ISRAEL SCHWARTZ and DID HE SEE STRIDE'S KILLER?

In 1888, the most infamous murders of all time took place in London’s East End. Five prostitutes, destitute women who knew of no other way to survive, were slaughtered and mutilated by a supposedly unknown killer who bears the nickname Jack the Ripper.

The victims are listed below:

Mary Ann Nichols, Friday 31st August
Annie Chapman, Saturday 8th September
Elizabeth Stride, Sunday 30 September
Catherine Eddowes, Sunday 30 September
Mary Jane Kelly, Friday 9th November

A Witness?

Stride was the only victim who was not mutilated but you can argue that as she had her scarf pulled tight enough to kill her the cutting of her throat was unnecessary and was mutilation.

That night Israel Schwartz had sauntered along prior to her violent death.

He was a Hungarian Jew and we know that the Ripper was picked out in an identification where the witness recognised him instantly but would not testify as he didn’t want the hanging of a fellow Jew on his conscience.

It will be become clear that Schwartz was not this witness.

He saw a man stop and speak to a woman later known to be Stride near the gateway where the murder later took place. The man tried to pull her into the street but threw her down on the footpath. She screamed a few times – but not loudly. Schwartz saw a second man standing lighting his pipe watching this. The attacker shouted Lipski at the other man.

Lipski was an insult meaning murdering Jew and referred to Israel Lipski who was put to death for murder recently.

Some wonder if Schwartz was right in thinking that is the pipe man who was shouted at. What if the attacker was trying to get her away from somebody - a client in the yard? - and gave up? What if it was him he shouted at?

A man trying to get a woman away even with violence from a man he is abusing as Lipski and the woman being slain shortly after virtually would mean that the pipe man is the killer.

I think suggestions that Schwartz misheard the man calling Lizzie and thinking it was Lipski are far-fetched. He was bound to have heard the name Lipski before. Abberline claimed Schwartz felt the man could have called Lipski at him or the other man. So it was clearly not said to Liz Stride. But as he said at the start that it was shouted to the other man that recollection is the accurate one for the first memories carry more weight than later ones. Memory alters over time.

Plus the other man deserved to be called Lipski for he did not help the woman. He in fact scared Schwartz and intimidated him and Schwartz even went past his own front door his refuge by mistake as he found him so threatening. Frightened people make mistakes.

The pipe man followed Schwartz for a time and when Schwartz looked around he saw that he was gone.

It is said that it was Schwartz that the first man was calling Lipski to. But the man was attacking a woman and was unlikely to notice that Schwartz was a Jew and why not shout to other people who must have been around even if a little distance away. And it was dark at the time. The man was not going to kill her and had no reason to get Schwartz scared off. If you are going to murder and you are seen what it the point of scaring a witness away when he or she has seen you attacking the victim?

The second man was very recognisable as a Jew and probably wanted to follow Schwartz to make him feel threatened and to get him off the scene. He was was trying to make sure Schwartz didn’t return for another look.

The man who threw Stride down on the footpath was not the killer. She did not scream much as if she was not overly frightened of him and it looks like one of the attacks that prostitutes continually had to deal with. He does not bear any resemblance to the descriptions of the Ripper (page 54, The Crimes of Jack the Ripper). (It is important to devote a thought to the following claim made by some: Aaron Kosminski killed Stride but none of the other women. He was the one identified by a Jewish witness and that this witness was Schwartz. It is, unreliably, argued against that that Kosminski was an emaciated homeless incoherent madman. Nobody mentions the attacker seen with Stride as fitting that description.)

The Ripper would have dragged her into the gateway not the street. She had cachous in her hand when she was found as if she felt safe with the man who killed her. She would not have felt safe with a man who had just been violent towards her. That man went away. Lipski got rid of Schwartz and went back to her. Then "Lipski" befriended her. He was alone with Stride and he comforted her and got her out of sight. The Ripper always formed an acquaintance rapport with his victims.

He violently induced unconsciousness and cut her throat. The killer was in a hurry. It seems that only the Ripper would use the knife on a woman who had died by strangulation. The knife was taken away as it was in all Ripper crimes.

We conclude that the second man who was called Lipski then was probably her killer. His behaviour was the biggest giveway and he had been called dangerous to his face at the scene. Lipski was a nickname used as a form of slander against Jews. The second man then was a Jew. The killer of Elizabeth Stride was a Jew. If she was not killed by the Ripper then she must have been killed in a domestic but this can’t have been. Her man wasn’t a Jew nor did he look 35 as the second man did.

Schwartz would have had a good look at the man who was abused as Lipski - a very good look. The police were definite that the Ripper was a Polish Jew and it is interesting that Schwartz pretended to be a Hungarian Jew but was actually a Polish one. He was not going to tell enough to get the killer put away for Jews stood by their own kind.

Schwartz told the press that the pipe man carried a knife.

