The Bloody Piece of Apron Redux

[Moon-Shadow30]

Chava, you have a very good theory which makes a lot of sense. However, can I throw another theory at you and see what you think. As you say, it would have been a pain to cut the cloth with a knife and would have taken a while to cut off. Time which he didn't have, considering he only had a short while to commit the murder and the mutilations. I think that perhaps Eddowes cut the cloth herself. Forgive the icky details. Perhaps she used it to absorb the blood from her period. If she was on the game that night then she'd have to remove it and maybe for lack of anything else handy, used the cloth to wipe herself after going to the toilet.

As for Annie Chapman's muffler, well anything could have happened to that. Whitechapel wasn't the friendliest neighbourhood after all.

[LadyG]

What sort of fabric was her dress? I'm sure it's in here some where but it takes me too long to find anything! If it was as 'grubby' and old as I've heard it described, it would be easier to tear, depending on the material. Piece of petticoat might have been easier, but our boy was pressed for time. And out of curiosity, do we know if the fragment found the entire missing piece?

[Jane Coram]

Annie's clothing

Hi Chava,

Although no-one can say what happened to it, Annie was wearing a grey woollen muffler when she left her lodging house, which seems to have been unaccounted for in later reports. It has to be a possibility that Jack used that to take any organs in, although of course that is pure speculation.

Ultimately though, we do have missing muffler and missing organs. There could be a link.

Hugs

Jane

xxxxx

[Chava]

Having just read a very interesting dissertation on the piece of apron, it seems to me that I am wrong in thinking it wasn't used to convey organs. I had checked the dimensions of that cloth a while ago but obviously got the wrong info. It is a sizeable piece of cloth, and as such wouldn't have been easy to hack off. Any dressmaker knows that cutting through a length of material that size takes longer than a few seconds, especially when using a knife rather than shears. He needed that cloth, and not just to wipe his hands on. So I think it's highly likely he used it to transport the trophies he took. In which case he went back to wherever he kept them, put them away/hid them, and then went back out to ditch the thing that basically nailed him for the murder.

Now on reflection this suggests a couple of things to me: first off, he had to get rid of that piece of cloth. If he was living by himself, the urgency would be less severe. If there's no one around to see it, he can stay safely at home and deal with it whenever he felt like it. Hell, if there's no one else to see it, he can keep it as another trophy. But he ventures out into a night full of policemen, with incriminating evidence on his person. So I think wherever he dropped it is within a couple of hundred yards at most of where he lived. He needs to get rid of that as soon as possible and get back indoors. However, if he lives with someone else, he has to have some access to a private hiding place where he can keep his stuff without anyone knowing about it. And also he has to be able to come in late at night and go right back out again without any comments being made about it. So I suspect it might be possible that he is a lodger. And a lodger in some place on a higher level than Cressingham's Rooms for Gentlemen, because there he would have no expectation of being able to keep his little box of tricks to himself. Possibly, therefore, he is a lodger with a family in the area.

The second thing that occurs is this: in the Chapman murder he transported trophies as well. And no cloth is missing from her body. I doubt he stuffed the bits and pieces in his pocket, because that might cause problems immediately or later. I think he came prepared for that. In which case he might also have come prepared for his activities on the night of the Double Event. I wonder if he lost his handy-dandy carrier during the events around the Stride murder. Probably impossible to find out, but I wonder if there were any bits of cloth/old wrapping paper/smashed-up box found in the area of Berners St after the Stride murder. Because if there were, then I think that would have his fingerprints everywhere.