Why Mutilate The Nose Specifically?

[caz]

...and Kelly's killer cut off her ears because she had HEARD rumors about who Jack might be...and then he cut off the flesh from her thigh because she might have WALKED to the nearest police station to inform on him. He also pulled out her intestines because she had a GUT feeling as to Jack's identity and he wanted to discourage that in other women. The list goes on and on.

c.d.

...or back to Eddowes, her killer cuts off her nose because she KNOWS too much; parts her from her kidney as a reference to Stride leaving her KIDNEY; and whips out her womb, because he means to kill the next one in her ROOM.

Actually, with all the talk of noses on this thread, it seems to have been forgotten that Eddowes is also found missing a kidney (removed carefully, not sloppily) and her uterus.

What the fek is that all about, if she is murdered because she has something over her killer? He knows he risks being caught in the act if he stays a second too long, and his very purpose in Mitre Square is self-preservation? Really? Then why does he not slit her throat (and cut off her nose if he absolutely must drop this little hint as to his motive) then scarper?

If he is not THE Whitechapel Murderer, but wants to pretend he is, ditto - plus a quick abdominal slash or two. With only Nichols and Chapman for comparison (assuming he doesn't yet know about Stride) that is all he needs to do. No rummaging around in innards and sh*t; no taking away bogus trophies; no mess, no fuss.

And as Don Souden explained, there is NOTHING of any substance behind the rumour that Eddowes was planning to turn in the WM and claim a reward. She'd have had no reason at that time to think a reward was on offer, even if she thought she could identify the killer, despite having missed all the action while hopping.

I must say, I find it rather eccentric to ignore Eddowes's missing organs and instead focus on her nose and something she 'supposedly' said to a friend, when there are good reasons to doubt the story.

Love,

Caz
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[Beowulf]

It occurred to me these prior unrelated incidents of smashing noses:

Laszlo Toth mutilated Michelangelo's Pieta in 1972, one of the mutilations included the nose. http://www.theguardian.com/notesandq...,-2565,00.html

The nose of the Sphinx was supposedly mutilated out of anger by a Muslim.

The Egyptian Arab historian al-Maqrīzī wrote in the 15th century that the nose was actually destroyed by a Sufi Muslim named Muhammad Sa’im al-Dahr. In 1378 CE, Egyptian peasants made offerings to the Great Sphinx in the hope of controlling the flood cycle, which would result in a successful harvest. Outraged by this blatant show of devotion, Sa’im al-Dahr destroyed the nose and was later executed for vandalism. Whether this is absolute fact is still debatable. http://www.smithsonianjourneys.org/b...2%80%99s-nose/

I have no theory, only facts

[Michael W Richards]

Hi all

This is post 139 in this thread and I don't have time to read through the whole thread, so perhaps someone might have mentioned this already. It occurs to me that if there was really something in Eddowes saying she knew who the murderer was, if that old story has any credence, perhaps the nose was attacked because the killer viewed her as being "too nosy" and so punished her that way.

Chris

Ive said that same thing before Chris....but its far too reasonable an explanation for most of our group here.

Interesting that she was the only Ripper victim that supposedly told a friend that she intended to claim the reward for the killer by turning him in...the implication is there is that she had someone specific in mind. Perhaps the "nosey" wound was to let others know that they too might get their nose sliced off if its stuck into someone elses business. A warning.

Interesting question regarding this point......why wasnt Kate afraid to rat out the man...if indeed she believed him to be a deranged killer? Why did she assure John that she wouldnt "fall into "his" hands?

I think its possible she knew a killer on the loose...whether it was Jack or not is a different matter. Since her wounds are less skillful and much sloppier than Polly and Annies...."there were no meaningless cuts" on Annie for example, that might be a valid idea to look at.

Cheers

[c.d.]

...and Kelly's killer cut off her ears because she had HEARD rumors about who Jack might be...and then he cut off the flesh from her thigh because she might have WALKED to the nearest police station to inform on him. He also pulled out her intestines because she had a GUT feeling as to Jack's identity and he wanted to discourage that in other women. The list goes on and on.

c.d.

[Elenahoyos66]

As far as I'm concerned...only a personal opinion of course, and I haven't read back over all this thread, to see if anyone else has expressed the same opinion...the killer cut off the nose because it was a bit of the body which stuck out and was easily cut-offable (and the marks on the cheeks were collateral damage of that).
He could have cut off the ears of course (and didn't he cut off an earlobe ?), but there are two ears and he didn't have much time).

My feelings exactly.

[Rubyretro]

As far as I'm concerned...only a personal opinion of course, and I haven't read back over all this thread, to see if anyone else has expressed the same opinion...the killer cut off the nose because it was a bit of the body which stuck out and was easily cut-offable (and the marks on the cheeks were collateral damage of that).
He could have cut off the ears of course (and didn't he cut off an earlobe ?), but there are two ears and he didn't have much time).

[caz]

Plain as the nose...

On the other hand, if the symbolism was known only to the killer, then he might as well not have bothered. It's like the Zodiac letter no one can decrypt. It may make him feel better, but it completely fails as communication.

