A Killer Other Than the B.S. Man?

[c.d.]

"Schwartz might have had a good look at his face, but without Stride, the police would never have been able to attach a name to that face."

How would Stride know his name if he was someone she had never met?

c.d.

[lynn cates]

bingo

Hello Robert.

"The trouble is, Stride could reasonably have concluded that she had to go, too, to get away from this bloke. So why go into the yard? And why pull out a packet of cachous?"

Bingo.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

body placement

Hello Abby.

"the cashoo was already in her hand and she headed towards the voices/help."

Oh, dear. Then one needs to explain her impossible (for this hypothesis) body placement.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

professional

Hello (again) Robert.

"But how can the cachous have been already in her hand? She'd just been chucked on the pavement. She must have been very attached to them to hang on to them so."

Professional bingo player, I take it? (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[Wyatt Earp]

Your premise only makes sense if he kills Stride, Schwartz and the Pipe Man. For all he knows Schwartz is off to find the nearest P.C. and the police have sketch artists.

You think they’re going to catch Jack with a picture drawn by a sketch artist? Come on. The scenario I’ve described makes perfect sense. Jack assumes Schwartz is rushing off to find a policeman, when the police find their way to Stride, she names him, and after she names him, the police begin investigating Jack. Jack does not want to be investigated, so he murders Stride. And indeed he is not investigated (the police do not investigate him specifically).

You keep insisting that no multiple killer wants to be investigated by the police. I agree with you completely. But the B.S. man has been seen and therefore his options are limited. It is now a question of the lesser of evils. You say that Stride cold put the police on his trail. For what? Pushing her? You are assuming that this was a murder attempt but we don't know that. All that we have to go on is Schwartz's testimony. Stride is still alive when Schwartz leaves. Therefore, the B.S. man at that point can only be charged with pushing a woman. Does he want to be investigated for doing so? Absolutely not. But if it indeed was simply a push and a few harsh words he is off the hook as far as punishment. Concoct a reasonable story to tell the police and he is on his way just like the hundreds of other men who were investigated. Again I see no reason to kill her and risk being hanged when all he has committed, if he walks away when seen by Schwartz, is basically a don't do it again offense.

Yes, I do keep insisting that no multiple killer wants to be investigated by the police. I’ve given Elizabeth Long as a dramatic example of something that Jack had to fear. Let me give you a more mundane example. If the police conducted a serious investigation of Jack, they would be looking to identify friends and associates of Jack, and they would want to talk to those friends and associates. And it’s possible that one of those friends and associates would let something slip that would be unfavorable to Jack. Etcetera. Once again, multiple killers do not want to be investigated by the police. You seem to think Jack would be searching for ways to allow himself to be investigated, when the opposite is true.

"Schwartz might have had a good look at his face, but without Stride, the police would never have been able to attach a name to that face."

How would Stride know his name if he was someone she had never met?

Again, the premise here is that Stride is familiar with the person who is giving her a hard time. She knows his name.

[Abby Normal]

But how can the cachous have been already in her hand? She'd just been chucked on the pavement. She must have been very attached to them to hang on to them so.

hi Robert
the cashoo red herring has been done to death and I cant stomach it at the moment.

But of course BS man couldn't have been her killer, because she was found holding cashoo.

Cashoo exonerates man!

But please feel free to have another cashoo. ; )

[Robert]

But please feel free to have another cashoo. ; )

Gesundheit!

[c.d.]

Just for the record the correct spelling is "cachous.

c.d.

[c.d.]

"Once again, multiple killers do not want to be investigated by the police. You seem to think Jack would be searching for ways to allow himself to be investigated, when the opposite is true."

