Evidence to prove a suspect valid

[Observer]

I accept that people sincerely believe this to be true, and may have even experienced it and this is their memory, but physiologically what you describe is impossible. 10 seconds is possible. Not three.

I have had this hold placed on me. I have had the police choke hold placed on me by a cop who was seriously trying to subdue me (long story). I have had martial arts instructors do this to me (even a judo instructor). I have even had the baton choke hold put on me. Some in the name of research, twice in actual struggles, some because my friends came home from class with cool tricks and wanted to try them on their friends.

Nobody goes down that fast. And here's why. If you expel all the breath in your lungs and hold it, most people must inhale 5 to 10 seconds later. And your need to inhale comes long before you even get dizzy, much less grey out. The oxygenated blood trapped in your head lasts about 20 seconds give or take. So it isn't lack of oxygen. And it actually takes a minute or more for someone to choke to unconsciousness due to airway blockage. So clearly it isn't that. And no choke hold stops all blood from reaching the brain. It just cuts off the major suppliers.

The only thing that causes the symptoms you describe, and those described in the letter produced by Mike is either a TIA (a mini stroke) or time contraction caused by experiencing a terrifying event. And both are real things. TIAs and Vagus nerve over excitation are why choke holds are banned in many martial arts competitions, and why the cops are not allowed to use them an more in many states. People do drop dead from that. But not a lot of people. And it's an effect that cannot be counted on by any attacker, who has no idea what the circulatory condition of his victim is. As for time contraction, well anytime you here a crime victim say "It all happened so fast..." Some things happen fast, but never as quickly as people perceive them. Some people also get time expansion. People who have car wrecks experience that before the wreck.

Nothing about any choke hold prevents a person from moving their arms and legs. If the attacker is sufficiently strong and heavy it will prevent them from going anywhere, maybe even keep their feet off the ground, but not from kicking or trying to pry the arm off their throat. The author of the letter certainly had nothing preventing him from moving in those ways. Any hold or condition that would cause paralysis would render him insensible. And he would have no memory of actually being robbed. And a bar hold would keep him from shouting, but would not put pressure on his arteries, so he would not have any ischemic symptoms. He might have passed out after a minute or so, but nothing prevented him fighting. Except of course fear. He froze. It's perfectly natural. Not something most men admit to even now, much less Victorian gentlemen, but he froze.

Is there anything that you don't know? Apart from the identity of Jack The Ripper that is.

You posted earlier that Stride was not chocked out because she would have struggled, and soiled her dress in the process, now you are saying the man in the letter froze. Could Stride not have froze?

[Michael W Richards]

Is there anything that you don't know? Apart from the identity ok Jack The Ripper that is.

You posted earlier that Stride was not chocked out because she would have struggled, and soiled her dress in the process, now you are saying the man in the letter froze. Could Stride not have froze?

Stride was indeed choked by virtue of the scarf evidence, but that need not have been to subdue the woman, he may have just caught hold of her scarf as she turned her back, to pull her back into the space behind the open gate.

Blackwell said that he believed that her attack may have started with the scarf pull and the evidence suggests that it may have ended within 2 seconds, as its possible she was cut "while falling". So...not choked for silence, but as a by product of the assailants method of grabbing her.

That isnt the case with Polly or Annie, both were on the ground when cut, and both were choked....likely with the intention of getting them on the ground semi or fully unconscious.

cheers

[mklhawley]

I'm sure I recall reading about someone involved in the case who prostituted themselves in someway to a Japanese... possibly a judoka.

Oh you know more than you're saying, knowing the term judoka!

[mklhawley]

I accept that people sincerely believe this to be true, and may have even experienced it and this is their memory, but physiologically what you describe is impossible. 10 seconds is possible. Not three.

I have had this hold placed on me. I have had the police choke hold placed on me by a cop who was seriously trying to subdue me (long story). I have had martial arts instructors do this to me (even a judo instructor). I have even had the baton choke hold put on me. Some in the name of research, twice in actual struggles, some because my friends came home from class with cool tricks and wanted to try them on their friends.

Nobody goes down that fast. And here's why. If you expel all the breath in your lungs and hold it, most people must inhale 5 to 10 seconds later. And your need to inhale comes long before you even get dizzy, much less grey out. The oxygenated blood trapped in your head lasts about 20 seconds give or take. So it isn't lack of oxygen. And it actually takes a minute or more for someone to choke to unconsciousness due to airway blockage. So clearly it isn't that. And no choke hold stops all blood from reaching the brain. It just cuts off the major suppliers.

The only thing that causes the symptoms you describe, and those described in the letter produced by Mike is either a TIA (a mini stroke) or time contraction caused by experiencing a terrifying event. And both are real things. TIAs and Vagus nerve over excitation are why choke holds are banned in many martial arts competitions, and why the cops are not allowed to use them an more in many states. People do drop dead from that. But not a lot of people. And it's an effect that cannot be counted on by any attacker, who has no idea what the circulatory condition of his victim is. As for time contraction, well anytime you here a crime victim say "It all happened so fast..." Some things happen fast, but never as quickly as people perceive them. Some people also get time expansion. People who have car wrecks experience that before the wreck.

