Elizabeth Stride ..who killed her ?

[drstrange169]

What evidence tells us that Kidney and BS man did not look like each other? My suggestion is that there is no such evidence about

A police document from the actual investigation exists. The document was authored by the head of the investigating team. Said document describes a man with a small moustache.
A contemporary drawing of Kidney exists, by an artist, whose ability to draw a recognisable likeness can be tested. Said drawing shows Kidney with a large moustache.

Ergo, tangible evidence.

It is true witness accounts can be unreliable but in this case Kidney presented a high media profile, giving ample opportunity for recognition by ANY witness. Unless anyone has actual evidence, of the above quality and provenance, what is the reason for assuming Kidney and Schwartz’s man are one and the same?


What do you use to assert that Kidney - SPECIFICALLY - was looked into by the police, and what exact information can you give us on his alibi...

A far more significant question is, why would anyone assume the “acquaintances” checked by police would not –SPECICALLY- include Kidney?


...Is it not true that the alibi - if it existed - may have been "I was asleep"?

Equally, is it not true his alibi may have been, “I was at work”?
Whatever it was, it satisfied the iunvestigators enough for the senior officer to feel Kidney was not worth of specific attention in his memo.

[Jon Guy]

Its not a huge leap to imagine she is turning down a potential client because she has a date....she is dressed nicely, has a flower on her breast, has cashous, and intentionally told a lodging house roomy that she would not return that night.

Hi Mike

She didn`t exactly say she was not returning:

From the inquest :

Coroner to Deputy Elizabeth Tanner-The fact of her not coming back on Saturday did not surprise you, I suppose? - We took no notice of it.


Coroner to fellow lodger Catherine Lane - Did she say where she was going? - No.

[Coroner] Did you see her leave the lodging-house? - Yes; she gave me a piece of velvet as she left, and asked me to mind it until she came back.


Coroner to fellow lodger Charles Preston - Did she say where she was going on Saturday? - No.
[Coroner] Or when she was coming back? - No.

Did she say whether she was coming back? - She never said anything about it.


If she was wearing her "best clothes", where were her day to day clothes ?
I think, that was the only bonnet and cloak she had.

[Fisherman]

Dusty Miller writes:

"A police document from the actual investigation exists. The document was authored by the head of the investigating team. Said document describes a man with a small moustache.
A contemporary drawing of Kidney exists, by an artist, whose ability to draw a recognisable likeness can be tested. Said drawing shows Kidney with a large moustache.
Ergo, tangible evidence."

That moustache, Dusty, has been discussed already. To begin with, witness psychology tells us that people often get details totally wrong (I posted earlier on how a number of witnesses who saw the Palme assasination in Stockholm 1986, afterwards said that the killer had a moustache - whereas other witnesses said he did not. Same thing with glasses; there were those who said he wore glasses and those who said he did not).
Apart from this important point, we must realize that identical twins can have differing moustaches - but that does not mean that they don´t look alike, does it? So Toms argument that BS man and Kidney did not look alike does not hold any water, I´m afraid. Plus, you must add to all of this the fact that Schwartz pointing out of a small moustache took the way over an interpretor before it reached the police protocol - and that means we add a possible risk of semantic misinterpretation.


"A far more significant question is, why would anyone assume the “acquaintances” checked by police would not –SPECICALLY- include Kidney?"

..and the - by far - most significant and relevant answer to BOTH questions is that we simply don´t know who were investigated, what questions were asked and what answers were given. Of course it is reasonable to suggest that Kidney would have belonged to the group, and it is equally reasonable to believe that once we can lay our eyes on the list of participators, he will be on it. BUT - as long as we have NOT seen the list, we are left with a degree of uncertainty.

