overkill

Why is Jack the Ripper a serial killer who fantasizes about cutting up women?

Only 1 Canonical shows us that kind of character...and its quite possible the killer could have done that to mislead the authorities as to a probable killer....if he was someone close to Mary and known by Mary.....something which in the cases of the other women, seems to be lacking. Any murder late that Fall, and the next summer in Alices case, has to be seen as potentially influenced by the public knowledge of the killers habits, not definitively the work of the same man.

Polly and Annie were thought by the medical examiners to be killed for organs within their abdomen, they suggest that the error of his location in kill 1 leads to a successful completion in his second murder....of the act attempted with Polly.

That is a serial killer who wants specific organs,....not one who fantasizes about the arbitrary cutting of flesh.

The a woman is killed, another donates organs of a different type,...non gender specific, and then a woman is taken apart. All of these murders are unlike Marthas, and all of these murders are unlike each other in terms of the actions taken. Except 2.

The first 2 Canonicals.

Time to accept that other people aside from Jack killed other people for different reasons than Jack....so time to retire the idea that he "morphs" each kill, becoming eventually a crazed lunatic who cuts for cutting sake.

Best regards all.

[Shelley]

No, that's completely wrong, I'm afraid.

Serial killers have proved perfectly capable of incorporating new fantasies as they progress. If he was fantasizing about mutilating his victims' faces, why didn't he attack the faces of Nichols and Chapman? Answer: because he had not yet inculcated that particular fantasy.



Where's the evidence to support this?

By "upperhand", do you mean that the killer was delivering under-arm cuts?



And yet the killer not only "stabbed and punctured" the corpse of Polly Nichols, he singularly failed to take away an organ.



But plenty more "change their MO" because they're bored of their previous one, and want to incorporate new elements (and perhaps reject some old ones). It needn't have anything to do with "forensics" at all.



I'm not sure how her skirts could have "turned upwards" purely on account of a struggle.

Ben, you are talking utter shite! WTF is going on in that messed up head of yours? So now you disagree with every single criminologists statement throughout the history of criminology??????????? you are beyond belief! it's a pity that this quote won't show up everything you took from my post in this quote here, which happens to be on page 9. Please go and take a break & try some clear thinking for crying out loud!

[FrankO]

Frank!
Thanks for putting me on the racing course once again, with the E L O quotation from the 18:th.

You're quite welcome, Fish!

Like it has been said, there seem to be 3 scenarios for Tabram:

1. two blades were used by two men.
one man did by far the biggest part of the work and the second only inflicted one or two wounds, or the second man handed the first man his bigger knife and the first inflicted 1 or 2 additional wounds with the bigger knife.

2. two blades were used by one man.
after the anger had subsided, the man changed knives and inflicted the wound to the private part and the stab to the sternum

3. not 2 but one knife was used.
with the blow to the sternum the knife got stuck, so the killer wiggled it out, that way causing the wound to appear as if having been inflicted with a heavier knife.

As the first 2 don’t seem very likely to me (although not impossible), I thought I’d ‘dive’ into scenario #3 to see where that’d take me.

I must add that it has always struck me as odd that amidst this ‘drum rain’ of stabs there’s just this one stab that’s supposed to be inflicted with a different weapon and that it’s exactly this same one stab that’s dealt to the breast bone.

Anyway, like I said, I went through all the available information on the subject and what it revealed to me is that it isn’t set in stone that Killeen claimed that a dagger or bayonet was used as a second weapon, nor that he did so based on the depth of the wound. Killeen was actually unsure of the type of weapon, and possibly made no further qualifications than stating that it had to be a heavy, dagger-pointed knife because an ordinary knife would have broken on the sternum. That, of course, doesn’t mean that you are wrong. In fact, you make a good point and are quite probably right. If only we had his elaborate post-mortem notes at our disposal!

Having said that, I completely agree that a simple scenario just doesn’t apply in Tabram’s case.

All the best, Fish!
Frank

[Fisherman]

Sam writes:

"I'm still not sure why he picked up on the length of the blade, apropos the wound to the sternum - unless it came out the other side of the chest! It's perfectly possible, given the depth of the thorax, for a 5" long knife to enter the breastbone and puncture the heart to a reasonable depth."

