Envy, Jealousy and Homicide

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

ENVY

noun, plural envies.
1. a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, etc.

2. an object of such feeling:

Her intelligence made her the envy of her classmates.

3. Obsolete. Ill will

Dictionary.com

Envy as a motive for Homicide seems to be accepted after all. I was beginning to think I was suggesting the Deadly Sin of Gluttony could lead to Homicide!

I'm leaving out the Evil Eye this time. The "Ill will" definition is "obsolete".

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

A couple of members (I don't know if I should quote them yet or put a link) suggested Envy as a Motive.

My take on Envy was a different and indirect motivation but this one is interesting too - Envy by itself as a direct motive.

Does it have to be Greed that leads to Homicide or can it really still be Envy?

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

The Dr. G. Brown Paper on the Ripper Motive thread suggests and dismisses Jealousy as a Motive based on the "deprave" nature of the victims. I guess the Ripper couldn't really be jealous of an unfortunate, nor could she make him jealous, was his reasoning.

Brown of course forgets about the possibility of a "Substitution Killing" where the victim is a "stand-in" for the person who's making him jealous. This is the type of jealousy or envy I think could play a great part in the Ripper motive(s).

https://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=29705

I think jealousy plays a part in a lot more homicides than people think, both a Triggering motive and in homicidal psychological development.

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

I also think the nature of the Envy can determine whether you target "established" or "disenfranchised" victims, so prostitutes or non-prostitutes. If you envy wealth, you don't target the disenfranchised. It doesn't matter if robbery is a motive or not. I think the Dr. G. Brown paper was hinting at that, consciously or unconsciously, although he doesn't account for other types of envy. Remember the Victorian Era believed more in the Deadly Sins.

It therefore is a factor in Victimology and vice-versa.

[Scott Nelson]

Updated in two parts.

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=27152

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=26755

[Anna Morris]

I think I am missing a direct connexion between envy and JtR murders but there is a roundabout way to think of it.

I started a thread a while back about certain serial killers that seemed to commit their serial killings in certain time periods when the killers were having issues with family life. In several cases I can think of, the victims in appearance resembled family members such as teen aged daughters or wives. (One or two of these killers were having sex with their young daughters BTW.)

An example from the JtR saga that can lead closer to where I am going is the case of William Henry Bury whose wife had all the money and if he wanted to go on carousing, gambling and drinking, he had to ask her for more money. When she refused he would ill use her which translates into savage beatings.

Like I say I don't see a direct connexion of envy on the part of the killer toward Polly, Annie, Liz, Kate or Mary specifically. But if those women and other women killed around the same time for no apparent reason, were substitutes for women in the killer's life, real women he would like to have killed but didn't dare, I could see envy as an underlying motive. For example, W. H. Bury must surely have envied his wife's ownership and control of a sizable amount of money which she had inherited.

The middle aged unfortunates that fell victim to the Whitechapel Fiend may have reminded the killer(s) of mothers, wives or other real life women that were envied for some reason or other.