Ripper Facts

[Debra A]

I think I know who you are talking about, Debs. I've mentioned that's who I think Pierre is, all along. No denial from her, yet. But the more I listen to Pierre speak, the more it sounds like this other person's suspect.

I sent you a PM, Jerry. I haven't been able to read all the posts concerning Pierre's suspect so sorry if you already mentioned this novel and author.

I don't mean Sophie H and Macnaghten btw. I'm not sure what gender the author of the fictional novel is as the name is genderless.

[jerryd]

There was something about Pierre's posting style that reminded me of another poster I've encountered on JTRforums. After a little digging I noticed that the particular poster I had in mind looks like he(she) had published a fictional account of the ripper crimes quite recently and after reading that book on Kindle, the fictional suspect seems to fit with Pierre's suspect too on most points I have encountered so far.
I don't know for definite they are the same person but they sure have a lot in common!

I think I know who you are talking about, Debs. I've mentioned that's who I think Pierre is, all along. No denial from her, yet. But the more I listen to Pierre speak, the more it sounds like this other person's suspect.

[Elamarna]

Debra,

someone else said much the same some time back, would the book be a kindle edition priced at Ģ2.86?

i have the title but obviously don't want to post it

steve

[Debra A]

There was something about Pierre's posting style that reminded me of another poster I've encountered on JTRforums. After a little digging I noticed that the particular poster I had in mind looks like he(she) had published a fictional account of the ripper crimes quite recently and after reading that book on Kindle, the fictional suspect seems to fit with Pierre's suspect too on most points I have encountered so far.
I don't know for definite they are the same person but they sure have a lot in common!

[Elamarna]

Is Pierre specifically linking those crimes to his suspect who was perhaps in India, perhaps involved in war and witnessed similar events?

Debra,

that would be the obvious conclusion.

Steve

[Debra A]

Is Pierre specifically linking those crimes to his suspect who was perhaps in India, perhaps involved in war and witnessed similar events?

[Elamarna]

Pierre

Were honour killings known in the uk at this time?
Do you have any evidence of any having taken place in 1888 or prior to it that can be specifically said were honour killings?

Are you not taking the idea of honour killings/mutilations from Eastern cultures and applying it to a completely different culture which may not understand it.

You have been pushing this idea from some considerable time, with not one shred of any evidence supplied to back the idea, no doubt this is because you wish to use it to tie your suspect into the murders.

"I think we must understand that the killer meant something with his actions. They were not random. He targeted special areas on the bodies he attacked. He let the bodies lie in the street and where they would be found easily, on display. His signature is a set of honour mutilations used to disgrace a certain type of victim."

Once again, we are being told the something is a "fact"; of course you are entitled to express your opinions and views.

BUT this is not given as an opinion but has a "fact"



We do not know that the killer meant something with his actions, other than a need to kill and mutilate, to suggest anything else is an assumption.


We do not know the the facial wounds were not random. (Facial attacks such as nose and ear cutting are often involved in Honour mutilation).

It seems safe to say that the attacks on the abdomen, and internal organs, including the uterus and kidney, were not random, however that is a long way from suggesting honour killings/mutilation.


The signature you describe is your belief, the victims were already at the bottom of the social structure in 1888 Whitechapel, so in whose eyes is he trying to disgrace them? In a society of 1888 London who will understand the concept and the meaning of the suggested reason for the wounds.

Regards

Steve

[David Orsam]

Hi David,

As you know, I like to work empirically. So do you, by the way. And as you know, newspaper articles can be really informative sometimes. So if you go through British Newspaper Archives and search for "mutilated", "mutilations" and so on, you will find a range articles about this during the 19th century. Many of those articles describe nose cutting, cutting of ears, disembowelling or even cutting off heads, like this one:

In December 1877, two naked dead bodies were found outdoors, under a tree in Lucknow, India. (Morning Post, Tuesday 25 December, 1877). Both of the victims were headless, disembowelled and mutilated. They were the dead bodies of a young man and a young woman and the crime was understood to be an honour crime. It has even been used in war, systematically, through history, to disgrace the enemy.

The typical signature we see in the series 1888 is this type of signature. Nose cutting, mutilations of faces, disembowelling and - if you include the torso cases - cutting off heads. It is so clear and distinct that we can not miss it. It is his signature. And if we do not understand it, itīs just because we have seen to many horror movies from the 20th century with sexually motivated serial killers who torture people first by doing some of the above actions.

But in 1888, he killed them first.

I like specifics, Pierre, and it seems to me that in terms of specifics you have found a single example from India in 1877 (which you have posted about before) where there has been disembowelling and mutilation of a woman and a man which was believed to have been an "honour killing" (or killings). But how from that single example in a foreign country, in a very different culture, some eleven years before the JTR murders do you get to the notion that some women being murdered and mutilated in London in 1888 were also "honour killings"?

