Blood spatter in the Tabram murder

[Ben]

Agreed, Dave. That would more than account for the lack of screams, and a blow to the head does not require more than one attacker to inflict.

Ben

[Cogidubnus]

"Why was she not screaming her head off?"

Stunned perhaps by the bang on the head she'd received?

Dave

[Ben]

With absolutely no reason to do so, we might add.

No, we might not "add".

It was accepted by the contemporary police that Tabram was a ripper victim, which was a sensible move on their because her inclusion in the killer's tally makes considerably more sense, criminologically speaking, than arguing that she must be separated from the others on the grounds that she was stabbed and not slashed. I'm not saying that's what you're arguing, but it's an argument that crops up from time to time, and is a horrible reason for excluding her. Time, location and victimology all speak immeasurably in favour of Tabram being murdered by the same individual responsible for the later murders.

[Wickerman]

"If there were two weapons involved in Martha's case, I think there must have been at least two assailants involved as well."

That is the better guess, yes.

Hi Fish.
Given that the numerous stabs to the torso were not in themselves life threatening, and obviously not in themselves able to render her unconscious. Why was she not screaming her head off?
She was apparently alive throughout most of the attack. Certainly she may have been choked in the beginning, but surely while stabbing her 38 times the pain alone would bring her out of unconsciousness.

Who was holding her down, keeping her mouth shut, while someone else stabbed her?

It strikes me that with this murder there are good reasons to see more than one attacker here.

Regards, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

We know also that Reid and Abberline ( ) finally considered Tabram a JtR victim. Anderson and Dew as well, according to Paul Begg (the ultimate proof).

With absolutely no reason to do so, we might add.

Regards, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

If there were two weapons involved in Martha's case, I think there must have been at least two assailants involved as well.

The variety of wounds has no bearing on the number of assailants, nor even the number of weapons.

We do not know if Tabram was attacked by one, two or even three assailants.
All that can be reasonably determined is at least two types of weapon used, which does not automatically mean two knives.
There could have been two teenagers carrying a clasp-knife each, as well as another with a dagger.
Three males attacked Emma Smith, we don't know how many attacked Martha Tabram. Certainly the wounds give no indication either way.

Regards, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

It's also worth nothing that a sternum is only a centimetre in thickness.

ONLY ....a centimetre?
Thats damn near a half inch, even body armour wasn't that thick.

As with many bones in the human & animal kingdom, it isn't the thickness where the bone finds its strength, but the shape. In the case of the sternum, its the curvature.

Regards, Jon S.

[harry]

Bolo.
Only ever herd of one other peson with same nickname?.Just one question.In a random frenzied attack to the upper torso,would you be surprised if one of the several given stabs pierced the sternum,without the person stabbing deliberately targetting that sternum..Similar situation ,I would imagine,if you had covered your eyes and stabbed wildly.

[bolo]

Hi Abby,

Thanks for the response. Interesting experiment there. Although as I pictured you carrying it out i suddnly experienced an involuntary shudder. Ha Ha.

to be absolutely honest, I did not go to the full extend as planned but stopped the experiment halfway through it. Even though it were just a few large pieces of veal one of my friends who is a butcher by trade provided me with (with the hide partly intact), hacking and slashing away on them made me feel decidedly uneasy, especially when I wrapped parts of the meat in different types of old clothing (cotton) and tried to cut it open... the result was disgusting to say the least.

This was the point when I called it a day and went to cook a very large pot of goulash that lasted for a few days...

Regards,

Boris

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby, all,



I have similar thoughts on the progression from Tabram to Nichols, that's why I think poor Martha was the victim of a Ripper who was learning on the job (voted accordingly in the old poll). Similar, but not exactly the same, for I think that the thing he learned from Tabram was that stabbing doesn't cut it (pardon the pun).

A few years ago I made some stabbing and slicing experiments will all sorts of knives and a few pounds of veal just to see how a stab or slice wound looks like and how much force is needed to inflict deep/gaping wounds. On one occasion when I was stabbing away on a large piece of veal with a bone in it, the blade of the small but very sharp and pointy clasp-type knife I used broke just beneath the tip in a 45 deg. angle. The following thrust created a much larger and gaping opening that looked quite different to the other stab wounds. Take that for what it's worth (probably not much as my veal massacre was of course completely un-scientific).

If there were two weapons involved in Martha's case, I think there must have been at least two assailants involved as well. I have difficulties to accept the notion that an attacker changes weapons in the middle of a stabbing frenzy.

Please forgive me if I'm bringing coals to Newcastle with my babble, been away from casebook for a long while due to various reasons you don't want to hear about.

Regards,

Boris

Hi Bolo
Thanks for the response. Interesting experiment there. Although as I pictured you carrying it out i suddnly experienced an involuntary shudder. Ha Ha.

I have difficulties to accept the notion that an attacker changes weapons in the middle of a stabbing frenzy[/B]

No worries. It is a total valid point. I was just thinking out loud and putting some ideas out there to possibly account for the different wounds on Tabram. I am not convinced one way or another about the 2 knife Vs 1 knife scenario (nor do i really care).

welcome back.

[Ben]

Interesting stuff, Bolo. I hadn't contemplated the possibility of the knife breaking.

It's also worth nothing that a sternum is only a centimetre in thickness.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

How fascinating. So despite your professed aversion to my references to the Dew spew, and despite your expressed unwillingness to discuss Dew on an unrelated thread, you’d rather suffer both of these things if it means continuing with endless, long-winded repetition. Some things are boringly predictable.

