Kates Cuts

[Fisherman]

Jeff,

If youre disputing that the Canonical Group is made from anything but presumptions and opinions, then we will never agree.

Well, Mac was wrong about it, I think I can guarantee that much.

The Ripper had a round dozen victims and a round dozen victims only. And a saw.

[Fisherman]

Ill try and be more brief this time Fisherman....if you look at the specifics of the first 2 murders there is really a finite amount of activity that is present in both murders. The targets were acquired the same way, they were very similar physically, and they both were killed based on the opportunity that was created, at least in 1 case, by the victim herself. And in both cases the women were on their backs, legs spread, with varying insults to their abdomens. They match. We don't need to cite modern exmples of serial crime to see that, but you do seem to need those when you decide to add acts by the same killer that are not present in any way with those 2 murders. Yeah, modern serial killers kill with strangulation, then hammers, then knives or by whatever means are easiest for him/her. They have distinct disadvantage to the Ripper, because forensics and CCTV has changed the way crime is investigated. Some killers admit to changing their routine or methods if only to misdirect the investigations, not because they wanted to kill differently. These crimes predate those kinds of investigative tools. No CCTV, no means of signaling other law enforcement other than by foot or with a whistle, no fingerprinting, no blood screening, no physical evidence being scientifically analyzed. Hell, they couldn't even tell whether the Lusk kidney was human, female or precisely when it was taken from a body.

There was no reason to change, no indication by those murders that change was likely, and no need to misdirect the authorities by killing in another manner. They had no idea who he was, we just can see what he did, and by that, what he wanted. I don't see any evidence that the same man even thought of disarticulation, dismemberment or any other vile activity other than what he chose to do twice within 2 weeks time.

You can use any serial killers history to try and show that modern serial killers can change their habits when killing, but you haven't yet established that this killer of Polly and Annie showed us any evidence all that he wanted to do anything other than exactly what he did do to them.

Sigh. He did not kill in another manner - he stuck to his guns throughout. It was always about cutting women open, about disassembling their bodies. Of course a killer who is interested in doing that will have a lot of possibilities open: Should I cut the face too this time? Maybe the kidney AND the uterus? Lets carve a breast away! The different setting allowed for different amounts of indulgence and there was always new things to try.

Polly and Annie are not alike if we look closer. In one case, he took out innards, in the other he did not. In one case, he cut the abdominal flesh away, in the other, he did not. In one case, he threw the intestines over the shoulder, in the other he did not.

He WOULD have, if he had the time, you say - but would he not have done to Annie what he did to Kelly if he had time? Kelly also suffered having her abdominal flesh taken away. Kelly also suffered having her uterus taken out. Kelly also suffered having the intestines cleared away. And she had the trademark belly ripping and throat cutting.

If Annie Chapman is an extended Polly Nichols, then how come Mary Kelly is not an extended Annie Chapman? How does your logic work in that case?

Answer: It fails sorely.

[Michael W Richards]

Well, you are free to ignore the stats, but your opinion that that we can't link even two of the murders is not shared by many and places you at one extreme end of a continuum that spans from "can't link even 2" all the way up to those who link not only all of the C5, but some of the "possibles" (i.e. Tabram, etc), and onwards to those who include the torso murders as well. And for those who favor Chapman as their suspect, they're linking a series of poisonings, etc.

There is a lot of evidence and very good arguments to link Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes, and Kelly, and while there are some counter-arguments, they do not appear to have been convincing to anybody who does not already have a particular suspect in mind and where that case becomes stronger if one (or more) of those four are excluded.

A case can be made to consider Stride, but it's far weaker, and far more open to debate with very good points on both sides, to the point it appears to me that the safest and only conclusion we can make is "we don't know". To the extent that further arguments depend upon Stride's inclusion or exclusion, they become 50/50, but if inferences can be drawn regardless of whether or not Stride is included, then those lines of reasoning are on firmer grounds.

