Who do you credit as the most reliable witnesses?

[JB_THY_RASCAL]

Hi All,

First post here, so be gentle with me if i say anything silly

I'm a long time lurker on the casebook threads but never really had the confidence to contribute but i would like to think i'm relatively well informed on the case.

I just had an observation that i am sure has been mentioned many times in the past but i don't recall seeing it mentioned regularly and thought this witnesses thread might be an appropriate place to post.

In terms of witness statements, specifically descriptions of suspects ie age estimates, hair, facial hair etc i tend to think that we cannot pay too much attention to them in terms of being totally reliable and accurate as it struck me that there may have been alot of undiagnosed sight issues with alot of the lower class residents ie short sightedness, near sighted, astigmatism etc. I imagine there were alot of people that needed glasses that simply didn't have access to them or were unaware that they had issues with their sight.

It came about because i recently had an eye test, always thought my vision was fine but turns out i needed glasses and upon wearing them i noticed that people i knew in passing or not very well looked a little different with my vision now being corrected and i thought this could partially explain some of the discrepancies ie thick vs light moustache, age ranges.

Hope that came across as a sensible post and made a bit of sense.

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Varqm,

Who do you mean by "he" in the first sentence? You switched from saying it was Baxter who rejected Schwartz to saying it was the police (so do you mean a specific police officer rejected Schwartz? If so, who, and how do you know that given every report I'm aware of by the police signals they thought Schwartz witnessed what he said happened, though they did doubt his interpretation of the relationship between B.S. and Pipeman, etc).

Also, as has been mentioned, an inquest is not a murder investigation, that's what the police are doing not the coroner. A coroner's inquest is solely about determining the cause of death, and to classify it as non-suspicious (i.e. natural causes), suicide, accidental, or homicide. They do not have anybody on trial, their goal is not to identify the murderer (in the case of homicide), and they do not even need to have a suspect, given the verdict for homicide can be "by person or persons unknown". It may be, of course, that in some cases the inquest attributes the death to a particular individual, but it is not a goal of the inquest to do so because it is not a murder inquiry : it is, effectively, to determine if a murder inquiry by the police is necessary.

In other words, while we see Schwartz as important to us because we know it was a murder, technically, it is only at the conclusion of the inquest when that becomes "official", at least with respect to the coroner's inquest. Although I think the police can still investigate a suspicious death even if the inquest returns something other than homicide.

As also mentioned by others, Schwartz can't really narrow down the time of death much more than it already has been determined, he can't identify by name the victim, and so forth. Moreover, it is not necessary (in this case) for the inquest to document her being assaulted because the other testimony rules out suicide (no knife was found in the alley, etc) and anyway, Schwartz did not see her being murdered (she was still alive when he left the scene, he never saw a knife in B.S. hands, etc). So while you are correct in that Schwartz is important for a murder inquiry, that is irrelevant because we're talking about a coroner's inquest, which is not a murder investigation but an inquiry to determine if murder has occurred (and to ID the victim, etc).

And there is no evidence the police discounted Schwartz, and there is no evidence that Baxter had any reason to either. We know Baxter allowed suspect testimony that he did not believe to get presented. We know that the police, at times, did ask for some information to be held back (i.e. Lawende's description of the man he saw at the end of Church Passage). Given how important Schwartz would be to the police in their murder investigation, and given everything we have points to the police believing Schwartz, then the idea that they asked that Schwartz not be called upon at the inquest has a lot more appeal to me than the idea that Schwartz was dismissed by the police (who believed him) or by Baxter (who had no way of judging him without questioning him himself - conflict between an official statement taken by the police and a story in a tabloid like The Star, is not going to result in pre-determining if Schwartz is reliable or not).

Of course, I don't know if the police requested Baxter not call him, but that's because we have absolutely no information as to why Schwartz was not there. We know he wasn't, and there are a lot of potential ways to explain that, some being more plausible than others (i.e. alien abduction might explain it, but that seems a tad far-fetched to me). In my view, given all the evidence points to the police having some faith in Schwartz, arguing that they didn't present him to Baxter because they disbelieved him seems unlikely to be the right line of explanation. Moreover, for all the reasons presented before, I cannot see Baxter rejecting him if the police had put him forward.

