Same motive = same killer

[Fisherman]

And the motive for disposal was.... what?

Why would one killer need to dispose of bodies on the one hand, while not caring a tinker's cuss about leaving his victims in situ on the other?

It just doesn't add up.

Of course it adds up. If you store a dead woman in lodgings having your name on the door, you MUST dispose of the body, and it may well be that this calls for dismemberment.

However, in those cases we speak of a defensive dismemberment, and in the torso case, we have - once again if I am correct - a man who WANTED to dismember. It belonged, in part. to the paraphilia.

But regardless if it does, it nevertheless applies that you need to get rid of the body. So what we get is a coctail of defensive and offensive dismemberment - he LIKES doing it and he MUST do it to stay undetected.

The Ripper murders are "light" versions of the torso murders, if you like, where he must act quicker and with less attention to detail. This, however, was not enough to hide his proficency with the knife, as disclosed by Phillips.

So WHY did he do "light" versions? Perhaps because he felt bolder. Perhaps because he could not stop himself, and did not have access to his bolthole. Perhaps because he was looking for more recognition. Or something else. All we can say is that WAS a reason, because the damage done proves beyond reasonable doubt that the same man was responsible.

[Fisherman]

And address, presumably.

So if we have an 1888 killer who cuts the shape of Big Ben into the forehead of a victim in Mayfair, and if the exact same thing happens in Bow three days later, the one and only thing we can conclude is that it must be two different killers?

I see.

[RockySullivan]

Judging by the likely dump-sites, bringing an East End victim to his lair probably entailed a 12-mile trip to Battersea, Pimlico or Clapham. No wonder they refused
Can't you see the amount of excuses and "what-ifs" one has to conjure up in order to force the "Clandestine West London Body-Part Dumper" into the same shoes as the "Open-Air Terror of the East End"?

Did some people work in Whitechapel and live in Battersea? Being completely straight with you all the excuses I see come from the naysayers.

[RockySullivan]

Hi rocky absolutely correct.

FYI. I think you meant to say MO. Disposal of body is part of MO.
The main SIG was post mortem mutilation and removal of body parts.
While SIG can change due to escalation of the fantasy,it’s rare, while change in MO is quite common with serial killers.

I think I meant signature since I was talking about the dismemberment, the way they were killed & then dumped, how they are unidentified.

Look at how different Mary Kelly's murder was from Polly Nichols. It shows the Ripper changed

[Sam Flynn]

Did some people work in Whitechapel and live in Battersea? Being completely straight with you all the excuses I see come from the naysayers.

These aren't excuses, and I'm not a naysayer. There a major differences and few material similarities, and that's the objective truth.

[Fisherman]

I think that if we are going to try and see what we are doing on this thread, we will find two camps.

The camp that is opposed to the idea of a shared identity emphasize what they perceive as differences between the two killers.
The naysayer camp (I have to call you something) thus makes the assumption that Jack was based in or near Whitechapel, that he had no transport, that he was an aggressive killer with aggressive motives, that he was a huge risktaker and that he was always going to be sloppier than the torso killer.
Similarly, they reason that the torso killer was based in the west of London, that he was a careful man, not given to risk, that he had a bolthole away from everything, that he had access to transport and that he was always going to be more clean and careful in his cutting than Jack.

The problem is that these matters are just guesswork. Good and solid guesswork, logical enough - but guesswork nevertheless. Much more information must be aquired before we can fence either man into the kind of spaces that are offered here, and I fear that the restrictions that are imposed by this kind of thinking is detrimentary to the process of a full and viable reasoning.

Let´s present a theoretical case, with two murders of women involved. One of the murders is committed in the western parts of a large town, whereas the other case takes place in the eastern parts of it. There are two weeks between the cases.
In both cases, men have been seen leaving the approximate murder spots at the approximate time for the murders in a hurried fashion. In the western case, the man seen was around 40 years of age, tall and dressed in an expensive suit. In the eastern case, the man seen leaving the approximate murder spot was in his early twenties, dressed in tattered blue jeans and a dirty t-shirt.

