Is Jack someone we have never heard of?

[Bridewell]

Local Unknown

Does anyone else on this forum believe that Jack the Ripper could be someone who has never been identified, named, suspected or written about?

Helena

Hi Helena,

It's entirely possible that an unknown local man was responsible for a number of the Whitechapel Murders. Local almost certainly IMHO. Unknown (to the enquiry) very possibly.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Debra A]

My bad-- I thought the Pinchin Street one was the first one that anyone was certain had been deliberately cut up. I thought there was at least some doubt that some of the earlier ones weren't due to decay.

Absolutely not, Rivkah!
To add to what Helena said and something I said in post #63 about the progression argument often used to link the torsos with the JTR murders- the Whitehall torso murder was dated to August and likely pre Polly Nichols. That's two torso murders pre, and two post JTR.

[RivkahChaya]

The first Thames Torso was found in May 1887.

Helena

My bad-- I thought the Pinchin Street one was the first one that anyone was certain had been deliberately cut up. I thought there was at least some doubt that some of the earlier ones weren't due to decay.

[RivkahChaya]

I was under the impression that ripperologists, if I may use that word without offending someone, have agreed that 'Jack' didn't have a sane, rational reason for killing, but must have been insane or unhinged; and that only those who believe that the woman were killed to keep them silent about the secret royal marriage think that it was a calm, rational killing spree.

It depends on what you mean by "sane" and "rational." Not every psycho- or sociopath is a raving lunatic-- or even a Charles Manson. Some serial killers are very calm when they discuss what they have done. Jeffrey Dahmer seems downright introspective. Other people, like Ted Bundy, are egomaniacal, and speak as though they have rights other people don't have, like the right to take their rage out on people they don't even know, but they are rational enough to know that they shouldn't come out and say that.

"I feels good" is sort of a rational reason for doing something. Most people would prefer you think it through a little, and get to "It feels good, AND doesn't hurt anyone," but all normal people do some things just because they want to. Normal people even do things they know are wrong, and the reason we know that is so, is that they try to keep things a secret. They may tell you that whatever it was-- not turning in a wallet they found, and keeping the money in it, or cheating on a fiance before the wedding, was somehow not wrong, but the very fact that they were dishonest about it tells you they knew it was wrong on some level.

There isn't a dichotomy between "crazed killer," and "rational person." There's a continuum. JTR was probably somewhere in the middle. Rational and normal appearing, so that he didn't alarm people, and so that he didn't go around telling everybody what he did to women in his spare time, but psychopathic enough to enjoy murdering women and mutilating the bodies.

[HelenaWojtczak]

I have thought that it is likely that MJK gave the Ripper his first opportunity to commit a murder indoors, because she had a room, as opposed to sleeping in doss houses, and that after that, he was "hooked" on the kind of thing he could do in private, and didn't go back to murdering women on the street.

The first Thames Torso was found in May 1887.

Helena

[Debra A]

But in this scenario who would "me" be?

Well, it would suggest to me someone above the working class - in that he had to be informed enough to know the use of the building; confident enough to get in and leave the torso etc; and arrogant and witty enough to leave the police a subtle message.

But I think the torso was not intended to be found, or not quickly, otherwise it might have had some unmistakable message on it or near it - a note? or have been followed up by a letter when not found at once.

I have him down as a disgruntled opera fan.

I also think the torso was hidden and never meant to be found.
I can see the point in a message if the torso killer felt his work was being over-shadowed by the whitechapel murders, or if they were being committed by the same man and the Whitehall victim was a taunt to police, but if the body was dumped there in August, as the doctors thought, then I can't see it as being any kind of message for police when only the Rainham victim, Emma Smith and Tabram had been killed by then, with no obvious link between them at that stage.

[RivkahChaya]

I'm another vote for "Unknown." He probably died in obscurity, too, and I'd suspect he died young, because he was clearly a risk-taker. If he didn't die from something related to the murders-- either giving himself septicemia by nicking himself with the knife, or happening to attack a woman who was carrying a weapon, or in the sight of someone who came to her defense, then by some other risk. Maybe he hopped freight cars, and miscalculated a jump; maybe he had a high-risk job.

