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Erin Sigler
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 84
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 11:21 pm: |       |
This issue came up in another thread and at first I was apt to dismiss it, but then I came across some sites that described, in detail, how the carcass of a deer is dressed (as I mentioned in the "Schizophrenic Jack? thread). The last site, which contains photographs, is particularly instructive, if you can stand it. It could explain the ritualized aspects of the mutilations.
There were a few statements I found most intriguing with regard to the Ripper:
"In photo 1, the deer is laid on its back, hind legs spread, and a small incision is made around the genitals moving up towards the chest in a vertical line."
"In the picture to the right, the heart is being cut away and saved. The heart is very tender and edible when cooked. As in Native American tradition, eating the heart of the deer was to have high spiritual significance."
Very strange. Now, clearly our boy went overboard in his "dressing," if that's what he was doing, but I think the possibility of Jack's being a hunter or animal dresser of some kind is worth discussing. Of course, the idea carries with it certain assumptions. I can't imagine there was a lot of big-game hunting going on in the East End, so if Jack was indeed a fairly experienced hunter it means that either he came from a rural area originally, or that he was a member of the upper class, who hunted for sport. Since I don't feel the evidence points to an upper-class background, factoring in the effects of a rural upbringing may be a worthwhile exercise, particularly with regard to the suspect list.
As always, if this has been discussed before, I apologize.
P.S. The site the above quotations are taken from can be found at www.surviveoutdoors.com/reference/fielddress.asp. |
Brad McGinnis
Sergeant
Username: Brad
Post Number: 43
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 1:05 am: | |
Erin, as a long time hunter and JTR student I can assure you that this was not a case of "field dressing" the vics. And while organs were an important part of native American rituals, for the most part, hunters dont take he entrails for food, although some do like the heart and liver, for the most part they are discarded. Moreover the work of Jack cant be considered anything like a hunter, but he was a preditor.
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Erin Sigler
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 86
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 1:47 am: | |
Why can't his work be considered similar to that of a hunter? Plenty of these guys employ hunting "techniques" in their crimes. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with hunting, but anything can be perverted by someone disturbed. |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 506
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 11:39 am: | |
Erin
A useful idea, and it must not be forgotten that beneath the high class mainstream of the gentleman’s hunting scene is a massive undercurrent of lower class hunters commonly known as poachers, and there were certainly a lot more poachers in the LVP than now.
It was common practice for the impoverished city dwellers of England to yank themselves off to the country of a night time to provide food for their tables using the traditional - and certainly more successful - art of poaching.
My own family - on my father’s side - do come from the East End of London and they have always bred bull terriers, Jack Russells and - believe it or not - ferrets specifically for the poaching market, and I’m still a dab hand with a ferret myself, so right in the heart of the East End there would have been many, many men with a wide experience of hunting - poaching is a better word - killing and dressing game.
Although poaching can be a brutal business - the first time I watched an old lag just rip the skin off a hardly dead rabbit I was stunned to say the least - I can’t agree with you that such experience would necessarily lead to some kind of disregard of human life, in fact I would cheerfully claim the opposite, and say that most hunters and poachers have a more realistic and matter of fact attitude to life and death than the average person who has not been exposed to hunting or dressing animals.
Hunters, poachers and fishermen tend to have a peaceful equilibrium towards life and rarely figure as mutilators or murderers.
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Erin Sigler
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 87
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 9:56 pm: | |
A.P., thanks for the great info. I knew that sort of thing occurred on the American frontier but I wasn't aware how common it was in the East End. I do think that hunting, as I've said earlier, can like anything else can be perverted to suit one's own ends. Cases in point: The "Most Dangerous Game" serial killer in Alaska, who set naked women loose in the woods and hunted them for sport, and the Ohio serial killer who preyed on hunters themselves. |
Sarah Long
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 4:38 am: | |
He very well may have been hunting his victims Erin as he was barbaric in his killings just as hunting is barbaric in today's society. Especially fox hunting...don't even get me started!! That reminds me of MJK's murder where the poor fox is ripped apart by the dogs. |
Andrew Spallek
Inspector
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 223
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 2:49 pm: | |
Erin,
Useful article. It does seem that JTR may have been an expereienced hunter. One who has had much practice at field dressing larger animals could carry out the JTR mutilations quite rapidly, one would assume. Unfortunately, this does not cut down the list of suspects much. If anything it increases them since it implies that someone other than a medical man or butcher could have performed the work.
