Thompson was not Normal.

[Richard Patterson]

Does any believe that Jack the Ripper, a person who killed at least five women, was an otherwise normal fellow? Francis Thompson was anything but. We cannot sure he was ever in a relationship. He could not hold a steady job. He tried to commit suicide. He had a disquieting love for small girls. He was a drug addict who was disowned by his family. He has a history of arson Much of his poetry shows a fixation on death and dying. The only story he wrote was about a man who stabs a woman to death. His only play was about the killing of a woman because she was a Prostitute. He was a conspiracy theorist who was fascinated in the occult. He was homeless. He mingled with murderers. He claimed to be a magician and to have prophetic powers. If I'm accused of writing so much that he was abnormal it is only because he was. This is as we would expect with a candidate for someone who cut the throats of several women and removed their bodily organs.

[Errata]

Does any believe that Jack the Ripper, a person who killed at least five women, was an otherwise normal fellow? Francis Thompson was anything but. We cannot sure he was ever in a relationship. He could not hold a steady job. He tried to commit suicide. He had a disquieting love for small girls. He was a drug addict who was disowned by his family. He has a history of arson Much of his poetry shows a fixation on death and dying. The only story he wrote was about a man who stabs a woman to death. His only play was about the killing of a woman because she was a Prostitute. He was a conspiracy theorist who was fascinated in the occult. He was homeless. He mingled with murderers. He claimed to be a magician and to have prophetic powers. If I'm accused of writing so much that he was abnormal it is only because he was. This is as we would expect with a candidate for someone who cut the throats of several women and removed their bodily organs.

Barring the disturbing fetish for young girls, you are describing me and my friends with eerie accuracy. And I'm not being flippant. I hang with a very odd crowd, and I fit right in.

I am always very hesitant to point to some aspect of a person's day to day life and say "that tells us this person was a serial killer". Because unless he constantly had blood on his cuffs for no reason, nothing tips us off. Remember that ascribing normal or abnormal character traits to serial killers to justify an accusation is the same thing as confronting a victim with those character traits and asking them why they didn't avoid that person or run. It's a trap society fell into with rapists, and since it is fundamentally incorrect we don't need to pass that on to serial killers. Never mind the fact that it's about even odds that Jack went around killing people with no discernible change in his demeanor. Some serial killers in fact get very happy and relaxed after they start killing, because it takes a load off. Which also happens with divorce and the decision to commit suicide, so it seems safe to say that any major life changing decision is freeing once made.

You may be right that he's the killer, but there are so many other explanations for most of that behavior that we cannot specify a cause. Of course one explanation that fits almost all of those is in there on your list. Addiction. His behavior and his dark mindset could easily be a product of substance abuse. And in fact usually is.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've taken a long enough break from writing lyrics for my friend's production of Super Friends: The Musical and I'm not kidding there either.

[Ausgirl]

No argument here, he was an odd sort of bloke alright.

Now put him in the immediate vicinity of Whitechapel/Spitalfields, during the period of the murders - with some actual proof of it - and you might be cooking with gas.

Your argument that serial killers don't lead outwardly normal lives is absolute nonsense, though, and is proven so by a number of famous serial killers who have done exactly that.

In fact, the clever ones are generally quite good at it.

[Harry D]

Not normal =/= serial killer

I should know.