The Red Handkerchief...

[Ben]

This idea that everyone knew each other, by sight if not by name, in an area such as this, seems to come from nowhere - or when some theory requires it to have been the case.

The argument has never been that Lewis and Hutchinson must have been acquainted with one another. It is possible, but not necessary. It has simply been suggested that in such a close-knit neighbourhood, there was the very real possibility of Hutchinson being recognised by Lewis as the man she she saw, and in that scenario, without having first nailed his colours to the helpful witness mast, he had no choice but to explain himself as a suspect.

And please see my response to Lechmere. There is nothing remotely unusual about the apparent failure to connect Hutchinson's account with Lewis', whereas it requires speculative leaps and the ever-convenient "lost report" to argue that the connection was first explored and subsequently eliminated. Had such events occurred, it is impossible that the press missed out on it or failed to report on it. Once they concluded that Astrakhan was a fabrication - and the likelihood is overwhelmingly that they did arrive at that conclusion - they evidently no longer considered that Hutchinson was there at all, just as Violenia wasn't really there when he claimed to be the last person to see Annie Chapman alive with a fictional suspect. The precedent had been set, which is why it was so tempting to lump Hutchinson into the same category as Violenia, Packer and others.

Regards,
Ben

[caz]

Sarah Lewis saw only one couple on Dorset Street, and her evidence makes very clear the fact that they had nothing whatsoever to do with Miller's Court.

Hi Ben,

Where did Lewis say the couple went? How long did she watch them for? Why could they not have gone into the court when she was no longer there to see anybody? Yes, she saw a man (presumed to be Hutch) watching the court, but you can't use what Hutch said about his couple, if you are claiming they never existed.

I don't see why the couple could not have ended up in the court, unseen by Lewis, but seen by Hutch. There is no solid proof that the man Lewis saw was Hutch, and could not have been the man Hutch said he saw standing by the lodging house.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

Where did Lewis say the couple went? How long did she watch them for? Why could they not have gone into the court when she was no longer there to see anybody?

They could well have done, but my point is that there is nothing in Sarah Lewis' evidence to suggest as much. We learn that the couple were "further along" Dorset Street, i.e. east of the Miller's Court entrance, and also that they "passed along", and while this could imply either that they were heading eastwards or that they were approaching Lewis from the east, the clear impression is that they walked straight past the Miller's Court entrance. The complete lack of interest exhibited by the police in this couple is another useful indicator that they did not consider them important to the investigation, and clearly not Kelly and her killer.

Hutchinson saw a man enter a lodging house, rather than loiter outside it. In those weather conditions, it would have churlish to hang about outside when the door was open!

All the best,
Ben

[Lechmere]

Ben
Ah right then.
So the newspapers, virtually all of whom covered the Hutchinson story and spanned their coverage out over a couple of weeks, and who were eager for an extra slant on the story and who covered every little aspect, even going so far as inventing witnesses, or so we are told, or at least suspending their critical faculties and taking any old nonsense as verbatim, these same newspapers and journalists, all of them, were unenquiring enough to fail to make the connection between Lewis’s wide awake man and Hutchinson?

I doubt it somehow. If there was a connection to be made some one would have made it. That is why to me it is terribly obvious that the man Lewis saw was not Hutchinson and the police and everyone else at the time knew that. It was obvious to them and did not require a missing report to record the fact.
That is why Hutchinson did not have to be worried about Lewis’s testimony and why his appearance at the police station was unconnected to the inquest, which for all he knew had merely been adjourned and not concluded in one day.
By the way, need I say that Robert Paul didn’t voluntarily present himself to the police to appear at the inquest. He was dragged out of his house days after the murder.

