PC Long, GSG & a Piece of Apron

[El White Chap]

Post no.511 is pretty much TKO, lights out, goodnight

Have a great weekend everyone, you too Trev.

[Garry Wroe]

Excellent post #500, Garry.

Thanks, Debs.

[Garry Wroe]

Most seem to want to accept the 5 and 5 only. Looking at them, clearly a case can be drawn up to suggest Stride wasn’t killed by the same hand. However, the 5 bandwagon keeps rolling along.

I’ve been banging that drum for decades, Trev. To my mind the evidence does not support the notion of Stride as a Ripper victim. I would disagree with you, however, in that I believe an increasing number of people over recent years have begun to question the concept of the double event.

We know that there were other murders both before and after these 5. One of those being Tabram, which Swanson clearly documents in his “Whitechapel Murders report” as being part of the series. Coles and Mckenzie are murders, which bear the hallmarks of the same killer by reason of throat cutting. This is wrong to automatically link them together for that sole reason because throat cutting was one of the main methods of killing back then. Despite this, researchers don’t seem to want to discuss these murders fully.

The Whitechapel Murders file, Trev, was merely a documentary repository incorporating information relating to a number of attacks on women committed over a relatively short period of time in a confined geographical area. It was the press rather than investigators, in point of fact, which attributed a link of common authorship across these crimes. If you’d care to read the relevant reports you’ll find that Dr Phillips ruled out several victims on the basis of ‘anatomical and professional grounds’. Anderson even described the McKenzie crime as an ‘ordinary murder’. It is therefore wrong to suppose that investigators believed a single assailant to have been responsible for all of the crimes contained within the Whitechapel Murders file.

So is there a common factor in all the remaining 4 taking, Stride out of the equation. Yes, that being the ferocity of the attacks. However, Tabram was simply stabbed, and therefore this could set her murder aside from the others. And then there were three, which could have been killed by the same hand, and these show a level of escalation in the mutilations culminating in all of Kelly`s body being eviscerated. However, unlike the previous two murders, it appears that nobody parts were taken away.

The heart was not accounted for, Trev.

Taking this a stage further this could be additionally highlighted by the taking out of all Kellys organs and none being taken away. The doctors said that in her murder, no anatomical knowledge was shown.

The same was said of Eddowes, Trev, which is why Phillips was inclined to exclude it from the series.

So, if Kelly was killed by the same hand, and no anatomical knowledge shown, then that must cast a doubt about the anatomical knowledge shown by the killer at the Chapman and Eddowes crime scenes, when with Kelly, he could have taken the whole body away in bits.

Read the reports, Trev. Most of the doctors considered the killer medically maladroit. I explored this issue in my book and presented a list of modern killers who had conducted far more technically demanding procedures than the Ripper ever did, yet not a single one of them had an atom of medical knowledge or experience.

Well, the official lists clearly show that when the body was stripped and the clothes examined for cuts. there was no mention of her wearing an apron.

Dr Brown amongst others noted that Eddowes was wearing part of an apron.

However, again for this exercise accepting she was wearing one when she left the police station. We know there is a 44-minute window so if she was, then anything could have happened to that apron in that time period. It should be noted that she did have a table knife in her possessions and could have cut it herself.

The table knife was blunt, Trev. It could not have made the clean cut which separated the two sections of apron.

If she was not wearing an apron, then the killer could not have cut it If she had been in possession of two old pieces of an apron, which had originally come from the same piece, then that puts a different light on it.

But she was, Trev. The documentary evidence is incontrovertible.

That light is somewhat dimmed by the fact that the two pieces in an event did not make up a full apron, and tends to negate the fact that she was wearing an apron and cut it herself. The other problem with the killer cutting it is the position of the apron had she been wearing it. The clothes were drawn up above the waist putting the apron closest to the body and furthest away from the killer being able to get hold of it.

Refer to Brown. The apron was tied around her neck. No matter how technically demanding you consider the exercise might have been, the simple reality is that the killer cut away part of Kate’s apron, took it away with him, then deposited it in the Goulston Street vestibule. Medical men as well as policemen attested to as much. If you are going to dispute such testimony you’ll have to demonstrate the impossibility of that sequence. Simply saying that it couldn’t have been accomplished isn’t good enough.

Clearly, the GS piece matched the remaining piece found at the mortuary and hereby hangs the backbone of the arguments for and against as to how it got there, and who left it there and when? It has been described in different ways, and it seems those who favor one theory will use one of the different descriptions to back it up. The main theory seems to be that the organs were taken away in it ...

