Same motive = same killer

[Fisherman]

Hello Fisherman. I thought #5 was interesting; it reminded me of Roy Demeo. He was an American mafia enforcer from the 70s whose signature method of murder was dismemberment and disposal in and around the New York City area. Classifying him as a serial killer will depend on your own definition but, by some accounts, he and his crew accounted for over 200 murders. His method of dismemberment came to be known as The Gemini Method; and, it was inspired and refined by him based on his early training as a butcher. One point in the procedure caught my attention; how, after shooting the person in the head, another member would stab the person in the heart to stop it from pumping blood (which brought Marta Tabram's murder to mind); after that point, they would bleed and dismember the body He also found that, once the neck had been cut down to the bone, breaking off the head was as easy as snapping a pencil in two. And he also shared a similar quality of wanting to parcel the dismembered parts.

What I can't seem to classify about him is if any of this served a paraphilia, or a savage power lust, or an intimidation device, or an egomania, or a "rational" service provided to his particular industry, or....

The ideal mobster handyman would be a guy who enjoyed doing what DeMeo did, of course. If he didn´t, then although he is a serial killer technically, he becomes more uninteresting in the kind of context we are normally exploring, since he did not kill for the killing.

[Fisherman]

Of course, Jack/The Torso killer did arguably not kill for the killing either, but instead to gain access to bodies.
What I meant to say is that DeMeo may just have been somebody who killed to carry out orders, and not on account of any urge.

[harry]

Fisherman,
Being as you cannot answer the last question I posed,here are a couple more.
What is needed to secure a conviction in a murder case?
What is the primary element needed to be proven in a murder case?
They apply to the ripper and torso crimes.
A knowledgeable? person such as yourself ought to be able to answer.

[Sam Flynn]

Of course, Jack/The Torso killer did arguably not kill for the killing either, but instead to gain access to bodies.

Jack the Ripper killed specifically to gain access to what was inside the body. This appears to have been a secondary and by no means consistent concern in the torso cases, and was quite probably of no interest to the perpetrators at all.

[Fisherman]

Fisherman,
Being as you cannot answer the last question I posed,here are a couple more.
What is needed to secure a conviction in a murder case?
What is the primary element needed to be proven in a murder case?
They apply to the ripper and torso crimes.
A knowledgeable? person such as yourself ought to be able to answer.

No, those are far too difficult questions for me to comprehend. Sorry, Harry. You win.

[Fisherman]

Jack the Ripper killed specifically to gain access to what was inside the body. This appears to have been a secondary and by no means consistent concern in the torso cases, and was quite probably of no interest to the perpetrators at all.

I will amend this as best as I can:

Jack the Ripper certainly seems to have taken a great deal of interest in the abdominal cavity and it´s different organs.

Then again, he ALSO cut necks, so we cannot be sure that he killed "specifically" to gain access to the innards.

I agree with you that it looks like the probable thing, but I don´t agree that it has been established beyond doubt.

When you come to the Torso killer, you grade things down and say that it "appears" to you that it was a secondary concern in the Torso cases.

Well, Gareth, what appears to be A can be B, and I think that we must look at this a bit more carefully before we decide.

I have said before that my take on things is that the Ripper murders were Torso murders light. I think that is precisely on the money, to be fair.

The torso killer had time and seclusion, or so it seems at least.

The Ripper had neither in any rich measures - on the contrary, he will have been hard pressed for time BECAUSE he had no seclusion.

The more seclusion he has (the Hanbury Street backyard, Millers Court), the further he goes. But even in these localities, it applies that he had only a knife to hand.

There were notches in the spines of Chapman and Kelly, and it was suggested that he tried to take the heads off. If had had a saw, then maybe he could and would have done so.

With the Rainham victim, the Whitehall victim and Jackson, he sawed through the spine, after having used a knife to cut the soft parts. Maybe he would not have taken the heads off if he had had no saw?

With the Pinchin Street victim, he does take the head off with the knife and Hebbert tells us that this was his most skilful dismemberment; he had evolved and learnt along the way.

So there you are - it suddenly fits this way.

Back now to whether the Ripper mainly wanted to get into his victims - and whether the Torso man didn´t want to this other than on certain occasions.

To begin with: a paraphilia is a paraphilia. If the Torso murderer had wanted to get into the bodies and take out organs more than anything else, then we will not be able to explain why he did not eviscerate the Pinchin Street torso, right?

