How about this quick theory!

[Malcolm X]

I never said Dutfields was safer,

I was responding to Tom Westcott on that point, Malcolm.

My fiction quip reflected the fact that your interpretation of events made genuinely good reading -though I don't personally believe it.

Phil

that's ok i dont mind, we've got quite a few replies here, i look at JTR different from everyone else, i concentrate more on the last 3 victims, i think JTR is much simpler to understand than most here think, especially the way he stalked his victims, to me his tactics are straightforward.

[Archaic]

Was it not the case that Mrs Mortimer heard measured footsteps go by her house which she thought was the policeman on the beat (which is was not, as it turned out) then shortly afterwards heard the horse and cart go by, then the murder discovered? Could that possibly be that Jack walked by her house after changing his mind about the location of his victim as it was too "busy" a location with no quick "getaway" route?

Hi Bigbellabongo. I saw that was your first post. so I wanted to welcome you to Casebook.

I tend to think Jack sussed out the murder sites ahead of time, so that he always knew the best escape routes, but of course anything is possible...the Ripper murders contain many mysteries.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Lechmere]

Quite Wickerman - during the killing phase the body would almost certainly often end up in an awkward position. For the mutilation phase, logically the body would be straightened first before he could carry on.

Back to the cart - if the Ripper was in the yard, with a noisy club between him and the roadway and between him and Commercial Road, then I am pretty sure a horse and cart would get quite a way up before being noticed even with his ears pricked. Although it would be difficult to test.

Contemporary opinion seems to be that the Ripper was still in the yard and slipped out and away when Diemschutz went into the club. I see no compelling reason to doubt this as the most likely explanation.

[Wickerman]

If Stride was a Ripper victim, it stands to reason that her throat was cut preparatory to abdomunal and genital mutilation. So why was she found lying on her side rather than her back?

Comments were offered that some of the bodies appeared as if they had been laid out. As we have no idea how any of his victims initially fell to the ground, we might assume the first act was to turn them on their back in preparation for the second act..?

I'm not defending Stride as a Ripper victim. I did use to be quite convinced she was not, but recently I am more on the fence.

Regards, Jon S.

[Bigbellabongo]

Was it not the case that Mrs Mortimer heard measured footsteps go by her house which she thought was the policeman on the beat (which is was not, as it turned out) then shortly afterwards heard the horse and cart go by, then the murder discovered? Could that possibly be that Jack walked by her house after changing his mind about the location of his victim as it was too "busy" a location with no quick "getaway" route?
Another thing that bugs me. In the newspaper The Star, the reporter who interviewed Schwartz through an interpreter, says that Schwartz saw the man walking ahead of him, as if drunk, and the man passed Stride then stopped and turned back to her and started arguing and then pushed her to the ground, and she screamed three times, softly. Could a tipsy man have carried out all the nights events?

[Garry Wroe]

If Stride was a Ripper victim, it stands to reason that her throat was cut preparatory to abdomunal and genital mutilation. So why was she found lying on her side rather than her back?

[Wickerman]

Stride had almost certainly been soliciting in Berner Street for some time before she was killed.

Not only that, Stride appears to have been entertaining the same man for close to two hours (from "just before 11:00pm", until about 12:35am), either that or she had a thing for three separate men who all wore morning-coats, apparently all of similar age & height.
She may have been drawn to both the pub & the Club as a potential source of income for her that night, hovering around waiting for closing time.

However the timings seem to suggest, to me, that the BS man wasn’t the Ripper.

I'm inclined to agree, not that he couldn't have been her murderer. I'm just less in favour of someone continuing an assault & then murdering someone when he knows he has already been seen by passing witnesses.
To continue the assault for almost 15 more minutes would run the risk that the same passing witness might have called a passing policeman. In fact PC Smith was due back on his circuit around 01:05 am, so Smith was not far off.

A horse and cart may have been heard at some distance but I doubt as far as the end of Berner Street given the probable noise from the club.

As Diemschitz didn't notice anyone leave the yard when he approached, and neither as he climbed from his cart then either Stride was murdered several minutes before Diemschitz arrived, or the killer hid in the shadows further up the yard. One wonders if he blended into the growing crowd which filtered out from the Club?

Regards, Jon S.

[The Grave Maurice]

I agree that a pony and cart might have been heard by Stride's killer, but he certainly couldn't have seen them approaching. And I agree that Stride's killer had no reason to assume that Diemshutz was going to turn into Dutfield's Yard rather than simply continuing on down the street. He wouldn't have been alerted until the pony actually turned into the gateway---assuming that the killer was still there (which I believe he was).

