our killer been local

[Wickerman]

If the piece of apron had been dropped,it would likely have landed on the pavement.Had it been thrown it would probably have ended on the floor further into the building.Why not just drop it into the gutter?Why choose an entrance to a building to dispose of it?It was going to be noticed whatever.It was no less a help wherever it landed.I think it was discarded without thought .It has no relation to anything,only the killer having passed that way.

If you were carrying something incriminating, and you saw a constable coming towards you in the distance, would you just drop it, or cast it into the nearest dark passage?

[Sherlock Holmes]

One thing that always bothers me about our killer is that if he was local living right in the centre of the murders then why wasn't there more murders.If all he had to do was grab his knife open his front door turn left or right and then walk into an area full of easy prey then why wasn't there a murder every night.Could it be that he wasn't local at all but travelled to the area to commit his foul deeds.

What Pinkmoon is suggesting may be possible, however, I believe that he was a local of the area, and certainly not a spur of the moment killer. Serial killers don't commit crimes of opportunity, sure there may not be much planning involved but they are never just "spur of the moment". Crimes like this however unplanned, are thought, and stew inside the killer before he acts.
Regards Mr Holmes

[Monty]

I think we do have grounds for believing that PC Long was incorrect in stating that the apron was not in place at 2.20 am.

• The night of the ‘Double Event’ was Long’s first on the beat in the East End, as he had just been seconded from A Division to beef up the police manpower as a result of the Ripper scare.
Accordingly he would have been unfamiliar with his beat, and could well have resented being there and so been less than attentive to his duties. Though this would not be something he would admit to at an inquest.

• Less than a year later Long was dismissed from the police for being drunk on duty, so he was not an exemplary officer.

• Long discovered the apron at about 2.55 am, but he said he only found out about the murder in Mitre Square after this. The murder was discovered at 1.45 am and Long found out about it at about 3.00 am, presumably from PC 190H who was the next policeman to arrive at Goulston Street.
It seems strange that it took an hour and fifteen minutes for Long to become aware of a murder that was committed just 500 yards away from his beat. I think this is suggestive that he skiving during that period.

• Long said he passed down Goulston Street at 2.20 am, the same time that Halse says he was in Goulston Street. But they did not see each other. It could be that their timings were out, or perhaps Long was not there.

F**k me...we are in agreement.

May I add Longs phaffing around at court re the writings transcription. And the fact he didnt bring his notebook to court.

Monty

[harry]

Jon,
Did the killer see a policeman coming towards him? Wouldn't the policeman then see the killer.No policeman reports seeing spmeone.

[harry]

Abby,
We shouldn't accept that everything of an historical telling has to be true.
That he had a reason to discard the apron piece is something only known to him.That he had a reason to take it is something only known to the killer.The only thing known is that it was discarded.The how,the when or the why is something that can be remarked on,but never determined as fact.I simply give my opinion.Posters may think I am wrong.I'd like for them to show I am wrong.

[Lechmere]

Abbey
I would agree that an account such as Long’s should in general be accepted at face value.
But as we have seen there are reasons to cast doubt on it – if Monty and I agree then this surely must be conclusive and absolute proof.

The reason I think many people are reluctant to accept Long’s story is because the timing does not seem to make sense.
I keep saying that we should not try to read into the mind of a serial killer as we cannot hope to fathom why he would have chosen to do various things.

However if he went to a local bolt hole with a largish piece of bloody cloth, why would ne re-emerge so soon after from this place of safety? He would probably been concerned that he would be stepping back into a hot spot when the hue and cry would logically have risen. This would have been an incredible risk to take.
Also the bolt hole he retreated to would have to have been very private. He must have escaped notice going in and out particularly given that he had about his person a large piece cloth that was covered in wet blood and faeces.
The bolt hole must have been one that allowed him to go in and out without drawing attention to himself. This could not have been the Victoria Home.

[Lechmere]

Wickerman
I hardly think discounting Spicer’s story can be construed as ignoring something that causes a wrinkle to my theory.
Can Spicer’s tale be incorporated into any half credible suspect theory?

