Cutting Point

[Fisherman]

Hi Fish,

When I consider the two murders committed by killer and serial rapist, Robert Napper - that of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common in 1992, and that of Samantha Bisset in 1993, in her own flat - there are some interesting similarities with the murders of Martha Tabram and Mary Kelly, so I do feel it's certainly plausible that the ripper killed them both. Such killers are not robots and they thrive on the violence they inflict. They can also have mood swings, just like anyone else, which can be influenced by drink or drugs, so I see no objection to one or more of the ripper's victims being attacked on the spur of the moment, regardless of whether he had the right weapon on him or the opportunity to mutilate them where they dropped. No separate motive would have been needed for someone who grew up knife happy, and I see no reason why the ripper would have stayed his hand and spared a prospective victim, if he could 'only' do her limited damage in the circumstances.

I have seen arguments in the past that a flasher doesn't become a killer, but in light of recent events that is likely to be a very wrong and very dangerous opinion to hold.

Good luck with the book!

Love,

Caz
X

Many thanks, Caz! I agree with both you and Gary, actually - these are points that do need to be brought up, but they are no certain gamechangers.

[caz]

Indeed so, Abby. I can see no valid, evidential or psychological reason why the ripper could/would not have murdered Stride.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Hi Fish,

When I consider the two murders committed by killer and serial rapist, Robert Napper - that of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common in 1992, and that of Samantha Bisset in 1993, in her own flat - there are some interesting similarities with the murders of Martha Tabram and Mary Kelly, so I do feel it's certainly plausible that the ripper killed them both. Such killers are not robots and they thrive on the violence they inflict. They can also have mood swings, just like anyone else, which can be influenced by drink or drugs, so I see no objection to one or more of the ripper's victims being attacked on the spur of the moment, regardless of whether he had the right weapon on him or the opportunity to mutilate them where they dropped. No separate motive would have been needed for someone who grew up knife happy, and I see no reason why the ripper would have stayed his hand and spared a prospective victim, if he could 'only' do her limited damage in the circumstances.

I have seen arguments in the past that a flasher doesn't become a killer, but in light of recent events that is likely to be a very wrong and very dangerous opinion to hold.

Good luck with the book!

Love,

Caz
X

might have happened with stride too

[caz]

Hi Fish,

When I consider the two murders committed by killer and serial rapist, Robert Napper - that of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common in 1992, and that of Samantha Bisset in 1993, in her own flat - there are some interesting similarities with the murders of Martha Tabram and Mary Kelly, so I do feel it's certainly plausible that the ripper killed them both. Such killers are not robots and they thrive on the violence they inflict. They can also have mood swings, just like anyone else, which can be influenced by drink or drugs, so I see no objection to one or more of the ripper's victims being attacked on the spur of the moment, regardless of whether he had the right weapon on him or the opportunity to mutilate them where they dropped. No separate motive would have been needed for someone who grew up knife happy, and I see no reason why the ripper would have stayed his hand and spared a prospective victim, if he could 'only' do her limited damage in the circumstances.

I have seen arguments in the past that a flasher doesn't become a killer, but in light of recent events that is likely to be a very wrong and very dangerous opinion to hold.

Good luck with the book!

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Christer,

Re Tabram, doesn’t Emma Smith fit just as well - perhaps even more so?

Time, location, type - and an undeniable sexual element.


Gary

In the book, I write that I sort away a number of possible victims, not on account of how they seem not to fit but instead because they do not further strengthen the case I am making. Smith is just such a victim, where a number of factors are in line with belonging to the tally. I point out that much as we donīt know who the killer was, the proven presence of a killer who preyed on women of the seemingly same class urges us to favour him as the likeliest killer. The facts that Smith was not cut or stabbed plus that she testified to having been assaulted by a gang detracts from her overall viability to a significant degree.
Of course, it can be reasoned that Tabram does perhaps not technically strengthen the case either, but as I said before, she looks to me like a possible bridge in between the two series, and so I added her. To me, she looks like a safer bid than Smith, and I believe most people would agree on that score.

[MrBarnett]

Christer,

Re Tabram, doesn’t Emma Smith fit just as well - perhaps even more so?

