our killer been local

[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.

[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.

[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

[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

[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

[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...

[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

[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

[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.

[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.

[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

[Tom_Wescott]

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

This is all true. I would imagine that good coppers welcomed him, and lazy or crooked coppers resented him. Even W.T. Stead wrote in the Pall Mall Gazette when Warren was named as the new Commissioner that he would be the right man for the job as long as his hands were left untied and he was able to lead without obstruction. Unfortunately, Warren's hands were tied and he had plenty of obstruction, so he was constantly frustrated in his duties. It seems to me a big part of the problem was Home Secretary Matthews, who incidentally I think was gay. This man was childish, spiteful, and not the right man for his position.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Wickerman]

No, I'm referring to the reports and statements present in 'Ultimate' in November regarding Warren's actions relating to the graffiti.

Ok thanks, I was looking for clarification.


Re: Warren lying about the location of the graffiti

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

I didn't mean to suggest you were Tom.
I seems to me to emanate from a group who are trying to relocate the graffiti/apron to suit some theory.

[Wickerman]

... Unfortunately, Warren's hands were tied and he had plenty of obstruction, so he was constantly frustrated in his duties.

One issue that caused him concern was the question of who has the authority to sign-off on releasing case related information to the press.
Matthews insisted it was his duty whereas Warren believed the duty resided with himself (in support of his article in Murrays). Interestingly, Swanson made reference to this situation in his 19th Oct. report, "..and by authority of the Commissioner, it was also given to the press". So clearly Swanson was under the same impression as Warren.

[pinkmoon]

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

If the message was genuine it would give the police something that they were very short of a clue.In the eyes of the general public the police must have looked stupid and incompetent because of the double event and an element of desperation might be creeping into their investigations this could be why the letters were given credence by the police.If our killer wrote that message he went out of his way and increased his chances of been caught also by taking chalk with him he went prepared so why not write something that can leave no doubt you are the killer.I think it would be a case of some lead is better than no lead at all which could result in some police wanting to believe it.