For what reason do we include Stride?

[Harry D]

Hi Harry D,

I believe the description of what he said is that she "yelled 3 times but not very loudly". The manhandling described by Schwartz doesn't sound like it was a brutal assault, and so she probably wasn't in fear of her life, just in fear of being further beat up/roughed up. And we know the club was noisy, with singing and so forth going on, and as other witnesses have testified for some of the other murders, yells and calls (even of "murder") were not all that note worthy by themselves. And, grabbing her scarf would just halt her (she's not sprinting as it only looks like she got a couple steps into the ally), and he grabs her and gets her to the ground - and with him coming up behind her to do so, it makes sense that he would keep that direction of motion in getting her to the ground, which results in the position she's found in. I don't see any problem with the final position of her body whether she's going in or out or just standing in the passage way.

"The body was lying on the near side, with the face turned toward the wall, the head up the yard and the feet toward the street."

If Stride was entering the yard and the assailant pulled her scarf from behind to slash her throat, she wouldn't have ended up in this position. Not unless the killer decided to move the body afterwards, and what possible use would that serve?

Forensically, the position of the body and the cachous doesn't add up with your scenario. Are we to assume that Stride kept hold of the cachous as she was floored by BS Man and then chased into the yard? If she was indeed killed escaping into the yard, why was her body facing the gates? If anything, the forensics point to Stride exiting the yard with her guard down, before she was killed swiftly and suddenly.

[Losmandris]

Hello Losmandris, and welcome to the boards. You're quite right about the "guesstimating", as not many of the witnesses would have had timepieces of their own, either on their person or at home. Even doctors and police might have used approximations on occasion, as is perhaps evident from some of the "round figures" given for timings. To be fair, "about quarter to X" or "just after Y" would have been good enough for most people's purposes - it still is, in fact.

Interesting! Thanks Sam. Without the degree of accuracy relating to time, attempting to draw to any conclusions or reading too much into specific details is extremely tricky!

[Losmandris]

Excellent post, which I completely agree with. I would add that Schwartz was not utilized subsequently in the investigation, i.e. to identify suspects, and Abberline later remarked that no witness had seen the killer from the front. All off this suggests that Schwartz was seriously undermined.

I wonder whether the police put this incident down to Stride being rejected by a potential customer, probably something that occurred quite regularly. She probably just laughed it off, brushed herself down and moved on to the next. Schwatz being relatively new to the country may not have been used to seeing this kind of behaviour, freaked out a little and ran off, maybe getting the 'Lipski' insult for staring a little too much at BS man who could have been a bit embarrassed?

As I alluded to in the previous post we potentially have a significant amount of time between the 'assault/pushing incident and Stride ending up in the yard. No witnesses for this time. Easy for the murderer to emerge from the shadows or side street where he has been watching everything. He has plenty of time to pick the exact moment to make his appearance. Maybe he used the incident to start chatting to Stride, helps her up, puts her at ease by offering her sweets and then lures her or she lures him to the yard.

[JeffHamm]

"The body was lying on the near side, with the face turned toward the wall, the head up the yard and the feet toward the street."

If Stride was entering the yard and the assailant pulled her scarf from behind to slash her throat, she wouldn't have ended up in this position. Not unless the killer decided to move the body afterwards, and what possible use would that serve?

Forensically, the position of the body and the cachous doesn't add up with your scenario. Are we to assume that Stride kept hold of the cachous as she was floored by BS Man and then chased into the yard? If she was indeed killed escaping into the yard, why was her body facing the gates? If anything, the forensics point to Stride exiting the yard with her guard down, before she was killed swiftly and suddenly.

Hi Harry D,

I don't follow you. If she's going from the street into the yard, and he's grabbed her scarf and that halts her movement, then he grabs her and gets her to the ground and cuts her throat (the swift attack you say must happen), why do you think her feet would go further up towards the door and her head end up towards the street? Or are you only considering some sort of grab the scarf and she falls backwards? Clearly that couldn't have happened due to her positioning. But grabbing her scarf doesn't automatically lead to her having to fall backwards, it just needs to impede her getaway so that she's immediately and suddenly overpowered.

