Ripper Victim?

[DVV]

if the clothing on the upper body was moved away to give clear access for the knife, that does scream premeditation and sociopath over alcohol and lack of anger management!

You could well be right, Chava.

Amitiés,
David

[perrymason]

If one soldier pins Marthas arms behind her back, or chokes her so her arms and hands are reflexively trying to open airways again, while a man in front of her stabs her repeatedly with a small pocket knife, her clothing that fastened near the neck would likely come askew I would think. When she is "dead weight" for the man behind her, he lets her down, and pulls out a dagger to finish her off just in case she has only passed out, and isnt yet dead.

That to me suggests that men were intending to leave after that large stab....which suggests no postmortem interests. They couldnt risk her being found still alive and being able to identify them....the large stab is just insurance.

Best regards all.

[c.d.]

I guess I am arriving late to the party since there are already 178 pages on this thread. I believe this has been discussed before but for the life of me I cannot recall what was said. Anyway, with all the blood I am wondering if there were any good footprints. Couldn't the police have determined if there were one or two killers based on footprints and couldn't they have been able to recognize a military boot?

c.d.

[perrymason]

I guess I am arriving late to the party since there are already 178 pages on this thread. I believe this has been discussed before but for the life of me I cannot recall what was said. Anyway, with all the blood I am wondering if there were any good footprints. Couldn't the police have determined if there were one or two killers based on footprints and couldn't they have been able to recognize a military boot?

c.d.

To my recollection cd there is no mention of boot tread impressions left in blood on that landing or the stairs. It was looked for at the Model Dwellings by Lamb, so it seems they did look to see if there was blood trails or boot prints when finding some evidence of a violent crime.

1 or 2 men is going to be a hard line to draw, because for all we know a single killer could have paused between the pen-knife stabbing frenzy and the final large wound, to change weapons. One guy could have done this, just not the one guy who kills Polly next.

Best regards

[Jdombrowski89]

I also agree with Dan on this one. Rarely is it also said sometimes that a Serial Killer just dives into killing with a full fledged attack of mutilation,etc. Could have been very possible that the killer was experimenting, and then, moving onto Nichols, found his hot spot for murdering. I'm saying I have a 85% belief that Tabram was a ripper victim as well.

Regards,
Justin

[Lozle]

Hey,
At first I too believed that Martha Tabram WASN'T a Jack the Ripper victim, but now i'm not so sure.
I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this before, but it's something I've been having a bit of a play around with.
I found a map of Whitechapel from 1888, I marked the 5 murder sites of Polly, Annie Chapman, Liz Stride, Kate and Mary Jane Kelly. I then joined eah murder site up. the end result being a kind of "Z" shape. I then thought about Martha Tabram, who was found at George Yard. After staring at it for a LONG time, I thought to join every single murder site not only to each other to get a "Z" shape, but also join every murder site to Geprge Yard. If anyone is interested in doing so, you will notice 2pyramids form. I would have thought disregarded it but it seems almost calculated.
Many thanks.

[caz]

What if the Ripper hadn't thought about actually carrying out his fantasies until after Tabram? What if he had just went out that evening, had a few drinks and ended up in a dark alley or stairway with a prostitute, without murder on his mind, like many other nights before? And what if this particular prostitute pissed him off so badly that he wasn't able to control himself?

Then we'd have a Ripper who wasn't quite prepared for what he was to do later on, when he does go out with murder and some sort of plan on his mind. It is not uncommon for serial killers that, because they haven't thought about actually carrying out their murderous fantasies, their first murder turns out quite differently than their later murders, when they are prepared.

All the best,
Frank

Hi All,

I think Frank's suggestion makes admirable sense, but seems to have got lost in a sea of speculation about the weapon type and significance of the wounds inflicted.

The ripper didn't suddenly become the ripper on the last day of August 1888. He may have fantasised for years about what he'd like to do to the body of a vulnerable human being if he thought he could get away with it.

I suspect that for quite a while before the Buck's Row murder he would have been roaming around looking for the right opportunity - perhaps only at a subconscious level - to lose his cool with a suitably vulnerable woman who would, in effect, be giving him 'permission' to start the ball rolling and take his first human life.

I can see how he might have deliberately goaded someone in Martha's circumstances into saying or doing something that would convince him that she fully deserved to be at the receiving end of whatever weapon he had on him at the time, and whatever damage he could bring himself to inflict on the spur of the moment, when opportunity knocked.

