"The Face Was Very Much Mutilated"

[Mitch Rowe]

Sometimes it's done in an attempt to make it so that nobody can identify the body. That, of course, would have been pretty pointless in the Kelly case, as the body is in her own room.

And in a way its too bad she was killed in her own room or we would have had a post mortem photo like the others.

I dont think we can tell too much about the differences in facial mutilations between Eddowes and MJK for the simple fact that Eddowes pic was taken after Doctors were able to "repair" her so to speak. Eddowes face may have looked quite horrible in situ.
I have no doubt Eddowes crimescene was a complete shocker to Police and Doctors.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Mitch!

And I dont feel that degree was very much at all!
If one really studies MJKs face and tries to put it together again I think one will find that its not as bad as it looks. I dont have the reference here but I believe DR Phillips stitched her face back together. He also re-assembled her parts and stated no parts were missing!

Besides...Im not a Doctor but I would describe the cutting off of a Womans nose to be a major facial mutilation!!

Thanks for your optimism!

There are loads of us having tried to "stitch up" MJK's face!

But, like Dan Norder has pointed out earlier, we have all made her look different! Most people have made the same basics, but all have made different nuances...

And if Dr. Philips got her face together, surely there would be a photo somewhere?!

All the best
Jukka

[Sam Flynn]

I think the idea is that a face on a body (or, hell, a face on a cartoon character or a puppet or whatever) is what gives it the sense of being human. Destroying that turns the body into basically meat or gore or whatever instead of a human.

I don't have major problems with that, Dan - provided we remember that it is only an interpretation. I guess my point is that, valid as they may be, such interpretations aren't in the same ballpark as objective metrics, such as the length and penetration of wounds, etc. The degree to which a mutilated face can be said to be an absolute indicator of a "depersonalisation" motive is always likely to be subjective, and thus of very limited value as a diagnostic tool in cases such as this.

[Mitch Rowe]

Hello Mitch!



Thanks for your optimism!

There are loads of us having tried to "stitch up" MJK's face!

But, like Dan Norder has pointed out earlier, we have all made her look different! Most people have made the same basics, but all have made different nuances...

And if Dr. Philips got her face together, surely there would be a photo somewhere?!

All the best
Jukka

We are working from a photo. Not from any 3 dimensional object. There may have been no need to take a photo as she was identified.
Im sure Phillips re-assembled MJK. It would have been an important thing to do. Besides who wouldnt?
Ill find the reference for you. Ive been having my doubts about Bonds report being genuine and I need that "statement" from Phillips to compare.

[Mitch Rowe]

I don't have major problems with that, Dan - provided we remember that it is only an interpretation. I guess my point is that, valid as they may be, such interpretations aren't in the same ballpark as objective metrics, such as the length and penetration of wounds, etc. The degree to which a mutilated face can be said to be an absolute indicator of a "depersonalisation" motive is always likely to be subjective, and thus of very limited value as a diagnostic tool in cases such as this.

Hmm? Perhaps JTR intended to remove ACs head to de-personalise the body and when that didnt work he just slashed Eddowes face up. The reason he didnt slash ACs face was because after spending time trying to remove the head he didnt have any more time. He had to get going with the mutilations. The idea of slashing the face came later after he had time to think.
Then why not Polly?? Maybe Pollys face affected him in some manner? How far were the dresses pulled up on victims?(Ill research that.)

If these statements are true it would give me the first indication of JTR having a conscience of some sort. Also that he was actually formulating plans as to what to do with the body after the kill.

[caz]

In any case, it is very difficult to say if Eddowes' facial cuts were of personal nature, but they were certainly not as severe as Kelly's and doesn't really match Brown's description if we compare them to Kelly's. As far as kelly's are concerned, however, they fit what I've seen on other personal murders.

Hi Glenn,

You regularly claim that the MJK photos more closely resemble the damage inflicted by one-off killers on the women in their lives than any natural extension of the damage inflicted on Kate by Jack.

The whole problem, as I see it, with this idea of a distinctly ‘personal’ touch with Mary, by a psychologically frail individual who suddenly needs to dehumanise and destroy his woman after killing her with a cut to the throat (remarkably just as the world is expecting Jack to rip up another dead unfortunate in the Spitalfields area like a pig in the market) is that if it has any legs at all, then Jack himself would arguably be equally, if not more psychologically frail at this point than the new killer you seek to bring on stage - frail to the extent that in his own mind, when he begins mutilating a dead body, he is seeing it as something deeply personal to him and to him alone that he is in the act of dehumanising. You don't imagine he would have done what he did to Kate's dead body to a dead pig, do you?

I’m not sure you can have it both ways. If you have Mary's killer down as a rare old psychological mess with a slim grasp of the reality that, thanks to his own knife, his woman ain’t never comin’ back, what do you have Jack down as? Right as ninepence around the dead females he fashioned into his woman courtesy of his knife?

How are you able to recognise two distinctly different male minds at work here? Do you not think that the killer of Kate would have seen her body as his own personal dehumanising property, just as the killer of Mary did, by your own reckoning?

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Hi all!

