change in modus operandi

[protohistorian]

Hi Proto,

I dont think assuming he stop killing of his own volition is a very likely prospect, other than changing how he kills as you suggest, .... I feel his ending his own killer career as The Ripper without a new direction to vent his frustrations and continue killing is unlikely.

The one thing you do hear is the addictive fascination these psychopaths have with killing in general once they finally commit a murder.

I dont know if one man could bridge the 2 disparate types of sensations the killer gets from killing unconscious women by knife vs slowly by poison...unless after he stops Ripping he has a distinct and documented change of behavior totally....becoming someone created by the psychological strains of having to manage this violent knife killer inside him. Maybe someone who could then enjoy slow killing.

Its to do with the instant gratification I think. Do people (killers) make that 180 degree personality change from Instant to Prolonged Murderers by themselves? Have there been killers like this documented?

Best regards.

Thank you for your input Perrymason, he did not stop killing until the rope made him stop. He fits our understanding of "diorganized" serials in so far the behavioral change (m.o.) changes to suit specific and unknowable desires within his own mind. I f we work this subject backwards we have a serial murderer that had his career was ended by law enforcement. Chapmans capital crimes were poisoning but there is no way of asserting that his final lethal methodology is in any way similar to his earlier methodologies. If we take the premise as m.o. evolution as the continuing striving of the killer to satiate "fantasies" or even the assertion to gratify drives, it may have been that the gap between knife and poison is entirely filled by the fact that more enjoyment was garnered by the killer by poisoning than the knife. If poisoning more fully met the need of the killer, regardless of the need of killer being fantasy, base drive, or any other reason, we should expect rather than be surprised by a change in m.o..

Hi Proto,

I dont think assuming he stop killing of his own volition is a very likely prospect, other than changing how he kills as you suggest, .... I feel his ending his own killer career as The Ripper without a new direction to vent his frustrations and continue killing is unlikely.

The one thing you do hear is the addictive fascination these psychopaths have with killing in general once they finally commit a murder.

I dont know if one man could bridge the 2 disparate types of sensations the killer gets from killing unconscious women by knife vs slowly by poison...unless after he stops Ripping he has a distinct and documented change of behavior totally....becoming someone created by the psychological strains of having to manage this violent knife killer inside him. Maybe someone who could then enjoy slow killing.

Its to do with the instant gratification I think. Do people (killers) make that 180 degree personality change from Instant to Prolonged Murderers by themselves? Have there been killers like this documented?

Best regards.

[c.d.]

A psychiatrist says to the masochist "why did you marry that sadist?" She says "beats me.'

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

For a sadist I would imagine that there is much more satisfaction in observing the wasting away of an intimate, rather than slashing and organ banditry of strangers.

The key bit there is "for a sadist". It doesn't necessarily follow that Jack the Ripper was a sadist.

[protohistorian]

Is there evidence that he in fact reveled in torturing the women, or even cut into them while they were still conscious or resisting?

Aside from Mary Kelly.....

I dont know that he fits a Sadist profile so easily. Just Cold and Calculated seems more appropriate to me anyway.

Best regards.

sadist here is applied in the psychological context. It is not the traditional torturing. For example, the psychological sadist would derive intense pleasure simply from taking an internal organ, simply because in his mind he has removed a piece of a human being and all that entails in his mind. I have no doubt that JtR was a misanthropic individual who wanted inflict pain on humans as he percieved them to be. I posit that JtR was divorced enough from reality that alone would have been satisfactory to him. Modern analogs for this type of idiosyncratic criminal behavior abound and the vast majority lead straight back to a function that the individual behavior was fulfilling within the mind of the Killer, with the resultant effect that what everyone else percieves to be true (i.e. reality) is inconsequential within the mind of the killer. Thanks for your thoughts, Dave

[protohistorian]

He could have also changed the M.O. for reasons of his own gratification. For a sadist I would imagine that there is much more satisfaction in observing the wasting away of an intimate, rather than slashing and organ banditry of strangers.

as I see it there are two potential explanations. 1. is the already mentioned detection avoidance in which he stops jackish behavior in a moment of clarity to avoid being caught.
2. and more likely to my mind, for whatever reasons poisoning sated his drive in a more effective manner and his m.o. evolved because of his own realization that other methods of killing (poisoning) gave him greater satisfaction. Both would account for the evidence we have as well as the behavioral change.