I also don't see how her positioning points to her heading out of the yard towards the street? I can think of how she could have been travelling that direction and end up in the position she's in though, but now she does have to be pulled and fall backwards. But I thought that is what you're saying causes her to drop the cachous?

All I'm describing is a "sudden attack" and how BS could have done so given what we know; obviously it's just a speculative scenerio but given as an example of how the attack could have continued and results in Stride in the alley where she is in that position and still holding the cachous. You're saying she had to have been suddenly attacked, and if she's gotten up after being pushed down in the street (which can't be flooring her as you described it, as then she would have dropped them - but not all pushing to the grounds are properly described as flooring someone - so it can't be that, it would have to be something less, but that can happen so why should we rule it out?. After that, there's a 2nd attack from behind, and that is catching her unawares (as she thinks she's gotten away), and that is immediately followed by her going to the ground and her throat is cut through which she continues to hold the cachous. And before saying that "but she would drop the cachous at that point", well at some point that is what happens no matter who killed her so I'm just saying we don't need to have a newcomer, who still has to studdenly attack her and get her to the ground and cut her throat without her dropping the cachous. For some reasons, a newcomer apparently can do so with no problems with respect to the cachous but if it's BS doing the exact same thing, apparently he can't.

But there's definitely nothing about her position in the alley that contradicts what I've described.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

I wonder whether the police put this incident down to Stride being rejected by a potential customer, probably something that occurred quite regularly. She probably just laughed it off, brushed herself down and moved on to the next. Schwatz being relatively new to the country may not have been used to seeing this kind of behaviour, freaked out a little and ran off, maybe getting the 'Lipski' insult for staring a little too much at BS man who could have been a bit embarrassed?

As I alluded to in the previous post we potentially have a significant amount of time between the 'assault/pushing incident and Stride ending up in the yard. No witnesses for this time. Easy for the murderer to emerge from the shadows or side street where he has been watching everything. He has plenty of time to pick the exact moment to make his appearance. Maybe he used the incident to start chatting to Stride, helps her up, puts her at ease by offering her sweets and then lures her or she lures him to the yard.

Yes, that is possible too. BS being the killer is not the only possible interpretation, but many seem to think BS could not have been the attacker. I think he could have been, and that there is nothing in the evidence we have that completely rules him out. Similarly, it is possible for BS to have then moved on, and someone else to have come along and attacked her again. The thing is, we have no evidence at all of this newcomer, and it is possible for BS to have continued his attack and killed her.

- Jeff

[Harry D]

Hi Harry D,

I don't follow you. If she's going from the street into the yard, and he's grabbed her scarf and that halts her movement, then he grabs her and gets her to the ground and cuts her throat (the swift attack you say must happen), why do you think her feet would go further up towards the door and her head end up towards the street? Or are you only considering some sort of grab the scarf and she falls backwards? Clearly that couldn't have happened due to her positioning. But grabbing her scarf doesn't automatically lead to her having to fall backwards, it just needs to impede her getaway so that she's immediately and suddenly overpowered.

I also don't see how her positioning points to her heading out of the yard towards the street? I can think of how she could have been travelling that direction and end up in the position she's in though, but now she does have to be pulled and fall backwards. But I thought that is what you're saying causes her to drop the cachous?

All I'm describing is a "sudden attack" and how BS could have done so given what we know; obviously it's just a speculative scenerio but given as an example of how the attack could have continued and results in Stride in the alley where she is in that position and still holding the cachous. You're saying she had to have been suddenly attacked, and if she's gotten up after being pushed down in the street (which can't be flooring her as you described it, as then she would have dropped them - but not all pushing to the grounds are properly described as flooring someone - so it can't be that, it would have to be something less, but that can happen so why should we rule it out?. After that, there's a 2nd attack from behind, and that is catching her unawares (as she thinks she's gotten away), and that is immediately followed by her going to the ground and her throat is cut through which she continues to hold the cachous. And before saying that "but she would drop the cachous at that point", well at some point that is what happens no matter who killed her so I'm just saying we don't need to have a newcomer, who still has to studdenly attack her and get her to the ground and cut her throat without her dropping the cachous. For some reasons, a newcomer apparently can do so with no problems with respect to the cachous but if it's BS doing the exact same thing, apparently he can't.

