How many victims?

[JeffHamm]

They were removed at the mortuaries and acquired for medical research before the post mortems were carried out something that was rife in mortuaries in Victorian times.
the bodies of chapman and eddowes were left for up to 8 hours before the post mortems were carried out at which time the organs were found missing and presume removed by the killer

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

And something that was expressly forbidden by law at the time. It was possible to obtain bodies for disection, but these were applied for, and required a location be registered as the disecting location (i.e. for teaching and research purposes). What was not allowed was the taking of anything prior to an autopsy. There's no evidence to support the idea of mortuary thievery, it's just a hypothesis Trevor has put forth because he does not believe JtR had enough time to remove organs in the Eddowes' case. But if Chapman's organs were taken, that would suggest his time estimate is incorrect, so he argues that Chapman's organs were also stolen. For some reason, he doesn't argue that Kelly's heart was stolen, but rather that it was not missing, despite the fact it is not in the body and by all accounts not in the room and there are press reports indicating something was missing (one even specifies the heart was missing). He also puts a lot of stock in Insp. Reid's statement, made many years after the fact, that nothing was missing from Kelly.

It's not an idea that has gained a lot of traction here, but Trevor has spent a lot of time working on the idea, so has more lines of reasoning and there are those who do agree with him. While I disagree with his interpretation, that's doesn't mean anything, he disagrees with mine after all, so disagreement doesn't mean much other than we draw different conclusions.

In the end, take your time to look at the evidence people put forth, and do your best to separate "strength of conviction" and "strength of evidence". Then, draw your own conclusions based upon your own reading. It's not a competition, rather, it's about sharing of ideas. Ideas can be agreed with or not, but it doesn't mean they haven't been considered.

- Jeff

[Kattrup]

[FONT=Courier New][FONT=Arial]Oh, now I’m really confused! I always thought it was well-established fact that the killer took away the organs of poor Annie and Kate. It was exposed at their inquests. ]

Please don't let Trevor's "theory" confuse you.

you're absolutely right, it is well established fact.

[Trevor Marriott]

Oh, now I’m really confused! I always thought it was well-established fact that the killer took away the organs of poor Annie and Kate. It was exposed at their inquests. It was blazoned all over the newspapers. People speculated about it. When half a kidney was sent to George Lusk, everyone is still arguing today whether or not it belonged to Kate. This removal of organs was the very basis of theories (however misguided) like Leonard Matters’s, whose “satanic Doctor Stanley” supposedly needed these organs for his collection of medical specimens. I realize this theory, however classic, is almost certainly rubbish, but the facts on which it’s based--the killer’s removal of certain organs-- have still stood unchallenged as far as I know.

So if the Ripper didn’t take away Annie Chapman’s uterus, and Kate Eddowes’’s uterus and kidney, as the typical trophies of a serial killer, where did they go? Did a hungry stray dog come across them and gobble up these tasty morsels just minutes before these poor women’s bodies were discovered? Or did Constable Eddie Watkins, who stumbled across Kate’s body in Mitre Square, grab her discarded kidney and take it home to his wife to cook it for a nice bit of “Kate and Sidney pie”? I do hope you can enlighten me on these puzzling questions.

They were removed at the mortuaries and acquired for medical research before the post mortems were carried out something that was rife in mortuaries in Victorian times.
the bodies of chapman and eddowes were left for up to 8 hours before the post mortems were carried out at which time the organs were found missing and presume removed by the killer

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Gordon]

this wild belief stems from the misguided belief that the killer took away the organs of chapman and eddowes.

Oh, now I’m really confused! I always thought it was well-established fact that the killer took away the organs of poor Annie and Kate. It was exposed at their inquests. It was blazoned all over the newspapers. People speculated about it. When half a kidney was sent to George Lusk, everyone is still arguing today whether or not it belonged to Kate. This removal of organs was the very basis of theories (however misguided) like Leonard Matters’s, whose “satanic Doctor Stanley” supposedly needed these organs for his collection of medical specimens. I realize this theory, however classic, is almost certainly rubbish, but the facts on which it’s based--the killer’s removal of certain organs-- have still stood unchallenged as far as I know.

