The kidney removal of Catherine Eddowes.

[The Rookie Detective]

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?

Excellent post Fiver


With such contrasting "professional" opinions from the medical world at the time, combined with such contrasting "professional" opinions from the senior policing officials; it really goes a long way to explain why the Ripper was never identified, apprehended, and then brought to justice for his heinous crimes.


It would be interesting to get some opinions from those working in the medical field today.

If the murders occurred today, and based on the medical reports/autopsy reports; would there still be such a contrasting set of medical opinions?

[GBinOz]

Excellent post Fiver


With such contrasting "professional" opinions from the medical world at the time, combined with such contrasting "professional" opinions from the senior policing officials; it really goes a long way to explain why the Ripper was never identified, apprehended, and then brought to justice for his heinous crimes.


It would be interesting to get some opinions from those working in the medical field today.

If the murders occurred today, and based on the medical reports/autopsy reports; would there still be such a contrasting set of medical opinions?

Some thoughts from Prosector:

Of all the doctors involved, the one I respect least is Dr Sequeira. He had only been qualified for two years with the lowest practicing qualification possible (LSA - although he later got the MRCS), he was not a police surgeon (and therefore had little or no autopsy experience and, as far as I know, he only turned up to confirm death and was not present at the autopsy so how would he have known how much skill had been displayed?) Phillips was by far the most experienced doctor involved in the Ripper cases (and I include Bond in that) and Brown was the next. They both thought that JTR had both anatomical knowledge and some degree of surgical skill.

Cheers, George

[Doctored Whatsit]

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?

I don't see any issue here. There is a clear difference between anatomical knowledge and anatomical skill. A butcher/slaughterer for example, has the first, but not really the second, but someone medically trained and experienced has both. The balance of evidence here is clearly pointing at genuine knowledge, but rather less evidence of skill. The evidence is saying that JtR seemed to know what he was doing, but wasn't trained to do it like someone with medical expertise.

[Doctored Whatsit]

Some thoughts from Prosector:

Of all the doctors involved, the one I respect least is Dr Sequeira. He had only been qualified for two years with the lowest practicing qualification possible (LSA - although he later got the MRCS), he was not a police surgeon (and therefore had little or no autopsy experience and, as far as I know, he only turned up to confirm death and was not present at the autopsy so how would he have known how much skill had been displayed?) Phillips was by far the most experienced doctor involved in the Ripper cases (and I include Bond in that) and Brown was the next. They both thought that JTR had both anatomical knowledge and some degree of surgical skill.

Cheers, George

I agree that Brown and Phillips were the most experienced police surgeons, and that their views would be the most relevant. I also agree that they both saw evidence of anatomical knowledge, but I can't recall either of them claiming surgical skill was evident. I do recall the statement that someone accustomed to cutting up animals would possess the knowledge and skill, but nothing more positive than that. Am I mistaken?

[Trevor Marriott]

I agree that Brown and Phillips were the most experienced police surgeons, and that their views would be the most relevant. I also agree that they both saw evidence of anatomical knowledge, but I can't recall either of them claiming surgical skill was evident. I do recall the statement that someone accustomed to cutting up animals would possess the knowledge and skill, but nothing more positive than that. Am I mistaken?

I think people are overlooking the following issues.

1, If the killer was harvesting organs why did he mutilate the abdomens in such a way as to damage any organs he may have been seeking

2. Why would he take a second urterus from Eddowes when had a perfect intact specimen from Chapman

3, If the killer removed the organs from the victims why do we see two different methods of extraction involving two different mortuaries

4. Do posters who seek to dampen this theory fully appreciate the degree of difficulty in the killer having to put his hand into a blood-filled abdomen in the dark with a long bladed knife and to try to locate the organs and then if the killer was able to locate them to be able to grip the wet and slippery organs in the dark and be able to remove them in the case of Chapman not only the uterus but a uterus with the fallopian tubes still attached without the aid of a retractor to hold the walls of the abdomen open is beyond comprehension

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[GBinOz]

4. Do posters who seek to dampen this theory fully appreciate the degree of difficulty in the killer having to put his hand into a blood-filled abdomen in the dark with a long bladed knife and to try to locate the organs and then if the killer was able to locate them to be able to grip the wet and slippery organs in the dark and be able to remove them in the case of Chapman not only the uterus but a uterus with the fallopian tubes still attached without the aid of a retractor to hold the walls of the abdomen open is beyond comprehension

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Hi Trevor,

This is the key aspect IMO. It was commented upon by Prosector and your forensic experts.

