Mrs. Fanny Mortimer, Time wrong?

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

I think the notion of Schwartz arriving after the last time Fanny went inside, then Dimshitz showing up provides a decent enough explanation of the possible chain of events. Dimshitz arrived before 1:00, Blackwell's time. How far before is tough to figure though. Dimshitz maybe arriving between 12:51 and 12:56. Depends on how much deliberating and running around the club members actually did. I'm inclined, at least slightly anyways, that that process took a little more time than some would believe it would. Effectively, there is just different people's different concepts of time that clash. That's all. It's one way to view it that requires nothing more than the rearranging of the order of events, instead of deciding which to keep and which to toss.

[caz]

You constantly omit the fact that we have witnesses, within 1 hour of 1am, telling the police then the press that they were summoned to the passageway about 10 minutes after half past 12. It is believed by many that Louis says that he and Isaac Kozebrodski left together after 1am.....so why then does Isaac say he left alone at Louis's insistence soon after he arrived in the passageway, about 10 minutes after half past 12?.? And we have Fanny statement to inform us that if he had arrived before 12:45 its possible she wasnt at her door....she was there off and on until 12:50, the steadily from 12:50 until 1.

Hang on, Mike. We have Mortimer's statement to inform us that she heard Diemshitz's arrival despite not being at her door at the time; she remarked upon it to her husband; and she timed it as about four minutes after she went indoors for the last time. Diemshitz himself times it at 1am. So if you toss his story out as rubbish, you have to toss hers out too, and frankly I would have thought the police would have noticed a fifteen minute discrepancy like that if all the other evidence pointed to him arriving by 12.45 and telling such a whopper. He could have said he didn't notice the time and thought it was around 1am if he was trying to pull a fast one, but he seemed quite sure.

And once again, this has absolutely nothing to do with any theory I may have about the killer (none of which depend on when Stride was attacked or which witnesses saw what), and everything to do with how you decide on the timings to suit your theory, and your theory only. But carry on if you think it will get you anywhere fast.

Love,

Caz
X

[DRoy]

I think the notion of Schwartz arriving after the last time Fanny went inside, then Dimshitz showing up provides a decent enough explanation of the possible chain of events. Dimshitz arrived before 1:00, Blackwell's time. How far before is tough to figure though. Dimshitz maybe arriving between 12:51 and 12:56. Depends on how much deliberating and running around the club members actually did. I'm inclined, at least slightly anyways, that that process took a little more time than some would believe it would. Effectively, there is just different people's different concepts of time that clash. That's all. It's one way to view it that requires nothing more than the rearranging of the order of events, instead of deciding which to keep and which to toss.

Dig,

Sure, it could be that simple. But why can not one person verify Schwartz's story? There were people between 12:30 and 1:00 and yet nobody saw what Schwartz saw or heard anything. I think it's just as easy to say there is something wrong with Schwartz's statement.

As I've said before, maybe Mortimer didn't see the attack because it didn't happen. Is it really that much of a stretch?

Cheers
DRoy

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Hullo DRoy.

Dig,

Sure, it could be that simple. But why can not one person verify Schwartz's story? There were people between 12:30 and 1:00 and yet nobody saw what Schwartz saw or heard anything. I think it's just as easy to say there is something wrong with Schwartz's statement.

As I've said before, maybe Mortimer didn't see the attack because it didn't happen. Is it really that much of a stretch?

Cheers
DRoy

Why didn't anyone see him or anything he saw? Because he was the only one on the street. It seems the best fit for that is after Mortimer went inside. No one saw Dimshitz although Fanny seems to have heard hs arrival. And it is just as easy to see something wrong with his statement. Now whether it is as likely is another matter. And no it isn't that much of a stretch. You said it with the word imagination. I'm not sold on IS by any means. I'm simply looking for a mundane explanation for how the events could've unfolded. I'm gonna try and lay out a timeline in the near future for this scenario. And thanks for the conversating on this. I think it's a cogent possibility. I'm not married to it. Just diddling the fiddle.

[Cogidubnus]

So reread posts 111 - 127 and imagine 1240-1300 (say) just might be the time of the murder...and Diemschutz might've arrived 1250 to 0110 (I'm trying to be fair in allowing what some would say to be, generous, others conservative, leeway here)...so who's upset?