So if the Ripper didn’t take away Annie Chapman’s uterus, and Kate Eddowes’’s uterus and kidney, as the typical trophies of a serial killer, where did they go? Did a hungry stray dog come across them and gobble up these tasty morsels just minutes before these poor women’s bodies were discovered? Or did Constable Eddie Watkins, who stumbled across Kate’s body in Mitre Square, grab her discarded kidney and take it home to his wife to cook it for a nice bit of “Kate and Sidney pie”? I do hope you can enlighten me on these puzzling questions.

[Gordon]

I would only add that it's somewhat odd that considering the fixation with the female organs of generation, the killer of Chapman and Eddowes displayed, the killer of Kelly only took away her heart. Of course, who knows the workings of a mind as twisted as that of the Whitechapel murderer?

You’re right of course to point out that it’s hard to figure a mind as horribly twisted and perverted as that of someone like the Ripper. Yet even so, a “heart” and a “womb” are not so far apart in terms of their symbolic meanings. The Ripper’s fixations didn’t have to be all about sex, but something broader and just as primal, which embraces sex along with other things. The womb admittedly is more explicitly sexual, but along with that, it stands for “love” and “motherhood” and the generation and nurturance of new life. The “heart” similarly stands for “love” and “warmth,” for promises of eternal commitment and the center of life itself.

If these values are stood on their head, in the sick mind of a man who believes (for whatever reason) that these promises of warmth, love, and nurturance from a woman--including his mother, quite probably--or women in general--have been betrayed, that he's been met with cold rejection all his life, and if he’s full of insane hatred in consequence, it’s quite comprehensible that he might rip these organs out of a woman’s body in a fit of rage as “things” needing to be “exposed” as “having no meaning” (in his mind) despite what they promised. It’s rather like the “Emperor who had no clothes,” if you get my meaning. I’ve never heard, but I’d be interested to know, what Sigmund Freud had to say (if anything) about the Ripper murders. He was 32 years old when they happened. Freud would have had a field day interpreting a mind like the Ripper’s, and speculating about his relationship with his mother!

At any rate, my point is that a “heart” and a “womb” are very close together in terms of their symbolic meaning. Even more so than the brain, which is the true seat of thought, feeling, and motivation. Last Sunday being Valentine’s Day, lots of people send cards to one another saying “Darling, I give you my heart.” Despite the function of the brain, nobody says “Darling, I give you my brain,” and if they did, I’m sure the recipient would be left feeling cold! Nobody says ”I give you my womb” either--not in so many words!--but just as people say things like ”I open up my heart to you,” plenty of words imply more circumspectly that ”I will open up my womb to you, and let us make new life together.”

In view of this shared primal symbolism, the horribly perverted man (whose values were turned upside down) who could cut out a woman’s womb and take it away is in my mind the same man who could cut out her heart and take it away, for exactly the same reason.

The only thing that puzzles me is “why a kidney as well”? Why a kidney, indeed? What on earth is the significance of a kidney? Maybe he just put his hand on it along with all the other stuff, and figured ”I might as well take this as well!” As you said, ”who can figure the workings of a mind as twisted as that?”

[Observer]

If you wish. I would be interested in what behaviours and/or writings between the police and Home Office leads you to believe they did utilize such complicated mental gymnastics. So far it's coming across as something you've just thought up as something they might have done rather than as something you've seen evidence of them actually doing. If you've got some basis for your ideas then feel free to present it. If it's just an idea you thought of, that's fine too as it gives you a question to ask of the the source material. If you find something that you think fits, you can present it when you find it. Sharing of ideas also involves sharing of the evidence that our ideas are based upon.

- Jeff

We'll never know the whole story with regard to the investigation into the Whitechapel murderer. It would be foolish to draw conclusions on the known evidence, on the files available to us today. Much is lost. Modern police forces use the tactic which I described. The Yorkshire Ripper investigation comes to mind. Now, no I don't know if the police used that tactic in 1888, but it is possible. Let's just leave it there.

[JeffHamm]

Indeed not. I would only add that it's somewhat odd that considering the fixation with the female organs of generation, the killer of Chapman and Eddowes displayed, the killer of Kelly only took away her heart. Of course, who knows the workings of a mind as twisted as that of the Whitechapel murderer?

