Liz Stride: The Newest of Theories

[Scotland Yard]

Harry writes:

And the guy who would have fled is the same guy who calmly waited for Cadosh to finish his nightly toilet wanderings before cutting away at Chapman at dawn, underneath an array of windows, some of them open, with people inside them. To me, that does not seem like a guy that spooks easily.

This is a strong argument. However, it doesn't acknowledge the possibility that the Ripper didn't come close to being disturbed, but was actually disturbed. Having retreated into the darkness of the Yard, was the Ripper so daring he would have taken the opportunity to do a little light mutilation while Scwartz went off to raise the alarm? Hardly.

Again, Schwartz felt strongly that the killer might have still been in the Yard when he first arrived. If this is actually what occured then no amount of theorising about liklihoods or probabilites have any relevance whatsoever. It would be a simple happen-stance of history.

[Fisherman]

Harry writes:

"Can't see the relevance there."

Now, why am I not surprised?

"An eviscerating killer has to start somewhere.Here it was with a cut throat"

Emphatically wrong, Harry. Why? Beacuse you are connecting the cut throat with evisceration urges, and there is no such connection to be made. And THAT is why I say that i a bashed in head with no eviscerations would not have led your thoughts to the Ripper, then neither should a cut throat, since they represent no more than a bashed in head and a cut throat. They do NOT evince wishes of evisceration in either case, do they?

"Only two of those three killings were believed linked"

And why was this, Harry? Well, to begin with, in the case of cut woman number three, there was a confessing husband to consider. In the case of cut woman number two, there were eviscerations to consider. In the case of cut woman number one, there was neither, leaving that murder somewhere inbetween. The two other murders had shown us that there was an eviscerator on the prowl that night, and that just anybody could cut a woman´s throat. And in the choice between Stride having been cut by the Ripper or by just anybody, we end up with odds of about some hundreds of thousands to one.
If there had been one single, tiny scratch on Strides abdomen, we would have had that vital piece of information that would allow us to sound the alarm bells and shout "Ripper!". But we don´t, do we? So all we are left with is that age-old assertion that he was disturbed and fled, leaving her with a comparatively tentative cut in the neck and no eviscerations. And the guy who would have fled is the same guy who calmly waited for Cadosh to finish his nightly toilet wanderings before cutting away at Chapman at dawn, underneath an array of windows, some of them open, with people inside them. To me, that does not seem like a guy that spooks easily. And that was BEFORE Stride, meaning that he would be even more confident and arrogant the next time over.
Stride is a no go and has always been. She may have been the Ripper´s of course, but the physical evidence has pointed away from that being the case from day one.

The best,
Fisherman

This is just a pretty transparent circular argument. Worse than that, as you don't know that the Broad-Shouldered Man wasn't Jack, it's a circular argument that could just as easily prove the exact opposite of what you're trying to make it prove.

Hell, we don't even know if there was a Broad-Shouldered Man there that night, but if Schwartz's story was accurate that person could very easily have been the Ripper. The claims that it couldn't have been simply are at odds with the known facts about identified serial killers.

Hey Dan,

I cant speak for what is known of identified serial killers, havent really studied them, but since we are talking about a suspected case of serial murder and an unidentified man or men, that may or may not be relevant.

As for BSM being "Jack", I would think that is the only sound argument one could make for The Ripper being the culprit here, based on the statements made by Israel and others as well as the crime scene and physical evidence. For myself, the statements of Schwartz regarding BSM, as you say...if accurate, or only slightkly modified,...such as the exact location of the initial interaction between Liz and BSM...do not seem to be in keeping with what the killer has done previously, or will do in the future. Walking down the middle of the street drunk while searching for victims,....sloppily mishandling one in front of witnesses, then yelling at a witness, while in the company of the woman he is to kill...and being the only man known to be in the company of Liz from 12:46 on, already within the 10 minute estimate by Blackwell as to the time of the cut..... and only a single killing cut is found on the victim, who lies on her side.... unlike every other supposed Ripper victim...

The only thing she has in common with the other C5, in terms of her death and physical post mortem status, is that she is dead also. Added to the entrance, it makes for a less than plausible Ripper kill in my opinion anyway.

Cheers Dan.

