Same motive = same killer

[Fisherman]

No there are links which are significant (true) or insignificant(false)

It is for those proposing a link to prove their significance, something you have failed to do. You have not proven a single "link" is significant.

As for misleading, another example of the pot calling the kettle black.


Steve

Nobody has been able to come up with anything like these cases, in terms of similarities, and that is proof enough to tell us that they are two very rare series containing the same very rare details.

That is enough - or so it should be.

[Fisherman]

Its ok for you to say there is so strong a certainty that those disageeing are bias or ignorant such implies it is a fact!
yet the opposing view is only a possability.
You trying to teach me, the degree of arrogance the implies is truly astonishing.

Steve

You are not expressing yourself very clearly, Steve. But if you are saying that it is wrong to say that the similarities point clearly to one killer whereas the dissimilarities do very little to dispell that notion, then you are mistaken.
It is the exact thing we can learn from the details - right (almost certainly) or wrong (only a freak possibility).

[Fisherman]

There you go again. If someone doesn't buy your interpretation it's because they are "dumb" and "playing the fool".

Well, not buying my "interpretation" in this case is suggesting that uteri removals, cutting out of hearts and the taking away of abdominal walls in sections is perhaps not uncommon at all.

What I am suggesting is that if we know quite well that these things ARE rare - and I think we may agree on it? - then why propose the opposite as a possibility?

[Fisherman]

It's a shame that these debates become so adversarial in nature, usually on account of posters airing old grievances. The possibility of a connection between the Ripper & Thames Torso series should be an interesting and thought-provoking discussion if you approach it with an open-mind. There's nothing in the rulebook that says that a serial killer can't deviate in their MO & signature, particularly when we have no idea of the circumstances they were operating under. I know it's self-evident but it bears repeating that since the perpetrator(s) of these crimes were never caught, none of us can make definitive statements on the killer's bio. As for Fish, I see him as doubling-down on his convictions to make a point against mass scepticism, that's all.

Look at it this way, multi-killer theorists have tried to separate the canonical five because of perceived discrepancies in skill-level and behaviour. The Ripper took the uterus from Chapman. He took the uterus AND a kidney from Eddowes. Why the kidney? He removed the uterus (along with everything else) from Mary Kelly, but only took the heart this time. This begs the question whether the uteri bore significance to the killer or not? What changed for him to leave it behind this time? Unless it wasn't the same killer behind the other Whitechapel victims, but what are the odds of that? I don't think we can take anything for granted and presume that the killer should have always done 'x' because of 'y'. In the case of the Ripper & Torsos, what we have are two series of gruesome murders with geographical overlap that betray a need to dehumanize and deconstruct their prey, be it via mutilation and/or dismemberment. That doesn't mean they were performed by the same hand, but it doesn't mean the possibility should be disregarded either.

WHAT? A thoughtful and good post? Out here? Really, Harry!

[Fisherman]

"As for Fish, I see him as doubling-down on his convictions to make a point against mass scepticism"

I think you'll find that Fisherman has always come out with all guns blazing, Harry - it's his style. (That's not a criticism, by the way.)

Fisherman is normally met by a barrage of insults and belittling posts, some of them saying that "Fisherman is twisting the facts and overgeneralizing! He CAN NOT be trusted, he misleads and lies!"

Not sure of this (and I don´t want to be pushy, of course!), but that MAY just have a little something to do with how I post...? Just a thought, mind you.

[Fisherman]

Frank, I am going to need time to answer you, so later, my friend!

[Fisherman]

Hi Harry,

I actually agree.
I have said many times that while i do not rule out a link, i see nothing presented so far that can in my opinion be seen as suggested the "links" are significant or as Christer calls them "true".
We should be able to agree to disagree should we not?
But when you get told agree of you are "bias" which we all are to varing degrees or "ignorant " such an opotunity is denied us.
Not zure if you saw my post on Monday, but on Saturday i was involved in a meeting of the Whitechapel Society which discussed this very issue. The case for a connection was made by Ed Stow, who is just as convinced of Lechmere as is Christer.
And there was none of this hostility present.

Maybe it the very nature of message boards (isolation from the others in the debate) which leads to this outcome.

Steve

Quite possibly, yes.

Suggestions?

[Elamarna]

Nobody has been able to come up with anything like these cases, in terms of similarities, and that is proof enough to tell us that they are two very rare series containing the same very rare details.

That is enough - or so it should be.

Dear Christer,
It seems such obviously is enoigh for you, however it seems such is not true for all.

Something you have to accept i am afraid.


Steve

[Elamarna]

Quite possibly, yes.

Suggestions?

None unfortunately Christer, its the nature of message boards that the post can become isolated from each other and that the written word lacks the subtext of the spoken word.


Steve

[Herlock Sholmes]

Well, not buying my "interpretation" in this case is suggesting that uteri removals, cutting out of hearts and the taking away of abdominal walls in sections is perhaps not uncommon at all.

What I am suggesting is that if we know quite well that these things ARE rare - and I think we may agree on it? - then why propose the opposite as a possibility?

Because Fish ‘rare’ doesnt equate with ‘impossible.’ If we went through life assuming that things couldnt happen because they are ‘rare’ or ‘what are the chances of that’ or ‘that cant have happened because it would mean accepting that coincidences occurr,’ we would never get anywhere.

