Let's narrow down some Ripper 'facts'

[The Good Michael]

Hi All,

Surely one can only ascertain the minimum knowledge/experience/skill levels of a killer from what he has done to his victims' bodies - never the maximum. One can say that a specific skill was or was not displayed, but not that the killer possessed no such skill, since there could be many (some pretty obvious) reasons for him being temporarily unwilling or unable to use it.

Iff al my pests wer rittan lik this noboddy cud asserten that mi riting skils wer evon poor neva mind nonexisitint. For awl annywon new i mite rite very wel in deed wenever it sootid mi porpoise.

The man who left Mary Kelly in that little room for example, surrounded by her bits and pieces, did not need to be a masterchef, but he could have been. He was not trying to create and garnish a signature dish for his overpriced West End restaurant at the time. The remains strongly suggest that he was acting out an out-of-hours fantasy for destroying and mutilating a dish that had been created and garnished by nature.

Whatever this killer did, he had the skill to do - obviously. But we cannot know what else he may have been capable of, or what he could have done better, if he had had more time, more light, or simply the inclination to show off to the best of his ability. Dumbing down may well have been in his better interests than playing to the crowd and exposing himself as masterchef, master butcher or skilled medical man. But who knows? He managed to remove Eddowes's kidney but we have no idea why he took it away with him or what became of it. There is always the possibility that he kept it as a trophy or consumed it, but had access to other human kidneys through his work and decided to send one of these to Lusk with a dumbed-down message.

Errata, you wrote:



A sensitive subject, and I'm not trying to be funny or offensive here, but I am curious. If you genuinely think the mother could be to blame - at least in part - for what her adult son did to Chapman, Eddowes or Kelly, could he not have been a Jew who took the above literally and feared he could not be buried intact because his mother had allowed a certain private part of his own anatomy to be cut off at an early age? Would every Jew grow up to understand and accept the apparent contradiction here? Or might a more simple soul see taking away the female bits of prostitutes as his revenge for losing out in the hereafter?

Caz,

Great post as usual. You seem to save them up...a good thing, To piggy-back onto your thoughts while taking Errata's comments under consideration... if a Jewish murderer/errant Cohen believed in such things as all body parts needing to be there or there would be no afterlife, by depriving women of parts, would he feel ensured that they couldn't come back to get him? Kelly, of course, being a definite 'no'. I don't know what is believed about ghosts and vengeance and that sort of thing. There is something about the soul having difficulties returning to a mutilated body... I don't remember any more however.

Mike

[DVV]

Mutilation is indeed considered a malediction in many religions. Resurrection of the body, concept of integrity in zoroastrism, etc etc. It obliterates the next world. Looks like it.

[The Good Michael]

Mutilation is indeed considered a malediction in many religions. Resurrection of the body, concept of integrity in zoroastrism, etc etc. It obliterates the next world. Looks like it.

I'm doomed then... football, rugby, many little injuries, bits of skin gone here and there. Looks like I'll be haunting this plane.

Mike

[Ben]

Hi Jon,

Contemporary medical opinion saw sufficient anatomical knowledge, and that is the point.

But the weight of contemporary medical opinion didn't detect any anatomical knowledge beyond that possessed by the average man in the street. Sequeria's comments had absolutely nothing to do with the "Burking" theory, which he wasn't being asked about, and which wasn't his concern. As David's post perfectly demonstrates, his observations regarding the killer's apparent lack of "design on any particular organ" were offered in the context of the killer's apparent lack of anatomical knowledge. He was clearly saying that, in his opinion, the killer wasn't targetting any particular organ for extraction:

"I formed the opinion that the perpetrator of the deed had no particular design on any particular organ. I do not think he was possessed of any great anatomical knowledge"

The woman's abdomen had been opened consistent with a hysterectomy

It was consistent with tearing up the poor woman's abdomen to get at her insides. That's all. My point was that the "correct" way of extracting a kidney is through the back, and not as you described. And no, incidentally, there would have been no difficulty at all in flipping the daintily framed Kate Eddowes on to her front.

First, the kidney is located inside a membrane, so he had two options, he could grasp the whole organ and pull it from the body, or he could pass a knife behind the membrane to slice it from the body.

Or he could pull at the organ, realise that it still attached to the body, and simply cut the attachment. "Careful" was the opinion of Brown only, and it evidently was not shared by his three medical colleagues who examined the body.

