Favorite suspect/s?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Actually, i don't think i am. And please let me explain my reasoning.
I would hope that even if you don't agree, you can at least see where i am coming from.

Too often in this field of study we see the term "possible" used to encompass just about anything, hence some of the utterly rediculious "suspects" and "Theories" on the grounds that we cannot conclusively prove something is not so.

Such i hope you will agree leads to the astonising number of suspects proposed, most of whom are complete non starters.

Take H H Holmes for instance, there is evidence which suggests he is in the USA in late 1888, yet the supporters claim its possible he travelled. But they provide no evidence to counter the evidence which rules it out.

Now Paul and being in earshot is not in the same league as that, but the same principles apply surely?



I honestly feel that we must go past this point of claiming anything is possible, and only apply such views when there is no evidence, which is not challenged by other evidence.

Its really tbat simply to me.


Steve

Good post Steve

Its ok to make the point that something is possible, or not impossible, but can carry little evidential weight. Where we have no definites we have to look to using words like ‘likely’ or ‘unlikely’ or ‘extremely unlikely’ or ‘extremely likely’ to attempts to weigh up situations and interpretations. Of course what is ‘likely’ to one might appear ‘unlikely’ to another.

[Fisherman]

Actually, i don't think i am. And please let me explain my reasoning.
I would hope that even if you don't agree, you can at least see where i am coming from.

Too often in this field of study we see the term "possible" used to encompass just about anything, hence some of the utterly rediculious "suspects" and "Theories" on the grounds that we cannot conclusively prove something is not so.

Such i hope you will agree leads to the astonising number of suspects proposed, most of whom are complete non starters.

Take H H Holmes for instance, there is evidence which suggests he is in the USA in late 1888, yet the supporters claim its possible he travelled. But they provide no evidence to counter the evidence which rules it out.

Now Paul and being in earshot is not in the same league as that, but the same principles apply surely?



I honestly feel that we must go past this point of claiming anything is possible, and only apply such views when there is no evidence, which is not challenged by other evidence.

Its really tbat simply to me.


Steve

Yes, the same principles apply in both cases.

No, there is no evidence that clearly establishes that Paul was out of earshot.

No, there is no evidence that establishes that Paul was within earshot.

There is evidence that can be used to support both notions, but in neither case is it conclusive.

Least of all given that the evidence we speak of is to a very large degree built on how the press invented phrasings based on a question we do not know how it was phrased or, indeed, exactly why it was asked in the first place.

There are therefore a good deal of uncertain elements involved here.

If it is proven that H H Holmes never left USA in late 1888, then that is another matter - if the proof is solid. Then we do not have to entertain any idea at all about him having been in the London at the time. If there are cracks of any kind in the proof, however, that opens the door for a possibility that he could have been. It is like cracking an alibi.

And that applies even if there is no evidence at all that he DID go to London - if it cannot be proven that he did not and if the proof putting him in USA at the time has cracks, the suggestion that he MAY have gone to London must be regarded as a suggestion that cannot be disproven. And what cannot be disproven, can also have happened, genrally speaking.

The same applies to the notion that Paul could not possibly have been out of earshot - it is a suggestion that is cracked by the uncertainty involved in the material. And here, there ARE indications pointing to him having been uninvolved in the discussion between Lechmere and Mizen. Mizens saying that "a man" spoke to him is one such indication, as is his identification of Lechmere as the man who had spoken to him and his forgetting to even mention Paul before asked by the coroner. No proof, but useful indicators nevertheless.

The old saying that absense of evidence does not secure an evidence of absense leaps to mind - although in our case it is an evidence of presence that cannot be guaranteed.

[Elamarna]

Generally speaking, if a body is long dead, it is harder to determine a TOD than for a body that has been dead for a short time only.

We can make all sorts of objections based on specific conditions, but if we treat the question from a general perspective only, we can´t.


If we use modern methods yes, not on the knowledge avalible in 1888

And the only way there is to bring Kelly and Chapman closer to each other in the perspective of elapsed time since death, is to accept that Kelly died much later than is generally beleived, and that Chapman die much earlier.

Which while unlikely cannot be excluded on purely medical grounds and it is those we are discussing

If Chapman had been dead for around an hour only as she was examined by Phillips, then Kelly will have been dead much longer than so when she was examined, given that she was first seen dead on her bed at 10.45, and then the door was not broken open until around 1.30 if I remember correctly, so that means that if Kelly was killed at, say, 10.30 (which nobody believes anyway, but for the sake of clarity...), three would have passed.

