The press, what they knew and how they knew it.

[Garry Wroe]

My understanding is that an officer on fixed-point duty was permitted to leave his post if the urgency of the situation demanded it, but that the first patrolling officer to find the fixed point vacant would be required to man it until his colleague's return.

A complaint was lodged with regard to this very issue, Colin. The official response stated that the officer concerned had not been permitted under the rules to vacate his post on the morning of the Chapman murder.

From Dickens's Dictionary of London 1888:-

Fixed Points (Police)
"The under-mentioned places are appointed as fixed points where a police constable is to be permanently stationed from 9pm to 1am. In the event of any person springing a rattle, or persistently ringing a bell in the street or in an area the police will at once proceed to the spot and render assistance".

Chapman's body was discovered at approximately 6:00am, Colin. So even if this rule was in operation at the time it was irrelevant with respect to the Hanbury Street crime.

[Garry Wroe]

Isaacs is an absolute non-starter when it comes to any sort of support for Hutchinson's Astrakhan story.

Absolutely, Ben. His name cropped up courtesy of information provided by a member of the public. Subsequent enquiries were prosecuted as a matter of basic procedure, as was the case with Dr Holt, Issenschmidt and countless others. This does not infer that Isaacs was ever a realistic suspect, and nor does it serve as confirmation that investigators continued to accept Hutchinson's Astrakhan story. Not even remotely so.

[curious4]

Backup

Hi everyone,
Just a thought - if the man Hutch 'saw' was a local hard man or villain then why wouldn't he dress in 'flash' clothes without fear of being attacked - I'm sure the Krays in their silk suits never had to worry about being mugged when they were out and about.
Cheers
Albert

Hello Albert,

Or unless he had some kind of backup lurking in the shadows.

Personally I tend towards believing Hutch. Some people just make excellent witnesses. Because he worked as a market porter doesn't mean he wasn't one of them.

Best wishes,
C4

[Garry Wroe]

Hutchinson was variously described as an unemployed labourer and former groom, C4. As far as I'm aware there was never any suggestion that he was a coster.

[curious4]

Unemployed

Hello Gary,

My mistake. Point being that people tend to think that people with more education make better witnesses. So I have found, anyway.

Best wishes,
C4

P.S. Wasn't a costermonger a market stall holder?

[Ben]

Thats right Ben, they arrested every male, by the thousands, sporting a heavy dark moustache because they all looked like Astrachan, even without the coat...

Please see Garry's post #77, Jon.

There is absolutely no evidence that the police arrested anyone on the basis of Hutchinson's description.

Try to remember, Hutchinson's statement is his offering to Badham, it is not the result of his later interview with Abberline.

I'm very well aware of that, but Abberline did provide details of his interview with Hutchinson when he submitted his report on the matter to his superiors. He mentioned that Hutchinson was in no regular employment and that he had known Kelly for three years. Had Hutchinson related the alleged Sunday encounter to Abberline, the detail would certainly have been included in that same covering missive. In addition, Abberline would have been eager to trace the mysterious, negligent policeman to whom Hutchinson allegedly related his original account, had he raised his spectre during the initial police interview. Indeed, given that Hutchinson's discrediting occurred so soon after the release of his press account, it is likely that the police investigated the matter, discovered that the "mystery policeman" episode was false, resulting in further scepticism being heaped on the account.

Hi C4,

There are many reasons for treating Hutchinson's account with suspicion, but his apparent lack of formal education certainly isn't one of them.

All the best,
Ben

[curious4]

Digging a hole

Hello Ben,

That wasn't exactly what I meant, but I have the feeling I would be digging myself into an even deeper hole if I argued the point!

Best wishes,
C4

[Wickerman]

... This does not infer that Isaacs was ever a realistic suspect, and nor does it serve as confirmation that investigators continued to accept Hutchinson's Astrakhan story. Not even remotely so.

All that is necessary Garry is that the police accept the description provided by Hutchinson.
After the house-to-house search over the weekend turned up this missing tenant, his name provided, and subsequently the description they obtained of him simply confirmed that a man fitting the description provided by Hutchinson did indeed live in the area.
This was all that was needed to confirm this part of Hutchinson's story, ie, that it was not all made up.

I'm not suggesting Astrachan(if Isaac's) became a suspect, only that whoever Hutchinson claimed he saw did indeed exist, and was a local man.
Dr. Bond's estimated time of death rules out any culpability on the part of Astrachan(if Isaac's).

