The kidney removal of Catherine Eddowes.

[Fiver]

If not, then how could a man with no anatomical knowledge, no surgical skill, and/or no skill with a knife, manage to do what he did?

Here are the opinions of the medical types.

Dr Llewellyn - “some rough anatomical knowledge”

Dr Phillips - "seemed to indicate great anatomical knowledge.”

Dr Sequeira - "not possessed of any great anatomical skill"

Dr Brown - “a great deal of knowledge”

Dr Saunders did not think the killer showed anatomical skill.

Dr Bond - "no scientific nor anatomical knowledge" IIRC, Thomas Bond read the reports in the victims, he did not examine the bodies.

So the assessments of skill are:
None - Bond, Saunders
Some - Lllewellyn, Sequeira
A lot - Brown, Phillips

So who knows?

[Fiver]

It is well-documented that there was an illegal acquisition of bodies and body parts from mortuaries.

Coroner Langham - Would the parts removed be of any use for professional purposes?

Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown - None whatever.

[The Rookie Detective]

Hi Herlock,

I view the fact that Chandler left Chapman's body in the mortuary under guard, but it was found by the nurses in the yard to be suspicious. Also Baxter's inquiry to Phillips as to whether the missing parts may have fallen out in transit.

The foundation of Trevor's theory is that of the time needed for the organ extractions. If 1:36 is accepted as a start time for the couple seen by Lawende, and 1:44 for the arrival of Watkins, we have only 8 minutes, even if we assume that Jack was undeterred by Harvey's visit at 1:40. In that time Eddowes has to be walked to the site, subdued, throat cut, incisions to eyelids and other facial injuries, cuts made under the intestines to allow transfer to the right shoulder, remove two feet of the descending colon, and make his escape without being detected by Watkins.

In the time left he is supposed to have removed the uterus without nicking the small bladder, and removed the kidney. Modern medical experts suggest that, given the circumstances and the time available, this is not in the realms of possibility.

Trevor has proposed an alternative theory which deserves discussion beyond a series of "why woulds" and "what ifs". Was Jack someone who had done these dissections so many times that he could do them with his eyes closed (or in the dark). The whereabouts of Eddowes between 1am and 1:44 is unknown, so was there more than just a few minutes available for the task. I note the words of Prosector:

"For the benefit of anyone that hasn't had both hands inside a human abdomen before, simply getting at either the kidney or the uterus is incredibly difficult. You might know roughly where they are but the problem is you have a mass of slippery, writhing intestines in the way and as much as you try to push them aside, the more they flop back into the middle and down into the pelvis which is where you need to be if you wish to get at the uterus.
What you have to do is a manoeuvre known to surgeons, anatomists and pathologists as mobilisation of the small bowel. This involves making a slit in the root of the mesentery which lies behind the bowels and this then enables you to lift the small intestines out of the abdomen and gives you a clearer field. Jack did this in the case of Chapman and Eddowes (hence the bowels being draped over the right shoulders). Dividing the root of the mesentery single handed is very difficult since you are operating one handed and blind. Usually an assistant would be using both hands to retract the guts so that the operator can get a clearer view of it.
the question of whether he deliberately removed the descending colon to get at Eddowes's left kidney is, I think, answered in Brown's post mortem report. He states that a section of colon about two feet long (the exact length of the descending colon) was removed and the sigmoid flexure was invaginated into the rectum. That is exactly what surgeons and pathologists do if the have to excise the descending colon.

The descending colon was placed neatly beside the body rather than just being cast away - ritual or procedure, like the deviation around the navel?
My opinion sways toward the crime scene extraction of organs by a person used to a dissection room, but I don't denigrate Trevor's alternative.

Cheers, George

Brilliant post George.


So we have an approximate 8 minute time frame to carry out all of the above.

Has anyone ever considered that there were 2 killers working together on the night Eddowes was murdered?

A man with surgical skill and an assistant?


Now what if the woman seen by the 3 Jewish men standing at the entrance to Mitre Square wasn't Eddowes?

What if the woman and her male companion were the killers?

And when the comment was made by Joseph Hyam Levy; could he have been referring to BOTH the people he saw; ergo, the man AND the woman?


Could the couple have been responsible for the murder of Eddowes?

There was a couple seen shortly before Stride was murdered

And IIRC, there was also a witness who claimed to have seen MJK with another couple not long before she was murdered.

What if the Ripper murders were carried out by a killer couple?

Just a thought.

