The Paris Torso Mystery

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Nor do we know that the Ripper took uteri as ”trophies”, I ´t is one interpretation of a number of interpretations.

Since you seem to think you know these things ...

We cannot reason like you do ...

It is quite obvious that the Whitechapel Murderer took internal organs from his victims as trophies.

It is not a matter of interpretation.

The rest of your comments quoted above are remarks of a personal nature.

I suggest that they are uncalled for.

[Charlie]

If one tries for just a moment to put oneself in the shoes of a killer tasked with disposing of a victim's body, it seems obvious that the simplest option is to bury the body somewhere (a forest, a garden...) or to toss it into the river to let it decompose there.

Of course, if one lives in a metropolis like London or Paris, venturing into the streets with a corpse proves exceedingly risky, especially in an era where the carriage was one of the few means of transportation. Hence the temptation to dismember the corpse into pieces, which would be easier to transport discreetly.

But even after the dismemberment, it remains that, if one is solely driven by fear of the police and the courts, the pieces will have to be either buried or thrown into the river (once weighted to ensure that the pieces will sink into the depths).

By proceeding as he did, it seems evident that the Torso Killer wanted the limbs to be found. Moreover, if, as is believed, he had organized himself to have a place for dismemberment, it would have been quite easy for him to locate this "cutting workshop" above the river, near a quay, to discreetly drop the weighted pieces into the water.

The same goes for the Paris Torso Killer. Dispersing packages in public urinals (twice) and along an urban railway track (once) near which, due to a tunnel collapse the night before, street cleaners and police officers were patrolling, is a sign of a desire to "show" the horror of his crime.

One could argue that, since there is a recurrence in the act of dismemberment, the murderer was primarily driven by the sadistic pleasure of dismemberment. However, I can cite the case of Victor Prévost, a policeman at the time of his two murders (1876 and 1879), but who had previously worked as a butcher (hence his nickname "The La Chapelle Butcher"). Prévost was judged and sentenced to death. During the trial, it was demonstrated that his crimes were primarily motivated by the lure of gain: his first victim was his own mistress to whom an old man in her care had just bequeathed 30,000 francs, his second victim was a jewelry broker whom he had asked to visit him with a sample of his finest goods. In both cases, Victor Prévost scattered the body parts in the sewers and buried the head in the embankment of the fortifications. There was no impulse in him to ensure exposing the relics of his crime to everyone. His sole and only concern was to make the traces disappear.

[Charlie]

another hint whether the torsoman was a defensive or offensive dismemberer is to see how he disposed of the parts. I dont think a totally defensive dismemberer is going to be leaving parts strewn about in public, a part thrown into the backyard of the shelley estate, a head left in public on tje sidewalk in front of a heavily guarded building, torso left in the street, a torso left in the basement of new scotland yard, body parts thrown in and continued to be thrown in tje river when the the parts are being found. torsoman may have wanted to hide the identity of the victims, but he most certainly was NOT trying to hide the parts. its bleeding obvious something more is going on here than a defensive dismemberer.

Completely agree

If one tries for just a moment to put oneself in the shoes of a killer tasked with disposing of a victim's body, it seems obvious that the simplest option is to bury the body somewhere (a forest, a garden...) or to toss it into the river to let it decompose there.

Of course, if one lives in a metropolis like London or Paris, venturing into the streets with a corpse proves exceedingly risky, especially in an era where the carriage was one of the few means of transportation. Hence the temptation to dismember the corpse into pieces, which would be easier to transport discreetly.

But even after the dismemberment, it remains that, if one is solely driven by fear of the police and the courts, the pieces will have to be either buried or thrown into the river (once weighted to ensure that the pieces will sink into the depths).

By proceeding as he did, it seems evident that the Torso Killer wanted the limbs to be found. Moreover, if, as is believed, he had organized himself to have a place for dismemberment, it would have been quite easy for him to locate this "cutting workshop" above the river, near a quay, to discreetly drop the weighted pieces into the water.

The same goes for the Paris Torso Killer. Dispersing packages in public urinals (twice) and along an urban railway track (once) near which, due to a tunnel collapse the night before, street cleaners and police officers were patrolling, is a sign of a desire to "show" the horror of his crime.

