How Many Victims Were There?

[etenguy]

I struggle with the suggestion that a torso killer from 1873 takes a 15 year break, then starts a very different type of killing spree in 1888 before returning to a torso killing spree. I note that Fisherman articulates similarities which indicates there might be a connection, but these are outweighed, IMHO, by the differences in the central attack characteristics. I believe we are a long way from establishing a killer connection between these sets of crimes.

[Abby Normal]

No, she was a horseflesh dealer, the difference being that cats meat sellers get cubes of meat from the horseflesh dealers. I believe this was recorded in an 1891 trade directory, but I am working from memory here, and memory can be a very frail thing...

At any rate, the Lechmeres of the East End seems to have developed into a family very much involved in the horse flesh/cats meat business. Where that development starts, I don't know. No-one does, as far as I can tell.

got it-thanks fish

well if the family was in that business or similar and prior to 1891, which would seem likely, then one could see where lech may have acquired knife skills.

[Fisherman]

thanks. re horses-his mom was a cats meat seller correct? whats the earliest date you've found that she was engaged in that profession?

No, she was a horseflesh dealer, the difference being that cats meat sellers get cubes of meat from the horseflesh dealers. I believe this was recorded in an 1891 trade directory, but I am working from memory here, and memory can be a very frail thing...

At any rate, the Lechmeres of the East End seems to have developed into a family very much involved in the horse flesh/cats meat business. Where that development starts, I don't know. No-one does, as far as I can tell.

[Abby Normal]

First and foremost: Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper, was also presumed to be a surgeon on account of how skilled his cutting work was. It turned out that he was a drifter with no medical cutting expertise at all!

Apparently, a person can cut with such determination and steadiness so as to be looked upon as medically skilled for very little reason. However, that does not detract from how the cuts to the victims in these series WERE looked upon as exceedingly skilled by some medicos. The accomplished knife work IS in place - but it may well be that it can be acquired by more than surgeons! A steady hand in combination with helping out with the cutting up of horse carcasses, dismembering them in the process, may perhaps have formed that skill in Lechmere´s case.
Or maybe he spent his spare time carving wood figurines, getting extremely skilled with the knife? The point is, we just don't know. If it was him, he was skilled with the knife, that's all we can say.

Let's also not forget that the skill hinted at by the medicos was never one of cutting along surgically established paths - it only alluded to the cutting as such, which was able, quick, clean and determined. No surgeon would do to a person what was done to the victims of these series!

thanks. re horses-his mom was a cats meat seller correct? whats the earliest date you've found that she was engaged in that profession?

[Abby Normal]

If you read my post to A Perno, you would see that I am saying that I don't think that eviscerations was the hallmark of the Ripper/Torso killer. It was cutting into a body. In that respect, Tabram fits the bill.
I of course agree that she deviates form the other victims to a significant degree, but she fits the bill in many other respects - the victimology is there, the geography is in place, the timing is correct, she was a prostitute, her death was a strangely silent one and so on.
She received 38 stabs and cuts to her body, all of them inflicted with a smallish knife such as a pen-knife. It seems to me that such a weapon would not be suited for any deep cutting and/or eviscerations. The finishing blow was by means of a dagger like, heavy implement, and that is not the type of weapon an eviscerator would opt for either.
I am thinking that this was perhaps not a planned deed, but instead a spur-of-the-moment slaying, perhaps led on by a sudden rage. Then the killer made use of whatever weapon he carried in himself or took from her to kill her.

One interesting perspective is how it is possible that he never actually intended to take his business to the streets, but once he killed Tabram and got lots of publicity, it may have encouraged him to go for a sideline. And since that sideline earned him a lot more publicity, he may have kept it up for that reason.

This is of course all guesswork, but guesswork is what we are left with. When it comes to Tabram, I would not go "Its not possible!" if it was proven that she was not a Ripper victim, the way I would with, say, Nichols, Chapman, Kelly, the 1873 victim, the Rainham victim and Jackson. There are and will always be levels involved. But overall, I find Tabram very likely belongs to the tally.

