If Schwartz Lied ...

[Herlock Sholmes]

Because 4 of the above witnesses gave a time that they were in that passageway, Fanny couldnt see them. But Israel says he was on the street and saw Liz and BSM and Pipeman and Louis Diemshitz is the only witnessquoted saying he arrived at 1.

But Eagle and Spooner had to arrive there unless you’re suggesting that they simply materialised. And Fanny didn’t see them. And so, logically, if she could fail to see them she could have failed to have seen Schwartz. Because she was indoors at the time.

[drstrange169]

>>And why no mention of Israel Goldstein?<<

Too busy taking care of business.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Ah, yes, you are correct. I had forgotten that and didn't have my books open. Yes, he indicates he last patrolled Berner Street at about 12:30 or 12:35. So, that's close enough to when FM says she heard the footsteps, and her times are "fast" by 10 to 15 minutes. She didn't hear them at 12:45, but 12:30 or 12:35. Meaning she was probably back inside at 12:45, and she underestimated the time that passed after that. Pretty standard errors that are found in witness testimonies. Until the event, nothing is particularly memorable, so the exact time that passes, etc, all has to be recreated, and that's generally not accurate. PC Smith, being on his beat, has a need to keep track of the time, so preference is given to his.

In that case, let's keep going until we reach the logical conclusion...

Smith: It takes me from 25 minutes to half an hour to go round my beat. I was last in Berner-street about half-past 12 or 12:35. At 1 o'clock I went to Berner-street in my ordinary round. I saw a crowd of people outside the gates of No. 40. I did not hear any cries of "Police." When I got there I saw constables 12 H R and 252 H.

If Smith's earlier time is regarded as being correct, then so must his later time, if not more so. For as you say, it is a beat PC's responsibility to keep track of the time. Thus Smith arrived at the top Berner street at 1am, at which point Lamb and Aycliffe were already at the yard, having been preceded by Edward Spooner by about 5 minutes.

So this must be incorrect...

Diemschitz: On Saturday I left home about half-past 11 in the morning and returned home exactly at 1 a.m. Sunday morning.

This also pushes the discovery back to nearly 12:50 - a time that seems to have some significance...

Letchford: ... my sister was standing at the door at ten minutes to one, but did not see any one pass by.

On the other hand, perhaps Smith was well aware of current time, and not so much regarding where and when he was half an hour ago.

So, if he passes between 12:30 and 12:35, and FM comes out for 10 minutes, she's back inside around 12:40 - 12:45. That still allows for Schwartz, B.S. to enter the scene after she's gone back inside, from 12:40 onwards (allowing for her early return inside) and becoming less contestable by 12:45. Might push the events more towards 12:50, let's say, but I don't have any particular time preference myself.

So Schwartz' ~12:45 account can only be made to work, by manipulating the following...

I was standing at the door of my house nearly the whole time between half-past twelve and one o'clock this morning, and did not notice anything unusual. I had just gone indoors, and was preparing to go to bed, when I heard a commotion outside...
It was soon after one o'clock when I went out...

... to mean that she were not outside for most of that half hour timespan, but actually less than 10 minutes! Furthermore, "I had just gone indoors" has to be interpreted so that instead a meaning "a few minutes", it becomes "I had gone indoor 20 minutes ago"!

Why does Schwartz' account require so much manipulation of other witness accounts, to make sense of it?

Well, given PC Smith's patrol at 12:30-5, we've got two alternatives. That her interpretation that the footsteps were of a policeman was correct, and she heard PC Smith, which means her stated time is wrong. Or, if her time was correct, then her interpretation that the footsteps were of a policeman was wrong, because PC Smith didn't patrol at her stated time, he had done that much earlier.

Or was it that Smith was last in Berner street a little later than he supposed, and that Mortimer's clock may have been a few minutes ahead of time? Smith's prior time on Berner street was an approximation...

I was last in Berner-street about half-past 12 or 12:35.

Yet to make Schwartz' account viable, it has to be regarded as pretty much spot-on. But whatever the actual timing, the notion that Fanny had locked up by 12:45, is a non-starter.

With the first of those lines of possibilities, then the Schwartz event has yet to happen, so there were no "not very loud screams" and the call of Lipski wasn't heard either because it hadn't yet been yelled.

