The Apron

[Lechmere]

The problem with the explanation that the Ripper saw the graffiti earlier on in the day and returned with the apron later to deliberately leave it underneath is that it implies that the location of the Eddowes murder was at least roughly predetermined in his head.
In other words he saw the graffiti and later on almost fitted the murder to facilitate leaving the apron by Wentworth Model Dwellings after leaving the crime scene.
It also implies that he set out to commit two murders
This is altogether too fantastic an explanation for me.

[Tom_Wescott]

Chris George-poet, author, historian, cyberbully

Through this post I would like to say to all the bullies out there who think that we 'Johnny Come Latelies' are illogical and only present ideas that 'so-called experts' find beneath them to think about - don't think that you can make us leave Casebook just to youselves to pat each other on the back and congratulate each other on how wonderful you are.

I've been posting here for 13 years and am still the victim of these bullies, like Chris, so it's not a newbie thing. One word of advice if I may...DON'T LET YOUR RIPPEROLOGIST SUBSCRIPTION LAPSE. You think Chris is a rough one now, wait til you see him when the money isn't coming in. I will probably have to purchase three subscriptions to make up for this post.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Carol]

Sorry to offend you, Carol, or to be perceived to be "bullying" you. I think most who know me in this forum will attest that I don't do that. I am only interested in the truth, just as you are.

Best regards

Chris

Hi Chris,

I've calmed down now.......

Today is another day!

Take care.

Carol

[Carol]

I've been posting here for 13 years and am still the victim of these bullies, like Chris, so it's not a newbie thing. One word of advice if I may...DON'T LET YOUR RIPPEROLOGIST SUBSCRIPTION LAPSE. You think Chris is a rough one now, wait til you see him when the money isn't coming in. I will probably have to purchase three subscriptions to make up for this post.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your post. I was so angry yesterday that all the pent-up feelings of disappointment that have been adding up well and truly overflowed. When I first joined Casebook I really thought it was a forum where we could air our views without worrying about feeling like idiots for getting things 'wrong'. I'm sure there are many members who do not post for fear of this. They may have some really good ideas that could lead to a greater understanding of the case and JTR himself. Which is sad.

I'm staying, and will continue to come up with daft ideas!

Take care.

Carol

[Carol]

The problem with the explanation that the Ripper saw the graffiti earlier on in the day and returned with the apron later to deliberately leave it underneath is that it implies that the location of the Eddowes murder was at least roughly predetermined in his head.
In other words he saw the graffiti and later on almost fitted the murder to facilitate leaving the apron by Wentworth Model Dwellings after leaving the crime scene.
It also implies that he set out to commit two murders
This is altogether too fantastic an explanation for me.

Hi Lechmere,

I think it possible that JTR thought he might be able to use the writing. I also think he probably went out at the weekends looking for a victim but on most occasions the circumstances were not favourable to kill.

I don't think he had necessarily 'an apron' in mind. It could have been anything that the police would have definitely associated with the murder.

I don't think he set out to commit two murders either. If he lived in the Whitechapel area he could have seen the writing much earlier in the day.

Carol

[Carol]

Hi Celesta! I'm fine. Just that sometimes work gets in the way of Ripperology...

Carol, I'm originally from the North of England although I lived in London for quite a while. Now I'm in Toronto. I do go back to the UK a lot. Two or three times a year.

As for the apron, I posted about this yesterday. Apart from the policeman in Bishopsgate there are no eye-witness sightings of Eddowes wearing the apron, and given what she had on at the time I'm pretty sure she wasn't. I think it's entirely likely the cop saw her calico pocket and assumed it was an apron, and then when shown the apron said 'that's it!'. The other victims were not wearing aprons when they were killed, and there would be no reason for Eddowes to do so either. Then as now you wore an apron when you were actually doing some kind of work that might spoil your clothing. Unless you were a skivvy or a cook and so wore an apron all day every day. Eddowes was out on the razzle. She didn't need an apron for that, and if she wanted to pick up customers, an apron would have given a disturbingly domestic impression...

Hello Chava,

Thanks for letting me know where you come from. The reason I asked was because I thought you were from 'across the pond' and I found it very interesting what you said about the folding of rags so that they would soak up as much blood as possible. I wondered if this special folding was an American 'thing' as I hadn't heard of this myself. So your mother was (is) from northern England I presume. I'm from the deep south (Kent). Do you think this was a 'northern' way of folding? I know these thoughts of mine seem rather banal but I'd love to know what you think. It sounds like commonsense to me after all.

I think your last paragraph is spot-on!

Carol

[Carol]

Carol,

I'm afraid you have chosen the wrong Guy to label as a 'Bully'.

Christopher T George is nothing less than a Gentlemen. One of the first to welcome me to the boards over 10 years ago.

Whilst he may disagree he hardly ever engages in heated debate and always knows where that line is, being respectful to boot.

You are more than welcome to your views, and express them at will. Just don't start mouthing off at our locals, especially a local who has paid his dues, conducted his research and who is a published author.

Chris deserved better than that.

