If Schwartz Lied ...

[Wickerman]

And, the missing flower?

[harry]

Some are even suggesting.RJ,it might not even have been an assault that Schwartz observed.Myself for one,and it is possible Stride herself initiated the incident.An activity that occupied less than five seconds of time,and seems to have taken Schwartz by surprise,could easily,as you have remarked,been misinterpreted ,or on recall, have been of uncertain remembrance.There is no evidence,that I recall,of injuries received by having been thrown down,a description, that to me,suggests some extreme force.

[JeffHamm]

Hi All,

Just been mulling over all the ideas and points being made recently, and trying to digest them and have been pondering over things. Not sure if I've really gotten any further than what's already been said, so this may be more of a summary of things really. Also, I'm not putting this out as a solution, rather more of a way of trying to organize my own thinking and to see if anyone has suggestions that either I've overlooked or perhaps misjudged the relative merits of. I'm certainly not able to defend some of the choices I've made beyond how I've described them here, and I hope it's clear that I make them reluctantly.

The whole Schwartz not appearing at the inquest is one of those black holes in our knowledge. In the end, we know he didn’t attend, and that’s all we know for sure. We know he gave a statement to the police, which includes sighting the victim (which we can say we know because he identified Stride’s body in the morgue as the woman he saw; though obviously we could question the accuracy of that identification, that would strike another black hole), Stride was interacting with a man (described as a confrontational encounter), includes events close to the location she was found dead, and also occurs about 15 minutes prior to her being found dead. The man is heard to speak, and there is another man present at the time as well.

Those things we know. In the above I’ve assumed that Schwartz’s identification of Stride as the woman he saw to be reliable. As I say, if we bring in that as a debate as well, we’ll strike a 2^nd black hole, and that’s not going to assist us, so let’s work based on the notion that the identification was accurate.

Now, basically, Schwartz’s information is on par, and in some way better, than the testimony given by many other witnesses at both the Stride inquest and others (Long’s at Chapman’s inquest, Lawende’s at Eddowes, etc). It includes similar types of information (sighting of a victim with a man; times close to when the body was found), word’s spoken by the man (Long), and some degree of identification of the victim as the woman seen (Long identified Chapman; Lawende identified the clothes as similar).

We also have the possibility that Schwartz’s testimony with regards to “Lipski” might fuel a riot. While that was given as the reason for erasing the graffiti, that did not prevent the wording being presented at the inquest.

Given that, I see no reason based upon what Schwartz had to testify in and of itself the likely reason for him not being there. He’s just no different from a number of witnesses who presented nothing more useful than what he was to testify to, and so I can see no reason why he would therefore be treated differently for those reasons.

There must be something that set Schwartz apart, that made him or his situation different from other witnesses to account for the fact that he was treated differently, and wasn’t there.

One avenue of thought places the difference with Schwartz himself. He made the decision not to attend despite the fact he was expected to. This is appealing in some ways, but I think it might not quite hold up. If Schwartz was expected to attend, by the police and by the coroner, the his failure to show up I think it fair to say would have been a frustration for the police and the coroner. They want to get through the information, have it presented, and have a list of expected witnesses to get through. I think Baxter would have mentioned the police needed to go find this witness and bring them to present their information. I would think some mention might have been communicated to H.O. about the police looking for this witness to bring them to the inquest, and so forth. But we see nothing that hints at anything like that. Unfortunately, this is not a strong argument because it’s an absence of evidence being taken as evidence of absence! We might just no longer have access to documents where this dismay, if you will, was recorded – or it was not put to paper, etc). However, that’s where we stand, with no evidence to bolster the idea that Schwartz was expected to be there but Schwartz himself decided not to attend.

So, if we allow that a decision by Schwartz himself is missing expected evidence of that decision and so decide that’s a less likely explanation, then we’re left with a decision not to call him to the inquest.

