Favorite suspect/s?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Like Sutcliffe. Nine times interviewed, and every time it seems his story was readily accepted.

What does that tell us?

Nothing about CL.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Now you are jestering. I suppose it was the only way out.

The word is ‘jesting’ Fish.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Polly Nichols was dead before she reached Bucks Row.

Regards,

Simon

[Joshua Rogan]

Polly Nichols was dead before she reached Bucks Row.

So Cross carried her there from home? No wonder he was late for work!

[Herlock Sholmes]

So Cross carried her there from home? No wonder he was late for work!

[caz]

As for identifying some other men whose work route took them through or close to the Ripper's streets at that particular time in the morning, and who had a connection with Berner St, it's clear that when Fish challenges us to do this he hasn't the slightest idea of the difficulties involved.

And who said that the killer had regular work, or even any work at all?

And who said the killer would have been happier doing his dirty business in all the places he was likely to pass and therefore be a visible presence on a regular basis?

Many killers would surely avoid doing that like the plague, especially if they were not loners but had family and workmates, who would know more about their comings and goings and might one day join the dots after the fourth victim was again found somewhere frequented by their relative or associate.

"Hmmm, every time another murder is reported, seems our Charlie Lechmere would have been passing the spot at roughly the right time. But it couldn't be him because the chap in Buck's Row at the right time to have killed Nichols was called Charles Cross."

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

So Cross carried her there from home? No wonder he was late for work!

Did he then take time off work with a bad back? That, I suggest, would be game over.

Love,

Caz
X

[Robert]

Yes, Caz. And then we have the shambolic people who may not even have known precisely which street they were in.

[Elamarna]

Back from (to?) the party!

I find that the debate out here has now reached the point I was looking for - we have moved from a flat out denial that Paul could have been out of earshot to a position where the next step will inevitably be posting material saying that we can ALMOST be certain that Paul was not within earshot. He MAY technically have been out of earshot, but that possibility is laughably small, and so on and so on and so on.

The position the post claims we have reached, is unfortunatly inaccurate.
The true position is that Mizen places the two carmen together, true he does not say how far apart. He however at no point says that Paul is out of earshot or that the two men part. And while possible, based purely on Mizen's account; such is not the case when we examine the accounts of the others involved.
Paul in his testimony on 17th says that he and Lechmere went together and met mizen. He makes no further comment, he is not asked to.
In the Lloyds account he says he spoke to Mizen, although he gives himself the lead role.
Lechmere in his testimony says that both he and Paul spoke to Mizen.
Is there anything in Mizen's account which challenges this?

Well he does claim that he speaks to only one man, such of course does not preclude the other man from making comments which Mizen does not respond to. And indeed such is very much in keeping with the actual testimony of Lechmere. It is also clear that there is nothing in Mizen's account which actually says the carmen were apart.

However in post 948 the claim is made that the evidence points away from the Carmen meeting Mizen togeather.
Really?
Lets have a look

First Lechmere:
Morning Advertiser 4th. ( the one with the accuracy issues, but you like it so lets use it)
"Witness-We left together, and went up Baker's row, where we met a constable. "

No evidence they were apart.

Daily News 4th
"He and the other man left the deceased, and in Baker's row they saw the last witness whom they told that a woman was lying in Buck's row. "

Still no evidence they split

Time to look at Paul:
Telegraph 18th
"The man walked with him to Montague-street, and there they saw a policeman. Not more than four minutes had elapsed from the time he first saw the woman"

Times 18th
"Witness and the other man walked on together until they met a policeman at the corner of Old Montagu-street, and told him what they had seen. Up to that time not more than four minutes had elapsed from the time he saw the body"

Still no evidence they were apart.

So we move onto Mizen. True he did say he only had a conversation with Lechmere, however it is possible Paul spoke and Mizen do not engage him, such sits very well with Lechmere's testimony on the 3rd.

Mizen tries to ignore Paul, and it is on Baxter's question that gets a mention of him, why the reluctence to talk about Paul? Could it be that is because it is Paul's article that has directly lead to Mizen's account?