Time, location, type - and an undeniable sexual element.


Gary

[Fisherman]

I think it is time now to start one of the threads I named earlier: Framing Charles. Iīll put it in the suspects material.

[Fisherman]

I agree these issues are not insurmountable, but there’s no evidence that CAL had any connection to the butchery trade. I make a distinction here between skilled butchery and rough knackering - or even more so between skilled butchery and the retailing of horse flesh for cats meat. But it may be that at the end of his shift at Pickfords he did a stint of fine butchery in a premises that he had to himself.

There is a significant amount of similarities of a very rare nature between the series. There is the fact that eviscerators are very, very rare as such. The question we are faced with is whether it is likelier that two such men, doing the same rare things to their victims, surfaced simultaneously in late victorian London, or that a 23 year old man could have had access to a bolthole and a saw, and be able to cut in a way that made people think he was an expert. In that vein, we may need to ponder how the men who chased the lowly drifter Danny Rolling worked from the assumption that he probably had surgical experience. Thatīs not to say Rolling and Lechmere were the same or did the same things, but it is nevertheless worth understanding.

Another issue, of course, is the location of the torso dumps across the other side of a very large city - miles away from where he lived and worked. How might that have worked? He was a carman, you may say, he had transport. But the impression I get reading press reports of Pickfords drivers is that they were on very strict timetables. They were notorious for driving at breakneck speed and getting into accidents and altercations with other road users. I doubt that a driver picking up meat from Broad Street and delivering it to Smithfield, say, would have had the time to collect a body from his bolt hole (most likely in the East End) and drop it off in west London. That said, if his route was in westerly direction and involved multiple drop-offs, their might be more opportunity to fit in a surreptitious pick-up of body parts to be disposed of along his route.

I must give the same answer as always: What is unlikelier? Lechmere had the practical skills aquired to drive a cart, and he was in the cart-driving business. Few men would have been more likely to know how to take care of the dumping issue by way of a cart. Whether or not he had the opportunity is written in the stars. But once again, these matters are not insurmountable in any way, are they?

And to return to Tabram, the more I imagine the development of a skilled torso killer into the Ripper, the more of a bump in the road she becomes. The skill, the fascination with the inner workings of the female anatomy displayed by the torso killer and the Ripper are absent in her case. That a skilled killer might not have had the right tools to hand and/or that her killing was motivated by rage rather than his usual pathological curiosity might explain the situation. But that means we’re adding her to his tally on the basis of time, location and type of victim alone.

Letīs add the silence of the deed, the thrown up clothing, the displaying of the body, the possible tampering with her breathing (clenched fists), the blow to her head and a cut to the lower abdomen, Gary. Taken together, yes, those are the factors that make Tabram fit the frame. None of us can say whether she was the victim of the Whitechapel killer or not, but I chose to add her to the victims I described because I find her interesting and a possible bridge between bolthole cutting and street ditto.
Would she be the first victim I dropped from the list if I had to drop a victim at all? Probably, yes. But on balance, I do think she belongs.

[MrBarnett]

I do not see any of those things as impossible in any way, Gary. Cutting skills can quickly be aquired and there is no need for him to have had a bolthole and a saw of his own, he may have used premises owned by somebody else, or he may have used some abandoned place. He mayeven have had a bolthole of his own, the point being that we simply don’ t know.

As I hinted at before, many things like this one can be brought forward as unlikely, to a smaller or lesser degree (he would have run, he would not kill en route to work). Even if we regard it as some sort of fact that something is ”unlikely”, that does not mean that it represents an unsurmountable obstacle. And it does not clear anybody of suspicion unless it is so unlikely as to clear away any accusations.

If, for example, Charles Lechmere made extra money on the side by helping out in the butchery business and if he had access to somebody else’ s premises where there was a saw, then that would sound trivial to me. For example. There may be other solutions to these matters too. Perhaps the solution is not even trivial, but nevertheless there.

I agree these issues are not insurmountable, but there’s no evidence that CAL had any connection to the butchery trade. I make a distinction here between skilled butchery and rough knackering - or even more so between skilled butchery and the retailing of horse flesh for cats meat. But it may be that at the end of his shift at Pickfords he did a stint of fine butchery in a premises that he had to himself.