I've included Stride in this simply because the C5 are generally of interest to the widest set of people. If we exclude Stride, zone 1 shifts a few blocks north east, to roughly half way between Kelly and Chapman (so roughly 225 yards), though just slightly above the line that connects those two locations. The area of the Times article on the 2nd shifts from zone 3 to 5, which is still of interest, and the intersection of Commercial and Hanbury becomes a higher point of interest as well. The second area in the south east vanishes. So while the specifics are, not surprisingly, influenced by the data inputted, the general pattern is for interest in and around the north west region of the offense locations.

Now, whether that represents his bolt hole (area of residence) or a commuter's entry/exit point to the area, are both possibilities worthy of exploration. If the GSG was deposited after JtR had returned to his residence, then the former is the more likely.

You don't have to concern yourself with these though if you think none of the offenses are linked other than Nichols and Chapman. There's not a lot one can do with only two offense locations in terms of spatial pattern analysis because two points don't make much of a pattern to analyse after all. Also, I want to re-iterate, this type of analysis is only about probabilities, and whether or not the underlying weights in the calculations are the best ones for a Victorian era series has not been tested. They may be, but they may not be as well, we don't know. I offer these for people's interest, but I do so with all caveats in place and, I hope, clearly stated. If they don't interest you, no problem, ignore them. Who knows, you might be right to do so, but then, you might not be too. I certainly don't profess to know the answer to that.

- Jeff

Jeff,

If youre disputing that the Canonical Group is made from anything but presumptions and opinions, then we will never agree. Its guesswork, not science, not based on the existing evidence. The existing evidence alone would have to exclude at least 1 Canonical from that group immediately.

People choose this position, its not that they are compelled by the evidence to accept it. I choose to match the very similar square pegs with the square slots and "presume" that round pegs must belong elsewhere. Polly, Annie and perhaps Kate are square pegs.

[Michael W Richards]

No, it is not irrelevant at all. The driving forces will be the same, the ways of killing certainly are very much the same when we look at evisceration and mutilation murders and the probems detecting the crimes are also the exact same, on account of how these killers are almost invariably killers of strangers.

And we CAN link these cases, by way of looking at what happened to the victims. Having the belly ripped open from sternum to groin in two or more cases is a link, having the abdominal flesh cut away in two or more cases is a link and so on. It is how the police work, and it is also the way they SHOULD work, because links like these ones will almost invariably give away a common perpetrator.
There are many, many series of killings perpetrated by serial killers who were a lot less specific in what they did to their victims, but they were nevertheless speculated by the police to be serilists long before they were caught. And it is not as if their murders were deeds by various people UNTIL they were caught. These kinds of killings make the police postulate that they are dealing with a serial killer, and that assumption is typically proven some way down the line.

Take Peter Sutcliffe, for example - why do you think the police opted for the idea of many deeds but just the one killer? Why did they do so in the Golden State killer case? Why did they accept it in the Gillis case?
Because there were indications that told them that the perp was one and the same: the hammerblows and stabbing in Sutcliffes case, the mutilations in Gillisī case and the manner of finding blunt objects to whak people, mostly couples, over the head in the Golden State killer case.
None of these men produced matters as rare as the cutting away of the abdominal flesh, for example. They were all less rare than the Ripper/Torso killer, but they were clearly specific enough to make the police certiain aboutn a single killer - and that certainty was proven in each case.
Does it take as odd and rare murders as these for the police to speculate about a serial killer? Certainly not - if we have a series of people who are shot (an EXTREMELY ordinary way of killing) out in the open street, the same thing will happen - as in the Son of Sam case. If we have people strangled (the commonest way of killing of them all in sexual murders), the same thing will happen - as in the Boston Strangler case. Itīs all about sudden explosions of murder cases in the same general area - when that happens, and when the method of dispatching the victims is the same, there will always be an assumption of a serial killer on the loose.

Can you give me one good reason why the same assumption should not be made when we have murders involving the taking of organs, sexual and non-sexual, the cutting away of abdominal flesh, cutting the belly open from ribs to pubes, prostituted victims, knife murders, silent deeds, no torture etcetera, etcetera? How much are you asking for before you admit the obvious fact that these murders must be connected?