But there's definitely nothing about her position in the alley that contradicts what I've described.

- Jeff

So you're saying that Stride kept hold of the cachous as she was thrown to the floor. Didn't let go of them to cushion her fall? And kept hold of them as her killer chased her into the darkness of the yard? Do you think most women fearing for their lives would run into a yard at night time instead of onto the streets for help from the nearest citizen or policeman?

Or did she stop to freshen her breath as BS Man was chasing her into the yard?

You can't get away from those damn cachous, I'm afraid. They point to a woman who was killed swiftly and suddenly. Schwartz describes a woman that was being harassed and manhandled moments before her death.

It was the medical opinion that the killer used the scarf to choke her from behind before slashing her throat. If this happened as she was fleeing into the yard to the club door, her head would be facing the gate, not the other way around. Try to reconstruct the scenario for yourself and see.

[JeffHamm]

So you're saying that Stride kept hold of the cachous as she was thrown to the floor. Didn't let go of them to cushion her fall? And kept hold of them as her killer chased her into the darkness of the yard? Do you think most women fearing for their lives would run into a yard at night time instead of onto the streets for help from the nearest citizen or policeman?

Or did she stop to freshen her breath as BS Man was chasing her into the yard?

You can't get away from those damn cachous, I'm afraid. They point to a woman who was killed swiftly and suddenly. Schwartz describes a woman that was being harassed and manhandled moments before her death.

It was the medical opinion that the killer used the scarf to choke her from behind before slashing her throat. If this happened as she was fleeing into the yard to the club door, her head would be facing the gate, not the other way around. Try to reconstruct the scenario for yourself and see.

Hi Harry D,

I'm saying Swartz described her being pulled towards the street, turned around, and pushed down. You are only interpreting that to mean she had to be thrown prone. I don't exclude her being pushed down such that she may have fallen to her knees, or even just to one knee. Why? Because she didn't drop the cachous. You keep describing the event in ways to make her drop them, but we know she didn't? I don't understand the approach of describing an event in a way that clearly couldn't have happened, and then saying that proves it didn't when one can describe a series of events that also fits what Schwartz says, but doesn't necessetate her dropping the cachous.

Now, if she's fallen down, but not been floored (and we've no evidence of road rash on her hands, so it doesn't look like she's braced herself against the kind of throwing you're describing anyway), and he's now between her and the street, yes, she might head up the alley as that's the only avenue of escape she's got. And if she's been there soliciting, she is probably aware there's a door into the noisy club so she can enter there to get away. She heads up towards a potential place of safety. As she does, he comes up behind her, grabs her scarf to stop her and immediately takes her down. That's the sudden, unexpected attack that you have the newcomer doing, and if the newcomer can do it without her dropping the cachous, so can BS.

So no, the cachous aren't any more of a problem for BS than they are for a newcomer. But yes, I agree, if he picked her up over his head and body slammed her, and then tumbled her along the street, and so forth, she would have dropped them. Therefore, I conclude, that isn't what happened. But I'm not trying to see if I can get her to drop them but to see if there is a sequence of reasonable events that do not require her to drop them. It's easy to come up with ways to make her drop them, but since we know she didn't, why are we considering them?

- Jeff

[John G]

Depends upon how she fell and how violent the pulling and turning etc was (obviously enough to move her, but that doesn't mean it was a full on judo throw). If her fall was something like down to one knee, etc, then she would not drop them. And importantly for our considerations, we don't know how she fell, so all possibilities that fit the data are open. So, if she had the cachous in her hand when she was pulled and turned and put to the ground, then she couldn't have fallen such that she used her left hand, at least, to break her fall. And it is possible to fall in such a way. Yes, we can also imagine those events being far more violent, whereby she would have dropped them. But as she didn't, we know those descriptions cannot be the case. What we cannot do is rule out less violent pulls and throws and falls, we cannot be sure she wasn't holding them all along, we can only be sure that if she was, she didn't drop them, and so that constrains what that encounter would have had to be like if it happened that way (note, please, I'm not saying it had to be this way - I'm just saying it is a viable hypothesis that we cannot exclude). If she was thrown violently to the ground, had to break her fall with her hands, there would be road rash on her hands, and that is not reported in the medical notes. There aren't signs of a violent fall to the ground where she had to shield herself from the fall, so that lack of evidence for these violent face plant type descriptions excludes them, but not the less violent type, which are the ones where she can retain hold of them.