Another issue, of course, is the location of the torso dumps across the other side of a very large city - miles away from where he lived and worked. How might that have worked? He was a carman, you may say, he had transport. But the impression I get reading press reports of Pickfords drivers is that they were on very strict timetables. They were notorious for driving at breakneck speed and getting into accidents and altercations with other road users. I doubt that a driver picking up meat from Broad Street and delivering it to Smithfield, say, would have had the time to collect a body from his bolt hole (most likely in the East End) and drop it off in west London. That said, if his route was in westerly direction and involved multiple drop-offs, their might be more opportunity to fit in a surreptitious pick-up of body parts to be disposed of along his route.

And to return to Tabram, the more I imagine the development of a skilled torso killer into the Ripper, the more of a bump in the road she becomes. The skill, the fascination with the inner workings of the female anatomy displayed by the torso killer and the Ripper are absent in her case. That a skilled killer might not have had the right tools to hand and/or that her killing was motivated by rage rather than his usual pathological curiosity might explain the situation. But that means we’re adding her to his tally on the basis of time, location and type of victim alone.

[Fisherman]

As I indicated in my post, it’s the skill, bolt hole and tools that I question.

I do not see any of those things as impossible in any way, Gary. Cutting skills can quickly be aquired and there is no need for him to have had a bolthole and a saw of his own, he may have used premises owned by somebody else, or he may have used some abandoned place. He mayeven have had a bolthole of his own, the point being that we simply don’ t know.

As I hinted at before, many things like this one can be brought forward as unlikely, to a smaller or lesser degree (he would have run, he would not kill en route to work). Even if we regard it as some sort of fact that something is ”unlikely”, that does not mean that it represents an unsurmountable obstacle. And it does not clear anybody of suspicion unless it is so unlikely as to clear away any accusations.

If, for example, Charles Lechmere made extra money on the side by helping out in the butchery business and if he had access to somebody else’ s premises where there was a saw, then that would sound trivial to me. For example. There may be other solutions to these matters too. Perhaps the solution is not even trivial, but nevertheless there.

[MrBarnett]

As I indicated in my post, it’s the skill, bolt hole and tools that I question.

[Abby Normal]

Hereīs the story of Ed Kemperīs exploits when he was 23 and a half:

"On May 7, 1972, Kemper was driving in Berkley, California when he picked up two 18-year-old hitchhiking students from Fresno State University, Mary Ann Pesce, and Anita Mary Luchessa, with the pretense of taking them to Stanford University. After driving for an hour, he managed to reach a secluded wooded area near Alameda, California, with which he was familiar from his work at the Highway Department, without alerting his passengers that he had changed directions from where they wanted to go. It was there that he handcuffed Pesce and locked Luchessa in the trunk, then stabbed and strangled Pesce to death, subsequently killing Luchessa in a similar manner.Kemper later confessed that while handcuffing Pesce, he "brushed the back of [his] hand against one of her breasts and it embarrassed [him]", adding that he said, "'Whoops, I'm sorry' or something like that" after grazing her breast, despite murdering her minutes later.

Kemper put both of the women's bodies in the trunk of his Ford Galaxie and returned to his apartment. He was stopped on the way by a police officer for having a broken taillight, but the officer did not detect the corpses in the car.Kemper's roommate was not at home, so he took the bodies into his apartment, where he photographed and had sexual intercourse with the naked corpses before dismembering them. He then put the body parts into plastic bags, which he later abandoned near Loma Prieta Mountain. Before disposing of Pesce's and Luchessa's severed heads in a ravine, Kemper engaged in irrumatio with both of them. In August of that year, Pesce's skull was found on Loma Prieta Mountain. An extensive search failed to turn up the rest of Pesce's remains or a trace of Luchessa."

These are very "mature" murders too, just like the 1873 one. A double homicide, using handcuffs, including photographing the bodies, then dismembering, packing up and getting rid of them in a cool and calculating manner, also involving a sequence where the killers car was stopped by the police without him losing his wits.

