The Apron - where is it today?

[FlightyGman]

Hey all - a first post for me and it is great to join a forum of such knowledgeable folks on JTR. So the cut off portion of apron - a piece of cloth that held such significance in 1888 would surely have been looked after would it not - which begs the question where is it today or where did it go? Souvenir hunters? I have not heard any mention of possession of the cloth following the murders and I guess that its possible that it got destroyed during the blitz along with god knows what else in the City police records that is assuming it survived the 50 plus years prior to that. Talking of which how much in the way of documents/ evidence etc. is referenced in documents pre-war that didn't survive it? It intrigues me as to how much the jigsaw we lost.

[lynn cates]

jigsaw

Hello FGM. Welcome to the boards.

You are correct that many pieces of the jigsaw are missing. More troubling, perhaps, are the super added pieces which don't belong.

Cheers.
LC

[The Grave Maurice]

Interesting point you raise Gman, and a warm welcome to you.

Of course, once the piece of cloth had been matched to the apron that Eddowes was wearing, it had pretty much served its purpose. At the time, it couldn't have been used to obtain DNA, or even a blood type, and there was no way to link it to the killer. If the Blitz didn't get it, I imagine that it was simply discarded as a useless evidence.

[FlightyGman]

Thanks LC - in awe of your number of posts!

Yes good point - wrong information is at least as bad as missing information.

FGM

[Supe]

The two pieces of apron were preserved, in brown wrapping paper, until the inquest when they were introduced into evidence (and established that Kate's apron was intact when she left Bishopgate's Station at 1:am). Since the City Police were still hopeful at that moment of running Jack to earth, one would like to think that the apron parts were restored to the brown wrapping paper and maintained as possible evidence in a future trial for murder.

As I ended my recent article on the many aspects of the apron, "The (PC) Long and the Short of It," New Independent Review No. 2: Of all the mistakes made by the police forces in the Ripper investigations, perhaps the greatest was not following the precepts of modern archaeologists that some portion of a “dig’ be left in place in anticipation of future scientific advances. One could hardly expect them to anticipate DNA analysis per se, but the LVP was an age of great technological progress in which nothing was considered impossible, so it is strange that the imagination of the police was so constrained.[/font]
Don

[The Grave Maurice]

I'm sorry, Don, we can't hear you. Speak up.

[Wickerman]

It's hard to see what value it might have had even in a future murder trial.
At best it only indicates direction of flight, but of whom, and to where?
It's not like they could tie it to anyone....
that was bad...

Regards, Jon S.

[Supe]

Jon,

It's not like they could tie it to anyone....

That depends on who was arrested and under what circumstances, doesn't it?

Don.

[lynn cates]

needling remark

Hello FGM. I trust that you can see why some Ripper students feel like they are searching for a needle in a haystack.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

slim chance

Hello Don. And a fine article it was, too.

Wonder if there is even a slim chance that some collector made off with it later?

Cheers.
LC

[Supe]

Lynn,

Wonder if there is even a slim chance that some collector made off with it later?

Rather a discouraging position to put into where we root for "unauthorized borrowing" (theft), but yes, it would be nice it were still out there whatever the circumstances.

Don.

[Beowulf]

[QUOTE=begs the question where is it today or where did it go?QUOTE]

Ha! I went to sleep last night pondering this very thing.

[Monty]

There is legend that the kidney piece was in such a poor state by the 1950s that it was disgarded and some say the apron piece with it.

I can state that its not in the remaining City of London Polices archives held by them. I know cos their Curator, Rob and I have searched through all their storage, well what was shown to us where we found some old photos, evidence pertaining to old solved cases from the 60s/70s and the original Houndsditch murders file, and (as far as we are aware) an unpublished Ripper related letter.....but no apron piece.

Monty

[mariab]

I trust that you can see why some Ripper students feel like they are searching for a needle in a haystack.

Esp. if they're seeking for “Schwartz“ in a Yiddish alphabet soup (which I might have found). ;-)

I know cos their Curator, Rob and I have searched through all their storage, well what was shown to us where we found some old photos, evidence pertaining to old solved cases from the 60s/70s and the original Houndsditch murders file, and (as far as we are aware) an unpublished Ripper related letter.....but no apron piece.

Was just wondering Monty, did you find any evidence from older cases than the 1960s? At the Paris Police Museum there's evidence from cases from the 19th century. Might have even been pieces of clothing, if I recall it correctly (and I'll definitely go there again).

[FlightyGman]

Thanks all for your thoughts.
I think in my mind I struggle with the throw it away concept. Struggle to understand the mentality that is of just discarding it not struggle with the possibility that it happened. Maybe we are more conditioned today towards the preserve the evidence way of thinking though due to modern forensics.
Monty - interesting, and if that is the case shame that it lasted that long (and survived the blitz) only to be discarded. Yes - some might say what would it give us now but in a case with very little of anything concrete the more pieces we have the better.