torso maps

[RockySullivan]

Well whatever it was, it wasn't a "rip".

Which cut are you referring to Sam, you'll have to be a little more clear. The cuts that Wescott suggests are an accident on Nichols or the one that Keppel claims was a slip on the Pinchin victim?

[FrankO]

Thanks Frank, I hadn't seen that and although I have read Tom Westcott's books this conclusion sounds ridiculous.

Not that I have a strong opinion on it myself or agree with Tom's conclusion, but why does it sound so ridiculous to you, Rocky?

[Herlock Sholmes]

How are you reaching that conclusion? The cuts beside the deep jagged incision?

Just a top-of-my-head suggestion Rocky. I’m not suggesting that there’s any weight behind it. Do we have any way of knowing that that couldn’t have been the case though?

[RockySullivan]

Just a top-of-my-head suggestion Rocky. I’m not suggesting that there’s any weight behind it. Do we have any way of knowing that that couldn’t have been the case though?

Her, it sounded like you were suggesting the incision was made on Pinchin street at the dumpsite.

[RockySullivan]

Not that I have a strong opinion on it myself or agree with Tom's conclusion, but why does it sound so ridiculous to you, Rocky?

Because the description is of incisions not scratch marks, some running horizontal.

[Abby Normal]

There's no idea Ab it's just that both victims have similar abdominal post mortem mutilations which were not a "slip of the knife" as Wescott and Keppel claim.

Gotcha.
My explanation is he simply like cutting women up.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Her, it sounded like you were suggesting the incision was made on Pinchin street at the dumpsite.

That’s not what I meant no. Sorry if I wasn’t clear.

[Fisherman]

So Gypsy Fish is allowed to consult the crystal ball and come up with this. You keep talking about likelihood’s and logical conclusions yet your above statement is based on what?

Nobody is disallowed to have ideas of their own, Herlock. And I very clearly said that I was speaking of my personal take on matters. As for what I base that take on, I´m afraid I am not ready to share it - but it involves similarities in the two series, both of them seemingly echoing the same inspiration grounds.

[Fisherman]

[/B]

I won’t. I’ll say, even now the penny hasn’t dropped. Again you accuse everyone that disagrees with you of hiding their heads in the sand. Therefore of being dishonest. Therefore I have no issue with saying that you only pursue this so passionately because you believe that you can tie this in to Lechmere

Which is of course wrong. I pursue it because I think it is likely the single most important matter discovered in the last decade when it comes to understanding the case we are dealing with.

Once that has been said, it is clear that Lechmere fits the bill if we include the 1873 victim, while most other suspects do not. To me, that is not any surprise at all, since I think that what we will find is likely to be in accordance with Lechmere being the killer.

That is simple logic, although it is called bias by those who are very eager to cast doubt on me and the Lechmere theory. Like you did above, for example. The pattern has been firmly established for the longest time, and is just as unsurprising as Lechmere´s fitting the bill.

[Fisherman]

Burn the heretic

Or keep a cool head.

It´s anybody´s choice.

[Fisherman]

Indeed Gareth, the only case in which we can be relatively sure the torso killer cut out organs through an opening in the abdomen, as did the Ripper in 3 out of 4 cases, is the case of Elizabeth Jackson.

True - that is the ony certain case. But once we have it, we know beyond doubt that we are dealing with a killer who DID engage in eviscerations. So why would we not accept that there is quite a likelihod that the Whitehall uterus and the Rainham heart went missing for the same reason, a reason we have established as existing?

That is not to say it must have ben so - but it IS saying that we are on firm ground suggesting it.

I would personally add another thing to the discussion: I don´t think the combined killer (if he existed, and I am convinced that he did) was intent on evicerations as some sort of ultimate goal. I think that it was about the scope of possibilities offered by the combination of a knife and a body. Which is also why I think that he was more likely to eviscerate in the Ripper cases, since that was something that the time allowed for. Compare that to, for example, the meticulous cutting away of the face in the 1873 torso case; I don´t think that was as likely to happen to a Ripper victim as a torso victim, where there was more time on offer and where he could do things that were timeconsuming, plus he could take his time to make the cuts very clean and exact.
I keep saying that the Ripper murders are Torso murders light. I think that is a very apt descrition, actually.

