Jack's Escape from Mitre Square

[Trevor Marriott]

So if they weren’t all killed by the same hand why are you saying “well if he did this at one crime scene why didn’t he do it at another?” Let’s keep the goalposts in the same place shall we.

yes let’s

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[Herlock Sholmes]

Because the bodies should not have been tampered with before the post mortem

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And there’s not a shred of evidence that they were.

[Trevor Marriott]

And there’s not a shred of evidence that they were.

You keep telling yourself that

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[Herlock Sholmes]

You keep telling yourself that

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Reading about the case without the conspiracy goggles on tells me that Trevor

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

And there’s not a shred of evidence that they were.

In the interest of balance, the coroner was mightily annoyed that Chapman's body wasn't properly treated and had mortuary attendants and two nurses at it prior to the PM. It's not removing body parts, but could qualify as tampering. The coroner made specific note of asking whether the organ could have been lost in transit, so, maybe a bit of bungling by the police opens the door for questioning if in fact the killer removed it?
Personally, I'm at a loss to understand why the police would allow the belief in a killer removing body parts to terrify London when reasonably, if a medical man came along and helped himself at the morgue, this should easily have been established. And then to repeat the mistakes again with Eddowes?

[Trevor Marriott]

And there’s not a shred of evidence that they were.

Well if they were taken covertly, there would not be any evidence would there ? Because the doctors who did the post mortem naturally assumed that the killer had taken them because they had not examined the body at the crime scene to find them missing to be able to conclusively prove the killer took them !

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[Trevor Marriott]

In the interest of balance, the coroner was mightily annoyed that Chapman's body wasn't properly treated and had mortuary attendants and two nurses at it prior to the PM. It's not removing body parts, but could qualify as tampering. The coroner made specific note of asking whether the organ could have been lost in transit, so, maybe a bit of bungling by the police opens the door for questioning if in fact the killer removed it?
Personally, I'm at a loss to understand why the police would allow the belief in a killer removing body parts to terrify London when reasonably, if a medical man came along and helped himself at the morgue, this should easily have been established. And then to repeat the mistakes again with Eddowes?

But the reporting of the removal of the organs was relatively low key as far as what the police were disclosing about the murders, and even in later years there is very little about the allegations that the killer took the organs if you read officers memos and reports etc. So could they have realised that the killer didnt take the organs and that they were removed at the mortuary to save face?

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[Michael W Richards]

But we are never going to be able to identify that person, so we are left to look at at he MO relating to the other murders and see if there is a pattern, which there clearly is that being the throat cutting, the times of the murders, the locations, and of course the not to forget the organ removals because if it is accpted that he took them from Chapman and Eddowes and if he did that would establish perhaps a motive, then we have to ask why no attempt was made to take them from any of the other victims even those outside on the accepted five? which the police suggested were the work of the same killer.

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I do like the way you refine what can be interpreted as a probable MO Trevor, I think whats often overlooked are signs that we might be dealing with an individual with very specific methodologies, maybe a result of some OCD, but someone with a goal and someone with a skill set to achieve it. Even though I agree with you on the Chapman skill set, I personally see a degraded one with Eddowes, but Im inclined to address that with the almost pitch black conditions. And I believe that candidates like Isenschmidt would have the requisite skills,(again, this would eliminate Eddowes if Jacob is prime for the first 2, he was institutionalized before Kates death), this doesn't have to be a medical person. The investigation focused on that possibility after Annies murder, because in it they saw obtaining organs as a motivator. Couldn't be sure of that with Polly, but retrospectively, surely the case.

As Ive said often and for a long time, the murders of Polly then Annie seem to be the most obvious matches by killer, everything about those 2 murders indicates 1 man. Same everything. With 2 weeks, which I see supporting some OCD scenario, but certainly revealing a newfound taste for the work.

The latter murders, in particular Kellys, do not have that same kind of profile. In actuality, almost everything about that "last" murder is different. And we have an excised uterus left behind. If he was Chapmans killer, and correctly presumed to have been seeking to obtain the very organ he takes, why would he ever cut one out and just leave it? In Kates case the main thing for me that might link her with Polly and Annie is the fact he did what he did in almost absolute darkness and with some impressive confidence shown by the speed. He knew his way around a knife, just like Annies killer, and Pollys.

[Herlock Sholmes]

In the interest of balance, the coroner was mightily annoyed that Chapman's body wasn't properly treated and had mortuary attendants and two nurses at it prior to the PM. It's not removing body parts, but could qualify as tampering. The coroner made specific note of asking whether the organ could have been lost in transit, so, maybe a bit of bungling by the police opens the door for questioning if in fact the killer removed it?
Personally, I'm at a loss to understand why the police would allow the belief in a killer removing body parts to terrify London when reasonably, if a medical man came along and helped himself at the morgue, this should easily have been established. And then to repeat the mistakes again with Eddowes?

Fair point Al. You’re right though, it makes little sense. Couldn’t we also ask that as we know that organs were used, through the correct channels, for medical research, why didn’t our mystery thief simply wait until after the PM and then ask permission?