Hi Errata,

Well I have to say your Zodiac example rather scuppers any argument that a serial killer like the ripper would not have bothered with the kind of message (or gesture, or private joke or whatever) only he was likely to understand. Zodiac was either crazy enough to imagine everyone would 'get it' - because he knew what his unique message was communicating - or he did it as a deliberate wind up, knowing people could waste the rest of their lives trying to work it out, and not have a prayer of getting anywhere. A more obvious and relevant example would be the GSG. Whether it was a message from the killer or a local graffiti artist, it remains too cryptic for anyone then or now to interpret with any degree of certainty.

In short, the nose job on Eddowes could have meant everything or nothing to our killer, because here we are today, wondering if the gesture had any special meaning for him, or for his audience, and we are none the wiser.

Love,

Caz
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[Errata]

Hi errata,

Your question carries with it the implication that Kates killer killed other people. Thats not been established.

Maybe her killer only cuts the nose if he has reason to leave the corpse in public as a message to the general civilian population. I doubt the nose cut itself is the issue here...its her punishment, if it is that, which is a horrible death.

Cheers

That's not what I mean though. I have a hard time explaining it. I mean there's nothing new in the world. Any sort of (pardon this) visual pun on the part of Kate Eddowes killer that would be obvious to the casual observer would have showed up before. If this was a statement about her being an informant for example, then other murdered informants would have something similar done to them, regardless of the killer. Maybe not all, but some. Say for example, a tongue getting cut out. It's a statement that they shouldn't have talked. Lots of different killers cut out their victim's tongue to send that message. It's a common message. If the parlance of the day made the nose a target, then one would expect other killers to indulge in same sending of a message through mutilation.

On the other hand, if the symbolism was known only to the killer, then he might as well not have bothered. It's like the Zodiac letter no one can decrypt. It may make him feel better, but it completely fails as communication. But since he cut up the rest of her face, and didn't confine his attention solely or eve primarily to the nose, I think it's probably not meaningful.

[Michael W Richards]

If there was something symbolic in the removal of the nose, wouldn't it happen more than once? Cutting a tongue out tends to be symbolic (or cannibalistic) and while it doesn't happen often, it happens. And no attempt is made in those cases to do anything else that might obscure the meaning of that gesture, unless there are other meaningful gestures, like putting the eyes out of cutting off a hand or something. If a mutilation is supposed to be a message, then it tends to be cliche. Like mafia dumps. Tongue cut out, he talked. Hand cut off, he stole. Etc. But corpses with those mutilations do drop occasionally. So if it's supposed to be obvious symbolism, that would suggest that noseless corpses occasionally dropped in Victorian London. Did they?

Hi errata,

Your question carries with it the implication that Kates killer killed other people. Thats not been established.

Maybe her killer only cuts the nose if he has reason to leave the corpse in public as a message to the general civilian population. I doubt the nose cut itself is the issue here...its her punishment, if it is that, which is a horrible death.

Cheers

[Errata]

If there was something symbolic in the removal of the nose, wouldn't it happen more than once? Cutting a tongue out tends to be symbolic (or cannibalistic) and while it doesn't happen often, it happens. And no attempt is made in those cases to do anything else that might obscure the meaning of that gesture, unless there are other meaningful gestures, like putting the eyes out of cutting off a hand or something. If a mutilation is supposed to be a message, then it tends to be cliche. Like mafia dumps. Tongue cut out, he talked. Hand cut off, he stole. Etc. But corpses with those mutilations do drop occasionally. So if it's supposed to be obvious symbolism, that would suggest that noseless corpses occasionally dropped in Victorian London. Did they?

[Tecs]

Hi all,

We knew what it meant already, but did anybody else notice that in Ripper Street this week the villain described giving information to the Police as "Turning nose?"


regards,

[Michael W Richards]

Hi all

This is post 139 in this thread and I don't have time to read through the whole thread, so perhaps someone might have mentioned this already. It occurs to me that if there was really something in Eddowes saying she knew who the murderer was, if that old story has any credence, perhaps the nose was attacked because the killer viewed her as being "too nosy" and so punished her that way.

Chris

Sticking her nose where it didnt belong, precisely.

All the best Chris

[Bridewell]

I was trying to think of other references to a nose being sliced off and all I could come up with was this: (Apparently the "blackbirds" were "naughty boys" in the earliest versions)

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;
Wasn't that a dainty dish,
To set before the king?
The king was in his counting house,
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes;
When down came a blackbird
And pecked off her nose

I couldn't see any relevance until I saw the reference in the attached link as to how pirates spent their money:

http://www.snopes.com/lost/sixpence.asp

I don't suggest it's a solution to anything, but I thought the content quite interesting.

[ChrisGeorge]

It's been suggested that the facial mutilation inflicted on Eddowes may have been done as a warning to someone. I guess though, if it wasn't completely random, another possibility is that Eddowes herself was being punished in some way.

I've found the following which outlines reasons why, historically, nasal amputation was inflicted as punishment:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2689568/

Hi all

This is post 139 in this thread and I don't have time to read through the whole thread, so perhaps someone might have mentioned this already. It occurs to me that if there was really something in Eddowes saying she knew who the murderer was, if that old story has any credence, perhaps the nose was attacked because the killer viewed her as being "too nosy" and so punished her that way.

Chris

[caz]

Fair enough, Errata.

Love,

Caz
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