Jack the Ripper & The Torso Murders

[Pcdunn]

This looks like a classic example of having an idea, that being Torso man was a navvy. And then attempting to find any repair or construction work in the London area, so as to form a link of sorts.

Being a Navvy, is a fair suggestion, I would actually be more inclined to those actually working on the waterways myself, rather than building them.
However, such relies on a single person or group of people being responsible for all the Torso cases from 73-02. And I have yet to see real evidence of that .

I am afraid I don't buy the reasoning over the 02 case and Doltons, I find it unrealistic RD.

However, I too suspect that some of the Torso cases may have come from outside London, but I suspect for very different reasons to yourself.

Not content with all the Torsos from 73-02, attempting to add in the JTR vitims , via, toilets and taps, seriously ???

Steve

This is amazing. Jack the Ripper has in speculation fallen from royal lineage to being a builder, mason, navvy, and now-- a plumber?!

[Elamarna]

Hi El
happy new year to you too! We see things a little differently no big wup!

Completely agree.

[Elamarna]

There is another important aspect that may have been overlooked.

1888 was a notoriously bad year for extreme weather conditions, and vast areas of the country suffered widespread flooding.

In 1888 there was a considerable amount of work that needed to be carried out on the Railway Infrastructure; but not just in terms of building, but also in terms of repairing damaged areas of the Railway network that had suffered from severe flooding.

It is a fact that much of the railway system in London suffered considerable delays and need for repairs, due to the weather being particularly extreme at the time.

The weather was reported on again and again and so the fact that the railway infrastructure struggled to cope at the time, is therefore well-documented.

This required scores of Navvies and specialist builders to work on repairing and securing the railway infrastructure that had been impacted by the severe weather.

The persistent flooding also impacted the canal-ways and the rivers.

And so in terms of my belief the killer was a Navvy, who worked on many civil engineering and large-scale non-domestic building contracts, hypothetically speaking, he may have also been involved with the sewage works/construction of the water/sewage system.
I say this because the fact that the Whitehall torso was discovered next to the new sewer pipe may also be important.

What better way of knowing how to safely "navigate" the potentially hazardous trench and sewage pipe in the vault, than being one of the men who built it.

There is another quite tantalizing clue regarding the Lambeth 1902 torso... the torso and body parts were piled up with the head resting on top directly outside the back of the Doultons factory.

When we think of Doultons, we think of Royal Doulton; (which the company would eventually become) and we also consider them to be specialists in fine items ranging form tableware and cookware, to linen and curtains.

However, at the heart of Doultons at the time of the Torso/Ripper case, wasn't the same as what it is today.

At the time the company specialized in items that were made from...STONE

And so I believe that the 1902 Lambeth Torso case can be linked to the Pinchin Street Torso by the link to Stonemasonry/building.

The Lambeth and Pinchin St cases can then also be linked to the Whitehall torso through the same concept...because what else did Doultons of Lambeth also specialize in?...

They also specialized in making taps, pipes, toilets, and various other utility items.

This would have included pipes for water waste.


Was the Torso killer giving us clues the entire time?


Whitehall torso - discovered in a vault next to a recently constructed cellar and sewage pipe
Elizabeth Jackson - seen by multiple witnesses as having been seen talking with a Navvy
Pinchin Street Torso - Dumped next to the Stone breaking yard owned by the board of works

Kelly - murdered yards from a working Tap that was used...and maintained...outside her window.
Stride - murdered yards away from the toilet situated in Dutfields yard
Chapman - murdered yards away from the outside toilet

What if the killer was a man who worked as a specialist builder, working in stone masonry and building, and a Navvy sub-contracted by the Board of Works.
And could this have extended to working on the piping of sewage system?

Due to the flooding, was he able to pass unnoticed as the local handyman, who when out of work for the board of works, spent his time fixing pipes, taps and toilets and such like?

