Jack the Ripper & The Torso Murders

[Abby Normal]

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.

um no. they are convicted serial killers of two seperate SOLVED cases. lol. really fiver cmon. and btw california is like the serial killer capital of the world. a far cry from old london, when even murder was rare.

and by the way your now arguing with a ghost. as if you hadnt noticed fish has been banned.

[The Rookie Detective]

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.

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.

However, I believe that on November 5th 1892, the Ripper tried, but failed, to murder Emily Smith in an attack beside a railway arch of the Great Eastern Railway at Shadwell station which at the time was a construction site and partially boarded up.

If you read the case of Emily Smith and see for yourself. I believe this was the Ripper and had he of been successful in murdering Emily, then that would have been the 3rd murder on the Great Eastern Railway.

Pinchin Street Torso
Frances Coles
Emily Smith (failed)

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.

There's also the fact that there were no murders in 1890...but why?

The Canonicals would say he died
The Non-Canonicals might say he was incarcerated.

But I believe he may have moved area for work purposes or he got married and started a family.

If we include 1873 as his first kill, and the include 1902 as his last, that's nearly 30 years.

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


My key point is that there were NO torso killings committed between Nichols and Kelly.

The discovery of the Whitehall Torso is not the most relevant point, its the date she was murdered that is important, and the lack of clarity has been clouding the series for far too long.

It is almost certain that the killer worked at the NSY construction site.

The man last seen with Jackson looked like a Navvy. (Important to remember that her killer made a mistake by her being identified by her tattoo)

It is also significant that the Whitehall Torso was almost certainly placed in the cellar vault within a few hours of the Ripper double event.

Now there's also a chance that the murder of Stride wasn't the same killer and that the real killer places the Torso and then went from Whitehall to Mitre Square.

Has the perception of the double event been distorted all this time?

When we look at this case from the outside in, it gives us a different perspective that to tear down the walls and look from the inside out.

The idea that the killer was a Jew or a madman was rhetoric propaganda stirred up by the press at the time. anti-Semitism played a part in shrouding what was actually going on.

The killer wrote the GSG as a way of saying that the killer wasn't Jewish but used irony in his statement to make his point at appearing to blame the Jews.

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

Tabram and Mylett hint at that quite strongly.

And so could there be an element of truth in that the Torso and Ripper killing were different, because they involved 2 men?

Brothers

Father and Son

Work colleagues

Ex-military comrades

The dumping of the Whitehall Torso would have likely taken more than one person.

There was a report of 3 men seen by the wall of the Whitehall construction on the Saturday night that the Torso was alleged to have been dumped.

One of the men was seen to attempt to scale the perimeter of the site and was stopped by a policeman.

He was later cleared, presumably convincing the officer that he was a worker at the site, and producing an alibi.

But the issue is that theres always been an age old problem when the police say a suspect has an alibi, because that's not always the case and in reality many killers slip through the net (the Yorkshire Ripper was interviewed countless times before being caught, because he had an "alibi ')

If you read the report of the man seen trying to scale the wall, combined with the fact that it occurred the same night that the Torso was almost certainly dumped, then that's a coincidence that simply can't be explained away by the police clearing the man because he supplied a so-called "alibi."

If this was the man who placed the torso, and 2 other men were with him and the cart they had at the time, it then completely changes our perception of who the killer or killers were.

There's also another scenario that I believe may be a possibility; that the man or men who placed some of the torso parts over the series, weren't necessarily ths killer.

We also have the John Arnold (Cleary) incident that proves that someone knew about the Pinchin St murder BEFORE the torso was actually dumped.

Was he tipped off?

Was he complicit in the murder?

I would suggest that the real killer tipped him off.

But there were 2 different incidents involving tip-offs that were made public BEFORE any torso was actually found.

To me, that would imply that the Torso killer was eager to push his work through the press and to try and highlight that he had murdered a woman and was going to dump a body.

The appearance and statement made by Arnold goes a long way to suggest that the Torso killer wanted his moment in the spotlight by getting someone to declare a torso would be found before it actually was even placed at the location.

That does not indicate a man who tried to hide what he had done, but rather a man who was trying to promote his work ahead of time.


Even after all this time, there's so much more to learn from this case, and we've only really scratched the surface.


RD

[Herlock Sholmes]

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.

However, I believe that on November 5th 1892, the Ripper tried, but failed, to murder Emily Smith in an attack beside a railway arch of the Great Eastern Railway at Shadwell station which at the time was a construction site and partially boarded up.

If you read the case of Emily Smith and see for yourself. I believe this was the Ripper and had he of been successful in murdering Emily, then that would have been the 3rd murder on the Great Eastern Railway.

Pinchin Street Torso
Frances Coles
Emily Smith (failed)

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.

