Time-gap between Eddowes murder and Goulston Graffito

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Christer

Chapmans belongings, as found on her person on the murder day, were described as:

Long black figured coat that came down to her knees.
Black skirt
Brown bodice
Another bodice
2 petticoats
A large pocket worn under the skirt and tied about the waist with strings (empty when found)
Lace up boots
Red and white striped woolen stockings
Neckerchief, white with a wide red border
Scrap of muslin
One small tooth comb
One comb in a paper case
Scrap of envelope she had taken form the mantelpiece of the kitchen containing two pills.

And presumably half an apron?

All the best

Dave

[Abby Normal]

Not as far as I see it, Fish. Ooze from a cut hand would soak right into the material and dry out in much the same way as blood from any other source. Perhaps more so, if that part of the apron in contact with the wound had been tightly bound and/or gripped so as to help staunch the flow of blood.

"Wet with blood" signifies comparatively fresh blood to me, not blood that had been on the surface of an absorbent cloth for an hour or longer.

They should have said dry with blood. JK. ; )

But seriously what is your point? That they misspoke? That it must have been in contact with blood much sooner than the hour interval?

I'm confused by what you are actually trying to get at.

[Fisherman]

Hello Fisherman,

With a room full I think the smell would make it more than apparent :-). I have rather a lot on just now, but when I find the book I am thinking of I will let you know. Could well be that you are right even if I do remember it slightly differently.

Best wishes,
C4

Okay, Curious - If you find it, let me know.

The best,
Fisherman

[curious4]

Smell

Hello Fisherman,

With a room full I think the smell would make it more than apparent :-). I have rather a lot on just now, but when I find the book I am thinking of I will let you know. Could well be that you are right even if I do remember it slightly differently.

Best wishes,
C4

[Fisherman]

Hello Fisherman,

Spotted with blood doesn't tell us exactly how much it was spotted - the whole piece could have had spots of blood all over it :-). However, "apparently fecal matter" suggests to me that there was not much - had there been more of it there would have been no doubt!

Your quote doesn't exactly match the one I was thinking of. I will try to locate it.

Best wishes,
C4

Both substances were there to "some" extent. The definition is the exact same in both cases. So that cannot be used as a means to decide which substance there was most of.

And if we fill a room with fecal matter, and open the door, and somebody says "thatīs apparently fecal matter", then it wonīt go to show that there is only little of it.
Brown expresses no uncertainty about the substance since there was very little of it - he is unsure that it really IS fecal matter, although it certainly seems so to him. I donīt know if they had the technology to decide such a a thing, or if they just opted for feces being the only reasonable solution. They could not tell the difference inbetween animal blood and human ditto, so ...

In conclusion - none of the Brown quotes tells us if there were more blood than feces, or vice versa. Itīs Long that helps out on that score.

I will be interested in that quote, if you can find it - I felt sure that it was Brownīs words you alluded to.

The best,
Fisherman

[curious4]

Spots

It will all depend on what part of the apron you are commenting on, Curious. Have a look at what Brown says at the inquest, talking to Crawford:

Mr Crawford:
-Could you say whether the blood spots on the piece of apron produced were of recent origin?
Dr Brown:
-They are of recent origin ... On the piece of apron brought on there were smears of blood on one side as if a hand or a knife had been wiped on it."

You will note that nothing is said about the corner of the apron, the part that had been soaked in blood and was wet when Long found it. Thatīs because Crawford leads the discussion to the smears of blood on the apron only. Nothing is said about the feces either, although we know that was there too!

Earlier on, the quotation you are looking for on behalf of Brown goes:

"I fitted the piece of apron which had a new piece of material on it which had been evidently sewn on to the piece I have. The seams of the borders of the two actually corresponding - some blood and apparently faecal matter was found on the portion found in Goulstone Street".

So here nothing is said about "spots" of blood - that (or rather "smears") belongs to the part I quoted first. When Brown speaks about the blood first time over, he only says "some blood and apparently faecal matter" was there, and he does not qualify how much there was of either substance.

