Can a serial killer catch Jack the Ripper? Is it possible to see clues regarding the identity of Jack the Ripper reflected in other serial killers? With evidence such as the posing of victims, the choice of props and weapons, as well as the techniques used and the characteristics of other serial killers we may be able to profile the man that is Jack the Ripper.

The following article will attempt to dispel widely held myths and explain the reasons behind many of the acts committed by Jack, using clues provided in other serial murder cases.

Theories abound about the posing of the contents of Annie Chapman’s meagre possessions. Were they placed in a pentacle or other ritual configuration as suggested in the recent movie From Hell? Was the killer attempting to extrapolate his identity by placing the assorted titbits for the police? Perhaps he was just playing a game with investigators and attempted to throw them off the case.

According to Police Surgeon Dr George Bagster Phillips, what he found when he arrived at the Hanbury murder scene perplexed him:

“I searched the yard and found a small piece of coarse muslin, a small-tooth comb, and a pocket-comb, in a paper case, near the railing. They had apparently been arranged there. I also discovered various other articles, which I handed to the police.”[1]

Police Inspector Joseph Chandler also made note of the proximity of the items to the body during the coronial inquiry,

“I examined the yard, and found a piece of coarse muslin, a small tooth comb, and a pocket hair comb in a case. They were lying near the feet of the woman. A portion of an envelope was found near her head, which contained two pills.”[2]

Often deliberate placement of items near or on the bodies of murder victims is considered to contain hidden meanings, to help or deride police for their efforts. Yet we find that often this is only the stuff of movies. Occasionally other killers have placed items for no obvious reason.

An example is the crime scene surrounding Green River Killer victim Carol Christensen.  Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway, killed twenty-one-year-old Carol Christensen on May 3, 1983.  Her body was found five days later and the scene was described as bizarre, to say the least. Items found with Carol’s body perplexed most of the investigators at the time:

“She was lying on her back, with two trout placed on her upper torso, an empty bottle of wine across her stomach and sausage on her hands.”[3]

The woman’s hands were clasped over her stomach and a paper grocery bag covered her head.  Her driver’s licence was also found beside the body.

With talk of references to the Eucharist – the sacrament commemorating Christ’s Last Supper – many experts suggested that perhaps the killer was preaching, but the truth behind the scene was uncovered almost twenty-years later with the arrest of Gary Ridgway. When asked about the placement of food items, the killer’s answer was extremely simplistic:

“… these experts come in and say it was,…the Last Supper. And it was just, it was, uh, basically, uh, just a, uh, you know, the woman I killed, put clothes back on her and, uh, posed her. It was, uh, it was basically a posing.”[4]

There were no sinister or ritualistic undertones. Ridgway saw it as a way to amuse himself. The items held little meaning and were things he collected from his house after the murder.

Is it possible that Jack did the same thing? Could he have placed the items just as part of the game? The placement of Annie’s few possession may have meant little to the killer and should have meant even less to the investigators and current Ripperologists. 

Another important feature of the Jack the Ripper case that can be juxtaposed with the Green River Killer crime scene noted above is the intentional posing of the victims.  Like Carole Christensen. The Jack the Ripper victims were deliberately posed.

Victim Polly Nichols was found with her legs spread apart and her skirt pulled down over the mutilations, almost to suggest an extra surprise for the mortuary attendants. Annie Chapman’s body was found with her intestines strewn over her left shoulder with her head towards the left. Again her legs were drawn up with her knees apart.  The fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes was found in a similar pose, her right leg was drawn up with her knee facing outwards. Her head was also turned to her left shoulder.  The final canonical victim, Mary Kelly, was also found in a similar pose. Her head leaned towards her left shoulder and her legs were drawn up with the feet apart.

This distinct staging is part of the killer’s signature.  According to Robert Ressler, an “offender may stage …a death scene in order to confuse the authorities. Such staging takes a fair amount of planning, and bespeaks a mind that is working along logical and rational lines.”[5]   Was Jack a man of such meticulous planning?

