Broad Shoulders, Elizabeth's Killer ?

[Wickerman]

Hi wick , I'm still waiting for any official Lemans st police report/document that says they didn't believe Schwartz eyewitness account of the assault on liz stride .

It a genuine question as I have seen no such evidence of this.

So if there is no such report, then are we comparing Swansons "official" report against a press report as might have been given to a Leman street police officer ?

Your question seems to be based on a false premise, which is why I didn't respond initially.

What you are essentially saying is, that as you seem to believe the Whitechapel Murder files are complete, that nothing is missing, then you want me to show you the report you are waiting to see.

I happily would, if the above were true.

The reality is, we have to interpret the surviving paperwork in the best way possible. And, if we arrive at a conclusion that conflicts with any preconceived theories, then we should resist the temptation to dismiss the conclusion, as evidence official or unofficial, is hardly ever perfect.

I have drawn attention to the sentence structure used by Swanson as being unclear.
If you look at Swanson's report, at the end of the paragraph concerning Schwartz there is a footnote by, I think, someone at the Home Office (Lushington?), where we read:
"This is rather confused...."

So, it isn't just me.

[c.d.]

So Abberline believed Hutchinson, and almost certainly Schwartz...and neither 'witnesses' have been traced by any of the thousands of researchers who've tried to look for them over the last 136 years; either before or after the murders...

...and Abberline was the senior officer involved directly in the case.

..and the case was never solved.

Thumbs up all round then.

That only tells us that it has not been able to trace them. It tells us nothing as to whether or not Abberline was correct in his belief.

You seem to be operating under the premise that since Abberline's views don't match yours then he must have been wrong.

c.d.

[Sunny Delight]

Mike.

That is what I first thought, but if we look over the reports in detail we see each report is in tabular form, and separate points begin by time and date format - eg; 3.45 am, 31st Aug.
I realized, a person cannot consult four murder files then write a report for each one, on the same day. Swanson did have other duties to perform, not the least of which was monitoring the whole investigation.

The first report concern's the Tabram murder, it was written on paper with a September header. No date was provided, but as we know he was tasked with creating these reports by Warren, who gave Swanson absolute administrative control over the Whitechapel Murder cases on 15 Sept. 1888. Therefore, we know the Tabram report was written between the 15th-30th of September.

There are four separate reports; Tabram, Nichols, Chapman & Stride.
At the end of the Stride report Swanson writes - there are 994 Dockets besides police reports, (a docket can be anything from a Wanted poster to a suspect file).
He also managed to have a City Police report created, from his equal Insp. McWilliam, for the Eddowes murder.

Swanson then studied and created reports from the Nichols, Chapman & Stride files, following a similar format. Each one carries a 19th Oct. date, as do the index pages.
Each stamped with a Home Office 'Received by' date of 25 Oct.

The 19th October is when he finished the reports, to hand them to Warren, who sent them to H.O., not when he wrote them.

As the penultimate Inquest date was 5 Oct., it is possible Swanson waited to see if the inquest produced anything of substance (the last inquest was merely the Coroner's summary on 23 Oct.)
We do see Swanson making reference to a suspect in a "kind of Yankee hat", which was mentioned by ACB in a memo dated 4 Oct. 1888. So he likely wrote his Stride report after that date, but before the 19th.

I respect your knowledge on this subject and the depth of analysis on evidence you have seen. I respect your clear thinking. However do you not believe that:

1) Any request from the Home Office or report to the Home Office took precedence over other tasks and

2) Before committing to sending the report- even if it was written a week or two beforehand, a man in Swanson's position would ensure what he sends is accurate and he looked over what he wrote before committing to sending it?

[Herlock Sholmes]

He does?

I see the report dated 1 Nov., Abberline writes that he questioned Schwartz closely about the "Lipski" claim, but he doesn't say he believed him.

Do you remember when Abberline interviewed Hutchinson, he wrote: "...I am of the opinion his statement is true", we don't get anything like that in his interview with Schwartz.

Have you considered why the police are still talking about Schwartz's story in early November, if their investigation had already been concluded by early October?

See my other post Wick. I don’t mean that the investigation was concluded.

[Herlock Sholmes]

But, that doesn't appear to be the case Mike.
While it is true we do not know the precise date Swanson penned his Stride report, we do have him making clear that, at the time of his writing, the investigation was by no means over:

".....enquiry has been made into the movements of a number of persons estimated at upwards of 300 respecting whom communications were received by police & such enquiries are being continued."

also:

"Up to date although the number of letters daily is considerably lessened, the other inquiries respecting alleged suspicious persons continues as numerous."