Nothing about any choke hold prevents a person from moving their arms and legs. If the attacker is sufficiently strong and heavy it will prevent them from going anywhere, maybe even keep their feet off the ground, but not from kicking or trying to pry the arm off their throat. The author of the letter certainly had nothing preventing him from moving in those ways. Any hold or condition that would cause paralysis would render him insensible. And he would have no memory of actually being robbed. And a bar hold would keep him from shouting, but would not put pressure on his arteries, so he would not have any ischemic symptoms. He might have passed out after a minute or so, but nothing prevented him fighting. Except of course fear. He froze. It's perfectly natural. Not something most men admit to even now, much less Victorian gentlemen, but he froze.

Hi Errata,

I've been a black belt in judo for over 20 years, and I married a nationally-rated judoka (she's tough as nails!). I'm also a 6th degree black belt in aikido. I actually have some cool aikido videos online (http://www.mythicdragonpublishing.com/Our_Authors.html) or this ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uItQzVMQkNY ). I apologize for sounding like I'm bragging, but I've been choked so fast that I couldn't tap out, ...and yes, it's embarrassing to wet your gi in front of a crowd!

Being choked out so fast is a reality, but even if you're fighting it for seconds, once the choke is secure, making any loud noise is physically impossible. Honestly. I'm not trying to be argumentative.

Sincerely,

Mike

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Tom

Stride seemed very much at ease with the suspect as described by Best, Gardener, and Marshall, it's possible that Stride was familiar with this man. The thing is, would the murderer of Chapman, and Nichols, be audacious enough to openly court Stride in full view of several witnesses? Bear in mind though, It is not unknown for other serial killers to have displayed such behaviour. The sociopath's indifference to danger also comes to mind.

Hi Obsy. The man Best and Gardner saw didn't kill Stride. So there was no reason for them not to duck out of the rain for a pint.


Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

Regarding this much-discussed 'choke hold'. What was practiced in the East End wasn't any sort of martial arts. It was called garroting and was practiced around Flower and Dean Street and pretty much all over the East End. I suspect this method may have been used on Martha Tabram. Possibly Stride and even other victims. Supposedly it required a tall man with skill at quickly rendering a person unconscious without actually hurting them.

I'm copying and pasting this from my book:


Arthur Harding, who was born into the Brick Lane neighborhood in the late Victorian period and spent much of his life there among the criminal classes, described just such a method of subduing a victim:

‘A lot of garrotting [sic] went on. Five years and a bashing you got for it – eighteen strokes with the cat. That was the penalty. But a lot of it still went on, by Flowery Dean Street (Flower & Dean Street), and in the pubs at the back of Leman Street, and all down the Highway. Even at the ‘Fleur de Lis’ in Elder Street I’ve known it done. Not in Bethnal Green. I’ve never known it done in Bethnal Green. You had to be tall to do it. You would come up to a man from behind, put your arms round his throat, with your fists on his throttle. If it went on for more than a few seconds he would choke, so you had to be skilled. Some of them had a girl working for them – she would get a man well boozed, mix his drinks for him and they’d get him while he was drunk.’


Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Errata]

Is there anything that you don't know? Apart from the identity of Jack The Ripper that is.

You posted earlier that Stride was not chocked out because she would have struggled, and soiled her dress in the process, now you are saying the man in the letter froze. Could Stride not have froze?

Absolutely she could have. I think she would still drop the bag, but yes, she absolutely could have been in a literal rictus of fear.

But looking at the bigger picture of alleged Jack the Ripper victims, the odds that every single victim froze is well, none. There is no chance. The freeze instinct is not nearly as common as fight or flight. One of these women should have fought like hell. None did. So if Stride is a Ripper victim, he is using some other method of controlling her. A method he used on all of them that prevented them from fighting. If she was not a Ripper victim, her killing could have used anything, and she could have frozen. But she died super suddenly. I can't even rule out her literally dying of fright. And if Schwartz in fact saw her being assaulted earlier, we know she has a fairly well developed fight instinct. Screaming is usually part of fight but not flight. So physics and behavior don't match up. I'm sure there is a reason, I just don't know what it is.

I don't know everything. But I am Bipolar and I do have a scar on my hindbrain that affects my reflexes. I am for some reason always tuned very high, resulting in a physiological anxiety disorder. When you have something wrong with you for a long time, you do a lot of research. I actually had to be taught a flight response as a child, because for some reason I didn't have it, and I needed it. You can't fight a car coming straight at you for example. I also had some severe injuries from a really spectacular basketball injury, and I had to relearn how to move some basic parts. Like my arm. Studying moods, psychology, neurochemicals, reflexes, kinesthesiology, involuntary functions all purely out of self interest gives you a unique knowledge base. It also gives you quite the library in which to go look stuff up. This stuff pertains to me. So I know it. If it didn't apply to me I can't imagine having run into it.