What can we conclude from this? Well, we can conclude that both sightings may well have been sightings of the actual killer, and we can also conclude that we are seemingly dealing with two different killers.

Let´s now say that the victims were both stabbed to death, by a series of stabs to the trunk.

What would such a thing tell us?

It would tell us that we need to keep an open mind about the identities of the killer/s. Since the murders were so similar in type, it could well be that one (or two) of the sightings were wrong. The investigation should work from the assumption that it could be either or, and try to find both men. It should also be investigated if the wounds gave away information that could tie the two cases even closer together by means of probable blade width, knife sharpness, depth of the wounds etcetera.

In cases like these, the police are often struggling to make their minds up about how many killers there are at large. The reason is that knifings are not all that rare.

Now let´s change the information. Let´s say that the victims were killed in another fashion. Let´s say that both victims were found with their abdomens cut open from ribs to pubes, and that they had had their uteri removed. Let´s further say that they also had had their abdominal walls cut away in a small number of large skin flaps. And that they had had rings stolen from their fingers in both cases.

What would be the result of this? It would be that the police immediately accepted that at least one of the men observed was NOT the killer, or that the observers were wrong about what they had seen. The evidence would be overwhelmingly in favour of a very rare and peculiar killer being at large, a kind of killer who never surfaces in most towns, but who nevertheless may appear on the map on the rarest of occasions. A killer with a paraphilia that speaks of deep psychiatric disorders. There would be no discussion at all about the possibility of TWO such killers being at large, and for very good reasons.

I think we all can agree on this? Or would anybody object? Clearly, the police would say that they hold all doors ajar, but in reality, they and the press and all of us would be certain that we were dealing with just the one killer.

Nota bene that the victims described - so far - are consistent with Annie Chapman and Liz Jackson.

Now, let´s add a final twist: let´s say that one of the victims was found in pieces, dismembered and dumped, whereas the other one was found in one piece.

How would that change the view of the police? Would they say "the dismemberment changes everything, because it is only present in one of the cases"? Or would they say "It is undoubtedly the same perpetrator, since the damage done is the same and very peculiar at that. The only difference is that one of the bodies was dismembered after the deed"?

They would say the latter, I think there can be little doubt about that.

So what could make them opt for TWO killers? If one of the victims was painted red? No, the damage would be the same nevertheless, and just as odd and peculiar. If one of the victims had had her feet taken away with acid? No, the damage would be the same nevertheless, and just as odd and peculiar. And so on.

We would need to TAKE AWAY some of the damage or alter it substantially before we could reason about two killers. And of course in the Ripper/Torso series, there are many different types of damage, varying from victim to victim.

But Annie Chapman and Liz Jackson alone give the shared identity away, leaving no reasonable doubt.After that, there are many more likenesses distributed among the victims, but they are not necessary to make the call. Chapman and Jackson are enough on their own to conclude from, the rest is just plentyful and interesting corroboration to a significant degree.

The surrounding circumstances are ALWAYS secondary to the damage inflicted, because they are not absolute - we may at times just THINK we are seeing something that is not there. The recorded damage is, however, absolute.

[Fisherman]

I think I meant signature since I was talking about the dismemberment, the way they were killed & then dumped, how they are unidentified.

Look at how different Mary Kelly's murder was from Polly Nichols. It shows the Ripper changed

There are two things to weigh into that comparison, Rocky.

The time aspect - maybe he did to Kelly what he wanted to do to Nichols, but he did not have the time.

The inspiration aspect. Maybe what he did were different exponents of the same desire. If somebody likes the USA he can paint his walls in red and white stripes. Or he can paint it blue, with white stars on it. And although the walls are totally different, they will have the same inspiration ground - the american flag.

I think this is what we are looking at in the two series to a large extent.

[Fisherman]

These aren't excuses, and I'm not a naysayer. There a major differences and few material similarities, and that's the objective truth.

I should apologize in advance for using the term naysayer in my post too, Gareth - it is not meant as any criticism, just as a pointer to you and others saying no to the suggestion of a single killer.

