Practicality or madness?

[John G]

I don’t know, I don’t find it odd. How else would he do it?
he opens the abdomen, cuts away part of the abdomen in order to reach inside and take out parts that would otherwise impede cutting the torso across the abdomen.

I don’t find it very odd, I find it a perfectly straightforward method of accessing the abdomen.

Fair enough. Thanks for this Kattrup.

[Abby Normal]

Absolutely, I just find it part of the attempt to assert similarities based on a superficial word usage. The victims all had their throats cut! No, decapitation does not equal cut throat. The victims were eviscerated! No, cutting a torso into small pieces means the intestines will no longer be attached, it does not equal eviscerating. Uteri were removed! Well, EJ was heavily pregnant, so removing the uterus with foetus was necessary before sectioning the torso. So again, not the same thing.

hi kattrup
when Lorena Bobbit cut off her husbands member, would you consider that a case of dismemberment? ; )

[Fisherman]

Blimey, Abby!

[Fisherman]

To be able to extract the uterus with the foetus inside, there was never any need to take away the abdominal wall. He had cut a hole in Jackons body that would allow for the passage of a medium-sized van. One should keep in mind that this cut extended from the groin up to and through the sternum!

Reasoning that there is nothing odd in two killers emerging at the same time who both got it into their heads to cut away abdominal walls in sections does not hold much water. Once we are aware of the very odd practice from the Chapman and Kelly cases, there can be no serious doubt that the parallel we have in Jackson was most likely inflicted by the same man. Letīs not forget that the REASON for opening up the three bodies was the very same - to enable organ extraction. And organ extracting killers are not exactly thirteen a dozen. Therefore, when we have examples of organ extraction in the same area and time, the starting point for any investigation must always be that the originator is the same, as long as there are no conclusive reasons to believe differently. And in this case, there are no such reasons.
The fact that Jackson was dismembered whereas Kelly and Chapman were not is blown away by the fact that all three victims had their abdominal walls cut away in sections. Add to this all the other similarities, the extraordinary length of the cut to the abdomen, the fact that the killer took out both sexually oriented and non-sexually oriented organs, the victimology, the taking of the rings, the lack of pre-mortem torture and we have a pretty watertight case for a common killer.

A few posts back, I pointed to how Jackson will at some stage before the dismemberment have made a perfect parallel to Chapman, stretched out on her back with a long cut from groin to sternum, with the abdominal wall removed in flaps, flung by the side of the body, with the uterus taken out and with rings lacking from both victims fingers.

Such things CAN - strictly philosophically - come about as the result of a heap of mindblowing coincidences. But the odds for it are so high as to exceed any factual likelyhood. They were twin sisters, and the criminological DNA will therefore be the exact same.

It is a futile exercise to try and deny this, Iīm afraid. The sooner this is realized, the better.

[Abby Normal]

To be able to extract the uterus with the foetus inside, there was never any need to take away the abdominal wall. He had cut a hole in Jackons body that would allow for the passage of a medium-sized van. One should keep in mind that this cut extended from the groin up to and through the sternum!

Reasoning that there is nothing odd in two killers emerging at the same time who both got it into their heads to cut away abdominal walls in sections does not hold much water. Once we are aware of the very odd practice from the Chapman and Kelly cases, there can be no serious doubt that the parallel we have in Jackson was most likely inflicted by the same man. Letīs not forget that the REASON for opening up the three bodies was the very same - to enable organ extraction. And organ extracting killers are not exactly thirteen a dozen. Therefore, when we have examples of organ extraction in the same area and time, the starting point for any investigation must always be that the originator is the same, as long as there are no conclusive reasons to believe differently. And in this case, there are no such reasons.
The fact that Jackson was dismembered whereas Kelly and Chapman were not is blown away by the fact that all three victims had their abdominal walls cut away in sections. Add to this all the other similarities, the extraordinary length of the cut to the abdomen, the fact that the killer took out both sexually oriented and non-sexually oriented organs, the victimology, the taking of the rings, the lack of pre-mortem torture and we have a pretty watertight case for a common killer.

