Was Tabram stabbed through her clothing?

[AmeliaV]

Long time Ripperologist, first time poster.


Martha Tabram was stabbed 39 times. Can anyone confirm where she was stabbed through her clothes?


We know from the Mitre Square photos and the Mitre Square sketch that for Kelly and Eddowes their clothing was ripped or pulled aside so Jack could complete his mutilations.

We know from the inquests of Chapman and Nichols that the clothing was pulled up to do the same:

John Davies - "The clothes were up to her groins."

Robert Paul - "The clothes were disarranged, and he helped to pull them down."


But with Tabram it doesn't seem so clear. There is a note about the clothes at the inquest:

John S. Reeves - "The deceased's clothes were disarranged, as though she had had a struggle with some one."


Like it was for Nichols, the term "disarranged" was used, but unlike Nichols there is no hint that the clothes were disarranged "up" the body. Also, the wounds on Nichols were in her abdomen, which could be administered after lifting her dress. Tabram was stabbed 39 times, as high up the body as the heart. If she'd been unclothed all the way up, there'd be words like "ripped" or "unbuttoned" or "untied" used in the inquest, right?

Can anyone help? Did Victorians use the term "disarranged" to cover any amount of clothing removal?

[Wickerman]

It's been a while since we talked over the mutilations of Tabram, I don't think she was a Ripper victim, but thats just me.
Stabbed through her clothes?
Do you mean like in the upper chest?
I can't remember the source at the moment but, she was stabbed in the chest, through her clothes. Around the heart were several smaller stab wounds almost circular in pattern, but in the middle stabbed once with a stout long bladed knife, possibly a dagger which was similar to a bayonet of the time.
There were other stab wounds in and around the neck.

[Barnaby]

Welcome to the boards, Amelia!

I don't have an answer to your question, but your observations did make me note how much more detailed even the Nichols murder account was as it pertains to her clothing and possessions.

Speculating, "disarranged" plus her legs being splayed to me suggests her skirts were pulled up, but I'd bet the stabs to the upper torso went through the clothes.

[AmeliaV]

It's been a while since we talked over the mutilations of Tabram, I don't think she was a Ripper victim, but thats just me.

I’ve always tried to remain a little agnostic on whether she’s a victim or not, but lately I’ve been leaning more on your side, this question being one of the things that’s making me question it more.

I think in the past I’d always assumed she’d been stabbed skin to skin because she’s put alongside other Ripper victims, but it just occurred to me recently that this was only an assumption I’d made.

[AmeliaV]

Welcome to the boards, Amelia!

Thanks Barnaby

Speculating, "disarranged" plus her legs being splayed to me suggests her skirts were pulled up, but I'd bet the stabs to the upper torso went through the clothes.

That sounds fair.

[Trevor Marriott]

I’ve always tried to remain a little agnostic on whether she’s a victim or not, but lately I’ve been leaning more on your side, this question being one of the things that’s making me question it more.

I think in the past I’d always assumed she’d been stabbed skin to skin because she’s put alongside other Ripper victims, but it just occurred to me recently that this was only an assumption I’d made.

Hi Amelia
In my opinion, Tabram was a Ripper victim, my opinion is based on the fact that the killer was only intent on murder and mutilation. Tabram was stabbed 39 times and the other victims were stabbed repeatedly through their outer clothing in what can be described as frenzied attacks.

I also do not subscribe to the killer removing and taking away the organs from the victims, if the killer was intent on organ harvesting as some researchers suggest then why would he mutilate the abdomens in such a way that would damage any organs he was looking to harvest?

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fleetwood Mac]

Long time Ripperologist, first time poster.


Martha Tabram was stabbed 39 times. Can anyone confirm where she was stabbed through her clothes?


We know from the Mitre Square photos and the Mitre Square sketch that for Kelly and Eddowes their clothing was ripped or pulled aside so Jack could complete his mutilations.

We know from the inquests of Chapman and Nichols that the clothing was pulled up to do the same:

John Davies - "The clothes were up to her groins."

Robert Paul - "The clothes were disarranged, and he helped to pull them down."


But with Tabram it doesn't seem so clear. There is a note about the clothes at the inquest:

John S. Reeves - "The deceased's clothes were disarranged, as though she had had a struggle with some one."


