A Theory -The access to Mary Kelly

[Sally]

Speculation is intended to provide direction for investigation, not, to be the basis for a theory.

Right you are Jon. And I don't have a theory - do you?

[Ben]

You have to ask why it took so long for modern commentators to come up with the connection - maybe it wasn't so immediately obvious as some of us are assuming. The impression I get is that the police at the time were more interested in that naughty well-dressed foreign chap than the witness who'd encountered him.

Agreed 100%, Sally.

The fact that we focus so much attention on it these days is because we have, potentially, all the time in the world to do so. We're under no pressure to catch the offender, and we're not having to wade through tons of paperwork and fend off mounting criticism. Moreover, even modern-day serial killer investigations are rife with examples of minor details and potential connections being overlooked midst the mayhem.

All the best,
Ben

[Wickerman]

Right. So you know, do you, that Abberline had both those specific statements in his hand at the same time and made a direct comparison? Of course you do

No, you're probably right, after the inquest he just threw them away (good grief!)

So, firstly, who suggested that Abberline had 'forgotten' Lewis' testimony? Nobody.

Not making the connection is the same as slipping his mind, which is the same as forgetting.

Secondly, remember that Hutchinson only came forward once the inquest was over - once the initial comparison of witness statements had been made.

There is no time limit for the police to make comparisons to witness statements - .....so long as they don't chuck them out....

Thirdly, you assume that Lewis/Hutchinson were the only people to have claimed to be in Dorset Street, but this you cannot possibly know.

The reason you are here, like myself and everyone else, is for the same reason, none of us can possibly know.
These are the only two witnesses who testified which placed themselves in Dorset St. on that night, at that time.
How can you possibly choose to argue about this?

What about the c.52 unamed witnessess in the case who claimed to have seen 'suspicious men' in the company of Kelly?

The article does not say they were seen with her, or in Dorset St.
Just that 53 suspicious men were "thought to be her assassin".

The reality is, as it almost always is, that we simply do not know. All we can do is speculate at the end of the day.

Speculation is intended to provide direction for investigation, not, to be the basis for a theory.

regards, Jon S.

[Sally]

However over burdened the whole police force was, Abberline had his own duties to perform independent of the rest of the force. He interviewed potential suspects, and in this case, both Lewis and Hutchinson.

Neither were suspects - they were witnessess. An important distinction.

Abberline had both statements in his possession, that of Lewis and that of Hutchinson, the only two people who claimed to have been in Dorset St. that night, at that time. We cannot possibly entertain the idea that he forgot what Lewis had claimed.

Right. So you know, do you, that Abberline had both those specific statements in his hand at the same time and made a direct comparison? Of course you do

So, firstly, who suggested that Abberline had 'forgotten' Lewis' testimony? Nobody.

Secondly, remember that Hutchinson only came forward once the inquest was over - once the initial comparison of witness statements had been made.

Thirdly, you assume that Lewis/Hutchinson were the only people to have claimed to be in Dorset Street, but this you cannot possibly know. What about the c.52 unamed witnessess in the case who claimed to have seen 'suspicious men' in the company of Kelly? We have no idea whether any, some, or all of them claimed to have been in Dorset Street that night - so we don't actually know how many witness statements Abberline had to 'remember' to come to the conclusion that Lewis' man and Hutchinson were one and the same - always assuming, of course, that they were.

The reality is, as it almost always is, that we simply do not know. All we can do is speculate at the end of the day.

[Wickerman]

However over burdened the whole police force was, Abberline had his own duties to perform independent of the rest of the force. He interviewed potential suspects, and in this case, both Lewis and Hutchinson.

Abberline had both statements in his possession, that of Lewis and that of Hutchinson, the only two people who claimed to have been in Dorset St. that night, at that time. We cannot possibly entertain the idea that he forgot what Lewis had claimed.

It is no overburdening task for a lead investigator to put two and two together.

Regards, Jon S.

[Sally]

It's also possible, Sally, that Abberline did make the connection, and that this in part is what convinced him of Hutchinson's truthfulness at the time of the police interview. As Ben says, however, there is no documentary evidence either in the newspaper reports or police files to confirm that such a connection was made.

Yes, Garry, I've often thought that, as well - and it must remain a possibility. That said, I do think there's some merit in the idea that an overburdened police force simply didn't make the connection - curious as that might seem to us now.

[Garry Wroe]

It's also possible, Sally, that Abberline did make the connection, and that this in part is what convinced him of Hutchinson's truthfulness at the time of the police interview. As Ben says, however, there is no documentary evidence either in the newspaper reports or police files to confirm that such a connection was made.