"Equally, is it not true his alibi may have been, “I was at work”?
Whatever it was, it satisfied the iunvestigators enough for the senior officer to feel Kidney was not worth of specific attention"

Once again - we know zero about the alibi. And we do not know if the investigating officers believed Kidney totally uninteresting or highly suspicious. And no matter how clever we think ourselves, we had better stay away from filling in the blanks - such things will inevitably go catastrophically wrong sooner or later.
Many false alibis have appeared strong on the surface, only to later fall to pieces. What if Kidney DID say he was at work, and what if his foreman testified in his favour - only to be paid off handsomely the day after? Kidney did hint at being aquainted to representatives of the East end underworld at the trial - at least I get that picture when reading the inquest files - and providing an alibi may have proven a piece of cake. Moreover, if Kidney did present an alibi, it may simply have confirmed a feeling on behalf of the police that Jack the Ripper was the guy they needed to pin the Stride killing on.

Nobody opposes the fact that a case can be made for Kidney not being our man. But I strongly oppose the idea that there is any evidence involved in such a suggestion that even remotely looks like proof. Bluntly stating that it can be asserted that BS man and Kidney looked unalike is completely untenable as I have shown, and talking about an investigation and an alibi on behalf of a specific individual won´t do as long as we have no such thing at hand. Clearly it can and should be reasoned that it once existed - but even if we do make a premature withdrawal from history´s bank of information, we can say nothing at all about the quality of the investigation.

The best,
Fisherman

[c.d.]

Why does the interruption have to be of the physical kind? Trying to mutilate someone in proximity to lights and singing could bring on a serious case of paranoia and the logical conclusion that it was best to cut his losses (pun intended) and move on to find another victim.

Don't forget that Diemschutz stated that he felt the killer was still in the yard when he arrived with his pony.

c.d.

[Tom_Wescott]

Dr. Strange,

Excellent post. Unfortunately, evidence is putty in the hands of Fisherman, who is happy to insist that Schwartz had everything correct EXCEPT any evidence that might exonerate Kidney - whom you so eloquently demonstrated was already exonerated by police.
There's very little else to say on the matter except that Michael Kidney did not kill Liz Stride, making it extremely unlikely that her murder was in any way 'domestic'. It was a stranger killing, and since we know that a certain murder was in the area that very hour cutting women's throats, we might not be reaching too far to conclude they were felled by the same hand.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Fisherman]

CD writes:

"Don't forget that Diemschutz stated that he felt the killer was still in the yard when he arrived with his pony."

Don´t you think, CD, that if you entered a pitch black yard on a blustery night, and found a woman lying there with blood flowing from her neck, you may have pondered the very same thing yourself...?

As for the interruption, it could have been of any kind; a person passing by, a sudden sound, a ghost of the brain - anything.
And - of course - there may have been no interruption at all. And no Jack.

Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Tom W, to CD:

"...whom you so eloquently demonstrated was already exonerated by police. "

A pity, then, that we do not have that same eloquence and exoneration from the police, Tom - it would have been a lot more convincing.
And Fisherman has got his measuring of the evidence in hand, thank you very much - that is why I anxiously await how you are going to prove that BS man and Kidney did not look like each other! Plus I would like you to quote something - anything - from the investigation that proves Kidneys innocence specifically.

...but I guess I have a long wait to look forward to, eh, Tom?

Fisherman

[FrankO]

To begin with, witness psychology tells us that people often get details totally wrong (I posted earlier on how a number of witnesses who saw the Palme assasination in Stockholm 1986, afterwards said that the killer had a moustache - whereas other witnesses said he did not. Same thing with glasses; there were those who said he wore glasses and those who said he did not).

Quite so, Fish, witness descriptions tend to be quite unreliable. So we should wonder if we should put much stock in them, if any at all. Furthermore, I think it should be added that Schwartz was afraid and because of his fear he quite likely gave an even less accurate description than he would have if he wouldn’t have been afraid. Furthermore, would Schwartz have been in a position to take a good look at the man’s face for any length of time anyway? I doubt that.

Once again - we know zero about the alibi. And we do not know if the investigating officers believed Kidney totally uninteresting or highly suspicious.

Indeed we don’t, but from the scarce information we’re left with it seems like it was the former rather than the latter. They declared Stride a prostitute, while there’s evidence that suggests otherwise, at least on the night in question. For no good reason they seemed to believe Kidney’s word over Catherine Lane's, who deposed at the inquest that Stride had left Kidney on account of the couple having had words. And the general idea within a day of Stride’s murder seems to have been that the Ripper was responsible for Stride’s murder. So why look for someone else? That at least seems to have been the general attitude I distil from the available information.

