Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac Killer, and the Jon Benet Ramsey Murderer, Essay Example

Introduction

One of the most important jobs of law enforcement officials and criminologists is to create what is known as a psychological profile in relation to understanding and perhaps solving especially brutal murder investigations, particularly when the cases involve a solitary killer with multiple victims. Three of the most famous murder cases includes Jack the Ripper who stalked the streets of Whitechapel in the city of London during the late 1800’s; the Zodiac Killer whose murderous crime spree began in October of 1966 in the American city of San Francisco; and the more recent case of child beauty queen Jon Benet Ramsey who was found murdered in the basement of her suburban Denver, Colorado, home in 1996.

All three of these murder cases share a number of similarities–1), none of them have been solved as of 2014 which includes the identities of the killers and/or perpetrators; 2), the murderers appear to have been men with the possible exception of the Ramsey case; 3), most of the victims were women or female as with Jack the Ripper and the Ramsey case; and 4), with the exception of the Ramsey case, the murderers and/or perpetrators are considered as serial killers, especially Jack the Ripper who allegedly murdered at least five prostitutes in Whitechapel in 1888, and the Zodiac Killer with at least six victims. Of course, the murderer of Jon Benet Ramsey is not considered as a serial killer, due to only one victim.

Although these three murder cases remain unsolved and the identities of the murderers are not presently known, it is possible to develop a somewhat accurate psychological profile of these criminals through the use of documentation, police records, and various studies done by professional criminal psychologists whose main source for creating a profile lies in the pages of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders which categorizes psychological traits and behaviors that may have affected these unknown killers. Some of these includes schizophrenia, sexual desire disorders, and a whole range of personality disorders based on anti-social attitudes and obsessive traits.

Jack the Ripper

This infamous case is undoubtedly the most interesting and out of the three is certainly the oldest unsolved murder case. The best source for creating a psychological profile on the so-called Whitechapel murderer is the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Analysis, done in 1988 for the 100th anniversary of the Jack the Ripper case. First of all, the Ripper case murders are often referred to as “lust murders,” due to the genitals of the female victims being the centerpoint of the attack. However, this has nothing to do with sexual lust or assault because none of the female victims were sexually assaulted or raped. Therefore, the Ripper was a man between the ages of 28 and 36; however, this does not eliminate the possibility that the Ripper was an older man. Overall, the Ripper did indeed exhibit “a high degree of psychopathology,” due to the fact that the victims were brutally and savagely mutilated (FBI Records: The Vault: Jack the Ripper, 1988, p. 5).

In all likelihood, Jack the Ripper was “raised by a domineering mother and a weak, passive, and/or absent father. The mother most probably drank heavily and “enjoyed the company of men,” meaning that she might have been a prostitute. Thus, the Ripper grew up as an antisocial loner and kept his anger internalized. In many ways, he  also practiced domination over others, and craved power and control, and as an adult, developed a strong fantasy for domination, cruelty, and mutilation toward women. From a psychological viewpoint, the Ripper exhibited paranoid thinking and had poor self-image problems. Obviously, the Ripper hated women and may have had relationships with prostitutes in Whitechapel. Thus, because of the lack of hygiene practiced by the prostitutes of the late 1880’s, the Ripper “may have been infected with a venereal disease which would have further fueled his hatred and disgust for women” (FBI Records: The Vault: Jack the Ripper, 1988, p. 6).

The Zodiac Killer

Much like Jack the Ripper as a serial murderer, the unidentified Zodiac Killer was certainly mentally unbalanced and most probably suffered from a number of psychological disorders related to abnormal personality traits. According to Dr. Lawrence Z. Freedman, chairman of the Institute of Social and Behavioral Pathology at the University of Chicago, the Zodiac Killer was “overwhelmed with terror” and found pleasure in spreading terror because of leading a “terror-dominated life.” He also valued his power and domination over others, due to feeling powerless himself. Basically, perhaps like the Ripper, the Zodiac Killer placed all of the blame on society by thinking to himself “Look at what you have done to me,” an indication that he harbored a deep hatred for society and for those who were better off emotionally and financially that he was (UNSUB: The Psychological Portraits, 2013).

