Piece of Apron and the 'Juwes'

[Jon Guy]

"Number two" - another pun?
Time pressure, and the "crunch... crunch" of an approaching bobby's boots, perhaps. Under such circumstances, I can imagine Jack, realising that the vile ooze clinging to his fingers would need more than a few swipes to remove, decided to cut - the apron - and run.

Puns ? Me, Sam ?

I agree that the bottom line is time pressure. I just feel that cutting the apron would take more time than wiping his hands on Kates clothes,and possibly noisier in an echoey square.

Would the ooze be that "vile" to our boy ?
He loves the stuff, sticking is hands in there ?

[c.d.]

...the "bottom" line. Ha Ha.

c.d.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Natalie,

I have never bought that kind of argument, because with that you can 'explain' anything and support the weirdest scenarios.
It just won't do, as far as I am concerned

He may have been a wacko, but that doesn't explain why he takes the time to scribble it in a neat schoolboy's hand and with small letters while leaving a crime scene instead of blurting it out when he had the chance. Nor do I understand the point in blaming te Jews if he wanted to make a mark and 'sign' his latest crime. The writing appear to be anti-Jewish but that's about it. Needless to say, such writings would hardly be surprising in such a densed populated Jewish area with high antisemtic tension.
Since there is absolutely nothing in the content of the writing that even as much as points towards a crime of any kind, I conclude that it was a mere coincdence and that the writing was already there when he dropped the apron.

All the best

Thanks Glenn,
But the problem here for me is precisely to do with how Jack perceived his
killings.I do not believe that he considered them as "crimes" at all.Ofcourse he knew very well that most other people saw the murders as "crimes", but that was not his concern.He was a lone wolf in that respect.
However,it may well have concerned him,and affected his "pride in accomplishment", if the two murders were considered to be the work of "Jews"--when he knew they were not to blame for them at all---and moreover the Jews were not going to be "credited" with them either-if you see what I mean.
Best

[Sam Flynn]

I agree that the bottom line is time pressure. I just feel that cutting the apron would take more time than wiping his hands on Kates clothes...

...ah, but then why didn't he? No excrement was reported smeared over any of the clothing found on her person - the only smearing of fæcal matter reported was that over her intestines and, later, on the swatch of apron found in Goulston Street.

As to his loving the ooze, I honestly don't think he'd banked on it, Jon.

It all smacks of "What's that there? Holy cr.... it's all over me 'ands! Jesus! Gotta shift it somehow..." << Chlup, chlup >> [ ← sound of cacky hand flopping back and forth on intestines ] "Oh, this is feckin' hopeless! No time to..."

[Cap'n Jack]

Quite right, Natalie, he could have just been 'laying women down', couldn't he?
And then wondering what all the fuss was about.
But mind you he would have left his written word wherever he could.
As you know, in the Dyer case, the young brother and sister blamed the Jews for their situation - there was no situation, we know that - but the Jews had to take the blame, for who else would?
The Catholics?
One lesson I learn't a long time ago is that serial killers of the ilk of Jack are shape shifters, they kill without hesitation or let, but always want to shift the shape and blame onto a familiar bogey man.
From their vague and illusive image they conjure up - in the form of letters, words and images - the most concrete shape of their age, a sort of Voodoo doll in which all can stick their pins in some sort of communial bleeding process.
The deed has been done, and then the killer seeks to undo the deed, by shape shifting.
Some kinda magic that; and the majority here endorse his actions.

[Natalie Severn]

...ah, but then why didn't he? No excrement was reported smeared over any of the clothing found on her person - the only smearing of fæcal matter reported was that over her intestines and, later, on the swatch of apron found in Goulston Street.

As to his loving the ooze, I honestly don't think he'd banked on it, Jon.

It all smacks of "What's that there? Holy cr.... it's all over me 'ands! Jesus! Gotta shift it somehow..." << Chlup, chlup >> [ ← sound of cacky hand flopping back and forth on intestines ] "Oh, this is feckin' hopeless! No time to..."

