A Theory -The access to Mary Kelly

[Wickerman]

Hello Jon. Thanks.

I agree about police business, but surely no one would suggest ANY paper--including the much maligned "Star"--would invent a story from whole cloth? I refer especially to what their reporters came up with.

Without doubt, there are inaccuracies and embellishments. But I think wholesale fabrication is right out.

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn.
Not sure what you mean by 'any' paper, it wasn't every paper which claimed to have inside knowledge.
With regard to 'inventing' stories, this is precisely what the Star did. In fact Sugden (again) points this one out, that the Star published long and lurid articles about Leather Apron.

Sugden observes, "...they seem to have been pieced together from the tittle tattle of whores, lodginghouse proprietors and tradesmen and almost no reliable substantiation exists for any part of them" (p.73)

Also, the fiasco at the Forester's Music Hall concerning a muggin being the actual motive for the murders was later claimed to have been an entire fiction, intentionally sent to the news agency by a reporter.

The issue in my previous post was the creative wording employed by a select few press outlets where they choose to present themselves as receivers of 'inside' information - thats the fabrication I was referring to.
These are not whole stories, but usually anything from a sentence to a paragraph, but never a source is provided.

[Michael W Richards]

I don't know about this. I suspect that Hutchinson, being a resident of the Home, stood outside on many an occasion in the same spot, much as young men without jobs do everywhere when they have nothing to do and no money. They stand around, or sit around or lie around, and they will have a chosen place to do so.

Mike

Mike,

To address your statement above and to answer Fisherman's question at the same time....the "Home" you mentioned is almost certainly the one that Hutchinson said he was staying at, The Victorian Working Mens Home, at Commercial and Wentworth Streets.

Here were the rules of the house:

1) No person in a state of intoxication will be on any account admitted.

2) No swearing or obscene language will be tolerated; order and decorum are insisted in the kitchens; silence in the bedrooms.

3) No person will be admitted after one o'clock a.m. without a special pass.

4) Any lodger interfering with the comfort of others is at once ejected.

5) Lodgers who are fortunate enough to possess extra clothing or other personal effects, can leave them in charge of the deputy, who will give a receipt for the same.

6) Baths, warm or cold, can be had in the house. For a warm bath, the charge of one penny is made.

It seems to me that their rules are targeted at the types you described, types they wanted to avoid having as guests.

Best regards

[Fisherman]

I don't know about this. I suspect that Hutchinson, being a resident of the Home, stood outside on many an occasion in the same spot, much as young men without jobs do everywhere when they have nothing to do and no money. They stand around, or sit around or lie around, and they will have a chosen place to do so.

Mike

Being a resident of ... WHAT home, Mike? In this case, the place we are talking about is the Crossinghams Doss House right opposite the entrance to Miller´s Court, and I don´t think we have any evidence telling us that Hutchinson ever stayed there.

... meaning I don´t know what you are getting at. Could you explain, please?

The best,
Fisherman

[The Good Michael]

[/B]
" if Hutchinson was there for the "innocent" reason he provided, he was unlikely to have remembered "exactly" where he stood. "

Exactly? Yes. But he would very probably know what side of the street he was on. When I wait for somebody on the town, and if I am in a street, then I will know afterwards what side I stood on.

I don't know about this. I suspect that Hutchinson, being a resident of the Home, stood outside on many an occasion in the same spot, much as young men without jobs do everywhere when they have nothing to do and no money. They stand around, or sit around or lie around, and they will have a chosen place to do so.

Mike

[Ben]

Hi Jon,

On the other hand, and more important, when a newspaper claims to have received privy information from the police, or to know in what direction the investigation is headed, or to have learned what would otherwise be confidential information, the claims, unless supported by a heading such as Police Release, it is to be discarded as untrusworthy.

According to who - you?

It is a proven fact that the Echo not only communicated with the police, but extracted information from them which we know for a proven fact to be true.

And please don't ask me to waste bandwidth churning out the details for the millionth time. I've provided them time and time again. You'll just have to re-revsit older threads.

Say what you like about the general practice of police supplying information to the press, but it indisputably occurred in this case.

Another case in point is this article:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=5281

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1889-12-08/ed-1/seq-21/

"Inspector Harris - I may as well call him Harris, as I am ready to swear if possible that there is no such person - was the one man of all the department who ought to known Whitechapel best, having been born and reared within its confines"

It has been suggested that "Inspector Harris", who escorted a New York Sun reporter around Whitechapel, was actually Edmund Reid.

