Blood spatter in the Tabram murder

[Fisherman]

Greg:

"my intuition is that the killer used one knife in each murder"

Great distinction there, Greg. If all were as discerning, weīd save a lot of space on the boards.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

David:

"The journalists and the police did hear Killeen, but most of them came to believe Tabram was a Ripper victim."

I can tell you that the journalists wanted to add Smith to the list. They probably wanted to list people run over by trains like Ripper victims too. That is how journalism works - it is focused on selling papers, and the more victims, the merrier - and the more papers sold. Which is why I would not invest too much in the journalists as truthful and reliable sources in this respect. It would be naïve.

... but I would like to see a listing of all the policemen that stated that Tabram would have been a Ripper victim, plus another list of the ones who thought the other way around.
Donīt include Abberline in the first list, by the way. Of him, we know not what he thought.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"If any of the wounds were still suspected of having been inflicted by a bayonet (as the likely weapon), the Home Office would have said so, Fisherman, unless they were eccentrically weird and devoid of all common sense."

Once again, donīt take it upon you to explain who would say what if they had the opportunity. It does not work. And the Home Office WAS eccentrically weird and devoid of all common sense, judging by what they had to say about Nichols!

" They did address the issue of a bayonet, and they discounted it as having been involved in any part of the murder"

They did nothing of the kind, and you well know it. Basically, you are arguing a case with no evidence at all, and you are trying to bolster it by quoting a Home Office document that is abundantly clear in showing that itīs originators were less knowledgeable about vital parts of the Ripper investigation than Karen Trenouth. It is devoid of any credibility and it reflects VERY poorly on you.

"It’s an official correspondence from a source worth taking seriously, errors notwithstanding."

How do you even manage to write something like this? Donīt you see what you are saying? "We all know that this document has more errors to it than a Swiss cheese has got holes, but it is worth taking seriously just the same."

No, Ben, sources riddled with mistakes, faults and a lack of knowledge where we factually know that knowledge could be gained from the experts that handled the case, are NOT worth taking seriously. If a heap of errors is not an indicator of a bad source, then tell me what is?

That it is unofficial?

I am sure that the gentlemen of the Home Office meant well. I am equally sure that they wanted to get it right. But when we effectively know that they did not manage this, and that this failure was partly due to insufficient work (also called lazyness), then we also know that we are dealing with a source that will not provide anything but a hearty laugh. And this is exactly such a source, as PROVEN by itīs inherent qualities - or should I say total lack of it?

"a sensible person does not ditch an entire document just because it contains errors"

A sensible person, Ben, is rendered VERY cautious by a document such as these annotations. A sensible person does not cherrypick one item and state that THIS part must be correct, if he knows very well that many OTHER parts are demonstrably erroneous. More importantly, IF - and I am only saying "if", but NOT recommending it - one decides to put faith in one isolated item from a sad compilation such as the one at hand, then it goes without saying that one needs to be able to fit it in with other existing evidence. And when it comes to the bayonet part, we have no other information in any source at all stating that the bayonet theory was ever abandoned. None whatsoever. Therefore, investing faith enough in this isolated, confusingly formulated, little part to claim that we in any manner have useful evidence that the bayonet track WAS abandoned, represents a value that ends up on the zero side. And that goes without saying. The document is notoriously untrustworthy and more or less completely self-disqualifying.

Dew? He IS for another thread, and if you feel you need to discuss him, I will gladly do so. But not here.

"It remains a trustworthy source in the absence of any reason to contradict it"

But, Ben, the fact that it is riddled with silly faults IS a reason to contradict it. Nothing could provide a better reason than that!

"If the bayonet was still in contention for any of the wounds, it is certain that the annotation would have made note of this"

Dear God. There he goes again ...

" It is clear, as Sugden points out, that Abberline opted for a tally of six, with Tabram as the first and Kelly as the last."

Yes. Six POTENTIAL victims. Abberline was no idiot.

"Yes, we do, because there is no other inference from his 1903 interview that doesn’t involve him being made out a bizarre lunatic."

The bizarre part is on your behalf, Ben. All the rest should be easy enough to understand - once you try.

"The popular perception amongst the contemporary police was that Tabram was a ripper victim.
The popular perception amongst the contemporary police was NOT that Jack the Ripper was a soldier."

Iīm afraid you would be wrong here. The popular perception would be that Tabram was a potential victim, nothing else. Like Abberline, the rest of the corps was not a bunch of nincompoops.

