Favorite suspect/s?

[Robert]

I think one of the Yorkshire Ripper's victims was first assumed to be a bundle of rags.

[caz]

Yes, Robert, I suspect there are countless examples like this, of people who discover outdoor murder victims and initially assume they are seeing something else entirely. Wasn't one of the Ipswich Strangler's naked victims thought to be a tailor's dummy by the person who discovered her body?

To Gary and others,

The point I am making is that if Lechmere had been the killer, he would not have been experiencing it through the eyes of an innocent person initially seeing what they thought was a tarpaulin. Without having any personal experience of how people react in such a situation, how would he have known to mimic this so well?

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Why is it that logic and consequence fly out the window once you hear the name Lechmere? "Anyone could have had reason to be anywhere" - so it does not matter that we can prove that Lechmere had ties to the exact area where Stride was killed?

You’re not kidding Fish!

This was a very small area. If a killer had killed in Swansea, Derby, Leeds and Glasgow and we found that he had connections to those widespread areas then alarm bells would obviously start ringing. But locations within a few streets of each other...no. Pretty much everything was close to everything else. ‘Connections’ within such a tight area are just a matter of how hard we look. One of the reasons that I cite Diemschutz is that I’m sure that if someone looked hard enough they would find that he had a good friend living near to Mitre Square or an auntie who lived near to Buck’s Row.....

Two more things...

How likely is it that a serial killer would kill on the way to work? Leaving himself just enough time to get there on time? Not knowing how long the kill would take, or how far away from work he would actually be when he found a victim or how much blood he would have had on him?

How likely is it that a killer would kill at a location that he would have passed every day, at pretty much exactly the same time, six days a week? Is there a more stupid way that he might have put himself in the frame?

[Fisherman]

I said it always falls, eventually, from its own weight.

With the amount of crap we've seen on the utterly futile attempts to make Lechmere guilty [and to turn the Barretts into forgers while we're at it], I'm surprised the whole casebook hasn't collapsed under the weight of it all.

Can't you see, Fish? If somebody else could have attacked and murdered Nichols before Lechmere came along, that's all the defence needs to show that opportunity can never be proved, never mind the means and motive.

By the way, when a student came across Amelie Delagrange, one of serial killer Levi Bellfield's victims, in 2004, he saw what he thought was 'some white plastic sheeting' lying on the ground on the edge of the cricket square. As he got closer he realised it was a person. Amelie was still breathing at that point, but only just, and she died in hospital less than two hours later. I would hate to think that student might have become the unhealthy object of some armchair detective's attention decades after his death, had Amelie's killer never been identified.

Lechmere's 'tarpaulin' shows he was reacting just as other innocent witnesses do when they come across the totally unexpected - a dead or dying human being.

Love,

Caz
X

What makes you think that I cannot see that the defence could always argue that there was a window of opportunity for someone else, Caz? Is that another ne of your inventionws, that I would not be able to see that?

Of course I can. But I am not arguing that there cannot have been another killer - I am arguing that it would be odd if there was, since Lechmere has so many anomalies attaching to himself that it cannot very likely be purely coincidental. He is therefore by far the best bid there is.

The bid of another killer is a bid of somebody we have no evidence of at all. It is - one again - the dreaded phantom killer, the substitute killer, who needs (must!) be brought on stage to enable for Lechmere not to get convicted immediately. Such a beast, such a construction, a man who passed by Bycks FRow at the approximate same time as Lechmere, who - just like Lechmere - had reason to pass the other murder sites at the relevant hours, who - just like Lechmere - had reason to visit St Georges in the East when Sride died, and who - just like Lechmere - had reason to walk down to Mitre Square afterwards. A perfect stand-in, as it were.

That is what you hang your hopes on. I hang MY hopes on how YOUR pile of crap will tumble and fall long before mine ever reaches over the street level. It would be the logical outcome, given the sheer size of your crap pile...

As for your plastic sheet story, it was you - not me - who suggested that inventing such a story pointed to guilt. It does not, of course, but IF the person suggesting the plastic business IS the killer, then it can be a clever diversion. That´s all there is to it.

Have you any more fantastic suggestions about dead people being impossible to kill or 1880:s men not being able to lie? You say it points to innocence that Lechmere spoke of a tarpaulin. It does not, I´m afraid, in any way at all. It was either the truth or a lie, simple as that, as Gary just showed.

[Robert]

Hi Caz

Yes, good point.

Re Ipswich, it was a motorist passing by the body of Anneli Alderton. He took it to be a mannequin and didn't report it.