I don't know, but I would imagine that it takes a bit of courage to 'take the plunge' and kill for the first time, and the whole experience and experimental nature of it could have taken him by surprise and sent him off a shivering wreck, with a mixed bag of emotions from fear and disgust to exhilaration and a "Bloody hell, I actually pulled it off!"

The stark reality of that first kill need not have been anything like his fantasies. But the next time he would find it that much easier to overcome any mental barriers, and go out equipped, physically and psychologically, to pick up another victim - and another and another - and act out his fantasies for real this time, with no need for the women to behave a certain way first, and little or no emotional fallout for him, hence the uncool, uncertain first-timer emerges as a considerably colder mutilating machine with weapon to match.

Early 1990s: one man - Robert Napper - went from Rachel Nickell to Samantha Bisset.

2005: One man - Mark Dixie - went from threatening one woman with a knife, but actually hitting her over the head with a blunt instrument (she survived without even losing consciousness), to stabbing another woman to death just forty minutes later.

2003: One man in West Croydon - I can probably find his name if anyone wants it - went from attempting to strangle one woman (she survived when witnesses chased him off) to battering another woman to death later the same night with a lump of wood.

So I have absolutely no problem these days with Jack going from Martha to Polly in three weeks. Nor do I have much of a problerm with Martha's murderer not being Jack himself, but prompting Jack into acting out his own fantasies on similarly vulnerable women in similar locations.

But Martha's brutal murder was a rarity, even for the area - nobody has successfully argued that it wasn't. If women like the Whitechapel victims could be found all over London, I do find it a bit of a coincidence that no victims like Martha were to be found outside of Jack's territory, while Martha herself was pretty much at the centre of it, and provided the overture.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Hi Caz!

You write:

"The ripper didn't suddenly become the ripper on the last day of August 1888. He may have fantasised for years about what he'd like to do to the body of a vulnerable human being if he thought he could get away with it."

I can see your point, Caz, but I am not equally sure that the fantasies were allowed to surface during them years - they may also have been suppressed, therby leading to the volcanolike eruption of violence evinced by the victims. Besides, I would not dub him "Ripper" BEFORE he acted on his fantasies - but that is another thing.

"Frank's suggestion makes admirable sense, but seems to have got lost in a sea of speculation about the weapon type and significance of the wounds inflicted"

More objections, I´m afraid - I believe that the weapon types (two of them) involved and the damage caused by them, respectively, can provide a good lead to what happened!

"I have absolutely no problem with Jack going from Martha to Polly in three weeks."

Now, that is something I can agree wholeheartedly with - I even think that Tabrams death may have told him what to do and what NOT to do, in order to silence and kill before he set about the evisceration part.

The best, Caz!
Fisherman

[Jane Welland]

I think...

That Tabram was very likely the first murder by the serial killer known as JTR.

I am quite convinced, personally, that this man did not just emerge on August day in 1888 as a fully fledged killer, either. I think it likely he had progressed to that point - though there need not have been many steps or stages in the process.

The proximity in time between Tabram and Nicholls convinces me still further.

I mean, I know The Chapel was a terrible dive - some things never change - but still, murder was noted, nonetheless - and not commonplace, I wouldn't have thought - not even there!

Yes, I think Tabram was one of Jack's - and I don't see that it's a very great leap at all to go from stabbing to slashing - to argue against a match here on the grounds of non-mutilation is overly pedantic imo.

Best to all

Jane x

[Fisherman]

Jane Welland writes:

"I don't see that it's a very great leap at all to go from stabbing to slashing - to argue against a match here on the grounds of non-mutilation is overly pedantic imo"

Goes to show how differently one can assess things - I feel genuinely uncomfortable with the suggestion that a man who three weeks later evince an unstoppable urge to enter the abdominal cavity of a woman (and who repeatedly does the same thing afterwards), would have settled for only stabs (if we count the "cut" to Tabrams body as a stab gone wrong).

To me, the Ripper is about evisceration, from beginning to end. That is where I feel his urges lie, and that urge, suppressed or not, would have been what drove him to his deeds. Therefore, I am very much for a killer who focuses on that area, and not a man who settles for stabbing only EVEN if he had the time to enter other practices.
No, the wound to the lower abdomen is what makes me look at the Tabram deed as a quite possible Ripper deed - not the stabs.

Could be wrong, though, mind you - as always...

The best,
Fisherman

[Jane Welland]

Hi Fisherman

Do you think, though, that assuming for a moment that JTR was responsible for Tabram's murder - and that perhaps it was his first kill - he might have experienced a frenzy that perhaps you might expect in such circumstances?

