The increasing acceptance of Martha Tabram...

[lynn cates]

I predict . . .

Hello DD.

"I wonder what the orthodox version of the Ripper murders will look like ten years hence?"

Good question. One hopes that all that ripper business will be cast aside and some murders will FINALLY be investigated.

Cheers.
LC

[Wickerman]

When I first began to take an interest in the Ripper murders about ten years ago, it was KNOWN that Martha Tabram was not a Ripper-related killing, and Elizabeth Stride's canonicity was unquestioned.

That's all changed today.

And so it should, our beliefs and theories are based on inadequate details short on real facts so should always be in a state of flux.
While it is true that we learn more information as each year passes, for every new fact that emerges there are more questions that surface.

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

[GUT]

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?

The simple answer is who knows.

The same type of question can be asked in relation to any single aspect of the case, but as the old saying goes we have to play the hand we are dealt.

Remember Macnaghten gave us the C5, but the Whitechapel file contained the others.

I think Alice is still a de-escalation, though not as great a one, if we remove MJK. But what does that prove anyway, some people seem to want a mathematical progression, [regardless of C5 or some other combination] and that just isn't how murder works.

[Defective Detective]

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?

[GUT]

When I first began to take an interest in the Ripper murders about ten years ago, it was KNOWN that Martha Tabram was not a Ripper-related killing, and Elizabeth Stride's canonicity was unquestioned.

That's all changed today. In fact, if this website were being designed today, I think it's likely that Tabram's sub-forum would go under the main Victims list, where Stride would probably be grouped in with Frances Coles and Alice McKenzie.

I have no real point to posting this. It's just something I thought of today. I wonder what the orthodox version of the Ripper murders will look like ten years hence?

It is all a question of opinion, is it not.

[Defective Detective]

When I first began to take an interest in the Ripper murders about ten years ago, it was KNOWN that Martha Tabram was not a Ripper-related killing, and Elizabeth Stride's canonicity was unquestioned.

That's all changed today. In fact, if this website were being designed today, I think it's likely that Tabram's sub-forum would go under the main Victims list, where Stride would probably be grouped in with Frances Coles and Alice McKenzie.

I have no real point to posting this. It's just something I thought of today. I wonder what the orthodox version of the Ripper murders will look like ten years hence?

[FrankO]

Good post. I don't know how much the ripper could have read or heard about Emma Smith, attacked on a Bank Holiday like Tabram, but it seems equally fair to conclude in Smith's case that whoever inflicted the injury to her private parts was 'morbidly interested in what was below the skirts'.

Can't argue with you there, Caz! It's a pity that her case is surrounded by a number of question marks.

The best,
Frank

[FrankO]

Hi Mike,

Excuse the late response, but here it goes.

The issue of the clothing could be a result of her having her back to a wall and sliding down it as he stabs away, pulling her lower clothing up.

I don't think that sliding against a wall would result in her skirts being worked up, giving the impression that recent intimacy had taken place.

I believe that a relevant factor here when assessing her killer is that he was quite obviously not a slasher. Or a slicer.

He wasn't in this particular instance, no - if it was the Ripper at all.

Or someone who wanted to perform any pseudo surgical acts.

Are we sure this is what the Ripper wanted? I, for one, don't. It was probably just a means to an end.

Anyway, what keeps sticking out for me are the things that I've outlined in a previous post, to me forming a link to the Ripper. No more and no less.

All the best,
Frank

[caz]

Totally agree-especially about your PS.
One thing I would mention is-why couldnt the ripper and the soldier suspect of Tabrams murder be one and the same? I dont understand why i see so many people on here discount the Tabram murder by saying something along the lines of "jack didnt kill her, she was probably killed by the soldier".
They should not be mutually exclusive, right?

Hi Abby,

Right. In fact I was reading only the other day that there have been some problems with young soldiers returning from active service (eg in Afghanistan) and becoming violent as a way of coping. I wonder if it's worth looking for soldiers in 1888 who had seen active service before returning to the London area?

Love,

Caz
X

PS Sorry Ginger, I read your post after responding to Abby's. It's a fair point. Wonder if Bank Holiday, weekend and Lord Mayor's Show passes might have been common enough for Tommy's to slip under the radar?

[Ginger]

One thing I would mention is-why couldnt the ripper and the soldier suspect of Tabrams murder be one and the same? I dont understand why i see so many people on here discount the Tabram murder by saying something along the lines of "jack didnt kill her, she was probably killed by the soldier".
They should not be mutually exclusive, right?

