The Goulston Street Apron

[curious4]

Beowulf

Half Swedish actually. Bit of a mongrel then.

C4

[Abby Normal]

Small graffitti

Many people have commented that if the ripper had written the GsG why would he write it so small. Well, one can be much more discreet writing small graffiti than large. It would be much easier for someone writing large graffiti to be seen-they are using larger, sweeping arm movements, the writing itself would be easier to see as the writer was writing it, and it would take longer time to write large graffiti.

[The Good Michael]

I once had a pop-quiz (unannounced quiz) in an English class where the question was something like
Despite the hint, and the fact that you'd kind of expect anyone going to college already to know this, there were, I'm sure, a couple of people who had been blowing off the readings, and got it wrong.

Actually he was a Geat, which can be said to be a Goth. There were no Danes in those days. I presume he listened to death metal and wore dark clothing.

Mike

[curious4]

Seadogs

His mother was a Goth, but his father was a Svea, the original (apparently) swedes, known among other things for their boatbuilding, an old seadog, maybe?

C4

P.S.He didn't actually exist though, nor did the troll or the dragon - unlike Jack, who definitely did!

[caz]

If the killer wanted to leave a message, wouldn't he have emblazoned it across the wall where it could be easily seen from a distance?

The writing was not even an inch tall, the capitals were about 3/4 of an inch. The whole graffiti was so small it clearly was not intended to attract attention.

Hi Jon,

Not intended to attract attention?

I don't follow. Someone left that message and they presumably wanted it to attract someone's attention, otherwise why bother? Particularly, why bother to write a complete sentence and make it both neat and legible? Why use the black bricks, requiring him to write lower down the wall than perhaps was comfortable, just so the white chalk would show up clearly and apparently be visible from the street?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

If the graffito was intended to refer to the murders and the alleged perpetrators, why be so vague? Rather defeats the point if we're still debating it 124 years + after the event!

Hi Bridewell,

But maybe that was precisely the point - to keep everyone guessing at the scene of the message (and where the victim's pinny was left) while the killer was snoring peacefully back at his place.

The apron piece would have indicated that the killer "woz ere", but the message could have been written to keep the attention on the dwellings. It would have kept the cops occupied for hours if they had knocked up every resident to ask if they knew anything about the message or if those words meant anything to them.

Clearly if it was intended to be cryptic, vague, ambiguous or even meaningless, it worked only too well and the joke is on us because we will never see it.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

If it was meant for one man only, why does it say "Jews" and "the men". And If it was personal or for someone specific, why didn't the writer just write something like "cohen is a swindler" or "dont buy from Levi" or " Sam koski is an evil jew'?

You cant use the apparent ambiguousness of the message as pointing it not being from the killer because you can make the same argument if it was not from the killer. Why would anyone write graffiti ambigous? why would anyone write grafitti small?

However,As i said before, if there were more deep seated reasons why the killer wrote it like that-as in he was pissed off at being interupted by jews that night and/or disliked jews in general and/or wanted to blame them than that may be why it appears ambiguousness to us now, but of course could have made perfect sense to the killer at the time.

To me it seems you have to do more logistical cartwheels to disassociate the apron from the grafitti than vice versus.

-A large(and easily visable) portion of apron is found DIRECTLY below the writing
-The killer had been disturbed by jews that night and the writing references jews
-The writing and apron was not there the first time the PC walked past, meaning the time frame supports the idea the killer took sometime to cleanup, drop off the knife and trophies and get some chalk.
-Many police at the time and afterwards beleived it was written by the killer
-the grafitti being written on the doorway of a new building inhabited mainly by jews support the idea that the grafitti had never seen the light of day as someone living there would have surely wiped it off-meaning the grafitti was probably written that night.
-no other mention of other grafitti in the immediate area(or rags for that matter) is mentioned by any one-meaning the coincidence of finding said apron/writing together as just random makes it more improbable
-History has taught us that serial killers exhibit just this sort of behavior
-The "riskiness" of leaving the apron and writing the grafitti is nothing compared to what the killer was used to getting away with.

That was a cracking post, Abby. Bursting with common sense from start to finish.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

That was a cracking post, Abby. Bursting with common sense from start to finish.

Love,

Caz
X

Thanks Caz. And in terms of your posts-the feeling is very mutual. : )

[caz]

The key fact remains that (leaving aside it's potential use) the apron scrap could have been discarded anywhere. It is as likely to have been under some random graffito as not...

...Why no other graffiti? people were looking for them, after all.... the apochryphal messages " I am down on whores.. going to kill X more..." attest to that. So why were no others found - a murderer so keen to leave clues would surely have done so?

Hi Phil,

The Model Dwellings were brand spanking new, remember. So I don't think it would have been at all likely to find some 'random graffito' defacing the wall of the one entrance chosen to discard that large, fouled and bloody piece of cloth. Had either been there for long, the proud occupants would surely have noticed, even if their religion didn't allow them to remove the offending items at the time.

