Ripperologist 146 - October 2015

[Abby Normal]

Hi Ben,

I'm sorry but I just don't buy it. As Mike points out, JtR was very consistent in respect of his MO and signature, I.e targeting prostitutes, demonstrating escalating violence, focussing on mutilations, murdering his victims by slitting their throat. The idea that such a clearly disturbed individual would re-emerge several years later as a flasher, indecency assaulting. I.e not mutilating or killing, young boys is in my view somewhat preposterous. And where are the precedents for such a dramatic change in MO/signaure?

Yes, I know anything's possible, and in that regard even a Jill the Ripper, in the guise of a crazy midwife, has been suggested. But that doesn't necessarily make the proposition remotely likely. In fact, frankly I think it a hundred times more likely that MJK was murdered by Astrachan Man than Aussie George.

This is pretty much the same argument used by GR Sims in respect of the unsuitanility of George Chapman's candidacy for Jack. And you know what? He was absolutely right.

well then Aussie George has fooled you too! ; )

[Abby Normal]

Hi Fish,

Good point. As Schlesinger (2010), notes, serial killer rituals do sometimes evolve or become more elaborate. However, they still remain "behavioural and thematically consistent". The difficulty, therefore, is that there is nothing that is remotely consistent about a neck and abdominal mutilator who re-emerges several years later, fully transformed into a flasher who indecently assaults young boys. And this is even more apparent when you consider the sexual motive of the respective crimes; put simply, a serial killer who is attracted to adult women is not likely to subsequently become attracted to young boys.

This is true. Its the usual rule and rightly so.

However, There are exceptions and the ripper was an exception to begin with.

one of the biggest myths in criminology JohnG, is that serial killers don't change their MO or victimology-they do.

in this case, the common denominator is not women, but defenseless victims.

And there was no overt sexual connotation to the women murdered-it may have been curiosity/ what can my knife do?

Also, think of the BG man and his encounter with Sarah Lewis and the other women. see a similarity?

[John G]

Of course it can be argued the Ripper may have been primarily interested in women and not in prostitutes per se.
The key point about Sutcliffe, though, is that we have no record of him moving on after his killings to flashing in front of small boys...

Hi Fish,

Good point. As Schlesinger (2010), notes, serial killer rituals do sometimes evolve or become more elaborate. However, they still remain "behavioural and thematically consistent". The difficulty, therefore, is that there is nothing that is remotely consistent about a neck and abdominal mutilator who re-emerges several years later, fully transformed into a flasher who indecently assaults young boys. And this is even more apparent when you consider the sexual motive of the respective crimes; put simply, a serial killer who is attracted to adult women is not likely to subsequently become attracted to young boys.

[Fisherman]

Hello Mike,

Yes, I would tend to agree. JtR essentially assaulted women in public places, with the exception of Kelly, assuming she was a Ripper victim, and I'm sure opportunism was an important factor. I therefore have no difficulty with his attacking non-prostitutes. After all, Sutcliffe attacked a 14 year old schoolgirl down a quiet country lane. However, even with this victim his MO was consistent: she was assaulted with a hammer in a surprise attack from behind.

Of course it can be argued the Ripper may have been primarily interested in women and not in prostitutes per se.
The key point about Sutcliffe, though, is that we have no record of him moving on after his killings to flashing in front of small boys...

[Fisherman]

In fact, frankly I think it a hundred times more likely that MJK was murdered by Astrachan Man than Aussie George.

And so you should. Albeit the misgivings with a number of posters who suggest that we should treat Astrakhan Man as somebody who has never existed, we actually need to treat him as a real figure as long as the opposite cannot nearly be proven.

As such, he is therefore a man who evinced an interest in prostituted women, who was in direct contact with Mary Kelly, and a man who can be shown to have been at the murder site at a remove in time that is either very close or reasonably close in time to the murder to be of interest for the investigators.

Whereas Flash George evinced an interest for small boys and cannot be proven to ever have been in the East End or London, and has no known ties to the Whitechapel murders at all, as far as we know.

It is a complete mismatch.

