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Organ Theft? Urban Folklore? Eddowes?
Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: General Topics:
Organ Theft? Urban Folklore? Eddowes?
Author: R.J. Palmer
Saturday, 30 September 2000 - 07:18 am |        | Several years ago a co-worker of mine swore that the following events happened to "his next-door-neighbor's brother." It seems that the brother was visiting Las Vegas on business and went into a bar after the day's work. In the bar he met an attractive woman who offered to buy him a drink. (Some of you probably can guess where this is going). Yes, indeed, after sipping the drink, the next thing the man remembers is waking up in his hotel room in a bathtub full of ice. To his horror, there is a small incision in his side. On his chest is written in lipstick: "If you are still alive, phone 9-1-1, we have removed your left kidney." The story is followed with stern warnings about women in bars, blackmarket organ rings, etc. etc.
I had grave doubts about the story. What struck me as particularly absurd was the idea that it was somehow desirable to give the victim of a clandestine operation hypothermia by shoving him in a tub full of ice! I was not surprised when I heard another version of it a few weeks later from someone swearing that something similar had happened to her ex-roommate's uncle. (This legend had been circulating in places as far away as Australia and eastern Canada for years).
It's interesting to me that a number of these urban legends deal with the notion of organ theft, possibly due to some human fear of modern medicine. In the 1980s stories made the rounds in the Soviet Union claiming that kidneys, livers, etc., were being sold out of the back of vans in downtown Moscow-- which, was, I suppose, some cynical metaphor for the policies of Brezhnev. In Central America, tales that the C.I.A. or American businessmen were abducting childred for their organs became so widespread that there were even official investigations by newspapers, human rights groups, and various government agencies.
In the Ripper crimes, there are similar elements of an 'urban legend' (notably in the tale told by Wynne Baxter about the American doctor wanting to buy wombs) but, of course, there is the sometimes forgotten 'clumsy fact' that organs were indeed stolen. No doubt the tales of 'mad midwives' and such are so far fetched and ridiculous that the more scientifically-minded quickly opt for FBI profiling and the idea of modern serial killers, or a deranged psychopath that indiscriminately hacks away at his victim.
I can't help thinking, however, that this might not be the case. Partly, I think, because so much focus is put on Kelly as canonical victim. I realize that this flies in the face of statistics, contemporary police opinion, FBI profiling, odds, the experts, etc. etc., but I think there is legitimate reason for not including Kelly with the other Ripper victims. If instead the focus is put on Eddowes or Chapman, one can come to a very different conclusion about the nature of these crimes. The swiftness of the attack on Eddowes leaves me with the impression that the 'theft' of the womb and the kidney were the premeditated intent, along with the strange ritualistic mutilations.
So as strange as it might seem, I've come to the conclusion that theories centered around some deranged fellow wanting organs (Tumblety? D'Onston? an insane medical student'?) might be closer to the truth than the blood-lusting psychopath theories. More doubtfully, it might also give some indication that the Lusk kidney was not a hoax, and perhaps the criminal had some particular grudge against Lusk. At any rate, I think for those seeking the Ripper, a wise course might be to give more attention to Eddowes & Chapman, and less to Kelly. |
Author: Jon
Saturday, 30 September 2000 - 09:53 am | | Excellent....R.J.
A couple of years ago I posted a 3 part dissertation entitled, "The Doctor, the deal & the Devil".
Which basically pointed out that the Wynne Baxter proposal was never thoroughly investigated. The organ theory was decidedly 'put-down' by the B.M.A. (British Medical Association) and it would appear that this was a 'no-go' area.
The excuse most often used against Wynne Baxter's proposal was that organs were not expensive and were readily available. Not so. Organs may have been cheaper than the £20 offered, (assuming the quote to be correct) but they were not readily available. The American Doctor would have not been refused if that had truely been the case. I suggest that only members of the medical profession were allowed to procure organs legally. Which might leave all foreigners (European, American, etc) out in the cold. It might be remembered that Klosowski had sufficient medical training on the continent, but that all he could manage in the UK was to be a barbers assistant. Did he not make the grade, by British standards?.
