Was Bond right about the cut linen?

[Fisherman]

Harry writes:

"Iv'e asked this question before.How could the multiple cuts to the eyebrows,lips etc,be performed with the delicacy described,if the face was covered?"

And I have answered that question before, Harry. On more than one occasion. In the post above yours, you have my take on it: "And when he had destroyed the face beyond recognition, then it could be argued that the initial problem with not wanting to see her face as he cut was gone."

We know she was not found with the sheet covering her face. Therefore, if it was there at one stage of the cutting, it would have been removed at another stage. And my suggestion is that this may have been done after he had cut her through the linen to such an extent that her face was no longer there to worry about.

"the sheet would not be cut a number of times,it would have been shredded.Perhaps what the medical man described,was not cuts,but frayings of the material."

The quality of the cuts would be dependant on two things, as I have stated numerous times: the degree to which the linen was stretched as he cut, and the sharpness of the blade. Since we have no exact recording of either (although we know that the medicos described his blade as a very sharp one), we cannot tell exactly what the cuts would look like. But we DO know that "the sheet to the right of the woman's head was much cut and saturated with blood, indicating that the face may have been covered with the sheet at the time of the attack", for that is what Bond said. Cut, Harry - not frayed, shredded or torn. As for the amount of cuts required, I think that none of us can establish how many times the Ripper cut into her face. And I also allow for the possibility that he may have cut with the linen over her face first, and thereafter cut away even more, WITHOUT the linen in place.

The salient point is that Bond made his assumption from what he could see, and I suggest that what he saw was a number of cuts in the linen in a place that corresponded with his suggestion that the linen had once covered Kellys face as her killer cut, and a mattress underneath the linen that did not have the corresponding damage that would enable us to state that the linen was on the paliasse as it sustained the damage.

And as I have said before, even if Bond was a complete idiot and forgot to check the mattress, we are still faced with a large number of cuts in the linen to the right of Kellys head, at a probable distance of somewhere around 25-30 centimetres from it. I really would welcome any alternative explanation to this phenomenon, than the one offered by Bond.

The best, Harry!
Fisherman

[harry]

Fisherman,
Iv'e asked this question before.How could the multiple cuts to the eyebrows,lips etc,be performed with the delicacy described,if the face was covered?.Also with the number of cuts,slashes and stabs delivered to just that part of the body,the sheet would not be cut a number of times,it would have been shredded.Perhaps what the medical man described,was not cuts,but frayings of the material.
Regards.

[Fisherman]

Harry writes:

"In the case of Kelly,and the cutting of the sheet as described by Bond,that would,if it happened,been before the mutilation of her face,and at the time of death"

Not sure what you are after here, Harry. But we do know that the linen was "much cut", and that seems to point to the fact that if Bond was right, a great deal of the cuts to her face were delivered with the linen covering it. My guess remains that he cut her neck first, only thereafter covering her face. And when he had destroyed the face beyond recognition, then it could be argued that the initial problem with not wanting to see her face as he cut was gone.

The best, Harry!
Fisherman

[harry]

Most if not all of the examples given,refer to covering of the face after death.In the case of Kelly,and the cutting of the sheet as described by Bond,that would,if it happened,been before the mutilation of her face,and at the time of death.A reversal of the stated cases,in so much as the face was surely uncovered to inflict the mutilations on it.The left ear,for example,could not have been mutilated in the position found,so the killer had to be only inches away and staring at the features while he mutilated.Doubt it bothered him.

[Mrs.Bucket]

Nice work Fisherman!

