An even closer look at Black Bag Man

[NotBlamedForNothing]

This incident clearly took seconds.

“The Hungarian saw him put his hand on her shoulder and push her back into the passage, but, feeling rather timid of getting mixed up in quarrels, he crossed to the other side of the street.”

This doesn’t sound like a man who pulled up a chair. This event took seconds.

Why ‘escalate?’ This is misleading. It got physical pretty much straight away.

You are deliberately trying to stretch out this incident, as you have done before, to try and make it sound less likely to have gone unseen and unheard.

You rely on the press account when it suits and disparage it when it doesn't.

Before he had gone many yards, however, he heard the sound of a quarrel, and turned back to learn what was the matter ...

Not sure how our supposedly non-English speaker intended learn what the matter was, but whatever the case, he is now almost at the board school corner and can clearly hear this quarrel. Was there not a couple at that corner at that time? The women in the kitchen should also have been able to hear it, but for some reason did not.

... but just as he stepped from the kerb a second man came out of the doorway of the public-house a few doors off, and shouting out some sort of warning to the man who was with the woman, rushed forward as if to attack the intruder.

Not sure how our supposedly non-English speaker ascertained the meaning of and intended recipient of the man's shouting, but it seems clear that Schwartz regarded the two men as having some sort of association. Whenever I raise this point and quote Robert Anderson in support, I get ... crickets. Obviously, this is not what people want the truth to be.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I now am going to suggest a theory. Spooner was with his girlfriend as he stated but has just walked her home. He married a woman called Catherine Sullivan a year or so later. There was a Sullivan family living in Backchurch lane but not sure about 1888. On the way home to His house in Fairclough street he encounters Stride momentarily on her own. Parcelman has his eyes on the yard and waiting for his moment. Spooner may be the man seen with Stride by Brown.

Anyway perhaps Spooner is BSM. Thats why he is on his own when found by the searchers. He dare not say he was involved. He is trying to pull Stride out of the yard where Parcelman now is. He fails and Pacelman/Jtr cuts Strides throat and clears off.

Spooner sticks to his story even the time. He is messed up because his timing doesnt work because he says he was with his girlfriend which he wasnt at the time of the pulling of Stride. He goes away not knowing what was about to happen to Stride

I am sure there are lots of problems with this

What became of Spooner's lady friend when he went to the yard, is a mystery. He also seemed a bit confused about his timings, as you suggest.

Diemschitz: When I returned to the club a man whom we met in Grove street and told about the murder lifted up the woman's head, and then for the first time I saw the wound in the throat.

No mention of a woman. Doesn't mean she wasn't there, but what about when he left the yard?

Spooner: Before that I was searched, and gave my name and address. I was also examined by Dr. Phillips.

Apparently, he was without company when at Dutfield's Yard. So, he must have left the lady friend alone, on the street. An odd thing to do immediately after hearing of a nearby murder of a woman.

[JeffHamm]

Pleeeeeeese can someone select a new topic for discussion and not one in which allows deliberate attempts to manipulate a half-baked mystery.

Surely we can find something?

Hi Herlock,

My personal opinion is that I think we have enough information to piece together a fairly good description of the sequence of events. And, given we have sufficient details about the routes people travelled, we can work out reasonable estimates of the time required. While our estimates won't be exactly right, they will be informed and so good approximations. And, give the research on duration estimations, we can guide our event chaining based on that as well. The benefit of doing this is that our decisions are determined by the research based values and so are not subject to personal biases. For example, when Fanny estimates being on her doorstep for 10 minutes the research tells us the actual time was probably less than that; I forget the exact value, but I think it is around 8m and change). The value isn't my opinion, it is the objectively determined value. But, we also allow for some variability, but at least our starting point is something that should be agreeable to all.

Some things, like the Schwartz event, cannot be directly tied to another event, but we know when it cannot occur (while Fanny is on her doorstep, while PC Smith is patrolling Berner' Street, etc).

