Torso Murders

[Fisherman]

Letīs add grief to sorrow for Trevor on the arm with the - ehrm - "tourniquet":

"The suggestion was put forward that the limb probably came from a dissecting room; but the character of the cut negatives any such theory. The arm was evidently cut through by a big, sharp instrument, compared with which the ordinary dissecting room knife is a mere toy."

Please note that the man who did the cutting was evidently just as skilled or more than a surgeon with all his fine dissection knives.

[Debra A]

Debra

Well you could be right, anyone might, but would they have the knowledge and expertise in assessing the facts to be able to say with any certainty that in fact they were all murders.? Finding a dismembered torso doesn't always mean murder does it?

If you then asked those same people to consider other alternatives to murder as we have discussed coupled with what we know the Victorians got up to and the methods they used would they still be able to say then with any certainty that they were murders?

The Victorian doctors were divided in whether or not anatomical skill was use in both the removal of the limbs and the removal of other parts in the course of the dismemberment in relation to the different torsos

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

But that's the point, Trevor-when your ideas are applied to the individual cases a lot of your scenarios don't really add up. Bodies sold for dissection would have ended up as a pile of scraps and bones, not whole dismembered limbs-otherwise medical students could just study the arm of a living person, couldn't they?
Abortion aside-there is no obstetric operation that would need to be performed by a back street operator, abortion did not involve abdominal surgery of any kind either. A doctor who classed removing huge pieces of flesh with external genitals and skin from the buttocks attached as an 'operation' really would be some sort of deluded maniac! But yet that is the explanation I have seen you give for the removal of that skin and tissue.

And any body where a post mortem had been conducted, as you suggest the opening from chest to abdomen shows. would likely leave a paper trail and it makes no sense to open a body like that, knowing you were going to dismember it and dump it in the Thames anyway and not take every organ available if selling organs was the motive for dismembering an already dead person.

Procuring abortion was a common thing for women from all walks of life but as Errata explained, an abortionist in general performed his 'procedure'' and left the women to go home and have what appeared to be a miscarriage. Many died from the effects of infection more than any other cause. The doctors saw no evidence of instrument use or violence and no sign of a birth or infection. Elizabeth could have been instantly poisoned during an attempt at bringing on labour but then it's odd why an abortionist who hadn't actually performed an abortion would draw attention to that by removing the foetus from the dead woman isn't it?

I do have the post mortem notes of a woman who died from pneumonia in the workhouse Infirmary. The woman was five months pregnant when she died and during the post mortem the 'contents' of her pelvis were removed. Her death was registered and she was buried and her name is in the Infirmary records and post mortem records book and it details exactly what was done. Would someone really risk being accused of murder and illegally dumping a body for the sake of saving a on a burial? And if a post mortem was being performed then there would be a record of it.There would also be signs of a cause of death from disease or injury in a young woman. The trick the workhouses used earlier in the Victorian era had been to put more than one body in a coffin to cut down costs.

Anyway, this is all repetition so I'll leave everyone to it.

[Fisherman]

Okay, time for the next little part!

In 1873, the cut away face and scalp of a victim was found at Dukeīs Shore, Limehouse. Attached to the ghastly mask was the ears, eyelashes but no eyes, the nose partly cut off and the upper lip partly cut through.

In November of 1888, Mary Kelly was found dead in her room at 13 Millers Court. This is what Charles Hebbert wrote in "A System of Legal Medicine" about her:
"In the particular illustrative instance, the woman was murdered in a bedroom. The body was naked when found. The eyebrows, eyelids, ears, nose lips, and chin had been cut off, and the face gashed by numerous knife-cuts."

The eyelashes were still attached to the 1873 "death mask". The eyelashes are attached to the eyelids, meaning that the eyelids were cut away from the victim together with the mask.

And Mary Kellys eyelids were also cut away.

The nose was missing from the 1873 "death mask", it had been cut off. Like Kellys nose. The ears were gone. Like Kellys ears. A lip was partly cut through. Kellys lips were "blanched" by the knife.

