|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Archive through April 02, 2001
Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: Research Issues / Philosophy:
A beginners guide for the amateur Ripper sleuth:
Archive through April 02, 2001
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Friday, 16 March 2001 - 04:02 pm |        | Dear all,
To be quite honest with myself and to you, my dear partners in Victorian melodrama crime, I have started this heading up primarily for myself.
Let me explain :-
As I have said in a previouse post I have been into Ripperology (for want of another word, sounds naff but we all use it at one stage or another) since the 1988 anniversary. As I've always mentioned I have only read the books and only recently come here for debate (though some of my debate has been strange, stupid and mildly plain silly). Now I really want to go out and get my teeth into it. This is where you hard nosed bloodhounds can help out.
This is what I do know about good old research :- Nick research from the books (often made up for a specific theory, no fingers pointed) and sheer luck, as in findings like the Littlechild Letter and the Maybrick Diary (please, no comments on the latter. I personally believe it's a forgery so there is no need to debate on that one).
It's the real "getting your hands dirty" stuff I'm interested in. It's the "Where do I go ?", 2who do I talk to ?" and "Will it cost gaining entry or meeting ?"
For instance, if I was still going to persue my Maybrick/ Tumblety connection, who do I see about ships passenger lists ? Or, (having never entered a public records library before)what are the rules and regulations for gaining entry to Kew ?
At the beginning I said this heading was for a personal thing, maybe it could help other who could do with the help as well. Now I noticed someon is doing a website thing where you can go for research, that I will be poking around with. It would be nice to have other helpful hints and pointers gathered here for, as I said before, "the amateur sleuth".
Thank you all for your anticipated help (by the way,convention dates can go nicely under this heading as well)
Tris
P.s Paul,
Did anyone ever tell Hulk Hogan he should have taken up Swedish porn with that moustache ? |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 16 March 2001 - 08:53 pm | | Tris -
The Public Records Office, like the British Library or the Greater London Archives or Corporation of London Archives or the Family Resource Centre is open to the public. Some of them ask you to complete a form, and even have a photograph taken for a pass. But basically, you just go there; state what you research interest is, and they'll tell you what to do. They may even be able to advise you about passenger lists. I remember at one point doing some unproductive digging through some sort of immigrants lists in the old PRO in Chancery Lane, and I think Paul Begg had some better luck with some such records when chasing up Martin Kosminski.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Friday, 16 March 2001 - 09:37 pm | | Martin,
I would like to do an honest thank you to you. I have found, not only from my experiences, that you have been a valuable source of help to all and sundry asking for advice and opinion. This, for once, is a true and genuine thank you for help. Yep, Pauls' helped too (that's there to help his ego as well.  ). Thank you as well for my Tumblety thing as well, which you replied too.
AAren't you abroad right now by any chance ? Can't see an old guy like you being up this early GMT. (I can't help a good ribbing).
Now, does anyone else have any tips ? (there I go again sounding demanding.)
Tris |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 17 March 2001 - 07:06 am | | Yes, Tris, I've been on Cape Cod, contemplating the Cabots and the Lowells and God, since February last year, and shall remain based here in Eastern Standard rather than Greenwich Mean Time as long as my 88-year-old mother-in-law (disabled but apparently internally robust) continues to need her daughter's care and attention.
Martin F |
Author: Steve
Saturday, 17 March 2001 - 07:31 am | | Tris,
A visit to the PRO website at http://www.pro.gov.uk/
is a good place to start.
If your in the UK, the reference library of larger cities also hold the index's of B,M,D's as well as census returns.Access to the records is very low cost. You'll find the staff at the Libraries,PRO,ONS are all very approachable if you are looking for a source of other information. Remember it doesn't hurt to ask!
Steve |
Author: Judith Stock
Saturday, 17 March 2001 - 10:33 am | | Dear Martin,
And who is not speaking to WHOM these days...the Cabots, the Lowells, or God? I've always loved that, especially when Henry Cabot Lodge was around to be embarrassed by it.
I'm off to dust bookshelves, watch THE parade, peruse the boards, AND possibly do a little laundry for fun.
