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.

Using contemporary sources and modern profiling techniques, the authors flag-up a hitherto little-known suspect as London’s most infamous mass-murderer.

In Victorian London, long before the term serial killer was coined, two series of murders played out that have captured the imagination of the whole world. The Jack the Ripper murders and the Thames Torso murders, so similar to each other, took place during the same period in London and have never been solved. In this book, journalist and researcher Christer Holmgren explains why the murders were never cleared up and names the East End carman Charles Lechmere as the culprit behind both series of murders. He was a man who claimed he found Jack the Ripper's first victim, but avoided to give his true name to the police. In the 2014 TV documentary The Missing Evidence -- Jack the Ripper, the case for Charles Lechmere as the Ripper was outlined. In it, a prominent barrister stated that the case would have been good enough to take to court. This makes Lechmere stand out amongst the many suspects named over the years: his is a case where it can be practically demonstrated how he is linked to the murders. More recent research suggests that Charles Lechmere also needs to be held responsible for the Thames Torso murder series, spanning the years 1873-1889. Guided by the help of experts, Holmgren links the cases together, establishes the underlying inspiration behind them, and beckons the originator of the murders out into the light, a century after his death

The author of Jack the Ripper: Quest for a Killer examines a different series of grisly unsolved murders in Victorian-era London. Dismembered corpses are discovered scattered along the banks of the river Thames, a calculating clinical multiple murderer is on the loose, and the London police have no inkling of the killer’s identity – and, more than a century later, they still don’t. In this, M.J. Trow’s latest reinvestigation of a bizarre and brutal serial killing, he delves deep into the appalling facts of the case, into the futile police investigations, and into the dark history of late Victorian London. The incredible criminal career of the Thames torso murderer has gripped readers and historians ever since he committed his crimes in the 1870s and 1880s. The case poses as many questions as the even more notorious killings of Jack the Ripper. How, over a period of fifteen years, did the Thames murderer get away with a succession of monstrous and sensational misdeeds? And what sort of perverted character was he, why did he take such risks, why did he kill again and again?

"a new supernatural-whodunit-polyphonic thriller for those not of the faint of heart" --Fort Worth Telegram "Pinborough's fiction moves at a breakneck pace. Once you start, you can't stop." --Sarah Langan, author of The Keeper and The Missing Already frustrated in their attempts to capture serial murderer Jack the Ripper, the detectives of Scotland Yard are suddenly confronted with a new monster, dubbed the Torso Killer for his habit of leaving behind neatly wrapped parcels of his victims' body parts, minus the heads. With the terrible increase in mutilated corpses to examine, the highly regarded police surgeon Dr. Thomas Bond has lost the ability to sleep. True, a growing dependency on opium affords him some solace in his loneliest and most desperate hours, but he also fears the grip of the drug. During Dr. Bond's nightly tours of London's underbelly in search of pharmaceutical respite from the horrors that plague him by day, he encounters a mysterious Jesuit priest scouring the opium dens himself, clearly in search of someone--or something. The doctor at first rejects the strange priest's unnatural theories about the Torso Killer as an affront to scientific thought. But over time Dr. Bond's opium-addled mind begins to crumble under the growing impression that there might be some awful truth to the Jesuit's ideas. As the police struggle to capture two serial killers, the troubled forensics expert begins to suspect that he may actually know the Torso Killer personally. If he is right, Dr. Bond will need all the strength he can muster to save his small circle of loved ones from falling victim to the bloody depravities of this twisted creature.

Jack the Ripper is not the only blood-soaked fiend at work in London.There are others.In the festering alleys of Whitechapel, a habitual murderer is at work slashing women of the night to death and mutilating their remains. As the body count rises, local and national newspapers heap scorn on the Metropolitan Police and their hapless commissioner, Sir Charles Warren.Gory descriptions of the victims' wounds are published, illustrated with images drawn as much from the artists' imaginations as from witness testimony. The vaunted Scotland Yard sleuths are helpless, and the murderer sends them taunting messages in blood red letters signed Saucy Jack.And what of Sherlock Holmes? Is the foremost private consulting detective in the world standing aloof as the capital of the Empire is paralyzed by the nameless terror stalking its streets?Here, for the first time, is my account of those dreadful days and nights in that blood-soaked autumn of 1888.John H Watson MD.

Previously published in 2020 by Amberley Publishing.