Kelly's Killer

[Barnaby]

When I look at the picture of the death scene of Mary Kelly, that - to me - will always be the work of Jack the Ripper. That's what got me into this case as a youth, that is what still evokes an emotional response to this case 120 years after the murders, and - taking the emotion out of it - there is no preponderence of evidence to dismiss Kelly as a Ripper victim.

In the annals of the history of serial killers, has there ever been a copycat killer that upstaged the work of the original? I don't think so.

[DVV]

Hello David. Of course MJK is canonical. The canon was fixed by Bond/MacNaughten and ever shall be the same.
And she will be canonical even IF she were found definitely to be by another hand. The "canon" is a meta-concept and has NOTHING to do with who killed whom.
Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn. Stay with us, my dear. Canonical simply means she was killed by the man who killed Annie Chapman.

[lynn cates]

varia

Hello Rya.

"I suppose Martha suffered stabbing injuries to the genitalia, but I have never seen anything but vague references to this point in discussions of the murder."

Yes, it seems that she did.

"Yes, it could be consistent with the later murders . . ."

Perhaps. Of course, some researchers think they see anger in Tabram's death and yet not in the others.

"but there are obviously a lot of other problems with Tabram being a Ripper murder."

Yes. I agree that it is obvious.

"If it was, then it was an initial attempt that went totally wrong."

What went wrong? If the point was to kill, it was successful.

"For some reason, I've always thought it possible that the murderer of Tabram killed her with her own knife, which he wrestled away from her in the struggle (many prostitutes would have carried such short blades on their person for protection). The final blow with the second, longer weapon would have been done last, as an addendum."

Yes. Quite possible. But I wonder how noise was avoided in such a fracas?

"Anyway, we do tend to focus on the differences between the victims today more than their similarities, don't we?'

I think the trend is to see all the WCM as by one hand, and to regard them all as prostitutes, even when the evidence for such conclusions is sparse at best.

"Thus Tabram is one murderer, Stride another, Eddowes's killer yet different from Chapman's, and then Kelly's as still another. And let's not forget the "torso" murders, which were going on at the same time. But looking at all these crimes, and considering that they occur in a relatively short span of time in a relatively confined area where there had been no such crimes before, we should also pause to ask how so many killers, if there were so many, could have suddenly materialized from the ether to prey on all these essentially homeless, destitute women all at once. Had something gotten into the water? Dracula's boat arriving in London? While I don't wish to suggest that each of these murders was committed by the same culprit--far from it--I also find that it strains credulity to take the diametrically opposite view."

OK. Then where would you like to draw the line? 2 murderers? 4? You will notice that, if you posit more than one, the argument you give can still be offered, even if in slightly modified form.

Notice that there were few letters sent to CNA claiming to be a murderer BEFORE the "Dear Boss." Then a proliferation. One writer? Many?

And that is why my focus is on other items besides previous murders, "credibility," etc. I try to go over the killings and reconstruct them forensically. There are similarities; there are differences. How to interpret them?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

dumbed down

Hello Jon. "Dumbed down" is accurate. But I'm not sure why one would wish to do that. Don't some researchers think that "Jack" wished to be written about and feared? Perhaps you are suggesting that he was trying to avoid association with the first two murders?

By "careful" are you suggesting "skill"?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

canon

Hello David. Thanks. You might wish to have a go at "canon" in a dictionary.

If you think about "canon" in other contexts, you will find that it does not always imply "same hand." (Eg, "canon of scripture.")

Cheers.
LC

[Wickerman]

Hello Jon. "Dumbed down" is accurate. But I'm not sure why one would wish to do that. Don't some researchers think that "Jack" wished to be written about and feared? Perhaps you are suggesting that he was trying to avoid association with the first two murders?

By "careful" are you suggesting "skill"?

Cheers.
LC

I'm suspicious that there was a componant of showmanship & a "challenge to society" in these murders, rather than any motive of revenge, or mania, and with Chapman he almost tipped his hand.
I'm not suggesting he was a doctor, but he was not some uneducated lunatic with a knife either.
Eddowes was scaled back in so far as apparent 'skill' was displayed, or he was just pushed for time, but his 'signature', to the medical profession, was the kidney.

Regards, Jon S.

[Ben]

The extraction of Eddowes' kidney was only considered "careful" by one out of three doctors who examined the body. The others didn't detect any anatomical knowledge, and Dr. Sequeira didn't even believe the killer was targetting a specific organ. I can't see much sense in endorsing the minority opinion, nor can I see any sense whatsoever in a killer who does have medical knowledge deliberately making this obvious by a needlessly "careful" extraction of a kidney.

