So Long, Liz: Was Elizabeth Stride a True Ripper Victim?
by Scott Hannaford
"Long" Liz Stride was murdered at between 1250 and 1255am
on 30th September 1888 in Dutfields Yard , Berners Street, Whitechapel.
Her body was discovered by Louis Diemschutz as he drove his horse and cart
into the yard. Diemschutz believed that the death was very recent, and
it does seem that he missed the murderer by a matter of seconds. It is
possible, as Diemschutz believed, that the killer may have been hiding
in the shadows of the yard and escaped whilst Diemschutz went to the International
Workingmen's Educational Club to get help.
Stride's throat had been cut, but there were no extra mutilations. The
police believed that this had been because the killer had been interrupted
by Diemschutz and had been unable to carry out his handiwork. Frustrated
the killer then fled, or at least slowly walked (so as not to seem suspicious)
to Mitre Square where he killed Catherine Eddowes to satisfy his mort-lust.
The police automatically assumed that Jack the Ripper had performed
a 'double-event' that fateful night. Despite the lack of mutilations, Wynne
Baxter (coroner) suggested that the killer of Liz Stride was the same man
as had killed Nichols and Chapman. Newspapers of the period concurred with
the opinions of Abberline, Anderson, Macnaughten, Smith and Swanson that
Stride was a Ripper victim.
It must be wondered why these excellent officers were so certain of
this fact. In his notes on the Whitechapel Murders, Macnaughten rightly
dismisses the Pinchin Street Torso as not being the work of the Ripper,
saying that if it had not been for the timing of the killing (ie during
the Ripper scare period), the Pinchin murder would have never been attributed
to a serial killer. The same could have been said of the Stride killing.
If it had happened before Tabram or after Kelly, and not the same night
as Eddowes, Stride would not have been considered a true Ripper Victim.
Whilst so many officers believed that Stride was a victim of Jack The
Ripper, Dr Phillips provided information to the contrary. He stated that
there was a great dissimilarity between the deaths of Stride and Chapman.
Unlike Chapman Stride had not been strangled prior to having her throat
cut. Furthermore a long knife had been used to murder Tabram, Nichols,
Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly whilst a short round knife had killed Stride.
These are really two minor indiscrepancies which could be explained
by a change in MO. However there is one major point that can not be changed
which almost certainly proves that Stride's killer was not Jack the Ripper.
It is quite clear that the police believed Jack the Ripper to be LEFT HANDED,
and this is clearly correct, yet by looking at the autopsy/inquest report
on Stride there is a very strong case for her murderer being RIGHT HANDED.
Whilst Dr Phillips did not categorically state this, I believe that
his description of the body, the position of the killer and the angle of
the throat injury clearly show the killer to be right handed.
Phillips' post-mortem details that Stride was lying flat on her back
when her throat was slit from her left Carotid Artery, across her windpipe,
finishing just to the right of her Adam's Apple. Phillips then said that
the killer would have been on the left of the prone body when doing this,
ie on the left when facing the body, therefore the killer was on his left
but closest to Stride's right side (therefore clear of the flow of blood
from the opposite side of Stride's body).
We can therefore assume that the killers right arm was closer to the
body than his left, and we can make an educated assumption that the killer
would position himself so that the hand closest to the body would hold
the knife whilst the free hand would have held Stride down.
There was a small abrasion about one and a half inch circular on Stride's
right jaw, and this was probably an impression left by the thumb of the
killers left hend which would have been clamped over Stride's mouth to
prevent her screaming. If the left hand was used to do this then the thumb
would have sat on the jaw whilst the palm of the hand would have covered
her mouth and the fingers could have gripped the chin.
With the killer kneeling to the left of the body (ie Stride's right
side) and his left hand gripping the head, a right handed killer would
have used the knife by dragging it towards himself. This would have dragged
the knife from the left of Stride's throat across her windpipe, just as
stated by Dr Phillips.
Surely it must now be accepted that:
i Stride was flat on her back, face upwards when killed
ii the killer was to the left of the prone body, ie on Stride's
rightside (hence the flow of blood would have been away from the killer)
iii her face was held in the left hand (as supported by the thumb
impression on the right jaw
iv the weapon was held in the right hand
This all points to the fact that her assailant was right handed whereas
Jack the Ripper was clearly left handed. It has been suggested that Jack
the Ripper was an ambidexter, however there is no real evidence to support
this theory - whilst most ambidexters can hold with both hands, they still
generally favour one or the other, leading to one hand being stronger than
the other, and it must be asked if an ambidexter's weaker hand would have
had enough strength to cut through Stride's cartiliganious wind pipe. Dr
Phillips did not describe the cut as being ragged, so we can assume that
the hand used was very strong, and therefore not an ambidexter.
