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(This one is long, guys...)
So I had the chance to chat to a big-deal profiler who works in the Ontario police system. He really didn't know much about the Ripper except the name and the fact that he killed women. Which is a good thing IMO, because he had no preconceived ideas. When I described the Kelly killing, as I started telling him what had happened, how the body was lying, where the victim was killed etc he said 'domestic'. But as I went on, he changed his mind. He felt very strongly that the Kelly killing was part of the series, but saw immediately the numerous differences.
Now as some of you may know, I have believed for some time that the Kelly killing was a domestic, and perhaps not a Ripper killing at all, or maybe a Ripper killing but for different reasons. However my profiler pal made me think hard about this stance. His point was that the similarities outweighed the differences, but that he couldn't quite understand why those major differences were there, and couldn't come up with a viable reason for them. I spend a long time thinking about this, and I do think I have come up with a possible scenario that I hope y'all won't find too far-fetched and dumb.
Supposing the killer's object has always been Kelly. He is obsessed with Kelly. He wants to own Kelly. He wants to kill Kelly. There have, unfortunately, been a lot of these kinds of killers around over the years. However, for whatever reason, he doesn't want to start by killing Kelly. She is fairly tall and quite strong. She's young. She won't be easily overpowered. When he kills her, he wants that kill to be perfect. So he practices.
The other victims: he starts with Nicholls--I thought Tabram might well be a victim, but for the purposes of this theory she can't be. The attack is too frenzied and doesn't contain the trademark purposeful slashing in the abdominal area. Those wounds are all stabs, not slashes. He kills her, but perhaps doesn't get quite what he wants from her. He then kills Chapman and harvests an organ or two. By this time, according to my profiler, he's brought something with him to contain them, and this becomes part of his ritual. He kills Stride but doesn't mutilate her because he doesn't get the chance. However, like Chapman, she is partially suffocated into submission before he cuts her throat. He could have strangled all of these women to death but he doesn't, so the throat-cut is very much an important part of the ritual. He kills Eddowes, and mutilates her more thoroughly than any of the others but he doesn't strangle her at all. He kills her with his knife. He doesn't kill for 6 weeks. Then he goes after Kelly. The women he killed beforehand are completely unimportant to him. They don't fulfill any major fantasy although they are part of his process, so he takes trophies. They are simply the most available and the easiest to subdue. They are, therefore, old, sick, drunk and as close to being homeless as they can be and still occasionally afford a roof over their head. Their physical similarity is an outcrop of their similar circumstances and their extreme vulnerability and so their use to him. He won't go after younger, stronger women. He's saving that for when he thinks he can go after Kelly.
His prior relationship with Kelly: she may know him, she may not. He has probably been stalking her for a while. He is aware that he can get into her room without a key. He notices her being drunk. He waits and watches until she is asleep. He breaks into her room and then enjoys his version of perfection. She is important to him as none of the others are. That's why he takes her heart rather than her sexual organs.
Now this could describe ol' Kudzu himself, George Hutchinson. Or if not George, the man in the wideawake hat waiting at the entry to the court and looking up there as if he were waiting for someone. I am tempted to dismiss GH as a figment of Abberline's imagination, or some kind of local chimerical phenomenon. Except for one thing, that also occurred to me while I was working on this theory. Hutchinson describes Mr Astrakhan as giving Kelly 'a red handkerchief'. We spent a lot of time talking about this, because there's no way he'd know the colour of that handkerchief from where he was standing. So why did he say that? Was he gilding the lily? The rest of his statement suggests that's likely. Or was that a nice little in-joke for himself? Because that was not the kind of handkerchief you blow your nose on. In those days women like Kelly would have used their fingers or a handy sleeve. But a handkerchief, she would have worn around her neck. And nice Mr A gave her something red for round her neck...
I know this is probably a crazy theory, and it goes against all my previous ideas about the case. But it occurs to me that it's a possibility. And also that, whoever the Ripper was, he was probably lining up another sweetheart when he was stopped from killing again.