[lynn cates]

education

Hello Jon. By "educated" do you mean only formal education? I am thinking of informal as well.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

unskilful

Hello Ben. Thanks. So you would place both Kate and MJK in the unskilful category?

Cheers.
LC

[Ben]

Hi Lynn,

Yes, absolutely.

And there's no reason to think the killer had any formal education.

All the best,
Ben

[Wickerman]

Hello Jon. By "educated" do you mean only formal education? I am thinking of informal as well.

Cheers.
LC

"Educated" can mean a number of things. There's nothing in these crimes, by way of mutilations, to suggest he did not know what he was doing. Therefore, to what degree that he did is the issue.

Anyone who removes organs as opposed to slashing around her insides is showing a modicum of control and purpose.
Doctors opinions also need to be tempered by the fact they do not wish to imply "one of their own" was responsible. So, obviously some will tone down the "skill" level lest they bring notoriety to their profession.

Regards, Jon S.

[Errata]

By oblique, I mean--and I expect this is the meaning when used by a medico like Phillips or Brown--oblique in relation to the surface of the abdomen (or whatever) in terms of the blade of the knife. Exactly how acute an angle to the surface might vary: in a medical dissection, 10 to 30 degrees would be typical to avoid impairing the underlying tissues and organs; in an autopsy, it would be a more subjective comment, which is always a problem. In Eddowes for example, the killer seems to have driven the tip of the knife downward in the inception of the incision (note the perforation of the liver) then turned the blade sideways at a more slanting angle. He had to re-start his incision more than once (as when circumventing the umbilicus), but he always returned to this angle--probably about 35-45 degrees.

I agree with this, but there is another thing to consider as a possibility. That the orientation of the blade was due to the orientation of the killer. Every time he hits a button or a snag in his incision, he loses momentum. Which is why he has to repeat the stab so many times. Of course, doing this (especially more towards the sternum) knocks him off balance. If he's crouching or kneeling he's vulnerable to face planting in the corpse. So he has two options. Assuming he's right handed, he places his left hand on the ground above her hip to steady himself, or he kneels with his left leg up (in the knighting kind of position). Both postures change the orientation of his body, and when pulling a knife towards yourself you always keep it true to your center line. It's what gives you the most strength. Meaning an oblique cut. I don't know if any of that was the case, but it's a possibility.

Now what is interesting about this is the degree to which it recurs in a haphazard fashion in not only the abdominal mutilations, but in other places as well. Consider the cuts on Kate's thighs. Or even on her cheeks. Here, the killer doesn't need to use the tip of the knife at all; it is rather a peeling motion, with the blade laid virtually flat against the skin. By comparison, and returning to the abdominal cuts, there is this little stunner which I found in the latest edition of the Begg, et al A to Z on Nichols, under the entry for Inspector Spratling (which I would like the original source of): "The flesh, he said, was turned over from left to right, the intestines exposed" (483). I have always wondered why, on medical grounds, the doctors saw a connection between the mutilations of Nichols and Chapman; here it is. What is described here seems to be an oblique incision, made in a criss-cross fashion, across the surface of the stomach area, thus producing a flap that was reflected, exposing the guts of the dead woman. In Chapman, the killer presumably does something similar, although here for convenience he removes the resulting flaps entirely.

And here is where we also see a contradiction. The oblique cuts on Eddowes face may very well have been the product of straight cuts elsewhere. The cheek flaps for example line up with the aborted nose cut, so with a long knife it is probably the collateral damage of trying to slice off the nose. People use knives the way they use knives. Which is to say, they fall back on the familiar. For example, I use a lot of exacto knives. 90% of the time, I only use the tip and the first 2mm of the blade. When I cut anything else, from food to fabric, I still attempt to use the tip and the first 2mm of the blade. Even with a bread knife. My slicing is appalling. My fiance was a cook for 10 years. His pointwork is terrible. This guy's incisions are a mess, his throat cuts are a wreck. His pointwork on Eddowes face is meticulous. And his fine work with organs is not bad either. His strength in the top third of the blade. Oblique cuts makes no sense in this scenario, and yet... Unless he's just flicking it... but that idea requires more scrutiny.

