The Whitehall Mystery

[martin wilson]

No bears this time, but as there was a cow with a wooden leg at Malton, I'm not overly optimistic.

Pontypridd Chronicle and Workmans News.
20th December 1889.

DISCOVERY OF HUMAN REMAINS.

On Friday afternoon some dock labourers at Middlesbrough made a discovery which is believed to indicate another of the series of fiendish crimes which have been perpetrated in the East end of London.
While discharging ballast from the Swansea barque Picton Castle, which arrived in the Tees from London on November 21, a labourer came upon a woman's right hand, perfect with the exception of two joints of the little finger.
Another labourer then stated he had some time before come across a bag containing something emitting a fearful odour.
He did not investigate the contents of the bag at the time, but threw it into a lighter, and it was buried under a large amount of ballast.
Information was given to the police, and the ballast was searched and the bag recovered.
In it were found portions of human remains in a state of advanced decomposition.
The matter is in the hands of the police, who will have the remains examined by a surgical expert.

All the best.

[John Wheat]

I have some serious, serious doubts about the competence of some of the posters on this forum.

[Debra A]

No bears this time, but as there was a cow with a wooden leg at Malton, I'm not overly optimistic.

Pontypridd Chronicle and Workmans News.
20th December 1889.

DISCOVERY OF HUMAN REMAINS.

On Friday afternoon some dock labourers at Middlesbrough made a discovery which is believed to indicate another of the series of fiendish crimes which have been perpetrated in the East end of London.
While discharging ballast from the Swansea barque Picton Castle, which arrived in the Tees from London on November 21, a labourer came upon a woman's right hand, perfect with the exception of two joints of the little finger.
Another labourer then stated he had some time before come across a bag containing something emitting a fearful odour.
He did not investigate the contents of the bag at the time, but threw it into a lighter, and it was buried under a large amount of ballast.
Information was given to the police, and the ballast was searched and the bag recovered.
In it were found portions of human remains in a state of advanced decomposition.
The matter is in the hands of the police, who will have the remains examined by a surgical expert.

All the best.

I already mentioned this Picton Castle hand thought to have been dredged from the Thames foreshore earlier in the thread. The other remains in the bag were in fact found to be game and not human.
...next?

[Debra A]

If you want spare body parts- there was an extra thigh was found in the Regent's canal at the same time as the rest of the Rainham remains and the Lambeth Blind School arm was a one off find too IIRC, thought to be a discarded medical specimen.

Also, the remains of a victim of the 1877 Princess Alice disaster was found in the mud while dredging for body parts in the 1887 Rainham case was going on.

And in 1896 or 8 (I forget which) there's a body that was dismembered by the motion of barges after a woman committed suicide. Her bones were dragged from her body and her flesh gnawed by rats, and funnily enough, in every case the doctors and police were able to work all this out by themselves, despite being the incompetent idiots some like to paint them as.

[martin wilson]

Hi Debra

Selly Oak Birmingham 1883?

All the best.

[Debra A]

Hi Debra

Selly Oak Birmingham 1883?

All the best.

Hi Martin
Dissected specimen organs preserved in spirits and recognised as such.

[martin wilson]

Hi Debra

6 minutes, excellent. You are not numero uno for nothing.

Langdon road/ Junction road Highgate 1886?

All the best.

[Debra A]

Hi Debra

6 minutes, excellent. You are not numero uno for nothing.

Langdon road/ Junction road Highgate 1886?

All the best.

I don't really see what your point is, Martin.
There were a lot of victims of murder dismembered and their remains boiled, burned, shoved up chimneys put into trunks, bags and barrels etc. Hundreds of illegitimate newborns and infants in particular ended up this way after being murdered by their own mothers. There were discarded medical specimens turning up regularly too but they were normally recognised as such as newspaper reports show.

The torso cases 87-89 were cases where the numerous, fresh, unpreserved and untreated dismembered body parts of females aged between 25 and 45 were dumped in and around the London Thames. Each of these women had been opened up with an incision from ribs to pubes but nothing in the way the limbs were removed resembled any sort of legitimate medical practice. The doctors and police could find no evidence of failed abortion or illegal operation (illegal operation being an abortion and nothing else) in 3 of the cases.

If the doctors were so incompetent you'd imagine that there would be the same sort of frenzy in the papers every time human remains were found in London-but there wasn't, because those four cases in particular were different.

This is my last post on the subject now. I'm not into playing silly games, Martin.

[Trevor Marriott]

I don't really see what your point is, Martin.
There were a lot of victims of murder dismembered and their remains boiled, burned, shoved up chimneys put into trunks, bags and barrels etc. Hundreds of illegitimate newborns and infants in particular ended up this way after being murdered by their own mothers. There were discarded medical specimens turning up regularly too but they were normally recognised as such as newspaper reports show.

The torso cases 87-89 were cases where the numerous, fresh, unpreserved and untreated dismembered body parts of females aged between 25 and 45 were dumped in and around the London Thames. Each of these women had been opened up with an incision from ribs to pubes but nothing in the way the limbs were removed resembled any sort of legitimate medical practice. The doctors and police could find no evidence of failed abortion or illegal operation (illegal operation being an abortion and nothing else) in 3 of the cases.

If the doctors were so incompetent you'd imagine that there would be the same sort of frenzy in the papers every time human remains were found in London-but there wasn't, because those four cases in particular were different.

This is my last post on the subject now. I'm not into playing silly games, Martin.

