Torso Killer discussion from Millwood Thread

[RockySullivan]

Among other problems, the idea that one man was the author of both the torso and Ripper killings goes against the theory of progression/learning curve from case to case. If we add Tabram to the Ripper murders, the killer went through a learning and testing process (consciously or subconsciously) which included a switch from stabbing to slashing and increasingly intense mutilations and organ removal. This spanned a period from August 1888 to November. Given the injuries inflicted on Polly, the killer probably did not have the necessary experience to go any further or got disturbed (yes, I know... Crossmere... please let us not elaborate on that in here...).

Depending on which torso cases you want to include in your theory, the 1887 case showed a degree of skill that I don't see in Polly's case. Doesn't it seem odd to you that an accomplished dismemberer of 1887 needs at least two goes at the start of his 1888 street killer career to get the mutilation thing right?

Whoever came up the theory that Jack quickly learned over a few weeks how to remove a uterus in the dark in seconds is more ****in batshit than the Ripper.

[bolo]

Whoever came up the theory that Jack quickly learned over a few weeks how to remove a uterus in the dark in seconds is more ****in batshit than the Ripper.

A learning process like that not only encompasses physical/medical/anatomical skills but also what really gets him off: abdominal mutilation, which he very much intensified in the Chapman case. In this light, the idea of some sort of progression makes sense to me.

[RockySullivan]

That's absurd to think someone can learn how to do that so quickly and so well. It's just not even logical at all. The killer has taken to the streets where he doesn't have to chop up, lug around and dump a body, getting used to ripping outside with people all around and Chapman is in a backyard.

[Abby Normal]

A killer who dismembers a body and dumps the parts, some of them wrapped in parcels, in a river or more or less hidden spots, wants to prevent detection and ID. It seems quite off to me to think that someone works for hours to chop up a body and then uses the tide and flow of a river to sort of make his deeds known in a random way.

Yes, I have given the assumption that one man was responsible for both the torso and Ripper killings a good long thought and even took into consideration that the switch to street murders could have happened to boost publicity. I also pondered on Abby's idea of a temporary chop shop accommodation, read Hebbert's Exercise In Forensic Medicine and several dozen press articles on casebook but still can't make heads or tails of it. Among other problems, the idea that one man was the author of both the torso and Ripper killings goes against the theory of progression/learning curve from case to case. If we add Tabram to the Ripper murders, the killer went through a learning and testing process (consciously or subconsciously) which included a switch from stabbing to slashing and increasingly intense mutilations and organ removal. This spanned a period from August 1888 to November. Given the injuries inflicted on Polly, the killer probably did not have the necessary experience to go any further or got disturbed (yes, I know... Crossmere... please let us not elaborate on that in here...).

Depending on which torso cases you want to include in your theory, the 1887 case showed a degree of skill that I don't see in Polly's case. Doesn't it seem odd to you that an accomplished dismemberer of 1887 needs at least two goes at the start of his 1888 street killer career to get the mutilation thing right?

About the press coverage of the Ripper and torso cases, I did not say that the Londoners did not feel threatened by the torso killings at all but public echo pales in comparison to the Ripper murders, and that's a fact, just compare the press releases for each case and the public hysteria that got worse with every new case. The torso killings were a long row of anonymous body parts that got washed ashore or were found on land, it just wasn't the same as the Ripper killings where each victim had a name and came from the midst of the poorest part of London where thousands of other people in the very same situation fought for survival every day. The torso killer victims may have come from the same ranks but since not even the doctors and police could put a name to them, public reception wasn't as emotional as in the Ripper cases.

This has not changed until today. Just go and ask people about Jack the Ripper and they will most probably know him while only true crime buffs will know the torso killings. The linking of both series seems to be a relatively new phenomenon, and even though I agree with you that there are a few interesting similarities between the cases that make it worth keeping at it, I'm still not convinced.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming book on the matter that hopefully will shed some more light on it.

