If Schwartz Lied ...

[Fiver]

The general idea here is far from fanciful and well within the bounds of the known evidence. Im suggesting that Louis arrived earlier than he said, he and Eagle lied about the actual facts of their arrivals. Why? Because they were esssentially the senior representatives of the club on scene at that time and a woman had been found gravely injured on their property. They discusssed how to handle this. Why? Beacuse they knew the police would just love to have an excuse to shut them down, and both these men made money from the club. Simple. Works with the majority of matching times by witnesses, works with the police and medical statements, and is easily understandable under the circumstances.

None of your speculation refutes my point in any way.

If club members were worried that a murder on their property would give the authorities a reason to close their club, then the problem is where the murder occurred, not when it occurred. Lying about when the body was found does nothing to solve that problem. None of the club members had any reason to lie about when the body was found.

The problem is where the body was found. If the club members wanted to hide that, they would have pitched the body in the back of the cart, covered it so it wouldn't be seen, and moved it to somewhere that wasn't on the property of the club. Meanwhile, everyone agrees they saw nothing, none of them raises an alarm, and none of them would run for the police. But the club members did nothing to hide where the body was found.

In addition to your theorized conspiracy being unable to solve the theorized problem, Joshua Rogan's posts (#171 & #172) demolish your theorized motive for the conspiracy. There would be no better excuse for closing the club the March 1889 violence at the club where members, Diemschutz and Kozebrodsky were arrested for assaulting the police. Joshua Rogan also shows that there was a police spy, Julius Minsky, present at the club and a conspiracy to lie to the police would have been plenty of excuse to arrest the conspirators and shut down the club.

[Fiver]

Later a man who we can say either has, or will have, a direct relationship with the club and Wess, comes in to give a story that says..I saw the woman attacked on the street by a antisemetic gentile. Just before she was killed by the evidence. That makes her murderer a antisemite, it puts the initial assault all the way into the street, and suggests that someone from outside the club kills her. If anyone doesnt see the potential for misdirection of blame here you arent looking closely.

You have yet to supply any evidence that Israel Schwartz had a connection to the Berner Street Club, let alone a reason to lie for it. Them all being Jews does not cut it. Schwartz did not say that he saw Stride being attacked by an "antisemetic gentile", as Herlock Sholmes noted back in post #78, the police started looking for a man named Lipski, not an "antisemetic gentile".

[Herlock Sholmes]

None of your speculation refutes my point in any way.

If club members were worried that a murder on their property would give the authorities a reason to close their club, then the problem is where the murder occurred, not when it occurred. Lying about when the body was found does nothing to solve that problem. None of the club members had any reason to lie about when the body was found.

The problem is where the body was found. If the club members wanted to hide that, they would have pitched the body in the back of the cart, covered it so it wouldn't be seen, and moved it to somewhere that wasn't on the property of the club. Meanwhile, everyone agrees they saw nothing, none of them raises an alarm, and none of them would run for the police. But the club members did nothing to hide where the body was found.

In addition to your theorized conspiracy being unable to solve the theorized problem, Joshua Rogan's posts (#171 & #172) demolish your theorized motive for the conspiracy. There would be no better excuse for closing the club the March 1889 violence at the club where members, Diemschutz and Kozebrodsky were arrested for assaulting the police. Joshua Rogan also shows that there was a police spy, Julius Minsky, present at the club and a conspiracy to lie to the police would have been plenty of excuse to arrest the conspirators and shut down the club.

Excellent points Fiver. Crucial ones too.

We’re being asked to accept too much and to dismiss too much to make this conspiracy work. If the body was discovered at 12.35 as Michael suggests then we have to accept that a group of men stood around in a yard with the body of a murdered women with the gates open where any inquisitive passerby might have taken an interest. Luckily PC Smith passing at 12.30-12.35 saw no crowd of men in the yard to draw his attention. But if Diemschutz and Spooner got back to the yard at 12.35 as Michael suggests then the body must have been discovered close to 12.30. In which case how did Smith not see the men in the yard?

And if, again as Michael suggests, that some of them straight away went for a police officer how does this equate to a plan? How could they have instantly have come up with the idea that, within a few hours, they would be able to find someone willing to lie to the police and place himself at the scene of a murder that was very obviously going to be attributed to the most wanted and loathed man in the country? And why then would they choose a man that spoke no English?

Not to mention of course (and I believe that Caz made this point) what a bunch of heartless bastards! There was a maniac around killing women on those very streets. Their wives, girlfriends, daughters and sisters were all at risk of being butchered and yet this lot are more interested in falsifying evidence and setting the police off on a false track. Does Michael think that all socialists are heartless.