[Trevor Marriott]

Fair point Al. You’re right though, it makes little sense. Couldn’t we also ask that as we know that organs were used, through the correct channels, for medical research, why didn’t our mystery thief simply wait until after the PM and then ask permission?

Needs must when the devil calls !

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[Herlock Sholmes]

Well if they were taken covertly, there would not be any evidence would there ? Because the doctors who did the post mortem naturally assumed that the killer had taken them because they had not examined the body at the crime scene to find them missing to be able to conclusively prove the killer took them !

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But who would have been so unaware of the importance of the integrity of the findings of the PM (in the highest profile murder case ever) as to have allowed the organs to be taken?

[Trevor Marriott]

But who would have been so unaware of the importance of the integrity of the findings of the PM (in the highest profile murder case ever) as to have allowed the organs to be taken?

If the organs were taken we do not know under what circumstances they were taken, there are several possibilities for the organs to have been taken, opportunity was one because the abdomens were open in such a way that they could have been entered unnoticed and organs removed. Note no other victims had heir abdomens opened in such a way for organs to be taken un noticed.

Another is that the bodies were simply among several laying in the mortuary which organs had organs taken lawfully !

By paying the mortuary keeper was another to be considered

As I keep saying we do not have any idea what went on not just at those two mortuaries, but all mortuaries in Victorian times in relation to organs removals. We know there was supposed to ab officil line but that is seem was almost unworkable

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[Herlock Sholmes]

We also know that Brown said the the organs would have had no value.

And of course we know that there is nothing about what happened in and around Mitre Square to suggest that the killer couldn’t have removed those organs. We also know that it’s completely pointless to say either “if the organ removal took x amount of time then it couldn’t have been done” or “if the killer only had x amount of time then it couldn’t have been done.” Which is exactly what you are saying.

The rest of us however are taking the more reasonable view which is “from the doctors estimates on time required and based on the possible window of time available from witnesses and considering the fact that we have a serial killer that removed organs on other occasions (as opposed to the organs being stolen at the Mortuary for which there isn’t a shred of evidence) then the overwhelming likelihood is that the killer took the organs.” We have nothing against this apart from a deliberate attempt to shoehorn in a ‘new theory’ despite the facts.

If you put these facts to a Jury they would vote unanimously for the killer having removed the organs, without fail, every single time. You aren’t just flogging a dead horse here Trevor, you are flogging the urn that contain its ashes.

[Trevor Marriott]

We also know that Brown said the the organs would have had no value.

But we know thats not true because we know what the prices organs were fetching for medical research

And of course we know that there is nothing about what happened in and around Mitre Square to suggest that the killer couldn’t have removed those organs. We also know that it’s completely pointless to say either “if the organ removal took x amount of time then it couldn’t have been done” or “if the killer only had x amount of time then it couldn’t have been done.” Which is exactly what you are saying.

No its not what I am saying, I am saying that we dont know how long the killer had with the victim from walking into the square until making good his escape. We cant even start to calculate because of the conflict in the witness timings which I am not going to keep going over, and the guesswork times by Brown and Sequeira

The rest of us however are taking the more reasonable view which is “from the doctors estimates on time required and based on the possible window of time available from witnesses and considering the fact that we have a serial killer that removed organs on other occasions (as opposed to the organs being stolen at the Mortuary for which there isn’t a shred of evidence) then the overwhelming likelihood is that the killer took the organs.” We have nothing against this apart from a deliberate attempt to shoehorn in a ‘new theory’ despite the facts.

The organs taken from Chapman are also have to be questioned for the same reasons, and by taking the uterus and the fallopian tubes attached from her must suggest that they were removed for medical research

If you put these facts to a Jury they would vote unanimously for the killer having removed the organs, without fail, every single time. You aren’t just flogging a dead horse here Trevor, you are flogging the urn that contain its ashes.

If all the collective facts were put to a jury they would say that they were unsafe to be able to come to a definitive verdict. So in that case you cannot positively state that the killer removed them.

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[JeffHamm]

Hi all,

The discussion has been very informative lately, and we all seem to be at cross purposes, something that has become clarified recently.

Trevor, above, points out "As I keep saying we do not have any idea what went on not just at those two mortuaries...", and in other places also phrases things as "If the organs were taken ..." etc.

These are all theoretical statements, meaning, they represent various hypotheses.

Now, evaluation of a hypotheses as a valid or invalid theoretical entity is a matter of logic. In short, do the statements themselves contradict each other? This type of evaluation does not make any connection to observable data and/or evidence other than very fundamental principles of the physical universe (like someone cannot be in two places at the same time), it's purely philosophical in nature. Basically, one evaluates the logical soundness of the collection of statements.

Nothing Trevor is putting forward violates those fundamental principles of the universe. Testimony can be wrong, people can steal things, thefts can go unnoticed, and so forth. From a philosophical perspective, therefore, Trevor's argument is a valid set of hypotheses.

