Jack and the Thames Torso Murders: A New Ripper?

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn:You need more than one example in order to establish a pattern.

But Abby was not after establishing a pattern, he was after pointing out very clear links!

The similarities, such as they are, are debatable, and the differences outnumber them.

They are not "debatable" at all. Jackson and Kelly both DID have their uteri excised, their hearts taken out and their abdominal walls removed in large flaps. That is beyond "debate", thank God!

What is "debatable" is whether there were dissimilarities, and there MAY have been, but until we can prove it, we are left with guesswork. Like "the torso man almost certainly had another Eason to cut out the uterus from Jackson than the Ripper had in the Kelly case". That kind of guesswork, you know?
As for similarities/dissimilarities, you have been informed what applies: odd and unusual similarities will take precedence over dissimilarities, no matter how large and many they are. Surely you remember the example I posted ten minutes ago?

[Abby Normal]

I don't think it is. Kelly was practically destroyed, Jackson nowhere near so.

sorry sam you couldn't be more wrong.

Jackson had her abdomen ripped open, her baby torn out, her heart and lungs removed, her arms and legs cut off and her head removed. separated and dumped in different areas.


I think the argument could be made that Jackson was actually more destroyed than Kelly, but its a stupid argument either way, because they both were.

[Sam Flynn]

Two panels of flesh cut out does not make for a ripped abdomen and, severed limbs, decapitation and quartering apart, Jackson's body was unscathed. Her breasts weren't cut off, her intercostal flesh wasn't cut out, her arms weren't hacked, her undercarriage wasn't completely stripped of flesh, the flesh of her thighs and buttocks wasn't sliced away, her femur wasn't exposed, her calf wasn't gashed. Her stomach wasn't split open, her liver, spleen, bladder and kidneys remained in place. Compared to Kelly, and arguably the rest of the Ripper's evisceration victims, what happened to Jackson was positively tame - not so much overkill as "underkill".

[Fisherman]

Two panels of flesh cut out does not make for a ripped abdomen and, severed limbs, decapitation and quartering apart, Jackson's body was unscathed. Her breasts weren't cut off, her intercostal flesh wasn't cut out, her arms weren't hacked, her undercarriage wasn't completely stripped of flesh, the flesh of her thighs and buttocks wasn't sliced away, her femur wasn't exposed, her calf wasn't gashed. Her stomach wasn't split open, her liver, spleen, bladder and kidneys remained in place. Compared to Kelly, and arguably the rest of the Ripper's evisceration victims, what happened to Jackson was positively tame - not so much overkill as "underkill".

BUT NOBODY IS COMPARING THE TWO!!! What is said is that BOTH cases are cases of extreme overkill! There is a LOT of unnecessary damage in both cases that goes way beyond what is required to kill.

You are consistently moving the goalposts. For some reason!

You also said that Abby could not point to a "pattern", when nobody had said that a pattern would be pointed to. What was said was that LINKS were there between foremost Jackson and Kelly.

Do NOT move the goalposts, stick with what is said, please!
And what is this about "severed limbs, decapitation and quartering apart"? Why would we treat that as being "apart"? Did she or did she not suffer that?
Nobody is saying "apart from X, X, X, X and X, Kelly was just fine.

[Sam Flynn]

If you want to draw parallels with the Ripper murders, we HAVE to make comparisons by definition.

[Fisherman]

If you want to draw parallels with the Ripper murders, we HAVE to make comparisons by definition.

Yes, and the comparisons are:

Uteri taken out
Hearts removed
Abdominal walls taken away
Rippings from sternum to groin
Necks/throats cut
Prostituted victims
... and a few more similarities

After that, there are differing matters too, but none of them detract from these matters. They stand and they make as close to a watertight case as we can get for a common originator, given the rarity of many of the parameters.

It seems you are done arguing a case for Jackson not having been the victim of overkill? Progress, I dare say!

Question: Is "comparisons by definition" your phrasing of "moving goalposts"?

[Abby Normal]

has any one read this book yet?

is there a review of it anywhere?

unfortunately amazon still has it showing as a pre order only and not being released until june ?!?

[barnflatwyngarde]

has any one read this book yet?

is there a review of it anywhere?

unfortunately amazon still has it showing as a pre order only and not being released until june ?!?

Yeah publication date is June 2019.