So, the Ripper cut away the abdominal wall in large panes. (2 cases)
The Torso man cut away the abdominal wall in large panes. (1 case)

The Ripper cut out a part of the colon. (1 case)
The Torso man cut out a part of the colon. (3 cases)

The Ripper removed the eyelids from a victim.
The Torso man removed the eyelids from a victim.

Surely, it could not be the same man! We all know how common it is to cut the eyelids from a victim. All serialists do that, right?

Nota bene - the work was not sloppily done on Kelly, since her eyes were left totally damaged and intact, in spite of the mayhem that otherwise was imposed upon her face. The killer took great, great care not to hurt the eyes. Similarly, the removal of the face in 1873, with the eyelids attached, must have been one of great delicacy.

We are slowly getting there.

[Abby Normal]

there are body/ parts (lots of them-and small parts) dumped in the river, bodies left on the street (pinchin), parts thrown onto the Shelley estate, a body placed in the vault of the new SY yard.

Whats going on here? I cant help but think there is some psychological reason for this. There is some reason he is doing it this way. Is he "polluting" London? Marking his territory? Does he see it as a joke? Taunting?

And what about the heads? most were missing. What did he do with those? Is he collecting them. For obvious reasons the heads have significant meaning to post mortem serial killers.

I see a probable psychological reason for what he did with the bodies/parts in the way he disposed them. Hes not burying them, burning them-making sure as much as possible they're not found. On the contrary hes going out of the way, and exposing himself to more risk, the way hes disposing them.

The dismemberment might have been partially for ease in removal from his private place as Ive said in the past (MO) but now I think theres actual meaning for him in it too-not just in getting off on dismembering(which now goes to sig) but also in the way hes disposing and displaying them.

[Trevor Marriott]

Okay, time for the next little part!

In November of 1888, Mary Kelly was found dead in her room at 13 Millers Court. This is what Charles Hebbert wrote in "A System of Legal Medicine" about her:
"In the particular illustrative instance, the woman was murdered in a bedroom. The body was naked when found. The eyebrows, eyelids, ears, nose lips, and chin had been cut off, and the face gashed by numerous knife-cuts." .

Wrong wrong wrong !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Abby Normal]

But that's the point, Trevor-when your ideas are applied to the individual cases a lot of your scenarios don't really add up. Bodies sold for dissection would have ended up as a pile of scraps and bones, not whole dismembered limbs-otherwise medical students could just study the arm of a living person, couldn't they?
Abortion aside-there is no obstetric operation that would need to be performed by a back street operator, abortion did not involve abdominal surgery of any kind either. A doctor who classed removing huge pieces of flesh with external genitals and skin from the buttocks attached as an 'operation' really would be some sort of deluded maniac! But yet that is the explanation I have seen you give for the removal of that skin and tissue.

And any body where a post mortem had been conducted, as you suggest the opening from chest to abdomen shows. would likely leave a paper trail and it makes no sense to open a body like that, knowing you were going to dismember it and dump it in the Thames anyway and not take every organ available if selling organs was the motive for dismembering an already dead person.

Procuring abortion was a common thing for women from all walks of life but as Errata explained, an abortionist in general performed his 'procedure'' and left the women to go home and have what appeared to be a miscarriage. Many died from the effects of infection more than any other cause. The doctors saw no evidence of instrument use or violence and no sign of a birth or infection. Elizabeth could have been instantly poisoned during an attempt at bringing on labour but then it's odd why an abortionist who hadn't actually performed an abortion would draw attention to that by removing the foetus from the dead woman isn't it?

I do have the post mortem notes of a woman who died from pneumonia in the workhouse Infirmary. The woman was five months pregnant when she died and during the post mortem the 'contents' of her pelvis were removed. Her death was registered and she was buried and her name is in the Infirmary records and post mortem records book and it details exactly what was done. Would someone really risk being accused of murder and illegally dumping a body for the sake of saving a on a burial? And if a post mortem was being performed then there would be a record of it.There would also be signs of a cause of death from disease or injury in a young woman. The trick the workhouses used earlier in the Victorian era had been to put more than one body in a coffin to cut down costs.

