The Double Event

[NotBlamedForNothing]

The Star account uses vague wording when it says "across".

How would you describe laying across the lane, as opposed to along it, so as not to be ambiguous?

The Star account also claims "She lay on her back" which contradicts all testimony at the Inquest.

Not only the Star. Sarah Diemschitz also...

MA, Oct 2: Just about one o'clock on Sunday morning I was in the kitchen on the ground floor of the club, and close to the side entrance ... Up till then I had not heard a sound-not even a whisper. Then suddenly I saw my husband enter, looking very scared and frightened ... The door had been, and still was, half open ... Just by the door I saw a pool of blood, and when my husband struck a light I noticed a dark lump lying under the wall. I at once recognised it as the body of a woman ... She was lying on her back with her head against the wall, and the face looked ghastly.

Can you explain why only the head was said to be against the wall, and how this witnessed managed to get a good view of the victim's face, from the side door?

"[Coroner] How was she lying? - On her left side, with her face towards the club wall." - Lewis Deimschutz

"She was lying on her left side, with her left hand on the ground." - PC Lamb

"Her face was turned towards the club wall." - Edward Spooner

"The deceased was lying on her left side obliquely across the passage, her face looking towards the right wall. Her legs were drawn up, her feet close against the wall of the right side of the passage." - Dr Blackwell

"I accompanied the officer to Berner-street, and in a courtyard adjoining No. 40 I was shown the figure of a woman lying on her left side." - Edward Johnson

"The body was lying on its left side, the face being turned towards the wall, the head towards the yard, and the feet toward the street.' - Police Surgeon George Baxter Phillips

That is a later position. There had to be (at least) two positions for movement to have occurred.
Incredibly, we even have a description of an intermediate position and state of clothing...

Fanny Mortimer: The body was lying slightly on one side, with the legs a little drawn up as if in pain, the clothes being slightly disarranged, so that the legs were partly visible.

The Star account does not say Stride's body was moved. The Star account claims that when Stride's body was found "She lay on her back, her head was near the grating of the cellar, and her body stretched across the passage." The Star account of the body's position is contradicted by 6 eyewitnesses, only one of which was a member of the International Working Men's Education Society.

Why does the steward's wife contradict 6 witnesses?

The Star account still does not support your position. The Star account still gives no evidence that club members moved Stride's body, nor does it provide a reason for them moving it.

Tell me about the collision...

[JeffHamm]

1:07 is a good estimate for Smith's arrival time. To suppose any later is to suggest that an experienced PC on his beat was out in his time estimate by more than 2 or 3 minutes. Do you suppose the same of Watkins or Harvey?
When Smith arrived at the top of Berner street, Lamb and Ayliffe had already reached the yard, yet Smith is unaware of their running to the scene. At beat pace, he is about 2 minutes from the yard, so Lamb must have arrived at least 3 minutes prior to Smith. That would be 1:04 at the latest. Spooner arrived around 1:00. The body was discovery about 12:55, and the murder occurred about 12:50.
By the way, the approximate murder time was known by the WVC's hired detectives...

EN, Oct 4: What they go to establish is that the perpetrator of the Berner street crime was seen and spoken to whilst in the company of his victim, within forty minutes of the commission of the crime and only passed from the sight of a witness TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE MURDER and within ten yards of the scene of the awful deed. We proceed to five hereunder the story of the two detectives, Messrs. Grand and J.H. Batchelor, of 283 Strand: ...

Smith passed Stride and parcel man at about 12:40. Smith is the probable witness referred to.
If it is supposed that the murder occurred at ~1am, then the probable witness is Fanny Mortimer. Yet that would mean she were at her doorstep between about 12:40 and 12:50. No Schwartz incident witnessed.

The body was discovered at 1 o'clock, that time was based upon reading a clock, not an estimate. The murder may have happened at 12:45, or 12:50, etc, that we don't know, but the murder, and the discovery, are two different events. While at the time one speculative idea was that Diemshutz's arrival is what scared off her murderer, but that was just a hypothesis and could very well be wrong. Watkins had a watch on him, and Harvey checked his patrol time based upon the post office clock, and he says as much that his times were estimated. However, comparing where he stated he was with the time he estimated has shown that his estimates appear pretty accurate. We don't have the information to do that with Smith so we don't know if his ability to estimate is highly accurate or widely out, or somewhere in between.

