(The Summary is a full and concise statement of the logical argument manifesting the case solution.
The Thesis provides a common language setting for the argument.)
SUMMARY OF THE THESIS, IN QUESTION AND ANSWER FORMAT
1. What is The Epistemological Center of the Case?: (1) It is that whoever he might have been, the Whitechapel murderer was a psychopath. (2) Primary reference materials used to determine the case solution are the works of the psychiatrists Dr. Hervey M. Cleckley,[i] Dr. Robert D. Hare,[ii] and Dr. David Thoreson Lykken.[iii] (3) The case solution is arrived at first by a fair critical determination of a single factor under which it can be reasonably thought the entire body of case evidence may be logically predicated. Then a thorough examination of the evidence is undertaken in a questioning, responsively open and playful mode, by which it is determined whether or not it is so predicated. We give ourselves a chance to solve the case by positing, for the first time in Ripperology, what we should be looking for in the case evidence. We become able to determine what elements are related, and what unrelated, by their logical relation to the center. The case reaches solution as predication of all the evidence under psychopathy attains an adequate, critically appraisable holism. Ultimately, the mutilations on Catherine Eddowes’ face, the deduced plan behind the double event, the meaning of the spelling “Juwes,” the teapot spout with its melted solder -- in fact everything that can be reasonably thought of as the case evidence — logically mutually interpenetrates holistically as a single, complete thought. Alternative Ripperology represents a revolution in that the evidence of the case ultimately may be wholly re-described as an instance or a case history of psychopathy. Thus it is offered to the reader that the history of Ripperology as a body of thought has been completed.
2. Who Was the Whitechapel Murderer?: (1) A man who would have deemed, at the beginning of the Terror, his position of authority in his household to have been commandeered by his significant other’s exercising her maternal authority in mandating his acceptance of Aaron Kosminski’s presence in it. According to the evidence, therefore, likely either Woolf Abrahams or Morris Lubnowski committed the crimes. If neither, then another member or in-law of the greater Kosminski-Lubnowski-Cohen family did. (2) The originating motivation of the murder series is an externalization of consciousness counterintuitive to the understanding of normal people, but typical of the syndrome of psychopathy: the wish on the part of the perpetrator to control authority (in this case maternal authority) that he might himself be subjected to it. (3) No evidence indicates Aaron was involved with the murders. (4) Psychopathy is an untreatable personality disorder that effects from one to three per cent of the population. Because it is has been found to be unrelated to mental or emotional disturbance, psychopaths are usually held sane and responsible for their actions by the courts. Its likely origin is neither heredity nor environmental, but rather as-yet unspecified neonatal conditions. The subject is born without any facility to experience the emotion of fear, which in turn inevitably leads in childhood development to a permanent fragmentation with respect to learning, experiencing and appreciating any of the deeper, richer emotions and related dynamics of life. The result is a stunningly shallow and paradoxical personality mired in egocentrism, emotional immaturity, inconsistency and arbitrariness, an often-extreme pettiness of spirit, and antisocial and self-ruinous foolishness. One part of the directionality of the syndrome is the development of superior charm, social skills, confidence, deceptiveness, the ability to successfully impose ruthlessly leech-like dependence on others, and sporadically real brilliance. Another is a focused orientation on the present time and place, and on external or externalized objects and influences as sources of motivation. A third is the crystallization of the personality into so fixed and classic a typology that a psychopath of fourteenth century Bulgaria would be insignificantly different from one of present-day New York. Psychopaths have also been shown to lack a neurological partitioning or specialization of the brain into left and right hemispheres, resulting in a microsecond’s slowness in processing information compared to nominal people. This has been held in turn responsible for disabling them from developing anything remotely resembling a conscience, and for the occasional presence of certain semantic disorders. While the syndrome may make its beginning in either boys or girls, some studies have indicated boys are more likely to be psychopaths. No studies indicate an ethnic or racial bias for the occurrence of the syndrome. (5) A psychopath chooses his actions according to the pathology of his personality type, and this includes exceptional vulnerability to being prompted to act by his present external surroundings and conditions. Therefore a Jewish psychopath living in Victorian Whitechapel may be expected to attempt to seize what he would view as opportunities involving the Jewish people, culture, and customs of that time. But clearly he would not be representing the attitudes or beliefs of nominal Jewish people or the Jewish community in what he does.
3. Who Were His Victims?: Martha Tabram, Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly.
4. Who Was Robert Anderson’s Suspect?: Aaron Kosminski.
5. Who Was His Witness?: Joseph Hyam Levy.
6. For What Purposes Were the Whitechapel Murders Committed?: The murders represent three accumulating phases, or a riff of psychopathic projections, each having its own purposes respectively, correlative to various external circumstances of the murderer at different times:
PHASE I (Tabram, Nichols, Chapman): Fronting variously Edward Hyde and Dr. Henry Jekyll, (1) Paradoxically, in the sense of a psychopath being an externalized consciousness without an inside, to wreck, triumph over, gain vengeance on, possess and be subjected to maternal power by publicly exposing its impurity, and by making surgical correction via hysterectomy. The acceptance of very high factors of risk of apprehension blurs the distinction between escaping and being caught in the act, thus the deemed advantages of both are virtually achieved by the murderer despite his eluding the authorities. (2) To trivialize the maternal authority of his own significant other in mandating his acceptance of Aaron’s presence in their home. (3) To be at the center of public attention.7. What Was the Specific Precipitating Event Prompting Each of the Three Phases of Projections on the Part of the Psychopath, Respectively?PHASE II (Stride, Eddowes): Fronting Leather Apron in Berner Street, to (1) To recapture the center of public attention from John Pizer, (2) To qualify Jewish witnesses at two different murder scenes, at the same time structuring them by fear to decline to provide information about the murderer to the police. (3) To begin to perpetrate an extortion of the reward money.
PHASE III (Kelly): Fronting Jack the Ripper, (1) To force Levy to approach the murderer in a position of supplication, to save the Jewish people from an immanent pogrom by entreating the murderer to cease his murder series. (2) To raise the reward for identification of the murderer as high as possible, overcoming the decision on the part of the Home Office not to offer a reward. (3) To remain at the center of public attention for as long as possible.
PHASE I: The psychopath’s significant other notified him that she would keep a place for Aaron in their home, exercising her maternal right and privilege under conservative Jewish customs, because Aaron had lost the ability to care for himself. This left the psychopath replaced as the key authority (by his significant other) and center of family attention (by Aaron) and pettily irked.[iv]PHASE II: The Leather Apron affair raised a tremendous social sensation over John Pizer. This left the psychopath replaced as the center of public attention, and pettily irked.
PHASE III: Levy, attempting to limit his involvement, ignored the psychopath following the Duke Street sighting, and did not make contact to entreat him to stop his murder series as the psychopath wanted him to do. This left the psychopath disregarded, not the central figure in the matter concerning his witness as he wanted, and pettily irked.
