Bucks Row Project

[Elamarna]

Hi All, after months of promising an in depth investigation into Bucks Row, I am almost ready to start posting.

I have had a few problems with tables and charts but have worked out how to convert them into images and post those, not what i intended but it works.

I shall be posting the original as a blog not far down the road and will give links when this is ready.

The Project grew out of a number of comments by various posters and it has GROWN much more than I ever expected.

The recent book by Tom Wescott obviously had to be taken into account, as did recent threads on the forum. this has resulted in some rewriting and some additional research.

The project comprises 3 distinct parts:

Firstly an in depth study of the timings involved in the Bucks Row murder, this will in itself be made up of a number of posts and I hope to have this 1st part online by the end of Friday this week (Good Friday).

The second part is a look at the reports given by the residents (witnesses) in Bucks Row, as well as the Police and others who gave evidence or were reported by the papers.
This is still under development, although all of the data as been collected and viewed. What remains is how best to present this and I am looking at several possibilities at present.


The 3rd part will be a summing up based on the first two parts, with conclusions drawn and suggestions made, some perhaps pointing at more research.

At no point will there be an attempt to look for a killer.
However there will be in depth discussions about the discovery of the body and Lechmere's role in this.
The aim is not to name him or not as the killer, but to look at some of the statements which have been made suggesting he was the killer and to compare these statements against the facts as we can see them at this time.

The first 2 parts should be viewed as the results of the research Project, the third as the conclusion.


Steve

[Robert]

Hi Steve

My tip would be to post them all at the same time, before the thread gets hijacked.

[Kattrup]

Sounds good, I look forward to hearing your thoughts about the case.

[Elamarna]

Hi Steve

My tip would be to post them all at the same time, before the thread gets hijacked.

Thanks for the advice Robert.

Each part will be posted separately as part of my plan was to take feedback into account.

However the various parts of the first section will be posted at the same time.

I am aware of what could happen.


Steve

[Elamarna]

Sounds good, I look forward to hearing your thoughts about the case.

Yes I think it will make something's slot clearer.


Steve

[Varqm]

Looking forward to your posts.Just to get a clearer picture of what happened should be the "ceiling".I applaud you for that.That should include all other events in the case also.But then the suspect-based people come in and muddy the water.

[Elamarna]

Looking forward to your posts.Just to get a clearer picture of what happened should be the "ceiling".I applaud you for that.That should include all other events in the case also.But then the suspect-based people come in and muddy the water.

Yes to my mind there are so many misconceptions about Bucks Row.
And one can only hope to clear many of those up.

One if the reasons I am posting as 3 sections is with the first one based on maps and science And the second on actual reports it should be harder for anyone to muddy.

The final part which will be conclusion I fully expect to be wearing my steel helmet for.


I am thinking of taking a similar approach to the other murders. But time will tell


Steve

[John G]

Really looking forward to reading this which I'm sure will be objective, detailed and extremely well reasoned.

[Varqm]

"The final part which will be conclusion I fully expect to be wearing my steel helmet for."


That's funny.

[Fisherman]

I note that Robert thinks this thread is in peril of being "hijacked". That, supposedly, cannot refer to me, since I cannot possibly hijack a thread about Bucks Row and Charles Lechmere by discussing Bucks Row and Charles Lechmere.
However, I have no problems giving Steve whatever space and time he needs to flesh out his message. So I will leave him to it, with no interruptions from my side, unless he specifically asks for any comments, in which case I may comment.
When he has posted all he has to say, I really can´t tell if Robert wants me to stay away from the thread without commenting on it; we will see. Maybe defending a theroy on a suiting thread has advanced to hijacking these days.

I humbly predict that Charles Lechmere will be as good a suspect after Steves efforts a he was before them. I don´t think that the carman can be ruled out on account of the time issues, or that the blood evidence will in any way point away from him, regardless of Steves interpretation.

Steve has on a number of occasions pointed out that I do not have any specific right to choose how the matters involved should be looked upon. It is therefore interesting to hear him say that he aims to meet statements with facts. Maybe it´s an effort in the vein of Donald Trump, ho has a tendency to speak of "alternative facts", I don´t know. It´s not as if the Lechmere theory is not grounded in facts.

Regardless of which, I fear those who anticipate the removal of Charles Lechmere from the list of suspect are in for a major disappointment.

Now I leave the word to Steve. I wouldn´t want Robert to feel I am hijacking the thread.

[Elamarna]

I note that Robert thinks this thread is in peril of being "hijacked". That, supposedly, cannot refer to me, since I cannot possibly hijack a thread about Bucks Row and Charles Lechmere by discussing Bucks Row and Charles Lechmere.
However, I have no problems giving Steve whatever space and time he needs to flesh out his message. So I will leave him to it, with no interruptions from my side, unless he specifically asks for any comments, in which case I may comment.
When he has posted all he has to say, I really can´t tell if Robert wants me to stay away from the thread without commenting on it; we will see. Maybe defending a theroy on a suiting thread has advanced to hijacking these days.