All the best,
Ben

[lynn cates]

fabrication

Hello Jon. Thanks.

I agree about police business, but surely no one would suggest ANY paper--including the much maligned "Star"--would invent a story from whole cloth? I refer especially to what their reporters came up with.

Without doubt, there are inaccuracies and embellishments. But I think wholesale fabrication is right out.

Cheers.
LC

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"The central bullet point here is to stay away from assumptions of the "police must have done this" variety, as they are based on no evidence at all."

If you drop a stone it will fall to the ground, Ben. We CAN allow ourselves the odd assumption, you know ...

" if Hutchinson was there for the "innocent" reason he provided, he was unlikely to have remembered "exactly" where he stood. "

Exactly? Yes. But he would very probably know what side of the street he was on. When I wait for somebody on the town, and if I am in a street, then I will know afterwards what side I stood on.

"But what if Hutchinson had ..."

Wait a sec - did you not dislike assumptions a few lines further up ...?

That´s all I will say. Then again, it´s enough.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

What I am arguing is instead that once Abberline heard what Hutchinson had to say, he also heard that good old George placed himself outside Millers Court at a time that tallied with when Lewis was there.

There is no evidence that Abberline ever registered a potential connection between Lewis's loitering man and George Hutchinson, and if he didn't register a potential connection, he was in no position to then rule one out. We've discussed this at length already in this very thread. If the police dotted every "i" and crossed every "t" they would have registered the connection and (according to you) treated Charles Cross as a suspect. I've already explained; if I'm not allowed to dismiss Cross as a suspect on the grounds that the police "must have" considered him a suspect and ruled him out as one, then you're certainly not allowed to dismiss Hutchinson as the wideawake man on the grounds that the police "must have" registered the connection. Fair's fair.

The central bullet point here is to stay away from assumptions of the "police must have done this" variety, as they are based on no evidence at all.

Your point regarding evidence "over-lapping" is lost on me. Since the vast bulk of Kelly-related eyewitness evidence pertained to the night in question, you're bound to get a good deal of time overlap. Lewis' claim to have heard a cry from the direction of Kelly's room "overlaps" with Mary Cox's evidence that she heard no cry at that time.

And if that was done, then surely Abberline would have asked about exactly where Hutchinson stood, just as he would have taken great care to check with Lewis exactly where her loiterer stood.

But if Hutchinson was there for the "innocent" reason he provided, he was unlikely to have remembered "exactly" where he stood. Given how incredibly small the area was, the likelihood is that he hovered about the general vicinity without recalling specifics. Thus, if, in the very unlikely event that Abberline DID register the Hutchinson-Lewis connection and quizzed Hutchinson as to whether or not he stood on the southern pavement, the latter would probably have responded with "dunno, can't remember, might have done for a bit". That's an unless he was a complete weirdo and rooted himself, statue-like, to one ultra-specific spot for the full 45 minutes.

The above applies if he was innocent and truthful, remember. In which case, he'd still be Lewis' loiterer.

But what if Hutchinson had lied about his reasons for being there, and came forward with a bogus witness account after discovering that Lewis had clocked him outside the court on the night of the murder, and had subsequently told the inquest about this mysterious man in the wideawake? He'd have known precisely what Abberline's game was in asking such oddly specific questions about his location outside the court. He'd have sensed straight away that Abberline was seeking to establish a connection with Lewis' loiterer. In which case, Hutchinson could have responded in two ways:

Option #1 - Go out of his way to confirm he was the man Lewis' saw. "Yep, that was me on the other side of the street, and yep, I did see a woman enter the court...so my account's legit...all of it...go find Astrakhan man!"

Or..

Option #2 - If Abberline really was daft enough to confirm or deny Hutchinson as the wideawake man on the basis of where he might have remembered standing within a tiny, ten-foot-diameter area (as per your suggestion), Hutchinson might have perceived a greater advantage of distancing himself from the wideawake identity. "Oh, no never the southern side, sir, never in the full 45 minutes". If, again according to just you, Abberline's anticipated response to this was to rule him out as wideawake man and assume he got the wrong night, what more fortuitous an outcome for a lying, guilty Hutchinson?

"Wrong night you say, sir? Well, come to think of it...yes, I completely goofed up. What a dappy goose I am!"