We all posit these times and look for everybody to be behaving with clockwork efficiency - it ain't like that...timings are exceeding approximate...if I recall correctly it wasn't too many years before there was about a 20 minute discrepancy between Bristol time and London time - bugger me if that didn't create "difficulties" with train pathings when the Great Western Railway connected the two!

It was only the electric telegraph which enabled that to be got around...And even long after that, people in non-time-critical situations had only the haziest appreciation of time...

So...getting back to the thread...was Fanny Mortimer mistaken about the time? Almost certainly yes...So most probably was almost every other bugger, barring the professionals like Blackwell (and even with them, there's no absolute guarantee how often or accurately their timepieces were corrected - think please...no time signals, no radio transmissions, no telegraph...just the chime of a nearby local clock whose possibly Lurch-like caretaker may or may not have been in the least conscientious - even assuming he could maybe hear Big Ben)

All the best

Dave

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Smart post Cogi

The only thing I'll say is that Blackwell estimated TOD using his watch. So even if it wasn't in sync with anything else it doesn't really matter. If we can piece together how the events unfolded that evening, the "time" they occured doesn't really matter.He arrived 1:16. Initially he said no more than 20 min ago. Later it was changed to 20-30 min from his arrival. Something about first guesses are usually correct, pops in my head. I gots a feeling that Stride was murdered closer to the 20 min mark than the 30. Being gracious, 12:51ish-12:56ish. With some leg work and expert opinion it maybe possible to narrow it down to about a 3 min window. Does anyone know the temp for that evening?

[Cogidubnus]

Relative time....

It matters big time though when it comes to assessing the validity of the witness statements dig - if they're all on different time estimates for example...

Now T.O.D. - well PC Henry Lamb describes Doctor Phillips as arriving roughly ten minutes after he did (he was alerted in Commercial Road "about 1 o'clock as near as I can tell")...The good doctor and his assistant say that he arrived at 1.16...Swanson's summary of the evidence says about 1.10...

Make of it what you will...Nonetheless Blackwell states explicitly in his Inquest evidence that he estimates T.O.D. as being twenty minutes to half an hour before...implying, per his own timings, 1246 to 1256...now I don't know whether the TOD can be that closely estimated, nor do I know how close the Blackwell Household timepieces were to the timings of, say, the Mortimer household or Israel Schwartz...

Clearly if all the witnesses are honest, then there's something askew between Fanny Mortimer's timings and Israel Schwartz's...my own guess (and it's only that), is that when Goldstein made his high speed pass, witnessed by Fanny Mortimer, Liz was already dead and concealed by the shadows in the yard...

All the best

Dave

[Wickerman]

This is the full account of the article I referred to in another thread:

"A woman who lives two doors from the club has made an important statement. It appears that shortly before a quarter to one o'clock she heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat. Immediately afterwards she went to the street-door, with the intention of shooting the bolts, though she remained standing there for ten minutes before she did so. During the ten minutes she saw no one enter or leave the neighbouring yard, and she feels sure that had any one done so she could not have overlooked the fact. The quiet and deserted character of the street appears even to have struck her at the time. Locking the door, she prepared to retire to bed, in the front room on the ground floor, and it so happened that in about four minutes' time she heard the pony cart pass the house, and remarked upon the circumstance to her husband. Thus, presuming that the body did not lay in the yard when the policeman passed-and it could hardly, it is thought, have escaped his notice-and presuming also that the assassin and his victim did not enter the yard while the woman stood at the door, it follows that they must have entered it within a minute or two before the arrival of the pony trap. If this be a correct surmise, it is easy to understand that the criminal may have been interrupted at his work. The man who drove the cart says he thinks it quite possible that after he had entered the yard the assassin may have fled out of it, having lurked in the gloom until a favourable moment arrived."
Daily News, 1st Oct. 1888.

If Mortimer stood at her door for 10 minutes between 12:40-45 until 12:50-55, then, after that she heard the approach of the cart about four? minutes later, there is a slim window of time when this murder could have happened.

The article suggests that Stride may have arrived at the yard in those four? minutes, however, as I have conjectured previously, Stride may have already been in the yard, in the shadows with a client, while Mortimer stood at her door.
Was the "measured heavy tramp" not a policeman but the Broad-shouldered man staggering passed Dutfields Yard?