He could have also changed the M.O. for reasons of his own gratification. For a sadist I would imagine that there is much more satisfaction in observing the wasting away of an intimate, rather than slashing and organ banditry of strangers.

Is there evidence that he in fact reveled in torturing the women, or even cut into them while they were still conscious or resisting?

Aside from Mary Kelly.....

I dont know that he fits a Sadist profile so easily. Just Cold and Calculated seems more appropriate to me anyway.

Best regards.

[protohistorian]

Indeed, Elias - what you say makes sense, but that wouldn't have stopped him from continuing to "do a Jack" on strangers. On the contrary, the fact that he had his own premises, ran several reasonably respectable businesses and had a string of cowed, obedient wives back at the ranch whom he knew he could dispose of at will, might have given him even better cover to "be Jack" than he'd had in 1888.

He could have also changed the M.O. for reasons of his own gratification. For a sadist I would imagine that there is much more satisfaction in observing the wasting away of an intimate, rather than slashing and organ banditry of strangers.

[Sam Flynn]

For me the argument about change of method would be stronger if he had poisoned women he didn't know. I think the fact that he was poisoning women he was connected to simply shows that, if he was Jack, he changed his method because on these occasions he was more wary of being caught and so chose a way of killing them that he at least thought would help him avoid detection.

Indeed, Elias - what you say makes sense, but that wouldn't have stopped him from continuing to "do a Jack" on strangers. On the contrary, the fact that he had his own premises, ran several reasonably respectable businesses and had a string of cowed, obedient wives back at the ranch whom he knew he could dispose of at will, might have given him even better cover to "be Jack" than he'd had in 1888.

[Elias]

For me the argument about change of method would be stronger if he had poisoned women he didn't know. I think the fact that he was poisoning women he was connected to simply shows that, if he was Jack, he changed his method because on these occasions he was more wary of being caught and so chose a way of killing them that he at least thought would help him avoid detection.

[c.d.]

What does it "coincide" with, CD?

Well Ben I don't think that we can definitively say that the Ripper exhibited no evidence of medical knowledge or skill taking into account views of some of the doctors at the time as well as modern views as expressed by people like the coroner Cyril Wecht.

c.d.

I understand that point Dan, but there has to be a line somewhere where available means and intentionally prolonging the experience butt heads I would think.

To say that many humans enjoy the suffering of others is a sad but true statement I think, ...Gladiators, Survivor, Intervention Shows.....but some arent happy unless the experience is stretched out as long as possible, regardless of the additional pain and suffering it causes the victim.

Some kids kill small animals quickly, some torture them,...for me as a layman, those are different types of sadists, no?

I think about Jack as someone almost humane in that respect,...pardon the use of the word, but only in contrast to a slow poisoner..even if the gesture is self-serving too in terms of bloodletting,... if in fact they all were effectively throat cut dead and unconscious when he started cutting of course.

Best regards.

[Ben]

Maybe not a valid argument but the fact that a named Ripper suspect had some medical background strikes me as quite a coincidence

What does it "coincide" with, CD?

[Dan Norder]

Since in Chapmans case he was convicted and hanged for slowly, sadistically killing women for his own financial gain

People typically don't poison people they know and want out of the way to be sadistic, they do so to try to kill them without being noticed. The prolonged pain is not the goal in these cases, it's just the side effect. If they knew about and had access to a poison that would be relatively swift and painless and mimic some completely natural way of death so as not to draw attention to themselves -- like a "oops, the roof of the house caved in and accidentally crushed her skull" pill -- they'd use it.

[c.d.]

Yes, Monty, especially skill.
It's true that Klosowski as a barber surgeon (although even the level of his so called training has been debated on these Boards) would have slightly more anatomical knowledge and possibly skill than a butcher - but the point is: it wouldn't be needed, as far as the Ripper crimes are concerned, since the Ripper's level of skill doesn't display anything beyond what a butcher would be able to do - somthing that even Phillips admitted when he was asked about it.
A butcher would probably handle the speed and the difficult circumstances on the crime scenes much better than anyone with surgical experience.

So again - the point about Klosowski having ' medical knowledge' and being a barber surgeon is not a valid argument and never has been.

All the best

Maybe not a valid argument but the fact that a named Ripper suspect had some medical background strikes me as quite a coincidence.

c.d.