[Dan Norder]

The issue isnt "who other than Jack goes about with a knife", its who among the other men out at night, that Liz is known to encounter that night, might have been. And who had the proximity and access to even make the attempt. So far the only man with that access is BSM, not Jack

This is just a pretty transparent circular argument. Worse than that, as you don't know that the Broad-Shouldered Man wasn't Jack, it's a circular argument that could just as easily prove the exact opposite of what you're trying to make it prove.

Hell, we don't even know if there was a Broad-Shouldered Man there that night, but if Schwartz's story was accurate that person could very easily have been the Ripper. The claims that it couldn't have been simply are at odds with the known facts about identified serial killers.

Hi all,

Murders and suicides were most often by knife in the period in question, and many people with legitimate reasons to carry them at night were about, let alone the thugs, thieves and gang members. There should be little doubt that although not all men out at night after midnight wanted to kill unfortunates, many were equipped to do so.

The issue isnt "who other than Jack goes about with a knife", its who among the other men out at night, that Liz is known to encounter that night, might have been. And who had the proximity and access to even make the attempt. So far the only man with that access is BSM, not Jack, and the singular wound is not evidence of any further intention. She was slit....and left to die in the mud, and the gutter. Thats a different scenario than the others,...Liz is left with half her face in the mud. She is treated in death like the killer saw her in life...as garbage, but there is no expressed interest in her after killing,....which is when Jack is most intent

Cheers.

[harry]

Fisherman,
But she didn't have her head bashed in.Can't see the relevance there.
An eviscerating killer has to start somewhere.Here it was with a cut throat.A bludgeoning person on the other hand starts with the first blow.Both could get interupted after that first stroke,so their total intention be unknown.An evisceration in both cases might be intended,but not finalised.so can't see your point there either.
Only one type of killing was in evidence,and that was a cut throat.Only two of those three killings were believed linked.Then and now,but if you want to add a third so be it.

Regards and good night,
Harry.

[Fisherman]

Hi Harry.

BS man stopped and spoke to Stride. That does in no way have to mean that he obscured Schwartz´s possibility to see Liz. In fact, if he walked all the way up to her, it is just as reasonable, if not more, that Schwarts saw them both from their respective sides.

"The incidence of domestic interupted assault, leading to murder is rare.In fact domestic assault leading to murder is rare,compared with the number of assaults of that nature that take place."

This inevitably calls for the question "Just how rare is an eviscerating serial killer?". And to be honest, interrupted eviscerating serialists would be even more uncommon, would they not?

"A disturbed mind is but a mild description,and to have two abroad on the same night defies belief"

But there are two TYPES of killings involved here, Harry: One that is evidently the work of an eviscerator, and one that shows no signs whatsoever of any such interests. That means that what you are basically saying here is that if any of the hundreds of thousands of Eastenders who were not Jack decided that he or she wanted to cut a throat that night, it could not be achieved. And if it was tried and succeeded, the slaying would somehow go through a metamorphosis and turn into a genuine Ripper killing anyway.
To me, Harry, THAT is quite, quite beyond belief!

If she had been killed by having her head bashed in with a poker, Harry, would you then say that she must have been a Ripper victim? Weighing in
all the usual stuff of her being a prostitute in Ripper-land and all? I think not.

And yet, she was killed by a weapon that is far more common than a poker - a knife. Plus she was killed in a fashion - a cut throat - that was everything but unknown back then. She was one out of THREE London women who had their necks cut that night, remember!

The best,
Fisherman

[harry]

Schwartz says he saw the man speak to her(Stride).Improbable as he would have been behind him.Not to split hairs,it might mean that he heard him speak to her,or more probably heard one of them speak,as he could not see ,as he was behind the man, that it was him that spoke,and Stride would have been partialy,if not fully, obscured by the man.
Had there been information that Kidney was,prior to the attack,in the immediate area,he would have been a good suspect.Likewise any close male associateThen a good case could be made for a domestic incident but it was not so.'Could be',in this case,is not enough.
The incidence of domestic interupted assault, leading to murder is rare.In fact domestic assault leading to murder is rare,compared with the number of assaults of that nature that take place.In cases where it occurs,it is mainly the result of escalating rage,and usually by strangulation,bludgeoning or stabbing,plus usually at premises.Such attacks does not,in the main, include an intent to kill prior to the assault taking place.
In Stride's case there was an initial attack,for no apparent reason,with no recognised intent to kill.A cessation of activity,a period of reconciliation and trustworthiness established,and a luring of a victim into Duffield yard,a dark and dismal location.And somewhere in between,the intent to kill manifests itself.All within about 12 minutes.
Not in my book.A disturbed mind is but a mild description,and to have two abroad on the same night defies belief.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Claire,