Therefore, the conclusion can be one only: this was not his primary OR only aim. He either had another agenda OR he had an agenda that put cutting a woman open on par with other measures.

This is what the evidence tells us.

And the Ripper? Well, in his case, we know that he ALSO opened up women and took out organs - on occasion. Not always. Our guess that he would have, given the chance, must remain a guess only.

Nor can we know whether he would have dismembered, given the time. He had no saw, and he had very little time on his hands. But he DID leave traces that made the medicos agree that it seemed as if had tried to take Chapmans and Kellys heads off.

The Torso killer knew how to dismember at the joints by means of knife. But he may not have been aware about how to take the head off with the knife - until he found out with the Pinchin Street victim. There is no joint in the spine.

If we look at the kind of paraphilia that the combined killer may have suffered from and don´t lock ourselves onto the exact apparition of the various victims (which would be the wrong thing to do, since they suffered various damage, all of them), we can se that it could all have been about deconstructing the human body. Taking parts out. Cutting limbs off. Disassembling women.

And in both cases, we seem to be dealing with what is recognized as a necro-sadist, somebody who inflicts horrific damage to the dead body.

Plus both men curiously cut away the abdominal flesh (more disassembling) from victims.

In Kellys case, there was so much disassembled that he had to use a table to pile it up on.

He opens up women, and he cuts away the abdominal wall, laying the innards open to the viewer - this is what it looks inside a woman, come and see! And THIS part can be lifted out, and THAT part can be taken off and removed, and THESE parts...

The two men are so, so close. We should be thankful for the clear evidence and the many rare similarities, and far from denying them and offering far-fetched alternative explanations, far from substituting the very clear likelihood with some hastily brewed up suggestion, we should say "Thank you very much, we now know so very much more about who this monster of a man was and what drove him. From now on, we have a better chance of identifying him than we have ever had before!"

It´s the similarities, Gareth. The dissimilarities must always be there, but as you see they can be easily overcome. In the end, the bits of this puzzle will only fit in one way. That was always so, and it will be no different this time.

[Abby Normal]

Jack the Ripper killed specifically to gain access to what was inside the body. This appears to have been a secondary and by no means consistent concern in the torso cases, and was quite probably of no interest to the perpetrators at all.

Hi sam

Jack the Ripper killed specifically to gain access to what was inside the body.

for the most part this is true, but it wasn't specifically just for that. we see him attacking the face with eddowes and Kelly, and with Kelly he was also doing things like cutting off the breasts and flaying the thigh. Theres more going on here than just the internal organs.

This appears to have been a secondary and by no means consistent concern in the torso cases, and was quite probably of no interest to the perpetrators at all.

[/QUOTE]

again, for the most part true. But again, torsoman is removing internal organs with Jackson and whitehall, targeting the face (1874) etc. and mutilating the body, specifically the abdomen with victims more than what was needed just for dismemberment.

Theres overlap there between the two, and again could be explained by the killers circumstances-ie not having his usual chop shop and or a saw with the ripper victims.

[harry]

Fisherman,
Congratulations,your last post to me contains the only fact that can be demonstrated to be true.

[jerryd]

Fisherman,
Congratulations,your last post to me contains the only fact that can be demonstrated to be true.

Hi Harry,

The chief object of the coroners's jury was to determine if or not the death was due to a criminal act. In the case of the Pinchin torso, for example, the jury would have been presented with the following evidence from the examining doctors (Clarke and Phillips).

Dr. Phillips-

THE CORONER. - Is there anything to show where the loss of blood occurred? - Not in the remains; but the supposition that presents itself to my mind is that there was a former incision of the neck, which had disappeared with the subsequent separation of the head.
THE CORONER. - The loss of blood could not have come from either the lungs of the stomach? -Certainly not the stomach, and I could not trace any sign of its coming from the lungs. I have a strong opinion that it did not.
[Coroner] The woman did not die of phthisis? - There was no tubercle, but the top part of the lung was diseased. The draining of the blood from the body was such that it must have been a main artery that was severed? - Undoubtedly; and was almost as thorough as it could be although not so great as I have seen in some cases of cut throats.

In my opinion the woman had never been pregnant. I believe her to have been under 40 years of age. There was an absence of any particular disease or poison. I believe that death arose from loss of blood.

