The Double Event

[#6.]

...in which case we rely on PC Long's statement...

Amitiés,
David

I know Long claimed he didn't see the apron piece on his earlier pass by that spot, did he make the same claim for the writing?

I know he said later that he'd "seen nothing" in referrence to the area where the apron piece was found, are we suppose to infer that also meant he didn't believe the writing was there as well?

From the Casebook:

At the Eddowes Inquest, Detective Halse said '...the writing had the appearance of being recently written...', then in The Daily Telegraph, Oct 12, in response to a question of "why did you say it seemed to have been recently written?" Halse responded, "it looked fresh, and if it had been done long before it would have been rubbed out by the people passing..." Graffiti of all kinds was not unusual, in fact it had proliferated since the murder of Annie Chapman, so there is no reason to think of this as anything special.

If graffiti was found all around that area I'm not sure PC Long would notice it one way or the other. It may have simply become part of the background.

[Nicola]

It creeps me out to no end to know that 120 years ago,a murderous freak was stalking the streets,out for murder.


I am not sure about Liz Stride but definitely feel Catherine Eddowes was a Ripper victim. It still astounds me that she was let out of jail, by herself, when it was known by everybody that a vicious murderer was killing ladies of the night. That was horrible. If they had let her stay a little longer,at least until daylight, she wouldn't have been killed.That's not to say she wouldn't have ran up on JTR on the streets at a later time,but that particular night,she wouldve been safe.


Another thing that has intrigued me is Lawendes description. I feel that he was the only one who actually saw JTR.

Neither lady was expecting their lives to end so brutally and I shudder to imagine their last minutes. I wish that these poor ladies had been armed with Mossberg 500's.

I hope both ladies are resting in peace.

[The Good Michael]

I think it also might reveal the killers ethnicity if so....likely Gentile.

This is not likely. It is most likely, as the area was heavily populated by Jews, that he was Jewish. It's a simple matter of numbers, as well as the graffiti being more likely pro-Jew.

If the killer lived on Goulston, it would have been a simple matter for him to take the organs into his room, prepare them for consumption, and then pop down to the street to leave the apron near the graffiti that he either had written earlier that day, or had read and liked. This seems the most likely scenario as the coincidence of apron and graffiti is quite difficult to reconcile, though not impossible.

Cheers,

Mike

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Good Michael!

Here's a point for you;

Had he been a Jew in a large Jewish populated area, the risk of being caught would probably been high!

Since rumours about (this name is ex-tempore) would have emerged the following way: that Silverstein-boy has been weird ever since the murders started. I wonder, if he ripped them...

That would obviously have been a piece of cake even for a regular police-constable to notice.

Or then... aargh, maybe they lynched him within their own group!

All the best
Jukka

[Monty]

...in which case we rely on PC Long's statement...

Amitiés,
David

I think Halse comes into the equation here.

Long states he was in Goulston Street at 2.20am. So does Halse. Obviously I suspect they were rounding their times off to the nearest 5 minutes, as Police officers do, so they may have just missed each other. Neither mentions the other.

However, Halse is clear in his statement when he said, at the inquest, that:-

"At twenty minutes past two o'clock I passed over the spot where the piece of apron was found, but did not notice anything then. I should not necessarily have seen the piece of apron."

This would indicate to me that either the apron could not have been viewed from the street or it would not have been noticeable had it been there.

Therefore, at 2.20am, Long (who was not supposed to be looking into the entrance anyway, as it was a private dwelling and not part of the Queens highways and byways. Though it is understandable why he did so.) either did look in and noted nothing was there or didnt take any real notice of what was there or didnt look in at all and lied.

If he did look in, and this is my point, he would have had to have looked right in, with lamp fully opened. Such an act may have been memorable because it was so invovled.


Monty

[The Good Michael]

Jukka,

If he was a Gentile in a largely Jewish populace, he could have stood out as well. "That Finnish boy is insane. Maybe he's the killer. What's he doing in our community anyway?"
My point is, there were more Jews, so if he lived in the area, the chances of him being a Jew are obviously higher. If he was a commuter, well... enter Druitt.

Cheers,

Mike

[kensei]

I knew the argument of PC Long not noticing the apron on his first pass had been made before. In contemplating it now, something just occurred to me. The cops are alerted- the killer's struck again, just minutes ago! Fan out and look for him! Excitement would have been high for every officer involved in the search, knowing there was a chance they might be about to physically get their hands on this notorious and dangerous armed madman. Vigilance, presumably, would have been at its peak for all of them as the search began and they would have been shining their lanterns everywhere, but as time wore on and no traces were found that would have gradually waned as they realized the killer had probably slipped away. With that in mind, isn't it likely that Long would have been more likely to spot the apron on his first pass (if it was there) than he was on his second?

[Sam Flynn]

With that in mind, isn't it likely that Long would have been more likely to spot the apron on his first pass (if it was there) than he was on his second?

Good idea, Ken, but not quite - it seems that, by the time he'd heard that there'd been a murder, Long had already found the apron.