But, before questioning Schwartz, we have to first build all the other events, and only then can we look to see if there is a window of time, somewhere near enough to 12:45, wherein that piece of the puzzle could fit.

When George, myself, and others were putting together our various timelines, what emerged were very similar sequences, with differences based upon which clock we set as the reference, but the relative times and durations and order of events were very similar. I considered them all the same, really, because if I based the time on Dr. Blackwell and some else used a PC, then the differences really just reflect the desync between the two clocks used to calculate the times.

And in those sequences there was always more than enough time to insert the Schwartz event between Fanny going inside and Deimshitz arriving.

So, as far as I can see, there is no reason to believe Schwartz was anything other than another witness.

Also, when timelines are proposed that take only the stated times and durations as written and show they contradict, all that proves is that one cannot take witness statements as if they are error free, which is why one has to go through the effort (and it is a big job) to try and recover the sequence using objective measures and evidence based correction factors.

Trying to evaluate a piece of the puzzle in isolation, though, is not really possible because it is the entire sequence of events that provide the context.

But, that's just my opinion, but it explains my view at times and why I do encourage people to view the Stride simulation. I don't think it is perfect, and it needs work and updating based on discussions held since I put it together, but it still is useful to see how everything can easily be sequenced and works without any real complications.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Even on your own terms, the timespan yourself and others suppose for this truncated 'Schwartz incident' is questionable.

Swanson: ... having 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 ...

This makes it sound like the interaction between the man and woman lasted mere seconds. The problem is that the single paragraph describing the incident is heavily condensed. In reality, how long did it take to go from the man and woman talking, to the man getting violent with the woman? Was there an angry argument before he threw her down? Did it continue after that point? For all we know, Schwartz could have stood gawking at the spectacle for 2 or 3 minutes. Why would a verbal dispute escalate into violence after a few seconds? I think your estimate could be way out.

What we have to work with describes Schwartz continuously moving down Berner Street. Sure, you can introduce a 2-3 minute undocumented pause if you wish, but then it is you who has a problem if, after assembling all of the events, turn out to have a puzzle piece that doesn't fit, indicating that the hypothesized 2-3 of gawking, that is never mentioned in any records, is the problem.

It is easy to make things not work, just add undocumented events until you've made things longer than possible. But that's not an approach I see as useful. Rather, I take the statements and try and find the minimum length, and then see if that fits. if the minimum can't fit there's definately a problem. If there is more time than the minimum requires, it means we can consider additional time for some things. If there is a lot of extra time, it may even mean that B.S. could leave and another person come along who kills Stride (an idea that is discussed).

But, getting a time estimate for what Schwartz describes means just that, what he describes. He does not describe waiting around for 2-3 minutes, so I'm not considering that when I estimate how long his stated events would take. He describes a continual progression down the street, viewing an altercation, and then fleeing. That's his event. As I said in my original post, one could argue that the complete Schwartz event does require covering some things Schwartz doesn't himself mention, like getting B.S. out of the street as well, and the shortest exit for him is south to Fairclough, which is a very short journey. That gives us a working minimum, and results in a "Schwartz event puzzle piece" of probably 2 minutes, maybe a bit less given the distance from the gate to Fairclough is pretty short and probably doesn't require 30 seconds. But 2 minutes seems to me to be a reasonable minimum time to work with.

In my attempts at recreating the timelines, I was very easily able to find a time window that could more than accommodate the events as described. There might even be enough spare time to work with that you could argue Schwartz spent a minute or two gawking if you really wanted to add that in for some reason, but I see no justification for it.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Pleeeeeeese can someone select a new topic for discussion and not one in which allows deliberate attempts to manipulate a half-baked mystery.

Surely we can find something?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Even on your own terms, the timespan yourself and others suppose for this truncated 'Schwartz incident' is questionable.

Swanson: ... having 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 ...

