Same motive = same killer

[RockySullivan]

But that was not what you asked. You asked whether an intact body or a body cut up in pieces is easiest to carry. So I answered that question. And now you are moving the goalposts in retrospect. That´s poor debating, Gareth, and you should know it.

You call me obnoxious but I say this is far far more objectionable to do in a public place than my libelous slander. Here is your dialog with Sam:

Originally Posted by Sam Flynn
Of course, those cut into pieces would have had less of a chance of being noticed by a casual passer-by. If anyone wanted to shock, it would have served their purpose far better to leave the body intact; at least that way it was more likely to be seen.

Fish:What is more disturbing - an intact body or one cut up in little pieces?

Sam:Which is easier to carry and scatter? An intact body or one cut up in pieces?

Originally Posted by Fisherman
I would vote for the intact one when it comes to carrying - just fling it over your shoulder and that´s it.

Sam: What? And risk detection?

Fish: But that was not what you asked. You asked whether an intact body or a body cut up in pieces is easiest to carry. So I answered that question. And now you are moving the goalposts in retrospect. That´s poor debating, Gareth, and you should know it.

Now here you are talking about disposal. You use the idea that the killer could have just carried a body over his shoulder to dump as if it's some kind of indication that dismemberment was chosen for shock. But as soon as it's pointed out to you that's not something the killer would actually do because he would be caught, then it was only figurative. No one is moving the goalposts, you are changing back and forth between football and soccer and acting like you're winning. That's not even debating at all fish.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I thought that was what you meant. It seems like maybe the killer dismembering and dispersing remains was to put distance between the place she was last seen or would be reported missing from and where she ended up.

[Herlock Sholmes]

One of them, which goes to show that the killer did not do all he could to obliterate the identities of his vioctims. I think we both know that the number of identified women hinges on many factors. One key factor when people are not identified may well be that they are prostititutes, shunned by their own families and so nobody will come forward and identify them.
The only thing we can do is to look at whether the killer left body marks intact, whether he allowed for possessions of the victims to be found, whether he succesfully made the bodies disappear and so on, and this killer was clearly lax in that department.

Or....you could say that TK did a pretty good job of obliterating the identities of his victims with only one exception (everyone makes mistakes.)

If he'd wanted them identified he would have left them fully clothed, fully limbed and with their heads attached. Like that other serial killer, Jack The Ripper

[Herlock Sholmes]

On the contrary, it shows that the police got lucky in only one out of a number of instances, and that the body dumpers did a pretty good job of anonymising their victims.

Had it not been for the scar on Jackson's wrist, the existence of which may not even have been known to her killer, her positive identification would have been made even more difficult, if not impossible.

Exactly Gareth

[RockySullivan]

: We have come a long way from your simplistic killer now, Gareth. We have gone from a practical man, making things as simple as possible, to a man who did not make anything at all as simple as possible, who went to extreme lenghts, in fact, to dispose of his body parts, who is not known to actively have tried to weigh down a single one of his parcels, who got heaps of paper coverage for what he did when a weighing down could have ensured that not a syllable was written, and who is generally accepted as probably having wanted to make some sort of point when he carried a torso to the New Scotland Yard building and placed it there.

Plus we have the odd fact that one arm and one leg was ALSO found in the cellar vault, and these parts had almost certainly been in place there longer than the torso. That means that the killer will have sought out the vault twice, not once, making it even more probable that he ascribed a meaning to his choice of dumping site.

What was he doing there, three miles from Smuggler´s Way? Oh, right, we just decided that he may not have lived in Smugglers way - he lived close to St Pancras Lock. But St Pancras Lock is also a fair few miles away from Whitehall.
So maybe he lived in Whitehall? Yes, that must be it!

This killer was willing to travel all across London to have his work made public. If you want to make your work public and use the fact that the Thames will distribute body parts throughout central London, you had better do your dumping to the west. If you want to maximize the number of places where your parts can float ashore, then what you need to do is to dump in the west, but from different places and at different points of time.

Now, tell me again, what was it this killer did...?

It shows the killer was willing to go extreme lengths to avoid detection. Why/how would he weigh down packages? He would have to carry weights with him to dispose of the remains all over town, and none of the parts could be dumped near each other or they would lead to the other parts being found (like the stupid Danish example you gave). The killer was using the tide to separate the pieces, making it harder to put the pieces together for police and identify the victim. The dispersing should also cause confusion between jurisdictions making the murder harder to solve. How strong of a weight do you need to anchor a torso?

