Attempted Decapitation

[Wickerman]

I think Kelly is the key here (assuming she is a Ripper victim). If he wanted to decapitate, he most certainly would have decapitated her. The fact that he didn't shows he really wasn't into that sort of thing.

Funny you should bring that up, as many news articles suggested that at the time, that her head was indeed cut off. Bond's report could have mentioned this. In fact because it does not we have always assumed those news reports were just bogus.
Bond did point out that the 5th & 6th cervical vertebra were deeply notched, suggesting he did indeed make an attempt to remove the head. And, with more time at his disposal, which must surely be the case, it suggests he did not know how to do it.

Interestingly though, when you look closely at the "body on the bed" photo, her chin is unnaturally close to her left shoulder.
It almost looks like her head has been placed in-situ on the pillow just for the photo.

Regards, Jon S.

[Observer]

Wouldn't an experienced butcher have the ability to remove the head of a human being? Annie Chapman's head remained very much in situ.

Observer

[Wickerman]

Wouldn't an experienced butcher have the ability to remove the head of a human being? Annie Chapman's head remained very much in situ.

Observer

You would think so, the neck structure of a sheep/pig is similar in size but is also awkward when you attempt to insert a knife blade between the vertebra.
A heavy blade might crush its way through but there is no resistance offered by the bed. In Kelly's case, to use a blade to chop or crush your way through the vertebra you would need the body to be on the floor.

In the case of Chapman, obviously the killer could not use downward pressure on the blade if the blade was a dagger (double-sided), he would cut his own hand.
You simply cannot cut someone's head off with a stiletto blade.

Regards, Jon S.

[lynn cates]

If at first you don't succeed . . .

Hello Jon. Thanks.

"You simply cannot cut someone's head off with a stiletto blade."

Indeed. And hence the manual attempt.

Cheers.
LC

[Observer]

Hi Jon

Length of blade would also come into the equation, which might suggest that the killer's knife was not as long as the coroner suggested.

However Just felt the tissue surrounding my neck, and have come to the conclusion that it would not take a knife of any great length to locate the vertebrae in my neck. I believe an experienced butcher who had cut the head of numerous animals, would have an intuitive feel for locating the gap between the vertebrae, and could have removed the head of Annie Chapman with ease.

It's hard to say whether the killer intended to remove the head of Annie Chapman, it could well be that he intended to remove the head, but did not have the know how needed to severe the spinal column.

Regards

Observer

[GregBaron]

An unintended consequence...

Hi all,

I think it likely the perpetrator simply executed a violent and forceful blood-letting that nicked the spinal column.
I agree with those who say if he wanted a head he would have taken a head - especially in Mary Kelly's room where someone
suggested he had a hatchett/axe.

Also, a head is a rather large and incriminating trophy. I suppose he may have wanted to pose it for shock value but
I think his results were shocking enough. The only other possibility I see, which Lynn might second, is that he was completely
delusional and didn't really know what he was doing.....unlikely in my view...


Greg

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi all

This question also highlights the difference between Jack the Ripper and the Torso Murderer who was operating in London at the same time. Of course, there are some, for example, author R. Michael Gordon, who insist that the Ripper and the Torso Murderer were one and the same, e.g., George Chapman (Severin Klosowski) if you believe Gordon's theory. However, here's a big distinction: the Torso Murderer had no difficulty in decapitating his victims, while the Ripper never removed a head.

All the best

Chris

[lynn cates]

For Sale

Hello Greg. Thanks. Actually, I was thinking of Isenschmid's story about taking off sheep heads and organs and selling them.

Cheers.
LC

[Errata]

Hello Jon. Thanks.

"You simply cannot cut someone's head off with a stiletto blade."

Indeed. And hence the manual attempt.

Cheers.
LC

Well, actually you can. It is just by no means the most efficient way of decapitating someone. It's done with a scalpel all the time.

So this is something I actually know a bit about, having been the unlucky assistant in a friend's archeology thesis experiment, which was about beheading. Essentially, decapitation occurs due to one of three causes. Force, skill, or blind luck. The guillotine relies on force. A headsman relies on force and skill. A butcher relies on skill. Blind luck is when a person achieves skill with no previous knowledge or experience.

That thing in the movies where a ninja swings a sword at some guy charging him and his flies off pretty much never happens. That requires insane luck. Most beheadings with swords require a positional aspect. Kneeling with the head bowed for instance. Samurai adopt this position for beheading, Indians forced prisoners into this position. Kneeling allows for a better angle for the blade, bowing the head creates the maximum amount of space between vertebrae. Headsmen using a block actually forces a person into a position that is not conducive to a sword. Which is why Anne Boleyn knelt upright, and did not put her head on a block. Headsmen using an axe use the block to extend the neck, but of course, they still have to hit their target. Mary Queen of Scots was a mess, because the first blow hit her in the back on the head. Which killed her, no doubt, but it didn't take her head off. Of course cleaving through skull dulls an axe like nobody's business, so the blow through the neck did not sever all the tendons. So then the headsman had to saw through the tissue, and it was just a total botch.

So what does this have to do with serial killers taking heads? A lot actually. Richard Ramirez was surprised that beheading was so hard because a: The man isn't that bright and b: He listened to too many self aggrandizing stories about Nam, and never actually bent his mind to the physics of the thing. A machete is about the last blade you want to use to take a head. There is no weight to it, and the human arm cannot generate enough force to plow through neck tissue. A knife is MUCH easier than a machete. It takes skill, in that you have to divide certain structures, ergo you have to either know or be able to see what those structures are, but it is pretty easy. I've done it. Not on a human, a deer. I have a basic high school knowledge of anatomy, I'm pretty intuitive, and I had as much time as I needed and plenty of light. I did it in about 10 minutes. If I had to do it again I could probably cut down on that time significantly.

