How about this quick theory!

[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

[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.

[Bigbellabongo]

Thanks Archaic - it's encouraging to to be welcomed on board! I agree that Jack was intimately knowledgeable of the neighbourhood, as I think he was from that very neighbourhood. But your statement raises an interesting point - how "planned" were his attacks? He was often on the verge of being discovered, so he seems in that respect to be driven by a strong urge to mutilate and kill, and so would take chances. With Annie Chapman, the bloke next door only had to look over the fence when he heard a bump against the fence to check out Jack at his work, and, as it proved, Berner St and Dutfield's yard had people appearing fairly regularly. Both he and the prostitute were looking for dark secluded places so that suited him. But, like you said, he seemed to know the area very well, as he always slipped away, so there would seem to be some pre-planning involved. He certainly set out with the equipment! Just an ordinary looking bloke who didn't draw attention to himself, it would seem. Not the crazed individual that the profiler/author John Douglas seems to suggest (much as I respect John Douglas and like his books) but someone who is a quick worker and knows how to "melt away" from the scene of his crime.

[Malcolm X]

My immediate thoughts :


If BS Man was 'Jack' , then that would be an enormous departure from his
other murders...normally he was very discreet and got his victim to the murder spot in the minimum time, with the minimum fuss.

,

Why would he want to draw such attention to himself and his 'intended victim' ?


Very possibly.


That's nearly impossible....everything indicates that Stride went willingly behind the gates with her killer.


The location could be the reason that Jack chose Dutfields Yard.
The place would have been much quieter if BS Man & Pipemen had kept themselves to themselves.

Well, I hope that he had a light (to write by, but also to illuminate the doorway). I'm glad to know that it was possible to find handy pieces of chalk, in the dark, at such an hour, when you needed them. And that he could write so quickly, so neatly, so smally, and so complicatedly.

We don't really know if any of the 'witnesses' actually saw him.

he lured his victims to their deaths/ or they lead him.... quietly with the minimum of fuss, yes this is because they willingly went with him for what they thought was sex, Stride was different, she was waiting in Dutfields for someone, she wasn't interested in BS.

BS was doing what he always did, stopping and talking to his intended victims and then leading them away, but no; LIZ wasn't having any of this, BS then looses his cool, he wasn't intending to mutilate at Dutfields at all, it's simply the location where he saw a possible victim.

he returns and kills her later, this is quite simple really, he just returns and enters the yard, cuts her in anger and walks off..... MAYBE

He's basically in a rage about something and he's lost control, he then walks off, calms down and searches for another victim.

JTR is not seen 5 mins later or disturbed by the cart returning, no it's pitch black and retatively quiet, JTR is joe average walking down the street, nobody really notices him, this isn't D'Onston, Tumblety, LA DE DA...... it's somebody who looks like Joe Barnett/ W.Bury, a docker, a sailor, a labourer.

with a 50 % error in eye witness description, added to this; the very real possibility that JTR changes his hat/ jacket between murders, then you will see this variation in appearence.

[Malcolm X]

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?

precisely, but this is not an intended mutilation, JTR is only interested in killing her, the mutilation is his next murder that night.

Eddowes would not have been killed if BS had been able to lure LIZ away from Dutfields, he failed and this seriously annoyed him.

The Graffito was strange, maybe the chalk writing was originally intended for the gates of Dutfields, maybe the piece of Apron/clothing was supposed to belong to LIZ and was to be placed by the gates...... i dont think so, but the fact that he had chalk with him is very interesting.

this tells me definitely, that he had something special planed for that evening, and this was planed as an anti-semetic murder; in advance!

he could have gone to Dutfields, just hoping on the offchance to see a woman lurking somewhere close by, any woman would do, he was willing to go right into Dutfields, as long as he could lure them far away, this is because he's still an innocent person, he's just chatting up a woman there that's all.

music, drunken blokes upstairs, probably a fair bet that maybe you'd get a few Tarts hanging around outside..... who knows!

the MJK murder is anti-semetic too, the LA DE DA description is deffo anti-semetric, i'm guessing and with good reason that the last 3 murders are all anti-semetic to an extent and committed by the same person.