[Fisherman]

This obsession with ‘flaps’ has always surprised me Gareth. It’s as if they are seen as hieroglyphs pointing conclusively to the ripper. Cuts, knife slashes, some might be intentional, some as an accidental by-product of other actions. I’m sure that some treat this like reading tea leaves. The fact that Jackson was pregnant cannot and should not (but often is) ignored and you’re absolutely correct to keep mentioning this fact. Isnt it strange how, in this case, there are some things that it’s perfectly acceptable to ‘explain away’ but when it comes to others then you are treated like an atheist in a mosque.

The flaps ARE pointing very clearly to just the one killer. The idea that they are collateral damage is not in any way useful. If they were tiny flaps, it could be correct, but it seems the abdominal walls were taken away more or less entirely here, making it a very conscious thing.

You must also realize that we are still at a loss trying to point to two serial eviscerators working the same general area at the same general time, both taking out uteri, for example. This in itself makes it a very intelligent suggestion that we are dealing with just the one killer. And against that backdrop, the flaps become the signature under the deal.

Any suggestion to the contrary must by sheer logic be a very unlikely one.

[Fisherman]

Harry, there was no specific geographical overlap, as the two series took place at opposite ends of a massively populous city. (Pinchin Street being the sole exception in terms of the torso murders, but even there we see differences compared to the other torso victims.)
The mutilations also differed between the two series, and organ removal was not a constant in respect of the torso cases, as it was most assuredly in four out of five Ripper murders (assuming that the intention was to remove one or more organs from Nichols - a reasonable assumption given the extent of her abdominal wounds). Finally, whilst the two series overlapped, the duration of those series, and the frequency of the murders, were quite different.

Once more, we don´t have anything that tells us where the torso victims were picked up and killed. The parts were to a large extent dumped in the west - but there were also parts found by St Pancras lock, Tottenham and Pinchin Street.

There is no way whatsoever that we can conclude that the series never overlapped geographically. Technically, the six torso victims from 1873/74 and 1887/89 could have been picked up in George Yard, Bucks Row, Hanbury Street, Berner Street, Mitre Square and Dorset Street. Admittedly, Jackson had ties to Battersea. But as the crow flies, there is around three miles only to cover between there and Mitre Square. So let´s not talk of how one killer worked in the extreme west and the other in the extrem east. It is not compatible to the truth and the full picture. I have pointed this out before, and it is becoming tiresome not to be able to discuss the case from a factbased angle.

[Fisherman]

All Fisherman contributes is his bull about the flaps being similar which is pathetic.

Do try and get it right. I don´t think the flaps ver exactly similar at all, on the contrary - if they had all been shaped the exact same way, it would have ended any discussion of one or two killers.

What I say is that the flaps were a similarity per se - victims from both series suffered them. And that means that any suspicion of a similar originator has a large and important amount of confirmation in them.

[Fisherman]

That if there hadn't been a "bump" there, the uterus might well have been left intact. Or, in other words, the removal of the uterus was effected largely as a by-product of wanting to remove the child, not as a "hysterectomy" in its own right, which was what happened in the majority of the Ripper murders.

It remains an unknown factor whether the killer of Liz Jackson took an interest in her because she was a woman or because she was a pregnant woman.

My own take on things is that the first matter was the primary one and that the second was something that further interested him. I don´t think that the flaps were cut because she was pregnant but instead for the same reasons that Chapman and Kelly had their abdominal walls cut away. To my mind, it had nothing to di with any practical considerations, but instead with the inspiration grounds for the deeds.

No matter what applies, we are left with the fact that we cannot say that the flap cutting was made for different reasons in the Jackson case as opposed to the Chapman and Kelly cases. But we CAN say that the measure is rarer than hen´s teeth and therefore clearly indicative of a connection.