Idiots Folly

[Pinkerton]

Perhaps the torso victims were ones who JtR was able to finagle back to his place, and the C5 were not.

This has always been my pet theory if indeed the torso killer was the Ripper. The victims the Ripper got to come to his residence became the torso victims.

They didn't necissarily stop in 1889, you forget the torso of Salamanca ally in 1902.

While I am familiar with the torsos from 1873 and 1874 which were quite different than those of 1887-1889, I am not familiar with the one from 1902 Corey. I will read up on this though. Thanks for the info!

Maybe, if he was of mutiple personalities. The distribution of victims shows alot about a killer, and I don't believe that a individual could hold both preferences.

This is where you and I fundamentally disagree Corey. I personally do not believe in some of the more narrow "categories" of serial killers. Seems a little too pop psychology for my liking. Serial killers do have tendencies I believe, but I don't believe they adhere to these strict categories. "If they cut up the body it means X. If they transport it it means Y." Specifically I fundamentally disagree with the idea that Jack the Ripper was a "mutilation" killer. That is he killed in order to mutilate. I think given the opportunity he might mutilate a victim. But I don't think this was necessarily his "motivation". I think he liked to kill prostitutes and he liked to "shock" people to get attention.

As I troll through the Old Bailey cases I keep waiting to find the supposed multitude of prostitute killings in London over the years that would leave one to believe that such murders were so common that the murder of prostitutes in 1887-1889 in the East End could have been the work of MULTIPLE unrelated killers. And yet I seem to only come across such murders a few times in a year usually in very disparate locations in London and under very different circumstances. This has lead me to the very unpopular opinion that the Ripper killed Tabram, the C5, McKenzie, and I'm 50/50 on both Coles and the Torso victims.

[Iain Wilson]

Is it not easier to transport a body when it's in pieces?

(this isn't me speaking from experience btw )

[Errata]

Well, maybe the dismemberment had nothing to do with removing the body. First of all, they thought Jackson was killed in the park. Secondly, it's kind of an odd way to cut someone up if the sole mission is transport.

[Iain Wilson]

Perhaps the torso victims were ones who JtR was able to finagle back to his place, and the C5 were not.

Perhaps. However, if we assume that the Torso Killer murdered and butchered his victims at his place, we can probably also assume that he was of sufficent means to afford somewhere private where he lived on his own.

After all, if he shared accomodation with someone else, lodged in another's house or lived in a common lodging house (!) the chances of being discovered increase astronomically! Quite apart from the business of hiding the body parts in the aftermath, you've got to consider getting a woman into the house and somehow managing to slaughter her without anyone else noticing. I'm not saying he would have been hacking her apart while someone else was in the next room, but I'm assuming that cleaning up the mess resulting from dismembering someone would take a LOT of time, and the killer would have to be extremely through or traces of his actions would remain.

(anyone who has kids will attest to the fact of how difficult it is to get a variety of bodily fluids out of carpets, off of walls, furniture etc )

Failing that he probably had some work premises, maybe a studio, workshop or something such like that he had exclusive and sole access to after dark.

What I'm driving at is this - if he did have his own place, then why wasn't our killer able to lure the poor, peniless women of Whitechapel that were the C5 victims back to his place? He obviously would have possessed money, and some of the C5 would doubtlessly have gone with him with the promise of a drink. Yet, if he and the Whitechapel murderer were one and the same he didn't bother to do this with the C5. If dismemberment was the pinnacle of his fantasy he didn't bother in these cases - why?

As an aside to this, if the series of the torso murders took place before, during and after the Autumn of Terror, how likely would it be that the killer would change his MO mid spree? Does anyone have any documented cases of other killers doing something similar?

Thanks,

Iain

[corey123]

Pinkerton,


They didn't necissarily stop in 1889, you forget the torso of Salamanca ally in 1902.

Abby,

Maybe, if he was of mutiple personalities. The distribution of victims shows alot about a killer, and I don't believe that a individual could hold both preferences.

[Abby Normal]

If the dismemberment of the torso victims was intended to hide their identity then the killer did a REALLY lousy job with Elizabeth Jackson! He left a piece of the victims clothing on the body with someone's name on it (even if it wasn't Jackson's name)! I can't see the killer being that foolish.

I was always of the opinion that the killer killed the victims indoors and cut them up so he could transport the body OUT of his residence. If you kill someone AT YOUR RESIDENCE you are going to need to get rid of the body. You obviously can't just let it lie there and flee like in the case of Kelly. People KNOW you live at the residence and if they find a body there the cops are coming after you. And if you don't cut up the body it is going to look VERY suspicious transporting a "bag" with a cadaver in it. This kind of reminds me of the Wainwright murder case where the murderer dismembered the body to transport it to another location. Unfortunately for the murderer, he was foolish enough to put the head in a bag and pay SOMEONE ELSE to transport the "head" who wasn't in on the murder. The person who was to transport this bag was curious as to the bag's contents and eventually opened up the bag...Wainwright was later hung for this murder.

