The case evidence and its implications

[Fisherman]

Speaking for myself, yes - they're totally different crimes in totally distinct parts of London.

What is "distinct" about the River Wandle, Albert Bridge, Bedford Square, Tottenham Court Road, Regents Canal, Battersea Park and Pinchin Street, Gareth? Does that "distinct" part of town have a name?
And since when are knife murders of prostitutes, involving eviscerations and far-reaching mutilation together with the taking away of abdominal walls in flaps "totally different crimes"?

Isn't the word "totally" something that points to a TOTAL lack of similarities? It is in my world. How about in yours?

D-e-s-p-e-r-a-t-i-o-n. Not a pretty sight.

[John G]

Hi JohnG
are they really radically different sigs, MOs and geographical profiles?

Sig-the sig for me is basically the same for both-post mortem mutilation and cutting up and into a female body, removing both internal and external body parts. secondary motivation/sig is how they were left (shock value, liked hearing about himself, taunting police). no torture, sexual abuse/rape apparent

MO-prostitutes targeted with probable ruse (money for sex and or some kind of work)used in both to get victims were he wanted them so he could murder and mutilate. blows to head and or strangulation to knock out, cut throats to finish off and or bleed out. knife, cutting instruments used. Dumped, or left in public areas, displayed-special meaning to killer in how they were ultimately left.

geographic-same city, within easy walking distance. Pinchin in ripper location. Whitehall in between.

radically different? no I would say the same, or at least very similar.

Hi Abby,

There are some similarities, although I would say they were largely superficial. However, we must all take a position on this-whether there was, say, one or two perpetrators-and I really don't see how anyone can be 100% certain either way.

This is my view. Post mortem mutilation: organs removed in the case of some C5 victims. Torso crimes: pelvic viscera removed from Whitehall victim, which may have resulted in organ removal, we really don't know for sure. Jackson: the cutting of the irregular strips and removal of organs could have been gor ease of disposal-she was 7 months pregnant and would have had a large bump in her stomach, which presumably he cut round. However, in exposing internal organs he was taking a big risk, i.e. they would give off an awful stench!

The taunting of police/shock value I would agree with, particularly as regards Kelly, Whitehall, Jackson and Pinchin Street.

MO: we dont know how the Torso victims were killed. Either way there's a major difference: C5, street slayings, no attempt to prevent identification or to abduct victims. Torso victims: probably abducted or lured to disposal site, all victims decapitated (suggesting a possible differences in sig, but could have been done to hide identification or ease of disposal.

Type of victim: one Torso victim was a prostitute, we dont know who the others were. JtR may jave targeted prostitutes but, of course, some dispute this.

Dumped or left in public areas. I think this relates to creating shock value, or a sense of theatre, as discussed above so, yes, similarities there.

Geographical profile. Big difference in my opinion. JtR targeting victims over an incredibly small area, around one square mile. And this doesn't change even when hundreds of extra officers are drafted in, and with a local community on high alert. Strongly suggests that he doesn't have transport, and is psychologically restrained by narrow boundaries.

Torso, operating over a much wider area, only obe victim left in Whitechapel, and she may have been abducted elsewhere. Jackson, the only victim identified, had been living rough on the embankment, no association to Whitechapel/Spitalfields. Psychologically no where near as restrained as to range, almost certainly had transport.

[Sam Flynn]

Geographical profile. Big difference in my opinion. JtR targeting victims over an incredibly small area, around one square mile. And this doesn't change even when hundreds of extra officers are drafted in, and with a local community on high alert. Strongly suggests that he doesn't have transport, and is psychologically restrained by narrow boundaries.

Exactly, to which I'd add "practically constrained", which suggests that the Ripper had to live within a similar small radius to his crimes in order to (a) find a suitable victim and (b) get back to safety in as short a time as possible. Another practical constraint is perhaps revealed in that the Ripper seems to have been compelled to kill off-base, either on the street or in a victim's room. If he'd had his own premises, he could have lured his victims inside and performed his elaborate "dissections" at zero or very little risk, but he didn't.

