The case evidence and its implications

[FrankO]

Three sections, Frank, in the Rainham case, one of which (the shoulder section) was never found. Jackson and Rainham are the same in this respect, three torso sections.

I know it were 3 sections in the Rainham case, Christer, but I was a bit too quick and it wasn't important to the point I was trying to make.

I agree fully that we should not work from the assumption that anything at all was cut out from the Whitehall victim, although our knowledge that this WAS done in the Jackson case and quite possibly in the Rainham case too means that we should be open for the possibility that it took place in the Whitehall case too.

I am certainly open to that possibility, but as I wrote to John, I just don't think it's a probability based on the facts.

All the best,
Frank

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Trevor. Yesterdays news, I'm afraid. We all know that similarities inbetween dismemberment cuts are quite useful in offering clues to the cutter. Biggs was humble enough to admit that dismemberment was not his area, and if he had only seen passive dismemberment, it is quite likely that it looked equally messy in all cases. However, even in these cases, it can be determined whether the cutter was likely to be left- or right-handed, whether he cut swiftly or hesitatingly, whether he had to use more than one cut to reach the desired depth or made it in one and so on.
The similarity can, in other words, be only superficial, a very useful word, used correctly. More on that in a later post.

It goes without saying, but I said it anyway. Be my guest.

Well Dr Biggs has dealt with such cases, and he is the medical expert, how many cases have you dealt with?

If you want to disregard what he says, equally now we must now totally disregard all the crap you keep coming out with on the same topic. Because at the end of the day he is the expert, and you know diddly squat about the topic, other than what you have made up to suit your misguided belief

There is no way to determine whether the cutter was left or right handed, another point Dr Biggs makes so you are wrong again on that point.

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[FrankO]

The problem is: why detach the pelvic viscera at all? I have cited Rutty to the effect that this isn't how a body is normally dismembered. And for a defensive dismemberer it wouldn't make sense, i.e. becuse of the consequences of exposing the internal organs.

I'm not questioning your point about offensive dismembering, John. My point is just that it isn't probable that the pelvic section in the Whitehall case was emptied of the uterus and other viscera, because in the Rainham case, the pelvic section was found to still contain the uterus and other organs. In one case the uterus was cut out (Jackson) and in one case it was not (Rainham). So, it doesn't particularly follow that the uterus and, possibly, other viscera were cut out from the pelvic section of the Whitehall victim.

All the best,
Frank

[Fisherman]

Digressing slightly. Do you accept that if Dr Llewellyns estimated time of death of Nichols is wrong then Lechmere could not have killed her ?

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I am the generous type. I even admit that if Nichols had been killed in Blackpool, Lechmere couldn't have been the killer.

As for Llewellyn, there were a number of different verdicts he could have given that would nevertheless have allowed for Lechmere to be the killer. But yes, if we were to know that Nichols had been dead for an hour or two as Lechmere passed by, then he is totally unlikely to be the killer.

Then again, why would we think that Llewellyn must have been wrong...? Regardless if he was totally useless at gauging TOD:s (and let's admit that we don't know, not you and not me), he could be right anyway. it is an undeterminable factor.

What we do have, though, is Neil and Mizen witnessing about how Nichols bled many minutes after the carmen were with her, and that is more than enough to make the suggestion of Lechmere as the killer a suggestion that is in line with the evidence.

[Trevor Marriott]

"Chicken" is a term that makes me think of posters who do not answer questions, not of dismemberment.

Digressing slightly. Do you accept that if Dr Llewellyns estimated time of death of Nichols is wrong then Lechmere could not have killed her ?

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fisherman]

Time to look at a phrasing that has become prevalent out here. I quote from John G:s post, but I could just as well have quoted from Gareth posts, since I think he was the one w2ho introduced the term I speak of.

"There are some similarities, although I would say they were largely superficial."

"Superficial". it is a term that describes when something has an appearance ON THE SURFACE that is no longer there when we look deeper.

It is now said that the similarities of the two murder series we look at are superficial only.

Now, the crux of this matter is that to be able to determine this, we must be able to check in depth whether the similarities were real similarities; were the uteri cut out in the same way, were the abdominal flaps taken away with the same kind of cutting, did the flaps resemble one another, were the hearts taken out from under the ribcage in all instances, the way we know it was in the Kelly case, were the attachments severed in the same way, did the abdominal openings resemble each other...

Actually, in all of these cases, we can only give one truthful answer: We don't know.

This is why I would like to know how on earth we can know that these similarities were "superficial". If we do not know what they looked like, how can we say that they were not REAL in-depth similarities?

Or is this a case of people thinking that they were probably only superficial similarities since they came about at the hands of different men? That would be disastrous, since the whole idea is to let the similarities help us in our decisions on that topic.