[Sally]

..no connection was made between Lewis and Hutchinson only because said connection wasn't noticed, and certainly not because a connection was ruled out. For those of us with leisure time to assess the evidence from a distance (unlike the embattled, hassled, nascent 1888 police force) the connection is a strong and obvious one, even if it was only noticed in the 1980s/90s.

Yep, you might have something there Ben. I mean, it seems pretty obvious today; but I wonder if that's only because we've already made the connection.

You have to ask why it took so long for modern commentators to come up with the connection - maybe it wasn't so immediately obvious as some of us are assuming. The impression I get is that the police at the time were more interested in that naughty well-dressed foreign chap than the witness who'd encountered him.

[Wickerman]

I think one way to see this issue is the order in which witnesses came forward. Lewis's sighting and story were taken Friday, and rumours of it were around over the weekend and she gave her statement at the Inquest Monday. Hutchinsons story comes in Monday night, after the Inquest closed....and it seemingly confirms Sarah Lewis. Or...does it match with what Sarah Lewis claimed?

Thats the problem here. Did Hutch intentionally place himself in the shoes of the Lewis Wideawake Man?

When the extraordinary details of his suspect are given as if memorized, one wonders.

Cheers

Hi Mike.

Hypothetically then, lets just say he chose to place himself in the role. What is the need for this Astrachan-looking-guy, when everyone knew what the real suspects looked like from the various descriptions published by the police?

Regards, Jon S.

[Ben]

Exactly, Mike. I've spent a number of pages on this thread trying to impress this upon a few people, to little avail.

Hi Lechmere,

No doubt Hutchinson wasn’t ‘not tall but stout. Instead he probably had a military appearance of some sort and didn’t sport a wide-awake hat.

I'm sorry, but this just gets worse and worse.

There is no evidence for any of this, so where exactly are you getting it from, if not from an imaginary, non-existent "lost report"? I've explained already in extensive detail that no connection was made between Lewis and Hutchinson only because said connection wasn't noticed, and certainly not because a connection was ruled out. For those of us with leisure time to assess the evidence from a distance (unlike the embattled, hassled, nascent 1888 police force) the connection is a strong and obvious one, even if it was only noticed in the 1980s/90s.

The press sketch of Hutchinson depicts someone not tall, stout, and wearing a wideawake-type hat, which tallies very well with the description provided by Lewis. Coincidence? Noperama. So let's not turn him into a non-wideawake-wearing tall, thin man on the basis of absolutely no evidence. That would just be the wrong thing to do, comically so.

On Charles Lechmere – we know the police were still calling him Cross on 18th October 1988.

Only because that's what he was known as at the time of the Nichols murder, and because a tangential note in the margin saying "...and by the way, guys, guess what? His name wasn't really Cross, it was Lechmere. Just throwin' it out there..." might not have been worthwhile or even appropriate.

And we have accounts that state clearly who was under suspicion in the early days of the case.

Just as we do in November 1888, and they didn't include Hutchinson.

Hutchinson met two of the police’s prejudicial stereotypes – he was a lodging house dweller and was not in regular employment

I'm not seeing too much evidence that these two traits raised alarm bells in 1888. Foreign - no. Jewish - no. Butcher - no. Mad - no. Co-operative voluntary witness who might be making it up for money or attention - Maybe.

Cleary Charles Lechmere did have contact with the police after he duped Mizen.

No convincing evidence that he duped Mizen, actually, but why so sure they this "contact with the police" didn't take the form of an interrogation a la Hutchinson/Abberline?

I prefer to work with what we know.

A laudable approach, Lechmere, but it's important that you stick to it, and that means accepting and acknowledging that we have no evidence that the Hutchinson-Lewis connection was ever registered, and no evidence that he was ever investigated or dismissed as a suspect. Such an acknowledgement would be refreshingly consistent with a "work with that we know approach", and for my part, I'd happily acknowledge the lack of evidence that Cross was ever considered a suspect.

All the best,
Ben

[Michael W Richards]

I fail to see how comparing Hutchinson's situation with "Cross's" validates either party. Unless Im missing something here.

Using witnesses that the contemporary police in fact did not believe gave true and/or accurate statements....(like Hutchinson, within days,... Caroline Maxwell, Pearly Poll, Mary Malcolm, Mathew Packer,...etc..),..when making arguments that legitimate events were recorded by these people is an odd and selective use of the historical data, to be sure.

