Jack : A Milquetoast Ripper ?

[Howard Brown]

The Whitechapel Murderer's character has been analyzed,reanalyzed,and then reanalyzed again...throughout our study of the Case for over 12 decades.

Most,not all, individuals in our field, civilians too, would probably size Jack The Ripper up as being a rough sort of character...imbued with a considerable number of negative social attributes.

However, as many in our field can attest to, several serial killers have been virtual non-descripts. Weak-looking and percieved as inoffensive by co-worker, family member, and neighbor alike.

Even if not weak-looking, then at least non-threatening in their demeanor.

This thread is for discussing this concept...of whether the Ripper may have been someone along the lines of a Sutcliffe, a Kurten, a John Reginald Christie ( The "10 Rillington Place" murderer), a Berkowitz, or French serial killer and male nurse, Lucien Leger, the subject of the following article.

Would we, if we encountered Jack The Ripper as one well known Ripperologist remarked upon seeing Peter Sutcliffe in court...that Sutcliffe struck him as being so ordinary-looking, remark upon the Ripper's appearance in the same way...or would we be in the presence of someone along the lines of a Carl Panzram ?

You tell us.

Salt Lake Tribune
July 6,1964
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[Adam Went]

Hey How and all,

"Milquestoast"? What? Haven't heard that word before. Sounds like a rather disgusting breakfast....

Anyway, in answer to the question, he was certainly spotted having a seemingly decent conversation with his soon-to-be victims, which would suggest that he might not be entirely rough - even the way he spoke, as we've discussed before, didn't sound like what you'd expect from the roughest men of the slums. Then again, this might have simply been a deliberately false attitude, designed to put the women at ease so that he could more or less take them where he wanted and know that they wouldn't raise a scene.

Physically I would say he was quite strong, and actually mentally a reasonably smart individual as well - capable of putting on the false facade as a mentioned, but not infact weak or particularly weak-minded.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Howard Brown]

Actually Adam..I haven't heard of the word "milquestoast" either.
I misspelled the word. Its "milquetoast".

What you suggest may well be true in those situations where he was with the victims.
What I was getting at to be more specific, was whether in his day to day routine aside from his nocturnal proclivities might he have been a milquetoast....someone along the lines of a Christie ( for example )...someone who would cringe if he had to go to the knuckles with a man, even his size.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Howard,

I remind you that one of the vilest of human beings in multi-murder history, Albert Fish, was described in appearance as a gentle looking, kind eyed old man. Architypal grandfather, it has been said.

Which goes to show that no-one can "look" like a multi-murderer..or all can, infact.

best wishes

Phil

[Howard Brown]

Great example,Phil. Thank you. Its a shame he wasn't nipped in the bud before he met that Budd girl.
We could likewise add due to your inspiration....Ed Gein. Herb Baumeister being another.

While recently giving the once over twice to a few of crime history's biggest eff ups, these social sad sacks started to become numerically dominant within those cases I was reading about...and when I ran across someone who was not from this category of milquetoast...someone who was an aggressive sort ( the legendary Panzram)..the thought occurred to me that maybe most serial killers are that way...which runs contrary to how society envisions serial killers to be.

We,as a group, have been conditioned to a certain degree from Day One, to envision the Ripper as a savage ,blood thirsty predator not only at the scene of the crime ( which of course, he was ) but as an atavist twenty four hours a day. This may be false.

We continue to hope that someone who had an arrest record prior to 1888 will materialize ( and rightly so in that we do have people looking through asylum records,police blotters,etc.. for someone to fit the bill )...but unless I'm incorrect, I don't think Gein or Baumeister had previous records in any of the repositories that we scour. Fish,of course, did.

Having said that, we may be looking for the "boy next door" or the harmless putz down the block and not some recividist or career criminal.

[Cris Malone]

I'm inclined to believe that he was just the sort of man and that was part of the reason that he was never apphrehended.

[Adam Went]

It would go a long way towards being able to answer this sort of question if we knew what his occupation was and what information we could find out about him from that.....again, probably not weak, but also the type who just kept to himself and maybe seemed a little odd - the type who the next door neighbours would say was a bit strange, but harmless enough. We've seen those sorts in serial killers before.....

Cheers,
Adam.