Stride & Diemschutz

[c.d.]

There is absolutely no requirement that Stride had to have been actively soliciting that night in order to be a Ripper victim. She only had to interact with him one way or another.

c.d.

[Wickerman]

I'm only guessing about the hat. It's just that the pair walked off toward Ellen street, and later came back from that direction, so who knows where they'd been?

I can see various ways of describing the same hat like as either wideawake or billycock, but when comparing a cap with a peak to a hat with an all-round brim, it seems such a stretch to me that one could be mistaken for the other.

One detail I came across not too long ago was that the wideawake was known in some circles as "a Yankee hat", precisely the words used by A.C.B. in his summary of Packer's statement.
All this time I thought he meant a western-style like cowboy hat, but it's just the American version of the Bowler - a Wideawake.
This makes Packer's suspect look more like PC Smith's suspect - hard felt hat, as he described in his first statement (not the deerstalker).

So the real issue is, who the board school couple are?
...

It's possible we have two other couples in Berner St.
The pair seem by Mortimer at the corner by the Board School may be different from the ones who spoke to the press.

Whereas Mortimer places them at the corner...
"A young man and his sweetheart were standing at the corner of the street, about twenty yards away, before and after the time the woman must have been murdered, but they told me they did not hear a sound."

The girl, when interviewed says:
From twelve o'clock till half-past a young girl who lives in the street walked up and down, and within twenty yards of where the body was found, with her sweetheart.

"We heard nothing whatever," she told a reporter this morning. "I passed the gate of the yard a few minutes before twelve o'clock alone. The doors were open, and, so far as I could tell, there was nothing inside then." "I met my young man (she proceeded) at the top of the street, and then we went for a short walk along the Commercial-road and back again, and down Berner-street. No one passed us then, but just before we said "Good night" a man came along the Commercial-road; and went in the direction of Aldgate."

I'm not convinced myself that they are two different couples, but Tom Wescott was of the opinion that they were, at the time we talked about it.
Something to consider I guess.

[Losmandris]

It is pure speculation that this murder was linked with any other during the time and place these occur, and you seem ok with taking a simple, single cut throat wound and assuming the culprit was a killer who double cut all previous victims throats and extracted a uterus from one victim cleanly..."with no meaningless cuts".

Like assuming a man who can bend a paper clip is a highly skilled steelworker.

Mmmmm. I don't think I agree with you there. This was a pretty specific approach even as throat slitting goes. Likely rendered unconscious first, laid on the floor and then throat cut. This was no domestic, whoever did had a very keen sense of what they were doing and in my eyes this is too similar to the others not to be done by the same hand. I think the double/single cut is irrelevant and think, with all due respect, if that is what you use to exclude Stride from the list, you are being way too blinkered.

[Michael W Richards]

Could not agree more with you Caz. This was not just any old throat cutting, this was do in a specific way for a specific purpose. I always think that if this was a domestic murder or murder by a disgruntled punter she would have been stabbed. There are just enough similarities to have me convinced this was the same man who killed the others. I think it would be a whole different kettle of fish if we had a murder similar to Tabram turn up in the middle of things but we don't we have a similar MO, just no follow up mutilations. I think if Stride had taken him or JtR had taken her to a quieter place, I think it would be a different story here, maybe Eddowes would not have ended up murdered?

It is pure speculation that this murder was linked with any other during the time and place these occur, and you seem ok with taking a simple, single cut throat wound and assuming the culprit was a killer who double cut all previous victims throats and extracted a uterus from one victim cleanly..."with no meaningless cuts".

Like assuming a man who can bend a paper clip is a highly skilled steelworker.

[Wickerman]

Check the length of streetwalkers skirts in historical records, part of the bait was that new shorter hem profile.

It would really help if you could post an image or a link to show what you mean. I thought it was widely understood in Victorian society that women cannot show any leg, unless on stage in a theatrical context.

