"The Face Was Very Much Mutilated"

[Fisherman]

Fair points, Sam. But we do not know that the sheet was tucked in under the mattress, do we? And if it was not, it would be an easy enough thing to reach for it and fold it over her face. That too would correlate with the notion that he threw it over her face.

Also, there is perhaps the possibility that he cut her neck first, only after that placing the sheet over her face. No squirming then, I should think.

The best, Sam!

Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Fisherman,

What I always thought Bond suggested was that the sheet that covered the palliasse, that is to say the sheet Kelly was lying on, was what had been used. The killer would have grabbed it at the corner closest to the partition, and covered her face, cut away, and then let it fall back onto the palliasse again.

The way in which Bond's report has been read historically is that he thought the killer might have "thrown the sheet over Kelly's face", rather than "he yanked at the sheet that was tucked under the mattress and pulled it towards him and over Kelly's face". Why would the killer have done that? It would have complicated matters no end, what with Kelly squirming underneath him as he reached across to grab the cloth.

Two plausible explanations I can think of are that Bond either (a) heard/read of the cut bedsheet second-hand (e.g. from Phillips) and erroneously assumed that what was being referred to was a bedspread; or (b) he examined the sheet in isolation and wrongly concluded that it had been over the body rather than under it.

[Sox]

For all we know, the Ripper may have enjoyed a completely onesided "relationship" with Kelly, though Kelly had perhaps not even ever noticed him, much less exchanged with him in any way.

The best, Jeff

Fisherman

Yeah, obsession is a strange thing indeed, and the opporunity to get Kelly alone might never have presented itself to him, hence the other victims. He may even have been scared to approach her, & his other victims were a sign of him building up the courage....all possibilities.

[Fisherman]

Good point, Jeff!

When Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon, he had probably established a relationship to his victim that Lennon himself knew nothing about. Same thing would apply in the "relationship" Hinckley - Foster, although that did not end in murder. Still, Hinckley had it "in him" as evinced by the shot that almost killed Ronald Reagan.

For all we know, the Ripper may have enjoyed a completely onesided "relationship" with Kelly, though Kelly had perhaps not even ever noticed him, much less exchanged with him in any way.

The best, Jeff

Fisherman

[Jeff Leahy]

I In light of this, can anyone argue that the cuts to Mary's face were somehow personal? If so, then they would also have to be personal with regards to Kate would they not?

c.d.

Just a quick observation with regards to Mark Dixie.

Of course the Ripper crimes appear almost unique as far as I can summize, but every now and then things happen in other cases that draw odd similarities.

Mark Dixie, was in his thirties 37, comparitively old for a serial killer. He also attacked the face. The police firstly assumed that it was a personal killing and arrested Sally's boyfriend. Who they dismissed (much like Barnet)

"The court was told that Ms Bowman had been stabbed several times in the neck, abdomen and back. Three of the blows were so savage that the blade had passed through her body. She had also been bitten. The defendant’s DNA was found on Ms Bowman’s body and on a bloody fingerprint, it was alleged."

Dixie may have know Sally, but from a distance. She went to pubs where he worked. He may have even stalked her, that isnt known for sure, but the attack showed signs of a personal resentment against Sally but he didnt actually know her.

So there are examples of serial killers (please note that Dixie may have committed attacks in Australia some years earlier) committing what appear to be very personal facial mutilations (bites) but without any known direct contact with the victim.

I guess what I'm saying is that while the mutilations may appear personal and may have been so in the killers mind...it dosn't necessarily mean that the killer and victim were actually known to each other directly.

Yours Jeff

[Fisherman]

Hi Sam!

I am not sure that we have the same understanding on the issue. May perhaps be some shortcoming languagewise on my behalf lurking in a dark corner.

What I always thought Bond suggested was that the sheet that covered the palliasse, that is to say the sheet Kelly was lying on, was what had been used. The killer would have grabbed it at the corner closest to the partition, and covered her face, cut away, and then let it fall back onto the palliasse again.

That, incidentally, means that IF he was doing it in this manner, and IF he was right-handed (and I think he was), he would probably have fixed her head by holding it with his left hand, very probably by the hair, before cutting away at the face. And if he did it that way, it would be more reasonable to find holes in the sheet on the right hand side of her face, since it would be a more probable thing to do for him to tilt the head to the right (her left) to get at the face.

But the holes in the sheet are in the portion close to the partition, if I am correct. So maybe Bond was right after all? Then again, if I am to invest in a British Bond, I would much rather go with James than with Thomas. After all, he did say a number of things that are, well ... slightly confusing, to say the least.