One could argue that, since there is a recurrence in the act of dismemberment, the murderer was primarily driven by the sadistic pleasure of dismemberment. However, I can cite the case of Victor Prévost, a policeman at the time of his two murders (1876 and 1879), but who had previously worked as a butcher (hence his nickname "The La Chapelle Butcher"). Prévost was judged and sentenced to death. During the trial, it was demonstrated that his crimes were primarily motivated by the lure of gain: his first victim was his own mistress to whom an old man in her care had just bequeathed 30,000 francs, his second victim was a jewelry broker whom he had asked to visit him with a sample of his finest goods. In both cases, Victor Prévost scattered the body parts in the sewers and buried the head in the embankment of the fortifications. There was no impulse in him to ensure exposing the relics of his crime to everyone. His sole and only concern was to make the traces disappear.

[Charlie]

Sorry for the duplicate.

[The Rookie Detective]

The Thames Torso killer dumped one of his victims smack bang in the middle of Ripper territory. That carries huge weight when discussing a connection between the series.

Agreed. This fact alone justifies the validity of discussing a connection between the cases.

The possible connection stems from the killer deliberately placing the Pinchin St torso in the middle of Ripper territory, underneath a recently constructed railway arch situated directly next to the Board of Works (Stone breaking yard) that George Lusk had worked for previously as a builder, and choosing to time his placing of the torso, on the beat of a policeman who had had his beat swapped at the last minute.

And let's also not forget the man who appeared to predict the dumping of the Pinchin St torso; BEFORE the torso was even placed at the same location.


RD

[Fiver]

1. The victims of the torso killer had moles and scars left on the body parts that were found, some of them in water, some on dry land. Therefore, the killer had not taken all the necessary precautions to obscure the identities of his victims, and sure enough, this was how Liz Jackson was identified.

No victims were identified by moles. One victim was identified by a scar. That identification might have been wrong - not all of Elizabeth Jackson's family thought the body was hers. The other three were never identified because the heads were never found.

2. The killer apparently did not throw body parts in the Thames with the intention of hiding what he had done. Instead, just about all the parts thrown in the river floated ashore. There were four victims in the canonical tally, and so even if the killer somehow thought that they would not float ashore but instead sink, he would find out that they did not do so. Regardless of this, he carried on. A reasonable conclusion was that he intended for the parts to be found. No effort was made in any case to weigh the parts down. And why put parts on land if he thought that throwing them in the river made them disappear?

No one has claimed the Torsoman was trying to hide what he had done. But the evidence strongly indicates that the Torsoman wanted to hide his victims' identities.

Your claim that "just about all the parts thrown in the river floated ashore" serves only to illustrate your ignorance. The second victim was found because part washed ashore, but most of the remains were found in obscure places on land or even buried. The first and third victims were found because people fished bundles out of the water. The fourth was found in the Pinchin Street railroad archway. Some parts were buried, some abandoned in less visible spots on land, many were found floating in rivers or canals, and a few washed ashore.

3. The main disposal method of the parts was to chuck them in the river. If he did the same to the heads, they would sink. That would not mean that it must have been about hiding identities, only that the heads did not float.

Body parts do initially sink, but they rise to the surface as they decompose. That includes human heads. One was found in the Colorado River in 1982. One was found in the Arizona Canal in 1992. One was found in the Everglades in 2007. One was found in the Mutha River in 2016. One was found in the Merrimack River in 2016.
One was found in the Tamsui River in 2020.

The commonest reason for dismemberment murders is a wish to hide what has been done, or a wish to hide an identity. In such cases, however, there are no eviscerations and no bellies cut open from sternum to groin. Nor are name-marked clothes left on the body of the victims, and scars, tattoos and moles are typically cut away if there is an intention to hide the identity. Nowadays, the hands or fingers are also removed to disenable finger printing. That was not a problem back in 1887-89, though.

The simplest way of ensuring a victim wasn't identified was to remove the head. None of the victims was identified by moles or tattoos and flaying these parts off would only draw attention to those parts, and be additional effort for very little return. Only one victim was identified by a scar, Elizabeth Jackson. She was wrapped in a garment labelled 'L E Fisher", so either the Jackson identification was wrong, or the murderer used that garment to try to hide the victim's identity.

