What's the compelling feature?

[Fisherman]

Tom Wescott writes:
" she wasn't dragged into the yard that way. There would have been signs and she was carefully studied for signs of a struggle or what went on. Also, the scarf was pulled to the side, and if she were dragged, it would have instead been pulled tight under her chin and left a mark there. And of course she would have been dragged on either her front or back, not her side."

This is exactly how I see it too; she probably walked into that yard of her own free will, together with her killer. And he did not make his lethal move until they were well inside the gates, in the dark yard.

...meaning that we have a witness testimony from 12.45, or thereabouts, where she is manhandled by BS man. In the next ten minutes or so, she is killed inside the gates, after Schwartz and Pipeman had left the scene.
This means that there is precious little time to get rid of BS and bring Jack on the stage. If Jack was the perpetrator, we have to accept that Liz somehow rid herself of BS (who showed no signs whatsoever of any wish to get lost), who subsequently left the scene.
After that scare, Jack enters the scene - noticed by nobody - and smooth-talks her into a deal, suggesting to use the yard, where people were coming and going, managing all of this in VERY short time.
After this, he cuts her comparatively shallow, sets his pet interest aside by leaving her uneviscerated, and scampers off towards Mitre Square, leaving Stride in a fetal position that has nothing to do with the positioning of the other victims.
And for some unthinkable reason Stride judges the moment she enters the yard the correct time to bring out her cachous...?

Sorry, but it is NOT a credible scenario, and it is an even less credible outcome if you need to believe in Jack as her killer!
If she entered the yard willingly after the scare with BS man - and everything points to her doing so - she would do that only with somebody she felt at ease with, so much at ease, in fact, that she pulled out her cachous in his company.

If we accept that she knew BS man, we get our explanation to why he tried to drag her away from soliciting, we understand why she agreed to enter the yard with him, we have a plausible condition under which she took out her cachous, plus (and it is a HUUUUGE plus!) we gain the immense advantage of not having to bring a sadistic killer on stage who omitts to do his "thing" though he has the chance to - for we in fact have a witness sighting of a man with whom she had a row a mere minutes before she was found dead. It is the kind of sighting that belongs to every righteous policemans evening prayer. How lucky can you get?

More, much more, complicated cases than this one have been called clear cut, and for very good reasons too. It really is quite simple, once you allow yourself to let go of Jackīs grasp.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Jon Guy writes:

"The footway can also be mean a "passage for pedestrians".(Websters 1913)

The side of the passage that Stride was found also housed the built in door in the gate, and would have been the footway to the yard and club."

Canīt prove you wronghere, Jon - but my guess is that since the passage into yard was all muddy after the rain and resting in darkness, it would not have been what was described as the footway in this case. My money is on the pavement!

The best,
Fisherman

[FrankO]

Hi Ben,

The salient issue is that the presence of cahous in Stride's fist points away from a surprise attack from nowhere, not towards it.

I doubt if what you say is true. On a number of occassions I've seen it happen that people who suddenly fell while holding on to something ended up on the floor/ground still clutching whatever they were holding. It seems to be a instinct reaction. So, my view is that the cachous in combiation with the tightly knotted scarf do point to a suprise attack from behind while Stride was facing the gates.

All the best,
Frank

[FrankO]

Hi Mitch,

I strip away all witness statements and first use whatever I feel is there at the "Crimescene" to the best of my knowledge. What do I have then for Stride? Another murder occured less than an hour later wich is most likely another Ripper murder.
Thats about as pure as it gets. No way to fudge that up! At this point Im relatively sure this is JTR.

Is that what you see on Stride's crime scene: that another murder occurred less than an hour later which was most likely a Ripper murder? I hope I misunderstood you, because it'd be a bad approach if one's aim was to get an unbiased view of Stride's murder.

All the best,
Frank

[FrankO]

Hi Fisherman,

In Chapmans case, such a position would even be nigh on impossible to reach, since there was a fence in the way, remember.

But even if there had been room enough, another thing that would be rather hard to believe is that the left arm would remain lying over her breast while her body was being turned over on her back again from lying on her left side. Unless one believes that it was placed there afterwards, of course.

All the best,
Frank

[perrymason]

I think some caution is needed before placing too much reliance on the reports (in the Daily Telegraph and elsewhere) that Blackwell testified that Stride had been dead "From twenty minutes to half an hour when I arrived."

The Morning Advertiser gives a different version:
"I do not think the deceased could have been dead more than twenty minutes, or at the most half an hour when I saw her."

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/morning_advertiser/18881003.html

The Star of 1 October quotes Blackwell as saying, before he gave this testimony:
"She could not have been dead more than twenty minutes, the body being perfectly warm."

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/star/s881001.html

Whatever precisely Blackwell said, any estimate based on body temperature could be only very approximate.

Hi Chris,

I would disagree with your conclusions, as the statements attributed to Dr Blackwell onsite had the benefit of a watch, an examination, and clearly mean to indicate she was killed before 1am, but not more that 15 minutes before. It is not said that he used body temperature as his sole means of arriving at the time, so it very well might be based on his opinions as to when the blood stopped flowing based on the clots in the shed blood and include factors such as her temperature via a thermometer inserted in the anus.

I dont know exactly the criteria used, but I dont doubt that an estimate was well within his abilities, considering we are talking about a wound barely a half hour old and he was using a watch to make the estimate....therefore knowing full well that his estimate leads to the conclusion she was cut before 1am...perhaps as much as 10-14 minutes before, or as the outside time indicates, at the very latest, 4 minutes before Diemshutz arrives.

To suggest that a Senior Medical Authority would not be able to approximately pin down the time of a cut less than 1/2 hour old is making a statement about his abilities I see no reason to assume.

