Time-gap between Eddowes murder and Goulston Graffito

[Hunter]

And yet Baxter thought Stride might be a victim of the same person who killed Nichols and Chapman while putting Eddowes off as the work of an imitator. Baxter's sense of what was done or even how it was done was skewed by the corner he had painted himself into.

[harry]

Thanks for your kind comments Dave.Perhaps some may think I take a too simplistic view of events.My opininion is that the apron piece was nothing more than a wiping rag,discarded at Wentworth building,soon after the killimg in Mitre square took place,and it is the only piece of evidence that ties that building to the crime.

[Monty]

I thought the 'true story' was that Halse took the apron piece and placed it in Goulston Street himself? No doubt he did this at the same time that Amos Simpson was lifting Eddowes' bloody shawl. Monty's right, the City and Met police could work together in harmony when needed. And all this only to have John Kelly pilfer through her hat for loose change.

While I don't agree with Sam on this matter, what he says is plausible, which as you can see is not the case for many theorists. Is Sam leading the truth astray? Considering his version might actually BE the truth, I'd have to say no.

But of course the conclusion that either or both Halse or Long were either mistaken or lying is supposition. The actual facts as they are have the killer leaving Mitre Square for parts unknown and emerging later to make his way through Goulston Street. But a list of facts, if not complete, will not necessarily lead to the truth. So, my personal opinion is that Sam's version (which is agreed upon by many of the most knowledgeable among us) is the second most likely.

But it does irk me a bit that even the most ardent of police apologists, who otherwise espouse the view that the police could and would do no wrong, conveniently accuse them of mistakes or dishonesty when a certain set of facts emerge that prove inconvenient for their cozy and simple 'an unknown local Joe Blow did it' theory. Their arguments requires such a weighty amount of 'coincidence' in order to stay afloat that it sinks under the weight of itself.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Using my name in vain Tom?

Tsk tsk,

Most of the cops in the Buck's Row case fibbed a bit. But not about finding evidence.

Now you have my attention, enlighten me.


Can I ask a question? Are we stating Long looked into every doorway on every pass?

Monty

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn:

Halse would have been infinitely more "switched on", that's for sure.

It seems a very safe bet, yes! But would it have improved on his chances of noticing the apron? You see, Gareth, THAT is the question we need to focus on.

Long was doing his rounds, over and over, and it would probably have been unglamorous routine work. But let´s not loose track of the fact that this very routine work was what secured the rag at 2.55! Clearly, dreary routine work WOULD do the trick.

And Halse? Well, he went from HIS routine work, to getting his senses alerted when finding out about the Mitre Square murder up at Aldgate. After that, it would have been full speed ahead.
Sadly, that would not mean that Halse was able to focus on all parameters simultaneously.
To start off, what Halse did was to haste through the streets. Compare that to Longs way of pacing the streets at a measured rate, affording him the time to methodically scan the doorways he passed.

Halse? Swoosh, this street´s empty, let´s turn into the next one, and ... Hello, there´s somebody up at that corner! Sir, can I have a word with you, please!!
Would Halse check doorways as he approached a man he wanted to ask about who he was, what he had seen, heard ...
I don´t think so. The task rules the focus. A sprinter only sees the goalline a hundred meters away. After finishing, he won´t be able to say what the spectators along the dash looked like, he won´t have checked the weather etcetera.
He will be extremely alerted by the situation, but his main focus will suck up all that attention.

So, it's possible - probable? - that Halse's angle of approach to Wentworth Model Dwellings wasn't the same as Long's, and that their sight-lines were rather different.

Arguably, yes! There would have been differences.
I think the first safe bet we can make is that Halse would not have gone into the doorways, since he was hasting along, looking for people.
Long, on the other hand, may well have done so, not least since these were recessed doorways, and getting a good look into them would require such a thing. Other doors cuold have been quicker to check.
That´s not to say that Long DID step into these doorways. But it is to say that one of the two men did, then it was Long. It was a clearly defined duty of his to check doors along his rounds, while the duty Halse was on as he hurried through Goulston Street was to see what people moved on the streets close to Mitre Square, and to ask them why they were there and what they had seen.
Long is the far more likely man to find the apron for that reason. And we are sure that the attention level he represented and the manner in which he did his job DID produce the rag at 2.55.

