Torso Killer discussion from Millwood Thread

[Abby Normal]

One would think so, would one not? However, my answer is no, the ritual required the sawed off limbs and not the disjointed ones, if I am on the money. And to be frank, my personal belief is that the disarticulations may have taken less time than the sawing, which I imagine was done with great care.

interesting fish! care to expound??

[Fisherman]

Details you don't like... like heart AND lungs removed in one of the torso cases; heart only in Kelly's case. Details like uteri removed in a minority of the torso cases (and one of those with a baby inside it) versus uteri removed in a majority of the Ripper cases (100% of them if we exclude Stride). Details like overwhelming majority of torso murders in West London, versus ALL the Ripper murders in a small part of East London...

I could go on, but believe me, I'm not ignoring details. On the contrary, I'm taking them ALL into account.

Personally, I don't dislike it a bit that not all victims had their uteri and hearts taken. It is not the percentage of the victims that suffer such damage that tells the story, it is the fact that these inclusions are present in both series that do. That are - luckily - very rare occurrences, both of them. And that's before we include the rarer-than-henīs-teeth taking away of the abdominal walls, another feature present in both series.

Imagine five women killed in Bow, and five women killed in Chelsea, all of them by knife. Imagine further that one woman in each series has both her pinkies cut off.

Do you for one split second imagine the the police would NOT make the connection, although the women were killed in different districts?

Change the districts to Oxford and Portsmouth. Would the police say "Nah, probably no connection"? No, they would not.

Change the victims to males in Bow and females in Chelsea. Change the murder method to strangulation in Bow and knifing in Chelsea - and the police would neverhteless speak of the murders as the pinkie murders and work from the assumption that there was a connection.

And that would not require more than just the one victim in each series.

There is absolutely no need for us not to accept that the same logic appears when women from two murder series in the same town lose their hearts, their uteri and their abdominal walls - even if only one victim in each series suffer that fate.

Its another matter that the Whitehall victim may have had her uterus taken, just as the Rainham victim may have had her heart and lungs taken too. Those possibilities, however, is something you don't seem to take into account, instead claiming that only Jackson had organs taken from her body. The fact is that we really cannot tell how many torso victims were subjected to that, can we?

[Fisherman]

yes you drill down on the details to minutia until you find a difference. I fear we may have to start counting the number of molecules in the flaps of stomach flesh removed from Chapman, Kelly and Jackson!

Gareth has already done that, Abby, telling the victims apart in terms of flap sizes and apparitions. And this he has done without knowing zilch about how the flaps looked - an amazing thing indeed!

[bolo]

and again-why hold onto the last part, a leg, for half a mile, especially after you've dumped the rest into the river and the river is still the same distance away on the other side of the road than said persons yard?!?

He got disturbed and had to leg it.

[Fisherman]

He got disturbed and had to leg it.

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiīm Jake the peg, dideldideldideldi, with his extra leg, dideldideldideldo....

[bolo]

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiīm Jake the peg, dideldideldideldi, with his extra leg, dideldideldideldo....

Sorry for the slightly distasteful pun, couldn't help it.

I don't categorically rule out the presence of ritualistic elements in what the torso killer(s) did and how they did it but in terms of chopping bodies apart I'm thinking more along the lines of serial killers like Fritz Haarmann who indeed had a ritualistic approach to raping and killing his victims but they were not of much interest for him post-mortem. He unceremoniously hacked, chopped and sawed them in pieces, flushed some of the intestines down the toilet and disposed of the other parts in the river Leine or other places. During his trial, he specifically mentioned the problems he was faced to get rid of the body parts and that he very much hated dismembering the bodies.

Whether or not the torso killings can be attributed to Jack is a question I haven't seriously pondered on before I started posting in this thread to be honest. I always considered the Whitechapel murders and torso killings as separate lines of events, even though I know that a lot of people don't believe in two or more serial killers at work at the same time in the East End. However, there are just too many differences for me to let me believe in a one-man show, starting from the most obvious of them, disembowelment vs. dismemberment. In case of the C5, no efforts were made to hide the bodies, and as I rate the dismemberment in case of the torso killings as practical, the killer(s) went to great lengths to make sure that their identity gets destroyed as thoroughly as possible. Isn't that quite the opposite to what the Ripper did?