Bolo
you have to keep in mind hes going from using a private chop shop where hes got all the time in the world to killing on the street. Two times to get it right? Thats pretty quick in my mind, and perhaps tabram was his first outside trigger kill, say she wouldnt come back to his chop shop, or she just pissed him off. Nichols he was disturbed, by lech (or if it was lech, than by paul).

Just really try to imagine two post mortem type serial killers lurking around the same area, picking up and killing prostitutes in the middle of the night and cutting up there bodies at the same time. Did they tip there hat to each other under a gas light... after you, govna!
the idea of two of these cretins about is getting more far fetched to me the more i think about it.

And also keep in mind how incredibly different the crimes of other serial killers have been: zodiac, btk, bundy, panzram, the recent golden state killer.

Compared to them, the apparent differences between torsoman and the ripper are peanuts.

and yes looking forward to that book!

[jerryd]

The time of the deposits off the bridge have been a question of mine. I did find some interesting reports and posts for everyone to chew on.

First, the police point of view initially:

Then, thanks to John Savages research, he came up with this model:

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread....dge#post129870

THE FIND AT HORSLEYDOWN

We do not have an exact time that the body parts were found at George's Stairs but from the information we have it would seem likely that it was sometime about midmorning. The distance from Albert Bridge to George's stairs would be approximately 4.7 nautical miles and the body would have to travel on an ebb tide. To decide the speed that the body part would travel at, consider that maximum speed of 3.5 knots would be at spring tides, but on the date in question neap tides were occurring and this would give a slower maximum speed of about 2 knots. The tide does not move at this speed all the time but starts from zero at high water and increases for the next three hours or so and then starts to decrease in speed until low water is reached. Therefore let us assume an average speed of 1 knot.

High water at Albert Bridge on 4th. June 1889 occurred at 05.16hrs., taking the assumed average speed it would need 4 hrs. 45mins. to travel the 4.7 miles from Albert Bridge to George's Stairs, this gives an arrival time of 10.01hrs. George's stairs were on the south side of the river opposite St. Katherine's Dock and this would be in keeping with the northerly breeze mentioned earlier. This model suggest that the body parts were placed in the water around 4-5am, a time when the area may have been at it's most quiet.

Debs added to this by stating the wicket gates of the park were opened at 5 a.m.

Side note: Frederick Wildbore in 1888 was arriving for work (according to inquest testimony) around 6 a.m. The construction of the police building was still ongoing when Elizabeth Jackson was murdered. In the thread I linked to, Dave Gates had this to say about the Shelley Estate deposit, which I think is something to consider.

I am looking at the Battersea area land finds. The find of the 6th comes from a killing on the 4th at the latest. The next land find ( Shelly's pad) is on the 9th. Would the police still have the area of the find on the 6th still cordoned off? Could there have been an intermittent stream of gaukers at the dump site of the 6th. Is the recovery site of the 9th a function of post discovery activity on the site of the 6th? Is it reasonable to assume a package of this variety could have been there 3 days? Grosvenor road is close to gardens as depicted on the 1888 directory map, would there have been a smell? The find of the 9th was wrapped in part of the jacket, not wrapping paper, is that sufficient to suggest multiple depositional events? Dave

[jerryd]

The "odd" parcel of Jackson's body turned up on the foreshore near Wandsworth Bridge. I say odd because it is the opposite direction of the flow of the other parts. It seems to appear that part may have been deliberately dumped near that area. On the map I have included here, the circle with the pin in it is Maysoule Road. The red lines are the Wandsworth Bridge and Albert Bridge. The Albert Bridge obviously is off the map, but the red lines show almost the start of it.

[jerryd]

A closer look at how close Maysoule Road was to the Wandsworth Bridge find.

[JeffHamm]

And you cant show that the killer did NOT want to dismember. Now, WHO would have thought that?

Can we raise the quality of the discussion, please?

