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Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 338
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 3:35 am: |       |
Hi Robert,
Re. Kelly.
Regarding Bungle, I feel that he achieved a adequate result.. If the famous Barnett was her killer, then I Would have imagined she would have tried to defend herself , even if it was to no avail, after all she proberly had fought with him on several occasions, and was familiar with his strengths and weaknesses.regarding strangulation, I tend to believe, that he partially attempted to smother her with her sheet, seconds before using the knive, if only to muffle out any attempts to cry out.
Richard. |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1075
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 4:42 am: | |
Hi Richard
Your "Joe killed Kelly after sunrise" scenario is another kettle of fish, if you'll forgive the use of those two keywords. You're saying that Barnett just snapped, I presume?
Robert |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1079
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 3:24 pm: | |
Saddam, if her clutching the cachous was due to cadaveric spasm, then the cachous were in her hand when she was killed. Why were they in her hand? If a woman's pushed over in the street by an obviously aggressive man, surely she'll be off - not take out a packet of cachous.
Re Kelly, it sounds as if you believe that Kelly was killed either after sunrise, or earlier by the blotchy-faced man.
Robert |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 161
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 2:44 am: | |
Saddam: "2. A cachous scenario I can offer is that the attack on Stride that resulted in her death occured at such speed that she didn't have time to think to throw the packet away to defend herself."
NOT POSSIBLE:
1. For her to die instantly the killer would have had to slice her throat a lot harder then he did. She only had one artery cut and it took at least a full minute to die from blood loss.
2. Her throat was not cut while standing up as there was no blood splatter on the front of her dress where it would have been if she were (gravity works the same in 1888 as it does today)
3. The fact that she is clutching the cachoes (actually any object) indicates that she was not forced to the ground and cut at the same time. She would have dropped them on her way down regardless of how fast it happened because her hand would have sprang open as it raced to her throat to cover the cut.
4. If she were knocked unconsious first, her hand would have emptied on the way to the ground or opened if she were already there.
It is physically impossible...
Shannon
|
Erin Sigler
Sergeant
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 28
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 3:13 am: | |
It is by no means inconceivable that her hand closed reflexively over the cachous after she was strangled (it only takes a few seconds) into unconsciousness. If she went into cadaveric spasm shortly thereafter the rigor would have kept them lodged in her hand. Why would her hand have had to open on the way down?
It's also possible the killer put the cachous there, which would be entirely in keeping with the ritualistic way in which the other victims were treated--assuming, of course, that Stride was a Ripper victim. If her killer did put them in her hand, it could tie her to the other victims.
Funny how we always assume that they would have tried to defend themselves. As I indicated earlier, most of us would probably do whatever our attacker asked, even if it was to lie down in a wet and filthy street. Why would she have had to drop the cachous even in such a circumstance? Or she could have latched onto them as she was dying, groping around on the ground in a last effort to raise herself. People do unpredictable things in stressful situations. There are at least a dozen ways to explain the cachous, none of which need be "physically impossible."
Would someone kindly refresh my memory on who made the statement about the cachous in the first place, and why more of the witnesses didn't mention them?  |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 163
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 3:35 am: | |
Erin, She wasnt strangeled. Dr Blackwell noted, "The appearance of the face was quite placid. The mouth was slightly open..." Had she been strangeled her tongue would have protruded past her teeth and she would have had more rigid facial features. She slowly bled to death...
If the killer tried to put the cachous in her hand he would have had to break her fingers to get her to hold on to them. Once dead if the hand is relaxed, it stays that way. If contorted it stays that way. So the killer either had to pry her and open to put the cachous in or force her hand to hold on to them; either way he had to forcefully do it and there was nothing mentioned in her inquest about it...
Shannon |
Erin Sigler
Sergeant
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 30
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 3:51 am: | |
Her tongue needn't have protuded for her to have been at least partially strangled. As I've mentioned before, "soft" strangulation often leaves little, if any, physical evidence behind--evidence that a slice to the throat could certainly obliterate.
