Torso Killer discussion from Millwood Thread

[Abby Normal]

Well, if publicity was what he wanted, it made no sense to go back to torsos, don't you think.

I think publicity was secondary. He was primarily motivated by cutting up female bodies.

[bolo]

because he liked doing both. and maybe having something to do with the availability of his chop shop.

Well, if publicity was what he wanted, it made no sense to go back to torsos, don't you think.

[Abby Normal]

Hi again, Fisherman

(don't roll your eyes just yet!)



if there was a combined killer, why did he go back to torsos in 1889? He must have noticed that the Ripper-style killings created international attention while the torso cases were mostly local affairs in the papers.

because he liked doing both. and maybe having something to do with the availability of his chop shop.

[bolo]

Hi again, Fisherman

(don't roll your eyes just yet!)

My own thinking here is that I believe the combined killer uses both series to invoke fear and terror in society. I see both murder series as involving the killer shouting "Look what I can do, and you cannot do anything about it!"
If that is correct, then the Ripper murders are perhaps just another facet, led on by how the torso murders did not get the kind of recognition and coverage he sought when killing away from the public and dumping the parts in their lap.

if there was a combined killer, why did he go back to torsos in 1889? He must have noticed that the Ripper-style killings created international attention while the torso cases were mostly local affairs in the papers.

[Fisherman]

The sectioning of the bodies may well have more to do with ease of transport than any determined effort to disguise the victims identities. Often we see murderers choosing to do that just so they can dispose of the parts, sometimes leaving open the possibilities of later visitation. In these particular cases I believe dismemberment was at the outset a goal, and disposal and making the identities hard to trace were by products of the dismembering. Fundamentally different than leaving them in the street to be found shortly thereafter. That's one of the many fundamental differences between torso man...and I think there was just one or two...and Jack. The thrill is missing in the Torso murders. The work in the dark.. outdoors, where at any minute you might be caught...causing him to rush his work and thereby suggesting skills that are somewhat masked... "in the consequence of haste".

I wonder if that killer was hoping to get caught. Maybe he really wanted to stop.

A really useful characterization there, Michael - the disposal of the parts and the difficulties it meant for ID purposes were by-products of the dismemberment as such. This is extremely important to remember; once somebody dismembers a victim, then REGARDLESS OF THE UNDERLYING REASONS FOR THAT DISMEMBERMENT, there will be the byproduct of body parts lying around.

You write that there was no thrill in the torso murders, and I can see what you mean. But should we not leave it to the kiiller to say whether he found a thrill in the torso murders or not? Personally, I have little doubt that he did.
However, the Ripper murders could hint at thrill seeking in the respect of killing in public. And that element is lacking in the torso murders, although the killer seems to have made his business public after the killing and dismemberment.

My own thinking here is that I believe the combined killer uses both series to invoke fear and terror in society. I see both murder series as involving the killer shouting "Look what I can do, and you cannot do anything about it!"
If that is correct, then the Ripper murders are perhaps just another facet, led on by how the torso murders did not get the kind of recognition and coverage he sought when killing away from the public and dumping the parts in their lap.

[Michael W Richards]

The sectioning of the bodies may well have more to do with ease of transport than any determined effort to disguise the victims identities. Often we see murderers choosing to do that just so they can dispose of the parts, sometimes leaving open the possibilities of later visitation. In these particular cases I believe dismemberment was at the outset a goal, and disposal and making the identities hard to trace were by products of the dismembering. Fundamentally different than leaving them in the street to be found shortly thereafter. That's one of the many fundamental differences between torso man...and I think there was just one or two...and Jack. The thrill is missing in the Torso murders. The work in the dark.. outdoors, where at any minute you might be caught...causing him to rush his work and thereby suggesting skills that are somewhat masked... "in the consequence of haste".

I wonder if that killer was hoping to get caught. Maybe he really wanted to stop.

[Fisherman]

I still refer to Torsoman as somebody who, at the very least, regarded hindering ID as one of the things that were important to him. I can't see this in the Ripper cases and find your corresponding arguments not very convincing. That's nothing personal, just a matter of different opinions.

Nowhere did I say that taking away the heads MUST to point to anything, it's just that the identity of a body without a head is more difficult to determine than with the head still in place, thus the killer may have done away with the heads (or kept them as trophies far all I care) but the fact that most of them never came to light is very telling in my opinion. The killer obviously did not want people to find them, so he did what? Yup, he hid them from public view in one way or another. I think that's not exactly an outlandish assumption.