That leaves options like Schwartz was supposed to be there but doesn't show (or couldn't be served the summons, etc), or that the police withheld him from the inquest to keep the specific details Schwartz could offer out of the papers (with Baxter either in agreement with that decision or the police just didn't pass his name on to Baxter in the first place). There may be other ideas that don't fall into those I've tried to cover as well.

Anyway, there are far too many other explanations for his absence from the inquest, all of which in my opinion are more plausible than disbelief by either the police or Baxter. In fact, everything we know indicates the police believed him, so that idea can be relegated to very implausible. Baxter never says a word about him, so if Baxter had formed an opinion, which I doubt since he hadn't a chance to question Schwartz himself, we have no idea what it was. So again, I think that comes up on low end of the plausibility scale.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff
I came across this article which may provide an explanation as to why Schwartz did not or would not give evidence at the inquest I don't know if there are any other newspaper articles of a similar nature

https://www.jack-the-ripper-tour.com/generalnews/none-of-his-business/

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi All,

First post here, so be gentle with me if i say anything silly

I'm a long time lurker on the casebook threads but never really had the confidence to contribute but i would like to think i'm relatively well informed on the case.

I just had an observation that i am sure has been mentioned many times in the past but i don't recall seeing it mentioned regularly and thought this witnesses thread might be an appropriate place to post.

In terms of witness statements, specifically descriptions of suspects ie age estimates, hair, facial hair etc i tend to think that we cannot pay too much attention to them in terms of being totally reliable and accurate as it struck me that there may have been alot of undiagnosed sight issues with alot of the lower class residents ie short sightedness, near sighted, astigmatism etc. I imagine there were alot of people that needed glasses that simply didn't have access to them or were unaware that they had issues with their sight.

It came about because i recently had an eye test, always thought my vision was fine but turns out i needed glasses and upon wearing them i noticed that people i knew in passing or not very well looked a little different with my vision now being corrected and i thought this could partially explain some of the discrepancies ie thick vs light moustache, age ranges.

Hope that came across as a sensible post and made a bit of sense.

Hi JB,

You might hold a record here for the greatest gap of time between joining and making a first post. That said it seems strange to say “welcome to the forum” to someone that joined before I did but I’ll say it anyway…welcome to the forum.

The point that you’ve made is an entirely reasonable and sensible one and one that’s not often considered when looking at witness identification. A modern day investigator would of course check if a witness had good eyesight or not. It reminds me of one of the witnesses that were discussed in that great movie Twelve Angry Men. A witness at the time of these murders might not have mentioned poor eyesight and, as we know, some people also have difficulty in identifying colour which could also cause issues. No Specsavers in Whitechapel.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Jeff
I came across this article which may provide an explanation as to why Schwartz did not or would not give evidence at the inquest I don't know if there are any other newspaper articles of a similar nature

https://www.jack-the-ripper-tour.com/generalnews/none-of-his-business/

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

The article criticises Schwartz for not intervening at the time of the assault. It makes the false claim that he actually saw Stride getting her throat cut:

“Callously careless, the spectator imagined that when he saw London’s foulest ruffian hurl his helpless victim to the earth, with her head all but severed from her body, it was only a commonplace quarrel between a man and his wife.”

By the time that this article came out Schwartz had already spoken to the police and The Star. I can’t see how this might explain why he wasn’t at the inquest?

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Varqm,

Who do you mean by "he" in the first sentence? You switched from saying it was Baxter who rejected Schwartz to saying it was the police (so do you mean a specific police officer rejected Schwartz? If so, who, and how do you know that given every report I'm aware of by the police signals they thought Schwartz witnessed what he said happened, though they did doubt his interpretation of the relationship between B.S. and Pipeman, etc).

Also, as has been mentioned, an inquest is not a murder investigation, that's what the police are doing not the coroner. A coroner's inquest is solely about determining the cause of death, and to classify it as non-suspicious (i.e. natural causes), suicide, accidental, or homicide. They do not have anybody on trial, their goal is not to identify the murderer (in the case of homicide), and they do not even need to have a suspect, given the verdict for homicide can be "by person or persons unknown". It may be, of course, that in some cases the inquest attributes the death to a particular individual, but it is not a goal of the inquest to do so because it is not a murder inquiry : it is, effectively, to determine if a murder inquiry by the police is necessary.

In other words, while we see Schwartz as important to us because we know it was a murder, technically, it is only at the conclusion of the inquest when that becomes "official", at least with respect to the coroner's inquest. Although I think the police can still investigate a suspicious death even if the inquest returns something other than homicide.

