Broad Shoulders, Elizabeth's Killer ?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Sadly; the primary reason why Mortimer is sometimes negated as a potential witness; is because she clashes with the more populist choice of witness; namely the enigmatic "Schwartz."

12.45am - 12.55am would seem the most likely time frame, but it can't be correct because we have to fit in Schwartz's story.

The result of which is that Mortimer suddenly becomes redundant and unreliable and even Brown is relegated to having his "around 12.45am" time changed so that we can allow for Schwartz to have his way and say.

Schwartz has always taken precedence over both Mortimer and Brown...

... which is odd because both Mortimer and Brown gave their statements later on the same day of the murder, whereas Schwartz came out of the woodwork after the press had already printed the story.

Funny that.

Or is Fanny being adapted to try and eliminate Schwartz?

Did she go onto her doorstep immediately after Smith (so between 12.30 and 12.36ish) or just before 12.45 (‘just before’ can’t be quantified)
How long did she stay on her doorstep? We don’t know.
She said that about 4 minutes passed between her going inside and Diemschitz returning. So around 12.56 she went indoors.
So she was on her doorstep until 12.56ish but from when?
Either 12.31 or 12.32 or 12.33 or 12.34 or 12.35 or 12.36 or 12.37 or 12.38 or 12.39 or 12.40 or 12.41 or 12.42 or 12.43 or 12.44.
Take your pick.
But she couldn’t have been all of them because she didn’t see Eagle. So it was either after Smith and before Eagle when she came onto her doorstep or after Eagle.
After Eagle being the likeliest due to her 4 minute suggestion.
Ok, so what time did Eagle return? He said 12.40 but was it exactly 12.40?
And was his 12.40 the same as Fanny’s 12.40?

We’re all playing a guessing game on times RD. So we rely on our own interpretations, deductions and speculation.

So I think that common sense tells us that the reason Fanny didn’t see Eagle or the incident was that she was indoors.

Question - If there had been no incident but Fanny had still not seen Eagle would anyone be saying that Eagle was lying about returning at 12.40?

[Wickerman]

...

Schwartz has always taken precedence over both Mortimer and Brown...

... which is odd because both Mortimer and Brown gave their statements later on the same day of the murder, whereas Schwartz came out of the woodwork after the press had already printed the story.

Funny that.

Hi Chris.
I don't have a statement by Brown from the same day, we have Mortimer on the 1st, but her interview was taken Sunday evening.
Schwartz went to the police Sunday, after he heard about the murder - presumably, but his statement was published on Monday 1st in the Star.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Although I’ve always been on the fence about Stride so I thought I’d set out my doubts to see if it will finally get me to climb down onto one side or the other.

Location probably gives me the most pause for doubt. Risk is always going to be present but the Dutfield’s Yard location presents so much that I can’t help thinking “why didn’t he find a less risky location?” Or was this a spur-of-the-moment kill? Just inside an open gate where people could pass by without him having the benefit of seeing them coming? Maybe even a Constable shining his lamp? And right next to a club in the early hours around closing time where he could hear punters singing, so he’d have known full well that at any second it was very possible that someone, or maybe more than one, might have come outside to go home (or even to use the outside loo) It was also said that the side door had been opened. If that was true can we really see the ripper killing and expecting a couple of minutes worth of mutilation time next to an open door with the sound of talking and singing coming from within?

Dutfield’s Yard went back quite a way with the printers being located there. Would the ripper, requiring a bit of privacy for what he had planned, have done it where he did when he could easily have taken her further into the yard away from the gate and the door of the club? Surely that far safer location would have been obvious to him at the time?

Whilst I absolutely believe that interruption was possible it has to be pointed out that there were no mutilations. We can accept the possibility of interruption but we can’t just assume it.

