Blood Spray from Decapitation

[lynn cates]

fracas

Hello Colin. Thanks.

Schwartz saw him throw her down outside the gates (east); she died west of them.

And if her throat getting cut was part of that fracas, surely she had lost the cachous as he pulled and pushed?

Cheers.
LC

[Bridewell]

Hello Colin. Thanks.

Not sure that ANYTHING in his testimony deals with this. I thought BS had simply thrown her down?

Cheers.
LC

He corroborates the throwing to the ground - unless it is argued that she was thrown to the ground twice in quick succession, and that he saw the first incident but not the second.

[lynn cates]

thanks

Hello Errata. Thanks. That answers my question.

Cheers.
LC

[Michael W Richards]

Not necessarily. I know people who suffer from positional hypotension (people who faint when they stand up too fast) mostly go very rigid and fall over like a felled tree. None of that hand on forehead graceful collapse you see in old movies. I had it when I was a teenager and I used to come to holding the coke can I crushed with my hand when I fainted.

But a slow loss of consciousness would mean she would drop the cachous. Strangulation death always causes the latter. Ischemic death can cause either. Some people fade slowly (relatively slowly), and some people faint because their brain is trying to protect itself by shutting down. So it really can go either way.

Ive experienced something similar errata....I passed out doing some strenuous work in very hot temperatures a few years back, and I came to with the tool I was using still clenched in my hand. And a long gash on the back on my head.

I obviously did not have any reflex motor activity on the part of my hands either, I didnt try to prevent myself from hitting the concrete with my head.

Im not sure loss of consciousness is a primary factor here anyway, at least to explain the cashous.....shock can freeze motion as well, she could have been pulled with the scarf, cut, dropped and then experienced shock until she lost consciousness from blood loss.

As I indicated previously, there are statements that indicate at least 2 men from the club and 1 from the street recalled.... within an hour of the cut.... that they were alerted to the body before 12:45.

A hypothetical....Liz was asked to meet someone from the club that night around 1am, maybe Mrs D, she arrives at the scene at 12:30ish, and is seen talking to someone at 12:35. She then proceeds into the passageway to wait for the person or the appropriate time to enter the side door. Someone not aware she has been asked to be there misinterprets her presence as spying, which some Unfortunates were indeed paid to do. She does not address that question when asked but instead rudely rebuffs the man, and with a combination of irritation and emerging fear of the man, she moves to leave the passageway out into the street...perhaps with a threat she intends to look for a policeman to report her being assaulted. Man reacts impulsively grabbing her scarf from behind, pulls her back into the dark space twists the scarf positions a knife across the left part of her throat, presses and then drops her.
Club members become aware of the incident at around 12:40, and the circumstances, and debate how best to portray this assault to the police..knowing that the explanation that is the truth, (that she was killed by accident by an overzealous security man hired by the club... because he thought she was a police informant), would confirm suspicions that they were lawless anarchists and dangerous....suspicions which may have had some substance.

Some key Issues addressed by this hypothetical scenario;

-Why she was there that night.
-Why she had the flower and the cashous in her hand.
-Why she was assaulted
-Why she had only 1 cut
-Why she clenched the cashous after the cut
-Why no witness other than Israel Schwartz saw Liz on the street after 12:35
-Why Fanny didnt see Liz at all....(sporadically at her door until 12:50)
-Why club members may have first discussed their response to this situation before acting
-Why 3 people said that they were alerted to the cut woman at around 12:40.
-Why Israel Schwartz's story wasnt presented to anyone at the Inquest
-Why Goldstein looked into the passage and hurried by the gate instead of taking his empty cigarette cartons to the cigarette makers awake in the cottages....(he was a club member)
-Why the story provided by senior club members...Louis, Morris and Lave contradict the stories given by the 3 men who claimed an earlier discovery. They would be the ones who create the empty passageway story at 12:40 and the discovery at 1am.
-Why Fanny didnt see Louis arrive at 1am...she was at her door continuously from 12:50 until 1am and didnt see Louis.
-Why Brown didnt see a flower on the jacket of the young woman by the school board.

What doesnt need an explanation is why this murder was assumed to be by Jack the Ripper...because a murder very much resembling Jacks work was committed a little over a half hour later and just a 10 minute walk away.

Cheers

[Errata]

There is the possibility that the scarf was used primarily to catch hold of the victim as she faced away from him, and then twisted to cause the off-balance pose I suggested. Choking as a result of the action...not as the intended action as it were. Ancillary.

