The Stride Murder

[GBinOz]

Hi George.
So are you seriously saying the witness Eagle turned to the Times reporter and used the name Jacobs, but turned to the Telegraph reporter and spoke the sentence again, this time using the name Diemshutz?
So, the coroner heard Eagle give two answers to the same question?

I know what the press published (as above), but I asked how you explain this, how could two different journalists hear two different names IN the same sentence?

Hi Jon,

Of course I am not saying that different testimony was given to, or heard by, the journalists. What I am saying is that it was reported differently. We can see this variation in the reports of testimony regarding the time Lamb was informed, and the time Johnson was contacted by the PC at the surgery. How can that have been when they were listening to the same testimony? Are you seriously suggesting that journalists were consistent in their reporting of testimony given at inquests? I would suggest that Eagle testified that he saw Diemshitz and Jacobs go for the police, and the journalists reported that statement differently, or indeed, not at all.

Morning Advertiser:
What did you do?-I struck a light and saw her covered in blood. I could not look at her long, so I ran for the police. Another man went for them at the same time. We could not find one at first, but when we got to the corner of Grove-street, Commercial-road, I found two constables, and I told them there was a woman murdered in Berner-street.

Echo:
Then a man named Gildeman came up and told us that a dead woman was lying in the yard. We then went in the yard together. I struck a match, and we then saw a woman lying by the side of the Club wall. Her feet were towards the gates, and her head towards the yard. She was covered with blood. Witness said that if there had been a cry that night, he believed they should have heard it.

Daily News:
I had been there about 20 minutes when the man I mentioned-Gigelmann-came and said, "There is a dead woman lying in the yard." I went down in a second, struck a match, and saw a woman lying on the ground near the gates with a lot of blood near her. Her feet were six or seven feet from the gate, and her head lay towards the yard. When I reached the body and struck the match there was only one of the members present. I thought at first she was drunk, and told her to get up-that was before I struck the match. When I saw the blood I was very much excited. I could not see whether her clothes were disarranged, as I did not look at her after seeing the blood which was around her. I went for the police, and two constables returned with me.

These journalists were listening to the same testimony, but presumably chose to report the details that they considered relevant.

Your scenario requires that in the testimony, Diemshitz was a misprinted as Jacobs, and, "went" was misprinted as "sent". I am leaving the sworn testimony in tact and allowing for journalistic licence. My view at this stage is that the timings and descriptions by Lamb and Spooner, don't quite work out without the fourth man in the search parties, but, as Karsten suggests, time for rethinking.

Cheers, George

[Wickerman]

It's all or nothing with Schwartz. We either believe him and then no one else had the courage to come forward after Stride was thrown down and then had her throat cut, OR, he was lying, under a false name and BS man and Pipeman never existed in the first place.

Could a simple error in translation (or a deliberate attempt by persons unknown) have caused the confusion we still see today and that Schwartz COULD have meant he saw Stride being thrown down by BS Man to the location she was later found AND NOT the footway which implies the street side of the gate?

I agree, the simplest solutions are to be preferred.

I have to wonder though, just how much the press influenced the story Schwartz gave them.

Interestingly, it begins by saying what Schwartz told them was the same as what he told police, yet by the end of the press version we see much more detail than in the police version. Doesn't anybody wonder why?
The press version begins..
the man's story was retold just as he had given it to the police.

Ok, well here is what Schwartz told police, it is possibly in summary form, but we should notice, there is no detail. It could be any street that includes a gateway entrance somewhere down the street.

"...had got as far as the gateway where the murder was committed he saw a man stop & speak to a woman, who was standing in the gateway. The man tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned her round & threw her down on the footway & the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly. On crossing to the opposite side of the street, he saw a second man standing lighting his pipe. The man who threw the woman down called out apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road “Lipski” & then Schwartz walked away, but finding that he was followed by the second man he ran as far as the railway arch but the man did not follow so far..."

However, Schwartz was 'sure' he passed through Berner St.

That being the case, there are legitimate questions:
- What was the name of the gateway?
- Why is the assault outside the gateway, on the footway?
- Was the gate closed?
- No identification of the building "opposite".
- Why do the press change the "pipe" to a "knife"?
- Where did the 2nd man come from?
- No mention of a pub on the corner.

Given the press were well aware of where the crime took place, that a knife was used, and in which gateway the body was found, and the geography of the area.
Is it possible it was the press who added these details to make the story more identifiable to the reader?
Schwartz felt sure he had passed through Berner St. so the press coloured the story with details that reflect the assumed location.

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,

I agree that Harris is the other possibility. With all due respect, the evidence is that Jacobs existed because Eagle named him as leaving with another man to search for a P.C..

