The subject of Jack's "anatomical knowledge"

[DirectorDave]

"Another puzzling feature which has now become apparent. Looking at he mortuary photo inlayed by SGH is the fact that the wounds to the lower abdomen of Eddowes were all on the right side. The killer is suposed to have removed the left kidney which we know is difficult to locate and difficult to remove due to in being behind the liver.

Surely if the killer was intent on removing the left kidney he would have had a much greater task to locate it from the right side. The right kidney would have been an easier option."

And would also be difficult for your mortuary guy too. I presume the person you think removed the organs in the mortuary would have anatomical knowledge and be acquainted with removing organs....yet if we are to believe your theory he took the difficult option?

Another little detail that makes your theory even less likely…..unless of course it was your mortuary guys first time?…..or perhaps he took the left one because it would be missed less?…..or perhaps he was ordered to take the left Kidney?

[DVV]

"Les éléments de l'information ne permettent pas de supposer que le meurtrier avait des connaissances anatomiques, mais plutôt que la pratique l'avait rendu habile."
Robert Desnos, 1928

[doris]

Fascinating stuff.

I have really enjoyed the last 20 odd pages of debate.

And davemc I thought your PM link was incredibley informative, I always thought a human could be reduced to fragments pretty quickly and it was jolly interesting to watch it happen. Ta.

For my theorising I have reduced JtRs doings to one of four possible conditions. And only considered the Chapman murder.

Either-

a. He was skilled and after particular organs
b. He was unskilled and after particular organs.
c. He was skilled and didn't care what he took
d. He was unskilled and din't care what he took.

If

a. He was a phenomenal surgeon, he secured the organs with "one sweep of the knife".
No extraneous cuts of attachments etc, just a single slash. JtR must have been an AMAZING surgeon.

b. He must have been very. very lucky.

c. If he didn't care what he took how can one judge his ability?

d. He only took one sweep of the blade and grabbed what came away.

I think if he took particular organs, he must of been an amazing surgeon. So in that situation I think he had surgical skill, but not surgical skill of an ordinary magnitude. He must have been a surgical ninja, as it were.

It does seem more likely to me that the d situation is the correct one.

Thanks for your time

doris

[DaveMc]

Another puzzling feature which has now become apparent. Looking at he mortuary photo inlayed by SGH is the fact that the wounds to the lower abdomen of Eddowes were all on the right side. The killer is suposed to have removed the left kidney which we know is difficult to locate and difficult to remove due to in being behind the liver.

Surely if the killer was intent on removing the left kidney he would have had a much greater task to locate it from the right side. The right kidney would have been an easier option.

Sometimes you just sit and wait for the doors to open before your very eyes and lately I have seen many doors open !!!!!

Are you not reviewing any of the information put to you?
How can you not notice the recoil of the skin when it's cut?
Humans do not have a rigid hide.

Oh man

[DaveMc]

Hi All,

Here's an overlay set of Dr. FG Brown's crime scene sketch of Eddowes in Mitre Square and the later mortuary photo of her after the pm.

Whilst doing the overlay's, it soon became apparent as to how accurately Brown had drawn his sketch.

I hope this helps to clarify things a little.

Best,
Steve

Steve,
I think they should be added to the Eddowes gallery.
Trying to put clothing on the mortuary image in the mind wasn't anywhere near as good as this.

Thanks for taking the time to put that together.

Dave

[Ben]

I agree with much of what you say Hunter, although it's worth pointing out that most of the doctors who were present at the autopsy didn't seem to have too much trouble accepting that the kidney could have been found by chance rather than design. We're dealing with a paucity of both visceral options and space to explore, both of which necessarily increase the likelihood of any organ being found by accident. Anything in the locality of the adominal cavity could have been located this way. Whatever "stuff" may be in the way could never prevent any obstacle to a knife and a pair of determined hands, especially once the intestines had been cast aside.

Again, the majority of medical evidence was to the effect that the kidney was not deliberately targetted.

He could have been a medical student, a butcher, a common laboror in a slaughterhouse, a person raised on a farm, a hunter or someone who read the right books.

He could also have been a total layman with no formal training in anatomy whatsoever.

Best regards,
Ben

[DaveMc]

Hi All,

Last night I watched the You Tube autopsy via the link provided by DaveMc and, sure enough, after five minutes of slicing and dicing at a leisurely pace the cadaver was fairly well denuded of flesh. I bottled out after this.