Aside from those that don’t think that Schwartz was there we have to consider the likelihood of the most wanted man in the country being seen at close hand by two witnesses assaulting a woman and then going on to murder her. If we can consider interruption with the killer moving on to eventually find Eddowes then we have to ask why he didn’t just abandon his plan to kill Stride and move on to find another women were he wouldn’t have been witnessed? We might also have to consider the same if BSMan was the man seen by Marshall south on Berner Street? Potentially ID’d by three men.

The fact that during a series of prostitute murders Liz Stride, a woman who engaged in prostitution (even if part-time) and who might have gained an intuition of which punters were to be avoided didn’t scream out loud when accosted and manhandled by BSMan. Even though he threw her to the ground. This might suggest that she knew him. Maybe a punter that women avoided due to his violence or perhaps he never had any money or that he tried to get his way without paying? Maybe he was a bit ‘crazy?’ Maybe he was a bit infatuated and saw her as a potential girlfriend? Maybe he discovered that she saw other men? Yup, four maybe’s. But the fact remains that it doesn’t sound from the testimony of Schwartz that she was in fear for her life. Maybe?

I don’t think that it’s a given that Stride was standing at the gates as if waiting for someone. I think that it’s possible that William Marshall saw Stride with BSMan who was a bit of a nuisance. Someone who wanted something that Liz didn’t. Maybe a relationship. He chastises her by saying “you would say anything but your prayers.” Maybe she was saying that she’d go out with him some other time but he thought that she was just saying that to be rid of him? The mention of ‘prayers’ might indicate that he suspected immoral behaviour? The couple separated and BSMan hit the pubs to drown his sorrows. At around 12.45 Stride headed north along Berner Street heading who-knows-where. In the distance she sees BSMan staggering along toward her. She knows that he gets a bit violent when drunk so she ducks into the gates hoping that he hasn’t seen her. Sadly for her he had. He pulls her out into the street and they are seen by Schwartz and Pipeman who both leave the scene. They step inside the gateway to talk but Stride finally tells him where to go. He loses his temper and cuts her throat. He takes a breath then decides against running or walking at express pace so as to avoid drawing attention to himself (yes, he’s already been seen by two people but there would have been no point in adding more witnesses and maybe the two wouldn’t come forward?) He exits the yard at a steady pace. Fanny Mortimer hears his steps and thinks it’s a Constable and goes onto her doorstep, by which time he’s in the distance out of sight.


Hypothetical question - I wonder what Leon Goldstein would have said if he’d been asked by the police: “did you see anyone in Commercial Road?”

Maybe he’d have said: “Yes, I passed a stocky chap about 30 years old. Dark hair, small brown moustache, dark jacket and trousers and wearing a black peaked cap”?

So have I come down from the fence? Yes, but not far. I favour that Stride was killed by BSMan but he wasn’t the ripper. It wouldn’t surprise me much if I was wrong though.

[DJA]

Holding out the cachous on a tissue in the dark alley was a planned tactic specifically aimed at Stride.

Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia - Wikipedia

[Wickerman]

Schwartz went to the police Sunday, after he heard about the murder - presumably, but his statement was published on Monday 1st in the Star.

No, what I meant was - Schwartz went to police on Sunday to give a statement, and was interviewed by a journalist on Monday, early enough to have his story published in the evening press.

[Abby Normal]

Although I’ve always been on the fence about Stride so I thought I’d set out my doubts to see if it will finally get me to climb down onto one side or the other.

Location probably gives me the most pause for doubt. Risk is always going to be present but the Dutfield’s Yard location presents so much that I can’t help thinking “why didn’t he find a less risky location?” Or was this a spur-of-the-moment kill? Just inside an open gate where people could pass by without him having the benefit of seeing them coming? Maybe even a Constable shining his lamp? And right next to a club in the early hours around closing time where he could hear punters singing, so he’d have known full well that at any second it was very possible that someone, or maybe more than one, might have come outside to go home (or even to use the outside loo) It was also said that the side door had been opened. If that was true can we really see the ripper killing and expecting a couple of minutes worth of mutilation time next to an open door with the sound of talking and singing coming from within?

