Poll: Organs/body parts removed or not?

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi,

The thing I don't understand is this:

If, as the letter from the sub-curator of the Pathological Museum suggests, uteri could be 'had for the asking at any post-mortem room', why would it be necessary for anyone to cheat the system? Uteri cost nothing - you only had to ask, and someone would get one for you. You didn't need to steal one, and, if you decided to do so, and were caught, I imagine this would have looked very bad, and you might have been asked not to return to that mortuary again. It even sounds as if you didn't normally have to get your hands dirty, and that someone else would extract the organ for you - you only had to carry it away. The scenario being presented requires someone coming along; deciding, for no good reason, to steal something which there was no need to steal; running the risk of being caught; and getting rather messy into the bargain.

Supposing that the uterus did cost a few pence (that is, for the sake of the argument, taking 'for the asking' to mean what it doesn't really mean), then the person attending the mortuary would presumably have been doing so as the representative of a medical institution, and so he wouldn't have been spending his own money - the costs of acquiring body parts would have been met by the institution. Since the hypothetical organ-stealer wouldn't have been out of pocket even if he had gone through the official channels, there would seem to be even fewer reasons for them to cheat the system and to help themselves to other people's insides.

There is also the problem that, apparently, the person who, in the argument, extracted Chapman's uterus at the mortuary never said anything about it. He didn't come forward and admit what he had done, even though doing so would have corrected the Coroner's misunderstandings and might have had the effect of releasing police resources to focus on more plausible lines of enquiry. If he had mentioned it to anyone else - an acquaintance from the medical institution, for example - then he ran the risk of that acquaintance taking their information to the police. But, despite the perpetrator's silence about what he did to Chapman at the mortuary on Old Montague Street, the very same thing then happened to Eddowes at Golden Lane. This either requires a second person to have had the very same idea, in all probability entirely independently, and despite the absence of any good reason for doing so (he, too, could have had the organ for free, simply by asking for it); or it requires the Chapman post-mortem bandit to be the same person as the Eddowes post-mortem bandit. If Chapman and Eddowes were raided by the same person, then he apparently used two different methods, for reasons which cannot be ascertained. The varying methods of extraction have been presented here as an indication that two different extractors were involved. The better argument would have been to suggest that the original extractor had varied his method to avoid suspicion.

I recognise the suggestion that a bit of illicit organ-stealing was a plausible option in the cases of Chapman and Eddowes, whose abdomens were open, and that the overwhelming majority of corpses arrived at mortuaries with their abdomens closed. But Mary Ann Nichols arrived at the mortuary before anyone knew that her abdomen had been compromised. In the circumstances, couldn't any number of other corpses (say, murder victims, throats cut or otherwise bloodied, found clothed) have been raided at mortuaries? Presumably, if the Coroner and the police couldn't identify that the excisions had been performed in secret at the mortuary, then couldn't someone have done the same thing with, say, Alice McKenzie or Frances Coles? According to the theory, nobody would have noticed if these victims' existing wounds had been exacerbated, or new ones created - the discovery of significant abdominal wounds and absent organs would have been attributed to the murderer, so the risk to the abdomen-raider was low. What about the Pinchin Street Torso? There would have been little difficulty accessing the internal organs while the torso lay around unattended at the mortuary. Why, if illicit organ-theft was indeed something which happened in Victorian mortuaries, are there absolutely no other examples in which this is known to have happened?

I think that there is a scenario which satisfies the facts much better than any of these bizarre and illogical scenarios, which is that the organs were excised by the murderer, and not at the mortuary.

Regards,

Mark

I think you are also missing the point.

The doctors at the crime scenes only carried out cursory examinations of the bodies. Those examinations did not reveal the missing organs. So we cannot say conclusively at this time the killer definitely removed them.

By reason of the extent of the abdomens being opened up by the killer of Eddowes and Chapman it would have made it very easy for someone at the mortuary to be able to enter those abdomens and do whatever was needed to remove the organs without it being noticed at the post mortem which is what happened. (Why pay for organs when you can get them free?)

In the case of the other victims there are two factors which show why none were removed from them. The first being the fact that Nicholls, Coles and McKenzie only had relatively minor wounds compared to Chapman and Eddowes so therefore to take any of their organs the perpetrator would have had to open them up more and that would surely have been noticed at the post mortem when the doctors then compared those injuries to those initially documented at the crime scenes

Stride no abdominal injuries
Chapman simply stabbed.

Other points to consider are that the bodies of Chapman and Eddowes were taken to two different mortuaries. The post mortems show that two different methods were used to enter the abdomens of those victims to remove organs, and in the case Of Eddowes her uterus was removed in a different way to Chapman. This suggests two different person were responsible for those organs being removed. All of these pose questions regarding the killer theory

If the killer removed the organs as you and others suggest Why did he use different methods to enter the abdomens and two different methods for removing uteri?

Why after taking a uterus from Chapman did he need and take one from Eddowes

Why did he change his MO?