I would be willing to bet that Aaron Kosminski was the person the Jewish witness saw, but refused to formally identify; however, we don't know for certain that the person the witness saw was in fact JTR. It could have been Kosminski, and that still does not mean Kosminski was the Ripper.

Just out of curiosity, how many 'domestics' happen out on the street?

In this particular case, where the victim was sleeping in doss houses, where else would it occur? If it occurred in the doss house, then it would be in front of witnesses.

All this talk about whitehall has distracted me from the main point of my original post (plus the fact that no one commented on it) that is-what do you think of the idea that if JtR and Torso Murderer are the same person it may be due to the fact that the torso murders were done when the killer could kill in his home and the JtR murderes were ones where he could not?

I always wondered how someone who had gone from a steady and slight increase in mutilations, and then butchering Mary Kelly, could go back to a Polly Nichols, or even Catherine Eddowes-type murder.

I have thought that it is likely that MJK gave the Ripper his first opportunity to commit a murder indoors, because she had a room, as opposed to sleeping in doss houses, and that after that, he was "hooked" on the kind of thing he could do in private, and didn't go back to murdering women on the street.

If he couldn't find women who had places to take him, maybe he made the decision to take them to his place, something he had been reluctant to do before, for fear of getting caught.

Just for the record, I have never thought that the same person committed the JTR murders, and the torso murders; however, if JTR went from killing women where he found them, to taking them home, the disarticulations, and resulting torsos, may just have been part of what he had to do to get rid of the bodies afterwards, and not part of what gave him pleasure. I'm pretty sure if I checked, I could find several examples of disarticulation as a means of disposal for a serial killer, and not part of his pleasure-seeking.

Off-hand, I think I remember Jeffrey Dahmer talking about disposal of the body parts, other than skulls he wanted to keep, or genitals which he sought to preserve, being very distasteful to him, and he continually changed his means of disposal, as he tried to find better ways. Sometimes he would do one thing, find out it didn't work well, and return to an earlier method. Sometimes particular circumstances would make one method more or less convenient. At any rate, body disposal was not really part of his MO, if his MO is the part he needed to do to satisfy whatever pathology drove him to kill. It was a necessary downside.

Now, not every serial killer is like that, but if reducing the corpse to a torso in order to fit it into a crate in order to transport it, for example, was the killer's goal, that would explain how JTR could become the torso killer.

[HelenaWojtczak]

On cat's meat selling - I can't help but note that Charles Lechmere's mother is listed in the 1891 census as being in the cat meat business and she lived very close to Pinchin Street. Cable Street - very close.

Am on ancestry now, can find no Lechmere in Cable st- what is her forename please?


Helena

[HelenaWojtczak]

Therefore the HOW (the M.O.) of a series of murders can change due to circumstances, whereas the WHY (the signature) cannot change, because the psychology of the killer doesn’t change.

Unfortunately, until we can identify "Jack" we haven't a clue as to the WHY outside speculation.

The "why" is really to do with what drives someone to kill the way he did.

I was under the impression that ripperologists, if I may use that word without offending someone, have agreed that 'Jack' didn't have a sane, rational reason for killing, but must have been insane or unhinged; and that only those who believe that the woman were killed to keep them silent about the secret royal marriage think that it was a calm, rational killing spree.

Is that not the case?

Regards

Helena

[Debra A]

Debra
I don't think we can say with any degree of certainty that the torso murders were the work of one person on the basis of supposed method of dismemberment, given the level of medical knowledge at the time and the different medicos involved in each case.
The Whitehall, Rainham and Jackson cases all had parts washing up on the Thames.
Pinchin Street didn't.

Lechmere, I personally think the forensic understanding and capabilities of the era are sometimes underestimated.
Dr Bond, some time lecturer on forensic medicine at the Westminster Hospital and his assistant Dr Hebbert, also skilled in forensics, examined all the four torso cases in person at the time they occured. Bond was specifically brought in as he had experience of a similar murder in the 70s. Their findings on the four cases were published in a medico-legal textbook and published in peer reviewed papers.

