Israel Schwartz | |
---|---|
Born | 19th century |
Nationality | Polish |
Known for | Being a witness to a murder by Jack the Ripper |
Israel Schwartz was a man who, in 1888, claimed to have witnessed an assault on a London woman that is believed to be tied to the Jack the Ripper slayings and one of the few people who might have had a good look at the murderer. [1] Though he was described at the time as being from Hungary, 1891 census entries show him as being Polish and of Jewish descent. [2]
Schwartz officially testified to the police, the following: [3] shortly after midnight on September 30, he was walking down a street when he saw a man stop and speak to a woman who was standing in a gateway. Schwartz stated that the man then threw the woman to the ground. Schwartz crossed the street and began walking away when the attacker saw him. The attacker called out the name "Lipski" — apparently an anti-Semitic insult related to Israel Lipski's murder of a woman the year before. Schwartz reported seeing another man smoking a pipe nearby at the time, and that this man started walking towards Schwartz, possibly following him, prompting Schwartz to run away. [4]
Schwartz described the possible murderer as being around 30-years-old with a height of around 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m), fair complexion, dark hair, small brown moustache, with a full face and broad shouldered. [3]
Shortly after the time that Schwartz claimed this incident had happened, the body of Elizabeth Stride was found in the same location. That same day Schwartz identified Stride's body as that of the woman he had seen attacked and gave testimony to the police about what he had seen. [5] He was able to give descriptions of both men but was unable to say whether they knew each other or had been working together.
Several years after the crimes, Commissioner Robert Anderson claimed in his autobiography The Lighter Side of My Official Life that the Ripper had been identified by "the only person who ever had a good view of the murderer." Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, in marginalia found in his personal copy of Anderson's book, stated that the witness in question was Jewish. Some Ripperologists have concluded that Schwartz was most likely the man being referred to, although a number of other people, primarily Joseph Lawende, have also been suggested. Swanson speculated that the witness had identified but then refused to testify against "Kosminski"—understood to be Aaron Kosminski, a Jewish barber—because it would likely have caused the death of a fellow Jew. [6] This speculation has never been verified.
Annie Chapman was the second canonical victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated a minimum of five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888.
Mary Ann Nichols, known as Polly Nichols, was the first canonical victim of the unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who is believed to have murdered and mutilated at least five women in and around the Whitechapel district of London from late August to early November 1888.
A series of murders that took place in the East End of London from August to November 1888 was blamed on an unidentified assailant who was nicknamed Jack the Ripper. Since then, the identity of the killer has been widely debated, with over 100 suspects named. Though many theories have been advanced, experts find none widely persuasive, and some are hardly taken seriously at all.
Mary Jane Kelly, also known as Marie Jeanette Kelly, Fair Emma, Ginger, Dark Mary and Black Mary, is widely believed by scholars to have been the final victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who murdered at least five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888. At the time of Kelly's death, she was approximately 25 years old, working as a prostitute and living in relative poverty.
Elizabeth "Long Liz" Stride is believed to have been the third victim of the unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated at least five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888.
Catherine Eddowes was the fourth of the canonical five victims of the notorious unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who is believed to have killed and mutilated a minimum of five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888.
Aaron Kosminski was a Polish barber, hairdresser, and suspect in the Jack the Ripper case.
Montague John Druitt was an English barrister and educator who is known for being a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.
Sir Melville Leslie Macnaghten was Assistant Commissioner (Crime) of the London Metropolitan Police from 1903 to 1913. A highly regarded and famously affable figure of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras he played major investigative roles in cases that led to the establishment and acceptance of fingerprint identification. He was also a major player in the pursuit and capture of Dr. Crippen, and of the exoneration of a wrongly convicted man, Adolph Beck, which helped lead to the creation of the Court of Criminal Appeal in 1907.
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer was also called the Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron.
Edward Badham was an English police sergeant involved in the investigation into the Jack the Ripper's murders, particularly those of Annie Chapman and Mary Jane Kelly.
Israel Lipski was a convicted murderer of Polish-Jewish descent living in the East End of London. Lipski worked as an umbrella stick salesman, employing Harry Schmuss and Henry Rosenbloom. The series of events leading up to his execution began on 28 June 1887 when police were summoned to 16 Batty Street; a young woman, Miriam Angel, had been murdered after being forced to consume nitric acid. She was 6 months pregnant at the time. The coroner at her inquest was Wynne Edwin Baxter.
The Whitechapel murders were committed in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London between 3 April 1888 and 13 February 1891. At various points some or all of these eleven unsolved murders of women have been ascribed to the notorious unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.
Chief Inspector Donald Sutherland Swanson was a senior police officer in the Metropolitan Police in London during the notorious Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.
Joseph Lawende was a Polish-born British cigarette salesman who is believed to have witnessed serial killer Jack the Ripper in the company of his fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes, approximately nine minutes before the discovery of her body on 30 September 1888.
The Goulston Street graffito was a sentence written on a wall beside a clue in the 1888 Whitechapel murders investigation. It has been transcribed as variations on the sentence "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing". The meaning of the graffito, and its possible connection to the crimes attributed to Jack the Ripper, have been debated for over a century.
Police Superintendent Thomas Arnold was a British policeman of the Victorian era best known for his involvement in the hunt for Jack the Ripper in 1888. It was his opinion that Mary Jane Kelly was not a victim of the Ripper.
The Thames Torso Murders, often called the Thames Mysteries or the Embankment Murders, were a sequence of unsolved murders of women occurring in London, England from 1887 to 1889. The series included four incidents which were filed as belonging to the same series. None of the cases were solved, and only one of the four victims was identified. In addition, other murders of a similar kind, taking place between 1873 and 1902, have also been associated with the same murder series.
James Thomas Sadler, also named Saddler in some sources, was an English merchant sailor who worked as both a machinist and stoker. In 1891, the then-53-year-old was accused of killing prostitute Frances Coles. Sadler was placed under arrest, and a mob almost lynched him at the exit of a police station. Eventually, he was dismissed by police for having a solid alibi, and obtained compensation from a newspaper that had branded him as Jack the Ripper.
Charles Allen Lechmere, also known as Charles Allen Cross, was a native of East London who reportedly worked as a carman for the Pickfords company for more than 20 years. On 31 August 1888, Lechmere apparently found the body of Mary Ann Nichols, the first of Jack the Ripper's five canonical victims, while on his way to work. Although long regarded as merely a passer-by at the crime scene, Lechmere has since been named as a Jack the Ripper suspect by contemporary true crime writers.