The GSG - Did Jack write it? POLL

[Trevor Marriott]

then whats the alternative?

There has to be a plausible alternative for how the apron piece arrived in Gouslton Street other than the ones researchers seem to want to prop up, and even then its nothing more than a stab in the dark (pardon the pun) because no one can agree on any one explanation. Its the same with the graffiti everyone has their own interpretation of it

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[Joshua Rogan]

"The Juwes are not the men who will be blamed for nothing."

"The Juwes are the men who will not be blamed for nothing."

It is not as though you can conclude one sounds better than the other, i.e. you can't really argue that one makes more sense than the other.

I do think Long's version (the second, above) does trip better off the tongue so that's the one I find easier to recall. Something about the rhythm.

I also find that if you replace "the juwes" in each version with "we" or "they", then Long's version sounds more like an accusation, whereas Halse's more like a denial.
Well, in my head anyway.

[etenguy]

There has to be a plausible alternative for how the apron piece arrived in Gouslton Street other than the ones researchers seem to want to prop up, and even then its nothing more than a stab in the dark (pardon the pun) because no one can agree on any one explanation. Its the same with the graffiti everyone has their own interpretation of it

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The accepted explanation that the killer dropped the apron piece during his journey away from the murder site is both perfectly plausible and highly likely. There does not need to be an alternative explanation, as the accepted one is overwhelming the most likely explanation. We could speculate that a dog dragged it there or any number of scenarios, but all alternative explanations are less likely. The suggestion that Eddowes had much earlier used the piece as a sanitary towel is extremely unlikely, especially given that the soiling was described as wet and fresh. That she went to Goulston Street, used the rag as a sanitary towel and then went to Mitre Square is even more unlikely.

Of course, the dropping of the apron piece by the killer may have been accidental and he had absolutely no reason to choose that spot. Or he may have deliberately chosen the spot and left his message, perhaps for the first time since leaving the murder site feeling safe enough to do so. We likely will never know.

The facts, such as they are, are inconclusive, so of course there will be competing speculation about just what might have happened and the killer's motivation. This is to be expected and does not undermine the basic premise.

[APerno]

Well, let's look at what's more plausible, shall we?

That the victim's apron rag was soiled in blood & faeces after her murderer had moments ago mutilated her stomach.

...or the victim had torn her own apron to use it as a makeshift sanitary rag earlier that night?

These two seem equally plausible.

[APerno]

Indeed, CD. He had all the time in the world to leave a message there. Could've even scrawled it in blood for added effect. It is strange that a killer who decided to communicate under those circumstances would not leave another message. And the one message he leave did had no apparent bearing on the murders. As Abby Normal has said, I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with his encounters with Jews that night that brought his antisemitism to the fore, and he needed to get it out his system.

I am of the mind that if the Ripper did leave the graffito then the From Hell letter was his as well, and if he didn't send the From Hell letter he probably didn't write the graffito.

Or to slide off your logic, if this guy taunts us once, then he taunts us more than once.

Personally I believe neither belongs to the Ripper.

[Trevor Marriott]

The accepted explanation that the killer dropped the apron piece during his journey away from the murder site is both perfectly plausible and highly likely. There does not need to be an alternative explanation, as the accepted one is overwhelming the most likely explanation. We could speculate that a dog dragged it there or any number of scenarios, but all alternative explanations are less likely. The suggestion that Eddowes had much earlier used the piece as a sanitary towel is extremely unlikely, especially given that the soiling was described as wet and fresh. That she went to Goulston Street, used the rag as a sanitary towel and then went to Mitre Square is even more unlikely.

Of course, the dropping of the apron piece by the killer may have been accidental and he had absolutely no reason to choose that spot. Or he may have deliberately chosen the spot and left his message, perhaps for the first time since leaving the murder site feeling safe enough to do so. We likely will never know.

The facts, such as they are, are inconclusive, so of course there will be competing speculation about just what might have happened and the killer's motivation. This is to be expected and does not undermine the basic premise.

The accepted one is only overwhelming to those who readily accept it, but as has been pointed out the old accepted theory does not stand up to close scrutiny.

Blood and faecal matter only on one side of the piece, that pretty consistent with it being between her legs. Wet, well she had been locked up for being drunk, drunk people invariably when locked up fall asleep and become incontinent.

Goulston Street archway near to where her lodgings were located.

