Same motive = same killer

[jerryd]

Gareth,

Sorry, it is post #2799

[curious]

I'm waiting for Debs. Hopefully she will write a torso book, someday.

Understood. She does incredible work so a book by her would be well received, I'm sure.

[jerryd]

Very interesting; thank you

Maybe you can find some Danish reports on this stuff, Kattrup?

[Abby Normal]

I'm waiting for Debs. Hopefully she will write a torso book, someday.

Bingo! The torso book has yet to be written and I keep hoping and asking Debs if shes going to go for it-hope she does!!


Ive had some time to kill and I started reading this thread from the beginning and its a cracking good read! Lots of good insight, research, theories etc. on either side and I look forward to when the book on the torsos and or torso/ripper possible link will be written. Its time.

[curious]

I understand how the Ripper must be legally regarded as possibly having gone furthest in premeditation."

But hey, if that is not up for grabs, a blessed heart is not all that bad either.

I "bless your heart" -- for many reasons.

To me, this is an Internet forum, where people from around the world can engage in an exchange of ideas --- for fun, entertainment, education, and well, probably as many different reasons as there are members.

It appears that to you this is a legal place. Why? How? It would be in a police station, after an arrest has been made, that charges of premeditation would be considered as part of a list. We are not police, but ordinary people engaged (hopefully for my interests) in a "discussion."

On this forum are people of all ages, all walks of life and from around the world. We spend leisure time here, learning and sparking ideas off each other -- when allowed.

Are you aware that words and phrases have subtle nuances that vary by location? When you insist on telling people they MUST think this or think that, MUST word something exactly the way you want/need it worded, you appear not to comprehend that. How often do you find yourself accusing people of "twisting" something? Lighten up. You don't have to try to annihilate everyone. We're not opponents here.

Many times, I've read your "debates" (a nasty word -- debate) and considered that you and the person you were attempting to destroy were actually on the same page, just a nuance away. A "debate" is acrimonious by nature as you attempt to score points off "an opponent" and crush them. I refused to join the debate team when invited at university, and I certainly refuse to "debate" now. Life's just too short.

A discussion is a free-wheeling exchange of ideas among friends and acquaintances. It is invigorating and people leave with good feelings.

I get the impression that these boards, while necessary for your research (and other things), bring you a great deal of pain. That's where the "blessing your heart" comes in.

I suggest that if you would allow "discussion" instead of insisting on "debate" your life would become much better.

Just my two cents, undoubtedly colored with Tennessee nuances.

curious

[Sam Flynn]

Gareth,

Sorry, it is post #2799

Thanks, Jerry. Unfortunately, the article in question refers to a letter threatening a murder in Great Yarmouth, not London... although it is amusing that the hoaxer chose Dorset Street as his address. That said, Dorset Street had previously been mentioned in a bad light in the national press* so it was already in the public domain as a place of ill-repute and linked to the murders. At any rate, given that the letter was dated 2nd November 1888 and was received, unstamped, by the Great Yarmouth police on the very same day, it's almost certain that it was written in Great Yarmouth, not Spitalfields.

(* e.g. letter to The Times, 29th Sept 1888: "Let an experiment be made in Dorset-street, Flower-and-Dean-street, and Thrawl-street, places made notorious in connexion with the recent Whitechapel murders...")

[Fisherman]

Such stringent logic, very admirable.

Let’s try that on another argument:

the fact of the matter is that we know that the Ripper victims were murdered and we don´t know that the Torso “victims” were.

Or:

the fact of the matter is that we know that the Ripper existed (even if we cannot be certain of his total number of victims) and we don´t know that the Torso killer did.

Yes, Kattrup, that works in the exact same way. The fact that we know that the people we call Ripper victims were murdered while we don´t know that for sure in the Torso cases, means that legally we are more certain that the Ripper was a killer than the Torso Man was.

Not sure why you bring that up, though.