To me, this is all about boundaries - if he killed Tabram, and she was his first, then he crossed an important boundary in the process - he could then review the event as he saw it and take from it what he wanted - abdominal mutilation, apparently.

To me, as I have said - the accepted victims represent a process - which, incidentally, I am prepared to consider may not have ended with Kelly - but that is because I view human behaviour as largely being a series of processes, and highly ritualistic in addition.

Best wishes, Fisherman

Jane x

[Fisherman]

Jane asks:

"Do you think, though, that assuming for a moment that JTR was responsible for Tabram's murder - and that perhaps it was his first kill - he might have experienced a frenzy that perhaps you might expect in such circumstances?"

Possibly - but it does not take much consideration to realize that such a thing would swear very much against what we see later, in terms of rationality and controlled behavior.
As you may know, I favour a scenario including two men using their respective weapons on Tabram - but with time inbetween them. And if - like I believe - only two wounds were made by the Ripper, then - POOF! - I effectively rid myself of having to explain how a hothead became a controlled, calculating, rationally working killer with a probable ruse about being a punter a mere three weeks later.

I do, however, agree with you that his first kill would have represented the crossing of a boundary - but we know from empirical data collected on serialists that there are those who rejoice and feel like God himself at their first strikes, whereas others just shrug their shoulders and get on with things.

The one path that lies open to us - if you ask me - is to recognize typicalities as he goes along. And stabbing is not such a typicality to any significant extent (there are the wounds on Nicholls´ genitals, of course, but we do not know much what they looked like and how they came about, whereas we DO know that he took an active interest of her inside). If we speculate on him setting out as a stabber, we must also see a transformation, and that is a transformation that suddenly is locked from Nicholls on, as far as the main ingredients are concerned.

I would actually go so far as to say that I could see almost equally much reason to believe in a man who smashed the heads of his victims with a rock as the Ripper experimenting, as I would believe in a stabber being our guy - well, that is slightly exaggerated, but not very much, since I feel that one could state that a man who crushed skulls may have done so to get a look at the inside of a woman too, and other targets than the skull would not "open her up" in the same obvious fashion as would a blow to the skull-bone.
But the comparison mostly goes to show that I really do not believe in either of these types being a very probable representation of our man in early August of 1888.

The best, Jane!
Fisherman

[perrymason]

Hi All,

The ripper didn't suddenly become the ripper on the last day of August 1888. He may have fantasised for years about what he'd like to do to the body of a vulnerable human being if he thought he could get away with it.


Caz
X

Hi Caz,

Well, on paper thats exactly when the "Ripper" first appeared. No women before Polly could be described as being "ripped" in the unsolved murders of 1888, but some Unfortunates before Polly and Martha were stabbed.

What happened to Polly was new.

You may be right speculating he fantasized about doing what he did, although to my eye what he does do is rapid and clinical for the most part....so I dont see him basking in his opportunities to fulfill his desires. Unless of course later wading through Marys remains is in keeping with that kind of killer.

But that would raise the question.... if he had been dreaming of doing this why wouldnt he choose an indoor venue for his first kill and fully enjoy the bloodbath that people seem to think Jack was all about.....based on a Canonical Mary.

Why does he kill where he knows he wont have much time?
Cause thats where his prey hangs out, on the streets....IMHO.

Martha was killed with 2 weapons, only stabs...and far more than needed to kill....and she was killed by someone in a highly emotional state. Polly and Annie were killed with one knife, by throat cuts and including very few stabs that were not intended to kill nor puncture organs, and in clinical fashion, they were eviscerated.

Thats a new killer....and so thought the investigators.

All the best.

[Supe]

I agree with most of what Fisherman said in his previous post, though he and I disagree--civily to be sure--over whether the murderer of the Canonic Five had any hand in the murder of Martha Tabram. That the frenzied stabber of Marha became the cooly professional throat cutter of Polly et al. within just three weeks seems beyond beief to me. Indeed, in "Suede and the Ripper" in the latest Ripperologist (No. 104 July 2009) I make the suggestion that the murderer of Alice McKenzie looks much more like an evolution of Martha's killer than of Polly's killer.

Don.

[Fisherman]

Don writes:

"I make the suggestion that the murderer of Alice McKenzie looks much more like an evolution of Martha's killer than of Polly's killer."

Then your agreement with (most of) my earlier post is reciprocated by now - because I am very much of the same sentiments on you on this point! That´s not to say that I have given it much thought from that particlar angle before - but your post on it was an eyeopener in that respect!

The best!
Fisherman