Is Eddowes demise the key?

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Following on from Sally's post.

With only five victims, you can't have multiple serial killers at work. So there's that scenario up the pictures.

I don't know if there's an officially-recognised minimum victim-quota in order to qualify as a bona-fide serial killer, but only two murders actually resembled each other. So for the sake of argument let's ascribe Chapman and Eddowes to one perpetrator.

This leaves three victims.

Polly Nichols has a special place in Whitechapel mythology. She evolved over time from being the third victim of a lone maniac [briefly rumoured to be Leather Apron] to becoming the first victim of Jack. Two very different people, according to the author of Dear Boss.

The inquest medical evidence rules out Stride having been mutilandum interruptus on Jack's part.

This leaves the Millers Court murder, which is in a jiggery-pokery league of its own. Money couldn't have bought the obfuscation which followed in its wake.

The word conspiracy is bandied around in its most pejorative sense whenever we shrink from addressing the many and varied shortcomings of the official version. We've talked ourselves into believing in Jack and heaped every obstacle in the way of any suggestion that he was anything less than real.

However, there is not one soupçon of evidence to suggest that a serial-killing Jack was responsible for the five Whitechapel murders. Think about it. Jack was apparently blessed with the appearance of a foreigner, split-second timing, lightning surgical skills and a mordant sense of humour. Yet the cops tried to pin his crimes on a cricket-playing barrister from Dorset, a Jewish lunatic who ate food from the gutter, and a man with an iron-clad alibi.

We need to get over Jack. The question we should be asking ourselves is why various policemen actively encouraged the press and public to believe he actually existed.

Perhaps we need to re-evaluate the word conspiracy.

Regards,

Simon

[Jon Guy]

. And, yes, one can be strangled without any signs, so the last 3 might have been strangled as well.

Agreed, splendid.

[lynn cates]

strangled

Hello Jon. Yes. Thanks, I am aware of that. I am saying only that the first cuts were more powerful still--they actually notched the bone itself. Read it again and you'll see what I mean.

And, whilst I am thinking about it, the strangle marks are quite evident on Polly and Annie--not on Kate. And, yes, one can be strangled without any signs, so the last 3 might have been strangled as well. But there is no "might have been" with the first 2.

Perhaps another coincidence?

Cheers.
LC

[Jon Guy]

"Kate's throat was cut down to the vertebrae."

You mean cartilage? The others had the BONE nicked.

Lynn, Dr Brown stated that "All the deep structures were severed to the bone, the knife marking intervertebral cartilages"

The cartilage in question is attached to, and connects the vertebrae.

[lynn cates]

opinion

Hello Michael. Thanks. No, no mischief. Just honest opinion.

Thanks for recognising it, however. You are quite an observer.

Cheers.
LC

[Henry Flower]

Precisely Jon - sometimes they count, sometimes they don't it seems. Lynn is allowed to note something unfinished about Nichols but won't countenance that assumption re Stride. Slight differences between Chapman and Eddowes are given far greater weight than large differences between Nichols and Chapman. It seems the goalposts are located always just where Lynn wants them...

[Jon Guy]

"Killer wanted to reach the sternum."

Ah, so you note the difference too? Splendid.

Yes, and the differences between Nichols and Chapman.

[Henry Flower]

Lynn, hi - for me this is the clincher - count me a convert:

6. Two neck cuts on Polly and Annie; second neck cut on Kate, "superficial."

In other words, there were two neck cuts on Polly and Annie, whereas there were two neck cuts on Kate.

Clearly, the work of two very different killers. That autumn. In Whitechapel/Spitalfields.

Do you convince even yourself with this stuff, or are you merely being mischevious?

Either way I think it's delightful

[Sally]

Great post, Sally.

Nobody has yet explained why a conspiracy is even likely, let alone a more plausible reason than someone like a Kurten, Sutcliffe, Napper, West, Ireland or the Ipswich man (forgotten his name for the moment) acting out his murderous fantasies on a particularly vulnerable section of society, resulting in one Spitalfields unfortunate after another meeting a sudden violent death in just a few weeks.

I actually think it does a victim no favours to argue that she gave someone a reason to kill her specifically, and in such a horrific way. While I realise this is an emotional response, it does at least fit with the evidence of a killer who wasn't after a particular woman, but any woman.

