Why so little focus?

[Celesta]

Debs

Ahhh. Thank you, Debra. This is precisely the sort of thing I was remembering. I do believe I also got the notion of a dance hall woman from Cornwell's book. Not that she said that this was the case, but that the possibility was mentioned. I also remember the part about the hands. I translated that to be well manicured hands, probably incorrectly, as well!

I see some differences in MJK's case that I can't quite define. I've tried before, but I always end up running into a wall, mainly what would have happened with the other victims if Jack had had more time and a more private situation?

I see at least two killers here, possibly three: Jack, the Torso guy, & a third undefined slasher. At one time, I had Chapman aka Slowkowski pegged for the Torso guy. Ain't imagination wonderful?

[Cap'n Jack]

Debs
this might seem a strange question, but do you think the medics of the LVP would have found a disarticulated dead women more socially acceptable than a purely mutilated dead woman?

[Debra A]

Yes, that does seem a strange question AP, I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

[Chris George]

I studied the Ripper case casually on and off in my younger years without ever hearing of the Torso killings. In fact it was in Patricia Cornwell's book that I first read about them, and after that I began to collect more books in earnest. And I have to confess that I'm a little perplexed as to why they aren't focused on more. They are kind of like the 500-pound gorilla in the room that we're not supposed to notice. The impression I get is kind of like, "JACK THE RIPPER, most notorious serial killer of all time, everyone pay attention because this is important! Oh, and by the way, if anyone cares, there was also some other freak running around in the same place at the same time dismembering and decapitating people, but it's not that big a deal."

Isn't the mere fact that two such human monsters could exist in the same place simultaneously of equal historical significance as the whole legend of the Ripper on its own? In modern times it would be like if Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgeway had occurred in Seattle at the same time rather than a few years apart.

Actually, as a few other people have expressed, I don't discount the idea that the Ripper and the Torso killer were one and the same, despite the differences in exact details. I base this on the fact that such extreme occurrences are (thankfully, and despite all the attention) extremely rare, and the statistical improbability of more than one person with the background, inclination, motivation, stealth enough not to get caught, and just the nerve and the stomach to actually go through with cutting women to pieces occurring in the same place at the same time. I have stated this before- it is against the odds of commonality every single time it happens even once. A Ted Bundy or a Jeffrey Dahmer or a Jack the Ripper is the rarest of the rare.

Hello Kensei

I think it's less a case that there is not much information about the torso murders, as Chris Scott said, than that it would seem to most observers that the torso murderer and the Ripper murderer were different individuals.

It is true that a writer such as R. Michael Gordon maintains that his suspect George Chapman (Severin Klosowski) did the torso murders as well as the Ripper murders and also poisoned his common-law wives, but that contention seems farfetched.

Or, similarly, Patricia Cornwell needs to maintain that her suspect, artist Walter Sickert (1860-1942), committed many more murders than just the five canonical Ripper murders. Obviously she makes such a claim because she needs to bolster Sickert's alleged kill count in opposition to the criticism of why if Sickert, living such a long life, was Jack the Ripper, he never killed again other than in autumn 1888.

The scenario that one man did both the Ripper crimes and the torso killings seems highly unlikely. Torso murderers generally carefully dispose of the bodies in separate parcels, and particularly the head and hands, to hide the identity of their victims. By contrast, the Ripper was more of a blitz attacker who apparently intentionally displayed the bodies of his victims and made no attempt to hide their identities, as if he was proud of his acts. Neither was there any attempt to disarticulate the limbs of his victims. Rather, he was a slasher and a robber of organs--two traits of which there is no evidence in the case of the Thames torso murderer.

Best regards

Chris George

[Debra A]

Hi Chris,
I agree with some of your points there, however I always have questions that niggle me about the torso's, I can't help but feel that the pinchin street torso was being put 'on display' somehow. Someone took the huge risk of dumping the torso (and not really hiding it) in an area being heavily patrolled by police because of the Ripper crimes and close by three homeless people spending the night in another arch.

Can we definitely say the torso killer (if he existed) was not an organ taker? Three of the four commonly linked torso murders had internal organs that were never recovered, I realise that by the very nature of this type of murder and disposal that some organs may just not have been recovered, but we don't know for certain none were kept.

