This is the full-text of A.P. Wolf's Jack the Myth, originally published by Robert Hale in 1993. It is reprinted here in its entirety, with new revisions, by the kind permission of A.P. Wolf. You may start reading it from the beginning, or you can jump to specific chapters by clicking the links below.
Chapter 2 - Long Liz
Elizabeth Stride - aka Long Liz - was murdered on 30 September 1888 between 12.30 and 1.00 a.m. at 40 Berner Street, Whitechapel, and it is claimed by almost all writing on the subject of the murders that she was the third victim of Jack the Ripper. The fact that only Long Liz's throat was cut and there were no other mutilations or signs of violence on her body are claimed as proof that the Ripper was disturbed at his work and was unable to finish the destructive task to his strange satisfaction. This is very likely a false assumption.
From the available evidence is seems clear that Long Liz was not a victim of Jack the Ripper, rather she was perhaps the victim of a domestic quarrel which sadly ended in a vicious act of violence. In the climate of hysteria generated by the first two attacks (or three depending on whether Martha Tabram was a victim of the Ripper) where the women were badly mutilated it was easy to see this as another, albeit failed, strike by the Ripper. It was also easy for the man who actually cut Long Liz's throat to use this as a cover to escape suspicion.
To begin with Long Liz does not really fit the profile of the other women attacked by Jack the Ripper, who were all working prostitutes, well known in the Whitechapel area and well known to the police. There is no doubt that Long Liz did resort to prostitution, but it seems to have been only when she had no other choice, preferring to earn her money in other ways as attested to by several witnesses. The lodging house deputy, Elizabeth Tanner, at 32 Flower and Dean Street where Long Liz was temporarily staying at the time of her death - her actual residence being Crossingham's, 35 Dorset Street - described her as a 'very quiet woman who... did cleaning work for the Jews'. The bed maker at the same lodging house, Ann Mill, pointed out that: 'Stride worked when she could get work and a better hearted, more good natured, cleaner woman never lived.'
Thomas Bates the watchman at 32 Flower and Dean Street also testified that Long Liz tried to make her living 'charring'. Add to this the fact that she often called at the Swedish Church to apply for financial aid, and received it several times - Long Liz was Swedish in origin - and that to earn money she would also clean the rooms of the lodging houses where she stayed. Somehow this behavior just doesn't fit in with the profile and activities of a habitual prostitute who earned money by the simple act of selling her body for four pence a time and then went straight to the nearest drinking house and drank herself insensible.
No, the behaviour and activities of Long Liz shortly before her murder lead one rather to the conclusion that here was a woman who cared about her appearance, was determined to do anything else to earn a living rather that reducing herself to prostitution, like cleaning rooms and begging aid from churches, and that she had some kind of future planned for herself.
We must now examine the events of the night leading up to Long Liz's murder.
Long Liz's boyfriend, Michael Kidney, claimed that the last time he had seen her was on 25 September when she left their shared room at 35 Dorset Street and that he fully expected to find her at home when he returned from work that evening. However at the inquest a woman called Catherine Lane, who had known Long Liz for six or seven years, claimed that Long Liz had told her that she had in fact left Kidney after a row. Kidney strongly denied this at the inquest. But the fact that he admitted that Long Liz had left him before, on several occasions, would seem to indicate that theirs was a stormy relationship at best. He estimated that out of the three years they had been living together, she had lived apart from him for at least five months in total. The fact that he was always willing to take her back means that either he was in love with her, or he was financially dependent on her. As he was working at the time of her murder, as a waterside labourer, it is probably safer to assume that he was in love with her. Unlike most of the other Ripper victims, Long Liz, an unusually tall woman of Swedish origins, appears from her photographs to have been a reasonably attractive woman. Detective Walter Dew noted that she had an unusual prettiness and other writers have since commented on her attractiveness.
Also, it has to be asked, if they had not had a row why then would Long Liz have moved out of Kidney's room at 35 Dorset Street and taken up lodgings at 32 Flower and Dean Street? The circumstances strongly indicate that Long Liz had made up her mind to leave Kidney once again, and it was obviously not for the reason of being able to pursue a trouble-free life as a prostitute, otherwise she would not have spent the entire day cleaning rooms at the lodging house to earn sixpence on the day of her death. A Whitchapel prostitute in 1888 charged her customers four pence, a sum that could be earned in the space of a few minutes, therefore it seems highly unlikely that a habitual prostitute would spend her entire day cleaning rooms for a mere sixpence when she was expecting to ply her trade that evening.
