12:45 am

[Robert St Devil]

When he came homewards about a quarter before one - The Star, 1 October 1888

Is there any suggestion what Israel Schwartz is saying is:

I left for home from location X at 12:45 am and arrived at Berner Street some time after.

as in...

i left for home at 12:45 am. i decided i would go down berner street first to see if my wife was at our old address. if she wasn,t there, she must be at our new apartment on back-church. when i turned off commercial...

[GUT]

When he came homewards about a quarter before one - The Star, 1 October 1888

Is there any suggestion what Israel Schwartz is saying is:

I left for home from location X at 12:45 am and arrived at Berner Street some time after.

as in...

i left for home at 12:45 am. i decided i would go down berner street first to see if my wife was at our old address. if she wasn,t there, she must be at our new apartment on back-church. when i turned off commercial...

I'd read it as saying, "I was on my way home when, at 12:45 ...." so not when he left for home.

[Michael W Richards]

I believe its quite possible that Israel was actually at the club that night, as were some 200 Socialist Jews, and the events he describes were dramatized to save the International Club from heightened scrutiny. I believe its been established, by Debra Arif here, that Israel knew Woolf Wess from Paris a few years earlier, which then makes the position that he happened to be wandering by less believable.

So he may well have been "leaving for home" from location x, the club.

[Robert St Devil]

do you think liz was in the club too?

in swanson,s report the chief inspector states that schwartz identified her body at the mortuary.

[GUT]

do you think liz was in the club too?

in swanson,s report the chief inspector states that schwartz identified her body at the mortuary.

I took that ID to be

"yep that's the one I saw attacked"

[Michael W Richards]

do you think liz was in the club too?

in swanson,s report the chief inspector states that schwartz identified her body at the mortuary.

I believe Robert that there are extenuating circumstances here that very well could solve an important question, why was she there. Its not popular, but I believe its at least possible that Liz was there to clean up after the meeting. I think it may have been a gig for her.

She says she has been gainfully employed the past months cleaning "among the Jews", and here we have a Jewish Socialist club in need of cleaning. I don't see it as farfetched. And if that's the case, then it may have been misinterpreted why she was there by someone at the club and it escalated to fatal, or maybe she was there to meet a Jewish man socially.

I put about equal weight on them as possibilities...although I cant say probability based on known data.

I will add that I also believe its possible Israel Schwartz may have seen something close to what he describes, but inside the gates..as he left from the side door to head to his new address. I also believe its possible his old address was one of those cottages in the same passage.

[Robert St Devil]

Granted. The case becomes more linear when the Double Event is removed from the file: man murders an unfortunate woman in the street; in a backyard; in an apartment, and with each subsequent murder, the violence against her body steadily increases along with his need for privacy as the civil action of the East End grows against him. So... I can keep an open mind, Michael, that the Double Event might have been a radical event in the story of Jack the Ripper (or the work of a copycat).

I am forming the belief that accommodations have to be made for Schwartz' tale in the case regardless of Mrs. Mortimer's speculations on the hour and minutes that she spent at her doorway. His evidence is superior to hers... so a place for it has to be reserved. This is based on 3 points:

1. He identified Elizabeth Stride at the mortuary as the woman who he saw being attacked.
2. He provided a description of a peaked cap.
3. He didn't fool Inspector Abberline*.


*Aside: "HE HAD A KNIFE, I SWEAR HE DID!"
the idea may have been debunked already, but I just wonder... if Inspector Abberline warned Schwartz against using the words "Lipski" and "pipe" when dealing with the media.

[Michael W Richards]

Granted. The case becomes more linear when the Double Event is removed from the file: man murders an unfortunate woman in the street; in a backyard; in an apartment, and with each subsequent murder, the violence against her body steadily increases along with his need for privacy as the civil action of the East End grows against him. So... I can keep an open mind, Michael, that the Double Event might have been a radical event in the story of Jack the Ripper (or the work of a copycat).

I am forming the belief that accommodations have to be made for Schwartz' tale in the case regardless of Mrs. Mortimer's speculations on the hour and minutes that she spent at her doorway. His evidence is superior to hers... so a place for it has to be reserved. This is based on 3 points:

1. He identified Elizabeth Stride at the mortuary as the woman who he saw being attacked.
2. He provided a description of a peaked cap.
3. He didn't fool Inspector Abberline*.


*Aside: "HE HAD A KNIFE, I SWEAR HE DID!"
the idea may have been debunked already, but I just wonder... if Inspector Abberline warned Schwartz against using the words "Lipski" and "pipe" when dealing with the media.