But, given there's more than enough time for the reported events to occur, in the order they are reported to have occurred, based upon the times we know came from clocks, and so are not estimates, then the only variation and error we need wonder about time wise there is whether or not the clock Diemshutz checked and the Dr's watch were in sync. But even if they aren't, we're probably only talking a minute or two.

- Jeff

[caz]

I would suggest that maintaining a collection of poster's arguments and important questions, would be a good idea.
Just something simple like a folder with one text file per thread, each containing comments like; #post NBFN argued ...
That way there would less chance of inadvertently misrepresenting poster's, and wasting people's time, reading and writing corrections.

And I would suggest taking a long walk off a short pier. Your posts are not as insightful as you evidently think they are.

[Scott Nelson]

... yet the knife found by Thomas Coram still begs for an explanation.

I've suggested it was dropped by David Cohen in a moment of incoherency. He was staying next door to the laundry at a tobacco shop being used as a brothel.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

The body was discovered at 1 o'clock, that time was based upon reading a clock, not an estimate.

That is only true if we take Diemschitz at his word, and if that is the case, then let's be consistent about it...

LD: She was a little bit better dressed I should say than the woman who was last murdered. Her clothes were not disarranged. She had a flower in the bosom of her dress, and in one hand she had some grapes and in the other some sweets. She was grasping them tightly.

Watkins had a watch on him, and Harvey checked his patrol time based upon the post office clock, and he says as much that his times were estimated. However, comparing where he stated he was with the time he estimated has shown that his estimates appear pretty accurate. We don't have the information to do that with Smith so we don't know if his ability to estimate is highly accurate or widely out, or somewhere in between.

Are you saying we don't know what clocks Smith would have passed on Commercial Road?
How did Smith know his beat took 25 to 30 minutes, without being able to reference to clocks?

A 1:07 arrival time for Smith has him last passing the yard at about 12:40 - which is corresponds well with modern estimates. It is also within the normal span of his beat. Yet that means Smith begins his walk down Berner street at about 1:05, when Lamb is already established in the yard. If Diemschitz had driven into the yard at 1:01, that would be impossible. It must have been significantly earlier.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I've suggested it was dropped by David Cohen in a moment of incoherency. He was staying next door to the laundry at a tobacco shop being used as a brothel.

How do you explain the blood on the knife, or are you implying Cohen was the murderer?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

And I would suggest taking a long walk off a short pier. Your posts are not as insightful as you evidently think they are.

Documents > Casebook > The Double Event

#110 NBFN made the point; if we are going to take Diemschitz at his word regarding the time on the clock, then why not also take his word in regard to the grapes found in Stride's hand?

[Wickerman]

I've suggested it was dropped by David Cohen in a moment of incoherency. He was staying next door to the laundry at a tobacco shop being used as a brothel.

Didn't Fido say the unnamed rambling Jew who had committed no crimes, on being brought to the workhouse was given the name 'David Cohen'.
That would mean no records under that name exist concerning what the man did, or where he went at any time?

[JeffHamm]

That is only true if we take Diemschitz at his word, and if that is the case, then let's be consistent about it...

LD: She was a little bit better dressed I should say than the woman who was last murdered. Her clothes were not disarranged. She had a flower in the bosom of her dress, and in one hand she had some grapes and in the other some sweets. She was grasping them tightly.



Are you saying we don't know what clocks Smith would have passed on Commercial Road?
How did Smith know his beat took 25 to 30 minutes, without being able to reference to clocks?

A 1:07 arrival time for Smith has him last passing the yard at about 12:40 - which is corresponds well with modern estimates. It is also within the normal span of his beat. Yet that means Smith begins his walk down Berner street at about 1:05, when Lamb is already established in the yard. If Diemschitz had driven into the yard at 1:01, that would be impossible. It must have been significantly earlier.

No, it's not impossible. Let's go with Diemshutz's arrving at 1:01. It's not going to take him long to poke his whip etc, so he goes into the club, sees his wife, and a bunch of them come out and find that Stride is dead. That's not going to take very long. Two groups then rush out, Deimshutz and one or two others, who run south then east, eventually picking up Spooner on their way back. At the same time there's two more running north. They can find and return with Lamb before 1:07. Lamb sends the other constable off who returns with Dr. Blackwell's assistant shortly before Blackwell arrives at 1:10. The distances are all such that those actions are entirely reasonable given the times involved.

