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Muscles of Facial Expression Severed -- meaningful?
Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: Medical / Forensic Discussions:
Muscles of Facial Expression Severed -- meaningful?
Author: Sarah R. Jacobs
Saturday, 11 November 2000 - 09:17 pm |        | I am not a doctor, but my father is.
I decided, upon reading (again) in Philip Sugden's _Complete History of JtR_, the description by Dr. Thomas Bond of Mary Jane Kelly's postmortem state, to consult my father's copy of the incomparable, late, Dr. Frank H. Netter's _Atlas of Human Anatomy_, to see which stab woundings could have caused which contemporaneous injuries.
I STOPPED DEAD IN MY TRACKS, when, deep in the pit of my stomach, the page entitled "Muscles of Facial Expression: Anterior View," registered with me.
For, you see, this is what the murderer of both Mary Jane Kelly AND Catharine "Kate" Eddowes was attempting to destroy. To wit:
" ' The face was gashed in all directions, the nose, cheeks, eyebrows & ears being partly removed. The lips were blanched & cut by several incisions running obliquely down to the chin. There were also numerous other cuts extending irregularly across all the features.' "
That is Bond's description of Mary Jane Kelly's wounds. Recall now, if you will, the wounds of Kate Eddowes. With only very sparing bits of imagination, and with no references to the secret rites of occult organizations or secret societies, we can match the motive for her wounds, and also the wounds, themselves, to those of Mary Jane Kelly.
Here are the facial wounds of Ms. Eddowes, as I would explain them:
The small, arrowlike wounds upon the cheekbones are not the initial "M," as the Maybrickians would like us to believe. They are an attempt to sever what Netter has labelled the "Levator labii superioris muscle" and the "Zygomaticus minor muscle."
The cut near the ear(s) is(/are) severings of the "Auricularis anterior muscle." Note that, even though any lay individual who has had his or her ears boxed would assume that cutting in *back* of the ears would do the trick, Jack cuts *in front*, and a significant distance in front, too, given where the ear's cartilage manifestly begins. This leads me to believe that our cutter was after something different. The "Auricularis anterior"s fit the bill quite nicely.
The cuts I have come to think of (in spite of myself) as the "clown makeup cuts" - those decisive slices running perpendicular to the lines of the lengths of each eye and the mouth -- are meant to sever the "orbicularis oculi" muscles and the "Orbicularis oris" muscles, respectively.
The small cuts at chin level were meant for the "Mentalis muscle"'s and the "Depressor labii inferioris muscle"'s little zigzags.
The severing of the nose took care of the "Levator labii superioris," the "Transverse" and "Alar" parts of the "nasalis," and the "Depressor septi nasi" muscles, not to mention the septum itself.
The deep gash across the bridge of the nose severed th "Procerus" and "Corrugator supercilii" muscles (the gash is present in the photos of Eddowes in Sugden and -- if one only takes one's time -- in Fido, Begg & Skinner, but not in Frederick Foster's relatively primitive mortuary sketch).
The huge slash descending from her nasal bone to her mandible takes care, in one fell swoop, of "Levator labii superioris alaeque nasi," "Levator labii superioris," Zygomaticus minor," Zygomaticus major," "Levator anguli oris," "Buccinator," and "Risorius" muscles on the same side as the large gash in her forehead (barely visible in the photographs because of the shadow cast by her hair, but clear enough in the sketch) takes care of her right-hand "Frontal belly (frontalis) of epicranius."
Now, go take a breath of fresh air, vomit if you need to, rinse with Scope, and come back to hear about Mary Jane Kelly (this is shorter, I promise):
Dr. Bond's notes on Kelly say:
1-a)"The nose...[was] partly removed."
1-b) See totally removed nose on Eddowes.
2-a) "The... cheeks...[were] partly removed."
2-b) See Eddowes "arrow," "Huge Gash" and "Clown makeup" wounds. This is a more expedient way of severing the facial muscle. See below, 3-b.
3-a) "The... eyebrows...[were] partly removed."
3-b) See Eddowes "Large Hairline Gash." An exaggeration thereof appears in the case of Kelly.
4-a) "The... ears...[were] partly removed."
4-b) See "Auricularis anteriori" severing in Eddowes.
5-a) "The lips were blanched & cut by several incisions running obliquely down to the chin."
5-b) See the aural "clown makeup" incision, meant for the "Oricularis oris" muscle, in Eddowes.
The rest is just the assailant's anger.
I am in no way implying that this person knew his medicine professionally. For all I know (or any of us know), he was a junk dealer who came across an old anatomy textbook in a heap of some Ebeneezer-Scrooge-like old doctor's heap of rags. Maybe he even took on the name of the doctor, whose name was probably inside the text. Maybe he was illiterate, and could only look at the pictures and intuit what the muscles were.
Maybe he even just extrapolated from animals he'd tortured as a youth or as a child, and turned out to be correct. At any rate, I have cemented an M.O. in my head for ONE killer of Kate Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.
By the way, these musings (and this is not meant to be snippy or grabby) are copyright (c)2000, by Sarah Rachel Jacobs. I would like to reserve my rights, just as a matter of knowing how forgetful academicians can be on some occasions, how grabby and selfish on others. I am sure I didn't have to tell any of you that, but, still, the rights are mine. So nyah-nyah. |
Author: Jon
Sunday, 12 November 2000 - 10:06 am | | Interesting observations Sarah.
Whether it proves to be of consequence is yet to be determined.
If you are correct in the M.O. of the killer then wouldnt you think that Occams razor comes into play?
Rather than speculate as to the ineptitude or lack of experience of the killer, it would be simpler to admit this kind of M.O. is more likely the result of an experienced practitioner.
Lets call it, the path of least resistance.
But that is only on the assumption that your observations are correct.
I wonder if our resident Dr Tom has an opinion on this.
Small attention to details like this that help tie the crimes together are a plus. Making it more likely that those two victims were killed by the same hand. Slender indications of a killer with medical experience permeates the medical evidence. But it remains unpopular.
Regards, Jon |
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