A Possible Reason Why Jack Didn't Mutilate Liz

[Roy Corduroy]

HI C.D., Michael et al,

Speaking of time, Gavin Bromley wrote an extensive essay on time and PC Smith's Beat. (click) He argues that Smith came along a little later ih his beat and his description of the man he saw is reliable.

Gavin says "There is one account there that does not sit well with the others at all, certainly for the timing given of the event. That is the statement of Israel Schwartz."

But Gavin does leave the door open that Schwartz did see the killer and I quote "This was a short window and also ten minutes after Schwartz said the events happened. This is not an issue in itself, as witnesses do sometimes get the time wrong. If it did happen at that time, then it is certain that he witnessed the beginning of the attack that led to her death as she was found dead within four to five minutes."

This is my opinion. Schwartz saw the killer in the first act of bold murder. Right there. Right at Dutfields Yard.

His story is a lock because he IDed the body of Liz Stride at mortuary as the woman he saw. He was not called to inquest simply because his account contained the name "Lipski" uttered. The officials, for reasons of public safety, wanted no part of that. They had plenty to establish her death as murder without him.

And Israel Schwartz, as recent research has shown, continued on with his life in St George's East, raising a family and becoming a storekeeper. He was an honest witness.

His time was off by about ten minutes.

Roy

[c.d.]

Hi Michael,

And what if this first "attack" was nothing more than a club member saying get the hell away from here?

c.d.

[Ben]

Again, CD, you're seemingly stuck in "BS or Jack" mode.

If he left the scene within 30 seconds or a minute and we give Jack time to arrive and chat up Liz, Jack could have been her killer with only a few minutes of this X time frame being used up.

That would entail an implausible an unnecessary coincidence, irrespective of what was "possible" in the time frame. We simply don't need to posit the existence of another attacker if the evidence gives us a perfectly good one already, and just at the right time. The fact that it was possible for someone else to arrived very shortly afterwards and attack her after "attack #1" in the same location (what a hideously unlucky women that Liz was?!?) doesn't make it any more probable.

Best regards,
Ben

[c.d.]

Hi Michael,

You say that no one saw the BS man leave. But we do know for a fact that he did leave otherwise Diemschutz would have seen him standing over Liz knife in hand. So if the BS man was able to leave without anyone seeing him why can't Jack arrive on the scene without anyone seeing him? The answer would appear to be that there was a period of time in which no one saw what took place in the yard. No departures, no arrivals.

Your time frame covers everyone, the BS man, Jack or anyone else who might have killed Liz. Now lets call this time frame X. Whoever killed her had to do so in this X time frame. Now no one saw the BS man kill Liz. No one saw him leave. So therefore we have no way of knowing when he did leave the scene after being seen by Schwartz. Now if after throwing Liz to the ground and chasing off Schwartz, he leaves the scene with a good cussing out and maybe a kick for good measure, how long does that take? Maybe 30 seconds? So this time frame in which the murder has to take place is now reduced by 30 seconds.

Now where was the BS man before being seen by Schwartz? We don't know do we? But he was able to make an appearance on the scene. So couldn't Jack make an appearance as well? Our time frame of X has been reduced by only 30 seconds at this point. If we give Jack three minutes to arrive and two minutes to chat up Liz, we have now reduced X by 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Since both the BS man and Jack would have needed time to actually kill Liz, we will give them the same amount of time to do so.

Both the BS man and Jack would have had to have killed Liz at some point in the X time frame. The BS man has a time advantage but how long? We simply don't know. If he left the scene within 30 seconds or a minute and we give Jack time to arrive and chat up Liz, Jack could have been her killer with only a few minutes of this X time frame being used up. Since the X time frame is based on guesses and estimates, it would seem Jack had plenty of time.

c.d.

[protohistorian]

Hello all,

I wish the contemporary police were more forthcoming on why they attributed Liz's death to Jack in the first place...because that may have prevented the slim-chance scenarios that people use today to do so.

Clearly...by statements that were given with times........whether you think they knew what time it was or not, the fact is they swore to their "guess"...there are a woman and a man alone outside an empty yard at 12:46. If Jack isnt Broadshouldered man....he aint here. theres no-one hiding in the yard at 12:40.,...theres no-one that sees Broadshouldered Man leave, and there is 14 minutes left before anyone will be on that same mark as they were.

