Ripper Confidential by Tom Wescott (2017)

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Fair enough, thanks Tom.

I have a couple of questions now about the young couple that Mortimer talked to. One is, do we really know for sure that the young woman who was interviewed who said that she said good night to her sweetheart at 12:30 is the same young woman that Mortimer talked to? The second is that if she is the same woman, why would she have been there for Mortimer to talk to after the murder, meaning after 1:00, if she had said good night to her sweetheart and gone home at 12:30?

FYI: The young couple or couples are debated in this thread, starting around page 2 ...

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-discussions/victims/elizabeth-stride/712210-the-schwartz-bs-man-situation-my-opinion-only

I think there were two couples - one that had gone by 12:30, and another that were at the corner of Berner & Fairclough when the search for police began. As you suggest, it's difficult to see how a couple could have left the scene by 12:30 and still managed to talk to Mortimer after the murder.

[Wickerman]

FYI: The young couple or couples are debated in this thread, starting around page 2 ...

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-discussions/victims/elizabeth-stride/712210-the-schwartz-bs-man-situation-my-opinion-only

I think there were two couples - one that had gone by 12:30, and another that were at the corner of Berner & Fairclough when the search for police began. As you suggest, it's difficult to see how a couple could have left the scene by 12:30 and still managed to talk to Mortimer after the murder.

You're right, their stories were different, two different couples.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

You're right, their stories were different, two different couples.

Goldstein must have walked right by the second couple. Did anyone else?

[Wickerman]

Goldstein must have walked right by the second couple. Did anyone else?

Which hat was he wearing at the time, that of Schwartz or Goldstein?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Which hat was he wearing at the time, that of Schwartz or Goldstein?

I guess that depends on the purpose of the all-day outing.

It seems that he had gone out for the day, and his wife had expected to move, during his absence, from their lodgings in Berner-street to others in Backchurch-lane.

Was it sight-seeing around London, or was Schwartz a traveller?

By the way, do the names have differing connotations in regard to social class?

[Tom_Wescott]

Fair enough, thanks Tom.

I have a couple of questions now about the young couple that Mortimer talked to. One is, do we really know for sure that the young woman who was interviewed who said that she said good night to her sweetheart at 12:30 is the same young woman that Mortimer talked to? The second is that if she is the same woman, why would she have been there for Mortimer to talk to after the murder, meaning after 1:00, if she had said good night to her sweetheart and gone home at 12:30?

Hi Lewis. Truthfully, we don't "know" anything. But if we accept the fragments we're given by the press, the young woman joined Fanny at the murder site after the body was discovered and either told Fanny her story or else Fanny overheard her telling it to journalists. There's no reason to suppose a separate young woman was walking on the street with her sweetheart around that time, and certainly a second couple was no witnessed, so it's sufficiently reasonable to assume there was just the one young couple, and based on the evidence given, they would have been at the Commercial Road end of Berner Street, and so were not the couple witnessed by James Brown.

The Berner Street murder is mucky enough without us adding to it by conflating a young woman with her sweetheart to TWO young women with their sweetheart in an effort to discount James Brown's evidence. As mentioned before, it stands to reason that the young woman who spoke to the press, at the same time Fanny did, was precisely the same woman who spoke to Fanny and at the same time. That is why every mention of the couple mentions one couple and not two. I understand it is somewhat important to various theories to downplay or outright dismiss James Brown's evidence, but the fact is he was "almost certain" he saw Stride and not some young woman with her sweetheart. We really don't have any right to be any more or less certain than he was, and so it's probably he saw Stride with her killer.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Hi Lewis. Truthfully, we don't "know" anything. But if we accept the fragments we're given by the press, the young woman joined Fanny at the murder site after the body was discovered and either told Fanny her story or else Fanny overheard her telling it to journalists. There's no reason to suppose a separate young woman was walking on the street with her sweetheart around that time, and certainly a second couple was no witnessed, so it's sufficiently reasonable to assume there was just the one young couple, and based on the evidence given, they would have been at the Commercial Road end of Berner Street, and so were not the couple witnessed by James Brown.

Quoting from RC:

The Evening News reported that ‘when the alarm of murder was raised a young girl had been standing in a bisecting thoroughfare not fifty yards from the spot where the body was found. She had, she said, been standing there for about twenty-minutes, talking with her sweetheart, but neither of them heard any unusual noises.’ We’re now out to 50 yards, which puts the couple at the corner of Berner Street and Commercial Road and nowhere near the Board School.

When someone says; X was not Y yards from Z, they do not mean X was Y yards (or more) from Z. What they do mean is; X was not even Y yards from Z. That is, X was less than Y yards from Z.

The whole point of that report is that nothing unusual was heard in the ~20 minutes leading up to the discovery, by a couple who were in close proximity to the murder.

