JtR failed amputation. Torso killer was successful.

[Trevor Marriott]

Books were still available, and people were more familiar with butchery than they are in today's pre-packed, freezer ready society.

There is no way on this earth that a butcher was responsible for removing the organs from Eddowes, or any of the others save for perhaps kelly.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Batman]

There is no way on this earth that a butcher was responsible for removing the organs from Eddowes, or any of the others save for perhaps kelly.

Correct, not even a butcher would have pierced vital organs while slashing others and making jagged cuts. That's someone with no knife skills or anatomical knowledge at all. As pointed out by Dr. Bond who was standing beside a Dr. Philips who was now abandoning medical claims since that second opinion popped up.

[Sam Flynn]

There is no way on this earth that a butcher was responsible for removing the organs from Eddowes, or any of the others save for perhaps kelly.

I'm not suggesting that a butcher did. I was merely pointing out how easy it would be for someone to know/find out where the organs were.

[Trevor Marriott]

I'm not suggesting that a butcher did. I was merely pointing out how easy it would be for someone to know/find out where the organs were.

I think when it comes to organ removal, there is a big difference between reading about removing them, and actually being able to do it, especially in almost total darkness without a lot of practice.

As i have said before, for the killer to have removed Eddowes organs in the little time available to him he must have been as proficient, if not even more than Dr Browns expert, and I would suggest those persons were few and far between in 1888, and if the killer were of that category why would he take organs when he could have freely obtained them?

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fisherman]

That might be the preferred approach from a minimally invasive surgical perspective, but we're not talking about such surgery in either Eddowes' or Kelly's case, but evisceration with no regard to minimising damage to the body. I've not eviscerated a human, thankfully, but I've dissected enough rats to know that, once the abdomen is open and the intestines displaced, getting at any abdominal organ from the front is easy.

The kidneys will still be hidden by a membrane, I believe? And it would be as artful to remove them in Kelly's case as it would in Eddowes, I´d say. Whether that is truly an act requiring skill or not is something a medico is more suited to decide.

[Fisherman]

Joshua Rogan: Anyone used to viewing flesh as a commodity rather than a patient would likely know how to find and remove a kidney, as they are packed in the best fat in the body.

Possibly so, yes - and I am not pressing the point that Kellys murder was the act of a skilled medico or anatomist. The point I am pressing is that if it required skill to remove the Eddowes kidney, then it also required skill to do it with Kellys kidneys.
It is a question that seemingly cannot be put to rest.


Well, I've always thought that the holes in the ribcage were probably created to allow knife access to release the heart, but the quote from Hebbert that I posted earlier definitely said "cutting the ribs". Not bending. And he was there - the very next line says "As I saw the awful sight before any disturbances of the body, or interference with the room, I can vouch for the truth of the conditions"

There WAS cutting in the rib area, but it was cutting of the intercostals. I believe that is what Hebbert points to, since cutting the intercoastals is cutting the ribcage.
I believe that Bond - who took care to point out the cuts to the vertebrae of the neck (or is it throat...?) - would have told ut if the ribs themselves had been notched by the knife.
My own take on the cut intercostals is the it quite probably came about after the heart had been removed, and not for reasons of facilitating that removal.

[Varqm]

Could below be the killer exploring how to open a human abdomen?

Nichols:

Henry Llewellyn, surgeon,
There were no injuries about the body till just about the lower part of the abdomen. Two or three inches from the left side was a wound
running in a jagged manner. It was a very deep wound, and the tissues were cut through. There were several incisions running across the abdomen. On the right side there were also three or four similar cuts running downwards. All these had been caused by a knife, which had been used violently and been used downwards. The wounds were from left to right, and might have been done by a left-handed person.

----

[Batman]

Could below be the killer exploring how to open a human abdomen?

Nichols:

Henry Llewellyn, surgeon,
There were no injuries about the body till just about the lower part of the abdomen. Two or three inches from the left side was a wound
running in a jagged manner. It was a very deep wound, and the tissues were cut through. There were several incisions running across the abdomen. On the right side there were also three or four similar cuts running downwards. All these had been caused by a knife, which had been used violently and been used downwards. The wounds were from left to right, and might have been done by a left-handed person.

----

Yes.

https://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=10998

[Michael W Richards]

I think when it comes to organ removal, there is a big difference between reading about removing them, and actually being able to do it, especially in almost total darkness without a lot of practice.

As i have said before, for the killer to have removed Eddowes organs in the little time available to him he must have been as proficient, if not even more than Dr Browns expert, and I would suggest those persons were few and far between in 1888, and if the killer were of that category why would he take organs when he could have freely obtained them?