The cut around the throat was described as "jagged" so he evidently was applying great force in a sawing action around her neck.

Yes, evidently. In other words, not remotely the way a qualified butcher would go about it - sawing forcefully at the bone itself as opposed to separating the vertebrae, at the Kelly murder at least.

All the best,
Ben

[Hunter]

Caz is right on the money here. It could have been anybody who 'at least' knew the position of the organs'. He could have been a medical student, a butcher...or... consider the targeting of the female characteristics, he could have been someone on the lowest rung of society with an infatuation with the female body; had found books to study; fantasized about what he would do over and over in his demented little brain until he had a basic idea of what he was going to do.

As far as the Phillips/ Baxter theory about Chapman? Phillips never proposed the 'Burking' theory; that was Baxter all by his lonesome. Phillips though he saw anatomical skill for sure. Guess what? He may have been wrong! When he walked into that yard at No. 29 Hanbury Street, he was faced with something he'd never seen before. He was a very conservative and practical man who had always witnessed crime scenes where an apparent motive was obvious. He trying to rationalize what he saw there. This was a whole new realm for everyone. He wasn't one to admit a mistake either... something that should be considered when he compares the injuries of Chapman and Eddowes.

I've put this question to Lynn twice here, but, for whatever reason he chooses to avoid me. So, I'll ask anyone who wants to answer... Forget the medicos' opinions for a moment. Concentrate on how the mutilations, eviscerations... all of the damage done to Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes... and tell me, what certain skill, knowledge, or whatever you want to call it, did the murderer of Annie Chapman display that was not shown in the Eddowes murder?... or hell... lets add the Kelly murder too if you want to.

You can't look at all of this to determine the motivations and reasonings of the medicos involved with the hindsight of already knowing the outcome of the whole series. You have to see it as they saw it as it unfolded. Then it is perfectly understandable why Phillips thought what he though about the Chapmam murder, why Brown, Sequeira and Saunders were really not in disagreement at the Eddowes investigation and why Bond reached his conclusion after the Kelly murder.

Each subsequent murder offered new clues that changed the perception of what was taking place.

[Garry Wroe]

I sometimes wonder whether we are attempting to justify "Jack's" actions in some way, as if to say it was not his fault, he could not control himself … Or, are we suggesting these potential causes because we wish to elevate him in the annals of crime to make him more like our modern sexual serial killers?

I think it's far simpler than that, Jon. Many appear incapable of associating the grotesque injuries meted out by Jack the Ripper with a 'normally' functioning human being. The logic appears to be that since the mutilations evidence more than a hint of madness, so the killer must have been in some way unhinged. Thus we have the leap from mutilations to paranoid schizophrenic.

It seems to matter not that we have many modern examples of perfectly sane killers who committed similar such crimes, nor that the Ripper’s victim and crime scene control were utterly inconsistent with a psychotic offender.

It is often argued that Jack the Ripper left few if any clues. This, however, is a fallacy. Whereas we lack DNA or fingerprint evidence, and indeed any description that might be construed as absolutely reliable, we do have an abundance of psychological clues which tell us a great deal about this man’s methods, motivations and mental state. On this basis it is inconceivable that he suffered from the kind of mental disorder that would have severely impaired his capacity to plan and execute these killings, much less retain absolute control over at least four successive victims at locations which were far from ideal for his intended purpose. Whatever his identity, Jack the Ripper was not suffering any significant degree of psychosis. Most likely, he was an Arthur Shawcross-type individual who was perfectly sane and acting upon a longstanding sexually orientated fantasy centring on the evisceration and general destruction of women.

In short, he was a paraphiliac, not a paranoid schizophrenic.

[Garry Wroe]

Excellent post, Hunter.

[DVV]

I'm doomed then... football, rugby, many little injuries, bits of skin gone here and there. Looks like I'll be haunting this plane.
Mike

I'm in touch with Evangelists and born-again punks in Ethiopia. They can save your soul for cheap and accept credit cards. Or you'll be floating over Tajikistan till the end of times.

[caz]

Good post Garry. This makes a lot of sense to me. But be careful when suggesting we can know anything at all about the killer's 'motivations' from his known actions. I'm not sure even such killers themselves quite grasp what causes them to take the monumental step of acting out their most extreme fantasies in often frightfully risky situations and circumstances.