[Losmandris]

Maybe she shook him off after their encounter at The Bricklayers Arms, only to have the misfortune of him finding her again an hour and half later? By which stage he may have taken a slight on his character to not have been allowed to get what he wanted from her.

She senses all is not right. On the wind is the music of the nearby socialist club. It sounds Russian. She tries to subtlety negotiate her way there, but he won’t leave her be. There might be just enough people around to scare him away. She doesn’t see anyone. She can hear the music clearly now. If only she could get to the club, she will feel much safer.

”It’s not Jack. They said he was a Jew!” she convinces herself. “He is just another pestering man on the street who cannot take no for an answer.”

She crosses the road at pace. The soft soles of her boots barely make a sound against the damp cobbles.

She is almost there. Too late.

This certainly sounds plausible to me.

Be of a flight of fantasy here but what if because she is being hassled she approaches BS man for help, he is not buying it so flings her to the ground. She then heads to the club to try and get help there. JtR is following her and worries that somehow she has worked out who he is, so decides to take her out in the yard, where she has fled to?

[Losmandris]

Same applies to whoever killed Stride - unless you believe it was suicide and she managed to throw the knife as far as Schwartz's railway arch before expiring.

If we think of where Stride was standing, and the time of night, it doesn't take much imagination to see why a man might jump to certain unsavoury conclusions about her, whether he ever used prostitutes - which I happen to think Jack did - or thoroughly disapproved of their presence in the area. I doubt most men's first thought would be that she had probably come to clean the club, or was waiting for her boyfriend to take her clubbing. They might have got her wrong, but then so might her killer.

A disgruntled punter could have killed her for rejecting his advances, wrongly perceiving her to be available, but once we allow for that reasonable possibility, it must surely follow that a disgruntled Jack could have done the same, and wrongly assumed she would agree to accompany him somewhere they were less likely to be disturbed.

If we didn't have the striking similarities between this case and the others, as described in the summing up at Stride's inquest, I'd be far more inclined to favour a disgruntled punter with a knife and a belly full of beer, teaching the woman a lesson she had no time to learn and he had no time to regret. But for me, the similarities make such a scenario - angry man, killing for the first and only time - considerably less likely than our active cut throat, using skills he had at his fingertips, and they can't simply be airbrushed out of the record.

Could not agree more with you Caz. This was not just any old throat cutting, this was do in a specific way for a specific purpose. I always think that if this was a domestic murder or murder by a disgruntled punter she would have been stabbed. There are just enough similarities to have me convinced this was the same man who killed the others. I think it would be a whole different kettle of fish if we had a murder similar to Tabram turn up in the middle of things but we don't we have a similar MO, just no follow up mutilations. I think if Stride had taken him or JtR had taken her to a quieter place, I think it would be a different story here, maybe Eddowes would not have ended up murdered?

[Wickerman]

According to police files, Packer described the flower as;

"she was playing with a flower like a geranium white outside & red inside"

A general observation appears to be born out by the question - what type of flower was she wearing?
Men are notoriously bad at identifying flowers.


[if I recall, we have a Rose, a Dahlia, a maiden fern & the Geranium]

[Michael W Richards]

So did Nichols and Chapman wear mini skirts? I'm not getting the point about skirt length. This was 1888, not the 1960s. The 'flower arrangement' and cachous could have been gifts from a stranger in return for empty promises, for all you know. And even a prostitute would use a clothes brush if she had access to one.

Check the length of streetwalkers skirts in historical records, part of the bait was that new shorter hem profile. Plus it makes for heavy lifting of the skirts from front or back. You speculate that she might have been given the flowers and cashous when you already have evidence that she left the lodginghouse with 6d and didnt have any money on her when found. She didnt drink it, and I believe their was no recent meal detected. But youd rather incorporate some unfounded speculation than follow the bread crumb trail there to your answer as to how she obtained these items.

Its that you reach all the time, your not content to try and make sense of whats there on the page so you imagine how far you can go to continue to propagate the mythology of Jack the Ripper that youve embraced.

