Did jack kill liz stride?

[Tom_Wescott]

Oh come now. Kate was subdued and lowered to the ground somehow, probably in silence. If anything, it was a more elegant killing than Nichols or Chapman.

I know you disagree, but many here also believe that Stride was first subdued and lowered to the ground, then cut.

Hi Damaso. It's not so much a belief that her throat was cut while she was on the ground as it is a conclusion arrived at from the blood evidence. The only other possible scenario is that her throat was cut AS she was being lowered to the ground, but that ceases to be a viable option when you consider the scarf evidence. So there really is no alternative to the conclusion that she was in position on the ground when her throat was cut.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Fisherman]

That's true. I believe the urge to kill overrode any fear of being caught though.

Regards

Observer

Though the discussion is moving on, I´d like to add just one more commentary about how many people were on the streets at the relevant hours. That comment comes from Lechmere himself, who said that he had not met a single person after leaving his home at Doveton Street until he joined forces with Robert Paul in Buck´s Row.
One can of course ask oneself how long that walk took him. It´s either 20-25 minutes (if he left home at 3.20), 10-15 minutes (if he left home at 3.30) or six, seven minutes (if he walked the stretch at a normal pace, meaning that he would have left home at about 3.35-3.40).

No matter which option applies, we can see that by his own accord, he would have walked the East End streets for at least six or seven minutes completely alone.
I´d say that today, there is no way that you can walk through any parts of central London for six or seven minutes without meeting anybody at all, regardless of the district and the time of night.
But this was nevertheless something that would have been rather ordinary back then, this in spite of the much more crammed population conditions.

On the whole, of course, I think Lechmere lied about things. But not necessarily about this.

Now, back to Stride! And of course, since she died so much earlier, the streets would have much more people on them at that time. Coming up to around three o clock, though, it was another matter altogether.

The best,
Fisherman

[lynn cates]

Liz

Hello Cris.

"He was willing to accept that Stride's killer may have been the same as that of Nichols and Chapman, despite the lack of abdominal mutilations, but he considered a murder that did have mutilations and a uterus removed as the work of an imitator."

Yes indeed. And if I knew certainly that exactly one of the Double Event victims were done by Polly and Annie's slayer, it would be Liz--no question.

Cheers.
LC

[Nick Spring]

single cut

I don't necessarily see that a single cut to the neck can rule out the Ripper as the murderer.

Yes there are a number of other strange circumstances to this murder however, nothing to disprove the Ripper as the murderer on throat cutting alone.

Best

Nick

[lynn cates]

evidence

Hello Damaso. Thanks.

"Oh come now. Kate was subdued and lowered to the ground somehow, probably in silence. If anything, it was a more elegant killing than Nichols or Chapman."

Yes, but "somehow" tells us little. And that "elegance" does not apply to the deep double cuts of the first two.

"I know you disagree, but many here also believe that Stride was first subdued and lowered to the ground, then cut."

Very well. One may indeed believe what one likes--I am referring ONLY to the evidence.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Be not a frayed.

Hello Tom.

"The only other possible scenario is that her throat was cut AS she was being lowered to the ground, but that ceases to be a viable option when you consider the scarf evidence."

How so? By pulling the scarf, the knot tightened and moved to the left (as in my reenactment). And IF he cut whilst pulling on the scarf, the knife frayed the edge of the scarf. (Hope to make this clear in my upcoming codicil.)

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Double or nothing.

Hello Nick. Thanks.

"I don't necessarily see that a single cut to the neck can rule out the Ripper as the murderer."

No, no "ruling out." But surely the double neck cuts can almost certainly "rule in" a single hand with Polly and Annie? So now the question becomes, Why? Why near identical double cuts then a single cut for the next two? Why cut twice in the first two cases?

Cheers.
LC

[The Good Michael]

They frowned upon solicitation only in the sense that they preached 'free love'. As for frowning upon servants, there's no indication of that. Again, they had servants in the club.

There is indication in the idea of communism. You show me several of these young club members who had maids and butlers and I'll sing a different tune. Having someone serving drinks or cleaning periodically in a business is far different than having personal servants.

Mike

[Nick Spring]

Hello Nick. Thanks.

"I don't necessarily see that a single cut to the neck can rule out the Ripper as the murderer."

No, no "ruling out." But surely the double neck cuts can almost certainly "rule in" a single hand with Polly and Annie? So now the question becomes, Why? Why near identical double cuts then a single cut for the next two? Why cut twice in the first two cases?

Cheers.
LC

Hello Lynn, thanks.

Yes a very good point. You could also include the facial mutilations on Eddowes and Kelly and none before.

Maybe he was learning 'on the job' what needed to be done to overpower and kill these poor women, from Tabram onwards. After that the mutilations were perhaps random and done spontaneously as he acted out his fantasies.

I still see a pattern though but I see your point.

cheers

Nick

[Observer]

Baxter could have said the same about the killer of Catherine Eddowes, but he didn't. He was willing to accept that Stride's killer may have been the same as that of Nichols and Chapman, despite the lack of abdominal mutilations, but he considered a murder that did have mutilations and a uterus removed as the work of an imitator.

If Jack the Ripper gave birth to the twentieth century, as implied in From Hell, Wynne Baxter gave birth to Ripperology.

Hi Hunter

Baxter wasn't perfect, as Sam pointed out. Cake and eat it I know. However, the reason he gave as to why he considered Eddowes murder the work of an imitator was based solely on medical evidence.

