The Jack the Ripper Mystery is Finally Solved — Scientifically

[John Wheat]

I think its subjective mike , people will believe basically what they want to based on how they see the evidence , ive made my point in favour of Thompson and based on the evidence as i understand it . Thompson was certainly capable of preforming the extraction of mary kellys heart where as Bury certainly wasnt . Cheers.

How do you know? We certainly don't have a detailed history of Bury's employment whose to say he wasn't at one time a butcher?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Im simply talking about Dr Bond , and his decription of the ''removal'' of kellys heart and the way it was done . Not sure what your saying there herlock .

We cant have a doctor describing a obvious medical technique with kellys heart removal , and then saying the killer had no medical skill at all . Its a contradiction

No it’s not. Dr Bond clearly didn’t see an ‘obvious’ medical technique. And we know this for a fact Fishy because he never at any point mentions seeing an ‘obvious’ medical technique which he definitely would have mentioned had he seen it because it would have been absolutely vital evidence.

Bond was cleary talking about two different things, No Skill in the mutliations , Skill in her heart removal ..... its simple . imo.

That’s just impossible Fishy. You are basically suggesting that Dr Bond was a complete idiot who was clueless as to what the police required of him. Clearly as the police wanted to know if the killer had medical/anatomical knowledge Bond wouldn’t have mentioned an aspect of the murder where he didn’t show such skill/knowledge but he fail to mention the part where he did. I can’t to see why anyone would think differently. Bond was talking about medical/anatomical skill as a whole; he can’t have done otherwise. I realise that this doesn’t support the idea of a ‘medical knowledge Jack’ but we shouldn’t allow this to suggest the impossible.

[FISHY1118]

By "consensus", I obviously mean everyone who's studied the case, from medical professionals, psychological profilers, policemen, professional researchers, and, yes, even amateurs like you and I.

It's never, to the best of my knowledge, been asserted, without any hesitation, that Kelly had to have been killed by a skilled medical professional, in fact, it's quite the opposite.

That's basically what I mean.

None of the medical men of the day gave their opinion that Kelly's murderer had to have been a medical professional. We can start randomly making up reasons for them distancing themselves from the killer, or we can just accept what they said, and it stands to reason that if we're going to trust Dr Bond enough to acknowledge the manner in which he details the removal of the heart, then I'm at a loss to explain exactly why we're also expected to ignore everything else he said, along with the other doctors who certainly didn't think that the killer was a skilled professional.

That seems a little disingenuous.

I think its subjective mike , people will believe basically what they want to based on how they see the evidence , ive made my point in favour of Thompson and based on the evidence as i understand it . Thompson was certainly capable of preforming the extraction of mary kellys heart where as Bury certainly wasnt . Cheers.

[FISHY1118]

As far as the prostitute that Thompson had the ‘relationship’ with, he never expressed anything but fondness for her. He therefore had no motive to kill.

Im not just talking about you Fishy but on the subject of Thompson everyone would be better off reading Walsh’s excellent and completely unbiased biography of Thompson rather than just the writings of a man who is trying to create a case around him. You would then see a fuller more rounded picture of the type of person that Thompson was. No one could recognise anything remotely like a killer.

So Geddys information about Thompson is wrong ... These sounds like motive to me , otherwise i wouldnt have even commented on this thread .

He had a documented history of psychotic violence toward women — including written hatred of prostitutes and dark fantasies of killing them.
→ He lived within 100 metres of the 1888 murder sites.
→ He was an active arsonist and fire-starter — linked to sadistic psychopathy.
→ He wrote essays at the time describing prostitutes as “putrid ulcers,” “blasphemies,” and called for them to be drowned in the Thames.
→ He delighted in reading and writing about the killing of women with blades — even his own play had this as its central scene.
→ His movements align perfectly with the timeline of the murders and when they ceased (he was removed from the area right after the final killing)

[FISHY1118]

Who says that Brown recognised a ‘new technique?’ He certainly never mentions any alleged technique in his statement. Brown is being asked if the killer possessed any medical/anatomical knowledge because that information might have proven important to the police. It would be strange to say the least Fishy if you are claiming that Brown told everyone ‘no’ but he was only talking about the mutilations. So they could have ended up having a situation where this conversation was had:

Police - We have a suspect Dr. Brown.

