Suspects with organic brain disease?

[Batman]

Any?

The reason why I ask is because of the Lusk letter and GSG. It could be the case that what we are seeing is not a semiliterate hand but mental deterioration through brain disease.

I would also point out that Chapman was in the advanced stages of such diseases also.

So any on this list meet the criteria?

Could also explain why he stopped.

[Errata]

Any?

The reason why I ask is because of the Lusk letter and GSG. It could be the case that what we are seeing is not a semiliterate hand but mental deterioration through brain disease.

I would also point out that Chapman was in the advanced stages of such diseases also.

So any on this list meet the criteria?

Could also explain why he stopped.

This is a whole can of worms you just opened up, so fair warning.

The real answer is all of them or none of them. Some of them, one or two. There is a real problem with retroactively diagnosing someone with anything barring say, having been stabbed. But neurological conditions are particularly hard. Even today the vast majority of non-catastrophic neurological issues go undiagnosed for a really long time. Not out of neglect or denial, but because there are so many things that affect the body.

So many things other than the brain cause brain issues. Alcohol withdrawal, blood sugar, toxins, medication, hormones, fever, elevated heat or cold. Stimulants is a big one. To much coffee, you get the shakes you trip over your own tongue.

There are not a lot of neurological conditions that cause mental deterioration. For example, no congenital defect is going to erode the brain. The damage was there is the beginning. We are pretty much looking at diseases. On the other hand, if we are looking for Jack the Ripper, we need a disease that fits some pretty specific parameters. The trick is to find a disease that causes mental collapse without causing physical collapse. Given that there are fewer neurological conditions than potential suspects, that's far easier than trying to retroactively diagnose every suspect ever.

Schizophrenia rarely if ever causes loss of intellect. So if a schizophrenic could spell before onset, he can spell after. End stage schizophrenia might start causing problems with communicating, but at that point physiological symptoms are in full swing. Huntingtons chorea causes emotional and mental decline, but the physical decline far precedes it. Neurosyphilis attacks movement and emotions before it attacks intellect. And most neurosyphilitics die with their intelligence intact. They might be raving lunatics or catatonic, but they are still in there. Creutzfeld-Jakob disease is interesting, because it is transmitted by infected human brain products, but the physical symptoms are severe. Kuru affects the body before the mind, but since it is a disease caused by cannibalism it usually stays on the list despite not really working out.

Most infections don't attack the intellect. Most viruses virulent enough to attack the intellect don't allow the sufferer to live for more than a couple of weeks. Tumors create global problems. Brain damage creates very specific issues, but does not knock out intelligence. And if even if the part of your brain that controlled spelling was damaged, if would not allow you to write anything at all. Not spell poorly. And even if someone lived through a stroke the physical handicap would have to be overcome.

Just about anything that affects mental capacity affects movement, agility, dexterity, and balance. If either letter was really written by the killer, he simply never learned to write well. Or he was obscuring his identity. A mental collapse of that magnitude could not happen without debilitating physical effects that would prevent him from being the real killer.

[Batman]

Do you agree or disagree with this....http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charl...lly_Commission

[Errata]

Do you agree or disagree with this....http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charl...lly_Commission

I agree that the role the tumor played cannot be fully known, especially considering that the former host was dead and could not be interviewed.

I would never discount the idea that a neurological condition can seriously affect emotions, lability and volatility. And I don't discount the idea that a neurological condition of one sort or another has created a few serial killers.

But with letters you are talking about a loss of intellect or language facility. Spelling and grammar and language use are centered in very specific areas of the brain rarely affected by such things. And the few problems that do affect symbol recognition, language structure etc. blow them up. You don't become worse at spelling English words. You lose the ability to write, form characters. So I don't think the language used in any letter is a symptom. It might be a forensic countermeasure, but the spelling and grammar is intentional. It's not indicative of someone groping for words.

Now if someone used words like "indefatigable" or "quixotic" despite totally botching the spelling and grammar, that might indicate a person whose vocabulary is far above their ability to spell, and that can indicate a loss of brain function somewhere at some point. But the letters are consistent with what they appear to be.

[Damaso Marte]

Since the letters are most likely fake, keep in mind that they were probably written in character - the author was pretending to be somebody else. So they would have tried to sound like an illiterate Irishman or a mental defective, and probably would have based this on their own biases about such people or popular stereotypes of how those people would have sounded.

Something was clearly wrong in the Ripper's head: normal people don't go around mutilating prostitutes on the street. But I think the fact that Ripper killings were always so silent, and the killer never caught, shows that he retained enough mental faculty to know that what he was doing would be seen as wrong by the outside world, and to take counter-measures against being caught.

[Rosella]

It's extremely difficult to diagnose an anonymous serial killer over a hundred years after his crimes. I think he had sociopathic traits and may well have been a psychopath.

As I believe Jack was a local Cockney I tend to feel that his education was very limited, most probably sporadic and lasted only a few years. He was probably a school leaver in his very early teens or even earlier, and didn't place much importance in literacy.

[Batman]

I am not actually looking for a retrospective diagnosis although I would accept Chapman is one. What I am looking for is a contemporary diagnosis. We know person X had organic related brain problems because they died from it. If you want something specific I am looking for parietal lobe tumors that can also cause problems with the CNS making people appear drunk in movement. I am basically interested in suspects who are known to have complained of headaches and or had seizures.

[Batman]

I think the fact that Ripper killings were always so silent, and the killer never caught, shows that he retained enough mental faculty to know that what he was doing would be seen as wrong by the outside world, and to take counter-measures against being caught.

I tend to think the opposite. I think his only organization was a knife and something to carry organs back home with. I think he was mostly disorganized and opportunistic where he would murder where he felt comfortable, but where he felt comfortable was often in very public places where he could get caught easily. I think he could have been disturbed during Nichols and so didn't finish. With Chapman he was basically boxed in while a neighbour heard her fall against the fence and say 'No'. He was seen by Schwartz with Stride. Policeman are literally seconds away from catching him with Eddowes and if their lights could shine a few meters more they would have seen him. All someone had to do was walk into Kelly's room and see him doing something horrific. IMO, JtR behaviour's is one of a man who doesn't care anymore... and that is why I think there is a small possibility he knew something was wrong and he was coming to an end.