Who was the best witness to have seen Jack the Ripper?

[caz]

Fanny saw Goldstein...Fanny saw the young couple. 2 elements of the story which we know were present, and proof in the first instance that she indeed was where she said she was at that time...from 12:50 until 1am. So how come she doesnt see or hear Louis either...he says he arrived at 1, Fanny could not have missed a cart and horse arriving if she was at her door during that few minutes to 1 And we know she was there...she saw Leon.

Hi Mike,

Firstly, we don't know she saw the young couple until after the body was discovered, do we?

We do know she heard a horse and cart around 1 am, shortly after going back indoors - she remarked on it to her husband and assumed this was Louis D, which would tie in nicely with his own account, given her timing would have been approximate.

If your theory is that Louis D returned and discovered the body 15 minutes earlier, and was lying for some reason about the time, surely Fanny Mortimer would have heard the horse and cart earlier and seen it, if she was at her door when Schwartz, BSM, PM and Stride were meant to be active. Yet you believe she was there and saw nothing, making Schwartz a liar.

So how did she miss Louis D's return, if your theory is correct?

Love,

Caz
X

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Sunbury

I dug out that thread about the timings...it wasn't a Victim thread after all, hence the delay...I'm sure there are probably more detailed and more thorough ones predating my own fairly recent membership, but this is the only one I can recall lately

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=7490

All the best

Dave

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Sunbury

Nobody is necessarily trying to tweak minutes to make a theory fit...I for one don't have a theory, but I do allow for the fact that two newspapers published an account suggesting Mrs Mortimer was at her front door for ten minutes finishing just before Diemschutz's arrival. The later version of the story is repeated in such a wide range of papers that it has to be an agency feed.

So it's quite possible that some reporter put two and two together (ie the footsteps and the PCs reported last time of passing) and made five...I put it no stronger than a possibility, but it could perhaps explain why Mrs Mortimer missed most of the action yet caught the witness Leon Goldstein passing by just before 1am.

What you have to allow is some fluidity in the timings, Sunbury...most of these folk didn't own any sort of timepiece, (even those who did might've experienced trouble keeping them on time). Many people simply estimated their times from the last time they heard a church clock strike...and even those clocks were not always synchronised with Big Ben, (it was only relatively recently that via telegraph the railways had managed to fully adopt "London Time" - many municipal offices still hadn't), so many of the suggested timings in the statements are only guesswork, (If you compare the testimony of Edward Spooner and the medics, for example, you can detect what appears to be an extremely wide timing discrepancy...but Spooner did have a young lady on hand to distract him!).

There was another Stride thread somewhere where these timing issues were more thoroughly discussed...I'll look for it when I get a chance...

All the best

Dave

[Sunbury]

I forgot to add something, Joseph Lave also was present and a witness, and his story is very similar to that of Fanny Mortimer's and James Brown.

In a statement to the press, he claimed that he had gone into Dutfield's Yard at 12.40am to get a breath of fresh air: "So far as I could see I was out in the street about half an hour, and while I was out nobody came into the yard, nor did I see anybody moving about there in a way to excite my suspicions."

We now have three witnesses who all would have been present within yards of Schwartz and would have seen what happened. Yet all three saw nothing untoward. Trying to tweak minutes to make Schwartz's story work, may be possible on a single witness but not with three.

I place Schwartz in the George Hutchinson camp as far as reliability goes. Their "evidence" is soley about placing themselves firmly at the centre of the story. Schwartz makes sure he is clearly the victim, running for life his life through the streets to save his life. Yet no-one else saw him nor his version of events.

[Sunbury]

Hi Sunbury




The Daily News of 1st October and Evening News carry the above version, though in a subsequent follow-up the Daily News names the witness and quotes the 12.30 to 1.00am version.

It seems to me that there may well have been two contradictory agency feeds...but Mrs Mortimer only being at her door say 12.47 to 12.57 changes things a tad doesn't it?

