Elizabeth “Long Liz” Stride
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Last days and murder
The night from Thursday, September 27 to Friday, September 28, Elizabeth Stride continued to lodge at 32 Flower and Dean Street, Whitechapel. On Saturday 29th Elizabeth spent the afternoon cleaning two rooms at the lodging house and for her services she was paid 6d by the lodging house deputy Elizabeth Tanner. Liz asked fellow lodger, barber Charles Preston to borrow his clothes brush but he had mislaid it. At 6:30 pm Tanner saw Liz again at the Queen’s Head Public House at 74 Commercial Street. They drank together and then walked back to the lodging house.
Around 7:00-8:00pm Liz was seen leaving the lodging house by fellow lodger Catherine Lane. She gave Lane a large piece of green velvet and asked her to hold it for her until she returned. Liz then left passing by Thomas Bates, watchman at the lodging house who said she looked quite cheerful. Lane would later state that “I know the deceased had 6d when she left, she showed it to me, stating that the deputy had given it to her.” The weather that evening was showery and windy.
Liz was wearing a black jacket and skirt, with a posy of a red rose in a spray of maidenhair fern or asparagus leaves. Her outfit was complemented by a black crêpe bonnet.
At 11:00pm two labourers, J. Best and John Gardner were going into the Bricklayer’s Arms Public House on Settles street, north of Commercial Road and almost opposite Berner Street (since renamed Henriques Street). As they went in Liz was leaving with a short man with a dark moustache and sandy eyelashes. The man was wearing a billycock hat, mourning suit and coat. Best said “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 at the woman.” Liz and the man stood in the doorway for some time hugging and kissing. The workmen tried to get the man to come in for a drink but he refused. They then called to Liz. “That's Leather Apron getting ‘round you.” The man and Liz moved off towards Commercial Road and Berner Street. “He and the woman went off like a shot soon after eleven.”
At 11:45pm William Marshall, a laborer, saw her on Berner Street. He was standing in the doorway of 64 Berner Street on the west side of the street between Fairclough and Boyd Streets. He noticed her talking to a man in a short black cutaway coat and sailor’s hat outside number 63. They were kissing and carrying on. He heard the man say “You would say anything but your prayers.” A quarter later, at 12:00am, Matthew Packer claimed to have sold Liz and a man grapes.
It was 12:35am when Police Constable William Smith saw Liz and a young man on Berner Street opposite the International Working Men’s Educational Club. The man was described as 28 years old, dark coat and hard deerstalker hat. He was carrying a parcel approximately 6 inches high and 18 inches (45cm) in length and the package was wrapped in newspaper. Between 12:30 and 12:50 a.m., departing club members, who had attended a debate on “The Necessity of Socialism amongst Jews” followed by community singing, had seen nothing amiss in the yard. Mrs. Mortimer, who lived two doors away from the club, had stood in Berner Street to listen to the singing at about the same time, and had not seen anyone enter the yard. Mortimer did report seeing a man with a shiny black bag race past, which was reported widely in the press, but one of the club’s members, Leon Goldstein, identified himself as the man Mortimer had seen and he was eliminated from the inquiry.
Approximately at 12:45am, and quoting Home Office File: “Israel Schwartz of 22 Helen Street, Backchurch Lane, stated that at this hour, turning into Berner Street from Commercial Road, and having gotten 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. He tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned her round and threw her down on the footway and the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly. On crossing to the opposite side of the street, he saw a second man 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.“
Later in the deposition:
”It will be observed that allowing for differences of opinion between PC Smith and Schwartz as to the apparent age and height of the man each saw with the woman whose body they both identified, there are serious differences in the description of the dress…so at least it is rendered doubtful that they are describing the same man.
If Schwartz is to be believed, and the police report of his statement casts no doubt upon it, it follows that if they are describing different men that the man Schwartz saw is the more probable of the two to be the murderer…“
Schwartz described the man as about 30 years old, 5’ 5” tall with a fresh complexion, dark hair and small brown moustache. He was dressed in an overcoat and an old black felt hat with a wide brim.
