An even closer look at Black Bag Man

[JeffHamm]

[QUOTE=The Rookie Detective;n852163]

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).

QUOTE]







Agreed Jeff


Fanny on doorstep
PC Smith patrolling

and...


Goldstein walking down the street and around the corner.
Brown walking to the shop
Brown walking back from the shop
The couple arriving on the corner.
The couple staying on the corner.
Charles Letchford walking through Berner St.
Miss Letchford standing at her door
Joseph Lave going as far as the street
Morris Eagle walking back to the club
The steward's wife sitting in the kitchen by the open window.


So, yes, once we can work out when all the above were, then we should have 2 spare minutes to fit Schwartz in, plus Bs man and Pipe man all arriving and leaving; unseen and unheard by anyone in Berner St or in any of the neighbouring streets.

Well, Goldstein is redundant with Fanny, since she sees him. Brown only passes by the south end of Berner Street, and if his sighting is actually of Stride, then Schwartz would be after that sighting (in the simulation I went with that being a valid sighting, but I may consider it being a false sighting and see what implications that has ). Charles Letchford just passed up the street, but I don't recall what time he states, though I think it was around 12:30, making him well before the time we need worry about I suspect. And we don't know when his sister went to the door really or for how long, as we only have him saying she did around 1:00 I think. But we never hear from her directly, and if all she did was go to the door for a moment, that's not much really. Lave spent most of his time in the yard, and again, he's earlier than the likely time window, as is Eagle. So those details could be added to the current simulation without any problem.

Recent discussions have been exploring the idea that Brown's couple was Spooner and his girlfriend, and that she goes home (presumably he walks her) and he then ends up back up Fairclough when spotted by the men looking for the police. I haven't had the chance to work out that idea to see if times line up, but it is an interesting possibility. But I think there might be a statement by Fanny that could suggest Spooner's girlfriend was actually with him at the crime scene, but I need to go back over my notes and have a good think on that.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Jeff,

I suppose that I should suggest that you seat yourself before I announce that I am entirely in agreement with your post.

IMO, Schwartz was walking home when he saw what he thought was a domestic in front of him, crossed the road to avoid involvement, looked back when he heard a commotion and departed the scene when the shouting commenced. To his credit he came forward to report his observations when the incident became a murder enquiry.

Best regards, George

I think that’s exactly what happened George. His lack of English would have prohibited him from knowing what the conflict was actually about. He didn’t want to confront some drunken, bully of a husband so he took to his heels. Then after he hears of the murder….

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

I suppose that I should suggest that you seat yourself before I announce that I am entirely in agreement with your post.

IMO, Schwartz was walking home when he saw what he thought was a domestic in front of him, crossed the road to avoid involvement, looked back when he heard a commotion and departed the scene when the shouting commenced. To his credit he came forward to report his observations when the incident became a murder enquiry.

Best regards, George

I am not as shocked as one might expect. Quite often we agree to a large extent, and where we differ tend to be to fall on either side of a point where neither of us is fully convinced of our own position. It is hardly surprising to find different views at those unclear junctions, but that is often where the most interesting discussions are held.

- Jeff

[The Rookie Detective]

[QUOTE=JeffHamm;n852145]

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).

QUOTE]







Agreed Jeff


Fanny on doorstep
PC Smith patrolling

and...


Goldstein walking down the street and around the corner.
Brown walking to the shop
Brown walking back from the shop
The couple arriving on the corner.
The couple staying on the corner.
Charles Letchford walking through Berner St.
Miss Letchford standing at her door
Joseph Lave going as far as the street
Morris Eagle walking back to the club
The steward's wife sitting in the kitchen by the open window.


So, yes, once we can work out when all the above were, then we should have 2 spare minutes to fit Schwartz in, plus Bs man and Pipe man all arriving and leaving; unseen and unheard by anyone in Berner St or in any of the neighbouring streets.

[Herlock Sholmes]

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.

Because it’s not the truth, it’s the product of your overactive imagination. The event occurred as stated and was as stated. Schwartz saw the incident, walked a short distance passed and turned around for a look at what was going on. He didn’t need to speak English for this.

