A Case of Misattribution?

[Rob Clack]

Hello Rob. Thanks. I was referring to the story Paget was given about Johann Stammer, AKA John Kelly. He had "broad shoulders" and a "sailor's walk."

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn,

Ok I am with you now. No I don't think Stammer's is the man, I don't think he is even the John Kelly. Stammers sticks out like a sore thumb, Scar under the left eye, brilliant white teeth. I think we can discount him.

Rob

[lynn cates]

write off

Hello Tom. I thought of Eagle and Lave both. And, although I don't really think them killers, I'm curious why you write off Eagle?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Stammer, take 2

Hello Rob. Thanks. I was referring to the story Paget was given about Johann Stammer, AKA John Kelly. He had "broad shoulders" and a "sailor's walk."

Cheers.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Curious. The Arbeter Fraint account is mostly culled from newspaper reports. I don't think there'd be anything too suspicious about it, because things must have happened quickly once Diemshitz arrived with the news, and memories to some extent would have been muddled.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[curious]

Hi Curious. I'd like to know more about him as well. Unfortunately, I've forgotten more about Gilleman that I remember, as it's been years since I was really researching Berner Street (though in the months ahead I'll start anew for my chapter on it). Assuming he's not one of the other people (such as Diemshitz), misnamed by the press, then he was a man who was upstairs at the time the body was discovered. He told the press that a man came upstairs and told them a body had been found outside. There's nothing suspicious about him.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Thanks, Tom,
Is there anything suspicious about the man who went upstairs and told them a body had been found?

From what I'm reading in Arbiter Fraint (hope that spelling is right) it seems to be out of sequence which always makes me wonder.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Curious. I'd like to know more about him as well. Unfortunately, I've forgotten more about Gilleman that I remember, as it's been years since I was really researching Berner Street (though in the months ahead I'll start anew for my chapter on it). Assuming he's not one of the other people (such as Diemshitz), misnamed by the press, then he was a man who was upstairs at the time the body was discovered. He told the press that a man came upstairs and told them a body had been found outside. There's nothing suspicious about him.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[curious]

Some are mentioning a lad who discovered the body, etc. This would be Nathan Shine. While Nathan Shine existed, none of the story actually happened. A number of years ago someone wrote a post on an ancestor form that their ancestor, Shine, had discovered Stride's body, and I believe a man with a knife standing over it, and then took off home. The tale as written is demonstratably false and even paraphrases the Swanson report. The character of Gilleman is someone altogether different. What Rob is recalling is an an exchange between Paul Begg and Peter Turnbull in very old issues of Ripperologist.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

I'd like to hear about Gilleman, please.

[Tom_Wescott]

Some are mentioning a lad who discovered the body, etc. This would be Nathan Shine. While Nathan Shine existed, none of the story actually happened. A number of years ago someone wrote a post on an ancestor form that their ancestor, Shine, had discovered Stride's body, and I believe a man with a knife standing over it, and then took off home. The tale as written is demonstratably false and even paraphrases the Swanson report. The character of Gilleman is someone altogether different. What Rob is recalling is an an exchange between Paul Begg and Peter Turnbull in very old issues of Ripperologist.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

A clubman killing Stride

This is not 'wild speculation', though it's only one possibility among many. However, Morris Eagle or possibly Joseph Lave make the most sense here. The last person to enter the club by all accounts was Morris Eagle, at approximately 12:40am. This is a fact he could not change, nor could he keep the people inside from telling this to the police. It is certainly possible that upon turning into the gateway, he was surprised by the woman blocking his path, trying to push her services on to him. He pulled her out of the way and pushed her down, yelling 'Lipski' at Schwartz. Where I disagree with Rob is that I don't see him then taking her into the yard and killing her with one slice of a knife. Stride wasn't a rage killing at all.

What possibly recommends Joseph Lave is that he said he 'walked no further than the end of the street', which was probably Commercial Road, since the end of the pathway would not have been much of a walk. Schwartz did not describe seeing anyone turning ONTO Berner Street from Commercial Road, which is interesting, because once he turns on to Berner Street, he's behind BS Man who is walking towards the club as though he had also just turned on to the street. Of course, the problem with this is if Lave was BS Man, and entered the house 5 or 10 minutes prior to Eagle, then where was Stride in the interim?

A third possibility, of course, is that BS Man was a club men who pushed Stride down, or possibly killed her (as Clack suggests), and then departed without entering the club. The only possibility here we could actually put a name to would be Schwartz.

All in al, IF BS Man were a clubman, I believe Morris Eagle is the most likely culprit, but he would not have been Stride's murderer.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Rob Clack]

Hello Rob. Thanks. I don't see why this would not work. Of course, it may or may not dovetail with Schwartz's story.

Schwartz would have only seen the initial attempt at eviction from the yard bit. Like all other theories we don't exactly know what happemed in the second half.

Now, just to make the gravy thick, do you recall the description of Stammer? "Broad shoulders" and "walks like a sailor"?

Just for fun!

Cheers.
LC

Sorry, as much as I like gravy I don't really know what your on about.