Dutfield’s Yard went back quite a way with the printers being located there. Would the ripper, requiring a bit of privacy for what he had planned, have done it where he did when he could easily have taken her further into the yard away from the gate and the door of the club? Surely that far safer location would have been obvious to him at the time?

Whilst I absolutely believe that interruption was possible it has to be pointed out that there were no mutilations. We can accept the possibility of interruption but we can’t just assume it.

Aside from those that don’t think that Schwartz was there we have to consider the likelihood of the most wanted man in the country being seen at close hand by two witnesses assaulting a woman and then going on to murder her. If we can consider interruption with the killer moving on to eventually find Eddowes then we have to ask why he didn’t just abandon his plan to kill Stride and move on to find another women were he wouldn’t have been witnessed? We might also have to consider the same if BSMan was the man seen by Marshall south on Berner Street? Potentially ID’d by three men.

The fact that during a series of prostitute murders Liz Stride, a woman who engaged in prostitution (even if part-time) and who might have gained an intuition of which punters were to be avoided didn’t scream out loud when accosted and manhandled by BSMan. Even though he threw her to the ground. This might suggest that she knew him. Maybe a punter that women avoided due to his violence or perhaps he never had any money or that he tried to get his way without paying? Maybe he was a bit ‘crazy?’ Maybe he was a bit infatuated and saw her as a potential girlfriend? Maybe he discovered that she saw other men? Yup, four maybe’s. But the fact remains that it doesn’t sound from the testimony of Schwartz that she was in fear for her life. Maybe?

I don’t think that it’s a given that Stride was standing at the gates as if waiting for someone. I think that it’s possible that William Marshall saw Stride with BSMan who was a bit of a nuisance. Someone who wanted something that Liz didn’t. Maybe a relationship. He chastises her by saying “you would say anything but your prayers.” Maybe she was saying that she’d go out with him some other time but he thought that she was just saying that to be rid of him? The mention of ‘prayers’ might indicate that he suspected immoral behaviour? The couple separated and BSMan hit the pubs to drown his sorrows. At around 12.45 Stride headed north along Berner Street heading who-knows-where. In the distance she sees BSMan staggering along toward her. She knows that he gets a bit violent when drunk so she ducks into the gates hoping that he hasn’t seen her. Sadly for her he had. He pulls her out into the street and they are seen by Schwartz and Pipeman who both leave the scene. They step inside the gateway to talk but Stride finally tells him where to go. He loses his temper and cuts her throat. He takes a breath then decides against running or walking at express pace so as to avoid drawing attention to himself (yes, he’s already been seen by two people but there would have been no point in adding more witnesses and maybe the two wouldn’t come forward?) He exits the yard at a steady pace. Fanny Mortimer hears his steps and thinks it’s a Constable and goes onto her doorstep, by which time he’s in the distance out of sight.


Hypothetical question - I wonder what Leon Goldstein would have said if he’d been asked by the police: “did you see anyone in Commercial Road?”

Maybe he’d have said: “Yes, I passed a stocky chap about 30 years old. Dark hair, small brown moustache, dark jacket and trousers and wearing a black peaked cap”?

So have I come down from the fence? Yes, but not far. I favour that Stride was killed by BSMan but he wasn’t the ripper. It wouldn’t surprise me much if I was wrong though.

stride: you're not the killer are you?
man: you never know
stride: well i better say my prayers
man: you would say anything but your prayers

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I can just see the theatrically dressed Schwartz twirling his cape, twisting his perfectly waxed mustache laughing fiendisly to himself as he tells his concocted story.
"Fools, fools, they believe me!!!

Except that the fiendishly clever Schwartz when telling his fiendishly clever concocted story with all its smoke and mirrors forgot one very important thing. He forgot to say that he saw Stride being killed. Oops! Well even Professor Moriarity screwed up from time to time.

c.d.

The murder occurred in near darkness. Had Schwartz described the murderer's actions, the police would be right to wonder how he could have known.