No, I am not proposing Severin was Jack, but I offer this case only as an example, that foreigners with medical training may not make the grade by British standards, and as a result, may not be allowed to procure organs for legitimate private research. Hence, did our 'medical man' turn to some back-street supply?...a morticians assistant for example? Someone who had access to bodies and organs, and for a price, would remove them. If this assistant was ever caught and fired, but not reported. He may have gone out on the streets to maintain his 'income', the assistant was 'Jack'.
The above is an outline of a potential situation that may have arose. Not an actual theory.
I still believe that the Baxter proposal was pushed under the carpet, and mainly because it inferred the preposterous, almost approaching blasphemy idea that a Doctor may have been involved.
Your modern-day scenario about organ removal, body in ice, etc....was the plot to a movie. I have no idea as to what inspired the movie.
Regards, Jon |
Author: John Hacker
Saturday, 30 September 2000 - 11:40 am | | For more than you likely want to know about the "Stolen Kidney" legend try it's entry in the Urban Legends Reference Pages at :
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/robbery/kidney.htm
It traces the possible origin of the legend to a 1989 incident in Great Britan where a Turkish man who had donated a kidney, didn't get the money he felt he was owed. He then made up the "organ theft" story which got a lot of press in Great Britan until a newspaper ad he took out trying to sell his kidney came to light.
For lot's of good info on urban legends and their origins, try any of Jan Harold Brunvand's books. They are all excellent.
Snark |
Author: David M. Radka
Saturday, 30 September 2000 - 11:53 am | | There is NO WAY that ANYONE seeking organs for legitimate research, or for sale, would EVER have taken the risks JtR did. He could have been caught AT ANY SECOND he was cutting up his victims, with the result being CERTAIN hanging, if even he could survive transit to the police station without being torn LIMB FROM LIMB by passersby.
It is therefore OUT OF THE QUESTION that the purpose of the murders was to get organs for some kind of rationally-desirable purpose, his or anyone else's. SURELY there were other avenues for obtaining organs EVER SO MUCH better than murder and dismemberment in crowded streets and back yards.
NOBODY wants internal organs so badly they'd do what JtR did just to get them. NOBODY, NO WAY, IMPOSSIBLE, FORGET IT. We're talking about someone who has VERY SIGNIFICANT purposes beyond simply acquiring organs here.
David |
Author: Jon
Saturday, 30 September 2000 - 01:17 pm | | One of the problems with the Baxter theory is that it always receives the same type of in-depth analysis, (as above)
:-)
(no-way, forget-it, out-of-the-question, impossible).....and so it goes....
BUT...where's the beef?
You could equally use the same arguments to propose that 'bodysnatching' never happened.
touche?
Regards, Jon
(David, your suspect is peeking through) |
Author: David M. Radka
Saturday, 30 September 2000 - 01:28 pm | | Look Jon, we can sit here and analyze in depth just exactly why an ant can't digest an entire elephant, and know with methodological exactness and purity every single reason why under physics and geometry, even biology, but do we really need to? I'm just as much for science and in-depth analysis as the next man, Lord knows I've done enough of it myself, but enough is enough. If there were a market for uteri, why did he eschew the rape of that organ from Mary Jane? He stuffed it under her pillow.
David |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Saturday, 30 September 2000 - 02:57 pm | | David, no doubt what are saying makes a great deal of sense. But you're assuming that Kelly is a Ripper victim, and I think there is a fair chance that she isn't.
Look at Eddowes. The Ripper was with her only a very few minutes. He made off with her uterus and her kidney. It sure looks as though this was his intent.
Some will argue that it is wildly unlikely that two serial killers existed in 1888 in Whitechapel. But then we have a torso show up in Whitehall in early October 1888, proving them wrong. If Klosowski can be definitively traced to Whitechapel in 1888 then the number can be moved up to at least three (and he was certainly not the Ripper). Throw in Sadler, the drunken soldiers, Michael Kidney, numerous extortion assaults, and so on, and we have what is commonly known as a crime wave. The more victims one adds, the more this thing spirals out of control, with no sense of pattern.
Frankly, I am only willing to accept Nichols, Chapman, & Eddowes as canonical victims. For whatever the reason, I tend to think this madman was after organs. He also hated women. |
Author: Jon
Saturday, 30 September 2000 - 05:10 pm | | David
No-one, including yourself, has come forward with a good enough set of reasons to explain all the various aspects of these crimes. Several theories try to answer many points, but none as yet, has answered them all.
