The case evidence and its implications

[bolo]

Hi Jerry,

many thanks for posting the JTRforums link and the picture.

Looks like a very risky and difficult to reach dumpsite then. This lets me view the placement of some body parts in a new light.

[jerryd]

Burke and Hare vaults



I see the Scotland Yard basement consisting of vaults similar to these. Imagine wandering in the dark through this labyrinth, but they covered the external walls approx. 128 ft by 168 ft. The area was filled with construction debri and trenches.The vault you are looking for to dump the torso in just happens to be the very vault a few workmen stored their tools in for safety due to the fact it was hard to reach. Before reaching this spot from above, there were many other spots available to drop the body, including the Thames which was a few hundred feet away or the well which was more in the open and would conceal the body for a longer period of time, imo. Witnesses (workmen) claimed you needed to be familiar with the vault to know how to get there. I can see why.

[jerryd]

Hi Jerry,

of course it's inherently risky to carry body parts around. I'm not really familiar with the layout of the Whitehall construction site, seems I have some homework to do.

Hi bolo.

I've done some of the homework. It may help?

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread....hitehall+vault [disregard the arrow (location of the body) in post #1. The purple arrow in post #5 is closer to the approx. location of the torso and the leg]

[bolo]

Hi Jerry,

Carrying a dead corpse around town is risky no matter where you are. No?

For me it isn't really the risk of detection in the Whitehall case. It was how difficult it seems to have been to enter that particular vault of the basement. It required knowledge to get there. Especially in a dark environment and it was usually dark in that vault even in the day.

of course it's inherently risky to carry body parts around. I'm not really familiar with the layout of the Whitehall construction site, seems I have some homework to do.

[jerryd]

Hi Joshua,



thanks. This tells me that it would not have been extremly risky to hide a body part there, at least no more risky than some of the other dumpings.

Carrying a dead corpse around town is risky no matter where you are. No?

For me it isn't really the risk of detection in the Whitehall case. It was how difficult it seems to have been to enter that particular vault of the basement. It required knowledge to get there. Especially in a dark environment and it was usually dark in that vault even in the day.

[bolo]

Hi Joshua,

Reports vary, but either there was no watchman overnight, or Saturday (when it was thought the torso was deposited) was his night off.

thanks. This tells me that it would not have been extremly risky to hide a body part there, at least no more risky than some of the other dumpings.

[Joshua Rogan]

Apart from the usual beats of the police, there may have been watchmen who had an eye on the site but I'm not familiar with the LVP customs in this respect so you may or may not have a point there.

Perhaps someone else could cast some light on this.

Reports vary, but either there was no watchman overnight, or Saturday (when it was thought the torso was deposited) was his night off.

[bolo]

Well I'm assuming that the construction site would have had security, otherwise methinks there would have been a substantial loss of building materials!

Apart from the usual beats of the police, there may have been watchmen who had an eye on the site but I'm not familiar with the LVP customs in this respect so you may or may not have a point there.

Perhaps someone else could cast some light on this.

[John G]

Hello JG

Just on that point... how many torsos were eviscerated, and what purpose might those eviscerations have served?

Mutilation is a bit tricky, in that one can define just about any wounds to the flesh as a mutilation. I wouldn't, for example, classify the cutting off of a torso's limbs as "mutilation", nor would I say that Nichols, Chapman or Stride were "mutilated". Eddowes and Kelly - yes, in that they suffered multiple wounds to the flesh that had nothing to do with achieving their deaths or facilitating their evisceration.

With that preamble out of the way, and sticking to the Eddowes/Kelly sense, how many torsos were mutilated?

Now, the torso killer(s) might have eviscerated on occasion, they might have mutilated on occasion but (assuming TK is one man for the sake of argument) I wouldn't say he was "an" eviscerator and mutilator.

Hi Sam,

Well, Chapman's uterus was removed, and presumably retained by the killer as a trophy. Nichols wasn't eviscerated, but the subsequent murders could represent an escalation. I'm not convinced that Stride was a Ripper victim.

In respect of Liz Jackson, as you know two irregular strips of skin were removed and bundled together with organs of reproduction; and the foetus was never found. Personally, I can't see why that was done for purely defensive purposes.

I do, however, accept we need to be careful here. For instance, I've argued that the scattering of body parts was part of Torso's signature, assuming that there was a single perpetrator. However, for example, Robert Frisby, the accused, was categorized by Rutty and Black et al. (2017) as a defensive dismemberer, and his wife's body parts were found in the sea, a river and a golf course. Moreover, Nissan Ahmed's body parts, another case of defensive dismemberment, were found in woodlands, canal and reservoir. Caution is therefore required.

[John G]

Hi John,



NSY was under construction at that time. I think depositing a body part there at night or early morning wasn't any more risky than carrying them to the river or dropping them in a park.

Well I'm assuming that the construction site would have had security, otherwise methinks there would have been a substantial loss of building materials!

