Michel Eyraud & The Pinchin Street Torso

[Abby Normal]

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.

thanks Jerry!
as usual your input with all things torso much appreciated.

[Harry D]

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.

Quite right, Sam, and this is one of the major obstacles I have with the single killer theory. The Ripper had a voracious appetite for murder. He killed within a few months and kept to the same neck of the woods, even with its heightened police presence. Are we supposed to accept that the Ripper got this out of his system and went back to dumping the odd torso?

[Fisherman]

Quite right, Sam, and this is one of the major obstacles I have with the single killer theory. The Ripper had a voracious appetite for murder. He killed within a few months and kept to the same neck of the woods, even with its heightened police presence. Are we supposed to accept that the Ripper got this out of his system and went back to dumping the odd torso?

DeAngelo got it out of his system. Rader got it out of his system. Jeffrey Gorton got it out of his system.

..but the Ripper could not do so? He was different in this context?

Care to explain why, Harry? You have taken a look at what he did and concluded that he would never stop, he would go on and on?

Have you noticed that there was 25 days between Tabram and Nichols, 8 days between Nichols and Chapman, 22 days between Chapman and Stride/Eddowes - and 39 days between Stride/Eddowes and Kelly? It seems he was winding down? Should he not increase the speed instead, to fit with your take on things?

Once more, if we accept that there was just the one killer, there are matters that seem unexpected to a smaller or larger degree.

But since we have no real choice but to accept that there was just the one killer, the question we should ask ourselves is whether these matters are unbridgeable or not.

And if you can show me an unbridgeable such matter, I will admit that there will have been two killers - or more.

The timings of the Ripper murders is no such factor. He may have felt it had become too risky (which could also explain why the Kelly murder lagged behind), he may have decided it didn't give him what he was after or anything else. There are possible explanations.

Is there any matter where no possible explanations can be offered, Harry? Or?

[Sam Flynn]

The Ripper... killed within a few months and kept to the same neck of the woods, even with its heightened police presence.

The underlined is a very cogent observation. A mobile eviscerating killer could easily have found other hunting grounds during this period of high police presence, and the fact that he didn't speaks volumes about how tied to this one small locale he was.

[caz]

We could also look at this the other way round, Gareth. Assuming the ripper was operating within his own acceptable comfort zone, anywhere else may have been off limits to him psychologically. He surely didn't lack the mobility to walk beyond 'this one small locale' easily enough, if the pavements immediately beneath his feet had become too hot for him. Or are we looking for someone with arthritic legs? As I have so often said, if his feet weren't nailed to the floor [or his hands 'tied' to a lamppost], something else kept him killing where - and when - the police presence was already steadily increasing.

After the double event, the indoor murder of MJK may have been a last gasp for him before his comfort zone had become more of a discomfort zone.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

The underlined is a very cogent observation. A mobile eviscerating killer could easily have found other hunting grounds during this period of high police presence, and the fact that he didn't speaks volumes about how tied to this one small locale he was.

Chose to be. Not "was", unless he was crippled.

It all fits nicely with somebody having a reason to pass through the territory on foot on a daily basis, I´d say. Wouldn't you agree?

[Fisherman]

We could also look at this the other way round, Gareth. Assuming the ripper was operating within his own acceptable comfort zone, anywhere else may have been off limits to him psychologically. He surely didn't lack the mobility to walk beyond 'this one small locale' easily enough, if the pavements immediately beneath his feet had become too hot for him. Or are we looking for someone with arthritic legs? As I have so often said, if his feet weren't nailed to the floor [or his hands 'tied' to a lamppost], something else kept him killing where - and when - the police presence was already steadily increasing.

After the double event, the indoor murder of MJK may have been a last gasp for him before his comfort zone had become more of a discomfort zone.

Love,

Caz
X

You should go talk to Harry, who feels the killer would never, ever have stopped!

[Abby Normal]

DeAngelo got it out of his system. Rader got it out of his system. Jeffrey Gorton got it out of his system.

..but the Ripper could not do so? He was different in this context?

Care to explain why, Harry? You have taken a look at what he did and concluded that he would never stop, he would go on and on?

Have you noticed that there was 25 days between Tabram and Nichols, 8 days between Nichols and Chapman, 22 days between Chapman and Stride/Eddowes - and 39 days between Stride/Eddowes and Kelly? It seems he was winding down? Should he not increase the speed instead, to fit with your take on things?

Once more, if we accept that there was just the one killer, there are matters that seem unexpected to a smaller or larger degree.

But since we have no real choice but to accept that there was just the one killer, the question we should ask ourselves is whether these matters are unbridgeable or not.

And if you can show me an unbridgeable such matter, I will admit that there will have been two killers - or more.

The timings of the Ripper murders is no such factor. He may have felt it had become too risky (which could also explain why the Kelly murder lagged behind), he may have decided it didn't give him what he was after or anything else. There are possible explanations.

Is there any matter where no possible explanations can be offered, Harry? Or?

and six months between Kelly and McKenzie

[John Wheat]

and six months between Kelly and McKenzie

Just underlines how unlikely it is McKenzie was a Ripper victim.