Not checked the doorways, Fish, but at least glanced at one or two along the way, as Halse looked for possible fugitives from Mitre Square. As opposed to thinking about putting his feet up by a warm fire and drinking a nice cup of tea, for example.

Even if Halse did glance once or twice into recesses and doorways as he hurried along, Gareth, he would have been looking for people, not rags!

A rag as such must have been a rather uninteresting item to coppers walking their beats, would it not? Litter, pure and simple. Garbage.

And Halse was not on the prowl for garbage, was he?

If there had been a knife laying about in a doorway, then Halse would have been extremely unlikely to run past it - if he saw it. He would immediately pounce on it, on account of his knowledge that a woman had been cut to shreds minutes before.

But if he was in a great haste, it´s anything but certain that he would even have seen a knife, if it was lying in the darkness in a dark recess.

If it had been more out in the open and easy to see, he would be much more likely to pick up on it.

And all of this says something about the rag too. Halse never saw it in place. What knowledge he had about the position of the rag in the doorway, he would have aquired from colleagues, possibly Long himself, who told Halse that the rag was inside the doorway but not hidden from sight to those who passed in the street.
From this he concluded that he could have missed it, rushing along, looking for people. At any rate, he did not notice it, and admitted that he should not necessarily have done so, and I believe that this owes to a combination of his haste and focus on other matters, and the rag not lying in a place where it was very easy to discern.

Long DID discern it at 2.55, however, proving to us that he had a focus and a methodology that secured this. If the rag was just something that looked like litter in the darkness, and if Long did not step into the recessed doorway to check it out further, then he would not appreciate it´s importance on either round, not 2.20, and not 2.55. He would just trot along.

But he did not do so at 2.55. We may therefore conclude that at this stage, it applies that either:

A/ Long did check the doorway by stepping into it and taking a look around, only then realizing that the rag had blood on it, or

B/ It was easy enough to see from the street that the rag was bloodied, and that was what made Long step into that particular doorway.

So either Long searched these doorways as a matter of routine and found the rag in consequence - in which case he should have done so at 2.20 too, if it was there. This would explain why he was certain about it not having been there at 2.20 as he testified at the inquest.

Or also the rag was easy enough to see where it lay, and the only way to avoid seeing it would be if Long did not glance in that direction at 2.20 (which would parallel Halse hasting along with his focus elsewhere, by the way). And if it was easy enough to see, and if Long looked into doorways as he passed outside in the street, then it would have been equally easy to see at 2.20 as it was at 2.55, meaning that Long could be certain that it was not there at 2.20 as he testified at the inquest.

So there we are, back to square one: If the rag was there at 2.20, and if Long missed it, then he did his job differently at that stage as opposed to how he did it at 2.55!
And since I agree with you that the job would have been very much governed by routine, I think that the best guess is that he did his job in just about the same way on every round.
Furthermore, if he did NOT do so, but instead failed to check the doorway at 2.20, then he was also misleading the inquest by stating with certainty that the rag was not there at the early stage.

It is a far more complex suggestion, it goes against the evidence and it involves a lying PC, whereas my favoured suggestion is quite simple, moves with the evidence and has the PC telling things as they were.

Not that it will put an end to the discussion and the speculations - but it really ought to...

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Most of the cops in the Buck's Row case fibbed a bit. But not about finding evidence.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Haha! Well, I was just teasing you a bit, Tom. It´s a hard thing to defend the constabulary from suggestions of foul play in one case, if you suggest the exact same in other one...!

By and large, I think we need to accept the bids of the PC:s, as long as we cannot prove them wrong. And there are issues like the cape thing and Thain, that tell us that we need to stay alert, that´s true enough.

At the end of the day, I second your impression that conjecture that produces the "right" answer is sometimes allowed to trump basic facts.

All the best,
Fisherman

[lynn cates]

Baxter

Hello Cris. Thanks.

Yes, that is Baxter in a nutshell.

Regarding Kate, I think the bottom line involves the cuts. Wish we could have seen them, then we could judge cutting skills for ourselves.

Cheers.
LC

[Abby Normal]

Sam Flynn:

Not wrong, Caz, only human.

Ah - so he was NOT wrong?

Or is it supehuman to be able to do at 2.20 what you can do at 2.55...?

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.

