Kate's Apron

[Trevor Marriott]

Yes but it was still recognised as a piece of apron rather than just a piece of cloth therefore it would have been natural to have put it in the same section of the list as the rest of the clothing. The fact that it wasn’t isn’t mysterious though as we have a perfectly reasonable explanation for this.

And as I said in an earlier post in response to your speculation that the two pieces didn’t necessarily equate to a full apron, we have to ask why this wasn’t mentioned at the time if it was indeed the case? If, after the matching up, there was still a piece missing surely we would expect to have heard that Constables would have been tasked with looking for it? After all, another piece would have been a further pointer to the killers escape route. As there was no mention of any missing piece it’s entirely reasonable to assume that there wasn’t one.

They were described as portions or pieces, do you not think someone somewhere would have made the connection to a full apron. There is also no suggestion that any pieces were unaccounted for, you are again creating a mystery when there is none to be created.

There would have been no need to mention it at the time because they were simply two pieces of old apron that were matched that is not sufficient to infer that they made up a full apron. We dont even know the sizes of the two pieces.

Can you not use an old piece of apron as a cloth or a rag?

remember she had 12 pieces of rag in her possessions which could have been 12 pieces of old white apron?

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Varqm]

His verbal testimony came some 4 days after the murder. The only notes made at the time was the list, the rest of his testimony was from memory that is why he is hesitant to say she was wearing an apron because he uses the word apparently, again trying to be to helpful, but not helpful enough. Then we turn to Sgt Byfield who mentions nothing at all about seeing her wearing an apron yet he booked her into custody and then later released her so if anybody was likely to have seen her wearing an apron I would suggest it would have been him, and I find it strange why all the other witnesses either were asked or volunteered the fact that she was wearing an apron but not him perhaps he wasn't prepared to be too helpful

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

It does not matter what Byfield said or did not see there were 3 witnesses already who said she was wearing one.It was George Henry Hutt who released her:
I pushed open the swing-door leading to the passage, and said, "This way, missus." She passed along the passage to the outer door. I said to her, "Please, pull it to.".
[Coroner] In your opinion is that the apron the deceased was wearing? - To the best of my belief it is.

Collard's verbal testimony was under oath and 4 days is not that long not to remember whether the apron was worn or not.
"Apparently" was good enough,the apron was not entirely worn in a normal manner but was in an unusual position,it has been moved about the body but still clear enough that it was worn.To determine whether she was wearing one or not (just a possession) was surely easy enough to determine,based on the placement of the apron on her body.
Another possibility of the use of "apparently" was the info was forwarded to him by another witness on good faith and Collard believed him and was repeating it,but then he would have mentioned it.
But what do we get out of this,what's the importance of whether she was wearing it or not.PC Longs testimony was more important than this,surely.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Its not just about my theory, its about testing the reliability of the witnesses and the testimony some of them gave which you and others seem to want to accept without question for some reason!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

It's not the case of accepting anything without question. It's a case of having no valid reason for assuming that Hutt and Robinson weren't being honest. It's just too convenient an argument to try and dismiss two corroborating witnesses just to bolster a theory. And those two witnesses were corroborated by others.

[Herlock Sholmes]

They were described as portions or pieces, do you not think someone somewhere would have made the connection to a full apron. There is also no suggestion that any pieces were unaccounted for, you are again creating a mystery when there is none to be created.

There would have been no need to mention it at the time because they were simply two pieces of old apron that were matched that is not sufficient to infer that they made up a full apron. We dont even know the sizes of the two pieces.

Can you not use an old piece of apron as a cloth or a rag?

remember she had 12 pieces of rag in her possessions which could have been 12 pieces of old white apron?

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

I just don't get your thinking. You yourself have suggested that the two pieces might not have made up a full apron or did I imagine this?

The police obviously felt that the piece of apron was an important clue so why wouldn't they have felt it important if there was potentially another piece unaccounted for? This makes no sense. Of course they would have mentioned it. The two pieces were matched up; no piece was recorded as being missing. Therefore the two pieces made up a full apron. It's you that's created a mystery where none exists. That Catherine Eddowes was wearing an apron there can be absolutely no doubt whatsoever. Obviously it's up to you if you continue to pursue a theory that doesn't wash. You're not the first and you won't be the last.

[Trevor Marriott]

I just don't get your thinking. You yourself have suggested that the two pieces might not have made up a full apron or did I imagine this?