Anyway, we have four bodies that were dismembered, all in a similar fashion. Police believed all four victims were murdered by the same person who probably had SOME knowledge of anatomy (the joints were perfectly dis-articulated). The murders ran from 1887-1889 (with the Ripper members tucked neatly in between this period). One of the victim's remains was purposefully put in a sack and placed on the construction site for the new Scotland Yard headquarters. Nothing says "F*&K YOU" to the police like burying a body at their headquarters! This happened in October of 1888 during the HEIGHT of the Ripper murders.

We then have another victim who was the only victim identified. This victim was a known prostitute. We then have another victim whose parts were placed in a sack under a railroad bridge in WHITECHAPEL of all places. Two of the victims had their dismembered parts placed in locations outdoors where they KNEW they would be discovered. Had the murderer wanted to hide these two victims he would have simply BURIED their remains. The other two victims remains were also put in sacks and thrown into the river. As someone pointed out the killer COULD have simply weighed the sacks down and within a short period there would have been nothing left of the victim's remains (one of the faster methods of decomposition).

I am not saying the Ripper killed the Torso victims. However if the killer was not the Ripper has was obviously trying to "cash in" on the Ripper's notoriety. He took quite a chance placing those two sacks at Whitehall and in Swallow Gardens. It would have been much easier to simply load the sacks into a wagon, drive out into the country and bury them. I can't tell you the number of cases I have come across where burglars in London during this period got stopped by policemen for having a sack thrown around their shoulder while walking down the street in the middle of the night. They immediately suspect something isn't right!

One does have wonder though why the torso killings stopped in 1889. Though there were a few similar cases of torsos being dumped in the Thams before and after the Torso murders of 1887-1889 they were quite different in their character. In my personal opinion I wouldn't be surprised EITHER WAY if it was revealed that the Ripper was indeed the torso killer, or that he wasn't.

Perhaps the torso victims were ones who JtR was able to finagle back to his place, and the C5 were not.

[Pinkerton]

If the dismemberment of the torso victims was intended to hide their identity then the killer did a REALLY lousy job with Elizabeth Jackson! He left a piece of the victims clothing on the body with someone's name on it (even if it wasn't Jackson's name)! I can't see the killer being that foolish.

I was always of the opinion that the killer killed the victims indoors and cut them up so he could transport the body OUT of his residence. If you kill someone AT YOUR RESIDENCE you are going to need to get rid of the body. You obviously can't just let it lie there and flee like in the case of Kelly. People KNOW you live at the residence and if they find a body there the cops are coming after you. And if you don't cut up the body it is going to look VERY suspicious transporting a "bag" with a cadaver in it. This kind of reminds me of the Wainwright murder case where the murderer dismembered the body to transport it to another location. Unfortunately for the murderer, he was foolish enough to put the head in a bag and pay SOMEONE ELSE to transport the "head" who wasn't in on the murder. The person who was to transport this bag was curious as to the bag's contents and eventually opened up the bag...Wainwright was later hung for this murder.

Anyway, we have four bodies that were dismembered, all in a similar fashion. Police believed all four victims were murdered by the same person who probably had SOME knowledge of anatomy (the joints were perfectly dis-articulated). The murders ran from 1887-1889 (with the Ripper members tucked neatly in between this period). One of the victim's remains was purposefully put in a sack and placed on the construction site for the new Scotland Yard headquarters. Nothing says "F*&K YOU" to the police like burying a body at their headquarters! This happened in October of 1888 during the HEIGHT of the Ripper murders.

We then have another victim who was the only victim identified. This victim was a known prostitute. We then have another victim whose parts were placed in a sack under a railroad bridge in WHITECHAPEL of all places. Two of the victims had their dismembered parts placed in locations outdoors where they KNEW they would be discovered. Had the murderer wanted to hide these two victims he would have simply BURIED their remains. The other two victims remains were also put in sacks and thrown into the river. As someone pointed out the killer COULD have simply weighed the sacks down and within a short period there would have been nothing left of the victim's remains (one of the faster methods of decomposition).

I am not saying the Ripper killed the Torso victims. However if the killer was not the Ripper has was obviously trying to "cash in" on the Ripper's notoriety. He took quite a chance placing those two sacks at Whitehall and in Swallow Gardens. It would have been much easier to simply load the sacks into a wagon, drive out into the country and bury them. I can't tell you the number of cases I have come across where burglars in London during this period got stopped by policemen for having a sack thrown around their shoulder while walking down the street in the middle of the night. They immediately suspect something isn't right!

