The Whitehall Mystery

[Abby Normal]

Not only that Abby but if we were to get so precise as to what angle something was cut to even open up the body then how many of the C5 victims can we match? Kelly certainly not.

exactly Dane.

one has to balance all the circumstances, similarities and differences and determine which outweighs. I think some people get an idea or theory in their head and will look for the minutest of differences to support it.

[Joshua Rogan]

Hi Joshua
Welcome! If torso man and the ripper were the same man, then as I've said before, when he is trolling for prostitutes out on the street he's probably only going to bring a knife, not a saw or other dissecting tools.

Also, the heart was removed in both. That similarity alone outweighs any difference in how they were removed

Thanks, Abby.
Fair enough, that does make sense in the scenario you're suggesting. But, with the exception of Elizabeth Jackson, the scenario itself doesn't really ring true to me. The whole point of the Ripper attacks doesn't seem to have been the killing itself, so much as the opportunity to practise his particular brand of street surgery. Fine if his murderous urges overcame him in the absence of a suitable lair. But if the same urges strike when he does have a private place of his own, he lures his victim there, kills them (somehow?) and even opens up their abdomen. Does he then mutilate them to his (or her) heart's content? Does he harvest all those lovely organs (must be worth a fortune to the right doctor, he could make a killing!). No....apparently, his first thought was "what's the best way to dispose of this body?".
If the motives for both series were the same, the results seem too dissimilar to be explained by something as simple as having/not having a suitable lair.

[Fisherman]

Thanks, Abby.
Fair enough, that does make sense in the scenario you're suggesting. But, with the exception of Elizabeth Jackson, the scenario itself doesn't really ring true to me. The whole point of the Ripper attacks doesn't seem to have been the killing itself, so much as the opportunity to practise his particular brand of street surgery. Fine if his murderous urges overcame him in the absence of a suitable lair. But if the same urges strike when he does have a private place of his own, he lures his victim there, kills them (somehow?) and even opens up their abdomen. Does he then mutilate them to his (or her) heart's content? Does he harvest all those lovely organs (must be worth a fortune to the right doctor, he could make a killing!). No....apparently, his first thought was "what's the best way to dispose of this body?".
If the motives for both series were the same, the results seem too dissimilar to be explained by something as simple as having/not having a suitable lair.

What if we add the time and control aspects then, Joshua?

If we are dealing with just the one killer here, then we need to have a useful explanation for the differences. So here´s a suggestion:

Our man sets out as a killer who either abducts or lures women into a safe bolthole of his. This has practical reasons - he wants to stay uncaught. He is careful and meticulous. His interest lies in cutting women up, taking them apart - and opening up their bodies to get at their inner organs.

He needs to find a safe way to transport the victims away from his bolthole, and he opts for the perfect method: killing and dismembering. This way, he ensures the safest way to get rid of the body parts, plus he gains access to the insides of his victims. He enjoys taking parts out of the women he has killed.

It works. Nobody comes after him, and he grows more and more confident. He may have tucked his first victims away totally, with nobody finding them and with us Ripperologists being left with no knowledge of them.
Then, as he grows more and more confident and arrogant - as serialists so often do - he starts to play games with the authorities. It is no longer any fun not to have his work acknowledged, so he comes up with the idea to dump torsos and body parts in places where he knows they will be found. The heads, however, he will not give up, since they will offer a way to identify the victims.

It works - his efforts are written about in the press, and there is some speculation that it could be just the one killer who is responsible.

He enjoys the development, but finds it a bit slow and unattentive. He wants to do more, he wants the full attention of the police, press and public. He therefore decides to kill out in the open streets and procure the innards there. This time, he will not kill women who he can be knit to in any way, so the risks of identifying him by means of the victims´ identities is no longer there. He will only be able to bring a knife, so he will have to settle for organ procuring and knifecutting only - no saws can be brought to this type of job.

He begins with Tabram. But here, he has not got it all in hand, as he used to have in his bolthole. This time, there is physical resistance, and it makes him angry so he goes berserk on her, stabbing her 37 times. Then he starts to cut into her lower abdomen, but he is spooked by somebody and must abort. In order to make sure that he is not given away, he finishes her off with a large dagger, unfit to extract organs with - but efficient when it comes to stabbing the heart through the sternum.

Three weeks on, he attacks Polly Nichols, nearly strangles her and sets about cutting her abdomen open, only to once again be deprived of the chance to secure any innards. This time, he cuts the neck to the spine to ensure death - and silence.

Chapman is his first real success, and by now, the papers are boiling with horror and excitement.

