Fanny Mortimer

[Jeff Leahy]

Yep I think that comes under the work banner. I'm hoping to have NTSC copies available this week.

Just to keep this on topic, Philip Hutchinson's tour takes in Berner Street in some detail and his excellent talk covers the only known photograph of the 'Stride Murder 'Location...Filmed in glorious HD and available via Adam Wood 5 hrs of Ripperology for only £15!

Sales plug over, back to work..

[Rob Clack]

Thanks for that Rob most useful. i still cant figure what the circle represents on the map?

Hi Jeff,

It's a Hydrant.

Rob

[Tom_Wescott]

I had never heard it suggested Mortimer had a "young lady" Tom......no wonder his wife was at her door at midnight then-----she was probably keeping an eye on him!

Hi Nats. Were you joking or have you really seen this somewhere? I've never heard of any such thing.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Nats. Were you joking or have you really seen this somewhere? I've never heard of any such thing.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

It arose from me misreading one of your posts Tom!
My bad,
Cheers
Nats

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Is there any evidence that Fanny Mortimer smoked pipes (or cigarettes)?
Could she, in effect, have been Pipewoman?

I would suppose she would have wanted to smoke outside, if she had an ill husband, inside.
That might explain why she spends several unbroken minutes on her doorstep, each time she goes out.
So I wonder, if she was a pipe smoker, how many times she refilled her pipe that night, and who might have seen her smoking it?
Presumably not PC Smith, when he walked by with a measured, heavy tramp - because she was inside at that point - and I guess that is also why she also missed seeing Stride with the man holding the newspaper parcel.
And yet she supposedly went outside, immediately after hearing Smith go by.
So where had Stride and the man gone, so quickly?
And why did they not move on, until after Smith had gone by?

[E1004]
Sir, - Will you allow me to support your suggestion of the advisability of the authorities to supply policemen on night duty with noiseless boots? I have frequently seen people meet after dark under suspicious-looking circumstances, disperse immediately on hearing the heavy measured tramp of an advancing policeman - whereas, if had had been in time to have seen what their little business really was. I firmly believe the noiseless booted policeman would greatly tend to diminish street lawlessness. - Yours faithfully,
HENRY BAX 16, Lincoln's-inn-fields, W.C.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Is there any evidence that Fanny Mortimer smoked pipes (or cigarettes)?[/I]

No. No there isn't. But don't let it stop you.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I was really just wondering out loud, before I fell asleep.
Just in the sense of how the recall of that spark of light might have helped corroborate certain witness accounts, if Fanny had been called to the inquest.
Anyway, it was just idle thoughts.

But now I'm wondering something else about Fanny's time on her doorstep - something I'm hoping you might be able to help me with...

When do you suppose it actually occurred?
By that I mean, not so much the exact time range, but more in terms of the sequence of events.

Presumably Fanny's last doorstep vigil occurred after the Schwartz incident at 12:45.
So I guess BS Man must have picked Stride up off the footway, taken her into the yard and killed her, by the time Fanny steps out.
Presumably BS Man also flees before Fanny (or anyone else) has a chance to see him departing the scene.
Thus Stride must lie dying and dead in the yard, for nigh on 15 minutes, without anyone noticing her until Louis arrives.

If that is case though, who is responsible for the 'measured, heavy tramp' Fanny supposedly hears, and at what time does she hear it?
If it is very reasonably due to Smith, and Smith walks by at 12:35 as he said he did, and Fanny immediately after this spends about 10 minutes on her doorstep, then what is the latest time she outside?
If it is supposed (as many seem to), that Smith walks by at closer to 12:45 than 10 minutes prior, then is the man he sees with Stride - Parcel Man - also Broad-shouldered Man?
So does Parcel/BS Man take Stride across to the gateway of the club, and then throw her down?
Surely not, because that is not what Israel Schwartz sees - his 1st man approaches Stride who is already at the gates, and the man has nothing in his hands.
So why is Parcel Man with Stride just before 12:45, but when Schwartz goes by, he is apparently nowhere to be seen?
Where did go so quickly, and why was this after Smith goes by?
And if Smith does go by at this later time, and Fanny goes out immediately after hearing his footsteps, why does Fanny not see Stride being thrown to the footway, taken into the yard, and then observe the man responsible for this, walk out of the yard and out of Berner street?