[GBinOz]

Would an organ thief really have stolen organ before a post Mortem had been carried out?

1. He wouldn’t have known what any Doctor that had already examined the corpse had or hadn’t seen - so there would have existed a chance that of an organ being stolen that a Doctor had already noted as present.
   The doctor's purpose at the crime scene was to determine if any aid could be rendered to the victim, which is what was stated by Phillips after looking through the window in Miller's Court. What was noted in the crime scene assessments was external circumstances, as show in said notes.
2. With a post mortem still to do how could an organ thief have confidence that, at some point a police officer or a doctor might not show up for some reason connected to the ongoing investigation.
   Good point, but I should think that a lookout or two could overcome this problem.
3. Surely any organ thieving would have been done after a post mortem when the thief could have absolute confidence that the doctors and police had no further use for the corpse.
   Not necessarily. Phillips stated that he re-examined Stride's body several times, Mylett's body was subjected to multiple examinations by multiple doctors, as was Ellen Bury's body.
4. Would organ thieves operate in broad daylight, especially at a mortuary like Golden Lane which, at that time, could probably have been described as state of the art.
   Once again, lookouts would be required.

Hi Herlock,

I view the fact that Chandler left Chapman's body in the mortuary under guard, but it was found by the nurses in the yard to be suspicious. Also Baxter's inquiry to Phillips as to whether the missing parts may have fallen out in transit.

The foundation of Trevor's theory is that of the time needed for the organ extractions. If 1:36 is accepted as a start time for the couple seen by Lawende, and 1:44 for the arrival of Watkins, we have only 8 minutes, even if we assume that Jack was undeterred by Harvey's visit at 1:40. In that time Eddowes has to be walked to the site, subdued, throat cut, incisions to eyelids and other facial injuries, cuts made under the intestines to allow transfer to the right shoulder, remove two feet of the descending colon, and make his escape without being detected by Watkins.

In the time left he is supposed to have removed the uterus without nicking the small bladder, and removed the kidney. Modern medical experts suggest that, given the circumstances and the time available, this is not in the realms of possibility.

Trevor has proposed an alternative theory which deserves discussion beyond a series of "why woulds" and "what ifs". Was Jack someone who had done these dissections so many times that he could do them with his eyes closed (or in the dark). The whereabouts of Eddowes between 1am and 1:44 is unknown, so was there more than just a few minutes available for the task. I note the words of Prosector:

"For the benefit of anyone that hasn't had both hands inside a human abdomen before, simply getting at either the kidney or the uterus is incredibly difficult. You might know roughly where they are but the problem is you have a mass of slippery, writhing intestines in the way and as much as you try to push them aside, the more they flop back into the middle and down into the pelvis which is where you need to be if you wish to get at the uterus.
What you have to do is a manoeuvre known to surgeons, anatomists and pathologists as mobilisation of the small bowel. This involves making a slit in the root of the mesentery which lies behind the bowels and this then enables you to lift the small intestines out of the abdomen and gives you a clearer field. Jack did this in the case of Chapman and Eddowes (hence the bowels being draped over the right shoulders). Dividing the root of the mesentery single handed is very difficult since you are operating one handed and blind. Usually an assistant would be using both hands to retract the guts so that the operator can get a clearer view of it.
the question of whether he deliberately removed the descending colon to get at Eddowes's left kidney is, I think, answered in Brown's post mortem report. He states that a section of colon about two feet long (the exact length of the descending colon) was removed and the sigmoid flexure was invaginated into the rectum. That is exactly what surgeons and pathologists do if the have to excise the descending colon.

The descending colon was placed neatly beside the body rather than just being cast away - ritual or procedure, like the deviation around the navel?
My opinion sways toward the crime scene extraction of organs by a person used to a dissection room, but I don't denigrate Trevor's alternative.

Cheers, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

Ah but you are wrong there because there are posters on here that do support the theory.

Then there is you who as the saying goes "can't see the wood for the trees" and I will not continue to argue with you. I feel that I have produced more than enough medical evidence and pictorial evidence to question the old accepted belief that the killer removed the organs.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

And again you don’t address the points against that I’ve now posted twice.

Hardly surprising.

[Trevor Marriott]

Again your strange thinking comes to the fore. Just because they existed it doesn’t mean that they stole the organs. Baboons existed, but we don’t accuse them of removing the organs.

My list number 90 shows how your theory holds no water. It held no water when you first proposed it. It held no water every time you’ve since mentioned it and it holds no water now.