A few posts back, I pointed to how Jackson will at some stage before the dismemberment have made a perfect parallel to Chapman, stretched out on her back with a long cut from groin to sternum, with the abdominal wall removed in flaps, flung by the side of the body, with the uterus taken out and with rings lacking from both victims fingers.

Such things CAN - strictly philosophically - come about as the result of a heap of mindblowing coincidences. But the odds for it are so high as to exceed any factual likelyhood. They were twin sisters, and the criminological DNA will therefore be the exact same.

It is a futile exercise to try and deny this, Iīm afraid. The sooner this is realized, the better.

i agree with this fisherman.
the fact that you have two prostitutes within months months of each other, murdered and lying on there backs with the killer cutting away flaps of flesh from there stomach in order to get at the insides illustrates the point well that this is more than likely by the same man.

[John G]

This has been an interesting thread but I think it has run its course. We will obviously not agree, which is fine, as few things are ageed in this subject.

For me, there is little possibility that the two sets of murders are connected. The signatures are vastly different, and it makes no sense to me that a killer would alternate between dismemberment murders and very different street murders.

The geographical profile is very different-one set of murders taking place in an incredibly small area, the other set demonstrating a killer who was active over a much wider area, suggesting one killer had transport, whereas the other didn't, remaining psychologically wedded to the Whitechapel he must have known well.

One killer organized, the other extremely disorganized.

Yes, there's Jackson's evisceration, which I acknowledge is rare, but relying on this factor leaves the theory hanging by a thread.

Two victims had their Torso's bisected, but this isn't unprecedented. If it's argued that the heart was taken from Rainham- which is questionable given that Dr Hebbert also said the lungs were missing, contrary to contemporary newspaper report- then the theory totally collapses, given that Kelly's perpetrator made not one, but two botched attempts to remove the heart, eventually succeeding, wheras there was nothing crude about the way the thoracic cavity was accessed at Rainham. Put simply, there's absolutely no way a single perpetrator could have become so de-skilled in the space of just a year. And, as Dr Hebbert indicates, Kelly was pretty much hacked to pieces, very different to the skilled disarticulation work of the other perpetrator.

[Fisherman]

The thread just ran one post too far...

[Abby Normal]

This has been an interesting thread but I think it has run its course. We will obviously not agree, which is fine, as few things are ageed in this subject.

For me, there is little possibility that the two sets of murders are connected. The signatures are vastly different, and it makes no sense to me that a killer would alternate between dismemberment murders and very different street murders.

The geographical profile is very different-one set of murders taking place in an incredibly small area, the other set demonstrating a killer who was active over a much wider area, suggesting one killer had transport, whereas the other didn't, remaining psychologically wedded to the Whitechapel he must have known well.

One killer organized, the other extremely disorganized.

Yes, there's Jackson's evisceration, which I acknowledge is rare, but relying on this factor leaves the theory hanging by a thread.

Two victims had their Torso's bisected, but this isn't unprecedented. If it's argued that the heart was taken from Rainham- which is questionable given that Dr Hebbert also said the lungs were missing, contrary to contemporary newspaper report- then the theory totally collapses, given that Kelly's perpetrator made not one, but two botched attempts to remove the heart, eventually succeeding, wheras there was nothing crude about the way the thoracic cavity was accessed at Rainham. Put simply, there's absolutely no way a single perpetrator could have become so de-skilled in the space of just a year. And, as Dr Hebbert indicates, Kelly was pretty much hacked to pieces, very different to the skilled disarticulation work of the other perpetrator.

wow theres so much just blatently wrong with this post i wouldnt even know where to start.. so i wont.
i will agree the thread has run its course though. for you anyway john. bye.

[Abby Normal]

much has been made over the apparent differences between the time spans of the two series, eventhough they of course, overlap. assuming that mackenzie is a ripper victim (and in my mind there is no doubt that she is) how does one explain the fact that both series end the same time with her and pinchin? another coincidence? that would be extremely odd especialy because, you know, torso was such a longer series.