Regards to all,
Judy |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Saturday, 17 March 2001 - 12:43 pm | | Hiya Joseph,
I can see you sitting in front of your screen with a very suspicious look on your face, and all sorts of exclamation marks hovering over your head,-if they were visible. We must be thinking the same. But , remember last time,-- you play,- don't be played with, J
All the Best, Rick |
Author: Christopher T George
Saturday, 17 March 2001 - 01:31 pm | | Hi, Tris:
Hands-on research can be a really exciting activity. I will admit that most of my in-person research in archives such as the Public Record Office (PRO) has been to do with the War of 1812 (aka the Anglo-American War of 1812-1814, a sideshow to the Napoleonic Wars), although I do have photocopies of the Metropolitan Police (MEPO) and Home Office (HO) files from the PRO and of the Corporation of London Record Office documents from this case.
It can be very exciting to visit the PRO or other archives and have the archivists bring out the documents from back then and for you to be able to handle them. It is a distinct thrill to see the faded paper and parchment, the (usually) yellowed or browned ink, and see the wax seals, Victorian postage stamps, and cancellations. One feels transported back to those times.
Also exciting, but perhaps less fulfilling, because you are not handing the actual documents, is to view the records on microfilm. Unfortunately, for security purposes, it is increasingly the case that the archives are requiring that researchers work with microfilm instead of the original documents.
Usually available only on microfilm are newspaper articles of the time, because some wily microfilm entrepreneurs sold libraries a bill of goods that the wood pulp newspaper that newspapers were printed on increasingly in the nineteenth century (as opposed to the linen paper of earlier times) would turn to dust and that everything should be microfilmed. Such fragility of the paper would be the case if the newspapers were not kept in controlled conditions. However, the temperature and humidity-controlled conditions possible in most archives today has meant that the paper has not disintegrated as predicted. However, a number of libraries, tragically, have either detroyed or sold their original holdings of period newspapers so all they have is microfilm.
Microfilms of documents and newspapers pertinent to the case are available in archives throughout the world. Although I understand the MEPO documents at the PRO are not available on microfilm, the documents on the Whitechapel murders in the City of London Record Office are available on microfilm.
Tris, good luck to you in your desire to delve into the original documents of the time. It can be most fulfilling, even if you do not write a book or article of your own on the case. Perhaps, though, you will become excited and inspired enough to do just that.
All the best
Chris George |
Author: Bryan Stebelton
Sunday, 18 March 2001 - 12:22 pm | | | hello, an open question to all.Does anyone not believe that the victims were strangled before the mutilations occured? I think they were strangled it seems the only reason for lack of arterial spray on the walls and ground.My main question is why if most everyone agrees on the strangulation theory,isn't Rose Mylett a qualified ripper victim? I know the witness states two men dressed as sailors was seen,but that also seems to jive with other witness descriptions.And also why was Dr.Brownfield's conclusions dismissed?In the ultimate Jack the ripper companion by Evans&Skinner,I found the chapter on Edward Knight Larkins interesting,especially due to the fact of the sailor descriptions.The police obviously thought him a bother.insight anyone no matter how scathing or painful,I can take it.Thanks,Bryan |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 19 March 2001 - 05:46 am | | I suppose the simplest answer to your main question, Bryan, is this: if we assume Anderson and the doctor he forced to agree with him were wrong, and Rose Mylett was NOT choked in her own vomit on her stiffened collar, then we are left with the probability that she was strangled by a narrow ligature like a bootlace. The marks observed by doctors who noted bruising on the throats, necks or upper chests of other victims, all indicated manual seizure or possible throttling by hand.
Martin Fido |
Author: Bryan Stebelton
Monday, 19 March 2001 - 12:03 pm | | Martin,
Your right,the stranglings in the earlier murders do indicate hands as the implement.So that does probably indicate the ripper wasn't the killer.As I don't think he would change a signature that much.Thanks for the insight.Also what did you think of the theorist,Edward Knight Larkins?I think the police should have taken him a little more seriously.But I also concede he seemed to be a little quirky.
thanks,
Bryan |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 19 March 2001 - 05:16 pm | | Larkins, I fear, strikes me as one of those who come up with a new alternative every time his latest case is shown to be bunkum. You will probably find many sympathisers who think I always give Anderson's views too much weight. But hitherto I don't think anyone has endorsed Larkins, and everyone I've ever talked to about him has, in fact, endorsed Anderson's exasperated dismissal of him as a nuisance.
