A Charming, Personable Jack vs A Violent Maniac

[Steven_Rex]

Having recently watched Alfred Hitchcock's 1972 movie 'Frenzy', I began to think about the possibility of Jack the Ripper being somewhat like the killer at work in the film: an outwardly friendly, happy-go-lucky, even helpful chap who, much like Jekyll, successfully hides his monstrous 'other side'. Certainly, the notion of a friendly, charming killer (known in the area) would explain both his ability to go unsuspected and his victims' trust (assuming he accosted them rather than sprung from the shadows).

However, in researching a little on precedents for serial killers who displayed an outward charm and high level of sociability, I found that (as in 'Frenzy'), such killers tended to strangle, beat or shoot their victims, usually with a rape involved (Ted Bundy or Rodney Alcala, for example). This has led me to question whether a killer like Jack, whose crimes showed an overwhelming ferocity and bloodthirst, COULD successfully maintain an outward air of charm and friendliness. His main goal seemed to be to eviscerate, tear and otherwise rip and disfigure his victims beyond recognition; any sexual motivation can only be guessed at. Thus, I would be interested in hearing opinions on whether a killer of such barbarity could follow the mould (or rather, have set it!) of people like Bundy by maintaining an air of affability despite his intentions being so singularly violent, and his motives centring purely on savagery.

[ChrisGeorge]

Hello Steven

Hitchcock had first explored the idea of a charming and personable killer much earlier on than his late film, "Frenzy" (1972). One of his earliest films was "The Lodger" (1926), based on the Marie Belloc-Lowndes novel of the same name about a character based on the Jack the Ripper case. As one commentator noted as to this type of story, "[The] murderer was represented as suffering only occasional lapses into insanity, in intervals between, quite sane." The idea of an attractive and reasonable man also more neatly conforms with our modern idea of a serial killer rather than the crazed, foaming-at-the-mouth killer that most people in 1888, police included, envisioned the killer to have been.

Best regards

Chris

[curious4]

Charming Jack

Hello, (Posting this again as my last one disappeared.)

Yes I definitely do think that Jack could show a charming face. He needed to be convincing to approach victims in the prevailing climate of fear, perhaps even posing as a well-wisher who offered to rescue them from their poor and degrading lives. However, I think the other side to his character was known to his family and close friends.

For a very charming and convincing murderer who didnīt hesitate to mutilate and dismember his victims look at Mudgett aka H. H. Holmes, the mass murderer at the Chicago Trade Fair/Exhibition in 1893. He was said to be incredibly persuasive, even talking round his creditors when necessary. There is a very good book by Erik Larsson (not sure of the title in english - possibly "Devil in the White City"). Much better than the documentary. I have often wondered why he is not on the list of suspects.

Best wishes,
C4

P.S. Jack strangled his victims first, before cutting their throats

[Errata]

This has led me to question whether a killer like Jack, whose crimes showed an overwhelming ferocity and bloodthirst, COULD successfully maintain an outward air of charm and friendliness.

Not only is it possible, it is just as equally likely as a creepy loner or a raving lunatic. One of the things serial killers excel at is compartmentalization. It is entirely possible that the killers mind was not constantly seething with rage or violence, but would be triggered.

[Steven_Rex]

I agree, ChrisGeorge, that Jack would have seemed a reasonable man; not only to gain his victims' trust, but to 'pass' in his everyday life as a normal man. I wonder, though, if the police were really naive enough to be hunting solely a drooling, maniacal monster. Despite having presumably little experience of serial killers, surely they would have reached similar conclusions about the Ripper's ability to engage with his victims and escape detection.

As to the victims themselves, I wonder just when exactly the climate of fear reached fever pitch. If it was evident after the Chapman murder that a rabid killer of prostitutes was on the loose, I wonder what Jack would have had to have done to gain the trust of Stride, Eddowes and Kelly. Were the rumours of a well-dressed, genteel man around at such an early stage? If so, surely such an alien character approaching them would have immediately aroused suspicion? Even his offering something out of the ordinary (like rescue from their impoverished lives) would have struck a false note, in my opinion. Far more likely was he to come across as a genial, local fellow, who wanted 'the usual' and seemed no different / offered nothing more than their usual clientele.

With regard to his mind being so compartmentalised, I would have to agree. Indeed, he must have been a master! The 'trigger' is perhaps somewhat more curious, however, as he must have switched in a moment from the genial 'punter' to the sadistic and remorseless killer. I can only imagine that the seething rage must have always been there, but bubbling away under the surface, and only released at the moment he knew he had the unfortunate woman totally within his power.

