Elizabeth Stride ..who killed her ?

[Jon Guy]

Some killers could not care less, some are to drunk to take any care at all and some actually want to show the world what they do.

Hi Fisherman, I agree, however, in this instance BS Man does not appear to be aware that Schwartz was behind him, and if the incident was taking place just inside the gates and Schwartz saw her fall where she was to be found (see the following reports referring to the footway inside the gates) :

Both reports taken from the East End Observer :

Both gates were open - wide open. It was rather dark there. I drove it in as usual, but as I came into the gate my pony shied to the left, and that made me look at the ground to see what the cause of it was. I could see that there was something unusual on the pavement, but I could not see what it was.

[I]On entering the gateway a brick wall runs for some distance on the right-hand side, and it was on the footpath here[/I], and by the side of the brick wall, that the first victim was found.

[Fisherman]

Fair point, Jon!

...and I think we have to take into account that not all murders take place in secluded spaces, nor do the killers always take measures to avoid being seen. Some killers could not care less, some are to drunk to take any care at all and some actually want to show the world what they do.
If we want to rule out BS man as a killer just because he went public with his deed, we may be opting for the wrong course altogether.

The best,
Fisherman

[Jon Guy]

Assuming that Stride was killed by someone other then the Ripper and Shwartz was telling the truth it would be crazy to kill her after being seen.

Perhaps, Schwartz actually witnessed and interupted the murder taking place. This would explain her death despite being seen?

[Fisherman]

Mrs Fiddymont writes:

"I still think our boy Jack killed Elizabeth Stride"

As long as we keep in mind that:

- Stride was left unmutilated
- She was found lying on her left side, suggesting no intended mutilation
- She had been seen in a disagreement with a man quite close to the time she was found dead (and with another man that seemingly tallied very well with the man she quarreled with slightly earlier that evening)
- She had sustained a markedly more shallow cut than the canonicals
- If it was Jack, we must accept that he doubled back the way he had originally come
- If it was Jack, we must accept that he was scared off inbetween the time he cut her neck (or even at that EXACT time, since the cut differs) or that he never intended to mutilate Stride
- If it was Jack, and if his motive to kill Eddowes was that he had been scared away from Dutfields Yard before he had the chance to mutilate, we must accept that he stayed on the prowl for three quarters of an hour, although, reasonably, he could have found a victim both quicker and nearer to the Stride killing. Some will say that he needed to get some distance away from Berner Street to feel safe, but those who say so often find it hard to explain why he went back into the heart of Whitechapel after strike number two if he was such a cautious bloke.

... it is a functioning stance. It COULD have been Jack - but if it was, he behaved very oddly time and time again.

The best,
Fisherman

[Mrs. Fiddymont]

While I find most of the "Jack didn't do this" arguments compelling...I still think our boy Jack killed Elizabeth Stride.

[Fisherman]

Tom Wescott writes:

"Eddowes and Stride were killed within a 10 minute walk of each other and within 45 minutes of each other. Modern revisionism has them as unrelated. It's hip to think that, but not entirely logical, in my opinion."

These parametres inevitably surface whenever the Stride killing is discussed, and at first sight, they may seem quite compelling. Some afterthought, though, quickly changes that picture:

As the crow flies, the distance inbetween the murder sites of Liz Stride and Kate Eddowes is somewhere in the vicinity of 800 metres. Now, if we were to fix a pole on Berner Street, outside Dutfields yard, and tie a rope with a length of 800 metres to that pole, thereafter producing a circle with a radius of 800 metres, we would seal off a very substantial area. Of course, we would reach mitre Square in the west, but in the north we would stretch beyond Cheshire Street, in the east we would pass Jubilee Street, and we would come quite close to the Thames in the south. In the crowded East end of 1888, such a circle would have held six-digit numbers of people! Moreover, it would have represented an area in which crime was abundant, and where knives were thirteen a dozen.

To say that it is illogical not to put all knife killings in such an area, with such a population, down to the same perpetrator is not very useful. We are not dealing with a handful of people, locked inside a room here. And the proven presence of a serial killer on the streets does not automatically provide an alibi for all the rest of the citizens - some of them drunken, some of them violent, and many, many of them with a criminal record - in the area we are talking about.

The best,
Fisherman

[celee]

Hi,

If the Ripper did not kill Stride and Somebody else did then what was the motive? Was Shwartz telling the truth? Why would anyone feel the need to kill Stride after being seen by a witness?

Assuming that Stride was killed by someone other then the Ripper and Shwartz was telling the truth it would be crazy to kill her after being seen.
What would have been the motive to kill. He did not want to pay? He did not have too. He wanted to rob her. He could have. There was no reason to kill. No motive for a man she just met to kill.

Domestic violence tends to be committed in the heat of the moment. Kidney would of had a motive or at least thought he had a motive to kill Stride.

Jack would of had a motive. She may have been able to identify him.

Hi Mike,

For a long time, I just saw BS as wandering off after the altercation, then someone else, the real JTR coming along. Yet, if we go by Israel's statement, assume he's telling the truth, or some of it, then why is it necessary to have a third guy come in and kill Liz? BS man is there and committing violence on the woman. It doesn't mean he wasn't JTR necessarily, or that he was. Oh, for another witness.

I've even pondered (ala your other thread) that Schwartz made the story up, or maybe part of it, but that leaves us with too little.

Best to you, Michael.

Hi Celesta,

I agree with you and did in my post, Broadshouldered Man is the most probable killer of Liz IF Schwartz was telling the truth.