Serial killers read newspaper articles about themselves and enjoy seeing the various reasonings behind what they do. Some even help police by writing to them or the press. Others write letters or send information in an attempt to validate themselves as smarter than the investigating police.

Though most of the famous letters by Jack the Ripper have been dismissed as hoaxes, it is highly likely, with all the attention the letters received, that Jack wrote to police with a theory or perhaps with evidence or, even more likely, to gloat. 

One of the suspects in the Jack the Ripper case, Roslyn D’Onston Stephenson wrote to both the police and the media regarding his own theory’s about the chalk message in Goulston Street. According to Stephenson, the writing did not say:

“The Juwes are the men who will not be blamed for nothing”

but in fact read:

“The Juives are the men who will not be blamed for nothing.”[6]

Was he in fact the killer, correcting the police on their erroneous pronunciation of the message? Stephenson’s letter smacks of sarcasm and contempt for Sir Charles Warren,[7] an example of the goading that often comes with letters written by serial killers during their killings.

Several serial killers have written to the press and police regarding their case. The BTK killer wrote to police from the time of the murders until his recent arrest (even though his last murder was fourteen years ago). With each letter, he became more imaginative and gave police clues about his crimes. The BTK killer sent letters to police that contained other clues such as a driver’s licence of one of his victims, a necklace and other evidence that proved that he, the author of the letters was also the killer. Did Jack do the same thing with the kidney and the Goulston Street Graffito?  

As mentioned above, the BTK killer and Gary Ridgway both stopped killing at least a decade before they were finally arrested, going in the face of the theory that serial killers do not stop killing. 

So we have to wonder, is it possible that Jack also stopped killing? Some Ripperologists and criminologists assume that a compulsion to kill will drive a serial killer to continue murdering victims until he is caught, dies or is somehow confined or incapacitated. Most Ripperologists give a number of expected reasons why Jack did not kill after Mary Kelly. The reasons include:

·         incarceration for other crimes, like that of Ripper suspects Thomas Cream and George Chapman;

·         illness (both mental or physical) such as the health issues faced by Roslyn D’Onston Stephenson and the syphilis that caused the death of Prince Albert; and

·         suicide, by which Montague Druitt and John Netley ended their lives.

However, few believe it is entirely possible that Jack, like other serial killers just stopped killing.

Serial killers may also stop for an extended period of time due to a variety of reasons. Both Jeffrey Dahmer and Andrei Chikatilo stopped killing for a time, though both were considerably longer than Jack’s whose break between killings was only a few weeks.

Andrei Chikatilo’s first murder bore striking similarities to the murder of Mary Kelly and may explain why neither Jack nor Chikatilo killed after such a carnage. On December 29, 1978, Chikatilo abducted nine-year-old Lena Zakotnova and took her to a secluded house he kept. He attempted to rape the girl before stabbing her in the abdomen and genital region. As the girl lay dying beneath him, Chikatilo took her internal organs out of her body and masturbated over them. When Chikatilo had finished, the grossly mutilated corpse no longer resembled the little girl who had accompanied him to the house in Shakhti. Chikatilo was physically sick after the murder and later told police that he “sincerely regretted [the crime]’. He claimed that

“…what happened that night made a very strong impression on me….I remember clearly… tearing at her sexual organs… After that first murder, I think my psyche underwent certain definite changes. I was haunted by the image of my hands tearing the girl’s organs apart, I couldn’t get it out of my mind…”[8]

Police questioned Chikatilo at length about the murder, but another man was eventually executed for the crime. The haunting image of the mutilate body of nine-year-old Lena and the close call with police was enough to stop him killing for another three years. However, once Chikatilo started killing again, the murders continued to mount until he was arrested in 1990. The victims numbered at least 52. Is this what may have occurred with Jack the Ripper between September 30 and November 9, 1888? After a close call on the night of the double event did he decide it was too risky, with a greater police presence? Or perhaps two murders in one night took their toll?

