Originally posted by corey123
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Which is why I would appreciate any thoughts on the following speculation.
I've always considered the Stride murder to be the work of Jack. The way the walking time from Dutfield's Yard dove-tails into the Mitre Square killing is just too neat for me to believe otherwise.
I've also felt it wrong to consider Jack to be entirely the cool, cunning and devilishly daring sod the night of the double event seems to paint him.
Perhaps he was indeed all of these things. But maybe -it seems counter-intuitive perhaps - his motivation when he set off that night was good old fashioned fear. Fear of being caught.
Its highly unlikely that he knew what we know now. That his previous murders had left the police baffled and bereft of clues. Given the vile nature of his crimes, its reasonable also to speculate that he was genuinely fearful of capture. He may have been feeling paranoid and exposed with the idea that the law was snapping at his heels foremost in his mind.
In fact, Jack may well have felt in need of some direct action to throw the police off his scent. In this light, a cold-hearted 'Red Herring' murder could very possibly have been something he would have concocted.
Consider: To minimise the risk to himself, Jack writes the Goulston Street graffiti before setting off for the area around the Working Men's club, a site he'd already targetted for its 'Jewishness.' His plan was to implicate the Jewish community by leaving the spot of his latest outrage with an artifact of clothing or (better still) a piece of the actual body of his victim and then casually dumping it by the graffiti in passing.
Jack is interrupted, however, immediately after strangling and slitting the throat of Stride. He escapes but without a trophy and, worried that people will not consider Stride to be a Ripper victim (as so many people don't), he realises that for his plan to be effective, he must strike again. With his blood up, he strides off towards 'Prostitute Island' so conveniantly near where he left the graffiti.
Any objections or thoughts regarding this scenario?
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