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Kris Law
Sergeant
Username: Kris
Post Number: 40
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 19, 2003 - 1:40 pm: |       |
This is a fascinating thread!
I wonder if perhaps Jack was confined away by himself for a number of years, like the Zebra was? I've read that Newgate Prison had a notorious solitary confinement programme. I believe even speaking was prohibited, under punishment of the infamous "crank".
Perhaps he was let out of solitary after a number of years in the summer of 1888, and went on a virtual glut? |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1597
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 19, 2003 - 2:04 pm: | |
Hi AP
I was extremely interested to read that in the animal world masturbation is unrelated to position of rank. I'd have just assumed that in those animals that can accomplish it, like the apes, masturbation would increase the further you went down the hierarchy - the higher-ranking males being able to mate instead of masturbate. The masturbation among the lower ranking males would have the effect of reducing their aggression and of keeping them in their lowly role. Very interesting.
Re human masturbation, maybe the "bad press" it currently has goes back to some small Biblical community which really needed its males firing on all cylinders to prevent the group from dying out?
Kris, I don't know about years of confinement. I do wonder what he was doing, and where he was, in October.
Robert |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 612
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 19, 2003 - 5:18 pm: | |
Robert
got to be careful here, as they now allow captive apes satellite television and they have been known to tune into the red hot channels when the lights go out, so anything is possible.
Seriously though, primates often use masturbation as a challenging technique when faced with an unknown rival, or even an 'insulting' mechanism within a group. They certainly all use it in captivity as an aggressive tool against non-specific rivals such as their human keepers. It is common behaviour right through the structure of the group, but rarely used in the sad terms that we tend to relate it to in the human condition...
and that is where I think we go wrong in this study of the condition.
It quickly becomes obvious in the animal world that sexual dominance is more often evidenced in display rather than action, and here of course masturbation plays a key role.
As I said it earlier, the activity has so many social implications that it is probably impossible to quantify it. |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 613
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 10:13 am: | |
Translating the examples of animal behaviour which I have cited here and then applying them to the human condition is a difficult task, simply because as humans our social behaviour is vastly more complex; hence it would be possible to take the single case of the Grevy zebra stallion and then create at least a hundred plausible scenarios from it, and each and every scenario would give us a different result because of the social complexity and diversity of human relationships.
Having said that though, there are core issues at stake here in animal behaviour which will effect us as humans in exactly the same manner and form, for despite our social complexity we are still subject to base natural force and instinct and their consequent urges and suggestions. When the school dinner bell rings, just like Pavlov’s dog, we will salivate.
One thing that has always struck me when studying such crimes as we discuss, is the enormous amount of ‘denial’ in the behaviour of the criminals involved. If I just might quote two examples from my personal experience it should help to explain my thinking.
Both are men serving long sentences for crimes committed on much younger men - committed when the men were in their mid-twenties - and in both cases the men encouraged the lads to perform sexual acts on them for financial gain, however when the lads did so the men then battered them almost to death. Almost killing some of the lads who were after all only doing what the men wanted.
The two cases were so similar that I wanted to know more about this strange behaviour and managed - with difficulty - to arrange dialogue with these very dangerous men. To cut a long story short, it transpired that both men were in a total state of denial concerning their own sexual identity, refusing to accept - point blank - that their offences committed against young men were of a homosexual nature.
After 360 hours of intensive behavioural adjustment - most of which required the offender to swap roles with the victims - it was possible to bring both men to the delicate threshold of accepting the obvious fact that they were in fact homosexuals, and their offences were of a homosexual nature.
Both men then stepped over that threshold of denial and began new lives - obviously within the prison system - as admitted and relaxed homosexuals who began to form perfectly natural relationships with men of their own age grouping.
It was an awful way to come out of the closet, and a lot of pain and suffering could have been avoided had the men been forced to ‘recognise’ themselves earlier.
‘Fine.’ I said to myself when I walked away from this provoking encounter where I had myself been attacked by the men several times when pushing them too far too soon. ‘What comes next?’
Well, next was to apply this denial behaviour and therapy to heterosexual offenders to see what would happen.
Now that was a revelation with direct applications to the case we discuss here.
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1603
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 11:11 am: | |
Carry on, AP.
