Jack the Ripper & The Torso Murders

[Kattrup]

But the thing is (although I don't remember the details of that case) that, in the case of Torso Man, we see mutilations beyond what was necessary to dismember or cut off the head for easy transportation. In the 1873 and 1884 cases, the perpetrator 'played' with the heads; in 3 of the 4 cases from Rainham to Pinchin Street he cut the abdomen from sternum to pubes, with a variety of depths, but still. Of course, whoever did it, mutilated the bodies much less than the Ripper did, but they were still unnecessary mutilations with regards to the dismemberment.

we do not know that they were unneccessary; only if you presuppose that the "best" way to dismember a body is the "classic" one of head, limbs, torso. Looking at the history of dismemberments, that "classic" mode is, however, an illusion.

Dismemberers were much more creative, not because of some sexual lust, deviance or insanity, but because when whittling down a body to smaller segments, there a more ways than one.

I would like to remind you again of the pinchin street torso. Yes, there was a cut down the front, but the police considered that a cut made in preparation to dismemberment.
That is significant, not because they must have been correct, but because making that assessment shows without doubt that they were completely nonplussed by a dismemberment cutting up the torso.

So, to state the obvious, the idea that a dismemberment that is beyond the perceived "classic" case of head, limbs, torso is something special, peculiar, unique, an "MO" or a "signature" in the parlance of the pseudo-science of profiling, or is something that needs explaining, is wrong.

[Kattrup]

Hi Frank. Happy New Year to you too!



I was about to make precisely this point -- indeed, to propose the concept of 'overcut' (on the model of the established term 'overkill'). If a body can be transported and disposed of in the classical six parts, we need a term to distinguish this from, say, Elizabeth Jackson's body being found in 12 different instalments, with an instalment sometimes containing more than one physical item.



Bests,

Mark D.

Hi Mark

Please see my reply to Frank above https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...511#post828511

In short, the idea that a dismemberment that does not conform to the idea of a classic dismemberment case needs explaining is misguided.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

this common claim about the 'rarity' of serial killers working side-by-side in the same time & place doesn't carry any weight among people who grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s-1990s.

In Seattle alone, there must have been nearly a dozen of these reprobates whose murders overlapped. Some lived in the area for years--others just passed through--including Ted Bundy, the Green River Killer, Robert Lee Yates, etc. Along, of course, with "one-off" murders by other depraved individuals.

And Seattle had 1/5th the population of Victorian London.

I give no credence whatsoever to this line of thinking.

RP

Hi Roger,

Excellent point. And the ‘one off’ (ahhh, that phrase) element comes into the equation too in that we can’t be anything like certain that these Torso’s were connected. I just don’t see why various cuts should be raised to such a level of importance. Would we assume that most operations must have been done by the same surgeon due to a similarity of method? Let alone a killer hacking away before dumping the parts. It’s been admitted that we would be on thin ice in trying to claim to know how a serial killer thought yet it appears to be fine to suggest that we can recognise cuts as being so individualistic that the killer might as well have left a silk glove monogrammed with a J at the scene.

[Darryl Kenyon]

Sorry for sounding dense [ and I haven't really been following this thread ], but am I missing something here ?

Whoever [ in my opinion ] , committed the torso crimes [ whether it was one or more people ], would have almost certainly have had to have access to some private dwelling, to dismember the bodies , clean the scene up in case of visitors or smell say, and transport the body parts, perhaps over a number of days from. Now if torso was Jack and Jack was Lech where did Lech have this private abode ?. He worked at Pickfords so very unlikely there and he lived on Doveton st etc with a wife and family, so impossible I would say at home. And where did the money come from [ if indeed he did have a safe and secure place ] to have a private dwelling in the cramped and confined east end. Again apologies if I have missed something .

Regards Darryl

[John Wheat]

I’ll leave this alone. Clearly unconnected. The cuts/mutilations weren’t vanishingly rare. It’s simply a convenient exaggeration.

Ripperology is becoming the work of fantasy and preconception. Fit everything to suit a theory. It’s now nothing more than a game.

**** isn't it.

[Mark J D]

Hi Mark

Please see my reply to Frank above https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...511#post828511

In short, the idea that a dismemberment that does not conform to the idea of a classic dismemberment case needs explaining is misguided.

Demonstration examples of 'overcut' would be the removal and separate dumping of Jackson's liver and that portion of her lung. Neither makes any segment of the upper body meaningfully lighter or easier to dispose of; but both offer the pleasure of additional knife-work and the thrill of expectation attached to additional moments of horror-filled discovery.

M.

[Herlock Sholmes]

**** isn't it.

I tend to think it’s because nothing particular new is happening there’s a desire to make something happen. That’s the only thing that I can think of that explains it. Not simply the fact of considering a possibility, which there’s nothing wrong with, but the fact of such over-confidence in the face of such a raft of huge differences. There appears to be a new rule. It seems to be - one point for a dissimilarity but three points for a similarity, as a way of tipping the balance to favour a theory.

