A Possible Reason Why Jack Didn't Mutilate Liz

[Fisherman]

"Who draws wins"

I thought we were looking for a killer without drawers...?

Fisherman

[caz]

Were it not for the "Double Event", which effectively canonised Stride from Day One (as well as spawning a host of other circular arguments about both Stride's and Eddowes' deaths), I'm sure Stride would be firmly on the "maybe" list along with Frances Coles.

Hi Sam,

Hmmm. It’s hardly fair, though, to take Eddowes out of the equation, because if the ripper killed Stride, but didn't feel comfortable mutilating her at, or close to, the actual point of encounter (perhaps because there were witnesses to it, but the possibilities are endless), there's a bleedin' obvious reason staring us all in the face for him seeking a mutilation opportunity as soon as possible afterwards, while the adrenaline was still pumping.

And it's hard to argue that he didn't find it when he mutilated Eddowes to buggery and beyond, with likely only seconds to spare before he would have been caught sporting her pinny. If Kate was desperately seeking some cash by 1.15 am, the man who killed her was even more desperately seeking some action.

I'd like to see anyone make quite such perfect sense of the date, the time, the location, the ferocity and the sheer daring of Kate’s murder if her killer hadn't just come from a frustratingly incomplete encounter with Liz.

What's your biggest objection to the idea that the ripper may not always have been on top form, or got a woman exactly where he wanted, at the first attempt?

Love,

Caz
X

[c.d.]

"Sporting her pinny"??? I never cease to be amazed at the expressions you come up with, Caz.

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

What's your biggest objection to the idea that the ripper may not always have been on top form, or got a woman exactly where he wanted, at the first attempt?

I have no objection to that at all, Caz - in fact, I'm pretty certain that the Ripper endured many aborted missions. However, having succeeded rather spectacularly on two occasions before Stride, and on arguably two other occasions thereafter, the Ripper gives me the impression of someone who knew when the iron was hot enough to strike. When he did, the least he seems to have been able to do is to sever the throat to an appreciable depth and to at least begin to slash open the abdomen - neither of which happened at Berner Street.

It’s hardly fair, though, to take Eddowes out of the equation

I wasn't - I was merely suggesting that, IF Eddowes hadn't been killed that night, we'd be talking about a "C4" today, and that Stride would be bundled with Coles and others in the category of "maybe, but probably not a Ripper victim".

[c.d.]

Hi Sam,

Could it be because he was not interrupted on those previous occasions?

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi CD,

Well, he didn't go "all the way" with Nichols, and may have been interrupted there for all we know. However, the Ripper still made a God-awful mess of Polly, not to mention the fact that he sliced her neck to an appreciable depth before getting started on the rest - something that cannot be claimed in respect of Stride.

[caz]

...the Ripper gives me the impression of someone who knew when the iron was hot enough to strike. When he did, the least he seems to have been able to do is to sever the throat to an appreciable depth and to at least begin to slash open the abdomen - neither of which happened at Berner Street...

Hi Sam,

But that would be explained quite easily if he never intended to mutilate anyone in Berner Street, but was assuming Liz would be desperate enough to accompany him, just like his previous 'conquests', from the point of encounter to a suitable ripping place, away from the eyes of any pesky witnesses or club goers etc. We don't know how much a refusal might have offended, or how well it would have ended for a less than 'grateful' unfortunate. "I'll teach the likes of her to turn down the likes of me".

I was merely suggesting that, IF Eddowes hadn't been killed that night, we'd be talking about a "C4" today, and that Stride would be bundled with Coles and others in the category of "maybe, but probably not a Ripper victim".

I know that. And what I am trying to get across is basic cause and effect, and the very real possibility that it was Liz's failure to support the ripper's cause that had an almost immediate effect on Kate's fate. It's exactly what would have been expected from a hungry fox who'd just had to leave a chicken dead but not even tasted.

Love,

Caz
X

[Sam Flynn]

I know that. And what I am trying to get across is basic cause and effect

Understood, Caz - but that's irrelevant to the hypothetical situation that I was discussing, whereby Eddowes doesn't get killed on the same evening as Stride, which would almost certainly have put the latter on everybody's "maybe" list.

and the very real possibility that it was Liz's failure to support the ripper's cause that had an almost immediate effect on Kate's fate. It's exactly what would have been expected from a hungry fox who'd just had to leave a chicken dead but not even tasted.

On which basis, where are the missing two-thirds of the "Triple Event" that preceded the Kelly carnage?

[caz]

Hi Sam,

I prefer not to dwell on purely hypothetical situations, or hypothetical 'patterns' of behaviour (when dealing with such tiny numbers - as you are usually so quick to point out ), especially when the phenomena of frustration-based double events and extreme single events are so well documented that no other explanation fits quite as well with all the circumstances of the three Whitechapel murders in question.

