Berner Street: No Plot, No Mystery

[GBinOz]

I do think however that it's not her physically being at her door that is particularly useful, it's the notion that she specifically heard the distinct heavy tramping of boots walk past her house. It may be fair to suggest that it may be a sound she was familiar with if the route was a regular one for the beat officer, and so that particular detail of her statement may be the most important.

Hi RD,

This is the detail that is worth taking away. Well done.

Cheers, George

[GBinOz]

Stride may have been perceived as a threat by someone who could well have been intoxicated and in less control of his impulses than desirable.

Hi Michael,

I think this is a definite possibility.

Cheers, George

[The Rookie Detective]

Hi Mike,

If I may?... RD is correct.

When Smith was asked: "When you saw them talking, which way did you go?", his answer was: "Straight up Berner-street into the Commercial-road. In the centre of Berner-street were some courts which led into Backchurch-lane."

And then, when he'd almost gone around his beat after seeing the couple, he stated "I was in Berner-street about half-past twelve or twenty-five minutes to one o'clock, and having gone round my beat, was at the Commercial-road corner of Berner-street again at one o'clock."

So, we have him going north on Berner Street when he saw Stride & companion and we have him on the verge of turning into Berner Street and going south on it at one o'clock. From this we might 'conclude' that Smith's usual way of conducting his beat (as far as Berner Street is concerned) was to enter it from Commercial Road, go down on one side and then go up again on the other side.

Cheers,
Frank

Thank you kindly Frank for corroborating the point I was trying to highlight.

It would make PC Smith's physically being in Berner Street slightly longer than anticipated, not by much of course, but that extra 30 to 45 seconds or so, may be significant in the grand scheme of things.

I believe focusing on PC Smith's timing is paramount to formulating a more cemented framework from which others can be incorporated into the mix.

I do agree with George and Herlock to the extent that I may have put too much emphasis onto Mortimer and so I admit that on balance her timings are unreliable at best.

I do think however that it's not her physically being at her door that is particularly useful, it's the notion that she specifically heard the distinct heavy tramping of boots walk past her house. It may be fair to suggest that it may be a sound she was familiar with if the route was a regular one for the beat officer, and so that particular detail of her statement may be the most important. In terms of her being at her door, it only really potentially impacts on Schwartz's account.


Initially, PC Smith stated "at 12.30am" but then that became less rigid and it changed to between 12.30am - 12.35am.

But what if his timing is slightly off and he actually was in Berner Street after Eagle and Lave had already gone, ergo, after 12.40am?

If this is the case, then it makes the sighting of Parcelman with Stride even more significant.

Another key question being; if Pc Smith was there after 12.40am, then where did Parcelman go?


Bearing in mind that a time of after 12.40am for PC Smith supports the following...


He walks past Mortimer's door on his way (up or down?) Berner Street and is heard by Mortimer circa 12.42 to 12.43am, shortly before she comes to her door (allegedly)

His circuit brings him back around to the top of Berner Street within the time frame of 1.07am to 1.10am

He does not see Lave or Eagle.

Lave and Eagle do not mention seeing a policeman, who would stand out and be both recognizable and memorable

Lave is in the street at some point between 12.31am to 12.40am

Eagle gets back and tries the front door before accessing the side door of the club, but the sequence does not occur when Pc Smith is there.


Of course, PC Smith may have indeed been there at 12.35am, But then we would need to explain away a lot more based on my points above.


The issue is that by moving Pc Smith's time to fit in with everyone else, it then obliterates the chances of the Stride assault occurring at 12.45am


There is another time window AFTER Mortimer is no longer at her door; 12.56am - 12.58am in which the assault on Stride could have occurred just in time.


This would then be almost certain proof that Stride's killer was Bs Man who after Schwartz ran off at 12.58am, he moves Stride into the yard, cuts her throat and is gone before 12.59am.

This then supports the physical condition of Stride and reduce her bleed-out time by as much as 16 minutes!

The only way that the entire Schwartz incident can fit into the timeline is if the assault occurs after 12.55am.

