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Glenn L Andersson
Chief Inspector
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 683
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 11:44 am: |       |
"This is where I would bring in JTR. He did not sexually assualt his victims,; his crimes were motivated purely by violence and probably a fear and hatred of women in general.
[...]
In my opinion he falls into the category of the man who is more often sexually impotent with women. His twisted view of sex must involve the concomitant need to subjugate, dominate and degrade his victims. His satisfaction lies in reliving the attack and his belief that he was in control of the situation."
Apart from the fact that I am not so sure about the domination thing, I can go along with that description, Gary. Sounds plausible.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 396
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 12:03 pm: | |
Hi Glenn
I am planning on looking at my argument from the opposite point of view by playing the devil's advocate with my beliefs and seeing if I can better understand the situation.
One problem I see straight away with my reasoning is that I have Jack dominating and degrading a woman who is dead or very close to it. A person might have to be close to a complete break with reality to believe it is necessary to go this far to gain control over the object of his disdain.
To dominate and degrade it would be more rational to keep the victim alive and in a state of terror such as the sadistic serial killer might do.
All The Best
Gary |
Glenn L Andersson
Chief Inspector
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 686
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 12:16 pm: | |
Hi Gary,
That rings absolutely true in my ears.
It is, however, interesting to note, that in some sexual murders done by serial killers, there often are symbolic indications of contempt and degrading of the victim in the signature, like in the victims' postitions, an example being the legs spread far apart from each other. I am not sure how to interpret this in the context of the Ripper, though. This was obviously done in Mary Kelly's case and, I think, Kate Eddowes, but that doesen't naturally have to imply sexual motivation by itself, of course. I really have no idea; this is a land of grey areas, I feel.
All the best
(Message edited by Glenna on November 16, 2003)
Glenn L Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden |
Erin Sigler
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 107
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 2:04 pm: | |
Gary wrote: I have previously stated my belief that JTR was a combination of the organized and disorganized killer. If I have not made myself clear, I will state that I believe, keeping in mnind that profiling is more of an art than a science, that Jack was a combination killer who leaned toward the disorganized type.
How strange. I've been saying the same thing throughout this entire thread. Glad someone else sees things this way. I was beginning to think I was the crazy one! For what it's worth, John Douglas also opts for a mixed presentation, as he relates in The Cases That Haunt Us. 
(Message edited by Rapunzel676 on November 16, 2003) |
Frank van Oploo
Sergeant
Username: Franko
Post Number: 17
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 6:45 pm: | |
Hi everybody,
I have been trying to follow the discussion on this thread (my computer is very slow lately, which hinders following the discussion), and at this stage I would like to hopefully make two points.
What I think is overlooked by many is that Jack lived in a different time. As we all know, he lived in a very poor and densely populated part of London. He didn’t have a car, he didn’t have a house of his own, there were all kinds of people out on the streets during the night, constables, people coming from work or from social events, people going to work, people who lived on the streets. Furthermore, the police didn’t have the investigative tools at their disposal that their modern collegues do, like fingerprinting, DNA analysis and profiling.
So, Jack didn’t have a car to abduct his victims, he didn’t have a house of his own to where he could lure his victims and afterwards do with them as he pleased and later bury them. Nor could he transport the bodies with his car to dump or bury them somewhere else where they would not be detected for a certain amount of time. So, Jack had two choices: to travel a lot on foot or do what he had to do in the streets of Whitechapel and Spitalfields, which he knew very well. And he killed all of his victims in or near those streets.
In comparison to the more modern day serial killer, as fas as planning is concerned the only thing Jack really had to worry about was not getting caught, because if he wouldn’t be caught in the act, there would be a very good chance that he wouldn’t be caught at all. So, the choosing the streets that he knew well was a good choice. Of course, not being seen with his victims or being seen in the neighbourhood of a crime scene also must have been on his mind, but this was of less importance. Besides, in those days (nights) the streets of Whitechapel and Spitalfields were badly lit and he surely was aware of this. In the end, Jack was probably seen only twice before a murder but never afterwards and he wasn’t caught, in the act nor otherwise.
The lack of sexual contact with his victims may mean that Jack was guided by voices of some kind, but can also be explained if you accept that Jack the Ripper was aware of what he did, because if he was, he probably knew that he had but little time to do what he really wanted, which meant that there was no time to have sexual contact.
