The Apron Again

[Chava]

Because he lived there? Not necessarily in the tenements but in that street? This is a bright guy. I don't see him running like hell away from that body. I think he strolled away, possibly tipping his hat to a copper on the way out. He's someone you just don't notice, and it was dark. Here's something that occurs to me: either you drop that rag as soon as possible by the body or you keep it on your person but out of sight until you get home. You don't want to leave any clues as to where you might have headed. Wherever it's found, it's linkable with the body and so evidence that the killer was in the area.

The key to this is the size of the piece. I'm being lazy and in any case am far from my books right now! Has anyone got the dimensions of that piece of apron?

[lynn cates]

wiping

Hello Mac. Well, I can see cutting it--sort of--although just wiping is simpler. I suppose you must cut a piece in order to get between the fingers.

But why carry it all the way to Goulston st?

Cheers.
LC

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hello Mac. I know what you mean. I am not ENTIRELY comfortable with any of them. It just does not add up.

I could live with the hand/knife wiping use, but the piece needs to be at the end of St. James passage.

Cheers.
LC

Yeah, Lynn, I agree.

In the time it took him to cut the apron, he could have wiped his knife/hands. I just can't accept that in a situation like that, someone would think rationally/weigh up the options and cut the apron for future use elsewhere. Instinctively he would have wiped it on whatever was at hand, at the scene, and left the scene behind him. I personally couldn't live with the idea that he cut the apron in order to wipe his hands/knife, wherever the apron was left, just don't see it - why not just wipe instead of cutting it and then wiping?

I've no evidence but a theory that sits well with me is that it was placed there by the police to suggest this was The Met's problem.

[Chava]

Hi Phil,

I don't completely assume that MJK was killed by the Ripper. I'm somewhat on the fence about it, but if I had to come down on one side or the other I'd come down on the Ripper's side.

[lynn cates]

grey cells

Hello Phil. Yes, we must keep agitating ze little grey cells, no? Sooner or later something will click.

Cheers.
LC

[Phil Carter]

Hello Phil.

"Why in heavens name would the killer of Stride and Eddowes WANT to walk straight back towards an area where the police were crawling all over the shop following the Stride murder?"

You see, that is my concern.

And the direction from Mitre sq to Goulston caused me to abandon MJD a long time ago.

A conundrum, eh?

Cheers.
LC

Hello Lynn,

Which is one of the precise reasons for looking at the alternative, no matter how unpalatable it may be to others. There may well be reasons behind all this that we have no idea of at present. But I refuse to accept the time honoured explanation we have been dished up with, as indeed you also do not do. It just doesn't fit.

best wishes

PÅhil

[Phil Carter]

Hello Chava,

I did not laugh at your "dog" idea, I didn't even express an opinion.... and as regarding Miller's Court, you assume it was the same killer. I do not posess that certainty.

best wishes

Phil

[Chava]

And you guys all laughed at me and kept on laughing about the stray dog theory. Victorian London was rife with stray dogs and cats, the Battersea Dogs' Home notwithstanding. As well there was a very large and quite ferocious rat population. Any one of those animals would be attracted to blood and any one of them could have picked up a discarded piece of bloodied cloth and then dropped it again because it was unwieldy and difficult to cart around. I realize that The Great Rat Theory is a thigh-slapper, but I'm not quite sure why. Any woman who has had pet dogs will know that they are highly attracted to blood and this can lead to unfortunate events if steps are not taken to keep the animal out of the bedroom on certain days. I don't see what is so surprising about the theory that the cloth was picked up and dropped in this way. It is a lot more convincing to me that this happened than that an Evil Genius decided that he would take a piece of cloth and use it to implicate someone in order to avoid the police himself. It's not like he did this at any other time and he could have had a field day with identifiable stuff nicked from 13 Millers Court.

No, the only way I will believe that the apron was dropped on purpose by a killer bent on misdirecting the police would be if said killer thought for whatever reason the cops were onto him and wanted to deflect their attention. Nothing else makes any kind of sense at all. If the killer thinks he's gotten away with it, then when he's finished with the cloth he pitches it immediately or keeps it out of sight until he can shove it into a handy fire. All that 'leaving it there to incriminate the Jews' stuff? That's just not credible to me at all.

So no sleepless nights for me. Either the rag belongs to someone in Goulston Street or it was dropped there by an uncaring third party in my opinion.

[lynn cates]

agreement

Hello Phil.

"Why in heavens name would the killer of Stride and Eddowes WANT to walk straight back towards an area where the police were crawling all over the shop following the Stride murder?"

