by Jim Laughter
“So you’re sayin' our killer is a white man in his late twenties to mid-thirties from a broken home,” Morris said. “Is that what you’re sayin'?”
“Not necessarily,” Cooper answered. “The majority of serial killers in America fit that description but it’s not an exclusive club. We’re all aware of the five murders between August 31, 1888 and November 9, 1888 blamed on a single killer referred to as Jack the Ripper.”
He handed Morris the familiar list of Jack the Ripper’s five known victims.
“Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly were all found stabbed to death and disemboweled within a quarter mile of each other in Whitechapel, London. We can only assume the killer was territorial.”
“Territorial?”
“Yes sir. We assume he either lived or worked in close proximity of Whitechapel. If he was a doctor or some other kind of medical worker, which is commonly believed, he could have been on staff at the Royal London Hospital which is only one block from where the first woman was found dead on August 31, 1888.”
“Tell me more about his early life,” Morris said.
“Well sir, nobody knows for sure but most profilers believe his early life was neglectful and his upbringing spawned a reluctance to develop a social and emotional bond with others. In turn, he may have internalized his anger and expressed that emotion by setting fires and torturing small animals. He could have been sexually abused as a child by either his own parents or by men his mother knew if his father was absent from his life as is often surmised and common, even today. As he grew older, his fantasies could have developed a strong component that included domination, cruelty, and mutilation of women. I wouldn’t be surprised if he killed his own mother or other significant women in his life."
“Are we still talking about Jack the Ripper?” Keller asked.
“Take your pick, LK. This profile could fit either man.”
“But if Jack was a doctor, he had to come from money,” Morris said. He wasn’t interested in getting sidetracked into an idle comparison between a killer dead for over a century and some nut ball killing women today.
“I don’t reckon even back then a person could go to medical school without some means of finance.”
“Yes sir, that’s true if he was a doctor. But he could have been a butcher or a mortician's helper which only required an apprenticeship. Then again, he might have been a medical examiner’s assistant, or even just a hospital attendant.”
“Or a barber,” Benjamin interjected.
Morris turned to face Benjamin, a disdainful look on his face.
A barber, for cryin' out loud!
“What the hell are you talkin' about, rook?”
“It’s true, sir,” Benjamin answered.
“A barber, for Pete’s sake?” Morris said. “What’s he gonna do, clip their hair real short with his scissors and hope they freeze to death? If you can’t say somethin' intelligent, boy, don’t say nothin' at all.”
“Tell him, Grundy,” Benjamin said, not surprised Morris would stoop to using a racial remark at a time like this. “Tell him what you told me at the airport.”
Cooper had intended to tell Morris about the unlikely possibility of Jack the Ripper being a barber. He just wanted to work his way into it, not have Benjamin throw him under the bus like this and force his hand.
“A barber, Cooper?” Morris asked.
Cooper nodded, still uncomfortable with being under Morris’ radar. He feared if he didn’t phrase his words just right, the senior agent would discount his opinion and not take him serious for the rest of the investigation.
“Yes sir,” Cooper answered. “Barbers didn’t just cut hair. They were called barber surgeons back then. They served as dentists, morticians, undertakers, midwifes, pharmacists, doctors, executioners.”
“Executioners?”
“Yes sir,” Cooper said. “It wasn’t uncommon for a barber to serve in all of these capacities. As an executioner for the state, he’d hang a convicted criminal, prepare the body for burial by embalming him, trim his hair for family viewing, then serve as undertaker for the burial.”
“You’re shittin' me, right?”
“No sir. Not at all.”
“That’s the damnedest thing I ever heard,” Morris said. “So you think our guy today could either be a medical man or some kind of screwball barber out to kill women?”
“He’s a screwball alright,” Cooper answered, not willing to let Morris draw him into a conversation with no way out. “And just like the original Jack the Ripper, he’s acting out his destructive fantasies. In each of the five homicides officially attributed to Jack, his victim was a prostitute with a reputation for heavy drinking, which accounts for all of them having recently frequented a pub in the vicinity of their deaths.”
“There’s nothin' to indicate the hookers being killed today are alcoholics.”
“No sir. But the toxicology reports indicate drug usage in most of our victims. There are enough similarities in murder style alone to indicate our guy is imitating his modus operandi.”
Benjamin’s keen ear picked up on Cooper’s word ‘imitating’. Although he knew the person killing the women in this string of murders could not be the physical reincarnation of Jack the Ripper, he felt it went much deeper than that. It was like the essence of Jack the Ripper filled these murder scenes as if the spirit of the infamous killer possessed the modern man. He didn’t know how his assumption could be true. He just knew it wasn’t a matter of simple imitation.
“So you think he’s a copycat?” Morris asked.
Cooper exchanged glances with Benjamin who sat at the table waiting for his response. It was clear Morris considered the killer a copycat but he knew Benjamin believed it went deeper than that. George had indicated he believed the actual spirit of Jack the Ripper possessed the killer. Cooper knew he was walking a thin line between his friendship with Benjamin and a senior agent that could end his career with a negative report.
