The Bloody Piece of Apron Redux

[Hunter]

No, Jane... I was thinking that myself, which is why I believe it was cut vertically and after he was done, he simply cut the other corner where that string was attached and took that portion. Kate had a lot of clothes on, as women of the vagrant class did. Everything she had was with her.

When reconstructing the items that Collard noted, we can see that he cut and tore the front of the garments instead of just trying to lift them. An apron string around the waist would certainly be an impediment. Foster's drawing shows this vividly.

[Errata]

Jane

And I was always under the impression that her skirts had been lifted, and that's why the apron was only blood spattered as opposed to blood soaked.

I kind of always picturing the face cuts first, then the abdomen. And since he was hitting 3 layers of buttons and the cut was going poorly, by the time he hit the waistband he probably thought "oh forget this". Pushed the skirts up, pushed the waistband up as high as he could and did the pelvic stuff. Since when most people push up layers of skirts the inner layer sort of rolls up to be the outer layer, the outermost layer becomes protected.

And the scene drawings always looked like there was a lot of stuff pushed up to breasts.

by the way, does anyone know if this picture is legit? I've never seen it before.

http://jack-the-ripper-time.blogspot.com/2009/09/jack-ripper-hunting-ground_20.html

In theory it's Eddowes in 1883. Pardon the posting of another site, I just wasnt sure how else to do it.

[Archaic]

Living History

Hello DrHopper, C.D., Dave, Errata, Janie, Cris and all. Thanks for your comments -and Errata, I have to say, some of your straight-talking posts really cracked me up!
(I'm sure the other ladies know which ones I mean. )

Yes, Cris, it is a great history lesson as well as a murder mystery. Like yourself, I've always been interested learning the little details of everyday life as it was lived by those who came before us. In fact, that's why I chose the name 'Archaic'. Those details are often so taken for granted that contemporary accounts don't bother to mention them, much less explain them in terms we can understand. Because the ordinary details of costume, etiquette, hygiene, technology, etc., gradually change over time, it can be easy to forget that we tend to view yesterday's reality through today's cultural paradigm- and that might not give us the 20/20 hindsight we think it does!

Of course this collective "forgetting" of the past details of common life is perfectly natural. It still goes on all the time but is greatly accelerated in our day by the rapid changes in technology. This thread made me remember an incident where I was watching t.v. with my nephew. He was about five. He had the remote in his hand, and during a commercial I remarked, "You know, honey, when I was your age we didn't have remotes." He stared at me in wide-eyed amazement, then replied "But how did you change the channel??" I fell off the sofa laughing. Tonight it occurred to me that our great-grandparents might respond in a similar way if they saw us puzzling over items so ubiquitous and "obvious" as an apron, apron-strings, and a stack of rags. But that's ok... I think that learning the obscure details is a large part of what makes history so much fun.

Errata, you're right that Kate was wearing multiple layers of clothing. Zippers and even hook-and-eyelet fasteners were still in the future, so she would have had many buttons and draw-strings, probably all twisted around and drenched in blood. I don't think it likely that she had particularly "fitted" skirts. The waist may have fit, but the rest would have been fairly loose to make it easier to move, walk, bend, etc. Rich ladies could wear their skirts tightly fitted because they didn't need to be able to walk and move. In the Victorian era a poor woman's skirts frequently had simple drawstrings at the waist- and the drawstring may very well have been actual cord or string rather than a ribbon, because it would have been hidden on the inside of the skirt's waistband. Sometimes skirts had a few upper buttons, but sometimes the buttons were there on the waistband so a 'shirt-waist' (long-sleeved fitted top) could be fastened to the top of the skirt, preventing an unsightly and improper gap.

I definitely don't think Kate wore a bib-type apron. There was no mention of one and they were much more commonly worn by household servants at their place of employment. In 1888 a bib-front fabric apron would have been been significantly more expensive than an ordinary waist-high apron because to make one required more fabric, a more careful fitting of the garment to the wearer, and more individual sewing-labor. I looked through some Victorian catalogs, and the first one-piece bib-front apron of any kind that I could find was in 1897. It wasn't a "maid's" style apron at all; it was a very utilitarian early water-proof bib-apron made of oil-cloth and was sold with the baby's nursery items. (It's more the kind that women in the 20's-50's wore while while doing housework, the type that Dave described. I can post a picture if someone wants to see it.)
The complete absence of any bib-front "Bridey"-style aprons in the 1890's catalogs suggests to me that they weren't mass-produced until later, which again indicates that they were not a cheap or common retail article in 1888 and would have been prohibitively expensive for a poor woman.