[Wickerman]

Arthur Harding, who was born into the Brick Lane neighborhood in the late Victorian period ...

A date for this would help a whole lot. We know there was a garrotting 'craze' in London in the 1860's, but from what I read garrotting was ever present.

[Tom_Wescott]

A date for this would help a whole lot. We know there was a garrotting 'craze' in London in the 1860's, but from what I read garrotting was ever present.

What exactly is your question, Wick? Yes, garroting had been around for some time before 1888 and for some time after. My point is that what was being described as a martial arts choke hold was quite common in the very neighborhod in which Tabram and the others were murdered, but was not martial arts. It was a street hood thing.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Errata]

Hi Errata,

I've been a black belt in judo for over 20 years, and I married a nationally-rated judoka (she's tough as nails!). I'm also a 6th degree black belt in aikido. I actually have some cool aikido videos online (http://www.mythicdragonpublishing.com/Our_Authors.html) or this ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uItQzVMQkNY ). I apologize for sounding like I'm bragging, but I've been choked so fast that I couldn't tap out, ...and yes, it's embarrassing to wet your gi in front of a crowd!

Being choked out so fast is a reality, but even if you're fighting it for seconds, once the choke is secure, making any loud noise is physically impossible. Honestly. I'm not trying to be argumentative.

Sincerely,

Mike

I don't think you are being argumentative. I simply think that the choke hold took a little longer than your perception of it. I think it probably takes 10 seconds. In the actual choke hold the difference between 3 and 10 seconds is probably totally besides the point. In a competition situation in which you have been working hard, your blood gets super oxygenated, but also moves faster because your heart rate is up. I think a choke hold after exertion probably takes a little less time than if you were just standing there. But the only way you get choked out in three seconds is because pressure on the vagus nerve stops your heart or a TIA. Which is rare. Most people don't survive that. If that is whats happening to you, I strongly encourage you to stop it. Like, seriously.

But let me ask you this. When put in a choke hold, do you go limp? Do you completely lose the ability to move your arms and legs? I never have. Even three seconds of fighting is enough to get marked, or mark someone else. 10 seconds feels like the beating of a lifetime when someone is struggling to get free of you.

I have always been able to scream when in a choke hold. Now I can see there might be a difference between men and women in this regard. Men have a more prominent adams apple, a person doesn't have to press as hard to shove it against the larynx. Now I won't say I've ever let out a scream that sounded like a good old fashioned Hollywood scream. It sounds more like someone savaging a duck. But it's loud enough to get attention.

But there are absolutely choke holds that do not allow someone to scream. The one described in the article by Tom is a perfect example. But that takes longer to actually choke someone out since it works by blocking the airway, not the arteries. Which means longer for the victim to fight.

There is no sign that Stride was choked. Her eyes and tongue weren't protruding, the are no bruises on her neck, nothing was broken in the throat. And being choked through ischemia rather than asphyxiation means that as soon as a person is lying down, their pressure resumes to normal. These people are typically upright again in a few seconds. Stride could very well have woken up to someone cutting her throat, or even with it already done. But she would have clutched at the wound, and she didn't. She wound have tried to get away and she didn't. There is no way choking her out keeps her out long enough for her to bleed to death. That takes a couple of minutes. I can't imagine just lying there perfectly still waiting to die.

[Tom_Wescott]

Errata,

People who are choked to unconsciousness don't have eyes and tongue bulging out. I don't think anyone is suggesting Stride was choked to death.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

I'm sure I recall reading about someone involved in the case who prostituted themselves in someway to a Japanese... possibly a judoka.

I could be wrong, but the only instance of this I can recall is one of Le Grand's prostitutes who talked about one of her (I believe) Japanese customers who asked her to move off with him. So this was in London, and around the right time, but not related to the Ripper case. If this isn't what you're recalling, I'd love to hear about it if you remember.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Wickerman]

What exactly is your question, Wick? Yes, garroting had been around for some time before 1888 and for some time after. My point is that what was being described as a martial arts choke hold was quite common in the very neighborhod in which Tabram and the others were murdered, but was not martial arts. It was a street hood thing.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Yes, it was largely a gang-related activity, but employed by men, against men.
I was interested in the date for your quote.

[Wickerman]

Stride was on the ground, her features were placid, and she did not lie down voluntarily, so it must be considered that she was subdued in some way.
Drugs and chemical compounds do not appear to have been involved, neither was there evidence of a physical blow to the head sufficient to knock her out.

The scarf was noted as pulled tight, and a broad scarf just may not bruise or mark the skin as easy as a narrow thin cord, so if we accept that she didn't lie down voluntarily, then the scarf is the most likely tool used in rendering her unconscious.
And, a scarf pulled tight would just as easily compress the arteries and the larynx restricting both blood flow and oxygen to the brain, this together has the ability to render someone unconscious rapidly.

This does not eliminate the possibility that she had time for one 'scream', but the singing in the club may have drowned that out.

[Wickerman]

The man Best and Gardner saw didn't kill Stride.

Seeing as how nobody knows who killed Stride.....