The Goulston Street Apron

[Wickerman]

If this is large enough to see, the women are wearing an apron which extends from the waist to the ankles and wraps three-quarters of the way around their legs.



It may have had a bib, but the bib was sometimes turned down below the waist so as not to be visible.

[RivkahChaya]

So it was a whole bottom slice, not just a corner? Where did I get the idea that it was a corner?

Do we have a reference some place that gives the actual dimensions? If it was more like a strip, than a rag, it sounds like it's the kind of thing used to bind a cut, so maybe the killer cut himself. How much fecal matter was on it? Small smears, or big chunks?

[Errata]

Has anyone made a 'piece of apron' to actual size? We talk about how big it was and so on but I still have no clear mental picture of it. I know it was a piece of Eddowes' apron that had been stitched back on, so was it torn originally and repaired? Or did she fossick an apron together from odd bits of material and this was one of the bits? It does sound like it's too big to have simply gotten caught and sheared off as she went around her business.

It's the size of a modern style tallis. Which I suppose means it's also the size of a table runner.

[Chava]

The chance of someone seeing him do it, and recognizing him, and making a stink about it later, or even rebuking him at the time, was too great-- even if he wasn't the Ripper, I think it wouldn't be worth a confrontation, unless a confrontation was what he wanted, in which case, he'd do something much more obvious and immediately provocative.

And if he did, no nice Jewish guy would have confronted anybody at that hour of a Shabbes night when he would leave himself open to a lot of questions from his vaybele or his mamele about what he was doing out at such a time...

Has anyone made a 'piece of apron' to actual size? We talk about how big it was and so on but I still have no clear mental picture of it. I know it was a piece of Eddowes' apron that had been stitched back on, so was it torn originally and repaired? Or did she fossick an apron together from odd bits of material and this was one of the bits? It does sound like it's too big to have simply gotten caught and sheared off as she went around her business.

[Phil Carter]

Just who is telling the truth here?

Anyone caught in possession of the apron piece would have hanged for the Eddowes Murder. What kind of hoaxer is going to take that kind of risk, simply to play a practical joke on the authorities? For that matter, what would induce a killer who had reached safety to go back out again in the possession of such incriminating evidence?

It's possible that the apron piece wasn't there on Long's previous visit.
It's possible that it was there and he was mistaken in believing that its wasn't.
I think the most likely explanation, sadly, is that Long wasn't where he should have been at 2.20am and had to conceal the fact. Both Halse and Long claim to have been at the Goulston Street site at 2.20am, yet neither mentions seeing the other. To my mind, that's a strange omission, for which the likely explanation is that one of them wasn't actually there.

Hello Colin,

I agree with the surmise about a hoaxer.. so that leaves the word.. accomplice.
(If it wasn't the killer himself)

My point was the letter posted by Simon. That is pretty specific. A worry that seems to point towards someone on the inside.
Abby reflected that it was a member of the general public being the on-looker... but we really must be critical here.. at what time were there members of the general public anywhere near Eddowes body?

That letter surely must, given the time parameters, be pointing towards a policeman or the nightwatchman. I cannot see any other possibility. There isn't enough time for there to have been anyone else pick up the apron piece, if it were not the killer himself or an accomplice.

It is the letter I am reflecting upon... and not other possibilities at this juncture...though they may be more relevant, I agree.

As far as the long and Halse scenarios are concerned, I see a different angle. I believe Long did miss it the first time. But I also know that Halse, travelling in the direction he did, MUST have seen Long if the times were correct, even in the distance, with his lamp. If Long travelled behind Halse, the opposite would suffice. Both were policemen and would have heard another footstep in the dead of night. They would have seen a lamp flashing.

Halse is the only person known to have been first at Mitre square near the body.. then Goulston St, then back at Mitre Square, then again, later, back at Goulston St. He was also the person who happened to notice the piece of apron missing at the mortuary.

I accuse no one... but you can all see from his movements that had he not been a policeman, doing his duty, he would be in the right place at the right time to actually pick up that rag piece and dump it. In the right place to pick it up, the right place to deliver it at the required spot, and the right place to notice that it was missing from a pile of clothes. No one else noticed that apron piece missing.

I accuse no one.

But I will say this in the face of all policemen, past and present. There have been dishonest policemen throughout history, some involved in major crime.
That does NOT detract from the respect I personally have for them.

Other people have looked at Watkins and his honesty.

To my mind, suspicious person I may be, the Eddowes murder is singular in the fact that the near presence of on the beat policemen at the time of the murder is acute. The unthinkable has to be considered, whatever we feel about the honour of the men and the job itself.

And if we have policemen fibbing, as you suspect..how trustworthy are these men anyway? Watkins? Long? Halse? Even Sir Robert Anderson, who I believe had his own agenda throughout all of this.
The unthinkable has to be considered, whether we like it or not.

Phil

[lynn cates]

fib?

Hello Colin.

"To my mind, that's a strange omission, for which the likely explanation is that one of them wasn't actually there."

Or that one of them fibbed about the other.