At the same time (ca. 12:45am), James Brown said he saw Liz (or someone else matching her description) with a man as he was going home with his supper down Fairclough Street. She was leaning against the wall talking to a stoutish man about 5’ 7” tall in a long black coat that reached to his heels. He has his arm against the wall and she was saying “No, not tonight, some other night.” A note in the margin of the Home Office files on the case points out that there was time for Stride to meet another man between the latest sightings of her and her murder.
Discovery
Elizabeth's body was discovered close to 1 a.m. on Sunday 30 September 1888 by Louis Diemschutz, a salesman of jewellery, entered Dutfield’s Yard driving his cart and pony. Immediately at the entrance, his pony shied and refused to proceed – Diemschutz suspected something was in the way but could not see since the yard was utterly pitch black. He probed forward with his whip and came into contact with a body, whom he initially believed to be either drunk or asleep. He entered the International Working Men’s Educational Club to get some help in rousing the woman, and upon returning to the yard with Isaac Kozebrodsky and Morris Eagle, the three discovered that she had been murdered, her throat cut. It was believed that Diemschutz’s arrival frightened the killer, causing him to flee before he performed the mutilations. Diemschutz himself stated that he believed the murderer was still in the yard when he had entered, due to the warm temperature of the body and the continuingly odd behaviour of his pony.
Dr. Frederick Blackwell of 100 Commercial Road was called; he arrived at 1.16am and pronounced Elizabeth dead at the scene. She was found clutching a packet of Cachous pills in her hand. Cachous was a pill used by smokers to sweeten their breath. Shortly after, Dr George Bagster Phillips, who had handled the case of a previous Whitechapel murder victim Annie Chapman and would also handle the later Mary Jane Kelly case, arrived.
At the time of her murder she was 45 years old. She had a pale complexion, light grey eyes and had curly dark brown hair. All the teeth in her lower left jaw were missing and she stood five foot five inches tall.
Catherine Eddowes was murdered within walking distance less than an hour later (between 1:35 and 1:45 am), both had lived in Flower and Dean Street. Their murders sent London into a panic, as it was the first time that two murders ascribed to the Whitechapel murderer had occurred in one night (known as ”The Double Event”).
The police searched the remaining members of the club, and the adjacent properties, and interviewed the residents of the area.
No money was found on Elizabeth's body, so it is possible that her night's takings were stolen from her, either in the attack seen by Schwartz, or by her murderer. Either way she seems to have gone into the yard with her murderer alive, presumably on the basis that he was a client.
Phillips's official documents pertaining to his examination of the decedent, the crime scene, and subsequent post-mortem state:
"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. The left arm was extended and there was a packet of cachous in the left hand. ... The right arm was over the belly; the back of the hand and wrist had on it clotted blood. The legs were drawn up with the feet close to the wall. The body and face were warm and the hand cold. The legs were quite warm. The deceased had a silk handkerchief round her neck, and it appeared to be slightly torn. I have since ascertained it was cut. This corresponded with the right angle of the jaw. The throat was deeply gashed, and there was an abrasion of the skin about one and a quarter inches in diameter, apparently stained with blood, under her right brow. At 3 p.m. on Monday [October 1] at St. George-in-the-East Mortuary, Dr Blackwell and I made a post-mortem examination. Rigor mortis was still thoroughly marked. There was mud on the left side of the face and it was matted in the head. ... The body was fairly nourished. Over both shoulders, especially the right, and under the collarbone and in front of the chest there was a blueish discolouration, which I have watched and have seen on two occasions since. There was a clear-cut incision on the neck. It was six inches in length and commenced two and a half inches in a straight line below the angle of the jaw, three quarters of an inch over an undivided muscle, and then, becoming deeper, dividing the sheath. The cut was very clean and deviated a little downwards. The arteries and other vessels contained in the sheath were all cut through. The cut through the tissues on the right side was more superficial, and tailed off to about two inches below the right angle of the jaw. The deep vessels on that side were uninjured. From this it was evident that the haemorrhage was caused through the partial severance of the left carotid artery and a small bladed knife could have been used. Decomposition had commenced in the skin. Dark brown spots were on the anterior surface of the left chin. There was a deformity in the bones of the right leg, which was not straight, but bowed forwards. There was no recent external injury save to the neck. The body being washed more thoroughly, I could see some healing sores. The lobe of the left ear was torn as if from the removal or wearing through of an earring, but it was thoroughly healed. On removing the scalp there was no sign of bruising or extravasation of blood. ... The heart was small, the left ventricle firmly contracted, and the right slightly so. There was no clot in the pulmonary artery, but the right ventricle was full of dark clot. The left was firmly contracted as to be absolutely empty. The stomach was large and the mucous membrane only congested. It contained partly digested food, apparently consisting of cheese, potato, and farinaceous powder [flour or milled grain]. All the teeth on the lower left jaw were absent."
Blackwell opined his belief that Stride's murderer may have pulled her backwards on to the ground by her neckerchief (the bow of which was observed to be markedly tight) before cutting her throat. Phillips concurred with this opinion, stating that Stride had most likely been lying supine upon the ground when she was killed by a single, swift slash wound inflicted left to right across her neck, strongly indicating her murderer had been right-handed. Bruising on her chest also supports the forensic deduction that Stride's torso had been pinned to the ground prior to the wound to her neck being inflicted by her assailant.
That morning Mrs Mary Malcolm, believing the Berner St victim to be her sister, Mrs Elizabeth Watts, also nicknamed “Long Liz”, went to the mortuary. She was unable to identify the body. That evening: Schwartz voluntarily gave a statement at Leman Street Police Station. He was then taken to the mortuary. He identified Elizabeth’s body as that of the woman he had seen.
On 1 October, Michael Kidney had walked drunk into Leman Street police station and decried police incompetence. If he were the policeman on duty in Berner Street that night, he had said, he would have shot himself. The following year he appears in the records of Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary three times: for syphilis in June, lumbago in August and dyspepsia in October. Kidney had come under suspicion for the murder, because of their turbulent relationship, and there is no record of his alibi. Police, however, appear to have eliminated him from the inquiry, and his decline in health and distress at the police station indicate that he took her passing badly.
The day after the murder, a citizen mob formed outside of Berner Street protesting the continuation of the murders and the seemingly slipshod work of the police to catch the killer. From here on in, the murderer is public enemy number one, and Home Office begins to consider offering awards for his capture and arrest.
Inquest
The inquest was opened on 1 October, at the Vestry Hall, Cable Street, St George's in the East, by the Middlesex coroner, Wynne Edwin Baxter. On viewing the body, Dr. Barnardo recognized Liz instantly as one of the women in the kitchen of 32 Flower and Dean Street lodging house. Priest Johannes Palmér wrote a letter written to the clerk Sven Olsson, asking him to go down to the mortuary at St George-in-the-East to view the body and give information to the police. Palmér was frequently in contact with Dr Barnardo, discussing the situation of poor and sick people in the East End. Marshall also identified Elizabeth’s body as that of the woman he had seen.
The following day conflicting testimony as to Stride's identity was heard. The police seemed certain that Stride was the Swede Elisabeth Gustafsdotter, but Mrs Mary Malcolm swore the body was that of her sister, Elizabeth Watts. Over the course of the inquest, other witnesses identified the dead woman as Elizabeth Stride, including the clerk of the Swedish Church in Prince's Square, Sven Olsson. Malcolm's story was only finally dismissed on 24 October when Elizabeth Watts disproved her sister's story by appearing personally at the inquest as living proof that she was not dead and PC Walter Stride (Stride's nephew-by-marriage) confirmed her identity.