Like it was for Nichols, the term "disarranged" was used, but unlike Nichols there is no hint that the clothes were disarranged "up" the body. Also, the wounds on Nichols were in her abdomen, which could be administered after lifting her dress. Tabram was stabbed 39 times, as high up the body as the heart. If she'd been unclothed all the way up, there'd be words like "ripped" or "unbuttoned" or "untied" used in the inquest, right?

Can anyone help? Did Victorians use the term "disarranged" to cover any amount of clothing removal?

I don't think it is specifically stated anywhere, Amelia.

When describing Martha's clothes, they did mention that Martha's boots were worn but nothing about torn clothing, which may indicate that Martha's clothes weren't torn.

Dr Killeen stated this: whoever it was knew how and where to cut. This suggests that Dr Killeen did not see a frenzied attack in front of him, and as such it may suggest that it didn't happen through Martha's clothes.

In terms of whether or not Martha was a victim of the WM, I reckon there is a history of erroneous assumptions relating to serial killers and their actions.

The long held view was that serial killers are rigid in their patterns and methods but that wasn't based on empirical studies of the actions of serial killers.

Recently, empirical studies have demonstrated that serial killers do not follow such rigid patterns and are in fact flexible in their methods, including choice of weapon on occasion.

On balance, I think Martha was a victim of the WM, maybe 60/40 for, and there are some similarities with the murders that followed, including a critical one: the body being displayed similar to Polly Nichols.

[AmeliaV]

Hi Trevor

In my opinion, Tabram was a Ripper victim, my opinion is based on the fact that the killer was only intent on murder and mutilation. Tabram was stabbed 39 times and the other victims were stabbed repeatedly through their outer clothing in what can be described as frenzied attacks.

This resource shows the outer wounds for Tabram and the canonical five. Apart from neck wounds, the wounds are all in the areas where clothes were lifted or removed:

https://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-victimwounds.html

I also do not subscribe to the killer removing and taking away the organs from the victims, if the killer was intent on organ harvesting as some researchers suggest then why would he mutilate the abdomens in such a way that would damage any organs he was looking to harvest?

I'd have to disagree and say the Ripper's signature is a specific type of mutilation that includes organ removal. His interest is in the physical deconstruction of the parts of a woman's anatomy that has a power over him from the inside out. The information I can find on whether organs were taken away is explicitly said in Chapman's and Eddowes's post mortems, but might be argued to only be inferred from Kelly's:


Dr. George Bagster Phillips on Annie Chapman:

"from the pelvis, the uterus and its appendages with the upper portion of the vagina and the posterior two thirds of the bladder, had been entirely removed. No trace of these parts could be found and the incisions were cleanly cut,"

Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown on Catherine Eddowes:

"The uterus was cut away with the exception of a small portion, and the left kidney was also cut out. Both these organs were absent, and have not been found."

Dr. Thomas Bond on Mary Kelly:

"The Pericardium was open below & the Heart absent."

But even if we disagree on whether the organs were removed from the scenes, these and others were definitely removed from their places in the victims. This is the signature of the Ripper.

As John Douglas from Behavioral Unit of the FBI put it:

"Modus operandi--MO--is learned behavior. It's what the perpetrator does to commit the crime. It is dynamic--that is, it can change. Signature, a term I coined to distinguish it from MO, is what the perpetrator has to do to fulfill himself. It is static; it does not change."

It makes sense that the longer the Ripper is with a victim, the more we see what he wants he needs to fulfill himself. This makes Kelly's his most fulfilling murder, followed by Eddowes's and Chapman's. Less fulfilling would've been Nichols's and Stride's. Although I don't think it can ever be said with 100% certainty that Stride is a Ripper victim, I won't eliminate her because the murderer's desired trajectory to organ removal cannot be eliminated from the murder. And if we accept Stride as a victim, she is also like Nichols in that the implied interruption leads to the shortest gaps after the murders: a week for Nichols, an hour for Stride.

The dream of removing organs is such an extreme kind of obsession that most of us can't even begin to imagine how someone develops it. In serial killers that have been identified, we find that their obsessions reach back into their formative years. The Ripper would've fantasised about extracting organs from women long before he started doing it. It's not something he just started thinking about between August 7th and August 31st 1888.

