c3 or not?

[Jon Guy]

Hello

My main point of contention with Stride`s murder in relation to the series is that according to Dr Phillips she was killed with a short knife ( he judged this by the position of her body to the wall ), whereas, an hour later Eddowes was killed with a knife that was at least six to eight inches long.

[Grabbit]

If he worked with knives and had a set as a tradesman say, wouldn't it be possible to have more than one? That would also explain the different sizes.

Also, wasn't Polly Nicholls supposed to have been killed with a shorter knife, which was possibly suggested as a shoemaker's knife?

I'm not saying Jack was definitely here mind. Just that there seems to me no conclusive evidence either way as yet.

[perrymason]

Hi again,

After seeing this thread come to life again, I re-read some of the posts, and it seems the best we can do to explain Liz's inclusion is by illustrating some scenarios where he appears...as BSMan,Pipeman, nobody has realistically suggested Schwartz yet to my knowledge, but any counter to Liz being excluded seems to rely on what may have happened, and not so much on what actually did happen.

What did happen was that Elizabeth Stride was killed within 15 minutes and almost as few feet from the time she has an altercation with an apparently intoxicated man who walks up the middle of the road, an altercation that causes her to exclaim out loud, and ended with her on the ground in front of at least two witnesses. She was found at 1am by the club manager, with a single throat cut...her clothes and body undisturbed beyond that.

Sure....he may have been disturbed, he may have been hiding in the shadows and slipped past Diemshutz, Broadshouldered Man may have left immediately after assaulting Liz, he may have only wanted to cut this victim once.....but the rubber really only meets the road on the basis of what he did do.

Which in this case was not post mortem mutilation....nor was this an apparent case of a secluded spot chosen by a street whore to conduct businesss with a client she picked up...like 1,2, and victim #4 most probably were,... in the case of Annie and Kate, almost certainly.

So why does the pattern suddenly blip for Liz? As it does with #5, a victim almost 1/2 the age of all the others, with a room she didnt need to pay for each night, and who most probably was at home when her killer comes to her.

When 3 of the five display post mortem wounds centered on the abdominal area, and were all likely acquired in the same fashion, and dispatched in the same fashion, IMHO, you have a genuine reason to suspect they were connected to a killer or killers. When the may haves start to fill in information that is not on record, and instead offer a story of what may have occurred if the killer was Jack the Ripper, we invariably leave the evidence behind.

What evidence is there to even suggest that Liz was killed by the man that killed Mary Ann and Annie? A cut throat? Please...there were 3 of those in the East End that night alone, and I can guarantee that Jack didnt do at least one of them.

Best regards all.

[Grabbit]

"What evidence is there to even suggest that Liz was killed by the man that killed Mary Ann and Annie? A cut throat?"


And the lack of any noise or screams...

and no apparent sign of a struggle from the victim...

possible signs of asphixia...

lack of blood anywhere on the front of the clothing...

found within 15 mins walking distance of where a probable serial killer was working that night.

[perrymason]

Hi Grabbit,

Your points are emphasized,...

And the lack of any noise or screams...

She was murdered almost under a second story window from which singing of some 28 members could be heard, who knows if he or she was quiet.

and no apparent sign of a struggle from the victim...

There is evidence that suggests she was possibly grabbed from behind and choked with her scarf, and cut while the killer twisted the knot and dropped her on the ground,... so although no tussle by her clothes, no quiet slit throat while the victim is subdued and on the ground either.

possible signs of asphixia...

As I mentioned, in this case it seems clear that the throat was possibly cut while the victim was still on her feet or falling, which would negate the need for asphyxia because the initial attack and the throat cut are simultaeneous.

lack of blood anywhere on the front of the clothing...

Considering the scenario as suggested by Blackwell and repeated above by me, there would be no need for blood on her clothing, if her scarf is held by one hand and twisted, the other slides the knife across her throat with her head facing the wall.

found within 15 mins walking distance of where a probable serial killer was working that night.

