If Schwartz Lied ...

[GBinOz]

One problem that we have is that we don’t know how FM came to her 12.45 time. We have no way of knowing if there was a clock or a watch in her house but as she went over to the yard and would undoubtedly have talked to others standing around it’s quite likely that someone told her that Diemschutz had discovered the body at 1.00. We don’t know what time she received this info but it might have been 1.15 or later. There would then have been a gap of time before she spoke to the Police so this would have meant that she was left to try and estimate a time that she’d heard Smith passing. This type of thinking back to recall a duration of time leaves the suggestion that she simply made a mistake entirely understandable IMO.

I think we're on the same page here Herlock. Did FM use her time intervals to count forward from hearing Smith pass or backward from the time that she had heard Diemshitz discovered the body?

Cheers, George

[Wickerman]

Hi Al,
Thank you for your welcome.

No, I'm not angling for for any conspiracy involving the police, if that is what you mean. I'm just saying that, IMHO, Diemshitz was mistaken about his time of arrival at the yard. I have been trying to resolve the time confict with FM by presuming that her clock was fast but now I wonder if she was calculating backwards from 1 o'clock. I read somewhere were she told a reporter that Lewis (her spelling) told her that he discovered the body at 1 o'clock, but I can't for the life of me find that reference again. I find it a little strange that she would estimate 4 minutes for hearing the cart. I'd have said about 5 minutes if I were relating an estimate. I seems to me that if the actual times quoted by FM are ignored and time periods quoted by her are used starting with Smith's footfalls at between 12:30 and 12:35 then it all falls into place with no timing anomalies. Here is my timeline if we start with Smith seeing Parcelman and Stride:

12:30 - Smith sees Parcelman and Stride and is heard passing by FM.
12:31 - Parcelman and Stride cross into the yard just before FM arrives at her door.
12:41 - PM leaves door after locking up.
12:42 - BSM and Schwartz arrive at the yard and BSM pulls Stride from the yard into the street.
12:43 - Schwartz crosses the road and proceeds to Fairclough St.
12:44 - Pipeman emerges, frightens Schwartz, BSM calls out Lipski. BSM and Schwartz depart to the south.
12:45 - BSM kills Stride and is headed out of the gate when Parcelman returns from delivering his pamphlets, sees Stride on the ground and chases BSM. At the same time Diemshitz turns into Berner St.
12:46 - PM hears the cart pass.
12:47 - Diemshitz pulls into yard and horse shies.
12:48 to 12:53 - Diemshitz prods Stride with whip, climbs down from cart, lights match and discovers her body, alerts those in the club who emerge and light matches to observe the body for a minute or so.
12:54 - Club members depart the yard looking for police.
12:57 - Lamb is alerted in Commercial Road and proceeds to the yard.
1:00 - Smith arrives at the Berner St/Commercial Road corner and observes Harris clock.
1:02 - Smith arrives at yard.
1:03 - Lamb sends Constable for doctor.
1:05 - Johnson is alerted, goes to alert Blackwell and then dresses and leaves for yard.
1:12 - Johnson arrives at yard.
1:16 - Blackwell arrives at yard.

Note that the last 3 times are according to Johnson and Blackwell and may not be synchronised with the Harris clock.

P.S. Can anyone tell how to stop the "Invalid server response - please try again" popup please?

Cheers, George

Yes, hello, welcome to Casebook.

Is there any reason this scenario does not include Packer?
He did see Stride walk up from the bottom end of Berner St. with a man who bought the grapes.
Stride was seen standing with a man holding a parcel by PC Smith.
Parcelman can only have been this customer.

Who delivers hypothetical pamphlets in the middle of the night?
Was this man seen leaving the club, or leaving the printing office by anyone?
If not, then where is the connection?
Alternately, you have a man with Stride who bought a package (of grapes), and presumably left the shop carrying the same package.

