Piece of Apron and the 'Juwes'

[Graham]

Things are chalked (really!) on walls in the East End to this day. If you scrawl something snarky about Muhammad outside Asda, it probably won't stay up long...but it's not to say some rubbish won't get chucked under it first...

Thank you, too, Justin.

As Walter Dew said (and I'll be honest and say that he isn't the most reliable of contemporary witnesses), there were graffiti all over the East End similar to the GSG, i.e., with a reference to the Jews.

Oddly, I've never seen anything horrible about Mohammed scrawled on walls, but plenty of crap about Jesus...at least where I live. Maybe the average white teenage chav hasn't a clue about who Mohammed was...

Cheers,

Graham

[Observer]

Hi David

As to the "ever increasing ferocity" that you are pointing out, I'm not sure it has something to do with the newspapers.

Hi Cap’n Jack

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

The laying out of the victims, skirts raised to reveal the mutilations, the arranging of Chapman’s belongings, the nicking of Eddowe’s eyelids, the thimble placed in mockery near her finger, Kelly’s hand thrust into her abdomen, a child playing a game in my eyes. I believe he revelled in the newspapers accounts of his deeds, I can see him standing waiting for the newspapers to hit the streets, a big game, albeit a deadly one.

All the best

Observer

[Justin]

Thank you, Graham.

Things are chalked (really!) on walls in the East End to this day. If you scrawl something snarky about Muhammad outside Asda, it probably won't stay up long...but it's not to say some rubbish won't get chucked under it first...

[Graham]

To whom it may concern:

You have just brutally murdered a woman. You get the hell away from the crime-scene as fast as your legs will carry you, for fear of being seen (possibly by three Jewish gentlemen who just emerged from a nearby club). You have a piece of the dead woman's apron, cut from the rest of that garment either accidentally or deliberately. Your hands are covered in blood and ****. You are probably heading for where you live. As you run, or walk very fast, you are wiping your soiled hands on the piece of cloth. When you think your hands are clean you dispose of the cloth. You just toss it to one side and it happens to land in the dark entrance to a block of flats. For all you know the police may be only a matter of yards behind you. So you stop to write a strange message on the wall where you discarded the dirty cloth? So why don't you sit down with pencil and paper and write your autobiography while you're there? Or hold a seminar?

No, sir. You toss the dirty cloth to one side when you're finished with it, you don't care where it lands, but you just keep on running (apologies to the Spencer Davis Group) until you get home and make yourself a nice cup of cocoa.

Cheers,

Graham

[Fisherman]

"even if we dismiss Stride as his victim, the piece of apron and the graffito can hardly be a coincidence"

Could almost have guessed that was your post, DVV; you are moving at the same speed as when you tie the violent madman Fleming to Kellys death ...

Of course it could have been a coincidence. If he had thrown it in a fruiterers doorway, should that be seen as a hint that he came from the Big Apple? I side with Graham and Sam here, but I will not advice you to read anything more into finding us side by side than a mutual taste for healthy scepticism.

The best,

Fisherman

[Graham]

Precisely how I see it, Graham. If he'd wanted it to be found, he might at least have weighted it down with a stone.

Exactly so, Sam.

Cheers,

Graham

[Sam Flynn]

I think it purely fortuitous that it was found (in the dark, don't forget) and purely fortuitous that it was thrown away just where it was.

Precisely how I see it, Graham. If he'd wanted it to be found, he might at least have weighted it down with a stone.

[Graham]

Hi Caz

"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"

It's only my take on the finding of the piece of apron, Caz. Long could have missed it, and if so maybe at some later time the piece of apron could have been picked up, thrown away, whatever. I think it purely fortuitous that it was found (in the dark, don't forget) and purely fortuitous that it was thrown away just where it was. Actually looking for a piece of apron would have been akin to looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Cheers,

Graham

[DVV]

Agreed all round! Obviously the double event shows something about the Jews from Jack's insanity (Berner Street club; Lipski!; GSG). And even if we dismiss Stride as his victim, the piece of apron and the graffito can hardly be a coincidence.

Amitiés,
DVV

[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

[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.

[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]

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]

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)

[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