[Wickerman]

I'm very well aware of that, but Abberline did provide details of his interview with Hutchinson when he submitted his report on the matter to his superiors. He mentioned that Hutchinson was in no regular employment and that he had known Kelly for three years. Had Hutchinson related the alleged Sunday encounter to Abberline, the detail would certainly have been included in that same covering missive...

Not in the slightest, the summary is merely a brief collection of highlites. The full record of the interrogation is available if and when Central Office choose to read up on the finer details.

Hutchinson quite possibly told Abberline all the same details he provided to the Central News reporter.
A voluntary statement given by a witness to the police will always contain fewer details than a subsequent interview with a detective. Once reminded of the smaller details after being questioned Hutchinson would come away from the interview fully-loaded, if you like, so of course the next time he gives his story it will contain more than his initial offering to Badham.
Thats just human nature.

In addition, Abberline would have been eager to trace the mysterious, negligent policeman

Why negligent? - you have an awful habit of criticizing others when you don't have the full story.

He said, "I told one policeman on Sunday morning what I had seen,.", what had he seen?
What part of the story is he talking about, hardly likely he occupied the policeman with the whole story from beginning to end. The policemen were bringing people in all the time with strange stories, possibly the constable thought this was just another one.

Even if he did, the constable may have told him to go to Commercial St. and report his story to them, hence the subsequent disclaimer, "but did not go to the police-station.". Why say that?
Possibly because this is precisely what the constable told him to do? There is absolutely no justification for suggesting negligence.
If the policeman in question was the one on point-duty at the market then he is not supposed to leave his post.

There are quite reasonable solutions if you only take the time to consider them.

[Garry Wroe]

Whereas I understand your logic, Jon, the problem for me is that Isaacs entered the equation only after Hutchinson had been discredited, by which time the manhunt was once again focused on local slum dwellers, low lodging house patrons and those who frequented casual wards. Without wishing to labour the point, we have to make the distinction between those who the police suspected and those who were investigated after being named by members of the public. Once we remember that many of those comprising this latter group were given into custody merely because they carried a black bag, the importance of such a distinction becomes self-evident.

[Garry Wroe]

My mistake. Point being that people tend to think that people with more education make better witnesses. So I have found, anyway.

The psychological research would tend to bear this out, C4. There are also examples of working-class conmen whose success rate soared once they acquired an Oxbridge accent.

P.S. Wasn't a costermonger a market stall holder?

And that was my mistake, C4. I thought that you'd referred to a market trader, which loosely speaking was a coster. Specifically, though, the costermonger was a market trader who sold fruit and vegetables.

[Wickerman]

Whereas I understand your logic, Jon, the problem for me is that Isaacs entered the equation only after Hutchinson had been discredited,

If you recall, the police were given the story of a missing tenant while they were conducting the house-to-house over the weekend. This tenant turned out to be Isaac's, so this was even before Hutchinson came forward on the Monday.

Without wishing to labour the point, we have to make the distinction between those who the police suspected and those who were investigated after being named by members of the public. Once we remember that many of those comprising this latter group were given into custody merely because they carried a black bag, the importance of such a distinction becomes self-evident.

I certainly agree to the distinction and Isaac's was being looked for as a result of his landlady's story, not because he was a suspect in the latest murder.
Though once the landlady gave a description, which she must surely have been requested to do, then to have it repeated in a similar vein by Hutchinson on the Monday may have caused them to crank up their search for this man.
These are just hypothetical considerations as to why the police believed Hutchinson.

[Ben]

Hutchinson quite possibly told Abberline all the same details he provided to the Central News reporter.

Absolutely no way, Jon.

That would have made Abberline moronically incompetent, which I'm not buying into. He did not simply provide the statement, he accompanied it with with an explanatory covering letter essentially "introducing" Hutchinson and offering additional relevant information that was not to be found in the body of the statement taken down by Badham. The revelation that he had perhaps seen the suspect for a second time and told a policeman about it would indisputably qualify as an example of "additional relevant information", certainly more so than the detail that he had given Kelly "a few shillings occasionally". It is inconceivable that Abberline should have withheld such information had Hutchinson supplied it.

No, the obvious reality is that Hutchinson mentioned nothing of the Sunday policeman episode until he spoke to the press, and presumably because he was conscious of the fact that his three-day-late presentation of his evidence was a sticking point. "I did try to come forward before, honest!"

