overkill

[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

[perrymason]

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

Thanks for the compliment, Mike.

[perrymason]

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

[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

[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

[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!

[perrymason]

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.

[Ben]

Ben, you are talking utter shite!

And you’re an ignorant mound of corrosive feculent ghastliness; the defiling scourge of anywhere you have the bloody-minded audacity to infest.

But that aside, what exactly are you criticizing here?

If you’re challenging anything I’ve said you need to make clear what it was, rather than bombarding me with confused and exclamatory ranting about nothing in particular.

[Shelley]

And you’re an ignorant mound of corrosive feculent ghastliness; the defiling scourge of anywhere you have the bloody-minded audacity to infest.

But that aside, what exactly are you criticizing here?

If you’re challenging anything I’ve said you need to make clear what it was, rather than bombarding me with confused and exclamatory ranting about nothing in particular.

Now with all the rest of the * cough * Bull*hite i know you need the easy chair of a shrink QUITE BADLY the choice of words here are so original in the category of ' HIGHLY UN-EDUCATED ' otherwise not only would you have replied Properly to my last but one post you would have at least attemped to make a complete and utter FOOL of YOURSELF ENTIRELY by an attempt to SMEAR the name of HOLMES & HOLMES ( Forensic Psychologists) with your incoherent DRIVEL Oh why do i bother with such an IDIOT like you BEN

In the words of a woman struck with sheer UNBELIEF....PISS-OFF YOU MORON!

[Lozle]

Hello,

Well, this has turned quite sour hasn't it? I'm confused as to where we begin to take conflicting theories to heart? This forum is a place to discuss ideas and to broaden our knowledge, not throw insults back and forth at each other. No theory is wrong unless evidence CLEARLY and directly rejects it, which will probably never be possible now.

Bottom line, IF Martha Tabram was a Ripper victim, the methodology is very different to the suspected interrelated murders of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.

Martha's murder was frenzied, not a trait present in Jack the Ripper's later kills. In Martha's murder it appears to me that there IS a couldron of emotion bubbling over in the killer. there is nothing calculated or controlled (a JTR trait) about stabbing someone nearly 40 times. Sticking a knife in someone once would be enough for JTR, which is why he slits his victims throats. Martha's murder suggests a personal / emotional motive, JTR didn't care to get to know his victims and to get personally involved. To JTR, they just served a purpose.

IF Marth Tabram was a Ripper victim, then perhaps it was because JTR was "inexperienced" OR perhaps she just wasn't a Ripper victim. The later murders suggest methodical planning. Quick and clean (in a sense of knowing what to do and how to carry out his own personal surgery in the streets on Whitechapel on a dark night). I personally have had the theory JTR knew what he was going to do because he / she may have "fantasied" about the way he / she would like to kill. Which explains the short time span between murders and the escalation to further mutilation in a calculated fashion.

However, in the case of Martha Tabram, the problem of there being soldiers in her company that night and loitering around the area where she was discovered dead, seems to suggest - to me - a particular beginning and end to how she encountered her murderer(s) and who poses feasible suspects.

Now, back to POLITELY sharing theories, offering polite constructive criticism, and broadening our knowledge.

Thank you, everyone.
L

[lynn cates]

for Mr. Mason

Hello. Ah, here you are Mr. Mason. You have been very fair and broad minded in your opinions everywhere I've read them. Hence, I ask you to rule on this scenario (it incorporates some of the items I think you already accept).

A while back, I wondered (on another thread) if Martha's 38 or so smaller wounds could have been inflicted post mortem. I was shown that such was likely not the case. It seems that the consensus is the large wound was last. Your sensible suggestion (if I recall properly) was that this was administered by a second party as a kind of mercy killing--the small wounds allowed some life to remain--given that Martha could not survive long and was likely suffering.

We need only account for the frenzy. So: is it beyond the pale for Martha to have insulted her somewhat inebriated soldier friend (if she had one)? Say, at a crucial moment she insulted, say, his manhood. He strikes her. She pulls a very inadequate penknife (or something of that sort); he takes it away from her and rains down a good many knife wounds upon her?