My quarrel with that notion is positional in nature. Anytime you choke up on something, a lasso around a cow, a rope around a pole, a scarf around the neck, the loop moves up. And I've tried this, so I'm familiar with the movement. First off, we aren't working with a lot of room. Silk doesn't give. (it's part of my silk changes everything theory) so he might be able to get his hand between the scarf and her neck, but there would be no twist. The scarf was tight around her neck. Not like a loose bow or something. So getting his hand in that scarf is not like tugging on the collar of a jacket or anything. It's an effort. Which means she's not choked out before she knows whats happening. Secondly, if he grabs her and pulls her towards him, the scarf gets jerked up to her jaw line. Which means he has to cut under the scarf and not over it, which means that the blood flow is not restricted by the scarf.

As to how the blood loss could be so dramatic, Ill remind you that there is some evidence that some people at the scene believed they knew of the body lying there before 12:45...sorry Izzy...which could give us a much longer bleed out time than expected. A medico was on the scene at 1:10...Blackwell at 1:16...what if Stride had been allowed to bleed out for almost half an hour before being examined? How would that time difference impact the color of the lungs for example?

Well, thats complicated. We know she bled out slower than the others because only one artery was cut. But she died at least as quickly given that her windpipe was completely severed. So while she might be bleeding, she isn't alive and bleeding. And that makes a big difference in speed. Her heart was not pumping the blood out, so all that was left was gravity. But she was on her side. Now if you take a plastic bottle of water and puncture it, eventually everything above that cut will leak out. Because she was lying on the wound, she could potentially lose quite a bit more blood that the others who were on their back. But blood clots whether you are alive or dead. And capillaries are the last to empty if they ever do, because they are small and blood clots in them usually before the body is so empty it starts pulling on the capillaries. Which is why people whose vessels burst in their eyes before death never have that drain out of their eyes. It might if they were alive, but not after death. The lungs are colored by capillaries. Alive and bleeding with nothing accelerating the bleeding, sure the lungs might drain. But she was dead within 4 minutes of her windpipe getting cut. Not enough time. And her blood was clotting. So it should have solidified in the lungs, if anything making them darker, not paler.

As for strangulation...I believe there is physical evidence in the cases of Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman that suggests both were choked or strangled first...which would explain how he got them on the ground for the cutting. There was ample time to wait out the 10 or 15 seconds as you suggest, to lose consciousness. In Strides case Blackwell obviously felt that he was satisfied with the idea of a very brief and fluid killing....grab, pull, cut, drop.

There is some evidence. There is no definitive evidence. Annie Chapman's tongue was protruding slightly, and Polly Nichols tongue was abraded. Both are signs of a strangulation death. But they aren't only signs of a strangulation death. They aren't even necessarily signs of anything. A fair amount of people have tongues who don't precisely fit in their mouths. And it's because for the past few hundreds years our evolution has been going towards smaller jaws, which is why wisdom teeth cause problems now. My tongue, given it's druthers would fit perfectly on top of my lower teeth. Which means I bite it constantly and it's not a great fit. When I am unconcious, it sticks out a bit. I know because there are pictures from my not terribly well thought out early 20s. But that's neither here nor there.

The most common cause of a swollen tongue are allergies are deficiencies. Anemia causes it, certain vitamin B deficiencies cause it. So this may have been something going on before death. Neither woman had the grotesque protruding tongue associated with strangulation, so it could be something different. Clearly someone grabbed Polly Nichols by the jaw. Which is more than enough to abrade the tongue without strangulation entering into it. Annie Chapman was dying of lung disease. She may have been struggling with oxygen and blood pressure long enough that her slightly swollen tongue was no longer a problem. And then given that their windpipes were cut, they could easily have been choking or suffocating. Which gives the same signs as strangulation without actual strangulation.

None of these victims had blown out eyes, which is common in strangulation. None of them had abrasions, ligature marks, claw marks, anything on their throats. None of them vomited, none of them bit through their lips, none of them broke off fingernails trying to loosen a hold on their throat. None of them apparently even scratched him. They didn't scream, they didn't kick, they didn't lunge about, or fight, or bang on anything. They got no piece of him, he got no piece of them. Nobody, not nobody, stands there and lets themselves be strangled. But there is no evidence, none, that says these women didn't do exactly that. Why would they let him kill them? Which is a whole other topic, but why only two signs of strangulation when there should be a dozen?

Cheers

[Errata]

Hello Errata. If Liz had blacked out/fainted, would not she lose her grip on the cachous?

