The Murder of Elizabeth Stride

[lynn cates]

induction/deduction

Hello Michael. My belief that she was NOT prostituting and your and CD's belief that she was, are surely matters of induction, not deduction. Hence, there can be no proof at all--only evidence.

Cheers.
LC

[curious4]

Nicely stirred, curious.

"Over both shoulders, especially the right and under the collar bone and in front of the chest there was a blueish discolouration, which I have watched and seen on two occasions since".

Phillips doesn't mention here any changes in the discolouration, or the interval between each of the three observations, so it's hard to see quite what point he was trying to make, without a wider context. And why does he say "watched and seen" if "observed" would have done? It's almost like he's saying he watched for the discolouration and saw it again twice, which makes little sense. It presumably didn't disappear and reappear like Liz's flower.

Coupled with your Lancet example, where the old-fashioned "eight years since" would translate into unambiguous modern-day English as "eight years ago", I suspect that you may be correct with your interpretation. It does make more sense to me if Phillips was saying that he was familiar with this kind of discolouration because he had observed something similar on two previous occasions.

We had a fair bit of trouble a while back with people imagining that "nearly related" meant "not quite related", when it actually meant the opposite, ie "closely related". We can't ask them what they meant when the language is not crystal clear to us, but we can often get a feel of it, and use the context and similar examples to work out the best bet.

At one time, centuries since , "presently" used to mean "straight away" (which is more logical when you think about it), whereas it has come to mean "in a while". And the old adage about the exception proving the rule is widely misunderstood and totally misinterpreted today, because "proving" actually meant "testing" in this context, as in "challenging". So an exception, far from showing the correctness of a rule, offers a direct challenge to it.

So it's not always as simple as we assume to pick up and run with the language of our past.

Love,

Caz
X

Thank you Caz. Am now in the process of re-reading Oliver Twist and The Uncommercial Traveller to find any examples of the use of since - my volume is almost 100 years old and has therefore not been altered for the modern reader - might take a little time though. Agree with you on the changes in languages - I remember my mother having dificulty with the word "bonk" which didn´t at all mean what she thought! There is also a swedish word used by Sweden´s Agatha Christie which has a completely different meaning now.
Best wishes,
C4

[curious4]

Stride's schedule:

1. Getting drunk in a pub at 6:30 pm.

2. Making out with a respectable man.

3. In the company of a different man.

Yeah, normal date behavior.

I am not saying it's impossible she didn't take some time off from prostituting what with all that wear and tear from being thrown up against one gate or another, I'm saying, "where's the evidence she wasn't?" This smells of agenda to me.

Mike

Well, to be honest, that sounds like a normal saturday night for some girls these days!

[curious4]

Curious,
if Stride's bruises were augmenting and becoming more pronounced postmortem, Dr. Phillips would have registered this, and possibly would want to re-check it.
Apologies for calling you a housewife and a Swedish! I recall about the Scandinavian part from the Liz and the grapes thread, where we were talking about snow conditions. (I'm a freestyle snowboarder on withdrawal for most of this season, which I can assure you is not a pretty sight, and I just had to leave Iceland without really wanting to.)

Abby, Lynn,
Stride most clearly was working it on the night of September 30, hence the host of different men she was seen spending time with for short intervals. And Lynn, your Rocker is still in impeccable condition, despite its travelling to Iceland.
(Now I bet I'm gonna be accused again of being a “people person“, just because my brain happened to register someone's location and a colleague was generous enough to lend me a book, for research.)


Fully agree, C.D., and you don't even wanna know how cranky I am myself today.

With looots of hugs and kisses for all the bunnies and the butterflies and my barbie doll from casebook's biographer, AKA the people person who deeeeeply cares about those she associates with

Apology accepted.

[mariab]

It does make more sense to me if Phillips was saying that he was familiar with this kind of discolouration because he had observed something similar on two previous occasions.

Would you go as far as to interprete this as Dr. Phillips referring to the previous Ripper murders, Caz? Cause I've been wondering about this.

[caz]

Would you go as far as to interprete this as Dr. Phillips referring to the previous Ripper murders, Caz? Cause I've been wondering about this.

Hi Maria,

Purely from a language point of view, no. But in the wider context it would appear to make most sense if Phillips was talking about two recent cases where he had observed an injury of a similar nature, yes indeed. It's like he was saying "I've seen the same thing twice before", which would not mean much if he was talking about two random dead bodies he had once examined.

Do we know when he said it, in relation to when Liz was finally buried? There may also be a clue in the past tenses he uses.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

"Over both shoulders, especially the right and under the collar bone and in front of the chest there was a blueish discolouration, which I have watched and seen on two occasions since".

In describing his original observation, Phillips says “there was a…” but he goes on to say “…which I have watched and seen…”.

If Liz was already in her grave when he was talking, and his three observations all related to her bruising, it would have been more natural to say “…which I watched and saw”, ie on two further occasions, if that’s what he meant. But it is entirely natural if he was talking about observations “I have made twice before”, ie on other bodies.