8. Reasons the Bodies Were Left on Public Display: (1) To co-opt the public reaction to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, currently being offered at the Lyceum Theatre, displayed in the streets as theatre-goers left following the performance. (2) Theatrical exhibitions in public are among diverse antisocial misconduct typical of psychopaths. (3) To reveal to the public what he considered the impurity of maternal authority, with his surgical correction of the archetypical flaw of female hysteria and implied social stigmatization of it. (4) (Beginning with Stride) to terrify the public into pressing authorities to provide a large reward for the identification of the murderer.
9. The Purpose of the Change in Modus Operandi, Berner Street:
SPECIALLY CHOSEN VENUE: (1) The International Workingmen’s’ Education Club (IWEC) had recently and famously been the scene of an historically unprecedented disavowal of Jewish identity called the Black Fast, and a related flaring-up of conflicts between socialistic and capitalistic Jews, and between Orthodox and Reform Jews dwelling in Whitechapel. The psychopath wanted to trigger both deep fears and resentments among Jews, and antipathy toward Jews among gentiles, to serve as a backdrop for coercing his Jewish witnesses, and to bringing them under his control. (2) A likely place to find a Jewish witness.ACTION BEFORE A WITNESS: (1) To regain the center of public attention from John Pizer by fronting Leather Apron before a witness. (2) To foster the contention that Leather Apron was responsible for the murder of Elizabeth Stride. (3) To qualify a Jewish witness to identify the murderer.
ABSENCE OF MUTILIATIONS: Unnecessary in view of a second murder to be committed that night, the Berner Street witness having been successfully qualified to identify the murderer.
10. The Purpose of the Change in Modus Operandi, Duke Street:
SPECIALLY CHOSEN VENUE: (1) The time and position at the head of Church Passage were chosen to present the murderer and his victim to members and patrons leaving the Imperial Club at closing. (2) Members and patrons of the IWEC were Jews of a socially and politically opposite kind to those found at the Imperial Club. They willfully advanced the disavowal of their Jewish identity for the sake of the assimilation of the entire Jewish people into the international proletariat, were fundamentally anarchistic and worked actively for the violent overthrow of established society; whereas members of the Imperial Club were capitalist businessmen, some of them having become successful by their ruthless exploitation in local sweat shops of poor Jewish workers of the same class who were members of the IWEC, socially moderate, and innately opposed to the notion of disavowal. By perpetrating two sensational murders near the homes of these radical opposites, the murderer attempted to ignite as sharp a conflict between the two as possible. This would in turn serve as a powerful backdrop for manipulating his witnesses by terror.PRELIMINARY WITNESS SIGHTING: To qualify a Jewish witness to identify the murderer.
11. The Purpose of the Change in Modus Operandi, Mitre Square: SYMBOLIC FACIAL MUTILATIONS (BEST OBSERVED IN THE ‘POLICE SURGEON’S DIAGRAM’ MADE BY CITY SURVEYOR FREDERICK FOSTER OF CATHERINE EDDOWES’ FACE): The psychopath’s communication of four matters, rendered chiefly in the form of tailoring symbols:
(1) TWO TAILORING ARROWS, EACH POINTING TO AN EYE: When chalked onto a garment in tailoring, the arrow means to direct the attention of the operative tailor to the indicated spot, usually to make some alteration there. It is as if to say, “Look at this,” or “Don’t miss this.” E.g., may be drawn by a fitting tailor pointing to a seam to be opened or to a hem to be lengthened. Directed to Levy. Used in the present context to direct the observer’s attention to the eyes. The eye is the universal symbol of witnessing. Thus these two symbols acknowledge that Levy and the murderer previously noticed one another in Duke Street and are known one to the other. They mean here: “You saw me.”(2) LOWER FACIAL ABRASION: (Not a tailoring symbol.) Made by laying the knife on the face and pulling the sharpened side back and forth, similar to the way a barber would use a leather strap to sharpen the blade of his razor before shaving a customer. Used in context here to ruddy the face and portray a blush (albeit largely obscured in the mortuary photographs by unintended postmortem effects). Directed to Levy. The blush is the universal symbol of embarrassment. It means: “I’m caught. I’m guilty.”
(3) LEFT EYE FLAP “OPEN,” RIGHT EYE FLAP “SHUT”: When chalked onto a garment in tailoring, the symbol on the left eye (with a space between the vertical and horizontal lines) means “This flap (usually over a pocket) is to be left open,” and the symbol on the right eye (a straight vertical line meeting the bottom of the flap) means “This flap is to be sewn shut.” Directed to Levy. Used in context here referring to the eyelids, to portray a wink. The wink is the universal symbol of conspiracy. They mean: “Now it’s our secret.”
(4) TWO SIMILARLY SHAPED, ASYMMETRICALLY POSITIONED CURVES OR LINES ON HALF THE FACE AND RELATED TO THE NOSE; THE NOSE CUT OFF: When chalked onto a garment in tailoring, marks of this sort usually appear as parts of a symmetrical figure such as a circle, and mean “This is one, remember to consider the other one(s),” or in this case, with the reciprocal mark on the left side of the face omitted, “This is one, the other is missing, go find it.” They are used to indicate that the item chalked is part (“one of two or more of the like,” etc.) of a larger job. Used to structure the operative tailor’s attention toward the other items, so that he might also work on them, consider the various items together when finalizing alterations, and so on. Used in context here to denote the right half of the symmetrically divided apron (the larger mark “skirting” the nose) and the right kidney (the smaller mark “nestled under” the apron) that remained at the murder scene. Their left counterparts were “cut off” (denoted by the amputated nose) and are missing from the murder scene. Directed, respectively, to the police and to George Lusk. Used in the present context to help identify the Wentworth graffitus and the Lusk letter as genuine, in light of many hoax communications received at the time, allegedly from the murderer. They mean: “Find the other halves of the apron and kidney. Read my messages there.” The murderer further longitudinally divided the removed kidney when sending it to Lusk and retained half to tie it to the murder scene via symmetry, thus both the half-apron left at the Wentworth building and the half-kidney sent to Lusk exhibit the same nomenclature. (Note the murderer added smaller third and fourth tailoring arrows, as in (1) above, underneath each of these symmetrical curves or lines, in order to focus the attention of observers to them. With respect to the kidney line he even managed, despite fierce time pressure, a more-or-less horizontal line above his little arrow and under the lower lip to signify that the viewer’s attention should “skip over” the lips, thus to properly point to the line denoting the kidney above the lips and under the nose. The author is not certain whether this “skip over” horizontal line is a tailoring symbol, but it is commonly used.)
