No Bloody Piece of Apron

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Mike,

Option A: If he wrapped organs and his knife in it...

Option B: If he used it to just wipe his hands, and puts the organs in his pocket...

I think a sentient killer would use example A, and see example B as reckless. I think an underlying flaw in many of these objections is that many people dont see Jack ever thinking about what he is doing.

I'd hardly think it reckless of him, or contend that he wasn't thinking, if he decided that wiping the faeces from his hands was a good idea. Indeed, the fact that faecal matter was smeared over Eddowes' externalised intestines suggests that he made an attempt to get rid of at least some of the mess whilst he was still in Mitre Square.

However, this was never going to get rid of all the offensive matter - so what was he to do? If he surmised that hanging around the corpse was not a good idea, what more thoughtful conclusion could he have come to, other than that he needed to go elsewhere to complete his ablutions? If he reckoned that his clothing could be contaminated by excrement if he'd slid his hand into his pocket, might not he reason that he needed to insulate his contaminated hand? How much more thoughtful might it have been for him to realise that a makeshift towel would come in useful on two counts - not only as a temporary "glove", but also as a wet-wipe to be used later? Finally, doesn't the possibility that he chose to put a safe distance between his improvised "wash-room" and the murder scene reveal further intelligence on his part?

Caz...I was just teasing, I know you weren't insinuating it as fact.

cd, heres my overall impression of the problem with some arguments here regarding the need for and use of the apron section. They do not factor in his need for discretion, the likelihood that he could not afford to ruin a coat each kill, or might object to just re-using the same blood stained one, and the fact it was important enough to take,... cut and torn free, but not to keep.

Option A: If he wrapped organs and his knife in it, he discards it only when those items are no longer being carried, not when he can now pop them in his pocket and discard the cloth before that has occurred. If he was going to put them in his pocket anyway, he would have done so in the Square and saved himself the hassle of cutting something to use. That likely means he doesnt place the section there until nearly 3 when its found.

Option B: If he used it to just wipe his hands, and puts the organs in his pocket, then discards the section casually, then it was probably there when the Constable made his first pass by. But the Constable didn't see it.

I think a sentient killer would use example A, and see example B as reckless.

I think an underlying flaw in many of these objections is that many people dont see Jack ever thinking about what he is doing.

Best regards.

[c.d.]

Hi Michael,

Perhaps Jack realized that in the process of cutting Kate he had also cut through the apron. Another quick cut gives him a souvenir. Running away with it in his hand, he realizes that carrying it is probably way too risky so he simply dumps it when convenient.

c.d.

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
With reference to 'American cloth' did not our elusive Hutchinson mention that Astracan carried a parcel wrapped in American cloth?
Richard.

[Sam Flynn]

Sam

Are you mellowiing in your old age? pretty soon you will be agreeing with my suggestions !

Oh, no I won't! (I'll work on it, though )

[Trevor Marriott]

Sam

Are you mellowiing in your old age? pretty soon you will be agreeing with my suggestions !

[Sam Flynn]

Sam

So if the killer did take the organs away as you suggest in half of the apron...

Not me, Trev! Whilst I might have thought so a few years back, I've long since worked my way over to the "hand-wiping" (or, possibly, "cut-hand") side of the rickety fence.

Hi Mike,It's a way of pointing out that the amount of residual blood left in those organs was not as vast as one might think, and what little that may have penetrated to the outside world wouldn't have been that detectable against the backdrop of the typical menswear of the time. Much less detectable than a layer of steaming excrement lining one's pocket, for example, or coating one's hands.

In terms of using the apron as a cartage item, apart from being hardly necessary from a "stain-proofing" point of view, is that a wrapped half-apron with a kidney and uterus at its core would have made the payload more bulky than necessary.

Hi Gareth,

Accepted, but why do we need to have a man who doesnt mind blood stains, or smellier traces, in his coat pocket? Wouldnt most people prefer not to have those things in your pocket, particularly if its your only coat? And by wrapping his bundle of knife and organs he would just look like any one of plenty of butchers carting meat about at night. And save his coat to wear again.