I'm still puzzled by Dr Phillip's comments when comparing the similarities between MJK and the Pinchin Street torso, why mention skill of the disarticualtion of joints in the Pinchin Street murder and compare it to one where no attempt was made to disarticulate limbs?

[Christine]

My theory is that the usual reason for cutting the head off a corpse is to make the victim anonymous, to remove its identity. The most obvious motivation for that would be that the victim knew the killer.

Even if the victim doesn't know the killer, if the body can never be identified there can be no newspaper stories full of hard luck tales and grieving family. Those go a long way towards getting public attention.

People are a lot less sympathetic towards victims that knew their killers. The perception is that the victim should somehow have seen it coming and done something. The Whitechapel killings (rightly or wrongly) appear to have been random, in the sense that the victims were simply the first destitute prostitute that the killer could lure into a private place. It's not even clear if he cared about prostitutes at all, or if he simply found them easier to get access to.

The fact that some victims remained unidentified, the possibility that the killer knew the victims, and the possibility that the mutilations were motivated by practical, rather than perverse, reasons, move the torso killings into a different category in the mind of the general public.

At least that's my theory....

[Celesta]

Hi Debs & Chris, & Christine,

Do you remember H.H. Holmes, the Chicago serial killer? He concocted an elaborate system to burn the bodies. I wonder if the Torso killer was more like Holmes than like JTR. The difference from Holmes would be that the Torso killer had no choice but to dump the bodies. Holmes had plenty ill-gotten gains to fund his oven.

Debs, I think I understand what you're saying about the choice of dumping spot, but, still, the Pinchin street site seems more sheltered, as if he didn't want his victims to be confused with Jeeter's victims. Now, the one left at New Scotland Yard is a different matter.

Chris, I think you are right. Cornwell was stretching abit to get the torso's to fit her Sickert model. I just don't see JtR as the Torso guy, and I no longer think Chapman/Klowsowski was either. It's eerie, Chris.

[Cap'n Jack]

Debs, I guess I meant, could it be that the doctors of the period could relate more professionally to a dead body that had been dealt with in a comprehensible surgical manner, rather than to a dead body that had been savagely mutilated in a totally incomprehensible fashion?
What makes me think that, is that it does appear that the doctors classified the torso victims as 'West End' girls, and the mutilated victims as 'East End' girls. The 'Gay' victims got good copy out of the docs, whilst the 'Unfortunates' got the unfortunate.

[Celesta]

Debs, I guess I meant, could it be that the doctors of the period could relate more professionally to a dead body that had been dealt with in a comprehensible surgical manner, rather than to a dead body that had been savagely mutilated in a totally incomprehensible fashion?
What makes me think that, is that it does appear that the doctors classified the torso victims as 'West End' girls, and the mutilated victims as 'East End' girls. The 'Gay' victims got good copy out of the docs, whilst the 'Unfortunates' got the unfortunate.

Hi Cap'n J,

This is probably why people get the impression that the victims were more than just prostitutes. Or as you say, they were the higher class of prostitute.

[Chris George]

Hi Chris,
I agree with some of your points there, however I always have questions that niggle me about the torso's, I can't help but feel that the pinchin street torso was being put 'on display' somehow. Someone took the huge risk of dumping the torso (and not really hiding it) in an area being heavily patrolled by police because of the Ripper crimes and close by three homeless people spending the night in another arch.

Can we definitely say the torso killer (if he existed) was not an organ taker? Three of the four commonly linked torso murders had internal organs that were never recovered, I realise that by the very nature of this type of murder and disposal that some organs may just not have been recovered, but we don't know for certain none were kept.

I'm still puzzled by Dr Phillip's comments when comparing the similarities between MJK and the Pinchin Street torso, why mention skill of the disarticualtion of joints in the Pinchin Street murder and compare it to one where no attempt was made to disarticulate limbs?

Hi Deb

Yes certainly a case could be made that the Pinchin Street torso as well as the Whitehall torso were "displayed." Both those murders stand in contrast to the other Thames torso crimes where body parts were dumped here and there without regard for public display. So there may be a possibility that Jack "crossed over" as it were and changed his signature on those occasions, though I wouldn't claim that as a fact.