DISCRETE REMOVAL OF THE LEFT KIDNEY, AND TAKING HALF THE APRON: Symmetrical longitudinal division used as an identifying signature, in both cases exactly half the original personal item is provided to identify writings of the murderer.
12. The Cut On the Right Ear Is The One Facial Mutilation Not Explained By Number Eleven. What is It’s Meaning? (1) It is likely an abandoned project of the psychopath, and has no symbolic meaning in interpreting the other mutilations of Eddowes. As soon as he has Eddowes’ throat cut and her blood pumped onto the cobblestones, the murderer stops briefly to consider what he needs to get from this crime scene, especially in light of the complexities of the Duke Street sighting. He determines he needs two pieces that can be readily tied to Eddowes, one to identify his graffitus, the other to save for Lusk. The right ear being convenient where he crouches, he begins cutting at it. But then with his mind working at near warp speed under severe time pressure, the nature of the communications he intends and the face of the corpse grinning submissively up at him make the idea of using the symmetry of the human face and body as a mode of communication capriciously pop up. For while both an apron and a kidney can be longitudinally divided, an ear cannot.
13. Reasons For the Interval of Forty Minutes or More Between the Completion of Mutilations to Catherine Eddowes’ Corpse and the Discovery of the Wentworth Graffitus: The murderer needed to obtain chalk, compose the cryptic text in reflection of several rich contexts, especially the Duke Street sighting, and determine a suitable location where the writing would quickly provoke conflict between gentiles and Jews.
14. Why Did the Murderer Kill Two People on the Evening of September 30, 1888?: (1) Because testimony by witnesses of two separate murder scenes would affirmatively permit the payment of the reward, which he wanted to extort in turn. (2) In order to cause an apoplectic social disturbance in order to (a) coerce his witnesses, and (b) conspicuously reclaim the center of public attention from John Pizer. (3) Because the psychopath wanted to co-opt the public excitement over the Leather Apron affair as quickly as possible, while the craze still lasted. Murders on two different evenings might have only confused the public.
15. Is There Any Significance to Levy’s Evasiveness or Reticence Shown Toward Reporters, and at the Inquest? (1) Undoubtedly, because immediate independent changes of M.O. on the part of the murderer can reasonably be shown to have been reciprocally opposed to it. The combination of (a) a witness foretelling trouble prior to a murder concerning a couple sighted, and (b) markings made at that crime scene universally depicting witnessing, guilt, and conspiracy denote this unique situation. (2) The psychopath was able to ascertain that Levy had indeed recognized him in Duke Street from his aversion and closed-mouth attitude shown toward reporters and the coroner, and thus he followed with the Miller’s Court affair.
16. How was the Double Event Designed to Work? The double event and its planning may be thought of as a mini-case history of the syndrome of psychopathy. It is an ego projection in subjective disintegration, by which a man rather majestically hurls himself into a dustbin. Nevertheless it is not in itself disorderly, it is a plan, a supremely confident plan albeit smeared over and through with irrational expectations, and it is reasonably intelligible as shown by the evidence. Here is basically how it would have worked if the psychopath had been able to carry it off: (1) The psychopath observes how enthusiastically the gentile police, newspapers, and public persecute John Pizer as Leather Apron. Although innocent, Pizer is nearly lynched before he makes it to the police station for questioning. Despite Pizer’s alibi, many remain convinced the Whitechapel murderer is a Polish Jew who lives locally with his relatives. (2) The psychopath realizes he’s got an even better, more believable Leather Apron available, possibly sitting right in his kitchen: Aaron Kosminski. Aaron is Polish, Jewish, lives in the murder district with his relatives (when he’s not wandering about,) is roughly the right age and description, plus he’s got a great bonus characteristic of being a lunatic, whereas Pizer is sane. Many police were certain at the time that the Whitechapel murderer was a lunatic of some sort. (3) The psychopath determines he ought to be able to get everyone to pounce on Aaron just as they had on Pizer before; he thinks he can reduplicate the effect of Leather Apron affair of the previous two or three weeks. (4) If he handles it right, when Aaron is blamed for being Leather Apron, the Whitechapel murderer, a great reward would be paid. The psychopath sees a good opportunity, and wants a sporting chance at that money. (5) Using himself as bait, the psychopath deliberately and fearlessly exposes himself to witnesses at two different crime scenes. A witness at one crime scene would be insufficient to convict without physical or other evidence, putting the reward at risk of delay. But two witnesses at two crime scenes identifying the same man lock in a conviction and makes things quick and simple. (6) In Berner Street, the psychopath positions local prostitute Elizabeth Stride in front of the IWEC after charming her into agreeing to work for him, he as her pimp. He tells her he will walk up the street and wait for gentlemen listed in his book to appear at the corner. He will personally approve them for assignation with her, and send them down one at a time. (7) Waiting discretely around the west side corner of Commercial Road and Berner Street for a suitable pigeon to appear, the psychopath notes Israel Schwartz’s strongly Jewish features as he walks under the alternating gas lamps, heading east (toward him) on the south side of Commercial Road. He’ll do. The psychopath takes several steps back down toward Stride, and then freezes in mid-step, waiting to see if his pigeon will take a fateful right turn into Berner. Listening intently for his footsteps and focusing the corner of his eye on the cobblestones right at the architectural nexus of the corner, the psychopath detects the toe of Schwartz’ right shoe angling into Berner and instantly resumes walking down toward Stride. What Schwartz perceives is a somewhat tipsy young man walking ahead of him, and thinks little beyond an awareness of something vaguely unusual. What Stride perceives is her pimp apparently leading a gentleman down to be introduced to her. (8) What the psychopath then does exactly mimics what the public thinks the mythical Leather Apron does. He walks down a Whitechapel street, spies a prostitute, moves toward her, engages her in a conversation in which he would ostensibly menace her concerning her occupation telling her she has money he wants, and when she doesn’t hand the money over, he roughhouses and overpowers her. Supposedly, when the police discover this scenario by questioning the witness (Schwartz,) they will conclude that Leather Apron is back at work, and that he is in fact not John Pizer and that he is indeed the Whitechapel murderer. As soon as the witness is qualified he disposes of the prostitute, taking care to leave a signature of the Whitechapel murderer (e.g., the throat resolutely cut to the bone from left to right.) (9) Picking up a second prostitute at St. Botolph’s Church or some other convenient location, the psychopath positions her and himself for exposure to the Jewish patrons exiting the Imperial Club at closing time. As soon as a suitable pigeon emerges from the Club and walks by, and the psychopath is sure they have been adequately seen together (having donned a red neckerchief to draw the attention of his pigeon to his face in the gloaming,) he leads his victim down Church