A killer failing to successfully hide the identity of one victim is not proof that the killer did not try to hide their identities.

[Fleetwood Mac]

I will again refer to the study ("by qualified people") showing that "profilers" had identified "rituals" and "signatures" from crime scenes that were not related.

Caution is advised.

I reckon caution extends both ways.

There was a case in the United States I was reading about, 'not sure on the year but reading the article I was left with the impression that it was at a time when M.O. and signature advocates were in their heyday, so maybe 1990s/2000s. Anyway, the serial murderer undertook bizarre ritualistic behaviour, even by serial killer standards, but M.O. and signature advocates could not agree on whether the crimes were linked (as a result of differing ritualistic behaviour from crime to crime); to the point that at least one such commentator was called by the defence to testify that these crimes weren't the serial work of the defendant. The defendant was found guilty as a result of other evidence.

So, aye, that's only case, and one swallow doesn't make a summer; but it is an example of how such rigid views can be dangerous.

On the other hand, I seem to remember you labelling it 'quackery' or at least citing somebody else who labelled it 'quackery'. Caution should be exercised in relation to that view also. As ever, when you have two polar opposite inflexible views at the extreme ends of a spectrum, the answer lies somewhere in between.

I'm not sure which study you're talking about, but I posted a study which I think was published in an American journal, 'can't remember now. They looked at the actions of various serial killers and concluded that they display highly complex behaviour at crime scenes, the behaviour from crime to crime is not always consistent and they experiment within a crime series; that experimentation can happen anywhere within the crime series, they may experiment only once or several times.

But, they concluded that serial killers do display ritualistic behaviour and that ritualistic behaviour does at times follow a discernible pattern, although not consistent in every crime in a series.

The idea of a rigid M.O. is outdated also. M.O. is beholden to situational and contextual factors which has an obvious inference.

Take a look at the Yorkshire Ripper, probably the closest serial killer to the conventional WM in this country. You would not find a consistent M.O. and signature in his crime series. In fact, had he not been caught, it would be a free-for-all guessing game as to how many crimes were at his hand, much more so than the WM and you'd have a range of anywhere between 5 and 40.

Anyway, I did the say that 'the hand on the gash' was speculation and in the end I agree that a headless, legless body lying face down can't tell us anything about ritualistic behaviour.

I suppose what all of this means for the WM and TM, is that the 'removal of limbs' equates to can't be the same person argument, is short-sighted; particularly as other studies/research conclude that the WM's acts of extreme violence are closely related to the removal of limbs and they're underpinned by the same psychology.

And, in terms of the conventional WM, five victims would seem to be an underestimation, given that those five are deemed to follow a discernible pattern while research concludes that there will be others that do not conform to that discernible pattern.

[Fisherman]

It is quite obvious that the Whitechapel Murderer took internal organs from his victims as trophies.

It is not a matter of interpretation.

The rest of your comments quoted above are remarks of a personal nature.

I suggest that they are uncalled for.

No, it is NOT "quite obvious" that the Whitechapel killer took internal organs as trophies at all. When we cannot know, we can never speak of something being "quite obvious". Andrei Chikatilo cut out uteri and used them as chewing gum, for example.

You need to cut down on your "quite obvious´es". It is and remains a useful SUGGESTION that he took organs as trophies, but we cannot say to whatbdegree it must be true, on account of how we do not know how the killers mind worked.

What we need also look at in this context is how this killer cut out an abundance of potential "trophies" from the body of Mary Kelly - and then left all or mot of them as he left. Ergo, we KNOW that he did cut organs out without having any intention of using them as trophies.

[Fisherman]

If one tries for just a moment to put oneself in the shoes of a killer tasked with disposing of a victim's body, it seems obvious that the simplest option is to bury the body somewhere (a forest, a garden...) or to toss it into the river to let it decompose there.

Of course, if one lives in a metropolis like London or Paris, venturing into the streets with a corpse proves exceedingly risky, especially in an era where the carriage was one of the few means of transportation. Hence the temptation to dismember the corpse into pieces, which would be easier to transport discreetly.

