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** 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 August 20, 1999
Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: Research Issues / Philosophy:
A Statement:
Archive through August 20, 1999
Author: Rotter
Sunday, 15 August 1999 - 12:41 pm |        | | I'd advise people to ignore your claim until you can back it up. From your response I assume you can't. |
Author: Wolf
Sunday, 15 August 1999 - 02:23 pm | | According to Paul Gainey, Tumblety worked at the Lispenard hospital sweeping floors and that "he gained what little knowledge he had of medicine probably in those years he spent doing menial tasks." he did not recieve an M.D. from the Lispenard hospital nor anywhere else. William P. Burr, a New York lawyer met Tumblety in 1880 and described him as being "most illiterate" and needed to employ a secratary to do most of his writting for him. This is not the type of person who could achieve an M.D. from a university or teaching hospital connected to a university, as Lispenards certainly wasn't.
Tumblety tells us in his book that he offered his services to the Union Army but we only have to take his rather untrustworthy word for this. He had told Edward Heywood and Larry Sullivan that he was on General McClellan's staff which was a lie. He told Colonel C.A. Dunham that, "he had, after much persuasion accepted the commission of Brigade surgeon at a great sacrifice pecuniarily." this was also a lie. Tumblety later stated that he would have joined the Union Army but that a decline in his health had prevented him from doing so. So in Tumblety's own words he had: Tried to join, had joined as a Brigade surgeon, had joined as a member of the General Staff, and had not been able to join because of ill health.
Wolf. |
Author: Diana Comer
Monday, 16 August 1999 - 11:32 am | | I just reread Dr. Bond's autopsy report on Mary Kelly. The uterus, both kidneys, and one other part were under her head. (sorry I'm old enough to want to practice some delicacy). Granting he gutted her completely and that would not have taken a lot of expertise to do that, he was able to separate the uterus from the mass of surrounding tissue and set it aside. Ditto the kidneys. Note also that in Eddowes case he took the uterus and one kidney. For some inscrutable reason those were the organs that seemed to fascinate him most. I picture him disecting Mary in the semidarkness, finding his trophies and stashing them under her head in a group so that if a quick getaway became necessary he could grab them and run. Why he neglected to take them at the last moment can only be conjectured. If we adhere to the accidental cut/cauterization theory then I can picture him cutting himself and in a panic forgetting all about his trophies. The heart however was missing and Dr. Bond says, " the pericardium was open below & the Heart absent." My understanding is that the pericardium is a saclike structure which contains the heart. If so he would have had to cut it open to get the heart out. He says it was open below. Taking that absolutely literally would mean Jack wedged the blade between the spine and pericardium and slit it open. That would involve a tortuous contortion which seems to me unlikely.
I suspect when Bond said "below" he probably meant what we would normally think of as below if Mary had been standing up. That would mean he came in from the direction of the abdominal cavity. There would not be a lot of room to maneuver inside the rib cage and if the pericardium is tough and hard to slit??? (help Dr. Villon) this would be a logical time for him to cut himself. I am only guessing but I suspect his first step after killing Mary would have been to empty everything below the diaphraigm. The reason I surmise that is because when he had less time (Eddowes, Chapman) that was what he chose to do. I also think it would have been hard to get to the pericardium with the ribs around it on three sides and the intestines and other organs up underneath it. When he did the chest and arms and face is anyone's guess, but I suspect he got to the heart rather late in the process. He may have still had it in or near his hand when he bolted out of there. I realize a lot of this is educated guessing. |
Author: Caz
Tuesday, 17 August 1999 - 12:25 am | | Hi All,
I gather that the more grisly details of the murders were largely censored in the early days. So when exactly would the public have become horribly aware of the removal of victims' organs etc from the crime scenes and the placings of intestines etc by the bodies? Had they read it all in their newspapers by November 9th, or were the more gruesome details still withheld, leaving rumours of untold horror?
Even if the correct details were on everybody's lips by the time Kelly died, which seems unlikely, what are the chances of another man being able to make use of them to commit such a similar crime, AND get away with it?
