The 2 upside down v's

[george chapman]

Are we all done with the plagarisms?? have i spelt it correctly. Can we move on as its all rather dull......................

[perrymason]

Hi all,

Just for my two penny offering.....I think it cannot be excluded that the markings were indeed that and intentional, rather than just collateral damage. They are referred to as nicks, which makes the collateral idea sound, but there is some measure of balance in the cuts as well,...utilizing the rough sketch.

The next supposed victim in the series shows an exagerated version of "marking" the face, but she was made virtually unrecognizable....whereas Kates wounds seem like some sort of a branding to me. Like a Scarlett "A"...only maybe something for Blabbermouth or Snitch in Kates case. Cut off her nose to spite her face.

Best regards all.

[Sam Flynn]

Re. the "measure of balance", Mike - my contention is that this could be explained due to the natural symmetry of the face. If you refer to the diagrams I posted a while back on this thread, all you have to do is imagine the blade of the knife extending across the line of the nose.

[stevebaker25]

strikes me that the 'v' shapes are a little bit too far up the face to be collateral damage from removing the nose. I would have thought that if they were made at the same time as removing the nose the flaps would not stop where they do but would become wider and maybe even slice the cheek meat right off by the time the nose becomes detached


I don't think they contain any meaning, like stupid upside down M theory...but I don't think it was accidental either. Maybe he was in two minds about cutting her face off?

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Steve - good points. However, Jack may at first have tried to remove the nose too high up, near the bridge, where it's bony, approaching the nose by angling the knife from both sides, before settling for removing just the cartilaginous tip, lower down the nose.

Whatever mechanism he employed, the triangular flaps were just that, and not "V" shapes or arrows "written" onto the face. Using the knife point-first (like a pen) would have been a more obvious, and better, means of drawing a deliberate shape or letter - but Jack didn't do that. He used the blade, and the ensuing peeled-up flaps would quite naturally have looked like "V"s.

Maybe he was in two minds about cutting her face off?

You may well be correct, there - although that would beg the question of why he "gave up" on both sides? One would expect at least one of the flaps to have been followed through to completion.

[stevebaker25]

well you can speculate on this forever and ever but maybe he just had two faltering attempts to dehumanise her but his brain just wouldn't let him do it. Almost like he's fighting with two personalities? I duno, that is a minefield. However if he was struggling with his "need" to deface her he obviously succeeded in the end with Mary Kelly (if you take her as victim of JTR, and I do)
If you were to look at it that way it would give a new insight into the kind of man he was and what sort of mental decline he was on.
What he started with Catherine he finished with Mary in terms of obliterating her.
It's my thought that the 'v' cuts aren't collateral from the removal of the nose but separate incisions in an attempt to remove her face which for one reason or another he couldn't complete at that time. This was after all the first time he'd attempted anything on the face right? Or maybe he knew her? And this made it harder? hmmm?
Anyway, does anyone know if he took the nose away with him or not? I don't remember reading if he did and I can't really tell from the mortuary photos whether it was stitched back on...

[Sam Flynn]

The problem with focusing our attention on the two triangular flaps is that it detracts somewhat from the other facial wounds - which were primarily jagged and asymmetric, more deeply-wrought, and more numerous. Eddowes' other facial injuries may be the "elephant in the room" here, which may be especially relevant when comparing these mutilations to those of Mary Kelly.

As to whether Jack made off with Eddowes' nose, Steve - Brown only says that the "tip of the nose was quite detached", but doesn't record it as missing. Whether Brown meant "quite detached" as in "almost detached", or "quite detached" as in "definitely detached" isn't clear - I favour the former interpretation - but it's apparent to me from the photos of Kate's face (lying in her "shell" and afterwards) that the tip of the nose was still available to be sewn back.

[Jeff Leahy]

Just a quick observation why I agree with Sam's conclusion (not that I'm licking *** or nothin')

But the problem has tax me what 'Jack' could see of his work.

It was very dark in Mitre sq..the lamp that iluminated the sq was not working correctly.

I dont believe he could have seen very much... (I've been trying this out of a night working in ow light levels)

So Sams idea of quick agressive slashes of the knife, just make more sense than drawing on the face with a knife.

OK prehaps he closed the eyes..the eyes reflect and are more visable..but the rest of the face is in shadow..you cant see very much..

So again the idea that the wounds were an incidental of Jacks slashing action..in the gloom..rather than creating something he can see..

like a letter

it just makes more sense to me

Pirate

[harry]

My belief is that the cuts formed arrow heads pointing to the eyes.Perhaps a message to say that she had seen him and knew who he was.In Kelly's case the eyelashes had been partly removed.Perhaps a message of the same kind,in this case a meaning that she could not close her eyes to who he was.Someone they both knew,to Kelly someone close.
In the deep gloom of Mitre square,there may only have been a very faint luminence.Enough to make an arrow head but no more.Try drawing a pencil shape arrow head in almost complete darkness.It can be done.Substitute a pencil with a knife,and it's possible to cut the shape also.

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Harry

My point was not that it would necessarily be impossible to draw a V in the dark. More that Jack couldn't really see the result of his work.

I think what Sam is suggesting is that Jack worked very quickly, slashing at the face with his knife and that the V shapes were just accidental consequence of the slashing motion rather than deliberate shapes. Which as I beleive he could not have seen.

However in the MJK murder he clearly had light from the fire and a better idea of what he was producing.

Pirate

[halomanuk]

We have to realise here as well that the police were around in force, due to the earlier murder of Liz Stride,so the Ripper would have had to work very fast,and in the dark as well.
So i dont think he would have had time to make any kind of symbolism before the return of the constable on the beat,which was very soon after Eddowes murder.

[Fisherman]

Halomanuk writes:

"So i dont think he would have had time to make any kind of symbolism"

...but the fact of the matter is that he had time enough to turn Mitre Square into a butcher´s shop. And though we can not reach any certainty what lay behind them nicks under the eyes, there is no denying that the time was there to produce them.

The best,
Fisherman

[halomanuk]

I feel,the way his madness was escalating that if he was going to leave some kind of symbol or clue then he would have done something more than just nicking under her eyes,after all the butchery he did to her.
It still seems too vague to be a message etc...IMO of course..

[Sam Flynn]

And though we can not reach any certainty what lay behind them nicks under the eyes, there is no denying that the time was there to produce them.

...all of four or five seconds, Fish - that's all that would have been required.

..but the fact of the matter is that he had time enough to turn Mitre Square into a butcher´s shop

A child will spend minutes on end carefully arranging his blocks into a meaningful shape, yet it only takes seconds for him to scatter the contents of his toybox all over the nursery floor in order to get at the blocks in the first place.

[Fisherman]

Halomanuk, Sam!

Of course there can be no certainty that the nicks were messages. In Sweden, the papers are right now carrying a story of a woman who bought a mango, cut it in two, and found that one of the halves carried the text "Allah" whereas the other half said "Muhammad" ...

My only point here is that if time is supposed to be the limiting factor here, I think we must accept that he had time enough to communicate, knife-wise so to speak. But there is no way of knowing whether the message - if there ever was one - was to be read in the nicks under the eyes or in the cut-off nose ("She was nosy, so I finished her off) or the piece of ear that dropped to the ground as Eddowes´ body was lifted from the ground ("You´ll be hearing from me again").
The deduction that we are dealing with just another mango here is a tempting one.

The best,
Fisherman