I'd say all the other witnesses seeing things occuring in Berners Street, which Mrs Mortimer apparently didn't see, would tend to cast doubt on her 12.30 to 1.00am account rather than the other way round, and it may well be that the Daily News got things right first time round...

All the best

Dave

Many thanks for replying Dave, though I tend to shy away from changing times to fit an existing theory.

Brown didn't notice Schwartz being chased away and he was at the corner at approx 12.45am as well. No one noticed Schwartz at all.

I do agree completely, the exchange of ideas makes the forum most interesting

[Cogidubnus]

Spot on John!

Cheers

Dave

[Dr. John Watson]

Sorry John

That's assuming the measured tread Fanny heard was indeed that of a policeman...and I believe that's the conclusion at least one news agency jumped to...

She didn't see a copper, and could only guess it was indeed a copper, so any guess at 1230 timings based on this testimony is surmise at the very best...

Personally I'd guess her timings at 1247 to 1257 or so...but it's only a guess...based on her going back in doors and being disturbed by the Diemschutz discovery about four minutes afterwards...

All the best

Dave

If you're talking about guesswork, Dave, you should add Mortimer to the list. Her times were estimates also. In fact, the only witness to state a time positively was Diemschutz, who said he entered gateway at Dutfield's Yard at exactly 1:00 a.m. Support for my reconstruction comes from police who concentrated on Schwartz's and Brown's stories and all but ignored Mortimer's claims. Your conclusions rest solely on Mortimer's word. Unfortunately, definitive evidence for what really happened, and when, is lacking in this case, so we are left with theory and conjecture - but that's what keeps this forum alive!

John

[Cogidubnus]

Sweet FA

Sorry John

That's assuming the measured tread Fanny heard was indeed that of a policeman...and I believe that's the conclusion at least one news agency jumped to...

She didn't see a copper, and could only guess it was indeed a copper, so any guess at 1230 timings based on this testimony is surmise at the very best...

Personally I'd guess her timings at 1247 to 1257 or so...but it's only a guess...based on her going back in doors and being disturbed by the Diemschutz discovery about four minutes afterwards...

All the best

Dave

[Dr. John Watson]

There are only two things we can be fairly certain of relative to Mortimer's story:

First, she went to her door only after hearing the footsteps of a policeman passing by. Since PC Smith testified he entered Berner St. from Commercial Road at about 12:30 a.m., that would be about the time Mortimer opened her door.

Second, she remained at the open door for about 10 minutes according to the earliest press report, long enough to notice Goldstein with his black bag walk by and to observe a man and woman on the opposite side of the street near Fairclough. She then closed the door, opening it again only after discovery of Stride's body.

PC Smith, probably the policeman Mortimer heard, did not mention seeing Leon Goldstein and his shiny black bag, but he did observe a man and woman he identified as Stride on the opposite side of the street near Fairclough St., likely the same couple observed by Mortimer. Goldstein later identified himself as the man with a black bag, but the time he passed Mortimer's house is unclear. Since he was not seen by Smith, he was probably trailing the officer by a minute or so. Neither Goldstein or Mortimer were called to testify at the inquest, and Mortimer is mentioned nowhere in the police reports.

By her own words, Mortimer was standing in her open door from about 12:30 a.m. to about 12:40 a.m. Having then closed her door, she would not have been able to see either Schwartz or the encounter between BS man and Stride. Police failed to mention Mortimer anywhere in their reports, indicating they placed little or no value in her later claim that she was standing in her open door for the entire time she later claimed.

Dr. John Watson

[lynn cates]

Fanny

Hello Mike. I have always been curious concerning why Fanny does not mention Eygle or Lave.

Thoughts?

Cheers.
LC

[Michael W Richards]

No-one saw what Israel says he saw....none of the witnesses that are documented as even being within earshot heard or saw anything at 12:45am.

