Striking after being seen?

[Tom_Wescott]

Wickerman,

While I'd hesitate calling the police circular's description of Lawende's man 'purely conjectural', as they clearly knew more than they wanted us to know, and had access to Lawende, I nevertheless find your thoughts on the matter very intriguing. Would it be possible for you to post all the descriptions provided by Lawende and Levy, or by the police in their name? It would be nice to have them all in one post for comparison.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Ben]

Agreed, Maria.

Jon - Lawende's inquest testimony wasn't merely "cut short". It was deliberately suppressed, only to appear later in the Police Gazette, which, unlike the Illustrated Police News, was actually a police newspaper. There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of its content.

[mariab]

Hello Wickerman,
I totally see where you're coming from. What I meant was that Lawende's witnessing of a man and a woman (regardless of the fact if these two were indeed Eddowes and her killer) was corroborated by 2 law abiding citizens. I'm not claiming that Lawende was a perfect witness, just a honest one. Vs. Schwartz, whose story remains un-corroborated, and whom I might have succeeded in affiliating with the anarchists (there'll be more about this in a future article), and who might have being evading the police for political reasons.
I think it was Tom and Ben who initiated the discussion in this thread about Lawende having been put on a pedestal as a witness in the wake of Kozminski’s rise in prominence as a Ripper suspect. Another, less biased reason for Lawende's prominence is the fact that we now know so much about him (thanks to research conducted by Chris Scott and Chris Phillips) vs. the obscure, evading (?) Schwartz.
And obviously I agree that Lawende was a much less self-assured witness than say, James Brown, but Lawende's lack of assurance very much fits with the unnamed Jewish witness unwilling to testify against a Jew suspect in 1890(?)/1891(?).

[Wickerman]

...For one thing, Lawende's story is corroborated by 2 other witnesses, ...

Maria.
As I noted elsewhere, it is 'us' today who have put Lawende on a pedestal, comments like your's serve to demonstrate just what I meant.

Lawende's partner Levy tells us:
"..I saw a man and woman standing at the corner of Church-passage, but I did not take any notice of them". Apart from estimating the man's height, Levy add's:
"...I cannot give any further description of them. "

How does this corroborate Lawende's story? - the truth is, it does not do anything beyond confirm that a couple were standing on the corner.
Levy saw a couple, as did Lawende, who they were and what they were doing was not apparent to either witness.

So what was Lawende's story? He only, & briefly, saw a couple on the corner.

"..The woman was standing with her face towards the man, and I only saw her back. She had one hand on his breast. He was the taller. She had on a black jacket and bonnet."

What did the man look like?

"...He had on a cloth cap with a peak of the same. "

That was it, the Coroner cut Lawende short so we never get to hear his story.
What was there to corroborate?

Lawende tells us nothing. The eventual 'suspect' description although attributed to Lawende actually came via other sources, there are several versions, the most popular came via Swanson.

Given the detail contained in the description we are required to assume Lawende took a good look at the couple, yet he openly admits he would not know him again. He also admitted to not being sufficiently curious to 'look back' at the couple.
What about the light on that corner?

Levy said:
"...The point in the passage where the man and woman were standing was not well lighted. On the contrary, I think it was badly lighted then, but the light is much better now."

So Lawende could give no further details, neither of them paid much attention to the couple, and the lighting at that location was particularly bad.

The third member Harry Harris made no comment at all, he was not even asked to be a witness.

Do you see where I am coming from?, 'we' create all these assumptions about what a great witness Lawende was, and he had support from his friends, yet when we take notice of the facts, Lawende by his own admission was not a good witness, and he did not have the support of his friends beyond the fact that Levy also saw the couple, but Harris offered no support at all.

Given the facts we know, we are left to query just how such a detailed description could be attributed to a man who took no real notice, could offer little by the way of detail, and only saw the couple briefly in a pooly lighted location.

This is the reality of Lawende's sighting, anything beyond that is purely our own conjecture unsupported by Lawende's own claims.

Regards, Jon S.