Hello Wyatt,

Unfortunately it is not a simple as that. Obviously, if given a choice, no one (let alone a serial killer) wants to be investigated by the police. But you seem to have left Schwartz out of the equation. Unlike the previous murders, Jack knows that someone got a good look at him and not just in the act of talking to a woman but assaulting her. If Schwartz were to quickly find a P.C. and the P.C. arrives at the scene while the B.S. man is still there which is better, that he finds Stride alive with a bruise on her rear end or dead with her throat cut? As for Stride identifying her attacker, how likely is it that she would run to the police station and say "officer, I was on the street soliciting, and a man whose name I know pushed me." Is it likely that the officer would respond "don't worry madam, no woman gets pushed in Whitechapel if we can help it. We will immediately divert our limited resources to catch this fiend." It seems quite unlikely to me.

As I have pointed out previously, crimes against women and general mistreatment of women did not come to a screeching halt during the Autumn of Terror. Not every push by a drunken lout would result in the police saying "aha, we have our man." But here is the key point. Even if the police did investigate the matter and he was taken into custody it should have been quite easy for him to concoct a believable story. Unless he had a bloody knife and organs in his possession he should be off the hook. If being questioned and even investigated by the police is so fraught with peril that it has to be avoided at all costs, how is it that the police questioned literally hundreds of men but never made an arrest?

In my opinion (and we will have to disagree) the best course of action would have been to walk away after being seen by Schwartz even if it meant being investigated by the police. Much better to be charged with pushing a woman than murder. It is simply a question of having limited options and choosing the lesser of evils.

c.d.

[c.d.]

Hello Abby,

Perhaps when your digestive system is up to the task you can be more specific as to why the chain of reasoning regarding the cachous fails rather than dismissing it outright.

I don't think that anyone has ever argued that the B.S. man was not the killer solely because of the cachous only that the cachous constitute a strong argument in that regard.

c.d.

[Wyatt Earp]

If Schwartz were to quickly find a P.C. and the P.C. arrives at the scene while the B.S. man is still there which is better, that he finds Stride alive with a bruise on her rear end or dead with her throat cut?

Once Pipeman and Schwartz were gone from the scene, it would not have taken Jack long to murder Stride. Depending on how quickly he gained her compliance, he could have been gone from the scene in less than 60 seconds. Cutting her throat would only have taken an instant. I don’t suppose he would have drawn his knife had a policeman or anyone else been around.

As for Stride identifying her attacker, how likely is it that she would run to the police station and say "officer, I was on the street soliciting, and a man whose name I know pushed me."

Jack had to assume that Schwartz went to find a policeman and that the police would follow up by trying to locate Stride.

In my opinion (and we will have to disagree) the best course of action would have been to walk away after being seen by Schwartz even if it meant being investigated by the police.

c.d., this is what happens if Jack takes your advice:

• He is perhaps interrogated by the police
• He is perhaps charged with and convicted of assaulting Stride
• He is perhaps now on the police radar in connection with the Ripper murders
• He is perhaps now the subject of a serious investigation in connection with the Ripper murders
• He is perhaps shown to Elizabeth Long
• His background and previous movements are perhaps traced
• His residence is perhaps searched
• His friends and associates are perhaps questioned
• His movements are perhaps monitored
• Etcetera
• Depending on how a possible investigation unfolds, he is perhaps charged with one or more of the Ripper murders

This is what happens if he ignores your advice and murders Stride:

• He walks away scot-free

[Michael W Richards]

Hello all,

I admit Ive found it fascinating over the years reading all the rationales about whether BSM killed Liz Stride, or if not BS man... then who, but the existing records already give us some insight into each of those questions and probable answers.

BSM was a figure within an implausible tale told to the police later that Sunday night by an immigrant Jew who we have no fixed address for the day before the murder. This story suggests that the Immigrant Jew had nothing at all to do with the Immigrant Jew club that held a large meeting that same night, he just happened by at 12:45am...and it mentions nothing about him having any connection to anyone at the club or that address. Not even William Wess, who supposedly knew Israel from Paris a few years earlier. No-one within all the witness statements mentions seeing or hearing anything he claimed happened, and no-one within all the witness statements recalls seeing anyone on the street after 12:35 except the young couple, whose presence... incidentally...is corroborated by Fanny Mortimer, and also incidentally, is omitted by Israel Schwartz. This translated story was not offered in spoken, written or pre-recorded form at the Inquest into the cause death of Liz Stride.

