Can we profile the Ripper from the GSG?

[Sam Flynn]

We can't conclude that he was anti-semetic because the GSG could be interpreted as being pro-Jewish.

Darn! So the message is even more wishy-washy than I thought! Beats me why a killer would waste his time writing such a thing.

[c.d.]

Hello Sam,

Yeah, wishy-washy and ambiguous to us anyway. To the killer, who knows?

c.d.

[Joshua Rogan]

For what it's worth, the agency report from the ELO 13th Oct describes the GSG as being found "within a few yards of the spot where the blood-stained part of an apron was found in Goulston-street".

[DJA]

For the killer to have known that Eddowes had given her name as "Nothing" when locked up for drunkenness, he'd have had to have known about what passed between her and Sgt Byfield at Bishopsgate police station earlier that night. How could he have found this out?

Shame you do not read the thread you are posting on.

Either Kate or the police told him.

[c.d.]

"Just goes to show how much convoluted reasoning is required to make the GSG into anything other than anti-semitic."

Hello Sam,

I am going to disagree. "The Jews are tired of being blamed for things they didn't do" seems a quite reasonable interpretation to me.

c.d.

[DJA]

are you saying he meant to write: the juwes are not the men to blame for kate?

Ostensibly

It is obviously not anti-Semitic.

It was meant for the police.

[Abby Normal]

One thing that always seems to get lost in any discussion of the validity of the GSG is what the police at the time thought about it.

They obviously placed a lot of weight to it and many, if not most, who expressed an opinion about it, believed it was from the killer.

[Sam Flynn]

Shame you do not read the thread you are posting on.

I might not every post, that's true; only those I find interesting, as a rule.

Either Kate or the police told him.

Eddowes was as pissed as a fart, and probably couldn't remember what she'd said anyway. Even if she could, is she really going to tell this guy [JTR] who's just picked her up? How would that conversation have gone? "You'll never guess what I did at 9 o'clock yesterday night! They was just about to put me in the cells for being drunk, and I told them that my name was 'Nothing'! How funny is that?" Sorry, that sort of thing is just not going to come up in conversation; certainly not in the tragically short time between her being released onto the streets and her murder in Mitre Square.

As to the police, why on earth would the (to-be) killer ask, and why would the police be obliged to divulge that information to him? Besides, if a civilian turned up at Bishopsgate enquiring after a woman in the cells who, within half an hour of her release, was found horribly disembowelled a short distance away, you'd think the police would be very interested in tracking that man down. It seems that no such thing occurred.

Sorry, but the idea that either Eddowes or the police told the killer she'd given her name as "Nothing" doesn't stand up to scrutiny, and any link to the "nothing" in the GSG can be safely dismissed.

[c.d.]

One thing that always seems to get lost in any discussion of the validity of the GSG is what the police at the time thought about it.

They obviously placed a lot of weight to it and many, if not most, who expressed an opinion about it, believed it was from the killer.

Hello Abby,

You are quite right about that but the key word is "opinion." And again, even if we knew with certainty that the killer wrote it what can we conclude?

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

It is obviously not anti-Semitic.

The most obvious interpretation is the anti-semitic reading, irrespective of what its author really meant. The graffito could, as CD points out, be seen as philosemitic, but that would very much be a secondary level of interpretation; the initial "hit" you get from the GSG is clearly anti-semitic. Any other interpretation would be far from obvious.

[FrankO]

For what it's worth, the agency report from the ELO 13th Oct describes the GSG as being found "within a few yards of the spot where the blood-stained part of an apron was found in Goulston-street".

In a report op 6 November 1888, superintendent Thomas Arnold wrote that the writing was "on the wall of the entrance to some dwellings. It was in such a position that it would have been rubbed by the shoulders of persons passing in & out of the Building."

[DJA]

I might not every post, that's true; only those I find interesting, as a rule

Why,thank you

[c.d.]

The most obvious interpretation is the anti-semitic reading, irrespective of what its author really meant. The graffito could, as CD points out, be seen as philosemitic, but that would very much be a secondary level of interpretation; the initial "hit" you get from the GSG is clearly anti-semitic. Any other interpretation would be far from obvious.

Hello Sam,

First of all props on using a word like"philosemitic". Stuff like that hasn't been seen since Lynn Cates was a regular poster (who I hope returns some day).

You might have an argument for a secondary interpretation but that seems to be interpreting the message in a vacuum. If seen in the light of being part of a "graffiti war" back and forth between two camps (Jews and non-Jews) and relating to other graffiti in the neighborhood then I don't think a pro-Jewish interpretation is so far fetched.

c.d.

[MysterySinger]

Either Eddowes or the police told him.

Maybe JTR was also in the Police station when Eddowes was brought in and heard her give the name Nothing. Alternatively, he could have asked her her name when he met her a dbeen also told Nothing.

[DJA]

Eddowes was as pissed as a fart, and probably couldn't remember what she'd said anyway. Even if she could, is she really going to tell this guy [JTR] who's just picked her up? How would that conversation have gone? "You'll never guess what I did at 9 o'clock yesterday night! They was just about to put me in the cells for being drunk, and I told them that my name was 'Nothing'! How funny is that?" Sorry, that sort of thing is just not going to come up in conversation; certainly not in the tragically short time between her being released onto the streets and her murder in Mitre Square.

As to the police, why on earth would the (to-be) killer ask, and why would the police be obliged to divulge that information to him? Besides, if a civilian turned up at Bishopsgate enquiring after a woman in the cells who, within half an hour of her release, was found horribly disembowelled a short distance away, you'd think the police would be very interested in tracking that man down. It seems that no such thing occurred.

Sorry, but the idea that either Eddowes or the police told the killer she'd given her name as "Nothing" doesn't stand up to scrutiny, and any link to the "nothing" in the GSG can be safely dismissed.

She was released 5 hours after being arrested.
At best her blood alcohol level is down by .05%.

Stride is dead.

Eddowes could not make the Berner Street rendezvous and does not know.
She heads back to where she was earlier,Mitre Street.
She and Jack arrive at almost the same time and go inside.
Kate explains what happened.
Jack strangles her and takes her out the back into Mitre Square.

GSG is a red herring.