You also seem to suggest that Hutchinson didn’t want to appear at the inquest in case he was recognised by one of the witnesses from a previous murder. Do you think such a witness would have been at Shoreditch Town Hall?
It would be just as likely that one of these witnesses might have been at Commercial Street Police Station when he turned up there – surely?
Or he may have been spotted by someone he knew when he did his tour of the area with a policeman looking for the A-man.
I won’t even introduce the folly of him doing this if he was really Joseph Fleming – what would the policeman say if a passer-by said – ‘wotcher Joe, wot you doing with a copper’ or would that have been ‘wotcher James…’

And as I have pointed out before, when Hutchinson gave his press interview in the Victoria Home he was mighty lucky an illustrator didn’t accompany the reporter.

By the by – wasn’t it so dark that colours couldn’t be seen and the gas lamps threw off such a dim glow that they were no help unless you were really up close?
So how would Lewis have been able to recognise Hutchinson from across the street anyway?
Was he standing right by a lamp outside Crossingham’s so he was illuminated?
Maybe he was, but that isn’t being very discrete is it? What a foolish stealth killer.
But what of Lewis? Was she stationary under a lamp for Hutchinson to recognise her? In the inky darkness how on earth would he have known who that fleeting figure was?

[Ben]

Ah Lechmere,

I'm surprised you've found the time to attack alternative suspect theories given the tremendous weight of criticism you constantly receive for your much less popular and much more heavily censured "Crossmere" premise.

So the newspapers, virtually all of whom covered the Hutchinson story and spanned their coverage out over a couple of weeks, and who were eager for an extra slant on the story and who covered every little aspect, even going so far as inventing witnesses, or so we are told, or at least suspending their critical faculties and taking any old nonsense as verbatim, these same newspapers and journalists, all of them, were unenquiring enough to fail to make the connection between Lewis’s wide awake man and Hutchinson?

The penny is finally dropping, which is a tremendous relief. You have correctly recognised that the press were eager for an "extra slant on their story", but where you go wrong is your inexplicable failure to appreciate that the total absence of any reference to a Lewis-Hutchinson connection is even more conspicuous because of this; even more indicative that no such connection was ever registered. Your logical process goes awry somewhere, whereas it should be telling you that if - as we know to be the case - the press were anxious for any new lead, they would have reported on a Lewis-Hutchinson connection had a connection been made

It is utterly impossible to accept that the police silently spotted the Lewis-wideawake connection, silently investigated it, silently ruled it out, silently informed the press, who were then silent about it.

It's beyond ridiculous.

And as far as actual evidence goes for the dreadfully wrong theory, it really is a case of piss now or forever remain off the pot. In order for a theory like this to be sustainable, you need to provide evidence, not a string of "must haves" and silly mythical "lost reports" that said what you wanted them to have said before being conveniently burned by the Luftwaffe in WWII.

The complete absence of any reference to any Hutchinson-wideawake connection is an irrefutable indication that no connection was ever made, either by the police or the press.

Your hypocrisy in failing to apply your own weird logic with regard to what the police "must have" done disturbs me intensely. The reality that the police did not cross every "i" and cross every "t" is one that keeps your entire theory buoyant. Your implausible contention is that the police investigated the second person to discover Nichols' body but not the second, and it wholly relies on the police failing to do that which most consider obvious.

Hutchinson was almost certainly the man seen by Lewis.

You also seem to suggest that Hutchinson didn’t want to appear at the inquest in case he was recognised by one of the witnesses from a previous murder. Do you think such a witness would have been at Shoreditch Town Hall?
It would be just as likely that one of these witnesses might have been at Commercial Street Police Station when he turned up there – surely?

One of them was a public inquest, which drew immediate and sustained attention to anyone giving their evidence there, and which involved being scrutinised by a crowd of people, while the other was a police station - or rather a small interrogation room therein, with perhaps two or three others in attendance, and when the chance of encountering more than one witness from an earlier crime was slim.