Comparing the way the victims were actually slain, together with the treatment, placings and removal of body parts after death, I find it almost impossible to believe Kelly's murderer was not also Chapman's and Eddowes'. While Kelly's man may have been indulging in an orgy of post-mortem destruction, showing all the surgical skill of a horse-slaughterer (or fish gutter), the rest of the crime was the work of a man who'd done this sort of thing before; the lethal slash to the neck beforehand while the victim was lying down, the deliberate placing and removal of individual body parts at some point during or after the frenzied mutilations. It surely had to be the progression of Jack's own series. No first-time killer could have hoped for such instant success and luck. Who could intrude on jtR's work, improve on it (sorry, that sounds terrible), then escape (in daylight this time?) and simply disappear, never to be apprehended? The chances of two such disturbed men operating in the same area in 1888, with so few similar deaths in surroundng years, would seem to defy logic.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Diana Comer
Tuesday, 17 August 1999 - 03:47 am | | | Exactly my point. |
Author: John Malcolm
Tuesday, 17 August 1999 - 04:57 pm | | | Caz, I have to agree with your point. We can look at these murders so far removed and be somewhat dry and emotionless about the details, but such horrific crimes were so rare compared with today that I think the circumstances would be beyond extraordinary if there were more than one man mutilating women in such a small and excited araea. |
Author: Jim DiPalma
Wednesday, 18 August 1999 - 05:09 am | | Hi All,
Caz - I took a look at the press reports posted on the Casebook, and found the following in the Sept 8 edition of the Star (all italics mine):
"The scene of the murder is the house 29, Hanbury-street - a packing-case maker’s. The body was actually found in the back yard, just behind the back door, mutilated in an even more ghastly manner than the woman Nicholls. As in her case, the throat was cut, and the body ripped open, but the horror was intensified by the fact that
THE HEART AND LIVER WERE OVER HER HEAD."
MRS. RICHARDSON’S DESCRIPTION OF THE SIGHT
makes this murder even more horrible than any of its predecessors. She was lying on her back with her legs outstretched. Her throat was cut from ear to ear. Her clothes were pushed up above her waist and her legs bare. The abdomen was exposed, the woman having been ripped up from groin to breast-bone as before. Not only this, but the viscera had been pulled out and scattered in all directions, the heart and liver being placed behind her head, and the remainder along her side."
So, there was at least one press report that provided enough details about the mutilations to provide guidelines for a possible copycat killer. There may well have been others - I only have access to the press reports on the Casebook, so this is by no means a thorough survey.
A point I find interesting is that one can get a sense of the nature of the various publications by comparing their approach to reporting the crimes. The Star seems to have been more of a sensationalist rag, what we would today call a tabloid. Contrast the above report to the much more low-key report that appeared in the Sept 10 Times:
"The details of CHAPMAN'S murder need not be referred to here at length."
I'm also inclined to the belief that Kelly was a Ripper victim, but for purposes of generating discussion, let me play devil's advocate for a moment. We need not be looking at two disturbed men. If Barnett was Kelly's killer, then we have one disturbed man, and one man who killed for reasons of sexual rejection, frustration, and jealousy - very common in domestic situations. If that were the case, the years after 1888 may have been quiet because the Ripper actually stopped after the double event, and Barnett, having destroyed the object of his rage, had no need or impulse to kill again.
Comments?
Jim |
Author: Caz
Wednesday, 18 August 1999 - 08:04 am | | Hi Jim,
Thanks for the info about the differing reports in the press. Some things haven't changed much huh?
I still don't buy the copycat killer idea though. With Kelly I feel they'd normally be looking for a man who had a history of similar violent assaults. Why look further than Jack himself?
On to Barnett. Very few murders remain unsolved if it looks remotely like a 'domestic'. They are one of the easiest type of serious crime for the police to 'clear up' swiftly without too much footwork. Much too easy in some cases where the partner or ex is automatically hauled in for questioning. Last night, in a programme called 'Autopsy', there was a case where a schizophrenic woman had killed her three children then stabbed herself to death with three blows to the chest. She was covered with her childrens' blood. But her husband was initially arrested and put on trial for murdering all four family members, although a magnifying glass had to be used to find traces of blood on him! Luckily modern forensics saved the day and, coupled with an excellent defence lawyer, the poor man who had lost his family was acquitted.
