The increasing acceptance of Martha Tabram...

[Supe]

Ginger,

If it's the same murderer as that of Polly Nichols, then he learned from his mistake and came with a better plan a few weeks later.

What makes you think the murderer of Martha Tabram thought he had failed or made mistakes? That is applying your logic to an act that may well have been illogical from the start.

Otherwise, I quite agree with what my quondam colleague, Chris George, wrote. Well said Chris. I would only aded that the murder of Alice McKenzie could be an example of evolution by Martha's killer, especially when you consider the way her throat was cut.

Don.

[Abby Normal]

Why must one? How long could one expect any lone killer's "rising level of violence" to continue before fatigue, falling fitness levels, the natural ageing process or some other physical or mental factor caught up with him? How could one imagine the level of violence rising much further after MJK anyway? It doesn't follow that a lone killer would give up entirely if he couldn't maintain the violence or raise it to another level after giving it his best shot. I see Mylett, McKenzie and Coles as potential damp squibs following the firework display in Miller's Court.

If your suspect for Nichols and Chapman had been free to kill again and done so, how much longer could he have carried on producing victims like carbon copies? How many attacks do you suppose he could have notched up before his physical strength and capabilities began to desert him and showed in the injuries inflicted? Or do you think he would have stopped himself before it got to the point where he was beginning to go off the boil?

Love,

Caz
X

as usual Caz, well said.

[Abby Normal]

Hi all

I actually see no reason whatsoever to include Tabram with the canonical murders. Tabram was more of a stabbing, messy murder with multiple wounds done with two different weapons. To include Tabram as a Ripper murder, we are expected to believe that the same man changed three weeks later from that style of killing to the clean, deep neck wound and the abdominal mutilations, of slicing and not stabbing. And then the subsequent murders were done in that style. I just don't buy it. I am more inclined to think that the Tabram murder was more akin to the Smith murder, more of a one-off, possibly done by more than one man.

Best regards

Chris

so serial killers make there initial appearance fully formed with a mature and never changing MO?
Never happens.

[Ginger]

I tend to see Martha best as a "one off" - a savage attack by someone with a grudge perhaps. Maybe a revenge attack by an aggrieved punter, most likely a soldier and his mate.

I don't think the savagery was necessarily deliberate. What if the murderer, whoever he was, was expecting Martha to simply gasp and fall down dead right on the spot when stabbed in the chest, as murder victims tended to do in the penny dreadfuls? The frenzied stabbing could be the result of desperation, when he found that she wasn't going to die as easily as he'd thought. If it's the same murderer as that of Polly Nichols, then he learned from his mistake and came with a better plan a few weeks later.

IIRC, there was also some doubt among the medical examiners whether more than one knife had been used, was there not?

[RivkahChaya]

If films begin with Tabram (to the extent that the follow the historical record closely), they do, because for the East End, that's where the terror began. It's probably because of the way the papers played it, but the killer of Tabram was reported as someone who was "out there," and people should be afraid, not as someone who had specifically been after Tabram.

It's rather ironic, now that I think of it, that so many people, like men, and married women who never went out alone after dark, were afraid in the Fall of 1888, while the women in the actual pool of victims were probably able to rationalize away their fear with the idea that they were smarter, and taking extra precautions, only going with regulars, etc., which they had to do, or they wouldn't get their doss money, and would be out on the street one way or another.

"Jack the Ripper" was surely always an intellectual construct?

A name was taken from a letter (almost certainly a hoax penned by a journalist) and applied to a number of murders.

Yes. Whoever wrote that letter, and first used the name, we can be fairly certain, never killed anyone. If the writer of that letter is the real "Jack the Ripper," then in some sense, he didn't exist. Since the letter writer was probably referring, at that point in time, to the killer of Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman, the only murders at the time the police were sure were by the same person, then I think there' an argument to be made that the "real JTR" is whoever killed Nichols and Chapman, and the only other true Ripper victims are victims of this person.

On the other hand, I can also see an argument that any women killed during the "Autumn of Terror," whose killer was not otherwise identified, is a "Ripper victim." That's a paradigmatic, semantic, and anthropological argument, while the first one is more syllogistic. I prefer the first, although I certainly understand the second.

And please note, that the first argument allows for the idea that one person actually did kill every victim of an unsolved murder in Whitechapel and Spitalfields in 1888: Stride, Kelly, Tabram, all comers. It just demands proof first. It's also vulnerable to a discovery, by some means, that Nichols and Chapman were killed by different people.

