The Goulston Street Apron

[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]

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,

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

[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

[jmenges]

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.

Are you referring to those vast numbers of captured serial killers who operated in the time before the invention of the train, automobile and airplane, when they would have no choice but to stalk their victims on foot?

If not, then I can think of more than a few who would have never visited the locations otherwise. A lot of times it turns out that the serial killer's "everyday movements" are movements made because they are serial killers, every day.

JM

[jmenges]

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!

The Green River Task Force early on traveled to Portland to investigate claims of a police impersonator harassing prostitutes, violent John's etc, and then looked closely at Portland victims after a body without a head was found in Seattle while a head without a body had already been found in Portland. Ridgeway confessed to murdering 4 victims found in Oregon, 3 hours away from his "usual" hunting grounds.

JM

[Errata]

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

Because if for no other reason, what if they assumed wrong? You may be pretty sure that your wife doesn't want a Valentine's Day present, but you get one for her anyway. Because the cost of being wrong is far more than the savings of being right.

And they may genuinely not have been sure if they were related. They may have only been convinced after some higher up broke it down for them. But I would posit that if the next day any of those cops honestly felt like graffiti was a genuine and significant clue, they would have pursued it.

[Errata]

You would think that if a few officers copied the writing verbatim we wouldnt have so many different versions of it Errata...I think the fact that they didnt even take the time to make one official copy of the wording and the layout of the phrase....(5 lines or 4?)....let alone take a photo is that they didnt take the possibility that the man who left the apron also wrote the message seriously enough.

Cheers

Stop agreeing with me. You're freaking me out.

[Monty]

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

Potential evidence gathering Simon,

As is their job.

Monty

[The Good Michael]

Hey Monty!

Just a sec...Goulston...apron....chalked message...OK. I'm on topic. What ever happened to that photo of the other graffiti from around the same time that we were going to hear about? Was that you, and was it ever published? I'm not being a smart a$$, I just haven't kept up with it.

Thanks,

Mike

[Monty]

Hey Mike

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=6988&highlight=Wall+writing+photo

Cheers
Monty

[The Good Michael]

Thanks!

Mike

[Fisherman]

[QUOTE]

Are you referring to those vast numbers of captured serial killers who operated in the time before the invention of the train, automobile and airplane, when they would have no choice but to stalk their victims on foot?

I am referring to serial killers generally, as a group. The "vast numbers" of captured serial killers from pre-industrial times would belong to that group too, of course.

If not, then I can think of more than a few who would have never visited the locations otherwise. A lot of times it turns out that the serial killer's "everyday movements" are movements made because they are serial killers, every day.

There are examples, yes. And maybe I should have worded myself a bit more cautiously. A person of interest to clarify what I mean would be Eric Armstrong, the killing sailor. It has been speculated that he killed in many foreign harbours when serving onboard the Nimitz, and be that as it may (there is no certainty), but it can of course be said that these killings would not have been carried out in locations well known to him. But it would nevertheless be killings carried out along his everyday movements.

There are a number of "highway killers" where the same thing applies, like Bonin. He picked up victims along the routes he travelled on an everyday basis. Of course, some would have been picked up in locations where Bonin was not used to be as such, but when the investigators pieced things together, the victims were strewn along his lorry trails anyway. There was a logic, and it became apparent once Bonin was caught.

The ultimately cautious killer would never kill on his own doorstep. He would rent a car or take a train to some remote spot where he never went otherwise, seek out a victim there, and then return. He would always choose new spots in different directions and at different distances from his base, and he would not go there in a fashion that was in any way recorded. I suspect there may be such killers out there, but I canīt think of anybody myself.

One may perhaps think that men like Toole and Lucas would be the types of killers that always killed in places where they had no previous history - they were drifters. But even drifters can be mapped in retrospect to some degree, and then comparisons can be made against crime scenes.

In most cases, the task is easier. Very many killers will choose grounds close to where they stay, and stay put on those grounds throughout their sprees. Which is why the geography angle is all-important when looking for a serial killer; once the killer is caught, the logic of the distribution of the victims will become obvious in just about every case.

The Green River Task Force early on traveled to Portland to investigate claims of a police impersonator harassing prostitutes, violent John's etc, and then looked closely at Portland victims after a body without a head was found in Seattle while a head without a body had already been found in Portland. Ridgeway confessed to murdering 4 victims found in Oregon, 3 hours away from his "usual" hunting grounds.

Yes. But that does not mean that any victim found close to the Green River area in the eighties would not have been regarded as potentially Ridgways, EVEN if the MO differed.

Ridgway was special, since he killed over such a long period of time. The Green River area was of course put under surveillance, and that meant that he would take very great risks if he stuck to it just the same. There are numerous examples of killers who have sought new territories when the ground started to burn under their feet. Thing is, that does not detract from the fact that they typically started out in a more restricted area, normally an area that could be connected to the killer once he was caught.

Hope Iīve made better sense now! And that we may return to the apron business again, and keep Mike more happy and less sarcastic ... Hi, Mike!

The best,
Fisherman

[curious4]

Graffiti

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

Hallo Monty,

There was very great anger among the police about the erasing of the writing. On the face of it, especially as something which the killer had touched was found next to the writing, and as the text could be interpreted as referring to the murders, wiping it does seem to have been a big mistake.

Best wishes,
C4

[Monty]

Hallo Monty,

There was very great anger among the police about the erasing of the writing. On the face of it, especially as something which the killer had touched was found next to the writing, and as the text could be interpreted as referring to the murders, wiping it does seem to have been a big mistake.

Best wishes,
C4

Hello Curious,

The anger laid initially with the City force, as they were only interested in the clue aspect. However the Met had to also deal with the Policing side to this potentially inflammatory piece of writing.

We have no clue as to if the killer 'touched' it at all. There is nothing in the writing which alludes to murder nor even a crime. Nothing to Eddowes or her apron, that is assumption.

However, due to its location and proximity to the apron piece it should be considered.

Its erasure, when all things are considered, was justified.

Monty