Cheers, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

Hello George,

George’s posts are in blue, mine are in black

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

• 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.

But Dr. Phillips didn’t see the corpse at the crime scene, he saw it at the mortuary, and this was at the request of Dr. Bond. And the reason Dr. Bond requested his presence was because he’d seen Chapman’s corpse and he wanted him to make a comparison which would have involved examining the mutilations. Phillips knew that organs had been removed from Chapman so there was a reasonable chance that he would check for the same with Eddowes but the point is that an organ thief couldn’t have had the slightest confidence that he was safe to steal organs because there’s no way he could have known that their presence hadn’t already been noted.

We also have this George:

“Phillips assist in the preliminary examination of the body (later determined to be that of Catherine Eddowes) which was underway when he arrived.

London Times, Oct. 1, 1888”

I believe that Phillips arrived at the mortuary with the apron piece at 5.20 and there was an examination already going on (over three hours after the body had been discovered and 9 hours before the PM. So any theft of organs would have had to have occurred, at an estimate, between 6.00am and 2.00pm (I’d even suggest that 2.00 would have been a bit tight considering the no doubt varied arrival times of doctors so perhaps it’s safer to suggest 1.00?) This places any thieving during a normal working day. That just doesn’t sound plausible to me.

• 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.

But why take the risk in the first place George? What could possibly have been the difference between an organ thief acquiring the organs that very morning as opposed to that evening? It just makes no sense.

• 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.

But they didn’t open them up again post mortem George. Once a corpse is sown up after the PM that’s it unless the body is later disinterred.

• 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.

Again though George, it would have been a big risk that was totally unnecessary and easily avoided.


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.


The problem is George that due to the issues that we all know can occur with timings (and we have both posted in enough Berner Street threads) we don’t have a definitive idea of how long could was available. But looking back I can see that it could have been as much as 12 minutes. So if we are faced with, a) organs stolen in the circumstances I’ve described with all of the obvious pitfalls, or b) the killer had a bit more time than we have so far allowed him (and perhaps more medical knowledge) then its b) every time.


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.


And your fair-minded and patient approach is noted George but I find it difficult to keep getting past Trevor’s approach to every one of his theories going back a fair time. He believes that simply because he has an idea that everyone else should fall in and agree.

An additional question to ask Trevor is this - Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Alice McKenzie and Frances Coles were all taken to the Whitechapel Mortuary and yet only Chapman lost an organ. Why not the others if organ thieves were in operation?

[GBinOz]

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

Hi RD,

This is the premise around which most theory on Eddowes is based. They didn't see her face. Lawende only identified her clothing as appearing to be similar to that which Eddowes wore. It wasn't like she was wearing the garments of Carmen Miranda.

Cheers, George

[Trevor Marriott]

An additional question to ask Trevor is this - Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Alice McKenzie and Frances Coles were all taken to the Whitechapel Mortuary and yet only Chapman lost an organ. Why not the others if organ thieves were in operation?

The simple answer is that with the other victims their abdomens were not opened to the point where organs could be removed undetected

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[GBinOz]

But Dr. Phillips didn’t see the corpse at the crime scene, he saw it at the mortuary, and this was at the request of Dr. Bond.
At the inquest, Phillips reported:

"I was called by the police on Friday morning at eleven o'clock, and on proceeding to Miller's Court, which I entered at 11.15. I found a room, the door of which led out of the passage at the side of 26, Dorset street, photographs of which I produce. It had two windows in the court. Two panes in the lesser window were broken, and as the door was locked I looked through the lower of the broken panes and satisfied myself that the mutilated corpse lying on the bed was not in need of any immediate attention from me, and I also came to the conclusion that there was nobody else upon the bed, or within view, to whom I could render any professional assistance. Having ascertained that probably it was advisable that no entrance should be made into the room at that time, I remained until about 1.30p.m., when the door was broken open by McCarthy, under the direction of Superintendent Arnold.

