Two

[Chris]

Thanks for that, Chris

Thanks for the thanks. Though maybe I should just emphasise that there was a "... if it wasn't for the mention of the pub in the Star report ..." before the second part of my post that you quoted.

Maybe it's also worth mentioning that the Echo report describes Fairclough Street as "[running] across Berner-street close to the Club, and [being]intersected on the right by Providence-street, Brunswick-street, and Christian-st., and on the left by Batty-street and Grove-street, the [two latter running] up into Commercial-road". Those intersections all lie to the east of Berner Street. That may indicate that the journalist understood Schwartz to have headed east, but it's not clear that his source said as much.

[Jeff Leahy]

Morning All

Yes some interesting observation Chris. It has always puzzled me why Schwartz would run past his own front door down to a rather dodgy looking railway arch. However if he goes down Fairclough Street and turns left into church lane, it makes more sense. That said, Schwartz has to have crossed to the West side of the Street in order to see Liz Stride:

http://vimeo.com/6024071

This link shows at short film I made yesterday demonstrating the angles. As you can see if Schwartz is on the East side of the road as he heads down behind BSM he would have a very poor view of Liz Stride. He practically has to be on top of BSM, about eight feet away, before he can see Liz.

If he does cross to the west side, stop and look back however, as claimed in the Star, then he has a very good view indeed of the possible attack and murder.

My conclusion therefore is that Schwartz was fairly close to BSM and Liz when he crosses the road; he hears something, stops and looks back. Pipeman (outside pub) shouts ‘Lipski’ and Schwartz heads, south down Berner Street.

I’m afraid I can not find the Echo report you mention but here is the Star and New York Times.

Many thanks for your observations

Pirate

The Star

As he turned the corner of Commercial road he noticed some distance in front of him a man walking as if partially intoxicated. He walked on behind him, and presently he noticed a woman standing in the entrance to the ally way where the body was afterwards found. Half-tipsy man haulted and spoke to her. The Hungarian saw him put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her back into the passage, but, 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, and shouting out some sort of warning to the man who was with the woman, rushed forward as if to attack the intruder. The Hungarian states positively that he saw a knife in this second mans hand, but, he waited to see no more. He fled incontinently, to his new lodgings. He described the man with the Woman as about 30 years of age, rather stoutly built, and wearing a brown moustache. He was dressed respectably in dark clothes and felt hat. The man who came at him with a knife he also describes, but not in detail. He says he was taller than the other , but not so stout , that his moustaches were red. Both men seem to belong to the same grade of society. The police have arrested one man answering the Hungarian furnishes. This prisoner has not been charged, but is held for enquiries to be made. The truth of the mans statement is not wholly accepted.

New York Times

The daring character of the murders is evident from the fact that two people at least saw a man and a woman together in Berner Street gateway, and one saw him throw her down. He went away and left her there, but it was half an hour before it was known that she had been murdered.

[Tom_Wescott]

Pirate Jack, et al.

The "public house" referred to is the Nelson Beerhouse which stood directly on the corner, a few doors down from Matthew Packer's house. It was right across the street from the board school.

Schwartz was walking a bit behind BS Man. But when BS Man came to a stop to speak to Liz, Schwartz DID NOT stop, so inevitably ended up drawing in closer to the couple. Schwartz was himself at the gateway when the scene got ugly and BS Man pulled Stride out of the gateway and, upon her resistance, threw her down. Schwartz then crossed the road to the other side of the street.

BS Man - now ACROSS THE STREET FROM SCHWARTZ - yelled out 'Lipski'. Pipeman then emerged either from the entryway of the Nelson or from it's other side, lighting his pipe. At this time, Pipeman, BS Man, and Stride are all on the same side of the street. Schwartz is on the opposite side. Pipeman takes off running towards Schwartz and Schwartz takes off running down Berner Street.