[Malcolm X]

it's most strange to me that he was pulling her away from the yard, so i expect he lost his temper very quickly and said something like ``you're coming with me right now``

he then turned around saw Schwartz and shouted ``Lipski `` in anger, which means ``go on clear off``.

i'm now beginning to wonder if he did actually intend to target Dutfields, but lost his temper due to failing to lure LIZ away, because i have to say, however crazy it sounds, i'm quite happy with :- killing Liz close by, removing part of her dress, dumping it by the gates and leaving massive chalk writing on them.

just an idea, whatever the case, i'm still happy with BS being JTR

[c.d.]

If you're certain, then it would seem nothing could sway you, so I suppose a debate would be impossible. I'm not certain Liz lured her killer to the yard, but if Schwartz is to be believed, Stride was in fact standing in the gateway and speaking to men as they passed by, for whatever that's worth. If someone were to suggest that she was soliciting clients into the yard, they could hardly be accused of inventing a fantasy.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hello Tom,

I've never heard this before. What is the source for this? The official report or a newspaper article?

c.d.

P.S. Your article on Kidney was excellent but in some recent posts you seem to be suggesting that it is a proven fact that Kidney did not kill Liz. You showed that it was improbable but to state it as a fact is getting carried away. Just sayin'.

[c.d.]

And in any case, if Schwartz heard "Lipski", might the cry not have been "Lizzie"? As a non-English speaker Schwartz might not have known what he heard and have assumed things.

Phil

Hello Phil,

The Lizzie theory is intriguing but I don't think it makes a lot of sense. In a previous discussion of this I mentioned that I was crossing the street with the walk sign when a car sped by me and just missed hitting me. I responded by looking at the driver, making an obscene gesture and shouting "hey a**hole. I have no doubt that the BS man did the same thing to Schwartz. He wanted no interference from anybody,especially a Jew, and he made that quite clear.

c.d.

[c.d.]

]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.

Aw c'mon, Ben,

You know better than to make grandiose statements like this. You are assuming that all attacks are equal. It just ain't so. We have been through this a hundred times before. There is simply nothing out of the ordinary about a prostitute being hassled by a probaly drunken man. You are trying to make it seem like she was coming out of church on a sunny Sunday afternoon when this took place.

c.d.

[Bigbellabongo]

Schwartz, at time, thought that the assailant was shouting to the man lighting his pipe across the road. I think Schwartz got the feeling that the attacker either knew the pipe man or at least knew he would help him chase off a Jew, and he thought he better make himself scarce and so starting running down the road. According to The Star reporter, Schwartz said the pipe man had a knife. Did he run over and finish Stride off? Maybe to silence her in case him and his pal got done for the Ripper murders? Who knows. But the antisemitism shown by angrily shouting "Lipski" does tie in with the reference to Juwes on the wall of the Jewish lodgings in Goulston St after the Eddowes murder. I think Jack would obviously hear all the antisemitic talk going on round about him and thought it a good idea to frame a Jew. So he carried the bloody apron from Eddowes and dropped it deliberately several streets away, and just to make sure nobody was in any doubt as to who was "to blame", he chalked the message.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hello Tom,

I've never heard this before. What is the source for this? The official report or a newspaper article?

c.d.

I would have thought the source was obvious. Swanson wrote that Schwartz was following a man down Berner Street when he stopped and spoke to a woman in the gateway. As she would not have been visible to the man standing in the dark gateway, it stands to reason she spoke first.

P.S. Your article on Kidney was excellent but in some recent posts you seem to be suggesting that it is a proven fact that Kidney did not kill Liz. You showed that it was improbable but to state it as a fact is getting carried away. Just sayin'.