I would imagine the police must have instantly thought 'ripper' on finding Mary's body. But had they had any reason at all for suspecting Barnett of a 'domestic' brought on by a jealous rage, they surely would have hauled him in and questioned him at length. They might even have thought to question him about the previous murders. (I'm sure that would happen today.) And a guilty Barnett would be terrified of just such a scenario and be absolutely crazy to stick around waiting for it to happen.
No, I think it highly unlikely. If Barnett had killed Kelly he would have been long gone from the scene, or been found later having committed suicide when he realised what he'd done to the woman he loved. And the calculated placings of the body parts just don't tie in at all with a man in the throes of such passion. All that frantic destroying of a loved-one, then Barnett stops for a moment and thinks 'Oh dear, the cops are gonna get me for this, I'd better make it look like the ripper's work. Now what did the Star say about Chapman's innards? Great, now I can go about my business as usual, blame it on Jack, and forget Mary ever existed'. Noooo, I don't think so somehow....
Love,
Caz |
Author: Karoline
Wednesday, 18 August 1999 - 08:52 am | | Hi all.
I'm no expert but I think there are actually quite a few cases of men who have killed their wife/lover in a fit of rage, but then gone on to try and cover up their actions in a quite pre-meditated way;even carving up the bodies in the grossest fashion.
Most famously, there was Crippen of course; an apparently well-adjusted man who killed only once. He poisoned his lady then virtually filleted her in order to cram her remains beneath the stones in the cellar.
I think there was another called Buck Ruxton; a doctor, who murdered his wife, carved her up in a bathtub, threw her(in sections) out of a moving train, and then reported her missing to the police. VERY cool.
There was another, recently, of a chap who killed his wife, carved her up and threw her into a lake, THEN faked a series of letters supposedly from her, claiming she was living somewhere else with her boyfriend (he was found out and got off with manslaughter!)
So, the scenario described by Caz that might seem unlikely is actually extremely common.
Could Barnett have killed his Mary in a fury of some kind, then covered up his actions by carving her ripper-style, and stayed around to bluff it all out?
Well, statistically and historically speaking - yes.
Karoline |
Author: Christopher George
Wednesday, 18 August 1999 - 10:50 am | | Hi, all:
Although I have problems conceiving of Barnett carving up his loved one in this manner, even though this might indeed have been exactly what happened, I CAN conceive of a scenario in which the police had a mindset that meant they were looking for the murderer who killed the previous women, a mindset partly formed for them by the media's emphasis that the killer responsible for the earlier crimes must be one man, Jack the Ripper, and then when Barnett satisfied them that he could NOT have been responsible for the earlier murders, he was allowed to go free without any further suspicion being cast his way. If this is indeed what happened, we can see that Jack's already considerable fame and the media circus surrounding the Whitechapel murders may have manipulated the outcome of the case.
Chris George |
Author: Jill
Wednesday, 18 August 1999 - 03:04 pm | | Hello Jim, Caz, Karoline, All
To add to the domestic violence: 2 to 3 years ago, here in Belgium, a man reported his wife missing to the police. The police interrogated him soon after, on suspicion of murder (a bit of a problem since there was no body), because he was known to be of violent nature against his wife. They searched the house, found nothing, and let him go. A month ago they finally arrested him after they found the different bodyparts of his wife in the freezer of the house where he still lived.
Jill |
Author: Caz
Thursday, 19 August 1999 - 02:08 am | | Hi All,
Crippen had a new love in his life, so his wife was in the way. He no longer loved her. This is a fairly common motive for murder. I don't know what the motives were in the other cases mentioned, but they don't sound like crimes of passion, as has been intimated in Barnett's situation. This was markedly different. As far as I'm aware there was no 'other woman'. There was no attempt to hide the crime or dispose of Kelly's body. The killers in the other scenarios all went to extraordinary lengths to get rid of the evidence (although they were all caught out in the end), and the murders were isolated events, not the apparent end of a series. Kelly was on that bed, very much 'in your face', a bold statement by her killer. I can see Chris' point about the police having a 'ripper' mindset. But could Barnett have reasonably expected this bit of luck if he stayed to 'bluff it out'? And does his coolness fit with what we know about our Joe?