In conclusion, I would say that anybody who claims to know that the similarities were superficial only is not keeping to the facts. Ergo, it should not be led on that there is any such knowledge. And once we do not have any proven superficiality, we are left with the one fact that these killers did the same things to their victims, end of story.

[Fisherman]

Hi Abby,

Seeing that he also divided the Rainham torso into 2 sections and left the uterus & other pelvic viscera in place in the pelvic section, I don't see why it would seem probable that he cut them out in the case of the Whitehall victim.

All the best,
Frank

Three sections, Frank, in the Rainham case, one of which (the shoulder section) was never found. Jackson and Rainham are the same in this respect, three torso sections.
I agree fully that we should not work from the assumption that anything at all was cut out from the Whitehall victim, although our knowledge that this WAS done in the Jackson case and quite possibly in the Rainham case too means that we should be open for the possibility that it took place in the Whitehall case too.

[Fisherman]

Combining those points, concluding that apparent similarities between the torsos must point to the same perpetrator is a bit like examining chicken carcasses at a rubbish dump and concluding that there is only one chicken-eater in town, just because the way in which the chickens had been disassembled was so similar.

The rest of your post was also excellent, Trevor. Thanks.

"Chicken" is a term that makes me think of posters who do not answer questions, not of dismemberment.

[Fisherman]

May I remind you again of what Dr Biggs stated having reviewed in detail the medical evidence you seek to rely on, and what he says that it is not possible to determine that all the torsos were dismembered by the same person

"A person who is faced with a body to dispose of will often attempt to 'chop it up', either to make it easier to hide, easier to transport or easier to 'get rid of' in some way. What is quite striking is that even individuals with no prior knowledge will often end up doing a job that will look remarkably similar (in appearance afterwards) to that of another, completely unrelated case. It is not the presence of a common killer that is responsible for the similarities between cases, but the fact that bodies tend to have fairly obvious 'joins' to go for when attempting to reduce the size / bulk of a body"

Put simply, the pattern of removing the head and limbs from the torso +/- splitting the torso in half seems to be fairly 'normal' in cases of dismemberment. The handful of dismemberment cases that I have personally dealt with in my short career so far have all ended up looking fairly similar, but I would never have tried to claim that this represented some sort of common link between cases.

The question about disarticulation of joints versus sawing of bone raises an interesting point that I’m afraid I can’t answer conclusively one way or the other. That is to say that often the dismemberment is done by someone without prior knowledge, experience or planning, who begins trying to saw and then realises it is quite difficult in reality… and that simply cutting through the joints turns out to be a much quicker, easier way of doing things. This change of tack can arise quite intuitively during the process, so we often see several abortive attempts at sawing through bone, followed by successful disarticulation by cutting through joints.

These days, power tools make it much easier to go through the bone itself, but ‘back in the day’ I suspect they would have had only hand saws / knives available. A failed attempt at sawing, followed by disarticulation, would tend to imply naivety on the part of the dismemberer, as anyone with medical / abattoir / butchery experience would ‘probably’ go straight for the simpler solution.

However, a lack of initial sawing doesn’t automatically indicate prior knowledge, as it could simply indicate that no saw was available to begin with and that the perpetrator just used what they had to hand (or they just got lucky first time with their chosen strategy). So to sum up, these days we see a mix of dismemberment by sawing and direct disarticulation of joints (the sawing often involves some sort of power tool or similar), but we can make no assumptions about the knowledge (or otherwise) of the perpetrator based on their technique.

However, a lack of initial sawing doesn’t automatically indicate prior knowledge, as it could simply indicate that no saw was available to begin with and that the perpetrator just used what they had to hand (or they just got lucky first time with their chosen strategy). So to sum up, these days we see a mix of dismemberment by sawing and direct disarticulation of joints (the sawing often involves some sort of power tool or similar), but we can make no assumptions about the knowledge (or otherwise) of the perpetrator based on their technique.

Similarly, most cases of true ‘dismemberment’ are for the purposes of making bodies easier to store, transport and dispose of rather than being representative of a desire to cut for cutting’s sake. There may be deliberate disfigurement or destruction of features, but this is usually an attempt to make successful identification difficult. There are people out there who like to cut ‘for fun’ (whether before or after death), but these tend to be recognisable as acts of true ‘mutilation’ rather than ‘dismemberment’. The two scenarios can of course co-exist within the same body, making things tricky to interpret!

Another observation that is usually quoted in historical cases is that the 'quality' of the dismemberment somehow points towards a skilled individual. Whether this is medical / surgical / anatomical knowledge, or just prior experience of butchery / abattoir work varies, but the observation is often cited. I can see how it is tempting to jump to this conclusion, but I have to say that I would usually regard the quality of dissection as an indicator of a lack of prior knowledge or experience! Anyone who has taken the legs off a roast chicken can probably work out that the legs will come off a human with the right encouragement...