[John G]

That isn't necessarily true. The pattern you see is prostitutes. The pattern the killer may have seen was "easy female victims" with prostitutes being the simplest victim to attain, but that doesn't necessitate any special predatory notion towards prostitutes. Many have argues against one victim or another even being on the game the night they were murdered, not that I agree with that. The idea of this pattern you suggest (and others of course) simplifies things in a way that aint necessarily so.

Mike

Hello Mike,

Yes, I would tend to agree. JtR essentially assaulted women in public places, with the exception of Kelly, assuming she was a Ripper victim, and I'm sure opportunism was an important factor. I therefore have no difficulty with his attacking non-prostitutes. After all, Sutcliffe attacked a 14 year old schoolgirl down a quiet country lane. However, even with this victim his MO was consistent: she was assaulted with a hammer in a surprise attack from behind.

[The Good Michael]

The problem I see with JtR murdering anyone other than harlots is his pattern is harlots.

That isn't necessarily true. The pattern you see is prostitutes. The pattern the killer may have seen was "easy female victims" with prostitutes being the simplest victim to attain, but that doesn't necessitate any special predatory notion towards prostitutes. Many have argues against one victim or another even being on the game the night they were murdered, not that I agree with that. The idea of this pattern you suggest (and others of course) simplifies things in a way that aint necessarily so.

Mike

[John G]

Fisherman,

How many known serial killers receive extensive police and media interest in the wake of an early crime, and yet go on to claim more victims? The answer is zero. That would make Crossmere an "unlikely candidate" according to your argument that Jack the Ripper was "unlikely" to have engaged in any sort of behaviour that would run the risk of making him a "rarity" among serial killers. You can either stick with that argument, with all the negative implications it has for your selection of Crossmere as your ripper suspect of preference, or you can accept that you don't really know very much about this stuff.

Most experts in sadosexual serial murder will tell you that early triggers for crimes such the ones the ripper committed will typically involve such lesser offences as stalking, "peeping tommery" and flashing, but that doesn't mean that these lesser offences get abandoned forever the moment an offender embarks upon a more advanced crime, such as murder and mutilation. A flasher can advance to mutilation murder and return thence to flashing when the opportunity presents itself, if he wants.

Hi John,

The fact that I was able to provide these examples off the top of me head (and the list was by no means exhaustive) evinces a telling clue with regard to the obvious non-rarity of serial killers targetting different ages and genders. The problem with excluding any behaviour that might be construed as belonging to a "rarity" amongst serial killers is that you end up, paradoxically, with a being so incredibly rare that he doesn't exist. A significant minority of serial killers engage in post-mortem mutilation - does that mean it didn't happen in the ripper's case; because most serial killers don't do that? Show me a serial killer whose behaviour is consistent with the majority of other serial killers in every respect, and I'd be truly fascinated.

Andrei Chikatilo was a "sexually motivated serial killer" whose victims included boys and women, and no, he is not "exceptionally rare" in that regard - unless you're in possession of statistics I've somehow missed.

Hi Ben,

I'm sorry but I just don't buy it. As Mike points out, JtR was very consistent in respect of his MO and signature, I.e targeting prostitutes, demonstrating escalating violence, focussing on mutilations, murdering his victims by slitting their throat. The idea that such a clearly disturbed individual would re-emerge several years later as a flasher, indecency assaulting. I.e not mutilating or killing, young boys is in my view somewhat preposterous. And where are the precedents for such a dramatic change in MO/signaure?

Yes, I know anything's possible, and in that regard even a Jill the Ripper, in the guise of a crazy midwife, has been suggested. But that doesn't necessarily make the proposition remotely likely. In fact, frankly I think it a hundred times more likely that MJK was murdered by Astrachan Man than Aussie George.

This is pretty much the same argument used by GR Sims in respect of the unsuitanility of George Chapman's candidacy for Jack. And you know what? He was absolutely right.

[Fisherman]

Ben: Fisherman,

How many known serial killers receive extensive police and media interest in the wake of an early crime, and yet go on to claim more victims? The answer is zero.

Is it? I think that almost all serial killers receive extensive police and media interest in the wake of an early crime and go on to claim more victims. Otherwise they would not have become serial killers.

I suspect that you are aware of this too? Therefore, you are probably trying to make another point, but you are failing to deliver it.