Passage to be murdered. He doesn’t need to enact Leather Apron a second time, but he does need to mutilate her, since he had not mutilated his first victim. Thus the dual signature of both Leather Apron and the Whitechapel murderer is unmistakably applied to the double event. (10) The cry “Lipski!” in Berner Street and the Wentworth graffitus convey to the Jewish witness the great danger in which they would be placing themselves if they were to identify the murderer. They know by his appearance that he is Jewish man. Additionally, sharp anti-Semitic and various internecine Semitic civil disturbances erupt related to the double event, further terrifying them of, respectively, pogrom and disavowal. Thus, temporarily, they cooperate with the police only up to a point, and although seen, the murderer remains safe. (11) The murderer obtains the two witnesses’ names and addresses from newspaper or other reports. Perhaps the day after the Home Office posts its reward, he boldly appears to each, and pompously regales them with a bizarre combination of a business proposition, a plan for the salvation of the Jewish people under desperate circumstances, and ruthless extortion. He alludes to the great upheavals following the double event as evidence of his near God-like power to decide the fate of the Jewish people. Perhaps one witness is to go to the police and give a description and approximate physical location of Aaron Kosminski, claiming to have seen the perpetrator walking in the streets. When Aaron is arrested and put in a police lineup, they will both identify him. The psychopath sweet talks them into believing that if they cooperate the matter would end with that and they would share in the reward. However if they don’t, he leaves open that he could murder again, and if apprehended, identify them as his friends who had not identified him to the police. (12) As soon as the reward is paid the psychopath again appears to the witnesses, demanding the entire amount as the only way of their being able to get him out of their lives, threatening them with whatever preposterous blarney he can think of at the moment. (13) As an alternative to (11) and (12), he may set up a third Jewish person to serve as a proxy informant to give over the proxy suspect to the police. The scam would basically work the same: the psychopath would somehow create a subject capable of being extorted, then terrify him with the immanence of Jewish extinction, next sweet talk him into the plot, then as soon as his two qualified witnesses identified the suspect at the police station and the reward had been paid to the informant, he’d hammer the pigeon for the money. This technique would avoid questions concerning police witnesses collecting a reward. In any event, detailed advance planning so far removed in time from the more immediate actions of the double event would essentially be anathema to his character — whatever measures might be required to collect the money later would seem a highly discountable triviality in the present to a man of his caliber in his estimation. (14) Thus the psychopath achieves both his objectives: He gets Aaron Kosminski out of his life, restoring himself as the center of authority and maternal attention at home, and he gets very rich.
17. Why Didn’t Israel Schwartz Report First Sight of The Man Attacking Elizabeth Stride Prior to His (Schwartz’) Turning Right on Berner Street? Considering that the man was walking not very far ahead and almost in single file with him when Schwartz reports first sighting him upon turning the corner (the two headed south on the west side of Berner Street), logically Schwartz should have seen him before turning the corner. Schwartz had walked a distance east on the south side of Commercial Road, which had put him in a position of commanding a clear view of Commercial Road, the entrance to Berner Street south and the associated entrances to Plumber’s Row and Greenfield Street north. Gas lamps adequately illuminated this open area. Backtracking a videotape of Schwartz’s vision as it were in the imagination, the man should first appear heading generally south through the open area into Berner Street in accord with the synchronicity of the time frame. This is because he is walking when Schwartz first sees him. But despite that Schwartz has about 15-20 seconds while still on Commercial Road to observe the man entering Berner Street he sees nothing. Certainly the man did not emerge from an address in Berner Street just ahead of Schwartz turning the corner. Following the murder, the police made a thorough investigation of all addresses there, and determined that none were connected to the murder of Elizabeth Stride. If the laws of time and space are to apply, then, there remain a very few possible explanations of this scenario. The man could have been walking east on Sander Street and turned right into Berner immediately before Schwartz did the same. This would be a coincidence on a night with few people walking about in these areas, and would be to some extent contradicted by Schwartz’s report that he noticed the man immediately upon turning the corner, implicitly placing the man rather closer to Schwartz, so as to loom larger in his field of vision at that point, and therefore more likely north of Sander Street. Thus discounted, the sole remaining reasonable possibility is that before Schwartz turned the corner, the man occupied the marginal area on the west side of Berner Street north of Sander Street, and that he was not walking.
18. A resolution of the cry “Lipski!” reported heard by Israel Schwartz in Berner Street: GENUINE. When applied ironically by one Jew to another in Whitechapel in 1888, the epithet accuses him of doing something or otherwise causing conditions that would tend to bring jingoistic gentile reactions against the Jewish community. It chastises the accused Jew for negatively representing the trustworthiness and reliability of the Jewish people to gentiles by his present misbehavior of some sort, with the implication that this negatively impacts efforts on the part of many members of the Jewish community to emerge from their present dire impoverishment. The term originated in use without irony by the gentile community the year before to stigmatize Jews as treacherous and uncivilized after Israel Lipski, a Jewish immigrant of neighboring Batty Street, perfidiously murdered Miriam Angel, his lover, by tricking her to consume poison.
19. An Explanation For the General Absence of Defense Wounds on, and Pristine Condition of, the Body of Elizabeth Stride, Despite That She Was Observed Being Attacked in Berner Street But Her Body Was Discovered Up the Alley Leading To Dutfield’s Yard: After Schwartz and the Pipe man exited the scene, the psychopath seems to have responded positively to Stride’s side of the argument, graciously apologized to her, helped her to her feet, sweet talked her into believing that his manhandling of her was simply a misunderstanding and all his fault in any event, and offered her a packet of sweet cachous as a reconciliation gift and token of his esteem. After helping her dust herself off and rearrange her disordered clothing, he offered her his left arm and asked her to accompany him behind the gate briefly, to exchange and make good to her credit on the previously disputed money in privacy. Still shaking a bit perhaps, she succumbed to his gallant deception and agreed to accompany him. Once there he deftly moved his left hand from her right hand to her left shoulder, and his right hand from her right arm to her right shoulder, pressed her shoulders down from behind and from her right, toward her left, and cut her throat. Thus in a sense the murder was carried out in a manner similar to other murders of his, in which he deftly moved his hands from the victim’s body to her throat just prior to his attack.