[Lewis C]

Hi NBFN,

Schwartz doesn't describe how long Stride was there, only that she's there. How long prior is not part of the Schwartz event (it's not what he describes). Nor, technically, is what happens after he leaves part of what he describes and so not part of the "Schwartz Event". But that could be viewed as being a bit pedantic.

So, since B.S. and Stride remain after Schwartz leaves, then one could add to the 1m 30s some additional time to allow for what happens to B.S. and Stride. We know Stride ends up murdered, but not everyone agrees it was by B.S. So, how much more time do we add? That depends upon what they do, which Schwartz cannot describe (as he's left the scene). If you go with B.S. goes on to kill Stride, then if he does so just after Schwartz exits the scene, then add on however long you think that would take (i would suggest only about 10 to 15 seconds to grab her and cut her throat) and some time for B.S. exits the location. If you want to create a scenerio where they hang out for awhile, then add more time, but there's no evidence for them hanging out. My approach is to look for the minimum amount of time necessary in a situation like this, where we fill in the unknown with as little as possible, since to put too much and say "see, it doesn't work" always falls to the argument "but less may have happened". So if we allow for 15 seconds for the murder, and B.S. then leaves (add say 45 seconds), then we're fitting in a roughly 2m 30 seconds, starting from Schwartz entering Berner Street and seeing B.S. ahead of him, until Schwartz flees on Fairclough, plus Stride being murdered and B.S. leaving.

If one argues that B.S. doesn't kill Stride, so he leaves, and someone else comes along, then that requires more time to be added. And so forth. But again, I tend to look to see the minimum time segment required, then look to see if that can fit in amongst the other events, and if so where in the time line. And then, we can examine it's placement, and look to see if there is indeed room for other scenerios that could require more time. And if there is, then those ideas are also valid to consider.

But defining how long Schwartz's described events take is the first step, after that we enter the unknown. So how you fill that in that unknown just adds to the 1m 30 seconds.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I suggest that how much extra time needs to be allowed depends in part on the rest of your timeline. As I recall, your timeline had the Schwarz incident happening after Fanny went back inside. Fanny not only didn't see the incident, she also didn't see any of the players. The first one to arrive was Stride, so what is needed for this timeline is to determine the minimum of time needed for her to arrive before the incident without Fanny seeing her. If enough time is allowed for her to get there, then there will also be enough time for everyone else. IIRC, your timeline had Fanny closing her door quite awhile before Diemschutz arrived, so it probably already permits enough time for the Schwartz Event not only by the pedantic definition, but also allowing for Stride to arrive after Fanny goes inside and for everything else that needed to happen before Diemschutz got there.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I wasn't taking one view in preference to another, I was describing how the word 'opposite' has been interpreted differently, all depending on where Schwartz was at the time. It is not clear whether 'opposite' refers to the location of the altercation, or to where Schwartz was standing.

Okay

Just take the second example:

The man who threw the woman down called out apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road

Is that from Schwartz's perspective (as he reached the Board School side?), in that case 'opposite' means on the same side as the altercation - which is now opposite to where Schwartz is standing.
Or is it from the Stride's point of view?

You prefer one view, but there's no certainty that you are correct.

The view is of the scene, not any one person in it. The notion of "opposite side of the road" moving around to follow Schwartz only exists to 'mate' the police and press accounts - that is, the erroneous view that the 2nd man exited the doorway of the Nelson.

Does "on crossing" mean as he begins to cross, or after he has crossed?

I don't think it matters. To suppose that "The man who threw the woman down called out apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road" refers to a man on the same side as the man who threw the woman down, is absurd.

Surviving police/HO correspondence does indicate any confusion with Swanson's wording, and there is no marginal note in the report questioning his meaning.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I’m not going down your usual avenue of trying to tie everything down to precise timing because no honest appraisal of events can take place under that u reasonable premise. All that we know for certain is the incident occurred and Eagle returned whilst Fanny was inside. Goldstein passed whilst Fanny was on her doorstep. Diemschutz returned whilst Fanny was indoors. We can produce timelines where the incident either occurred before Fanny came onto her doorstep and timelines where it occurred after she’d gone inside. Every single one is massively more believable than the suggestion that Schwartz pretended to have been there. Could he have been mistaken? Certainly. But deliberately deceitful? Unlikely in the extreme.