Monty

Monty,

I don't intend to get into an argument with you, although I have to say that I think all this is to do with Trevor Marriott's theory about the apron piece being used as a menstrual 'rag'. It was Chris's 'assumption' that I had been persuaded by him that really put my back up. I THOUGHT OF THIS MYSELF AND HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT TREVOR HAS PREVIOUSLY WRITTEN ABOUT.

What is it about this theory that seems to make most of you 'locals' so worried? Is it because you can see the sense in it but don't want to admit it?

Carol

[Carol]

By the way, we'll never know this, but I wonder which other victims were 'on the rag' as it used to be called when they were killed. Maybe that was a trigger...?

Hi Chava,
Fascinating thought of yours!
Carol

[Chava]

Carol I think the folding of the rages was pretty universal everywhere in the first world until someone came up with the bright idea of machine-made disposable pads. Which was, apparently, around the time of the killings. It makes sense to fold the rags because that way the blood doesn't seep as much and clots are caught ahead of doing too much damage. Factory-made pads were too expensive for most women so they didn't really come into use until much later. Women who had some kind of home would remove the cloths when they were saturated and dump them into cold water. Many women used the chamber pot to dump used rags in. Actually that wouldn't have been a bad idea as the urine would have helped bleach out the cloths and remove the blood stains.

Now I'm guessing that this is far too much information for the gentlemen on the board so I'm going to stop now!

[caz]

Strange Birds - of a feather

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

Hi Greg,

We seem to be thinking of two separate double events during Bundy's reign of terror. There was one where his first victim managed to survive an abduction attempt and this made him so worked up and frustrated that he went off and found himself a second within about an hour, and this one wasn't so fortunate.

Two double events in recent years in Croydon were similarly the result of two frustrated repeat offenders who failed to get sufficient jollies from their first and took it out in spectacularly brutal fashion on their second, within a very short time and distance. It didn't take much to attribute these double assaults to the one offender in each case, even though there were far fewer similarities than we see between the fatal attacks on Stride and Eddowes.

I wonder how we would react to a Stride/Eddowes event if it were to happen tonight. How many of us would seriously presume the murders to be totally unrelated? Offenders like this, whether or not they carry off trophies, or bits of apron for purposes unknown, or leave clues by accident or design, have never been and never will be two a penny.

Love,

Caz
X

[Carol]

Carol I think the folding of the rages was pretty universal everywhere in the first world until someone came up with the bright idea of machine-made disposable pads. Which was, apparently, around the time of the killings. It makes sense to fold the rags because that way the blood doesn't seep as much and clots are caught ahead of doing too much damage. Factory-made pads were too expensive for most women so they didn't really come into use until much later. Women who had some kind of home would remove the cloths when they were saturated and dump them into cold water. Many women used the chamber pot to dump used rags in. Actually that wouldn't have been a bad idea as the urine would have helped bleach out the cloths and remove the blood stains.

Now I'm guessing that this is far too much information for the gentlemen on the board so I'm going to stop now!

Hello Chava,

I have a bound volume of issues of 'Home Chat' from 1896 and there are advertisements there for 'Hartmann's Hygienic Towelettes - Invaluable for Ladies Travelling and Home use. Supplied at the actual cost of washing'. Which seems to imply that the better-off women's 'rags' would have been sent out to a laundry to be cleaned! Some time ago Archaic was posting about when these first came onto the market. I can't remember the exact year, but, as you say, about the time of the murders.

Interesting that many women put them in the chamber pot. Very good idea, really!

Carol

[Bridewell]

Fleetwood

"If he's going to take the organs into his home, then why not the apron? Both are incriminating."

Is that necessarily the case? Forensic science was, at best, rudimentary at the time. When blood was examined, the best they could ever come up with was that the blood was that of a human or a pig (see William Waddell's clothing after the Jane Beetmoor murder). Once he reaches home, all he has is (disgusting thought, I know) a piece of kidney, which he could pass off as that of a pig. If he turn's up with a blood-stained piece of a murdered woman's apron it might, as eventually of course it was, be linked directly back to the victim.

[Steven Russell]

Hello, Bridewell.
Fair comment about the blood but doctors would have been able to distinguish between a human kidney and that of a pig. For example there was never any doubt that the Lusk kidney was human.

Best wishes,
Steve.

[Monty]

Monty,

I don't intend to get into an argument with you, although I have to say that I think all this is to do with Trevor Marriott's theory about the apron piece being used as a menstrual 'rag'. It was Chris's 'assumption' that I had been persuaded by him that really put my back up. I THOUGHT OF THIS MYSELF AND HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT TREVOR HAS PREVIOUSLY WRITTEN ABOUT.

What is it about this theory that seems to make most of you 'locals' so worried? Is it because you can see the sense in it but don't want to admit it?

Carol

Carol,

If you do not wish to enter into an argument then why use such imflammatory words and sentences?

Unlike the genteel Chris T, I do not stand down from such provocation.

Believe me, your theory holds no worry for me. Its groundless, improbable and ill conceived.

What is it with you newbies that you think your new theory wasn't touted 10 years ago.

Monty

[Supe]

Carol,

I will readily accept the theory was arrived at by you independently, but regardless it was quite demolished by Jane Coram writing "A Cat's Lick or Two" for Casebook Examiner Number 7 (April 2011).

Don.