I humbly predict that Charles Lechmere will be as good a suspect after Steves efforts a he was before them. I don´t think that the carman can be ruled out on account of the time issues, or that the blood evidence will in any way point away from him, regardless of Steves interpretation.

Steve has on a number of occasions pointed out that I do not have any specific right to choose how the matters involved should be looked upon. It is therefore interesting to hear him say that he aims to meet statements with facts. Maybe it´s an effort in the vein of Donald Trump, ho has a tendency to speak of "alternative facts", I don´t know. It´s not as if the Lechmere theory is not grounded in facts.

Regardless of which, I fear those who anticipate the removal of Charles Lechmere from the list of suspect are in for a major disappointment.

Now I leave the word to Steve. I wouldn´t want Robert to feel I am hijacking the thread.

Just in case it was missed by some the aim of posting in 3 sections is to allow for debate on each of the sections independently of the overall view.

The first section in particular will be mainly figures both distances between set points and options for walking speeds.

Therefore debate should mainly be if the figures used are reliable and accurate to a yard or so and discussion on what speeds should be accepted as possible and what should not.
In a few places where thes figures either strengthen or challenge a position already discussed on the forums I point this out, but say we it will be discussed in detail in part 3.
I think we will advance best by keeping to that and I appreciate what Christer as posted about waiting until the postings are up in full.
I will be eagerly awaiting response to the first section and I will make it clear when all of that is posted.

Steve

[Harry D]

Should've posted part one straight off the bat.

[Elamarna]

Bucks Row Project part 1 post 1

Bucks Row Project - Part 1 : Debunking Timing Issues

While others may disagree I feel that is not possible to give exact or even near absolute timings for the events in Bucks Row with any degree of certainty. The evidence is too diverse to allow one to be sure.

We have timings from 3 police officers:

Neil claim to find the body at 3.45

Mizen claims her meets Paul and Lechmere at about 3.45

Thain claims he saw Neil signaling, again at about 3.45

We have timings from Lechmere who says he left home about 3.30.

We have several timings from Paul, he leaves home at 3.44 or close to, he arrives in Bucks Row at 3.45 and it takes less than four minutes from seeing Nichols until the time he meets Mizen.

Finally we have Dr Llewellyn who claims he is called at about 4am.
From that we can see that both Paul and Neil claim to have been in Bucks Row at 3.45 and that obviously is not true.

In addition both Mizen and Thain mention 3.45 in their statements and while not allowing exact timings may help in some ways.

And we similar cannot be anywhere near sure of the time Paul met Lechmere.
Lechmere's comments of leaving about 3.30 allow far too much leeway given we do not know which route he took and there are several possibilities. Some of which are far faster than others.
It does not follow that one will always take the fastest route between two points, we are therefore left to guess which he took and then exactly how long it took him, Of course this all happened 129 years ago, so one has any idea of his normal walking speed and anything we suggest are just estimates based on commonly available modern data.

However while it may be impossible to set absolute times it is possible to determine relative times to a reasonable degree of accuracy.

For instance we know the distances involved, we know where persons encountered others and we also know the pace police were meant to walk at. Finally we have those modern calculations for walking speeds, which if anything may result in faster times than in 1888.
I base that statement on the changes in humans since 1888 physically, general fitness and improved performance.

We can therefore estimate the time it may have taken Lechmere to walk from home to the murder site on various routes.

We can also estimate how long it took Paul to walk from his home to where he saw Lechmere and we can see how far in front of him Lechmere needed to be if they were not to notice each other earlier.

We can see if this is reasonable and if there is more time for Lechmere than needed.

We will need to guesstimate the time of their exchange in Bucks row

We can estimate how long it would have taken Paul and Lechmere to pass a point where Neil could have seen them.

Routes for Neil's beat have been discussed and I shall use the one from thread “PC Neil’s Route”, suggested by FrankO in post #43 as my base for work on PC Neil.

We can therefore using the standard police night beat rate, make suggestions of where Neil may have been when they passed such points. A good hint here is that he must arrive before Mizen.

We can estimate at what time after discovery Thain would have got to Dr Llewellyn and how this may compare to the Doctors timing.

We can estimate how long it took for Paul and Lechmere to reach Mizen.
We will have to guesstimate how long the exchange between the three took.

We can estimate how long it took Mizen at standard rate and at faster rates to reach Bucks Row. We must have him arriving after Neil.

We can estimate the time Mizen took to get an ambulance.

This will give a relative time to the discovery of the body, until Mizen sees and describes running blood. The same applies to Neil.

