The Paris Torso Mystery

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

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.

Does not the fact that the only Torso victim to be identified is known to have solicited only outside Ripper territory carry huge weight when discussing a connection between the series?

[Fisherman]

That does nothing to disprove my point. Those parts were removed from the body, but they aren't missing like the parts removed from the Ripper victims.

Not all the parts removed from the Ripper victims are missing, though. Remember Mary Kelly?

And, as a reminder, whether or not excised parts are missing is very much inferior in meaning to whether or not parts are excised in the first place. We are dealing with two serial killers who eviscerated victims, and that is actually not a point against a common originator…

[Fisherman]

The places the body parts were found show that the killer scattered body parts well outside the area of the Ripper killings.



* Parts of the first victim were found between 5 miles upstream and 12 miles downstream of Pinchin Street. Parts were also dropped in Regent's Canal, miles to the north.
* Parts of the second victim were found 3 to 4 miles upstream from Pinchin Street and the multiple body parts found at the construction site of New Scotland Yard certainly weren't put there by the tide.
* Parts of the third victim were found between 7 miles upstream and a mile downstream from Pinchin Street. The part tossed into the Shelley Estate certainly wasn't put there by the tide, nor was the part found in Battersea Park.

Has anybody ever said that all of the parts were found in Whitechapel? It would seem so, going on this post.

I am very well aware about where the parts were found. I am also aware that the Pinchin Street torso did not end up in the railway arch after having been floated there by the tide.

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.

[Fiver]

No - it is proven that the killer excised the uterus from Liz Jackson. It was then bundled up together with the placenta and wrapped up in the panes of abdominal flesh from the cut away abdominal wall, before being thrown into the Thames. That is not a possibly excised organ, it is a proven matter.

That does nothing to disprove my point. Those parts were removed from the body, but they aren't missing like the parts removed from the Ripper victims.

[Fiver]

The Torso killer left a body in Pinchin Street. And parts thrown in the Thames float, you know, to the rhythm of the tide. The places they were found do not tell us that the killer used miles on end of the river to throw them into it.

The places the body parts were found show that the killer scattered body parts well outside the area of the Ripper killings.

* Parts of the first victim were found between 5 miles upstream and 12 miles downstream of Pinchin Street. Parts were also dropped in Regent's Canal, miles to the north.
* Parts of the second victim were found 3 to 4 miles upstream from Pinchin Street and the multiple body parts found at the construction site of New Scotland Yard certainly weren't put there by the tide.
* Parts of the third victim were found between 7 miles upstream and a mile downstream from Pinchin Street. The part tossed into the Shelley Estate certainly wasn't put there by the tide, nor was the part found in Battersea Park.

[Fleetwood Mac]

As for the cut down the midsection Monro writes:

"The inner coating of the bowel is hardly touched, and the termination of the cut towards the vagina looks almost as if the knife had slipped, and as if this portion of the wound had been accidental. The whole of the wound looks as if the murderer had intended to make a cut in prepatory to removing the intestines in the process of dismemberment, & had then changed his mind."

Does anyone truly think the Ripper, having hours at his disposal, would have made such a vague attempt at the victim's vagina that it could be interpreted as an accidental 'slip'? Look again at the Kelly photo and claim that this is a rational conclusion.

I reckon your post/opinion on this has a stand-out flaw, it is drawing a conclusion based on:

1) The thoughts of an 1888/1889 policeman. He wasn't a medical man, nor did he have experience of these rare sexual serial murders.

Monro, for example, believed that death was not from hemorrhage; the doctors believed otherwise. Dr Phillips believed that the mutilations were undertaken after death and that the loss of blood was the result of a cut throat with a main artery in that region being severed.

2) 'Does anyone truly believe.......this is a rational conclusion'. 'Offensive mutilation' is not underpinned by rational choice.

A point aside:

The position of Mary's body included her left forearm lying across her abdomen.

It was reported by two policemen who were first on the scene of the Pinchin Street torso find: the arms were close to the body and the hands close to the abdomen, the left hand was evidently resting where the gash was.

I'm a touch surprised that two such murders involving extensive mutilation and everything that entails, concluded with the body being found with the left hand/arm either lying across the abdomen or 'resting where the gash was' in the abdomen. There's a possibility that the hand/arm was positioned that way, and we know that sexual serial murderers engage in ritualistic behaviour that appears to lack meaning to the observer but does hold meaning for him. 'Just a possibility, speculation and so on. Still, how does a dead left hand/arm, which surely couldn't have been resting in that position at the point of mutilation, find its way to lying/resting on an opened abdomen?