[FrankO]

We have a woman lying on her back. Her neck has been cut and she has had her abdomen opened up all the way from the chest down to the groin. The abdominal wall has been removed, and two large flaps of abdominal flesh lying beside the body bear witness to that. Furthermore, her uterus has been cut out of her body. There are no other cuts to the body, no cuts to the hands and arms received while trying to fend the assailant off. There are no visible signs of any torture inflicted, it seems as if the killer simply made quick business of killing the woman to be able to move on to the eviscerations.

Can you think of any parallel case to this, Frank?

No problem there, Christer. I’ve been seeing it like this since I started comparing the 2 series, including the pattern that emerges from the Ripper murders: he renders his victims senseless, lays them on their backs, cuts their throats and, moves on to cutting them from sternum to pubes, pulling and cutting out intestines & organs. In Eddowes’s case he adds some cutting to the groins & face and in Kelly’s case, when he obviously has more time, he also cuts off her breasts, thighs, part of her buttocks and slashes her arms & legs. All the organs are pulled & cut out from the opening in the abdomen.

My way of thinking is that, whoever killed them, did to them what he liked first and foremost. Because, after all, he risked his very neck for it, could only count on little time with his victims and, therefore, had to make the most of it, thereby having to divide his attention between his surroundings and his victim. So, my opinion is that in Kelly we see what he was all about. And if we put Kelly next to Jackson, we see that there’s still a very great deal of difference between the two (see below).

What strikes me about the Torso series, is that we don’t see much of what was done to Kelly and certainly not in one victim. Of course, Jackson’s abdomen were opened up by cutting from sternum to pubes and cutting away 2 flaps of skin; in 2 other cases the face was attacked; the Rainham & Pinchin Street victims received a cut from sternum to pubes, but no viscera were ever pulled and cut out – that we know of - through this abdominal cut (except for Jackson), no breasts were cut off, no thighs were stripped (except, possibly, the 1884 victim), no deep slashes on arms or legs, even though Torso man had much more time & light with his victims than the Ripper had; plus he could give his undivided attention to them. It especially strikes me that the Torso victim who was killed closest in time to the Ripper victims didn’t have any of the features we see with Kelly.

And, of course, yes, there were other eviscerations in the Torso series (1873 (lungs), Rainham & Jackson), but they may very well only have come about by dividing the torso into parts and in that regard seem more of a by-product or extra rather than something he had first and foremost on his mind. Torso man, through his dumping of body parts, seems to me to have been a killer with a large ego and it strikes me that, if he and the Ripper are to be one and the same, he made no clear effort to make it known that he and the Ripper were, in fact, one and the same. He could have made that clear with Kelly, Jackson and the Pinchin Street victim and perhaps even with the Whitehall victim, but he didn’t.

I know you see this very differently and can I how you come to your conclusion, but there you go. Thans for the exchange, Christer.

[Fisherman]

No problem there, Christer. I’ve been seeing it like this since I started comparing the 2 series, including the pattern that emerges from the Ripper murders: he renders his victims senseless, lays them on their backs, cuts their throats and, moves on to cutting them from sternum to pubes, pulling and cutting out intestines & organs. In Eddowes’s case he adds some cutting to the groins & face and in Kelly’s case, when he obviously has more time, he also cuts off her breasts, thighs, part of her buttocks and slashes her arms & legs. All the organs are pulled & cut out from the opening in the abdomen.

My way of thinking is that, whoever killed them, did to them what he liked first and foremost. Because, after all, he risked his very neck for it, could only count on little time with his victims and, therefore, had to make the most of it, thereby having to divide his attention between his surroundings and his victim. So, my opinion is that in Kelly we see what he was all about. And if we put Kelly next to Jackson, we see that there’s still a very great deal of difference between the two (see below).

What strikes me about the Torso series, is that we don’t see much of what was done to Kelly and certainly not in one victim. Of course, Jackson’s abdomen were opened up by cutting from sternum to pubes and cutting away 2 flaps of skin; in 2 other cases the face was attacked; the Rainham & Pinchin Street victims received a cut from sternum to pubes, but no viscera were ever pulled and cut out – that we know of - through this abdominal cut (except for Jackson), no breasts were cut off, no thighs were stripped (except, possibly, the 1884 victim), no deep slashes on arms or legs, even though Torso man had much more time & light with his victims than the Ripper had; plus he could give his undivided attention to them. It especially strikes me that the Torso victim who was killed closest in time to the Ripper victims didn’t have any of the features we see with Kelly.