Maybe. But if I understand correctly, a soldier would have needed permission to be out of barracks at night. If Tommy Atkins had a pass every night a murder occurred, I think that might draw attention.

[Abby Normal]

Fair enough, Phil. I was only considering possibilities here. If Nichols was not the first unfortunate her killer had ever taken a knife to, it stands to reason that on a Tabram thread I would be discussing whether she could have been an earlier victim of the same man.



I don't consider stabbing someone 39 times a particularly efficient kill, so I was referring to the man who cut Nichols's throat. I do think that man would have known his way round the average Spitalfields street walker before engaging one specifically to murder, and taking the plunge, as it were.



Again, fair enough, although I can't recall any reports of other similar cases 'away or abroad' that were likened to the rather exceptional attack on Tabram. Rachel Nickell, if you recall, was stabbed 49 times on Wimbledon Common in 1992, by the same man - Rober Napper - who went on the following year to murder, mutilate and take body parts from Samantha Bisset in her own home. Anyone who believes the murder in Miller's Court was personal would be advised to look at the details of the Nickell and Bisset cases.

I do actually think it's possible that two men, or even a gang, were involved in the attack on Tabram (one of them possibly being Jack) so you are right to say there are more options worth considering, although it's harder to get away with murder when there are two or more trying to keep the secret forever.

As for a one-off crime of passion, these tend to involve personal relationships between killer and victim, so it's a tad hard to imagine this applying to a street walker who goes off with a soldier on a Bank Holiday night. More likely he was the type who got tanked up and took umbrage way too easily.

Love,

Caz
X

PS I do find it curious that many people who have little or no faith in the various police claims made about the ripper's identity, number of victims and which ones, nevertheless have every faith in the police claims to have known that "Jack the Ripper" was invented by an enterprising journalist. No evidence was ever produced against anyone from the press, and nobody was prosecuted for the considerable waste of time and mischief caused. I don't buy it myself.

Totally agree-especially about your PS.
One thing I would mention is-why couldnt the ripper and the soldier suspect of Tabrams murder be one and the same? I dont understand why i see so many people on here discount the Tabram murder by saying something along the lines of "jack didnt kill her, she was probably killed by the soldier".
They should not be mutually exclusive, right?

[caz]

Something must have triggered the murderer of Nichols to attack his first unfortunate, and it seems a tad unlikely that a man with no previous attempts, practice or experience under his belt, and only his fantasies as a guide, would have just decided to go out one night with a very sharp knife and do what he did in Buck's Row.

The flaw with that argument is that Polly did nt need to have been "Jack's" first attack, and tabram does not HAVE to be his work, in order to supply that need. IMHO, other possible East End victims are available and are, to me, more convincing than Tabram.

We surely have to be VERY careful about cause and effect and creating linkages here, that while superficially attractive have only wishful thuinking to sustain them.

Fair enough, Phil. I was only considering possibilities here. If Nichols was not the first unfortunate her killer had ever taken a knife to, it stands to reason that on a Tabram thread I would be discussing whether she could have been an earlier victim of the same man.

Something tells me this man was at the very least accustomed to encounters with street walkers before his first silently efficient kill.

Not sure which "man" you mean: the killer of tabram or of Polly? There need not only be ONE, of course - and we should be careful about thinking in terms of one only (my view). It is perfectly possible, intellectually, to treat the two crimes separately and not possible links/similarities while maintaining a proper distance.

I don't consider stabbing someone 39 times a particularly efficient kill, so I was referring to the man who cut Nichols's throat. I do think that man would have known his way round the average Spitalfields street walker before engaging one specifically to murder, and taking the plunge, as it were.

The alternative is that the man you describe as emotional and angry enough to inflict 39 stab wounds on Tabram (a woman he had probably only met that night) immediately signed up for anger management classes and never again lost it to the same degree.

Again, flawd logic, I'm afraid. The killer of Tabram, if a soldier, might have been posted away or abroad. As another possibility, there were TWO attackers and the circumstances never arose where one egged the other on etc. Finally, there must be many cases of a one-off crime of passion - extremely violent - arising from specific circumstances, where the killer never killed again. All are as valid IMO as your option.

Again, fair enough, although I can't recall any reports of other similar cases 'away or abroad' that were likened to the rather exceptional attack on Tabram. Rachel Nickell, if you recall, was stabbed 49 times on Wimbledon Common in 1992, by the same man - Rober Napper - who went on the following year to murder, mutilate and take body parts from Samantha Bisset in her own home. Anyone who believes the murder in Miller's Court was personal would be advised to look at the details of the Nickell and Bisset cases.

