Practicality or madness?

[Joshua Rogan]

The final torso being dumped in Ripper territory must bear some significance. The Thames Torso killer hadn't ventured that far east before. It was also close to the anniversary of Annie Chapman's murder. It would be rare enough for two gruesome serial killers to coexist in the same city, but once they overlapped in locality it becomes a game-changer imo.

On the other hand, perhaps the deviation from the previous dump areas points away from this torso being part of a series?

[Joshua Rogan]

As you note there is no mention of Rainham being eviscerated

One paper - Lloyds Weekly 10 July 87 - does actually say something of the sort;

"It will be recollected that the first piece found on the 11th of last May was the lower half of the bust of a well-developed woman of 27 or thereabouts; that the lower viscera had been carefully extracted, and that the thighs had been taken from their sockets."

How accurate that recollection is, in the light of Hebbert's notes, is open to debate.

[Harry D]

The final torso being dumped in Ripper territory must bear some significance. The Thames Torso killer hadn't ventured that far east before. It was also close to the anniversary of Annie Chapman's murder. It would be rare enough for two gruesome serial killers to coexist in the same city, but once they overlapped in locality it becomes a game-changer imo.

[Harry D]

Yes Harry. As soon as I get time I can post a few. Gotta run for now. One letter comes to mind saying something along the lines of, I will continue in the east end and my pal in the west end. There were also letters not taking responsibility for a torso saying he would not make such a botch of it. Referring to Pinchin torso, IIRC.

Very interesting, Jerry! That first one you mentioned rings a bell.

[John G]

Just to correct my earlier post, 491. Dr Hebbert does refer to both the heart and lungs being absent ftom Rainham, although the pelvic organs were present. But see post 385 regarding the issue of the the lungs.

[John G]

and you were doing so well!

unfortunately your going backwards. the ripper is not a disorganized killer. see my previous post. total reliance on fbi profiling and opinions like its gospel is wrong. when they profiled the ripper, they had very little knowledge of the case (the average casebooker knows more) and didnt even seem to take into account, no automobile was available to the ripper. ive noticed some arrogance to their way of thinking and cant help note that they over egg the pudding on how effective all their profiling/ labeling stuff is. john douglas thinks hes solved everthing from the mad bomber to the golden state killer. like i said you need to take the fbi stuff with a grain of salt. id go with your garden variety experienced detective any day.

re the number of victims. the average serial killer has about 15 kills. how many did you list? now i think theres not enough eveidence or linkage for all of them- smith seems like a gang rape attack, coles was probably killed by sadler etc. but alot does link them and its not even controversial at all to consider most were by a single hand... and the main thing that would link them IMHO would be which ones had post mortem mutilation first and foremost. how many that you listed have post mortem mutilation? probably wise to start there when seeing if possible link.
re george chapman- george chapman has been and is a valid suspect for the ripper murders from the start by abberline no less and many others for many reasons. not sure what your trying to get at here.

I think there's absolutely no question JtR was disorganised. And if you reject the FBI profiling method-they developed the organized/disorganized theory- what are you left with?

Thus, Nichols attacked and mutilated in the street at a time when people were leaving for work, so a high risk of being interrupted (Christer believes he was interrupted!) Highly disorganised behaviour, highlighting a perpetrator with virtually no self restraint.

Chapman: attacked in someone's back yard at a time when people were leaving for work, high risk of interruption, risk of being trapped as he was hemmed in on three sides. Highly disorganised behaviour.

Stride: if you believe she was a Ripper victim. Assaulted in front of two witnesses, very disorganised behaviour.

Eddowes: perpetrator seen by three witnesses, attacks victim in location regularly patrolled by two police officers. High risk of being caught. Highly disorganised behaviour.

Doesn't expand his territory from the tiny square mile he operated in, even with a greatly increased police presence and a public on high alert. Highly disorganised behaviour.

[John G]

The one question I would like to put to you, John, is this one:

Given that the Rainham victims torso was divided into three parts, just like Jacksons torso was, and given that the heart and lungs were missing from the Rainham victims body, just like Jacksons ditto were - do you think it in any way odd to suggest that the two victims were subjected to the exact same kind of eviscerations?

To me, once we know that Jackson WAS eviscerated, and once we know that the contents of the thorax were removed by the killer in her case, the obvious inference is that the same thing happened to the Rainham victim. It is not as if Hebbert tells us that she was NOT eviscerated - he only uses the term "missing" abiyt the lost organs, instead of teeling us that they were removed. But since the body had been in water for a couple of weeks when examined, it stands to reason that such things are hard to establish afterwards.

