Jack the Ripper & The Torso Murders

[FrankO]

Nope. You maybe looking at an abridged or incorrect newspaper report. The pelvic viscera were missing because the torso was cut through at the 4th lumbar vertebrae.

Indeed, NFS, the way that some of the newspapers reported it might be seen as misleading, as others - the Morning Advertiser of 9 October, the Times of same date and the People of 14 October - were more complete with regards to missing organs, making it clear that Dr. Bond didn't only name the uterus as absent.

Cheers,
Frank

[New Ford Shunt]

My apologies for not being clear in my post.

This is what I should have highlighted...

Uterus removed.... Unproven
Uterus absent... Yes

Dr Bond made a specific point relating to the Uterus.

"The Uterus was absent"

He didn't say anything about whether the Uterus had been removed, because there was no way of knowing. But he did highlight that the Uterus was absent.

And so I should have made the definition clear, my apologies for that, because my post response was out of context.

RD

No need to apologise RD, we're here for a discussion. On your response, the Press reports which state that Bond said the uterus was absent are misleading. Articles like this one from the Weekly Dispatch on Sunday 14/10/1888:

"The head had been separated from the trunk by means of a saw. The lower limbs and the pelvis had been removed in the same way. The length of the trunk was 17in., and the circumference of the chest 35 1/2 in., and the waist 28 1/2 ,i in. The parts were decomposed, and we could not discover any wounds. The breasts were large and prominent. The arms had been removed at the shoulder joints by several incisions, the cuts having been made obliquely from above downwards and then around the arm. Over the body were clearly defined marks where string had been tied. It appeared to have been wrapped up in a very skilful manner. We did not find marks indicating that the woman had borne any children. On opening the chest we found that the rib cartilages were not ossified, that one lung was healthy, but that the left lung showed signs of severe pleurisy. The substance of the heart was healthy, and there were indications that the woman had not died either of suffocation or of drowning. The liver and stomach, kidneys and spleen were normal. THE UTERUS WAS ABSENT. There were indications that the woman was of mature age -, twenty-four or twenty-five years..."

Which I assume you are referring to, clearly state in big capital letters to draw the attention of the reader in to the more salacious aspect of the case. This is because the Press were transfixed with the JtR murders and if you look at other articles in that edition they too are focussed on the removal of the uteri.

If, however, we look at this article from the more reliable (and accurate) London Evening Standard on Monday 8/10/1888:

"The head had been separated from the trunk through the sixth cervical vertabra. That had been sawn through. The lower limb and the pelvis had been removed. The fourth lumbar vertebra had been sawn through by a series of long, sweeping cuts. The length of the trunk was 17 inches, and the circumference of the chest was 35 1/2 inches. The circumference of the waist was 28 1/2 inches. We found no marks of injuries on the skin. The breasts were prominent. Some parts of the skin were not much decomposed. The arms had been removed at the shoulder joints by several incisions. The cuts apparently had been made obliquely from above, downwards, and then around the arm. The arm had been disarticulated through the joint. Over the body were clearly-defined marks where the skin had been tightly tied. It appeared to have been wrapped up in a very skilful manner. On close examination we could find no marks to indicate that she had had children. The neck had been divided by several incisions sawn through below the larynx. On opening the chest we noticed that the rib cartilages were not ossified; that one lung was healthy, but that the other showed that at some former time the woman had had severe pleurisy. The substance of the heart was healthy, and there was no indication that she had died either suffocation or drowning. The liver and stomach, kidneys and spleen were normal. The lower parts of the viscera including the uterus and bladder, were absent; in fact, all the lower parts were absent. She appeared to have been a woman of about 24 or 26 years of age. She seemed to have been large, well nourished, of fair skin, and dark hair. The appearance of the breast rather indicated that she had not suckled a child. Coroner. — She might have had a child? __ Witness—Yes..."

You can see that in this more detailed account Bond states that 'The lower parts of the viscera including the uterus and bladder, we absent; in fact, all the lower parts were absent.' which puts a completely different emphasis on his witness testimony. Bond is reporting matters as he sees them, he's not informing the court that the missing uterus is significant, far from it, he's simply reporting what was there and what wasn't.

Of course, you could state that the WD article is more reliable than the LES one, but I really don't think so. It's more comprehensive, is far more accurate on other reporting aspects of the case and it doesn't attempt to pull out the word 'Uterus' and use it in a manipulative way.