Ill try and be more brief this time Fisherman....if you look at the specifics of the first 2 murders there is really a finite amount of activity that is present in both murders. The targets were acquired the same way, they were very similar physically, and they both were killed based on the opportunity that was created, at least in 1 case, by the victim herself. And in both cases the women were on their backs, legs spread, with varying insults to their abdomens. They match. We don't need to cite modern exmples of serial crime to see that, but you do seem to need those when you decide to add acts by the same killer that are not present in any way with those 2 murders. Yeah, modern serial killers kill with strangulation, then hammers, then knives or by whatever means are easiest for him/her. They have distinct disadvantage to the Ripper, because forensics and CCTV has changed the way crime is investigated. Some killers admit to changing their routine or methods if only to misdirect the investigations, not because they wanted to kill differently. These crimes predate those kinds of investigative tools. No CCTV, no means of signaling other law enforcement other than by foot or with a whistle, no fingerprinting, no blood screening, no physical evidence being scientifically analyzed. Hell, they couldn't even tell whether the Lusk kidney was human, female or precisely when it was taken from a body.

There was no reason to change, no indication by those murders that change was likely, and no need to misdirect the authorities by killing in another manner. They had no idea who he was, we just can see what he did, and by that, what he wanted. I don't see any evidence that the same man even thought of disarticulation, dismemberment or any other vile activity other than what he chose to do twice within 2 weeks time.

You can use any serial killers history to try and show that modern serial killers can change their habits when killing, but you haven't yet established that this killer of Polly and Annie showed us any evidence all that he wanted to do anything other than exactly what he did do to them.

[Michael W Richards]

We know that Kelly let her killer in. That level of trust might mean that Kelly know her killer, but it could also mean her killer looked and acted respectable enough that Kelly could not envision him planning to kill her.

The main problem with that is that we have no records of Mary ever taking strange men into that room...other than Blotchy of course. But she was heard singing for over and hour off and on with Blotchy there, so not a traditional trick by any means. Mary had only had the room to herself since the Tuesday night of that last week, when Maria moved out. So...that leaves us with 1 night (Wed) she had it to "entertain" men if she had those intentions, and we have no record she was seen with anyone other than Daniel Barnett, while out for drinks. We know what happens Thursday night.

Who the other "Joe" she was seeing is a really big question...because love triangles gone wrong would certainly be a more commonly seen Motive for murder, more common that a mad serial killer killing at random anyway.

[Fisherman]

Let me just add that citing serial killer stats, from known modern killers who have been identified as such and linked directly with a series of violent crimes, and interviewed....is really irrelevant when discussing these murders. Because we cant even link 1 with a 2nd, let alone a series. Ergo, there is no serial killer here unless someone can prove one man killed more than 1 victim.

No, it is not irrelevant at all. The driving forces will be the same, the ways of killing certainly are very much the same when we look at evisceration and mutilation murders and the probems detecting the crimes are also the exact same, on account of how these killers are almost invariably killers of strangers.

And we CAN link these cases, by way of looking at what happened to the victims. Having the belly ripped open from sternum to groin in two or more cases is a link, having the abdominal flesh cut away in two or more cases is a link and so on. It is how the police work, and it is also the way they SHOULD work, because links like these ones will almost invariably give away a common perpetrator.
There are many, many series of killings perpetrated by serial killers who were a lot less specific in what they did to their victims, but they were nevertheless speculated by the police to be serilists long before they were caught. And it is not as if their murders were deeds by various people UNTIL they were caught. These kinds of killings make the police postulate that they are dealing with a serial killer, and that assumption is typically proven some way down the line.