Anyway, nice talking to you.

I know that you think that the torso killer did his best to hide what he did and to hinder identification of his victims. That is, in fact, the very basis for your take that he could not have been the Ripper. What I am saying is that one should perhaps not regard as a fact something that is questioned by what I believe is a majority of todays students of the cases.

You now try to point to how you are flexible in your thinking, but it really does not work out for you. First you say that the killer may have done away with the heads, but "the fact that they never came to light is very telling" in your opinion.

So maybe you are wrong, but since the heads wee not found that says you are in all probability right.

If the heads were thrown in the Thames with the rest, why and how would they came to light - if they sank to the bottom? How is it "telling" us anything about any intention of the killer to hide the identities in such a case?

A killer who wants what he has done to disappear from the knowledge of the world may well dismember a body, cart the parts to the Thames and throw them into the river. Once we are speaking of one victim and one victim only, that reasoning has a lot going for it. If the parts are then all washed ashore, it would be understandable if the killer stood at the shoreline and said "Wow - I didn't se that happening". It would be sound reasoning to suggest that he could have had the intention to sink the body into oblivion and the belief that it would work.

But once the papers and people all over town starts to speak about how just about every part is instead found and fit together into evidence good enough to decide age, gender, hair color, weight, length etcetera of the victim, the option of suggesting a secretive killer become a non-option. And that is VERY much reinforced if that killer decides to place a significant number of the parts on dry land, not least if the chosen places are of the kind of character we are dealing with in these cases.

You don´t buy that reasoning - fine. I can only say it so many times, and I think we have reached the limit now. I know I have.

[bolo]

Hi bolo
I concede that torsoman may have taken the heads off to prevent ID, but then why leave identifying features like clothes and tatoos, moles etc? why not do a better job at hiding the rest of the body?
the heads have historically been the most important part of the body to post mortem mutilators in terms of their fantasy. Theyre usually the part they keep the longest and do the most stuff too and with. But when its time to get rid of (if they ever do get rid of it)Its also the part most likely to sink.

I think we can safely assume that he dumped the bodies to get rid of them-get them out of his place.
trying to prevent ID -maybe.
trying to hide, or prevent discovery- no way.

Given the time between the torso cases and the corresponding intervals of body part findings, the killer may have learned that completely preventing ID by chopping bodies to pieces is not possible but hindering ID is. He was successful with it, after all, because only one victim could be identified (Jackson), moles or not.

Heads only sink if the brain is still intact and/or certain precautions have been taken to keep it down. When the brain starts decomposing, the gasses that appear in the process will may make the head rise again. That's why I don't think that the heads ended up in water but were either burned, buried or maybe even denuded of flesh and stored away.

[Abby Normal]

I still refer to Torsoman as somebody who, at the very least, regarded hindering ID as one of the things that were important to him. I can't see this in the Ripper cases and find your corresponding arguments not very convincing. That's nothing personal, just a matter of different opinions.

Nowhere did I say that taking away the heads MUST to point to anything, it's just that the identity of a body without a head is more difficult to determine than with the head still in place, thus the killer may have done away with the heads (or kept them as trophies far all I care) but the fact that most of them never came to light is very telling in my opinion. The killer obviously did not want people to find them, so he did what? Yup, he hid them from public view in one way or another. I think that's not exactly an outlandish assumption.

Anyway, nice talking to you.

Hi bolo
I concede that torsoman may have taken the heads off to prevent ID, but then why leave identifying features like clothes and tatoos, moles etc? why not do a better job at hiding the rest of the body?
the heads have historically been the most important part of the body to post mortem mutilators in terms of their fantasy. Theyre usually the part they keep the longest and do the most stuff too and with. But when its time to get rid of (if they ever do get rid of it)Its also the part most likely to sink.

I think we can safely assume that he dumped the bodies to get rid of them-get them out of his place.
trying to prevent ID -maybe.
trying to hide, or prevent discovery- no way.

[bolo]

hi Bolo
Thanks! I haven't quite put my finger on it. It might have been for some kind of message, or it might have been for other reason, only known to the killer. Maybe he was "polluting" the city, or areas that had meaning to him, with the parts, or marking his territory something like that. If he was trying to send a message it might have been to taunt or shock the police/public/press and deriving some pleasure from the stir it caused. One things for sure, IMHO he was not just dumping random, or just to get rid off. and certainly not trying to hide.

I must have stared at the map of the torso/body parts findings for days now but except for the Shelley estate and NSY parts, I don't see any other particularly telling or special locations, it were either more or less secluded spots or the river.

There would have been a wealth of options for the killer to really stir up some publicity but despite a relatively (compared to the Ripper cases) sparse press echo, he kept on doing what he did until 1889.

Of course it's possible that the dumping had a special meaning for the killer.

[bolo]

The end says it all - you still refer to the torso killer as somebody who tried to hide body parts (regardless of how they were all found, more or less) and somebody who tried to hinder ID (regardless of how he used the victims own clothing to dispose of her, moles, scars and all).
To you, taking away the head is not something that may point to hindering an ID - it is something that MUST be about hindering an ID.

On that headless note, I step out of the discussion for now. Got better things to do.

I still refer to Torsoman as somebody who, at the very least, regarded hindering ID as one of the things that were important to him. I can't see this in the Ripper cases and find your corresponding arguments not very convincing. That's nothing personal, just a matter of different opinions.

Nowhere did I say that taking away the heads MUST to point to anything, it's just that the identity of a body without a head is more difficult to determine than with the head still in place, thus the killer may have done away with the heads (or kept them as trophies far all I care) but the fact that most of them never came to light is very telling in my opinion. The killer obviously did not want people to find them, so he did what? Yup, he hid them from public view in one way or another. I think that's not exactly an outlandish assumption.

Anyway, nice talking to you.

[Fisherman]

If it was that meaningful to him, he might have dumped more than a single body-part there on just one occasion.

Just when I thought the discussion could not get any dumber...? Of course he couldn't do that, Gareth - he would need to pile all the parts up in the vaults of New Scotland Yard, see, to prove his dislike for the police (a mere torso and a leg is not real evidence of that, it takes some arms, three heads and six lungs too) so there would be precious little left...

Dear, dear me.

[Fisherman]

Dr Bond provided some documents/material for Hebbert for his dissertations on the 1887-89 torso killings and I'm sure there also was a personal exchange of information and professional opinion between the two. Both medicos may not have been familiar with modern criminology and psychology but I'm sure they knew similarities or differences in styles and injuries between two cases or series of cases when they saw them. That's why I hestitate to write Hebbert's verdict off at the moment.



I can see the similarities but also the differences. I'm with Hebbert again in terms of the killer's handiwork who said that it showed no signs of a professional surgeon but someone who is used to cutting up and disembowelling animals in a quick and efficient way like a butcher or slaughterer, so no "surgeon!"-yelling medico in this case.

Only two of the Ripper cases are similar in skill to the torso killings in my opinion, Chapman and Eddowes. Tabram (if we count her in) was stabbed to death, Nichols was killed with a moderately sharp knife and only superficially mutilated, Stride was not mutilated, her throat cut was not as deep as in the other cases and probably done with a different weapon than the others, and Kelly was butchered to pieces in a way which let the divisional surgeon and the doctors differ in their opinions on the skill level of the murderer (from "some kill" to "no skill"). There also was no dismemberment in any of the Ripper cases.



I don't put as much importance on a possible organ removal in the torso cases as I do in the Ripper cases where getting hold of organs was a clear objective, at least in two, possibly three cases. Things ain't as clear-cut in the torso cases since there is not a lot of information as to what the killer did before he dismembered the bodies. In case of the Pinchin St. torso, the doctors said that her lower abdomen was badly mutilated but that's a bit thin to base something on.

The state of evidence in the torso cases points to a practical approach to dismemberment in my view, what happened before is difficult to say. Not so in the Ripper case, here, everything has been laid out by the killer for everyone to see.



MO as in the line of events and the things the killer(s) did as we judge them by historical evidence, not MO as in the exact way the killer(s) went to work. Maybe I should have user a different term here.

Of course I don't know how the exact psychological setup looked like but the basic differences (hindering ID and hiding body parts vs. "al fresco killing") point to a very different way of doing things and thus to a different psyche. Of course that's just a layman's view.

The end says it all - you still refer to the torso killer as somebody who tried to hide body parts (regardless of how they were all found, more or less) and somebody who tried to hinder ID (regardless of how he used the victims own clothing to dispose of her, moles, scars and all).
To you, taking away the head is not something that may point to hindering an ID - it is something that MUST be about hindering an ID.