More than this, his known actions cannot tell us what he didn't do for a living, any more than they can tell us what he did do, or where he came from to get his criminal jollies. For all you know his motivation could have included a compulsive obsession to target only Spitalfields unfortunates (as Colin Ireland would target only gays frequenting one specific pub in Fulham).

All we can say is that serial poisoners don't have to be chemists or physicians, and knife murderers don't have to be butchers or surgeons. But they could be.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Great posts Caz, Hunter, Garry!

Hunter
This talk of anatomical knowledge got me wondering about the medical book thing also as i had posted earlier. If JtR was fascinated with the insides of the female body (and it seems he was) i wonder if he could have got his hands on an anatomy book of some sort?

This thread delivers.

[DVV]

Whatever his identity, Jack the Ripper was not suffering any significant degree of psychosis. Most likely, he was an Arthur Shawcross-type individual who was perfectly sane and acting upon a longstanding sexually orientated fantasy centring on the evisceration and general destruction of women.

In short, he was a paraphiliac, not a paranoid schizophrenic.

Hi Garry, while I agree JtR was certainly closer to Shawcross than to Mullin (understatement), I wouldn't say Shawcross was perfectly sane.
As for paraphilia, I find it merely a modern synonym of "perversion" (a necrophiliac and, let's say, a foot-fetichist are both paraphiliac, right ?).

[Malcolm X]

Hello Malcolm. Jacob Isenschmid.

Here you go.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=4590

Cheers.
LC

he looks ok to me, relatively normal, cheeky/ funny looking, but he does look old, depending on how old the photos are that is.

[GregBaron]

Not the studious type...

This talk of anatomical knowledge got me wondering about the medical book thing also as i had posted earlier. If JtR was fascinated with the insides of the female body (and it seems he was) i wonder if he could have got his hands on an anatomy book of some sort?

Hey Abby,

Since no one else will answer your query I’ll entertain it myself. Of course he could have had access to some sort of book. But my inclination is that Jack wasn’t the bookish type. I go with a low-life borderline illiterate scoundrel variety. I doubt he spent his evenings studying his Funk & Wagnall’s.

He had a sexual perversion centered on the female reproductive areas. That’s all we know. He hated women or he feared women or he resented their sexual power or he wanted them but was impotent or had some other sexual inadequacy that threw him into a rage. These are simply possibilities.

Or maybe he was fond of offal and found this the cheapest way to acquire his dinner. As Caz says, we can’t know his motivations, we can only guess……..

As for his anatomical knowledge, I’m sticking with my (and others) contention that he was skilled with a knife and had seen butcheries or himself cut up animals. As pointed out many times, this would have been quite common among the classes we are describing.

But back to your original point, I don’t believe he learned the kidney position from Gray’s Anatomy although it was originally published in 1858...….


Greg

[Rya]

I have been following this thread with some interest and amusement, and at the risk of entering the crossfire, I'd like to make a few suggestions.

First (and this is restating Hunter's point above), "anatomical knowledge" is not an either/or proposition; it is just an epistemological discourse, not some innate defining property (like a uterus) that you either come equipped with or you don't. There would be a whole range of suspects in Victorian times--hunters and sportsman, people raised around livestock, ex-military man who served in the colonies, anyone who had travelled or lived on the frontiers of the Americas--who might have accumulated some measure of proficiency in killing and dressing mammalian animals for food, clothing, or other resources. Some, like more modern serial murders of the Kemper or Gein variety, may have even experimented with animal (or even human) anatomy through more clandestine means. In any event, none of these fellows would have anything like the "anatomical knowledge" that a medico or a slaughterman would possess or recognize, nor would they spend their evening studying Grey's. They would be mostly or entirely self-taught, and would have their own idiosyncratic method for accomplishing whatever task they had in mind. The killer could easily (most likely, actually) have been such a person.

Secondly, my experience in reading about this particular case is that many writers have an annoying habit of letting the suspect revise the evidence, rather than the other way round. Thus, for example, anytime I read a long passage about "anatomical knowledge," either for or against, I know I'm about to get a suspect that fits this imaginary criteria. Thus the killer becomes the mad doctor or the unemployed laborer who lives in the doss house aross the street (mental illness is another catagory of this type). Silly stuff, really.