So if we want to have the same time frame for Chapman, we need to put her murder at 3.30.

Here we have what do we mean by much shorter, which was the inital point,
Is one hour outside, likely to have a significant diffence to say even 5 inside.

The real issue however is the suggestion that estimated TOD's in 1888, are in anyway accurate and reliable given the indicators used.

Depending on the COD, Examination a short time after can in some cases today lead to an accurate TOD, but such is not based on RM or Touch as was used in 1888.
Bond it is true attempted to use digestion, but such in the circumstances of Kelly is also open to too many questions to be considered reliable.

I´m fine with that, and I think it is close to the truth.

In her case.

Not in Kellys.

The issue with an early TOD for Chapman is Richardson, forget Cadosh and certainly Long, his evidence needs to be shown to be faulty to allow for an early TOD.

You continually place too much faith in late 18th century medicine in my humble opinion.


Steve

[Fisherman]

Good post Steve

Its ok to make the point that something is possible, or not impossible, but can carry little evidential weight. Where we have no definites we have to look to using words like ‘likely’ or ‘unlikely’ or ‘extremely unlikely’ or ‘extremely likely’ to attempts to weigh up situations and interpretations. Of course what is ‘likely’ to one might appear ‘unlikely’ to another.

Indeed! What seems very clear to a murder squad leader may seem idiotically at fault with a poster out here, for example. So discussing these matters in terms of likelihoods is something that I am certain would be a complete and utter waste of time.

[Elamarna]

It´s either that or she started bleeding inbetween the time when Lechmere found her and when Neil arrived. Effectively meaning that she either did not initially bleed from the wounds in abdomen and neck for some reason, or somebody else arrived at the scene between Lechmere and Neil and cut her.

Its actually not that clear Fish, while highly likely she was bleeding when Lechmere and Paul were there such is not conclusive.
I know you put much store in ththe "Blood evidence" but that as applied is faulty i contend


Steve

[MrBarnett]

Gary

Good question.

Of course we do not know what details he gave to the Police, a record of such would have been so helpful. We are left to assume he gave the same info to the police as at the inquest, lacking any evidence to the contrary.

Of course it may be possible that he was know to some Police as the step son of the late PC Cross and that he used the name for that reason.

The incident which you mention in the next post, is tantilisingly is it not Gary?
If it was him, it suggests that he used the name at Pickfords, indeed to provd it was him would require an address which could be link to Lechmere. All records of which no longer exist. Of course purely hypothetically if such records showed him listed as Cross, it would suggest that nothing significant can be drawn from it use, as he gave it for the earlier incident. If however he was listed as Lechmere, there are questions to answer.
Of course if he was listed as Lechmere, it would be impossible to link him to the man in the accident unless a report existed giving the carman's addresss.

To answer your question It may have been, but i think it unlikely. Morelikely there was a reason, which need not be suspicious.


Steve

Hi Steve,

Tantalising indeed! And bloody annoying that an address wasn't given for the carman as it was for the other witnesses. In the past it has been suggested that Lechmere may have asked for his address not to be disclosed during Polly's inquest. I could never get my head around the plausibility of that, but in the 1876 case, bearing in mind that we are talking about the killing of a child whose father believed the driver was at fault, it makes more sense.

And going off at a real tangent, does anyone here know how Thomas Cross died (aged around 30, I believe)? If he was still a serving police officer, did Ma Lechmere receive a widow's pension, I wonder?

Gary

[Fisherman]

Richardson was all over the place in his testimony visavi in his early interviews. He never placed himself on the stairs in the first place, it as not until late in the process he ended up there.
And as if that was not enough, there is also a possibility that he may actually have missed the body if it WAS there and if he actually DID sit where he said he sat.
If he turned his body to the right and if the door never went up fully, he could have missed the body in the gloom - or so it was reasoned back in 1888, at least.

What fascinates me is how three seemingly unreliable witnesses can create what people regard as an impenetrable wall.

Swanson was very reluctant to allow for Long to have been correct - and he too was aware of Richardson.

In my opinion, you are putting far too little trust in Phillips, who I find was completely unlikely to say two hours, probably more, if it was less than one! The body should have been quite warm at that stage. Plus rigor mortis was in line with Phillips´ observations.
All that must be thrown overboard before we can start to believe in Long et al. I won´t do it. It´s that simple.

[Fisherman]

Gary

Good question.

