Jack the Ripper & The Torso Murders

[Fiver]

I will not answer any posts where you call Edward ”von Stow”. Grow up, please.

So you'd rather be upset that I implied a fascist politician was a fascist instead of attempting to answer the point? Interesting choice of priorities.

[Fisherman]

How is that arm coming, Fiver? The one that seemed to you to prove two different burial depths?

Here īs a lead for you. Instead of the Times of the 23rd, try the Morning Advertiser from the same date. See if you can spot that arm therein! And while you are at it, try and see if the hard packed earth over the leg was commented on in the same fashion there.

Once you get that far, read Hebberts extremely detailed description of the leg and foot found at the site. And try and find the arm there.

Once you are done, you will be faced with the same thing as when you said that the Torso killer only severed torsos horisontally and through bone, while the Ripper cut abdomens open vertically through soft tissue. That was a clincher for you - two different killers, surely!

But you were wrong. The facts were on my side, not yours.

What if that just happened again, Fiver? Will that humble you and make you say ”I was wrong - the evidence is on your side, not mine”?

What does it take for you to acknowledge having stepped in it, Fiver?

Happy New Year again. May it bring insights, peace, fruitful debates, and put an end to useless quibbles.

I īm off.

[Fiver]

If you read Charles Hebbert, you will find that he mentions that a leg was found some time after the torso. But he mentions no arm, Fiver.

Now, why would that be?

If you read Charles Hebbert, you would see that Hebbert's analysis rather conclusively rules out your favorite suspect, Charles Lechmere.

"The incisions were evidently made by design and were skilfuly performed, as by a man who had some knowledge of the position of joints and the readiest means pf separating limbs - such knowledge as a butcher or slaughterer would possess. They do not indicate a special anatomical knowledge of the human body." - Charles Hebbert

Lechmere was a delivery driver who later became a grocer, not a butcher or knacker.

As to Hebbert's disagreement with the Times account, clearly one of them must be wrong. Obviously, the solution is to look at other sources and see which version they support. The answer is that the other newspaper accounts (Lloyd's Weekly, Sunday Dispatch, Daily Telegraph, Daily News, Illustrated Police News, Morning Post, Sunday People) support Hebbert's version - that only the lower leg was was found. Much like Robert Paul's time estimate, the Times account must be discounted in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Only one body part buried makes it more possible that the burial was accidental, but it still seems unlikely. It would require multiple workman to completely miss spotting the leg bundle and for both Waring and Angle to be wrong about there being no sign of recent digging above the leg.

It also means even more of that victim was undiscovered, so flatly ruling out that at least some of those missing parts were buried makes no sense.

[Fisherman]

Did you read up on that arm, Fiver?

[Abby Normal]

So you'd rather be upset that I implied a fascist politician was a fascist instead of attempting to answer the point? Interesting choice of priorities.

your the one who keeps bringing him up.

[Abby Normal]

duplicate

[Fisherman]

So howīs it going, Fiver? Did you get around to reading the Morning Advertiser? And did you see how it is said that the place where the leg was found was where it seemed that earth had been thrown up in a mound, or something such?
That is why it is reasoned that the leg could have been accidentally buried. And those who suggest it will likely have weighed in how it was very dark in these vaults, meaning that they acknowledge that the limb may have been missed out on, perhaps only having looked like a mud formation or stones in the gloom.
You say that Jasper Waring says that he did not see any signs of the earth having been disturbed, but I fail to see what impact that would have. Once the earth had been thrown over the leg, it arguably was not disturbed any further until the dog dug the limb up. As far as I can see, that does not in any way impact the question whether the leg was accidentally or intentionally buried.

The one point you had that would have made a difference was how the leg and the arm were buried on different levels. And as it turned out, there never was any arm at all, was there? And no two level burials.

When I supplied you with that information, you could go two ways. You could either say ”Oh, it seems I was wrong, sorry about that. That changes the matter entirely, and I must now retract my former statement. Thank you for putting me on the right track”. Or you could go ”To hell with that, it may well be that the leg was buried to hide the deed anyway!”

I am not in the least surprised that you chose the latter route. You always do, it seems. So far, I have not heard a iot from you about how I set you right on the business of whether or not the Torso killer cut his victims open all the way down, Ripper style. You have totally ignored it, and failed to acknowledge how it puts a very different hue on the matter of a common killer than the one you suggested. You said ”A applies, therefore it follows…” but it was B that applied. The exact opposite. And that is a game changer, but you ignore it.

Time and again, you come on here with a very bad attitude, and you present total misapprehensions as some sort of facts. Then, when shown that you have gotten things totally wrong, you shoot from the hip about other things altogether. Or ignore it.

Who is to put any trust in you now, Fiver? Once we can see that you are woefully underinformed about the things you are trying to push as truths, why would anybody listen to anything you have to say?

You now try to reintroduce Lehmere into this thread, and I advice against it. There are threads for the carman, use them instead. All I will say is that I find it amusing that you should have the arrogance to think that your interpretation of what Hebbert says should be given any credence at all, after having demonstrated with extreme clarity that you do not know what you are talking about on item after item.