Yes, I'm afraid I'm not quite clear on how the 'background probability' statistics would even be constructed...What would the baseline be? You say, all knife attacks, but then a cut throat (as in Stride's case) is a purposefully lethal attack, as opposed to self-defensive jabs or drunken swings.

I can only reiterate what I said earlier about taking assaults in general into consideration, particularly those with knives. I mentioned earlier the "heat of the moment" that could turn a spirited altercation into a potentially life-depriving act, the possibility of which may be heightened by an increased frequency of the knife-carrying habit. We're seeing this in the UK today - what was it, 26 stabbings of young people in London this year?

How prevalent was the carrying of knives amongst the "toughs" of the East End is hard to gauge, but I daresay that it was at a greater level than one might have found in many other parts of London in those days. That notwithstanding, it's enough to consider the purported "non-Ripper" murders (and almost-murders) during the years around and including 1888 to get some idea of what we're up against. It's enough to note that, even in detected crimes, the knife was seemingly favoured as the assault-weapon of choice.

What distinguishes the "safe" (ish) Ripper murders from those is the obvious intent to disembowel and eviscerate - without which any number of logical hoops have been jumped through in order to attribute them to Jack. Against these feats of imagination, we have to consider the more mundane possibility that A or B came a cropper, not at the hands of a singular Ripper, but against the plurality that was the "monster" embodied in the East End itself.

Further, I imagine you'd want to limit analysis to cases of unknown or unidentified perpetrators.

Not at all, Claire. Again, as I stated earlier, not all undetected crimes would invariably end up in the pages of the Times, and not all assaults were even reported or acted upon, therefore such reports of assaults as did end up being published could fairly be seen as the tip of an (albeit somewhat platykurtic) iceberg.

Added to that, the offence of "assault" in the 19th Century covered a multitude of sins - ranging from the merely distressing, to knife attacks which almost resulted in the loss of life (Elmsley, Crime & Society in England, 1750-1900, 3rd Ed., Longmans, 2004) - and verdicts along the same lines, if they reached the papers at all, would have had a significant amount of devilment buried in the detail.

[DVV]

Hi Mitch,
Why do you trust Macnaghten that much? He was nothing at the time of the murders, while the medics themselves couldn't agree on the matter.

Amitiés,
David

[Mitch Rowe]

This touches on the crux of what I see as a strange double standard in the 'coincidental throat cut' argument.

Why is it easier or more attractive to argue that there was a coincidental throat cut a short walk away from the Eddowes murder than it is to argue for a coincidental interruption? And why not consider the possibility that the Ripper didn't mutilate Stride because that simply wasn't his intention? Because for whatever reason, he felt the conditions didn't favour him to linger and carry out a more extensive attack. For whatever reason, he just killed her because he could, out of sheer malice perhaps.

The notion that a serial killer is somehow completely predictable in his actions and always waits until conditions are perfect for him to murder -as evidenced by the Yorkshire Ripper case - is clearly and demonstrably unsound.

You cannot say that the Ripper would never kill without mutilating in the same way its invalid to say that he could not have been interrupted or scared off at (yes, precisely) the time he was about to carry out his mutilating on poor Stride.

You might as well argue that Mary Kelly is not a JTR victim because the degree of mutilations and the location clearly differs greatly from the killer's previous efforts.

Regards
Gary

It seems to me that alot of People are getting caught up in the differences and the Witness Statements when trying to connect any of the Murders to one Man. To me this is a mistake. What I do is look at whatever I feel was left at the Crimescene first. This is not easy. For the most part there is nothing to look at! But in other parts there is something to look at. And those somethings seem to be powerful enough to me to say that here seems to be 5 Murders commited by the same Man. As to the ones before Polly I would say I dont know. I wish there were more Evidence to use to try to find a clue. As to the ones after MJK I would say probably not.