[Herlock Sholmes]

. Yes. 12:30 to 12:35 was estimated by subtracting 25 to 30 minutes from 1:00am. So if 1am was correct, then likely the earlier time range was too. Smith also seems to be implying that his last round prior to arriving at the murder scene, was in the normal range. Obviously the big question is; was Smith correct about reaching the top of Berner street at 1am? If not, then the earlier time estimate is probably also incorrect - garbage in, garbage out - as the saying goes

You are seeing things as ever in terms of a mystery instead of seeing things in terms of estimates which can be slightly out.

First pass 12.30-12.35 approx- Beat takes 30 minutes approx - Second pass 1.05 approx (12.35 + 30 mins)

So if Lamb got to the yard at 1.05 approx we have Smith arriving just after.

All that we have to do is to do what your are rigorously reluctant to do. Allow for, a) a margin for error on estimated times and, b) make a a very small allowance for a difference in clocks.

We can’t suspect Smith or Lamb of lying. We know that Lamb didn’t have a watch and was estimating. We can infer that Smith didn’t own a watch but we can’t assume how he based his time. He doesn’t mention seeing the same clock that Diemschutz saw so it’s possible that he’d seen a clock earlier on his route and was judging by that or that he believed that he’d first passed nearer to 12.30 and he was just adding 30 minutes.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes View Post
There’s no way that it wouldn’t have been noted that this mysterious stranger had been seen twice by FM. This is very obviously an error that, yet again, you see mystery in. Until you find the newspaper report where she says that she’d seen him twice then we can dismiss it.
Very obviously an error? That's interesting, as yesterday you said:

Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes View Post
Up, down, along…..

This does not mean that she saw him twice. The mystery Bag Man was obviously a person of interest to the police and Fanny would have realised this. If she’d seen him twice this would have been big news (why would this man have been loitering around the murder scene?) These are very obviously two versions of the same thing worded differently. How can you not see this?

>Why did you suddenly change your mind? Was it because I pointed out this basic fact to you...<

….

How have I changed my mind? If you stopped thinking in riddles, enigmas and subterfuge then maybe you’d be able to see the wood for the trees. This was an error of reporting in some way. It’s beyond belief that FM wouldn’t have specifically told the Police that she’d seen this person of real interest twice on the same spot near to the murder site. But she didn’t say this because she didn’t see him twice.

[Wickerman]

Hi Herlock,

My proposition is that after Smith left Parcelman and Stride went to the yard so Parcelman could deliver the pamphlets wrapped in paper and Stride would have been waiting in the yard for him to return.

Is this Pamphlet-man delivering pamphlets to the club, or the printing office?. Why is he with Stride if he is delivering pamphlets, and why at this time of night?

One past theory had Pamphlet-man delivering pamphlets after leaving the printing office, but you have him heading towards the printing office?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. Schwartz originally seemed to think Pipeman was being addressed by the name "Lipski", which suggested to him that the two men knew each other and were acting together. It makes no sense otherwise for the police to go looking for men called Lipski, which they did do initially. Schwartz wasn't claiming that BS man was a Gentile. His police statement implied the opposite.

Why do you suppose Schwartz seemed to think 'Lipski' was addressed to the second man, as his name? Is there a quote that supports this view? As his name, is someone's interpretation. As a warning or alert, is another interpretation.

Abberline established that Schwartz had probably misunderstood the situation, not having any English, and that "Lipski" had been used as an insult directed at Schwartz himself, changing the whole nature of the incident and suggesting that BS man was acting alone and was not Jewish.

That is not evident in Swanson's report...

The man who threw the woman down called out apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road 'Lipski'...

Whatever Abberline 'established', was after the interview. Perhaps long after.
The interpretation that BS man was acting alone, is also completely contradicted in the Star account, in which the second man is definitely made out to be an accomplice. Anderson later referred to "the supposed accomplice".

When this was put to Schwartz, he admitted that he couldn't actually say who BS man had shouted the name at. He had made an assumption. That made his initial interpretation unreliable, but not the witness himself or the basics of seeing the murdered woman being assaulted by one man. He needed no English for that.