"I regard your views on errors in documents as thoroughly inconsistent"

And therefore, the Home Office annotations are a shining example of a faultless document? I donīt care what you regard me as - it does not change the fact that your precious document is and remains a complete disaster and a useless source.

"The only thing I find less than amusing is your accusation that I’m cherry-picking "

You are, Ben, believe me. It is crystal clear. Not caring about all the faults in the document, and settling for just the one part that you need to strengthen your theories about Tabram not being slain by a bayonet amounts to exactly this. That is how it works, and you know it, I suspect? Oh, and Dew - another thread, please.

"the errors in that book were not trivial, actually. You may have concluded that, but Jane Coram and others were not in agreement."

Another thread. Sorry.

The best,
Fisherman

[Bridewell]

Killeen may have been only 23 years of age, but he was a Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons (Ireland) and Licentiate of the King Queens College of Physicians (Ireland). Ergo he was medically qualified and conducted the post mortem on the body of Martha Tabram.

Killeen was of the opinion that two different weapons were used. Therefore, prima facie, two different weapons were used. In order to dismiss his opinion, out of hand, it is necessary to find a contrary opinion from someone equally well-qualified, and who was also present.

Following on from that, I don't see that the use of two weapons necessarily implicates two assassins.

Does anyone else think that one of the knives used may have been Tabram's own, found on her by the killer? It would surely be unremarkable if an East End prostitute carried some kind of weapon. Many prostitutes do so and yet, unless I'm mistaken on this, none of JtR's victims seems to have numbered a weapon of any kind among the possessions found on her body. I think that strange.

Regards, Bridewell.

[GregBaron]

Check out my scimitar...

Thanks for the discussion gentlemen. I'm no expert on knives so I'll defer to those that are yet my intuition is that the killer used one knife in each murder. This knife may have changed from victim to victim but I doubt he carried a variety of knives with the possible exception of Abby's pen knife as accompaniment.

I also wonder how many knives might a poor working class Joe afford? Obviously a butcher would have access to knives as would other professions but if you don't subscribe to the Toff theory, I doubt, for example, that a dock laborer living in a doss house would have an impressive knife collection.

Perhaps I'm wrong, does anyone know what various knives would have cost in 1888? Of course we can't rule out that he stole them. Anyway, again just throwing out some thoughts to perhaps support the one knife theory.


Greg

[DVV]

David,

In this case, no overwhelming evidence in any direction. All is possible. I was only pointing out that one may change his/her mind when presented with new evidence. In Sam's case, it was overwhelming for him.

Mike

Agreed, Mike. In the current discussion, however, the only evidence we have is Killeen's testimony. The journalists and the police did hear Killeen, but most of them came to believe Tabram was a Ripper victim. The condescending (?) "knife or dagger" was the investigators' last word on the subject.

[Ben]

Interesting thoughts, Abby and Greg.

You'll note Llewellyn's description of the weapon used in the Nicholls murder as "strong-bladed", which means that unless the killer switched knives between the Nicholls and Chapman murders (or unless they were killed killed by different people), the knife used in the latter murder must also have been a strong-bladed weapon, even if it was narrow and thin, as many strong clasp knives are, for example. A strong-bladed knife is also perfectly capable of penetrating a centimetre-thick bone such as Martha Tabram's sternum.

Just to address Mike's point, I agree that anything's possible, but I wouldn't use wound dissimilarity as a reason for excluding Tabram as a ripper victim. In terms of the criminal diversity displayed by the bast majority of serial killers, stabbing and then stabbing AND slashing represents an extremely minor deviation. Even the most MO-consistent serial killers have shown more susceptibility to change than that, and in almost all cases, the killer's earliest offences will bear little resemblance to their later, more "sophisticated" ones.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

“And I really donīt think that you should take it upon yourself to try and establish what the Home Office would or would not have said.”

If any of the wounds were still suspected of having been inflicted by a bayonet (as the likely weapon), the Home Office would have said so, Fisherman, unless they were eccentrically weird and devoid of all common sense. Yes, the same applies in Kileen’s case. Had there been any two-sides/one-side distinction, Kileen would most assuredly have mentioned it, for the simple reason that it would have established beyond doubt that two weapons were used. But doubt is precisely what Kileen harboured, and it was simply his opinion that two weapons were used. In reality, he only cited length and strength of the sternum-wounding weapon as a reason for preferring a two-weapon theory. But thanks for giving me the excuse I craved for repeating all that again.