The idea that we know that the Ripper existed is somewhat wrong, if we work from the idea that the Ripper was a serial killer. All we know is that people were killed in a fashion that speaks for a serial killer being at large. For the Ripper to "have existed", we must have a murder series tied to him, and we really do not have that. 99,9 per cent accept that there was a sort of series like that, but that does not mean it becomes true.

Similarly, very many things tie the Torso victims together, albeit we are less certain that they were actually killed.

Were you thinking that I would not acknowledge this? Or what was the general idea? I pointed out to Curious that there are other ways of looking on the different levels of planning within the perceived series, since she seemingly belives that the Torso man was a planner and the Ripper a spur of the moment killer. Do you have a problem with my doing that, Kattrup?

[Fisherman]

This Metropolitan Board of Works stuff is interesting in its own right, and arguably deserves its own thread. It would be a pity to see all this info buried amidst the "yes he was/no he wasn't" ping-pong of the Torso/Ripper discussions.

Ping. No pong worth mentioning. Otherwise agreed; the Board of Works angle is highly interesting.

[Fisherman]

It very strongly suggests these are not predictions and that the I for many is involved .


STEVE

If you are saying what I think you may be saying, I agree.

[Fisherman]

I keep seeing people post that the torso victims might not have been murdered.
How is this possible?

That owes to how possibilities are methodically pitched against likelihoods out here, as if they were equal entities. It´s called Ripperology.

[Fisherman]

I "bless your heart" -- for many reasons.

1. To me, this is an Internet forum, where people from around the world can engage in an exchange of ideas --- for fun, entertainment, education, and well, probably as many different reasons as there are members.

2. It appears that to you this is a legal place. Why? How? It would be in a police station, after an arrest has been made, that charges of premeditation would be considered as part of a list. We are not police, but ordinary people engaged (hopefully for my interests) in a "discussion."

3. On this forum are people of all ages, all walks of life and from around the world. We spend leisure time here, learning and sparking ideas off each other -- when allowed.

4. Are you aware that words and phrases have subtle nuances that vary by location? When you insist on telling people they MUST think this or think that, MUST word something exactly the way you want/need it worded, you appear not to comprehend that. How often do you find yourself accusing people of "twisting" something? Lighten up. You don't have to try to annihilate everyone. We're not opponents here.

5. Many times, I've read your "debates" (a nasty word -- debate) and considered that you and the person you were attempting to destroy were actually on the same page, just a nuance away. A "debate" is acrimonious by nature as you attempt to score points off "an opponent" and crush them. I refused to join the debate team when invited at university, and I certainly refuse to "debate" now. Life's just too short.

6. A discussion is a free-wheeling exchange of ideas among friends and acquaintances. It is invigorating and people leave with good feelings.

7. I get the impression that these boards, while necessary for your research (and other things), bring you a great deal of pain. That's where the "blessing your heart" comes in.

8. I suggest that if you would allow "discussion" instead of insisting on "debate" your life would become much better.

9. Just my two cents, undoubtedly colored with Tennessee nuances.

curious

I took the liberty to number your points, to facilitate answering.

1. Yes, I agree.

2. I argued that in a legal sense, the Ripper must be regarded as possibly the more premeditating man. That does not mean that I regard the boards as a legal place, only that my argument is based on the legal angle of the matter.

3. So do I. But I am sometimes disallowed to make the simplest of arguments without having people tell me that I should not always try to have things "my way". On other occasions, I am told that I am twisting the truth, or that I am peddling falsities - and then when I ask for evidence, it goes all silent. Or I am told that I am "overconfident" - meaning that somebody disagrees with me and is so confident that their disagreement is sound that my argument must be overconfident.

4. Of course you are opponents. But that is as it should be. And I don´t tell you what you must think - I can however say that I personally am of the meaning that something must be this or that.

5. I think it is up to everybody on a free forum to decide for themselves how they want to debate/discuss. I have no wish to destroy anyone, though. It has of course been stated from many people over the years that those who speak for the Lechmere theory are subjected to a lot of unfair and unwarranted punishment. But this criticism is often met with answers like "Oh, but have you seen how bad they behave themselves?"
I find that very much bad blood is involved at times, and I am not prepared to take responsibility for it all on my own, I´m afraid. It would have been nice if it was not like this, but it seems it is a problem with no real solution.

6. Some discussions are like that, others are not. Swopping the term debate for discussion may not work magic. It´d be nice if it did, though.

7. A great deal of pain? No, Curious. I am quite fine, thank you. If there is any feeling I would like to get rid of, it is one of sadness, owing to how far too much of the space out here is invested in discussing the person who posts rather than WHAT he posts. Which this here discussion between you and me is a prime example of. We SHOULD be discussing whether it is a proven thing that the Torso man was more of a planner and carried out much more work than the Ripper did, but instead we are discussing me, whether I am in pain, whether I understand nuances of words and so on.
I find that sad, as I said.

8. And here we go again - you are advicing me how to make a better life for myself. Isn´t that odd? I am not doing that to you, am I? I am not dissecting you psychologically or problemizing your take on Ripperology.
If you could extend me the courtesy of not trying to get inside my head but instead arguing/discussing/debating/talking about the case and it´s many angles, I can more or less promise you that you will find me much more content with my life.

9. Just my answer, possibly coloured by my Swedish heritage.

[John Wheat]

I keep seeing people post that the torso victims might not have been murdered.
How is this possible?

Hi Abby

Its an absolutely ridiculous theory.

Cheers John

[Sam Flynn]

I keep seeing people post that the torso victims might not have been murdered.

Its an absolutely ridiculous theory.

I agree that this would be extremely unlikely to be true of them all, however it's not inconceivable that not every victim had been murdered. One or more could have been victims of manslaughter, and were disposed of in order to cover things up, which would incidentally be congruent with the idea that the heads were disposed of separately in order to delay or entirely prevent identification.

Be that as it may, even if they were all murdered, we don't know precisely how. A different method, or combination of methods, could have been used in each case and it is entirely possible that most/none of them were dispatched by having their throats slit. (And I mean throats, too.)

[Sam Flynn]

Ping. No pong worth mentioning. Otherwise agreed; the Board of Works angle is highly interesting.

They did a grand job, Fish, that's for sure.

[Fisherman]

I agree that this would be extremely unlikely to be true of them all, however it's not inconceivable that not every victim had been murdered. One or more could have been victims of manslaughter, and were disposed of in order to cover things up, which would incidentally be congruent with the idea that the heads were disposed of separately in order to delay or entirely prevent identification.

Be that as it may, even if they were all murdered, we don't know precisely how. A different method, or combination of methods, could have been used in each case and it is entirely possible that most/none of them were dispatched by having their throats slit. (And I mean throats, too.)

To me, much as I am the first to acknowledge that one or more of the torso victims may not have been the victim/s of murder, I think that very much speaks for murder.

There are so many commonalities inbetween the 1887-89 cases and there is Hebbert saying that what he saw was in all probability a series produced by the same man, going on the damage done and the technical aspects of the cutting, that we would be wrong not to accept this as the by far most likely thing. Plus, of course, the more dismemberers we suggest in the same space and time, the less likely we are to be correct.

If we are to speculate that one or more of the cases where not murder, then we must accordingly also accept that the person responsible for the dismemberments sometimes killed and on other occasions he only cut up corpses he had not killed himself. That is an awkward suggestion, albeit of course not an impossible one.

Then again, in unsolved cases, just about anything is possible. What I would warn against, though, is to think that a possibility is the same as a likelihood. It is not.

The more probable thing is that the 1887-89 torsos were victims of murder, all of them.

The more probable thing is that they were all killed by the same man.

That is the likelihood of these matters.

There are other possibilities, but they are less likely, in varying degrees.