John Douglasī Profile

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon S.,
So the number of victims could have been four or five or six or nine depending on which source you refer to. What with the contradictory witness statements, missing evidence and dispute over the number of JtR victims, no wonder the case was never solved....

Hi Siobhan.
I didn't seriously expect to open up an exchange on Profiling the Ripper, the post had a percentage of tongue-in-cheek criticism attached to it.
Essentially, I was suggesting what a pointless excercise it is.

I have just a little disdain for Ripper Profiling, not Profiling in general, Profiling can actually be quite usefull.
When Profiling is applied today, especially in the most celebrated (read - successfull) cases, the Profiler is not presented with a wide range of corpses potentially attributed to an equally wide range of killers, or handfull at best.

In most, if not all cases, where Profiling is applied, the crimes/bodies are already determined as a 'group' (by Signature, M.O. or Victim Typology) - to be the work of one killer.
Profiling does not segregate victims into groups, the Victim Group has to be applied first, then the Profiler is brought in.
In these situations Profiling is considerably easier to apply, with a greater chance of success.
In cases where a group of victims cannot be so divided, or cannot be determined as a whole to be the work of one killer, the Profilers cannot apply their guidelines. This is the situation with the Whitechapel Murders.

Regards, Jon S.

[sdreid]

It looks like Nichols and Chapman were the only ones all those agreed on and Nichols had no organs removed so that leaves us with an extremely small sample.

The Book of Lists includes Jackson to make a top 10.

[Siobhan Patricia Mulcahy]

So lets play, Profile the Ripper.

"There were nine killings in the series. How many are likely to have been slain by the same hand, that of the man we now call Jack the Ripper?
Popular report at the time credited him with all nine. But detectives and surgeons who worked on the case held widely divergent views.

At the extremes Inspector Reid attributed all nine murders to the Ripper and Superintendent Arnold felt that he was responsible for no more than four, apparently those of Nichols, Chapman, Stride and Kelly." (p.357)


The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is, if Profiling is objective, as opposed to subjective, which do we include/exclude and why?

Regards, Jon S.

Hi Jon S.,
So the number of victims could have been four or five or six or nine depending on which source you refer to. What with the contradictory witness statements, missing evidence and dispute over the number of JtR victims, no wonder the case was never solved.
Though the double slaying on the one day does leave it open to question whether both were by JtR's hand, I'm going for the five well-known cannonical victims. The other murders didn't have quite the same m.o.

[Wickerman]

So lets play, Profile the Ripper.

"There were nine killings in the series. How many are likely to have been slain by the same hand, that of the man we now call Jack the Ripper?
Popular report at the time credited him with all nine. But detectives and surgeons who worked on the case held widely divergent views.

At the extremes Inspector Reid attributed all nine murders to the Ripper and Superintendent Arnold felt that he was responsible for no more than four, apparently those of Nichols, Chapman, Stride and Kelly." (p.357)

Dr Phillips involved in six post-mortems discounted McKenzie & Coles, and had serious doubts about Eddowes.

McNaghten thought the Ripper slew Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes and Kelly.
Abberline & Anderson agreed with the above, but included Tabram.

Dr Bond agreed with Nichols, Chapman, Stride and Eddowes, but thought to include Kelly & McKenzie based on similarity of the wounds.

Quotes and paraphrasing from, The Complete History of Jack the Ripper, Philip Sugden, 1995, pp 356/7 .



"After careful & long deliberation I cannot satisfy myself on purely anatomical & professional grounds, that the perpetrator of all the Whitechapel murders is one man. I am on the contrary impelled to a contrary conclusion in this, noting the mode of procedure & the character of the mutilations & judging of motive in connection with the latter"
Dr Geo. Phillips, July 22, 1889, MEPO 3/140, f. 270.

The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is, if Profiling is objective, as opposed to subjective, which do we include/exclude and why?

Regards, Jon S.

[Cuervo]

Just to explain that I donīt despise at all the jobs of the big name of the FBI, but sometimes they were not very scientific, thatīs what I pretend to mean.

[Cuervo]

Hi to all
I repeat again, thereīs lots of good work and scientific research behind Profiling. There are more profilers in the world than Doouglas, Ressler, etc. I recomend again the works of Cristina Soeiro in Portugal and Vicente Garrido in Spain (for instance). And I know there is a good group of criminologists working with the police in South Africa doing excellent research. I mean, there are different ways of doing profiling, and not everyone does it as if we were living constantly in a Hollywood movie.