[The Rookie Detective]

No need to apologise RD, we're here for a discussion. On your response, the Press reports which state that Bond said the uterus was absent are misleading. Articles like this one from the Weekly Dispatch on Sunday 14/10/1888:

"The head had been separated from the trunk by means of a saw. The lower limbs and the pelvis had been removed in the same way. The length of the trunk was 17in., and the circumference of the chest 35 1/2 in., and the waist 28 1/2 ,i in. The parts were decomposed, and we could not discover any wounds. The breasts were large and prominent. The arms had been removed at the shoulder joints by several incisions, the cuts having been made obliquely from above downwards and then around the arm. Over the body were clearly defined marks where string had been tied. It appeared to have been wrapped up in a very skilful manner. We did not find marks indicating that the woman had borne any children. On opening the chest we found that the rib cartilages were not ossified, that one lung was healthy, but that the left lung showed signs of severe pleurisy. The substance of the heart was healthy, and there were indications that the woman had not died either of suffocation or of drowning. The liver and stomach, kidneys and spleen were normal. THE UTERUS WAS ABSENT. There were indications that the woman was of mature age -, twenty-four or twenty-five years..."

Which I assume you are referring to, clearly state in big capital letters to draw the attention of the reader in to the more salacious aspect of the case. This is because the Press were transfixed with the JtR murders and if you look at other articles in that edition they too are focussed on the removal of the uteri.

If, however, we look at this article from the more reliable (and accurate) London Evening Standard on Monday 8/10/1888:

"The head had been separated from the trunk through the sixth cervical vertabra. That had been sawn through. The lower limb and the pelvis had been removed. The fourth lumbar vertebra had been sawn through by a series of long, sweeping cuts. The length of the trunk was 17 inches, and the circumference of the chest was 35 1/2 inches. The circumference of the waist was 28 1/2 inches. We found no marks of injuries on the skin. The breasts were prominent. Some parts of the skin were not much decomposed. The arms had been removed at the shoulder joints by several incisions. The cuts apparently had been made obliquely from above, downwards, and then around the arm. The arm had been disarticulated through the joint. Over the body were clearly-defined marks where the skin had been tightly tied. It appeared to have been wrapped up in a very skilful manner. On close examination we could find no marks to indicate that she had had children. The neck had been divided by several incisions sawn through below the larynx. On opening the chest we noticed that the rib cartilages were not ossified; that one lung was healthy, but that the other showed that at some former time the woman had had severe pleurisy. The substance of the heart was healthy, and there was no indication that she had died either suffocation or drowning. The liver and stomach, kidneys and spleen were normal. The lower parts of the viscera including the uterus and bladder, were absent; in fact, all the lower parts were absent. She appeared to have been a woman of about 24 or 26 years of age. She seemed to have been large, well nourished, of fair skin, and dark hair. The appearance of the breast rather indicated that she had not suckled a child. Coroner. — She might have had a child? __ Witness—Yes..."

You can see that in this more detailed account Bond states that 'The lower parts of the viscera including the uterus and bladder, we absent; in fact, all the lower parts were absent.' which puts a completely different emphasis on his witness testimony. Bond is reporting matters as he sees them, he's not informing the court that the missing uterus is significant, far from it, he's simply reporting what was there and what wasn't.

Of course, you could state that the WD article is more reliable than the LES one, but I really don't think so. It's more comprehensive, is far more accurate on other reporting aspects of the case and it doesn't attempt to pull out the word 'Uterus' and use it in a manipulative way.

An absolutely excellent post.

It goes to show that the newspapers were often reporting subjectively and certain publications were pushing their own agenda.

Has anyone transcribed every known article for each of the murders and compared each in the form of a large chart that can then be used to statistically analyse the validity of each individual publication?

It would be extremely the time consuming but would be fascinating to have some illustrative data that can be viewed as a bigger picture.

You could then compare the newspapers as a collective and/or as individual representations, and then cross reference the data accordingly.

RD

[jerryd]

Hi jerryd,

Might this be explained by the fact that any of the bridges could be used to in his daily travel to his destination, providing a possibility for parts thrown from different bridges at a similar time, but necessarily at different stages of the tide, to be carried by the river flows in different directions. Just a thought.

Cheers, George

Hi George.

That is possible, yes. Thanks for the input.

[The Rookie Detective]

Hi all

Just a few points to add into the mix...

(please note this is a DUPLICATE post that I wrote and copied over from Forums, because I haven't worked out how to link properly, and so have resorted to the old skool " Copy and Paste.")

For anyone not on Forums, then this is a new post for this particular thread.