On the night of her murder Long Liz briefly visited the Queen's Head public house in Commercial Road at around 6.30 p.m. and then was back at the lodging house at Flower and Dean Street between 7 and 8 p.m., preparing to go out for the evening. The watchman at the lodging house, Thomas Bates, described her manner as 'cheerful' and as she went to the trouble of borrowing a clothes brush from another lodger, Charles Preston, it was obvious that she was keen to appear at her best for someone. She also gave another lodger, Catherine Lane, a piece of velvet to look after and this may well have been a gift she had received earlier in the evening. At any event that fact that she had a 'date' seems obvious, and this date was certainly not with Michael Kidney as he gave evidence at the inquest that he did not see Long Liz again after she left him on 25 September. After Long Liz left the lodging house she was not seen again until just before 11 p.m. by two men, Best and Gardner, coming out of the Bricklayer's Arms, Settles Street, with a man.
Mr Best's statement was as follows:
'They had been served in the public house, and went out when me and my friends came in. It was raining very fast and they did not appear willing to go out. He was hugging and kissing her, and as he seemed a respectably dressed man, we were rather astonished at the way he was going on with the woman.'
And after admitting that he and his friends barracked the man he said 'he and the woman went off like a shot soon after eleven.'
After this another witness, Matthew Packer, said that he had sold a bunch of grapes to Long Liz and her male companion in Berner Street sometime between 11 p.m. and midnight. Most writers on the subject of the Ripper are inclined to dismiss Packer's statement on the grounds that he was an unreliable witness. But there are other factors which back his statement up. Not least that his testimony was felt to be so important that it was personally taken down by Sir Charles Warren, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner at the time of the murders. Also the discoverer of Long Liz's body, Louis Deimschutz, told the Evening News that she did indeed have a bunch of grapes clutched in one hand, and at the inquest Dr Phillips who performed the post-mortem said that there were fruit stains on the handkerchiefs found on the body. Two other witnesses, a Mrs Rosenfield and Eva Hartstein, who lived in the passage on Berner Street where Long Liz was murdered also claimed to have seen a blood-soaked grape stalk and flower petals before the police washed the blood away. Later a detective, searching the drain in the yard, did discover a grape stalk.
Many authors view the inquest evidence of Dr Phillips as conclusive proof of Packer's unreliability as a witness, for the doctor found no sign of grape skins or pips in the stomach of the murdered woman. It is of course quite possible to buy a bunch of grapes without actually eating them. However it is important to note that Long Liz's teeth were found to be in an appalling state at the post-mortem with all the teeth from the lower left jaw missing. Detectives searching the murder area subsequently found several spat-out grape skins and seeds, and this could very well be the reason why Dr Phillips was unable to identify the fruit in her stomach, as the crushed pulp of the grape flesh - minus the pips and skin - would have been easily overlooked, if not impossible to identify.
So Packer's statement cannot be dismissed lightly, and it is an important statement, not just because it identifies the whereabouts of the murder victim at a given time, but because it poses an equally important question. If Long Liz was a common prostitute and the man seen with her was merely one of the night's many 'tricks' - as the Ripperologists claim - why was he buying her grapes? A man who casually picks up a prostitute in a pub, does not normally treat her to anything other than the cost of her bodily favours. He doesn't usually buy her flowers to pin on her coat either, but it appears that this man did just that. PC William Smith, whose beat was Berner Street, saw Long Liz and her male companion at 12.30 a.m. and testified that she was wearing a red flower pinned to her jacket. Remember the flower petals discovered by the two women in Berner's Passage.
The care that Long Liz seemed to have put into her appearance that night, her cheerful attitude as attested to by her fellow lodgers, and the earlier statement from Mr Best about the actions of the couple he encountered leaving the Bricklayer's Arms does not sound much like a prostitute and a 'trick'. They come across like lovers, perhaps secret lovers but lovers all the same. When her body was discovered she was still clutching in one hand a small packet of 'cachous' - of course the Ripperologists maintain in their usual well researched fashion that these were 'cashew nuts'.
Cachous are in fact small French pastilles designed to sweeten the breath of smokers and are still very popular today. This is yet another indication of her intention to be at her best for someone that evening. After all if we are to believe Donald Rumbelow's account of the sexual activities of Victorian prostitutes it is obvious that sweet breath was not an essential requirement.
Remember, PC William Smith saw them both in Berner Street at 12.30 a.m. and they had left the nearby pub 'soon after eleven' and they were possibly seen kissing in Berner Street by William Marshall, a labourer. at 11.45 p.m. Therefore this was no quick and businesslike liaison between prostitute and client for four pence. It would appear to be the actions of a couple who know they have to part but are stretching out their time together for as long as possible. This would seem to indicate that the man with Long Liz was a married man with a wife waiting at home for him, otherwise the two could have easily spent the night together.
