Was Bond right about the cut linen?

[Sam Flynn]

Thanks, Fish - although I should say at the outset that any attempt to prove a "face/familiarity" link must also show that it's rarer (to the point of statistical significance) for a stranger to mutilate a victim's face. In other words, simply latching on to cases that support the "face/familiarity" link just won't do... anymore than it would be correct for me to quote individual instances that disprove it.

The exam question is: "has it been demonstrated that facial mutilations are carried out significantly more in cases where the attacker is known to the victim, than in cases where the attacker is not known to the victim?"

[Fisherman]

Sam writes:
"It might help me to get started if you - or anyone else - could point me in the direction of the expert research that shows that it's extremely common for a killer to do so."

Hi Sam!
Off the top of my head one case springs to mind that would be useful, that of Fritz Haarmann, back in the beginning of the 20:th century. He was in the habit of killing young boys for sexual gratification (and if I don´t misremember, he sold their meat afterwards as ordinary food flesh). He was a gruesome killer, who would bite through the Adam´s apple of his young victims to kill them, after having molested them severely first. He could stomach A LOT! He could not, however, stomach to look at his victim´s faces as he went along, and thus he covered them.

There are more examples, and there are many a text - although I do not have them at hand - that speak of some killers need to cover their victims´ faces for fear of having to look them in the face. I will try and find some more reference in the coming week - but for now I think Haarmann is a very good example of somebody who did not mind blood and and cruelty and gore to the extreme - as long as he did not have to look his victims in the face.
Incidentally, not all killers who are of this diisposition cover their victims´ faces - some just place then face down. Same ****, different story kind of thing.

The best!
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Mrs B,

It's extremely common for a killer, when they know the victim, to cover or mutilate the face... You can look into it if you'd like, but experts say mutilation of the victim's face is consistent with killings in which the victim knew the murderer personally.

It might help me to get started if you - or anyone else - could point me in the direction of the expert research that shows that it's extremely common for a killer to do so. (That goes not only for the alleged correlation between knowing a victim and mutilating the face, but also for the practice of covering the face under such circumstances.)

[Mrs.Bucket]

Sam,

It's extremely common for a killer, when they know the victim, to cover or mutilate the face because they can't stand the victim "staring" at them while they are committing their other atrocities. A leg or arm can be just a leg or arm... or vulva, but a face and the eyes are unmistakeable. The killer would be unable to look at her if he knew her

You can look into it if you'd like, but experts say mutilation of the victim's face is consistent with killings in which the victim knew the murderer personally.

[Sam Flynn]

I'm with you Fisherman. I totally see where you're coming from and completely agree with you. Cut the throat, then cover the face so he can mutilate beyond any viable recognition.

Hi Mrs B.

How come he seemed to have no need for any "covering" when he so utterly demolished the rest of her face, her chest and abdomen, not to mention carving out a "saddle" of flesh that included her vulva?

The idea of the killer's having to shield his eyes "just a little bit" before going on to commit such appalling atrocities I find very difficult to understand. Whether he knew Mary Kelly or not, it just doesn't make any sense.

[Mrs.Bucket]

Bed linens

I don't think the oversheet vs. undersheet argument has any place here . It's clear her mattress was covered by some sheet. It's not like she went to her local store and pondered which bed set to purchase. There were no flat and fitted sheets. The woman was probably lucky to have a sheet at all to cover her mattress.

She lived in a 10x12 room. She probably had a sheet to cover her mattress and whatever blankets to cover herself. It's not even like she had multiple changes of clothes.

[Mrs.Bucket]

My take on it is that he first cut her throat, and only thereafter pulled the sheet over her face and cut it. Thus no resistance from Kelly - she was very still and very dead as he started to cut her, I believe.

All the smiles and all the tears you have shared with someone, is something you have shared by a face-to-face dialogue.

I'm with you Fisherman. I totally see where you're coming from and completely agree with you. Cut the throat, then cover the face so he can mutilate beyond any viable recognition.

[Mrs.Bucket]

It has also been said that killers of this nature simply do not stop, they cannot.

Richard,

Good points. I know this has been said these killers can't quit. Until a few years ago I would have believed you. I think if you take a look at BTK or the Green River Killer, you'll see that there's always exceptions to the rule - both of these rather prolific killers went on a hiatus for years, which was only interrupted when they were caught.

JTR also doesn't follow the typical pattern of devolving and the killings getting closer together.

I think JTR either quit after MJK or moved off. I don't think he would have gone back to the low-grade carnage he was inflicting before MJK.

[Mrs.Bucket]

Fisherman,

Your thoughts are interesting in that they reflect what I have been thinking on this case for several years. The carnage of MJK's killing just doesn't compute with the other canonical victims.

I have long felt that the extensiveness of the wounds inflicted to MJK indicated the killer knew her, specifically as regards to her face. I was completely unware of Dr. Bond's report. Evidently, I have not been buying enough books. However, it makes even more sense that the killer knew her if he also covered up her face until he damaged it beyond recognition. Of course, how Barnett recognized her is beyond me. I don't see any eyes or ears. But I digress...

