The apron was dropped...

[miakaal4]

This has probably been well covered already, but it seems that the killer dropped Cate Eddows apron in front of the "JUWES" writing so that the police would see it. This allows me to ask your views on two things; 1. Could he have written the message BEFORE the murder? Perhaps writing on a wall after the balloon had gone up, so to speak was a bit risky? 2. If he wanted the police to read it, then there must be a cryptic message within? I cannot believe it was an antisemitic rant or a political statement.

[erobitha]

A question of logic here I believe.

1) If the graffito was already there and was as offensive to the local Jewish community as Sir Charles Warren believed, why was it not wiped away sooner by a local?
2) If the graffito was already there, why would the killer draw attention to it - what would be the motive?
3) If as many believe he wrote the graffito, what exactly was the message he was trying to convey? We will never know accurately thanks to Sir Charles Warren

I only found out recently (and someone correct me if I am wrong), is that Sir Charles Warren actually scrubbed the graffito from the wall himself, rather than barking orders at a minion to do it. A very odd thing for an ex-military man and highest ranking officer at the met to do at a crime scene (not technically a crime scene I concede - unless we class vandalism as a crime). It was the first scene he attended in connection to the C5 victims. He obviously thought what the message contained was so damaging to the local community that he wiped it off himself and refused to wait an hour for a photograph. He had no such social conscious awareness when overseeing the Trafalgar Square riots the previous November, known as 'Bloody Sunday'. Maybe old Charles grew one in between.

[miakaal4]

I too find it very odd that he should be so concerned about a few lines of graffiti. I believe the killer planned to take something away with him to lead the police to this message. And it seems Warren saw something that worried him a lot. Wiped off himself you say? A ex-General??

[erobitha]

Jump to the 31m mark of ‘The Secret Identity of Jack The Ripper’ where the claim was made Charles Warren rubbed the graffiti off the wall himself.

[Simon Wood]

Who made this nonsensical documentary? The Flower Pot Men and Little Weed?

[miakaal4]

Thanks! Watching whole thing. Something very dodgy about that graffiti.

[Takod]

I think it's far more likely that the officer wrote the graffiti and placed the bloody apron piece he had found under it. PC Long was dismissed the year after for being drunk on duty. The problem with the graffiti is that it is thoroughly meaningless, for in every circumstance we are guessing as to the meaning of the graffiti.

The important factor here is the apron itself, and not the message chalked nearby. If you're leaving Mitre Square, and you end up on Goulston Street, What and more importantly where are you heading towards?

[harry]

Around 1953/54,this message was written on a piece of wood.
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
If Lock don't get you
laker must
A man in charge directed this message be removed.
Now the message meant something,and cricket buffs will know the answer.Not however the reason it was removed.
My point being,that whoever wrote the Goulston graffito,knew who would decipher it,and it wasn't the authorities.
I personly do not believe the graffito has anything to do with Eddowes murder.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Who made this nonsensical documentary? The Flower Pot Men and Little Weed?

I didn't fancy losing an hour and a half, I just jumped to the end. It was the barber what done it.

[erobitha]

I’m surprised some of you have never even seen this documentary. One of the first things I did was devour as much documentary style content as possible. Some of it like this will appear very dated but it did contain contributions from esteemed experts like Donald Rumbelow, Melvin Harris, Martin Fido and others.
I suppose when you are a well read academic, it’s easy to sneer at such lame attempts in pop culture to understand the complex case of Jack into a digestible chunk of TV content. Some ‘facts‘ have since been dismissed but it was 30 years ago.
It’s on this documentary John Douglas of the FBI also revealed his criminal profile of Jack which some find has some value.
I encourage all newcomers to digest as much information as you can from all sources you can. Rely on your own instincts and sense of logic and reason to guide you. Don’t let any of the abundant elitist snobbery on here influence you. This subject needs fresh eyes and fresh thinking. Many in the above documentary are now dead. Many on here soon will be too.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Quite right you are Erobitha.

[Michael W Richards]

I believe that the GSG was intended to direct attention to the Berner St Mens Club, and maybe a shot at immigrant Jews in general. I also believe that the person who wrote it didnt kill Liz Stride, but its probable he did kill Kate. The message is either there when Kates killer arrives...in which case he punctuates the GSG with the cloth to be a signatory of the petition against the Jews, or the man that killed Kate was distancing himself from the murder on Berner Street..which he could have heard about on the streets in the 70 odd minutes between leaving the square and when the GSG and section are found. In either case, I would agree with the officers conclusion that it was Anti-Semitic at its core.

[Wickerman]

....

I personly do not believe the graffito has anything to do with Eddowes murder.

Or that of Stride

[Sunny Delight]

The Goulston Grafitti is not important in my opinion. Since we have no idea who the Ripper it is nonsensical to put forward an explaination. It would solve nothing nor would it even confirm if the killer was a Jew or not. It is clear that the most important aspect was the recovery of the apron. Why the killer took it we don't know but we do know two things:

- The killer was heading back into the heart of Whitechapel from Mitre Square. This makes it seem highly likely the killer was a local Whitechapel resident. The apron is the most important clue in the whole case.

- The killer was incredibly reckless. This piece of apron was very large and not easily consealable. To carry it such a distance after a murder was ill considered and when one considers Stride's body had already been found he was extremely lucky not to have been caught.

I often have thought did something spook him into discarding it. For instance did he hear whistles of Police in the distance? That is my own speculation. The Graffiti to me is a red herring- worthless and a diversion. The key question should be: where was the killer going and did anyone see him?

[miakaal4]

The graffiti on the wall was a personal message to Commissioner Warren. The JUWES are the 3 ruffians, or assassins of Hiram Abiff who was the first master mason, building, would you believe, the Temple of Solomon. It seems old Abiff was a keeper of secrets, and the three killers wanted to know them. Their names were, Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum, hence 3 Juwes. Oddly, in defence of Warren erasing the graffiti, it has been said that he would have not known the term. It was rarely used and quite recent. I think that is false. He was a high ranking member of the FreeMasons and would have almost certainly recognised it immediately. He erased it because he knew at that moment JtR would be a high ranking member of the FM like him, and the message was telling him to back off. Of course the next we know he resigns. He can not bring a "brother" down, not another mason. So he gets out.He could probably tell, the whole killing of Eddowes was a ritual. not random, not mad. And the ripper took the chalk along with the knife planning already what to write. The apron was a marker.