Time-gap between Eddowes murder and Goulston Graffito

[Abby Normal]

Abby,

That is the most obvious? Go find a piece of chalk? Instead of hiding out, he decides to go find chalk and write on a wall. That is more obvious than Long missing it at 2:20? How did I miss this obvious conclusion?

Cheers
DRoy

Yes, But that's just me, I Have a vivid imagination and the apparent audacity to believe cops tell the truth.

[Chris2307uk]

Is it not a possibility that JtR carried away the organs using the cloth and took them either home or to his hideout. Once there, he put them in a safe place, and having pre-determined that he wanted to write the message, then went back out on to the streets to do so. To legitimise it and prove that it wasn't just a random piece of graffiti that no-one (in terms of the police) would really see he had to leave the bloodstained cloth there. Maybe the time in between the murder and the discovery of the graffiti was partially spent surveying the spot from nearby (perhaps his home) to see how busy it was, and perhaps noticing no-one nearby, then decided he had the time and opportunity to do it. Therefore, I believe a lot of importance lies in the GSG.

[Abby Normal]

Is it not a possibility that JtR carried away the organs using the cloth and took them either home or to his hideout. Once there, he put them in a safe place, and having pre-determined that he wanted to write the message, then went back out on to the streets to do so. To legitimise it and prove that it wasn't just a random piece of graffiti that no-one (in terms of the police) would really see he had to leave the bloodstained cloth there. Maybe the time in between the murder and the discovery of the graffiti was partially spent surveying the spot from nearby (perhaps his home) to see how busy it was, and perhaps noticing no-one nearby, then decided he had the time and opportunity to do it. Therefore, I believe a lot of importance lies in the GSG.

Yup and not only a possibility, but a probability IMHO. And re your "predetermined" point-Especially since he had been seen and interrupted by a lot of jews that night.

and welcome!

[DRoy]

Yes, But that's just me, I Have a vivid imagination and the apparent audacity to believe cops tell the truth.

I believe them too Abby. However, the belief in a policeman's statement in this situation is steering you to use your vivid imagination.

If it was a prostitute that said the apron wasn't there then you'd jump ship and believe she was mistaken? Cops aren't Gods, they're human.

Cheers
DRoy

[Fisherman]

I believe them too Abby. However, the belief in a policeman's statement in this situation is steering you to use your vivid imagination.

If it was a prostitute that said the apron wasn't there then you'd jump ship and believe she was mistaken? Cops aren't Gods, they're human.

Cheers
DRoy

To me, DRoy, it matters not if it was a copper, a punter, a prostitute or the king of Tonga who said it - if somebody with certainty says "it was not there at that time", there is little we can do but to accept that the better guess is that they are right.
After that, other parameters may come into play, but that´s another matter. The foundation on which any case must be built involves somebody being certain that the apron was not there. And certainty most often comes from knowing, and much more rarely from lying or misunderstanding.

All the best,
Fisherman

[DRoy]

Fish,

Agreed, but I also believe that at some point you have to look at what you believe is certain just because they said it with certainty.

If a color blind person says that a granny smith apple is red, no matter how certain they are it is red, we know them to in fact be green.

I've said it before, I want him to be correct and maybe even he believes himself to be correct, however, it is more probable and likely that he was mistaken.

I don't want to reiterate my Star Trek analogies and quotes (although I'm still hurt nobody commented on them previously!!) but it is more logical that he missed it at 2:20. I don't think there is anyone that would argue the scenario is much easier to explain if there is no time gap. Sometimes the easy answer is the right one.

Cheers
DRoy

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Caz

It might well be the simplest, most obvious conclusion that the killer would have headed in a Goulston St direction immediately after killing Eddowes and discarded the apron half where and when the coast was clear, after using it to clean his hands and/or knife. The physical evidence allows for this, but we would be relying on PC Long's assertion being wrong. The mere fact that both Long and Halse could in theory have missed the apron at 2.20 (the simplest and most obvious explanation being that neither looked in the right place) does not amount to evidence that it was actually there at 2.20. It only allows for that possibility.

Clearly, if both officers failed to check that particular spot at 2.20, it's a straight 50-50 whether it was there or not, and we only have the purest speculation to fall back on regarding the killer's most likely behaviour on leaving Mitre Square. For instance, he could still have used the apron to clean his hands and/or knife as he made his way from the scene of crime, but we have absolutely nothing to inform us what he was doing or why, between that time and 2.55, except that at some point he passed along Goulston St and deposited the apron. When Long found it, he immediately thought it might indicate a violent crime had been committed very nearby.