Robert |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 614
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 1:45 pm: | |
In case after case concerning heterosexual offenders it quickly becomes obvious that the root cause behind their crimes is a total confusion regarding their own sexual identity. This confusion very often has as its deep rooted spark the fact that these offenders had themselves been subject to sexual abuse as children by an older and trusted member of their own sex. This in turn tragically confuses a young child during his most informative and developing phase of life, and in particular allows that child no real sexual identity with which to identify himself.
The older males interference with the young boy is a form of what we call ‘imprinting’ and this is likely to last for the lifetime of the individual concerned.
In what amounts to a total break-out from this vicious trap of confused isolation, the offender when older attempts contact with what he believes should be the appropriate target of his dubious sexual identity, the female sex, but because of the overwhelming confusion and shame he feels from his ‘imprinting’ he is unable - or unwilling - to risk such encounters with what we could call a ‘woman’, and instead directs his confused sexual urge to more vulnerable and - to him - more identifiable members of the female sex… children.
The circle is squared.
These so-called heterosexual offenders when shoved into a tight corner and forced to ‘deny their denial’ very often emerge through the fractured chrysalis of their confused sexual emotion as admitted homosexuals who have - sadly - evolved as such only because of the abuse they suffered as children.
An offender of this nature who comes out of the denial process and is able to establish healthy sexual relationships with another male of his own age will never offend again.
However an offender of this nature who remains in denial of his true sexual identity will almost certainly re-offend upon his release from the prison system.
Obviously not all heterosexual offenders are either homosexual or in denial concerning their true sexual identity, but there is powerful and persuasive emerging evidence that many of them are.
Where I see this in application to the crimes of Jack the Ripper is firmly in the obvious confusion concerning his own sexual identity, for it seems to me that the very nature of the crimes show a marked immaturity and maladjustment towards a totally undirected goal… one sees an experimental tinkering rather than a purposeful thrust at a specific target or subject.
So much in the same way that confused supposedly heterosexual men might target immature females in a vain attempt to solidify their vague sexual identity - trying to be what they are patently not - and again much in the same way that a confused but truly homosexual man might batter the boys who are supposedly pleasuring him, I too see Jack in bitter denial about his sexual identity. A situation that was probably forced upon him during his formative childhood years by adult abuse, though not necessarily sexual in its nature.
The denial factor can take many different directions, and I strongly suspect that the denial factors and urges in Jack’s case were directed at the more mature matriarchal female figure from whom he probably received the abuse as a child. Such denial is an overpowering force to be reckoned with, and if our Jack found himself as a growing man harbouring a repressed sexual desire for such a matriarchal figure he would most certainly have cut out that sexual desire with a knife as confirmation of his denial.
Therein is the ritual.
But then that would of course make Jack a killer with a sexual motive.
Oh dear, I’ve just shot me good self in the foot yet again.
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Erin Sigler
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 148
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 9:50 pm: | |
Where I see this in application to the crimes of Jack the Ripper is firmly in the obvious confusion concerning his own sexual identity, for it seems to me that the very nature of the crimes show a marked immaturity and maladjustment towards a totally undirected goal… one sees an experimental tinkering rather than a purposeful thrust at a specific target or subject.
Careful, A.P., you're starting to sound like my man John Douglas, who believes the Ripper's motives to have been almost exactly as you've described, and I know you're loathe to agree with a profiler. Douglas views the mutilations as evidence of the offender's curiosity about women's bodies, including (but not restricted to) their reproductive organs. This, in turn, seems to imply that Jack was rather immature, sexually, not to mention a little disturbed. In The Cases That Haunt Us, Douglas indicates that he believes the killer to have been "someone who both hates women and has a bizarre and perverse curiosity about the human body that I can only characterize as demented," (12) and as "a combination of a violent and sexually immature and inadequate personality," (19). Like you, A.P., he also believes "this killer to have come a family with a domineering mother and weak, passive, and/or absent father. In all likelihood, his mother drank heavily and enjoyed the company of many men. As a result, he failed to receive consistent care and contact with stable adult role models and became detached socially with a diminished emotional response toward others. He became asocial, preferring to be alone. His anger became internalized, and in his younger years, he expressed hi pent-up destructive emotions by setting fires and mistreating of torturing small animals. By perpetrating these acts, he disocvered areas of dominance, power, and control and learned how to continue violent destructive acts without detection or punishment. As he grew older, his fantasy developed a strong component that included domination and mutilation of women, along with a basic curiosity about them, unfulfilled in his real life," (69).