Even in the 2nd line of possibilities, where she hears the footsteps and we are allowing them to be Stride's killer leaving the scene, and she's mistaken them for a policeman, she's still inside when those happen. We know she goes outside shortly thereafter, and since she hears the footsteps, she would probably be in the front room. All it would take is for her to be in a different room from when she heard the footsteps, where sounds from the street are less audible, a few minutes before that when the Schwartz event takes place. It's not that difficult a problem to come up with various explanations, but in the end, why she didn't hear them can only be speculated on, the fact remains, she apparently didn't for whatever reason. But not hearing them doesn't mean they didn't happen. It just means she didn't hear them.

In your first possibility, the incident is occurring close to when Schwartz claimed it did - 12:45 - so right when James Brown was walking down to the chandler's shop. Did Brown see a man being chased along Fairclough street, or did he see when returning home, a couple talking quietly by the board school corner?

In your second possibility, if the footsteps are the killer's and not Smith's, then all of a sudden her clock seems to be reading the right time. This would mean Stride is murdered moments before "shortly before a quarter to one o'clock", and lies unnoticed for nearly 20 minutes, and continues to noticeably bleed until a point between the arrival of Spooner and Lamb - more than 20 minutes later.

The cachous are in her hand no matter who kills her.

True, but more so if it were BS man, because he supposedly threw her to the ground.

We don't know the events that transpire after Schwartz leaves the area. We can't even be sure B.S. goes on to kill her of course. But whoever kills her, cuts her throat while she's on the ground, and she's holding the cachous. And I think there are different indications about the state of her clothes. I don't think they were looking fresh pressed or anything, only that they weren't obviously pulled up over the midline type thing (she didn't look like she had been "outraged" I believe the phrase was).

Coroner: Were her clothes disturbed?
Lamb: No. I scarcely could see her boots. She looked as if she had been laid quietly down. Her clothes were not in the least rumpled.

I believe it is evidence like this that led Lynn Cates to the conclusion that Schwartz' account was BS.

That fellow was found by the police and cleared of involvement, so if you're suggesting she just missed seeing him leave the crime scene, that appears to have been considered and ruled out. To suggest otherwise you have to speculate the police made an error in considering him not involved, which of course can happen, but it remains speculative (as is much of what I'm tossing around here too of course) so don't get too married to the idea.

Goldstein was not found by the police, and he was not cleared of involvement. Rather he went to Leman street station with and at the insistence of Wess, and the duty officer accepted his story. For Goldstein to have been cleared, he must have been under investigation at some point, yet there is no indication that that was the case.

That doesn't make sense. If the police aren't there, why are they blowing whistles? If the police are blowing whistles, then they are there. His lack of mentioning them would just mean he didn't include that detail in his telling of things. Perhaps his statement that it was the police whistle that alerted him he considered enough to make it obvious there were police there?

The police weren't there, yet 2 men heard whistles. It is up to us to make sense of this.

Fanny is welcome to her opinion, but she's not a medical expert, she herself didn't touch the body, and even if she did, you can't estimate ToD by touching and feeling, though doctors at the time were quite confident they could. As such, I don't think we would be wise to put much faith in her estimate of the ToD.

Fine. So let's have Stride being killed about 12:40 - when Eagle was returning and Lave was wandering outside.

Well, I think Schwartz stated it was around 12:45 didn't he? He was questioned by the police for awhile, so they would have information as to what time Schwartz thought it was when the events occurred. Schwartz's estimate of 12:45 doesn't conflict badly with the information we have, particularly if FM did hear PC Smith. That tells us her times are out by 10 minutes, and that would again place Schwartz at 12:45.

If her times are correct, then the steps are not that of a policeman, and so probably Stride's killer, which once again allows for Schwartz's incident to occur around 12:45, or there abouts. But I don't have a problem with it being later, could be 12:50, or even 12:55. Once we get close to Diemshutz's arrival, though, I think things are over and her killer long gone. So, if that happens as 1, probably no later than 12:56 or 57 type thing? That gives her killer 3 - 4 minutes to leave the area and not be seen.