[Ben]

Were the rumours of a well-dressed, genteel man around at such an early stage? If so, surely such an alien character approaching them would have immediately aroused suspicion? Even his offering something out of the ordinary (like rescue from their impoverished lives) would have struck a false note, in my opinion. Far more likely was he to come across as a genial, local fellow, who wanted 'the usual' and seemed no different / offered nothing more than their usual clientele.

I agree wholeheartedly, Steven.

The more reliable eyewitness testimony (particularly Lawende's) could also point towards such an individual.

[Hatchett]

Hi,

I think that is entirely logical. It not only explains why the prostitutes went with him but also how he managed to disappear into the streets that were often about to become crowded.

Certainly a well dressed "toff" would have stuck out like a sore thumb, and also been looked upon as an alien. He would have been distrusted and remembered.

Who ever killed Mary Kelly must have been clearly trusted by her for her to have allowed him into her room and undressed.

Best wishes.

[Archaic]

Hi Steven, and welcome to Casebook.

I agree with you and Ben that the killer was probably capable of appearing charming and affable, and knew how to put his potential victims at ease.

Unfortunately both the police, the public, and the victims themselves were envisioning the killer as some kind of "raving lunatic", a person quite different from themselves. He was pictured as a "maniac", a "madman", "insane" and even an epileptic! The killer committed such loathsome acts that he was envisioned as being someone quite different from "normal" people. He was popularly pictured as a evil-looking "foreigner" rather than as an Englishman, because it was so hard for people to believe that an Englishmen could commit acts of such depravity.

"The murderer committed grotesquely horrific acts, therefore he must be mad" was the popular reasoning. It's not really the police or public's fault that they thought this way; there was very little understanding of Psychology in 1888, let alone the special psychology of serial killers.

I've posted a large number of c.1888 Medical Journal articles here on Casebook, and many of them show that at least some contemporary physicians and alienists (early psychologists) were much more 'modern' in their understanding of the psychology and motives of such a grotesque killer. The term 'serial killer' wouldn't come into use for another 100 years, but some medical professionals had begun to grasp some of the underlying concepts. (Others still clung to the stark-raving-mad theory, and I posted their articles too.) The more enlightened medical professionals are likely to have read Kraftt-Ebing's masterwork 'Psychopathia Sexualis', whereas the average citizen or police officer had not.

A pleasant, affable, seemingly "normal" killer would have easily allayed any potential fear on the part of his victims- and unfortunately, all he needed was an unguarded moment in which to strike.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Steven_Rex]

Archaic, many thanks for the welcome, and that is so interesting! In fact, it leads me to wonder how many of the suspects (I'm thinking now of Kosminski) who were mooted around the time of the killings were only suspected because of their mental health issues or 'mania' as it might have been termed. Is it possible that the police were so fixated on the idea that their man must have been a gibbering wreck or asylum inmate that they ignored what we might now recognise as potentially more realistic suspects? Perhaps the ladies themselves also considered anyone who wasn't drooling and shaking with rage to be a safe option...

With regard to historical context (which I confess to always bleating on about!), I also wonder just how the Ripper would have regarded himself. As you've noted, 'serial killer' was not a term available, and so Jack as a rational man (at least, in his everyday 'outward' life) must have had some notion of the 'unnatural' nature of his actions. Whilst contemporary doctors may have believed he committed the murders in an epileptic fit or the like (as some claimed of Lizzie Borden), the man himself was obviously intelligent enough to evade capture, indicating that he knew that what he was doing was (legally at least) wrong. It's certainly interesting to consider what he would have considered himself in the period in which he lived. This, I think, is where notions about him rationalising his actions as some kind of 'cleansing' of the streets might gain credit.

[Errata]

There is a certain truth that raving lunatics are not particularly successful serial killers. No one gets in the car with them.

[Wickerman]

Possibly thee principal reason, aside from not being caught in the act, that Jack was never caught.
No-one saw him, yet everyone saw him.
He was nowhere, yet he was everywhere.
He did not disappear into the crowd, he was the crowd.
The press created a monster, while the police looked for madness, yet no-one thought to question the quiet, polite & charming,.. man next-door.

[Hatchett]

Hi,

Yes, Wickerman I think you are right. And yet I fear that tendency to see a monster as being the killer rests somewhere inside of all of us. I wonder what we would have thought if the killer had been caught and turned out to be an outwardly inoffensive looking soul that wouldnt say boo to a goose. I wonder if in a way we would feel uncomfortable with that. Even disappointed in a strange way. Perhaps we need to see a monster because we cannot accept a normal inoffensive looking soul being capable of such barbarity and horror to another human being..

Best wishes.

[Rubyretro]

I see JTR as having a fewthings in common with the taxi driver who
killed the girl, Sian, in Wiltshire recently -and who may yet turn out to be a Serial killer.

