The Cases That Haunt Us by John Douglas, Mark Olshaker Page B
Authors: John Douglas, Mark Olshaker
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sated, so he had to go find another woman, a vulnerable prostitute, to mutilate. This next time, with Kate Eddowes, he had his way. In fact, maybe he had so much time that he actually wrote a cryptic message on the wall of Goulston Street for his pursuers to find and interpret.
This is good criminological analysis so far. But we’ve got another issue, one potentially more serious than the divergence of signature elements. It is clear from the postmortem examination of Elizabeth Stride that she was killed with a short-bladed knife, not a long-bladed one as was obviously used on Nichols and Chapman. Maybe this isn’t a problem. The killer would likely own more than one knife, particularly if he was in either the livestock or the leather trade. But from a crime analysis perspective, this is a problem. Why? Because Catherine Eddowes was also killed with a long-bladed knife.
If the short knife had been used on the second victim of the evening, whether or not it was used on the first, we wouldn’t have a linkage problem. That would mean either that the UNSUB had simply changed knives for whatever reasons of MO, or that after the first killing, he thought he could be traced by the long knife and had better switch to another one. But as it is, the long knife is used slightly later in the evening on Eddowes, referring us straight back to Nichols and Chapman but not necessarily to Stride.
Could this mean there was another killer out that night? It could. In fact, a number of Ripperologists think that it does.
Maybe it was a copycat. But so close in time and place? Wouldn’t it be awfully coincidental that the copycat struck and then less than half an hour later the original killer struck close by? Yes, coincidences do happen in this business, but I think it is highly unlikely. Based on the victimology, the MO, and the location, I would advise the Metropolitan and City Police to link the Stride murder with the three (and possibly four) others.
But then, what’s the behavioral answer for the use of the short knife with Stride? I don’t know. It doesn’t add up. Did the UNSUB take two knives with him on a whim, then, when he killed Elizabeth Stride, decide that the short one didn’t work as well? Could be. This is not an exact science. People, criminals included, do all sorts of things for no particular conscious reason, and this is difficult to factor into your analysis. From my experience, every major case seems to have loose ends. If you’re a detective or a profiler, you get used to this ambiguity. You don’t like it, but you learn to live with it.
“ DEAR BOSS”
If the Annie Chapman murder sent the East End into a spasm of terror, the Liz Stride and Kate Eddowes killings sent all of London into paroxysms. And now, the evil finally had a name.
By Monday, October 1, the world became aware of the contents of two communications—a letter and a postcard—mailed four days apart from two separate locations in east London to the Central News Agency and reprinted in the morning
Daily News
and evening
Star.
By that point, they’d already been forwarded to Scotland Yard for analysis, and the police would disseminate them on their own with the expectation that someone would recognize the wording or handwriting and come forward. The letter, written in red ink and crayon, with a flowing, properlooking handwriting, read:
25 Sept 1888
Dear Boss,
I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I
This is good criminological analysis so far. But we’ve got another issue, one potentially more serious than the divergence of signature elements. It is clear from the postmortem examination of Elizabeth Stride that she was killed with a short-bladed knife, not a long-bladed one as was obviously used on Nichols and Chapman. Maybe this isn’t a problem. The killer would likely own more than one knife, particularly if he was in either the livestock or the leather trade. But from a crime analysis perspective, this is a problem. Why? Because Catherine Eddowes was also killed with a long-bladed knife.
If the short knife had been used on the second victim of the evening, whether or not it was used on the first, we wouldn’t have a linkage problem. That would mean either that the UNSUB had simply changed knives for whatever reasons of MO, or that after the first killing, he thought he could be traced by the long knife and had better switch to another one. But as it is, the long knife is used slightly later in the evening on Eddowes, referring us straight back to Nichols and Chapman but not necessarily to Stride.
Could this mean there was another killer out that night? It could. In fact, a number of Ripperologists think that it does.
Maybe it was a copycat. But so close in time and place? Wouldn’t it be awfully coincidental that the copycat struck and then less than half an hour later the original killer struck close by? Yes, coincidences do happen in this business, but I think it is highly unlikely. Based on the victimology, the MO, and the location, I would advise the Metropolitan and City Police to link the Stride murder with the three (and possibly four) others.
But then, what’s the behavioral answer for the use of the short knife with Stride? I don’t know. It doesn’t add up. Did the UNSUB take two knives with him on a whim, then, when he killed Elizabeth Stride, decide that the short one didn’t work as well? Could be. This is not an exact science. People, criminals included, do all sorts of things for no particular conscious reason, and this is difficult to factor into your analysis. From my experience, every major case seems to have loose ends. If you’re a detective or a profiler, you get used to this ambiguity. You don’t like it, but you learn to live with it.
“ DEAR BOSS”
If the Annie Chapman murder sent the East End into a spasm of terror, the Liz Stride and Kate Eddowes killings sent all of London into paroxysms. And now, the evil finally had a name.
By Monday, October 1, the world became aware of the contents of two communications—a letter and a postcard—mailed four days apart from two separate locations in east London to the Central News Agency and reprinted in the morning
Daily News
and evening
Star.
By that point, they’d already been forwarded to Scotland Yard for analysis, and the police would disseminate them on their own with the expectation that someone would recognize the wording or handwriting and come forward. The letter, written in red ink and crayon, with a flowing, properlooking handwriting, read:
25 Sept 1888
Dear Boss,
I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I
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