our killer been local

[Tom_Wescott]

Are you referring to Warren being questioned/reprimanded over his article in Murray's Magazine?

No, I'm referring to the reports and statements present in 'Ultimate' in November regarding Warren's actions relating to the graffiti. Like Monty, I don't believe that Warren's hand was forced for any one thing. But I'm not comfortable at all with the notion that everything was peachy until he wrote an article for a magazine. That's more official propaganda than anything.

I know from an occasional exchange on Casebook that some are under the impression that Warren misrepresented the location of the Grafitti in order to try save his job?

I've never heard this before and am not part of this camp.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Fleetwood Mac]

B) The apron was placed there after any contents had been disposed of somewhere else close by...making him a local

That doesn't follow either.

Local or otherwise, in order for Jack to place the apron there after 2.20am then either he was cornered somewhere and unable to make a retreat or he was a risk taker in the extreme. I doubt you'll find many serial killers who hang around immediately after a murder. Yes, some will return to the scene of the crime, granted, but will they loiter at the scene of the crime when the police are crawling around the place immediately after the murder?

If he was cornered and unable to make a retreat until someone or something was out of the way, then this does not suggest he was probably local. If he was a risk taker in the extreme and loitered in the area when he had the choice to not do so, then this doesn't make it more probable that he was local either. It simply gives you an indicator of a blocked escape route or his frame of mind.

Whether he was local or otherwise, it doesn't follow that one or the other made him more likely to hang around. If you wanted to, you could argue that the police were more likely to stop someone local and known to the police for anti-social activities, and investigate him more thoroughly, than they were a non local man with no information on him to warrant a serious look at him.

[Errata]

Hi Harry,

First off Long didnt miss seeing the apron on his first pass by, using his own words, "It was not there". That implies he looked at that spot.

A delay in placing the apron would mean that A) The killer loitered in the shadows for over an hour after killing someone.... with bloodied evidence of that murder on his person....unlikely, or B) The apron was placed there after any contents had been disposed of somewhere else close by...making him a local, or C) it was placed there by the police after being taken from Mitre Square....unlikely, or D) it was placed there to accentuate and validate the author of the message above it...possible.

The crux of Longs statement is that he looked in the area where he eventually found the apron when he first passed the entranceway and didnt see the apron....which means it was placed there by someone after that. It wasnt dropped as he made his way from directly from the murder.

Which means it is not specifically an indicator that the killer lived in that immediate area around Goulston....but probably within a short distance away.

Cheers

There is another possibility. The killer got caught somewhere, thinking he had more time than he had.

Let's say he ducked in an alley and started wiping blood off his face and hands, left to go home and saw a patrolman. He reverses course, walks for awhile, sees another patrolman. Maybe he assumed he had 15 minutes before she was found instead of 5. Cleaning up would be necessary to his not being caught, but they found her too early and he got caught between patrols. So he ambles through the neighborhood, ditching the bloody cloth in a stairwell after the patrolman moves on, waiting for a hole he can slip through. Which isn't hard, just requires some time to see the general pattern of the police. So hes not hanging out, he's looking for a way out that will not result in confrontation. Which would suggest he wasn't from the neighborhood, since I imagine any combination of alleys would get him out unseen. But if he didn't know those alleys, and needed one of the major streets, he needed to see where patrols overlapped so he didn't get stopped. It actually wouldn't surprise me if he was shadowing Long, ditched the cloth after he passed, and watching him check in, which would have been his best shot at getting out of the neighborhood.

[Michael W Richards]

Cannot understand what relation the apron makes in deciding whether the Ripper was local or not.Except that if the murderer visited some time after the murder,it might suggest he either hung around while a search was mounted,a risky thing to do,more so if there was a distance to travel home,or he lived local and had time to go home before venturing out again.My opinion is that Long,whether good or bad policeman,told a story of the apron piece not being there when it was.Did it matter?How would it have helped if the Apron piece had been found ten minutes or so after the body was discovered?Still plenty of time,under the conditions,for the murderer to get clear or get home.