So if the Ripper had killed Martha Tabram, then his reason for doing so was the same for the other victims. Thus, I can't see him wasting that precious shrinking window of ripping time by just continuing to stab her over and over again. These post mortem wounds would've taken longer to exact than ones on Nichols. And I find it harder to believe if he did it over clothes. For someone craving an intimate experience of a warm abdominal cavity, stabbing through clothes is just going soften the thrill he's looking for.

If I were to speculate how Tabram's murder fits into the Whitechapel Murderer story, I'd say:

The Ripper had these fantasies but didn't see an avenue to get away with them. Maybe he had a softer outlet in his occupational space that put him in touch with bodies - e.g. gravedigging or undertaking. Then when the Tabram murder happened, he paid close attention. He was excited to discover over the course of August that stranger murders, specifically of sex workers, were near-on impossible to solve when the killer's not caught in the act. So he adopted that part of Tabram's murderer's modus operandi.

That would make his first victim Polly Nichols, who he made a mistake with. He didn't learn an important lesson from the murder on the stairwell of George Yard and instead killed his first victim in the middle of a street - Buck's Row. Hence, this is why Nichols's body is the only one that three people independently turn up to discover. After that, the Ripper learns to avoid thoroughfares, which is why his subsequent murders are in yards, a square and a room. Usually that works out for him.

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Trevor



This resource shows the outer wounds for Tabram and the canonical five. Apart from neck wounds, the wounds are all in the areas where clothes were lifted or removed:

https://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-victimwounds.html

I'd have to disagree and say the Ripper's signature is a specific type of mutilation that includes organ removal. His interest is in the physical deconstruction of the parts of a woman's anatomy that has a power over him from the inside out. The information I can find on whether organs were taken away is explicitly said in Chapman's and Eddowes's post mortems, but might be argued to only be inferred from Kelly's:


Dr. George Bagster Phillips on Annie Chapman:




Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown on Catherine Eddowes:




Dr. Thomas Bond on Mary Kelly:




But even if we disagree on whether the organs were removed from the scenes, these and others were definitely removed from their places in the victims. This is the signature of the Ripper.

As John Douglas from Behavioral Unit of the FBI put it:



It makes sense that the longer the Ripper is with a victim, the more we see what he wants he needs to fulfill himself. This makes Kelly's his most fulfilling murder, followed by Eddowes's and Chapman's. Less fulfilling would've been Nichols's and Stride's. Although I don't think it can ever be said with 100% certainty that Stride is a Ripper victim, I won't eliminate her because the murderer's desired trajectory to organ removal cannot be eliminated from the murder. And if we accept Stride as a victim, she is also like Nichols in that the implied interruption leads to the shortest gaps after the murders: a week for Nichols, an hour for Stride.

The dream of removing organs is such an extreme kind of obsession that most of us can't even begin to imagine how someone develops it. In serial killers that have been identified, we find that their obsessions reach back into their formative years. The Ripper would've fantasised about extracting organs from women long before he started doing it. It's not something he just started thinking about between August 7th and August 31st 1888.

So if the Ripper had killed Martha Tabram, then his reason for doing so was the same for the other victims. Thus, I can't see him wasting that precious shrinking window of ripping time by just continuing to stab her over and over again. These post mortem wounds would've taken longer to exact than ones on Nichols. And I find it harder to believe if he did it over clothes. For someone craving an intimate experience of a warm abdominal cavity, stabbing through clothes is just going soften the thrill he's looking for.

If I were to speculate how Tabram's murder fits into the Whitechapel Murderer story, I'd say:

The Ripper had these fantasies but didn't see an avenue to get away with them. Maybe he had a softer outlet in his occupational space that put him in touch with bodies - e.g. gravedigging or undertaking. Then when the Tabram murder happened, he paid close attention. He was excited to discover over the course of August that stranger murders, specifically of sex workers, were near-on impossible to solve when the killer's not caught in the act. So he adopted that part of Tabram's murderer's modus operandi.

That would make his first victim Polly Nichols, who he made a mistake with. He didn't learn an important lesson from the murder on the stairwell of George Yard and instead killed his first victim in the middle of a street - Buck's Row. Hence, this is why Nichols's body is the only one that three people independently turn up to discover. After that, the Ripper learns to avoid thoroughfares, which is why his subsequent murders are in yards, a square and a room. Usually that works out for him.