[Fleetwood Mac]

The problem with Schwartz, if you believe his account, is that BS man throws her onto the 'footway'. Clearly, the footway is outside of the gates. He's certainly not attempting to drag her into the corner. So, what will Liz do? Walk with him into a dark corner? I doubt it. So, he must have dragged her there? Except there are no corrobating signs.

15 minutes? That's a fair amount of time. Seems possible that BS man just wanted her off the premises, BS man went inside, and Liz continued to solicit. Gives Jack 10 minutes to appear. Twice as much time as Jack has to kill Eddowes, mutilate, cut a piece of apron, wrap the organs, and move off without being seen - if you believe the doctors' testimony and Watkins'.

I personally would place much more store in Lawende.

[mariab]

Not to start a complete new discussion here, but I do believe Paul Begg gave some (to me very convincing) arguments that the eyewitness who identified Kosminski was in fact Schwartz, not Lawende? That would make Lawende's sighting less significant. And it would seen logical, in my opinion Schwartz had a better look at the attacker than Lawende. This ofcourse depends on you accepting Stride as a Ripper victim or not.

Hello Addy,
The evidence speaks overwhelmingly and most plausibly for Stride being an interrupted Ripper victim (hence no mutilations/disembowelment), but there are some problems with coming to the conclusion that Schwartz (vs. Lawende) was the eyewitness who supposedly identified Kozminski: For one thing, Lawende's story is corroborated by 2 other witnesses, all of them law-abiding citizens, plus Lawende stayed in Whitechapel, and his address, physical description, and family history is known to us, thus it's not a strech to imagine that he would have been available to the police for further questioning after the fall of 1888. On the other side, Schwartz' story is possibly conflicting with the other witnesses (since noone else saw the incidents described in his testimony), there was doubt issued about his veracity as a witness in one newspaper report, there are suspicions that he was affiliated with the IWEC who might have influenced his testimony, it appears that he wasn't invited at the inquest, and the search results in the censuses are not giving us a clear idea about his whereabouts after the fall of 1888. I'm currently researching Schwartz as affiliated with the Whitechapel anarchists in 1902-1905, and, while yet not done at all with this research, I'm starting to get the impression that he changed or kept changing his first name. Unlike Lawende, I very much doubt that Schwartz would have been available for questioning again by the police after the fall of 1888.

[lynn cates]

involvement

Hello Addy.

"if Lawende had seen another couple, wouldn't they have come forward when they read about it all?"

Not necessarily. Some wish not to get involved.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Juives

Hello Jason.

"could the confused wording of the GSG be reconciled with a foreigner's attempted grasp of written English?"

Possibly. It does look like the French word Juives, doesn't it?

Cheers.
LC

[Addy]

I feel the sighting was indeed too close to Kate's death for the man to have been anyone else than the Ripper. Even though he was fast, he would have to have pulled Kate from that other mans arms if she was seen with another man by Lawende. And I doubt she would have gone with him into the square if he had done that!

Also, if Lawende had seen another couple, wouldn't they have come forward when they read about it all? I believe that also happened in the case of Liz Stride, when a cop saw a courting couple which turned out to be another couple and they came forward. The same happened when Frances Cole was murdered (nothing to do with whether she was a Ripper victim or not!!)

Not to start a complete new discussion here, but I do believe Paul Begg gave some (to me very convincing) arguments that the eyewitness who identified Kosminski was in fact Schwartz, not Lawende? That would make Lawende's sighting less significant. And it would seen logical, in my opinion Schwartz had a better look at the attacker than Lawende. This ofcourse depends on you accepting Stride as a Ripper victim or not.

Greetings,

Addy

[K-453]

the problem with the Eddowes sighting is, it's just a wee bit too close to her time of death for me

Exactly that is what I am thinking!
On the other hand, "Jack" was fast. That is probably the reason why he was not caught. Had he stayed longer on any murder site, the risk of being seen would have grown exponentially.