I've been working on some simulations, and having played with those times and the distances involved, there's nothing remarkable about them so far. The problem, though, is that there are so many people involved in the Stride case, and the stated estimates and times are all over the place, making it difficult to keep track of them all. But, when I get the time to sort through things, I'll post the results, but the bit we're talking about here is not a problem, and certainly not impossible.

- Jeff

[Scott Nelson]

Didn't Fido say the unnamed rambling Jew who had committed no crimes, on being brought to the workhouse was given the name 'David Cohen'. That would mean no records under that name exist concerning what the man did, or where he went at any time?

Not necessarily. He also had the name Aaron Davis Cohen in the courthouse before he was taken to the workhouse. It's possible he dropped the knife recovered by PC Drage. Bloodstains may have been those of Stride and Eddowes.

[Scott Nelson]

The bloodstains were on the cloth that covered the handle of the knife.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

No, it's not impossible. Let's go with Diemshutz's arrving at 1:01. It's not going to take him long to poke his whip etc, so he goes into the club, sees his wife, and a bunch of them come out and find that Stride is dead. That's not going to take very long. Two groups then rush out, Deimshutz and one or two others, who run south then east, eventually picking up Spooner on their way back. At the same time there's two more running north. They can find and return with Lamb before 1:07. Lamb sends the other constable off who returns with Dr. Blackwell's assistant shortly before Blackwell arrives at 1:10. The distances are all such that those actions are entirely reasonable given the times involved.

I've been working on some simulations, and having played with those times and the distances involved, there's nothing remarkable about them so far. The problem, though, is that there are so many people involved in the Stride case, and the stated estimates and times are all over the place, making it difficult to keep track of them all. But, when I get the time to sort through things, I'll post the results, but the bit we're talking about here is not a problem, and certainly not impossible.

- Jeff

It'll be interesting to see which of these scenarios you go with...

LD: A man whom I met in Grove- street returned with me, and when we reached the yard he took hold of the head of the deceased. As he lifted it up I saw the wound in the throat.
C: Had the constables arrived then?
LD: At the very same moment Eagle and the constables arrived.

ES: I stood by the side of the body for four or five minutes, until the last witness arrived.

[JeffHamm]

It'll be interesting to see which of these scenarios you go with...

LD: A man whom I met in Grove- street returned with me, and when we reached the yard he took hold of the head of the deceased. As he lifted it up I saw the wound in the throat.
C: Had the constables arrived then?
LD: At the very same moment Eagle and the constables arrived.

ES: I stood by the side of the body for four or five minutes, until the last witness arrived.

Hi NBFN,

That's the type of thing that makes the Stride case so particularly vexing. There were so many witnesses around after the fact, and before hand, that we have a lot of statements, often filtered through the notes and understanding of a reporter. There's a lot of time estimation going on, and a lot of unofficial story telling (people's accounts to the press will tend to be looser recollections, and so more error prone, in part because they are taking part in something "non-official". Telling the same thing at an inquest, or to the police in a statement, etc, will tend to shift most people to be more cautious in what they state as facts, and also reduce the tendency to elaborate on the story. Because we have so many people, often giving statements to the press, probably at different times, we find the types of conflicting statements that occurs when people are recollecting events and estimating time, and so forth. It's normal, and doesn't require any real explanation other than that's how human memory tends to work.

Generally, I'll be looking for times based upon clock readings. And then, seeing if it is possible to come up with an order of different events, around any clock based times (before this, after that, etc). I'll try and see what appears plausible time wise, and what sequence of events seems more often consistent over different presentations. Hopefully, it will shape up to a presentation where there are a reduced number of statements that don't fit in, and then those can be looked at specifically to see if that lack of fit is really a problem (i.e. are the only ones that don't fit in also ones that appear to be open to errors of memory and misrecollections, if so, that would offer an explanation for why they don't fit the pattern the bulk of the statements weave; but, if we're left with some statements that appear to be of the more reliable sort, then that would suggest the pattern I came up with is probably wrong, and I would have to try again).

But, to do all that is going to take a lot of time and focus, neither of which I currently have in excess.

