The Bloody Piece of Apron Redux

[mariab]

Hello Jane,
are you implying that Eddowes' chemise or another piece of undergarment would have been more “generic“, and less easily identifiable with the murder scene than the apron? I'm under the impression that Eddowes' flowery skirt was the most flashy part of her dress, probably made from curtains (like Scarlett O' Hara's green dress). Obviously if her skirt was made of wool, it wouldn't have come as handy as the apron for wiping one's hands. I'm probably missing tons of details and nuances here, as I totally suck in traditional women's clothing and sewing techniques.

[Jane Coram]

Hi,

I've trawled through and found some reports, both police and news, and they seem to conflict to some extent, although of course we should rely more on the police reports than the newspapers.

Here are a few I've found.

Dr Gordon Brown: It was a portion of an apron cut, with the string attached to it (produced). (Morning Advertiser 12th November)

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

The inventory of her clothes shows that the green alpaca skirt and the blue skirt had jagged cuts ten and a half inches long in them. They couldn't have been torn, because you can't make a jagged tear, it has to be along the warp or the weft. The pocket strings were cut through as well, which probably does mean that the waist band of the apron must have been cut through as well, as he couldn't tear it.

On the other side of the coin there is an account in the Times of the 2nd October, which says just the opposite.

As stated in the particulars given in The Times of yesterday, part of the attire of the unfortunate woman who was butchered in Mitre Square consisted of a portion of coarse white apron, which was found loosely hanging about the neck. A piece of apron had been torn away by the villain . . .


I would have to say that I'd go with the police reports here, and say that it was cut, but the cut aided by tearing or pulling along with the knife to speed it up. I think that the fact that there are jagged cuts in the skirt, which were definitely cuts and not tears shows that he did cut, BUT, he did tear the chemise up the front, and her vest up the back, (presumably that was the point of least resistance and that's why the back tore rather than the front).
It seems adding it all together he cut and tore to get the clothing out of the way, whichever worked best.

Hugs

Janie

xxxx

[Jane Coram]

Hi Maria,

I think the idea behind the suggestion was that the other items of clothing might have been either harder to cut, less readily identifiable, or too dark to see clearly in the dark. The apron, whether it was intentional or not, was absolutely perfect for the purpose, if he did only take it to drop somewhere to incriminate the Jews.

It might have just been a coincedence, but a useful one for Jack.

Hugs

Janie

xxxx

[mariab]

Hi Jane,
and the undergarments would have possibly been too bloody? (Now don't ask me what kind of undergarments she might have been wearing, as I'm completely clueless.)

[Chava]

When I started the original apron thread I thought not enough attention had been paid to it. Now we're paying a lot of attention to it but there are still plenty of questions. One of which is this: if he got the cloth to carry the kidney etc, then he had to have gone home or wherever he kept his stuff, put the souvenir away and then gone out again to ditch the cloth. Why did he do that? It's incriminating if it's found on him, but a good way to make sure that doesn't happen is either to burn it or to tear or cut it into shreds (decide on the utensil of your choice) and stuff it into the rag bag with a few bits missing so it can't be pieced together. It then becomes just another rag in a city full of rags. The same thing applies if he's using it as a bandage. He might think it's an idea to blame the Jews so he leaves it under a vaguely anti-semitic graffito. But it still means he's out on the street with an identifiable piece of cloth belonging to a victim when he could be home shredding it or burning it. At home behind closed doors is a far better option for the Ripper than out on the street while the police are all over looking for a murderer in my opinion. So I think there had to be a pretty good reason for him to do what he did. The Ripper was cool-headed and resourceful. Prancing around the East End with a majorly incriminating piece of evidence doesn't fit into that.

[Archaic]

Hi Chava. Those are good points that you raise.

I lean towards the idea that the killer came prepared to take his gory 'trophy', and that he tore a piece of apron to wipe the mess off his knife.

He may already have already had the idea to drop to take a piece of something that could be matched to the victim, or he may have come up with that idea spontaneously as he fled.

I do think Catherine's killer wrote the Goulston St. Grafitto, and I think he deliberately dropped the apron piece there in order to let the police and newspapers know that he wrote it.