I hope that satisfies you.

again great post.
perhaps the torsoripper was out trolling for victims, perhaps planning on rusing them back to his chop shop when he met millwood. she wouldn't go back with him and or something didn't go as planned so he attacked her there. and if she wasn't his victim then perhaps ditto for tabram. or he came upon tabram napping and fulfilled his urge on the spot. perhaps he got a thrill as you say out of this new twist and continued with the ripper victims.

anyway im not married to tabram and or millwood as definite victims and they do kind of present a challenge in torso/ripper MO and sig series, as Harry D rightly points out.

but as I too think the torsorippers main motivation was a fascination with cutting up and into a female body --of what his knife (or saw) could do to the victims, millwood and tabram fit also.

[Fisherman]

question: how did lech acquire the cutting up skill that you reference the drs saying?

First and foremost: Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper, was also presumed to be a surgeon on account of how skilled his cutting work was. It turned out that he was a drifter with no medical cutting expertise at all!

Apparently, a person can cut with such determination and steadiness so as to be looked upon as medically skilled for very little reason. However, that does not detract from how the cuts to the victims in these series WERE looked upon as exceedingly skilled by some medicos. The accomplished knife work IS in place - but it may well be that it can be acquired by more than surgeons! A steady hand in combination with helping out with the cutting up of horse carcasses, dismembering them in the process, may perhaps have formed that skill in Lechmere´s case.
Or maybe he spent his spare time carving wood figurines, getting extremely skilled with the knife? The point is, we just don't know. If it was him, he was skilled with the knife, that's all we can say.

Let's also not forget that the skill hinted at by the medicos was never one of cutting along surgically established paths - it only alluded to the cutting as such, which was able, quick, clean and determined. No surgeon would do to a person what was done to the victims of these series!

[Abby Normal]

The 1887-89 victims, four of them, (Rainham, Whitehall, Jackson, Pinchin) were all examined by Charles Hebbert, who did not hesitate to say that they were cut up by the same person. The cutting work was quite similar in all respects.

Hebbert never saw the 1873 and 1874 victims, but we know that the 1873 victim was also very skillfully cut up and the joints were dismembered in that case too. There is also another reason, that I have so far chosen not to disclose, to accept that the 1873 victim was killed by the same man who killed Mary Kelly.

In all of the Ripper victims and torso victims we can see that there are no clear indications of any torture applied; there are no bite marks, no burn marks, no evidence of severe beatings. These are common inclusions in many cases, but here, it seems that the killer was first and foremost intent on gaining access to a dead body. After that, we know that the Ripper took out the uterus from Chapman, the uterus and the left kidney from Eddowes and all inner organs from Kelly. We also know that he cut away the abdominal wall or large parts of it in flaps from Chapman and Kelly.
The torso killer cut out the uterus and the heart and lungs from Jacksons body, and the heart and lungs were also missing from the Rainham victim, although the medicos did not establish how they had gone lost. There were also organs missing from the Whitehall torso, but whether they were taken away by the killer or if they went lost as collateral damage during the process of cutting and/or transporting the body was never established. My own take is that once we KNOW that he DID eviscerate Jackson, then the logical conclusion is that eviscerations lie behind all missing organs from the torso victims.

The clincher to my mind is the fact that the killer cut away the abdominal walls in flaps from some of his victims. As I wrote, this happened to two out of five victims in the Ripper series, Chapman and Kelly. But it ALSO happened to Liz Jackson in the Torso series - her eviscerated uterus was found floating in the Thames, the foetus having been removed from it (she was pregnant when killed), together with the chord and the placenta. All of these parts had been neatly packed up inside two large flaps of flesh from the abdomen. The flaps represented "the whole of the lower abdomen" according to what was written in the papers.

So either we have two or more killers at work in the late victorian London who were into procuring freshly killed bodies to eviscerate, and who were into taking away the abdominal walls from victims in large flaps, and who were described as very skilled with the knife and possibly surgically trained.

Or we have just the one.

To me, its an absolute no-brainer. Much as I think it would be fair to leave some learoom for the possibility that this was that moment when lightning struck twice at the same spot and time, I am perfectly aware that this is not in any shape or form even remotely likely to happen.

