Exploding Some Double Event Myths

[caz]

Either or both, Tom.

It's for anyone who is interested in exploring the double event in general, as a recognised phenomenon in the little understood world of serial murderers.

Whoever decided to use the phrase back in 1888 to describe the murders of Stride and Eddowes as the work of one man - 'Saucy Jacky' - understood it all right, but even he could not have known that future serial offenders, including Ted Bundy and Mark Dixie, would provide examples.

Sometimes I feel that those Victorian hoaxers knew more about the subject than we do today.

Love,

Caz
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[Tom_Wescott]

Is this thread about the 'double event' or about the Bowman case, which I'm not at all familiar with?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[caz]

Sorry Ally, not offhand. There are more details in the documentary, which I plan to watch again tonight, along with other viewers in the UK. From memory, and the few scribbled notes I took, Dixie didn't actually use his knife - or didn't get to use it - on the earlier victim, but he did manage to hit her over the head ferociously with what may have been a blunt instrument, before he was forced to run off. There were also bite marks on her, as with Sally Anne, who was attacked some 40 minutes later and 400 yards away.

In both cases, the woman's handbag (purse) was stolen and Dixie took Sally Anne's phone too. In the earlier case, the victim had pulled over to make a phone call but had to get out of her car to get a signal, which was when Dixie pounced. Similarly, he pounced on Sally Anne when she got out of her boyfriend's car after a row (fight) and he drove off. The poor sod was all set to go down for her murder, but thanks to DNA and the details of that previous attack it became clear that this was the work of a particularly brutal serial offender, not a one-off domestic.

Love,

Caz
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[Ally]

Interesting. This case did not get much press over here and I was unaware that there had been a previous attack on the same night. There does not seem to be much press on the first attack, it seems to be sort of glossed over, in favor of the more salacious murder. Is there any press report that you know of that provides details of the previous attack?

[caz]

Hi Ally,

For those who believe different men attacked Stride and Eddowes, they were single events, not a double.

But the Bowman case was a genuine double event in all respects apart from the fact that Mark Dixie only succeeded in killing (then mutilating) his second victim. There is little doubt that he intended to kill his earlier victim (she wet herself when she saw her attacker had a knife in his hand) but was forced to find another when a taxi drove past at the crucial moment.

I'm defining 'double event', for the purposes of this thread, as a night where a single offender with malice aforethought creates two victims, whether they both end up dead, mutilated, injured, raped, assaulted or otherwise traumatised by the encounter. In short, one person offending twice in one night against two separate individuals.

If anyone thinks I should be using the definition offered by the author of the 'saucy Jacky' postcard, whereby the offender must produce two dead bodies at the very least before they can be called a true double eventer, then they are probably going to miss the point, or will see no value in behavioural comparisons. That's fine - it would be an opinion in its own right.

Love,

Caz
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[Uncle Jack]

Will be watching with much interest Caz, thanks for the reminder.

[Ally]

Not living in the UK, I won't be able to view the program, but I thought the Bowman case was a single event, not a double??

[caz]

Hi All,

I am starting this thread because of all the myths that have sprung up surrounding how Jack would/would not have behaved on the last Saturday night in September 1888.

I notice that on ITV1 at 10.35 tonight is a repeat showing of Real Crime with Mark Austin: Sally Anne Bowman - Death on the Doorstep, which I regard as essential viewing for anyone who wants to cast serious doubt on the whole double event scenario on the basis of an unknown offender's presumed behaviour in presumed circumstances.

Just jotting down a few thoughts this morning while thinking of the Bowman case, I have already listed seven of the behavioural myths that tend to be trotted out in the place of reasoned arguments against an active serial offender attacking both Stride and Eddowes. They may sound like reasoned arguments, especially when deftly combined with hard evidence from the Whitechapel Murder crime scenes. But when compared with fully documented truths about genuine double events and the way the identified offender is known to have behaved in each case, too many are exposed as baseless personal beliefs that can only lead down a blind alley.

What one killer does under certain conditions, another might or might not do. That's as sure as it gets. But just as it would be fatuous to argue that all offenders act alike in given circumstances, it's real 'head in the sand' time whenever Jack is denied either the will or the capacity to behave in ways that other offenders are known to have behaved.

In short, if any of the behavioural myths exposed in tonight's account of Bowman's killer are still required to make Stride "not one of Jack's", the conclusion must be on pretty shaky ground and it may explain why the latest poll still favours him as the most likely author of her senseless murder.

I'm happy to share the seven myths I recalled from the first showing of the Bowman documentary. But before I do I would be interested to see how many of them are spotted tonight and if anyone can add to the number.

Love,

Caz
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