[RockySullivan]

If he stored all the parts in the vault originally, and smuggled them out to throw them in the river or dispose of them in any other way, I think it is a tad strange that he didn't do away with the torso and the leg in the same manner. What killer who wants to hide what he has done, decides that he needs to clear out the evidence, only to then come up with the idea to leave one or two parts of it THAT HE "FINDS" HIMSELF....?
In my world, that does not add up very well.

well what if he or whoever was keeping the torso in the vault hadn't got a chance to dump it yet?

[Abby Normal]

it's called dispersal, meant to delay or prevent the finding of the body parts and hinder identification of the victim.

Hi again Rocky (and Bolo-this touchs on your last post also)

I see a clear distinction between Torsoman methods of disposal (deeper meaning)and the recent LISK case(practical), which you and I discussed at length some while back.

Both dismemberers, both target prostitutes. However, with Lisk we see clear indication of dismemberment/disposal method for practical reasons only-to get rid of, to hide bodies, to possibly hide ID. LISK dismembers his victims and disposes the remains, pretty much all pieces together, in a sack in remote out of the way areas, hidden in tangled underbrush. He also deposits the victims clustered together-different cluster spots, seemingly changing locations for practical reasons-like one area getting to "full" and or perhaps worried about being spotted. and remains found indicating he dumped in one trip-not any repetitive back and forth with same victim parts. nothing to indicate anything significant in where and how he deposits due to a deeper/psychological meaning-its all very practical and very hidden.

with torsoman, we dont see the same. hes dumping in the river first. which is discovered and in the press-so torsoman knows they are being found quickly-yet he continues to dump in the river same as before, knowing they will be found. He also starts dumping in more public and bizarre places as time goes on. Culminating, in the most public dumping of pinchin. add to this the part in the shelly estate and the basement of NSY. the risks involved are also increasing with this more public and weird dumping. as Ive said before theres even a kind of escalation in the dumping pattern that points away from practical matters.

There something more to it in how and where hes dumping, fish mentioned some possibilities, and IMHO its rather obvious.
The more public dumpings also coincide with the rippers very public displays, and both end around the same time with Mackenzie and pinchin.

[RockySullivan]

Hi again Rocky (and Bolo-this touchs on your last post also)

I see a clear distinction between Torsoman methods of disposal (deeper meaning)and the recent LISK case(practical), which you and I discussed at length some while back.

Both dismemberers, both target prostitutes. However, with Lisk we see clear indication of dismemberment/disposal method for practical reasons only-to get rid of, to hide bodies, to possibly hide ID. LISK dismembers his victims and disposes the remains, pretty much all pieces together, in a sack in remote out of the way areas, hidden in tangled underbrush. He also deposits the victims clustered together-different cluster spots, seemingly changing locations for practical reasons-like one area getting to "full" and or perhaps worried about being spotted. and remains found indicating he dumped in one trip-not any repetitive back and forth with same victim parts. nothing to indicate anything significant in where and how he deposits due to a deeper/psychological meaning-its all very practical and very hidden.

with torsoman, we dont see the same. hes dumping in the river first. which is discovered and in the press-so torsoman knows they are being found quickly-yet he continues to dump in the river same as before, knowing they will be found. He also starts dumping in more public and bizarre places as time goes on. Culminating, in the most public dumping of pinchin. add to this the part in the shelly estate and the basement of NSY. the risks involved are also increasing with this more public and weird dumping. as Ive said before theres even a kind of escalation in the dumping pattern that points away from practical matters.

There something more to it in how and where hes dumping, fish mentioned some possibilities, and IMHO its rather obvious.
The more public dumpings also coincide with the rippers very public displays, and both end around the same time with Mackenzie and pinchin.

LISK dismembers and disperses the remains in different location, skull/extremities in one place, torso 40 miles way. It's exactly the same, dismemberment and dispersal to hinder identification/investigation, the only difference is the environment. He's in London, there's nowhere else to dump.

[Fisherman]

Sorry for the slightly distasteful pun, couldn't help it.

I don't categorically rule out the presence of ritualistic elements in what the torso killer(s) did and how they did it but in terms of chopping bodies apart I'm thinking more along the lines of serial killers like Fritz Haarmann who indeed had a ritualistic approach to raping and killing his victims but they were not of much interest for him post-mortem. He unceremoniously hacked, chopped and sawed them in pieces, flushed some of the intestines down the toilet and disposed of the other parts in the river Leine or other places. During his trial, he specifically mentioned the problems he was faced to get rid of the body parts and that he very much hated dismembering the bodies.

Whether or not the torso killings can be attributed to Jack is a question I haven't seriously pondered on before I started posting in this thread to be honest. I always considered the Whitechapel murders and torso killings as separate lines of events, even though I know that a lot of people don't believe in two or more serial killers at work at the same time in the East End. However, there are just too many differences for me to let me believe in a one-man show, starting from the most obvious of them, disembowelment vs. dismemberment. In case of the C5, no efforts were made to hide the bodies, and as I rate the dismemberment in case of the torso killings as practical, the killer(s) went to great lengths to make sure that their identity gets destroyed as thoroughly as possible. Isn't that quite the opposite to what the Ripper did?

How does Fritz Haarmanns exploits tell us that the Torso killer must have been of the same ilk, though? Because Haarmann was unceremonious, how does it follow that the torso killer must have been unceremonious too? Its a logic I find hard to follow.
Very obviously, Haarmann CHOSE to do away with his body parts as efficiently as possible, but the Torso killer was anything but efficient in that respect - he seems to have failed miserably to fly under the radar, does he not? And you know what? I think that is what tells him very much apart from Haarmann in this respect - Haarmann genuinely wanted his parts not to be found, the Torso killer desired the exact opposite.

If the Torso killer and Jack were not one and the same then it is coincidental only that both men on one or more occasions:
took out uteri
took out hearts
took out lungs
cut away abdominal walls
stole rings from victims
cut from ribs to pubes
targetted prostitutes
avoided physical torture
were deemed very skilled by medicos
worked in the same town
worked in overlapping time periods

How anybody can accept such a mountain of coincidences is frankly beyond me. For your thinking to work, these points must all, each and every one of them, be purely coincidental. I'm sorry, but to me that's a fool's hope.

I liked the pun, though, so no need to apologize for it!

[Fisherman]

well what if he or whoever was keeping the torso in the vault hadn't got a chance to dump it yet?

Well, that puts us in a position where we need to believe that he had time to dump all the rest but not the leg and the torso. Since the dumping will have been done after office hours, one must assume that Wildbore - if him it was - had no problems making time for one or more nocturnal trips to the vault, but that once he was there, time somehow got away from him, and although he had the time to carry the rest out and fling it in the Thams, those two parts were beyond him. Regardless of how he would have had weeks to take care of it, if he didn't fancy doing it all in one sweep.
And then, after having done his damndest to get rid of the incriminating evidence, he decides to point it out for all to see?

Doesn't that suggestion belong to another thread out here? The one about silly suspects?

Now, don't think that I regard Wildbore as a silly suspect otherwise - its only with the above scenario that happens...

[Fisherman]

LISK dismembers and disperses the remains in different location, skull/extremities in one place, torso 40 miles way. It's exactly the same, dismemberment and dispersal to hinder identification/investigation, the only difference is the environment. He's in London, there's nowhere else to dump.

If one killer succeeds in hiding body parts and the other fails miserably to do so, then it is anything but "exactly the same" thing, Rocky. In terms of the outcome, it is instead a question of polar opposites. And remind me, how many torsos did LISK put in cellar vaults, how many did he put in railway arches, outside houses, throw in gardens...?

