Organised or Disorganised?

[Pippin Joan]

knee deep and slumming

Remember the hours when the murders occurred. After 11 p.m., there were fewer women on the street. The pubs were closed weren't they, unless I am mistaken on that. The only women on the street were those who were desperate for the few pennies needed for a bed, the most desperate and poor women. The back streets and alleys were emptier, and a safer place for Jack, if he kept his eye on the police patrols.

A lot is made of the practice of "slumming", to allow the possibility of Jack being a toff from the outside. Slumming was a fashion, and not something someone did to purposefully put one's self in a dangerous situation. It would not be done alone and after midnight. The safest option was the charitable works angle, but those with a sense of adventure and a taste for decadence went in pairs or groups, visiting the music halls, partying at somewhat respectable drinking and dining establishments, and visiting whorehouses. No outsider in his right mind would be trolling the back alleys at 1 a.m., looking for the most unattractive and probably disease-ridden women in London. Of course, we are talking about Jack here, who is not in his "right mind", but I still don't see him as an outsider taking that risk. The only description of a "toff" that we have is Hutchinson's, and that is hugely suspect. He wanted the police to think it was an outsider.

[Ravenstone]

Organised. As much as such a label is worth anything. To be honest, too much of profiling has turned into a tick list. Hindsight is such a wonderful thing.

Anyway, for what it is worth, he took his weapon with him, he didn't leave evidence behind. He may have ripped his victims up, but he didn't 'blitz' attack them. He talked them into going down the alley. He was capable of assuming a 'normal' appearance and conducting sufficient conversation to convince already frightened prostitutes into going somewhere where they would be undisturbed. Therefore, there must have been something about him that made them think he was worth the risk. Sure, they were desperate, but they were also frightened. Would they have gone down a quiet alley with a guy who looked like he was Jack the Ripper? I doubt it.

So - organised.

[Wickerman]

...given the specifics of the mutilations (throat cut unneccesarily, body sliced open from the pubis upwards, intestines unceremoniously torn out and dumped, etc.)? A morgue attendant?

The first point; I am at a loss to understand why you think the throats were cut unneccesarily.

The second point; I will always regret that I never saved one certain link I stumbled across some 7-8 yrs ago. It was a contemporary 19th century description of the surgical removal of a uterus where the opening up of the patient by a single slice from the pubis to the arch of the breastbone was seen to have been standard 19th century practice.

Third point; Yes, I have favoured the culprit to have been a mortuary attendant myself. One of the minuses on that avenue is that the Metropolitan region had no permanant mortuary attendants, they seem to have been corralled from a local workhouse .
However, the City of London did have a permanant staff at the mortuary.

[Ben]

I agree, both Kelly and Eddowes, possibly others, were also found with their legs parted. He was drawing sexual attention to the victims, as well as to his crimes.

Or they simply parted as the victim fell to the ground, or they were parted to facillitate access to the abdominal region from the front. In either scenario, it wouldn't have had anything to do with "drawing sexual attention to the victims". I'm not saying for certain that this never featured on his agenda. I'm just pointing out that there may have been more practical reasons for the "exposed" nature of the victims; reasons that probably reflected his lack of private accomodation more than anything else.

Best regards,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

what about the somehow fashionable habit of "slum(m?)ing" in Whitechapel? Was Whitechapel the typical and n°1 place for that, or was it just an area among others where "sluming" was possible?

Seth Koven, in his book "Slumming: Sexual and Social Politics in Victorian London", points out the lack of definition around the word "slumming", which is the first thing to note - we don't really know what "slumming" is (or, rather, it means different things to different people). The Oxford dictionary defines slumming something like "Visiting slums, especially for charitable purposes"; it defines to slum similarly, but gives the alternative definition: "To go into slums for disreputable purposes". Slummers are defined variously as those who engaged in "slumming", but also as those who actually lived in the slums themselves.

Given that rather woolly state of affairs, it's little wonder that any conclusion to the effect that Whitechapel was (or wasn't) a "n°1 place" for slumming is apt to court controversy. Suffice to say that it was not unique among urban slum districts in attracting the prurient attention of sensation-seeking middle classes (of both sexes) throughout the Victorian period. That said, the presence in Whitechapel of Toynbee Hall may have served as a magnet for the well-heeled "slummer" to frequent the area - albeit these occupied a place on the "Slummers' Scale" that was more at the philanthropic, rather than sensation-seeking, end of the spectrum.

