How Many Victims Were There?

[etenguy]

Making comparisons between regular knife violence and the type of knife violence that surfaced in the Ripper and Torso series is not very viable. Yes, there were more than one person capable of knife violence in London in 1888. But no, not every person capable of knife violence is likely to eviscerate his or her victim/s. Only a minuscule fraction of people will do that. Luckily, they are very, very few and very, very far apart in time and place, owing to the scarcity of these slayings.

Agree, but the torso murders took place over at least a 16 year period, possibly longer, across London and the ripper murders over a few months in Whitechapel in 1888. So assuming the statistics you quoted are accurate (1 eviscerator every 7 years on average), it would be quite conceivable that the ripper and torso killers were separate people and not especially surprising that they overlapped.

[Fisherman]

Agree, but the torso murders took place over at least a 16 year period, possibly longer, across London and the ripper murders over a few months in Whitechapel in 1888. So assuming the statistics you quoted are accurate (1 eviscerator every 7 years on average), it would be quite conceivable that the ripper and torso killers were separate people and not especially surprising that they overlapped.

To begin with: I don't know how large a percentage the 460 murders covered within the serial killing total. I don't think there were only 460 serial murders in the US between 1960 and 2006 - Ridgway and Bundy would cover a hundred, roughly, on their own!

Moving on, it still applies that evisceration murders are very, very rare. And once they DO occur, we should not expect them to take place in the same city and time period. It reasly should go without saying.

There were roughy 35 million people in Britain at the time these murders took place. In Greater London, there were some five million people. So that alone speaks against a common striking area. It was one chance in seven that you were a Londoner.

What you want is for these parameters to simultaneously appear: two serial killers in the same town, overlapping time periods, both of them eviscerators, both of them take out hearts and uteri, both of them cut away abdominal walls from victims.

It just hasn't got any credibility at all going for it. It is unlikely in the extreme. Theoretically it CAN happen, but I´d say that the chances of it being just the one killer are a zillion times greater. If it walks like a duck ...

[Sam Flynn]

All true but I might add the mutilations of the C5 with the exception of Liz Stride were not common place.

Agreed, which is why I see Stride as a bog-standard knife crime unconnected to the rest of the Canonical Five, like the majority of the other non-canonical Whitechapel Murders that didn't involve disembowelment.

[Sam Flynn]

But no, not every person capable of knife violence is likely to eviscerate his or her victim/s.

Including the perpetrator of the Pinchin Street murder, which was the only torso deposited anywhere near the Ripper murders. (Unequivocal evidence of evisceration for its own sake is entirely absent in the torso series, anyway.)

[Abby Normal]

Agree, but the torso murders took place over at least a 16 year period, possibly longer, across London and the ripper murders over a few months in Whitechapel in 1888. So assuming the statistics you quoted are accurate (1 eviscerator every 7 years on average), it would be quite conceivable that the ripper and torso killers were separate people and not especially surprising that they overlapped.

perhaps-but what many seem to forget is that both seemingly stopped at the same time with the (probable) last victims pinchin and McKenzie.

[Fisherman]

Including the perpetrator of the Pinchin Street murder, which was the only torso deposited anywhere near the Ripper murders. (Unequivocal evidence of evisceration for its own sake is entirely absent in the torso series, anyway.)

As I have said multiple times, I believe it was not about eviscerations but instead about cutting per se - which INVOLVES BUT DOES NOT PREDISPOSE eviscerations. There were many cuts to Kelly that were not of an evisceration character, just as there were in the Eddowes case.
True, we cannot say that the eviscerations that are proven in the torso cases must have been led on by an urge to eviscerate. Then again, that of course applies in the Ripper case too. If we don't know, we don't know.

But we DO know that whenever eviscerators surface, they are unlikely in the extreme to have other eviscerators surfacing alongside them. And once we add the character of the eviscerations, involving the taking out of sexually oriented was well as non-sexually oriented organs AND the taking away of abdominal walls, we can safely say that the chances of a common killer are overwhelmingly large, while the chances of two separate ditto are virtually nonexistent.

PS. Hebberd was sure that the Pinchin Street woman was killed by the same man who killed the Rainham, the Whitehall and the Horsleydown victims. Ergo, your hunch willl in all probability be misguided. And what with the "anywhere near" thing? She was smack, bang in Ripper territory!

[Sam Flynn]

perhaps-but what many seem to forget is that both seemingly stopped at the same time with the (probable) last victims pinchin and McKenzie.

Only if you count them, which is a moot point. There was a huge gap (more than eight months) between Kelly and McKenzie, for a start, and McKenzie's death wasn't convincingly Ripper-like. The Pinchin Street case, which followed a further two months after McKenzie, was not Ripper-like in the slightest.

[Fisherman]

Only if you count them, which is a moot point. There was a huge gap (more than eight months) between Kelly and McKenzie, for a start, and McKenzie's death wasn't convincingly Ripper-like. The Pinchin Street case, which followed a further two months after McKenzie, was not Ripper-like in the slightest.

... but for the fact that there was a gash running from breastplate to pelvis. That, Gareth, was quite reminiscent of the Ripper, and the press and police duly noted it.