Stride was scheduled next, but he is frustratingly disturbed again, and when he meets Eddowes after a narrow escape from Berner Street, he takes out that frustration on her. Maybe she said something too that annoyed him. He mutilates her face badly as a result, before turning to the innards. That brings major headlines, as does the savagery of the knifework. In it´s turn, that seals the fate of Mary Kelly.

Alongside these open streets exploits, giving him a chance to pose bodies and evoke horror and panic, he keeps his old work going. He gets bolder and bolder as he does so, deciding to place a torso in the vaults of the New Scotland Yard building, to throw a part of Elizabeth Jacksons dead body into the garden of a descendant of the author of Frankenstein´s monster and so on.

And in an effort to make the police understand that both series are the work of just the one man, he places the Pinchin Street torso in a railway arch right in the middle of Ripper territory, seeing to it that the body is ripped open. He even does the deed on the anniversary of his first full street killing success, that of Annie Chapman.

Conjecture in heaps? You bet! But I don´t find a common identity between the two killers any very remote possibility at all - let alone an impossibility! That´s not to say that I think that they series must have had one originator only - or even that I believe that they did - but I feel we need to be open to possibilities in this case.

Or cases!

[Joshua Rogan]

Hello Joshua. That's certainly a cool story, unfortunately, in the case of the Pinchin Street Torso she was dumped on dry land in a place where she would be found remarkably fast.

Yeah, the bit about buoyancy was a late after thought. But if the bodies were kept for any length of time before disposal, then a build-up of gas could still be an issue....as it were. Perhaps ventilating the corpse in this way would prevent it making any untoward noises as he worked on it?

[Abby Normal]

Thanks, Abby.
Fair enough, that does make sense in the scenario you're suggesting. But, with the exception of Elizabeth Jackson, the scenario itself doesn't really ring true to me. The whole point of the Ripper attacks doesn't seem to have been the killing itself, so much as the opportunity to practise his particular brand of street surgery. Fine if his murderous urges overcame him in the absence of a suitable lair. But if the same urges strike when he does have a private place of his own, he lures his victim there, kills them (somehow?) and even opens up their abdomen. Does he then mutilate them to his (or her) heart's content? Does he harvest all those lovely organs (must be worth a fortune to the right doctor, he could make a killing!). No....apparently, his first thought was "what's the best way to dispose of this body?".
If the motives for both series were the same, the results seem too dissimilar to be explained by something as simple as having/not having a suitable lair.

Yes , of course, which is why I still lean toward them being separate killers but the similarities between Jackson and Kelly are uncanny, a possible link between the two series.



Another thing occurred to me. The torso man seems to have a thing for heads. Most post mortem type serial killers do, kemper, Dahmer etc. I'm wondering if the escalation on the faces of the ripper series was because he tried to get the head (chapman), but realizing it wasn't feasible, started targeting the face as a result. Maybe out of anger, frustration, or like if I can't have it, nobody will.

[Joshua Rogan]

Hi Fisherman,
Conjecture and speculation are good, they can lead to new perspectives and insights. And there are some very tantalising aspects and connections between the Ripper and Torso cases to speculate about. I just find it hard - not impossible, but hard - to believe that one killer, with the time and privacy to dismember, and the inclination to mutilate and remove organs, wouldn't have indulged himself a bit more.
As I understand it, only Jackson had any internal organs definitely removed from the torso. Of course, the body parts that were never recovered from the others may have told a different story, had they been found. But we'll never know.
If the same man was indeed responsible for both sets of crimes, then for my money, one was business and the other pleasure.

[Fisherman]

Hi Fisherman,
Conjecture and speculation are good, they can lead to new perspectives and insights. And there are some very tantalising aspects and connections between the Ripper and Torso cases to speculate about. I just find it hard - not impossible, but hard - to believe that one killer, with the time and privacy to dismember, and the inclination to mutilate and remove organs, wouldn't have indulged himself a bit more.
As I understand it, only Jackson had any internal organs definitely removed from the torso. Of course, the body parts that were never recovered from the others may have told a different story, had they been found. But we'll never know.
If the same man was indeed responsible for both sets of crimes, then for my money, one was business and the other pleasure.

That´s a fresh perspective!

What I wanted to do was to present a functioning story, although only conjecture - with the aim to point to how we often go "Aha!" when we get a very drab and everyday explanation to things we have formerly seen as unexplicable. It is very often like that, I find: once the cards are on the table, we get an explanation that fills in the gaps for us, and we can see how things are interconnected in ways that make sense, ultimately.