And about the organized and disorganized category...I thought it was something totally obsolet and most of serial killers were a mixed category
Best

PS: Iīll read your article Corey

[GregBaron]

Both

Agreed again Siobhan,

I don' t think Jack would be the first to start to lose it and get sloppy......and I do believe he was a bit of both....I'll have to read Corey's article.... sounds like a good one....


Greg

[Siobhan Patricia Mulcahy]

Agreed Siobhan,

I remember a heated debate here in the past concerning JTR's organization/disorganization. I believe you can make fairly good arguments on either side. That articles was interesting but I found it amusing that they labeled JTR disorganized as if it was a shut case. I guess he was organized enough to not get caught and make fools of everyone................!


Greg

Hi Greg,
Corey, who has already posted on this thread, wrote a very good article on the escalation of JtR's violence during the timeframe of the 5 canonical victims in a recent edition of the Examiner. It suggests that JtR may have started out fairly organised or in control, but he lost the run of himself somewhat by the time of MJK's murder which was frenzied (and perhaps a bit disorganised?) So he was a bit of both - espcially as he outwitted his pursuers.

[GregBaron]

Which is he?

Agreed Siobhan,

I remember a heated debate here in the past concerning JTR's organization/disorganization. I believe you can make fairly good arguments on either side. That articles was interesting but I found it amusing that they labeled JTR disorganized as if it was a shut case. I guess he was organized enough to not get caught and make fools of everyone................!


Greg

[Siobhan Patricia Mulcahy]

Here's some more fuel for the fire you all............Apparently JTR is still disorganized!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/ny...nted=1&_r=1&hp

A fascinating article on the Long Island Killer - well worth reading with its comparisons to other serial killers modern and historical. So thanks for the reference.

The only downside in the article's analysis is that according to one of the "experts" quoted in the article, disorganised serial killers are easier to catch and JtR is a good example. But JtR was never caught...yes, indeed.

[GregBaron]

Serial on Long Island...

Here's some more fuel for the fire you all............Apparently JTR is still disorganized!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/nyregion/long-island-serial-killer-gets-a-personality-profile.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

[Scorpio]

Douglas and Hazelwood's JtR profile was suppossed to provide a simplified example of profiling to the public. The organised/disorganised criteria was only lightly touched upon. A real investigation would be much more thorough than this PR exercise, but most of it is quite accurate i believe.

[GregBaron]

Profile Schmofile........

I don't think I'm the only one here skeptical of profiling....in fact I remember us thrashing this about some time ago....while I think all tools are needed to capture these atrocious murderers remember this is only one tool of many and one of questionable worth as well. As someone once pointed out, taking what we've learned in the last 20 years and extrapolating back 120 years is definitely a tactic of questionable value.....Societal input variables are certainly far different...........as I believe someone else also pointed out, profiling has yet to catch anyone....In addition, undeniably as a cynical example, I remember about 10 years ago when a sniper was killing people in the Virginia area, naturally the profilers said look for a middle aged disgruntled loner militia type white guy.............turned out to be 2 black guys, one a juvenile.............case rested.


Greg

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi GM

I saw this elsewhere and laughed out loud. Secret FBI profile? The profile states quite clearly that it was done "At the request of Cosgrove-Meurer Productions." They were the television company that did The Secret Identity of Jack the Ripper hosted by Peter Ustinov back in 1988. This is the profile that Douglas read out on the show so it was only a secret between the FBI and the millions of people world wide who watched the show or who own a VHS/DVD copy.

Shhhhh. Don't tell anybody.

Wolf.

Hi Wolf

The other thing that perplexes me is why this FBI profile suddenly has become "news" in the Mail and in The Sun, when the profile has been readily available on the FBI website for years.

Chris

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Hi GM

I saw this elsewhere and laughed out loud. Secret FBI profile? The profile states quite clearly that it was done "At the request of Cosgrove-Meurer Productions." They were the television company that did The Secret Identity of Jack the Ripper hosted by Peter Ustinov back in 1988. This is the profile that Douglas read out on the show so it was only a secret between the FBI and the millions of people world wide who watched the show or who own a VHS/DVD copy.

Shhhhh. Don't tell anybody.

Wolf.