Jane and Cris, I agree with what you say about the apron's ties providing the tension needed for the killer to rapidly slash a portion of the apron off. If he grabbed and pulled one section of the apron against the resistance of the waist-ties, the fabric would have shredded under the sharp edge of his knife. If he slashed in one stroke from the bottom up- either vertically or diagonally - the skirt would have held taut until severed.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Errata]

My theory on when the apron strings were cut has to do with two conflicting statements. The first being the coroner's notes saying something like "the corner with strings attached" implying that only one corner had strings. The second being the statement at the inquest that the apron was still attached by strings to the body. And it certainly seems that both cannot be true.

Unless to good doc made the comparison after the clothes were removed. I've worked at renaissance festivals for 15 years. I usually have to cut the drawstrings on my skirts after it rains. Now I'm also not minded towards the thrifty saving of lacing... but can you imagine trying to pick apart maybe 10 different bloodstained knots to try and free a corpse of clothing? I would be willing to swear that they cut those cords. Not cut the garments, but the drawstrings? Yeah.

And if they were going to cut the apron off and try to preserve the cloth for evidence, they could cut it two ways. One would be at the knot, but thats in the back, the clothing is clearly all torqued about, and if a person is open from diaphragm to knee, the last thing you are going to do it either flip them on their stomach or sit them up to get at a knot. Nor do you particularly want to fish out the apron and try to turn it around so the knot is in the front. If they cut the ties flush with the body of the apron, then the apron as evidence is preserved, and you dont have to flip anything or anyone around. Less... spillage. Plus such a careful cut is unlikely to be mistaken for a knife slash.

If this were the case, when he writes that he was looking at the corner with strings attached, he meant laid out on a table after it had been removed from the body. One corner's strings would have been cut to remove it from the body, and the strings would still be attached to the other side. Which would make his word choice correct. But it also means that the description of the apron being attached to the body by it's strings would also be correct.

that's my theory anyway.

[DrHopper]

Great work guys.

So to summarise:
Kate was wearing a fairly long (possibly ankle-length) apron, without a bib or a pocket – just a simple, plain, probably white (or more likely off-white) cloth, attached by a string around her waist.

At some stage during the evisceration process (perhaps prior to starting), and to enable the murderer to gain better access to the body, the apron is grabbed, probably from the bottom, and cut in two, vertically, in an upwards motion, the tension in the material derived from the string tied around the waste aiding in the process. This ripping is not completed to the top of the apron (i.e. it is not fully split into two, rather halfway or probably further up).

Now, it seems that After Jack has finished his work, he grabs part of the apron and slices off a fairly sizable portion (perhaps as much as half), which he then takes with him for some unknown purpose (wiping hands? clean knife? carry body parts?). The remaining part of the apron is still attached to Eddowes’ body round the waist – and it is this to which the coroner is referring.

[Jane Coram]

Hi all,

I've just had it on good authority (and it is very good authority) that the kind of apron that Kate wore was the same as the one the woman on the left of this picture is wearing.

http://photos.casebook.org/displayimage.php?album=6&pos=7

I think that's more or less what we all thought anyway, but nice to get it confirmed.

Hugs

Janie

xxxxx

[Jane Coram]

Hi,

I'm jut going back to re-read the reports again, because I haven't read that bit for a few years, just to see what I've forgotten. Lol, but at least we seem to have narrowed down what sort of apron it was.

It does look as if it didn't have a bib, and that's actually what I'd always thought. (I must have researched it thoroughly to do my reconstruction of the scene in Church Passage). I'll check out some of the major authors on it as well and see what they say. The main problem with getting older is that your brain gets older as well, and decides it wants to go on a holiday on its own now and again.

Much love

Janie

xxxx

[Jane Coram]

Hi,

I think Hunter's hit the bull's eye. (Mind you with a name like that he ought to!)

Not that it needed confirming, but I'm glad I read back over it because I'd forgotten most of that. It just goes to show that you shouldn't rely on memory when researching but go back and bloodywell check!

The cuts on the front of Kate's clothing were:

Six and a half inch cuts down from the waistband, left side of front on the chintz skirt.

5 inch long cut through the bottom of the bodice on the left

The petticoat was cut by an inch and a half.

The green alpaca skirt by 10 and half inches, downward at the front.

Blue skirt 10 and a half inches.

The strings were cut through on one pocket, the corner cut off another.

That really brings a few thoughts to mind. First of all, I think it was Errata that suggested the clothes had been pulled up above the abdomen. She is quite right, but it looks as if they were too tight to do it without cutting through them. Gordon Brown states at the inquest that they were pulled up to expose the abdomen, so there's no doubt they were and you can see in Frederick Foster's drawing that they are.

