For what reason do we include Stride?

[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

[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]

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

[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

[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.

[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!

[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.

[The Baron]

Problem you have here is that Liz's body was found with her feet pointed towards the gate. It doesn't support the hypothesis that she was running towards the kitchen door when she was killed. If anything, she was leaving the club.

Also, don't you find it awfully convenient that Schwartz said that Stride yelled softly three times. Had to be softly because no one else in the vicinity heard this little piece of theatre. And what on earth is a "soft" yell anyway? Bit of an oxymoron if you ask me.

I used to think Schwarz was Anderson's witness.

Your analyse is convincing. I completely agree.

The whole story started to fail apart.


The Baron

[JeffHamm]

It's possible that she clenched her hand into a fist, i.e. as an automated shock response as she was taken by surprise.

The cachous certainly would not have survived being pulled into the street, spun round and thrown to the ground (on this last point she would most probably have opened her hand and spread her fingers to break the fall, thus spilling the cachous.)

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

[c.d.]

"Also, don't you find it awfully convenient that Schwartz said that Stride yelled softly three times. Had to be softly because no one else in the vicinity heard this little piece of theatre. And what on earth is a "soft" yell anyway? Bit of an oxymoron if you ask me."

Hello Harry,

Isn't the most likely explanation that this was a translation problem?

c.d.

[JeffHamm]

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.

Basically, Schwartz's statement doesn't contradict anything (doesn't prove it either, just saying there's nothing that requires any great suspension of disbelief, which is what I find the conspiracy theory requires because Schwartz's statement as he gave it, whether you believe it or not, implicates a Jewish accomplice which is the antithesis of the whole point of the conspiracy theory in the first place). That argument, however, is entirely separate from whether or not you think Schwartz is a reliable witness, or whether or not you believe the incident Schwartz saw was in fact JtR just about to kill Stride. The point is, there's no way Schwartz was part of a conspiracy to divert attention away from the Jewish population because the statement he gave implicated a Jewish accomplice. The fact that the police believed Schwartz was mistaken doesn't change the fact that his statement is directly opposed to the goals of the proposed conspiracy, so the theory contradicts itself, therefore, must be wrong. But just because the conspiracy theory isn't internally consistent doesn't automatically elevate Schwartz to absolutely true. While I don't see anything in the evidence that can't be explained if Schwartz did see what he states, that just means his statement could be true, perhaps via scenario like I describe above, but there could be other speculative descriptions as well. There is the "then BS goes away and JtR comes along" option, which also allows for Schwartz to be reporting something that he actually saw. Of the two, my own opinion is that the former is more probable, but neither is impossible.

- Jeff

[Harry D]

Or, Liz has been holding her cachous up until this point, keeping hold of them through the above, because she didn't fall flat on her back or front. She gets up, rushes down the alley to escape BS (probably knows there's a door to the club and she can hear the people) and he's now between her and the street. He grabs her scarf, and quickly kills her, and then leaves. And if something like that happens, then again, that fits with everything Schwartz described, without a prolonged continuation of the event.

Problem you have here is that Liz's body was found with her feet pointed towards the gate. It doesn't support the hypothesis that she was running towards the kitchen door when she was killed. If anything, she was leaving the club.

Also, don't you find it awfully convenient that Schwartz said that Stride yelled softly three times. Had to be softly because no one else in the vicinity heard this little piece of theatre. And what on earth is a "soft" yell anyway? Bit of an oxymoron if you ask me.

[John G]

No matter whether you know your killer or not, being jerked back by the scarf and being cut through the throat is probably going to make you drop your wee bag of sweets. There's something unusual about those cachous, to be sure, but I don't think they can tell us much about the killer.

It's possible that she clenched her hand into a fist, i.e. as an automated shock response as she was taken by surprise.

The cachous certainly would not have survived being pulled into the street, spun round and thrown to the ground (on this last point she would most probably have opened her hand and spread her fingers to break the fall, thus spilling the cachous.)

[JeffHamm]

At the same time, constructing a false witness to mislead the investigation.

According to Schwartz, Liz was manhandled and thrown to the ground by some thug. Minutes later she's dead in the yard. There was no sign of a struggle, the cachous were still in her hand, no one else heard or saw anything to corroborate Schwarz's story. Everything points to Liz being killed suddenly, without warning. Hard to believe that Liz would enter in the blackness of the yard with her guard down with the same man who moments earlier roughed her up. People will proffer theories in order to reconcile the two but imo none of them wash. Funny how people have no problem handwaving that issue, but to suppose that an immigrant jew would bend the truth to protect his own kin? Preposterous!

Hi Harry D,

Schwartz describes BS as pulling her towards the street then swinging her around to the pavement (sidewalk/footpath). That's one incident, and we don't know how she fell, it could just be to her knees since there's no details on that. At that point Schwartz is leaving, pipeman following him, BS shouts "Lipski". We don't know what happens next. But there have been two options.

Now, one possibility is that BS also goes on his way, and someone else comes along and kills Liz. If this is true, why do we have to suggest Schwartz's statement is a lie designed to deflect attention away from the Jewish population by cunningly implicating a Jewish accomplice?

Or, Liz has been holding her cachous up until this point, keeping hold of them through the above, because she didn't fall flat on her back or front. She gets up, rushes down the alley to escape BS (probably knows there's a door to the club and she can hear the people) and he's now between her and the street. He grabs her scarf, and quickly kills her, and then leaves. And if something like that happens, then again, that fits with everything Schwartz described, without a prolonged continuation of the event.

The 2nd option has BS doing the "sudden attack" on Liz that you suggest the new person has to do anyway and still have her holding the cachous. And she's not facing him, which she's more likely to do if a newcomer is a customer. If she's facing her attacker, in the alley, and he suddenly grabs her that makes it seem more probable she would grab at him, dropping the cachous since she's just been attacked once already - so how come she's still holding them?

- Jeff

[Sam Flynn]

Stride was subdued quietly. She was clearly at ease with her killer, hence the cachous, which doesn't gel at all with a domestic confrontation.

No matter whether you know your killer or not, being jerked back by the scarf and being cut through the throat is probably going to make you drop your wee bag of sweets. There's something unusual about those cachous, to be sure, but I don't think they can tell us much about the killer.