It would have suited the killer very nicely, assuming he had no known connection to the Dwellings, to have the police concentrate their efforts there, even for a short while. But who knows what was really going on in the head of someone who had just done all that was done to Eddowes in Mitre Square, virtually under the noses of the beat coppers there?

In short, for the apron to have been there by 2.20, a police officer had to be plain wrong, and the ripper (with womb and kidney under his belt) had to act like most rational, conventional criminals.

That's fine, but it's not evidence - not by a long chalk (double pun not intended, but gratefully received).

It's always been in my mind that this was something, (not necessarily a clue), missed first time around...and I guess it's coloured my perceptions ever since...I honestly don't think the GSG is anything at all to do with the WCMs though...

Nonetheless yours is the calmest, most quietly reasoned, (non) counter-argument I've heard...a naturally beligerant bastard like me just has to listen doesn't he?

Thanks

Dave

[Sam Flynn]

Hi All,
In short, for the apron to have been there by 2.20, a police officer had to be plain wrong,

Not wrong, Caz, only human. If he wasn't on the lookout for a discarded scrap of cloth, he could be forgiven for not registering it in the middle of the road in reasonable light. The fact that the apron was, in fact, nestling on the floor of a recessed doorway, as Long walked past at 90º in the middle of the night, makes it rather remarkable that he spotted it at all. If he hadn't, it's conceivable that it could have remained undetected until the next day... and then where would we be?

[Sam Flynn]

However, we must always be willing to accept that when eighteen newspapers send their reporters to listen to a witness, and these eighteen are of the meaning that the witness said "inextricably", then we really should not worry all that much that the witness may actually have said "inexplicably" instead.

The phenomenon to which I'm referring, Fish - namely, the habit of the press to "roll up" and/or paraphrase testimony so as to make a neat paragraph - is rather different to mishearing what a witness said. The latter is relatively easy to unpick, even if it takes over a century (witness the Shelden discovery of Mrs Felix, as opposed to "Phœnix"), whereas the former can cause all kinds of problems. Whatever, we simply cannot treat newspaper précis as if they were definitive, verbatim records.

[harry]

There was a reason for taking the apron piece,and a reason for discarding it.If it was to connect the crime of killing Eddowes,then the intention to write a message preceeded the crime itself.If the placing of the apron piece was a thought originating at or after the writing of the message,then the reason for taking the apron piece ,in the first place,was What?

[GUT]

G'day Harry

The reason for discarding it could simply be that it had served it's purpose and safer to get rid of it than risk getting caught with it.

[Sam Flynn]

The reason for discarding it could simply be that it had served it's purpose and safer to get rid of it than risk getting caught with it.

Quite so, GUT. Whatever purpose it served, it was clearly an incriminating thing to be carrying around or to take "home". Another reason in favour of the idea that he discarded it as soon as possible.

[GUT]

G'day Sam

The big question with that is just how soon was possible.

If he had organs in it, he had to do something with those frst.

If it was merely to clean up then it would be quicker.

If he intended to leave a clue that would change the timing as well.

[Sam Flynn]

G'day GUT

If he had organs in it, he had to do something with those frst.

On the assumption that he only used the cloth to absorb any excess blood/fluid, the organs could have been "dry" enough to store in his pocket within 10 minutes of leaving Mitre Square.

If it was merely to clean up then it would be quicker.

About the same time (5 or 10 minutes of the murder), I'd have thought, if his hand(s) were "smeared over" with excrement - as per Eddowes' externalised viscera.

If he intended to leave a clue that would change the timing as well.

Again, it's possible that he could have made it to Goulston Street, dropped the apron and written the graffito all within 10 minutes of Eddowes' murder.

In short, I don't think that any of these scenarios can tell us much about the timing. I'd only observe that the "apron-and-graffito" scenario strikes me as by far the most risky.

[GUT]

G'day Sam

In short, I don't think that any of these scenarios can tell us much about the timing. I'd only observe that the "apron-and-graffito" scenario strikes me as by far the most risky.

No argument there.

The timing on the organs and hand cleaning is however dependant on a lot of variables just tqo:

The material the apron is made of.

The amount of soiling on his hands.

Unfortunately we just don't know about either of these.