The Goulston Street Apron

[Michael W Richards]

But the point is, Michael, that you could step from Whitechapel/Spitalfields into the City and be none the wiser, especially at night. the streets look the same, the roads continue on just the same.

The labyrinthine streets of east London (by which I mean that end of the City and the East End) could lead you from one area, into the other and back again, without you being aware of it.

So I just don't see how anyone could have worked a "plan" on that basis, 9or been sure it had been carried out.

Whitechapel/Spitalfields seems to me to be where the killer works...

Equally possible, or even more likely, he lived in the EE and worked in the City or its environs. Is there a specific point you are trying to make here.

I can perceive Berner St as across some sort of "boundary", or even some "home area" of the killer - what he was familiar with, but Mitre Square as essentially different to Dorset St or Hanbury St - on the grounds it was in a different governmental area - nah!

No doubt, if MJK had managed to go and gawp at the Lord Mayor's procession, she would have known she was in the City, but I doubt whether she would have known exactly when she crossed the invisible line, I doubt very much.

I asked earlier how familiar you are with london and especially that area. Unlike some N American cities, there is no grid plan and no corner markers clearly pointing out where one is. In London, street names were on cast iron, wall mounted "placards" (usually black lettering on white, which might be anything from 9" above ground level (say on the low base of an iron fence) to 15 feet high. I don't know whether, in 1888 such signs were different between the City and other areas - I think today City signs bear the heraldic arms of the City; but there has been a blitz since 1888.

Knowing or even telling that Mitre Square was in one adminstrative area, and Dorset St (say) in another would, in my view, have been quite a technical distinction.

Phil

Hi Phil,

I see where youre having difficulty with my statements, ...I didnt say that the kill that night was planned to have been in the city or anything like that, or that the city line is well defined or down that road.....what I am suggesting is that we do not imagine that within the city boundaries the amount of street prostitutes and vagabonds and ruffians lurking about at all hours are comparable. It seems to me, at least most obviously with Mary Ann and Annie, that their killer relied on the very environment that existed a short walk away from the city...as most deprived areas are...urban.

The most desperate,.. the least educated,..and many without family that would still recognize them as part of their own , .....in many ways, and perhaps in another time, these murders would have been seen as just a symptom of the area and its depressed, criminalized, state.

On the streets in Whitechapel a criminal type mixes in with the crowd, nobody stands out unless they have clean clothes and a spring in their step.

Its the hunting ground environment that I refer to....it appears it was much different in the deep east end from the city proper in that respect.

If we are looking for a man who trawls the worst streets in London to find the weakest most vulnerable prey....as is the premise, is it not?...then the fact that he would seek out victims in less active environments surely is meaningful in our understanding of all this.

Cheers

[Simon Wood]

Hi Monty,

You can accuse me of being pernickety if you like, but why would the City cops have wanted a photograph of the GSG if they didn't necessarily believe it had been written by Eddowes' killer?

Regards,

Simon

[Monty]

Not at all Simon,

I'm merely pointing out the Ofiicial Police stance. Individually opinions were held and I've no issue with that.

Just that I feel that because a photograph of the writing was pushed for, and that it was investigated, it should not be taken that the police felt it was the killer who wrote it.

Not that I'm saying it was or it wasn't.

Monty

[Simon Wood]

Hi Monty,

I'm not being combative, but many newspapers reported that members of the police who saw the GSG believed the handwriting resembled that of the "Ripper" correspondence.

Should we ignore this?

Regards,

Simon

[Monty]

Only Moore, many years later, stated the writing was by the murderer in the Official Police files. This was personal opinion.

There is no reference to the writer being Eddowes killer in those files. No suggestion either way, this because it cannot be proven. And rightly so.

Halses insistance that it should be photographed should not be confused that he felt it was written by the killer. There's no evidence he thought that.

Monty

[Abby Normal]

None? Halse, the detective, thought it was special enough to need photographing. However inflammatory the writing was perceived, by Warren & Arnold, to be, the fact remains that within a very short period of time the content was in the public domain - and no-one rioted.The graffito would probably never have come to notice had it not been for the proximity of the apron but, because of that proximity, it should, in my view, have been photographed. Especially so as there was, inexcusably, no consensus as to the content.

Hi Bridewell
Agree. I just dont understand why so many people on this site over the years have said that none of the police ever said that they thought that the GSG was written by the killer. Of course they did, or something to that affect. You mention Halse. Off the top of my head both Anderson and Moore stated that it probably came from the killer. If anyone with better research and knowledge of this would like to add to the list, it would be greatly appreciated.

[Fisherman]

Christer,

What was the "information (which) came along" to cause you to change your mind about Stride being a Ripper murder?

Ah! I think I will need to be very careful here...

Liz Stride is the odd one out in many respects; she was not eviscerated, her cut to the throat was comparatively shallow, a case can be made for her not soliciting on the night, she fell prey south of the much discussed Whitechapel Road borderline, she was killed earlier than any of the other victims, she was seen accosted by a man who was potentially the killer (and who was rather reckless if this was the case), she was seen in the company of men that may have been one and the same - respectable looking men in dark clothing and a good case can be made for a domestic.

This was what had me believing that she was probably not the Rippers. Please notice that I never said that she could not have been - just that I thought that she was probably not.

Nothing has been added to these particulars afterwards. They still stand.

So what came along was something else: Lechmere. He did not change the crime scene or the details. But since Stride died along what can be suggested to have been Lechmereīs route to his mothers place, I accepted that this tipped the scales in a new direction.
Following the tracks of a serial killer is very much equivalent to following his everyday movements. Only the fewest will find their victims and kill them in places they never visit otherwise. Instead, they will normally do their business in areas where they feel secure and know the geography well.