And one of the main reasons for this is that we cannot be certain that all the confusing aspects are genuine. Some of them are likely due to our ignorance of the facts.
For instance.....
Druitt was not the Ripper because he had no motive & no medical ability. BUT, did Jack really display any medical ability?.
Tumblety was not the Ripper because he looks nothing like Lawende's description from Church Passage. BUT, we cannot be certain that this was Eddowes with her killer, it could have been another couple.
We disregard the Grafitti for various reasons. BUT, how sure can we really be that Jack did not write it?.
In summary, we cannot tell if there really was a 'private' market for any organs. Regardless of what the B.M.A. would have us believe.
And in spite of our preconceived theories that limit objectivity, we cannot be completely sure what was happening in those months in 1888.
So long as any one avenue is left unexplored then we have failed in objectivity.
Which is one of the main reasons I firmly stay away from forming an opinion on a suspect,....it clouds objectivity.
I appreciate that the above scenario does not fit well with your own theory. BUT, until your suspect is looked at by more than one pair of eyes, then you must allow us all to openly propose & question everyone & every possibility.
There is, at least, one inescapable fact about these crimes. That is, for some reason Jack was never caught, and there is very definitly one serious avenue that was never investigated.
And also, no-one has come up with a good reason for the crimes coming to an end.
The above scenario would negate the need for Jack to have died, gone abroad or been incarcerated.
If it was done for profit then there was no psychological need for bloodlust, no sex crime.
We have someone removing uterii, removed a kidney, a heart(?), and limbs from several torso's. Who is to say that there was not some underground medical business going on.
If the corpses were simply left missing an organ then the authorities would easily conclude that the criminal was only after a specific organ, but in mutilating the bodies the killer gives the impression of a crazy lunatic abroad.
Shakespeare....
though this be madness, yet there is method init
Hamlet II,ii.
Regards, Jon |
Author: George Sotiriou
Sunday, 01 October 2000 - 10:49 am | | Bo selector!
Down with the Radka, up with the revolt. Respect...
G |
Author: Thomas Ind
Sunday, 01 October 2000 - 04:25 pm | | The problem I have with the private market for organs suggestion is that there would have been many easier ways to obtain organs and in greater numbers than JTR achieved. In the UK, laws were only passed to prevent removal of organs from dissection rooms just before I became a medical student. Prior to that it was easy. Thomas Horrocks Openshaw's collection for the London anatomy museum came almost entirely from post-mortem specimens and without consent. In those days it was considered quite ethical.
The kidney story: I believe it although I also have heard many different versions of the same story. About 10 years ago in the UK an eminent nephrologist and transplant surgeon were struck off for transplantations that occured through bought organs from Turkey. The sad thing is that most people in medicine believe that the doctors did the procedures in blind faith. Although to those examining the case realise that it was obvious that the organs were not donations from relatives one can understand how enthusiastic doctors keen to offer their patients the best failed to explore the idea of something which would be grotesque (the same way that most of us would not entertain that a paedophile is living within 10 miles - where as for most of us in big cities it is almost certainly the case). I understand that both doctors are now practicing again. |
Author: Jon
Sunday, 01 October 2000 - 06:04 pm | | Thomas
It's this allusion to a 'private market' that seems to be a stumbling block. We know the American in question wanted organs, we also know that Anatomists & surgeons had rooms within their own residences (basement?) for disection & study.
So, these two facts alone leave us wide open for a need for organs. If the American's request for organs alone can be described as 'a market'. It only take one need for an organ, not hundreds.
And your point about Horrocks only supports the probability that you had to be a practicing Doctor, recognized by the medical authority, to be able to get organs.
Do you know of any unregistered persons, or foreigners, who were able to buy organs, without question?
As I said before, the above outline is only a possible scenario, not an actual theory.
Bodysnatching & surgeons disecting at home for study's of anatomy all contributed to Shelley's "Frankenstein" story.
So, the above scenario is not 'out of the question', not by far.