I wasn’t aware of that, Trev. I thought most had rejected the idea, or were at least ambivalent towards it. If you are correct, however, it demonstrates that people are applying practical thought to such issues rather than simply regurgitating old and untested ideas.

… This cannot be the case, firstly, because no one from 1888 even suggested this …

Aw, now I’m disappointed. Still, since no-one at the time suggested that anyone other than the killer took away the victims’ organs, we can now categorically dismiss your contention to the contrary. Right?

… and had this been the case then it would have been heavily bloodstained as my experiment and photograph clearly show and would have been so described at the time.

Unfortunately, Trev, as I have stated previously, your demonstration was not a valid comparison. Although Eddowes’ apron was officially described as white, it was so old and dirty that those who saw it initially thought it black. Someone, somewhere, as I recall, described it as being ‘filthy grey’. This is important for evaluation purposes because the darker the sample material, the greater is the difficulty in discerning bloodstains with the naked eye – which is why today’s crime scene analysts use luminol for detecting blood evidence. Your experiment, remember, was conducted using a pristine white cloth.

The other problem is that we have no detailed description of the blood and other matter found on the apron. Brown, for example, spoke of smears – as though the killer had wiped his hands and knife on the garment. There was also the suggestion of possible faecal contamination. Contrast this, however, with Long’s contention that the material was wet with blood at three o’clock. This, as I outlined in a previous post, was roughly an hour and a quarter after the killer departed the crime scene. So now we have one of two possibilities. Either the killer left Goulston Street shortly before Long discovered the apron remnant, or he had visited the scene much earlier and Long had failed to spot the garment. If the former, whatever blood remained on the killer’s hands and knife would have dried of its own accord, so there would have been little or no wet blood transference from hands to cloth. If the latter, the cloth would have been exposed to the open air for more than an hour and thus would have dried by natural processes. In other words, irrespective of when the killer deposited the cloth in the vestibule, the blood should have dried by the time Long chanced upon it. Yet Long stated that the cloth was wet with blood at three o’clock. How could this have been so if the material was merely bloodsmeared as a consequence of the killer having wiped his hands and knife upon it?

It couldn’t. Which suggests that the apron remnant was used to wrap the organs.

1. Time, there is approx a 5-minute window for the killer to carry out all he is supposed to have done. I maintain that was not long enough to incorporate the removal of the organs. However, long enough to murder mutilate and satisfy his curiosity. Likely, as not he was disturbed by Harvey.

I take it, Trev, that you are here referring to the Eddowes murder. If so Dr Brown stated that the mutilations could have been completed in five minutes. That said, I tend to agree that the killer would have required more time than is generally accepted to complete the crime in its entirety. By this I mean walking along Church Passage, reaching the south-east corner of the square, subduing Kate, cutting her throat, performing the mutilations, cutting away the apron remnant and making his getaway. For this reason I disagree that the killer was disturbed by Harvey. Trusting to the timetable that emerged through the various testimonies, I remain convinced that Harvey didn’t visit the square as claimed. But that’s another issue.

2. Light not sufficient light to be able to see to remove these organs.

Not if the killer groped around in the abdominal cavity until he found something of interest, then held the organ in his left hand whilst he cut it away with the knife he held in his right hand. Other serialists have accomplished similar tasks under similar lighting conditions without too many problems.

3. Knife, could he have performed those removals using a long bladed knife? Experts say no.

I suppose that depends on the expert, Trev. Nick Warren doesn’t appear to see this as much of an issue.

4. Degree of difficulty in finding and taking hold of organs in the blood-filled abdomen.

Grope, grasp, pull, cut. He did it. And so have many others.

5. If able to remove organs how did he transport them away?

Well, he hardly needed to phone Pickford’s. (Whoa, there, Fish.) In the case of Chapman he probably wrapped the organs in a handkerchief. Having learned from that crime he placed Eddowes’ body parts in the apron remnant. Kelly’s heart may either have been eaten at the crime scene or wrapped in part of the material left by Maria Harvey. I really don’t understand the perceived difficulty, Trev. Other killers have wrapped up and taken away genitalia, hearts, buttocks, breasts, strips of thigh and so forth. This was a man who eluded the best efforts of two police forces, the might of the press, vigilance committees, the general public. Are you seriously suggesting that taking away a few human organs was beyond his wit?