It is interesting to find that many serial killers talk about the fact that they are haunted by their victims[9]. One Australian killer mentioned that he was physically sick after most of his killings, yet continued until his health became too unstable for him to continue. Could it be that a similar thing happened to Jack after the ferocious murder of Mary Kelly. What remained of her body was little more than a hollowed-out carcass. It may have been more than likely that the killer had been disoriented and ill after committing such an atrocity. 

Serial killers do not always enjoy their crimes, often they are physically sick or disorientated after murdering their victims. With killers like Chikatilo, the killings haunt them, Chikatilo had a noticeable decline in physical and mental health as the death toll rose, and the mutilations and dismemberments escalated. With the Jack the Ripper victims there is a distinct escalation in the post-mortem mutilations by the killer and may have led to him to decide enough was enough.

Serial killers use face to face manual strangulation as a way to prove their power. They enjoy the control they have over another as their victim struggles for air. The Boston Strangler[10], faced his victims as he choked them often before reviving them so he could do it again.

Two of the victims of Jack the Ripper, Annie Chapman and Polly Nichols, suffered injuries that suggests they were both manually strangled before being mutilated.

At Annie Chapman’s inquest, coroner Wynne Baxter, stated that he was of the opinion that:

“…the person who cut the deceased’s [Chapman] throat took hold of her by the chin, and then commenced the incision from left to right. He thought it was highly probable that a person could call out, but with regard to an idea that she might have been gagged he could only point to the swollen face and protruding tongue, both of which were signs of suffocation…”[11]

Polly Nichols suffered similar injuries prior to her throat being cut and her body mutilated. Dr Llewellyn noted several bruises around the woman’s throat and noted:

“On the right side of the face there is a bruise running along the lower part of the jaw. It might have been caused by a blow with the fist or pressure by the thumb. On the left side of the face there was a circular bruise, which also might have been done by the pressure of the fingers”[12]

Again, the injuries suggested the killer murdered his victim face to face, before lying her down on the ground to commit the mutilations. Strangulation face to face is an extremely personal method of murder.[13] The Boston Strangler similarly choked his victims face to face before leaving them posed to be found by family and friends. Many of the Strangler’s victims were found with big bows made from their stockings around their throats. These were all done post-mortem and did not play a part in the cause of death but were part of the posing.  

A common catch cry regarding serial killers is that they are aged between 25 and 35 years of age. This is only an average based on data obtained in the 1970’s and 1980’s there are many older serial killers. Older serial killers such as Andrei Chikatilo and Albert Fish plan their murders better than their younger counterparts and it may help identify Jack the Ripper. According to most witness statements, Jack the Ripper was possibly an older gentleman with most saying he was around forty years of age.

An indication of the theory of Jack being an older, more skilled killer is in the fact that he brought a murder kit, possibly a bag or parcel containing the sharpened instruments and tools he required to commit the murders more efficiently.

Chikatilo and Fish both carried a bag or parcel that contained a knife and rope to subdue and kill their victims. The murder kit is something linked to most older serial killers. Younger killers usually act more impulsively, using items found at the scene or they are taken elsewhere where the killer would have more control.

Older killers, also tend to be less likely caught in the commission of a crime. All three older killers mentioned, Jack, Chikatilo and Fish were never caught committing the murders. Jack was able to murder and dissect one of the women in an extremely small timeframe – between patrols by police in very public areas. Fish and Chikatilo were both able to abduct and murder their victims in broad daylight without detection. Younger killers are more spontaneous and are often caught in the act due to their recklessness.

Andrei Chikatilo and Jack the Ripper have a considerable amount in common as serial killers. So far we have discussed that both were older killers, left gaps between murders and both disembowelled some of their victims. They both ‘improved’ their method of murder and mutilation as the crimes continued and even changed what occurred at some scenes completely.

