Same motive = same killer

[Sam Flynn]

Sam what are you suggesting? Parts of the same victim were dumped in the Thames and at the Shelley estate.

I was speaking about the torso murders as a whole. In specific cases, why not go for a wide scatter, if that further decreased the possibility of all the parts being found and an identification being made? (As a parallel, I got a new payment card yesterday and chopped up my old one. As I've always done, I put some of the pieces in my domestic trash, and dropped off the other pieces in various public rubbish bins when I went on my evening walk. Not because I'm a criminal mastermind, but because I'm a bit paranoid about security )

[RockySullivan]

I just wanted to ask again, can someone explain why the uterus was specifically mentioned by Dr. Bond as absent if the entire pelvis was removed?

[Sam Flynn]

I just wanted to ask again, can someone explain why the uterus was specifically mentioned by Dr. Bond ad being removed?

He didn't specifically mention the uterus, but referred to the "pelvic viscera", and apparently clarified what he meant for the benefit of his audience: "that includes the rectum, uterus and bladder". Quite what he meant by "includes" is anyone's guess, as there's not much else, unless he omitted to mention the fallopian tubes, ovaries and vagina for the sake of brevity.

[RockySullivan]

From the daily telegraph:


Mr. Thomas Bond: I am a surgeon, and reside at the Sanctuary, Westminster Abbey. On Oct. 2, shortly before four o’clock, I was called to the new police buildings, where I was shown the decomposed trunk of a body. It was then lying in the basement partially unwrapped. I visited the place where it had been discovered, and found that the wall against which it had lain was stained black. The parcel seemed to have been there for several days, and it was taken to the mortuary that evening, and the remains placed in spirits. On the following morning, assisted by my colleague, I made an examination. The trunk was that of a woman of considerable stature and well nourished. The head had been separated from the trunk by means of a saw. The lower limbs and the pelvis had been removed in the same way. The length of the trunk was 17 inches, and the circumference of the chest 35½ inches and the waist 28½ inches. The parts were decomposed , and we could not discover any wounds. The breasts were large and prominent. The arms had been removed at the shoulder joints by several incisions, the cuts having apparently been made obliquely from above downwards, and then around the arm. Over the body were clearly defined marks, where string had been tied. It appeared to have been wrapped up in a very skilful manner. We did not find marks indicating that the woman had borne any children. On opening the chest we found that the rib cartilages were not ossified, that one lung was healthy, but that the left lung showed signs of severe pleurisy. The substance of the heart was healthy, and there were indications that the woman had not died either of suffocation or of drowning. The liver and stomach, kidneys and spleen were normal. The uterus was absent. There were indications that the woman was of mature age - twenty-four or twenty-five years. She would have been large and well nourished, with fair skin and dark hair. The date of death would have been from six weeks to two months, and the decomposition occurred in the air, not the water. I subsequently examined the arm brought to the mortuary. It was the arm of a woman, and accurately fitted to the trunk; and the general contour of the arm corresponded to that of the body. The fingers were long and taper, and the nails well shaped; and the hand was quite that of a person not used to manual labour.
[Coroner]Was there anything to indicate the cause of death? - Nothing whatever.
[Coroner]Could you tell whether death was sudden or lingering? - All I can say is that death was not by suffocation or drowning. Most likely it was from haemorrhage or fainting.
[Coroner]Can you give any indication of the probable height of the woman? - From our measurements we believed the height to have been 5ft 8in. That opinion depends more upon the measurements of the arm than those of the trunk itself.
[Coroner]Was the woman stout? - Not very stout, but thoroughly plump; fully developed, but not abnormally fat. The inference is that she was a tall, big woman. The hand was long, and was the hand of a woman not accustomed to manual labour.
[Coroner]Did the hand show any sign of refinement? - I do not know that a hand of that kind is always associated with any refinement of mind or body, but certainly it was a refined hand.

http://www.casebook.org/official_documents/inquests/inquest_whitehall.html

[Fisherman]

Isn't that over-dramatising things just a little, Fish? People have been dumping body parts in rivers for centuries, and it still happens. In each case, the aim is invariably to dispose of evidence, not to shock people with some macabre, aquatic version of a sushi conveyor-belt.

If I am wrong, it is overdramatizing. If I am right, it is nothing of the sort.

Yes, people have always dumped body parts in rivers. But we must realize that the typical dumping is that of carrying the riverbank and throwing them in, no ceremonies added whatsoever. We can safely rely on many or the parts being weighted down, and it is easy enough to understand why - the dumper do not want them found.

But the Torso killer didn´t do it like that, did he?

He did NOT weight the parts down, meaning that they WOULD float on the surface, fully visible.

He did not throw the parts in as they were - he wrapped them in cloth, giving floated body parts a special look, easily recognizable to anybody.

When he dumped Jakcksons uterus, the cord, the placenta and the abdominal flaps, he used the latter ones as a further wrapping, tying these pieces together. Can you answer this question: Why did he not simply throw the pieces in one by one? Why did he make a package of it? What practical purpose can you see?
I am not a great fan of Trows book, but he got this correct:
"...the torso killer was not weighing his body parts down; he was placing them in packages he knew would float. This was an important clue, whether the police at the time recognized it or not. Dismemberment was not to conceal and ´lose´body parts - it was to taunt and terrify."
Moving on, this killer did not dump all the parts from a body from the same spot - he chose numerous spots, making sure that the packages would visit as many twists and bends of the river as possible, making the finding of them more likely.
He also dumped them at different times, ensuring even further that this would be the case.
Amazingly, it seems that the police did NOT draw the rather obvious conclusions this called for. Even today, we have posters out here claiming that this was a "discreet" killer! Ouch!!