Cheers.
LC

Not necessarily. I know people who suffer from positional hypotension (people who faint when they stand up too fast) mostly go very rigid and fall over like a felled tree. None of that hand on forehead graceful collapse you see in old movies. I had it when I was a teenager and I used to come to holding the coke can I crushed with my hand when I fainted.

But a slow loss of consciousness would mean she would drop the cachous. Strangulation death always causes the latter. Ischemic death can cause either. Some people fade slowly (relatively slowly), and some people faint because their brain is trying to protect itself by shutting down. So it really can go either way.

[lynn cates]

losing it

Hello Errata. If Liz had blacked out/fainted, would not she lose her grip on the cachous?

Cheers.
LC

[Michael W Richards]

Don't get me started on the scarf. Thats a whole thesis paper right there.

As far as any kind of choke hold or the like, you are looking at 15-30 seconds before blacking out. The last five seconds is not a terribly productive five seconds. But because choke holds rely on artery constriction, the loosest part of the hold is the front of the throat, which is the bit you use to scream. Even with ligature strangulation you have about 15 seconds of being able to fight like hell. The amount of time depends on health. Annie Chapman has severe lung disease. She wasn't oxygenating her blood well anyway, choking her out would take 10-15 seconds. Liz Stride on the other hand was relatively healthy. A smoker, but no obstruction or disease, her heart was fine, she would have been able to fight for a good 20 seconds. Someone would have heard that. And it may not seem like a long period of time, but wrap your arms around someone's chest and have them do literally anything they can think of to get free for ten seconds. Just don't do it if you have to be in court or something because you will have blacks eyes etc.

If a man was strangling the women, the first question is why didn't a single one of them vomit? It's a very common reaction, especially if pressure was placed on the adam's apple. It's also a reflex the body uses to try and clear the throat. It's why people who choke to death generally vomit. Gagging, choking, vomiting, all of this is normal, and the usual result is the person gasping for air inhales the vomit and severely damages their lungs. Edema is another classic sign, but given the season and predominance of lung disease it's not a good clue here. Lastly, when the body is starving for air the lungs gather up as much of the deoxygenated blood as possible. Strangulation victim's lungs are blue. Not pale. Not bloodless.

In fact I'm having a hard time explaining the pale lungs at all. The only thing I can think of may be backed up by Baxter Phillips, when he said that there was an unusual blood flow from the body given her size and nourishment. And that is that she was purposefully exsanguinated. No throat slashing victim loses tons of blood. They certainly lose more than enough to die from it, but the construction of the body means that they retain the majority. But she evidently bled a lot. So all I can think is that her attacker was forcing the blood out of her. Which sadly may have had the side effect of keeping her conscious longer (dead faster, conscious longer). We know he didn't hang her by her heels to drain her blood like they do with cows. Of course theres nothing to say he didn't just pick up her legs with her face on the drain. Or sit on her or a few other things. In fact if he was holding her up over the drain, it might explain why nothing is on the dress. The dress was not on the ground.

But then, theres about 20 reasons why right off the bat that has to be wrong, so really there is just no explanation for it. But losing so much blood that the lungs are drained? That does not happen naturally, no matter what your wound is.

There is the possibility that the scarf was used primarily to catch hold of the victim as she faced away from him, and then twisted to cause the off-balance pose I suggested. Choking as a result of the action...not as the intended action as it were. Ancillary.

As to how the blood loss could be so dramatic, Ill remind you that there is some evidence that some people at the scene believed they knew of the body lying there before 12:45...sorry Izzy...which could give us a much longer bleed out time than expected. A medico was on the scene at 1:10...Blackwell at 1:16...what if Stride had been allowed to bleed out for almost half an hour before being examined? How would that time difference impact the color of the lungs for example?

As for strangulation...I believe there is physical evidence in the cases of Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman that suggests both were choked or strangled first...which would explain how he got them on the ground for the cutting. There was ample time to wait out the 10 or 15 seconds as you suggest, to lose consciousness. In Strides case Blackwell obviously felt that he was satisfied with the idea of a very brief and fluid killing....grab, pull, cut, drop.

One more thing as an aside....the poster who continually rants about Fenians and conspiracies seems to forget that many people might consider those angles for the Kelly murder,....(since contemporary secret policemen evidently did) ... not the Stride murder, which is the most mundane of the bunch.

If conspiring to tell a story by the members of the Mens Club seems a bit far fetched I would recommend some studies of human behavior before attempting to solve this or harder puzzles.

Walk first.