Embarrased on your behalf, as it were.

Have you ever even just peaked for 10 seconds at one other unsolved torso murderer before? The Long Island Serial Killer or the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run? They both literally do exactly the same as this case to prevent identification of the victims.

[Fisherman]

Or....you could say that TK did a pretty good job of obliterating the identities of his victims with only one exception (everyone makes mistakes.)

If he'd wanted them identified he would have left them fully clothed, fully limbed and with their heads attached. Like that other serial killer, Jack The Ripper

I don´t think for a second that he wanted them identified, Herlock. I think that he was indifferent about it, just the way Jack the Ripper was indifferent about it. "Identify away, by all means", would have been both mens mindset if you ask me.

The Ripper as well as the Torso killer will in all probability have been killing strangers, and once there is no tie between killer and prey, the possibilities to find the killer are remote, even if the victims are ID:d.

This will reasonably have been why the Torso killer left the clothing and marks on the bodies - even if their names were recorded, his would not be. And no matter how many aquaintances and friends of the victims the police talked to, his name would not come up.

So far from seeing any differences between the killers in this respect, I see the precise same thing.

[Fisherman]

Rocky, as long as you do not keep a civil tone, your remarks will go unanswered. Once you apologize for your rude remarks or, at the very least, promise it will not happen again (if you cannot manage to apologize), that will change, and you will have replies to your posts.

[Sam Flynn]

I don´t think for a second that he wanted them identified, Herlock. I think that he was indifferent about it, just the way Jack the Ripper was indifferent about it. "Identify away, by all means", would have been both mens mindset if you ask me.

Then why didn't he leave the bodies intact?

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that he - or any other torso killer - wanted the victim to be permanently unidentifiable, only that by chopping the victim up and scattering the parts he was making it as difficult as possible to achieve such an identification or, at the very least, that identification was delayed.

[RockySullivan]

Then why didn't he leave the bodies intact?

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that he - or any other torso killer - wanted the victim to be permanently unidentifiable, only that by chopping the victim up and scattering the parts he was making it as difficult as possible to achieve such an identification or, at the very least, that identification was delayed.

Why wouldn't the killer want the victim permanently unidentified? That's exactly what they hope for and it's often the case

[Herlock Sholmes]

I don´t think for a second that he wanted them identified, Herlock. I think that he was indifferent about it, just the way Jack the Ripper was indifferent about it. "Identify away, by all means", would have been both mens mindset if you ask me.

The Ripper as well as the Torso killer will in all probability have been killing strangers, and once there is no tie between killer and prey, the possibilities to find the killer are remote, even if the victims are ID:d.

This will reasonably have been why the Torso killer left the clothing and marks on the bodies - even if their names were recorded, his would not be. And no matter how many aquaintances and friends of the victims the police talked to, his name would not come up.

So far from seeing any differences between the killers in this respect, I see the precise same thing.

I can't agree with you on that one Fish. For me it's simply a case of fully clothed, whole bodies left where they would be discovered almost immediately versus dismembered corpses left where the were going to be found eventually (accepted that Pinchin Street would be almost immediate but the Thames ones might never have emerged)
I agree that both killers were likely to be killing strangers but if either of them had any kind of connection then the TK would be the likeliest candidate for me. I keep wondering if indeed TK had some kind of connection? Could he have just been disposing of them? Might he not have actually killed them? No evidence for this of course Fish but the method of disposal tends me toward this kind of speculation.

[Sam Flynn]

Why wouldn't the killer want the victim permanently unidentified? That's exactly what they hope for and it's often the case

Don't get me wrong - I firmly believe that anonymisation was one of the things that the torso dumper was aiming at, but (a) I can't say for certain; and (b) I don't think it was the only benefit he/they was seeking to achieve by dismantling the body and disposing of it in that way. For me, it's sufficient to realise that the very act of chopping up the victim and dispersing her body parts would slow down the investigation and delay, if not completely thwart, any identification being made. This is clearly NOT something that Jack the Ripper was worried about in the slightest.

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn: Then why didn't he leave the bodies intact?