And when asked about Paul, Mizen replies as follows:

Echo 3rd
"By the Coroner - There was another man in company of Cross when the latter spoke to witness. The other man, who went down Hanbury-street, appeared to be working with Cross."

Morning Adverister 4th(with it faults)
"The Coroner - There was another man in company with Cross? The Witness - Yes. I think he was also a carman."

And the Star 3rd
"Cross, when he spoke to witness about the affair, was accompanied by another man. Both went down Hanbury-street"

Nothing from any of the particpents which says the carmen split up, even briefly.

One concludes that the comment is post 948 is speculation and wishful think. It is certain not supported.

In short the account of Mizen, does not challenge the accounts of the carmen. In which case it is not possible that Paul was out of earshot

After all, these are boards were posters can say that there is a 0,0000000000000001 possibility that Lechmere was the killer, and then move on to assure us that Bury was almost certainly the Ripper.
On such boards, you can never get fairness on a general level. All you can do is to point out where people are going too far in their determination to confirm or deny what cannot be confirmed or denied, and as I said, itīs mission accomplished on that point.

Unfortunatly Christer the point has not been made, and the mission to suggest Paul may have been out of earshot is NOT accomplished or anything like.

I will comment on a few posts.
In post 907, Gareth posts the Morning Advertiser take on what was said between the coroner and Mizen, and we can once again see how Mizen gave a generalistic answer to a generalistic question: Yes, there was a other man there.

The issue here is that the Morning Advertiser is only one of few to report the question, the Echo, which also does, uses different wording. Other papers while not giving the question report the exchange and it seems highly probable that the Morning Advertiser left a specific word out of the question.
It seems therefore that it was a specific question about who was present when Lechmere spoke to Mizen, and that he replied specifical "another man who (also) went down Hanbury Street (with Lechmere).

If it had all boiled down to whether Paul was very close to Lechmere as the latter spoke, if the inquest had wanted to clear Lechmere from any suspicion, the question should have been phrased accordingly. But Lechmere was never suspected and all Baxter wanted to establish was whether there were one or two carmen in the street. He didnīt even ask about how many of them spoke to Mizen, and why would he? Mizen had already answered that.

None of which remote effects the question which was asked or the answer given.
However such questioning would have given a response to the accounts of the Carmen.
What answers we may have had, we cannot know. Thus the accounts of the carmen remain unchallenged yet again.

Post 914 is a good one, by Abby;

"I also think all this back and forth about paul is obsfuscating the main issue:

Mizen, a PC in good standing, with no reason to lie testified under oath that Lech told him that he was wanted in bucks row by another policeman.

Probably a misunderstanding in my view, but he said it, its written in stone and he may have heard correctly-which means Lech said it and lied.

its a red flag. OK potential red flag."

Things like these are very important to keep in mind. Gareth earlier asked "Why on earth would Paul not be within earshot as Lechmere spoke, when they examined the body together, and walked away together?"

If there was nothing more to it, then yes, it would be a useful question. But once we have these matters, like how it seems Mizen was lied to, then it suddenly becomes of the utmost importance to check every little bit of information there is about the carmans doings on the murder night and in combination with the deed.

Once a single little thing (and this is NOT a single little thing, of course) seems odd, then we must scrutinize all the information to see if a path can be discerned that may lead to our capture of the killer.

The sad thing that follows is when it is said that I only point to matters like the one with Paul perhaps being out of earshot in Bakers Row, because I am obsessed with Lechmere and willing to go to any lengths to pin the murders on him.

That is doing ripperology a great disservice.

The major issue is the claim Mizen had no reason to lie, I contend he did.
Thus the suggestion that Mizen was lied to is also questioned.

It is clear that following Paul's questioning by the police, there appeared to be no effort to pursue the matter further.
Paul was not asked at the inquest about the exchange and the official Police report makes no refference to Mizen's version of events.

