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Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 163
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 1:40 pm: |       |
Many people view these boards, some members, some guests, I thought that it would be a good idea if each individual regardless of how long this case has intriqued them , to put forward, on one thread their best points. ie: The main points, or clues that they feel have a distinct bearing on this mystery. Hopefully in this way we will have a mass of ideas , and hopefully new imformation from I would imagine a great number of people who regularly view this site.
I must stress this thread is not for naming suspects, but in trying to obtain everyones serious ideas that the individual has in their minds, that they feel could be highly significant in this case.
So to start off here are my main ideas.
The 39 Theory, [extensively discussed]
Conformation, that Hutchinsons and Maxwells accounts are related by the ' Oh I have lost my Hankerchief' and 'Her eyes looked queer, like she was suffering from a heavy cold'
The Grave spitting [ again well documented[ surely has major significance]
The obvious possibility that the attacker who accosted Stride shouted Liz -Key not Lipski.
The possibility that the killer was of a religious order, NOTE.You will say anything but your prayers' and a telegram stating I am a clerk in holy orders'.
The above are a brief guide to my main points I feel are significant in this case.
So to sum up everybody has imagination , and that can sometimes lead to a clue that could well be significant in this case, so what I would like people to add on this thread is Basically what Dan Farson wanted in his 'Farson guide to the British in 1959, imformation from either ones mind that is significant , or even better some clues even hearsay from say long gone relatives.
For I feel that if we have peoples best points on one thread , not only would it provide good reading , and discussing material, but we may be able to put together a valid picture of our killer.
Regards Richard. |
Christopher T George
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 128
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 2:03 pm: | |
Hi, Richard:
Thanks for starting this thread, Richard. One of the aspects that I keep thinking about is the audaciousness of the crimes, the desire of this killer to want to slit the throats of and disembowel women on the public streets of London. It would appear that the killer was indeed trying to test the limits and taunt the authorities. Whether he ever wrote a letter to the press or the police is another question entirely but I just think that there is a message in the crimes themselves that needs to be addressed.
Best regards
Chris George |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 164
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 2:17 pm: | |
Thanks Chris,
A good point to start, on which I hope will be a very intresting thread.
I agree that the killer , did show a moral attitude, and there does appear a message in these crimes.
To kill these women and display them on the streets of East London is a statement, mayby to bring attention to the conditions of the times?,
Richard, |
Robert Charles Linford
Detective Sergeant
Username: Robert
Post Number: 110
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 2:51 pm: | |
Hi Richard
A nice idea for a thread. I can't help feeling that if the killer WAS trying to communicate, he was doing it through the crimes themselves. At Miller's Court he had time, privacy, light and an abundance of the "proper red stuff" but at his "supreme moment" - nothing. Not a word, not a daub (unless you count the disputed "FM").
Robert
|
Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 165
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 3:57 pm: | |
Hi Robert,
I would certainly say that our killer had a message to say, The Millers court Murder Proberly holds many clues, the F.M may infact be one , and we at this stage should not discount Florence Maybreck.
I would have to disagree that he had time, privacy, at his disposal , my view is that he would have been aware of the danger in being at the scene for any length of time and would have completed his act in the quickest time he could manage his fantasys.
Thanks for the contribution, I was apprehensive that this thread would take off, and I sincerley hope that we can progress to unforseen limits.
Richard, |
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 220
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 4:38 pm: | |
Sometimes I feel that you chaps want the best of both worlds.
If the killer was taunting the public, and if his crimes were intentionally on public display then why did he kill Merry Kelly in the intimate and very un-public surroundings of a private room on view to nobody?
Surely this then must have been a climb down from that supposed flaunting and taunting?
If you are right, then the behaviour would indicate that Jack was on his way out.
But I don't think you are right.
Jack was not audacious, he sought nothing, he displayed nothing, he taunted nobody, he had no message... Jack was but happenstance.
Me thinks you dwell on the killings too much as motive and disregard the real intention behind the crimes, for the killer only displayed true motive when the victim was dead, that was his playing field.
All that passed before was luck. |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 167
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 4:32 am: | |
Hi,A.P,
Good point,Mary Kelly was killed in her humble obode, but I would say that she was more on public display then any of the others, it was almost if the killer was stressing'You Harlots are not safe anywhere'
Richard. |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 321
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 6:47 am: | |
G'day,
I think the murder of Mary Kelly contains the greatest clue of all, but it was overlooked then and still gets ignored today. It concerns the ages of all victims:
Emma Smith was 45 years old,
Martha Tabram was 41,
Polly Nichols was 43,
Annie Chapman was 47,
Liz Stride was 45,
Kate Eddowes was 46,
Yet Mary Jane Kelly was just 25 years old.