Hi Harry,

First off Long didnt miss seeing the apron on his first pass by, using his own words, "It was not there". That implies he looked at that spot.

A delay in placing the apron would mean that A) The killer loitered in the shadows for over an hour after killing someone.... with bloodied evidence of that murder on his person....unlikely, or B) The apron was placed there after any contents had been disposed of somewhere else close by...making him a local, or C) it was placed there by the police after being taken from Mitre Square....unlikely, or D) it was placed there to accentuate and validate the author of the message above it...possible.

The crux of Longs statement is that he looked in the area where he eventually found the apron when he first passed the entranceway and didnt see the apron....which means it was placed there by someone after that. It wasnt dropped as he made his way from directly from the murder.

Which means it is not specifically an indicator that the killer lived in that immediate area around Goulston....but probably within a short distance away.

Cheers

[Monty]

Yes Jon,

Pure fantasy.

Warren tried to restructure a force which he felt was his right to do and what he was brought in to do after the poor end of Henderson, however some disagreed.

As I said, his resignation goes far deeper that the Ripper case. In fact, in a way, the issues can be traced back to Peels creation of the force and the British peoples perception of them, which stands to this day.

Monty

[Wickerman]

Anderson, a barrister, and Smith purely criticise from an investigatory point of view, and not a policing one. Warrens resignation, and fall out, went far deeper than the murders and the erasure of the writing.

Thankyou Neil.

It might be interesting to have a thread on this issue because I know from an occasional exchange on Casebook that some are under the impression that Warren misrepresented the location of the Grafitti in order to try save his job?

Never heard such bumf...

[Phil Carter]

As for the clarity of the message, because.........erased the message before photographing it, we don't actually know what it said.

Hello Tom,

Fair point indeed. And that there are various, up to 8, I believe, (somewhere else someone listed them all, if I recall correctly) "versions" of the message, one official even stating the writing was blurred! (Swanson), doesn't exactly help the situation at all.

Phil

[Graham]

Warren was being hounded by the popular press long before the Ripper Crimes, largely because of his perceived poor handling of various working-class demonstrations, culminating in the Bloody Sunday riot of November 1887. He was indeed criticised with regard to what was popularly perceived as police ineptitude concerning the Ripper Murders, but not hounded as some people think, and he resigned actually on 9 November 1888, the day Mary Jane Kelly's murder was discovered. However, a quick read of the literature shows that his resignation was little to do with the Ripper, and much more to do with an ongoing disagreement between the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police. He certainly projected an image of general incompetence, apart from his fights with his superiors. I don't think his removal of the Graffito had anything to do with his decision to resign.

Graham

[Cogidubnus]

Thanks Tom

Warren's resignation certainly seems to have been quite precipitate, but what interested me was exactly what it could be linked to...it's always been my impression that perhaps there were a number of factors involved - that Warren was so harried that he felt had no alternative...so perhaps this is one such factor

All the best

Dave

[Damaso Marte]

Cannot understand what relation the apron makes in deciding whether the Ripper was local or not.Except that if the murderer visited some time after the murder,it might suggest he either hung around while a search was mounted,a risky thing to do,more so if there was a distance to travel home,or he lived local and had time to go home before venturing out again.My opinion is that Long,whether good or bad policeman,told a story of the apron piece not being there when it was.Did it matter?How would it have helped if the Apron piece had been found ten minutes or so after the body was discovered?Still plenty of time,under the conditions,for the murderer to get clear or get home.

Canonically, the apron stands for the idea that the killer was a local because he fled into Whitechapel. If you believe the apron was placed there by the killer - regardless of when you believe this happened - then you're looking at either a local or somebody who was lodging in Whitechapel.

[harry]

Cannot understand what relation the apron makes in deciding whether the Ripper was local or not.Except that if the murderer visited some time after the murder,it might suggest he either hung around while a search was mounted,a risky thing to do,more so if there was a distance to travel home,or he lived local and had time to go home before venturing out again.My opinion is that Long,whether good or bad policeman,told a story of the apron piece not being there when it was.Did it matter?How would it have helped if the Apron piece had been found ten minutes or so after the body was discovered?Still plenty of time,under the conditions,for the murderer to get clear or get home.