The time of 12.45am just doesn't work, especially if Pc Smith's timing is after 12.40am

And even though I am clearly against the idea that Schwartz was genuine, I have to concede that the event could have happened after 12.55am

The entire event beginning with Parcelman leaving (he had to have gone somewhere) Bs man arriving, Schwartz arriving, the assault, the chase/run away, Bs man returning to Stride, the throat-cutting and then the escape by Bs Man, would need 2 minutes to complete.

Of course, there may be some who say it could all go down in under a minute, but that simply does not work.

In real life, things take time and it's not like the Truman Show where everyone runs around in a speedy, choreographed, and organized manner.


Some of the key questions are...


Where did Parcelman go?

When did Pc Smith observe Parcelman?

Where was Pc Smith when he came around the eastern section of his beat and made his way west along Faircloth Street towards the junction with Berner Street?

Could Parcelman and BS Man have been the same person?

Why does nobody seem to acknowledge that the Schwartz incident could have occurred within a 2 minute window after 12.55sam?

Why does everyone stand by the 12.45am assault time, when Mortimer was most likely at her door after having heard the heavy tramping outside, when Brown witnessed a couple on the corner at 12.45am who would have heard the assault moments later, including Brown himself.

I find it baffling how everything seems to revolve around Schwartz's timing of 12.45am

It seems to override everyone else's timings and questions Mortimer, Brown, and the other couple at the very least.


By simply placing Schwartz's timing 10 minutes later, then everything has the POTENTIAL to fit in, even IF Pc Smith was there at 12.35am OR 12.42-12.43am.


RD

[Michael W Richards]

Fantasy and pure speculation. Not one shread of evidence to back it up .

Nor anything Israel claimed, so thats a draw then?

[Michael W Richards]

Apologies for butting in (and memory fading) but has the apron piece been categorically proven to be from Eddowes?

The piece matched the missing section she still wore exactly..including an earlier repaired section. Its a safe bet it was from that apron, and its removal and subsequent staining suggest it was most likely for cartage of his stolen parts.

[Michael W Richards]

Thats the crux here. Which group, would a reasonable person assume, had no connection with the operation of the club or any responsibility for the premises?
Conversely, which group would suffer consequences perhaps including eviction and job loss if the police were inclined to believe that a club attendee killed Liz Stride?

Bias, self protection, anti establishment values, ...yet the anarchists have been dusted off and given credence OVER the establishment individuals, essentially giving the asylum inmates the keys to the exit door.

Motive (even if it can be established with absolute certainty) in and of itself, has no direct correlation to actions. That has to be proven and I see no evidence of that.

A prosecuting attorney doesn't simply establish motive and then say the prosecution rests.

c.d.

I think that may be whats holding you back from stepping away from the presumed and looking harder at whats actually presented. There is no need to assign any malevolent being here, there is no need to assume that the killing was premeditated, and there is no need to assume that this murder works in conjunction with any others. Any pattern seen here is easily and often repeated. Cut throat. Not all that remarkable at the time. A Mr Brown did it to his Mrs that same night.

Stride may have been perceived as a threat by someone who could well have been intoxicated and in less control of his impulses than desirable. Thats all this murder may involve. Sure, it could be more complicated than that....but with men known to be there at the time, and none seen on the street by any witnesses with that view that last half hour, so its highly probable her killer was on the property before she was.

[GBinOz]

Exactly George, it’s frustrating for us because she should be a reasonable point for your reconstructions. If she’d said “I came onto my doorstep just before 12.45 (as I’d just asked my husband the time as I couldn’t see the clock) and stayed I there for around 10 minutes (because I looked at the clock when I came back inside)” then we would have something to go on.

Hi Herlock,

Even had that been the case, we would have no means of assessing the difference in sync between the Mortimer clock and police time. According to Chris McKay, this could have been 10 minutes or more out in either direction.

Cheers, George

[GBinOz]

Hi George,

That's, of course, anybody's guess, but mine would be your second suggestion. It seems he was saying that he only really noticed/saw them as he was back on his way to Commercial Road & what would fit with the evidence given by Smith is that the couple either emerged from Hampshire Court after Smith had passed there or that they'd been in the recess at the northern end of the board school when he passed and he just didn't see them then because they were in a somewhat darker area and he didn't have his attention on the east side of the street.