And had he worked for Doultons, who supplied pipes, taps, and various other stoneware products like Bed pans...ones similar to the pot found under Kelly's bed.

Did the killer use the sewer system to deposit body parts from his victims into the Thames?

Has anyone in the history of Ripperology ever considered that the man who serviced the tap outside Kelly's bedroom, and the man who may have built the toilet in Dutfields yard, may have been the torso killer and therefore the Ripper as well?

Doultons incidentally sourced their stone from various areas, primarily from a quarry in Birmingham.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the torso victims weren't from the West Midlands area...just like one of the Ripper victims was.

The stone was transferred from the quarry to London by the Canalways that ran into London, and possibly the railway was used too.

I know that some are very skeptical, but I believe that I am the first person to ever suggest that it was the man who fixed the toilet that could have been the killer?

I may be wrong, but I do love to test the water as it were.


RD

This looks like a classic example of having an idea, that being Torso man was a navvy. And then attempting to find any repair or construction work in the London area, so as to form a link of sorts.

Being a Navvy, is a fair suggestion, I would actually be more inclined to those actually working on the waterways myself, rather than building them.
However, such relies on a single person or group of people being responsible for all the Torso cases from 73-02. And I have yet to see real evidence of that .

I am afraid I don't buy the reasoning over the 02 case and Doltons, I find it unrealistic RD.

However, I too suspect that some of the Torso cases may have come from outside London, but I suspect for very different reasons to yourself.

Not content with all the Torsos from 73-02, attempting to add in the JTR vitims , via, toilets and taps, seriously ???

Steve

[Abby Normal]

Abby, happy New year, if I have not already said so. I find those tenuous links at best.

Apart from Pinchin, no other of the Torsos are left on public display, and I am still far from convinced that all the mid 1880s Torso cases are connected, although some may well be.
The gap of two months between AC and Pinchin street is for me simply insignificant

The wound to McKenzie is much shorter and less extentive than in Nichols, which is why some dismiss her as a victim, I do not.

The vertical cut is for a clear purpose in the Ripper victims, that is to gain entry into the body cavity.
Such is not at all clear in the Torso cases, and may simply be a byproduct of the dismembering process.

In all honest, I have yet to see any solid evidence that links the two series. Lots or debates about would you have two killers working in the then largest city in the world overlapping ? And I dont see how we can exclude the possibility. And debates based on profiling, which I don't hold in the same regard as some others.

In short, I simply do not see a real tangible connection between the torso cases and Nichols, but I do understand RD's reasoning for attempting to linking it, the railway construction. I don't even see that for Alice

Steve

Hi El
happy new year to you too! We see things a little differently no big wup!

[The Rookie Detective]

Abby, happy New year, if I have not already said so. I find those tenuous links at best.

Apart from Pinchin, no other of the Torsos are left on public display, and I am still far from convinced that all the mid 1880s Torso cases are connected, although some may well be.
The gap of two months between AC and Pinchin street is for me simply insignificant

The wound to McKenzie is much shorter and less extentive than in Nichols, which is why some dismiss her as a victim, I do not.

The vertical cut is for a clear purpose in the Ripper victims, that is to gain entry into the body cavity.
Such is not at all clear in the Torso cases, and may simply be a byproduct of the dismembering process.

In all honest, I have yet to see any solid evidence that links the two series. Lots or debates about would you have two killers working in the then largest city in the world overlapping ? And I dont see how we can exclude the possibility. And debates based on profiling, which I don't hold in the same regard as some others.

In short, I simply do not see a real tangible connection between the torso cases and Nichols, but I do understand RD's reasoning for attempting to linking it, the railway construction. I don't even see that for Alice

Steve

There is another important aspect that may have been overlooked.

1888 was a notoriously bad year for extreme weather conditions, and vast areas of the country suffered widespread flooding.

In 1888 there was a considerable amount of work that needed to be carried out on the Railway Infrastructure; but not just in terms of building, but also in terms of repairing damaged areas of the Railway network that had suffered from severe flooding.