The police obviously felt that the piece of apron was an important clue so why wouldn't they have felt it important if there was potentially another piece unaccounted for? This makes no sense. Of course they would have mentioned it. The two pieces were matched up; no piece was recorded as being missing. Therefore the two pieces made up a full apron. It's you that's created a mystery where none exists. That Catherine Eddowes was wearing an apron there can be absolutely no doubt whatsoever. Obviously it's up to you if you continue to pursue a theory that doesn't wash. You're not the first and you won't be the last.

I did not raise the issue of another piece or pieces other than the two we already know about and they were matched as we know, but we dont know if they when matched made up a full apron if they had I would have expected the testimony to have gone long the lines that when the Gs piece was matched to the mortuary piece it made up the rest of the apron or words to that effect.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

I just don't get your thinking. You yourself have suggested that the two pieces might not have made up a full apron or did I imagine this?

The police obviously felt that the piece of apron was an important clue so why wouldn't they have felt it important if there was potentially another piece unaccounted for? This makes no sense. Of course they would have mentioned it. The two pieces were matched up; no piece was recorded as being missing. Therefore the two pieces made up a full apron. It's you that's created a mystery where none exists. That Catherine Eddowes was wearing an apron there can be absolutely no doubt whatsoever. Obviously it's up to you if you continue to pursue a theory that doesn't wash. You're not the first and you won't be the last.

Thank you for your valid input your comments have been duly noted and filed in the appropriate file

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fiver]

Collard submitted a list which it is now claimed to have been false in a particular.An apron piece.

Nobody is claiming Collard's list is false when it says "1 Piece of old White Apron."

You and Trevor are claiming that Collard's testimony under oath is false when he said "I produce a portion of the apron which deceased was apparently wearing which had been cut through and was found outside her dress - " and "A piece of cloth was found in Goulston-street, corresponding with the apron worn by the deceased." And that Frederick Wilkinson, Dr Brown, Constable Robinson, and Constable Hutt also committed perjury by lying under oath.

[Fiver]

Nor is anyone claiming that Collard lied, or was inefficient.

Trevor is claiming that Inspector Collard, Frederick Wilkinson, Dr Brown, Constable Robinson, and Constable Hutt all lied under oath about Eddowes wearing an apron. Apparently Trevor believes the average law enforcement officer would perjure themselves without a second thought.

[JeffHamm]

It can be proved as to the credibility of the witnesses with regards to the testimony they gave which I keep saying is unsafe.

How was it that 4 days later at the inquest we have Halse who clearly didn't make any notes at the time stated that he saw that a piece of her apron was missing, what was it at the time and out of all the things that was going on he just happened to notice a piece of apron missing, why did he make no mention of all the cuts to her clothing they were more important than an apron, and then he decided to memorize that fact in case it would be needed later, and especially as the GS piece had only just been found and had not even arrived at Leman Street police station so the apron at the mortuary had no evidential value at that time. Can his testimony be safely relied upon?

The we have the farcical situation where a police officer is shown a piece of apron and believes it to have come from the apron she was seen wearing earlier it is unsafe.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Hi Trevor,

Halse mentions the missing portion of her apron because he noted it. He is a detective, and would have made a careful review of the body. I'm sure he noted the cuts to her other clothing as well, but as the apron becomes more important due to the piece found at G.S., which he hears about while at the body, noting the missing portion at the crime scene would have struck him as worth noting.

Where is your evidence he didn't take notes? The police wrote things down in their notebooks (for example, PC Long goes to get his to reference the graffiti), that was how things were done. So, rather than make things up, show me the evidence Halse didn't make notes.

Where's the replacement sanitary napkin? If Eddowes has removed one, and had her source material, as you claim, then once one is removed she's going to replace it. So where is it? Show me on the list where her replacement sanitary item she would be wearing is listed? (and if you decide now that she didn't replace it, then why is there no signs of blood on her legs, as the Dr clearly states there was no blood below the middle of the body; freely menstruating without a napkin would leave a trace of blood down her legs. I'll accept the Dr.'s might have confused it as due to her murder, if it had been there, but we have no blood to confuse, so we have evidence she was not menstruating or she was wearing a replacement napkin - so where is the replacement)

The only thing about the witness' testimony that looks unsafe in this regard is that it conflicts, no refutes, your theory. There is nothing about their testimony that conflicts with itself, or with the notion she was, as they say, wearing the apron.

I see you're introducing now a conspiracy, that all the police were being "helpful". Why does her doss house owner also state she was wearing an apron? And what on god's green earth would the police be hoping to gain by saying she was wearing an apron if she wasn't?

If the police knew she wasn't wearing the apron, why do they care about the graffiti?

Point to anything at all, I don't care how small, but any reference at all in the official documents that mentions Kate wet herself.

Point to anything at all, anything, that officially documents Kate was mensturating. Can you even find the word urine or menstruation anywhere in any of the documents because I can't.