Cheers,
Frank

Hi Frank,

There is, of course, the possibility that our rendition of Smith's postulated beat is incorrect, and he actually turned into Berner St from Fairclough and headed north. His testimony referred only to the perimeter of his beat, so the fact of the matter is that we are really only guessing at the actual internal configuration of his beat. Only Smith knows the truth.

Best regards, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

Particularly when her evidence amounts to "I didn't see anything". Difficult for anyone to contradict.

Cheers, George

Exactly George, it’s frustrating for us because she should be a reasonable point for your reconstructions. If she’d said “I came onto my doorstep just before 12.45 (as I’d just asked my husband the time as I couldn’t see the clock) and stayed I there for around 10 minutes (because I looked at the clock when I came back inside)” then we would have something to go on.

[FrankO]

Hi Frank,

That is the currently accepted theory, but does that mean that Smith saw Stride with Parcelman as he was headed south and again as he returned to the north (he didn't testify to that)? Or did they move into place from some unknown location while he was making the turn? So many unknowns.

Best regards, George

Hi George,

That's, of course, anybody's guess, but mine would be your second suggestion. It seems he was saying that he only really noticed/saw them as he was back on his way to Commercial Road & what would fit with the evidence given by Smith is that the couple either emerged from Hampshire Court after Smith had passed there or that they'd been in the recess at the northern end of the board school when he passed and he just didn't see them then because they were in a somewhat darker area and he didn't have his attention on the east side of the street.

Cheers,
Frank

[GBinOz]

From this we might 'conclude' that Smith's usual way of conducting his beat (as far as Berner Street is concerned) was to enter it from Commercial Road, go down on one side and then go up again on the other side.

Hi Frank,

That is the currently accepted theory, but does that mean that Smith saw Stride with Parcelman as he was headed south and again as he returned to the north (he didn't testify to that)? Or did they move into place from some unknown location while he was making the turn? So many unknowns.

Best regards, George

[GBinOz]

i’d like to add to the discussion the relevance of which source material the Ripperologist is referencing - the Daily Telegraph, the Morning Advertiser, The Times, &c.

hello george, the conversation has been an interesting one for the past several days.

NOW regarding my opening sentence YES the Daily Telegraph and the Morning Advertiser quote Mr. E. Johnson as stating that he received a call from Constable 436H “a few minutes past one o’clock” [which lends towards the contradiction between Johnson and Dr. Blackwell] HOWEVER The Times have Mr. Johnson down in print as stating that call from Constable 436H arrived at “About five or ten minutes past 1” [which aligns with Dr. Blackwell’s statement of 1:10a].

To some degree The Times appears the most verbose in relating the events of the inquest STILL i struggle with the variances between the periodicals. Take for instance the following manners in which each periodical relates PC Lamb’s statement of the fixed-duty constable accompanying him to Dutfield Yard:

Daily Telegraph
A constable named Smith was on the Berner-street beat. He did not accompany me, but the constable who was on fixed-point duty between Grove-street and Christian-street in Commercial-road. Constables at fixed-points leave duty at one in the morning. I believe that is the practice nearly all over London.

Morning Advertiser
Police-constable Smith is on the Berner-street beat. There is a constable on fixed-point duty at the corner of Grove-street, Commercial-road, and he came off duty at one a.m. The man on the beat then has to do his duty.

The Times
Constable Smith is on the Berner-street beat. The constable who followed me down is on fixed-point duty from 9 to 5 at the end of Grove-street. All the fixed-point men ceased their duty at 1 a.m., and then the men on the beats did the whole duty.

I am subject to my share of oversights SO MAYBE i am complicating a fairly simple thing HOWEVER it reads to me that the constable had come off of fixed-point duty at 1am… or am I wrong?



all emphasis my own

Hi Robert,

It is the bane of life for the ripperologist that the original transcripts of the inquests have been lost and we are dependant on the divergent interpretations of newspaper journalist's reports of the proceedings. We are forced to examine each version of what was said and try to determine which may have reflected what was actually said. The Times did report the call from Constable 436H arrived at “About five or ten minutes past 1”. However The Times also reported Blackwell as testifying "At 10 minutes past 1 on Sunday morning I was called to 40, Berner-street. I was called by a policeman, and my assistant, Mr. Johnson, went back with him. I followed immediately I had dressed. I consulted my watch on my arrival, and it was just 1:10.". In consequence I found myself disinclined to use The Times report over the consistent reports in the other publications.