Why wasn’t the knife mentioned to the police? Because Schwartz was a Jew and the second man was a Jew and Jews didn’t squeal on Jews. The press was insistent that during an interview Schwartz said the second man had a knife. It rings true for Schwartz was in a hurry to get away from the scene. He didn’t shout for a policeman after seeing a woman attacked so he was afraid and the police were not trusted. He had to have been more than just afraid of the man, he had to have been afraid of the knife! Schwartz admitted running as far as the railway arch when he realised the second man was following him. He was afraid of this man but gave no reason for being afraid of him in his police statement. The knife explains the fear.
 
The second man must have had a knife or been the killer or both when he never came forward. He had no reason not to come forward otherwise.

Schwartz said to the papers that the second man tried to stop the attack on Stride. This is probably true for the attacker called Lipski to the other one as if he had been annoying him or getting in the way. And we know that Elizabeth trusted the man she went into the yard with like he had just saved her from an attack or something.

When the attacker made off which Schwartz didn’t see, the second man followed Schwartz to scare him off. He may have taken Elizabeth’s knife to do that with. The details are lacking so this is possible. Then he went back and killed her in the yard with her knife. It is possible that the Ripper had more than one knife and used another knife to get rid of Schwartz and then because there was no time to lose used it on Stride instead of his usual knife. It is simpler to assume he had his own spare knife with him.

Why did the first man call the second man Lipski? Had he called him Murdering Jew which he meant by Lipski we might have seen the reason. The reason was most likely because the attacker was trying to get Elizabeth away from there and she wouldn’t go so he used violence. Why did he try to pull her out of the shadows into the street? He gave up and left her with the man he suspected of being a Jewish killer – perhaps his suspicion was aroused by the knife Schwartz reported as being in the suspect’s hand. Perhaps he thought no harm would come to her when he saw the second man leaving the scene to follow Schwartz. That could be another reason why the second man did that. It was in the off-chance that the attacking man would think he had gone and leaving Elizabeth to his mercy when he would return.

Spotlight: Israel Schwartz

Did Schwartz see the Ripper and his victim virtually together?

Why did Schwartz change his story? Story one to the police differed from the story to the papers. The media version was Stride was attacked by a man and another man came out of the pub. The problem is that the pub the Lord Nelson would have been shut. This man had a knife. No investigation of the pub owners or anybody who was there ever took place.

The best answer that Schwartz was incoherent for he was afraid of implicating a Jew in the murder. He may have been aware that the Lipski shout was heard which was the only reason he admitted it..

Though some try to confuse the issue, we should follow the police record. Here it is.

12.45 a.m. 30th. Israel Schwartz of 22 Helen [sic - Ellen] Street, Backchurch Lane, stated that at this hour, on turning into Berner St. from Commercial Road & having got as far as the gateway where the murder was committed he saw a man stop & speak to a woman, who was standing in the gateway. The man tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned her round & threw her down on the footway & the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly. On crossing to the opposite side of the street, he saw a second man standing lighting his pipe. The man who threw the woman down called out apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road 'Lipski' & then Schwartz walked away, but finding that he was followed by the second man he ran so far as the railway arch but the man did not follow so far. [Here there is a marginal note. 'The use of "Lipski" increases my belief that the murderer was a Jew'.] Schwartz cannot say whether the two men were together or known to each other. Upon being taken to the mortuary Schwartz identified the body as that of the woman he had seen & he thus describes the first man, who threw the woman down: age about 30 ht, 5 ft 5 in. comp. fair hair dark, small brown moustache, full face, broad shouldered, dress, dark jacket & trousers black cap with peak, had nothing in his hands. Second man age 35 ht. 5 ft 11in. comp. fresh, hair light brown, moustache brown, dress dark overcoat, old black hard felt hat wide brim, had a clay pipe in his hand.

Schwartz himself felt that the Lipski was shouted at the other man. The other man followed him to get rid of him. He even had Schwartz so unnerved that he went past his own front door! The man who threw Stride about had nothing in his hands. She didn't scream much. He was very unlikely to have been the killer. She held on to cachous in her hand indicating she was not scared of the man who cut her throat. The second man was probably the Ripper. The first man looks like he was trying in his rough way to get her away from the area.

Schwartz as a Jew would not have betrayed his own fellow Jew. He is thought to have identified the killer but refused to testify against him for it would mean sending a Jew to the gallows. But read the newspaper account again. What if he thought the man abusing Stride was the murderer?  He would have thought that. The other man was not a Jew.  Schwartz was not the Jew who identified a Jew.

The view that the Ripper was spotted by a Jew at Mitre Square who refused to testify against him is the correct one.

Some reason, The killer was in anti-Jewish mode that night for he called Lipski and then wrote the Goulston Street Message: The Jews are the men who will not be blamed for nothing on a wall. While there is a link between the two incidents the link is in fact that the pipe man was the killer and who being told to his face he was a Jewish killer went and proved it later and even wrote a taunt about it at Goulston Street.

Finally

The man with the pipe watching Stride being pulled away from the gate was not called Lipski for nothing and got rid of Israel and then took her into the yard and killed her. Schwartz was not the witness at the identification for he did not see anybody taking Stride into the yard.   He was only spoken to by the police as one of the last people to have seen the victim.