In terms of "recreational" slumming, I have little doubt that it happened in other parts of London, too - and in other cities throughout Britain and the Western World.

[DVV]

Maybe the ripper was confident that he could escape or successfully face and fight any constable that would have jumped at him. At least, he had a knife in hand.

Amitiés,
David

[Ashkenaz]

I think he definitely wanted his victims to be found exposed and mutilated and that this was an important part of his MO. .

I agree, both Kelly and Eddowes, possibly others, were also found with their legs parted. He was drawing sexual attention to the victims, as well as to his crimes. He probably got a kick out of horrifying and disgusting others- those who would find the victim.

I think he was organised because of his ability to work swiftly, achieve as much of his aim as possible at each location and then disappear into the dawn.

I would say he showed organised and disorganised traits in the commissioning of his crimes.

He was also someone who was prepared to take chances, I'm surprised that he was never caught.

[DVV]

Hi Sam,
that's interesting, and what about the somehow fashionable habit of "slum(m?)ing" in Whitechapel? Was Whitechapel the typical and n°1 place for that, or was it just an area among others where "sluming" was possible?

Amitiés,
David

[Sam Flynn]

The Whitechapel of the day was knee-deep in prostitutes

That's often believed to be the case, DP, but I'm not so sure that it's not just another myth - if there were as many as 1,000 prostitutes in Whitechapel I should be very surprised. Surveys conducted by the police pointed at somewhere between six and eight hundred prostitutes who lived and/or operated in Whitechapel, and this has to be seen in the context of a large geographical area, housing a population of over 90,000. Since not all Whitechapel prostitutes necessarily "worked" the streets of Whitechapel either - merely lodging there - the district was hardly knee-deep in them, and there were certainly other parts of London that were as bad, if not worse, in terms of their prostitution density.

[DarkPassenger]

Jack went out with his knife in case the opportunity presented itself - an organized trait. He was able to decide if, when, and where he was able to pull off a killing. Organized. He killed in the streets because that's where the were. He left them there because he had to move on and lugging a dead body up the street would attract attention. He follows a disorganized pattern in his fascination with the dead body. His "ritual", if it can be called that, is his crude dissection, occasionally taking away a souvenir. I doubt if he had any elaborate plans to cover his tracks or a "double life". The ineptitude of the police, the limitations of forensic science, and the great opportunity to be anonymous in Whitechapel covered his tracks.

The Whitechapel of the day was knee-deep in prostitutes - it was the opposite of a serial killer's "trolling" ground - it was for all intents and purposes a free-for-all. He didn't need to hunt for victims.
Also, there is significant questions about whether Jack removed the organs or whether they were stolen in transit to the morgue (I thank Marriot for that suggestion by the way)

Ripper letters suggest an organized killer, one who revels in his fame and wants to add to it, even taunting the police and the public. I can't count on any of the letters to be genuinely from the real murderer, and I don't think he wrote any. I imagine he was even annoyed at them, as the publicity made his occupation more risky.

Agreed

I picture Jack as a disturbed and alienated man who had some family connections, but who lived largely on the fringes of any meaningful social relationships. He was a nobody, a slightly weird nobody, that no one cared to know. He was not tricky or clever, but had street-smarts or a basic survival instinct that kept him one step ahead. It all ended somewhere, but for "my" Jack, I believe it was alone and forgotten. He wasn't "tripped up"; he fell apart.

Agreed again!

[Ben]

With that said, the killer(s) spent a lot of time with the victims, the opportunity was most likely present to at least make an attempt to cover up or dispose of the bodies.

I respectfully disagree, Matt.

Had the killer spent any extra time attempting to dispose of the body of Catherine Eddowes, he'd have bumped straight into PC Watkins. At Hanbury Street, he would almost certainly have been aware of a potential "ear-witness" on the other side of the dividing fence, giving him an obvious disincentive to stick around (not that the location was particularly exposed anyway), and at Buck's Row, the proximity to a stable door suggests very strongly that he did intend to dispatch her within rather than leaving her on the streets.