That said, if we do have circumstances where there are similarities (and whether you like it or not Fish they are debated) we are at liberty, when trying to weigh up the whole matter, to look at other aspects. And so we come again to the vast differences between the two series (if the TK are a complete series of course.)

It cannot be right to assume the position ‘well the similarities are so exact as to be beyond doubt and so the vast differences must have a perfectly reasonably explaination.’

[Herlock Sholmes]

Fisherman is normally met by a barrage of insults and belittling posts, some of them saying that "Fisherman is twisting the facts and overgeneralizing! He CAN NOT be trusted, he misleads and lies!"

Not sure of this (and I don´t want to be pushy, of course!), but that MAY just have a little something to do with how I post...? Just a thought, mind you.

And others ‘might’ say Fish that their own posts betray a level of frustration at you viewing people as ‘biased or ignorant’ if they disagree with your interpretations.

[Fisherman]

Dear Christer,
It seems such obviously is enoigh for you, however it seems such is not true for all.

Something you have to accept i am afraid.


Steve

There´s nothing to be afraid of, Steve - people will always disagree about things. But when somebody tells me that it is more likely with two killers than just the one, given the circumstances, I will object - it is not.

Getting all ripperologist aboard the same train was never an option, for varying reasons.

[Fisherman]

And others ‘might’ say Fish that their own posts betray a level of frustration at you viewing people as ‘biased or ignorant’ if they disagree with your interpretations.

Hen or egg, Herlock - hen or egg?

[Fisherman]

Because Fish ‘rare’ doesnt equate with ‘impossible.’ If we went through life assuming that things couldnt happen because they are ‘rare’ or ‘what are the chances of that’ or ‘that cant have happened because it would mean accepting that coincidences occurr,’ we would never get anywhere.

That said, if we do have circumstances where there are similarities (and whether you like it or not Fish they are debated) we are at liberty, when trying to weigh up the whole matter, to look at other aspects. And so we come again to the vast differences between the two series (if the TK are a complete series of course.)

It cannot be right to assume the position ‘well the similarities are so exact as to be beyond doubt and so the vast differences must have a perfectly reasonably explaination.’

Rare does not equate with impossible - which is why I don´t suggest it does. However, when people say that two killers is as likely or even more likely with two killers, then it is a question of equating "only just possible" with "very likely".

As for the similarities I do not say that they are "so exact as to be beyond doubt". But as usual, it seems it does not matter how much I press the point that we don´t know to what degree the similarities were true or false similarities, I am nevertheless misquoted. Maybe that shows, more than anything else, how my stance is not fully grasped.

It is not a question of the similarities being confirmed as duplicates, Herlock. We are at a loss to know to what degree that applies. This is why I so much loathe when it is stated as a fact that Jacksons flaps were much smaller and narrower that Kellys and Chapmans ditto - we just don´t know that. For example!

It is instead the basic fact that flaps - or sections, or whatever we choose to call them - WERE cut out of all three womens abdominal walls, the fact that the uteri WERE extracted in all three cases, that Kelly and Jackson both DID have their hearts taken out, that Jacksons and Chapmans rings WERE missing and so on, that clinches the matter.

Surely you can see that even if we blithely assume that Chapman pawned her rings while Jackson had her ring stolen, if we assume that Chapmans and Kellys necks and throats were cut in a frontal attack and Jacksons in combination with then severing of the head, if we accept that Jacksons uterus was taken out on account of her pregnancy while the others were taken out for sexual arousal, that jackson had her abdomen opened to extract the foetus, while Chapman and Kelly had theirs opened for want of eviscerating in general and - for that matter - even if we accept that the Ripper victims were murder victims and the Torso women were accidental deaths, it is STILL too freakish a collection of coincidences to be even remotely likely to occur at the same approximate time in the same town.

This collection of damages is - as far as we have been able to establish - otherwise unheard of in criminal history. It is a very rare combination of similarities, and if it is a stretch to imagine TWO such cases in criminal history, it is nothing short of the eighth wonder of the world if these two cases did not only occur in the same time frame, but also in the same exact city!

Given this, the suggestion of two killers cannot be anything else than a hallucinatory suggestion made by somebody with no grasp at all of reality. Saying "Yes, we know that it has never happened otherwise, and we know that there are a dozen or so similarities that must be explained away, but we are nevertheless convinced that this was a first" can only help to show a set of minds so open that Einstein theory of relativity would not encompass that void. And much as an open mind is a good thing, there are limits to everything.

Disagree away, by all means, but do not hold me accountable for suggestions or ideas that I do not entertain. It is all the basic facts to me, no interpretation whatsoever. All of the interpretations, not one of them proven, have been suggested by those who are so totally opposed to the one killer scenario so as to be unable to even admit that it is the likelier thing.

The sad thing about all this is that I am being painted out as the fanatic here, the one who will not yield a millimeter, the zealot, the dogmatic one. In that parallel world we call the real one, it is those who represent the extreme suggestions, as far away as possible from logical thinking, that are called fanatics.

In ripperology, that does not apply.

[Sam Flynn]

Nobody has been able to come up with anything like these cases, in terms of similarities.

That's because the similarities are not even there or, if they are, they're either exaggerated or of no significance.