Could Jack have killed some of the torso victims?

[Fisherman]

No more than decapitation equates to a cut throat just because you have to cut the throat to remove the head. Cutting out two flaps of abdominal flesh to make a hole in the abdomen is emphatically not "a gash"; a gash to the abdomen is what happened to the Pinchin Street victim.

Still not interested in having the facts spelled out to you? No? Better to peddle an "alternative truth"? Yes?

Just say the word, Gareth, just say the word.

[Fisherman]

Especially considering that the legs were removed; you'd think the One True Ripper couldn't resist doing a bit of "business" while he was down there.

And surely the One True Torsokiller would also have removed the arms?

A/ The vulva was cut in two.

B/ The Ripper may well have chosen not to attack the genitals, we don´t know.

So at least one wrong out of two, possibly two out of two.

[Fisherman]

And surely the One True Torsokiller would also have removed the arms?

Why? WHY? He left one of the legs on the 1874 victim. He sometimes divided into thirteen pieces, other times in much less. Why would he be programmed to cut off every limb he saw? How was he able to leave the head on the Pinchin Street victim for the longest time after having cut the legs off, if he simply must cut every protruding thing off as he saw it?Explanations, please!

[Fisherman]

Hi Debra. Great points, but I am sometimes leery of the medical evidence and worry that "not all is what it seems." For example, I discovered a case where an abortionist was performing operations on women who were not pregnant. It sounds crazy, but we should remember that these quacks could extract huge heaps of money, so he convinced the poor woman that she was pregnant and then performed a 'phantom' operation. (Luckily, she lived, but had she died, how would we have viewed the case?) Certain details from the Brighton Trunk Mysteries of the 1920/30s also concern me when I examine these older cases. One of the Brighton victims was pregnant and dismembered, but Bernard Spilsbury found no evidence that she had been 'interfered' with. Nevertheless, the Chief Inspector suspected a local abortionist. The man was never charged, however, and the case went down as unsolved. Who was right, Spilsbury or the Chief Inspector, or did the answer lie somewhere in between? I don't have the answer.




Fair enough, and I shouldn't be so dogmatic, but is this 'close spacing' real or is it just our own contribution, due to the fact they occurred close to the events of 1888-1891? Fish is bringing up case from the 1870s and 1902, after all, so these grisly events appear to be happening on a continuum. In which case the 'close spacing' could be an illusion.

I am NOT bringing up the 1902 case! Others are, and that owes to the desperate attempt on behalf of Michael Gordon to pin the murders on George Chapman. The Salamanca torso fit int that scheme, but it does not fit into anything else when it comes to the Thames Torso murders. That victim could have been cut up in a harvesting machine, going by the quality of the cuts. It had nothing to do with these murders.

And are we now to believe that Rainham and Pinchin Street were the result of an abortionist selling these women his services although they were not pregnant? Because it was lucrative? And because these women had a lot of dosh ready to pay for unwarranted abortions?

And should we accept that the abortionist killer of Jackson came up with the idea of removing heart and lungs? Why? To hide what he had done? To reduce the weight of that torso part so it was easier to carry? And why would an abortionist staring down at a dead woman pluck out the uterus from her body and only thereafter take the foetus out of the uterus, launching the leftovers in a package together with...two large flaps of skin from the abdomen??? Why on earth would he cut those away? To facilitate getting at the uterus, something every abortionist could easily do anyway?
And why would he cut through her sternum, R J? Hobby? Trying out his new knife?
No abortion had been tried on Jackson. Bond explicitly made this clear at the inquest, so the point cannot be made today. As Debra says, if she was mistakenly poisoned and fell dead to the floor, then there may be a link to abortionists - but it remains a link to an abortionist who thereafter started to dig out heart and lungs, who cut out the uterus etc., etc., when all he needed to do was to cut up the body ŕ la the normal dismemberer, six parts, Sir, there we are, nice and tidy, now lets weigh them down properly so noone ever finds them and sink the to the bottom of the Thames!
No, R J, this was a case of murder. By the Ripper, who DID cut from sternum to pubes, who DID dig hearts out, who DID take away uteri, who DID cut away abdominal walls, who DID take Chapmans rings from her finger and who WAS active in the same city and time.

[Fisherman]

In regards to the original post question, you have to wonder why Paul Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive Story would omit any mention of the torso murders.

Prima facie one has to conclude that Begg sees no connection between the murders.

But even so one has to wonder why Begg didn't include the Whitehall torso dump, if only for its negative impact on the police or its fueling of the frenzy called "October."

