 " The Whitehall Mystery " was a term coined for the discovery of a headless torso of a woman on 2 October 1888 in the basement of the new Metropolitan Police headquarters being built in Whitehall . An arm belonging to the body was previously discovered floating in the river Thames near Pimlico , and one of the legs was subsequently discovered buried near where the torso was found . The other limbs and head were never recovered and the body was never identified . The mutilations were similar to those in the Pinchin Street case , where the legs and head were severed but not the arms . The Whitehall Mystery and the Pinchin Street case may have been part of a series of murders called the " Thames Mysteries " , committed by a single serial killer dubbed the " Torso killer " . It is debatable whether Jack the Ripper and the " Torso killer " were the same person or separate serial killers active in the same area . The modus operandi of the Torso killer differed from that of the Ripper , and police at the time discounted any connection between the two . Elizabeth Jackson was a prostitute whose various body parts were collected from the river Thames over a three @-@ week period in June 1889 . She may have been another victim of the " Torso killer " . 
