Same motive = same killer

[Sam Flynn]

But I am pretty certain that ... the killer had a genuine fascination with the anatomical aspects of the female body.

Is that why he contented himself with merely chopping the arms, legs and heads off most of his torso victims, leaving the rest of their anatomy largely intact? Is that why, even when disembowelling the torso victims, he left most of the abdominal organs in place and removed the thoracic organs (not just the heart) from only one of them?

Not much of a fascination if you ask me.

[Fisherman]

Frank!

A few comments:

You bring up the old division of organized and disorganized killing and you obviously put the two killers you perceive in one division each. I don´t think there is enough to go on to make that division. If the combined killer had access to a bolthole on some occasions and not on others, then that in itself explains the matter.
Likewise, if the combined killer prioritized different matters on different killing days, the same thing happens; if he wanted to have all the time in the world to do his thing, he could kill in privacy, and if he preferred a thrill kill, he could do it in the streets. An arrogant narcissist could well want to take his murderous business one step closer to the crowds. Or so I reason, at least. You say it would be unexpected. I agree - but I find the evidence is in line with one killer only, and so I accept that. We don´t have all the parameters, and the explanation may be logical enough once we get to see it.

You speak of the dark fantasy that drove the Ripper and you say that it would have been shaped over years. Perhaps so, yes - but what WAS that dark fantasy? It was apparently not evisceration only, it was not mutilation only, it was not sadism (unless it was necrosadism). You acknowledge this, but say that what came first was apparently the attack on the sexual organs - but in Eddowes case, that seemingly did not come first. The face did.
On the whole, though, I agree that the reproduction area seems to have been a prioritized thing. But it was not the only thing he took interest in - not by far.
You seemingly predispose that all Ripper victims would look like Kelly if the time had been there. I am not at all sure about that other than in a roundabout way - I think that he was perhaps more fulfilled by what he did to Kelly than by what he did to the others, but I don´t think he was disturbed in all the other cases and had to flee. And if he was not, then we must accept that what he did in these other cases was enough for him. He did what he came for.

You say that he would have had very few minutes only on his hands. It´s not a big thing, but I think that he could have had more than so. The streets surrounding Bucks Row were deserted as Neil made his round, he saw nobody, and Lechmere said the same himself, there was nobody to be seen. I don´t exclude that a hope of a quarter of an hour or even more would be realistic. But as I say, it´s not any important matter on the whole, since there was always the risk of somebody coming along at any time.

You say that the Ripper and the Torso man followed different patterns of dissasembly of their victims. But what if there was the large scheme of things? I believe the damage done in both series fit in with a wider scope of disassembly, tied to something that I am not yet ready to name. The gist of it all is nevertheless that we can see that there are overlapping areas - they both open abdomens, they both cut necks and throats, they both take out colon parts, they both take out hearts, they both take out uteri, they both take away the abdominal wall, they both have rings gone from their victims fingers, they both damage faces. It´s way too much to accept as a coincidence. The mere placing of two serialists in Victorian London in overlapping time periods is a suggestion that makes for rather a hard and large pill to swallow. Once we add that they both dabbled in the same mutilation and evisceration business and both cut away abdominal walls in large sections, I really think we are on very safe ground laughing the suggestion of two killers off. It just isn´t within the realms of possibilities other than as a very freakish, off the charts minimal chance.

I note that you see curiosity in the killer of the Ripper victims, and I salute that. You also see a blind hatred for women in it. I am less sure that is correct. There are a few examples of killers who have no emotions, love or hatred, for their victims - but a curiosity that will not be denied. We had such a guy here in Sweden some years back, who opened up his victim and plucked parts out, all of it due to curiosity. No hard feelings whatsoever involved. Remember Sean Vincent Gillis: "I wanted to see her femur". It´s a totally odd thing, but these killers are out there.
I for my part am willing to accept both things - he may or may not have disliked women. But I am pretty certain that whatever applies in that department, the killer had a genuine fascination with the anatomical aspects of the female body.
The killer. Not the killers.

