The Serial Killers: A Study in the Psychology of Violence by Colin Wilson, Donald Seaman Page B

is not new.Pioneering work in the eighteenth century, using physiognomy (the art of judging character by facial features), and phrenology (the study of cranial bumps and ridges, vis-à-vis the development of mental faculties), failed to reveal significant common physical similarities.A more recent, twentieth-century theory held that chromosomal imbalance (caused by the presence of an additional male, or ‘Y’, chromosome in the genes), increased the probability of violent criminal behaviour.This supposition, however, was challenged when Richard Speck – the American multiple murderer who killed eight nurses in one night in 1966, and who was thought to suffer from such an imbalance – was found on examination to have no extra chromosome.Subsequent research showed that most males with such an imbalance display no abnormally violent behaviour.The FBI profilers (or analysts, as they are officially called) use behavioural traits commonly identified in convicted, sexually-oriented murderers as their analytical mainstay; and that this technique stands the test of time is clearly borne out by scrutiny of the 1888 Ripper murders.
    All the five Ripper murders were obviously sexually motivated.All five victims were the same type of person, i.e.prostitutes.All were actively soliciting in the same general ‘red-light’ area on the nights they met their deaths.Four of the murders – those of Mary Ann Nicholls, Annie Chapman, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly – were plainly ritualistic, with post-mortem mutilation.Nicholls was disembowelled.So was Chapman.But, unlike Nicholls (whose robust stays precluded mutilation above the level of the diaphragm), Chapman’s uterus was cut out and removed, her entrails severed from their mesenteric attachments and left draped symbolically over one shoulder.Eddowes was similarly mutilated, except that in her case the left kidney was removed with the uterus.Following that murder a letter from someone, claiming to be the killer, referred to anthropophagy (cannibalism), viz.‘(the kidney) tasted very nise [ sic ]’.
    Mary Jane Kelly, the last of the Ripper’s victims and the only one found dead in her room, suffered the most bizarre mutilation.On this one unhurried occasion when, having changed his modus operandi, he ran less risk of being disturbed, the Ripper’s mutilation of the body was more elaborate than hitherto.The room measured only twelve feet square, so that every detail loomed large.Kelly’s throat was cut so deep she was all but decapitated, drenching sheets and palliasse in blood.She was dressed only in her chemise.The rest of her clothes were found folded on a chair, while other items of female clothing – including a skirt and hat – had been burned in the grate, apparently to provide light for the ritual mutilation.
    The Ripper cut off the wretched woman’s nose and both breasts, and – as if they were trophies – displayed them on the bedside table, together with strips of flesh carved from her thighs.Her forehead was flayed, the abdomen ripped open, her uterus and liver cut out.The uterus had vanished: the liver was left for the police to find, neatly positioned between Mary Jane Kelly’s feet.In a final, symbolic gesture the Ripper had taken one of the woman’s hands and thrust it deep inside her gaping belly.
    Only Elizabeth (‘Long Liz’) Stride – the first of his two victims to die on 30 September 1888 (hence the night of the ‘double event’) – was spared mutilation.This was not from any sense of compassion on the Ripper’s part, but strictly to save his own skin.Bruises found on Stride’s shoulders and collarbone indicated where he grabbed hold of her before dragging her to the ground.A single sweep of his knife was enough to sever her windpipe (all five of his victims died in this way, with their throats slit right to left).On this occasion, however, as he knelt to rip open Stride’s abdomen, he was disturbed and forced to flee – possibly by