Same motive = same killer

[Harry D]

If you take Elizabeth Jackson & the Pinchin St torso out of the equation, I could easily accept that the Whitehall torso was probably a one-off murder that coincided near the beginning of the Ripper series. But to have overlap again the following year with Alice McKenzie's murder is too much of a coincidence.

[Herlock Sholmes]

And how would that involve more shock value than having the parts washing ashore along the Thames? Surely, that must be the pertinent question?

What produces more effect? Having a dismembered body or simply a dead body found in an ordinary street - or having the body floating ashore here and there all over London at different times, being found by different people?

He effectively spread the horror over time and space by floating his parts down the river.

I donīt think that you should call my examples ridiculous, by the way. Darryl asked why the killer did not seek maximum shock value, and dumping a torso on the doorstep of Buckingham palace would do just that. If you want to ridicule somebodyīs examples, then maybe you should not ridicule somebody who delivers a suggestion that involves exactly what was asked for.

The former, obviously. Which series of crimes caused the most shock, horror, fear and revulsion, Ripper or Torso?

[Sam Flynn]

Sorry Fish but you keep going on about there needing to be a prior example. There doesn’t. Things happen for the first time; every day of the week.

Besides, there simply have been instances of similar SK's overlapping, never mind "coming even close to what we have in between two series of murders" (Fisherman). What happened in the torso cases and the Ripper series don't "come close" anyway, not even (with one vague exception) geographically.

[Joshua Rogan]

Here's a link between the Jackson and Kelly cases;

"Solomon Hearne, tinman and brazier, whose address was, “living in a tent near a dust-heap on Lammas-land, Townmead-road, Fulham,” stated that on the 7th, about four o'clock in the morning, he found a leg and foot on the shore near Wandsworth Bridge, upon the Middlesex side of the shore."

It's obvious that this man paid a late night visit to Kelly's room, on the pretext of fixing her kettle.

[Sam Flynn]

It's obvious that this man paid a late night visit to Kelly's room, on the pretext of fixing her kettle.

The little tinker!

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby,

To me its very random. If you dump body parts in a river for example you cant be certain that they will emerge. Or theres a chance that they might emerge and remain undiscovered in undergrowth or beneath a disused dock.

The Whitehall Torso is different of course.

Hi HS
and so is pinchin torso, and so is the torso of EJ found on land and her thigh on the shelley estate...

[Abby Normal]

Sorry Fish but you keep going on about there needing to be a prior example. There doesn’t. Things happen for the first time; every day of the week.

HI HS
I'm not sure why you and others are having such a difficult time with this. If there are a lot of examples where two serial killers with the same MO/sig(post mortem mutilation, removal of body parts etc) are operating in the same town at the same time, then it really hurts the argument that these were the same man.

If the opposite is true, which it apparently is, then it helps the case they were the same man.

now add in the fact that this was in the latter part of 1888 when there were hardly any serial killers around compared with today, and it increases the chances significantly.

[Fisherman]

BTW, has anybody ever heard of a "cut-neck razor"?

Didn't think so.

No, I have never heard of such a thing.

Then again, there is no doubt whatsoever that a razor can cut a neck as well as a throat.

So why do we not say so?

Because the colloquial expression about cuts to the region we speak of is "throat-cut".

We can see, for example, how Neil said to Thain "Hereīs a woman who has cut her throat", albeit he would have known that much more than the throat was cut. He could see that she was cut from ear to ear and the gap was one of an inch or two, so there was never any possibility that ONLY her throat was cut.

But you are making the suggestion that the doctors were of the opinion that the killer was aiming for the throat only, that his intention was to cut the throat and not the neck.

I donīt think that this can be substantiated by looking at what the medicos said.

Furthermore, we must reason that the killer had a goal in mind when cutting. So lets ask ourselves what this intention was.

To kill, perhaps? If so, we need to understand that cutting the throat only is not necessarily lethal. Not at all, actually. Peole with cut throats were saved in victorian times and they are saved today.

So if the killer wanted to ensure death, he needed to cut BEYOND the throat. Which he did!

It has also been suggested, and I seem to remember that you agree about it, that the cutting of the vessels may have been to deflect the bloodflow away from the cutter and to bleed the victim.

