Michel Eyraud & The Pinchin Street Torso

[Bridewell]

I find it absolutely amazing that you can put Eyraud forward as a likely Pinchin Street killer while denying the similarities between the Rippers deeds and those of the Torso series! I mean ... wow!!

I seem to have touched a nerve. Why do you view every suggestion by anyone else, even about a non JtR killing, as an attack on your Lechmere theory? Are you now claiming that Lechmere was both JtR and the Thames torso killer?

As it happens I'm not aware that I've ever denied any similarities between the two although, now you come to mention it, I don't really see any. And you're seeking to compare and contrast the specific wounds known to have been inflicted by Eyraud with those inflicted by the killer of the Pinchin Street victim? I put Eyraud forward as a possible Pinchin Street killer because he was in London in 1889 and, as a matter of historical record, was someone known to have dismembered the body of a murder victim. Eyraud is a convicted murderer - not a claim you can make for Lechmere (who - correct me please if I'm wrong - was never convicted of anything).

[Sam Flynn]

Are you now claiming that Lechmere was both JtR and the Thames torso killer?

I'm afraid he does.

[Bridewell]

I'm afraid he does.

Thanks. That explains everything. I've obviously been away too long!

[Fisherman]

I seem to have touched a nerve. Why do you view every suggestion by anyone else, even about a non JtR killing, as an attack on your Lechmere theory? Are you now claiming that Lechmere was both JtR and the Thames torso killer?

As it happens I'm not aware that I've ever denied any similarities between the two although, now you come to mention it, I don't really see any. And you're seeking to compare and contrast the specific wounds known to have been inflicted by Eyraud with those inflicted by the killer of the Pinchin Street victim? I put Eyraud forward as a possible Pinchin Street killer because he was in London in 1889 and, as a matter of historical record, was someone known to have dismembered the body of a murder victim. Eyraud is a convicted murderer - not a claim you can make for Lechmere (who - correct me please if I'm wrong - was never convicted of anything).

Why do you think I view your musings about Eyraud as an attack on the Lechmere theory? I know I don't.
What I am saying is that suggesting that Eyraud was responsible for the Pinchin Street deed (or any other Thames torso deed) is diluted into thin air if the suggestion comes from somebody who dismisses the idea of a common originator of the Ripper and the Thames torso series. The reason being that if one refuses to acknowledge the similarities in these two series, one is not fit to plead in the first case. After that, if one acknowledges dismemberment (regardless how that dismemberment looks) as an indicator of a link to the Thames torso murders after having failed to acknowledge a link between dismemberment cases involving multiple common peculiarities, then one has sold out all credibility.

You seemingly take pride in stating that you cannot see any similarities inbetween the Ripper series and the Thames torso ditto. And equally you take pride in having produced a case of a killer dismembering a person he was acquainted to, who was not of the same gender as the Thames torso victims, whose parts were not distributed and where no ripping or organ extraction's recorded. Plus you fail to see the relevance of comparing the cutting work done on the victim to the cutting done in the torso series, a type of cutting that left Hebbert in little or no doubt of a common originator.
That is what your naming Eyraud as a likely Pinchin Street killer has contributed, and it is not half bad in a sense - it is a textbook example of how not so solve murder cases.

And look: this all doesn't even touch on Lechmere!
Peddling the idea that any criticism I have to offer will always be linked to the carman is not only untrue, but also plain dumb.

Am I saying this because you have "touched on a nerve"? I really don't think so.

[Fisherman]

Thanks. That explains everything. I've obviously been away too long!

Yes indeed: I DO suggest that Charles Lechmere is the prime suspect in both these cases, and I do so based on the case evidence, where there are numerous similarities between the series and where Lechmere is linked to the Ripper series (its not a case of "why would we not suggest that he may just have been in London at the time", à la Eyraud).
That is how these matters are assessed; one looks for similarities. The more there are of them, the likelier a connection becomes. And when there are enough of these similarities and/or they are very odd and peculiar, then we can conclude beyond reasonable doubt that there was a common originator. That is how it works.

And you approve of this very much! This I conclude from how you state that Eyraud is a likely Pinchin Street killer. All it took for you to do so was that we know that Eyraud dismembered a victim. There are no other similarities at all recorded. Not a single one. Nothing, nada, zilch, rien, keines, inget.

Let´s compare our two pleads, shall we!

Thames Torso killer:

Kills women, the only identified one was a prostitute, wherefore it is likely that the victims were not previously acquainted to the killer.

Cuts with very much precision. Disjoints like a professional.

Scatters the parts all over London.

Kills multiple victims.

Is an aggressive dismemberer.

Eyraud:

Kills one man, to whom he is acquainted (dismemberment murders are typically murders of aquaintances)

We have no record (so far) of whether he was a skilled cutter, or whether he knew how to disjoint.

Does not distribute the parts, puts them in a trunk.

Kills one victim only (as far as we know)

Is probably not an aggressive dismemberer.

Conclusion: There are no similarities but for the dismemberment factor.

The Ripper:

Kills women, all of whom were seemingly prostitutes and seemingly unaquainted to the killer.