Thank you for your reply but it is full of conjecture.

I do not subscribe to the belief that the killer removed the organs and took them away, if that were his motive as I previously stated why would he mutilate the abdomens severing blood vessels and arteries making the abdomens fill up with blood and making it even more difficult to not only remove them but to locate them in the first instance, and remove them quickly with what was described as anatomical knowledge and in minutes in almost total darkness. it didn't happen !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

To say that he didn’t remove organs is conjecture.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Trevor



This resource shows the outer wounds for Tabram and the canonical five. Apart from neck wounds, the wounds are all in the areas where clothes were lifted or removed:

https://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-victimwounds.html

I'd have to disagree and say the Ripper's signature is a specific type of mutilation that includes organ removal. His interest is in the physical deconstruction of the parts of a woman's anatomy that has a power over him from the inside out. The information I can find on whether organs were taken away is explicitly said in Chapman's and Eddowes's post mortems, but might be argued to only be inferred from Kelly's:


Dr. George Bagster Phillips on Annie Chapman:




Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown on Catherine Eddowes:




Dr. Thomas Bond on Mary Kelly:




But even if we disagree on whether the organs were removed from the scenes, these and others were definitely removed from their places in the victims. This is the signature of the Ripper.

As John Douglas from Behavioral Unit of the FBI put it:



It makes sense that the longer the Ripper is with a victim, the more we see what he wants he needs to fulfill himself. This makes Kelly's his most fulfilling murder, followed by Eddowes's and Chapman's. Less fulfilling would've been Nichols's and Stride's. Although I don't think it can ever be said with 100% certainty that Stride is a Ripper victim, I won't eliminate her because the murderer's desired trajectory to organ removal cannot be eliminated from the murder. And if we accept Stride as a victim, she is also like Nichols in that the implied interruption leads to the shortest gaps after the murders: a week for Nichols, an hour for Stride.

The dream of removing organs is such an extreme kind of obsession that most of us can't even begin to imagine how someone develops it. In serial killers that have been identified, we find that their obsessions reach back into their formative years. The Ripper would've fantasised about extracting organs from women long before he started doing it. It's not something he just started thinking about between August 7th and August 31st 1888.

So if the Ripper had killed Martha Tabram, then his reason for doing so was the same for the other victims. Thus, I can't see him wasting that precious shrinking window of ripping time by just continuing to stab her over and over again. These post mortem wounds would've taken longer to exact than ones on Nichols. And I find it harder to believe if he did it over clothes. For someone craving an intimate experience of a warm abdominal cavity, stabbing through clothes is just going soften the thrill he's looking for.

If I were to speculate how Tabram's murder fits into the Whitechapel Murderer story, I'd say:

The Ripper had these fantasies but didn't see an avenue to get away with them. Maybe he had a softer outlet in his occupational space that put him in touch with bodies - e.g. gravedigging or undertaking. Then when the Tabram murder happened, he paid close attention. He was excited to discover over the course of August that stranger murders, specifically of sex workers, were near-on impossible to solve when the killer's not caught in the act. So he adopted that part of Tabram's murderer's modus operandi.

That would make his first victim Polly Nichols, who he made a mistake with. He didn't learn an important lesson from the murder on the stairwell of George Yard and instead killed his first victim in the middle of a street - Buck's Row. Hence, this is why Nichols's body is the only one that three people independently turn up to discover. After that, the Ripper learns to avoid thoroughfares, which is why his subsequent murders are in yards, a square and a room. Usually that works out for him.

Good post Amelia. Welcome to Casebook.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I was surprised to see that a poll conducted on another thread made Tabram the favourite non-canonical candidate for victim of the Whitechapel Murderer.

I have always thought that the lack of excision and the excessive stabbing make her an unlikely victim of his.

[Mark J D]

If I were to speculate how Tabram's murder fits into the Whitechapel Murderer story, I'd say:

The Ripper had these fantasies but didn't see an avenue to get away with them. Maybe he had a softer outlet in his occupational space that put him in touch with bodies - e.g. gravedigging or undertaking. Then when the Tabram murder happened, he paid close attention. He was excited to discover over the course of August that stranger murders, specifically of sex workers, were near-on impossible to solve when the killer's not caught in the act. So he adopted that part of Tabram's murderer's modus operandi.

