Does anything rule Bury out?

[Batman]

To Batman

But is there anything to suggest that a horse meat butcher couldn't learn how to cleanly remove organs from his work. Also we might expect Jack to do some research into human anatomy.

Cheers John

It's like this. JtR's victims are mostly butchered. No medical knowledge needed. However the medical aspects tell us that he likely assisted in some form of a surgical capacity with people. So if he was a horse meat butcher he would have to be that plus the surgical experience through some formal training with senior surgeons.

[John Wheat]

It's like this. JtR's victims are mostly butchered. No medical knowledge needed. However the medical aspects tell us that he likely assisted in some form of a surgical capacity with people. So if he was a horse meat butcher he would have to be that plus the surgical experience through some formal training with senior surgeons.

To Batman

This is just your view on things. I don't think anything your saying is common consensus. I've said this before but nothing what so ever on this thread rules Bury out.

Cheers John

[Batman]

To Batman

This is just your view on things. I don't think anything your saying is common consensus. I've said this before but nothing what so ever on this thread rules Bury out.

Cheers John

The contemporary view at the time was JtR had anatomical knowledge/medical knowledge. This was criticized by Baxter at the inquest.

However, we know today, that JtR must have had surgical/anatomical knowledge by the way he removed the heart (from below cutting the top of the heart and pulling the heart from below the ribcage) and the kidney removal. In the MJK photograph I have forwarded that we are seeing clear use of an amputation knife and circular pre-incisions on the right leg.

May I suggest checking this out if you haven't already...
2:40 in at www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPg-D4Jxb6M

I think the modern consensus amoung medical people with in interest in this case is that JtR absolutely had medical/anatomical knowledge, no questions asked. I haven't seen a modern one who said otherwise.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=7595&page=73

[Errata]

The only things that could rule Bury out are a relatively major physical handicap, or a confirmed alibi for one or more of the murders. So if you started this thread in the hopes that someone would come forward with "Oh he was sleeping it off at a friends house in Dover the night Chapman was killed" I think we can safely say that isn't going to happen. We don't know where the guy was one the nights of the murders, all things being equal he likely doesn't have a solid enough alibi for any of the murders that could not be doubted.

So we all know that there is nothing that proves Bury wasn't the Ripper. At least not yet. There's nothing that proves it wasn't Queen Victoria, there's nothing that proves it wasn't Van Gogh, there's nothing that proves it wasn't the ghost of Ulysses S. Grant. Extremely unlikely suspects all of them, but you can't prove they didn't do it. Especially Grant, because likely you have to prove ghosts don't exist, and that's impossible.

I made the assumption, and I think others did as well, that the challenge was not to prove he didn't do it (since from the age of about 10 we have been told that you cannot prove a negative), but to explain why WE ruled him out as a suspect. I can't rule out Bury to the satisfaction of a court of law. No one can. I can rule him out from my consideration, given my interpretations of the evidence and my ideas of the man we are looking for.

The argument against Bury is that his problems were not Jack's problems. Like Chapman's problems were not Jack's problems. Not proof, proof doesn't exist. But the argument. Jack was powerless. He needed to overpower these women, he needed to possess these women, he needed to take out his rage on these women. He needed to dehumanize these women. He had a goal. Bury had power. Always did. He yelled and threatened and beat his women. He eventually killed one. It's not that Bury couldn't be a serial killer, of course he could. It just wouldn't look like the Ripper.

Bury's problems were not Jack's problems. Bury had rage issues. Bury didn't like being refused or thwarted. Bury lashed out with his fists. Bury had a hair trigger, not a slow boil. Bury showed no signs of a secret obsession. Bury was not afraid. Apparently he had no filter.

Jack was angry the way the oppressed are angry. Resentment, not rage. Jack was a planner, he was calculating. Not a genius, but he had the ability to lay a basic trap. Jack never hit these women. He never lost his temper. Jack was a slow boil, or there would have been a body every night. Jack had things the hide. There would have been a room, a drawer, something that no one was allowed into. He had fetishes. There would have been trophies or related literature and pictures. Jack was terrified. He was never comfortable. It's why he never got caught. He never let his guard down. He never lost his filter.