Regarding the freshness of the graffiti – you are guessing that Halse was guessing. Halse saw it – you and I didn’t. I would suggest that one can tell whether chalk writing is fresh or not – whether it is blurred or crisp. Chalk also leave a slight ‘3D’ effect with bits sticking off slightly proud of the surface, these tend to be the bits that deteriorate first.

Regarding the size of the lettering.
By leaving the apron below the message – if he wrote the graffiti – the killer can have been fairly sure that it would have been noticed. Also the height of the bricks somewhat constrained the height of the lettering. It seems to me that he used the height and courses of the bricks as if they were lines on a page.
The doors jambs were only about a foot and a half wide. If he had written his message in a large script he would have only been able to write one word per line.

I don’t think it is a stunt to point out that Long was dismissed for drunkenness. It is a material fact to bear in mind when evaluating his reliability.
I rather doubt that a beat officer would routinely go in and up each stairwell on his beat. Long made no such claim.

[Nick Spring]

Our killer has just committed two murders in a very short space of time he then decides to chalk a message on a wall and he makes no attempt to mention his very recent deeds makes no sense .When you take away the sensationlism and apply some common sense did our killer write that message I very much doubt it.Also wouldn't some nice fresh human organs dumped under it make things a little bit more exciting and create a lot more hatred towards the Jews.

Hi Pinkmoon,

I agree that is a good point. If the writing was by the killer then why not make it less the connection less tenuous and leave other deposits there too.

Personally I think the apron was just randomly put there by the killer but it is a coincidence that the graffito was there to, maybe he saw the writing and chose that as the aprons dumping spot.

All that said there is a pattern that runs through murders of creating a maximum shock effect.

Best

Nick

[Ben]

Yes, Ben has already tried to pull that stunt, as if anything that happened the following year has anything to do with Sept 30th 1888.

If you want vituperation and nastiness, Jon, keep annoying me with silly accusations that I'm "pulling a stunt", as opposed to conducting reasoned debate. It it reasonable - perfectly reasonable - to infer a potential connection between Long's behaviour on the 30th September 1888 and his dismissal just a year later for drunkenness on duty.

Consider this purely hypothetical scenario. Let's assume you write a lot of bollocks on the Casebook message board, and a person reading it - let's go with me, just for the sake of argument - felt that such bollocks reflected very poorly on you and your ability to conduct a sensible discussion. Let's further assume that it became public knowledge that you were incapacitated by alcohol a year after writing all that bollocks. Anyone familiar with said bollocks would be fully justified in arguing for a potential connection between the bollocks you wrote and the knowledge that you were severely in-drink a year later.

Again, purely hypothetical.

I'm not saying there IS a connection in Long's case, and I'm undecided as to whether or not the apron was there on his first visit, but it's babyish to cry "character assassination" when we're only alluding to a fact.

[caz]

In a situation where time is of the essence, if a killer is going to take the time to make a point, then he is going to make the point clear. Otherwise he is wasting his time.

To my mind the graffito was always unrelated.

Ah, but Jon, if the killer had managed to clean himself up and stash the knife and innards somewhere, time would not necessarily have been of the essence once he had discarded the apron piece unseen and taken out his chalk. If there really was no evidence that the two items were connected, he'd have been as safe as anyone else chalking those few words. If anti-Semitic graffiti was as common in the vicinity as some would have us believe, then I don't see why the killer himself is any less of a suspect for joining in the game.

His 'point' may merely have been to keep the focus on those Dwellings and, in the wake of the Leather Apron scare, return the focus to the 'Juwes'. In that case it might have suited his purpose to make the message vague or ambiguous, or merely anti-Semitic in nature, to keep 'em all buzzing round that particular building instead of widening their search to where he may have been making his way home or trying to get some much needed shut-eye.