Are you perhaps asking how many serial killers who become known to the police and press at an early stage of their criminal carreer, will then go on to kill? Is that it? If so, you should not have used "known" in the context you did. To me, it reads like "identified", no matter when it happened in the process. Some serialists are known to us, others are not (Bundy - the Zodiac).

But never mind! If the question you try to ask is the one I think, you must to begin with realize that you cannot make the kind of call you are trying to make. There is always the category of unidentified serialists, and none of us can possibly know whether any of these have been in contact with the police and press.

There is also the issue of what you speak about as "extensive police and media interest". Lechmere was in contact with both police and press, but not in the capacity of a suspect. So I donīt see how all of this would apply to him.
Frankly, even if he HAD been researched as a suspect but let go, I donīt think that such a thing would be any guarantee that he would not kill again. It would equal saying that known killers or people suspected of having killed, would never go on to kill again.
It would be nice and a better world and all that if it was so, but it isnīt, Iīm afraid.

Now, Ben, you write that I would have argued that "Jack the Ripper was "unlikely" to have engaged in any sort of behaviour that would run the risk of making him a "rarity" among serial killers."

I sense a misunderstanding on your behalf here, but you may perhaps be able to further elucidate what you are on about?

You can either stick with that argument, with all the negative implications it has for your selection of Crossmere as your ripper suspect of preference, or you can accept that you don't really know very much about this stuff.

I actually work from the presumption that I am by far the more knowledgeable of us in matters like these, so my guess is that we can safely rule out the latter suggestion.

But what of the former suggestion? How would Lechmereīs viability as the killer hinge on any "negative implications", and what would they be?

Are you saying that since Lechmere was in contact with police and press in relation to the Nichols murder, he would somehow be taken off the list as a possible candidate for the ensuing murders...? Is that it?
If so, you would have been in for a rough ride - if I could muster any interest in debating with you. Sadly, I very rarely feel any such inclination these days, so the sooner we can straighten this out, the better, as far as I am concerned. We do know that men like Ridgway, under suspicion for many years in relation to the Green River murders, went on to kill in spite of this. And we do know that Lechmere was never a suspect to begin with.

Most experts in sadosexual serial murder will tell you that early triggers for crimes such the ones the ripper committed will typically involve such lesser offences as stalking, "peeping tommery" and flashing, but that doesn't mean that these lesser offences get abandoned forever the moment an offender embarks upon a more advanced crime, such as murder and mutilation. A flasher can advance to mutilation murder and return thence to flashing when the opportunity presents itself, if he wants.

And the very same experts will tell you that typically, there will be an escalation of sorts involved in most killing series.

They will also tell you that the escalation as such is often knit to a breach of taboos, so to speak - the killer goes longer and longer in exploring his desires, and he crosses boundaries in doing so.

They will also tell you that for many killers, the initial, milder, forms of violence applied to early victims, were enough at that stage to satisfy them, but once they have started to cross boundaries into areas involving more extreme violence, there is every chance that they will no longer be satisfied by what inititally worked for them.

They will also tell you that a killer with an identified victim group (like, for example, adult women), is unlikely to shift his interest to another group.

They will also tell you that a shift of interest in the victim group involving a change of choice of gender is very, very rare. If it truly mirrors the killers interests, it is more or less unheard of.

Finally, these experts would in all probability, if they could look at the case before us, say that much as they could not definitively exclude it, they would not think that Aussie Flasher was Jack the Ripper. They would - like I do - point to how the inherent differences argue very much against it.

If you really DO know a little something about the underlying psychology governing what serialists are about, you will recognize this.

[Abby Normal]

Fisherman,

How many known serial killers receive extensive police and media interest in the wake of an early crime, and yet go on to claim more victims? The answer is zero. That would make Crossmere an "unlikely candidate" according to your argument that Jack the Ripper was "unlikely" to have engaged in any sort of behaviour that would run the risk of making him a "rarity" among serial killers. You can either stick with that argument, with all the negative implications it has for your selection of Crossmere as your ripper suspect of preference, or you can accept that you don't really know very much about this stuff.

Most experts in sadosexual serial murder will tell you that early triggers for crimes such the ones the ripper committed will typically involve such lesser offences as stalking, "peeping tommery" and flashing, but that doesn't mean that these lesser offences get abandoned forever the moment an offender embarks upon a more advanced crime, such as murder and mutilation. A flasher can advance to mutilation murder and return thence to flashing when the opportunity presents itself, if he wants.

