Let's narrow down some Ripper 'facts'

[Malcolm X]

yes Necrophilia certainly fits the bill or more likely a variation of this, because Necrophilia is more about having sex with the dead, and this is not what he was about, but i cant think of anything else to call it.

if this is true, whatever he asked for these women to do, obviously upset them, which resulted in a swift response from them, i.e ``clear off you sicko`` and this in turn caused him to fly into a childish temper tantrum...... maybe!

he thus attacked them, targeting that area, sometimes.

i sense with these non JTR murders, a swift sudden careless attack, after something has gone wrong, he's then legging it at high speed. it looks like he's got something sexual on his mind.

why so careless before and after JTR, because he can no longer be JTR, so he's returning to the way he once was... or this is another killer !

but to be honest i've no idea.

.

[Errata]

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

First of all, Bravo on referencing paraphilias. That doesn't come up nearly enough. Though personally I favor a Dennis Rader/Ed Gein model. A generally normal guy (who actually might be a prig) whose abusive childhood produced an untenable mix of mutilation/sex/mommy. Norman Bates if you will. Without the dressing up part.

[DVV]

Sorry, but even if Garry is right pointing out "paraphilia", it doesn't mean a lot. There are dozens of paraphilias, categories and sub-categories. So yes, Jack was a paraphiliac. Which kind, though ? Necrophilia, necro-sadism, etc have been suggested. None really fits.

[The Good Michael]

Sorry, but even if Garry is right pointing out "paraphilia", it doesn't mean a lot. There are dozens of paraphilias, categories and sub-categories. So yes, Jack was a paraphiliac. Which kind, though ? Necrophilia, necro-sadism, etc have been suggested. None really fits.

True, and there's no such thing anyway. There are only people who are much more complex than the disorders they're lumped under.

Mike

[DVV]

Indeed, Mike. And such disorders will always be a step ahead terminology.

[Hunter]

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 traveled 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...

Exactly

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 arose the street (mental illness is another category of this type). Silly stuff, really.

Exactly again.

... 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 indiscriminate 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.

You are right on the money again. That Chapman's killer avoided the rectum and left the cervix intact may be by accident rather than design. He basically just cut out a chunk and took what was in it and left what was behind.

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...

You're on a roll! As I said in a previous post, this was an entirely different realm for everyone involved. Each subsequent murder left more specific clues. The murderer did target the uterus and knew where it was. It would be remarkable that this was mere happenstance on three occasions. But his method only shows that to be the case and nothing more. He acquired the knowledge somehow because he was interested in it. Medical books that displayed anatomical diagrams and even volumes such as Krafft-Ebing's very recent offering, were picked up by male adolescents and young men as a form of pornography. even amongst the lower classes.

A curiosity is naturally going to result in exploration. For most young males, this natural tendency is more innocuous and part of the normal attraction developing for the opposite sex and it involves much fantasizing (yea, I remember them days). It insures the procreation of the species. Here, however- for whatever reason- it turned into some kind of aberration that went even farther and was acted out in morbid reality. The medicos didn't understand this at first, because it had never been seen by them before ( at least in a repetitive fashion.) You have to understand who Bagster Phillips was, but I doubt he ever came to any conclusion outside of the physical evidence itself. It was up to the detectives, as far as he was concerned, to make conclusions on the evidence in its entirity.

That's why Thomas Bond was eventually called in because he was considered to have credentials in criminal psychology as well as forensic experience, whether some of us now, agree with his assessment or not.

[Malcolm X]

Sorry, but even if Garry is right pointing out "paraphilia", it doesn't mean a lot. There are dozens of paraphilias, categories and sub-categories. So yes, Jack was a paraphiliac. Which kind, though ? Necrophilia, necro-sadism, etc have been suggested. None really fits.

Ed Gein/ Albert Fish ? no not at all, he's not walking off with enough of the body to make Furniture out of them, or anything else !!!

but he is taking the organs which can either be sold, or kept for himself as a trophy, if so; where the hell did he hide these for the rest of his life, because as a trophy, these would definitely have been in the killers house.. somewhere!

[Malcolm X]

Intersting RYA.

But you still have to find a suspect to fit JTR and unfortunately this is where Sailor boy keeps cropping up, or a labourer, or a builder etc

[Errata]

True, and there's no such thing anyway. There are only people who are much more complex than the disorders they're lumped under.

Mike

There's no such thing as paraphilias?

[DVV]

but he is taking the organs which can either be sold, or kept for himself as a trophy, if so; where the hell did he hide these for the rest of his life, because as a trophy, these would definitely have been in the killers house.. somewhere!

Definitely ?
We definitely don't know what he did with what he took.

[lynn cates]

normal

Hello Malcolm. Normal? Maybe not. Likely schizophrenic.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

conclusion

Hello David.

"Which kind, though? Necrophilia, necro-sadism, etc have been suggested. None really fits."

Precisely. Conclusion?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Laing and Szasz

Hello Michael. Interesting. You may wish to have a go at Laing and Szasz. They might be your allies.

Cheers.
LC

[DVV]

Precisely. Conclusion?
Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn, he was mad (in the popular sense), but could somewhat behave in 1888. That's all I know.

[Abby Normal]

Exactly




Exactly again.



You are right on the money again. That Chapman's killer avoided the rectum and left the cervix intact may be by accident rather than design. He basically just cut out a chunk and took what was in it and left what was behind.



You're on a roll! As I said in a previous post, this was an entirely different realm for everyone involved. Each subsequent murder left more specific clues. The murderer did target the uterus and knew where it was. It would be remarkable that this was mere happenstance on three occasions. But his method only shows that to be the case and nothing more. He acquired the knowledge somehow because he was interested in it. Medical books that displayed anatomical diagrams and even volumes such as Krafft-Ebing's very recent offering, were picked up by male adolescents and young men as a form of pornography. even amongst the lower classes.

A curiosity is naturally going to result in exploration. For most young males, this natural tendency is more innocuous and part of the normal attraction developing for the opposite sex and it involves much fantasizing (yea, I remember them days). It insures the procreation of the species. Here, however- for whatever reason- it turned into some kind of aberration that went even farther and was acted out in morbid reality. The medicos didn't understand this at first, because it had never been seen by them before ( at least in a repetitive fashion.) You have to understand who Bagster Phillips was, but I doubt he ever came to any conclusion outside of the physical evidence itself. It was up to the detectives, as far as he was concerned, to make conclusions on the evidence in its entirity.

That's why Thomas Bond was eventually called in because he was considered to have credentials in criminal psychology as well as forensic experience, whether some of us now, agree with his assessment or not.

Hi Hunter

Medical books that displayed anatomical diagrams and even volumes such as Krafft-Ebing's very recent offering, were picked up by male adolescents and young men as a form of pornography. even amongst the lower classes.

Thats what I was thinking also re the fascination with the female body and getting a hold of a medical book. perhaps he also indulged (practiced) his fantasies on animals before making the leap to humans.