How Many Victims Were There?

[jerryd]

This is the best contemporary description of the 1884 mutilations I could find. The description of the mutilations do not, in my view, sound similar to those cuts found on Eddowes face. It does sound more like an attempt to prevent identification of the victim, IMHO.

But I'm not the arbiter of whether the similarities exist, others' views would be interesting since it could be said that Fisherman and I have a horse in this race.

The Magnet
Nov 10, 1884

That YOU could find? That is a clip I posted in 2017. Down to the exact borders from the one I included in my post.

[Abby Normal]

Incorrect. We have witness statements from friend of Polly, then Annie, who state they spoke with the victims before they were killed and one "had earned and spent" her doss already and was out trying to earn it again, and one was, despite being under the weather, was trying to earn her doss, as told to the manager of the house she was staying at. The time of day that these women were attempting to earn money suggests without any doubt that they used solicitation as their fundraising vehicle.

yes of course-but my main point is that the victims of the ripper (and torsoman) were prostitutes, whether they were actively soliciting or not.

[Abby Normal]

This is the best contemporary description of the 1884 mutilations I could find. The description of the mutilations do not, in my view, sound similar to those cuts found on Eddowes face. It does sound more like an attempt to prevent identification of the victim, IMHO.

But I'm not the arbiter of whether the similarities exist, others' views would be interesting since it could be said that Fisherman and I have a horse in this race.

The Magnet
Nov 10, 1884

sounds like eddowes to me. but admittedly I do have a horse in the race, because I lean toward the ripper and torsoman being the same.

[Abby Normal]

I知 unsure Abby. Couldn稚 these women have been used for experimentation/dissection etc (I知 not particularly talking about anything legal of course) and then another was given the responsibility of disposing of the bodies?

hi hs
I don't know, all im saying is that the torso victims were undoubtedly killed, and by the same person.

[Herlock Sholmes]

cmon HS, your delving into trevor nonsense now. The police and medicos at the time thought they were killed, and by the same person. even the inquests mostly came back with verdicts of murder.

not knowing cause of death dosnt preclude it being obvious murder.

this sticks in my craw-part of the reason that skank child killer casey Anthony got acquitted. the dumb ass Florida jury got confused by the "Official" unknown cause of death. Like the duct tape around her mouth and dumped body inside a trash bag wasn't enough to show obvious murder.

I知 unsure Abby. Couldn稚 these women have been used for experimentation/dissection etc (I知 not particularly talking about anything legal of course) and then another was given the responsibility of disposing of the bodies?

[etenguy]

I never thought I would write something like this: How is a removed abdominal wall not a screwdriver or three?

You made me smile, I could hear the frustration in your voice as I read these words. I don't want to be the cause of any disbelief in a fellow poster and I appreciate you see this as an important and rare similarity between the two sets of murders. But if you are cutting up bodies, either ripper, torso or ripper/torso killer, going through the abdomen is a most likely route to the inside of the body and so I would expect this to be the case and do not think it necessarily suggests the murders are linked. Two such murderers who overlap in time (if not the same killer) is a coincidence, but if we accept the Torso killer started in 1873 and with gaps continued until at least 1889, the coincidence is less jarring simply because of the length of time involved.

[etenguy]

This is the best contemporary description of the 1884 mutilations I could find. The description of the mutilations do not, in my view, sound similar to those cuts found on Eddowes face. It does sound more like an attempt to prevent identification of the victim, IMHO.

But I'm not the arbiter of whether the similarities exist, others' views would be interesting since it could be said that Fisherman and I have a horse in this race.

The Magnet
Nov 10, 1884

[Fisherman]

Firstly, thank you for a comprehensive response.
Whether the crimes differed in any meaningful way depends on the characteristics one believes to be central to the crimes.

Sadly, that makes it all boil down to personal belief rather than fact-based observations, does it not?

I believe the characteristics I high-lighted are more meaningful than the ones you listed.

Believe being the operative word.

Each of us explains the others' list away for various reasons.

But I have a lot less explaining to do, right? He had to dispose of the parts because there would have been a link to him via there address, end of. You need to explain away a plethora of odd and rare inclusions.

I don't think we will have a meeting of minds on this issue just yet. I see the two sets of crimes as much more different than similar and for you it is vice versa. Each have reasons for our view and we may, for the moment at least, have to agree to disagree.