“Whether he’s Jack the Ripper or a copycat doesn’t really matter,” Cooper answered. “It’s apparent he has anatomical knowledge and is skilled with a blade.”
“Uh-huh.”
Cooper decided to change tack in the conversation, if for no other reason than to ease the tension he felt forming in his shoulders.
“Most profilers believe Jack the Ripper was a loner and not socially adept. I also think Jack was probably heterosexual and his relationships were with prostitutes, whether sexual or not.”
“Prostitutes?”
“Yes sir. I believe our man today is the same way; a loner who shuns the company of other people and who has weak social skills. I don’t know if he keeps company with prostitutes sexually or if he was exposed to them in his youth. Either way, it’s obvious he has an obsession with them.”
“You don’t say?”
“Yes sir. And due to the lack of hygiene practices by prostitutes in the 19th century and the absence of treatment for venereal disease, he may have been infected. If so, this would further fuel his hatred and disgust for women.”
“So what you’re sayin' is that Jack the Ripper intentionally murdered prostitutes with the belief the killings were justified because they gave him the clap and he was only removing perishable items who were like garbage to him.”
Cooper nodded. By the look on Morris’ face, he was making progress. Perhaps the crazy old bastard wasn’t as dense as he’d first suspected.
“I’ll give you one better than that, sir.”
Morris leaned forward, curious about what Cooper would say next. He wasn’t sure the rookie from Tennessee knew his ass from a hole in the ground but he’d listen for a minute. If he didn’t like what he heard, he could always send him back to Nashville.
“Since the man responsible for those murders lived or worked in the Whitechapel area where the murders took place, he was most likely interviewed by the police on several occasions throughout the investigation.”
“The police?”
“Yes sir,” Cooper said. “The London police interviewed doctors and other hospital staff, as well as a variety of other people in an effort to narrow down their search.”
“By a variety of other people, I assume you mean butchers and mortuary workers and barbers? People like that?”
“Yes sir, among others.”
“Others?”
“Yes sir. Prostitutes, pub workers, and just ordinary homeless people on the streets that might have seen something.”
“So what you’re sayin' is…”
“What I’m saying, sir,” Cooper interrupted him, “is that if we want to identify this killer, we’ve got to dig into the police reports of all the victims we suspect belong to our guy and see if we can create a pattern. Time, place, any similarity between the victims besides just being prostitutes. Somebody’s seen this son of a bitch and just don’t know it.”
Morris was impressed. This knot head from Tennessee might just be worth keeping around.
“Anything else, Sherlock?” Morris asked.
Sherlock? Cooper thought. He stared back at Morris, trying to determine if the crazy old bastard was impressed with his work or fixing to send him packing back to Nashville.
He could never get a good read on Morris. One minute he’d be all business, and the next he’d be a cantankerous prick. An almost indistinguishable twinkle in the senior agent’s eyes sent a chill up Cooper’s spine.
Oh shit, he thought. The son of a bitch is starting to like me.
“Anything else, sir?”
“Yeah, anything else? Did Jack the Ripper possess any special attributes that might have set him off on his killin' spree? Or was he just some nut job that liked slicin' up women?”
“Well sir,” Cooper said, “there’s also the possibility he was plagued by a paranoid-type of thinking which is justified by a poor self-image. The killer might have had some type of physical abnormality he would have perceived as being psychologically crippling."
“What? He was handicapped or something?” Benjamin asked.
“Possible,” Cooper answered. “He could have been crippled in some way, had warts or a cleft palate—anything that made him self-conscious.”
“You’re sayin' Jack the Ripper might’a had a hair-lip, and that’s why he murdered all them women?” Morris asked.
“No sir.”
Cooper couldn’t tell if Morris was yanking his chain or if he was serious in his question.
“What I’m suggesting, sir, is that diseases weren’t uncommon at that time, even among the affluent. People didn’t wash back then like we do now. They’d wash their hand and face, but never took a bath. Never. The aristocracy wore those ridiculous wigs packed with lard and other greases to hold them in place. Most of them had head lice and fleas. It was a filthy time in a filthy town.”
“So you’re suggestin'…”
“I’m just suggesting that we need to keep an open mind, sir,” Cooper said. “There’s the possibility that Jack the Ripper had some sort of malady that caused him to be self-conscious, that’s all. It could have been physical or mental. But something set him off, and until we understand what it was, and until we discover the reason behind today’s murders, we may never find our man.”
Benjamin had never heard Jack the Ripper described in these terms. He’d always considered the infamous killer as just a nutcase in ancient history. But according to Cooper, he could offer valuable insights into their current string of murders.
“Medical examinations of the original victims also offer insight into the modus operandi and ritual of Jack the Ripper,” Cooper continued. “Just as in our killings today, they revealed there was no evidence of sexual assault or physical torture prior to their deaths. They weren’t abducted. They were all prostitutes, so they believed the killer was a customer. Using the medical examinations, which were notably not very thorough at that time, it was established the victims were all killed swiftly in the early morning hours.”