I won’t even introduce the folly of him doing this if he was really Joseph Fleming – what would the policeman say if a passer-by said – ‘wotcher Joe, wot you doing with a copper’ or would that have been ‘wotcher James…’

Or, far more likely, they wouldn't have said "wotcher" anything, because they didn't know who he was or didn't know his name. Joseph Fleming had only recently arrived in the neighbourhood, and if he wasn't inclined to be sociable, he needn't have been known by anyone - either by his real name or by an alias. He was unlikely to have been spotted by a great many people during the small hours of the morning when on walkabout with police, and by that stage, he was already a helpful witness anyway. An identification by Lewis at that stage would only be met with confirmation by Hutchinson that "Yes, that was me, doing exactly as I said I was doing".

And as I have pointed out before, when Hutchinson gave his press interview in the Victoria Home he was mighty lucky an illustrator didn’t accompany the reporter.

No, he isn't.

Unless he had conspicuous marks, I doubt that a generic sketch of an average local was likely to prompt any squeak of recognition from Lawende and chums.

So how would Lewis have been able to recognise Hutchinson from across the street anyway?

She may not have been. We don't know. Hutchinson and Lewis would be in a better position to judge than we are today. He might have felt he was in a safe place and later reconsidered, either out of a genuine realisation that the lighting conditions and proximity were sufficient to enable such a recognition, or he might have been reacting out of irrational paranoia. I have never argued that the lighting conditions were so poor as to prevent people's faces being discerned.

All the best,
Ben

[Lechmere]

Ben
I’m touched at hour concern about my ability to find time to comment on this thread.

I’m not exactly sure whether or not you were employing heavy irony when you said:

‘The complete absence of any reference to any Hutchinson-wideawake connection is an irrefutable indication that no connection was ever made, either by the police or the press.’

If not then you must think that the reason why there is no reference to the Hutchinson-Lewis connection at the time is because it was so obvious to everyone then that they were connected, so that it was not worth mentioning.
That would be a truly laughable and indeed pitiful explanation.

Police reports may be missing but we have all the press reports and speculation.
In the aftermath of the Kelly murder such speculation was at its peak.
The situation had moved on a pace from the first week of September when the scare stories started.

Incidentally, the police investigated the second person to find Nichol’s body because he did not come forward – unlike the first person. Also it seems likely that the second person was also investigated because the Chapman murder happened a hundred yards from his workplace.

On the topic of whether Hutchinson stood more chance of being recognised inside Shoreditch Town Hall (where it would be very unlikely for a previous witness who had seen him to be present), or inside Commercial Street Police Station – then I think it is rather obviously more likely that a previous witness may be at the Police Station – clarifying their statement or something similar.
Obviously it would be absurd to suggest that this previous witness would be inside the interview room where Hutchinson was interrogated. What a weird thing to suggest.
Surely you know that a Police Station does not just consist of a small interview room, and to get into the interview room Hutchinson would have to go to the main desk and wait around for a while before being seen?

So Flutchinson had spent his entire life in the East End just a mile or so from Spitalfields, and he was not concerned about bumping into anyone he knew while patrolling the popular markets with the local Constabulary, while adopting a false identity?

You seem to think that individual portrait sketches were all generic. You are grossly misinformed.
I would guess that Mrs Fleming might have recognised a sketch of her son. Lucky no such sketch appeared.

[Ben]

If not then you must think that the reason why there is no reference to the Hutchinson-Lewis connection at the time is because it was so obvious to everyone then that they were connected, so that it was not worth mentioning.
That would be a truly laughable and indeed pitiful explanation.

Yes it is, Lechmere.

Fortunate is is, then, that I neither said nor implied any such thing.

I said that if the press had registered that there was a potential connection to be made between Hutchinson and Lewis' wideawake man, they would definitely have made reference to it it. The fact that no such reference appears anywhere in the press is an irrefutable indication that the Lewis-Hutchinson-wideawake connection was missed. There is no other plausible explanation. We noticed it over 100 years later because we're sitting on our bottoms and choosing esoteric aspects of the investigation to obsess over, secure in the knowledge that we will not be censured by the angry masses for failing to apprehend the real killer.