More like 10 minutes I think, and that means absolutely nothing when one of the victims shows none of the signature wounds, post mortem mutilations, that the other Canonicals did....since it is that man that is suspected of the second murder, and shows us exactly what we might have expected from The Ripper.

3 women had slit throats in the East End the night of the Double Event, one had post mortem mutilations,....two torsos means two women murdered, and some 6-8 unfortunate women were also killed by knife during the alledged activity period of the serial killer Jack, and they were the victims that werent assigned to anyone. Meaning that.....at least 8 and possibly more unfortunates were killed by knife during the relevant period that were not thought committed by a single man, or the man they called Jack. What might that translate to...8 or maybe more men that killed with similar coldness?

That two murders were said to be committed by Jack that night should be cause for concern period....when 1 exhibits none of the trademarks, and the killer never killed twice in one night, before or after.

Personally, Im far less wary of accepting that Jack might kill on city jurisdiction than I am that he would kill a woman and not even begin to cause further injury.

Best regards.

[Grabbit]

All very good points but none of which can be entirely conclusive either way. Peter Sutcliffe alone varied his methods enough to show us to be careful of looking for a single definite signature where serial killers are concerned. He also left at least one victim un-mutilated without being disturbed on that occasion (which we know because the victim survived) and several other attacks were disturbed at varying degrees. Unfortunately serial killers are a bit unco-operative towards those trying to detect them and they regularly fail to make it easy.

If you merely object to Stride being in the canonical 5, then I'd have to agree that there isn't anything that points clearly to her being a victim of Jack. If you reject her outright as a possible victim then I'm afraid we'll have to agree to differ on that, as I'd put her in the section containing all the 'possibles'. The evidence is just too wide open to rule her out completely for me.

So, BS cuts her throat on the same night a serial killer is at work in the area. Coincidence? Yes, quite possibly.

Jack happens along at a quiet moment and just gets started when he's disturbed. Coincidence? Yes, quite possibly.

[perrymason]

Hi Grabbit,

I think you sound reasonable, ...I never intended to suggest I was correct and all others were not on her inclusion, just that there seems to be no evidence regarding her murder that is suggestive of Jack the Rippers previous MO to that point. And she is the ONLY alledged Ripper victim to have been seen in an altercation with a drunk man just before she is killed...in the street just outside the yard where she is killed.

I firmly believe that to properly assess for ourselves who seems to be a fit with this killer's MO, you have to consider the sequence and stages of the investigation itself, and the details that we did have prior to Liz Strides death.

Prior to Polly, The Whitechapel Murderer was thought to have stabbed Martha Tabram to death, as well as possibly being involved with a murder or two that Spring.

After Polly, there were doubts that the same man who would slice a woman open like that was also a stabber, or part of a gang, so Martha is put on a tentative inclusion list and Ada Wilson and Emma Smith are dropped from this new list based on an emerging profile.

After Annie, Martha's murderer looks less and less like the man that has killed these two mutilated women, so now Leather Apron is supposed to be the man that is doing the post mortem mutilations.

So for the month of September, the police believed that the mutilation killer they sought was clever, elusive, was targeting working street unfortunates, and may have been targeting organs within a womans abdomen. He killed them apparently without struggle or noise, and only used his knife when they were unconscious or semi-so, on the ground. He then opens the women from the pubis to approximately the breast bone, and removes internal organs. The last murder, he took one. He is not seen approaching the woman inebriated, nor in the middle of a street with witnesses about. Nor is he seen fleeing.

Then October 1st, Jack the Ripper is officially launched, and because they now had at least one murder of two in one night that did not follow the previous MO, his profile is then changed to a madman, thirsting for blood, and getting his jollys from just killing OR cutting women open. Unpredictable, and capable of just killing... instead of performing the post mortem mutilations. It is assumed that the man was capable of self control while acquiring his victims, and by the fact that he uses the knife only when he already has control of the victims.

