Product Information
The Thames Torso Murders have been overshadowed by Jack the Ripper and his crimes, but were just as brutal and gruesome. They began in 1887 in London's East End, just north of the Thames River in Rainham, England. The killer took one victim that year, another in 1888, and two more in 1889. He resumed his crimes in 1902, taking his last victim south of the Thames and leaving her body in a pile of dismembered parts as he had done with most of his other victims. This work delves deep into the case of the Thames Torso Murders. It begins with a look at London in the late 1800s, a time of great confusion and tremendous population increase, and the killer's path to London, which seems to include a murder in Paris in 1886. The book then examines in great detail each murder and the investigation that may have been hindered by the search for Jack the Ripper. It also raises the idea that Jack the Ripper and the Torso Murderer may have been the same man--Severin Klosowski, better known as George Chapman, the Borough Poisoner. It ends with an examination of Serial Killers; the Ripper, Torso, and Borough Poisoner murder cases; the search for clues to the serial killer responsible for the five Thames Torso murders; and Wolff Levisohn, a dark horse who seems to have known much about all three sets of murders, testified at Chapman's murder trial, and then faded away as Chapman was sent to the gallows.Product Identifiers
PublisherMcfarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
ISBN-100786413484
ISBN-139780786413485
eBay Product ID (ePID)2258584
Product Key Features
Number of Pages257 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication NameThames Torso Murders of Victorian London
Publication Year2002
SubjectMurder / Serial Killers, Europe / Great Britain / General, Historical, Criminology
TypeTextbook
Subject AreaBiography & Autobiography, True Crime, History, Social Science
AuthorR. Michael Gordon
Dimensions
Item Height0.5 in
Item Weight12.8 Oz
Item Length9 in
Item Width6 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional
LCCN2002-006628
Number of Volumes1 Vol.
IllustratedYes
Lc Classification NumberHv6535.G6l65349 2002
Table of ContentTable of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction SECTION I: The Road to Serial Murder 1 London's Bloody History 2 Of Torsos, Torture and Serial Murder 3 The Rainham Mystery (1887) 4 A Rich Environment for a Serial Killer SECTION II: The Ripper 5 The Whitehall Torso Mystery (1888) 6 In the Shadow of the Ripper 7 The Torso Murder of Elizabeth Jackson (1889) 8 The Mystery of the Pinchin Street Torso (1889) SECTION III: A Serial Killer and a Final Torso 9 The Serial Killer Up Close 10 On the Trail of a Victorian Serial Killer--George Chapman 11 The Torso of Salamanca Place (1902) 12 A Possible Motive as a Dark Horse Emerges--Wolff Levisohn Postscript of Terror Appendix 1: Table: Victims of the Thames Torso Killer Appendix 2: Chronology of Death Appendix 3: The Ripper Letter Appendix 4: Note by Chief Inspector Frederick George Abberline Bibliography Index