As also mentioned by others, Schwartz can't really narrow down the time of death much more than it already has been determined, he can't identify by name the victim, and so forth. Moreover, it is not necessary (in this case) for the inquest to document her being assaulted because the other testimony rules out suicide (no knife was found in the alley, etc) and anyway, Schwartz did not see her being murdered (she was still alive when he left the scene, he never saw a knife in B.S. hands, etc). So while you are correct in that Schwartz is important for a murder inquiry, that is irrelevant because we're talking about a coroner's inquest, which is not a murder investigation but an inquiry to determine if murder has occurred (and to ID the victim, etc).

And there is no evidence the police discounted Schwartz, and there is no evidence that Baxter had any reason to either. We know Baxter allowed suspect testimony that he did not believe to get presented. We know that the police, at times, did ask for some information to be held back (i.e. Lawende's description of the man he saw at the end of Church Passage). Given how important Schwartz would be to the police in their murder investigation, and given everything we have points to the police believing Schwartz, then the idea that they asked that Schwartz not be called upon at the inquest has a lot more appeal to me than the idea that Schwartz was dismissed by the police (who believed him) or by Baxter (who had no way of judging him without questioning him himself - conflict between an official statement taken by the police and a story in a tabloid like The Star, is not going to result in pre-determining if Schwartz is reliable or not).

Of course, I don't know if the police requested Baxter not call him, but that's because we have absolutely no information as to why Schwartz was not there. We know he wasn't, and there are a lot of potential ways to explain that, some being more plausible than others (i.e. alien abduction might explain it, but that seems a tad far-fetched to me). In my view, given all the evidence points to the police having some faith in Schwartz, arguing that they didn't present him to Baxter because they disbelieved him seems unlikely to be the right line of explanation. Moreover, for all the reasons presented before, I cannot see Baxter rejecting him if the police had put him forward.

That leaves options like Schwartz was supposed to be there but doesn't show (or couldn't be served the summons, etc), or that the police withheld him from the inquest to keep the specific details Schwartz could offer out of the papers (with Baxter either in agreement with that decision or the police just didn't pass his name on to Baxter in the first place). There may be other ideas that don't fall into those I've tried to cover as well.

Anyway, there are far too many other explanations for his absence from the inquest, all of which in my opinion are more plausible than disbelief by either the police or Baxter. In fact, everything we know indicates the police believed him, so that idea can be relegated to very implausible. Baxter never says a word about him, so if Baxter had formed an opinion, which I doubt since he hadn't a chance to question Schwartz himself, we have no idea what it was. So again, I think that comes up on low end of the plausibility scale.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff
Even in today's criminal investigations identification evidence given by witnesses is subject to close scrutiny and the evidential guidelines which have been adopted evolve from a stated case R v Turnbull 1976 A mnemonic used to remember the various points is ADVOKATE:

Amount of time under observation: How long did the witness have the person/incident in view?

Distance: What was the distance between the witness and the person/incident?

Visibility: What was the visibility at the time? Factors include the time of day/night, street lighting, etc.

Obstruction: Were there any obstructions to the view of the witness?

Known or seen before: Did the witness know, or had the witness ever seen, the person before? If so where and when?

Any reason to remember: Did the witness have any special reason for remembering the person/incident? Was there something specific that made the person/incident memorable?

Time-lapse: How long has elapsed since the witness saw the person/incident?

Error discrepancy: Are there any errors or material discrepancies between descriptions in the first and subsequent accounts of the witness?

I think these can be safely applied to test the accuracy of some of the witness testimony, especially with Stride and Eddowes with regards to witnesses identifying bodies at the mortuary when they had only had fleeting glimpses of the victims under nighttime conditions

It seems as if a great deal of importance has been placed on the couple seen arguing as being Stride and her killer but I refer to Pc Lambs inquest testimony in it he was asked

"Did you see anything suspicious" his reply was

"No I saw lots of squabbles and rows such as one sees on Saturday nights"

Given the unsafe ID how can we be 100% certain that the couple seen by Schwartz was Stride and her killer? Could she have been killed much earlier? several witnesses who viewed the body in situ described clotted blood

Dr Phillips-The blood near to the neck and a few inches to the left side was well clotted,

Dr Blackwell -There was about 1lb of clotted blood close by the body,

Edward Johnson -There was a stream of blood down to the gutter; it was all clotted.