Longīs testimony in the Home Office report is therefore very useful - a week after he had found the rag, he described it as covered in blood. Not spotted with blood, not speckled - covered in blood.

Taken together with the corroboration built into the statements about one portion being wet with blood, we get a picture that does not tell us that there were a few dried spots of blood on the apron and nothing more.

All the best,
Fisherman

Hello Fisherman,

Spotted with blood doesn't tell us exactly how much it was spotted - the whole piece could have had spots of blood all over it :-). However, "apparently fecal matter" suggests to me that there was not much - had there been more of it there would have been no doubt!

Your quote doesn't exactly match the one I was thinking of. I will try to locate it.

Best wishes,
C4

[Fisherman]

Hello Fisherman,

Can't lay my hands on the exact book just now, but the doctor who examined the piece of apron confirmed that it was part of Kate's apron, lining up the seams on the mended part and described it as "spotted with blood and something which may have been fecal matter" - quoting from memory. Not covered as in soaked, but covered in spots of blood.

Best wishes,
C4

It will all depend on what part of the apron you are commenting on, Curious. Have a look at what Brown says at the inquest, talking to Crawford:

Mr Crawford:
-Could you say whether the blood spots on the piece of apron produced were of recent origin?
Dr Brown:
-They are of recent origin ... On the piece of apron brought on there were smears of blood on one side as if a hand or a knife had been wiped on it."

You will note that nothing is said about the corner of the apron, the part that had been soaked in blood and was wet when Long found it. Thatīs because Crawford leads the discussion to the smears of blood on the apron only. Nothing is said about the feces either, although we know that was there too!

Earlier on, the quotation you are looking for on behalf of Brown goes:

"I fitted the piece of apron which had a new piece of material on it which had been evidently sewn on to the piece I have. The seams of the borders of the two actually corresponding - some blood and apparently faecal matter was found on the portion found in Goulstone Street".

So here nothing is said about "spots" of blood - that (or rather "smears") belongs to the part I quoted first. When Brown speaks about the blood first time over, he only says "some blood and apparently faecal matter" was there, and he does not qualify how much there was of either substance.

Longīs testimony in the Home Office report is therefore very useful - a week after he had found the rag, he described it as covered in blood. Not spotted with blood, not speckled - covered in blood.

Taken together with the corroboration built into the statements about one portion being wet with blood, we get a picture that does not tell us that there were a few dried spots of blood on the apron and nothing more.

All the best,
Fisherman

[curious4]

Spotted with blood

Hello Fisherman,

Can't lay my hands on the exact book just now, but the doctor who examined the piece of apron confirmed that it was part of Kate's apron, lining up the seams on the mended part and described it as "spotted with blood and something which may have been fecal matter" - quoting from memory. Not covered as in soaked, but covered in spots of blood.

Best wishes,
C4

[Fisherman]

Now shake hands and have done with it.

Iīd shake Gareths hand any day in the week, and take pride in it.

Sadly, that will not make the apron any drier. It WAS wet with blood, and there WAS a reason for it. And that reason was not rainwater - the rag, as you will see in my posts, was described by Long as "covered in blood". That goes some way, I think, to tell us what it looked like when found.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

See my last post (about keeping the bandage moving) for that one.Not "dry" as in bone-dry, but certainly with the blood soaked in, diffused, getting ever stickier; basically drying out. Damp at best, but not "wet with blood" by any means.

Yes, the blood will soak into the cloth. But no, that wonīt produce dry blood. Least of all if you bleed into the rag up til the point you discard it.
Itīs the same thing with water: pour a glass of it on a piece of cloth and it will soak in. Then wring the cloth and see what happens. Is it dry?

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn: For that blood to have still been wet when Long arrived, Jack must have delayed applying the bandage for some considerable time.

Not at all. Wet is wet. The blood was not dry. It is all up to how much and how long the killer bled, in this hypothetical scenario.

If the wound was so bad that it could literally soak a portion of the apron, I would have expected Jack to have applied the bandage as soon as possible...