Apart from the fact that Stride's killer was right handed, there are
other factors that point to him as not being the person responsible for
the other five murders.
The scene of Stride's murder simply does not fit a typical Ripper murder
site. Dutfields Yard was well illuminated by the windows of the International
Workingmen's Educational Club, and is so different to the other sites used
by the Ripper:
Stride; Dutfields Yard; well lit, close to a very busy club
Tabram; George Yard; a dark shadowy landing away from the stairs
Nichols; Bucks Row; a poorly lit quiet street with few pedestrians
Chapman; Hanbury Street; a quiet dark backyard
Eddowes; Mitre Square; dark enclosed sqaure with dark entrances
Kelly; Millers Court; a single room in a quiet court off Dorset
St.
Stride's murder site was well lit and close to a busy drinking club,
whereas the other murder sites were in locations where the Ripper knew
he would not be interrupted.
If, as now seems likely, Stride was not killed by Jack the Ripper but
by a righthanded assailant, then we must wonder who the other murderer
stalking Whitechapel was. Two names have been suggested as most likely:
(i) Michael Kidney and (ii) the Anderson Suspect. as the most plausable.
(i) Kidney: in 'Jack the Myth' A.P. Wolf suggested Stride's living companion
as her killer noting that a high percentage of murders are domestic affairs.
There is some evidence supporting this theory, although Wolf wrote that
Kidney was NOT the Ripper, and only responsible for one murder.
On the night of her death both PC Smith and Israel Schwartz saw Liz
Stride. Smith saw her with a man and described them as acting like two
lovers, and people who saw Stride earlier in the evening had remarked that
she had put more into her appearance than usual.
The man seen with Stride by Israel Schwartz was not the same man as
seen by Smith, but was undoubtedly her killer. Schwartz saw the start of
the attack on Stride but fled in fear. It could be argued that the man
seen by Smith was a Gentleman-friend and that the assailant seen by Schwartz
was a jealous Michael Kidney who killed Stride in an act of revenge.
Kidney may have already been angry with Stride that evening- he had
frequently tried to padlock her into their room (to stop her from leaving
him), and he had told the police that he had expected to come home that
night to find her locked in the room. However Stride had a key (it was
found on her body by Dr Phillips) and was able to let herself in or out.
Possibly Kidney came home early in a drunken stupor, found that she was
out, caught her with her lover and then murdered her.
This is all conjecture, but the most incriminating point against Kidney
was that on the morning of the murder he arrived at Leman Street Police
station "in a drunken condition... ranting and raving" about
Stride's death and the inabilities of the Police. Stride's body had been
identified INCORRECTLY as 'Lizzie Stokes' and not as Stride, and was not
correctly identified until much later. So how did Kidney know that the
dead woman was Liz Stride when all the world had been told it was Liz Stokes?
Kidney later told the inquest that Stride spent a lot of time separated
from him, so he should not have been surprised or anxious about her disappearance.
However, all this considered, Kidney was interviewed by the police and
we must assume that they were happy with him.
(ii) The Anderson Suspect
There are three names which are constantly suggested to have been the
Anderson Witness: Jospeh Lawende, Joseph Hyam Levy and Israel Schwartz.
Of these three Lawende gave a fairly good description of a man seen with
Eddowes but stated that he would not be able to recognise the man again,
whilst his companion, Levy, said that he saw even less. Schwartz was different;
he gave a very good description of Liz Stride's attacker, and Scotland
Yard file MEPO 3/140 207 suggests that the information given by Schwartz
gave the police a leading suspect.
If, as now seems likely, Israel Schwartz was Anderson's Witness then
we can assume that Anderson's Suspect was believed to have been Stride's
assailant. Exactly who Anderson's was is still a matter of debate. Swanson
claimed that it was Aaron Kosminski, yet the details provided by Swanson
himself do not fit Kosminski and it may be that Swanson was referring to
AARON Cohen aka Nathan KAMINSKY, as suggested by Martin Fido.
Whoever Anderson's Suspect was, be it Kosminski, Kaminsky or Cohen,
the 'identification' at the Police Convalescent Home (almost certainly
by Schwartz) suggests that he may have killed Stride but not the other
victims.
Who Stride's killer was is open to attack, and the above are merely
my main suspects from a long list of equally plausible characters. However
what is not open to attack is my conclusion that Stride's right-handed
assailant was not the left-handed Jack the Ripper.
Scott Hannaford
BA Undergraduate in History
Worcester College England