The Berner Street murder is mucky enough without us adding to it by conflating a young woman with her sweetheart to TWO young women with their sweetheart in an effort to discount James Brown's evidence. As mentioned before, it stands to reason that the young woman who spoke to the press, at the same time Fanny did, was precisely the same woman who spoke to Fanny and at the same time. That is why every mention of the couple mentions one couple and not two. I understand it is somewhat important to various theories to downplay or outright dismiss James Brown's evidence, but the fact is he was "almost certain" he saw Stride and not some young woman with her sweetheart. We really don't have any right to be any more or less certain than he was, and so it's probably he saw Stride with her killer.

Some press reports have Brown seeing the woman at about 12:45, when he is returning home from the chandler's shop, where he had been for 3 or 4 minutes. A couple arriving at the board school corner in that 3 or 4 minute period, would indeed have been at that location for about 20 minutes, when the alarm of murder was raised. Brown may have felt "almost certain" that he saw Stride, but that is not the same as being certain, and more importantly it is not the same as being correct. Had Brown in fact seen Stride, the proximity in time to PC Smith's witnessing of her with a man, suggests that Brown might have noticed the parcel done up in newspaper, but he does not - he only sees the long overcoat.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Not Blamed. What I did in my RC books is not isolate a single press report and take it for gospel, but draw upon all available sources for the most reasonable or logical conclusion. In this case, there was a young couple in Berner Street standing nearer Commercial Road, and indeed walking along Commercial Road. This would not be Brown's couple but would be the young woman both Fanny Mortimer and the journalist spoke with. As for James Brown, he gave evidence as the inquest. This evidence was recorded by several reporters for different papers. Once upon a time, researchers had only The Times to go by, which is how it became received wisdom that Brown spotted his couple at 12:45, putting him at odds with Schwartz. However, as I outline in RC, Brown left his home at 12:45 and therefore it was some time later that he saw his couple. What he saw occurred after Schwartz had fled the scene. The man Smith saw much earlier was not on the scene and so I wouldn't have expected either Brown or Schwartz to have seen a paper parcel. In fact, I suspect what Smith took to be a paper parcel was in fact a stack of Arbeter Fraint's being handed out by a member of the club (although obviously that's pure speculation).

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Hi Not Blamed. What I did in my RC books is not isolate a single press report and take it for gospel, but draw upon all available sources for the most reasonable or logical conclusion. In this case, there was a young couple in Berner Street standing nearer Commercial Road, and indeed walking along Commercial Road. This would not be Brown's couple but would be the young woman both Fanny Mortimer and the journalist spoke with. As for James Brown, he gave evidence as the inquest. This evidence was recorded by several reporters for different papers. Once upon a time, researchers had only The Times to go by, which is how it became received wisdom that Brown spotted his couple at 12:45, putting him at odds with Schwartz. However, as I outline in RC, Brown left his home at 12:45 and therefore it was some time later that he saw his couple. What he saw occurred after Schwartz had fled the scene. The man Smith saw much earlier was not on the scene and so I wouldn't have expected either Brown or Schwartz to have seen a paper parcel. In fact, I suspect what Smith took to be a paper parcel was in fact a stack of Arbeter Fraint's being handed out by a member of the club (although obviously that's pure speculation).

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hi Tom.

How much earlier did Smith see the man with the parcel? According to RC, the discrepancy between Smith's and Diemschitz' timing can be resolved as follows:

It’s not usually advisable to play with accepted timings in a historical event, particularly when they’ve been accepted as accurate by the authorities recording them; times that, in this case, were submitted by PC William Smith and accepted by his superiors as well as Chief Inspector Swanson. However, it’s unlikely any of these men thought to sit down and compare the movements and timings of the various player - a luxury enjoyed by modern investigators. But when an obvious discrepancy is presented in the testimony itself, it requires we consider an alternative timeline. The timing of 12:40-45 ties in nicely with Fanny Mortimer’s recollection that ‘shortly before a quarter to one o’clock heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat,’ but it forces a reconsideration of other events.
If not for Mortimer’s recollection of when she heard the constable pass, and her accuracy in regards to the other timings she offered (i.e. Goldstein and Diemshitz’s passing), it would be tempting to conclude that Smith passed through Berner Street at 12:35 and made his way back to the top of the street closer to 1:05 than 1:10. After all, there were many public clocks from which he could mark his time as he walked, just as Diemshitz had noted the time at a baker’s clock on Commercial Road before he turned onto Berner Street. It might be expected Smith would make use of the clocks if for no other reason than to know how much longer he had on his shift. But his estimation of 1am for finding the crowd at Berner Street is provably inaccurate and brings his earlier timings into question. Mortimer’s timing only serves to cast further doubt, and so we must consider that the following all occurred around or within the five minutes between 12:40 and 12:45am:
PC Smith witnessed Stride standing across the street from the club talking to Parcel Man.
...

So, very soon after "shortly before a quarter to one o’clock" (if we regard that 'quote' as an accurate interpretation of Mortimer's words), the parcel man must seemingly have disappeared, and Stride must go to the gateway alone, out of Fanny's sight. Then Schwartz and the two other men must arrive on the scene and leave the scene - unnoticed by Fanny - in time for Stride to move to the board school corner with yet another man before Brown returns from the shop, which the coroner (according to the Times) stated as being a quarter hour after 12:30pm.