[The Rookie Detective]

Hi Herlock,

this common claim about the 'rarity' of serial killers working side-by-side in the same time & place doesn't carry any weight among people who grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s-1990s.

In Seattle alone, there must have been nearly a dozen of these reprobates whose murders overlapped. Some lived in the area for years--others just passed through--including Ted Bundy, the Green River Killer, Robert Lee Yates, etc. Along, of course, with "one-off" murders by other depraved individuals.

And Seattle had 1/5th the population of Victorian London.

I give no credence whatsoever to this line of thinking.

RP

With sincerest respect, the level of officially recorded serial killers in the US, is higher than all the other countries in the world combined.

Think about that fact for a moment and then try and apply that to the current discussion.

Comparing the United States to Victorian London is completely out of relative context.

Serial killers in the US - around 3200
Serial killers in the UK - around 160

The UK the 2nd highest in the world

Its like comparing the rarity of gun crime in New Zealand in 1902, to the gun crime in the state of Mississippi in 2023... it's simply not a fair and balanced argument.

The Ripper and Torso killings can't be compared to 1990's Seattle when talking about the rarity of crimes committed by serial killers.


Let's not forget that the only reason the Ripper is still talked about today is because he was never caught.

A serial killer like Amelia Dyer, who may have murdered around 400 children, makes the Ripper look like a boy scout.

There's nothing special about this guy, he just got lucky in not being caught.

RD

[John Wheat]

I tend to think it’s because nothing particular new is happening there’s a desire to make something happen. That’s the only thing that I can think of that explains it. Not simply the fact of considering a possibility, which there’s nothing wrong with, but the fact of such over-confidence in the face of such a raft of huge differences. There appears to be a new rule. It seems to be - one point for a dissimilarity but three points for a similarity, as a way of tipping the balance to favour a theory.

You might be right Herlock. I find it annoying to be honest.

[Abby Normal]

speaking of heads...

was peeling the face off the skull
and depositing another horribly
disfigured skull and face
in front of a very public building
an attempt to hide
and get rid of?


or leaving your handi-work in Frankensteins backyard,
the caverns of the new police building,
in the middle of pinchin
an attempt to hide?

lol.! ok. dont think so.


was sending a thousand little ships of flesh down the Thames
and other dark canals an act of discretion?
alot found!
and giving the most abdomans the kiss
of a vertical gash
a sign of dueling maniacs?

I think not.

but perhaps.

[Fiver]

So, lets make up two sets of two murders each, and see what the built in similarities and differences can tell us.

The only thing your made up examples prove is that you can make up examples. They are useless for analyzing anything about the Ripper or Torso cases.

A dissimilarity can never prove two different perps, regardless of what that dissimilarity is. It is impossible, regardless of what that dissimilarity is. Some will say that if two murders are perpetrated far apart but at the same time, then we must have two different killers. That is true, but "at the same time" is not a dissimilarity, it is a similarity.

Contrary to this, a similarity can and will often prove a single perpetrator. It of course depends on the character of the similarity, but generally speaking, the rarer it is, the more certain we may be of a single perpetrator. And the more similarities there are, the more certain we may be of a single perp. If we have a combination of many similarities, some or all of them of a very rare kind, it is a done deal that a single killer must be the working premise, unless there is something to weigh the similarities up. And that something will never be a dissimilarity, but instead something like how it can be proven that one person is guilty of a murder in the first series, but has an alibi for the murders in the second series.

A single similarity can never prove anything. More similarities make it more likely the same perpetrator is involved. A dissimilarity makes it more likely that multiple killers are involved. More dissimilarities make it even more likely that multiple perpetrators were involved.

In some points, we cannot determine if there were similarities. Most Torso victims were not identified, so we can't tell if there's a common victimology. The Ripper clearly took trophies from his victims, we have no idea if the Torsoman did so. The Ripper killed by strangling and then cutting throats - we have no idea how the Torso victims were killed.

Points of similarity are:
Knives were used in both the Ripper and Torso murders.
Organs were removed from the bodies.

Points of dissimilarity are:
The Ripper killed over a very small section of East London. The Torsoman scattered body parts for miles up and down the Thames.
The Ripper was active for a few months. The Torsoman was active for years, possibly decades.
The series do not begin or end at the same time.
The Ripper severely mutilated soft tissues. The Torsoman disarticulated bodies for easier transport.
The Torsoman was highly skilled at disarticulating limbs and severing heads. The Ripper was a bungling amateur.
The Ripper posed bodies. The Torsoman did not.
The Ripper posed organs around bodies. The Torsoman did not.
The Ripper made no attempt to hide his victims identities. The Torsoman clearly did - none of the heads were found.
The Ripper left his victims where he killed them. The Torsoman did not.
The Ripper spent no time disposing of his victims bodies. The Torsoman spent days, possibly weeks, disposing of bodies.
The Ripper was a much bigger risk taker - he escaped detection by a minutes, possibly even seconds in the Nichols, Stride, and Eddowes murders. The Pinchin Street Torso was found a half hour after deposit, but many other bits weren't found until days or even weeks afterwards.
The Torsoman discarded many parts of his victims into rivers or canals. The Ripper didn't.

