An even closer look at Black Bag Man

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Does it bother no one that in neither version does Schwartz specifically claim to have seen the woman in advance of BS man getting there.

It suggests she was not on the footway, even partially. She was just inside the yard. This would require Schwartz to have reached the gateway when he sees the man stop and talk to her, and that is exactly what Swanson tells us.

Because some are too busy weaving a plot.

Does the plot include Schwartz giving evidence at the inquest?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

According to the Pall Mall Budget; there was no rest day...

This is a snippet from Thursday 4th October 1888

According to Wikipedia, the paper "was a weekly digest of articles from evening newspaper The Pall Mall Gazette". Is this website your source...? https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.ed...ial%20archive.

Did Schwartz attend on this day, but his evidence not being deemed as significant in throwing any light on the murders?

A journalist may have been told that.

Fascinating indeed.

Nice work!

[GBinOz]

Does it bother no one that in neither version does Schwartz specifically claim to have seen the woman in advance of BS man getting there. Because some are too busy weaving a plot.

It doesn't particularly bother me as it is of little to no consequence. Whether or not Schwartz could see her in advance depends entirely on exactly where she was standing in the gateway in relation to the street alignment. If she was slightly inside the street alignment then she would not have been visible to Schwartz (or Mortimer) until he was reasonably close - not right on the gateway but close enough to decide that he didn't want to be involved in what was taking place. I'm not seeing a plot here...?

[GBinOz]

According to the Pall Mall Budget; there was no rest day...

This is a snippet from Thursday 4th October 1888



So based on this article, it appears that the inquest did continue throughout the entire week.

The question is; was the Pall Mall Budget correct?

Interesting possibilities if they were.

A day of evidence giving behind closed doors and away from the press?

Would that ever be allowed to happen at an inquest in 1888?

Did Schwartz attend on this day, but his evidence not being deemed as significant in throwing any light on the murders?

Or was the article above wrong and there was no inquest at all on the Thursday 4th?

Fascinating indeed.

Great find RD, and some interesting and thought provoking questions regarding conclusions. Well done.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Does it bother no one that in neither version does Schwartz specifically claim to have seen the woman in advance of BS man getting there. Because some are too busy weaving a plot.

[Herlock Sholmes]

This is a crucial point that the traditionalists will have to grapple with. If they want Schwartz observing the woman many yards prior to the gates, they will need to place Schwartz across the street. That is when things will get interesting for them.


.

A baffling misinterpretation. Although I should replace the word ‘baffling’ with ‘intentional.’

[Herlock Sholmes]

Let's break this down piece by piece...

Ok

Schwartz saw a man stop and talk to a woman who was standing in the gateway.


So...


Schwartz sees...

1 - a man...
2 - stop...
3 - and talk...
4 - to a woman...
5 - who was standing...
6 - in the gateway.


That is word for word.

Agreed, it tells us that the woman was in the gateway, BS man then arrived at the gateway to talk to her so that Schwartz couldn’t have been in the gateway too, which was a small area, or else he’d have been standing right next to the couple.

One sequence.

6 individual key points


Now let's set aside the timing of when this occurred...

12.45am?
12.46am?
12.42am?
12.49am?
12.47am?

etc...etc...etc..

Ok. We can’t know how Schwartz idea of 12.45 compared to other people’s of course.


...and instead focus specifically on how this could have occurred.

Let's focus on the maths and physics of the scene, rather than the usual attempts to decipher what time it happened.


So i ask again...

HOW could Schwartz see Stride standing in the gateway unless he was within a few yards of her?

Schwartz is walking on the same side of the road, and yet is able to see Stride standing in the gateway.


How?

With his eyes.

The only way this can work...

1) Schwartz is physically close enough to the gateway to be within the field of vision to be able to see Stride standing in the gateway.
2) Stride was not standing in the gateway, but was instead standing on the pavement and in full view of Schwartz, from further up (north) the street.

The issue with the latter, is that it's not what was written in the statement.

Schwartz said that he was walking behind BS man at an unknown distance. It appears to be being implied that either a) BS man was such a huge obstacle that Schwartz couldn’t possibly have see anything beyond his. I know that we call him Broad shouldered but I doubt that he was the width of the pavement. Or b) he was so far behind BS man that he wouldn’t have been able to have seen Stride.

Neither of the above are in line with what the evidence tells us. The woman was standing in the gateway. This doesn’t mean that she was inside the yard and behind the line of the buildings. She was clearly in the same kind of position as a woman standing on her doorstep would have been. I genuinely can’t see why this is a problem RD.

