Did Schwartz and Lawende Describe the Same Man?

[Lewis C]

I found Tom Wescott’s argument in Ripper Confidential to be convincing – that James Brown probably saw Stride 9 or 10 minutes before Louis Diemschutz discovered her body, which would make him the last witness to see her before she was murdered, that the man Brown saw her with was therefore probably her killer, and that there’s enough similarity in Brown’s description of this man and Israel Schwartz’ description of Pipeman, and where the men were when they were observed, that the two are probably the same person.

This would mean that BS Man didn’t kill Stride, and if that’s the case, then it’s very unlikely that he would have been at Mitre Square just before Eddowes’ murder, and therefore wouldn’t have been the man that Lawende saw. But what about Pipeman vs. Lawende’s man?

Pipeman/Brown’s man: Age 35, brown moustache, medium build, long dark overcoat, old black hard felt hat with wide brim, appearance of a clerk. Schwartz said he was 5’11; Brown said 5’7’’. Tom Wescott said the difference could be attributed to Brown’s inattentiveness or his angle from the street to the pavement. This implies that Schwartz’ estimate is probably more accurate.

Lawende’s man: Age 30, fair moustache, medium build, Salt & pepper loose jacket, grey cloth peaked cap, appearance of a sailor. 5’7’’ or 5’8’’.

My take is that for these two to have been the same man, he had to have changed his clothes between murders. If that’s a possibility, I find the descriptions inconclusive. There certainly are differences, but I think that the differences can be explained by the unreliability of witness testimony.

[Abby Normal]

I found Tom Wescott’s argument in Ripper Confidential to be convincing – that James Brown probably saw Stride 9 or 10 minutes before Louis Diemschutz discovered her body, which would make him the last witness to see her before she was murdered, that the man Brown saw her with was therefore probably her killer, and that there’s enough similarity in Brown’s description of this man and Israel Schwartz’ description of Pipeman, and where the men were when they were observed, that the two are probably the same person.

This would mean that BS Man didn’t kill Stride, and if that’s the case, then it’s very unlikely that he would have been at Mitre Square just before Eddowes’ murder, and therefore wouldn’t have been the man that Lawende saw. But what about Pipeman vs. Lawende’s man?

Pipeman/Brown’s man: Age 35, brown moustache, medium build, long dark overcoat, old black hard felt hat with wide brim, appearance of a clerk. Schwartz said he was 5’11; Brown said 5’7’’. Tom Wescott said the difference could be attributed to Brown’s inattentiveness or his angle from the street to the pavement. This implies that Schwartz’ estimate is probably more accurate.

Lawende’s man: Age 30, fair moustache, medium build, Salt & pepper loose jacket, grey cloth peaked cap, appearance of a sailor. 5’7’’ or 5’8’’.

My take is that for these two to have been the same man, he had to have changed his clothes between murders. If that’s a possibility, I find the descriptions inconclusive. There certainly are differences, but I think that the differences can be explained by the unreliability of witness testimony.

hi lewis
browns man dosnt really fit the clothes description of all the other witnesses that night and i believe he said he didnt see any flower on stride. plus i think its been shown that more than likely this is a couple that mortimer saw.
pipemans last known movements are away from the stride scene.
And police i know say that a woman being attacked by two seperate men one right after another in unrelated attacks is extremely rare.

stride was attacked and killed by bs man/peaked cap man and is undoubtedly the same man who killed eddowes. in other words... the ripper killed both women and was wearing a peaked cap that night.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

stride was attacked and killed by bs man/peaked cap man and is undoubtedly the same man who killed eddowes.

Is that an opinion or a fact?

[Wickerman]

We cannot say for certain that the man who was reported to have claimed to have been following a couple was a policeman, nor that he saw a couple entering Mitre Square, nor that he meant that he saw them entering Mitre Square.

True, likewise we can't say for certain the woman seen by Lawende was Eddowes, nor that the man she was with was her killer, nor that either one of them walked down Church Passage, nor that PC Harvey even bothered to patrol Church Passage to the bottom end, and even if he did, what time was it?
Neither do we know for certain which exit route did the killer take, nor whether he went by Goulston St. directly, or after stopping off at some room. Neither do we know for certain who wrote the graffiti, nor even when it was written.
You want to only talk about 'certainties'?

We can say for certain that whoever he was, he did not testify at the inquest, even though it did not conclude until 11 days later.

If he was an important witness, why did he not testify?

Mrs Cox conceded that footsteps she heard in Millers Court on the night of the murder 'could' have been a policeman - it was not thought necessary to make the policeman who's beat included Millers Court testify at the inquest either.

Why something does not happen is not evidence. This is referred to as negative evidence and not considered relative in an inquest or a trial.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

True, likewise we can't say for certain the woman seen by Lawende was Eddowes, nor that the man she was with was her killer, nor that either one of them walked down Church Passage, nor that PC Harvey even bothered to patrol Church Passage to the bottom end, and even if he did, what time was it?
Neither do we know for certain which exit route did the killer take, nor whether he went by Goulston St. directly, or after stopping off at some room. Neither do we know for certain who wrote the graffiti, nor even when it was written.
You want to only talk about 'certainties'?

