Two knives, two people?

[Losmandris]

True - the cut there was, was to the private parts, not to the upper body. And that is why we do speak of a cut.

Of course, Nichols is an other proposition entirely, but maybe that was on account of how a smallish penknife blade would not lend itself to the kind of cutting sustained by Nichols?

This is my thinking, I think! Both knives involved were not really cutting blades. So even if the murderer want to cut her, his instruments would not allow it. Evidence that this murder was not as premeditated as the later ones? A spur of the moment affair where he had to use the 'tools' he had on his person maybe?

[Michael W Richards]

I am comforted to know it is an act of imagination, as opposed to memory.

I get what you mean when you say that people tend to apply their own sensibility to acts like this. People wind up making bizarre statements like...I dunno... "I can't imagine a homicidal maniac would carry two knives!" Or, "Why would the murderer drop th apron by the graffiti if he didn't write it!" As if butchering prostitutes and laying their entrails on the street is perfectly understandable and logical thing to do otherwise.

What I was thinking is that a gruesome act to some might well be a beautiful sight to someone else. The individuals perspective and the observers are almost certainly at polar odds with each other in some of these cases. Your mention of a homicidal maniac perhaps carrying 2 knives and our perceptions that this would be unlikely is a fair match to that end, but, in this particular case, 1 knife is used once. The big one. Last. That order is significant, it has a ring of finality to it, if only we can figure out why that order. My proposal answers that question. As to the grafitti, I don't believe the apron was dropped at all, I believe it was placed. To accentuate, and authenticate. It was how the author of the writing signed his message, so we would know the killer in Mitre Square wrote it. Funny that still hasn't happened even after all these years.

Back to that original point, to try and understand a murderer is, for me, a challenge from the point of his or her perspective. That's why I try to look through others eyes and circumstances. Its really nothing very different from acting, which I have done some of. The only way any actor can play a murderer truthfully requires adopting, in some cases 24 hours a day, a different perspective on the world around them. I can imagine that Pollys killer felt a combination of fear and excited anticipation just before he attacked, he was doing someone he was looking forward to, but he was also aware he was in a street... I can see Liz Strides killer angrily choking her by her scarf, pulling her back and running his knife across her throat because she was just pushing him verbally,.. I can see Annie dragging herself into the yard with a customer only to discover that she dragged the wrong guy, and her killer was calm and grateful for the modicum of privacy that yard provided, ..I can see Kate trying to blackmail someone who was a violent criminal, involved in criminal activities that he couldn't risk compromised by a canary,..and I can see Mary trusting someone who likely from the outset, meant her harm. Likely the "other" Joe.

Why the women were killed is always the key question, it can tell you Who much of the time.

Sorry if I pontificated there...Its important to me that to discuss these crimes without morality judgements. Like.. how many people could even be capable of doing what was done to Mary Kelly in a given area and time? I believe that because an act is gruesome and rare, that doesn't make it so heinous that others might hesitate doing their own versions, acting out their own problems. Who among us here could be capable of killing someone? My guess would be just about everybody with the right provocation. Say, someone trying to kill family member in front of you. Without belaboring it further, we all have dark and light, and some of the answers here are not well lit.

[Sam Flynn]

No stabs to Nichols private parts ?

I should have left it as I originally wrote: "no stabs to speak of". In contrast, Tabram was punctured like a dartboard.

[Jon Guy]

A few weeks later, Nichols sustained no wounds to her upper body apart from a severely cut throat, and multiple long cuts to the lower body, with no stabs at all. .

No stabs to Nichols private parts ?

[Fisherman]

Tabram died from an insane amount of stabs to the upper body, with no cut to speak of.

True - the cut there was, was to the private parts, not to the upper body. And that is why we do speak of a cut.

Of course, Nichols is an other proposition entirely, but maybe that was on account of how a smallish penknife blade would not lend itself to the kind of cutting sustained by Nichols?

[Sam Flynn]

Horrible to think of, but this murder and possibly earlier instances could be JtR getting use to the actual act of killing somebody, to see how they react, what it feels like etc. Once he becomes comfortable and has a 'feel' for it, he changes his MO to better cater to his more vicious/sick desires?