20. A Resolution of the Wentworth Graffitus: (“The Juwes are the men That Will not be Blamed for nothing”) GENUINE. (1) Not immediately being able to be sure of either (a) whether Levy recognized him in Duke Street, or (b) whether Levy mentioned that he knew him to his companions, the psychopath wanted to immediately extort either Levy or all three men, if need be, into conspiracy not to identify him, while providing no indication to them that he was attempting to do so if either (a) or (b) were not true; and while further providing no indication to the police or the public of an extortion attempt in any case. These were the compounded purposes and logical constraints accounting for the graffitus’ peculiarly cryptic text. The extortion is based on the proposition that identification of the Whitechapel murderer as a Jew could instigate an anti-Semitic pogrom in Britain similar to those currently being prosecuted in eastern Europe, and, therefore, having voluntarily identified the murderer instead of declining to do so, any Jewish witness and his family would face ostracism, reprisal or discomfiture from the Jewish community. (2) Juwe is a contraction of the German jugendwerk, meaning literally “early work;” it can also mean “youth organization.” German churches used the term broadly with respect to various youth-oriented activities such as catechism classes, group meetings and outings organized to help prepare youngsters for the Christian life, usually prior to confirmation. Juwe could be used to refer to a young Sunday-school student, for example, or alternatively could signify either the general notion, or a particular program of church-organized youth activities. Discrete depiction in the graffitus of Jewish witnesses as youngsters in training to become Christians conveys the sense of disavowal of Jewish identity with consequent assimilation into the Christian fold instinctively feared by most of the Jewish community of Whitechapel at the time (that part of the Jewish community repelled by Jewish anarchists), since precisely such terms had been recently imposed on them in eastern Europe under pogroms there. (3) The psychopath intends the graffitus to mean to the witnesses: “The Jewish community of Whitechapel will justifiably blame the Jewish witnesses, should they identify me, as proto-Christians.” (4) Used to spark a quick flare-up of gentile-Jewish opposition, placed where it was in the Jewish street market set shortly to begin, in turn to function as a backdrop to structure the witnesses’ attention and coerce their compliance. (5) Used to encourage the police to continue their pursuit of Jewish suspects, in the sense of John Pizer (mistaken for Leather Apron as the murderer,) with the intention that they would later again mistake an innocent Polish Jew for the murderer. (6) The symmetrically longitudinally divided apron was used to draw rapid attention to the graffitus, and to positively identify it as the work of the murderer.
21. A Resolution of the Lusk Letter and Half-Kidney (Received By George Lusk on 10/16/88): GENUINE. (1) An attempt to terrify and intimidate George Lusk, in his role as President of the Mile End Vigilance Committee, into immediately resuming his efforts in demanding a government reward for the apprehension of the murderer, thereby to bring the total reward offered as high as possible. (2) The psychopath mailed the package to Lusk a few days after Lusk was portrayed in the press as having tirelessly extended his marathon reward campaign by having mailed yet another in a long series of letters, dated 10/7/88 to Home Secretary Mr. Henry Matthews, this time requesting Matthews agree to offer both a substantial government reward and a pardon to an accomplice turning in the murderer. Although Matthews had once again rejected Lusk’s proposals immediately (10/12/88-draft), crucially this time he also had agreed to keep them under review, thus placing Lusk into an odd limbo, and in turn setting up the background tensions to which the psychopath reacts in mailing the package. In Matthews’ complex and ironic response Lusk’s proposals are both formally rejected yet remain somehow possible; Matthews takes any further action on the matter entirely onto himself, essentially unmanning Lusk and any further efforts on his part. Thus Lusk becomes confined in a “waiting mode” pending the putative Home Office review, and seems to the psychopath’s simplistic perspective as having ceased actions to increase the reward. The letter’s phraseology attempts to structure Lusk into changing from this waiting mode to moving to again actively press reward demands on the Home Office, in a style that disguises the writer’s intentions, which might have given away his plans to maximize and in turn extort the reward. The phrase “…I may send you the bloody knif that took it (the half-kidney) out if you only wate awhil longer…” is meant to be subconsciously interpreted by Lusk as “If you don’t get off your behind and back to your campaign of demanding a Home Office reward forthwith, I may murder and mutilate you just as I have the women.” (3) Beginning with the double event Lusk, together with qualified, coercible Jewish crime scene witnesses and a Polish Jewish proxy suspect are the key elements of the psychopath’s project to get rich. Lusk’s increasing fame, purposeful sensitivity and humanism make him the perfect foil for the murderer’s abominable antisocial misconduct; wherever Lusk speaks and whenever he’s quoted in the newspapers, the sense of public revulsion, terror and rejoinder against the murderer strengthens, and a few more coins enter the reward pot. Lusk indefatigably proselytizes merchants, the government, and even the Queen herself to make substantial increases to the reward. Each time he writes he makes news, he must be answered, even in repeatedly refusing him the stakes grow higher for the government, and Lusk gains in power and influence. From the psychopath’s standpoint, this makes Lusk quite a useful fellow--someone with a real role to play--therefore he removes Eddowes’ kidney in order to be able to maintain ongoing control over him and in turn the status of the reward. As long as Lusk waxes on the reward circuit the psychopath is gratified and lets him go ahead with his work. But when the situation changes with Matthews’ double-edged response to Lusk’s 10/7/88 letter, he becomes piqued to intervene and keep the chance of a big reward open. Matthews’ peculiar bureaucratic double negative—refuse to offer a reward but leave the possibility open exclusively on his own option — is designed in part to pull the wings off an annoying fly, and finally brings Lusk to the wane. (4) The same as said in (2) and (3) said yet another way, to clarify this key part of the case solution. His ever bouncing off rejections and trying again had driven Lusk’s expanding power curve. Generally speaking, when rebuffed he communicated with his supporters, they resolved to back him up again and sometimes terrified and sickened one another with stories of the depredations of the murderer and the grand misanthropic indignity of the government’s refusal to offer a reward, with the newspapers covering his every move Lusk then tried again with a new letter and the cycle repeated itself on an expanded scale. This state of affairs serves the murderer’s interest because, as he sees it, sooner or later the government will not be able to resist the tide of public opinion and will post the great reward he covets. Now Matthews throws the joker. He answers Lusk’s latest epistle by stating, essentially, “Same as before, I won’t offer a reward. And I may, and if I do, it will be exclusively a matter of my own circumstance as the Home Secretary and our internal review. Nothing outside my eminence will impinge on my decision.” Matthews’ tactical maneuver seems rather paranoid, and typical of government bureaucrats or corporate directors who feel their support within their organization slipping. Unable to deal with a current situation under their responsibility, they bend logic to gain weasel room regardless of how things may work out later, but in so doing in the long run they may so muddy the distinctness of their own official powers they expose themselves to losing them. Matthews’ defense mechanism collapses Lusk’s power curve, however, because now any action on a reward originates solely from Matthews—Lusk being cut out of the loop. Whereas before Matthews “waited” on Lusk and his letters, now Lusk supposedly “waits” on Matthews. Thus the murderer takes the only option he can under the circumstances. Visualizing his treasure chest sprouting wings and flying away, he uses moral terror directly to trigger fear and anger in Lusk, to force him to react personally as a sensitive human being to the horror of the crimes (the enclosed half-kidney, the alluded-to cannibalism, “from hell,” etc.), and consequently to resume his actions posthaste to get the reward approved. (5) STAGE IRISH ACCENT: Used by the psychopath to subconsciously influence and motivate Lusk in a dramatic fashion, in order to compensate for not being able to spell out more exactly in the letter what he wanted him to do respecting the reward (not wanting to give away his intentions) or to threaten him in person. The Irish accent was prevalent at the time in many theatrical productions around London. (6) The symmetrically longitudinally divided kidney was used to positively identify the letter in view of many hoax letters received, allegedly from the murderer, and to frighten Lusk.