An equally obvious reality is that had this policeman truly existed, he'd have actually done something about it, rather an deliberately allowing a potential serial murderer's trail to grow cold. The police in those days patrolled a delineated beat. Hutchinson had only to state the time and location of the sighting in order for the policeman to have been identified and questioned accordingly about this alleged sighting. The idea that such a policeman, had he existed, would not have taken the matter any further when faced with a witness who appeared to provide evidence relating to the most brutal murder in London’s history, and in an established pattern of serial murder, is quite clearly nonsense. Had the police tracked this duty-dodging copper down and discovered that he behaved in such a manner, he should have been hauled over the coals and booted off the force for shocking negligence. The policeman in question would clearly have expected this outcome (again because he'd know he was capable of being traced according to time and location), and accordingly would not have risked such eccentrically negligent behaviour.

"Go to the police station" or "I'm a fixed-point officer" would not have got him off the hook either, There was nothing preventing such an officer from taking, at the very least, Hutchinson's name and address.

Quite clearly, the "policeman" never existed. He was simply a handy spectre for Hutchinson to conjure up in order to "explain" his failure to alert the police earlier. Obviously he had to wait for the press to impart this tall tale, since he knew the police would ask awkward questions like "where did you see this policeman?" "at what time?" etc. It's so surprise, of course, that Hutchinson's discrediting coincided with the release of the "Sunday Policeman" account.

This was all that was needed to confirm this part of Hutchinson's story, ie, that it was not all made up.

I'm not suggesting Astrachan(if Isaac's) became a suspect, only that whoever Hutchinson claimed he saw did indeed exist, and was a local man.

But on what possible basis?

Astrakhan was not Isaacs.

Isaacs was in prison when the alleged sighting occurred.

Astrakhan cannot reasonably have looked anything like Isaacs in terms of clothing and accessories. Facial hair, complexion, height, age maybe, but that's your lot.

There is absolutely nothing about Isaacs that lends the remotest weight to Hutchinson's account.

Regards,
Ben

[caz]

Quote:
Similarly, if Hutch was not the killer (and therefore not one of a teeny-tiny minority of serial killers who come forward to try and shift any suspicion before it lands on them), the police still appear to have been looking in all the wrong places. They had no evidence of the killer's class or circumstances. None at all.

Until such time as the killer’s identity has been positively established, Caz, you cannot state with any certainty that investigators looked in ‘all the wrong places.’ As for the notion that there was no evidence indicative of the killer’s ‘class or circumstances’, the police had by the time of Kelly’s death three eyewitness sightings of the man believed to have been the murderer, neither one of which was even vaguely suggestive that the wanted man was anything but working-class.

Hi Garry,

Firstly, until such time as the killer’s identity has been positively established, you cannot argue that they were looking in the right places, which is precisely what you appeared to be doing. If not, I apologise for misunderstanding your original point on the matter. I appreciate they might have been looking in the right place but failed to find the killer for any number of plausible reasons, but the surest way for him to have escaped the net was if he was somewhere their searches never reached, which has to remain a distinct possibility.

Secondly, anyone above the very poorest section of society can appear working-class if that’s how they want or need to appear. It doesn’t tend to work the other way round. It wouldn’t have been so easy, for example, for a dirt poor, unemployed labourer to look anything but a dirt poor, unemployed labourer, which might have been a problem if one wanted prostitutes to go off with him after the first one or two had been murdered that year.

Quote:
So why could the ripper not have been one of a minority of serial offenders who prefer to put a bit of distance between their home and their playing field …

It is the serialist who kills on or close to his own doorstep who is in the minority, Caz. The majority kill beyond the psychological buffer zone constructed around their operational base in order to prevent any criminal investigation coming too close to home.

Music to my ears, Garry. I must have been taken in, against my better judgement, by what Ben has been insisting for years, that the vast majority of serial offenders will be found living or working right in alongside their victims and not at any distance from their playing field. Considering how very close the Victoria Home was to where Smith, Tabram, Chapman, Kelly and McKenzie were all attacked, and to where Eddowes’s highly incriminating apron piece was discarded, Hutchinson would have had to be in the minority with virtually no ‘buffer zone’ at all around his ‘operational base’.

Nice one. I agree that makes a lot more sense.

Love,

Caz
X

[DVV]

Hi Caroline

Considering how very close the Victoria Home was to where Smith, Tabram, Chapman, Kelly and McKenzie were all attacked, and to where Eddowes’s highly incriminating apron piece was discarded, Hutchinson would have had to be in the minority with virtually no ‘buffer zone’ at all around his ‘operational base’.
X

Except that it was a perfect place to hide, where people were "just numbers", as Henry Moore said.

Cheers