[Fisherman]

You will have to excuse my confusion Fish but how do you square the above statement with your obviously high level of certainty that these murders were all committed by the same man and that anyone who cant that it is either ignorant or biased?

I don´t understand the question. I think you may have either misread or misunderstood. It is not about the same thing at all to begin with.

[Fisherman]

But none of this is true for the majority of the torso victims. That's one of the big problems with your argument, Fish: The 100% certain, objective dissimilarities outnumber the superficial similarities, but it's the latter that count!

It was never a question of numbers. If the similarities are so odd and specific as they are in this case, then a thousand dissimilarities cannot dissolve that, unless one or more of the dissimilarities are impossible to fit in with a one killer perspective. Unfair as it may sound, that isn´t how it works and I have given a thousand exxampls of it. The example with the Preston and the London murder will be the perhaps most clear one. Once we have a very strange and specific similarity, stacking dissimilarities upon each other will never make that similarity go away.
I´ll try again.
Two murder victims.
Dissimiliarities:
One killed in France, one in Britain.
One killed by strangulation, the other shot and dismembered.
Similarity: Both have a perfect, round one-inch hole through the tongue.

Believe me, you can add a hundred dissimilarities, and the perfect, round one-inch hole through the tonge will nevertheless have the police saying that there is a connection. According to me, logic rules that they are right.

How do you reason in such a case?

I know very, very well that the similarities were not present in all cases. And that is why I say that what we need to do is to acknowledge that the triumvirate Chapman-Kelly-Jackson WERE all killed by the same hand, because within that triumvirate, the similarities I speak of ARE present.
And once we accept that ELizabeth Jacksons killer was the same as Chapmans and Kellys killer, the rest will be obvious - the Ripper series and the Torso series have the same originator, and the cases that can be knit to this man are the ones that are so similar in style to the Chapman-Kelly-Jackson cases that they must be regarded as having the same originator. It is up to anybody to include and exclude as they want to, but the triumvirate has the same originator.

That is how it must be weighed.

Jackson had her entire thorax emptied, so it's quite probable that heart and lungs came out together; this isn't quite the same as just having had her heart removed, which is what happened to Kelly (torn piece of one lung excepted).

No, but "this" as you call it is your interpretation. Once again. "It´s quite probable that..."
See what I mean? it is not until you start to interpret things (the heart and the lungs came out together, Jacksons flaps were very different, her killer targetted the foetus, the victims were procured in different parts of London, the Torso man lived in the West end and so on and on and on and on....) that the similarities take on the shape of "false" similarities. Which is why I keep banging on about how we should NOT work from the interpreted versin of affairs but instead the uninterpreted one. The facts. What we know instead of what we don´t know or are willing to assume.
Could we please keep to that simple rule?

Were any of the others actually wearing rings when their bodies/torsos were found? Genuine question. We can't read any significance into missing rings if there wasn't a ring to go missing in the first place.

Did I just read that? Really? The potential significance of how rings were missing from women in both series is dissolved if the rest of the victims had no rings to take from them?
So a man who steals underwear in two burglaries out of five cannot be said to have a flair for stealing underwear - if the other cases were ones where there was no underwear to steal...? That means that the significance of the two occasions of underwear theft goes away?

Am I missing out on something? I think you are going to have to help me out, Gareth, because I am genuinely baffled by now. How are you thinking here?

[Fisherman]

A theory is basically a suggestion based to a smaller or lesser extent,on the facts.
What are the suggestions regarding the two series being connected.That rings were taken from fingers,and flaps cut from the torsos were similar.The smaller or lesser aspect of fact, is that the suggestions derived from opinions given by medical people.
Proof beyond a reasonable doubt? A jury of 12 imbeciles would have trouble in accepting that evidence.

A jury of imbeciles would have trouble accepting any evidence, Harry - I am quite aware of that.