There's no doubt that the mutilations had a "meaning" to him, but given that lack of any obvious posing, I personally doubt that a perceived "audience" was uppermost in his mind.

Welcome to Casebook!

Ben

[Limehouse]

Hi Mutt, and welcome. The post above completely hits the nail on the head for me. I completely agree.

[Mutt]

The concept of organization or disorganization is educated guesswork, and may be particularly suited for a discussion of a 120 year old group of homicides. The one aspect of the White Chapel murders that seems to have survived in great detail is the descriptions of the crime scenes and autopsies.

With that said, the killer(s) spent a lot of time with the victims, the opportunity was most likely present to at least make an attempt to cover up or dispose of the bodies. At the very least he could have hid them a little so as to increase the time the killer had to put distance between himself and the crime scene.

The bodies were without question left in the open. This could be the product of circumstances, but over the course of several killings a general sense of showmanship seems to be present. This could either be an off handed dismissal of the women's bodies, the killer's desire to display the ruined corpses, or he had no choice in the location of the crime, but felt it needed to be carried out none the less. The first impression I have of the photographs and the locations of the bodies is a 'look what I did' sensation. So I would tend to lean toward the idea that the killer was displaying his work.

If the death of the women was the purpose of the act, then the knife wound to the neck should have sufficed. The fact that the killer took the time to disfigure or disembowel his target may imply that the act itself had meaning. If that is the case, then the killer may want the product of his rage known to the public, he worked hard, now he's showing off his finished product.

Gentleman, I am relatively new to the forum, and through the web site and the forum, I have learned a lot. Thanks for the education.

[Ben]

Hi Limehouse,

Personally, I do not think JtR would have killed victims in his home if he had one. I believe he was preditory, and wanted expose his victims. The mutilations post stangulation or suffocation point to this.

I'm not sure why the presence of mutilations of strangulation (etc) would indicate a desire to expose his victims. The strangulation/suffocation probably only fulfilled the purpose of silencing the victim, and the mutilations were undoubtedly personal to him, as opposed to some depraved form of artwork intended for an audience. For that reason, I'd have to disagree pretty strongly that he would not have used his home if he had one. Rather, I think the exposed nature of the bodies points to someone without private accomodation making the most of mitigating circumstances.

Best regards,
Ben

[Pippin Joan]

Jack didnt attack to control then kill, he simply killed because that was his urge and his curiosity laid with the organs, not the victim.

I agree with Monty on this. Of course it depends on the image you put together in your mind about who/what Jack is as a person. I see him as a calculating, but disorganized killer. He goes out with a plan to find someone but he is not really all that careful. By that I mean that he is alert to any chance that he may be caught, but he is totally dependent on his choice of neighbourhood, time of killing (when few people are out), and his knowledge of the streets. Jack is interested in body organs and he finds people who can supply the material for his little investigations. It helps him tremendously that police forensics is practically non-existent. Criminal psychology is barely a matter of any study. To people of the day, a person who would do this must be similar to Jekyll's Hyde, a completely crazed beast, not a person who appears normal to the world.

Jack went out with his knife in case the opportunity presented itself - an organized trait. He was able to decide if, when, and where he was able to pull off a killing. Organized. He killed in the streets because that's where the were. He left them there because he had to move on and lugging a dead body up the street would attract attention. He follows a disorganized pattern in his fascination with the dead body. His "ritual", if it can be called that, is his crude dissection, occasionally taking away a souvenir. I doubt if he had any elaborate plans to cover his tracks or a "double life". The ineptitude of the police, the limitations of forensic science, and the great opportunity to be anonymous in Whitechapel covered his tracks.

Ripper letters suggest an organized killer, one who revels in his fame and wants to add to it, even taunting the police and the public. I can't count on any of the letters to be genuinely from the real murderer, and I don't think he wrote any. I imagine he was even annoyed at them, as the publicity made his occupation more risky.

I picture Jack as a disturbed and alienated man who had some family connections, but who lived largely on the fringes of any meaningful social relationships. He was a nobody, a slightly weird nobody, that no one cared to know. He was not tricky or clever, but had street-smarts or a basic survival instinct that kept him one step ahead. It all ended somewhere, but for "my" Jack, I believe it was alone and forgotten. He wasn't "tripped up"; he fell apart.