Broad Shoulders, Elizabeth's Killer ?

[Lewis C]

The discussion about what side of the street Pipeman and Schwartz were on has gotten me thinking about the confusion about whether BS man was saying "Lipski" to Pipeman or to Schwarz. If those two were on opposite sides of the street, it should have been clear whom BS man was talking to if Schwartz was looking at him. BS man was talking to whomever BS man was looking at, which should have been obvious if Schwartz and Pipeman weren't close to each other and if Schwartz was looking at BS man. So if Schwartz and Pipeman were on opposite sides of the street, then Schwartz probably wasn't looking at BS man when he said "Lipski". I don't know if this helps us to figure anything else out, but maybe someone will have a useful application for this idea.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Herlock Sholmes

Hi Lewis,

That just about sums the possibilities up nicely. I think it likeliest is that Smith passed at around 12.35, then Eagle returned not long after then Fanny went onto her doorstep (mistaking Eagle’s steps for a Constable’s) She goes back inside just before 12.50. The incident occurs and is done by around 12.50. She hears Louis at a time that he believes is 1.00 but is actually 1

Except Eagles route back to Berner Street wouldn't have taken him past Mortimer's house.

The only individuals that we are aware of who walked past Mortimer's house within that time frame, were Pc Smith, Goldstein and Schwartz.

I’d always taken it that Eagle had walked south on Berner Street when he came back but I have to admit, now that you mention it, I can’t recall why I assume it. Do you know of any information to say that he came from the other way RD?

LAVE went from the club to as far as the street and then back again. Even if he exited from the front door but reentered through the side door, he still didn't walk past Mortimer's house.

Agreed

BS MAN was seen by Schwartz when BS man was situated between Mortimer and the murder site; suggesting that IF it was Bs man that Mortimer had heard, then she should have heard Schwartz too.
But she only heard 1 man.

It wouldn’t have been impossible for FM to have been in a room at the rear of the building when BSMan passed so she didn’t hear him, then she came straight away into the front room and so could have heard Schwartz, though I’m certainly not pushing this one.

This may have been Schwartz IF BS man had remained SOUTH of Mortimer's location.
This supports BS man having walked BACK to assault Stride.

PARCELMAN - unknown entity in terms of which direction he went after leaving Stride.

Surely he went into Fairclough Street as Schwartz initially thought that he might have been following him?

There is of course a scenario whereby Parcelman waits for Eagle to go back inside the club at 12.40am and then gestures Stride into the yard. He then cuts her throat and then leaves heading NORTH directly past Mortimer's house.

But wouldn’t Eagle have seen Stride if she was loitering around?

This would be between 12.42-12.44am and correspond to the time that Mortimer comes to her door just after she heard the killer pass by.

Sorry to be a broken record on this RD but we don’t know what time she went onto her doorstep.

That would mean that Mortimer hears the murderer Parcel man as he heads NORTH.
He turns left just past Mortimer's house and through the passageway that leads directly into Back Church Lane.

Mortimer then comes to her door at 12.45am and Stride is already dead.

To further the possibility that Parcelman was the killer and the man heard walking past Mortimer's house, there's also a chance that Parcelman and Schwartz were the same man.

At 11.20pm that’s a bit of a brain-frazzler! We have Schwartz becoming a man that he himself must have invented! Come on RD, have mercy.

If there's a chance Parcelman was the killer and thought he had been seen; what better way that to divert attention and invent a story that coincides with the approximate time the woman was murdered but with the emphasis on what occurred SOUTH of the club.

Perhaps the focus should be on the idea that the killer was heard leaving the scene by Mortimer and she just missed seeing him as she came to her door and he darted left through into Backchuch Lane.

Worth consideration

I admire your persistence with the Parcelman theory RD. If I didn’t know you as an honest chap I’d be wondering if you actually knew who he was and that he was someone that had committed some offence against your family in the past and that you are now looking for revenge by fitting the poor chap up.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Except if she was standing at the door nearly the whole time, she would have seen PC Smith pass her house, not heard him, and she would have seen Stride and Parcelman, which she did not.

Really?

These people were not spotted by Letchford, his sister, Lave, Eagle or Brown, and they were collectively on the street, it would seem, for a fairly brief period and those periods overlap.