[harry]

A theory is basically a suggestion based to a smaller or lesser extent,on the facts.
What are the suggestions regarding the two series being connected.That rings were taken from fingers,and flaps cut from the torsos were similar.The smaller or lesser aspect of fact, is that the suggestions derived from opinions given by medical people.
Proof beyond a reasonable doubt? A jury of 12 imbeciles would have trouble in accepting that evidence.

[Sam Flynn]

It is instead the basic fact that flaps - or sections, or whatever we choose to call them - WERE cut out of all three womens abdominal walls, the fact that the uteri WERE extracted in all three cases

But none of this is true for the majority of the torso victims. That's one of the big problems with your argument, Fish: The 100% certain, objective dissimilarities outnumber the superficial similarities, but it's the latter that count!

that Kelly and Jackson both DID have their hearts taken out

Jackson had her entire thorax emptied, so it's quite probable that heart and lungs came out together; this isn't quite the same as just having had her heart removed, which is what happened to Kelly (torn piece of one lung excepted).

that Jacksons and Chapmans rings WERE missing

Were any of the others actually wearing rings when their bodies/torsos were found? Genuine question. We can't read any significance into missing rings if there wasn't a ring to go missing in the first place.

[Fisherman]

That's because the similarities are not even there or, if they are, they're either exaggerated or of no significance.

That is a very, very bad post.

The similarities have been listed, around a dozen of them. They ARE there, so the mere idea that they are not is useless.

Are they exacggerated? We don´t know. Before we know the exact appearance of the similarities, how can we possibly say that they are exaggerated? We cannot, simple as that. To claim otherwise is to lie.

Are they significant or not? Same thing - we do not know. I pointed out earlier that it was claimed out here, by you not least, that they were "superficial". To claim that as a fact is also to lie.

The similarities are either true or false similarities, and we don´t know either way.

Your post is propaganda, pure and simple. It has nothing to do in a serious exchange.

[Herlock Sholmes]

. But as usual, it seems it does not matter how much I press the point that we don´t know to what degree the similarities were true or false similarities, I am nevertheless misquoted.

You will have to excuse my confusion Fish but how do you square the above statement with your obviously high level of certainty that these murders were all committed by the same man and that anyone who cant that it is either ignorant or biased?

[Sam Flynn]

Nobody has been able to come up with anything like these cases, in terms of similarities.

That's because the similarities are not even there or, if they are, they're either exaggerated or of no significance.

[Fisherman]

Because Fish ‘rare’ doesnt equate with ‘impossible.’ If we went through life assuming that things couldnt happen because they are ‘rare’ or ‘what are the chances of that’ or ‘that cant have happened because it would mean accepting that coincidences occurr,’ we would never get anywhere.

That said, if we do have circumstances where there are similarities (and whether you like it or not Fish they are debated) we are at liberty, when trying to weigh up the whole matter, to look at other aspects. And so we come again to the vast differences between the two series (if the TK are a complete series of course.)

It cannot be right to assume the position ‘well the similarities are so exact as to be beyond doubt and so the vast differences must have a perfectly reasonably explaination.’

Rare does not equate with impossible - which is why I don´t suggest it does. However, when people say that two killers is as likely or even more likely with two killers, then it is a question of equating "only just possible" with "very likely".

As for the similarities I do not say that they are "so exact as to be beyond doubt". But as usual, it seems it does not matter how much I press the point that we don´t know to what degree the similarities were true or false similarities, I am nevertheless misquoted. Maybe that shows, more than anything else, how my stance is not fully grasped.

It is not a question of the similarities being confirmed as duplicates, Herlock. We are at a loss to know to what degree that applies. This is why I so much loathe when it is stated as a fact that Jacksons flaps were much smaller and narrower that Kellys and Chapmans ditto - we just don´t know that. For example!

It is instead the basic fact that flaps - or sections, or whatever we choose to call them - WERE cut out of all three womens abdominal walls, the fact that the uteri WERE extracted in all three cases, that Kelly and Jackson both DID have their hearts taken out, that Jacksons and Chapmans rings WERE missing and so on, that clinches the matter.