I guess the issue is if the witnesses are to be believed could the blood have clotted in the way described in that short space of time?

12.45am
At the gateway of Dutfield's Yard, Schwartz "saw a man stop and speak to" Elizabeth, "who was standing in the gateway. He tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned her round and threw her down on the footway the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly.

1.16am

Dr Blackwell arrived and examined the body

So if this was Stride we have no more than 30 mins between murder and blood clotting

What primary evidence is there to show this woman was in fact Stride?

There is evidence to show that Stride was identified as being Stride at the mortuary and the unsafe evidence given by others who viewed the body at the mortuary

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

The article criticises Schwartz for not intervening at the time of the assault. It makes the false claim that he actually saw Stride getting her throat cut:

“Callously careless, the spectator imagined that when he saw London’s foulest ruffian hurl his helpless victim to the earth, with her head all but severed from her body, it was only a commonplace quarrel between a man and his wife.”

By the time that this article came out Schwartz had already spoken to the police and The Star. I can’t see how this might explain why he wasn’t at the inquest?

But as has been said before we don't know why he didn't give evidence so we have no idea as to what was said to him or his mindset prior to the inquest but there has to be a plausible explanation for his non-appearance this is one such explanation which cannot be dismissed.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff
Even in today's criminal investigations identification evidence given by witnesses is subject to close scrutiny and the evidential guidelines which have been adopted evolve from a stated case R v Turnbull 1976 A mnemonic used to remember the various points is ADVOKATE:

Amount of time under observation: How long did the witness have the person/incident in view?

Distance: What was the distance between the witness and the person/incident?

Visibility: What was the visibility at the time? Factors include the time of day/night, street lighting, etc.

Obstruction: Were there any obstructions to the view of the witness?

Known or seen before: Did the witness know, or had the witness ever seen, the person before? If so where and when?

Any reason to remember: Did the witness have any special reason for remembering the person/incident? Was there something specific that made the person/incident memorable?

Time-lapse: How long has elapsed since the witness saw the person/incident?

Error discrepancy: Are there any errors or material discrepancies between descriptions in the first and subsequent accounts of the witness?

I think these can be safely applied to test the accuracy of some of the witness testimony, especially with Stride and Eddowes with regards to witnesses identifying bodies at the mortuary when they had only had fleeting glimpses of the victims under nighttime conditions

It seems as if a great deal of importance has been placed on the couple seen arguing as being Stride and her killer but I refer to Pc Lambs inquest testimony in it he was asked

"Did you see anything suspicious" his reply was

"No I saw lots of squabbles and rows such as one sees on Saturday nights"

Given the unsafe ID how can we be 100% certain that the couple seen by Schwartz was Stride and her killer? Could she have been killed much earlier? several witnesses who viewed the body in situ described clotted blood

Dr Phillips-The blood near to the neck and a few inches to the left side was well clotted,

Dr Blackwell -There was about 1lb of clotted blood close by the body,

Edward Johnson -There was a stream of blood down to the gutter; it was all clotted.

I guess the issue is if the witnesses are to be believed could the blood have clotted in the way described in that short space of time?

12.45am
At the gateway of Dutfield's Yard, Schwartz "saw a man stop and speak to" Elizabeth, "who was standing in the gateway. He tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned her round and threw her down on the footway the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly.

1.16am

Dr Blackwell arrived and examined the body

So if this was Stride we have no more than 30 mins between murder and blood clotting

What primary evidence is there to show this woman was in fact Stride?

There is evidence to show that Stride was identified as being Stride at the mortuary and the unsafe evidence given by others who viewed the body at the mortuary

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Hi Trevor,

There are a number of sightings of woman with various men all purporting to be of Stride. I would not be surprised in the least if some of these are incorrect. The problem we face, of course, is that there is no way for us to further test that probability.

Given the time and place of the assault reported by Schwartz, his identification of Stride at the mortuary, coupled with the police acceptance of his information, the weight of the information leans in favour of it being Stride I think.

I recall some of the blood clotting testimony from earlier witnesses (closer to time of discovery) phrase things as if the blood was more liquid, suggesting it is in the process of clotting. While weak, that too points towards her death being on the closer side of 1 than further from it.

I think it would be strange for a woman to be standing near the body and doing nothing about it though. It might have been dark, but I can't think she would miss it if standing at the gateway. So if the assaulted woman is not Stride then I think Stride has to show up after the altercation.