Re innocence, there is the story reported by Farson, of how a little girl - I think one of the Aberconways? - caught sight of the victim photos. But she didn't see them as corpses - to her they looked like broken dolls.

[Fisherman]

Hi Robert,

Isn't Fish's point that the geographical connection of a suspect would (should) have been of nterest to the police? However, it appears Lechmere was never considered a suspect, so his 'connection' was never identified. And in any case, that connection didn't really exist at the time of the Nichols murder, beyond the fact that he was there on the spot at pretty much the time she was killed.

(Can I have my Team Lechmere lapel badge now, Fish?)


Gary

Another one? This is getting expensive!

And yes, you have grasped the core of my point. How Robert managed not to is a complete riddle to me. But that´s fine, it saves me buying him a badge.

[Robert]

Fish, you do realise that Gary's only posting this in the hope you'll buy him a Happy Days meal?

[Fisherman]

Hi Fish

I'm afraid I have no hat - I had to eat it when confronted with some of the nonsense that you continue to post.

Nice of you to be concerned about my exposure to the heat, but such concerns would be better directed at Ed, who has less natural protection.

So a man is in the street where a woman has been murdered, and a few minutes later turns down another street where another woman is murdered eight days later. And it doesn't ring a bell with the police - the police who, according to you, are so interested in geography?

But I forget - Crossmere charmed the police at his interview. If I might invoke the late Peter Cook : police officers came staggering out of the interview room, gasping "My God, what a nice man!"

I'm afraid your theory, Fish, is a load of parasols.

A man is intereviewed nine times by the police in connection with a string of murders, and the police do not understand that he needs to be elevated to the prime suspect? That´s Sutcliffe for you, Robert, a hundred years AFTER the Whitechapel murders.
Yes, I thik that you are exactly correct - the police decided that a man who turns to them two times, seemingly to help out, would not be the killer.

And like you guys use to say, there where thousands of men passing those streets, so why would the police suspect Lechmere - their very own informant?

Hat. Hat, Robert!

[Fisherman]

Hi Gary,

Oh no, I agree with you - probably more chance than today, when you include death by disease, starvation, old age and so on, among those living rough.



Which swings things back the other way. I still don't think dead or dying bodies would have been an everyday sight on the streets, and in darkness you have another reason to see one initially as something else.



Fair enough, Gary, although I think the truth is more likely to be that Lechmere did think it was a tarpaulin from a certain distance but realised - like that student in 2004 - that it was a woman lying there looking lifeless as he got closer. At that point he must have felt obliged to investigate further, before going on to work.

If it was a lie by a quick-thinking killer, it was certainly a belter!

Love,

Caz
X

He had some days to construct his story, Caz, so it is not exactly an example of thinking on yur feet, is it?
The much more impressive thing in this context is how he concocted the Mizen scam - that shows us just how fast he was. And believe me, if he was the killer, then he was MUCH faster on the uptake than some ripperologists...

[Robert]

Oh, but come on, Fish : the police's own man, Mizen - who had been graded as good, Fish - disputed Crossmere's story.

Maybe Mizen was lacking in the charm department. I suspect the full record of Mizen's grading read "good, but not suave enough."

[Fisherman]

I think one of the Yorkshire Ripper's victims was first assumed to be a bundle of rags.

And why not? If we cannot make out the outlines as that of a person, then a bundle of rags is the much more likely option. The fewest will think "must be a murder victim".
You need to read Albert Eskeröd to understand these matters entirely. His work on "intressedominans" - dominance of interest" -is groundbreaking.

[Fisherman]

To Gary and others,

The point I am making is that if Lechmere had been the killer, he would not have been experiencing it through the eyes of an innocent person initially seeing what they thought was a tarpaulin. Without having any personal experience of how people react in such a situation, how would he have known to mimic this so well?

Love,

Caz
X

But it is a lousy point, Caz! Anybody with a little something between the ears could come up with such a thing! Lechmere had a few days to shape his message to the coroner and jury, and if he was the killer he would easily have foreseen that he would be asked about his behaviour, what had happened and so on. So just how hard would it be for him to come up with the tarpaulin story? Maybe he had had a fellow carman telling him a story about how a tarp was found in the street, and he simply latched on, maybe he felt that he needed a good explanation, maybe he liked fooling the coroner, you name it. But don´t say that he could never have launched the idea, bacause he could quite easily have done so. And people DID lie in the 1880:s too, you know.

[Fisherman]

You’re not kidding Fish!

