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Diana
Inspector
Username: Diana
Post Number: 223
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 8:11 am: | 
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I was reading a work of fiction yesterday and came to this passage:
"Stabbing is a dumb way to kill a man," said Hay. "Unless you pierce the heart, say, with the first penetration of the knife, he's apt to scream and struggle, maybe try to escape, maybe fight back. You can't just stick a knife in a man and watch him quietly fall down and die. It doesn't work that way."
"Cutting the throat is better," said Kennelly.
"A man with his throat cut doesn't yell. He can't. He's horrified. He knows he's dead. He doesn't struggle." *
* Harrington, William, Elliot Roosevelt's Murder at the President's Door, Thomas Dunne Books St. Martins Minotaur, New York, 2001, pp. 94-95
If JTR was the killer of Tabram, maybe the above is what he learned from that experience.
Spryder, I hope the footnote protects you from any legal trouble. The front of the book says, " No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. I think the last sentence protects us. Would it be a good idea if you had a policy on quotations, for your own protection? |
Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 1044
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 8:17 am: |
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G'day Diana,
I don't see any problem with this, as you've mentioned the name of the book, and the publisher.
LEANNE |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 671
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 5:46 pm: |
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Hah!
Just trying saying that when you have quoted less than that from one of Wilson's books in a negative manner.
Mind you I'm always game for litigation.
We must respect our dinosaurs, or it costs us.
But I always think to hell with 'em.
Quote what you like.
This is a public forum and by his very nature an author puts himself into that forum by his efforts, and this can be soundly and legally argued.
Copyright does not cover dissent, argument, critic or review.
So hunt your dinosaur at will. |
Julian Rosenthal
Sergeant
Username: Jules
Post Number: 20
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 12, 2004 - 9:00 pm: |
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G'day Wolfy,
Does that mean I can quote you I'll bear that in mind for the future when I get into a heated debate with someone and I'll just say "But AP Wolf said....." .
On a serious note though, I'm writing a series of kids books (I've given up on Jack) featuring Diddles the Wonder Cat. I've started Diddles and The Great Fire of London, Diddles Meets Florence Nightingale, and I want to do one on Diddles Meets Biggles but don't know if I can use Cpt W.E. Johns character.
Any ideas?
Thanks mate.
Jules |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 716
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 4:35 am: |
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Jules
I'd be honoured if you quoted any of my unworthy works or machinations, but if you run to more than a page I expect a glass of decent brandy.
Watch out for Biggles though, I'm not sure how old the Biggles character is - and anyway they keep moving the goalposts where elapse of copyright is concerned - but last time I looked it was fifty years; and the remaining family is able to renew copyright, so check first. Like me you may find it possible to quote - or use - characters from fiction for a very small fee.
I think I paid something like £20 to be able to use as much as Winnie the Pooh I liked in the 'Myth'.
You shouldn't give up on Jack.
Despair by all means, but please do not give up.
Hope this helps. |
RosemaryO'Ryan
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 5:19 am: |
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Dear Diana,
I think you have put your finger on the pulse, re, the quote..."Unless you pierce the heart, say, with the first penetration of the knife,"
Emm. Any further thoughts?
Rosey :-) |
Julian Rosenthal
Sergeant
Username: Jules
Post Number: 21
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 8:37 pm: |
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G'day Wolfy,
One bottle of Shivvers Regal coming up .
I'll check out who the publishers were for Biggles and see what they've got to say. Thanks for that. Maybe we can do sonmething with Diddles and Winnie the Pooh .
Cheers
Jules |
Stanley D. Reid
Inspector
Username: Sreid
Post Number: 323
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 08, 2005 - 12:56 pm: |
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Yes, the FISH (and chips) was most definately a bribe for Diddles. The being who knew and saw all.
Stan |
HRAK
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, December 16, 2005 - 5:24 pm: |
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G’day to the Casebook community.
I am an unregistered Aussie  and have been enjoying reading through the Casebook site during the past 12 months or so. My strong preference when reading posts is for factually-based contributions, such those of AP Wolf, Chris Scott et al. Now I dare to post for the first time and must include an apology, for this post is nothing but surmise and speculation based on Casebook reports of Martha Tabram’s wounds and other evidence from the scene of her death on the stairs at George Yard.
Now to it.
I believe Martha Tabram was almost certainly an early victim of Jack the Ripper.
Why so?
(A) Evidence of Strangulation.
One of the reasons for Jack’s “success” was his virtually silent attacks. Our man was canny enough to work out that strangulation can quickly disable and silence a victim, and there is evidence of this in the attack on Tabram both from the corpse and the close proximity of persons who heard nothing disturbing in the night. (One might cogitate on how Jack might have come to this knowledge.)
(B) A Turkey of a Solution to the Riddle of the Two Blades.
From http://casebook.org/dissertations/dst-victimwounds.html
"… all injuries seem to have been inflicted by a right-handed person, using a penknife; the stab wound to the heart might have been made by a dagger or bayonet by a left-handed person."
The knife wounds suffered by Martha Tabram are often cited as a reason to exclude her as a victim of Jack, but I believe some consideration of the nature of her wounds leans strongly towards her being include in the canon.
Step through this with me as a thinking exercise (just speculation, I know).
Firstly, allow the thought that Jack was at this time inexperienced at killing and mutilating, but wanted to do these things and went into the night armed for his purpose. Secondly, consider the type of weapon he used in undisputed Ripper attacks (Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes) and the consensus seems to be a knife with a blade of about 6” (15cm).
So, Jack has just strangled Martha. She is unconscious but probably not dead. Jack wants to be sure she is, and being inexperienced at killing, he thinks a stab to the heart will be a good way to do the business.