Neither this nor ensuring death is reached by cutting the throat. So what could have been the killers aim if was set on cutting the throat only? Anu suggestions? Silence? Cutting the neck does that too, adding all the other advantages in the process.

Not that this seems to have been the case that the killer only wanted to cut the throat anyway, since he cut around the whole of the neck and down to the bone, making it a very hard thing to prove that the cutting was only meant to sever the throat.

[Fisherman]

Firstly, near-decapitation didn't happen in every case, and Chapman/Kelly were extremes. Secondly, was "near-decapitation" the cause of their deaths, or did they die of blood loss due to severance of the carotid arteries caused by cutting the throat?

No, because cutting the throat does not damage the arteries. To sever them, you have to cut the neck.
As for Chapman and Kelly being "extremes", Nichols was ALSO cut to the bone. So the extremes seem to make up a majority of the cases.

Nowhere was it said that any victim (then or since) had "died of a cut neck", nor would I have expected anyone to have said so. In all cases apart from Kelly (even more of an extreme case than Chapman), statements that the victims' throats had been cut turn up again and again, by witnesses, policemen and doctors alike.

And neverrtheless, the cut to the neck was what killed them. The doctors DID say that the victims were killed by the severing of the arteries - hidden in the neck, not in the throat.

There is no way out of this, you know, Gareth.

[Fisherman]

Sorry Fish but you keep going on about there needing to be a prior example. There doesn’t. Things happen for the first time; every day of the week.

Not things like these, no. There is nothing trivial about it. And culprits are convicted on account of how crime sites look, for the simple reason that signature elements are deciders in cases like these.

[Fisherman]

The former, obviously. Which series of crimes caused the most shock, horror, fear and revulsion, Ripper or Torso?

I think both series were rather equal in that sense, the Ripper killings being more reported on in the press. But when the Pinchin Street victim was found, there was an outcry in the press that equalled that of the canonical outcries.

Scatering the parts of a victim all over town stretches the fear very wide. If it had been stated by the police and press that it was just the one killer, I have little doubt that the torso deeds would have gotten the same publicity as the Ripper deeds. And evoked just as much fear.

The idea that nobody was disturbed or outraged by dead women being dismembered and floated down the river is not correct. It IS correct, however, to once again point to how dismemerment led the police to automatically speak of a logical, planning and careful person who dismembered on account of practical considerations.

Take that out of the equation, and a monster is born. That monster was never given birth by the police and press. Therefore, this killer was regarded as less of a bogeyman. Which was wrong.

[Fisherman]

Besides, there simply have been instances of similar SK's overlapping, never mind "coming even close to what we have in between two series of murders" (Fisherman). What happened in the torso cases and the Ripper series don't "come close" anyway, not even (with one vague exception) geographically.

Itīs the same town, Gareth. Therefore, it would have been an easily overcome tassk to be the killer in both series. You have spoken of the highway killers as a comparison. They killed all over California, so they would according to your thinking not count, would they?

But what you need to do is not to brag about how you can easily produce parallel examples. You should instead do just that.

But you canīt. I promise.

[Fisherman]

HI HS
I'm not sure why you and others are having such a difficult time with this. If there are a lot of examples where two serial killers with the same MO/sig(post mortem mutilation, removal of body parts etc) are operating in the same town at the same time, then it really hurts the argument that these were the same man.

If the opposite is true, which it apparently is, then it helps the case they were the same man.

now add in the fact that this was in the latter part of 1888 when there were hardly any serial killers around compared with today, and it increases the chances significantly.

Simple.
Logic.
Unbeatable.
Truth.
Fact.

There will be more smoke and mirrors in return, nothing else. Plus the odd remark about how I am overconfident and arrogant.

Waaaaaaiiit for it...

[Fisherman]

I am still waiting for Gareths explanation as to why 99,9999 per cent of the posters on Google got the neck/throat thing wrong, when "we" have always known that the throat was the Rippers true aim.

Why, oh why, does everybody say that he cut necks?

[Jon Guy]

Why, oh why, does everybody say that he cut necks?

I think it goes hand in hand with top hats and fog.