This makes it sound like the interaction between the man and woman lasted mere seconds. The problem is that the single paragraph describing the incident is heavily condensed. In reality, how long did it take to go from the man and woman talking, to the man getting violent with the woman? Was there an angry argument before he threw her down? Did it continue after that point? For all we know, Schwartz could have stood gawking at the spectacle for 2 or 3 minutes. Why would a verbal dispute escalate into violence after a few seconds? I think your estimate could be way out.

This incident clearly took seconds.

“The Hungarian saw him put his hand on her shoulder and push her back into the passage, but, feeling rather timid of getting mixed up in quarrels, he crossed to the other side of the street.”

This doesn’t sound like a man who pulled up a chair. This event took seconds.

Why ‘escalate?’ This is misleading. It got physical pretty much straight away.

You are deliberately trying to stretch out this incident, as you have done before, to try and make it sound less likely to have gone unseen and unheard.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Lets look a some things we can generally agree on. Based on what people have said and not really disputed.

Stride was on a date. She was seen in the Bricklayers pub with a respectably dressed man with weak looking eyes. He was wearing a morning jacket and coat.

A few yards down Settle Street is the Gloster Arms pub where maybe at the same time certainly a bit later Spooner and his girlfriend were drinking (on his admission)

Stride and her man appear to keep together with them being seen by PC Smith and Marshall.

At some point after all of this morning/cutaway coat man disappears. I think he is the man seen with Stride buying grapes. Forget timing at the moment.

cutaway coat or parcel man as he is more commonly known is highly suspicious and has to be well in the frame I would have thought.

I now am going to suggest a theory. Spooner was with his girlfriend as he stated but has just walked her home. He married a woman called Catherine Sullivan a year or so later. There was a Sullivan family living in Backchurch lane but not sure about 1888. On the way home to His house in Fairclough street he encounters Stride momentarily on her own. Parcelman has his eyes on the yard and waiting for his moment. Spooner may be the man seen with Stride by Brown.

Anyway perhaps Spooner is BSM. Thats why he is on his own when found by the searchers. He dare not say he was involved. He is trying to pull Stride out of the yard where Parcelman now is. He fails and Pacelman/Jtr cuts Strides throat and clears off.

Spooner sticks to his story even the time. He is messed up because his timing doesnt work because he says he was with his girlfriend which he wasnt at the time of the pulling of Stride. He goes away not knowing what was about to happen to Stride

I am sure there are lots of problems with this

NW

I dispute that we can be sure that Stride was ever in The Bricklayers.

Im not having a go at you RD but I’m making a general point here. I think that in the case of the Berner Street murder we forget, more than in any of the others, how wrong witnesses can be in identifying people. I would still say that we cannot be 100% certain even that PC Smith saw Stride. Could anyone, even a police officer, recall exactly everyone they saw during an evening walk/beat? These women didn’t have a wide range of clothing of distinctive styles and colours. So someone of Stride’s general build and hair colour? Smith was human. He sees the corpse. It looks like the figure that he saw across the road. The clothes look similar. It would be difficult to imagine the voice in his head saying “that close to the murder time…surely it must have been her?”

Im not saying it wasn’t her. But it might not have been.

[Herlock Sholmes]

This is not an argument. You cannot answer the points put to you, so you resort to playing the 'conspiracy theory' card. It's pathetic.

I’ve answered every single question and point over the years. I gone over these events in detail. I’ve debated/discussed ad nauseum with you, Michael R and others over the idea that something ‘wasn’t quite right’ in Berner Street so I’m not just ‘playing the conspiracy theory card.’ The problem is that you keep on and on and on about this issue which is all based around one single but erroneous point - the fact that you think it’s somehow impossible that a short event could occur unseen or unheard.