Love,

Caz
X

Thanks Caz, kind of you to say so.

Yes - what is the raison d'être of the Conspiracy? Too often it appears to require none, being in and of itself an explanation for the unacceptable or the inexpicable. I'd argue that the Ripper represents both.

I don't think it's impossible that the Ripper 'knew' one, or some, or all of his victims to some extent - but that doesn't require conspiracy, only familiarity.

[caz]

With all this multi-story killing field stuff is how to explain it.

If you have one knife-wielding maniac with a penchant for rummaging around in women's innards, then you have a serial killer.

If you turn him into two or three you can't have that, because the odds of having multiple serial killers with the same desire in the tiny little Whitechapel area within a few short weeks would be too astronomical to take seriously.

If you want a couple of copycats - same problem. Why?

So, you must turn to conspiracy to explain the theory.

But again, however one may say - 'Oh, it was the Fenians', 'Oh, it was Jewish Anarchists', 'Oh, it was Lord Randy Churchill' it doesn't do as an explanation in itself. A conspiracy is not an end in itself.

You still have to explain why. I think to seek an extraordinary explanation for the Whitechapel Murders is quite common and natural. Any conspiracy turns the death of the victims from a random, meaningless, horrific death into something with purpose; and the victims into something more than unfortunate women in very dire straits who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sadly, the latter is far more plausible.

Unless it really was Van Gogh.

Great post, Sally.

Nobody has yet explained why a conspiracy is even likely, let alone a more plausible reason than someone like a Kurten, Sutcliffe, Napper, West, Ireland or the Ipswich man (forgotten his name for the moment) acting out his murderous fantasies on a particularly vulnerable section of society, resulting in one Spitalfields unfortunate after another meeting a sudden violent death in just a few weeks.

I actually think it does a victim no favours to argue that she gave someone a reason to kill her specifically, and in such a horrific way. While I realise this is an emotional response, it does at least fit with the evidence of a killer who wasn't after a particular woman, but any woman.

Love,

Caz
X

[Scott Nelson]

This is why I rarely participate in these circular debates. Once and a while, I have to kick myself.

[lynn cates]

same; different

Hello Sally. But in looking over the reports, I should have expected major discrepancies between Polly and Annie. I saw none--other than leaving one unfinished (and that, if and only if organ removal were the point).

In and of itself, it is NOT the discrepancies that I find important, but rather the alarming sameness of the first two. Then, and ONLY then, do I find the differences in C2 and C4 striking.

Cheers.
LC

[Sally]

Seriously?

1. Knife cuts on Polly and Annie, down; Kate, up.

2. Mutilations on Polly and Annie described as skillful; Kate, unskilful.

3. Mutilations on Polly and Annie with lifted dress; Kate with cut clothing.

4. Throat cuts to Polly and Annie deeper than to Kate.

5. Annie, attempt to decapitate; not so Kate.

6. Two neck cuts on Polly and Annie; second neck cut on Kate, "superficial."

7. Extensive mutilations on Annie estimated at 15 minutes; many more mutilations on Kate estimated at 5 minutes.

I shall stop there as 7 is supposed to be lucky. Besides, this should be enough for titillation.

Cheers.
LC

Yes but Lynne -

For these 'contrasts' to be significant it appears that you're supposing that every victim of a serial killer will be dispatched in exactly the same way? Where is your allowance for variables? I imagine it would be very difficult to execute (no pun intended) each and every kill with precisely the same process and effect.

There are easy explanations for all of the above, which seem to me to be fairly minor differences.

Why do you think they're significant?

[lynn cates]

imitator

Hello David.

"Honestly, that's more desperate than ever."

Someone needs to learn a new synonym.

"Cartilage instead of what?"

Bone. Which was nicked by the violent cut in the first 2 cases.

"and that would be a significant difference?"

Less power in the thrust that did Kate.

Now, try to reconstruct Kate's movements Thursday through Saturday. It does not wash.

Now we know why Baxter was thinking imitator. And now we know why the City of London Police were ready to give up the one bloke theory.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

point

Hello David. But that depends upon the killer's point. Is it just to kill? Good. Then any method will do--knife, gun, poison.

Are you saying the mutilations were incidental and hence insignificant? Then let's all go rethink Klosowsi.

Cheers.
LC