Escape Artists
PseudoPod => Chamber of Horror => Topic started by: wakela on September 13, 2007, 08:34:01 AM
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The Sweeney Todd thread got me thinking about this other great British subject. This forum needs a Jack the Ripper thread.
Fun JTR facts:
-one of the prime suspects ended up in New Jersey
-he's credited with killing only 5 women (there are others that are disputed)
-most of the murders were committed in relatively populated areas
-no signs of struggle on any of the victims
So what do you think of the Ripper? Who was he? What happened to him?
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The Sweeney Todd thread got me thinking about this other great British subject. This forum needs a Jack the Ripper thread.
Fun JTR facts:
-one of the prime suspects ended up in New Jersey
-he's credited with killing only 5 women (there are others that are disputed)
-most of the murders were committed in relatively populated areas
-no signs of struggle on any of the victims
So what do you think of the Ripper? Who was he? What happened to him?
Redjac (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_in_the_Fold) FTW!
Honestly, no idea. My guess, from a skeptic's perspective, is he was a very athletic guy who killed his victims and escaped out of blind alleys with wall-climbing equipment. (Were the walls checked? I don't know.) Perhaps his victims were exsanguinated over drains so the blood would go down them and into the sewers? Was that checked? I'm not up on my Ripper lore.
Of course, I like believing there are supernatural things in our world, so I'm not a fan of my own skeptic's explanation.
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I seem to recall reading something (may have been fictional I have read alot of both fiction and non-fiction on Jack the ripper) that indicated that shortly after the murders stopped there were some similar killings going on across the english channel in France. I won't swear to it, but I think it's from Patricia Cornwell's book on Jack the Ripper (the title of which escapes me at the moment and I am too lazy to go look). It all blends together after a while like I said.
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Warning: gory imagery in post. It is a horror forum, after all.
I've read one book (http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841193976/escapepod-20)on the subject, and it was great. I wasn't particularly into "Ripperology" before I read this, but I really enjoyed it .... if "enjoy" is the right word. Though I've been refreshing my knowledge with wikipedia, and you could make yourself a Ripper expert within a few hours there. Enticement: the victim's pages have pictrues... Warning: the victims pages have pictures...
I think it would be tricky to exsaguinate someone without sanguinating your own clothes. Plus, IIRC, there wasn't a lack of blood at the scene, just a lack of blood on anyone wandering around Whitechapel at the time. What is odd is that the murders and subsequent mutilations occurred in areas with people around. One of the bodies was found in a square that was on the regular patrol of a bobby. He walked through the square and it was clean, then he walked through 20 minutes later and there was a woman with her face chopped up and her intestines placed above her shoulder. If JTR were some sort of evil genius it seems like he would have chosen more secluded sites. So it seems more like he was a very lucky lunatic. At least he could have hung around before he went hunting to see if a police officer might happen by. Then again, he might have studied the officer's route, brought the girl there right after the officer left, and known he had 20 minutes to get the job done. The officer reported hearing fleeing footsteps, so apparently Jack was cutting it close. (Cutting. haha).
But no one was every in hot pursuit of Jack. So I don't think he would have need to climb a wall; he just blended in with everyone on the street...or was soaked in blood and stuck to back allies and was miraculously not spotted. But people of Victorian Whitechapel weren't lifting their pinkies when they sipped tea. They were hoodlums, thieves, prostitutes, drunks, etc. Maybe JTR could blend in easier with these folks.
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We shouldn't let this thread die without mentioning another JTR/Johnny Depp connection:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120681/ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120681/)