You've admonished people for "making things up" because you don't agree with how they've interpreted something, but at least then they are dealing with evidence. You are making things up for which there is absolutely nothing to connect to, and that is not just unsafe, it's fantasy.

And "unsafe" means the testimony has a chance of being wrong, not that it is wrong! You use the term "unsafe" to justify claiming the exact opposite must have happened, and that makes your claims even more "unsafe" because unless you can show evidence for the above, you've got nothing in the way of evidence.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Thank you for your valid input your comments have been duly noted and filed in the appropriate file

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

You mean the ‘think of a way to dodge the point’ file?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Trevor,

Halse mentions the missing portion of her apron because he noted it. He is a detective, and would have made a careful review of the body. I'm sure he noted the cuts to her other clothing as well, but as the apron becomes more important due to the piece found at G.S., which he hears about while at the body, noting the missing portion at the crime scene would have struck him as worth noting.

Where is your evidence he didn't take notes? The police wrote things down in their notebooks (for example, PC Long goes to get his to reference the graffiti), that was how things were done. So, rather than make things up, show me the evidence Halse didn't make notes.

Where's the replacement sanitary napkin? If Eddowes has removed one, and had her source material, as you claim, then once one is removed she's going to replace it. So where is it? Show me on the list where her replacement sanitary item she would be wearing is listed? (and if you decide now that she didn't replace it, then why is there no signs of blood on her legs, as the Dr clearly states there was no blood below the middle of the body; freely menstruating without a napkin would leave a trace of blood down her legs. I'll accept the Dr.'s might have confused it as due to her murder, if it had been there, but we have no blood to confuse, so we have evidence she was not menstruating or she was wearing a replacement napkin - so where is the replacement)

The only thing about the witness' testimony that looks unsafe in this regard is that it conflicts, no refutes, your theory. There is nothing about their testimony that conflicts with itself, or with the notion she was, as they say, wearing the apron.

I see you're introducing now a conspiracy, that all the police were being "helpful". Why does her doss house owner also state she was wearing an apron? And what on god's green earth would the police be hoping to gain by saying she was wearing an apron if she wasn't?

If the police knew she wasn't wearing the apron, why do they care about the graffiti?

Point to anything at all, I don't care how small, but any reference at all in the official documents that mentions Kate wet herself.

Point to anything at all, anything, that officially documents Kate was mensturating. Can you even find the word urine or menstruation anywhere in any of the documents because I can't.

You've admonished people for "making things up" because you don't agree with how they've interpreted something, but at least then they are dealing with evidence. You are making things up for which there is absolutely nothing to connect to, and that is not just unsafe, it's fantasy.

And "unsafe" means the testimony has a chance of being wrong, not that it is wrong! You use the term "unsafe" to justify claiming the exact opposite must have happened, and that makes your claims even more "unsafe" because unless you can show evidence for the above, you've got nothing in the way of evidence.

- Jeff

Excellent post Jeff.

Trevor’s wrong without a shadow of a doubt. All he’s doing is floundering around using desperate measures. Lying police officers, mythical journeys, statements about menstruation with no evidence to support it and unfounded accusations of bias when he’s the one trying to shoehorn this non-starter of a theory into place despite the very obvious evidence against it. Put up a poll and he’ll get 2 votes at most. Put one up in 5 years time nothing will change.

[Astatine211]

Am I the only one who doesn't see the importance of the shawl / apron. It doesn't provide any further clues to the identity of JtR and anyone with half a brain knows the DNA test done was bs, same as the Maybrick diary. Meanwhile others items like the Sussex Regiment Envelope get hardly discussed.

[JeffHamm]

Trevor is claiming that Inspector Collard, Frederick Wilkinson, Dr Brown, Constable Robinson, and Constable Hutt all lied under oath about Eddowes wearing an apron. Apparently Trevor believes the average law enforcement officer would perjure themselves without a second thought.

Hi Fiver,

And not only are they perjuring themselves, they are doing so for no apparent reason? Why would the police "want" Kate to be wearing an apron if they knew she was not? What could they possibly gain by this?

We know that at times there have been cases where police plant evidence in order to secure a conviction of someone they are convinced is the perpetrator but they do not have enough evidence to secure a conviction (sadly, history also shows, that in these situations a miscarriage of justice often arises, and the reason they didn't have enough evidence to secure a conviction is because the person they suspected was, in fact, not the guilty party - but I digress). But in this case they do not have a prime suspect, and even if they did, fabricating the notion that Kate was wearing, rather than simply in possession of, an apron would make zero difference in securing a conviction or arrest, and would have every possibility of giving the defense an opportunity to mount a convincing case that the police were tampering with evidence.