Result!

The likelihood, however, was that Abberline’s mind was not full to the brim of inquest evidence in readiness to provide an instant cross-reference with any future witness. Significantly, not one single press article made any reference to Lewis’ evidence in connection with Hutchinson, indicating that even the journalists responsible for recording the inquest evidence were not cross-referencing Hutchinson’s claims with Lewis’ evidence. The fact that we make a big deal of Lewis’ loiterer today doesn’t mean that he was an investigative priority at the time of the murders – not when their were more immediately “suspicious” characters to contend with in the form of Bethnal Green man, Blotchy, and subsequently Astrakhan. The inescapable conclusion is that the potential significance of the loitering man was overlooked.

All the best,
Ben

[Wickerman]

Hello Colin. Did you have a particular problem with "The Echo" or is it just a case of, Beware of news reports?

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn.

It would appear the Echo is taking a beating. There are far worse sources out there to thrash, however, often it is not the source itself that we should question, but the subject matter.
In other words, not the paper itself, but the fact they claim to know all about the police inquiry - which is plain rubbish.

The police did not share the details of their inquiry with any media outlet, and when they had a press release to issue, it was done by wire to one of the Agencies either, the Press Association, or Central News, etc.

The Dailies often complained about the reticence of the police to share what they knew. That goes for The Daily Telegraph, the Times, the Echo, and, my favourite punching bag, the Star, among many others.

Howard Vincent, the founding director of the reformed C.I.D., 1878, laid down the rule that:

"Police must not on any account give any information, whatever, to gentlemen connected with the press, relative to matters within police knowledge, or relative to duties to be performed or orders received, or communicate in any manner, either directly or indirectly, with editors, or reporters of newspapers, on any matter connected with the public service, without express or special authority...."
A Police Code and Manual of the Criminal Law, 1881, Vincent, p. 253., or for a brief extract see Sugden, p. 71.

Sugden himself makes a few brief comments on the subject where he points out that pressmen were not admitted into premises where a murder had taken place (Millers Court?). He goes on to point out that with the exception of Coroner's Inquiries, which were open to the public, the press were not made privy to any details of a police investigation. He continues...

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly, therefore, that however valuable the newspapers might be as sources of contemporary comment and for information on the public aspects on the subject like inquest hearings or street scenes they are not credible sources for the details of the crimes themselves and should not be used as such." (Sugden, p.112)

(Ben, take note!)

What Sudgen is saying is, whether we choose to accept press reports of the layout of Kelly's room from her neighbours, or the environment within Millers Court, or the statements of people (witnesses) on the street who claim to have seen this or that, by way of a few examples, we have no inherent reason to doubt the details they provide.
Its purely a personal choice.

On the other hand, and more important, when a newspaper claims to have received privy information from the police, or to know in what direction the investigation is headed, or to have learned what would otherwise be confidential information, the claims, unless supported by a heading such as Police Release, it is to be discarded as untrusworthy.

Individual media outlets were not taken into police confidence.

On the shady side, we can never exclude the possibility of a reporter bribing a beat constable with a drink or two to see if he has overheard any juicy gossip at the station. Such sources no doubt were pursued, and quite possibly were the origins of many an 'insider' claim by the press.
What a constable would know about Scotland Yard's investigation, and what he is prepared to 'invent' for the sake of a whisky is anyone's guess.

Caveat emptor!

Regards, Jon S.

[Fisherman]

This is starting to aggravate me, Fisherman.

Regards,
Ben

Well, that happens every now and then. So let´s try and calm you down, Ben - since I think you and me may be speaking of slightly different matters!

Here´s the thing: I am having no trouble at all recognizing that when Hutchinson said "I went to the court", he may have meant the place directly outside it OR any space in front of the passage, including the doorway at Crossinghams. The way he worded things does allow for more than one stance in Dorset Street.

What I am arguing is instead that once Abberline heard what Hutchinson had to say, he also heard that good old George placed himself outside Millers Court at a time that tallied with when Lewis was there.

This overlap inbetween two witnesses is THE ONLY OVERLAP we have - apart from the Prater/Cox one o clock coincidence. And as I have already said, that one may or may not have been an overlap.
Not so with the Hutchinson/Lewis ditto; that one MUST have been an overlap if the two were telling things correctly!

