Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper--Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell Read Free Book Online

sociopathy as a disease. Call it what you will, but psychopaths do not exhibit normal human feelings and are a small percentage of the population who are responsible for a large percentage of crime. These people are extraordinarily cunning and lead double lives. Those closest to them usually have no idea that behind the charming mask there is a monster who does not reveal himself until—as the Ripper did—right before he attacks.
    Psychopaths are incapable of love. When they show what appears to be regret, sadness, or sorrow, these expressions are manipulative and originate from their own needs and not out of any genuine consideration for another creature. Psychopaths are often attractive, charismatic, and above average in intelligence. While they are given to impulse, they are organized in the planning and execution of their crimes. There is no cure. They cannot be rehabilitated or “preserved from criminal misadventure,” as Francis Galton, the father of fingerprint classification, wrote in 1883.
    A psychopath often stalks his victims before contact, all the while engaging in violent fantasies. Psychopaths may go through dry runs to practice their modus operandi (MO) as they meticulously plan their actions in a manner that will ensure success and evasion. Rehearsals can go on for years before the violent opening night, but no amount of practice or attention to strategy can guarantee that the performance will be flawless. Mistakes happen, especially on opening night, and when Jack the Ripper committed his first murder, he made an amateurish mistake.

CHAPTER FOUR
    BY SOME PERSON UNKNOWN
    W hen Martha Tabran took her killer to the dark first-floor landing at 37 George Yard Buildings, he relinquished control to her and inadvertently introduced the risk that something could go wrong with his plan.
    Her turf may not have been the killing ground he had in mind. Maybe something else happened that he did not anticipate, such as an insult, a taunt. Prostitutes, especially intoxicated old veterans, were not the sort to be sensitive, and all Martha had to do was reach between his legs and say, “Where is it, love?” Sickert used the term “impotent fury” in a letter. More than a century after the event, I can’t re-create what actually happened in that pitch-black, fetid stairwell, but the killer got enraged. He lost control.
    To stab someone thirty-nine times is overkill, and a frenzied overkill is usually prompted by an event or a word that sets off the killer in an unanticipated way. This observation neither suggests nor assumes that Martha’s killer did not premeditate murder and fully intend to commit one, whether it was Martha Tabran’s or whoever else happened to come along that night or early morning. When he accompanied Martha to the stairwell, he intended to stab her to death. He brought a strong, sharp knife or dagger to the scene, and he left with it. He may have been disguised as a soldier. He knew how to come and go undetected and to be careful about leaving obvious evidence—a lost button, a cap, a pencil. The two most personal forms of homicide are stabbing and strangulation. Both require the assailant to have physical contact with the victim. Shootings are less personal. Bashing in a person’s head, especially from behind, is less personal.
    Stabbing someone dozens of times is very personal. When cases like that come into the morgue, the police and the medical examiner routinely assume that the victim and assailant knew each other. It is unlikely that Martha knew her killer, but she elicited a very personal reaction from him when she did or said something that didn’t follow his script. She may have resisted him. Martha was known for having fits and being quite difficult when she was drunk, and she had been drinking rum and ale earlier with Pearly Poll. Residents of George Yard Buildings later stated that they heard “nothing” at the early hour of Martha’s death, but their testimony doesn’t count