Jack the Ripper & The Torso Murders

[FrankO]

hi frank
i dont follow. we have no idea how long he had whitehall body or parts at his place. if he did at all. i think more than likely she was murdered and cut up in his chop shop, but jerry sees evidence that she may have actually been murdered and cut up on site, or murdered nearby and brought in and then cut up.

my opinion has always been if they were the same man, the ripper victims were when his chop shop and or cart wasnt available and he had to kill on the streets. its a simple and reasonable explanation.

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

[Fiver]

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

Exactly. There's no way Lechmere could have hidden whole decaying bodies from his family. Just hiding trophy organs in from a house full of children would have been nigh impossible.

[Fiver]

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

Santa Clara, California of the 1970s had a population of less than 1/50th the population of Victorian London.

[Fiver]

The only torso that was thought to have been manually carried to its dumping site was the Pinchin Street torso, wherefore the police sought the immediate neighbourhood of the railway arch.That is the only evidence we have about where the killer was based.

You repeating false statements does not make them true. All of the body parts could have been manually carried to their dumping sites. The Battersea Park, Shelley Estate, and Whitehall remains are clear known dump sites, but you ignore them because they do not fit your theory.

[Fiver]

Well, well, you are back! Who would have thought it?

That's pretty ironic for you to say about Herlock. How many time have you posted that you were leaving a thread forever?

[Fiver]

But there are no examples of two eviscerating sexual serial killers who in the same area and time have produced a set of similarities of the very rare kind we have in these two series.

You continue to ignore Edmund Kemper and Herbert Mullin. The police didn't even realize they had two serial killers until Mullin was apprehended and the killings continued.

And you continue to ignore the period police and doctors, the ones who actually saw the victims bodies, who didn't see your imagined similarities, and who concluded there were two different serial killers.

[Fiver]

If the killer truly wanted to hide anything then NONE of the body parts would have ever been found by anyone and the victims would have faded into history as missing persons.

A killer's failure to hide a victim's identity is not evidence that the killer did not want to hide the victim's identity.

None of the heads were found, which strongly implies that the killer didn't want any of the victims to be identified. The Rainham, Whitehall, and Pinchin Torsos were never identified. Those victims faded into history as missing persons.

[Fiver]

The killer displayed the 1902 torso in a pile
The killer displayed the Pinchin Street Torso under the archway.
The killer displayed various body parts by leaving them in places where it is certain that they either could or would be found.

The 1902 victim's body parts do appear to have been deliberately stacked. They also appear to have been boiled and charred. All three points are radically different from the accepted Torso victims, which points to a different killer.

The Pinchin Street Torso was not displayed, it was dumped face down. None of the accepted Torso victims were displayed.

The Ripper posed his victims flat on their backs, legs spread, skirts lifted. That is one of many points where the Ripper's signature is very different from the Torso Killer's signature.

[Abby Normal]

That is quite possible if one victim's head wasn't found. But for the accepted Torso cases none of the four heads were found, which makes it far more likely that the killer didn't want any of the heads to be found. It stand in stark contrast to the Ripper killings, where no attempt was made to hide the identities of any of the victims.

hi fiver i agree with this for the most part. point taken, but ive always maintained that torsoman probably did want to hide ids, but clearly not the body and parts.

but again i point to the tottenham head of 1884 which imho was probably part of the torso series. that was a clear example of displaying a head. the head and face was mutilated, and done so very similar to eddowes.

[Fiver]

Just because a head isn't found, doesn't mean a killer has deliberately intended to hide the head, it could be down to circumstances that meant the head wasn't discovered.

That is quite possible if one victim's head wasn't found. But for the accepted Torso cases none of the four heads were found, which makes it far more likely that the killer didn't want any of the heads to be found. It stand in stark contrast to the Ripper killings, where no attempt was made to hide the identities of any of the victims.

[FrankO]

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.

I'm by no means married to the idea, but for me to change my view, I would need something more than what you wrote above. You may very well be right, but to convince me, I'd need something more. As, for example, Ruxton's case is a clear example of dismembering murderer (after a domestic) who eviscarated his victims (emptied the bodies of the viscera & organs), I would like to see some example of a dismemberer who also mutilated the face, gauged out the eyes, cut down the midline without dividing the body along that line.

The best,
Frank

[Abby Normal]

It’s indeed somewhat of a key point, RD and one that I’ve put forth a number of times.

The Whitehall victim was killed somewhere between the beginning of August and when Chapman was killed, if we are to believe the medical men. Even if she was killed on the same day as Chapman, it would mean that Torso Man did have some private place at his disposal where he could cut up his Whitehall victim. And if he killed her even before Nichols, then it would mean he had some private place where he stored the Whitehall victim before he started dumping some or all of her body parts. And that, of course, means that it’s very unlikely that Torso Man turned into the Ripper just because he had no private place at his disposal, so he couldn’t kill, cut up and store victim.

Cheers,
Frank

hi frank
i dont follow. we have no idea how long he had whitehall body or parts at his place. if he did at all. i think more than likely she was murdered and cut up in his chop shop, but jerry sees evidence that she may have actually been murdered and cut up on site, or murdered nearby and brought in and then cut up.

my opinion has always been if they were the same man, the ripper victims were when his chop shop and or cart wasnt available and he had to kill on the streets. its a simple and reasonable explanation.

[FrankO]

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.

It’s indeed somewhat of a key point, RD and one that I’ve put forth a number of times.

The Whitehall victim was killed somewhere between the beginning of August and when Chapman was killed, if we are to believe the medical men. Even if she was killed on the same day as Chapman, it would mean that Torso Man did have some private place at his disposal where he could cut up his Whitehall victim. And if he killed her even before Nichols, then it would mean he had some private place where he stored the Whitehall victim before he started dumping some or all of her body parts. And that, of course, means that it’s very unlikely that Torso Man turned into the Ripper just because he had no private place at his disposal, so he couldn’t kill, cut up and store victim.

Cheers,
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
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.

[Abby Normal]

Based on the Torso Canonical 4 yes, but if we choose to include some similar cases, then your logic cannot be applied in the same way.

The Battersea Case of 1873, arguably the Torso Killers FIRST kill... A Head WAS found...minus a face, nose and chin I believe.

And if we also choose to include the Lambeth 1902 case; arguably the torso killer's LAST kill, then a Head WAS found with the body.

This means there are 2 known Torso cases nearly 30 years apart whereby the heads of the victims were found.

It depends if you're a Canonical 4 believer or whether you choose to consider whether there was a reason why in the Torso killer's first and last kills; the heads of the respective victims were found.

That strengthens the argument that the killer didn't deliberately INTEND to hide the heads at all, it's just that the heads from the majority of the victims were never found.

Just because a head isn't found, doesn't mean a killer has deliberately intended to hide the head, it could be down to circumstances that meant the head wasn't discovered.

One thing is for sure though; the killer made a mistake when Jackson was identified. The killer didn't want any of his victims IDENTIFIED but wasn't bothered which parts of his victims were FOUND.

That's the difference between IDENTIFICATION and DISCOVERY.
The killer displayed the 1902 torso in a pile
The killer displayed the Pinchin Street Torso under the archway.
The killer displayed various body parts by leaving them in places where it is certain that they either could or would be found.

If the killer truly wanted to hide anything then NONE of the body parts would have ever been found by anyone and the victims would have faded into history as missing persons.
But from the killers perspective; what the point in killing multiple victims over decades and for the effort to not be known or acknowledged.
A serial killer whose work is never known is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

A serial killer isn't overly concerned about whether murders are attributed to them specifically; hence why many serial killers remain silent about their kills after they've been caught...
Their bigger concern is for a killer's victims to be known and remembered for being the unfortunate victims of a serial killer.
There's no gain or control post-kill if a victim becomes a missing person and nobody ever knows that a person has been murdered in the first place.
It's on this basis that the killer chose to have fun by depositing various body parts at different times from different victims; it was all part of the thrill of power and control that the killer would of had.

This is also what brings the Torso killer into line with the Ripper.

RD

hi rd
love your posts. keep it up!
hey i notice in this post and others you dont bring up the tottenham head case of 1884. which imho is def part of the torso case and clear link to the ripper crimes. the head and face were mutliated very similar to eddowes and it was placed in front of a very public and heavily patrolled building.

is there some reason you dont mention it? do you think its not related or something?