It annoys me that you'd rather expose a gaping hole in your Cross theory purely for the sake of pooh-poohing Hutchinson as a suspect, instead of acknowledging the reality of the situation - that the police may have overlooked certain details. For feck's sake, Lechmere, your controversial theory utterly relies on the latter being the case. You don't have a hope in hell of convincing anyone of Cross's guilt unless you can encourage people to accept that the police made oversights, i.e. in "failing" to consider Cross a suspect, in "failing" to recognise that grilling the second body discoverer (Paul) as a suspect renders obvious the necessity to grill the first body discoverer (Cross) as a suspect.

Your choices are as follows: accept the reality that neither police nor press registered the connection between the wideawake man and George Hutchinson's account, or piddle on your Crossmere theory by asserting that the police would never make such silly oversights. You either lose yourself a point for Crossmere or concede a point to those diabolically naughty "Hutchinsonians", but such is the dilemma that confronts those who pick fights with perceived suspect theorists when they're struggling to defend suspect theories of their own.

On the topic of whether Hutchinson stood more chance of being recognised inside Shoreditch Town Hall (where it would be very unlikely for a previous witness who had seen him to be present), or inside Commercial Street Police Station – then I think it is rather obviously more likely that a previous witness may be at the Police Station – clarifying their statement or something similar.

Look, if we're assessing "risk factor" in a rational manner here, we're dealing with an absolute no brainer - there is more "risk" attached to attending a heavily monitored public inquest, attended by many, and scrutinised by the world at large, in comparison to a surreptitious visit to a police station. Hutchinson was unlikely to have anticipated previous witnesses hanging around for spare cups of tea well over a month after the last murder, and he'd have been hideously unlucky to encounter one.

So Flutchinson had spent his entire life in the East End just a mile or so from Spitalfields, and he was not concerned about bumping into anyone he knew while patrolling the popular markets with the local Constabulary, while adopting a false identity?

I do wish you'd focus on the actual discussion rather than trying to introduce off-topic tangents, but if you're insistent on it, no, there is no reason to think that Joseph Fleming ever made the sort of long lasting friendships and acquaintances during his formative years in Bethnal Green, who would then be in a position to pop out of nowhere in Whitechapel during the small hours, and ruin any attempt at identity concealment that Fleming may have wished to resort to for whatever reason.

You seem to think that individual portrait sketches were all generic. You are grossly misinformed.

No, I'm not.

You are drastically overestimating the capabilities of the average Victorian crime sketch artist. Please be realistic. Are you seriously suggesting that their sketching prowess was so brilliant as to put the identity of the sketched individuals beyond question? Really? You really think the sketches of Barnett captured his oh-so-unique appearance, or are we seeing a bloke with a moustache? They'd have had a bash at age, weight, facial hair and colouring. That's about it.

[Lechmere]

Ben
The reason why I'm unconcerned suggesting the police wouldnt have overlooked the Hutchinson-Lewis connection - if it existed - while suggesting the police didn't fully investigate Lechmere is that you are not comparing like with like.
The only point of contact is that both concern the police.
The circircumstances - the detail - is what is important. Which is why you repeated that garbled nonsense about the ppolice investigating man two but not man one while ignoring the obvious reasons why this was the case.
I have explanations to demonstrate why it is clear the police overlooked Lechmere. You merely have your vociferous protestations to back your case.
Your consistent endeavours try to bring Lechmere into discussions of your suspect tell me that you realise that you 100 year after the event arm chair theories connecting Lewis's man to Hutchinson are tenuous to say the least.