Which tells us that whatever date Swanson concluded his report on the Stride murder, the police were still investigating many alleged suspicious persons. We don't know if these suspicious persons included BS-man and Pipeman, keeping Schwartz and his story on the backburner until the police conclude their investigations.

And I accept of course Wick that the investigation wasn’t at a halt but the longer any case goes on there’s less chance of any new evidence appearing. As time went on the police must have thought - well we’ve followed every lead that we’ve had so far, we’ve interviewed everyone that we know of who might have had important information and we’ve discovered nothing that moves us further forward. We’re now at the stage where we’re hoping that someone new comes forward with information of value. - And even if they never tracked down BSMan or Pipeman or Parcelman or Brown’s couple it still wouldn’t have meant to the police that Schwartz couldn’t be trusted.

I also accept that Swanson might have meant - if Schwartz is to be believed, and so far we have absolutely no reason so far to disbelieve him, then…

It would basically have been a case of them keeping an open mind in case other evidence turned up which contradicted their current beliefs.

But back to the original point Wick - I still haven’t seen any actual evidence that the police mistrusted Schwartz. The only thing that we have to suggest that they weren’t solidly of the opinion that he was truthful is your interpretation of Swanson’s summary and you could be right on that interpretation Wick but it’s still one interpretation of two possibles. What I’m wary of, and I know for a fact that this isn’t your aim, is that any opportunity of denigrating Schwartz is being seized upon because the ‘Schwartz was a liar’ angle is more interesting than the alternative.

To be honest Wick, I don’t think that this is a particularly important point.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’m unsure about this idea that Schwartz or Hutchinson haven’t been traced RD. Researchers have found possibles but how could it be known which of these men were the men in question? If we looked back at some case from say 1910 were a guy called Fred Smith found a murder weapon how would we be able to pinpoint him now from the other, reasonably local, Fred Smith’s?

[The Rookie Detective]

So Abberline believed Hutchinson, and almost certainly Schwartz...and neither 'witnesses' have been traced by any of the thousands of researchers who've tried to look for them over the last 136 years; either before or after the murders...

...and Abberline was the senior officer involved directly in the case.

..and the case was never solved.

Thumbs up all round then.

[FISHY1118]

Mike.

That is what I first thought, but if we look over the reports in detail we see each report is in tabular form, and separate points begin by time and date format - eg; 3.45 am, 31st Aug.
I realized, a person cannot consult four murder files then write a report for each one, on the same day. Swanson did have other duties to perform, not the least of which was monitoring the whole investigation.

The first report concern's the Tabram murder, it was written on paper with a September header. No date was provided, but as we know he was tasked with creating these reports by Warren, who gave Swanson absolute administrative control over the Whitechapel Murder cases on 15 Sept. 1888. Therefore, we know the Tabram report was written between the 15th-30th of September.

There are four separate reports; Tabram, Nichols, Chapman & Stride.
At the end of the Stride report Swanson writes - there are 994 Dockets besides police reports, (a docket can be anything from a Wanted poster to a suspect file).
He also managed to have a City Police report created, from his equal Insp. McWilliam, for the Eddowes murder.

Swanson then studied and created reports from the Nichols, Chapman & Stride files, following a similar format. Each one carries a 19th Oct. date, as do the index pages.
Each stamped with a Home Office 'Received by' date of 25 Oct.

The 19th October is when he finished the reports, to hand them to Warren, who sent them to H.O., not when he wrote them.

As the penultimate Inquest date was 5 Oct., it is possible Swanson waited to see if the inquest produced anything of substance (the last inquest was merely the Coroner's summary on 23 Oct.)
We do see Swanson making reference to a suspect in a "kind of Yankee hat", which was mentioned by ACB in a memo dated 4 Oct. 1888. So he likely wrote his Stride report after that date, but before the 19th.

Hi wick , I'm still waiting for any official Lemans st police report/document that says they didn't believe Schwartz eyewitness account of the assault on liz stride .

It a genuine question as I have seen no such evidence of this.

So if there is no such report, then are we comparing Swansons "official" report against a press report as might have been given to a Leman street police officer ?

[Wickerman]

..... Then we have Abberline at the beginning of November still voicing no doubt about Schwartz.

He does?

I see the report dated 1 Nov., Abberline writes that he questioned Schwartz closely about the "Lipski" claim, but he doesn't say he believed him.

Do you remember when Abberline interviewed Hutchinson, he wrote: "...I am of the opinion his statement is true", we don't get anything like that in his interview with Schwartz.

Have you considered why the police are still talking about Schwartz's story in early November, if their investigation had already been concluded by early October?

[Wickerman]

Hi Wick,

That's still after the police have interviewed all of the club members and the people living nearby then searched for ‘Lipski’ or anyone else potentially involved. At some point the police had no one else to interview, no more leads to follow......