It is a fact that much of the railway system in London suffered considerable delays and need for repairs, due to the weather being particularly extreme at the time.

The weather was reported on again and again and so the fact that the railway infrastructure struggled to cope at the time, is therefore well-documented.

This required scores of Navvies and specialist builders to work on repairing and securing the railway infrastructure that had been impacted by the severe weather.

The persistent flooding also impacted the canal-ways and the rivers.

And so in terms of my belief the killer was a Navvy, who worked on many civil engineering and large-scale non-domestic building contracts, hypothetically speaking, he may have also been involved with the sewage works/construction of the water/sewage system.
I say this because the fact that the Whitehall torso was discovered next to the new sewer pipe may also be important.

What better way of knowing how to safely "navigate" the potentially hazardous trench and sewage pipe in the vault, than being one of the men who built it.

There is another quite tantalizing clue regarding the Lambeth 1902 torso... the torso and body parts were piled up with the head resting on top directly outside the back of the Doultons factory.

When we think of Doultons, we think of Royal Doulton; (which the company would eventually become) and we also consider them to be specialists in fine items ranging form tableware and cookware, to linen and curtains.

However, at the heart of Doultons at the time of the Torso/Ripper case, wasn't the same as what it is today.

At the time the company specialized in items that were made from...STONE

And so I believe that the 1902 Lambeth Torso case can be linked to the Pinchin Street Torso by the link to Stonemasonry/building.

The Lambeth and Pinchin St cases can then also be linked to the Whitehall torso through the same concept...because what else did Doultons of Lambeth also specialize in?...

They also specialized in making taps, pipes, toilets, and various other utility items.

This would have included pipes for water waste.


Was the Torso killer giving us clues the entire time?


Whitehall torso - discovered in a vault next to a recently constructed cellar and sewage pipe
Elizabeth Jackson - seen by multiple witnesses as having been seen talking with a Navvy
Pinchin Street Torso - Dumped next to the Stone breaking yard owned by the board of works

Kelly - murdered yards from a working Tap that was used...and maintained...outside her window.
Stride - murdered yards away from the toilet situated in Dutfields yard
Chapman - murdered yards away from the outside toilet

What if the killer was a man who worked as a specialist builder, working in stone masonry and building, and a Navvy sub-contracted by the Board of Works.
And could this have extended to working on the piping of sewage system?

Due to the flooding, was he able to pass unnoticed as the local handyman, who when out of work for the board of works, spent his time fixing pipes, taps and toilets and such like?

And had he worked for Doultons, who supplied pipes, taps, and various other stoneware products like Bed pans...ones similar to the pot found under Kelly's bed.

Did the killer use the sewer system to deposit body parts from his victims into the Thames?

Has anyone in the history of Ripperology ever considered that the man who serviced the tap outside Kelly's bedroom, and the man who may have built the toilet in Dutfields yard, may have been the torso killer and therefore the Ripper as well?

Doultons incidentally sourced their stone from various areas, primarily from a quarry in Birmingham.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the torso victims weren't from the West Midlands area...just like one of the Ripper victims was.

The stone was transferred from the quarry to London by the Canalways that ran into London, and possibly the railway was used too.

I know that some are very skeptical, but I believe that I am the first person to ever suggest that it was the man who fixed the toilet that could have been the killer?

I may be wrong, but I do love to test the water as it were.


RD

[Elamarna]

hi el
nichols and mackenzie both had the vertical gash down the midsection like some of the torsos. both were same victimology and mckenzie was killed around the same time as pinchin, both were left displayed in a public street like pinchin.

Abby, happy New year, if I have not already said so. I find those tenuous links at best.

Apart from Pinchin, no other of the Torsos are left on public display, and I am still far from convinced that all the mid 1880s Torso cases are connected, although some may well be.
The gap of two months between AC and Pinchin street is for me simply insignificant

The wound to McKenzie is much shorter and less extentive than in Nichols, which is why some dismiss her as a victim, I do not.