So Garry, all in all, I think I have more than demonstrated a case to corroborate what I have previously stated. Its not always about concrete evidence sometimes disproving facts is sufficient to cause questions to be asked

With respect, Trev, you have demonstrated only that you have failed to take on board the evidence handed down to us through the various police statements, press reports and inquest depositions. On top of this you have neglected the case histories of those whose criminal activities provide an invaluable insight into the behaviours and psychology of the Whitechapel Murderer.

Perhaps you would be so kind now as to demonstrate the evidence to
support the old theories?

Read my book, Trev, as well as my posting history on Casebook. I question everything and accept nothing on trust. What I don’t do is reject traditional thinking purely for the sake of it. If the evidence is unconvincing, I’ll challenge it. If not, I’ll add it to the store of knowledge which adds to our better understanding of the case. And that, given the passage of time and consequent loss of important information, is the best that most of us can hope to achieve.

[Monty]

Perhaps you would explain why a killer would want part of an organ and not the whole, when the whole organ was there to be taken given his supposed anatomical knowledge?

You like asking questions but dont seem to want to ansere them

OK, I can understand how this may be difficult for you to understand, as you are so entrenched in your own opinions, you cannot grasp this new way of thinking, however....

I do not know why a killer would want part of an organ.

Why did Dahmer keep heads? Why did Christie collect pubic hair? Why did Hansen collect his victims jewellery?

Your closed mindedness is telling.

Monty

[Carol]

Hi Carol
His actions at the crime scene suggest that there was no premeditation and no design on the organs. The stabbing and mutilating of the abdomen in such a way that it would damage any organs he may have been seeking.

Hi Trevor,

Is it possible that the Ripper could have opened up the body and removed the organs BEFORE he did anything else?

Carol

[Monty]

Well if he simply wanted a part of the body why go to great lengths to take a kidney the most difficult organ in the body to locate and to take hold of and remove. If he wanted a trophy why not take any other part of the body or simply a piece of the body?

What, if he wanted a kidney, he shoulda just pulled it out?

What if the kidney was the aim? Maybe no other piece would do?

Monty

[Monty]

I asked Trevor about this possibility twice, two days ago, but he didn't answer me either.

He still hasn't answered Debs.

Cheers
Monty

[Trevor Marriott]

Quite correct, Trev, if that was indeed the case. Unfortunately you’ve provided nothing in the way of evidence to support any such conclusion.


Forget about the apron remnant, Trev. That’s a largely irrelevant distraction. Your position is that the killer did not plunder the victims’ body parts, and on that count you have failed to present any evidential support for such.


But what are these ‘facts’, Trev? You’ve presented opinions, not facts. Contrary to what you may think, I wouldn’t hesitate to offer my support were you to substantiate your assertions with real evidence, but that’s not what you’ve done. Opinion, no matter how forcefully or eloquently expressed, does not amount to evidence.


Then you clearly haven’t read my book, Trev. I’ve been challenging accepted wisdom for decades – that relating to Hutchinson and Stride for starters. Nor do I cling to any idea, old or new, purely for the sake of it. I’m interested in the truth. Pure and simple. So if you or anyone else succeed in exposing any case-related myth I’ll be amongst the first to congratulate you. But please don’t expect me to accept something as factual when it lacks any evidential basis. Sorry, but that’s not the way it works.

Hi Garry
Let me play devil’s advocate here not only in relation to this issue being discussed but the whole mystery, and I hope you can see then that there are major flaws in the old accepted theory.

Victims
Most seem to want to accept the 5 and 5 only. Looking at them, clearly a case can be drawn up to suggest Stride wasn’t killed by the same hand. However, the 5 bandwagon keeps rolling along. Kelly`s murder is another, which is interesting for a number of reasons but for this exercise, I will include her.

We know that there were other murders both before and after these 5. One of those being Tabram, which Swanson clearly documents in his “Whitechapel Murders report” as being part of the series. Coles and Mckenzie are murders, which bear the hallmarks of the same killer by reason of throat cutting. This is wrong to automatically link them together for that sole reason because throat cutting was one of the main methods of killing back then. Despite this, researchers don’t seem to want to discuss these murders fully.

