Throat Cuts as opposed to stabbing.

[Chava]

Why do your rebuttals have to be so unpleasantly worded, Michael? Garbage in, garbage out??

Read Robert's posts for a balanced look at these murders.

If you pare it down to 'just the facts', you are every bit as unlikely to get at the truth as those of us who factor in and allow for a plethora of unknowns, each with the potential to connect one murder to another, without them being carbon copies. Life doesn't work like that. Human beings don't behave like that. No two crimes will ever look identical. If a boy regularly steals from a sweet shop, is he likely to choose the same sweets each time? Or might he be really adventurous and mix it up, giving gobstoppers a go after two weeks of scoffing chocolate bars?

Any number of considerations, regarding the killer, the victim, the location and the circumstances, could have accounted for what you see as 'anomalies' between Nichols/Chapman and Stride; Nichols/Chapman and Eddowes; and Nicols/Chapman and Kelly. If you had examined each attack which was eventually attributed beyond reasonable doubt to Peter Sutcliffe, using the same criteria, you would have seen anomalies everywhere, among the victims themselves - considerable age and status differences, some soliciting, others definitely not - as well as the type and extent of their injuries, with some surviving their terrible ordeal. Would you have argued for several different assailants, with as many motives, and been so condescending towards those who saw as many similarities as differences, if not more?

Perfectly put Caz!

Murderers change & evolve for both internal and external reasons. Steve Wright the Ipswich killer dumped 2 bodies in the river. Then laid the others out to be found in the woods. Sutcliffe displayed some victims and tried to conceal others. And also came back to admire his own handiwork a time or two and moved the body. The completely consistent series is only to be found in thrillers.

[Trevor Marriott]

Yes, and that public included 'Jack'. He could read everything that was claimed about him and for him, and he'd have known how much or how little the papers had got right. If his publicity mattered to him [and we can't possibly know either way] it could also have influenced him. He'd have been one step ahead of the game each time, so if they fixated on womb harvesting after Chapman, or the strictly female parts angle, he could have proved them wrong or confused the issue by removing the kidney from Eddowes, then the heart from Kelly.

Or he could have just taken pleasure in letting them continue thinking that he had removed them

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[caz]

Every thing that Jack had done was printed for the public.

Yes, and that public included 'Jack'. He could read everything that was claimed about him and for him, and he'd have known how much or how little the papers had got right. If his publicity mattered to him [and we can't possibly know either way] it could also have influenced him. He'd have been one step ahead of the game each time, so if they fixated on womb harvesting after Chapman, or the strictly female parts angle, he could have proved them wrong or confused the issue by removing the kidney from Eddowes, then the heart from Kelly.

[caz]

The man killed and mutilated his very first victim on the street...now hes sheepish is he? This kind of speculation is why nothing will ever be resolved about these cases by discussing them, people just ignore the facts and read into them what they will. Its why Israel, and George and fanciful but unsubstantiated opinions about interruptions that are not in any evidence, are still lingering around shaping peoples theories. GIGO.

Why do your rebuttals have to be so unpleasantly worded, Michael? Garbage in, garbage out??

Read Robert's posts for a balanced look at these murders.

If you pare it down to 'just the facts', you are every bit as unlikely to get at the truth as those of us who factor in and allow for a plethora of unknowns, each with the potential to connect one murder to another, without them being carbon copies. Life doesn't work like that. Human beings don't behave like that. No two crimes will ever look identical. If a boy regularly steals from a sweet shop, is he likely to choose the same sweets each time? Or might he be really adventurous and mix it up, giving gobstoppers a go after two weeks of scoffing chocolate bars?

Any number of considerations, regarding the killer, the victim, the location and the circumstances, could have accounted for what you see as 'anomalies' between Nichols/Chapman and Stride; Nichols/Chapman and Eddowes; and Nicols/Chapman and Kelly. If you had examined each attack which was eventually attributed beyond reasonable doubt to Peter Sutcliffe, using the same criteria, you would have seen anomalies everywhere, among the victims themselves - considerable age and status differences, some soliciting, others definitely not - as well as the type and extent of their injuries, with some surviving their terrible ordeal. Would you have argued for several different assailants, with as many motives, and been so condescending towards those who saw as many similarities as differences, if not more?

[Robert St Devil]

Hi Robert, so you like the similarities and just discard the anomalies? Like Mary was in her own home undressed and in bed? Like the killer didnt break into the room but was apparently let in? The fact the uterus is cut out then left behind? That a heart in not in any way a gender specific organ...and that in Annies case the medical expert said thats exactly what he wanted and knew how to cut her to get specifically that organ? That the victim in room 13 has her thighs stripped of flesh for some odd reason? That the victim struggled with her attacker...find another Canonical that has that element.

Some similarities can easily be passed off as mimicking. Every thing that Jack had done was printed for the public. But the anomalies cant be passed off that way.