[Ben]

Hi Lechmere,

“I have explanations to demonstrate why it is clear the police overlooked Lechmere”

And I have explanations to demonstrate why it is clear the police overlooked the Hutchinson-wideawake connection, and I think they’re much better than yours with regard to Cross. More to the point, there are a great many people who identify Hutchinson as the most likely candidate for Lewis’ wideawake man, but hardly any who support Cross as the ripper. I’m afraid it’s only predictable that you should resort to the “Oh, but mine is different because…” defense. It is indeed different – it’s much less convincing. I realise it can be regarded as a cheap shot to attack another member’s attempt – however bad – to undermine a suspect theory on the grounds that they're only doing so in order to advance the cause of their own suspect, but you tend to invite this criticism more than anyone because of your application of very obvious double standards and inconsistent reasoning.

[Lechmere]

Ben
I'll defend the Lechmere theory on a Lechmere thread as other posters may get cross - although it has to be said that Lechmere invariably gets brought up off topic not by the growing number of Lechmere adherents but by vulnerable and floundering theorists who cannot make a case for their own suspect.
It goes alongside calls for polls and the equally pathetic 'I've got more mates than you have' retorts - oh you've already done that one.
I should be thankful you didn't used to be a serving policeman, nor started reading ripper books 50 years ago, as I am sure you would be employing these equally naff lines of argument to butress your obviously floundering case.

So humour me Ben, and possibly other readers, what is your explanation for why the police - and press - overlooked the 'obvious' Wideawake - Hutchinson connection - with evidence to support it I hope? It will be more than a little poor if we just get a stream of your unsupported thoughts.

[Ben]

Lechmere,

You are constantly picking fights with real or imagined suspect theorists in an effort to champion Lechmere as the only suspect worth considering, and it always, always backfires. I'm not suggesting for a moment that having a suspect theory of your own abrogates your right to criticise others, but you're forever doing so in a way that exposes your double-standards, and you shouldn't get upset when this is pointed out. If you live by the sword, you die by the sword - or keyboard in your case. It is completely ridiculous for you to argue that the police would never "overlook" this or that where Hutchinson is concerned, when your controversial theory relies on the police making far more glaring "oversights".

So humour me Ben, and possibly other readers, what is your explanation for why the police - and press - overlooked the 'obvious' Wideawake - Hutchinson connection - with evidence to support it I hope.

No.

I've done so already numerous times, and we're discussing the "red handkerchief". Besides which, it is not incumbent on me to provide evidence for an absence. That's doing things completely backwards. If you have evidence for the connection being made, you should provide that.

[Lechmere]

As I thought - complete redundancy.

[Varqm]

Hi Caz,

Yes the premise that Lewis and Hutchinson knew each other and he got spooked
by her testimony is unfounded, based on what we know. It's all just made-up story.It's silly.The info that is there weighs overwhelmingly towards that they did not.

Varqm

[Wickerman]

Hi Caz,

Yes the premise that Lewis and Hutchinson knew each other and he got spooked
by her testimony is unfounded, based on what we know. It's all just made-up story.It's silly.The info that is there weighs overwhelmingly towards that they did not.

Varqm

These kind of scenario's are the product of desperation.

[Ben]

These kind (sic) of scenario's (sic) are the product of desperation.

Right you are, Jon, because I'm so desperate for the killer to have been a working class local who behaved as other serial killers have behaved in similar situations. I mean, just think of all the money I'd get if I turned out to be correct?! Oh, wait...

Yes the premise that Lewis and Hutchinson knew each other and he got spooked by her testimony is unfounded

It is not necessary, Varqm, for Hutchinson and Lewis to have known each order to deduce, logically and reasonably (at least reasonable to those who have taken the trouble to bone up a bit on serial killers), that it may have been Lewis' evidence that prompted Hutchinson to recognise himself therein and come forward. He may simply have feared that this stranger would recognise him again.

The info that is there weighs overwhelmingly towards that they did not.

Actually, unless you are in possession of "info" to the contrary, we simply have no information whatsoever with which to assess the likelihood or otherwise of Hutchinson and Lewis knowing each other. We simply don't know.