Pedantically yours,

Caz
X

[mariab]

Caz,
I know what you mean, and I want to research this in the various (press) reports in the coming weeks. This question has been nugging me (on and off) since I first became acquainted with Ripperology.
The way I see it, Dr. Phillips might have been referring
- to Chapman and Nichols (whom he might have examined?)
- to 2 random other dead bodies.
Obviously he might have said it a couple days after September 30, for the bruises on Stride to have visibly formed. Stride was burried on October 6 and her death certificate was issued on October 24. This courtesy of casebook, as I don't feel like going through Sugden/The Ultimate right this minute.

Dr. Phillips would not have been as pedantic when he jotted down these words as we are when analyzing them.

[caz]

Hi Maria,

It's not a case of Phillips being pedantic though, that's just me. He would have been writing naturally, in the circumstances as he understood them to be at that moment. That's what I was getting at - the natural interpretation of his words in context.

But surely turning down a client ("Not tonight, perhaps some other night.") is not typical prostitute behaviour?

But Lynn, if this was Liz, what was she saying no to, that she was saying she might be up for on “some other night”? A prayer meeting? A drink? A chance to make back the sixpence she had evidently been parted from before meeting her end?

Surely a distinct possibility was that the man was pushing his luck on a Saturday night and making some indecent suggestion, in which case she was trying to put him off politely without expressing either surprise or disgust at being offered such a proposal. She didn’t say “What kind of girl do you take me for?” I suppose she could still have been whiter than the driven snow, and simply afraid of what he might do if she turned him down flat, or too abruptly. But then she put herself in that position, when she was presumably streetwise enough to have stuck to mixed company or avoided any unwanted one-on-one situations.

So you have this man who made Liz wary; a man she couldn’t risk rejecting outright, suggesting some activity she didn’t want to engage in with him. That would begin to make sense of what happened later, if the same man saw her again outside the club and assumed that she was up for what he had suggested, but just not with him. It would also make sense if he killed her (as has been suggested) as she was trying to get away from him, because he feared she had seen through him and would describe him to the coppers as “not quite right”.

I do believe if any of these women had come across their killer and instinctively felt he was one to avoid, it would have been Liz. She had three recent murders in the area to act as a warning, plus she was sober, or relatively so, and not exhausted or at death’s door, nor just back from hopping and a spell in the nick, nor was she in bed asleep or entertaining someone she trusted.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Caz:

"But Lynn, if this was Liz, what was she saying no to, that she was saying she might be up for on “some other night”? A prayer meeting? A drink? A chance to make back the sixpence she had evidently been parted from before meeting her end? "

One might also want to ponder why a woman turning tricks would turn potential customers down, Caz ...?

The best,
Fisherman

[mariab]

It's not a case of Phillips being pedantic though, that's just me. He would have been writing naturally, in the circumstances as he understood them to be at that moment.

That's what I meant. Phillips would have been jotting down naturally, without minding his past tenses, and without ever having fathomed in his wildest dreams that an army of historians/Ripperologists would be fussing over his little report over a century later.

One might also want to ponder why a woman turning tricks would turn potential customers down, Caz ...?

IF it was Stride who was seen saying “Not tonight“ etc.. If it was her, their talk might have possibly referred to her spending the night in the genleman's dwellings (without him paying her), and she might have preferred to go on working. Or something.
And Fish, I really liked Saegreifinn, thanks so much for the tip. I'm almost clinically depressed to have left Iceland prematurely. :-(

[c.d.]

There are just too many plausible explanations for Liz's remark to conclude that she was on a date and not soliciting at the time. He might have been a previous customer who was just a little too rough for her tastes or balked when it came time to pay up. So she gives him a polite brush off to avoid a scene.

c.d.

[Chris]

Purely from a language point of view, no. But in the wider context it would appear to make most sense if Phillips was talking about two recent cases where he had observed an injury of a similar nature, yes indeed. It's like he was saying "I've seen the same thing twice before", which would not mean much if he was talking about two random dead bodies he had once examined.

But what Phillips is reported to have said - referring to the discolouration over Stride's shoulders - is "which I have watched and seen on two occasions since."

He didn't say "I had watched and seen something similar on two occasions before." Obviously that means something quite different.

[mariab]

He might have been a previous customer who was just a little too rough for her tastes or balked when it came time to pay up. So she gives him a polite brush off to avoid a scene.

This makes sense too.
As for the date, I have several reservations.

[curious4]

Hi Maria,

Purely from a language point of view, no. But in the wider context it would appear to make most sense if Phillips was talking about two recent cases where he had observed an injury of a similar nature, yes indeed. It's like he was saying "I've seen the same thing twice before", which would not mean much if he was talking about two random dead bodies he had once examined.

Do we know when he said it, in relation to when Liz was finally buried? There may also be a clue in the past tenses he uses.

Love,

Caz
X

Hello Caz,

He said it at the inquest on Liz Stride - after performing the autopsy.
Cheers,
C4