Was she murdered indoors merely because of the increased police patrols following the double murder of Stride and Eddowes? Dorset Street had a reputation of being one of the worst thoroughfares in the East End. Police were frightened to patrol it!
LEANNE |
Brian W. Schoeneman
Inspector
Username: Deltaxi65
Post Number: 242
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 9:02 am: | |
Leanne,
Emma Smith - Wasn't a Ripper victim
Martha Tabram - Didn't have her own room
Polly Nichols - Didn't have her own room
Annie Chapman - Didn't have her own room
Liz Stride - Didn't have her own room
Kate Eddowes - Didn't have her own room
Mary Kelly - Had her own room
Was she murdered indoors merely because she was the only one who had access to her own room? I think so.
B |
Brian W. Schoeneman
Inspector
Username: Deltaxi65
Post Number: 243
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 9:42 am: | |
All,
Getting back to the point of Richard's thread, when I look at the case, the things that I think we need to focus on are each of the killings in their entirety, but viewed as separate events.
The time and dates of death are important to me, as I believe they indicate someone engaged in regular work.
The manner of killing is important to me, because it indicates some skill (not necessarily medical) with a knife that the average person wouldn't have had.
The mutilations are important to me, because they are different in each case, which indicates to me that they weren't a "signal" or a "symbol", but merely the fancy of the killer at that time with that victim. As they were not necessary to kill the victim, and they don't appear to be symbolic (because of the differences between each victim), they only appear to me to be sexually motivated. I can't think of another logical reason why these women would be mutilated this way - if anyone else can, I'd love to hear it.
I'd go into more details, but off the top of my head those are things that stand out to me, and they are as good a place as any to start from.
B |
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 222
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 1:30 pm: | |
Brian
You are determined to have your way with Jack as a sexually motivated killer, aren't you?
Well, not that easy when I'm around I'm afraid.
Are you approaching this with Colin Wilson in bed with you? The sort of sex is power, domination and linked to the instinct to kill that we supposedly all have, or are you in tucked up nice and cosy with that old reprobate Freud in his wicked world of everything is sex and sin, and we all have father or mother fixations according to our gender?
I do see where you come from on this and must agree that there might be a tiny bit of sexual empowerment in such crimes, but that is by no means the rule, especially - and I emphasis especially - in cases where mutilation occurs and parts of the body are taken.
The motive can often be more logical and common sensical than sex, these very type of killers suffer from deep and sustained hallucinations where they imagine their organs are disintegrating or even moving about their bodies, they often imagine that their heart has stopped and is no longer pumping blood around their body, and somehow - I don't know how - they feel that by drinking blood and eating organs from other living creatures they will be cured. Richard Chase was the example to end all examples, he started off on rabbits, cats and dogs, worked his way up to cows - he was once arrested stark naked and covered from head to foot in cow's blood in the desert by two astonished deputies who when they took him back to his pick up truck found buckets full of blood and organs taken from a cow he he had slaughtered with a knife which he fully intended to eat and drink - and then the simple boy took to killing women and children for exactly the same reason. So there, you have a proven and well documented motive that is not sexual.
On the down side to my argument is the irresponsible little fact that Chase did in fact have sexual contact with one of his female victims... however all is not what it seems and I would be prepared to argue - at length if necessary - that even this sexual contact did not constitute a sexual motive in all his crimes.
|
Brian W. Schoeneman
Inspector
Username: Deltaxi65
Post Number: 246
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 1:56 pm: | |
AP,
Let's argue.
The whole point to Chase's murders, was that he gained some kind of pleasure out of it. Chase, from what I read about him, was extremely disturbed, but nonetheless, there are some serious sexual overtones to the murders that he committed - look at the Theresa Wallin case.
And despite the fact this is a "proven and well documented motive" (non-sexual), the guy who did most of the interviewing, Robert Ressler, considered him a sexual serial killer.