I don't see the problem myself, as somewhere between 12:45 and 12:57 could be argued for. If you think it was close to the time of discovery, then 12:57 would probably be your preference for the murder, so I suppose that would place the Schwartz event around 12:55, and FM has gone inside by then as she heard PC Smith at 12:30-35, was out for 10 minutes, so she had gone back in around 12:45, and Bob's your Uncle.

DN, Oct 1: A young girl had been standing in a bisecting thoroughfare not fifty yards from the spot where the body was found. She had, she said, been standing there for about twenty minutes, talking with her sweetheart, but neither of them heard any unusual noises.

That quote alone, discounts the possibility of the incident as described by Schwartz, as having occurred at 12:45, or 12:50, or 12:55.

[JeffHamm]

In that case, let's keep going until we reach the logical conclusion...

Smith: It takes me from 25 minutes to half an hour to go round my beat. I was last in Berner-street about half-past 12 or 12:35. At 1 o'clock I went to Berner-street in my ordinary round. I saw a crowd of people outside the gates of No. 40. I did not hear any cries of "Police." When I got there I saw constables 12 H R and 252 H.

If Smith's earlier time is regarded as being correct, then so must his later time, if not more so. For as you say, it is a beat PC's responsibility to keep track of the time. Thus Smith arrived at the top Berner street at 1am, at which point Lamb and Aycliffe were already at the yard, having been preceded by Edward Spooner by about 5 minutes.

So this must be incorrect...

Diemschitz: On Saturday I left home about half-past 11 in the morning and returned home exactly at 1 a.m. Sunday morning.

This also pushes the discovery back to nearly 12:50 - a time that seems to have some significance...

Letchford: ... my sister was standing at the door at ten minutes to one, but did not see any one pass by.

On the other hand, perhaps Smith was well aware of current time, and not so much regarding where and when he was half an hour ago.

Well, not really. If he had passed previously at 12:35, and it took him 30 minutes, then that means he doesn't get to Berner Street until 1:05 type thing, and that's not a problem for Deimshutz arriving at 1:00.

So Schwartz' ~12:45 account can only be made to work, by manipulating the following...

I was standing at the door of my house nearly the whole time between half-past twelve and one o'clock this morning, and did not notice anything unusual. I had just gone indoors, and was preparing to go to bed, when I heard a commotion outside...
It was soon after one o'clock when I went out...

... to mean that she were not outside for most of that half hour timespan, but actually less than 10 minutes! Furthermore, "I had just gone indoors" has to be interpreted so that instead a meaning "a few minutes", it becomes "I had gone indoor 20 minutes ago"!

Why does Schwartz' account require so much manipulation of other witness accounts, to make sense of it?

Manipulation is a pejorative term. We have to remember, FM isn't giving an official statement, she's talking to the press, and people tell their stories with a bit more flare under such conditions. FM never testifiies, and if that is the basis for suspecting Schwartz to be untruthful, it applies to FM too, negating what she says. If, however, FM is going to be utilized as valid, then it stands to reason that given she was not called to the inquest Schwartz's non-appearance cannot be then considered reason to suspect the validity of his statement. I suppose that would be manipulation, because the logic is being changed depending upon the need, which indicates there is an outcome one is going to get to irrespective of the data.

Nobody has been able to show how all of the witness statements could be all true as told. There must, therefore, be errors. Obviously, people will differ on where they think they occur. That's not manipulation, that's interpretation.

Or was it that Smith was last in Berner street a little later than he supposed, and that Mortimer's clock may have been a few minutes ahead of time? Smith's prior time on Berner street was an approximation...

I was unaware that Mortimer had a clock? Where is that from?

I was last in Berner-street about half-past 12 or 12:35.

Yet to make Schwartz' account viable, it has to be regarded as pretty much spot-on. But whatever the actual timing, the notion that Fanny had locked up by 12:45, is a non-starter.

No, it's not. She's estimating the time. She's also apparently locking up for the night. How much time she spent doing things would be highly prone to miscalculation on her part; and the same applies to many of the witnesses. Pretty much every time, and duration, we have is just an estimate made by people who have to try and recall how much time passed, or what time it was they did things, when at that point in time they had no reason to pay any attention to such things. In our discussions, we're having to decide who to prioritize (like the police) based upon the idea that they at least will have a reason to be aware of the time. But even that doesn't make their statements infallible. The only references to getting the time from a clock, as I recall, comes from Deimshutz, and the doctor (who reports arriving at the scene at 1:16 I believe). All of the rest are estimates. For the police, I think some of them had a clock on their beat they would regularly check each round, and would use that to "reset" their estimations.