The Echo account mentioned by Stephen Thomas a few posts ago is valuable, but not for it's muddled information. The source was William Wess of the IWEC. I suspect but cannot yet prove that he was Schwartz's translator for the police.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Jon Guy]

Pirate

As soon as I saw the wheelie-bin with "Liz" stuck on it I knew it was going be a classic. I agree with your conclusions. Can`t argue with science. Good sport.

[JennyL]

Pirate

As soon as I saw the wheelie-bin with "Liz" stuck on it I knew it was going be a classic. I agree with your conclusions. Can`t argue with science. Good sport.

I admit I had to fight off some Pythonesque thoughts when concentrating my attention on the representations for "Liz" and BSM".

But great video! I still have my troubles understanding from descriptions exactly where pipe man was when he(?--or BSM?) yelled "Lipski!", and the video didn't address that(darn!). Was the smoker on the same side as BSM & Liz, or the same side as Schwartz after he crossed the street? I assume from the various reports he was same side as Liz; but if so--further back from whence Schwartz had come, or up ahead as he walking, and then passed(I understand all the others wound up behind Schwartz as he hurried off--he being on the move all the time.

I'm sure this has been diagrammed somewhere, but so far in all the books ec. I've had an awful time picturing the setup of where exactly everyone was. This went a way towards helping enormously. Very interesting.

[Jon Guy]

Jenny, scroll down on this link to see some cool graphics by Jane Coram of where Pipeman was:

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/rip-sironi.html

[Chris]

BS Man - now ACROSS THE STREET FROM SCHWARTZ - yelled out 'Lipski'. Pipeman then emerged either from the entryway of the Nelson or from it's other side, lighting his pipe. At this time, Pipeman, BS Man, and Stride are all on the same side of the street. Schwartz is on the opposite side. Pipeman takes off running towards Schwartz and Schwartz takes off running down Berner Street.

Well, perhaps, but to my mind that's a very unnatural interpretation of what Swanson says, and I don't believe it would have occurred to anyone if it hadn't been for the statement about the pub in the Star report.

But what I really don't understand is why you're so convinced that the report in the Echo about the men running down Fairclough Street is wrong. After all, if Schwartz simply went straight home as the Star report suggests, then he wouldn't have gone anywhere near "the railway arch", which is where Swanson says he ended up.

I do think it's quite important to acknowledge that there are contradictions between these different accounts, and that while we can make conjectures to try to explain them, we really can't know what happened.

[Jeff Leahy]

Cheers for that Link Jon , I’m printing it out and will study it tomorrow. Cheers for accepting my bizarre ‘wheelie bin’ video with humour. I’m afraid I have to be up early for work and must dash.

Just to clarify however that for once I agree with both Tom and Chris’s analysis. Tom in so far as the usually ‘accepted’ set of events. And Chris in as much as there are clearly anomalies that require, thought, consideration and deduction.

Pirate

[Archaic]

I do think it's quite important to acknowledge that there are contradictions between these different accounts, and that while we can make conjectures to try to explain them, we really can't know what happened.

Chris, I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Although we all have our own theories, it's best for the sake of any constructive discussion that we all bear this in mind.

Jeff, thanks for the Wheelie Bin History Lesson; I'm glad to see you don't believe in cinematic excess.

And Jon, thank you for the link to Jane's wonderful art.

Best regards, Archaic

[Tom_Wescott]

Chris,

What precisely are you disagreeing with in my sequence of events? You weren't clear on that. As far as the Echo report that I'm cautioning people about, it's because it basically has Schwartz as the would-be Ripper and Pipeman as the hero chasing him. Why is it you feel Schwartz HAD to have gone down Fairclough Street to have hit any arches?
Of course I'm aware of discrepancies between the Swanson report and the Star report. I've published on here a decent-sized list of these discrepancies. Some are likely errors (or omissions) on the part of Swanson, not the Star, which should also be kept in mind.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Chris]

Tom

What I disagree with most in your post is the dogmatism. The evidence is contradictory, so it's no good simply asserting "A, B and C happened". If you said something like "I think Source 1 rather than Source 2 is correct about where Knifeman stood, because ..." it would be more useful and interesting.