There's also the fact that there were no murders in 1890...but why?

The Canonicals would say he died
The Non-Canonicals might say he was incarcerated.

But I believe he may have moved area for work purposes or he got married and started a family.

If we include 1873 as his first kill, and the include 1902 as his last, that's nearly 30 years.

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


My key point is that there were NO torso killings committed between Nichols and Kelly.

The discovery of the Whitehall Torso is not the most relevant point, its the date she was murdered that is important, and the lack of clarity has been clouding the series for far too long.

It is almost certain that the killer worked at the NSY construction site.

The man last seen with Jackson looked like a Navvy. (Important to remember that her killer made a mistake by her being identified by her tattoo)

It is also significant that the Whitehall Torso was almost certainly placed in the cellar vault within a few hours of the Ripper double event.

Now there's also a chance that the murder of Stride wasn't the same killer and that the real killer places the Torso and then went from Whitehall to Mitre Square.

Has the perception of the double event been distorted all this time?

When we look at this case from the outside in, it gives us a different perspective that to tear down the walls and look from the inside out.

The idea that the killer was a Jew or a madman was rhetoric propaganda stirred up by the press at the time. anti-Semitism played a part in shrouding what was actually going on.

The killer wrote the GSG as a way of saying that the killer wasn't Jewish but used irony in his statement to make his point at appearing to blame the Jews.

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

Tabram and Mylett hint at that quite strongly.

And so could there be an element of truth in that the Torso and Ripper killing were different, because they involved 2 men?

Brothers

Father and Son

Work colleagues

Ex-military comrades

The dumping of the Whitehall Torso would have likely taken more than one person.

There was a report of 3 men seen by the wall of the Whitehall construction on the Saturday night that the Torso was alleged to have been dumped.

One of the men was seen to attempt to scale the perimeter of the site and was stopped by a policeman.

He was later cleared, presumably convincing the officer that he was a worker at the site, and producing an alibi.

But the issue is that theres always been an age old problem when the police say a suspect has an alibi, because that's not always the case and in reality many killers slip through the net (the Yorkshire Ripper was interviewed countless times before being caught, because he had an "alibi ')

If you read the report of the man seen trying to scale the wall, combined with the fact that it occurred the same night that the Torso was almost certainly dumped, then that's a coincidence that simply can't be explained away by the police clearing the man because he supplied a so-called "alibi."

If this was the man who placed the torso, and 2 other men were with him and the cart they had at the time, it then completely changes our perception of who the killer or killers were.

There's also another scenario that I believe may be a possibility; that the man or men who placed some of the torso parts over the series, weren't necessarily ths killer.

We also have the John Arnold (Cleary) incident that proves that someone knew about the Pinchin St murder BEFORE the torso was actually dumped.

Was he tipped off?

Was he complicit in the murder?

I would suggest that the real killer tipped him off.

But there were 2 different incidents involving tip-offs that were made public BEFORE any torso was actually found.

To me, that would imply that the Torso killer was eager to push his work through the press and to try and highlight that he had murdered a woman and was going to dump a body.

The appearance and statement made by Arnold goes a long way to suggest that the Torso killer wanted his moment in the spotlight by getting someone to declare a torso would be found before it actually was even placed at the location.

That does not indicate a man who tried to hide what he had done, but rather a man who was trying to promote his work ahead of time.


Even after all this time, there's so much more to learn from this case, and we've only really scratched the surface.


RD

How do we know when the Whitehall torso was killed?

[FrankO]

Do you consider these matters even remotely likely to be purely coincidental? Or are you thinking along the copycat suggestions we sometimes get - even from the victorian police! Or do you look upon it in some other fashion?

As we’ve been there & done that all before, I don’t intend to discuss this all anew with you or all the way, Christer. According to you, the rarity of the similarities outweighs the differences. I place the slider, if you will, much more towards the differences (because of the rarity clinging to the differences). Therefore, and also because of the general interest in anatomy of the era, I lean towards there being two blokes having a similar sort of appetite.
That’s the fashion in which I look upon it, as you well know.

What I am instead saying, is that it is unforgiveable that the similarities have never been looked upon as telling us all that the LIKELY thing is a common killer.

I don’t see it as unforgiveable, as I’m a forgiving guy, but I do see it as an interesting and, therefore, welcome idea without agreeing that it’s a likely thing. But you got that.

After that, it is all good and well to have all sorts of hunches about the matter. But as long as there is absolutely nothing to prevent the suggestion of a single killer being the correct one, I would say that ripperology has acted with no respect for the laws of logic in this matter for more than a hundred years.

I’m not going to speak for Ripperology. I’m just going to say that nobody, neither you or me, is going to get more than a hunch in the sense that we make our own observations and interpret & evaluate everything according to our own ‘rules’ (all the things I mentioned earlier: norms & values, sense of logic, etc.). So, your view is no less a hunch than mine.

