Today we continue our look at the victims of Jack the Ripper with a stroll along Henriques Street which, in 1888, was called Berner Street.
This unremarkable thoroughfare runs off Commercial Street and can be reached within a five minute walk from Aldgate East Underground Station. Just off Berner Street in 1888 there was a tiny yard called Dutfield’s Yard, onto which side the International Working men’s Educational Club.
It was here, on the 30th September 1888, that the body of Jack the Ripper’s third victim, Elizabeth Stride, was discovered at 1am.
It is highly probable that the killer was interrupted in his murder of Elizabeth Stride (who was also known in the area as “Long Liz Stride) as she had not suffered the extensive mutilations that the other victims had been subjected to.
Indeed, the fact that she only had her throat cut, and the rest of her body had not been touched, has led to her been referred to in some circles as “Lucky Liz Stride.”
Whether or not the fact that “only” her throat had been cut could be termed in any way a stroke of good luck, it seems that Jack the Ripper came very close to been caught on this occasion and, had Diemshutz (the steward of the International Working men’s Educational Club, and the man who discovered her body at 1am) not left the scene and gone into the club, then there is a high likelihood that the ripper would have been captured after this murder.
As it was, Diemshutz’s temporarily leaving the scene, gave the killer sufficient time to make his escape and left him free to carry out a later murder within an hour of that of Elizabeth Stride.
We’ll look at that later murder in the next blog so be sure to check it out tomorrow.