Have ever, in your life, ever come across an event that you saw and heard but no one else did? Nothing is ‘normal’ for you is it. Nothing can just happen as people say it happened. There always has to be some plot going on with George Smiley lurking in a shop doorway pretending to read a newspaper secretly signalling to James Bond who is up a ladder pretending to be a window cleaner.

[Herlock Sholmes]

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.

My apologies for addressing you as RD (and to RD too)

[Herlock Sholmes]

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

Common sense as ever Jeff. As we have long said, the only way that these events become ‘mysterious’ is if we, a) take each time given as if they are perfectly synchronised with all of the other times, and b) assume that a short, not very loud incident, couldn’t possibly have occurred unseen or heard in an empty street. Neither of these can be taken seriously

[GBinOz]

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

Hi Jeff,

I suppose that I should suggest that you seat yourself before I announce that I am entirely in agreement with your post.

IMO, Schwartz was walking home when he saw what he thought was a domestic in front of him, crossed the road to avoid involvement, looked back when he heard a commotion and departed the scene when the shouting commenced. To his credit he came forward to report his observations when the incident became a murder enquiry.

Best regards, George

[New Waterloo]

As regards Spooner the elephant in the room so to speak is Brown and where he lives. Brown appears a good witness. We have no reason to doubt his intent to say what hew saw. We know that the man in the couple he saw was wearing a long overcoat. This is a different man to who the other witnesses desribe.

Now the important bit. He states he saw onr couple. This is significant as Brown lives in a house attached to the Beehive pub where Spooner states he was stand with his female friend.

On his way to get his supper he does not see a couple. On his way back he sees one couple.

where is Spooner and his girlfriend.

this evidence of a lack of Spooners girlfriend is tested by other witnesses. The searchers and witnesses at the yard.

This is what the statements of witnesses are telling us. Otherwise Brown would have said tjat on the way back home i walked past TWO couples. One near the Board School the other hanging around the Beehive and the searchers would have said that the came across a couple in Grove Street and again Brown would have said that when he looked out of his window he saw a woman in the mix of people.

Multiple people have not seem Spooners girlfriend.

it would suggest to me that at the time between of the Schwartz incident and the killing of Stride she had already parted company from Spooner

I think he basically tells the truth about being with his girlfriend a bit earlier but there is nothing to say she was still with him when it all kicked off.

NW

[JeffHamm]

We are told that the man stopped to talk to the woman. We are also told that the man threw the woman onto the footway. How much time elapsed between the talking and the throwing? It is indeterminate. Supposing 2 or 3 minutes is no more arbitrary than supposing a few seconds. All we can do is rely on existing comments from the police, and our common sense. How long would talking take to escalate into serious violence? Abberline states that the man was ill-using the woman. A single shove to the ground would not justify this description, which implies the poor treatment of the woman occurred over an extended period of time.

The above is not wrong or unreasonable if it means fitting Scwartz into the puzzle becomes impossible. What it does mean is that Schwartz's story is questionable.

The statement we have describes BS speaking with Stride and then throwing her to the ground in a scene that spans a period of time short enough that it happens during Schwartz's steady walk down the street. Nowhere in Schwartz's statement does he even imply he stopped to watch them, so the conjecture that somewhere in Schwartz's statement there is a period of 2-3 minutes where he stops and watches an unremarkable situation (which it would be until the throwing) is entirely unwarranted, and quite frankly, very unrealistic.

I can think of no reason why anyone should view that suggestion as a valid concern. Even if I am wrong, and others do believe Schwartz's statement could allow for such a delay, it still does not change the fact that a minimum of 2 minutes is all that is requires to account for what Schwartz describes.

- Jeff

[NotBlamedForNothing]

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.

We are told that the man stopped to talk to the woman. We are also told that the man threw the woman onto the footway. How much time elapsed between the talking and the throwing? It is indeterminate. Supposing 2 or 3 minutes is no more arbitrary than supposing a few seconds. All we can do is rely on existing comments from the police, and our common sense. How long would talking take to escalate into serious violence? Abberline states that the man was ill-using the woman. A single shove to the ground would not justify this description, which implies the poor treatment of the woman occurred over an extended period of time.

The above is not wrong or unreasonable if it means fitting Scwartz into the puzzle becomes impossible. What it does mean is that Schwartz's story is questionable.

[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