You have a way with words - and a "sushi conveyor belt" is exactly what the killer produced. His packages, trademark wrapped in cloth, floated by central London for all too see.

[Fisherman]

You could be right there Fish. Then again, have you ever known me to disagree with you

Not that I can remember.

[Sam Flynn]

The liver and stomach, kidneys and spleen were normal. The uterus was absent.

That's taken from a summary report in the Telegraph, not a verbatim transcript of what was actually said. The Morning Advertiser contained the fuller quote: "The lower part of the colon or large bowel and of the pelvic viscera were absent - that includes the uterus, bladder, and rectum".

It pays to look at more than one newspaper source. The Telegraph and Times were particularly susceptible to providing edited summaries of what was said, rather than all the details. In other words, Bond probably never said "the uterus was absent", rather that's likely to have been the journalist's, or his editor's, rolled-up summary.

[RockySullivan]

His packages, trademark wrapped in cloth, floated by central London for all too see.

In my personal opinion the packaging has more to do with the killer's profession than the shock value.

[Fisherman]

Herlock Sholmes: I bet we'd be staggered if we actually knew how many bodies or body parts had vanished into the depths of the Thames over the years.

We would indeed! And why? Because they would to almost a hundred per cent consist of conscious efforts to do anything to make the bodies disappear - they would be bodies with large stones tied to them with lengths of rope, pulling the victims quickly down to the bottom, never to be seen again. an d they would be suitcases, weighted down with whatever material, iron, rocks, and stuffed full with legs, arms, heads, the case being thrown into the water and disappearing for ever, they would be boats discreetely sunk in the depth of night with victims trapped inside them, making their final journey down to the bottom of the river. That is why we would be staggered bu the numbers - so incredibly many, and all of them vanished without a trace.

But when a killer makes every possible effort NOT to make the parts vanish, instead letting them float down the river and be washed up along the shores that won´t happen. Far from making the body parts disappear, the torso killer managed to have almost every part retrieved from various parts of the river and the surrounding town. Not much went lost from the Rainham torso, Jackson or the 1873 victim, all of whom were mainly thrown into the river where so many perpetrators so easily had made so many victims disappear totally.

He WANTED the parts to be found, and he made every effort for it to happen. Gareth puts words on it - he made a sushi conveyor belt of the parts.

[jerryd]

It's more likely that the other parts were washed away and/or never found as intended.

I'm talking about parts that were found, Gareth.

[Joshua Rogan]

Morning Advertiser

"The substance of the heart was healthy, and there was no blood in it, and no staining of the lining membrane of the heart, which is rather an indication that the woman did not die of suffocation or drowning. The liver was normal, and the stomach contained about one ounce of partly digested food. The mucus membrane of the stomach presented nothing abnormal. We noticed no inflammation. The kidneys and spleen were normal, and the small intestines and the part that attaches the intestines to the body were in place and healthy. The lower part of the colon or large bowel and of the pelvic viscera were absent - that includes the uterus, bladder, and rectum. The woman must have been of mature age - at any rate, 24 or 25 years of age. She appeared to be a large, well nourished person, with fair skin and dark hair. The appearance of the breast would indicate that she had not suckled a child."

As you can see, the Telegraph report contains slightly less detail throughout, giving the (false) impression that Bond singled out the uterus as missing.

Perhaps the Telegraph reporter seized on this mention (intentionally or not) as a link to the Ripper killings. Perhaps he just wasn't quite as fast at taking notes.

[Fisherman]

Fish
Which limbs were cut and disjointed and which ones were sawed?

The limbs that were more difficult and complicated to disjoint, that is to say the knee, foot and elbow joints (but for the left arm that was left untouched) were disjointed on the 1873 victim.
The limbs that were toughest to saw off (the thighs and the arms up at the shoulders) were sawn off.

If he had done it the other way, it would nevertheless be odd - killers will choose just the one method, normally. But he did it in the hardest way possible.

That is telling, to my mind.

[RockySullivan]

Fisherman, does weighing body parts down with weights or stone actually work? I think parts were packaged not to attract attention but go unnoticed. The Whitehall workers thought the torso was just a ham. Spreading the parts apart was done so the victims weren't identified and traced back to him. That's my take on it

[Fisherman]

I don't know, seems he didn't want the skulls found doesn't it?

He may have kept the skulls. Dahmer did, planning to make an altar with them in his home.

[RockySullivan]

That's taken from a summary report in the Telegraph, not a verbatim transcript of what was actually said. The Morning Advertiser contained the fuller quote: "The lower part of the colon or large bowel and of the pelvic viscera were absent - that includes the uterus, bladder, and rectum".

It pays to look at more than one newspaper source. The Telegraph and Times were particularly susceptible to providing edited summaries of what was said, rather than all the details. In other words, Bond probably never said "the uterus was absent", rather that's likely to have been the journalist's, or his editor's, rolled-up summary.

Thanks that would explain it. Is it positive this is the correct quote?