This isn't a Freudian thing, I personally think Freud was an idiot. My beliefs here are based on what I know about profiling and homicide investigation - which I grant you, are all home/classroom learned and not in-the-field experience. But I've read enough to know the signs. These serial killers may claim that they are motivated by some random force, etc. but the real motive behind their murders is they derive pleasure from them. Even Chase did - unless you want to argue that he actually DID have to drink blood to be cured.
There may be no overtly sexual aspects to a sexual serial murder - but by analysis of the crime scene and the victimology, you can determine that that is indeed the motive.
Marie Finlay's point about some women having boyfriends who cut them up and mutilate them is solid - it has happened. But not 5 women in a row, the same way, with the same general background.
I really cannot think of another motive for a streak of crimes with these kinds of crime scenes and mutilations. If you can, I'd love to hear it.
B
|
Christopher T George
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 133
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 2:11 pm: | |
Hi, Brian & AP:
I am glad to see you are both cutting to the Chase. 
By the way, AP, you might be interested to know there is an article upcoming in the May issue of Ripperologist, "The Miscreant of Mitre Square" by Rob Hills which would seem to support your contention that the murders had something to do with the tea trade. But perhaps "Rob Hills" is another pseudonym for AP Wolf?
All the best
Chris |
Christopher T George
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 134
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 2:15 pm: | |
In support of Brian, of course, Sigmund Freud long ago showed what is on a man's mind --
Psychiatrist showing patient ink blots: "It would appear that all you have on your mind is sex."
Patient: "Doctor, it's you who's showing me the dirty pictures!" |
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 225
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 3:44 pm: | |
Brian
I've wrestled with Ressler and he can't even come up with a half decent arm lock.
Entrenched and still digging with his spade, hole just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and eventually we all fall into it, but not this one.
The man is still digging the hole that Freud started 'psychopathic sexualias horriblis'.
But that's fine, if that's what you want.
This is a man thing.
The starting point for Ressler - and all the others - is that man hates women so man kills woman to satisfy some strange sexual urge that a live woman can't supply.
You see, I'm old fashioned, I still think a man is able to satisfy his sexual urges with a woman while that woman is alive.
If you are right with your reasoning, then it must mean that Jack was some sort of parasite using living women as his host, but part of his feeding procedure led to their death, hence parasite kills his host and must quickly find another one... but why is Jack feeding on his host? For sex?
No, Brian, if it was sex the parasite would not harm the vital interests of the host, but it does, so from a biological point of view you are looking at a parasite that benefits directly from the death of its host.
This parasite is not looking for mates or pleasure, it seeks nourishment, much like the female mosquito, yes it does shove its probe into its host but not to deposit, rather to slake a thirst that neither you or I understand.
Freud and Wilson would hate the female mosquito, it is ten times the size of the male, has a huge probe with which it has killed more people than any other weapon of mass destruction on this planet, and if any male dares to approach it for sexual reasons it kills them in an instant, except of course at the right time of the month.
Yes, it does seem that Chase may well have had sex with one of his victims - though I am convinced after many years of studying his behaviour that what happened here was similar to the Pitchfork scenario where the killer actually transferred the evidence using a secondary source - but even so I still cannot classify Chase as a sexual serial killer, for just like Jack, young Richard's motives appear to have been fixated on a body after death and not before. Chase viewed his victims as bundles of useful organs, useful in the treatment of his illness... and let's not pretend here, Chase's encroaching illness is so well and publicly documented over a long course of years before he actually killed a fellow human that you cannot claim it as an 'excuse' for some other more sinister motive, and there again I would take umbridge with you, simply for viewing a sexual motive as being somehow 'worse' than a totally insane desire to butcher someone as a fast track cure for imagined ills.
As I said it is a man thing.
Maybe you chaps like to think that Jack was a sexual serial killer because he then magically strikes back at all the women you could never satisfy sexually and in a funny sort of way you are all getting your own back.
Stand up and be counted Mishter Ressler.
|
Scott Medine
Detective Sergeant
Username: Sem
Post Number: 89
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 4:06 pm: | |
Any crime in which sex oragans are targets will be considered a sex crime. It is important to note that not all sex crimes involve actual, physical ejaculation. To assume other wise on these two points is commonly seen in lay people.