Or....possibly it WAS the Duke of Clarence and because he had been "over potty trained"as a very young infant he just loved any opportunity to brown his cuffs....maybe thats what all the rumour boiled down to....Prince Eddy"s need to get down and dirty and revel in it.Dont forget that although he was reported to have had "learning difficulties" ,there was at least one area in which he excelled and was expert ie in "dressing the deer" that that had been shot on those estates.His disembowelling of deer was in fact second to none--- which was possibly why he always sported that deer stalker hat in photographs,as an official badge,so to speak.So its just possible,the murders were some kind of catharsis to do with "disembowelling" and early potty training!

[Natalie Severn]

Quite right, Natalie, he could have just been 'laying women down', couldn't he?
And then wondering what all the fuss was about.
But mind you he would have left his written word wherever he could.
As you know, in the Dyer case, the young brother and sister blamed the Jews for their situation - there was no situation, we know that - but the Jews had to take the blame, for who else would?
The Catholics?
One lesson I learn't a long time ago is that serial killers of the ilk of Jack are shape shifters, they kill without hesitation or let, but always want to shift the shape and blame onto a familiar bogey man.
From their vague and illusive image they conjure up - in the form of letters, words and images - the most concrete shape of their age, a sort of Voodoo doll in which all can stick their pins in some sort of communial bleeding process.
The deed has been done, and then the killer seeks to undo the deed, by shape shifting.
Some kinda magic that; and the majority here endorse his actions.

That is most definitely more to my way of thinking AP And seriously so.I am more than able to see Jack the Ripper believing he possessed magical powers-all that silent stealthly killing -------and then the strange ceremony of the "disembowelling" in dark corners of Whitechapel but usually under the wide and starry skies!

[Sam Flynn]

Or....possibly it WAS the Duke of Clarence and because he had been "over potty trained"as a very young infant he just loved any opportunity to brown his cuffs....

That's quite probably the most believable defence of Prince Eddy's candidature I've ever read, Nats Adds a whole new meaning to "Brown Windsor Soup"

[Cap'n Jack]

Thanks Natalie, my feeling is that what Jack did was to him like us frying eggs, easy over, sunnyside up or down?
Then he started reading newspapers, and realised that what he was doing was just a tad unsocial, so he attempted to address that issue with words rather than events.
As he always did.
'The gentleman has fallen down the stairs' syndrome I call it.
If he didn't trip then the Jews must have pushed him.

[Observer]

Hi Cap'n

Thanks Natalie, my feeling is that what Jack did was to him like us frying eggs, easy over, sunnyside up or down?
Then he started reading newspapers, and realised that what he was doing was just a tad unsocial, so he attempted to address that issue with words rather than events.
As he always did.
'The gentleman has fallen down the stairs' syndrome I call it.
If he didn't trip then the Jews must have pushed him.

Good point regarding Jack the Ripper reading about his crimes in newspapers. I think this is what fuelled his ever increasing ferocity, the shock value of the crimes meant a lot to him I think. A very angry young man indeed.

all the best

Observer

[DVV]

Hi Observer,
Very possibly press reports, gossip, panic, etc, had some effects on the murderer.
If you assume the GSG to be from Jack, then the major effect seems to be a need for "expression" from the murderer. A short time afterwards, the immediate success of the Dear Boss letter shows clearly that the public also "needed" to hear from the murderer.
Like many, I think, I see clearly the case as an interactive game.
As to the "ever increasing ferocity" that you are pointing out, I'm not sure it has something to do with the newspapers.
Being interested in Millwood, Wilson and Tabram cases, I would say that between the first victim (whoever you choose between Millwood, Wilson, Smith, Tabram or Nichols) and Chapman (the "benchmark"...if there is one), we are not dealing with mere ferocity.
Reminding the 3 inches abdominal wound on Tabram's, the fact that Nichols intestines were protruding but not lifted out, I see the killer as someone who seems to "hesitate" to fulfil frankly his fantasy... For this, I believe he was really facing himself.
Newspapers may have something to do with the increasing ferocity, but only as a secondary factor, I believe.

Amitiés,
David (broken-English poster)

[Cap'n Jack]

David, I enjoy your thoughts, very much.
Speaking in broken English myself, I think the Whitechapel Murderer would have abhored the press reports of his activities, as they would have depersonalised his activities by making it appear that there was a 'maniac' at work in the East End of London.
Constantly seeking justification for the injustifiable he would have sought to readdress the balance by personalising the issue, by writing letters to folks intimately involved in the issue.
Apologies if you like.
The mad Jews did it.

