The Apron

[ChrisGeorge]

Of course the gaps between the murders could be as a result of the killer being a traveller

Do you mean like a sailor, Trevor? You could be on to something there.

[Phil H]

Weren't sailors considered at the time - indeed dvery specifically.

I am sure I recall the Queen herself asking whether they had been investigated.

Phil

[Malcolm X]

i tell you what is wild speculation, and that's people who think MJK was killed by someone else, that's plain rediculous !

But you cannot PROVE she was killed by JtR - that is just a mix of longstanding conventional wisdom and surmise.

Consider:

There was a long gap between Eddowes and MJK.

The murder was inconsistent - indoors.

The mutilations were markedly more severe.

The victim was younger than the others.

The question of access to the room make it likely that the victim KNEW her killer or that he was familiar with her room. There is little evidence of such a link in any of the other murders.

The other victims, in all probability LED JtR to the place they died - it is possible MJK did not.

I could go on.

The reasoning is very similar to that for including other murders in the series -Tabram, McKenzie, Coles.

I would also point out that the choice of the canonical five has little more to support it than the choice of the four canonical gospels. Someone - in this case Macnaghten (who was not involved in 1888) decided to affirm the five.

So I reject your comment, which won't surprise you, I am sure.

Phil

of course you reject what i'm saying, this must be the case if you support a theory that MJK was killed by someone else, you are also in conflict with 98% of all historians.... from here to Timbuktoo

long gap in time ?..... well what, this does not mean anything major! this could be due to JTR waiting for the increased police presence on the street to die down, he might have been ill, visiting his mother up north, working up north bla bla bla, you will have to do better than this

the murder was indoors and markedly more severe, it was more severe/ brutal and repulsive simply because it WAS INDOORS, he was in there for ages and relatively safe, but any time before 4AM is too risky, because there is still a possibility that a friend could come around.

we dont know if he broke in/ invited in, but if he was invited in, it's highly unlikely that he would say no, due to the fact that he may have been a street killer only.... no, he is an opportunist, he would kill anywhere, even somebodies back yard .... none of the others were killed inside, no this is because his other victims wanted sex out on the street only.

where were the torsos carved up ?.... deffo inside, sorry, i've never once said that JTR didn't kill these women either..... this is a totally different MO/SIG, of course it is, but it could still be JTR. there is nothing to say that JTR wouldn't shoot someone/ poison someone, use a crow bar, a broken pipe to stab etc.... just look at Zodiac.

the victim was young yes, JTR got lucky didn't he

the victim maybe knew JTR due to room access......not necessarily, he only has to stroll down millers court to see the layout of her room, to judge the gap between the broken window and the door handle, this is an arms length away...... but only when he's allowed her plenty of time to fall asleep

and yes maybe he did know MJK, this does not rule out GH and dont forget that the key went missing too, but for me he broke in instead

MJK did not lead JTR to her place of death, she did if he heard her singing and she did if GH saw George Chapman, or if Blotchy Face is JTR instead! my guess is that JTR simply heard her singing, but this means that he must have visited Millers court twice, because i think she stopped singing somewhere around 1am, and he lurked around at 2am....but i'm not sure about this yet

a copycat killer is extremely unlikely, it's as crazy as Mary dieing in the morning between 8 and 10am. MJK is quite simply, a more hideous version of the Eddowes murder, nothing more. A copycat killer to do this, would need to be already a highly experienced killer in his own right, THIS IS NOT AN AMATEUR AT WORK, it's way too Devil may care, confident and downright disgusting for a beginner.

finally, copycat of what, wouldn't a copycat have copied the face mutilations of Eddowes more accurately and the rest too, i'm not sure here.... but if this murder was indeed very similar to Eddowes by word definition, then i would say that this is definitely a copycat, but it isn't, it's JTR becoming more hideous due to being inside, thus the wounds vary.

finally with regards to this copycat, i see no other Whitechapel mutilated victim that's not regarded as a JTR victim..... (torsos aside) W.Bury yes but this is different, there is maybe evidence of another serial killer at work, but he's not a mutilator

you see, it is easy to disagree without attacking each other

a copycat killer? by God you've got some work to do, yes i like my theories but even i wouldn't tackle this!

[Carol]

Of course the gaps between the murders could be as a result of the killer being a traveller

Perhaps the killer was out every weekend looking for a chance to murder. It
must have been very difficult to find the 'right' circumstances. When he eventually had a chance to kill Stride (I think he did kill her) the very fact that he couldn't mutilate her must have driven him even crazier. He took a definite risk with killing Eddowes but I think his need to mutilate a woman was beyond his control by that time. The fact that the mutilations seem to have been done 'uncarefully' I think was just him completely out of control.

Carol

[Malcolm X]

Do you mean like a sailor, Trevor? You could be on to something there.

a sailor is a damned good suspect, but for this to work you definitely need to find victims elsewhere

[Malcolm X]

Perhaps the killer was out every weekend looking for a chance to murder. It
must have been very difficult to find the 'right' circumstances. When he eventually had a chance to kill Stride (I think he did kill her) the very fact that he couldn't mutilate her must have driven him even crazier. He took a definite risk with killing Eddowes but I think his need to mutilate a woman was beyond his control by that time. The fact that the mutilations seem to have been done 'uncarefully' I think was just him completely out of control.

Carol

no he was definitely well in control of everything he did.

1..... he was never caught
2.....killed quickly and efficiently
3.....never seen well enough
4.....drained the body of blood before he mutilated

he was like a flipping ghost, yes this bastard knew exactly what he was doing, he didn't make too much of a mess either..... Bundy and Sutcliffe were far more brutal..... bloody hell, miles more !

