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Chief of Police Beavers stated that he believed that there was one person doing the blunt of the crimes according to the Georgian article that you posted on the death of Minnie Wise(the one who had her finger cut off) shortly before the police arrested her hubby for the murder. It seems that the police were divided on the theory of a black Jack until the 1913 murder of Lula Smith in which on of the articles that you posted said that murder convinced scores of city detectives that there was really a Black Jack at work.
Given the brutalities of the murders, their similarities and differences, it seems unlikely that these would have been a series of copycats as some claim. The similarities being the style of murder and some of the dumping ground. The Atlanta Georgian 1909 article that you posted said that the police came up with the theory of a negro Jack when they had come across a black woman found in the same spot and matter as another black woman had died less than a week ago. Detective Bullard told Todd Henderson that he believed he was the killer because a half a dozen Negroes had died around where he lived. In 1918, the police attributed a black woman's murder case to Jack because they said that years earlier that a similar crime had happened there years ago at exactly the same spot and no clues were found. It is well known that serial killers like to revisit sites for murder.
Given the brutalities of the murders, their similarities and differences, it seems unlikely that these would have been a series of copycats as some claim. The similarities being the style of murder and some of the dumping ground. The Atlanta Georgian 1909 article that you posted said that the police came up with the theory of a negro Jack when they had come across a black woman found in the same spot and matter as another black woman had died less than a week ago. Detective Bullard told Todd Henderson that he believed he was the killer because a half a dozen Negroes had died around where he lived. In 1918, the police attributed a black woman's murder case to Jack because they said that years earlier that a similar crime had happened there years ago at exactly the same spot and no clues were found. It is well known that serial killers like to revisit sites for murder.
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