If you believe the letters (I don't.) then the Ripper sent taunting letters and trophy organs to the press. The Torsoman did neither.
If you think the Goulston Street graffito was written by the Ripper (I don't) then the Ripper deliberately left that message for the police. The Torsoman didn't do anything like that.

[Lewis C]

But that is not factually correct Herlock...

There were NO Torso murders throughout the entire Canonical 5 timeline.

The Whitehall Torso was placed in the vault within hours of the double event and discovered a few days later...

But the murder itself occurred BEFORE Nichols.

And that is one of the key points that has been overlooked.

The belief that the killer murdered the Whitehall victim AFTER Chapman, is NOT correct.

He murdered the Whitehall Torso victim BEFORE the Canonial Ripper victims.


On that basis, he didn't change backwards and forwards between M.O because there were no Torso victims during the Autumn of Terror.

And that is a key point that nobody has seemed to have acknowledged.


On that basis, the Torso killer's spell as the Ripper is what gained him fame...

The Kelly murder was a hybrid of the two, and I would suggest that the killer lived very close to Miller's Court.

He tried to take Kelly's head, but I believe he may have been disturbed by Bowyer doing his 3am rounds into Miller's Court.

The idea that he had all the time in the world with Kelly, is not necessarily true.

He also tried to cut her face off, take her nose, slit her eyes etc... But he knew he couldn't dismember her and so took his rage and frustration out on her.

I believe the Torso killer worked as a Navvy on the Commercial Street tramway, which required him to lodge locally in Whitechapel for the duration of the job.
The work began and ended in the autumn of 1888.

There was a gap after Kelly where he had to reset...and from there he alternated Ripper and Torso style kills at his leisure.


He also worked on the construction of the Great Eastern Railway, because he murdered Coles and dumped the Pinchin St torso under arches of the GER.

He also worked on the Canalways, hence why he was able to deposit body parts on multiple occasions.

He also worked on the NSY building as a builder, in Stone work/Carpentry/Marble/Concrete etc...

The Board of Works signed off a lot of the work that he did as a Navvy contractor for the Canals/Railway/Civil building projects, and the connection to George Lusk having been a builder at the Board of Works simply cannot be overlooked.

Lots of connections there if you but open your mind to the possibilities.


The idea that the killer was a madman, a Jew, or a Maybrick-type figure, is simply rhetoric pushed by the people in power at the time.

The last Ripper murder was recognized as Coles but there were attempted Ripper style attacks much later.

And the Torso killer murdered a woman in 1902, but this time boiled and dumped the entire body in a pile outside Doultons factory in Lambeth.


There's so much more...watch this space


RD

Hi RD,

I agree that Herlock didn't get all the details quite right, but if you count McKenzie and Coles as Ripper murders, it looks to me like he did go back and forth, if the same man committed all the murders. I believe the following murders happened in this order: Kelly, Jackson, McKenzie, Pinchin Street, Coles. And it does seem right to figure McKenzie and Coles as probable Ripper murders if the Torso murders are, since Coles' and especially McKenzie's murders seem to have more in common with the C5 murders than the Torso murders do.

[Fiver]

Moreover, it was thought that one victim of the four was carried manually to the dumping site, implicating that this victim was dumped not far from where the killer lived or had a bolthole, and that victim was the Pinchin Street victim, where sack imprints were found on the dumped torso.

You again ignore the bigger picture to try to force the facts to fit your theory. Parts were found in Battersea Park, on the grounds of the Shelley Estate, and on the construction site of New Scotland Yard. All of those, especially the last, were clearly carried manually to their dumping sites. Yet you don't insist that the Torsoman lived or had a bolthole near Battersea Park, or the Shelley Estate, or New Scotland Yard. After all, that wouldn't fit your theory.

[Fiver]

It is also reasoned that the cutting was different and of varying skill - a point that dissolves when we acknowledge that the deeds were very likely carried out under very different conditions in terms of light, time access and so forth. A third point is that one killer dismembered, and the other did not. But we know that there was seemingly an effort to decapitate Kelly, and that the killer failed to do so by way of knife. And we also know that Hebbert informs us that the Torso killer only advanced to being able to decapitate by way of knife in September of 1889, making this matter a similarity between the series, not a dissimilarity.

Doctors of the time reasoned that the cutting was of different skill and said so in their testimony. The Ripper had plenty of light and time in the Kelly murder, yet he clearly showed himself hopelessly inept at removing heads, something the Torsoman had shown practiced skill at in 1887.

[Fiver]

What we are left with is therefore a simple choice: Are evisceration victims in the same town and general time and with very rare damage done to their bodies more likely to be victims of one killer or two or more killers?

Based on your reasoning, Edmund Kemper and Herbert Mullin must have been the same man. The differences between the Torso killings and the Ripper killings outweigh their similarities, as noted by the doctors who actually examined the victims.