1) Jerry mentioned in a previous post on his brilliant thread over on Forums that the arm belonging to the victim that was discovered, was found near a timber yard. There were wooden planks that were used in the vault to allow access across the trench that had been dug up for the new sewer pipe. Where were those planks sourced from? Could they have been taken from the Timber yard at which the body part was previously discovered?

2) Was the sewer pipe active and operational and/or was the pipe exposed? Could the torso have been concealed inside the sewer pipe to shield the smell?

3) If the torso was placed in the vault after the Friday, but before the Monday, ergo, the weekend, could the torso have been wrapped tightly to conceal the degree of composition and could the way it was wrapped have prevented the smell and maggots from escaping? And could how the torso was wrapped be comparable to how a butcher/slaughterer would wrap meat to reduce oxidization and the speed of decomposition?

4) One of the sections of the newspaper found, from the Echo (the other The Chronicle from a previous year) was dated 24th August. Could this be the same date the woman was murdered and be a clue that has been overlooked?

5) The victim was murdered sometime between the first week in August, to the 9th of September (based on the initial finding of the limb) That confirms that the body had to have been stored somewhere. That means that the torso of the victim was either moved into the vault or the woman had been murdered and dismembered in the vault and the woman had never left the cellar after her murder.
If the latter, then the torso had to have been buried somewhere in the cellar.
The only place that seems viable would be in the trench into which the sewer piping was laid.

6) Why did the killer wrap the torso? If he simply wanted to dump her body, then he could have just buried her. But he chose to package her. That would indicate that the killer brought her pre-packaged into the vault, perhaps already decomposed. Was the victim wrapped only to conceal the smell?

7) The decades leading up to the building of the NSY building were fraught with the repeated failings of the proposed building of the Opera House. Did the killer choose the vault because of the locations past, as well as a statement to the police that their new building would be rotten to the core.

8) When one sense is diminished, others are heightened. That is a matter of science. On that basis, if there was no light in the vault, a person's sense of smell would be heightened when walking into an enclosed space that was dark. There is no way that the space wouldn't have smelt like death, quite literally, and so the only way that there wouldn't have been a smell, is if...

the torso had been so well wrapped and airtight, that the smell was concealed

But due to the marks on the wall, there had to have been some fluid leakage and so we have a seemingly opposing impossibility. Therefore, IF the torso had been in that cellar for longer than the weekend prior to the discovery, then the entire torso had to have been buried, but was then moved by one of the workmen.

That would then imply that a workman moved the package from the trench and placed in on the higher ground, but failed to understand what he was dealing with.
In other words, did one of the inadvertently move the torso and place it in the corner, but then chose to not say anything once the torso was discovered for fear of being wrongly accused?

9) Navigating the space wouldn't have been possible without some form of lighting due to the open trench covered by the wooden planking. For any witness that declared going into that space WITHOUT some form of lighting, isn't being completely truthful. Even a worker who knew the space relatively well, would not be able to navigate the space in the pitch dark. The fact that the vault had no natural lighting is a significant element to this case because the killer would have also required a light source.

10) Does lack of light have any impact on the timings for torso decomposition? Do maggots work in the dark?

11) The blackened wall behind where the torso was found suggests that moisture was present, but it was stated that the vault had been completely dry since June. That means the only way that moisture could have been present would be either from the package, or from an active sewer pipe.


And just another little tantalizing detail...

12) Where were the sewer pipes sourced from?
Well a possibility could be from one of the suppliers of sewage/water pipes within the area

A factory in Lambeth, just south of the River.
The factory was called Doultons and in 1902 the final torso murder was committed and the partially boiled and baked dismembered body placed directly outside the back door of the same factory, with the woman's head placed neatly on top.

Doultons were at the time specialists in...STONE...including pipes, water taps (Millers Court?) toilets (Dutfields yard?) bedpans etc...

(They subsequently became Royal Doultons after the royal charter)

Doultons sourced their stone from a quarry in the west midlands...accessible by CANAL and the RAILWAY.

Could the killer have worked for Doultons at some point?
Did they have a contract to supply any of the pipes for the NSY building?
Is the connection to STONE the clue that links the Pinchin St torso (found under a recently built railway arch next to the board of works STONE breaking yard)

It's also important to note that the vault in which the Whitehall torso was found, had a distinct arched construction, that would have almost certainly have required some stone work to give extra foundational support to the brickwork.

And of course, the 24th August....As well as the London Echo, there was another publication printed on the same day in London, and in that publication was an advert...for Doultons.