Indeed. It would suggest, though, that Baxter's idea of selling uterii was not the motive. What exactly JtR's motive was for taking organs will probably never really be known, given it was likely something twisted in his own personal world view. Other serial killers who have taken body parts have generally been necrophiliacs and get an erotic rush out of possessing parts of their victims (Dahmer, Bundy), and others have suffered schizophrenia (Chase, for example, who thought his blood was drying up and he needed to consume blood to replentish his). Pending on who JtR was, he could fall into either of those, or be different again of course. They're a weird bunch after all.

Anyway, we're drifting off topic now and probably should let the thread topic take over again.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

According to your readings being the operative phrase.

If you wish. I would be interested in what behaviours and/or writings between the police and Home Office leads you to believe they did utilize such complicated mental gymnastics. So far it's coming across as something you've just thought up as something they might have done rather than as something you've seen evidence of them actually doing. If you've got some basis for your ideas then feel free to present it. If it's just an idea you thought of, that's fine too as it gives you a question to ask of the the source material. If you find something that you think fits, you can present it when you find it. Sharing of ideas also involves sharing of the evidence that our ideas are based upon.

- Jeff

[Observer]

That's fair enough. We're each free to draw our own conclusions. Doesn't mean any of us are right though.

- Jeff

Indeed not. I would only add that it's somewhat odd that considering the fixation with the female organs of generation, the killer of Chapman and Eddowes displayed, the killer of Kelly only took away her heart. Of course, who knows the workings of a mind as twisted as that of the Whitechapel murderer?

[Observer]

Anyway, they didn't resort to mental chess games like a double bluff that you suggest as far as I can tell from my reading of their actions and behaviours.

- Jeff

According to your readings being the operative phrase.

[JeffHamm]

Indeed I don't. I think you'll agree that there's nothing more to add

That's fair enough. We're each free to draw our own conclusions. Doesn't mean any of us are right though.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

That doesn't wash does it? The police after the Kelly murder were desperate to apprehend the killer. If someone had suggested to Abberline at the time should he show his backside on the Mansion House steps then he would secure a conviction, he'd have done it in a flash. Pun intended.

What doesn't wash? Do you mean when I say that idea is too complicated and requires lots of evidence to support it? But that's how hypothesis testing works, the more complicated the hypothesis the more support you need for it. The complexity of the notion of a "double bluff" (the police releasing false information - organs missing - , after having said the true state - nothing missing -, simply to weed out false confessions, which they were not overwhelmed by though there were a few I think, is a pretty complicated set of ideas to suggest might have been the case. So, to evaluate that suggestion we need to look at the evidence you have to support it (i.e. if you could show the police often did this sort of thing, then you could argue it was "standard procedure", but the problem is it wasn't done). The police were desperate to solve the case, but they were frustrated by the fact that this was not a typical case where there was a known connection between a victim and their killer. They were trying to get information from the public, and there was some belief that JtR might be known (or at least suspected) by his family or friends. The police were trying to encourage people to report their suspicions, and were of the belief that they would get such information using their tried and true methods (door knocking and questioning the public for information and patrolling the area with more beat cops).

Anyway, they didn't resort to mental chess games like a double bluff that you suggest as far as I can tell from my reading of their actions and behaviours.

- Jeff

[Observer]

Trevor doesn't believe that, as is his right, and you're not obliged to either. .

Indeed I don't. I think you'll agree that there's nothing more to add

[Observer]

That's getting rather complicated, and unless you can show this was common practice at the time, then it's unsupported. .

That doesn't wash does it? The police after the Kelly murder were desperate to apprehend the killer. If someone had suggested to Abberline at the time should he show his backside on the Mansion House steps then he would secure a conviction, he'd have done it in a flash. Pun intended.

[JeffHamm]

I was thinking along the lines of a double bluff, that is suggesting it was missing when in fact it was not.

That's getting rather complicated, and unless you can show this was common practice at the time, then it's unsupported. Possible doesn't equal probable, and a hypothesis is only as good as the evidence that supports it. When the hypothesis is about making evidence "go away", for lack of a better phrase, it needs to be very well supported. At the moment, apart from Reid's statements that were made many years after the fact, all of the contemporary sources point more towards the heart having been taken away than not.

Trevor doesn't believe that, as is his right, and you're not obliged to either. But that doesn't change the fact that there is far more than "zero evidence" with regards to the heart having been taken, and even more if one relaxes our statement to simply "some portion of organs were taken."

- Jeff