To support this you have, over time, tried to stretch the duration of the incident, argued that the ‘not very loudly’ was simply added to cover up the fact that no one heard the incident, you’ve also claimed that Schwartz spoke (or probably) spoke English. If I read back I could probably find more. So why do you have an aversion to a prosaic explanation? It’s very simple. Schwartz saw an incident which occurred over a very short duration with little noise being made. When it occurred there was no one else in the street. Why does this appear an outrageous claim to you?

[New Waterloo]

Lets look a some things we can generally agree on. Based on what people have said and not really disputed.

Stride was on a date. She was seen in the Bricklayers pub with a respectably dressed man with weak looking eyes. He was wearing a morning jacket and coat.

A few yards down Settle Street is the Gloster Arms pub where maybe at the same time certainly a bit later Spooner and his girlfriend were drinking (on his admission)

Stride and her man appear to keep together with them being seen by PC Smith and Marshall.

At some point after all of this morning/cutaway coat man disappears. I think he is the man seen with Stride buying grapes. Forget timing at the moment.

cutaway coat or parcel man as he is more commonly known is highly suspicious and has to be well in the frame I would have thought.

I now am going to suggest a theory. Spooner was with his girlfriend as he stated but has just walked her home. He married a woman called Catherine Sullivan a year or so later. There was a Sullivan family living in Backchurch lane but not sure about 1888. On the way home to His house in Fairclough street he encounters Stride momentarily on her own. Parcelman has his eyes on the yard and waiting for his moment. Spooner may be the man seen with Stride by Brown.

Anyway perhaps Spooner is BSM. Thats why he is on his own when found by the searchers. He dare not say he was involved. He is trying to pull Stride out of the yard where Parcelman now is. He fails and Pacelman/Jtr cuts Strides throat and clears off.

Spooner sticks to his story even the time. He is messed up because his timing doesnt work because he says he was with his girlfriend which he wasnt at the time of the pulling of Stride. He goes away not knowing what was about to happen to Stride

I am sure there are lots of problems with this

NW

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I don't have a one size fits all definition unfortunately but I think what Schwartz described would fit into that category. She apparently was alive when he left the scene and had simply been pulled and thrown to the ground according to him. We don't know how violently she was thrown or if it was unintentional or if Stride contributed to the situation in any way. We don't know the B.S. man's intentions. He simply might have wanted her to move and got pissed by her refusal or something she said.

A non-associate of the club would have no business in wanting her to move on. Morris Eagle, on the other hand, may have resented her presence. Her refusal would imply she was not soliciting, which would suggest she was waiting for someone. If not BS, then Jack. How might he have baited her?

But let me ask you what is your definition of "ill-using?" Does it imply a hanging offense? Are all assaults equal in nature so that they carry the same penalty?

c.d.

Dictionaries refer to harsh, cruel, unfair treatment, and abuse. Inappropriate touching or grabbing comes to mind.

In answer to your questions: No. No.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

There is nothing problematic at all. We were talking about how long the Schwartz event would last, so that means the things Schwartz describes. He doesn't describe how or when Stride gets to the gate, she is just there.

And what B.S. does after Schwartz leaves is unknown, as I already indicated by my examples. Different theories would result in different durations, as I said.

But so what? How are those problems when the goal is to get a reasonable estimate of the Schwartz event? We have about 90s for what Schwartz himself describes, to which one adds the time for B.S. The minimum being that B.S. leaves very quickly after Schwartz has fled and he took exits to Fairclough. If he kills Stride add maybe 10 seconds more if you wish.

You are now talking about fitting the Schwartz event into a bigger description of the night, but that is an entirely different phase. All we are doing is timing this piece of the puzzle. Once we have it understood, if we can construct the rest of the night we can then look to see if there are sections of time that could be suitable places to fit the Schwartz piece. If there is only one, then we've narrowed down when it likely occurred, if there are two, we have options, and so forth.

And, if you find a time window when the above shortest version fits and there is an extra 2 minutes to work with, then you could suggest more may have transpired as well.