In addition, much like Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac Killer who undoubtedly was a white male between the ages of 25 and 35, and exhibited “possible feelings of inadequacy and. . . psychosexual compulsions.” Also, the Zodiac Killer was possibly impotent, thus preferring to watch or fantasize about sexual acts rather than participate in them. One prominent researcher stated in 2005 that the Zodiac Killer was “most likely not a homosexual” but was unquestionably “paranoid and schizophrenic” (UNSUB: The Psychological Portraits, 2013).

But most importantly and much like his predecessor Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac Killer suffered from a range of personality disorders, such as having multiple personalities based on extreme sexual desire disorders (UNSUB: The Psychological Portraits, 2013). Overall, the Zodiac Killer as serial murderer craved violence and sought to release his own inner demons through murder, torture, and sometimes mutilation, especially with his female victims, some of which did in fact exhibit signs of sexual mutilation. Also, like Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac Killer hated not just women but people in general and in some ways gained pleasure from killing.

The Jon Benet Ramsey Murderer

Of the three cases discussed here, the Jon Benet Ramsey murder case may be the most perplexing, due to the fact that after almost twenty years, the murderer and/or perpetrator of this horrible crime remains unknown, even despite intensive and exhaustive investigations by the Denver Police, the FBI, and scores of researchers who continue to attempt to solve the case. Interestingly, as noted by former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary, the murder of Jon Benet Ramsey, “apparently a one-time incident, can be profiled in a way similar to how we view multiple crimes linked to a single offender,” such as with the Ripper and Zodiac Killer cases (2014).

Due to the fact that crime scene inside the Ramsey house was heavily contaminated, it is rather difficult to create a profile of the alleged killer of little Jon Benet, even though multiple pieces of evidence were left behind and retrieved by the Denver Police and the FBI. Also, the crime scene itself was apparently staged which makes it nearly impossible to profile the killer as a deranged maniac or a disturbed child molester/kidnapper. As of 2014, numerous theories have been proposed to help identify the murderer; some of these theories point to Jon Benet’s mother Patsy Ramsey as the murderer, while others point to Jon Benet’s older brother Burke and even Mr. Ramsey.

Nonetheless, based on the evidence and the crime scene itself, it seems implausible that the killer of Jon Benet was a child molester, due to the fact that such individuals are generally “known to their victims and, instead of resorting to violence, prefer using attention, affection and gifts to seduce a child over time.” Also, these sorts of individuals almost always kidnap their victims and take them “to an area that they perceive to be safe. . . to molest and/or murder the child” (McCrary, 2014).

But like some of the female victims of the Ripper (the later ones having been horribly sexually mutilated), Jon Benet exhibited vaginal trauma as if something was used to penetrate her vagina as a sort of sexual fantasy. As McCrary points out, this situation “would suggest a sexual motive for the crime” (2014). In essence then and considering how the murder was accomplished, the killer of Jon Benet Ramsey certainly fits the traditional profile of a deranged child molester with serious sexual desire disorders, but as of 2014, the true murderer of Jon Benet remains unknown as does (and this is said with caution) his motive.

Conclusion

In the end, Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac Killer, and the murderer of Jon Benet Ramsey were (and in the case of Jon Benet may still be) highly disturbed individuals that suffered from multiple mental abnormalities like schizophrenia, sexual desire disorders, and personality disorders based on anti-social attitudes and obsessive traits. When taken as a whole, all three of these offenders clearly hated women and chose to release their pent-up emotional problems through murder and torture.

References

FBI records: The vault: Jack the Ripper. (1988). Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved from http://vault.fbi.gov/Jack%20the%20Ripper/Jack%20the%20Ripper%20Part%201%20of%201/view

McCrary, G. (2014). Profiling Jon Benet Ramsey’s murder. The Crime Library. Retrieved from http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/famous/jonbenet_profiled/1_index.html

UNSUB: The psychological portraits. (2013). Zodiac Killer Facts. Retrieved from http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/PsychPortraits.htm