[RockySullivan]

These aren't excuses, and I'm not a naysayer. There a major differences and few material similarities, and that's the objective truth.

I'm not sure I understand how you can see it that way. I'm not even sure what your reason is the killers are different. You are right it's the "objective truth" in Ripperology and it's funny to see how few people have questioned that over the years.

Perhaps the distance between the dump & kill sites is explained by the Metropolitan Board of Works. The Wikipedia says for Whitechapel District says "Until 1889 the district was in the county of Middlesex, but included in the area of the Metropolitan Board of Works. In 1889 the area of the MBW was constituted the County of London, and the district board became a local authority under the London County Council."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Board_of_Works#Embankment

The Wikipedia lists the Victoria Embankment and Battersea Park. Obviously jerryd and others know more about this than me and have already done and posted all this research before.

[Sam Flynn]

I'm not sure I understand how you can see it that way. I'm not even sure what your reason is the killers are different. You are right it's the "objective truth" in Ripperology and it's funny to see how few people have questioned that over the years.

It's not a matter of the objective truth of ripperology, Rocky, but the objective facts of the cases themselves. I'm not making assumptions about the killer(s), whether in terms of psychology or motivation. I'm just looking at the facts: what happened to the victims, where the bodies (or body parts) were found, etc.

Perhaps the distance between the dump & kill sites is explained by the Metropolitan Board of Works.

interesting stuff, but I don't see that municipal boundaries can explain the wide disparity between the apparent focus of one set of crimes versus the other.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I've just finished re-reading MJ Trow's book on The Torso Killings to refresh my memory and I have to say that I just don't see the ripper in these crimes. I think that we can tie ourselves up in knots debating cuts and methods of removing organs but these arguments are surely destined to end nowhere concrete.

The most important element for me is understanding that the ripper did what he did for a reason. He killed his victims and then left them on display in warped, pornographic poses; skirts raised, legs apart. Abdomen and genitals laid to the knife. He wanted/needed everyone to see his work. We don't know if he just hated women or prostitutes in particular but his message was something like 'women are whores,' or 'look what happens to whores when they meet Jack.' He had a motivation/compulsion to do what he did, how he did it.

The TK is different and markedly so. Victims likely to be killed indoors. Almost surgical dismemberment. Parcelling up of body parts. Many dumped where they might never have been found. TK was simply 'disposing' of bodies. No message there. We can't even be certain that the same person killed them and dismembered them.

Jack made no attempt to make his victims almost impossible to identify (he destroyed MJK's face but she was in her own room) but TK did. Why? Who knows but there must have been a reason and we can probably come up with a lengthy list of 'scenarios.' Maybe they were the victims of some form of unofficial/illegal form of medical experiments? Maybe they died in brothels and the madam/brothel owner didn't want the police sniffing around and it was known that someone was willing to make bodies disappear?

I'm not saying that they definately couldn't have been the same man but for me personally this massive difference overrides any other consideration. I just can't see TK and Jack as the same man.

[Fisherman]

Herlock, you and everybody else is invited to the thread "Motive, method and madness - The strange and horrible case of Ruth Jenkins"

Your thoughts will be discussed there, and you will be given the opportunity to follow my reasoning, should that interest you...

[RockySullivan]

I don't see that municipal boundaries can explain the wide disparity between the apparent focus of one set of crimes versus the other.

What is that focus that rules out this being one killer?

[RockySullivan]

The most important element for me is understanding that the ripper did what he did for a reason. He killed his victims and then left them on display in warped, pornographic poses; skirts raised, legs apart. Abdomen and genitals laid to the knife. He wanted/needed everyone to see his work.
The TK is different and markedly so. Victims likely to be killed indoors. Almost surgical dismemberment. Parcelling up of body parts. Many dumped where they might never have been found. TK was simply 'disposing' of bodies. No message there.

I thought you just read the book? The Whitehall torso, the parts dumped at the Shelly estate. How is the pinchin torso's dump site any different from the Ripper's?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I might echo....did you read what I wrote? I didn't mention the dump sites I meant the way that the victims were posed. Completely different.