Furthermore, if it were true that the body always stays in exactly the position in which it died, we wouldn't be able to close the eyes of the dead. Once rigor sets in, it is difficult to manipulate the body, but this doesn't begin until hours after death, unless cadaveric spasm has taken place. Many serial killers have been known to pose their victims in ritualized, sometimes unnatural positions after death. If the body weren't at least somewhat pliable, this posing wouldn't be possible. By your logic a woman who died with her legs together could not possibly have them forced open later, something quite a few serial killers have been known to do--the Boston Strangler, for instance. Furthermore, it also wouldn't be possible for forensic pathologists to autopsy murder victims flat on their backs if said victim died in, say, a fetal position.
If cadaveric spasm occurred (and I feel this is the best explanation for the existence of the cachous), her hand could have closed reflexively around the package. If not, it's entirely possible for her killer to have placed them there post-mortem, since rigor wouldn't have begun. |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 164
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 5:06 am: | |
soft strangelation, how? if that were the case she would have resisted and her hand would have been empty. Also, explain how there was blood on one had and not the other? When your throat is cut you move both hands to it. The fact that one had blood and one didnt indicates that one was free to move, and the other restricted. Again, it takes away the cadaver spasm or quick kill theory...
Shannon |
Saddam
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 8:49 pm: | |
Kelly was killed after sunrise by Jack the Ripper. She was not killed by the blotchey-faced man. The man who killed Kelly may well have been the kaliedoscope-eyed man reported by Indian Harry; we'll never know for sure.
Cachous were a very compulsive treat, like M&Ms. You can't eat just one, you have to have "more & more." This explains Liz's particular obsession with them. Even though she was in extraordinary circumstances, still he kept popping them into her mouth. Yummy for the tummy!
Saddam
|
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 194
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 10:14 am: | |
"clutching the cachous" is an unfortunate phrase. Stride's hand was all but open. "I removed the cachous from the left hand, which was nearly open. The packet had lodged between the thumb and fourth finger...' (Dr. Blackwell). One shouldn't imagine the hand clenched shut as in the case of Tabram, etc. |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1086
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 10:44 am: | |
Hi RJ
Well maybe we can agree on "holding the cachous".
Unless the murderer placed them in her hand, or they somehow jiggled down into her hand from up her sleeve, she was holding them when she was killed.
Blackwell seems to have believed that she was holding them more firmly when she was killed than when she was found, as he believed her hand relaxed while she died. But even if the death wasn't instant, the attack must have been lightning fast, or else she'd surely have dropped the cachous.
I wonder whether Blackwell meant anything by "had lodged" instead of "was lodged". "Had lodged" suggests the packet had moved.
Robert |
Erin Sigler
Sergeant
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 32
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 2:18 pm: | |
As I've indicated before, Shannon, strangulation can happen so fast that one has absolutely no time to react. It only takes ten seconds to kill a person, less to simply disable her. As Robert said, the fact that they were present in her hand indicates that she was holding them when she died. Sudden strangulation could account for that, and as I've said before, it need not leave any marks. Furthermore, as Dr. Michael Baden asserts, sometimes it isn't until the neck tissues are very carefully dissected later that a determination of death by strangulation can be made. Let's face it: No matter how skilled the police surgeons may have been, they were not trained forensic pathologists and they may have overlooked whatever minute evidence of strangulation may have existed--if any. (Interestingly, when I was watching "Autopsy" on HBO recently, the show indicated that the profession of forensic pathologist had been created as a result of the Jack the Ripper murders!)
I've also mentioned that there are other scenarios that would account for the blood on her hand. Perhaps it was a reflexive action. Perhaps she was semi-conscious at some point while on the ground. Was there really a great deal of blood at the scene? Stride bled out, but where did it go? If she'd been conscious at the time her throat was cut, why wasn't there blood everywhere? Her left carotid artery was severed. If she'd been conscious, why wasn't there a spray of blood all over the walls? Now, to my admittedly untrained eye, this fact and the presence of clotted blood in her arteries indicates that her heart had stopped or slowed by the time her throat was cut.