The next sighting of Long Liz at 12.45 a.m. is of great importance. A Hungarian named Israel Schwartz did not give evidence at the inquest of Long Liz, but he did make a statement to the police. This statement remained unpublished until very recently when the Home Office files were made available:
'Israel Schwartz of 33 Helen Street, Backchurch Lane, stated that at this hour, on turning into Berner Street from Commercial Street, and having got as far as the gateway where the murder was committed, he saw a man stop and speak to a woman, who was standing in the gateway. The man tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned her round and threw her down on the foot way and the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly. On crossing to the opposite side of the street, he saw a second man standing lighting his pipe. The man who threw the woman down called out, apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road, 'Lipski' and then Schwartz walked away, but finding that he was followed by the second man, he ran as far as the railway arch, but the man did not follow so far. Schwartz cannot say whether the two men were together or known to each other. Upon being taken to the mortuary Schwartz identified the body as that of the woman he had seen...'
Inspector Abberline, who was involved with investigations into all the Ripper murders added:
'I questioned Israel Schwartz very closely at the time he made the statement as to whom the man addressed when he called Lipski, but he was unable to say. Also it was never ascertained whether the man lighting his pipe ran after Schwartz or ran because he, too, was alarmed by the man who had thrown the woman to the ground.'
This strange encounter took place just fifteen minutes before the body of Long Liz was discovered by Louis Diemschutz as he attempted to bring his pony and cart into the yard of the Berner Street Club at 1.00 a.m. Therefore it seems obvious that the man Schwartz saw throwing Long Liz to the ground was her murderer. It would seem highly unlikely that this was the same man who had earlier been with her in the pub 'kissing and cuddling' blatantly in front of a group of men, dallying with her in the street in front of numerous witnesses including a patrolling policeman, and not an hour before affectionately buying her fruit and flowers. Rather this would have been the man Schwartz saw on the other side of the street, observing the scene from a discreet distance while smoking his pipe.
It is necessary to look at the descriptions of these two men. Schwartz described the man he saw assaulting Long Liz: 'about 30, 5ft 5ins., with a fair complexion, dark hair, small brown moustache, full face and broad shoulders. He was wearing a dark jacket and trousers, and a black cap with a peak.'
The man on the opposite side of the street he described as: '35, 5ft 11ins., with fresh complexion, light brown hair and brown moustache. He was dressed in a dark overcoat and an old black hard felt hat with a wide brim.'
The man that PC William Smith saw earlier, at 12.30 p.m. with Long Liz he described as: 'The man was aged about 28, was 5ft. 7ins. in height, of dark complexion and sporting a small dark moustache. He was wearing a black diagonal coat, hard felt hat, white collar and tie.'
Therefore it would seem that the man PC William Smith encountered walking with Long Liz at 12.30 a.m. was the same man Israel Schwartz saw watching the attack on Long Liz, from the other side of Berner Street at 12.45 a.m.. The hard felt hat clinches it. The man assaulting Long Liz was wearing a cap with a peak.
The man with the peaked cap may have been dogging the movements of Long Liz and her 'gentlemen' since they left the Bricklayer's Arms, or he may have come across them in Berner Street quite by chance. Whatever, the description of this man would seem to indicate that he was of the 'working class' rather than a 'gentleman', the peaked cap as opposed to a hard felt hat. Long Liz and her companion must have become aware thay they were being followed, and she probably knew exactly who it was that was following them. Otherwise, why would her companion have left her standing in the gateway of 40 Berner Street and crossed the road to await events at a discreet distance?
When Long Liz realized they were being followed and that the man following them was someone with a grudge against her and her new companion, it would have been natural for her to have advised the 'gentleman' to cross the road while she sorted the situation out. In Schwartz's evidence he said that: 'he saw a man stop and speak to a woman, who was standing in the gateway. The man tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned her round and threw her down on the foot way and the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly.'
If the man in the peaked cap had been a robber or murderer he would not have attempted to pull Long Liz out of the passageway into the street, he would have tried to push her back into the darkness of the passageway. If the man in the peaked cap had been a robber or murderer unknown to Long Liz she would have screamed her head off when attacked. Remember that two women had already been brutally murdered on the streets of Whitechapel and if the attacker had really been unknown to her she would certainly have protested with a lot more vigour than is apparent from Schwartz's description. No, this scene has more of the feel of a domestic dispute about it, rather than the cold-blooded calculated actions of a vicious killer about to disembowel his victim.