Whatever information the Home Office were not being “generous” with, we know that they were "generous" on the topic of Tabram and murder weapons associated therewith. They did address the issue of a bayonet, and they discounted it as having been involved in any part of the murder, or else they would have pointed out that it was still in contention for one of the wounds. The latter detail never appeared, and a logical person would therefore infer that the gist of the Home Office annotation was that a bayonet was no longer considered a viable candidate for any of the wounds.

“Like I asked before: who would invest anything in a report like this one, a report that very clearly is uninformed at best, and misinformed at other occasions? Why would we use it at all?”

It’s an official correspondence from a source worth taking seriously, errors notwithstanding. If you dismiss all documents that contain errors, I’m afraid you’re all of luck with “ripperology”, because a great many case-related documents contain errors of fact, but that doesn’t permit us to ditch the entire document. You don’t do any such thing, anyway; such are your apparent double standards on this matter. You know full well you don’t. You don’t apply your mantra to the Macnaghten memoranda, the 1903 Abberline interview, the Dew Spew or other error-ridden documents, so why apply it exclusively to the Home Office document, which, unlike the aforementioned three, were actually contemporaneous with the murders?

No, a sensible person does not ditch an entire document just because it contains errors, especially not when the details under contention cannot be dismissed as erroneous. For what possible reason would a sane member of the Home Office invent the detail that a bayonet was no longer in contention because of the “unmistakability” of the wounds they create?

It remains a trustworthy source in the absence of any reason to contradict it, and in the absence of any reason to suppose that someone from the Home Office lied about it. So your attempt to dismiss it as a “useless source” is what belongs “on the scrap heap”, actually. You are applying ludicrous double standards insofar as you DON’T reject other documents that ALSO contain errors.

“The larger hole, though, was never questioned in this respect, since it was clear from the beginning that this had been caused by a long, strong instrument such as a bayonet or some closely related sort of dagger.”

That’s your invented “addition”, which is completely worthless because it did not appear in the Home Office document. If the bayonet was still in contention for any of the wounds, it is certain that the annotation would have made note of this, and we’d see a sentence similar to the one you’ve just made up. Its absence, however, informs us immediately that this was not the case. The annotation was in reference to those wounds that were suspected of being bayonet-inflicted, not those that weren’t. I would have thought that was obvious.

“Abberline would have belived it POSSIBLE that she was a Ripper victim, since he mentioned the coincidence. "Probable" does not enter the equation.”

Oh yes it does, as accepted as fact by a respected historian. It is clear, as Sugden points out, that Abberline opted for a tally of six, with Tabram as the first and Kelly as the last. The fact that he described her as the “first murder” is your first clue in that regard. It makes no sense for someone who does not think it probable that Tabram was a ripper victim to describe her as the “first murder”. Hers was NOT the first murder, generally speaking. Emma Smith’s was, hence if Abberline was speaking only of potential/possible ripper victims, he would have described Smith as the “first murder”. He obviously meant the first murder committed, in all likelihood, by the ripper.

“Iīm afraid, Ben, that you need to find a direct qoutation from Abberline to substantiate this. Do we or do we not have it on record that Abberline ever said that Tabram was likely a Ripper victim?”

Yes, we do, because there is no other inference from his 1903 interview that doesn’t involve him being made out a bizarre lunatic. “First murder” meant first in the series attributed to the ripper, for reasons outlined above, and he would not have noted the George Yard-Klosowski connection as “extremely remarkable” (during an interview in which he discusses factors in favour of Klosowski’s culpability) unless he considered the George Yard murder a ripper murder.

“But if there is any evidence that the suggestion was dropped, Iīd like to see it. But NOT in the form of a confused and uniformed Home Office report.”

1) The popular perception amongst the contemporary police was that Tabram was a ripper victim.

2) The popular perception amongst the contemporary police was NOT that Jack the Ripper was a soldier.

Now that should answer your question.

“Why would it be a waste to point out when a report is riddled with errors? Donīt you think that it has any bearing on how much faith we should put in it?”

Don’t go back to that again. I regard your views on errors in documents as thoroughly inconsistent, as I’ve explained above. You were the first one to point out that the Dew Spew was “riddled with mistakes”, but did you hurl that on the scrapheap? No, you did precisely the opposite. Must the memoranda and the Abberline interview be consigned to oblivion because of errors? No. And YOU DON’T dismiss them, remember? You recognise the errors, yes, but you still accept the bits that can’t be proven erroneous, just as you do with Dew.

“It is never amusing when somebody points out that you are using muddled, confusing, error-riddled sources to try and make a point that has no other reliable and useful source behind it”

Which is exactly what you did with the Dew Spew, although I won’t pretend that it wasn’t “amusing”. The only thing I find less than amusing is your accusation that I’m cherry-picking when that is precisely, and demonstrably, what you are doing.