Kills multiple victims.

Further points of similarity:

Both the Ripper and the Torso killer...

-Cut from sternum to groin.

-Take out hearts from victims.

-Take out uteri from victims. In both cases, there are examples of them then discarding the excised uteri.

-Take away the abdominal wall in large flaps from victims.

-Are referred to as skillful with the knife.

-Seems to have taken rings from their victims fingers.

So there we are, Colin. That is a totally revealing compilation showing us what kind of demands YOU make before making a call of a possible/probable common originator of two murder cases, compared to the demands I make before I make MY call.

Can you see how we differ?

And of course, the only reason I am saying this is because you have "touched a nerve", and because I cannot abide by any criticism of the Lechmere theory. Of course!

It certainly has nothing at all to do with how I think your suggestion is baseless drivel. It´s of course instead all about my nerves.

[Sam Flynn]

Both the Ripper and the Torso killer...

-Cut from sternum to groin.

-Take out hearts from victims.

-Take out uteri from victims. In both cases, there are examples of them then discarding the excised uteri.

-Take away the abdominal wall in large flaps from victims.

-Seems to have taken rings from their victims fingers

Over-generalisation. These didn't appear consistently in either series and, where they did feature, there are differences in detail and plausible reasons for what happened that don't remotely require the assumption that it was the same person responsible.

-Are referred to as skillful with the knife.

This is another generalisation, in that this did not apply in all cases; indeed, in some instances the opposite opinion was advanced.

[Fisherman]

Over-generalisation. These didn't appear consistently in either series and, where they did feature, there are differences in detail and plausible reasons for what happened that don't remotely require the assumption that it was the same person responsible.
This is another generalisation, in that this did not apply in all cases; indeed, in some instances the opposite opinion was advanced.

Yawn. Same-same.

I have pointed out a hundred times by now that we are all very much aware that not all of these inclusions were there in EVERY case. If they HAD been, we would be 101 per cent sure of the same offender - even you, hard as that may be to accept.

I have also said a thousand times that there are differences - we have been over that time and time again. But the similarities are of a character that cannot be hushed down, swept under the carpet or seen as mere flukes. That just does not happen. Not a chance.

This stale, moth-eaten "criticism" of yours cannot take away the similarities, Gareth. It didn't work yesterday, it does not work today, and the future holds bleak prospects for anybody buying into the idea of forgetting extremely peculiar similarities if they are not present in all cases. I never say that they did, for that matter. I say that both killers took away abdominal walls in large flaps. And both killers DID precisely that. It is on record. It is a historical truth. Don't deny it! Don't try to hide it away! Don't claim that is is not "significant". It IS significant, totally so.

You say that we should not take note of these things, since they only occurred in some of the cases. In your world, that equates that it never happened at all.

Is that a wise thing to claim? Really? Or is it an effort to nullify crucial evidence in order to make the notion of a common killer go away?

We know the answer to that one, don't we?

PS. At the end of the day, what I did was to compare the viability of Colins suggestion to the viability of the suggestion of a shared identity between the Ripper and the Torso killer - and I think we can all see the outcome of that comparison...

[Fisherman]

To facilitate understanding this issue, let's look at what peculiarities will introduce into murder inquiries.

Let's assume that we have two murder series, both of them involving five cases each and both perpetrated in locations and time frames that allow for the possibility of a common originator.

In the first series, we have five men killed by gunfire.

In the second series, we have five women killed by strangling.

There is reason to assume that there were different originators on account of these differences: Different gender on the victims, different ways of dispatching them.

Now, let's introduce the suggestion that in each series there were one (1) victim who had either:

1. All of the finger nails torn out

or

2. A thumb sawed off

or

3. A stone shoved into the anus

or

4. The hair cut off

or

5. The bones of a hand crushed by a blunt object

or anything along these lines: distinct, peculiar matters.

What would that do to the investigation?

What would the police say?

"It seems these cases are connected, strangely enough"

or

"It only happened in one case each, so it does not count"

Which is the likelier outcome? Anyone?

And what if we change the rules? What if we say that both series were ones where five prostituted women were killed, by way of knife violence?

Well, if that knife violence looked anything the same, I´d suggest that there would not be any need for pulled out nails, sawed off thumbs, stones shoved into anuses, hair cut off or bones crushed in a hand in order to make the police simply accept that the killer WAS the same man!

And what do we have in the Ripper series and the Torso ditto? Correct, we examples of have two men cutting the abdomen from chest to groin in BOTH series, we have examples of cutting work that medicos deem skilled, we have hearts taken away in both series, we have uteri taken away in both series, we have abdominal walls taken away in both series, we have rings then away in both series, we have prostituted victims in both series.

But now, this is not enough? Instead we can be almost certain that there were two killers, on account of how the victims in one of the series were dismembered? That makes the similarities magically go away?

I really don't think so. The old misconceptions can be thrown overboard now, and it is not a day too soon.

