The increasing acceptance of Martha Tabram...

[RockySullivan]

Right, I get that 'Jack' could have started out with disjointing women, then switched to a more frenzied, less precise modus operandi. If there were only Torso killings in 1889, after the Ripper slayings, I would have no problem suggesting they were the same man: that he began to realize that taking apart a woman's limbs did nothing for him and he looked to more intimate forms of murder to get his kicks.

But there was also the Rainham mystery in 1887 and the Whitehall Mystery in September of 1888, right in the middle of the Ripper killings.

My problem with it is that there's no logical progression, from [Torso murder]/[Torso murder]/[Ripper murder]/[Ripper murder][Ripper murder] or the inverse. You begin with a torso killing, then you get a series of rippings with a torso in betwixt them, then you conclude with torso killings in 1889.

Again, I get a killer can vary up his MO. But will he switch back and forth between different MOs seemingly at will?

Yes he will switch back and forth because the dismemberment likely has to do with availability of setting to dismember/hiding id

[Defective Detective]

Right, I get that 'Jack' could have started out with disjointing women, then switched to a more frenzied, less precise modus operandi. If there were only Torso killings in 1889, after the Ripper slayings, I would have no problem suggesting they were the same man: that he began to realize that taking apart a woman's limbs did nothing for him and he looked to more intimate forms of murder to get his kicks.

But there was also the Rainham mystery in 1887 and the Whitehall Mystery in September of 1888, right in the middle of the Ripper killings.

My problem with it is that there's no logical progression, from [Torso murder]/[Torso murder]/[Ripper murder]/[Ripper murder][Ripper murder] or the inverse. You begin with a torso killing, then you get a series of rippings with a torso in betwixt them, then you conclude with torso killings in 1889.

Again, I get a killer can vary up his MO. But will he switch back and forth between different MOs seemingly at will?

[RockySullivan]

It's certainly possible that Torso and the Ripper could've been the same, but here's why I've always tended to discount the idea: there were Torso killings both in 1887 and 89. I can certainly accept that a killer would radically switch his MO - it's one of the reasons I still think Klosowski is a pretty good suspect - but would he switch back to an older MO?

Of course he would. Dismemberment could be done for a number reasons including simply he had the ability to dismember those victims, had a reason to dismember those victims. The argument you've just stated is repeatedly put forward as evidence that torso & ripper are not the same but it's just not a valid reason in my personal opinion. In the LISK case I've been working on for years the killer frequently dumps one dismembered body together with a non-dismembered body at the same time. We just don't know the reason the torso dismembered the body but it could have to with the possibility he was able to lure the victims back to his abode where he could could dismember. It also could have to do with hindering identification because he could be traced back to the victims if they were identified. There are a number of a reasons. To me it not mutually exclusive that a serial killer can dismember one victims and do differently with another within a very short time frame. Unfortunately the currently accepted believe is that Serial Killers can't possibly do both...but the fact is they do.

[Defective Detective]

It's certainly possible that Torso and the Ripper could've been the same, but here's why I've always tended to discount the idea: there were Torso killings both in 1887 and 89. I can certainly accept that a killer would radically switch his MO - it's one of the reasons I still think Klosowski is a pretty good suspect - but would he switch back to an older MO?

[RockySullivan]

My personal opinion...(and i will take some heat for it im sure) is that the more we learn about serial killers the more will start to become accepted that torso and the ripper are the same killer. I think the misunderstanding that serial killers do not switch between dismembering and not and the mythology of SK adhering to a strict MO will be dispelled. I think a greater focus will be on the torso victims and i believe there is a good chance the ripper case will come to be solved thru a harder look at the torso case in the far future. Again all my opinion of course

[Defective Detective]

There's a certain pattern to the way you've described the murders that is recursive, rather than progressive, Sam:

Nichols - multiple deep abdominal slashes

Chapman - abdominal flesh removed in three flaps

Eddowes - single deep abdominal slash

Kelly - abdominal flesh removed in three flaps

That's a 1-2-1-2 pattern, or perhaps a 1-2-3-2 pattern, depending on whether we think the difference in the number of slashes between Nichols and Eddowes is important. Probably irrelevant - I know serial killers are not machines, which has been pointed out many times - but it's interesting to note.