Andy S.
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Erin Sigler
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 92
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 3:23 pm: | |
Unfortunately, Andrew, you're absolutely right! |
Vincent
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 9:35 am: | |
I do not think the mutilations in any way resemble any big-game butchering that I have ever seen. Generally the most important consideration is to carefully remove the anus, colon, intestines and bladder to avoid tainting the meat with feces or urine (in the case of Eddows he failed miserably) Removal of the lungs, trachea (sp?) kidneys, heart, and liver are next. The latter two items I have seen kept for later consumption.
This is not to say that he couldn't have been a hunter. It's just that he did not employ any of the techniques that a hunter uses while field dressing.
Regards, Vincent |
Candy
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 10:23 pm: | |
Just my .02 cents worth.
IF JTR was a hunter, he did the one thing that every hunter has done at least once and will take great pains to never do again.
He nicked into the bowel or intestine.
From the top, though, I have a problem with the hunter motif, because the coring out of the genitalia would have produced a much larger hole than is seen in Ms. Kelly's postmortem photo #2. It seems that most of the underlying structures of the labium are still attached to the body. Now, the stripping of the thighs down to the bone IS suggestive - on a human, these would be the easiest parts to take away for later dining pleasure - but is there any evidence that they were missing from the scene. Some of the reports say yes, some no. And we know that reports saying all the parts were there are wrong, due to the missing heart.
I also don't believe an experienced hunter would take the heart through the pericardium.
Sarah - you may indeed believe that hunting is barbaric in today's society - but have you ever seen how the animals that make it to your table are treated? A great deal more barbaric than hunting is factory farming. I have hunted - deer, turkey, pheasant, quail and hog - and those animals were never caged in pens so small they could neither turn nor lie down. And when they died, they died quickly, not left to suffocate as chickens and turkeys commonly are in processing plants. Meat doesn't grow in supermarkets, you know... |
Sarah Long
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, November 14, 2003 - 10:43 am: | |
Candy,
The only type of hunting that really annoys me Candy is the type where it is just for fun and not because the animals will be eaten. Fox hunting is the worst and the one I detest the most. If a person wants to hunt then by all means IF they are doing it to eat the animal (which we don't need to anyway). By the way, the only animals I eat are ones that were raised to be eaten and were free range (it tells you on the packets). I will also only eat free range eggs and I would never eat veal!! |
Billy Markland
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 5:06 am: | |
Guys, I hate to say it but, you are getting a bit esoteric here. Jack could as easily have come from a farming background. I am not THAT old but I do recollect somewhat the techniques while helping my Grandmother slaughter hogs. I am sure British farmers used the same techniques with swine, sheep, and cattle.
Here is how it was done for a hog:
1) Kill the beast
2) Cut the jugular to drain the blood
3) Toss the beastie into the scalding bin for a couple of minutes to loosen the hair
4) Haul the hog out and scrape the hair off
5) Insert wooden dowel in one back ankle, hang over pole, insert dowel in other ankle
6) Take a very sharp knife, start above the sternum (OK, it is a hog's stenum, and above means upwards) and slice under the SKIN so that the intestines, etc. will fall out into a bucket.
Only experienced "cutters" were allowed to do the knife portion for the very reason that Candy & Vincent mentioned up above.
To make a long story short, I feel that narrowing the focus to a "hunter" is an error.
Best of wishes,
Billy |
Andrew Spallek
Inspector
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 248
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 1:19 pm: | |
Vincent,
Remember that JTR was working in the dark.
Andy S.
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Sarah Long
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 4:45 am: | |
Andrew,
Actually if JTR did have a farming bacground then working in the dark wouldn't matter if he knew what to do just by feeling the body. Maybe that was why Kate's body was such a mess becuase there were no lights in Mitre Square and he couldn't risk attracting attention. |
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