Arbeter Fraint's Take

[Wickerman]

Well, Jon, it was said by Phillips at the inquest that "There were small oblong clots on the back of the hand." Thus the "clots" reference.

Hi Fisherman.
"Oblong"?, I didn't see that term used, not in the Times nor the Daily Telegraph. It must be elsewhere. I understand there was clotted blood, but that is only blood which has gone thick. The term "clot" suggests lumps, but congealed blood has the consistency of jelly, there's no specific shape involved.

If Stride had been bleeding from a cut on her wrist then here we might have a reason to see clot in lumps. As it happens, it appears PC Long sampled the blood in the yard by touch, and also felt Strides pulse, thereby transfering the smears of blood to her wrist.
I'm intrigued why you would bring up fingerprints in the blood. I'm sure there would have been for the reason you suggest, but why should the police take special notice its not like they could do anything with them.

And I think that the observation that lay behind the grape thing, was made by either Diemschitz or Kozebrodsky

Indeed it was. The grapes are typically associated with Packer but as you rightly note, they were "first" mentioned by Diemschitz & Kozebrodski.
And, do not forget Spooner saw her right hand, which was laid across her right breast. In her right hand she had a folded piece of paper, likely a sachet which the grapes would have been sold to her in.

Spooner saw this before PC Lamb arrived, and he also noted the red & white flower ALSO on her right breast, adjacent to her hand.

Some have tried to suggest "right hand" is a misprint for "left", but this is readily dismissed by his mention of the flower when he noted her hand. In the dark, by either matchlite or candlelite he would see both the flower and her right hand, but not her left.
The left hand was down in the darkness between her body and the wall.

So, we have three people who can attest to her holding something in her right hand. Add to this the grape stalk & the fruit stains on her handkerchief.
It truly boggles the mind that anyone would even attempt to dismiss the existence of the grapes.

At the Inquest Diemschitz was never asked "directly" if he saw grapes. He did say that he did not notice the position of her hands. Which means what, that he couldn't say whether her fingers were clenched, curled or straight?

Mr Johnston made a similar comment. He told the court that he felt her hands that they were cold. In the next paragraph the Coroner asked him, "Did you look at the hands?".
Johnston said "No!".

So what do we make of that?

Johnston felt her hands but did not look at them?
Diemschitz saw grapes in her right hand but did not notice the position of her hands. If we can accept Johnston's wording, why do some refuse to accept Diemschitz?

Its all to do with "belief", people are afraid of facing the only logical conclusion. Diemschitz was correct, he saw the grapes. As both PC Lamb & Johnston held her right hand, at some point after Spooner arrived, whatever Stride had held fell out and down her front into the mud & darkness, out of sight.

Phillips, who at the inquest said "Neither on the hands nor about the body of the deceased did I find grapes,

I agree, at night, black grapes in mud & blood and very likely trodden underfoot are certainly going to disappear from view.

I am convinced that the deceased had not swallowed either the skin or seed of a grape within many hours of her death"

I'm not a lover of grapes but when I do eat them I spit out the skins & the pips. The skins are bitter, and who swallows pips anyway?
What Phillips said really doesn't amount to anything unless he could detect the fleshy portion of the grape in her intestines, which obviously he could not.

Being the insistent and bulldoggish character that I am,

You!, I can't believe that old boy!

All the best to you Christer, ..there's actually something we disagree on, imagine that

Regards, Jon S.

[lynn cates]

tracking

Hello Phil. I had understood that some had gotten blood on their shoes. Don't think any had tracked indoors, though.

Cheers.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

I thought in the article the club secretary (Wess) said that the man who gave chase was not a member of the club (although he seemed to have known his name but now forgotten it) and not the man being chased-which was Schwartz?

That’s why I said I believe the reporter garbled the characters. There’s two possibilities here, one is that the identity of Pipeman was known to Wess, and he would freely admit this to a reporter, after having presumably denied as much to the police, or the identity of Schwartz – a Jewish man who lived on Berner Street up until the day of the murder – is the man Wess was referring to. If the latter seems more likely to you, then the Echo report has the roles of the characters confused.

Although only Schwartz appears to have given a witness statement about the incident outside the club, could it have been witnessed by more than one person?
The Star of 1st october says-
"The police have been told that a man, aged between 35 and 40 years of age, and of fair complexion, was seen to throw the woman murdered in Berner-street to the ground. Those who saw it thought that it was a man and his wife quarrelling, and no notice was taken of it.
Those?