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[Herlock Sholmes]

A piece of cloth folded in half, and used to clean hands or a knife, would have one side clean when opened out again.

[Trevor Marriott]

A piece of cloth folded in half, and used to clean hands or a knife, would have one side clean when opened out again.

Not if both your hands were covered in blood, or faecal matter. you could not help but transfer that onto both sides, and supposing he had done just that why would he wait so long to dispose of such incriminating evidence?

I am sure he didnt take the time to neatly fold the piece of apron.

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[c.d.]

Hi CD

Why a message at Millers Court ?
Nothing was left at any other crime scene.

Hello Jon,

Assuming for the sake of argument that the killer wrote the GSG (which I doubt), it was of such importance that he was willing to take the chance that night. If it was a message for all the world to see his efforts were thwarted when the police erased it. A reasonable conclusion is that he would have been pretty pissed and used the opportunity of writing in blood in Millers Court to ensure that his message was not erased and that his point had been made.

c.d.

[Leanne]

These two seem equally plausible.

I don't think she would have cut the apron piece herself to use as a sanitary pad, (I remember reading that it was clean cut not a rip - I may be wrong). I thing she would have taken the whole apron off and folded it as tightly as she could.

[Wickerman]

Well the first one you cited does not stand up to close scrutiny for the reasons I have pointed out, there were stains only on one side, and if the killer had dome all he was supposed to have done his hands would be bloody and there would be traces of blood and possible faeces staining on both sides of the piece.

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That's something you have made up. There is nothing to indicate it being only stained on one side. The fact one corner was described by PC Long as "wet with blood" automatically rules that out.
I wish you wouldn't twist details to suit your particular theory.

[Robert St Devil]

I don't think she would have cut the apron piece herself to use as a sanitary pad, (I remember reading that it was clean cut not a rip - I may be wrong). I thing she would have taken the whole apron off and folded it as tightly as she could.

I share your same parenthetical thought of the apron being cut, not ripped. And anyways, didn't she have rags amongst her possessions? Those seem like they would serve more immediate purposes rather than Catherine ripping her own apron to serve as a sanitary napkin.

[Harry D]

I share your same parenthetical thought of the apron being cut, not ripped. And anyways, didn't she have rags amongst her possessions? Those seem like they would serve more immediate purposes rather than Catherine ripping her own apron to serve as a sanitary napkin.

I take it Eddowes must have wiped her ass with it as well, since it contained fecal matter. That doesn't sound very sanitary.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Not if both your hands were covered in blood, or faecal matter. you could not help but transfer that onto both sides, and supposing he had done just that why would he wait so long to dispose of such incriminating evidence?

I am sure he didnt take the time to neatly fold the piece of apron.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

If it was folded it wouldn’t have mattered that both of his hands were contaminated he would still have had one clean side. I’m certainly not pushing that idea though Trevor.

The question of why he waited so long is an interesting one. Firstly, we can’t be certain that he didn’t dump it there as soon as he left Mitre Square just because neither Halse nor Long saw it on earlier visits. In another post I made the mild suggestion that the graffito might have been written by the killer on the way to Mitre Square but there’s another possibility of course. He might just have seen a piece of apparently anti-semitic graffito that had been written by someone else earlier that day and, as he walked toward Mitre Square, an idea formed about laying a false trail for the police by making it look like that graffito had been written by him by dropping something from the crime scene near to it?

And secondly, the fact that he waited so long seems to be a pointer toward the graffito being written by the ripper imo. If the ripper had gone to some bolt-hole (explaining the time gap) why would he have felt compelled to go back out into the streets to dump an apron that he could have easily disposed of at far less risk? In a fire grate for example or by being thrown over a wall as he’s passed by?

We can’t of course give a definite reason but it seems to me that the suggestion that he dropped the apron just after leaving Mitre Square is less problematical.

[Herlock Sholmes]

That's something you have made up. There is nothing to indicate it being only stained on one side. The fact one corner was described by PC Long as "wet with blood" automatically rules that out.
I wish you wouldn't twist details to suit your particular theory.

As you know Wick I’m more rusty on details these days (I intend to re-read Begg and Sugden to refresh my ageing brain) but I did wonder about this. I should have questioned it though because I couldn’t recall any evidence that the cloth was only stained on one side.

As my old boss used to say in boring meetings with annoying regularity:

Never ASSUME as it can make an ASS out of U and ME.