Arbeter Fraint's Take

[mariab]

a speculative scenario that might make sense

Carpe Diemschutz!

Love it!

exposing Schwartz as a liar or worse? Could he have been trusted not to sing like a canary if he had found himself arrested on suspicion?

And yet Packer lied too Caz. And Schwartz was never heard of again after his testimony to the Police and to the Star. He didn't even appear at the inquest.

But let's go with the idea that Schwartz was given his story to tell, in order to shift blame away from the club and onto this fictitious passer-by with a nasty attitude. {...} And why compound the risks by having Schwartz introduce a second fictitious character - Pipeman

Caz, you'll probably won't like my article (when I finally get around to writing it) but in my interpretation/suspicion, Schwartz was given a story to tell NOT in order to shift any "blame“ from the Club, but for the Club's interest in involving a prominent WVC member (whose physical description fit Pipeman and who subsequently put his foot big time into the investigation) in the Stride murder. We know that the WVC had initially approached the IWEC about the possibility of using their rooms for meetings. I'm trying to research further details into this. What I'm suspecting/envisageing to have happened, in a nutshell, is this: William Wess speaking to a certain IWEC member: “You being a playah on the street and trying to f*ck with my Club, using fake witnesses about rain and grapes and dropping dead women at our door? Eat this buddy! Your physical description at the murder scene.“

Why 12.45, if the whole point was to steer the time of death towards 1am?

Trying to figure this out. If they were accusing/suspecting Pipeman, they might have simply assumed that he needed about 5'min. to make a walk around the corner after his first encounter with Stride was allegedly interrupted by Schwartz, another 5'min. to approach Stride again and steer her towards Dutfields Yard, and about 5'min. to kill her. Timewise it fits.

[lynn cates]

D V V

Hello Robert. You are indeed; but, tone down the French--you'll draw David to the thread.

Cheers.
LC

[Robert]

Ma belle? Sont les bons mots qui vont...

[lynn cates]

right

Hello Simon.

"Stride was dead at some time between 12.46 and 12.56 am, but had died slowly.

This puts her attack at an earlier time, making 12.45 am a viable moment."

Well spoke.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Michel

Hello Robert. Thanks, but now that I've seized him, what shall I do with him?

By the way, what was Louise Michel's nickname?

Cheers.
LC

[Simon Wood]

Hi Robert,

Carpe Diemschutz!

I salute your genius for the bon mot.

Regards,

Simon

[Simon Wood]

Hi Observer,

"Dr Blackwell's upper limit for TOD equates to 12:56 a.m. prime time for Ripper interruptus."

Only if you believe death was almost instantaneous.

[Coroner] Did you form any opinion as to how long the deceased had been dead?

[Dr. Blackwell] From twenty minutes to half an hour when I arrived [1.16 am]. The clothes were not wet with rain. She would have bled to death comparatively slowly on account of vessels on one side only of the neck being cut and the artery not completely severed."

Stride was dead at some time between 12.46 and 12.56 am, but had died slowly.

This puts her attack at an earlier time, making 12.45 am a viable moment.

Regards,

Simon

[Robert]

I don't know what this person is going on about. Moved the body!?!

http://libcom.org/history/wess-woolf

Carpe Diemschutz!

[lynn cates]

Dimshits, etc.

Hello Caroline.

"If the club was being watched by the police, concocting a story that didn't fit 100% with events that may have been seen by the police would be madness."

Well, that would depend on how many per cent were lacking. You'll notice that, although Schwartz was believed by Swanson, he was not called to inquest. But Brown, whose story ran counter to Israel's, was. What were the police and medicos thinking?

"If it wasn't being watched, no story needed to be concocted, especially if this was believed to be 'another' murder by the fiend who was cutting the throats of unfortunates, wherever he happened to find one."

Concedo. But after 3 weeks, I doubt "Leather Apron" were on Wess' radar screen. He needed a thug--preferably Gentile--and not a serial killing fiend.

"If it had been a one-off by anyone at the club it would have been incredibly risky to tamper with the crime scene or concoct blame-shifting stories that could easily come unstuck."

But could one not strike a pose with the perennial favourite, "I can't remember" or "Um, I may have misspoken." Recall, for example, the non-committal, "I looked but don't recall seeing a body at that time."

