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Tom W writes:
"All I can say is that your scenario is unworkable. The knot was pulled to the left and pulled tight, which means it must have been pulled from the right side of her body, which is not practical standing up and is impossible from behind, so he must have first laid her down. By necessity, he moved her onto her left side to position himself behind her and to force the blood away from himself. He pulled on the scarf to lift her neck up from the jagged stones to fasciliate his knife. It's that simple. Don't be so damn stubborn."
As for the stubborness, Tom, I have a sneaking feeling that we represent the exact same club when it comes to that particular detail ...
But here goes again!
I think that we need to keep in mind that the knot of the scarf was described as being pulled "very tight". My suggestion is that this would have taken more than lifting Strideīs head up by gripping the scarf. But that is just one of the two points I believe speak against your suggestion. The second one is that the obvious way to expose Strides neck for a cut to it, had she been lying down on her left side, would be to grab her by the hair and lift. That would expose the cutting area in the optimal way. Lifting by the scarf would have her head hanging towards the ground, bending the neck in a v-shape like a wet spaghetti and offering much worse of an opportunity to cut.
Now, why would he do it like that if he was our opportunist Jack, cool and calculating and dead set on getting the most out of every kill?
Moreover, the obvious thing to hope for if you feel like cutting somebodys neck, is for any garments obscuring the target/neck to go away, and not hinder you in any fashion. In this case, if you are correct, he decided on using the scarf, and though he deliberately lifted her by it, he still chose to cut so close to it that he actually frayed the lower border of it, although, reasonably there would have been other areas of the neck open to an unobstructed cut.
Small details? Yes, but very important ones!
Now, my bid is that it did not matter where the knot of the scarf was situated. It has no bearing whatsoever on where the killer was situated, as you seem to believe. What was said about it was that it was turned to the left, but that was not something the killer supplied - that simply was the way Liz chose to wear her scarf. She would not, however, have pulled the knot "very tight". That was the killers contribution. And how did it come about? It came about because the killer used the scarf as a garotte, grabbing with his left hand around it and twisting it counter-clockwise very hard to the left. Now, THAT would make a far better explanation to the tightness evinced by the knot when she was found. And it of course matters not if he was in front of, behind, to the left of or to the right of her, when it comes to the resulting tightening of the knot. If you are hanged, and if the knot of the rope is situated to the left of your neck, it makes little sense to hope that the hangman stands on the "wrong side" - the knot will function, regardless of where he stands when the roof disappears under your feet. Therefore, you cannot conclude that the pulling power was produced from Strides right side. That is, as you phrase it, an "unworkable" assertion. The ability to tighten a knot stretches as long as the string stretches - and Strides scarf stretched all the way around her neck.
If you need to tighten a knot on a piece of string, you do not put a smallish weight on top of the string and lift. No, what you do to pull the knot "very tight" is to apply pulling power from the ends of the string. Such pulling power would provide far tighter a knot than what the case would be in your scenario!
And what happens as the killer does this; grabs her from behind, pulls her backwards, off balance, producing a fall backwards with a left hand rotation of an approximate 90 degrees? Well, if he holds on to the scarf throughout her fall, her full body weight will further increase the dragging power on the knot, and the one thing that will hinder her body from falling free would of course be the grip on the scarf, that will ensure that the neck is stretched out to itīs maximum, offering a convex surface to cut into. And the weight of her body combined with the killers grip on the scarf means that the scarf is stretched to itīs absolute maximum over the neck as he cuts. And what is it we need to do to be able to cut cloth with a knife? Exactly, we need to stretch it firmy first.
Now, Tom - exactly what part of that scenario is it you wish to dub "unworkable" ...? I am not saying that it could not have gone down your way, merely that I feel that it offers a less credible explanation to the tightened knot and that it definitely has Jack making the wrong choice of lifting device to reach optimal conditions to go about his thing. It would be nice if you returned the courtesy of admitting me having a lot more to go by than an unworkable scenario!
