Ripper Victim?

[perrymason]

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.

Hello Don,

Im also pleased to post an agreement with some of your post above, although I would have to hear more about the argument for Marthas killers evolution leading to Alice McKenzie....although with the influences he would have had by the acts seen the previous Fall, who knows. I always thought that Alice was a fairly natural continuation of a series that went Polly, Annie, Kate and then Alice....long after the initial heat had subsided. That, or he was a copycat.

Your idea doesnt sound like it precludes Alices killer from being influenced by what Jack did....so as I say, who knows.

It seems pretty clear that there were multiple men that used knives on Unfortunates, and it seems reasonable to assume that some escalated their behaviors and became new violent criminals. Which one morphs into which killer is a doozy to take on.

Best regards Don

[caz]

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.

I couldn't have put my own feelings better, Jane.

I think Jack may suddenly have found himself, on that Bank Holiday Monday, with an opportunity that was simply too good to miss. Very possibly fuelled by drink, he may have grabbed it with both hands and just started stabbing away for all he was worth, before he could change his mind or start translating his ultimate fantasies into reality - fantasies involving the still-warm body of a willing victim, unhampered by the practicalities of limited time and space or layers of clothing.

He surely must have been thinking about doing, if not actually doing, something vaguely ripperish before Buck's Row. If he wasn't taking a blade to Martha three weeks earlier, he wasn't taking a blade to anyone. So I don't really understand the logic that says Martha was not an example of him playing with a knife before he found himself and really got stuck in. That logic has him at best staring fondly at a blade during August but doing nothing about it until the end of the month - or at worst not even contemplating putting knife to flesh at that point.

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.

Ahem, Fishy, may I guide you gently back to my previous post, wherein not one but two repeat offenders bashed one of their victims round the head but used a completely different method of attack on another woman the same night.

Strangling one woman to battering the next to death with a lump of wood in the West Croydon case; threatening one woman with a knife, but battering her about the head, to stabbing the next woman to death before mutilating and sexually assaulting her body in the South Croydon case. (In the case of Robert Napper you have an outdoor Rachel "multiple stabs like Martha" Nickell followed at a later date by an indoor Samantha "butchered like MJK" Bisset.) Can we learn nothing useful from the behaviour of other offenders who attack, kill and mutilate women when the urge strikes and the opportunity arises, with whatever weapons are handy?

Had the first victim in the South Croydon case died from head injuries inflicted before her attacker was disturbed, we wouldn't know that she had been threatened with a knife first or that he had run off before he could really get into his stride (pun intended). So if Dixie had not been caught, many on these boards would now be swearing that the two attacks that night were totally unrelated and reflected offenders with different motives and 'personalities'.

How hard can it be to imagine the one offender acting as the mood takes him and sticking two fingers up at anyone who thinks it's not humanly feasible? It's a knife meeting flesh when all is said and done - the graphologist's equivalent of pen on paper. Try stamping a personality on that and everyone agrees it's a fool's errand. I don't see much of a difference to be frank.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Caz asks:

"How hard can it be to imagine the one offender acting as the mood takes him and sticking two fingers up at anyone who thinks it's not humanly feasible?"

Not hard at all, Caz - but it does ot in any way detract from the fact that we have a number of subsequent killing that all adjusted to the Ripper agenda as we know it, wheras Tabrams death did not - unless the Ripper only inflicted two of the wounds.
Your reasoning makes eminent sense, but equally, the reason why we do not treat people running over their enemies in the street with a wagon to kill them, people who strangle otheres, people who drown people and people who electrocute them as obvious Ripper candidates, of course lies in the fact that they have not evinced anything that belongs to that Ripper agenda.
It does not mean that they could not have been the Ripper evolving. It only means that the more we move away from the very well-trodden path of evisceration and throat-cutting, the less of a chance we stand to find the Ripper.