Martin F |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Tuesday, 20 March 2001 - 02:19 pm | | Martin, Steve, Chris,
Big thanks to all three of you. The information you have provided will help me become a serious Ripper researcher. For once I would like to come here and say, rather boldly, "I have found this out...." and have people (like Melvin, hahaha) batter me down.
Sorry I've been away for a few good days. I'm off to leave an explaination on my space monkies page.
Tris,
P.s, Martin. Long live your robust mother-in-law (may she live another 88 years) and Cape Cod. Sounds like your wife is a good daughter and you a good son-in-law (nice place to be one though, I have to admitt) |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Friday, 23 March 2001 - 11:35 am | | Martin,
I address you personally on this question as I have a sneaking suspicion that you might answer this question (though other people are quite intitled to answer it as well, all help is greatly appreciated). How much can I trust the 1888 tabloids ? I remember reading somewhere that they too, like their modern day descendants, had a habit of filling in the blanks. Which leads me in quite nicely to asking the next question. If they were, and still are, an unreliable source what were the biggest myths they generated ?
I have a funny feeling these questions may have been answered in "Casebook" before, but it would be nice to have that sort of information under one roof, so to speak.
Bryan,
That's a very big question you ask, that if answered would get flack from someone else who believes something else. In my personal opinion I think it was quite possible that the victims were held down by the throat while the first cut was made. This possibley opens a small debate (a theme on a very bigger one) on whether the killer was left or right handed. I would love to know what other people think of my little thought there.
To everyone else,
Mary Jane Kelly's face is in such a mess in the photo, has anyone tried doing a diagram on which feature is which ?
Tris |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 23 March 2001 - 02:29 pm | | Tris - What do you mean by tabloids?
Illustrated Police News took more or less any sensational story it could get from anywhere and didn't bother much about checking its facts.
The Pall Mall Gazette had some briliant (for the time) ideas in lay-out, and concentrated on a number of radical and moral reforming attitudes that appealed to Stead, who was genuinely blessed with Puritanical prurience, so that he was fascinated by seamy stories (like the famous 'Maiden Tribute' series), but was not hypocritical like today's tabloi writers: he really wanted reforms and was delighted to achieve the raising of th age of consent, even at the cost of taking a short prison stretch himself.
T.P. at The Star was intensely Irish nationalist and very willing to publish gossip that would damage the Unionist establishment. (Thus he attacked Warren as a traitor to Gladstonian Home Rule principles when he was in office - and then turned round and attacked Monro, a much more fanatical antiCatholic, for disloyalty to Warren once the Star had, it felt, contributed to Warren's going!
According to Le Queux (then of the Globe) he and his pals willingly made up theories. But I don't think they made up facts.
The Times can hardly count as tabloid, but one of the most disreputable pieces of journalism I know of in the whole case is their attempt to keep up the antiSemitic feeling with the story about the Galician peasants and the corpse candles made from uteri.
No paper at all could match our horrific tabloids today for utter irresponsibility. Filth such as lines the exits from supermarkets would have been penalised as obscene. Character assassination with faked-up claims like that the Sun went in for against (e.g.) Tony Wedgwood Benn was unknown. And readers would have thought any proprietor insane who offered 'Hitler was a woman' or WWII Bomber on the Moon' twaddle.
I'm most unlikely to be able to answer any follow-up, as I'm off on holiday for 10 days on Sunday, and I have to pack and get various things settled before going.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Friday, 23 March 2001 - 02:48 pm | | Martin,
First off, enjoy that holiday my man. You need a rest from sitting in front of your computer answering people like myself. Just remember, don't do anything I wouldn't (that gives you a permission to do anything you like).
Secondly and lastly, thanks again for your help. Perhaps "tabloid" was to broad a word. I'm always happy to receive any pointer to any stumbling block I leave in my posts.