That being said, A.P., I think I am beginning to understand your reluctance to characterize the murders as "sex crimes." Jack's attacks were focused on the sexual organs of his victims, but not exclusively. Perhaps he was less interested in the sexual functions of these organs and more in what they represented to him: Female power. It wasn't necessarily their sexuality which threatened him, but their very existence as women--women who, like his own mother perhaps, threatened his masculinity and status and diminished his power. By killing and "neutering" his victims, he was attempting to reclaim that power which he felt had been unjustly denied him since childhood. Perhaps these women were victims because they seemed to be trying to gain the "upper hand" in his dealings with them--they were not suitably submissive, and however innocent, their actions to him appeared to him as attempts to dominate him and control the situation, something he simply could not abide. I am reminded of the serial killer Monte Rissell, who murdered a woman for similar reasons. He had intended only to rape her, but this woman was a prostitute, and in his mind, tried to "manage" the situation, to take the control away from him, so he killed her, when a more compliant woman may have been spared. Having murdered once, he discovered he enjoyed it, so he continued killing until he was finally apprehended.
A.P., is this the sort of distinction you've been trying to make, or am I completely off-base? |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 616
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 6:57 am: | |
Yes Erin, a good summary, and you captured the distinction I have always tried to make in this case… in fact you managed to make the distinction very lucid which I have probably failed to do.
I am not loathe to throw my lot in with any profiler who is ‘profiling’, it is when they start trotting out Freudian claptrap that I bristle. Your Douglas makes a lot of sound common sense, which is refreshing for a change - I admit I haven’t read any modern profiling work for some years now, which I also admit doesn’t shed me in a very positive light in this discussion, so perhaps I really should get back into it.
Perhaps I should also stress that I have been throwing out this portrait of Jack for over twelve years now, and in particular in the Mammoth Book of Jack I did link Jack to a sort of Billy Liar character who when told to clean up his room by his mother whipped out his machine pistol and blew her away. Taking that one step further I also felt that the Midwich Cuckoos were a good role model for Jack as well, in the way that they viewed their parents as pure trash to be disposed off once they had served the purpose of producing and rearing the little parasite in their nest.
I know these sort of mind leaps are tenuous to say the least but they do reach valid areas of discussion when imaginatively understood.
Your points about the compliance of the victim are very provoking, and I imagine that earlier on in his murderous career, Jack quickly learnt that the most compliant of victims was a dead one, and hence the speed of their dispatch and the general ‘hurried’ feel of the crime scenes… apart from Mary Kelly of course, which does seem to fall out of character with the rest of the crimes, for this attack was slow-motion; sure it was frantic and frenetic in its bloody purpose but it certainly doesn’t carry the rushed immediacy of the other attacks.
Jack was always in such a damn hurry.
|
Erin Sigler
Inspector
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 153
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 10:11 pm: | |
Glad I finally understood your point after all this time, A.P, and I'm just sorry it took me so long to realize it.
You might consider checking out Douglas's chapter on the Ripper in Cases. You wouldn't have to worry about his venturing into anything particularly esoteric. Sure, he's got an ego the size of the Goodyear blimp, but he's clear and to the point and clearly not an academic (not that there's anything wrong with academics). I guess what I'm saying is that most of his work is based not on theory but on his own (and others') hands-on experience in the field, which gives him a ring of authenticity past profilers probably don't share.
You'll have to clarify for me who Billy Liar and the Midwich Cuckoos are. I haven't had a chance to pick up the Mammoth Book yet, given my financial predicament, but I'll have to put it on my list.
There are a number of serial killers who started as rapists and, as A.P. indicated, learned from experience that dead victims can't report you to the police, can't testify against you in court, and best of all, don't fight back. As I mentioned in my previous post, Monte Rissell started out his murderous career only intending to rape his victim--it was when she tried to take control of the situation away from him that his rage was provoked.