Then November 9th, JtR's profile becomes one of a man insane, someone who had been frustrated by his mutilation restrictions working outside, and a man that had no objectives other than just killing and cutting.

For victims #3 and 5, a modified profile was needed for the killer, one that increasingly focussed on his "madness", and thats the crux of my issues with Liz and Mary.

By the evidence alone, Liz was likely killed by BSM, who by his entrance and lack of interest in her corpse, is probably not Jack the Ripper. And Mary Kelly was either killed by Blotchy Faced Man, or someone who arrived unseen after Blotchy left unseen, but in my opinion, based on the circumstances of her death, her location when she meets her killer, and her state of undress and in her own room, she was almost certainly killed by someone who knew her intimately.

Murder #3 and Murder #5 share a dubious distinction, they both require that the killer changed MO. And when you have mounting deaths with no answers, what real options did the police have when considering that the neighborhood involved had a bloody confrontation with Police a year earlier. If the police did not create a fluid profile for a single killer,...they were left with having to explain how perhaps 5 killers got away scot free without a trace.

Police were not trusted in East End at that time, and they were aware that a riot was brewing....as evidenced by hurried erasing of the GSG.

Best regards.

[caz]

What evidence is there to even suggest that Liz was killed by the man that killed Mary Ann and Annie? A cut throat? Please...there were 3 of those in the East End that night alone, and I can guarantee that Jack didnt do at least one of them.

Hi Perry,

The trouble with statistics like these is that they can equally be used to the opposite effect. Two out of those three remained unsolved and could therefore have been Jack’s work because you can only guarantee that one of them wasn’t.

If you were to expand your ‘one night only’ to the period between the end of August and the middle of November, you could similarly guarantee that Jack did cut the throats of at least three of the desperately poor women who were found murdered within a relatively small area by person or persons unknown. But it still wouldn’t reflect anything like the full picture.

found within 15 mins walking distance of where a probable serial killer was working that night.

More like 10 minutes I think, and that means absolutely nothing when one of the victims shows none of the signature wounds, post mortem mutilations, that the other Canonicals did....since it is that man that is suspected of the second murder, and shows us exactly what we might have expected from The Ripper.

It means absolutely nothing either way, because what we might have expected from the ripper is only as good as what he expected of himself, and what he was expecting of his potential victims, and takes absolutely no account of their actual behaviour at the locations where he picked them up, and whether he got what he was expecting every time. If his MO was merely to get needy unfortunates to take him or accompany him somewhere he could expect to kill them swiftly and silently before ripping them up, then an unexpected and ego-deflating refusal by Liz to leave the relative safety of the busy club (maybe there was something odd or particularly unsavoury about him that her weaker, more desperate sisters failed to heed) could easily have accounted for a swift, silent kill to put paid to any chance of her airing suspicions about him to the nearest copper, so he could get straight on to greener pastures with as little hindrance as possible.

Personally, Im far less wary of accepting that Jack might kill on city jurisdiction than I am that he would kill a woman and not even begin to cause further injury.

But that’s not really saying much, since Kate would presumably have been accepted immediately as Jack’s work had she been found in Dutfield’s Yard, in place of Liz, or pretty much anywhere in the city or East End. What we just don’t know is that Jack would have chosen, or been able, to cause ‘further injury’ to anyone at the spot where Liz both encountered her killer and was attacked by him. As far as we know, Jack's MO didn’t include preparing for mutilation until he had succeeded in getting his prospective victims away from the point of their initial encounter.

Even if Jack could have obliged by starting the ripping process with Liz, or Martha, or any other victim who escaped with all her organs still inside her, there are no guarantees that he would have done so, or any reason to suppose that serial killers ever do what some of us might expect of them in a given situation. I would think it's their very unpredictability that makes some of them impossible to pin down.

Love,

Caz
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