Same motive = same killer

[RockySullivan]

ive been going with TorsoRipper

yes the torso ripper is of course the correct choice

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn: How is removal of flesh in flaps extremely rare?

It is extremely rare since it does not occur in any other case of murder that I have been able to find. I have invited anybody who has an interest in the case to make a search for any other murder case where it does occur, and so far that has turned up not a single case.

After having searched the net for the longest time, I actually managed to find one case where the killer had removed the abdominal wall in flaps. I have reported on it before. It was a cannibal who cut the body up in small sections and laid the meat out in the sun to dry.

That is why I say it is extremely rare. If it is NOT extremely rare but insted an everyday occurence, then maybe you could provide some sort of evidence to that effect?

[Fisherman]

Just to clarify are those that are saying the Torso Killer and Jack were one and the same including the Torso murders in 1873, 1874 and 1884 or not?

To my mind, the 1873 case is definitely the same killer who slay Chapman, Kelly and Jackson. There is very little to go on in the 1874 case, but I tend to think it is the same killer, just as I do for the 1884 case. But I am a lot less certain about the latter two ones than I am about the 1873 case.

[MrBarnett]

Steady on, Abby! Clapham/Battersea is by no means "the same general location" as Whitechapel/Spitalfields. Then, as now, they are worlds apart in terms of socio-economics and geography.

Hi Gareth,

Were (are) things so clear cut?

Thomas Bowyer, for instance, was born in Clapham and died there. In between he spent time in India, the West Country and Spitalfields.

The Oylers, who owned doss houses in Spitalfields, also had lodging houses just as disreputable in Westminster.

Pearly Poll's family lived off the Strand.

Im sure there were very few (if any) peers of the realm in the East End but there were plenty of poor people in the West. And many of the poorer class would have travelled far and wide to earn their crust.

Gary

[Fisherman]

How did Dahmer remove the abdominal flesh when creating that grotesque "sculpture" of one of his victims? In one continuous sheet? In flaps? I don't recall every reading how it was done; like I said, these details sometimes just aren't recorded or reported - so it shouldn't surprise us if we've never heard of other examples.

And I'm not solely interested in serial killers. There's no reason why a one-off dismemberment killer wouldn't improvise a similar solution to opening the abdomen. After all, that's precisely what Jack the Ripper did.

There is one case where Dahmer removed all the flesh from the body from the groin up to the shoulders. That is something else, and there is no telling how he did it. There are examples of killers "defleshing" victims, but that was not what the supposed Rippertorso killer did.

What we must not do is to loose sight of the proportions of killers we are talking about. Those who deflesh the whole body, more or less, are incredibly rare. Eviscerators are incredibly rare. And eviscerators who take away the abdominal wall in flaps amount to the one/two/more persons active in the late victorian London! There are no other examples so far.

We are running a risk of findong such a murder or two - somebody has said that if something CAN be done, then humans WILL try it sooner or later.

Let´s say that we find a Mr X in 18:th century Japan, a german scientist, Mr Z, in the WWII age and a inuite hunter, Mr Y, in the beginning of the 19:th century who were murderers and who removed the abdomonal walls from their victims in flaps - what would that prove?

That it can be done? We already knew that.

That it should be expected? Not in a million years - four or five cases throughout history does not make it a good idea to suggest aht it is a commonplace thing.

So far, we have still not found any of Messr.s Z, X and Y. Even if we do, the fact remains that we are dealing with an extremely rare occurence when we see somebody remove the abdominal wall in flaps.

Consequentially, when it happens in more than one case in the same town and in the same time span, the best guess MUST be that we are dealing with just the one killer. The logic is inevitable and relentless - the weirder and rarer the damage, the lesser the chance that more than one killer is a t large.

[Fisherman]

Abby Normal:

either way I'm sure its very very rare.