“With all the respect I can muster, Ben - since when are sources that get lots of things totally wrong trustworthy? “

You mean just like the Dew Spew?

And no, the errors in that book were not trivial, actually. You may have concluded that, but Jane Coram and others were not in agreement. I agree that Dew should be kept to his appropriate threads, but you do invite these sorts of criticisms then adopting such an inconsistent approach to your “if it contains errors, throw it out” dogma.

Regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Greg:

"I don't think it was anything supple and giving that nearly took Chapman's head off Mr. Fisherman or ripped her guts open from sternum to genitals. This was also long and strong."

Not necessarily, no. A very sharp knife - and Phillips did think that it was exactly this - could be both that little bit supple AND strong enough to do that job with no much effort at all. I have gutted a number of very big fish in my day, and the difference inbetween a razorsharp filleting knife and a dull one is what governs if you are going to do the job properly or not.
The dull knife will easily be inserted by means of itīs pointed tip, but after that, when you try to open the fish up with a clean cut, you will instead have the blade halted, tearing the fish instead of cutting it.

A human being is of course tougher to cut open, but it still applies that none of the tissues we are talking about here are hard as such. With a very sharp knife, it would be overcome, though. But the blade could not be all that narrow or thin, of course. And it equally applies that the belly-opening blade MAY have been a sturdy one. But the only traces that Phillips found spoke of a narrow blade, and that blade was injected into Chapmanīs body at the beginning of the belly cut, perhaps leaving enough of a trace to describe it to some extent?

Of course, we do not know just HOW narrow the blade would have been for Phillips to use that term, not do we know how thin.
There were of course surgical knives, like the Liston knife that would answer very well to the description Phillips gave. You can take a peak at one on http://www.spectrumsurgical.com/prod...-Knife-11-.php if you wish, and if you google "liston knife" there are lots of other pictures. This knife was supple enough to use in surgery - but make no mistake, it was razor sharp and used for amputations and such things, meaning that it cut through strong structures of the body.

The best,
Fisherman

[Abby Normal]

Abby:

"Geez Fish when someone posts something basically agreeing with your ideas, you still find something to argue about! : 0

Ever so sorry about that, Abby! I just wanted to point out that the dagger described by Killeen and Phillipsī suggestion for the Chapman mutilating knife fit very poorly together. And the reasons are two: a thin, narrow blade would probably break at the sternum, but IF it had managed to pass through the bone, it would in all probability have mystified Killeen. For it would arguably have somewhat resembled the blade that did the smaller wounds - a penknife is ALSO thin and narrow - and thus we would have had another reaction from Killeen then the one we have on record, methinks.

But of course, had I realized that I would dismay you to such a degree, not picking up on your offer, I would never, ever ...

Interesting idea about the knife fascination, anyhow. I have never given that angle much afterthought! Just like you say, there was always the chance that our boy carried more than just the one blade.

All the best,
Fisherman

Hi Fish

Interesting idea about the knife fascination, anyhow. I have never given that angle much afterthought! Just like you say, there was always the chance that our boy carried more than just the one blade.

I remember reading about BTK and he made a reply to a question that was something along the lines of what about strangling his victims aroused him sexually and his reply was that it was the rope, it was all about the rope. i think he even prefaced that response by referring to another serial killer who said basically the same thing about his tool of choice for killing.

So yes, would not surprise me if the ripper was also fascinated by his tool of murder such that he experimented and/or carried more than one.

I bet he loved his knife so much he posed with it against his throat in front of a mirror.

[Fisherman]

Abby:

"Geez Fish when someone posts something basically agreeing with your ideas, you still find something to argue about! : 0

Ever so sorry about that, Abby! I just wanted to point out that the dagger described by Killeen and Phillipsī suggestion for the Chapman mutilating knife fit very poorly together. And the reasons are two: a thin, narrow blade would probably break at the sternum, but IF it had managed to pass through the bone, it would in all probability have mystified Killeen. For it would arguably have somewhat resembled the blade that did the smaller wounds - a penknife is ALSO thin and narrow - and thus we would have had another reaction from Killeen then the one we have on record, methinks.

But of course, had I realized that I would dismay you to such a degree, not picking up on your offer, I would never, ever ...

Interesting idea about the knife fascination, anyhow. I have never given that angle much afterthought! Just like you say, there was always the chance that our boy carried more than just the one blade.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Abby Normal]

I like this suggestion Abby, a knife progression to go with an MO progression.