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Good question Trevor, when you also imagine, in Chapmans case, that he is doing this with some 17 people I believe sleeping in the building and the yard windows that faced into the area by the cellar steps. It would seem to me that someone who would even attempt this had to have some confidence that he could pull this off without getting caught. The speed is an issue. This is someone who has done similar things before, in rapid succession. Processing.

[Sam Flynn]

Not much more complicated than cutting a head of cabbage from its stem, albeit a cabbage stem is thicker and tougher.

[Trevor Marriott]

Good question Trevor, when you also imagine, in Chapmans case, that he is doing this with some 17 people I believe sleeping in the building and the yard windows that faced into the area by the cellar steps. It would seem to me that someone who would even attempt this had to have some confidence that he could pull this off without getting caught. The speed is an issue. This is someone who has done similar things before, in rapid succession. Processing.

Yes, but not the killer !

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Michael W Richards]

Yes, but not the killer !

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

I understand your committment to this belief Trevor, but we have statements from qualified contemporary medical experts who disagree with you. The bodies were examined where they lay, and obviously missing parts were determined. The only case where that took a little extra time is in room 13.

[Trevor Marriott]

I understand your committment to this belief Trevor, but we have statements from qualified contemporary medical experts who disagree with you. The bodies were examined where they lay, and obviously missing parts were determined. The only case where that took a little extra time is in room 13.

The organs of chapman and Eddowes were not found to be missing until the post mortems many hours later after the bodies had been removed from the crime scenes
Might I suggest you read my new review of mitre square in my revised edition of Jack the Ripper-the real truth

It also covers the Kelly murder

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Michael W Richards]

The organs of chapman and Eddowes were not found to be missing until the post mortems many hours later after the bodies had been removed from the crime scenes
Might I suggest you read my new review of mitre square in my revised edition of Jack the Ripper-the real truth

It also covers the Kelly murder

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

On Chapmans murder Trevor, Bagster's pm notes include this:

"The abdomen had been entirely laid open: the intestines, severed from their mesenteric attachments, had been lifted out of the body and placed on the shoulder of the corpse; whilst from the pelvis, the uterus and its appendages with the upper portion of the vagina and the posterior two thirds of the bladder, had been entirely removed. No trace of these parts could be found and the incisions were cleanly cut, avoiding the rectum, and dividing the vagina low enough to avoid injury to the cervix uteri. Obviously the work was that of an expert- of one, at least, who had such knowledge of anatomical or pathological examinations as to be enabled to secure the pelvic organs with one sweep of the knife, which must therefore must have at least 5 or 6 inches in length, probably more. The appearance of the cuts confirmed him in the opinion that the instrument, like the one which divided the neck, had been of a very sharp character. The mode in which the knife had been used seemed to indicate great anatomical knowledge."

These comments obviously refer to the disposition at the crime scene, not the disposition on the autopsy table. I read that as his observations while over the body at the scene, and it includes finding no trace of certain parts.

[Sam Flynn]

On Chapmans murder Trevor, Bagster's pm notes include this:

"The abdomen had been entirely laid open: the intestines, severed from their mesenteric attachments, had been lifted out of the body and placed on the shoulder of the corpse; whilst from the pelvis, the uterus and its appendages with the upper portion of the vagina and the posterior two thirds of the bladder, had been entirely removed. No trace of these parts could be found and the incisions were cleanly cut, avoiding the rectum, and dividing the vagina low enough to avoid injury to the cervix uteri. Obviously the work was that of an expert- of one, at least, who had such knowledge of anatomical or pathological examinations as to be enabled to secure the pelvic organs with one sweep of the knife, which must therefore must have at least 5 or 6 inches in length, probably more. The appearance of the cuts confirmed him in the opinion that the instrument, like the one which divided the neck, had been of a very sharp character. The mode in which the knife had been used seemed to indicate great anatomical knowledge."

These comments obviously refer to the disposition at the crime scene, not the disposition on the autopsy table. I read that as his observations while over the body at the scene, and it includes finding no trace of certain parts.

Unfortunately, those aren't Bagster Phillips' post mortem notes, but an editorial in The Lancet written weeks after the murder, when the full story had already been covered in the press. This editorial may have conflated a number of strands of testimony, not necessarily solely that of Dr Phillips, and we can't tell that it's written in chronological order of discovery. "No trace of these parts could be found", for example, could well refer to a later search after the organs had been discovered missing at autopsy.

That said, it doesn't negate the possibility that Phillips noticed that the abdominal organs in question were missing when Chapman was found, simply by inspecting the gaping hole that the killer had cut in her abdomen. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was indeed the case, but there's no direct evidence I can recall which shows that the absence of the organs was noticed before Chapman was taken away from Hanbury Street.