- Jeff

Even on your own terms, the timespan yourself and others suppose for this truncated 'Schwartz incident' is questionable.

Swanson: ... having 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 ...

This makes it sound like the interaction between the man and woman lasted mere seconds. The problem is that the single paragraph describing the incident is heavily condensed. In reality, how long did it take to go from the man and woman talking, to the man getting violent with the woman? Was there an angry argument before he threw her down? Did it continue after that point? For all we know, Schwartz could have stood gawking at the spectacle for 2 or 3 minutes. Why would a verbal dispute escalate into violence after a few seconds? I think your estimate could be way out.

[c.d.]

In reality, the man might have been ill-using the deceased woman. What is your definition of a little street hassle?

I don't have a one size fits all definition unfortunately but I think what Schwartz described would fit into that category. She apparently was alive when he left the scene and had simply been pulled and thrown to the ground according to him. We don't know how violently she was thrown or if it was unintentional or if Stride contributed to the situation in any way. We don't know the B.S. man's intentions. He simply might have wanted her to move and got pissed by her refusal or something she said.

But let me ask you what is your definition of "ill-using?" Does it imply a hanging offense? Are all assaults equal in nature so that they carry the same penalty?

c.d.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I accept your point and can envisage a scenario whereby Stride was defiant and chose not to move.

A little street hassle is not indicative of a man who then cuts a woman's throat and then leaves her to die.

So based on the idea of a little street hassle, we can be fairly certain that Bs man was not the killer, and certainly not the Ripper.

The body of evidence from Stride's murder shows that the killer made one clean cut (not jagged) across her throat and dispatched her cleanly and quickly.

Her death was more akin to a professional killer, than a drunken man throwing her to the ground and shouting racial slurs.

There was no evidence of a struggle, apart from some blood on her right hand, and it is clear that Stride's murder occurred extremely quickly.

One clean cut. Controlled rage, but not the work of a drunken thug; as per eluded to by Schwarz's sighting of a little street hassle.

It is also important to note that the very first report of Schwartz's story that appeared in the newspaper, did indeed mention about the witness believing it was a domestic between a couple.

So on that basis it would seem that IF Schwartz was correct with what he saw and his timings, then Stride was the most unfortunate woman in having been assaulted and then less than 10 minutes later being murdered by a stealthy one-cut killer who acted in complete silence and then disappeared without trace.

Good post. BS Man as killer is a problematic notion.

Kozebrodski: ... Mr Diemshitz called me out into 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 large pool of blood. It was running down the gutter, and in the direction of the gate, and reached about to the door of the club.

By this time, the killer is not "hiding in the shadows". He is long gone. There were a few minutes at most for another man to come along, after BS does. Even that requires Schwartz to have been correct about the time, and for BS not to be on the scene for more than a minute or so. The odds are against. Something is not right.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Technically it could have been an assault but in reality might have been just a little street hassle. Something she was used to. She might have been more pissed then scared, not really hurt, and told herself she'd be damned if she was moving. So consider it an act of defiance.

Abberline: I beg to report that since a jew named Lipski was hanged for the murder of a jewess in 1887 the name has very frequently been used by persons as mere ejaculation by way of endeavouring to insult the jew to whom it has been addressed, and as Schwartz has a strong jewish appearance I am of opinion it was addressed to him as he stopped to look at the man he saw ill-using the deceased woman.

In reality, the man might have been ill-using the deceased woman. What is your definition of a little street hassle?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

We’re back in silly conspiracy territory again. There’s just no escaping it. A deliberate attempt to manufacture a mystery. We can produce half a dozen different scenarios at least which allow for all of the facts but all we get is ‘what are the chances of..’ ‘it doesn’t seem likely.’

What isn’t likely is that there was a far-fetched plot going on in Berner Street.

This is not an argument. You cannot answer the points put to you, so you resort to playing the 'conspiracy theory' card. It's pathetic.