I think he just lucked into Mary Kelly's having a room. That, or he was becoming bolder and attacking women in their beds, which is a not unforeseeable development in his progression. Douglas opts for a complete mental breakdown following the complete expression of his murderous desires, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that while his actions were growing bolder his psyche was growing increasingly fragmented, thus the (probable) cessation of the series. Indeed, if there had been another "Ripper-style" murder I would not have been particularly surprised if it had occurred indoors.
I hope that all made sense. I have a cold, so I'm afraid my own psyche's a little fragmented, as it were!  |
Natalie Severn
Detective Sergeant
Username: Severn
Post Number: 118
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 4:10 pm: | |
Thanks Peter Best Natalie |
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 560
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 4:00 am: | |
Hi All,
Hi AP and Erin,
You have both drawn a vivid picture in my mind of the troubled boy who may have grown into our Jack the Lad. It’s impossible to imagine how he would have turned out had he been brought up in a different environment. Every potential Jack is as unique as every well-adjusted small boy, so it would be fiendishly difficult to match the Whitechapel murders with the right Jack, let alone know that we are right.
Could this man, who has been confused and in denial about his sexual identity since possibly early childhood, also have been a naturally bright boy, able and determined to keep his troubles as much to himself as possible, appearing to the outside world, and even to those close to him, such as siblings of either sex, schoolfriends etc, as reasonably normal, if quiet, except perhaps for occasional bouts of eccentric or ‘bad’ behaviour?
In other words, is it possible, even likely, that Jack was someone who never gave off enough of the kind of signs we would be looking for to make him identifiable from the historical record?
In short, how much of a nobody could our Jack have been?
I’m not sure we should be expecting him to stick out like a sore thumb, or even to give us much of a clue.
Love,
Caz
|
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 624
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 1:04 pm: | |
Erin
Billy Liar was a spotty nerd who imagined himself to be ultimate being on this planet, but unable to act this role out in reality he did so in fantasy, so as I said when his mother moaned at him she was blown away in a hail of machine gun fire - and one saw that in the film - but in reality he would say ‘yes mum.’
I felt that this type of fantasy thinking was in itself a denial of self, and one could easily see the type of sexual thinking and crisis that could accompany this degree of isolated fantasy.
Just an idea of mine some years ago.
The Midwich Cuckoos - written by John Wyndham - is classic sci-fi with a twist, aliens implant their own offspring in the wombs of women in a small English village, and these aliens are reared by the human parents, until the sprog is old enough to look after itself and then the surrogate parents are wiped out.
Again just an idea of mine, which still awaits full development.
Thanks for your kind comments.
|
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 625
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 1:47 pm: | |
Caz
Thanks for the positive note.
I’m not so sure that I can go along with your thoughts here, for I have always maintained that Jack would be recorded by history in some form or manner, and he would not be a blank unrecorded slate which I guess is true of 99% of humanity.
It has always been my contention that killers of this nature can be found in local press reports and similar, perhaps for very dissimilar offences, or even perhaps for totally unrelated positive reasons… and I think of Colin Pitchfork here and his appearance in the local rag with the cake he baked for charity. Of course there are other examples but I’m drinking brandy in anticipation of Christmas and can’t find the effort to make my memory work.
So I better leave a serious reply until the bottle is empty.
|
Diana
Inspector
Username: Diana
Post Number: 185
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 2:36 pm: | |
How about the RSPCA. Don't these people often start out abusing animals? Would the RSPCA have records going back that far? |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1636
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 6:38 pm: | |
Hi Erin
Re Midwich Cuckoos, there was a cracking good film "Village of the Damned" made around 1960. Well worth checking out if it comes up on TV over there.
AP, I think the video for the Boomtown Rats' "I Don't Like Mondays" had some Midwich echoes.
Robert |
Erin Sigler
Inspector
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 161
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 6:58 pm: | |
My mom has that film, Robert. I always thought it looked a little too bizarre, but perhaps I'll check it out.
By the way, the song in question (not sure about the video) is based on the 1979 case of Brenda Spencer, a teenaged girl who shot up a schoolyard across the street from her house, killing two and wounding several others. When she was asked why she had done it, she answered (among other things), "I don't like Mondays." You can read more about it at http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/mondays.asp if you're interested.