Hi John,

The fact that I was able to provide these examples off the top of me head (and the list was by no means exhaustive) evinces a telling clue with regard to the obvious non-rarity of serial killers targetting different ages and genders. The problem with excluding any behaviour that might be construed as belonging to a "rarity" amongst serial killers is that you end up, paradoxically, with a being so incredibly rare that he doesn't exist. A significant minority of serial killers engage in post-mortem mutilation - does that mean it didn't happen in the ripper's case; because most serial killers don't do that? Show me a serial killer whose behaviour is consistent with the majority of other serial killers in every respect, and I'd be truly fascinated.

Andrei Chikatilo was a "sexually motivated serial killer" whose victims included boys and women, and no, he is not "exceptionally rare" in that regard - unless you're in possession of statistics I've somehow missed.

Now. That's a post.

[Ben]

Fisherman,

How many known serial killers receive extensive police and media interest in the wake of an early crime, and yet go on to claim more victims? The answer is zero. That would make Crossmere an "unlikely candidate" according to your argument that Jack the Ripper was "unlikely" to have engaged in any sort of behaviour that would run the risk of making him a "rarity" among serial killers. You can either stick with that argument, with all the negative implications it has for your selection of Crossmere as your ripper suspect of preference, or you can accept that you don't really know very much about this stuff.

Most experts in sadosexual serial murder will tell you that early triggers for crimes such the ones the ripper committed will typically involve such lesser offences as stalking, "peeping tommery" and flashing, but that doesn't mean that these lesser offences get abandoned forever the moment an offender embarks upon a more advanced crime, such as murder and mutilation. A flasher can advance to mutilation murder and return thence to flashing when the opportunity presents itself, if he wants.

Hi John,

The fact that I was able to provide these examples off the top of me head (and the list was by no means exhaustive) evinces a telling clue with regard to the obvious non-rarity of serial killers targetting different ages and genders. The problem with excluding any behaviour that might be construed as belonging to a "rarity" amongst serial killers is that you end up, paradoxically, with a being so incredibly rare that he doesn't exist. A significant minority of serial killers engage in post-mortem mutilation - does that mean it didn't happen in the ripper's case; because most serial killers don't do that? Show me a serial killer whose behaviour is consistent with the majority of other serial killers in every respect, and I'd be truly fascinated.

Andrei Chikatilo was a "sexually motivated serial killer" whose victims included boys and women, and no, he is not "exceptionally rare" in that regard - unless you're in possession of statistics I've somehow missed.

[Pcdunn]

Very interesting article, thank you for the preview!

[Paddy]

wasn't aussie George in jail for the indescent assault during this time?

Hi Abby He was tried in December 1896 and was sentenced to two years.
It stated that the press commented on it for 3 months before.
I am not 100% sure but couldnt the time on remand count as part of the sentence. In England people get time off for good behaviour not sure about 1898 Australia though? Perhaps if GUT is around he might know?

It may not be him but I just loved the description. I wonder how one finds release from prisons as that would help too....

The George Hutchinson that was on the orphan training ship could just as easily joined the Merchant Navy and went as and when he felt like a trip away. I must check him out again.

All the Best
Pat...

[Abby Normal]

With all due respect, John, very little of what you say is true.

If Arthur Shawcross was an "exceptionally rare serial killer", I'd be interested to see an example of an "ABC bog-standard serial killer". It is quite simply not "exceptionally rare" for serial killers to target boys as well as adult females - Arthur Shawcross is one example; there is also Nathaniel Code, Andrei Chikatilo, William Hare, Joseph Vacher, and Dennis Rader, among others.

There's also nothing remotely "rare" about a serial killer targetting girls as well as women.

All the best,
Ben

thanks Ben. I knew there was others than schawcross!

[Abby Normal]

I found this chap below in the New South Wales Police Gazette 1898. He seems to have ran off with a married woman. His description is similar to blotchy...

Also there was a George Hutchinson that was on a training ship when young. He was born in Whitechapel and I believe his mums name was Kezia...
Pat..

wasn't aussie George in jail for the indescent assault during this time?