We might question her subsequent claim: "Immediately afterwards she went to the street-door", as Mortimer makes no claim to seeing anyone, constable or citizen, in the street when she opened her door.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Jon

I wonder if what Fanny Mortimer heard wasn't a copper passing by, but one of the players in the Schwartz scenario leaving the scene... If she subsequently went to her door for about ten minutes between say 12.45/12.50 and 12.55/1.00, per the press report you've found, it would explain how she managed to miss all the action...and would tie in neatly with both Goldstein and Diemschutz (he passed a clock in a shop window just up the road didn't he, making his arrival just after 1.00am?)...

I'm struggling to keep an open mind, but the more I think about it, the more I'm thinking Schwartz saw the beginning of the murder...it COULD be later of course, but....

All the best

Dave

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon

I wonder if what Fanny Mortimer heard wasn't a copper passing by, but one of the players in the Schwartz scenario leaving the scene... If she subsequently went to her door for about ten minutes between say 12.45/12.50 and 12.55/1.00, per the press report you've found, it would explain how she managed to miss all the action...and would tie in neatly with both Goldstein and Diemschutz (he passed a clock in a shop window just up the road didn't he, making his arrival just after 1.00am?)...

I'm struggling to keep an open mind, but the more I think about it, the more I'm thinking Schwartz saw the beginning of the murder...it COULD be later of course, but....

All the best

Dave

Indeed Dave.

It would, of course, have helped if Mrs Mortimer had offered direction to those footsteps, up the street, or down the street?

Eagle did claim to have seen men and women in the street when he returned to the Club, estimated to have been about 12:40 am.

Lave was out about the same time but saw nothing unusual, which doesn't mean he saw no-one.

Mortimer claimed a couple were standing at the corner of Fairclough St. And, saw Goldstein walk across the road sometime before 1:00 am.

Even PC Smith had claimed Berner St. was normal as he walked up just minutes before he was called:
"There were squabbles and rows in the streets, but nothing more."
(Does this confirm what Schwartz saw?)

We can see the street was not considered devoid of people in the minutes before the murder. Stride could well have been one of the women in the street seen by these various witnesses, so she could have entered the yard just after Lave & Eagle entered the Club. Mrs Mortimer opens her door and takes the air for about ten minutes being unaware that a couple were around the corner already in Dutfields Yard?

I'm more in favor of trying to fit all the pieces together rather than reject what appears contradictory. Give all the witnesses the benefit of the doubt, including Mortimer & Schwartz.

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Hullo Wickerman

Are you suggesting that Lamb would've walked on by a BSM beating up on a Stride? If that was the case then Kidney's comments would have been spot on.

[Cogidubnus]

Are you suggesting that Lamb would've walked on by a BSM beating up on a Stride? If that was the case then Kidney's comments would have been spot on.

Hi dig

PC Lamb wasn't on a beat that took him up Berner Street, but on one that took him along Commercial Road past the end of the road. He'd last passed it six or seven minutes before he was summoned to the club...

PC Smith was on that beat, and he'd last passed the premises at about 12.35 when he observed a couple standing talking (who we may surmise were Liz and possibly her killer)...

So it looks as if, at no time that night, did any copper walk past an affray in Berner Street!

All the best

Dave

[Hunter]

I'm sure he meant Smith.

Swanson's report stating that Goldstein passed by at 'about 1' anchors the time Mortimer was at her door - at least the tail end of it. How long she was there up to that point or how many times she was in or out is speculative. As is reported, there are two versions offered.

The couple standing at the corner were probably not seen by Mortimer but rather something she had heard while talking to others.

[Wickerman]

Are you suggesting that Lamb would've walked on by a BSM beating up on a Stride? If that was the case then Kidney's comments would have been spot on.

Did Smith say he had to intervene in any of the squabbles & rows he witnessed?

We can't be sure of course but the incident in the gateway may have been less physical than Schwartz led the police to believe. It is not certain by any means that Schwartz witnessed a murder.
And, another opinion was also given to the press:

".. It was thought by the person who witnessed this that it was a man and his wife quarrelling, and consequently no notice was taken of it. "

We only have the Schwartz version, was the altercation truly violent, or only what people witnessed on a regular basis in this part of the East End?

[Wickerman]

I'm sure he meant Smith.

I did, sorry to everyone for that