Favorite suspect/s?

[Harry D]

If Lechmere had given a bogus name, bogus address, and changed his route to work, we’d probably be looking at suspect #1. Instead he acted in the manner befitting an innocent bystander. He found a body, he notified the first passer-by, he alerted the authorities and attended the inquest.

[Fisherman]

If Lechmere had given a bogus name, bogus address, and changed his route to work, we’d probably be looking at suspect #1. Instead he acted in the manner befitting an innocent bystander. He found a body, he notified the first passer-by, he alerted the authorities and attended the inquest.

Finding a body is not something that befits an innocent bystander.
Notifying the first passer-by is - but it equally applies that if he was the killer, it gave him the initiative.
Alerting the authorities was something suggested by Paul, not him.
Attending the inquest was his only way NOT to become suspect number one.

Two sides, Harry. As always.

[Fisherman]

That might be true of 20th/21st Century killers, but I'd we should be wary of assuming that this profile applied to the poverty-stricken slums of Victorian Britain. These days, or at least during the latter half of the 20th Century, it was almost the norm for 30-somethings to have a steady job and a family to look after. It was a rather different picture for the denizens of 1880s Whitechapel.

There will have been differences, but overall, if todays serial killers rise from the ranks of the common citizens with average conditions, the grey men, I see no genuine reason to think it was different back then. I´d be interested to see any research implicating such a thing.

[Fisherman]

How many killers do we know that have stood their ground, called attention to themselves and bluffed their way out? In contrast, how many killers do we know who killed and got the hell out of the way? I'd suggest that by far the larger group have invoked the latter strategy, thus making it by far the more likely behaviour. One doesn't need special qualifications to realise that, just a modicum of common sense.

When we assess the man who killed Nichols, we should not couple him with killers on the whole, I think. Most people who kill, do so only once, and more often than not it is a deed in a sudden rage. It often involves spouses or drunk people, etcetera.
In those ranks, I think panicking and running is a far more common thing to do. Panick, however, is not something that a psychopath feels.
Therefore, we are indefinitely more likely to find killers who are ready and willing to stand their ground than in the ranks of spouse killers, for example,

That does not mean that serial killers won´t run - but it means that they are overall less likely to do so, which is something I believe weighed in heavily on Griffiths´ bid

You are probably right that most killers run, given the chance. But why would we see that as an absolute obstacle to the suggestion of a killer who is ready to bluff his way out?

I don´t mind, if we in the end stand there with Lechmere as the Ripper, if there are things where he has deviated from the perceived norm. People generally don´t kill en route to work, people generally don´t cut away abdominal walls, people generally flee in the face of danger, people generally don´t cut out uteri from women...

Then again, how many killers have not deviated from what we see as the perceived norm in one or more ways? Acknowledging that is also using a modicum of common sense.

I am not saying that staying put is the expected thing to do, generally speaking - although if I knew the psyche of Lechmere, I may perhaps well have suggested that as the more credible thing.

[Fisherman]

You see, Fish, this is what makes no sense in conjunction with your argument that he killed along those very paths so he'd have a provably innocent reason for being there. How did he think anyone could come to his aid and verify what that perfectly innocent reason was, if he kept his real name from those same people who 'knew his paths' and why he took them?

PC DAFT: We have a Mr Cross, who says that on x day at y time he was on his way to work for you via z street. You can verify this, can you?

BOSS: Cross, did you say? Who is he? The name doesn't ring a bell.

PC DAFT: Er, Mr Charles Allen Cross? A carman who says you can confirm his perfectly innocent reason for being near the scene of the latest murder.

BOSS: Nope, never heard of him.

PC DAFT: Fair enough. Sorry to have troubled you.

Love,

Caz
X

Once you kill, you put yourself at risk, Caz. You seem to think that you can kill with no risk at all?

I don´t think the police ever contacted Pickfords. They certainly don´t seem to have checked Lechmere in the records, and that is indicative of a lacklustre interest in the carman.

Could he have banked on such a thing?

No.

Could he have had a plan B?

Yes.

Would it have worked?

We don´t know.