So I had the chance to chat to a big-deal profiler who works in the Ontario police system. He really didn't know much about the Ripper except the name and the fact that he killed women. Which is a good thing IMO, because he had no preconceived ideas. When I described the Kelly killing, as I started telling him what had happened, how the body was lying, where the victim was killed etc he said 'domestic'. But as I went on, he changed his mind. He felt very strongly that the Kelly killing was part of the series, but saw immediately the numerous differences.
Now as some of you may know, I have believed for some time that the Kelly killing was a domestic, and perhaps not a Ripper killing at all, or maybe a Ripper killing but for different reasons. However my profiler pal made me think hard about this stance. His point was that the similarities outweighed the differences, but that he couldn't quite understand why those major differences were there, and couldn't come up with a viable reason for them. I spend a long time thinking about this, and I do think I have come up with a possible scenario that I hope y'all won't find too far-fetched and dumb.
Supposing the killer's object has always been Kelly. He is obsessed with Kelly. He wants to own Kelly. He wants to kill Kelly. There have, unfortunately, been a lot of these kinds of killers around over the years. However, for whatever reason, he doesn't want to start by killing Kelly. She is fairly tall and quite strong. She's young. She won't be easily overpowered. When he kills her, he wants that kill to be perfect. So he practices.
The other victims: he starts with Nicholls--I thought Tabram might well be a victim, but for the purposes of this theory she can't be. The attack is too frenzied and doesn't contain the trademark purposeful slashing in the abdominal area. Those wounds are all stabs, not slashes. He kills her, but perhaps doesn't get quite what he wants from her. He then kills Chapman and harvests an organ or two. By this time, according to my profiler, he's brought something with him to contain them, and this becomes part of his ritual. He kills Stride but doesn't mutilate her because he doesn't get the chance. However, like Chapman, she is partially suffocated into submission before he cuts her throat. He could have strangled all of these women to death but he doesn't, so the throat-cut is very much an important part of the ritual. He kills Eddowes, and mutilates her more thoroughly than any of the others but he doesn't strangle her at all. He kills her with his knife. He doesn't kill for 6 weeks. Then he goes after Kelly. The women he killed beforehand are completely unimportant to him. They don't fulfill any major fantasy although they are part of his process, so he takes trophies. They are simply the most available and the easiest to subdue. They are, therefore, old, sick, drunk and as close to being homeless as they can be and still occasionally afford a roof over their head. Their physical similarity is an outcrop of their similar circumstances and their extreme vulnerability and so their use to him. He won't go after younger, stronger women. He's saving that for when he thinks he can go after Kelly.
His prior relationship with Kelly: she may know him, she may not. He has probably been stalking her for a while. He is aware that he can get into her room without a key. He notices her being drunk. He waits and watches until she is asleep. He breaks into her room and then enjoys his version of perfection. She is important to him as none of the others are. That's why he takes her heart rather than her sexual organs.
Now this could describe ol' Kudzu himself, George Hutchinson. Or if not George, the man in the wideawake hat waiting at the entry to the court and looking up there as if he were waiting for someone. I am tempted to dismiss GH as a figment of Abberline's imagination, or some kind of local chimerical phenomenon. Except for one thing, that also occurred to me while I was working on this theory. Hutchinson describes Mr Astrakhan as giving Kelly 'a red handkerchief'. We spent a lot of time talking about this, because there's no way he'd know the colour of that handkerchief from where he was standing. So why did he say that? Was he gilding the lily? The rest of his statement suggests that's likely. Or was that a nice little in-joke for himself? Because that was not the kind of handkerchief you blow your nose on. In those days women like Kelly would have used their fingers or a handy sleeve. But a handkerchief, she would have worn around her neck. And nice Mr A gave her something red for round her neck...
I know this is probably a crazy theory, and it goes against all my previous ideas about the case. But it occurs to me that it's a possibility. And also that, whoever the Ripper was, he was probably lining up another sweetheart when he was stopped from killing again.
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