An example is when Chikatilo cut out the eyes of his victims when he believed they captured the last image they see. When he found that it was untrue he stopped removing the eyes. However with each murder Chikatilo mutilated each victim proportionately worse. The escalation of the murders was reminiscent of the Ripper murders, though on a much grander scale.

The choice of victim by a serial killer is also important. Though it is easy to point to Jack the Ripper being a sexual serial killer because of his choice of sex workers as his victims. But it is simplistic and may not actually be the case. According to Robert Ressler, prostitutes are chosen because “they are visibly available- that is, they will talk to strangers…go to a more private place… and when they disappear, all too often very little notice is taken of their vanishing.”[14] A prostitute’s dispensability makes them an easy target for serial killers and does not necessarily have to be about sex.

A current serial killer case before the courts in Canada has seen at least 50 prostitutes go missing and as the investigation continues, remains are being found on a farm on Port Coquitlam. Many of these victims have been missing for many years and until recently, all attempts by families to launch police investigations had been ignored. The response was usually that they were only prostitutes after all! 

Perhaps Jack had used this to his advantage. Taking a prostitute usually warrants a sloppy investigation and half-hearted detection. Had Jack killed housewives or children of the wealthy would he had continued in his reign of terror or would he have been arrested quickly?

A final important part of the Jack the Ripper case is the taking of trophies. Though most killers are content with taking a necklace, a lock of hair or a piece of clothing, this was not enough to satisfy the Ripper’s bloodlust. Like Andrei Chikatilo, he felt compelled to take something far more personal, a human organ. Both Jack and Chikatilo took internal organs from their victims. Jack took at least a uterus, a heart and a kidney, Chikatilo’s organs of choice were uteri and penises. According to Robert Ressler, these items are taken “for incorporation in the offender’s postcrime fantasies and as acknowledgement of his accomplishments.”[15] One must wonder, if the killer does take an organ as a trophy what does he do with it when it begins to rot? I digress, but it should be noted that the taking of organs could also be an indication of other motives, such a medical curiosity, ritualistic requirements or simply as another affront to the police.

In summary looking at various killers we can see a pattern to the crimes of Jack the Ripper. Jack, like many other killers, enjoyed toying with the police, the horrific mutilations are juxtaposed with the careful laying out of one of the victim’s personal belongings. The articulate planning involved in killing several of the women in between police patrols suggests the organised killing by an older man. A man who takes with him a prepared murder kit and carefully stages the crime scene post-mortem.

Does the evidence from other serial killers help us profile the killer? The information garnered does lend itself to various aspects of the Jack the Ripper case. It can give us an idea of who Jack was and why he did such things, but as always there can be exceptions to every rule and because of this the Ripper case may remain inconclusive.

Bibliography:

·         Begg, Paul., Fido, Martin., and Skinner, Keith Jack the Ripper – A to Z, The (1992), Headline

·         Daily Telegraph, The (1888)

·         Davis, Don Milwaukee Murders, The  (1992) True Crime Publishing

·         Edwards, Ivor Jack the Ripper’s Black Magic Rituals (2002) John Black Publishing

·         Hebblewhite, Tyler, Edwards, Ivor, Brown, Howard, et al JtR Forums, www.jtrforums.co.uk

·         Howard, Amanda.  Interviews conducted with several serial killers (1994-2005)

·         Howard, Amanda  The Crime Web  www.thecrimeweb.com

·         Howard, Amanda, and Smith, Martin River of Blood: Serial Killers and Their Victims (2004) Universal

·         Maleng, Norm, State of Washington V Gary Leon Ridgway: Prosecutor’s Summary of the Evidence

·         Ressler, Robert K.,  Douglas, John E., and Burgess, Ann W.,   Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives (1995) Free Press

·         Ressler, Robert K. and Shachtman, Tom I have Lived in the Monster (1998) Pocket Books

·         Ressler, Robert K. and Shachtman, Tom, Whoever Fights Monsters (1992) Pocket Books

·         Times (London) 1888