Ripper Victim?

[Ben]

Hi Mike,

Although many confided to press or colleagues that they felt Martha might be a Ripper victim, it wasnt enough to dissuade senior investigative and medical personnel.

I'm not sure what you mean. Anderson, Abberline and Reid all believed Tabram to have been a "ripper" victim. It was the majority-endorsed police opinion, with only Macnaghten stating otherwise. When you say that "5 victims that should be grouped by their opinion", who's "they" in that equation? Only Macnaghten, as a police representative, ruled out Tabram, and it was the minority of opinion. Bond believed that one killer was responsible for five of the murders, but did not include the prefix "only".

And when you compare relatively mechanical stabbing to excising an organ intact...were not in the same league at all Ben.

It's very much in the same league if you're talking about serial killer behaviour, especially when we know that a serial killer's first offence will invariably bear little to no resemblence to his subsequent murders. The majority of serialists are capable of much greater criminal diversity, and would make the so-called jump from stabbing to stab/slashing as positively uniform by comparison.

Best regards,
Ben

[harry]

Glen,
True to form,whenever you are faced with with statements that you cannot answer by resonable arguement,your only comeback is the word ,nonsense.
So pray tell me,how does Barretts information,identify the girl as Tabram.A simple question that an historian of your calibre should be able to answer.

[harry]

The only part of the weapon that Killeen could refer to was the blade.As there were so many different sorts of weapons,and these weapons contained so many different sorts of blades,I am at a loss to how he came to a decision that it might be a bayonet,except perhaps knowing as he had conducted the autopsy and could not be faulted,he just guessed.

[Shelley]

Gareth, prostitutes in those days tended to do the deed standing up against the wall. Hence the slang-word 'knee-trembler'. And even if she laid down, your supposition is that she just kind of assumed the corpse pose and let her killer turn it into reality. You may argue this--hell, you will definitely argue this--but she was displayed and there is no explanation for it.

Well said and explained Chava, i too believe she was postioned in this pose ' Open & defenseless '. Also spread-eagled type of the lower part of the body.

[DYLAN]

Hello Mike.

I'm not going to give my personal opinion on Tabram here, because my opinion doesn't count.

But Ben is right. Macnaghten became involved along after the events, while Abberline, Anderson, and Reid were all directly involved in the case. So their opinions must count for more than Macnaghten's.

All the best mike.

DYLAN

[Shelley]

Well said and explained Chava, i too believe she was postioned in this pose ' Open & defenseless '. Also spread-eagled type of the lower part of the body.

Oops! Made a mistake..........I meant to put ' Open & powerless ' position that Tabram was left in..........Reading to much on something else, Defense in a body position is where an arm or hand is place on the body, open and defence would be more applied to Mary Kelly.

[perrymason]

Hello Mike.

I'm not going to give my personal opinion on Tabram here, because my opinion doesn't count.

But Ben is right. Macnaghten became involved along after the events, while Abberline, Anderson, and Reid were all directly involved in the case. So their opinions must count for more than Macnaghten's.

All the best mike.

DYLAN

Your opinion counts as does everyone's Dylan...nice to see you regardless. Im not contending that many senior officers thought Martha was by the same killer, I am contending that that little fact is lost when for many years now, its been Macnaughten and Bonds "Canonical Group" that has dominated literature and peoples opinions. If as Ben and you say, there was a majority of opinion that included Martha, then why in almost every book, story, dissertation, post....we see the "generally accepted 5 victims."Making comments that included Martha in their thinking is one thing, and having the broadly accepted 5 victim list by all who study the crimes is another.

As I mentioned earlier, they corrupted the potential profile of the killer with every additional murder they arbitrarily link to Jack ... based on their opinions only. Theres certainly no proof of any kind the Ripper was involved in Martha's, or other murders. They forced that "Ripper" profile to include dissimilar murders by style and format when including Martha, or Liz...and to some extent Mary. Thats why I feel they never strayed too far from an unpredictable madman in their thinking.

My contention has almost always been that the details of the crimes and circumstances are not consistent throughout the 5 Canonical Deaths, but they are with a group from within that 5. They concluded unpredictability as a murder preference trait based on non-Ripper conforming models like Martha. But if you set aside certain murders within the series...whats left are remarkably alike murders, in almost every crucial detail of attack and kill methodology and sequencing.