And of course we have to ask when those men went looking for a Constable. On one hand we have Diemschutz who Michael believes returned to the yard with Spooner at 12.35 and yet we have PC Lamb returning to the yard with Eagle at sometime around 1.05. Did Eagle and Lamb both lie? Eagle said that he first saw the body at 1.00 and Lamb said that Blackwell arrived around 10 minutes after him (Blackwell had a watch and arrived at exactly 1.16.) It’s madness. How could 2 ‘search parties’ have gone out 25 minutes apart?

And its it amazing and a bit sad that we have to point this stuff out?

[Abby Normal]

Jeff, I think you're disputing things I didn't say. As I made clear in my original post his evidence would be of value at trial, so of course the police hadn't dismissed his input. Why would they? Can Schwartz say who has died? No. He doesn't know her. Can he say when she died? No. She was still alive when he left the scene. Can he say where she died? No - same reason. Can he say how she died? No - same reason. The answers to all four relevant questions are established by the testimony of other witnesses. His evidence adds nothing that would be of interest to the coroner. Also, it is the coroner, not the police, who decides which witnesses to call to an inquest. The police just gather the evidence. The most likely explanation for Schwartz not giving evidence at the inquest is that the coroner decided his evidence would add nothing relevant to an inquest that could not be covered by other witnesses. Yes, Schwartz was considered, by the police, to be a witness whose statement was worth pursuing (with a eye to a possible future trial) but I never said anything to the contrary.

he could help answer all of those questions for the coronor bridewell. no one really knew anything for sure at that point. at the very least he could help confirm.

[JeffHamm]

Jeff, I think you're disputing things I didn't say. As I made clear in my original post his evidence would be of value at trial, so of course the police hadn't dismissed his input. Why would they? Can Schwartz say who has died? No. He doesn't know her. Can he say when she died? No. She was still alive when he left the scene. Can he say where she died? No - same reason. Can he say how she died? No - same reason. The answers to all four relevant questions are established by the testimony of other witnesses. His evidence adds nothing that would be of interest to the coroner. Also, it is the coroner, not the police, who decides which witnesses to call to an inquest. The police just gather the evidence. The most likely explanation for Schwartz not giving evidence at the inquest is that the coroner decided his evidence would add nothing relevant to an inquest that could not be covered by other witnesses. Yes, Schwartz was considered, by the police, to be a witness whose statement was worth pursuing (with a eye to a possible future trial) but I never said anything to the contrary.

Hi,

If Schwartz's sighting can't be seen to be relevant to the questions you raise above, as you say, then I fail to see why any witnesses were asked to give statements given none of them even saw a dispute, let alone a man throwing the victim to the ground. Nobody, apart from someone actually witnessing the murder itself, appears able to get a yes to your questions so it's odd we have any witnesses at all.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Jeff’s right of course. Elizabeth Tanner, Catherine Lane and Charles Preston were hardly vital witnesses and yet they appeared at the Inquest and so we would expect Schwartz to have been called as well. That said, I think Colin’s right too, in saying that on the question of ‘how’ Stride died, Schwartz could have added precisely zero and on the ‘when,’ the most he could have contributed was to show that she was alive at 12.45 and dead at 1.00. So he’s narrowing it down from Smith’s sighting.

Jeff also made a great point on the suggestion that Schwartz wasn’t included at the Inquest because the Police had no faith in his evidence. Apart from the obvious facts that the Inquest began the day after the murder and that the police were looking for a Mr Lipski and that they subsequently took a man in for questioning and that senior Police officials were still discussing Schwartz as a witness into November we still have to consider the other ropey witnesses called to various Inquests. Unless the Police could categorically have proven Schwartz a liar (which they obviously couldn’t) then any slight doubts that they might have had surely couldn’t have been reason enough to have excluded him.

So might Schwartz have asked to be excused from appearing if he felt that he might have been in danger of reprisals from BS Man? Could the Coroner, when weighing up the ‘benefit’ of Schwartz appearing and the ‘risk’ to Schwartz of appearing, he might have excused him? Might he even have factored in the difficulty and even the added expense of using an interpreter and thought that Schwartz absence wouldn’t have been much loss to the aims of the Inquest? I don’t know? Or, as I’ve previously suggested, Schwartz couldn’t have been called to an Inquest if the police couldn’t find him to do it. ‘Disappearing’ was much easier in those days than it is today. If Schwartz was afraid (with or without good reason of course) he could have been anywhere. How much time and manpower would the police have expended combing the capitol for Israel Schwartz? Hardly any I’d suggest.