This type of idea has broken down into two points where that decision could have been made. The first of which is that Baxter decided not to call him. Variations on why have been that Baxter didn’t believe him (sometimes pointing to the Star article that has different details from his police statement), or Baxter didn’t feel he added any additional information. I think the first of those is just not supportable. Baxter’s behaviour in other inquests, and the Stride inquest, point to someone who wants everything on the record. He would not allow the omitting of medical testimony that the doctor’s believed was post-mortem (and therefore not relevant to cause of death) at the Chapman inquest, and he allowed testimony of witnesses that his questions to them suggest a level of disbelief (Mary Malcolm’s identification of Stride as her sister). The latter is important to note because identification of the victim’s name is one of the main purposes of the inquest, and to allow testimony that he appeared to have little faith in would be far more likely to be excluded than testimony that cannot get directly to the main points of the inquest.

While one could argue that’s the main difference, because Mary Malcolm was “on point”, she had to be allowed to testify even if Baxter didn’t believe it, while he could exercise discretion on Schwartz’s testimony. But again, that doesn’t appear to be what he did with the post-mortem injuries, which were also not relevant to the cause of death, and were requested to be omitted. Moreover, there’s no reason for Baxter not to believe Schwartz, the Star article notwithstanding. Reports in the news of this sort were highly unreliable, and the Star is not the sort of paper one would expect Baxter to read (it was a tabloid paper, and Baxter would be of a social position where more respectable papers would be his read of choice; probably the Times would be my guess). Furthermore, even if he were aware, the inquest would be the ideal time to resolve such conflicts, as the testimony would be given under oath, under threat of punishment for perjury, etc. The testimony about Stride not having eaten any grapes, for example, was introduced in part due to Packer’s press statements and Packer doesn’t even appear at the inquest. PC Mizen was asked about, and denied, continuing to knock up people, which was a statement in the press, and does not get repeated by either Cross or Paul at that inquest. So the idea that conflict in the press would be a reason to exclude a witness does not seem a viable reason.

The second line of idea for the “decided not to include Schwartz” is that Baxter was never informed of Schwartz and he did not get Schwartz’s testimony in order to select him, placing the decision to withhold Schwartz with the police.

And that idea has also shown a division, into what I’ll call the “failure of the system” ideas (clerical error, or culling by a lower ranked officier), and the “decision to withhold” type (still investigating his story; too valuable a witness to release to the public, type of suggestion).

I had thrown out for consideration the clerical error idea as one of the system failure types. The more I think about this, the less I think it is likely, for the same reasons I think the “deliberate culling by a lower ranked officer” is also less likely. Again, system failures, while they do occur, are undesirable events, and create a level of frustration with those responsible that the system as a whole works. Once the higher ups, who in both of those cases we’re assuming expected Schwartz to be at the inquest, found out his details were not sent to Baxter, there would be some sort of internal investigation to find out why. But we see nothing of the sort even hinted at. Again, it’s another absence of evidence problem, but since we’re in a black hole of information, it’s all we’ve got. And, I’ve had to suggest the whole “Schwartz decided” idea is reduced for this reason, so I can’t really change my approach now.

And that leaves us with some unknown difference about Schwartz that might lead the police to not put him forth as a witness. We’ve suggested it may be due to his need of a translator, but we now know that was done in the past when necessary. That, I think, removes that idea.

We do know the police were investigating Schwartz’s statement, and following up on leads from it, so we can rule out they didn’t believe him. Moreover, there’s nothing to form a basis of disbelief in him at this point. They might have formed an opinion as to the quality of him as a witness (i.e. comes across as undecided, or unsure, etc), but until their investigations were complete they could not have decided he was wrong or fabricating evidence.

So what was it about Schwartz that might lead the police to withhold him from the inquest? Well, his testimony is the closest thing to witnessing a murder they had. It is even possible that’s what he was seeing. He also was able to provide somewhat of a description of the man seen roughing up Stride. And his description is not all that much different from Lawende’s description of the man seen with a woman at the end of Church Passage, whom Lawende tentatively identifies as Eddowes via recognition of clothing.

If the police did withhold Schwartz from the inquest, then perhaps the reason was more because they viewed him as potentially too important to a court case, and to the investigation as a whole. As Schwartz’s information pertaining to time and location would be more or less redundant to other witnesses, while his description of events and Stride’s attacker would not add to the inquest itself, holding him back may have been seen as prudent. If so, there would be no need for internal chatter as to why Schwartz wasn’t there, there would be nothing to be surprised about.