The fact that no other examples were found rather suggests to me that messages like this one, defacing buildings such as these, were rarer than imagined, which goes right against your own argument that it was as likely as not that the apron piece would have ended up under some 'random graffito'. They would have been on the lookout for any graffito in case it could have been connected, but as you say no others were found.

I suspect whoever wrote this one wanted the focus to remain on that building for as long as possible.

Love,

Caz
X

[Monty]

Hi Phil,

The Model Dwellings were brand spanking new, remember. So I don't think it would have been at all likely to find some 'random graffito' defacing the wall of the one entrance chosen to discard that large, fouled and bloody piece of cloth. Had either been there for long, the proud occupants would surely have noticed, even if their religion didn't allow them to remove the offending items at the time.

The fact that no other examples were found rather suggests to me that messages like this one, defacing buildings such as these, were rarer than imagined, which goes right against your own argument that it was as likely as not that the apron piece would have ended up under some 'random graffito'. They would have been on the lookout for any graffito in case it could have been connected, but as you say no others were found.

I suspect whoever wrote this one wanted the focus to remain on that building for as long as possible.

Love,

Caz
X

Never understood the arguement of new build, what has that to do with it?

Monty

[caz]

Hi Monty,

People tend to look after things more when they are new, that's all. So when you move into a new place of residence that is also a brand new building, you tend to want to keep it looking that way for as long as possible, and not let rubbish accumulate near your front door, or graffiti just where people have to enter or leave.

Therefore I don't think it's reasonable to suppose the apron piece or the writing had been there very long at all when first noticed at 2.55am by PC Long. Nobody is reported to have seen either there earlier that night. Doesn't mean they weren't, of course, but we can only go by the first recorded sighting.

Love,

Caz
X

[Errata]

Hi Jon,

Not intended to attract attention?

I don't follow. Someone left that message and they presumably wanted it to attract someone's attention, otherwise why bother? Particularly, why bother to write a complete sentence and make it both neat and legible? Why use the black bricks, requiring him to write lower down the wall than perhaps was comfortable, just so the white chalk would show up clearly and apparently be visible from the street?

Love,

Caz
X

One of the things that struck me was that the graffito was apparently positioned where residents would "rub against it" on their way in and out. Which begs the question how thin was that passage? But if that's true, then it seems very directed at someone who lived there. Or presumably lived there. I mean, just because you think the butcher who screwed you lived in that building doesn't mean he actually did. Or it could have been slightly less directed, it could have been anti Jewish sentiment directed at no one in particular, but the guy knew it was a predominantly Jewish building.

But I gotta say, if I had to squeeze past the graffiti and maybe get it on me, that is WAY scarier that having it blazed on the outer wall. I said awhile ago that graffiti is a form of terrorism, and the guy who wrote this was clearly gifted at it. Jews tend to be both practical and extremely superstitious. Maybe the intermarrying has institutionalized a little OCD. But I imagine the idea of contact with the graffiti would be very uncomfortable to a lot of Jews. In a way that the simple appearance of yet more anti Semitic doggerel would not.

[Monty]

I disagree Caz,

A new build in an estate in Leicester was daubed with graffiti in less than 12 hours of opening.

I think its a bit a lame reason personally, and certainly not true on the whole.

Monty

[The Good Michael]

A new build in an estate in Leicester was daubed with graffiti in less than 12 hours of opening.

Sorry about that too....did I leave my apron there perchance?

Mike

[curious4]

Graffito

One of the things that struck me was that the graffito was apparently positioned where residents would "rub against it" on their way in and out. Which begs the question how thin was that passage? But if that's true, then it seems very directed at someone who lived there. Or presumably lived there. I mean, just because you think the butcher who screwed you lived in that building doesn't mean he actually did. Or it could have been slightly less directed, it could have been anti Jewish sentiment directed at no one in particular, but the guy knew it was a predominantly Jewish building.

But I gotta say, if I had to squeeze past the graffiti and maybe get it on me, that is WAY scarier that having it blazed on the outer wall. I said awhile ago that graffiti is a form of terrorism, and the guy who wrote this was clearly gifted at it. Jews tend to be both practical and extremely superstitious. Maybe the intermarrying has institutionalized a little OCD. But I imagine the idea of contact with the graffiti would be very uncomfortable to a lot of Jews. In a way that the simple appearance of yet more anti Semitic doggerel would not.

Hello Errata,

I don't think that the killer had to know that the building was mainly occupied by jewish families, there was a large jewish market in the street which was well-known. Perhaps he/she just chose the entrance with a black surface easy to write on at random, because it was in Goulston street.
Directed more at the market than the building, I mean.

Best wishes,
C4