Jack the Ripper & The Torso Murders

[Fisherman]

The Times carries what seems to be a full list of the efforts made pre-Baxters admonition of Spratling:

"Inspector Spratling, J Division, said he had made inquiries at several of the houses in Buck's-row, but not at all of them.

The CORONER. - Then that will have to be done.

Witness further said he had made inquiries at Mrs. Green's, the wharf, at Sneider's Factory, and also at the Great Eastern Wharf, but no one at those places had heard anything unusual during the morning in question. He had seen the Board school keeper, but he had not heard anything. Had the other inhabitants heard a disturbance of any kind they would, no doubt, have communicated with the police. There was a gateman at the Great Eastern Railway, but he was stationed inside the gates, and had not heard anything. There was a watchman employed at Sneider's factory."

The early door to door inquiries in the streets adjoining Bucks Row will in all likelihood have been carried out in order to try and see whether or not it could be shown that Polly Nichols had been transported through these streets to later be dumped in Bucks Row. This was an initial belief on behalf of the police.

Of course, these inquiries should also have entailed Bucks Row, but it is clear from the evidence that they never did until after Baxters dealings with Spratling at the inquest. Presumably, once it was established that neither Mrs Green, nor the Purkisses, had heard anything although they were either light sleepers or fully awake, and with open windows, the police satisfied themselves that if the witnesses closes to the murder site had not noticed anything, they need not ask the Bucks Row dwellers living further away from it. That, at least, is how it seems to me.

[Fiver]

I am not saying that Faircloth was the killer, but he should be scrutinized much further; because to date his only defense was that the police at the time said he had an alibi.

"Since Faircloth had given evidence before the coroner, Inspector Moore and Sergeant Turrell had been over the route indicated by him as that which he had pursued. The officers had visited Biggleswade, Bishop's Stortford, Hitchin, High Wycombe, St Albans, Great Marlow, Reading, Odiham, and other places. On the night of June 3 it was satisfactorily shown that he was stopping at High Wycombe, at the Goat public-house, and on the previous nights at Watford. He was traced to all the places he had named, and at all of them he had been calling at mills trying to get employment; and the police had further quite satisfied themselves that during all that time he had never been in London, or had the opportunity of coming to London - that was to say, for ten days before and ten days after the death of Elizabeth Jackson. Throughout the whole time he had been wearing the conspicuous striped jacket he went away with and going about in his own name." - 28 July 1889 Sunday Dispatch

[Fiver]

But once we look at the Rainham victim, the Whitehall victim and Liz Jackson - who were with great certainty victims of the same killer as per Charles Hebbert - we can see that there was never any problem to stomach cutting his victims up on the killers behalf in those three cases. On the contrary, the abdomens were sliced open in two of these cases, and the victims were all cut in pieces. The trunks of two of the victims were cut in three parts, and in the Jackson case, we know that the uterus and it´s appendages were cut out of the body and wrapped up in two large jagged panes of flesh from the abdominal wall. We also know that Jacksons lungs and heart were removed, arguably by the killer. And the Rainham victim also lacked heart and lungs, making our insights from the Jackson case suggest very clearly that the killer lay behind this matter in the Rainham case too.

Once the suggestion is made that the Torso killer seems to have been a hesitating cutter, unable to bring himself to open a victim up, how on earth can it be ”poor form” to prove that we actually know that this was never the case? If anything, our knowledge about the earlier victims tells us that the lacking eviscerations in the Pinchin Street case must have had another reason - the killer chose not to eviscerate although he could have done so. That is interesting per se, and should create another discussion altogether than one of the killer being squeamish and therefore not the same man as the Ripper.

This is yet another straw man as you misrepresent what rj said and try to dismiss what Monro said by claiming it was rj trying to fend off your theory.

"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." - Monro

The Torsoman did remove organs - sharing that in common with the Ripper. The Torsoman disarticulated limbs with a practiced skill - the Ripper did not. The Ripper mutilated the victims torsos with frenzied overkill - the Torsoman did not. The Ripper posed the victims bodies flat on their backs with skirts hiked up - the Torsoman did not. The Torsoman was skilled at removing heads - the Ripper was a bumbling failure.

[Fiver]

And, I don't think the WM took the risks that other people suggest, particularly when you consider his options and the primitive means of detection in his age.

The Ripper clearly escaped detection by only a few minutes in the Nichols, Stride, and Eddowes cases. He took a lot more risks than the Torso Killer.

[Fiver]

I was of course not suggesting that the killer wanted his name revealed. What a serial killer who wants recognition is likely to do, is to see to it that all of his victims are found, and this was something that was always going to happen in the Ripper and Torso cases alike.