But even after the dismemberment, it remains that, if one is solely driven by fear of the police and the courts, the pieces will have to be either buried or thrown into the river (once weighted to ensure that the pieces will sink into the depths).

By proceeding as he did, it seems evident that the Torso Killer wanted the limbs to be found. Moreover, if, as is believed, he had organized himself to have a place for dismemberment, it would have been quite easy for him to locate this "cutting workshop" above the river, near a quay, to discreetly drop the weighted pieces into the water.

The same goes for the Paris Torso Killer. Dispersing packages in public urinals (twice) and along an urban railway track (once) near which, due to a tunnel collapse the night before, street cleaners and police officers were patrolling, is a sign of a desire to "show" the horror of his crime.

One could argue that, since there is a recurrence in the act of dismemberment, the murderer was primarily driven by the sadistic pleasure of dismemberment. However, I can cite the case of Victor Prévost, a policeman at the time of his two murders (1876 and 1879), but who had previously worked as a butcher (hence his nickname "The La Chapelle Butcher"). Prévost was judged and sentenced to death. During the trial, it was demonstrated that his crimes were primarily motivated by the lure of gain: his first victim was his own mistress to whom an old man in her care had just bequeathed 30,000 francs, his second victim was a jewelry broker whom he had asked to visit him with a sample of his finest goods. In both cases, Victor Prévost scattered the body parts in the sewers and buried the head in the embankment of the fortifications. There was no impulse in him to ensure exposing the relics of his crime to everyone. His sole and only concern was to make the traces disappear.

I totally agree about how the killer wanted his work found and recognized. The one thing I would perhaps take issue with is the assertion that he tried to eliminate identification of the victim by way taking the head off - if that is what you are suggesting. I tend to think that he was the standard type of serial killer in one way, namely that he killed strangers. And I also think that he killed prostitutes, although there are a number of cases where this cannot be proven. The one case where it WAS proven who the woman was, was that of Liz Jackson, a prostitute.

Consequentially, I do not think that he had any reason at all to fear that an identification of a victim would lead the police to his doorstep.

[Fisherman]

No victims were identified by moles. One victim was identified by a scar. That identification might have been wrong - not all of Elizabeth Jackson's family thought the body was hers. The other three were never identified because the heads were never found.

The body was Elizabeths with great certainty. It was n ot only about the scar, it was also about her clothes, a gift that was traced to her. The fact that none of the other victims were identified by body marks was not something the killer could have banked on. He needed luck for it, and he could have avoided the risk. So what younger saying here is not clear to me - that the murders were of a defensive character since the killer guessed correctly about how the police would not identify the victims by way of body marks? If so, Jackson disproves that suggestion.

No one has claimed the Torsoman was trying to hide what he had done. But the evidence strongly indicates that the Torsoman wanted to hide his victims' identities.

Your claim that "just about all the parts thrown in the river floated ashore" serves only to illustrate your ignorance. The second victim was found because part washed ashore, but most of the remains were found in obscure places on land or even buried. The first and third victims were found because people fished bundles out of the water. The fourth was found in the Pinchin Street railroad archway. Some parts were buried, some abandoned in less visible spots on land, many were found floating in rivers or canals, and a few washed ashore.

Ignorance? I wrote that almost all of the parts thrown in the water floated ashore and were found, not that all parts were thrown in the river. You need to read and understand what your fellow posters say, otherwise you could easily give an impression of being rude and illiterate.

Body parts do initially sink, but they rise to the surface as they decompose. That includes human heads. One was found in the Colorado River in 1982. One was found in the Arizona Canal in 1992. One was found in the Everglades in 2007. One was found in the Mutha River in 2016. One was found in the Merrimack River in 2016.
One was found in the Tamsui River in 2020.

It would seem it CAN happen. But I don't think it will or must happen. I can provide numbers of articles where human heads have been found in rivers and lakes, sometimes shortly after a murder but also a long period after it. I think we need to research the matter more thoroughly. As it stands, I believe the heads may have been thrown in the river and sunk. Then again, they may of course also have been kept by the killer, for various reasons of gratification - in which case an aggressive killer becomes even more probable.

