Schwartz, a fraud?

[lynn cates]

It's about time.

Hello Mac. 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.

Cheers.
LC

[Fleetwood Mac]

Lawende and company saw a woman and a man at the entrance to Church passage only ten minutes before she was discovered by PC Watson. She had already been murdered and mutilated. Fairly narrow time-frame I would think.

And PC Smith sees Stride approximately 15 minutes before the estimated time of death.

Lawende identifies Eddowes by her clothes; PC Smith is confident he saw Stride. Also, he's a policeman.

So, weigh it all up and PC Smith was in at least as good a position as to have been deemed to have been 'the only man'.

There's just not enough to convince me that Lawende was exceptional....and so 'the only man'.

[Michael W Richards]

Hi again,

In fact Lawende, Levy and Harris passed the couple 10 minutes before she was found dead, so in terms of timing, if that was Catharine, the man with her almost certainly is the one that killed her. Taking into account the time to reach the murder site and then do all that was done to her. She was killed within 5 minutes of that sighting. Israels story has Liz attacked 15 minutes before she is found with a single cut. Its not hard to imagine someone could have met up with her after 12:45am to do the deed, and she could have been cut and left in one or 2 seconds. Kates killer took minutes to mutilate the body. So Lawende technically has the sighting that occurs closest to the estimated time of the actual murder than any other witness of any other Canonical murder.

Best regards,

Mike R

[mariab]

Schwartz "discredited"?

I'm sure his absence at the inquest had more to do with preserving the evidence of their primary witness. It is certainly not because he had become a discredited witness, as some have suggested.

Just to clarify: Despite my suggesting that Schwartz' testimony was possibly not entirely truthful and, more importantly, might have been related to a decision by William Wess (as will be discussed in an article), I'm NOT claiming in ANY way whatsoever that Schwartz “had become a discredited witness“ in October 1888. There is evidence for some hesitation/suspicion by the police (as reported by the Star and expressed indirectly in Swanson's report), but I don't see Schwartz' missing from the inquest as a direct consequence thereoff.
In my opinion, Schwartz' missing from the inquest could be explained through a host of reasons:
- The fear for a reaction in Whitechapel due to the inflammatory racial slur "Lipski" (compare this to the erasing of the GSG). For this reason,
- Schwartz' translated statement might have been subpoenaed at the inquest but not reported about in the press.
- The police's interest in preserving their witness, added to the possibility that
- The witness himself might have strongly denied, out of fear, to come forward at the inquest, which might have even led to the eventuality that
- Schwartz might have even gotten scarce before the inquest.

Comparing this to the Tabram case:

Although Barrett was called as a witness at the inquest, it was only in his role as first constable on the scene. He was not asked to discuss the soldier with whom he spoke at 2am, nor give a description of him, even though doing so might have 'shaken something loose' in the press since his attempts at identification at the Tower had failed. In short, although no one questioned Barrett's honesty, had he not also been first cop to the scene, he would not have been called to the inquest at all. This was a Metropolitan Police thing, and might make for a more fitting comparison with Schwartz then how the City Police handled their witnesses.

In my interpretation, PC Thomas Barrett not being questioned about the soldier waiting outside of George's Yard for "a chum who went off with a girl" compares to Mortimer, not to Schwartz. It's a question of relevance. I'm saying this without having yet read up enough to be absolutely sure that Pearly Poll did NOT appear at the Tabram inquest, but I assume that she didn't (as I don't see her listed in the casebook inquest file), and that she was a discredited witness after her repeatedly failed attemps to identify the soldier allegedly seen with Tabram?
This is a good example of how Pearly Poll does NOT compare to Schwartz pertaining to credibility. I'm suggesting that Schwartz remained a credible witness, until he (plausibly) disappeared at some point (possibly even pre-inquest, but more plausibly later on) and was not available, unlike Lawende.

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.

Yes Lynn. In his notes listing the different witnesses, Swanson compares PC Smith to Schwartz and concludes that the man PC Smith saw was too early to be the killer.

[Bridewell]

If

Hi again,

In fact Lawende, Levy and Harris passed the couple 10 minutes before she was found dead, so in terms of timing, if that was Catharine, the man with her almost certainly is the one that killed her. Taking into account the time to reach the murder site and then do all that was done to her. She was killed within 5 minutes of that sighting. Israels story has Liz attacked 15 minutes before she is found with a single cut. Its not hard to imagine someone could have met up with her after 12:45am to do the deed, and she could have been cut and left in one or 2 seconds. Kates killer took minutes to mutilate the body. So Lawende technically has the sighting that occurs closest to the estimated time of the actual murder than any other witness of any other Canonical murder.

Best regards,

Mike R

Hi, Mike,

If the woman seen was Kate Eddowes then I entirely agree.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Michael W Richards]

Hi, Mike,

If the woman seen was Kate Eddowes then I entirely agree.

Regards, Bridewell.

One of many $64,000 questions Bridewell.

Best regards,

Mike R

[lynn cates]

Long shot

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

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

thought so

Hello Maria. Thanks. I thought it was Swanson.

Cheers.
LC

[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.

[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]

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]

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?

[Tom_Wescott]

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

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 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