Schwartz, a fraud?

[Fleetwood Mac]

Agreed, Hunter. But Anderson described the Seaside Home witness as ‘[FONT=Verdana]the only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer’. Swanson stated that ‘his evidence would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged’.

Let's say Lawende had a good look at the man, as it is open to debate, would it have been enough to convict him?

I feel Schwartz is a stand out witness because he witnessed an attack on a victim.

I would have thought that evidence capable of convicting the suspect would have been something approaching caught redhanded.

Schwartz or another.

[lynn cates]

tempus fugit

Hello Mike. Well, what about hearing the 5.15 striking? Then she may have seen Annie about 5.17 or so.

Cheers.
LC

[Michael W Richards]

However, the day after the murder, it was the description supplied by PC Smith that the police released to the press to be circulated. Funny thing... Brown's description was not circulated although the CID had interviewed everyone in the area on the day of the murder of Elizabeth Stride.

Hi Hunter,

Though it flies in the face of what Ive been espousing, the Police Gazette of Oct 88 had Schwartz's suspects descriptions. I think your point about Brown is interesting, perhaps they assumed that Brown did not see Liz Stride with someone but the young couple that had been lingering in the immediate area. Yet he appears at the Inquest. The flower that Liz had on at 12:45am was red with white maidenfern adorning it, Brown saw nothing light in either of their clothing.

Lynn, on Mrs Longs Chapman sighting,..

Her timing in conjunction with Davies times, Richardson's statements and the statements of Dr Phillips makes that highly unlikely in my opinion. Richardson notices nothing at around 4:50am. Davies finds her around 6am. Phillips arrives at 6:30am, and the victim is cold, the stiffness of the limbs was "commencing". I would imagine that her physical state dictates that she had been there for more than 1 hr. So,using Richardson's remarks as gospel, the murder and mutilations must have occurred shortly after 5am.

Mrs Long is quite certain about her time, which is 5:30am.

Cadoche stated that he heard the noise on the other side of the fence around 5:20am.

I think the murder time is all right there myself Lynn, I believe Annie was being "butchered" around 5:30am and Long must have been wrong about her ID in my opinion.

My best regards,

Mike R

[Garry Wroe]

I still don't see that the police placed too much importance on Mortimer. They figured they had time of death in the bag without her.

That may or may not be true, Tom, but the inquests fell under the jurisdiction of the Coroner, not the police, and it would have been an offence for investigators to have withheld witnesses or evidence from the Coroner. Carrie Maxwell wasn't exactly a stellar witness as far as investigators were concerned, but she appeared at the Kelly inquest hearing anyway.

[Garry Wroe]

Swanson put considerable weight into Lawende's sighting, despite the caveats he mentioned in his Oct. 19 report. As far as he was concerned, Lawende & company probably did see the victim with her killer just minutes before she was found mutilated.

Agreed, Hunter. But Anderson described the Seaside Home witness as ‘the only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer’. Swanson stated that ‘his evidence would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged’. Thus the implications are unmistakable: of all the informants this particular witness got the clearest view of the killer; whatever he saw was sufficient to ensure a conviction; and his evidence would have stood up in a court of law.

The problem with Lawende is that his description of Eddowes’ companion was vague; he admitted the unlikelihood that he would recognize this man again; and he saw nothing that in itself could have ensured a conviction. As a consequence we are left with only two possibilities. Either Anderson and Swanson misremembered, misunderstood or misrepresented the situation with regard to the Seaside Home witness, or the witness was someone other than Lawende. It’s as simple as that.

The suspect was watched - according to Swanson - by City CID, which indicates that a City witness to a City murder was involved.

Not at all, Hunter. It indicates that a suspect in a City murder was the object of an undercover surveillance operation in and about his Whitechapel home. No inference whatever regarding witnesses may be drawn from such a statement.

In the two times that it was reported that an ID attempt was made (Sadler and Granger) it was the Mitre Square witness who was mentioned, so someone certainly thought Lawende or one of his companions were considerable enough witnesses to use in such manner.