Once again, enjoy your holiday and hope to hear from you when you get back.
Tris |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Friday, 23 March 2001 - 04:55 pm | | My dear all,
Can anyone here help me on a couple of dates. I have tried tracking them down and have come to a full stop. Here goes on the date verifications I need :
A) When Scotland Yard was blown up by the Fenians (my local library only has the one book on the history of Scotland Yard, but like every other source it just says "Blown up by Fenians") If possible a time as well. I know it must have been an evening attack as Littlechild was at the opera.
B)When Godley visited the lodging house in Batty Street. Just to jog memories, the bloodied doctor and medical bag as mentioned to the police by the landlady.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can help
Tris |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 24 March 2001 - 05:48 am | | Good grief, Tris! Over 12 hours has passed, and nobody has answered your simple first question. (Well, simple for me, as Keith's and my reference book 'The Encyclopedia of Scotnad Yard' is within arm's reach of where I sit).
The Fenians bombed a part of Scotland Yard on 30 May 1884.
The other question would need more research than the obvious book indexes on my shelves at hand, and I trust somebody will have answered it by the time I get back from Turkey.
All the best
Martin F |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Monday, 26 March 2001 - 08:59 pm | | Dear Tris,
Although Martin gave a good answer as to the date,
I found this description of the bombing in K.R.M.
Strong's THE DYNAMITE WAR (Dublin: Gill and
MacMillan, 1979) on pages 184 - 186:
"Jenkinson [Edward George - an anti-Irish
terrorist expert] warned Chief Inspector [Adolphus] Williams of Special Irish Branch to expect explosions before the end of May and
that 'the police should be especially vigilant'.
Sir E [dmund] Henderson maintained the Metropolitan Police's guard over London's public
buildings and monuments warning his Divisional
Superintendents that h held them 'strictly
responsible that every possible precaution
[was] taken to this end'. The arrangements
proved inadequate.
"On the night of 30 May London was once again
shaken by the report of explosions. One blast
occurred outside the from of the house of Sir
Watkin Wynn, a second at the rear of the Junior
Carlton Club and the third at the Special Irish
Branch office in Great Scotland Yard. The first
blast was less serious than that at the Junior
Carlton Club where five people were injured and
most of the window glass of the club and surrounding houses was destroyed. Witnesses --
two cabmen -- said that they had seen two men, who were assumed to thrown the bombs down the
steps leading to the club's basement kitchen. But
these two explosions near St. James were of little consequence in comparison to the penetration of Scotland Yard's security allowing the bombing of Special Irish Branch itself.
"The Special Branch office was situated in a first-floor set of rooms in a small building in
the centre of Great Scotland Yard, a public
thoroughfare -- immediately across from a large
public house, The Rising Sun. It was not enough that hundreds of people crossed the yard day and
night; in the northeast corner of the ground floor of the police office there was a public
urinal. That was where the bomb was placed,
exploding with devastating effect at 7.20 p.m.
The police constable placed at...the front of the
office had 'observed nothing suspieious in any persons who entered the urinal'. He was unable
to be questioned further because, although not
seriously injured, he was in a state of shock.
Special patrols on the south side of the yard
and on the Whitehall front had seen nothing
suspicious. Jenkinson said: 'It the Constable
had been properly posted I do not see how men could have approached and put anything in the
urinal unobserved...'. Nor was he aware, apparently never having visited Williamson at his
office, that there was a urinal 'under the room in which the detectives sit! Fancy them allowing the public to go there at night, or indeed at any
time after the warnings they had received'.17
In addition to the minor injuries suffered by the duty constable, four other people were taken to Charing Cross hospital. Casualties were light
but the damage to the Special Branch building was
extensive, blowing down a large portion of wall
and destroying a significant part of the records
held then on Fenian affairs. Guards at the
Albert Memorial were armed but they were only to
shoot in self-defence and not as one bit of advice
suggested: ' shoot down the men before they could
got up the steps'.
When dawn of the thirty-first had arrived, after a long night of work by Jenkinson, Williamson, Special Branch detectives and the explosives expert, [Col Vivien] Majendie, another
bomb was found near one of the lions in Trafalgar
Square; it had not detonated and Nelson was still
on his column.
