our killer been local

[Bridewell]

Hi, Bridewell,
Doesn't that mean that you are seeing the killer as a thinker, as someone who was conscious of such matters?

Any further thoughts on that?

Thx,
curious

I don't see any reason to suppose that he wasn't a thinker. If he hadn't been sufficiently aware to take basic steps to avoid capture he would have been caught.

[Wickerman]

Wickerman
I hardly think discounting Spicer’s story can be construed as ignoring something that causes a wrinkle to my theory.

I didn't have your theory in mind, it is just a sad reality that certain known details are often ignored by theorists.
What I was really getting at was that some people will discount a suspect because he did not live towards the same direction that the location of the piece of apron suggests - eastward.
This to my mind is rash, seeing as we don't know why the killer headed in that direction. The assumption that he was headed home is merely that, an assumption. We do not know why he headed east - there may be another quite valid reason.

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.

Just a minute Lechmere.
You are telling me that you can tell whether some chalk graffiti was written at 2:00 am or at say, 9:00 pm the previous night?
Sorry, I don't believe you.

The graffiti does not need to be days old, only hours old, written by some disgruntled person the previous night.

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.

The wall outside was plenty wide enough, and the light would have been better.

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.

Not when it happened the following year, if the same week then I would agree, but not the next year. Stress & pressure got to a lot of beat constables eventually - anything could have happened in his life in the subsequent ten months to change him.

I rather doubt that a beat officer would routinely go in and up each stairwell on his beat. Long made no such claim.

It was part of his duty to look inside any public access, he isn't required to go up every staircase. Have you looked at the layout of Goulstone St.?
He coud have been occupied checking any of those recesses between buildings.

[Wickerman]

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

I'll bet the killer would recognise a person as a policeman, before a policeman recognised a person as the killer.


PC Long was never asked if he saw anyone in Goulstone St.

[curious4]

That bloody piece of apron

Hallo all,

The apron piece is described variously as "smeared with blood on one side", "having one corner wet with blood" and by the doctor as having (a smear) of "something which might be faecal matter". Not dripping with blood and faeces then - even Jack had his standards, it seems.

Out of respect for the newer investigators, I think it is important to get the facts straight.

All good wishes,
C4

[Abby Normal]

Abby
Your devil's advocate question is a bit of a non starter.
Lechmere's mother lived just the other side of Berner Street - that location connects him to the Stride killing. I doubt he would have doubled back to that crime scene with blood dripping from the apron.
He could however have gone out from a Saturday evening visit to 'mother' equipped with chalk from his schoolgirl daughter who also lived there.
His Broad Street workplace is a potential pre-apron-dumping bolt hole if one were required to accommodate such a theory - but I just can't see the culprit (whoever he was) sneaking back to that spot with a bloody apron.

Thanks lech. Interesting.
But where was he then in that time frame?

[Lechmere]

Abby
Your devil's advocate question is a bit of a non starter.
Lechmere's mother lived just the other side of Berner Street - that location connects him to the Stride killing. I doubt he would have doubled back to that crime scene with blood dripping from the apron.
He could however have gone out from a Saturday evening visit to 'mother' equipped with chalk from his schoolgirl daughter who also lived there.
His Broad Street workplace is a potential pre-apron-dumping bolt hole if one were required to accommodate such a theory - but I just can't see the culprit (whoever he was) sneaking back to that spot with a bloody apron.

[Fisherman]

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

Monty

Not with me, you ain´t.
I do think that the shortcomings on Long´s behalf must be weighed in and open up for a possibility that he was lax on the evening in question. That´s only fair.
But the fact of the matter is that he was totally adamant at the inquest, and that means that the better guess must remain that he did check the doorway, and that he knew that no rag was about at 2.20.

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Tom
Sober? Me?

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

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?

But there were considerably greater risks attached to killing women on the streets, or in back yards where a casual glance out of a Hanbury Street window, for instance, could have spelt disaster for him, and yet we we know the real killer, whoever he was, went ahead in spite of them.

So too, evidently, did other local/marauder serial killers.

I doubt very much that clothing would have been a problem, so generic was the average poor worker's get-up, consisting usually of a shabby coat and peaked cap. That's not to say he wouldn't have been perturbed by witness sightings of him in the company of his victims, although he might have taken solace in the fact that Lawende, for instance, worked in the City and resided in Dalston, drastically reducing the chances of a second encounter if our killer lived relatively centrally to his crimes. But who knows? Perhaps the prospect of recognition by witnesses did concern him greatly, which is why there were no murders in October? And perhaps this concern prompted a resolve on his part to prevent any further interactions with his victims in places where he could be seen, i.e. on the streets, hence a possible "intruder" scenario with the Kelly murder?

With regard to the suggestion that the killer deliberately left a "false trail" in his placement of the apron and/or graffiti, I believe you yourself have argued that his intention may have been to implicate the Jewish community, who were heavily represented in that particular location. That's already a "false trail", and it didn't involve spending considerable more time than was necessary on those dangerous streets heading in the wrong direction (i.e. in the direction of two police stations, from which police were trafficking between two murder sites), and then doubling back slapbang into the new area of police focus, the City of London.

Alternatives are always worth exploring, but most cases which seem to point towards a local offender as the culprit are usually resolved by the capture of one. I'd be surprised in the extreme if this case was different.

All the best,
Ben

[Michael W Richards]

Im fascinated by the disregard of the specificity shown by Longs remarks concerning his spotting anything in that particular spot on his first pass by after the Mitre Square murder. "It was not there." How is that ambiguous..or what evidence do we have that this PC was prone to lie when questioned officially?

I believe his remarks are evidence that he couldnt have written the grafitto himself, he would have been more succinct and clear.

The delay in its appearance vexs many. What it might mean could shed a great deal of light on this case, if one doesnt get led astray by discarding what seems to be a rock solid statement.

Cheers

[Ben]

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.

Yes, it could have been, Lechmere. Very easily.

Using Jack London as our guide as before, it is clear that the smoking/games room was in a completely different part of the Victoria Home to the dormitories on the upper floors, and the former was not patrolled by a doorman. Were Abby's sensible and convincing proposals to incorporate the Victoria Home specifically, the killer had only to venture inside to retrieve a piece of chalk located in the smoking room (where lights had been extinguished four hours earlier), encounter nobody (at least nobody in authority) and then, having completed his very brief excursion to very nearby northern Goulston Street, hand his brass bed check to the doorman patrolling access to the bedrooms. He would undoubtedly have done so in company with other late/early workers who were resident there, thus attracting precious little attention.

Abby's suggestion remains a valid and compelling one.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/london/abyss/ch20.htm

On the subject of PC Spicer, however, I agree you with entirely. I hope nobody is seriously suggesting that Spicer's alleged "suspect" is a viable candidate for Jack the Ripper.

Best regards,
Ben

[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
X

[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?

[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]

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?