There is no evidence that Liz Stride was soliciting the night she was killed, nor is there such evidence for Kate, ... such evidence exists with Mary, but by a discredited witness. The morning witnesses, who were mistaken, didnt have her activities the previous night info.

My point here is that you can discard the fact that only the first 2 of the five alledged Canonical victims can be said to have met their killer as a result of what they were doing at that moment in time. But it may well be a key component for the killer of the first 2 women. Opportunistic. Trawling.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

So which couple did James Brown see? Stride and companion, or Mortimer's couple?

JB: When I had nearly finished my supper I heard screams of "Murder" and "Police." This was a quarter of an hour after I had got home. I did not look at any clock at the chandler's shop. I arrived home first at ten minutes past twelve o'clock, and I believe it was not raining then.

Both! He just got a little confused about who he'd seen, and when.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Re: Grapes sale time

William Marshall sets the early bound:

I saw the body of the deceased on Sunday. I saw her on the Saturday evening. She was in our street about three doors from where I am living. It was then about 11.45. She was standing talking to a man on the pavement.

So then we allow for some amount of time before reaching the shop...

WM: When they left they went in the middle if the road in the direction of Ellen street.
MP: ... a man and woman came up Berner street from the direction of Ellen street, and stopped outside my window looking at the fruit.

So getting on for midnight or later, at this stage.

For the late bound, we need to look at two things:

One: The early sweetheart couple, in the Echo:

From twelve o'clock till half-past a young girl who lives in the street walked up and down, and within twenty yards of where the body was found, with her sweetheart.

She says:

I passed the gate of the yard a few minutes before twelve o'clock alone. The doors were open, and, so far as I could tell, there was nothing inside then. I met my young man at the top of the street, and then we went for a short walk along the Commercial-road and back again, and down Berner-street.

So I doubt Stride and man are at Packer's shop, and then outside the yard, around midnight.
Probably more like when the couple are walking along Commercial Rd.

Two: Wess

W: I left the club for home at a quarter-past twelve.
C: Where did you go when you left?
W: To my lodgings, 2, William-street, Cannon-street-road.
C: Did you meet anybody in Berner-street?
W: I can't recollect; but as I went along Fairclough-street, close by, I noticed some men and women standing together.
C: Did you see no one nearer?
W: No, sir.

So Stride and man don't seem to be near the shop or yard this late, but perhaps they are on Fairclough street.

Considering all the above, I put the sale time in the region; 12:00-12:15

So can this be tested, in any way? Maybe!

I put the time of discovery at about 12:55, and time of murder at about 12:50, with ToD roughly in the middle.
That is just early enough to make sense of Smith's timing, and the fixed point end of shift time - 1am.

Now to the Evening News:

There are no suppositions or probabilities in the story we have to tell; we put forward nothing but simple facts, each substantiated by the evidence of credible witnesses. What they go to establish is that the perpetrator of the Berner street crime was seen and spoken to whilst in the company of his victim, within forty minutes of the commission of the crime and only passed from the sight of a witness TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE MURDER and within ten yards of the scene of the awful deed.

So what time would be forty minutes before the crime?

12:50 minus 40 minutes = 12:10

Theory validated?

By the way, ten minutes before the murder = 12:40 = Smith

[Joshua Rogan]

According to police files, Packer described the flower as;

"she was playing with a flower like a geranium white outside & red inside"

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Hmm, but you weren't there, he was.
In fact, Packer's confusion was that he might have sold them earlier, not later.
The reason the earlier hour was incorrect is because we know Stride was at the Bricklayer's Arms about 11:00.

Right

This is why we can accept his later estimate.

... is closer to the truth.

Now you want to suggest an even later time?

Yes. More on that shortly.

Ah, the old 'discredit the witness' angle. He was in his fifties.

.....