This is quite a story already, but even if we move Brown's witnessing of a woman that we assume he correctly identified as Liz, out to about 12:50, we still need to get Stride just into the yard and the murderer out of it, in time for club members to see a stream of blood, just after 1am.

It's almost a cliche of Ripperology to suggest that the Berner street timeline gets a lot easier to make sense of, once Schwartz's story is left out of it. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between - Schwartz did witness something, but this man of "theatrical appearance" was prone to exaggerated storytelling, especially when much was at risk.

[Wickerman]

Red flags should be raised when we read that "Mortimer's accuracy" is being preferred, to the statement of a beat constable.

[Fiver]

In fact, I suspect what Smith took to be a paper parcel was in fact a stack of Arbeter Fraint's being handed out by a member of the club (although obviously that's pure speculation).

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Someone engaging in speculation that says it's speculation instead of defending it as if it were graven on stone tablets and brought down from the mountain?

That's a refreshing change of pace. I wish more posters followed your example.

[GBinOz]

Quoting from RC:

The Evening News reported that ‘when the alarm of murder was raised a young girl had been standing in a bisecting thoroughfare not fifty yards from the spot where the body was found. She had, she said, been standing there for about twenty-minutes, talking with her sweetheart, but neither of them heard any unusual noises.’ We’re now out to 50 yards, which puts the couple at the corner of Berner Street and Commercial Road and nowhere near the Board School.

Hi Andrew,

If not 50 yards puts a couple at the corner of Berner and Commercial, could it just as well put them at the corner of Berner and Christian...in front of the Bee Hive pub....where Spooner was standing with his girlfriend? Just a speculation, of course.

Cheers, George

[Wickerman]

As Andrew says in post 532, "not 50 yds" means less than 50 yds, the corner of Berner & Fairclough was 20 yds = 60 ft from Dutfields Yard.

[Lewis C]

Hi Lewis. Truthfully, we don't "know" anything. But if we accept the fragments we're given by the press, the young woman joined Fanny at the murder site after the body was discovered and either told Fanny her story or else Fanny overheard her telling it to journalists. There's no reason to suppose a separate young woman was walking on the street with her sweetheart around that time, and certainly a second couple was no witnessed, so it's sufficiently reasonable to assume there was just the one young couple, and based on the evidence given, they would have been at the Commercial Road end of Berner Street, and so were not the couple witnessed by James Brown.

The Berner Street murder is mucky enough without us adding to it by conflating a young woman with her sweetheart to TWO young women with their sweetheart in an effort to discount James Brown's evidence. As mentioned before, it stands to reason that the young woman who spoke to the press, at the same time Fanny did, was precisely the same woman who spoke to Fanny and at the same time. That is why every mention of the couple mentions one couple and not two. I understand it is somewhat important to various theories to downplay or outright dismiss James Brown's evidence, but the fact is he was "almost certain" he saw Stride and not some young woman with her sweetheart. We really don't have any right to be any more or less certain than he was, and so it's probably he saw Stride with her killer.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hi Tom,

I don't wish to dismiss James Brown. I think it's possible that he correctly identified Liz Stride whether there was one young couple or two. I just don't see how it can be claimed that the young couple that Mortimer talked to couldn't have been the couple that Brown saw on the grounds that they went home at 12:30, when we know that Mortimer talked to them after 1:00. If they were in the area after 1:00, then they could also have been in the area at 12:45 or 12:50.

[Tom_Wescott]

Someone engaging in speculation that says it's speculation instead of defending it as if it were graven on stone tablets and brought down from the mountain?

That's a refreshing change of pace. I wish more posters followed your example.

Thanks for that, Fiver. Almost 100% of what I write is speculation, whether my own or my source's. PC Smith says he sees something at about a certain time, then he's speculating. James Brown says he's pretty sure the woman he saw was Stride, he's speculating. In fact, it's only received wisdom that anybody was murdered in Whitechapel that Autumn. None of us were there to bear witness. But when you're working with an incomplete picture as we are, it's still possible to grasp the truth, or something close to it, using reason, logic, and deductive (as opposed to inductive) reasoning. In the case of the smitten couple on Berner Street, up to a certain point, we had only a random newspaper article about the couple and this allowed a generation or two of Ripperologists to speculate that Brown saw this couple and not Stride. This was important to particular suspect theories where they wanted to dismiss Brown. Others just saw it as a reasonable possibility, which it most certainly was. However, in RC I introduced additional contemporary sources that to a reasonable mind put the young couple at the opposite end of Berner Street from where Brown was, making it ever more likely that Brown saw Stride. More over, I demonstrated via the inquest coverage from various newspapers (not just The Times) that Brown puts himself leaving his house at 12:45 and not witnessing his couple until some time after that. These are, to my mind, rather significant details when piecing together what happened and when and who saw what. I understand that they may still be inconvenient to certain theories, in which case the author or commentator is welcome to ignore my research and pretend it's still the dark ages. Which, I've noticed, some do.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott