If There Were Multiple Killers Wouldn't We Expect to See More Killings?

[Abby Normal]

Yes RivkahChaya, I believe this refers to pet food. Wouldn't be surprised; however, if some starving East Enders didn't occasionally dine on this wonderful horse meat. The old beggars can't be choosers comes to mind...



Well said Abby, this can't be ruled out. I suppose we could even surmise a singular perp all the way out to Coles, but if so, we're dealing with a very controlled killer...

I don't mean to speak for the multi-perpists but I will anyway...Ha
I believe they surmise different motivations for the various kills rather than multiple serialists about. Stride could be no more than an angry drunken sailor who was rebuffed. MJK a personal maniac run amok. Eddowes a revenge killing .. Possible copycating can also be suggested...

I don't think anybody thinks a Bundy, Dahmer and Wayne Gacy were all trolling the East End simultaneously...



Greg

Thanks Greg
Sometimes i find it hard to fathom that there was a Jack the Ripper and Torso killer trolling simultaneously, especially this early in the history of serial killers.

[Fisherman]

Oh, "cat's meat" is "pet food," right? meat to feed your cats and dogs? (although, I'm not sure my cats would eat horse meat, since they don't even sniff the dogs' food, when they get canned beef or lamb). Tell me there was not a market for actual meat from cats, for human consumption, and when there weren't enough cats, people sold horses at "cat."

Yes, Rivkah - the meat was put on skewers in the shape of cubes and sellers brought it into the streets to sell it. It was pet food, but of course the odd risktaker probably had a bite or two at times... Since most of the meat was way past itīs "best before" date, it would not have been healthy. Have a look at http://www.lookandlearn.com/history-...-Cats-Meat-Man and you will see how it was done.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Well, yeah.

The thing about the torsos is that they all seem to be "dumps," that is, killed in one place, and left in another. The dismemberment could be purely practical.

It's even possible that JTR killed one of the torsos, but not all of them, because he was experimenting with killing in his home, or in some other place where the body couldn't stay, and ended up having to most it, so the dismemberment was purely practical. But also a lot of hard work, enough to put a damper on whatever the fun part was for him.

The dismemberment was judged to be of a practical nature, yes - but I would venture the guess that neither you nor me can see any practicality in cutting the abdomen open - much less in taking away the uterus? Mutilation of the abdomen or no mutilation of the abdomen was what we were discussing - and it was there.

I concur that we may be dealing with just the one torso killing being Jackīs. This can be so, of course. And I am not sure that the hard work, as you put it, was any damper. Maybe he enjoyed dismembering, if it was him. Maybe he was curious about the possible joys of copying the torso killerīs work. Itīs a world of possibilities.
The bottom line, though, remains that the types of killings are different. Too different, perhaps, to offer any really "hot" perspective with just the one killer.
If, however, we work from the assumption that Charles Lechmere was the killer, then the geographical connotations are tantalizing, taken together with the anomalies built into the Pichin Street case as opposed to the other torso killings. But thatīs as far as we are going to get at the present stage.

The best,
Fisherman

[RivkahChaya]

I don't think anybody thinks a Bundy, Dahmer and Wayne Gacy were all trolling the East End simultaneously...

About that: London was a huge city, England was a go-to country at the time, and the East End was a port area.

It was a place where lots of different kinds of people drifted in and out. I would imagine if you were wanted by the police in some area, and were looking for a place where you could be anonymous, where you'd be likely to find some kind of work, and where you could also continue to troll for victims once you were certain the law hadn't followed you, the East End was attractive.

I think there's a reason that most serial killings happen in big cities.

And, for another thing, I lived in a city, that for a city was pretty small, but it was still an incorporated city, and because there was a large university, there was a big transient population. We weren't troubled by serial killers at large, so to speak, but during the time I lived there, there was one very disturbing MJK type killing-mutilation of a homeless woman, who slept much of the time in a tent in a park. The police caught the guy almost immediately. He had no other murder convictions, but he had lots of assault charges. If he hadn't been caught the first (presumably) time, he could have turned into a serial killer.

There was also a serial rapist on campus, but he was caught, and a female student who was murdered, on-campus, but then dumped in a cornfield. That guy was caught. Another student was waylaid while riding her bicycle. It took a long time to find the body, but meanwhile, the police kept close tabs on their main suspect, who was a suspect because of a tip from a family member. There's a student missing right now, although the theory is that she died of a drug overdose while drinking (underage) with friends, who were either also underage, or the over-21 people who provided the alcohol, and the prescription drugs (not hers) that witnesses say she was taking earlier that evening. The police theory is that her friends hid the body to avoid charges of felony homicide, with the felony being supplying drugs and alcohol to a minor, which is a very serious charge in this state.

My point is, that while the East End may not have bred multiple killers, it may have attracted them, and the general way of life in a big city may allow people to commit multiple crimes before getting caught, which is less likely to happen in a smaller town.

[GregBaron]

A View to a Kill...

Oh, "cat's meat" is "pet food," right? meat to feed your cats and dogs? (although, I'm not sure my cats would eat horse meat, since they don't even sniff the dogs' food, when they get canned beef or lamb). Tell me there was not a market for actual meat from cats, for human consumption, and when there weren't enough cats, people sold horses at "cat."

Yes RivkahChaya, I believe this refers to pet food. Wouldn't be surprised; however, if some starving East Enders didn't occasionally dine on this wonderful horse meat. The old beggars can't be choosers comes to mind...

Perhaps, if done by the same person, the ripper murders occured when the killer had to kill in the streets because his private home or business situation was that at these times he could not bring victims there (someone else who he shared the house/place of work with was there at these times). And the torso murders occurred when they were absent so he could bring them to his private place. The dismembered body parts was for ease in removing the corpse from his house or place of work.

This could possibly explain, if the Torso and Ripper killers were the same man, the apparent difference in MO.

Well said Abby, this can't be ruled out. I suppose we could even surmise a singular perp all the way out to Coles, but if so, we're dealing with a very controlled killer...

I don't mean to speak for the multi-perpists but I will anyway...Ha
I believe they surmise different motivations for the various kills rather than multiple serialists about. Stride could be no more than an angry drunken sailor who was rebuffed. MJK a personal maniac run amok. Eddowes a revenge killing .. Possible copycating can also be suggested...

I don't think anybody thinks a Bundy, Dahmer and Wayne Gacy were all trolling the East End simultaneously...



Greg

[RivkahChaya]

Oh, "cat's meat" is "pet food," right? meat to feed your cats and dogs? (although, I'm not sure my cats would eat horse meat, since they don't even sniff the dogs' food, when they get canned beef or lamb). Tell me there was not a market for actual meat from cats, for human consumption, and when there weren't enough cats, people sold horses at "cat."

[RivkahChaya]

You are aware, I take it, that the Whitehall torso had had the uterus removed? And that there was an abdominal gash in the Pinchin Street torso? So we may need to be a bit cautious before writing an interest in the abdomen off.

Well, yeah.

The thing about the torsos is that they all seem to be "dumps," that is, killed in one place, and left in another. The dismemberment could be purely practical.

It's even possible that JTR killed one of the torsos, but not all of them, because he was experimenting with killing in his home, or in some other place where the body couldn't stay, and ended up having to most it, so the dismemberment was purely practical. But also a lot of hard work, enough to put a damper on whatever the fun part was for him.

A movie comes to mind, "Henry," which I know was a fictionalized story loosely based on a real killer, in which he instructs his wanna-be apprentice to always vary your m.o. so that you can't possibly be linked to everything.

A note on Henry Lee Lucas: he confesses to killing about 300 people, but while he did that, he was theoretically on death row; however, as long as he kept confessing, no one set a date for his execution, and he was a much nicer location (easier access to the public was the reason), where he was treated a lot better, got better food, had his own TV, and lots of other amenities. Sheriffs and police lieutenants came from all over, recording confessions, and closing cold cases.

The movie was based on a Henry Lee Lucas who had supposedly done all those murders, and it also switched the roles of Lee and his mentor (also lover) Ottis Toole, who is probably the person who killed Adam Walsh.

Lucas ended up dying in prison, IIRC, of liver cancer, and it was many years before the story of the false confessions got out.

So anyway, the murders "credited" to him really were done by a lot of different people.

I have always thought it possible(though not probable) the Ripper and torso murders were done by the same man. The ripper murders have a distinct pattern-either done in the beginning or end of the month and on weekends or holidays (including Tabram)

There are more murders and crime in general on the weekends. Most serial killers troll for victims on the weekend. Either the killer has a job, or the victim pool is larger then, or both.

[Fisherman]

Perhaps, Raven. Such a proposition, however, involves straying some way from the given facts ...

