Jack the Ripper: The Secret Police Files by Trevor Marriott Read Free Book Online Page A

that only leaves approximately five minutes for the killer to carry out the murder and the mutilations and allegedly remove two vital organs with medical precision in almost total darkness.
    As with the murder of Chapman we have a killer who goes with a prostitute to a dark and secluded location and kills and mutilates the body. The suggestion is then that with anatomical knowledge using what was described as a six-inch long bladed knife proceeds to remove a kidney and uterus. If organ harvesting was the motive for the murders then as I said previously, why mutilate the abdomen in such a way as to inhibit the removal of any organs? The same can be said for the suggestion that the organs were taken away as trophies.
    The other important issue to consider is the time factor. Would the killer have been able to work within the five-minute time window?
    From my limited medical knowledge I am aware that the kidney is a difficult organ to locate. It is to be found encased in renal fat. In the case of Eddowes it was her left kidney. I am reliably informed that a quick removal technique for the kidney would have been to locate the renal fat, take hold of it and simply tear it out. In this case that was not done. I therefore did not believe it possible for the killer to have removed the organs given the time, the location, and the light available to him to be able to effect such removals with some precision as is described.

    I have no doubt that the organs from both Eddowes and Chapman were removed by someone with some anatomical knowledge, which is the conclusion the doctors came to. The question is where were they removed and by whom? I believe the answer is quite simple.
    In 1888 medical sciences were less advanced than they are now and many areas of medicine were still being investigated. This research would have called for the use of organs and body parts, which had been for many years very difficult to acquire by conventional means. As a result in 1832 The Anatomy Act was passed allowing bona fide medical personnel, i.e. doctors, medical students, anatomists to go to mortuaries and freely obtain organs and in some cases a complete body for medical research.
    Following the inquest of Chapman where it was disclosed that a mystery American had been looking to pay to acquire a uterus, it was therefore suggested that this could be the motive for her murder. The Pall Mall Gazette published a letter, which was obviously from someone within the medical profession the letter read:
    “The only practical thing to be done is to keep a sharp lookout and to dismiss once for all the Coroner’s theory as to the motive of the murder. The Coroner seems to have been the innocent victim of a stupid hoax. If he had made enquiries of the sub curator of the pathological museum he would have discovered that the figure named is a quite preposterous and impossible price for the missing portion of the human body. It is best to get the plain facts plainly forth, and the following letter of prices current containing latest quotations for various parts of the human body suffices. The following are the prices, which we are paying at present for anatomical subjects .
    For one corpse complete £3.5shillings
    For one thorax 5 shillings

    For one arm, one leg, one head and neck, and one abdomen 15 shillings
    “The prices refer to pickled dissecting room subjects. The organ removed by the murderer can be had for the asking at any post-mortem room 12 hours after death. This being so, what comes of the Coroner’s theory that the murders were committed in order to secure the bonus of £20 offered by the mythical American in question?
    In the light of this it would be wrong to rule out the fact that the organs of Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes were expertly removed, not at the crime scenes by the murderer but after the bodies had been taken to the mortuary and before the post-mortems were carried out.
    It is fact that both bodies were taken and left for many