The three flaps in the Chapman and Kelly cases might be significant.

[Sam Flynn]

How is Mary's age in any way significant?

Indeed, CD. For an answer, just look at Bundy and Sutcliffe.

[c.d.]

I think a much better question is why in the world would anybody not expect to find differences in the killings? Take Mary Kelly for example. Just because the previous killings took place on the street is the killer now somehow prevented from moving indoors as though that violates a law of physics like going faster than the speed of light? How is Mary's age in any way significant? Was Jack somehow operating under strict serial killer rules? Would killing a younger woman get him kicked out of the Union? Why was he limited to killing only women who were clearly soliciting?

Differences are only that. Just differences. It doesn't necessarily make them significant.

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

I see the same hand in all four murders, but I admit that I cannot arrive at a logical progression from Chapman to Eddowes.

Nichols - multiple deep abdominal slashes

Chapman - abdominal flesh removed in three flaps; uterus and part of bladder removed from scene; colon accidentally cut

Eddowes - single deep abdominal slash; uterus and kidney removed from scene; colon (initially accidentally?) cut and removed, but left at scene; face badly slashed

Kelly - abdominal flesh removed in three flaps; heart removed from scene; all abdominal and some thoracic organs removed, but left at scene; face extensively slashed; limbs excoriated

I see clear patterns and a progressive escalation here.

[Sam Flynn]

It seems the more we dig, the deeper the hole gets which should come as no surprise.

Only if we're digging downwards, Jon. Thankfully, other spatial dimensions are available

[Sam Flynn]

My point is that Motive is the key to all of them, and when you cannot find a motive, you cannot assume one anyway.

An excellent post, Mike, but I don't quite agree with you on this point. Surely, motive can surely only truly determined if the perpetrator is captured? Even then, even in the best-documented case studies, motives remain open to speculation and debate.

MO, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. One can at least have the semblance of an objective analysis based on MO, where the details of the crimes, wounds etc, are documented. With many of the Whitechapel Murders, we are in a reasonably good position in that regard.

[Defective Detective]

If you set all 5 cases down together and summarize all the relevant data you will note that the first 2 murders in the Canonical Group seem to almost certainly be committed by the same individual, or individuals....more than 1 killer for any of those kills has never been ruled out. But the remaining 3 women's murders do not match that earlier style.

Had Eddowes' face not been mutilated, I think the trajectory from Chapman to Eddowes would be more evident; it's the introduction of this new element that probably throws some people off, and gives rise to the suspicion her killer knew her.

In fact, I think we can group the victims like this:

Nichols and Chapman are self-evidently linked, as you say.

Eddowes

Kelly

These are three separate sets that can be distinguished, due to, for instance, the lack of facial mutilations on the first two victims.

Kelly and Eddowes can be tentatively linked by the presence of facial mutilations: if there are separate killers here, it's more likely to my mind that Eddowes and Kelly share the same murderer than not, and I think most others feel the same - hence some of the emphasis you see on presumed 'connections' between Eddowes and Kelly, like the physical proximity of their residences to Dorest Street, the coincidence of the Mary Ann/Jane Kelly name in both cases, etc. (I discount these, but a lot of students of the case who read connections between the victims into the facts find them between Eddowes and Kelly.)

So we can now reduce that to two separate sets:

Nichols/Chapman
Eddowes/Kelly

What must be done to posit a lone killer in both sets is to link the two of them, which is harder than it looks. Chapman can be read as an escalation from Nichols, and Kelly can be read as an escalation from Eddowes, but, while Eddowes was more severely injured than Chapman, the nature of her wounds are pretty different.

I see the same hand in all four murders, but I admit that I cannot arrive at a logical progression from Chapman to Eddowes.

Now if we include Tabram and Stride, we are left with, at best, four separate sets that cannot be intuitively linked:

Martha Tabram
Polly Nichols/Anne Chapman
Elizabeth Stride
Catharine Eddowes/Mary Jane Kelly

Tabram's throat was stabbed, unique to her in any of the series, and, while her body was badly mutilated with puncture wounds, does not appear to have been eviscerated in a 'ripping' or 'slashing' manner.

Nichols and Chapman were both 'ripped', with the generative organs being targeted; the cause of death in both instances seem to have been some combination of asphyxiation and a exsanguination due to a slashed throat.