To me, Kelly belongs to the Rippers tally. But the doubts will always be there I guess, and if I was to isolate the one single point that I think speaks loudest for Kelly being a slaying performed by an aquaintance to her, I would pick the fact that it was suggested by the doctors that the killer covered her face with the top left corner of the sheet as he cut away at her face.
It is frustrating that there are no comparisons made inbetween her facial damages and the directions of the cuts that went through the sheet fabric. But if Bond was right in his supposition, I find it very hard to explain why the Ripper would do such a thing - unless it had something to do with the internal relationship between killer and victim. Anybody who has an alternative explanation out there? Who has knowledge, perhaps, of a parallel case where such a thing was done, althoug killer and victim were unaquainted?

The best,

Fisherman

PS. Unless, of course, it had something to do with the fact that he may have used the fire in the grate as a source of light; maybe it was the first time one of his victims had a chance to look him in the eye, so to speak. Could that have spooked him? In the other venues, it was more or less pitch dark, with the possible exception of Hanbury Street.

[Dan Norder]

Hi Fisherman,

My understanding was that the sheet was in place while the throat was cut, not while the face was mutilated. If this was part of the initial attack it could have been because her face was already under the covers for some reason. More likely, I think, was that Jack pulled the sheet over her face to disorient her, suffocate her and/or muffle her voice.

[Cap'n Jack]

'Jack pulled the sheet over her face to disorient her'

Are you claiming she was Chinese, Dan?

[Sam Flynn]

What I've never been able to understand about Bond's conjecture about the face being covered by the sheet is that Kelly was ostensibly naked on the bed, with no sheet apparently covering any part of her body. Bond says: "the sheet to the right of the woman's head was much cut and saturated with blood, indicating that the face may have been covered with the sheet at the time of the attack"...

...but surely what lay to the right of Kelly's head, saturated with blood as it undoubtedly was (confirmed by Bagster Phillips' testimony), was the under-sheet? That being the case, its being pierced by several cuts should come as no surprise if the killer's knife overshot its mark once in a while as he scored her face.

[FrankO]

Hi Fisherman,

Anybody who has an alternative explanation out there?

Although it doesn't seem the most likely possibility, she may have pulled the sheet over her face herself, in a silly impulsive first reaction to seeing him coming at her with a knife.

In the other venues, it was more or less pitch dark, with the possible exception of Hanbury Street.

If Chapman was actually killed around 5.30 a.m., then it would have been completely light, as that day the sun rose at about 5.25 a.m. if I'm not mistaken, and it was a clear day.

All the best,
Frank

[FrankO]

'Jack pulled the sheet over her face to disorient her'

Are you claiming she was Chinese, Dan?

Very funny, AP!

[Sam Flynn]

frail to the extent that in his own mind, when he begins mutilating a dead body, he is seeing it as something deeply personal to him and to him alone that he is in the act of dehumanising.

An excellent point, Caz.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

The whole problem, as I see it, with this idea of a distinctly ‘personal’ touch with Mary, by a psychologically frail individual who suddenly needs to dehumanise and destroy his woman after killing her with a cut to the throat (remarkably just as the world is expecting Jack to rip up another dead unfortunate in the Spitalfields area like a pig in the market) is that if it has any legs at all, then Jack himself would arguably be equally, if not more psychologically frail at this point than the new killer you seek to bring on stage - frail to the extent that in his own mind, when he begins mutilating a dead body, he is seeing it as something deeply personal to him and to him alone that he is in the act of dehumanising.

Hi Caz,

No that's not at all what I mean by 'personal' and like many others you seem to miss that point. 'Personal' in this particular meaning, refers to personal as in a close emotional connection with the victim of more personal nature (as in from knowing the victim intimately in a completely different manner than you would get from a stranger), as often is the case of passion mutilation murders perpetrated in a domestic context.
I don't see the nicks in Eddowes' face as necessarily that type of 'dehumanise' as we see on Kelly.
Of course we can't know why the Ripper put those nicks in Eddowes' face, but to me they appear to be just a further extension of the overall mutilations. I don't necessarily see them as personal, while the total destruction of Kelly's face reminds me more of those I've seen in domestic cases as a result of dehumanisation.

Furthermore I think the point is once again missed when you find it 'remarkable' that such a thing would happen while a serial killer is performing crimes of similar nature. On the contrary, it actually makes it even more understandable, since the news of such murders would rather trigger other murders than the opposite. If the murder WAS a domestic I have no doubt that the Ripper murders in some way may have triggered the outcome of it without being perpetrated by the same man.

But again, these are all speculations and we will never know, will we?

All the best

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Glenn,

I daresay that some folk of a suitably screwed mindset might not require a close relationship in order for "personalisation" to feature in their behaviour towards others. Perhaps the best-known example of this are celebrity stalkers whose only contact with their victim might be the television, audio recordings or pictures in magazines - that still doesn't stop the stalker getting possessive, or imagining that a "real" relationship existed between them and the subjects of their fantasies. I see no reason why this trait might not also appear in the makeup of some stalkers - or killers - of complete strangers.