Rob

[lynn cates]

motive

Hello Greg. Thanks. Yes, CLG has a good personality to commit a murder or two. I think his best motive would be money.

Good luck with the Russian in Cyrillic script.

Cheers.
LC

[GregBaron]

Insult then cut...

Hi Lynn,

"Now does this indicate your research in this area has led to a dead-end street (no pun intended)?"

Oh, not that dire. He is just placed on the back burner. It is like when, a few years ago, I was a Druittist. MJD was supposed to have a safe place at his legal offices southwest of the kill zone.
But I could never reconcile the Berner to Mitre to Goulston movements (oh, yes, I was a "Double Eventer" back then) that were made. Natural would have been Berner to Mitre back to the office--straight southwestern movement.

I admire your ability to change your mind Lynn, when evidence and logic dictate. Seems some casebookers don't share this ability!

If PR had engineered the "Double Event," his Vasilliev story should have come out about 5-7 days afterward--not in November. Could he have expected an immediate pogrom? Sure. But that's not as certain.

But the records are all still there in Palo Alto. How's your Cyrillic? (heh-heh)

Perhaps I can get out there someday Lynn, but as you imply, once my Cyrillic studies are completed...

"Is it back to ground zero in the Stride affair?"

Nearly. Tom's other lad, Albert Bachert, interests me. Rob Clack's conjecture about a club member losing his temper and killing her is not too bad. Of course, the forensics of the yard requires an adjustment.

I rather like this idea too. I can also see it as a regular punter. Perhaps a drunken sailor coming by, rudely propositioning and then reacting with violence once rejected. He may
have remembered little of it in the morning....

"Maybe Pipeman/LeGrand did off her for refusing his pimping offer....?"

Considered that. But why would he want East End turf? Pickings too slim.

Besides, LeGrand had a good bit on his plate working behind the scenes for the "Times" at the upcoming Parnell Commission. And I believe it is THERE that CLG is MOST interesting.

Can't really disagree with you here Lynn. Maybe LeGrand had some other motive?



Greg

[mariab]

You taking the pi$$.

Not really, though I've just had too much guava juice. :-p

Maria already knows I suspect a Berner Street clubman as we have already had this discussion on the 'Arbeter Fraint's Take' and she didn't like it then.

Actually Rob, I thought you were referring to a beating of Stride by a frustrated clubman as BS and I did like it. (The idea.) A clubman to have cut the throat of a woman in front of his very own Club door when he knew that the police was unto them for cigar contraband and political issues must have been quite a bit retarded. In fact, these anarchists respected women from the lower classes (as documented in their writings), they even sorta cared about the rights of prostitutes, though they might have not liked being pestered by a prossie during their convention/dance.

[curious]

Hi Curious,

If he was just a lad, there was, in the 1891 census, a Ruben Galman (21), boarding at 50, Greenfield Street, Mile End Old Town - a cabinet maker.

Regards, Bridewell.

from: http://forum.casebook.org/showthread...ghlight=fraint

At about one o’clock the steward of the club, Comrade Louis Dimshits, came with his cart from the market. He was the first to notice the dead body. His horse became frightened as he drove into the gate and shied to the right, and this caused Dimshits to bend down to see the reason for this. He noticed a black object on the ground. He touched it with his whip and felt that it was a body. He immediately struck a match, but that was insufficient and he wasn’t able to get a [good] flame, he was nevertheless able by the light of the first match to see that the object was a woman. From excitement he jumped off the cart, ran through the back door into the club and raised an alarm. Immediately Comrade Gilyarovsky ran into the printing shop and editor’s office that are located in the same building as the club, but separated in the back by the yard.
There was no one in the printing shop. Comrades Krants and Yaffa were busy in the editor’s office.
“Don’t you know that a murdered woman is lying in the yard?” Gilyarovsky breathlessly called out. At first the two comrades did not want to believe him. “What, don’t you believe me?” Gilyarovsky quickly asked: “I saw blood.” Yaffa and Krants immediately ran out and went over to the gate. The gate was open and it was very dark near the gate. A black object was barely discernable near the brick building. Once they got very close, they could notice that it was the shape of a woman that was lying with its face to the wall, with its head toward the yard and with its feet pointing to the gate. Comrades Morris Eygel, Fridenthal and Gilyarovsky were standing around the body. Eygel struck a match and shouted to the figure lying there: “Get up!” “Why are you waking her?” asked Yaffa, who noticed that the woman was lying in a liquid. “Don’t you see that the woman is dead?”

If Diemshutz could see only that the object was a woman, how did somone else know the woman was dead and when did Gilyarovsky see the blood?

The way this reads Gilyarovsky announces the woman's death before the group went outside to look closely at the woman.

May mean nothing, may be important.

[Wickerman]

Hello Jon. Thanks. I'm thinking she died between their "seeing daylight" and her opening the paper and withdrawing one.

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn.
So do I.
And if there had been a couple of cachous in her pocket, spilled from her being roughed up, then they'd be hers.
As we don't see this, and as she held onto them during the attack, I suspect it's possible they were given to her.

All the best, Jon S.