The best,
Fisherman
"All I can say is that your scenario is unworkable. The knot was pulled to the left and pulled tight, which means it must have been pulled from the right side of her body, which is not practical standing up and is impossible from behind, so he must have first laid her down. By necessity, he moved her onto her left side to position himself behind her and to force the blood away from himself. He pulled on the scarf to lift her neck up from the jagged stones to fasciliate his knife. It's that simple. Don't be so damn stubborn."
As for the stubborness, Tom, I have a sneaking feeling that we represent the exact same club when it comes to that particular detail ...
But here goes again!
I think that we need to keep in mind that the knot of the scarf was described as being pulled "very tight". My suggestion is that this would have taken more than lifting Strideīs head up by gripping the scarf. But that is just one of the two points I believe speak against your suggestion. The second one is that the obvious way to expose Strides neck for a cut to it, had she been lying down on her left side, would be to grab her by the hair and lift. That would expose the cutting area in the optimal way. Lifting by the scarf would have her head hanging towards the ground, bending the neck in a v-shape like a wet spaghetti and offering much worse of an opportunity to cut.
Now, why would he do it like that if he was our opportunist Jack, cool and calculating and dead set on getting the most out of every kill?
Moreover, the obvious thing to hope for if you feel like cutting somebodys neck, is for any garments obscuring the target/neck to go away, and not hinder you in any fashion. In this case, if you are correct, he decided on using the scarf, and though he deliberately lifted her by it, he still chose to cut so close to it that he actually frayed the lower border of it, although, reasonably there would have been other areas of the neck open to an unobstructed cut.
Small details? Yes, but very important ones!
Now, my bid is that it did not matter where the knot of the scarf was situated. It has no bearing whatsoever on where the killer was situated, as you seem to believe. What was said about it was that it was turned to the left, but that was not something the killer supplied - that simply was the way Liz chose to wear her scarf. She would not, however, have pulled the knot "very tight". That was the killers contribution. And how did it come about? It came about because the killer used the scarf as a garotte, grabbing with his left hand around it and twisting it counter-clockwise very hard to the left. Now, THAT would make a far better explanation to the tightness evinced by the knot when she was found. And it of course matters not if he was in front of, behind, to the left of or to the right of her, when it comes to the resulting tightening of the knot. If you are hanged, and if the knot of the rope is situated to the left of your neck, it makes little sense to hope that the hangman stands on the "wrong side" - the knot will function, regardless of where he stands when the roof disappears under your feet. Therefore, you cannot conclude that the pulling power was produced from Strides right side. That is, as you phrase it, an "unworkable" assertion. The ability to tighten a knot stretches as long as the string stretches - and Strides scarf stretched all the way around her neck.
If you need to tighten a knot on a piece of string, you do not put a smallish weight on top of the string and lift. No, what you do to pull the knot "very tight" is to apply pulling power from the ends of the string. Such pulling power would provide far tighter a knot than what the case would be in your scenario!
And what happens as the killer does this; grabs her from behind, pulls her backwards, off balance, producing a fall backwards with a left hand rotation of an approximate 90 degrees? Well, if he holds on to the scarf throughout her fall, her full body weight will further increase the dragging power on the knot, and the one thing that will hinder her body from falling free would of course be the grip on the scarf, that will ensure that the neck is stretched out to itīs maximum, offering a convex surface to cut into. And the weight of her body combined with the killers grip on the scarf means that the scarf is stretched to itīs absolute maximum over the neck as he cuts. And what is it we need to do to be able to cut cloth with a knife? Exactly, we need to stretch it firmy first.
Now, Tom - exactly what part of that scenario is it you wish to dub "unworkable" ...? I am not saying that it could not have gone down your way, merely that I feel that it offers a less credible explanation to the tightened knot and that it definitely has Jack making the wrong choice of lifting device to reach optimal conditions to go about his thing. It would be nice if you returned the courtesy of admitting me having a lot more to go by than an unworkable scenario!
The best,
Fisherman
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