[jason_c]

Hi Ben. In case I’ve been misunderstood, let me say that I don’t at all dismiss Lawende. I believe he was an honest witness who saw what he said he saw, and he very likely may have seen Eddowes with the Ripper. I was just observing from discussions I’ve had with researchers who put so much stock in a witness who wasn’t at all certain, but are quick to dismiss other witnesses who were actually more certain about what they saw and provided no reason to disbelieve them. I used James Brown as an example. But because Lawende is on record as stating he wouldn’t likely recognize the man again, and only took note of the color of the woman’s clothes, we have to be careful in accepting his description of the man as accurate, and most certainly have to treat with caution any suspect identification he may have been a part of then or in later years.



You’re exceptionally rare, but the idea of dismissing the graffiti seems to have taken root in the wake of Kozminski’s rise in prominence as a Ripper suspect. At that time, many felt he would have hardly known English, let alone could have written in a ‘schoolboy’ hand, so it became necessary for Koz supporters to revise their thinking about the graffiti. Not just Koz, but supporters of the ‘Polish Jew’ suspect altogether. This led to a groundswell against the graffiti as a legit piece of evidence. And of course, because it wasn’t a material artifact like the apron piece, it was and is possible the Ripper didn’t write it, though I believe a balanced assessment of the evidence leads to the conclusion he likely did. Funny thing is, now that we know more about Kozminski, we know he spoke English fluently and would have been literate, and certainly COULD have written the graffiti. As a young Jewish man, we should also not be surprised to find him at the Berner Street club, frequented by other Jewish men, including those with a criminal bent.

In short, for those who believe the Ripper relied on luck to keep from getting caught, the more of the murders and ‘toying with the police’ evidence they dispose of, the stronger their argument becomes, and I believe this is where the modern era of minimalism got it’s start.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Off topic. But I suddenly had an "epiphany" of sorts. Could the confused wording of the GSG be reconciled with a foreigners attempted grasp of written English?

Assuming the writers general knowledge of English being decent. Their English syntax slightly less so. A graffitio version of "went the day well"?

[Abby Normal]

I think it's fairly obvious that Lawende's sighting was invested with more significance than most others by the police. This has less to do with the quality of the sighting or the time the witness had at his disposal, than with the overwhelmingly likelihood that the man described was the killer. He was seem with the supposed victim ten minutes before the discovery of the body, rendering the sighting unique amongst eyewitness testimony. I notice that the only people who choose to dismiss Lawende's sighting - for deeply spurious reasons - tend to be the those who champion far more dubious pieces of non-inquest testimony. It tends to a minority-endorsed argument resorted to by those who angle for the "well-dressed" Jack that have a problem with Lawende's ostensibly shabby man.

On a semi-related note, I must be very rare amongst those who "favor an average everyday Joe Blow local East Ender" in believing both the Stride murder and the graffiti to have been the work of the killer. I find that very strange, since neither of these acts is remotely inconsistent with a Joe Average East-Ender (which, based on crime scene evidence and other serial cases, would be the most likely offender type by a considerable margin).

Hi Ben
I think along with the proximity of his sighting, he may have been seen as a better witness by police because his sighting is backed up by his companions unlike IS and he was maybe seen as repectable and could speak English, again unlike Schwartz.

On the other hand, red flags for me on Lawende, other than the obvious fact that he said he could not identify again, is that he never IDed the body and (for some reason sticks in my craw) is the description of a "suspect" with fair hair.

But let me just say I think out of all the witnesses, he and IS Should be the best, and I agree that the killer was an "average Joe-Blow type" as described by their appearance by both IS and Lawende.

[Ben]

Hi Tom,

Firstly, I should clarify that I wasn't referring to you personally as someone who dismisses the Lawende sighting for spurious reasons. I would agree that the minimalist approach does seem to be in fashion at the moment, with more and more "coincidences" being dismissed as unrelated. I note with interest your suggestion that this may be due, in part, to a preference for the "Polish Jew" theory. That could well be the case, as I can certainly think of a few impediments to such a theory if Stride and the graffiti were both accepted as the ripper's work. But if, like me, you believe that a local, average, everyday gentile man dunnit, there is no impediment whatsoever as far Stride/graffiti are concerned, nor is there any inconsistency with the image of Jack as someone who toyed with the police and didn't rely solely on luck.

