If Schwartz Lied ...

[Herlock Sholmes]

.
I do not buy the idea of club members dumping the body onto Louis' cart, and then dumping it somewhere well away from the yard, as being one that would have been seriously considered by anyone, under any circumstances. It's a ludicrous notion.

How is it anymore far fetched than this…..

Diemschutz finds the body at 12.40ish when he returns unseen or heard to the yard.

He and the other members decide that, despite the fact that this crime was obviously going to be considered one of the series, the club was going to be held responsible by the police and that they would then close down the club.

Then, on the spot, they come up with the idea of a false witness who will show that the killer wasn’t a Jew.

They are either too moronic to understand or too complacent to care that there might be a witness or witnesses who might step forward and show that this incident didn’t take place.

More importantly perhaps Schwartz doesn’t care about the above possibility which might have left the police pointing the finger of suspicion at Schwartz himself.

Despite the area being full of English speaking Jews they pick one that speaks no English.

They get the killer to utter the phrase ‘Lipski’ which he presents a bit vaguely rather than something more obviously insulting like “go away you Jewish pig” which would have been far more clear cut.

They also miss the glaringly obvious ploy of having him say that the attacker had an Irish accent which they could have done with an English speaking false witness.


There’s very little that’s as ‘ludicrous’ as this plot. No aspect of it holds water.

[Herlock Sholmes]

... the murderer had no doubt been disturbed in his work, as about a quarter to one o'clock on Sunday morning he was seen- or, at least, a man whom the public prefer to regard as the murderer- being chased by another man along Fairclough-street ...

12.45 a.m. 30th. Israel Schwartz ... finding that he was followed by the second man he ran so far as the railway arch but the man did not follow so far.

What wasn't a chase?

Two people walking in the same direction isn’t a chase. When Schwartz ran Pipeman didn’t run after him.

Not a chase. Hope that helps.

[Herlock Sholmes]

. That's right! How on earth did the murderer get by Fanny Mortimer, twice?

I see another tactic beginning here.

You’re now casually slipping in this idea that Fanny Mortimer saw Goldstein twice as if it’s a fact.

She saw Goldstein once.

[Herlock Sholmes]

. The first option requires Stride to leak blood for many minutes after death.

Which has been shown to have been absolutely possible so there’s no issue there. And yet you keep mentioning it as a mystery….unsurprisingly.

[Herlock Sholmes]

sted by Fiver View Post

Fanny Mortimer doesn't appear to have seen this chase at 12:45, either.

>Because Schwartz was a fake witness<

And of course Fanny didn’t see Diemschutz arrive back earlier either but we can brush that one under the carpet.

[Curious Cat]

The timings of the night have already been gone through with NBFN in another thread. My question there was never answered so I might as well bring it here to see if clarification can be had.

In regard to Abraham Hoshberg and Dr Blackwell's timings...

So this one witness knocks about 15 minutes off the times independently given by 7 other witnesses, one of which has their watch on them? Is a doctor really likely to have his own watch out by a full 15 minutes?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

So, are you now in agreement the two men were Diemshitz & Kozebrodski?

I'm not sure who I'd be agreeing with if I thought that was the truth, but anyway I'm not sure.
Arbeter Fraint supports Louis' claim to have searched, but I don't think anyone else does, at least not in an unambiguous way.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Two people walking in the same direction isn’t a chase. When Schwartz ran Pipeman didn’t run after him.

Not a chase. Hope that helps.

It helps a lot, thanks. This is from a report written by Abberline, and dated Nov 1:

Schwartz being a foreigner and unable to speak English became alarmed and ran away. The man whom he saw lighting his pipe also ran in the same direction as himself, but whether this man was running after him or not he could not tell, he might have been alarmed the same as himself and ran away.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I see another tactic beginning here.

You’re now casually slipping in this idea that Fanny Mortimer saw Goldstein twice as if it’s a fact.

She saw Goldstein once.

On the first occasion Goldstein walked down the street and around the board school corner. Fanny witnessed this.
That is not getting around her - which is a metaphor for avoiding detection of ones presence or intention. eg: that's Leather Apron getting round you
So your claim is irrelevant.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

The timings of the night have already been gone through with NBFN in another thread. My question there was never answered so I might as well bring it here to see if clarification can be had.

In regard to Abraham Hoshberg and Dr Blackwell's timings...

I don't think it likely at all that Blackwell's watch was out 15 minutes.
Why do you ask? Are you having doubts about Blackwell? I guess he had been asleep.

[caz]

The Schwartz incident adds considerably to the rich tapestry of Ripperology. Why throw that section away, just because the story is unlikely?