Debs
I dont think he is playing games he is genuinely trying to highlight the fact that body parts were quite common to be found both in and around the Thames area, which as you know is a vast expanse of area. Now you may know of these finds but I guess many on here will not. Sp highlighting them gives a bigger and better overall picture other than to keep mentioning the ones currently under discussion.

Nobody is saying the doctors were incompetent but from what we now know what they did say must be treated with caution and not readily accepted as fact. Body parts concealed out of the water are more likely to be discovered unless well hidden as against those thrown in the Thames.

One point I mentioned in another post was the question of poisoning. Now there is no way the doctors could come to a definitive answer on that topic, especially if a body had been in the water for sometime.

You mentioned the abdominal openings, now if organs were missing from some that might lead us to one of several plausible explanations, but if none were removed from the others which were opened what can we conclude from that?

Perhaps the same medical person who had their own unique way of opening abdomens?


There would be no frenzy as people readily accepted what the doctors said back then.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

Post duplicated

[RockySullivan]

I don't really see what your point is, Martin.
There were a lot of victims of murder dismembered and their remains boiled, burned, shoved up chimneys put into trunks, bags and barrels etc. Hundreds of illegitimate newborns and infants in particular ended up this way after being murdered by their own mothers. There were discarded medical specimens turning up regularly too but they were normally recognised as such as newspaper reports show.

The torso cases 87-89 were cases where the numerous, fresh, unpreserved and untreated dismembered body parts of females aged between 25 and 45 were dumped in and around the London Thames. Each of these women had been opened up with an incision from ribs to pubes but nothing in the way the limbs were removed resembled any sort of legitimate medical practice. The doctors and police could find no evidence of failed abortion or illegal operation (illegal operation being an abortion and nothing else) in 3 of the cases.

If the doctors were so incompetent you'd imagine that there would be the same sort of frenzy in the papers every time human remains were found in London-but there wasn't, because those four cases in particular were different.

This is my last post on the subject now. I'm not into playing silly games, Martin.

Deb they were opened from ribs to pubes? This is the same method the ripper applied? Atleast on eddowes correct?

[Trevor Marriott]

Deb they were opened from ribs to pubes? This is the same method the ripper applied? Atleast on eddowes correct?

But the same way medical personnel use to enter an abdomen also ?

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[John G]

Is it still being seriously mooted that some mad Dr Ripperstein figure was carrying out crude abdominal operations, for no rational purpose, in their own "unique way"? I really think we may be entering the realms of fantasy! Mind you, maybe it was Kosminski fantasizing that he was a world class surgeon!

[Debra A]

Debs
I dont think he is playing games he is genuinely trying to highlight the fact that body parts were quite common to be found both in and around the Thames area, which as you know is a vast expanse of area. Now you may know of these finds but I guess many on here will not. Sp highlighting them gives a bigger and better overall picture other than to keep mentioning the ones currently under discussion.

Nobody is saying the doctors were incompetent but from what we now know what they did say must be treated with caution and not readily accepted as fact. Body parts concealed out of the water are more likely to be discovered unless well hidden as against those thrown in the Thames.

One point I mentioned in another post was the question of poisoning. Now there is no way the doctors could come to a definitive answer on that topic, especially if a body had been in the water for sometime.

You mentioned the abdominal openings, now if organs were missing from some that might lead us to one of several plausible explanations, but if none were removed from the others which were opened what can we conclude from that?

Perhaps the same medical person who had their own unique way of opening abdomens?


There would be no frenzy as people readily accepted what the doctors said back then.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Trevor, recovery of whole bodies (of both sexes and all ages) from the Thames and Regent's Canal area was common.
Recovery of body parts of infants and newborns from the Thames was common.
Recovery of discarded treated medical specimens around dustbins in gardens and in public places happened sometimes and were recongnised as medical specimen.
Dismembered body parts turned up hidden in all manner of places and all over the UK, some of the cases solved, others not.
The recovery of mature female body parts from the Thames was rare. I don't agree with you about it being common.
None of Martin's snippets involve Thames finds.

That was my point.

It's okay to post news stories but It's probably a good idea to check to the very end of a news story (some covered months of copy) before presenting it as one thing, when in fact it is something else altogether-as in the case of the bears leg or bag of game. I'm sure you'd agree?

Are you certain about the doctors ability to detect poisons in the dead? The numerous toxicology and medical jurisprudence texts of the era suggest they were quite competent at it. Detection would have been done through organs like the stomach, bowels and intestines. And in any case, you are getting muddled again-In three of the four cases 87-89 the actual torso with remaining organs were found on dry land, not water so how could water affect poisons being detected?

They also checked for organic disease in the organs, which is something I've mentioned a few times too. Bodies taken for medical specimens were normally taken from the unclaimed workhouse dead, after a set period of time (3 days) and Elizabeth was last seen 24 hours before her remains began washing up on the Thames foreshore.

Specifics..

[Debra A]

Deb they were opened from ribs to pubes? This is the same method the ripper applied? Atleast on eddowes correct?

Hi Rocky. In three of the four cases 87-89 the bodies were opened by an incision starting below the sternum and ending either at, in, or near the genitals.
Writing from memory, so I'll correct this later if I'm wrong-the naval was also cut around during the incision in one case, in a similar to the way Eddowes was.

I know one of the original medical experts Trevor consulted for his earlier book, thought that showed some degree of medical knowledge in the Eddowes case but that doesn't fit to Trevor's ideas about the organs being removed postmortem as the diagrams drawn at the Eddowes crime scene clearly show that opening was present at the crime scene.