Freakishly fast

[Ben]

For example, whats stopping an amateur from pulling out the intestines, then carving the nicks on the face, cutting her nose, then cutting the colon section, then stabbing...

Nothing, Mike, and it could easily have occured in that sequence. I don't think he had a ready-prepared "to-do" list all arranged in a meticulous order, but if he did have some sort vague sequential order planned out, it was probably borne out of experience from previous murders rather than professional training.

That, I suspect, is what we're dealing with here. Grabbing and slashing that was honed and improved upon through experience. Learning by doing. It is quite possible for a killer to be inherently organised and meticulous without having professional training in a particular field of expertise.

I'd hazard a guess that the film you saw was an abattoir at work on a supine beast with it's body supported by a table or something, and not a lifeless woman that one is trying to hold up with one arm while sawing away with the other.

Not quite with you here, Good Mike. Chapman and Eddowes were almost certainly supine when their throats were cut (not held up or standing up), and as for the poor beast in the documentary, he was hanging upside down. A cheery evening's viewing as I recall!

Best to all,
Ben

[perrymason]

Hi Mike,The notion of Jack "perfecting" his attack technique is almost akin to someone "perfecting" tripping somebody up - just about anyone could do it, in my view.

Hi Sam,

If the technique were speaking of his knife technique alone, then I think anyone untrained could have mirrored most of that aspect of the kills. But there are acts I would say an untrained person would have no shot at accomplishing in the times he does.

But Im talking about a technique that allows him to get women alone in the dark with him during a murder spree, one that shows his victims were compliant and lying down quietly before even getting their throat cut, and a technique that has allowed him to leave an earlier murder without an apron piece from the victim, just a handful or pocketful of bloody mess...and get home without being noticed. His most powerful and I believe inflexible part of his programming...how he gets them dead quietly so he can work further....and leaves without ever being seen as suspicious. By that I mean no-one saw a panicked newbie street butcher running away.

There are signs he had some emotional control.

My best Sam.

[Ben]

But Im talking about a technique that allows him to get women alone in the dark with him during a murder spree, one that shows his victims were compliant and lying down quietly before even getting their throat cut, and a technique that has allowed him to leave an earlier murder without an apron piece from the victim, just a handful or pocketful of bloody mess...and get home without being noticed. His most powerful and I believe inflexible part of his programming...how he gets them dead quietly so he can work further.

Hi Mike, in the absence of any training establishment or apprenticeship that teaches any of the above, I'd say he probaby learned on the grisly job.

[perrymason]

Hi Mike, in the absence of any training establishment or apprenticeship that teaches any of the above, I'd say he probaby learned on the grisly job.

Hi Ben,

I would have to side with you that there is no Trade School that teaches that kind of stuff.....then all the more remarkable that with only 3 or 4 previous experiences, all in similar settings and beginning much the same way, with middle aged women to deal with,.. he would self graduate himself to a young woman, and indoor examination and much more taxing work, like cutting flesh, tendon, and muscle, from bone. Quick study, and gains confidence very rapidly and easily, in that model.

That seems like someone with at the very least limited intelligence, which makes his starting to cut women open without any objectives other than mess making, more puzzling.

The more credit you give him in his learning ability,... adaptability, cunning steeled nerves, the closer you get to a man who wouldnt likely act without purpose, a man who is not mad and bloodthirsty, but perhaps with a goal he is working towards. A man who learns as he goes.

Seems you favour a clever man, who is too uninformed to think about what he is doing, or learn anything more about bodies than he did when he cut open his first. Seems like a Push me-Pull you kind of animal to me...if you recall your Dr Doolittle.

I dont think uninformed and incapable goes well with increasingly more confident, clever, and capable each time of more actions, within about the same amount of time.

My best regards Ben.

[Sam Flynn]

New thread started!!!

As we're moving into more generic areas of discussion on the killer's apparent skill - which extend the debate over and above the speed by which the wounds on Eddowes were perpetrated - I've opened a fresh thread here:

JTR: Not even the skill of a butcher?

Those of you picking up points on that topic from this discussion might consider transplanting them (no kidney pun intended) over there.

[Jon Guy]

Hello

I hadn`t seen this snippet about the tea before.

Evening Standard. Oct 1st:


The arrangements of the City Police at this point, and perhaps, owing to the late murders, are said to be very precise, and the circuit of the beat would not extend over eleven minutes. In addition to this, the men were in close touch with each other, and thereby able to have ready communication.

On this occasion the officer on duty was Police-constable Watkins, 145. At half past one o'clock Watkins handed a can of tea to the watchman at Messrs. Kearley's named Geo. Jas. Morris, a naval pensioner, telling him to make it hot in ten minutes' time, when he would be round again.

[Robert]

A naval pensioner? That's a new one on me.

[Jon Guy]

I wonder if Watkin`s tea was ready?

If it was, I suppose it clears Morris of any suspicion.

[Sam Flynn]

I wonder if Watkin`s tea was ready?

... probably stuwed.

[Robert]

Evidently, Jack heard the kettle whistling and took it for a police whistle and fled - forgetting that the City Police carried rattles.

He was also fooled by the kettle in Miller's Court.

As a result, the Police advised women to carry kettles around with them, but this was deemed "spouting nonsense."

[Cap'n Jack]

Sam, that link you posted took me back to a time when Dan Norder was still on planet Earth.
wassup?

[Nurse Sarah]

This may seem a bit daft, but when people talk of the Ripper doing all this slashing in the dark, could it not be possible he had some kind of light with him?? Then he may have a small chance of seeing what he is doing?

The police had their lamps, which, I dont actually know how much light they would give off...Im also not sure what else would be available in those days as a lighting source other than candles...

Opinions???

[DVV]

Glowworms, definitely.

Amitiés,
David

[Nurse Sarah]

I used to have one of those as a kid...

seriously tho...what do you think?

[DVV]

Hi Sarah,
well, seriously, I think he worked in the dark.
The only light he could bring with him would have been some kind of "briquet-tempête" - you know, lighter like "Zippo" (if it existed at the time).

Amitiés,
David