Does anything rule Bury out?

[Wyatt Earp]

At the very least this is somebody who was very daring and could handle immense pressure. It does not sound like the type of person Bury was.

Among the many adjectives, not all of them flattering, that could be used to describe Bury's decision to go to the police with that story in an effort to bluff his way out of his predicament, one of them would be "daring."

After murdering in Whitechapel, Bury could simply walk away from a crime scene and sink back into the crowd. He could not do that in Dundee without, in his view, instigating a national manhunt for himself as Jack the Ripper. The situation in Dundee was different and this has to be taken into account in assessing his behavior.

[Wyatt Earp]

Are you guessing Bury's IQ please?

Eileen, no one knows what Bury's I.Q. would have measured out to be, including Errata.

It does not take much intelligence to be a murderer. The best evidence that Bury was intelligent enough to murder women is that he was convicted of murdering a woman.

[Wyatt Earp]

OK I'll put my head over the parapet...

(a) he didn't cut her throat - JtR did

(b) he employed a ligature - JtR didn't

(C) his abdominal mutilations, such as they were, seem tentative if not imitatory

(D) Does he leave her posed on the street? No he attempts to pack her into a wooden box, breaking her leg in the process...

(E) He's not quick witted - he hangs around for almost a week as if wondering what to do...christ all he had to do was have a shave and catch a train...any train, headed anywhere...this was maybe the last generation that could make a trace-free fresh start - Cadosche did...this guy could've...and didn't...

(F) far from any escape strategy or even hasty risk taking, he eventually wanders down to the local copshop and effectively (though Wyatt Earp denies it) hands himself in...

Is this not enough?

Dave, I would not be surprised if the police who blew it with Bury in 1889 made just this kind of misguided assessment.

[John Wheat]

I haven't seen anybody in this thread refer to Jack as a "criminal mastermind". That seems to be something you are latching on to.

We know the ripper killed women on the streets in the largest city in the world with regular police patrolling and got away with it. There's good reason to believe he could have and was interrupted on more than one of these occasions.

At the very least this is somebody who was very daring and could handle immense pressure. It does not sound like the type of person Bury was.

To Gnote

I mentioned Jack as a criminal mastermind as others have referred to Bury as dumb as if that would effect his chances of being Jack. The idea of Bury being dumb is unfounded and secondly the idea of being dumb effecting his chances of being Jack is again unfounded.

You mention Jack being very daring and Bury not being daring have you any evidence of this?

Cheers John

[gnote]

To Dave

How do you know this? Bury may have reacted to something Ellen did by murdering Ellen. How do you know Bury was dumb? At this point it's only a guess? Even if he was dumb it hardly rules him out as Jack. I don't think many people believe Jack was some sort of criminal mastermind. Surely Jack was some sort of ordinary thuggish loser and Bury was an ordinary thuggish loser.

Cheers John

I haven't seen anybody in this thread refer to Jack as a "criminal mastermind". That seems to be something you are latching on to.

We know the ripper killed women on the streets in the largest city in the world with regular police patrolling and got away with it. There's good reason to believe he could have and was interrupted on more than one of these occasions.

At the very least this is somebody who was very daring and could handle immense pressure. It does not sound like the type of person Bury was.

[John Wheat]

he's not actually your actual opportunistic and reactive person is he?

Just a dumb brute of a wife-killer who thinks he's better than he is, but at the end just surrenders himself to fate...

To Dave

How do you know this? Bury may have reacted to something Ellen did by murdering Ellen. How do you know Bury was dumb? At this point it's only a guess? Even if he was dumb it hardly rules him out as Jack. I don't think many people believe Jack was some sort of criminal mastermind. Surely Jack was some sort of ordinary thuggish loser and Bury was an ordinary thuggish loser.

Cheers John

[Cogidubnus]

So far, nobody has directly addressed all the points in post #2...I'm sorry but brutal wife-killer though he was, (which is what makes him an interesting contemporaneous person), he's not actually your actual opportunistic and reactive person is he?

Just a dumb brute of a wife-killer who thinks he's better than he is, but at the end just surrenders himself to fate...

[Errata]

Are you guessing Bury's IQ please? He had a lovely hand for letter writing and forgery. He planned Ellen's demise before he left London, (empty crate scenario). Have you considered he was suffering from a venereal disease also? I don't know how quickly it advances to the brain when untreated. He drained Ellen of nearly all her inheritance too...... so he was a broken man.

Regards Eileen

In order,

1: Yes. And putting him at slightly below normal is nothing surprising. No one is arguing that he was some kind of evil genius, and it's fairly common for killers to score slightly below normal. I'm not insulting him.

2: I don't think penmanship is an indication of intelligence, unless you want to make correlation between know geniuses and their handwriting, none of which was "lovely". Tesla, Einstein, Vidal, Kissinger, all had unintelligible scrawl.

3: Or he needed a crate to sail to Australia, and then didn't go. And you did need a crate to sail to Australia, so it has the benefit of being reasonable.

4:Yes

5: 6-10 years is the average, though taking into account viral loads which may or may not apply, I imagine it could happen in as little as three. But the physical symptoms are catastrophic, and usually rule someone out as a killer. Terrible shaking, trembling, loss of balance, loss of motor skills, inability to sleep, etc. all preceding mental signs of decline like loss of memory or delusions.

6: I think a "broken man" is a very romanticized view of a user and abuser.

[John Wheat]

To Eileen

Well Errata is guessing Bury's IQ.

Cheers John

[Mrsperfect]

Are you guessing Bury's IQ please? He had a lovely hand for letter writing and forgery. He planned Ellen's demise before he left London, (empty crate scenario). Have you considered he was suffering from a venereal disease also? I don't know how quickly it advances to the brain when untreated. He drained Ellen of nearly all her inheritance too...... so he was a broken man.

Regards Eileen

[John Wheat]

Some serial killers can end up behaving in a way that begs for them to be stopped. How do we know this wasn't Bury's moment?

To Harry

Absolutely this could quite easily be Bury's moment.

Cheers John

[Errata]

To Errata

Are you sure Bury just wasn't used to dealing with a dead wife. Supposing Bury was the Ripper he could just leave the scene with the canon's but with his wife things would have been different. Suddenly Bury's got a body to deal with. What is strange is that he left the body in the trunk for days. Perhaps Bury tried to get rid of the body but wasn't able to. at the end of the day you're I.Q. of 95 is from just guesswork.

Cheers John

I'm absolutely positive he had no idea how to deal with a freshly minted dead wife. Whether or not he was the Ripper. But the sad fact is that 3 women are murdered by their husband or boyfriend very day in the US. So more than 1000 men every year are faced with the fact that they have just killed their wife. And about 30% of them get away with it. So what separates the people who can act in their bests interest under adversity and those who can't?

Smarts really. They frame someone else, the body is never found, they use fame or connections, some of them argue self defense. They can come to a workable solution very quickly. Some people are good in emergencies. Some aren't.

Bury is in no way unique. But the fascinating thing about him is that there is no coherent effort anywhere. Doesn't get ever part of her out of the apartment. Doesn't stage the scene. Doesn't run and change his name. People fail doing these things all the time. But they try. He doesn't. Like he can't even get the first part of an idea out. Fight, flight or freeze. Everyone does one of those three. He froze. Big time. Worst I've ever heard of in fact. Hours, maybe days staring at that box, and he can't come up with a single plausible idea. Folded like a lawn chair. And that's more than just panic. Panic lasts maybe 30 minutes tops. Then it's just fear. Panic in a real neurochemical sense blanks the mind. Fear shouldn't. In facts it's supposed to aid cognition, not destroy it. People are predictable in fear. But he isn't. It's odd. Possibly not at all relevant, but interesting.