22. A Resolution of All Other Communications Allegedly Received from the Murderer: NOT GENUINE.
23. Purposes of the Change in Modus Operandi, Miller’s Court:
SPECIALLY CHOSEN VENUE: The psychopath wanted a sister prostitute to discover the hideously mutilated body of someone known to her, in order to trigger a reactive emotional expression on her part in turn irresistible to the gathering crowds, thereby to spark a full-scale riot before the Lord Mayor’s procession.EXTENT OF MUTILATIONS, AND POSE: Essentially, extensive mutilations were done and the body posed to provoke the greatest possible emotional reaction on the part of the woman or women intended to discover it.
HEARTH: A fuse for the psychopath’s time bomb, to give him a few moments to make his escape. The purpose of cramming the hearth full of garments he found in the room was to signal local sister prostitutes, drawing one or more of them to Kelly’s room by the intended leaping flames and (possibly) the whistling of the teapot.
24. The Reason for the Forty-Day Interval Between the Eddowes and Kelly Murders: (1) The latter murder was calculated for maximum hyperbolical impact on the crowd and mounted peacekeepers gathered before the Lord Mayor’s procession. (2) The murderer was waiting for Levy to come to him in a position of supplication, begging him to stop; had this happened beforehand, the final murder would not have been necessary.
25. The Reason For the Cessation of the Murder Series Following Kelly: (1) Levy, made aware by the resumption of the murder series in Miller’s Court that the murderer would not stop despite the Duke Street sighting, contacted the psychopath in order to prevent calamities for both the Jewish people of Whitechapel, and himself and his family. His normal personality artlessly encountering the anomalous one made clear to both that it was Levy who held the real leverage in the issues confronting them. (2) From the perspective of the real interests of the psychopath, contact with and opposition to Levy is both the worst and the best of things. While he is effectively mortally compromised and his plans foiled, nevertheless he is saved from the possibility of engaging in further high jinks[v] at which he would likely be arrested. The situation is analogous to that of an acute alcoholic who commits an assault while intoxicated and is sentenced to a year in prison. He gives up his freedom, but thereby he is prevented from killing himself by further drinking. (3) By deliberately exposing himself and thereby being identified the psychopath succeeds in bringing himself under the control of the very forces he seeks to control, a paradox typical of the syndrome.[vi] (4) If there were a significant other in the psychopath’s life, likely she was provided at least some limited information on the matter, to assist Levy in enforcement. She would be well aware of the psychopath’s history and shallow par of affectations,[vii] and thus be reasonably able to deal with him under circumstances strongly prejudicial to him. (5) Persons sheltering the psychopath are certainly not acting as Jews who believe that Jewish people should be immune from gentile justice, as has been theorized by a number of those concerned with or who have written about the case, most notably Robert Anderson. Based on the evidence, the psychopath ruthlessly hoodwinked them into involuntary complicity by extortion. Once trapped, they act as fearful private individuals who have little choice but to protect the murderer in order to protect themselves. (6) Contact results in a standoff, an increasingly perilous truce in view of the psychopath’s fundamental instability of personality.
26. An Explanation For Robert Anderson’s Conviction That He Knew the Identity of the Murderer: (1) Principally, a logical opposition he deemed analytic. On one side, he chose Donald Swanson and had been informed by him at length when he (Anderson) returned from leave thirty-seven days later of the Leather Apron affair and the house-to-house police searches. This consequentially structured Anderson to a determinedness (called by him a “diagnosis”) that a Polish Jew, personally equivalent to John Pizer, would ultimately be identified as the murderer. And on the other side, a year and a half later a qualified police witness indeed identified a similar Polish Jew, which seemed to Anderson itself confirmed by some sort of reaction on the part of the suspect. (2) Further, the suspect’s family, possibly including the murderer himself, may have falsely supported the guilt of the suspect in discussions with Anderson.
27. An Explanation For Donald Swanson’s Statement That the Murderer Knew He Had Been Identified at Hove: An autonomic reaction on the part of Aaron Kosminski in recognizing Levy, such as his (Aaron’s) pupils widening.
28. Why Do Anderson’s Writings Concerning the Identification Conflict With the Swanson Marginalia in Certain Respects? (1) Because Anderson handled the identification as secretly and privately as possible, in order to secure his witness’ cooperation and to protect him, circumventing general departmental involvement. Anderson made various partial indications of the identification over the years, but never a complete report to anyone. Thus with respect to some elements, Swanson’s only source of information was Anderson, but with respect to others he was able to find out for himself, or surmised from information he deemed related. Hence a certain difference between the two. (2) Anderson was lied to by the witness, and perhaps also by the suspect’s family including the murderer himself. Thus some information he repeats may not have been true of his suspect.
29. Why Did Anderson Take His Witness Some Distance to Hove, Instead of Holding the Identification in London? (1) In order to circumvent departmental procedures for the sake of secrecy. (2) With the agreement and possibly at the behest of the witness, in order to protect him from retaliation from the Jewish community for identifying a Jew as the Whitechapel murderer. Levy was publicly known as a police witness in the case, and might have been recognized at the police station.
30. Explanations For the Sixteen-Month Interval Between the Ending of the Murders and the Hove Identification: (1) A time during which the principals (Levy, the psychopath and his significant other) experienced among themselves the full range of phenomena overlying the fundamental logical oppositions implicit in their extraordinary situation beginning with Levy’s contacting the murderer, leading ultimately to the conviction, on Levy’s part at least, that the only way he (Levy) could free himself of the depredations of the psychopath would be to identify Aaron. (2) Also, an evolutionary period during which Levy and the psychopath’s significant other on the one hand, and the psychopath on the other, schooled themselves in how to deal with their situation, resolving it to an opposition amongst themselves of the highest and most final logical refinement. Generally typical of a family situation involving a member who is a psychopath. (3) Also, the psychopath himself may have independently precipitated steps leading to the identification at that time. (4) Possibly, time required for Aaron’s madness to develop to the point that he would not be able to understand what was happening or speak coherently with the police at his identification.
31. Is There Any Significance With Respect to Solving the Case in Martin Kosminski’s Naturalization Certificate? Hardly. Since there is evidence neither that Martin Kosminski played a role in the murders nor their cover-up, nor that he was related to Aaron Kosminski’s family, no evidence-based logical opposition can be analyzed concerning him.