The vertical cut is for a clear purpose in the Ripper victims, that is to gain entry into the body cavity.
Such is not at all clear in the Torso cases, and may simply be a byproduct of the dismembering process.

In all honest, I have yet to see any solid evidence that links the two series. Lots or debates about would you have two killers working in the then largest city in the world overlapping ? And I dont see how we can exclude the possibility. And debates based on profiling, which I don't hold in the same regard as some others.

In short, I simply do not see a real tangible connection between the torso cases and Nichols, but I do understand RD's reasoning for attempting to linking it, the railway construction. I don't even see that for Alice

Steve

[The Rookie Detective]

RD, I did mention this to you in the Torso Chronology and implications thread #6

Ah yes, my apologies.

I responded to you on that thread in post #8 and then you replied again in post #11

I think the points you made were excellent and having just re-read through our exchange on the thread, it has brought it more into line with this one.

The area of the cellar that the dog detected a scent, but where none of the victim wss found, would imply that the dog had located the exact spot where the body was buried and from where it was dug up.


RD

[Abby Normal]

Again I see absolutely nothing To connect either Nichols or Alice McKenzie to the Torso cases RD.

With all respect I think you are fixed on the suggestion the torso man was a navvy and thus want to connect Nichols to the series by the location.

On broader grounds,

We still have no evidence that the Torsos and the Whitechapel murders are connected. Lots of debate, lots of speculation, but no actual evidence RD.

I also raised the issue of attempting to connecting all of the cases from 73 - 02 early and you didn't address that issue.

Steve

hi el
nichols and mackenzie both had the vertical gash down the midsection like some of the torsos. both were same victimology and mckenzie was killed around the same time as pinchin, both were left displayed in a public street like pinchin.

[Elamarna]

And then when he murdered Mckenzie, which was very similar to the Nichols murder, he had more control by playing it safe.


Lots to think about

RD

Again I see absolutely nothing To connect either Nichols or Alice McKenzie to the Torso cases RD.

With all respect I think you are fixed on the suggestion the torso man was a navvy and thus want to connect Nichols to the series by the location.

On broader grounds,

We still have no evidence that the Torsos and the Whitechapel murders are connected. Lots of debate, lots of speculation, but no actual evidence RD.

I also raised the issue of attempting to connecting all of the cases from 73 - 02 early and you didn't address that issue.

Steve

[New Ford Shunt]

Have we been missing something with the Whitehall Mystery, that may have been right in front of our eyes?

I've just been sifting through some of the newspaper reports, and comparing them with some of the excellent viewpoints from others on this site, and noticed something I wanted to re-highlight to get your views and feedback.

The Whitehall Torso was placed in the vault of the cellar that had only been constructed within the 3 months before the body was found.
There was a trench through the area, where the new sewer line was being constructed/finalized that effectively separated the Torso from the rest of the vault, ergo, the person who placed the torso needed to traverse the trench and place the body on the other side.

We also know that despite the police having searched the area to try and locate any additional body parts, they somehow missed a left leg that was discovered by the reporter and his dog over 2 weeks after the initial torso. (He may have had a tip-off that there were more body parts to be found.) The leg was found on the opposite side of the vault to where the main torso was found, ergo, close, but not together.

And so how can this all be explained?

We have often pondered on how and when the killer managed to place the torso where it was found.

But what if we have been looking at this from the wrong angle?

I know that some believe that the victim was murdered in the cellar, and even the newspapers reported that same belief.

So let's say for argument's sake that this was the case...this would explain a lot that has yet to be explained.

Now we know that there was a limb found in Pimlico on the 11th September, a few weeks before the discovery of the torso in the vault on the 2nd October, which proves that the woman was deceased at least a few weeks before the torso was discovered.

And so where did the killer keep the body?