I do actually think it's possible that two men, or even a gang, were involved in the attack on Tabram (one of them possibly being Jack) so you are right to say there are more options worth considering, although it's harder to get away with murder when there are two or more trying to keep the secret forever.

As for a one-off crime of passion, these tend to involve personal relationships between killer and victim, so it's a tad hard to imagine this applying to a street walker who goes off with a soldier on a Bank Holiday night. More likely he was the type who got tanked up and took umbrage way too easily.

Love,

Caz
X

PS I do find it curious that many people who have little or no faith in the various police claims made about the ripper's identity, number of victims and which ones, nevertheless have every faith in the police claims to have known that "Jack the Ripper" was invented by an enterprising journalist. No evidence was ever produced against anyone from the press, and nobody was prosecuted for the considerable waste of time and mischief caused. I don't buy it myself.

[RavenDarkendale]

True enough, Phil, there is little difference between us. I was only pointing out that JtR was likely, as so very properly put it, was "a press construct", and so we couldn't really pass any victims as JtR's. We disagree on the murders that fit the same pattern, but that is what makes investigators more likely to continue the investigation, the fact that someone has suggested either adding or subtracting from the serial killer's list of victims.

If we take Bundy, for example, trying to determine who exactly could be proven or counted extremely likely to be his victims was a careful investigation, and they probably would have delayed his execution further if they hadn't began to feel he was playing for time. Some parents have been quoted as saying as far as they were concerned, Bundy killed their daughter and would die for the crime, so don't keep dragging the issue out. Every questionable victim needed to be checked until it was obvious he had no real desire to help close cases.

Darkendale

[Phil H]

And what makes you think that we know for sure ANY were committed by JtR?

I certainly am no longer of the firm opinion that there was a single killer. You've probably seen me say that in posts in other threads.

I suppose that I'd have to say that these days I mentally maintain two conceptions of the Whitechapel Killer:

a) JtR - a press construct, the name arising from the famous letter;

b) "Jack" (as I call him) whom I am only certain killed Polly, Annie and maybe Kate, but who may have been responsible for the death of Alice and perhaps some earlier attacks (NOT Tabram IMHO).

So there you have it. I do not believe that Mary of Liz were killed by JtR or the same hand as the other three "canonicals" - although I still hold that model in thought for comparative pusposes.

As we do not even know who the Ripper was, or if he (as JtR) even existed, how can we place any of the murders at his feet?

Because I think the links in time, the method, and the escalation of the mutilations with Polly, Annie and Kate is sufficient to suggest a single hand. I may, of course, be wrong - but that is my current working hypothesis (though not my only one).

What we CAN do is group those that have something connecting them, and ascribe them to one unknown person. I propose Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Eddows were killed by the same person.

So Tabram apart there's not much ground between us, Dale.

Stride was a quick kill, no mutilation at all, either by stabbing or slicing. Heat of the moment killing, perhaps.

Miller's Court was highly personal, the work of someone who knew the victim, which I am still not positive was really Mary Kelly.

We agree on both.

Then there were the ones after 1888, two possibly by the first killer, Alice McKenzie and Frances Coles, IMO.___

Mckenzie as I have said I see as potentially "Jack's" work, though I have reservations about the time gap (why?) and though i can explain the lack of severe mutilation to myself (physical weakness, interruption, problems with clothing) that could be an indication of a copycat - jury's out on that one for me.

Cole's I have never seen as Ripper work - if not Sadler then A N Other. Just too late and doesn't fit for me.

Phil

[RavenDarkendale]

If you want to believe that, feel free - I find it a melange of hypothesis and explanation of one death (Stride) that we do not know for sure to be the Ripper's work, as the MO is different or incomplete.

phil

And what makes you think that we know for sure ANY were committed by JtR?

As we do not even know who the Ripper was, or if he (as JtR) even existed, how can we place any of the murders at his feet?

What we CAN do is group those that have something connecting them, and ascribe them to one unknown person. I propose Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Eddows were killed by the same person.

Stride was a quick kill, no mutilation at all, either by stabbing or slicing. Heat of the moment killing, perhaps.

Miller's Court was highly personal, the work of someone who knew the victim, which I am still not positive was really Mary Kelly.

Then there were the ones after 1888, two possibly by the first killer, Alice McKenzie and Frances Coles, IMO.