The operating conditions of this autopsy compared with events in Mitre Square are like chalk and cheese. At the autopsy the cadaver was naked, the operating table at exactly the right height, the room at the right temperature, perfectly lit and the surgeon had unobstructed 180 degree access to the head and upper torso.

At Mitre Square the perpetrator would have been crouched, kneeling on a wet pavement [it had been raining up until 1.35 am]. He had seven layers of Eddowes' clothing to get through; he was operating in the darkest corner of the square and would have been constantly on the alert for approaching footsteps. Hardly the most auspicious of conditions under which to take away part of a womb and "carefully" [Dr. Brown's choice of word] remove a left kidney.

Doctor Brown opined that "He [the perpetrator] must have had a good deal of knowledge as to the position of the abdominal organs, and the way to remove them." And as to the coroner's question of whether the removal of the left kidney required "special" knowledge he said, "It would require a good deal of ["medical"—deleted] knowledge as to its position, because it is apt to be overlooked, being covered by a membrane."

Doctor Sequeira agreed with Doctor Brown "in every particular", and Sedgwick Saunders agreed with both of them that "the wounds were not inflicted by anyone possessing great anatomical skill and I agree that the perpetrator of the deed had no particular design on any particular organ."

From the foregoing we can therefore deduce that the perpetrator had a "good deal of knowledge" about the position of abdominal organs, but possessed no great anatomical skill or any design on a particular organ. He just rummaged around and found the kidney by accident, but just happened to know how to remove it "carefully".

Work out this conundrum and you could find yourself short-listed for the Jeff Leahy Double-Talk Award.

True believers of the authorised version of events might also care to offer an opinion on how [insert suspect's name here] learned to do all this. Also how he managed to rip up Eddowes in around five minutes but failed to mutilate Elizabeth Stride in the fourteen minutes available to him.

Regards,

Simon

Simon,
I'm not sure what it is you're looking at in the video.

The circumstances of the two don't matter.
It's the amount of work being done.
Don't time the surgeon, time the BLADE
as it works on an actual human body.
Put all of that work into the abdominal area.

I thought the work alone would have been obvious.

The killer spent time doing only a fraction of the doctor's work.
And he wasn't concerned with being too careful.

[Trevor Marriott]

Another puzzling feature which has now become apparent. Looking at he mortuary photo inlayed by SGH is the fact that the wounds to the lower abdomen of Eddowes were all on the right side. The killer is suposed to have removed the left kidney which we know is difficult to locate and difficult to remove due to in being behind the liver.

Surely if the killer was intent on removing the left kidney he would have had a much greater task to locate it from the right side. The right kidney would have been an easier option.

Sometimes you just sit and wait for the doors to open before your very eyes and lately I have seen many doors open !!!!!

[DirectorDave]

I think I would rather live in la la land than the Marriott land of Oz.

[sgh]

SGH - Wow, you've got skills!

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Many thanks indeed, Tom.

I am amazed at the accuracy of Dr. Brown's sketch.
I aligned the overlay using the line of the cut throat and the cut at the top of her right thigh (near the groin) as main landmarks.
The match is as near perfect as possible, as you can see!

The sketch also indicates quite clearly how various garments have been sliced open and pushed upwards.

I have no anatomical knowledge whatsoever but those who have may be able to ascertain some more information considering the accuracy of the Brown sketch ,and I hope this exercise has given further reliability to it.
I'm sure the trained medics here can make out what's what with regards to the innards as seen in this excellent sketch.

Tom, I think I've put into pictures what you've been saying all along :-)
Best,
Steve

[Tom_Wescott]

SGH - Wow, you've got skills!

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[sgh]

Dr. FG Brown CS sketch - Mitre Sq & Eddowes photo overlay

Hi All,

Here's an overlay set of Dr. FG Brown's crime scene sketch of Eddowes in Mitre Square and the later mortuary photo of her after the pm.

Whilst doing the overlay's, it soon became apparent as to how accurately Brown had drawn his sketch.

I hope this helps to clarify things a little.

Best,
Steve

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Last night I watched the You Tube autopsy via the link provided by DaveMc and, sure enough, after five minutes of slicing and dicing at a leisurely pace the cadaver was fairly well denuded of flesh. I bottled out after this.

The operating conditions of this autopsy compared with events in Mitre Square are like chalk and cheese. At the autopsy the cadaver was naked, the operating table at exactly the right height, the room at the right temperature, perfectly lit and the surgeon had unobstructed 180 degree access to the head and upper torso.

