What Was The Motive? Sexual Serial Killer..

[Cris Malone]

I don't subscribe to the notion that there was a 'cult' aspect to these murders, but one can't help regarding the placement of one of Kelly's breast, kidney and her uterus under her head as symbolic of something...maybe just further demeaning her as a female; same with the clipping of Kate Eddowes' nose, which has been seen as symbolic of a woman of loose character or syphillic. The removal of organs - as we have recently been reading - can be viewed as a ritual by some, although I would believe that the obvious overkill in the majority of these murders would have been unnecessary in a pure ritualistic sense.

Like Nemo, I find it difficult to imagine that a 'lust murderer' might be suicidal. They seem to enjoy what they do. There may be exceptions. One that comes to mind is a suspect in the 'Jack the Stripper' murders of the 1960s who did himself in. Dalmer's refusal to be separated from other inmates, knowning the danger that might entail could be viewed as a death wish I guess, but he didn't really have a chance to do what he enjoyed in prison and may have figured life wasn't worth living in those conditions.

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

I think that Rob makes a very good case for the murderer suffering from an extreme and degenerative illness, one which matches what little we know about Aaron Kosminski.

As for an alternate motive to just an insane and/or evil killer?

Macnaghten believed that the fiend was Druitt. He thought his motive was 'sexual insanity'; gaining an erotic thrill from violence towards women.

Yet if Mac was right about the fiend's identity, why would Druitt go to the East End to murder and mutilate prostitutes? He could have done this anywhere in London, including Blackheath.

Why keep returning to the East End, to Whitechapel, once he knew that the police -- and others -- were searching frantically for him? Was that another thrill? To outsmart the authorities.

The American Leftist, Tom Cullen, in his flawed but brilliant 'Autumn of Terror' (1965) argued that Druitt's other motive was to bring about social reform to the blighted East End -- with considerable success.

This was a notion considered in 1888 and promptly rejected as just too ghastly.

George Bernard Shaw suggested the 'social experimentalist' solution as a satirical condemnation of the upper classes. That the Nobs were shamed into helping the destitute because some 'independent genius' was 'offing a few dregs'. If only the next victim could be a Duchess, the young Irish wit lamented.

But Shaw did not mean this idea of a deranged social reformer literally --but Cullen does. The latter argued that the murders were out in the open, the last spectacularly spoiling Lord Mayor's Day. That their primary impact was to crowbar open a rock and expose the real lives of the denizens of the East End scuttling beneath, showing that the 'Dark Annies' were already victims of poverty long before 'Jack' mercy-killed them.

Cullen regarded the theory as strengthened by the identity of the murderer, if it really was Druitt, not being a poor East Ender but instead an Oxonian gentleman -- a sort of Henry Jekyll crossed with Bolshevism [Lenin even makes a cameo walk-on in Cullen's book].

I would add that when the first 'non-canonical' murders started the tabloids can be seen to be sympathetic towards the victims despite being they're being prostitutes. Therefore, seeing this media reaction gave Druitt the idea of murdering Unfortunates, in the 'evil quarter mile' as reformers already called the area in which Jack would strike -- his political militancy intersecting with his 'sexual insanity'.

That's just the sort of selfless-selfish dialectic which might lead to an internal collapse and suicide, despite the police being totally oblivious of your dual identity.

[Cris Malone]

Good points, Jonathan.

Yes, Cullen found a story in the Ripper murders to promote his own socialist agenda. I'm not sure that he envisioned Druitt as a dual purpose killer. He despised the class that Monty came from. I invisioned that he was content to just peg the murders on someone who was not from the same class or district as his fallen martyrs of social injustice. Its been over 30 years since I've read 'When London Walked in Terror' (as it was titled here in the colonies) so I may have forgotten that.

I do recall his setup of the Kelly murder by describing the Lord Mayor's parade... the excitement and the pagentry of this special event being shattered by the sudden appearence of hawkers waving broadsheets and shouting, "Another murder! Another woman cut to pieces!"... and the pandemonium that followed. I bet ol' Tom was drooling when he wrote that.

I don't know what JTR's motive may have been, since we don't know who he was. Every individual is uniquely different; even probable psychopaths such as he may have been. Given what has been learned about serial killers in the interum, 'lust murderer' would be a logical supposition.

There's little doubt what Mr. Cullen's motive was... LOL...great novelistic style though. I read that book so many times in my youth that the pages fell out.

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

Thanks Cris,

For your thoughtful reply and affectionate memories of Tom Cullen.

I only read him a few years ago and was unexpectedly mezmerized by his Marxist balderdash or compelling insight, depending on your point of view.

Your recall of Cullen's description of the Mayor's parade trashed by the discovery of poor Kelly's remains is spot on.

Though I would never recommend reading Cullen in isolation on this subject -- and I say that as the last 'Druittist' standing -- its vivid style and mournful tone marks it out as a classic of narrative history, though in a minor key.

[R.Rowell]

Why keep returning to the East End, to Whitechapel, once he knew that the police -- and others -- were searching frantically for him? Was that another thrill? To outsmart the authorities.

I think it was for the thrill and to show that he could get away with it. I think Zodiac and JTR are very similar in this respect as they both wrote taunting letters and murdered in places that they could have been caught at any moment (Zodiac killed Paul Stine in his taxi in a neighbourhood street at 9:55 on a Saturday night).

Although I suspect a couple of working class men of being JTR I also think that just maybe he was an upper class gent trying to prove a point.

[Caroline Brown]

Colin Ireland, from Southend in Essex, kept returning (by train) all the way to the same pub in Fulham, west London, to pick up each of his five gay victims. But because he went home with them and killed them there nobody made the link with the pub for a long time, or linked the victims to a single killer either, and Ireland phoned the police with clues in his frustration at the lack of recognition for what he was doing.

Clearly he would have risked capture sooner if the pub - like Whitechapel - had stuck out as his chosen hunting ground. But whether Ireland used the same remote pick-up point out of bravado or "better the devil you know" is not so obvious.

I tend to think that the ripper (wherever he came from) only felt comfortable killing where it had worked like a charm for him the first time. He may have told himself, all the while he was active, that he was boldly outsmarting the authorities by doing it under their noses. But was it more a case of not being confident enough to try his luck anywhere else? He wasn't active for very long, so maybe he just couldn't take the close calls any longer, but couldn't face starting again on unfamiliar territory.

Love,

Caz
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[Jonathan Hainsworth]

To Caroline

I think that is a brilliant post and a brilliant example.

[Caroline Brown]

Why thank you, Jonathan.

It's always so nice to hear when someone appreciates one's posts.

Love,

Caz
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[AP Wolf]

Caz, I like your post also.
But I have the feeling that the motivation at work in the illustration you provide is radically different to the motive we pursue here. Colin Ireland was doing a home delivery; our boy here was having a take-away.

[Caroline Brown]

Hi AP,

But why does that necessarily imply a different motivation?

Ireland would surely have envied our boy for leaving all the remains of his al fresco dining in such a small area, assuring his infamy in double quick time. Ireland had to nudge the process along because although his tv dinners were discovered quickly enough, they were scattered much further afield and not linked at first, because the pub regulars he preyed on came from all over London to this venue, and the easiest way to kill them and get away with it was to be picked up and taken back to wherever their home happened to be, using public transport the next morning to get back to Southend.

The only real difference I see here is that our boy's victims had no homes - apart from MJK - to invite him back to.

They could both have killed just for the sake of it, or to make their mark on the world, and their victims were from particularly vulnerable groups.

Love,

Caz
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[AP Wolf]

Nicely done, Caz.
I think the nail I am hammering home is that by taking his victims home, Ireland was introducing a degree of personal intimacy that is basically not present in street crime, perhaps that is the most essential detail here; and I'd go so far as to suggest that the degree of personal intimacy involved in our boy's crimes here equate almost exactly with that of a modern 'drive-by' shooting.

[Howard Brown]

I'd go so far as to suggest that the degree of personal intimacy involved in our boy's crimes here equate almost exactly with that of a modern 'drive-by' shooting.

Well said A.P., with one minor caveat.
If the murders of Tabram,Nichols,Chapman,Eddowes,Stride,MacKenzie,et c...are to be considered comparable to drive-by's ...the factor of revenge would have to be included. We don't know whether...and indeed it may be possible...the Ripper had a revenge motive towards prostitutes. Revenge is born of intimacy or familiarity even if only a minor intimacy. I think you will agree that drive by's are essentially "paybacks" or "hit them before they hit you" acts of violence in virtually every instance.
All in all, a pretty hip connotation in the modern sense, if I may say so,A.P.

[AP Wolf]

Thanks How, I know what you mean about many of the 'drive-by's, in that they have as their source gang related vendettas, but I was thinking of the total stranger 'drive-by's' where anyone stood on a street corner is good enough just because they are there. Simply said there is no other motive than the fact that someone particularly vulnerable is there as the car passes. That is how I see it.
This.

[Howard Brown]

I hear that A.P.
The "being in the wrong place at the right time" scenario.
Unfortunately, our girls were unoccupied at the time, which, unfortunately, would have meant an entirely different roster of victim names.
In addition, one could also reference the pattern of serial killers such as Joseph Christopher, who used at least three different weapons to dispatch his targeted victims.... all essentially random kills but all from a specific group or entity. A particular weaponry was apparently not a concern of his.

I say this because while we do know the victims of the Whitechapel Murderer were all prosses... either actively engaged that night or with a prior history of such activity... its highly likely that he focused on that group... but one has to wonder whether a derelict woman who was not a prostitute had been sitting on the front steps of a house with no intention of selling herself would have been attacked if the Ripper had been unsuccessful in locating a woman who was in the act of solicitation.

I don't want to derail the thread with talk of Nichols not being in the act when murdered, but that possibility, as with Tabram, has crossed my mind in the past.

Thanks for bringing up the drive by analogy, A.P.

[Mags]

Hi Howie and AP

I tend to think that the victims being prostitutes was just a matter of convenience for the killer and that he wasn't attacking them per se.

The destitute woman sitting on the steps probably wouldn't have followed him -or taken him- to a more private area. Nichols aside, that seems, even with Tabram, to be what he preferred.