Take Peter Sutcliffe, for example - why do you think the police opted for the idea of many deeds but just the one killer? Why did they do so in the Golden State killer case? Why did they accept it in the Gillis case?
Because there were indications that told them that the perp was one and the same: the hammerblows and stabbing in Sutcliffes case, the mutilations in Gillisī case and the manner of finding blunt objects to whak people, mostly couples, over the head in the Golden State killer case.
None of these men produced matters as rare as the cutting away of the abdominal flesh, for example. They were all less rare than the Ripper/Torso killer, but they were clearly specific enough to make the police certiain aboutn a single killer - and that certainty was proven in each case.
Does it take as odd and rare murders as these for the police to speculate about a serial killer? Certainly not - if we have a series of people who are shot (an EXTREMELY ordinary way of killing) out in the open street, the same thing will happen - as in the Son of Sam case. If we have people strangled (the commonest way of killing of them all in sexual murders), the same thing will happen - as in the Boston Strangler case. Itīs all about sudden explosions of murder cases in the same general area - when that happens, and when the method of dispatching the victims is the same, there will always be an assumption of a serial killer on the loose.

Can you give me one good reason why the same assumption should not be made when we have murders involving the taking of organs, sexual and non-sexual, the cutting away of abdominal flesh, cutting the belly open from ribs to pubes, prostituted victims, knife murders, silent deeds, no torture etcetera, etcetera? How much are you asking for before you admit the obvious fact that these murders must be connected?

[JeffHamm]

Let me just add that citing serial killer stats, from known modern killers who have been identified as such and linked directly with a series of violent crimes, and interviewed....is really irrelevant when discussing these murders. Because we cant even link 1 with a 2nd, let alone a series. Ergo, there is no serial killer here unless someone can prove one man killed more than 1 victim.

Well, you are free to ignore the stats, but your opinion that that we can't link even two of the murders is not shared by many and places you at one extreme end of a continuum that spans from "can't link even 2" all the way up to those who link not only all of the C5, but some of the "possibles" (i.e. Tabram, etc), and onwards to those who include the torso murders as well. And for those who favor Chapman as their suspect, they're linking a series of poisonings, etc.

There is a lot of evidence and very good arguments to link Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes, and Kelly, and while there are some counter-arguments, they do not appear to have been convincing to anybody who does not already have a particular suspect in mind and where that case becomes stronger if one (or more) of those four are excluded.

A case can be made to consider Stride, but it's far weaker, and far more open to debate with very good points on both sides, to the point it appears to me that the safest and only conclusion we can make is "we don't know". To the extent that further arguments depend upon Stride's inclusion or exclusion, they become 50/50, but if inferences can be drawn regardless of whether or not Stride is included, then those lines of reasoning are on firmer grounds.

I've included Stride in this simply because the C5 are generally of interest to the widest set of people. If we exclude Stride, zone 1 shifts a few blocks north east, to roughly half way between Kelly and Chapman (so roughly 225 yards), though just slightly above the line that connects those two locations. The area of the Times article on the 2nd shifts from zone 3 to 5, which is still of interest, and the intersection of Commercial and Hanbury becomes a higher point of interest as well. The second area in the south east vanishes. So while the specifics are, not surprisingly, influenced by the data inputted, the general pattern is for interest in and around the north west region of the offense locations.

Now, whether that represents his bolt hole (area of residence) or a commuter's entry/exit point to the area, are both possibilities worthy of exploration. If the GSG was deposited after JtR had returned to his residence, then the former is the more likely.

You don't have to concern yourself with these though if you think none of the offenses are linked other than Nichols and Chapman. There's not a lot one can do with only two offense locations in terms of spatial pattern analysis because two points don't make much of a pattern to analyse after all. Also, I want to re-iterate, this type of analysis is only about probabilities, and whether or not the underlying weights in the calculations are the best ones for a Victorian era series has not been tested. They may be, but they may not be as well, we don't know. I offer these for people's interest, but I do so with all caveats in place and, I hope, clearly stated. If they don't interest you, no problem, ignore them. Who knows, you might be right to do so, but then, you might not be too. I certainly don't profess to know the answer to that.

- Jeff

[Fisherman]

Fisherman, Ive been on here as long as you, and Ive always enjoyed sparring with you. I think you may have lost some lightheartedness over time, I suppose I have too, but its never been a like-don't like thing. Its been a disagreement.