But unless I missed it Begg sees no connection between the murders, or at least has a different definition of "definitive" than I do.

In his final chapter "Other Ripper Suspects" he is even willing to discuss Sickert, Annie Crook, and William Gull (all of Knight's conspiracy characters) as well as other conspiracy theories, but still no torso murders.

Again, maybe I just missed it.

Some say that they could not possibly have been the same man (f ex Evans). Some say they will have been ( f ex Whittington-Egan and, come June, Drew Gray).

Some will be right. Others will be wrong.

The traditional take has always been that they were two men. That traditional take is coming apart at the seams now. Tomorrow, we will look at it differently.

[Joshua Rogan]

Well, as tempting as it might be think that the Whitehall case was an 'in your face' to the police, unless there was a sign out in front of the construction site reading "Future Home of the C.I.D." I think it is entirely plausible that those dumping the torso viewed the site as merely a convenient, uninhabited area at night rather than as a symbol of future authority.

Good point. Since the foundations were originally dug for an opera house, it's possible the torso dumper was some sort of music critic.

But if he wanted the torso to be found, why go to the trouble of hiding it in the deepest darkest part of the works? Surely the police would be equally embarrassed if it was left just inside the gate.

[APerno]

Some say that they could not possibly have been the same man (f ex Evans). Some say they will have been ( f ex Whittington-Egan).

Some will be right. Others will be wrong.

The traditional take has always been that they were two men. That traditional take is bursting at the seams now. Tomorrow, we will look at it differently.

OK good point - I will argue with your middle statement: we are all going to our graves knowing just about as much as we did going in; we will never know who is right or who is wrong; there are only popular and unpopular opinions; the legend and the disputes will out-live us both.

[Debra A]

Hi Debra. Great points, but I am sometimes leery of the medical evidence and worry that "not all is what it seems." For example, I discovered a case where an abortionist was performing operations on women who were not pregnant. It sounds crazy, but we should remember that these quacks could extract huge heaps of money, so he convinced the poor woman that she was pregnant and then performed a 'phantom' operation. (Luckily, she lived, but had she died, how would we have viewed the case?) Certain details from the Brighton Trunk Mysteries of the 1920/30s also concern me when I examine these older cases. One of the Brighton victims was pregnant and dismembered, but Bernard Spilsbury found no evidence that she had been 'interfered' with. Nevertheless, the Chief Inspector suspected a local abortionist. The man was never charged, however, and the case went down as unsolved. Who was right, Spilsbury or the Chief Inspector, or did the answer lie somewhere in between? I don't have the answer.

Hi RJ
Yes. I remember AP once mentioning a case like that where there was no pregnancy.

With the Rainham case there was a suggestion that there was some sort of abnormality of the uterus that may have prevented the woman concerned from being able to conceive so it is a possibility she may have been someone who sought medical help for a gynecological condition that she was told was a pregnancy, although there was absolutely no evidence in her case that any kind of medical procedure had occurred.

When I was reading the Eliza Schumacker file, the death by abortion case that Dr Bond was involved with in 88, I noticed that Eliza S.'s uterus also had the same opening that Bond described with Elizabeth Jackson. Bond believed the injury was done to Eliza S in life while using a sound. With Elizabeth Jackson he believed the opening was made after death. Dr Bond donated Eliza S.'s uterus to the Westminster Hospital Pathological Museum curated by Hebbert!

[Abby Normal]

In regards to the original post question, you have to wonder why Paul Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive Story would omit any mention of the torso murders.

Prima facie one has to conclude that Begg sees no connection between the murders.

But even so one has to wonder why Begg didn't include the Whitehall torso dump, if only for its negative impact on the police or its fueling of the frenzy called "October."

But unless I missed it Begg sees no connection between the murders, or at least has a different definition of "definitive" than I do.

In his final chapter "Other Ripper Suspects" he is even willing to discuss Sickert, Annie Crook, and William Gull (all of Knight's conspiracy characters) as well as other conspiracy theories, but still no torso murders.

Again, maybe I just missed it.

Hi Anthony
well the pinchin torso was part of the police whitechapel murder file, so that one at least should have been included.

[Sam Flynn]

the Ripper, who DID cut from sternum to pubes, who DID dig hearts out, who DID take away uteri, who DID cut away abdominal walls, who DID take Chapmans rings from her finger and who WAS active in the same city and time.

The Ripper cut from sternum to pubis only once (Eddowes), and removed a heart only once (Kelly). He cut away the abdominal wall only once (Kelly again), but also once cut out a portion of the the abdominal wall (Chapman). We don't know who took Chapman's rings from her finger, not that it matters because ring-taking doesn't appear to have been a constant in the Ripper murders. The Ripper was active in the East End of London for two-and-a-bit months at the end of 1888.