In regard to Dr. Phillips' comments, while I will need to revisit them in detail, the mention of MJK with Pinchin Street could have been partly because Pinchin at that moment was being counted as a "Whitechapel murder" as if the assumption was being made by the Yard that both victims could have been killed by the same hand.

Chris

[Debra A]

Debs, I guess I meant, could it be that the doctors of the period could relate more professionally to a dead body that had been dealt with in a comprehensible surgical manner, rather than to a dead body that had been savagely mutilated in a totally incomprehensible fashion?
What makes me think that, is that it does appear that the doctors classified the torso victims as 'West End' girls, and the mutilated victims as 'East End' girls. The 'Gay' victims got good copy out of the docs, whilst the 'Unfortunates' got the unfortunate.

AP, I think the doctors were working from certain ideas in text etc on how to pick up 'clues' that may aid in identification of victims like the torso's. When they made observations like 'the hands showed no signs of manual labour' it seems to be the press who jumped on these findings and added the rest of the story...victim of 'better class' etc. And it seems to have stuck with us.

I don't think the doctors or police ever ruled out that these women could have been East End unfortunates, if that was the case, Mr and Mrs Barker would never have been encouraged to view the Pinchin Street torso to see if it was their missing daughter Emily, last seen half naked, homeless and destitute outside a salvation army shelter, or the family of Elizabeth Jackson, who although a West End girl, lived a life absolutely on a parallel with MJK etc. No high class brothel girl there.

[Debra A]

Hi Deb

Yes certainly a case could be made that the Pinchin Street torso as well as the Whitehall torso were "displayed." Both those murders stand in contrast to the other Thames torso crimes where body parts were dumped here and there without regard for public display. So there may be a possibility that Jack "crossed over" as it were and changed his signature on those occasions, though I wouldn't claim that as a fact.

In regard to Dr. Phillips' comments, while I will need to revisit them in detail, the mention of MJK with Pinchin Street could have been partly because Pinchin at that moment was being counted as a "Whitechapel murder" as if the assumption was being made by the Yard that both victims could have been killed by the same hand.

Chris

Chris,Celesta,
Three of the four linked torso victims actually had the some part of the trunk of the body left on dry land and in a public place, but the Whitehall torso was probably the one that lay in it's dumping ground the longest before being discovered and probably pre dated the Nichols murder, so if display was the intention in that one it wasn't a very good idea to put it there, ideal if he intended to conceal it, as it turned out.

Chris, I believe Phillp's was asked to look at a possible link because the Pinchin Street torso was found in Whitechapel yes, but what puzzles me is not that a comparison was asked for, but that Phillip's actually makes one regarding disarticulation, but I too will have to check back on that to make sure I haven't dreamt it up . I'm sure it went something along the lines of, 'the killer in the case of the Pinchin Street torso showed skill in the disarticulation of the joints, whereas there was no such skill shown in the MJK case'. I may have totally misread it though, so I will check again.

[alucard]

Isn't the mere fact that two such human monsters could exist in the same place simultaneously of equal historical significance as the whole legend of the Ripper on its own? In modern times it would be like if Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgeway had occurred in Seattle at the same time rather than a few years apart.

Very good point raised here. Although I am not convinced Jack and the Torso Killer were the same, it would be foolish to completely disregard the idea altogether, especially considering the manor in which he destroyed Mary Kelly. That is of course asuming that Kelly was a genuine Ripper victim. With that train of thought, what are the odds on her being a victim of the Torso killer and not the Ripper?

[MustKnow]

Cleveland Torso Killings

I read a great book on the Ness investigated 30's Cleveland Torso Murders called In the Wake of the Butcher. Ness actually had a strong suspect (if you ever read it I won't tell you) who had a fair amount of circumstantial evidence against him and didn't pass his lie detector tests. I believe Ness also had the right suspect, but like some cases in the past, there was never enough to actually bring him to trial.

Fascinating stuff.

[sdreid]

Cleveland is most definitely fascinating but there are four pretty good candidates not to mention the ever present total unknown. There's some suspicion Ness was just doing a cya with his guy. The last I heard, the lie detector story was without any evidence or record. He was bugging Ness though with mailings so he's in the mix.

I have that book as well as Steven Nickel's on the crimes. Also, I've read the first of the three releases that cover the case extensively, The Butcher's Dozen.

Wrong thread