Eddowes by a different hand?

[GregBaron]

Get the clothes out of the way...

Great stuff all, and exactly what I was hoping for.........I've learned a great deal about knifing and never knew cutting through a person would be so difficult........I must say I've gotten images in my head that aren't very pleasant but perhaps are accurate about what especially happened to Eddowes.........anyway, a question for Errrata and others, why do you think the MJK murder any more sexual than any other? To me it's just Eddowes without time constraints.......and I wonder if Jack thought cutting threw the clothing might save time and degree of difficulty after learning on Chapman/Nichols..........?

Greg

[lynn cates]

good question

Hello Velma.

"For what possible reason would he cut through the clothing instead of lifting the clothing?"

That's a very good question. Some things are done without thought--tying our shoes, pouring our coffee in a certain hand from a caraffe held in the other hand. Other things are done with deliberation.

IF I were trying to emulate another murder, surely I would note the large items (mutilations, intestines strewn about, throat cut, etc.) and endeavour to reproduce them.

On the other hand, I may be oblivious regarding the minutiae--number of cuts to throat, clothes cut through or no, direction of cuts, etc.

Right now, it is the minutiae in all the last 3 murders that interests me.

Cheers.
LC

[curious]

What about the clothing

Interesting discussion about the knife cuts. I've learned things I've never even thought about before.

But what does Jack slicing through clothing on Eddowes and lifting their clothing to slice Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman say about whether it's the same hand or not?

If a person was killing just in order to mutilate, and liked the feeling of the skin and being better able to control what and where he was cutting, would he really then cut through Eddowes clothing?

For what possible reason would he cut through the clothing instead of lifting the clothing?

[lynn cates]

newspaper

Hello Kensei.

"The intestines were lifted out and placed upon the victim's right shoulder with both Chapman and Eddowes. Surely this is at least strongly suggestive of having been done by the same person?"

Indeed. But it may also suggest that Kate's assailant read the newspaper fairly carefully.

Cheers.
LC

[kensei]

I haven't seen this stated yet, and it seems important to the question at hand. The intestines were lifted out and placed upon the victim's right shoulder with both Chapman and Eddowes. Surely this is at least strongly suggestive of having been done by the same person?

[Wickerman]

My dad was a doctor, my mom was a nurse. My mom was also a gourmet quality cook, and I was her assistant. I started collecting knives at 13, started carving wood at 15.

I understand much of what you write about knife control. My first 3 years out of school were spent as a butcher's apprentice, so knife skills were learned as part of the job and what I was not taught I learned the hard way, and being right-handed my left hand still carries the scars.

I think Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes were killed by the same man. I honestly have no idea about Liz Stride. I think Mary Kelly was killed by someone else, someone who was possibly very very jealous.

We appear to be very much on the same page here, though I still talk of Kelly as a Ripper victim on these boards, my own opinion is very much "on the fence" with that murder.

As I had just recently become familiar with the Jack the Ripper crimes (in 1970) when I started my apprenticeship I had a facination with the effect a knife had on tissue & skin. While learning the job I would study the impression a blade makes on muscle tissue, tendon's & organs.
This might sound a little morbid but I thought there was something to be learned about knife wounds and how you can tell what type of knife made any particular wound.
Back when I was a teenager a knife cut was just a cut, they all looked the same, superficially, but under close scrutiny there are differences in cuts that help a person determine what type of knife was used, it's length, whether it was single-sided, or double-sided, and what type of point it had. Most of the kids my age were oblivious to all this.

The knife wounds in these cases still interest me, especially those of Eddowes. And, controversially, I am not altogether convinced there was only one cut across her throat.

Regards, Jon S.

[Errata]

Hi Errata,

I have found your very well considered posts very interesting. I dont think that those points have been made before.

Have you ever thought of expanding them into an article?

Best wishes.

Not really, no. I mean first of all knife technique analysis at this far a remove from good pictures is about as scientific as analyzing handwriting for personality traits. I can tell you what most people do, and I can tell you how I see it, explain the reasons why I think what I think, but in the end, absolutely zero proof.

So many things exist that change how someone wields a blade. Clearly the amount of clothing that the victim is wearing can change the entire approach. People tend to have a deft hand and a strong hand. Deftness usually predicts handedness. I write better with my right hand hand, therefore I am right handed. I open bottles with my left hand, because my left hand is stronger. And in me, the difference is pronounced. I cut with my right hand, and stab with my left. My right hand is just not strong enough to keep my grip and not slide down a blade when I stab something. If someone has an injury or problem with an arm joint, they will tug backward using their body weight for momentum. And ask any fencer what happens if they change the width of their hilt.

So between one murder and the next, a killer could realize that his right hand isn't strong enough, he gets a case of tennis elbow, change knives, and experience a 30 degree temperature change. Which would be equivalent to analyzing a guy's signature one day, and analyzing it again when he hasn't slept for two days, has a migraine, and broken ring finger. Might as well not bother.

