Could Anything New Be Learned By Exhuming The Victims?

[Richard E. Nixon]

I'm by no means a medical expert but I've often wondered if today's medical knowledge and technology could tell us anything about the murders if the victims were exhumed.

Any ideas?

[GUT]

Where are you going to exhume "Them" from.

[Panderoona]

Doubt there would be much left to exhume.

[RockySullivan]

I wonder if any body parts from the torso killer were preserved and kept by a doctor or museum

[Errata]

Quite a bit can actually be learned from skeletal remains. Certainly we aren't looking for blood samples or anything remotely connected to toxicology. Seeing the actual injuries would certainly be helpful, but probably not particularly illuminating.

What I really want to know is how he controlled his victims so completely. What I would really like to see are the skulls and the spines, even the clavicles. I would like to know if there was head trauma undiscovered. I would like to see if there was some traumatic spinal injury capable of affecting the ability to move. I want to know if some of the most delicate bones in the body were broken, indicating a forceful assault. I would like to see knife fragments and get them tested. All those things I can get from a skeleton.

But given what these women went through, I do not think my curiosity is more important than leaving these women in peace and unmolested by armchair detectives.

[Panderoona]

Not sure about the others but MJK was buried in a pauper grave, dumped in with many others, there would be no way to identify any remains.

[Richard E. Nixon]

Not sure about the others but MJK was buried in a pauper grave, dumped in with many others, there would be no way to identify any remains.

Knife marks on the spine around the neck area?

[GUT]

Knife marks on the spine around the neck area?

So maybe one vertebrae?

[Panderoona]

Knife marks on cervical vertebrae. What will you learn from that? Nothing new. I doubt very much anyone would get permission to exhume on those grounds, especially since they would be disturbing the remains of many other people.

[Errata]

Knife marks on cervical vertebrae. What will you learn from that? Nothing new. I doubt very much anyone would get permission to exhume on those grounds, especially since they would be disturbing the remains of many other people.

Actually we could learn what kind of knife of it was, possibly what method was used to sharpen it. We could get a chemical composition for the steel, possibly narrow down a manufacturer. We could find out the amount of force used, whether burying the knife in the bone was from purposeful movement of accidental. We would find out whether or not he was trying to decapitate them. Certainly with Eddowes and Kelly, likely with all the other victims we would learn how good he was at removing organs, or how lucky. The knife hit more bones than a single vertebrae. It hit the rib cage, the sternum, the pelvis. Forceful hits tell us one thing, while a single graze would tell us another.

But I'm still for letting these poor women lie.

[Panderoona]

point taken Errata, and glad you feel its better to let them rest in peace. Whatever we might learn from such an exercise has to be weighed against disturbing those at rest, and in the case of MJK at least, others who had nothing to do with the murders. of course thats just my opinion

[Errata]

point taken Errata, and glad you feel its better to let them rest in peace. Whatever we might learn from such an exercise has to be weighed against disturbing those at rest, and in the case of MJK at least, others who had nothing to do with the murders. of course thats just my opinion

And I agree. If the killer were still feasibly alive, I might feel differently. Justice could then potentially be served. But that ship sailed a long time ago, so now we are talking about digging people up to satisfy simple curiosity. Which is never a good enough reason to either dig someone up or not allow their remains to be disposed of in the manner they wished. So I'm not a fan of digging up the victims, anymore than I am a fan of never having buried John Merrick.

[GUT]

There's also a small detail of needing approval for an exhumation, so you would need a darn good reason, you would need to show that there was a real investigation to be undertaken.

[Errata]

There's also a small detail of needing approval for an exhumation, so you would need a darn good reason, you would need to show that there was a real investigation to be undertaken.

Well that all depends on how you phrase the request. It isn't an exhumation for a crime, it's more an excavation for archaeological research. I mean, they dug up a monastery to find a skeleton that would match a king supposedly buried there, to determine if he was there and to determine how he died.

Now there is a 500 year difference between the two, and for England there may be rules about how long people have to wait to dig people up for the sake of research, but I've been on digs here that are certainly no older than the Ripper. But this is the US. We don't have history yet. Merely trends.