You see, that is my concern.

And the direction from Mitre sq to Goulston caused me to abandon MJD a long time ago.

A conundrum, eh?

Cheers.
LC

[Phil Carter]

Hello Lynn,

"We are not alone.." lol

Let us presume, just for the sake of it, that there was just ONE JTR.
Why in heavens name would the killer of Stride and Eddowes WANT to walk straight back towards an area where the police were crawling all over the shop following the Stride murder? Thats not logical. To get home he'd be stopped more likely than not.
Far more logical for him to walk the other way.. into the heart of central London.He KNEW the murder scenes were being crawled over.. and where. He has the intelligence to avoid the police in his killings..why not apply the same common sense when fleeing the scene? Makes no sense.

Now if the killer wasn't Strides killer... we have a 50/50 chance that he did or didnt know of the previous murder. If he DID know of it.. same rules apply. But that depends on from which direction he came FROM to Mitre Square, as to likelyhood of knowing about Stride. Less chance if he came from the City to Mitre Square.

No..I believe the killer of Eddowes would have been out of there quicker than greased lightening..like he killed her. Logically therefore, either he had an accomplice, or Eddowes dropped the rag herself at some time.

Thats my honest opinion, for what it is worth.

best wishes

Phil

[lynn cates]

vox clamantis in deserto

Hello Phil

"Not in my opinion..simply because I cannot get it in my head that the SAME man, who butchered Kate Eddowes in all haste, escapes by minutes, possibly seconds, HANGS AROUND in the area and only gets 2 or 3 streets away in 35 mins.... with TWO loads of police forces searching high and low between the two murder sites."

That is my take as well.

"The killer, in my opinion, didnt drop the rag. Someone else did."

Hmm, nice to know that I am not all alone here.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

sleep?

Hello Chava.

"I just don't believe in a fiendishly clever killer who took the time and trouble to prance around Whitechapel for who knows how long with the only piece of evidence in the entire case that definitively could have swung him. If they'd picked him up with human organs in his pocket he could still have claimed that they couldn't be sure the said organs came from the murder victim, and in those pre-CSI days they maybe couldn't have proved it. But that apron is definitive evidence of a link to the crime. No ifs ands or buts. It's Eddowes's apron. So why in hell does he hang on to it?"

Welcome to some sleepless nights.

Cheers.
LC

[Phil Carter]

Hello Chava,

Not in my opinion..simply because I cannot get it in my head that the SAME man, who butchered Kate Eddowes in all haste, escapes by minutes, possibly seconds, HANGS AROUND in the area and only gets 2 or 3 streets away in 35 mins.... with TWO loads of police forces searching high and low between the two murder sites.

The killer, in my opinion, didnt drop the rag. Someone else did. But thats just my opinion..pretty worthless in the long run.

bvest wishes

Phil

[Chava]

So the popular theory is that he takes the apron and ditches it outside the Goulston Street tenements to implicate either (a) the Jews in general because they screwed up the Stride kill and because a couple of them saw him with Eddowes or (b) a Jew in particular who lived there. He also (maybe) took the time to scrawl some very obscure graffito that might suggest that he didn't like Jews. But he was very careful how he worded it so that no young person's eye might be offended.

Either way it didn't work. The cops spent next to no time with the inhabitants of the tenement. Why they didn't immediately consider someone there for the crime is beyond me. I'm sure they ran into a barrage of 'Me No Speak Englitsch' but they would have had interpreters who could speak Yiddish and translate for them. Yes, the immigrants had come from a place where the police flat-out couldn't be trusted, but they had to know that the British police were a different proposition and that they would have to co-operate if questioned.

I just don't believe in a fiendishly clever killer who took the time and trouble to prance around Whitechapel for who knows how long with the only piece of evidence in the entire case that definitively could have swung him. If they'd picked him up with human organs in his pocket he could still have claimed that they couldn't be sure the said organs came from the murder victim, and in those pre-CSI days they maybe couldn't have proved it. But that apron is definitive evidence of a link to the crime. No ifs ands or buts. It's Eddowes's apron. So why in hell does he hang on to it? No. I think he dropped it as fast as he was done with it and ran like hell. Either that or it fell out of his pocket on the way up to his home in the Goulston Street tenement.

[lynn cates]

math

Hello Mac. I know what you mean. I am not ENTIRELY comfortable with any of them. It just does not add up.

I could live with the hand/knife wiping use, but the piece needs to be at the end of St. James passage.

Cheers.
LC