Assumption buster #2 Mary Jane Kelly

[Harry Poland]

It's commonly assumed that MJK was the final victim, although some commentators suggest that other similar killings may be also attributable to JTR.

Taking Tabram as the first murder (controversial), and Kelly as the last, it is suggested that between these killings there is a clear evolution of MO. Based on this it is further suggested that after killing MJK and having time with her body to carry out the mutilations the ripper would no longer be satisfied with mere street killings. Is it not therefore possible that after killing MJK the ripper's MO evolved significantly perhaps by taking his victims home and carrying out both murder and mutilation there.

Who knows, in some forgotten lime pit under some London cellar, there may be many many more victims. Discuss.....................

[Phil H]

The number of victims and their identity is surely at the core of ripper studies. We all probably have our own list or lists.

As I have said in other threads, I no longer have one list - but several possible combinations:

Nichols, Chapman (maybe Eddowes)

Nichols, Chapman (maybe Eddowes) plus Mckenzie

Nichols, Chapman (maybe Eddowes) plus Stride and maybe Mckenzie.

But on the whole I still perceive Stride and Kelly as killed by other hands. (Tabram I have never thought a Ripper victim, though I am ready to be proved wrong on that.)

That said, no one IMHO should utterly discount the canonical five, as that appears to have been an opinion held by people who saw the crime scenes and new information lost to us.

No - I don't think there is any reason to believe there is a cellar under some London house which hides further victims. I don't see that as "Jack's" way - he was an opportunist.

Phil H

[Errata]

No - I don't think there is any reason to believe there is a cellar under some London house which hides further victims. I don't see that as "Jack's" way - he was an opportunist.

Phil H

But that doesn't mean he didn't have an exceptionally close call at some point and decide to be an opportunist close to water where he could dump bodies or some such. Or decide to be an opportunist in South America.

[Phil H]

Maybe.

But personally I see "Jack" (i.e. the killer of Nichols, Chpaman, Eddowes and maybe Mckenzie, as a local man. I don't think he moved. IMHO, he either died or was incarcerated.

Phil H

[Errata]

Maybe.

But personally I see "Jack" (i.e. the killer of Nichols, Chpaman, Eddowes and maybe Mckenzie, as a local man. I don't think he moved. IMHO, he either died or was incarcerated.

Phil H

Probably. Just pointing out that fear is a powerful motivator to suddenly decide to seek out new vistas. Or just start stuffing corpses into sewers.

[Wickerman]

Probably. Just pointing out that fear is a powerful motivator to suddenly decide to seek out new vistas. Or just start stuffing corpses into sewers.

Wouldn't you say that part of this killer's make-up was exhibitionism, the way he left them exposed and prostrate.

Would he really choose to hide his work?

Jon

[Phil H]

Wouldn't you say that part of this killer's make-up was exhibitionism, the way he left them exposed and prostrate.
Would he really choose to hide his work?

For me, it is so difficult to tell.

Did he "pose" the bodies? Or was that just the way they lay when "Jack" had finished his gruesome work?

Flat on back, legs apart, maybe knees raised, skirts lifted - all just practical . Chapman's intestines over her shoulder - where else to put them?

I don't dispute that you CAN make an argument for purposefulness/intent - but (while not dismissing that) my own view is that the killer didn't give a thought for what things looked like. He struck, slashed, plundered and left. Simple as that.

It's interesting that with the contents of Chapman's pockets, a case was once made here that "Jack" robbed his victims before he killed them. making them empty their own pockets as a sort of humiliation. I don't accept that theory - it requires too much time and talk too much opportunity for interruption - but it shows that the placing of objects can have more than one explanation.

Phil H

[kensei]

There is so much room for speculation. After the incredible high that MJK would have given him, he may have lived off that for a long time but then decided that he could in fact return to street crime and done such murders as McKenzie and Frances Coles. (After all, there are certainly enough artists, musicians, etc. who go on to produce various mediocre work after acheiving what will always be remembered as their masterpieces.) Perhaps the Ripper was an opportunist only some of the time. Perhaps he could also be meticulous. Perhaps he was also the torso killer- which would put to rest the idea that there were no Ripper murders in October 1888. So very much speculation.