Being that MJK's killing diverged from the other killings, I have thought for some time that maybe she was the trigger in some way for the killer and that once he finally killed her he was done, removing his need, maybe for several years or forever, of his need to kill again.

If I am reading you correctly, you believe this person was Joe Fleming. I am going to have to look into this connection some more. He was just a fruit hawker, correct?

(I like Hungry, Hungry Hippos )

[Fisherman]

Harry!

"In the Dorset Street case the corner of the sheet to the right of the woman's head was much cut and saturated with blood." That is what Bond says, and that clearly indicates that it was the part lying over the top right hand corner of the bed, close to the partition wall, that he referred to - the undersheet, in other words. That was the place where Phillips also spoke of blood saturation. And no oversheet is in sight, as far as I can see.

Moreover, If you read my post above in answer to Diana´s point, you will realize that the undersheet had a distinctive advantge over a loose oversheet - had there been one - when it comes to the ability of stretching it over Kellys face, since it remained fixed to the bed by Kelly´s own weight! Had this not been the case, then the Ripper would have needed TWO hands to stretch it over her face - and since two hands was all he had, then what would he do the cutting with?
On the point of Bond not being able to see the blood on the floor, I think you may be missing the point that the bed was lifted out into the room to enable the photographer present to take the MJK2 picture. And Bond did not arrive until 2 o clock (whereas Phillips entered the room at about 1.30). And if the photographer had not asked to have the bed moved, the police would have done so anyway, Harry, to enable a search. There was a pool of approximately two square feet of blood underneath the bed, and once the bed was removed it was there for anyone to see.

The best, Harry!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Diana writes:

"I'd like to know how he did it at all."

Wouldn´t we all, Diana!
On your point about the difficulties involved in cutting through a sheet, the all-important factor that must be involved is a good stretch to the fabric. If that is not there, then you will find it extremely difficult to cut through a sheet. What I´m suggesting is that Kellys own weight helped to fix the sheet to the bed, thus leaving the Ripper with the rather easy task of stretching it over her face with one hand, and cutting away with the other. Of course, the sharpness of the blade will be of distinct importance too, but I think the damae done on Kelly tells us that he used a very sharp one.

The best, Diana!
Fisherman

[harry]

Fisherman,
Bond doesn't say It was the undersheet that was cut.He states the sheet that was to the right of her head.From the photo of her lying there I would think the over sheet that had clearly been moved back to expose the body and was lying in a jumbled heap was the more likely the one he was refering to.Bond was there,as was Phillips,to make a preliminary check of the body,and there is no evidence he disturbed anything else.The undersheet was more likely to have still been folded under the matress on the far side of the bed.As Bond also speaks of pools of blood on the floor,there is even more reason to doubt his story.As the bed was close up against the partition,Bond would not have been able to see what was underneath the bed on the far side,even if bending down, there was a large tub under the bed obscuring most of what was underneath,and the table against the bed,prevented a position from where it might have been possible to gain a reasonable view of what was beneath the head of the bed.If there was a cut sheet at all,odds are it was the oversheet,and things happened as I described in my earlier post.
Regards.

[diana]

Another wrench in the works

When this topic was first discussed on the boards years ago, I performed a simple experiment with a bed sheet and a kitchen knife. I couldn't make a cut. I can't explain very well but the sheet just wasn't crisp enough. It bent and conformed to the blade and I couldn't get the blade to go through. Of course being female I would have less strength and I certainly did not have a big gob of adrenaline pulsing through my veins at the time which I suspect Jack did.

I'd like to know how he did it at all.

[Fisherman]

Sam writes:

"I interpret this not in terms of Bond hallucinating the cuts in the sheet, rather in terms of Phillips possibly having noted the cuts but not reading any significance into them. This may well have been because he noted that it was the blood-soaked undersheet that was cut, and that any notion of an undersheet being lifted over the face of the victim (and then laid back down again) did not occur to him."

Fair enough, Sam! That still leaves us with a cut undersheet, no mentioning at all of any cuts to the mattress underneath it, a probable distance between Kellys head and the cuts in the sheet that corresponded with Bonds suggestion - and no alternative explanation to that suggestion that works, at least not if the things outlined above hold true.
And to be honest, Sam; I can´t say that I think that Phillips silence on the matter deflates Bonds suggestion in any way. He may simply not have pondered the origin of the cuts at all - he was standing in the middle of chaos and hell, and to try and take it all in must have been very hard.

The best,
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

In your reasoning, Sam - and I am a very big fan of your reasoning in very nearly all cases - I see no rational explanation to WHY you choose to regard Bonds deduction as a tediously repeated obvious mistake.

Because the bloodstained sheet was clearly underneath Kelly's body, and Dr Phillips - while he mentions the blood-soaked nature of the sheet, the mattress and the floor beneath - makes no mention of the cut linen at all.

Now, I interpret this not in terms of Bond hallucinating the cuts in the sheet, rather in terms of Phillips possibly having noted the cuts but not reading any significance into them. This may well have been because he noted that it was the blood-soaked undersheet that was cut, and that any notion of an undersheet being lifted over the face of the victim (and then laid back down again) did not occur to him.

I only see a preconceived wiew that a killer would not do a thing like this.

Incorrect, Fish - but nice try. I give my true answer above.