[Abby Normal]

LISK dismembers and disperses the remains in different location, skull/extremities in one place, torso 40 miles way. It's exactly the same, dismemberment and dispersal to hinder identification/investigation, the only difference is the environment. He's in London, there's nowhere else to dump.

luv ya rocko but I disagree. theres plenty of places to dump, including where he did some of them-the river, parks etc.
why not just dump all in the river-its probably the easiest and most effective? why the bizarre dumping pattern?

it be like LISK dumping some parts on gilgo and oak beach but also tossing a part in Billy Joels back yard, leaving a torso on Suffolk ave and a torso in the town hall.

no, the LISK was very practical, and very good at hiding his crimes.

[Abby Normal]

luv ya rocko but I disagree. theres plenty of places to dump, including where he did some of them-the river, parks etc.
why not just dump all in the river-its probably the easiest and most effective? why the bizarre dumping pattern?



it be like LISK dumping some parts on gilgo and oak beach but also tossing a part in Billy Joels back yard, leaving a torso on Suffolk ave and a torso in the town hall.

double post

[bolo]

How does Fritz Haarmanns exploits tell us that the Torso killer must have been of the same ilk, though? Because Haarmann was unceremonious, how does it follow that the torso killer must have been unceremonious too? Its a logic I find hard to follow.
Very obviously, Haarmann CHOSE to do away with his body parts as efficiently as possible, but the Torso killer was anything but efficient in that respect - he seems to have failed miserably to fly under the radar, does he not? And you know what? I think that is what tells him very much apart from Haarmann in this respect - Haarmann genuinely wanted his parts not to be found, the Torso killer desired the exact opposite.

If the Torso killer and Jack were not one and the same then it is coincidental only that both men on one or more occasions:
took out uteri
took out hearts
took out lungs
cut away abdominal walls
stole rings from victims
cut from ribs to pubes
targetted prostitutes
avoided physical torture
were deemed very skilled by medicos
worked in the same town
worked in overlapping time periods

How anybody can accept such a mountain of coincidences is frankly beyond me. For your thinking to work, these points must all, each and every one of them, be purely coincidental. I'm sorry, but to me that's a fool's hope.

I liked the pun, though, so no need to apologize for it!

I used Haarmann as an example of a killer who just wanted to get rid of his victims once they were dead. He cut them to pieces and dumped the parts on various spots in his neighbourhood in order to make identification impossible. He also took out all organs and intestines and even cut the flesh from the bones, yet there was no significance to that other than house cleaning, even though a lot of work and thought had been put to it.

As far as I know, police and the medicos back in the LVP did never link the Ripper killings and the torso murders. Dr Bond who also examined four (?) of the Ripper victims attested some anatomic skill that had been shown in the torso cases which sounds similar to what he said about some Ripper cases but he obviously did not see his handiwork in the torso killings. I think this is a fact that cannot be ignored.

Whether or not the torso killer wanted the body parts to be found is open for debate in my eyes. What he pretty much succeeded in was hindering ID of the victims, many of whom are still unknown to this day. That's the whole point of dispersing body parts instead of leaving a dead body out in the open for everyone to see like the Ripper did. This also is where I have a problem with the torso killer - Ripper link, the style of display (if there was one in case of the torso killings) looks quite different to me.

I have to admit that throwing a leg over the fence of the Shelley estate or dumping parts in the cellar of the construction site of the NSY seems quite peculiar. This could point to planning but also some sort of desperation move because the killer got disturbed in his original plan of taking the parts to the river.

Still, I can't put the Ripper and torso puzzle pieces together at the present time. Despite some similarities, the differences between the two series of killings are quite obvious and I have great difficulties picturing a killer who in one case does his best to hinder ID and dumps the bodies of his victims in the Thames and then goes and massacres five or more women in what could be called high-risk situations and even leaves the disembowelled bodies behind for everyone to see, then when the time is right goes back to dismembering and dumping again... sorry, that just does not fly with me but I'm always open for new ideas so fire away, Fisherman.