And disagreements are fine! However, when you claim that I am fitting the evidence to suit my suspect - or ANYTHING along those lines - you are lining yourself up for some heavy artillery, Michael.
I have not "lost some lightheartedness" over time, I have had it taken away from me. Donīt get me wrong, I am not whining about it, and I always knew that would happen when I opted for a suspect. In the end, it is all worthwhile if you feel you are correct. And boy, do I feel that! In such a situation, to have it claimed that I dabble with the evidence, that I misinform experts, that I lie, that I cheat, that I would go to any length to peddle my views is a sad thing - but it seems it will always resort to such things when the people out here cannot dismantle a theory.

[Abby Normal]

We know that Kelly let her killer in. That level of trust might mean that Kelly know her killer, but it could also mean her killer looked and acted respectable enough that Kelly could not envision him planning to kill her.

hi Fiver
I think Kelly probably knew her killer and vice versus, but I don't think we can assert that she let him in (although I think she probably did-either blotchy or someone later). theres also the chance that he knew about the hand through the window trick to unlock the door and snuck in when she was passed out, but again that would point to her and him knowing each other.

[Fiver]

And in the Kelly case we have ample evidence to suggest the killer knew the victim, in this case, rather intimately.

We know that Kelly let her killer in. That level of trust might mean that Kelly know her killer, but it could also mean her killer looked and acted respectable enough that Kelly could not envision him planning to kill her.

[Michael W Richards]

Let me just add that citing serial killer stats, from known modern killers who have been identified as such and linked directly with a series of violent crimes, and interviewed....is really irrelevant when discussing these murders. Because we cant even link 1 with a 2nd, let alone a series. Ergo, there is no serial killer here unless someone can prove one man killed more than 1 victim.

[Abby Normal]

Tell me why I would not haul you over the coals, Michael? Because you say so nice things about me? Actually, you can say what you want, and it wonīt change things a bit. Itīs jestering and lying or the facts, and I choose the facts.

post of the year fish. well done.

to add-both the ripper series and torso series end at the same time. Tottenham face mutilated like eddowes. these two facts along with all the other similarities overwhelmingly point to the same man. if these crimes happened today, im sure the police would be looking at them as connected, at the very least much more than they did back then.

[Michael W Richards]

Tell me why I would not haul you over the coals, Michael? Because you say so nice things about me? Actually, you can say what you want, and it wonīt change things a bit. Itīs jestering and lying or the facts, and I choose the facts.

Fisherman, Ive been on here as long as you, and Ive always enjoyed sparring with you. I think you may have lost some lightheartedness over time, I suppose I have too, but its never been a like-don't like thing. Its been a disagreement.

[Fisherman]

So, youve presumed 12 people by your one suspect because you believe mutilators are that scarce? When knives were by far the easiest weapon to obtain and the most frequently used in crimes involving weapons at that time?

Yes, Michael, exactly so. You are welcome to produce all the other mutilators and eviscerators you are familiar with from the time and place, and we can have a go at sorting out which of them is the likeliest killer in the different cases. Of course, nicking a thumb or something like that will not count - I want killes who are into cutting their victims open and who enjoy procuring innards.
Letīs start the counting now!

You also know of the many, many men in that area with either the known mental illness or known violent tendencies that might have been involved in one or more murders at the time, and you know that there are lots we don't know about at all.

Mental illness does not an eviscerator make, Iīm afraid. Letīs be specific here. Itīs not as if anybody with mental issues go out cutting people up in the open streets.

In the most violent crime ridden section of the modern world.

Yes, Michael, in the Whitechapel slum. Where are your identified mutilators and eviscerators in that crime infested area and time? Can you name one single such man?

Living "adjacent" to the crime area is outside the immediate area, so Im not wrong at all.

You are not wrong about Lechmere living outside the immediate area. But once you try to claim that this exonerates him as the possible killer, THEN you are massively wrong.

You know he almost certainly had someplace very close to the murder sites he was actually involved with, and that's the immediate area.

No, I donīt know anything of that at all. If he had a bolthole in the area, he had to make long walks from more than one murder site. And walking ten minutes is not much easier than walking twenty. Itīs all about his appearance after the murders. If he was bathing in blood and running his feet off, he would get caught. If he had no visible blood on his person and acted calmly - and had a reason to be on the streets, not least! - he could walk from Bow to the Wandle and noone would be any the wiser.
You overdramatize. He was almost certainly seen by many people, both en route to the murder sites and after the murders.