The bomb was contained in a bag similar in a
bag similar to the ones left in the railway station cloakrooms. The pieces of fuse found in
the bag were American, as were the slabs of
Atlas-type dynomite which filled the bag. Jenkinson advised [Sir William] Harcourt [the
Home Secretary] that these facts should be brought to the attention of the American government. He had reliable information that these outrages had their origins in America and that they were planned by the same men who were
concerned in the explosions of 25 February at the
cloakrooms of the Victoria Railway Station."
I hope that helps you out a little.
Jeff |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 27 March 2001 - 08:22 pm | | Dear Tris,
Sleuth's rule No1. Everbody is a suspect...until they are eliminated from your investigation i.e.,
be especially aware when dealing with certain Government agencies...hidden agenda!:-)
Rosemary |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Wednesday, 28 March 2001 - 01:41 pm | | Jeff,
thank you for the information. This will be a valuable source point for me. I'll make sure I mention you when I'm rich and famous and Melvin Harris is aiming a snipers gun at me from a grassy knoll (or a Parker Knowle, depending if he's sitting down or not).
Rosemary,
Sleuth's rule no. 2 "Not everyone appears to be what or who they are." (;-))
Tris |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Wednesday, 28 March 2001 - 06:06 pm | | Dear Tris,
Sleuth's rule No3. Leave no stone unturned-except the big ones! Hence the term, "flatfoot". :-)
Rosy O'Ryan of The Yard (or foot). |
Author: Jon
Wednesday, 28 March 2001 - 08:40 pm | | Yes Tris, but there's always someone who know's who they really are :-) and were.
....moving right along, I see the hi-tec teckies have re-analyzed the Dealy Plaza police audio tape.....surprise, surprise, they now claim there was a 4th shot.
(I wonder from where?)
Regards, Jon
(elementary my dear.........) |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Thursday, 29 March 2001 - 01:42 pm | | Jon,
Why do I get this strange feeling that Oliver Stone and Kevin Costner will end up making a movie entitled JFK 2 And The Bullet of Doom ? I can picture it now :- Costners plane takes a nose dive over Tibet. The priests there tell him that they have been keeping the three bullets, that killed Kennedy, in a holy peanut butter jar. To save their village Costner must find the fable fourth in downtown Dallas. It is here he meets up with a washed up club singer named Whitney Houston......... It's just a vision I have.
Rosemary,
Sleuth's rule no. 4, never use the toilet paper if it's got fingerprints on it.
Tris |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Thursday, 29 March 2001 - 05:47 pm | | Dear Tris,
Rule No5. Never sit on the suspect...no matter how desperate you are.
O Rosey Ran! |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Friday, 30 March 2001 - 01:17 pm | | Rosemary,
Rule no6. Never let a suspect sit on you......unless she'd had the all clear from the doctor.
Rule no7. Even a blind man can see the obvious, but can it be true ?
Dear everyone else,
Even though Rosemary and myself are probably making a light hearted note on things I am still interested in tips on research and additional helpful information. What I have recieved already from those above has been a great help, anything else would be gratefully accepted.
Be warned though, I just might be asking more questions that may satisfy my needs. Anyone wishing to corrosponde with me for, any reason (hopefully including my subject heading), can get me at my e-mail (you know how to get it)
See you all later
Tris |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Friday, 30 March 2001 - 06:12 pm | | Dear Tris,
Rule No8* is the kicker. It remains blank...to be filled in...in the eventuality that you are getting tooooo close to a VIP suspect! Watch yerself Poirot!
R. Moorsey Aryan |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Friday, 30 March 2001 - 06:47 pm | | Hello Caz,
I take it you watched the t/v program about William Stead the other evening?. While I was watching I began to wonder,-- Stead procured that girl for the best of intentions,and though he took it through to the end, and published what it was possible to get in the child vice world,--he did fall victim to the opportunity that was presented to him, and because he blew the whistle and exposed it all, he was made an example of. If he had kept "mum" he could have done it over and over again, with his peers blessings. Could the Ripper possibly have been a self made social reformer, with a twisted mind, and a "the ends justify the means" outlook?. I can't see how the Ripper got any thrill or sadistic pleasure out of taking the lives of three maybe four really poor women, who's lives were a misery to themselves and the only thing they possessed. Could the Ripper have "picked" them for that very reason?.Could he have mutilated them to emphasize his message to social authorities and society at large. He didn't kill any other class of women,not one,and he must have had his chances.
