Practicality or madness?

[Trevor Marriott]

The right arm from the Whitehall victim was found on September 11 1888, three days after Annie Chapman was murdered. It had recently been amputated, or so it was concluded.
Therefore, chronologically, the Whitehall victim died in close connection to the Chapman murder, and in much less close connection with the double event. The jury is still out on how long the torso in the Scotland Yard building had been in place when it was found.

You ask whether the killer would be able to facilitate both kinds of murders in close connection to each other. Why would we think they were two types of murders in the first place? We only know that some victims were dismembered while others were not. That does not make the murders different types. To me, they seem to be very much the same type, although committed under different circumstances. I see no reason why he could not commit them close in time as well as on very separate occasions.

The remark about letting preferred suspects govern your thinking, I will leave largely unanswered. Yes, a combined 1873 to 1889 killer fits my suspect. But that is not on account of anything else but the case facts.

You know I have said before that you and others on here cannot keep suggesting the torsos were the work of a serial killer because you cannot prove a cause of death which is conclusive proof of a murder, in any of the torsos.

You have a mixture of coroner’s court verdicts ranging from “Found dead” to “Murder” and the murder verdicts based on nothing more than a doctors opinions which we know now was mostly guesswork.

You have an array of body parts found mostly in the water wrapped in brown paper and neatly tied. No heads were ever found. You also have significant body parts missing or found still in bodies.

How the torsos died I do not know but there are other more plausible explanations than murder, some could have been by natural causes, some could have been by accident and some could have been by back street medical medicos.
If any of those occurred then it bring me onto the disposal of the bodies and other plausible explanation as to what happened to the bodies and body parts.

Extract from The study of anatomy in England from 1700 to the early 20th century
Following the Anatomy Act of 1832 body snatching from graves became unnecessary, as the dead bodies of all unclaimed poor from workhouses and charitable hospitals could legally undergo dissection. In fact, one of the principal reasons for introducing the Act was to prevent body snatching from graves. This practice continued throughout the century, and even in the late 19th century those running poor houses could sell corpses of their unclaimed inmates after death to teaching hospitals to recoup the expenses of poor relief in their parish. Other corpses were sold directly by desperately poor and grieving relatives to corpse dealers who worked in deprived areas of cities. Some corpses were sold on whole to the anatomy schools, but a higher price could be obtained by dividing up the body into its constituent parts to sell separately. Attitudes to the practice of dissection varied significantly between the rich and the poor. The wealthy who determined the law were happy for dissection to continue because scientific research was regarded as worthy at that time. Furthermore, it was not the rich who were dissected but the poor, either voluntarily when a corpse was sold by a desperately poor family, or against their wishes when death occurred in the workhouse or a charitable hospital and the body was unclaimed,.

It should be noted that anatomy schools had to bear the cost of then disposing of body parts and the remains of corpses, they were supposed to be given a proper burial but of course those tasked with this would more often than not pocket the money and dispose of the parts and corpses in other ways, and the River Thames was one such place I would suggest. The similarities are in the wrapping of the parts and not in the way you perceive. Dr Biggs has already stated that there are only so many ways to dismember a body and even an amateur can make it look like it has been done by an expert.

And there is nothing to suggest JTR murdered any of these torsos

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[John G]

Maybe an example of how some other eccentric killer type might have viewed this Ripper fellow, in that he was getting all the attention. Ahem....Torso man is still here, kind of thing. I believe that the climate and the tensions between local people and the police has to be factored in here, I think that is the reason for so many hoax letters. People taunted the cops. Maybe Torso Man did too. But Jacky boy just wanted his knife inside a warm dying womans abdomen, and maybe something from inside it. I don't see Jack doing any cat and mouse crap with the police, he could care less who was paying attention. Just as long as they didn't catch on.

I don't think Jack was making any statements per se, but Torso Man may have been.

Yes, I agree. I don't think JtR was trying yo taunt the police, he simply acted out of a strong compulsion, which is evidenced by the high level of risk he was prepared to accept.

[seanr]

in post 335 you quoted and responded to jerrys post were he provided the clip that says the acid was on small parts of the body not the head . you were mistaken in saying that article said the acid was on the head. jerry also even pointed out your mistake. not surprisingly you havent responded to that.


please dear god dont make me go back and cut and paste everything.

This is the clipping in question. The key sentence being 'the small parts into which the body was cut up were packed in something small soon after life was extinct, and compressed down in a quantity of carbolic acid.'