Also, if Barnett was not Jack but dared to go one better with Kelly than Jack did with Eddowes, how would the real ripper have reacted? Apparently he just lost the will to rip after his work had been so shamelessly imitated!
There are two schools of thought among the Barnett-fanciers. One sees Joe as the dispassionate serial killer, JtR himself, while the other would have him as an empassioned and disappointed lover/husband, jumping on Jack's bandwagon. If either case is true it makes the police look remarkably incompetent for not being able to pin something on him. But, as has been shown, stranger things have happened.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Karoline
Thursday, 19 August 1999 - 08:49 am | | Hi all,
A good point about the police being in the mindset to find a man who either killed all those women or none. Hence eliminaing JB, maybe before they'd adequately considered him.
the point I was making with the above examples was that men who aren't in any sense serial killers CAN in extreme circumstances both murder and dissect a person (they were supposed to care for) in a pretty thorough and repellant way.
I don't think the fact that MJK was left on display really makes much difference.
The suggestion that JB couldn't have done such a thing because he loved his Mary too much presupposes two things 1. that he DID love her, and 2. that people can't do unspeakable things to other people they would claim to love.
But actually we don't know how JB felt about his Mary, and people have quite frequently murdered and otherwise savaged the objects of their passion since time began.
If JB throttled MJK in a fit of fury about something or other, we have plenty of other instances to show that the next stage - ripping her into convenient pieces - would not be theoretically beyond him
Karoline |
Author: Caz
Thursday, 19 August 1999 - 09:43 am | | Hi Karoline,
Do I take it then that you don't think JB fits the serial killer category, but could have killed Mary in hot blood ie 'a fit of fury'? That's obviously a possibility. But then, in panic and fear of discovery, he decides he'd better make it look like a ripper killing and try some similar mutilations. He turns very cold-blooded very quickly in order to achieve a believable copy-cat crime. He doesn't know how much time he has. He places some organs, including the uterus, strategically by her body. Fine so far. Then he goes to the time and trouble of outdoing JtR himself. He rummages around, takes Mary's heart and apparently removes it from the scene.
If this was spur-of-the-moment cover-up stuff he sure spent a lot of extra time and trouble on this detail.
Or do you think the whole thing could have been premeditated? I'm very interested in working out how JB ticked if he did commit murder.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Bob Hinton
Thursday, 19 August 1999 - 10:18 am | | Dear Everyone,
I think a very good point has been raised here about just what a person would do to the corpse of someone they loved.
In the case of Crippen and Ruxton (who parcelled his wife and the maid Mary Rogers up in neat paper packages and threw them off a bridge into a stream, not from a train) the dissection was done with a definite purpose in mind - ease of disposal. The mutilations were not performed for any other reason.
If we are now thinking of a Barnett murdering MJK and then mutilating the corpse to throw suspicion on JTR then that would be a very rare crime indeed. I cannot recall anyone doing similar for the same reason.
But here we have a problem. If JB killed MJK was it planned? If so he made a bit of a pigs ear of it. Surely he would have been better off to lure MJK to another town where she was unknown and then dump the body. The chances are she would never even have been identified.
If it was not planned and he killed her in a fit of explosive fury, it is strange that:
1. The fury was so well controlled that he didn't make any noise at all, at least none that could be picked up by the neighbours and they seemed to have heard most things.
2. The fury was so well controlled that in the explosion nothing seems to have been disturbed, even MJK's clothes were still on the chair.
3. It is stange that when this explosion took place he happened to find himself in posession of a very sharp knife.
If MJK had been beaten to death and the room looked like a recreation of the Somme I would without hesitation say JB's your man. But the circumstances say otherwise.
In my opinion whoever killed MJK was:
a. Already tooled up - he habitually carried his knife.
b. Confident enough in his ability to enter the room quietly and overpower MJK equally quietly.
c. Someone who knew MJK. Picture the scene he enters a darkened room and yet doesn't go crashing into tables or knock into chairs, knows exactly in the dark where the bed is and manages to approach it without waking her and without disturbing the woman sleeping above. MJK had defensive wounds, none of the others did, which suggests that MJK awoke and spoke to her assailant before he attacked her. If he had just reached over and strangled her she wouldn't have the defensive wounds.