32. Why Did Joseph Hyam Levy Identify Aaron Kosminski To Robert Anderson Eighteen Months After the Cessation? Both to maintain the status quo of the cessation in light of the psychopath’s instability of personality, scheming, and inability to leave well enough alone, and to free himself from an extraordinarily bad situation. (1) During the eighteen-month period the principals of the private conspiracy came to understand one another’s respective strengths and weaknesses regarding the forces behind the cessation. Levy and the psychopath’s significant other would be garnering increasing insights into the murderer’s personality, and the psychopath would be attempting various measures to marginalize the hold they held over him and gain privileges. (2) By identifying Aaron to the police secretly and without testifying against him, Levy humanely puts Aaron permanently into an asylum, the best place for him to be considering his condition. (3) Aaron is at the same time permanently excluded from the psychopath’s domicile, so there can no longer be any troublesome questioning of whom holds primary authority in his family. (4) Because (at least in Levy’s estimation) the police are now settled on Aaron having committed the murders, their investigation will be halted, and there will be little possibility that the real murderer could be arrested and brought to trial, which would compromise him (Levy.) (This is part of the deal Levy makes with Anderson in return for identifying Aaron, although Anderson remains unaware of these implications.) (5) By making a final disposition of Aaron, a change to which might compromise the psychopath, Levy climactically tears the mouth of the leech from his flesh that had been sucking him dry since the Duke Street sighting, and is free. It would be more difficult for the psychopath to scheme to use Aaron to manipulate Levy, such as to turn in Aaron for the remains of the reward, if Aaron were sequestered from the psychopath in an asylum.
33. In That Psychopathy Is a Combination Disorder Involving Both Personality Development and Brain Function, Is It Indicated By Any Case Evidence of a Distinctly Neurological Character? Possibly. In two different places, the Wentworth graffitus and the Lusk letter, the murderer seems to exhibit the same bilateral language disorder, twice mistaking writing for speaking. Use of the term Juwes in the written graffitus is a mispronunciation as “JOOZ” of a term a German speaker would say “YOO-whez,” and the Lusk letter is written as if in a spoken Irish accent. Bilateral language disorder is typical of psychopaths, the result of unresolved competition between the two hemispheres of the brain.[viii] Language mistakes of this kind may have been typical of the Whitechapel murderer.
34. Did the Whitechapel Murderer Possess Medical or Anatomical Skill? This is a pejorative question, and therefore difficult to answer truthfully. Certainly no evidence indicated that he had to have had high level anatomical knowledge or professional skill to do what he did—there was no deft accomplishment in his mutilations. On the other hand, the evidence does suggest that he “had an ego” concerning his ability to operate on the human form the way a professional (e.g., Dr. Jekyll) would. This leads to consideration that what we see in his mutilations may be part smattering of objective knowledge and part externalized ego. Such pseudosurgical “ability” as he may have possessed could have been gained from reviewing medical texts or anatomical diagrams, dressing animals, or otherwise.
35. Did the Whitechapel Murderer Know His Victims? He possibly knew Stride for a bit before the crime, in order to structure her to work for him as his prostitute, and to position her at the International Workingmen’s Education Club, so he might attack her before a witness there. And possibly he also knew Kelly for a bit, in order to have a look at the layout of Miller’s Court and her residence there, and make an appointment with her for the morning of the Lord Mayor’s procession. There is no evidence to indicate he knew any of the other women he killed.
36. Did the Whitechapel Murderer Have Accomplices? (1) Yes, involuntary ones. He made Levy his accomplice by exposing himself to him under conditions that would both qualify him (Levy) as a police witness, and position him to be extorted against the prospect of a pogrom and consequent retaliation against him by the Jewish community. If the murderer had a wife it would also be likely, because of her closeness to him, that she would have been made by Levy a part of a private conspiracy to obscure him from justice, for similar reasons. (2) Anderson was fooled into becoming an unwitting accomplice insofar as he illegally accepted a false identification, allowing the murderer to escape justice. (3) Logical evaluation of the case evidence puts forward no reason to believe there were any other accomplices.
37. What Was the Nature of the Whitechapel Murderer’s Interest in Money? The hallmark of psychopathy is a ruthless, soulless taste and temperament for trapping or squeezing others for self-gratification or gain.[ix] No victim was found with money despite that all but Eddowes were prostitutes currently at work, and the psychopath schemed to obtain the reward for his own capture through the use of extortion and a proxy.
38. Why Did the Whitechapel Murderer Eschew the Theft of Kelly’s Uterus, When He Took With Him the Those of His Other Victims Whenever Practicable For Him To Remove It? With respect to uteri, his motivation was to overpower, wreck, triumph over and be subjected to, possess and publicly correct what he considered impure maternal authority. Hysterectomy and theft of the uterus were affected whenever the victim had a maternal appearance and he had enough time (excepting his first victim Martha Tabram, whose murder may have occurred before he had projected fully through his Dr. Jekyll front.) Kelly lacked a maternal appearance; having removed her uterus when emptying the pelvic and abdominal cavities, he expressed his disinterest in possessing it by using it to prop up her head on a pillow, together with other organs.
39. Was the Whitechapel Murderer an Organized or a Disorganized Sexual Serial Murderer, or Was He a Combination of the Two? This is a pejorative question because it is not applicable to personality in a fundamental way, and is therefore intrinsically misleading from the perspective of solving for the case evidence. (1) The organized/disorganized dichotomy applies directly to profiling, and only indirectly to personality. Profiling is an ongoing, flexible attempt on the part of criminal investigators, given only partial evidence, to work in a methodical manner toward determining a preliminary outline of an unknown perpetrator’s personal situations, living habits, age, race, work and possibly some of his promptings in crime, and is updated whenever further evidence about him becomes available. Its purpose is to organize the investigation for the benefit of various personnel contributing to it, and to suggest new questions and fresh leads, leading to eventual criminal detection. Profiling is done because the person being sought is not known, and is not an attempt to study a personality. (2) If the evidence of the Whitechapel murders adequately establishes that the murderer was a psychopathic personality, then it conclusively divides between organized and disorganized elements in a manner classic to psychiatric case histories used for typing psychopathic personality. The murderer is shown as massively disorganized with respect to the development of his personal life plan, in that he concludes he will not suffer long-term troubles despite deliberately exposing himself to witnesses who can identify him, in order to obtain what he wants from them.[x] At the same time, he is shown as fully organized for the short-term with respect to objectively formulating his murders, planning his escapes, and deftly and dispassionately executing them.[xi] (3) Seen as part of his intelligible plan to wreck, surgically correct and triumph over maternal authority in a public manner, the apparent messy disorder of his crime scenes seems an organized characteristic.