Why I am being told that the no one witnessed what Schwartz did because the event was so short in time, but Fanny's nearly the whole time claim must be dismissed because she missed a few minutes of that half hour?

Moreover, in the other news report she clearly indicates she was out once, for 10 minutes by her reckoning. While I can only speculate, it strikes me that this news article (which is repeated in a few papers, but it's clearly the same article), she may have said something along the lines like "I was at my door between 12:30 and 1:00 ..." meaning at some point between those times, not from A to B, but the reporter presents it as if she were there the whole time. If she was there nearly the whole time, then she should have seen the murder given it happened between those times.

I don't agree she indicates she was only out once. Going to her unbolted door at a certain point does not preclude her having been there earlier. Furthermore, why would she tell one reporter a story that contradicted what she told another? I'm not sure what you mean about seeing the murder, which was not possible from her location.

So now you are questioning the news report, which is fair enough. But clearly, as you say, if she immediately went out, she would have seen both PC Smith and also Stride and Parcelman. Unless, as some have suggested, it wasn't PC Smith, but then if she immediately went out and the footsteps were not PC Smith, she would have realised her error and said she saw a man walking along Berner, which she didn't. So she couldn't have gone out immediately in the literal sense, but rather it was the next thing she did although it was technically shortly after hearing the footsteps. And that is what I suggested, which means there's a bit of time for PC Smith to see Stride and Parcelman, and for them to move to somewhere she does not see them. Wickerman suggests they move into the ally by the club, so out of her sight, I suggested they moved south to Fairclough. But clearly, Stride and Parcelman move from where PC Smith sees them to some location Fanny cannot in the time between PC Smith passing her house and her coming out.

So, "immediately" is incorrect. Why then, should we have confidence that this report faithfully represents what Fanny said?

Clearly, if the reporter was aware that PC Smith had seen Stride, he would know her body could not yet be in the yard. But being incomplete on that doesn't matter since it's the bits that Fanny tells him that matters at the moment, and she tells him she went out after hearing the footsteps of a PC, and that Stride wasn't in view when she did so. That tells us there was a delay, sufficient for Stride to vacate the location PC Smith saw her, before Fanny comes out.

Hence why Fanny did not see the murder?

It's hard enough dealing with statement made by a witness after they've come through the editing of a reporter. Now we have a reporter presenting what someone said someone else told them ... Basically, all this tells us really is that at some point before 1:00 Charles' sister may have stood at her door for some unknown amount of time, and he says she didn't see anyone. You'll forgive me I hope if I don't carve that 12:50 into stone.

I don't mind if you're happy to take the risk that the Schwartz stuff occurred when Letchford said his sister was at her doorstep.

There is another risk I believe we are all taking with this report. Do we know for a fact that the subject of the report is Fanny Mortimer?

The consensus at this forum seems to be that this rather dubious report, in which Fanny is not quoted or named, should be preferred to a direct quote from the witness. I find that odd, to say the least.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

In previous discussions you have expressed your disapproval when stated times aren’t stuck to.

Rubbish. As almost all witnesses give estimated times by their own admission, why would I disapprove of someone not sticking to stated times?

On your second point, it was me that talked about ‘Smith time’ and ‘Diemschitz time’ not necessarily being aligned (applying to all stated times). We can’t assume that they used the same clock. Why is it that you keep talking about 35 minutes? From his own words we get that his beat took 25 or 30 minutes. (Let’s pick 30 for the sake of this discussion) Also from his own words he said that he passed at around 12.30-12.35. (Let’s pick 12.35 for the sake of this discussion)

So he passes at 12.35…walks for 30 minutes…and arrives back at 1.05. And as we can’t know which clock Smith set his time by it’s absolutely possible that he believed that it was nearer to 1.00 than 1.05. He might even have thought that it was just after 1.00 but he simply rounded it back to 1.00 feeling that a couple of minutes hear or there would make no difference.

You want to use your own estimate of when Smith returned and ignore what he himself said. It's ludicrous.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Isn't that the majority view, that Pipeman came out from the doorway?

Yes, it is. The majority view is that in the police report, "opposite" moves around with Schwartz, but in the press report "opposite" is (implicitly, as no one has specifically said) fixed and relative to the gateway. That is, the majority views the police report as confusingly using "opposite" to mean relative to Schwartz, whereas the press account takes a consistent 'birds-eye view' of the crime scene, and not the man they are writing the report about!

It's just laughable.

It can't be absurd, when Schwartz reached the east side then the doorway of the Nelson pub is now opposite, so any man stepping out from there is 'opposite' to Schwartz.

The press report is from the point of view of Schwartz.

...feeling rather timid of getting mixed up in quarrels, he crossed to the other side of the street. Before he had gone many yards, however, he heard the sound of a quarrel, and turned back to learn what was the matter, but just as he stepped from the kerb a second man came out of the doorway of the public-house a few doors off,...

The majority view is the convenient view, but it ignores the fact that as Schwartz steps of the kerb, the Nelson is not a few doors off.

You likely meant 'doesn't', but which correspondence do you mean?

Yes, 'doesn't'. Thanks.

https://www.casebook.org/dissertatio...0proper%20name.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

To be fair the first one is ambiguous but I think the press report- as problematic as they can be- helps clear up that Pipeman came out of the Nelson. Therefore he was on the same side as Stride and BS man.

As the Nelson was closed at the time, a man coming out of it would seem to dramatically narrow the possible candidates. The publican or a member of staff, for example. Yet apparently no luck in identifying him.

Why do you suppose this man would have seen Schwartz as an intruder on activity at the gateway, and lunged at him with a knife, or a pipe, or any implement you care to name?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

That is the way it is worded, but those are not the words of Schwartz. The reporter has structured the sentence, possibly based on Schwartz being told he was in Berner St. because that is where the body was found, and he had seen a woman assaulted in a street, on his way home.
Schwartz couldn't read street signs as they were in English.

It may be a case of the interviewee and the interviewer feeding off each other.

Schwartz saw a woman assaulted at the entrance to an alley, in some badly lit street as he was rushing home.
Schwartz later learns the body of a woman is found dead in an alley, in Berner St.
Therefore, Schwartz assumes he was in Berner St., that the assault he witnessed was the prelude to a murder.
Schwartz only thinks he was in Berner St. because that is where everyone says the body was found.

I'll agree with this much - the words in the press report were not the words of Schwartz. He may have indicated to the journalist via his translator that he and his wife had been living in Berner St and that was his reason for being there at that hour, or there may been confusion, or there may have been outright fabrication by one of the parties. We can never know for sure.

Thats a pretty poor example, the Board School has replaced 9 addresses (25-41) on the east side, c/w No.23 just before Hampshire Court. That is roughly 140 ft, as opposed to 3 doors = approx. 45 feet on the west side.

I doubt that Schwartz, translator or journalist could have cared less about the technical distinction between replaced addresses and actual doors from the white dot (Schwartz's location) to the entrance to Hampshire Court.

A few doors off refers to the distance from Dutfields yard to the doorway of the Nelson, 3 doors away.

In my model, the location of the second man in the police account is not in conflict with his location in the press account. That is not the case if one wants the man to have come out of the doorway of the closed to the public public-house.

In the police account, Schwartz is unsure if the two men are known to each other. In the press account, the second man is shouting a warning to the man with the woman, seemingly in regard to the presence of the 'intruder'. That could make sense if the second man was out on the street, not if he is coming out of the Nelson doorway, in which case he would have no idea what was or had been going on.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Except Eagles route back to Berner Street wouldn't have taken him past Mortimer's house.

Why is that?

There is of course a scenario whereby Parcelman waits for Eagle to go back inside the club at 12.40am and then gestures Stride into the yard. He then cuts her throat and then leaves heading NORTH directly past Mortimer's house.

Having BS Man kill after been seen by witnesses is a stretch. Having Parcelman kill after being witnessed by a policeman, is even more of a stretch.

On the hand, Parcelman's whereabouts after Smith, is in need of explanation, and "he conveniently went away so Stride could go stand in the gateway" is not an explanation I take seriously.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I'd say that even if my #1 is a reasonable possibility, it's the least likely of the 4 possibilities that I gave, so I won't I won't challenge that.