He could have thought that the class of women he was killing were better off dead. Even "respectable" women in that time , in that place, resorted to prostitution at some time, they had no pride left, and pride didn't put bread on the table. Was he a self-styled social reformer,who would kill to try and change the state of conditions in the Eastend?--but mutilation,--AH, that was something else. But mutilation had to be performed, to shock, could he have forced himself to do that as a kind of punishment to himself for taking those lives?. Maybe he wasn't taking a delight in it at all!!
Anyway, I thought I would put this forward as a theory, it's not my favourite, it doesn't take in Mary Kelly's murder, and it doesn't give a reason for the killings coming to an end , only Bruce Paley can explain why that happened, (in my opinion).
Best Wishes, Rick |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Friday, 30 March 2001 - 07:01 pm | | Caz,
I forgot, of course, it also doesn't give any indication of who it could have been!!!!
Rick |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Friday, 30 March 2001 - 07:14 pm | | Dear Rick,
You're getting 'heavy' here, Rick. May I ask in a polite way,are you on 'substances'? ( cos I am!).
Ashamed,
Rosemary |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Friday, 30 March 2001 - 08:12 pm | | Hiya Rosie,
Just the usual painkillers. I did take the dogs for a little trot before writing that though, maybe the fresh air got to me a bit.
Rick
P.S. when are we having this teaparty. |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Saturday, 31 March 2001 - 04:38 am | | Dear Rick,
I've been meaning to ask you this question for sometime. Is that a child's thigh-bone at the bottom of your pic?
Observant,
Rosemary |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Saturday, 31 March 2001 - 07:02 am | | He is rather partial to a nice childs thigh bone, the other loves diced KIDNEY. Rosie, if your going to the Conference in September, will it be a case of "space(d) man meets the alien,--I will be the spaceman, (a curious one!)
Rick |
Author: John Omlor
Saturday, 31 March 2001 - 08:49 am | | Hi Rick,
If you haven't already had the chance to see it, you might check out the interesting little letter that G.B. Shaw wrote to The Star on September 24, 1888. It makes a provocative use of the Ripper case in relation to the question of social reform.
It's over on the Casebook at the top of the Press Reports section.
It came to mind when I was reading your thoughts on a reformer Ripper. And it begins with the delightfully Shavian sentence:
"SIR,-- Will you allow me to make a comment on the success of the Whitechapel murderer in calling attention for a moment to the social question?"
--John |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Saturday, 31 March 2001 - 09:48 am | | Hey Rick,
Yes, I did watch the Stead programme. He was certainly a character, wasn't he? I don't think he did take it through to the end, though, did he? Didn't they say he stopped short of actually having sex with the girl he procured to expose Victorian society's ills?
For those who didn't get to see the prog, or who don't already know the story, Stead's comeuppance came when the girl's mother turned up accusing him of abducting her daughter. It was alleged that Stead's procuress had 'bought' the girl for his experiment by telling her mother that she wanted her as a maid. The documentary suggested that Stead had assumed, wrongly, that mothers in dire straits would sell their daughters and not care what was to become of them, or try to find them. The wrong he did to the two women, through this lack of thought, in the cause of righting the wrongs he saw in society in general, gave the authorities the excuse they needed to discredit Stead, whose expose threatened the status quo.