Cheers

[Errata]

In the section I emboldened above there is some information for us to use. Liz Strides blood flow nearly reached the side door via the gutter....she steadily but slowly bled out...likely due to the partial severance of just one artery. Unlike any other Canonical throat wound. So her heart remained active while she lay there....she may have been unconscious. Then rises the question...how long would she have to be choked to lose consciousness...my guess is longer than the attack evidence suggests...since Blackwell suggested that the murder may have been a total of 2 or 3 seconds, with the scarf grab starting the process. Perhaps she was conscious for a brief period until blood loss affected her, but its not hard to imagine someone attacked like that and lying still in a semi fetal position afterward.

The cut was made to the left side of her neck and the knife was drawn across, leaving a more superficial wound on the right side. Which means he didnt apply pressure with the knife equally.

"There was a clear-cut incision on the neck. It was six inches in length and commenced two and a half inches in a straight line below the angle of the jaw, one half inch in over an undivided muscle, and then becoming deeper, dividing the sheath. The cut was very clean and deviated a little downwards. The arteries and other vessels contained in the sheath were all cut through.The cut through the tissues on the right side was more superficial, and tailed off to about two inches below the right angle of the jaw. The deep vessels on that side were uninjured. From this is was evident that the hemorrhage was caused through the partial severance of the left carotid artery."

Meaning we have a right handed man reaching across the neck, from behind, with his knife and cutting the side of her neck that eventually rested in the mud...meaning the artery wound was facing down, not up or sideways, therefore no blood on the wall or her clothing. If he had the scarf in his hand and held her from the ground while her scarf choked her, he only need cut and drop and there you have it. No blood spray anywhere but down into the mud and then into the gutter.

I also believe that the evidence suggests the cut was above the line of her tightened scarf, and that may have inhibited spray as well.

She tries to leave the man and head out into the street, he grabs the scarf from behind...pulls her back into the space behind the gate, twists the scarf tightly to the left...she naturally alligns from the waist up in the direction of the twist. off balance and leaning backward...he slides the knife under her chin to the far side of her throat, cuts and drops. Voila. She lay on her left side with her legs drawn into her body and her skirt exposing only her boots.


Cheers

Don't get me started on the scarf. Thats a whole thesis paper right there.

As far as any kind of choke hold or the like, you are looking at 15-30 seconds before blacking out. The last five seconds is not a terribly productive five seconds. But because choke holds rely on artery constriction, the loosest part of the hold is the front of the throat, which is the bit you use to scream. Even with ligature strangulation you have about 15 seconds of being able to fight like hell. The amount of time depends on health. Annie Chapman has severe lung disease. She wasn't oxygenating her blood well anyway, choking her out would take 10-15 seconds. Liz Stride on the other hand was relatively healthy. A smoker, but no obstruction or disease, her heart was fine, she would have been able to fight for a good 20 seconds. Someone would have heard that. And it may not seem like a long period of time, but wrap your arms around someone's chest and have them do literally anything they can think of to get free for ten seconds. Just don't do it if you have to be in court or something because you will have blacks eyes etc.

If a man was strangling the women, the first question is why didn't a single one of them vomit? It's a very common reaction, especially if pressure was placed on the adam's apple. It's also a reflex the body uses to try and clear the throat. It's why people who choke to death generally vomit. Gagging, choking, vomiting, all of this is normal, and the usual result is the person gasping for air inhales the vomit and severely damages their lungs. Edema is another classic sign, but given the season and predominance of lung disease it's not a good clue here. Lastly, when the body is starving for air the lungs gather up as much of the deoxygenated blood as possible. Strangulation victim's lungs are blue. Not pale. Not bloodless.

In fact I'm having a hard time explaining the pale lungs at all. The only thing I can think of may be backed up by Baxter Phillips, when he said that there was an unusual blood flow from the body given her size and nourishment. And that is that she was purposefully exsanguinated. No throat slashing victim loses tons of blood. They certainly lose more than enough to die from it, but the construction of the body means that they retain the majority. But she evidently bled a lot. So all I can think is that her attacker was forcing the blood out of her. Which sadly may have had the side effect of keeping her conscious longer (dead faster, conscious longer). We know he didn't hang her by her heels to drain her blood like they do with cows. Of course theres nothing to say he didn't just pick up her legs with her face on the drain. Or sit on her or a few other things. In fact if he was holding her up over the drain, it might explain why nothing is on the dress. The dress was not on the ground.

But then, theres about 20 reasons why right off the bat that has to be wrong, so really there is just no explanation for it. But losing so much blood that the lungs are drained? That does not happen naturally, no matter what your wound is.

[Observer]

One man and his sheep

Hello Errata. Thanks.