Any thoughts? Or corrections? Both are appreciated.

The best,

Fisherman

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

He had hours to work undisturbed. Everything about Kelly indicates a killer enjoying his time to spare.

No, it doesn't. It is possible, but it is still pure speculation that for some reason has been transformed into fact, nothing else.

All the best

[Justin]

Further to Jeff:

Yes, Glenn; certainly a destroyed face can be evidence of dehumanisation, which is seen a lot in domestics, but...

He had hours to work undisturbed. Everything about Kelly indicates a killer enjoying his time to spare.

Why can't it be that simple?

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Glenn

Sorry to interfer on your discussion. But arent you over complicating things here?

If it walks like a duck , quacks like a duck and swims like a duck..

Is it not just possible that Kelly was a Ripper victim?

He met her on the street like the others..

She took him somewhere where he had more time?

The out come was more exagerated?

He was clearly suffering from some sought of psychotic episode...

Jack the Duck?

Jeff

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Have you any evidence of a series of murders triggering men to get rid of unwanted women in their lives, using similar methods (a knife to the throat in this case) followed by similar post-mortem acts of dehumanising? I’ve heard of the opposite happening, whereby crimes not previously linked to a specific offender are found to be down to him when he is finally caught.

I know of several. They of course are mostly Swedish, which is not surprising since my main field is national cases and my knowledge about British or American ones are quite limited. We've had a few of those cases over here, although it must be added that often some kind of mental illness or temporary psychosis have been involved.
I think people are making too much out of the Miller's Court murderer being a mastermind for eluding the police. Nailing someone to the murder would be difficult in those days without a confession and without any forensic evidence, and after all, the police were looking for Jack the Ripper.

I also - once again - want to point out that crminologist Robert K Ressler have stated that he has come across cases where such domestic murders have occured, in order to blame them on a serial killer.
Just like I always refer to Vernon J geberth, who in his well known crime manual as well as in articles for Law and Order Magazine has said that he himself has encountered several cases where such murders initially have been assumed to be committed by a lust killer but in the end it has turned out that the trails have led to someone in the victim's close personal circuits. He also says that such crimes often display elements like "excessive overkill, dehumanisation and mutilation".

Once again, I’m not sure you can have it both ways. What are the chances that a personal need to murder and dehumanise a loved one in a certain way (destroying facial features and so on) will coincide so neatly with what another man has only recently been doing himself, to similar women in the same small area, right up to the facial mutilation detail with the most recent victim? Do you at least concede that Mary’s killer would have taken his basic ideas and inspiration from Jack? Or was this, by pure chance, exactly how you think he would have murdered and dehumanised, with or without Jack’s example?

In short, how do you reconcile a cynical and premeditated act, by someone hoping to frame Jack, with the spontaneous and deeply personal dehumanisation of a loved one? If it looks to you like the latter, can it really be the former as well?

As Alex Chisholm once wrote, if the killer of Kelly intended to copy the Ripper deliberately (which I am not totally sure of or convinced about but can't rule out just the same), then his only base of information was the word on the street and the sketchy news reports, both of them often exaggerating the wounds and containg numerous errors regarding the details of the mutilations. Some press reports stated that Eddowes' face was destroyed 'beyind recognition', which of course is inaccurate and - as Chisholm also theorizes - fits more the facial mutilation of Mary kelly rather than Eddowes.
Thus the weird anomalies in the placing of the organs as well as the overexcessive mutilations could be explained, because that might have been what the person though a Ripper killing would look like. Not everyone were as informed as the police were or we are today, many people probably only read the illustrated tabloids or listened to the word on the street.

On the other hand, I think the main hysteria also may have played an important part on the outcome of the murder, if the killer was psychological unstable at the time of the incident and had become too affected by the news reports. He may not have had any intention at all to deliberately blame the crime on the Ripper, his mental state at the time might just simply have been affected by the murders when he killed her, and that is why the crime scene might display a distorted view of a Ripper killing.

Jack could have been extremely frustrated by early November 1888, if circumstances beyond his control had prevented him from finding another victim during October.

If the Miller's Court murder is not what you'd expect to see from Jack at this point in his 'career', then what would you expect?

I don't know what I would expect from the Ripper. The fact that he would be 'frustrated' is of course - just like my own theorizing - mere speculation without any real foundation and none of us can know what the Ripper would do or not do, or what he would feel like after the Double event. It is just 'assumed' that he 'must' have been 'frustrated' (no doubt Macnaghten's theorizing regarding the Ripper's mind 'caving in' is the origin of this view), but the truth is, we can't know.