In your first possibility, the incident is occurring close to when Schwartz claimed it did - 12:45 - so right when James Brown was walking down to the chandler's shop. Did Brown see a man being chased along Fairclough street, or did he see when returning home, a couple talking quietly by the board school corner?

Again, the incident as described by Schwartz is not a long lasting event. Given none of the times are exact, the fact that two people report being in the same place at the same time but not seeing each other is not surprising, and simply reflects we're dealing with estimations. Our attempts to see how things unfolded are also estimations of the times, as we try and work around the constraints, to see if the events can fit.

In your second possibility, if the footsteps are the killer's and not Smith's, then all of a sudden her clock seems to be reading the right time. This would mean Stride is murdered moments before "shortly before a quarter to one o'clock", and lies unnoticed for nearly 20 minutes, and continues to noticeably bleed until a point between the arrival of Spooner and Lamb - more than 20 minutes later.

Umm, yes. That's what I was saying. If the footsteps were PC Smiths, she's estimated the time incorrectly. But in option 2, we start with "if she got the time correct ..." so yes, now we're looking at her getting the time correct, that's the starting premise. But in that case, her interpretation of the footsteps as being PC Smith is where her error is located because he's already been and gone 10 minutes or so earlier.

In other words, at the very minimum, she either made a mistake about the time at which the events occurred, but got the footsteps are from a policeman correct, or she got the time correct and made a mistake about the source of the footsteps.

But there's no way for us to know which of those options is the correct one. All we know is that she's got something wrong. Moreover, it is also possible that she's made more mistakes, both the time and the source of the footsteps.

True, but more so if it were BS man, because he supposedly threw her to the ground.

But it doesn't appear he killed her there and then, and presumably she gets up after that. Now, Stride is on her feet again, and who ever kills her, has to get her back on the ground as that is where she was when her throat was cut.

Coroner: Were her clothes disturbed?
Lamb: No. I scarcely could see her boots. She looked as if she had been laid quietly down. Her clothes were not in the least rumpled.

I believe it is evidence like this that led Lynn Cates to the conclusion that Schwartz' account was BS.

I think that too much is being read into that.

Goldstein was not found by the police, and he was not cleared of involvement. Rather he went to Leman street station with and at the insistence of Wess, and the duty officer accepted his story. For Goldstein to have been cleared, he must have been under investigation at some point, yet there is no indication that that was the case.

Sorry, by "found" I just meant the police knew who he was, but yes, he went to them. And when he did, they questioned him and got his details, etc. I believe there is a record of them checking his story as to where he was coming from as well? (maybe I'm misremember something though). Anyway, the police spoke with him and came to the conclusion FM's sighting was not a lead, hence, he was cleared of involvement. He doesn't have to have been a suspect, he's just someone the police would need to talk to and decide if he is of interest to them. They did, and he wasn't.

The police weren't there, yet 2 men heard whistles. It is up to us to make sense of this.

Perhaps someone at the club had a whistle, and they were using them to try and attract the police?

Fine. So let's have Stride being killed about 12:40 - when Eagle was returning and Lave was wandering outside.


DN, Oct 1: A young girl had been standing in a bisecting thoroughfare not fifty yards from the spot where the body was found. She had, she said, been standing there for about twenty minutes, talking with her sweetheart, but neither of them heard any unusual noises.

That quote alone, discounts the possibility of the incident as described by Schwartz, as having occurred at 12:45, or 12:50, or 12:55.

Why? The 20 minutes is an estimate, and we also don't know when that 20 minutes was supposed to have started. If the 20 minutes starts at 12:20, they're gone 5 minutes before the Schwartz incident at 12:45 (picking 12:45 just because that's what Schwartz says).

