For what reason do we include Stride?

[Wickerman]

The backyard of 29 Hanbury Street, in the ever brightening gloom was a safe environment?

It's all relative, isn't it?

I'll bet he didn't choose that spot in expectation of being interrupted, being seen by dozens of witnesses, and being captured within the hour?

He must have sensed a degree of safety for as long as he needed.

[Observer]

It's all relative, isn't it?

I'll bet he didn't choose that spot in expectation of being interrupted, being seen by dozens of witnesses, and being captured within the hour?

He must have sensed a degree of safety for as long as he needed.

He didn't choose the spot full stop. Annie Chapman saw to that. It was revealed at inquest that the passage and yard were being used by lets say shady characters. He was definitely batting on a sticky wicket, entering that backyard. Although considering the records he was more of a bowler than a batsman.

[c.d.]

Hi c.d.,

Sorry, missed that bit earlier. But if you strike out to push someone and hit them with the heel of your palms, that's still going to leave bruises if it's done violently, making it more than just a placing of the hands and a shove. He's throwing her around, which also suggests something a bit more than a simple "place and push" type thing. While BS's manhandling might not have appeared to have had murderous intensity, I don't think it can be viewed as a minor pushing either. It seems to have left bruises, so it was violent enough in intensity to do that, but not of sufficient ferocity to result in Stride screaming out for fear of her life. It's of a level of physicality that leads to scenarios of the sort I've suggested (but yes, I know, other scenarios are possible).

We don't know the specifics of things like how she fell, on her side, on her bottom, etc. But if she's holding the cachous during BS's assault, we know she didn't fall on them so open hand falling wouldn't work. But as one can fall in different ways, open hand falling isn't part of the evidence that we are beholden to be constrained by when comparing hypotheses to the evidence. And, not falling open handed is not particularly uncommon, so it's relying on anything highly improbable. At least not in my view.

- Jeff

Hello Jeff,

I was referring to Stride trying to push the B.S. man away (i.e. trying to separate herself from him) if he was dragging her back into the yard. The natural inclination is to open the palm to push rather than try to push with a closed fist. Possible but hard to believe the cachous could have remained in her hand without spiling if that is what she did.

On a side note, I have tried this with friends. Didn't tell them why beforehand. I tried to pull them and asked them to resist. Open palm every time.

c.d.

[JeffHamm]

Hello Jeff,

I was referring to Stride trying to push the B.S. man away (i.e. trying to separate herself from him) if he was dragging her back into the yard. The natural inclination is to open the palm to push rather than try to push with a closed fist. Possible but hard to believe the cachous could have remained in her hand without spiling if that is what she did.

On a side note, I have tried this with friends. Didn't tell them why beforehand. I tried to pull them and asked them to resist. Open palm every time.

c.d.

Hi c.d.,

Ah, sorry, didn't realize you meant Stride doing the pushing. Unfortunately, all we have to work with is Schwartz's account, which is along the lines of BS pulling her then throwing/pushing her to the ground. We don't know how she fell, nor does it include any indication that she pushed him back. Schwartz leaves, pipeman leaves, and that to me would be the time when BS, as Liz is getting up, either pushes her into the alley or she gets up and heads there towards the door (I'm assuming light was visible around the doorway from inside) to enter the club where she hears people looking to escape. And that's when he kills her. I don't think the attack, if it's BS, is more prolonged than that, so I don't think it turned into a shoving match, and it's relatively short so she's not clutching cachous except for that one set of pulls and pushes, and that doesn't seem to me to be different from what another attacker would have to do as well, leaving us with the cachous to explain in this second attack.

But yes, I agree, if the encounter with BS is suggested to be prolonged, with a lot of shoving back and forth, she would have dropped them. But since we know she didn't, those sorts of encounters can be ruled out. But ruling them out doesn't rule out all plausible encounters with BS, and personally Stride being killed almost immediately after what Schwartz describes seems to me to be likely what happened, and BS takes off because he's next to a club with people awake and making noise, Stride is reported as yelling 3 times, though not very loudly which someone might have heard, and there's all this other foottraffic about. I know it's a bizarre choice to go on and kill someone in that situation, but JtR (presuming BS is JtR of course), made a lot of choices that really don't make much sense but showed he was willing to do things that appear unfathomably risky.