Then we can fast forward to your ultimate solution.

LC

[perrymason]

Hello. Ah, here you are Mr. Mason. You have been very fair and broad minded in your opinions everywhere I've read them. Hence, I ask you to rule on this scenario (it incorporates some of the items I think you already accept).

A while back, I wondered (on another thread) if Martha's 38 or so smaller wounds could have been inflicted post mortem. I was shown that such was likely not the case. It seems that the consensus is the large wound was last. Your sensible suggestion (if I recall properly) was that this was administered by a second party as a kind of mercy killing--the small wounds allowed some life to remain--given that Martha could not survive long and was likely suffering.

We need only account for the frenzy. So: is it beyond the pale for Martha to have insulted her somewhat inebriated soldier friend (if she had one)? Say, at a crucial moment she insulted, say, his manhood. He strikes her. She pulls a very inadequate penknife (or something of that sort); he takes it away from her and rains down a good many knife wounds upon her?

Then we can fast forward to your ultimate solution.

LC

I feel like Im being given too much weight here Lynn, and that makes me wonder if Im being "put on" a bit....

But Ill answer, assuming your just being overly kind.... ....

I would hazard a guess that its well within the realm of possibility that the pen knife came from Martha herself, and that the larger blade needn't have been carried or used by the same man that used the pen knife. He might have carried only a dagger, in which case he takes the pen knife from Martha when she threatens him with it....he stabs her in a frenzy....and when he is tired and she is unconscious, he realizes she is still breathing and uses his own dagger to finally kill the woman.

The issue there is....that I would imagine the pen knife would have been dropped at that point....if its not his, as in this scenario....and its a murder weapon. But neither the pen knife or dagger-like blade were left behind....making me think they were taken away by the man or men that brought them, ....and....its less likely that the man that might take the pen knife from Martha would also take it with him if he has a dagger on him anyway.

Its one reason why I see a "mercy" dagger man entering after the penknife frenzy had ended.

Making sure the woman was dead...she was clearly wounded terribly but perhaps still alive, all of the stabs were made while her blood flowed and heart was still beating....he stabs her with a large knife in her chest....ideally getting lungs, heart, something that will end her life once and for all.....and he hussles his drunk and shocked friend out of there....in my own opinion, back to their barracks.

Cheers Lynn

[lynn cates]

no put on

Hello. No, Mr. Mason. No put on. I suppose I am reacting to trying to find an objective answer to a question about Sir Robert Anderson. I spent several hours trying to do research, while 9 out of 10 pages of the thread were devoted to 2 scholars arguing the thesis: "I am more scholarly than thou." I gave up in frustration.

At any rate, I ALWAYS appreciate your brief, well reasoned answers! I am here to learn.

I was mainly looking for feedback to my insult thesis. Had Martha a saucy tongue?

Thanks!

LC

[perrymason]

Hello. No, Mr. Mason. No put on. I suppose I am reacting to trying to find an objective answer to a question about Sir Robert Anderson. I spent several hours trying to do research, while 9 out of 10 pages of the thread were devoted to 2 scholars arguing the thesis: "I am more scholarly than thou." I gave up in frustration.

At any rate, I ALWAYS appreciate your brief, well reasoned answers! I am here to learn.

I was mainly looking for feedback to my insult thesis. Had Martha a saucy tongue?

Thanks!

LC

"Whose theory merits consideration most" is a game that gets played too often Lynn, I hear you...and thanks for the nice comments youve made regarding my posts. And Mike or Michael is fine by me.

I dont know if Martha was a brawler, but it is said that her former "roommates" Henry Tabram and then William Turner couldnt stand being around her when she was drunk.

I think its interesting to note here that the instrument that Killeen thought was used to make 38 of the 39 stabs is the same kind of pen-knife that Bury used to keep under his pillow at night.

Cheers LC, all the best