40. Was the Whitechapel Murderer a Lust Murderer? (1) Yes, but only in a weakened, nonexclusive use of terminology categorizing murderers. While we must consider the Whitechapel murderer a lust murderer merely because he mutilated his victims’ genitals, the crime scene evidence taken as a whole does not permit us to pigeonhole him as any particular kind of murderer. On balance it does not appear that he was univocally motivated by lust or any other single factor to do all he did; if his surroundings are considered in the analysis he appears to have instead demonstrated a fundamental pathological subjective inconsistency of motivation as the external circumstances of life played on him, splitting himself off tangentially as he perceived various opportunities. (2) Crime scene evidence conclusively indicates complex personal deficiencies typical of psychopathy and a notable absence of lustful behaviors or related hot breakdowns under stress where they might reasonably be expected to occur. A killer principally motivated by lust under these circumstances may rape his victim, ejaculate at the crime scene or become otherwise excited or aroused, in his orgiastic acting-out of feeling he may inadvertently create some noise or unnecessary disturbance, he may compulsively overstay his pre-planned time and be apprehended, and he would likely not be simultaneously projecting himself into, or be capable of carrying out an extortion racket on multiple stages, updating it as needed at the crime scenes on consideration of conditions he encountered there. (3) At the same time also, pseudological elements such as his projection as Dr. Jekyll socially stigmatizing female hysteria and his schemes to coerce witnesses to get the reward are insufficient to explain his fetishistic lustful preoccupations with the female body. This part of the evidence is more typical of puerile intercourse fantasies of vainglorious destruction and defilement by the phallus. (4) The same thing said in a briefer way, for the sake of clarity: If he’s going to mutilate sex organs, then surely he’s going to show us what sort of lustful feelings he’s got in doing so. But that doesn’t satisfactorily explain why he murders, in the presence of evidence indicating different issues. In short, he did not necessarily murder women because he had the sensibilities of a crude twelve year-old boy, but he did have those sensibilities. And because of the repeated emphasis on the abdomen, these feelings must have become at least to some extent an obsession, for him conceivably an inconsistency in his inconsistency.[xii]
41. Why Was the Whitechapel Murderer Not Identified Contemporaneously, Despite His Murdering Several People, Virtually Publicly, in the Heart of the Most Populous City of the World? (1) As a psychopath, he was pathologically but nonetheless acutely attuned to the here and now, and therefore well qualified to devise and execute effective escapes. He knew how to play into luck, and occasionally was simply lucky to have escaped. By the pathology of his type, he was essentially built to function in this manner. (2) Inadvertently or not, he caused the key condition of his avoiding identification by exposing himself to a witness who, compelled by circumstances beyond his (the witness’) control, was eventually forced to intercede to stop him from committing further murders, the consequence of which would likely have been his apprehension. (3) The psychopath may have forced one or more people who knew he was the murderer to protect him in order to protect themselves.
42. Why Was the Case Not Solved in Over Eleven Decades, Despite Its Recurrent Popularity? (1) 1880s-1950s: Insufficient availability or reliance on the case evidence for theorization; Serious Ripperologists allow their subject to touch them too closely, an age of presumption; Swanson marginalia not yet available. (2) 1950s-1980s: Swanson marginalia not yet available. (3) 1980s-2000s: (a) Over-reliance on understanding in place of pure reason; empirical surveying of the case evidence pursued at the expense of mastering it, an age of feral objectivity. Serious Ripperologists are no longer inclined to let their subject matter touch them at all, they do not become aware of what they have in it, and therefore do not solve the case. (b) Associated intellectual neurosis throughout Ripperology. Truth, epistemology, and psychopathy are seen as difficult subjects, daunting to integrate.
43. Why Has the Case Remained Compellingly Popular For Over Eleven Decades, Despite That It Offers Nothing Unique To Study? Because the psychopath directs society to dedicate a great fortune to identifying him. His long-abandoned intentions on the one hand and we Ripperologists on the other lock together in an eternal embrace, because we bypass an adequate dynamic of judgment. (1) Vexedly ruminating over the Leather Apron affair, the psychopath reflexively projected or externalized himself into an extortion racket, discovering how external circumstances, evaluated simplistically, seemed suited to it. He designed the evidence of his latter crimes to imprint upon the public, in their abject fear and trembling, a signification system designed to swell the reward and score it for himself. He perceived that he could bank on the sheer awfulness of his crime scenes, the accelerating marginalizing of society by the stark moral terror of his repeated gross violations of its rules and sensibilities, the grand inexplicableness of his behavior, the near-religious cult mystery of his identity combined with the tantalizing possibility that someone, perhaps anyone, might soon bring it to light, and the knee-jerk heroic/defensive reactive forces exhibited by the hordes pursuing him writ large on the Leather Apron affair. (2) Because he was never identified, this system of many signs reproduces itself in infinite circularity as the ever-increasing growth of wealth implicit in Ripperology. Since we don’t ask ourselves adequate questions about how we think about the case evidence, we default to being directed by the psychopath’s original signification system, created for the purposes of fooling and frightening the public and driving up the reward. Thus Ripperology socially institutes, venerates, exhibits and glorifies its wealth with its perennial marketability, immense and burgeoning bibliography, documentaries, movies, walking tours, web sites, journals, conventions, museum collections, and by its formidable human resources in the form of serious Ripperologists and their cadres of disciples. (3) The longevity and growth of our Ripperlogical field, and the reward money the pathological man coveted, are one and the same. (4) A solution of the case, then, elicits from us the dynamics of critical judgment; in other words, asking enough good questions about what Ripperology is, why it exists and how it should work, suspending our judgment when indicated, opening doors and becoming free.
44. Might There Be Any Empirical Evidence Readily Available To Assist In Proving the Thesis of Alternative Ripperology? Possibly. Documents related to Aaron’s committals to various institutions in the timeframes 1890 and following have been located, with copies in the hands of various people who follow the case. A graphologist may wish to compare the handwriting of persons signing as Aaron’s next of kin to that of the Lusk letter. However there are many caveats. The writer of the Lusk letter used exaggerated, vicious spearing motions and other tricks, possibly to frighten Lusk, that he may not have used in his normal handwriting, perhaps destroying basis for comparison. Persons appearing and signing for Aaron may not have been as they presented themselves. A “Wolf Kosminski” claimed to be Aaron’s brother despite that there is no official record of Aaron having a brother. Someone in Aaron’s extended family may have signed the name of a different family member to throw suspicions elsewhere, especially in light of Robert Anderson’s interest in Aaron. And finally, the person who wrote the Lusk letter need not have been directly involved in Aaron’s various committals.
Works Cited
[i] Cleckley, Hervey M: THE MASK OF SANITY: AN ATTEMPT TO CLARIFY SOME ISSUES ABOUT THE SO-CALLED PSYCHOPATHIC PERSONALITY. Augusta, Georgia: Emily S. Cleckley, 1988.
[ii] Hare, Robert D.: WITHOUT CONSCIENCE. New York: The Guilford Press, 1999.
[iii] Lykken, David T.: THE ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITIES. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1995.