Just some food for thought


RD

[The Rookie Detective]

(*my edited post from the Forums site)

Could the decomposition of the Whitehall torso/limbs have occurred in stages? And is there a way to explain the opposing views of the many witnesses and the opposing medical evidence regarding the duration of how long the torso had been present in the vault?

An interesting fact is that maggots can climb walls vertically, and so the blackened wall behind where the torso was found may be more applicable to the timing than we realize.
That could mean that the torso may have been moved away from the wall before being found, OR that the maggots were drawn to the wall for some reason.

Could this suggest that all happened in stages?

Does this scenario work?...

The woman is murdered and dismembered in the vault directly next to the wall; after the killer convinces her to come and visit the vault of the old Opera House. He's a builder at the site and he has something special to show her. It's a weekend so they won't be disturbed.
He then kills her and begins to dismember her; his tools are already there hidden in the trench - The victim's body fluids are then deposited onto the wall.
He takes the internal organs and Head with him because they're the first to decompose and the first to be identified if the torso is discovered.
He then wraps and BURIES the rest of the torso; including the arms and legs in the trench.

Could a reduction of the duration of time that the torso spent out in the open, have slow the decomposing process?

The vault IS his bolthole and storage for the body while he takes his time to then deposit various parts of the body at different stages and in different places.

Over the next few weekends, he repeats the process several times by going into the vault over the weekend when he has the place to himself. He then takes with him the arm and dumps in into the river and waits for it to be discovered.
Once the news hits the press, he then goes back the following weekend and takes a leg and an arm, leaving the other leg and the main torso until last.

But crucially, over the weekend of the 29th/30th (the Ripper Double event weekend) for whatever reason, he doesn't have time to re-bury the torso OR he intended to move the torso but had to abort the idea and leave the torso where it was found because he's either disturbed OR it's too difficult to move.

Bearing in mind that by this point, the bodily fluid/blood-splattered wall has had weeks of exposure, whereas the torso has spent Monday to Friday for the past month or so, completely buried in the trench. Perhaps using the Sewer pipe as a means of hindering the smell, that would at some point have become noticeable.

That then means that when the torso is found, it has spent just a few hours over a weekend out in the open, just enough time for the killer to take another piece and deposit his victim over a staggered period of time.

But why?

Because he enjoyed the press and public response.

Notice that in most; if not all, the torso cases, parts of each victim are discovered AFTER the initial finding of a body part has hit the press and/or AFTER an actual inquest has taken place!

That speaks of a killer who wanted his spot in the press. Otherwise, he would have deposited or hidden his victims all in one go.

When you add into the mix the John Cleary incident, it's obvious that the killer wanted the press to know BEFORE the torso had even been placed.


The more we look at the torso killer's mindset, the more his narcissistic actions in his application of deposing of his victims, become more transparent.

He reminds me very much of the Ripper.


He may not be, but he certainly was one for taking a risk. The thrill wasn't the kill, it was the post-mortem phase, including the press coverage.


So to summarize, the reason why the wall was blackened and looked as though the torso had been there a while, is because the wall was the initial kill site and dismemberment site. The bodily fluids were deposited on the wall on the 24th August.

The fluids secreted on the wall are then constantly exposed to the air, whereas the torso has much less time exposed due to having been buried and dug up multiple times. The killer could return repeatedly over the weekends and bask in the knowledge he had a victim buried there.
.

For the next few weekends, the murders of Nichols and Chapman took place... Did the killer use the weekend to visit the Whitehall site, but then to fulfill his thirst, he then murders Nichols and Chapman

In fact, based on my timeline hypothesis of the Whitehall murder having taken place on the 24th August, he would have killed Nichols and Chapman, and then attempted to move the torso/visit the torso on the weekend of the double event.

Does my hypothesis go some way to explaining the direct contrast between the multiple witness statements and the medical evidence?

Another important question...

Did he murder Eddowes and/or Stride, because he had visited the vault and tired, but FAILED, to move the torso for whatever reason? He then goes on a rampage and kills 2 women within a few hours to feed his hunger and frustration in knowing his torso would soon be discovered by workmen on Monday/Tuesday morning.

Just a thought.

The timings of the torso killings and the Ripper killings, from Whitehall to Eddowes are particularly significant.

Was the torso killer enraged by the fact that he got more press from being the Ripper, than from his efforts at being a torso killer? And were the Ripper killings simply supplementary kills to fill in the gap for his true intentions as a torso killer?


Lots to ponder


RD