Sorry, got off topic there for a bit. I think you may be on target with your analysis of Jack's character, A.P., although I'm inclined to think that Mommy and Daddy had something to do with why Little Jacky ended up like the Grevy stallion, if indeed he did. I don't believe there is such a thing as a "natural-born killer." In other words, Billy Liar's mom (and dad, for that matter--I'm no Freudian, I swear!) probably did something to deserve what she got. Not that it was justified, but I digress. |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1638
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 7:10 pm: | |
Thanks for that link, Erin. Sad that some people now misremember it as a shooting by a teacher, when teachers died trying to protect the children.
Robert |
Cludgy
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 24, 2003 - 10:14 am: | |
The word immature, regarding JTR has appeared in the above posts, and i must admit that i feel this is spot on. It appears, in the Whitechapel series of murders, that we have a naughty boy at work, arranging Chapman's possesions, nicking Eddowes eyes, placing Kelly's hand inside her body, he seems as if he's saying like some errant schoolboy, look at me, look at what I'm doing, what can you do to catch me? The massive press coverage would fuel his childish ego. The big question is what incurred his wrath? What causes naughty schoolboys to misbehave? Being caught doing something wrong for starters, and having their knuckles rapped. |
Glenn L Andersson
Chief Inspector
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 973
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, January 11, 2004 - 8:57 pm: | |
AP and Erin,
I think your descriptions of ol' Jacky here are very thoughtful ones and I think it corresponds quite well with how I see him.
Douglas' perception of the Ripper is a good one, in my view, although there are some passages in there that makes less sense than others, but I believe, among others, that part that Erin quoted in her post belong to those who are quite spot on, as I see it. I agree with Erin, AP. Ego-tripped media whore or not, give Douglas a chance and look at what he's trying to say. As Erin points out, he has earnt his experience from years of work in the police force, not behind the desk in an academic environment.
I must say, AP, I think I see your points about the Ripper's character clearer than ever as well. A lot of good thinking there, as well as from Erin.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden |
Erin Sigler
Inspector
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 183
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 11:08 pm: | |
Cludgy, I think you (and to be fair, A.P., who's promoted this idea for years) may be onto something. There is something rather adolescent about flipping up a woman's skirts to leave her genitals exposed, not to mention the obscene posing of her body and the rather peculiar marking of Eddowes' face. I've always wondered if there was something symbolic in those cuts. I may have mentioned this before, but I heard somewhere that children who have been institutionalized (in orphanages, for instance) develop strange, ritualized behaviors (lining things up, stealing small trinkets, hoarding food) as a control mechanism. This can apply to anyone who's faced extremely adverse circumstances, but particularly when they've had those experiences at a young age.
I read about a serial killer--Jerry Brudos I think--who as a child developed a fascination with women's high-heeled shoes. His parents were horrified and disciplined him severely. Perhaps if they had been less repressive this rather childhood interest would have matured into nothing more than a harmless fetish; couple this with such harsh punishment and a mind probably not altogether balanced and you end up with a guy who kills women, cuts off their feet, and uses them to "model" his much-loved pairs of high-heeled shoes.
My point in all this is that sometimes people develop strange habits--compulsions, even--as the result of extreme circumstances, not unlike A.P.'s zebra. I have to wonder if Jack experienced something similar to Brudos--as if some natural adolescent curiosity about the female body (which needn't have been sexual) had been repressed (probably not uncommon in the Victorian era!) and twisted into a bizarre need to see, touch, and "experience" that which had been denied to him. I've always thought the murders were secondary to the mutilations, although I wondered what exactly what could compel such extensive evisceration. Now I think we may be getting closer to an answer. Whoever he was, I think we're looking for a very young man, perhaps in his early twenties, with a very repressed and possibly abusive background (which may have even included institutionalization of some kind) and a decided lack of familiarity with the anatomy--the female anatomy in particular.
Thanks for the kind words, Glenn. I may not like Douglas personally, but I do respect his expertise.