[Harry D]

Admittedly, the overlap between series in 1888 and 1889 are curiosities that would support the hypothesis of a shared identity. If we include the 'Battersea Mystery', however, it loses some significance. The torso series potentially spanned from 1873 to 1889 - and beyond. There's the Lambeth case in 1902 and maybe more. For a killer who spaced his murders out for years at a time across London and took pains to conceal his victim's identities, what drove him to deviate from his previous MO and blitz five prostitutes within a few months in the same square mile of the East End? Was there some emotional or psychological trigger that caused this aberration in the Torso Man, or was it simply because they were not the same killer?

[Fisherman]

Admittedly, the overlap between series in 1888 and 1889 are curiosities that would support the hypothesis of a shared identity. If we include the 'Battersea Mystery', however, it loses some significance. The torso series potentially spanned from 1873 to 1889 - and beyond. There's the Lambeth case in 1902 and maybe more. For a killer who spaced his murders out for years at a time across London and took pains to conceal his victim's identities, what drove him to deviate from his previous MO and blitz five prostitutes within a few months in the same square mile of the East End? Was there some emotional or psychological trigger that caused this aberration in the Torso Man, or was it simply because they were not the same killer?

I would personally object to the idea that the Torso killer "took pains to conceal his victims identities", Harry. He cut a face away that was found and could be used for identification purposes - cutting it up in small pieces would have prevented that possibility. He left identifying clothing on Jackson. He did not take away marks that were specific on bodies. He seems to have wanted the bodies and parts found, placing one of his torsos in the Scotland Yard building, throwing parts in Battersea Park flowerbeds, throwing a leg into Percy Bysshe Shelleys home and so on. It seems to me that he was eager to have the victims found.

This aside, it of course calls for an explanation when we have five murders in ten weeks where he killed in the open streets - than can never be said to have been an expected development.
My take on things is that we must work from a point of accepting a shared identity on account of the many odd similarities and the rarity of this kind of deeds. To me, we don't need to explain away these similarities - we need to explain the dissimilarities instead. I am convinced the explanation is there - but can we find it?

[Sam Flynn]

For a killer who spaced his murders out for years at a time across London and took pains to conceal his victim's identities, what drove him to deviate from his previous MO and blitz five prostitutes within a few months in the same square mile of the East End?

Indeed and, had he been more successful in finding suitable opportunities to kill, I daresay we'd have seen rather more than five "blitzed" victims during that short period. Even as things stand, it sure looks like the Ripper had a greedy demon to feed, an appetite seemingly absent from the torso cases.

[Fisherman]

Indeed and, had he been more successful in finding suitable opportunities to kill, I daresay we'd have seen rather more than five "blitzed" victims during that short period. Even as things stand, it sure looks like the Ripper had a greedy demon to feed, an appetite seemingly absent from the torso cases.

"It looks like". "Seemingly absent".

The whole point is that when we drop the preconceived notions and look at what we KNOW instead of that we think we can conclude, a different picture emerges.

[Mayerling]

I have decided to add some pictures of Eyraud, Bompard, the trunk, and illustrations of Gouffe's murder in Paris. He had been invited for an evening with the gamin like Gabrielle Bompard, and when she playfully started undressing she took her corset off, and playfully put it around Gouffe's throat. He was standing with is back to a curtain (behind which was Eyraud) and Bompard quietly (while embracing Gouffe) was hooking the back of her corset to a rope connected over a pully to the rest of the rope held by Eyraud, who pulled and slowly hanged Gouffe. Whether this actually strangled the victim to death is still debated, because after lowering Gouffe's body to the ground Eyraud strangled him manually a second time. But the one who stated this was Gabrielle, and she did so at their joint trial, at which each tried to put the real blame on the other (both were probably equally guilty, but Gabrielle got a long prison sentence, and Eyraud went to the guilloutine).


This is Michel Eyraud, the man who was behind the purchase of the trunk and the killing of Gouffe:




This is Gabrielle Bompard, the bait to catch Gouffe.:





I can't seem to get the pictures up. Sorry.

[Abby Normal]

Does anyone have any thoughts on Michel Eyraud as a possible candidate to be the Torso Killer? He was convicted of the August 1889 murder of Toussaint-Augsent Gouffe whose dismembered body was found in a canvas bag near a river in Lyon after having previously placed in a trunk. The trunk in question was purchased by Eyraud at a shop on the Euston Road in London in the preceding June. As Eyraud was known to travel extensively I'm wondering why this purchase of a new trunk was necessary. Was it because a previous trunk had been put to the same use? Purely speculative of course - but I do wonder as the MO fits.Not sure if the dates fit?

hi Bridewell
interesting. but The victim was a man. so not the torso killer.
also-motive appeared for monetary gain, its in france and two people involved and the dismemberment was only for ease in disposal.
not the torso killer.

[jerryd]

From the Eyraud wiki:

He noted in his autopsy report that the naked body was bound with seven meters of rope, the head was enveloped in a black oilskin cloth and that the victim had obviously died by strangulation three to five weeks before.


In the four cases attributed to the Thames Torso killer [1887-1889], the head was removed, never to be found. I have to say, though, if we include the 1884 Tottenham Court case in the mix, the head was recovered in that case.