The similarity lies in how neither killer provided evidence of being able to decapitate by way of knife in 1888.

Yes, but they both also didn’t provide any evidence of being able to cut off a finger either. Or eat the liver. Or cut out a tongue. Other similarities perhaps? I’m kidding, of course. But seriously, does the absence of being able to decapitate mean that they actually weren’t able to? Or does it, as long as we know nothing of their intentions/wishes, mean nothing other than that the Ripper didn’t decapitate with his knife and Torso Man did in the Jackson case?

Contrary to this, the Torso killer used a saw (but managed to do it by knife in September of 1889!), whereas the Ripper seemingly failed to take heads of by way of knife. And I actually think - but may of course be wrong - that there were signs of a possible effort to decapitate in the Eddowes case too.
So this is where something that has often been put forward as a dissimilarity ("Hey, Fisherman - the Torso killer took off heads, but the Ripper tried and failed, that MUST prove two killers!")
NOT so!
Ergo, I am not stretching anything at all, I am depicting the evidence.

Yes, but the evidence is still that the Ripper didn’t decapitate, it doesn’t say whether he was able to or not. It’s your assumption that he wasn’t, but was he, really? We don’t know and can’t say.
What I find striking in this regard is that Torso man didn’t cut any abdomens open, let alone cut them away in flaps until after Mary Jane Kelly. We can’t say he wouldn’t have been able to. So, did he do it because he wanted to copy the Ripper? Or just because he wanted to cut out the embryo? Or because, as has been suggested, there are only so many ways to cut open an abdomen?

And, as you can see, I have no problems at all to find explanations for it that are both logical and well known within the ranks of serial killers.
I would say that thinking up alternative reasons for why both killers - out of sheer coincidence - cut out uteri, opened up abdomens from sternum to groin, stole rings from victims, cut away the abdominal walls from victims in large panes, were called skilled cutters, worked in the same town and in overlapping times, and targetted prostitutes, is a much harder exercise, and with much less of a chance to make a lasting impression on me with no evidence to support it.

You have no examples of one serial killer who went from low risk & frequency to a complete series of high risk & frequency and then turn back to low risk & frequency and you have no evidence either to support any of your alternative explanations of why he temporarily made that change and then turned back to ‘torso mode’. As long as you don’t have either, I will remain unconvinced, however incomprehensible that will seem to you.

Two eviscerating serial killers who did the same extremely rare things to their victims, and who both stayed uncaught? What are the odds, Frank? one in a hundred? Or less?

It’s a fact that Torso Man did much less mutilation with the knife than the Ripper and I think we can safely say that Torso Man had much more time with his victims than the Ripper. That’s what I’m also looking at when evaluating things. Also, as the Ruxton case shows, we have to wonder if any missing or separately found organs/intestines in the case of Torso Man tells us he had the same sort of infatuation with organs as the Ripper had.

There are heaps of examples of serial killers who engaged in thrill killings to spice up their regular menus. There are examples of serial killer who scout the media to see if their deeds are given the space they hope for, and examples of those who changed their deeds in order to gain that publicity. And there are of course examples of killers who have killed both in safe surroundings and in risky locations. Given how many of these killers are opportunists, that should not surprise anybody.

OK, could you list them for me once you’re reinstated? I’d be very interested in seeing whether they fit with what we see with Torso Man and the Ripper.

[FrankO]

So he either took it away with himself, or he cut it out for the joy of cutting a heart out and then discarded of it.

Or he emptied the thorax for practical reasons. The Buxton case shows us that we can't dismiss this possibility.

And in the Rippers case, we actually cannot tell whether or not he took the heart from the Kelly scene with any special intent.

We don't know what his intent was once he'd got away from the scene, but seeing that he could have left it behind at the scene, we do know he had some intent and we may also assume that it was special to him. And we know that special intent wasn't some practical reason, as practical would have been that he left it behind.

Just as the Torso killer may have thrown it to a hungry dog passing, the same applies for the Ripper. There are no certainties at all involved here, but for the one that both murders involved the excision of the heart. Which of course means that the only certain thing is that we have a similarity of a very rare kind on record here too. I genuinely believe that is as far as it goes.

Indeed, it's a similarity in the sense that the hearts were cut out and it can't go any further than that; it tells us nothing about Torso Man having the same or similar intent with it as the Ripper, when we do know the Ripper had some intent other than a practical one.

Yes, I could of course not claim that we have two examples of excised uteri, could I?

Of course you couldn't, but that doesn't mean you had to claim that I concluded that only one uterus was cut out.

[Herlock Sholmes]

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.’

[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?

[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.

[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]

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]

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

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.