I think we envision the encounter very differently, but that's hardly surprising because we have so little information to work with and to try and get an idea of what happened we have to fill in the details. Those details, otherwise known as opinions, are filled in by each of us very differently. I agree that your presentation of events is plausible, and I'm not insisting that my description is the true one, only that I think it covers all the evidence in a plausible way. But my above description of the events are not evidence, just a hypothesis among many. I have a preference for it because it doesn't require the addition of another unknown person coming into play as that introduces a character for which we have no evidence to support even existing. However, we have very little evidence to constrain us, so we know we're missing a lot of details, so including a newcommer, while it puts "strain' on a hypothesis, I don't think it reaches breaking point, meaning the "alternative" is not ruled out so it too requires consideration (which I've been leaving in your hands for the purpose of this discussion, but that doesn't mean I don't see merit in it).

- Jeff

[Michael W Richards]

The scarf evidence in this case suggests that it was used by the killer to grab the victim and to choke the victim. It was used that way when the knife is drawn across her throat and it remained tightened when she was found, which suggests that her head was closer to the ground than while standing and her head just dropped when the scarf was released. She might have been pulled back off her feet and to the ground, soiling her skirt by pulling and tightening that scarf. The killer just needs to cut her while holding the head off the ground with the scarf.

She also had bruising on her chest, might have been shoved or poked. A continuing encounter like the one described by Schwartz might explain some of that kind of interaction, but the problem is our best neutral witness, Fanny Mortimer, does not hear or see anyone on that street during her time at the door "off and on" aside from the young couple...which Brown also sees at 12:45, and only Goldstein passing the gates at 12:55 when at the door continuously.

If Schwartz's encounter actually took place in the passageway as he was leaving the club via the gates, then it all seems to fit better. Otherwise its a man who claims to be in an odd place at 12:45 for someone whose wife just moved to new dwellings that afternoon, and he saw something of an altercation with the soon to be murder victim minutes before the medical estimate of her throat cut, which no other witness corroborates and which is not part of the Inquest into the manner of her death in any format. Something unthinkable if the story was believed true as given, the altercation would obviously have great relevance to what happened to her due to its location and time proximity to her throat cut. But it isn't there.

[Michael W Richards]

Just to add...if it was Kate Lawende saw outside Mite Square, then you have an example of how quickly this killer works. In Berner Street, depending on whom you believe, you either have almost 15 minutes after the body is discovered, or perhaps around 5. Alone with the body. Yet she seems untouched since she fell, and she is on her side, curled in fetal fashion. Not optimum abdominal mutilation posing. If you like Lawendes sighting, which I personally do not, then you have to consider what evidence in Kates murder is relevant when comparing to Liz's. What was accomplished in its totality, and in what time frame is very pertinent in that case.

[Busy Beaver]

Just to add...if it was Kate Lawende saw outside Mite Square, then you have an example of how quickly this killer works. In Berner Street, depending on whom you believe, you either have almost 15 minutes after the body is discovered, or perhaps around 5. Alone with the body. Yet she seems untouched since she fell, and she is on her side, curled in fetal fashion. Not optimum abdominal mutilation posing. If you like Lawendes sighting, which I personally do not, then you have to consider what evidence in Kates murder is relevant when comparing to Liz's. What was accomplished in its totality, and in what time frame is very pertinent in that case.

The couple who Lawende saw would no doubt have been Kate and her killer, otherwise if they were a different couple, would they not have seen or heard anything whilst going in to Mitre Square? Assuming that Jack must have been in there with Kate, or she was already lying dead and this couple failed to spot her or anyone running away.

[APerno]

The couple who Lawende saw would no doubt have been Kate and her killer, otherwise if they were a different couple, would they not have seen or heard anything whilst going in to Mitre Square? Assuming that Jack must have been in there with Kate, or she was already lying dead and this couple failed to spot her or anyone running away.

Why do you feel that is so axiomatic? Kate could have said a goodnight to that man and walked alone into the dark square and into the arms of the Ripper.

[Abby Normal]

Hello Jeff,

I was referring to Stride trying to push the B.S. man away (i.e. trying to separate herself from him) if he was dragging her back into the yard. The natural inclination is to open the palm to push rather than try to push with a closed fist. Possible but hard to believe the cachous could have remained in her hand without spiling if that is what she did.

On a side note, I have tried this with friends. Didn't tell them why beforehand. I tried to pull them and asked them to resist. Open palm every time.

c.d.