Brown - really? Does he have medical knowledge.

Police - No, why.

Brown - Because the killer had medical knowledge.

Police - But you said that he didn’t have medical knowledge?

Brown - Ah, but I was only talking about the mutilations and not the organ removal!

Imagine the police’s reaction if that had been the case Fishy?


It reminds me of that film scene involving Inspector Clouseau where he asks the hotel manager “does your dog bite?” To which he replies “no.” Then Clouseau gets bitten by the dog and says “I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite,” to which the hotel manager calmly replies “that is not my dog.”

Im simply talking about Dr Bond , and his decription of the ''removal'' of kellys heart and the way it was done . Not sure what your saying there herlock .

We cant have a doctor describing a obvious medical technique with kellys heart removal , and then saying the killer had no medical skill at all . Its a contradiction

Bond was cleary talking about two different things, No Skill in the mutliations , Skill in her heart removal ..... its simple . imo.

[GBinOz]

Excellent post George.


I think the answer may lie in the Ripper having suffered from a multiple personality disorder.

Not schizophrenia, but rather someone with more than one "personality."

There would be a dominant host, and possibly up to scores of others all within one human frame.

That may sound like science fiction, but there is science behind this Jeckyl and Hyde description.

A man who could initially present as calm and well mannered, could then change to a man with a different personality type, who could exhibit different attributes; including increased strength, different accent, violent temperament etc...

it has often been argued that the Ripper may have been more than one man.

But what if he was one man....but with multiple personalities?

He could have been a surgeon, a clerk, a sailor, a doctor, a detective etc... all in one body.

It's a rare phenomenon, but still possible.

Thanks RD,

I suspect your theory would attract support from Dave Adams who postulates that the ripper was connected to the Robert Louis Stevenson book.

There are arguments that the murders were committed by more than one killer, that they were committed by a team of two or more, and they were committed by a Jekyll/Hyde. There was a witness that heard the whispering of male voices as the train went by at Berner St, but that would have required Jekyll and Hyde talking to themselves.

As for the team theory, for Stride there was BSman and Pipeman, at Mitre Sq there have been suggestions that George Morris may have been an accomplice, the royal conspiracy has Netly and Gull and it has even been suggested that Hutchinson may have been a lookout for Astrakhan man. That's not to mention the "Four Jacks Theory" promoted by Randy Williams.

IMO JtR was a composite of several killers, but if he were one man I agree that he would have been a Jekyll/Hyde - the placid character that nobody notices until he changes into his dark passenger.

Cheers, George

[GBinOz]

Hi George,

The problem for me with assigning expertise to any particular method would be the question of whether the perpetrator actually realised that he was using a certain/named method that was used by surgeons. In an earlier post, as a way of explaining my point, I used chess as an analogy. Any person who knows the rules but only plays occasionally might play 6 or 7 moves simply because he feels that these are beneficial moves (developing pieces etc) An expert chess player though might tell us that these 7 moves were say, the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian Defence.

So someone looking on might have seen those first 7 moves and concluded that this was a good player who knew his openings when that might not actually have been the case. Now, I don’t know how many ways there are of cutting out the heart, but someone knowing where it was located would surely realise the obstacles that he faced? So to put it crudely and hypothetically, he cuts a bit, moves bit, cuts another bit etc and eventually removes the organ. In this case wouldn’t he be just playing it by ear.

A final point George on who might have been able to do it…what about someone like Robert Mann? A poor suspect in my opinion but he would surely have been present when many a heart was removed in the course of a post mortem?

Hi Herlock,

I appreciate your chess analogy and agree that the strategy came first and was named later for narrative convenience. However, knowing the moves and the names would not have qualified one to sit in an arena with Bobby Fischer.

In the Chapman case there was knowledge of location but the execution of technique resulting in collateral damage. Not all that important for a butcher. In Eddowes case it was not a matter of experimentation. The uterus was removed from behind the bladder, in the dark, without nicking the bladder. Brown's expert failed in this respect, and that failure is not uncommon in a modern theatre. At the extreme end there resides the "monkeys with typewriters" analogy.

Robert Mann is an interesting subject. He was certainly present and had access to Chapman's body at the morgue. Not that her heart was extracted, but he may have seen enough autopsies to have managed the single sweep of the knife. The traditional method of heart extraction at the time was through the chest using rib spreaders. We are of course talking about dissection of cadavers. But Bond described a technique with which he may not have been familiar as it was new and rarely taught. This involved accessing the heart through the abdominal cavity by approaching under the rib cage and making an incision in the pericardium from below. Kelly's other organs we virtually hacked away, but the heart was not slash and grabbed, pericardium and all. There was an incision in the pericardium and the heart removed leaving the pericardium in place. Under your scenario the killers has reached under the rib cage and located the heart, but instead of cutting it out he decides to make and incision and remove the heart from its sheath leaving the sheath in place. I can't imagine why he would do that unless he had done it before.

With all due respect, I don't see how these conundrums can be addressed with a theory that the killer was lucky and bungled his way through in each case. Trevor has proposed a theory which has been much decried, unfairly IMO. There were peculiarities in the Chapman case when her body was left by Chandler under lock and key in the shed in the custody of a Police Constable, but was found by the nurses unattended in the yard. For Eddowes, there is the strange statement in the Echo Oct 1 : "At the post-mortem examination, there were- it is stated- indications of an attempt having been made to remove the organ alluded to, but nothing was missing from the body.". Were they speaking of a preliminary autopsy, that you have previously referenced, after which parts were removed? In the Kelly case there was a list of the placement of the body parts in the room. That list did not include the heart. Was the heart only discovered to have been absent from the pericardium at the autopsy?

I don't know the answer. It would be fair to comment that Trevor's theory would conceivably require some sort of cover up. Based on the fragmentary evidence that we have at our disposal, we can only resort to speculation. JMO.

[GBinOz]

So you're saying that modern opinion is different from what doctors thought at the time, right?

Hi Lewis,

Some modern opinion, some not. I would like to have known what Phillip's detailed thoughts may have been. But modern opinion changing over time is not unusual. We now know that the earth is not flat and revolves around the sun.

Cheers, George

[Lewis C]

So would you like to discuss a possible motive for Thompson then ? seeing how you dont want to discuss 'means anymore ,ill be happy to oblige.

Yes you did address ''The Means'' but when did it become time to move to motive and or opportunity when i was stilll unfinished answering reply posts ? . But as you wish, ill discuss what ever suits you where Thompson v Bury are concerned as suspects .

I'm not opposed to talking about means, it's just in that the post that you responded to, I was talking about motive. But yes, if you can give an explanation for why there's more reason to think that Thompson had a motive than to think that Bury had a motive, I'd be interested.

[Lewis C]

Hi Lewis,

There is modern opinion that agrees with my daughter. Prosector and the experts in Trevor's video were addressing the skill level in the Eddowes murder.

Cheers, George

So you're saying that modern opinion is different from what doctors thought at the time, right?

[Mike J. G.]

The "quote" button doesn't seem to be working for me today, so I'll get back to everyone who has replied to me when I can.

I will say, however...

I think the Ripper was as "normal" as everyone else on the street. I don't think he was crazed or suffering from episodic delusions. I think he was pretty much normal for the entire day until he decided he wanted to fiddle around inside dead bodies to get himself off.

I don't think he was an expert medical man. I think he just had experience with playing around inside dead bodies, probably animals originally.

I'm open to the idea of more than one killer, but I'm more of the opinion that if that were the case, they'd be working in tandem, like the Hillside Stranglers. I don't tend to think that it's a series of unrelated murders.

If only a trained medical professional could have commited these murders, everyone involved certainly kept quiet about it. Funny, that.

[The Rookie Detective]

Hi Herlock,

I beg to differ, as you probably expected.

In the case of Chapman there was a mobilisation of the intestines which Prosector informs us is a technique used in the dissection room. This was obviously visible at the crime scene. Phillips said that the organs had been removed with one sweep of the knife without any regard to collateral damage. This procedure is more in line with the techniques used by butchers of hunters.

In the case of Eddowes, the same mobilisation of the intestines occurred and the incision in the abdomen skirted the navel on the right hand side - an autopsy/dissection technique according to Prosector. Possibly accidental but probably not. There was no sweep of the knife here. The uterus was carefully removed without damaging the bladder and the descending colon was removed, to gain access to the kidney, and placed beside the body. Both dissection room techniques.

In the Kelly case the mutilations did not indicate any surgical skill but the heart was removed from the pericardium via the abdominal cavity leaving the pericardium in place. Would a butcher or a hunter go to this trouble. This was a new surgical technique developed by Virchow which had yet to gain notoriety.

These are puzzling contradictions which we commented on by the experts in Trevor's video when they said that there was evidence of a rage attack but also evidence of calm dissection technique.

So there are mutilations that could have been inflicted by someone with no medical skill or knowledge. Or they could have been inflicted by a butcher, slaughter man or hunter with a sweeping knife technique, but this doesn't explain the delicate extraction of Eddowes uterus from behind the bladder or the removal of Kelly's heart from the pericardium. These are medical procedures and therein lies the dilemma for me.

Cheers, George

Excellent post George.


I think the answer may lie in the Ripper having suffered from a multiple personality disorder.

Not schizophrenia, but rather someone with more than one "personality."

There would be a dominant host, and possibly up to scores of others all within one human frame.

That may sound like science fiction, but there is science behind this Jeckyl and Hyde description.

A man who could initially present as calm and well mannered, could then change to a man with a different personality type, who could exhibit different attributes; including increased strength, different accent, violent temperament etc...

it has often been argued that the Ripper may have been more than one man.

But what if he was one man....but with multiple personalities?

He could have been a surgeon, a clerk, a sailor, a doctor, a detective etc... all in one body.

It's a rare phenomenon, but still possible.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

I beg to differ, as you probably expected.

In the case of Chapman there was a mobilisation of the intestines which Prosector informs us is a technique used in the dissection room. This was obviously visible at the crime scene. Phillips said that the organs had been removed with one sweep of the knife without any regard to collateral damage. This procedure is more in line with the techniques used by butchers of hunters.

In the case of Eddowes, the same mobilisation of the intestines occurred and the incision in the abdomen skirted the navel on the right hand side - an autopsy/dissection technique according to Prosector. Possibly accidental but probably not. There was no sweep of the knife here. The uterus was carefully removed without damaging the bladder and the descending colon was removed, to gain access to the kidney, and placed beside the body. Both dissection room techniques.

In the Kelly case the mutilations did not indicate any surgical skill but the heart was removed from the pericardium via the abdominal cavity leaving the pericardium in place. Would a butcher or a hunter go to this trouble. This was a new surgical technique developed by Virchow which had yet to gain notoriety.

These are puzzling contradictions which we commented on by the experts in Trevor's video when they said that there was evidence of a rage attack but also evidence of calm dissection technique.

So there are mutilations that could have been inflicted by someone with no medical skill or knowledge. Or they could have been inflicted by a butcher, slaughter man or hunter with a sweeping knife technique, but this doesn't explain the delicate extraction of Eddowes uterus from behind the bladder or the removal of Kelly's heart from the pericardium. These are medical procedures and therein lies the dilemma for me.

Cheers, George

Hi George,

The problem for me with assigning expertise to any particular method would be the question of whether the perpetrator actually realised that he was using a certain/named method that was used by surgeons. In an earlier post, as a way of explaining my point, I used chess as an analogy. Any person who knows the rules but only plays occasionally might play 6 or 7 moves simply because he feels that these are beneficial moves (developing pieces etc) An expert chess player though might tell us that these 7 moves were say, the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian Defence.

So someone looking on might have seen those first 7 moves and concluded that this was a good player who knew his openings when that might not actually have been the case. Now, I don’t know how many ways there are of cutting out the heart, but someone knowing where it was located would surely realise the obstacles that he faced? So to put it crudely and hypothetically, he cuts a bit, moves bit, cuts another bit etc and eventually removes the organ. In this case wouldn’t he be just playing it by ear.

A final point George on who might have been able to do it…what about someone like Robert Mann? A poor suspect in my opinion but he would surely have been present when many a heart was removed in the course of a post mortem?

[GBinOz]

But it’s not possible that Bond would have been saying that “he had no medical skill as evidenced by the mutilations but he might have had medical skill for the organ removal.” Surely that can’t be what you imply from what Bond wrote Fishy? Clearly when talking about medical skill he had to have been talking about everything that the killer had done; including the organ removal. It can’t have been otherwise.

Hi Herlock,

I beg to differ, as you probably expected.

In the case of Chapman there was a mobilisation of the intestines which Prosector informs us is a technique used in the dissection room. This was obviously visible at the crime scene. Phillips said that the organs had been removed with one sweep of the knife without any regard to collateral damage. This procedure is more in line with the techniques used by butchers of hunters.

In the case of Eddowes, the same mobilisation of the intestines occurred and the incision in the abdomen skirted the navel on the right hand side - an autopsy/dissection technique according to Prosector. Possibly accidental but probably not. There was no sweep of the knife here. The uterus was carefully removed without damaging the bladder and the descending colon was removed, to gain access to the kidney, and placed beside the body. Both dissection room techniques.

In the Kelly case the mutilations did not indicate any surgical skill but the heart was removed from the pericardium via the abdominal cavity leaving the pericardium in place. Would a butcher or a hunter go to this trouble. This was a new surgical technique developed by Virchow which had yet to gain notoriety.

These are puzzling contradictions which we commented on by the experts in Trevor's video when they said that there was evidence of a rage attack but also evidence of calm dissection technique.

So there are mutilations that could have been inflicted by someone with no medical skill or knowledge. Or they could have been inflicted by a butcher, slaughter man or hunter with a sweeping knife technique, but this doesn't explain the delicate extraction of Eddowes uterus from behind the bladder or the removal of Kelly's heart from the pericardium. These are medical procedures and therein lies the dilemma for me.

Cheers, George

[Mike J. G.]

By consensus you mean anyone else other than George ,Myself and Dr Bond ? How many would you like ? For those who are willing to understand the medical technique Bond refers to and describes in his report ... yes there should be more . That doesnt means its not a fact .

By "consensus", I obviously mean everyone who's studied the case, from medical professionals, psychological profilers, policemen, professional researchers, and, yes, even amateurs like you and I.

It's never, to the best of my knowledge, been asserted, without any hesitation, that Kelly had to have been killed by a skilled medical professional, in fact, it's quite the opposite.

That's basically what I mean.

None of the medical men of the day gave their opinion that Kelly's murderer had to have been a medical professional. We can start randomly making up reasons for them distancing themselves from the killer, or we can just accept what they said, and it stands to reason that if we're going to trust Dr Bond enough to acknowledge the manner in which he details the removal of the heart, then I'm at a loss to explain exactly why we're also expected to ignore everything else he said, along with the other doctors who certainly didn't think that the killer was a skilled professional.

That seems a little disingenuous.