Of course we do not know what details he gave to the Police, a record of such would have been so helpful. We are left to assume he gave the same info to the police as at the inquest, lacking any evidence to the contrary.

Of course it may be possible that he was know to some Police as the step son of the late PC Cross and that he used the name for that reason.

The incident which you mention in the next post, is tantilisingly is it not Gary?
If it was him, it suggests that he used the name at Pickfords, indeed to provd it was him would require an address which could be link to Lechmere. All records of which no longer exist. Of course purely hypothetically if such records showed him listed as Cross, it would suggest that nothing significant can be drawn from it use, as he gave it for the earlier incident. If however he was listed as Lechmere, there are questions to answer.
Of course if he was listed as Lechmere, it would be impossible to link him to the man in the accident unless a report existed giving the carman's addresss.

To answer your question It may have been, but i think it unlikely. Morelikely there was a reason, which need not be suspicious.


Steve

Let me just point out that you spend an awful lot of time telling me that where there is no evidence, we cannot deduct something or favour a view that lacks such an evidential base.

And here you are, suggesting that it is MORE likely than not that "there was a reason that need not be suspicious".

And there is no evidence at all to support the idea.

Isn´t that kind of ... flexible, Steve?

[Elamarna]

Yes, the same principles apply in both cases.

No, there is no evidence that clearly establishes that Paul was out of earshot.

No, there is no evidence that establishes that Paul was within earshot.


We disagree on the last. Both Carmen say Paul speaks, thus he is within earshot

There is evidence that can be used to support both notions, but in neither case is it conclusive.

There is no evidence to support he was not, that has been the whole debate.

Least of all given that the evidence we speak of is to a very large degree built on how the press invented phrasings based on a question we do not know how it was phrased or, indeed, exactly why it was asked in the first place.

There are therefore a good deal of uncertain elements involved here.

We have to work with what we have, we cannot excude just because we dislike.
We can exclude if the weight of sources, suggest a particular report is faulty.

If it is proven that H H Holmes never left USA in late 1888, then that is another matter - if the proof is solid. Then we do not have to entertain any idea at all about him having been in the London at the time. If there are cracks of any kind in the proof, however, that opens the door for a possibility that he could have been. It is like cracking an alibi.

And that applies even if there is no evidence at all that he DID go to London - if it cannot be proven that he did not and if the proof putting him in USA at the time has cracks, the suggestion that he MAY have gone to London must be regarded as a suggestion that cannot be disproven. And what cannot be disproven, can also have happened, genrally speaking.

So you do not see the onus of proof to be on the proposer of a theory, but the onus to be on any who disagree. Is that so, or am i misunderstanding you?


The same applies to the notion that Paul could not possibly have been out of earshot - it is a suggestion that is cracked by the uncertainty involved in the material. And here, there ARE indications pointing to him having been uninvolved in the discussion between Lechmere and Mizen. Mizens saying that "a man" spoke to him is one such indication, as is his identification of Lechmere as the man who had spoken to him and his forgetting to even mention Paul before asked by the coroner. No proof, but useful indicators nevertheless.

The old saying that absense of evidence does not secure an evidence of absense leaps to mind - although in our case it is an evidence of presence that cannot be guaranteed.

He does not Forget Paul, such is highly unlikely given Paul's Lloyds article, he ignores Paul

I find you approach to evidence to be far from conducive to research which reaches any meaningful conclusions, its all "ifs", "coulds" and "maybes"


Steve

[Herlock Sholmes]

And on that point, you were gainsaid by An ex-murder squad leader, who phrased it "certainly, he couldn´t have run away, having realized that there was somebody else in the street".

That there was someone else in the street a distance away and out of sight. Even if Paul had heard CL walking or even running away he couldn’t have connected this action to anything criminal until he’d arrived at the scene, found the body and decided that Nichols was dead. By which time CL would have been gone.

Regardless if he was correct or if you are, calling his deduction idiotic, it applies that there can be no doubt that this can be looked upon in a very different manner from the one you suggest.

As can any aspect of the case.

There is also another aspect to consider in this matter: If Lechmere, predisposing that he was the killer, had subdued Nichols and cut her very severely in the abdomen and in the neck, then if he decided - as I suggest - to bluff it out, then he would need to cover up the wounds so that Paul could not see what had happened. He would also need not to move the body, since that would give away that had happened.

Without taking these precautions, he could not pull the bluff of.