Mutilation of the genital area and other sexual based body parts, eg the breast, lips and buttocks, are common traits of sexual based homicides. The amount of over kill seen in the murder of Marthat Tabram along with the wide dispertion of the wound pattern is also common in sexual based homicides. Like it or not, that's the law enforcement standpoint. To say other wise says that one needs to ride along with homicide, major crime (commonly called sex crime unit)or any violent crime task force for a period of three to six months. Believe me it is a big difference between a victim lying in a pool of blood with her throat cut and her tongue cut out and a victim lying in a poll of blood with her throat cut, breast cut off and her uteris cut out and shoved in a blender. What many of you are not doing is looking at the entire crime scene. You approaching the crimes with blinders and seeing only what you want to see. I've said it time and time again, OPEN YOUR EYES AND LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE PRESENTED AT THE CRIME SCENE.
From what AP is saying, I gather that all killers who mutilate their victims have some vampire fixation, which is preposterous. This akin to saying that all swans are white.
Several people have seen the rough drafts of several chapters of my book, these are people who are pretty much open minded. When I have finished, and it goes to the publisher, I would recommend that the majority of people here not buy it because it cuts through the misinformation that has been prevelant for well over a century. For once the blinders are lifted and the forensic evidence at the crime scene is analyzed.
If you look at the crime scenes you would see: cadaveric spasms, open eyes, coagulated blood, knife wounds, body positions, inaccurate times of death, valuable and bull sh*$ witness statements, police officers who can not account for their time and how a killer can walk away from a scene without leaving a mess and without being coated in blood, bile and other bodily liquids and substances.
Peace,
Scott |
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 227
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 4:45 pm: | |
Scott
peace to you as well.
All swans are white unless you go to Australia.
We are looking at a situation here where the very criminals are actually being conditioned by the reporting of previous crimes, and most of that is reinforced by the police handling of the situation.
This is where our modern handling of crime bears no relation whatsoever to the crimes of Jack the Ripper, for then there were no labels.
It has become very obvious to me over the years that the specific sexual aura and magical sexual attachment that has been given to crimes of this nature by the popular press, writers like Wilson, policeman like you and Ressler, and well meaning people like Brian has actually increased the potential and potentcy of such crimes.
Jack was very different. He was not influenced by such nonsense.
I have long held the view that we all have a personal and moral responsibility when discussing this case, especially when those views are made public, and to blandly and blindly accept the premise that these were crimes of a sexual nature is a direct neglet of that personal and moral responsibility.
By doing such you may well be creating the serial killers of tomorrow.
|
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 228
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 5:06 pm: | |
Chris
Can't wait to read the article.
Sorry, this time it wasn't me.
If I were to write such an article I can assure you that the pseudonym I would use would be 'Les Hughes' as he seems to know a lot about the tea trade of that time period. |
Brian W. Schoeneman
Inspector
Username: Deltaxi65
Post Number: 247
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 5:57 pm: | |
AP,
"The starting point for Ressler - and all the others - is that man hates women so man kills woman to satisfy some strange sexual urge that a live woman can't supply. You see, I'm old fashioned, I still think a man is able to satisfy his sexual urges with a woman while that woman is alive."
Take a minute, and do a google search for "S&M". You'll see an entire subculture of people whose idea of sex is getting a collar put on their neck and being placed inside a cage for three hours, while they're treated like a dog. You'll see men who enjoy have their genitalia shocked with electrodes, kicked with high heels and their nipples wrenched with vice grips. Pretty much any kind of odd sexual practice out there. Ask Scott Medine how many times he found dead men or women from autoerotic asphyxiation in New Orleans - I bet it was at least 6 a year.
In the minds of some men and women, sex does not equal physical attraction, physical arrousal, coitus and ejaculation. It becomes fixated on inanimate objects, like shoes or panties, on cadavers, little children or some other inappropriate object.
"If you are right with your reasoning, then it must mean that Jack was some sort of parasite using living women as his host, but part of his feeding procedure led to their death, hence parasite kills his host and must quickly find another one... but why is Jack feeding on his host? For sex?"
He's not a parasite at all. He's a "consumer". The women were his Playboy - the fodder for his sexual release. A dead body was the Ripper's pornography.
"No, Brian, if it was sex the parasite would not harm the vital interests of the host, but it does, so from a biological point of view you are looking at a parasite that benefits directly from the death of its host."
AP, the point here is that in order for Jack to get his sexual pleasure his victim has to be dead. The process of murder and mutilation is the process of arousal and climax for him.