I don't think it was anything supple and giving that nearly took Chapman's head off Mr. Fisherman or ripped her guts open from sternum to genitals. This was also long and strong.

Could make a naughy pun here but I won't.

Anyway, going with Abby's suggestion, as his technique evolved perhaps he still had two knives, one a long strong knife for the kill, the other a bit more subtle for organ removal.

With that said, I still struggle with the idea of a smorgasbord of knives and the leisurely approach that it implies. It's dark, he's murdered, he's eviscerating, he can be caught at any moment, speed is of the essence - not to mention the increased logistical difficulty of carrying and cleaning multiple knives..............Just some thoughts...


Greg

Hi Greg
Thanks.

With that said, I still struggle with the idea of a smorgasbord of knives and the leisurely approach that it implies. It's dark, he's murdered, he's eviscerating, he can be caught at any moment, speed is of the essence - not to mention the increased logistical difficulty of carrying and cleaning multiple knives..............Just some thoughts...

I agree, I dont think he is going out with more than one or possiblely two knives. Possibly a small pen knife, which i stated before, he may have always carried on himself and continued to do so and a larger knife for the murders. He may have found one larger one that did everything he needed it to by the time of nichols murder.

[Abby Normal]

Perhaps so, Abby - but there is a problem. Phillips clearly stated that he expected to see a sharp, thin knife with a longish blade after having seen the damage done to Chapman. It would have been a knife that facilitated taking the organs out by being kind of supple and giving, shapewise, I think. If you see what I mean?
The weapon that went through Tabramīs chest bone would not have been thin and supple, though. That was referred to as daggerlike, long and strong.

In this respect, much as I like your suggestion, it does not add up to my mind.

All the best,
Fisherman

Geez Fish when someone posts something basically agreeing with your ideas, you still find something to argue about! : 0

I have no problem with the idea of a serial killer who gets his jollies dissecting, mutilating and removing organs from his victims carrying more than one knife and/or substituting, trying out different knives on different victims. So your (newly added) scenario of a different knife from Tabram to Chapman is fine by me too, although I think the same knife could have done both.

As I have said before, I think one of the rippers main motivations for these killings is his fascination with the Knife/ knives and what they can do. So it would not be too surprising that he had and used several.

[GregBaron]

One for each occasion...

JtR was probably the type of person to carry a clasp or pen knife on him at all times, even before he started murdering. If Ada Wilson and Millwood were ripper victims, and I think there is a good chance they were, then i could envision a scenario that JtR used his pen/clasp knife on them, realized he might need something larger, so got a larger knife. When he encountered martha, in the heat of the moment resorted to habit by using the smaller knife, and then switched to the larger knife to finish her off. On later victims he then only used the larger knife. Again, in my mind, a natural progression as the Ripper was learning how to kill (and what turned him on).

I like this suggestion Abby, a knife progression to go with an MO progression.

Phillips clearly stated that he expected to see a sharp, thin knife with a longish blade after having seen the damage done to Chapman. It would have been a knife that facilitated taking the organs out by being kind of supple and giving, shapewise, I think. If you see what I mean?

I don't think it was anything supple and giving that nearly took Chapman's head off Mr. Fisherman or ripped her guts open from sternum to genitals. This was also long and strong.

Could make a naughy pun here but I won't.

Anyway, going with Abby's suggestion, as his technique evolved perhaps he still had two knives, one a long strong knife for the kill, the other a bit more subtle for organ removal.

With that said, I still struggle with the idea of a smorgasbord of knives and the leisurely approach that it implies. It's dark, he's murdered, he's eviscerating, he can be caught at any moment, speed is of the essence - not to mention the increased logistical difficulty of carrying and cleaning multiple knives..............Just some thoughts...


Greg

[The Good Michael]

Mike, I wonder how overwhelming is the evidence that Tabram has been killed by two men, or/and that two weapons were used.
That was not the opinion of most police officials, nor that of the contemporary press (with the exception of the Evening News), and it's even not that of the majority today. "She should, perhaps, be placed in the canon", Paul Begg concludes.
The possibility remains, of course, but no more than in the other cases. There may have been killers and two knifes in Hanbury Street, Mitre Square, Miller's Court, so that (remote) possibility cannot even exclude Tabram from the series.

David,

In this case, no overwhelming evidence in any direction. All is possible. I was only pointing out that one may change his/her mind when presented with new evidence. In Sam's case, it was overwhelming for him.

Mike