[Kattrup]

Hi JR

Bond:

The substance of the heart was healthy, and there were indications that the woman had not died either of suffocation or of drowning. The liver and stomach, kidneys and spleen were normal. The uterus was absent.

in this context, isnt it apparent that hes including the uterus here because he would expect it to be there with the rest of the organs hes describing?

No, it's because the doctors used the uterus to determine whether a woman had given birth or not, so it would have been an important clue to her identity.

As Joshua Rogan has pointed out, the whitehall torso had no body parts missing. I am therefore not sure what Fisherman's argument is.

[Joshua Rogan]

Hi JR

Bond:

The substance of the heart was healthy, and there were indications that the woman had not died either of suffocation or of drowning. The liver and stomach, kidneys and spleen were normal. The uterus was absent.

in this context, isnt it apparent that hes including the uterus here because he would expect it to be there with the rest of the organs hes describing?

I don't believe that tells the whole story. The Morning Advertiser 9 Oct is more detailed;

"The lower limbs and the pelvis had been removed by the fourth lumbar vertebrae being saw through by a series of long sweeping cuts...."

"...The lower part of the colon or large bowel and of the pelvic viscera were absent - that includes the uterus, bladder, and rectum"

[bolo]

Hi John,

And why would he be insane enough to deposit body parts in the police's own headquarters, taking an enormous risk by doing so, if his only motivation in dismembering and eviscerating the victim was not getting caught?

NSY was under construction at that time. I think depositing a body part there at night or early morning wasn't any more risky than carrying them to the river or dropping them in a park.

[Sam Flynn]

I agree with your argument that [torso killer] was, in all possibility, an eviscerator and mutilator.

Hello JG

Just on that point... how many torsos were eviscerated, and what purpose might those eviscerations have served?

Mutilation is a bit tricky, in that one can define just about any wounds to the flesh as a mutilation. I wouldn't, for example, classify the cutting off of a torso's limbs as "mutilation", nor would I say that Nichols, Chapman or Stride were "mutilated". Eddowes and Kelly - yes, in that they suffered multiple wounds to the flesh that had nothing to do with achieving their deaths or facilitating their evisceration.

With that preamble out of the way, and sticking to the Eddowes/Kelly sense, how many torsos were mutilated?

Now, the torso killer(s) might have eviscerated on occasion, they might have mutilated on occasion but (assuming TK is one man for the sake of argument) I wouldn't say he was "an" eviscerator and mutilator.

[John G]

I am often told that the Torso killer only took out organs from one victim, Liz Jackson. And that this would somehow and for some unfathomable reason point to how the Torso killer was actually not an eviscerator and mutilator. The idea, it would seem, is that he just happened to take a few odds and ends out of Jacksons body out of sheer mistake.

Now, the fact is that there were many parts missing from the Whitehall victim too, just as there were parts lacking in the Rainham case.

That means that these parts were either:

-Taken out by somebody, or

-Lost for other reasons.

If we look at the Whitehall and Rainham cases only, I am all for leaving that question open, regardless of whether the parts are more or less likely to have gone lost one way or the other. This will be affected by things like how the parts are attached in the body, where they were situated on the torso parts, how long the torso had been rotting away and under what conditions, how it was handled by the killer and so on. But I choose to leave that conundrum open.

However, once we KNOW for certain that Jackson had her uterus, heart and lungs actively removed by her killer, the weight of the evidence is shifted. Once we KNOW that this killer engaged in eviscerations, the far more likely thing must be that the organs lacking from the other victims were ALSO taken out by the killer.

This is to no small degree also colored by how the Rainham victim and Jackson have so many similarities. In both cases, the torso was divided up in three parts, and in both cases heart and lungs were lacking, in both cases a section of the colon was missing. The cases are very twin like in these parts, and the only difference that stands out is that one victim lost her uterus while the other did not. Otherwise, the cases are very much mirror reflections of each other.

Bearing that in mind, why would we NOT regard it as much more likely that the victims in the series who suffered organ loss all did so on account of eviscerations on behalf of the killer?

It is not proven, but the balance of probabilities tells us that it is the likely thing. And that is not how the torso murders have generally been looked upon! They have instead, on account of the lacking insights of the victorians, gone down in history as examples of classical dismemberment, where the killers sole intention was to hide the parts and obfuscate the ID of his victims. Actually, to the degree that Hebbert himself said that one thing that told the Ripper apart from the Torso killer was that the Ripper took organs out. As if the Torso killer didn't...!?

Changing this view is long, long overdue.

I don't think that the Torso Murderer was simply a defensive dismemberer, and I agree with your argument that he was, in all possibility, an eviscerator and mutilator. In other words, an offensive or offensive/defensive dismemberer, which is the same as a lust murderer. Which is what JtR was!

For example, if his actions were simply defensive, i.e. he was just trying not to get caught, why on earth did he remove two irregular strips of abdominal skin from Liz Jackson's body, and then bundle them up with the the organs of reproduction? Why retain the foetus?

And why would he be insane enough to deposit body parts in the police's own headquarters, taking an enormous risk by doing so, if his only motivation in dismembering and eviscerating the victim was not getting caught?