It's not even showing up on the publishers website (Amberley Press).

[John G]

Similarities:

Uterus taken away. Very, very unusual.

Heart taken away. Very, very unusual.

Cut from sternum to groin. Very unusual.

Abdominal wall removed in flaps. Almost unheard of.

Cut by knife. Common.

Extreme overkill. Rare.

Prostitutes, both of them. Common.

Londoners, both of them.

Killed within a period of eight months.

Both young women.

This cannot be explained away, īm afraid, and it takes precedence over the dissimilarities, hands down. Any police force who did not work from the notion of a single killer when damage like this is involved would be beyond irreparably stupid.

Hi Fisherman,

Sorry, I seem to have been away from this thread for some time! But to address your points.

Jackson's uterus was removed, but the main focus of the perpetrator appears to have been the foetus, that was never found, but would, of course, have been developed within the uterus. As Kelly wasn't pregnant, I think it safe to assume that different motives applied to these cases.

Extreme overkill? There's a large number of murders of the period, outside of, say, the C5 and Torso crimes, that this argument could have applied to, i.e. Ronan, Millwood, but I seriously doubt they were all killed by the same person. And as an aside, we don't even know for certain that the Torso victims were murdered!

Prostitutes? Not an uncommon type of victim for a serial killer, and there were a huge number of casual prostitutes in London at this time. And has been definitely ascertained that Kelly was a prostitute at the time of her murder?

Both young women? Well neither Chapman or Nicholls were young, does this mean they can both be ruled out?

Abdominal walls removed on flaps. Well, one victim was hacked to bits, whilst the other had two long irregular strips removed from the abdomen. That doesn't seem at all similar to me.

[John G]

John G:

However, things are far more complicated than that. For instance, the Torso Perpetrator was very consistent in his ritualistic behaviour, and these rituals differed substantially from what we observe in the C5 murders.

So which are his rituals, John? Mind you, its good that you have finally dumped the idea that these were all practical dismemberments!

Thus, the Torso perpetrator decapitated his victims, JtR didn't. This may have been ritualistic, or practical, I.e. to prevent identification. In any event, this "signature" is absent in all of the C5 cases, even though in Kelly's case at least, he presumably had more than enough time. This suggests to me that "JtR" lacked either the skill or the inclination to perform such an act.

If the torso killer needed to dismember to dump, then that is the whole explanation, is it not? Why on earth would the Ripper decapitate, if it was not something he felt compelled to do for reasons of urge or ritual? But this has been said a thousand times! Why is it not enough?

The Torso victims were all stored: in the case of the Whitehall victim for up to 8 weeks, and Jackson for several days: she was last seen on the 31st May, but her remains were not discovered until 4th June. This ritual clearly meant something to the Torso perpetrator, considering the risk he must have been taking in not disposing of the remains straight away but clearly was not a consideration for JtR.

No, not all torso victims were stored. The 1873 victim was not. And you must realize that if the killer LIKED his bodies and/or body parts, then the Ripper COULD NOT store his victims, whereas the torso killer could. Very uncomplicated, therefore. A problem only arises if we conclude that there was an actual urge to stor bodies that could not be quenched, in which case the Ripper would have needed to carry his victims into some storage facility and leave them there. Does that sound likely to you? If he could store, he would store sometimes, but when he couldn't, he didn't. How about that?

The Torso perpetrator scattered body parts all over London, like "pieces of a puzzle". JtR didn't, even though he had the perfect opportunity with Kelly, considering the number of body parts removed.

You mean if he had brought a sack along to carry her in? To the Thames, presumably?
The torso murders involve some sort of transport means. No such means were employed in the Ripper murders. Again a problem only arises when we believe that the killer felt an unquenchable urge to transport bodies before dumping them. Did he?
How about floating the parts of the torso victims got press coverage and leaving a dead prostitute with her innards spread all around her ALSO reached that goal. Win-win, eh?

The Torso perpetrator either abducted his victims, and took them to his dismemberment site, or inveigled them. JtR didn't.

So we need to accept that a killer who can and will kill in a secluded location can also kill out in the streets. ehhh, let's see.... okey, accepted!
Is it to be expected, though? No, it is not. Then why think it happened? Because the similarities go a long way to prove it beyond reasonable doubt.

