An even closer look at Black Bag Man

[Tom_Wescott]

That is my take on it as well, Herlock. I have never understood the Schwartz fixation especially when he never stated he saw Stride being killed. So we have a witness relatively new to the area, who was out at night, who only witnessed an encounter for a few seconds, who didn't understand English and who gave his evidence through an interpreter. Yet, for some posters, an inability to cross every t and dot every i is cause for suspicion. Can any witness in this case hold up to such intense scrutiny?

Cue the naysayers.

c.d.

Over the years I've considered that Schwartz may have been lying. The reasons for this are that the Star report (a police plant, yes, but perhaps not entirely without some factual accuracy) has Schwartz living on Berner Street until that week. Schwartz goes to the police with his own interpreter, as did Goldstein (i.e. William Wess) and William Wess appears to have known about the Schwartz story as a muddled version of it appears in the press. This potential connection between Schwartz and the IWEC club opened the possibility of the anarchists doing some damage control by presenting the police with two obviously gentile suspects, replete with Semitic slur. There's also the fact that Schwartz disappears from not only the records, but the memories of police at about November 1st, 1888. I find that odd.

Having said all that, when I really dug deep into the evidence, it stood out to me that if Schwartz was lying, he was extraordinary lucky, because his lie depends on Berner Street being absolutely empty at around 12:45 for his story to not be immediately disproved. Low and behold, it turns out this was true. And Brown puts a man wearing a dark overcoat in the street at this time. Another remarkable coincidence if Schwartz's story had been bunk. What I ended up concluding is that while it's possible Schwartz's story is a hoax, the likelihood is something like what Swanson describes in his October 19th report did, in fact, take place. His description of the men is probably not spot on and more than the word 'Lipski' was likely spoken, but he couldn't understand it. But unless he was a remarkably fortunate liar, we have to take his story on board.

In any event, what he witnessed was not Stride's murder but some sort of prelude.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

IIRC PC Smith didn't have a watch. His sighting of Stride with the man was probably closer to 12:38.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[The Rookie Detective]

Based on the timeline/chronological sequence, only a loooonnnnnng handful of people could have been the killer.

Bs man
Pipe man
Eagle
Lave
Parcel man
Overcoat man
Diemschitz
Spooner
Goldstein
PC Smith
Schwarz
The couple "on the corner."


How we try and fit Lechmere, Maybrick, Druitt or Kosminski into all this, I have no idea.

[Abby Normal]

That is my take on it as well, Herlock. I have never understood the Schwartz fixation especially when he never stated he saw Stride being killed. So we have a witness relatively new to the area, who was out at night, who only witnessed an encounter for a few seconds, who didn't understand English and who gave his evidence through an interpreter. Yet, for some posters, an inability to cross every t and dot every i is cause for suspicion. Can any witness in this case hold up to such intense scrutiny?

Cue the naysayers.

c.d.

Totally agree cd and herlock

Plus youve got a club where people are singing, and a rainy night...so easily drowning any out noise from the bsman/stride encounter.

[Herlock Sholmes]

That is my take on it as well, Herlock. I have never understood the Schwartz fixation especially when he never stated he saw Stride being killed. So we have a witness relatively new to the area, who was out at night, who only witnessed an encounter for a few seconds, who didn't understand English and who gave his evidence through an interpreter. Yet, for some posters, an inability to cross every t and dot every i is cause for suspicion. Can any witness in this case hold up to such intense scrutiny?

Cue the naysayers.

c.d.

And just to add, we haven’t a clue how he came to give his time as 12.45 or how that time was synchronised to other times.

[c.d.]

That is my take on it as well, Herlock. I have never understood the Schwartz fixation especially when he never stated he saw Stride being killed. So we have a witness relatively new to the area, who was out at night, who only witnessed an encounter for a few seconds, who didn't understand English and who gave his evidence through an interpreter. Yet, for some posters, an inability to cross every t and dot every i is cause for suspicion. Can any witness in this case hold up to such intense scrutiny?

Cue the naysayers.

c.d.

[Herlock Sholmes]

My own opinion c.d. is that Berner Street threads tend to be long drawn out attempts at trying to justify claims that Israel Schwartz was never there despite there being no evidence for this suggestion. That’s a seam that runs through these threads. It’s based on the strange logic that an event, which must have taken no more that 20 or 30 seconds and where little noise was made, couldn’t possibly have occurred in a quiet, largely deserted, probably poorly lit backstreet at sometime around 12.45am.

[c.d.]