From this I extrapolate that Abberline suddenly had two testimonies on hand that he could check against each other. Exactly that is what the police are looking for: possible corroborations. And just like some have said, it may well be that the hinted-at corroboration inbetween these two witnesses was what originally made Abberline opt for believing in Hutchinson!

But after that, what I am saying is that since the Hutchinson testimony was of such a tremendeous potential value, it would be scrutinized in detail - all the little bits and pieces he offered would have been checked out as far as possible, to verify the story if possible.

I think you would agree thus far?

So, then, it stands to reason that the one and only detail, encompassing half a minute of that fateful night, at around 2.30 AM, that could be checked by using not one but TWO different sources - Hutchinson and Lewis - would be digested in absolute minute detail, leaving no stone unturned.

And if that was done, then surely Abberline would have asked about exactly where Hutchinson stood, just as he would have taken great care to check with Lewis exactly where her loiterer stood. In that case, there is no way that Abberline would have regarded the two pavements as interchangable - not a chance, or even a fraction of it!

And this is why I say that there is a very good possibility that this very detail was what blew Hutchinsons story out of the water. We must remember that Hutchinson does not mention Lewis at all in his police statement, and that may well have laid down the direction Abberlines´ questions would have gone in. At any rate, if the coinciding stories of Hutchinson and Lewis were scrutinized - and to my mind, they simply must have been - then what value Abberline was to invest in a true corroboration was totally dependant on these details.

If Hutchinson said: Yeah, there WAS this woman, come to think of it, who went into the court as I stood on the opposite side of the street, then Abberline would have a total corroboration and he would not drop the story.

But if Hutchinson said: No, I swear that there was nobody walking into the court - I should have seen it because I never left the corner of the court, then Abberline would know that one of his informants was telling a story that did not belong to the night in question.

I hope this tends to the aggravation, Ben. There is no reason for it, actually.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

This is starting to aggravate me, Fisherman.

Which is a shame, because we've been getting on rather better recently. You're only repeating this long-winded, lecturing nonsense about Hutchinson's location because you hope it might create renewed interest in your unpopular speculations with regard to his supposed "date confusion". Throw in a wholly unnecessary bold typeface, and we have quite an inflammatory combination.

Ignore the "corner of the court" - no such detail appeared in his police statement. Or if you're insistent on endorsing the press version too, despite its embellished, contradictory elements, then at least register the detail that he only positioned himself "at the corner of the court" after venturing into the court itself (a detail wholly absent from the police statement). There is not a scrap of evidence that he stood at the "corner of the court" before allegedly entering the court.

According to the police statement, he went "to the court" but not actually into it, which would place him anywhere on Dorset Street that was in front of the court entrance, and one such location was the area in front of Crossingham's a few feet away (a hatchback's length away, for hate's sake), where Sarah Lewis saw the wideawake man who was almost certainly Hutchinson.

Hutchinson never specified that he was on any particular "side" of the street, at least not until he entered the court itself (again, as per the press versions only). And since he never specified a "side", we needn't worry in the slightest about the lack of evidence suggesting he changed "sides". The whole issue of "sides" is to be dispensed with altogether, since the two sides were separated by eight feet or so.

Abberline would not have been so unutterably dense as to imagine that a discrepancy (actually a non-discrepancy) over a matter of feet would mean there must have been two unrelated, separate loiterers both staring into Miller's Court as though waiting for someone to come out, at the same time on the same night (and no, that isn't an invitation to launch into "wrong night" mode again please!).

What you need to envisage is Abberline speaking to Hutchinson, and having Lewis´testimony in the back of his mind.

Oh, hell.

Look, I can go through this a million times more if necessary, but it would be nicer if you could keep up with the discussion you're participating in. As I've observed several times already on this thread, there is no evidence that the connection between Lewis' loiterer and Hutchinson was ever registered. Indeed, it clearly was not noticed as even the press failed to pick up on it (and this was before anyone had time to investigate a potential connection, rule it out and then tell the press about it). So no, Abberline did not have Lewis' testimony at the "back of his mind". If he had any mental reference point for Lewis, it would have been her "oh murder" corroboration of Prater's evidence, and the fact that she was accosted by a mysterious stranger on Bethnal Green Road. The wideawake loiterer was evidently eclipsed in terms of significance.

Your attempt to create a schism between wideawake and Hutchinson is predicated on three bold, unreasonable assumptions:

1) That Abberline must have had "wideawake" on the brain when he interviewed Hutchinson (no evidence and very improbable).

