Who do you credit as the most reliable witnesses?

[JeffHamm]

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.

And yet, Mary Malcolm is there.

- Jeff

[DJA]

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

IIRC 22 Samuel Street held up well.

[Varqm]

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.

[JeffHamm]

Has anyone ever traced the existence of Schwartz after the date of the inquest? If not, did he just vanish? He seemed to be a very nervous individual, and he might have been very concerned about the publication of the Star report which gave a lead to his identity, his address, and claimed he "saw everything"? It seems unlikely, as there is no police report that he did disappear, but could he have simply "done a runner?

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

[Doctored Whatsit]

Has anyone ever traced the existence of Schwartz after the date of the inquest? If not, did he just vanish? He seemed to be a very nervous individual, and he might have been very concerned about the publication of the Star report which gave a lead to his identity, his address, and claimed he "saw everything"? It seems unlikely, as there is no police report that he did disappear, but could he have simply "done a runner?

[JeffHamm]

In the end, all we know is that Schwartz does not testify at the inquest, and as Wickerman points out, from internal police memos, the police still believed Schwartz's information to be worthy of investigation.

So, the only thing we know for sure is that Schwartz's absence is not due to the police believing he was lying about the whole incident. But even that could be the case if you go for the entirely unsubstantiated complexity of "The police initially believed him, by the inquest they did not, but then after the inquest reassessed him as reliable." (A bit of creative thinking applied to minimal actual data and one can come up with all sorts of complicated patterns).

We do not have anything that even suggests upon who to focus with regards to Schwartz's absence.

I've seen, at various times, all sorts of ideas, placing the focus on the police, on Schwartz, or on the coroner; such as:


Was it the police who:
a) requested his testimony be with-held
b) made an administrative error when giving statements to the coroner and Schwartz wasn't passed on?
c) didn't submit his statement as it was still being investigated for accuracy?
d) the police deliberately withheld Schwartz's statement from the coroner

Was it Schwartz who
a) didn't get the summons (left town; had given incorrect address information; had given incorrect name information; etc)
b) ignored the summons because
b1) he didn't understand it (language issues) the summons
b2) he was too afraid to testify
c) was ill and unable to attend

Was it Baxter who
a) decided not to call him due to the complications of getting an interpreter
b) didn't believe him

I'm sure there are other suggestions.

Personally, I think both of the lines with regards to Baxter are unlikely, with the 2nd the least probable (we see Baxter allowing other testimony of which it is very clear he is skeptical of it's validity (i.e. Mary Malcolm's testimony). Also, given Schwartz gave his statement to the police through a friend/acquaintance of his who acted as an interpreter, I don't put much stock in the 1st either (there doesn't appear to have been a requirement for any qualifications to act as an interpreter when giving statements to the police, so unless testimony at an inquest required a paid interpreter of some qualification to meet legal standards of the time, then I don't see why they just wouldn't summon the interpreter as well as Schwartz).

The police had requested some information in terms of a description by Lawende not to be disclosed in full in the Eddowes case, but the coroner there was Mr. Langham, and Baxter was much less inclined to grant such requests (i.e. he refuses to let the post-mortem injuries go undescribed in the Chapman case when requested by the doctor). So I don't think the first option for the police is likely.

And while administrative errors do occur, I'm sure that it would not have gone unnoticed the whole time. The last day was Oct 23rd (the penultimate was Oct 5th), with the delay due, in part, to tracking down Mary Malcolm's sister (who was alive and well). If there had been some sort of paper error, then it would have been noted by then and Schwartz could have been called at that time. (unless one wants to argue that the police did not want to look incompetent, and felt that such an oversight would look so bad they just didn't correct it - no, I don't buy that, just another example of how one can raise the phoenix from the ashes when there's no information to constrain the imagination).

As for the third police idea, that could apply to any witness. Schwartz had identified Stride, and while nobody else is able to corroborate him, it puts Schwartz on par with Mrs. Elizabeth Long in the Chapman case (she testifies to seeing Annie with a man, and later id's Annie's body; nobody else was there to back up her testimony - Schwartz testifies to seeing Stride with man, and also id's Stride's body at the mortuary; while Schwartz's story includes a physical confrontation, that's the details. His situation is very similar to that of Long's in terms of what information the police had with regards to verification of Schwartz's testimony. Sure, Schwartz also includes reference to pipeman, but again, just because pipeman hasn't been located doesn't change the fact that Schwartz has as much reason to present as Long had, and yet Long dose and Schwartz does not.