I appreciate that you say that you are aware of other examples but are you saying that every single case of a murder and mutilation is an "honour killing"? Or is there something special about the JTR murders which leads you to the conclusion that they were "honour" killings?

[Pierre]

I can understand the first four sentences in the above paragraph. But I fail to understand why you draw the conclusion in the final sentence that the killer's signature was "a set of honour mutilations". What is it that leads you to this conclusion about the specific mutilations in the Ripper murders?

Hi David,

As you know, I like to work empirically. So do you, by the way. And as you know, newspaper articles can be really informative sometimes. So if you go through British Newspaper Archives and search for "mutilated", "mutilations" and so on, you will find a range articles about this during the 19th century. Many of those articles describe nose cutting, cutting of ears, disembowelling or even cutting off heads, like this one:

In December 1877, two naked dead bodies were found outdoors, under a tree in Lucknow, India. (Morning Post, Tuesday 25 December, 1877). Both of the victims were headless, disembowelled and mutilated. They were the dead bodies of a young man and a young woman and the crime was understood to be an honour crime. It has even been used in war, systematically, through history, to disgrace the enemy.

The typical signature we see in the series 1888 is this type of signature. Nose cutting, mutilations of faces, disembowelling and - if you include the torso cases - cutting off heads. It is so clear and distinct that we can not miss it. It is his signature. And if we do not understand it, itīs just because we have seen to many horror movies from the 20th century with sexually motivated serial killers who torture people first by doing some of the above actions.

But in 1888, he killed them first.

Regards, Pierre

[David Orsam]

I think we must understand that the killer meant something with his actions. They were not random. He targeted special areas on the bodies he attacked. He let the bodies lie in the street and where they would be found easily, on display. His signature is a set of honour mutilations used to disgrace a certain type of victim.

I can understand the first four sentences in the above paragraph. But I fail to understand why you draw the conclusion in the final sentence that the killer's signature was "a set of honour mutilations". What is it that leads you to this conclusion about the specific mutilations in the Ripper murders?

[Pierre]

Sorry, honour mutilations? I'm not sure I understand what you mean Pierre. Could you clarify, please?

If someone has broken a social rule which is considered important for the family for example, that person could get punished by being killed, mutilated and put on display. This type of behaviour is considered the "right" thing to do if someone has been shamed by the breaking of a rule, and this type of murder is aimed at putting the social order back in place again. It is also a type of revenge. And punishment.

"Bodily mutilations, such as nose-cutting, are recorded worldwide from different cultural settings...

The underlying notion is that cultural categories, such as “honour” and “shame”, are encoded in body morphology and affect behaviour."

(Honour, Shame, and Bodily Mutilation. Cutting off the Nose among Tribal Societies in Pakistan. Jürgen Wasim Frembgen. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Nov., 2006), pp. 243-260)

And here is another interesting reference to an article about nose cutting:

http://wilsonquarterly.com/stories/b...acks-on-women/

I think we must understand that the killer meant something with his actions. They were not random. He targeted special areas on the bodies he attacked. He let the bodies lie in the street and where they would be found easily, on display. His signature is a set of honour mutilations used to disgrace a certain type of victim.

Regards, Pierre

[MsWeatherwax]

Sorry, honour mutilations? I'm not sure I understand what you mean Pierre. Could you clarify, please?

[Pierre]

Quoted, should have edited.

[Pierre]

The vampire will get you too, Craig.

I'm interested in doing some research to use witness statements, profiling and census address records to try and identify the Ripper.

Hi Craig,

So the theoretical perspectives will be different types of profiling hypotheses, the empirical data will be witness statements from 1888 and adress data.

I think this secret will be to use enough assumptions to narrow the search, but not too specific as there are so many unknown variables.

I see two main problems. Firstly, you will work deductively, i.e. from a top down perspective. To find a serial killer, one should work inductively, i.e. from a bottom up perspective. Otherwise, you impose perspectives on your data from the very beginning. So secondly, from the very beginning you will have all the empirical data strongly biased by postmodern profiling perspectives.

This may be a waste of time and impossible to do. However I'd like to give it a go and keen to know if others are also interested.

Itīs not impossible. The question is what the results will be.

Step 1 : Use Witness statements to create search criteria

My assumption is Lawende and PC William Smith are the most credible witnesses. They both saw a man aged about 30 years old, pale complexion, about 5'7" tall, clean shaven with small moustache.

So that will be your data for the selection frame. From the very beginning you have decided that this must be how Jack the Ripper looked. You believe these two men in the past so much that you will let them decide what you should be looking for. That is OK. Try it. But a lot of men looked like that - and why do you believe that you will find such a man, Jack the Ripper with that sort of appearance, with the help of sparse sources from the past when the police could not find him in their own time?

Is there anything else we can tell from witness statements ?