Anyway, I’m not saying that has to be the case. There are lots of decision points where I’ve suggested a turn which could very easily be argued to be unjustified. At least two of them are based upon absence of evidence, and that really is a poor basis for decision making. But we’re in a black hole, and either we refuse to enter, and just say “he didn’t appear and we don’t know why” (which perhaps we should do), or we take the risk of trying to navigate through it, and run the very high risk of making a wrong turn.

What I’ve outlined is my attempt at that, greatly influenced by the ongoing conversations of the moment. I can’t defend it all that well, as it’s weak as soggy chips, but it is one path.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Jeff,

I’d say that this is about as fair a summing up as can be done with the information (or rather the lack of it) that we have at our disposal. The only suggestion that I might add is the one where Schwartz himself asked to be ‘excused’ from the Inquest? We don’t know anything about Schwartz character and so he might have been a nervous type. Perhaps the type that might have felt that BS Man (a man who might have been Jack The Ripper) might be looking at reprisals. Maybe he even worried that he might even have targeted his wife? However unreasonable these fears might appear to us they may have appeared very real to Schwartz there and then. Schwartz might have expressed these fears to the police? Couldn’t it be a possibility therefore that Schwartz asked to be left out and that Baxter, who probably intended on calling him, simply weighed up this request against the fact that Schwartz could add nothing to the specific requirements of the inquest and agreed to leave him out? Another speculation here but might the police have been worried that Schwartz might have gone into hiding after putting in a public appearance at the inquest? Especially if they might have relied on him to identify the killer at some point?

[Trevor Marriott]

Some are even suggesting.RJ,it might not even have been an assault that Schwartz observed.Myself for one,and it is possible Stride herself initiated the incident.An activity that occupied less than five seconds of time,and seems to have taken Schwartz by surprise,could easily,as you have remarked,been misinterpreted ,or on recall, have been of uncertain remembrance.There is no evidence,that I recall,of injuries received by having been thrown down,a description, that to me,suggests some extreme force.

There is always the possibility that she was out on the street peddling her wares and the man she approached was not interested and simply pushed her aside!

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[JeffHamm]

There is always the possibility that she was out on the street peddling her wares and the man she approached was not interested and simply pushed her aside!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Hi Trevor,

Yes, and Swanson agreed that was a possibility too. That general idea can also be applied to Long's sighting or Lawende's too. There's nothing that rules out, for example, that the CPC could be Eddowes and someone, but they part ways, Eddowes into Mitre Square and the man up Duke Street, and Eddowes bumps into JtR.

We don't know, so we're left with probabilities, and it depends upon how one weights them. We can't rule it out completely (we never can rule anything out with 100% probability; i.e. "X was in France; but maybe the sighting was in error, or the person lied, or ...."), but we can try and work with the likelihoods. Sadly, without proper studies into them, we rely on entirely subjective ideas of them; and those sorts of probabilities, are dangerous to truth.

It's nice to see that we do agree on things at times, sorry for waxing philosophical there at the end, the short story is I'm genuinely in alignment with you on this point.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

I’d say that this is about as fair a summing up as can be done with the information (or rather the lack of it) that we have at our disposal. The only suggestion that I might add is the one where Schwartz himself asked to be ‘excused’ from the Inquest? We don’t know anything about Schwartz character and so he might have been a nervous type. Perhaps the type that might have felt that BS Man (a man who might have been Jack The Ripper) might be looking at reprisals. Maybe he even worried that he might even have targeted his wife? However unreasonable these fears might appear to us they may have appeared very real to Schwartz there and then. Schwartz might have expressed these fears to the police? Couldn’t it be a possibility therefore that Schwartz asked to be left out and that Baxter, who probably intended on calling him, simply weighed up this request against the fact that Schwartz could add nothing to the specific requirements of the inquest and agreed to leave him out? Another speculation here but might the police have been worried that Schwartz might have gone into hiding after putting in a public appearance at the inquest? Especially if they might have relied on him to identify the killer at some point?