The simplest way of ensuring a victim wasn't identified was to remove the head. None of the victims was identified by moles or tattoos and flaying these parts off would only draw attention to those parts, and be additional effort for very little return. Only one victim was identified by a scar, Elizabeth Jackson. She was wrapped in a garment labelled 'L E Fisher", so either the Jackson identification was wrong, or the murderer used that garment to try to hide the victim's identity.

As I remember things, it was established how the clothing had passed into Jacksons possession, I believe by way of gifting it to her.
Yes, a defensive killer is quite likely to remove the head from his victim. But what should an aggressive killer do to make you factor him in? If he wants to take the head off, if it is a desire of his - should he refrain from doing it, so that he is not wrongfully determined to be a likely defensive killer?
It is not about the heads only. Jackson had her uterus carved out together with its appendages and her heart and lungs, after a cut was made all the way down on her. These things and that cut has nothing at all to do with defensive dismemberment. Reasoning like it did would be, well, you know: headless.

A killer failing to successfully hide the identity of one victim is not proof that the killer did not try to hide their identities.

Of course not. And a killer taking a head off a victim in not proof that he did.

[Fiver]

I also find it commendable that Christer has kept to his word and refrained from mentioning the suspect who must not be named...(no, it's not Voldemort!)

Actually, Fisherman argued with jemenges that the suspect should be discussed in the thread.

Fisherman then used jmenges post to try to keep other posters from refuting his theory.

Then after saying he had stopped discussing his suspect, Fisherman continued to insert his suspect into the discussion.

I suspect he will continue to do so in later posts in this thread.

The mutilations of the Torso victims are what gives us an insight into the killer's mindset at the time.

He may (or may not) have intended for his victims to never be IDENTIFIED, but he had every intention of them being DISCOVERED.

And that's the point right there. Not only did he intend for them to be DISCOVERED; Pinchin St and Whitehall Torso PROVE this, he supposedly encroached into the heart of JTR territory by DELIBERATELY dumping a torso in Pinchin St.

No need to be so shouty. Give your caps lock a break.

Parts thrown in the river are clearly parts the killed did not want discovered. Parts that were buried are clearly parts that the killer did not want discovered.

The Pinchin Street Torso could have been a lot easier to find.

"About 25 minutes past 5, I came from the direction of Christian-street to Pinchin-street. I went across the road from the northern side, in the direction of the railway arch, and had no particular reason for so doing. As I was crossing I saw, in the arch, something that appeared to be a bundle. The arch, which was filled with stones belonging to the Whitechapel District Board of Works, led on to a piece of waste ground, on which were three arches abutting onto Pinchin-street. Two of these arches were closed in with fencing to some considerable height. In front of the arch that I first referred to there remained only the uprights of some fencing, which had been taken away. The aThe Ripper also tried and failed to DECAPITATE MORE THAN ONE of his victimsrchway had a large quantity of paving stones in it, and these were piled up. There was also a carriage entrance to the arch from Backchurch-lane. The bundle was, I should say, from four to five yards in the archway, measuring from the pavement. The bundle was near the wall of the arch, on the western side. On going up to it I found that it was a portion of a human body." - PC Pennett.

The torso wasn't lying in the middle of the street. Pennett only noticed the bundle because he crossed from the north side for "no particular reason".

The Ripper also tried and failed to DECAPITATE MORE THAN ONE of his victims
The Ripper also obliterated Kelly's face...in an outrageous attempt for her to NOT BE IDENTIFIED.

So you agree the Torsoman removed heads to prevent identification?

This against shows a stark contrast between the Ripper's inept failed attempts to decapitate and the Torsoman's practiced skill noted by the doctors.

Because BOTH the Ripper and Torso killer MUTILATED, and BOTH ATTEMPTED a degree of DISMEMBERMENT, plus the Pinchin Street Torso dumped on RIPPER stomping ground, plus the mutilations inflicted on Jackson being similar to an already established victim of the Ripper, then the similarities are there.

Near, perhaps, but calling it on the Ripper stomping ground seems a stretch.

There's another possibility you haven't considered. Rather than being the same man, the Torso Killer might have dumped a body near the Ripper's territory in an attempt to pin the Torso killings on the Ripper.

[Fisherman]

Actually, Fisherman argued with jemenges that the suspect should be discussed in the thread.

Fisherman then used jmenges post to try to keep other posters from refuting his theory.

