Who do you credit as the most reliable witnesses?

[Herlock Sholmes]

As I said before the matter would have been mentioned in the inquest as it was crucial.In the Nichols inquest two men have to be found.

And as has been repeatedly stated by numerous people, the inquest had 4 specific aims and Israel Schwartz couldn’t add to any of them. He couldn’t identify Stride by name because he didn’t know her and they already knew the date and location of the murder and the cause of death. Schwartz would have been a vital witness if he’d said “I saw Fred Smith attacking her at 12.45’ but he couldn’t.

Schwartz was important to the police investigation but not to the inquest. If Schwartz wasn’t believed why do we have written evidence from the police that he was? And after the inquest. This alone dismisses the suggestion that Schwartz wasn’t believed. The black and white evidence is irrefutable. And can you really believe that before an inquest a coroner would spend time wading through police statements or reading various newspaper versions to evaluate witness reliability? That was the job of the police not the coroner. Yes we see witnesses called for background info but sometimes witnesses gave testimony with nothing of value to add and at the same time we could name people who would have known more but who weren’t called. The selection process is vague to us.

When we don’t know something because we have no written evidence we can only speculate at the answer of course and in this we have numerous possibilities. The only suggestion that we can definitively dismiss with proper evidence is the suggestion that the Coroner disbelieved him. We only have to look at Maxwell’s presence at the Kelly inquest and Malcolm’s presence at the Stride inquest. Conflicting evidence was simply presented for the jury to arrive at their conclusion. And Schwartz wasn’t even conflicting…..apart from a clash of times with Fanny Mortimer.

[FISHY1118]

There is nothing confliction with Schwartz statement ,as nobody came forward to claim what Schwartz saw happen any differently .

That how simple and straight forward that is .

[JeffHamm]

Mary Malcolm did not have any conflicting statements like Schwartz before the inquest that could be assessed.

Hi Varqm,

Schwartz's statement to the police doesn't have any conflicting statements either. The press version is different, but that is irrelevant to the inquest. Schwartz does appear to concede he may have been wrong about the association between BS and Pipeman, and about who Lipski was shouted at, but that too is irrelevant to the inquest and could come out in questioning.

If you mean his testimony conflicts with respect to the stated time given by other witnesses, that too would not preclude him (who us to say which witness has the time wrong? And given most witnesses describe events that would only last a couple minutes at most, both estimating 12:45 is hardly worth considering as being a conflict.

Mary Malcolm, however, presents an identification other than what the police believed ( note the juror's question where they say something like "I thought this was the inquest for Elizabeth Stride?" when it was described as the inquest for a person unknown, or something like that). Basically, the police and the coroner knew she was wrong but let her testify anyway - and id of the deceased is one of the main objectives of the inquest.

Mistrust of a witness does not result in the witness being "discarded", at least not in Baxter's case.

- Jeff

[Varqm]

And yet, Mary Malcolm is there.

- Jeff

Mary Malcolm did not have any conflicting statements like Schwartz before the inquest that could be assessed.

[Varqm]

You totally ignore the internal memo of Abberline.
The letter from Anderson to Warren and the letter from Warren to the Home office, all AFTER the inquest, that clearly say the police considered him to be truthful.


WHY do you simply ignore this evidence?

Steve

I've read the letter.f the the police believed in Schwartz,his name would have been submitted to the Coroner right? From the letter it seemed like they did.The Coroner then did not put him in the stand,not believe him.

How long after the inquest did they believe in Schwartz? Or they went the Coroner's way.

[Varqm]

People don’t always obey the law though and as I believe David showed in his article these fines weren’t always carried out. We’re the police really going to waste manpower and money searching for someone who might have simply ‘done a runner?’

As long as we have possible alternative suggestions why he wasn’t there we can’t say that one particular idea is true. Especially when the evidence tells us that the police still considered him a reliable witness well after the inquest.

As I said before the matter would have been mentioned in the inquest as it was crucial.In the Nichols inquest two men have to be found.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

Isn’t it possible that because he could have been identified by the likely killer the witness might have initially been reluctant to come forward fearing that the killer might come after him so he gave the police a false name and address then simply ‘disappeared.’ After all, it would have been far easier to disappear then than it would today and once they had his statement how much time and effort (and money) would the police have been wiling to spend trawling London to find him especially when, for all that they knew, he might have left the City.

Hi Herlock,

Anything is possible given we have no information other than he didn't testify at the inquest and that the police still trusted his statement after the inquest.

However, if he was fearful of being identified, I doubt he would have spoken to the press, or gone to the police in the first place. I suppose one could imagine that he was somehow contacted (similar to Lusk, but without the kidney) and that promoted him going to ground, but I would think we would see somewhere in the police records a pointer to anything like that.

Mind you, none of the explanations we usually go over seem all that compelling to me, but that is because there is no evidence for any of them, making all of them nothing more than hypotheses in need of research to rule them in or out.

The complete lack of any mention of his absence at the inquest by the police could be taken as a suggestion they were not surprised by it. But that too is just speculation as we are missing so many of the files and memos.