All the best,
Frank
|
Glenn L Andersson
Chief Inspector
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 687
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 8:29 pm: | |
Hi Frank,
You're absolutely correct. The things you say can't be over-looked. However, if he had a house of his own or not, we wouldn't know. He could very well have been a lodger in a private house, for example.
"...there were all kinds of people out on the streets during the night, constables, people coming from work or from social events, people going to work, people who lived on the streets."
That very circumstance indicates to me that the crimes were high risk operations nevertheless. He may not have had that many options or other possibilities, but if he was an organized killer it wouldn't be that hard for him to at least change location or "set up his business elsewhere" after a while to avoid detection. The fact that the murders were done in a relatively small geographical area indicates to me that he would feel even more insecure if he went too far away from his home base -- it wasn't that hard to travel around in London in the 1880:s.
But I agree that the part about disposal of a body would be a bit more problematic compared with today -- the problem with profilers is that they are not historians, so sometimes their assumptions doesn't always makes sense in a historian context. That is unavoidable.
Hi Erin,
I don't think you've been that alone in your interpretation of Jack as a mixed offender, but I believe the opinions have shifted a bit back and forth. I, for my part, are still having my doubts about this and I really don't see that many indications in Douglas' description either to suggest it (except for one point, which I can't remember at the moment), even though he mentions the possibility. But he doesen't explain why or how and he doesen't get further into it.
However, since Douglas probably has revised his thoughts further since that book, it would be interesting to know where he stands on the matter today.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden |
Neale Carter
Sergeant
Username: Ncarter
Post Number: 35
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 10:36 pm: | |
Well, back in 2000 when we reenacted an 1870 baseball game in town I did grow a "stash," but it came off right after the (single) event
Donald,
Hopefully you meant "'tache" not "stash" although who know what happens at baseball re enactments
Regards
Neale
|
Donald Souden
Sergeant
Username: Supe
Post Number: 36
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 11:12 pm: | |
Neale,
That was stash as in "lip spinach" not illicit substances. And, while certainly off-subject, with the players in period uniforms, many of the spectators in period garb and replica balls and other equipment it was fun.
Don. |
Neale Carter
Sergeant
Username: Ncarter
Post Number: 36
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 11:34 pm: | |
G'day Donald,
Still off topic, but that sounds like great fun. Were there bookies in attendance as I gather wagering was very big in baseballs earlier days.
Perhaps we could adjourn to the pub talk some time.
Neale |
Saddam
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 7:58 pm: | |
1. "I have worked with and represented a number of battered and abused women in domestic cases, many of whom were badly sexually abused over a period of time. All I can do is try my best to empathize, be understanding and compassionate. What I can do pro-actively and have always done is go after the perpetrators in court with as much zeal as I can."
>>Where is the evidence that Jack battered and abused anybody? How can we realistically say that he was motivated to do violence to women? What he did was murder in the most efficient, silent and painless way possible, then cut the bodies up and leave them on display. Nobody suffered, except the loss of her life. The question we need to ask is: "What did these actions mean to him?"
2. "I do feel confident that sexual assualt is a crime of violence and the sex is an integral part of the violence. This is where I would bring in JTR. He did not sexually assualt his victims,; his crimes were motivated purely by violence and probably a fear and hatred of women in general."
>>I don't think there's a way to not consider Jack's murders sexual. He killed women, and he went right after their genitals and uteri. Jack's crimes, it would seem reasonable to say, had a sexual dimension; otherwise there would also be male bodies found mutilated in those days.
Saddam
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 478
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 11:43 am: | |
Hi All,
I’m having a bit of trouble with this sexual assault and motivation thing. I’m not clear about the definitions, or how we should be judging Jack from what he did or didn’t do at the scene of his crimes.
With some serial killers – Fred West always comes to mind – it appears obvious what kind of thrill they are getting from the kill. And it’s this thrill seeking, and thrill repeating, that seems to drive them on until someone or something stops them.
Others would appear not to be motivated by thrill at all, sexual or otherwise, but by a compulsion to rid their world of what they see as obstacles to their peace of mind.