Also, how do we know her killer didn't put the cachous in her hand after killing her? I doubt that's the case, but if we're only going to imagine the pulling and throwing to be more violent in order to get her to drop them despite there being no evidence for her having had a violent fall to the ground, then prove to me she was holding them when alive rather than her killer putting them there as some sort of token.

- Jeff

Extreme reasoning apart, I just don't see how it's remotely likely that Stride would have been holding onto the cachous for dear life, as if they were some valuable object, whilst being pulled into the street, spun round, and thrown to the ground. And I certainly don't think she would then enter ta pitch black passagway, voluntarily, with a man who'd just assaulted her! Not during the Ripper scare; She'd have to he insane!

[John G]

I wonder whether the police put this incident down to Stride being rejected by a potential customer, probably something that occurred quite regularly. She probably just laughed it off, brushed herself down and moved on to the next. Schwatz being relatively new to the country may not have been used to seeing this kind of behaviour, freaked out a little and ran off, maybe getting the 'Lipski' insult for staring a little too much at BS man who could have been a bit embarrassed?

As I alluded to in the previous post we potentially have a significant amount of time between the 'assault/pushing incident and Stride ending up in the yard. No witnesses for this time. Easy for the murderer to emerge from the shadows or side street where he has been watching everything. He has plenty of time to pick the exact moment to make his appearance. Maybe he used the incident to start chatting to Stride, helps her up, puts her at ease by offering her sweets and then lures her or she lures him to the yard.

Yes, I agree. It's perfectly possible that Stride met someone else after BS Man. However, as I alluded to in my earlier post, there's something definitely amiss with Scwartz: such as why was he never utilized as a witness? Why did Abberline say that no one who saw the Ripper viewed him from the front-when he was obviously aware of Schwartz, and we know he believed Stride was Ripper victim.

[JeffHamm]

Extreme reasoning apart, I just don't see how it's remotely likely that Stride would have been holding onto the cachous for dear life, as if they were some valuable object, whilst being pulled into the street, spun round, and thrown to the ground. And I certainly don't think she would then enter ta pitch black passagway, voluntarily, with a man who'd just assaulted her! Not during the Ripper scare; She'd have to he insane!

Again, it depends upon how she falls, and pull and turn and push would be pretty quick, and if he's not hurling her around like a sock in a hurricane, then she may very well have held on to what she was holding. We know if she was holding them then she could not have fallen fully prone, not hands out, etc. but there are ways for her to have fallen without having to put a hand down (such as just to a knee), or to her right side and she puts her right hand down but not her left even. So it's not impossible for her to have held them through that, and once that is passed, BS or a newcomer, are faced with the same situation. A newcomer can get her into the passage with him, and BS may have followed her in while she tried the only route available to her to get away, into the alley and towards the door of the club. As I say, I don't think she's going into the passage "with" BS, she's trying to escape from him and he's blocked all other routes due to their position after he's spun her round. It's the only direction she has available, and if she's been there, she would know there's a door where she can go inside. Now if the fellow hasn't attacked her so violently that she hasn't dropped the cachous, which would have to be the case since she's still holding them, then she's also probably not in fear of her life, but she probably does want to get away from the fellow rough handling her. It would not be a JtR fear, but just another roughing up by someone (and remember, that's what's going on if BS leaves and a newcomer comes along - so if she's now comfy enough to take the newcomer into the alley, she brushed off that assault pretty quickly, which means she can't be all that fussed, so she probably isn't in fear of her life). This is what I mean, the newcomer story tends to require BS to be "not so scary", so if BS was not so scary, she's not going to be thinking JtR, and should couldn't have been roughed up too badly by that point, so she might not have dropped the cachous, etc.