Tabram died from an insane amount of stabs to the upper body, with only one (small) cut, which might have been a stab gone wrong. A few weeks later, Nichols sustained no wounds to her upper body apart from a severely cut throat, and multiple long cuts to the lower body, with no stabs at all. It's not so much a change in MO, as a quantum leap into a different universe.

[Losmandris]

His stabbing instincts certainly were. But a few weeks later, with Nichols, they seem to have deserted him.

Horrible to think of, but this murder and possibly earlier instances could be JtR getting use to the actual act of killing somebody, to see how they react, what it feels like etc. Once he becomes comfortable and has a 'feel' for it, he changes his MO to better cater to his more vicious/sick desires?

Tristan

[Jon Guy]

His stabbing instincts certainly were. But a few weeks later, with Nichols, they seem to have deserted him.

just the one to the private parts

[Sam Flynn]

Fish,

Do you think his cutting interests were fully-formed when Tabram was killed?

Gary

His stabbing instincts certainly were. But a few weeks later, with Nichols, they seem to have deserted him.

[Fisherman]

Thanks, Fish.

The Tabram murder is the one I’m most curious about at the moment. It seems to me to work better as an inspiration for the JTR series than as a stepping stone.

I think its either or, but I find the combination of victimology, geography, cut to the private parts, a silent deed, signs of partial strangulation etcetera tips the scales for me. But I have no problems acknowledging the weight of what you say.

[MrBarnett]

I do, yes - I have him down as the killer of the 1873 torso victim a full fifteen years prior, and that was an extremely explicit deed in terms of cutting. Of course, that begs the question why Tabram was such a comparatively messy deed, and I cannot supply the final answer to such a question. I cannot even say with absolute certainty that Tabram was killed by the same man, but I think she was. As I have speculated before, maybe he never intended to take his deeds to the streets, maybe Tabram was slain without any premeditation, as the result of a sudden - perhaps alcohol-fuelled - rage. Apparently, the killer did not bring the kind of weapon that would have enabled him to make the kind of cuts the other victims normally suffered, and so I tend to rule out premeditation whereas that premeditation seems to have been there with Nichols and onwards. A possible explanation could be that he wanted the kind of interest and press coverage that came with the street killings, as was the case with Tabram.
Alternatively, of course, if Tabram was not a victim of his, he may have been attracted by the coverage the deed got nevertheless and decided to take his cutting business to the streets.

Thanks, Fish.

The Tabram murder is the one I’m most curious about at the moment. It seems to me to work better as an inspiration for the JTR series than as a stepping stone.

[Fisherman]

Fish,

Do you think his cutting interests were fully-formed when Tabram was killed?

Gary

I do, yes - I have him down as the killer of the 1873 torso victim a full fifteen years prior, and that was an extremely explicit deed in terms of cutting. Of course, that begs the question why Tabram was such a comparatively messy deed, and I cannot supply the final answer to such a question. I cannot even say with absolute certainty that Tabram was killed by the same man, but I think she was. As I have speculated before, maybe he never intended to take his deeds to the streets, maybe Tabram was slain without any premeditation, as the result of a sudden - perhaps alcohol-fuelled - rage. Apparently, the killer did not bring the kind of weapon that would have enabled him to make the kind of cuts the other victims normally suffered, and so I tend to rule out premeditation whereas that premeditation seems to have been there with Nichols and onwards. A possible explanation could be that he wanted the kind of interest and press coverage that came with the street killings, as was the case with Tabram.
Alternatively, of course, if Tabram was not a victim of his, he may have been attracted by the coverage the deed got nevertheless and decided to take his cutting business to the streets.

[MrBarnett]

We actually don't know that the killer would open the abdomen and remove organs if he had the opportunity to. I think that alluring option is a dangerous one to embrace. The extensive cutting to the body of Mary Kelly speaks of a wider field of cutting interests.

Fish,

Do you think his cutting interests were fully-formed when Tabram was killed?

Gary

[Fisherman]

But Tabram didn't have her abdomen opened or organs removed.

We actually don't know that the killer would open the abdomen and remove organs if he had the opportunity to. I think that alluring option is a dangerous one to embrace. The extensive cutting to the body of Mary Kelly speaks of a wider field of cutting interests.

[Sam Flynn]

lift their skirts-like he did with Tabram. and it shows a desire to expose that part of the body the ripper was interested in.

But Tabram didn't have her abdomen opened or organs removed.