None of us can state the reason for Schwartz absence from the Inquest with anything like certainty. We can only conjecture. We are on solid ground though when we say that it wasn’t because the Police disregarded him. The written evidence dismisses that suggestion conclusively.

So when we look at Schwartz on the whole we have to wonder why Michael is so insistent that he knows why Schwartz was absent. He’s not conjecturing like the rest of us. No, he knows. So why this obviously unfounded certainty? The answer is very obvious of course. It’s because he needs evidence to discredit Schwartz and this is an opportunity. It’s an unfounded one but it’s an opportunity nonetheless to plant the seed. And because the evidence doesn’t support it all that he has left to do is to keep on repeating it as if he was there and he knows it to be a fact. It’s not an a fact. My suggestion that Schwartz might have gone into hiding isn’t a fact either. It’s merely a suggestion on my part. The difference between my suggestion and Michael’s is that mine can’t be completely dismissed by the facts.

[Varqm]

Hi,

If Schwartz's sighting can't be seen to be relevant to the questions you raise above, as you say, then I fail to see why any witnesses were asked to give statements given none of them even saw a dispute, let alone a man throwing the victim to the ground. Nobody, apart from someone actually witnessing the murder itself, appears able to get a yes to your questions so it's odd we have any witnesses at all.

- Jeff

They do not see the way inquests are run by Baxter.The victim is a stranger and all her relatives/partner(s) are called,fellow lodgers are called,lodging house deputies are called,also witnessess that will help set a timeline starting from the previous evening leading up to the early morning till the dead victim was found.The witnessess needed that were not there,the coroner/jury were mentioning and /or instructing the police to find like Thomas Conway,John Stride,Ted stanley,Mrs. Watts,etc..No question Schwartz would have been mentioned and called.This was a professional inquest.Was there any witness with two conflicting statements?
But some posters think Mary Ann Monk, Alfred Mulshaw,Richard Pearce were more important than Schwartz as to the who,the why and the how of the inquest.Ok.

[caz]

Not to mention when Diemschutz and Kozebrodsky were arrested a few months later for violently attacking the police. And yet the club stayed open for several more years.

I think that just about puts the tin hat on Michael's tin pot theory, Josh.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The Daily News 2 Oct kind of blew his cover ;-)

"Julius Minsky, a Police Jew and a member of the club, states that at the time when the alarm was raised, just after one o'clock, there were some 20 or 30 members in the club room upstairs."

Minsky wasn't much cop then, if he didn't realise Stride had been discovered by Louis at 12.40, but the alarm wasn't raised for another 20 minutes.

Or was he in on Michael's madcap conspiracy?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Not sure how many constables were avaialble to plant in groups or clubs Sunny, but I do know that women of the night were paid by the policeto act as Informants, or "noses" as they were called. Interesting in context with Kates injuries.

'Women of the night'??

[Herlock Sholmes]

'Women of the night'??

He means Unfortunates.

[caz]

You have yet to supply any evidence that Israel Schwartz had a connection to the Berner Street Club, let alone a reason to lie for it. Them all being Jews does not cut it. Schwartz did not say that he saw Stride being attacked by an "antisemetic gentile", as Herlock Sholmes noted back in post #78, the police started looking for a man named Lipski, not an "antisemetic gentile".

We've all been saying this, Fiver, for a long time now - that Schwartz said the complete opposite of what Michael wants him to have said and keeps claiming he did say. I don't know why Michael would want to come across as someone who has as much trouble with plain English as Schwartz did.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

He means Unfortunates.

Hi Herlock,

I suspect we should now reserve the term 'unfortunate' for all those awful Jewish socialist anarchists Michael wants us to believe were as bad as Jack the Ripper.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

I suspect we should now reserve the term 'unfortunate' for all those awful Jewish socialist anarchists Michael wants us to believe were as bad as Jack the Ripper.

Hi Caz,

They were certainly unfortunate enough to have worried about a non-existent issue. Then they were unfortunate enough that the only sucker that they could find to lie to the police for them was one that couldn’t speak English. Then they were unfortunate enough that no one thought of moving the body. And unfortunate enough that they forgot to tell everyone about the cover up.

Some people just have no luck Caz.

.....

Why didn’t Diemschutz say that when he got down from his cart a man tried to push past him. They struggled during which time the man threatened him ‘with a recognisable accent like Scottish or Irish for example.’ Simples. He would definitely have been assumed to have been the killer. He was Scottish/Irish therefore not a member of a Jewish Club. No need for a complex cover up that could go wrong. No need to find an idiot to place himself at the scene (and certainly not a non-English speaker) And as a bonus, a club member Diemschutz bravely struggled with Jack the Ripper.

[Abby Normal]

'Women of the night'??

lol. vampires??