The Apron

[Malcolm X]

I suppose the point I'm making Carol, is that he had two options: untie or cut the apron. In the event he does one, he doesn't need to do the other.

Having that, this 'cutting of the apron for convenience' is an idea of mine that could do with some meat on the bones.

For example: the remaining piece of the apron was attached to 'the strings'. Do we know what is meant by 'strings'. I've been trying to determine this without success. Is it the strings around the waist or the strings around the neck?

Regardless, we know he needs access. We know he's ripping clothes apart. Would be impossible to rip apart an apron tied at the waist unless cut from the front.

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT INDEED, if he cut open the apron to gain access to her body, it is only one vertical cut that's needed.

but if he needs to remove a piece, he has to cut two vertical lines, a foot apart,...... or one vertical line and undo the strings at the back, i think the apron was still tied together at the back, he therefore needs 2 vertical cuts to remove a piece...the strings at the back were probably a double bow and it's a bit awkward to roll over dead weight to do so.

conclusion :- the apron piece was cut off not because of problems with access, but because he wanted it for a reason.
he could quite easily have used her dress to wipe his hands/ knife, this piece of apron also looks too big to put a kidney in.

he was not disturbed, (thus he quickly cut off part of her apron and legged it), which is what i originally thought, he did this before he started mutilating, he might indeed still have been disturbed but not due to this, but for me, it looks like he had finished doing his thing and was long gone.

[curious]

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT INDEED, if he cut open the apron to gain access to her body, it is only one vertical cut that's needed.

but if he needs to remove a piece, he has to cut two vertical lines, a foot apart,...... or one vertical line and undo the strings at the back, i think the apron was still tied together at the back, he therefore needs 2 vertical cuts to remove a piece...the strings at the back were probably a double bow and it's a bit awkward to roll over dead weight to do so.

Why not one vertical cut -- through the body of the apron, then a quick slice through where the string attached?

That way the piece is free, but there is no fuss or muss about the knot in the back?

[Carol]

For example: the remaining piece of the apron was attached to 'the strings'. Do we know what is meant by 'strings'. I've been trying to determine this without success. Is it the strings around the waist or the strings around the neck?

Hi Fleetwood!

Thanks for your reply.

As far as I can find out from my own books here at home, the working class woman in England at that time would wear a very large apron that hung from the waist, nearly to the bottom of her skirt, and which wrapped itself around her nearly to meet in the middle of her back. It was tied by what was then known as 'strings' (what we would now call 'ties') which was really one long piece of narrow cloth, folded in half lengthways and sewn on to the apron itself at the waist and with a long piece left on either side to 'tie' the garment around the body. In England there is a saying about young men who are 'still tied to their mothers' apron strings'.

The other apron to which you refer with a piece of cloth (a bib) attached to the waist apron and which hung around the neck, did not normally have separate 'strings' attached to the bib. This just had one continuous string attached that went over the head. The string and the bib could even have been made out of just the one piece of material. This would have been the sort of apron that a housemaid would have worn and was a daintier garment. She would have put this on over her 'best' maid's dress later on in the day when she had finished her polishing, etc. duties. Earlier in the day she would have worn a dress that she kept for 'rougher' work - by this time in the late Victorian period made up in a material that had a little print on it. Waitresses also would have used the 'prettier' apron, as indeed, barmaids, etc.

Carol

[Carol]

Why not one vertical cut -- through the body of the apron, then a quick slice through where the string attached?

That way the piece is free, but there is no fuss or muss about the knot in the back?

Hi curious!
I thought of this, too, but then I read yesterday that both pieces of cloth had a string attached.
Carol

[Malcolm X]

Why not one vertical cut -- through the body of the apron, then a quick slice through where the string attached?

That way the piece is free, but there is no fuss or muss about the knot in the back?

the string is just a thin long piece of cloth that's sewn onto the apron all the way around, other photos looked like this too, it's a bit odd that he hasn't rolled the body to cut through the knot, maybe his knife is so sharp that he doesn't need to worry

many of the bows at the back were much larger and fancier too, i'd better stop now because i'm getting all hot and bothered for some reason!

[lynn cates]

Victorian dress

Hello Malcolm. Below is another site--if a proliferation of Victorian dress might prove helpful.