Regarding the route Schwartz took, it's not so much that I think he had to go down Fairclough Street to hit any arches. It's more that the only explicit statement we have is that he did go down Fairclough Street, so the question arises as to why it should instead be asserted that he went down Berner Street. The only piece of evidence I can see to suggest that he went down Berner Street is the Star's statement that he "fled incontinently to his new lodgings". But the difficulty is that fleeing directly to his lodgings doesn't take him anywhere near a railway arch, as far as I can see.

[perrymason]

It seems that lots of people are content to continue to plough this barren field of Schwartz's statement despite;

a) What amounts to be a ridiculous excuse for being at that location at that time of night
b) No-one else corroborates it, and BSM and Pipeman were not found
c) Its supposedly been translated, but who knows how literally
d) His so-called Witness statement is in effect just reminiscences by Swanson. Abberlines staunch support of Hutchinson at first should be a cautionary tale, retrospectively.
e) He was not invited to provide his story at the Inquest
f) Without this statement the obvious and most probable spot for the killer to have been waiting for Liz, was inside the yard.

Fanny Mortimer is at her door off an on until almost 1am, she sees or hears none of what Schwartz describes, nor does Brown, whose Inquest statement clearly shows Liz to be in a much different location, and in much different circumstances, than Israels statement.

Brown is not a Jewish Immigrant, but Schwartz is...as are the members of The International Club. Whose necks were on the chopping block without that witnessed altercation off premises just before Strides murder.

Perhaps the most likely answer as to why Israel wasnt called to give his story isnt his inability to speak English, its perhaps his inability to provide a story that doesnt seem remarkably like an alibi for the Club members.

Best regards all.

[Tom_Wescott]

What I disagree with most in your post is the dogmatism.

I don't believe I was being dogmatic about anything. Swanson has Schwartz walking behind BS Man and arriving at the gate. He then has Schwartz cross the street, which puts him on the board school side of the road. He then has Pipeman emerge from across the street, which would be the club side. The Star account supports this and adds the detail that Pipeman emerged from the 'pub', which could only be the Nelson beerhouse, a location that makes sense because it's on the corner. The beerhouse was closed at this hour, but Pipeman likely emerged from around it's side or from the encaved entryway; the only such spot he COULD have emerged from without having previously been seen by Schwartz.

Perhaps Schwartz did run down Fairclough Street, but I don't believe either of the primary accounts say that. In any event, I'm more concerned with the events that transpired prior to his running from the scene.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[perrymason]

Place Schwartz at that location within a reasonable and believable context....say, that he attended the meeting and was hanging around afterward, as we are led to believe many attendees did after Saturday night meetings until past 1am...as per the neighbors including Fanny,......account for the fact no-one, Brown or Mortimer, corroborates one single aspect of his story, .....factor in that the club was thought by local authorities to contain Socialist anarchists, and that the key club witnesses that night will attack policemen with clubs in just a few months in that same yard,.....factor in that as of Liz's murder, most authorities thought Jack was a Jewish Immigrant from Europe.......

Now look at his statement in terms of its potential benefit for the Club.

Off site attacker...so not a club man, anti-semetic....so probably not a Jew. Add in Eagle and Lave saying they both were in that yard at 12:40am and it was empty,....apparently a contradiction because clearly 2 men said they were in the yard at the same time,.... and clearly different than what is portrayed by the neighbors about usual after meeting Saturday nights.......

You have an immigrant Jew being implausibly concerned about his wife moving their belongings over the previous 12 hours.....(how much could they have had?), outside an anarchist club for Socialist Jews after a meeting,...with an uncharacteristically empty yard despite the fact the meeting had been broken up between 11 and 11:30 and the rain had ended around then...... and he happens to come along at just the right moment to see a non-club member, non-Jew.... probably a gentile by the remark he later makes, ..assault a woman just outside the club gates, who is found minutes later, just inside the yard, murdered.