I dont see this though, BS as a realistic Jack.....and if he did kill Liz, neither does what he does to her seem very Jack-like. He enters the scene walking and weaving in the middle of the street rather than on the sidewalk, he knows he is seen by at least Liz and Pipeman as he approaches, and he then discovers that he is also seen by Schwartz as he passes, and so he yells at him in order to shoo him away.

Does that seem like Jacky Boy? Does the single cut? By the evidence alone it would seem that murder was his only goal....is that anything remotely like what we see with Annies killer?

Im not saying Jack could not have killed Liz absolutely, Im just saying Broadshouldered Man is most likely... using Schwartz's account and the single wound, and he is not likely Jack.

Now if Schwartz wasnt correct or shouldnt be believed, then probably Brown was and should...since its he not Schwartz who marks the time of 12:45am in the records created at the Inquest...then you have room for a Jack, perhaps an empty yard for a Jack, but we dont likely have any interruption here....so if Jack, its just a kill. Not a kill so he can cut. The opportunity can be given depending on whose evidence is trusted for Jack to be there or enter.....but we will still have the results...which are hardly Jack like.

All the best Celesta

[Celesta]

Hi Mike,

For a long time, I just saw BS as wandering off after the altercation, then someone else, the real JTR coming along. Yet, if we go by Israel's statement, assume he's telling the truth, or some of it, then why is it necessary to have a third guy come in and kill Liz? BS man is there and committing violence on the woman. It doesn't mean he wasn't JTR necessarily, or that he was. Oh, for another witness.

I've even pondered (ala your other thread) that Schwartz made the story up, or maybe part of it, but that leaves us with too little.

Best to you, Michael.

I think this question is far more difficult that it would seem.

If Schwartz told the truth, she was probably killed by Broadshouldered Man. His entrance suggests an unlikely "Ripper" figure, openly accosting a target within view of 2 witnesses just before committing the act. But his aggression just before a murder could not be ignored.

If Brown was right and Schwartz was incorrect or lied, then it could have been the man seen with her by the school...who could be Kidney among others, or Jack, or someone from inside the yard including Jack or a club member may have snatched her when she gets near the gates.

If the club members told the truth and the yard was empty at 12:40, 2 witnesses say it was, then its unlikely the killer gets into the yard from the street before Liz is near the gates, without her seeing him and therefore perhaps her being wary as she approached.

What didnt happen in my opinion is that Jack the Ripper was interrupted and therefore unable to complete his "mission". It is not what the medical testimony suggests,.... there is no indication that her killer had further plans that were halted, she is said to have been as she fell without disturbance, she is on her side, and her skirt is down.

She is cut unlike other Ripper victims, perhaps while falling. It appears that she was simply murdered as the sole objective of the killer.

I dont personally believe Jack just "killed" anyone. Jack is the fiend who is most visible immediately after he murders, by the signature abdominal cutting.

So I see not very likely Jack anyway you slice the witnesses, and a more likely personal vendetta or escalated altercation with a street person...or club member.

Best regards all.

[Celesta]

[QUOTE=Celesta;88037]Thanks, Maurice. I followed the route on Google street view and the congestion is impressive! /QUOTE]

Not the actual route of course!

[Mascara & Paranoia]

I vote other. Kidney's as unlikely as the Ripper having killed her in my eyes. Pipe Man seems just as unlikely given that he fled the scene too (was he the one who followed the witness or am I mistaken?). So that only leaves Broad Shouldered Man and/or someone else.

It's going to take some awfully compelling evidence to make me believe that JtR didn't do it.

Apart from her being killed on the same night as 'another' victim, there's not much evidence to suggest that Stride was a Ripper victim. The throat wound and overall murder is a bit too different from the other canoncals' for my liking, and it's got nothing to do with the lack of mutilations.

[Celesta]

Thanks, Maurice. Wasn't it you that posted about the alleys and passages and the time estimate on another thread? I remember some of the tour guides discussing it on the thread also. JTR, or whoever, could have cut off minutes from his time with these shortcuts. I followed the route on Google street view and the congestion is impressive! Modernity does complicate things. No, I agree that it's feasible that the killer could have gotten to Mitre Square quickly.

That night is so key in understanding what went on. Thanks, Maurice.

[The Grave Maurice]

The trouble, Celesta, is that it isn't possible to recreate the walk today. I've done it a few times and it has always taken me about 15 minutes. But according to my 1894 OS map, there were shortcuts in 1888 that are no longer available, never mind the traffic lights at Whitechapel High, Commercial Road, Braham St, or Aldgate High. Waiting for the lights can add considerable time to the walk, but ten minutes in 1888, at around 1:00 a.m., with a couple of extra alleys to duck down, sounds about right.

[Celesta]

Tom, I'm well aware that you're an expert on this topic and studied a lot longer than I have. My point was that I personally have never walked the route. It's one thing to read that it takes 10 minutes, and another to actually be on the ground and walk the route oneself. One person's 10 minute walk or run might stretch out to 12 or 13.7 minutes for another person. For all I know, the guy who killed Stride could have been the late 19th century version of Jesse Owens and made the trip from Berner St. to Mitre Square in 2 minutes flat.

As for it being hip to think Liz wasn't a Ripper victim, I'm not going to worry much about that. I just don't care if it's hip. It would be a big coincidence to have two such murders in such a short time and in such a small area and have two killers. Yet it's still possible.

I see your point about the poll being skewed. If one believes BS (or Kidney) was JTR then there's no way of expressing that within the poll. Perhaps that's the point though since this has been argued so much recently.