Elmer Fudd wsay: “the almost universal conviction that a serial killer has to be somebody who is otherwise notable or interesting.”
What?
The almost universal conviction held is that virtually all serial killers are to all appearances everyday ordinary people which other than their murdering is what they are.
Could you give examples of serial killers who are deemed “notable and interesting” outside of their infamy?
You misread my post and quoted it out of context. I’m amazed by the typical belief (evidenced in “Ripperology”) that a notorious unknown criminal must have been somebody recorded in history such as a well known doctor or socialite or madman or aristocrat when in all likelihood the real culprit was probably just as a nobody whose name doesn’t appear on a historical record any more prominent than a birth or death certificate.
This is not true at all outside of law enforcement. The media, general public and especially “true crime” writers have always preferred suspects of distinction.
Elmer Fudd - you writwe that what I posit “is not true at all outside of law enforcement” How then do i know it? Better yet, how could Wednesday Addams in the 1991 Addmas family movie say “I’m a homicidal maniac, they look like everyone else.” if this principle was not well-known to the public and media by then?
“The media, general public and especially “true crime” writers have always preferred suspects of distinction.”
Bearing in mind the Addams family quote from above, I ask that you provide some examples that illustrate this claim. The media, the general public ansdd true crime witers have known for decades the identities of the most infamous serial killers. Can you point to some case where (other than the ripper case, thought of as first serial killer case) where it was reported or generally believed that a serial killer being sought was a person of distinction
If this principle is so well-known, then how do you explain the suspects given in this very thread or the proliferation of books naming notables as the ripper? If you find the phrase “almost universal conviction” to be an over generalization, fine, but it’s silly to deny the tendency to lay the blame for notorious unsolved crimes on otherwise notorious suspects.
Yes, we’re aware of the fact that spree/serial killers are generally just normal schlubs until they start it up. But that doesn’t mean that, the human mind being what it is, we don’t tend to think that someone who is interesting in this one particular way shouldn’t be interesting in other ways.
Plus, w/r/t Jack, the simple fact is that, since the case has been cold for over 100 years, the only suspects it’s even possible to consider are those who left a historical record. The unwashed masses, any one of whom could’ve taken, say, a religious turn one day and decided that prostitutes needed to be brought to God personally by him and his knife, are excluded from consideration simply because they have been processed into uniform anonymity by the force of history.
One thing’s for sure…
the Juwes are the men who will not be blamed for nothing…
and with that I concur with the profiler (Robert Ressler, I think) who said “If it’s not Aaron Kosminski, it’s someone very much like him.”
Much as I like the theory that the Juwes refer to Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum- the three assassins of Master Mason Hiram Abiff.
As I noted above this is generally counted as the first serial murder case and it is but one case.
The fact that140 years ago some of the public believed someone famous was connected with this one case and that that belief has been mythologized over the years and decades since in no way indicates a “near-universal” belief that serial killers are persons notable or interesting aside from their crimes.
I don’t think any ripper scholarship in 40 years has seriously contemplated Albert Victor or Gull as the ripper, but as these are indeed theories proposed for the unknown solution the are repeated over and over.
Again note that the language I questioned (and allegedly misread or took out of context) did not say “this” seral killer, but rather “a serial killer” indicating any or actually all serial killers.
This just generally isn’t true. Spree Killers often are suffering from unaddressed mental problems and recent traumas including losing a relationship or a job, drug use etc (Charles Witman was depressed and hopped up on speed when he climbed the belltower with his rifle).
The idea that serial killers are “just normal” is not true either. They often mutilate animals and have build ups of criminal activity such as peeping toms, attempted and succesful rapes, etc. Sociopaths often appear charming which might lead people to believe that serial killers are “normal”, but they’re faking their way through human interaction and afterwards there were usually a long string of warning signs of odd behavior that the families covered up or tried to ignore. (Note, not trying to say all sociopaths kill people or even harm others, but serial killers are more commonly sociopathic than the population as a whole).
Normal people don’t just up and decide to serial kill, by definition, even if the neighbors are often quoted as saying “he seemed like a normal guy”.
Probably this, and possibly even several such schlubs, since there’s no agreement about how many victims there are.
But of the known suspects, I’ve always leaned toward Montague Druitt, on MacNoughten’s statement that his (Druitt’s) family believed he was the Ripper and because of Druitt’s suicide sometime after Kelly’s murder. Evidence is thin, aside from that, however, but then it’s pretty thin for anyone else, too.
I don’t think anyone counts Jack the Ripper as the first serial killer. (Elizabeth Bathory, anyone?)
This +1. Somebody who no one ever heard of before, and didn’t even notice when he committed suicide or left town. He was comfortable killing in that part of London. Therefore, he very likely lived there, and died there amid all the other dregs.
So all we need to do is find him among all the thousands at the bottom of the rung in London a hundred and thirty some years ago, based on our expectation that he was [ul][li]white[]male[]left-handed[]fucked in the head and []dropped out of view from Whitechapel after the last murder.[/ul]Until we invent a time-viewer, I don’t think the chances are very good. [/li]
Regards,
Shodan
He said serial murder case, eventually Bathory was locked in her castle by the other lords (because she owed huge sums of money as well as was a serial killer), but there really wasn’t a criminal trial or police case to investigate, the townspeople knew what she was doing and that young women servants at her castle tended to disappear after a while.
“I don’t think anyone counts Jack the Ripper as the first serial killer”
jack the Ripper is often described as the first serial killer - maybe it’s more often first modern serial killer, but if you have never seen this reference you should read more.
Perhaps you missed the 2006 TV documentary “Jack the Ripper The First Serial Killer Revealed”?
or the book from the same year, a book in fact cited above "Ripperology: A Study of the World’s First Serial Killer "
or the early book “Jack the Ripper’s Secret Confession: The Hidden Testimony of Britain’s First Serial Killer”
or the jackthe Ripper1888 blog “FAMILY OUTS RELATIVE AS WORLD’S FIRST SERIAL KILLER”
or read a quote from Jack the Riipper and H.H,. Holmes One and the Same: “it is not hard to imagine that both world’s first serial killer and the Devil in the White City were, in fact, one in the same”
There’s four published examples found in a few minutes and I’m not home with my print sources.
Certainly bathory predated Jack, as did Vlad the Impaler and others. But the Ripper is certainly the first known to the contemporary populace, the first reported and widely speculated upon , the first metropolitan serial killer and the first exhibiting the lust murder characteristics that in general serial killers are known for…
Certainly I should have said first modern serial killer.
Re: Bathory - AFAIK it is not certain Bathory killed anybody having a servant or two to actually kill her victims as is also the case with Vlad (although more likely he did actually kill some of his victims).
Here is one of my favorite books on the murders: splat!
Not really what I was getting at, though I admit to inartful wording. I meant that serial/spree killers do not tend to be otherwise famous or notable people. I think we can all agree that Jack the Ripper probably had some mental health issues.
Francis Tumblety, strongly suspected at the time has to be the prime suspect.
Except the types of murders were quite different and there’s no evidence that Holmes was in London at the time of the murders.
He was actually in a prison in Illinois, not London, at the time of the Ripper murders.
Sure, newspaper headlines, television infotainment documentaries and some amateurish authors have made the claim that the Ripper was the first serial killer, but in any case when they do it’s a good clue that you can ignore anything else they have to say because they don’t know what they are talking about. There are enough sources making this claim that I don’t fault any average reader or television viewer who hasn’t researched crime history for being confused. Certainly anyone writing a book on the topic and presenting him- or herself as an expert has no excuse for making that claim.
The Ripper murders happened in 1888, or 125 years ago.
As a jingoistic American I always liked him as a suspect. America! FUCK YEAH!
Fair enough - some people do either think that Jack the Ripper was the first serial killer, or think that makes a better subtitle than ‘the first known serial killer to be investigated by a recognisably modern-ish detective force’.
Saying he was the first serial killer, though, just isn’t true.