Maybe Surgeons and Butchers didnt mind being covered in dried blood and gore...for Surgeons at that time a filthy smock meant experience, sterilzation was just making headway after Lister.

So my question to you is, if this is the man that kills Kate and takes the apron piece, and its the same that took organs from Annie without requiring a carry-all, then why take the apron section at all? If he doesnt mind dark stained soggy pockets, why not pop them in at the scene, and wipe himself on clothing that he will leave behind..that which is still on Kate. Then nothing to dispose of. Why would he choose to have something that implicates him in murder if not important...but not so important that he keeps it forever.

All the best Sam.

[Trevor Marriott]

Sam

The apron piece was as described "An apron piece" not as you keep stating that it was half the apron

Please go an buy an apron from a shop and experiment by cutting half of it off and then fold it up as you suggest the killer did.

You will see that it becomes a very large unmanageable package to big i would suggest to put in a pocket. So if the killer did take the organs away as you suggest in half of the apron he would have had to carry it. If that be the case how did the organs come to be detached from it in Goulston St. The answer is they werent because they were never removed from the victims at the crime scene.

This is the second simple excersise which anyone can do to prove or disprove theories about the Ripper.

The other one i put forward was in relation to George Hutchinsons statement and his description of items the man seen with Kelly was wearing. where i suggested readers purchased several different coloured pendants and then went outside at night and stood under a street lamp. This would show that it would be almost impossibe to identify different colours. This then shows Hutchinsons statement to be unreliable.

[caz]

Hi Perry,

By saying 'this was also a double event' I merely meant the Bowman case featured a double event in addition to the features I already mentioned about it in my preceding paragraph. I wasn't saying 'this was a double event like Jack the Ripper's'. Although I believe Jack probably did commit both crimes, as Sally's killer did, I am not so far gone yet that I would state it as fact.

Having said that, I did actually edit my post before seeing yours, because of another possible parallel if our Jacky Boy did the deed in Dutfield's Yard:

He immediately began looking for another opportunity and found it as Sally got out of her former boyfriend's car (it had been parked and they had been arguing in it for over an hour - for those who think Kidney killed Stride, or that the ripper could not have killed her in the wake of her encounter with BS) and began walking the few yards to her front door.

Love,

Caz
X

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Mike,

I think suggesting that the killer wouldnt mind some staining and blood in his coat pockets... is really just a way of dismissing the apron piece as a cartage item.

It's a way of pointing out that the amount of residual blood left in those organs was not as vast as one might think, and what little that may have penetrated to the outside world wouldn't have been that detectable against the backdrop of the typical menswear of the time. Much less detectable than a layer of steaming excrement lining one's pocket, for example, or coating one's hands.

In terms of using the apron as a cartage item, apart from being hardly necessary from a "stain-proofing" point of view, is that a wrapped half-apron with a kidney and uterus at its core would have made the payload more bulky than necessary.

This was also a double event, with his previous victim that night escaping with her life because a taxi drove past and spooked him before he could finish her off.

Sounds like the event you mention was certainly a Double Event Caz.....the one we discuss here is less certain though.

Instead of using Liz's timing this go-round, cause you hate when I do that ...... Ill use the fact that the only known artifact certainly taken by the killer and left elsewhere as evidence of the killer's having committed a murder and carrying the artifact from the victim away with him, implicates the cloth bearer in just a single murder that night.

Only a few translations of the Grafitto, if that was his as well, suggests any reference at all to the Berner St murder, but nothing to implicate himself in that affair. Nor is there any confirmation that he even noticed the earlier murder in his package to Lusk, referring to The so-called Double Event night, ...if indeed Jack did write the note and send the kidney section...which Im inclined to think he did.

Cheers Caz.