The best,
Fisherman

[caz]

Hi Fishfingers,

Well you won't find the ripper any more quickly by saying he wouldn't have done this or couldn't have done that, when 'this' and 'that' are clearly things that were physically possible and done by a violent person to a typical ripper victim in typical ripper territory, in typical ripper conditions and at a typical ripper time of night - before anyone knew what a typical ripper sign even was.

As others have observed, if Martha had happened between typical ripper murders, and not provided an overture for them, it would be easier to argue for an unusually brutal domestic, copycat or drunken soldier-related knife murder. But Martha's murder was the opposite of a copycat crime, while having plenty of circumstantial aspects in common with what was to come.

I'll ask again - why no unusually brutal prostitute knife attacks anywhere beyond Spitalfields making the headlines, if women like Martha were ten a penny for miles in every direction, and if every tenth man was a knife happy customer?

Where would you expect to find Jack in early August and how would he be occupying himself in his spare time?

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Those are other questions, Caz, as you must surely realize. If we accept that all prostitutes subjected to knife violence in August of 1888 must have been victims of Jack, we are travelling down a very unsafe road.

Such victims must be regarded as POTENTIALLY Jacks - but after that each strike must be assessed from it´s own inherent details. And to me, one detail that does not sit well with a possible Ripper strike is the fact that the stabber had time aplenty on his hands (39 stabs are not dealt in an eyewink), but STILL the urge that was so apparent from Nicholls on, is completely absent in the lesser wounds.

Tabram is a possible Ripper victim - my own stance is that she WAS Jack´s! - but that is not because of the 37 stabs. It is in spite of them.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Splendid observations there, Caz.

I certainly share your view that the Bissett and Kelly murders have a good deal in common.

All the best,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

Strangling one woman to battering the next to death with a lump of wood in the West Croydon case; threatening one woman with a knife, but battering her about the head, to stabbing the next woman to death before mutilating and sexually assaulting her body in the South Croydon case....

In the case of the battering and stabbing to death, Caz, they are all means of causing death - and rather commonplace, too. What I struggle with, apropos Tabram, is that nothing else seems to have happened after the initial stabbing... except 30-odd other stabs.

[perrymason]

In the case of the battering and stabbing to death, Caz, they are all means of causing death - and rather commonplace, too. What I struggle with, apropos Tabram, is that nothing else seems to have happened after the initial stabbing... except 30-odd other stabs.

Hi Sam,

The part in bold is what is ignored for the most part when concocting reasons to consider Martha an early iteration of a man who cuts to kill,... a man who does no stabbing or bludgeoning to take life, and someone, who in the case of Annies womb, shows us his control and minimal use of the knife to remove it.

Neither "controlled" nor "minimal" are words that fit with Marthas case.

Just the deaths or attacks in the 1888 cases clearly show the line when something new began, and ended;

Annie Millwood- stabbed
Ada Wilson-stabbed
Emma Smith-object inserted
Martha-stabbed
Polly-cut throat/eviscerated
Annie-cut throat/eviscerated/organs taken
Liz-cut throat
Kate-cut throat/eviscerated/organs taken
Mary-cut throat/emptied/organ taken
Annie Farmer-perhaps self inflicted cut
Rose Mylett-choked/strangled.

You want to figure out what Jack did before Polly if anything, then trying looking for robbers or thieves... not stabbers, cause we know that Jack did steal,... but we dont know that he ever stabbed to kill.

At least there is a precedent for his thieving....Annies rings.

All the best

[Ben]

Hi Mike,

You want to figure out what Jack did before Polly if anything, then trying looking for robbers or thieves... not stabbers, cause we know that Jack did steal

But there's no way anyone could ever seriously argue that theft is more similar to slashing than stabbing. The reverse is so obviously true, which why it makes so much sense to consider any pre-Nichols stabbing offense so seriously in the content of the later Whitechapel murders. "Controlled" or "minimal" wouldn't accurately describe Tabram's murder, but nor would it describe Kelly's. We cannot use the "control" exhibited in later crimes to rule out earlier ones - that would take us in the opposite direction to the knowledge garnered from other cases. Most known serial killers commence their careers in uncontrolled and inexperienced fashion, as every expert in criminal psychology can confirm. David Canter referred to the cases of Jeffrey Dahmer and John Duffy to illustrate that crucial point.