Furthermore, there's another important clue as to the physical position of Schwartz when he witnesses the assault on Stride...


And it's something that is always overlooked.


What does Schwartz do to prove that he was within close proximity to Stride when she was assaulted?


He identifies her.

What do you mean by ‘identifies’ RD? He didn’t say “I saw Elizabeth Stride.”

But when does he identify her?


When she's already on the ground?

Very unlikely.


The only time that Schwartz can positively identify Stride, is from when he first sees her standing in the gateway, to the moment she is thrown to the floor.

The optimum time for the identification to occur was the moment when Bs man tried pulling her into the street. Stride would be being effectively pulled towards Schwartz's location in the street, and therefore provide Schwartz with a few seconds to see her face, before she was span around and thrown down onto the footway and away from the street (and away from Schwartz)


Now Schwartz doesn't say that he sees a woman being pulled into the street from any given distance, but he has to be close enough to be able to see her having been standing in the gateway BEFORE she's assaulted, and be close enough to see her and identify her as the murder victim.

I can’t understand how you have arrived at this conclusion RD. When BS man identified the woman that he’d seen as the murder victim he was talking about the whole event. At no point did he claim to have only been able to ID her from when she was on the ground.


The fact that the statement tells us that as Schwartz reached the gateway, he saw a man stop and talk to a woman who was standing in the gateway, and then the man tried to pull her into the street, before throwing her down onto the footway....tells us that Schwartz had to have been within a few yards of Stride when she was attacked.

Agreed. Something that I’ve said all along.

The reason why Schwartz doesn't bump into either BS man or Stride, is because just as BS man launches an assault on Stride, Schwartz then instinctively attempts to cross the road to get away from them.

Perfectly normal, understandable behaviour.

The reason why no collision occurs, is because Schwartz has already initiated walking across the road BEFORE BS man tries to pull Stride into the street and away from the gateway.

Yes.

In other words; if Schwartz hadn't have crossed the road, then he likely would have collided with Bs man and/or Stride as Bs man tried to drag her into the street.

Yes.

Stride is then thrown down onto the floor just as Schwartz has reached the other side of the road.

In Swanson’s synthesis Schwartz crosses the road after BS man had thrown her to the ground. The Star don’t mention her being on the ground.

Within seconds, Schwartz notices Pipeman ahead of him and then hears Bs man shout over to him "Lipski!

In Swanson’s synthesis it’s clear that he is of the opinion (derived from his officers) that BS called out “Lipski” to Pipeman. In The Star it’s Pipeman who is shouting a warning at BS man.


Unless of course...the words in the 3rd person statement promoted by the police was full of factual and literal errors.

I don’t understand why you only suggest that the ‘police’ version might be full of errors and lies and not The Star version. Surely if one version is likely to contain errors it’s the newspaper report?


If that's the case, then it makes Schwartz's statement null and void as potential key evidence.

This is something that we face across the case RD. Wickerman’s advice on this is good imo in that we should first take an overview of the reports and see if we can get a better picture. We have to accept the possibility of error though. And the fact that a newspaper reporter would be more prone to exaggeration than a police interview.

I wouldn’t say

The other scenario is that the entire thing never happened in the first place and there was never an assault.

Which we have no evidence for and would be unlikely in the extreme.

But if there was, then we are compelled to follow the actual words written in the statement.

And although there are discrepancies we don’t really have any huge issues.

[The Rookie Detective]

https://www.espncricinfo.com/records...tches-1?team=1 No test cricket that day.



The 'rest day' remains unexplained.

According to the Pall Mall Budget; there was no rest day...

This is a snippet from Thursday 4th October 1888



So based on this article, it appears that the inquest did continue throughout the entire week.

The question is; was the Pall Mall Budget correct?

Interesting possibilities if they were.

A day of evidence giving behind closed doors and away from the press?

Would that ever be allowed to happen at an inquest in 1888?

Did Schwartz attend on this day, but his evidence not being deemed as significant in throwing any light on the murders?

Or was the article above wrong and there was no inquest at all on the Thursday 4th?

Fascinating indeed.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Who was playing, and what was the result?

https://www.espncricinfo.com/records...tches-1?team=1 No test cricket that day.

I don't think that the statement regards his attendance at the inquest can be dismissed out of hand without supporting evidence. I would see the Thursday gap as a point in favour, but the fact that no record of his alleged evidence has been found is a point against.