That's my take anyway... I guess it's kind of old-fashioned these days, but it makes pretty good sense to me.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Chava]

Yes, but he could have wiped his knife on her apron while on scene. He doesn't have to take the time to cut a piece off and wipe his hands or the knife while he's running. It takes a lot less time to grab the apron and wipe the knife or his hands in situ than it does to cut/tear/pull the apron apart so that he can take a piece away. So he needed to take a piece away. So far the choices are: he cut himself; he needed something to put his bits and bobs in; he wanted to use it to incriminate the Jews. Did he intend to do the graffito/leave something incriminating when he set out? Did it occur to him during the murder? And if he was bent on shoving the blame on the Jewish population, why did he not write something a bit more obvious? Like 'I killed them whores signed the Hebrew Hammer' or whatever. Actually the graffito is obviously a kind of third-party statement about the Jews. It talks about 'the Juwes' as a separate group from the writer. It does not say 'we jews...'

If it was his intention on the Eddowes killing, he had dropped it completely by MJK. He could have covered that room with Jewish/antiJewish graffiti written in blood if he had wanted to do so. But he didn't.

[mariab]

Quote Chava:
Yes, but he could have wiped his knife on her apron while on scene. He doesn't have to take the time to cut a piece off and wipe his hands or the knife while he's running. It takes a lot less time to grab the apron and wipe the knife or his hands in situ than it does to cut/tear/pull the apron apart so that he can take a piece away. So he needed to take a piece away.

Actually that's some pretty astute reasoning, Chava. I feel very stupid for not having thought about this in this way before. I wonder what Monty (Neil Bell, Ripperology's specialist on Mitre Square and the Victorian police) would say about this. Monty is a firm believer that the GSG was unrelated to the discarded piece of apron.
If the Ripper took the piece of apron to carry the organs, it doesn't make sense. Why didn't he do that before, during the other C5, and why didn't he discard the organs together with the piece of apron, or, how did he carry them AFTER he dropped the piece of apron?
That he might have cut himself with his own knife (and got the wound covered in fecal matter, thus needing some tissue to clean up) appears as a plausible possibility.
As for the GSG's content, IF it was left (or pre-existing and instrumentalized) by the Ripper, my interpretation is that he was pissed against the IWEC for having interrupted him with Stride on that specific evening.

[mariab]

Pertaining to post #209 on this thread, I'd like to ask the informed (Jane Coram?): Did Dr. Gordon Brown sketch the body in situ in colors? Or is this some enhanced reproduction?

[Jane Coram]

Hi Maria,

The drawing that's been posted on this thread is Frederick Foster's drawing of Kate in situ. He probably sketched it in first with pencil and then added the colour when he got back to base. The colouring looks as if it's water colour I think and outlined in pen. He may have actually painted it at the scene, but I suspect that they would have wanted to get the body away from there as fast as they could, because of the gathering crowds.

The one done by Foster at the mortuary was just pencil. You can see from the proportions in that sketch that Foster was a surveyor and not a general artist. The shoulders are far too wide for the rest of the sketch. He did a good job though considering!

Hugs

Janie

xxxxx

[curious4]

Sounds in the night

Hello all, (or should that be "evening all" for the more mature Brits - refers to a popular police series in the 1950s/60s)

Getting away from the torn piece of apron for a while - though I must say that I am 100% for the suggestion that Jack placed it where he did to call attention to the graffiti and so implicate the Jewish residents of the East End. Incidentally, I have been giving some thought as to who would have had a piece of chalk in his/her pocket.

Well, on to my point about nothing being heard. At the moment I am quite well-qualified to answer this. I live on the corner of a square and turning right across the road, on the next side of the square, there are three small shops. Last monday in the early hours thieves drove a van into the front of the third shop, smashing the plate glass window and demolishing the whole front.

Didn´t hear a thing! Normally sound travels well and I can hear most things going on in the square - when I am awake. My daughter happened to be staying with me that night and did not hear anything either, if you are wondering whether my advanced years have made me deaf! If anyone had asked me before whether I would hear a van smashing into a shop so near, I would have been sure that I would hear something but this shows that someone sleeping heavily can sleep through loud noises and Jack did his deeds very quietly on the whole.