Permit to rephrase the point I made, which you quoted:

There is no evidence that the man who was reported to have claimed to have been following a couple was a policeman, nor that he saw a couple entering Mitre Square, nor that he meant that he saw them entering Mitre Square.

There IS evidence that the woman seen by Lawende was Eddowes, and that the man she was with was her killer.

It follows from the eyewitness evidence that they were in Church Passage nine minutes before Eddowes' body was found in the Square to which Church Passage led, and that there is strong evidence that the man described by Lawende was the murderer, in which case both he and Eddowes would have walked down Church Passage.

There IS evidence that PC Harvey even bothered to patrol Church Passage to the bottom end, and even if he did, what time it was.

There IS evidence that the murderer left Mitre Square via Mitre Street: the approach of Harvey via Church Passage, the natural route to Goulston Street via Aldgate High Street, and the fact that Watkins would not have approached the murderer from Aldgate High Street.

There IS evidence that the murderer wrote the graffito and also that it had been recently written.

I do not think I have ever talked about certainties.

I have talked about evidence.

There is, as I have noted before, a tendency to disparage the evidence on the ground that there is uncertainty about what really happened, but then to submit farfetched theories about what did happen.

I follow the evidence.

[Lewis C]

hi lewis
browns man dosnt really fit the clothes description of all the other witnesses that night and i believe he said he didnt see any flower on stride. plus i think its been shown that more than likely this is a couple that mortimer saw.
pipemans last known movements are away from the stride scene.
And police i know say that a woman being attacked by two seperate men one right after another in unrelated attacks is extremely rare.

stride was attacked and killed by bs man/peaked cap man and is undoubtedly the same man who killed eddowes. in other words... the ripper killed both women and was wearing a peaked cap that night.

Hi Abby,

Schwartz said that Pipeman followed him, but my sense is that he didn’t follow him very far, so it would have been easy for him to have turned around and gone back to where he was.

Brown did say that he didn’t see a flower on Stride. This could be because of the angle that she and the man were standing, or because her face was what Brown was paying attention to. He did say that he was almost certain that the woman was Stride.

In Ripper Confidential, Tom says that his new research shows that Mortimer’s couple couldn’t be the same couple that Brown saw. The new research quotes an interview from a newspaper with the woman where she said that she and her man walked through the area from about 12:00 to 12:30, when they said good night. I don’t understand that, because if Mortimer talked to them after the murder, they must not have said goodnight at 12:30. More persuasive I think is that Tom puts the couple just before the murder at the corner of Berner Street and Commercial Road, which is nowhere near where the Brown’s couple was. Mortimer didn’t see the young couple until after the murder; anything she says about the couple prior to that is second hand info.

As I mentioned in my last post, Brown’s man does pretty well match the clothes description of Pipeman, but not of Lawende’s man, though I think it’s possible that he could have stopped at his bunkhole between murders and changed clothes. I think that the only other relevant witnesses are PC Smith and Marshall. Smith’s man was clean shaven, so probably not the same man as Pipeman or BS man. Marshall’s man was in the area more than an hour before the murder, which makes him less likely to have been the culprit, and he seems to have been older than Brown’s man, Pipeman, or BS man. Marshall did say his man had the appearance of a clerk, as did Brown.

I’m not sure matching the descriptions of other witnesses matters that much anyway, because who knows how many different men Stride might have been with that night?

If BS man was JtR, it probably means that he wasn’t interrupted by Diemschutz, because if he had been with the body that long, he would have had plenty of time for extensive mutilations.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

My take is that for these two [Pipeman/Brown’s man and Lawende 's man] to have been the same man, he had to have changed his clothes between murders. If that’s a possibility, I find the descriptions inconclusive. There certainly are differences, but I think that the differences can be explained by the unreliability of witness testimony.

Someone here suggested some months ago that the murderer went home to his base in Spitalfields in between the two murders that night.

Why, however, would he have changed from a very long coat into a waist-length loose jacket?

That is a big change.

The difference of about four inches between Pipeman and both Brown's man and Lawende's man suggests that Pipeman is neither Brown's man nor Lawende's man.

In order for all three to be the same person, both Brown and Lawende must have underestimated his height by about four inches or Schwartz must have overestimated his height by about four inches.

The eyewitness evidence suggests that the three sightings were of three different men.

[Lewis C]

The difference of about four inches between Pipeman and both Brown's man and Lawende's man suggests that Pipeman is neither Brown's man nor Lawende's man.

In order for all three to be the same person, both Brown and Lawende must have underestimated his height by about four inches or Schwartz must have overestimated his height by about four inches.

The eyewitness evidence suggests that the three sightings were of three different men.

Yes, that is an issue. I think that Wescott's explanation for the difference in height between Pipeman and Brown's man is plausible, except that it implies that Brown got it wrong, which doesn't explain the 4" disparity between Pipeman and Lawende's man.