Sam Flynn:

No doubt, but don't let that cloud our judgment as to the geographical, methodological and other differences between the torso murders and the JTR series. Series of murders in the same "general" area before have overlapped with other series and one-off murders.

Yes, Gareth, there are murder series that have overlapped in the same general area. It is not common, but instead very rare.
Then there are, as you say, examples of when a series of murders coincide with a single other murder.
That is much more common.
Finally, there are of course countless examples of when single murders in the same area coincide.

So that is an insight we must carry with ourselves when looking at all of this. Of course!

What we therefore need to do is to look at the two possible options that offer themselves up:

Either these two series coincidentally happened to involve the exact same very, very rare element of taking the abdominal wall away in large flaps.

Alternatively, the removal of the abdominal wall in large flaps that occur in both series is not a coincidence at all, but instead clear evidence of a common originator.

How do we solve the riddle? We solve it by looking at how likely a solution speaking for either choice is.

That means that we must ask ourselves which is most likely:

That there were two killers in London in 1888 and 1889, who both came up with the idea to cut away the abdominal wals in flaps from their victims.

Or that a killer wo attecked and killed women in the open street could also attack and kill women in a lair of some sort, and afterwards dismember them.

I find the idea that two killers would bot cut away the abominal walls in flaps totally untenable. Ridiculously so, in fact. I surmise that any police force worth their salt would say there´s the common denominator, thankyouverymuch, and have no doubt whatsoever that they were dealing with one killer only.

I have no problems at all envisaging the second thing. Why would a person who can kill not be able to kill in- AND outdoors? Why would a killer not dismember some victims while not dismembering others? There are numerous examples of killers who have done this very thing.

The maths are easy to do here. And there is only one viable solution.

If these killers had worked in different towns, but at the same time, I would be truly amazed - such men are not to be expected at all, an certainly not in overlapping time.

Once they both work the same town simultaneously, it´s game over. One killer.

[Fisherman]

Hi Gareth,

Were (are) things so clear cut?

Thomas Bowyer, for instance, was born in Clapham and died there. In between he spent time in India, the West Country and Spitalfields.

The Oylers, who owned doss houses in Spitalfields, also had lodging houses just as disreputable in Westminster.

Pearly Poll's family lived off the Strand.

Im sure there were very few (if any) peers of the realm in the East End but there were plenty of poor people in the West. And many of the poorer class would have travelled far and wide to earn their crust.

Gary

It is really a non-issue, especially as we cannot tell whether the killer actually lived in the district or if he simply chose to dump the parts in the western districts of London.
Those who say that killers act rationally could take heart in how it is quite possible that an East End killer may have thought it wise to deflect any guilt away from where he lived by acting in this manner.

If we knew WHY the parts were dumped in the western parts of town, we may -or may not - have had reason to say that it points against a connection, but as long as we have no evidence about that matter, it is, as I say, a non-issue.

[Sam Flynn]

Were (are) things so clear cut?

Whoever was abducting/ensnaring women, cutting them up and throwing their remains into the Thames around Battersea, or on land near the Embankment is very likely have been resident in the area, and familiar with it. Ditto, given the locations of the Ripper murders, it is very probable that he was a resident of the East End, and familiar with that particular locale. Leaving aside the very different details of either series, the most parsimonious explanation by far is that different people were responsible for the torso vs the Ripper murders. Sure, some might argue that we've got the same man moving around, but if we do that we may as well blame the Ripper for the murder of Carrie Brown.

[MrBarnett]

It is really a non-issue, especially as we cannot tell whether the killer actually lived in the district or if he simply chose to dump the parts in the western districts of London.
Those who say that killers act rationally could take heart in how it is quite possible that an East End killer may have thought it wise to deflect any guilt away from where he lived by acting in this manner.

If we knew WHY the parts were dumped in the western parts of town, we may -or may not - have had reason to say that it points against a connection, but as long as we have no evidence about that matter, it is, as I say, a non-issue.