I also doubt the Jewish residents would have taken too kindly to any such messages defacing the entrances to their new home, so I don't buy that the last occupant to enter or leave while it was still light would have missed it or shrugged it off as par for the course. To still be there unnoticed when the apron was found, it surely had to be written after nightfall, or at least after the last resident had returned.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

...and if this killer was the author, why write so small?
Aren't messages typically broadcast 'loud' across the wall?, not squeezed onto a couple of bricks, like a whisper.

Why does that apply only if the killer wrote it, Jon? Someone wrote it and, as you say, graffiti is typically broadcast 'loud', not like a whisper.

Since this example was atypical, why are you looking for a typical graffiti artist and rejecting an atypical one?

Love,

Caz
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[Abby Normal]

Abbey
I would agree that an account such as Long’s should in general be accepted at face value.
But as we have seen there are reasons to cast doubt on it – if Monty and I agree then this surely must be conclusive and absolute proof.

The reason I think many people are reluctant to accept Long’s story is because the timing does not seem to make sense.
I keep saying that we should not try to read into the mind of a serial killer as we cannot hope to fathom why he would have chosen to do various things.

However if he went to a local bolt hole with a largish piece of bloody cloth, why would ne re-emerge so soon after from this place of safety? He would probably been concerned that he would be stepping back into a hot spot when the hue and cry would logically have risen. This would have been an incredible risk to take.
Also the bolt hole he retreated to would have to have been very private. He must have escaped notice going in and out particularly given that he had about his person a large piece cloth that was covered in wet blood and faeces.
The bolt hole must have been one that allowed him to go in and out without drawing attention to himself. This could not have been the Victoria Home.

Hi lech
Playing devils advocate here with this question about lech.
How far was his mothers home from mitre square? In other words-could he have gone from mitre square to his mothers house and then to Goulston street in the time lapse that it took long to find it?

[Tom_Wescott]

Good posts all around here, particularly from Lechmere and Monty in giving a sober and complete account of the argument for considering that Long was mistaken or less than truthful in his testimony.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Abby Normal]

Our killer has just committed two murders in a very short space of time he then decides to chalk a message on a wall and he makes no attempt to mention his very recent deeds makes no sense .When you take away the sensationlism and apply some common sense did our killer write that message I very much doubt it.Also wouldn't some nice fresh human organs dumped under it make things a little bit more exciting and create a lot more hatred towards the Jews.

Just because the killer did not do or write something that you think he should have does not mean it was not written by the killer! Can you understand this?

It may have been perfectly clear IN HIS OWN MIND what he was doing and writing. Or maybe he was INTENTIONALLY ambiguous.

I mean we are talking about a very strange individual here to begin with Are we not?

[caz]

Back on topic...

All these so-called 'indications' that the killer was local would have played right into his hands if he wasn't local. All the while the police believed it, and kept their searches confined to the immediate vicinity of the murder locations, he would have been laughing.

It's all very well to argue that he could have been a familiar face in the area and hidden in plain sight, in a lodging house or otherwise, and the police couldn't touch him and were essentially wasting their time. But would the killer himself have been that confident, especially a poor local man with little chance to change his clothes or appearance, aware that at any time one of the witnesses could spot him and recognise him?

I think it's reasonably safe to say (out of earshot of sanitary towel and giant rat theorists) that the killer knew what he was doing when leaving the apron piece where it could be found, connected beyond doubt to the latest murder and would indicate where the killer was headed afterwards. He wasn't forced to leave it there, if he didn't want the police to believe he lived nearby, or in that direction from Mitre Square. But he did so - which could indicate a deliberately false trail, and an attempt to reinforce the belief that they would find him living locally.

If he was not a local man, it was not a bad idea to keep giving the strongest impression that he was, leaving the police to concentrate their resources on the one tiny area where he never had to be, shortly before or after each murder. That might be another reason why he didn't move his operations elsewhere (beyond the comfort zone argument, or the one that says he was forced - by financial or practical considerations - to keep killing exactly where he was, regardless of how silly the risks became). Why prove he was non-local by killing in other places? Why not give the distinct impression he was local? A local man, we are constantly told, had absolutely no chance of giving any other impression.

Love,

Caz
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