Yes, Hollywood explanations and JTR explanations seem to coincide. (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

Fenians, Anarchists, mad pork butchers. Yes I see what you mean

[lynn cates]

May the Schwartz be with you.

Hello Colin. Thanks.

Not sure that ANYTHING in his testimony deals with this. I thought BS had simply thrown her down?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Hollywood

Hello Errata. Thanks.

Yes, Hollywood explanations and JTR explanations seem to coincide. (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[Bridewell]

Hello Jon.

"I was making allowances for Blackwell's comment:
"...The throat might have been cut as she was falling, or when she was on the ground.""

Score yet another point. We sometimes forget that the theory I espouse was originally his.

Cheers.
LC

And that, arguably, it was corroborated in part by the evidence of Israel Schwartz.

[Michael W Richards]

Well death due to vasovagal injury (which is what stops the heart) is really damn rare. It happens just often enough for it to be an episode on a police procedural tv show, with this whole mystery about how did a good cop subduing a suspect kill him etc.

But you don't have to be actually dead to seriously alter your blood pressure. The heart just has to stop. Once the heart stops you are only left with arterial pressure which isn't that spectacular. In order to be fully dead the brain has to die. That takes time. But the heart stopping is dead enough to change blood flow.

In fact I have seen two seriously injured people who successfully had their heart restarted. And they immediately went from bleeding to bleeding with a vengeance. Which is why they put pressure on major wounds while CPR is being performed. Because theres no point in bringing someone back just to have them die from blood loss a few minutes later.

In the section I emboldened above there is some information for us to use. Liz Strides blood flow nearly reached the side door via the gutter....she steadily but slowly bled out...likely due to the partial severance of just one artery. Unlike any other Canonical throat wound. So her heart remained active while she lay there....she may have been unconscious. Then rises the question...how long would she have to be choked to lose consciousness...my guess is longer than the attack evidence suggests...since Blackwell suggested that the murder may have been a total of 2 or 3 seconds, with the scarf grab starting the process. Perhaps she was conscious for a brief period until blood loss affected her, but its not hard to imagine someone attacked like that and lying still in a semi fetal position afterward.

The cut was made to the left side of her neck and the knife was drawn across, leaving a more superficial wound on the right side. Which means he didnt apply pressure with the knife equally.

"There was a clear-cut incision on the neck. It was six inches in length and commenced two and a half inches in a straight line below the angle of the jaw, one half inch in over an undivided muscle, and then becoming deeper, dividing the sheath. The cut was very clean and deviated a little downwards. The arteries and other vessels contained in the sheath were all cut through.The cut through the tissues on the right side was more superficial, and tailed off to about two inches below the right angle of the jaw. The deep vessels on that side were uninjured. From this is was evident that the hemorrhage was caused through the partial severance of the left carotid artery."

Meaning we have a right handed man reaching across the neck, from behind, with his knife and cutting the side of her neck that eventually rested in the mud...meaning the artery wound was facing down, not up or sideways, therefore no blood on the wall or her clothing. If he had the scarf in his hand and held her from the ground while her scarf choked her, he only need cut and drop and there you have it. No blood spray anywhere but down into the mud and then into the gutter.

I also believe that the evidence suggests the cut was above the line of her tightened scarf, and that may have inhibited spray as well.

She tries to leave the man and head out into the street, he grabs the scarf from behind...pulls her back into the space behind the gate, twists the scarf tightly to the left...she naturally alligns from the waist up in the direction of the twist. off balance and leaning backward...he slides the knife under her chin to the far side of her throat, cuts and drops. Voila. She lay on her left side with her legs drawn into her body and her skirt exposing only her boots.


Cheers

[Errata]

Hello Mitzi. Welcome to the boards.

Yes, I think that claim was made. Of course, the time intervening between seizing the scarf and hitting the ground may be insufficient for cardiac arrest and death?

Cheers.
LC

Well death due to vasovagal injury (which is what stops the heart) is really damn rare. It happens just often enough for it to be an episode on a police procedural tv show, with this whole mystery about how did a good cop subduing a suspect kill him etc.

But you don't have to be actually dead to seriously alter your blood pressure. The heart just has to stop. Once the heart stops you are only left with arterial pressure which isn't that spectacular. In order to be fully dead the brain has to die. That takes time. But the heart stopping is dead enough to change blood flow.

In fact I have seen two seriously injured people who successfully had their heart restarted. And they immediately went from bleeding to bleeding with a vengeance. Which is why they put pressure on major wounds while CPR is being performed. Because theres no point in bringing someone back just to have them die from blood loss a few minutes later.