Did The Killer Remove Organs?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Belated congratulations for your birthday, 39 again? Laphroaig is one of my favourites. Commiserations on England's surprising performance, but I think Australia was lucky to have snatched the title after their dismal start. Glen Maxwell's innings seemed to have boosted their morale, but the T20 team crashed and burned to a 4-1 loss to India. Every dog has it's day.

Cheers, George

Cheers George.

[Fleetwood Mac]

As an Australian of Celtic origin, my preference would be a good single malt, or a drop of the Irish.

Cheers, George

Most of us in England are of Celtic origin also, George, in so far as the Celts were a loose association of tribes sharing a similar language and customs. In fact, there is as much Celtic DNA in Northern England as there is in Scotland or Ireland (Wales has a higher incidence of Celtic DNA than all of them); and, even in Southern England, Anglo-Saxon DNA is a minority in every area.

In terms of what this has to do with 1888 Whitechapel, well, you get an insight into the collective mind of Victorian high society, people such as Anderson; who propagated the 'Anglo-Saxon' myth with no evidential basis whatsoever, in order to promote themselves as something different from, and more importantly better than, everyone else around them.

In that context: "a lower class Polish Jewish" was useful.

Did he take the organs? Most likely.

[A P Tomlinson]

Couldn’t agree more George. It was my birthday on Saturday so I have a bottle of Laphroaig and a bottle of Talisker for purely medicinal purposes of course. I think they were bought so I could drown my sorrows at England’s recent 50 over performances. Congratulations to Oz by the way.

If you like Laphroiag, Lidl, (of all places) do a remarkable single malt from Islay in their "Ben Bracken" range.
You want the Green Tube.
Not as peaty as a Laphroiag, but for 18 quid a bottle... it's VERY good value for money!

Back to the OP... I'm still in two minds over how much time the killer had, and for me that has to be the divider into when the organs were removed.
One of the reasons we stopped going to my wife's works Christmas Parties, when she was working in A&E, was my inability to keep my gob shut once I'd had a few libations. And I would invariably corner some poor trauma surgeon and start with the, "So... just out of interest... how long do you reckon it would it take YOU, with no assistance, to remove the uterus and kidney of a fully clothed woman in pitch darkness at night, in the open air, with... say... a Victorian scalpel?"

[Herlock Sholmes]

If you like Laphroiag, Lidl, (of all places) do a remarkable single malt from Islay in their "Ben Bracken" range.
You want the Green Tube.
Not as peaty as a Laphroiag, but for 18 quid a bottle... it's VERY good value for money!

Back to the OP... I'm still in two minds over how much time the killer had, and for me that has to be the divider into when the organs were removed.
One of the reasons we stopped going to my wife's works Christmas Parties, when she was working in A&E, was my inability to keep my gob shut once I'd had a few libations. And I would invariably corner some poor trauma surgeon and start with the, "So... just out of interest... how long do you reckon it would it take YOU, with no assistance, to remove the uterus and kidney of a fully clothed woman in pitch darkness at night, in the open air, with... say... a Victorian scalpel?"

Cheers AP

[Michael W Richards]

For the thread premise, its not a certainty that Mary Anns, Annies, Kate or Marys organs were actually cut out by the killer himself, but its is the opinion of the cheif examiner in the case of Chapman and of Eddowes that the cuts that were seen as the body was viewed in situ indicated a specific interest in specific organs. And a knowledge of where and how to access them. That we find these same organs missing, along with the empirical evidence of the cuts themselves, its hard to imagine the killer cut into the abdomen with the types of cuts indicating a knowledge and interest in specific organs and accessing them, but leaving them in there anyway. Dr Phillips believed all the abdominal cuts he saw on Annie were to achieve the specific goal that was eventually determined to have been achieved, accessing and extracting her uterus. The partial bladder may just have been collateral to that.

When you dont have a crime scene declaration of organs absolutely taken by the killer at the time of the murder, you still have the knife use evidence that suggests that the cuts were made to access the organs that were, eventually, determined to be absent. Why make those cuts if not to do what was indicated by them?

[A P Tomlinson]

For the thread premise, its not a certainty that Mary Anns, Annies, Kate or Marys organs were actually cut out by the killer himself, but its is the opinion of the cheif examiner in the case of Chapman and of Eddowes that the cuts that were seen as the body was viewed in situ indicated a specific interest in specific organs. And a knowledge of where and how to access them. That we find these same organs missing, along with the empirical evidence of the cuts themselves, its hard to imagine the killer cut into the abdomen with the types of cuts indicating a knowledge and interest in specific organs and accessing them, but leaving them in there anyway. Dr Phillips believed all the abdominal cuts he saw on Annie were to achieve the specific goal that was eventually determined to have been achieved, accessing and extracting her uterus. The partial bladder may just have been collateral to that.