Hi George

I think you are not explaining how how Eagle could be quoted saying two different names in the same sentence, because you know it will not make sense.
So, you keep repeating "Eagle said Jacobs"
You know as well as I do that this does not mean Jacob existed.

Diemshutz already tells us he brought Kozebrodski out of the club, in the Morning Advertiser Diemshutz consistently refers to Koz being with him as "we".
So there it is clear Diemshutz & Kozebrodski both run along Fairclough, they don't have to be side-by-side, they are just two men who ran in the same direction.
Diemshutz is also the one claiming to be shouting "police" as they ran.
Kozebrodski also tells us he ran towards Grove St., which is along Fairclough.
Spooner said two Jews came running towards him shouting "murder", "police".

Also, you know the Telegraph has Eagle telling us Diemshutz ran, with another, along Fairclough.

All sources tells us two men ran along Fairclough towards Grove.

So, how does this "Jacobs" fit in?

You are choosing to negate that evidence by claiming a misprint of his name. I have noticed that some reports of the inquest have more detail than others, and the others didn't quote Eagle as naming Diemshitz rather than Jacobs, they just left out that detail altogether. I am reluctant to discard this extra information.

It is necessary to identify errors where they exist, the main clue with "Jacobs" is we have multiple sources

Koze said that he failed to find a PC in Fairclough and later went to Commercial Road. Diemshitz didn't mention Koze returning with him to the yard. He mentioned only Spooner. Eagle said he was distressed at the sight of the blood and left immediately to find a PC. Had he turned west at Commercial Road (to allow for the time required for Koze to get to Grove St and back) he may very well have run into Smith.

The above sounds right.

If he turned east into Commercial he would have been at the corner of Batty in time to meet Koze had the later proceeded up that road, which would mean Koze wasn't one of the men seen by Spooner and Brown.

But Koz tells us where he went, and he didn't say up Batty, he said towards Grove.

You are suggesting that I am creating a scenario to fit someone who never existed and who nobody saw, but Eagle testified that he saw Jacobs form part of a search party. If I can be permitted to volley a couple of your questions back over the net, why does dismissing Jacobs matter so much to you, and why cling to a story that requires sworn testimony to be dismissed?

My objection begins with the question I asked you - how do you explain one reply from Eagle refering to two different people?
You never did answer that.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

You must have seen several posts that offer up conflicting press versions of an interview with Lave, check them out yourself.
You picked one as your example, but how do you know it was the correct one?
this is the trouble with Lave, we do not know when he went out of the club, or for how long he was out. So his statement has no use.

I've already mentioned different versions. They differ by about 5 minutes. Just like James Brown at the inquest.

When Lave went out, he was first in the yard and then on the street. Seems he was in a good position to see Stride at the gates, and of course, he did not.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Yaffa?...

That's rather odd because Yaffa is most certainly a woman's name.

"Yaffa" is Yiddish for "Beautiful"


Was Yaffa Eagle's girlfriend, whom he said he walked home before returning around 12.40am?


Yaffa is a woman for sure. If not, then it would be the equivalent of calling a man "Bella"


And so, who was Yaffa?



Interesting


RD

This is a good question, and you do deserve some sort of answer.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I'd just like to highlight the sequence of movements that Schwartz claimed he saw BS Man make.

He says that he saw BS Man APPROACH her; suggesting that BS Man WASN'T ALREADY STANDING WITH HER and had just walked up to her.

STRIDE is already standing BY HERSELF AT THE GATEWAY

Schwartz then says that BS Man then attacked Stride, but initially, he appears to try and drag Stride into the Street, ergo, AWAY FROM THE YARD.

Just let the bold text sink in, if it hasn't already. Man with broad shoulders tries to pull very thin woman with bad leg, but ... but what? Was she too strong for him? Was she holding onto the gate?

It's as though Schwartz is offering up an excuse for why Stride was found inside the line of the gates, and not on the street.

BS Man then appears to spin her around and then THROW HER DOWN to the ground onto the FOOTWAY.

Schwartz's proximity to BS Man would appear to be very close; because he implies that he is just a few yards away when the assault occurs.

Schwartz's proximity seemingly led the Star editorial writer to pen the following ...

... the story of a man who is said to have seen the Berner-street tragedy, and declares that one man butchered and another man watched, is, we think, a priori incredible.

He then crosses the road to avoid the apparent domestic.

Why not keeping heading south, as he had been?

It's at THIS POINT when he claims that BS Man shouts over to Pipeman "Lipski"

Schwartz's focus from THIS POINT is NOT ON STRIDE, meaning that from the point that BS man shouts out, Schwartz's focus is on Pipeman and trying to get away from the scene.

Schwartz seems to suggest he believed that Pipeman was with BS man, but we have BS man traveling south towards the club, and we have Pipeman already standing on the other side of the road, i.e. Pipeman does NOT walk with BS man at any point.