Cheers.
LC

http://www.recollections.biz/

[caz]

Hi All,

Interesting debate, even if the various arguments have been thrashed out for over a decade here with no sign of any progress or possible resolution.

What can the killer's known actions tell us about his mindset at any one moment in time that night?

He must have known he had very limited time with Eddowes, once he had killed her, yet we know what he managed to achieve during that time, and he would not have wasted a moment on anything he didn't need or want to do, before making good his escape with the bits and pieces that would have tied him like apron strings to the murder and put a rope round his neck, had he been stopped and searched between Mitre and Goulston.

Of course he also had the menacing knife on him, that would have proved invaluable if confronted while carrying the organs and the wholly incriminating piece of cloth. But he'd have needed his wits about him for a while longer if he was to get clean away with everything - which we can assume he did.

I believe this was a very determined man, doing things very few mortals would ever dream of doing, or dare to do, in highly risky circumstances. I simply don't believe that he fannied about doing anything that was surplus to his own, highly individual requirements and desires.

But there's the rub, because we are still left with this sizeable bit of bloody cloth that was discovered at a considerable distance from the crime scene, in the entrance to a spanking new residential building, where someone had seen fit to leave a nice little legible, but ambiguous message for the inhabitants or passers-by.

People do such things for a reason, but when their actions make no clear sense, even to those who were there at the scene or knew their own neighbourhood inside out (like Abberline for one), and a thousand and one different interpretations are offered over the next 120+ years, it just shows how impossible it is to fathom the motives of such people for their behaviour. Without an obvious or rational motive for any of the killer's known actions that night, how can any of us be remotely sure what his behaviour could or could not have included?

We do know that Bundy had his own double event, and maybe there is something we can learn from his known behaviour on that and other occasions - assuming Bundy's mind was quite likely to have worked more like the Mitre Square killer's than ours.

Why do we want or expect the 'simplest' solutions every time from such a complex mind acting out its most murderous fantasies?

Love,

Caz
X

[lynn cates]

2 points

Hello Caz.

"we are still left with this sizeable bit of bloody cloth that was discovered at a considerable distance from the crime scene"

Yes, quite considerable. It seems to me that wiping ones hands to eliminate blood/faecal material would be a normal, desirable thing to do. Apron piece? Why not? But it seems natural to wipe them whilst fleeing the scene, then discarding the apron piece when finished. That should place the bloody piece only a few feet from the body.

"People do such things for a reason"

Precisely.

Cheers.
LC

[Lechmere]

I think that a lot of what you said can be ‘hardened up’.

He was clearly determined and he was clearly doing what no one else except a similarly deranged and daring psychopath would do.
‘Normal’ people will always fail to see into the mind of a psychopath so his motivation – why the apron, why the message, why the double event etc will always mystify.

The simplest solution is that the Ripper was responsible for all three of these things. I tend to run with the simplest solution.
That is not the same as working out the motivation behind these acts – which are essentially unfathomable. In many ways it is a somewhat fruitless line of enquiry coming up with ‘solutions’ to the motivation.

On using the knife to evade arrest – I think that would have been unlikely that he would have done so in fact.
People assume that a policeman or Passerby might have thought twice about confronting this vicious killer who must have had a nasty looking knife about his person. This may be so.
However the psychological impulse to viciously kill his chosen prey – who were all fairly defenceless victims (which is what I think he was after rather than prostitutes per se) – is quite different from the ability to fight off or even think of fighting off an able bodied person who may confront them. The likely response would be meek submission I would suggest.

[Malcolm X]

Yes maybe, because he definitely targeted defenceless women only, these women because of the nature of what they did, were very easy to kill, plus it's relatively easy due to it being so dark/ late at night, to go undetected, and if seen; never seen well enough.

the way it seems to me is:-

1.....he visited whitechapel and left soon after
2.....he was from the lower to middle classes
3.....he was not from the rich upper classes
4.....Sailor boy keeps cropping up/GH
5.....George Chapman keeps comming to mind
6.....vigilante/ Pipeman

and not a lot else i'm afraid, i dont sense much more than 10 years ago.

anything really odd ? yes, but only a really crazy theory, i sense that the Graffiti is refering to Nazi Germany, rather than Whitechapel and it looks like GH inserted himself into this case, like a modern serial killer, it seems like JTR is still around today and in the future too.