Nothing points to the killer being the remover of the organs at the crime scene

You ask why didn't anyone come forward and own up. Well tampering with a body removing organs interfering with the coroner all amounting to jail time. So if you were that person and you knew you had got away with it would you come forward ?

It also suggest that perhaps the perpetrator went to the mortuary for the purpose of lawfully obtaining organs and perhaps found himself alone with the victims and as they say never look a gift horse in the mouth! After all it was some 12 hours before the post postmortems were carried out we were not there we don't know what did or didnt happen at those mortuaries during that time period.

[Observer]

Actually you couldn't be further from the truth there. I don't share my exchanges on here to gain clout with anyone on the outside. Your opinion on the matter of my motivation on casebook remains just that, just your opinion. What is evident for all to see here is your defensiveness and protectiveness.

Defensive? I'm on the defensive? And protective? Me? Haha. You live a sheltered life. One last time, it's plain for all to see, you carry out a vendetta. It's to point out this fact that I'm exchanging post's with you. That, and only that. Nothing else.

Praise the Almightly for that, there's already enough confusion and hypothetical spouting on the subject. As if anymore is needed.

What's not needed is your vindictive mocking post's

[El White Chap]

I initially referred only to a rope. Abseiling requires the use of irons, something you should be clapped in. I used the words "climb down" as they too have a "significant connotation". It's plain for all to see, you carry out a vendetta. It's the Wild West syndrome is it not? Shoot down the author, and then go and tell yer mates dahn the boozer you're the fastest gun in the Casebook. Have you put another notch on your gun yet? Not.

Actually you couldn't be further from the truth there. I don't share my exchanges on here to gain clout with anyone on the outside. Your opinion on the matter of my motivation on casebook remains just that, just your opinion. What is evident for all to see here is your defensiveness and protectiveness.

The vast majority of suspect books on the subject are published along those lines.

Praise the Almightly for that, there's already enough confusion and hypothetical spouting on the subject. As if anymore is needed.

[Observer]

No no, climbing down with a rope would be abseiling. I purposefully used the words "climb over" as it has a significant connotation.

I initially referred only to a rope. Abseiling requires the use of irons, something you should be clapped in. I used the words "climb down" as they too have a "significant connotation". It's plain for all to see, you carry out a vendetta. It's the Wild West syndrome is it not? Shoot down the author, and then go and tell yer mates dahn the boozer you're the fastest gun in the Casebook. Have you put another notch on your gun yet? Not.

Selling fictions to the public and claiming them as non-fiction perhaps?

The vast majority of suspect books on the subject are published along those lines.

[El White Chap]

I don't know about climbing up, you should be climbing down.

No no, climbing down with a rope would be abseiling. I purposefully used the words "climb over" as it has a significant connotation.

BS indeed. I wonder from whence it emanates though?

Selling fictions to the public and claiming them as non-fiction perhaps?

[Observer]

...and he'll climb over the BS.

I don't know about climbing up, you should be climbing down.

Personal vendetta it is not. This poll was setup to see what others believe following contradictory claims against the reports we have. I have nothing to gain apart from awareness of other opinions.

BS indeed. I wonder from whence it emanates though?

[El White Chap]

Aha. Give a man enough rope.

...and he'll climb over the BS.

[Observer]

You've been presented with the proof.

That theory has crashed and burned to ashes.

Hope that humble pie isn't tasting to bitter for you Trev.

As is blatantly obvious, there aren't too many around here who subscribe to your inadequate farcical theories.

Your respectability around all things Whitechapel is what's in tatters.

Poll going well for you?

The general consensus of people here have heard your wayward theories and simply aren't convinced by them, you cannot simply say that they're stuck in their ways because they don't subscribe to your fictions.

Aha. Give a man enough rope.

[El White Chap]

This has cropped up before and old chap I hope you wont mind me putting you in your place with this will you?

One cannot simply put someone in their place without some real substance, hearsay theories certainly don't allow for it.

Now the last question is the killer is it not if it had been accepted at that time that the organs were found to be missing at the crime scene why would the coroner have asked that question ?

You ask good enough questions but don't have adequate evidence to backup any of your "answers" with.

The general consensus of people here have heard your wayward theories and simply aren't convinced by them, you cannot simply say that they're stuck in their ways because they don't subscribe to your fictions.

[DVV]

Correction. TWO photographs.

This only proves how deceptive you are, Sam Flynn.
What you misleadingly call photographs are actually two daguerreotypes taken in Argenton-sur-Creuse circa 1842.

[m_w_r]

Hi,

The thing I don't understand is this:

If, as the letter from the sub-curator of the Pathological Museum suggests, uteri could be 'had for the asking at any post-mortem room', why would it be necessary for anyone to cheat the system? Uteri cost nothing - you only had to ask, and someone would get one for you. You didn't need to steal one, and, if you decided to do so, and were caught, I imagine this would have looked very bad, and you might have been asked not to return to that mortuary again. It even sounds as if you didn't normally have to get your hands dirty, and that someone else would extract the organ for you - you only had to carry it away. The scenario being presented requires someone coming along; deciding, for no good reason, to steal something which there was no need to steal; running the risk of being caught; and getting rather messy into the bargain.

