The Thames Torso Murders questions

[Mayerling]

Hi Rob

You are quite correct that is my line of thinking.

I see that in most of the torsos the doctors state that there looked as if some medical knowledge had been used, but went onto hedge their bets a little. They also struggled to find causes of death.

As most will know I have previoulsy quoted the Anatomy Act 1832 wherby medical personel, anatomists, doctors, students etc could take organs and in many case complete bodies for research from mortuaries.

Having said that they were supposed to bury any corpses thereafter. Now I guess that might have incurred costs so perhaps the cheapest way would to have been to wrap the remains up and dump it in the thames.

If you remeber Burke and Hare were paid to get bodies. It is quite feasable that someone was paid to bury or dispose of the remains and then decided to keep the money and then simply dumped the remains in the river.

As to the parts being found by the police building I suspect someone was perhaps playing a practical joke on the police and cause them even more embarrasment.

Why would a killer go to all the trouble of cutting up a body and moving it around taking it to the thames all risking being discovered. It would have been moer simple to just dispose of the body in much more simple ways. Besides cutting up a body is going to leave an awful lot of blood. Another reason perhaps why it didnt happen.

Well I guess people you pays you money and you takes your choice, people will beleive what they want to beleive and not always what the facts suggest.

Hello all,

As far as I know dumping cut up body parts throughtout Greater London and the Thames goes back to Catherine Hayes and her associates killing her husband in the 1720s, and trying to rid themelves of the parts by dumping. The two most notable cases I can think of in London after that are the Greenacre - Brown Affair of 1837 and the Waterloo Bridge affair of 1857. James Greenacre discovered, after he married her, that Hannah Brown was as poor as he was (she thought he was rich too). Somehow he either killed her in a fight stemming from a drunken argument, or he purposely killed her with a blow to the head. He and his girlfriend cut up the body and deposited the parts around London. As in he Hayes' case the discovery and identification of the head led back to the killer. In Greenacre's case the head was dumped into the river, but got stuck in the door of a canal.

I wrote a few years ago about Waterloo Bridge. The cut remains of a body were put into a large carpetbag, and an old woman apparently dumped it over the side of Waterloo Brdge at night. It landed on one of the Bridge's arches. The woman was never identified. The identity of the cut up man (it was a man) was never clearly established. Sir Robert Anderson claimed (in his memoirs) he knew the story - and his solution there is as hard to accept as his solution in the Ripper Case.

France had at least one caee of body parts cut up and dumped in the Seine. In 1868 Pierre Voirbo killed a man for his money and slowly got rid of the body, but made sure people thought Bodasse (the dead man) was alive beyond the day he died. Voibo cut the body up in Bodasse's kitchen and dropped of parts of the corpse into the Seine (stopped by gendarmes one night as he was throwing "meat" into the river, he calmly said he was going to return to fish the next day and was making he area "palatable" and "enticing" to the fish). Parts of the body he also dumped into an inn's cistern - those parts were brought to the attention of the police.

Jeff

[Hunter]

Although the torso was found at that location it was transported from somewhere else. Death could have ocurred anywhere. The person who did this probably had a measure of privacy to perform such acts... rather than take the very high risk approach of killing and mutilating in the street.

The exception is Kelly...and her killer had the opportunity to dismember her skeletal structure... but didn't.

The key to the torso murders and their link to a possible second individual is the fact that the head was not found for any. The head may have been wanted for some reason. Perhaps the killer was a fan of Shelley.

[sleekviper]

Hello Maria and Lynn,
Still alive Maria, which is always good, hope all is well with you. Thanks for the sequence Lynn!

[Debra A]

Debs, might I please inquire, as I have absolutely no knowledge about this: Did Victorian women seek to end their pregnacies at such an advanced state as Elizabeth Jackson was in? Doesn't it make more sense that they would have tried it at an earlier stage?

That Victorian medical jurisprudence books describe in detail the methods used in criminal abortions both at early and very late stages of pregnancy and give advice and instruction of how to determine the stage of gestation leads me to think that they did, Maria.
Up until April, Elizabeth had someone to take care of her in the shape of John Faircloth. After that time she survived completely alone, perhaps the reality of her situation then kicked in?

I just think it is one of the things to consider. I'm not saying that's what happened to her for sure.

Lynn has answered the second part of the query.

[mariab]

Thank you very much for the information, Debs, I see what you're saying.

If I understand it properly, the idea was that 1. the throat was cut, leading to 2. rapid blood loss which, quickly led to 3. heart syncope and death. Afterwards, the head was removed, thus obliterating the traces of the initial throat cutting.

Lynn, “obliterating“ evidence of having beheaded someone alive is not possible, as there would be tons of evidence of vital reaction to the decapitation in the throat, lungs, and heart, about which I suspect that even a Victorian doctor would be able to tell.
Further, decapitation of a victim alive is not very frequent. Unless we think medieval battle with swords, execution with an ax or with the guillotine, oriental sacrificial slaughtering. (Ewww.)
It makes much more sense that these ladies were decapitated postmortem, to obstruct their identification.

[Debra A]

It makes much more sense that these ladies were decapitated postmortem, to obstruct their identification.

Isn't that exactly what Lynn is saying though Maria? That if death occured by throat cutting, the decapitation (for whatever reason) would obliterate the evidence of that?

[mariab]

Debs, if I'm not mistaken, I think that Lynn was speaking in medical terms.
What I meant with “obstructing their identification“ was: cutting off the head so that the victims can't be recognized by their facial traits.

[lynn cates]

post mortem decapitation

Hello Maria.