The police have absolutely nothing to gain by falsely testifying that Kate was wearing the apron. Her killer could just as easily take a portion of an apron she's in possession of and drop it in G.S. as they could take a piece of an apron she was wearing. The only thing that benefits from the police lying about Kate wearing the apron is Trevor's made up speculation that she used it as a sanitary napkin (for which we also have zero evidence to even suggest she was menstruating because that too is just a wild speculation on Trevor's part).

None of this conspiracy to wear makes anything even resembling sense, and it becomes more and more nonsensical the more it is considered and thought through.

And that's exactly what errors look like, the more we focus on them, the more it becomes apparent they don't fit the bigger picture, and Trevor's alternative reality looks exactly like a classic example of an error of interpretation. It reminds me of how the police would overlook victims of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliff, if they were not known to be prostitutes because they convinced themselves the Yorkshire Ripper was targeting only prostitutes. And when a 16 year old girl was killed and it was clear she was not a sex worker, rather than consider the possibility that women in general were being targeted, they decided it was the Y.R. that made the mistake! Trevor is resorting to the same thing, when the evidence doesn't fit his imagination it is the evidence he claims is mistaken. It's exactly this kind of blinkered thinking that misdirects an investigation. I'm all for suggesting alternative possibilities because the current explanation will be wrong in some details, but when that alternative fairs worse, and in this case much much worse, then this alternative possibility is not worth pursuing. We can try some other alternative, and see if that suddenly accounts for more of the evidence we have than the current explanation, and if it does I would be more than happy to switch to that idea. I'm not married to the original police explanation, but rather, it is currently the best fitting explanation we have. Come up with an explanation that fits the evidence better, and doesn't require the wholesale dismissal of the majority of the evidence, then I will gladly change my support to that. So far, however, nobody has come up with a better explanation in over 130 years, and that could just be because that original explanation is actually what happened.

- Jeff

[Fiver]

Am I the only one who doesn't see the importance of the shawl / apron. It doesn't provide any further clues to the identity of JtR and anyone with half a brain knows the DNA test done was bs, same as the Maybrick diary. Meanwhile others items like the Sussex Regiment Envelope get hardly discussed.

"Shown a piece of an envelope, witness said he believed it was the same as she picked up near the fireplace. Did not notice a crest, but it was about that size, and it had a red postmark on it." - William Stephens

Unless Stephens was mistaken of lying, the envelope does not point to the Ripper.

The apron piece does not tell us the Ripper's identity, but it does say that the Ripper deliberately or accidentally dropped it in Ghoulston street. I wonder if the Ripper accidentally cut himself and used the apron piece as an improvised bandage, discarding it when the bleeding stooped.

[JeffHamm]

"Shown a piece of an envelope, witness said he believed it was the same as she picked up near the fireplace. Did not notice a crest, but it was about that size, and it had a red postmark on it." - William Stephens

Unless Stephens was mistaken of lying, the envelope does not point to the Ripper.

The apron piece does not tell us the Ripper's identity, but it does say that the Ripper deliberately or accidentally dropped it in Ghoulston street. I wonder if the Ripper accidentally cut himself and used the apron piece as an improvised bandage, discarding it when the bleeding stooped.

Hi Fiver,

It would not at all surprise me if JtR did cut himself as that is very common in knife attacks. It's one of the things the police will look for if they get onto a suspect early enough, signs of cuts to their own hands. Obviously it doesn't happen every time, but it is common enough that it is something to always look for. So, I think your bandage idea is a very reasonable one (and might explain why he took so long to discard it; G.S. is about a 5-7 minute walk from Mitre Square, and that probably is in the right range to stop a cut from bleeding. Of course, that would mean suggesting PC Long missed the apron piece on his 2:20 patrol).

In the past I've wondered along the lines of thinking that if JtR had cut himself in this case, given the presence of fecal matter due to the cutting of her intestines and bowel, there becomes the possibility that JtR then ended up with an infection, which could result in sepsis. If so, he would have been very ill for some time. While entirely speculative, such an idea could suggest an avenue for research into hospital admittances shortly after the Eddowes murder for someone cuts on their hands becoming infected and requiring treatment. Not sure if hospital records would exist to do such a thing, and it is a long shot. But there is a small non-zero possibility that such a case could be found, and if the person could also make for a viable suspect, they may be worth looking into further. It would be a lot of work though, and admittedly the chance of finding anything is low, but it is one of those ideas to which I would love to have the answer. I fear I know what it would be already, and we're probably not missing out on any great discovery if my fear is correct.

- Jeff