If someone else witnessed it, this person was not seen by Schwartz and was completely forgotten by Abberline and his superiors by the time of the Oct. 16th Swanson report and the ensuing exchange it inspired.

Tom, according to the inquest reporting, Wess claimed that the club had 75 to 80 'members' and that there were about 90 to 100 'attendees' the night of the murder.

I was just throwing out a number, but the actual number of local card carrying members was MUCH, MUCH lower than 75. He’d be referring to ‘supporters’, i.e. subscribers to AF and those who gave donations, many of whom lived overseas. The club boasted a rather low local paying membership. There were however many attendees who did not have a card and did not appear on rolls.

Thank you, Tom, for not thinking this is nonsense.

So, what is going on with this?

1. Gilyarovsky found the body? Probably not, the horse shying story seems almost universal, doesn't it?

2. Gilyarovsky created the body? And was just waiting for it to be discovered? He did not need to go into the yard to see it, he already knew about the blood, but perhaps needed to talk (seems foolish) and the minute someone mentioned a body in the yard, he ran to tell others -- not that a body had been found, but that a murdered woman with blood had been found.

3. The writer sort of telescoped the information around. After Diemshitz ran into the club, Gilyarovsky accompanied Diemshitz to the yard, THEN ran to tell others?

Did the writer get things out of order? Or did Gilyarovsky know too early and why?

What? I’m confused. I don’t recall the article suggesting that Gilyarovsky found the body at all. I supposed I should give it a thorough read through. Diemshitz found the body, of course.

Hello Tom. If Gilyarovsky were Kozebrodski, it could well explain some errors in the report. (Kozebrodski was, as you know, a mere lad. In fact, his description of Liz in situ actually entails that she was outside the gates when killed--an obvious mistake.)

Diemshitz hiding knives? New one on me. Kitchen knives, perhaps, just so that the police would not get a wrong idea?

I believe Kozebrodski was 19. His English was very bad, for what it’s worth. As I’m sure you know, it was very common for lower class men to carry knives about themselves for protection. The police found the knives conspicuous by their total absence when searching all the men at the club. My thought it they were hidden away prior to the police search.

Regarding bombs: that sounds more like the Club Autonomie.

And let’s not forget that Club Autonomie was the sister club to the Berner Street group, and members of one could often be found at the other. And as I already mentioned, bombs were in fact held in waiting AT the Berner Street club, though this was some time after 1888.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Fisherman]

Jon:

"Hi Fisherman.
"Oblong"?, I didn't see that term used, not in the Times nor the Daily Telegraph. It must be elsewhere."

Nope. Here you are!

"Inquest: Elizabeth Stride
...
Day 4, Monday, October 5, 1888
(The Daily Telegraph, Saturday, October 6, 1888, Page 3)
...
Yesterday [5 Oct] afternoon at the Vestry Hall of St. George-in-the-East, Cable-street, Mr. Wynne E. Baxter, coroner for East Middlesex, resumed the inquiry concerning the death of the woman who was found early on Sunday last with her throat cut, in a yard adjoining the International Working Men's Club, Berner-street, Commercial-road East.
...
Dr. Phillips, surgeon of the H Division of police, being recalled, said:
[Coroner] Have you formed any opinion as to the manner in which the deceased's right hand became stained with blood? - It is a mystery. There were small oblong clots on the back of the hand. I may say that I am taking it as a fact that after death the hand always remained in the position in which I found it - across the body."

"it appears PC Long sampled the blood in the yard by touch, and also felt Strides pulse, thereby transfering the smears of blood to her wrist."

Sampled the blood in the yard? Where is this mentioned? Lamb - not Long, by the way - felt Strides face and then her wrist (unknown which, but the left one would have been more easily accessible, palm up on the ground. Lamb also stated that "Some of the blood was in a liquid state, and had run towards the kitchen door of the club. A little - that nearest to her on the ground - was slightly congealed. I can hardly say whether any was still flowing from the throat.", meaning that the quality of the blood was such as to produce clear fingerprints in it if presses towards the skin on the back of Strides right hand.

"I'm intrigued why you would bring up fingerprints in the blood. I'm sure there would have been for the reason you suggest, but why should the police take special notice its not like they could do anything with them."

Because if there had been fingerprints in the blood on her hand, then reasonably Phillips would not have called the presence of the clots of blood a "mystery".

"do not forget Spooner saw her right hand, which was laid across her right breast. In her right hand she had a folded piece of paper, likely a sachet which the grapes would have been sold to her in."