[Fisherman]

By stating the murderer "later used that opening," you are, I fear, suggesting something that is not in evidence. Bear in mind the throat cutting was just a theory, but there was no actual forensic evidence to confirm it, let alone any evidence that two cuts had been made to the neck at different times.

Because the victim had died from a loss of blood, and that loss couldn't have come from the stomach or the lungs, Phillips theorized that the throat had been cut, but admitted that if this had been the case, the "signs" of it had "disappeared." He stressed that it was merely a "supposition and ONLY a supposition."



--From Phillips' inquest deposition.


And since Swanson and Monro did not believe the woman's throat had been cut, one would assume that other medicos must have disagreed with Phillip's "supposition."

She may have had her throat cut--but we do not know that as a fact.

If you take the time to read what I wrote, I write that Dr Phillips suggested that this was what happened. Of course, I cannot rule out that he just plucked it out of thin air, but I tend to think that a medico like him had an actual reason for making the suggestion. As it happens, we know that he thought it was the most reasonable explanation for how the victim was bled. Just like you say, Phillips supposed that the throat was sliced to make that happen.

When it comes to presenting things like fact, the reason for why I brought up Phillips ´view, was that ”Private Investigator 1” wrote about how Monro and Swanson were of the meaning that the throat was left uncut by the killer - and so it needed to clarified that this is in no way any certainty at alll - in fact, the only professional view we have on the matter is that of Dr Phillips, and he voted for the throat having been sliced. Ergo, anybody who wants to make a case for the Torso killer and the Ripper not being one and the same, cannot use the Monro/Swanson argument to prove their case.

You suppose - but it is merely a supposition and ONLY a supposition - that other medicos disagreed with the view of Phillips. It would be interesting to hear what you believe these imaginary medicos would have based such a supposition on. How they could not see the initial cut? Or? As for Swanson and Monro, their suggestion that there was no slicing proven, may easily have been based on A/ a mistaken thinking that everything is alwaqys what is seems to be at first sight, and/or B/ a will not to blow life into the Ripper again.

Wit is all good and well to entertain ideas about all of this, but we are now having a situation where it is claimed that the Torso killer did. Not eviscerate, that the genitals of the Pinchin Street woman were left untouched, that psychology and psychiatry are not sciences and that those who study serial murder from a psychiatric/psychological point of view are second rate scientists.

Maybe the time has come to step on the brakes and try and see where the road actually leads?

[rjpalmer]

According to Dr Phillips, the Torso killer likely first slit the throat, and only later used that opening to sever the spine and take the head off. He reached that conclusion when examining the Pinchin Street victim, if I remember correctly.

By stating the murderer "later used that opening," you are, I fear, suggesting something that is not in evidence. Bear in mind the throat cutting was just a theory, but there was no actual forensic evidence to confirm it, let alone any evidence that two cuts had been made to the neck at different times.

Because the victim had died from a loss of blood, and that loss couldn't have come from the stomach or the lungs, Phillips theorized that the throat had been cut, but admitted that if this had been the case, the "signs" of it had "disappeared." He stressed that it was merely a "supposition and ONLY a supposition."



--From Phillips' inquest deposition.


And since Swanson and Monro did not believe the woman's throat had been cut, one would assume that other medicos must have disagreed with Phillip's "supposition."

She may have had her throat cut--but we do not know that as a fact.

[Fisherman]

I quote Roger Palmer in # 218:

"The inner coating of the bowel is hardly touched, and the termination of the cut towards the vagina looks almost as if the knife had slipped, and as if this portion of the wound had been accidental. The whole of the wound looks as if the murderer had intended to make a cut in prepatory to removing the intestines in the process of dismemberment, & had then changed his mind."

Does anyone truly think the Ripper, having hours at his disposal, would have made such a vague attempt at the victim's vagina that it could be interpreted as an accidental 'slip'? Look again at the Kelly photo and claim that this is a rational conclusion.

And in which universe does that mean that he "left the victims genitals alone?"

This is how Hebbert described what he saw: "The skin and muscles of the abdomen had been cut by a vertical incision, running from 2 inches below the ensiform cartilage downwards, and ending of the left side of the external genitals, just opening the vagina, but not opening the peritoneal cavity."

Again, where does anybody body say that the killer left the victims genital alone? And where in Hebberts text is it implicated that the opening up of the vagina would have been a slip ...? Nowhere at all. Not a syllable about it. And to be fair, what structures are there in the skin and muscles to slip against, while cutting away downwards over the abdomen?

