Pinchin Street Torso - who did it?

[Abby Normal]

it almost looks like its the bottom section of something like bloomers? because it also looks like fabric above it.
i have no clue what it is or why its there. i had always just assumed it was a garter or something.

[Fisherman]

Perhaps because the skin and subcutaneous fat is thinner at the front, thus easier to indent than the calf. The calf is muscular and its skin is more elastic, both of which would offer slightly more resistance to a comparatively loosely tied "garter".

Whatever it was, it's not a tourniquet. For one thing, it's perfectly placed to encircle the leg just at the point where you'd expect a "pop sock" would need holding up, i.e. just below the knee joint. For another, I see no reason at all why a mutilator would (a) want to apply a tourniquet in the first place; and (b) if he did - for some bizarre reason - why he should put it there.

Re (a), there was blood absolutely everywhere, so applying a tourniquet to the leg would have been utterly pointless.

Are you aware of how many "pointless" things post mortem mutilators do to their victims...? Plus the suggestion is not that it is a tourniquet, but instead the marks after a tourniquet/ligature.

[Fisherman]

If it is something tied round her leg, it's not uniformly tight. There appears to be most indentation in the skin at the front on the bony shin area, and none at all at the back in the softer calf area. Which is the opposite to the way a garter or tourniquet would work. Strange.
The only thing I can think of is that the string (or whatever) is tying her leg down to the bed?

I think that if what we are looking at is a ligature, then it is the indentation marks from it and not the ligature itself. There are pictures of ligature marks that are very close to what we see here, with marks running at a ninety degree angle to the circular ligature mark itself. Look, for example, at these pictures:

https://www.documentingreality.com/forum/f149/front-ligature-mark-107986/

https://www.documentingreality.com/forum/attachments/f10/178052d1275787359-suicidal-hangings-charonboat_dot_com_ligature_mark_hanging2.jpg

and figure 2 in this link:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/45e0/e55b1e1e61d8992a7deaabbaa3f2931a6471.pdf

... and you may see what I am talking about. These marks were probably made by thicker rope than the kind of string that seems more consistent with the circle around Marys leg, since they depict hanging ligature marks, but overall, they are not very far from what we see in the Kelly pic.

[Sam Flynn]

There appears to be most indentation in the skin at the front on the bony shin area, and none at all at the back in the softer calf area.

Perhaps because the skin and subcutaneous fat is thinner at the front, thus easier to indent than the calf. The calf is muscular and its skin is more elastic, both of which would offer slightly more resistance to a comparatively loosely tied "garter".

Whatever it was, it's not a tourniquet. For one thing, it's perfectly placed to encircle the leg just at the point where you'd expect a "pop sock" would need holding up, i.e. just below the knee joint. For another, I see no reason at all why a mutilator would (a) want to apply a tourniquet in the first place; and (b) if he did - for some bizarre reason - why he should put it there.

Re (a), there was blood absolutely everywhere, so applying a tourniquet to the leg would have been utterly pointless.

[Fisherman]

Why would somebody go to the bother of tying a tourniquet round the leg and then take it back off without actually using it for any discernible purpose?

Why would anybody carve out the organs from a body and place them around the eviscerated body in a bed? Because it seems rational to us or because it seems rational enough to the killer?

[Darryl Kenyon]

Why would somebody go to the bother of tying a tourniquet round the leg and then take it back off without actually using it for any discernible purpose?

[Joshua Rogan]

If it is something tied round her leg, it's not uniformly tight. There appears to be most indentation in the skin at the front on the bony shin area, and none at all at the back in the softer calf area. Which is the opposite to the way a garter or tourniquet would work. Strange.
The only thing I can think of is that the string (or whatever) is tying her leg down to the bed?

[Fisherman]

Interesting that the string could be preparation for amputation in a manner similar to the arm.

If indeed it is a string. Certainly looks like it to me, but one has to wonder why no one mentioned it at all.

THAT is the real million dollar question - regardless of what it is. If it was a garter, it should have been mentioned, if it was a string, it should have been mentioned and if it is the mark of a removed ligature, the same applies. Why on earth does Bond leave it out?

In case people want a very clear view of the mark/garter/ligature/lace, hereīs Richards eminent photo enhancement of the Kelly scene:

https://jtr3d.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MaryJaneKelly_Ripper.jpg

[Fisherman]

It's almost certainly a lace/garter designed to hold up a stocking, something like what used to be called (in Britain) a "pop sock", whose tops usually terminate just below the knee. Whilst the leg beneath the lace/garter is indented very slightly, it's not indented anywhere near to the extent that it would have been by a tourniquet.


("Pop Socks")

What Jerry suggested was, I believe, that the tourniquet had been taken off and what we see are the traces of it. I think that sounds quite possible. If you look at the circle in Richards enhanced photo, you will see that the edges are ragged, and not smooth at all. Meaning that if it was a lace/garter, it was extremely worn and on the brink of giving up and snapping. Which it could of course have been. Then again, a wound following a tightened tourniquet would perhaps also look very much like what we see.
There is also the fact that what would be torn strands of fabric if it IS a garter are pointing UPWARDS to the knee - while a garter is taken on from the foot and up, and so any torn strands of the fabric should reasonably point DOWNWARDS.

At any rate, I would be grateful if you did not resort to that "almost certainly" thing again. "The torso killer almost certainly lived in Battersea" and so on. It is a tad disingenuous. To be an "almost certain" lace/garter, it would require a stocking held up by it and preferably a counterpart on the other leg. In such a case, I would have agreed, but as it stands, it has to be a very open issue.

[Sam Flynn]

If the mark on Mary Kellys leg is more of the same, then the same question applies: why put a tourniquet on a lower leg...?

Can anybody come up with any sort of plausible explanation for it? As of now, I canīt.

It's almost certainly a lace/garter designed to hold up a stocking, something like what used to be called (in Britain) a "pop sock", whose tops usually terminate just below the knee. Whilst the leg beneath the lace/garter is indented very slightly, it's not indented anywhere near to the extent that it would have been by a tourniquet.


("Pop Socks")

[Kattrup]

Interesting that the string could be preparation for amputation in a manner similar to the arm.

If indeed it is a string. Certainly looks like it to me, but one has to wonder why no one mentioned it at all.

[Fisherman]

There's a lot of wind blows round these parts...

It can get chilly, true enough...

[Fisherman]

Interesting to see that Torsoripper is leading the poll. Only a small sample size but are the winds of change beginning to blow?

That happened years ago, Harry - but change takes time. I fail to see myself how rationally reasoning people could work from the idea of two killers as the more likely one. Those arriving to ripperology without a heavily laden rucksack will be of the same sentiment, methinks. In with the new, out with the old.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Interesting to see that Torsoripper is leading the poll. Only a small sample size but are the winds of change beginning to blow?

There's a lot of wind blows round these parts...

[Harry D]

Interesting to see that Torsoripper is leading the poll. Only a small sample size but are the winds of change beginning to blow?