Fanny saw Goldstein...Fanny saw the young couple. 2 elements of the story which we know were present, and proof in the first instance that she indeed was where she said she was at that time...from 12:50 until 1am. So how come she doesnt see or hear Louis either...he says he arrived at 1, Fanny could not have missed a cart and horse arriving if she was at her door during that few minutes to 1 And we know she was there...she saw Leon.

Seems to me Fanny beats out almost any other witness by her verifiable sightings. Lave didnt see anyone or thing, neither did Eagle...so where was Liz at that time...not out in front of the gates waiting to get accosted by BSM, thats for sure.

If BSM grabbed Liz coming up from behind her...which means she was facing away from him, and he tried to pull her into the street and while resisting, she fell back away from him, why isnt her right side dirty too?

Cheers

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Sunbury

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.

The Daily News of 1st October and Evening News carry the above version, though in a subsequent follow-up the Daily News names the witness and quotes the 12.30 to 1.00am version.

It seems to me that there may well have been two contradictory agency feeds...but Mrs Mortimer only being at her door say 12.47 to 12.57 changes things a tad doesn't it?

I'd say all the other witnesses seeing things occuring in Berners Street, which Mrs Mortimer apparently didn't see, would tend to cast doubt on her 12.30 to 1.00am account rather than the other way round, and it may well be that the Daily News got things right first time round...

All the best

Dave

[Sunbury]

Why is Schwartz believed over others?

Why do people study Schwartz's statement in the most intimate detail and write millions of words about him, when other witnesses flatly contradict his story?

Fanny Mortimer lived at 36 Berner St, two doors from Dutfiield's Lane.

I was standing at the door of my house nearly the whole time between half-past twelve and one o'clock this (Sunday) morning, and did not notice anything unusual. I had just gone indoors, and was preparing to go to bed, when I heard a commotion outside, and immediately ran out, thinking that there was another row at the Socialists' Club close by.

At 12.45am, she was on her door step and saw nothing that Schwartz claimed he saw.

She also made a comment on the killing that people seem to ignore as well

If a man had come out of the yard before one o'clock I must have seen him. It was almost incredible to me that the thing could have been done without the steward's wife hearing a noise, for she was sitting in the kitchen, from which a window opens four yards from the spot where the woman was found.

There is another witness who also didn't see what Schwartz saw. is James Brown. He was at the corner of Berner and Fairclough St at 12.45am, again very close to Dutfields Lane. He didn't notice anything unusual either, he did see a couple in Fairclough St, nothing more.

Brown, a dock labourer of 35 Fairclough Street, testified to seeing a woman with a man at 12.45am, 30th September 1888 in Fairclough Street whilst he was getting his supper from a chandler's shop on the corner with Berner Street. He saw the couple standing by the Board School; the woman had her back to the wall, facing the man who had his arm up against it. Brown heard the woman say "No, not tonight, some other night" which attracted his attention. There was no trace of an accent in the woman's voice.

The man was described as being about 5ft 7in tall and stoutly built, wearing a long overcoat which went down almost to his heels. He was wearing a hat, but Brown was unable to describe it. It was quite dark, so he could not tell if the woman was wearing a flower on her jacket, but both appeared sober.

Two witnesses, both within 10 yards of Dutfield's Lane at the same time Schwartz was, saw nothing.

The couple James Brown saw may have been Stride and JtR and they moved into Berner St and Dutfiled's Lane but Fanny Mortimer still didn't see them do that.

So why is Schwartz seen as a credible witness? He tells a fantastic story, with himself as the victim but who heroically comes forward.

[Wickerman]

"The man did not look in the least like a butcher", it says. One wonders what that was about?

How does a butcher look...?

Fisherman

Christer.
This is a period in history when people dressed according to their profession. You could tell a banker, from a clerk, from a journalist, just by their clothes.

[lynn cates]

jocular

Hello Christer. Thanks.

Yes, and not to mention the supposed jocularity of such a one.

Cheers.
LC