HI CD
what I find hard to fathom with your account is you are constantly trying to downplay BS mans assault of Stride as no big deal, and not even an attack or an assault. yet you want it violent enough that she must drop the cashoo. which is it?

[Sam Flynn]

Why do you feel that is so axiomatic? Kate could have said a goodnight to that man and walked alone into the dark square and into the arms of the Ripper.

Unlikely, and desperately unlucky. Besides, it had been raining heavily that night, and not too many people were out and about. If the Ripper had been hanging around Mitre Square on the off-chance of a woman coming by - an unlikely enough place to seek such prey even in dry weather - he'd have been soaked to the skin by the time Kate turned up.

[Michael W Richards]

The couple who Lawende saw would no doubt have been Kate and her killer, otherwise if they were a different couple, would they not have seen or heard anything whilst going in to Mitre Square? Assuming that Jack must have been in there with Kate, or she was already lying dead and this couple failed to spot her or anyone running away.

There were 3 entrances/exits to Mitre Square, one entered by Watkins, 1 entered by Harvey, and the carriageway entrance. If Lawende actually saw Kate, and he said he didn't really get a good look at either person and couldn't identify Sailor Man 10 days later, and the time estimate was correct, the killer had to get Kate into the square, subdue her, do all the cuts and the ripping tearing of the apron section and leave the square before Watkins enters at approx. 1:44,..within approx. 8 minutes. Not likely.

But If you would like to have this murder married with Liz Strides by the killer, and you accept Lawendes sighting, then you really have to pull a rabbit out of a hat to explain why no mutilations on Stride.

Remember...the contemporary police speculated openly that she may have been killed elsewhere and brought there,....and there were lots of vacant warehouses in there.

[Busy Beaver]

Why do you feel that is so axiomatic? Kate could have said a goodnight to that man and walked alone into the dark square and into the arms of the Ripper.

You know I never thought of that. Lawende and co said they did not look back to see where the couple went.

[Sam Flynn]

There were 3 entrances/exits to Mitre Square, one entered by Watkins, 1 entered by Harvey, and the carriageway entrance. If Lawende actually saw Kate, and he said he didn't really get a good look at either person and couldn't identify Sailor Man 10 days later, and the time estimate was correct, the killer had to get Kate into the square, subdue her, do all the cuts and the ripping tearing of the apron section and leave the square before Watkins enters at approx. 1:44,..within approx. 8 minutes. Not likely.

How likely is it that a different couple, one of whom at least vaguely resembled Eddowes, were seen at the entrance to Mitre Square within minutes of her being murdered in Mitre Square? And this, remember, on a rainy night in a rather quiet part of town, which was neither heavily populated nor thronging with people that night.

[Abby Normal]

How likely is it that a different couple, one of whom at least vaguely resembled Eddowes, were seen at the entrance to Mitre Square within minutes of her being murdered in Mitre Square? And this, remember, on a rainy night in a rather quiet part of town, which was neither heavily populated nor thronging with people that night.

Not very likely sam. And this man was also wearing a peaked cap like the other witnesses all describe.

[c.d.]

HI CD
what I find hard to fathom with your account is you are constantly trying to downplay BS mans assault of Stride as no big deal, and not even an attack or an assault. yet you want it violent enough that she must drop the cashoo. which is it?

Hi Abby,

I beg of you, sir please learn to spell cachous correctly.

You are right. I don't think the B.S.man's encounter with Stride was a big deal. My point was addressed to those who believe the B.S. man killed her. Thus your confusion. It is possible that she went into the yard voluntarily but I think that highly unlikely. Now if the B.S. man dragged her as some believe, I think it is reasonable to assume that Stride tried to fend him off in which case I find it hard to believe that the cachous survived that.

Now I know you hate the cachous argument. But it is something that can be tested to some degree. Ask your friends to throw themselves on the couch or bed and see if they catch themselves with their palm open. Then tell them you are going to try to drag them against their will and ask them to resist. See if their hand is open or in a fist as they try to push you away. And if you come back and say hey c.d. I tried this with ten people and nobody had an open palm I will have to reconsider things.

Now even if all ten you test have an open palm it doesn't mean that Stride could not have held on to the cachous. The best we can do is determine probability and what is more likely. But even if we toss out the cachous theory the B.S. man as Stride's killer still holds a lot of red flags.

c.d.