Murders like the ones in the Hillside Strangler case are a useful comparison here - the victims are dumped, but not on remote locations where they are likely to remain unfound, but instead in populated areas where a shock value is ensured. It seems to me that the Ripper as well as the Torso deeds were very much the same kind of deeds, making it sure that what had transpired would be made as public as possible as quyickly as possible.

That is the recognition I am speaking about.

More straw-manning on your part. I never even implied that you were suggesting that the killer wanted his name revealed.

You said the the killer wanted recognition for committing both series of crimes. Yet the killer did nothing to get that recognition. The Ripper is known today because of the letters. No dramatic postcards or letters were sent in the Torso Killer's name. No organs were mailed in the Torso Killer's name.

The Ripper left his victims posed bodies where they were sure to be found in short order. The Torso Killer did not. Remains were pitched into rivers and canals where they only surfaced once decomposition was far enough along and were found by pure chance. Other parts were buried. Parts were hidden in shrubbery. The most visible but was the Pinchin Street Torso which was found by pure chance shortly after it was deposited, when it could have lain there unnoticed for days.

The Ripper got the press and the Torso Killer was fine with being largely ignored.

[Fisherman]

Originally posted by Fiver View Post
This is yet another straw man as you misrepresent what rj said and try to dismiss what Monro said by claiming it was rj trying to fend off your theory.

Do you think you can bring yourself to thinking that I am perhaps not a devious bastard, plotting to misrepresent everything I hear from other posters? For a poster who has just been revealed as cling that I inserted Lechmere into this thread, while all the time it was you and Private Investigator who did that, it seems a bit rich. But each to his own, I guess.

"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." - Monro


Again, Charles Hebbert - who actually examined the body and knew what it indicated or did not indicate - said nothing at all about any slip of the knife. He described a long cut that finished by opening the vagina of the victim, no slips suggested at all. As I said before, there is reason to think that the police were eager not to have the Ripper return again, as suggested by Andersons denial of how Myles could have been killed by the Ripper.
Regardless of what we may try to conclude from the torso, there was undeniably a forceful cut to the vagina, opening it up. Saying "He didn't mean that" is just as much of a supposition as the idea that the cut to the abdomen would have been in preparation for taking the intestines out. It is not as if the Torso murders exhibited any problems cutting deep enough when opening the abdomen from sternum to groin on the Rainham victim and Liz Jackson.

By the way, those cuts were new to you, when I pointed them out earlier. Now that you are aware of them, how does that alter your take on the viability of a common killer?


The Torsoman did remove organs - sharing that in common with the Ripper.

Which means that we have a similarity of a very rare nature on record.

The Torsoman disarticulated limbs with a practiced skill - the Ripper did not.

There is nothing to suggest that a killer must always do the exact same things to his victims. If there had been a crude or clumsy effort to disarticulate any of the limbs of the Ripper victims, then you would have a point and a comparison. But we cannot tell to which degree of practice and skill the killer could have disarticulated the limbs of the women he killed. There is therefore no comparison that can be made in this context. And there are numerous examples of killers who dismember some victims, while not doing so in other cases. Ergo, the difference you point to is no indicator of two separate killers, it is only a recognition that the Ripper murders do not involve any disarticulation of limbs. As has been noted before, we also have Hebberts assertion that the Torso series only involved decapitation by knife in September of 1889, whereas the earlier victims had their heads sawn off - all of which dovetails nicely with how the Riper could not decapitate Mary Kelly by way of knife in November of 1888.
What we do have on record, as recognized by yourself, is that both series involve organ eviscerations - which is why it is suggested that we are dealing with aggressive mutilation in both series.

The Ripper mutilated the victims torsos with frenzied overkill - the Torsoman did not.

The uterus of Liz Jackson was cut out of her abdomen and wrapped in two jagged panes of flesh, cut out of her abdominal wall. How is that not overkill? Her heart and lungs were removed from her chest. How is that not overkill? And how can you conclude that there was no overkill when you cannot produce any of the heads? The 1873 Battersea Torso murder - which I ascribe tot this common killer - had her face sliced away from her skull. Who can tell what happned to the canonicals in the Torso series? You are wrong again, the only question is how wrong.

The Ripper posed the victims bodies flat on their backs with skirts hiked up - the Torsoman did not.

Ehrm - the torsos had no skirts on them to hike up. Nor did they have any legs to spread or raise. A torso is a very different matter to a full body when it comes to the degree to which it can be posed. Most people will realize this, and understand that this point of yours is ridiculous.