What bluff is this? He called Paul over to inspect the body. He might reasonably assume that Paul might check her pulse and discover that she was dead. What if Paul had tried to check the pulse in her neck.....leading to him finding that her throat had been cut? Can we seriously believe that CL deliberately called someone over to view a corpse whilst at the same time pretending that it wasn’t a corpse?!

Don´t you think it is very odd that this is perfectly in line with the evidence? The wounds WERE covered up by the clothing and when Paul suggested that they should prop the body up, Lechmere simply refused.

Did he cover the throat wounds?

I know EXTREMELY well tat you can offer innocent alternative explanations. As always.

When someone is overwhelmingly likely to be innocent....yes we can.

But the fact must go before the fiction here, and the facts tell us that the precautions Lechmere would have needed to take were in place - covered up wounds and a refusal to move the body.

If is is coincidences, it is coincidences that are in line with what I suggest.

Nope. Because you’ve invented a requirement to pretend that the corpse wasn’t a corpse you can make things ‘fit.’

On the whole, far from thinking that I need to agree with you on this point - and what you asked was whether there was one single point that gave me reason to doubt that Lechmere was the killer - I find there is every reason not to do so.

You have as much right to be wrong as anyone Fish.

It does not mean that I rule out that Lechmere´s pshychological disposition was one that would have urged him to leg it, but I do know that psychopathic killers will not panic, like to play games and are very apt liars. And more than ninety per cent of serial killers are psychopaths, so it pans out in this discipline too.

Play games...yes. Insinuate themselves into investigations....yes. Enjoy the thrill....yes. Put themselves in a position where they would certainly have to face the police in possession of the murder weapon and possibly with the victims blood on them....no.

I thnk we are all at risk to reason that the killer would have done this or that, and then we lean against how we think we would have done ourselves. But as long as we are not psychopathic serial killers ourselves, we really do not reason in the way they do.

Even psychopaths have intelligence. If they wish to continue having their ‘fun’ then they need to remain at large.

So if this is your strongest point against Lechmere being the killer, I must say that I consider it a very weak point instead, and no reason whatsoever for me to reconsider.

And yet you can go to any lengths to create mysterious scenarios and scams to counteract something that CL would have been unlikely in the extreme to do in the first place. Something that anyone at the time with even the barest modicum of intelligence would have seen would have placed him in a position that he probably wouldn’t have been able to get out of alive.

Consider - yes, already done. Reconsider - no.

I never expected you to reconsider. You’ve come too far for that!

It is unlikely in the extreme that a guilty CL would have acted so suicidally stupidly!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Steve,

Tantalising indeed! And bloody annoying that an address wasn't given for the carman as it was for the other witnesses. In the past it has been suggested that Lechmere may have asked for his address not to be disclosed during Polly's inquest. I could never get my head around the plausibility of that, but in the 1876 case, bearing in mind that we are talking about the killing of a child whose father believed the driver was at fault, it makes more sense.

And going off at a real tangent, does anyone here know how Thomas Cross died (aged around 30, I believe)? If he was still a serving police officer, did Ma Lechmere receive a widow's pension, I wonder?

Gary

Please don’t find out that Cross was killed on duty by a prostitute

[Fisherman]

Hi Steve,

Tantalising indeed! And bloody annoying that an address wasn't given for the carman as it was for the other witnesses. In the past it has been suggested that Lechmere may have asked for his address not to be disclosed during Polly's inquest. I could never get my head around the plausibility of that, but in the 1876 case, bearing in mind that we are talking about the killing of a child whose father believed the driver was at fault, it makes more sense.

And going off at a real tangent, does anyone here know how Thomas Cross died (aged around 30, I believe)? If he was still a serving police officer, did Ma Lechmere receive a widow's pension, I wonder?

Gary

Cross was in his late thirties when he died in December of 1869, 39 I believe, but I am not certain. He died from dropsy.

[Fisherman]

It is unlikely in the extreme that a guilty CL would have acted so suicidally stupidly!

Says you. I know. And I disagree. I would have considered it reckless and stupid to run.

It is called a disagreement.

[Fisherman]

He does not Forget Paul, such is highly unlikely given Paul's Lloyds article, he ignores Paul

I find you approach to evidence to be far from conducive to research which reaches any meaningful conclusions, its all "ifs", "coulds" and "maybes"


Steve

Thank you, Steve. Since you already know what I think about your take on evidence matters, I will save space and not reiterate it.

[MrBarnett]

Please don’t find out that Cross was killed on duty by a prostitute

I think I may have found a report of his being duffed up by one.