Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman

them in; they were questioned, searched and inspected for evidence of bloodstains, bruising and scratches, but, again, nothing suspicious was found and they were all released.
    Dr Frederick William Blackwell, physician and police surgeon, arrived at the crime scene at 1.16 a.m. and examined the corpse by the weak light provided by a constable’s lamp. The highlights of his report noted that the woman was
    …lying on her left side obliquely across the passage, her face looking towards the right wall. Her legs were drawn up, her feet close against the wall of the right side of the passage. Her head was resting in a carriage-wheel rut, the neck lying over the rut. Her feet were three yards from the gateway. The left hand, lying on the ground, was partially closed, and contained a small packet of cachous [boiled sweets used to freshen the breath] wrapped in tissue paper. The deceased had round her neck a check silk scarf, the bow of which was turned to the left and pulled very tight. In the neck there was a long incision which exactly corresponded with the lower border of the scarf. The border was slightly frayed, as if by a sharp knife. The incision in the neck commenced on the left side, 2½ inches below the angle of the jaw, and almost in a direct line with it, nearly severing the vessels on that side, cutting the windpipe completely in two, and terminating on the opposite side 1½ inches below the angle of the right jaw, but without severing the vessels on that side. The blood was running down the gutter into the drain in the opposite direction from her feet. There was about 1lb. of clotted blood close by the body, and a stream all the way from there to the back door of the club.
     
    It was Dr Blackwell’s opinion that the throat of the deceased had not been cut while she was on her feet, but when she was falling, or even when she was lying on the ground. He thought the fatal injury could have been inflicted in as little as two seconds.
    As Dr Blackwell’s examination was taking place, Dr George Bagster Phillips arrived and later conducted his own examination of Elizabeth Stride’s body. It agreed in all major respects with the report Dr Blackwell presented to the inquest, which opened on 3 October: that death had been caused by haemorrhage resulting from the partial severance of the left carotid artery and the windpipe.
    Dr Phillips pronounced the woman dead and ordered that her corpse be taken to St George’s Mortuary in Cable Street. The ambulance was summoned, and as soon as the body was removed, P.C. Albert Collins dutifully washed away the blood from the pavement, ensuring that no traces were left.
    The police investigation, under Inspector Abberline, which commenced later that day, frustratingly drew a blank. A house- to-house search in Berner Street produced no evidence, clues or witnesses; yet again, Scotland Yard’s efforts to apprehend their most elusive murderer, were proving to be fruitless.
    It was at this point that a witness was traced. He was Israel Schwartz, a Hungarian immigrant, who had seen the deceased shortly before her death. At 12.45 a.m. he was walking down Berner Street. As he approached the gates to Dutfield’s Yard, he saw a man a little way ahead of him stop to speak to a woman wearing a red rose in her jacket. A moment later, the man took hold of her and tried to pull her into the street, but then he turned her around and threw her to the ground. Another man, leaning against a lamppost on the opposite side of the street, was watching the scuffle while lighting his pipe. Schwartz thought he might have been acting as a look-out for the attacker, but equally, he might not have been involved at all. At that point Schwartz panicked, turned and fled the way he had come. After covering a short distance, he looked back, and saw that the man with the pipe was following him, so he continued running away. He did not know if the man was trying to catch him, or if he was also running away from the woman’s attacker, and eventually Schwartz lost sight of him.
    Israel Schwartz was the last person known to have seen Elizabeth Stride alive when she was attacked, though he made no mention of her assailant wielding a knife; he did, however, state that he saw a knife in the hand of the man with the pipe. He described the woman’s attacker as aged about thirty, 5ft 5in in height, with a fair complexion, dark hair and a short moustache, wide shoulders, dark jacket, trousers and a black peaked cap.