Could the answer be that he had dismembered and then buried the victim in the vault?

And so when the torso was discovered, it wasn't a case of how the killer managed to get the body in there, it's a case of...was the killer in the process of transferring some more body parts, but the body was found BEFORE he could move the body?

In other words, it's not about the mystery of the killer getting the body in the vault; it's whether or not he was trying to move/dig up the torso, but was disturbed and so had to quickly think on his feet and be part of the team who discovered the torso.

Could this then explain why a reporter came in and somehow found a left leg? Because the killer knew that the leg was still buried in there.

The killer wasn't getting the torso in, he was trying to move it and get it out.


Could the killer have been working on the construction of the sewer? And perhaps used the sewer line to partially hide/conceal the body parts?

I believe that the killer was a Navvy, as witnessed seen talking with Jackson in June 1889.

Now a Navvy works specifically on the Railways/Canal Ways/Tram Ways etc... but could also be an engineer/worker/builder who dealt with the sewerage system IF it was part of the overall public engineering project, i.e. not a domestic project.

It;s also important to remember that prior to becoming a Police building, the site was a former site for an Opera House that never came to be...but by the time of of the NSY build, the foundations of the previous building were already in place.
The original schematics for the site included a walk way to the train station and a corridor straight to the parliament building.
Now IF those corridors were indeed constructed, then the killer MAY have transported the body via the train line...which again links back to the Railway.

I have no idea whether those underground corridors linking to the train station were built, but I would assume that some work must have been done on them because the former plan for the Opera House were so close to becoming reality.

Could the murder of the Whitehall torso be connected to the theatre world/opera house, and she was murdered because of a connection to the proposed opera house, and nothing to do with the police building?

Lots to ponder,,,and lots more to come.


RD

RD, I did mention this to you in the Torso Chronology and implications thread #6

[The Rookie Detective]

I've long suspect it could have been a combination of the two. He initially buried, or planned to bury, the body in the vault, but at some point, he feared he was going to be detected and started to smuggle it out again.

It sounds convoluted, but this is basically what happened in the 1875 Whitechapel 'Torso' case. Wainwright had buried the body and there it stayed, but when he lost his lease, he knew he had to dig it back up, and move it elsewhere. That's when he was detected.

There is, to my mind, some evidence that this may have happened in the Whitehall case, because despite Christer's theory, the leg was not buried under the drain trailing. It was in the middle of it---only one foot down inside a two-foot-tall mound. Further, while the leg was beautifully preserved (according to Dr. Bond), the foot itself was badly decomposed, as if the leg had been buried but the foot had been above ground and exposed to oxygen and/or sunlight---which could be taken as evidence of a prior burial.

Further, when 'Smoker' was brought back into the vault, the dog detected more remains besides the leg, but when they dug down to a level of two feet, there was nothing....except a very strong odor. As if something had been buried and brought back up. Like the leg, for instance. Or the victim's head.

Personally, I don't think the body was supposed to be found. That's more the thing of Hollywood movies and a heck of a stretch for a case where there was a clear intent to bury the body--or parts of the body.

RP

Ah yes, I am very familiar with the 1875 Wainwright case, and I agree that it does sound similar in many ways.

Henry Wainwright had shot, murdered and buried his victim in the cellar of his workshop and had used lime to treat the body.

I can't recall if he dismembered her at the time or whether he only dismembered her when he knew he needed to move her body.
This is a particularly important detail.

He only moved her on the 1 year anniversary of the murder, which had taken place in 1874.

I have always wondered whether his brother Thomas Wainwright was the torso killer.

There were 3 brothers, Henry the convicted murderer hanged, William the high ranking freemason and pastor who was shot in the head on a train, and the youngest, Thomas...who served 7 years for being complicit in helping his brother Henry move the body.

What's interesting is that Henry was very well known amongst the theatre going social circle, having met the woman he later went on to murder, in the theatre.

