Torso Killer discussion from Millwood Thread

[RockySullivan]

I guess because the mutilations that the torso killer does don't look like JtR mutilations. For example, the torso limbs are clean cuts removing limbs, there are not large chunks of flesh gouged off like JtR did with Kelly's upper leg. It's not just that JtR tried and failed to do something the torso killer(s) appear to have the skill to do, the torso killer(s) do not do what JtR does, even if they add the extra step of dismembering for ease of transport later. I can't see "JtR + dismemberment" in the torso cases, which is now what is being argued for.

The two series of crimes do not look the same no matter how hard I squint. I don't see any similarities beyond generalities that are common to many offenses, or similarities that arise simply because we have a mutilator and a dismemberer to compare, once you get beyond the superficial similarities, the offenses no longer look simlar. Everything points to JtR not being the torso killer.

- Jeff

What about the decapitation? What about the facial mutilations to Kelly? What about the cut up the Pinchin St abdomen? What about the removal and wrapping up of organs, which was likely done as the Ripper left the murder? What about the victimology? What about the context of the Autumn of Terror in which the Whitehall torso was found and the proximity between the Railway arches Pipeman chased Lipski and the Pinchin St dump site? The only difference here is the setting of the crime.

[Fisherman]

I don't see any similarities beyond generalities that are common to many offenses, or similarities that arise simply because we have a mutilator and a dismemberer to compare...

- Jeff

Yes, because mutilators and dismembered alike will all cut away abdominal walls in large flaps. Standard procedure, that. And they will all take out uteri and hearts too, especially dismemberers do that on a daily basis.

[Fisherman]

Sigh. Someone who was only learning their way around cutting up a body wouldn't have been able to do the clean disjointing that they did. The torso killer knows what they are doing, and if they've got a saw, they know that will make it easier. JtR apparently didn't know that, and gave it a go because? Why? He doesn't have the same skills or knowledge as the torso killer.

They are not the same person, they do different things as a result - one doesn't know enough to avoid giving it a go, the other has a saw on hand to make it easier, but can do it if they don't have the saw available. How this looks at all like the same person is beyond me, they are clearly different people involved in the two series.

- Jeff

That's the second time you sigh over me, Jeff. Am I being obnoxious? Will I not understand how you are right and I am wrong?

You still refuse to take in what Hebbert said, apparently: Although we KNOW that the torso killer DID have a saw, he did NOT employ it only on Jacksons neck. He used the saw AND a knife, telling us that no, he was never going to prioritize a saw on account of how it was easier work. Instead, he discovered that there was a way to cut the neck with a knife and he opted for that method. Accordingly, he skipped the saw in case four, and ONLY used a knife, and that was because he had understood how to avoid the protruding bone lip on the vertebra.

Case one: saw, case two: saw, case three: saw and knife, case four: knife only. And case three shows us what happened along his learning curve, where the turning point came.

But no, to you this cannot possibly have been the case: he will have known all along how to decapitate by knife, he just chose to do it by saw because it was simpler. Although it was not simpler in case three and four.

And on what do you ground your take? On how the killer clearly knew how to neatly disarticulate legs and arms and made a clean and neat work of those matters. If one can do the, one can also take off a head with a knife. Regardless of how these matters are separate and different processes, that applies - if you can do the one, you can do the other.

You also offer this: "Ok, let me put it this way, if we have an offender who demonstrates skill and expertise in disjointings and knife work to a level that points to an individual who has the skills to decapitate with a knife, then if that individual uses a saw that does not mean they could not have done it with a knife, they just chose to use the saw."

So you are now trying to establish as a FACT that by disjointing and disarticulating arms and legs with a knife in a certain fashion, you have proven yourself able to take off a head with a knife too. Its like saying that if you can speak Chinese, you can speak Russian too. And Swahili. Proving that you can speak one language asserts us that you can speak them all.
Hamm-fisted. Why does that word surface inside me...?

