Torso Killer discussion from Millwood Thread

[RockySullivan]

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...?

Environment. We've been through this so many times before. If the Ripper could have driven 40 miles out to the pine barrens to dump just the torso on a path off the road where it was found not long after by a women walking her dog he would have. It's about dumping the body parts successfully without having someone see you. The whole purpose of the dismemberment and subsequent dispersal was to not get caught. Mr. Hamm has it spot on.

[RockySullivan]

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.

Dispersing the remains in different locations to keep them from being put together.

[The Macdonald Triad]

Iīll leave that for you to sort out, methinks. Itīs a joy to see that every angle is covered, at any rate!

It would be nice if you could connect Lechmere with Shelley.

[Fisherman]

It would be nice if you could connect Lechmere with Shelley.

Yes, and with a whole score of other people too...

[Fisherman]

Environment. We've been through this so many times before. If the Ripper could have driven 40 miles out to the pine barrens to dump just the torso on a path off the road where it was found not long after by a women walking her dog he would have. It's about dumping the body parts successfully without having someone see you. The whole purpose of the dismemberment and subsequent dispersal was to not get caught. Mr. Hamm has it spot on.

Yes, it is about dumping the parts without having somebody see you. But to be fair, nobody has contested that.

Nor has it been claimed that the killer would have wanted to get caught, has it?

What has been said has not been about those issues at all. It has been about whether or not the killer wanted to have the parts found after he dumped them, and whether or not he wanted to send a message with the help of those parts.

It seems you are discussing something else than I do.

[Fisherman]

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.

Yes, I know that Haarmann "just wanted to dispose of the body parts" once the victims were dead. But I am still flummoxed about why you would think that has a bearing on the Torso killer? Because that is how all dismemberment killers feel about it?

It is not, I'm afraid. I have written numerous times before that dismemberment murders are divided up in three categories:

1. The dismemberment is about disabling identification.
2. The dismemberment is about getting rid of the parts and hiding the crime.

Haarmann, just like most dismembers, belong in these categories, mainly number 2. He joins ranks here with the most common dismembers - those who whack their viwes over the head in their homes, only to find that they have killed their spouses. Then they are faced with the problem of getting rid of the corpse, and after having kept it the tub for a week, they realize that it begins to smell and that the time has come. They dismember, but only after long and hard deliberations, they hate it, they often vomit when doing it and they are marked for life afterwards.

Does that sound like the Torso killer to you? A man who set about cutting his victims up IMMEDIATELY after death? A man who sliced them open from sternum to bow? Who sawed up the sternum in the Rainham case? Who plucked out a uterus, a heart or two, lungs, sections of the colon ...? And does he really sound like somebody who wanted to hide the ID of a victim - leaving her own clothing on, leaving moles and scars untouched on the body? Cutting a whole face away, with the eyelashes intact, even? Is he somebody who seems to try and make the parts go away? Placing a torso in the vaults of the new Scotland Yard building?

This is where the third dismemberment killer type comes into the picture:

3. The dismemberment is about mental deviations within the killer, who WANTS to dismember and cut up.

It seems most people never read that long in the manual.

Back in 1888, this third type of perpetrator was not described in the literature. This is a large part of the explanation why the two series were not linked. We can see that the medicos commenting on it made the same mistake as many out here do today. They had better reason to do so, though. Phillips was one of the men who spoke about the torso killer as a man thinking practically. He was just as wrong then as may out here are today. And therefore, much as we should not ignore it per se, we should amend it.

Finally, as I keep saying - the dissimilarities go away when there are odd and rare similarities involved. It does not matter that one man dismembered and the other one didn't when we know that BOTH men cut abdominal walls away. All that means is that we must accept that there was a reason for that dissimilarity (and its easy enough to see why he didn't need to dismember the Ripper victims - they did not lead the police to his lair, whereas the others would if not taken care of. Problem solved.)

I listed around a dozen similarities. Do you really think they can ALL be coincidental, given the fact that there has never been two series involving eviscerators in the same geographical area anywhere on earth, anytime in history.

If it WAS to happen, why is it that when it does, both men take uteri out, both men take hearts out, both men cut abdominal walls away, both men are deemed very skilled with the knife, both men take rings from their victims, both men cut from sternum to pubes etcetera? Would it not be more expected if one eviscerator was careless and sloppy in his cutting and always only took out the uterus, did not take jewelry from his victims and only opened up the lower abdomen, whereas the other one was along "our" guidelines with the Ripper and the Torso man? How come they BOTH do it the same way?

Because they were doubtlessly the same man.

[Fisherman]

Dispersing the remains in different locations to keep them from being put together.

Putting things together does not seem to be the strongest part of your reasoning, Rocky. The killer knew that the parts thrown in the river were found. He nevertheless kept feeding the Thames with those parts, and the doctors had no problems at all fitting them together - as was reported in the papers and as was common knowledge. So we can drop the idea that he would have tried to disenable joining the parts together.
A smak and a stone would have taken cafe of the problem. And he had access to sacks, as shown in the Pinchin street case. All people had, its not a very uncommon means of transporting things in, is it?

[RockySullivan]

What has been said has not been about those issues at all. It has been about whether or not the killer wanted to have the parts found after he dumped them, and whether or not he wanted to send a message with the help of those parts.

He didn't have a choice. Everyone knows weighing down bodies doesn't work

[RockySullivan]

Yes, I know that Haarmann "just wanted to dispose of the body parts" once the victims were dead. But I am still flummoxed about why you would think that has a bearing on the Torso killer? Because that is how all dismemberment killers feel about it?

It is not, I'm afraid. I have written numerous times before that dismemberment murders are divided up in three categories:

1. The dismemberment is about disabling identification.
2. The dismemberment is about getting rid of the parts and hiding the crime.

Haarmann, just like most dismembers, belong in these categories, mainly number 2. He joins ranks here with the most common dismembers - those who whack their viwes over the head in their homes, only to find that they have killed their spouses. Then they are faced with the problem of getting rid of the corpse, and after having kept it the tub for a week, they realize that it begins to smell and that the time has come. They dismember, but only after long and hard deliberations, they hate it, they often vomit when doing it and they are marked for life afterwards.

Does that sound like the Torso killer to you? A man who set about cutting his victims up IMMEDIATELY after death? A man who sliced them open from sternum to bow? Who sawed up the sternum in the Rainham case? Who plucked out a uterus, a heart or two, lungs, sections of the colon ...? And does he really sound like somebody who wanted to hide the ID of a victim - leaving her own clothing on, leaving moles and scars untouched on the body? Cutting a whole face away, with the eyelashes intact, even? Is he somebody who seems to try and make the parts go away? Placing a torso in the vaults of the new Scotland Yard building?

This is where the third dismemberment killer type comes into the picture:

3. The dismemberment is about mental deviations within the killer, who WANTS to dismember and cut up.

The purpose of 1 & 2 is to hinder the investigation. The victims were either dismembered because they were killed indoors and had to be brought outside in pieces (in a densely populated where you can't make a body disappear) and then dumped one piece at a time or because the killer did not want the victims identified. It very well could be both. The Ripper killed the girls out in the street, cut up the bodies as he liked for a few minutes and then left them. When he's alone with Kelly and he doesn't have to dismember her to get her outside he doesn't cut her up because the dismemberment, cutting the joints, is purely functional. Now why are the heads never found?

[Fisherman]

He didn't have a choice. Everyone knows weighing down bodies doesn't work

He had all sorts of choices, actually. Nobody stopped him from burying parts, for example. Or, for that matter from putting the parts in a sack together with a large stone. Contrary to what you seem to think, that works eminently, at least for a long time. And the buoyancy of the parts will go lost after having been submerged for some time.
So letīs not try and turn what he did into his only choice, shall we?

[Fisherman]

The purpose of 1 & 2 is to hinder the investigation. The victims were either dismembered because they were killed indoors and had to be brought outside in pieces (in a densely populated where you can't make a body disappear) and then dumped one piece at a time or because the killer did not want the victims identified. It very well could be both. The Ripper killed the girls out in the street, cut up the bodies as he liked for a few minutes and then left them. When he's alone with Kelly and he doesn't have to dismember her to get her outside he doesn't cut her up because the dismemberment, cutting the joints, is purely functional. Now why are the heads never found?

Yes, you are very correct - the purpose of 1 & 2 is indeed to hinder an investigation. Exactly so.
However, one cannot predispose that perpetrators confessing to the number 3 option would not be interested in hindering an investigation too. Many dismemberment killers who enjoy cutting up people have also shown themselves capable of taking such measures.

But when you write that the victims were either dismembered because they were killed indoors and had to be brought outside in pieces or because the killer wanted the victims to stay unidentified, you are conveniently forgetting about the number 3 option. Like I said, most people seem not to reach that side in the manual. And if they remain ignorant of that option, they are unfit to assess matters like these. It is that simple.

The 1874 victim had her head taken off together with her arms and one of the legs. That means that she was about as long as a corps as she had been while alive. The explanation that she was cut up to enable the killer to get her out of the lair unseen does not fit the bill here.

So that takes care of your first suggestion.

Jackson was left with her moles and scar intact, just as she was left with her own clothing on her body, clothing that was subsequently ID:s by an aquaintance of her.

So that takes care of your other suggestion.

Clearly, the killer was not all that interested in these suggestions of yours.

That said, he WAS interested in killing and that carreer would have been cut short (excuse the pun) if he had been discovered and hauled in by the police. So one must predispose that he took at least some precautions to stay free. And circular reasoning or not, it worked.

So what we need to do is to try and think in more than one dimension here. The killer was an eviscerator who cut his victims bodies from sternum to pubes in most cases. He took out organs. Therefore, it seems he represents the third category of perpetrators, the ones suffering from a mental condition that urges them to cut and eviscerate women.

Once he had done just that, he would be left with a corpse and a satisfied urge. He then needed to get rid of the corpse, predisposing that it would otherwise potentially lead to his capture and arrest.

Once he got to this stage, he didnīt take optimal precautions not to have the corpse found. Instead, he voluntarily placed some parts in the New Scotland Yard building, in the Shelley estate garden, outside a house in Fitzroy Square that was heavily patrolled by the police, in Regentīs canal, where the parts would not be flushed out to sea, in Battersea Gardens, and he then - time after time - floated the rest of the parts down the Thames from a position that caused them to float ashore along the banks of the river in the epicenter of the mightiest metropolis on earth.

If he belonged to the 1:st or 2:nd category of dismemberers, his efforts were totally ridiculous and de facto 100 per cent counterproductive. Thatīs why I say that he did NOT belong to these categories.

If he belonged to category 3, everything he did makes perfect sense.

But we donīt WANT perfect sense out here, do we? We want him to be a basic dismemberment killer, who just happened to cut his victims open from sternum to pubes, who just accidentally - Oooopsie! - happened to cut out a number of organs, who really tried to hide what he had done - Really? They floated ashore? Bugger!! - and who made a serious effort to hide the ID:s of his victims - Here you go, officer, this is the complete face of my latest victim - surely it is hard to recognize her now?

That is what we want, but lo and behold, it shall all be taken away from us. Get your purse ready, Rocky, thereīs a book coming out this summer you need to buy. Itīs by a Northampton history professor who is apparently just as dumb as I am.

[RockySullivan]

Why wasn't Mary Kelly dismembered and where are the heads? Dismemberment and evisceration are not the same thing.

[RockySullivan]

He had all sorts of choices, actually. Nobody stopped him from burying parts, for example. Or, for that matter from putting the parts in a sack together with a large stone. Contrary to what you seem to think, that works eminently, at least for a long time. And the buoyancy of the parts will go lost after having been submerged for some time.
So letīs not try and turn what he did into his only choice, shall we?

Where do you bury the parts in London if you've killed the victim in an apartment building? How do you haul the torso and body parts down to the river with the weights heavy enough to weigh them down?

[Abby Normal]

Yes, you are very correct - the purpose of 1 & 2 is indeed to hinder an investigation. Exactly so.
However, one cannot predispose that perpetrators confessing to the number 3 option would not be interested in hindering an investigation too. Many dismemberment killers who enjoy cutting up people have also shown themselves capable of taking such measures.

But when you write that the victims were either dismembered because they were killed indoors and had to be brought outside in pieces or because the killer wanted the victims to stay unidentified, you are conveniently forgetting about the number 3 option. Like I said, most people seem not to reach that side in the manual. And if they remain ignorant of that option, they are unfit to assess matters like these. It is that simple.

The 1874 victim had her head taken off together with her arms and one of the legs. That means that she was about as long as a corps as she had been while alive. The explanation that she was cut up to enable the killer to get her out of the lair unseen does not fit the bill here.

So that takes care of your first suggestion.

Jackson was left with her moles and scar intact, just as she was left with her own clothing on her body, clothing that was subsequently ID:s by an aquaintance of her.

So that takes care of your other suggestion.

Clearly, the killer was not all that interested in these suggestions of yours.

That said, he WAS interested in killing and that carreer would have been cut short (excuse the pun) if he had been discovered and hauled in by the police. So one must predispose that he took at least some precautions to stay free. And circular reasoning or not, it worked.

So what we need to do is to try and think in more than one dimension here. The killer was an eviscerator who cut his victims bodies from sternum to pubes in most cases. He took out organs. Therefore, it seems he represents the third category of perpetrators, the ones suffering from a mental condition that urges them to cut and eviscerate women.

Once he had done just that, he would be left with a corpse and a satisfied urge. He then needed to get rid of the corpse, predisposing that it would otherwise potentially lead to his capture and arrest.

Once he got to this stage, he didnīt take optimal precautions not to have the corpse found. Instead, he voluntarily placed some parts in the New Scotland Yard building, in the Shelley estate garden, outside a house in Fitzroy Square that was heavily patrolled by the police, in Regentīs canal, where the parts would not be flushed out to sea, in Battersea Gardens, and he then - time after time - floated the rest of the parts down the Thames from a position that caused them to float ashore along the banks of the river in the epicenter of the mightiest metropolis on earth.

If he belonged to the 1:st or 2:nd category of dismemberers, his efforts were totally ridiculous and de facto 100 per cent counterproductive. Thatīs why I say that he did NOT belong to these categories.

If he belonged to category 3, everything he did makes perfect sense.

But we donīt WANT perfect sense out here, do we? We want him to be a basic dismemberment killer, who just happened to cut his victims open from sternum to pubes, who just accidentally - Oooopsie! - happened to cut out a number of organs, who really tried to hide what he had done - Really? They floated ashore? Bugger!! - and who made a serious effort to hide the ID:s of his victims - Here you go, officer, this is the complete face of my latest victim - surely it is hard to recognize her now?

That is what we want, but lo and behold, it shall all be taken away from us. Get your purse ready, Rocky, thereīs a book coming out this summer you need to buy. Itīs by a Northampton history professor who is apparently just as dumb as I am.

hi Fish
great posts and I couldn't agree more.

The 1874 victim had her head taken off together with her arms and one of the legs. That means that she was about as long as a corps as she had been while alive. The explanation that she was cut up to enable the killer to get her out of the lair unseen does not fit the bill here.

where was this torso left/discovered?

[Abby Normal]

still waiting for some reasonable explanation of why torsoman, after having dumped all the other parts in the river/off the bridge and the torso of Jackson in Battersea park (which may have also been tossed off the bridge but not into the river), holds onto the last part, the leg, for some half mile before finally getting rid of it?
and why when he does finally get rid of it he takes the trouble of tossing it over a high fence and hedge into someones yard, when again the river is very close on the other side of the road?