Before anyone suggests he parachuted in....could we rationally factor the timings of the given witnesses, the cut time estimate by a professional, and the known part that is we have statements that Jack if not BSM, was not there.

Unless of course he is Liz herself, and the reason there is only one cut is because it was suicide.

Cheers all.

Didn't the coroner explicity rule out self infliction? So now Jack was Liz Stride. Damn, I was looking at the suspect all along. I did not even see that one coming......OUCH

Hi Michael,

If your estimate of the time frame involved is correct, why didn't anyone see the BS man killing Liz? Does he not have to operate in that time frame as well?

c.d.

Im not sure how you mean that cd.... as of 12:46pm he could have been inside the gates and yard with Liz,.. the yard is empty by witness testimony, and Fanny Mortimer becomes the witness and times to rely on for the claim she saw no-one near the gates when she was looking from around 10 to 1 off and on...excluding Goldstein walking past at 12:55pm.

Broadshouldered Man could have slit her throat and left before Fanny is out and about and before Goldstein enters the picture.....well within the estimated cut timing by Blackwell.

Cheers cd

[c.d.]

Hi Michael,

If your estimate of the time frame involved is correct, why didn't anyone see the BS man killing Liz? Does he not have to operate in that time frame as well?

c.d.

Hello all,

I wish the contemporary police were more forthcoming on why they attributed Liz's death to Jack in the first place...because that may have prevented the slim-chance scenarios that people use today to do so.

Clearly...by statements that were given with times........whether you think they knew what time it was or not, the fact is they swore to their "guess"...there are a woman and a man alone outside an empty yard at 12:46. If Jack isnt Broadshouldered man....he aint here. theres no-one hiding in the yard at 12:40.,...theres no-one that sees Broadshouldered Man leave, and there is 14 minutes left before anyone will be on that same mark as they were.

Before anyone suggests he parachuted in....could we rationally factor the timings of the given witnesses, the cut time estimate by a professional, and the known part that is we have statements that Jack if not BSM, was not there.

Unless of course he is Liz herself, and the reason there is only one cut is because it was suicide.

Cheers all.

[Roy Corduroy]

Factor in the plausible scenario of Nichols being blitzed and not taken to a secluded spot .... with the behavior in the backyard at Hanbury Street as well as the ruckus on Berner St. and you have a less than stealthy,aggressive and fearless Jack The Ripper as opposed to the slithering "phantom"...

Good post, How.

Roy

[Ben]

I made it quite clear that at first blush it would seem obvious to anyone that the BS man must have been her killer. But then I went on to dissect that notion and it didn't hold water.

Fair enough, CD.

I just don't quite understand the dissection process in this case, nor do I see any red flags. I know you've asked me before about the likely outcome of broadshoulders being apprehended mid-attack, and I've responded: the police would no doubt take the matter very seriously and detain him on suspicion of committing the Whitechapel murders. Forget "vicious" for the moment. Let's say it wasn't especially vicious; a great many serial killer attacks commence with a BS-esque struggle, but they escalate.

Have a great weekend yourself, mate!

All the best,
Ben

[c.d.]

Hi Ben,

Why do you insist on telling me what my preconceptions are? I made it quite clear that at first blush it would seem obvious to anyone that the BS man must have been her killer. But then I went on to dissect that notion and it didn't hold water.

But I could easily say the same for you. You can't be dissuaded from the idea that throwing someone to the ground constitutes a "vicious" attack. You then focus completely on the timeline which then links those two events so that they can never be seen as separate occurrences. When you take that approach, then all the red flags become secondary and get glossed over.

I've tried numerous times to ask you what would have happened to the BS man had he been seen and apprehended by the police for simply throwing Liz to the ground. If you say a week in jail at the most, then how then can you possibly say that that constitutes a "vicious" attack. It doesn't, because if it did then in our hypothetical situation the BS man would be off to jail for several years.

So no, my middle finger is not extended but comfortably folded along with the others since it proves me right when I stated that this is a contentious matter.

Have a good weekend, my friend.

c.d.

[Ben]

Hi CD,

namely that it was an attack. I think that is really putting the worst possible spin on that event and that it only becomes vicious by virtue of what happens later.

It's an attack.

That's what it was.

Man approaches women, manhandles her, and throws her onto the kerb. He attacked her, and no, I'm afraid that wasn't an everyday, happens-all-the-time occurance, even in that profession and that time.

