Did JtR change his MO after murdering Martha Tabram

[Darryl Kenyon]

What stood out to me is that Napper still engaged in stabbing the internal organs of his victim. We don't see this paraphilia in any of the canonical five murders, but we're asked to accept this is the same killer who stabbed Tabram 39 times? Ripper by name, Ripper by nature.

What if the ripper after his first kill Martha decided he wanted to keep some kind of trophy from his second kill Harry to relive the experience like Napper. How would he go about it ?
Regards Darryl

[Harry D]

What if the ripper after his first kill Martha decided he wanted to keep some kind of trophy from his second kill Harry to relive the experience like Napper. How would he go about it ?
Regards Darryl

Not a working theory imo. Napper removed organs as trophies AND stabbed the internal organs. JTR never stabbed any internal organs during the murders. And he would've had a field day after emptying Mary Kelly.

Also, for what it's worth, I'm not convinced Nichols' killer planned to remove the organs. If that was his focus, he could've got on with it and got away. Unless he was trying to psych himself up to it and when he heard footsteps (Lechmere?) he bolted?

[Varqm]

Can we call it a 50-50 that Tabram was a JTR victim or not, solely on the change of MO, stabbing to throat-cutting,because killer's MO could change.

[Losmandris]

Can we call it a 50-50 that Tabram was a JTR victim or not, solely on the change of MO, stabbing to throat-cutting,because killer's MO could change.

To me those are pretty good odds.

[Varqm]

To me those are pretty good odds.

Yeah that's why I went for other possible determining facts,I choose the dates of the murders, first week or last day of the month, and locations\direction\route to include Tabram.

[Sunny Delight]

Hi Tristan,



It's certainly possible. Serial killers are not quite as robotic as sometimes assumed, and they can vary in their actions at crime scenes quite a bit. And given Martha, if part of the series, would be prior to the more typical abdominal slashing murders, a frenzied stabbing attack could be an early approach. David Berkowitz's (Son of Sam) first attacks were with a knife, but they proved non-fatal and ineffective. After that he switched to using a large calibre hand gun (a 44).

The lack of her raising any sound, or cries of pain, etc, would be explained if he did strangle her to at least the point of unconsciousness.

We do have "Pearly Poll's" testimony that they were with two soldiers that night, and there is a police constable who testifies he saw one soldier waiting for his friend who had "gone off with a girl" though. And while neither of them were great witnesses, both picking out the wrong men during some line ups, all that tells us is that they didn't have a strong memory for what the soldiers looked like.

I believe it was one of the soldiers Pearly Poll identified who was cleared because he was with his wife that weekend (she verified his alibi). One could view that as potentially providing a false alibi, but as PP didn't insist she had the right fellow, I don't think even that line of speculation would provide for a strong argument that one of the men had been found.

In the end, Tabram needs to be considered as potentially the first victim (who died, there may have been some prior non-fatal attacks, like Millwood, though her consideration is, in my view, tied to accepting Tabram). I believe it was the view of many of the police at the time that Tabram was part of the series. It was McNaughton who later rejected that idea when he penned his memorandum, creating the C5.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Have you ever encountered or read about the UK Serial killer Robert Napper. Napper was a very dangerous and violent man although described by work colleagues as neat and tidy, punctual, reliable if a little odd. He is known to have murdered two women in London in the early 1990's. His progression has very similar aspects to Jack the Ripper. He murdered a woman in a public park, Rachel Nickel, stabbing her in a frenzied attack 49 times.

He also killed Samantha Bisset. She was attacked after she opened her front door- similarities with the Ada Wilson attack maybe- and Napper then mutilated her body, posing her like the Ripper had done and then taking away body parts as 'trophies'. He also suffocated her little 4 year old daughter. An awful scene for her partner to have encountered the poor man.

I later transpired Napper was the Green chain Rapist. A man responsible for the rape of around 80 women in London in the late 1980's. To my mind the Ripper was someone just like him. It is also interesting that Napper was discounted from Police enquiries based on eyewitness descriptions that had stated the Green chain Rapist to be 5ft 8 inches or so by those who had seem him. Napper was over 6ft.