(Message edited by Rapunzel676 on January 14, 2004) |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 731
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 1:18 pm: | |
Erin
Yes I am drawn as well to this idea of Jack as a young man in his twenties, but with perhaps the social and sexual maturity of a much younger boy, when not a child. A young man who was able to exercise just enough social skills to get him through the basics of day-to-day living but when confronted by obvious female sexuality - as young men can be - would react with confusion and fear. This being tempered by the normal biological desires and urges that all young men have, could possibly lead to both inner and outer conflict.
The killer you mentioned with the shoes is a good building block for Jack, a sort of weird transformation of desire into objects associated very strongly with women and their sexuality but suitably distanced from the real thing as to be safe and comfortable.
The shoes were not objects of veneration until they had a woman’s feet in them, an entire woman would have not done, for that would have threatened and challenged the killer. You see, the shoes were not allowed to move. Which of course is what shoes do in the normal world.
This is why I have always fancied Thomas Cutbush in the role of Jack the Ripper, not for the obvious reasons, but mainly for the simple reason that we do absolutely know that Thomas shared a similar type of obsession as the killer you highlighted with the shoes. He liked to sneak up on women and attempt to cut out parts of their skirts and petticoats associated or near to their sexual parts. As he used a large knife for the purpose some of the women were obviously injured.
It is difficult to say exactly what Thomas’ purpose may have been, but he either wanted to stab the women and injure them, or he wanted to collect a trophy for his collection of in-understandable objects.
One is left wondering what ‘fetish’ object Thomas was using as his ‘comforter’? Perhaps he had one of those old-fashioned mannequins - the type that showed the female figure from the hip down and had no legs - and he was building up a patchwork skirt using pieces of material he had cut from the skirts of real and living women? That sounds fairly reasonable to me.
Whatever, although these attacks by Thomas took place after the Whitechapel Murders - I still await some intrepid researcher to tell me that Thomas was also doing this before the murders - I do not think we can disallow that Thomas’ actions and motives were basically leading him to and from a place where women could be killed and mutilated.
Very provoking stuff, Erin, you have my thanks for your thoughts.
|
Erin Sigler
Inspector
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 186
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 2:23 pm: | |
And my thanks for yours, A.P.!
Although I have trouble seeing the mutilator of Mary Kelly proceeding to simple assault, I do believe that Cutbush represents the type of man we're looking for--young, sexually immature, and obsessed with certain aspects of the female body. (One is reminded of Ed Gein, who collected female body parts and wore them like clothes in a bizarre attempt to recreate his dead mother; the book and film Psycho were based on this guy.) If Cutbush's attacks had occurred prior to the Ripper murders a very strong case could be made for his guilt. However, I do feel that Cutbush serves as a useful example to us of the type of individual we should be looking for, someone who progressed from simple assault to murder, as I feel Cutbush might very well have done had he not been apprehended when he was. It might be worthwhile to examine magistrates' and asylum records for someone comitting similar crimes as a very young man. Someone mentioned in chat Tuesday that we should be looking at grave robbers, and I think that's an excellent place to start. It's much easier to perpetrate such acts on dead bodies than living ones, particularly for a young and inexperienced man. Peepers and burglars who stole strange objects like women's underwear might also be a possibility. I would expect the perpetrator to be young; was there a separate juvenile justice system then as there is now? I know that in the U.S. juvenile records are sealed at age 18, but in 1888 they may not have differentiated between adult crimes and those of adolescents. I know the juvenile justice system is a relatively new development in the U.S., but I know little of its British counterpart. Might be something worth investigating.
Brudos is indeed an interesting figure and actually his early behavior sounds disturbingly familiar to that of Cutbush. After spending some time in an institution for forcing a girl to take off her clothes at knife point (for which he apologized to the girl and concocted a bizarre tale about an evil twin being responsible for the act), he began knocking women down in the streets and stealing their shoes. He also liked to burglarize houses, but only stole womens' shoes and underwear. Curiously, the attacks appear to have stopped once he married, but when his wife was in the hospital after giving birth to their second child he followed a girl whose shoes attracted him, broke into her home, raped and strangled her into unconsciousness, then took her shoes. His first murder victim was a young woman who had the misfortune to stop by his house selling encyclopedias. He raped her, strangled her, then played "dress-up" with her corpse as if she were a doll. He cut off one of her feet (not her whole body, just her foot--as you suggested, A.P.) and kept it in his freezer. With successive victims, he progressed to mutilation of their breasts and even experimented with electric shock. He was apprehended for hanging around a local college campus. Once police discovered his juvenile record and his proximity to the murders it was fairly simple to get a confession out of him. If anyone's interested you can read a bit more about Brudos at http://www.skcentral.com/brudos.html. I think Ann Rule may also have written a book on him.
