Regarding the Thames Torso Murders, etc..

[Rob Clack]

Your recent Ripperologist magazine article on this subject was very informative, Rob, thank you.

Thanks Roy.

Did you have a particular reason in mind?

Thanks again,

Roy

No reason at present. The place where the torso was dumped was very difficult and dangerous to get to at night. Also that it was going to be a Police building might have made it personal.

Hi Rob,
Hebbert and Bond thought the precise disarticulated of the joints in the four cases, Rainham, Whitehall, Pinchin and Jackson showed only the skill of a hunter or slaughterer didn't they? While some were convinced (and still are) that JTR showed the skill of a surgeon in his mutilations many felt it was someone accustomed to animal slaughter or butchering, so perhaps not too different skill wise?
It's difficult to compare as the specific hunting/slaughtering skill of the torso killer was seen in the limb removal and disarticulated of joints and none of the Macnaghten five had limbs removed.
When comparing wounds on both sets of victims I do personally think there is some similarity-long incisions from ribs to pubes, removal of some organs,abdominal skin flap creation and removal. Comparing Mary Jane Kelly's wounds to Elizabeth Jackson's - they are chillingly similar, as I've mentioned many times before.

Hi Debs,

Butcher I believe? at least that was mentioned in the Whitehall case. The disarticulation of the arm required seven precise cuts (going from memory here). Where the Ripper victims were more rushed in my opinion and I don't think they were the work of a surgeon who I think would be more careful and work slower? Might even be a butcher as well but I think since he had more time with Kelly they would how some similarities. Would the long incision from ribs to pubes be standard for opening that area of the body? I mean would doctors, butchers, hunters all work to a similar pattern?

Rob

[Debra A]

Thanks Roy.



No reason at present. The place where the torso was dumped was very difficult and dangerous to get to at night. Also that it was going to be a Police building might have made it personal.



Hi Debs,

Butcher I believe? at least that was mentioned in the Whitehall case. The disarticulation of the arm required seven precise cuts (going from memory here). Where the Ripper victims were more rushed in my opinion and I don't think they were the work of a surgeon who I think would be more careful and work slower? Might even be a butcher as well but I think since he had more time with Kelly they would how some similarities. Would the long incision from ribs to pubes be standard for opening that area of the body? I mean would doctors, butchers, hunters all work to a similar pattern?

Rob

Hi Rob,
Yes, you're right, I think it was butcher or hunter. It's in the conslusions in the SOLM article and the Westminster reports, both by Hebbert and Bond but slaughterer is mentioned too in news reports and it is a similar profession with a similar skill set requirement.
The reasons given for thinking it wasn't a doctor or surgeon in the four torso cases was because a doctor or surgeon wouldn't be accustomed to opening up joints as a butcher would. Even a surgeon skilled in amputation would not remove limbs at a joint generally.

What I find really interesting is, in one torso case we have a very similar abdominal mutilation method with the creation of flaps of skin-something often discussed on these boards as being unique to 'Jack', yet here we have another killer operating in London whose victim is a vagrant prostitute, homeless and walking the streets on the night of her death, her abdomen targeted by removal of flaps of skin, her uterus opened up and a foetus removed from it and never recovered and all that must have happened before she was dismembered -similar to some of the Whitechapel victims in the method and mutilation targeting yet we seem to be more willing to accept he was definitely a different killer-although not so willing to accept the idea of different killers with similar victims and methods when applied to the Whitechapel victims. I never though about it in that way until recently.

[Debra A]

No reason at present. The place where the torso was dumped was very difficult and dangerous to get to at night. Also that it was going to be a Police building might have made it personal.

Rob

He might have been a disgruntled opera fan.

[Debra A]

Hi Ausgirl,
The removal of the face occurred in a much earlier torso murder I think? (1870s)Dr Bond was also involved in that case. I think he would probably have mentioned it if he'd seen similarities between the earlier torso finds he worked on and the four he linked, occurring before, during and after the Whitechapel murders?

Incidentally, you're right about the face reconstruction in that case. Doctors were frustrated when their efforts to fill out the face with a wooden block failed to result in an identification of the victim. Dr Bond had to point out that it probably looked nothing like the victim because it's bone and muscle structure that shapes a persons face and makes everyone individual looking.

[Ausgirl]

What I find really interesting is, in one torso case we have a very similar abdominal mutilation method with the creation of flaps of skin-something often discussed on these boards as being unique to 'Jack', yet here we have another killer operating in London whose victim is a vagrant prostitute, homeless and walking the streets on the night of her death, her abdomen targeted by removal of flaps of skin, her uterus opened up and a foetus removed from it and never recovered and all that must have happened before she was dismembered -similar to some of the Whitechapel victims in the method and mutilation targeting yet we seem to be more willing to accept he was definitely a different killer-although not so willing to accept the idea of different killers with similar victims and methods when applied to the Whitechapel victims. I never though about it in that way until recently.