So about the Dew Spew, which, incidentally, isn't new spew. You’re now suggesting that we should consider it a reliable source, despite it being “riddled with mistakes”, and here we’re taking about mistakes of fact, not just ludicrous unsupported opinions that enjoyed no contemporary support from anyone vaguely worth listening to. No problem, you say, you just “don’t use” the erroneous non-facts that were presented as accurate by Dew. Gloss over them, dismiss them as errors, but still treat the document as accurate. Great. Well maybe I’ll just adopt that precise approach to the Home Office document, then? I’ll accept the stuff that cannot be contradicted, and simply “don’t use” the errors.

These are intensely hypocritical, deeply annoying double-standards you’re applying here, and no amount of 60-line posts of unnecessary superfluous “explanation” will change that.

The “theory” that one weapon was involved did not originate with me, and it continues to enjoy popular support. More support than anything you’ve written articles about will ever receive. We have on record the actual reason Kileen provided for suggesting two-weapons, and it was demonstrably insufficient for any confident conclusion, having been based on the perceived length and strength of the weapon required for the sternum wound. The “two weapon” absolutists can’t bear the fact that this was the reason provided, which is why they conjure up imaginary “better” reasons which “must have” been included in a “lost report”, and come up with terribly bad excuses for explaining away Kileen’s failure to mention these reasons as being decisive in separating the weapons.

Then there is the relative youth and inexperience of Killeen to consider, coupled with the absence of any indication that he was clued-up on weaponry. And finally, there is the sheer oddity of hacking away with one supposedly inferior knife, before deciding after 37 stabs that it just wasn’t doing the trick, and that the bigger knife – the one that he could have used so easily from the outset! – might be a better bet. An entirely uncontroversial theory that relies on contemporary facts, and which doesn’t rely on sticking one’s head in the sand like an ostrich and asserting that the contemporary professionals MUST be right, which is something you don’t do with other topics anyway.

Fact basis: the Home Office document, the inquest evidence of Dr. Kileen. The statistical unlikelihood of a muli-weapon attacker etc.

“B/ Benīs theory that Abberline believed that Tabram was Ripper victim.”

It’s not “Ben’s theory”. It’s a fact, and is accepted as such by Philip Sudgen, whose experience with source material analysis is unquestionably superior to yours (and yet you claim, shockingly, that “anyone can see” that he’s wrong). Abberline could not make certain pronouncements, but he was perfectly capable of separating likely from unlikely. The fact that he described Tabram as the first murder assures us that he meant first in the ripper’s series, because Tabram was not the first of the so-called “Whitechapel murders”. Emma Smith was, and if he were referring to the murders generally, and not specifically ripper murders, he would have described Smith – not Tabram – as the first murder. That is obvious. Abberline provided a list of details that he considered “extremely remarkable”, and thus in favour of Kloswoski as the ripper. One such detail was the George Yard/Klosowski “connection”.

As for the Dew Spew, you are encouraging people to treat it as a reliable source and to gloss over the mistakes of fact, which according to you, it is “riddled with”, whereas you advocate a completely different approach with the Home Office document. You argue that because it contains mistakes of fact, it should be dismissed in its entirety. This is ridiculous, and the more you repeat it the worse you make it.

“Putting it otherwise, any flaw or mistake will detract from the value we can ascribe to such a document on the whole. And the more flaws and mistakes, the more detraction.”

So again, the Dew Spew, which is “riddled” with mistakes, must be dispensed with then, according to your inconsistent logic? You changed your opinion on it practically overnight last year, so perhaps it’s time you changed it back in accordance with your recent mantra? The Home Office document makes clear that the bayonet was no longer considered in contention for any of the wounds, or else they’d have said so. They would have specified that the weapon they just pooh-poohed as having any responsibility for some of the wounds was still the likely candidate for one of them.

Hi David,

“Exactly. It doesn't make the suggestion extremely scientific, does it ?”

Exactly. If Tabram had been killed by a blunt instrument, and had been seen with fireman on the night of her death, they same logic would assert that she might have been killed with the nozzle of a fireman’s hose! So not very scientific at all, no. It’s putting two and two together, and getting five. It isn’t at all surprising that the bayonet idea was ultimately dispensed with. It only cropped up in response to the Pearly Poll evidence, and it was ultimately accepted that the “unmistakable” indications of bayonet wounding were absent in Tabram’s case.

All the best,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Harry:

"It seems we now have a long thin blade making a large hole in the sternum."

"We", Harry...?

The best,
Fisherman

[harry]

Well I see progress is being made.It seems we now have a long thin blade making a large hole in the sternum.Did Killeen indicate tha?If only we could place an old style musket to go with the bayonet,the problem is solved.With silencer of course.

[Fisherman]

Bolo:

"here is the thing, the tip of my knife broke in a 45 deg. angle (total length of the piece that broke off was about 1 1/2 inch) which resulted in an even more pronounced and very sharp point. In my opinion, it would have been no problem to stab through a bone with it but of course the wound would not have been as deep or even deeper than the stab wounds when the blade was still intact."

Aha - a different story thus! Quite remarkable too - normally, a blade that breaks will go clean off at a 90 degree angle. Anyhow, the large hole in Tabram was a hole that would have given away the approximate shape of the blade, since it sat in the sternum, methinks! But thanks for the added information!

The best,
Fisherman