With regard to the fixed point officer, I read the reports as a statement of function rather than an account of what happened. Lamb testified that he was headed west and between Batty and Christian Streets when he saw Eagle at one o'clock, or shortly before, and that Ayliffe followed him to the yard. My thinking is that if he saw Eagle at around 1:06, as is contended, that Ayliffe would have already departed towards his hearth and home. The other clue that I have observed is Baxter's comment on Lamb's testimony:
The Coroner: I think this is important. The Hanbury-street murder was discovered just as the night police were going off duty.

So to reply to your question, I think that the constable had come off of fixed-point duty at 1am, but that the conclusion of his duty coincided with Lamb's encounter with Eagle. JMO.

Cheers, George

[FrankO]

Why do you have Smith covering Berner Street twice?

Hi Mike,

If I may?... RD is correct.

When Smith was asked: "When you saw them talking, which way did you go?", his answer was: "Straight up Berner-street into the Commercial-road. In the centre of Berner-street were some courts which led into Backchurch-lane."

And then, when he'd almost gone around his beat after seeing the couple, he stated "I was in Berner-street about half-past twelve or twenty-five minutes to one o'clock, and having gone round my beat, was at the Commercial-road corner of Berner-street again at one o'clock."

So, we have him going north on Berner Street when he saw Stride & companion and we have him on the verge of turning into Berner Street and going south on it at one o'clock. From this we might 'conclude' that Smith's usual way of conducting his beat (as far as Berner Street is concerned) was to enter it from Commercial Road, go down on one side and then go up again on the other side.

Cheers,
Frank

[Robert St Devil]

Secondly, there is a tendency to use the time quoted by Blackwell from his pocket watch as an anchor for all other times which are then adjusted to suite. However, there is a contradiction between Johnson stating that Ayliffe called at "a few minutes past one" and Blackwell testifying that it was 1:10.

i’d like to add to the discussion the relevance of which source material the Ripperologist is referencing - the Daily Telegraph, the Morning Advertiser, The Times, &c.

hello george, the conversation has been an interesting one for the past several days.

NOW regarding my opening sentence YES the Daily Telegraph and the Morning Advertiser quote Mr. E. Johnson as stating that he received a call from Constable 436H “a few minutes past one o’clock” [which lends towards the contradiction between Johnson and Dr. Blackwell] HOWEVER The Times have Mr. Johnson down in print as stating that call from Constable 436H arrived at “About five or ten minutes past 1” [which aligns with Dr. Blackwell’s statement of 1:10a].

To some degree The Times appears the most verbose in relating the events of the inquest STILL i struggle with the variances between the periodicals. Take for instance the following manners in which each periodical relates PC Lamb’s statement of the fixed-duty constable accompanying him to Dutfield Yard:

Daily Telegraph
A constable named Smith was on the Berner-street beat. He did not accompany me, but the constable who was on fixed-point duty between Grove-street and Christian-street in Commercial-road. Constables at fixed-points leave duty at one in the morning. I believe that is the practice nearly all over London.

Morning Advertiser
Police-constable Smith is on the Berner-street beat. There is a constable on fixed-point duty at the corner of Grove-street, Commercial-road, and he came off duty at one a.m. The man on the beat then has to do his duty.

The Times
Constable Smith is on the Berner-street beat. The constable who followed me down is on fixed-point duty from 9 to 5 at the end of Grove-street. All the fixed-point men ceased their duty at 1 a.m., and then the men on the beats did the whole duty.

I am subject to my share of oversights SO MAYBE i am complicating a fairly simple thing HOWEVER it reads to me that the constable had come off of fixed-point duty at 1am… or am I wrong?



all emphasis my own

[GBinOz]

Hi RD,

Thank you for your kind remarks, but you do me too much honour. We all have our own opinions, and I admire your out of the box thinking. I try to bear in mind that we are all here voluntarily to discuss subjects of mutual interest, and as Jeff says, it is the collaborative effort in discussing divergent ideas that makes our participation worthwhile. Keep up the good work.

Cheers, George