All the best,
Fisherman

[RavenDarkendale]

In my own personal opinion, this torso is of great interest, since I champion Lechmere as the killer. And the Pinchin Street torso was found more or less on the doorstep of Lechmereīs mothers quarters on Cable Street. One could also - for good measure - add that Maria Louisa Lechmere was listed in the 1891 census as a catīs meat woman, that is to say a woman who dealt in cutting up dead horses, selling them as catīs meat.

Ah, perhaps she was selling "meat pies" as Mrs. Lovett, Sweeny Todd's partner in crime did! There was a desperate hunger in Whitechapel among the very poor...

Also @Lechmere:

The Hillside Strangler duo tried various things with their victims, electrocution once, and injection with household cleanser in another, They always went back to strangulation, however. Serial killers do break with MO once in a while

[Abby Normal]

The MO is too different. First, the abdominal mutilations are what seemed to get JTR off, and the torsos didn't have those. Second, the bodies were dumped, instead of left where they were killed, which suggested that the torso killer had a place where he could take women to be in privacy, and further that the dismemberment was possibly just to make the body dump easier. If you dump a dismembered body in the water, the abdomen will fill with gas after a while, and rise to the surface, but the limbs and head won't.

It's also possible that the torso killer didn't want the victim to be identified, which means they were connected to him in some way. People are likely to recognize a face, and the heads may have been removed for that reason as well. Or, he kept them. Jeffrey Dahmer had a collection of skulls.

Actually most if not all the torsos had abdominal mutilations as shown by Debra Arif.

I have always thought it possible(though not probable) the Ripper and torso murders were done by the same man. The ripper murders have a distinct pattern-either done in the beginning or end of the month and on weekends or holidays (including Tabram)

Perhaps, if done by the same person, the ripper murders occured when the killer had to kill in the streets because his private home or business situation was that at these times he could not bring victims there (someone else who he shared the house/place of work with was there at these times). And the torso murders occurred when they were absent so he could bring them to his private place. The dismembered body parts was for ease in removing the corpse from his house or place of work.

This could possibly explain, if the Torso and Ripper killers were the same man, the apparent difference in MO.

[Fisherman]

I can think of one suspect who did potentially have the requisite facilities and the means of transport and who as a child lived in the same street where one of the Torso’s was dumped and whose mother lived one street away when it was dumped.

The police believed that torso had been brought from nearby and dumped.

They even plumped for a guess that the torso had come from the streets south of Pinchin Street, I believe since there was some fencing forming an obstacle for a transport from the north. Which is why the police thought that the torso had been carried to the railway arch from the Cable Street area, and searched the premises there. The search yielded nothing, though.

Hope I got that right; Iīm working from memory here.

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Have your torso and rip it?

There is no reason why a killer wouldn't necessarily run a twin track approach - killing in different ways dependent upon the circumstances in which he acquires his victims.
As we can only guess at his motivation regarding how he left the bodies it is unsound to pontificate too much on what he intended doing or what he got his gratification from.
Having said that there was a degree of display with several of the torsos - leaving things to be found - to shock and awe, to demonstrate power over other humans perhaps.

With so much in this case ones views are inevitably influenced by potential suspects - did they have the potential opportunity to commit the crimes and then dispose of the bodies? I would suggest that nearly all potential Ripper suspects could not have been the Torso killer as they would not have had the facilities available to carry out the dismemberment nor the means of transportation to dispose of the body parts.

I can think of one suspect who did potentially have the requisite facilities and the means of transport and who as a child lived in the same street where one of the Torso’s was dumped and whose mother lived one street away when it was dumped.

The police believed that torso had been brought from nearby and dumped.

[Fisherman]

God knows I love cake, Lynn, so itīs not an altogether easy thing to achieve ...

Thanks, anyway!

Fisherman

[lynn cates]

honest

Hello Christer, Kensei. Although I do not agree, I do find your stance intellectually honest. At least you do not try to have your cake and eat it.

Cheers.
LC

[Fisherman]

Keeping an open mind is always healthy, Kensei, so in that context I agree with you.
Then again I am having no difficulties seeing the sense in people telling me that the two series of killings are worlds apart in many a way. One seems to be more of a spur-of-the-moment killer, ready to take huge risks, whereas the other seems more of a meticulous planner, taking care to minimize the risks of exposure.

Whichever way, I would welcome an initiated discussion on the matter. When it is brought up, it is often too nonchalantly pooh-poohed I think.

The best,
Fisherman