Jack the Ripper

After the murder in Dutfield's Yard, the police conducted house-to-house interviews with the people in that neighborhood. Any bystanders that had aggregated to watch the police conduct their examination were interrogated.

The dead woman was approximately five feet two inches tall with a very light complexion and dark brown curly hair. She was dressed predominantly in black with a red rose decorating her jacket. Nothing to identify her nor anything of value was found in her pocket.

After a few red herrings, she was identified as Elizabeth Stride, who was born in 1843 in Sweden. She had most likely come to England as a domestic worker. She had made up a story that she was a survivor of the Princess Alice boating disaster that had occurred in 1878, claiming that her husband and two children had drowned. This story was useful in getting charity from the Swedish Church in London and in generally arousing sympathy for her. The real story is that her husband John Stride was a survivor of the Thames River tragedy, but he had died later in the poorhouse.

She lived with a laborer named Michael Kidney for three years before her death. She was a well-liked woman who people nicknamed "Long Liz." While she may have occasionally prostituted herself, for the most part she earned a living by doing sewing or cleaning work. Once in a while, she became drunk and boisterous, an event noted more than once in the magistrate court.

She left her lodging house in the early evening and did not tell anyone where she was going. She had a small amount of money in her pocket that she had earned by cleaning rooms. At the time she left the lodging house, there was no rose on her jacket.

Dr. Phillips testified that the woman died because of her throat wounds. This time there was no indication of strangulation, although the killer may have caught Liz by her scarf and pulled her backwards while cutting her throat. Dr. Blackwell characterized the killer as someone "who is accustomed to use of a heavy knife."

This time, many witnesses came forward to claim that they had seen Liz just before her death. One of them was Constable William Smith who was walking his beat around Berner Street and saw Liz talking to a man around 12:30 in the morning, shortly before her death. The man that Smith saw was around thirty years old with dark hair and moustache. His complexion was also dark. He estimated that the man was about five feet seven. This man was dressed in a dark felt deerstalker hat with a black diagonal cutaway coat, white collar and tie. He had a good-sized parcel in his hands.