And, of course, yes, there were other eviscerations in the Torso series (1873 (lungs), Rainham & Jackson), but they may very well only have come about by dividing the torso into parts and in that regard seem more of a by-product or extra rather than something he had first and foremost on his mind. Torso man, through his dumping of body parts, seems to me to have been a killer with a large ego and it strikes me that, if he and the Ripper are to be one and the same, he made no clear effort to make it known that he and the Ripper were, in fact, one and the same. He could have made that clear with Kelly, Jackson and the Pinchin Street victim and perhaps even with the Whitehall victim, but he didn’t.

I know you see this very differently and can I how you come to your conclusion, but there you go. Thans for the exchange, Christer.

Well, Frank, as I have said before, once we are certain that victim in a murder series was evciscerated, then I think that in the choice of believing whether any other victim in the same series was also eviscerated or jus happened to go glip of some organs by way of any other process, the only truly viable choice must be that the victim WAS eviscerated. Eviscerations are truely rare, and those who perform them are normally people who have an underlying pathology that causes them to eviscerate.

To me, there can be no doubt that this is the logical choice when we are for example looking at Jackson and the Rainham victim, who both suffered the same type of cutting the torso in three parts, and where the hearts and lungs were missing in both cases. If these implications are not enough, I find it of tfurther interest that it was only the thoracic section. that loist itīs organs in the Rainham case - whatever power of nature that can be suggested to have rinsed the thoracic section out, apparently did not do the same to the pelvic/abdomonal sections, where the organs were still present.

Yes, some doubt must be there. No, that doubt cannot possibly outweigh the likelihood of a parallel evisceration.

As for comparing Kelly to Jackson, I can see that it is a lot more tempting than to do so with Chapman, if you do not like the idea of a commmon killer. That, however, does not detract from the fact that Jackson and Chapoman will have been twin sisters at some stage. They will both have been prostitutes, they will both have been lying on their backs, they will both have had their abdomens opsned up by a very long cut, all the way from the breastbone to the groin, they will both have had their uteri carved out, they will both have had their abdominal walls cut away in sections, they will both have had no signs of any pre-mortem torture, they will both have had their rings stolen from their fingers.
To even suggest that such a likeness could come about as the result of two very differently mentally disposed menīs ideas of what to do to a woman and her body does not work in the real world, Frank.

The worrying thing about your sketches above, is that you represent Jacksons and Kellys respective losses of their abdominal walls as being of different sizes. Actually, we donīt know just how large the openings in each woman was and how they were shaped - but we DO know that in Kellys case, the flaps were described as large, just as they were in Jacksons case! The only difference is that Hebbert also describe the flaps as long irregular strips, but the idea that they were thin and narrow is effectively counterweighed by the press reports, where they was described as covering the entire abdomen or the entire lower abdomen, respectively.
I would therefore say that a fair representation of the two victims would involve the same kind of area, for the very simple reason that we do not know exactly what the damage looked like, least of all in Jacksons case.

After that, you move on to reasoning - if I understand you correctly - that since Jackson did not suffer the same kind of extensive damage as Kelly did, the victims will not have had the same originator (whereas Chapman and Jackson must reasonably have been killed by the same man, going on how THEY were exactly the same...?), but I think that we may need to look a bit further than that. For example, in the only two torso cases where we can tell anything at all about the faces, they WERE cut: 1873 and the Tottenham case. So even if we walk down that path, there are consistencies that are lost if we use only Kelly and Jackson for a comparison.

At the end of the day, I see no reason to do anything BUT compare the two most similar victims from the respective series, since it is always going to be the similarities that rule whether we opt for a common killer or for two serial killer and eviscerators in the same town and time - which per se would be unique, REFARDLESS if there were any similarities or not inbetween them.

So I recommend staying with Jackson and Chapman. If you can produce a credible explanation to how two VERY different men just happened to produce twin sisters like these, although the killers were so mentally different - according to your take on things - as to disenable any real belief in them being one and the same, Iīd be intersted to hear that explanation.
Otherwise, I would love to hear you say "Yes, you are correct - the likeness is so overwhelming and rich in odd details as to convince me that we have at long last come to a point where we must acknowledge that we cannot possibly be dealing with two killers".