These sexual serial killers live in a world of fantasy. They imagine and imagine and wish and wish about what they'd love to do to a woman - like any man does. But their fantasies don't involve two women at the same time, or Cindy Crawford. They imagine totally dominating someone, being in total control over life and death, etc. depending on the killer. Some just liked being able to poke around inside someone. But when it comes down to it the motivation behind whatever these killers did was that it gave them pleasure.
"Yes, it does seem that Chase may well have had sex with one of his victims - though I am convinced after many years of studying his behaviour that what happened here was similar to the Pitchfork scenario where the killer actually transferred the evidence using a secondary source - but even so I still cannot classify Chase as a sexual serial killer, for just like Jack, young Richard's motives appear to have been fixated on a body after death and not before."
That's not why Chase is a sexual serial killer. If he did actually have sex with one of the victims I'd be very, very surprised. If you want to know why he's a sexual serial killer just look at what he did to Teresa Wallin. "Her sweater was pulled up over her breasts and her pants and underwear down around her ankles. Her knees were splayed open in the position of a sexual assault. Her left nipple was carved off, her torso cut open below the sternum, and her spleen and intestines pulled out. Chase had stabbed her repeatedly in the lung, liver, diaphragm, and left breast. He also had cut out her kidneys and severed her pancreas in two. He placed the kidneys together back inside her." (from crimelibrary.com).
The cutting off of the nipple, the stabbing of the left breast, the raising up of the shirt and pulling down the pants, and the posing of the body in a sexually provocative manner were all hallmarks that Chase felt something sexually when he killed Teresa Wallin.
If he just wanted her blood, he could've cut her throat and drank from there. The mutilations were "fun" for him. He enjoyed it. It aroused him.
"Chase's encroaching illness is so well and publicly documented over a long course of years before he actually killed a fellow human that you cannot claim it as an 'excuse' for some other more sinister motive, and there again I would take umbridge with you, simply for viewing a sexual motive as being somehow 'worse' than a totally insane desire to butcher someone as a fast track cure for imagined ills."
But don't you get it, AP? This "insane desire to butcher someone" was just window dressing. If he really just needed the blood, etc, why not stick with the animals he'd been using for so long? Why go to humans? Killing an animal isn't going to get you thrown in jail or electrocuted. Why take it to the next level? Because he wanted to - because he enjoyed it.
"Maybe you chaps like to think that Jack was a sexual serial killer because he then magically strikes back at all the women you could never satisfy sexually and in a funny sort of way you are all getting your own back."
Okay, this is a low blow. And - for the record - I've never left a woman unsatisfied.
Putting Jack into the category of a sexual serial killer is useful - it gives us a motive for the crime that not only makes sense but also fits all of the facts that we have perfectly. Second, as we have a lot of data on similiar serial killers and Ressler, Burgess, Douglas and the rest have connected many of these cases together, there is much that we can determine from analyzing his crimes from this perspective.
I don't have any personal desire to see the Ripper labeled a sexual serial killer. I'm simply taking the facts and taking what I know and drawing my conclusions off of that.
"It has become very obvious to me over the years that the specific sexual aura and magical sexual attachment that has been given to crimes of this nature by the popular press, writers like Wilson, policeman like you and Ressler, and well meaning people like Brian has actually increased the potential and potentcy of such crimes. "
How? These men have been socially conditioned - somehow wrongly - to associate sex with power, domination, pain and suffering. How are Scott, me, Ressler, and the gang making more of them?
AP that's like saying we shouldn't ever put any kind of crime stories on the evening news, because they'll only put ideas in the heads of bad people.
At some point you need to balance the people's need to know with giving the killer's bad ideas.
My sense of moral responsibility in this case is focused on figuring out who the Ripper was, and in cleaning up the muddled historical record by approaching this case through my "common sense" approach, which is to follow Scott Medine's advice and look carefully at the crime scenes and the information that we know.
If I'm wrong, and the Ripper wasn't a sexually motivated serial killer, so be it. But I have not seen another theory that fits these facts as well as this one.
B |
Scott Medine
Detective Sergeant
Username: Sem
Post Number: 90
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 6:44 pm: | |
AP,
Like so many others, you are quick to claim that using techniques, knowledge and science that are used in solving crimes today, in particular any type of profiling, can not be of any help in a series of murders that occurred 114 years ago. Yet, you contradict yourself by comparing Richard Chase to the Whitechapel Killer. You can not have it both ways. Either today’s science is junk or it is viable. I prefer the latter, because it works. In the United States, there is no statute of limitations on murder. As someone who ended his career with the New Orleans Police Depart Cold Case Homicide Unit, I can tell you that it doesn’t matter if the crime happened 114 years ago or ten years ago, the science still applies.