But, that doesn't appear to be the case Mike.
While it is true we do not know the precise date Swanson penned his Stride report, we do have him making clear that, at the time of his writing, the investigation was by no means over:

".....enquiry has been made into the movements of a number of persons estimated at upwards of 300 respecting whom communications were received by police & such enquiries are being continued."

also:

"Up to date although the number of letters daily is considerably lessened, the other inquiries respecting alleged suspicious persons continues as numerous."

Which tells us that whatever date Swanson concluded his report on the Stride murder, the police were still investigating many alleged suspicious persons. We don't know if these suspicious persons included BS-man and Pipeman, keeping Schwartz and his story on the backburner until the police conclude their investigations.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Mike.

That is what I first thought, but if we look over the reports in detail we see each report is in tabular form, and separate points begin by time and date format - eg; 3.45 am, 31st Aug.
I realized, a person cannot consult four murder files then write a report for each one, on the same day. Swanson did have other duties to perform, not the least of which was monitoring the whole investigation.

The first report concern's the Tabram murder, it was written on paper with a September header. No date was provided, but as we know he was tasked with creating these reports by Warren, who gave Swanson absolute administrative control over the Whitechapel Murder cases on 15 Sept. 1888. Therefore, we know the Tabram report was written between the 15th-30th of September.

There are four separate reports; Tabram, Nichols, Chapman & Stride.
At the end of the Stride report Swanson writes - there are 994 Dockets besides police reports, (a docket can be anything from a Wanted poster to a suspect file).
He also managed to have a City Police report created, from his equal Insp. McWilliam, for the Eddowes murder.

Swanson then studied and created reports from the Nichols, Chapman & Stride files, following a similar format. Each one carries a 19th Oct. date, as do the index pages.
Each stamped with a Home Office 'Received by' date of 25 Oct.

The 19th October is when he finished the reports, to hand them to Warren, who sent them to H.O., not when he wrote them.

As the penultimate Inquest date was 5 Oct., it is possible Swanson waited to see if the inquest produced anything of substance (the last inquest was merely the Coroner's summary on 23 Oct.)
We do see Swanson making reference to a suspect in a "kind of Yankee hat", which was mentioned by ACB in a memo dated 4 Oct. 1888. So he likely wrote his Stride report after that date, but before the 19th.

Hi Wick,

That's still after the police have interviewed all of the club members and the people living nearby then searched for ‘Lipski’ or anyone else potentially involved. At some point the police had no one else to interview, no more leads to follow so they would have to have arrived at a best conclusion, accepting it until such time as any new information is proffered. To me this surely has to point to Swanson saying, in effect “the evidence, as it stands, points to Schwartz being trustworthy and so that’s what we assume to be correct” How long would they have been willing to keep what would essentially have been an ‘open verdict’ if we are expected to believe that after a week, two weeks, three weeks they were still unsure about Schwartz? I just can’t see it. They would have interviewed Schwartz, seen that there was nothing inherently unbelievable in what he’d said, possibly after checking with his wife and finding that they had indeed just moved house and that he had every reason to walk along Berner Street around that time. I can’t see them expecting to find some piece of evidence to change their minds about him. Then we have Abberline at the beginning of November still voicing no doubt about Schwartz.

[Wickerman]

Swanson’s summary was written three weeks after the murder....

Mike.

That is what I first thought, but if we look over the reports in detail we see each report is in tabular form, and separate points begin by time and date format - eg; 3.45 am, 31st Aug.
I realized, a person cannot consult four murder files then write a report for each one, on the same day. Swanson did have other duties to perform, not the least of which was monitoring the whole investigation.

The first report concern's the Tabram murder, it was written on paper with a September header. No date was provided, but as we know he was tasked with creating these reports by Warren, who gave Swanson absolute administrative control over the Whitechapel Murder cases on 15 Sept. 1888. Therefore, we know the Tabram report was written between the 15th-30th of September.

There are four separate reports; Tabram, Nichols, Chapman & Stride.
At the end of the Stride report Swanson writes - there are 994 Dockets besides police reports, (a docket can be anything from a Wanted poster to a suspect file).
He also managed to have a City Police report created, from his equal Insp. McWilliam, for the Eddowes murder.

Swanson then studied and created reports from the Nichols, Chapman & Stride files, following a similar format. Each one carries a 19th Oct. date, as do the index pages.
Each stamped with a Home Office 'Received by' date of 25 Oct.

The 19th October is when he finished the reports, to hand them to Warren, who sent them to H.O., not when he wrote them.

As the penultimate Inquest date was 5 Oct., it is possible Swanson waited to see if the inquest produced anything of substance (the last inquest was merely the Coroner's summary on 23 Oct.)
We do see Swanson making reference to a suspect in a "kind of Yankee hat", which was mentioned by ACB in a memo dated 4 Oct. 1888. So he likely wrote his Stride report after that date, but before the 19th.

