from RipperLady
Today's blog (and the next) will be about the creation of a villain through the use of language and innuendo. But first, a little bit of background information.
On Hollywood Ripper, we have a listing of the women that nearly everybody agrees were killed by Jack the Ripper. We call them The Canonical 5. Martha Tabram is not on that list. This will be important information a little bit further down on the page.
Martha Tabram was murdered probably sometime between 2:00-3:30am on August 7, 1888. Her body was found on the first floor landing of the George Yard Buildings in Whitechapel. Here is a description of her wounds:
"The post-mortem examination of Martha Tabram was held by Dr. Timothy Robert Killeen (also spelled Keeling or Keleene) at 5:30 AM on the morning of August 7th. Tabram was described as a plump middle-aged woman, about 5'3" tall, dark hair and complexion. The time of death was estimated at about three hours before the examination (around 2:30-2:45 AM). In all, there were thirty-nine stab wounds including:
5 wounds (left lung)
2 wounds (right lung)
1 wound (heart)
5 wounds (liver)
2 wounds (spleen)
6 wounds (stomach)
According to Killeen, the focus of the wounds were the breasts, belly, and groin area. In his opinion, all but one of the wounds were inflicted by a right-handed attacker, and all but one seemed to have been the result of an "ordinary pen-knife." There was, however, one wound on the sternum which appeared to have been inflicted by a dagger or bayonet (thereby leading police to believe that a sailor was the perpetrator). "
(For more info, see Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Martha Tabram)
Martha Tabram was stabbed multiple times by her attacker, but her throat was not slashed. She had not been cut open. There were no organs missing from her body. She is generally viewed as the victim of some other killer, or an early "piece of work" by Jack the Ripper before he got his infamous modus operandi down.
The killing occurred, however, only 25 days before the first "canonical" Ripper murder. If it were the Ripper's work, it would indicate an extremely quick transformation of his technique--from stabbing the exterior of a woman's body to slashing the throat/ripping out her innards. However unlikely that swift a change would be, the Ripper definitely did show rapid development in his killing technique.
There was a tremendous difference in the level of mutilation committed between the first and fourth canonical murders (though they were only one month apart), and nobody even began to anticipate the level of mutilation he would commit in the fifth (about 5-6 weeks after the fourth). But regardless of all that, what needs to be said is that there's no obvious sign of the Ripper's work in the murder of Martha Tabram... as there is in the fifth canonical murder. Tabram is, at best, a controversial listing among alleged Ripper victims.
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