As for the police deliberately withholding Schwartz's statement (option d), I think that would land them in all sorts of trouble. Also, the internal memos that refer to Schwartz's testimony in a way that oddly sounds like Schwartz did testify, does not point to the police holding him back or keeping him "secret" in any way. Otherwise, I would think this probably worth considering. But that memo puts the lie to it as far as I can see, so imagination gets cut off at the knees (but I'm sure there's a way around that).

Anyway, I don't see any very convincing lines in any of the above. None of it seems to "ring true" to me (obviously this is just my own opinion), which makes me think we're missing some other option. On the other hand, given we have nothing on record with regards to Schwartz's absence, perhaps even that other option would just not ring true either. Without information we have no foundation upon which to build anything, and even the true explanation will just be another set of statements built upon sand. I suspect we can never know why Schwartz did not testify at the inquest unless some new documents are found that provide us with some new information.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

If Schwartz had been called what could he have added to the inquest? That he saw a woman in a tussle with a man at around 12.45 plus a rough description. The Jury couldn’t have come up with ‘possibly murdered by a stocky unknown bloke.’ Schwartz was valuable to the police enquiry but of no value at all to the inquest. It’s that simple really. Yes we can certainly ask why he didn’t attend to add background like other witnesses but there could have been numerous reasons for this but it certainly, provably wasn’t because he wasn’t believed because he clearly was, as the record tells us. There was a reason but we just don’t know it. Let’s face it, Maxwell wasn’t believed by the Coroner but she still testified.

[Varqm]

Witnesses are not expected to directly answer the questions, they all provide a contribution towards that end.
If we take a pedantic view, the authorities could publish her description in the press and provide a location for anyone who thinks they recognise her to view the body.
Otherwise the doctor can offer an estimate of time of death and cause of death. The place of death in this case is a process of elimination.
The Coroner also needs to build a picture of her final movements just incase it could be a case of suicide. People have cut their own throats, I know most of us might think it unlikely but it is a fact and must be ruled out if possible.
Personally, I don't think Schwartz was called because his story was still being investigated. That is how I interpret Swanson's remark.

The police had to tell the Coroner their investigation, especially if the police believed in Schwartz,they did not show him his statement, not tell him of a possible assault,I don't believe this,since it was crucial.There are more to this point but I don't care to elaborate.

The witness if called has no choice but to appear, otherwise the witness will be searched and fined.

[Varqm]

The Stride case was clearly murder,so it was also a murder inquiry.Any assault 15 minutes on the same spot where the victim's body was found, clearly has to be there in the inquest testimony or inquiry,to argue otherwise is silly.It was clearly not only about who,where ,when,how,this is wrong.I don't care to elaborate though.

[Wickerman]

I’d say that has to be a possibility Wick. Perhaps another one is that Schwartz asked to be left out? As far as he was concerned he’d been seen at close quarters by the ripper and had had a threat shouted at him. The killer would naturally have assumed that Schwartz lived fairly locally and he’d have seen which way that he’d exited Berner Street....

The authorities had means to accommodate a witness in fear of his/her life. Their statement can be taken down in writing and presented as Witness X. Such a statement would need to be very detailed as obviously the witness cannot be questioned, so every little detail would need to be covered.
This happened in a later case, it might have been the Coles murder, where a witness statement was read to the court by a Constable.
Of course you're right there can be a number of reason's but most involve a misunderstanding of the process, or require Schwartz to be involved in some kind of conspiracy.

Swanson made two statements using the same qualifier - "if", we do it all the time.
"If Schwartz is to be believed, and (if) the police report of his statement casts no doubt upon it,...."
By not writing down the second qualifier "(if)" the second statement can read like an assertion. It's just unfortunate we have read it that way from the start.
Swanson is telling us Schwartz's statement is still being investigated, that they have not completed their police report of his statement.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Personally, I don't think Schwartz was called because his story was still being investigated. That is how I interpret Swanson's remark.

I’d say that has to be a possibility Wick. Perhaps another one is that Schwartz asked to be left out? As far as he was concerned he’d been seen at close quarters by the ripper and had had a threat shouted at him. The killer would naturally have assumed that Schwartz lived fairly locally and he’d have seen which way that he’d exited Berner Street. Whether paranoia or justified fear Schwartz might have felt that he or his family might have been at risk, so if the ripper read that he hadn’t testified…. And as we know that Schwartz couldn’t help toward the 4 stated aims of the inquest so they might just have decided that they could do without him?

