Broad Shoulders, Elizabeth's Killer ?

[jmenges]

Greetings,

Comparing one of your fellow Casebook members to former United States President Donald J. Trump will be considered a gross personal attack and points will be awarded accordingly.
This is the one warning.

JM

[Lewis C]

The idea that she was seemingly laid down and gently placed on the floor, whilst having her neck harshly severed, rings true of 2 separate people having been involved.

Perhaps the couple on the corner...

A couple was alleged to have been seen talking with MJK shortly before she was murdered, and so is there a realm of possibility that the killer we perceive as Jack the Ripper, may have instead been a Killer Couple?

Just a thought

You mean it's possible that the young sweethearts that Fanny Mortimer talked to after the murder might have been the killers? I think that's a rather remote possibility. The suspicion seems based entirely on MJK talking to a couple before her murder. There are lots of couples, so that's not much of a coincidence.

[Losmandris]

Is there any evidence that the police at the time thought that BS man was the killer? I am correct in assuming there was not?

[c.d.]

Don't hold me to this but I believe Swanson said in his report that B.S. man was most likely her killer although he could not rule out the possibility of her killer coming on to the scene after B.S. man left. Now whether the police adhered to this view or whether it changed over time I don't know.

c.d.

[c.d.]

Oh wait...did you mean did they think the B.S. man was the Ripper? Don't know but a very interesting question.

c.d.

[Darryl Kenyon]

Don't hold me to this but I believe Swanson said in his report that B.S. man was most likely her killer although he could not rule out the possibility of her killer coming on to the scene after B.S. man left. Now whether the police adhered to this view or whether it changed over time I don't know.

c.d.

Hi CD
I am of the view that Swanson , in his report was of the opinion that the man Schwartz saw was more likely to have been the killer than the person PC Smith observed.
He goes on to mention the time lapse after the last sighting of Liz and writes that the killer could have struck five or even 10 mins later. I don't think he quotes which scenario he favoured.

Regards Darryl

[NotBlamedForNothing]

No it’s not. Firstly, we don’t know exactly what time she was on her doorstep because we have contradictory versions of what she said and did.

Do we? I've heard this claim a few times lately. Care to back it up?

And secondly, it was a gateway. Stride might have been standing a couple of feet back out of Mortimer’s sight.

Had Stride been standing a couple of feet back from the line of the gateway, she would have been standing in near darkness, putting her out of sight of everyone, including Schwartz and the man he said he followed down Berner St.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

There’s nothing to ‘add up.’ Stride was killed by an unknown man. Either the ripper or someone else. That we don’t know who it was is the only mystery.

In other words, BS Man acts just as you might suppose JtR would. Is that your claim, or are you just claiming that Stride was either killed by the Ripper, or not by the Ripper?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

No. No money might equal no soliciting or it might equal ‘spent it.’

Chapman had no money on her. Nichols had no money on her.

It’s you that is doing all of the ‘assuming’ here.

Spent it? You mean she paid for the grapes?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I think the idea is that she is perhaps there for the first time, that she heard of this job since her time working "among the Jews" in the weeks leading up to this event. Its because its on the edge of the High Holidays and they had a particularly large attendance apparently...approx 200 people. Likely a larger mess than Mrs D could handle alone. This might be a singular job, not a regular job, if that is why she is there.

Even if it just happened to be her first night working at the club, someone at the club that night would surely have recognised her. The steward and stewardess would be good candidates.

There is still the problem of her standing aimlessly in the gateway. If she was there to work, she would go to the door and knock. You could argue that the aftermath of the club event was continuing longer than usual, and that she was told to wait outside, but then she has made contact with at least one person inside the club, who it must be assumed kept quiet about it for some reason.

[The Rookie Detective]

Could Stride have been hired as the club's late-night post-closing "entertainment?"

And was it a collective cover-up after one of the members took a dislike to her presence and just cut her throat for good measure?