Thank you for that. The people who had a vested interest in solving the Stride murder and who were allotted such a task, the police, proved to their satisfaction that Kidney did not kill Stride. I cannot help if that’s not to the satisfaction of the modern-day theorist, but the evidence exonerating Kidney, as laid out in my article, is exceptionally strong, and the evidence that he killed Stride is nill. It doesn’t exist. It never has existed. As I was able to portray in my essay, the idea that Kidney killed Stride arises solely from errors made in books and an eagerness from suspect theorists to dispose of Stride as a Ripper victim. Discussing Kidney as a viable suspect in the murder of Stride would therefore require regurgitating the same errors and myths as though they were facts, and that’s a pointless exercise. If Kidney’s alibi to the police in 1888 was accepted as a fact by investigators, then his innocence was established at that time. Absolutely nothing in his subsequent history has come forth to suggest we should question the conclusions of the police. So no, I have overstated nothing.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

The Star report

Schwartz, at time, thought that the assailant was shouting to the man lighting his pipe across the road. I think Schwartz got the feeling that the attacker either knew the pipe man or at least knew he would help him chase off a Jew, and he thought he better make himself scarce and so starting running down the road. According to The Star reporter, Schwartz said the pipe man had a knife.

I imagine the Star report was placed there by the police. The replacement of the pipe with a knife, and casting Knifeman in the role of hero (when surely any journalist would have reached the opposite conclusion) were designed to bring Pipeman forth to explain himself and hopefully get more insight into what happened. The ruse didn't work and we're left with an article that seemingly casts doubt on Schwartz's credibility, which is a shame, because the smaller details are probably all correct.

The casting of him in the role of hero would help Pipeman relax and assume he was under no suspicion, whereby the knife would make him eager to step up and say 'it's a pipe!' lest suspicion should eventually fall on him. This worked well in the case of Fanny Mortimer, who's newspaper exposure brought for Leon Goldstein, so it was worth a try in bringing forth a potentially very important witness.

Just a thought.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Malcolm X]

yes this murder is a bastard to understand and it always has been

1.....was BS talking to Pipeman, ``there's a Jew get rid of him for me``
2.....did JTR come along later on
3.....is BS just a drunk
4.....is BS infact M.KIDNEY
5.....How come a few passers by missed her body, the timing is very tight

i wouldn't confuse yourself too much with no 5, or you'll get in a right mess

but for me, it's very odd that there's another slit throat/ mutilation that evening and like LIZ STRIDE, Eddowes is also very anti-Semetic, finally BS looks a bit too much like the Eddowes sailor boy.

Schwartz said that Stride was talking to men as they passed bye ? are you sure or was this tabloid bullshit, because Schwartz only saw BS and Pipeman, Schwartz followed BS who stopped and talked to her, Pipeman was further on at the road junction, so i doubt these two were a team.

my guess is Pipeman was rushing past Schwartz to maybe scare off BS, but was scared off too, he then retreated following Schwartz,
this makes him appear to be chasing after Schwartz, this bloke maybe had a knife, well if so then BS ( if JTR ) definitely did too !!!!

it's unfortunate that this murder is full of so many contradictions, it makes you wonder what these locals were like to miss so much.

[Tom_Wescott]

You can strike numbers 4 and 5 from the list, as Kidney wasn't her killer, and I'm not aware of anyone walking by her body. It's possible, but there's no reason to assume so.

And apparently I need to be more specific. I thought Swanson's notes were familiar to everyone. Schwartz watched BS MAN stop and speak to Stride, while Stride was in the gateway. I didn't mean 'men' in the actual plural' sence, merely that what Schwartz saw could possibly have been Stride soliciting. A careful view of the evidence suggests she likely was soliciting that night. Contrary to the postulations of Wicker Man, regurgitating Dave Yost, the man Stride was seen with by Best and Gardner and their third unnamed friend and the man seen with her near a pub by Marshall wore very different hats and at least the man seen by Marshall (and probably the other as well) were much older than the man seen with her by PC Smith. She had left Kidney, did not have his income, and needed to generate her own. The idea that she was not soliciting is strictly romance.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[c.d.]

Ok. Thanks for the explanation. I initially thought you meant someone other than BS man stopped and talked to Liz. That would be a whole different story. Got it now.

c.d.