You may want to weigh in that the last thing the police wanted in the autumn of 1889, was a returning Ripper. It makes all the sense in the world if Monro tried to avoid making that impression.

To me, the simple solution is that the killer cut with a smallish force along the abdomen, and then, as he reached the vagina (once more, people who cut into vaginas do not "leave the genitals alone". Very far from it, in fact. To be more precise, fair from leaving the genitals alone, they manifest themselves as having done the exact opposite), he increased the cutting force.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

He cut right through the vagina, opening it up on the Pinchin Street victim.

I quote Roger Palmer in # 218:

"The inner coating of the bowel is hardly touched, and the termination of the cut towards the vagina looks almost as if the knife had slipped, and as if this portion of the wound had been accidental. The whole of the wound looks as if the murderer had intended to make a cut in prepatory to removing the intestines in the process of dismemberment, & had then changed his mind."

Does anyone truly think the Ripper, having hours at his disposal, would have made such a vague attempt at the victim's vagina that it could be interpreted as an accidental 'slip'? Look again at the Kelly photo and claim that this is a rational conclusion.

[Fisherman]

But, unlike the Whitechapel Murderer, he left the Pinchin Street victim's genitals alone, and according to Monro and Swanson, the throat too, and unlike the Whitechapel Murderer, he gave the authorities little chance of identifying the victim.

He cut right through the vagina, opening it up on the Pinchin Street victim.

According to Dr Phillips, the Torso killer likely first slit the throat, and only later used that opening to sever the spine and take the head off. He reached that conclusion when examining the Pinchin Street victim, if I remember correctly.

But you are correct that a lacking head makes it difficult to identify a victim, unless there are moles, scars and tattoos that can help. And we know that the Torso killer left that kind of details intact on his bodies. Furthermore, we do not know why he took the head off, it can have many reasons, one of them being a knack for aggressive mutilation. As you may know, the legs were also missing, although the arms were still attached to the victim. Was taking the legs of also automatically indicative of a will to try and hide the identity of the victim?

A typical dismemberment victim is divided up in six parts, leg 1, leg 2, arm1, arm 2, the torso and the head. There are normally no further cuts to the body than the ones necessary to make those divisions. The abdomens are typically not opened up from the sternum to the groin, and no organs are excised from the bodies.

A body with the arms attaching, and with a 15 inch cut that traverses the abdomen at a shallow depth and then opens up the vagina is by no means any typical dismemberment victim.

I am willing to give you half a point for realizing that a missing head may or may not be part of an effort to obscure the identity in the Pinchin Street case. The other two and a half points, you miss out on.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

He must be the one killer in history who managed to cut the lungs, heart and uterus out of a victim without being an eviscerator, then.

But, unlike the Whitechapel Murderer, he left the Pinchin Street victim's genitals alone, and according to Monro and Swanson, the throat too, and unlike the Whitechapel Murderer, he gave the authorities little chance of identifying the victim.

[Fisherman]

And you weren't wrong.

Personally, I rather fancy the name "the postmodern postmortem mutilator."

Scotland Yard got it right the first go-round.

He must be the one killer in history who managed to cut the lungs, heart and uterus out of a victim without being an eviscerator, then.

[Fisherman]

I did actually say, I have not seen the conclusions of the book, as it's not finished.
I therefore have no idea if it will conclude the two series were committed by the same hand or not.

What I have seen is remarkably well researched, and referenced, and covers all the Torsos from the early 1870s, until the turn of the 20th century, it will therefore cover the Torso cases to a greater scope and in far greater detail than previous works in my view.

It's a mistake to assume one can only appreciate new research if it supports views one already holds. Rather I read or watch all new ideas, providing support and encouragement to researchers who look at suspect who are not my choice. This includes the Recent Work on Edward Buckley, and new, as yet unpublished work on Robert Mann.

It's always the level of research i am attracted to in new work, rather than the suspect proposed.

I too hope that it will be possible to debate the Torso work, when it published, and judge it on its own merits, rather than does it fit our own ideas.

Steve

We seem to be much the same. I too try to assess all matters with as unprejudiced a take on things as possible. I only wish I got the credit for it from posters who lead on the opposite.

If I was a gambling man, I would have given you amazingly good odds on the upcoming book voting for a common killer. I will leave it at that, hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

[rjpalmer]

I too have argued that the mention of the gash being preparatory to dismemberment invalidates the claim that the Torso killer was an eviscerator or postmortem mutilator or whatever.

And you weren't wrong.

Personally, I rather fancy the name "the postmodern postmortem mutilator."

Scotland Yard got it right the first go-round.