Okay

If Letchford passed through at about 12:30, the Schwartz incident could have happened after that but before PC Smith passed through, as Letchford could have been there at 12:25 or even a couple of minutes earlier, and Smith might have passed through as late as 12:40. Or Letchford was really there at 12:35 and the Schwartz incident happened before that.

That is sort of my point - there are seemingly endless 'could haves' and 'might haves' put forward that involve moving inconvenient witnesses out of the way.

I think that Eagle could have been BS man, but the fact that Eagle seems to be there at about the time that BS man might have been there isn't surprising. The Schwartz incident could have happened at any time prior to almost 1:00, so anyone who was in the area before that has a potential overlap with it.

I think Eagle probably saw Stride on the street. He may or may not have remembered seeing her, but witness timings suggest she was there when he returned. In that case it would be worth considering what Stride witnessed and made of his unsuccessful attempt to go in through the front door.

Goldstein crossed while Fanny was at her door, and under this scenario, Fanny closed her door before the Schwartz incident. The 2 events could have occurred as little as 2 minutes apart, or as much as about 12 minutes apart.

FM: I had just gone indoors, and was preparing to go to bed, when I heard a commotion outside, and immediately ran out, thinking that there was another row at the Socialists' Club close by.

I can't get 12 minutes to fit with that quote. In the case of 2 minutes, there was a discussion a few pages back regarding what the extent of blood flow at time of the discovery suggested about the time of the murder. Interested to hear your thoughts on that.

As an aside, do Mortimer's words suggest the previous row at the club occurred outside, not inside the club? If yes, I wonder if that has anything to do with the front door being locked.

I don't completely understand your 2nd paragraph, in particular what "both" refers to, but I will say that Swanson putting Goldstein there at about 1:00 must be a broad approximation, because he can't have thought that Goldstein passed at the same time that Diemschutz arrived. And most things can be in sync with Mortimer's times, depending on which Mortimer times one uses.

Sorry, "both" refers to Mortimer and Goldstein. "About 1am" is compatible with just before 1am, and Mortimer said, "It was just after one o'clock when I went out...". The timings of these two and Diemschitz seem to fit well together.

[JeffHamm]

Really?

These people were not spotted by Letchford, his sister, Lave, Eagle or Brown, and they were collectively on the street, it would seem, for a fairly brief period and those periods overlap.

Why would Letchford, Lave, Eagle, or Brown have spotted PC Smith? Brown did say he spotted Stride, but on Fairclough (you can question if he was correct, of course, but he did say he saw her). Lave was in the yard most of the time he was out, and only indicated that as he walked around the yard that he did at some point go as far as the street, but that would just be during him strolling so the likelihood of him noticing people, if they were there at that time, is pretty remote. And Eagle does say he rather suspects there were people around, but he took no notice, so maybe he saw them maybe he didn't?

Or are you suggesting that PC Smith was never there, and so Stride and Parcelman were never there either? If Stride was never there, how did she end up there?

Why I am being told that the no one witnessed what Schwartz did because the event was so short in time, but Fanny's nearly the whole time claim must be dismissed because she missed a few minutes of that half hour?

Because the news article that says she was there "nearly the whole time" contradicts what the news article that says she was out for 10 minutes. The two are incompatible, so at least one of them is wrong.

But, let's go with your idea that Fanny was out on multiple occasions, and that means there are periods of time when she's inside. Given the Schwartz event, including Stride arriving on the scene and presumably getting murdered, could all be done in the space of about 3 or 4 minutes, then she missed it because she must have been inside at that time. You're saying she was inside for some of it, so things that she didn't see must have happened while she was inside. Where's the problem?

I don't agree she indicates she was only out once. Going to her unbolted door at a certain point does not preclude her having been there earlier. Furthermore, why would she tell one reporter a story that contradicted what she told another? I'm not sure what you mean about seeing the murder, which was not possible from her location.

Perhaps I'm missing it. Where in any of the articles does she indicate she was out on a second occasion? Or are you arguing that we can assume she did something she didn't say she did? The report that has her out "nearly the whole time", just means for "most of the period between 12:30 and 1:00", it doesn't mean she was in and out on multiple occasions. It could be interpreted that way I suppose, but that's not actually what is written.