2) That Hutchinson rooted himself to one side of Dorset Street like a constipated hippo, and never dared tread on the other side or anywhere else (no evidence and very improbable).

3) That Hutchinson was any more location-specific than his police statement reflects (no evidence and very improbable).

You're essentially relying on imaginary, hoped-for evidence in order to dismiss the connection, which I've told you before is very bad practice. The idea that the credibility of Hutchinson's statement all hinged on where he stood within a 10-foot-diameter area is appallingly preposterous, as is the suggestion that this was how Abberline worked.

It won´t wash, Ben. No matter what, it won´t wash. The question "were you on this side of the street or on that side of the street is very rarely answered with

Nobody said anything about "sides".

There is no evidence that Hutchinson was ever asked about which "side" of the narrow street he was on, nor is there any evidence that he specified one unprompted. You're "side-deciding" on the basis of no evidence at all.

Your comparison with Cross is a nonsense too. Apples to oranges. The issue, in that case, was his and Paul's proximity to the body of Nichols, and anyone on the other side of the street would only have registered a heap of rages or tarpaulin. It would necessitate a trip to the "southern" side to register Nichols and the extent of her injuries. Conversely, the object of interest in the Kelly example was the Miller's Court entrance, which would not have appeared any different to a person on the northern pavement than it would to a person on the southern side.

Can we move on now? I know I will.

Yes, of course we can move on now.

It should never have come up at all.

Regards,
Ben

[Abby Normal]

Ah, Abby - so you too think that it is impossible to tell two pavements apart if they are less than ten feet away from each other...?

Fisherman

Fiiiishermannnnnnn...
is that a trick question? Well i'll answer it anyway-maybe.

HeeHee

[Fisherman]

Ah, Abby - so you too think that it is impossible to tell two pavements apart if they are less than ten feet away from each other...?

Fisherman

[Abby Normal]

Hi Observer,



That only follows if the police continued to believe that Hutchinson really was there that night. The overwhelmingly strong likelihood, however, is that after his credibility was doubted and his account discredited, he was adjudged to have been a mere two-a-penny publicity/money-seeker who wasn't there when he said he was. Were they wrong in making that determination? Perhaps so, but it there is no indication that Hutchinson was ever connected to Lewis' wideawake man (as he ought to have been), and the precedent for fame-seeking witnesses had been very much set.

I'd ask you to consider the case of Emmanuel Violenia. He claimed to have been at the scene of the Chapman murder around the time it was committed, and yet when his account was discredited, he did not become a suspect. They didn't suspect him of lying about his reasons for being at the crime scene. They suspected him of lying about being at the scene of the crime altogether, and the same undoubtedly occurred with Hutchinson.

Incidentally, it wasn't the case that either Violenia or Hutchinson were "found" to have been telling lies. They were merely suspected of same.

Hi Fisherman,

I think, if you don't mind, we've already done that one to death. You know precisely how I feel about Hutchinson's location. I feel that it would be taking pedantry to the absolute extreme if we attempt to make any meaningful distinction between the area immediately in front of Crossingham's and the area immediately in front of the Miller's Court entrance. A matter of eight feet separated these two locations, and most sane people who remain STANDING in one spot for any length of time tend to move around a bit, especially if it's cold. In short, there is not the remotest contradiction between Hutchinson and Lewis with regard to the loitering man's location.

But I'm sure you know very well that this is how I feel on the subject, just as you know how I feel on the subject of the proposed "date confusion". The Echo report makes clear that the reason for Hutchinson's discrediting was inextricably linked to the question of his honesty.

All the best,
Ben

Spot on Ben!! and Sally

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"But there is no evidence that Hutchinson adopted any "stance at the corner of the court" until after he went into the court itself, which, according to his press interviews, was the last thing he did before allegedly departing the scene and heading off on an all night walkabout. Prior to that, and according to his police statement, he went "to the court" to see if Kelly and Astrakhan would "come out"."

Yes, Ben, it is said that he went to the court, he at some stage says that he "stood there" for 45 minutes and he left from the corner of the court, when he left Dorset Street.
These are all wordings that are compatible with him standing directly outside the court, at the corner of it as it were, when he waited for the couple to come out.