Turning to Jack, I have always assumed that he killed for the thrill of it or to exercise control over his victims, and that he simply targeted women who were the most available and vulnerable. He may have already lived in the area for years before he began killing, or maybe he moved there because of the rich pickings. I've never heard of a serial killer practising social reform with his murders, and if one was ever caught and gave this as a motive, I'd be highly sceptical. I don't think he would have needed to excuse his actions by saying to himself that these women were probably better off dead, or that he was doing them and society a favour. I hardly think, when he struck his victims and mutilated them, that his mind would have been on anyone but himself, and what it would take to make his own life, and little introspective world, comfortable and worth living at that moment in time.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Saturday, 31 March 2001 - 06:59 pm | | Hello John,
nice to hear from you, thanks for pointing out the G.B.S letter to me, it's very interesting reading isn't it?. I've never really got to know Shaw,-- I knew of him, but not about him. He sounds like he could have been a friend of mine, I like the last two paragraphs of his letter, they make all the sense in the world, he knew the Victorian upper classes for what they were,(who could know them better?). They didn't want the status quo rearranged, they liked to see the cloth cap screwed in the hands, and have their labour done for pennies. While most people in Western countries today are enjoying a decent standard of living, I think it's begrudged--still!! by certain people at the top of the scale, conditions may change, views haven't completely. I can't help wondering when reading of Jack the Ripper, what my status would have been,(as a carpenter) if I had been around in 1888, and as a retired worker who started my working life in 1946 at the age of 14, I've seen and experienced some rotten treatment of people during my working life. Thank you again John for opening my eyes to G.B.S. I shall be finding out more about him.
Best Regards, Rick |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Sunday, 01 April 2001 - 06:42 am | | Hiya Caz,
Happy month!, no, it's not my favourite theory either, but it is to some people so I thought I'd put it forward and try and start something. Personally, if JtR was a reformer, he was unconscious of it, though as John pointed out by bringing up Shaws letter to the newspapers,it made Shaw wonder a bit. The thing I don't agree with you completely is, killers and their reasons.A number of them do have reasons, sometimes reforming reasons, what about Sutcliffe?
Remember his phrase--- "just cleaning up the streets ,our kid". Whether he meant it is another matter. In the case of a "reforming" killer, it's like the chicken and the egg, which comes first, the killer or the reformer. I really think when it comes to madness and murder we can't pooh-pooh anything,---except the diary, and the royal conspiracy, J
Best wishes, Rick |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 02 April 2001 - 06:05 am | | Hey Rick,
I agree that we shouldn't pooh-pooh anything when it comes to madness and murder. But all the 'excuses' people like Sutcliffe come up with only seem to emerge later, when it's time to account for their actions to 'normal' members of society. A killer who doesn't - or can't - share society's values, but who knows well enough what they are, has to adapt his account to appeal to his audience. He knows that no one can appreciate that his actions, in his own eyes, are rational and justified, so he has to explain them in ways that 'normal' people will recognise. Examples are hearing voices ordering him to kill, ridding the world of all things evil, mercy killing, and various other blame-shifting exercises designed to give the best possible defence or insanity plea. The irony of this is that the killer, in trying to appear insane, is perceived as sane, because he is developing arguments he can use on sane people in a sane world.
Perhaps such a killer might have more success in convincing people he is barking mad, by simply saying "It's a fair cop guv", taking all the blame on himself, and saying it's just the way he is made. But then, perhaps he'd have to be completely insane to do that....
Love,
Caz |
Author: Richard P. Dewar
Monday, 02 April 2001 - 09:00 am | | Caz,
I agree with you completely. Here in the United States, serial killer Ted Bundy fed journalists various reasons he committed his crimes that always seemed to cater to his audience. Bundy, shortly before his execution, told an activist fundamentalist journalist that pornography drove him to murder. He had failed to identify this as a motivation to any of the police or psychiatrists who interviewed him earlier.
It is not clear that serial killers understand why they commit the acts they do. Often their explanations seem to be mere blind gropings for some logic of their own acts - that even they may not fully understand.
Rich |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 02 April 2001 - 10:33 am | | Hi Richard,
I'd go even further and suggest that such people may have no desire or need to understand their own actions. They know what it takes to make their own lives worth living, and they go for it. For them the logic may be all too simple - they have a particular desire or need, that is only satisfied by behaviour that they know is way outside the bounds of normal society. So if and when they are caught, they find themselves groping with their captors' logic, in the hope of ringing the right bells at some point.
So maybe the struggle to understand is all ours.
Love,
Caz |
|
|
|
|