[Fisherman]

According to you, Fisherman, Cross deliberately attempted to mislead the police as to his identity by means of giving them his address and a surname he had used at times. What you've done here is: a) defied logic and b) arrived at a conclusion that can just as easily be defined as 'understanding Jack's psyche' as any other/anyone else's statement of opinion.

So more of the antagonistic stuff, Fleetwood? Alright. But you aregoing to have to explain a thing or two to me, and YOU will be resonsible for the Lechmere discussion, not me.

1. Why does it defy logic to say that using a false name is misleading the police?
2. What I am doing is not laying down what happened. I am suggesting what may have happened. How is that "understanding Jack´s psyche"? I would say it suggests a model in which Jack´s psyche can be hinted at - if and only if the model is correct.

People theorize, Fleetwood. And I am a theorizing person when it comes to Lechmere. It does not mean that I must be correct. It only means that I have realized that a functioning model can be built around him, potentially explaining many of the details about the murders.

I fail to see what this has to do with the discussion whether the man was local or not, though. And I would like to point out that I do not find the layout of the East End and the built-in difficulties to navigate it as the sole reason for believing that the man was either local or somebody with good knowledge about the area.

There, Fleetwood - I managed to give an unaffected answer to your questions and allegations. Do try the same, please.

The best,
Fisherman

[Monty]

Are you referring to Warren being questioned/reprimanded over his article in Murray's Magazine?

Exactly Jon,

Warrens decision was based on Arnolds suggestion, as the latter had to police an area which had experienced bouts of anti semitic violence.

Anderson, a barrister, and Smith purely criticise from an investigatory point of view, and not a policing one. Warrens resignation, and fall out, went far deeper than the murders and the erasure of the writing.

As Pink rightly states, if the majority were in agreement then it would have stayed.

Monty

[Monty]

Hi Pink. Many of the police of the time accepted the graffiti as genuine. Do you feel this was because of the romance and mystery it added or because it appeared at roughly the same time as the apron and in the same spot? As for the clarity of the message, because the Met screwed up and erased the message before photographing it, we don't actually know what it said.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Not this old cannard again Tom,

Show me where, in the police reports, where they stated the belief that the killer wrote the graffito.

I'll save you time.

DCI Moores report, 18th October 1896, eight years after the writing was found at a scene he never attended, concerning a clue he wasn't (judging the case file) involved in investigating. As he wasn't placed in charge of enquiries till 89.

So no, the police at the time did not accept the writing as genuine at all.

Monty

[Monty]

Really? Because I was responding to this post from you:

'The coroner thought it odd?

No. The coroner was merely establishing the facts, not passing judgement.

The head juror was questioning Long, this due to the formers ignorance of procedure.

Longs behaviour is neither perplexing nor questionable. He saw a bloodied piece of apron, considered a victim may be in the building and searched for that victim in the accessible areas of the dwellings. This to render First Aid if he could or to send for a medic.

Not finding a victim, but unsure of the building, he called PC Bettles to monitor the dwellings whilst he reported his find at the station, realising the possibility that the victim may still be in the building, but also realising the situation there is not clear. There may be a murder, murderer, siege, what the hell ever else to deal with. So he sought guidance and re-enforcement.

Long had four years service by this time, and had been trained and tested procedure constantly and reading the reports, he made no error in that procedure nor behaved oddly.'

I can't imagine how the word 'procedure' got stuck in my head.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

P.S. All Ripperologists are theorists, Monty. All of us. Or else we're not Ripperologists.

I can see why such a simple word can be overwhelming for you Tom, however that is in reference to Bens post and not events concerning 2.20am.

Monty


Bless, you are confused, Ripperoloists are students of the case. Then we have sub categories, theorists, suspect theorists, those who study the social aspect, those with a geographical interest and so on. Ripperology isn't the sole domain of you theorists sunshine.