On that headless note, I step out of the discussion for now. Got better things to do.

[bolo]

- Hebberts view about different originators is seemingly based on lacking insights into the underlying psychology of these types of crime, as well as a belief in criminal anthropology, so I would advice against over investing in that part. This is why In say that one not only could, but SHOULD ascribe different values to his judgment when we compare professional assessments of physical damage (where he would have been spot on) to amateurish guesswork based on lacking insights (where he may well be very much off).

Dr Bond provided some documents/material for Hebbert for his dissertations on the 1887-89 torso killings and I'm sure there also was a personal exchange of information and professional opinion between the two. Both medicos may not have been familiar with modern criminology and psychology but I'm sure they knew similarities or differences in styles and injuries between two cases or series of cases when they saw them. That's why I hestitate to write Hebbert's verdict off at the moment.

-If you can see no similarities in the handiwork of these killers, it remains that they did the exact same things to their victims nevertheless. That is the salient point. We do not have the victims to study, and so we cannot say just how skilled or unskilled the perpetrators will have been. We only know that the medicos professed to having seen great skill in both series, plus we know that a killer like the Gainesville Ripper, Danny Rolling, was deemed a full-fledged surgeon by the medicos who looked at his handiwork. And was he? No, he was a drifter with no medical/anatomica/surgical experience at all. The problem is that once somebody shows an ability to dismember, to decapitate by knife (which was what Rolling accomplished, the rest of this deeds was simply a flurry of stabs, nothing more), there seems to be a risk that medicos yell "surgeon!" I don't think that neither series point to a surgeon at work, but that both series point to a very speedy cutter, who could produce long, clean and sweeping cuts, and who knew hot to disarticulate limbs but not heads (until September of 1889). The same man, therefore.

I can see the similarities but also the differences. I'm with Hebbert again in terms of the killer's handiwork who said that it showed no signs of a professional surgeon but someone who is used to cutting up and disembowelling animals in a quick and efficient way like a butcher or slaughterer, so no "surgeon!"-yelling medico in this case.

Only two of the Ripper cases are similar in skill to the torso killings in my opinion, Chapman and Eddowes. Tabram (if we count her in) was stabbed to death, Nichols was killed with a moderately sharp knife and only superficially mutilated, Stride was not mutilated, her throat cut was not as deep as in the other cases and probably done with a different weapon than the others, and Kelly was butchered to pieces in a way which let the divisional surgeon and the doctors differ in their opinions on the skill level of the murderer (from "some kill" to "no skill"). There also was no dismemberment in any of the Ripper cases.

-You say that getting hold of organs seems not to have been what the torso killer wanted. Isn't that strange to say about somebody who intentionally cuts out a uterus a heart and a pair of lungs from a victim? Maybe what you mean is that it may not have been a general desire on his part? Then again there are organs lack ing from three out of the four 1887-89 victims, and the killer may well be the one that took them. That would mean he took organs from 75 per cent of his victims.
The Ripper did so in 60 per cent of HIS cases.
Maybe another revision is of the need, Bolo?

I don't put as much importance on a possible organ removal in the torso cases as I do in the Ripper cases where getting hold of organs was a clear objective, at least in two, possibly three cases. Things ain't as clear-cut in the torso cases since there is not a lot of information as to what the killer did before he dismembered the bodies. In case of the Pinchin St. torso, the doctors said that her lower abdomen was badly mutilated but that's a bit thin to base something on.

The state of evidence in the torso cases points to a practical approach to dismemberment in my view, what happened before is difficult to say. Not so in the Ripper case, here, everything has been laid out by the killer for everyone to see.

-Finally, we do not know - not you and not me - how the MO and the "psychological setup" looked in these series. Let's not pretend that we do, and let's admit that they may have been very much alike as well as very much alike.

MO as in the line of events and the things the killer(s) did as we judge them by historical evidence, not MO as in the exact way the killer(s) went to work. Maybe I should have user a different term here.

Of course I don't know how the exact psychological setup looked like but the basic differences (hindering ID and hiding body parts vs. "al fresco killing") point to a very different way of doing things and thus to a different psyche. Of course that's just a layman's view.

[Sam Flynn]

I don't know-someone adept at cutting up and dismembering bodies, and apparently had the sick fantasy to do so, just might have known where frankensteins garden was!

If it was that meaningful to him, he might have dumped more than a single body-part there on just one occasion.