[Sam Flynn]

The single, vertical cut to the Pinchin St torso's abdomen did not penetrate the abdominal wall. I've no doubt that the Ripper wouldn't have hesitated to eviscerate her "properly", given that whoever disarticulated the body would have had plenty of time and privacy available in which to do so. As it is, the victim only endured a scratch, compared to what happened to Nichols et al under far less favourable circumstances.

[Fisherman]

The single, vertical cut to the Pinchin St torso's abdomen did not penetrate the abdominal wall. I've no doubt that the Ripper wouldn't have hesitated to eviscerate her "properly", given that whoever disarticulated the body would have had plenty of time and privacy available in which to do so. As it is, the victim only endured a scratch, compared to what happened to Nichols et al under far less favourable circumstances.

That does not matter to the discussion we are having. You said that the case was not in the slightest way Ripper-like, and you were wrong. Regardless of how deep the wound was, it was nevertheless a gash from breastplate to pelvis, and that IS reminiscent of the Ripper. Extremely few murders have that inclusion.

PS. Since you do not know zilch about the circumstances under which the Pinchin Street woman was cut, best not make comparisons with other cases in that respect. Just saying.

[Harry D]

A lot of theorists see the killer as a firework that went on a bloody spree and then fizzled out. However, we know there are notorious serial killers who took prolonged breaks before killing again. Personally, I think the murders continued to at least 1889 with McKenzie and possibly the torsos. There could've also been much later murders which were the work of the Ripper.

[Michael W Richards]

Only if you count them, which is a moot point. There was a huge gap (more than eight months) between Kelly and McKenzie, for a start, and McKenzie's death wasn't convincingly Ripper-like. The Pinchin Street case, which followed a further two months after McKenzie, was not Ripper-like in the slightest.

That "Ripper-like" phrase refers to something that is for some reason largely ignored Sam, which is that there is a distinctive style and MO and Signature evident within just the Canonical Group, let alone that larger group in the Unsolved File...(the number I used includes some more speculative victims that people still argue for inclusion, in our Victims file here). It shows a specific way of conducting his business, from the apprehension, to the achievement of his specific goals once the victim is incapacitated. The fact that these key characteristics are lacking in many of these other murders should help people see these contrasts clearer, but the tendency is to change the killer rather than follow the evidence.

That some of these were committed out in public where the risks were the greatest indicates to me that the either the thrill was something he also liked, or that he wasn't consciously aware of what kind of situation he was putting himself into. I think for me the 2 most "Ripper-like" victims suggest that he was probably the latter sort of fellow. He was mad. And once in the throes of his passion he couldnt help himself. His best response to the threat he creates is to work quickly, but at that point he has to keep going. My guess is that he was a little pissed after Pollys murder, mutilatus interruptus.

[Abby Normal]

A lot of theorists see the killer as a firework that went on a bloody spree and then fizzled out. However, we know there are notorious serial killers who took prolonged breaks before killing again. Personally, I think the murders continued to at least 1889 with McKenzie and possibly the torsos. There could've also been much later murders which were the work of the Ripper.

indeed Harry
if one looks at the torsoripper as someone whos main motivation was post mortem mutilation and the cutting up of female bodies with a growing secondary motivation of the shock and attention he got (from the public, press and police) then the way the overall series plays out makes sense. First you have torso victims and their parts dumped in the river, then more public and shocking torso dumpings, then the ripper victims. with the start of the ripper victims overlapping and continuing with the torso victims and the overall series ending with McKenzie and Pinchin. it starts with torsos and ends with torsos, with the ripper spree coming near the end.

Makes total sense to me and fits a logical narrative.

[Michael W Richards]

indeed Harry
if one looks at the torsoripper as someone whos main motivation was post mortem mutilation and the cutting up of female bodies with a growing secondary motivation of the shock and attention he got (from the public, press and police) then the way the overall series plays out makes sense. First you have torso victims and their parts dumped in the river, then more public and shocking torso dumpings, then the ripper victims. with the start of the ripper victims overlapping and continuing with the torso victims and the overall series ending with McKenzie and Pinchin. it starts with torsos and ends with torsos, with the ripper spree coming near the end.

Makes total sense to me and fits a logical narrative.

A man who attacks strangers and murders them and the disembowels them on the spot, leaving them to be found shortly thereafter with their identity roughly recognizable, is very different from a man that kidnaps a victim...(there is no evidence any Torso was taken away to be cut up already murdered), and over days and weeks kills them and takes them apart, disposing of some parts in the river, or in less than obvious locations, preventing any sure identification in the short run. Some Torsos we will never know for sure who they were.

The man who disemboweled in the streets could have been caught by any accidental passer by, cop or citizen, but the man who disarticulated could have worked a normal job, gone home to the family, and done some grisly work at a warehouse before retiring for the night. Once he had his victim stashed away somewhere private, he had all the time in the world with no police to breathe down his neck, or passer by to spoils his future plans. He also had no opportunity for the rush the street killer had, knowing that any minute he could be caught.

That rush may be on his hit list.

[John Wheat]

I agree with Michael. We are dealing with different killers.