I have been on the witness stand hundreds of times, and I have been cross examined by male and female defense attorneys, and I can proudly state that only once have I ever had my backside handed to me, and it was over the validity of a search in which a bag of marijuana found.
Point is, I have had the displeasure of looking into the cold, lifeless doll eyes of the victim and their killer and I find it hard to believe that you would accuse Robert Resseler, Brian and me of enabling serial killers. Please rest assured, it is neither of us that have assisted in the creating of such killers. neither is it society’s fault. It is the personal decisions made by each person. Killers have always been among us ever since man first started walking upright and found he could take another’s banana by braining him with a rock. Every human has the physical, mental and emotional ability to kill, even you, and if pushed to the limit everyone, even you, will kill.
Peace,
Scott |
R.J. Palmer
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 53
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 7:50 pm: | |
From an article by Caroline Joan Picart &
Cecil Greek:
The profiler "magically" discerns the killer’s identity by constructing a text from crime scene clues: "The act of reading carried out by profiling represents a pseudoscientific attempt at mastery or control of the unknown author’s ‘literary’ project. In fact, profiling is an attempt to appropriate the text’s language in order to identify the author…The profiler enters into an oddly personal power struggle with a completely imaginary enemy as manifested in the physical traces left behind by a real but anonymous individual. …The sympathetic bond between detective and criminal illustrates the literature of serial murder’s easy merging of the Gothic romance with doubling." Doubling, derived from the gothic notion of the Doppelgánger, is a literary device in which two characters are used to display different sides of one personality. A "good" character, in order to track down and capture an "evil" character successfully, has to enter into the mindset of his predator-prey, and in effect become like him. When asked about the toughest aspect of being a profiler, John Douglas (2000) responded that he is often quite ill, as he must reenact the crimes in his own mind over and over again in order to solve them."
Garlic neckless, optional. RJP
|
Scott Medine
Detective Sergeant
Username: Sem
Post Number: 91
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 8:02 pm: | |
On the old boards, I had posted the results of a series of interviews I ahd conducted with a large number of BDSM practioners. I think it was 200 people I had interviewed. The interviews were conducted in New Orleans and Atlanta and were people who praticed Edge Play. In search of sexual climax, these people would literally place the sub in danger of death. It was described as the ultimate trust between lovers. These people often bore scars on their throats and wrists from knives and told of thier exploits concerning strangulation. All in all it is sick but interesting. The research was for the book and i will look through my notes and, once again, post the findings under a different thread.
Peace,
Scott |
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 229
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 1:58 pm: | |
Brian
A good and worthy reponse and I don't think I can disagree with any of your points, apart from your claim that we are dealing with a sexual serial killer... and that's the rub I suppose.
All your points are valid, all your points make uncommon good sense and your logic is very persuasive, so persuasive that you may well be right and I - as often - wrong.
But I feel the essential point of whether Jack was motivated by sex or not is far too important for me to just roll over and die in a fit of persuasion fuelled by your common sense.
I humbly apologise for my below the belt remarks but do feel such nasty body blows are sometimes suited to the discussion in order for more detailed self examination of our own motives, not just Jacks.
I do try to look at the situation in an off the wall way, which may not suit, but this because I am convinced that we are looking at a split camp here, and that fatal split appears to have its origins in gender.
The girls in the camp must have it - especially in the case of Merry Kelly - that some form of unrequited and frustrated love must lay at the root cause of the crime or crimes; the killer was jilted, was jealous, was spurned, was hurt and the pay back for the personal hurt was the slaughter of Merry Kelly. Even further than that their chosen suspect then kills the other prostitutes as a dire warning to his beloved not to resort to selling her body in a similar manner. He is not prompted by sex or a magical desire to mutilate women that you claim is sexual in nature, on the contrary - according to the girls in the camp - he is doing all for love, that noble and fine desire that sparks between man and woman. Jack was but a man in love.
Now let us see how the other half of the camp view the crimes, that's you the men.
You chaps go for sex as the motive, nothing noble here, it is all brutal, carnal and bloody. Sex drove the killer and motivated the peculiar mutilations, sex is the key, sex is the answer.