It get even stranger (for me at least), when considering Smith's beat.
He tells us it takes him 25 to 30 minutes to go around.
So if Smith goes by just before a quarter to one - let's call it 12:42:30 - then he doesn't return until about 1:10.
Is that about right?
He tells us he witnesses the crowd outside the yard, from Commercial Road, at 1.00.
Could he really be out by 10 minutes? That's 36% of the his beat's mean timespan.
Smith tells us that he writes a report of what he has seen, after identifying Stride's body, then goes for an ambulance and sees Edward Johnston arriving, as he leaves.
So what time does Johnston arrive?

Furthermore, if Smith goes by just prior to 12:45, seeing Stride and Parcel Man on the opposite side to the club, and a few yards further up the street, then how does this scene morph so quickly into Stride being at the gates with BS Man approaching her, no sign of Parcel Man, and another man lighting his pipe, on the corner outside the pub?

On the other hand, if Smith does go by at 12:35 as he testifies, and his beat takes about 27½ minutes to complete, he does indeed see the crowd outside the gates at close 1 am, and when he arrives at the yard, Lamb and Collins are already there.
In that case, how can Louis Diemschitz arrive at 1 am exactly, and if he actually arrived several minutes earlier, why does he give this exact time he claims to be sure of, and why doesn't Fanny see him arrive?

[DJA]

No. No there isn't. But don't let it stop you.

Smokin' woman with the pony.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

That's about how tight the gap is for Israel Schwartz

[Michael W Richards]

Back on the road, Fanny Mortimer stated that she was at her door..."nearly the whole time" between 12:30 and 1am. She was at her door off and on until about "10 minutes to 1" she goes to the door and stays there until "1am". The quotes are being used because she said these things. She said she saw the man go by "hurriedly" around 12:55...he comes in and confirms that on Tuesday night. She sees the young couple, James Brown confirms that. What she doesn't see or hear is Louis arriving at 1, or anything Israel Schwartz claimed, or someone slipping out the gates.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I know the quotes, and we've heard you say this stuff about 500 times.

Why don't you challenge yourself, for a change, and tell us what time PCs Collins, Lamb and Smith arrived?
Their reports clash with the times given by Diemschitz, Mortimer, and Goldstein, don't they?
Was it, for example, half an hour after Eagle 'couldn't be sure' there was nothing in the lane, so therefore there must have been a body there?
What happens in that half an hour period? A quick game of Scrabble, perhaps?

This is a problem that requires more than just copy & pastes of fragments of well known quotes.
It actually requires .... thinking.

By the way, there is no quote from Fanny that says 'She was at her door off and on until about "10 minutes to 1" she goes to the door and stays there until "1am".'
That is just a concoction of quotes and reports, that you've put together in your head.
If I'm wrong about that, then please provide the quote in full...

[Michael W Richards]

I know the quotes, and we've heard you say this stuff about 500 times.

Why don't you challenge yourself, for a change, and tell us what time PCs Collins, Lamb and Smith arrived?
Their reports clash with the times given by Diemschitz, Mortimer, and Goldstein, don't they?
Was it, for example, half an hour after Eagle 'couldn't be sure' there was nothing in the lane, so therefore there must have been a body there?
What happens in that half an hour period? A quick game of Scrabble, perhaps?

This is a problem that requires more than just copy & pastes of fragments of well known quotes.
It actually requires .... thinking.

By the way, there is no quote from Fanny that says 'She was at her door off and on until about "10 minutes to 1" she goes to the door and stays there until "1am".'
That is just a concoction of quotes and reports, that you've put together in your head.
If I'm wrong about that, then please provide the quote in full...

I understand that folks don't seem to get the very simple premise quite well, but the times given by Louis and Eagle for when they left are likely accurate as can be expected. The only timing I dispute is the discovery of the body time and Louis's arrival times. I think that Eagle, Lave, Israel and Louis all are completely uncorroborated accounts for anything between 12:40 and 1am, and there are many accounts that are corroborated for 12:40-12:45, that match each other in both the relevant time and the activity witnessed.

As for off and on its essentially what is intended by the "nearly the whole time" line. And we have sporadic sightings throughout that last half hour, the young couple before 12:45.....Goldstein at 12:55.... which again supports the "off and on" I used...which I believe does in fact come from a report of an interview with her, it may have been the reporters summary though.