Best wishes,

C4

[Chava]

I"m with Monty! I don't think the apron had anything to do with the graffito. If he was going to write something to point towards the Jews I really do think it would have been a more obviously referential statement than the one that was reported. But as I've said above, I don't understand why he dropped it at all. He really needs to get out of the area and into a bolt-hole as fast as possible. Once in, he can do what he wants with the cloth. But if he takes the time to drop that cloth in a special place, and he's seen dropping it, he's in deep **** because it's an exact match for Eddowes's apron. If a copper found that on him it's the kind of evidence that will swing him...

[Errata]

Well here's a thought.

A white piece of cloth carrying organs is unlikely. He would be seen with it. And a blood soaked white package would draw not a little attention. Cutting it off to clean up with is unlikely. It would be easier to either wipe off there, or cut the strings and take the whole apron. Of course once he leaves the square with it he would be seen.

Really cutting it all make no sense. Its a big risk. Of course he can minimize the risk by putting it in his pocket or tucking it in his coat, but it's a risk. I agree he wouldn't take it unless he needed it. But he might not need it in the conventional sense. We really have no idea what this guy's compulsions are based on, we don't know his level of awareness of the havoc he is creating, we don't know his mental state.

It's entirely possible that the GSG is not directed so much at the Jews (because frankly if you were going to mispell Jew that's not how you would mispell it). Maybe it was, maybe it was masons, maybe it was the last name of his neighbors, maybe it made sense really only to him. And maybe it was already there. But the apron is his signature. It's how he signs that letter. And evidently that was important enough to him to take the time to run over there and leave that apron.

There are any number of trash cans, dark allies, rubbish piles, storm drains what have you to drop that apron if he didn't want it found. I think it's safe to assume he did. And if he did want it found then it would make sense that he take the time and effort to select what he wanted to drop, and cut it off.

So if he goes through all of this effort to tie himself to another scene, then I think the question becomes less "why the apron?" and become more "why tie himself to another scene?"

[mariab]

Hi Jane,
thank you so much for clarifying and for all the information. I already doubted that the color would have been added at the scene, as there was not enough time for such, obviously.
I doubt that it ever will become possible to figure out the GSG enigma. My personal interpretation is that, if the graffito was not written by the Ripper (perhaps even before he encountered Eddowes), at least he had noticed about it and chose the spot to dispose of the piece of apron. After what Chava wrote in this thread, I tend to think that possibly the reason why the apron was torn and used was the possibility that the Ripper cut himself on his knife and got fecal material on the wound. I completely agree with Chava that the Ripper knew he had to get rid of the piece of apron ASAP after using it, as it constituted severely incriminating evidence, linking him to the case. I assume that he transfered the organs possibly inside of the same place where he kept his knive(s), which might have even been deep pockets or some kind of belt, while admitting that I'm completely ignorant of Victorian clothing and accessories. Jane Coram and Archaic are the specialists here.
And obviously Curious is right about the fact that sound carries very differently, seldom vertically, sometimes not even in a linear fashion. Acoustics can get complicated in an urban environment, with a lot of walls, windows, and staircases involved. (We have construction ongoing in my building right now, and noone has been able to figure out yet from where the darn noise is coming.)
By the way, and this is slightly off topic, has anyone noticed before that the GSG is a (iambic) verse? Which actually sometimes happens in natural speak. Kind of reminds me Prof. Higgins commenting on the natural rhetoric of cockney speak on the example of Eliza Doolittle's father. ;-)

[Errata]

I completely agree with Chava that the Ripper knew he had to get rid of the piece of apron ASAP after using it, as it constituted severely incriminating evidence, linking him to the case.

But if he had to get rid of it ASAP, then why didn't he? why not leave it at the scene, or the first available doorway, or the first trash bin? Why ditch it several streets away on a fairly well patrolled block? There's really no reason for that piece of apron to leave that square, unless he had a specific plan for it. It would be easier if it had been a small shred of cloth, which could have stuck to him. He might not have noticed it until several streets away and then ditched it. But this is a big chunk of cloth. Logic would dictate that he didn't get more than a couple of steps out of the square without ditching it if all it was to him has something to wipe his hands with.