The 'rest day' remains unexplained.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

The three screams that were not very loud didn't seem to attract any attention which, if Stride was afraid, would have been her intention. I believe that she didn't feel any fear because it was what Schwartz assumed - a domestic. I think that BSMan took her arm and was trying to persuade her to accompany him away from the gateway, but she had other ideas and twisted away from him as he let her go resulting in her appearing to have been spun around and put on the ground. Rather than three screams, I suspect a series of indignant admonishments not meant to be heard by others. In one of the translations he is pulling her out of the gateway and the other translation has him pushing her into the yard. There is a lot of room for conjecture with Schwartz telling the story slightly differently, translation errors or mis-interpretations and the difference in audience appreciation between the police and the press.

This is reasonable enough. However, the scenario you have depicted would suggest that Stride was not particularly fearful of her predicament. In that case, Schwartz was unlikely to be fearful, also. Ditto Pipeman.

Once again, Schwartz (and I) thought he was seeing a domestic so he may have paused momentarily to come to this assessment and decide to cross the road. I'm not trying to solve any problem, but I think that Schwartz was trying to solve the problem of getting involved in a domestic. I also don't think that BSMan even noticed him at this stage.

An issue for the domestic hypothesis is that the police found no man who might have been a candidate for it. If the man was not Michael Kidney, what might the domestic be in regard to?

It would appear to me that when Schwartz reached the intersection he heard a commotion from the yard and turned to see what was happening. I suspect that the dispute between BSMan and Stride had become louder, and BSMan this time looked around to see who may be watching. So did BSMan call say "Lizzie" to Stride and this was mistaken for "Lipski"? Did BSMan shout Lipski at one or both of the men at the intersection? Did Pipeman shout a warning at BSMan to stop what he perceived to be an attack on Stride, or a warning to BSMan that a witness was observing him?
These are the imponderables about which we can only speculate.

Cheers, George

Presumably you don't suppose there was a couple at the intersection, when the dispute got louder. If Pipeman objected to BS Man's behaviour, it would seem odd that not only did he not come forward to the police, but he was seemingly never even identified by them.

[GBinOz]

Before the witness [Dr Phillips] had concluded his evidence the inquiry was adjourned until Friday, at two o'clock.

That was on the Wednesday. What did Coroner Baxter do on the Thursday? I have it down to either:

A) He went to the first day of a test match, for which he and his wife had bought tickets weeks before.
Who was playing, and what was the result?

B) He took testimony from Israel Schwartz, in a session closed to the public and press.

I don't think that the statement regards his attendance at the inquest can be dismissed out of hand without supporting evidence. I would see the Thursday gap as a point in favour, but the fact that no record of his alleged evidence has been found is a point against.

[GBinOz]

Hi George.

For me to agree or disagree with your interpretations, I'd need to have a better idea as to why you hold some of them. For example, the police summary states the man tried to pull the woman into the street. This implies he failed to do so - our Liz must have been deceptively strong. Only then does he turn her around and throw her down. By replacing this with her falling due to overbalancing when pulled, what problem are you trying to solve?

Regarding the three not very loud screams, well that is an oxymoron to some extent, so in this case it makes sense to suppose that the translation is not quite right. However, we have to accept that as those words appear in Swanson's report, Abberline likely accepted this description. It made sense to him.

The three screams that were not very loud didn't seem to attract any attention which, if Stride was afraid, would have been her intention. I believe that she didn't feel any fear because it was what Schwartz assumed - a domestic. I think that BSMan took her arm and was trying to persuade her to accompany him away from the gateway, but she had other ideas and twisted away from him as he let her go resulting in her appearing to have been spun around and put on the ground. Rather than three screams, I suspect a series of indignant admonishments not meant to be heard by others. In one of the translations he is pulling her out of the gateway and the other translation has him pushing her into the yard. There is a lot of room for conjecture with Schwartz telling the story slightly differently, translation errors or mis-interpretations and the difference in audience appreciation between the police and the press.

I think if Schwartz stopped momentarily - barely a pause - it would hardly be worth mentioning by him, let alone in a police memo. We tend to imagine this incident as being very short because the highly condensed police report makes it sound so, and timeline authors struggle to fit the incident in. However, the police report implies that Schwartz stopped to observe, and Abberline states this explicitly. The man initially talks to the woman and at some indeterminate point after that, he gets violent with her. One could ask, why did Schwartz stop to watch a man and woman speak - what's it to him? That is a question for another post, though. For now, I'll ask a similar question as the one above: Why not accept what the police are telling us about Schwartz stopping? What problem are you trying you trying to solve by replacing this with, at most, a momentary pause?

