Jack the Ripper & The Torso Murders

[Mark J D]

... Cats meat vendors carried their wares through the street in barrows, they didn't have shops where people came to them...

-- What was the shop Mrs Hardiman kept on the ground floor of 29 Hanbury Street?

M.

[Abby Normal]

If the Torsoman was the Ripper and the 1873 murders were done by the Torsomanm that eliminates a lot of suspects, but it doesn't leave Charles Lechmere as the only possibility. Using the main suspect page, we see that in 1873 Charles Dodson was 41, Thomas Cream was 23, Frederick Deeming was 31, Karl Feigenbaum was 44, Hyam Hyams was 18, Jacob Levy was 17, James Maybrick was 35, Michael Ostrog was 40, William Gull was 57, Robert D’Onston Stephenson was 32, Alois Szemeredy was 33, Nikolay Vasiliev was 25, and John Williams was 33.

with all due respect your "suspects" are a joke. and universally considered as such. ill give you donston as a possible long shot. who the heck is charles dodson and john willams?!! lol
like i said the only valid suspect that fits the bill is lech.

[Abby Normal]

There are no records of Maria Louisa Forsdyke ever owning a shop of any kind. Cats meat vendors carried their wares through the street in barrows, they didn't have shops where people came to them. She is first known to have worked in the cats neat trade in 1891. Before that she worked as a dressmaker.

Charles Allen Lechmere didn't become a grocer until 1902. There are no records of him having a separate business address before that.

Not only is there no evidence for Lechmere having a bolthole, it would require him renting a place that brought him no income for decades on a carman's salary, which was probably already spread rather thin paying to feed, clothe, and house a large family.

so you admit she owned a cart! lol jk. thanks fiver for the info.

[Fiver]

also, if torsoman and the ripper were the same man, and you include the 1873/74 torsos (i lean they prob were, and fish def does) then lech is the only suspect that fits the bill agewise.

If the Torsoman was the Ripper and the 1873 murders were done by the Torsomanm that eliminates a lot of suspects, but it doesn't leave Charles Lechmere as the only possibility. Using the main suspect page, we see that in 1873 Charles Dodson was 41, Thomas Cream was 23, Frederick Deeming was 31, Karl Feigenbaum was 44, Hyam Hyams was 18, Jacob Levy was 17, James Maybrick was 35, Michael Ostrog was 40, William Gull was 57, Robert D’Onston Stephenson was 32, Alois Szemeredy was 33, Nikolay Vasiliev was 25, and John Williams was 33.

[Fiver]

my thoughts are he had a bolt hole somewhere. his mom later had a cats meat shop. and also i beleive lech owned a shop or store later? so they were not adverse to owning a separate abode of business of some type. perhaps he had something similar earlier if he was the torsoripper.

There are no records of Maria Louisa Forsdyke ever owning a shop of any kind. Cats meat vendors carried their wares through the street in barrows, they didn't have shops where people came to them. She is first known to have worked in the cats neat trade in 1891. Before that she worked as a dressmaker.

Charles Allen Lechmere didn't become a grocer until 1902. There are no records of him having a separate business address before that.

Not only is there no evidence for Lechmere having a bolthole, it would require him renting a place that brought him no income for decades on a carman's salary, which was probably already spread rather thin paying to feed, clothe, and house a large family.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby,

Are you saying here that if we could establish that the 1873/74 torso murders were committed by the same man that committed the 1888 Whitechapel murders, then we could eliminate all named Ripper suspects except Lech as viable suspects on account of their ages?

hi lewis
yup

[Lewis C]

also, if torsoman and the ripper were the same man, and you include the 1873/74 torsos (i lean they prob were, and fish def does) then lech is the only suspect that fits the bill agewise.

Hi Abby,

Are you saying here that if we could establish that the 1873/74 torso murders were committed by the same man that committed the 1888 Whitechapel murders, then we could eliminate all named Ripper suspects except Lech as viable suspects on account of their ages?

[Lewis C]

Yes, absolutely correct chronology.

In my post I failed to highlight clearly that the killer didn't alternate during the Canonical 5 murders....but after Kelly, he took a pause, and then the timeline picks up again precisely how you have listed it.
The murder sequence then alternates between Ripper and Torso style application over the course of the next few years.
The last torso style killing occurred in 1902 in Lambeth.

I thought you were clear that there were no Torso murders during the C5 sequence. I was just saying, OK, but if there were Ripper murders after that, then there was some alternation between Ripper murders ans Torso murders.

The question is, why the gap after Kelly?

Now it has always been assumed that Kelly was the Rippers swansong...but what if that's not correct?

What if the killer regarded his slaying of Kelly as a failure.

Many think that Kelly was his last murder, but many don't. If she wasn't, we don't know the reason for the gap, but there are several possibilities. Maybe he was prevented one way or another (incarceration, illness, injury), maybe there was an increased police presence that deterred him, maybe the extremeness of the Kelly mutilations satisfied him for awhile. Maybe the winter accounts for part of the period: if we assume that the Ripper murders were the C5 plus Smith, Tabram, and McKenzie, then he never struck during the months of December thru March.

The Ripper was likely to have been around 36 when he killed 5 unfortunates in an unbroken series in 1888.

And therefore aged around 21 when he made his first kill in 1873.

That would then make him around 50 when he committed his last Torso kill in 1902.

His birth year between 1851 - 1853

That's a 30 year killing career spanning his 20's to his 50's

I don't see any reason to believe that 36 was his most likely age in 1888 unless we start with the belief that he committed murders in 1873 and 1902 and pick the age that best fits that range.

There's also a chance that there were 2 men involved.

Tabram and Mylett hint at that quite strongly.

And certainly Emma Smith does. If we can believe Israel Schwartz, Stride too.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Mike,

I think that's just because Torso Man also made cuts from sternum to pubes that didn't open up the abdomen.

The fact that the cut down the abdomen in especially the Pinchin Street case and posdibly also in the Rainham case (although I'm not sure) didn't open the belly, to me suggests a different man rather than the same. The cut from sternum to pubes that opened the abdomen was only the hallmark of the Ripper.

Cheers,
Frank

hi frank
mckenzie had the vertical cut too, but not as deep as the other ripper victims also. do you rule her out as a ripper victim, or then maybe as a torso victim, since the verticle gash was more akin to them?

imho if they were the same man, then the vertical gash was kind of like torsomans first kiss, or part of a sig, regardless of how deep it went.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Mike,

I think that's just because Torso Man also made cuts from sternum to pubes that didn't open up the abdomen.

The fact that the cut down the abdomen in especially the Pinchin Street case and posdibly also in the Rainham case (although I'm not sure) didn't open the belly, to me suggests a different man rather than the same. The cut from sternum to pubes that opened the abdomen was only the hallmark of the Ripper.

Cheers,
Frank

Thanks for that Frank.

[Abby Normal]

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

hi dk
fiver corrected me..we can talk about lech here.

my thoughts are he had a bolt hole somewhere. his mom later had a cats meat shop. and also i beleive lech owned a shop or store later? so they were not adverse to owning a separate abode of business of some type. perhaps he had something similar earlier if he was the torsoripper.

also, if torsoman and the ripper were the same man, and you include the 1873/74 torsos (i lean they prob were, and fish def does) then lech is the only suspect that fits the bill agewise.

[FrankO]

It’s perhaps a nitpick but why are ‘cut out uteri’ and ‘opened up abdomens from sternum to groin’ counted as two points of similarity? One was necessary to achieve the other. We might as well add ‘didn’t mind getting blood on his hands.’

Hi Mike,

I think that's just because Torso Man also made cuts from sternum to pubes that didn't open up the abdomen.

The fact that the cut down the abdomen in especially the Pinchin Street case and posdibly also in the Rainham case (although I'm not sure) didn't open the belly, to me suggests a different man rather than the same. The cut from sternum to pubes that opened the abdomen was only the hallmark of the Ripper.

Cheers,
Frank

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby,

As I indicated, I base what I wrote on what the medical men that saw part(s) of the body, said about the estimated time of death. Hebbert's overall opinion was somewhere between the beginning of August and the beginning of September. Neville thought the person whose arm he saw on 11 September had been dead for 3 or 4 days (if I'm not mistaken) which would mean around 8 September.

This fact alone shows that Torso Man did have some private place where he killed the Whitehall victim. But he nevertheless went ahead and killed Chapman out in the open.

Futhermore, the torso was discovered on 2 October, so at least the torso and the leg found 2 weeks later had to have been stored somewhere. Of course, it's possible that the Whitehall victim was killed & cut up at the Whitehall construction site, but it seems odd to me that nobody noticed a thing until weekse later. I have to admit that don't have the in-depth knowledge that Jerry has on the subject, so I'd have to delve into it to see how he explains those parts were not seen/found earlier.

Cheers,
Frank

oh ok thanks got it. but we dont know exactly what day whitehall torso was murdered, or cut up, or removed from his bolt hole, or if any of the torso parts were placed somewhere else before brought to whitehall.
so i dont think we can say he had his bolt hole available when chapman was murdered. and this isnt even bringing in access or not to a cart, which may have also played a part in whether he killed in his bolt hole or on the street.

its way too uncertain for me. and besides as i mentioned its possible he didnt have his chop shop and or cart available for whitehall. so killed/ dismembered her somewhere else or even on premise like jerry suggested. which of course, if so, points even stronger to one of the workers there like wildbore.

[Abby Normal]

Admins asked to keep Lechmere out of the Paris Torso thread.

oh ok. thank you for correction.

[Fiver]

hi dk
admins have asked us to keep lech out of it. if you ask this on a lech thread, id be happy to give my thoughts on it there.

Admins asked to keep Lechmere out of the Paris Torso thread.