When you dont have a crime scene declaration of organs absolutely taken by the killer at the time of the murder, you still have the knife use evidence that suggests that the cuts were made to access the organs that were, eventually, determined to be absent. Why make those cuts if not to do what was indicated by them?

I think that if he's not searching for something specific, then why remove the intestines and throw them out of the way?
They were obviously impeding some part of his process.

And it's not like he could see what he was doing, so this was all done from either memory and by touch, or good luck.

[Michael W Richards]

I think that if he's not searching for something specific, then why remove the intestines and throw them out of the way?
They were obviously impeding some part of his process.

And it's not like he could see what he was doing, so this was all done from either memory and by touch, or good luck.

Interesting you latched on to the fact he places the "non-essential" impediments aside. Mitre Square I think based on the time of night and the location is by far the darkest alleged Ripper kill site, but there was some available light in the backyard at 29 Hanbury. Maybe thats why we see more precision there.

[Lewis C]

I think that if he's not searching for something specific, then why remove the intestines and throw them out of the way?
They were obviously impeding some part of his process.

And it's not like he could see what he was doing, so this was all done from either memory and by touch, or good luck.

Maybe he wasn't searching for something specific, but he didn't want something long and narrow like intestines.

[A P Tomlinson]

Maybe he wasn't searching for something specific, but he didn't want something long and narrow like intestines.

Personally, the second uterus at Mitre Square (and like I say this is just me...) rules out random selection in terms of that organ. As to the kidney... yeah, possibly. But according to the repoirts and folk I've spoken to over the years, it would be an absolute bugger to find the kidney by feeling for it evenif you were looking for it,underthe conditions the killer was proceeding.

It's certainly possible, but it would take a lot to convince me that he wasn't at the very least after the uterus.

As to an actual reason to take the Kidney? Anyone's guess.
Here's a very left field one I thought of last night, when pondering this very question. I don't by any means think it is the solution to "why take the kidney" but it could be...

The term "Piss Proud" comes from around the early 1700's and was used for someone who was overblown with self esteem... and the term used to remove some of that dignity by mockery is still used today.
One nickname among the working class for the kidney in the late Victorian era was "Piss cushion". My grandad would eat all manner of offal and tripe like it was the food of the Gods, but wouldn't touch kidneys...(He was also terrified of eating anything with seeds; particularly strawberries and tomatoes, because he honestly believed a seed would get "stuck" and a plant would grow inside him! All because of HIS parents and grand parents being part of the poorly educated Victorian working class.)

Maybe the killer was simply and figuratively... in a pretty literal way... attempting to... "Take The Piss" out of the Police or the victims?

[Michael W Richards]

Personally, the second uterus at Mitre Square (and like I say this is just me...) rules out random selection in terms of that organ. As to the kidney... yeah, possibly. But according to the repoirts and folk I've spoken to over the years, it would be an absolute bugger to find the kidney by feeling for it evenif you were looking for it,underthe conditions the killer was proceeding.

It's certainly possible, but it would take a lot to convince me that he wasn't at the very least after the uterus.

As to an actual reason to take the Kidney? Anyone's guess.
Here's a very left field one I thought of last night, when pondering this very question. I don't by any means think it is the solution to "why take the kidney" but it could be...

The term "Piss Proud" comes from around the early 1700's and was used for someone who was overblown with self esteem... and the term used to remove some of that dignity by mockery is still used today.
One nickname among the working class for the kidney in the late Victorian era was "Piss cushion". My grandad would eat all manner of offal and tripe like it was the food of the Gods, but wouldn't touch kidneys...(He was also terrified of eating anything with seeds; particularly strawberries and tomatoes, because he honestly believed a seed would get "stuck" and a plant would grow inside him! All because of HIS parents and grand parents being part of the poorly educated Victorian working class.)

Maybe the killer was simply and figuratively... in a pretty literal way... attempting to... "Take The Piss" out of the Police or the victims?

I believe that the taking of the kidney might be representative of someone trying to offset the clear interest in uteri demonstrated in Annies killing, as youve observed. Or perhaps the killer of Kate didnt know exactly what was taken from Annie, only that a uterus was a part of it. Maybe he took more from Kate presuming that abdominal organs themselves were the target. Obviously if Im correct, then Kates killer didnt kill Annie. He did to Kate what he presumed Annies killer would have done.