Hi Herlock,

Hmmmm, I see the logic of your suggestion, and it does work, at least on an abstract level. I don't get the impression that Baxter would be moved by that type of request, though. I get the impression that he saw his position as one of importance to the higher cause of justice (for lack of a better way of putting it), and so would expect one to make sacrifices to achieve that goal. His interjection of the idea of "medical doctor looking for wombs for sale", in the Chapman case, points to someone who believes their own ideas are so worthy of interjection that he didn't require them to be introduced to his court, he would do that himself if need be. I can't see him letting a mere witness (in his eyes) off the hook for being timid of nature.

I could be wrong, and his personality as it comes through in written text may be distorted. But, I would think if he was inclined to let Schwartz not testify because Schwartz was fearful of his name being put "out in the public domain", let's say, then given people could testify under other names they were known by, all he would have to do, with a "wink and a nod", is find out another name by which Schwartz was known, if you get my drift, nudge nudge.

That way, the information could come out, but not the name of the source.

That's all hypothetical, though, and I think the best argument against the idea is that Schwartz spoke to the press already. He hasn't shown a reluctance to have his name associated with the case, so it seems less likely that he would try and use that as a reason not to attend. Sure, people change their minds, etc, but all we have is the fact there is evidence that Schwartz allowed his name and story to be put into the public domain, and he also was willing to speak to the police. That doesn't strike me as someone who would later ask not to be included because they were afraid of speaking. Rather, it sounds more like someone who felt their information should be "out there".

- Jeff

[Michael W Richards]

Israels statement could easily have been provided to the Inquest and kept from release at the public airing of the investigation results. That inclusion would have been noted with the Inquest documents. They also could have withheld the name. Neither happened.

It seems some believe he was there and saw Liz attacked anyway. Despite the fact that 2 witnesses just before 12:45 didnt see anyone in the street or area, confirmed by Fanny and the young couple as being deserted during the time from 12:35 until 12:55. Only Goldstein was seen outside the gates, and right around the estimated earliest cut time, but we also have the matter of a few witnesses.. who stated at the same time 2 club affiliated witnesses saw no-one and nothing, that they were gathered...with others,...inside the passageway around the dying woman.

Since it can be established that at some later date Israel is directedly associated with the club, and Wess... he might have been interested in people there and its causes on the night Stride is killed. Which would make much more sense....him leaving the club after the meeting...than him going to some unknown address to see if his wife have finished moving meager possessions 12 hours earlier.

Its quite possible he lived in a passageway cottage as far as I can tell, since no-one has been able to locate his "old" address that Saturday morning. Maybe he saw what he says he saw from a different vantage point, inside the gates. which would make not a single person seeing his alleged event or any people on that street, possible. And confirm the probabilities, which suggest that Strides murder came from that property.

You have the young couple with a view of that street that whole half hour, and Fanny "off and on". They saw no-one save Goldstein.

[Michael W Richards]

Hi rj,

To be precise, he claims to have viewed her being assaulted 15 minutes before the body was discovered,...

And a number of people claim to have seen the dying woman while in the company of Louis and others 15 minutes before he says he even arrived, and at the same time Israel says he saw her with 2 men on the street. Funny thing that "15 minutes".

But Sugden also suggested that Stride might have been a killing, as in singular--not 'killings.'

As did Mr Evans when I asked him directly on the matter in the old days when he visited from time to time.

There are loads of people who dont see a "ripping" where there is none in evidence, nor a double murder by ripper who doesnt rip sometimes. Funny how we (they) are the subject of such admonishment when the evidence itself actually supports that position, not the one people want to believe despite that fact.

People want a Double Event, they want to explain differences using presumptions, and above all they cannot fathom 2 men or more killing street women in LVP London. Like there was any shortage of thugs in the East End at that very time.

[c.d.]

There are loads of people who dont see a "ripping" where there is none in evidence, nor a double murder by ripper who doesnt rip sometimes. Funny how we (they) are the subject of such admonishment when the evidence itself actually supports that position, not the one people want to believe despite that fact.

I can't speak for other people but for me my beliefs about the case and the positions that I take have nothing to do with "want."

