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In another thread I recently brought attention to this academic study of the Ripper murders:
"The Jack the Ripper Murders: A Modus Operandi and Signature Analysis of the 1888-1891 Whitechapel Murders." Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling 2.1 (Jan. 2005): 1-21.
If you do not already have a copy of this fascinating article, google the title of the article and you can get a pdf copy from the Internet. This is a study of the Ripper murders by a team of U.S. criminologists that uses signature analysis to conclude that Tabram and the five canonicals were killed by a single person. If you are wondering about the authority of signature analysis, the authors of the article indicate that it is "the only crime scene assessment technique that is accepted in court testimony and appellate decisions" in the U.S. court system.
I thought it would be fun to apply the JIPOP analysis of Jack the Ripper's signature to William Bury's murder of his wife Ellen. What makes such an effort difficult is that Bury's murder of Ellen was different in some important ways from the Ripper murders (it was his wife, it occurred in their home, it possibly occurred in connection with a domestic dispute and Bury eventually went to the police with a story that Ellen committed suicide by strangling herself). With that in mind...
1. Picquerism. Bury's abdominal and genital mutilations of Ellen are consistent with picquerism.
2. Victims incapacitated immediately prior to being killed. At Bury's trial there was medical testimony that his first attack on Ellen was a blow to the head with possibly a poker. If this didn't knock her completely unconscious, it undoubtedly dazed her in a significant way. Having subdued her, Bury then proceeded to strangle her to death. There is a match on this point as well.
3. Overkill. While the abdominal and genital mutilations might not have killed Ellen in and of themselves, there was "a gaping hole in the abdomen" (Macpherson, p.24) when her body was discovered by the police. Blow to the head with a poker + strangling to death + gruesome abdominal and genital mutilations if they do not actually indicate overkill certainly indicate excessive violence. There is a reasonably good match here.
4. Posing of body in a sexually degrading way. Here is what the police found when they opened the trunk containing Ellen's body. "We found protruding part of the right leg and foot. The leg was [drawn] upwards till it came to the brain, and then it was broken in two and placed underneath the lid of the box...the left was drawn right over the body and rested on the right shoulder" (Beadle, 2009, p.246). There appears to be some odd posing going on here, and the raising up of the legs could be viewed as an effort to place her in a degrading position. The Ripper possibly left the bodies the way he did in part to shock the people who discovered them. Certainly Bury did not have to stuff Ellen's body in a trunk prior to going to the police, he could have placed it in bed, covered it with a blanket, etc. What he did was ensure that the policemen got a big shock when they opened the lid.
5. Postmortem mutilation and harvesting of organs. No harvesting of organs, but methinks it would have been an even tougher go at the police station if Bury had admitted to cooking and eating one of Ellen's kidneys. The postmortem mutilations are a match. Some occurred around the time of death, others well after death.
6. Attacks were planned. Shortly before Ellen was murdered, Bury purchased the piece of rope that was used to strangle her. While this doesn't prove preplanning, it is certainly possible that preplanning was present.
7. This is not part of the JIPOP signature analysis, but in another thread Abby noted in connection with one of my posts that Bury's throwing of Ellen's clothes into the fireplace and burning them after her murder could be a behavioral link with what happened at the Kelly crime scene. This destroying of the victim's clothes could be part of the establishment of complete domination over the victim that is an element of the JIPOP signature analysis.
What's remarkable, then, is that even though Bury's murder of Ellen differs in some significant ways from the Ripper murders, there is possibly a very close match in terms of the killer's signature. According to the JIPOP data this combination of signature characteristics is not only rare, it is extremely rare. While no signature analysis can prove that Bury was the Ripper, I think this signature analysis of his murder of Ellen does lend support to the argument that he was the guy.
"The Jack the Ripper Murders: A Modus Operandi and Signature Analysis of the 1888-1891 Whitechapel Murders." Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling 2.1 (Jan. 2005): 1-21.
If you do not already have a copy of this fascinating article, google the title of the article and you can get a pdf copy from the Internet. This is a study of the Ripper murders by a team of U.S. criminologists that uses signature analysis to conclude that Tabram and the five canonicals were killed by a single person. If you are wondering about the authority of signature analysis, the authors of the article indicate that it is "the only crime scene assessment technique that is accepted in court testimony and appellate decisions" in the U.S. court system.
I thought it would be fun to apply the JIPOP analysis of Jack the Ripper's signature to William Bury's murder of his wife Ellen. What makes such an effort difficult is that Bury's murder of Ellen was different in some important ways from the Ripper murders (it was his wife, it occurred in their home, it possibly occurred in connection with a domestic dispute and Bury eventually went to the police with a story that Ellen committed suicide by strangling herself). With that in mind...
1. Picquerism. Bury's abdominal and genital mutilations of Ellen are consistent with picquerism.
2. Victims incapacitated immediately prior to being killed. At Bury's trial there was medical testimony that his first attack on Ellen was a blow to the head with possibly a poker. If this didn't knock her completely unconscious, it undoubtedly dazed her in a significant way. Having subdued her, Bury then proceeded to strangle her to death. There is a match on this point as well.
3. Overkill. While the abdominal and genital mutilations might not have killed Ellen in and of themselves, there was "a gaping hole in the abdomen" (Macpherson, p.24) when her body was discovered by the police. Blow to the head with a poker + strangling to death + gruesome abdominal and genital mutilations if they do not actually indicate overkill certainly indicate excessive violence. There is a reasonably good match here.
4. Posing of body in a sexually degrading way. Here is what the police found when they opened the trunk containing Ellen's body. "We found protruding part of the right leg and foot. The leg was [drawn] upwards till it came to the brain, and then it was broken in two and placed underneath the lid of the box...the left was drawn right over the body and rested on the right shoulder" (Beadle, 2009, p.246). There appears to be some odd posing going on here, and the raising up of the legs could be viewed as an effort to place her in a degrading position. The Ripper possibly left the bodies the way he did in part to shock the people who discovered them. Certainly Bury did not have to stuff Ellen's body in a trunk prior to going to the police, he could have placed it in bed, covered it with a blanket, etc. What he did was ensure that the policemen got a big shock when they opened the lid.
5. Postmortem mutilation and harvesting of organs. No harvesting of organs, but methinks it would have been an even tougher go at the police station if Bury had admitted to cooking and eating one of Ellen's kidneys. The postmortem mutilations are a match. Some occurred around the time of death, others well after death.
6. Attacks were planned. Shortly before Ellen was murdered, Bury purchased the piece of rope that was used to strangle her. While this doesn't prove preplanning, it is certainly possible that preplanning was present.
7. This is not part of the JIPOP signature analysis, but in another thread Abby noted in connection with one of my posts that Bury's throwing of Ellen's clothes into the fireplace and burning them after her murder could be a behavioral link with what happened at the Kelly crime scene. This destroying of the victim's clothes could be part of the establishment of complete domination over the victim that is an element of the JIPOP signature analysis.
What's remarkable, then, is that even though Bury's murder of Ellen differs in some significant ways from the Ripper murders, there is possibly a very close match in terms of the killer's signature. According to the JIPOP data this combination of signature characteristics is not only rare, it is extremely rare. While no signature analysis can prove that Bury was the Ripper, I think this signature analysis of his murder of Ellen does lend support to the argument that he was the guy.
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