As for the low intestine interest you perceive on behalf of torso man, I would like to point to a rather recent (five years or so) Swedish case (there is a parallel with an Austrian case, but I can´t recall the names. I´ll see if I can dig them out), where the perpetrator dismembered and cut up his victims out of curiosity. He had always wanted to see what a body looked like inside, and he in the end, curiosity got the better of him and he could not resist.
He wasn´t targetting organs, he was not any necro-sadist, he had no wish to kill - but he had a wish and an urge to see the inside of a person.

Once you dismember somebody and/or cut them open, that urge is satisfied. When the corspe is found, however, the implications are that something very sinister has been going on, in terms of evil and brutality.

I haven´t got a clue whether this applies to any extent in the Ripper/Torso case/s, but I think it lends useful insight and some width of perspective.

[Joshua Rogan]

Another thing occurred to me. The torso man seems to have a thing for heads. Most post mortem type serial killers do, kemper, Dahmer etc. I'm wondering if the escalation on the faces of the ripper series was because he tried to get the head (chapman), but realizing it wasn't feasible, started targeting the face as a result. Maybe out of anger, frustration, or like if I can't have it, nobody will.

Hmm, that's an intriguing thought....
I'd imagine he'd have taken it out on Annie's face, if he was frustrated about not being able to remove her head. But then, he was probably pushed for time, with it getting light and all. Perhaps it nagged at him, until he got the chance to work on his next victim.

Not so sure about torso man collecting the heads, though. He may well have done, of course. But I think they're probably at the bottom of the Thames. Isn't it a case that heads are a bit more dense than the rest of the body, and so sink and stay sunk, or have I imagined that?

[Fisherman]

Isn't it a case that heads are a bit more dense ...?

Indeed - and some are denser than others.

But you are quite correct - the heads will sink to them bottom if thrown in water.

[Joshua Rogan]

Once you dismember somebody and/or cut them open, that urge is satisfied.

I'll take your word for that!

It could go the other way though....some people might be satisfied, some may just want to know more.
Either way, it's still pretty evil if you kill someone simply to satisfy your curiosity. Especially in this day and age, when you could probably find out all you need to know - and more - with a determined internet search. If only they'd had Google in the age of gaslight, it might have saved a lot of lives.

[Fisherman]

I'll take your word for that!

It could go the other way though....some people might be satisfied, some may just want to know more.
Either way, it's still pretty evil if you kill someone simply to satisfy your curiosity. Especially in this day and age, when you could probably find out all you need to know - and more - with a determined internet search. If only they'd had Google in the age of gaslight, it might have saved a lot of lives.

It all boils down to how we define evil. I would not call it evil as such - to me, evil is always knit to an evil intent - but it is of course totally socially and normatively unacceptable.

Of course it could go the other way too - but in the cases I referred to (I need to dig those names out), it did not.

[jerryd]

I was just reading up on the arnold thread at jtr and Jerry's theory is very interesting. I think the bit about the costermongers apron pocket is vital...as is the man seen taking to Jackson before her death. The man was described as a navvy...the plugging? Tying knots? No connection between fairclough's ever found? Does lynch have a possible connection to spitalfields market perhaps?

This discussion for me has branched my thinking out into so many areas. I'll try to stay focused.

First I want to include a couple of extra links to dissertations by Bernard Brown. I have always respected his work into the railway police and tramways, etc. If you haven't read these two by him, they are very well worth it in addition to the other one posted already in this thread about Jack being a railway policeman.

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/rip-valentine.html

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/rip-spratling.html

In the second dissertation on Spratling, Brown makes this statement,

Back in Whitechapel, the North Metropolitan Tramways Act, 1887, (50 Victoria. CH X 1 1) had received the Royal Assent on 29th March 1888 and authorised the company "To lay down and maintain a new tramway in Commercial Street."

'Gangs of navvies descended on Whitechapel and Spitalfields and work commenced on digging up the entire length of Commercial Street and laying track. The work continued day and night until completion in November 1888. During the construction Emma Smith, Martha Tabram, Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were murdered. Coincidence?The diverted horse-drawn traffic from Commercial Street was horrendous and the `ladies of the night and their clients were hardly able to conduct their business. Could the disruption explain why there were no murders during October and why Mary Kelly was killed indoors? On 15th November 1888, a week after Kelly s murder, the Commercial Street tramway finally opened with a line of brown painted horse trams running between Bloomsbury and Poplar (fare 3d). Near the latter line on 20th December 1888 the body of Rose Mylett was found just off the High Street.'

The key word in my mind in his statement was the reference to navvies. This same type of man was described last seen with Elizabeth Jackson in 1889. It is these types of statements that open up the possibilty of a one man show. That is, if you can link one Torso mystery to one Whitechapel murder, you may have something worth investigating.

