A Case of Misattribution?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

Okay. I respect that.

I realise I'm going out on a limb here, but how do you feel about Lawende having also fudged the ethnicity of the man he saw with "Eddowes" at the entrance to Church Passage?

Regards,

Simon

[Bridewell]

The Gentile Bully

Hello Simon. Well, given that Wess and the lads believed that they were watched by the police, and given that they felt there might be an attempt to pin it on the club, the Schwartz story dismantles by positing a Gentile bully.

So, you see, it could NOT have been one of us at the club.

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn,

If the Schwartz story is a fiction intended to remove suspicion from members of the IWMEC, why have him witnessing only an assault? Why not, unequivocally, the murder itself? Why not say, overtly that 'it was obvious to me that the man was a Gentile', rather than simply implying it in the description?
In addition, if

Wess and the lads believed that they were watched by the police

it would be extremely dangerous to have a Club stooge invent a story of this nature, because there would be every chance that a watching policeman would be able to disprove it. Where would that leave Israel Schwartz in the great scheme of things? Slopping out in Pentonville?

regards, Bridewell.

[lynn cates]

precisely

Hello Simon. That is PRECISELY my suggestion.

Cheers.
LC

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

Wess and the lads were being watched by the cops who, for all we know, might have been on a tea-break at the appointed hour.

Are you suggesting that Israel Schwartz fudged the matter of BS man's ethnicity in order to prevent the murder being pinned on the IWMEC?

Regards,

Simon

[lynn cates]

"Gentile on my mind"

Hello Simon. Well, given that Wess and the lads believed that they were watched by the police, and given that they felt there might be an attempt to pin it on the club, the Schwartz story dismantles by positing a Gentile bully.

So, you see, it could NOT have been one of us at the club.

Cheers.
LC

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

Saucy Jacky wins hands down in terms of influencing target populations.

I'm not being combative, but in what way was Schwartz's story convenient for the IWMEC?

Regards,

Simon

[lynn cates]

neither

Hello Simon. I prefer to doubt both.

1. Schwartz' story is very convenient for the IWMEC.

2. SJ conveniently puts two disparate items together.

Both are convenient but likely have different target populations.

Cheers.
LC

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

The bottom line with Schwartz is that, no matter how truthful his story, it could not be allowed to torpedo the 1.00 am murder-interruptus incident and "double-event" which subsequently passed into official history.

Who do you believe? Israel Schwartz or Saucy Jacky?

Regards,

Simon

[lynn cates]

unfortunately

Hello Simon. Thanks. That would indeed be the case provided:

1. She were an unfortunate.

2. Met a second violent chap.

I agree about Swanson. He seems to wear his credulity on his sleeve, but underneath . . .

Cheers.
LC

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

Hard to say. Swanson arm-wrestled the evidence.

On the one hand he wrote—

"If Schwartz is to be believed, and the police report of his statement casts no doubt upon it . . ."

On the other hand, he went on to postulate that between the Schwartz incident and the 1.00 am discovery in Dutfields Yard Stride had a second violent encounter. This occasioned puzzled marginalia in his 19th October report and, if true, made Elizabeth Stride possibly the most unfortunate unfortunate in history.

Regards,

Simon

[lynn cates]

credo . . .

Hello Simon. Simplest answer: he believed it.

Cheers.
LC

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Ruby

Have PM'd you to avoid going even further off-topic!

All the best

Dave

[Garry Wroe]

I have my doubts about the whole Schwartz episode. He may have seen something occur but whatever he may have seen probably did not involve the person known as Jack the Ripper.

I fully concur, Lechmere.

People seldom cooperate when a murderer tries to kill them and things can go wrong.

But that’s my point, Lechmere. Whoever he was, Jack the Ripper had developed a mode of attack that left his victims powerless to resist. He seized them by the throat in order to immobilize them, laid them on their backs, then cut their throats with a ferocity such that his knife gouged the spinal column. Forget about the mutilations. Think for a moment about the immolatory phase of the crime. This same sequence occurred with Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and, to a large extent, Kelly. But it didn’t occur with Stride. Today any competent crime analyst would note these discrepancies and exclude the possibility of common authorship until such time as emergent evidence indicated otherwise.

I will repeat that the chances of two unsolved fatal throat cutting knife attacks, outside, on prostitutes within walking distance of each other and within a narrow time frame make it exceptionally unlikley that two hands were at work. These sorts of attacks were exceptionally rare.

You may rest assured that statistical crime analyses do not work in the way you and others appear to imagine. A crime analyst would systematically examine the Ripper’s known behaviours and then determine which if any of these behaviours occurred in the Berner Street crime. Then and only then would a probability analysis be undertaken, this providing a mathematical determination as to the statistical likelihood of the Stride crime being linked to the overall series. The one thing a crime analyst wouldn’t and couldn’t do is to make such a determination based upon a frequency distribution of generalized knife crime. That would be akin to measuring a person’s height in pounds and ounces.

I doubt that Lawende saw the same person as Schwartz …

You and me both, Lechmere.

… and I doubt that Lawende saw the person known as Jack the Ripper.

I think it overwhelmingly probable that he did.

As for Coles I would have to say that there is a good chance that she was kiled by the same person and I would say it should be kept on the file.

That’s interesting.

On balance I think Saddler probably did it - he was very much in the frame, which makes this one quite unlike the other murders.

Very interesting. Curious too, Lechmere, since you are putting Sadler in the frame for the entire Ripper series despite the fact that he wasn’t in London when the earlier murders were committed.

Also to be brutally honest the Coles murder doesn't fit to my mind with being committed by my favoured suspect and so I would have to strike it out for that reason!

That’s refreshingly honest, Lechmere. Now try setting aside your preconceptions and examine the Stride murder purely on an evidential basis.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

If Schwartz was lying why did Swanson go to such gymnastic lengths to factor his story into the murder-interruptus scenario?

Regards,

Simon

[Rubyretro]

Somewhere in Sussex?

Dave

Yes. How did you guess that ?? (Burgess Hill !).