Because the cuts are not particularly well planned in advance, there are often flaps and strips of skin here and there, with tears in the soft tissue and spurs of broken off bone. The skin often has multiple cuts: cuts that don't 'add' any value to the process of limb removal. They might be interpreted as deliberate 'mutilation', but a simpler explanation is that the person didn't really know what they were doing and just sort of 'went for it'.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Hi Trevor. Yesterdays news, I'm afraid. We all know that similarities inbetween dismemberment cuts are quite useful in offering clues to the cutter. Biggs was humble enough to admit that dismemberment was not his area, and if he had only seen passive dismemberment, it is quite likely that it looked equally messy in all cases. However, even in these cases, it can be determined whether the cutter was likely to be left- or right-handed, whether he cut swiftly or hesitatingly, whether he had to use more than one cut to reach the desired depth or made it in one and so on.
The similarity can, in other words, be only superficial, a very useful word, used correctly. More on that in a later post.

It goes without saying, but I said it anyway. Be my guest.

[John G]

Hi Abby,

Seeing that he also divided the Rainham torso into 2 sections and left the uterus & other pelvic viscera in place in the pelvic section, I don't see why it would seem probable that he cut them out in the case of the Whitehall victim.

All the best,
Frank

The problem is: why detach the pelvic viscera at all? I have cited Rutty to the effect that this isn't how a body is normally dismembered. And for a defensive dismemberer it wouldn't make sense, i.e. becuse of the consequences of exposing the internal organs.

[John G]

Hi John,

• Dr Hebbert examined the arm on 16 September and I think his view was that death of the proprietor of the arm took place 3 to 4 weeks earlier. This would put her death at the latest on or close to 26 August.
• Dr Hebbert wrote that the torso was about 2 months dead, while Dr Bond stated that the date of death would have been 6 weeks to 2 months before. They had examined the torso on 3 October. This would put the victim's death at the latest on or close to 22 August.
• In the case of the leg & foot Dr Hebbert opined that death had taken place 6 weeks to 2 months before the examination, which would put her death at the latest (and as Christer wrote) on (or close) to 5 September.

Summing this up, one might say that the Whitehall victim was murdered, at the latest, between 22 August and 5 September, with the balance perhaps a little more towards the 22nd of August. This would fit in nicely with the piece of newspaper of 24 August found where the torso had lain. If the body was not stored, it means that the arm just wasn't found for 6 days at least, quite possibly more, and that the torso just wasn't found for 26 days at least. One can make of this what one wants.

All the best,
Frank

Hi Frank,

I haven't got the details to hand, but I believe the workmen said that if the torso had been there the day before they would have noticed it.

[FrankO]

did the killer remove the uterus/pelvic viscera from the lower part of the torso? we dont know for sure, but seeing is he took the trouble to separate the torso into two sections, the lower part containing the pelvic viscera never found, that torso man did remove the uterus from at least one victim and maybe another, than IMHO it seems he probably did remove the uterus and pelvic viscera from that lower half of the torso.

Hi Abby,

Seeing that he also divided the Rainham torso into 2 sections and left the uterus & other pelvic viscera in place in the pelvic section, I don't see why it would seem probable that he cut them out in the case of the Whitehall victim.

All the best,
Frank

[FrankO]

Except Dr Hebbert doesn't say what he based the date of death on. He simply says, "The date of death was from. 6 weeks to two months previously."

Hi John,

• Dr Hebbert examined the arm on 16 September and I think his view was that death of the proprietor of the arm took place 3 to 4 weeks earlier. This would put her death at the latest on or close to 26 August.
• Dr Hebbert wrote that the torso was about 2 months dead, while Dr Bond stated that the date of death would have been 6 weeks to 2 months before. They had examined the torso on 3 October. This would put the victim's death at the latest on or close to 22 August.
• In the case of the leg & foot Dr Hebbert opined that death had taken place 6 weeks to 2 months before the examination, which would put her death at the latest (and as Christer wrote) on (or close) to 5 September.

Summing this up, one might say that the Whitehall victim was murdered, at the latest, between 22 August and 5 September, with the balance perhaps a little more towards the 22nd of August. This would fit in nicely with the piece of newspaper of 24 August found where the torso had lain. If the body was not stored, it means that the arm just wasn't found for 6 days at least, quite possibly more, and that the torso just wasn't found for 26 days at least. One can make of this what one wants.

All the best,
Frank

[Sam Flynn]

Dr Biggs: "What is quite striking is that even individuals with no prior knowledge will often end up doing a job that will look remarkably similar... It is not the presence of a common killer that is responsible for the similarities between cases, but the fact that bodies tend to have fairly obvious 'joins' to go for"

Anyone who has taken the legs off a roast chicken can probably work out that the legs will come off a human with the right encouragement...