Dr. Clarke-

On the back there were four bruises, all caused before death. There was one over the spine, on a level with the lower part of the shoulder blade. It was about the size of a shilling. An inch lower down there was a similar bruise, about the middle of the back, also on the spine, and that was a bruise about the size of a half-a-crown. On the level of the top of the hip bone was a bruise 2 1/2ins. in diameter. It was such a bruise as would be caused by a fall or a kick. None of the bruises were of old standing.

On the right arm there were eight distinct bruises and seven on the left, all of them caused before death and of recent date. The back of both forearms and hands were much bruised.

The bruises on the right arm were such as would be caused by the arms having been tightly grasped.

The Coroner-

The CORONER, in summing up, observed that they had not been able to produce any evidence as to the identity of the deceased, but the evidence of both medical gentlemen engaged in the case clearly showed that the unfortunate woman had died a violent death.

The Verdict in this case was Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown. The government could have and has in other cases quashed the verdict of the jury if they didn't feel it came to the correct conclusion. This didn't happen in this case. This jury concluded the woman was murdered based on the evidence.

My question to you is this, why do YOU think the jury got it wrong? I believe you have said in this thread that we can't know for sure if these women were murdered. Maybe so, but isn't there pretty good evidence from the doctors above that the most likely cause of death here was murder? Seems to me she was beaten pretty badly by the bruising evidence and her neck vessels were most probably severed causing blood loss and death. She had never been pregnant (in the opinion of the Dr. Phillips) so probably not a back street abortion.

[Fisherman]

Hi Harry,

The chief object of the coroners's jury was to determine if or not the death was due to a criminal act. In the case of the Pinchin torso, for example, the jury would have been presented with the following evidence from the examining doctors (Clarke and Phillips).

Dr. Phillips-

THE CORONER. - Is there anything to show where the loss of blood occurred? - Not in the remains; but the supposition that presents itself to my mind is that there was a former incision of the neck, which had disappeared with the subsequent separation of the head.
THE CORONER. - The loss of blood could not have come from either the lungs of the stomach? -Certainly not the stomach, and I could not trace any sign of its coming from the lungs. I have a strong opinion that it did not.
[Coroner] The woman did not die of phthisis? - There was no tubercle, but the top part of the lung was diseased. The draining of the blood from the body was such that it must have been a main artery that was severed? - Undoubtedly; and was almost as thorough as it could be although not so great as I have seen in some cases of cut throats.

In my opinion the woman had never been pregnant. I believe her to have been under 40 years of age. There was an absence of any particular disease or poison. I believe that death arose from loss of blood.

Dr. Clarke-

On the back there were four bruises, all caused before death. There was one over the spine, on a level with the lower part of the shoulder blade. It was about the size of a shilling. An inch lower down there was a similar bruise, about the middle of the back, also on the spine, and that was a bruise about the size of a half-a-crown. On the level of the top of the hip bone was a bruise 2 1/2ins. in diameter. It was such a bruise as would be caused by a fall or a kick. None of the bruises were of old standing.

On the right arm there were eight distinct bruises and seven on the left, all of them caused before death and of recent date. The back of both forearms and hands were much bruised.

The bruises on the right arm were such as would be caused by the arms having been tightly grasped.

The Coroner-

The CORONER, in summing up, observed that they had not been able to produce any evidence as to the identity of the deceased, but the evidence of both medical gentlemen engaged in the case clearly showed that the unfortunate woman had died a violent death.

The Verdict in this case was Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown. The government could have and has in other cases quashed the verdict of the jury if they didn't feel it came to the correct conclusion. This didn't happen in this case. This jury concluded the woman was murdered based on the evidence.

My question to you is this, why do YOU think the jury got it wrong? I believe you have said in this thread that we can't know for sure if these women were murdered. Maybe so, but isn't there pretty good evidence from the doctors above that the most likely cause of death here was murder? Seems to me she was beaten pretty badly by the bruising evidence and her neck vessels were most probably severed causing blood loss and death. She had never been pregnant (in the opinion of the Dr. Phillips) so probably not a back street abortion.

A very succinct compilation, covering the errand in an admirable manner. I agree with just about everything you say here, although I think the bruising may have been more a question of constraint and perhaps some tussle than of any bad beating.