As for Jack the Ripper being an intellectual construct, Catch Me When You Can Mishter Lusk did not seem to appreciate being given a name not of his own choosing. As who could blame him?

Ah, hell hath no fury like a rival hoaxer scorned!!

Can we REALLY read much into that? It is surely entirely subjective?

Phil

And Lusk probably had plenty of enemies. I'm surprised that he didn't receive more disgusting things by mail.

[Bridewell]

Sir MM was the man in the know as regards the JTR victims.

Sir MM claimed that Sir MM was the man in the know. Then again, he didn't join the Metropolitan Police until 1889, and then in a managerial, rather than operational role. Without an identified killer, in an age before the advent of forensic science techniques, there could be no basis for such certainty. MacNaghten's five victims were a guess, at best.

[Bridewell]

To include Tabram as a Ripper murder, we are expected to believe that the same man changed three weeks later from that style of killing to the clean, deep neck wound and the abdominal mutilations, of slicing and not stabbing.

We are required to believe that a novice killer learned a great deal from the Tabram experience, acquired a knife more suited to his purpose and adapted his technique accordingly. Alternatively Tabram simply requires that a killer gets an unexpected opportunity to kill when he doesn't have his usual knife/knives in his possession. If he's not in possession of the same tools, he's required (rather than choosing) to alter his MO. Different knife/knives doesn't necessarily mean different killer IMHO - perhaps just different circumstances.

[Bridewell]

(Sutcliffe and Kurten) produced a series of assaults and murders with far more dissimilarities than we see with the Whitechapel cases from Smith to Coles.

Absolutely right, Caz. Killers, like everyone else, learn from experience.

[Phil H]

Answer: Because they weren't

That maybe the case.

Equally - like any of us (but with access to rather more sources and more complete information), Macnaghten came to a CONSIDERED OPINION.

I would maintain that his "canonical five" is as flawed as a list, as are his three suspects, where at least one could not have done it.

MM was not on the case in autumn 1888 so in a way, though more informed, he had to make a judgement just as we do.

I certainly do not perceive him, these days, as infalliable.

Phil

[lynn cates]

We were keeping tabs on his every movement . . .

Hello Stephen. Thanks.

"Sir MM was the man in the know as regards the JTR victims."

Possibly. Wonder how that happened? Perhaps, like Harry "Snapper" Organs, he read the colour supplements? (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[Stephen Thomas]

If Kate can be included with her differences, why not Martha? But if Martha, why not Alice and Frances? But if they are included, then one must retract the "rising level of violence" theory.

Hello Lynn

Sir MM was the man in the know as regards the JTR victims.

Who is anybody to second guess him?

He could have included Tabram, MacKenzie and Coles but chose not to.

Why not?

Answer: Because they weren't

[Phil H]

As for Jack the Ripper being an intellectual construct, Catch Me When You Can Mishter Lusk did not seem to appreciate being given a name not of his own choosing. As who could blame him?

Ah, hell hath no fury like a rival hoaxer scorned!!

Can we REALLY read much into that? It is surely entirely subjective?

Phil

[lynn cates]

absolutely fitting

Hello Phil.

"If we were able to go back and pin point the murderer, the anomalies might all be explained in the most odd but absolutely fitting ways - his mental state, his health, his family situation, incarceration (prison or secure hospital)."

And this is PRECISELY what happened to me as I read Jacob Isenschmid's charts. (Patient has a paper with studs and cheap items in it. Says they are worth no end of money.)

Cheers.
LC

[Chava]

Of all the 'other' killings, Tabram is the one that I think has the best chance of being a Ripper kill. The victim is right, the location is right, the time is right. But the MO is wrong. I don't think we can call her 'canonical' for that reason alone. But I believe there is an excellent chance that she was his first killing.

As for Jack the Ripper being an intellectual construct, Catch Me When You Can Mishter Lusk did not seem to appreciate being given a name not of his own choosing. As who could blame him?

[lynn cates]

finishing touches

Hello Caroline. Thanks.

Well, did not his mind give way after the glut of Miller's Court? (Sorry, had to.) Very well--then a rising cycle of violence followed by a decrescendo.

"If your suspect for Nichols and Chapman had been free to kill again and done so, how much longer could he have carried on producing victims like carbon copies?"

Not long, I take it. His most violent/delusional periods seem to have ended after a couple weeks. At least, that's consistent with what the Colney Hatch lads thought.

Cheers.
LC