"There had been no skilful mutilation as in the cases of Nichols and Chapman, and no unskilful injuries as in the case in Mitre-square - possibly the work of an imitator; "

Note the word possibly. Of course the doctors were divided as to which of the murders belonged to the same hand. Bond was of the opinion that all five Nichols through to Kelly was the work of one man.

If Baxter had been asked, regarding Eddowes murder, whether

" there had been the same skill exhibited in the way in which the victim had been entrapped, and the injuries inflicted, so as to cause instant death and prevent blood from soiling the operator, and the same daring defiance of immediate detection,"

I'm sure he would have answered in the positive.

Regards

Observer

[lynn cates]

conceptual framework

Hello Nick. Thanks.

'Maybe he was learning 'on the job' what needed to be done to overpower and kill these poor women. . ."

Could be. But I'm not sure how one arrives at the concept of double cuts within the context of subduing one?

Cheers.
LC

[Observer]

A man not a robot

Though the discussion is moving on, I´d like to add just one more commentary about how many people were on the streets at the relevant hours. That comment comes from Lechmere himself, who said that he had not met a single person after leaving his home at Doveton Street until he joined forces with Robert Paul in Buck´s Row.
One can of course ask oneself how long that walk took him. It´s either 20-25 minutes (if he left home at 3.20), 10-15 minutes (if he left home at 3.30) or six, seven minutes (if he walked the stretch at a normal pace, meaning that he would have left home at about 3.35-3.40).

No matter which option applies, we can see that by his own accord, he would have walked the East End streets for at least six or seven minutes completely alone.
I´d say that today, there is no way that you can walk through any parts of central London for six or seven minutes without meeting anybody at all, regardless of the district and the time of night.
But this was nevertheless something that would have been rather ordinary back then, this in spite of the much more crammed population conditions.

On the whole, of course, I think Lechmere lied about things. But not necessarily about this.

Now, back to Stride! And of course, since she died so much earlier, the streets would have much more people on them at that time. Coming up to around three o clock, though, it was another matter altogether.

The best,
Fisherman

Hi Fisherman,

I'd concede that there is a possibility that the back streets were pretty desolate at 3:30 a.m. however, from Nichols inquest.


"The Coroner: Whitechapel-road is busy in the early morning, I believe. Could anybody have escaped that way?
Witness: Oh yes, sir. I saw a number of women in the main road going home. At that time any one could have got away."

I have found similar quotes regarding Commercial Street, Commercial Road, and other major Streets. The point is those people had to enter those streets from the lesser side streets. Not all of them inhabited the major streets.

However

Regardless of the time of day. Was there a threat that the murderer could be interrupted mid murder? Absolutely. Was the murderer aware that he could be interrupted mid murder. Absolutely. More so (due to the earlier hour) during the Stride murder. It need not necessarily have been Deimshutz that prompted Stride's killer to abort the mutilation. Then again, we must ask ourselves, was mutilation on the mind of the murderer as he slit Liz Stride's throat?

Regards

Observer

[Hunter]

Baxter wasn't perfect, as Sam pointed out. Cake and eat it I know. However, the reason he gave as to why he considered Eddowes murder the work of an imitator was based solely on medical evidence.

Unfortunately, it wasn't. It was because he had proposed a theory that had been disproved if Eddowes had been killed by the same hand as Chapman. He wasn't going to admit that he may have been wrong; he couldn't at that point, considering the controversy he had already ignited. And because of this, confusion about the medical evidence and what the medicos involved interpreted has existed to this day.

[caz]

Its a bit ironic that most on both sides of the fence seem to ascribe the same criteria for the person called Jack the Ripper. One side cites the lack of 'ripping' as an indicator of another assassin, while the other side adheres to the notion that he must have been interrupted before he could commence with upholding what would become his namesake. Maybe he didn't read that part in the Ripper playbook.

I wonder what the perception of all of these murders and who committed them would be if the name Jack the Ripper had not been invented - provided that the evidence and knowledge of such as it exist is still the same.

Hi Cris,

Great post! I also find it ironic that those who would clear 'Jack the Ripper' of Stride's murder, chiefly due to the lack of 'ripping', don't believe he was behind the nickname anyway. When Stride was being murdered, the Dear Boss letter introducing the 'trade' name had only just come into police hands and wasn't yet in the public domain.

Whoever killed Stride was, like the killer(s) of Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly, a rule unto himself. Even if he had given himself a funny little nickname, he wouldn't have been obliged to live up to it on every occasion he used violence.

I don't believe I have tried to categorise Jack definitively as a cut-throat; however, I stand by my point that on each occasion a victim had her abdomen plundered (Chapman, Eddowes, Kelly), she had her throat cut first.

I also stand by my argument that it was extremely uncommon for females to be murdered in semi-public locations for no apparent reason, by any method or anywhere, regardless of the high level of criminality in the area where these particular unfortunates were struck down. The statistics show just a handful of adult women in the whole of England murdered by knife in a typical year, so it is clearly misleading for people to keep suggesting that women routinely had to fear cut-throats, or that what happened to Stride in Dutfield's Yard was your everyday sort of crime, or would have been viewed as such had it not been sandwiched between several other Whitechapel horrors.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Baxter was presumably happy to believe Stride's killer would have liked to obtain another uterus but failed in his purpose, whereas the kidney taken from Eddowes would have needed more explaining. Easier to suggest it could be the work of an imitator than to have his womb-harvesting theory thrown in the gutter.

We've all seen similar intellectual gymnastics when pet theories appear to be threatened. It would have happened then, just as it happens now. I doubt anyone is entirely immune when we indulge in public speculation.

Love,

Caz
X