Where you say ‘in post 335 you quoted and responded to jerrys post were he provided the clip that says the acid was on small parts of the body not the head’, it seems you interpret this sentence to mean the head was excluded from being put in the acid.

I read the sentence to mean the body was cut up into pieces and placed into a corrosive substance, these pieces including the head.

I don’t believe I have made a mistake. On the contrary with the Times article providing a description of the state of the skull when found, I’m inclined to think I’m right on this.

[Michael W Richards]

Interestingly, the torso killer also put his knife inside a recently dead womans abdomen and took something from it.

Those are the facts.

Speculation about what the killer "wanted" in each murder is the exact opposite of a fact.

I didn't say this is what happened "factually" Fisherman, or what this man thought...I said "I can see", "I believe"...and "maybe". The premise I suggested is very plausible, in that the placement of some Torsos was a political statement or a cry for attention. If Polly or Annies killer intended to do the same thing we would have seen verifiable Ripper letters, more GSG like events, and symbolic references to that end. Or bodies moved to more strategically imagined locations. But he didn't. he saw opportunities, he pounced, and he did what he intended to get done, then left. The body wasn't important to him from that point on.

[John G]

You know I have said before that you and others on here cannot keep suggesting the torsos were the work of a serial killer because you cannot prove a cause of death which is conclusive proof of a murder, in any of the torsos.

You have a mixture of coroner’s court verdicts ranging from “Found dead” to “Murder” and the murder verdicts based on nothing more than a doctors opinions which we know now was mostly guesswork.

You have an array of body parts found mostly in the water wrapped in brown paper and neatly tied. No heads were ever found. You also have significant body parts missing or found still in bodies.

How the torsos died I do not know but there are other more plausible explanations than murder, some could have been by natural causes, some could have been by accident and some could have been by back street medical medicos.
If any of those occurred then it bring me onto the disposal of the bodies and other plausible explanation as to what happened to the bodies and body parts.

Extract from The study of anatomy in England from 1700 to the early 20th century
Following the Anatomy Act of 1832 body snatching from graves became unnecessary, as the dead bodies of all unclaimed poor from workhouses and charitable hospitals could legally undergo dissection. In fact, one of the principal reasons for introducing the Act was to prevent body snatching from graves. This practice continued throughout the century, and even in the late 19th century those running poor houses could sell corpses of their unclaimed inmates after death to teaching hospitals to recoup the expenses of poor relief in their parish. Other corpses were sold directly by desperately poor and grieving relatives to corpse dealers who worked in deprived areas of cities. Some corpses were sold on whole to the anatomy schools, but a higher price could be obtained by dividing up the body into its constituent parts to sell separately. Attitudes to the practice of dissection varied significantly between the rich and the poor. The wealthy who determined the law were happy for dissection to continue because scientific research was regarded as worthy at that time. Furthermore, it was not the rich who were dissected but the poor, either voluntarily when a corpse was sold by a desperately poor family, or against their wishes when death occurred in the workhouse or a charitable hospital and the body was unclaimed,.

It should be noted that anatomy schools had to bear the cost of then disposing of body parts and the remains of corpses, they were supposed to be given a proper burial but of course those tasked with this would more often than not pocket the money and dispose of the parts and corpses in other ways, and the River Thames was one such place I would suggest. The similarities are in the wrapping of the parts and not in the way you perceive. Dr Biggs has already stated that there are only so many ways to dismember a body and even an amateur can make it look like it has been done by an expert.

And there is nothing to suggest JTR murdered any of these torsos

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Unlikely the C5 murders we do have a quasi-forensic link in that all 4 victims were neatly disartriculated. Guy Rutty has stated that this is uncommon, and may be rare -bodies are normally dismembered via hand saw-and technically demanding. This is something that Dr Biggs should have been aware of, although I believe he informed you that he was a relatively inexperienced forensic specialist who had only been involved in one dismemberment case.

However, as with the C5 crimes, the lack of hard forensic evidence, such as DNA or tool mark analysis, means that essentially any link needs to be established via a criminological, i.e. profiling, approach. Dr Biggs is not a criminologist, and therefore not qualified in the relevant discipline to opine with authority on such matters

As I've discussed, the 1887-1889 Torso cases are not consistent with defensive dismemberment-by far the most common type-as you suggest.

For instance, a defensive dismemberer would not go to extreme lengths to dispose of body parts, such as occurred at Whitehall, incurring the risks such an approach suggests; this is plainly ridiculous.