I agree totally with Phil H about the dumping in the Thames. Just because no part of the Pinchin Street torso was found in the there doesn't mean it wasn't one of the dumping sites.

[Debra A]

Hi Again Debra
All this talk about whitehall has distracted me from the main point of my original post (plus the fact that no one commented on it) that is-what do you think of the idea that if JtR and Torso Murderer are the same person it may be due to the fact that the torso murders were done when the killer could kill in his home and the JtR murderes were ones where he could not?

I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility, if I was thinking along the lines of the torso murderer and the JTR being the same man. Dismemberment is normally for disposal reasons isn't it? It's a question of how can we distinguish between deliberate mutilation and mutilation that occurs as a result of dismemberment for disposal purposes (as I mentioned previously with a possible crossover between JTR's abdominal and organ curiosity and Elizabeth Jackson's murder). JTR would have mutilated his torso victims too I would think? In the Whitehall torso case the lower pelvis, and pelvic organs including the uterus were never found, it's easy to link this to JTR, but could it have occured simply as a consequence of trying to minimise a corpse for disposal?

[Phil H]

Therefore the HOW (the M.O.) of a series of murders can change due to circumstances, whereas the WHY (the signature) cannot change, because the psychology of the killer doesn’t change.

Unfortunately, until we can identify "Jack" we haven't a clue as to the WHY outside speculation.

[HelenaWojtczak]

I agree with a great many of Helena's points.

the differences in all the possible Ripper cases aren't unprecedented either....

I'm so relieved that someone gets my points. Phew.

Serial killers have been known to change their M.O. Joseph Christopher killed twelve men in New York state in 1980–81. He initially shot them, but changed to stabbing and even cut the heart out of two victims. Gary Taylor of Michigan, who killed up to twenty in the 1970s, changed his M.O. from murdering women and burying their bodies to raping them but letting them live. Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker) killed at least thirteen people and sexually assaulted twenty-two in Los Angeles in the 1980s. Some were shot and some stabbed, others were beaten to death, and a few had their throats slashed. He also raped a number of women and children but did not attempt to kill them. Ted Bundy was initially a voyeur and stalker, but he later bludgeoned his victims and even retained some of the corpses for several days. Jeffrey Dahmer’s first killing involved dismemberment, but subsequent victims were drugged, cannibalised and lobotomised, and some were placed in vats to decompose.

So, going by that lot, why shouldn't Jack be responsible for torsos and all eleven?

The M.O. changes but the signature does not.

Mr Vanderlinden pointed out on another thread the difference between a serial killer’s ‘M.O.’ and his ‘signature’. Drawing on criminal profiler John Douglas’s work, the M.O., he explained, is the ‘HOW’ of a series of murders, the method used to carry them out. The signature, however, is the ‘WHY’, and that is entirely dependent upon the psychological needs of the murderer. Therefore the HOW (the M.O.) of a series of murders can change due to circumstances, whereas the WHY (the signature) cannot change, because the psychology of the killer doesn’t change.

Abby asks: "What do you think of the idea that if JtR and Torso Murderer are the same,,, it may be due to the fact that the torso murders were done when the killer could kill in his home and the JtR murderes were ones where he could not?"

Perhaps someone moved in with him.

Helena

[Phil H]

The Whitehall, Rainham and Jackson cases all had parts washing up on the Thames.
Pinchin Street didn't.

But that could just be "the luck of the draw".

None of the heads, so far as I recall, ever emerged anywhere. So it is possible that the limbs and head of the Pinchin St torso, were just not found.

I don't think we should draw any inferences from that.

I see a danger of sophistry in your arguments - you are seeking to justify your "preconceived" conclusions rather than (as is the usual method) to draw your conclusions from the evidence. By that I mean you WANT the Pinchin St torso to be different, given that the location fits in with your arguments. That actually weakens your case.

Phil H

[Lechmere]

Debra
I don't think we can say with any degree of certainty that the torso murders were the work of one person on the basis of supposed method of dismemberment, given the level of medical knowledge at the time and the different medicos involved in each case.
The Whitehall, Rainham and Jackson cases all had parts washing up on the Thames.
Pinchin Street didn't.