MJK was ripped apart yes, but then again..... the organs were laid around her carefully, not brutal, it's more like a kind of sickness, he was in some sort of twisted trance, it's most odd

right circumstances, out every weekend.... yes you're probably right there

[Abby Normal]

All
Eventhough I lean towards the apron and GSG being related, this thread has got me thinking about other scenarios(in which the two are not related) and why the killer would take the apron only to discard it.

perhaps as his mutilations increased also his fantasy re "trophies" was also changing/growing and he wanted the clothing as well as organs as a trophy too. Only to find out a short while later that his new trophy of an apron was dirty (with feces) and therefor he chucked it.

Just a thought.

[Carol]

Hi everyone!

I've just spent what seems like ages trying to find a post. It's to do with Wentworth Buildings entrance and it was posted fairly recently. I want to find out how the killer could have exited the building if he didn't feel it was safe to go out the way he came in. I'm sure I can remember someone posting where the only possible other exit was.

I really hope someone remembers (perhaps the poster concerned!) as this knowledge is essential to me being able to solve this puzzle once and for all.

Carol

[Fleetwood Mac]

dont me silly

hang around yes i would..... 5 for a pound means 5 victims, but i dont steal from them and get the victims here in Whitechapel...... hay, this is better than the actual graffiti.... well done

Thanks, Malcolm.

Although no murderer, I could make it as a second rate graffiti artist.

The point is this: there must be something in the writing to make you think the writing and apron are connected. For instance, in the event the writing stated: John loves Claire, you wouldn't connect the two.

So, what excatly in the writing connects the two?

[Fleetwood Mac]

Serial murderers are known to leave/send messages and that is a known fact!

True enough.

But, how many have done so in a built up area, knowing the police would be there in a matter of minutes, 1/2 hours after the murder (while the police are searchng that area)?

I'd guess very, very few.

[Fleetwood Mac]

It's a screamingly simple premise, Fleets, and "deflecting suspicion" has been a tactic resorted to by many serial killers. I'm "scratching my head" in disbelief that anyone should resist this possibility so staunchly. By depositing the apron in a very Jew-concentrated locality, and writing a message explicitly mentioning the Jews (if the killer was responsible for both expedients), he may well have been seeking to implicate the Jews, and some of the police seniority believed that this was precisely what the author was trying to achieve. They certainly didn't rule out the possibility for the reason you do, i.e. that nobody would be "stupid" enough to deflect suspicion in such a fashion, and I personally go with the stupidity-barometer used by the police at the time.

Problem with this Ben is that:

a) Who exactly is the object of this tactic: a group of people known as 'the Jews'? Great news for the police, I suppose, as in the event they believed the author they could now narrow this down to say 100,000 people.

b) The message certainly mentions 'the Jews'. From there, you or the next man is guessing as to the message's intent. There has to be something in the writing to bind this to the murder. So it comes down to this: Jews are mentioned and Jews live nearby. Whoever scrawled the message had ' the Jews' in mind and Jews certainly did live nearby; but that is the case no matter the author and the intent of the message (in other words: there is nothing in this message that lends it to the murderer any more than it does to anyone else in the vicinity).

c) Yes, some of the senior police did consider that possibility. I don't place too much store in this because it's an opinion that doesn't require police training, and of course some people will disagree with me by virtue of being human beings.

So, the argument goes like this: Jack wanted to deflect suspicion, so his method was to write a message that renders the reader unclear as to who is the author, Jack or not, and what exactly is the intent of the message (a Jew with a grudge or a gentile with a grudge). He is so keen to deflect suspicion that he's hanging around between 2.20 and 2.55, except he must lose committment to this tactic as he begins to chalk because he doesn't bother to make it clear what exactly he is saying, nor does he pinpoint anyone outside of 100,000 people.

[Trevor Marriott]

a sailor is a damned good suspect, but for this to work you definitely need to find victims elsewhere

Astute comments by both of your goodselves

[Trevor Marriott]

Perhaps the killer was out every weekend looking for a chance to murder. It
must have been very difficult to find the 'right' circumstances. When he eventually had a chance to kill Stride (I think he did kill her) the very fact that he couldn't mutilate her must have driven him even crazier. He took a definite risk with killing Eddowes but I think his need to mutilate a woman was beyond his control by that time. The fact that the mutilations seem to have been done 'uncarefully' I think was just him completely out of control.

Carol

Out of control is spot on, frenzied and ferocious attacks but are we to be believe that suddenly he regains control to carefully remove organs and carefully cut a piece of apron ?

[Ben]

Hi Fleets,

Great news for the police, I suppose, as in the event they believed the author they could now narrow this down to say 100,000 people

But providing the targeted group didn't include the actual killer, its size is irrelevant, surely? It doesn't matter if the group consisted of ten people or 10,000. As long as the "narrowing down" process excluded the real murderer, the task of deflecting suspicion would have been achieved. There were a great many men with Geordie accents when the Yorkshire ripper was active, but because Peter Sutcliffe wasn't one of them, he was overlooked in consequence of John Humble's hoax tape. By disposing of the apron piece where he did, it is possible that the killer sought to validate the chalked message as his own. In which case, he was being a lot less blatant (or "stupid") than he would have been had he written "I am the killer and I am Jewish".

I don't place too much store in this because it's an opinion that doesn't require police training

True, but then we might assume that these senior officials were at least capable of making rational judgments, and when they are offered by Charles Warren, Henry Smith, Donald Swanson and others, I feel they command particular attention.

He is so keen to deflect suspicion that he's hanging around between 2.20 and 2.55

I don't think he was hanging around at that time at all. I believe PC Long simply missed the apron first time around.

All the best,
Ben

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

If the perpetrator set out from home with the intention of excising organs, wouldn't he have thought to bring along a piece of cloth for the purpose of carrying them away?

Regards,

Simon