Are we to trust witnesses that have but a moment of trust? Are we to believe in these people just because in some cases.. briefly... they were once believed by the authorities?

We have the luxury of looking back in time and seeing the witnesses vetted...we can see the follow up when it exists, we can read ahead in the storyline...so why would we bog ourselves down with something that was deemed without merit in the investigation at that time?

Best regards

[Lechmere]

I don’t think there was a report that Hutchinson wasn’t Lewis’s loiterer – I think it was probably too obvious for the Police to report on. No doubt Hutchinson wasn’t ‘not tall but stout. Instead he probably had a military appearance of some sort and didn’t sport a wide-awake hat.

On Charles Lechmere – we know the police were still calling him Cross on 18th October 1988. There isn’t a lack of reports in his case. And we have accounts that state clearly who was under suspicion in the early days of the case. And we have good old Dew forgetting his very inconsequential name (unlike Hutch and Robert Paul).

Hutchinson met two of the police’s prejudicial stereotypes – he was a lodging house dweller and was not in regular employment.

Cleary Charles Lechmere did have contact with the police after he duped Mizen. He must have otherwise he wouldn’t have attended the inquest. He must have presented himself and given an interview – but this has been discussed elsewhere at length.
He did not give any press interviews.
We know nothing of him being interrogated by Abberline.
I prefer to work with what we know.

[Ben]

But don’t I remember you pooh-poohing Sugden’s theorising recently regarding the callousness of Paul and Cross/Lechmere?

I didn't "pooh-pooh" it, Lechmere - you're right. I simply disagreed with it. What's the problem with me agreeing with some of Sugden's theories and not others?

You claimed Kennedy was denounced by the Star

No, I didn't. I claimed that the Star identified the phenomenon of women parrotting an "oh murder" account, and I observed that even if they failed to identify correctly the "parrottee" from the "parroters" (because Lewis, as we know, did not speak to the press), Kennedy's absence from the inquest and suspicious similarity with Lewis' genuine, original account establishes - beyond reasonable doubt, in my opinion - that she was one of the plagiarizers, and not the original witness, even if she appeared to be at the outset.

No one – not the ever enterprising Star, not the police, not any other newspaper, connected Hutchinson to Lewis’s man – so we can be pretty damn sure they were not one and the same.

It's not even worth my getting infuriating by such nonsense any more.

Some statements are just too obvious in their wrongness.

Look, your inference is a ludicrous one. The fact that no connection was alluded to only means that nobody noticed it, just as you allege that the police failed to consider the guilt of Cross when they ought to have done. The similarity between Lewis' "wideawake" loiterer and Hutchinson in terms of reported actions, movements and behaviour at the same location and at the same time is far too coincidental for the two to be separate people. That's just obvious. And yet we KNOW that it went unobserved even by the contemporary press. They published Hutchinson's account before they could conceivably have had a chance to discover that a potential Lewis-Hutchinson had been investigated and ruled out by the police (which is what you wrongly claim happened). The connection was there to be made, nobody had told them they'd spotted it or dismissed it beforehand, and yet they didn't notice it.

I can appreciate that a main plank of your theory being unsustainable is very annoying, irritating and stressful.

I wouldn't know, Lechers, but if that's the case, you must be feeling pretty annoyed, irritated and stressed out right now.

Remind me again – how did Hutchinson discover what Lewis’s inquest evidence was prior to his appearance at Commercial Street Police Station?

By word of mouth, by attending the inquest in person, or simply by noticing that Lewis was due to appear at the inquest. Sinch.

Oh – there’s a little bit of difference between the police neglecting to look at Cross/Lechmere in a suspicious manner (which was clearly the case), and the Police failing to make the ‘Lewis-Hutchinson connection’(which you think they failed to do).

Only if you phrase things in the above manner in a attempt to make your suggestion appear better than mine, but if we swap those parentheses around:

Oh – there’s a little bit of difference between the police neglecting to look at Cross/Lechmere in a suspicious manner (which you think they failed to do), and the Police failing to make the ‘Lewis-Hutchinson connection’ (which was clearly the case).

Ah, that's better. That's Tetley.

On the one hand we have ample evidence as to who the police did look on suspiciously in the very earliest days of the case – ‘Leather Apron’ from 1st September, the three jolly butchers, High Rip gang members and even Robert Paul. Never a mention of Cross and his real identity was never even established.

What about "lost reports"?

They're your favourite, remember?