Either the Pollice concluded it was a simple mistake or they did not beleive Mizen. If the lack of an apparent remremand to Mizen, would seem to point at the former, it may not be quite that simple

It applies that for Lechmere to remain a viable candidate, he must have taken the knife with himself from Bucks Row. No weapon was found there. And so, if he was the killer, then he will have had it stashed on his person as the two carmen met Mizen. And in such a case, Lechmere would be faced with a situation where he could absolutely not allow himself to be searched.

Therefore, when Mizen tells us that the carman served him a story where he made it look like he was NOT the finder of the body, where he did NOT own up to how serious the errand was and where he claimed that a PC was in place, we can see that if I am on the money about Lechmere being the killer, then he served a story that is in every detail perfectly consistent with that suggestion.

There would have no requirement under the Police Code for Mizen to have taken any details if either version was told him.
If a woman is lying drunk in a street, not on his beat, and not even in his division, it was not an emergency, there was no need to stop them.
If he had been summoned, again no need to take details the assumption would be the other officer had taken them.
There was no need to invent the "other policeman", there was no reason for Mizen to stop and check the carmen.
It seems the actual requirements of Mizen, do not match the spun story.

It is not me trying to pin the murder on Lechmere. It is the sources confirming that what happened in Bakers Row is entirely consistent with the idea of the carman being the perpetrator, and not only that - it becomes entirely logical to say that if Mizen was correct, then there is ample reason to suspect Lechmere.

Now THAT is COPOUT, it's not me, it the sources!
Unfortunatly the suggestion that the sources from Bakers Row confirm any part of the theory is unfounded and totally with out factual support. Even when they are twisted and manipulated they are still unconvincing.

We can of course say that Nah, Mizen will have lied or he will have been mistaken. But that does not detract in any way from the justification in saying that Lechmere passes the test here as a viable suspect, and that what happened actually encourages us to keep researching him as a suspect in his own right.

DEFINE THE TEST?
He is viable, because he lives in the area, thats it.

Sooner or later we will come to the situation where we say "Okay, there are a number of things that allow for entertaining suspicion about the carman - or even urges us to see him as a suspect - and so we should move on to doing the mandatory geographical test - what can we say about his paths and the possible ties to one or more of the murder sites?"
This is where some of you will say "we really should not check that, because London and itīs East End was so crammed with people that any dovetailing we may find becomes irrelevant."
And that in itīs turn is why I say that we cannot always listen to what posters suggest out here, we need instead to press on and do it the accepted way: check and see if the suspicions are verified in any way by the geography.
And you all know how that check works out.

More of, "the sites were on possible routes to work", yet the facts quoted about some of those routes turn out to be incorrect. Alternatively a murder is relatively close to his mum and another on a possible route he may have used from his mother's to work, a possible route!
But there is no proof he visited his mother, other suspects had far closer connections to Berner Street.
Yes we do know how it works out, maybes and possibles and couldbes.

The last post I would like to comment on is post 920. In it, Joshua Rogan writes "Which makes me wonder why a scamming Lechmere would have openly contradicted a policeman in court, when he could have just put it down to such a mishearing."

I personally think that it would sound more suspicious if Lechmere had suggested a mishearing: "No, the PC must have misunderstood me, I only said that the case required a policeman".
I think that denying it altogether was a better option, since the missing Paul would always stand as a guarantee for the carman being correct - he could possibly be found and questioned, and so Lechmere would reasonably never lie about it. That, I suspect, is how the jury must have reasoned, and it cemented their view of him as a truthful man, whereas Mizen simply HAD to be wrong.
As long as Lechmere was never suspected, he was destined to get away with this kind of a lie, the whole scenario disenabled Mizen to be correct. Regardless of HOW Mizen would have gotten it wrong, it must have appeared to the jury that this was the only option.

One is left to wonder how it is possible to know what the inqust Jury felt about either Mizen or Lechmere, nothing but pure fantasy thinking.
It is clear however that the Police themselves questioned the account of Mizen.

As for Mizen, I think he would be quite likely to press his point about having been told about another PC if Lechmere suggested a wording that Mizen knew was not correct. As long as you are not served that kind of a specific wording, you are left to use your own phantasy about how you caould have gotten it wrong, and such a thing will make it easier to accept. "Maybe I did mishear him?" instead of "No, he certainly did not say that!"