Nevertheless, I voted Mr BS, although Kidney is a good contender for him.

All the best, Fish!
Frank

[c.d.]

CD writes:

"Don't forget that Diemschutz stated that he felt the killer was still in the yard when he arrived with his pony."

Don´t you think, CD, that if you entered a pitch black yard on a blustery night, and found a woman lying there with blood flowing from her neck, you may have pondered the very same thing yourself...?

As for the interruption, it could have been of any kind; a person passing by, a sudden sound, a ghost of the brain - anything.
And - of course - there may have been no interruption at all. And no Jack.

Fisherman

Hi Fish,

Well that is what Diemschutz said so take it for what it is worth. Would it be any more believable if he had said "I feel certain that the killer had left the yard?" It was simply his gut feeling.

As for an interruption, yes it could have been anything. The killer, be it Jack or somebody else, would have been hanged had he been caught. Reason enough for a little paranoia.

c.d.

[Tom_Wescott]

Fisherman,

It has been proved as far as the evidence will allow, and to the satisfaction of most, but a tiny handful of fringe Ripperologists. The irony, of course, is that you claim not to even believe Kidney was her killer. Yet you won't tell us why. You subscribe to my reasoning, yet rally against it. Makes me think your priorities are different from mine.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[c.d.]

Hi Frank,

Even in 1888 the police should have known that the first suspect on the list in a murder is the spouse/lover, friend, family member. That points the finger directly at Kidney. And if they got testimony that he was a hard drinker and that their relationship was one in which there was physical abuse would they not suspect him even further?

As to the assumption that Liz was killed by the Ripper, how did they know that Kidney wasn't the Ripper?

c.d.

[FrankO]

Trying to mutilate someone in proximity to lights and singing could bring on a serious case of paranoia and the logical conclusion that it was best to cut his losses (pun intended) and move on to find another victim.

Hi c.d.,

The circumstances at the scene were already there whenever Stride’s killer arrived in Berner Street. Added to that, there still seem to have been quite a number of people up and about in the neighborhood. He could and probably would have assessed them right away. It would be very odd if he only realized them as he was standing there with his knife in hand ready to strike. So, I don’t see that as a likely reason for interruption. The Ripper could have left the knife wherever he kept it and there’s no reason to think he needed to kill her because he had given himself away.

All the best,
Frank

[c.d.]

Hi Frank,

You make a good point. If the killer was Jack and he was making a rational assessment of the situation, he should have taken all those things into account. But if it was Jack, we are dealing with a serial killer and the desire to kill may have initially overcome his better judgment.

c.d.

[FrankO]

Even in 1888 the police should have known that the first suspect on the list in a murder is the spouse/lover, friend, family member. That points the finger directly at Kidney.

Hi again c.d.,

Even though that sounds like a reasonable assumption, there's nothing solid that points in that direction. Furthermore, the police were in the middle of the hunt for a monstrous serial killer, who cut his victims' throats. I wouldn't be surprised if it influenced them so that they suffered from tunnel vision.

And if they got testimony that he was a hard drinker and that their relationship was one in which there was physical abuse would they not suspect him even further?

They seem to have opted for the information that was available about Stride, who had appeared before the Magistrate 7 times I believe and who had left Kidney on a number of occassions but had returned on all but one of them.

As to the assumption that Liz was killed by the Ripper, how did they know that Kidney wasn't the Ripper?

I don't know. Perhaps they didn't expect a normal man like Kidney to have been the Ripper.

All the best,
Frank

[Fisherman]

Frank van Oploo writes:

"Nevertheless, I voted Mr BS, although Kidney is a good contender for him."

Exactly - and I did the exact same. To my mind, BS man is the probable killer, and I think he very much reminds me of the man Marshall testified to having seen with Stride. That would make two encounters on that evening, and if so, it would speak clearly of an aquaintance. My guess is that he was NOT Kidney - the respectable, "clerklike" appearance is something I do not think applies very well to a dock labourer.
But just like you say, Kidney is a very viable bid anyhow!

The best,
Fisherman