Evisceration, and wounds that are unnecessary for the dismemberment process, are also inconsistent with defensive dismemberment. Evisceration, for example, is incredibly rare-just one dismemberment case out of 88 in yhe UK 1985-2017.

[seanr]

The arm found in Pimlico on Sunday, 30th of September 1888 was also reported to have put in lime.

[Michael W Richards]

Yes, I agree. I don't think JtR was trying yo taunt the police, he simply acted out of a strong compulsion, which is evidenced by the high level of risk he was prepared to accept.

I obviously think so too John. The fact that his opportunistic manner didn't get him into a jam maybe be the result of one factor...exactly how many times he had tried this and made it work. If it was only twice, which I suspect is possible, then he didn't need the kind of evasive luck he would need when killing 5 or more times.

[FrankO]

Sorry if I offended you - if so, I apologize.

Even though it wasn’t particularly nice of you to sarcastically paint me out as some sort of moron, Christer, I didn’t feel offended. It just amazed me how easily you put words in another man’s mouth, a thing you’re not quite fond of yourself when others do that to you. But, no hard feelings and let's move on!

What I am saying is that the "problem" as such is an easy one.

I wouldn't argue with that. If we put more stock in the similarities than in the differences and, thus, say that we’re dealing with one killer only (which is quite possible in my book), then, as you say, there will be mundane explanations for the differences between the two series. As you know, I’m just not convinced that we should think the similarities outweigh the differences, while you (seemingly) put blind faith in those similarities.

[FrankO]

And what I don't understand is that if Torso and JtR were a single individual, why no JtR-style street murders within the much larger boundary where the Torso perpetrator was clearly active?

I think that's a fair question, John. Had Ripper-style murders been committed in that larger area and/or thad they been spread out over a much longer period (of years), then I would have been inclined to atttach less significance to the differences between the two series.

[Abby Normal]

This is the clipping in question. The key sentence being 'the small parts into which the body was cut up were packed in something small soon after life was extinct, and compressed down in a quantity of carbolic acid.'

Where you say ‘in post 335 you quoted and responded to jerrys post were he provided the clip that says the acid was on small parts of the body not the head’, it seems you interpret this sentence to mean the head was excluded from being put in the acid.

I read the sentence to mean the body was cut up into pieces and placed into a corrosive substance, these pieces including the head.

I don’t believe I have made a mistake. On the contrary with the Times article providing a description of the state of the skull when found, I’m inclined to think I’m right on this.

hi seanr
ah. got it thanks for clariying your stance. i apologize for my hyperbole exasperation. i see how it can be read that way, but still think it probably meant excluding the head. but i see what you mean now. again sorry.

now i guess the big question is that if it wasnt carbolic acid but lime--- is lime mainly used as something to dissolve a body or as a preservative/deoderant? which takes us back to your original question about was he trying to use it to dissolve the flesh on the head/ face to hide identity??

[Abby Normal]

Unlikely the C5 murders we do have a quasi-forensic link in that all 4 victims were neatly disartriculated. Guy Rutty has stated that this is uncommon, and may be rare -bodies are normally dismembered via hand saw-and technically demanding. This is something that Dr Biggs should have been aware of, although I believe he informed you that he was a relatively inexperienced forensic specialist who had only been involved in one dismemberment case.

However, as with the C5 crimes, the lack of hard forensic evidence, such as DNA or tool mark analysis, means that essentially any link needs to be established via a criminological, i.e. profiling, approach. Dr Biggs is not a criminologist, and therefore not qualified in the relevant discipline to opine with authority on such matters

As I've discussed, the 1887-1889 Torso cases are not consistent with defensive dismemberment-by far the most common type-as you suggest.

For instance, a defensive dismemberer would not go to extreme lengths to dispose of body parts, such as occurred at Whitehall, incurring the risks such an approach suggests; this is plainly ridiculous.

Evisceration, and wounds that are unnecessary for the dismemberment process, are also inconsistent with defensive dismemberment. Evisceration, for example, is incredibly rare-just one dismemberment case out of 88 in yhe UK 1985-2017.

great post john. dr biggs also has the disadvantage of having trevor be the translator.

[Abby Normal]

The arm found in Pimlico on Sunday, 30th of September 1888 was also reported to have put in lime.

hi seanr
thanks.
do we have a tally of how many of the torso victims had evidence of lime and or other chemical substances on them?