And the other senior opinion had her possibly killed earlier than that, but certainly no later.

His times were fair, within his grasp, and alone defy the suggestion that her murderer was "interrupted" by an arrival at 1am. And the disposition of her body and clothing show no signs of actions taken that were stopped suddenly.

I think concluding anything else regarding his estimates is to declare him incapable of setting an approximate time range of a cut less than 31 minutes old. His range is a full 33% of the overall time elapsed. Hes not setting a time specifically, just setting the time parameters for what happened to her, and when.

You can assume he was incapable of setting that range if you like, but I know of no reason to doubt his ability to estimate TOD, particularly when the corpse was likely still quite warm.

Best regards.

[Ben]

Hi Frank,

On a number of occassions I've seen it happen that people who suddenly fell while holding on to something ended up on the floor/ground still clutching whatever they were holding.

I must say, I've observed and experienced the precise opposite.

Perhaps this is a good opportunity for a try-it-yourself experiment.

[Christine]

Just concerning cachous, I think it quite reasonable that she would bring them out just before kissing or oral sex.

(If you really want to know, Google with the word mint.)

[Ben]

No need to expect that Swanson and the Star utilized the same protocol when asking away, is there?

Exactly, Fish, you'd expect the salient details to have been included in the police report rather than in the press, and no, I don't for a moment envisage Swanson or Abberline failing to ask whether the suspect was shabbily or respectably dressed and then saying "Duh, I wish we asked him that!" upon learning the answer by reading the papers. That just isn't a credible proposal.

Also, if you take a second look at the Starīs article, you will notice that Schwartz said that both men (BS and Pipeman) seemed to belong to the same class of society

He doesn't specify which class, he just said that they seemed to belong to the same class as eachother, and given that we're dealing with St. George-in-the-East, it should be clear that we're not talking about aristorcacy here. If you're deducing from this that both men were from a higher class then you're making deductions not remotely borne out from the evidence.

[perrymason]

Just concerning cachous, I think it quite reasonable that she would bring them out just before kissing or oral sex.

(If you really want to know, Google with the word mint.)

Hi Christine,

Im fairly certain that breath fresheners would not be standard practice before engaging in Oral Sex for these women, cashous were not cheap but the clients were.

I think they indicate she intended to freshen her breath for other than Broadshouldered Man, and that she had them in her hand just after the "assault"...thinking it was over.

Since by medical estimates she may have been cut the very minute Schwartz leaves, that means she may have had them in her hand before the "assault"...which leaves us with a young woman known to be a part time whore hanging around outside a supposed empty yard....with fresh flowers on her jacket and mints of sorts in her hand.

Which means if soliciting...she is standing where she also might be if waiting for someone, because empty yards make for poor client pools...if she was there "working" or waiting, it was waiting for members to come out of the club, or one in particular. Now add the breath fresheners.

She could easily have been waiting for potential clients, or a date, only flowers on the breast and breath fresheners are a little upscale for her poor clients. She also earned enough that afternoon to pay for her bed that night....but chose not to, and indicated she didnt know when she would be back.

Weekend sleep over date?

Cheers.

[Roy Corduroy]

Pardon me everyone while I digress from the observation to the descriptions.

Roy, forget facial features and physical build...

Glenn, with all due respect, it is impossible to forget because Broadshoulders is a physical attribute. So to me Lawende's man will always be an equivalent attribute, Roundneck.

Roy

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Roy,

Physical attributes can be interpreted extremely different by different people - it is all about personal interpretations and based on personal preferences. In my experience, such attributes are not very reliable in witness descriptions.
Outstanding clothing details makes a much better criteria for description.
Nor do I think roundneck could be interpeted as the same as 'broad shoulders'.

But again - any personal theorizing shouldn't be based on such uncertain parameters like witness descriptions. They simply are too unreliable, and if you're trying to connect the two men purely on the basis on descriptions delivered by two witnesses (and which don't correspond with each other in their most important elements), then you're walking on thin ice.
To me the behaviour of Broadshoulders is enough to rule him out as the Ripper, and that is what counts. What the witness descriptions say is quite irrelevant, unless BOTH persons described contain the same outsanding elements (and I don't regard peaked cap as one of them). We don't have that in this case.

All the best

[FrankO]

I must say, I've observed and experienced the precise opposite.

Slippery territory, eh Ben, them cachous? Oh, and I'll have to pass on that try-it-yourself experiment - I don't feel too well at unexpectedly falling these days. Besides, the wheather here's just too fine today...

[Chris]

I would disagree with your conclusions, as the statements attributed to Dr Blackwell onsite had the benefit of a watch, an examination, and clearly mean to indicate she was killed before 1am, but not more that 15 minutes before.

I didn't reach any conclusions - I pointed out that there is conflicting evidence about Blackwell's views.

The Telegraph's version of the inquest testimony would appear to imply what you say, but the Morning Advertiser statement clearly doesn't. Nor does the Star's version of a different statement made by Blackwell.

But whatever Blackwell said, he would have been unable to distinguish - by any means available to him - between death at 1 o'clock and death at 4 minutes to 1.

[Ben]

What the witness descriptions say is quite irrelevant, unless BOTH persons described contain the same outsanding elements

There weren't really any outstanding elements, though, Glenn. The physical attributes that might have stood out more in the well-heeled City would probably have passed unnoticed in an area where peaked caps and neckerchief were commonplace. It's far more significant if the general appearance suggests a congruity, as it does in the Schwartz/Lawende cases.

Hi Frank,

Besides, the wheather here's just too fine today...

Enjoy the weather! And if you're walking around holding an ice-cream or a wadge of cash, I'd be inclined to watch your back. I may be tempted to conduct a little Stride/cahous-related field reseach.

All the best,
Ben