[miakaal4]

Of the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of serial killers that have been or still are, I would have thought that Police agencies would have put them in catagories; i.e. Strangler, Shooter etc, then sub cats; strangle and rape etc, and perhaps keep on subbing until the lists have a few in each. If only to investigate whether it would help them to stop someone using the same type of M.O. But if so this is flawed.
Jack, as far as we know, killed prostitutes on the street for a short time. Then, perhaps, killed Kelly indoors because the street was too "hot" for him.
But that would mean the M.O. was evolving, but was it? Because if it wasn't then Kelly and Stride could be subbed out using the above system.
The theory suggested in the start of this thread for me is interesting, if only because it suggests that the killers M.O. continued to evolve until it became lost!

[Harry Poland]

A link to a useful article differentiating between MO and signature

http://www.deviantcrimes.com/mosig.htm

Basically the signature is what the offender has to do in order to fulfill he psychological desires. For JTR this would probably be killing and subsequent specific mutilations. MO is the method used to create the signature.

In general signature remains stable over time, whereas MO is liable to evolve as the offender learns newer and better ways of performing his 'work'

If JTR had a need to kill and mutilate this need was best fulfilled during the MJK murder, where he had time and privacy. Thus, the MJK killing could have been a defining moment in the evolution of JTR's MO where he progressed from street killings to abduction / murder.

[Errata]

Wouldn't you say that part of this killer's make-up was exhibitionism, the way he left them exposed and prostrate.

Would he really choose to hide his work?

Jon

I always assumed him to be somewhat clinical in his choices. In that, when he was done with them, they sort of ceased to exist. Like a severe form of objectifying women, where once he gets what he wants, they no longer exist for him. They were merely trash at that point, and instead of going to the effort of throwing them away, he just left them the way some people leave empty food wrappers.

Exhibitionists I think would choose higher risk areas to kill, or choose to move the body to a place with the maximum shock value. Remember that exhibitionism is a fetish, and in the cases of killers, a paraphilia. They can't function without performing the exhibitionist act, and is the most important part of the kill. I don't think that was true here.

There are body collectors (Dahmer), body dumpers (Hillside Stranglers), and body abandoners (Son of Sam). Exhibitionists tend towards being body dumpers, but instead of putting them in the river, they put them say, on the steps of a church. Some are body abandoners, like Berkowitz. But Berkowitz, like Jack, lived an a huge crowded city, and unless he wanted to make a specific statement about a specific locale, there was no place he could kill without the body being found immediately. He could abandon the bodies with the same effect as going through the trouble of moving them. We know Berkowitz like the attention, he wrote letters, smiled at his capture, the whole bit. We don't know with the Ripper. But there were little things he could have done to make the bodies of his victims even more shocking, and he didn't do them. He didn't cut their clothes off. He didn't leave messages. He didn't pose them in offensive or demeaning ways. He didn't care enough. I think at best, the shock produced at the sight of his victims was an added bonus, but he wasn't willing to extend any effort towards elevating that shock.

[Wickerman]

Exhibitionists I think would choose higher risk areas to kill, or choose to move the body to a place with the maximum shock value.

Higher risk?
A common point often raised is the audacity of a killer to murder Chapman right under the noses of a house full of people. Millers Court, a trap by any standards, one way in - one way out. Nichols was dispatched right behind Whitechapel High Street, and right under the windows of residents in Bucks Row.
Without being seen, how nearer to 'people' and the 'busy' streets could he have been?

Your thoughts on Berkowitz are a good example of how we might look at the Ripper.

But Berkowitz, like Jack, lived an a huge crowded city, and unless he wanted to make a specific statement about a specific locale, there was no place he could kill without the body being found immediately.

You conjecture about the Ripper..

But there were little things he could have done to make the bodies of his victims even more shocking, and he didn't do them. He didn't cut their clothes off. He didn't leave messages. He didn't pose them in offensive or demeaning ways.

I would be cautious about this view, Victorian standards were far higher than ours. The sight of a womans ankle was shocking, even table legs had to be covered.
Chapman's legs were spread apart, Eddowes genital region was open to view, and of course Kelly, head turned towards the viewer, legs apart, and organs on view around the bed.
What we might view as tame was quite shocking to Victorian sensibilities.

I do think he considered the shock value of what he was doing. Obviously, he was not a professional exhibitionist, but only Nichols appears to have been left prematurely, on the street in full view but, he had to leave.