What Schwartz described - through his interpreter - was indeed unlikely in Abberline's opinion. He favoured "Lipski" being aimed at Schwartz due to his strong Jewish appearance, and Pipeman not being an accomplice, but simply following Schwartz's example of leaving the scene of the confrontation between BS man and Stride. Schwartz admitted under close questioning that this might have been the case, as he couldn't actually say who was addressing whom or why. That doesn't sound at all unlikely to me, and has a ring of truth about it, but that's just my opinion versus yours. There is nothing about this that works, if Schwartz was supposed to be adhering to a club-friendly script.

I neither accept Schwartz's statements, as they were translated and given to the police, or as reported in the paper, nor reject the witnessed assault out of hand. It does seem highly implausible that someone with no English would describe an invented assault on the murder victim, putting himself so near the scene of crime for no apparent gain. He had only to be caught out in a deliberate lie, or found to be making the whole thing up [if more than one witness had already described a deserted street between, say, 12.35 and 12.55], and he could have found himself in very hot water, with plenty of explaining to do and no English to help him.

I continue to allow for several possibilities regarding Stride's killer, because I have seen nothing to rule any of them out.

1) There was an assault on Stride, around 12.45, which was totally unrelated to her murder, which took place nearer to 1am.
2) It was only related in so far as her killer watched the assault from the shadows and took advantage by pretending to come to her aid.
3) The assault was quickly followed up by the murder, both by the same man, as soon as the coast was clear again.
4) The killer may or may not have been BS man, and may or may not have been the ripper.

[Curious Cat]

I don't think it likely at all that Blackwell's watch was out 15 minutes.
Why do you ask? Are you having doubts about Blackwell? I guess he had been asleep.

No I'm not having doubts about Dr Blackwell.

The suggestion that Diemschutz found the body at 0:45am rather than 1am and then took part in a conspiracy to shift the timings would mean Dr Blackwell's watch was out by the exactly required 15 minutes before his arrival on the scene. Meaning if his watch really was out by 15 minutes through sheer coincidence, he turned up barely a couple of minutes after PC Ayliffe came off point duty at 1am.

Did Dr Blackwell arrive at the scene just as PC Ayliffe finished his fixed point duty at 1am?

[caz]

I associated those words with lines from the Star account. It was convenient for Schwartz to have a friend interpret for him, and it was 'lucky' for the Star reporter to have run Schwartz to earth with an interpreter conveniently at hand.
How did you work out that Schwartz thought one of the men were named Lipski? Where is that stated?

Without that friend to interpret his account, it would have been rather inconvenient for the readers to see it in Hungarian, or whatever was his first language.

We know about Lipski from the police statement, and the fact that the police went looking for men named Lipski. Not much point in wasting precious resources on such enquiries if it was clear as day that the only Lipski in the affair was Schwartz himself, earning the insult for his unwanted intrusion. The ambiguity of the story points to it being an honest attempt by someone with no English, who was more fearful than curious at the time, to make sense of what he had witnessed. If his account was coloured by the news that the woman had been murdered, that would be natural enough, and not an indication that he was consciously adapting the story to fit.

That might have helped, but the Jew/Gentile issue is secondary. If you recall my post regarding the Star accounts of prisoners, and Schwartz non-appearance at the inquest (the one you couldn't be arsed replying to), I focused on the issue of Schwartz amplifying the aggressiveness of Pipeman, relative to his police account. It is the behavior of the other men that is the real issue, not their religious background. In the Star account, no one says 'Lipski'.

Every word reported by Star man should be taken with a generous pinch of salt. It's the nature of the beast, and who knows what leading questions were asked of Schwartz, via his interpreter, in an all too typical attempt to make more of the story? One man pushing an unfortunate, and two men making themselves scarce? Hardly story of the week, is it? "Ask him if the pipe was not more likely to have been a knife, and how much more threatened that would have made him feel. Tell him that in his shoes, I'd have run away like a girl too, knowing the men were armed and dangerous and after blood."

I do not buy the idea of club members dumping the body onto Louis' cart, and then dumping it somewhere well away from the yard, as being one that would have been seriously considered by anyone, under any circumstances. It's a ludicrous notion.