Yes, actually, it can be shown that JtR did not want, nor had the skills, to dismember. In Kelly's case, he had all the time in the world to do what ever he wanted. He did not dismemeber her in any way. By not doing something he had the opportunity to do indicates he did not want to do it. What he did do was mutilate her to an extent far greater than any of the other victims, because what JtR wanted to do was mutilate. The frenzied attacks on both Eddowes and Kelly's faces are of an entirely different character than the careful skinning and removing of the face you've mentioned in the torso cases. Again, in Kelly's case in particular, there is nothing in her mutilations that is done careful or deliberately, there is just a wholesale frenzied attack. Nothing like the torso cases at all

And, in Chapman's case the medical reports indicate an apparent attempt, and failure, to decapitate the victim. An attempt followed by failure demonstrates that JtR didn't have the skill to do it, or at the very least, didn't have the knowledge to realize that he didn't have the time to do it. Dr. Bond's report includes his opinion that JtR did not even possess the skill of a butcher or cattleman, although Dr. Phillips did think that Nichols, Chapman, and Kelly's killer did show some skills but not the killer of Eddowes (Phillips did not believe Eddowes was by JtR, but apparently Stride was ok to include).

However, the medical reports on the torso victims clearly state that the disarticulation was done by someone with a high level of skill in that area. This is a skill set difference that indicates the torso killer and JtR are not the same person because the skill set goes with the killer.

I just can't see any connection.

- Jeff

[RockySullivan]

The frenzied attacks on both Eddowes and Kelly's faces are of an entirely different character than the careful skinning and removing of the face you've mentioned in the torso cases. Again, in Kelly's case in particular, there is nothing in her mutilations that is done careful or deliberately, there is just a wholesale frenzied attack. Nothing like the torso cases at all


- Jeff

It's still the same guy who likes to cut up faces.

[Fisherman]

That's fish **** my main man, Ripper did a hell of a job of making sure those girls weren't id'd. Could these girls be tied back to him, but not the Ripper victims?

Yes, they could, on account of having moles and such things left on their bodies. At the end of the day, only one victim WAS, but that's another matter.

I note that you agree with me that there was just one killer, and that's progress anyway.

[Fisherman]

A killer who dismembers a body and dumps the parts, some of them wrapped in parcels, in a river or more or less hidden spots, wants to prevent detection and ID. It seems quite off to me to think that someone works for hours to chop up a body and then uses the tide and flow of a river to sort of make his deeds known in a random way.

Depending on which torso cases you want to include in your theory, the 1887 case showed a degree of skill that I don't see in Polly's case. Doesn't it seem odd to you that an accomplished dismemberer of 1887 needs at least two goes at the start of his 1888 street killer career to get the mutilation thing right.

This is the fault you keep doing, Bolo - you say that a killer who dismembers and dumps the parts in a river wants to prevent detection and ID.

It is the same as saying that dismemberment coupled with dumping the parts in a river MUST be about staying uncaught and not having the victims ID:d.

In other words, you do not allow for ANY other interpretation.

If the killer was mentally ill, he may have wanted to keep the parts, but decided against in on account of the smell coming from them. In such a case, dumping them has nothing to do with detection and ID matters. For example.

It´s all fine and dandy to have a conviction, but it becomes a bad thing when that conviction comes with a blindfold.

My belief is that the killer used the bodies to shape something out of them, and that once this was accomplished, he had no desire to hang on to the parts any longer. I also believe that some parts did not belong to that something he shaped in the first place, and therefore he would have been uninterested in them from beginning to end, whereas other parts were essential.

I really don't care very much if it seems off to you, but I think you need to accept that appearances may deceive. Not all killers who cut off a head do so to hinder an ID process. Some killers do it for a much less intricate reason: they want to do it. And out of these killers, a significant part are people who also want to use the parts to send messages and invoke terror. One such example would be the Gainsborough Ripper, Danny Rolling, who cut off a head and put it on a shelve, for the finders to behold. But there are other examples of the practice too.