The IQ guess is just a guess. But an educated one. It is 5 to 15 points lower than average depending what test you are using. So clearly not in any way handicapped. But physical abusers almost never clock above 120. There is a certain kind of truth in the idea that people use their fists when they can't use their words. He was not highly educated, nor was he particularly well read. He did not spend time bettering himself in that area. He did not have any particular curiosity. Bright but uneducated usually means the person educates themselves through reading and experience. He didn't do that. And Intelligence tests look for executive function. The ability to plan, execute, put together disparate pieces of information to find a solution. It's not just the murder that highlights a lack in that arena for Bury. It's not something he was good at in any part of his life. Below average, but not by a lot. IQ of 95.

[Harry D]

To Harry

I should have started my last post with supposing Bury was the Ripper.

Hello, John. My post wasn't aimed at you specifically, it was more of a general criticism of the preconceived notions we have about the Ripper. Any information we have on the cunning and intelligence of our man remains inconclusive and I don't think we can say with any certainty that he wouldn't have acted self-destructively at some point. Some serial killers can end up behaving in a way that begs for them to be stopped. How do we know this wasn't Bury's moment?

[John Wheat]

To Errata

Are you sure Bury just wasn't used to dealing with a dead wife. Supposing Bury was the Ripper he could just leave the scene with the canon's but with his wife things would have been different. Suddenly Bury's got a body to deal with. What is strange is that he left the body in the trunk for days. Perhaps Bury tried to get rid of the body but wasn't able to. at the end of the day you're I.Q. of 95 is from just guesswork.

Cheers John

[Errata]

To Errata

I don't believe Bury was dumb. I'm not saying he was particularly intelligent either all I am saying is that after killing Ellen. His plan was probably to dump the trunk with Ellen's body somewhere and for whatever reason he couldn't do this. Possibly he couldn't lift the trunk with Ellen in it. I don't think Bury had a backup plan and I think he probably considered various things but ended up going to the police claiming Ellen commited suicide. Maybe Bury thought that was his best option. If he had left Ellen in his flat and scarpered Bury probably thought he would be arrested, charged and eventually hung as Jack the Ripper, the same thing if he left Ellen's dead body in the street.

Cheers John

There are vasty tomes and millions of essays and papers debating the nature of intelligence, the definition of intelligence, whether it has anything to do with knowledge, and whether it is even measurable. It is it's own little brand of science. And because of what I have done in my life and who my friends are and what they do, we have our own peculiar vocabulary regarding intelligence, behavior, etc. Just because it gets so convoluted. I have been using that ode, if you will, and it never occurred to me to explain it, which is, as they say, my bad.

We all know people who are brilliant but who are in real danger of being hit by a car because it never occurs to them to look before crossing the street. And we all know people who can't even name the capitol of their own state, but can mastermind a brilliant heist, or engineer a way to live off the grid. So when discussing the nature of intelligence, we decided that it was the ability to maximize executive function. That's what intelligence is, that's what SB IQ tests look for. Then there is knowledge, which is an uncanny command of facts, but not necessarily the ability to wield it to it's maximum potential. And then there is smarts, which is the ability to think on your feet. Quickness.

The opposite of intelligent is unintelligent. The opposite of knowledge is ignorance. And the opposite of smart is dumb, or stupid.

Bury was likely of below average intelligence, say an IQ of 95 or so, but certainly not handicapped in any way. Abusers tend to be unintelligent. Fists are rarely a product of executive function. And I'm sure Bury was about average in knowledge. Some things he did better than others, like I wouldn't peg him for a guy who read up on all the advances in modern chemistry but I know he knew how to do things I don't know how to do.

But the guy was dumb. As in "struck dumb". He clearly did not deal with adversity well. He was a runner. He was an abuser. And the poor schmuck just fell apart when trying to get away with murdering his wife. The only way a guy gets to confessing to mutilating his wife to beat a murder charge is either a: it is absolutely true, and he was convinced he could prove it or b: the guy was so paralyzed by the failure to come up with something better that he literally goes a little nuts. Not a lot nuts, but that kind of nuts you see on game shows where the guy can't come up with the word "pirate" so he shouts out "radish!" at the last second and immediately bows his head in shame. Bury could not come up with the right answer to save his life (literally) and then blurted out this dumb type of answer to the problem of a dead wife in a trunk at home out of panic. Not smart. Very dumb.