All the best,
Ben

[Tom_Wescott]

I think it's fairly obvious that Lawende's sighting was invested with more significance than most others by the police. This has less to do with the quality of the sighting or the time the witness had at his disposal, than with the overwhelmingly likelihood that the man described was the killer. He was seem with the supposed victim ten minutes before the discovery of the body, rendering the sighting unique amongst eyewitness testimony. I notice that the only people who choose to dismiss Lawende's sighting - for deeply spurious reasons - tend to be the those who champion far more dubious pieces of non-inquest testimony. It tends to a minority-endorsed argument resorted to by those who angle for the "well-dressed" Jack that have a problem with Lawende's ostensibly shabby man.

Hi Ben. In case I’ve been misunderstood, let me say that I don’t at all dismiss Lawende. I believe he was an honest witness who saw what he said he saw, and he very likely may have seen Eddowes with the Ripper. I was just observing from discussions I’ve had with researchers who put so much stock in a witness who wasn’t at all certain, but are quick to dismiss other witnesses who were actually more certain about what they saw and provided no reason to disbelieve them. I used James Brown as an example. But because Lawende is on record as stating he wouldn’t likely recognize the man again, and only took note of the color of the woman’s clothes, we have to be careful in accepting his description of the man as accurate, and most certainly have to treat with caution any suspect identification he may have been a part of then or in later years.

On a semi-related note, I must be very rare amongst those who "favor an average everyday Joe Blow local East Ender" in believing both the Stride murder and the graffiti to have been the work of the killer. I find that very strange, since neither of these acts is remotely inconsistent with a Joe Average East-Ender (which, based on crime scene evidence and other serial cases, would be the most likely offender type by a considerable margin).

You’re exceptionally rare, but the idea of dismissing the graffiti seems to have taken root in the wake of Kozminski’s rise in prominence as a Ripper suspect. At that time, many felt he would have hardly known English, let alone could have written in a ‘schoolboy’ hand, so it became necessary for Koz supporters to revise their thinking about the graffiti. Not just Koz, but supporters of the ‘Polish Jew’ suspect altogether. This led to a groundswell against the graffiti as a legit piece of evidence. And of course, because it wasn’t a material artifact like the apron piece, it was and is possible the Ripper didn’t write it, though I believe a balanced assessment of the evidence leads to the conclusion he likely did. Funny thing is, now that we know more about Kozminski, we know he spoke English fluently and would have been literate, and certainly COULD have written the graffiti. As a young Jewish man, we should also not be surprised to find him at the Berner Street club, frequented by other Jewish men, including those with a criminal bent.

In short, for those who believe the Ripper relied on luck to keep from getting caught, the more of the murders and ‘toying with the police’ evidence they dispose of, the stronger their argument becomes, and I believe this is where the modern era of minimalism got it’s start.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Malcolm X]

From the inquest:

Joseph Lawende: […] The woman was standing with her face towards the man, and I only saw her back. She had one hand on his breast. He was the taller. She had on a black jacket and bonnet. I have seen the articles at the police-station, and believe them to be those the deceased was wearing.
[…]
[Coroner] Would you know him again? - I doubt it. The man and woman were about nine or ten feet away from me. I have no doubt it was half-past one o'clock when we rose to leave the club, so that it would be twenty-five minutes to two o'clock when we passed the man and woman.
[Coroner] Did you overhear anything that either said? - No.
[Coroner] Did either appear in an angry mood? - No.
[Coroner] Did anything about their movements attract your attention? - No. The man looked rather rough and shabby. […]

Mr. Joseph Hyam Levy: The point in the passage where the man and woman were standing was not well lighted. On the contrary, I think it was badly lighted then, but the light is much better now.


I attach a photo of Church Passage, taken on the spot where the couple was standing. The murder site was behind the parked car.
Quite a long way to go in a few minutes. What would you say – 60 – 70 yards?

unless of course there is some light coming from the neighbouring windows, beyond this passageway would be pitch black at night, very creepy too, you would hardly see the square beyond..... this is a good photo