6d. Did Liz spend it, or die for it?

[lynn cates]

a few minutes

Hello Gwyneth. Thanks.

"the killer had evidently just attacked when Diemschutz's horse shied"

Not so evident. What IS evident is that it was a matter of only a few minutes.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Jack talk

Hello (yet again) CD. Thanks.

"What if Liz did or said something to really provoke and anger Jack and he deliberately cut her the way he did. Maybe he walked away, looked over his shoulder and said "enjoy bleeding to death, bitch.""

Quite possible, given the truth of BSM.

So whence the "Jack" talk?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

explaining

Hello (again) CD.

"I just don't get this fixation on the depth of the knife cuts. Was Jack trying to kill his victims or was he attempting to be listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for deepest or most consistent knife cuts? Are we to believe that he was aware of the depth of the previous cuts and tried to be consistent?"

Actually, when I pour tea or coffee, I don't try to be consistent--I just pour. And ALWAYS with the same hand. And, as it turns out, ALWAYS the same one. So when someone sees a beverage being poured with a different hand, it may be concluded that I am NOT the one pouring.

"Couple that with very plausible and very possible explanations for the disparities. Maybe Liz's scarf got in the way."

It did. And the edge was cut.

"Maybe she turned a certain way just as he cut. Maybe Jack's hand was sweaty and his grip slipped a bit. There are just too many variables. Maybe if the previous cuts looked like they were done with a small pen knife and Liz's cut looked like it had been done with a machete I might be willing to give the inconsistencies more weight."

Doubt it. I think your heart is set on "Jack."

"But he accomplished his goal . . ."

Absolutely. Interruption theory be hanged.

". . . and any disparity can easily be explained away."

See, and I prefer to EXPLAIN things, NOT explain them AWAY.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

accomplishment

Hello CD. Thanks.

"Well for being a "relatively shallow cut" it sure accomplished a lot did it not?"

Yes, her death. And I believe that is ALL that was wanted to be accomplished.

Cheers.
LC

[curious4]

Double

Hello CD.

"Now if you picked the former option and think that Jack would run then ask yourself if it is because he would be afraid he would be caught and hanged. Now with the whole idea of hanging firmly entrenched in your mind, ask yourself if there is really a huge difference between actually seeing the men rush out of the club and thinking that they might do so at any moment."

So then, he did not wish to be hanged so he skipped strangulation and a cut like Polly and Annie? Just one relatively shallow cut--as an appetiser?

OK.

Cheers.
LC

Hello Lynn,

Does beg the question whether Jack was deliberately going for two that night. As for being interrupted, Liz's face was still warm, as were her arms, I believe, blood was still flowing from her neck, the killer had evidently just attacked when Diemschutz's horse shied and if it hadn't, the chances are that he could just have waited in the darkness until Diemschutz had gone in and then carried on.

As for women going out alone, they did, even the respectable middleclass ones, as we can see from the letter to one of the newspapers complaining that a woman guest had been so frightened by the newspaper vendors that she had to take a cab home because she would have had to have walked a couple of hundred yards alone down a quiet street if she had taken the bus.

Best wishes,
C4

[c.d.]

Hello Lynn, (yet again)

Let's take a look at the relatively shallow cut as you call it, although Liz might tend to disagree with you.

Could it have been intentional? What if Liz did or said something to really provoke and anger Jack and he deliberately cut her the way he did. Maybe he walked away, looked over his shoulder and said "enjoy bleeding to death, bitch."

Not a completely unrealistic possibility.

c.d.

[c.d.]

Hello again, Lynn,

I just don't get this fixation on the depth of the knife cuts. Was Jack trying to kill his victims or was he attempting to be listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for deepest or most consistent knife cuts? Are we to believe that he was aware of the depth of the previous cuts and tried to be consistent?

Couple that with very plausible and very possible explanations for the disparities. Maybe Liz's scarf got in the way. Maybe she turned a certain way just as he cut. Maybe Jack's hand was sweaty and his grip slipped a bit. There are just too many variables. Maybe if the previous cuts looked like they were done with a small pen knife and Liz's cut looked like it had been done with a machete I might be willing to give the inconsistencies more weight. But he accomplished his goal and any disparity can easily be explained away.

c.d.

[c.d.]

Hello Caz,

Your point about not wanting to be around when/if her date shows up is a good one. Like the interruption argument, it doesn't need to be proved to be a plausible explanation for the lack of mutilations.

c.d.

[c.d.]

Hello Lynn,

Well for being a "relatively shallow cut" it sure accomplished a lot did it not?

c.d.

[lynn cates]

anticipated interruption?

Hello CD.

"Now if you picked the former option and think that Jack would run then ask yourself if it is because he would be afraid he would be caught and hanged. Now with the whole idea of hanging firmly entrenched in your mind, ask yourself if there is really a huge difference between actually seeing the men rush out of the club and thinking that they might do so at any moment."

So then, he did not wish to be hanged so he skipped strangulation and a cut like Polly and Annie? Just one relatively shallow cut--as an appetiser?

OK.

Cheers.
LC

[Abby Normal]

I dont think Stride was on a date (or waiting for her date) nor do I think she was prostituting herself that night. i take the middle ground-i think she was out looking for a new boyfriend. I think she found one, but unfortunately for her it was the ripper. And since she was not prostituting herself is why she ended up with only a cut throat and not mutilated.

i beleive she may have spent her 6d on some cachous and a flower to make herself attractive to a new potential mate.

[caz]

The reason I said there was more evidence for Stride's killer being interrupted than there was for a different knife being used was that there is no evidence at all in the latter case. I was being flippant because we see this canard trotted out time after time to argue for a different killer.