Hi Michael. I find the similarities interesting when they are peculiar to the scenes of the crime. They are by no means definitive, but they sometimes lead down a line of reasoning that yada yada yada. Either way, no need for banal assertions, back to your post. I fail to see the need to mimic a Jack the Ripper murder with Mary Jane Kelly; if the culprit simply wanted her dead, why not just stab her and make the grand adios; what would be the urge to stick-around on the premises once it was clearly obvious that she was dead after the blood had been drained from her body over the edge of the bed??

I'll counter with some other similarities:

1. The killer left a clean crime scene. He's mutilated her corpse and stripped the flesh off the bone. He's ripped her heart out from underneath her rib cage. So, you would imagine his hands would be covered in blood and gore. However, there are no reports of bloody handprints on the wall, window, table, chair, bed, fireplace, door, &c. This killer is astutely self-aware of his presence within his own crime scene.

2. This killer had an anatomical understanding of the abdominal organs independent of each other much like the murderer of Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes. In other words, once he unzipped their abdominal flesh, the killer in all 3 cases does not view the organs as one big block. He can differentiate between a kidney, a uterus, a liver, and a spleen.

3. The killer accesses all the organs from the abdominal cavity. He doesn't cut through the sternum to get to her heart.

4. The senseless cuts - eyelids, thumb, eyebrows, ear, &c.

5. Some indications of using his left hand

All I can add is, had I caught Jack the Ripper on November 25th 1888 based on evidence surrounding the Chapman or Eddowes case, there's a strong likelihood that I would have suspected him of the Kelly murder too and not dismissed the thought simply because her murder happened to have occurred in a bedroom.

[Michael W Richards]

Interesting thoughts, Robert. 'Obstacle' works well as a word because it would cover an interruption too - basically anything which would have caused the killer to leave the scene the instant he had taken his knife to Stride's throat.

I do suspect there was an obstacle of one sort or another - physical, human, psychological, even a combination - which told him this was not a good place to hang around after inflicting the fatal cut.

Love,

Caz
X

The man killed and mutilated his very first victim on the street...now hes sheepish is he? This kind of speculation is why nothing will ever be resolved about these cases by discussing them, people just ignore the facts and read into them what they will. Its why Israel, and George and fanciful but unsubstantiated opinions about interruptions that are not in any evidence, are still lingering around shaping peoples theories. GIGO.

[Michael W Richards]

It's not definitive of the same killer, but I read the description of the positioning of Annie Chapman's legs and feet as being similar to the position of Mary Jane Kelly's legs as they appear in the photo of her mutilated corpse. And, I read similarities in the details of how both Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes' pockets were turned-out and their personal belongings being laid next to their bodies [I think that Jack the Ripper is enacting the same pattern when he places Mary Jane Kelly's organs around her body].

I don't remember there being any description of blood found on those personal items (of course, that aspect may have been overlooked). For me, that would suggest that Jack the Ripper rifled through their pockets before he eviscerated these women but after he had them incapacitated/cut their throats. That's just a petty coldness in my opinion: he has a dying/dead woman sprawled before him; he's about to commit a savagery by harvesting her organs; the constable could be on him at a moment's notice; and yet, there he is, patiently mugging through this poor woman's meager belongings - a cigarette case, a tin box , &c.

Hi Robert, so you like the similarities and just discard the anomalies? Like Mary was in her own home undressed and in bed? Like the killer didnt break into the room but was apparently let in? The fact the uterus is cut out then left behind? That a heart in not in any way a gender specific organ...and that in Annies case the medical expert said thats exactly what he wanted and knew how to cut her to get specifically that organ? That the victim in room 13 has her thighs stripped of flesh for some odd reason? That the victim struggled with her attacker...find another Canonical that has that element.

Some similarities can easily be passed off as mimicking. Every thing that Jack had done was printed for the public. But the anomalies cant be passed off that way.

[Robert St Devil]

I believe that in the 2 cases most probably done by this Ripper fellow that there is a distinctive, structured and dispassionate pattern followed, the coldness of the acts being one of the most provocative features of both crimes. No struggles. No noise, (2 throat cuts ending any potential noise), no struggles, nor chance of survival. Placed on their back, legs spread, skirts up.

It's not definitive of the same killer, but I read the description of the positioning of Annie Chapman's legs and feet as being similar to the position of Mary Jane Kelly's legs as they appear in the photo of her mutilated corpse. And, I read similarities in the details of how both Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes' pockets were turned-out and their personal belongings being laid next to their bodies [I think that Jack the Ripper is enacting the same pattern when he places Mary Jane Kelly's organs around her body].

I don't remember there being any description of blood found on those personal items (of course, that aspect may have been overlooked). For me, that would suggest that Jack the Ripper rifled through their pockets before he eviscerated these women but after he had them incapacitated/cut their throats. That's just a petty coldness in my opinion: he has a dying/dead woman sprawled before him; he's about to commit a savagery by harvesting her organs; the constable could be on him at a moment's notice; and yet, there he is, patiently mugging through this poor woman's meager belongings - a cigarette case, a tin box , &c.