[DVV]

Apologies?
Peace and salute from Corsica!
And you're certainly right about press reports. It was somehow a spoliation. In any case, I can't see him killing for fame as Hollywood serial-killers often do.
Amitiés,
David

[Cap'n Jack]

Yes, David, one could almost imagine that when the killer was confronted with his crimes he would have said something like:
'I have only been cutting up girls and laying them out.'
Admitting his guilt without knowing that he was guilty of the horrible things he read about in the newspapers.
That would be someone else killing the girls.
He was just cutting them up and laying them out.

[caz]

'As I said, it is possible that the author of the message fully believed (at the time of writing) that the message would be understandable to those who read it.'

Nicely done, Observer, that is my own view.

Hi All,

Just been catching up with this hugely entertaining thread.

I would have thought that it was more of a fact than a viewpoint that the author of any public message written anywhere since the dawn of time fully believes it will be understood by those who read it - otherwise what’s the bloody point? (Unless they happen to be Jenni Pegg, who is the only person I have ever known who fully admits to not caring when she writes posts that only she understands. )

I find Glenn’s response to Observer’s words very strange indeed:

Well, with that you could practically 'explain' anything - including the most bisarre scenarios, and needless to say I will never accept such arguments as valid.

I can’t get my head around this. The GSG was neat, legible and anonymous, and its author - whoever that was - either fully expected this anonymous message to get through loud and clear to those who read it (something Glenn says is so bizarre that he will never accept it), or the wording was intended to be ambiguous or cryptic or nonsensical or insane (or however Glenn would care to describe it).

So in either scenario, by Glenn’s own argument, he is left with an anonymous author who was not playing with a full deck, but was also not the same man who passed by the same spot, depositing half an apron he had brought all the way there from his latest victim in Mitre Square.

Nats,

The piece of apron may have been lying in the door way of the Model Dwellings for the best part of an hour, so far as we know. It was, after all, discovered purely by accident at around 2.55 am by PC Long, about 70 minutes after Eddowes' body was found. By which time the Ripper was probably tucked up in beddie-byes.

Cheers,

Graham

Hi Graham,

But have you ever thought what would have happened if the apron piece had not been found at that time ‘purely by accident’? From Jack’s point of view, as he fled the murder scene, the cops would shortly be there, assessing what he had done this time, what clues he may have left behind, and also what he had taken away with him. He could have certainly expected them to initiate a search for Kate’s missing apron half at some point. Maybe he imagined them buzzing like flies around the entrance to the Model Dwellings after such a search had turned up his little deposit.

So I’m not so sure that Sam was on the money when he said that neither the chalk message nor the apron piece would, of necessity, have been “destined” to be noticed by the police. Had an active and thorough search got under way, as Jack may have been anticipating, and the apron piece tracked down to Goulston St as a direct result, the writing would have had even less chance of being missed, and one can only imagine the drama had a resident already noticed the apron, as Sam suggested was marginally more likely than a beat constable spotting it, and was perhaps in a quandary over whether to alert anyone, or leave it, or even try to conceal or get rid of it himself.

You may need to tighten up on your definition of "spillages", Colin. I'm not sure we can compare bodies found in the open air with a fragment of apron liberated from one such body, later to be found near the foot of some communal stairs.

Well Sam, while I totally agree with what you said in one post about the message itself being redundant and not giving us anything to go on, we can’t get away from the fact that the killer did spill a product from one of his crime scenes at some distance from it, creating a double event in its own right by leaving only 50% of Kate’s apron in one place and depositing the missing 50% in another place, where a neat and legible message on the subject of Jews and blame was also to be found, which kept everyone guessing at the time and has done so ever since. If none of this was by design, he must have had the widest grin in England when he read the papers over the following week.

As for the coincidences of Jewish elements on several sites - it would be VERY hard to find anything that wouldn't in some way concern the Jews in East End during this time! This was an area with mostly Jewish or Eastern European immigrant population, so I don't see Jewish elements in a number of murders as that strange a coincidence - far from it, it doesn't surprise me at all.

Could someone refresh my memory here? If it would be VERY hard not to find Jewish elements in a number of murders during this time, where do they feature in the other Whitechapel murders apart from the double event? I’m struggling to think of any that stick out like sore thumbs.

Love,

Caz
X