Time-gap between Eddowes murder and Goulston Graffito

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn: Three things, Fish:

1. Press reports often used the same source, via press agencies and the like, for part or all of their articles. That being the case, they're sometimes not quite the "independent" sources we'd like.

... and that was the exact reason I took care to point out that they SHOULD be independent, since the corroboration would otherwise be imaginative in many a case.

2. We're still talking about summaries (some of them in prose) and not verbatim, stenographed transcripts of what was actually said.

Yep. And sometimes very much is condensed into very little. I know that full well. But I also know that when independent sources make the same call about what should go into the condensed versions, then we have good cause to rely on them to a significant degree.

3. Space was limited, deadlines had to be met, papers had to sell. All these factors combine to render press reports at times incomplete, misleading and error-prone in varying degrees.

I am in no way contesting that - it only takes a quick look at how the different sources give varying names and addresses many a time to realize that risks are involved. Then again, we owe our knowledge of the case to the papers to a very high degree, and this knowledge has been sifted through a filter of very critical people for many a decade. What is left is therefore more often than not reliable.

The real problems arise when cherrypicking becomes the order of the day; when reports that deviate are chosen because they seemingly fit a theory.
Then again, reports can deviate in many ways. If we, for example, take the Echo report that speaks of Robert Paul as "the other man, who went down Hanbury Street", then we have one single paper mentioning this.
Should we disbelieve it, since it is the sole source telling us this?
Not necessarily, no - since it is not in conflict with the other papers. They do not say anything at all about Paulīs movements. The only paper that points out a direction and movement of Robert Paul is the Echo.

Of course, whenever I mention this passage, I am myself accused of cherrypicking! And maybe thatīs as it should be - caution is healthy. But it deserves to be pointed out that the article potentially is the one that has the most quality built in, going that extra mile to explain more thoroughly what happened.

And this is the crucial thing - we must always judge each and every source on itīs own merits - and people will sometimes be around to imply less noble intentions when we do so...

Indeed, but we must be very, very careful before drawing any conclusions from them.

I donīt think we disagree on that point, Gareth. Not at all, in fact.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Scott Nelson]

... or a troll, perhaps?

Got any leprechauns in Malmo?

[Sam Flynn]

Then again, we owe our knowledge of the case to the papers to a very high degree, and this knowledge has been sifted through a filter of very critical people for many a decade. What is left is therefore more often than not reliable.

Not if there were gaps in the reportage to start with, Fish, or if an individual's utterances were "rolled up" into what appears to be dialogue, but wasn't. Sometimes what appears to be a direct quote turns out to be a prose summary. Such summaries collapse into one short paragraph what might have been several sentences exchanged between one or more participants. Of necessity words, even whole sentences, go missing or are otherwise distorted. When that happens, no amount of critical filtering can restore what was actually said.

[Fisherman]

Got any leprechauns in Malmo?

I wouldnīt know, Scott. I am so tall, that itīs hard to say from my lofty position.

And whenever I do catch a glimpse of the ground, itīs alway in Helsingborg, not Malmö...

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Not if there were gaps in the reportage to start with, Fish, or if an individual's utterances were "rolled up" into what appears to be dialogue, but wasn't. Sometimes what appears to be a direct quote turns out to be a prose summary. Such summaries collapse into one short paragraph what might have been several sentences exchanged between one or more participants. Of necessity words, even whole sentences, go missing or are otherwise distorted. When that happens, no amount of critical filtering can restore what was actually said.

And what does that insight and knowledge of yours tell us? Exactly - it tells us that you yourself belong to the filter I am speaking of.
You see, this is the very thing I am speaking of: a healthy cautiousness and an insight about the mechanisms involved will secure that make the best of the material we have. And people like yourself - and I would like to think me too - will be around to issue warnings when warnings are called for.

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.

We all use press coverage when trying to understand the case, and we all should do so. As long as we take good care and are aware of the risks, thatīs precisely as it should be.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Michael W Richards]

Im not sure that some people get the importance of this question as it relates to the possibility that the man who left the cloth also wrote the GSG.

IF he casually dropped it on his way at least semi-directly home from Mitre Square, then for me, it seems improbable that he would stop and write a message to go with the cloth. IF he did not, and came back out after up to 1 hour being off the streets, West or East of Mitre Square, then I would tend to associate the 2 items with one man, because it would be a deliberate act to place that cloth at that location, and I could see a message also being left in that type of scenario. To imagine that he happened to find a message that pertains to Jews when he went deliberately to that location is a little hard on the sensibilities.