[caz]

With Stride, that's how I generally read it. Her pockets were filled with all her personal effects rather than being rifled through; for me, that's an indication of an interruption or an obstacle.

By obstacle, I mean to say...
I know by the precise cuts under her eyelids that there was sufficient lighting in Mitre Square for Jack the Ripper to see Catherine's body; and so, it would be obvious that he would have been able to make out what was in her pocket when he removed each item. However, under the gloom of that sunwall at Dutfield's Yard, there may not have been sufficient light to see his hand before his face. After all, Louis Diemschutz had to light a match in order to discern the mass on the ground.

Interesting thoughts, Robert. 'Obstacle' works well as a word because it would cover an interruption too - basically anything which would have caused the killer to leave the scene the instant he had taken his knife to Stride's throat.

I do suspect there was an obstacle of one sort or another - physical, human, psychological, even a combination - which told him this was not a good place to hang around after inflicting the fatal cut.

Love,

Caz
X

[Chava]

I believe that in the 2 cases most probably done by this Ripper fellow that there is a distinctive, structured and dispassionate pattern followed, the coldness of the acts being one of the most provocative features of both crimes. No struggles. No noise, (2 throat cuts ending any potential noise), no struggles, nor chance of survival. Placed on their back, legs spread, skirts up.

He knows what he's doing alright. Which is why I wonder about Tabram--about whom I live on the fence. I do believe that the man who attacked Ada Wilson is also the man who killed the Canonical 5. But he had to start somewhere and there's 6 months between Wilson & Nichols. I can't believe he emerged with such a polished MO. But also I can't compute the really frenzied attack on Tabram with the smoother more calculated attacks on the 5. That having been said, no one heard the Tabram attack which took place in a tenement surrounded by people. And silence along with other people in the vicinity are hallmarks of Our Boy.

[Michael W Richards]

One aspect of this casebook that has always intrigued me has been the sequencing of the crime. As in, are there discernible clues that might suggest how and in what order did the killer commit each murder?

In the case of "frenzy", I'm certain that the word is subjective; but, I believe that I understand it in similar terms if you are writing that "a frenzied attack" suggests a killer who is beyond self-control, monstrous, without rational comprehension, compulsive, &c. And, based on the nature of the Eddowes murder, it would be easy to dismiss the morbid act as simply savage (which it is btw!).

Still, I've considered that the killer may have displayed a more measured attack (ie. acted with a bit of patient self-control) rather than a frenzied one based on the fact that he rifled through Catherine's pocket. I'm willing to be corrected re: the scene of the crime; I vaguely remember that many of her personal items were laid about her body (a similarity that is shared with the scenes of Chapman's and, to an extent, Kelly's murder). For me, this point suggests the opposite of a frenzied attack because the murderer deliberately goes through each of her possessions, an aspect which suggests that Jack the Ripper wasn't at all hurried by himself altho time was still a consideration.

I believe that in the 2 cases most probably done by this Ripper fellow that there is a distinctive, structured and dispassionate pattern followed, the coldness of the acts being one of the most provocative features of both crimes. No struggles. No noise, (2 throat cuts ending any potential noise), no struggles, nor chance of survival. Placed on their back, legs spread, skirts up.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

The murder was light work

[DJA]

Edward Spooner: They said, "There has been a woman murdered in Berner-street." I went with them to the yard adjoining No. 40. I saw a young woman lying just inside the gate. There were about fifteen people in the yard standing round - most of them Jews. They were not touching her. I could see it was a young woman before they struck a light.

Many hands make light work

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Both Spooner and Blackwell already knew that there was a body in the yard when they arrived, whereas Louis didn't. It's a lot easier to make out an object in the dark if you know what you're looking for.

Such as a red and white flower?

[Fisherman]

Sutton,with a theoretical bolt hole at 6 Mitre Street,would know the timing of the police beat. I surmise he had been there for at least 3 years.

The only person to see him,and live,was Mrs Long at 29 Hanbury Street.

He was unlikely to have used a 7" pathologist's knife to make those small cuts in the dark.PBC was and still is a rare condition, 1 in over 3,000 people.Gull was a leader in research,therefore so was his little mate Sutton.

Once the cop had left Mitre Square,Sutton has moved her out through the gate and completed the work he had allotted to the time span of up to 14 minutes.

My health is a problem right now.
I'm not being rude,for a change,it's time to take a rest.There is a lot to explain.

The questions you ask should be obvious,when you think about them.

Eddowes has gone straight to his place when released. He headed there after killing Stride. Reckon they had time to talk,thus "nothing" in the GSG.

Eddowes (and Nichols) had been his patients for almost 21 years. Eddowes may have been attempting to end what was effectively put into action by Nichols, after the idea was planted by Mary Ann Kelly. No doubt she wanted "reimbursement".

Might sound convoluted,it isn't.

Ciao for now.

Again thanks for sharing. While I donīt agree with your take on things, I generally take the view that since I may be mistaken, itīs a good thing that others dig where I donīt.

All the best!