Broad Shoulders, Elizabeth's Killer ?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

For the Nichols murder, Robert Paul had to be tracked down by the police. PC Thain saw a couple men "down Brady-Street shortly before I was called by Neale." Mulshaw was told of the murder by an unknown man. Mrs Lilley heard two people in Bucks Row around 3:30am. An unknown man passed by shortly after the body was found.

None of them came forward and talked to the police.

Paul left the scene with the intention of alerting a policeman. The other obvious difference was that his tracking down was successful. Paul attended the inquest. After adjourning the Stride inquest for many days, we see no sign of Pipeman. Another ghost.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

ID him as what? An arm puller?

How many things do the "the police believed him and so we should too" types think Schwartz got wrong?

He had not really reached the gateway when he witnessed the man stop and speak to the woman (he crossed the road prior).

The man did not really assault the woman (he merely pulled her arm).

The woman did not really scream (that must be the wrong word).

The man did not really shout 'Lipski' at Pipeman (it was at Schwartz).

Pipeman did not really run in the direction of Schwartz (Schwartz just imagined it).

Why does so much of his brief story need to be changed, to make sense of it?

[Fiver]

Paul left the scene with the intention of alerting a policeman. The other obvious difference was that his tracking down was successful. Paul attended the inquest. After adjourning the Stride inquest for many days, we see no sign of Pipeman. Another ghost.

Even if we discount Paul, that still leaves 6 "ghosts" in the Nichols case.

PC Thain saw a couple men "down Brady-Street shortly before I was called by Neale." Mulshaw was told of the murder by an unknown man. Mrs Lilley heard two people in Bucks Row around 3:30am. An unknown man passed by shortly after the body was found.

None of them came forward and talked to the police.

[Abby Normal]

How does that work given that Schwartz said he followed the man down Berner St? Did he leave her and come back? Why would she be conveniently at the gateway when he comes back? If she wanted nothing to do with him, she would get the hell out of the area. You said she was likely not soliciting, so she has no purpose in hanging around.

I think the whole "woman standing in the gateway" thing is a convenient fiction.

yes he left her in frustration at some point near the gateway, and returned in anger and killed her. when he was returning is when schwartz saw him.

[JeffHamm]

How many things do the "the police believed him and so we should too" types think Schwartz got wrong?

He had not really reached the gateway when he witnessed the man stop and speak to the woman (he crossed the road prior).

The man did not really assault the woman (he merely pulled her arm).

The woman did not really scream (that must be the wrong word).

The man did not really shout 'Lipski' at Pipeman (it was at Schwartz).

Pipeman did not really run in the direction of Schwartz (Schwartz just imagined it).

Why does so much of his brief story need to be changed, to make sense of it?

There are two aspects being conflated with regards to witness statements, and this is something that applies to any witness statement, not just Schwartz. One has to be very careful to separate statements abound "objective" observations, and statements about "subjective interpretations".

Certain aspects of Schwartz's statement refer to directly observable things, for example, he sees B.S. and Stride in an altercation in which Stride ends up on the ground. That refers to "objective" components. The other aspects of Schwartz's statement are his subjective impressions - things like "B.S. threw her to the ground", that's subjective interpretation because it is about internationalities, that B.S. intended to make Stride go to the ground. What some are questioning is not the objective side of things, that Schwartz didn't see Stride go to the ground, only his interpretation that B.S. intended Stride to go to the ground. If, as some have offered, B.S. grabbed her arm and in her effort to pull it away she lost her balance and fell to the ground, the objective details don't change, it's only questioning Schwartz's interpretation of the intentionality involved - questioning his interpretation of the objective observations.

I don't agree that screamed is necessarily a wrong word myself. I have no problem with someone describing a sound as a scream that was not very loud, because to be honest, whether Stride fell or was put to the ground, the type of sound one might make in that case isn't one I can readily think of a word to use and so might try to describe it as a sort of scream but not very loud. The adding of the qualifying "not very loud" can be seen as an indication that scream is not quite right, but no better word seems available. It seems a far bigger change to insist that scream means loud and to change his statement by dropping the qualifying "not very loud" bit. It is in doing so that the "problem" of nobody inside hearing those "now loud screams" gets introduced, but that's a problem of one's own making, it's not a problem with what Schwartz actually says, which is basically that Stride didn't make loud sounds.

Again, Abberline likewise questioned Schwartz's "interpretation" of who the intended recipient of "Lipski" was. He didn't question that "Lipski" was actually shouted out by B.S. (he didn't think the observation didn't happen, only the interpretation of the non-observable side of the statement). However, and this points to good police work, even though Abberline thought Lipski was probably shouted at Schwartz himself, and that Schwartz may very well have misinterpreted who it was shouted at, the police still did invest a lot of time and effort tracking down the Lipski families in the area (as indicated in a letter to the Home Office). He didn't presume he got it right, and he also followed the lead based upon the chance Schwartz got the interpretation correct in the first place.

And while Schwartz provides the details that he 1) sees Pipeman coming towards him and 2) Pipeman was not following him when Schwartz got to the railway arches, at no point does Schwartz tell us when he became aware of when Pipeman was no longer following him. So if Pipeman simply headed in the same direction, but wasn't intending to follow Schwartz (again, a misinterpretation of non-observable aspects, what was Pipeman's intention when he moved in Schwartz's direction initially? To "chase" Schwartz? or was it he was simply leaving the area in that direction, and Schwartz made the interpretation error of being "chased"?).

All of the interpretation errors reflect the fact that by his own admission, Schwartz was a bit frightened by what he saw. And that fear and discomfort will lead us to interpret things consistent with those emotions. It is therefore entirely reasonable, and in fact it is to overlook very important aspects of how to deal with witness statements, to question and examine the interpretations of events a witness describes separately from the observable events that the witness describes. Particularly when a witness has admitted to being in an emotional state that could very easily influence their interpretations.


What people are doing is stripping down the statement to the observable details (a sort of "Just the facts, ma'am" type thing), and by stripping away Schwartz's interpretations, then considering what other interpretations could very well be valid.

By trying to re-frame the sounds he hears Stride as making to be "loud" despite his statement making it very clear they were "not very loud", is modifying the observable statements.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying one should never question the observable, as eye-witnesses do often make mistakes on such things. They get ages wrong, heights wrong, hair and skin colour wrong, clothing wrong, etc. But when what they describe doesn't create any real problem (not very loud sounds may very well go unnoticed by people inside - Pipeman's emergence indicates he may have heard them though) and changing them does, then that points strongly to the change being the problem - that is where the error lies.

- Jeff