[Fisherman]

You know I have said before that you and others on here cannot keep suggesting the torsos were the work of a serial killer because you cannot prove a cause of death which is conclusive proof of a murder, in any of the torsos.

You have a mixture of coroner’s court verdicts ranging from “Found dead” to “Murder” and the murder verdicts based on nothing more than a doctors opinions which we know now was mostly guesswork.

You have an array of body parts found mostly in the water wrapped in brown paper and neatly tied. No heads were ever found. You also have significant body parts missing or found still in bodies.

How the torsos died I do not know but there are other more plausible explanations than murder, some could have been by natural causes, some could have been by accident and some could have been by back street medical medicos.
If any of those occurred then it bring me onto the disposal of the bodies and other plausible explanation as to what happened to the bodies and body parts.

Extract from The study of anatomy in England from 1700 to the early 20th century
Following the Anatomy Act of 1832 body snatching from graves became unnecessary, as the dead bodies of all unclaimed poor from workhouses and charitable hospitals could legally undergo dissection. In fact, one of the principal reasons for introducing the Act was to prevent body snatching from graves. This practice continued throughout the century, and even in the late 19th century those running poor houses could sell corpses of their unclaimed inmates after death to teaching hospitals to recoup the expenses of poor relief in their parish. Other corpses were sold directly by desperately poor and grieving relatives to corpse dealers who worked in deprived areas of cities. Some corpses were sold on whole to the anatomy schools, but a higher price could be obtained by dividing up the body into its constituent parts to sell separately. Attitudes to the practice of dissection varied significantly between the rich and the poor. The wealthy who determined the law were happy for dissection to continue because scientific research was regarded as worthy at that time. Furthermore, it was not the rich who were dissected but the poor, either voluntarily when a corpse was sold by a desperately poor family, or against their wishes when death occurred in the workhouse or a charitable hospital and the body was unclaimed,.

It should be noted that anatomy schools had to bear the cost of then disposing of body parts and the remains of corpses, they were supposed to be given a proper burial but of course those tasked with this would more often than not pocket the money and dispose of the parts and corpses in other ways, and the River Thames was one such place I would suggest. The similarities are in the wrapping of the parts and not in the way you perceive. Dr Biggs has already stated that there are only so many ways to dismember a body and even an amateur can make it look like it has been done by an expert.

And there is nothing to suggest JTR murdered any of these torsos

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Iīll skip the intro and just deal with your epilogue: "There is nothing to suggest that JTR murdered any of these torsos".

There are numerous similarities, like the abdominal flaps, the cuts from sternum to groin, the taken out uteri and hearts, the stolen rings, the prostituioin background, the lack of obvious pre-morten torture, the lost colon sections, the same city. the same time.

That, Trevor, does not add up to there being nothing suggesting a link. Unless, thjat is, we want to sweep all the vidence under the carpet for whatever reason.

[Fisherman]

I didn't say this is what happened "factually" Fisherman, or what this man thought...I said "I can see", "I believe"...and "maybe".

Then I would suggest that it is actually more a case of your NOT being able to see, Michael. Anyhow, itīs good that you admit that your take is a figment of your imagination. And nothing wrong with that, as long as we do not elevate it into something else on no factual grounds.

The premise I suggested is very plausible, in that the placement of some Torsos was a political statement or a cry for attention. If Polly or Annies killer intended to do the same thing we would have seen verifiable Ripper letters, more GSG like events, and symbolic references to that end. Or bodies moved to more strategically imagined locations. But he didn't. he saw opportunities, he pounced, and he did what he intended to get done, then left. The body wasn't important to him from that point on.

Michael, I donīt think that ANY premise that ends up in the originator claiming that there are no similarities is in any way plausible. To me, "plausible" means "likely" and "based on the evidence".

[Abby Normal]

Even though it wasn’t particularly nice of you to sarcastically paint me out as some sort of moron, Christer, I didn’t feel offended. It just amazed me how easily you put words in another man’s mouth, a thing you’re not quite fond of yourself when others do that to you. But, no hard feelings and let's move on!

I wouldn't argue with that. If we put more stock in the similarities than in the differences and, thus, say that we’re dealing with one killer only (which is quite possible in my book), then, as you say, there will be mundane explanations for the differences between the two series. As you know, I’m just not convinced that we should think the similarities outweigh the differences, while you (seemingly) put blind faith in those similarities.

wow frank
blind faith ?!? in the similarities? wow. and after just chastising someone else.

its actually the exact opposite of blind faith- its based on evidence and the large number of similarities exhibited by that evidence.