"What if a group of witnesses (like Lawende an co) had passed by at 12.45 and seen nothing, exposing Schwartz as a liar or worse? Could he have been trusted not to sing like a canary if he had found himself arrested on suspicion?"

But as I said above, that is essentially what happened with Brown--not that I accept his testimony, necessarily. Given that he was at inquest and had Liz kanoodling at 12.45, clearly, Schwartz was mistaken, etc.

"But let's go with the idea that Schwartz was given his story to tell, in order to shift blame away from the club and onto this fictitious passer-by with a nasty attitude. Why 12.45, if the whole point was to steer the time of death towards 1am?"

Simple. That allowed for a bit of fisticuffs, an argument, and an eventual murder. (Or roughly the time for their pow wow to end.)

"And why compound the risks by having Schwartz introduce a second fictitious character - Pipeman?'

But without Pipeman, how answer the question inevitably put by coppers, "'Ere now, if this bloke was 'urtin' the lady, why didn't yer 'elp 'er?"

And I DO agree that IF there was interruption, it wasn't "Dimshits" (love his new name) who did it.

Cheers.
LC

[caz]

Hi Lynn,

There's something not quite right with any of this. If the club was being watched by the police, concocting a story that didn't fit 100% with events that may have been seen by the police would be madness; if it wasn't being watched, no story needed to be concocted, especially if this was believed to be 'another' murder by the fiend who was cutting the throats of unfortunates, wherever he happened to find one. If it had been a one-off by anyone at the club it would have been incredibly risky to tamper with the crime scene or concoct blame-shifting stories that could easily come unstuck. What if a group of witnesses (like Lawende an co) had passed by at 12.45 and seen nothing (or something else entirely), exposing Schwartz as a liar or worse? Could he have been trusted not to sing like a canary if he had found himself arrested on suspicion?

But let's go with the idea that Schwartz was given his story to tell, in order to shift blame away from the club and onto this fictitious passer-by with a nasty attitude. Why 12.45, if the whole point was to steer the time of death towards 1am? That's a rather unlikely blunder isn't it? And why compound the risks by having Schwartz introduce a second fictitious character - Pipeman? And why not be done with it and claim that BS man had waved a knife at him to scare him off? He was going to look like a coward anyway for not coming to the woman's aid, but the story has no teeth if the murderous thug did nothing murderous for Schwartz to witness.

Incidentally, according to Blackwell himself (p.166-167, Ultimate Sourcebook paperback) he checked his watch on arrival and made it 1.10, while Johnston (p.174) said that when Blackwell checked it was 1.16 - quite a difference even with the same timepiece involved. Blackwell's estimated time of death allows for Stride's killer to have made his move and cut her throat between 12.45 at the very earliest and 1am latest, but the actual moment makes no difference as far as I am concerned. Even if the killer was gone by the time the pony approached at 1am, he could have been thoroughly spooked at any point during the previous fifteen minutes, if not by Schwartz and/or Pipeman, by the clubman/men you believe came into the yard at 12.45 to find that a woman had got herself murdered on their premises. That would count as an interruption too, wouldn't it?

Love,

Caz
X

[lynn cates]

why?

Hello Jon.

"What he told the press/police came through an interpreter, right?

So, was this story largely the product of the interpreter?, if so, why?"

I believe so. Why? The Berner Club felt under pressure--they believed themselves watched by the police (the Met as well as the "political police"). Even IF they were mistaken, they still FELT that way.

Now, if you feel under pressure and a murder happens near your doorstep, would it not be natural to concoct a story to divest you of blame?

As you recall, Sir Charles wrote a memo in mid-October in which he was convinced that the "Double Event" was obviously to implicate Jews/Socialists. The club members likely felt the same. Hence, a story is manufactured about a thug who is DEFINITELY a Gentile (why else an anti-Semitic racial slur?).

"What concerns me is that no-one seems to have seen Schwartz, and Schwartz does not mention anyone else we know from Berner St.
So much trust has been put in Schwartz's story, yet, it is most unsatisfactory with respect to complementing the rest of the evidence."

To say nothing of the downright conflict with Brown's story--also at 12.45.

Cheers.
LC

[Fisherman]

Jon:

"You must notice though that by the time Phillips arrived, her right arm had slipped down to her belly, assuming Phillips is being precise."

Phillips assumes that the right arm was always in the same position. He says as much. And nobody says anything to contradict it.