If I took his statement, the first thing that I would want to know is if he was in any way associated with that Club.

Has anyone read anything that categorically addresses that question by the Police? If they did look into that angle, and found he was in some way connected even if for only that one night.....maybe that might explain his absence at the Inquest.

Potentially tainted, prejudicial and sounding too much like the International Club official alibi.

If the police thought they had reason to suspect a club member, the club would have closed that night. With an empty yard...and an outside assailant.....they didnt.

Best regards all.

[Jeff Leahy]

Ok for what its worth, much though it sticks in the throat, I’m basically in agreement with Tom here, though I think I’d say ‘given what is known’ this is the most ‘probable’ set of events. Although having recently paced out Schwartz flee to the rail way arch I still find this action most curious.

However I thought I’d tackle Michael’s observations.

M: a) What amounts to be a ridiculous excuse for being at that location at that time of night?

P: Is it really that ridiculous? If you were making a story up, surely you come up with ‘I was visiting a friend’. It actually seems quite plausible to me.

M: b) No-one else corroborates it, and BSM and Pipeman were not found

P:Well that’s not true. If the accounts are to be believed then it would appear that they did find Pipeman who must have backed up Schwartz statement. In Fact some have argued that Pipeman might have been Swanson and Andersons witness. (although not the Pirate)

M: c) Its supposedly been translated, but who knows how literally

P: Yes I agree, the translation problem is BIG. However there is NO proof of a translation connection to the Club. That is just speculation on your part.

M: d) His so-called Witness statement is in effect just reminiscences by Swanson. Abberlines staunch support of Hutchinson at first should be a cautionary tale, retrospectively.

P: Again that is highly speculative. What we have is the statement, which we must stick too.

M: e) He was not invited to provide his story at the Inquest

P: Again we do NOT know this. I believe PaulB speculates that he may have given evidence ‘in camera’ in his book ‘the Facts’

M: f) Without this statement the obvious and most probable spot for the killer to have been waiting for Liz, was inside the yard.

P: Again this is incorrect. If Liz was a JtR victim, it is most probable that she picked him up and took him to the place of death. NOT the other way around.

Michael: “Fanny Mortimer is at her door off an on until almost 1am, she sees or hears none of what Schwartz describes, nor does Brown, whose Inquest statement clearly shows Liz to be in a much different location, and in much different circumstances, than Israels statement.:

P: Ah! Now we are getting to the interesting bit. Actually if you go back to the ‘Wheel bins’ not only did Schwartz not have a view of LIZ Stride but neither did Fanny Mortimer. Infact she could have been stood only a few feet from Liz in the gate way and seen NOTHING…Because Liz was clearly deliberately 'Out of Site'.

If Liz was about her business, just inside the gate way, she would have been waiting for clients to pass bye and invite them in for a ‘quickie’. Which is what I expect she did to BSM.

Micheal: “Brown is not a Jewish Immigrant, but Schwartz is...as are the members of The International Club. Whose necks were on the chopping block without that witnessed altercation off premises just before Strides murder.”

P: Again this is all supposition, clearly you make an interesting point, but at the end of the day we are left with the police statement and press reports. You have nothing factual to substantiate what you are saying.

Michael: “Perhaps the most likely answer as to why Israel wasn’t called to give his story isn’t his inability to speak English, its perhaps his inability to provide a story that doesn’t seem remarkably like an alibi for the Club members”.

P: Interesting Speculation. When you have something to back it up please let us know. However I think this thread has two questions the knife? and the bruising? We have established and agreed that there is NO proof that a different knife was used on Stride to Eddow’s, although given the length of knife used on Eddow’s, it is possible.

I think we are now largely concentrated on the attack and bruises.

Pirate

PS working on a reply Jon