From a potential victim’s point of view, however, a sexual assault is a sexual assault, whether it's Fred, satisfying his lust with sexual torture before murdering the woman, or Jack, feeling no physical desire whatsoever, while mutilating her sexual organs after death. (Typical reports in the old days of attacks on women where no sexual activity had taken place would declare, with a misplaced sense of relief, that the victim had not been ‘interfered with’ – even if the poor soul had been virtually hacked to pieces! If she could have spoken from the grave I suspect her view would be somewhat different.)
The argument I keep hearing (assuming I’m on the right wavelength) is that Jack himself would not define his ripping as sexual assault, and that neither should we (even if his victims would beg to differ if they could speak up). I can relate to the view that he was not remotely interested in his victims sexually, and could have felt disgusted by the very thought. (And in this case the younger and nearly nude MJK may have made his blood boil all the more if he found himself aroused despite his disgust.) But what Jack did to the women must surely relate directly to a distinctly abnormal attitude towards sex. So weren’t Fred and Jack two sides of the same coin? In other words, far from sex having nothing to do with Jack’s motivation, IMHO sex seems to have had everything to do with it.
Jack may have been motivated by fear and loathing of the reproductive process, while Fred had a perverted fascination for it. But if they shared the same grotesque obsession with the subject, wouldn’t that make Jack, by definition, a sex murderer - even if the very suggestion that his knife was an extension of his manhood would have made him reach for the SSB before AP could get a sniff for himself?
Love,
Caz
(Message edited by Caz on November 17, 2003) |
Glenn L Andersson
Chief Inspector
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 688
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 12:02 pm: | |
Good points, Caz. Very interesting.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 538
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 1:19 pm: | |
I believe I have already taken to task a few people on these boards who have too easily and blithely confused a sexual motive or desire with an attack on the reproductive organs and functions of a woman.
This might seem rare distinction, however it is a distinction that I cannot allow to pass unchallenged.
For it is my honest and earnest contention that the entire thrust of Jack’s attacks on his victims were directed exclusively at the reproductive organs of the women concerned - apart from the case of Mary Kelly where the intention of the killer appears to have been total destruction - which, as we must fully understand and comprehend, in all the circumstances would only be available as targets to the killer through the passage of, or indeed the removal of, the sexual organs actually blocking, covering or leading to the reproductive organs.
If Jack’s attacks were purely - or even partly - sexual in their nature or design then it follows that he would have attacked the sexual organs as his primary function and aim, however it would appear that the sexual organs were in fact of secondary importance, when not entirely incidental to his main thrust and ambition of destroying and indeed securing some parts of the reproductive value of the female form.
Ergo… a sexually motivated attack on the sexual organs and functions of a woman would result in superficial wounding and cutting to the obvious elements of a woman’s sexuality, breasts, vagina and perhaps other associated elements such as buttocks and lips… which we do not see in this case.
However an attack motivated by a desire to either destroy or possess the reproductive organs and elements of a woman would result in massive damage to the areas both protecting and leading to the reproductive facilities, so the core damage would be to the obvious elements of a woman’s sexuality… which we do see in this case.
Sex can lead to reproduction but reproduction can never lead to sex.
|
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 399
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 5:18 pm: | |
Hi Saddam
You disagree with my statement about zealously representing battered and abused women in that there is no evidence Jack abused anyone? I can't say I understand for certain what you mean. I believe if you read the quote in context, I was not making a statement about JTR. I do not believe Jack raped any of his victims. I was talking about rape being a crime of violence. Your comments indicate that you believe Jack was not acting out a crime of violence when he slaughtered the prostitutes.
As far as I can gather you come to this conclusion because he dispatched his vitims quickly. Do you seriously believe that, and I am conjecturing on M.O. here, he throttled his victims and then severed their jugular viens and allowed them to bleed to death, then eviscerated them without acting out violence. I am dumbfounded by this observation from an intelligent man.
Using inductive reasoning I might be able to conclude that what you are indicating is your belief that Jack was so deranged that he did not know what he was doing when he killed his victims. This is possible if he were the proverbial raving madman some would make him out to be. However, he brought a knife, he gained his victims confidence, killed in a systematic fashion while avoiding getting splattered with blood and managed to make himself unobtrusive to the point of not being caught while making his escape. He was obviously not your typical lunatic. I am sure that any court in this country would find him sane enough to stand trial.