[Hatchett]

Hi Errata,

I have found your very well considered posts very interesting. I dont think that those points have been made before.

Have you ever thought of expanding them into an article?

Best wishes.

[Errata]

Wow. I'm very impressed with Errata's knowlege of knifery....does this all come from Dad the doctor?

So am I correct in assuming Errata that you believe Eddowes to be the work of the same person who killed Chapman/Nichols with simply an evolving technique and with deference to different clothing, lighting, organ selection, time constraints etc...?

Outstanding. I'd love to hear more of your analysis of how Jack actually did it on Chapman and Nichols as well. I think I may not have the stomach for MJK..........


Greg

My dad was a doctor, my mom was a nurse. My mom was also a gourmet quality cook, and I was her assistant. I started collecting knives at 13, started carving wood at 15. I worked at a haunted house for 10 years, a renaissance festival for 15, and have worked as a jeweler, a sword fighter, a cook, a carpet layer, a costumer and a body piercer. Really, I had no choice but to pick up the knife skills. But my hands shake. I have always had a fine tremor, so I HAD to break down the individual movements of any given blade in order to retain my fingers. And even with all that care, my left thigh still looks like it took a shotgun blast close up because every time I try to do fine work in my hands, I stab myself in the thigh.

And here's why (because it pertains to some of these victims):
When you start to lose control of a knife, your instinct is to ground it. Whether you are carving towards yourself, away from yourself, stabbing, sawing, whatever, when you realize you are in danger you instinctively point the knife downward as if to bury it in the ground. Doesn't always work, but it's why when people cut themselves peeling an apple or something, almost nobody manages to just take the skin off. You invariably get an almost curved cut that digs in quite deep, because you are instinctively trying to turn the knife to a "safe" position. Because your finger is not a flat plane, it cuts you deeper.

Because of this, when people pull a knife towards themselves, they start to release the pressure on the blade. It's unconscious, but it prevents the momentum of the knife from ramming the blade into your own abdomen. A starting cut requires the most force, because the momentum is necessary to break through flesh. The ending cut has the least force, because of the self defense instinct. Or if you are cutting away, it's the weakest cut because the more extended your arm is, the less pressure on the knife.

The ricochet on Eddowes had to come pretty early on in the cut. There is a lot of force behind it, and it was fast. I think Jack was grounding the knife when he cut across to her groin and down. It is a slash, and a deep one. It was not made by the point of the blade. I think he was pulling towards himself with both hands when the blade skipped, the blade started slashing toward him, and he rotated the knife causing a very deep cut in her groin, almost amputating the labia. I think he probably managed to turn the blade sufficiently for the point to hit the ground right about at his knees, which is why the last part of that slash is deeper than the beginning. He was turning the knife away from him and towards her, so the edge bit in much deeper.

I think Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes were killed by the same man. I honestly have no idea about Liz Stride. I think Mary Kelly was killed by someone else, someone who was possibly very very jealous. Although I have entertained the notion that she was a victim of the Torso killer instead. But what was done to Mary Kelly was far more sexually involved than the others, and it does not make sense to me for Jack the Ripper to suddenly become very focused of external sexual characteristic when he had not before.

[GregBaron]

Skilled with a blade......

Wow. I'm very impressed with Errata's knowlege of knifery....does this all come from Dad the doctor?

So am I correct in assuming Errata that you believe Eddowes to be the work of the same person who killed Chapman/Nichols with simply an evolving technique and with deference to different clothing, lighting, organ selection, time constraints etc...?

Outstanding. I'd love to hear more of your analysis of how Jack actually did it on Chapman and Nichols as well. I think I may not have the stomach for MJK..........


Greg

[Errata]

Hello Errata. Excellent analysis. Of course, the description you give sounds at loggerheads with what Dr. Phillips said about Annie at her post mortem. There, virtually every mutilation was purposeful--the assailant had an object. Here, with Kate, you describe (rightly, I think) much that is random and accidental.

Do you suppose that this is PRECISELY what drove Baxter, in his summary of the Stride case, to allude to Kate's killing as "possibly the work of an imitator"?

Cheers.
LC

With respect to Dr. Phillips, I think its possible that he would have been right if Eddowes had not been wearing so many clothes. I think her facial mutilations were purposeful barring slips of the knife (one of the cheek cuts I believe was a slip). And I cannot stress (and this is going to sound weird) how impressed I am with Jack's control of the knife. That kind of control speaks of planning, forethought, and goal orientation.

He did not just stab down into her and rip the knife down to her pubis. If he had his victims organs would have been a wreck. He was not just ripping them, he was carefully opening them. With an eye towards trying to preserve the organs (at least in Chapman and Eddowes cases). That's not easy. Cloth does not easily cut with a knife, especially several layers of cloth with different weaves and different wefts. Flesh is also not easy to cut with a knife. A scalpel is designed to cut layer by layer, in order not to damage the structures beneath. A knife has no such advantage.

