Most Ridiculous Theory

[Michael W Richards]

That the 3 man murders, stabbing murders, dismemberment murders, knife skills evident murders, knife skill absent murders, single wound murders, indoor murders, outdoor murders, and two weapons murders within 6-8 months of each other most reasonably indicates that a single killer is most probable.

Added to that premise is the idea that the factions that did practice cruelty and murderous intent on a regular basis are somehow dormant during these same months, despite the evidence of recent bomb threats linked with East End characters and an ongoing plan to assassinate Mr Balfour, plus a public hearing into the allegations of parliamentary support of such acts and alliances with Irish self rule splinters.

The crime world did not go to sleep for the better part of a year to give an alleged serial maniac-mutilator-stabber-dismemberer free reign on the East End in 1888. And people get killed for lots of reasons, not just because the met up with the wrong stranger one night.

[Fantomas]

That the 3 man murders, stabbing murders, dismemberment murders, knife skills evident murders, knife skill absent murders, single wound murders, indoor murders, outdoor murders, and two weapons murders within 6-8 months of each other most reasonably indicates that a single killer is most probable.

Added to that premise is the idea that the factions that did practice cruelty and murderous intent on a regular basis are somehow dormant during these same months, despite the evidence of recent bomb threats linked with East End characters and an ongoing plan to assassinate Mr Balfour, plus a public hearing into the allegations of parliamentary support of such acts and alliances with Irish self rule splinters.

The crime world did not go to sleep for the better part of a year to give an alleged serial maniac-mutilator-stabber-dismemberer free reign on the East End in 1888. And people get killed for lots of reasons, not just because the met up with the wrong stranger one night.

Intriguing. I've read perambulations around this theory before - that the myth of a single ripper was conjured around the more obscene by products of the East End vice world - and maybe, very prosaically, it could be nearer the truth than most theories.

[Harry D]

That the 3 man murders, stabbing murders, dismemberment murders, knife skills evident murders, knife skill absent murders, single wound murders, indoor murders, outdoor murders, and two weapons murders within 6-8 months of each other most reasonably indicates that a single killer is most probable.

Added to that premise is the idea that the factions that did practice cruelty and murderous intent on a regular basis are somehow dormant during these same months, despite the evidence of recent bomb threats linked with East End characters and an ongoing plan to assassinate Mr Balfour, plus a public hearing into the allegations of parliamentary support of such acts and alliances with Irish self rule splinters.

The crime world did not go to sleep for the better part of a year to give an alleged serial maniac-mutilator-stabber-dismemberer free reign on the East End in 1888. And people get killed for lots of reasons, not just because the met up with the wrong stranger one night.

Please explain how terrorist threats have any connection to a group of random prostitutes being butchered in a corner of the east end? Do you think these murders were politically-motivated? And if so, unto what end?

Please explain why there is a sudden spike in post-mortem mutilation murders with the same signature characteristics in a 12 week period, if these were not the actions of a single killer? If Whitechapel had been the hotbed of violent crime and murder that you allege, surely the Ripper murders would've been a rather banal occurrence?

[Michael W Richards]

Please explain how terrorist threats have any connection to a group of random prostitutes being butchered in a corner of the east end? Do you think these murders were politically-motivated? And if so, unto what end?

Please explain why there is a sudden spike in post-mortem mutilation murders with the same signature characteristics in a 12 week period, if these were not the actions of a single killer? If Whitechapel had been the hotbed of violent crime and murder that you allege, surely the Ripper murders would've been a rather banal occurrence?

To the first question Harry, I am trying to point out that there were a great many violent types in and around the area at that same time. Some were planning anarchist acts. Potential links of those kinds of folks to Parliament was being examined publicly at the same time as the murders. Double spy, secretive agents were testifying, some with direct links to our senior investigative staffers. Some with direct links to bomb plots. It was a dangerous time, and very secretive. Some women may have been silenced, I think its as likely as a solo serial mutilator, neither would be common events.

The particular moment in time we study was a very tumultuous and dangerous time in the London. So lets not assume this all went away for 12 weeks, as you say.

The second point isn't really that hard to imagine when you look for, and find, evidence that is contrary to what had been previously found, be it physical or circumstantial. When the playing field changes, it may not be an evolving killer, it may mean different players took the field. In the first 2 Canonicals I would not hesitate in saying they shared the same lone killer. There is no meaningful difference in any aspect with those murders. Both were to mutilate the abdomen, of course we cant say more than that based on Pollys wounds, but the focus in the Chapman case makes one wonder whether the objective had been the same with Nichols. That may be the interrupted murder in the bunch. After that we see some radical departures, beginning with the 3rd one a month later. No evidence that an interruption took place, so inexplicable lack of mutilation and double throat cuts.