As I’ve said previously on other threads, Hunter, forensics were all but nonexistent during the period under scrutiny. Confessions were all important at the time. In the absence of a confession it was the sheer weight of evidence that secured a conviction. Hence investigators used all of the witnesses they had at their disposal. The failure by many to recognize this simple reality has led to the assumption that, because Lawende was used in the Sadler case, he was the only witness used. But this is a flawed assumption. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The reality, therefore, is that other witnesses were almost certainly used but escaped the attention of the press. If so, the importance that has been attributed to Lawende as a consequence of the Sadler case has been very much overstated.

Let me repeat: ‘The problem with Lawende is that his description of Eddowes’ companion was vague; he admitted the unlikelihood that he would recognize this man again; and he saw nothing that in itself could have ensured a conviction.’

Does this sound like a man whose evidence in its own right could have sent a man to the gallows?

[lynn cates]

Brown

Hello Cris. Thanks. And, yes, it IS funny. Brown is practically a forgotten man.

And worse, if his testimony is correct, Schwartz is wrong and vice versa, since both claimed 12:45.

Cheers.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

I can eat the sh!t out uv chitlins'.

Here in Okie town, we clean it out of the chitlins before we eat 'em. But to each his own!

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Hunter]

Hell, Tom... If I'd knowed you wuz cookin' chickin' an' taters, I'd just come on over to yur house instead a fussin' with this hog... Sounds purty good to me. The only thing between us is Arkansas an' I could be there in my '73 Torino in 'bout 3 or 4 hours.

Oh... Maria... Yes, I kilt the hog. He wuz rootin' round the fence an' got out too much as it wuz. Anyway, I found that I get skinny when I don't eat. We don't throw away nuthin' but the squeal when it cums to hogs. We're havin' chitlins' in a couple o' days an' yur welcome to supper. I can eat the sh!t out uv chitlins'.

[Tom_Wescott]

I'm doing some writing while downstairs country style chicken and taters are being cooked. YUM!

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[mariab]

oops

Shoo. Didn't even see it, lol.
Nice about the barbie and the beer. Myself I'm pulling an allnighter due to a conf paper on deadline, and was just cooking pasta to have with some wine for a bit of chill with a DVD, during the allnighter.
Plus my laptop had a big fall last night and I don't quite like the cracking noises and kinda loose hardware on it. Imagine if it dies on me tonight, with the deadline and all?

[Hunter]

Maria...

My dear Maria...

My dear sweet Maria...

Here is the first line of my post: "However, the day after the murder, it was the description supplied by PC Smith that the police released to the press to be circulated." It came out on Oct. 1st.

LOL... just havin' a bit of sport, girl. Been ( or is it Ben? Hell, I don't know. where's spell check when ya knead it) Anyway... BN BBQin' all day and I probably put more beer in me than on the hog I was a cookin'.

[mariab]

However, the day after the murder, it was the description supplied by PC Smith that the police released to the press to be circulated. Funny thing... Brown's description was not circulated although the CID had interviewed everyone in the area on the day of the murder of Elizabeth Stride.

Well, I assume that PC Smith's description encountered “preferential“ treatment (for lack of a better word) since he was police, until things got cleared a bit with the IWEC, Mortimer, Leon Goldstein, Schwartz etc.?
Possibly choosing PC Smith's description was a retort to the Packer insinuations in The Evening News of Oct. 4? Or did the description released to the press by the police came earlier than that? (I REALLY need to look all this up systematically when I finish my deadlines here.)

[Hunter]

For some reason, the Met (and Swanson, in particular, if I recall properly) were not too keen on PC Smith. Seems that his sighting was earlier than IS.

You are correct on that Lynn, and Swanson even went on to make some comparisons, in which he thought Schwartz's description was closer to that of Lewende's.

However, the day after the murder, it was the description supplied by PC Smith that the police released to the press to be circulated. Funny thing... Brown's description was not circulated although the CID had interviewed everyone in the area on the day of the murder of Elizabeth Stride.

[lynn cates]

thought so

Hello Maria. Thanks. I thought it was Swanson.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Long shot

Hello Mike. Well, Mrs Long may have been fairly close.

Cheers.
LC