One does have wonder though why the torso killings stopped in 1889. Though there were a few similar cases of torsos being dumped in the Thams before and after the Torso murders of 1887-1889 they were quite different in their character. In my personal opinion I wouldn't be surprised EITHER WAY if it was revealed that the Ripper was indeed the torso killer, or that he wasn't.

[Iain Wilson]

Hi all,

Fascinating thread - thank you for sharing your insights!

From a personal point of view, I don't believe that Elizabeth Jackson's killer was the same hand that murdered the Canonical Five (although even lumping them together is a can of worms in itself ). Although there are similarities in the cases the essential MO appears to be different.

As Edward has already stated, the medics at the time believed that Jackson had been dismembered with a saw, and the body parts then dumped in the various places they were found. The murderer of the C5 used a knife and left his victims at the scene of the crime once he was finished (passing masonic stage coaches aside ).

The bodies of the C5 victims were discovered within a few hours of their deaths, wheras the various bits of poor Elizabeth Jackson turned up over a period of several weeks.

Although this may be incidental, there seems to be an attempt to obfuscate the identity of the victim in Jackson's case, wheras the C5 victims were left in such a state that they could be identified.

These facts, and other details such as Jackson's killer taking the time to carefully wrap the body parts in cloth suggests a much more organised mind than the almost exhibitionist nature of the murderer of the C5 victims.

Although trophy taking is certainly prominent in both cases, as Dave has stated on a couple of occasions trying to form a link based on one tenous fact (especially using something like trophy taking which is extremly common fetish amongst serial killers) leads us into the "all cats have fur..." territory.

Regards,

Iain

[Edward]

Too many differences ...

Hello All -

I feel that there are too many differences for this to be JtR. Elizabeth Jackson was totally dismembered. Ripper victims were mutilated or disemboweled (or both).

The JtR victims were left where they fell, Jackson’s body parts were scattered about (mainly deposited in the Thames). I think that the wrapping of the body parts was more to disguise them during transport from point A to point B. I feel that the river was used as a means of disposal, not in an attempt to thwart identification.

The opinion of the medical personnel examining the remains was that a saw was probably used to take the corpse apart. This would imply that Jackson’s murderer had access to a private, probably indoor location in which to accomplish the deed. (the victim was homeless) Nobody at the time believed that she was dismembered in the park. The possibility (probability) that the murderer had a secure indoor location in which to operate, and a tool necessary to perform the act sets this killer apart from JtR, who (mainly) did his work out of doors. Kelly was killed in her own place, Elizabeth Jackson was sleeping outdoors in a park. The murderer must have had access to somewhere private.

There is medical opinion that this victim (who was pregnant) suffered a botched attempt to perform an abortion. I don’t think Jack was in the business. If the victim died as the result of an attempted abortion, what do you do with a dead body? It would be far easier to dispose of dismembered body parts than it would be to dispose of an intact human body. Just cut it down to portable pieces.

In general, the torso murders resemble what happened to Kelly more than what happened to the other JtR victims. But then, I’m not entirely convinced that Kelly was one of Jack’s victims.

Edward

[corey123]

Hello Errata,

I would just like to add that the post mortem report and the report made is situ of the murder of Mary Kelly, are the only full accounts we have when they were returned to Scotland Yard in 1987. The reports were of coarse by Dr. Bond, the divisional surgen for A division(whitehall).

He also did the a report on the Whitehall torso, Alice Mackenzie, and Rose Mylett.

[corey123]

Hello Dave,


How about Cronic ripper dilusions? Or cronic ripper disorder. Or RSM Ripper sypnotic mania?

[protohistorian]

Hello Dave,

one once said we all suffer from CRS(cronic ripper syndrom) lol.

Anyhow, thanks for the info. Interesting.

We have to call something else buddy, I already have CRS (can't remember shite), and we do not want to mix up the pills, lest i grow breasts or an arm out my back. Dave

[corey123]

Hello Errata,

well the divisional surgerns were more like modern day CSI investigators than actually doctors. Not to sy rhey weren't learned in that feild. Also, we have incomplete versions of what were offered so these reportd you wish we had might actually exist yet to be discovered.

[Errata]

Hello Errata and Dave,

I would just like to add that if you are getting irritated by my point of view, I am not forcing you to reply to this thread.

Errata,

in fact a thread has discussed the possibility of it being a stocking. I suggest you read it. Also, if I am irritating you, then by all means I will bow out and let greater minds add to this thread.


All apologies.

Oh its not you at all. It just how hard is it for a doctor to write this crap down? Or to do his job? I mean You take a look at Kelly and clearly cause of death is going to be academic, but you're still supposed to examine the organs, no matter where they are. That's whats irritating.

[corey123]

Hello Dave,

one once said we all suffer from CRS(cronic ripper syndrom) lol.

Anyhow, thanks for the info. Interesting.