[Canucco dei Mergi]

As far as today things are known, it seems that:

Accepting as a postulate that the women Stride and Eddowes were killed by the same hand (or hands - for the simplicity let's call that (those) hand(s): 'Jack') the night of the 30st of September 1888, we still lack any evidence or even one single simple clue - material - that would point the finger and tell us that:

- The woman Stride was 'walking the streets' that night in Berner street;
- 'Jack' met her as a client;
- 'Jack' had ever any intention to mutilate the woman Stride;
- 'Jack' was disturbed by Diemschitz;
- 'Jack' left Dutfield Yard with an unsatisfied lust of kill;
- 'Jack' fell on the women Eddowes by pure chance;
- The woman Eddowes was in the process of prostituting her body - putting it literally at the disposal of her client - when 'Jack' fell on her with the knife;
- 'Jack' satisfied the lust of killing by disembowelling the woman Eddowes.

All that is 'theory' directly consequent to the artificial shaping of the events of that night to make them fit as best as possible the model of the serial (sexual) killer.
Unfortunately even by shaping the events following that model, the result we obtain in explaining those events is at best vague and far from any logical acceptable solution (reason why many experts ripperologists choose to believe the woman Stride better off the 'Jack' list)
More disappointingly this model is by long and large completely useless and quite disruptive (not to say destructive) when trying to explain the other facts which are deemed to be secondary (just to remember some: the very peculiarities of the Stride crime scene - grapes, cachous, no shouting or the graffito in Goulston street).
Once again experts ripperologists have their way to explain it: 'not pertinent to the case'.
Yeap, Sir.
Not pertinent. Good night.

Canucco dei Mergi

[stevebaker25]

No one has yet mentioned the third event of that night- Goulston Street. So let me just throw it out there. The Ripper finishes with Catherine within a minute or two of the arrival of PC Watkins at 1:44 so he has to still be very close. Masses of cops are on the streets shortly thereafter looking for him, so wherever he goes he will be running a gauntlet. At 2:20, 36 minutes after the finding of the body, PC Long passes down Goulston Street and finds nothing unusual so Jack hasn't been there yet. At 3:00, 40 minutes later, Long comes by again and finds the piece of bloody apron and the Juwes grafitti. Of course it's been debated endlessly whether Jack actually wrote the grafitti or not, but the apron proves that he was there. It has always struck me how Jack had not yet vacated the area all that time after the murder and was carrying human organs with him yet a huge dragnet failed to capture him. Did he somehow appear normal enough that the cops saw him but didn't stop him, or was he ducking and dodging them the whole time from one dark alley to another, hiding in the shadows with his heart pounding as cop after cop passed by mere yards away? Those seem to be the two options. If it is the second, Jack would seem to be quite the adrenaline junkie and probably felt like a god after managing to get away with it.

Unless of course he lived very close to Mitre Square...or in Goulston Street. Took the organs home and then waited for an opportune moment to drop off the piece of apron? Far fetched I know but still debatable...

[The Good Michael]

Steve,

I just said that, and I don't think it improbable at all. Rather likely, I'd say.

Cheers,

Mike

[Fisherman]

Hi Canucco!

Excellent and interesting post, that!

It is of course not only the so called double event that has inspired theorizing along the lines of a sinister, sexual sadist being on the loose. All the murders involved lend themselves quite well to such reasoning - with the possible exception of Stride - and people in general like logical explanations.

Myself, I´m often inclined to think that Jack was less of a sadist than is often suggested, and that the urge to eviscerate is what forced our man into action.

As for what parts in the Stride drama are pertinent to the case and which are not, an open mind may be recommendable - for as long as we do not know what actually happened in Dutfields Yard, as a consequence there is no telling just HOW pertinent the things you mention were - or were not.

Taking, for example, the cachous, it has always been my meaning that they point to Stride having felt at ease when she took them out. And I think it is reasonable to say that she would have taken them out only after having entered the yard. Had she held them in her hand as she was thrown to the ground, she would have dropped them, or at the very least spilt them on the ground outside the gates. All of this tells me that her killer was somebody she knew - or thought she knew.

But if we decide on her having held the cachous in hand before BS mans "attack", then an alternative explanation could perhaps be that she DID drop the cachous - but picked them up again, when getting to her feet. The people of the East End were not used to very much luxury, and maybe she would be so intent on keeping the cachous that she actually took the time to pick them up. If so, in an instance we are facing another scenario, with no need at all to believe in an aquainted murder, at least not in this instance.
In other words - maybe the cachous are pertinent, but in what manner and to what extent, we simple cannot say. Much the same would go for the grapes, the shouting and the graffito.

The best, Canucco!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Mike writes:

"...I don't think it improbable at all. Rather likely, I'd say."

Less likely, though, than a scenario where he stays put in his bolt-hole as long as the streets are filled with coppers, I´d say. I am much more inclined to believe that the apron was in place when Long passed the doorway at 2.20. In a street used to market activities, there would be all sorts of rags and litter lying about, at least at many times of the week, and since there would have been no expectancy to find a bloodstained piece of cloth on Longs behalf, it would be quite understandable if a rag in a dark corner did not catch his eye the first time over.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Hi Mike,

This is not likely. It is most likely, as the area was heavily populated by Jews, that he was Jewish. It's a simple matter of numbers, as well as the graffiti being more likely pro-Jew.

It depends where his bolt-hole was. If he lived in a largely gentile area or establishment, but merely killed where the Jews dominated population-wise, I think there's a stronger argument for a Gentile trying to sustain focues in a Jewish direction.

Best regards,
Ben

[halomanuk]

The Jewish community did a lot of covering up were not very forthcoming to the police.

Whether that is because of the anti-semetic situation or they were hiding a Jewish Jack to avoid recriminations remains to be seen.