He got off the streets quickly.

Like after killing Stride? And as evinced by how the rag in Goulston Street ended up there a long time after the killing?

And apparently very effectively, since we don't have any reasonable suggestion that he was seen leaving any site.

Effectively, how? Did he wear a robe that made him invisible? Did he fly? Or did he just walk away, cool as a cucumber, rousing no suspicion at all, the way a carman on his way to work would not do? The way a baker en route to the bakery would not do? The way any working man would not do, provided he walked calmly away, perhaps greeting his fellow working men with a "Good morning!" as he went?
You know, I find that a lot likelier than any idea that he had invented a revolutionary new method to stay unseen.


What you've done is make up your mind about a profile for the killer and then try and explain the inconsistencies away using that profile.

What you do is to lie, Iīm afraid. I have done it the other way around. I have noted the similarities and I have made the call that they are too many and too odd not to be connected.

A guy who strangles, cuts, saws, eviscerates, skins, disarticulates,...Im sure he has bad table manners too.

The cutting, sawing, eviscerating, skinning and disarticulating are all parts of the same overall matter of taking a body apart.
Many killers have done these kinds of things, but you seem unaware of it? Have you seen what Gillis, Dahmer, Cottingham etcetera did to their victims?
Are you living on a planet where people who use knives do not use saws? Where people who skin will not disarticulate? Where those who strangle cannot be mutilators?
Try and find a ticket for the next space shuttle to another planet if that is the case.

But that's just an opinion, yours, and one formed because you try and fit the murders with a murderer profile.

It is not just my opinion, no. Others agree that a link seems very obvious. Nor was I the one first suggesting this. Richard Whittington-Egan, for example, did so. And many others have held the same view. You may take my word for it: they are not getting fewer. Once the ban was lifted to speak of a combined killer, this issue is only going one way. And far from me being alone in my thinking, Iīd say you are headed for that particular station yourself. Dated, illogical, uninformed, unhistorical and unwilling to learn never cut the mustard.
So, anyway, you were wrong on that score.
And of course, you are even more wrong in your unsavory suggestion about why I reason the way I do. I do not HAVE to "fit the murders" with a murderer profile - they SUGGEST a single killer on account of the many similarities. It is simple and basic police methodology, chapter one: it people are killed in the same area and time and if they have the same odd and curious damage done to their bodies, then the killer is more than liklely the same one.

As I said, and its indisputable, none of even just the Five Canonicals have an established by hard evidence link to each other or a link by their respective killer(s). You've taken sand and built your castle on it...so don't chastise others when they are seeking more solid foundations.

Tell me why I would not haul you over the coals, Michael? Because you say so nice things about me? Actually, you can say what you want, and it wonīt change things a bit. Itīs jestering and lying or the facts, and I choose the facts.

[Michael W Richards]

I think there needs to be some distinction between someone who makes a conscious choice and then makes that choice a reality, and someone who is content with the choices his prey will make. In the case of the only 2 women we know were soliciting when they meet their killer, he likely posed as a client and knew that would enable him to be led to somewhere dark and semi private to do his thing. In Pollys case, I think his first time at this, he became too anxious, maybe she demurred and he kept trying to get her to pick him up...and finally he gave up trying his act and attacked while still on the street. He didn't get to fully realize his dream of the abdominal mutilating he desired as a result. He discovered he liked this...he does it again within 10 days, but this time he may have asked Annie to take him somewhere more agreeable to fulfill his needs, or maybe he was just led there fortunately. In either case I don't think this venue aspect was a conscious choice made and then realized by the killer.

Did Strides killer follow her with intentions of killing her? Did he, on the spur of the moment, make that a choice? Did Kates killer pick her up, or get picked up by her, with the intention of killing her in the square? Did Marys killer come to her room to kill her because she was at home,.. did he follow her home? Choice may not always be a factor in where all the women are killed. Chance may be.