Surely you can see that even if we blithely assume that Chapman pawned her rings while Jackson had her ring stolen, if we assume that Chapmans and Kellys necks and throats were cut in a frontal attack and Jacksons in combination with then severing of the head, if we accept that Jacksons uterus was taken out on account of her pregnancy while the others were taken out for sexual arousal, that jackson had her abdomen opened to extract the foetus, while Chapman and Kelly had theirs opened for want of eviscerating in general and - for that matter - even if we accept that the Ripper victims were murder victims and the Torso women were accidental deaths, it is STILL too freakish a collection of coincidences to be even remotely likely to occur at the same approximate time in the same town.

This collection of damages is - as far as we have been able to establish - otherwise unheard of in criminal history. It is a very rare combination of similarities, and if it is a stretch to imagine TWO such cases in criminal history, it is nothing short of the eighth wonder of the world if these two cases did not only occur in the same time frame, but also in the same exact city!

Given this, the suggestion of two killers cannot be anything else than a hallucinatory suggestion made by somebody with no grasp at all of reality. Saying "Yes, we know that it has never happened otherwise, and we know that there are a dozen or so similarities that must be explained away, but we are nevertheless convinced that this was a first" can only help to show a set of minds so open that Einstein theory of relativity would not encompass that void. And much as an open mind is a good thing, there are limits to everything.

Disagree away, by all means, but do not hold me accountable for suggestions or ideas that I do not entertain. It is all the basic facts to me, no interpretation whatsoever. All of the interpretations, not one of them proven, have been suggested by those who are so totally opposed to the one killer scenario so as to be unable to even admit that it is the likelier thing.

The sad thing about all this is that I am being painted out as the fanatic here, the one who will not yield a millimeter, the zealot, the dogmatic one. In that parallel world we call the real one, it is those who represent the extreme suggestions, as far away as possible from logical thinking, that are called fanatics.

In ripperology, that does not apply.

[Fisherman]

And others ‘might’ say Fish that their own posts betray a level of frustration at you viewing people as ‘biased or ignorant’ if they disagree with your interpretations.

Hen or egg, Herlock - hen or egg?

[Fisherman]

Dear Christer,
It seems such obviously is enoigh for you, however it seems such is not true for all.

Something you have to accept i am afraid.


Steve

There´s nothing to be afraid of, Steve - people will always disagree about things. But when somebody tells me that it is more likely with two killers than just the one, given the circumstances, I will object - it is not.

Getting all ripperologist aboard the same train was never an option, for varying reasons.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Fisherman is normally met by a barrage of insults and belittling posts, some of them saying that "Fisherman is twisting the facts and overgeneralizing! He CAN NOT be trusted, he misleads and lies!"

Not sure of this (and I don´t want to be pushy, of course!), but that MAY just have a little something to do with how I post...? Just a thought, mind you.

And others ‘might’ say Fish that their own posts betray a level of frustration at you viewing people as ‘biased or ignorant’ if they disagree with your interpretations.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Well, not buying my "interpretation" in this case is suggesting that uteri removals, cutting out of hearts and the taking away of abdominal walls in sections is perhaps not uncommon at all.

What I am suggesting is that if we know quite well that these things ARE rare - and I think we may agree on it? - then why propose the opposite as a possibility?

Because Fish ‘rare’ doesnt equate with ‘impossible.’ If we went through life assuming that things couldnt happen because they are ‘rare’ or ‘what are the chances of that’ or ‘that cant have happened because it would mean accepting that coincidences occurr,’ we would never get anywhere.

That said, if we do have circumstances where there are similarities (and whether you like it or not Fish they are debated) we are at liberty, when trying to weigh up the whole matter, to look at other aspects. And so we come again to the vast differences between the two series (if the TK are a complete series of course.)

It cannot be right to assume the position ‘well the similarities are so exact as to be beyond doubt and so the vast differences must have a perfectly reasonably explaination.’