You're forever positing the existence of "lost reports" in an attempt to weaken Hutchinson as a suspect. According to you, there "must" have been a document that said Hutchinson was checked out and discredited, there "must" have been a document that said Hutchinson wasn't Lewis' loiterer etc etc. No evidence at all, but you insist it was all there, once upon a time, in documents that are now lost. I turn that on its head now, and do the same for Cross. There "must" have been documents that revealed both Cross's real name, and the fact that he was investigated and ruled out as a suspect.

But the filing cabinet containing that document (and the Hutchinson ones) got bombed in the Blitz.

What an absolute bugger, eh?

Furthermore Cross/Lechmere as an English householder and a man in regular employment was not in the category of person that the police regarded with suspicion. He did not conform to their stereotype, he did not meet their prejudice.

Nor did Hutchinson.

There was certainly no "prejudice" against people who approached the police voluntarily as witness.

Hutchinson was discussed by the press in great detail. He was interrogated by Abberline. He was taken out by the police looking for the A-man. He gave newspaper interviews.

Yes, as a witness.

He was then discredited, apparently as a bogus false witness a la Packer and Violenia.

But there is no evidence, or indeed any good reason to suppose, that he was ever treated as a suspect.

Cross/Lechmere gave no interviews and there is no record of him being interrogated

So you're suggesting he had no police contact at all after PC Mizen?

Next time you pick a fight, it's advisable that you stick to the arguments that don't expose terrible double-standards.

Regards,
Ben

[Michael W Richards]

I think one way to see this issue is the order in which witnesses came forward. Lewis's sighting and story were taken Friday, and rumours of it were around over the weekend and she gave her statement at the Inquest Monday. Hutchinsons story comes in Monday night, after the Inquest closed....and it seemingly confirms Sarah Lewis. Or...does it match with what Sarah Lewis claimed?

Thats the problem here. Did Hutch intentionally place himself in the shoes of the Lewis Wideawake Man?

When the extraordinary details of his suspect are given as if memorized, one wonders.

Cheers

[Lechmere]

Ben
I know none of these theories are yours.
But don’t I remember you pooh-poohing Sugden’s theorising recently regarding the callousness of Paul and Cross/Lechmere?
On the ‘Murder’ cry- the Star only reported Prater and Kennedy as uttering it.
They did not cover Lewis’s testimony as they are an evening paper.
The first recorded person to recall the ‘Murder’ cry was Kennedy.
You claimed Kennedy was denounced by the Star – I pointed out that they were sceptical about her story on 10th but withdrew that scepticism by the 14th.
You interpret – interpret – the reports to suggest that Kennedy was a plagiariser. You state this as if it is a fact. It is your interpretation and the reports allow a totally different interpretation.

And it doesn’t matter a jot if you say for the umpteenth time X a thousand that Lewis’s wide-awake man was Hutchinson.
No one – not the ever enterprising Star, not the police, not any other newspaper, connected Hutchinson to Lewis’s man – so we can be pretty damn sure they were not one and the same.
I can appreciate that a main plank of your theory being unsustainable is very annoying, irritating and stressful.
I do not suggest that the police overlooked the ‘Lewis-Hutchinson connection’. I am suggesting there was no connection. No doubt one of the reasons Hutchinson was discounted.

Remind me again – how did Hutchinson discover what Lewis’s inquest evidence was prior to his appearance at Commercial Street Police Station?

Oh – there’s a little bit of difference between the police neglecting to look at Cross/Lechmere in a suspicious manner (which was clearly the case), and the Police failing to make the ‘Lewis-Hutchinson connection’(which you think they failed to do).

On the one hand we have ample evidence as to who the police did look on suspiciously in the very earliest days of the case – ‘Leather Apron’ from 1st September, the three jolly butchers, High Rip gang members and even Robert Paul. Never a mention of Cross and his real identity was never even established.
Furthermore Cross/Lechmere as an English householder and a man in regular employment was not in the category of person that the police regarded with suspicion. He did not conform to their stereotype, he did not meet their prejudice.

What has this to do with the police and the press failing to make the supposed ‘Lewis-Hutchinson connection’?
By mid November 188 the case was being poured over in immeasurably greater detail than in early September 1888.
Hutchinson was discussed by the press in great detail. He was interrogated by Abberline. He was taken out by the police looking for the A-man. He gave newspaper interviews.

Cross/Lechmere gave no interviews and there is no record of him being interrogated. His involvement was given no significance by the police or the press – in marked contrast to Hutchinson at least for a brief period.