If you agree with me that there is every chance that the Rainham victim was ALSO eviscerated, then what does that do to your argument, John?

And what happens if we accept that the Whitehall victim also could have been eviscerated?

You build you whole argument on the premise that only Jackson was eviscerated, but the fact of the matter is that we cannot possibly know this, plus the logical assumption, based on the similarities between Jackson and the Rainham victim, is that both women met the same fate.

To me, it is vital that we allow for the whole picture instead of claiming that Jackson was the only eviscerated victim in the torso series.

Hi Christer,

As you note there is no mention of Rainham being eviscerated, however, I take your point regarding the issue of the missing lungs. However, I don't think the heart was missing-I quoted Dr Hebbert in an earlier post. He does say the lungs were absent, however, this is a bit confusing because a contemporaneous newspaper report states that they were found.


Could you explain the issue of tbe torso being divided up into three parts? I don't believe the torso was bisected, for instance, and no injury to the abdomen apart from the one I referrred to earlier.

Nonetheless, food for thought. I will have to think about this, particularly as the issue with the lungs seems a little odd to me.

[Fisherman]

I disagree - it demonstrates two similar types of killings, with the same victim type, dismemberment and mutilations occurring at the same time in relatively close proximity. I realise its not the same town, but the distance is not massive either by american standards.

And how about British 1880`s standards? We would do good to remember that the 70:s and 80:s in the USA provided an environment crammed with serial killers. Victorian London does not seem to me to produce these characters in the same multitude, although they did exist.

Moreover, are there any inclusions of the same kind of very precise and rare/odd similarities within these murders as there are inbetween the Ripper and Torso series?

Of course, even today, with perhaps as many as a couple of hundred serial killers on the loose in the US, if we get a series of strangulation killings in a restricted area and time in USA, the police will work from the assumption of a serial killer. That is all it takes, and the assumption of a serial killer is almost always correct when these things happen. That is becasue it is statistically much more likely that a singe maniac is at work than it is to believe in a dozen or so citizens turning murderous and resorting to strangulation in the same short period of time.

Guess what happens to the credibility of such an assumption of a serial killer on the loose if we have inclusions like eviscerations and cut away abdominal walls?

[Fisherman]

This is clearly wrong, because I don’t assume the Ripper couldn’t have dumped his bodies elsewhere if he had the need and still think it’s interesting.


It may, but then again, it may not.

I don’t insert anything. I see the facts of both series and they suggest different mindsets. End of story. Whether that means they were 2 different men with roughly similar cravings is another matter.

Don't let the knowledgeable Mr. Geberth hear you.

Where did I say the Ripper was purely disorganized? As far as I’m concerned, he wasn't, but he wasn’t much of a planner either with regards to the murders we ascribe to him and in that respect he was clearly different than Torso Man. Anyway, that he left clustered crime scenes (regardless of whether he covered 10 or 100 yards from the point of encounter to where he killed & mutilated) and that Torso Man didn’t remains a fact. That you don’t see any significance in it is not something new.

I kind of like this: You admit that the Ripper could have dumped his bodies anywhere, had he chosen to, which was the point I was making. I do not like the idea of comparing a dumping site map with a murder map as if they were the same in any way, and so I am happy with having this laid down.

Furthermore, you once again seem to say that what is your main objection against the idea of two killers is that you personaly believe that the series suggest "different mindsets", which is the exact kind of thing I have warned against - to believe that we can establish the mindsets behind the murders involved. Once we do such a thing, we tend to let it prevail over the factual evidence. When people of what we think are different mindsets do the exact same things, we may need to change our own mindset.

Lastly, you tell me that you would never say that the Ripper was purely disorganized. Great! I only brought the point up because you referred to Geberts works, where he says that people who kill other people on the spots where they find them and leave them lying there are very often disorganized. At that stage, I thought it would make for a much more complete picture to point to how there are reasons to beleive that the Ripper was NOT disorganized.

I like it when we agree, Frank.

[Fisherman]

The boy that is discovered in Bradford, cut in half, stuffed in a barrel....is that an indication of other bad people existed in the UK, or is Londons Torso-Ripper-Poisoner man just on a vaca that week?

When I have spoken of Charles Lechmere as the most viable suspect in the Ripper case and the probable offender, many times people have told me that f ex John Davis, the carman who found Chapman, is just as good a suspect; both men found victims, so what?

This is of course pure and utter balderdash, on account of two things:

1. There are other points pointing to Lechmere than the finding of the body, whereas there is nothing against Davis, and...

2. Lechmere was in Nicholsī presence at a time that is consistent with her death, whereas Davis was not with Chapman until long after her death.