Look, if some evidence turns up that shows that BS attacked her much more violently, then that closes out this line of possibility because it is based on the events described by Schwartz as not being rough enough to force her to drop the cachous, but unless something comes up that means this type of thing is still possible so BS cannot be ruled out. Doesn't have to be one's favorite scenario, but it fits the limited evidence we have, remains internally consistent, and it provides some limits that could falsify it if new evidence comes along. It also means that ruling out BS is not yet possible, but it doesn't mean BS must be JtR either. Just, he's still a candidate suspect. It also describes BS in a way that the newcomer hypothesis also would more or less have to desribe his actions (there's no marks of a violent throw to the ground, there's no screams of someone in fear for their life, and so forth). There are those who suggest the whole Schwartz testimony is part of an elaborate conspiracy and that the whole encounter never happened, but that idea falls down because it's not internally consistent with Schwartz's testimony.

Anyway, as I say, I'm not saying this must be what happened, only that it could have happened this way and would fit the evidence we have.

- Jeff

[Harry D]

Extreme reasoning apart, I just don't see how it's remotely likely that Stride would have been holding onto the cachous for dear life, as if they were some valuable object, whilst being pulled into the street, spun round, and thrown to the ground. And I certainly don't think she would then enter ta pitch black passagway, voluntarily, with a man who'd just assaulted her! Not during the Ripper scare; She'd have to he insane!

Indeed, John. There's no escaping this point.

IF Schwartz was telling the truth, then the chances are that BS Man was her killer. Pretty unlikely to me that another man conveniently entered the scene minutes later. It's ludicrous to think that Stride willingly went into the darkness of the yard with this same man and let her guard down to be killed.

[Abby Normal]

Yes, that is possible too. BS being the killer is not the only possible interpretation, but many seem to think BS could not have been the attacker. I think he could have been, and that there is nothing in the evidence we have that completely rules him out. Similarly, it is possible for BS to have then moved on, and someone else to have come along and attacked her again. The thing is, we have no evidence at all of this newcomer, and it is possible for BS to have continued his attack and killed her.

- Jeff

exactly Jeff
the cashoo crowd want to disregard the man seen attacking her-coming up with ludicrous alternatives like phantom suspects, lying witnesses and club conspiracies-mainly because she was still found clutching something in her hand. its stupid.

[Abby Normal]

to the cashoo crowd:

did Israel Schwartz just happen to come up with a suspect wearing a peaked cap and luckily get that right in his made up story too?

[JeffHamm]

to the cashoo crowd:

did Israel Schwartz just happen to come up with a suspect wearing a peaked cap and luckily get that right in his made up story too?

Hi Abby,

While the descriptions of BS and Lawende's suspect could be of the same person, both are fairly generic. Peaked caps and dark clothing were not exactly uncommon after all. But, that aside, the fact that the two descriptions are not clearly of two different attackers again, leaves open for consideration the possibility that Stride's killer and Eddowes' killer are one in the same, both being BS.

And before anyone thinks "but they could have been different people", I'm just saying that possibility remains open as viable, not insisting it is true or the only possibility that is viable, so yes, it could have been two different people too because the descriptions are so common they could overlap easily. But it doesn't preclude either, so again, much like the cachous evidence, it can be explained if BS was, or was not, her attacker. it doesn't allow us to exclude lines of inquiry, which is the point I've been trying to make but for someone reason people are treating it as if I'm insisting the attack did go down as I've suggested, which I think I'm being clear that's not what I'm saying.

- Jeff

[c.d.]

"You can't get away from those damn cachous, I'm afraid. They point to a woman who was killed swiftly and suddenly. Schwartz describes a woman that was being harassed and manhandled moments before her death."

Hello Harry,

I agree with you about the significance of the cachous.

But "moments before her death?" No. I am afraid it was minutes not moments. Enough minutes for Swanson to allow for the possibility of her killer coming along after the B.S. man left. You conclude that Schwartz must have lied because his account doesn't seem to jibe with the details of her murder but again all he says he saw is a woman being pushed. How can he be faulted regarding details of her murder if he didn't witness it?

c.d.