Then after saying he had stopped discussing his suspect, Fisherman continued to insert his suspect into the discussion.

I suspect he will continue to do so in later posts in this thread.

.

That is pretty daft. I have on two occasions told you that Jon Menges requested that we don´t discuss Lechmere on this thread. That is not inserting Lechmere, it is avoiding to discuss him. At least in most universes.

[Fiver]

That is pretty daft. I have on two occasions told you that Jon Menges requested that we don´t discuss Lechmere on this thread. That is not inserting Lechmere, it is avoiding to discuss him. At least in most universes.

The links that I posted show that you have continued to insert your suspect into the discussion after saying that you would stop.

[New Ford Shunt]

Getting back to the original post, I've done a bit of research on how the British newspapers reported on this and it would be interesting if you Charlie (or indeed anyone able to speak or read French) could cross-reference the information given to British readers and compare it to the French newspapers. I've also highlighted aspects I feel need further clarification or are of key importance to our understanding of this crime. For me, there is no point speculating on other crimes, be they related to the torso cases in London or the Whitechapel murders or any other cases in France or northern mainland Europe until we know more about the crime itself.

1. The First Find - The find is described as two arms and two legs. No mention is made about the urinal, only that the parcel was discovered on the corner of Avenue d'Orleans. That is possibly due to a reticence on the part of the newspapers to spell out she was found where men have a wee. She is described as being wrapped in oilcloth or waxcloth, accounts differ. The majority of the British papers state she was found by two men just before midnight who were returning from work. Other variants include they were going to work or returning from the theatre. Another version has an omnibus conductor on his way to work discovering the parcel. Her hands are mentioned in many reports, and state they were small and delicate. They didn't display any evidence of manual labour but the papers speculated that she may have been a seamstress - or at least had recently done some sewing as the forefinger on her right (or left - accounts differ) hand had needle prick marks on it.
2. The Second Find - the predominant version of this find, in the latter reporting, is that of the police, having been made aware of the first find, searching the area and coming across it around 3am on the Wednesday morning. An alternate version is a 'chiffonnier' discovering it. I also had to look that up, from what I can understand this was a type of nocturnal scavenger in Paris - is that correct? No mention is made of Monsieru Tecquer the customs office employee working at Vaugirard Station or the urinal, only Rue d'Alesia is given as a location. No real mention of the parcel being wrapped is made, but there are so many accounts of this I may have missed it. The papers state it was the lower torso that was found, they don't go into any other details.
3. The Third Find - all the newspapers agree that this was found by a policeman, that it was on a grassy area not hidden from view, and some, but not all, newspapers state it was wrapped in grey paper. All state it was found at 4am on Rue Giordano Bruno. Some mention a tramway, most do not, I've not noticed any report which mentions the fence. I'm not particularly surprised by this, and I don't feel that means it wasn't deposited where the French papers say it was, I think this has more to do with the relevancy for the British readers of detailing this information - it's not really that relevant to them.
4. The Dissection and post mortem analysis - the papers report estimates of her age as between 23 - 26 and 'well-fed'. She may have had blue eyes and had been dead for around 18 hours (as we know, TOD is notoriously difficult to determine, even now), this however maybe confused with the little girl detailed below. They state she had a deep scar, which depending on the report was on her leg or her left arm. They do not mention anything about a uterus being removed, only that the the viscera from the lower half of the trunk had been 'wholly removed'. They state the body consisted of two arms, two legs (minus a thigh) and a torso cut in two. The lower torso also had the left thigh attaching. The right breast was missing, the head and the right thigh. They speculated that this was because these body parts had identifiable features on them (clearly a head would mean the victim was instantly indentifiable but the idea is somewhat contradicted by the scar still being in place on the leg/arm). All newspapers are consistent in their reporting when it comes to how the victim was dismembered; namely that it was done by a 'narrow knife' and when it came to the point of disarticulation the perpetrator twisted and tore the limbs so they detached from the body. This, they concluded, indicated very little if no skill. From the very first reports it is suggested that the 'murder' was actually an abortion which had gone wrong and that a local midwife had dismembered the victim and had been assisted in the disposal of the body parts by a carman or man with a hand cart. There is no mention of any broken ribs, or other injuries. We do not know if the thorassic viscera remained intact. How consistent is this with the French papers, and do they specifically state only the uterus was removed out of the lower torso, with the rest of the viscera remaining? Is there any clarification as to whether it was just the uterus or did it include the vagina and vulva?