Absolutely, Sam - but would it be fair to describe such a blade as a long one? I don´t think so.
As for where Killeen picked up on the length of the blade, the only reasonable venue would be the post-mortem room. He did that post-mortem, and he established exactly how many times the organs were pierced, respectively. He described the condition of the heart, and took a look at the damage caused to it. If the heart had been superficially pierced, he would have known, just as he would have known if it was pierced through.
From Franks latest post, we know that he described the weapon as a "heavy, dagger-pointed instrument", and one may of course reason that this could owe to Killeen being convinced that it took a pointed blade to pierce the sternum. Then again, how did he know that he was not dealing with some sort of sharp-edged chisel? Such an instrument would probably also be able to pierce the sternum, since, as I wrote in my former post, it seems that one tenth of the power available to the human stroke of the arm would be enough to penetrate the sternum, if the weapon used was sharp enough.
I think that one probable reason for Killeen opting for a pointed weapon was that he saw traces of it in Tabram´s body. Would he have opened her heart up? I don´t know, but it seems reasonable to me - it was a high-profile case in many ways, and I see no reason not to try and find out as much as possible about what had happened, and establishing the length of the blade that pierced the sternum would be one such thing. The fact that we have no recording of a suggested length does of course not mean that such an assessment was never made - Killeen would have been pretty sure about the length of the smaller blade after having seen it portrayed in 30 plus stabs, but that figure also illudes us.
"Long and strong" may, as Frank tells us, not belong to reports given in newspapers who had their own representatives present at the inquest, but I fail to see that it did not origin with Killeens thoughts and the actual evidence. And I think that Killeens being very adamant about the smaller blade not being able to produce the type of wound he saw at the sternum, owed to a combination of width and length. Width only could be deceitful, but taken together with length, it would clinch his claim, as long as he knew the exact legth of the smaller blade, more or less.
At the end of the day, we are left with Killeen stating that the wound was of a character that seemed to give away the use of a heavy, pointed dagger or a sword bayonet, and we have him making the (perhaps wrongful) guess that the smaller blade would have broken if tried at the sternum. This tells us that he did not see before him a tentative stab with the larger weapon - he saw a very powerful thrust, that WHAM exploded through the sternum. And at the slab, he must have seen damages that corresponded with his notion of a possible dagger or bayonet thrust. And once a powerful thrust with a large, long-bladed weapon had passed through the sternum, delivered by a savage blow, there would be very little left, tissue-wise, to stop it.
If that stab had been driven through the sternum by a shortish blade, then that would have been revealed at the slab, and Killeen would have had reasons to speak of radically different blades than those of heavy pointed daggers or bayonets.

Frank!
Thanks for putting me on the racing course once again, with the E L O quotation from the 18:th.

You write:
"Killeen says he couldn’t be sure about the instrument that caused the wound to the sternum, he was just sure it must have been a heavy, dagger-pointed instrument. He doesn’t mention that it was a long-bladed instrument."

I think, Frank, that we need to look at the context when we assess all of this. Why would Killeen speak of a heavy dagger or a bayonet, if the wound was comparatively shallow? Why would he accept that such a weapon, wielded with the type of ferocity it seems he thought required to pierce the sternum, would only travel perhaps three or four inches into the body after having succeded to break the breastbone? And if it DID only travel thus far, why did he not speak of a possible weapon like a shoemakers knife or such, sharp, short and sturdy? Or a chisel? Or something - anything - sharp, heavy, strong and SHORT?
Could there be any other explanation for Killeens suggestion than his finds at the slab, where he traced the course of the blade?
We know that the first blade resembled a pen-knife, meaning that it was perhaps less wide than half an inch. Could such a blade get so tightly stuck in the breastbone that it took very extensive wiggling to free it? And would it, although we must realize that it was a frail, thin type of blade, be able to produce an image of WIDTH in the sternum when wiggled? How could it produce an image of a heavy, sturdy blade it the bone? Bone is not a type of material that is very flexible. It much resembles wood. And if you take a piece of, say, plywood and thrust a thin blade through it, thereafter retracting the knife, followed by a thrust with a heavy, thick instrument such as a Bowie knife or a bayonet, after which you retract that blade too - what differences would you perceive in the holes produced? They would, Frank, be differences in BOTH width and thickness. And if you wiggled the frailer blade up and down, you could of course increase the perceived width of that hole, but nothing would happen to the thickness! It´s not until you start to make rotating movements with the blade that you get any impact on that parameter - and it would involve a probable breaking of the blade. And even if the blade did NOT break, when we are dealing with the human sternum we must add that a rotating movement with such a blade would create a complete mess of the underlying tissues - something that was not even hinted at by Killeen. Plus you would need to rotate VERY much before you even got close to any suggestion of a heavy dagger having caused the wound. And why would anybody do that - the blade would come loose with much, much less of an effort.

