Throat-slitting and Stride

[lynn cates]

forensic reconstruction

Hello Michael. Actually, it is merely a matter of forensic reconstruction.

If Liz had been between gate and building, all bets would be off.

She was not.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Ask, and ye shall be . . . confused.

Hello (again) CD. Thanks.

"You ask the was she soliciting while with Kidney question as though you know the answer. I certainly don't know but I would not be surprised if that were the case, if only occasionally and maybe without him knowing it."

What? Someone who knew her well and did not know whether she were soliciting? Good thing the coppers did not ask HIM! (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

gnosis

Hello CD. Thanks.

No doubt her friends would have known EXACTLY what she was doing at all times.

Cheers.
LC

[Stephen Thomas]

Love all of you for caring about a horror 125 years old that we WILL solve eventually.
Yours truly deadstrings1969

Dead right. That's why most of us are here.

The L word doesn't get used here often and it's nice to see it.

[Observer]

It was you who stuck your nose in pal. I was replying to Mike Richards when you offered your opinion.

Observer - as caz wrote yesterday (I think): These are public boards and public discussions. I'll continue to stick my elbow in as and when I see fit, irrespective of bullies like you.

Your snide remarks even appeared in the east End pics thread - and I note from the e-mail version sent to me automatically that you removed a highly personal comment from it! I think that was advisable.

So don't come all holier than thou, perlease!!!

Someone has to stand up to you.

Phil

Phil- Casebook message boards are indeed all you make them out to be. The reason I commented about you sticking your nose in , was a direct response to you telling me to GET OFF YOUR BACK. I was merely pointing out that it was you who initiated the exchanges between us.

The reason I made the comment in the other thread was
a) the response you made to my comment was in my opinion provocative
b) It came after you had thrown a strop, and told me to GET OFF YOUR BACK.

By the way, I encourage posters to stick up to me, as you say this is a public forum. The thing is Phil I can take criticism, unlike you. I tell you, if I had a quid for each occasion that you had thrown a strop, and exiled yourself from this forum, I'd be a wealthy man. You've made more comebacks than Billy Bongo's boomerang.

Oh, and by the way, regarding bullying. Not once have my comments resulted in a fellow poster leaving this forum. Something of which you are guilty of.

[Stephen Thomas]

Hello CD.

My summary:

"Liz on a date - she could have been killed by extra-terrestrials.

Liz soliciting - she could have been killed by extra-terrestrials."

Hello Lynn

Rather lax use of quotation marks there, my friend.

[The Good Michael]

This murder makes Canonical believers argue that there was an interruption despite the lack of evidence for that conclusion

lack of evidence? In a small mind, maybe. The cart came up to the gate about the time of the murder. The death was so very recent that it could have been anytime between a few seconds and several minutes that she was killed. Stride, if believed to have been a soliciting prostitute as many contemporaries did, fits closely with the other victims generally speaking. She was killed in a darkened area nearly up against a gate. This is also similar to the others. At a time when throat-cutting of older female prostitutes was a seldom occurrence as shown by many researchers, the interruption theory logically answers the question of why she wasn't mutilated, and why another was more savagely mutilated than the others who came before. If this is putting the cart before the horse, then so be it, but to conclude that there is lack of evidence is daft and simple-minded. At worst and until other things are known, this is a 50/50 or greater proposition.

Mike

[Michael W Richards]

Hello again,

I agree with some of the comments on the issue of whether or not Liz was soliciting at the time of her death, its not the defining characteristic one can use to include or dismiss her as a "Ripper" victim. I think the first 2 victims were chosen because they were actively soliciting alone, but the same killer might have just assumed Liz was too....as many here do. It is likely very relevant to the question of WHY she was killed.

What I cannot understand is a belief that a "Ripper" killed her. Using only the physical evidence and setting aside the circumstantial, there is nothing on which to base that assumption. No evidence of Ripping...or attempts to do anything other than kill.

This murder makes Canonical believers argue that there was an interruption despite the lack of evidence for that conclusion or that a Ripper, who cuts throats in a specific manner and then mutilates his victims, might just choose not to. Without a catalyst for that decision, such as an interruption..which again, isn't present in the evidence, there seems to be little basis for that to be considered the most probable case.

Cheers

[The Good Michael]

No one is arguing - at least I am not -that Stride was not a prostitute at some time. My point is that I believe the evidence strongly suggests that she was NOT soliciting that night.

To my question then: What does it matter? Do you think if Liz had not been soliciting that particular night, it wasn't JTR's handiwork? And would that mean that you believe the victims sought out Jack and not the other way around? If that is the case, does it end there, i,e, someone else killed her end of story? Or do you have an angle in mind?