You also say around 1:00. What exactly does that mean?

Schwartz stated that he turned onto Berner Street at 12:45am, which meant that several minutes later, he witnessed the attack on Stride. The first doctor on the scene estimated that Stride had been killed somewhere between 12:46 and 12:56, tallying perfectly with the time of the attack. If you believe Schwartz - and it seems you do - you've got the overwhelmingly logical and most workable explanation effectively handed to you on a plate: that the man seen attacking Stride was the man who killed Stride.

Whatever exists within the realms of possibility, all alternatives can only play a very distant second fiddle to that commonsense deduction.

My suspicion is that you'd agree with me entirely were it not for the fact that you seem to be harbouring two preconceptions:

1) Jack did it.

2) Jack wouldn't have acted like Broad-shoulder man.

My suggestion - which you're more than welcome to reject and return my way with an extended middle finger - would be to assess the evidence first and then see how it impacts on those two theories. I can't, for the life of me, understand how anyone can arrive at the assumption that the attacker wasn't the killer unless those preconceptions were firmly in place. For what it's worth, having assessed the evidence, I don't see how it renders either 1) or 2) any less likely to be correct.

I'm also dubious about the "BS or Jack" distinction. I'd put Jack on the back burner and instead think "BS or someone other than BS?". Well, unless Schwartz lied, it's got to be BS. Then I'd go "Who's BS? Jack or a different killer?". That's a trickier one and I'm susceptible to a change of mind depending on the arguments being advanced, but on balence, I'd go with BS being Jack.

All the best,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

Sam, You keep talking about all these other throat cut murders that happened around that time.

Not quite, Tom. I keep talking about cut-throat murders that happened at any time throughout history. I for one don't believe that nobody ever got their throat cut in a dark yard before or after September 30th 1888. It's not as if that method of dispatch was hit upon for the first time in Dutfield's Yard that night, and was never to be seen again.

[c.d.]

Hi Ben,

Two things in your argument that I have trouble with... namely that it was an attack. I think that is really putting the worst possible spin on that event and that it only becomes vicious by virtue of what happens later. In and of itself, I don't think it was that remarkable. You and I disagree strongly on this. That's fine.

You also say around 1:00. What exactly does that mean? The doctors gave an estimate of the time. Several of the witnesses did the same. Now even if they were all pretty damn close to the exact time, it still leaves time for Jack to show up because he only needs a few minutes to do his thing. So try as you might to eliminate Jack time wise it can't be done. It only narrows the probability.

I see Liz's killer as being either the BS man or Jack. If it turns out to be someone else we all look like fools. At first blush, the BS man looks far and away to be the most probable, a far better contender than Jack. But when I examine the whole BS/Liz scenario I see a hell of a lot of red flags. Now you and others have provided possible explanations for those red flags and some of them may be correct. But there are just too many for me. Something just doesn't seem right about it. So then I look at Jack. And since I believe he killed Kate, I have him close by both time wise and distance wise. Had Liz been mutilated, I think I could then yell bingo. So I have to have a reason why he didn't. I think it is quite possible that he was interrupted by Diemschutz. And if there is too much time to account for I don't see it as a stretch that Jack may have been spooked by noise from the club and ducked into the shadows trying to decide what to do. Enter Diemschutz. It is not an all or nothing thing with Liz. There are other victims to be had. I don't think it is a coincidence that Kate is killed so soon afterwards and so close by. I think the fact that she was so horribly mutilated reflects the frustration he felt in letting Liz go. Now these are all assumptions but I think they are reasonable and fit together well. So I am going with Jack.

But before you jump on me for making assumptions to be fair no one saw the BS man kill Liz. You make a connection between the two events. But that is still an assumption.

And yes, I see the BS man as being un-Jacklike. That is based on my preconceptions, a gut feeling if you will and it could very well be wrong but I gotta call em as I see em.

Hope this helps to show where I am coming from.

c.d.

[Howard Brown]

Factor in the plausible scenario ( to me, at least ) of Nichols being blitzed and not taken to a secluded spot on Bucks Row or an adjacent street with cover, which the killer could easily have done if he required it.... with the behavior in the backyard at Hanbury Street as well as the ruckus on Berner St. and you have a less than stealthy,aggressive and fearless Jack The Ripper as opposed to the slithering "phantom", who lurks after the prosses like a panther on the streets of the East End.