So is there a common factor in all the remaining 4 taking, Stride out of the equation. Yes, that being the ferocity of the attacks. However, Tabram was simply stabbed, and therefore this could set her murder aside from the others. And then there were three, which could have been killed by the same hand, and these show a level of escalation in the mutilations culminating in all of Kelly`s body being eviscerated. However, unlike the previous two murders, it appears that nobody parts were taken away.
Does this show a pattern, does it show the killer mindset? Yes, could be the answer, and yet another possible explanation for the killer's actions at the crime scene, in the removal of the intestines. What if the killer had a morbid curiosity to see and explore the makeup of the insides of a human body? Taking this a stage further this could be additionally highlighted by the taking out of all Kellys organs and none being taken away. The doctors said that in her murder, no anatomical knowledge was shown.

So, if Kelly was killed by the same hand, and no anatomical knowledge shown, then that must cast a doubt about the anatomical knowledge shown by the killer at the Chapman and Eddowes crime scenes, when with Kelly, he could have taken the whole body away in bits.

Apron
Well, the official lists clearly show that when the body was stripped and the clothes examined for cuts. there was no mention of her wearing an apron.
The evidence of the police officers who say they saw her wearing one is questionable in any event. However, again for this exercise accepting she was wearing one when she left the police station. We know there is a 44-minute window so if she was, then anything could have happened to that apron in that time period. It should be noted that she did have a table knife in her possessions and could have cut it herself.

If she was not wearing an apron, then the killer could not have cut it If she had been in possession of two old pieces of an apron, which had originally come from the same piece, then that puts a different light on it. That light is somewhat dimmed by the fact that the two pieces in an event did not make up a full apron, and tends to negate the fact that she was wearing an apron and cut it herself. The other problem with the killer cutting it is the position of the apron had she been wearing it. The clothes were drawn up above the waist putting the apron closest to the body and furthest away from the killer being able to get hold of it.

Clearly, the GS piece matched the remaining piece found at the mortuary and hereby hangs the backbone of the arguments for and against as to how it got there, and who left it there and when? It has been described in different ways, and it seems those who favor one theory will use one of the different descriptions to back it up. The main theory seems to be that the organs were taken away in it. This cannot be the case, firstly, because no one from 1888 even suggested this, and had this been the case then it would have been heavily bloodstained as my experiment and photograph clearly show and would have been so described at the time. Knife wiping and hand wiping by the killer have also been suggested but again logical thinking might suggest that if these had been the case, the killer might have disposed of the piece long before he got to GS. It’s a question as to whether researchers want to apply that logical thinking?

The other explanations have been documented, and in the light of question marks hanging over the previously accepted theories should not be discounted.

Organ Removal
I have touched on this above, and I will simply highlight the flaws in the old theory.

1. Time, there is approx a 5-minute window for the killer to carry out all he is supposed to have done. I maintain that was not long enough to incorporate the removal of the organs. However, long enough to murder mutilate and satisfy his curiosity. Likely, as not he was disturbed by Harvey.

2. Light not sufficient light to be able to see to remove these organs.

3. Knife, could he have performed those removals using a long bladed knife? Experts say no.

4. Degree of difficulty in finding and taking hold of organs in the blood-filled abdomen.

5. If able to remove organs how did he transport them away?

So Garry, all in all, I think I have more than demonstrated a case to corroborate what I have previously stated. Its not always about concrete evidence sometimes disproving facts is sufficient to cause questions to be asked

Perhaps you would be so kind now as to demonstrate the evidence to
support the old theories?

[Trevor Marriott]

It doesn't answer my question though,

Surely you are presuming the killers motive re the organs. What if, say, possesion was the aim, no matter the condition?

You are assuming, yes?

Monty

Perhaps you would explain why a killer would want part of an organ and not the whole, when the whole organ was there to be taken given his supposed anatomical knowledge?

You like asking questions but dont seem to want to ansere them

[Trevor Marriott]

Well if he simply wanted a part of the body why go to great lengths to take a kidney the most difficult organ in the body to locate and to take hold of and remove. If he wanted a trophy why not take any other part of the body or simply a piece of the body?

[Debra A]

It doesn't answer my question though,

Surely you are presuming the killers motive re the organs. What if, say, possesion was the aim, no matter the condition?

You are assuming, yes?

Monty

I asked Trevor about this possibility twice, two days ago, but he didn't answer me either.

[Debra A]

Excellent post #500, Garry.

[El White Chap]

Amen to that.

I resisted against and was accused of holding a vendetta for disagreeing against such theories, theories that just didn't and still don't stack up. If your will is to take something from the body of your victim, namely a uterus, then you're more than likely in all probability going to ponder removing and taking something else.

