Why wasn't her uterus taken?

[GUT]

G'day Mike

We can't answer this question because the killer himself couldn't answer why he did exactly what he did.


Mike

While we can't say why the killer acted the way they did, we cannot say with any certainty that he dd not know what he was after.

For all we know he was a mad Dr Frankenstein looking for parts to make his perfect woman and to him that may well have seemed perfectly normal.

[The Good Michael]

We can't answer this question because the killer himself couldn't answer why he did exactly what he did.


Mike

[Hunter]

Hello Cris. Do you personally link his cutting out the heart to a romantic conundrum--say, with a boy friend?

Cheers.
LC

No... But who can really say? I speculate "no" because look at all the rest that was done to her. If this was a spurned lover, he had killed before.

[c.d.]

Why in the world do you have to look for a personal relationship in Mary's death when you have a killer running around Whitechapel cutting throats and taking internal organs? Wouldn't he be the most logical choice for her killer?

c.d.

[c.d.]

If you want to start down the symbolic road, what did cutting the flesh off her thigh signify? What did pulling out her intestines signify? You can't just take one thing out of context and make it significant. I think the Ripper killed Mary and if so, is the taking of a heart so bizarre when other internal organs have been taken from previous victims? Let's face it, there are only so many internal organs in the human body. So if you want to play the symbolism game each organ has to be significant in some way.

c.d.

[lynn cates]

good

Hello Abby. Good.

Now could that fit Fleming, perhaps?

Cheers.
LC

[DVV]

Louis Armstrong

What a wonderful post, Abby.

[Abby Normal]

To me Mary Kelly has always been the key as the evidence and circumstances of her murder seem to point to her knowing her killer. And I think the heart being taken may be indicative of this also. Her killer may have been obsessed with her, wanted a relationship etc. and taking the heart may be the symbolic trophy.

[kensei]

Of course we're dealing with an insane mind, but there's something else that occurs to me. Even if he goes in with some crazy thought of a romantic (heart) or sexual (uterus) connection with the organs, would it really still feel the same to him once he's holding the bloody thing in his hands? I mean, a human heart you've just ripped out of someone's body doesn't look a thing like a valentine. I don't know-- he'd really have to be a special kind of crazy. But then whoever did all that to Mary surely was. Just something to think about.

[lynn cates]

heart of the matter

Hello Cris. Do you personally link his cutting out the heart to a romantic conundrum--say, with a boy friend?

Cheers.
LC

[Barnaby]

Most assume the heart was taken but this is a contentious point. To me, that the primary organs of his interest were not taken suggests that, for whatever reason, nothing was taken. Perhaps he was known to MJK and had reason to believe that he might fall under suspicion. Or, unlike the other murders, he had more time to engage in his fetishes at the crime scene and didn't need to take things with him for later engagement.

[Mr Lucky]

If we're adhering to the canonical five, then it seems curious to me that Jack decided to leave the uterus behind this time. If we assume that circumstances didn't allow him to perform his little hysterectomy on Nichols & Stride, then he had no such problem with MJK, and yet this time he decided to remove her heart and leave her uterus behind? Why?

Hi Harry,
That's a very good question. Another way to look at this could be -

The organ-theft hypothesis - The theory that the organs were wanted by a mad doctor type, an idea that had become popular after the Chapman murder and was at its peak of popularity immediately before the double event (it was mentioned by Baxter at the Chapman inquest) - By the time of the Kelly murder, the killer would know (if he had read the newspapers) that this idea was completely dead in the water.

So, from the killers perspective, - why bother taking the organs from the Kelly murder scene ? - Who's that going to fool now - Why not give the investigators something new to think about ?

[Hunter]

Kelly's uterus was removed; it just wasn't taken away by her killer. It was placed under her head. That still represents some significance of this organ to her killer.

Her heart was not removed through the ribcage, but was accessed through the diaphragm.

Real questions are fine. Coherent, real answers would be nice too. And in that case ask her killer - which we really can't.

[lynn cates]

real questions

Hello Harry.

"It's all well and good saying that 'Jack fancied the heart this time' but WHY did he? Why stop at Eddowes? That's what we must try to understand."

Careful. You're asking REAL questions. Beware lest you discover a real answer.

(Looks like you have the same opinion about hand waving as I do.)

Cheers.
LC

[kensei]

The heart might have been a much coveted trophy for the Ripper, but opening the rib cage to get at it was a bit of a time consuming process that he'd never felt safe doing until he had MJK procured indoors. The heart is something he would be able to locate and identify even without much anatomical knowledge. When he did take a uterus, how likely is it that he actually knew what it was? Though he may well have gotten a sexual thrill just from probing within his victim's bodies and taking his trophies, I kind of question the thought of a sexual connotation in his actual choice of organs. A uterus is associated with more than just sex, but with childbirth, and I doubt he wanted to dwell on his victims as potential mothers. (Unless his murders had something to do with issues he had with his own mother of course, which is a whole other subject.)