I think Stride and the Triple Event show us that other murders took place by other men, 3 that very night with throat cuts. Only 1 with mutilations.

Then a long pause, and an event that cannot be paired with any other murder occurs. Something truly unique in the extent it was ghastly. Certainly not representative of a man who in the dark and dead of the night subdued his victims silently without struggle, and then deeply cut them and mutilated their abdomens while they bled to death. All within minutes.

Other people were killing, some for reasons other than madness I would suspect, so its likely in the circumstances that the real clues lay, not in the similarities or differences in the wounds.

[Michael W Richards]

Intriguing. I've read perambulations around this theory before - that the myth of a single ripper was conjured around the more obscene by products of the East End vice world - and maybe, very prosaically, it could be nearer the truth than most theories.

I appreciate the comments. Its always troubled me that the most common approach to this study has been to locate evidence that supports a conclusion you've already arrived at, be it a connected by single killers murder series or something, say, more prosaic.

Ive tried to remain objective throughout, its just that I don't see the series numbers that are used as being viable base stats. Ive suggested many times here that I think a realistic group under one umbrella is 2, perhaps 3. Take those out from the rest, and you have a much different pattern of kills. And a range of skills/knowledge/pm mutilations.

[caz]

Please explain how terrorist threats have any connection to a group of random prostitutes being butchered in a corner of the east end? Do you think these murders were politically-motivated? And if so, unto what end?

Please explain why there is a sudden spike in post-mortem mutilation murders with the same signature characteristics in a 12 week period, if these were not the actions of a single killer? If Whitechapel had been the hotbed of violent crime and murder that you allege, surely the Ripper murders would've been a rather banal occurrence?

Well said, Harry.

In an era when few people would have been familiar with the now extremely well-documented phenomenon of serial murder and mutilation [often involving five or more - usually female - victims, killed over a limited time in a limited area], I have to wonder how anyone back in 1888 would have known enough to mistake the C5 for a series by a lone killer, preying on vulnerable, desperate Spitalfields unfortunates, if these crimes were in fact committed by three or more different, independent killers, for a variety of distinctly unlikely motives.

Or are we being asked to believe that every serial mutilation murderer since 1888 has been unknowingly imitating an imaginary, or mythical phenomenon?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Another point is that murders of strangers for no apparent reason are the hardest to solve, which I seem to recall was an observation made recently by Michael himself! Back then it would have been nigh on impossible without a very lucky break. Serial killers rarely ever confess unless cornered with strong evidence against them, and if a killer with no know connection to his victim was not either caught in the act, or as they left the scene with incriminating evidence on them, we could expect precisely what we have today - a mystery spanning this many years, with no firm leads to help us solve a single one of the Whitechapel murders.

Michael, if you believe Nichols and Chapman were killed by the same hand, what do you think was the motive, and why do you believe this killer did not strike again, but others did, following very soon afterwards in his footsteps and in the same streets?

Was it down to coincidence - and a huge dollop of luck, for the killers you believe specifically targeted Stride, Eddowes and Kelly - that these women could all be found alone at night at a convenient time and place to seemingly connect them with the recent murders of Nichols and Chapman?

Love,

Caz
X

[Harry D]

Some women may have been silenced, I think its as likely as a solo serial mutilator, neither would be common events.

A cut throat would be enough to silence them. What purpose did it serve to extensively mutilate the victims after their deaths with the streets crawling with bobbies?

Let me preempt your answer: The assassins used the furore caused by the first two canonical murders to disguise their motives as Ripper murders? On the face of it, this doesn't make sense, because each murder was investigated separately on its own merits, and crimes of this nature were almost impossible for the police at the time to crack (hence the other unsolved murders in the list). If silencing them was the game, cutting their throats would have sufficed. Unless, coincidentally, the assassins had the same paraphilia as the killer, in fact more so with the increase in violence. A pattern of behaviour that's reconcilable with serial killer escalation.

So lets not assume this all went away for 12 weeks, as you say.

The Ripper murders practically did.