Combining those points, concluding that apparent similarities between the torsos must point to the same perpetrator is a bit like examining chicken carcasses at a rubbish dump and concluding that there is only one chicken-eater in town, just because the way in which the chickens had been disassembled was so similar.

The rest of your post was also excellent, Trevor. Thanks.

[Trevor Marriott]

What about the leg left on the 1874 victim, then? Does that rule HER out?

Whys does not the separation of the torsos in three pieces separate Jackson and Rainham out from the other?

Why does not the slant cut on the 1873 torso separate her from the others?

Why does not the foot left on the Whitehall victims leg separate her from the others?

Why does not the sawed off limbs in the 1873 case separate her from the others?

What is it with the arms that immediately tell us that the killer of the Pinchin Street victim was probably another one than in the other cases? Wherein lies the magic? And why was not Hebbert told about it, so that he didn't get things so wrong?

Come to think of it, this may well be the one and only time your thinking has been hands-on for some while...

May I remind you again of what Dr Biggs stated having reviewed in detail the medical evidence you seek to rely on, and what he says that it is not possible to determine that all the torsos were dismembered by the same person

"A person who is faced with a body to dispose of will often attempt to 'chop it up', either to make it easier to hide, easier to transport or easier to 'get rid of' in some way. What is quite striking is that even individuals with no prior knowledge will often end up doing a job that will look remarkably similar (in appearance afterwards) to that of another, completely unrelated case. It is not the presence of a common killer that is responsible for the similarities between cases, but the fact that bodies tend to have fairly obvious 'joins' to go for when attempting to reduce the size / bulk of a body"

Put simply, the pattern of removing the head and limbs from the torso +/- splitting the torso in half seems to be fairly 'normal' in cases of dismemberment. The handful of dismemberment cases that I have personally dealt with in my short career so far have all ended up looking fairly similar, but I would never have tried to claim that this represented some sort of common link between cases.

The question about disarticulation of joints versus sawing of bone raises an interesting point that I’m afraid I can’t answer conclusively one way or the other. That is to say that often the dismemberment is done by someone without prior knowledge, experience or planning, who begins trying to saw and then realises it is quite difficult in reality… and that simply cutting through the joints turns out to be a much quicker, easier way of doing things. This change of tack can arise quite intuitively during the process, so we often see several abortive attempts at sawing through bone, followed by successful disarticulation by cutting through joints.

These days, power tools make it much easier to go through the bone itself, but ‘back in the day’ I suspect they would have had only hand saws / knives available. A failed attempt at sawing, followed by disarticulation, would tend to imply naivety on the part of the dismemberer, as anyone with medical / abattoir / butchery experience would ‘probably’ go straight for the simpler solution.

However, a lack of initial sawing doesn’t automatically indicate prior knowledge, as it could simply indicate that no saw was available to begin with and that the perpetrator just used what they had to hand (or they just got lucky first time with their chosen strategy). So to sum up, these days we see a mix of dismemberment by sawing and direct disarticulation of joints (the sawing often involves some sort of power tool or similar), but we can make no assumptions about the knowledge (or otherwise) of the perpetrator based on their technique.

However, a lack of initial sawing doesn’t automatically indicate prior knowledge, as it could simply indicate that no saw was available to begin with and that the perpetrator just used what they had to hand (or they just got lucky first time with their chosen strategy). So to sum up, these days we see a mix of dismemberment by sawing and direct disarticulation of joints (the sawing often involves some sort of power tool or similar), but we can make no assumptions about the knowledge (or otherwise) of the perpetrator based on their technique.

Similarly, most cases of true ‘dismemberment’ are for the purposes of making bodies easier to store, transport and dispose of rather than being representative of a desire to cut for cutting’s sake. There may be deliberate disfigurement or destruction of features, but this is usually an attempt to make successful identification difficult. There are people out there who like to cut ‘for fun’ (whether before or after death), but these tend to be recognisable as acts of true ‘mutilation’ rather than ‘dismemberment’. The two scenarios can of course co-exist within the same body, making things tricky to interpret!

Another observation that is usually quoted in historical cases is that the 'quality' of the dismemberment somehow points towards a skilled individual. Whether this is medical / surgical / anatomical knowledge, or just prior experience of butchery / abattoir work varies, but the observation is often cited. I can see how it is tempting to jump to this conclusion, but I have to say that I would usually regard the quality of dissection as an indicator of a lack of prior knowledge or experience! Anyone who has taken the legs off a roast chicken can probably work out that the legs will come off a human with the right encouragement...

Because the cuts are not particularly well planned in advance, there are often flaps and strips of skin here and there, with tears in the soft tissue and spurs of broken off bone. The skin often has multiple cuts: cuts that don't 'add' any value to the process of limb removal. They might be interpreted as deliberate 'mutilation', but a simpler explanation is that the person didn't really know what they were doing and just sort of 'went for it'.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk