Pack Attack
Boys to men.
--En Vogue. (Scary Spice?)
Emma Elizabeth Smith. 45 years of age...went out on April 3rd of 1888, she was a prostitute. Often seen with bruises, black eyes, that sort of thing, always getting thrown out of pubs for drunken disorderly behaviour. At about 12:15 AM of the 4th of April, she was seen talking to a man in Limehouse. About four hourse later she got back to her lodgings, her face bloodied, and heavy bleeding from a wound in her vagina. She later reported (while lying in recovery at whitechapel hospital) that she was returning home when at least three young men or youths followed her from Whitechapel Church. By this I think its meant "Christchurch" spitalfields. I need to check that. Then on the corner of Brick Lane and Wentworth Street, they beat her, raped her, and forced an object into her vagina, tearing the perineum, then robbed her and ran off into the night...leaving her for dead. Only by great force of will, she got home.
--Interesting and not too uncommon, really. Rape and assault with objects is a typical thing. Rather makes me wonder if this wasn't personal. Old boyfriend and mates, perhaps?
now, this could well have been the nichol's gang or even one of any amount of gangs. the motive could be quite simple...to ruin the stock of a rival gangs source of income perhaps?
--Doubtful -- they'd cut her face and breasts or just kill or even kidnap and put her elsewhere. I had once asked about whether the prostitutes back then were run by pimps. If so, the Ripper murders could well have been nothing but a pimp's turf war. Rather silly way to do it, though, given that it tended to scare off most of the punters and many of the girls.
She wasn't declared a ripper victim till september that same year.
--On what grounds was she added to the list?
interestingly, though she may be by ripperologists, a ruled out victim (which is perhaps why I suggest we ignore the authority of ripperologists on this, as common consensus on these matters is often established by vogue rather than evidence sometimes)
--Quite true, these things do ebb and flow in vogue tides.
...Israel Schwartz also supports the "more than one" theory...Schwartz is one of the few who very well may have seen the killer.
Here's his statement to the police....okay guilty of copy and paste here.
--No harm if you cite the source.
..but in an endevour to explore ground that often gets shaken off for no good reason, its worth it to show what history has to offer in support of your theory. I might add that a lot of papers (except the star) didn't chose to mention Israel Schwartz at the time. The fact that he was a_Hungarian immigrant and was described as a Jew would perhaps in some peoples minds be a suggested indication of why that might have been
--Yes, beneath notice.
This is his statement taken on the day of the murder of Lizzy Stride....September 30th.
12.45 a.m. 30th. Israel Schwartz of 22 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 footway and the woman screamed three times, but not 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 oppos- ite side of the road, 'Lipski', and then Schwartz walked away, but finding that he was followed by the second man, he ran so 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 ident- ified the body as that of the woman he had seen. He thus describes the first man, who threw the woman down:- age, about 30; ht, 5 ft 5 in; comp., fair; hair, dark; small brown moustache, full face, broad shouldered; dress, dark jacket and trousers, black cap with peak, and nothing in his hands.
--Fits H. H. Holmes. LOL
Second man: age, 35; ht., 5 ft 11in; comp., fresh; hair, light brown; dress, dark overcoat, old black hard felt hat, wide brim; had a clay pipe in his hand.
--Sherlock Holmes, perhaps. // More seriously, Schwartz doesn't seem to know if the fellow who followed him was doing so inadvertently, or to some purpose.
If Schwartz is to be believed, and the police report of his statement casts no doubt on it, it follows ... that the man Schwartz saw and described is the more probable of the two to be the murderer.
--No. Masher, perhaps. He did not see a murder. He may have seen someone who later killed her, yes. But all he saw was an assault that could have ended right there. We don't know. As to the other man, if he were in cahoots with the attacker, why follow Schwartz, who was obviously fleeing and not wanting to get involved? If to stop him from speaking with a cop, he would have attacked, not followed.
--I'm not convinced this was a pack attack, nor that there was any connection between the men except in Schwartz's interpretation, but then again, it is provocative and should have been investigated more thoroughly if possible. Not sure how one would go about it, frankly.
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So your lurer and your look out theory is supported simply by other events which occured at the time.
--Yes, it's paralleled at least, in Schwartz's testimony. Very interesting stuff. Shows that the murders might not have been a crazy person at all, but strictly business.
--Chilling thought.