In the matter of the Hungarian who said he saw a struggle between a man and a woman in the passage where the Stride body was afterwards found, the Leman-street police have reason to doubt the truth of the story.

Interpretation and honesty were never conflated.

They arrested one man on the description thus obtained, and a second on that furnished from another source, but they are not likely to act further on the same information without additional facts.

Do you really think that would be the case because the police disagreed with Schwartz' interpretation? Especially given that you suppose "Abberline established that Schwartz had probably misunderstood the situation", right from the start?

[Herlock Sholmes]

.

Originally posted by NotBlamedForNothing View Post
Commercial Road was to Fanny's left, and the club was to her right. How can you not see this?
Am I recalling correctly but didn’t she say something like ‘he might have come from the Club?’

. My God! You don't even know what you're arguing against!

Do you think that I’m going to waste my time trawling through page after page of the thread to find the exact quote that you posted?

Did you or did you not post a quote where Fanny Mortimer suggested something along the lines that she thought that Goldstein might have come from the club? If not then I must have hallucinated or misinterpreted. If I didn’t hallucinate or misenterpret, and you did post that quote, where is your problem?

[Herlock Sholmes]

. You're still not familiar with the quotes, so you're not in a position to argue this.

I don’t spend my whole life memorising quotes. You’re not in a position to argue because you are utterly devoid of logic, reason and the willingness to take an honest approach to viewing events. Every thread you go on you pollute with nonsense. There was no cover up or conspiracy in Berner Street. Anyone who says that there was should be in a circus throwing buckets of water around.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Referring to Pipeman, he would also have been there for a reason, but if he was simply minding his own business he could have been on his way home anyway, having stopped in a doorway just to light his pipe. You are looking at a snapshot and inferring that Pipeman had planned to hang around indefinitely, puffing away and taking in the atmosphere, until the quarrel suddenly sent him packing. I don't see the problem either way. He might have taken off a bit more hurriedly to avoid it, and who would blame him? This is what Schwartz could have seen as threatening, because like you he didn't know if Pipeman was about to walk off in that direction anyway.

Pipeman did not have a pipe. That was a mistranslation of the German word Pfeife, which can mean whistle, or pipe. Pipeman was actually Whistleman.

How could there have been a trial if no suspect was ever tracked down and identified as BS man?

A trial of "the supposed accomplice".

I can see how Schwartz might have preferred to believe Pipeman was an accomplice, who had chased him away from the scene, because it excused him for leaving the woman to her fate. That doesn't make it so, nor would it make either witness a liar. Two independent witnesses, telling the same essential story about time and place, but from their personal perspectives, would have had a better ring of truth, especially if both were able to explain their presence and their movements.

This assumes that Pipeman ran, or at least walked away quickly. If that were the case, there would be no reason to doubt the truth of the Hungarian's story (only the Hungarian's interpretation of it). Yet there was reason to doubt the truth of it, and not simply because Pipeman told a more convincing story.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Right, so the killer was in the yard, unnoticed by anyone, and got lucky when Stride just happened to walk past the gates while nobody else was around?

Or are you suggesting something else entirely?

No, that's the right interpretation, except for no one else being around - the person who told the Irish Times about it, was around.
As for getting lucky, he made his own luck.

[GBinOz]

Yes, hello, welcome to Casebook.

Is there any reason this scenario does not include Packer?
He did see Stride walk up from the bottom end of Berner St. with a man who bought the grapes.
Stride was seen standing with a man holding a parcel by PC Smith.
Parcelman can only have been this customer.

Who delivers hypothetical pamphlets in the middle of the night?
Was this man seen leaving the club, or leaving the printing office by anyone?
If not, then where is the connection?
Alternately, you have a man with Stride who bought a package (of grapes), and presumably left the shop carrying the same package.

