For those who don't believe in "JTR"

[Cogidubnus]

Interesting...

I suppose it's theoretically possible the 1888 torso killings were a sort of continuation of the 1870s bunch, but somehow I think the timegap between the two series is a little too much...

But to connect them with "Jack"?

Totally different MO...totally different (as far as we can tell) methodology...totally different body presentation/disposal...I have to say I find that hard to believe.

Whilst it seems hard to believe that there WERE two entirely separate serial killers floating around the same city at the same time, I do have to observe that in the LVP, East End London was a truly unique phenomenon after all
...nowhere else before or since was so simultaneously, densely populated, culturally diverse, poverty-stricken, rootless, godless and helpless...and I don't think any degree of profiling or whatever will properly reflect that...so yes I think it's entirely possible two (or even more) serial killers were in circulation

All the best

Dave

[Lechmere]

Unique?
Try the LVP South Bank

[Wickerman]

Hello Jon. Thanks.You may be right.

But ask me about the car that just passed on my street.

Cheers.
LC

I would, but you were too busy talking to me to notice anything....

[Observer]

Unique?
Try the LVP South Bank

And the Seven Dials,and the Devils Acre, and Jacob's Island, and....well you get the idea. As far as I know they didn't produce anyone on a par with The Whitechapel Murderer, not near in fact.

[Lechmere]

No Observer, they didn't.
But did the relative poverty in the East End specifically produce the Whitechapel Murderer?
The South Bank was poorer, more godless, generally as overcrowded, just as rootless, had its fair share of cultural variations (more Irish, less Jewish).
But the torsos don't really fit a South bank perpetrator.
The idea that the culprit sprung from the meanest and most atavistic of the spawning masses is one of those Victorian prejudices that should not be influencing our understanding of the case now.
In my opinion.

[Michael W Richards]

Could you please succinctly explain your reasons for believing so?

Hi Harry,

I respect your commitment to the topic so Ill try and succinctly state my rationalizing that position;

1. There are dramatic differences in the wounds made on some victims within Jacks assumed roster
2. There are known villains aplenty in Victorian Londons East End.
3. The only motive that has been suggested for the crimes is a desire to kill randomly...a motive that requires the least amount of physical and circumstantial evidence. This presumably is because there is no evidence of any kind pointing to any one individual in any Canonical death.
4. A chief medical investigator found physical wound differences in 2 of the 4 Canonical women he examined personally.
5. Jack the Ripper is a made up name for someone who is presumed to have killed at least Polly and Annie, perhaps also Martha, (based on the letter date.)
6. There is no physical evidence that demands all five Canonicals were dispatched by the same person, for the same reason, in the same fashion.

Its more a refusal to take someones word for something Harry when it can be determined that at this point in time there is no way to prove or disprove it.

Anyone who felt that the world wasn't flat at a time when everyone else assumed that it was would have been branded as crazy, or at least confused. The point being that until something can be proven authentic, it isn't. Im optimistic that one day Ill read about how proof has been discovered that Jack the Ripper did not kill some of those 5 women, because what I am all about here is letting any innocent names rest in peace. I really don't need a name for a killer of any of the women...its done. No-one can be punished.

Cheers Harry

[Observer]

Hi Ed

I'd agree. And that was the point (not very successfully it seems haha)I was making to Cogidubnus, who seems to think it's possible the Godless East End, due to it's depravity produced two mutilators of prostitutes in the space of four months. So I agree, the killer of those six prostitutes didn't spring from the gutter, it took a strange bird indeed to commit those crimes, a strange bird indeed. I doubt poverty played a hand.

[Lechmere]

Yes Observer
He could have been poor but I don't think he did it because he was poor specifically.

[Michael W Richards]

Interesting...

I suppose it's theoretically possible the 1888 torso killings were a sort of continuation of the 1870s bunch, but somehow I think the timegap between the two series is a little too much...

But to connect them with "Jack"?

Totally different MO...totally different (as far as we can tell) methodology...totally different body presentation/disposal...I have to say I find that hard to believe.