So here's the thing. I will never say that Jack the Ripper didn't try to take the head. He may have. I can say with a fair amount of authority that it was not a priority. If it had been, he would have forgone the other mutilations to get it done. Had he rolled her on her side, her head would have flopped down and opened up a space between the vertebrae he could get his knife through. Which is interesting, because if he had medical knowledge, he would have known that. Whatever happened, it was not the knife that prevented him from decapitating her. It might have been a lack of time... but he had the tools to do it if he really wanted to do it. Which means either he didn't try, or he didn't care enough to try that hard. But nothing prevented him from doing it.

[lynn cates]

worth it?

Hello Errata. Thanks.

"he didn't care enough to try that hard"

I can live with that. I can see an attempt with a knife followed by a furtive manual attempt. Finally, a "devil take it--not worth it." Or, if delusional--as I suspect--he may have thought it off already.

Cheers.
LC

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Errata

Many thanks for your informed opinions. Very useful.

Chris

[Hunter]

Don't have much time right now, but will say that Errata has pretty much nailed it. Any hunter who kills for food would know how to quarter and decapitate a deer - for instance - with a knife. The trick is it has to be a sturdy knife and you concentrate on the pivot points, or ball joints after the connective tissue is cut away. The head is removed by simultaneously cutting and prying from the rear, not the sides or the front. The last great connective tissue resides between the flanges that project from the spinal vertebrae there.. The pivot joint right at the base of the skull is the best location.

If this killer was practiced in any way with a knife and actual dismemberment - like the torso murder(s) was/were, and he intended to dismember the head, he could have done it fairly quickly.

Either Chapman's killer was not proficient at this or Phillips got the wrong impression. Unfortunately, as far as this series of murders are concerned, mileage often varies with preconceived notions rather than objective analysis. Thankfully, that age old impediment is rapidly being whittled away (pun intended) as evidenced by the excellent and reasoned posts on this thread.

Got any good venison recipes Errata?

[Wickerman]

Well, actually you can. It is just by no means the most efficient way of decapitating someone. It's done with a scalpel all the time.

It's done with a scalpel in the hands of a professional.

I was thinking more along the lines of efficiency than impossibility, and with a layperson. You can remove someone's head with a piece of flint if you have enough time & patience.
It is less likely, in my opinion, that a killer will go head-hunting with a stiletto blade, he will take the correct tools for the job. In that respect you simply can't expect to be a successful head-hunter if all you carry is a stiletto blade.

I personally do not think he intended to remove the head initially. With Kelly it may have been a whim that flashed through his mind in the ecstatic 'heat of the moment'. He was placing the removed organs around the bed, so it may have suddenly occurred to him to do the same with the head. This killer (or, 'a' killer - Lynn), apparently took the time to place articles around Chapman, and placed or dropped pieces of anatomy around Eddowes, likewise with Kelly. Only with Kelly he may have had the time to work at separating the bones but failed.

With Chapman I see just a very deep thrust & pull with a very sharp instrument, so he marked the bone, but not because he was looking for the cartilage.

That thing in the movies where a ninja swings a sword at some guy charging him and his flies off pretty much never happens.

No kidding
In our couch-potato world the need to go around lopping peoples heads off hardly ever arises anymore.

A Samurai sword, or indeed any two-handed long bladed, razor-sharp weapon, in the hands of a professional could indeed remove a person's head.
The Samurai practiced on bamboo cane because it so closely resembles the resistance of human bone. Anyway, drifting off topic.

Suffice to say, if the killer had set out intending to remove a head, I expect he would have come prepared with something better than a stiletto blade.
But hey, who said serial killers were smart?

Regards, Jon S.

[Errata]

Got any good venison recipes Errata?

I've never had venison. And I never will. The deer in question was decapitated in the name of science. As were 40 or so of his buddies who had the bad luck to get hit by a car and swept up by animal control during the six months of the "testing phase". You'd think you'd never get tired of finding various ways to lop the heads off animals. But the novelty wears off pretty quick. Except for the deer guillotine. That I was proud of. Although now that I think about, I should ask Lanie about typical vertebral marks of beheading, since she saved the vertebrae for her thesis. I never saw them. I just had the weapons.

[Errata]

I talked to my friend about attempted decapitation, and she looked at the coroner's notes etc. She says that if someone was really trying to take off a head with a knife and failed for whatever reason, 9 times out of 10 the tip of the blade should have been between the vertebrae. She said there's a lot of historical evidence that suggest that far and away the most popular method of trying to cut the spine was to... well, she showed me and now I have to think about how to describe it. Think about opening a stuck drawer with a knife. Jam it into the crack, push down to wedge it open, and then before the gap closes again, wedge the blade into the inter-vertebral space and wiggle it back and forth to get enough room to saw. Not only does it leave very distinctive marks on the bone (which she has no idea if those marks were present on any of the victims) but it almost always snaps the tip off between vertebrae. She said that in a successful decapitation the same thing happens, but once the head is free the tip of the knife falls out, and unless it sticks to the body for some reason, no one would ever find it. She said a thorough exam of the spine should have revealed it if it was there, but it's one of those things that x-rays help quite a good deal with.

She thinks that if someone tried to cut the spine, they should have found the tip of the knife. And not like a sliver or anything, a quarter inch to an inch worth of the blade. She certainly doesn't think someone could have then used the same knife to stab anyone. She also doesn't think there would be a way to put a tip on the knife later without "totally violating it's structural integrity" and I agree with her. That knife was a loss.

So I'm so glad she's teaching kindergarten with her terribly advanced archeology/forensic anthropology degrees.