I realize that at least some sort of case could be built for only the one blade having been used on Tabram. But it is a case full of logical inconsistencies that makes it look very desperate in my eyes, Frank. Plus it goes against the conviction - not suggestion - on Killeens behalf that there WERE two blades involved.
Of course, if one looks for a simple scenario, it is a nuisance. But if we turn our perspective, it becomes a gift - since it tells us that a simple scenario does not apply in Tabram´s case.

The best,
Fisherman

Thanks for the compliment, Mike.

It was sincere in case you werent sure .....its based on my opinion that if you were to search your soul on this small issue I believe you would accept amd admit that Killeen likely did know enough about wounds to know when more than one weapon was used.

Cheers Frank

[FrankO]

I know you to be a fair and even keeled man Frank.

Thanks for the compliment, Mike.

I appreciate your reaction, Mike, and expected no less of you then to stick with your opinion.

Having taken the trouble to go through all the relevant newspaper articles, what I'm doing is not throwing Killeen's opinion out of the window, but rather put somewhat of a question mark at the notion that the Doctor actually testified that the wound to the sternum was deep or that the knife used for that wound was long-bladed. Based on all I've read, I'm not sure of it - that's all.

Cheers,
Frank

I know you to be a fair and even keeled man Frank.

My best regards

[FrankO]

I appreciate your reaction, Mike, and expected no less of you then to stick with your opinion.

Having taken the trouble to go through all the relevant newspaper articles, what I'm doing is not throwing Killeen's opinion out of the window, but rather put somewhat of a question mark at the notion that the Doctor actually testified that the wound to the sternum was deep or that the knife used for that wound was long-bladed. Based on all I've read, I'm not sure of it - that's all.

Cheers,
Frank

Hi all,

I fail to see the productive value of throwing the good doctors opinion out the window, unless of course we have reason to believe he was incapable of determining the wound differences that made him state that a larger blade was used once.

Does anyone have evidence that his opinions were generally discarded, thought to be inaccurate or illegible....is there any reason to suspect that he would not know a wound where a pen knife......(again since everyone seems to miss this, a folding knife by definition and incapable of penetrating bone without risking finger loss),......got "stuck"?

Without acceptance of the facts as they are, or reason to question them cited, what is being done by posting something like he "misread a wound and actually it was only one knife used" is setting that posters opinion above that of the contemporary attending physicians'. In this matter Ill still side with his opinion on how many weapons were used at this point in time.....so should everyone without evidence to question Killeens abilities to make such statements.

Best regards all

[FrankO]

Thanks for that post, Frank - it revealed a lack of substantiation on my part about the possible breaking of the first blade if tried at the sternum.
You are correct, as far as I can see - none of the useful sources mention this. And I cannot remember where I first saw it, but that is of very little importance if it is not in the original sources.

Hi Fish,

I have found the article presenting Killeen’s opinion that an ordinary knife-blade would have been broken by contact with the chest bone!

It is in the East London Observer of 18 August. Here it is:
“There is one fact noted by Inspector Reid which seems to prove that the murderer was a military man, and that is the wound on the breast bone of the woman. It will be recollected that at the inquest, when asked his opinion as to the instrument with which the wounds were inflicted, Dr. Keeling [Killeen] replied that they were undoubtedly committed with an ordinary pocket-knife - all except the wound on the breast bone. As to the instrument with which that had been caused he could not say with any degree of certainty, but of this he was sure that it must have been an heavy, dagger-pointed instrument, since an ordinary knife-blade would have been broken by contact with the bone.”

So you were correct after all. However, the snippet holds another interesting point: “As to the instrument with which that had been caused he could not say with any degree of certainty, but of this he was sure that it must have been an heavy, dagger-pointed instrument,..”

Killeen says he couldn’t be sure about the instrument that caused the wound to the sternum, he was just sure it must have been a heavy, dagger-pointed instrument. He doesn’t mention that it was a long-bladed instrument. And, more importantly, the reason for brining up a heavy, dagger-pointed instrument wasn’t the depth of the wound, but the notion that an ordinary knife-blade would have broken when coming into contact with the sternum.