However, valid hypotheses are not particularly difficult to come up with. It is a valid hypothesis, for example, to suggest a different killer for each and every one of the Whitechappel murders. It is a valid hypothesis to also suggest a common killer for all of the Whitechappel murders. It is a valid hypotheses to suggest a surgeon was JtR, or that JtR had no anatomical knowledge at all. And obviously, there are a multitude of combinations of those. Basically, there are an infinite number of valid hypotheses and we are only limited by our creativity to generate them.

When evaluated as a collection of logical statements, Trevor's hypotheses passes that test. I'm not sure it's been clear in my own posts that I recognize that point, and if not, I apologize. I've never meant to imply that the ideas include logically impossible statements.

The same, however, also applies to what Trevor refers to as the "old accepted ideas". They too are all logically sound statements, though clearly there are differences in the statements include (i.e. organs removed by the killer vs organs stolen in the mortuary).

The goal of research is to determine which hypotheses have support other than being logically sound when viewed as a collection of logical statements. This is when purely theoretical statements are evaluated by examining the observable world, we move from logic to logically expected observable consequences. The claim the organs were stolen from the mortuary means there must be someone in the mortuary prior to the autopsies who steals the organs, and since we're talking two different mortuaries (because Trevor's theory includes the statement that Kelly's heart was in the possession of the medical personnel but we've misread the intention of the autopsy notes that state it was absent from the chest cavity), then he's saying there are two different theives (which is necessary since he emphasizes the difference in how the uterii were removed means it can't be by the same killer, and so logically that means it can't be by the same thief either).

The traditional view does not include these hypothesized thieves while Trevor's hypothesis is that they did exist. That latter point creates an expected set of observational consequences - people who exist leave a trail of their existence. And what we've been focusing on is the absence of those observable consequences that is independent of their hypothesized role (i.e. one can't point to the missing organs as proof of their existence because their existence is only hypothesized to explain why the organs are missing - it becomes circular).

So, while Trevor's argument is that he's putting forth a collection of statements (a theory) that is logically sound, and that is an alternative to the also logically sound traditional view (and he's right to make that claim), what people have been arguing against him is the relative amount of support for the two explanations given the observable evidence we have. And while Trevor disagrees, in the end, the observable evidence set we have is more supportive of the traditional view, even though it is not sufficient to conclusively disprove his idea (which it can't - nobody has come up with, for example, any observable evidence that the bodies were at all times guarded against organ theft, as the claim is the police watch was not in the same room as the body, etc).

Similarly, the observable evidence clearly indicates that the unaccounted time is more than the time the observable evidence indicates was required (and that required amount includes organ removal by JtR as Herlock has shown given the testimony about required times was stated at the inquest after the organs were known to be missing). Trevor's argument is that we don't know if all of the available time was actually utilized, which of course we don't. But to claim it might not have been is to insert another statement in "theoretical space" (i.e. it isn't a logically flawed statement, but it creates new expected observable consequences). The traditional view makes the claim that a certain amount of time must have been available, and so far the observable consequences satisfy that.

In other words, much of the argument from the Traditional view is about the weighing of the current evidential support, and the current evidence does fall in favour of the more simple collection of statements (the traditional view) than the more complicated collection that results in a greater number of expected observable events, and these additional expectations have not yet been shown to lead to new and expected evidence. The theory does, however, clearly point to the type of things one would expect to find. There should be, for example, a contemporary and reliable report of Mary's heart being found at the crime scene (but we have one of those, and her heart is not listed) or that it was present at the post-mortem (but it's listed as being absent from the chest cavity and no indication it was found elsewhere in the body). That means new sources of evidence would have to be found. Same applies for the ring of organ thieves, it directs one to search for expected evidence.

So while Trevor's ideas are not logically flawed, nor does the current evidence set absolutely refute them, the weight of the evidence we have is more in favour of the traditional view. If, however, new evidence (not new logical statements but new observable consequences) were to be found that could very well change that evaluation. What I've been trying to get across is that point - I know I'm more than willing to re-evaluate the relative support for all sorts of theories and ideas, but without new observable evidence the weight doesn't change. I'm not reluctant to change my view because I'm blinkered, rather, because the evidence set hasn't changed and all of the arguments are theoretical statements, and those do not have evaluative weight.

What Trevor seems to mean, however, by "blinkered" (and I speak only in reference to when he's responded to me), is based upon my presentation of how I weight the relative support, not how I rate the relative "logical soundness", and I agree that both the traditional view and Trevor's alternative are logically sound within "theoretical space". The benefit of having as many alternative possible explanations is that each of them suggest new avenues of investigation that may, or may not, result in new observational consequences that must be explained. Without the hypothesis of "organ theft", there would be no reason to look for evidence of an organ theft ring, a market for them, people capable of taking them, people who had access to the body, and so forth. But until those consequences bear fruit by putting new evidence on the table, they cannot be considered supported by the evidence and the less complicated explanation will remain as the more supported one.

Hmmm, not sure if that is clear, as it's getting into fairly deep philosophy of science/research issues, which I've been thinking about a lot lately as they are fundamental to a paper I've been working on. I suppose the short version is "it appears we're all missing the other's major point of view."

- Jeff