PS. It´s good to see that you have not protested against my post about serial killers who are family men and have a steady work. It is much overdue to finally put to rest the notion that such men will not be killers! I have pointed to the reality of things a thousand times, it seems, and still the same old, same old keeps popping up.

[Herlock Sholmes]

. And yes, I think Griffiths is much more qualified to judge these matters than the average person

And yet strangely when ex-detective Trevor Marriott disagrees with your Ripper/Torso Killer theory he doesn’t know what he’s talking about

[Herlock Sholmes]

You of course know that Andy Griffiths said that his opinion was that the killer would certaibly not run for it.

You have countered that by saying that you think your take on things is a better one.

You are entitled to that take. However, what I would do personally if I was told by an ex-murder squad leader with lots of psychological insights and studies behind himself, would be to accept that he probably was the better judge.

That´s not to say that I would accept what he said as an absolute truth, but I would certainly accept that he was not talking out of the blue.

You make another choice, and you are free to do so. And I am free to point out the possible fallpit involved in it.

As for the name, you work from an acceptance as a fact that Lechmere gave his address to the inquest. As you know, that is something that is under much contention, and certainly, if he gave a name he otherwise did not use in authority contacts and perhaps not at all, and coupled this with not giving his address, then the red flag that produces is large and deeply coloured.

Once again, you are free to sweep the material that is in conflict with your preferred thinking under the carpet. And once again, I am free to point out that it may be a very unwise choice.

As I told you before, my work means that I look for the options involved - could Lechmere be guilty, or are there major obstacles? When applying that thinking, I certainly accept Griffiths view, not as something that cannot be contested, but as something that very much allows for Lechmere being guilty. The same thing applies for the address - I don´t say that he cannot possibly have given it to the inquest (he can, and all but for one journalist can have decided not to write it down), but I am certainly regarding the option that he never gave the address as a very viable one, and I accordingly see no definitive obstacle for my theory on that account either.

Ironically, having been told by you so many times how closed my mind is, it seems we are now having a situation where you choose to close yours. And guess what? You are free to do so, and I am free to point out the peril of it.

I don’t see how I could have written a fairer post.

Obviously someone that disagrees with you is going to get the usual criticisms. I’m biased but you’re open-minded .

When an expert says something idiotic I choose to ignore it. How the hell can anyone say that a serial killer would be certain to put himself in a position where he would almost certainly get caught. Please wake up It’s a wonder old Lech didn’t sneak up behind PC Watkins, goose him, then run off shouting ‘I’m Jack and you cant catch me!.’

“As I told you before, my work means that I look for the options involved“

And as long as they can be shaped to fit a guilty CL then everything is rosy in the garden!

Is anyone else getting tired of this nonsense?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Finding a body is not something that befits an innocent bystander.

I won’t be alone in not understanding that? Surely you’re not saying that everyone who finds a body is likely to be a killer?

Notifying the first passer-by is - but it equally applies that if he was the killer, it gave him the initiative.

Yup. It gave him the perfect opportunity to get himself hanged.

Alerting the authorities was something suggested by Paul, not him.

And of course CL could never have guessed in his wildest imagination that the passer by might have suggested that! What else was he likely to have done?

Attending the inquest was his only way NOT to become suspect number one.

So he only did the right thing for the wrong reasons?

Two sides, Harry. As alway.

Black is white, Harry. As always.

At its simplest there is far, far more chance of CL being innocent than there is of him being guilty. Without a shadow of a doubt.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Exactly so. And the best way not to get caught for killing is not to kill.

And failing that it is to get away from the crime scene unseen and unidentified Which is exactly what Lech the Ripper didn’t do. Which points to the overwhelming likelihood that he was Lech the witness as the police at the time believed him to be.

[caz]

Abby

In Paul's account, where he takes centre stage and Lechmere becomes the bit player, its role reversal and one of the reasons why we need to be cautious when looking at Paul's account. The conversation is that a woman is lying in Bucks Row, and Mizen does not respond. There is no mention of another police officer, indeed Paul complains mizen continues knocking up, which Mizen himself confirms by saying after the conversation he finished/completed the last knock up he was on.