I don't disagree for a moment that the importance to us is understanding what the killings meant to him. I have stated what I believe he thought he was doing and I won't reiterate it as I believe my posts have already done so with great verbiage. I would be more than happy to hear your opinion and if my conclusions about your view of Jack are wrong, I will gradly stand corrected.
As far as a sexual motivation for Jack's crimes is concerned, recall that I said that the sexual element is an integral point of the violence.
All The Best
Gary
|
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 400
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 6:03 pm: | |
Hi Caz
You stated, as to motivation, 'In my humble opinion sex had everything to do with it.' I would agree. As you alluded to, sex and violence, which are intrinsically linked in these crimes, are the prime motivating factors.
That begs the question, how does the normal mind, I hope everyone here is normal, understand the linking of sex with violence? Does it begin in childhood by witnessing or experiencing sex in close association with violence? Is it inborn in some people? Does it relate to a damaged brain? Perhaps all of these or a combination of certain factors contribute.
I don't pretend to know the answers.
All The Best
Gary |
Frank van Oploo
Sergeant
Username: Franko
Post Number: 18
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 7:04 pm: | |
Hi there Glenn,
Sharp as ever, you’re quite right about Jack’s lodgings. That’s one thing I overlooked. Of course we wouldn’t know if he had a house of his own or not. However, if it were something like Mary Kelly’s room or a room at 29 Hanbury Street, it would probably not be as private as an organised serial killer would like it to be, I would say.
“That very circumstance indicates to me that the crimes were high risk operations nevertheless.”
I haven’t contradicted this before and I don’t intend to now.
“He may not have had that many options or other possibilities, but if he was an organized killer it wouldn't be that hard for him to at least change location or "set up his business elsewhere" after a while to avoid detection.”
I guess it probably wasn’t that hard if he really felt he had to. However, I have two things to say about your remark.
First, the very thing you suggest might just be what actually happened. JtR might have moved out of the area shortly after his last murder in order to avoid detection.
Secondly, as I said in my previous post, the only thing Jack really had to worry about was not getting caught. If he wouldn’t get caught in the act he was already halfway home. To get home safely all the way he had to see to it that he didn’t get all covered in blood. According to the (medical) evidence Jack killed in such a manner that he avoided getting (much) blood on his clothes. And we all know he managed to leave the scene of the crime without being heard or seen each and every time. So, Jack must not have felt threatened by the work of the police or the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee and he seemed to have good reason for it too.
If he really were an organised killer, perhaps he was thrilled by the thought that he lived among the very people that were most affected by his deeds, perhaps he relived his murders time and again hearing about it in the streets, maybe he thrived on the fear he must have seen in the eyes of some the locals and on the power that he must have felt. Maybe this thrill was more important to him than the threat of being discovered and so he remained in the area for some time and only went away after his last murder - whichever this was.
As long as Jack didn’t feel threatened by the efforts of the police and the Vigilance Committee, he might have restricted himself to Whitechapel.
All the best,
Frank
|
Petra
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 1:00 pm: | |
Another 'weird' quote that made me think: I read this one in an old school paper for the students:
'You're not even good enough to go eat a rotten apple in the shadow of my s*hit!'
It reminded me of the fact that people sometimes feel they're in some way 'better' then others.
Guess: Maybe Jack felt 'better' because:
a) he wasn't in their position
b) he could defend and attack whenever he liked |
Glenn L Andersson
Chief Inspector
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 691
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 7:56 pm: | |
Hello there Frank,
Nice to see back again. No, I am afraid I've lost some of my sharpness these recent months; maybe I've been too preoccupied with other things and can't seem to concentrate...
"However, if it were something like Mary Kelly’s room or a room at 29 Hanbury Street, it would probably not be as private as an organised serial killer would like it to be, I would say."
Could be true, Frank. But I believe it would still be effective enough for the crimes. But I don't know, it's a bit of a long shot anyway.
"First, the very thing you suggest might just be what actually happened. JtR might have moved out of the area shortly after his last murder in order to avoid detection."