Cheers.
LC

[Errata]

Anyone caught in possession of the apron piece would have hanged for the Eddowes Murder. What kind of hoaxer is going to take that kind of risk, simply to play a practical joke on the authorities? For that matter, what would induce a killer who had reached safety to go back out again in the possession of such incriminating evidence?

It's possible that the apron piece wasn't there on Long's previous visit.
It's possible that it was there and he was mistaken in believing that its wasn't.
I think the most likely explanation, sadly, is that Long wasn't where he should have been at 2.20am and had to conceal the fact. Both Halse and Long claim to have been at the Goulston Street site at 2.20am, yet neither mentions seeing the other. To my mind, that's a strange omission, for which the likely explanation is that one of them wasn't actually there.

Halse was just passing through. I'm not sure that running into another cop on the beat would have been relevant to the inquest, especially since neither man saw anything at that point. He probably passed one or two other cops on his way to the mortuary, but the only reason he even mentioned that he went by way of Ghoulston street was because it came up half an hour later. Akin to the fact that I went to the store, I got back and there was a package next to my door. Clearly I passed the door on my way out, and the package wasn't there, but I don't have to say that because it's implied in the fact that I didn't mention that the package was there when I left the house.

[Bridewell]

P.c. Long

If it was a hoax, or a plant, (deliberate), and not done by the murderer, we have the possibility of an accomplice, or someone deliberately causing a hoax.

Anyone caught in possession of the apron piece would have hanged for the Eddowes Murder. What kind of hoaxer is going to take that kind of risk, simply to play a practical joke on the authorities? For that matter, what would induce a killer who had reached safety to go back out again in the possession of such incriminating evidence?

It's possible that the apron piece wasn't there on Long's previous visit.
It's possible that it was there and he was mistaken in believing that its wasn't.
I think the most likely explanation, sadly, is that Long wasn't where he should have been at 2.20am and had to conceal the fact. Both Halse and Long claim to have been at the Goulston Street site at 2.20am, yet neither mentions seeing the other. To my mind, that's a strange omission, for which the likely explanation is that one of them wasn't actually there.

[Bridewell]

Or that he had been stopped at a previous murder because he wore clothes that offered no explanation as to why he was out that time of night....so this time he cut an apron and put it round his waist to suggest he worked in some sort of slaughterhouse and had good reason to be out at that time of night and bloodied....

Hot or cold?

Why only take part of it though in that scenario?

[Bridewell]

Hi Caz
i had never thought of the bloodhound angle before-thats a really good idea actually.

Isn't it just!

[Bridewell]

Wasn't Healthy?

Since Eddowes wasn't healthy

Dr Frederick Gordon Brown:

"Right kidney pale, bloodless with slight congestion of the base of the pyramids........Liver itself was healthy......The bladder was healthy...........The other organs were healthy".

What is the basis of your claim that Eddowes "wasn't healthy"?

[lynn cates]

likely

Hello Caroline. Thanks.

"would a dangerous and determined knifeman, hell-bent on mutilation, have simply shrugged his shoulders and said to an unresponsive Stride: "Please yourself, love, have a nice day"? Doesn't seem too likely to me."

Perhaps so. But it doesn't seem likely that one so keen on mutilation should let a chance slip?

Cheers.
LC

[Michael W Richards]

.....

Much as it pains me to agree with Mike Richards on this one, if PC Long said the apron piece "wasn't there" earlier, I see little reason to disbelieve him.

.......It is possible to agree on something without the discomfort Caz.

I believe its a question of the way the apron section was dropped/placed as to how visible it would have been to the passing PC...but I do believe we are on the correct path when we take his stated position on the matter without equivocation.

IF..that is the correct path, then there is a much stronger case for pairing the writing with the apron section with the same person, if the drop or placement was intentional and not a casual discard, it would mean that the killer chose to take the apron section back out from wherever he went immediately after the murder. He could have just quietly disposed of it..burned it, whatever. There would be no need for us to have found it at all.....unless of course he wanted it found.

IF he did want someone to find it...then its probable the message is part of that package.

Best regards

[GregBaron]

Dropbox...

Hi Greg
This post actually got me thinking that it is a possibility the killer did cut the apron to transport the organs-and then decided once he got to his bolt hole to use the apron for the GSG.

Perhaps in this scenario, carrying away more than he did from Chapman, and/or it just being more messy, he decided he needed something extra to carry it in so he cut the apron. Then decided on the GSG after he got home. Definitely a possibility.

Yes indeed Abby, it might have occurred to him later, hence the delay. Maybe he just went out snooping for a drop spot (in the Jewish areas of course) and happened upon the graffiti, which suited his purposes just fine. Or maybe he found the chalk en route and a light bulb went off.

Whatever the case, it appears to be a deliberate drop and the coincidence of confounding graffiti present seems a bit serendipitous to me. I also tend to discount giant rat, dog and gale force wind theories....

Greg

[Fleetwood Mac]

Of course it's possible the killer didn't know he had the apron.

Mike

Or that he had been stopped at a previous murder because he wore clothes that offered no explanation as to why he was out that time of night....so this time he cut an apron and put it round his waist to suggest he worked in some sort of slaughterhouse and had good reason to be out at that time of night and bloodied....

Hot or cold?