My whole contention here is that Louis arrived and discovered the body, sent for help upstairs, and that he and Kozebrodski, Gillen, Heschberg and Spooner were by the dying woman at approximately 12:45. Perhaps with others. That is precisely what the preponderance of the majority of the witnesses stated times suggests. That he didn't leave himself until after 1 is also supported, by several accounts including policemen. Time to stop assuming Louis and Issac K went out together after 1 because Louis says he went out with someone named Issac[s], time to stop assuming that Spooners times were incorrect because they match several other witnesses who said they saw the same tings at the same time around 12:40-12:45, time to stop believing Israel Schwartz has value here as a witness because the Inquest data doesn't have any mention at all of him or his evidence given that Sunday night, time to set aside belief that mentioning Schwartz later in unofficial documents suggests that he was still relevant for the same reason, time to stop ignoring that Morris Eagle and Lave also contradict several corroborated witnesses on times and events around 12:40-12:45 and themselves for not seeing each other while being in the same place at the same time. Time to stop reaching by suggesting Liz Stride was een by James Brown, he almost certainly did not..he saw the same young couple that has been established already as present on the street by Fanny, and time to stop giving Louis's stated arrival time any credence, its proven to be incorrect by all those corroborated witnesses and Fanny at her door until 1.

Lets move this investigation forward by not staying mired in provably incorrect dogma.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Imagine trying to do Ripperology without inquest transcripts.
Writing for the October 1st edition of the Daily News, that is what the author of the following report has attempted to do...

A woman who lives two doors from the club has made an important statement. It appears that shortly before a quarter to one o'clock she heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat. Immediately afterwards she went to the street-door, with the intention of shooting the bolts, though she remained standing there for ten minutes before she did so. During the ten minutes she saw no one enter or leave the neighbouring yard, and she feels sure that had any one done so she could not have overlooked the fact. The quiet and deserted character of the street appears even to have struck her at the time. Locking the door, she prepared to retire to bed, in the front room on the ground floor, and it so happened that in about four minutes' time she heard the pony cart pass the house, and remarked upon the circumstance to her husband. Thus, presuming that the body did not lay in the yard when the policeman passed-and it could hardly, it is thought, have escaped his notice-and presuming also that the assassin and his victim did not enter the yard while the woman stood at the door, it follows that they must have entered it within a minute or two before the arrival of the pony trap. If this be a correct surmise, it is easy to understand that the criminal may have been interrupted at his work. The man who drove the cart says he thinks it quite possible that after he had entered the yard the assassin may have fled out of it, having lurked in the gloom until a favourable moment arrived.

The journalist was working with several assumptions - the second and third are made explicitly.

Assumption 1: The woman went to her street door, immediately on hearing the policeman passing on his beat.

Assumption 2: The policeman could not have missed the body lying in the yard, when he passed by, had it been there. Therefore, it wasn't there.

Assumption 3: The victim and assassin did not enter the yard when the woman stood at her door, because they would have been noticed by the woman, and they were not noticed.

Assumption 4: The woman heard the pony trap go by, on its arrival to the yard, but she did not see it.

Assumption 5: Diemschitz returned home right on 1am. In the same report:

The house is in charge of a man and his wife, who sleep on the premises. The man possesses a pony-cart, with which he is usually out during the greater part of the day, selling, it is said, cocoanuts and sweets. It was this man who, on returning in the cart at one o'clock yesterday morning, discovered the body.

Note how odd the first two assumptions are, in light of PC Smith's inquest testimony (four days into the future, as of Oct 1).
When Smith passed up Berner street for the last time, before going to Dutfield's Yard, he saw Stride standing upright - a few yards north and across the road from where she would subsequently be found - she was alive and well.
Assumption 2 is made in ignorance of this fact, as is assumption 1 - if the woman had gone to her door immediately on hearing the policeman's boots, she would have come almost face to face with Stride, but of course this was not the case.

Given the five assumptions, the first two being clearly false, and the fifth arguably false, the journalist surmised that; the only window of opportunity for victim and assassin to have entered the yard unseen, was after the woman had gone inside, and 'within a minute or two before the arrival of the pony trap'.

Consequently we can see that the following is the conjecture of the writer; ...and it so happened that in about four minutes' time she heard the pony cart pass the house...

That four minutes was determined by adding a couple of minutes for the point from which the woman goes inside, until the point victim and assassin enter the yard, to the supposed minute or two before arrival of the cart.
In short, the four minutes referred to in the report, is pure guesswork on the part of the writer - Fanny Mortimer said nothing about or implying a gap between locking her front door, and hearing the pony trap.