That would make his first victim Polly Nichols, who he made a mistake with. He didn't learn an important lesson from the murder on the stairwell of George Yard and instead killed his first victim in the middle of a street - Buck's Row. Hence, this is why Nichols's body is the only one that three people independently turn up to discover. After that, the Ripper learns to avoid thoroughfares, which is why his subsequent murders are in yards, a square and a room. Usually that works out for him.

Hi Amelia. I like your thinking. But what do you make of the Emilia Fox BBC documentary's use of the Home Office's whizzy HOLMES program -- which links Tabram's murder with the C5?

Don't know if this video will work in your locality; but the section starts at 33"00'...

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x75c6r6

Bests,

Mark D.

[GBinOz]

Thank you for your reply but it is full of conjecture.

I do not subscribe to the belief that the killer removed the organs and took them away, if that were his motive as I previously stated why would he mutilate the abdomens severing blood vessels and arteries making the abdomens fill up with blood and making it even more difficult to not only remove them but to locate them in the first instance, and remove them quickly with what was described as anatomical knowledge and in minutes in almost total darkness. it didn't happen !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Hi Trevor,

I can also see anomalies in this regard.

At Chapman's inquest the coroner is asking questions of Phillips and Sgt. Badham regarding when the organs went missing. Her body was left by Chandler in the mortuary under guard, but was found by the nurses unattended in the yard and had been stripped on the order of the trustee.

In regard to Eddowes, you have consulted modern day experts that have concluded that there was not sufficient time for the organs removals from Eddowes. There is a thread where Prosector, a surgeon and teacher of anatomy, points out that in 1888 the first appendectomy was yet to be performed, and doctor's would have have little to no experience of surgery or autopsies. The man with such experience was police surgeon Phillips. As Prosector points out, there is a huge difference between surgery conducted in a theatre, with assistance and instruments such as retractors, and surgery conducted while crouching beside the subject in the dark.

My daughter is holds a Masters in Midwifery and has hands on experience of actual surgery. She advised me that at the crime scene the doctor would not necessarily have noticed whether actual organs were missing. That discovery would more likely have been made at the autopsy. When I asked her have a look at the autopsies of Chapman and Eddowes she came back with a comment and a question. She commented that the organ removals from Eddowes could not have been achieved in that time under those conditions. Her question was, are there any theories that these two mutilations were by different perpetrators.

Welcome to the madhouse Amelia...save yourself...run away while you still can.

Cheers, George

[Fleetwood Mac]

I was surprised to see that a poll conducted on another thread made Tabram the favourite non-canonical candidate for victim of the Whitechapel Murderer.

I have always thought that the lack of excision and the excessive stabbing make her an unlikely victim of his.

I reckon that we can gain an insight into the WM by looking at other serial killers.

In the event we were to look at, Peter Sutcliffe, for example:

Emily Jackson was stabbed 52 times in the neck, breasts, lower abdomen, and back; and he thrust a piece of wood between her legs.

Anna Rogulskyj was hit with a hammer and slashed with a knife, but not killed.

Tracy Browne was struck on the head five times, but wasn't stabbed or slashed or mutilated.

Irene Richardson was bludgeoned to death with a hammer and stabbed in the stomach. After death, Sutcliffe continued to mutilate her body.

Jayne MacDonald was hit with a hammer and had a broken bottle embedded in her chest.

The above are only some of the attacks/murders prior to 1978.

Had Sutcliffe not been caught, and we were discussing the attacks in that period, a decent number of those 20 attacks would not be attributed to the same hand. That is, in event we assume a murder series should follow a defined method.

In fact, the police at the time didn't attribute some of those attacks to Sutcliffe, and given that his first known attack was in 1969, and he was caught lurking with a knife and a hammer around that time also; I think it is fair to believe that there were attacks between 1969 and 1975 (the first known murder victim) that were never conclusively attributed to him. In fact, a police investigation (after Sutcliffe's capture) concluded that there may have been as many as another 20 attacks attributable to Sutcliffe.

I reckon it's a fair bet that the 'canonical five' is an underestimation, and the nature of the wounds doesn't preclude Martha. Dr Killeen stated that whoever did it knew how and where to cut, which does not suggest he saw a frenzied attach in front of him, and Martha's body was displayed very similar to Polly's.