Just a thought


RD

[NotBlamedForNothing]

The site of this murder was a location already known by the police, who referred to attendees as "anarchists", it was not held in high regard by the neighbours and often "low men" would be seen loitering around long after Saturday meetings, talking and smoking in the passageway to the gates. Ive suggested those factors made it imperative that anyone responsible for the clubs operations should try and present the "facts" in the best possible light. Show that no club member was around the gates or in the passageway on that particular Saturday night, and that they responded to this crime in a responsible manner. I guess thats why Eagle and Lave didnt see anyone though they both claimed to be in a very small area at the very same time, and that might address why Diemshutz claim of his arrival time is directly contradicted by multiple witnesses, both from the club and the street. His stated arrival time might have been to address why, if the body was discovered earlier, they are only seen running for help by a PC some 20 minutes later. I think in that void, where we have no witnesses watching the street, some senior staffers were deciding what to do about this murder they just discovered. Just a few men at first, Louis, Morris, Lave, ....maybe Leon is then skirting by after looking in and seeing trouble, Mrs D, then the rest heard and came out to see as well. Its why we have a set of stories for one time by Louis, Morris, Lave and Mrs D, and another from the men who came down later and the people not at the club that night. The fact there is 20 minutes difference in those sets of stories is concerning.

Can you quote Eagle and Lave saying they didn't see anyone?

Lave: I am a Russian, and have recently arrived in England from the United States. I am residing temporarily at the club. About twenty minutes before the alarm I went down into the yard to get a breath of fresh air. I walked about for five minutes or more, and went as far as the street. Everything was very quiet at the time, and I noticed nothing wrong.

How many people did Lave see while outside? Zero? Five? It is indeterminate.

[Herlock Sholmes]

In other words, BS Man acts just as you might suppose JtR would. Is that your claim, or are you just claiming that Stride was either killed by the Ripper, or not by the Ripper?

You may not have failed to spot it but I’ve mentioned (probably only 20 or 30 times over the years) that I don’t know if Stride was killed by the ripper. I’ve also said that I don’t know if BS man was her killer or not as there are arguments for and against but certainly nothing conclusive.

What I’m ‘suggesting,’ indeed what I’m always ‘suggesting,’ is caution. I’m suggesting that we can’t know why Stride was there as there are numerous possible explanations which we have no way of evaluating, so we shouldn’t assume.

All that we know (unless you assume that Schwartz was a planted witness - for which there isn’t a scintilla of evidence) is that there was some kind of ‘interaction’ between a woman who might have been Stride and a drunken man where the woman ended up on the ground in an incident that would have occurred over a few seconds and was seen for not very long by a man who couldn’t speak English and so had no way of knowing the nature of this altercation.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Spent it? You mean she paid for the grapes?

I never said that.

Perhaps the altercation was because she owed BS man money and she ended up on the ground as he was searching her for money?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Like why Israel Schwartz, who is moving from who knows where that day, after leaving his wife to move a few belongings at noon, is standing outside a club on Berner Street at 12:45am just after a large meeting of Jewish socialists had ended claiming to be checking to see if his wife had finished moving their meagre belongings. First off, where is that address again? Secondly, she couldnt move what likely amounted to a few suitcases in over 12 hours? Is it possible Israel and his wife, who knew Woolf Wess, were staying in one of the passageway cottages until that day? No-one has found his pre-move address. It could explain why he was there as he said.

The apparent contradiction of his wife needing all day and well into the night to move a few suitcases is possibly explained in the press report...

It seems that he had gone out for the day, and his wife had expected to move, during his absence, from their lodgings in Berner-street to others in Backchurch-lane.

The expected move may not have been a done deal. Where Schwartz had been moving from is an interesting question, though. Swanson's report states that Schwartz had already reached the gateway when he observed the man and woman incident. Crossing the road at that point would suggest the moving from address was south of Fairclough St, and on the opposite side of the street to the club. So, coincidently, the same area as William Marshalled observed a man and woman talking. The problem is that there were very few residences on that side of the street down there (they were mostly on Marshall's side). This begs the question as to where Schwartz was intending to go when he crossed the street.

Perhaps even more important than addresses, is the question of what Schwartz was doing, having "gone out for the day", and only arriving home at nearly 1am. Was he, like Leon Goldstein, a traveller? Schwartz claimed to run from a man and down to one of the nearby railway arches. Perhaps he was carrying a bag from his 'travels'. Coincidently, Goldstein lived near one of those railway arches. Goldstein's journey down Berner St was witnessed, whereas Schwartz's similar journey, and the 'theatrics' he described, were not.