Whilst it seems hard to believe that there WERE two entirely separate serial killers floating around the same city at the same time, I do have to observe that in the LVP, East End London was a truly unique phenomenon after all
...nowhere else before or since was so simultaneously, densely populated, culturally diverse, poverty-stricken, rootless, godless and helpless...and I don't think any degree of profiling or whatever will properly reflect that...so yes I think it's entirely possible two (or even more) serial killers were in circulation

All the best

Dave

Just for the sake of argument Dave,....Mary was cut to pieces indoors, presumably so were the Torsos, Mary has flesh cut away to expose bone..just as the Torso killer would have had to do,... Marys right arm is almost completely disjointed from her body, and her head is almost decapitated from her body. Both things would have been done by Torso man on his way to creating his abbreviated victims.

In fact Mary appears very much like a cadaver being de-engineered as a means of satisfying curiosity, achieving an objective or for educational purposes. But its just like Torso man would have treated his victims bodies.

Cut skin from bone, disjoint, move on. Excise organs, move viscera aside, move on. Problem with marrying the 2 murderers is that none of Marys extremities were actually severed completely. One would think that a Torso maker would do that.

Cheers

[Observer]

Yes Observer
He could have been poor but I don't think he did it because he was poor specifically.

Absolutely not, I'd agree.

[lynn cates]

point

Hello Jon. Thanks.

"I would, but you were too busy talking to me to notice anything..."

And that is my point.

Cheers.
LC

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Michael

Just for the sake of argument Dave,....Mary was cut to pieces indoors, presumably so were the Torsos, Mary has flesh cut away to expose bone..just as the Torso killer would have had to do,... Marys right arm is almost completely disjointed from her body, and her head is almost decapitated from her body. Both things would have been done by Torso man on his way to creating his abbreviated victims.

In fact Mary appears very much like a cadaver being de-engineered as a means of satisfying curiosity, achieving an objective or for educational purposes. But its just like Torso man would have treated his victims bodies.

Cut skin from bone, disjoint, move on. Excise organs, move viscera aside, move on. Problem with marrying the 2 murderers is that none of Marys extremities were actually severed completely. One would think that a Torso maker would do that.

But despite the (presumed) hours of availability, Mary was not disjointed, nor reduced to a torso, nor dumped piecemeal in the Thames or elsewhere...nor as far as we can gather from the evidence (as pretty painstakingly listed in the Trow book) were the torsos stripped of their internal contents...

If as you suggest the motive for the mutilation in MJK's case was at least partly curiosity (and I don't disagree) then surely that could already have been sated on the torsos...but apparently wasn't...

There would appear to be little in common between these two sets of crimes, and it would take a hell of a lot of real evidence to convince me there really weren't two serial killers floating around at the time...

All the best

Dave

[Cogidubnus]

No Observer, they didn't.
But did the relative poverty in the East End specifically produce the Whitechapel Murderer?
The South Bank was poorer, more godless, generally as overcrowded, just as rootless, had its fair share of cultural variations (more Irish, less Jewish).
But the torsos don't really fit a South bank perpetrator.
The idea that the culprit sprung from the meanest and most atavistic of the spawning masses is one of those Victorian prejudices that should not be influencing our understanding of the case now.

Perhaps I should have broadened my original statement to include all the other poor areas of London...Mea Culpa.

But the point I was trying to make was that the conditions/size/population density of late 19th Century industrialised London kicked up a set of conditions we don't often see in the first world today...and might not those factors have produced two serial killers or more?

In short we simply don't know, but surely we shouldn't reject it as a hypothesis, and thus blindly insist these two sets of very differently presented killings were the work of one perpetrator?

All the best

Dave

[Debra A]

But despite the (presumed) hours of availability, Mary was not disjointed, nor reduced to a torso, nor dumped piecemeal in the Thames or elsewhere...nor as far as we can gather from the evidence (as pretty painstakingly listed in the Trow book) were the torsos stripped of their internal contents...

Hi Dave,
I haven't read Mei's book on the torsos-does he say that no internal organs were missing from the 'torso' victims? If so that is totally incorrect.

[Lechmere]

The underlying motive for the standard Ripper murders and the torsos are likely to be the same - exerting the power of life and death - control over life and death of someone else if you will - with the victims selected from those who will willingly go off with an unknown man to a quiet 'safe' (for the killer) location.
The different outcomes can be explained by the locations the attacks took place in.
The torsos victims must have been killed and cut up in a secure location. There would have been no need for a ripping blitz attack, so I would suggest if the same person was responsible, we should not expect the bodies to end up looking the same.