Then, I’ve gone through all the newspapers in the ‘Press Reports’ section from 7 till the end of August 1888 and found 12 newspaper articles containing Killeen’s testimony. Seven of them, among which the People of 12 August, almost certainly used a single common source. In other words, it seems that those newspapers didn't actually have a reporter present at the inquest. All of these mention a ‘deep wound’ and a ‘long & strong instrument’.

Then there are the Times of 10 August, the East London Advertiser and the East London Observer of 11 August. From the inquest coverage, it seems that especially the ELA and ELO reporters were actually present at the inquest. Yet, they don’t mention 'deep' and explicitly 'long & strong instrument'.

This taken together suggests that it’s not all that close to a given that the wound to the sternum was actually deep.

Even, when reading the Start report of 8 August, I get the feeling that the ‘deepest’ that is mentioned there (see below), isn’t necessarily deep. The reporter obviously visited the mortuary and actually saw the wounds to Tabram’s chest, but I doubt whether he was able to see how deep the ‘largest’ wound actually was. It may well just have been that the horrific sight it must have been influenced him.

Here’s the snippet from the Star of 8 August:
“The wounds on the body are frightful. There are about eight on the chest, inflicted in almost circular form, while the probably fatal one - certainly much the largest and deepest of any - is under the heart. The wounds appear to be the result of sword or dagger thrusts, rather than that of a knife. No arrest has yet been made.”

All the best, Fisherman!
Frank

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Fish,

We must also consider the fact that the sternum is a tough bone to penetrate.

Comparatively, maybe - but the sternum is not particularly tough compared to, say, the bones of the limbs. Note that the sternum comprises smaller bony units which, in females, might not fully fuse until the 30th year. I guess that the low-grade diet of the likes of Tabram might have delayed this process somewhat, such that a well-aimed blow at a partially ossified sternum might fracture and penetrate it more easily. Even if this weren't the case, I shouldn't say that the force required would be "considerable" anyway, as the sternum is a relatively thin bone, and it's not uncommon for stab-victims to sustain such sternal puncture wounds.

I think that we also need to recognize the fact that [Killeen] could actually allow himself to be very certain when he said that two blades were involved if he KNEW that the second blade was of a different length that the first.

I'm still not sure why he picked up on the length of the blade, apropos the wound to the sternum - unless it came out the other side of the chest! It's perfectly possible, given the depth of the thorax, for a 5" long knife to enter the breastbone and puncture the heart to a reasonable depth.

[Fisherman]

Frank writes:

"I knew you’d chime in sooner or later, Fish!
I have, again, gone through all Killeen’s press statements (I could find), but couldn’t find any reference to the smaller blade breaking if tried on the sternum. Perhaps you can lead me to it.
Furthermore, the East London Advertiser of 11 August, the East London Observer of same date and the Times of 10 August didn’t mention a ‘deep wound’ or explicitly a ‘long, strong’ instrument. Especially the EL Observer was very detailed in the coverage of the inquest.
This is what the East London Advertiser wrote: "In his opinion the wounds were caused by a knife, or some such instrument, but there was a wound on the chest bone which could not have been caused by a knife. An ordinary penknife could have made most of the wounds, but the puncture in the chest must have been made with a sword bayonet or a dagger."
Furthermore, as policing, forensics and forensic pathology being in their infancy back then, I wonder if Killeen was really as thorough as you hold him to be. The woman was dead and her death was due to loss of blood. Whether a long or small knife was used for one of the stabs, wouldn’t change that and quite probably couldn’t have been a major factor in trying to find her murderer(s). Because in the end, nothing could be actually proven back then.
Therefore, I’m not as convinced as you are that Killeen couldn’t have been mistaken."

Thanks for that post, Frank - it revealed a lack of substantiation on my part about the possible breaking of the first blade if tried at the sternum.
You are correct, as far as I can see - none of the useful sources mention this. And I cannot remember where I first saw it, but that is of very little importance if it is not in the original sources.
We have, of course, passages like this:
"One was a narrow bladed dagger-like instrument. But the other posed more problems. It must have been strong enough to have broken the sternum."

...where Jon Ogan offers his wiew, and it leads the thoughts to the smaller blade not being able to penetrate the sternum, of course. But an original source it is not!