Can you provide evidence of my "usual avenue"? The last thing I said about times is that "Smith Time" is not "Diemschitz Time". You cannot accept this because you need there to be 35 minutes in the half hour between 12:30 and 1am, to fit everything in.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Have you noticed in the police version (by Swanson) there are no details to identify which street he is in.

Schwartz passed a gateway, is the gate open, or closed? - he does not say.
No mention of a pub on the corner, so no 'doorway' either.
No mention of the Board school.

There are none of those details in Swanson's summary, but I think most people would take "...a woman, who was standing in the gateway" to mean the gate was open.

Then we have the press version, where all these details materialize, but from who?
Has the journalist coloured Schartz's story with location details that fit Berner St., but Schwartz wasn't really sure what street he was in. It was nearly 1:00, it was dark, and he wasn't paying attention.
He saw a woman assaulted in a gateway as he was hurrying home, then later in the day he heard of a woman's body found in an alley in Berner St., so he just assumed the incidents were related. Schwartz just assumed he saw the same woman being assaulted.

So, what about this bit...?

It seems that he had gone out for the day, and his wife had expected to move, during his absence, from their lodgings in Berner-street to others in Backchurch-lane. When he came homewards about a quarter before one he first walked down Berner-street to see if his wife had moved.

Surely he knew what street he was in.

Yes, 'we' have attempted to rationalize a story that lacks detail - if we feel the need to flesh out the story, then why not the journalist who spoke to Schwartz at the time?

Perhaps, or perhaps the notion of the journalist taking those sorts of liberties is another rationalization that 'we' engage in.

You say - "if "the doorway of the public-house a few doors off" is interpreted as meaning the entrance to the court that leads to the public house on Batty St" - is a lot more than "a few doors off", especially when the Nelson is only yards away.

How many doors are there between the white dot and Hampshire Court?

[Lewis C]

Or is Fanny being adapted to try and eliminate Schwartz?

Did she go onto her doorstep immediately after Smith (so between 12.30 and 12.36ish) or just before 12.45 (‘just before’ can’t be quantified)
How long did she stay on her doorstep? We don’t know.
She said that about 4 minutes passed between her going inside and Diemschitz returning. So around 12.56 she went indoors.
So she was on her doorstep until 12.56ish but from when?
Either 12.31 or 12.32 or 12.33 or 12.34 or 12.35 or 12.36 or 12.37 or 12.38 or 12.39 or 12.40 or 12.41 or 12.42 or 12.43 or 12.44.
Take your pick.
But she couldn’t have been all of them because she didn’t see Eagle. So it was either after Smith and before Eagle when she came onto her doorstep or after Eagle.
After Eagle being the likeliest due to her 4 minute suggestion.
Ok, so what time did Eagle return? He said 12.40 but was it exactly 12.40?
And was his 12.40 the same as Fanny’s 12.40?

We’re all playing a guessing game on times RD. So we rely on our own interpretations, deductions and speculation.

So I think that common sense tells us that the reason Fanny didn’t see Eagle or the incident was that she was indoors.

Question - If there had been no incident but Fanny had still not seen Eagle would anyone be saying that Eagle was lying about returning at 12.40?

Hi Herlock,

Since it is suggested that we're trying to fit everyone around Schwartz, I thought, why not try the opposite approach: make a sequence of events without him, then fit him in last? It seems probable to me that PC Smith passed and Eagle returned before Fanny was at her door. Smith & Eagle could have been roughly concurrent events. Smith returned to the area a few minutes after 1:00, and the circuit took 25-30 minutes, so I think he sees Stride no earlier than 12:35, and maybe closer to 12:38. Eagle returned at 12:40, or maybe 2 minutes earlier. Eagle and Smith are both gone by the time Fanny is at her door. She's at her door for about 10 minutes. I think that it's possible for her time at the door to overlap with the time that Brown is getting his dinner, that she wouldn't necessarily have seen him. It's a given that Goldstein passes while she's at her door. She goes back inside, and 3-10 minutes later, Diemschutz' cart passes.