So....although people would like to discount Longs "It was not", and oddly not Halse's "I didnt notice anything", the facts are that under oath he claimed to have looked at the spot where the cloth was found, by virtue of his adamant claim. Had he not noticed he could easily have said so, just like Halse.

Which brings up what I suggest....that it would appear that the cloth was deliberately placed at a predominantly Jewish occupied address, and a message...thought to be accusatory towards the Jews for something by the officials, at a time somewhere between 2:20am and almost 3am.

That raises the issue....if the message and the cloth are to accuse a group such as the local Jews, which of the 2 murders, at that point in time, do we know involved Jews at the location of the murder?

Hard to imagine that the Mitre Square man knew Lawende was Jewish, but even if so, what could he and his chums possibly be guilty of outside of Mitre Square?

I think this evidence leads one to suspect that the killer left the cloth to affirm his own involvement in the nights activities....in Mitre Square....and the message refers to Jews that were involved in some other activity that they should be blamed for.

To my mind that is perfectly understandable if written by someone who was antisemitic, knew of the people at 40 Berner Street, but had nothing to do personally with the crime there.

Hence,....2 killers on Double Event night.

Cheers

[harry]

Why would the killer need to stop after leaving the scene of the killing.The apron piece could have just been tossed into the doorway,after serving as a cloth to wipe the hands and knife.So how would any body parts have been carried.Well if it was a pre determined idea to take body parts,I suggest he would have used plain ordinary paper,easily obtainable,and a common means of wrapping in those days,and even in my younger days.

[GUT]

G'day Harry

He would have had to stop if he wrote the graffiti at the time.

[harry]

So a place to write a message,was a greater need than discarding the apron piece?

[GUT]

Simply "who knows what was in hs mind".

And even that presupposes that the two were connected.

[DRoy]

It was at the time believed the GSG was related and as much as I don't personally think it was, we have to give some credit to those on the ground.

The piece of apron was dropped there and there is no reason for the police to release that information if it was felt they shouldn't (for those supporters of Schwartz, you can't really have it both ways can you?). They did not have to release the address, it was no benefit at all to do so. Yet, the graffito being there in the same spot bothered them. If it was so important to remove the graffito before the locals started walking the streets, they could have erased it and not said anything about the apron. They obviously felt it was related.

Or did they think the graffito by itself without the apron piece in the same spot on the same day of the murder would be enough to cause havoc? This I would have an issue with because apparently there were lots of graffito especially written against the jews so what would make this more special or more alarming than the others?

My guess...although graffito might have been common, one mentioning jews (whether it could be understood or not) was enough on a night where two murders occurred to be erased. The cherry on top was the piece of apron being dropped in the same place.

I believe it was coincidence and perhaps unnecessary panic that caused them to believe it was written by the killer.

Cheers
DRoy

[caz]

Hi All,

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).

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I meant to add that if PC Long had been the most reliable, competent and experienced officer on that particular beat, he could still have been mistaken on this occasion as to where he had actually looked at 2.20. But that wouldn't tell us if the apron had been there or not.

On the other hand, if he knew perfectly well, when seeing the thing grinning up at him at 2.55, that he had checked that very spot previously and seen nothing of the kind, it would explain his confident statement.

So only two options: 1) the apron was not there at 2.20; 2) it may or may not have been.

The 'may have been there' relies entirely on questioning PC Long's reliability, and it still wouldn't get us any closer to 'was there' - or even 'was probably there'.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Hi All,

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).

Love,

Caz
X

Hi caz
good post. I totally agree. especially about the part that we just don't know whats going on in the killers own mind about why he might do something.

To me the simplist explanation is we should take the PC at his word and there is a time gap involved. there could be various reasons for the time gap but the most obvious to me is that went to find some chalk.

Also, part of the reasoning for the argument against the time gap is that the most likely explanation for cutting the apron was for the practical purpose of wiping his hands/knife and that when he was done he would just toss it away randomly. I have a hard time seeing that. The ripper was a lot of things but stupid is not one of them. If he needed to wipe his hands/knife he would have just done it on the apron then and there without cutting and taking it and risk being seen walking in public after two murders had just happened wiping blood off his hands/knife.

He took the time to cut that piece of apron and take it away with some greater purpose in mind.

[DRoy]

there could be various reasons for the time gap but the most obvious to me is that went to find some chalk.

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