That could be true as well; I don't think the crimes themselves, though, shows us a personality who are able to do that or think in that manner, but I can't prove it. Your suggestion can't, naturally, be ruled out. And if we knew that he did this, then we most certainly was looking for an organized killer - or at lest, it would be more probable.
Yes, I read that other point of yours as well but didn't have time to comment on it earlier. Yes, it's right that if the police were going to catch him they had to nail him on the spot, in direct connection with the murders. I do think the thrill, or rather(in my view) his urge to kill was stronger than the fear of being captured by the police, but that indicates to me more elements of a disorganized killer. I still believe it to be most plausible, that he restricted the killings near his home base -- close to his own neighbourhood -- because he knew that area and didn't feel secure enough to "work" outside those boundaries. However, if we could find indications on that he operated elsewhere in London, that argument would most likely have to find its way into the paper basket and stay there till eternity.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden |
Erin Sigler
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 108
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 10:28 pm: | |
A few points. First of all, we're all making the assumption that just because there was no "evidence" of sex (i.e., semen) there was no sexual contact. As President Clinton has taught us, sex can take many forms, and even in the days before latex condoms there need not have been ejaculate left behind. Chikatilo, the Russian serial killer, frequently killed the women who laughed at his inability to get or sustain an erection. Perhaps Jack was impotent. Maybe he masturbated over their bodies but didn't ejaculate; or waited until he got home to relive the fantasy. We just can't know.
Frank, I can't remember where, but I did mention that very fact about Jack's not having access to a car or his own place. This is why I've opted for a mixed presentation, although of course it's rather narrow-minded of us to assume that a car is a necessary component of body disposal. Furthermore, I would expect an organized killer to have a pre-planned location in mind ahead of time with his avenues of escape planned out in advance. I would also expect him to have come up with a better means of body disposal, or to be able to find women with their own rooms. And not to burst Gary's bubble, because I agree with him for the most part, but I hardly think it takes much to gain the confidence of a starving street prostitute who knows that you might mean the difference between a bed and a night on the cold, wet, city streets.
One thing I also wanted to clear up is that the killer's sexual curiousity, as John Douglas refers to it, need not necessarily be interpreted as anything but that--curiousity. To me this indicates someone who is generally curious about the inside of a human body, particularly the female organs. This doesn't mean his crimes aren't sexual in nature, just that we're probably dealing with someone who's rather sexually immature.
I'm tempted to ignore A.P.'s offbeat radical (pseudo-) feminist dogma, but I'm afraid that I just couldn't let some of her "facts" stand unopposed. I cannot for the life of me see how anyone can determine precisely what is of "primary" or "secondary" importance in this case, except perhaps the mutilations as a whole. Your argument, aside from being circular and virtually indecipherable, doesn't wash with the known facts of the case. The genitals were targeted. Read the descriptions of the victims's injuries, such as this one from Annie Chapman's autopsy: ". . .[T]he uterus and its appendages with the upper portion of the vagina and the posterior two thirds of the bladder, had been entirely removed. No trace of these parts could be found and the incisions were cleanly cut, avoiding the rectum, and dividing the vagina low enough to avoid injury to the cervix uteri." If the removal of the sex organs (sorry, I didn't name them) was not his "primary motivation," why didn't he, for example, take the liver with him? Or the pancreas? Or any number of other available organs? Why bother mutilating the uterus at all? I simply cannot fathom how taking the sex organs makes this not a sex crime when it's clear he was trying to de-sex her. Are you saying that he's threatened by her reproductive abilities but not by her sex? How on earth do you make the distinction? Reproduction is necessarily connected to sexuality. Furthermore, there weren't any "superficial cuts" to her legs, either. The absence of one thing does not in and of itself prove the existence of another. |
Donald Souden
Sergeant
Username: Supe
Post Number: 39
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 10:40 pm: | |
Neale,
Definitely adjourn for a pub talk sometime soon. As it is, not only doesn't it belong on this thread, but this thread is getting a bit dense for me. Still, I do have a great little story about a bookie's (or "odds consultant," as he once pointedly told me he prefers) involvement in our little game.