I wonder if you will ever get it Trevor. Whether you will ever sit down quietly in a room and ask yourself “why does no one ever support any of my theories?” It’s a very valid question.

Ah but you are wrong there because there are posters on here that do support the theory.

Then there is you who as the saying goes "can't see the wood for the trees" and I will not continue to argue with you. I feel that I have produced more than enough medical evidence and pictorial evidence to question the old accepted belief that the killer removed the organs.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

Of all the scores of proposed suspects/persons of interest, the viable suspect list could probably be reduced down to around 15.

If we were to only include those individuals who we know had some knowledge and/experience of using a knife, or had an occupation that involved either cutting/disecting/using a knife; it would narrow the field somewhat.

The following skill set list; in varying degrees, could be attributed to the Ripper


Anatomical Knowledge
Surgical Skill
Surgical Experience
Surgical Knowledge
Skill with a knife
Experience using a knife

The Ripper may have only had ONE of the above, but to have NONE of the above is in all probability, extremely unlikely.

But of course, we would need to include those who were convicted of murder and/or known to have used a knife and add them to the list of viable suspects also.

Some of the individuals who fit the criteria could include...


Klosowski
Levy
Thompson
Bernardo
Cutbush
Tumblety
Deeming
Bury
Kelly


However; in contrast, when we look at other mainstream individuals, we see that the following really have no known attributes whatsoever that would suggest they were the Ripper...

Maybrick
Kosminski
Druitt
Lechmere
Sickert


Just a thought

Anyone can use a knife though. The only difference would be those with anatomical or medical skill and of the list at the top that would, I’d say, eliminate Kelly, Bury, Deeming and Cutbush (which I’m not suggesting)

I’d ask this question RD - of Cutbush, Deeming, Bury, Kelly, Maybrick, Kosminski, Druitt, Cross and Sickert who was the likeliest to have had medical/anatomical knowledge?

For me it has to be the son of a surgeon..Druitt. Next id say Sickert (and I think that everyone knows how low I rate him as a suspect)

Now, let me be clear, I’m not saying that you or anyone should raise Druitt to the top of your suspect list on the basis that he had fairly easy access to medical/anatomical knowledge but if we knew for certain that the killer must have had medical knowledge then, on that particular point only, Druitt would have to leap over suspects like Bury and Kelly just as known knife users. I guess that what I’m saying is that this is really hard to quantify. How do we know for example that as part of his art studies Sickert didn’t study anatomy. Actually I’d suggest it unlikely that he didn’t.

It’s a difficult one RD and I realise of course that you aren’t trying to sway things one way or the other.

[The Rookie Detective]

Of all the scores of proposed suspects/persons of interest, the viable suspect list could probably be reduced down to around 15.

If we were to only include those individuals who we know had some knowledge and/experience of using a knife, or had an occupation that involved either cutting/disecting/using a knife; it would narrow the field somewhat.

The following skill set list; in varying degrees, could be attributed to the Ripper


Anatomical Knowledge
Surgical Skill
Surgical Experience
Surgical Knowledge
Skill with a knife
Experience using a knife

The Ripper may have only had ONE of the above, but to have NONE of the above is in all probability, extremely unlikely.

But of course, we would need to include those who were convicted of murder and/or known to have used a knife and add them to the list of viable suspects also.

Some of the individuals who fit the criteria could include...


Klosowski
Levy
Thompson
Bernardo
Cutbush
Tumblety
Deeming
Bury
Kelly


However; in contrast, when we look at other mainstream individuals, we see that the following really have no known attributes whatsoever that would suggest they were the Ripper...

Maybrick
Kosminski
Druitt
Lechmere
Sickert


Just a thought

[GBinOz]

Regardless of which side of the argument your opinion may fall, there is no evidence that the missing organs were noted at the crime scene. As I posted previously, this link shows what was noted for the "Body in situ" and what was noted at the "Post Mortem".

https://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-victimwounds.html

The MJK notes are better described here:

https://www.casebook.org/official_documents/pm-kelly.html

When Phillips spoke about "some portions had been excised" (not some organs), it can be seen in the "in situ" description that he was talking about the "2 flaps of skin from the lower abdomen" which were lying next to the body.

In the case of Eddowes I see the considerations to be:

Did the killer have time to extract the organs? Not if it was only 7 minutes (IMO), leaving the alternative that they were extracted at the mortuary. However, the displacement of the intestines and the removal of the vertical colon, both observed at the murder site, is suggestive of preparation for organ extraction.