Rolling committed this crime in a students apartment. But imagine that he had done it in his own apartment, had he owned such a thing (he was a drifter, living in a tent)! Once the victim had started to smell, he would face getting caught. So what possible action would he take, do you think?

Exactly. And I believe the exact same thing: He would dispose of the remains.

Where would he do it? Outside his tent, or some place else, that he was not so acutely linked to?

I agree with your thoughts again - he would probably use the latter alternative.

Would he try to hinder an identification? Only if the victim could be tied to him. Victims you have no ties to cannot give you away by being ID:d. Which is why it would not help to know the ID:s of the torso series, if they were all prostitutes the killer had picked up randomly. In such a case, he would not care about erasing moles, taking scars away and so on. Hell, he could even leave clothing marked with names on his victims, since he was sure they could not be linked to him!

Now, a killer like Rolling, who we KNOW tried to scare people witless by facing them with a chopped off head in a shelve, what would he want to do with the body parts he could have chopped his victims up in? Make them go away? Hardly, it would mean a lot of work for no reason - the victim could not be tied to him, and he much preferred if people were made aware of his work. So what if he was faced with the possibility of throwing the parts somewhere that guaranteed him that they would be found? Would he like such an option? Once again I agree - he probably would cherish it. And if that option involved having the parts surfacing outside the White House in Washington or something such, he would probably think that was the best possible option.

Can you see how this works, Bolo? This is the EXACT type of killer I think we are dealing with. And actually, it was at the time even thought that Rolling could have surgical experience! That would have been on account of how he managed to sever the head by knife, a not very easy thing to do.

You ask why the killer of Nichols had to make a test run before he could get his cut right. Perhaps he just wasn't any surgeon, and he simply misjudged how to begin in the right place. The torso killer did the exact same thing on occasion, having to make a fresh start on a cut because he misjudged the first one. So there is no difference in that respect - either. But we may do well to keep in mins that the women were probably cut under VERY differing circumstances and time frames, Bolo.

[Fisherman]

Yes, actually, it can be shown that JtR did not want, nor had the skills, to dismember. In Kelly's case, he had all the time in the world to do what ever he wanted. He did not dismemeber her in any way. By not doing something he had the opportunity to do indicates he did not want to do it. What he did do was mutilate her to an extent far greater than any of the other victims, because what JtR wanted to do was mutilate. The frenzied attacks on both Eddowes and Kelly's faces are of an entirely different character than the careful skinning and removing of the face you've mentioned in the torso cases. Again, in Kelly's case in particular, there is nothing in her mutilations that is done careful or deliberately, there is just a wholesale frenzied attack. Nothing like the torso cases at all

And, in Chapman's case the medical reports indicate an apparent attempt, and failure, to decapitate the victim. An attempt followed by failure demonstrates that JtR didn't have the skill to do it, or at the very least, didn't have the knowledge to realize that he didn't have the time to do it. Dr. Bond's report includes his opinion that JtR did not even possess the skill of a butcher or cattleman, although Dr. Phillips did think that Nichols, Chapman, and Kelly's killer did show some skills but not the killer of Eddowes (Phillips did not believe Eddowes was by JtR, but apparently Stride was ok to include).

However, the medical reports on the torso victims clearly state that the disarticulation was done by someone with a high level of skill in that area. This is a skill set difference that indicates the torso killer and JtR are not the same person because the skill set goes with the killer.

I just can't see any connection.

- Jeff

1. He did not HAVE to dismember the Ripper victims. They were not in his house!

2. Kelly had notches on her spine, leading Phillips to suggest a botched decapitation. Chapman had something along the same lines. Chapman was killed in September-88 and Kelly in November-88. The Rainham victim was found in May -87, the Whitehall victim was found in September -88, Jackson was found in June -89. All of these victims had had their heads SAWN off. When the Pinchin Street victim was found in September of 1989, she had had her head taken off by means of knife, and Charles Hebbert pointed this out as a sign of the killer progressing in his skills.

