Was it really two blades?

[The Good Michael]

Damien.

Why not bash her head in with a piece of pavement, or cut her throat with the pen knife?

Mike

[Damien]

Hi Mike

Individuality. ;-)

You can`t exclude one possibility by saying there is another. Why do we act like we do? I don`t know...
These things are fact: The Killer was in some kind of outrage and mordlust, and he stabbed his victim incredible 39 (38? 37?) times!
Why asking why he did do this that way - you could ask this everyone around here ;-)))

I only say: Maybe the murder of Tabram wasn`t planned - this does not mean the murder was not of a - ah, how to say - psychotic kind. The fear could have just raised when he came home, cooling down from his deed. And then he choose another knife - maybe he didn`t got the ideas you mentioned, maybe he wanted to be sure in his way. He could have done the other way - but if he would have cut her throat, you could ask too: Why not bash her head on the pavement? ;-)))
You mention two possibilties he could have done - so there is always another way he could have done it.

Damien

[The Good Michael]

Damien,

You intimate that we can't figure out what he was thinking. Fair enough. So, maybe he ran home to get another knife. Or maybe he went home to eat a potato with sour cream and another guy came along, who just happened to have a bayonet, and thought he could help a fellow out by killing a hapless woman. If you don't want to apply logic at all, we could just as easily have this scenario as a theory.

Mike

[Damien]

Hi Mike



Well, maybe I act so because I don`t see unlogical things in this scenario...
But why should he return to the murder scene with the weapon he used short time before? This possibility sounds not plausible to me - he wasn`t successful by using his pen knife, and maybe he was some kind of "careful". There must be another one...yes, why not bash her head on the pavement. Hm...

What shall I say if not: Why should he do exactly this?

I don`t want to exclude your possibility, but don`t you exclude mine by saying this?

Damien

PS: Damn. Have to go. Just think about my thoughts...I don`t think, they are not plausible because there would be other possibilities. It is just a scenario out of many to find a solution for the "two knife" problem. And I think it`s not really a bad one. ;-)

[perrymason]

For one moment lets set aside the question of the two knives, and look at the fact a "pen-knife" was used.

When Jack started his killing my bet is that he uses the same knife throughout. He needs to have something he is sure of using effectively and quickly. That may not be one of a number of knives...it may be his only knife. No other Canonical showed 2 weapons, or small pen-knife stabs.

The fact that Marthas killer used a pen-knife at all should be all the cautionary data we need to set her aside until something "Canonical" worthy is discovered.

Cheers all

[Fisherman]

Michael writes:

"When Jack started his killing my bet is that he uses the same knife throughout. He needs to have something he is sure of using effectively and quickly. That may not be one of a number of knives...it may be his only knife. No other Canonical showed 2 weapons, or small pen-knife stabs.
The fact that Marthas killer used a pen-knife at all should be all the cautionary data we need to set her aside until something "Canonical" worthy is discovered."

How about a cut to the lower abdomen, a killing of a prostitute, and a deed that was silent enough to escape people living twelwe feet from the venue?

This aside, I think that you miss out on a possible point here, Michael; if Tabram was his first strike, then there is every chance that this particular deed differs from the others on one important aspect: premeditation.
There is very good reason to believe (although no certainty can exist) that the killings, from Nichols on, were premeditated deeds. He wanted to kill and to procure organs, and so he brought along a weapon that suited that purpose. Maybe he even brought some form of container along for the bits and pieces his mind was set on.

But if Tabram was not premeditated, then that would change the scenario in a very high degree. His equipment would perhaps not be in place, just as his nerves may not have been. There may well have been a very high level of anxiety on his behalf, and such a thing would have had an impact on the apparent rationality he evinced at later dates. We can also see how he manages to do more and more as he went along; that would most probably owe to a combination of planning, growing experience and a feeling of self-security.

As you know, I endorse the ridiculous kind of scenario that Mike number two thinks very illogical (I can live with that, Mike!), and if Jack acted in the scavenger´s role in the Tabram case, we can still see a lot of connections to the later deeds: the interest in the abdomen, the silence and the readiness to kill in a very rational manner. As the reasonable thing to believe when you happen upon a woman lying on her back with 37 holes in her would be that she was dead, he may have had a nasty surprise, and that in it´s turn could - if I am correct - have lain behind his decision to find a killing mehod that left the victim safely dead AND quiet withing the split second. After that, he may have hit the streets with a ready-made, complete plan of how to act to reach his satisfaction. He would, in other words, go from an incomplete control and an act of sudden inspiration to full control and premeditation.

That´s how I see things; to me, there were a lot of "canonical" pointers about on that landing.

The best, Michael!
Fisherman

[kensei]

And we Americans gets accused of being weapon crazy! I just have a few fencing foils, and epee, two rapiers, a baskethilt broadsword, a dirk, a sgian dubh, and a claymore... oh there's the targe with a center spike too.
Other than that, I'm all about peace.

Mike

I started this thread, and it had so taken off by the time I came back to it 24 hours later that I just kind of sat back and watched. All very interesting input. I'll just add that I too am a weapon-crazy American with quite a bit of martial arts paraphernalia displayed on my walls. Oh, the damage Jack would have done if armed with a samurai blade.

(My girlfriend favors European weapons and we have a running argument over which is superior- Katana or Claymore. I show her the original "Highlander" and we come to a stalemate.)

[Damien]

Hi Mike

Damien,
So, maybe he ran home to get another knife.

Oh - no, I didn`t meant it that way. Maybe that`s why you talked about logic.
I didn`t say he ran home to get another knife.
I meant he went home after he had stabbed Tabram with his pen knife. And just at home, not before, he became frightened of the consequences. So he took another knife and returned to the murder scene. But he did not rush home to get a new knife. He didn`t know he would return later, just after cooling down in his room he made the decision to return to the murder scene and kill her for sure with another weapon. ;-)

It is a way many murders do after committing a not planned murder - they destroy evidence, fake alibis, etc...

So - you`re right - it would not be logical for him to run to his home just to get another knife. He would have bashed her head or cut her throat. I agree.

Regards, Damien

[Sam Flynn]

if Jack acted in the scavenger´s role in the Tabram case, we can still see a lot of connections to the later deeds: the interest in the abdomen

... ONE (small) cut in the lower abdomen, against 38 stabs in the neck, chest and (very) upper abdomen, Fish? C'mon!! Whoever killed Tabram showed practically no interest in the abdomen at all.

[Fisherman]

Sam writes:

"... ONE (small) cut in the lower abdomen, against 38 stabs in the neck, chest and (very) upper abdomen, Fish? C'mon!! Whoever killed Tabram showed practically no interest in the abdomen at all."

I have a distinct feeling, Sam, that we´we been here before...? But I don´t mind giving my wiew once more!

It can, as you do, be mathematiccaly argued that one wound out of 39 does not amount to very much. Fair enough.
But as you know, I favour a scenario where TWO persons used their respective knives on Tabram´s body - and that is a suggestion that tallies awfully well with Killeens suggestion.

I also favour a scenario where the two perpetrators did not cut Tabram simultaneously. My feeling is - as you know - that Jack arrived at the stage after the first 37 frenzied stabs had been delivered. I think a fair case can be made for this for a number of reasons - the fact that it may well have been a public or semi-public deed, given John Bennett´s pic of George Yard buildings (Tabram may well have been attacked out in the open or very close to it, and thus seen by our man), the fact that Killeen spoke of all wounds having been inflicted during life (and he would have gone by the bloodflow asserting this, which is why a scenario with some time passing between the attacks suddenly becomes a little more plausible), the fact that if we divide the 39 wounds into two groups, one made up by the 37 blows that were obviously the work of a smallish blade and the other made up by the two remaining (the piercing of the breastplate and the cut to the abdomen), we find ourselves with 37 apparently frenzied, unfocused stabs, and two seemingly very focused wounds, and last, but not least, the fact that the cut to the abdomen was apparently the only wound to that lower part of the body, as far as we can tell from Killeens words. It does certainly not seem to belong to the flurry of stabs that penetrated the vital organs of the chest cavity!

Therefore, I work from an assumption that I am dealing with a man who used 50 per cent of his wounding to cut Tabram to the lower abdomen, and who may have intended to use a hundred per cent of it to do so. As you know, I believe that the breastplate piercer may have been a coup de grace, delivered when he was disturbed or spooked and decided to flee the scene.

With that scenario, there is every reason to recognize a genuine interest on behalf of the cutter in the abdominal cavity, would you not say? In fact, when you say "Whoever killed Tabram showed practically no interest in the abdomen at all", you may be very wrong; for if I am correct, then the frenzied man did NOT kill Tabram - that was taken care of by the next man, a man with displayed a very clear abdominal fascination. If I am right, that is - and I know that I will be hard pressed to prove it!

Out of interest, Sam, where do you stand yourself on the issue? Was it one man with one blade, two men with two blades or one man with two blades?

The best,
Fisherman

[perrymason]

Out of interest, Sam, where do you stand yourself on the issue? Was it one man with one blade, two men with two blades or one man with two blades?

The best,
Fisherman

Ay, theres the rub. Whether tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of 2 men with one knife each, or one with 2 knives in tow.....alas, poor Martha.

I think one vexation should be discarded post haste....the medical authority that had his hands on her punctured corpse said 2 weapons. Its not an issue.

What is an issue is exactly what Fisherman asks.

Which seems more probable? FM and I disagree on that answer ....but not that it is indeed the very point here.

Cheers mates.

[John Wheat]

Yes I believe it was.

[Sam Flynn]

Sam writes:

"... ONE (small) cut in the lower abdomen, against 38 stabs in the neck, chest and (very) upper abdomen, Fish? C'mon!! Whoever killed Tabram showed practically no interest in the abdomen at all."

I have a distinct feeling, Sam, that we´we been here before...? But I don´t mind giving my wiew once more!

Well, you alluded to Tabram's killer and Jack sharing "an interest in the abdomen", Fish. This is demonstrably not so in Tabram's case.

Out of interest, Sam, where do you stand yourself on the issue? Was it one man with one blade, two men with two blades or one man with two blades?

I can't for the life of me fathom why a killer would stab someone the heart with a bayonet (say) and then NOT continue to use the bayonet to inflict the rest. You could have some major "puncture fun"with a bayonet that sharp, so why switch to a pocket-knife? Alternatively, two killers, one of whom restricts himself to a single stab, doesn't add up either - and suffers from the additional complication of having those two killers crammed onto the same small landing as chubby Martha.

Ergo, for me, it's one man with one blade.

[perrymason]

.... Alternatively, two killers, one of whom restricts himself to a single stab, doesn't add up either ...

It makes some sense Sam if you consider that the single stab could kill in and of itself, the cummulative damage from 38 could too....but not immediately. All of her wounds were caused during her life...she was not stabbed after her heart stopped beating and she stopped breathing.

I believe your conclusion that 1 man used 1 knife is already proven incorrect by Killeens pronouncement....so its one man with 2, or 2 men with one. As I said, either prove Killeen wrong or accept his opinion...its that simple. I believe the only variable is bayonet or dagger for the single stab weapon...my belief is that it was a dagger...as indicated by some comments regarding this murder, the bayonet leaves very distinctive wound shapes.

Neither scenario is particularly "Jack-ish". The Ripper ripped....the name is poorly chosen for him if he also just stabs or slits once.

Cheers Sam

[Sam Flynn]

It makes some sense Sam if you consider that the single stab could kill in and of itself, the cummulative damage from 38 could too....but not immediately. All of her wounds were caused during her life...

...but was she conscious whilst all this was going on, Mike? Remember the effusion of blood between the scalp and the bones of her skull. Remember, also, her propensity for fits.