Stabbing to cutting is quite simply a neglible alteration when considered in the context of other serial killers, most of whom have shown a susceptibility to a much wider range of criminal diversity.

Best regards,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

Stabbing to cutting is quite simply a neglible alteration when considered in the context of other serial killers, most of whom have shown a susceptibility to a much wider range of criminal diversity.

... and stabbing on its own seems to be a commonplace among killers of the non-serial variety, Ben, including those who "lose it" and go berserk on a one-off basis.

[perrymason]

Hi Mike,
But there's no way anyone could ever seriously argue that theft is more similar to slashing than stabbing. The reverse is so obviously true, which why it makes so much sense to consider any pre-Nichols stabbing offense so seriously in the content of the later Whitechapel murders. "Controlled" or "minimal" wouldn't accurately describe Tabram's murder, but nor would it describe Kelly's. We cannot use the "control" exhibited in later crimes to rule out earlier ones - that would take us in the opposite direction to the knowledge garnered from other cases. Most known serial killers commence their careers in uncontrolled and inexperienced fashion, as every expert in criminal psychology can confirm. David Canter referred to the cases of Jeffrey Dahmer and John Duffy to illustrate that crucial point.

Stabbing to cutting is quite simply a neglible alteration when considered in the context of other serial killers, most of whom have shown a susceptibility to a much wider range of criminal diversity.

Best regards,
Ben

Hi Ben, nice to see you pal,

Im not suggesting that theft is like evisceration, ... just that theft is within the known evidence of this killers behaviors,...... and stabbing someone, to death, or in multiple numbers, is not.

And stabbing doesnt produce organs without puncture wounds for the killer.... but opening the victim after slitting their throat to kill them does. It would appear in at least in the case of Annies uterus and Kates kidney he tried to remove some organs intact and complete.

I know you like to use some modern studies of killers and their patterns of behavior to map out whats possible with the Jack character, and I see no reason why some of that shouldnt apply....as speculation. For example, I wouldnt be surprised if he hurt animals as a kid, had issues with his mother or a maternal figure, was quiet, unassuming and a loner to a large extent....

What I do see in the Tabram murder is anger and a lack of controlled knife usage in any way that might be referred to as precise, and I dont see that the above seems at all related to what Jack does. Cutting flaps of skin off Annie so he could access and remove... without unwarranted cutting, her uterus intact and complete, sounds precise to me. And if anything cold and unemotional, so... not angry.

Martha was killed by someone that was pissed off at her and/or perhaps women in general. Annie was killed by someone that saw killing as a logical step in a process.

All the best Ben

[Ben]

Hi Mike,

Good to see you here too!

First off, I agree that theft ought to be considered a potential component in the ripper's pre-crime approach. A great many serial killers had a history of burglary, petty or otherwise, prior to esclating into serial murder and/or mutilation. Danny Rolling, Leanord Lake, and Ted Bundy spring to mind immediately here. As such, we should be inclined to look at cases of theft etc in addition to stabbing cases that pre-date Nichols. Stabbing and slashing both yield slightly different results, certainly, but in terms of the average criminal range of a serial killer, it's a minor adjustment.

And stabbing doesnt produce organs without puncture wounds for the killer

Indeed, but that's probably because the ripper didn't have any desings on organs when he first started killing - that would have been an element he incorporated later as he gained experience and "experimented" further. The particularly loathsome Andrei Chikatilo didn't eviscerate his early victims, but gnawed on the uterus of a later one. Bundy, Shawcross and a few others also only mutliated their later victims.

Martha's killer could have been angry with her, but the frenzy evinced from the crime scene could just as easily have been the result of haphazard inexperience and frustration of the order that so often characterizes a serial killer's early offences.