He could pick up loads of women in his taxi, and drive them home, whilst chatting perfectly normally and putting them at ease (according to the girl whom he drove home just before picking up Sian), and no one would suspect him of being a murderer. Something triggered him to kill, and it doesn't appear that he sexually assaulted his victims.

According to one newspaper, when the Police gave out that they were looking for a taxi which was a dark green estate car, he voluntarily went to the Police and offered to give his DNA in order to be eliminated from the enquiry (we won't know if this is true until the trial, but this is what he told
collegues he done, at the taxi firm).

He had a Police 'missing' poster of Sian in his car, and appeared concerned about finding her and wanting to help.

He was known to Sian, although not well.

[Man Flex]

Unfortunately this description of a charming, affable, gentlemanly Jack is at odds with the idea that the murders stopped because he was incarcerated at her majesty's pleasure for some other crime or committed to an asylum.

Having said this I have always been of the opinion that Jack had some social skills and that he was less likely to be a paranoid schizophrenic such as Kosminski.

Just reading Professor David Wilson's book regarding British serial killers and his impression is that Jack's profile agrees with that produced by John Douglas. In other words a loner, who had little social etiquet, below average intelligence and had next to no previous sexual experience.

And he know's more about serial killers than most!

[Archaic]

c.1888 Medical Journal Theories & Psychopathia Sexualis

Possibly thee principal reason, aside from not being caught in the act, that Jack was never caught.
No-one saw him, yet everyone saw him.
He was nowhere, yet he was everywhere.
He did not disappear into the crowd, he was the crowd.
The press created a monster, while the police looked for madness, yet no-one thought to question the quiet, polite & charming,.. man next-door.

Yes, I agree with you Jon. Look at disgusting killers like Dennis Rader, "BTK", who appeared to be a happily married man & father, active in his church, and a respected member of his community. If you only knew of him through his sadistic crimes, before he was caught, how would you have envisioned him? Maybe as a mentally ill sick loner subsisting in a squalid apartment?
And yet that 'pillar of the community' committed numerous brutal murders. He horrifically tortured and killed an entire family, including young children, for his own sexual pleasure. And he got away with it for decades because he seemed so "normal".

Steven, I'm not sure I can find the exact articles right away, but I've posted c.1888 Medical Journal articles in which the authors discuss the fact that a man who kills repeatedly yet manages to escape the crime scene and evade capture each time demonstrates many facts pointing to sanity: that he didn't "alarm" his victims by strange behavior, because they willingly went into dark places with him, that he consistently outsmarted the police & the locals, and by evading capture each time demonstrated that he knew there were definite legal consequences to committing murder.

In 1888 they didn't have the specific terms "Psychopath" or "Sociopath" yet, but many medical professionals understood that the killer's behavior, though violent, loathsome, and horrific, was not a case of a raving lunatic who is mentally incompetent and thus cannot be held morally responsible for his crimes.

As they struggled to understand the phenomena of the Whitechapel Murders, one of the terms the medical professionals used was "moral insanity"- meaning that the killer was devoid of natural human morals. But even as they used that term they realized it was inadequate, because the killer wasn't "insane" in the sense of not knowing right from wrong, but instead "morally depraved" in that he chose to do wrong.

Many of the medical professionals also understood that the killer's motivation for the murders and the ghastly mutilations he performed involved some incredibly warped form of sexual pleasure. Even today normal people have difficulty comprehending that any human being could derive sexual pleasure from such repulsive acts. It was even harder in 1888 to grasp the fact that behaviors so utterly alien to normal human sexuality could be sexually pleasurable for a deviant individual.

If any of you are interested in the LVP Medical Journal Articles, here's a link to the threads I've started: http://forum.casebook.org/search.php...d=551449&pp=25
The Medical Journal articles will be identified in the thread title, such as "Sexual Perversion and the Whitechapel Murders in LVP Medical Journals." Most were originally posted in Nov & Dec of 2009.

I also recommend reading 'Psychopathia Sexualis', which is available at Archive.org. It can be read online or downloaded at: http://www.archive.org/details/psych...sexu00krafuoft

By the way, Steven, you said you've wondered how the Ripper regarded himself. There has been speculation (including on some of the Med Journal threads mentioned) that the Whitechapel murderer might actually have read books like 'Psychopathia Sexualis', which would definitely have told him that he was not the only person in the world with such deviant desires. The book also details how other killers were caught- the behaviors that gave them away, the clues that were left, etc. Interestingly, 'Psychopathia Sexualis' was first published in 1886, and the Ripper Murders occurred in 1888. Of course, we'll probably never know, but it is a possibility.

Best regards,
Archaic