Can you see how the two series fit together? Before September -89, NEITHER man seems to have been able to decapitate by knife. So at the stage when you say that the Ripper was unable to decapitate, I think you are totally wrong: he would be perfectly able to decapitate, given a saw. But he did not carry a saw into the streets, did he? So he (possibly) tried with a knife - and failed.

Is there any evidence that the Torso killer knew how to decapitate by knife at this stage in time? No, there is not - because he used a saw on the three victims of May 1887 to June 1888.

Both men were deemed to possess a high level of skill with their knives, by the way. That's one more of those "coincidences".

[Fisherman]

Jeff Hamm: The frenzied attacks on both Eddowes and Kelly's faces are of an entirely different character than the careful skinning and removing of the face you've mentioned in the torso cases. Again, in Kelly's case in particular, there is nothing in her mutilations that is done careful or deliberately, there is just a wholesale frenzied attack. Nothing like the torso cases at all.

Imagine, if you will, what was left on the victim of the 1873 victim when her face was cut away. Then take a look at Kellys face. Then tell me that they did not look the same at all.

The notion that there is nothing careful or deliberate at all in the mutilations tell me that you are on the same level of understanding the Ripper cases as Robert Anderson was, it was done by "a maniac, revelling in blood".

Anser me this one question: The inner organs of Kelly were all plucked out and placed beside her. There is no mentioning at all anywhere that any of the organs had any sort of damage at all to them. They seem to have been plucked out whole and undamaged.

Not deliberate? Not careful?

The eyes of Kelly were photographed, meaning that they were totally or relatively undamaged after all of that careless and frenzied carving on her face.

Not deliberate? Not careful?

Under Kellys head, a breast, the kidneys and the uterus had been tucked in, like some sort of pillow.

Not deliberate? Not careful?

The man who killed Kelly was not a maniac who could not control himself. The deed is in all probability the best indication we have to the contrary.

[Abby Normal]

The "odd" parcel of Jackson's body turned up on the foreshore near Wandsworth Bridge. I say odd because it is the opposite direction of the flow of the other parts. It seems to appear that part may have been deliberately dumped near that area. On the map I have included here, the circle with the pin in it is Maysoule Road. The red lines are the Wandsworth Bridge and Albert Bridge. The Albert Bridge obviously is off the map, but the red lines show almost the start of it.

Hi jer
this part is too far from the river though to have been thrown in the river though isnt it?

[Abby Normal]

Yes, actually, it can be shown that JtR did not want, nor had the skills, to dismember. In Kelly's case, he had all the time in the world to do what ever he wanted. He did not dismemeber her in any way. By not doing something he had the opportunity to do indicates he did not want to do it. What he did do was mutilate her to an extent far greater than any of the other victims, because what JtR wanted to do was mutilate. The frenzied attacks on both Eddowes and Kelly's faces are of an entirely different character than the careful skinning and removing of the face you've mentioned in the torso cases. Again, in Kelly's case in particular, there is nothing in her mutilations that is done careful or deliberately, there is just a wholesale frenzied attack. Nothing like the torso cases at all

And, in Chapman's case the medical reports indicate an apparent attempt, and failure, to decapitate the victim. An attempt followed by failure demonstrates that JtR didn't have the skill to do it, or at the very least, didn't have the knowledge to realize that he didn't have the time to do it. Dr. Bond's report includes his opinion that JtR did not even possess the skill of a butcher or cattleman, although Dr. Phillips did think that Nichols, Chapman, and Kelly's killer did show some skills but not the killer of Eddowes (Phillips did not believe Eddowes was by JtR, but apparently Stride was ok to include).

However, the medical reports on the torso victims clearly state that the disarticulation was done by someone with a high level of skill in that area. This is a skill set difference that indicates the torso killer and JtR are not the same person because the skill set goes with the killer.

I just can't see any connection.

- Jeff

Hi jeff
at the end of the day is there really that BIG of a difference between removing an arm or a head and removing a breast, or large sections of flesh, or internal organs?