More reading over the weekend on my current obsession - and a really interesting podcast with Donald Rumbelow, the world's foremost expert on the topic.
Of the 'canonical five,' I have my doubts that Liz Stride, the alleged 3rd victim and first on the night of the 'double event,' was actually a Ripper victim. If she was, then the gentleman who found her body, Louis Diemshutz, must have missed the killer by seconds, and was probably within a few feet of the killer still hiding there. The wounds were too fresh, the timelines not quite lining up unless essentially, his horse and cart's noise interrupted the killer, who hid whilst Diemshutz inspected the body and then fled when Diemshutz went to retrieve assistance from the adjacent working men's club.
I do think The Ripper killed 6 women total, but I don't think Liz Stride was one of them. Here's some thoughts, if anyone's interested (more a way for me to spill my cluttered thinking out in to words) -
- Stride was murdered shortly before 01:00am, when Diemshutz found her entering into an alleyway leading to a Courtyard. She had been seen by Israel Schwartz being assaulted at 12:45, by a man, whilst another man stood nearby lighting a pipe. This man was wrestling her near the entry to the courtyard, and Stride was shouting at him. The onlooker, Schwartz, felt the two that were grappling knew one another, but did not assist, instead fleeing when the second man, with the pipe, came towards him. Stride is found dead 15 minutes later in the same location, just inside the entry to the courtyard.
- The above was either The Ripper with an accomplice, Stride's actual killer, or after this assault/domestic, within 15 minutes, Stride located another client, brought them to the alleyway and was murdered by them (presumably The Ripper).
- Stride lived, on and off, with a man called Michael Kidney. Kidney was known for being abusive, aggressive and have bouts of jealous rage. He even used to lock Stride in their shared accommodation while he went out each night, for fear she would leave him. The evening of her death, Stride had let herself out of her accommodation with a spare key that Kidney did not know she possessed. Kidney was of the belief that while he was out, Stride was confined to their shared room. The morning after her death, Kidney appeared at a police station, blind drunk, ranting about the police's incompetence in catching Stride's murderer. At this point, Liz Stride had been incorrectly identified by police as 'Liz Strokes,' so it wasn't common knowledge or knowledge at all that Stride had been murdered. So how did he know, other than her not being at home when he returned around 10:45pm the previous night?
- Stride had been seen earlier in the evening outside a local pub in the embrace of a client she'd picked up, this man was not Michael Kidney. When passers by who knew Stride joked she was embracing with 'Leather Apron,' Stride and the Man departed for more privacy. The man seen wrestling Stride later in the night was not this man, who presumably paid for the services received and left Stride to her business.
- It seems somewhat difficult to believe, though possible, that she was being assaulted, then inside the space of around 10 minutes, immediately composed herself and solicited a new client who then murdered her.
- The same type of knife was identified as being used in murders 1, 2, 4 and 5, but not Stride's death. The knife used to kill Stride was significantly shorted and had a more rounded blade.
- Stride did not suffer the same mutilation and patterns of attack as the other victims. This is thought to be because the killer was interrupted, but may be because she wasn't a Ripper victim at all. Stride received multiple stab wounds following a cut throat, but was not mutilated in the same fashion and no body parts removed. Stride is also the only alleged Ripper victim to die of her throat being cut, the other Ripper victim's throats were cut as post-death mutilation, after they had been strangled to death. Stride did not die of strangulation but the cut throat itself.
- Stride had no defensive wounds to speak of and was still gripping the confectionary she'd been carrying when she was found. Her neckerchief was somewhat tightly pulled and dishevelled and left some marks on her throat, she was likely pulled by this then her throat slit open.
- Stride's knife wounds and slit throat were inflicted in a different pattern to the other Ripper victims. The other victims, based on movement of blade, patterns of damage, incision points of the weapon, were almost certainly done by a left-handed individual. Jack the Ripper was almost definitely left-handed, or ambidextrous at the very least. Stride's wounds were inflicted by someone who was right-handed, and as stated before, with a very different type of weapon.
- All of the Ripper victims were killed in fairly secluded spots that were dimly lit and not major thoroughfares. Stride was the exception, this was a heavy pedestrian traffic area and was well lit. Indeed, in the space of 15 minutes between 12:45 and 01:00, Israel Schwartz and Louis Diemshutz had both been down there. There was a packed working men's club right by where the attack took place, with hundreds of men inside, singing and drinking, the lights from the club illuminating the courtyard, alley and street rather well by contemporary standards. Stride was the only victim killed in an area that was extremely likely to have some form of pedestrian in the area during the time of the assault.
Based on the strange way Kidney was acting post-death, his knowledge of Stride's death when he shouldn't have known, the previous knowledge of him as violent and controlling and the death being so different to the Ripper's typical MO, I would say Michael Kidney likely killed Liz Stride after losing control during a domestic, then got away with it after the killing was attributed to the Ripper. It is merely coincidence that Stride was killed shortly before a genuine Ripper victim, Catherine Eddowes (who believed she knew who the Ripper was) in my opinion, based on all of the above. I believe the man seen to be assaulting her was Michael Kidney, who'd flown into a rage and gone off to find her once he'd returned home to find she'd escaped their room he believed he'd locked her in.
That's a lot of writing to basically say she was killed with a different weapon, by someone not-likely left-handed, after she'd been seen being assaulted and known to have a violent abusive boyfriend. Needed to get it all out of my head. This research is nothing new, I've added a bit of my own thinking, but I do think Stride was not a Ripper victim despite being part of the canonical five.
