The GSG - Did Jack write it? POLL

[StevenOwl]

Neil Bell, in a very persuasive article on this site, argues that the GSG couldn't have been written by Eddowes' killer, because it was written leigibly, in a "good schoolboy hand", which wouldn't have been possible given the location of the graffiti: no light shone on the wall therefore, at that time of night, it would be cloaked in darkness.

He could have struck a match or 3?

[Sam Flynn]

Spotted on the UK game show Countdown, circa 2015



Genuine, not "photoshopped".

[Herlock Sholmes]

Spotted on the UK game show Countdown, circa 2015

[ATTACH]18285[/ATTACH]

Genuine, not "photoshopped".

What a lovely pair of vowels

[Herlock Sholmes]

Just a thought but if Long took the apron straight to Commercial Street Police Station all that would have been left was a random piece of (possibly anti-Semitic) graffiti that no civilian could have connected to the murders. Surely the reason for erasing it was because of its possible 'connection' to the apron and therefore the murders (i.e. Suggesting that the murderer was Jewish) . As has been reasonably stated on here anti-Jewish graffiti was probably fairly prevalent in the area but I'm sure the police didn't go around rubbing out chalked messages as a matter of duty.
What's my point? Well I just think that this just adds to the mystery of erasing the graffiti. With the apron gone and the public unaware of its existence the graffiti couldn't be linked to the murders so why erase it (if we accept that anti-Semitic graffiti was fairly common-place)?

[Harry D]

It would be funny to think that all these years of discord about the graffito and it was really written by some truant schoolboy.

[John G]

He could have struck a match or 3?

Yes, possibly, although I can't imagine Victorian matches burning for very long so it might have had to be a match or 30! And how much illumination would you have got from a Victorian match? And surely he would have just discarded the dead matches by throwing them on the ground, but none were found.

[etenguy]

Yes, possibly, although I can't imagine Victorian matches burning for very long so it might have had to be a match or 30! And how much illumination would you have got from a Victorian match? And surely he would have just discarded the dead matches by throwing them on the ground, but none were found.

It was possibly not needed. Depending on the phase of the moon, it could have been quite light. Also, the description of the writing is quite ambiguous, it might have been all over the place with individual letters/words in a good schoolboy hand.

[Sam Flynn]

It was possibly not needed. Depending on the phase of the moon, it could have been quite light.

It wouldn't have been light. The moon was showing a 39% crescent, and there was 100% cloud cover. Even without cloud, the doorway would have been in deep shadow, as the moon was in the process of rising, and was "on the wrong side" of the entrance to Wentworth Model Dwellings, quite low in the sky above the eastern horizon. Here are some charts I generated a while back, showing the moon's position, phase and weather at the time of each of the C5 murders:



The only murder in which the moon's position, phase and cloud cover were reasonably favourable was that of Polly Nichols. Even there, the moon was less than half full, just as the sky was half full of clouds

Edit: I should add, of course, that the moon would have been irrelevant to the Chapman murder, as day was starting to break when she was killed.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Yes, possibly, although I can't imagine Victorian matches burning for very long so it might have had to be a match or 30! And how much illumination would you have got from a Victorian match? And surely he would have just discarded the dead matches by throwing them on the ground, but none were found.

What if he had a bullseye lamp?

[c.d.]

What a lovely pair of vowels

That was my first impression as well, Herlock.

c.d.

[John G]

What if he had a bullseye lamp?

Ah, well if he was a police officer that would put a very different complexion on things!

[John G]

It wouldn't have been light. The moon was showing a 39% crescent, and there was 100% cloud cover. Even without cloud, the doorway would have been in deep shadow, as the moon was in the process of rising, and was "on the wrong side" of the entrance to Wentworth Model Dwellings, quite low in the sky above the eastern horizon. Here are some charts I generated a while back, showing the moon's position, phase and weather at the time of each of the C5 murders:

[ATTACH]18287[/ATTACH]

The only murder in which the moon's position, phase and cloud cover were reasonably favourable was that of Polly Nichols. Even there, the moon was less than half full, just as the sky was half full of clouds

Edit: I should add, of course, that the moon would have been irrelevant to the Chapman murder, as day was starting to break when she was killed.

Thanks for this Sam. Excellent work.

[John G]

What if he had a bullseye lamp?

Incidentally, there's an excellent 19 second YouTube clip of a bullseye lamp in operation, uploaded by Monty (just search for bullseye lamp YouTube.) What the clip demonstrates is that this type of lamp gave out a very modest amount of light, which might explain why we have different versions of what was written.

[Jon Guy]

Yes, possibly, although I can't imagine Victorian matches burning for very long so it might have had to be a match or 30! And how much illumination would you have got from a Victorian match? And surely he would have just discarded the dead matches by throwing them on the ground, but none were found.

Hi John

Anyone can write short passages in passages in the dark, but it`s worth noting that if the author was the killer, he was comfortable working with low visibility, in fact, that seems to have been his bag.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Incidentally, there's an excellent 19 second YouTube clip of a bullseye lamp in operation, uploaded by Monty (just search for bullseye lamp YouTube.) What the clip demonstrates is that this type of lamp gave out a very modest amount of light, which might explain why we have different versions of what was written.

Thanks John, I'll have a look.