As an aside, I would like to add that I am of the meaning that the ultimate goal of the killer was NOT to eviscerate and take out organs. This was only one side of his urge, as far as I am considered. What I believe he was about would always involve cutting into the bodies of his victims, but not necessarily in order to get at the organs. As far as I am concerned, cutting the flesh from a face or taking away a limb could reflect what he was after just as well as any eviscerations. I recommend not to put too much trust in what is so often said about how he was after sexually oriented organs. A kidney is not sexually oriented, generally speaking, nor is a heart or the flesh of a face. But cutting away these things could well be linked to a very odd sexual orientation within a killer.

Now I predict that some posters (I can easily name them) will emerge from the woodwork and claim that I am nearly deranged and that I am twisting and lying. Which is why I recommend that you do not take their OR my word for granted. Instead, go to the sources and check whether what I am saying is true or not and then decide for yourself what to make of it!

great post fish
Pretty much agree wholeheartedly with everything youve written here. and as Jerry recently pointed out, the 1884 Tottenham torso also had the face cut up, similar to Kelly and eddowes.

question: how did lech acquire the cutting up skill that you reference the drs saying?

[Fisherman]

Unfortunately, no homicide detective in the world would endorse your methods, Fish. It would be foolhardy in the extreme to eliminate a suspect in one murder case by bringing in other theoretical cases that may or may not be connected.

It's precisely why the police are hesitant to 'link' unsolved cases. It leads to false impressions and may give alibis to suspects that truly don't deserve them.

Just about every homicide detective in the world looks for physical and other commonalities inbetween victims, R J. I'm sure you know that too. And since there is every reason to link Jackson and the Pinchin Street torso to the Ripper murders for this exact reason, there is consequently every reason to discard Tumblety from being the combined killer too.

Is he the wealthy man you suspect left Yates´money behind, by the way? Am I stepping on a sore toe here? Just asking.

PS. I could add that in a lot of cases, much less significant similarities than those involved in the Ripper/Torso cases have had lots of homicide detectives work from an assumption of a serialist being on the loose. Take, for example, a town where five women are found strangled over a period of there months - that will inevitably lead to the suspicion of a serial killer on account of the police, unless there is evidence to the contrary. And strangulation is one of the commonest ways of killing!

Cutting people open, eviscerating and taking away the abdominal wall are all examples of VERY uncommon traits in murder cases.

PS. Just checked, and it seems you ARE a Tumbletonian. Well, easy come, easy go ... Nah, just joking, but I really don´t think he can possibly be our man. Regardless of whether you claim that it is "foolhardy" to rule him out or not.

[Fisherman]

I think Fisherman one must remember just how available the basic slaughterhouse/butcher skill set was in that area at the time. Much of what you mention is excising and how that was done was likely very similar from man to man. Little specific differences to be sure, but essentially using the same procedural methods. There are murders though within all these unsolved murders where the skill set and the target was much more refined and specific. The ultimate objectives more evident. The possible pool of Suspects more narrow. Co-mingling these with other butcher style murders, or simple throat cutting murders, muddies the water to the extent that clarity is impossible.

The common outcome when a body is dismembered is not one that will make seasoned medicos speculate about surgical insights, Michael. And no, not all people cut in the same way.

I say scrutinize the ones we can say with some certainty had a high probability of linkage by killer and find out why they happened. Use any answers you find when reviewing other cases. Its the key points that have to match, specific actions per se aren't the evidence that can link the killer, why the murders took place can.

Specific actions ALWAYS links murders, I'm afraid, whereas lofty speculations about the reasons for the killings rarely do - it is not until the killer is caught that such things are revealed.

The Torso murders were conducted differently, over a long span of time one might imagine, and the body parts do not have any recognizable attraction to the killer, one that is clearly present. They are discarded. In the cases I mention, the women are killed and mutilated quickly, the cutting is objective oriented, and the bodies are left to be discovered shortly after the deed, the women grotesquely displayed. This is one element of the killer that so many people ignore, his demonstrated desire to shock.