Coming from you, a poster who seem very discerning and not very likely to cling on to an idea for reasons of not being able to accept that you can be wrong, I would consider that extremely valuable.
If you cannot bring yourself to it - or if you genuinely feel that the twin sisters are more likely to be the work of different killers - then could you please amend your sketches...?

[Kattrup]

much has been made over the apparent differences between the time spans of the two series, eventhough they of course, overlap. assuming that mackenzie is a ripper victim (and in my mind there is no doubt that she is) how does one explain the fact that both series end the same time with her and pinchin? another coincidence? that would be extremely odd especialy because, you know, torso was such a longer series.

The torso series has not been shown to be a series dating back to the 1870s. So the length of time is currently uncertain.

That said, I and others have stated that the overlap in time 1887-1889 is the most convincing argument so far for a link between the torsos and the ripper.

[Fisherman]

The torso series has not been shown to be a series dating back to the 1870s. So the length of time is currently uncertain.

That said, I and others have stated that the overlap in time 1887-1889 is the most convincing argument so far for a link between the torsos and the ripper.

Overlapping time as such is not any argument at all for a link. If the geography does not allow for a link, then overlapping time can in fact even be an obstacle to such a thing.

Overall, it is of course only the character of the offenses committed that can present a factual link.

That said, of course the overlapping times in our case is a further strengthening factor for a link, but if there were no other similarities at all, the case for a common killer would be a very weak one.

Those are the basic facts.

[Fisherman]

I thought Iīd may just as well exemplify how the different factors of similarity relate to each other by using a classic example: The Monster of Florence. This killer was active between 1968 and 1985, and he killed couples by way of shooting them to death. There was also stabbing involved.

Now, if we had had a series of insurance frauds committed in Florence in the 70:s, I would say that the likelihood that anybody would believe that the perpetrator was the same as in the Monster murders is very low, and understandably so.

The timing is arguably the least important factor in deciding whether there is a link or not. If this had not been so, we would possibly have identified the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, as the Monster; he comitted much the same types of crimes - and in the same time frame, he was active 1976-77!

The geography is somewhere inbetween the timings and the specifically caserelated evidence, such as the damage inflicted. The three first double murders in Florence took part in 1968, 1974 and 1981. A six year hiatus, and then a seven year ditto told the deeds apart chronologically. But since they all were committed in Florence and by the same means, always targetting couples, they were nevertheless regarded as linked.

Now, if these murders had been a stabbing of a teenage boy in 1968, a strangulation of an elderly woman in 1974 and a shooting of a couple in 1981, the deeds would arguably never have been linked together.

Which brings us to the summing up:

-Chronology can be interesting - but only if the geography and the damage done allows for it.

-Geography can be interesting even if the chronology seems off - but only if the damage done allows for it.

-The damage done is ALWAYS interesting - if the similarities are typical/rare/odd enough and the geography and chronology do not represent impossible hurdles.

Ideally, all of these parameters are in line with each other. And certainly, they could not be much more in line than what is the case in the Jackson/Chapman comparison:

-Nine months apart only.

-Murder victim and dumped parts from the other victim within easy walking distance from each other.

-A host of rare and specific similarities involving:

same victimology
same occupation of the victim (prostitution)
cutting damage to the neck
the abdomen opened from the groin to the breastbone
abdominal flesh taken away in large flaps
removal of the uterus
no signs of physical pre-mortem torture
rings stolen from victims fingers

If we do not allow this to reason about a single killer, then I am at a loss to see which two murders would be MORE suited to do so.

[Fisherman]

Overlapping time as such is not any argument at all for a link. If the geography does not allow for a link, then overlapping time can in fact even be an obstacle to such a thing.

I need to rephrase that! Here goes:
Overlapping time as such is not any argument at all for a link. If the geography as such speaks of crime sites set much apart, then overlapping time can in fact make it impossible to speak of a common perpetrator; the various times the crimes were committed may be impossible to allow for having visited the spots involved although there is a time overlap as such.