Again, every time, every duration, is an estimate and will be subject to error. We can't treat these like they are known facts, although they are known statements. If a witness has access to, and states they used, a clock or watch, etc, then we can start arguing for the stated time as being a fact. Otherwise, it's just what the person said. It may be in the right ballpark, but it is also possible to be widely inaccurate. Our best chance, I think, is to start with the doctor's arrival at 1:16, and start trying to work backwards, estimating travel times, and so forth. Diemshutz's arrival at 1 would fit if we do so. We might be able to use PC Smith's patrol at 12:30-5 as another point, and then start trying to fit in other events between those two. If the order of the events can be determined, even if a bit roughly, then it may be possible to work out the duration of some of the events as well.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

.
So Schwartz' ~12:45 account can only be made to work, by manipulating the following...

I was standing at the door of my house nearly the whole time between half-past twelve and one o'clock this morning, and did not notice anything unusual. I had just gone indoors, and was preparing to go to bed, when I heard a commotion outside...
It was soon after one o'clock when I went out...

... to mean that she were not outside for most of that half hour timespan, but actually less than 10 minutes! Furthermore, "I had just gone indoors" has to be interpreted so that instead a meaning "a few minutes", it becomes "I had gone indoor 20 minutes ago"!

Why does Schwartz' account require so much manipulation of other witness accounts, to make sense of it?

What is noticeable of course is that the other EN version is conveniently ignored. The one where it was said that Fanny went onto her doorstep for 10 minutes just after hearing a Constable pass. The Constable had to have been Smith of course who said that he passed around 12.30-12.35 which makes it entirely plausible that she was back inside when Schwartz passed. This is vastly more likely than Schwartz lying for absolutely no reason. For that one we need an ‘assumption of conspiracy’ which is what we regularly get.

If she was on her doorstep for most of the 30 minutes between 12.30 and 1.00 then the Conspiracy Corner Crowd have to explain why it’s so momentous that she missed a 30 second incident and yet it’s unimportant that she missed…Eagle returning to the club and Stride arriving at the gates (not to mention chief plotter Diemschutz arriving back at the yard well before 1.00.

As ever it’s the conspiracists who need to manipulate the evidence to ‘prove’ that a man falsely placed himself at the scene of a murder to facilitate the most ineffective plan ever with the least likely motive ever.

You couldn’t make it up. Well, actually….

[Herlock Sholmes]

So what’s the likeliest explanation? That Fanny was inside when Schwartz passed or that he was part of a plot to prevent the evil police form closing down a club because they blamed the members for Jack the Ripper choosing their yard as the latest venue for one of his murders?

A bit of growing up needs to be done I’m afraid.

[Herlock Sholmes]

.
Again, every time, every duration, is an estimate and will be subject to error. We can't treat these like they are known facts, although they are known statements

How many times does this need to be re-stated Jeff? If a reasonable margin for error is applied of course there is no mystery here. It’s a conspiracist fantasy and not an honest assessment.

[caz]

You really do apply some strange logic. The proper use of the tree analogy of course would be to say that just because the incident was witnessed by Schwartz alone it doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. We don’t need to invent any answers for this one. The actual time between BS man meeting Stride and Schwartz leaving would have taken a matter of a few seconds as the timid Schwartz hardly pulled up a chair. He watched this incident on the move so it’s reasonable to suggest that the incident probably took around 30 seconds. We can’t say exactly of course but there is no reason for suspecting that it took significant longer. So we’re talking about a short incident. Therefore we only need a window of time of more than 30 seconds….let’s say a minute.

As has been mentioned if we don’t hold everyone to exact times we shouldn’t hold Schwartz to an exact time as we don’t know how he came to it (geographically speaking isn’t it possible that he passed the clock that Diemschutz saw though?) So the question that we should ask is…..is it categorically impossible that the Schwartz incident could have occurred unseen? I can’t see how anyone could claim this given what we know and what we should accept about timing differences.

Its only if you approach this from the point of……we know that there was a cover up and so…. We have to state the unknown as fact to make the case. It’s entirely possible that the Schwartz incident went unseen. Add this to the rest of the evidence (when assessed sans conspiracy goggles) and considering the utter lack of remotely believable motive for a cover up and we arrive at only one conclusion. There was transparently no cover up. Stride was killed and her killer (whoever he was) got away either entirely unseen or he was sen walking away and no one bothered coming forward. It likely happened between 12.45 and 1.00 and the body was discovered by Louis Diemschutz at 1.00.