When Thomas was released in 1881, he falls off the radar.
He was always suspected of having been involved in the murder and dismemberment of the woman that his brother Henry had murdered in the cellar.

Did Thomas go on to murder women in a similar manner, developing a warped sense of vengeance because his brother had been hanged?

It's also important to note that Henry Wainwright had both a shop and a private workshop on Whitechapel road, one of which was directly next to the Pavilion theatre.

The Pavilion theatre IMO has always been a key location for potentially connecting the Ripper and Torso cases.

Charles Reeves himself performed there and so I find the possible connection with the Wainwrights very interesting.

I also believe that the Whitehall victim worked in the theatre, possibly as a barmaid.

Jackson herself had worked as a barmaid if I recall correctly.

Did the torso killer acquire his victims through going to the theatre and the social circles involved with that?

I say this because I believe that the Coram Street murder on Christmas day 1872 is rooted firmly in the Ripper/Torso murders.
The victim having been a prostitute who picked up her clients by frequenting the Alhambre theatre; the famous building named after its distinctive red brickwork.

But I digress...

I believe that the truth of whether the Whitehall torso was buried in the cellar lies somewhere in-between and that because the arm was found in pimlico on the 11th September, that proves that the killer hadn't tried to bury ALL of the body.
I believe that the torso killer used the vault not to bury, but to STORE his victim with the intent of dumping multiple body parts over a sustained period of time over various locations.

But when the sewer pipe was placed he has to adapt and the torso was discovered. The killer then took advantage of this find to avoid being caught.

IF the torso killer made a mistake and the body he has stored in the cellar was not meant to be found at THAT TIME, then that may explain why there was a long period of time before he used dismemberment in Jackson.

He instead focused on Ripping his victims without dismemberment.

I other words, did he murder Kelly in the manner he did, purely because he had nearly got caught in the botched storing of the Whitehall torso?

If the vault WAS his bolthole for the Whitehall torso, and then his plans to store her and gradually dismember and dump her body parts over time had been thwarted, could that have been the catalyst for murdering Kelly in such a savage manner?

After Kelly, there was a big gap... Because of a botched Whitehall murder and nearly being caught killing Kelly.

He then went back to basics...

When he dismembered Jackson he made sure she was discovered exactly how the Whitehall victim should have been found ...

And then when he murdered Mckenzie, which was very similar to the Nichols murder, he had more control by playing it safe.


Lots to think about

RD

[Abby Normal]

if the whitehall victim was killed and dismembered on site it points even more stronger to a worker there like wildbore.
I could see it perhaps not be too difficult to lure a drunk prostitute there for many reasons: the excitement of it, privacy, a ruse of stashed liquor. tjeres tools already there correct? perhaps the cutting instruments are already in place. could this actually be torsomans chop shop for some or all of the other torso victims?

question: was wildbore married at the time? or did he live alone?

[rjpalmer]

Could the murder of the Whitehall torso be connected to the theatre world/opera house, and she was murdered because of a connection to the proposed opera house, and nothing to do with the police building?

Bond only thought the foot had been buried for six weeks, though. About the same length of time the victim had been killed.

The National Opera House project began in the mid-1870s and had been abandoned quite a long time before 1888. I believe the work had stopped before 1884.

[rjpalmer]

The killer wasn't getting the torso in, he was trying to move it and get it out.

Could the killer have been working on the construction of the sewer? And perhaps used the sewer line to partially hide/conceal the body parts?

I've long suspect it could have been a combination of the two. He initially buried, or planned to bury, the body in the vault, but at some point, he feared he was going to be detected and started to smuggle it out again.

It sounds convoluted, but this is basically what happened in the 1875 Whitechapel 'Torso' case. Wainwright had buried the body and there it stayed, but when he lost his lease, he knew he had to dig it back up, and move it elsewhere. That's when he was detected.