I would like to say that what I call are "My Homegrown Techniques" are all based on simple logic and what I know to be true about People/Criminals/Killers in general and WERE available to Police at that time. In fact they had far greater advantage as they had far far more information than I do.

Macnaghten said Five and only Five. He was more sure than I am. He was probably right. Although if Tabram or others turned out to be JTRs work I wouldnt hold it against him.

[claire]

Hi Sam,
Yes, I'm afraid I'm not quite clear on how the 'background probability' statistics would even be constructed...What would the baseline be? You say, all knife attacks, but then a cut throat (as in Stride's case) is a purposefully lethal attack, as opposed to self-defensive jabs or drunken swings. Further, I imagine you'd want to limit analysis to cases of unknown or unidentified perpetrators. In any case, I'd guess (extrapolating from known stats) that fatal knife attacks are a tiny percentage of knife attacks per se, in which case, fatal knife attacks are already improbable. This diminishes the statistical chance of having more than one attacker in the area.

But, in any case, my God! There are so many confounding factors: availability of data; the fact that I'd imagine many people wouldn't even bother reporting minor knife wounds (although that is good if arguing against a Stride-JtR link); geographical variables; time and environmental variables... once you start thinking in those terms, the numbers become so diminishingly small that a) statistical analysis is embarrassingly pointless and b) it starts to look as if almost nothing is random.

All this aside, it does occur to me that there are so, so many things that interrupt or confound offending behaviour of all descriptions, as Gary has pointed out. When interviewed, both burglars and sex-offenders have described quite complex analyses of their situations and given examples of the reasons for bailing, at any point in the commission of the offence (and for anyone who doesn't know about this whole area of enquiry, Rational Choice Theory in criminology is the basis of it--links into situational crime prevention [if you lock your windows and doors you're less likely to get burgled]; revictimisation theory and crime mapping). Offenders are not infallible: a Ripper may well have believed he'd have enough time to do his thing on Stride (although this may well argue against his being local). Or he may have just lost it because she was delaying him from getting away to meet Kate. But I do think there were so many possibilities (Gary's listed lots) for his being disturbed (not just in this murder, clearly: he was a bit lucky, but then if he'd committed more, similar, offences, the statistical probability [ha!] of getting caught in flagrante would have increased--assuming for the sake of argument that JtR is our killer here) that it might be a little foolhardy to dismiss the possibility outright.

[Scotland Yard]

So, I'm not quite "hopelessly biased" - I just try to be pragmatic in taking an empirical approach to the case

My point was that if you're going to be empirical then you have to apply the approach to all sides of the case. By not acknowledging at least a reasonably good background probabilty of an event that could have interrupted a Ripper attack in Dutfield's Yard then the method and its results will be skewed.

Sam Flynn - Besides, you seem to have "Stride was a Ripper victim" etched on the inside of your bonce, so it's pointless my continuing this rhetorical ping-pong further.

I assure you I don't have it etched inside my bonce or otherwise. Was just enjoying the table tennis. Just to clarify though, the application of the argument I felt was hopelessly biased, not you yourself. If I gave you the impression I meant you personally then I clearly dropped the ball in which case the game goes to you by default!

Kind regards,
Gary

[c.d.]

Hi Sam,

I have it 70:30 as well but the other way.

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

I'm afraid you're going to have to clarify this up for me because I find your 'background probability' argument to be hopelessly biased.

I've already tried to explain my thinking in succinct enough terms, I'd have thought. Besides, you seem to have "Stride was a Ripper victim" etched on the inside of your bonce, so it's pointless my continuing this rhetorical ping-pong further. If it helps, I used to think Stride was almost certainly a Ripper victim, but now - I guess I'm about 70:30 against. Even if I weren't, I'd still be interested in establishing a statistical baseline before making any premature decisions to the effect that it was "incredibly unlikely" (or whatever) that she wasn't killed by Jack. So, I'm not quite "hopelessly biased" - I just try to be pragmatic in taking an empirical approach to the case, rather than allow myself to be indulged by the wish-fulfilments and gut-feelings to which I might once have been susceptible.