That was not my idea, but how about the conspirators simply dragging the body out onto the pavement beyond the yard, where Schwartz would later claim the assault had taken place? Turn her on her back, raise her skirts a bit if possible, then go back inside and let some other poor devil make the discovery and raise the alarm? After all, there would have been no innocent witnesses at the time, or the conspiracy wouldn't have worked anyway.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

What Schwartz described - through his interpreter - was indeed unlikely in Abberline's opinion. He favoured "Lipski" being aimed at Schwartz due to his strong Jewish appearance, and Pipeman not being an accomplice, but simply following Schwartz's example of leaving the scene of the confrontation between BS man and Stride. Schwartz admitted under close questioning that this might have been the case, as he couldn't actually say who was addressing whom or why. That doesn't sound at all unlikely to me, and has a ring of truth about it, but that's just my opinion versus yours. There is nothing about this that works, if Schwartz was supposed to be adhering to a club-friendly script.

If Schwartz couldn't speak English then how could he say for sure who 'Lipski' was addressed to and why? Yet if Schwartz were in some sense a fake witness, and possibly knew some English, the most rational thing to do would be to say exactly what he did say - he didn't know for sure. In the fake scenario, he might have thought Abberline were trying to catch him out, by implying he had more understanding of the word in context, than a non-English speaker possibly could have.
This, by the way, is where Schwartz seems to have slipped up in the Star interview - he knows who the second man is shouting at, and that the shouting is a warning about Schwartz' presence on the scene.
The critical issue for me, is that Schwartz wanted to indicate that the two men were together - he makes this absolutely clear the next day. A bit too clear, really. However, by then the differences in the accounts of Schwartz and Pipeman had probably become apparent. So there might have been a bit of an arms race, for want of a better analogy.

I neither accept Schwartz's statements, as they were translated and given to the police, or as reported in the paper, nor reject the witnessed assault out of hand. It does seem highly implausible that someone with no English would describe an invented assault on the murder victim, putting himself so near the scene of crime for no apparent gain. He had only to be caught out in a deliberate lie, or found to be making the whole thing up [if more than one witness had already described a deserted street between, say, 12.35 and 12.55], and he could have found himself in very hot water, with plenty of explaining to do and no English to help him.

The assault was not invented. It happened earlier in the evening and was reported by an independent party. That is probably when Stride got the pressure points on her shoulders and all the mud down her left side. There was no mud in the laneway, especially after the rain had given the stones a good clean.
Schwartz had enough details about Stride that he was convincing. Possibly he described her clothing, and the flower(s), prior to being taken to mortuary.
It is the Pipeman and chase part of the story that let Schwartz down, but the overall situation was ambiguous.
As for there being no apparent gain, that really depends on who the killer was, and perhaps who was witnessed at about the time of the murder.

I continue to allow for several possibilities regarding Stride's killer, because I have seen nothing to rule any of them out.

1) There was an assault on Stride, around 12.45, which was totally unrelated to her murder, which took place nearer to 1am.
2) It was only related in so far as her killer watched the assault from the shadows and took advantage by pretending to come to her aid.
3) The assault was quickly followed up by the murder, both by the same man, as soon as the coast was clear again.
4) The killer may or may not have been BS man, and may or may not have been the ripper.

So here again is the bit from the Irish Times, I posted in #1048:

There do appear to be peculiarities in the tale of one of the [double event] murders that point more closely to a possible revelation. The woman was not in the company of her assailant. She carried in one hand sweetmeats and in another grapes, as if she were on her way to her home. She was surprised, grasped and her throat severed by a fierce attack, and it is hardly possible that this could have been done without some stains having been made upon the murderer's clothes.

Breaking this down...

The woman was not in the company of her assailant: This agrees with Schwartz' account.

She carried in one hand sweetmeats and in another grapes, as if she were on her way to her home: This contradicts Schwartz, who said she was standing in the gateway, and he did not seem to mention her carrying anything. On her way home would have her walking North. Schwartz and BS were walking South.

She was surprised, grasped and her throat severed by a fierce attack ... : This does not agree with Schwartz, who said the man stopped and spoke to the woman. Also, was Stride surprised because the man had come from the yard? Compare that to Stride standing in the gateway herself (for no obvious reason).

... and it is hardly possible that this could have been done without some stains having been made upon the murderer's clothes.: The man probably needs to make use of a local laundry service. He doesn't need to go far.

So essentially we have a mirror image of the Schwartz account. Stride walks, and the man is still. South becomes North. She carries something in each hand, rather than the man carrying nothing. Speaking in public view, becomes an ambush from the darkness of the yard. Also, there is no trying to pull her into the street - quite the opposite.

I think this anonymous account is closer to the truth, than any other theory.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Did Dr Blackwell arrive at the scene just as PC Ayliffe finished his fixed point duty at 1am?

No. I think he arrived close to or right on 1:16, as he said he did.