In the end, all we know is he doesn't testify at the inquest and the police were still acting on his statement. So mistrust / disbelief by the police is not the explanation. Beyond that is a void as far as I can tell.

- Jeff

[c.d.]

Seems to me like beating around the bush ,it's straightforward,the only reason Schwartz could not have been on the inquest was he was untrustworthy.

Sorry, but that is a classic Argument from Ignorance. That very well may have been the reason but it is not the only possible reason.

c.d.

[Elamarna]

Seems to me like beating around the bush ,it's straightforward,the only reason Schwartz could not have been on the inquest was he was untrustworthy.A murder inquiry compels him to be there,the laws allowed the Coroner,even the foreman/jury, to find him and instruct the police to find him.
Unless there is some kind of conspiracy theory.

You totally ignore the internal memo of Abberline.
The letter from Anderson to Warren and the letter from Warren to the Home office, all AFTER the inquest, that clearly say the police considered him to be truthful.


WHY do you simply ignore this evidence?

Steve

[c.d.]

As long as we have possible alternative suggestions why he wasn’t there we can’t say that one particular idea is true.

And all of the reasons proposed certainly seem reasonable to me. We simply don't know.

c.d.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Seems to me like beating around the bush ,it's straightforward,the only reason Schwartz could not have been on the inquest was he was untrustworthy.A murder inquiry compels him to be there,the laws allowed the Coroner,even the foreman/jury, to find him and instruct the police to find him.
Unless there is some kind of conspiracy theory.

People don’t always obey the law though and as I believe David showed in his article these fines weren’t always carried out. We’re the police really going to waste manpower and money searching for someone who might have simply ‘done a runner?’

As long as we have possible alternative suggestions why he wasn’t there we can’t say that one particular idea is true. Especially when the evidence tells us that the police still considered him a reliable witness well after the inquest.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Doctored Whatsit,

I don't think anyone has been able to find him in any census records, or any other trace of him, although I could be mistaken. I seem to recall posts where some have claimed he was known, at least at a later date, with members of the WM club although I'm not sure upon what that is based (but it would require some sort of record of him at a later date to be anything other than pure speculation). If that is true (and based upon actual documentation), then we are still left with the possibility that such an association may have arisen due to his involvement in the case. As I recall it being presented, though, is as evidence that he was put up by members of the club to concoct a story to divert attention away from a Jewish offender, and by implication, the club members (i.e. his entire statement is made up), but that line of argument tends to fall down on a number of logical grounds, most notably is the fact that Schwartz's initial statement to the police is that B.S. shouts "Lipski" at pipeman, and Schwartz believed this was a call to an associate (and therefore his original story includes a Jewish accomplice at the very least, and so points by implication to B.S. also being Jewish).

However, as I say, I'm not sure what documentation, if any, that later association is based upon. I recall people saying that he's not been found in any official gov't records as of yet, but that doesn't mean he isn't there. I suppose there is the possibility he used a fake name with the police, or a name by which he was known locally but not his legal one that he had to use on official gov't files.

I did a very quick search just now on the surname Schwartz, and there are variations of it in other countries (see here). The most notable bits from that brief coverage is:

"... The usual spellings today are Schwartz and Schwarz, but Schwarte, Schwartzer, Schwarzer, and Schwar(t)zmann, are also well recorded. The name is also popular in The Netherlands with the additional spellings of (de) Swart, Swarte, or de Zwart, in Poland as Szware, and in Czechoslovakia as Svarc. It also acted as the prefix to other names to create compounds such as Schwartzkopf and Schwarzchild as examples. ..."

So, if his official name was something uncommon in English, it may be that on official records he's recorded under some other alternative (but I'm sure people have taken that into consideration). His first name as we have it may also be some sort of Anglicized version of his officially recorded name, making it difficult to find him in official records. This is, of course, all conjecture on my part.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Isn’t it possible that because he could have been identified by the likely killer the witness might have initially been reluctant to come forward fearing that the killer might come after him so he gave the police a false name and address then simply ‘disappeared.’ After all, it would have been far easier to disappear then than it would today and once they had his statement how much time and effort (and money) would the police have been wiling to spend trawling London to find him especially when, for all that they knew, he might have left the City.

[FISHY1118]

Seems to me like beating around the bush ,it's straightforward,the only reason Schwartz could not have been on the inquest was he was untrustworthy.A murder inquiry compels him to be there,the laws allowed the Coroner,even the foreman/jury, to find him and instruct the police to find him.
Unless there is some kind of conspiracy theory.

Its not that straightforward at all, far from it . What you call as the ''Only Reason'' is just an opinion not ''Fact''

[DJA]

St George's Mortuary.

[JeffHamm]

Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Jack the Ripper: A Cast of Thousands - Israel Schwartz

IIRC 22 Samuel Street held up well.

Oh, I hadn't seen that before. Thanks.

Yes, of the lot presented the Polish Israel Schwartz of 22 Samuel Street looks the most interesting.

- Jeff