There is, to my mind, some evidence that this may have happened in the Whitehall case, because despite Christer's theory, the leg was not buried under the drain trailing. It was in the middle of it---only one foot down inside a two-foot-tall mound. Further, while the leg was beautifully preserved (according to Dr. Bond), the foot itself was badly decomposed, as if the leg had been buried but the foot had been above ground and exposed to oxygen and/or sunlight---which could be taken as evidence of a prior burial.

Further, when 'Smoker' was brought back into the vault, the dog detected more remains besides the leg, but when they dug down to a level of two feet, there was nothing....except a very strong odor. As if something had been buried and brought back up. Like the leg, for instance. Or the victim's head.

Personally, I don't think the body was supposed to be found. That's more the thing of Hollywood movies and a heck of a stretch for a case where there was a clear intent to bury the body--or parts of the body.

RP

[The Rookie Detective]

Have we been missing something with the Whitehall Mystery, that may have been right in front of our eyes?

I've just been sifting through some of the newspaper reports, and comparing them with some of the excellent viewpoints from others on this site, and noticed something I wanted to re-highlight to get your views and feedback.

The Whitehall Torso was placed in the vault of the cellar that had only been constructed within the 3 months before the body was found.
There was a trench through the area, where the new sewer line was being constructed/finalized that effectively separated the Torso from the rest of the vault, ergo, the person who placed the torso needed to traverse the trench and place the body on the other side.

We also know that despite the police having searched the area to try and locate any additional body parts, they somehow missed a left leg that was discovered by the reporter and his dog over 2 weeks after the initial torso. (He may have had a tip-off that there were more body parts to be found.) The leg was found on the opposite side of the vault to where the main torso was found, ergo, close, but not together.

And so how can this all be explained?

We have often pondered on how and when the killer managed to place the torso where it was found.

But what if we have been looking at this from the wrong angle?

I know that some believe that the victim was murdered in the cellar, and even the newspapers reported that same belief.

So let's say for argument's sake that this was the case...this would explain a lot that has yet to be explained.

Now we know that there was a limb found in Pimlico on the 11th September, a few weeks before the discovery of the torso in the vault on the 2nd October, which proves that the woman was deceased at least a few weeks before the torso was discovered.

And so where did the killer keep the body?

Could the answer be that he had dismembered and then buried the victim in the vault?

And so when the torso was discovered, it wasn't a case of how the killer managed to get the body in there, it's a case of...was the killer in the process of transferring some more body parts, but the body was found BEFORE he could move the body?

In other words, it's not about the mystery of the killer getting the body in the vault; it's whether or not he was trying to move/dig up the torso, but was disturbed and so had to quickly think on his feet and be part of the team who discovered the torso.

Could this then explain why a reporter came in and somehow found a left leg? Because the killer knew that the leg was still buried in there.

The killer wasn't getting the torso in, he was trying to move it and get it out.


Could the killer have been working on the construction of the sewer? And perhaps used the sewer line to partially hide/conceal the body parts?

I believe that the killer was a Navvy, as witnessed seen talking with Jackson in June 1889.

Now a Navvy works specifically on the Railways/Canal Ways/Tram Ways etc... but could also be an engineer/worker/builder who dealt with the sewerage system IF it was part of the overall public engineering project, i.e. not a domestic project.

It;s also important to remember that prior to becoming a Police building, the site was a former site for an Opera House that never came to be...but by the time of of the NSY build, the foundations of the previous building were already in place.
The original schematics for the site included a walk way to the train station and a corridor straight to the parliament building.
Now IF those corridors were indeed constructed, then the killer MAY have transported the body via the train line...which again links back to the Railway.

I have no idea whether those underground corridors linking to the train station were built, but I would assume that some work must have been done on them because the former plan for the Opera House were so close to becoming reality.

Could the murder of the Whitehall torso be connected to the theatre world/opera house, and she was murdered because of a connection to the proposed opera house, and nothing to do with the police building?

Lots to ponder,,,and lots more to come.


RD