Of course, we could just take the usual approach of stamping down on asking questions so to avoid even attempting to find answers; for fear of upsetting those who find it annoying and irritating.

And these types of posters would be who exactly, R.D.? If you are referring to me, I simply asked where this thread was headed and what possible conclusions could be drawn from it. So it would seem that I was in fact asking questions, a practice you seem to encourage.

c.d.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I will repeat for those who may have a slight difficulty in understanding...


Pc Smith stated he passed along Berner Street sometime between 12.30-12.35am.

As a police officer we can have reasonable faith in his time being as close to accurate as we can get.

He also stated his beat took him between 25 to 30 minutes to complete a circuit.


Based on his own statement/words, his presence in Berner St between 12.30am-12.35am would have meant that his next rotation should have brought him back around to the same spot 25 - 30 minutes later.

12.30am + 25 mins = 12.55am
12.30am + 30 mins = 1am
12.35am + 25 mins = 1am
12.35am + 30 mins = 1.05am

As I said; Smith should have been walking back along Berner Street again between 12.55am - 1.05am

So, I will ask again; where was Smith?

One place he certainly wasn't; was in Berner Street.

Now unless Pc Lamb took over his beat, and Lamb replaces Smith as being at the top of Berner Street (roughly at the same time Smith should have been) then we have a potential issue with Smith's validity as a witness.

Either his timings were off and even a policeman couldn't give an accurate account of timing in relation to his location, or he wasn't completely truthful in his account.


Where was Smith?


No hidden agenda, no conspiracy theory, no trying to be awkward... just a simple question...


Where was Smith?



Of course, we could just take the usual approach of stamping down on asking questions so to avoid even attempting to find answers; for fear of upsetting those who find it annoying and irritating.


Where was Smith?

Regards


RD


p.s. no conspiracy theory intended

OK, so now it appears that you have an issue with me RD. The only thing that I find annoying and irritating is anyone with an allergy to a down-to-earth explanation. Why does everything have to be over complicated?

Smith’s beat is impossible to recreate exactly but it took in Backchurch Lane and Commercial Road as far as the top of Gower’s Walk so I’d suggest that he was somewhere in that area when Diemschitz and then Lamb into Berner Street. That Smith arrived after them both is simply a fact. They couldn’t all have gone into Berner Street at 1.00. Therefore it’s an issue of times…as I’ve been saying for the past 5 years or so. Make a plus and minus allowance and the problem is solved.

[Lewis C]

I will repeat for those who may have a slight difficulty in understanding...


Pc Smith stated he passed along Berner Street sometime between 12.30-12.35am.

As a police officer we can have reasonable faith in his time being as close to accurate as we can get.

He also stated his beat took him between 25 to 30 minutes to complete a circuit.


Based on his own statement/words, his presence in Berner St between 12.30am-12.35am would have meant that his next rotation should have brought him back around to the same spot 25 - 30 minutes later.

12.30am + 25 mins = 12.55am
12.30am + 30 mins = 1am
12.35am + 25 mins = 1am
12.35am + 30 mins = 1.05am

As I said; Smith should have been walking back along Berner Street again between 12.55am - 1.05am

So, I will ask again; where was Smith?

One place he certainly wasn't; was in Berner Street.

Now unless Pc Lamb took over his beat, and Lamb replaces Smith as being at the top of Berner Street (roughly at the same time Smith should have been) then we have a potential issue with Smith's validity as a witness.

Either his timings were off and even a policeman couldn't give an accurate account of timing in relation to his location, or he wasn't completely truthful in his account.


Where was Smith?


No hidden agenda, no conspiracy theory, no trying to be awkward... just a simple question...


Where was Smith?



Of course, we could just take the usual approach of stamping down on asking questions so to avoid even attempting to find answers; for fear of upsetting those who find it annoying and irritating.


Where was Smith?

Regards


RD


p.s. no conspiracy theory intended

So you're granting that Smith should have been there by 1:05, and Herlock is estimating that he got back at 1:06. If the clocks weren't perfectly synchronized and people's abilities to report the exact time their clocks say aren't perfect, then a one minute discrepancy isn't a problem.

[The Rookie Detective]

I will repeat for those who may have a slight difficulty in understanding...


Pc Smith stated he passed along Berner Street sometime between 12.30-12.35am.

As a police officer we can have reasonable faith in his time being as close to accurate as we can get.

He also stated his beat took him between 25 to 30 minutes to complete a circuit.