Don. |
Dan Norder
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 11:33 pm: | |
Glenn wrote:
"You are welcome to disagree with me, Dan, but if you read my posts more thoroughly, you'll see that I constantly spray them with words like "assumtion", "belief", "in my view", "I think"/"don't think", "could be" -- when was the last time I saw you use those words, Dan? You seem pretty sure of your own interpretations as well. "
Actually, no, you rarely use those kinds of words, and generally only after I point out the fact that you don't. I use them fairly often in general but not in cases where they are unwarranted. For example, it's not just my belief that ripper killers can be married, appear rational, etc., because we have the facts in the case of the Rostov Ripper, among others, to prove it. Yet you claim they can't be, with no explanation why it is your "belief" that it "could be" impossible and refuse to look into other ripper-type cases to try to inform yourself more about the topic.
This whole recent back and forth started because you said that not only did Jack the Ripper not have any organized traits but also that nobody has even offered any. I have tried to point out that this was wrong, that there have been several offered, and that we shouldn't have to rehash them constantly to avoid you claiming they don't even exist. If you had simply used any of those words and phrases you claim to use and claim I don't you would have avoided this whole problem.
You also claim that I am attacking you personally. This is not the case. I am simply pointing out the fact that you constantly present your opinions as if they were facts, ignoring points to the contrary (such as the Rostov Ripper case which disproves most of your opinions about what mutilation killers are and are not like) and so forth. Don't go and claim that you are being attacked and that you shouldn't have to respond at all, support your statements with actual facts instead of just making your assumptions sound as if they have been proven.
Erin,
You are kind of new to the boards, so that's why you haven't seen me make a list of organized attributes. But, heck, when pressed Glenn finally admitted that a good portion of these arguments do exist and named some of them. Of course he still dismisses them out of hand, but that's a step up from him claiming they don't exist and that no one has even been able to offer any.
If you really want the whole thing rehashed, maybe you can search these current boards or buy the archived messageboards on CD and hunt them all down. I don't have the energy to constantly reargue the same points every few months only to have people like Glenn later say that the conversations never even happened. It's all so pointless. |
Dan Norder
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 11:45 pm: | |
Glenn wrote:
"but if he was an organized killer it wouldn't be that hard for him to at least change location or "set up his business elsewhere" after a while to avoid detection"
How do you know he didn't?
Carrie Brown in the U.S. is a potential Jack the Ripper victim, as well as others in other areas throughout the world.
It's also possible that the torso killings were his handiwork, done from a different location where he had the opportunity to spend more time dismembering the bodies.
There are also a number of other deaths in the area throughout the years that typically haven't been attributed to the Ripper because the methods used or victims were different. It's entirely possible that he was organized enough to change his methods to confuse the police or did so for some other reason.
Too many people come into this case with all sorts of assumptions. The longer you look at things with an open eye, the more you have to admit that the common beliefs about the case aren't as solid as the people new to the case seem to think.
|
Sarah Long
Police Constable
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 8
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 7:11 am: | |
Dan,
Do you honesty think it's likely that JTR went to America, killed one woman and then that was it. Yes there were other ripper like murders at the time in other places but I don't think it likely that he went travelling the world. If he did, then he would definately have had to be a rich man as the poor were so poor that they wouldn't have ever left London, let alone England. |
Peter J. Tabord
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 9:03 am: | |
Hi all
I really think there is a need for more understanding of the Victorian environment before some of the statements here are made. For example (and without suggesting that JtR actually did so) it was very easy for the poor to move around in the Victorian era compared to almost any earlier period in history.
On another thread someone mentioned the concept of an abused childhood - well , that would be a concept that was not only viewed differently, but would have had a totally different physical and moral context to today, especially as our perp would have been probably have been born in the 1840's/50's when the slums were arguably at their most violent and sordid.
Substantial improvements had been made by the 1880's, and yet I suspect most of us would be appalled and devastated if we had to spend a week on a night beat in old Whitechapel (using perhaps the time machine mentioned elsewhere!) I would suggest reading some history books (there's one by Asa Briggs called, I think, Victorian Cities) to get some kind of context, and also to remember that probably all the records underestimate the differences.
Regards
Pete |
Billy Markland
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 12:14 pm: | |
Peter, ask and ye shall receive. The following is an excellent link to a site featuring extensive contemporary documentation of Victorian London.
http://www.victorianlondon.org/
Best of wishes,
Billy
P.S. Don't blame me for getting lost there as it is extremely addictive!! |
|
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