5. The Little Girl - A curious addition to the case (or nothing at all to do with it) was the discovery of a small girl, aged 5 - 6 in the Rue Saint Martin. This happened on Friday 30th July 1886 and the location is described as a 'staircase'. If it is the same Rue Saint Martin that exists today, it is on a direct route to the location of the first find, but is around 5 km away. The girl was found wrapped in green serge material which had been knotted at the corners and then carefully stitched between them. She may have been blue eyed and fair haired. The reporting is confused as she may have been a girl who died rather appallingly when an intestinal worm grew too big and came up into her throat resulting in suffocation. Her parents, assumed to be too poor to bury her, dressed her and presented her in a passageway so she could be found and buried accordingly. I suspect this is the case, and the reports are one and the same but are you able to shed any light onto that?
6. The Wrappings - following on from the above point, and getting back to one of Charlie's earlier posts, it is interesting to note that the little girl was wrapped in green material - I suspect this is where the confusion came from when Charlie states that the French newspapers contradict themselves on whether the Montrouge victim was wrapped in green fabric. None of the British newspapers mention anything about the first two finds being in anything other than 'oilcloth' or 'waxcloth' and some, but not all, mention the third find as being wrapped in grey paper. On the subject of 'oilcloth' or 'waxcloth' and Charlie's translations of it being English, I am curious as to what that means. Is this something familiar to you Charlie as a terminology? Are the French newspapers stating that the police know that the oil/wax cloth came from England? Or is it similar to say our use of the phrase 'French fries' ie nobody thinks that all fries are French, it's just the style of potato? Having looked up oil and wax cloths, the nearest equivalent I can find to waxcloth is the type of material used in Barbour jackets, with the wax being rubbed into quite sturdy material to ensure it is waterproof. Oilcloth is more difficult to pin down. Today it is used as a terminology for those tablecloths you have which are plastic on one side so you can wipe them clean, and it's also used to describe the material used for sou'westers. The terminology in Victorian times is less clear, the nearest I can find to it is this picture here, taken from Etsy, and I have no way of knowing if this reflects what the victim was wrapped in. Whatever the wrapping it is certainly heavy duty:. Finally, the cord wrapping, I also a bit confused about that. In your translations you have used the phrase 'English whipcord' and 'braided rope'. In the British newspapers it isn't really mentioned and I once again need some clarification whether 'English whipcord' is a specific evidential phrase ie this whipcord came from England, or if it is a colloquial terminology. I incidentally had to look up what whipcord was, and apparently it is four braids of rope which are plaited together with the use of bobbins and have been used since medieval times, it was often used to tie up the ends of larger ropes to stop them from fraying - although this wasn't their sole purpose. I wonder if we can gauge anything from this evidence?
7. The Hair - there are numerous mentions of a little girl discovering a packet of dark hair where she had been playing outside a shop 'in the neighbourhood'. Amongst the hair was a half-burnt letter. Nothing more is mentioned about this and it is unclear from the newspaper accounts if the victim was fair, blond or dark haired. She is however noted as being 'fair' in appearance. Do the French papers have anything to say about this?
8. The Medical Personnel - when they are mentioned, the papers are quite mocking in tone towards the abilities of the French authorities in general, but mostly they fail to mention them at all. We are all aware of the rivalry between the two nations so the tone is perhaps not surprising, but if you scrape away at the Nationalistic Willy-wangling, you can see that the French appear to be more advanced than the British in post-mortem pathology. They, for instance, had freezing apparatus for the body parts in a centralised morgue - neither of which were available to London Doctors. London did not have pathologists at this time, the nearest we get to dedicated pathologists are Thomas Bond and his 'team' at Westminster. My question therefore is: did France have dedicated pathologists at this time or was it like England, which had Divisional Surgeons or General Practitioners doing the job? And I can see that Dr Vibert played a key roll in the post mortem - what sort of background did he have? What sort of experience? And finally are there any French equivalent texts available similar to Dr Charles Hebbert's accounts for the 4 torso cases between 1887 and 1889?
9. If You Want To Run With A Theory - just a bit of fun, or who knows, something significant (I doubt it though), on Wednesday 11th August 1886, just over a week since the murder, a Monsieur Paul Wurth committed suicide in the bedroom of a coffee shop on Borough High Street, by shooting himself with a revolver. He is described as working as a 'traveller' and living in Montrouge. He'd arrived in London at the start of that week. He gave no indication as to why he took his own life. Is this a coincidence or something more? Mwah...