The Torso perpetrator dismembered all of his victims. JtR dismembered none of his, even though Kelly afforded him the perfect opportunity.

It is only if we think dismemberment was - again - an unquenchable need for the killer that this becomes of interest. Otherwise it remains that when you kill at home, you dismember, when you kill away from home, you don't have to.

Geographical considerations. JtR operated within a remarkably small area, I.e. Whitechapel/Spitalfields. For instance, from Flower and Dean Street, all of the murder sites are within a range of 0.6 miles, with the exception of Mitre Square, which was 1.1 miles away. In contrast, Torso operated all over London: I have already referred to the fact that Jackson's remains were scattered over a wide area, and Rainham is 27 miles from Whitechapel.

The victims can have been procured in the same small area nevertheless. And RAINHAM, John? Do you think the victim was slain in RAINHAM...? The part down there had of course floated there! Why bring up the distance to Rainham in this context? It is not a sound thing to do. We need to be reasonable, John!

What can we deduce from this? It is submitted that JtR lacked transport, or/and was psychologically unwilling to expand his range. It also suggests to me that JtR was a poor man-like the bulk of Whitechapel residents-who simply couldn't afford the extravagance of, say, a horse and cart, let alone stabling costs, feeding of animal, vet fees etc.

We cannot deduce that the Ripper lacked transport, no. He may have owned thirty carriages and an omnibus for all we know. All we can say is that he di9d not USE transport, but that is another thing altogether. The torso killer may not have used transport when picking up his victims, we only know that he did so when dumping the bodies. And as we - hopefully - have agreed by now: When you kill at home...

In contrast, Torso must have been a much better off perpetrator, someone with the income to afford transport, as well as a bolt-hole/dismemberment site.

No, he must not have been more affluent at all. The price of Wales has been suggested as the Ripper, and the reason that none of us believe in him as the perp is NOT that he was too rich.

The Torso perpetrator must have had a reason to decapitate his victims, and ritual or defensive reasons are the only sensible explanations. But I would think you're right that JtR didn't feel a need to decapitate, suggesting he was a different killer!

Have you any evidence that any of the Torso Victims were procured in Whitechapel? With respect, that's rather putting the cart before the horse. In any case event, Liz Jackson is the only Torso victim to be identified and she was not living in Whitechapel.

The obvious conclusion is that JtR lacked transport, otherwise it wouldn't make sense to target victims within the same small geographical area, particularly following the greatly increased police presence and a local community on high alert. At the very least I think it safe to conclude that he didn't feel comfortable in venturing outside of his immediate locality, in sharp contrast to the Torso perpetrator, of course.

Regarding the earlier Torso crimes, I'm far from convinced that they are linked.

I think it safe to conclude that Torso had an urge to store his victims, i.e. as part of his signature, otherwise he was taking an unnecessary risk. In the case of the C5 victims, no attempt was made to abduct them, no attempt was made to take them to a series disposal/storage site.

To recap, I'm unaware of any case in criminological history where the same perpetrator has alternated between two very consistent, but distinct signatures/MOs. On one hand, we have a perpetrator who consistently abductors his victims, or inveigles and them to his murder site. Be consistently decapitates and dismembers his victims. He consistently stores his victims. He consistently prevents his victims from being identified. He consistently scatters body parts over a wide area.

On the other hand, JtR does none of these things. He is simply content with targeting victims within a small geographical area, slaughtering them in the street-an extreme risk that Torso wasn't prepared to take-and making no attempt prevent identification.

Finally, I must say that I'm struggling to understand what seems to be the basic premise of your argument: that the many dissimilarities can be discounted, or at least explained, by the fact is that it e must be dealing with a topsy-turvey killer who would had no problem on varying his signature/MO. Well, on that basis, let's imagine that a series of street rapes occurred in Whitechapel in 1888, in which the victims were not murdered subject to knife attacks. Using your logic, I could then argue that the crimes must be linked to the C5, i.e. on the basis that any dissimilarities could be explained by the fact that sometimes the perpetrator had the urge to kill and eviscerate and sometimes he didn't. What's wrong with that?

[John G]

Hi John
this is a good post- I disagree with the basic premise, but good points nonetheless.

Hi Abby,

A (very) belated thanks! Much appreciated.

[John G]

And both her lungs in their entirety, let's not forget.

Good posts, John.

Thanks Sam!