Hi Jon,
Thank you for your welcome.
There is some considerable disagreement about the grapes and I can't really see how it impacts on the final moments of the tragic end of Liz Stride. The dimensions of the package described as being held by Parcelman do not resemble a pound of grapes but do resemble a package of paper pamphlets. For me the critical time line starts with Smith's observation of Parcelman with Liz. Many have questioned why Stride was in the yard, but few have asked what happened to Parcelman. My view is, on reading the events of the night, that Parcelman was courting Liz, buying her a corsage and maybe grapes. He may have been involved with the club and she was employed as a cleaner? Who knows? But I have doubts that after being observed as a couple by Smith at around 12:30 that Parcelman would have just wandered off. The logical deduction was that they went together to the yard. For what purpose? For someone carrying a parcel that could resemble a package of pamphlets, maybe a delivery.

However much we would like to think otherwise, we are all engaging in speculation and conjecture due to the loss of official records and the propensity of the journalisists of the day to engage in sensationalisation at the expense of truth. But.....since my time machine is currently in the shop and parts are hard to come by, until repairs have been made I'm stuck with it.

Cheers, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

Perhaps the offices of Arbeiter Freint was also a brothel, like Mrs Richardson’s Pink Pussycat Basement Brothel in Hanbury Street? Why let reason and sense get in the way of a fantasy.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Jon,
Thank you for your welcome.
There is some considerable disagreement about the grapes and I can't really see how it impacts on the final moments of the tragic end of Liz Stride. The dimensions of the package described as being held by Parcelman do not resemble a pound of grapes but do resemble a package of paper pamphlets. For me the critical time line starts with Smith's observation of Parcelman with Liz. Many have questioned why Stride was in the yard, but few have asked what happened to Parcelman. My view is, on reading the events of the night, that Parcelman was courting Liz, buying her a corsage and maybe grapes. He may have been involved with the club and she was employed as a cleaner? Who knows? But I have doubts that after being observed as a couple by Smith at around 12:30 that Parcelman would have just wandered off. The logical deduction was that they went together to the yard. For what purpose? For someone carrying a parcel that could resemble a package of pamphlets, maybe a delivery.

However much we would like to think otherwise, we are all engaging in speculation and conjecture due to the loss of official records and the propensity of the journalisists of the day to engage in sensationalisation at the expense of truth. But.....since my time machine is currently in the shop and parts are hard to come by, until repairs have been made I'm stuck with it.

Cheers, George

Don’t you think that Parcelman and Stride might just have strolled around the corner whilst chatting then, for whatever reason, they went their separate ways.

[GBinOz]

Don’t you think that Parcelman and Stride might just have strolled around the corner whilst chatting then, for whatever reason, they went their separate ways.

Given the effort that Parcelman appears to have put into their evening, that suggestion does not feature highly on my possibilities list. If your scenario was the case, did Stride then pop over to yard to get back "on the game"? Doesn't gel with me. I am seeing a tragic woman desperately pursuing a hope of romance rather than just another client.

Cheers, George

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I’m very uneasy about literally everything to do with Schwartz, because nothing fits.

- he came off the street willingly to give his testimony. Do we really know his motivation for doing so? If what he said happened why did he fear he would be implicated?

There is also his motivation for talking to the press, to consider.

- Goldstein seemed less concerned as he didn’t show until a few days later and he was actually spotted by Fanny Mortimer

Goldstein had to be persuaded to visit the police, according to Wess. He was not keen to go and have his name cleared, for some reason.

- his timings cannot be corroborated

Wess corroborated them, in the man pursued report. Yet that report only results in more doubts over the truth of Schwartz' story.

- where was heading and was he coming from? No-one knows. His wife was moving apparently - from where to where?

If Schwartz' existence cannot be corroborated, then neither can his wife's.

- his exact location can’t be corroborated (the railway arch?)

The familiar railway arch.

- his address cannot even be corroborated (Ellen St or not Ellen St?)

You don't need an address if you don't exist.

- he as a human being who existed cannot be corroborated

Yet as a storyteller, he is almost universally believed. Astonishing.