Mike

[Phil H]

It was you who stuck your nose in pal. I was replying to Mike Richards when you offered your opinion.

Observer - as caz wrote yesterday (I think): These are public boards and public discussions. I'll continue to stick my elbow in as and when I see fit, irrespective of bullies like you.

Your snide remarks even appeared in the east End pics thread - and I note from the e-mail version sent to me automatically that you removed a highly personal comment from it! I think that was advisable.

So don't come all holier than thou, perlease!!!

Someone has to stand up to you.

Phil

[Phil H]

If I had to guess, I would expect that the police spoke to her friends and acquaintances as opposed to perfect strangers who didn't know Liz. Since the police report described her as a prostitute (or was it unfortunate), I would expect that that was the description given by those who knew her. I suppose it is possible that the people they spoke to described her as a nun or a shopkeeper and that somehow got changed in the police report to prostitute. Maybe by those pesky extra-terrestrials that seem to inhabit your posts.

But in many cases we know of in that autumn, the friends and associates of the woman concerned, tried hard to put a good gloss on the reputation of the deceased - Chapman and Eddowes are good examples.

So I would expect a positive "spin" from those the police interviewed, and what do we see - many accounts that Stride was a clean woman, who tried to make her way charring etc.

Indeed, if anything she seems to have had a side career as a con-woman of some talent!

No one is arguing - at least I am not -that Stride was not a prostitute at some time. My point is that I believe the evidence strongly suggests that she was NOT soliciting that night.

And the point is important - not only were most of the other victims (Nichols, Chapman, maybe Kelly - Eddowes I am unsure of) working the streets on the nights they died, but that seems to have been the type "Jack" sought out.

When she died Stride was carefully dressed, had a flower and cashous - quite different, I think, from the dudge-like and scruffy Polly, Annie, and Kate.

Phil

[Phil H]

Welcome deadstrings1969. Enjoy Casebook.
A thoughtful first post - though I don't agree your conclusion.

I hope to see many more posts from you.

Phil

[deadstrings1969]

First post,
I feel deeply that Liz was a victim of opportunity and was attributed to to the killer.The press at the time stirred up so much interest with detail in the case that anyone with a grudge against a woman could have been a copycat. I feel she had her throat slit only was due to the media of the time and not just because he was interrupted. The timing of the what I believe to be a journalists letter about the ear clipping is just opportunistic. Meanwhile the killer who lived in the center of this carnival atmosphere was a short distance away working on his evolving "art". Not W.S. I truly believe that Jacob Levy was the guy. Not just because of the Sherlock game though it made me investigate more deeply into him as a serious suspect.

Love all of you for caring about a horror 125 years old that we WILL solve eventually.
Yours truly deadstrings1969

[Lechmere]

Some people romanticise about the victims and don’t want to believe they were prostitutes.
To them, if they were prostitutes then they might be deserving their fate in some small way and so that possibility must be resisted.
Of course, whether they were prostitutes or not, their fate was not deserved. In fact their prostitute status is or should be irrelevant so far as that aspect is concerned.
Other people might wish Stride not to have been acting as a prostitute so they can play creative ‘what if’ games…
What if she was hanging around waiting to start her cleaning shift at the Berner Street Club.
What if she was a spy reporting back to Okhrana and she was eliminated by a Jewish Anarchist.
What if she was waiting to have her portrait painted by Toulouse Lautrec.
What if she was waiting for her literature class with Lewis Carroll.
Etc etc etc

[Observer]

Jack The Ripper

Maybe I can't find this information, or I haven't been willing to wade through all the tedious posts regarding this, but what does it matter if Stride was soliciting or not on the night of her murder? Is it the idea that JTR never would have approached her on that particular night? Or is it the belief that the victims actively solicited JTR and that led to their demise? Is it the belief that there was no JTR and this would be another feather in the cap of those few people who follow that path?

Mike

The fact is Michael those so called open minded individuals who post here, who like to believe they look at all angles fairly in order to arrive at (in their minds) an approximation of the truth, are invariable those with an agenda. They feel compelled to argue that Liz Stride was not soliciting on the night of her murder. Lord forbid if she was, for then there is a good possibility that she fell victim to Jack The Ripper. And we can't have that. He didn't exist you know.

I have never stated that I am 100 per cent certain that Liz Stride was a victim of Jack The Ripper. What I have argued is that I firmly believe she was soliciting on the night of her murder, as did the police at the time.

As you imply, even if she was not soliciting on the night of her murder there is no reason why Jack The Ripper would not have approached her. The Whitechapel murderer was out and about that night, as was Stride, who spent the best part of an hour and a half in and around the Berner Street area. It's possible she fell foul of Jacks knife.

Regards

Observer