Thirdly, I think it is fool's gold to use one doctor's opinion against another with these murders, since it is easy to find places where they all said eminently stupid things, even people who I would otherwise consider very qualified and smart. So I usually ignore the opinionated statements of the medicos, and focus entirely on the material facts such as we have them. Thus, Bond's comment that rigor mortis progressed during his examination of Kelly's body means a lot to me, but the his opinion that she was dead twelve hours when he began his examination (extremely unlikely, by the way) does not.

Lastly, there is no particular reason to believe that Eddowes killer fumbled, or bumbled, or mismanaged the removal of Kate's uterus anymore or less than that of Chapman. Depending on how you read the sometimes obtuse testimony from each inquest, it would be equally easy to draw exactly the opposite conclusion. Chapman's killer, as far as I can tell, laid open the pelvic region entirely, flaying the pubes from the body (Swanson says this in an internal report--he also mentions other flaps of skin taken away by the killer, all of which Phillips demures about at the inquest). Having done so, the killer appears to have laid the knife behind the pubic bone and made a single indisriminate scooping cut, lifting away uterus, appendages, and the cul de sac of the vagina (and most of the bladder). Phillips was much impressed by this, as well as how the killer avoided incising the rectal cavity. But frankly, its hard to even know from this if the uterus was even specifically the target of the mutilation.

By contrast, Eddowes's killer was precise: he lopped off the uterus, appendages and ligaments (albeit leaving the "stump" behind), yet he left intact both bladder and vaginal canal. This is even more interesting when you consider that while Chapman's murderer may have been able to see what he was about, the poor lighting conditions and clumsy vertical incision used in the Eddowes case made it more likely that her killer was operating by touch alone. Neither of these extractions look like anything a surgeon or a medical student would do (if I had done such a thing in dissection during my school days I would have been shot). But they are not the project of complete ignorance, either.

And don't even get me started on the kidney business.

[Errata]

Caz,

Great post as usual. You seem to save them up...a good thing, To piggy-back onto your thoughts while taking Errata's comments under consideration... if a Jewish murderer/errant Cohen believed in such things as all body parts needing to be there or there would be no afterlife, by depriving women of parts, would he feel ensured that they couldn't come back to get him? Kelly, of course, being a definite 'no'. I don't know what is believed about ghosts and vengeance and that sort of thing. There is something about the soul having difficulties returning to a mutilated body... I don't remember any more however.

Mike

Good questions, both of you. And nothing is a sensitive topic as long as it is approached with respect.

The answer to both is probably not. Here's why. Circumcision is a covenant between G-d and man, binding the Jewish people to him alone. It is considered so important that the only acceptable reason for failing to circumcise a child is if the life or the health of the child is at risk, like for example, if a child has hemophilia. In fact, some orthodox communities will circumcise the corpse of someone who could not have the ritual performed before burial.

As for the burial rituals, well, they are really really (really) complicated. But the gist of it is that it is the responsibility of the community to insure that the body is buried intact. If that cannot happen for some reason, that's okay. It doesn't affect the soul of the deceased. Remember these laws came from a time where animal attacks were not unheard of, and sometimes you just can't get stuff back. But the failure reflects on the community, not the deceased.

One of the things to remember is that we don't have an afterlife per se. We don't have Heaven or Hell. We have dead, and Resurrected. When we die, that's it until at some nebulous point in time the Messiah shows up and leads the righteous into the Garden of Eden (maybe). We don't know if we're going to need our physical bodies intact. We are preparing for the possibility. Hedging our bets if you will.

As for spirits, ghosts, whatever, we have the superstitions, but they aren't a part of our faith. Mostly we picked them up after the Diaspora from stories that were a part of the tradition of wherever we were living. But we don't become ghosts. There is a fragile point in time after death where our spirit can be dislodged by a demon (according to some traditions, Lilith being a common one) which is why the body is never left alone from the time of death until burial. But these strictures and superstitions have never applied to those of other faiths.

So I could say absolutely not, but I say probably not because who the hell knows in the end. Zealotry and bastardization of religion happens. A guy could have decided he knew better than everyone who taught him, in a David Koresh kind of way. In a benign form, that almost exactly describes Lubavitchers. But zealots tend to try a gain followers, so I don't think that's what happened here. I won't say never, but I will say not very likely.