I believe this is a mistake - I think he saw the paper in Strides LEFT hand, the cachous paper. It was doubled up, he said, and if there had been grapes in her right hand, why would the paper have been doubled up? It makes no sense. Notice, if you will, that the other witnesses all speak of her left HAND and her right ARM! That would be because they did not see the right hand, I think.

"Some have tried to suggest "right hand" is a misprint for "left", but this is readily dismissed by his mention of the flower when he noted her hand. In the dark, by either matchlite or candlelite he would see both the flower and her right hand, but not her left.
The left hand was down in the darkness between her body and the wall."

Didn´t see this before. Please read my dissertation "Blackwells Testimony – An Estimation of How Stride Was Lying in the Yard". It´s amongst the dissertations here on Casebook, and it will show you exactly how I think here.

"Mr Johnston made a similar comment. He told the court that he felt her hands that they were cold. In the next paragraph the Coroner asked him, "Did you look at the hands?".
Johnston said "No!".

So what do we make of that?"


Johnston said: "I felt the body and found all warm except the hands, which were quite cold."

All warm? All of the body? Sounds like a very thorough man, Johnston!
This just shows that he expresses himself a bit sweeping, and I think that applies to the hands thing too. I think he may well have felt just the one hand, for if that was cold, the other hand will be cold too. If he DID feel them both, my guess is that he reached in over Stride, lying on her left side, looked down on the ground where the left hand lay, felt that, and then felt for the right hand WHICH HE COULD ACTUALLY NOT SEE! (I´m afraid you need to read the dissertation before you understand what I mean, Jon).

"Its all to do with "belief", people are afraid of facing the only logical conclusion. Diemschitz was correct, he saw the grapes. As both PC Lamb & Johnston held her right hand, at some point after Spooner arrived, whatever Stride had held fell out and down her front into the mud & darkness, out of sight."

Paper, grapes and all? Out of sight? Not picked up on by the light of the lanterns, directed to Strides body? I don´t think this is a realistic possibility. Of course, if you accept the grapes, this would be the only explanation unless somebody felt peckish and nicked them. But I don´t think either explanation applies.

" ..there's actually something we disagree on, imagine that "

Yes, it IS a change! Let´s see where we end up with it all!

The best, Jon!
Fisherman

[lynn cates]

club

Hello Tom. That makes sense. I can see wanting to be divested of any and all knives before being searched. (Remember John Richardson's contratemps because of a mere table knife?)

I was not aware of the closeness of the two clubs. Violence seems much more associated with the Club Autonomie. If one needed to employ a good thug, that would have been a good place to do it.

LC

[curious]

What? I’m confused. I don’t recall the article suggesting that Gilyarovsky found the body at all. I supposed I should give it a thorough read through. Diemshitz found the body, of course.




Tom Wescott

Hi, Tom,
No wonder you're confused. My mind ran off in a hundred different directions at the same time.

The article NEVER suggested that Gilyarovsky discovered the body.

I was trying to find a reasonable explanation for his running immediately to tell people a woman had been murdered in the yard and that he had seen blood when according to the article, there was NO way he should have known this.

According to the article, Diemshitz came into the club, said there was a woman in the yard and Gilyarovsky went immediately and told people in the printing shop -- he never went outside according to the article.

SO how could he know the woman was

a. murdered?

b. there was blood?

He could know that if he had seen the body but not said anything. If he was a young immigrant, afraid of the authorities, that would make sense not to get involved. Apparently, when he told the people in the printing office the woman had been murdered, he was questioned, then mentioned seeing blood.

HOW and WHEN???

Sorry, I don't mean to be confusing. It is just my mind working overtime to figure out how this man who supposedly had not seen the body both knew that she was murdered and he admitted to seeing the blood.

when? What are the possibilities?

Of course, another possibility is that he killed her.

Or, the writer got things out of sequence.

There are likely others. Lynn has suggested he witnessed the attack. But would he know she was dead?

Hope that makes more sense.

[mariab]

Where was the Club Autonomie located, Lynn? (For some reason I keep thinking of it as the Club Automobile, lol.) There was also another anarchist Club a couple blocks southeast from the IWEC, its name fails me right now and I don't have the pertinent notes here in Chicago. Something with "St John" or "St. George" or some kind of other first name...

[caz]

I may be missing something here, but Schwartz did provide confirmation of a rumoured 'chase' seen at 12.45, even if other details don't tally. Before Schwartz gave his account, the assumption was - understandably - that it was the murderer being chased by a witness immediately after the deed was done, thereby fixing Stride's death at 12.45. This in turn gives some credence to Schwartz's account of being involved in a chase of some sort at 12.45. Hindsight tells us that if a witness had chased off the killer after the act, that witness would presumably have seen the act, which doesn't seem feasible. Certainly nobody raised the alarm for another quarter of an hour.