Yes, but not for stating with certainty that it was not there, right?

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.

Even at 2.55 ...?

Come on, Gareth - Long was up to standards at 2.55 - what tells you he was NOT at 2.20?

The best,
Fisherman

exactly fish.
ive been trying to make this point also. why cant people on here understand this point? its not that subtle a point is it?

he didn't miss it at 2:55, so why would he miss it a 30 minutes earlier?

[Michael W Richards]

Using my name in vain Tom?

Tsk tsk,



Now you have my attention, enlighten me.


Can I ask a question? Are we stating Long looked into every doorway on every pass?

Monty

I can answer that from my own point of view Monty,....no. I dont expect that as he walked he viewed every inch of pavement either. I do recognize the very real difference in the phrase "was not", and "might have been", "cannot be sure", "may have been", "didnt notice anything",....and on.

Thats the crux, his choice of words that seemingly confirmed he did look in that doorway and he didnt see any cloth at 2:20ish.

Cheers

[Fisherman]

exactly fish.
ive been trying to make this point also. why cant people on here understand this point? its not that subtle a point is it?

he didn't miss it at 2:55, so why would he miss it a 30 minutes earlier?

I don´t think that anybody is having any real trouble seeing the relevance of the argument as such, Abby. It´s just that it sits very awkwardly with many people´s thoughts and perceptions, and so they seducingly whisper in each other´s ears: "It´s more probable that the apron was discarded directly after the hit, it´s more probable that he went straight home, it´s more probable that Long was mistaken, it´s more probable that Long was a no good liar, it´s more probable ...", while in fact it is not more probable at all, not in any of the cases.

I think Tom Wescott put it fair and square: The idea that Long was wrong about the apron is the next best suggestion. The question "What if Long was wrong?" must of course be asked and explored. It´s the nigh on universal agreement that he in all probability WAS wrong that nags me. We really cannot go there emptyhanded evidencewise.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

I don´t think that anybody is having any real trouble seeing the relevance of the argument as such, Abby. It´s just that it sits very awkwardly with many people´s thoughts and perceptions, and so they seducingly whisper in each other´s ears: "It´s more probable that the apron was discarded directly after the hit, it´s more probable that he went straight home, it´s more probable that Long was mistaken, it´s more probable that Long was a no good liar, it´s more probable ...", while in fact it is not more probable at all, not in any of the cases.

Not so, Fish. It's much more improbable that the killer would want to keep an incriminating piece of evidence on his person for any prolonged period of time.

Oh, and nobody's saying that Long was a liar, or that he was mistaken... at least, I'm not

[Sam Flynn]

Thats the crux, his choice of words that seemingly confirmed he did look in that doorway and he didnt see any cloth at 2:20ish.

His choice of words only supports the latter half of your assertion, Mike - namely, that Long didn't see it. There's nothing in his statement, or in the press, that suggests that he actually looked into the building at that time.

[Sam Flynn]

exactly fish.
ive been trying to make this point also. why cant people on here understand this point? its not that subtle a point is it?

he didn't miss it at 2:55, so why would he miss it a 30 minutes earlier?

How often do we miss seeing something the first time round in real life, only to find it was there all the time? Answer: Rather often.

Perception requires a number of factors to be present - attention, motivation etc - before a stimulus registers. Our brains can process only a tiny fraction of the stimuli that impinge on our senses, and much that the eyes and ears detect doesn't become a conscious percept at all.

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn: Not so, Fish. It's much more improbable that the killer would want to keep an incriminating piece of evidence on his person for any prolonged period of time.

Improbable? Perhaps so - but it would depend on circumstances that we know nothing about.

Oh, and nobody's saying that Long was a liar, or that he was mistaken... at least, I'm not

That´s just because you do not acknowledge that Long was certain in his statement, Gareth - and that´s where you are demonstrably wrong, I´m afraid.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

His choice of words only supports the latter half of your assertion, Mike - namely, that Long didn't see it. There's nothing in his statement, or in the press, that suggests that he actually looked into the building at that time.

See what I mean?

Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Even if Halse did glance once or twice into recesses and doorways as he hurried along, Gareth, he would have been looking for people, not rags! And Halse was not on the prowl for garbage, was he?

Neither was Long. That's the point. If it ain't particularly interesting, chances are that it ain't guaranteed to register.