Possibilities for how Schwartz fits in:

1. Schwartz is mistaken about what street he goes down and about the woman being Stride, but otherwise gives a pretty accurate account of what he sees.

2. The Schwartz event occurred sometime before PC Smith saw Parcelman, but Schwartz mostly got it right other than the time. The assault was slightly milder than he thought, and Stride soon picked herself up and carried on.

3. The Schwartz event happened after PC Smith passed and Eagle returned, but before Fanny was at her door. Fanny was mistaken either about whose footsteps she heard or about how long it was after the footsteps passed that she went to the door - it wasn't quite immediately. The "assault event" began no earlier than 12:38 and ended no later than 12:48. Either the event was over when Brown went to get his meal or it happened while he was inside the store getting the meal.

4. The Schwartz event happened after Fanny closed her door, which could have been as early as 12:48. Brown either was in the store at the time or back home.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Well if he wanted to absolutely ensure that no suspicion was cast onto him he could have chosen not to come forward at all with his story. Why put yourself in that situation if you don't have to?

c.d.

Don't have to, is an assumption.

Leon Goldstein didn't have to go to the police. Wess persuaded him to go and accompanied him when he did.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I think that all depends on who Parcelman was, if he was a regular citizen, Stride's date, or even a client, then likely him seeing her get assaulted in front of him, he might step forward to intervene.

Or pursue the assailant?

Alternately, if he was the Ripper, he has chosen his victim, who coincidentally gets assaulted by some passing drunk who didn't see him, then no he certainly is not going to get involved. That would only draw attention to himself, the last thing he wants.
Within the next five minutes he will kill her anyway.

Taking the risk that police were alerted to the assault?

[JeffHamm]

Sadly; the primary reason why Mortimer is sometimes negated as a potential witness; is because she clashes with the more populist choice of witness; namely the enigmatic "Schwartz."

12.45am - 12.55am would seem the most likely time frame, but it can't be correct because we have to fit in Schwartz's story.

The result of which is that Mortimer suddenly becomes redundant and unreliable and even Brown is relegated to having his "around 12.45am" time changed so that we can allow for Schwartz to have his way and say.

Schwartz has always taken precedence over both Mortimer and Brown...

... which is odd because both Mortimer and Brown gave their statements later on the same day of the murder, whereas Schwartz came out of the woodwork after the press had already printed the story.

Funny that.

Why is 12:45-12:55 the most likely time frame? And even if it is, why can't we fit in Schwartz?

Fanny says she came out shortly after hearing PC Smith pass by, which was probably around 12:35 ish. That would put Fanny's 10 minute vigil more around 12:35 to 12:45 pluss whatever "shortly" is. Let's say 3 minutes, so 12:38 to 12:48. Schwartz, like everyone else, would be estimating the time, so if he passes down Berner Street around 12:50 ish, then a witness estimating that to be around 12:45 is well within reason.

Fanny, of course, also is reported as saying she heard Deimshutz's Pony about 4 minutes after she went inside, and that would fit with roughly 12:45 to 12:55. Based upon some other bits of her statements, though, that 4 minutes may actually refer to the time between her hearing the commotion starting at the club and her going outside (as she seems to have arrived after Spooner gets there, and he only arrives after Deimshutz has done his run along Fairclough looking for the police, so commotion to Spooner's arrival is probably in the 2m 30 to 3m range, followed by Fanny at the 4 minute range, could just be a coincidence of timing, or it may be the press report has the wrong "interval" flagged as being 4 minutes).

But if Fanny comes out shortly after PC Smith around 12:35ish, and goes in at 12:56ish (the 4 minutes before Diemshutz), then she's not there for her 10 minutes.