If the attack was seen inside the gates, maybe 10-15 minutes earlier than currently believed, then he would of course have no issue identifying Liz. Or the peaked Cap. Id just add on point three that Hutchinsons tale took Abberline too...where did that lead?

I believe that Abberline among all the other policeman on foot in the area had a personal stake in catching this killer or killers. This was where he earned his stripes, where they gave him a cane in appreciation for his service to the local community, where he trailed his early Fenian arrests.

The killer(s) was working his turf, so to speak.

[Bridewell]

She says she has been gainfully employed the past months cleaning "among the Jews", and here we have a Jewish Socialist club in need of cleaning. I don't see it as farfetched. And if that's the case, then it may have been misinterpreted why she was there by someone at the club and it escalated to fatal, or maybe she was there to meet a Jewish man socially.

I put about equal weight on them as possibilities...although I cant say probability based on known data.

I think you've got the balance spot on with that. If, as seems to have been the case, she was well known to the local Jewish community why would she need to wait around outside the Club, whatever her reason for being there?

[Michael W Richards]

I think you've got the balance spot on with that. If, as seems to have been the case, she was well known to the local Jewish community why would she need to wait around outside the Club, whatever her reason for being there?

Im not narcissistic in the slightest but I do like when someone gets it. I believe there may be answers in the stories about Unfortunates paid to spy on clubs and people during that period...she may well have been seen as being one of them. All it would have taken is one intoxicated aggressive bodyguard, hired when the speaker was to be William Morris that night and threats were being received. Keep the hired security even though the speaker changed, and the street thug mentality of this individual caused him to act, briefly, with excessive violence.

I think the club members took more time that they admit to deciding what to do about Liz, based upon their perceptions of what the club might experience as backlash over a possible ripper killing in their passageway. And I believe its possible they did so because they had hired the eventual killer.

[John G]

It's been argued that George Hutchinson may have murdered Kelly and therefore invented Astrachan Man to cover his tracks.

Just out of interest, as it ever been argued that Schwartz murdered Stride, similarly inventing BS man as a suspect? Although I accept the idea seems completely far fetched!

[Harry D]

Just out of interest, as it ever been argued that Schwartz murdered Stride, similarly inventing BS man as a suspect? Although I accept the idea seems completely far fetched!

Probably! There's nothing new under the sun.

However, I'm almost convinced Schwartz invented "BS Man" to protect the socialists club.

[Robert St Devil]

john i think that would depend on whether or not you considered schwartz and lawende to be ,in cahoots, since both corroborated on the description of a man wearing a peaked cap. i,m considering that schwartz saw what he said michael and harry. i,m comfortable with men,s clubs being fronts for criminal activity; politics, business and crime go hand in hand. i just can,t reason out WHY the club would kill this girl so close to their club without covering up the crime.

[Michael W Richards]

Probably! There's nothing new under the sun.

However, I'm almost convinced Schwartz invented "BS Man" to protect the socialists club.

I keep getting Easter Sunday surprises. Its almost certain Schwartz is the red herring in the Stride murder investigation, and considering the way his story even suggests that the murder started with a street assault by a gentile, its surely a creation for the Clubs benefit, not a recollection.

Take Israel out of the equation altogether, then remove Brown, because at 12:45 he clearly saw the young couple also seen by Fanny and so he didnt see Liz Stride either, and then follow the story from PC Smiths departure at 12:35, and youll see a whole different scenario. Liz not being seen in ANY of Fannys occasional trips to the doorway between 12:30 and 1am, and certainly not after 12:50. But Spooner, Heschberg, and Kozebrodksi saw her during that 12:35-1am time frame. Dying, in the passageway.

Liz goes into the passageway to wait for someone or something after 12:35. Its there she is killed before 1am.

[c.d.]

"Its almost certain Schwartz is the red herring in the Stride murder investigation, and considering the way his story even suggests that the murder started with a street assault by a gentile, its surely a creation for the Clubs benefit, not a recollection.

Hello Michael,

"almost certain?" That seems just a tad strong when it is simply an allegation without proof to back it up. This was not the first murder in Whitechapel that Fall where a prostitute had her throat cut. Did anyone or any nearby place connected with those sites fall under immediate suspicion? Just because she was killed near the club it does not follow that the club therefore had to be involved. Lying to the police in a murder investigation is a serious business. Why take that chance rather than simply cooperate fully which is what they appear to have done?

c.d.