Big post I know, but we really should look at these points before we make any judgements. My final point (promise) is that all the above information has been obtained really from only a few Press reports. Although widely reported on, the origins of these reports clearly came from a small number of journalists, paid to wire their accounts to their respective employers in Britain. Of these reports, some have been edited, either deliberately or accidentally, before they were published, so like your comments on the French Press, it is difficult to ascertain which are reliable and which are not.

[The Rookie Detective]

Actually, Fisherman argued with jemenges that the suspect should be discussed in the thread.

Fisherman then used jmenges post to try to keep other posters from refuting his theory.

Then after saying he had stopped discussing his suspect, Fisherman continued to insert his suspect into the discussion.

I suspect he will continue to do so in later posts in this thread.



No need to be so shouty. Give your caps lock a break.

Parts thrown in the river are clearly parts the killed did not want discovered. Parts that were buried are clearly parts that the killer did not want discovered.

The Pinchin Street Torso could have been a lot easier to find.

"About 25 minutes past 5, I came from the direction of Christian-street to Pinchin-street. I went across the road from the northern side, in the direction of the railway arch, and had no particular reason for so doing. As I was crossing I saw, in the arch, something that appeared to be a bundle. The arch, which was filled with stones belonging to the Whitechapel District Board of Works, led on to a piece of waste ground, on which were three arches abutting onto Pinchin-street. Two of these arches were closed in with fencing to some considerable height. In front of the arch that I first referred to there remained only the uprights of some fencing, which had been taken away. The aThe Ripper also tried and failed to DECAPITATE MORE THAN ONE of his victimsrchway had a large quantity of paving stones in it, and these were piled up. There was also a carriage entrance to the arch from Backchurch-lane. The bundle was, I should say, from four to five yards in the archway, measuring from the pavement. The bundle was near the wall of the arch, on the western side. On going up to it I found that it was a portion of a human body." - PC Pennett.

The torso wasn't lying in the middle of the street. Pennett only noticed the bundle because he crossed from the north side for "no particular reason".



So you agree the Torsoman removed heads to prevent identification?

This against shows a stark contrast between the Ripper's inept failed attempts to decapitate and the Torsoman's practiced skill noted by the doctors.



Near, perhaps, but calling it on the Ripper stomping ground seems a stretch.

There's another possibility you haven't considered. Rather than being the same man, the Torso Killer might have dumped a body near the Ripper's territory in an attempt to pin the Torso killings on the Ripper.

Excellent post.

And that's not me being "shouty," it's me being uneducated with the etiquette of typing on a social forum, my apologies ha ha!

I can accept most of your comments, because you make some very valid points, although, to suggest that the Torso killer tried to conceal the Pinchin St Torso; because it could have been easier to find, is not something I can concur with.

He dumped the torso under the archway in Pinchin St for a reason.

If he instead dumps all the dismembered parts into the river, then that is a different intent than deliberately placing body parts under a railway arch.

A man who is trying to conceal his actions, and hide his victim's identity, as part of a defensive strategy, would not have chosen to dump various body parts from different victims on the street, over a fence, in a park, in a cellar...etc...

The torso killer knew that all the body parts he distributed would likely be found; because that was part of his end-game intent.

The mistake he made was with Elizabeth Jackson, because he never intended for her identity to be found out,

He wasn't trying to conceal his work; or the physical bodies of his victims.
He was trying to conceal the identity of his victims.

That is a very clear but subtle difference.


I believe that he took the heads to avoid the authorities discovering the identity of the victims, but he did not intend to hide the actual bodies themselves, and so by proxy, he had no other choice but to take the heads for fear of being rumbled by the police.


RD