And to boot, you once more claim that the only thing I use to decide whether to believe in Hebbert or not is whether what he says fits my thinking. Are you unable to read what I say? Do you really believe that a source that is correct on one thing must be so on the next too? If I say that you are probably correct on this, and that you are nevertheless more or less totally ignorant, what happens? Will you believe both things or none of them?
Charles Hebbert was a victim of his time, he was a convinced criminal anthropologist. Do you even know what that means? It means that we KNOW that he was wrong when it comes to forming a picture about how criminals become criminals. We KNOW it, we don't think it. We are sure that he was wrong. Certain. It is a done deal, overwith, decided - he was wrong.
That in its turn means that whatever he says that is related to this issue runs an overwhelming risk of being totally and utterly wrong.
We also know that psychology was very unadvanced in 1888, and that the police and medicos had a woefully lacking knowledge about what drives dismemberment killers, eviscerators and mutilators. They even thought that they would be able to identify them from anatomical features!
Are you even aware of this? Have you heard the name Lombroso? Are you read up on him and his impact?
If you cannot understand the impact this all had on their judgments back in the late victorian times, then that is a severe problem.

If it is instead only about clumsily trying to make me out as somebody who cherrypicks, it is a whole different ballgame, and I have a lot less trouble understanding it.

So sigh away, Jeff. Come June, you will be sighing about how slow a Northampton professor can be on the uptake. Actually, I think you will have a great deal to sigh about in days to come. People can be sooooo dense, don't you know!

[bolo]

A fine-toothed saw will go through bone, Bolo - which was why the killer employed it. Thinking that a saw that passes through bone will not be able to pass through a lung or a heart is wrong, for understandable reasons.
The whole reason this was brought up was because you suggested that the killer was thinking "Hmmm, let's see, uteri, hearts and lungs are tough, so maybe I need to take them out before I divide the body up?" I find that suggestion a very bad one. The heart would not come into play at the level the killer cut, and the same goes for the uterus. There was therefore never any need at all to take them out to facilitate cutting, and - not least - the much more logical suggestion is that they were taken out because the killer desired to do so, in the exact same way that the Ripper did. And the lungs would have been taken out to allow access for him to reach the heart, just as Kellys lung was torn to allow for the same process. Deny away, but there you are.

Denial? That's what you said, Fish. I won't bore you with my practical experiences again so by all means, theorise away.

You are ever so welcome to accept the views the contemporary doctors held on account on believing in criminal anthropology and not being aware of the psychology of a serial eviscerator the way we are today. You are even welcome to try and spread the dung-like picture that I am disregarding the doctors to make things suit my theory, and to try and create a picture of how your thinking is superior since it is supported by what doctors believed to be true 131 years ago. Be my guest! Why, you can even join ranks with our learned Danish friend and try to peddle the idea that somebody who believes one thing a source claims, must also believe ALL things the same source says, and that it would be unethical not to do so. It will make you join ranks with Hebbert, who thought that long fingers were a sign of pickpocketing urges, but hey, maybe nobody notices and you can get away with it.

The best of luck with that venture, Bolo - you will need it.

I don't take everything an official source throws at me for granted, I'm just trying to go with the little evidence and hard facts we have. What does it matter if Hebbert thought people with long fingers would have pick-pocketing urges, it's his medical skills and the corresponding assessment of the cases I am interested in. Silly stuff like the finger thing, phrenology, seances or other pseudo-scientific/occult nonsense were all the rage in the LVP, many people dabbled with these in one way or another, among them famous politicians, artists and scientists, some of whom are still held in high regard today.

That is why there is no reason yet to disregard parts of Hebbert's verdict based on that in my humble opinion.

You seem to misunderstand my motivation here. I am trying to make sense of the case, that's why I am discussing with you because you seem to be very much convinced that Torsoman and the Ripper were the same person and I want to find out why. I also have no intention to "spread a dung-like picture" of you (whatever that means), I'm just reflecting on your arguments and get back to you with mine.

As your snappish remarks suggest you don't seem to find the points I made interesting or discussion-worthy so I will have to go back to my books and files on that to find out what I've missed.

[Sam Flynn]

And the lungs would have been taken out to allow access for him to reach the heart, just as Kellys lung was torn to allow for the same process.

A piece of the lower part of Kelly's right lung was broken. That's not going to give you easy access to the heart, as it's wedged between the "meat" of both lungs, further up than the bottom of the right lung alone. More than likely, the piece of lung was accidentally torn out by a "smash-and-grab" killer.

In the case of the torso, both the lungs and heart (which might have been kept together, as they're mentioned in the same breath) were completely taken out of the thorax. Different scenario entirely.

[Kattrup]

What a very good question, Kattrup! It provides me with the opportunity to clarify things a bit.

Of course, once a question like this is asked on a discussion forum, it could imply that the person (in this case me) who trusts a source on one matter but not on another, is being dishonest and cherrypicking to suit his own thinking.

Of course, given your moral stature, your discerning thinking and - not least - your affection for me, that is not an option in this case. More likely, you are simply curious about how these things work, right?