Mizen gives his evidence, he muddys the water, and achieves his goal.


Steve

[Herlock Sholmes]

The position the post claims we have reached, is unfortunatly inaccurate.
The true position is that Mizen places the two carmen together, true he does not say how far apart. He however at no point says that Paul is out of earshot or that the two men part. And while possible, based purely on Mizen's account; such is not the case when we examine the accounts of the others involved.
Paul in his testimony on 17th says that he and Lechmere went together and met mizen. He makes no further comment, he is not asked to.
In the Lloyds account he says he spoke to Mizen, although he gives himself the lead role.
Lechmere in his testimony says that both he and Paul spoke to Mizen.
Is there anything in Mizen's account which challenges this?

Well he does claim that he speaks to only one man, such of course does not preclude the other man from making comments which Mizen does not respond to. And indeed such is very much in keeping with the actual testimony of Lechmere. It is also clear that there is nothing in Mizen's account which actually says the carmen were apart.

However in post 948 the claim is made that the evidence points away from the Carmen meeting Mizen togeather.
Really?
Lets have a look

First Lechmere:
Morning Advertiser 4th. ( the one with the accuracy issues, but you like it so lets use it)
"Witness-We left together, and went up Baker's row, where we met a constable. "

No evidence they were apart.

Daily News 4th
"He and the other man left the deceased, and in Baker's row they saw the last witness whom they told that a woman was lying in Buck's row. "

Still no evidence they split

Time to look at Paul:
Telegraph 18th
"The man walked with him to Montague-street, and there they saw a policeman. Not more than four minutes had elapsed from the time he first saw the woman"

Times 18th
"Witness and the other man walked on together until they met a policeman at the corner of Old Montagu-street, and told him what they had seen. Up to that time not more than four minutes had elapsed from the time he saw the body"

Still no evidence they were apart.

So we move onto Mizen. True he did say he only had a conversation with Lechmere, however it is possible Paul spoke and Mizen do not engage him, such sits very well with Lechmere's testimony on the 3rd.

Mizen tries to ignore Paul, and it is on Baxter's question that gets a mention of him, why the reluctence to talk about Paul? Could it be that is because it is Paul's article that has directly lead to Mizen's account?

And when asked about Paul, Mizen replies as follows:

Echo 3rd
"By the Coroner - There was another man in company of Cross when the latter spoke to witness. The other man, who went down Hanbury-street, appeared to be working with Cross."

Morning Adverister 4th(with it faults)
"The Coroner - There was another man in company with Cross? The Witness - Yes. I think he was also a carman."

And the Star 3rd
"Cross, when he spoke to witness about the affair, was accompanied by another man. Both went down Hanbury-street"

Nothing from any of the particpents which says the carmen split up, even briefly.

One concludes that the comment is post 948 is speculation and wishful think. It is certain not supported.

In short the account of Mizen, does not challenge the accounts of the carmen. In which case it is not possible that Paul was out of earshot



Unfortunatly Christer the point has not been made, and the mission to suggest Paul may have been out of earshot is NOT accomplished or anything like.



The issue here is that the Morning Advertiser is only one of few to report the question, the Echo, which also does, uses different wording. Other papers while not giving the question report the exchange and it seems highly probable that the Morning Advertiser left a specific word out of the question.
It seems therefore that it was a specific question about who was present when Lechmere spoke to Mizen, and that he replied specifical "another man who (also) went down Hanbury Street (with Lechmere).



None of which remote effects the question which was asked or the answer given.
However such questioning would have given a response to the accounts of the Carmen.
What answers we may have had, we cannot know. Thus the accounts of the carmen remain unchallenged yet again.


The major issue is the claim Mizen had no reason to lie, I contend he did.
Thus the suggestion that Mizen was lied to is also questioned.

It is clear that following Paul's questioning by the police, there appeared to be no effort to pursue the matter further.
Paul was not asked at the inquest about the exchange and the official Police report makes no refference to Mizen's version of events.