Just a thought.
all the best
Bob Hinton |
Author: Caz
Friday, 20 August 1999 - 12:58 am | | Hi Bob,
QED I'd say. But then again, I'm no expert. :-)
Have a great weekend all.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Karoline
Friday, 20 August 1999 - 02:23 am | | Hi all
Bob, as usual you put forward a good argument, cogently reasoned, and I'm three quarters of the way to thinking you are right.
Like I said at the beginning I feel slightly under-qualified to put these points since Alex Chisholm and Stewart are the two who have done most work on this possibility. I'm just going on what they have said in public and privately to me. So if I misrepresent it it's my fault not theirs.
I think Alex's case is that the reason MJK is so much more mutilated than the others is because JB would have been basing his imitation of the ripper's MO on the newspaper accounts of the time, which greatly exaggerated the destruction. Hence, in a truly bizarre and circular way, we have the existing myth almost creating itself. JB acted out the myth of the 'ripper' as invented by the press; thus making the myth a reality, and thus engendering fresh myth in turn.
I admit I find this a very persuasive and attractive argument. But I think Alex is better qualified than me to argue the detailed points.
One thing, Bob, you say that there is no precedent for a man murdering his wife then setting the scene out to look like the work of a serial killer or suchlike.
But what about Geoffrey MacDonald?
Didn't he kill his wife during a fight;realise what he had done and subsequently kill his two children and turn the house over to make it look like a replay of the Sharon Tate murder?
best wishes
Karoline |
Author: Caz
Friday, 20 August 1999 - 03:17 am | | Hi All,
Don't we also have to be sure that even the very best and knowledgeable authors have not been trying to push and squeeze JB into the frame for Kelly because their own suspect for JtR looks weak in just this one area? If one is being totally objective with one's detective skills and the facts of the case, a few if not all of Bob's cogent points must surely be addressed by the people who should know.
It doesn't look good if those with their work in print simply shrug and say 'Well, if my own suspect didn't kill Kelly, I always have good old JB to fall back on, even if my own common sense tells me that this is highly unlikely.' The fact is that, without JB to provide us with a remotely plausible alternative to Jtr himself when it comes to Kelly, I think some ripperologists may be clutching at straws. That's all.
I hope we do get some powerful counter-arguments to Bob's post from the relevant sleuths. I, like Karoline and all other ripper enthusiasts, get a whole lot from listening to the experts, but I always feel disappointed when even the 'best' ones appear to support the less likely scenarios when it suits.
Love,
Caz |
Author: kevin
Friday, 20 August 1999 - 10:35 am | | Hello
Basically according to the above comments there are three possibilities regarding who did the MJK job: Jack, JB doing a copycat or someone else doing a copycat?
The key arguments(in my opinion) against this are:
1. What a coincidence- two people capable of committing similar crimes in the same small vicinity.
2. Unlikely crime of passion because of the knife. "Oh I'll go and see Mary to see what she is up to, I might as well grab my filet knife..." or did JB have a knife holder and always carried a knife.
Unfortunately Caz, Bob made some excellent points which are difficult to refute.
Whoever did it was a pro and it seems unlikely that it was a JB turned copy-cat because he got the hang of it much too fast (unless of course he was the Ripper).
I really like the comments by Diane because that (in my opinion) is a great way to look at the case- trying to understand the medical facts. Even if it wasn't a doctor or someone with medical training a medical understanding of the murders is extremely useful.
One of the reasons I like the medical posts is because they support my theory of "Meticulous Jack". I have no particular suspect but for me the common thread is how careful he was. I think he was extremely careful under the circumstances (outdoor murders) and this care was the reason the last one was indoors (it became too dangerous out there). He was very methodical in his behavior and this systematic removal or organs ties in nicely with that.
Kevin |
Author: Villon
Friday, 20 August 1999 - 01:12 pm | | Hello Diana, the pericardium would not present any difficulties to a man with a knife as sharp as the one Jack worked with. I am wondering if the same good blade was used on Kelly. Did Bond make any mention of type of blade? If she was sliced rather than hacked, then this is a sharp probably pretty long blade. It does not seem likely a fish porter would accidentally have a knife like that on him.
Mike |
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