discovered, indicating that she had not had time to defend herself and that the attack had been sudden. In relation to the actual crime scene, Baxter noted the decedent had been attacked in the passageway leading into a courtyard in which several families resided in cottages located a matter of yards from where her body was discovered, and that although this location afforded darkness, it was unlikely the murderer would have selected the location on account of Dutfield's Yard being an unfrequented location. Baxter further noted the windows of the International Working Men's Educational Club had been open, and that both Stride and her assailant would undoubtedly have heard the patrons' singing and dancing. With regard to the witness testimony pertaining to the man or men seen in Stride's company in the two hours before the discovery of her body, Baxter stated many points of similarity had been given with regards to the physical description of the individual in her company, but also some of dissimilarity. However, Baxter stated these discrepancies did not conclusively prove there had been more than one man in the company of Stride between 11:00 p.m. and 12:45 a.m., but that the eyewitness descriptions suggested either that she had been in the company of a minimum of two men in her final hours, or that one or more eyewitness was mistaken in details of the description of the man he had seen. Following a short deliberation, the jury, having been instructed to deliberate precisely how, when, and by what means Stride came about her death, returned a unanimous verdict: "Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown." Connection to Jack the Ripper Stride's murder occurred in the midst of the spree of murders attributed to a serial offender known prior to her death as both the Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron, and due to a letter forwarded to Scotland Yard the day immediately prior to her death as Jack the Ripper. However, unlike at least three other murder victims then-ascribed to this perpetrator (each of whom had received extensive abdominal injuries in addition to one or more slash wounds across her neck), Stride had received no mutilation injuries, with her sole injury being a deep cut measuring two-and-a-half-inches beneath her jaw, which had severed her left carotid artery and trachea and had terminated beneath her right jaw. As two other murders (those of Mary Ann Nichols