Had Abberline pursued this line of inquiry, I would expect him to have looked for medical students/Doctors who came from abroad, who were refused a license or registration to allow them to practice. Someone who was 'outside' the fraternity.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Jon
Sunday, 01 October 2000 - 06:34 pm | | To All
I guess the scenario presented above rests very heavily on two assumptions:
1 - Was anyone outside the medical fraternity allowed to purchase or obtain organs legally?
2 - Was it a requirement for anyone wanting to practice legally within the medical fraternity to be registered or licenced?.
I guess very definate answers to the above two questions will help the scenario sink or swim.
Thanks, Jon |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 02 October 2000 - 03:27 am | | I still think the person who killed the canonicals (now presumably stripped down to three for this exercise?) had to be psychopathic (at the very least he had no respect for human life)whether or not his main motive was to obtain and experiment on the organs himself or to sell them for profit. In which case, does it really matter how difficult or otherwise it would have been for him to obtain organs by other means? He may not even have bothered enquiring, being quite happy to indulge in his DIY methods.
Also, if he was so desperate to get these organs (two uteri and one kidney?) by fair means or foul, would he have risked making specific enquiries which could be traced back to him once he started going it alone?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Thomas Ind
Monday, 02 October 2000 - 11:36 am | | Jon
I see what you are getting at now.
Yes it was easy for doctors to get organs but was it easy for non-doctors? I don't know. |
Author: LeatherApron
Tuesday, 03 October 2000 - 11:05 am | | Caz,
"Also, if he was so desperate to get these organs (two uteri and one kidney?) by fair means or foul, would he have risked making specific enquiries which could be traced back to him once he started going it alone?"
Sure he would have. Criminals do so all the time. The key word is desperate. Such a desperate psycho as our Jack would stop at nothing to gain his objectives.
My 2 bits.
Jack |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 03 October 2000 - 01:41 pm | | Hi Jack,
So are we assuming here (for the purpose of a scenario which swims), that our psycho turned to his unique method of organ retrieval because all other doors were closed to such a one as he?
If that's the case, it's a shame no one at the time made the connection between some individual making requests for human organs and being refused, and Annie Chapman and Kate Eddowes suddenly displayed out on the streets minus the bits requested. :-)
Love,
Caz |
Author: Jon
Tuesday, 03 October 2000 - 10:56 pm | | Caz
Well, we know Coroner Wynne Baxter made such a suggestion on Sept 26th. Even though the incident he refered to may have had nothing specifically to do with this case, at least he could have been on the right track.
Baxter did not implicate Doctors specifically, but in reading the rebuttal by the B.M.A. it can be seen that they were not about to let this speculation evolve. They had to stamp it out immediatly.
Even the 'Dear Boss' letter, postmarked on the 27th (the day the Coroners remarks were published), picked up on the implication..."they say I'am a doctor now, ha-ha".
Regards, Jon |
Author: alex chisholm
Wednesday, 04 October 2000 - 02:01 am | | Excellent posts as usual, Jon.
I used to see the doctor reference in first Dear Boss as a possible indication that the post-script at least was written after the writer had either witnessed Baxter’s summing-up of Chapman’s inquest, or read about it on the 27 Sept.
But, of course, suspicion of a medical man could have been raised following Dr. Phillips’ earlier testimony on 19 Sept., as Baxter himself suggests, or even as a result of the doctor’s testimony of 13 Sept., as seems to have happened.
The Star of 18 Sept., included the following:
“With reference to the missing parts of Annie Chapman’s body, Thomas Bolas writes:- “That biologists have been so infatuated by their pursuits as to cause murder to be committed in aid of their researches is a matter of history, and to my mind there is quite enough evidence of the last murder being the work of some half-mad physiologist in search of living tissues or organs from a healthy subject, for experiments on graftation, to justify certain investigations by the police.”
This was endorsed as “By far the most sensible suggestion that has been made,” by an un-named American detective in the Star of 19 Sept.
So ‘doctor theories’ were publicly aired well before Baxter’s sensational summation. Not that that proves anything, or indeed will come as news to many, so I’d probably better shut-up now. I will just say, however, I share the view that the medical establishment’s dismissal of ‘Baxter’s theory’ had more to do with attempts to salvage the prestige of that profession than any impossibility of what the coroner had suggested.
Best Wishes
alex |
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