At the inquests we can always ask “why was he called?” Or, “why wasn’t she called?” Apart from giving information toward the 4 aims we just see people giving background info as you’ve said so I’d suggest that we can possibly read too much into ‘non-attendance.’ If we had been there before each inquest none of us would have been able to predict who would or wouldn’t have been called to testify, so unless someone actually saw someone cut Stride’s throat for example and that person wasn’t called then I see nothing particularly suspicious about Schwartz non-attendance. Curious….maybe, but as David Orsam wrote in his article on the subject, there are quite a few possible reasons.

[JeffHamm]

All the times given by witnesses are estimates of the time, and they are estimates made based upon their recollection of events that, for the most part, were just mundane things (i.e. saw a woman and a man talking in the street). So witnesses have to reconstruct the times of things. Add that to the fact they are all referencing different clocks, which may not be synchronized, the times stated needed to be viewed as rough estimates only. I found that the only way to really put things together was to splice things more in terms of references to other events by durations (i.e. I was home for approximately 15 minutes when I heard men shouting and running along Fairclough type thing) ... and by fitting things together using those durations, guided in part by their estimation of the time, a more or less coherent story can be formed. That was how I put together the Stride simulation. There's room for improvement in that one, of course, as it's a very complicated data set given how many people are involved, but overall I think it hangs together. I'm sure there are some mistakes in it, and I'm sure some of the assumptions I had to make are wrong, but the gist seems ok in my opinion.

- Jeff

[Wickerman]

Witnesses are not expected to directly answer the questions, they all provide a contribution towards that end.
If we take a pedantic view, the authorities could publish her description in the press and provide a location for anyone who thinks they recognise her to view the body.
Otherwise the doctor can offer an estimate of time of death and cause of death. The place of death in this case is a process of elimination.
The Coroner also needs to build a picture of her final movements just incase it could be a case of suicide. People have cut their own throats, I know most of us might think it unlikely but it is a fact and must be ruled out if possible.
Personally, I don't think Schwartz was called because his story was still being investigated. That is how I interpret Swanson's remark.

[Varqm]

You're fully entitled to disagree but my main point was: Schwartz could not assist with answers to the only four questions the coroner was concerned with:

Identification of the deceased, time of death, place of death and cause of death.

Schwartz didn't know Stride and she was alive when he last saw her.

Why would you call him just so that you can ask him questions he can't answer?

So were Marshall,Brown,Smith,,Collins,Krantz ,Spooner,Coram,Drage able to answer one of
the four questions?

[Bridewell]

Sorry but I simply cannot agree with this. James Brown did not know Liz, nor can he help with the medical evidence. Not only that but he flatly contradicts Schwartz on were Liz was at 12:45 and who she was talking to . There was plenty of time for an interpreter to be found and for Schwartz to give his evidence considering the adjournment.
It is suggested that Schwartz may have been held back in case of a trial. But Brown appearing at the inquest and his evidence virtually gives BS man an alibi. Not only that but no other known witness corroborates Schwartz in the slightest. If Pipeman was found, were was he at said inquest ? There is no definite answer that he was found, only a newspaper report which may not refer to him at all. A defense council would punch holes straight through Schwartz's testimony.
Worse Baxter makes much in his summing up [Oct 24], of Marshall's, PC Smith and Browns evidence. Comparing their descriptions etc. If Schwartz was totally believed Baxter needn't have concerned himself with Brown's testimony in his summing up and the differences/similarities between his and the other witnesses. In fact he needn't have mentioned him at all apart from saying other evidence has come to light [ Schwartz, without naming him ], which may suggest that Brown saw someone else, not Liz.
Yes the police followed Schwartz up, they had to. But if we look at the adjournment Baxter himself says "It would be unreasonable to adjourn this inquiry again on the chance of something further being ascertained to elucidate the mysterious case on which they had devoted so much time."
Was he by then still not aware of Schwartz ? Or was the inquiry adjourned in the first place to look for Pipeman and/or assess Schwartz's evidence.

Regards Darryl

You're fully entitled to disagree but my main point was: Schwartz could not assist with answers to the only four questions the coroner was concerned with:

Identification of the deceased, time of death, place of death and cause of death.

Schwartz didn't know Stride and she was alive when he last saw her.

Why would you call him just so that you can ask him questions he can't answer?