At any rate, you can see why it was probably a good thing that Cutbush was apprehended before his "career" progressed any further. Unfortunately, the Ripper somehow escaped the attention of the authorities until it was too late. Perhaps we should be looking for Cutbush's evil twin? Sorry, couldn't resist. |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 737
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, January 16, 2004 - 1:42 pm: | |
Enjoyed that, Erin,
Like you I do have a problem with this procedure from mutilation & murder to simple assault, but also like you I do see Thomas as a good template for Jack. So he is always a worthwhile study.
I have urged people here and elsewhere to carefully peruse all the available records we have from that time period - especially newspaper reports of court actions - as I remain convinced that this is the most productive method of research to actually pin point an individual whose previous criminal behaviour would be a useful indicator in determining the identity of Jack.
One of my great ambitions would be to launch a sort of ’time search’ project where at least five full time researchers and readers would sit down for a few months in front of all the evidence still available merely to sift through names in connection to criminal acts that took place in the five years before 1888. There somewhere would sit Jack.
Perhaps a college or university could do something like this.
In the LVP I believe juveniles were commonly dealt with by the normal courts and their treatment was as adults, but I might be wrong.
Brudos is very interesting, for he appears to be the type of killer who did indeed have very real sexual urges, as you say he raped some of his victims, which quite honestly does surprise me given his other behaviour towards his victims.
How sure were the investigators that he actually raped the victims?
Couldn’t there be the possibility of some kind of magical transfer here, as in Pitchfork and the Boston Boy, in that they transferred the semen using an object? This seems more likely to me, given his behaviour, but perhaps this fellow is something new to me. I’d be interested to hear more about his actual sexual contact with the victims.
I’ll try the web-site you suggest in the meantime.
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Cludgy
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, January 16, 2004 - 9:42 am: | |
Erin,
I wonder if alcohol would have any effect on such a person?
The murders were commited at weekends, two of them were commited on Bank Holidays.
I have always been of the opinon that JTR held a steady job down during the week,probably one that entailed long hard hours, and ventured out at weekends to kill.
It is not unreasonable to assume that he made the most of his free time in the practise of doing what most of the young men in that area would have done i.e. going to the Pub.
Did he sit of a weekend in East End bars drinking and brooding over his obssesion, watching the whores come and go, and upon closing time venture out into the night to kil and mutilate?
Annie Chapmans murder poses a problem with this scenario however as she was murdered at the break of dawn, but as I said in another post was this the result of JTR's attempt to view the corpse in all It's ghastliness, in the better light of Dawn. Maybe Tabram and Nichol(murdered in the black of night) didn't provide him with the kick he needed to view the body, as you know certain serial killers, who have hidden a body, will return to view their victims, there seems to be a need to relive their depravity, so with the murder of Chapman he decided to take advantage of the light of Dawn to view his mutilations.
Of course he was very nearly discovered in Hanbury street, Cadoche literally a few feet from him as he killed Chapman, he must of been aware of Cadoche's presence, did he later think to himself "I'll not try that again, to risky"? Stride, Eddowes and Kelly then murdered in the early hours. |
Glenn L Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 1013
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, January 17, 2004 - 4:00 pm: | |
Cludgy,
There are actually people who gets intoxicated by a very small amount of alcohol, which leads to extremely violent behaviour. It is always followed by memory lapses, so the person has really no idea what has happened during that time. I know at least two serial killers who had this disease -- I say disease, because this a medical condition.
I am not saying the Ripper had such a disorder, but I can't rule it out.
Secondly, there is no reason to automatically assume that he had to go to the pub to drink. It was quite usual to have alcohol as well.
I don't believe that the time Chapman was murdered had something to do with that he deliberately wanted to show off. The risks involved do not correspond the gains connected with such a conduct.
Additionally, I don't think the Ripper was that type of killer anyway.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden |
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