R.J., thank you for pointing out that very salient fact about the cachous. Clenched, perhaps, before death; unclenched after?
I'm a bit intrigued by the abrasion "stained with blood" under her right arm. Anyone care to speculate on the origins of this cut? |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 170
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 4:18 pm: | |
Erin, you cant change the laws of physics. First, you have to grasp your victim. If you do it to the point where they instantly loose consiousness, you have to use an amount of pressure that will leave a make, scarf or not. Second, you need to understand time while dying is not the same as time to the living. When you are trying to fend off an attacker, 10 seconds is enough time to run 50 yards, to scream at the top of your lungs, to fight like hell, and to leave some sort of a mark. The fastest strangle hold requires 4 seconds and that is grasping the nose and mouth and at the same time squeezing the caratiod arteries on both sides of the neck. If you have done this, how are you preventing the victim from using their hands and feet to fight you off? If you attack from behind, they lunge forward, if you attack from the front you expose your vital organs to their attack. Sorry, there is no way that Liz was strangled. Not one clue in the case leads to it...
Shannon |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 171
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 4:30 pm: | |
Erin, the blood on her hand only came from one place, her neck. There were no other wounds on her body that bled. The only way for that to happen is for her to move her hand to the cut on her neck. Question is why only one hand. When someone has their throat slit, they move both hands to cover the cut even if it is their dying move. It’s an involuntary response and can not be stopped except by obstructing the movement of the arms. Liz only had one artery cut and it would have taken at least a minute to pump the blood out of her system to the point where she lost consciousness and died. She was 9 feet from the back door of the club and there was a blood trail all the way to the steps of the door. Taking into consideration the amt that was absorbed by the wet ground (it had been raining) and it pretty much accounts for the loss of 4 or so pints which causes death. Now, when you die this way your last movements are in a very euphoric state as you start to hallucinate from lack of oxygen to the brain (similar to nitrogen narcosis under water) and you die happy (hard to believe but true) with a calm and serene look on your face...
Shannon
|
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1090
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 5:00 pm: | |
Erin, Shannon
Erin, the only abrasion I've been able to find was only an apparent abrasion, and disappeared after washing. I don't know whether the staining substance was blood.
Shannon, Blackwell seemed to think that Stride would have fainted before she died. Not that this makes any difference to your scenario. I was under the impression, though, that blood will spurt sideways in such a situation unless the victim has been totally or partially strangled prior to being cut. But there were no signs of spurting on the wall. I thought that Phillips's point was that Liz would have been on her left side when cut, and the blood would thus have spurted into the ground. So, as far as I can see, either Liz was first strangled, or she was cut while lying on her left side - but not on her back.
Robert |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 180
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2003 - 12:17 am: | |
Robert, IMO, Liz was struggling with the killer and was on her left side (mud in her hair and matted on the left side of her face indicates she was) and had her throat cut while in this position. Now, for the cachous to work with this she has to have them in her hand clutched inside his. This will work if it is her left hand being held by his left hand. This is supported by the fact that she was sliced on the left side of the throat by his right hand, and her right hand was free to fight him off or to try and stop the bleeding in her neck which it appears she was doing since it is the only hand she had blood on. To me, this is one of the only explainations that works with no "what if."
Shannon |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1092
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2003 - 4:18 am: | |
Hi Shannon
Well if we invoke Blackwell's "fainting" idea, that might explain why the nails of her right hand didn't dig into her palms.
But you've got to try and get the killer's knees onto Stride's chest while she's on her left side.
Also, it's odd if he forced her right hand down from her throat simply to stop her staunching the wound. If he did it so as to administer another cut, yes - but just so that he could watch her bleed to death? I find that odd.