It is this article on 2nd along with the testimoney of Neil on the 3rd plus 1 other item which i contend are the genesis of Mizen's subsequent account on the 3rd.
The inquest reports as Sam as pointed out several times make it clear Mizen is asked if Lechmere is alone when they talk and he says no, the otherman who went down Hanbury street was also there.

The evidence such as it is, makes it abudently clear that the men are togeather, there is absolutely NO source which even suggests otherwise.

Steve.

Hi Steve,

If PC Mizen read, or was shown, Paul's scathing newspaper account, before learning that the main witness had been a Charles Cross, and Paul the other one [no pun intended], what would he have made of this? Not a lot, perhaps, if both men had spoken to him along similar lines, as would certainly appear to have been the case. Did Mizen only mention at the inquest what Cross had told him because he was the main informant and had found the woman first? Or could it have been because Cross was at the inquest on that day and Paul wasn't? When Mizen read that Paul felt his lack of urgency was shameful, he'd have blown a gasket if one of them had really told him a policeman was already with the woman, and if neither had even suggested she could be dead.

It gets worse if Fisherman's hunch is correct, and Cross was the only one doing the talking, while Paul was some distance away and couldn't hear him lying. Mizen would have initially assumed the spokesman was Paul from his critical newspaper account, wouldn't he? How would Mizen have reacted on finding out that it had been Cross who spoke to him, while Paul had left them to it? Would he not have wondered why Paul had given an account of a conversation he had not been present to hear, and how on earth he could have done so? And how would Paul have known that Mizen had not gone immediately to the woman's aid but finished knocking someone up first, as Mizen himself admitted, if he hadn't stayed around for the whole conversation?

I submit that if Paul's newspaper account is what obliged Mizen to give his own account of being sent to the scene by the two carmen, it would neatly explain why he claimed he was told another officer was already there and was given no reason to believe this could be a murder. Damage limitation, because he had not rushed to the scene and had then failed to report having been sent there by two men who had recently left it? The fact that PC Neil was there when he arrived and didn't question his presence made it easier for Mizen to excuse both potentially career-threatening failures.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

And yet strangely when ex-detective Trevor Marriott disagrees with your Ripper/Torso Killer theory he doesn’t know what he’s talking about

Tell me one person who agrees with Trevor, Herlock. He is in no way as qualified as Griffiths is at any rate.

[Fisherman]

I don’t see how I could have written a fairer post.

Obviously someone that disagrees with you is going to get the usual criticisms. I’m biased but you’re open-minded .

When an expert says something idiotic I choose to ignore it. How the hell can anyone say that a serial killer would be certain to put himself in a position where he would almost certainly get caught. Please wake up It’s a wonder old Lech didn’t sneak up behind PC Watkins, goose him, then run off shouting ‘I’m Jack and you cant catch me!.’

“As I told you before, my work means that I look for the options involved“

And as long as they can be shaped to fit a guilty CL then everything is rosy in the garden!

Is anyone else getting tired of this nonsense?

When an expert offers a view, I work from the idea that it is anything but "idiotic".

[Fisherman]

At its simplest there is far, far more chance of CL being innocent than there is of him being guilty. Without a shadow of a doubt.

To your mind, undoubtedly.

But as I´ve said, Griffits said to me in private that he thought there was a really good chance that we had finally nailed the right man.

If that makes either of you idiotic, I certainly won´t tell you who I think it is. You tend to get grumpy when I do.

[Sam Flynn]

When an expert says something idiotic I choose to ignore it. How the hell can anyone say that a serial killer would be certain to put himself in a position where he would almost certainly get caught?

Quite.

[Fisherman]

And failing that it is to get away from the crime scene unseen and unidentified Which is exactly what Lech the Ripper didn’t do. Which points to the overwhelming likelihood that he was Lech the witness as the police at the time believed him to be.

He also managed to keep it all very silent and low-key, and stayed away from running into the arms of a police, fleeing from then scene (Lechmere, not the police).

Coin. Sides. Two.