Have you seen this?

[Ally]

Ally,
Our posts had crossed.I was responding to an earlier post.
What I like to think about anyway is not whether she was a whore or not---she was, ofcourse she was.But she also spoke English without an accent,could apparently speak Yiddish as well and seems to me to have been quite bright and adventurous at one time.
So whore or not,she had one or two other things going for her.

To get back to the subject at hand.

Natalie, she may well have had many things going for her but fabricating a personality for someone we don't know, have never met and never will meet is not doing the woman any favors. As I have said time and time again, this recent push to canonize them in addition to making them canonical is completely cracked and not a credit to the women, who, for better or worse chose the lives they led.

It is just as wrong to deify as to demonize without the facts.

[Natalie Severn]

Tom,
That is interesting information.I didnt know the extent of her lying, but it doesnt surprise me.
Its possible that like Mary Kelly,who also lied through her teeth by the sound of it,Elizabeth Stride possibly thought she could make real money from prostitution in London.She was probably disappointed with the way things turned out,since she was probably once an attractive young woman like Mary was said to be,but perhaps neither were beautiful enough or had quite what it took to reach the top of their chosen "profession".
But you are right.With the drink related troubles they got into and stand up quarrels with their partners,they seem ultimately to have been unhappy and disillusioned with their lives.
Best

[Natalie Severn]

I totally agree Ally.It can so easily distort what we need to understand as objectively as possible.It can help us understand the case so much better if we just accept what was clearly the case and avoid adding to the myths that have grown up about these people .

[Hunter]

disclaimer

It's probably too late now, but since there was some confusion on Simon's and David's part about my opinion, my earlier post was intended as satire.A light treatise on assumptions and reasoning. I hope Ally understood that. At this point it seems irrelevant.

What we do know about these women is that they seemed to share a common life and a common fate; in the same area; in a short period of time and that's why some of us still believe they shared a common assassin. If that makes me a traditionalist; then so be it. Facts, not assumptions, to the contrary can change my mind.

[Ally]

No worries. I can recognize satire, irony and sarcasm blindfolded from twenty paces.

[Tom_Wescott]

Minimalism

Hi Hunter,

I agree with Simon and DVV to some extent, that being that we must be willing to look beyond the handful of contemporary suspects (Druitt, Kos, Tumblety) if we're likely to find the Ripper. Having said that, some have a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater. This minimalist attitude took hold in the 90's during the heyday of serial killer profiling. A prime example often cited at the time by minimalists was the Green River Killer case, then unsolved. John Douglas wrote about a particular murder in the series that appeared 'staged', with the body propped up and various items, such as sausage and beer cans placed on it. Douglas concluded this was not a Green River case for these reasons. He also cited a letter perportedly written by the GRK, but felt that this killer would not want to communicate with the police. His reasons are the same for supposing the Ripper wouldn't have. Well, the years go by and Gary Ridgway is caught, and it turned out that he was in fact responsible for the 'staged' murder AND the letter that Douglas told the police to ignore. So, the modern era of minimalism was based on one-man's misguided sense of self-importance.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Hunter]

No worries. I can recognize satire, irony and sarcasm blindfolded from twenty paces.

I have no doubt that you can, Ally

[DVV]

It's probably too late now, but since there was some confusion on Simon's and David's part about my opinion, my earlier post was intended as satire.

Hi Hunter,

I often make mistakes and can easily misunderstand subtile posts...
But what I'm guilty of today is certainly one of my masterpieces...

Apologies Hunter, and thanks for a clarification that shouldn't have been needed...

Amitiés,
David

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Tom!

Just couldn't help asking this question;

If murders took place a short time or a long time ago, does it affect on serial killer profiling and which way?!

Just curious to hear your point!

All the best
Jukka

[The Good Michael]

I found that Swedes wax nostalgic over the novels of Vilhelm Moberg (“The Emigrants”, “Unto a New Land”, “The Settlers” and “The Last Letter Home”), and pretty well consider Minnesota a Swedish colony!