I've looked at maps and located many of the railway stations, rail lines, and tramway routes and it's crazy how all the victims, both torso and WM seem to be in pattern with these locations, or at least very near. Liverpool Street Station, Whitechapel Station(Bucks Row), Aldgate East Station, St Marys Station and Fenchurch Station cover all the Whitechapel murders for a get-a-away. Charing Cross, Westminster and Temple Stations cover a majority of the torso parts. Euston and Kings Cross Stations are very near the Tottenham Court Road scattering of body parts. The final remains of the Rainham mystery were found in the Regents Canal near Chalk Farm. There was a railway station there as well, right on the canal.

Also of note is the Tilbury Goods Depot located off Back Church Lane. I quote from GREATER LONDON INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY SOCIETY linked from here, http://www.stgite.org.uk/media/churchwardens.html (Thomas Morrison Fairclough)

'The 'Tilbury Depot' is shown on Edward Stanford's 1891 map as belonging to the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway. Bounded on the west by Lambeth Road (now marked by a pedestrian spur of Hooper Street), Commercial Road to the north, with the ground level vehicle entrances and to the east by Gowers Walk (which has recently acquired an apostrophe). Its job was to take cargo moved from Tilbury Dock by the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway to store or distribute by road around London. Conversely, to accumulate cargo for the Dock to be moved in bulk to the ships side by rail. Old drivers will know the cry, 'have to wait driver we're doing rail trucks', which persisted into the days of British Rail.

It was connected by a spur from the main line (already on a viaduct) which started just east and south of Pinchin and Johnson's 1858 factory and ran beside Pinchin Street curving north into the depot crossing Back Church Lane on a bridge at its junction with Pinchin Street (East abutment still visible) and further north over Hooper Street (low building about where the bridge would have been). The line of the railway is plain today with the curving line of arches on the south side of Pinchin Street. There was a further 'marshalling spur' from that loop also on the viaduct. This means that the railway entered the building at first floor level.

I understand from older lorry drivers that railway trucks were lowered on some form of lift and manoeuvred with a capstan (one very old driver thought he also remembered a horse being used) alongside a loading bank to discharge goods to be stored or transferred to road vehicles for delivery and reloaded with the 'smalls' for Tilbury Dock brought in by carriers. They also recalled a ramp leading to the upper floor for road vehicles. Eric says he remembers trucks being hauled across Hooper Street, so it is possible the railway hired extra storage as even today there is an old building with arches (now windows) at ground level which could have been a warehouse, although the 1891 map shows this an open yard.'

Rocky, Debs pointed out in another thread somewhere that the man with Jackson was named Faircloth, not Fairclough.

[Dane_F]

Yeah, the bit about buoyancy was a late after thought. But if the bodies were kept for any length of time before disposal, then a build-up of gas could still be an issue....as it were. Perhaps ventilating the corpse in this way would prevent it making any untoward noises as he worked on it?

From my understanding of the autopsy the Pinchin St Torso wasn't in any great state of decay. Liz Jackson was missing if I remember correctly just 2 days. From all indications whoever the killer was seemed to have a decent turnaround time on torso victims.

[RockySullivan]

From my understanding of the autopsy the Pinchin St Torso wasn't in any great state of decay. Liz Jackson was missing if I remember correctly just 2 days. From all indications whoever the killer was seemed to have a decent turnaround time on torso victims.

Not so with the whitehall torso though, reports vary but the torso was badly decayed and rotting full of maggots.


Jerry, great research, How late did the trains run? i missed that about fairclough. I still think theres something suspicious about her boyfriend though, the black eyes, its just strange. I wonder if debs has looked into his background much?

[Dane_F]

Not so with the whitehall torso though, reports vary but the torso was badly decayed and rotting full of maggots.


Jerry, great research, How late did the trains run? i missed that about fairclough. I still think theres something suspicious about her boyfriend though, the black eyes, its just strange. I wonder if debs has looked into his background much?

Hi Rocky, when I said the killer appeared to have a decent turn around time I was referring to the time between killing and dumping. The Whitehall torso appeared to have been there awhile based on the arm being covered in the dirt and the workers appear to have just missed the torso. I should have made my statement more clear however.


Jerry, this research in great. I saw your post in a thread on the other forum and even if that vein of reasoning was slightly off with the metro, I still thought it had great potential when you compare the railway lines to where victims were found.

Have you been able to find any maps of the railway system? I have looked but what I have found is confusing for a person not familiar with Lodon.