Based on his own statement/words, his presence in Berner St between 12.30am-12.35am would have meant that his next rotation should have brought him back around to the same spot 25 - 30 minutes later.

12.30am + 25 mins = 12.55am
12.30am + 30 mins = 1am
12.35am + 25 mins = 1am
12.35am + 30 mins = 1.05am

As I said; Smith should have been walking back along Berner Street again between 12.55am - 1.05am

So, I will ask again; where was Smith?

One place he certainly wasn't; was in Berner Street.

Now unless Pc Lamb took over his beat, and Lamb replaces Smith as being at the top of Berner Street (roughly at the same time Smith should have been) then we have a potential issue with Smith's validity as a witness.

Either his timings were off and even a policeman couldn't give an accurate account of timing in relation to his location, or he wasn't completely truthful in his account.


Where was Smith?


No hidden agenda, no conspiracy theory, no trying to be awkward... just a simple question...


Where was Smith?



Of course, we could just take the usual approach of stamping down on asking questions so to avoid even attempting to find answers; for fear of upsetting those who find it annoying and irritating.


Where was Smith?

Regards


RD


p.s. no conspiracy theory intended

[Herlock Sholmes]

Every single time, without exception, that is mentioned in this case, at any location and under any circumstances has to be questioned. I genuinely can’t understand any resistance to this. And yet we always find resistance. Any suggestion that all of these clocks and watches were synchronised cannot be accepted for a second. Then we have the fact that many are relying on a clock that they had seen some time ago - so how accurately have they estimated that period of time. Just look at the Berner Street witnesses…

Brown - He may have had a clock in his house but how would it have compared in synchronisation to Smith’s or Mortimer’s or the club’s? Or did he note the time that he got back from work and then estimate a period time before he left his house?

Lave - We get around 5 different versions of what he did, when he did it and how long he did it for. How can we judge his testimony? It’s impossible.

Eagle - He said that he arrived back at around 12.40 but how did he arrive at that time? Was it a clock in the club - if so, how was that clock synchronised to others? Was it a time that he saw at his girlfriend’s house and he just judged how long it took for him to walk back to the club? Did he judge his walk time accurately and how was his girlfriend’s house clock synchronised to the club clock?

Mortimer - We don’t know when she went on to her doorstep. We don’t know how long she remained there. We don’t know what time she went back inside. We don’t know what time she saw Goldstein. How can we dream of dismissing someone’s evidence based on her?

Diemschitz - How was the Baker’s clock synchronised to Smith’s or Lamb’s or the clubs?

Dr. Blackwell - His watch said 1.16 but how was it synchronised to Smith or Lamb’s for example?


So why are we questioned or criticised when we state the obvious - that we have to allow a reasonable margin for error on all times. Look at Halse and Long. Both said that they had passed along Goulston Street at 2.00 and yet they didn’t see each other. Was one of them lying or was it a case of watches or clocks being poorly synchronised? All times must be taken with a healthy pinch of salt. Even today, with all of our technology we still find poorly synchronised timepieces so why is there resistance to the same phenomena occurring, to a greater extent, nearly 140 years ago?

[c.d.]

I don’t understand that point RD.

Well I don't understand the point of this entire thread. Is it to establish the whereabouts of every single resident of Whitechapel at any given moment?
What conclusion or conclusions are trying to be reached? I think that goal got lost in the shuffle.

If it is to discredit Schwartz, I think the best you can do in that regard is to conclude that well, his story doesn't account for X. Maybe so, but that still doesn't tell us whether or not he was telling the truth (as he saw it). It can only cast doubt and then we are back to square one again.

My opinion.

c.d.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I don’t understand that point RD. He said that his beat took 25-30 minutes. So if he passed at 12.35, and his beat took him 30 minutes, then that puts him back at the top of Berner Street at around 1.05. He said 1.00 but maybe he was quoting the time that he mostly arrived at that spot or perhaps more likely, he was basing his 1.00 on a clock that he’d seen. This clock, if a different one to the one used by Diemschitz, could have been 5 minutes slower.

[The Rookie Detective]

I don't think so. What possible motive could Smith have had to murder Stride. I suggest that you might consider whether the footsteps that Mortimer heard were that of Goldstein, observed heading north by Mrs Artisan. A short appearance at The Spectacle Cafe to establish an alibi and a return back on Berner St to be observed by Mortimer glancing at the Yard on his way home.

A fair point.

But it still doesn't answer the question; where was Smith?

Based on his very own timings, he should have been walking along Berner Street again between 12.55am - 1am.

So where was he and why wasn't his absence questioned?