In other words, something in Fanny's statements is wrong. Not surprising, she's estimating times, she's a witness, and all of those things are of course error prone. It is our job to try and work out the various ways in which she could be wrong, and see if by combining multiple witnesses, and factoring in information from research, we can get closer to the actual events than any of the individual witnesses are.

Generally, people overestimate temporal durations under an hour (I've posted research on this a number of times), so when Fanny says 10 minutes, it was most likely a bit shorter than that (about 8 m; the research value was 7m 56s but 8 m is easier to work with and good enough for our purposes; also, the error range, meaning 95% of the time, the actual time will be between 3m 48s and 27m! People are pretty rubbish at estimating durations; but more often than not the actual time will be shorter than the estimated time, until you get to about an hour, when they start underestimating the actual time, so the real time is probably longer).

Her "4 minute" estimation would mean somewhere between 1m 15s and 12m 31s, with an average around 2m 49s, so again, more often than not, the actual time is less than 4 minutes.

And if Fanny's durations were shorter than she stated, as is probable based upon research on estimating durations, the time windows for Schwartz to pass unseen by Fanny get larger, and his "about 12:45" can be closer to 12:45 as well.

Basically, there's really nothing problematic, and if we're trying to work out what happened, then what we can use as "take home" information is that Schwartz didn't go down Berner Street while Fanny was outside. And based upon her statements, she came out fairly close to 12:45 and went back in at a time also fairly close to 12:45, so Schwartz could have gone by either before or after Fanny's vigil.

Fanny's vigil seems to have started shortly after PC Smith's patrol, so if Schwartz goes down before Fanny, it would have to be at a time PC Smith is not in Berner Street. Before PC Smith doesn't work because PC Smith reports seeing Stride with Parcelman, but it may be that there is just enough time for PC Smith to exit Berner Street onto Commercial, for Schwartz to come down Berner Street, flee, B.S. to kill Stride, leave, and then for Fanny to emerge (placing the death before her vigil). Personally, I suspect that will be pretty tight if it can work, but that will take a lot of work to determine. I have found that many things I've suspected have been wrong after I've sat down and crunched the numbers. I think that's part of my interests, though, finding out where my thinking is wrong.

That makes the more probable time for Schwartz to come down Berner Street to be after Fanny went inside, and if she came out at 12:38 (to use the time I mentioned above), and her vigil was actually closer to 8 minute than 10, then she's gone inside around 12:46ish, with Schwartz now able to enter Berner Street any time after that, with plenty of time between Schwartz and Deimshutz's arrival.

Trying to recover the actual events through the fog of error prone statements is challenging. One of the challenges is our own tendency to balk at "theoretical descriptions of the events" where values do not correspond exactly to what the witness said, even though we know that what a witness says is not going to be 100% accurate. And yet, because we see a lack of correspondence, we treat the witness statement as infallible rather than viewing the "theoretical description" as perhaps being a good attempt at seeing through the fog of those errors.

Anyway, the short version is, cementing Fanny's vigil to 12:45 - 12:55 is probably not a good starting point. But even if you go with that, that still leaves 5 minutes for Schwartz and B.S. to enter Berner Street, and for Schwartz to exit 1m 30s later, and so there's still 3m 30s for Stride to be murdered. That 3m 30s is more than enough time for B.S. to have murdered Stride and left the scene, or even for B.S. to leave, someone else to come along, kill Stride, and leave, before Deimshutz arrives. And given things would be tight in that 5 minute window where Fanny is our one infallible witness, it may even be argued that fits well with the police idea that Stride's killer may have still been there when Deimshutz arrived.

The Berner Street murder is probably the most complicated of all the JtR murders to try and piece together as we have so many witnesses, and therefore so many sources of error, that in my opinion it should be viewed first from the perspective of "can it all fit together" before we start deciding on who to arbitrarily decide we are going to ignore as being a liar.

- Jeff