If there is any truth to the story, having the men walk and arrive at the spot separately and yet be known to each other, would suggest that they were members of the club, or on WVC patrol.

It is possible that Stride may oft had her throat cut just moments AFTER BS Man shouts out to Pipeman, because Schwartz does not observe Stride AFTER she has been thrown to the ground.

Could the 3 intermittent screams have come from Stride as a result of her windpipe having been cut as she is thrown onto the floor? I.e. could she have tried to scream, but only 3 small screams were audible due to her windpipe having been cut?

I don't think that would be possible.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Was her body moved post-mortem BEFORE the police arrived?

Possibly, but in which direction - away from the gate or toward it?

PC Lamb: She looked as if she had been laid quietly down, and there was no sign of a struggle.

Which is interesting, but hardly conclusive. So, consider what would have happened if she had been moved toward the gate. There would be an inconsistency of blood flow. That is, there would not have been enough blood between where she had been picked up, to where she had been laid quietly down. What could conceivably have been done to remove the inconsistency? Perhaps this is a clue ...

Coroner: Were there any spots of blood anywhere else?
Dr Phillips: I could trace none except that which I considered had been transplanted - if I may use the term - from the original flow from the neck. Roughly estimating it, I should say there was an unusual flow of blood, considering the stature and the nourishment of the body.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I don't think that her statement is clear that "there was hardly anybody moving about, except at the club". Does it mean inside the club, or going in and out of the club?

I think "at the club" is in contrast to the street. So, inside the club rather than movements in or out.

I do think though that if she had seen Goldstein come out of the club, she would have said so.

So, what did she say?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Because there's no other accounts to verify or corroborate his story, it actually strengthens the case for him having seen Stride being thrown down where she was murdered.

He was of course within a few yards of BS Man and could have seen her thrown down to where she waa later found.

IT is commonplace to find errors in translation and because a0 he wasn't English speaking and b) there were no OTHER witnesses that said Stride was thrown down onto THE FOOTWAY, then isn't it just a simple case of him meaning the other side of the footway where she was later found?

I think because 'only a matter of a few feet (no more than 10 feet), it's likely that we have just been avoiding the elephant in the room and therefore IF Schwartz was telling the truth; that he actually saw the man who murdered her, but no one else came forward DESPITE several newspapers stating that "THOSE who witnessed the assault"

Schwartz was close.

Someone had a knife.

Schwartz ... describes the first man, who threw the woman down: age about 30 ht, 5 ft 5 in. comp. fair hair dark, small brown moustache, full face, broad shouldered, dress, dark jacket & trousers black cap with peak, had nothing in his hands.

It wasn't the first man.

Ergo, Schwartz killed Stride.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

All witnesses who stood over the body say she was found in the darkest part, she could not be seen.
We can't have it both ways - if Schwartz saw the attack, she had to be outside the shadows, so if she is found in a spot where she could not be seen, then how could anyone see the attack?

He doesn't need to see it - he turned her round & threw her down on the footway & the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly - the auditory system can sense the direction of sounds.

[FISHY1118]

One of the reason's yes.
Another is that, from the point of view of the killer, he cannot allow a witness to escape. So the killer is going to chase the witness down to kill him also.



All witnesses who stood over the body say she was found in the darkest part, she could not be seen.
We can't have it both ways - if Schwartz saw the attack, she had to be outside the shadows, so if she is found in a spot where she could not be seen, then how could anyone see the attack?

Schwartz saw the assault on Stride nothing else.

[GBinOz]

My objection begins with the question I asked you - how do you explain one reply from Eagle refering to two different people?
You never did answer that.

Yeah I did, you just missed it - post # 931.

[GBinOz]

Diemshutz already tells us he brought Kozebrodski out of the club, in the Morning Advertiser Diemshutz consistently refers to Koz being with him as "we".
So there it is clear Diemshutz & Kozebrodski both run along Fairclough, they don't have to be side-by-side, they are just two men who ran in the same direction.
Diemshutz is also the one claiming to be shouting "police" as they ran.
Kozebrodski also tells us he ran towards Grove St., which is along Fairclough.
Spooner said two Jews came running towards him shouting "murder", "police".

Also, you know the Telegraph has Eagle telling us Diemshutz ran, with another, along Fairclough.

All sources tells us two men ran along Fairclough towards Grove.

So, how does this "Jacobs" fit in?

Hi Jon,

The Morning Advertiser:
A member named Isaacs went down to the yard with me, and we struck a match and saw the blood right from the gate up the yard. Then we both went for the police, but unfortunately it was several minutes before we could find a constable. At last another member of the club named Eagle, who ran out after us and went in a different direction, found one somewhere in Commercial road.
Diemshitz was NOT one of the "we" that found a constable, because he wasn't with Koze.