But there is only one dissimilarity on record, the dismemberment! It is okay if you think that rather common thing trumps the very uncommon things I listed a plenty, but let's not claim that there are many factual differences. For the moment, though, yes let's agree to disagree.

I say for the moment, because the one set of cuts you quote relating to the 1884 murder would make me reconsider if the facial cuts are the same or very similar to Eddowes.

They are. But don't let me tell you, read up for yourself. Jerry Dunlop has written about it on both sites, as far as I remember.

Facial cuts on their own I would not find compelling evidence of a link, but if they mirror those found on Eddowes face I would have to review more closely. I don't think the gouged out eyes reflect a similarity, but inverted v shapes on the cheeks would be more difficult to explain away. I am not familiar with the 1884 murder so will scour the internet for a picture/diagram/good description of the facial mutilations.

There are no inverted V:s, and as far as I can tell, those were collateral damage from cutting the nose off Eddowes face, nothing fancier than that.

I shan't respond to your response to each detailed item on my list, since we would simply go round in circles and I think we each understand (even if we disagree) what the other thinks.

Bravo. A wise approach!

I will though answer your challenge. You see the screwdrivers in each set of murders (ripper and torsos) and I do not, for the reasons we have already swapped. Though after checking the 1884 murder, I may find a screwdriver.

I never thought I would write something like this: How is a removed abdominal wall not a screwdriver or three?

[etenguy]

[B]Hi Etenguy!

Quite distinctive? Let's assume that the Ripper conned his victims into believing he was a punter, took them to a safe spot and killed them. Letsｴfurther assume that the Torso killer conned his victims into believing he was a punter, took them to a safe spot and killed them.

How are those two distinctively different crimes?

I repeat: the one and only difference we can be sure of is that the victims in one series were dismembered and dumped, whereas they were not in the other series - and that may owe to how the torso victims were killed in a bolthole that made it necessary to dismember them before removing them from there.

Otherwise, there is not a single point where the crimes must have differed in any material way from each other. If you disagree, please explain why.

Firstly, thank you for a comprehensive response.
Whether the crimes differed in any meaningful way depends on the characteristics one believes to be central to the crimes. I believe the characteristics I high-lighted are more meaningful than the ones you listed. Each of us explains the others' list away for various reasons. I don't think we will have a meeting of minds on this issue just yet. I see the two sets of crimes as much more different than similar and for you it is vice versa. Each have reasons for our view and we may, for the moment at least, have to agree to disagree.

I say for the moment, because the one set of cuts you quote relating to the 1884 murder would make me reconsider if the facial cuts are the same or very similar to Eddowes. Facial cuts on their own I would not find compelling evidence of a link, but if they mirror those found on Eddowes face I would have to review more closely. I don't think the gouged out eyes reflect a similarity, but inverted v shapes on the cheeks would be more difficult to explain away. I am not familiar with the 1884 murder so will scour the internet for a picture/diagram/good description of the facial mutilations.

I shan't respond to your response to each detailed item on my list, since we would simply go round in circles and I think we each understand (even if we disagree) what the other thinks.

Hi Etenguy!A send-off: Two victims are found dead, both of them with three screwdrivers, one red, one green and one blue, plunged into their chests. If one of these victims is found in six pieces, does that make it likely that there were two different killers? What rules the day, the screwdrivers or the dismemberment?

I will though answer your challenge. You see the screwdrivers in each set of murders (ripper and torsos) and I do not, for the reasons we have already swapped. Though after checking the 1884 murder, I may find a screwdriver.

[Michael W Richards]

actually we don't KNOW if ANY of the ripper victims were actively soliciting, and I think that Kelly and stride were probably not, although the rest probably were.
That being said they were all prostitutes, recently, and or at some time or another so unfortunately that is an accurate description.

re the torsos-The only one that was IDed was Jackson, and she was an unfortunate also, so its not that much of a stretch to assume the others were, or were at some point, and ran with that type of crowd, which would bring them into the wheelhouse of a local serial killer. Furthermore, why do you think the other torso victims WERENT Ided? I would surmise that its because they were unfortunates, with a transient lifestyle and no one cared enough about them to notice them missing or take the time to come forward, sadly.