What was it that this attacker called out to the man on the opposite side of the street according to Schwartz? 'Lipski.' This was an insult specifically used against Jews after a Jew called Lipski murdered a woman in 1887. Earlier we have seen that the landlady, Elizabeth Tanner, at 32 Flower and Dean Street had said of Long Liz that she was 'a very quiet woman who sometimes stayed out late at night and did cleaning work for the Jews.' It is possible that Long Liz, during her spells of cleaning work for the Jews, may have met a man with whom she struck up a relationship (of course she may also have met a man casually in a pub or elsewhere). It may have been this relationship which had soured her on-off cohabitation and friendship with Michael Kidney, leading to the eventual row - as testified to by Catherine Lane - that led to Long Liz eventually moving out of their shared Dorset Street room. This would seem to be confirmed by Michael Kidney himself when he told the inquest into her death that Long Liz was fluent in Yiddish, a strange accomplishment indeed for a woman of Swedish origins.
In terms of human relationships, times have not much changed since 1888 and if Long Liz was forced to separate from Michael Kidney on numerous occasions it was probably because he used violence against her. Even today many women are prepared to suffer a certain degree of mental and semi-physical abuse to hold a relationship together, but there is only one answer to real violence and that is to walk out of the door. And that is just what Long Liz did.
That Long Liz's and Michael Kidney's relationship was not quite as rosy as Kidney tried to paint it is obvious from his inquest testimony when he admitted - under relentless questioning - that he always padlocked the door to his and Long Liz's room at Crossingham's Lodging House, 35 Dorset Street, and that he had the only key. This is the act of a domineering individual, one very much used to his own way, rather than a fair man prepared to share and share alike. It is not normal behaviour in a relationship to lock one's female partner out of the house for the entire day while one is at work. One must also compare this statement to his other inquest testimony where he said that he fully expected to find Long Liz back home in their room at Crossingham's on the evening of the 25 September.
How? She didn't have a key.
The fact of the matter is that Kidney was a violent man, a drunkard and a brawler, who was sent down by a court for his violent behaviour in July 1888, and had assaulted Long Liz in the past. She even went to the extent of having him arrested on one occasion in 1887, but when he was charged in court she failed to appear against him and the case was dismissed. It is likely that Long Liz feared the punishment of Kidney more than he feared the punishment of the court.
The behaviour of the gentleman who was with Long Liz on the night of the murder is another indication that he was probably married and 'respectable'. He stood on the opposite side of the road smoking his pipe and then making off quickly when the man in the peaked cap began his assault. He didn't want to get involved, it would have meant a lot of awkward questions and he had after all come out for an evening of fun and wasn't about to mix it with a ruffian of the nature that was attacking his mistress. Any other man would have enlisted the aid of Schwartz as he approached the scene and then with him frightened off Long Liz's attacker. But no, this 'gentleman', like Schwartz, decided discretion was the better part of valor and in consequence Long Liz was brutally murdered.
The suspicion for this brutal murder must fall on Michael Kidney. His denial at the inquest that he had rowed with Long Liz shortly before her murder is highly suspicious, as Catherine Lane who swore at the inquest that Kidney had fallen out with Long Liz had no reason whatsoever to lie. She had, remember, known Long Liz for almost seven years and had nothing to gain by lying after her death. Rows in a relationship are not an uncommon thing and for Kidney to deny this can only be explained by an ulterior motive and that motive was to cover his guilt. It was he who had followed Long Liz and her new friend, it must have been, otherwise she would not have sent her man across the street while she dealt with Kidney. After all, she had lived with Kidney for three years and probably felt she was capable of calming him down. When the attacker threw her to the ground she did not scream out at the top of her voice 'murder!' as would have been normal in the situation and in an area where two women had recently been brutally hacked to pieces by a knife-wielding maniac. No, Long Liz knew the man who stood above her on that fateful night and may have expected a thrashing. But, instead, Michael Kidney, after insulting her new Jewish gentleman and then having the satisfaction of seeing him quickly depart the scene, held her down and slit her throat in a fit of rage and jealousy. Then he quickly made his way back to his lodgings at 35 Dorset Street, pausing to wash his bloody hands in a public sink actually in Dorset Street, as attested to by police officers searching the area. Then he walked into number 35 Dorset Street, home and dry after committing what has been until now the perfect murder.
The final evidence for Michael Kidney's guilt is so surprisingly obvious that it is difficult to believe that it has lain around for so many years without anyone realizing its importance.