The interview with Koze was published in three newspapers, The Daily News, and an identical narration in the Evening News and the London Evening News. Here are the two different versions:

A young Russian Pole named Isaac M. Kozebrodski, born in Warsaw, who speaks the English language imperfectly, gave the following information:-I was in this club last night. I came in about half-past six in the evening. About twenty minutes to one this morning Mr. Diemschitz called me out to the yard. He told me there was something in the yard, and told me to come and see what it was. When we had got outside he struck a match, and when we looked down on the ground we could see a long stream of blood. It was running down the gutter from the direction of the gate, and reached to the back door of the club. I should think there was blood in the gutter for a distance of five or six yards. I went to look for a policeman at the request of Diemschitz or some other member of the club, but I took the direction towards Grove-street and could not find one. I afterwards went into the Commercial-road along with Eagle, and found two officers. The officers did not touch the body, but sent for a doctor. A doctor came, and an inspector arrived just afterwards. While the doctor was examining the body, I noticed that she had some grapes in her right hand and some sweets in her left. I saw a little bunch of flowers stuck above her right bosom.

The next person in importance to Eagle, on whose information we may look forward to getting a clue to the perpetrator of these outrageous crimes is Isaac M. Kozebrodsky. Kozebrodsky was born in Warsaw, and can only speak English very imperfectly. His information, which we are obliged to give very shortly, is this: "I came into the club about which you are asking me at half-past twelve o'clock. Shortly after I came in Diemschitz asked me to come out into the yard, as he saw there was something unusual had taken place there. So I came out with him, and he then pointed out to me a stream of blood, which was running down the gutter in the direction of the gate, and flowed from the gate to the back-door. The blood in the gutter extended to between six and seven yards. I immediately went for a policeman, and ran in the direction of Grove-street, but could not find one. Then I went into the Commercial-road, where I found two policemen. I brought them back with me, and they sent for a doctor. The doctor arrived shortly afterwards, and with him came an inspector. While the doctor examined the body I saw that there were some grapes in her right hand and some sweets in her left hand. To the best of my recollection, she had on a dark jacket and a black dress, and in her bosom she had a small bunch of flowers."

They are sufficiently similar to deduce that the journalists were listening to the same interview (unless Koze had learned his statement by rote), but they make my point that journalists listening to the same words still come up with different reports, and some include extra detail.

Koze says he went in a direction towards Grove, not that he went to Grove as he would have had to have done had he been with Diemshitz. Why does Koze not mention Spooner or Harris? Because he wasn't there when Diemshitz encountered them.

The evidence tells us that Koze started out in the same direction as Diemshitz but wasn't with him when Diemshitz reached Grove St. But Jacobs was.

Cheers, George

[GBinOz]

Possibly, but in which direction - away from the gate or toward it?

PC Lamb: She looked as if she had been laid quietly down, and there was no sign of a struggle.

Which is interesting, but hardly conclusive. So, consider what would have happened if she had been moved toward the gate. There would be an inconsistency of blood flow. That is, there would not have been enough blood between where she had been picked up, to where she had been laid quietly down. What could conceivably have been done to remove the inconsistency? Perhaps this is a clue ...

Coroner: Were there any spots of blood anywhere else?
Dr Phillips: I could trace none except that which I considered had been transplanted - if I may use the term - from the original flow from the neck. Roughly estimating it, I should say there was an unusual flow of blood, considering the stature and the nourishment of the body.

If she were killed at the gateway and dragged to where she was found there would have been a blood trail. I think that Lamb's statement indicates that she was killed where she was found and the mud on her dress and face were as a result of her fall in the gateway.

[New Waterloo]

The statement by the Police Surgeon Phillips is most interesting. Thank you for highlighting it Andrew. It has made me think. There does seem to be quite a lot of blood flow. Something that seems missing in the other murders. I think somebody has said that when you die your heart stops pumping. For there to be all that flow (several feet or yards) it would seem Stride was alive well for some time. Maybe a few seconds or more. I mean I don't know how long the blood would take to flow say 9 feet but I would imagine a bit of time. If she was alive perhaps, I know its a big perhaps she moved. Perhaps her throat was cut and she was still standing when he left. Then she staggered and gently lowered herself to the floor as she died. I dont really understand Phillips comments but he seems to think there was an excess of blood. Perhaps the killer cut himself quite bad and some of the blood was his. Maybe explaining the blood allover one of her hands

Help please. On another point I seem to recall a comment in the thread called "How Strange is This" where a poster mentions another letter (not the Yarmouth one) where the writer says something like "watch out for Jaffa and Co" Not Yaffa but close. I cant seem to find it. Seems a bit close, Jaffa, Yaffa.