was Jack the Ripper. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that your objection to Bury here is a legitimate one.

[Sam Flynn]

There was an incised wound from which a foot of intestine was spilling out. It is correct to say that he opened her abdomen.

She was squashed into a case, so we can't rule out the possibility of the intestine popping out of what was, after all, a comparatively minor abdominal wound by Nichols/Chapman/Eddowes/Kelly standards.

[curious]

Perhaps on a drunken whim? Perhaps there is a suggestion that he wasn't quite in full possession of his faculties in his his decision to stuff her into a trunk that was a little too small.

Can you imagine the mental state of a person who had killed his wife and was living with her body for a week? Doubt many of us would be in full possession of our faculties.

[John Wheat]

Can you imagine the mental state of a person who had killed his wife and was living with her body for a week? Doubt many of us would be in full possession of our faculties.

I don't believe Bury's actions are that of a one time wife murderer they seem more like a serial killer who has murdered his wife unravelling.

[curious]

I don't believe Bury's actions are that of a one time wife murderer they seem more like a serial killer who has murdered his wife unravelling.

The fact that he immediately/almost immediately cut her -- not after stopping to think about it -- makes me seriously consider him as JtR. I don't think most run-of-the-mill wife killers do that. Did he not also go back occasionally during the week and cut again? Perhaps as a compulsion? There are other things that are also suggestive that he was JtR, of course.

[Wyatt Earp]

She was squashed into a case, so we can't rule out the possibility of the intestine popping out of what was, after all, a comparatively minor abdominal wound by Nichols/Chapman/Eddowes/Kelly standards.

Just to make sure that no visitors to this thread are confused about the nature of the wound, here is a description of it from the two medical reports.

Templeman and Stalker:
“There was an incised wound in the centre of the abdomen, extending downwards from the umbilicus for four and a half inches. It penetrated the abdominal cavity, and through it protruded part of the omentum, and about a foot of intestine, part of which was dry and black from exposure to the air. This cut was ragged towards the lower part.”

Kinnear and Lennox:
“The abdomen, pubis and perinaeum exhibit a number of incised wounds viz:— (1) In the middle line an incised wound opening the abdominal cavity extends vertically upwards from 1½ inch above the pubis for 4½ inches. (through this aperture it is stated by Drs Templeman and Stalker that twelve inches of the small intestine protruded).”

There's no doubt that Bury opened her abdomen.