- Jeff

[erobitha]

Hi NBFN,

That's the type of thing that makes the Stride case so particularly vexing. There were so many witnesses around after the fact, and before hand, that we have a lot of statements, often filtered through the notes and understanding of a reporter. There's a lot of time estimation going on, and a lot of unofficial story telling (people's accounts to the press will tend to be looser recollections, and so more error prone, in part because they are taking part in something "non-official". Telling the same thing at an inquest, or to the police in a statement, etc, will tend to shift most people to be more cautious in what they state as facts, and also reduce the tendency to elaborate on the story. Because we have so many people, often giving statements to the press, probably at different times, we find the types of conflicting statements that occurs when people are recollecting events and estimating time, and so forth. It's normal, and doesn't require any real explanation other than that's how human memory tends to work.

Generally, I'll be looking for times based upon clock readings. And then, seeing if it is possible to come up with an order of different events, around any clock based times (before this, after that, etc). I'll try and see what appears plausible time wise, and what sequence of events seems more often consistent over different presentations. Hopefully, it will shape up to a presentation where there are a reduced number of statements that don't fit in, and then those can be looked at specifically to see if that lack of fit is really a problem (i.e. are the only ones that don't fit in also ones that appear to be open to errors of memory and misrecollections, if so, that would offer an explanation for why they don't fit the pattern the bulk of the statements weave; but, if we're left with some statements that appear to be of the more reliable sort, then that would suggest the pattern I came up with is probably wrong, and I would have to try again).

But, to do all that is going to take a lot of time and focus, neither of which I currently have in excess.

- Jeff

I mentioned previously that there was an interesting study on the reliability of eyewitness testimony.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...019.00703/full

Ultimately the study suggests that you can assess the accuracy of testimonies through understanding the speed and confidence of how the witness answers questions. If audio recordings of witness testimonies were available then, you could use this method to get a sense of which details are more likely to be true versus the more spurious or false memory details.

The accuracy in the study was quite impressive. I would not be surprised if these techniques make their way into law enforcement.

For our purposes, a matrix of some kind where we grade the details provided by witnesses based on the wording would be the next thing. "I think, could have been, probably, maybe" we weight low. "Definitely, absolutely, certain," we grade with a higher weighting. Details that do not seem either confident or unsure are weighted mid level.

Perhaps eliminating newspaper (with exception of police newspapers) testimonies from the outset for the reasons you outlined as well, focus on inquest testimonies and police reports / letters. It would be interesting to also include a column that showed if that detail is corroborated by another witness. That would give more weighting to that detail.

From that you grade details with a certain accuracy based on confidence and corroboration and the results could be:

High Weighting:
Suspect Moustache Colour
Suspect Height
Position of Victim's body

Mid Weighting:
Time of Body Discovery

Low Weighting:
Suspect Hair colour
Last Person Seen With Victim
Hat of Suspect
Clothing of Suspect

etc

Just a thought.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

That's the type of thing that makes the Stride case so particularly vexing. There were so many witnesses around after the fact, and before hand, that we have a lot of statements, often filtered through the notes and understanding of a reporter. There's a lot of time estimation going on, and a lot of unofficial story telling (people's accounts to the press will tend to be looser recollections, and so more error prone, in part because they are taking part in something "non-official". Telling the same thing at an inquest, or to the police in a statement, etc, will tend to shift most people to be more cautious in what they state as facts, and also reduce the tendency to elaborate on the story. Because we have so many people, often giving statements to the press, probably at different times, we find the types of conflicting statements that occurs when people are recollecting events and estimating time, and so forth. It's normal, and doesn't require any real explanation other than that's how human memory tends to work.

The inquest began well over 24 hours after the event, and some witnesses had to wait days before taking the stand. Compare that to people being interviewed on the morning of the murder, and in some of those cases close to dawn. Which category of accounts are most likely to be the most accurate, from a memory point of view?

Generally, I'll be looking for times based upon clock readings. And then, seeing if it is possible to come up with an order of different events, around any clock based times (before this, after that, etc). I'll try and see what appears plausible time wise, and what sequence of events seems more often consistent over different presentations. Hopefully, it will shape up to a presentation where there are a reduced number of statements that don't fit in, and then those can be looked at specifically to see if that lack of fit is really a problem (i.e. are the only ones that don't fit in also ones that appear to be open to errors of memory and misrecollections, if so, that would offer an explanation for why they don't fit the pattern the bulk of the statements weave; but, if we're left with some statements that appear to be of the more reliable sort, then that would suggest the pattern I came up with is probably wrong, and I would have to try again).

A clock based time requires that time to have been recorded, very close to the time of the reading. A recollected clock based time - for example, one recollected 36 hours later - is not a clock based time.