Once again, Schwartz (and I) thought he was seeing a domestic so he may have paused momentarily to come to this assessment and decide to cross the road. I'm not trying to solve any problem, but I think that Schwartz was trying to solve the problem of getting involved in a domestic. I also don't think that BSMan even noticed him at this stage.

Regarding Schwartz's location when 'Lipski' is called out, you are right that a diagonal crossing from club to school side places Schwartz almost at the corner. He had been much closer to BS Man. For me, this begs the question - why not let him go? Why wait until Schwartz is walking away, to draw him into the situation that he is now paying much less attention to? Something is not right with this scenario.

It would appear to me that when Schwartz reached the intersection he heard a commotion from the yard and turned to see what was happening. I suspect that the dispute between BSMan and Stride had become louder, and BSMan this time looked around to see who may be watching. So did BSMan call say "Lizzie" to Stride and this was mistaken for "Lipski"? Did BSMan shout Lipski at one or both of the men at the intersection? Did Pipeman shout a warning at BSMan to stop what he perceived to be an attack on Stride, or a warning to BSMan that a witness was observing him?
These are the imponderables about which we can only speculate.

Cheers, George

[NotBlamedForNothing]

The reason why Schwartz doesn't bump into either BS man or Stride, is because just as BS man launches an assault on Stride, Schwartz then instinctively attempts to cross the road to get away from them.

The reason why no collision occurs, is because Schwartz has already initiated walking across the road BEFORE BS man tries to pull Stride into the street and away from the gateway.

In other words; if Schwartz hadn't have crossed the road, then he likely would have collided with Bs man and/or Stride as Bs man tried to drag her into the street.

The last time I avoided colliding with a couple of people standing on a footway, I just walked around them. I didn't find it necessary to cross the street.

Stride is then thrown down onto the floor just as Schwartz has reached the other side of the road.

Are you sure?

... 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 ...

One of the problems with the traditional model is that, if it is accepted that Schwartz had reached the gateway when he stops to watch what's going on between the man and the woman, he has no reason to cross the street. The crossing of the street cannot be accounted for. Schwartz's address is given as 22 Ellen St. That does not require a crossing of the street as he traverses south on Berner. On the contrary, he should stay on the club side if that is the side he starts on. So, on what side did he start on?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

The gateway was set back from the street and if Stride was indeed standing in the gateway, then unless Schwartz was walking on the other side of the road, it would require him to have been within a few yards of Stride when she was observed by him...standing in the gateway.

This is a crucial point that the traditionalists will have to grapple with. If they want Schwartz observing the woman many yards prior to the gates, they will need to place Schwartz across the street. That is when things will get interesting for them.

He doesn't say... a man walked over and assaulted her. Bs man first engages with Stride before attacking her. This adds only 2 or 3 seconds, but those 2 or 3 seconds are crucial because Schwartz is moving towards them.

How do you engage with someone in 2 or 3 seconds? Have you decided on this number so that Schwartz hasn't walked too far away when the man gets violent?

But let's not forget that Schwartz is still walking and moving south from the time he sees BS man stop and talk to Stride, through to him witnessing her being thrown to the floor.

Abberline said Schwartz stopped to watch. Are you playing the interpreter got it wrong card?

Now there is another explanation based on what the statement says.


Bs man doesn't initially see Schwartz (or hear him) approach the gateway from the north, and so when he stops to talk to Stride and then suddenly attacks her and tries to pull her into the street, he is unaware that there's a witness walking within a few yards of him.

On seeing BS man suddenly grab Stride, Schwartz then tries to avoid them both by quickly trying to cross the road in a diagonal pathway (as someone would if they were still walking forwards)

As Schwartz steps off the curb, Bs man alters the trajectory of where he intends to pull Stride (towards the street) and instead swings her around and throws her down onto the footway that leads into the yard.
In the mind of Bs man, Schwartz is physically in the way of him being able to drag Stride into the street, and so he throws her to the floor in the opposite direction instead.

As Schwartz crosses he sees Pipeman further along, who has also stirred after having heard the commotion.

Bs man then shouts "LIPSKI!" at Schwartz because he is both drunk and angered by the fact that Schwartz got physically too close to him at the point he tried to pull Stride into the street.

This is the traditional model. How much sense does it make for the man to have shouted 'Lipski' at Schwartz because he had been too close and is now walking away? Not much!

Of course, if Schwartz did stop, then it may have been to keep at least 5 yards away from what he thought was a domestic, and then chose to cross the road when he realised he would be walking directly into the couple's path.

Is that compatible with Schwartz having reached the gateway, which you have already (correctly) ruled out?