I'm not wedded to the interruption theory, as reading my numerous posts on Stride would show; it's just one of the many plausible options before we start introducing a second cut-throat with some unknown motive for wanting the poor woman dead. Isn't the one nasty piece of work enough to be going on with, unless some evidence turns up to eliminate him from the Berner St enquiry or put someone else in the frame?

When, as c.d. has explained, there can be no physical evidence of something, eg a sight or sound that would have sent a criminal running rather than be caught at the scene, we can only look at the time constraints we do know about, the limitations of the location, and the narrow window of opportunity that the killer would have had to do much more than cut and run.

It doesn't really matter whether Stride's killer was the ripper or not; we know he did nothing to her after the single slice which left her dying but not instantly dead. That suggests he could not risk staying with the body a second longer to make sure he had done the job. In either case that warrants an explanation, and there has to be one. Furthermore, if as some people have strenuously argued, Stride was on a hot date and was waiting for her new beau to turn up any second (or at least gave the impression that she was expecting company), that would have been a pretty good reason for her killer not to hang around to find out if he was a seven stone weakling or built like a brick shi* house. Maybe she told her killer to get lost because he was queering her pitch.

I think the term 'superficial' is overused too, in an attempt to play down the severity (and therefore any similarity with other victims) when describing what was after all a fatal cut to the throat. (It's like someone dies and their family is asked "was it serious?" ) The surgical term 'superficial' is from the Latin, as we might expect, and refers to a cut on or across the surface of the skin. No matter how shallow we might like to think such a cut was, if it proved fatal it would suggest a killer who knew what he was doing and had cut throats before, rather than one who was killing for the first time, knew his victim and therefore needed her stone dead so she couldn't identify him, but then just left her there, presuming that his single slash would finish her off. Only the ripper, or a total stranger, could have been confident about doing that.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I think you are right, but there are a couple of camps that think this is a matter in need of settling. One is the "Defending Liz's Honor" group, who have taken the matter very personally, for some reason. The other is a group of people who have various theories that in one way or another depend on JTR singling out prostitutes. For some, it's a matter of proving that Stride was, in fact, a Ripper victim. If JTR targeted prostitutes, and Stride was, in fact, soliciting, then it follows that she was a Ripper victim. Yes, I realize that it does not follow at all, but you see the problem if Stride was not soliciting-- in that case she absolutely cannot be a Ripper victim. For others, it's a matter is proving a psycho-sexual motive for JTR-- prostitutes triggered something in him. I realize that for that argument to work, it does not actually matter whether Stride was soliciting, it only matter that the killer thought she was, but I suppose when you go all Freudian, men are very passive, and women have to act to trigger things like sexual homicide, so the assumption is that the women approached JTR.

I am not endorsing any of that last bit, and I'm not sure a lot of people realize they are making that leap, but the Freudian "psycho" does require the woman to initiate contact, even if it's innocent, like asking for the time, or if this bus stops on Sundays. We're so used to seeing that Freudian "psycho" in the media, that we automatically incorporate it into theories of real crimes without realizing it.

I think the important thing was that Stride was alone, and I think that was important whether she was killed by the Ripper, by a copycat, a mugger, or by Michael Kidney. I think that's what made Eddowes vulnerable as well, whether she was open to the idea of making money through prostitution or not. It does not matter whether Stride was alone because she was early for her date, he was late, or she was stood up-- or she, was, in fact, soliciting, and maybe going for a better class than usual that night; the point is that she was alone, and women in 1888 did not habitually go out in the evening alone. Even for several decades, it still wasn't quite acceptable for women to go out alone, and you see movies made in the 1930s where women talk about being "stuck" at home because no one has asked them out that evening. I remember having to explain a point of the movie Gaslight to someone, where Ingrid Bergman wants to go to a party, but can't unless her husband is willing to take her. Eddowes, we know, was alone because she'd just been released from jail. Nichols we know was soliciting. Chapman we have good reason to think was, and in any event, she had no where to go.

That's really all that matters. They were women, alone, after dark. Probably frail; all except Kelly were short, middle-aged, and either not in great health, or else very petite, and a couple were drunk, or appeared so.

A very good post, Rivkah.

Actually, it took all my courage as late as 1978 to go to a movie on my own, and I only ever did it the once, so you make a good point about women out on their own. I believe the Yorkshire Ripper tried to justify his later attacks on non-prostitutes that way, by saying the women were asking for trouble if they went out alone, wore short skirts, and so on.

A killer who was determined to judge women in this way would have seen Stride as "no better" than a Nichols or a Chapman, regardless of any differences we might perceive today.

Love,

Caz
X

[Wickerman]

..... who described a "different" knife than the one that killed Polly and Annie.

I don't recall any medical opinion which suggested the knife 'was' different.
One slicing wound is much the same as any other regardless of the length or width of the blade.

.

[c.d.]

I think we have lost track of the basic argument here. There is no way that we can prove that an interruption took place. The basic question is, and always has been, if Jack was her killer, is an interruption a possible reason that he did not mutilate her body? If you say no that is the end of the argument. But if you say yes, then a series of questions follow: what might have caused the interruption, would there be evidence for it or could it have happened without leaving evidence behind, are there any examples of criminals being interrupted, are there any examples of serial killers being interrupted, does the fact that her killer (if it was Jack) would most likely be hanged if caught carry any weight and so on. It seems to me that the best way to approach the case is to look at the interruption theory and ask questions about its plausibility rather than simply dismiss it out of hand.

c.d.