Personally, I don't think the killer lacked control of his knife in Eddowes, but you have to take into account the contingencies he was dealing with. If he really cut through the underlying clothing simultaneous with the incision (and there is reason to suggest he did, at least of a large degree), then that alone would cause a loss of efficiency. Then he was also standing or squatting over the body, where leverage would be limited. If he were naturally left-handed, he would have to switch the knife to his right hand given his position, which he could easily have done--I suspect he was capable with either hand--but it might have effected the precision of the cut. Lastly, the place his incision becomes messy is exactly at the point you would predict, where he encountered the denser subcutaneous tissue, fascia and muscles of the middle abdomen. In trying to divide the right rectus muscle (really a whole group of muscles), he had to resort to a protracted "sawing" action with the knife, and this is obvious in the zig-zags we see in the distressing photograph of Kate after the post-mortem.

No, I agree. I think he didn't have control of the knife, but not because he didn't have a thumb or something. I think because there were challenges he was not prepared for. Which is why I think a skip is still possible. He goes for a stab, but the blade skips over to the hip, he's pulling towards himself so the slice centers, and in order to not bury it in himself he grounds the knife, which is flattening it with the point away from you. Typically people do this by slapping the handle down hard. Or falling backward.

As far as the genital mutilations go, I have no idea why he did what he did, and he probably didn't either. I suppose (and this is sickening to write about, so I apologize in advance) the obvious way to destroy the area would be to wedge the blade directly into the pudenda and core it out. But the killer's approach in Kelly's murder seemed to be to cut (again obliquely) away the entire genital protuberance across the plane of the inner thighs, from right to left. I suppose there is an erotics to this, which comes from the image of the supine female, legs spread wide with the knees bent, immodestly exposing herself for the male gaze--a conventional pornographic posture (although not necessarily in the Victorian age). In any event, the man or men who killed Eddowes and Kelly was (were) fixated on the inner thighs, and in Eddowes we see what could be an aborted attempt to cut the inner thighs away. In Kelly, this is accomplished along with what looks like a complete evacuation the reproductive organs in the pelvic cavity. The position he left the body in was that eroticized posture I have just described, although without anything left to focus the gaze on.

Okay, I am going to have to apologize as well. It seems to me that the easiest way to mutilate the area would be to grasp the outer labia, pull it towards and slip a knife behind the fingers to cut it off. A small slice would remove the clitoris, and then you are left with a relatively flat plane to just crosshatch as you will. But taking the labial lips would take about as long as cutting off the lips of the mouth, which is to say it would take no time whatsoever. Certainly the outer labia is there for the taking. And in Eddowes, either purposefully or accidentally, he's halfway there. But he doesn't take the next incredibly easy step. I don't think he's interested.

Why not do this in Eddowes? Hard to say; perhaps the extengencies of time, or maybe because he hadn't thought it out yet. The fact that his victim was sans underpants may have surprised him. Or perhaps it is a matter of age. The earlier victims (and this is assuming the same killer here, which is not a given) may have reminded him of something maternal. He had plenty of time to do whatever he wanted to Chapman, but he did not. He did not scar her face, for example. He rendered her insensible before ending her life. In Eddowes, he may have been enraged by the circumstances of the evening, or by Eddowes herself, who seemed, despite her age, to have retained a girlish, irreverant demeanor. But the much younger, more attractive Kelly was a different matter. He showed her the knife, slashed her throat, and stared into her eyes while she drowned in her own blood, something that would have taken less than a minute but would have seemed to go on forever. She knew who he was when she died. He made her suffer. It was different, in ways that extended beyond the punishment and grotesque exhibition of her corpse afterwards.

Which is why I think Kelly's murder was personal. It could have been the same guy, who had a different interest in his previous victims, but it was a different motive. Kelly was punished. Her genitals were pulped, her organs and skin arranged for display, he lips were cubed, her eyes intact and her heart taken. Sort of like all the ways "she done him wrong" were chopped up, placed on the table and under head, he left her eyes so she could watch him take his revenge, and took her heart because she should have given it to him in the first place. We had a less spectacular version of this a few years ago here. The only difference was that the abdominal damage was not as extensive as Kelly, and Kelly didn't have her fingers chopped off and her hands flensed. It may be totally different, but the possibility remains that this was a realllly pissed off suitor.

[lynn cates]

skill

Hello Ben. Thanks. I tend to think of them as nearly hacked up compared to the clean cuts of Polly and Annie--"skilful mutilations."

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

knowledge

Hello Jon. So knowledge as, perhaps, opposed to education?

I can live with that.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

ill

Hello Errata. Perhaps such a suitor was also quite mentally ill. Perhaps, too, some other exacerbating factors?

Cheers.
LC