If we look at Eddowes liver, we see something somewhat singular, in that it is clearly damaged from his attempts to start cutting from the sternum. It had several cuts and stab wounds. When a person is cutting with the point of a knife, the end of the cut is shallower than the beginning. I think this means the cut started at the sternum. But given her post mortem picture, I think the cut was controlled enough that he had to literally rip her open with his bare hands to sever the rest of the connections. Her abdominal flesh appears to have been ripped away from it's supportive structure, and that's the only explanation I have for that.

All due respect to Baxter, the idea that these were "unskillful mutilations" is simply not correct. These mutilations were certainly less skilled than previous ones, and look more disorganized than previous kills, but there is an amazing amount of skill involved in the precision of the depth of his cuts. Jack didn't need to cut it straight neat lines. He needed to cut to a certain depth and no more. My dad the doctor set up a weird test for me to see if I could do it, and I couldn't. Not without quite a bit of practice. Does this mean Jack was a surgeon or a butcher? No. But he had some mad knife skills.

My dad said that the description of Polly Nichols injuries sound exactly like what he would imagine an experiment to look like. He think Jack used Nichols to perfect his technique, trying different methods and different amounts of force to see what was necessary to gain access to the abdominal cavity without ruining the organs beneath. I'm not sure I buy that, but it's interesting to think about.

[lynn cates]

I'm stuffed

Hello CD. Interesting story. Sounds like any one of several millions of people could have done what you describe.

But then, why on earth ascribe the "laundry stuffing" to one person?

Cheers.
LC

[c.d.]

I just got done stuffing my clothes into a laundry basket in preparation for doing a load of wash. The clothes are not in the same order as they were the last time or the time before that. In fact, I have no idea how they were in there before nor do I care. My purpose was simply to get them into the basket. I was not working in the dark or trying to control an adrenaline rush. Also, here in the U.S., stuffing clothes into a laundry basket is not a crime for which you will end up with your neck in a rope.

c.d.

[lynn cates]

real/imitation

Hello Errata. Excellent analysis. Of course, the description you give sounds at loggerheads with what Dr. Phillips said about Annie at her post mortem. There, virtually every mutilation was purposeful--the assailant had an object. Here, with Kate, you describe (rightly, I think) much that is random and accidental.

Do you suppose that this is PRECISELY what drove Baxter, in his summary of the Stride case, to allude to Kate's killing as "possibly the work of an imitator"?

Cheers.
LC

[Errata]

If, as you suggest, the killer was standing between her legs wouldn't that suggest he was left handed?
A number of years back we had a surgeon on Casebook (Dr Ind/Ing?) who thought the direction of the abdominal cuts suggested the killer stood by her right shoulder.
I think the doctor was assuming he was right-handed?

Regards, Jon S.

Well, I think it's probably fair to note that whatever JtR's intentions might have been as far as handedness and cut patterns go, Eddowes wardrobe well and truly confounded him. Her abdominal wounds are clearly a mess, and the fact that she was wearing three layers of button on top probably has a lot to do with it.

I know knives, I know cutting and stabbing, point work, blade work, pressure, all of it. And I have no idea whether Jack was right or left handed. Typically you can tell by the angling of the cut, but I got nothing based on his victim's wounds. Could go either way. I think that for his own purposes, he was proficient with either hand. If I had to guess, I would say right handed given the angling as he neared the pubis. But even that is just a guess.

The slash that goes from hip to perineum is the defining cut for me. It was not a purposeful cut, and it does not conform to her clothing in any way that might suggest he cut through her clothes too deeply. It has to be an accident. The knife bounced off something, and slashed across and down. Because it extends to the perineum, it could not have happened if he were at here head or to either side. When he made that slash, he had to be between her legs. Essentially a pulling stab that glanced off a button, and because he was pulling towards himself, the cut worked towards his center mass. It's depth despite being a ricochet (so to speak) indicates to me that he had both hands on the blade.

Did he go through the whole opening of the abdominal cavity that way? I don't know. I know that pulling towards oneself with a knife is stronger than pushing away. And I know she had on at least 1/4 inch of fabric, probably closer to a half inch, and three layers of buttons. It would take hard work to cut through all those layers. I think he had to move between her legs to try and keep the knife moving. He would have to saw up and down, and anytime the motion stops, he would have had to stab again to regain momentum. There is a point on her abdomen where he clearly deviates from her center line and comes in at an angle (from her right if I recall). That is not uncommon when someone gets frustrated with the angle previously used. I think if he didn't start between her legs, odds are that it was that point in the cut that he changed his angle of attack.

The fact is people move around when cutting something on the floor. If you've ever seen someone cut a pattern out of fabric on the floor, you know what I mean. Even a straight line cut, you get to a point where you are stronger facing the opposite way to complete the cut. I think sometimes that people think about it like a surgeon with a patient on a table. Surgeons don't circle the patient, so they don't imagine a killer circling a victim. But the skills required for Jack the Ripper are not too different than outlining someone in chalk. The precision is in the pressure not in the lines. And for that it is extraordinarily difficult to remain stationary.