Letīs face it, Gareth - if the killer did cut away the apron piece with the aim to use it as a bandage, it seems very improbable that he started out by shoving it in his pocket, thinking "in fifteen minutes, Iīll apply it, but not before!"
If it was cut away to serve as a bandage, the we can be reasonably certain that it was applied at once after he cut it away.

...and to keep the bandage moving as parts of it got too soaked to be useful.

Think of it this way: That bandage would have served two purposes - partly to try and stem the bleeding, but also to try and stop the blood from forming a trail that anybody - like for example the police - could follow. Therefore, if he did it the way people normally do (grab on to a corner of the rag with your damaged hand, allowing the cloth to cover the wound), then wrap the cloth around the hand, so that it encloses, layer for layer, the hand. Then grab hold of the opposite corner to the one that is place over the wound, and hold on - voėla!
Now, no matter if he bled heavily or mildly, he would have every reason in the world to keep that blood as far away from the surface of the rag as possible. He would not move it around, looking for drier patches, since he would risk to bleed on the street.

I would thus have expected to have seen several patches of soaked-in blood all over the apron, as opposed to mere smears and a solitary wet corner.

And I would not.

However, I think we need to aquaint ourselves with what Long said about the apron, since it is often hinted at that it could have been rainwater in puddles that made the rag wet.

It was not. It was blood.

Long in his report, stamped HOME OFFICE 6 NOV. 88 RACd DEPt.

"I was on duty in Goulston Street on the morning of the 30th Sept: at about 2.55 A.M. I found a portion of an apron covered in blood lying in the passage of the door-way leading to NOs.108 to 119 Model Dwellings in Goulston Street."

There we are - we are not dealing with just a little blood, but instead a substantial amount of it.

Now, make the assumption that a person has wrapped a large piece of cloth around a cut hand, bleeding into it. Further assume that he takes the cloth off his hand and drops it on the ground.

How will it end up?

Well, if you unroll that cloth, layer by layer, then the cloth will hang from damaged hand, further and further down with every layer you unroll. And the last piece to leave the hand will be the one that you have had at the innermost place, covering the wound and getting wet with blood. It will fall towards the ground OVER the rest of the cloth and land on top of it. Therefore, the bloodied part will end up on display at the top of the pile, forming - perhaps - the impression that the piece of cloth is "covered in blood".

All the best,
Fisherman

[curious4]

Wet?

Hows about a compromise gentlemen.

The (extra) bloody corner had congealed to some extent due to time, but as the piece of apron was on the ground at the entrance to the building, and in contact to some extent with wet pavement, a portion of the apron became wet with rain, the bloody corner?

Now shake hands and have done with it.

Wet, with blood? :-)

C4

[Wickerman]

See my last post (about keeping the bandage moving) for that one.Not "dry" as in bone-dry, but certainly with the blood soaked in, diffused, getting ever stickier; basically drying out. Damp at best, but not "wet with blood" by any means.

Hows about a compromise gentlemen.

The (extra) bloody corner had congealed to some extent due to time, but as the piece of apron was on the ground at the entrance to the building, and in contact to some extent with wet pavement, a portion of the apron became wet with rain, the bloody corner?

Now shake hands and have done with it.

[Sam Flynn]

You are now arguing that if the killer bandaged himself and bled into the apron for more than half an hour

See my last post (about keeping the bandage moving) for that one.

then that would produce a dry apron.

Not "dry" as in bone-dry, but certainly with the blood soaked in, diffused, getting ever stickier; basically drying out. Damp at best, but not "wet with blood" by any means.

[Sam Flynn]

Therefore, the guess that the killer had cut himself and used the apron as a makeshift bandage has everything going for it - especially since it would fit in nicely with Longīs observation that the apron was not in place at 2.20.

For that blood to have still been wet when Long arrived, Jack must have delayed applying the bandage for some considerable time. If the wound was so bad that it could literally soak a portion of the apron, I would have expected Jack to have applied the bandage as soon as possible... and to keep the bandage moving as parts of it got too soaked to be useful. I would thus have expected to have seen several patches of soaked-in blood all over the apron, as opposed to mere smears and a solitary wet corner.