Either the Pollice concluded it was a simple mistake or they did not beleive Mizen. If the lack of an apparent remremand to Mizen, would seem to point at the former, it may not be quite that simple



There would have no requirement under the Police Code for Mizen to have taken any details if either version was told him.
If a woman is lying drunk in a street, not on his beat, and not even in his division, it was not an emergency, there was no need to stop them.
If he had been summoned, again no need to take details the assumption would be the other officer had taken them.
There was no need to invent the "other policeman", there was no reason for Mizen to stop and check the carmen.
It seems the actual requirements of Mizen, do not match the spun story.



Now THAT is COPOUT, it's not me, it the sources!
Unfortunatly the suggestion that the sources from Bakers Row confirm any part of the theory is unfounded and totally with out factual support. Even when they are twisted and manipulated they are still unconvincing.




DEFINE THE TEST?
He is viable, because he lives in the area, thats it.



More of, "the sites were on possible routes to work", yet the facts quoted about some of those routes turn out to be incorrect. Alternatively a murder is relatively close to his mum and another on a possible route he may have used from his mother's to work, a possible route!
But there is no proof he visited his mother, other suspects had far closer connections to Berner Street.
Yes we do know how it works out, maybes and possibles and couldbes.



One is left to wonder how it is possible to know what the inqust Jury felt about either Mizen or Lechmere, nothing but pure fantasy thinking.
It is clear however that the Police themselves questioned the account of Mizen.



Mizen gives his evidence, he muddys the water, and achieves his goal.


Steve

Another cracker Steve

[Fisherman]

That's not the point. The Evening News is demonstrably deficient in this specific context, and that's all we need to know.

On the contrary. It was my precise point that all papers have faults.

As for all we need to know, it seems to me we define such things differently.

[Fisherman]

Confined spaces tend to close in sound, Fish.

They do - but evenso they do allow for being out of earshot.

Plus if you think that everybody hears everything in them, then why didnīt Paul hear Lechmere walking in front of him in an even more confined space?

[Fisherman]

... you are wrong, I am rught.

Steve

That could be the funniest post out here ever. For all the wrong reasons!

No, you are not "rught" - it cannot be proven that Paul was or must have been within earshot. Nowhere is that stated and none of the evidence gives us reason to accept it as a fact. Very far from it.

So I am rught and you are wring.

[Fisherman]

THERE`S the post I was looking for! Cazīs explanation to why I am supposedly misogynous:

She quotes me, highlighting two words:

"Maybe you should try another, less sinister hobby. Knitting? Baking? Running, but only very slowly?"

...and she asks "Got it now?"

So, the conclusion is that suggesting knitting and baking as alternative hobbies for a person who cannot stand the idea of having a person suspected for being Jack the Ripper is misogynous.

As somebody who has visited Kaffe Fassets exhibitions of knitwork and spoken to him, expressing my deep admiration for his work, and as somebody who bakes a lot, I find that hilarious.

To me, it seems that you think that these matters are ties only to women? They are not.

I am not and have never been misogynous. I am - as very many Swedish men - a professed feminist, who regards the emancipation as the perhaps most important development in Swedish society over the last century. I stayed at home with my three children when they were small, me and my wife shared the child caretake days down the middle. I have often expressed the view that we need a female Swedish prime minister and it was a sorrow to me when Anna Lindh was murdered in Stockholm.

I have hear many strange accusations about myself, but this arguably takes the bisquit, Caz. But let me rephrase myself: Maybe you should get a more placid and less bloody and gory hobby, like remote control model cars, playing cards or growing bonsai trees.

There , is that better? And never mind apologizing for having called me misogynous. It would be a woman admitting to having been wrong in an exchange with a man, and we canīt have that, can we?

[Fisherman]

Iīm sure the rest of the posts out here are just as brilliant as the ones I have responded to (I really am), but I really cannot be bothered.

For those who can read, I have proven that Paul can have been out of earshot as Lechmere spoke to Mizen. Thatīs what I set out to do, that is what I did, and no funny jokes from Robert can change that.

Goodnight.