No doubt, Harry will accept it too and move on.

[Sam Flynn]

I think the bruising may have been more a question of constraint and perhaps some tussle than of any bad beating.

Repeated constraint, by the looks of it, unless whoever did the restraining had eight fingers on one hand and seven on the other. The bruises elsewhere seem to indicate that she was kicked whilst she was down.

No doubt, Harry will accept it too and move on.

A bit too soon to move on, given that this only relates to one case. What of the others?

[Fisherman]

Repeated constraint, by the looks of it, unless whoever did the restraining had eight fingers on one hand and seven on the other. The bruises elsewhere seem to indicate that she was kicked whilst she was down.

The bruising was concentrated mainly to the arms, Gareth. That is where constraint is normally applied. If he gripped her hard once, let her go and took a new grip, well then: there you have it.

The other bruising may have come about as a result of for example a fall. Which is very often the result of a tussle. Stride got bruised too, quite possibly in the tussle she had with BS man.

Bad beatings do not look like this. Much as there was bruising, it was indicative of her having been beaten up severely. That is all I am saying, and I have good reason to do so.

Do YOU think it looks as if she has been really badly beaten up? Imagine, if you will, this scenario: The killer takes her into a house, and grabs her from behind by the arms, and forces her forward. She resists, and wriggles free, so the killer gets an even firmer hold of her, forces her to a door, lets his grip go, and kicks her in the back into the room, resulting in her having a fall.

Is that a bad beating up, or constraint and a tussle?

A bit too soon to move on, given that this only relates to one case. What of the others?

Yes, what of them?

[Harry D]

The lack of evisceration/excision in the Pinchin St torso is problematic for the one killer theory. Was the abdominal wound and disposal in Whitechapel an attempt to mislead the authorities into pinning this on the Ripper? Again, we don't know what mission the killer was on when he was removing organs and limbs, but why would he remove organs from street victims when there was less time and more pressure, and not ones killed in private?

[Sam Flynn]

The bruising was concentrated mainly to the arms, Gareth. That is where constraint is normally applied.

I'm not disputing that; my point was simply that the bruises suggest that she was repeatedly restrained.

Bad beatings do not look like this. Much as there was bruising, it was indicative of her having been beaten up severely. That is all I am saying, and I have good reason to do so.

I'm not saying that she was severely beaten up, either, but she does seem to have been roughly treated and repeatedly restrained. Could this indicate rape? Could this indicate more than one perpetrator working together? (i.e. one holding the arms, the other doing... other stuff).

[Re the other cases] Yes, what of them?

The info Jerry posted only tells us about Pinchin Street, which might give us some useful pointers as to what happened before the victim died. It would be good to know if similar details exist for the other victims.

[Fisherman]

The lack of evisceration/excision in the Pinchin St torso is problematic for the one killer theory. Was the abdominal wound and disposal in Whitechapel an attempt to mislead the authorities into pinning this on the Ripper? Again, we don't know what mission the killer was on when he was removing organs and limbs, but why would he remove organs from street victims when there was less time and more pressure, and not ones killed in private?

But he DID remove organs from the ones killed in private - Jackson lost her womb, her lungs and her heart. And the Whitehall torso was lacking organs, certainly the uterus. The Rainham victim was cut up through the sternum and all the way down, and her lungs and heart were missing.

However, we know that he did NOT take any organs out from the Pinchin Street victim - and so the only deduction must be that if she belonged - and Hebbert is emphatic that she did - then it is apparent that we should not claim that murders with no evisceration cannot be by the same man who eviscerated in other cases.

Putting it differently, although eviscerating was on his agenda, he also did other things that were not eviscerating.

He cut off nosetips.
He cut away breasts.
He flayed a thigh and cut meat from buttocks.
He cut away a face from the skull.
He cut meat from the abdominal wall.
Last, but not least, he cut limbs and heads from victims.

The general idea seems to be not one of taking out organs, but instead one of disassembling women. Taking them into pieces, as it were.

The lacking heads in the Torso series are also of interest against the backdrop of the 1873 torso, of the Tottenham torso, Eddowes and Kelly. In all of these cases parts of the faces were taken away - or the WHOLE of the face. It may be that he cut away parts of the faces from the victims where the head was never found, we cannot tell.

But we CAN tell that - as Abby put it - there was more going on than just evisceration.