Back to the uteri, it's true that the Ripper removed them from three victims, taking two of them away with him and possibly had designs on a fourth (Nichols), but that doesn't matter because it wasn't a recurring feature of the Torso series. Neither was the removal of rings, nor the removal of abdominal walls, nor cutting from sternum to pubis.

We can make just about anything fit if we generalise and ignore the details.

[APerno]

Good point. Since the foundations were originally dug for an opera house, it's possible the torso dumper was some sort of music critic.

But if he wanted the torso to be found, why go to the trouble of hiding it in the deepest darkest part of the works? Surely the police would be equally embarrassed if it was left just inside the gate.

The torso was found under a staircase where the workers stored their tools. First he breached a fence and then laid the body where it was guaranteed to be found. It was a plan to make someone look foolish. Both the Thames and Pinchin Street dumps were far more convenient, but even the Pinchin Street dump took far more effort than was necessary to dispose of a body. One should conclude the efforts were designed to send a message.

Whether the general populace was aware that the building was to be the New Scotland Yard HQ is an interesting question. I guess we could search the newspapers an see how much info involving the renovation was actually available. Maybe all he wanted was just any abandoned building to play out his prank, (which then just happened to be CID's; that is possible) but he wasn't hiding the body, he was placing it to be found.

[Fisherman]

Good point. Since the foundations were originally dug for an opera house, it's possible the torso dumper was some sort of music critic.

But if he wanted the torso to be found, why go to the trouble of hiding it in the deepest darkest part of the works? Surely the police would be equally embarrassed if it was left just inside the gate.

Its the difference between ”I can only just get inside your castle” and ”I can get to the very roots of it”, is it not?

[rjpalmer]

The torso was found under a staircase where the workers stored their tools. First he breached a fence and then laid the body where it was guaranteed to be found.

I don't mean to be contrary, Mr. Perno, but in my reading of the inquest I really don't get that impression.

The torso was found in a 'vault' (cellar) at the building site, and had evidently been there upwards of two or three days before it was discovered, so it wasn't all that obvious.

Further, there actually appears to have been a different part of the site where the workers kept their tools:

"[Coroner] Has this vault been used for putting your tools in for any length of time? - For some weeks until the last three weeks. I always placed my tools there from Saturday to Monday, because I considered them safer there than in the locker. I have not noticed any similar parcel before."


So it sounds to me like all the workmen kept the tools in a storage locker elsewhere at the site, but, due to the possibility of theft, this particular workman stashed his tools down in an old disused section of the site on the weekend.

Which is different from stashing the body in a well-frequented area. The man who dumped the body was likely to have been utterly unaware that this rogue workman was using the probably pitch black cellar as his private tool stash.

[rjpalmer]

Hi RJ
Yes. I remember AP once mentioning a case like that where there was no pregnancy.

Yes, that's right, he did! The case AP referred to was none other than John Rees, who pulled the stunt on a young woman. He, of course, was the husband of Mary Rees, the abortionist who was supposedly connected to Mary Kelly.

[Joshua Rogan]

The torso was found under a staircase where the workers stored their tools. First he breached a fence and then laid the body where it was guaranteed to be found. It was a plan to make someone look foolish. Both the Thames and Pinchin Street dumps were far more convenient, but even the Pinchin Street dump took far more effort than was necessary to dispose of a body. One should conclude the efforts were designed to send a message.

Hardly guaranteed to be found. If it made anyone look foolish, it was the workmen who didn't find it for quite some time, perhaps two months.
There was a locker provided for the storage of tools elsewhere, but a few of the workmen thought it more secure to hide the tools in the darkness of the least accessible vault. So only a very limited number of people knew or would have visited the site for tools - are you proposing one of them was responsible for dumping the torso?

Whether the general populace was aware that the building was to be the New Scotland Yard HQ is an interesting question. I guess we could search the newspapers an see how much info involving the renovation was actually available. Maybe all he wanted was just any abandoned building to play out his prank, (which then just happened to be CID's; that is possible) but he wasn't hiding the body, he was placing it to be found.

What about the leg that was buried just a few feet from torso? Despite police searching the vaults, it was two further weeks before this was found (by a sniffer dog). It had apparently been covered with soil when workmen dug trenches in the vault some months earlier. Yet they didn't find the leg or the torso. So no, I don't agree that it was meant to be found. And certainly not guaranteed. Not right away, at least.