Stride also seems to have been murdered by some form of suffocation and a slit throat, but there were no other bodily wounds.

Eddowes and Kelly both suffered a slashed throat - albeit of a much deeper and more vicious nature than Stride - and suffered abdominal mutilations, but of a kind not explicitly targeted at the generative organs, though in both cases these were injured in the course of the attack as well. Eddowes and Kelly both suffered facial mutilations, unlike any other victim in the other sets.

[Defective Detective]

I think Alice is still a de-escalation, though not as great a one, if we remove MJK.

From Eddowes, certainly (I feel like the extent of Eddowes' mutilations are sometimes downplayed in latter-day accounts; probably the mortuary photographs play some role in that - she was stitched up in them, and would look a lot worse had they been taken before that), and probably also Chapman. But McKenzie was undoubtedly worse off than Stride, who I personally discount, and probably wounded about as badly as Nichols.

[Michael W Richards]

When it comes to whom should be placed under the imaginary umbrella of Jacks victims, its important to analyse both what we know about the physical evidence and the circumstantial. We can all see clearly that within the later Canonical Group that there are murders that are definitely unlike the earlier ones....both in the physical data, and the circumstantial.

More specifically, the single cut on Liz Stride and the annihilation of Mary Kelly... indoors. Departures in Victimology...the first 2 women were both actively soliciting and that's how the killer met them,...in fact there is no proof that any of the remaining Canonical Group were actively doing that same thing when they meet their killer...something which would have facilitated a stranger to stranger contact. Mary Kelly was half the age of her predecessors, and killed in her own room. The 2 earlier victims both suffered very deep double cuts to the throat, Liz Stride was cut once, and without the depth, and Mary was essentially taken apart. If you set all 5 cases down together and summarize all the relevant data you will note that the first 2 murders in the Canonical Group seem to almost certainly be committed by the same individual, or individuals....more than 1 killer for any of those kills has never been ruled out. But the remaining 3 women's murders do not match that earlier style.

People have for decades assumed a profile for a single killer that changes throughout the series of murders, primarily in an attempt to reconcile all the contradictory evidence that could be brought to bear on the argument. He killed because he was insane, and the reason the murders took place is simply because he craved,(or couldn't control himself), killing street prostitutes.

Well, the evidence says that empirically we can only say that Polly and Annie were soliciting.If the remaining 3 were not, then why did he kill them and why did he kill them differently?

Before assuming an answer, try and truly look at this objectively.

My point is that Motive is the key to all of them, and when you cannot find a motive, you cannot assume one anyway.

We know why Polly and Annie were killed...a madman killing homeless women for whatever demons possessed him... but we don't know why Liz, Kate, or Mary were killed...so before we increase an already flawed premise about how many Jack killed, we should start over with a Canonical Group of just 2 murders, the ones that are alike in almost every aspect.

Everybody seems to want to increase his head count, when what we should be doing I believe is grouping ONLY those murders which are very similar in most of the critical categories....Victim, Approach, Murder technique, PM mutilations.

Cheers

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Indeed it is.

Here's a question for you, GUT, only tangentially related to the thread, but I'll bring it all around at the end:

Say Mary Kelly was never murdered on November 8/9, and that there was no other victim in that time period that suffered similar extensive mutilations. Say that the official record goes from Stride and Eddowes to, oh, Alice McKenzie.

What would the 'canonical' victims be then? I have always gotten the impression we exclude a lot of possible victims, including Tabram, because of the Kelly killing; that we - or a lot of Ripperologists, at any rate - take Kelly as being the archetype of The Ripper Victim. So McKenzie can't be a victim because she represents a de-escalation, Tabram can't be a victim because her wounds, while severe, are not of a less-developed form that can be linked in an escalatory series from Nichols to Kelly, and so on. Stride, for whatever reason, is excluded from this.

But if we stop privileging Kelly, and remove her from the sequence, do we have any reason to exclude many of the non-canonicals?

It's interesting you should say this. I always considered the archetype of JtR murders to be Chapman and Eddowes. For me, they define Jack the Ripper.

But I also believe in the C5 + Tabram.
For me, it's more a question of timeline than M.O. and signature.