This was a very small area. If a killer had killed in Swansea, Derby, Leeds and Glasgow and we found that he had connections to those widespread areas then alarm bells would obviously start ringing. But locations within a few streets of each other...no. Pretty much everything was close to everything else. ‘Connections’ within such a tight area are just a matter of how hard we look. One of the reasons that I cite Diemschutz is that I’m sure that if someone looked hard enough they would find that he had a good friend living near to Mitre Square or an auntie who lived near to Buck’s Row.....

Two more things...

How likely is it that a serial killer would kill on the way to work? Leaving himself just enough time to get there on time? Not knowing how long the kill would take, or how far away from work he would actually be when he found a victim or how much blood he would have had on him?

How likely is it that a killer would kill at a location that he would have passed every day, at pretty much exactly the same time, six days a week? Is there a more stupid way that he might have put himself in the frame?

With your reasoning, the police would never bother tracking the movements of a suspect if the murders they were investigated happened in the same town. You DO realize that is what you are saying...?

People CAN kill en route to work, there is no obstacle at all for it.

People CAN kill close by their other murder sites - it is even common.

[Fisherman]

Hi Caz

Yes, good point.

Re Ipswich, it was a motorist passing by the body of Anneli Alderton. He took it to be a mannequin and didn't report it.

Re innocence, there is the story reported by Farson, of how a little girl - I think one of the Aberconways? - caught sight of the victim photos. But she didn't see them as corpses - to her they looked like broken dolls.

It is a good point to acknowledge that dead bodies are normally not what people imagine to have found when they see different shapes.

It is however a painfully bad point to claim that Lechmere would never be able to make up a lie such as that about the tarp.

Speaking about bad points, did you read Garys post about how it went awry in your post about how you believed I had had a change of mind on the police investigating Lechmere?

[Herlock Sholmes]

What makes you think that I cannot see that the defence could always argue that there was a window of opportunity for someone else, Caz? Is that another ne of your inventionws, that I would not be able to see that?

And that a killer who had every opportunity of getting away 100% scot-free would have been an idiot of humongous proportions to stick around and draw someones attention to his handiwork whilst he stood there stained with blood and in possession of the murder weapon.

Of course I can. But I am not arguing that there cannot have been another killer - I am arguing that it would be odd if there was, since Lechmere has so many anomalies attaching to himself that it cannot very likely be purely coincidental. He is therefore by far the best bid there is.

Yet again your aversion to ‘coincidence.’ There are no ‘anomalies’ attached to Lechmere except invented ones or irrelevant ones.

The bid of another killer is a bid of somebody we have no evidence of at all. It is - one again - the dreaded phantom killer, the substitute killer, who needs (must!) be brought on stage to enable for Lechmere not to get convicted immediately. Such a beast, such a construction, a man who passed by Bycks FRow at the approximate same time as Lechmere, who - just like Lechmere - had reason to pass the other murder sites at the relevant hours, who - just like Lechmere - had reason to visit St Georges in the East when Sride died, and who - just like Lechmere - had reason to walk down to Mitre Square afterwards. A perfect stand-in, as it were.

Please dont start with the ‘phantom killer’ fallacy again Fish! If someone discovers a murder victim then obviously someone had to have passed there before. Obssession is clouding your judgement.

That is what you hang your hopes on. I hang MY hopes on how YOUR pile of crap will tumble and fall long before mine ever reaches over the street level. It would be the logical outcome, given the sheer size of your crap pile...

Insults again. The whole case against Lechmere is built on sands of imagination and wish thinking with the odd irrelevent fact thrown in.

As for your plastic sheet story, it was you - not me - who suggested that inventing such a story pointed to guilt. It does not, of course, but IF the person suggesting the plastic business IS the killer, then it can be a clever diversion. That´s all there is to it.

Have you any more fantastic suggestions about dead people being impossible to kill or 1880:s men not being able to lie? You say it points to innocence that Lechmere spoke of a tarpaulin. It does not, I´m afraid, in any way at all. It was either the truth or a lie, simple as that, as Gary just showed.

The fact that CL said that he first thought that the body was a tarpaulin is entirely plausible. If he was the killer then it was a lie obviously. The fact is though that we have no worthwhile reason to believe that he was the killer. In fact the evidence is wholly against it. Anyone can be made suspicious by constantly assuming that everything that they said was a lie. Creative thinking isnt enough. Solid evidence is absent

CL has to be considered and looked at because he was there. Like most suspects we cannot categorically eliminate him even though the police at the time obviously did. It doesnt help by getting carried away and thats just what occurs. It smacks of desperation.