The case evidence and its implications

[Joshua Rogan]

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.

Remind me....which parts were missing from the Whitehall torso?

[Sam Flynn]

It appears that Torso man killed so he could take bodies apart.

The torso killer(s) killed for whatever reason(s) they may have had, but the taking apart of the bodies seems to have been purely a practical way to facilitate disposal. Whoever he/they were, they probably didn't have a "crawlspace" in which to hide the bodies, or a garden in which to bury them. He/they certainly had access to a private enough place in which to kill and take his victims apart, which is a luxury that Jack the Ripper almost certainly did not possess.

[Fisherman]

I know that you are intent on finding anything that is similar to Canonical murders in these Torso murders Fisherman, but theoretical observations won't negate the obvious differences. Some of which may be critical to the killers MO.

I am not "intent on finding similarities", Michael. They are already there in spades and they have been found by others than me. Once two women loose their uteri, that IS a similarity, not something that I am intent on making a similarity. Once two women loose their abdominal walls, it IS a similarity. And so on.

I contend that the evidence alone, without presumptions, suggests that Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman were killed by the same man in the same manner, and that he ultimately sought to mutilate the female abdomen. The killing isn't the only goal, the PM stuff is also. I think in the case of the Torso's, the killing is secondary to the dismemberments, but we have to consider that the killer killed the Torso women indoors in all likelihood. There may have been ritualistic elements there...he may have seduced the women to go somewhere..could be part of his "thrill"..we don't know how long he took to kill anyone of those victims...there may have been torture or rape as part of his thing. All speculative.

Once you take the "mays" and "could haves" away, you will note that you are left with two men who both killed in order to acquire a body to work on. Whether that happens indoors or outdoors, the driving force is similar.

If Jack the Ripper can be defined by any murders I suggest that they are Polly and Annie, and they are so very close in Victimology, MO, physical injuries and location, that we can extract some real information about what that killer was about. And the evidence suggests that he met women on the street who were selling their services, let them assume a business transaction, then, when the time feels right, he intended to quickly subdue the women, inflict fatal wounds, then mutilate the abdomens. Without any speculation, that is well supported conclusion. Which may well be fundamentally different motivations from what Torso man sought. In jacks case I think its undeniable that he either didn't realize the risks..due to psychological issues, or he did, and he liked it. I don't see that "thrill" seeker in Torso man, in fact he seemed to prefer the tedious, again, assuming the killing itself wasn't some "thrill" for him.

The Torso man could also have met women on the street and let them assume a business transaction, Michael. And as I have said umpteen times, the street killings may have nothing all to do with thrill, it could be all about attention seeking. Then what happens to your reasoning about differences? Poof - gone!

Jack killed so he could have a specimen to work on. It appears that Torso man killed so he could take bodies apart.

How is that not being having a specimen to work on in the Torso killers case....?

More pertinently, you still haven't answered the question that led on the thread: Is it not the logical thing to do to work from the assumption that a killer who we know has eviscerated and taken out organs from one victim also lies behind the lack of organs in the other victims? THAT is what this thread is about.

[Michael W Richards]

I know that you are intent on finding anything that is similar to Canonical murders in these Torso murders Fisherman, but theoretical observations won't negate the obvious differences. Some of which may be critical to the killers MO. I contend that the evidence alone, without presumptions, suggests that Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman were killed by the same man in the same manner, and that he ultimately sought to mutilate the female abdomen. The killing isn't the only goal, the PM stuff is also. I think in the case of the Torso's, the killing is secondary to the dismemberments, but we have to consider that the killer killed the Torso women indoors in all likelihood. There may have been ritualistic elements there...he may have seduced the women to go somewhere..could be part of his "thrill"..we don't know how long he took to kill anyone of those victims...there may have been torture or rape as part of his thing. All speculative.

If Jack the Ripper can be defined by any murders I suggest that they are Polly and Annie, and they are so very close in Victimology, MO, physical injuries and location, that we can extract some real information about what that killer was about. And the evidence suggests that he met women on the street who were selling their services, let them assume a business transaction, then, when the time feels right, he intended to quickly subdue the women, inflict fatal wounds, then mutilate the abdomens. Without any speculation, that is well supported conclusion. Which may well be fundamentally different motivations from what Torso man sought. In jacks case I think its undeniable that he either didn't realize the risks..due to psychological issues, or he did, and he liked it. I don't see that "thrill" seeker in Torso man, in fact he seemed to prefer the tedious, again, assuming the killing itself wasn't some "thrill" for him.

Jack killed so he could have a specimen to work on. It appears that Torso man killed so he could take bodies apart.

[Fisherman]

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.