Coroner Baxter believed that Stride had been attacked with a swift, sudden action. The murderer could have taken advantage of a checked scarf she was wearing to grab her from behind before slitting her throat, as was suggested by Blackwell. Baxter, however, thought the absence of a shout for assistance and the lack of obvious marks of a struggle indicated that she lay down willingly. She was still holding a packet of cachous (breath freshening sweets) in her left hand when she was discovered, indicating that she had not had time to defend herself. A grocer, Matthew Packer, implied to two private detectives employed by the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, Le Grand and Batchelor, that he had sold some grapes to Stride and the murderer; however, he had told police sergeant Stephen White that he had shut his shop without seeing anything suspicious. At the inquest, the pathologists stated emphatically that Elizabeth had not held, swallowed or consumed grapes. They described her stomach contents as "cheese, potatoes and farinaceous powder". Nevertheless, Packer's story appeared in the press, and private detectives did discover a grape stalk in the yard. When re-interviewed by the police, Packer described the man as aged between 25 and 30, slightly taller than her and wearing a soft felt hat, but he had told the private detectives that the man was middle-aged and heavy set. Neither of his descriptions matched the statements by other witnesses who may have seen her with men shortly before her murder, but all the descriptions differed.
Further doubt is cast on the story by the character of Le Grand, also known as Charles Grand, Charles Grandy, Charles Grant, Christian Neilson, and Christian Nelson, one of the men hired by the Vigilance Committee to investigate the crimes. He had an extensive criminal record, which included assault on a prostitute and conviction for theft. In 1889, he was convicted of conspiracy to defraud and served two years’ imprisonment. After his release, he was arrested in possession of a revolver and charged with demanding money with menace, a crime for which he was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment. The overall commander of the Whitechapel murders investigation, Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, noted “any statement [made by Packer] would be rendered almost valueless as evidence”.
Israel Schwartz did not testify at the inquest on Stride, possibly because he was Hungarian and spoke very little if any English.
Funeral & aftermath
Elizabeth Stride was buried on Saturday 6 October 1888 in the East London Cemetery Plaistow, London, in grave #15509, square 37. The sparse funeral was provided at the expense of the parish by the undertaker, Mr Hawkes.
On 19 October, Chief Inspector Swanson wrote a report detailing that 80,000 leaflets requesting information had been distributed to the neighbourhood and 2000 lodgers had been examined, among other lines of inquiry.
Elizabeth’s brother, Carl Bernhard, died in 1908 and is buried together with his wife, Olena, b. 1837, who died in 1917. Elizabeth’s sister Anna Cristin died in 1916. Her grave, a pauper’s gave, no longer exists. Neither does that of Bernhard Olsson, Elizabeth’s brother in law, who died in 1907/1908. (He was buried 3rd Jan 1908.)
Stefan Rantzow, Swedish musician and historian, visited St George’s in 2008 with descendants of Elizabeth Stride. Articles about their visit appeared in the Swedish press. On July 2015 he arranged a meeting with the Jacobson brothers and Sally and John Edmonds – Sally is related to John Stride. Joined by local historians and representatives of the newspaper Torslanda Tidningen, they visited sites in Gothenburg, starting at the church where Elizabeth was baptized (and her parents Gustaf Ericsson and Beata Carlsdotter were buried: their graves are gone, but the grave of the priest who baptized her, Carl Gustaf Schoug, is still there). They visited the house nearby in Stora Tumlehed where she was born – currently vacant but they had access to the keys – and then the suburbs of Gothenburg where she worked before leaving to London.
Photos from: Escrito en Sangre blogspot, Crimenes de Whitechapel blogspot, Fanpop, Jack the Ripper Walk, Casebook, Retrocards, WhitechapelJack & Wikipedia
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To know more:
Casebook website - Casebook wiki - Casebook timeline - Casebook message boards - Casebook Forums
Wikipedia
Find a Grave
JTR Forums
Elisabeth Gustafsdotters' last Stride - Casebook
Jack the Ripper map
The Jack the ripper tour (.co.uk)
Jack the Ripper 1888 - The final Sighting - The murder of Elizabeth Stride
Elizabeth Stride - ripper vision
Ripper Tour
The Jack the Ripper tour (.com)
Whitechapel Society
Whitechapel Jack - Whitechapel Jack (Double Event)
Jack Ripper
Jack the Ripper time Blogspot
All things Crime Blog
Saucy Jacky
Kent Online
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