Given the very different standards of sexual acceptability of the age, the bodies do reflect to me a degree of posing for shock value. It wouldn't shock us, we see worse 'expose' in newspapers, but for the 19th century, yes.

Regards, Jon S.

[Phil H]

A common point often raised is the audacity of a killer to murder Chapman right under the noses of a house full of people.

Which would have been LESS RISKY had he killed her in full dark. Consider the possibility that Annie died a couple of hours earlier, and you remove the problem of a house already sirring to start the day. It is a possibility not unsuupported by medical evidence.

Millers Court, a trap by any standards, one way in - one way out.

But less of a risk again, if the perpetrator HAD A REASON to be there. That is one reason why these days I strongly consider an intimate of MJK's as her killer.

Nichols was dispatched right behind Whitechapel High Street, and right under the windows of residents in Bucks Row.

But Bucks Row appears to have been a quiet thoroughfare - quiet enough at least for a woman like Nichols to ply her trade by the stable doors. I think that if one allows, for a moment, the women to have led "Jack" to a place of assignation, then it follows that they would have chosen a spot comparatively private and shielded - at least for long enough to do their business.

Without being seen, how nearer to 'people' and the 'busy' streets could he have been?

I think that may be the wrong question. Rather, if the place was suitable for a casual coupling, and was used frequently for such purposes, could he have chosen better? Any room would be likely to be like Millers Court - a relative trap (one door?). Any street, and court, any backyard would have carried the same relative risks as Bucks Row or Hanbury St. Where else could he have gone?

But if "Jack" killed in an opportunistic way - seizing ther moment of being alone with the woman, taling little more time than a routine assignation to do his business, then while high risks remained, he was no more susceptible to interruption surely than if he had been a normal customer. Anyone seeing a couple in the spot would have recognised what they were likely to be about and turned aside/moved on.

As this is a thread about challenging assumptions, I hope my thoughts are not out of place.

Phil H

[MsWeatherwax]

Firstly, 'Hello' to you all and thanks again to the mods for approving my membership.

This is one of the areas of the JTR case that I (novice though I may be) find completely fascinating...did he definitely stop? Could he stop, for that matter?

My personal hunch is that his savagery reached a peak with Mary Kelly purely because she was (un)fortunate enough to still have the use of a private room the night she died. If her means at the time only permitted the use of a back alley for her profession, I suspect she would have ended her days much like the other victims - still dead and mutilated, but not to the degree that she sadly was.

I don't think this was something that 'Jack' planned - I imagine that when he approached her, he expected much the same as his experiences with the other women, that is to be directed to an outside area where business would take place. The fact (if it is indeed fact) that they ended up in a private room was unexpected, and allowed him far more time to carry out his gruesome fantasies.

With that being said, I personally don't find it that much of a stretch that having done this once, another mere 'slash and grab' wouldn't be enough to satisfy him any more. I think it's plausible that having experienced this once, he may have altered his usual pattern to ensure that he had somewhere private in order to repeat his experience with Mary.

That being said, it does leave the question of why no further remains have been found. Also, I've always thought that Jack was most likely an anonymous local, and probably not an affluent one at that. Quite how likely he was to have private lodgings, I'm not sure.

I suppose it's possible that if he was a tradesman, he might have access to workshops (or if you're of the persuasion that he was a man with some skill with a knife, maybe a butcher shop or abbatoir?) where he could be undisturbed.

[Phil H]

A very warm welcome to these boards, MsWeatherwax. I hope you enjoy participating in the discussions.

As this thread is about questioning/challenging assumptions, I would simply ask whether we can be sure that it was "Jack" who killed MJK?

There are other possibilities - some of which might fit the circumstances better.

did he definitely stop? Could he stop, for that matter?

I would argue quite strongly that Mckenzie might be attributed to "Jack" especially if he did not murder MJK.

Mckenzie's murder fits the pattern of Nichols and Chapman (even Eddowes) quite well - especially if one takes into account the possibility that he was interrupted and/or in a weakened state. If he were put away or frightened off the streets after the Mitre Square atrocity (or even as some have surmised made seriously ill and weakened by an infection contracted in perpetrating that murder) then Mckenzie's death might fit in quite well.

And then there is Coles?

Phil H