[Sam Flynn]

Was it down to coincidence - and a huge dollop of luck, for the killers you believe specifically targeted Stride, Eddowes and Kelly - that these women could all be found alone at night at a convenient time and place to seemingly connect them with the recent murders of Nichols and Chapman?

Particularly Stride and - even more so - Eddowes, whose movements and whereabouts on the (same) night of their deaths would have been nigh-on impossible to know in advance.

[Michael W Richards]

Another point is that murders of strangers for no apparent reason are the hardest to solve, which I seem to recall was an observation made recently by Michael himself!

Michael, if you believe Nichols and Chapman were killed by the same hand, what do you think was the motive, and why do you believe this killer did not strike again, but others did, following very soon afterwards in his footsteps and in the same streets?

On the first point Caz, I believe its a critical component of the killer of Polly and Annie, and coincidentally they are the only 2 Canonicals that stated in their own words, according to confidants, that they were soliciting strangers to sell them sex. The stranger element is definately a demonstrated choice.

Now, do we know Liz Stride was killed by a stranger...or why she was where she was....do we know for a fact that Sailor Man, likely Kates killer if that was her seen by Lawende, is a stranger to Kate? Do we know why she was there? She seems to convey intimacy with the hand on the chest...and we have almost definitive evidence that Marys killer must have known her, she dies in bed undressed.

I think a great candidate for these murders is Isenschmidt, and thats your answer as to why these specific kinds of murder stopped.

[Michael W Richards]

A cut throat would be enough to silence them. What purpose did it serve to extensively mutilate the victims after their deaths with the streets crawling with bobbies?

Thats a great question, one that surely leads to some form of madness, and one that we can legitimately ponder in which murders I wonder? The ones where this happens outdoors? Ok, so that's 3. Not 5. Who then kills Liz, and who kills Mary? And some of the rest of the 13 unsolved murders during this period in time. Or the torsos, who makes those? The man who killed women soliciting them mutilated them is specific, some are far more mundane in comparison, and some way over the top.

Its evident that one man did not kill all 13 in the file, ergo, more than one killer killed during that period in time. Of the 13, or 10, if you remove the outdoor mutilations, how many seem eerily similar? How many share important charateristics like skill, knowledge and speed? How many victims in that group of 10 were soliciting at the time?

There are lots of questions to legtimately ask...whether 1 man killed all 13 women in all sorts of manners, with all sorts of different injuries, with varying skill/knowldege and speed exhibitted, for over a year unchecked, isnt one of them.

[Whitechapel]

If the reason for the murders was to harvest uteri, then the mutilations were functional. On the double event the reason for limited mutilation on the first murder was explained by the murderer being disturbed. On the second 'the Ripper' had time to place the intestines over the right shoulder, indulge in limited facial mutilation with a cut across the nose and the womb was taken away, satisfying the murderer.

On the potential last murder of Mary Jane Kelly 'the Ripper' had more time to indulge his/herself because there was more time in a room than a hurried uterus extraction in a yard. The uterus was found with the kidneys and breast under the head. Since the killer played with his/her food, you can speculate that he/she hated women. It doth mock the meat it feeds on.

In all cases the victims throat was cut quickly so to proceed to the mutilation

[Fantomas]

I appreciate the comments. Its always troubled me that the most common approach to this study has been to locate evidence that supports a conclusion you've already arrived at, be it a connected by single killers murder series or something, say, more prosaic.

Ive tried to remain objective throughout, its just that I don't see the series numbers that are used as being viable base stats. Ive suggested many times here that I think a realistic group under one umbrella is 2, perhaps 3. Take those out from the rest, and you have a much different pattern of kills. And a range of skills/knowledge/pm mutilations.

Indeed. Given how we now see certain disaster capitalists revelling in Brexit, might a collection of murders be "publicised" by certain newspapers with proprietors/associates prospecting on cheaply acquiring certain shares in companies and/or properties in the East End? Might the news of a deranged phantom neatly drive prices down to some unseen ordure-stirrer's satisfaction?

[Trevor Marriott]

If the reason for the murders was to harvest uteri, then the mutilations were functional. On the double event the reason for limited mutilation on the first murder was explained by the murderer being disturbed. On the second 'the Ripper' had time to place the intestines over the right shoulder, indulge in limited facial mutilation with a cut across the nose and the womb was taken away, satisfying the murderer.

How sure are you that the killer had time to do all of that he is said to have done. What do you base you belief on?

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[DJA]

Thinking of most ridiculous theory and ..... here's Trev