And I didn't say she told one reporter something that contradicted the other, I suggested that how she phrased it on one occasion may have been misinterpreted by one reporter, making the news reports contradictory. What I was trying to do was see if there is a reasonable way one might speak where the intention of the speaker is consistent, but that could lead to one reporter drawing a different conclusion as to what he meant than the other (i.e. the reporter may have misinterpreted her meaning).

For example, let's say I was outside from 10:42 to 10:47. During a conversation, if someone asked me "did you go outside" I might reply "yes, I was out between 10:30 and 11:00" if at the time I didn't spend too much time trying to recall the exact details (but during a second conversation with someone else, I happen to be more precise and say I was out for around 7 or 8 minutes around 10:40ish; because I can't recall the exact duration, but recall it was around 10:40ish when I went out).

The first person will likely interpret my less than precise conversational language as indicating I was out for the entire 30 minutes, while the 2nd person has a better (but not 100% accurate) idea of what I did.

So those two people, when then describing what I said I did will describe conflicting situations, but it wasn't me who intended to say different things, rather it comes down to differences in the precision with which I responded to their questions, with the first version lacking sufficient detail.

Now I don't know that's what happened, obviously, but that sort of thing happens quite a bit, which is why when police interview witnesses they go over the same things a lot to ensure they are getting a clear picture of a person's statement and none of the important details are getting confused due to poor or imprecise wording. News reporters don't do that as they just want a statement and to file a report, they don't want to spend ages going over all the subtle nuances of language.

Notice as well, your interpretation that the "nearly the whole time" means in and out on multiple occasions is different from my interpretation of that phrase to mean "for most of the time between 12:30 and 1:00". This is what I'm getting at - what the reporter intended that phrase to mean, and what we think it means, are different. And that sort of "intended and interpreted" difference could very well have happened when the reporter was speaking with Fanny in the first place.

So, "immediately" is incorrect. Why then, should we have confidence that this report faithfully represents what Fanny said?

We shouldn't be overly confident that any news article presents verbatim quotes, and in fact I've been arguing that very point, that the news reports need to be viewed with caution and we have to try and work out what happened based upon reports that are likely to be a bit off in some ways.

But setting that aside, why then do you think the "nearly the whole time" news article should have confidence placed in it over and above the other? Are you suggesting we toss out both news reports and that we should not have confidence in either? If so, doesn't that mean we've throw out Fanny (and all witnesses in fact) entirely?

Hence why Fanny did not see the murder?

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by that? I had just suggested that there was a delay between PC Smith seeing Stride and Fanny coming out that was sufficiently long for Stride to move to a location Fanny couldn't see and I didn't suggest she was murdered at that time. If she was, then she was murdered right on the heals of PC Smith, which I think is rather unlikely.

I don't mind if you're happy to take the risk that the Schwartz stuff occurred when Letchford said his sister was at her doorstep.

Thanks.

However, given you are suggesting we should lack confidence in the news reports when the person themselves speaks directly to the reporter, why are you sufficiently confident in what Letchford's sister did given that information isn't just going through the filter of a reporter but also through another filter - her brother! Shouldn't we be even more wary of that statement? Also, as you've pointed out before, "PC Smith time" and "Deimshitz Time" are not the same thing, so doesn't that also apply to "Letchford Time" and "Schwartz Time"? Are those two 12:50s really the same time?

There is another risk I believe we are all taking with this report. Do we know for a fact that the subject of the report is Fanny Mortimer?

The consensus at this forum seems to be that this rather dubious report, in which Fanny is not quoted or named, should be preferred to a direct quote from the witness. I find that odd, to say the least.

None of the news reports should be viewed as providing "direct quotes" for witnesses. Even when presented as if they are, news reports go through so many different editors (the reporter, the editor of the paper, etc) before going to press that what is reported as a quote is unlikely to be an actual quote. I would go so far as to say that it almost certainly never is.

But if that's sufficient to warrant setting something aside, we have no witnesses left.

Anyway, we clearly approach things from different perspectives, and I think we've both outlined our views clearly, which is the point of discussions after all.

- Jeff