[Herlock Sholmes]

exactly herlock.
people also have a tendency to conveniently forget that schwartz is corroborated if indirectly in that his suspect fits the description of tje other witnesses that night and specifically in that his man was was wearing a peaked cap. A description that Abberline obviously put stock in (see my sig). like how cox is corroborated eventhough no one else saw mary with blotchy but they did hear her singing like cox did.

He had a reason to be where he was, his account is fairly innocuous and he showed no signs of being a timewaster/attention seeker.

Also, with schwartz, are we really going to believe a jew with a strong jewish appearance, ie religious conservative, new to a strange non jewish country who dosnt even speak the language yet, is going to lie to the police, putting himself and his family in legal danger (either for perjury or being a murder suspect) in a major murder investigation?!? really?

Theres not a jot of evidence hes not to be beleived.

I see no reason to doubt him Abby. He could have been mistaken as any witness could but to accuse him of lying we would need evidence and, as you say, there just isn’t any.

[Abby Normal]

We have Inspector Abberline still talking of Schwartz as a valid witness at the beginning of November! Was he just talking out of his backside? This tells us all that we need to know without looking between any lines. Swanson isn’t being mysterious or dropping hints he’s stating something clear and straightforward without the need of implying an added ‘if.’ “If Schwartz is to be trusted, and the evidence leaves us with no doubt…” ie “Therefore we believe that Schwartz can be trusted.” No talk of ‘let’s wait and see,’ or ‘maybe more evidence will arise.’ This is 3 weeks after the murder. The investigation is done…what else can they expect to find unless someone comes forward with previously unheard information? Swanson is talking of the moment, after 3 weeks of investigation. The police have arrived at their conclusion and their conclusion is that Schwartz was telling the truth (as he clearly was.)


This is all very simple and requires no complications. Schwartz saw an incident. Not a single, smidgeon of doubt can be placed against him.

Can anyone give me a valid reason why Schwartz would have lied without veering off into conspiracy land?

exactly herlock.
people also have a tendency to conveniently forget that schwartz is corroborated if indirectly in that his suspect fits the description of tje other witnesses that night and specifically in that his man was was wearing a peaked cap. A description that Abberline obviously put stock in (see my sig). like how cox is corroborated eventhough no one else saw mary with blotchy but they did hear her singing like cox did.

He had a reason to be where he was, his account is fairly innocuous and he showed no signs of being a timewaster/attention seeker.

Also, with schwartz, are we really going to believe a jew with a strong jewish appearance, ie religious conservative, new to a strange non jewish country who dosnt even speak the language yet, is going to lie to the police, putting himself and his family in legal danger (either for perjury or being a murder suspect) in a major murder investigation?!? really?

Theres not a jot of evidence hes not to be beleived.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

IIRC, you recently mentioned it as a possibility that the Schwartz incident occurred considerably earlier that Schwartz said. I have said that I think Swanson's statement shows he has a least a little bit of doubt, and maybe it's doubt of this nature. As Jeff pointed out, the main point of Swanson's statement was to say that BS man was more likely than Parcelman to be Stride's killer. If that's what he's talking about, then the time of Schwartz incident is important. If it happened considerably earlier than Schwartz thought, then Parcelman would have been with Stride after BS man was, and in that case Parcelman would be the more likely killer. So if Swanson had doubt, it may have been mostly about the time Schwartz gave rather than about whether the incident happened.

Hi Lewis,

I’d say that we should keep in mind any reasonable possibility. Witnesses can be mistaken. Perhaps the police, when talking to Schwartz, believed what he said but were a bit wary of how he estimated the time that he passed (if he didn’t have a watch on) They would also have something else to consider, as should we. Had he been drinking? How do we know that Schwartz hadn’t had 10 pints? The subject is never mentioned and Schwartz didn’t turn up for interview until hours later so how can we know? It’s hardly far-fetched for a man out on the street at 12.45 to have consumed at least some alcohol. If we saw someone today we would pretty much assume it. Of course, he may not have touched a drop. So maybe the police had a slight doubt about his time. So I’d say that it’s at least a possibility that Schwartz might have seen a confrontation between a man and a woman, at that spot, slightly earlier in the evening. 12.20/12.25 say.

I’ve never understood why some are so quick to disbelieve Schwartz simply because no one saw or heard the incident. Especially when we know that sounds can get lost in the background. When we know that people can be in different parts of a house. And when the witness tells us that no great noise was made. Where is the problem? There is none. It’s an invention; a piece of imagination. To give it even a bit of weight we need good evidence….we have none.