This information will allow us to look at what has been called “the blood Evidence” and to see if it holds up when applied against realistic timings,
The information I have used to produce the following data tables are:

Maps:

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=51.5210&lon=-0.0771&layers=163&b=1

Both the 1;1,056 1893-1895 and the OS six inch 1888-1913.

Distances were measured using the on site tool. And locations checked by use of the Google overlay on the site.

I must at this point state that due to the failings of my track pad on my laptop, these measurements may not be 100%, I have measured each route quoted 3 times and have had to use a average. It is therefore possible that some of the measurement may be 10 foot, that is 3 yards, out, however given the timings used this should not be of great importance.

The Internet was searched for information on walking rates:

A good walking rate is described by many sites as being between 2mph to 4mph and the general consensus is that modern man on average walks at 3.1 mile per hour.

4mph to 5mph is described as brisk or fast walking ( but not as fast as race walking).

Over 5mph is described as jogging on many sites, however it would can also be seen as very fast walking.

The regulation night time beat walking speed for a police officer is reported as being 3mph, and these beats were checked by beat sergeants. However it should be noted that the daytime speed was only 2.5mph and some have argued that this could also be used at night.

Therefore rather than annoy anyone I have included speeds at both speeds where I think it is needed.

The formulas used to arrive at the timings used are:
1 mile = 1760 yards this is the constant.
To arrive at the speed in yards per minute, for say 3mph the formula is:

1760 x 3(mile per hour) / 60 (minutes in an hour)
1760 x 3 = 5280 yards / 60 =88yards per minute.

To arrive at the time taken for a particular distance the formula used is:

D (distance) divided by yards per minute= time in minutes as a decimal, this is then multiplied by 60 (seconds in a minute ) to give the actual seconds taken.

316 / 88 =3.59 x 60=215.5 seconds(rounded up) = 3 minutes 36 seconds(rounded up)

When decimals have been at 4 or below I have rounded down and 5 and above have been rounded up.

In these postings to save on space and to make reading easier the figures are given as minutes and seconds unless the timing is less than a minute when it is just given as seconds.

The full figures will be posted on the upcoming blog.

I have also used data openly available on the forum, posted by many users, and I would like to acknowledge the work of some:
David Orsam, Fisherman, FrankO and drstrange169.

Could I ask that comments on this first section do not go off on debates about the various theories but look at the timings purely as that.
I have given a variety of speeds and have settled on one myself, that of course is open to debate.

In some places where the data suggests that a commonly held view is possibly incorrect I have commented but would be grateful if in depth discussions on such issues could wait until part 3 of the project.

Steve Blomer (Elamarna)

[Elamarna]

Bucks Row protect part 1 post 2

So lets us begin by looking at the possible route Lechmere took from his home in Doveton street to Nichols body in Bucks Row.
This has been much discussed over the years and of course there are many possible routes.
A Television documentary “The Missing Evidence” featuring Christer Holmgren, that’s our very own Fisherman from this site, made several interesting comments and observations
The voice over on the documentary claimed: “ the street layout is the same now as it was over a century ago” this is untrue much has changed:
The Western end of Doveton Street which in 1888 provide direct access to Cambridge Heath Road is gone
So is Oxford Street on the western side of Cambridge Heath Road
Buckhurst Street now terminates on the northern side of Headlam Street( Northampton Street in 1888)
In 1888 there was a continuation on the southern side of Headlam Street which lead directly into Darling Row, the Western end of this was Bath Street, which is now replaced by a vast supermarket, although there is still access to Brady Street; it is not the same as in 1888.
The voice over is therefore very misleading and the first thing to be debunked.

In that documentary Christer and Andy Griffiths, a former murder squad police officer, commence a walk along a possible route, from Lechmere’s home at 22 Doveton street to the murder site in Bucks Row. The route is reported to take 7.07 minutes.
However this is much debated for several reasons, perhaps the most important being that the exact route taken has never been publicly disclosed, even the one displayed on the documentary as a map is not shown from beginning to end.

Below are six possible routes, some long, some short. It is suspected by some that the route used in the documentary was the one marked route 5 below; however I believe route 6 is equally plausible, and while slightly longer may have been more convenient.
Christer has said the route was not walked fast:
“on a different note, Andy and I did NOT walk briskly. We walked at a very normal pace, not hurring, not getting lazy”.

This of course tells us very little, however if the purpose of the re-enactment was to suggest a time Lechmere may have used, we can use it as a starting point, if that was not the aim, I see little use in the re-enactment taking place..
The final column in the table below records how this time that Christer walked, translates into yards per a minute for each of the following routes.
The average male speed to day is quoted on the internet as 3.1mph, Christer was obviously walking faster than this, and one could go for a speed of 3.5 miles and hour as a good walking speed, certainly somewhere between 3-4 mile an hour seems probably as the speed Lechmere may have walked at. However we cannot know and so various possible timings are used in the following tables, 3, 4 and 5 miles an hour.