"Lynn, “obliterating“ evidence of having beheaded someone alive is not possible, as there would be tons of evidence of vital reaction to the decapitation in the throat, lungs, and heart, about which I suspect that even a Victorian doctor would be able to tell."

Um, perhaps I was not clear? There is NO suggestion that the PS torso was decapitated live. The doctor noted the absence of blood in the heart and suggested that the blood had to go out SOMEWHERE. Hence, his speculation regarding a cut throat and subsequent decapitation.

Sorry for any possible confusion.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

yes

Hello Debs. Yes, that is precisely what I was saying.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Oops, apologies, Lynn and Debs, I misunderstood what you were saying. My bad.

[Phil H]

A) All the bodies were headless and the heads were never found – so how were they disposed of, even if retained by the killer for a while?

Would a slaughterhouse have had machinery to grind up skulls? If so, why not dispose of other body parts that way?

Was not one partial “face” (separated from the skull) recovered?

B) What were the possible motives for dismemberment? To disguise identity and remove distinguishing marks (scars, tattoos etc)?

C) The victims all appear to have been “unfortunates”. If so, why seek to conceal their identities? Were they not random – if named could they have been traced back to a common “link” (i.e. the murderer)?

D) We have to assume that the person(s) responsible had a place to work (and which could be readily cleaned up. Given the quantities of blood involved/fragments of flesh – would this have been most readily something like a mortuary/slaughterhouse or medical facility/operating theatre?

E) Does the scattered disposal of the bodies suggest accomplices? If so, can we read anything into that fact? Could this be a doctor/surgeon and medical assistants?

F) Given that the bodies simply seem to have been dismembered, does that undermine the idea of medical use (albeit illicit) – i.e. no obvious professional autopsy or dissection of the bodies was carried out.

G) There must, surely, have been some mischief involved in scattering the body parts around – there seems to have been no effort (or little) to hide them.

H) What is the significance of the fact that some body parts were found wrapped in their owner’s ulster – which suggests to me an absence of alternatives.

I) The knickers found on one body had a name that was not that of the victim – this suggests that the perpetrator (who appears to have tried to remove all other methods of identification) knew the name of his victim, and hoped the wrong name tag would mislead.

J) Mei Trow links the 1870s dicoveries with those of the 1880s and deduces a single killer - this is not impossible, but is it likely? If there were two killers, would the later one have initially worked with/for the former? Was he a copycat; or where there two distinctive killers with no direct link?

On balance, I think what I have read strongly suggests that these were murders but that the disposal of the body may have been as big a thrill, or bigger, than the killing itself. But I’ll admit to being a novice on this topic and would welcome the thoughts of others on my questions and comments above.

Phil

[Debra A]

A) All the bodies were headless and the heads were never found – so how were they disposed of, even if retained by the killer for a while?

Interestingly, this had always been a question never answered in the case of the murder of Mrs. Thomas, by her servant Kate Webster in the 1870s.
Webster murdered and dismembered her victim, dumping some portions of the body in the Thames at Barnes, others she scattered around in different areas. Webster was convicted and hanged for the crime.
Recently, Sir David Attenborough purchased some land in Barnes which was originally close to the site of a pub, frequented by Webster.While doing building work in the grounds, workmen unearthed a skull, buried underground and now thought to be the missing head of Mrs Marshall.

I) The knickers found on one body had a name that was not that of the victim – this suggests that the perpetrator (who appears to have tried to remove all other methods of identification) knew the name of his victim, and hoped the wrong name tag would mislead.

I was going to mention this myself earlier on in the thread. I agree, the underwear used was torn in two and the name written in them would have been difficult to miss by the killer. Someone not appearing worried about a possible identification from this name tag suggests to me that the killer might have known Elizabeth, too.

[Phil H]

Recently, Sir David Attenborough purchased some land in Barnes which was originally close to the site of a pub, frequented by Webster.While doing building work in the grounds, workmen unearthed a skull, buried underground and now thought to be the missing head of Mrs Marshall.

That is VERY interersting indeed. Thanks Debra. But HOW would anyone be sure of the identification, at this point?

On the heads, I ought to have said earlier (but the post was already long):

• even if they were kept as "trophies" they would have to have been disposed of at some point;

• I suppose they could have been destroyed by wartime bombing - but that would be a coincidence I would not like to predict:

• if they were buried - as with Debra's case above - I suppose they might be found - but why not bury the whole body(ies)? - me this suggests that the finding of the body parts, but in an unidentifiable way - might have been the major point for the killer;

• the risks of keeping decomposing heads must have been high - smell, seepage - so how and where?

On balance, burial of the heads, then scattering the dismembered limbs and torsos seems about right (but who can be sure, or enter the mind of a madman?).

Phil

[Phil Carter]

Hello Debs, Phil H,

Here's a link to that Attenborough situation:-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1323396/Skull-Sir-David-Attenboroughs-garden-solves-1879-Barnes-Mystery.html

best wishes

Phil

[Debra A]

Thanks Phil, I guess they are still working on it but the location and lone finding of a skull adds a bit of weight?!

In linking the torso murders I'm more inlined to believe that where body parts had been boiled, burnt etc. there was some part of the murderer that wanted to get rid by any means but as a last resort dumped the parts, after exploring all other means of disposal?

Between 1887 and 1889 we have four dismembered corpses, ( with organs missing...is this dissection?) a glut compared to previous years, and all dumped within hours of death without a thought about disposal by other means.All dismembered by a sharp knife and fine toothed saw too, something not apparent in previous murders.