Why Mutilate The Nose Specifically?

[mklhawley]

Greetings all,

Another Ripperologist talked to me about this thread, and this is what he had to say:

BBC America recently broadcasted a show on Frederick Deeming. Donald Rumbelow was on it. Here is part of the show's dialogue.

Narrator: ...another horrific murder was committed, Catherine Eddowes. Gruesomely, her nose was severed.

Donald: A lot of women had syphilis and the tip of the nose rotted, and so what you can actually buy was a false nose to conceal the despicament. What (the Ripper) was doing was branding her as a prostitute.


Sincerely,

Mike

[lynn cates]

emulation

Hello Miakaal. Thanks.

"I think to cut the nose would be either spiteful or playful."

Could be. But aren't those near opposite poles?

"I'm not sure if one enjoys inflicting "spite" it's not sadism really is it."

Doubt it.

"Or was it revenge that made him do it? But on whom?"

Well, looks very like Kate Eddowes.

"If the killer did not want to or like mutilating, then why do it?"

I take it you refer to Kate? Suppose you were female and had a tryst and wished your spouse to remain uninformed. Suppose further you inadvertently became pregnant. IF there were a serial rapist about, uncaptured, might you not try to subsume his activities, perhaps going so far as to "arrange" things?

"Please don't say to "shock"."

Wouldn't dream of it.

Cheers.
LC

[Abby Normal]

Why cut the nose? because he was a post mortem mutilator who was fascinated with what his knife could do to a female body. After he had indulged his primary interest/curiosity with targeting the sexual internal organs he escalated to other internal organs and then external objects of femininity-the breasts, facial features -including the nose.

[miakaal4]

Hi Lynn, I think to cut the nose would be either spiteful or playful. I'm not sure if one enjoys inflicting "spite" it's not sadism really is it. And playful, even in such a macabre fashion would be enjoyed. Or was it revenge that made him do it? But on whom? And yes, I do think the killer enjoyed the cutting. All part of the motive from the "hello" to fleeing the scene. If the killer did not want to or like mutilating, then why do it? Please don't say to "shock".

[Wickerman]

Sutcliffe was a disorganized killer. But I don't think Jack the Ripper was. Sutcliffe favored no weapon, no area of the body, no overarching theme. He tended to favor prostitutes, but did not confine himself to them. Essentially he was just lashing out violently whenever the mood struck him. Classic disorganized killer. Jack the Ripper cut throats. He posed bodies. He fetishized mutilation. The bodies don't all look alike, but they all are a play on a similar theme. Sutcliffe is however exactly what I think Jack would have looked like if he devolved. Peter Sutcliffe wasn't caught sooner because of a lot of errors and some sheer dumb luck. The Ripper wasn't caught because as best we can tell, he left no witnesses. Sutcliffe was not careful. Jack was. They have a lot of similarities as best I can tell, but not the most important part, which was self control.

I honestly don't think we know enough about JtR to decide whether he was organised or disorganised.
Sutcliffe's weapon of choice was the hammer, c/w a stabbing weapon, either a knife or screwdriver.
Sutcliffe attacked prostitutes but whether it was because they were readily available and easy targets or just women, is debatable. As we see, any woman eventually became his target, he didn't concern himself whether they were prostitutes.
JtR cut throats alright, but Sutcliffe's signature was the hammer. Thats how the police decided which murders were his and which were not.

I'm with Observer here, in my opinion, Sutcliffe is a fine specimen of a modern-day Jack the Ripper in many ways. We should not expect him to be a carbon copy, no-one could be, because we don't know what motivated JtR to begin with.

There is nothing to suggest JtR was not an opportunistic killer, he may have been hunting or accosting women every night of the week for all we know.
Just every now and then the passion and circumstances coincided with a particular woman at a particular hour on one particular night and he was able to fulfill his desires.

Regards, Jon S.

[Errata]

Hello Errata. Thanks.

I was suggesting that she was an only kill.

Cheers.
LC

She may have been. It's why I sometimes refer to serial potential killers. They would have been serial killers had not events conspired. I interviewed a handful of them for my boss's book/manual thingie. If someone has a killing fetish and murders someone, then assuming everything goes well they will kill again. But things don't always go well. Eddowes could have been his first or second kill, and he had every intention of continuing, but he fell down a manhole and died. Or got committed, or contracted a debilitating disease. Highly fetishistic crime scenes go with serial killers, but rarely with killers who have a close relationship with their victims. Eddowes murder was highly fetishistic. It doesn't lend itself to close association. That doesn't mean she was killed by Jack the Ripper, though I think she was, but it does suggest that whoever killed her intended to do it again. Which would indicate to me that whatever association he had with his victim, it wasn't especially personal. More a representative association.

Observer: I agree with you except on one major point. Sutcliffe was a disorganized killer. But I don't think Jack the Ripper was. Sutcliffe favored no weapon, no area of the body, no overarching theme. He tended to favor prostitutes, but did not confine himself to them. Essentially he was just lashing out violently whenever the mood struck him. Classic disorganized killer. Jack the Ripper cut throats. He posed bodies. He fetishized mutilation. The bodies don't all look alike, but they all are a play on a similar theme. Sutcliffe is however exactly what I think Jack would have looked like if he devolved. Peter Sutcliffe wasn't caught sooner because of a lot of errors and some sheer dumb luck. The Ripper wasn't caught because as best we can tell, he left no witnesses. Sutcliffe was not careful. Jack was. They have a lot of similarities as best I can tell, but not the most important part, which was self control.

[Observer]

To Errata

You over-complicate. It takes very little to enrage this type of individual. Take a look at this. From the confession of Peter Sutcliffe.

"She got in the car I remember when she got in there was an overpowering smell of cheap perfume and sweat this served all the more for me to hate this woman even though I didnt even know her,"

Sutcliffe again. He had returned to a victim in search of a five pound note which he realised might incriminate him. He could not find the womans bag and so

"I was very frustrated not having found the £5 note and thinking that my timewas up. I remember I kicked her a few times and I rolled her over before I left her."

Why do I continue to quote Sutcliffe? I see very real similarities between the crimes of Sutcliffe and the crimes of Jack The Ripper. I believe the driving force that motivated Sucliffe motivated Jack The Ripper. Both Sociopaths, a result of biological, and enviromental factors. Typically thrill seekers, Risk takers, they show no fear, they consider others only for manipulation, a means to an end. In the case of Sutcliffe it's clear that there was a sexual nature to his murders. After his arrest, upon being stripped searched it was found that he was wearing a jersy under his trousers with his legs through the arms of the garment. The arms of the garment had also been re-enforced with some kind of material where his knees would have been. He said the garment was used in order to keep him warm, the police knew better.

Were JTR's crimes sexually orientated? I don't know, but I'd say knowing what we do of this type of murderer, they were.

The cutting of Eddowes nose? Probably something very simple. My opinion ? Pure spite.

[lynn cates]

My one and only.

Hello Errata. Thanks.

I was suggesting that she was an only kill.

Cheers.
LC

[Errata]

Hello Errata. Thanks.

"As for why mutilate the face, I think she looked like someone he despised."

Is it impossible that the someone he despised was--Kate Eddowes?

Cheers.
LC

Not impossible, but I think unlikely. I don't think her attacker got a good look at her until she was on the ground dying. She was blitzed, her throat was cut while she was still upright, I think he had to be behind her. I think he flipped her over to start cutting her abdomen and wigged out a little... but not so much that he loses control.

When people talk about serial killers or serial potentials, they talk about organized vs. disorganized, two incredibly vague terms for a whole lot of factors. Basically it boils down to disorganized killers have lost all control. Akin to a binge drinker drinking themselves to death because they don't have anything left inside them but the desire to drink. And if organized killers get disorganized, things get very messy. Ted Bundy's last kill was disorganized, and he screwed up pretty badly. A lot of emphasis has been placed on serial killers and substitution killing. People say "Well he really wants to kill his mother so he kills women who look like his mother instead". And some do. Kemper was an astonishing example, though certainly not a typical one. Bundy targeted women who looked like a woman who rejected him, etc. But we do know from substitution killers that two things are guaranteed to set them over the edge into disorganized killing. 1. a change in the availability of their real target. If a guy really wants to kill his mother, and she dies, or leaves, or he almost gets caught, that triggers disorganization. 2. If he actually kills the real object of his rage, that triggers disorganization. They lose their purpose, and all they have left is the desire to kill but no way of directing that desire.

Had Eddowes been his real target, I would expect at least half a dozen inept attacks between Eddowes and Kelly. Women getting cut but not killed, him chasing someone down the street with a knife, bodies left with violent throat slashes but nothing else... devolution, in short. But it doesn't happen. So I tend to think she wasn't the target, but associated with the target in some way. Maybe a friend of his real target, maybe she had this other woman's eyes, but whatever it was it made her face unbearable, but not untenable. He was fine with cutting it up, but felt no need to make more than a few quick slashes and toy with the eyes a bit. Maybe her eyes were significant to whatever was going on with him. Maybe she saw something and didn't stop it, or didn't say something. Maybe Eddowes knew the guy's mom and didn't stop her from abusing her child. Which makes her a kind of target, but not THE target. If any of that makes sense.

[Bridewell]

Daylight Theory

Hi ,
Nemo's interpretation of the killer returning home after Stride via Mitre square, is a view I have held for many years.
It would certainly fit in with the account of the morning of the 9th November, when at 1010am a man saw a well dressed man hurrying through the square blood soiled, in an ''excitable'' state.
Remember that this was approx 35 minutes before Kelly's body was found, so the witness was completely unaware of another murder.
It would also fit in nicely with the daylight theory I have believed for countless years, even if it goes against the grain.
Regards Richard.

Logically, a pedestrian favours the most direct route from one place to another. If you speculate that Mitre Square was on the killer's route home from Berner Street (roughly east to west)and also on the way home from Millers Court (roughly north-east to south-west) you have to be looking at a home/lair/place of safety close to Mitre Square itself surely? Beyond that point the two lines of travel start to diverge again. Is that why he did the facial mutilation perhaps - because he knew he was only yards from safety? The only tenant in the square was City PC 922 Richard Pearce though - perhaps someone who was holed up in one of the empty cottages? Is there any record of a search being made of No.12 which was, I think, the nearest?

[lynn cates]

despised

Hello Errata. Thanks.

"As for why mutilate the face, I think she looked like someone he despised."

Is it impossible that the someone he despised was--Kate Eddowes?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

tyro

Hello (again) Nemo. Thanks.

Yes, bad indeed. Yet another reason to suppose the Mitre st killer a rank tyro.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

G B P

Hello Nemo. Thanks. Bagster checked that one out. Thought it a no go.

Cheers.
LC

[Bridewell]

The location of apron piece would be a diversion

I'm not sure the killer had time to indulge in such behaviour. The more time he spent on the street, the greater the opportunity for challenge.

[Errata]

Hello Errata. Thanks.

If I recall properly, was not one deeper than the other? Perhaps he was not all that skilled?

Cheers.
LC

Skill is relative. And in this case I meant more care than skill. The easiest thing to do would be to plunge the knife into each eye. And the quickest. But he didn't do that. He did it the "hard" way. And that's unusual. Because apart from the eyes, a couple of quick slashes could have obliterated the face (assuming he hadn't screwed up the nose first). And a couple of quick slashes could have severed the eyelids and left the eyeballs intact, especially if she was dehydrated, and we know she was. But a couple of quick slashes on a victim with their eyes closed shouldn't cut the lower lids. And hers were cut. So that means pushing the lower lids up and cutting them.

As for why mutilate the face, I think she looked like someone he despised. Or somehow reminded him of someone he despised. Facial mutilation isn't about association. As was correctly pointed out, that could easily result in merely covering the face. Facial mutilations mean hatred. Raging hatred. Which has a tendency to be personal because it's hard to be passionate about someone you have never met. You may hate what they stand for, hate what they do, hate what they exemplify, but not passionately. Not with rage. Even when child molesters are murdered (and I think we can agree we hate child molesters) they aren't mutilated unless their killer is someone who has suffered at the hands of a child molester. Not even that child molester. Some other guy who abused them, or their kid. That makes it personal, even though it isn't personal with that particular child molester. That generates rage, passionate feelings, and that results in mutilations though in the case of a child molester, rarely the face.

But, when considering that serial killers, or psychotic killers, are seeking a particular feeling the face of the victim has the potential to be very intrusive. These guys are pursuing a high, no matter what other goal they may think they have. A high comparable to a sexual thrill. So if some guy went to some dive bar and picked up a chick, brought her home, and realizes a little too late that she looks EXACTLY like his sister... that's intrusive. That in fact may be so intrusive it's unrecoverable. But ignoring that face is not an option. Some things cannot be unseen.