- Jeff

[Sunny Delight]

That is true Herlock but Brown's description of the man he saw with, who he was almost certain was Liz and the time he saw him were used in Baxter's summing up .
And he goes into the differences between the descriptions of said man with Marshal's profile and Pc Smiths.
If Schwartz had have been called it would have cast doubt on the fact that Brown saw Liz were he said he saw her and the time [ if Schwartz was telling the absolute truth ], . Surely understanding were Liz was stood and at what time is of great importance. Browns depiction of the man would have been negated.

Regards Darryl

This is of course entirely correct. I think the simple fact is that Israel Schwartz was not at the Inquest and we do not know why. There could be a myriad of reasons. James Brown was called so obviously anything to do with Strides location or who she was with closer to the time her body was found were extremely important. Having only a limited variety of Police files survive over the years obviously means we are nowhere near as informed as we like to think we are.

[JeffHamm]

This is of course entirely correct. I think the simple fact is that Israel Schwartz was not at the Inquest and we do not know why. There could be a myriad of reasons. James Brown was called so obviously anything to do with Strides location or who she was with closer to the time her body was found were extremely important. Having only a limited variety of Police files survive over the years obviously means we are nowhere near as informed as we like to think we are.

I think this is a nice summing up of things. Indeed, we are ignorant of a lot of information on the entire series that was available to the police at the time.

- Jeff

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Trevor,

There are a number of sightings of woman with various men all purporting to be of Stride. I would not be surprised in the least if some of these are incorrect. The problem we face, of course, is that there is no way for us to further test that probability.

Given the time and place of the assault reported by Schwartz, his identification of Stride at the mortuary, coupled with the police acceptance of his information, the weight of the information leans in favour of it being Stride I think.

I recall some of the blood clotting testimony from earlier witnesses (closer to time of discovery) phrase things as if the blood was more liquid, suggesting it is in the process of clotting. While weak, that too points towards her death being on the closer side of 1 than further from it.

I think it would be strange for a woman to be standing near the body and doing nothing about it though. It might have been dark, but I can't think she would miss it if standing at the gateway. So if the assaulted woman is not Stride then I think Stride has to show up after the altercation.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff
Well given the description of how the blood was clotted by the doctors I am not so sure as I said there was a max of 30 mins for the blood to clot if we are to accept that Stride was killed as per Schwartz`s statement

and she could have turned up after this altercation un-noticed of course it doesn't follow that the man Schwartz saw was the killer he could have simply been someone she had propositioned who wanted nothing to do with her and pushed her away

Just look at how unsafe this ID witness testimony is

Police Constable William Smith sees Stride with a young man on Berner Street opposite the International Working Men's Educational Club. The man is described as 28 years old, dark coat and a hard deerstalker hat. He is carrying a parcel approximately 6 inches high and 18 inches in length. the package is wrapped in newspaper.

Schwartz describes the man he sees as about 30 years old, 5' 5" tall with a fresh complexion, dark hair and a small brown moustache. He is dressed in an overcoat and an old black felt hat with a wide brim.

At the same time, James Brown says he sees Stride with a man as he was going home with his supper down Fairclough Street. She was leaning against the wall talking to a stoutish man about 5' 7" tall in a long black coat that reached to his heels. He has his arm against the wall. Stride is saying "No, not tonight, some other night."

Now I stand to be corrected but none of these witnesses made a positive ID of Stride at the time by physically naming her and stating how they knew who she was. and how they knew her. I believe they viewed the body at the mortuary and made the ID comparisons there.

If they are all describing the same man then the descriptions do not tally unless of course Stride was actively prostituting herself in the Berner Street area.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff
Well given the description of how the blood was clotted by the doctors I am not so sure as I said there was a max of 30 mins for the blood to clot if we are to accept that Stride was killed as per Schwartz`s statement

and she could have turned up after this altercation un-noticed of course it doesn't follow that the man Schwartz saw was the killer he could have simply been someone she had propositioned who wanted nothing to do with her and pushed her away

Just look at how unsafe this ID witness testimony is

Police Constable William Smith sees Stride with a young man on Berner Street opposite the International Working Men's Educational Club. The man is described as 28 years old, dark coat and a hard deerstalker hat. He is carrying a parcel approximately 6 inches high and 18 inches in length. the package is wrapped in newspaper.