Kellys body parts were also discarded. They were left behind. So the two are on the same page in that respect. We know zilch about what happened to Chapmans uterus and Eddowes´organs, just as we know zilch about why he cut them out - although I have a hunch that I know the reason for it.
And once more, why would a torso placed in the vaults of Scotland Yard NOT shock? Why would floating body parts through the epicenter of the worlds largest metropolis NOT shock?
The ONLY difference that we are certain of inbetween the series is that one series involves dismemberment and dumping. That is it. Nothing else. We know not the mindset, we know not how the victims were procured etcetera. The many differences spoken of are brainghosts to 95 per cent.

[Fisherman]

Regardless of whom we suspect, it doesn't strike me as particularly likely that any East Ender in his early 20s would be into chopping up women and dumping their remains in Battersea and Putney.

Have a look historically at dismemberment killers who kill out of a wish to cut up bodies, Gareth. Luckily, it is not likely that ANYBODY would do such a thing. But some do, nevertheless.

Where he dumped the bodies will have nothing to do with how likely a 24 year old killer is or not. Maybe, though, you would find it more likely that such a man would dump a body in St Georges...?

[rjpalmer]

Unfortunately, no homicide detective in the world would endorse your methods, Fish. It would be foolhardy in the extreme to eliminate a suspect in one murder case by bringing in other theoretical cases that may or may not be connected.

It's precisely why the police are hesitant to 'link' unsolved cases. It leads to false impressions and may give alibis to suspects that truly don't deserve them.

[Fisherman]

Hello Fish. Interesting that you would include Tabram. How do you reconcile the frenzied stabbing with the Torsoripper's signature?

If you read my post to A Perno, you would see that I am saying that I don't think that eviscerations was the hallmark of the Ripper/Torso killer. It was cutting into a body. In that respect, Tabram fits the bill.
I of course agree that she deviates form the other victims to a significant degree, but she fits the bill in many other respects - the victimology is there, the geography is in place, the timing is correct, she was a prostitute, her death was a strangely silent one and so on.
She received 38 stabs and cuts to her body, all of them inflicted with a smallish knife such as a pen-knife. It seems to me that such a weapon would not be suited for any deep cutting and/or eviscerations. The finishing blow was by means of a dagger like, heavy implement, and that is not the type of weapon an eviscerator would opt for either.
I am thinking that this was perhaps not a planned deed, but instead a spur-of-the-moment slaying, perhaps led on by a sudden rage. Then the killer made use of whatever weapon he carried in himself or took from her to kill her.

One interesting perspective is how it is possible that he never actually intended to take his business to the streets, but once he killed Tabram and got lots of publicity, it may have encouraged him to go for a sideline. And since that sideline earned him a lot more publicity, he may have kept it up for that reason.

This is of course all guesswork, but guesswork is what we are left with. When it comes to Tabram, I would not go "Its not possible!" if it was proven that she was not a Ripper victim, the way I would with, say, Nichols, Chapman, Kelly, the 1873 victim, the Rainham victim and Jackson. There are and will always be levels involved. But overall, I find Tabram very likely belongs to the tally.

I hope that satisfies you.

[Fisherman]

Hi Fish. A correction. While I don't think it has been proven that there was a 'Torso Killer,' let alone one also connected to the Whitechapel Murders, you're wrong about putting Frank Tumilty ('Tumblety') on your list. He was romping around the UK during most of 1873-1874. It wouldn't eliminate him.

He was in the US when the 1889 torso victims fell prey, though. So out he goes!

[Sam Flynn]

Regardless of whom we suspect, it doesn't strike me as particularly likely that any East Ender in his early 20s would be into chopping up women and dumping their remains in Battersea and Putney.

[rjpalmer]

My candidate for both series is the carman Charles Lechmere, who was born in 1849. That makes him 24 when the 1873 torso murder was carried out and 39 when the Ripper murders occurred.

Regardless of whether I am correct on this or not, if we accept that the Torso murders, including the 1873 and 1874 torso murders, were carried out by the Ripper, then away go suspects like Kosminski, Druitt, Chapman, Sickert, Tumblety, Bury etcetera.

Hi Fish. A correction. While I don't think it has been proven that there was a 'Torso Killer,' let alone one also connected to the Whitechapel Murders, you're wrong about putting Frank Tumilty ('Tumblety') on your list. He was romping around the UK during most of 1873-1874. It wouldn't eliminate him.