I wish I could, but I can't go back in time and erase from my mind the two separate, and quite horrible Croydon double events in recent years, any more than I could wipe out Ted Bundy's, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy

In Murray, Utah, on November 8, 1974, Carol DaRonch narrowly escaped with her life. Claiming to be Officer Roseland of the Murray Police Department, Bundy approached her at the Fashion Place Mall, told her someone had tried to break into her car, and asked her to accompany him to the police station. She got into his car but refused his instruction to buckle her seat belt. They drove for a short period before Bundy suddenly pulled to the shoulder and attempted to slap a pair of handcuffs on her. In the struggle, he fastened both loops to the same wrist. Bundy whipped out his crowbar, but DaRonch caught it in the air just before it would have cracked her skull. She then got the door open and tumbled out onto the highway, thus escaping from her would-be killer.

About an hour later, a strange man showed up at Viewmont High School in Bountiful, Utah, where the drama club was putting on a play. He approached the drama teacher and then a student, asking both to come out to the parking lot to identify a car. Both declined. The drama teacher saw him again shortly before the end of the play, this time breathing hard, with his hair mussed and his shirt untucked. Another student saw the man lurking in the rear of the auditorium. Debby Kent, a 17-year-old Viewmont High student, left the play at intermission to go and pick up her brother, and was never seen again. Later, investigators found a small key in the parking lot outside Viewmont High. It unlocked the handcuffs taken off Carol DaRonch.

Over the next few months Bundy managed to pull off at least five more single events.

I rarely see you clutching at straws, Sam, so I didn't expect to see such an odd "Triple Event" non sequitor from you.

The indoor Kelly carnage, more than a month after the ripper's Mitre Square excesses, is rather easily explained in other ways, as well you know.

Love,

Caz
X

[c.d.]

Hi Caz, Sam,

What if we were to substitute rape for murder? Imagine a serial rapist getting a woman's clothes down and himself ready to penetrate her when he is interrupted and has to run off. Is it unreasonable to think that he would quickly look for another victim so that the act could be completed?

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Sam,

I prefer not to dwell on purely hypothetical situations

I'm not dwelling on it, Caz. Just making an observation that it's undoubtedly her affiliation with the Double Event that makes Liz a "canonical" victim - and very little else.

Besides, there's nowt wrong with hypothetical situations - it was on the basis of such "thought experiments" that Einstein was able to probe the mysteries of relativity. That'll do for me

I rarely see you clutching at straws, Sam, so I didn't expect to see such an odd "Triple Event" non sequitor from you.

Neither a non-sequitur, nor an exercise in straw-clutching, Caz. You raised the idea that the carnage perpetrated on Catherine Eddowes might have been precipitated by the Ripper's frustration at not being able to finish the job on Stride. I'm happy to roll with that for the sake of argument, but if the level of mutilation were predicated on thwarted ambition, who were the Stride equivalents in the case of Nichols and Chapman? Weren't they - at least Chapman - sufficiently savaged to warrant an hypothetical "hungry fox" scenario as well? If not (i.e. if their respective mutilations can be explained without their being at the frustrated end of their own "Double Events"), why should we need to propose as much in the case of Eddowes?

Perhaps it was unfortunate that I chose the (indoor) murder of Kelly to posit a frustrated "Triple Event", but the principle's broadly the same.

[caz]

That's too easy, c.d.

People will just say Liz's killer was not necessarily interrupted.

What I would liken it to is our Ted, finding Liz alone outside a busy club and wanting to drive her somewhere they were unlikely to be interrupted, and her not playing ball, getting suspicious of his real motives and looking like she might start causing a fuss. Ted quickly finishes her off so he won't have to worry about what she's doing or who she's talking to while he's off finding himself another victim he can really go to town on.

Rape or bodily pillage, he'd have found someone else that night to take it out on, if he'd had to roam the area until dawn.

Nature of the beast.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Sam,

There's everything wrong with a hypothetical situation we know didn't happen in this case. The ripper (whether he killed Liz or not) wasn't tucked up in bed by 1.30; he was polishing off Kate and grabbing a handful of bodily souvenirs.

Also, you seem to want to focus only on the level of mutilation for some reason, when of equal relevance here are factors like timing, location and risk - quite apart from the fact that the ripper chose this very night to kill again, three weeks after the last.

Was he in a rush to find a victim and get stuck in early this time, when previously he had still been out on the prowl much later? If so, it couldn't have had anything to do with an even earlier murder he knew nothing about, and if he knew about it but hadn't committed it himself, it was arguably the worst night to pick for his next job.

Love,

Caz
X

[sdreid]

Perhaps it's been mentioned previously but I wondered if he might have been temporarily incapacitated by something like a gouge to the eye.

[Sam Flynn]

There's everything wrong with a hypothetical situation we know didn't happen in this case.

No there isn't, Caz, not when the premise and purpose of the "thought experiment" is clearly defined - which I thought I'd already done.

Science is full of such devices, and they work perfectly well. You know the sort of thing: "Imagine a box of gas of volume V, with N molecules at a temperature T... Now imagine that we take away one of the walls of the box...". You don't need the box to be physically there, or the actual removal of one of the walls to have occurred, to be enabled to examine the possibilities.

In this case, the premise of the thought experiment is hardly controversial. It's simply this: "Imagine for a moment that Eddowes was not killed on the same night. What effect would that have on our perceptions of the Stride murder?"

We all know that it didn't happen, but that's not the point. The point is whether Stride's murder would be on our "probables" list if we viewed her murder in isolation - which is all the thought experiment asks us to do. That's fair enough, surely?