Ultimately, if Schwartz's account is correct, or more importantly; credible, then how could he have seen Stride standing in the gateway IF he wasn't within 5 yards of the gateway and/or wasn't within the physical field of vision required to have been able to see her in the first place?


It's all answered if Schwartz was walking on the other side of the road.

But this is unlikely, because why would he then cross the road and move physically closer to the assault?

Because he wants to intervene and is only dissuaded from doing so when he becomes aware of the second man. That could mean two against one, so he thinks better of it and walks away.

[The Rookie Detective]

You and Andrew are over thinking this massively RD. BS man stopped and talked to a woman in the gateway. We have no idea if Schwartz saw her before BSMan stopped to talk to her. He might only have seen her when he stopped. It’s beyond simple. Schwartz was probably 10 or 20 feet behind BS man (something like that…it could have been more it could have been less) He sees BS man stop. There’s a woman there and the incident begins. Schwartz crosses the road, unless you and Andrew are suggesting he just walked on and collided into them?

Why is this so hard? I feel like I’m in an alternate universe.

Schwartz and BS man began on the same side of the road - this is a fact.

As soon as the incident began (which was as soon as BS man met the woman) Schwartz crossed the road.

He continued walking, the shout went out and he spotted Pipeman.

He left.

Thats it.

Let's break this down piece by piece...

Schwartz saw a man stop and talk to a woman who was standing in the gateway.


So...


Schwartz sees...

1 - a man...
2 - stop...
3 - and talk...
4 - to a woman...
5 - who was standing...
6 - in the gateway.


That is word for word.

One sequence.

6 individual key points


Now let's set aside the timing of when this occurred...

12.45am?
12.46am?
12.42am?
12.49am?
12.47am?

etc...etc...etc..


...and instead focus specifically on how this could have occurred.

Let's focus on the maths and physics of the scene, rather than the usual attempts to decipher what time it happened.


So i ask again...

HOW could Schwartz see Stride standing in the gateway unless he was within a few yards of her?

Schwartz is walking on the same side of the road, and yet is able to see Stride standing in the gateway.


How?


The only way this can work...

1) Schwartz is physically close enough to the gateway to be within the field of vision to be able to see Stride standing in the gateway.
2) Stride was not standing in the gateway, but was instead standing on the pavement and in full view of Schwartz, from further up (north) the street.

The issue with the latter, is that it's not what was written in the statement.

Furthermore, there's another important clue as to the physical position of Schwartz when he witnesses the assault on Stride...


And it's something that is always overlooked.


What does Schwartz do to prove that he was within close proximity to Stride when she was assaulted?


He identifies her.

But when does he identify her?


When she's already on the ground?

Very unlikely.


The only time that Schwartz can positively identify Stride, is from when he first sees her standing in the gateway, to the moment she is thrown to the floor.

The optimum time for the identification to occur was the moment when Bs man tried pulling her into the street. Stride would be being effectively pulled towards Schwartz's location in the street, and therefore provide Schwartz with a few seconds to see her face, before she was span around and thrown down onto the footway and away from the street (and away from Schwartz)


Now Schwartz doesn't say that he sees a woman being pulled into the street from any given distance, but he has to be close enough to be able to see her having been standing in the gateway BEFORE she's assaulted, and be close enough to see her and identify her as the murder victim.


The fact that the statement tells us that as Schwartz reached the gateway, he saw a man stop and talk to a woman who was standing in the gateway, and then the man tried to pull her into the street, before throwing her down onto the footway....tells us that Schwartz had to have been within a few yards of Stride when she was attacked.


The reason why Schwartz doesn't bump into either BS man or Stride, is because just as BS man launches an assault on Stride, Schwartz then instinctively attempts to cross the road to get away from them.

The reason why no collision occurs, is because Schwartz has already initiated walking across the road BEFORE BS man tries to pull Stride into the street and away from the gateway.

In other words; if Schwartz hadn't have crossed the road, then he likely would have collided with Bs man and/or Stride as Bs man tried to drag her into the street.


Stride is then thrown down onto the floor just as Schwartz has reached the other side of the road.

Within seconds, Schwartz notices Pipeman ahead of him and then hears Bs man shout over to him "Lipski!


Unless of course...the words in the 3rd person statement promoted by the police was full of factual and literal errors.


If that's the case, then it makes Schwartz's statement null and void as potential key evidence.


The other scenario is that the entire thing never happened in the first place and there was never an assault.

But if there was, then we are compelled to follow the actual words written in the statement.