Yes. Serial poisoners, for example.
George Chapman (one of the suspects) was a poisoner. Non violent, although I’m sure his wives wouldn’t take much comfort in that.
I would think the amount of body strength needed to do that much butchery in what was in some instances a very short time strongly indicated a male assailant.
Weren’t men and women in those times taught different styles of handwriting? (Perhaps this was only true for the upper classes.) Presumably the “Ripper” letters to the police were written in what would typically be considered a “man’s hand”?
(However, it probably wouldn’t have been that difficult for a woman to imitate that style: certainly there are lots of references in contemporary fiction to women who learn to write “business hand” or other kinds of non-ladyish handwriting.)
Scientifically valid evidence for the whole case is about zero, given the rudimentary investigatory methods of the time and the rough and ready preserving-the-chain-of-evidence methods. A time traveller from the future a la Star Trek can’t be ‘ruled out’ either, for that matter.
A few witnesses actually saw the man that was in all likelihood the Ripper. The best description we have is that of George Hutchinson (pdf file), who watched Mary Kelly talking to a man and taking him back to the apartment where she was soon after butchered. The man had “a small parcel in his left hand with a kind of strap round it.” Most experts on the case agree that what Hutchinson saw was the Ripper carrying the tools of his dark trade.
I once read a theory that JtR was a female nurse. This would mean she could move around the town with bloody clothing and not be suspicious. She could move in poorer sections of town and not be suspicious. I did a brief search, but can’t find the URL where I read this theory.
The existing evidence really does suggest a male. Nothing absolutely precludes a female, but nothing absolutely precludes a martian, or an invisible goblin either. We know that nearly all serial murderers are male. We also know that the few women serial murders that exist have mostly been poisoners, or kill by smothering, etc. There have been a few violent murderesses on record, Lizzy Borden, and Countess Elizabeth Báthory come to mind. Even those two don’t fit the profile of Jack the Ripper though. Borden is arguably a Spree Killer, and Bathory had four henchmen to help her do her dirty work. The extremely fast, brutal, and er…thorough mutilations of the Ripper victims indicate an individual killer, who is able to overcome their victims quite quickly, and possess the physical strength to perform the mutilations in a timely manner. Also consider that the killer took flesh trophies, a classic male tell. I’m not familiar with any case where a female took such items. They normally prefer personal effects.
Non-violent serial murderers often include caretakers who kill the old and infirm by smothering, poisoning, and so on. Many female serial killers fall into this category.
Aileen Wuornos would be a better example; she killed her victims alone and was definitely a serial killer, not a spree killer. However, it’s true that she does not fit the classic ‘obsessive’ serial killer profile. She killed for material gain, not for trophies or entertainment. I’m not aware of any females who fit that category.
In the 1960s in Spain and in my hometown, the two girls schools taught “french handwriting,” the boys’ school taught “english handwriting.” The main difference is that english calligraphy slopes the letters forward.
I’m female and my handwriting has always sloped forward: several years worth of bare-passes because of sloping didn’t “correct” the sloping at all.
Jack the Ripper strangled his victims (the knife was used after they were rendered unconscious). That makes it even less like likely that it was a woman, who probably wouldn’t have had the strength to do it.
The Ripper letters may or may not have been written by the killer, so they can’t be depended on.
There are some pretty tough chicks out there. There are women who could take a guy down pretty easily. I am inclined to agree that it’s probably more likely a male, however, that this is the common assumption is still speculation, if it was a woman, she did a great job of throwing police off the trail by not conforming to expectation.
There really were no expectations at that time. Criminal pathology, forensics, and other investigative sciences were in their absolute infancy during that period. However, while it’s true that the gender of the ripper is unknown as the crime is unsolved, the killer neatly fits the usual profile. Considering the relatively minute numbers of female killers, much less overtly violent ones, it is a safe assumption that the killer was male.
Wiki lists it as one in six, or roughly less than ten percent of killers are female. I’d take 90% odds any day on the ripper being male. For the sake of ease were they profiling the ripper, he would certainly be listed as male.
No, one in six is just under 17%.
er right…:smack: math is not my strong point. Still, that means that 83-84 killers out of 100 will be male. Then take the very small amount of female killers who are physically violent in their methodology against those 16-17 women in the group. The wiki isn’t clear on it, but I’d be willing to bet the occurrence is less than 1% of the total. That is still an overwhelming probability that the ripper is a male, and makes that an acceptable assignation lacking other evidence.
Interesting. So is “French handwriting” vertical or sloped to the left? (I think I remember reading that among Americans, 75% of us slope to the right, 15% to the left, and 10% are vertical.)
In fairness, according to eyewitness descriptions, Mary Kelly herself was in and out of her room, doing the rounds of the pubs and engaging people in the street in conversation for several hours after she was dead.
One of the things that most struck me, in reading about the Ripper murders, is just how unreliable the eyewitness evidence is. Any one statement can appear clear, well-observed and consistent, but as soon as there are two it becomes apparent that at least one of them is mistaken.
I think the most that can be said, in complete accuracy, is that several people gave descriptions of men that they claimed to have seen, and that these description vary enough that no two of them may be of the same man.