By the time we get to the Evening News, the report has been truncated to just this...

A woman who lives two doors from the club has made an important statement. It appears that shortly before a quarter to one o'clock she heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat. Immediately afterwards she went to the street-door, with the intention of shooting the bolts, though she remained standing there ten minutes before she did so. During the ten minutes she saw no one enter or leave the neighbouring yard, and she feels sure that had any one done so she could not have overlooked the fact. The quiet and deserted character of the street appears even to have struck her at the time. Locking the door, she prepared to retire to bed, in the front room on the ground floor, and it so happened that in about four minutes' time she heard Diemschitz's pony cart pass the house, and remarked upon the circumstance to her husband.

The theorizing is mostly omitted - effectively replaced by the more informative 'Interview with a Neighbour' - as the writer probably realized even at that early stage, that the Daily News surmise was probably incorrect. Regardless, people say things similar to...

Fanny said she heard the policeman pass by, shortly before a quarter to one. No, she did not say that. Or...

Fanny said she heard the pony and cart pass by, about four minutes after she locked her front door for the night. No, she did not say that either.

The author of the Daily/Evening News report was effectively doing pre-inquest Ripperology, and did so based on false assumptions.
Those false assumptions led to false deductions, yet today, those deductions are falsely regarded as elements of Fanny Mortimer's 'important statement'.

[Herlock Sholmes]

More baffling, convoluted stuff.

Fanny said she heard the policeman pass by, shortly before a quarter to one. No, she did not say that

She said exactly that in both newspaper reports?

Fanny said she heard the pony and cart pass by, about four minutes after she locked her front door for the night. No, she did not say that either

She said exactly that in both newspaper reports?

What point are you trying to make??? Why is everything couched in hints and riddles with you?? You are constantly trying to see mystery where none exists.

And why haven’t you considered the possibility that Smith passed at the time that he said that he had 12.30-12.35? And that Fanny was wrong?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

She said exactly that in both newspaper reports?

Evidently not. It was the journalist that said 'Immediately afterwards she went to the street-door', and 'shortly before a quarter to one', and 'about four minutes after she locked her front door for the night'.

She could not possibly have gone to her door immediately after hearing the PC pass, else she would have seen Stride and parcel man standing just yards away.

There was no careful checking of the time just before she went outside.

There was no four minutes between going inside and arrival of the pony cart.

Can you not see how the journalist regards the 'about four minutes' as a logical necessity, based on reasoning that is due to faulty assumptions, that are due to a lack of information? The journalist appears to be completely ignorant of Smith's witnessing of the couple, and the report should be regarded as partially redundant.

At the very least, people should realize that much of that report is just analysis, and it is not clear what parts of the report are owing to the 'important statement', and which are the result of the journalist's own theorizing, so who can say for sure what elements of that report are attributable to Fanny? To borrow a term from Mr Marriott, the report is unsafe to use as evidence.

What point are you trying to make???

That doing Ripperology sans inquest transcripts, makes an enormous difference.

Why is everything couched in hints and riddles with you?? You are constantly trying to see mystery where none exists.

However, I doubt my analysis will make much difference to The Old Guardianistas, who will continue to interpret the report in a simple-minded way - taking everything in it at face value.

And why haven’t you considered the possibility that Smith passed at the time that he said that he had 12.30-12.35?

Did the writer of the D/EN report do that?

Okay, I will consider that possibility...

The Foreman: Was the man or the woman acting in a suspicious manner?
Smith: No.
Inspector Reid: Did you see these people more than once?
Smith: No. When I saw deceased lying on the ground I recognized her at once and made a report of what I had seen.

How long did that report take to write?
Whatever the case, Smith's testimony is arguably the most reliable in the entire case, because he wrote down what he had seen, soon after seeing it. The reliability of his info, arguably includes his times.

And that Fanny was wrong?

Okay, I will consider that possibility too...

Aside from the fact that one is a direct quote, and the other is (at best) a description of a statement, if two statements contradict, either one or the other must be at fault, or, they both are. The issue can't be resolved without further information.

It may well be that '12:30-1:00' is quite wrong, but not because the EN report suggests otherwise.
For example, if one doubts Louis' 'exactly 1am' arrival time (as I do), then the real period may have been more like 12:30-12:48.
That is, the 12:30 is Greenwich Mean Time, and the 1:00 is Louis Diemschitz Time.