And why do you always have to include snarky little shots at other posters who God forbid don't hold your views? It does nothing to bolster your arguments.

c.d.

[Wickerman]

That's all hypothetical, though, and I think the best argument against the idea is that Schwartz spoke to the press already........ but all we have is the fact there is evidence that Schwartz allowed his name and story to be put into the public domain, and he also was willing to speak to the police. That doesn't strike me as someone who would later ask not to be included because they were afraid of speaking. Rather, it sounds more like someone who felt their information should be "out there".

- Jeff

You mean the article where he was only described as the "Hungarian"?

[JeffHamm]

You mean the article where he was only described as the "Hungarian"?

Hi Wickerman,

You're correct, I've remembered it wrong, I thought his name was in that article but have double checked and he is only referred to as "an Hungarian." I suppose he may have refused to give his name, but it would be hard to track him down if the press didn't know it. So, it would have been up to trust that if he spoke to the press that they wouldn't mention it (which to me points to someone naive, and lucky in this instance, but not avoiding all contact). Still, you're point is taken. I'm not sure that reverses the outcome, but it does take away from how tipped to one side one could argue it to be.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

The problem with the comment in post #594 is that I (because very obviously the comment is aimed at least partially at me) have stated on numerous occasions that it isn’t proven that Stride was a victim of the ripper. There is at least doubt so I don’t know how this fictional position, that there is a desperate effort to have a double event, can be maintained? It’s fiction. All that exists is an acknowledgment of the very obvious fact of two women/prostitutes having their throats cut within an hour of each other and within a 15 walking distance of each other and that come after 2 other throat-cutting prostitute murders. And so the police (of any era) would have to have considered the possibility that Stride was killed by the same hand. So the only person that has any incentive to indulge in a bit of shoehorning is the man with the theory. A theory that, after 10+ years, he’s still failed to convince anyone of the validity of.

Then of course we have the desperate ‘evidence of absence’ argument which, embarrassingly, Michael persists with. It’s truly baffling how an adult can use this point. Can we prove that Stride’s killer was interrupted? Of course we can’t and no one has suggested that this is a proven fact but equally we cannot disprove it. It remains (and will continue to remain to all but Michael) an entirely plausible possibility. It cannot be dismissed. If the killer was interrupted we could expect there to have been absolutely no evidence of this interruption. Michael is asking for proof of something that wouldn’t have existed in the first place. This is what has to be resorted to when such a level of desperation is reached I’m afraid.

[JeffHamm]

Hi rj,



There are loads of people who dont see a "ripping" where there is none in evidence, nor a double murder by ripper who doesnt rip sometimes. Funny how we (they) are the subject of such admonishment when the evidence itself actually supports that position, not the one people want to believe despite that fact.

People want a Double Event, they want to explain differences using presumptions, and above all they cannot fathom 2 men or more killing street women in LVP London. Like there was any shortage of thugs in the East End at that very time.

People believe what they want to believe. That applies to all of us here, myself included. Personally, I don't know what to believe with regards to Stride and whether or not she was a Ripper victim. At times I see she could be, at times I see she could not be. As a result, I think anyone who has a definite answer one way or the other is dealing with a coin flip, and they're sure it will come up as they called it. Hey, they might be right, but the coin's still spinning. At least, that's what I believe.

- Jeff

[Wickerman]

....... But, I would think if he was inclined to let Schwartz not testify because Schwartz was fearful of his name being put "out in the public domain", let's say, then given people could testify under other names they were known by, all he would have to do, with a "wink and a nod", is find out another name by which Schwartz was known, if you get my drift, nudge nudge.

- Jeff

I think Schwartz could have been represented by an officer who reads his statement aloud to the inquest. I can't see why the name of the witness would have to be divulged to the court so long as the statement was given by a trusted authority.
A somewhat similar scenario played out in the Coles case, though in this case it was the accused, Sadler, who did not appear at the Coles inquest and his statement was read aloud by the Prosecutor.
I know it's not exactly the same, but I think it shows there was a degree of flexibility in presenting a statement to the court.
So I think if it was a case of 'incognito' they would have got around it.