Now let us think closely on that singular “bayonet wound”. By the Casebook reports, Dr Killeen suggests that it was a “dagger or bayonet”. The physical evidence before him is the depth, width, angle and cross-section of the wound. A reason to suggest a dagger or bayonet is if the wound had a cross-section indicating a “spey blade” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knife#Shapes for explanation of this term.). As the strike was through the sternum, Killeen had a very good view of the cross-section. A spey-bladed dagger seems quite in keeping with the style of blade thought to be used in Jack’s acknowledged killings.
Dr Killeen also suggested that it might have been a left-handed blow. Now, I suspect Dr Killeen’s thinking here was that Martha was upright and received the blow to her sternum from her right side and in an upward trajectory, as would be the case from a knife held blade up (i.e. same side as the thumb) in the attacker’s left hand by his left hip and thrust forward. The trajectory of such a thrust striking the sternum would be towards the victim’s heart.
It seems that Dr Killeen did not countenance strangulation prior to the knife blows, but if Martha was in fact laid out and the attacker was on his knees astride her (a very natural dominant position for an assailant to take) and wanted to deliver a thrust to her heart, the simplest method for a right-handed Jack would be to grasp the knife blade down (i.e. thumb on top of the handle butt) and hold it across himself towards his left shoulder and then strike down. If Jack was leaning just a little forward (again, a very natural dominant position to take), the knife trajectory on striking Martha’s sternum would be a little upwards in her chest cavity and towards her left (heart) side.
Hmmm. Now what?
With Christmas nearly upon us, you may, after carefully carving up your turkey, indulge in a meagre experiment and thrust your carving knife through the bird’s breastbone. If your knife is like mine, you may find that it tends to stick. I think Jack found this out moments after stabbing Martha Tabram with his weapon of choice.
But killing was not all Jack wanted to do. He wanted to mutilate (I will avoid any consideration of why he wished to mutilate), but his favourite knife was stuck fast in the breastbone of his victim.
At this moment, most commentators would allow that Jack was seeking to do his work quickly and would have been in a state of some urgency, if not agitation.
Now, it would not be unusual for a chap in Victorian London to have a pen-knife in his pocket. Being so prepared, Jack took out his pen-knife with a view to getting on with what he wanted to do. To mutilate the abdomen (one of the features of his crimes) he must dismount from his position astride Martha, hence changing the angle of attack and thus Dr Killeen’s view that the pen-knife wounds were from a right-hander.
Jack started mutilating where he planned to continue - by making a stabbing cut in Martha’s abdomen, which was recorded by Dr Killeen as 3” long by 1” deep (7.5cm by 2.5cm). Jack at this moment realized that the pen-knife was not going to be adequate for quickly ripping opening the abdomen. Frustrated, angry, whatever mood he was in, Jack then proceeded to use the pen-knife for what it was worth by stabbing Martha in clusters in the genitals, throat and thorax. Jack may even have pulled on the handle of his dagger with his left hand while making some of the thrusts with the pen-knife in his right.
With time of the essence of his attacks, Jack could well have decided to remove himself from the scene the moment his favourite knife came free, rather than risk further time at this job that had not gone quite as he had hoped.
Sometime in the next three weeks, Jack thought through the circumstances of Martha Tabram’s murder and decided to use his knife as the slaughterman does to efficiently effect his kill. But he was still learning and had to make two cuts at Polly Nichols throat before ripping her open.
[My apologies if this line of thought has been posted previously. I have done a bit of Googling of the Casebook site and haven’t found anything quite the same.] |
HRAK
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, December 16, 2005 - 5:45 pm: |
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OK. I am trying to make my thoughts on Tabram being a Ripper victim a little more coherent and transparent for the Casebook.
I ask myself, “Why would Jack the Ripper kill Martha Tabram in a frenzied stabbing attack when his MO was to strangle, slit the throat and then rip open the abdomen?”
The BIG LEAP is to surmise that the dagger/bayonet wound was the first knife blow and that the 3”x1” abdominal cut was the second. Without whiz-bang forensic pathology on the body, this is impossible to establish as a fact, but let’s think about those wounds.
My reasoning is that the dagger/bayonet wound was utterly superfluous if not the first wound as the other wounds were sufficient to cause death by bleeding, and it is beyond silly to think that the killer stabbed Martha X times, then changed knife for a single stab, and then reverted to the other knife for another (38-X) stabs.
And why would a homicide armed with a big knife and a fetish (or frenzy) for mutilation set about Martha with a pen-knife?
Because his big knife was (temporarily) unavailable after the first blow through the sternum.
Now, consider the 38 pen-knife wounds. There is something different about the 3”x1” abdominal wound. It is the only one of Tabram’s wounds described by its length and depth (at least on the Casebook site). It really is something more akin to a “cut” than a “stab”. One 3”x1” cut and 37 stabs. Why would the killer make only one cutting wound in the abdomen and a plethora of stab wounds? Again, I believe it beyond silly to think that a frenzied stabbing attack (multiple wounds every where else) was interrupted at any stage for a single cut to the abdomen. So I believe the cut must have been made before the 37 pen-knife stabs.
A cut to the abdomen… throw in the location of George Yard and I find it incomprehensible that Martha Tabram is not included in the canonical murders by Jack the Ripper.
But what of the frenzied stabbing – that’s not like Jack.
It was not like Jack because things were going badly for him this night. “Poor Jack” – his favourite weapon’s stuck in the whore’s chest and so he must make do with his pen-knife, and the pen-knife’s just not up to the job of ripping.
I believe that the frenzied stabbing was the result of Jack’s frustration and rage that his ripping was not going according to the scheme he had swirling around in his deeply disturbed mind.
Now, I know that all of the forgoing is just surmise and speculation, but I do find this line of thought neatly answers the riddle of the two knives and the differences in Martha’s wounds as compared to those of readily accepted Ripper victims.
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