Itīs the kind of crime where we would predispose an older killer, but Kemper was the exact same age as Lechmere would have been in 1873, when the torso murder was committed.

it also involved rusing the victims, much like i suspect torsoman did to his. imho 23 years old is no problem in this regard.

[Fisherman]

Hereīs the story of Ed Kemperīs exploits when he was 23 and a half:

"On May 7, 1972, Kemper was driving in Berkley, California when he picked up two 18-year-old hitchhiking students from Fresno State University, Mary Ann Pesce, and Anita Mary Luchessa, with the pretense of taking them to Stanford University. After driving for an hour, he managed to reach a secluded wooded area near Alameda, California, with which he was familiar from his work at the Highway Department, without alerting his passengers that he had changed directions from where they wanted to go. It was there that he handcuffed Pesce and locked Luchessa in the trunk, then stabbed and strangled Pesce to death, subsequently killing Luchessa in a similar manner.Kemper later confessed that while handcuffing Pesce, he "brushed the back of [his] hand against one of her breasts and it embarrassed [him]", adding that he said, "'Whoops, I'm sorry' or something like that" after grazing her breast, despite murdering her minutes later.

Kemper put both of the women's bodies in the trunk of his Ford Galaxie and returned to his apartment. He was stopped on the way by a police officer for having a broken taillight, but the officer did not detect the corpses in the car.Kemper's roommate was not at home, so he took the bodies into his apartment, where he photographed and had sexual intercourse with the naked corpses before dismembering them. He then put the body parts into plastic bags, which he later abandoned near Loma Prieta Mountain. Before disposing of Pesce's and Luchessa's severed heads in a ravine, Kemper engaged in irrumatio with both of them. In August of that year, Pesce's skull was found on Loma Prieta Mountain. An extensive search failed to turn up the rest of Pesce's remains or a trace of Luchessa."

These are very "mature" murders too, just like the 1873 one. A double homicide, using handcuffs, including photographing the bodies, then dismembering, packing up and getting rid of them in a cool and calculating manner, also involving a sequence where the killers car was stopped by the police without him losing his wits.

Itīs the kind of crime where we would predispose an older killer, but Kemper was the exact same age as Lechmere would have been in 1873, when the torso murder was committed.

[Fisherman]

This isn’t a question, just an observation that will probably turn into a question at a later date. Your categorisation of the 1873 murder as a ‘mature’ one, inasmuch as it would require a bolthole, skills and tools (?), seems reasonable.

At that time Lechmere was a 23-year-old East End Carman.

Yes. And so we are faced with the question what is likelier: that a 23-year old could not have killed the 1873 victim or that two killers who were both skilled and exact cutters in London just happened to emulate the two ”lids” present in the wax models on display in the anatomical museums. I know how I answer that one.
There will always be things that may seem out of line or odd to some extent in the comparison between the two series. But to me, there will be explanations to these matters, sometimes perhaps very trivial ones. But there cannot be as many and odd similarities as there is out of pure coincidence.

[MrBarnett]

I agree about how Tabram can be seen as the odd one out. The 1873 murder is a very composed and mature one, going by the looks of it, and so it can seem odd that Tabram was such a seemingly different and messy affair. To me, the choice of weapon tells us that whoever killed her did not come prepared to eviscerate and/or make intricate cuts to the body. Therefore, I tend to think that this murder was unplanned. I reason that Lechmere may well have been a user of prostitutes, as so many serial killers are, and that the murder was likely a spur-of-the-moment matter. Then, when the press reports came thick and fast, it may be that Lechmere decided to take his business to the streets, in order to get more attention/invoke more fear.
This is of course a suggestion only, but that is where I end up when I try to understand what happened to Tabram. It does not mean that I categorically rule out other solutions, far from it.

Iīm glad to hear you are giving me some little rest now. I will try to answer the rest of your points when they arrive, but just like you, I am tied up in other matters too!

This isn’t a question, just an observation that will probably turn into a question at a later date. Your categorisation of the 1873 murder as a ‘mature’ one, inasmuch as it would require a bolthole, skills and tools (?), seems reasonable.

At that time Lechmere was a 23-year-old East End Carman.