There should be nothing further to debate on this subject as it’s way past time that the above was conceded. It won’t be of course because a cover up is required to bolster another theory. An unbiased assessment leaves us without any doubt that no cover up occurred.

Hi Herlock,

We know that Stride was attacked at some point after the last positive sighting because she was found murdered. We also know that nobody saw a fatal knife wound being inflicted.

By Michael's logic, because nobody saw the killer with knife in hand, maybe he didn't exist, any more than Schwartz's assailant existed, and AP Wolf was right after all, because she fell on the boot scraper.

Except there's a potentially fatal flaw, in that Schwartz did not claim to be the only witness to an assault on Stride. Pipeman gets completely forgotten in these discussions, as though it has been proved that he wasn't there and saw nothing.

But Pipeman might have been found, or he may have come forward after reading about himself in the Star, to confirm that the incident happened, if not precisely as Schwartz initially interpreted it. He may not have instantly connected the 'quarrel' between the couple with the murder in the yard.

Michael and others rely on Pipeman being a pointless phantom, introduced by Schwartz for Christ knows what reason, for their theory that Schwartz lied.

But it's a totally circular argument: if Schwartz lied, Pipeman was an invention, reducing the witnesses from two to zero, meaning the assault never happened and therefore Schwartz lied.

What a waste of time and effort!

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

We know that Stride was attacked at some point after the last positive sighting because she was found murdered. We also know that nobody saw a fatal knife wound being inflicted.

By Michael's logic, because nobody saw the killer with knife in hand, maybe he didn't exist, any more than Schwartz's assailant existed, and AP Wolf was right after all, because she fell on the boot scraper.

Except there's a potentially fatal flaw, in that Schwartz did not claim to be the only witness to an assault on Stride. Pipeman gets completely forgotten in these discussions, as though it has been proved that he wasn't there and saw nothing.

But Pipeman might have been found, or he may have come forward after reading about himself in the Star, to confirm that the incident happened, if not precisely as Schwartz initially interpreted it. He may not have instantly connected the 'quarrel' between the couple with the murder in the yard.

Michael and others rely on Pipeman being a pointless phantom, introduced by Schwartz for Christ knows what reason, for their theory that Schwartz lied.

But it's a totally circular argument: if Schwartz lied, Pipeman was an invention, reducing the witnesses from two to zero, meaning the assault never happened and therefore Schwartz lied.

What a waste of time and effort!

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

Yes, selectivity strikes again. All that our poor pawn Schwartz had to do was to say that the ‘killer’ gave an anti-Semitic insult. Pipeman serves no purpose to the ‘plot’ and all that he does is confuse matters. It’s not even a case of Schwartz being vague about who the insult was aimed at, it’s worse than that, the tame interpreter couldn’t even get the script right.

Pipeman might easily have been located and interviewed as you say (there’s actually talk of someone being questioned of course) and this would explain why the police were still talking about Schwartz as a valid witness into November (hardly likely if he was suspected of lying)

[caz]

Your reasoning here, supports the notion that the incident witnessed by Schwartz was much later than normally supposed. That, by the way, would make Schwartz a vital witness. He should have been at the inquest. So where was he?

Not this all over again.

Nobody knows the answer.

My personal best guess would be that he was being kept on ice by the police, while they were still trying to track down and question BS and Pipeman, so his 'vital' witness testimony could be used if and when it really mattered - for a future prosecution.

Schwartz initially thought the two men were in cahoots, so it would have been vital for the police to try and eliminate both from their enquiries. Without Schwartz appearing at the Inquest, where he could not have contributed to the who, when or how, the men he saw might have imagined they had nothing to worry about.

I could be entirely wrong, but at least I admit that, while others insist he wasn't there because nobody believed his story.

[Michael W Richards]

And why no mention of Israel Goldstein?

Leon.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Well, not really. If he had passed previously at 12:35, and it took him 30 minutes, then that means he doesn't get to Berner Street until 1:05 type thing, and that's not a problem for Deimshutz arriving at 1:00.

So Smith's timing has to be compatible with Diemschitz timing, and not the other way around?

Manipulation is a pejorative term.

