Elizabeth Stride
Elizabeth Stride
Jack The Ripper's third victim
Most experts consider Elizabeth Stride to be the third victim of Jack The Ripper.
The body in Berner Street
On 30th September, 1888, at approximately 12.45am, a Hungarian immigrant, Israel Schwartz, was walking along Berner Street when he witnessed a "broad-shouldered" man ahead of him attacking a woman who was standing near the entrance to a dark courtyard called Dutfield’s Yard.
Schwartz was frightened and crossed to the other side of the street, where he then noticed a second man standing at the corner lighting a pipe.
The broad-shouldered attacker noticed Schwartz and shouted out something that sounded like "Lipski!" Schwartz left the area in a hurry.
About 15 minutes later, at 1am, Louis Diemschutz was driving his costermonger’s barrow along Berner Street and turned into Dutfield’s Yard. This was where Schwartz had witnessed the woman being attacked fifteen minutes earlier.
Dutfield’s Yard was a narrow courtyard between two buildings. On the south side of the yard was a brick house, and farther back were several "terraced cottages, occupied by sweat shop tailors and cigar makers." On the north side was 40 Berner Street, the two-story building that housed the International Workingmen’s Educational Club, where Diemschutz was steward and manager.
As Diemschutz steered his cart into the dark courtyard his pony recoiled and pulled to the left. Diemschutz prodded a bundle with his whip, then got down off his cart to investigate. He lit a match and briefly saw the figure of a woman. Diemschutz rushed into the club and told his wife and several others that there was a woman lying in the alley but "that he was unable to say whether she was drunk or dead." He grabbed a candle and rushed back to the yard with a man named Isaac Kozebrodsky. In the dim candlelight, the men saw that the woman was indeed dead and lying in a pool of blood. Diemschutz and Kozebrodsky ran off for help, shouting, “Police!”
One club member, Morris Eagle, also set off with a companion and found two police constables on Commercial Road. PC Henry Lamb and PC Edward Collins immediately went to Dutfield’s Yard. When PC Lamb arrived, he shone his lantern on the body. The woman was lying on her side with her knees drawn up in a sort of foetal position, and her throat had been cut. According to PC Henry Lamb, "She looked as if she had been laid quietly down". PC Lamb sent PC Edward Collins to call for a doctor. Lamb also told Morris Eagle to report the murder at the Leman Street police station.