The Torsoman was skilled at removing heads - the Ripper was a bumbling failure.
Again we know from Charles Hebbert that the Torso killer resorted to sawing the heads off with a fine-toothed saw in the first three cases. And as it happens, anybody can take a saw off with a saw. It takes no skill whatsoever.

It DOES however take some knowledge of the construction of the vertebrae in the neck to enable you to take a head off with a knife. As you say, the Ripper murders seemingly involve failed attempts to do just that. But that does not prove that the two series involved different skill. levels in this context. Instead, Charles Hebbert telling us that the Torso murders involved a progression on the killers behalf, perhaps from being "a bumbling failure" in 1887 to 1889, to then at long last accomplishing the task in September of 1889.
What you describe as a difference is therefore quite likely to be a very telling similarity in between the two series. There's nothing like knowing the facts.

As you can see from the above, your points were all wrong or potentially wrong, with the one exception of how we know that both series involved organ extractions - a clear pointer to the murders in both series having been carried out by an aggressive mutilator.

[Fisherman]

The Ripper clearly escaped detection by only a few minutes in the Nichols, Stride, and Eddowes cases. He took a lot more risks than the Torso Killer.

And is it an established fact that a serial killer will always take the same level of risk? Or can it be that he uses varying risk levels?

It is also described how the Torso parts were sometimes dumped in locations that would have been very risky to use. That must also be weighed in.

Serial killers should not exist, statistically speaking. But statistics are sadly not always reliable.

[Fisherman]

More straw-manning on your part. I never even implied that you were suggesting that the killer wanted his name revealed.

You were saying that the killer did n thing to do to secure recognition. Since he did so in practice, I assumed you were thinking of his name. Nothing to see there.

You said the the killer wanted recognition for committing both series of crimes. Yet the killer did nothing to get that recognition. The Ripper is known today because of the letters. No dramatic postcards or letters were sent in the Torso Killer's name. No organs were mailed in the Torso Killer's name.

The killer left a hybrid in Pinchin Street: An obvious torso victim, but with the Ripper calling card on the abdomen and dumped in Ripper territory. To me, that. ay well be a claim of recognition. As for the Ripper letters and the kidney letter, if you can prove that they originated with the killer, you will have a slightly better point. But in no way a conclusive one. There were letters mentioning the torso victims. Oh, and no letter was signed in the killers name. Perhaps, but only perhaps, there were letters signed in the killers moniker. Which is a different thing, as you may appreciate.

The Ripper left his victims posed bodies where they were sure to be found in short order. The Torso Killer did not.

Are you at it again? The Ripper series involved victims slain in the open streets and left there.The torso victims were not. Why on earth would he carry them out in one piece from his bolthole and pose them in the streets? His victims were found, and there was never any question of whether or not they would be.

Remains were pitched into rivers and canals where they only surfaced once decomposition was far enough along and were found by pure chance.

Not at all. They apparently floated ashore quickly at times. The density of body parts allow for this. Not least will the strong currents of the Thames have helped the buoyancy. And regardless of this, it applies that once the killer knew that the parts of the Rainham victim floated ashore, he did not take precautions to stop that from happening by weighing the parts down. Therefore, it seems the killer was quite happy to have his parts found. And the placing of parts on dry land reinforces this.

Other parts were buried.

Two parts that we know of - and that may have been accidentally buried. None of the other parts were buried at all. And there were many of them, floating ashore.

Parts were hidden in shrubbery.

They were very easy to find, and were consequently found very quickly. One part was thrown over a fence, which is not "hiding" it, and another was placed in Battersea Gardens!

The most visible but was the Pinchin Street Torso which was found by pure chance shortly after it was deposited, when it could have lain there unnoticed for days.

If the killer wanted to hide the body, he did a lousy job. The torso was left in full view, and none of the rubbish lying around in the arches was used to cover it. There must have been a thousand better places and more to hide it - if that was what the killer wanted. And hiding a torso in the basement of the New Scotland Yard was perhaps not the smartest move either. These sites are much better suited to claim that then killer wanted the bodies to be found, then any feeble effort to try and claim that he hoped they would never be. Which is not shat you said, but what you inadvertently suggest.

The Ripper got the press and the Torso Killer was fine with being largely ignored.

I am not privy to the thoughts of this killer, and so I cannot say whether or not he was fine with having one series less written about than the other. But I am clever enough to understand that it offers up the possibility that the Ripper murders came about as a result of a will on behalf of the killer to gain more attention. That is a suggestion and it is not as if I do like you - claim to know what you can't know.

