Same motive = same killer

[Fisherman]

Look at the abdomen in the Kelly photographs. Nothing remotely like that happened to any of the torso victims.

But how are we supposed to compare? The Torso victims were divided up in parts and disposed of before the doctors could see them.

I have described before how Liz Jackson may have resembled Mary Kelly quite a lot, before she was dismembered. Bear with me now, and I will offer a possible scenario.
We know that the flaps were irregular in shape, so we must imagine a large hole in her lower abdomen, with irregular linings, quite possibly with the whole abdominal wall down there removed.
Imagine her on her back, with that large gaping hole. Imagine the uterus plucked out and lain beside her, placenta and cord added. Imagine the heart and the lungs taken out and placed beside her body.
Further imagine the flesh from her belly placed on a bedside table, together with the part of the buttock that was cut away from her, just like part of the buttock was cut away on Kelly too.
Imagine that her face was also cut away, more or less - which it may have been. We know the Torso killer cut the face away from the 1873 victim.

This would be very reminiscent of the Kelly murder site. So saying that they were worlds apart is not something that is in evidence at all.

Once we look at the facts only, there are very many similarities, and that is the key to understanding how many killers there were. Once again, to accept two killers is to accept a number of mindblowing similarities as if they were mere coincidences. A dozen of them or so! It´s WAY beyond the realms of sound reasoning.

Such things happen in many fiction books - but not in reality.

[Sam Flynn]

But how are we supposed to compare?

By reading Hebbert's notes with honesty and objectivity.

[Fisherman]

By reading Hebbert's notes with honesty and objectivity.

Please do not imply that I do not do so, Gareth. I am not the one reading the notes and coming away conveniently "forgetting" to mention that Hebbert spoke of "large flaps" as well as of "slips".

I am always making the best effort I can to apply honesty and objectivity, and I think it is a sad order of things when I have it implied otherwise in a discusion that could be much cleaner and factbased - if the will was only there.

Now! Did Hebbert see Jackson before she was cut up in pieces? No.

So how do we know that she was not more or less a twin sister of the Kelly deed before that dismemberment was carried out? In which case your suggestion of two very dissimilar deeds evaporates into thin air. I think the obvious answer is that we cannot know.

Now, can we have a discussion that focuses more on the facts and less on you repeatedly implying that I am not honest? If that is impossible, I would like for you to specify HOW I am dishonest in reading Hebbert. That is the very least you can do if you are not up for a factual discussion.

[Trevor Marriott]

Please do not imply that I do not do so, Gareth. I am not the one reading the notes and coming away conveniently "forgetting" to mention that Hebbert spoke of "large flaps" as well as of "slips".

I am always making the best effort I can to apply honesty and objectivity, and I think it is a sad order of things when I have it implied otherwise in a discusion that could be much cleaner and factbased - if the will was only there.

Now! Did Hebbert see Jackson before she was cut up in pieces? No.

So how do we know that she was not more or less a twin sister of the Kelly deed before that dismemberment was carried out? In which case your suggestion of two very dissimilar deeds evaporates into thin air. I think the obvious answer is that we cannot know.

Now, can we have a discussion that focuses more on the facts and less on you repeatedly implying that I am not honest? If that is impossible, I would like for you to specify HOW I am dishonest in reading Hebbert. That is the very least you can do if you are not up for a factual discussion.

If I may interject in what has become boring and tiresome exchanges between the two of you.

On the question of Hebbert and what you both are seeking to rely on may I refer to several quotes made by Dr Biggs, in which he states that what was said by the doctors back then was nothing more than opinion, and should not totally be relied upon 130 years later.

His quotes are :

“Much of what is ‘known’ appears to be little more than subjective opinion / assumption / guesswork. Even if we can accept all of the ‘objective’ record as fact, there is so little of this available now that it becomes difficult to draw any firm conclusions this far down the line”

“As with much of what went on ‘back in the day’, learned medical men would assert things without backup, and this would be taken as fact without challenge. By way of example, it is not possible to say that all injuries were caused by the same instrument, comment on the blade’s sharpness or suggest that the injuries were caused with ‘great violence’. This is just somebody giving their opinion as though it were fact, and giving it in such a way that it is virtually meaningless. Saying that the wounds were made ‘downwards’ means nothing without a frame of reference. Stating that the wounds were made ‘from left to right’ is not as clear as it might at first seem, and of course cannot be relied upon. The witness states that the injuries might have been done by a left-handed person’. But equally, they could have been done by a right-handed person. Or a one-handed person!”