These aren't the same guy. Now if Bury was like Jack, and then turned into Bury when he killed women, devolved so to speak, that might make sense. But no one gets more careful, more guarded during a murder. Assuming that the masks come off when a serial killer is actually killing people, Jack should have been the most buttoned up, private, stifled man in human history when he was at work or at the market. Bury had no filter. He said what he thought the minute he thought it, he lashed out, he bullied. Bury should have left pulped unrecognizable corpses. Those women should have been beaten with fists, a belt, thrown around, heads pounded on the pavement. There should have been yelling, or that creepy angry whispering some people do. I work at battered women's shelters. I know how abusive men kill women. It does not look like the Ripper. It looks like they were run over by a bus. Except for the guys who set women on fire after garroting the children. Fire is pretty popular. Bury was an abuser. It makes sense that he should kill like one. And he did kill his wife the way an abuser does. To me, it's not the same guy.

It's why I rule him out. Despite the fact that I cannot prove to a court of law that he didn't. I also can't prove in a court of law that Santa doesn't exist, but I feel comfortable not expecting him around Christmas time.

[John Wheat]

To Batman

I stand by comments.

Cheers John

[Wyatt Earp]

I know how abusive men kill women. It does not look like the Ripper. It looks like they were run over by a bus...It's why I rule him out. Despite the fact that I cannot prove to a court of law that he didn't.

Once again, signature characteristics (like mutilation and overkill) can be curtailed or reduced in their expression in connection with the specific circumstances of a murder. This is not my personal opinion, this is what the research demonstrates. If you refuse to take my word for it, see the book by Keppel and Birnes, Serial Violence: Analysis of Modus Operandi and Signature Characteristics of Killers.

What were the specific circumstances that would have led Bury to tone things down to such a significant degree? People knew that the Burys were living in that residence. He could not destroy Ellen's body the way that he destroyed Eddowes' body or Kelly's body without revealing himself as Jack the Ripper. He did what he did to Ellen's body but was not identified as the Ripper, so in that sense, toning things down was a success for him.

Please don't look at Ellen's murder in a vacuum. All of these murders have to be taken in context. At the Kelly crime scene, he had more time than he was accustomed to, and we all know what that led to. At the Ellen Bury crime scene, he could not conduct the same kind of destruction without giving himself away.

[Errata]

Once again, signature characteristics (like mutilation and overkill) can be curtailed or reduced in their expression in connection with the specific circumstances of a murder. This is not my personal opinion, this is what the research demonstrates. If you refuse to take my word for it, see the book by Keppel and Birnes, Serial Violence: Analysis of Modus Operandi and Signature Characteristics of Killers.

What were the specific circumstances that would have led Bury to tone things down to such a significant degree? People knew that the Burys were living in that residence. He could not destroy Ellen's body the way that he destroyed Eddowes' body or Kelly's body without revealing himself as Jack the Ripper. He did what he did to Ellen's body but was not identified as the Ripper, so in that sense, toning things down was a success for him.

Please don't look at Ellen's murder in a vacuum. All of these murders have to be taken in context. At the Kelly crime scene, he had more time than he was accustomed to, and we all know what that led to. At the Ellen Bury crime scene, he could not conduct the same kind of destruction without giving himself away.

And your points are certainly valid. I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but they are valid. You illustrate one way this could have happened. But there's no proof to anything you say. Yes, serial killers can tone it down, but there's no evidence that's what happened. And there's no evidence that what was done to Ellen was in fact a toned down version of a "full Ripper". And a failure to implicate himself as the Ripper is not proof he was the Ripper. And even if he HAD gone "full Ripper" on Ellen, that wouldn't prove he was the Ripper (though it would certainly sweeten the deal). He wasn't going to hang any less for a single conviction than he would for 3 to 8 convictions. Not outing himself as the Ripper would seem to be important, but it certainly could not be more important than not getting caught and hanging.