So the suggestion is a piss poor one, and unworthy of any considered afterthought whatsoever.

Your Gill proposition is slightly better - but only slightly.

Letīs taka a llok on that list I posted before, and see how it fits Gill:

-cut their victims abdomens open from sternum to groin - No, Gill had not been cut like that
-took out uteri - Have a guess, does a boy have a uterus?
-took out hearts - yes, Gills heart was taken out
-cut away abdominal walls in large sections of flesh - no, nothing like that occurred
-took away colon sections - No, there were bowels protruding through a smallish hole in the abdomen, but thatīs it
-stole rings from their victims fingers - no, that did not happen either
-killed prostitutes - not unless this young boy was a prostitute
-applied no physical torture to their victims - I think this fits, but I am not sure
-were deemed skilful with the knife - the limbs were described as "hacked away"
-roamed the same city - Nope
-worked in overlapping times - Yes

So you see, Michael, just as the detectives concluded, Gill was never even remotely likely to be a victim of the same man as the one killing away in London. And frankly, the suggestion that he may have been belongs to the same category of thin king as the one suggesting that John Davis is on equal footing with Lechmere. It is the stuff of desperation only, and not worthy of any attention.
There will always be dismemberers, although they are uncommon. In the wake of a case like the Ripper case, they are likelier to surface on account of the vast press coverage such a case gets, and there was a general feeling at the time that the Gill case drew itīs inspiration from the Ripper deeds.

In conflict with your suggestion, that is a clever one that has a lot going for it.

[Fisherman]

Christer,

As you know we fundamentally disagree on this point. In fact, Liz Jackson aside, I don't see many similarities at all.

The one question I would like to put to you, John, is this one:

Given that the Rainham victims torso was divided into three parts, just like Jacksons torso was, and given that the heart and lungs were missing from the Rainham victims body, just like Jacksons ditto were - do you think it in any way odd to suggest that the two victims were subjected to the exact same kind of eviscerations?

To me, once we know that Jackson WAS eviscerated, and once we know that the contents of the thorax were removed by the killer in her case, the obvious inference is that the same thing happened to the Rainham victim. It is not as if Hebbert tells us that she was NOT eviscerated - he only uses the term "missing" abiyt the lost organs, instead of teeling us that they were removed. But since the body had been in water for a couple of weeks when examined, it stands to reason that such things are hard to establish afterwards.

If you agree with me that there is every chance that the Rainham victim was ALSO eviscerated, then what does that do to your argument, John?

And what happens if we accept that the Whitehall victim also could have been eviscerated?

You build you whole argument on the premise that only Jackson was eviscerated, but the fact of the matter is that we cannot possibly know this, plus the logical assumption, based on the similarities between Jackson and the Rainham victim, is that both women met the same fate.

To me, it is vital that we allow for the whole picture instead of claiming that Jackson was the only eviscerated victim in the torso series.

[Fisherman]

I know whats coming next...Ted Bundy killed different ways, the Golden State killer did too, and the Freeway killer, ..what youll omit is that Dahmer did the same things with the same kinds of men, Gacy did it repeatedly the same way. BTK did the same things, Zodiak did the same things, Son of Sam did the same things, in Canada Pickford did the same things, HH Holmes did the same things...I can give you a list of killers who never really changed anything dramatically, the same kinds of victims, the same kinds of activities.

And did the first killers I mentioned really change what they did, or rather where they did it?

You might want to check the Lindahl cases out too. Serial killers very often change very little of what they do, who they choose, and how they go about it.

This is by and large something that deserves no answer. If I had said that the killer on ALL occasions took away the abdominal walls, you would have had a point.

Then again, I didnīt.

It nevertheless remains that BOTH series have this inclusion, an extremely rare and odd one.

I am fine with being criticized for what I say. It is when I am being criticized for what I NOT say that I am less fine. But since there are no other ways to get aroun d this but to misrepresent and distort, I cannot say that I am surprised. Some posters will do these things, while others are to honest for it.

[jerryd]

So how do you explain the different times of death as opined by the doctor?

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

One part exposed to water (arm), one open air (torso) and one buried in ground (leg) led to different rates of decay.

Unreliable material? How is that?

[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor,

The arm and leg fit the torso when matched up. All the same body, according to the Docs.

So how do you explain the different times of death as opined by the doctor?

you are relying on unreliable material!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[jerryd]

Two things emerge from this either the doctor was wrong, or the body parts were not from the same body if the latter then there is a more plausible explanation other than murder.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Trevor,

The arm and leg fit the torso when matched up. All the same body, according to the Docs.