Yes. That they often are not reliable. Witnesses misremember, they lie, do not see clearly in the dark, are scared to tell the police what they saw and do not want any trouble. How will you be able to distinguish your favourite witnesses from such witnesses? What will your arguments be? And you evidence? Not to mention the source criticism you will have to base all of that on. I do not want to discourage you, a witness can be a good start, but they may not be good witnesses.

Is the person not working class ? This means they are less likely to be a labourer, dock worker, etc.

How could you answer that question? "The person" - who is that? Is it the type of man you think two men in 1888 saw? You do not have his name. That is a very big problem. There is very sparse data only, and he looked like any man in 1888.

William Marshall saw someone similar and heard him say “You would say anything but your prayers" in English accent which seemed well educated. If this is accurate, can we assume JTR was English, so not raised in Scotland, Ireland or Wales.

OK. So no "the person" is "someone similar". Is he "a similar person"? Similar to what? To other similar persons, looking like similar persons. And Marshall - how do you know that he is reliable? Here you might see the weakest link in the chain of hypotheses about the killer in you upcoming theory. I am sorry, but it is really very difficult. Otherwise, 128 years would not have lied behind us. Generations of people trying to find him would not be history. I do not want to say it is hopeless. But difficult.

Step 2: Use Douglas (FBI) profiling to narrow search criteria

John Douglas (FBI) used knowledge about serial killers to produce the following profile:

https://vault.fbi.gov/Jack%20the%20Ripper/Jack%20the%20Ripper%20Part%201%20of%201

There is a good summary of this profiling in the attached CBS article

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jack-the-ripper-case-125-years-later-murders-of-london-prostitutes-by-notorious-serial-killer-remain-unsolved/

I know a lot of people are sceptical about profiles such as these. However, they do have credibility and allows us to reduce search field.

I donīt know anything about the ideas of Douglas but what if you just happen to reduce the sample with the result that the killer is excluded from it and you do not know it? Are there any such risks with the ideas of this profiling perspective? I would look at that risk first.

Based upon this profile, can we assume JTR was not married, and lived on his own.

Other people have previously thought this was the case, as living with others would have increased chance that someone suspected and named him.

OK. So there you have one variable with two values that exclude a part of the sample from the possibility of being Jack the Ripper.

Step 3: Use geographic profiling to narrow search for where he lived

Kim Rossmo from Texas State University Centre for Geospatial Intelligence used some geographic profiling techniques to identify likely street addresses where the Ripper may have lived.

http://www.txstate.edu/gii/projects/jack-the-ripper.html

Wesley English also used geographic profiling to write the following article which identified possible streets where JTR may have lived.

http://www.wesleyenglish.com/geoprofile/infamous-cases/jack-the-ripper/

OK. From the research I have read about the geographical base for serial killers, they tend to have a base or home in the area where they commit their crimes.

One option is we search specific streets.

Step 4 : Search the 1891 Census to identify a short list

Debra A – who has demonstrated wonderful research skills on this site and JTR Forum – has suggested using findmypast which allows search by specific streets.

This would allow us to search for a man, aged 25-35 y.o., who is a lodger, is single and living in the targeted streets.

We could possibly remove those born outside England and who are from lower social class.

Interested to hear what others think

All the best

Craig

OK. The result will be that you get some guy matching your initial criteria based on the witnesses and you will have names and adresses. And then you will use that sample to examine every person, from all the data you can find.

It is easier to do as Fisherman did. He had one. You will have many.

And how many years has he been researching one person and trying to argue for one single person as being Jack the Ripper?

I think you could do some other type of research on the case and get much more interesting results. Why not study the type(s) of mutilations he performed and compare it to different types of honour mutilations in history? You could also analyse the similarities between the torso cases and the C-5. I believe that would be very meaningful and interesting. You can work inductively with each case, and find articles in the British Newspaper Archive about other cases of mutilations in the 19th century for more general comparisons of different types. Then you could classify his methods. That would be a new type of profiling for JTR and the Torso cases from a perspective of honour mutilation with comparisons from other examples, based on data from 1888 and 1889. And who knows, it might lead to knew theories and help ripperology.

Kind regards, Pierre

[Debra A]

My experience, Craig, is that people moved around a lot in the nineteenth century, especially single men who were lodgers, so that one would have to question whether a census taken in 1891 will actually assist much, if at all, in establishing where a particular individual was living three years earlier and will not, in any event, include a large number of men who were living in your targeted streets in 1888.

I mentioned all this to Craig too. Just to be clear; Craig asked my advice on extracting the information he wanted based on Rossmo's profile from the 1881 and 1891 census and that is what I tried to give him tips on regarding the address search. I also suggested poor law records for 1887/88/89 as I felt they may give him an idea about how people shifted around.
Good luck to you though, Craig, for attempting to do something!