Your scenario puts a lot of conditions and rules on his behavior that do have to be true. We don't know his motives, priorities, or even needs and desires. Everything you say must be true in order for him to be the Ripper, but if some of your assumptions aren't true, then he cannot be the Ripper. You created a story that shoves him into a Ripper suit. And that's fine, you may be 100% right. But you don't know. I don't know. There are no facts. We don't know why he did what he did, or why he did it the way he did. We each have different suspicions, but I can't prove he didn't do it, and you can't prove he did.

Sometimes it boils down to Occam's razor. If Bury has to jump through a ton of hoops to be the Ripper, odds are he isn't the Ripper.

[Wyatt Earp]

And your points are certainly valid. I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but they are valid. You illustrate one way this could have happened. But there's no proof to anything you say. Yes, serial killers can tone it down, but there's no evidence that's what happened.

Ah, but it’s not necessary to prove that things happened that way in order to identify Bury as the Ripper. All that’s necessary is to demonstrate that he cannot be ruled out, and that is what has been accomplished.

Again, here’s the structure of the argument:

William Bury’s signature as displayed in his murder of Ellen Bury is a close match with Jack the Ripper’s signature as described by Keppel et al.

There are three possibilities:

1. William Bury was a copycat killer.
2. The close signature match was simply a coincidence.
3. William Bury was Jack the Ripper.

For the reasons described in my article, 1 and 2 can be ruled out, but 3 cannot.

Ergo, William Bury was Jack the Ripper.

The Ripper turned out to be a guy who murdered a woman and carved her such that a foot of intestine was spilling out of her abdomen. Wow, who could’ve seen that one coming.

[DVV]

Bury is a viable suspect, but his wife wasn't butchered the way MJK had been. Why ? Even Chapman and Eddowes, quickly dispatched in the street, were much more mutilated.

[Wyatt Earp]

Bury is a viable suspect, but his wife wasn't butchered the way MJK had been. Why ? Even Chapman and Eddowes, quickly dispatched in the street, were much more mutilated.

People knew that the Burys were living at that residence. If he had butchered Ellen the way he butchered Kelly, he would have made it clear to everyone that he was the Ripper.

[Errata]

People knew that the Burys were living at that residence. If he had butchered Ellen the way he butchered Kelly, he would have made it clear to everyone that he was the Ripper.

So we know that Bury was the Ripper because he did not kill like the Ripper did?

[Harry D]

Bury is a viable suspect, but his wife wasn't butchered the way MJK had been. Why ? Even Chapman and Eddowes, quickly dispatched in the street, were much more mutilated.

He didn't have it in him to butcher his own lover? That might explain the relatively perfunctory mutilations.

[John Wheat]

Assuming Bury was Jack I think there are two reasons why she wasn't butchered like Mary Jane Kelly. As Harry says

He didn't have it in him to butcher his own lover?

And as Wyatt says if Bury had mutilated Ellen to the same degree as Mary Jane Kelly he would have revealed himself to be Jack and would have been hung as Jack the Ripper. Obviously Bury was hung for Ellen's murder but it seems as though Bury thought he would get away with Ellen's murder with the story he told the police.

[Wyatt Earp]

Look at what Bury did following the murder:

He broke her leg to get her into that demented, sexually degrading pose in the trunk.

He burned some of her clothes in the fireplace.

He went back to the body to perform a couple of additional mutilations, which suggests that he wanted to do a lot more, and was struggling to restrain himself.

I don’t think there was any “wifely consideration” here at all. If the circumstances were different, I think he would have absolutely destroyed her.

[John Wheat]

To Wyatt

Of the two scenarios I think yours is the most likely and had the circumstances been different eg Ellen soliciting in London then I too think Bury would have destroyed her.

Cheers John