So let me explain!

To begin with, contrary to what is implied by the question Kattrup asks, one should never work from the assumption that once a source has been proven right on one thing, it must be right on all other matters too.

Let's say that I know that it has rained all day in my home town. If somebody should then say that it rained in the morning in my hometown, I would know that the information given was true.
We would therefore have a reliable source.

But what happens when that same source goes on to say that the sun shone all afternoon in my hometown? Well, we suddenly know that the information given is wrong.

So what happens if we trust the source anyway, since we know from experience that it was correct on the first information given? Well, we will believe in something that is not true, that's what happens.

That is lesson one: Always check the veracity of information given by its contents, not by earlier recorded veracity on behalf of the information source.

Now, more specifically, what happened in the Hebbert case? Why did I trust him on one matter while I doubted another one?

To begin with, we must realize that Charles Hebbert was a professional medico, and an acclaimed such - he was good, quite simply. Knew his profession, his stuff.

That was what made me believe him when he said that there was a progression in how the torso killer took on the problem of severing the head from the body. If he had only said that much, I would have believed him, actually - but as luck would have it, he actually described in great detail WHY he saw a progression. Empirical data was listed that reinforced greatly what he said, and I found no reason at all to believe that he made the data up, and so there was no reason not to believe what he said.

Then there was the matter of him not thinking that it was the same killer in both series, and that is another matter. This he did not support with empirical data in the same way as he had with the decapitation. And this is where we run into problems in the shape of time having passed since the era in which Hebbert lived. Much as he was a skilled and professional man in his time, his time sadly also had an influence on him - and his contemporaries - that was not good. This was an era when criminal anthropology ruled the day, and although we consider it mumbo-jumbo today, back then it was looked upon as science. If we take a look at Vincenzo Verzeni, for example, he was - rightfully - convicted of two horrific murders of a character that involved sexuality, eviscerations and dismemberment. The problem was that it was believed that there were physical tell-tale signs in Verzenis physiognomy that were consistent with being a rapist and sexual murderer. Namely he was hung like a horse and had a thick neck.
This type of misconceptions were shared by Hebbert, who made that abundantly clear in his work "Criminology" (I hope I remember the title correctly).

It is understandable that he thought it was correct to think along these lines. Much work had gone into making connections between physiology and crime, and it was generally believed - and thought proven - that such characteristics were inherited, wherefore there was a belief in a criminal class that was unable to stay away from crime.

However, this has long since been disproven, and what was science and knowledge back then is a true joke today. But it all helps to outline why I can believe Hebbert in some instances while I disbelieve him in others - when he asserts something that is grounded on long since disproven ideological stances, it is the sound thing to do.

Doctors like Hebbert typified criminals, and worked from the presumption that they were all under a genetical influence that governed what they did. And the contemporary idea about a dismemberment killer was that he dismembered for reasons of hiding the identity and/or the whole body from detection. What was not known - although some psychologists were beginning to break ground in the field - was that dismemberment could be something that represented an urge within the killer to cut into human flesh. This kind of beast was new and largely unknown when the torso killer made his entrance. Consequently, the link between the torso killings and the Ripper ditto was predestined not to be made.

In the light of this, there is ample reason to question Hebberts ability to form a correct picture of whether the two series could be connected or not.

As is so often the case, reality sometimes imposes a greater need to think twice than what sometimes seems to be called for. And thinking twice is asking oneself on TWO occasions "Is this correct" if we are provided with two pieces of information. Making the assumption that a source that is correct once will always be correct forthwith is at worst being sloppy and incorrect.

Of course, what we cannot do is to regard it as proven the Hebbert must have been wrong in his assumption of two killers. All we can say is that he seems to have based his guess on faulty and/or insufficient "knowledge", and that this very much increases the risk that he would get it wrong - contrary to when he commented on the progression linked to the decapitations the torso killer carried out.

There, Kattrup - that should provide you with a sufficient background to why I -and most people - are wary not to oversimplify matters. If you have any further questions about all of this, do not hesitate to ask. I'm always here, I aim to clarify and to please, and when I can do both things simultaneously, nobody's merrier than me! Thank you for giving me the opportunity to elaborate on this.

Thank you, I do have a further question: considering Hebbert's writing on the two killers, could you please elaborate on how his assessment is influenced to a disqualifying degree by criminal anthropology?

He writes:

During the years 1887-1889, a series of murders was committe in London by unknown and unidentified assassins. The victims were thirteen women of the class of prostitutes. These outrages were done by more than one man, the post-mortem examination showing very clearly that in one series the motive was the destruction of the identity of the person, and concealment of the crime. In the second, savage and singularly purposeless mutilation. The examination also proved the difference in the skill and intention of the operator. In the first series, as I may put it, the women's bodies were skillfully divided into sections such as might be done by a butcher or a hunter, evidently for the purpose of easy carriage and distribution, as the different parts were found in various districts, some in Regent's Park, Chelsea, Battersea, Isle of Dogs, even, in one case, the vaults of new Scotland Yard. In the other series, the women were horribly and unmercifully mutilated. Even the internal organs had been removed and taken away. It was in the last series that the theory of satyriasis was strengthened by the post-mortem examinations."

My bolding.

I fail to see how criminal anthropology invalidates his opinion? (or that of bagster Philips, or Monro, for that matter). Could you explain?

[RockySullivan]

Suddenly over a few months there is a killer cutting up women on the streets of Whitechapel who knows how to remove organs quickly in the dark. Where the hell do you think he came from?

[Kattrup]

Suddenly over a few months there is a killer cutting up women on the streets of Whitechapel who knows how to remove organs quickly in the dark. Where the hell do you think he came from?

I personally believe he came from the East End.

[Sam Flynn]

I personally believe he came from the East End.

In contrast to the Torso Killer, who seems to have been firmly based in the West... the Pinchin Street case excepted (probably a different torso killer, and not Jack the Ripper either).

[Abby Normal]

I guess because the mutilations that the torso killer does don't look like JtR mutilations. For example, the torso limbs are clean cuts removing limbs, there are not large chunks of flesh gouged off like JtR did with Kelly's upper leg. It's not just that JtR tried and failed to do something the torso killer(s) appear to have the skill to do, the torso killer(s) do not do what JtR does, even if they add the extra step of dismembering for ease of transport later. I can't see "JtR + dismemberment" in the torso cases, which is now what is being argued for.

The two series of crimes do not look the same no matter how hard I squint. I don't see any similarities beyond generalities that are common to many offenses, or similarities that arise simply because we have a mutilator and a dismemberer to compare, once you get beyond the superficial similarities, the offenses no longer look simlar. Everything points to JtR not being the torso killer.

- Jeff

Hi jeff
the torsomans mutilations dont look like the rippers? chunks of stomach flesh removed from jackson and chapman and kelly?
vertical gashes to the abdoman in both series. Internal organs removed in both series? External body parts cut off in both series?
I dont know much more similar you can get.

these two series are more like each other than many a serial killers differences between there own crimes!

you really need to get past the dismemberment thing.

[Abby Normal]

Suddenly over a few months there is a killer cutting up women on the streets of Whitechapel who knows how to remove organs quickly in the dark. Where the hell do you think he came from?

Bingo rocky

[Abby Normal]

In contrast to the Torso Killer, who seems to have been firmly based in the West... the Pinchin Street case excepted (probably a different torso killer, and not Jack the Ripper either).

Yes lets just add another killer to the scenario, ignoring all the evidence, the experts at the time and common sense just because it dosnt fit with some preconceived notion.

[Abby Normal]

Ok, let me put it this way, if we have an offender who demonstrates skill and expertise in disjointings and knife work to a level that points to an individual who has the skills to decapitate with a knife, then if that individual uses a saw that does not mean they could not have done it with a knife, they just chose to use the saw. They are free, on another occasion to make the same or different choice (presuming it's even the same person involved in the two cases).

As pointed out in a previous post you pick and choose your reliance on Hebbert based upon whether or not Hebbert agree's with what you believe. I will, however, point out that Hebbert, your pro-offered expect, had concluded JtR and the Torso killer were not the same individual.

You can't have it both ways, unless, of course, you simply want to punch more holes in your sinking ship.


- Jeff

oh the ship is not sinking ham, that baby is full steam ahead!

[Sam Flynn]

Yes lets just add another killer to the scenario, ignoring all the evidence, the experts at the time and common sense just because it dosnt fit with some preconceived notion.

No - it doesn't fit with what happened to the bodies, where the crimes happened, and how the crimes happened.

Nothing preconceived at all. There's just no comparison.

[Abby Normal]

No - it doesn't fit with what happened to the bodies, where the crimes happened, and how the crimes happened.

Nothing preconceived at all. There's just no comparison.

No comparison between the pinchin torso and the others? Lol.