Anyway, this is all repetition so I'll leave everyone to it.

A great summation of the implausibility of scenarios other than murder.

[Fisherman]

there are body/ parts (lots of them-and small parts) dumped in the river, bodies left on the street (pinchin), parts thrown onto the Shelley estate, a body placed in the vault of the new SY yard.

Whats going on here? I cant help but think there is some psychological reason for this. There is some reason he is doing it this way. Is he "polluting" London? Marking his territory? Does he see it as a joke? Taunting?

And what about the heads? most were missing. What did he do with those? Is he collecting them. For obvious reasons the heads have significant meaning to post mortem serial killers.

I see a probable psychological reason for what he did with the bodies/parts in the way he disposed them. Hes not burying them, burning them-making sure as much as possible they're not found. On the contrary hes going out of the way, and exposing himself to more risk, the way hes disposing them.

The dismemberment might have been partially for ease in removal from his private place as Ive said in the past (MO) but now I think theres actual meaning for him in it too-not just in getting off on dismembering(which now goes to sig) but also in the way hes disposing and displaying them.

I know I should not say this, and you may think me a tease - but once you realize what the killer did and what was going on, all the pieces fall in place quite neatly, and we get an explanation to the excised organs, to the removed abdominal walls, to the mask cut away in 1873, to the eyelids taken from Kelly, to the excised organs, to the clean and neat cutting. All of these questions fit into the exact same answer, believe it or not, Abby. Even the cut neck falls into the category!

[Trevor Marriott]

Letīs add grief to sorrow for Trevor on the arm with the - ehrm - "tourniquet":

"The suggestion was put forward that the limb probably came from a dissecting room; but the character of the cut negatives any such theory. The arm was evidently cut through by a big, sharp instrument, compared with which the ordinary dissecting room knife is a mere toy."

Please note that the man who did the cutting was evidently just as skilled or more than a surgeon with all his fine dissection knives.

Ripperology is awash with suggestions, and the dissection in some case shows someone with anatomical knowledge.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

I know I should not say this, and you may think me a tease - but once you realize what the killer did and what was going on, all the pieces fall in place quite neatly, and we get an explanation to the excised organs, to the removed abdominal walls, to the mask cut away in 1873, to the eyelids taken from Kelly, to the excised organs, to the clean and neat cutting. All of these questions fit into the exact same answer, believe it or not, Abby. Even the cut neck falls into the category!

I bet you are good at doing jigsaws as well

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fisherman]

Ripperology is awash with suggestions, and the dissection in some case shows someone with anatomical knowledge.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Ah yes - he DID have some anatomical insight, I think most agree on that. But you do not have to be an anatomist to have that.

[Fisherman]

I bet you are good at doing jigsaws as well

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Not really, no. But I know how to fit these bits together. There is a - whatīs it called? - common denominator, I believe.

[Abby Normal]

I know I should not say this, and you may think me a tease - but once you realize what the killer did and what was going on, all the pieces fall in place quite neatly, and we get an explanation to the excised organs, to the removed abdominal walls, to the mask cut away in 1873, to the eyelids taken from Kelly, to the excised organs, to the clean and neat cutting. All of these questions fit into the exact same answer, believe it or not, Abby. Even the cut neck falls into the category!

well I was mainly talking about the parts he left behind, but methinks you are referring to the parts he kept? If so-constructing a body/ies Frankenstein like from different parts of different bodies??

[jerryd]

Trevor,

As a former murder squad detective, I would think you would research the circumstances of each of these torso murders before making assumptions like you have done. "Wingin' it", so to speak. Is this how you treated your cases as an active detective? If not, why now?

[Fisherman]

well I was mainly talking about the parts he left behind, but methinks you are referring to the parts he kept? If so-constructing a body/ies Frankenstein like from different parts of different bodies??

Ha! Now thereīs an idea! But no, that is not what I had in mind.

[Abby Normal]

Ha! Now thereīs an idea! But no, that is not what I had in mind.

Pray tell then!!

FYI- I like your comparison of what was done to the face in MK and the 73 case too BTW. another rare similarity!