You chaps get a nice clean desk... Jack was a sexual serial killer, according to you, but half the camp disagrees and they all happen to be the objects of your sexual desires and frustrations, and you the object of their love and fondness.
The refuge of sexes.
So what makes the two genders view the same crime
with such radically different points of view?
Sexual conditioning, social happenstance?
Do men read Wilson and women Mills and Boon?
When you can answer me that question I will give you a valid motive for Jack's crimes, for you will have supplied that motive yourself.
With such a division in a camp full of people all driven by the same motivation, it would appear that a solution may well never be found, especially when it seems that the two genders are so fiercely protective of their entrenched territories and theories.
This is why I tend to bait both sides, perhaps in a vain attempt to create some form of meeting ground where weapons of offence and defence are laid aside, entrenched views put on hold, and hopefully honest and untainted discussion can open up new territories for us all to explore. |
R.J. Palmer
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 54
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 3:08 pm: | |
AP--
I have an entirely different view.
For me, the arguments above are merely political, they don't really represent any significant reality.
The psychologists give us a topsy-turvy world. Rape is not sex, but violence. And now murder is not violence, but sex.
Words, words, words.
To me, the murderer's inner-workings are singularly unimportant. Speculating about them doesn't really help the investigation.
A body can be mutilated for any number of reasons. Mussilini was certainly not cut down and mutilated for sexual gratification. The mob doesn't cut up its victims for jollies, but as an act of terrorism. Few would consider castrating soldiers slain on the battlefield [or scalping them] as anything even remotely approaching the sexual. Or take Lorena Bobbitt, &tc.
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say these were crimes of hatred; I don't particularly believe them to be sexual. But really, what difference does the definition make? The murderer's mind is obscure, and, to some extent, entirely unimportant.
I know this will sound shallow, but I mean it in the profoundest sense: his actions matter, but not the thoughts behind them. Investigating the former is helpful, speculating about the latter is not only a waste of energy, but is also a likely way to wander off in the wrong direction.
The shortest way to Mecca is on the back of a donkey. RP
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Brian W. Schoeneman
Inspector
Username: Deltaxi65
Post Number: 248
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 3:45 pm: | |
AP,
"So what makes the two genders view the same crime with such radically different points of view? Sexual conditioning, social happenstance?"
To be dead honest, and I don't mean to offend anyone by saying this, the difference is education and experience.
I got my start in on the Ripper by reading about criminal profiling. I started reading about criminal profiling because I was chosen to play the part of a homicide detective on my college's nationally ranked Mock Trial team. We were hardcore, and they expected me to be able to come off looking, sounding and acting like a homicide detective. I read everything I could get my hands on - crime scene anaylsis textbooks, profiling textbooks, Homicide and death investigation manuals, fingerprint analysis, ballistics analysis. Everything. And I did it so well, I made it to the All-American team. And I applied for the FBI - and I'm still in the middle of that process.
I feel like this is why the things that Scott Medine and I say are similiar. I've got the classroom knowledge, he's got the real world knowledge. His is more valuable because he's seen variations beyond what I've read. But in the end, the lessons learned are the same.
My point here is there are a lot of things that are counterintuitive about homicide investigations that you wouldn't know by reading Patricia Cornwell and watching Law and Order.
I began my Ripper research having this background, and it colors all of my opinions about the case.
That's why I discount the "he did it for love" theory. These crimes, when placed next to similiar crimes, are nearly textbook examples of sexually motivated "lust" murders.
While I'm sure it always happens in romance novels, no one in real life murders and mutilates women to try and convince the one they are with to do something different. It just doesn't happen. But it sounds plausible, and that's why people get suckered in.
RJs points about why bodies are mutilated are valid, but they are like comparing apples to oranges. Cut down Mussolini was a public spectacle, fueled by hatred. Lorena Bobbitt didn't rape or kill John. You need to look at the crime scenes to tell the difference.
I see a mutilated body on a battlefield, that's one thing. I see a mutilated body in a bedroom, that's another.
The only reason why this is important, is that by making the determination that he is a sexual serial killer, we are able to bring into play all of the data and research on patterns and motives of similiar killers to help us eliminate suspects, or at least point us in the right direction. That is the limit of what it can tell us.
At that point, we should look at the crime scenes and the wealth of information that the Ripper has left us.
So, no offense to my colleagues who disagree, but I think this is less a question of gender and more a question of education.
B |
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