This is a very good point. I know it's silly, but I'm almost wondering if there two killers mimicking each other at times.. Most of the other torso bodies weren't mutilated like that, but there were organs missing from several. It's too weird a coincidence, I agree. Same guy, or two playing off each other's press reports.. these are pretty tempting directions for thought.

Speaking of butchers... there was another dismemberment victim found in a butcher's cart (!) by a stableman who was cleaning it, on Great Windmill St (Westminster, I think) and discovered on Christmas morning, 1900. The cart had been 'put up' for the night there, so presumably the bits were deposited in it at some point overnight. The body parts were in a brown paper parcel, tied with string.

I can't find much else on it so far, the snip I got was translated from German..

[Ausgirl]

Hi Ausgirl,
The removal of the face occurred in a much earlier torso murder I think? (1870s)Dr Bond was also involved in that case. I think he would probably have mentioned it if he'd seen similarities between the earlier torso finds he worked on and the four he linked, occurring before, during and after the Whitechapel murders?

Incidentally, you're right about the face reconstruction in that case. Doctors were frustrated when their efforts to fill out the face with a wooden block failed to result in an identification of the victim. Dr Bond had to point out that it probably looked nothing like the victim because it's bone and muscle structure that shapes a persons face and makes everyone individual looking.

Cheers again, Deb - I didn't realise the same doc. examined all of them. Good point. But there is a lot of time between the Ripper-era ones and those early ones. Killers do evolve, change, adapt. And IIRC, the early ones are stated to have also been 'neat' - it's late and the cases are all muddling together in my head now, but were they not also disarticulated, much as the later ones?


Another snippet - E. Jackson also apparently spent some time at a Whitechapel lodging-house not long before she died. I wonder how long before, exactly, and which one?

[Debra A]

Cheers again, Deb - I didn't realise the same doc. examined all of them. Good point. But there is a lot of time between the Ripper-era ones and those early ones. Killers do evolve, change, adapt. And IIRC, the early ones are stated to have also been 'neat' - it's late and the cases are all muddling together in my head now, but were they not also disarticulated, much as the later ones?


Another snippet - E. Jackson also apparently spent some time at a Whitechapel lodging-house not long before she died. I wonder how long before, exactly, and which one?

That's true, Ausgirl, but I think something which made these particular four murders stand out as perhaps a series by the same killer was the fact that the remains were disposed of immediately after the murder, as well as a similarity in skill of disarticulated and precise methods of limb removal using sweeping knife cuts and a fine toothed saw. In a lot of historical cases we see things like burning, boiling and chopping with an axe to make the body 'disappear' and also the use of chemicals to accelerate flesh decay (lime or quicklime is it?). Although the torso murderer didn't put his victim's remains on show, he didn't go to any great lengths to get rid of the body by any other method. He murdered, he mutilated, he dismembered, he disposed of the fresh remains. In other cases we often see dumping of the remains kind of as a last resort. The Salamancer (Sp?) Alley case comes to mind here.

It was John Faircloth who took Elizabeth to stay in a Whitechapel lodging house on their way back from, (could be to as I'm writing from memory) Ipswich. It would have been around March 1889 time IIRC. I have not come across a specific address given, so far.

[Phil H]

An odd thought - I have never seen question is: Is there any chance we (and the authorities in 1888ish) have got the whole case wrong?

Is there any chance that the torso murders, the Ripper killings and perhaps others are linked? Maybe by a group being responsible rather than one man in each case?

It is often pointed out in other contexts that it seems off to have multiple serial murderers operating at the same time (and in the case of the Pinchin St torso) in the same area. So surely an efficient solution would be to perceive one killer....

Or was the torso killer an "inspiration" to JtR? Or perhaps - did they know each other?

Answers on a torn scrap of apron please, deposited by Battersea Bridge....

Phil

[Ausgirl]

That's true, Ausgirl, but I think something which made these particular four murders stand out as perhaps a series by the same killer was the fact that the remains were disposed of immediately after the murder, as well as a similarity in skill of disarticulated and precise methods of limb removal using sweeping knife cuts and a fine toothed saw. In a lot of historical cases we see things like burning, boiling and chopping with an axe to make the body 'disappear' and also the use of chemicals to accelerate flesh decay (lime or quicklime is it?). Although the torso murderer didn't put his victim's remains on show, he didn't go to any great lengths to get rid of the body by any other method. He murdered, he mutilated, he dismembered, he disposed of the fresh remains.

The first 1870's corpse - and I have an atrocious memory, forgive me - exhibited evidence of quicklime. But after that, none of the bodies displaying the same sawcuts and careful disarticulation had quicklime - I really have to look at each case a bit more thoroughly than the tabloids provide for, but as far as I can see through those, it -could- also be the evolution of the killer, finding not only an alternate, easier way of body disposal, but probably enjoying it.