Supposing that the uterus did cost a few pence (that is, for the sake of the argument, taking 'for the asking' to mean what it doesn't really mean), then the person attending the mortuary would presumably have been doing so as the representative of a medical institution, and so he wouldn't have been spending his own money - the costs of acquiring body parts would have been met by the institution. Since the hypothetical organ-stealer wouldn't have been out of pocket even if he had gone through the official channels, there would seem to be even fewer reasons for them to cheat the system and to help themselves to other people's insides.

There is also the problem that, apparently, the person who, in the argument, extracted Chapman's uterus at the mortuary never said anything about it. He didn't come forward and admit what he had done, even though doing so would have corrected the Coroner's misunderstandings and might have had the effect of releasing police resources to focus on more plausible lines of enquiry. If he had mentioned it to anyone else - an acquaintance from the medical institution, for example - then he ran the risk of that acquaintance taking their information to the police. But, despite the perpetrator's silence about what he did to Chapman at the mortuary on Old Montague Street, the very same thing then happened to Eddowes at Golden Lane. This either requires a second person to have had the very same idea, in all probability entirely independently, and despite the absence of any good reason for doing so (he, too, could have had the organ for free, simply by asking for it); or it requires the Chapman post-mortem bandit to be the same person as the Eddowes post-mortem bandit. If Chapman and Eddowes were raided by the same person, then he apparently used two different methods, for reasons which cannot be ascertained. The varying methods of extraction have been presented here as an indication that two different extractors were involved. The better argument would have been to suggest that the original extractor had varied his method to avoid suspicion.

I recognise the suggestion that a bit of illicit organ-stealing was a plausible option in the cases of Chapman and Eddowes, whose abdomens were open, and that the overwhelming majority of corpses arrived at mortuaries with their abdomens closed. But Mary Ann Nichols arrived at the mortuary before anyone knew that her abdomen had been compromised. In the circumstances, couldn't any number of other corpses (say, murder victims, throats cut or otherwise bloodied, found clothed) have been raided at mortuaries? Presumably, if the Coroner and the police couldn't identify that the excisions had been performed in secret at the mortuary, then couldn't someone have done the same thing with, say, Alice McKenzie or Frances Coles? According to the theory, nobody would have noticed if these victims' existing wounds had been exacerbated, or new ones created - the discovery of significant abdominal wounds and absent organs would have been attributed to the murderer, so the risk to the abdomen-raider was low. What about the Pinchin Street Torso? There would have been little difficulty accessing the internal organs while the torso lay around unattended at the mortuary. Why, if illicit organ-theft was indeed something which happened in Victorian mortuaries, are there absolutely no other examples in which this is known to have happened?

I think that there is a scenario which satisfies the facts much better than any of these bizarre and illogical scenarios, which is that the organs were excised by the murderer, and not at the mortuary.

Regards,

Mark

[Trevor Marriott]

My point was that there is clear evidence that organs were removed from the body at the scene of the crime, on at least two occasions. To wit: Eddowes' colon; Kelly's nose, breasts, lobe of left lung, diaphragm, stomach, liver, spleen, kidneys, bladder and uterus. There's even a photograph that clearly demonstrates this.

The day I stop "huffing and puffing" is the day you pay attention to what's being said.

And you clearly don't read and digest my previous posts because you are to eager to start huffing and puffing again.

Some of the internal cuts and injuries could have been made whilst the organs were being removed at the mortuary if that person had to work quick. If that be the case we would finish up as we are now with post mortem reports, which you and others keep referring to as all being the work of the killer

You keep suggesting the killer did all of this. But the answer based on what I have suggested is that we simply don't know for sure so why are you so eager to dismiss all of this and stick with all the old beliefs. You are so blinkered

[Trevor Marriott]

Its also worth pointing out that the organs wouldn't just fall out on their own accord, there were other organs left behind, why didn't they fall out? It appears you are suggesting that the bodies were haphazardly cut, I don't think this was the case. It appears that the killer was methodical in his actions.
The organs missing appear to have been targeted (for what purpose I don't know for sure) which makes sense seeing as they were not with the body

Hi Natasha
Its nice to say I think this and I think that and that's all well and good but when you do, you must look closely at the evidence in an unbiased way both for and against what you think and don't fall into the trap of automatically accepting the old facts because clearly by what you have seen and read there are major flaws in them which have been highlighted.

Do you own research make your own mind up, be positive, and don't be swayed by others on here just because they wont accept new theories or for that matter even consider other theories.

[Trevor Marriott]

Correction. TWO photographs.

But no organs taken away, after all he could have taken the whole body and used it as a jigsaw puzzle when he got home. By the fact no organs were taken in my opinion adds even more weight to show the killer of Chapman and Eddowes didnt either

And how do you know the same person murdered Kelly that also murdered the others ?

[Sam Flynn]

...Kelly's nose, breasts, lobe of left lung, diaphragm, stomach, liver, spleen, kidneys, bladder and uterus [were removed at the scene]. There's even a photograph that clearly demonstrates this.

Correction. TWO photographs.