As everyone said and says about Martha, and I agree with....that was an unusually vicious attack. One that had shared almost no commonalities with Annie Chapmans attack/murder signatures, or Polly Nichols ...as examples.

[DYLAN]

Hello again Michael.

Nice to see you again too.

Well, if I'm going to state my own personal opinion, then I'd have to say NO, I don't believe that Tabram was a Ripper victim.

I actually agree with everything you've said above.

But I'm just saying that I can also see Ben's points too, about the opinions of the officials who were there on the spot, and which we can't simply ignore.

All the best Mike.

DYLAN

[Fisherman]

Sam writes:

"Surely you can't mean...?
Quote:
If our man was interrupted
... aaaarrrrrrghhh, you did!"

Yep, Sam - the Ripper heritage is a devilish thing. While I laugh out loud at the word interruption (especially in the midst of a cut) in one case, I am urged to be a fervent believer in such a possibility in another case. In the end, it will make laughing stocks of us all, I fear. It will do so to me, I´m sure, and maybe it will do so to y.... Oh, good on you, Sam - I was interrupted!

All the best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

So their opinions must count for more than Macnaghten's.

Absolutely, Dylan.

Hey Mike,

If as Ben and you say, there was a majority of opinion that included Martha, then why in almost every book, story, dissertation, post....we see the "generally accepted 5 victims."

That's just the problem, Mike. They shouldn't be using expressions such as "generally accepted 5 victims" because it was never the case. Granted, they're "generally accepted" as being committed by the same murderer, but there was never any acceptance, general or otherwise, that Tabram should be excluded. You may be quite right to highlight that Macnaghten's "five and five only" has dominated a lot of literature, but that should never have been the case.

They forced that "Ripper" profile to include dissimilar murders by style and format when including Martha, or Liz...and to some extent Mary....They concluded unpredictability as a murder preference trait based on non-Ripper conforming models like Martha

...Which is good police work on their part, and would certainly be endorsed and practiced by their modern investigative counterparts. I'm not advocating the setting in stone of any opinion that the killer was responsible for other victims, but experience has taught us that it's better to assume diversity on the part of the offender, rather than looking at the most unusually consistent ones and deciding that he couldn't have committed any other murders or attacks besdies those ones.

Profiler Paul Britton decided that the Nickel and Bissett murders in Wimbledon Common and Plumstead respectively were too different, and ruled out a link. Robert Napper was in fact responsible for both, and Britton's overconfident and erroneous ruling led to an innocent man being vilified and accused of murder.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Ben writes:

"The observation about the weapon type was in fact "a dagger or bayonet".

This is important to realize - there is good reason to believe that Killeen would never have touched on the bayonet suggestion, had it not been for the theory of a soldier killer. The press, and indeed the coroner, would in all probability have been very keen to know if that large wound could have been made by a bayonet, and realizing just how fresh Killeen was as a medico, it can be argued that he had never seen bayonet wounds to bone structure before, and so, when asked, he just offered the guess that a bayonet could have been the weapon.
If we turn to the inquest files as recorded in the Times, though, it only says that "his (Killeens - my remark) opinion was that one of the wounds was inflicted by some kind of dagger, and that all of them were caused during life." My contention is the there was nothing in the appearance of that wound that gave away anything but a broad, sturdy blade - as that of a big dagger.

The best,
Fisherman

[Shelley]

Ben writes:

"The observation about the weapon type was in fact "a dagger or bayonet".

This is important to realize - there is good reason to believe that Killeen would never have touched on the bayonet suggestion, had it not been for the theory of a soldier killer. The press, and indeed the coroner, would in all probability have been very keen to know if that large wound could have been made by a bayonet, and realizing just how fresh Killeen was as a medico, it can be argued that he had never seen bayonet wounds to bone structure before, and so, when asked, he just offered the guess that a bayonet could have been the weapon.
If we turn to the inquest files as recorded in the Times, though, it only says that "his (Killeens - my remark) opinion was that one of the wounds was inflicted by some kind of dagger, and that all of them were caused during life." My contention is the there was nothing in the appearance of that wound that gave away anything but a broad, sturdy blade - as that of a big dagger.