“In 1888 people believed just about anything a doctor said”

It seems that this is still the case 130 years down the line (My words)

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fisherman]

If I may interject in what has become boring and tiresome exchanges between the two of you.

On the question of Hebbert and what you both are seeking to rely on may I refer to several quotes made by Dr Biggs, in which he states that what was said by the doctors back then was nothing more than opinion, and should not totally be relied upon 130 years later.

His quotes are :

“Much of what is ‘known’ appears to be little more than subjective opinion / assumption / guesswork. Even if we can accept all of the ‘objective’ record as fact, there is so little of this available now that it becomes difficult to draw any firm conclusions this far down the line”

“As with much of what went on ‘back in the day’, learned medical men would assert things without backup, and this would be taken as fact without challenge. By way of example, it is not possible to say that all injuries were caused by the same instrument, comment on the blade’s sharpness or suggest that the injuries were caused with ‘great violence’. This is just somebody giving their opinion as though it were fact, and giving it in such a way that it is virtually meaningless. Saying that the wounds were made ‘downwards’ means nothing without a frame of reference. Stating that the wounds were made ‘from left to right’ is not as clear as it might at first seem, and of course cannot be relied upon. The witness states that the injuries might have been done by a left-handed person’. But equally, they could have been done by a right-handed person. Or a one-handed person!”

“In 1888 people believed just about anything a doctor said”

It seems that this is still the case 130 years down the line (My words)

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

I think you have a point here, Trevor. Or sort of a point, anyways. I would not go so far as to suggest that it is meaningless to listen to the medicos of the time. Far from it. But when you say that Biggs claims that medical men of the day asserted things without backup, you may have that point I am speaking of. That, however, only applies to parts of the interpretations made, where I believe that some guesswork and a bit of prejudice was involved.

When it comes to the facts, though, it´s another matter. The facts are not guesswork at all. The necks were cut, the abdomens were opened up, the uteri were taken out, the abdominal flaps were cut away as were parts of the buttocks etcetera.

These things are not something that can be challenged. They are in evidence.

Where it goes awry is - to my mind - for example when medicos applied the thinking that dismemberment is always a practicality. Clearly, much less was known about these matters back then, and I feel convinced that it was this factor that took away much of the option they had to realize how there would have been a common originator behind the deeds.

How much knowledge was there about different cases of paraphilia that caused people to do harm to their victims in a consistent manner back then? If you do not realize the implications of many similar factors being consistent throughout a series of murders, then how can you act upon those implications?

There was simply too much prejudice involved in the thinking of press, police and medicos alike to allow for a murder hunt based on sound information. If they had known back then what we know now, I have no doubt whatsoever that the hunt would have been one for a single killer only.

[Sam Flynn]

Trevor, please don't tar me with the same brush. I'm not going on anyone's opinion, but have repeatedly and correctly referred people to Hebbert's objective descriptions of the wounds, and to the empirical evidence of the Kelly photographs. We also have at our disposal the detailed descriptions of Eddowes' and Kelly's wounds in the form of first hand primary sources by doctors Brown and Bond. These, and these alone, give us a unique opportunity to make objective comparisons between the murders, and we should favour these hugely valuable documents over subjective opinions every time.

[Sam Flynn]

The Ripper victims' THROATS were cut, Fish.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The Ripper victims' THROATS were cut, Fish.

[Abby Normal]

The Ripper victims' THROATS were cut, Fish.

So were the torsos. At the very least they both were familiar with taking a knife to a woman’s neck viscously. Two of ripper victims cut so deeply that it notched there spine and Chapman almost decapitated.