[Ben]

A horse and cart may have been heard at some distance but I doubt as far as the end of Berner Street given the probable noise from the club.

I think it would have been heard and seen, Lechmere. Perhaps not by the average club-goer, but certainly by the killer (ripper?) whose eyes and ears were undoubtedly open to any intrusion. A southerly-bound horse and cart on Berner Street stood a better than average chance of passing Dutfield's Yard. As for Schwartz' appearance, yes, dragging Stride into the yard and slashing her throat is a possibility. Another is that he coaxed her into the yard with knife-persuasion under the pretext of robbery or free "service" etc. It doesn't seem likely that he'd leave her alive as one more potentially ripper-spotting witness. Like Ada Wilson, I suspect Stride was an occasion in which his post-mortem designs on the body were thwarted by external influences.

[Lechmere]

A horse and cart may have been heard at some distance but I doubt as far as the end of Berner Street given the probable noise from the club. And how would anyone know at that distance where the horse and cart was going?

If the killer was peturbed by Schwartz are you suggesting he slashed her throat in the street and dragged her corpse into the yard (blood trail?) or that he knocked her down, then dragged her into the yard, slashed her throat quickly and departed.

It doesn't seem right to me - it means he almost deliberately didn't mutilate and I would take that as an essential aspect. I would have expected him to have abandoned her still alive rather than kill her in what to him would have been an unsatisfactory manner. That is my reading of how he acted anyway.
My expectation is that he carried out several abortive attacks.

[Ben]

I don't see it as odd for Stride to be pushed over by a potential punter and then attacked by the Ripper say ten minutes later.

I consider it extremely unlikely, personally, Lechmere. It would have made Stride a particularly unfortunate Unfortunate!

As for BS being disturbed, the conventionally accepted version of events is that Diemschutz did the "disturbing". I tend to disagree. A horse and cart would have been seen and heard as soon as it turned onto Berner Street. The killer was far more likely perturbed at the appearance of Schwartz, and may have feared that the intruder would soon retrieve a constable. Remember that PC Smith passed the spot only ten minutes earlier.

All the best,
Ben

[Lechmere]

BS man's description is sufficiently vague to be almost anyone.
My problem is the timings - there's a 15 minutes lapse between Schwartz's sighting and the discovery. If it was the BS man he wasn't disturbed - simple. Even allowing for a bit of error in the timings.
I don't see it as odd for Stride to be pushed over by a potential punter and then attacked by the Ripper say ten minutes later.

[Ben]

If BS man wasn't the ripper, then Stride wasn't a ripper victim.

Unless Schwartz was lying, there is next to no chance that the man witnessed attacking her very shortly prior to her accepted time of death was anyone other than her killer. I've always considered myself rather unlucky, but to be attacked and then murdered by two separate, unrelated individuals one after the other in very close succession and in the same location takes bad luck to Jobian proportions.

It often happens that people dismiss the broad-shouldered man as Stride's killer because they accept her as a ripper victim, but are troubled by the fact that her likely assailant (BS) looks nothing like their favourite suspect, so they come up with an explanation that keeps both Stride and the favourite suspect in the frame.

Personally, I have no trouble whatsoever accepting Stride as a ripper victim, and that "BS" was the ripper. Yes, he would have been less cautious on this occasion, but then serial killers aren't robots.

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE]

Stride had almost certainly been soliciting in Berner Street for some time before she was killed. It is quite likely that the dark recesses of Duffield’s Yard was were she took her clients. Accordingly it is exactly in keeping with the other Ripper scenes of crime, no more or less risky than any of the others with the exception of Miller’s Court.
That he was seemingly almost caught in the act was an occupational hazard – he could easily have been caught in the act at any of the other scenes as well.
However the timings seem to suggest, to me, that the BS man wasn’t the Ripper.

I agree with this.

[Lechmere]

Stride had almost certainly been soliciting in Berner Street for some time before she was killed. It is quite likely that the dark recesses of Duffield’s Yard was were she took her clients. Accordingly it is exactly in keeping with the other Ripper scenes of crime, no more or less risky than any of the others with the exception of Miller’s Court.
That he was seemingly almost caught in the act was an occupational hazard – he could easily have been caught in the act at any of the other scenes as well.
However the timings seem to suggest, to me, that the BS man wasn’t the Ripper.

Here’s a thought on the graffiti chalk - children tended to use chalk for school. I’m sure they would also have used it to play hopscotch and such like.