All the best

[Jeff Leahy]

Double event, South Croyden 2005.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3313147.ece

I have always been convinced, Dixie was suffering from psychotic delussion due to Cocaine induced psychotic episode. He may have attacked in Australia.

But that night he left a freinds flat late...wondered the area, attacked a victim, then later attacked Sally, when she left her boyfreinds car..

Between you and i, I think he had scored drugs near bye to Sally's murder..

But thats guess work...can't really comment.

Sorry Caz you appear to be discussing another case, just coinsidence..

Good night all

Jeff

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Glenn,

I know this is getting boring, but the West Croydon double event in 2003 featured a very brutal murder, by a killer whose first attempt that night was interrupted by witnesses. When he succeeded in finding a second victim he savagely beat her head and face to a pulp with a lump of wood, leaving her virtually unrecognisable. She was a complete stranger to him, and it was clearly frustration that was behind the excessive damage, not a need to dehumanise a loved one.


Caz
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Sorry Caz

But are you refering to the Sally Anne Bowman Murder? This is obviously a case I know a little about having filmed in croydon last summer. This dosnt quite fit?

Yours Jeff

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Fisherman,

The fact is that only Bond seems to have thought that a sheet had covered Kelly's face, and for his report to make complete sense it must still have been in place at the right side of her head. This does not appear to have been the case, in that the body was open to the elements when found.

There's a clue, I feel, in the fact that whereas Phillips also describes the palliasse, the bedsheet and the floor under the right-hand corner of the bed as being drenched with blood, he doesn't mention any other item of bedlinen showing the same condition. If a bedspread had partly covered Kelly's body at the time of the attack, I have little doubt that it would have absorbed a significant quantity of blood as well. If it was also still lying to the right of Kelly's head when the body was found, I'm sure that Phillips would have mentioned it. But he doesn't - he simply mentions "THE sheet". As we can see from the photographs, "the" sheet is beneath Kelly's body.

[Fisherman]

Dan, Sam; thanks for offering suggestions and efforts of clarification on the issue.
If the (under)sheet was not put over her face in a latter stage, but instead at the very moment he cut her neck, could a simple explanation be that he was in a position when he cut that may have had him splashed with blood - so he used the (under) sheet to fend the gush of blood off? He could not work from his usual angle, cutting and tilting, to obtain this result in Kelly´s case, could he?
Of course, if he just cut and kept the (under)sheet in position, it would fail to work, but if he adjusted it immediately after cutting, perhaps shoving it into the wound? Then again, I feel that the doctor´s words seem to imply that there were many holes in the fabric, but these may of course have come about the way Sam suggests, after he had pulled the sheet from her face and started to cut it to pieces.

All the best,

Fisherman

[caz]

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

Hi Glenn,

Yes, I realise that you are now firmly locked into this belief that MJK’s facial mutilations represent a domestic rather than a ripper killing. I’m just asking you how you are able to make such a distinction, given that the damage inflicted was after death, and both types of killer would arguably, at that point, be in an act of dehumanising that involved very similar personal demons being exorcised.

Have you any evidence of a series of murders triggering men to get rid of unwanted women in their lives, using similar methods (a knife to the throat in this case) followed by similar post-mortem acts of dehumanising? I’ve heard of the opposite happening, whereby crimes not previously linked to a specific offender are found to be down to him when he is finally caught.

Once again, I’m not sure you can have it both ways. What are the chances that a personal need to murder and dehumanise a loved one in a certain way (destroying facial features and so on) will coincide so neatly with what another man has only recently been doing himself, to similar women in the same small area, right up to the facial mutilation detail with the most recent victim? Do you at least concede that Mary’s killer would have taken his basic ideas and inspiration from Jack? Or was this, by pure chance, exactly how you think he would have murdered and dehumanised, with or without Jack’s example?

In short, how do you reconcile a cynical and premeditated act, by someone hoping to frame Jack, with the spontaneous and deeply personal dehumanisation of a loved one? If it looks to you like the latter, can it really be the former as well?

I know this is getting boring, but the West Croydon double event in 2003 featured a very brutal murder, by a killer whose first attempt that night was interrupted by witnesses. When he succeeded in finding a second victim he savagely beat her head and face to a pulp with a lump of wood, leaving her virtually unrecognisable. She was a complete stranger to him, and it was clearly frustration that was behind the excessive damage, not a need to dehumanise a loved one.

Jack could have been extremely frustrated by early November 1888, if circumstances beyond his control had prevented him from finding another victim during October.

If the Miller's Court murder is not what you'd expect to see from Jack at this point in his 'career', then what would you expect?

Love,

Caz
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