[Fisherman]

Hi Sam!
I found a little bit of material of the topic we have been discussing out here, and I would like to start out with Fritz Haarmann, just to give you some flesh on the bones on that case. Itīs all from the horseīs mouth this time:

“I’d put the body on the floor and cover the face with a cloth so it wouldn’t be looking at me. I’d make two cuts into the abdomen and put the intestines in a bucket. I’d dip a towel in the blood collecting in the abdominal cavity and keep doing that until it had all been soaked up. Then I’d make three cuts from the ribs towards the shoulders, take hold of the ribs and push until the bones around the shoulders broke. I’d then cut through that area. Now I could get the heart, lungs and kidneys and chop them up and put them in my bucket. Then I’d take the legs off, then the arms. I’d take the flesh off the bones and put it in my wax cloth bag. The rest of the flesh went under the bed or in the cubby-hole. It would take me five or six trips to take everything out and throw it down the toilet or into the river. I’d cut the penis off after I had emptied and cleaned the stomach cavities. I would cut it into lots of little pieces. I always hated doing this, but I couldn’t help it - my passion was so much stronger than the horror of the cutting and chopping. I’d take the heads off last. I used the little kitchen knife to cut around the scalp and cut it up into little strips and squares. I’d put the skull, face down, on a straw mat and cover it with rags so that you wouldn’t hear the banging so much. I’d hit it with the blunt edge of an axe until the joins on the skull split apart. The brain went in the bucket and the chopped up bones in the river opposite the castle.”

Now, if thatīs not as nice a guy as you ever could hope to run into ..?

Moving on, here is one of the bits I was referring to. It is connected to serial killer Earle Nelson, but the salient point is what is said about ”personation”:

”...the "personation" of the Portland crime scenes is quite telling about Earle Nelson. Criminologists define personation, and its cognate, depersonalization, as unusual behavior beyond that required to commit the crime. It is personation that helps establish a serial killer's signature and that often provides clues as to a killer's motivation, according to Dr. Robert Keppel in his book, Signature Killers. It is likely that Nelson's personation at the crime scenes indicate his victims represent someone he knew. Perhaps they represented his overbearing grandmother, or possibly the wife who rejected him.
"Depersonalization may be present as evidenced by the victim's face being covered by pillows or towels or by the body being rolled on the stomach (a more subtle form of depersonalization)," wrote John Douglas, et al. in the FBI's Crime Classification Manual. "Undoing represents a form of personation with more obvious meaning. Undoing frequently occurs at the crime scene when ... the victim represents someone of significance to the offender."

On these boards, there is a bit by Bill Beadle called ”Reinvestigating murder: The Kelly enigma”, and he quotes Keppel:

”...to an expert serial killer hunter like Robert Keppel this would have posed a different problem. Says Keppel, once this type of multicide has sated his anger and his lust he will undergo a temporary feeling of shame causing him to either cover her face or turn it away from him so that her eyes cannot accuse him as he walks away.”

In combination with this, another killer that can be mentioned is Ed Kemper, who beheaded victims, something he explained thus:

"With a girl, there's a lot left in the girl's body without a head. Of course, the personality is gone."
The text on Kemper goes on to state:
”Those pesky personalities that serial killers find so troublesome in their victims explains why they go to such extreme lengths to depersonalize the bodies of their victims with horrifying mutilations. What is it about a personality that these killers find so threatening, that they need to obliterate it? ”

I suggest that the answer to this question is that what the killers try to remove along with the face is guilt, and the amount of guilt felt would be greater the closer killer are.
But you already know that, donīt you?

The best, Sam!
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Also, fellow posters, came across something from Peter Vronsky's book, Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters and he says if the crime scene shows evidence of careful planning, the killer is likely to be intelligent and older. If the victim was mutilated in a very disorganized way, her killer is probably schizophrenic, and schizophrenics are more likely to be very thin and unkempt. Is this an organized or unorganized scene? Your thoughts?

Hi Mrs B,

Personally, I don't hold with the "organised/disorganised" distinction, at least not to the extent where any definitive conclusions can be made. As to the Kelly scene, the mutilations themselves appear disorganised, but the disposition of the body parts appears rather practical. Whether "practicality" indicates "organisation" or not is a matter of opinion, but I don't see that it necessarily should. Added to which, of course, we don't know how "organised" the scene was before the killer started!

[Mrs.Bucket]

Sorry, here's the attachment.