Torso, operating over a much wider area, only one victim left in Whitechapel, and she may have been abducted elsewhere.

Alternatively, and more likely in my view, she was local to the East End and killed by a different person(s) entirely. It beats me why a practised torso killer should have left the arms attached when in all other cases the arms were removed.

[Fisherman]

Hi Abby,

There are some similarities, although I would say they were largely superficial. However, we must all take a position on this-whether there was, say, one or two perpetrators-and I really don't see how anyone can be 100% certain either way.

This is my view. Post mortem mutilation: organs removed in the case of some C5 victims. Torso crimes: pelvic viscera removed from Whitehall victim, which may have resulted in organ removal, we really don't know for sure. Jackson: the cutting of the irregular strips and removal of organs could have been gor ease of disposal-she was 7 months pregnant and would have had a large bump in her stomach, which presumably he cut round. However, in exposing internal organs he was taking a big risk, i.e. they would give off an awful stench!

The taunting of police/shock value I would agree with, particularly as regards Kelly, Whitehall, Jackson and Pinchin Street.

MO: we dont know how the Torso victims were killed. Either way there's a major difference: C5, street slayings, no attempt to prevent identification or to abduct victims. Torso victims: probably abducted or lured to disposal site, all victims decapitated (suggesting a possible differences in sig, but could have been done to hide identification or ease of disposal.

Type of victim: one Torso victim was a prostitute, we dont know who the others were. JtR may jave targeted prostitutes but, of course, some dispute this.

Dumped or left in public areas. I think this relates to creating shock value, or a sense of theatre, as discussed above so, yes, similarities there.

Geographical profile. Big difference in my opinion. JtR targeting victims over an incredibly small area, around one square mile. And this doesn't change even when hundreds of extra officers are drafted in, and with a local community on high alert. Strongly suggests that he doesn't have transport, and is psychologically restrained by narrow boundaries.

Torso, operating over a much wider area, only obe victim left in Whitechapel, and she may have been abducted elsewhere. Jackson, the only victim identified, had been living rough on the embankment, no association to Whitechapel/Spitalfields. Psychologically no where near as restrained as to range, almost certainly had transport.

To me, once we don't know where the torso victims were found by the killer, I reason like this:

If there are no similarities inbetween the two series in terms of damage done to the victims, victimology, etcetera, then the two series are - strange as it may sound since serial murder is uncommon - likely to unconnected.

If there ARE similarities in terms of damage done to the victim, victimology etcetera, then the chances of a common. originator raises. What will thereafter be the deciding point is to what degree there are similarities and to what degree these similarities in themselves are uncommon. A stab to the stomach is not uncommon, but taken out organs and cut away abdominal flaps are very, very rare occurrences.

After that, there really is no case any longer in my world, John. I fail to see how the investigative work can be done in any other way, just as I fail to see how it can be reasoned that so many and so peculiar illusions can be brushed aside in favour of thinking that the murders may have been perpetrated in different parts of the city. Its a "may" against a certainty, and a "may" that is in itself not even decisive. There was always the possibility of a killer having two separate areas where he is active, be that his home, his working place, his old haunts, his favorite prostitution grounds or anything else.

I cannot get my head around how you prioritize, quite simply.

[Fisherman]

Exactly, to which I'd add "practically constrained", which suggests that the Ripper had to live within a similar small radius to his crimes in order to (a) find a suitable victim and (b) get back to safety in as short a time as possible. Another practical constraint is perhaps revealed in that the Ripper seems to have been compelled to kill off-base, either on the street or in a victim's room. If he'd had his own premises, he could have lured his victims inside and performed his elaborate "dissections" at zero or very little risk, but he didn't.
Alternatively, and more likely in my view, she was local to the East End and killed by a different person(s) entirely. It beats me why a practised torso killer should have left the arms attached when in all other cases the arms were removed.

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...

[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

[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.

[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

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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]

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.