I'm still trying to work out if he pushed the clothes up first, then realised they didn't go up far enough and cut them, or if he cut them first and then threw them up. The clue is in the length of the cuts, but I'm crap at working out stuff like that, so maybe someone else can work it out. Lol. I think they must have been down, because I would have thought the cuts would be longer on the top layers.

I don't think there is much doubt now what sort of apron it was, and if we look at the photo it does wrap quite a way around the waist. It varies obviously, but they all go around the side of the body to some extent.

If that's the case and Jack cut through the bodice and the skirts on the left hand side, then he must have actually cut through the body of the apron and not just the string. The cuts on the top layers of skirt were both 10 and a half inches. It would make sense that the apron was cut down by something around that amount as well, possibly an inch or so more and the cuts seem to get longer the further out they go. He may have even just kept going on the apron as Hunter suggests and cut the thing right down.

Once thing is certain, he couldn't have cut through the skirts underneath without cutting through the apron as well.

That being the case, I think there isn't much doubt that the apron was already well cut down the front when he started mutilating and he just grabbed a bit off it at the end. Does that mean that the half of the apron taken was a lengthwise strip, rather than a lump taken the bottom? It seems more likely if there was already a cut running down it. He just needed to cut the string on one side, and just tear down the rest of the piece. As Hunter says, that's why both strings were still attached.

Collard actually confirms that to some extent, when he states:

I produce a portion of the apron which deceased was apparently wearing which had been cut through and was found outside the dress."

An apron is always worn outside the dress, so he must have meant something else. If the apron was cut/torn right down the middle, (whenever it was done) the two halves would have naturally flopped down on either side of the body. If he took one half, then the other half would have been laying at the side of the body 'outside' the dress. The fact that he said 'apparently' must mean that it had fallen off completely in transit to the mortuary - you can't hold an apron on with one string. (two strings still tied together at the back with a knot)

That ought to get you all head scratching for a bit. I can get on with some work now. Lol

Hugs

Janie

xxxxx

[Jane Coram]

Hi Errata,

Sorry, I missed a bit of your post before, (looks like everyone else did as well!)
The photo of Kate is bogus. As usual someone's started a thread on it somewhere and it is still here I think. The only one of the victims photos that is genuine is the one of Annie, that we already know about.

Just shows you can't trust any bugger!

Has anyone worked out how that waistband of the skirts could have been cut yet? I'm still fart arsing about here, changing my mind every five minutes. Come to think of it, I'm still trying to work out if he could have cut through the skirts etc., and not cut the apron. I'd honestly never thought about it before. I also notice that there is blood along the cuts of the skirts and petticoats, is that important? Any thoughts anyone?

Much love

Janie

xxxx

[Errata]

Just shows you can't trust any bugger!

I was wondering why it said it was a photo from 1883 but she was wearing clothing from 20 years previous.

As for the cutting, I guess it rather depends on why he was cutting. If he was trying to cut into her pelvis through the skirts a: thats a dumb thing to try and b: i would then imagine that the cuts would correspond to the wounds. If he was trying to push the skirts up but they were tied too tight, I would imagine he would just saw through all of the waistbands untill he had enough clearance, and then all the cuts should correspond to each other.

Given two very odd cuts on Eddowes that don't correspond to other victims, I'm betting it's a little from column a, and a little from column b

[Errata]

I also notice that there is blood along the cuts of the skirts and petticoats, is that important? Any thoughts anyone?

Much love

Janie

xxxx

Whoops. Forgot. I am absolutely convinced that the facial mutilations came first. Evidently it was of vital importance to disfigure her, because he didn't do it to victims he had more time with. In a way, i'm not sure he could "perform" until he did.

I think he then moved to cutting the abdomen through the bodices, and the the pelvis. by the time he got to the skirts and petticoats the would be quite a bit of blood on the knife.

[Jane Coram]

Hi Errrata,

That's exactly what I'm thinking at the moment.

I don't know if you've read Sam Flynn's (Gareth Williams) excellent article about Kate's injuries, but he puts forward a really first class argument that the facial mutilations were done first. I can email it to you if you haven't read it. Just pm me.

I suddenly thought after I'd posted that the fact that there were traces of blood around the cuts in the skirt might have been because there was already blood on his knife from the throat and/or face wounds.

The only other option I thought of was that it could be that after he had cut and pushed her clothing up over the abdomen that the line of the cuts would have been pretty close to the top of the opening of the wound (well the ending of it in actuality), and that perhaps they just got blood on them from that.

Do you think that the apron was cut at the same time as the rest of the clothing, or can you see any other possibilities? If it was cut down through the middle (well somewhat on the left) right at the beginning, it does make quite a difference to what might have happened after. Any thoughts on that?

I've just been to see The King's Speech. Highly recommended!

Much love

Janie

xxxx

[Errata]

Do you think that the apron was cut at the same time as the rest of the clothing, or can you see any other possibilities? If it was cut down through the middle (well somewhat on the left) right at the beginning, it does make quite a difference to what might have happened after. Any thoughts on that?

I don't know this, but looking at the wounds from the diaphragm to navel I think he might have made those cuts through the bodices. Because it's an unholy mess, and she was wearing three garments with buttons on her torso. So every time he hit a button he would either have to cut around it or pull out the knife and stab again. Which could account for the train wreck of an incision. I'm also pretty sure his knife bounced off something and that why she has that odd slash to the left that sort of goes from the right thigh down into the labia.

The coroner said that the incision was upward. Pubis to diaphragm. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you look, she has a center line incision til about the navel, makes a 90 turn to the right and the cut to the pubis stays well to the right. I would think that the center line would be where a person starts. I thought maybe it was to avoid cutting the uterus, but he should have known at that point that he wouldn't. And then why correct, if the cut was to the right on purpose? I think he started at the top, the knife bounced off a button maybe and made that thigh injury, so that when he was done cutting through the bodices, he knew the right was clear of obstacles.

All of which is to say this. If he decided to stay the course and cut through the clothing, which is an odd choice, I would say that there would be a couple of cuts to the apron. One from the thigh wound and one from the incision. Both of those would be on the right, but not so far right that it would cut through the laces. Essentially you would have an 8 inch gash down the body of the apron from the top. Which would cause it to fall off if she stood up, but it would not come free from the body. It just sort of widens the waistband. He would have to cut off his piece of apron lengthwise down one of those accidental cuts, cut the strings, pull off the piece of apron he is not taking with him, and toss it to the side. That's if the apron was not found on her. If it was found on her then I imagine it fell off when they put her in the cart, and someone would have put it on her so it went to the hospital.

Or, let's say he didn't cut through the skirts. Lets say he cut them to push them up out of the way. The way skirts push up is weird, likely they would have been scrunched up as high as they go, and then flipped over to expose the waistbands. That would essentially fold the apron up in the other skirts. When he decides he wants a piece of apron, likely because white(ish) is the easiest to see, he reaches in the wads of skirts and pulls out the apron. We don't know how the garment was twisted when it was cut. The gash from the bounce could be vertical, horizontal, diagonal. If he even decided to continue that cut. My personal theory is that he extracts the apron, cuts off the bottom half, and leaves the rest of the apron. Which I is why I think (if foggy memory serves) that it would be described as outside the clothing. All the skirts were bunched up, but the apron was pulled out.

Also, here's why I think it's a horizontal cut. A: thats usually the weft, which is easier to cut. 2: The mechanics make more sense. You absolutely need tension to cut cloth. I think he bent over, fished out the apron (which he would have to do either way), stood up with the end of the apron in his hand. Her body is pulling down, his hand is pulling up, and he cuts under his hand. As the fabric parts, the tension of his hand is also going to rip the new cut, making a faster job of it.

Well that was long.

[Jane Coram]

Blimey Errata,

You've given me enough for a week's thinking there!

I am seriously going to go through that really, really carefully and get back to you, but some of that I've been thinking as well, just having skim read it. That's why I was so interested in working out whether the clothes could have been up when he cut them. A lot of what you've said there would seem to depend on how much blood would have come from Kate when he made that long incision. I've sort of always thought that once the throat was cut, the actual wounds to the body didn't bleed that much, but I'm floundering, because I really know nothing about that sort of thing at all.

I'll have a good old think and do a bit of research and get back to you, but there really is some very interesting stuff there to think about, thanks for taking the trouble to put that all together and reply.

I hope some others will join in as well, and help out!

Hugs

Janie

xxx

[mariab]

Many thanks to Jane Coram and to Monty for the “technical“ information. I have a question which might gross you all out: I've been hearing that the piece of apron was not just smeared with blood, but also with fecal matter. Do we have enough descriptive information about the latter, to be able to say if the fecal matter clearly had its provenance from her injured kidneys (which would prove that it all ended up on the piece of apron when the killer wiped his hands on it) vs. Eddowes allegedly having wiped herself up after having used a piece of her apron as a sanitary pad (which I'm not buying for a minute)?
Also, let's not forget that there was no sanitary article smeared with menstrual blood found with the body, which further blows Trevor Marriott's theory out of the water.

50% longer than required for the task? Hey, I can relate to that.

I'd buy stock on that claim of yours, C.D..