The Schwartz sceptics may have a problem here, because if he had heard the rumour, would he really have put himself in the position of the man assumed to be the killer running away? And if he had not heard the rumour, he unwittingly clarified it with his own 'chase' story at exactly the right time, except that it happened while Stride was still very much alive, giving BS, Pipeman or A.N.Other the chance to kill her without a soul to witness it, at any time up to 1am, making the 12.45/no interruption conclusion unsafe.

Love,

Caz
X

[mariab]

Caz, I agree that Stride was a murder interruptus, with the killer simply disturbed by good old Diemshitz and his poney.

[lynn cates]

location

Hello Maria. I believe it was in Westminster. That's about 5-6 miles west of the Berner Club.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

conferring

Hello Caroline.

"The Schwartz sceptics may have a problem here, because if he had heard the rumour, would he really have put himself in the position of the man assumed to be the killer running away?"

Well, for the sake of argument, would that not be preferable to being thought the chased away murderer and later to be apprehended as such? In other words, IF this were the case, it would be like Leon Goldstein coming forward and admitting he was in the area WITH a black bag in hand. Ultimately, the better of two bad options.

"Hindsight tells us that if a witness had chased off the killer after the act, that witness would presumably have seen the act, which doesn't seem feasible. Certainly nobody raised the alarm for another quarter of an hour."

But if the hierarchy at the club had discovered a murder had taken place just outside their door, would it not be prudent to confer a bit about what to do before sounding the alarm? For example, they might wonder whether to remove the body, conceal it, etc. so that they were not suspected. (Of course, they would eventually reject such ideas.) Recall: the lads believed themselves watched by the police.

Cheers.
LC

[Simon Wood]

Hi Maria,

How do you square the notion of 1.00 am Ripper interruptus with the Stride inquest medical evidence?

Regards,

Simon

[Hunter]

And by the way Cris (or anyone else experienced for that matter), could you please comment on this from the other Stride thread?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wickerman
I think the reason Schwartz was not called was because he had spoken to the press before he was due to appear.
What do you think of this, Hunter? Mortimer and Packer (who talked to the press) weren't called either, though for obvious reasons. Do you see a legal reason to not subpoena a witness having talked to the press in Victorian England? In the US today it frequently happens like this.

Hi Maria,

Just caught this. Both threads have meandered quite a bit and have moved quickly.

No, I don't believe Coroner Wynne Baxter would negate calling a witness simply because that person had talked to the press. It didn't make a difference in the Nichols or Chapman inquiries. In fact, Cadosch had been located by the press before either the police or Baxter's officer evidently knew about him. Both he and Mrs. Long testified near the end of the Chapman inquest.

We know that as late as Oct. 19th, the police considered Schwartz's 'police statement' viable and Abberline's Nov. 1st report gives no indication that police opinion of Schwartz's testimony had changed by then either. I believe Schwartz was not called by Baxter for the reason I stated on the other thread.

[robhouse]

The murder was clearly "interrupted" by Schwartz and Pipeman at 12:45... not by Diemshitz at 1am. It amazes me that people fail to realize this.

Tom, you said:
"If someone else witnessed it, this person was not seen by Schwartz and was completely forgotten by Abberline and his superiors by the time of the Oct. 16th Swanson report and the ensuing exchange it inspired. "

What about Pipeman? Surely he also witnessed it.

Incidentally, I am not convinced that Pipeman "chased" Schwartz at all, although that is what Schwartz seemed to believe at first.

[Observer]

The murder was clearly "interrupted" by Schwartz and Pipeman at 12:45... not by Diemshitz at 1am. It amazes me that people fail to realize this.

Hi Rob

How do you account for Spooner's testimony when he described liquid blood still flowing from the wound at 1:05 a.m. approx?

[Coroner] Was any blood coming from the throat?

Yes; it was still flowing. I noticed that she had a piece of paper doubled up in her right hand, and some red and white flowers pinned on her breast. I did not feel the body, nor did I alter the position of the head. I am sure of that. Her face was turned towards the club wall.

Would Liz Stride's throat be bleeding 20 minutes after she was murdered?

Spooner also noted the cachous in Liz's hand, the first to do so. This would suggest that he was a very attentive witness, and I can see no reason to doubt that he did see blood flowing from Liz's throat 4 or 5 minutes after Diemschutz discovered Liz.

Regards

Observer