One day after the murder of Long Liz - Elizabeth Stride - Michael Kidney arrived in a drunken condition at Leman Street Police Station, Whitechapel. He demanded to speak to a detective, ranting and raving that if he had been the constable in the area where the murder took place he would have killed himself.
This is a vital point because Kidney did this before the inquest opened on Long Liz and her body had still not be identified, in other words nobody knew who the victim was, and even later, after the inquest had opened, she was still being wrongly identified as Elizabeth Stokes. So how then did Kidney know that the latest murder victim was his ex-girlfriend Long Liz before she had even been identified?
Remember he had not seen her for almost a week - so he claimed - and later admitted to the inquest jury that he was not 'worried' about her absence. He was also later pressed by the inquest jury to explain why he had gone to Leman Police Station to complain about the police and he came out with a wild tale about having some information which could have trapped the murderer if he had been given control of a group of detectives. When pressed even further he admitted that the tale was a lie.
The truth of the matter is that he did have some information which would have trapped the murderer because he murdered Long Liz himself, and in the classic manner - that will be presented in a later chapter - he presented himself to the police the very next day, in the role of the outraged upright citizen full of indignation about police inefficiency. There is no doubt now that Kidney did murder Long Liz... going to the police to complain about the circumstances of her death before anyone knew she was dead clinches it.
It is astonishing that the inquest jury were so quickly satisfied with his testimony, particularly after he admitted lying to them. Equally, one can only wonder at the total incompetence of the police in failing to realize that Kidney could not have known that it was Long Liz who was murdered before her body had even been identified, unless of course he had committed the crime himself. Again, as in other inquests on the so called Ripper murders, the attitude of the police is quite unbelievable. The failure of the police in Long Liz's case of not calling the single eyewitness to her murder, Israel Schwartz, to give vital evidence at the inquest is absolute criminal neglect.
For there is no doubt that if Israel Schwartz had been called to the inquest he would have immediately identified Michael Kidney as the man he saw attacking Elizabeth Stride that night in Berner Street. After all he had been taken to the mortuary and identified Long Liz as the woman he saw being attacked that night, which means he was as close to the male attacker as the female victim and would have been able to identify him.
But was Michael Kidney Jack the Ripper?
Kidney is a very tempting suspect, the perfect suspect in many ways. His address, Crossingham's Lodging House, 35 Dorset Street, means that he must have known the group of murdered prostitutes that were all in one way or another connected to this address. We know he was a violent man but now we also know he was a murderer. Criteria that we establish later in this book to profile killers fit Michael Kidney like a glove: he was known to the police as a drunken brawler, he was questioned by police in connection with the murders, he did go to the police voluntarily and make a nuisance of himself, and he must have known the victims personally which would explain the vicious mutilations to the faces of his victims.
If he was the Ripper then his territory was so squeezed by police activity that he did eventually murder on his front doorstep - remember Mary Jane Kelly was murdered right opposite 35 Dorset Street. The 'something' which placed him above suspicion in the minds of the prostitutes he murdered could have been his relationship with Long Liz and the prostitutes of 35 Dorset Street... he was after all almost family.
A perfect candidate for Jack the Ripper?
But something is wrong. And that something is Kidney's relationship to Long Liz, and Kidney himself. Would the Ripper really have killed someone who shared a room with him a week before and also in front of witnesses?
All of the Ripper murders, except that of Long Liz, show an unmistakable pattern: the victim lured to a dark and lonely spot as if by appointment rather than chance (the murder of Kelly falling out of the pattern perhaps on account of the intensive police activity by this time) and then murdered and mutilated with incredible swiftness and savagery. Three witnesses saw another victim, Catherine Eddowes, alive at 1.35 a.m. and only ten minutes later at 1.45 a.m. a police constable discovered her savagely mutilated corpse. If Michael Kidney had been Jack the Ripper he would have had ample time to inflict similar mutilations on Long Liz, because there was a clear quarter of an hour between the time she was attacked and the discovery of her body. No, it seems perhaps that even Michael Kidney didn't realize he would murder Long Liz that night and the whole account of their encounter in Berner Street just doesn't read like any of the other cases which may have involved the Ripper.
It will be necessary to take another look at Kidney's character and behaviour in a later chapter and this too will strongly indicate that he wasn't Jack the Ripper. The Ripper story is a complex one and it is essential to explore every avenue that is open to us in an attempt to arrive at the truth of the matter. Earlier we mentioned Colin Wilson's description of the Ripper crimes as being the 'first sex murders of a sexual nature' and it is to this statement that we must now turn our attention.