"Your 1st witness, Spooner saw her right hand"

He saw a hand with a doubled-up paper, just like the paper we know was in her LEFT hand. The cachous and that pare was carefully collected. If she had been holding grapes in a paper in her right hand, I suspect them too would have been equally carefully collected. To me, Spooner was very obviously mistaken, and the mistake is a very trivial one.

If he was NOT mistaken, then you are correct. But I donīt think you are, to be perfectly honest.

"Blackwell, noted that her "neck & chest (& heart) were warm", so he also opened her dress. He observed: The right hand was open and on the chest, and was smeared with blood."

Yes! It WAS open, it WAS on the chest (Phillips himself, I think, sometimes say over her belly, and sometimes "over her chest", so I believe it was in the area where the belly meets the chest, quite simply. If you bend your elbow and put you ninety degree angled arm across your body, it ends up over the top of the belly, very close to the chest), and it WAS smeared with blood. But we canīt conclude that Blackwell SAW all of this at first gaze. He knew, however, at the inquest that this was the exact state of affairs, and he would be uninformative if he did not take it all up.

"I think the photo you included in your dissertation showed where the right arm came to rest, but not where it began."

Not agreed, Iīm afraid. But the issue may have been spoken of in relation to the inquest, which was why Phillips felt the need to set it straight. How he did that is shown by this passage:

"[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. "

He would have consulted both Blackwell and Johnston, and quite probably Lamb too, to be able to state this in such a firm manner. Why would he guess such a thing, at any rate?

And keep in mind that Lamb, FIRST to examine her of these officials, spoke of the left HAND but the right ARM.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Jon:

"P C Lamb was asked if the blood had congealed. In the dark, wet blood & congealed blood both look like oil.
Because Lamb answered the question then we know he had to have touched the blood to find out.
He could have said, "I don't know", but he told the Coroner that some had congealed, therefore he had to have felt the blood to be able to answer this."

Hereīs what Lamb said:

"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."

I donīt know how Lamb assessed that the blood was "slightly congealed". My own take on things is that he may well have assessed this by sight, using his lamp. Congealed blood becomes coated, it forms a film on itīs surface and thus it will not reflect the light to the same extent as liquid blood does.

But I am not familiar with whatever routines there were to establish things like these, and to what extent PC:s were educated about it.

"Actually Christer, her left hand was not easily accessible. Both her face & her knees were near to the wall. Therefore everyone was standing behind her. The left hand had to be next to the wall. They would have to reach over her body to grasp her left hand. But, her right hand was directly in front of them, across her right breast."

Just like you say, one would have to lean in over her, as the hand was on the ground (as per Lamb). But Stride was not a big woman, and the distance to the ground from her side would have been a very easily overcome one. Also, the hand was lying wrist and palm up, offering an accessible way to feel for her pulse without moving her otherwise or turning the hand. Observe that Phillips said that he was sure that the right arm was never moved, but always in the same position from the outset, across her breast/belly region. Therefore, I think it applies that it was hanging down towards the ground, quite possibly touching that ground AND MUCH LESS VISIBLE THAN HER LEFT HAND!
Kozebrodsky saw the flower, yes - but it was pinned to the RIGHT side of her breast, and therefore higher up than it would have been on her left side. The right arm, however, would have hung over her belly/breast, and that would mean that the hand itself would be poisitioned over the LEFT side of her breast, deep down.

"Smeared blood which had dried in lines (oblong) would be consistent with it being left there by fingers, would it not?"

Maybe. But why call them clots? Why not call then smears or lines of blood? But when we speak of the grapes, "clots" makes all the sense in the world.

The best,
Fisherman

[Debra A]

Sure Debs, but your theory is similar to Wickerman's suggesting that a witness having talked to the press would not be legit to be subpoenaed in court. Which sometimes happens in the US today (don't know about the UK), but other times not. Essentially it's three guesses between what the DA and the defense decide.

Except I did say this had happened in another unsolved Victorian murder case I was looking at the police file for.
Theory my arse. I was asking a question.

[mariab]

Sure Debs, but your theory is similar to Wickerman's suggesting that a witness having talked to the press would not be legit to be subpoenaed in court. Which sometimes happens in the US today (don't know about the UK), but other times not. Essentially it's three guesses between what the DA and the defense decide.