On the door being opened it knocked against a table which was close to the left-hand side of the bedstead, and the bedstead was close against the wooden partition. The mutilated remains of a woman were lying two-thirds over, towards the edge of the bedstead, nearest the door. Deceased had only an under-linen garment upon her, and by subsequent examination I am sure the body had been removed, after the injury which caused death, from that side of the bedstead which was nearest to the wooden partition previously mentioned. The large quantity of blood under the bedstead, the saturated condition of the palliasse, pillow, and sheet at the top corner of the bedstead nearest to the partition leads me to the conclusion that the severance of the right carotid artery, which was the immediate cause of death, was inflicted while the deceased was lying at the right side of the bedstead and her head and neck in the top right-hand corner".

And your fair-minded and patient approach is noted George but I find it difficult to keep getting past Trevor’s approach to every one of his theories going back a fair time. He believes that simply because he has an idea that everyone else should fall in and agree.

Thank you for your kind remark. I hope that I am not being seen as falling in for the sake of agreeing, but rather examining the theories for reasonable alternatives for which, unfortunately, there is IMO insufficient evidence to form any firm conclusion.

An additional question to ask Trevor is this - Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Alice McKenzie and Frances Coles were all taken to the Whitechapel Mortuary and yet only Chapman lost an organ. Why not the others if organ thieves were in operation?

Hi Herlock,

I believe that Trevor has subsequently answered your last query in a similar manner to that which I would have proposed.

Cheers, George

[GBinOz]

The problem is George that due to the issues that we all know can occur with timings (and we have both posted in enough Berner Street threads) we don’t have a definitive idea of how long could was available. But looking back I can see that it could have been as much as 12 minutes. So if we are faced with, a) organs stolen in the circumstances I’ve described with all of the obvious pitfalls, or b) the killer had a bit more time than we have so far allowed him (and perhaps more medical knowledge) then its b) every time.

Hi Herlock,

You make a very good point here. Clock synchronicity is the aspect that always complicates these discussions, and even if Lawende looked at the clock in the club, there is no certainty that it was displaying anything like police time. However, unless Watkins was skiving, there is the 15 minute beat time which we have no reason to dispute. However, most discussion locks the process into the siting of the couple by Lawende and friends, which IMO is far from definitive. My opinion is that Eddowes headed for Aldgate rather than heading home because she was going to meet someone, not because she was planning to engage in soliciting a client. But that's just my conjecture.

Cheers, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

I think people are overlooking the following issues.

1, If the killer was harvesting organs why did he mutilate the abdomens in such a way as to damage any organs he may have been seeking

Why would he require pristine organs if they were simply gruesome souvenirs?

2. Why would he take a second urterus from Eddowes when had a perfect intact specimen from Chapman

Why do you presume that he was like a stamp collector who would only have wanted one each. (Perhaps he wanted an extra one for swaps?)

3, If the killer removed the organs from the victims why do we see two different methods of extraction involving two different mortuaries

Why if Nichols, Chapman, McKenzie and Coles were all taken to the same mortuary only one had organs removed? Who knows Trevor? He knew more than one method. So what?

4. Do posters who seek to dampen this theory fully appreciate the degree of difficulty in the killer having to put his hand into a blood-filled abdomen in the dark with a long bladed knife and to try to locate the organs and then if the killer was able to locate them to be able to grip the wet and slippery organs in the dark and be able to remove them in the case of Chapman not only the uterus but a uterus with the fallopian tubes still attached without the aid of a retractor to hold the walls of the abdomen open is beyond comprehension

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

No and neither did the doctors at the time, none of whom suggested that the killer couldn’t have removed those organs.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The simple answer is that with the other victims their abdomens were not opened to the point where organs could be removed undetected

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

So organ thieves only stole organs from corpses that had had their abdomens torn open? Wouldn’t that have slightly limited the profitability of the venture?

[Trevor Marriott]

So organ thieves only stole organs from corpses that had had their abdomens torn open? Wouldn’t that have slightly limited the profitability of the venture?

The initial question related to the victims of the murder. It in no way inferred the point you raised

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

No and neither did the doctors at the time, none of whom suggested that the killer couldn’t have removed those organs.

The answer to that is quite simple they were not aware that the bodies had been tampered with during the long gap between bodies arriving at the mortuary and the post mortems being carried out.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk