The Jack the Ripper Mystery is Finally Solved — Scientifically

[FISHY1118]

You mentioned means, motive, and opportunity with regard to Bury vs. Thompson, and I addressed one of the 3 things that you mentioned, motive. After that, you talked about the medical technique.

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 .

[John Wheat]

Hi John,

We may be talking at cross purposes here. I am saying that the autopsy report cannot be considered an opinion. It is a scientific statement of fact. The only latitude for consensus or otherwise arises in subsequent speculation as to the degree of knowledge and skill of the perpetrator.

Cheers, George

Okay. I think we are talking at Cross purposes.

[John Wheat]

Agreed. My comment was based on the fact that they also specified that the killer had anatomical not medical knowledge, and that someone with knife skills, used to cutting up animals etc would have that knowledge, expertise and experience. Putting it all together, that is why I wrote earlier that they were steering the police towards butcher/slaughterers.

Considering a number of serial killers tend to start with killing animals. I think Jack may have done this. He might have started with the mutilation of animals too. Coupled with for the majority of suspects we don't have a detailed work history. Literally any suspect could have been used to cutting up animals. So the anatomical knowledge becomes largely a moot point. Basically if the Ripper had anatomical knowledge and I'm not saying he did it doesn't really help with identifying who the Ripper was in my opinion.

[FISHY1118]

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.

Of course i can Herlock ,its obvious , why else would he describe the way in which Mary Kellys heart was removed in such a way that was certainly a new Medical Technique at that time , as has been pointed out . How could he mean ''That Technique'' to someone who has ''No Medical Knowledge'' while claiming everything that the killer had done was all mutilations . It doesnt make sense.

Imo its the ''Mutilation'' of kellys body he was talking about with that perticular quote of his ,not her organ/s removal , especially her Heart.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Of course i can Herlock ,its obvious , why else would he describe the way in which Mary Kellys heart was removed in such a way that was certainly a new Medical Technique at that time , as has been pointed out . How could he mean ''That Technique'' to someone who has ''No Medical Knowledge'' while claiming everything that the killer had done was all mutilations . It doesnt make sense.

Imo its the ''Mutilation'' of kellys body he was talking about with that perticular quote of his ,not her organ/s removal , especially her Heart.

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.”

[Herlock Sholmes]

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 .

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.

[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.

[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

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.