Annie and Kate both had their uterus' either missing or taken. Fact.

Another coincidence, both had intestines levered over their shoulders.

Only Kate was after Annie, there was an escalation. He went one further and took something more. Her kidney.

No two more, he marked with her face and cut at her features.

One or more killers?

5 minutes in Mitre Square?...Not on your nelly mate!

[Garry Wroe]

But all of this is academic if the killer didn't remove the organs at the crime scene.

Quite correct, Trev, if that was indeed the case. Unfortunately you’ve provided nothing in the way of evidence to support any such conclusion.

Can you not see how all the different scenarios now dovetail into each other to dispel the theory of the killer removing the organs and then taking them away with him in the apron piece.

Forget about the apron remnant, Trev. That’s a largely irrelevant distraction. Your position is that the killer did not plunder the victims’ body parts, and on that count you have failed to present any evidential support for such.

Popular to contrary belief it not me making it up to fit a theory its the combination of the new facts which when put together suggest what you and others have relied upon may not have been correct.

But what are these ‘facts’, Trev? You’ve presented opinions, not facts. Contrary to what you may think, I wouldn’t hesitate to offer my support were you to substantiate your assertions with real evidence, but that’s not what you’ve done. Opinion, no matter how forcefully or eloquently expressed, does not amount to evidence.

Its a fact of modern day investigative work that new facts and new evidence are constantly being uncovered in old cases, which casts doubt about what has previously been accepted. Why should the Ripper case be any different simply because you and others who have invested a lot of time and effort into research and writing books etc for obvious reasons don't want it changing and wont accept new facts etc

Then you clearly haven’t read my book, Trev. I’ve been challenging accepted wisdom for decades – that relating to Hutchinson and Stride for starters. Nor do I cling to any idea, old or new, purely for the sake of it. I’m interested in the truth. Pure and simple. So if you or anyone else succeed in exposing any case-related myth I’ll be amongst the first to congratulate you. But please don’t expect me to accept something as factual when it lacks any evidential basis. Sorry, but that’s not the way it works.

[Garry Wroe]

Do you know whether Shawcross brought the towel along with him or if he procured it at the murder site?

Trusting to memory, Fish, I believe that Shawcross carried the towel with him on returning to the disposal site of a previously killed victim.

As for the apron piece cut away in Mitre Square, I think that the suggestion that he carried the organs has a good deal going for it - up til the point when we realize that the fluid blood there is, is just present in a corner of the apron

If the apron remnant really was wet with blood when Long chanced upon it shortly before three o’clock, Fish, it seems unlikely that the killer had used it merely to wipe his hands and knife. The apron was discovered roughly an hour and a quarter after the killer departed the crime scene. Had he taken the apron for the specific purpose of removing blood from his hands and knife, common sense dictates that he would have cleaned up at the first available opportunity. The likelihood, then, is that he would have made for Goulston Street immediately upon leaving Mitre Square. So how is it that an apron exposed to the air was found more than an hour later still wet with blood?

This scenario makes no sense. The amount of blood transferred on to the apron through hand and knife wiping would have been minimal. According to Dr Brown the murderer would have had little blood on him. Seemingly, therefore, in order for the cloth to have been wet with blood an hour and a quarter after the murder, it must have absorbed blood from another source. And since we know that the killer was carrying human body parts on his departure from Mitre Square, the most obvious explanation is that the fluid secreted by the organs was responsible for the wet blood discerned by Long. In other words, whilst the killer almost certainly did use the cloth for wiping his hands and knife, the area of the apron that at three o’clock remained wet with blood was that which had been in direct contact with the organs.

This is only an interpretation, I know. But ultimately we have to apply common sense when evaluating crime scene and other evidence. From this perspective alone it makes no sense that the killer would have transported freshly extracted viscera in his pocket when he could have wrapped them in a piece of cloth.

Furthermore, what would the "purpose" as such have been for the apron? To carry the organs with him to his bolthole? Then we must assume that he lived in Wentworth Model buildings - and was careless enough to drop a vital clue on his own doorstep.

On the contrary, Fish. I addressed this issue in some detail in my book. It relates to the psychological ‘hot zones’ formulated during human cognitive mapping and might be worth a read if you’re interested in what academic studies have revealed about such behaviour. Suffice to say, the killer would have jettisoned the cloth at what he considered to have been a safe distance from his place of safety as a preventative against the police investigation coming too close to home. Careless criminals get caught. Jack the Ripper was not among them.