Sorry Swedes, but the Norwegians have already claimed most of the state, with the Germans locking up the Twin Cities and a few southern towns. Not much left for the Swedes.

A Minnesotan on an Asian Peninsula

[Tom_Wescott]

If murders took place a short time or a long time ago, does it affect on serial killer profiling and which way?!

Hi Jukka. I think serial killer profile is useless. Profiling for better documented crimes, such as burglary and rape, seems to be effective, but not serial killers. It hasn't caught a single one. Just as every major serial killer task force, from Boston Strangler to present, has failed to catch their man. It's remarkable, really.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[ianincleveland]

Hello ian!

Well, the script-writers can always appeal to the thing told by her friends; she had no accent in her speech!

She had lost the Swedish touch somewhere, but who knows: maybe, while getting angry she used such Swedish expressions, that we don't want to repeat...

All the best
Jukka

Hello jukka,

Was never aware Liz hadnt a Swedish accent,thanks for telling me that.Wonder if any of those times she was arrested for Drunk and Disorderly she was yelling in Swedish

[ianincleveland]

Sorry Swedes, but the Norwegians have already claimed most of the state, with the Germans locking up the Twin Cities and a few southern towns. Not much left for the Swedes.

A Minnesotan on an Asian Peninsula

According to wikipedia in 2008,people of German descent make up 37.9%,Norwegians 16.8% and Swedes 9.5%(less than the Irish)

[LongLiz]

Oh my God thank you so much! I almost cried!

[LongLiz]

Hello Lina,

Thanks for your contribution and welcome indeed!

I will translate a few of the main points...

Born 1843
Stor Tumlehed, Torslanda.
After her confirmation, moved to Gothenburg.
Started work as housemaid, different places.
Became pregnant, and at this time a single woman in this condition was regarded with bringing great shame and scandal.
A stillborn baby girl was born, in the 7th month of pregnancy.
As time went on..her social position became worse and worse, falling ever deeper into prostitution.
In 1867 she was advised to leave Gothenburg, to avoid even more social stigma.
She decided to start anew in London.
Here she found work and narried an older man
Whether they had children or not is unsure.
The marraige lasted 10 years. After which she returned to prostitution more and more, interspersed with heavy drinking, she lived in slum conditions.
It is believed she was muredered by the unidentified Jack the Ripper in 1888.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ref to her relative is as follows..

The relative is Kurt Blom. There are papers as to her family stretching back to 1698.
His mother's father, Johan Ludvig, was Elizabeth's cousin.

Part of Kurt's job is the archiving and photogaphing, recording etc of old documents and papers. He came across a family tree a few years ago, but unfortunately his mother had died before this and therefore he could not ask her anything. He saw the names of all the four children of Elizabeth's mother and father, Gustav Eriksson and Beate Carlsdotter. They were..

1840 Anna Christin,
1843 Elisabeth,
1848 Carl Bernard
1851 Svante.

The only thing Kurt knew of Elizabeth was that she "went to town", meaning Gothenburg. Upon asking older relatives, they said very little and were reluctant to say any more.

Elizabeth went to Gothenburg to stay with her sister (Anna Christin), who was married to a cobbler. It was her sister that found work for Elizabeth. After that, all went as is known, and her fall into prostitution followed after the pregnancy.

Stefan Rantzow is in the process of compiling more data about the family. In the process of this he has discovered Elizabeth's brother's grave, in Gothenburg. Her brother, Carl Bernhard, died in 1908 and is buried together with his wife, Olena, b. 1837, who died in 1917.

Elizabeth's sister was born in 1840, and died in 1916. Her grave, a pauper's gave, no longer exists.Neither does that of Bernhard Olsson, Elizabth's brother in law, who died in 1907/1908. (He was buried 3rd Jan 1908.)

The photographs are by courtesy of Stefan Rantzow. He is to be heartily congratulated on finding these graves and the family details of Elizabeth Stride.


I hope this helps.

best wishes

Phil

Thank you so much for translating! Liz didn't deserve the horrible things that happened to her.I wish i could do something for her.