...so I took a look at things, in order to try and establish what to believe - or not believe - when it comes to the subject of penetrating sternums. And, to be honest, I drew a blank, more or less. Well, not a blank, perhaps, but I came up with totally differing bids.
On the one hand, I found a manual for autopsy work, where it was stated that we are able to deliver blows of up to around 2000 N in strength, whereas it only takes 250 N to pierce the sternum. Of course, that does not say anything of the shape and strength required by a blade if it is to be able to travel through that sternum without breaking.
On the other hand, I found a site where it was stated from several sources that not all caliber 22 slugs were able to shoot through the sternum! Then again, slugs are not sharpened.

To me, it is all very confusing. But the lesson I am trying to learn here is not primarily what weapon to use, but instead what sources. And apparently my source on the broken blade thing - for I have read it somewhere - did not belong to the useful ones. At least, like you, I have not been able to retrace it. Probably hidden in some book or other at home.

But when it comes to the depth of that wound telling us that we are dealing with a long blade, there are sources around, Frank.
The Star writes that it was ”certainly much the largest and deepest of any” of the wounds (8.8) and the People of 12.8 writes: "”In the witness's opinion the wounds were not inflicted with the same instrument, there being a deep wound in the breast from some long, strong instrument, while most of the others were done apparently with a penknife.”, only to mention two sources.
And, once again, no matter what we think of Killeens abilities and assessments, when he stated that the blade was long and strong, none of these assertions would be grounded on guesswork. And, also once again, when we establish that we have on the one hand measurements carried out by Killeen telling us that the sternum wound was produced by a long weapon, whereas we have his assertion that the smaller wounds could have been made by a pen-knife, we also have very firm ground to stand on when we say that we are dealing with two blades. Like I said before, even if we open up for the possibility that wiggling could have caused Killeen to make a mistake about the width of blade number two, no wiggling in the world would have LENGTHENED any pen-knife blade. Plus - of course - I think that any wiggling would have been easy to detect from the damage caused to the underlying tissues. It would effectively have erased any image of a clean stab, and we have no indications that the wound was nothing but a clean stab.

The best, Frank!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Sam writes:

"I hadn't noticed the mention of a "long & strong instrument" previously. Quite how long a knife has to be to penetrate the sternum is, however, still a moot point."

Not long at all, I should say, Sam. But that is where I see the moot point myself, since Killeen explicitely SAID that the blade WAS long. And the only way he could have known such a thing would be by measuring its penetration into the body. Which, of course, he had ample time to do at the slab.
We must also consider the fact that the sternum is a tough bone to penetrate. Considerable force must be used at the blow of the weapon. But once the blade has gone through the sternum, the underlying tissues are much easier to penetrate. meaning that if somebody dealt a blow hard enough to shove a sturdy blade through the sternum of Tabram, then after the blade had produced a hole through the bone, the powerful thrust that produced that hole would probably ensure that the blade was sunk deep into the underlying tissues - possibly if not probably all the way up to the hilt. It´s like pressing a pointed weapon against the shell of a hard-boiled egg lying on a table - once the shell breaks, the weapon is met by very little resistance, and it will proceed through white and yolk and stop only as it meets the surface of the table.

I think that we also need to recognize the fact that although Killeen has often been pointed out as inexperienced, and though it has often been suggested that he may have overlooked such a thing as a possible wiggling of the blade, he could actually allow himself to be very certain when he said that two blades were involved if he KNEW that the second blade was of a diffeerent length that the first. Unless that blade was sunk into Tabram at 36 varying depths, he would have known the approximate length of that blade, and after that it would be easy to exclude the possibility that it could have caused the sternum wound.

The best, Sam!
Fisherman

[The Good Michael]

But Eddy, having had some training in Highland ways, would have likely carried a dirk and a sgian dubh when he was prowling for victims. How he got away with carrying his targe around without being challenged, is another story.

Mike

[Sam Flynn]

The eveneing News of the 10:th of August - among others - bear it out, Sam:
"In witness's opinion the wounds were not inflicted with the same instrument, there being a deep wound in the breast from some long, strong instrument, while most of the others were done apparently by a penknife."

Thanks for that, Fish - I hadn't noticed the mention of a "long & strong instrument" previously. Quite how long a knife has to be to penetrate the sternum is, however, still a moot point.