[Mrs.Bucket]

Sam,

I know this is not a specific case, but The Deseret News out of Utah in 1985 had a piece on serial killers, including Bundy and Lucas, both of whom were suspected of murders in that state.

The writers included some information from the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit's practice of criminal profiling "developing a description of a killer using the evidence he leaves behind. Serial killers, as well as other psychopathic individuals, are psychologically unique, their crimes leave a self-portrait.

"For example, a beating about the face usually indicates the killer knew his victim..."

Here's an interesting article out of NY in 1899:


Also, fellow posters, came across something from Peter Vronsky's book, Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters and he says if the crime scene shows evidence of careful planning, the killer is likely to be intelligent and older. If the victim was mutilated in a very disorganized way, her killer is probably schizophrenic, and schizophrenics are more likely to be very thin and unkempt. Is this an organized or unorganized scene? Your thoughts?

[Fisherman]

Youīre ever so welcome, Sam! And I will try to find those bits and pieces I spoke of earlier. I am not sure, but I think that Keppler is one of the authors who have pointed to this phenomenon.

The best,
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Sam writes:

"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"

I could see that one coming, Sam...

Well done, Fish! Not so much a case of having to be psychic, as of being used to my emphasis on the importance of rigour instead of rumour

The bottom line, though, is of course that feelings of guilt are more likely to come into play once there is a relation between victim and killer, and thus the chance of somebody resorting to covering up their victims face while killing her/him grows with the grade in which the two had previous bonds.

The point is, whether that has been proven. It all makes intuitive sense, of course, but that doesn't make it real.

[Fisherman]

Sam writes:

"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"

I could see that one coming, Sam, and I prepared an answer for you. The trait of covering the face of a victim would - to say it simple - be something that is connected to a feeling of guilt on behalf of the perpetrator. It is related to the fact that many serial killers need to depersonalize their acts to be able to go through with them. They donīt want their victims to become too aquainted to them, since it is easier to kill a heap of flesh and bone than it is to kill somebody that you have begun to know, although only superficially.

In Haarmanns case, I do not know why this feeling of guilt was present - for all we know the fact that he chose young boys (pre-teens, if I remember correctly) may have had itīs origin in something from his past. That may (or may not) be the connection here, and the explanation to why he was not able to depersonalize his victims without covering their faces.

The bottom line, though, is of course that feelings of guilt are more likely to come into play once there is a relation between victim and killer, and thus the chance of somebody resorting to covering up their victims face while killing her/him grows with the grade in which the two had previous bonds.

The best,
Fisherman

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Hi Sam,

I disagree. Establishing that the phenomeon is evident and existing in connection with domestic murders is quite enough in order to take it seriously and to consider the possibility. Statistics is overrated since crimes do not always reflect general statistics or real life as we know it.

As for Geberth, he doesn't reveal any number of cases or any exact statistical information - his point is that this happens and that it often can lead the investigators astray in the wrong direction. He lists several examples, but he is a former homicide investigator for the NYPD with decades of personal experience on ther field, not a statistic. Again, those who demand statistics kind of misses the whole point with what he is trsying to say with these examples.

All the best

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Glenn,

"Common enough" is cool - but that's not sufficient to attach any weight to the phenomenon, unless it can be proven to be a statistically significant effect. As to Geberth, I'd be interested to know how many cases of "known" versus "stranger" mutilation cases he'd included in his research, before he came to the conclusion that this phenomenon was "typical" of domestic murders.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

I don't think anyone can establish with certainty, Sam, that it is MORE common in cases where victim and offender is emotionally attached to each other than the opposite, but it appears to be a common enough trait.

Vernon J Geberth lists in his crime manual and some articles for Law and Order Magazine that overkill, severe mutilations and facial destruction are typical for these crimes and that this often, quite wrongfully, in the early stages of the investigations leads the police to suspect a sexual predator/serial killer when in fact it turns out to be the spouse of the victim.

All the best