Robert |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 184
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2003 - 8:15 am: | |
Robert, the fainting is a possibility. The marks on her chest/sholders I beleive came as he tried to pin her to the ground and hold her. Not an easy thing to do to Liz as she was 5'5" and fiesty. I can easily picture her trying to buck him off by rolling to one side, in her case the left side with the aid of her right arm either hitting him in the side as she tried to roll or by diging it into the ground and forcing herself up and on to her side. If this is how it went, it explains the mud and blood on her right hand. Mud in the struggle, and blood when she does roll over on her side and the killer puts the knife to her throat.
Not so much forcing her hand down to let her bleed to death as forcing it down so as not to get slapped with it covered in blood so as to mark him for others to see... (only speculation)
Shannon |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1099
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2003 - 11:33 am: | |
Well Shannon, it may have gone something like that, for all I can see (though the soft strangle idea is interesting too).
I still can't see how it was Schwartz's man, but there you go!
Robert |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 191
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2003 - 3:08 pm: | |
Robert, possibly not the Schwartz man... You can get a sense of the actions, only not who the person was doing it. My money is on Michael. I think he finally found her after she had left, and when he realized she wasnt coming back this time, went off on her...
Shannon |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1102
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2003 - 3:25 pm: | |
Hi Shannon
I tend to think the killer was Jack, but I'm so unsure about it that I see Stride's murder as unsafe for use in building any theories about the Ripper.
Second bet would be someone else (except Schwartz's man), including of course Kidney.
Schwartz's man comes in a poor third for me.
Robert |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 194
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2003 - 3:32 pm: | |
Robert, I would like to believe it was the Ripper to; but the fact that the knife cut was no where near the same is what bothers me. With Polly, Annie and Kate, the killer placed the knife against the throat and forced it downward nearly decapitating the victim. With Liz he was sitting on top of her (the brusing on her shoulders being from his knees) but she only had one slice to her throat and it was in the oppsosite direction and only on one side. The killer had used his technique twice in the past to achieve a very quick kill, now he changes, and the victim lives for a minute? Hard to follow as he had the time to make a second cut. Adding it was done with the right hand and the two previous were done with the left, and I cant see how it could be our boy.
Your right about the man Israel saw, he has to be one of the least likely suspects.
Shannon |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1104
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2003 - 4:03 pm: | |
Shannon, why do you say that Nichols and Chapman were killed with the left hand?
Robert |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 195
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2003 - 8:03 pm: | |
Robert, here is where the logic of the Ripper being left handed comes from...
Polly - On the right side of the face there is a bruise running along the lower part of the jaw. It might have been caused by a blow with the fist or pressure by the thumb. On the left side of the face there was a circular bruise, which also might have been done by the pressure of the fingers.
On the left side of the neck, about an inch below the jaw, there was an incision about four inches long and running from a point immediately below the ear. An inch below on the same side, and commencing about an inch in front of it, was a circular incision terminating at a point about three inches below the right jaw
This is an indication that the killer grasped her throat with his right hand to strangle her, and using his left hand made a strong downward incision from his right to left (starting on her right side) cutting through her esophagus and terminating at her back bone.
Annie - The incisions of the skin indicated that they had been made from the left side of the neck on a line with the angle of the jaw, carried entirely round and again in front of the neck, and ending at a point about midway between the jaw and the sternum or breast bone on the right hand.
From Annie’s left to her right with the killer on top of her indicates the cut was made with the left hand of the killer, cutting downward from his right to left.
Kate - There were abrasions under the left ear. The throat was cut across to the extent of six or seven inches.
The abrasion UNDER her left ear would be made by the killer’s right hand either by striking her with it or while he positioned the head to be cut. She would not have received the abrasion under the ear from the impact on the sidewalk; it would have been on the outside of the ear and side of the head. If it was done to hold her while he cut, he had to make the incision with his left hand, again going from his right to left…
Shannon
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Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 196
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2003 - 8:05 pm: | |
oops meant to say "(starting on her left side)" not her right...
Shannon |
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