In the case of Lechmere, we have a number of strikes alongside what would have represented his route to work. Some say that we donīt know that he ever used Old Montague Street, and thatīs correct - we donīt. But that does not detract from the fact that it was the seemingly fastest route to work for him. If somebody feels it must be discounted just the same, then Tabram is the only victim left out, so itīs not a huge deal.

Stride was killed at a time and place that tallies totally with a visit to his motherīs house, and therefore this must be weighed in. Furthermore, we must also ponder the possibility that the Pinchin Street torso was his - NOT because of the similarities (they were few!), but because when people die along tracks where a serial killer seemingly have been present at relevant hours, then the suggestion that these victims fell prey to that serial killer must be regarded as a useful and viable one.

So nothing was added to the Stride case - but she fits the routes Lechmere would have used, and by that alone we get a different ballgame. And I went from being more against the bid to being more for it. Like I say, I have no problems changing my opinions when I find that the surfacing material calls for it.

Stride may of course have been another killers prey, even if Lechmere WAS the killer. But the more probable thing is that she belongs to the tally if the carman was Jack.

So, what if Lechmere can be proven NOT to have been Jack? Well, then itīs back to stage two again (I started out as a believer of Stride as a Ripper victim many years ago, so I have changed my mind not once but twice!).

Some tell me that it is the evidence at the murder spot only that should rule our opinions on who killed the victims. To that I say that any woman who had been found floating dead in the Green River in the eighties, after having been shot through the sternum, would not be the perfect Ridgway victim. She would be like Stride; the right time and place but the wrong methodology to some extent.
But the moment we realized that she died along Gary Ridgways murder paths, we would all have a change of mind, I think; then she would turn into the deviating Ridgway victim - not somebody elseīs. Though God knows she COULD have been!

Hope that helped to show you where I come from, Colin!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Fisherman - as you say, life's too short.

As long as you realize that you misinterpreted me and ended up with a verdict of me being egotistical, I think life is long enough.

Fisherman

[Phil H]

But the point is, Michael, that you could step from Whitechapel/Spitalfields into the City and be none the wiser, especially at night. the streets look the same, the roads continue on just the same.

The labyrinthine streets of east London (by which I mean that end of the City and the East End) could lead you from one area, into the other and back again, without you being aware of it.

So I just don't see how anyone could have worked a "plan" on that basis, 9or been sure it had been carried out.

Whitechapel/Spitalfields seems to me to be where the killer works...

Equally possible, or even more likely, he lived in the EE and worked in the City or its environs. Is there a specific point you are trying to make here.

and where 80% of the unsolved Ripper murders are based.

By that do you mean 4 out of the five canonicals; or are you suggesting some proportion of the murders have been solved?

I can perceive Berner St as across some sort of "boundary", or even some "home area" of the killer - what he was familiar with, but Mitre Square as essentially different to Dorset St or Hanbury St - on the grounds it was in a different governmental area - nah!

No doubt, if MJK had managed to go and gawp at the Lord Mayor's procession, she would have known she was in the City, but I doubt whether she would have known exactly when she crossed the invisible line, I doubt very much.

I asked earlier how familiar you are with london and especially that area. Unlike some N American cities, there is no grid plan and no corner markers clearly pointing out where one is. In London, street names were on cast iron, wall mounted "placards" (usually black lettering on white, which might be anything from 9" above ground level (say on the low base of an iron fence) to 15 feet high. I don't know whether, in 1888 such signs were different between the City and other areas - I think today City signs bear the heraldic arms of the City; but there has been a blitz since 1888.

Knowing or even telling that Mitre Square was in one adminstrative area, and Dorset St (say) in another would, in my view, have been quite a technical distinction.

Phil

[Michael W Richards]

Not necessarily, the Met did release early if required.

The point is there is not reason to state the City juresdiction was targetted specifically.

Monty

I dont believe I said that Monty, nor did I say anything that meant that, ..I merely said that the fact she is murdered in the city, in essence, a different district....is relevant. Whitechapel/Spitalfields seems to me to be where the killer works...and where 80% of the unsolved Ripper murders are based.

All the best Monty

[Monty]

Hi Monty,

If not for the jurisdiction differences Kate would have been locked up for the entire night...so, to some extent they do have bearing on the subject.

All the best.

Not necessarily, the Met did release early if required.

The point is there is not reason to state the City juresdiction was targetted specifically.

Monty

[Phil H]

Fisherman - as you say, life's too short.

[Chava]

I hope that the police were all over the people living in those tenements. Because I think there is a pretty good chance that the linen was dropped by accident and the Ripper lived there. I agree that it was Shabbes, and just about everyone would have been indoors and in bed. But just because the inhabitants were Jewish, doesn't mean to say that all of them were that frum. A lodger could have been out and about and his landlords wouldn't have asked him too many questions on the premise that he wasn't their son.

[Michael W Richards]

The juresdiction had no baring on Eddowes being murdered.

The laws remain the same. After all the City and Met had, up until 88, worked together on numerous cases for 49 years.

The reason a photo wasn't taken rruns deeper than a disregard for a potential clue.

Monty

Hi Monty,

If not for the jurisdiction differences Kate would have been locked up for the entire night...so, to some extent they do have bearing on the subject.

All the best.

[Bridewell]

My lack of fears alluded to fears of not being able to see if other theories than the one I believe in - I am very open to such things, and therefore I have no such fears. I used to believe Stride was probably not the Ripperīs; information came along and I changed my mind.

Christer,

What was the "information (which) came along" to cause you to change your mind about Stride being a Ripper murder?