And if keeping heads were part of his thing, he couldn’t very well stuff one in his pocket could he.

Yes there’s a difference between throat cutting and head removal. But for all we know, torsoman also cut the throats to kill and or to bleed out, like the ripper.

[Fisherman]

Trevor, please don't tar me with the same brush. I'm not going on anyone's opinion, but have repeatedly and correctly referred people to Hebbert's objective descriptions of the wounds, and to the empirical evidence of the Kelly photographs. We also have at our disposal the detailed descriptions of Eddowes' and Kelly's wounds in the form of first hand primary sources by doctors Brown and Bond. These, and these alone, give us a unique opportunity to make objective comparisons between the murders, and we should favour these hugely valuable documents over subjective opinions every time.

Which subjective opinion is it you are referring to? I don´t know that ANY opinion on how the torso victims looked before dismemberment can be offered - or rejected, as long as it is not in conflict with the evidence.

So regardless of how many descriptions we have of damages on the Riper victims and their apparition on the murder sites, I would say that it can n ot be denied - or confirmed - that a number of the torso victims can have looked very much in line with the Ripper victims before the dismemberments.

To make "objective comparisons" between the Ripper victims and the torso ditto, all we can do is to take into account what we know about the damages done in bots series, and work from that. The material is open to us all.

[Fisherman]

The Ripper victims' THROATS were cut, Fish.

The soft parts of their necks were severed too, as I will keep pointing out. I am not going to accept that somebody tries to peddle the idea that the Ripper victims and the Torso victims will have differed in this respect. It is, as you so often put things, potentially misleading. It can NOT, however, be misleading to point out that the necks WERE severed in most Ripper and Torso cases alike.

What you need to do is to answer my former post, concerend with how we should apply honesty and objectivity when reading Hebberts notes. Implying that I do not do so is not something that I take lightly on, and I´m afraid that throwing such accusations around comes with a duty to explain yourself.

[Fisherman]

So were the torsos. At the very least they both were familiar with taking a knife to a woman’s neck viscously. Two of ripper victims cut so deeply that it notched there spine and Chapman almost decapitated.

And if keeping heads were part of his thing, he couldn’t very well stuff one in his pocket could he.

Yes there’s a difference between throat cutting and head removal. But for all we know, torsoman also cut the throats to kill and or to bleed out, like the ripper.

Exactly! Add the information about dismemberment and add all the interpretations you can come up with, by all means - but don´t deny that the throats AND necks were cut in most of the cases.

[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor, please don't tar me with the same brush. I'm not going on anyone's opinion, but have repeatedly and correctly referred people to Hebbert's objective descriptions of the wounds, and to the empirical evidence of the Kelly photographs. We also have at our disposal the detailed descriptions of Eddowes' and Kelly's wounds in the form of first hand primary sources by doctors Brown and Bond. These, and these alone, give us a unique opportunity to make objective comparisons between the murders, and we should favour these hugely valuable documents over subjective opinions every time.

But much of what is in the documents is nothing more than Doctors opinions, based on their observations. The Ripper murders and the Torsos are clearly un connected, and as i keep saying with the torsos it is wrong to categorize them as murders when causes of death cannot be firmly established. When are people going to realize that fact.

The verdicts of wilful murder which were brought in are a mockery. Verdicts arrived at by the direction of the coroner with no evidence to back it up. The true verdicts based on what was known should have been "found dead"

The similarities fish seeks to rely on are not similarities in the true sense pointing to a specific MO. As Dr Biggs states there are only so many ways you can cut up a body by reason of the body itself and its structure.

I think you have admirably shown the flaws in the rest of what he suggests are similarities so i wont duplicate

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

Exactly! Add the information about dismemberment and add all the interpretations you can come up with, by all means - but don´t deny that the throats AND necks were cut in most of the cases.

You cannot prove that the throat cutting was the cause of death, when it could easily have been part of the dismemberment process long after death.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Sam Flynn]

But much of what is in the documents is nothing more than Doctors opinions, based on their observations

I reiterate that I am advocating that we stick to the descriptions of the wounds alone, not the doctors' opinions.