The socio-economic point is flawed, but the geographical one has some merit.

That said, it would seem that your guy may have been involved in a trade that stretched from the East End to Wandsworth, with its centre in Islington.

[Sam Flynn]

It is really a non-issue, especially as we cannot tell whether the killer actually lived in the district or if he simply chose to dump the parts in the western districts of London.

Why travel 10-12 miles across London to dump bodies in the western part of the Thames when he could have reached the Thames much quicker out east?

The very idea is absurd.

Those who say that killers act rationally could take heart in how it is quite possible that an East End killer may have thought it wise to deflect any guilt away from where he lived by acting in this manner

Why go all the way to Battersea? Why didn't the Ripper worry about the four or five victims he left where he butchered them?

If we knew WHY the parts were dumped in the western parts of town, we may -or may not - have had reason to say that it points against a connection, but as long as we have no evidence about that matter, it is, as I say, a non-issue.

The geographical distribution of the murder victims certainly IS an issue, and big one. To airily say it's a "non-issue" just shows the degree to which confirmation-bias has clouded your judgment.

[Sam Flynn]

The socio-economic point is flawed

Flawed, perhaps, but not without some merit. I checked Booth's 1889 maps, and the area around Clapham, Battersea etc is primarily red, with very few (if any) "black" streets. It makes quite a contrast with the Ripper's stomping ground.

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn: Why travel 10-12 miles across London to dump bodies in the western part of the Thames when he could have reached the Thames much quicker out east?
The very idea is absurd.

Maybe because his daily habits/work already involved a trip to the west, for example. It could be that simple.
Or, if it was more complex, maybe because he was making a point by dumping the parts and wanted them found in central London.

There can have been many explanations, trivial or complex. Finding an explanation to why he and the Ripper both cut away abdominal walls in flaps is very much harder. It was not because it is a common thing - it is instead an extremely rare thing. Therefore, the only explanation at hand seems to be that it was purely coincidental. And I am having none of that explanation.

Why go all the way to Battersea? Why didn't the Ripper worry about the four or five victims he left where he butchered them?

I don´t think the torso killer (who was also the Ripper, incidentally) worried at all. I just suggested that a rational killer may have done so. But I don´t think that the Rippertorso killer WAS necessarily a totally rational man, other than on the surface.

The geographical distribution of the murder victims certainly IS an issue, and big one.

No. It is not. It MAY be, but since we have no idea where he lived and whether his life involved being in the western parts of London occasionaly for whatever reason, it is quite secondary to the issue with the abdominal flaps. THAT is a registered fact that we cannot pass by easily. There MUST be an explanation for it, and the primary explanation MUST be that it was the same killer.

To airily say it's a "non-issue" just shows the degree to which confirmation-bias has clouded your judgment.

I am not saying it airily. I am saying it seriously, with great conviction and good cause. And I don´t think you have the upper hand on me in any questions regarding a clouded judgment. I think your absolute refusal to admit the obvious fact that a peculiarity and rarity always must be first-hand considereed to point to a single originator borders on the incredible. So in my world - and it would seem in some other people´s world too - you are the one who is blinded by an unwarranted obsession.

[Fisherman]

Flawed, perhaps, but not without some merit. I checked Booth's 1889 maps, and the area around Clapham, Battersea etc is primarily red, with very few (if any) "black" streets. It makes quite a contrast with the Ripper's stomping ground.

Was it also fenced in...?

[RockySullivan]

Why did they think Liz Jackson was killed on the embankment? If she was killed and dismembered outside, the others might have been as well

[Harry D]

Flawed, perhaps, but not without some merit. I checked Booth's 1889 maps, and the area around Clapham, Battersea etc is primarily red, with very few (if any) "black" streets. It makes quite a contrast with the Ripper's stomping ground.

Then might that explain why the killer chose to murder his outdoor victims in Whitechapel? Easy access to hookers, discreet labyrinthine streets etc.