BUT if he was travelling back and forth through history, then you'd see a pattern of crimes emerging and a link to this LA DE DA Jew, because this suspect description is very odd indeed..... but for JTR to reveal too much, would have been too risky.....and he might have anyway, but we're simply missing it

if JTR was telling us something, and he definitely is :-

1.....LA DE DA is not supposed to be the killer, he's telling us lot in the 21st century that he's the killer..... he only wants us to know from maybe the 1990s onwards..... he's done his FBI research and he knows that to insert himself into this case in such an obvious way, will reveal to us that he's JTR, but not to Abberline etc.
2.....JTR is probably about to start killing again, within the next 40 years!

but i cant be bothered to research this, because this is really stupid, and i'll make myself look like a total DIP STICK if i keep going on about it but i do sense this quite strongly and it does spook me quite a lot to think about it.

SO LET'S SEE WHAT HAPPENS IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS

[Tom_Wescott]

Minimalist vs Traditionalist

The simplest solution is that the Ripper was responsible for all three of these things.

I would agree with this, just as I agree with what Caz said before. The rub is that others, such as John Bennett and Monty on this thread, feel that this explanation is the most complex and that a simpler explanation is an unrelated hand for Stride's murder and yet another unrelated hand in the graffiti. To my mind, the purpose of the apron only becomes mystifying when comtemplating the minimalist scenario, because it the killer had no intention of leaving the graffiti, there really is no purpose for the cutting and taking of the apron piece. Since I choose to believe the Ripper wrote the graffiti, the apron piece takes on a practical purpose. My scenario - that the Ripper intentionally killed two women in different police jurisdictions and planted false clues in Goulston Street - may be incorrect, but it makes sense of all the evidence and leaves little in the way of mystery left.

I think it likely that we all, knowingly or not, interpet the evidence based on our personal biases of what we think the Ripper was like. Not necessarily WHO we think he was, but what. If we see the Ripper as a (to use a now-antiquated term) 'disorganized' sexual serial killer, then such things as a successful double murder and planned graffiti don't make much sense. If we see the Ripper as someone more planning, and perhaps more intelligent, or perhaps someone with an agenda, then it's not difficult at all to accept the various pieces of evidence.

That's not to say we all haven't considered the various viewpoints, and different scenarios, but maybe we're just hardwired differently.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[ChrisGeorge]

anything really odd ? yes, but only a really crazy theory, i sense that the Graffiti is refering to Nazi Germany, rather than Whitechapel

Yes but anti-Semitism is ages old. The Nazis were only cashing in on the existing ancient anti-Semitism in Germany and Europe generally and using it for their own purposes.

Chris

[John Bennett]

That's not to say we all haven't considered the various viewpoints, and different scenarios, but maybe we're just hardwired differently.

Tom, as far as I can see, you're bang on the money with that statement. Wise words...

JB

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

We do know that Bundy had his own double event, and maybe there is something we can learn from his known behaviour on that and other occasions - assuming Bundy's mind was quite likely to have worked more like the Mitre Square killer's than ours.

Excellent point. I had forgotten about Bundy's DE.

[GregBaron]

Normal thinking out...

Some fine posts here people. I concur with the thoughts of both Lechmere and Caz. We cannot understand the mind or motivations of a psychopath. They are almost like another species. Hopefully, there are no psychopaths on these boards, but if there are, maybe they can help us out.

I’m not sure we can learn from Bundy’s double event? He collected two “specimens”, tied them up and did with them what he would. He also had the luxury of indoor shelter. I believe since the ground was so fertile that day, hundreds of available victims, he just thought I can’t pass this up, it’s too easy. Not unlike a hunter in a field of deer. These poor young women were merely objects to him. Again, the mind is unfathomable.

I’m not sure how this might relate to the Berner St.- Mitre Square DE. Perhaps others have some ideas?

As for the simplest solution, I think Lynn Cates stated a while back that the Ockham’s razor thing is a myth! Have we really been duped all these years?

Greg