I will use the following abbreviations in these charts:
mph = miles per hour.
Ypm = yards per minute




An interesting route is that labelled 4 above it is suggested by the site:

https://unsolvedwhitechapel.wordpress.com/tag/parson-street/

This route attempts to give a solution to the “Parson street” comment by Lechmere,
the site claims :

“this route would have been one of the most convenient for him to take”

that however is very debatable, it easily being the longest of the 6 routes listed.

The site while saying he left home at 3.30 then claims this route would have him in Bucks Row at 3.35.

However such a journey would need to be conducted at a rate of 198.4 yards per a minute, that is very close to an hourly rate of 7mph which equates to 205.33 ypm. Such a speed is I suggest unrealistic, we are talking of 21st Olympic walking speeds.

From the above table it seems that routes 1, 5 and 6 are easily the quickest and the timed walk by Christer fits nicely in with a reasonable speed for any of those routes.
It must be stressed however that I certainly have no idea, if one of these routes was the one used for the documentary, but each as its merits.

After much consideration, for practical purposes, I have gone for a speed of marginally over 3.5mph, but below 4mph, in all possible conclusions in this report, favouring 102.5 – 105 ypm (3.5 – 3.59mph).
This is of course open to debate, but seems a good starting point, people in the 1880’s being slower and smaller overall than their modern day counterparts, as can be seen from history.( the increase n athletic performance is a good indicator for this.).

[Elamarna]

Bucks Row Project part 1 post 3

The next Table looks at what speed may Paul and Lechmere may have been walking at,
I have already suggested a time of 3.5mph.

However one data set is not enough to base an hypothesis on and expect it to be accepted as a good estimate.
So again, to repeat the current accepted average walking speed is about 3.1 mph.
In my previous calculations I have gone for a slightly faster time, somewhere between 3 and 4 miles per an hour.
Does looking at the longer distances Paul and Lechmere walked that morning give us any more information.?
Lechmere said he left later than normal, his normal time being 3.20
Paul also claimed he was late.
So just how long would it have taken Lechmere to walk to work on a normal day at a normal (3.1mph) pace?(for ease of use I have actually used 3mph, so at 3.1 the times would be a little shorter)

We do not know the exact route he took up until Bucks Row, we know he went down Hanbury Street, after which he had two possible alternatives to reach Liverpool street/ Broad street.

One via lamb Street and Spital Square into Bishopsgate and the other via Commercial street into Brushfield Street and into Bishopsgate.

One point I must add, I have been unable on the old maps to find the actual entrance into the Pickfords depot and so a couple of minutes need to be added to the below figures, however as will be seen if walking at the suggested rates there is still time to get to work by 4am, with either a 3,30 or 3.20 start
The distances and possible walking times for the whole route are given in the table below as a 6 route option, this is based on Lechmere’s possible initial route up to Bucks row as discussed previously, a common route is used until the end of Hanbury Street and each given optional route is given a further two optional end routes.

As before the distance are from:

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=51.5210&lon=-0.0771&layers=163&b=1

Both the 1;1,056 1893-1895 and the OS six inch 1888-1913
Distances were measured using the on site tool

And again I must stress these distances are not absolute, however they should be no more than a a couple of yards out at most.




From the above it is clear that Lechmere even if leaving at 3.30 would arrive on time if he went a pace of just over 3.5mph. So the previous choice of between 3-4 mph seems reasonable.
An exact pace is of course impossible to predict, but if he walked on that morning at 3.5mph or just over that is 102.5 - 105 yards per a minute he would arrive on time at 4am.

Interestingly David Barrat (Orsam) has walked these distances above and achieved times of :

31 minutes from Doveton street to Liverpool street/ Broad street walking slowly and 24 minutes walking at a faster pace.

He also walking at a “very fast pace” managed to go from the murder site to Liverpool street in 13minutes 30 seconds.

On the same journey he manage the distance from the murder site to Paul’s place of work, Corbet Court, formerly Corbet place in 8 minutes and one second, this can be compared to the table below.

This is very useful, for it suggests that even walking at what David calls the quickest pace he could, he did not hit 5 mph on that route.

Let us now look at Paul:

His journey from his home to his place of work is easier to calculate it is 1371 yards

so a quick table to show his possible times that day






From the above it seems reasonable to accept that even if he was in Bucks Row at 3.45 as he claimed he would still arrive at work before his start time by just going slightly faster than 3mph.

From this information it seems reasonable to suggest that there was no need to really hurry for either man, and both could have reached their goals by walking at a moderate pace, no need to be rushing.

After looking at both the distances and times for the 3 above tables, I feel comfortable with a speed for Paul and Lechmere that morning of 102.5-105 ypm or just over 3.5 miles per hour.
Its a guess of course, but an educated one, base on and supported by both science and present day examples.