Best regards,
Ben

[perrymason]

Hi Mike,

Good to see you here too!

First off, I agree that theft ought to be considered a potential component in the ripper's pre-crime approach. A great many serial killers had a history of burglary, petty or otherwise, prior to esclating into serial murder and/or mutilation. Danny Rolling, Leanord Lake, and Ted Bundy spring to mind immediately here. As such, we should be inclined to look at cases of theft etc in addition to stabbing cases that pre-date Nichols. Stabbing and slashing both yield slightly different results, certainly, but in terms of the average criminal range of a serial killer, it's a minor adjustment.

Indeed, but that's probably because the ripper didn't have any desings on organs when he first started killing - that would have been an element he incorporated later as he gained experience and "experimented" further. The particularly loathsome Andrei Chikatilo didn't eviscerate his early victims, but gnawed on the uterus of a later one. Bundy, Shawcross and a few others also only mutliated their later victims.

Martha's killer could have been angry with her, but the frenzy evinced from the crime scene could just as easily have been the result of haphazard inexperience and frustration of the order that so often characterizes a serial killer's early offences.

Best regards,
Ben

Hi again mate,

The part I put in bold is the key to my position....I dont see any reason why the Rippers activities must be a learned behaviour...based on some similar experiences first on the street.

If this guy could use a knife as well as he did on Annie within 4 weeks of Martha, my bet is that he also could 3 months before Martha....maybe 3 years, or 3 decades for that matter. What happens to Polly might well be the first actualized event...the earlier ones may have just been fantasies.

Nothing relating to the skill and knowledge that he exhibits in the murder of Annie Chapman could be a result of a frenzied stabbing murder 4 weeks earlier..they likely pre-existed Annie, and Polly.

So if he "learns" by these stabbings that some people would like to tag onto his roster, then what conceivably does he learn that assists him in completing Annies mutilations? What does stabbing organs multiple times teach him about excising an organ intact and unharmed?

All the best Ben

[Ben]

Hi Mike,

I dont see any reason why the Rippers activities must be a learned behaviour...based on some similar experiences first on the street

Virtually every action a serial killer ever takes is the result of learned behaviour, and this holds especially true for the later crimes in the series. They hardly ever stary out as a ready-made product, but instead progress from relative inexperience to a honed strategy. Whatever they like, they tend to stick with.

If this guy could use a knife as well as he did on Annie within 4 weeks of Martha, my bet is that he also could 3 months before Martha....maybe 3 years

I disagree. Personally, I don't detect any appreciable knife prowess in the Chapman case. The degree of skill evinced by the murder and mutilation was certainly greater than the relatively crude butchery exacted upon earlier victims, but it wasn't so great that it couldn't be chalked up to "skills" learned and honed on the job itself, i.e. of killing prostitutes. The notion that serial killers harbour specific fantasies for ages and ages and finally put them into action with their first murder, getting everything down to a fine-art onm that first occasion, simply doesn't reflect reality.

More often, they start off with a very generalized idea of their intentions, botch their first attempt, and improve their strategy as they learn and experiment with subsequent victims.

then what conceivably does he learn that assists him in completing Annies mutilations? What does stabbing organs multiple times teach him about excising an organ intact and unharmed?

That stabbing was moderately interesting, but that he wanted to upgrade a little bit to encompass both stabbing and cutting (Nichols), thence to expand further to include abdominal mutilations and eviscerations. It's the same principle as swimming and riding a bike - you learn by doing, not in a classroom.

Best regards,
Ben

[Lozle]

Hello,

I think the point to "then what conceivably does he learn that assists him in completing Annies mutilations? What does stabbing organs multiple times teach him about excising an organ intact and unharmed?" (by Michael) is what explanation can account for "upgrading" his methods when he has no apparent knowledge of skillful blade usage in Martha's murder to Annie's murder where the extraction of organs and accurate calculations to obtain the organs unharmed was evident.

Martha to Annie (ignoring Polly's murder for a second) is going from one extreme to the next.

All the best.