Schwartz describes the man he sees as about 30 years old, 5' 5" tall with a fresh complexion, dark hair and a small brown moustache. He is dressed in an overcoat and an old black felt hat with a wide brim.

At the same time, James Brown says he sees Stride with a man as he was going home with his supper down Fairclough Street. She was leaning against the wall talking to a stoutish man about 5' 7" tall in a long black coat that reached to his heels. He has his arm against the wall. Stride is saying "No, not tonight, some other night."

Now I stand to be corrected but none of these witnesses made a positive ID of Stride at the time by physically naming her and stating how they knew who she was. and how they knew her. I believe they viewed the body at the mortuary and made the ID comparisons there.

If they are all describing the same man then the descriptions do not tally unless of course Stride was actively prostituting herself in the Berner Street area.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Hi Trevor,

The biggest discrepancy is James Brown's description of the coat, being long and to the man's heels. The others are differences of a couple inches and estimated ages, both of which will vary between people describing the same person. The parcel is also a bit of a stand out as nobody else seems to have taken note of it.

I think some have suggested James Brown may have seen a different couple. is it Mrs. M. who mentions seeing a young couple? I believe it was once suggested James Brown may have seen them and not Stride and another man. If so, that opens the possibility that James Brown saw Spooner and his girl friend, who moved up Fairclough and eventually are passed by the club members. A shame we have no description of Spooner and his attire for that night as without it it's just another possibility.

Then again, going back to Schwartz's statement, he indicates that Broad Shoulders was walking down Berner Street ahead of him, so his statement begins with B.S. and Stride not being together. It is therefore entirely possible that B.S. and Stride had spent no time in each others company until that moment, making all the other sightings of someone other than B.S.

We just don't know, and anything we can think of could be right, but I don't fancy my chances on these guesses and I'm just putting them out as examples of where one could run to if they so wished.

If B.S. is one of the men seen by others, then it suggests that B.S. left Stride for some period of time, and later returns. If Brown has just got the coat wrong, perhaps her earlier rejection upset him and he's returned angry. If Brown has the coat correct, then Brown's man is not B.S. and we don't know if B.S. was with Stride earlier, but I suppose the description could be similar enough to PC Smith's man that the suggestion could be made.

There's just not enough details that are not so generic that they could be describing both the same person or two different people. The package, and the long to the heels coat, though, had either of them reoccurred in descriptions then that would start to help narrow things down. Unfortunately, the two idiosyncratic details only occur once each. Perhaps that points to different men, but different men doesn't mean much in terms of whether they saw a different woman as well. They all could have seen Stride and she could have been talking with different men each time. Or, of course, some of the sightings might also be of different woman too. Again, we can't be sure. In the simulation I put together I went with all of the sightings being of Stride, simply because it was possible to do so, but I even say in the voice over that some of those could be wrong.

- Jeff

[Varqm]

There is absolutely no reason why a witness who wasn’t called to the inquest would have been mentioned at that inquest. I genuinely can’t see where you’re going with that point.

You say that they knew where he would be found…….why do you ignore the very obvious possibility that he wasn’t at that place when they went to summons him? What if his wife said “he told me that he was going to stay with a friend but I don’t know where that friend lives?” Do you really think that the police would have searched London (and possibly outside London) just to find him? A man who couldn’t help them in the slightest toward the 4 aims of the inquest. They might have looked but for how long and over how wide an area. Disappearing in those days was simplicity itself. That he ‘laid low’ is just a possibility though. I’m not claiming it as a fact because there’s no evidence for it.

We have no idea why he didn’t testify…..but we do know that it wasn’t because the police disbelieved him. This is simply not possible. Evidence tells us this.

Of course we do .Lesser witnesses have been mentioned and some the police were asked to search.

[Varqm]

Hi Varqm,

Who do you mean by "he" in the first sentence? You switched from saying it was Baxter who rejected Schwartz to saying it was the police (so do you mean a specific police officer rejected Schwartz? If so, who, and how do you know that given every report I'm aware of by the police signals they thought Schwartz witnessed what he said happened, though they did doubt his interpretation of the relationship between B.S. and Pipeman, etc).

Also, as has been mentioned, an inquest is not a murder investigation, that's what the police are doing not the coroner. A coroner's inquest is solely about determining the cause of death, and to classify it as non-suspicious (i.e. natural causes), suicide, accidental, or homicide. They do not have anybody on trial, their goal is not to identify the murderer (in the case of homicide), and they do not even need to have a suspect, given the verdict for homicide can be "by person or persons unknown". It may be, of course, that in some cases the inquest attributes the death to a particular individual, but it is not a goal of the inquest to do so because it is not a murder inquiry : it is, effectively, to determine if a murder inquiry by the police is necessary.

In other words, while we see Schwartz as important to us because we know it was a murder, technically, it is only at the conclusion of the inquest when that becomes "official", at least with respect to the coroner's inquest. Although I think the police can still investigate a suspicious death even if the inquest returns something other than homicide.

As also mentioned by others, Schwartz can't really narrow down the time of death much more than it already has been determined, he can't identify by name the victim, and so forth. Moreover, it is not necessary (in this case) for the inquest to document her being assaulted because the other testimony rules out suicide (no knife was found in the alley, etc) and anyway, Schwartz did not see her being murdered (she was still alive when he left the scene, he never saw a knife in B.S. hands, etc). So while you are correct in that Schwartz is important for a murder inquiry, that is irrelevant because we're talking about a coroner's inquest, which is not a murder investigation but an inquiry to determine if murder has occurred (and to ID the victim, etc).

And there is no evidence the police discounted Schwartz, and there is no evidence that Baxter had any reason to either. We know Baxter allowed suspect testimony that he did not believe to get presented. We know that the police, at times, did ask for some information to be held back (i.e. Lawende's description of the man he saw at the end of Church Passage). Given how important Schwartz would be to the police in their murder investigation, and given everything we have points to the police believing Schwartz, then the idea that they asked that Schwartz not be called upon at the inquest has a lot more appeal to me than the idea that Schwartz was dismissed by the police (who believed him) or by Baxter (who had no way of judging him without questioning him himself - conflict between an official statement taken by the police and a story in a tabloid like The Star, is not going to result in pre-determining if Schwartz is reliable or not).

Of course, I don't know if the police requested Baxter not call him, but that's because we have absolutely no information as to why Schwartz was not there. We know he wasn't, and there are a lot of potential ways to explain that, some being more plausible than others (i.e. alien abduction might explain it, but that seems a tad far-fetched to me). In my view, given all the evidence points to the police having some faith in Schwartz, arguing that they didn't present him to Baxter because they disbelieved him seems unlikely to be the right line of explanation. Moreover, for all the reasons presented before, I cannot see Baxter rejecting him if the police had put him forward.

That leaves options like Schwartz was supposed to be there but doesn't show (or couldn't be served the summons, etc), or that the police withheld him from the inquest to keep the specific details Schwartz could offer out of the papers (with Baxter either in agreement with that decision or the police just didn't pass his name on to Baxter in the first place). There may be other ideas that don't fall into those I've tried to cover as well.

Anyway, there are far too many other explanations for his absence from the inquest, all of which in my opinion are more plausible than disbelief by either the police or Baxter. In fact, everything we know indicates the police believed him, so that idea can be relegated to very implausible. Baxter never says a word about him, so if Baxter had formed an opinion, which I doubt since he hadn't a chance to question Schwartz himself, we have no idea what it was. So again, I think that comes up on low end of the plausibility scale.

- Jeff

No,I said how did you know Baxter does not read the papers.In the Nichols case he mentioned statements in the press by two men.
I said the Coroner did not deem Schwartz trustworthy,not the police.The police could not have been accurate in determining if Schwartz was telling the truth or not,that's why they invented the polygraph test for this reason.But what we have are two very different story by Schwartz in what happened.
Yes the inquest was a murder inquiry,read the section on murder and manslaughter in the Coroners Act 1887.There is more by I do not care to elaborate How did PC robinson ,PC Hutt,PC long,wilkinson,Sarah lewis ,the many mentions of the apron answer the how,who where,when?
Anyways whatever.

[Varqm]

Schwartz made one statement, and the police believed in it. The Star made a statement allegedly made by Schwartz, and no-one believes it - except perhaps you.

Wrong Two recorded statements by Schwartz.
The police could not have been accurate in determining if Schwartz was telling the truth or not,that's why they invented the polygraph test for this reason.

[Varqm]

Trevor,your a supervisor and a policeman file a report on a murder that does not include an assault on a victim 15 minutes before where the body was found and the policeman knew it and omitted it ,what would you think of the report?