[Harry D]

You should go talk to Harry, who feels the killer would never, ever have stopped!

But according to the single killer theory he didn't stop. He went from dumping the occasional torso over fifteen years, to a twelve week frenzy in 1888, and back again?

[Sam Flynn]

Chose to be. Not "was", unless he was crippled.

Not much of a choice, if all you have are a pair of legs to get you back to safety.

It all fits nicely with somebody having a reason to pass through the territory on foot on a daily basis, I´d say. Wouldn't you agree?

No, I don't. Such a person could have chosen to kill elsewhere on his route, closer to his home, or somewhere else in London, instead of venturing into the middle of a hive of police activity to kill.

[Fisherman]

But according to the single killer theory he didn't stop. He went from dumping the occasional torso over fifteen years, to a twelve week frenzy in 1888, and back again?

The series overlapped, Harry. It was not torso murders - Ripper murders - torso murders. The Whitehall torso lands in the thick of things.

But basically, yes, he mixed his torso killing up with the Ripper series in a few months of 1888. Unexpected? Yes. Impossible? By no means.

You see, Harry, we all must bite the bullet in this errand, one way or another. Either we accept that a killer can do a street ripping series and a dismemberment series alongside each other, as I do - or we accept that two serial killers eviscerated and mutilated in much the same fashion, going for the same organ extractions, taking out hearts and uteri, disposing of the uteri, both of them, taking rings from fingers of their victims, targetting prostitutes and cutting away abdominal walls in flaps in the same town and time as if it was a natural thing.

Its either or.

The way I see it, I have the upper edge in my choice by a country mile - not only does history tell us that two serial eviscerators and mutilators never have coexisted in any town, but I am also dealing in hard facts: we KNOW that these things happened, that these very parts were taken out, these very rings were taken etc. All of this is on record. What you have is the soft side, the unknown one.

What is not on record is what the killer/s were about, how he/they thought, planned, what he/they desired to do. We are left with guesswork there. You say that it is illogical with the Ripper deeds in the midst of the torso deeds, but I can tell you to look at Joseph DeAngelo, who attacked and raped lone women until it was said at a town hall meeting that he would not dare enter a home with a man present. Of course, what then happened was that deAngelo attacked ONLY homes with a man present alongside his wife.
Maybe something similar was the origin of the Ripper business - he could have heard or read about how he was too scared to come out of his hidey-hole, and then he did a DeAngelo; the precedence is there! And this is what I mean when I say that this side is soft - a million explanations can be offered, and before we know what happened, there is no telling if it was illogical with the Ripper business or perhaps actually completely logical - owing to circumstances we do not know.

All we actually know is that there simply cannot have been two killers. That's where the hard facts come in.

[Fisherman]

Not much of a choice, if all you have are a pair of legs to get you back to safety.

No, I don't. Such a person could have chosen to kill elsewhere on his route, closer to his home, or somewhere else in London, instead of venturing into the middle of a hive of police activity to kill.

If the killer returned home after the strikes, then he must have spent ten or fifteen minutes trekking home from the furthest deed, regardless of where he lived. This means that he could have walked that time in ANY direction, spreading his deeds much more than what was the case. For some reason, he never did. Maybe he was just passing by? Perhaps en route to work or something?

Claiming that a person en route to work would kill only in specific places is of course bonkers, since the police had no idea in the first place that the killer WAS en route to work, let alone where that route passed. The STGE and City murders blurred the picture totally, and Lechmere - who actually passed through the murder area on a daily basis, come to think of it - had no reason to be more afraid than any of the other East End men.

[Abby Normal]

If the killer returned home after the strikes, then he must have spent ten or fifteen minutes trekking home from the furthest deed, regardless of where he lived. This means that he could have walked that time in ANY direction, spreading his deeds much more than what was the case. For some reason, he never did. Maybe he was just passing by? Perhaps en route to work or something?

Claiming that a person en route to work would kill only in specific places is of course bonkers, since the police had no idea in the first place that the killer WAS en route to work, let alone where that route passed. The STGE and City murders blurred the picture totally, and Lechmere - who actually passed through the murder area on a daily basis, come to think of it - had no reason to be more afraid than any of the other East End men.

hi Fish
have you looked into whether lech could have a chop shop somewhere? because obviously the torsoripper did-for the torso victims.

[Harry D]

The series overlapped, Harry. It was not torso murders - Ripper murders - torso murders. The Whitehall torso lands in the thick of things.

But basically, yes, he mixed his torso killing up with the Ripper series in a few months of 1888. Unexpected? Yes. Impossible? By no means.

Two serial eviscerators and mutilators existing in the same metropolis at the same time. Unexpected? Yes. Impossible? By no means.

By your reckoning, the Torso Killer was active as early as 1873. He spaced out murders out for years at a time. That's fifteen years. More than enough time for another macabre serial killer to come and go in Victorian London. We cannot be sure when each series came to an end, either. Alice Mackenzie is an imperfect Ripper murder that could be attributed to a copycat, and the Lambeth 1902 case is also an imperfect torso murder. I've also heard about other dismemberment/torso cases after that. That's the problem with making definitive statements on inconclusive data.