It is therefore quite probable that the story, which contains a sinister gentile assaulting a woman in the open street in front of an anarchist club populated almost entirely of Immigrant Jews and an alledged witness, none of whom came forward to corroborate the story, was made of whole cloth in an effort to introduce a gentile suspect and an off site attack. After Annie Chapmans death and the investigations that took place in September we have at least one senior officer,.(in fact the one put in charge of the investigations before going to Paris for rest....oh, sorry, I mean Switzerland) ...stating publicly that the police believed they were looking for an Immigrant Jew as the murderer at large.

It would seem reasonably that the story was intended to deflect suspicion from the Immigrant Jew anarchists within the club, some who attack police with clubs at that same location a few months later, and onto a gentile.

BSM was a tool...not a suspect.

Cheers

[RockySullivan]

On one hand if Stride knew or realized BS / and pipeman were the ripper I could see them deciding to kill her. On the other if BS man was a herring as Mr Richards suggests than the graffito appears as an attempt to draw suspicion away from Jews and towards an anti-Semite.

[curious4]

Sigh! International Working Men's Educational Club. You make it sound as though it was full of little men with those cartoon bombs (the ones that look like cannon balls with a wick attached). There is at least one sketch of the club showing women and children sitting on the benches and there was dancing and singing as well as lectures. Perhaps there were members with anarchistic views, I don't know, but it was not an anarchist club. In clashes with the police I understand that the police were not entirely blameless. Not as if members turned up at a police station with clubs and began laying about them. Much as in many demonstrations today there was violence on both sides and I treasure the vision of Mrs D stoutly defending her husband with a soft broom.

Best wishes
C4.,

[c.d.]

Hello Wyatt,

You are still not taking into consideration the fact that harassment of women and general misogynistic behavior toward women did not stop during this time. Nor did other types of crime come to a halt. Assuming that he walked away after pushing Stride, police manpower and resources were simply too limited to conduct the extensive type of investigation that you envision every time a woman in Whitechapel got pushed. Even if they were to begin such an investigation into the B.S. man (which I grant they probably would) what would happen if some drunken idiot in a pub got his advances rebuffed by a female patron and hit her? Do they immediately shift their limited resources and begin an investigation into him? What about the fool who loudly proclaims that those whores got what was coming to them? Does another extensive investigation begin into his behavior? You can see the problem here.

You are also putting way too much faith into just what such an investigation can accomplish. The proof of that is that literally hundreds of men were questioned and/or investigated and not a single one was ever charged. All the B.S. man needed was a plausible story for what took place and do or say nothing to arouse further suspicion.

I also don’t know why you keep referring to Elizabeth Long as a key witness. She never saw his face and he was only talking to a woman. Compare her to Schwartz and the Pipe Man. Those are the witnesses he needed to fear. Having already killed in the past means nothing if no one saw him. Schwartz and Pipe Man are the key.

If he simply walks away after being seen by Schwartz:

He is possibly arrested for throwing Stride to the ground and might have to endure a lecture from the judge or perhaps pay a small fine. Nothing more.
He is questioned and possibly investigated but nothing comes of it and he simply falls into the same category as the hundreds of other men who were picked up by the police and eventually he falls off their radar. He is now free to go on to kill Mary Kelly.

On the other hand if he kills Stride:

He is perhaps arrested and shown to Schwartz (and possibly the Pipe Man) who unlike Long got a good look at his face. Their confirmation that this in fact was the man they saw assaulting Stride who was then found a short time later with her throat cut could be enough to convict and hang him and his funny little games have come to an end.

c.d.