Incorrect. We have witness statements from friend of Polly, then Annie, who state they spoke with the victims before they were killed and one "had earned and spent" her doss already and was out trying to earn it again, and one was, despite being under the weather, was trying to earn her doss, as told to the manager of the house she was staying at. The time of day that these women were attempting to earn money suggests without any doubt that they used solicitation as their fundraising vehicle.

[Michael W Richards]

And Eddowes did not have all vessels cut either. Plus, of course, it is not the number of vessels cut that primarily give away a common killer, it is the deep and lethal throat-cutting per se.

Eddowes...DOUBLE throat cut. The third canonical with that attribute.

[Abby Normal]

Do we have any way of being certain that the killer and the dismemberer were one and the same? If not then we should ban the phrase Torso Killer. All that we know is that these women died and that someone dismembered them. We cannot be certain that these two acts were committed by the same person.

cmon HS, your delving into trevor nonsense now. The police and medicos at the time thought they were killed, and by the same person. even the inquests mostly came back with verdicts of murder.

not knowing cause of death dosnt preclude it being obvious murder.

this sticks in my craw-part of the reason that skank child killer casey Anthony got acquitted. the dumb ass Florida jury got confused by the "Official" unknown cause of death. Like the duct tape around her mouth and dumped body inside a trash bag wasn't enough to show obvious murder.

[Abby Normal]

The ONLY victims that we know were soliciting at the time they met their killer are C1 and C2, any other inclusions are speculative and harmful to the search for the truth. Like lumping murders together that obviously do not match in very significant ways.

actually we don't KNOW if ANY of the ripper victims were actively soliciting, and I think that Kelly and stride were probably not, although the rest probably were.
That being said they were all prostitutes, recently, and or at some time or another so unfortunately that is an accurate description.

re the torsos-The only one that was IDed was Jackson, and she was an unfortunate also, so its not that much of a stretch to assume the others were, or were at some point, and ran with that type of crowd, which would bring them into the wheelhouse of a local serial killer. Furthermore, why do you think the other torso victims WERENT Ided? I would surmise that its because they were unfortunates, with a transient lifestyle and no one cared enough about them to notice them missing or take the time to come forward, sadly.

[Abby Normal]

If I may make a remark here, Abby, I think that we should ban the word "superficial". It implies that we know the full story, and that the differences only SEEM to be real differences whereas they are not.

the reason that I want a ban here is not really your using the word - it is instead the fact that Gareth has used it on numerous occasions, applying it to the similarities that he says are superficial only.

That would mean that we can take it as a fact that once we look deeper into the similarities, we will find that they are not REAL similarities, they only SEEM to be. Of course, Gareth cannot possibly know this, nor can anybody else do so. We do not have the answers. But the sheer amount of very rare similarities speaks a clear and unequivocal language.

Anyway, that's why I want the word stricken of the to do-list.

Otherwise, I agree with you, and I suspect in the not very far away future we will ALL agree that there was just the one killer. It is an inevitable shift off paradigms, given the quality and wealth of the evidence for a common originator. Today, this will be vehemently denied by many, since old habits die hard. Tomorrow it will have changed a little bit and in days to come, logic will prevail. That is my conviction, and I will do my foremost to help the process along.

lol. Its why I said superficial differences-to try and pre empt Sam for using it to say superficial similarities like he does all the time.
it can be used either way. and IMHO once all the facts are known and the extreme rarity of the similarities, the overwhelming similarities in general and that the minor differences could be ascribed to different circs (like the killer not having a bolt hole accessable and increasing thrill and desire to kill "in public) then to me, the differences are (or could be) superficial.

but yes I take your point.

[Fisherman]

She petitioned to have herself removed from the active streetwalkers list kept by the authorities in Goteborg, successfully. A rare feat...and one that could only be accomplished with proof of legitimate work offers. And she had lots of legitimate jobs after that...so...her history has nothing to support your claims about what she might have been doing there that night.

Actually, her history involves having prostituted herself in Sweden, Michael, and there was little doubt within the police that she was an unfortunate in London too. I find that a lot of useful support.

The single cut did not sever both major arteries in her throat, both of the priors had 2 throat cuts down to their spines, and they cut all major throat vessels.

And Eddowes did not have all vessels cut either. Plus, of course, it is not the number of vessels cut that primarily give away a common killer, it is the deep and lethal throat-cutting per se.