A final word; It need not be like this. I will happily let you in on how I, years ago, made the same mistake as you about that arm, after having read Trows book on the Torso cases. He too forgot to check the information, and it nestled itself into the book.
I was corrected by Debra Arif back then, and I too had two choices: To say ”Oh, I was wrong, thanks for correcting me”, or to go ”To hell with that, I am right anyway!”

I chose the first option, and to be frank, I never even pondered the second one. Going down that path would be factual suicide. It would make me look like a fool. That is how it is and how it genuinely should be.

Which brings us to the last sentence in your post: Flatly ruling out that at least some of the parts missing could have been buried wonīt do, you say. Thereby, you seem to imply that I would have flatly denied that this could have been so.

Of course, I never did that, and I never would. ANY missing parts from ANY torso deed MAY have been buried. Or burnt. Or thrown in the garbage. Or in the Thames. That is the point, is it not - when we do not have a part, we cannot say what happened to it.

We therefore can only go by what we DO have. And what we DO have is one (1) example of a part being found under earth, and we donīt know whether or not it was accidentally buried or intentionally buried. Plus we know that IF it was intentionally buried, it would be outright stupid of the killer to do so with the intention of hiding the deed, since he also left a large torso on display in the same space.

That, I believe, covers the facts nicely. The REAL facts, that is.

[FrankO]

Hi Frank.

But isn't that taking the exception and making it the general rule?

That Jackson was ultimately identified may mean nothing more than nifty police work coupled with the murderer screwing up. Murderers do make mistakes, despite taking pains not to, and (in my opinion) police ingenuity cannot be used as evidence of the murderer's or murderers' alleged indifference.

Let me return again to the Robert Durst case in Galveston, Texas. He cut up his neighbor, disposing of the parts in garbage bags and tossed them in Galveston Bay. Only the head--the most distinguishing part of a human body--was never discovered; the other parts washed ashore. Durst never explained what happened to the poor victim's head, but like Kate Webster in London in 1879, he may well have taken particular care that it wouldn't be found because identifying the victim would lead to unpleasant visits from the police.

Even so, Durst screwed-up dramatically and left a receipt for an optometrist in the bottom of one of the garbage bags which allowed the police to trace his eyeglasses and thus him. It doesn't indicate that Durst didn't know the victim or care (he did); only that he made a mistake.

To me, Elizabeth Jackson's undergarment could have been a similar oversight. I don't feel comfortable in using it as evidence that the other victims were unknown to the murder or murderers.

If the murderer wanted to put on a "display" and had no personal relationship to the victims, why didn't he display the head--the most shocking and horrible display of all? The Victorian murderer Fred Baker did, in Alton.

Is it merely a coincidence that the most identifiable feature of the victims was never put on "display" and never located?

Personally, I think not.

Happy New Year.

Hi Roger,

Perhaps I was agreeing a bit too much with Christer (sorry, Chirster) and didn’t express my point well enough.

As I said on page 3 of this thread, I see 3 possible motives for the killer to have cut off the heads of his victims. One would be that he could be (easily) linked to them; two would be that he did it to facilitate getting rid of the bodies and three would be that he did it because he liked to.

My point was that, even if the victim could be identified and be linked to him, the police would still have a very difficult task arriving at the killer’s doorstep.
Unless they caught him in the act of killing, the killer came forward to confess, he could be identified by one or more witnesses as the man seen dumping one or some of the body parts (which still wouldn’t actually prove that he did) or he made a mistake as you suggest, there would be very little, if any, chance at all that they would catch him. I see that as the general rule, due to the police of the day having nothing at their disposal in the form of forensic detection methods.

Which is shown by what happened in the case of Elizabeth Jackson: even though they knew her identity, they still weren’t able to find her killer. That is all I wanted to say.

Of course, you make a good point: if the killer with no link to the victim wanted to shock, then putting the head somewhere on display would be the most horrifying thing he could do, so why (other than perhaps the head of the 1884 victim) were none of the heads of the victims ever put on "display" and never located?

My guess would not be that he cut off the heads just because he liked to and could (i.e. aggressive/offensive dismemberment), or, at least, not only because he liked to and could.

Happy New Year to you too!
Frank

[FrankO]

hi frank
yes ive often said, if the torso victims had more evisceration, or the ripper victims dismemberment (and or chapman or kelly had their heads fully removed) it would be game over for me... def same man. but who knows what goes on in the twisted mind of a serial killer and why they do or do not do certain things at certain times.

as it stands i think there are enough similarities that i lean heavily (although not totally convinced)they were the same man.

happy new year to you!

Hi Abby,

I agree with almost everything you wrote here, so I concede that it's possible that they were one and the same man. If they were one and the same, it’s certainly not a given that he would have wanted to get recognition for both series (although I see evidence to support that he wanted the recognition or notoriety the Ripper got, without success).

As you will have guessed (or already knew), I lean to them being different men.

Happy New Year to you too!
Frank

[FrankO]

You may be correct about the Torso Killer deliberately seeking publicity, but that is not the only possible explanation. Pert of one of the victims was found in shrubbery in Battersea Park. To me, that sounds more like the killer ditching a body part quickly to avoid being caught with it, rather than an attempt at publicity. The part found on the Shelley estate was also found pitched into the shrubbery and we have no idea if the killer knew it was the Shelley estate. It certainly could have been placed in a easier to find location. The same is true of the Whitehall and Pinchin Street Torsos - it would have taken less effort to just drop them somewhere far easier to find. Only by chance was the Pinchin Street Torso found less than an hour after deposit instead of days later. Only by chance did a workman choose the same hiding place for his tools that the Torso Killer had chosen for hiding the Whitehall Torso. Without that, who knows when it would have been found.

Hi Fiver,

Whether it was to seek publicity, to shock, gain notoriety or all of them, we cannot know of course, but, as you say, the Shelley Estate, Whitehall vault and the Pinchin Street arch were no ‘easy’ choices.

As the killer (seems to have) put thought/premeditation into the latter two choices, I’m inclined to think that’s also true of the first. The toss over the railing of the Shelley Estate seems like a more casual thing in that he didn’t care if the thigh would be found or not, nor that it would be known that he was there (whereas the police wouldn’t know the exact locations from where he threw body parts in the river). It would have been better to have just tossed it into the river.

As to the Whitehall vault, he might have chosen that because he thought the torso & leg would eventually be ‘lost in the construction’, it just being a coincidence that the killer had connections to the New Scotland Yard building site. Quite possibly.

As to the Pinchin Street arch (and supposing there was just one Torso Man), he would have to have moved relatively quite a bit from the west to dump the torso there (seeing that he dumped most, if not all, the body parts (from) there). This location, unlike the Whitehall vault, doesn’t strike me as a place where the killer could have thought that the torso wouldn’t (easily) have been found. No easy choice, with little chance of not being discovered fairly quickly. And that might mean he wanted to say something with it. To me, it gives the impression of a rather half-baked attempt to be linked to the Ripper series.

Happy New Year to you!
Frank

[Mark J D]

... As to the Whitehall vault, he might have chosen that because he thought the torso & leg would eventually be ‘lost in the construction’, it just being a coincidence that the killer had connections to the New Scotland Yard building site. Quite possibly.

Frank, you're a thoughtful investigator; I always read your postings, and I wouldn't dream of disrespecting you...

But, really, mate!!!

-- Can you seriously maintain that when a chronically un-apprehended serial murderer places body parts at a location that is not only the basement of the Metropolitan Police's whizzy new HQ, but also literally 500 feet away from the seat of government and the centre of the Empire, it's because he doesn't want them to be found...?!?





Mate, getting the torso and leg discovered in that location would have been the ultimate thrill, even with all the other 'successes' our man was racking up. It was the malignant narcissist's jackpot.

Bests,

Mark D.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Based on the assumption that the person who placed the parts there was a serial killer of course.

[FrankO]

Frank, you're a thoughtful investigator; I always read your postings, and I wouldn't dream of disrespecting you...

Thanks for the compliment, Mark!

But, really, mate!!!

-- Can you seriously maintain that when a chronically un-apprehended serial murderer places body parts at a location that is not only the basement of the Metropolitan Police's whizzy new HQ, but also literally 500 feet away from the seat of government and the centre of the Empire, it's because he doesn't want them to be found...?!?

I can seriously maintain that as a possibility, yes. Whether I think it’s the most likely possibility is another question.

While you seem to be more of a guy who takes a clear stance, and preferably a provocative one, I might add (although I could be wrong), I’m much more nuanced. So, even though I consider it a possibility, it isn’t the one I see as the most likely.

And regarding the thrill Torso Man might have felt, I can imagine he could also have felt it if the torso & leg wouldn’t have been found. After all, in that case, he had put them right under the workmen’s noses and, still, they weren’t able to find them and, as a consequence, the new headquarters of those dumb coppers ended up being built on one of his very masterpieces. What a laugh!

Mate, getting the torso and leg discovered in that location would have been the ultimate thrill, even with all the other 'successes' our man was racking up. It was the malignant narcissist's jackpot.

Of course, I readily admit that getting the torso & leg discovered may would be felt by Torso Man as the ultimate thrill. Although I’d think he might well have put them in a place where he could have been sure that they would be found. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that he had been alone when dumping the torso & leg, so he could have chosen anywhere on the construction site. He could even just have dumped them in some dark corner above ground. So, why almost hide them in the site’s bowels?

Happy New Year!
Frank

[FrankO]

Based on the assumption that the person who placed the parts there was a serial killer of course.

Quite correct, Mike!

[Herlock Sholmes]

It’s difficult to see why the person disposing of the body parts chose this spot if he was looking to shock? Why not put it under a park bench or throw it into someone’s garden? If he wanted to ‘link’ it to the police then he could have just chucked it over the fence onto the building site which was directly connected the new police building or he could have dumped it next to a police station? I’m not suggesting that he couldn’t have placed it where he did in an act of thumbing his nose at the police as it’s entirely possible but we just have no way of knowing. We can’t even be sure that the person that left the package was the person that killed and dismembered it and we certainly don’t know who did it.

Am I misremembering but wasn’t another part found inside with the help of a dog?