So I was probably a bit harsh in using it. So I will make my point another way. How many people need to not be around when they said they were, for the Schwartz incident to go unnoticed, when it is claimed to have occurred?

We have to remember, FM isn't giving an official statement, she's talking to the press, and people tell their stories with a bit more flare under such conditions.

One of the three FM reports, possibly is based on a police statement.

FM never testifiies, and if that is the basis for suspecting Schwartz to be untruthful, it applies to FM too, negating what she says. If, however, FM is going to be utilized as valid, then it stands to reason that given she was not called to the inquest Schwartz's non-appearance cannot be then considered reason to suspect the validity of his statement. I suppose that would be manipulation, because the logic is being changed depending upon the need, which indicates there is an outcome one is going to get to irrespective of the data.

The logic is; each witness is or is not called, on their own merits, according to the coroner. We can only argue that those decisions were a matter of relevance or faith in the respective witnesses. That is, there could more than one basis for rejecting a witness, so one rejection need not saying anything about another.

Nobody has been able to show how all of the witness statements could be all true as told. There must, therefore, be errors. Obviously, people will differ on where they think they occur. That's not manipulation, that's interpretation.

Why did Pipeman become Knifeman? Blame it on the Star? It is never the fault of Schwartz, and why should he get the blame for no one seeing or hearing anything ... after we move them out of the way?

I was unaware that Mortimer had a clock? Where is that from?

If the following is a reasonable thing to say...

FM said that she heard Diemshitz's cart 4 minutes after leaving her door, and that supports Schwartz's times.

... then it is reasonable to suggest that the Mortimer's had a clock.

No, it's not. She's estimating the time. She's also apparently locking up for the night. How much time she spent doing things would be highly prone to miscalculation on her part; and the same applies to many of the witnesses. Pretty much every time, and duration, we have is just an estimate made by people who have to try and recall how much time passed, or what time it was they did things, when at that point in time they had no reason to pay any attention to such things. In our discussions, we're having to decide who to prioritize (like the police) based upon the idea that they at least will have a reason to be aware of the time. But even that doesn't make their statements infallible. The only references to getting the time from a clock, as I recall, comes from Deimshutz, and the doctor (who reports arriving at the scene at 1:16 I believe). All of the rest are estimates. For the police, I think some of them had a clock on their beat they would regularly check each round, and would use that to "reset" their estimations.

If there was no Israel Schwartz, you would not be making this argument.

Perhaps someone at the club had a whistle, and they were using them to try and attract the police?

Maybe!

Why? The 20 minutes is an estimate, and we also don't know when that 20 minutes was supposed to have started. If the 20 minutes starts at 12:20, they're gone 5 minutes before the Schwartz incident at 12:45 (picking 12:45 just because that's what Schwartz says).

They weren't gone, they spoke to Fanny Mortimer.

[MrBarnett]

Leon.

No, Israel.

This man:

[Michael W Richards]

The presumptives being used here are not reconstructions, they are individual guesstimates of whats of value and what isnt. No-one knows what specific times Fanny was at her door and when she wasnt...only that she was there the last 10 minutes of the hour. Presuming who checked what clock and whether they checked at all isnt useful....you cant know, nor can I. What can be known is if more than one person recalled the same thing happening at the same location and time. Lave could have validated Eagle in that manner, or vice versa, but that didnt occur. Fanny could have done so for Louis, but that didnt happen.

What did happen is that the majority of independent witnesses interviewed about their recollections of what they were doing at 12:40 all said they were by the dying woman with Louis and others. None of the the independent witness accounts that suggest otherwise have any secondary validation....even though some claimed to be in the same place and at the same time...like Lave and Eagle.

[Michael W Richards]

I mentioned this the other day, not sure where here, but it occurs to me that by the witness statements Joe Lave is in the passageway and at the gates between 12:30 and 12:45. A very busy time apparently. According to the majority of witnesses, and Israel Schwartz. Yet Lave sees nothing. No Eagle returning, no Israel, no BSM, no Liz on the street, no Pipeman. No crowd gathered around the woman.

Herlock suggests Fanny cannot be trusted yet he evidently accepts Laves remarks. Fanny see Leon, Leon later says he was there at that time, so she can see when people actually are there.