[Chava]

OK, but getting back to Annie, there is a quantity of blood beside her left shoulder near the intestines, and that may have been where he severed the uterus etc. But there really isn't much blood anywhere else. So when he cut that stuff out, he put it somewhere immediately. Which argues that either he didn't care about a really messy smelly pocket in what may have been his only jacket, or he had something with him--and I'm backing 'American' cloth as a good possibility.

[caz]

Hi Sam,

The point is, what we know beyond doubt (okay, beyond all reasonable doubt, to take account of the "stray dog dropped it there"/"Kate wiped herself with it" theories) is that the murderer was prepared to have about his person a large piece of incontrovertible proof of his latest doings in Mitre Square, and take it with him all the way to Goulston Street, for no other apparent purpose than to do a Lady Macbeth "Out damned spot" number of some sort. It seems to me very much like a flat contradiction in terms - like carrying a corpse over your shoulder to conceal the blood it left on your jacket as you head home.

I agree with you on this business of stains, and don't believe for one moment that the bodily parts he took with him would have bled profusely all the way to Goulston (being ripped out after the fatal throat cut) or produced a stink to rival what was on that apron piece. There was time enough to worry about rotten smells coming from his trophies as they began to reach their use-to-relive-the-thrill-by date. But I don't think it would have been beyond our man, whoever he was, to have set out that night with some kind of pocket liner/receptacle, even if it was just a piece of newspaper, and to have used Kate's clothing at the scene if he had dire need for a quick wipe before leaving.

I'm not even sure a bleeding cut sustained during his knife-wielding antics would have entered his consciousness until he was safely away from the scene and able to take stock - especially if the cut was a sharp one or he had been under the influence of drink or drugs, as was the case with the killer of Sally Anne Bowman here in Croydon. This charmer bit his victim a number of times during a vicious attack, in which three of the knife wounds went right through her body from one side to the other. He also waited after killing her in case anyone had heard the attack, but when no lights came on and all was quiet he returned to the scene and sexually abused her dead body before taking trophies including her mobile phone away with him.

This was also a double event, with his previous victim that night escaping with her life because a taxi drove past and spooked him before he could finish her off. He immediately began looking for another opportunity and found it as Sally got out of her former boyfriend's car (it had been parked and they had been arguing in it for over an hour - for those who think Kidney killed Stride, or that the ripper could not have killed her in the wake of her encounter with BS) and began walking the few yards to her front door. None of the killer's associates had the slightest clue that he had it in him to commit such horrible crimes, which included an indoor rape and knife attack while he was in Australia. He had actually lived in the same street as Sally for a while, so he was familiar with the area. But he didn't live near Croydon at the time of his double event.

Sorry - I went off at a tangent there.

Better than going off in a huff I suppose.

Love,

Caz
X

I think suggesting that the killer wouldnt mind some staining and blood in his coat pockets...and that it wouldnt have seeped through and been quite visible, is really just a way of dismissing the apron piece as a cartage item. If this guy was local, he didn't have much or any money, so carelessly ruining perhaps the only coat he has, and must continue to wear daily seems a trifle reckless.

And whether something of Annies was taken to wrap organs in is just pure speculation, as its clear she had no cloth cut from her clothing.

As to the connection with the writing, the killer doesnt need chalk on him unless he planned to write something, and since the apron piece is discarded,.. and if it carried the organs, its probable he wouldnt discard the carry-all unless it was empty, so he could have easily taken some chalk and the apron back out from a location where he leaves the organs.

The apron section is not seen until almost 3am. If you want to believe the Constable just missed seeing it there earlier, thats your business, but personally I dislike conclusions that insist on witness errors. The exception for me in these cases would be obvious liars, like Hutchinson. Bu the arguments like..... Richardson must just have not seen Annie...because investigators thought she should be dead when he is on the steps, ...or Harvey did walk right to the Square entrance from Church Passage, he just didnt see the killer still there...or hear Watkins boots signalling his approach....or Mary did go out, its just that Elizabeth Prater, Sarah Lewis and Mary Ann Cox never saw or heard that happen.

Best regards.