Was there more time than is generally considered to be available? If Watkins was skiving and didn't do the 1:30 check, there was certainly enough time available since Eddowes left the police station at 1 AM. That would mean that Lawende didn't see Eddowes with Jack, but there was another suspect sighting.

Cheers, George

[Lewis C]

So now you are trying to say that the killer was so highly trained that he was able to remove organs using two different methods of extraction and all in almost total darkness.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Does using 2 different methods indicate a high level of training? I would think that if he were highly trained, he'd use the best method every time.

Also, you were speaking to Herlock who believes (as I do) that Chapman's mutilations would have occurred at a time when there wasn't almost total darkness. Maybe the difference in lighting is a partial explanation for the differences in the mutilations between Chapman and Eddowes.

[Herlock Sholmes]

This is the obvious issue that Trevor won’t address. Potential organ thieves would have had 2 options, A - to steal the organs before the post mortem (,between the hours of 3/4am and 2pm) or B - to steal the organs after the post mortem. So…

A - The first point of course is no cover of darkness but the most important point is that they would have known that doctors had looked at the body in situ and in the mortuary (Phillips at least) and they would have had no idea what the doctors had or had not seen. So for all they knew Drs Phillips or Brown might have checked the abdomen and seen what organs were still in place. If they then found them missing at the post mortem then the mortuary would have doubled down on security and the organ thieving business would have been dead-in-the-water. They would also have known that this was no ordinary murder, it was super high profile, so that they would have run the serious risk of having a Doctor or detective walking in on them.

alternately they could have chosen..

B - Operating under the cover of darkness with no staff around. The PM had been done and so the body was due no more scrutiny. And as a general point - Eddowes open abdominal cavity was an extreme rarity so for an organ thief to have worked pre-post mortem would have usually entailed opening up the abdomen. But if they work after a post Mortem then all they would have had to do was to cut stitches.

There really is no choice. There was no rush for them so they weren’t compelled by time to steal organs at a time that was massively more risky. Common sense tells us that unless we had the world’s most criminally stupid organ thieves then they certainly wouldn’t have stolen organs before a post mortem. Therefore the theory falls flat.

And of course the coroner asked Dr. Brown at the inquest - Would the parts removed be of any use for professional purposes?

To which Brown replied - None whatever.

And of course from the I quest we have - The uterus was cut away with the exception of a small portion

So what circumstance would be likeliest to result in the failure to cut away the whole organ?

A person working in the street it poor lighting or an experienced organ thief with the body lying on a table in front of him in a lit room?

I think that we all know the answer to that one.

[Doctored Whatsit]

So now you are trying to say that the killer was so highly trained that he was able to remove organs using two different methods of extraction and all in almost total darkness.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

That is exactly what an experienced butcher/slaughterer said when I quoted his letter.

[Patrick Differ]

As a newcomer to Casebook it's awesome to see such lively debates. From a fresh perspective perhaps let me just say that from a logical standpoint there is nothing I have read to date that definitively says the killer " could not" have removed the kidney of Catherine Eddowes. Would a butcher have less skill than a mortuary assistant for example? Doubtful, and in fact butchers by trade work with effective speed as this skill has little changed from Victorian times until today, other than Automation and food safety. Could someone with base anatomical knowledge, for example someone who knew what a Uterus and Kidney even was or looked like ( requiring education not readily found amongst much of the Whitechapel population?), be able to extract organs with or without collateral damage? The killer had anatomical knowledge is what these Doctors believed. However, they did not say that only a Surgeon could have mutilated these women. Which suspects had anatomical knowledge likely means someone with a degree of education. Experience, a book like Grays Anatomy. However there are 3 definate skills this killer had- he could strangle a victim unconscious and then lay her on the ground requiring physical strength, he knew that cutting the victims throat and bleeding her out would minimize getting coated with blood, and he knew how to gut the abdomen. The latter not by Virchow method but gut none the less. Butcher or surgeon? I personally lean towards an educated butcher. Someone highly trained in this skill.

[Doctored Whatsit]

He was referring to the intestines not the organs !!!!!!!!!!!!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

That is a convenient assumption, but unfortunately, not a fact. And if you read the original, he said that anatomical knowledge would have been required in the removal. He is clearly not referring to intestines ripped out, but something much more precise.

[Herlock Sholmes]

So now you are trying to say that the killer was so highly trained that he was able to remove organs using two different methods of extraction and all in almost total darkness.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

The doctors at the time said it and I agree with them.