You're joking, right? The side-by-side comparison shows an uncanny similarity, which I'm sure you can see.
Take into account that the eyes might not have been what they used to be, it's dark, and the observation is through a small window, and the similarities between the two accounts are as close as could be expected, and I doubt two 20 year-olds would get closer.

It certainly would, but you suggest he had a reason to change his cap to a hat, then give Stride back the flower she had been wearing at the Bricklayer's Arms?
He took it off her, then gave it back just before he buy's the grapes?
I'll bet you've never stuffed a large flower in your pocket and expect it to not lose the petals. Of course, any rational reason as to why he would even want do this may be even more captivating.

I'm only guessing about the hat. It's just that the pair walked off toward Ellen street, and later came back from that direction, so who knows where they'd been? Although I doubt they went to help Mrs Schwartz with the unpacking!

The flower sequence seems to be; Dahlia at Bricklayer's Arms > white flower at Packer's shop > red Rose in yard
As the Dahlia could have been red and white, did Packer only see the white? That was the reasoning of the Evening News. Yet that would probably require a change of flower by murder time. Well, there may have been updates to the flower arrangement, during the evening.
Alternatively, there may have been a small bouquet of red and white flowers, and Packer only noticed a white one - the one she were playing with. This flower may have ended up scattered in the yard, à la Rosenfield and Harstein.

Isn't it easier to just accept the couple seen by Marshall were some other couple, like the pair seen by Mrs Mortimer on the corner by the board school?

Mrs Mortimer:
"A young man and his sweetheart were standing at the corner of the street, about twenty yards away, before and after the time the woman must have been murdered, but they told me they did not hear a sound."

So the real issue is, who the board school couple are?

Okay, will have to loop back to the grapes sale time ...

[erobitha]

The reality is you cannot take everyone’s account, put it together and it tells the whole story. It clearly doesn’t.

You can take elements of witness accounts and cherry pick the elements you believe are most likely to be true and weave the potential story that way.

I have a scenario in my mind which dismisses Schwartz entirely (until there is proof he even existed). I also swap the timing of James Brown and PC Smith. This indicates she could have been hassled and was last spotted opposite the club. I include Marshall as his sighting was very close to the George IV pub. I take Mortimer into account with the exclusion of her talking to the couple after. How did she? I believe they were Jack & Stride. Packers sighting could have been just after The Bricklayers Arms, jury is out for me on him. He positively ID her at the mortuary, but then his subsequent story of being stalked by Jack himself, does play to the notion that he was a fantasist.

We just have to accept some kind of composite of the descriptions as being close to the truth. A deerstalker hat seems very odd for Whitechapel unless it was more common that I give credit for.

You can definitely map a possible chain of events that are likely from the above.

[Wickerman]

Yeah, but Packer was a little confused about the actual time.
I think it were actually a little later, and not just because of the time given by Marshall.

Hmm, but you weren't there, he was.
In fact, Packer's confusion was that he might have sold them earlier, not later.
The reason the earlier hour was incorrect is because we know Stride was at the Bricklayer's Arms about 11:00. This is why we can accept his later estimate.
Now you want to suggest an even later time?

As you know, Packer was almost an old man, for that era.

Ah, the old 'discredit the witness' angle. He was in his fifties.

.....

The main issue would be the headwear, although it's possible that were changed at some point. Like the flower?

It certainly would, but you suggest he had a reason to change his cap to a hat, then give Stride back the flower she had been wearing at the Bricklayer's Arms?
He took it off her, then gave it back just before he buy's the grapes?
I'll bet you've never stuffed a large flower in your pocket and expect it to not lose the petals. Of course, any rational reason as to why he would even want do this may be even more captivating.

Isn't it easier to just accept the couple seen by Marshall were some other couple, like the pair seen by Mrs Mortimer on the corner by the board school?

Mrs Mortimer:
"A young man and his sweetheart were standing at the corner of the street, about twenty yards away, before and after the time the woman must have been murdered, but they told me they did not hear a sound."