[Michael W Richards]

The Battersea dismemberment in 1873-74, the dismemberments of Tottenham and Bedford Square in 1884, the Rainham Mystery dismemberments in 1887, the Whitehall dismemberments in 1888, the Elizabeth Jackson dismemberment case in 1888, the Pinchin Street torso in 1889....these are similar crimes. It is possible since no-one was ever tried and convicted that some might have been by the same man or men. Or even woman/women, for that matter. Which would mean the killer continued to kill in the same fashion for years, predating and post dating the alleged Ripper murders.There are several other later cases, in 1886 in Paris, and in 1902 in London, that were also dismemberment crimes.

There are at least 2 very distinctive differences in these cases with the Jack the Ripper cases which prevented the contemporary investigators from suggesting a link, by killer, of these crimes. How the victims were killed, and how they were "disposed" of. The fact that the Ripper murders all occurred within 1 sq mile is very relevant to the comparisons, the fact that the investigators believed the Ripper either stopped, left, or died after the Kelly murder, making the alleged series less than 3 months in total length, is also relevant. The fact that Torso murders happened in London after the Ripper crimes is also revealing, in that, if one man or some men were responsible for the dismemberment killings, they continued to kill and dispose of their victims in the same manner.

The modern revisionist who tries to link these murders under 1 killer discards the opinions of contemporary investigators, the distinctive differences in how they were killed and how they were disposed of, and the fact that some of the dismemberment murders in London pre-date the Ripper style slayings by more than a decade. Serial killers as they are known today do change what they do at times, not necessarily because the killer desired to kill differently, but because they are trying to fool investigators into believing another killer was responsible. They do so because investigative techniques and methods, forensic science and CCTV have become sophisticated weapons in an investigative arsenal.

In London in the LVP they didnt have access to accurate blood typing, DNA testing, CCTV, even fingerprint analysis. Killers of that era had a very reasonable chance of evading capture because of those shortcomings. But that didnt prevent them from using comparative analysis, victim evidence, witness evidence or medical opinion. The fact that virtually none of the contemporary investigators believed that Jack the Rippper also committed dismemberment killings should be a cautionary tale to the modern revisionist theorizing. They were not without some evidence to assess, they had access to highly trained and accomplished medical experts, and most important, they actually saw the victims, saw the remains and spoke with the witnesses and experts. So in addition to the series being unlike in a few important features, they did have the first-hand evidence which they could, to a lesser degree than in Modern times, determine some facts.

They didnt see a link between the series, personally I think they are very different in areas that are key to assess the nature of the individual killer/killers, and anyone using only what is historically documented and publicly available would have to arrive at similar conclusions.

But then you have the outliers.......

[Pcdunn]

Hmmm...I may be influenced by too many episodes of "Criminal Minds," but what if leaving the Pinchin Torso in the Ripper's area was more of a *challenge* by the Torso Killer? Perhaps he resented the publicity JtR was getting in the papers?

[Fisherman]

Hmmm...I may be influenced by too many episodes of "Criminal Minds," but what if leaving the Pinchin Torso in the Ripper's area was more of a *challenge* by the Torso Killer? Perhaps he resented the publicity JtR was getting in the papers?

That would only work with two killers, though - and there was just the one …

[Michael W Richards]

That would only work with two killers, though - and there was just the one …

Is this just a continuation of the Myth youre trying to create, or merely a Mythake.

[Fisherman]

Is this just a continuation of the Myth youre trying to create, or merely a Mythake.

The one myth there ever was, was that the Torso killer was another man than the Ripper.

I have never tried to create any myth in any way relating the these cases. Claiming that is trying to create a myth.

Try and discuss the factual matters instead, Michael. It lowers the blood pressure and makes for a much more useful debate.

[Fiver]

I have never tried to create any myth in any way relating the these cases. Claiming that is trying to create a myth.

That's only correct because you borrow myths from other people instead of creating your own myths.

Except perhaps for the Ley Line myth. Everything else seems to be borrowed from Von Stow or early TorsoRipper theorists.

[Abby Normal]

That's only correct because you borrow myths from other people instead of creating your own myths.

Except perhaps for the Ley Line myth. Everything else seems to be borrowed from Von Stow or early TorsoRipper theorists.

not only is this incorrect on many levels, its a low blow by you and MR and very regrettable.

its an insulting misnomer to begin with, because fishs ideas is a theory or theories.you do know the difference between a myth and a theory I hope? And fish has come up with alot of original research and theory on his own.

one of the most original being that a possible inspiration/ motive by torsoman was the anatomical venus displays in the local museums, which closed right around the time the first torso victims started to surface.