This, however, does not necessarily mean that he could not have crossed over to the doss house and stood there for some of the time. He could have, just as you say.
The snag, however, is that he never says that he did. And therefore, Ben, it applies that he may - MAY! - have told Abberline that he was never for a second on the southern side of the street, that he never stood by the door of Crossinghams. And if this was something he told Abberline, then that would blow any identification with Lewis´man out of the water.

I am not saying that this MUST have happened, I am merely pointing to the clear possibility that it MAY have happened. And I think that it would provide a very useful explanation to why we ended up with a very declining interest in Hutchinson´s story, but a remaining faith in his person, as per Dew. These bits fit when we look upon them like this.

"Abberline would have known full well that the area outside Crossingham's was interchangeable with the area outside the court."

That´s just wrong, Ben. The two areas were close, yes, but as I have already said they were NOT interchangable. What you need to envisage is Abberline speaking to Hutchinson, and having Lewis´testimony in the back of his mind. I am here working from the acceptance that Abberline kept track of all the details, and that he had realized that Lewis and Hutchinson both claimed to have been directly outside the court at the same time. Of all the witness statements given as testimony at the inquest, there are only two testimonies that potentially overlap; those of Cox and Prater and those of Lewis and Hutchinson. And Cox may well have come home not exactly at one o clock, but five minutes before that, just as Prater could have come to the court five minutes AFTER one o clock, and therefore we should not postulate that these two must have seen each other. One minute would change it all in their cases.
But Lewis and Hutchinson MUST have been in place jointly! And since any policeman fits the differing testimonies together, this coincidence will not have passed unnoticed. It is the one and only detail where corroboration was offered.
Right - back to that discussion between Abberline and Hutchinson: Abberline would have known what Lewis said - that a man stood outside the door of Crossinghams, by the doss house, and overlooked the court.
So what would he ask Hutchinson? Exactly: Where did you stand as you waited for the couple?
And if Hutch said: "I stood at the corner of the court", Abberline would NOT regard that as interchangable with the doorway of Crossinghams. No, he would ask "did you at some stage cross the street and take up a stance outside the dosshouse there?"

And at that stage, it all hinged on whether Hutchinson said "yes" or "no".

So, you see, much as your theory would prefer to accept that these two areas, divided by some ten feet and a street, must be regarded as one area only, Abberline would never make the same mistake, since he could potentially rule a crucial testimony out by using his knowledge that these areas were NOT interchangable.

Whether Abberline DID ask Hutchinson this at some stage or not is something we cannot conclude. But we CAN conclude that this is how he could have checked the veracity of Hutchinson´s story.

"Therefore we Lewis' loiterer and Hutchinson were standing in irrefutably the same location, and engaging in ostensibly the same behaviour, i.e. watching and waiting for someone to emerge from the court. No amount of pedantry over a matter of ten feet is going to change that."

Go tell the police that: Don´t be such pedants, guys! You must allow for some slack!

It won´t wash, Ben. No matter what, it won´t wash. The question "were you on this side of the street or on that side of the street is very rarely answered with : "Both sides of the street are the same side". The only credible alternatives of answers are:

1. I was on this side
2. I was on that side
3. I was on both sides
or
4. I don´t remember

The number 5 alternative, "Both sides are the same side, actually - they are interchangable and represent the exact same area" does not exist.

You may have noticed how Lechmere told the inquest that he walked on the northern pavement, and how Paul said he did the same thing. Then Paul says he walked out into the street to avoid Lechmere, who stood in the middle of the street as he approached.
With your reasoning, Lechmere could just as well have said that he walked on both pavements at the same time since the street was so small that the sides were interchangable. Paul would have said the exact same thing, purportedly. And he needn´t have said that Lechmere stood in the middle of the street - if the areas were interchangable there would have been no specified middle of the street, would there? Standing on the southern pavement would have equalled standing in the middle of the street if the areas were interchangable. So perhaps Lechmere was on the southern side and PAUL was in the middle of the street. Or both were in the middle of the street? Or Lechmere was on ...

Ridiculous, is it not? And why? Exactly: because the areas are NOT interchangable. Anybody can easily define where the southern pavement is, where the northern pavement is, where the streei is and where the middle of it is. And they can - as Lechmere and Paul did - USE these non-interchangable terms to describe exactly where they were and how a scenario was played out. And you know what? These tools were at hand for Hutchinson and Abberline too.

Can we move on now? I know I will.

The best,
Fisherman