“Just like now?” Morris asked.
“Yes sir. This leads me to believe our current killer lives right here in Washington DC. He has time to kill in the early hours of the morning and still get home in time to go to work, and he has his own means of transportation. This can’t all be coincidence.”
“But how about the murders in other cities, Grundy?” Benjamin asked. “If it’s the same man killing here and in other states, how do we link them together?”
Cooper thought about George’s question. They already suspected the killer was traveling around the country, either solo or as part of a group.
“If he’s traveling with a group, he’s most likely staying at a hotel somewhere close to his kills, that is, unless he has ground transportation available to him.”
“So we need to check the registries of every hotel within reasonable walking distance of all the out of town kills for the nights of and preceding the murders,” Benjamin said.
He and Keller were both thinking the same thing—Elizabeth Simmons and the Luxury Suites Hotel in Houston, Texas.
“He could be taking taxis,” Keller said, interested in how Cooper would answer her speculation.
“No ma’am. I don’t think so,” he said. “Too conspicuous. He’s either walking to his kill site or he’s driving a personal vehicle, just like Jack the Ripper in London. He wouldn’t take public transportation and risk being seen. Remember, he’d be covered in blood. We just have to figure out his travel pattern and how he’s getting to the different cities. If we can do that, we can figure out who he is.”
Morris remembered his suspicion that the killer at the Lincoln Memorial must have had a car stashed somewhere close. After all, the bastard must have been covered in blood after so brutal a murder. But how could he have a car available in another city? Rental maybe? They didn’t believe he was driving around the country. Something didn’t add up.
“Anything else, Woody?” Morris asked.
He wasn’t about to show it but he was beginning to form a higher opinion of the red head from Tennessee. However, he didn’t want to let the two rookies start to think they were in control of his investigation.
“Well sir,” Cooper answered, “there might be one more little thing.”
Morris didn’t say anything. He just waited for Cooper to expound on his answer. He hated it when someone made a statement like that then waited for another person to ask what else.
“Some profilers believe Jack the Ripper’s homicides were lust murders, which means he attacked the genital areas of his victims as a way to act out his fantasy of domination, cruelty and mutilation of women.”
“And you don’t?”
“No sir. I believe Jack the Ripper was sexually abused as a child and survived a violent and dangerous childhood, even if he came from money or even royalty. I also believe our man today comes from a home life where his mother or another significant woman in his life was a prostitute that allowed her customers to abuse him as a child.”
“Do tell?”
“Yes sir. I believe our man today is actually killing his own mother over and over again. It has nothing to do with a sexual obsession. It has everything to do with revenge and a desperate psychosis for the very act of prostitution.”
∞∞∞∞
Why does it hurt so much? What is this burning desire that overtakes me and forces me to do these things? Why am I driven to go into those dirty places and seek out those women? Is there something wrong with me, or does some power I can’t describe control me from within?
The killer sat alone in his hotel room. He’d tried to sleep but couldn’t. Gnawing away at him from some unfathomable place inside was the need to kill. His mind was dark with ghosts from his childhood; spirits that carried him back into the depths of sin and despair.
He’d sought the answer to his question of God’s existence and the reality of the human soul, trying to find it in the eyes of the women that crossed his path. He’d even watched a numb
er of televangelists to see if they could shed any light on his situation, and he tried reading the Gideon Bibles in the various hotels he’d stayed in across the country but could make no sense of any of it. Nothing he did relieved him of the urges he felt or of the anger bottled up inside.
What evil drives me into darkness while I seek for light? Perhaps I’ll never know.
Chapter Sixteen
Cooper and Benjamin’s list of names continued to baffle Morris. Keller agreed their theory was viable, although she wasn’t sure if she agreed with Benjamin’s idea that whoever was committing these murders was actually being influenced by the spirit of Jack the Ripper. She was willing, however, to concede they were similar enough to warrant consideration. Morris continued to argue against the whole idea but Keller could tell he wasn’t as sure in his denial as his words indicated.
Cooper, on the other hand, poured over the names on the list not originally attributed to Jack the Ripper and compared them to the names of unsolved murder victims around the country. He hoped to form a definitive link between the two lists.
So far, only a few of the names matched, and them only superficially. He was beginning to form a foundation on which to build a solid case but he knew his idea was so far-fetched the senior agents wouldn’t accept it unless he could present it to them flawlessly.
The first name on the list was Fairy Fay, a prostitute killed in London on December 26, 1887, almost a full year before the murder of Jack the Ripper’s first known victim, Mary Ann Nichols.
Fairy Fay was an unknown female that two journalists of the time claimed was a victim of Jack the Ripper. Her body had been found in a dark alley the day after Christmas 1887. One writer claimed she became a Whitechapel murder victim when she took a shortcut home from a Mitre Square pub. No evidence that she’d been seen with a man fitting the killer’s description ever surfaced, but with prostitutes their customers are more likely than not unidentified. According to the investigator in charge, they’d followed miniscule leads for a few weeks until frustration set in and they closed the case as unsolved.