At Mitre Square the perpetrator would have been crouched, kneeling on a wet pavement [it had been raining up until 1.35 am]. He had seven layers of Eddowes' clothing to get through; he was operating in the darkest corner of the square and would have been constantly on the alert for approaching footsteps. Hardly the most auspicious of conditions under which to take away part of a womb and "carefully" [Dr. Brown's choice of word] remove a left kidney.

Doctor Brown opined that "He [the perpetrator] must have had a good deal of knowledge as to the position of the abdominal organs, and the way to remove them." And as to the coroner's question of whether the removal of the left kidney required "special" knowledge he said, "It would require a good deal of ["medical"—deleted] knowledge as to its position, because it is apt to be overlooked, being covered by a membrane."

Doctor Sequeira agreed with Doctor Brown "in every particular", and Sedgwick Saunders agreed with both of them that "the wounds were not inflicted by anyone possessing great anatomical skill and I agree that the perpetrator of the deed had no particular design on any particular organ."

From the foregoing we can therefore deduce that the perpetrator had a "good deal of knowledge" about the position of abdominal organs, but possessed no great anatomical skill or any design on a particular organ. He just rummaged around and found the kidney by accident, but just happened to know how to remove it "carefully".

Work out this conundrum and you could find yourself short-listed for the Jeff Leahy Double-Talk Award.

True believers of the authorised version of events might also care to offer an opinion on how [insert suspect's name here] learned to do all this. Also how he managed to rip up Eddowes in around five minutes but failed to mutilate Elizabeth Stride in the fourteen minutes available to him.

Regards,

Simon

[GregBaron]

Cutting...

Hi all,

I don't understand the controversy over the clothing. He was slicing and dicing his way thru the clothing bit by bit layer by layer till he got to the body....
sure each layer might have different cuts......then he opened up the abdomen
and ripped out the intestines so he could cut out some organs...why else throw the intestines up over the shoulder? He appeared to try this with Chapman and Nichols did he not...?.....probably only interrupted by someone....why he wanted organs is another thread...........

Greg

[Trevor Marriott]

Hunter

That is correct; not necessarily medical knowledge or skill, but some knowledge would have been required. As I've stated, that could have been a number of people in the East End at that time including the many people with rural backgrounds.

Lets start with Annie Chapman. By the time of Poly Nichols' murder, the people of the East End had an uneasy sense that a unique killer was walking the streets. With Chapman's murder soon after and the mutilations that even Phillips refused to describe, that uneasiness turned to outright terror, confusion and a lack of rationality of it all. When Phillips arrived at 29 Hanbury Street he undoubtedly faced something he'd never seen before. Coming to the conclusion that the perpetrator had to have medical skill because the uterus had been removed "with one sweep of the knife" seemed rational to him at the time. This belief was soon fostered by the American looking to buy uteri story. But if one looks at what was removed and how, a different conclusion can be drawn. Part of the vagina and bladder came with it; not necessarily professional. An attempt at removing the reproductive organs was done similar to the way a child would cut out the sweet part of a watermelon. Anyone with basic anatomical knowledge could have done that. Annie's knees were up because it made it easier to get to the parts he wanted. Just ask any woman who has had a pelvic exam.

But he wasnt trying to take out the organs via the vagina !!!!!! he had to go in through the abdomen so you are wrong the legs being drawn up would have been a hinderance to him.

With Eddowes, it looks like the killer started to do the same thing. Both sides of the labia were cut, but for whatever reason he stopped and went after it in a slightly different way.

So now you are suggesting that the kiler had even more time than we belive by changing his method mid stream come on get real please


The only thing that can be said about Kelly's murder is that it didn't take much skill to do what was done there. Most people know where the heart is.

Phil mentioned that it was odd that the medicos didn't agree on everything. I don't know what is implied, but I would point out that there are a lot of experts on this site that view the same evidence and come up with different conclusions. So, what's new?

Finally, Phillips had to notice at the site of Chapman's murder that the uterus and a great part of the vagina and bladder were missing by the way they were cut out. Her legs were spread wide open. If they were still there at that time then he would have to be implicated in removing those organs later. Brown mentioned that he saw no sign of intercourse at the site of Eddowes' murder, so he would have had to be looking real close at the same vital area. As far as the kidney goes, well, maybe someone else could have taken that and later sent part of it to Lusk . It may have been very nise.