The best,
Fisherman

Fisherman,
Yes to some of the above, but there is this to consider:
Killeen whether a new in the game fresh doctor, he did also say ' Dagger ' some bayonet's can have the same blade as a dagger when reached at a certain point ( considering inches at top end), however i don't think that we will ever be able to make a judgement on a Bayonet unless the blade was pushed deep into Martha's body to justify the inches depth of the stab wound and see whether it matched a Dagger or a bayonet, so in my estimation Dr Killeen made a sound judgement of a report, we do not know whether the police let Killeen know of Tabram being with a soldier, the police may have asked Killeen on whether a Bayonet blade could have caused it, as the police did rely on what was the starting point of a type of ' Forensic psychology/criminology ' from Doctor's and surgeon's, and you have also got to admit that there wasn't any type of ' MO ' established in the victorian period, so i doubt that JTR would be making a crime scene look different to another in order for him to not get caught, JTR would just basically follow his own nature and what he required from dead women. Freud was a psychoanalysist, and he too reached into that group and started with medical suppositons behind the early know psychiatry fields, It would be the police asking the doctor's not the Doctor's asking the police opinion, and today because it has been established that Freud himself was a psychopath and overly concerened with ' sex ' modern psychologists do not go by his ' Oral stage, anal stages in childhood sexuality etc as a study of psychological factors in psychosexual matters in establishing a ' Personality disorder '.

[Jon Guy]

If we turn to the inquest files as recorded in the Times, though, it only says that "his (Killeens - my remark) opinion was that one of the wounds was inflicted by some kind of dagger, and that all of them were caused during life." My contention is the there was nothing in the appearance of that wound that gave away anything but a broad, sturdy blade - as that of a big dagger.

Exactly, Fisherman. I was re-reading Sugden on this point and he states the same. Not so sure about broad though ?

In fact, that wound could have been made by the knife that was used on Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly.

[Shelley]

Exactly, Fisherman. I was re-reading Sugden on this point and he states the same. Not so sure about broad though ?

In fact, that wound could have been made by the knife that was used on Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly.

Jon,
I did notice the facial wounding on Eddowe's, this does not point to a smooth blade that is either blunt on one side and a smooth sharp edge on the other, it points to a knife that is a jagged one, that has one side jagged and a smooth sharp edge on the other, also with Nicholls on her body there is a jagged wound, indicating a jagged blade, the blade used is very different in comparison to that of Tabram. And as far as i can see the jagged edge of the blade on Eddowe's shows on the, what i believe is the ' first ' cut made on Eddowe's face was under her bottom lip on the jaw area, i believe her killer had taken the blade from the body were he had wounded her and was drawn to her mouth, through the smell of stale alcohol as a trigger. Also the Second cut on Eddowe's nose on the bridge of the nose has also a jagged type cut ( he missed when trying to put the knife in again, and hit the bridge of the nose a little further up, i believe the type of knife the Killer used on Eddowes was a knife that was jagged on one side and also had a smooth blade on the otherside ( double bladed and one side was jagged to cut bone) the bottom part of Eddowes nose that was cut, was cut with the smooth sharp side of the blade, he nicked her top lip and a vertical wound straight wound was produced by accident as the knife was drawn up to her nose, the bottom part and this is where he used the smooth edged side of the blade, he was separating the top part & the bottom part with the different sides of the blade, the bottom part of the nose was a second thought after he did not attempt to take the nose off by cutting further up the top. I don't think that Eddowe's Killer would have gone to mutilate her face, had she not smelt of stale alcohol in the first place, as the reports on both Nicholls & Chapman, neither of them smelt of alcohol, infact Nicholls was described as being a sober women not given to drink ( which brings me to mention that she was not a gin soaked ragged typical professional prostitute, she was a part-time one that only turned to that for some money to survive), Chapman was ill and she probably took medicine, as a medicine bottle was found in her cupboard, also a mention that she may go to the infirmary to get such medicine, she also was reported not to have an alcohol smell about her either. Eddowe's killer was playing by memory and that memory was of someone who smelt of stale alcohol. It is possible that Eddowe's killer did think of making Eddowe's like a ' Clown ' at first it was a spare of the moment via some memory at the time, and this term ' Clown ' is used in Police Language when they are dealing with member's of the public in thier job, it may also account for the cutting of the ear, as in ' Are you hearing this !' ' You are like a clown !'....I don't know how long this type of language has been in the police force, but language is handed down.

[Shelley]

According to weapons, a dagger or bayonet is used for ' stabbing ' where as a knife is intended for cutting.