Of all the cases, the Pinchin Street one stands out as markedly different, much less 'clean' than the others (the arms were left on, for a start). As does Elizabeth's body, elements of Jack there for sure. But I'm speaking from insomnia and shreds of newspaper, here. Tomorrow, I'll try to to get a clearer grasp on it.

Thanks much for the name of her feller. I wish we knew who the other victims were. Oh - Ms Pinchin St. - she was older than the others probably were too = another fact to try to verify, just a note to self.

Phil, I like thinking outside the box, even if it gets a tad chilly out there. I've made some truly astounding breaks in a couple of cold cases I've delved into, by doing just that. As well as wasted a lot of time and worn a few dunce's hats.. coughcough. But those who dare, etc.

Wouldn't it be something if they did know each other.. I could make a scary bit of fiction out of that.

[Ausgirl]

Also - the question of how fresh those remains really were is bothering me. But I'll go hang out in the Quiet Thread now.. quietly.

[Ausgirl]

Rob -- wonderful article, thank you! Lots of details that I haven't seen before, cleared up a few assumptions. Most appreciated.

Deb - would you be the same Debra who did that podcast on the torso murders?
That was quite informative, also.

It's quite bizarre to me how other severed limbs were showing up, but didn't fit the bodies being examined and thus weren't terribly newsworthy. Severed human bits and pieces must not have been that big a deal, back in the day.

[Phil H]

It rather shows how the press fanned the Ripper killings into a major sensation, doesn't it?

No real press interest in the torso killings, no sensation even though as many (or more) women might have died at the hands of the "Torso murderer"

Did the approach of the press, their use of information, their imposed interpretation, the pressure placed on the authorities, distort our understanding of the Whitechapel killings, I wonder?

Look at the responses to this thread. Hardly any discussion, even though there are obvious questions - I posed some above - to be answered which are relevant to the Whitechapel killings.

The yellow press of 1888 continues to influence the interests and assumptions of Casebook members in 2013 it seems!

Phil

[Debra A]

Rob -- wonderful article, thank you! Lots of details that I haven't seen before, cleared up a few assumptions. Most appreciated.

Deb - would you be the same Debra who did that podcast on the torso murders?
That was quite informative, also.

It's quite bizarre to me how other severed limbs were showing up, but didn't fit the bodies being examined and thus weren't terribly newsworthy. Severed human bits and pieces must not have been that big a deal, back in the day.

Yes,that was me. I did the podcast 5 years back before there was not so much information available,,I've discovered so much more since that time. I also did the casebook account on Elizabeth Jackson and discovered something previously unknown or mentioned. I've been interested in the torso murders for about 9 or 10 years now and became interested when I found the System of Legal Medicine and Westminster report material that were only familiar to a few people at the time.

Regarding body parts-there was much discussion at the time about what constitutes a body. A stray thigh or arm had to go without investigation as no inquest could be opened on such a thing on it's own because it wouldn't necessarily mean anyone had died, never mind been murdered.
An unrelated thigh was found around he time of the Rainham case. The remains of a supposed victim of the Princess Alice disaster was also recovered from a mud bank when dredging for remains in the Rainham case.

[Debra A]

It rather shows how the press fanned the Ripper killings into a major sensation, doesn't it?

No real press interest in the torso killings, no sensation even though as many (or more) women might have died at the hands of the "Torso murderer"

Did the approach of the press, their use of information, their imposed interpretation, the pressure placed on the authorities, distort our understanding of the Whitechapel killings, I wonder?

Look at the responses to this thread. Hardly any discussion, even though there are obvious questions - I posed some above - to be answered which are relevant to the Whitechapel killings.

The yellow press of 1888 continues to influence the interests and assumptions of Casebook members in 2013 it seems!

Phil

There was a lot of press coverage of the torso murders but I think the reason it is less sensational in approach is that these women were unidentified so had no friends or family for journalists to interview.No one saw their last moments or any person they may have been with and so the papers really had nothing to report on to fill out their stories.

There has never been much discussion on the torsos. They are something people tend to pick up when they want to bump up their preferred suspect's body count-their suspect for JTR also had also had a granny living on Pinchin Street... and that kind of thing.

[Ausgirl]

Deb, in your opinion, with all you know about the case now, was there possibly a link between JtR and the torso murders, even a tenuous one (say, reading each other's press, for example) - or is it more likely the two were completely unconnected?

I note that you've pointed out the similarities in posts upthread. These are a bit more startling, really, now I've had a chance to delve into it a bit deeper.

The differences are there, too, just as starkly. But the similarities make me think about the odds.

I wish I had more time, presently. I'd love to compare a JtR timeline (including non-canonical but realistically possible victims) to the Torso murders.