Ah! Because he WANTED to take them apart; it was part of the ritual, and with the Torso victims, he had all that time on his hands that he didn´t have with the Ripper victims. I also think that there were instances in the torso series where the killer discarded parts he did not need to fulfil the version of the ritual he was performing, and so we will have a situation, I suggest, where ther was a quick practical disposal of some parts, whereas he held on to the part/s he had chosen for the ritual for much longer. This, I think, is why the arm and leg in the Whitehall case were thrown away much earlier than the torso was, and it also explains why it was suggested that the torso was sprayed with a fluid that slowed down the decaying - he was not willing to part from the torso, and held on to it for the longest.
The idea that he would throw away legs and arms, and then he suddenly did not have the opportunity or did not dare to thrown away the torso is not a realistic one to me. He CHOSE what parts to discard and what parts to keep.
Please observe that dismembering need not be part of the ritual as such - if that was the case, the Ripper victims would not fit in. However, if the ritual involved very many different elements of cutting and opening up a body, then that problem goes away. And the inspiration ground he worked from - if I am correct - offered this possibility.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that he - or any other torso killer - wanted the victim to be permanently unidentifiable, only that by chopping the victim up and scattering the parts he was making it as difficult as possible to achieve such an identification or, at the very least, that identification was delayed.

That´s good - we are moving away from the idea that the killer was hellbent on obliterating all identification possibilities. The problem here is that you EITHER go all the way, or you don´t go down that path at all. The inbetween suggestions of a killer who was willing to leave some signs whereas he did his best to obliterate others, does not work for me.
Can you accept that the killer may have been a killer of strangers - as serial killers generally are - and did not care at all if they were identified, since he banked on nobody being able to make the connection anyway? Does that suggestin work for you, or do you have any problems with it? Do you feel that the Torso killer knew his victims, and that he was known by the victims friends and aquaintances? That would pose a problem to me, namely that his name should have surfaced in all enquiries in such a case, giving him away.

[Fisherman]

Herlock Sholmes: I can't agree with you on that one Fish. For me it's simply a case of fully clothed, whole bodies left where they would be discovered almost immediately versus dismembered corpses left where the were going to be found eventually (accepted that Pinchin Street would be almost immediate but the Thames ones might never have emerged)

It´s the exact same to me - the ID process with the Torso victims was always going to be harder and slower - but why would that matter to the killer if he was a killer of strangers, to whom he could not be tied at any rate? In such a case it would not matter at all WHEN the ID was made, since the police would not know where to look for him at any time in the process anyway.

I agree that both killers were likely to be killing strangers but if either of them had any kind of connection then the TK would be the likeliest candidate for me.

That´s intereresting, because it is generally thought that Eddowes and Kelly are the best candidates for a connection owing to the facial damage done to them.
Of course, the way I see it, the facial damage had nothing at all to do with any aquaintance, but was instead part of the ritual.
However, I can relate to what you are saying, in the sense that it at least seems more likely that the killer spent some little time with the victims before killing them in the Torso series. Most telling may be the fact that the Pinchin Street victim was dumped together with a night chemise, perhaps telling a story of her having known the killer and felt comfortable enough to bring a chemise with her when meeting him.
However, I myself think that the chemise may have been the killers - it fits in totally with the ritual in such a case, you see. Have you noted, by the way, what happened to the chemise...?

I keep wondering if indeed TK had some kind of connection?

Not very likely, no - he would logically not have used their own clothing to wrap up the parcels in such a case, nor would he leave any marks to identify them by on their bodies. This sloppyness bears witness of no connection in my view.

Could he have just been disposing of them?

Could? Yes. Would? No.

Might he not have actually killed them? No evidence for this of course Fish but the method of disposal tends me toward this kind of speculation.

How is that? What are you speculating happened?

[Fisherman]

Don't get me wrong - I firmly believe that anonymisation was one of the things that the torso dumper was aiming at, but (a) I can't say for certain; and (b) I don't think it was the only benefit he/they was seeking to achieve by dismantling the body and disposing of it in that way. For me, it's sufficient to realise that the very act of chopping up the victim and dispersing her body parts would slow down the investigation and delay, if not completely thwart, any identification being made. This is clearly NOT something that Jack the Ripper was worried about in the slightest.

But IF the killer was interested in slowing down the ID process, it stands to reason that he believed that a connection was about to be made as the victim was ID:d, Gareth. Otherwise, he was as much in the clear from minute one as he was from day ten.

[Sam Flynn]

But IF the killer was interested in slowing down the ID process, it stands to reason that he believed that a connection was about to be made.

Possibly, but not necessarily. Why take any chances? Why help the police in any way?

Like I said, however, there was more than one benefit to disposing of the bodies in this way. It wasn't just about preventing identification, although this certainly transpired to be true in all but one case, but also about slowing down the investigation. There were also the very practical benefits of making the bodies more portable for transportation to the dump-sites and more easily concealed en route.