Did Astrakhan Man exist?

[Rubyretro]

Madam Retro,
Regarding Resivo and for that matter Dahlmer, when they avoided police attention it was before the major crime had even been detected. Accordingly the police’s antenna was not so finely attuned. With Hutchinson, at least five terrible crimes had been committed and he put himself very close to the most terrible.

Not so, with Restivo. He was infamous in his home town of Potenza for being suspect No. 1 in the disappearance of Elisa Claps. He had been to prison for perjury, and he had been proved to have sent a 'fake' e-mail, in Elisa's name, to her parents. The Police's antennae were very finely atuned..only it is difficult to catch out a clever killer who took great care to cover his back.
This modern trial relies on DNA testing, computer forensics, bugging and video surveillance. In 1888 there were no such tools for the police to use.

Of course Hutchinson conceivably could have been ‘checked out’, passed the checks and still done it

,
Certainly. Infact, if he brought himself to the attention of the Police, then he must have been confident that he could pass 'checks'. The Police probably had information to check, which he volunteered himself.

However I don’t accept at all that if he failed some of the checks (i.e. if important aspects of his story couldn’t be verified) then the police will just have dropped the matter, shrugged their shoulders and said ‘oh well, we can’t prove his innocence so let’s just move on and forget about him’. That isn’t how it works. I think they would have followed him, staked him out and so forth.

[/QUOTE]
I don't see why he should fail 'checks' -it would be impossible to 'fail' a check such as "I walked about all night", just as it would be impossible to verify it. Since (as far as we know), the murders stopped after MJK -maybe Hutch was followed/was afraid of being followed or staked out, and that's why he stopped (if he was the killer)? (-since you're evoking the infamous 'missing records' with 'he must have been checked -how do you know that Police didn't keep an eye on Hutch from then on ?).

In the case of Restivo, he waited 9 years between his two known victims.
He was secretly followed and filmed by Police stalking women 2 years after Barnett's murder (and the same year that another woman might have been murdered in Italy), whilst carrying a 6" knife. If JTR had the same sort of mindset, then he could 'wait', if he thought that there was a danger that he could be trapped. The Police would lose interest if they saw no odd or dangerous behaviour.
The Police thought that the killer of MJK would be likely to end in an asylum, driven to madness by his crime, or commit suicide. We know that most serial killers don't finish like that, though.

[Ben]

Hi Lechmere,

There is not a "colossal difference" between Hutchinson, Violena and Packer. Your argument is that a witness who provided a false or suspicious account that involved them being present near a crime scene would automatically be considered a suspect. Violenia matched these criteria precisely, and yet there is no evidence that he was ever considered a suspect. The same was evidently true of Hutchinson’s account. The comparison is very apt indeed, and demonstrates that bogus witnesses with alleged connections to crime scene did not convert into suspects.

I brought up the Washington Evening Star reference in my article, and it constitutes the only evidence of contemporary suspicion levelled against Hutchinson. It is not impossible that the thought occurred to the police, but if it did, they were unlikely to progress with those suspicions, given their severely limited options in terms of “checking” out. Discreet surveillance would have been their only option, and if he “passed muster” it would not have been for a reason that we would consider remotely satisfactory today. If the police preference was for outwardly and visibly “mad” people, foreigners, and those with connections to the medical and butchering professions, it is unlikely that Hutchinson would receive “major suspect” status. He would remain a “possible” at best.

Either way, the possibility of Hutchinson being suspected does not make him "less likely as a suspect”.

“There ‘would’ have been unexonerated suspects? Are these listed on one of those missing documents you don’t like”

So you honestly think that Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog were the only suspects left who had not been exonerated by the police? This is so obviously wrong. Hundreds of individuals would have come under the police radar at some point with varying levels of suspicion attached to them. Are you suggesting that all of them were proven innocent during the investigation?

All the best,
Ben

[Lechmere]

Ben
There’s a colossal difference between the circumstances surrounding Packer and Violenia and Hutchinson. That is why it wasn’t on the cards that Packer or Violenia would have been suspected – although there was also a colossal difference between the circumstances surrounding these two ‘witnesses’ that to compare them is somewhat futile.
As I pointed out, the possibility that Hutchinson may be a suspicious character occurred to that Washington DC newspaper. So are you suggesting that once his story was rejected by the police for whatever reason, the thought wouldn’t have flickered across the minds of any of the policemen involved in the case?

There ‘would’ have been unexonerated suspects? Are these listed on one of those missing documents you don’t like? Most policemen make it clear in their memoirs they didn’t have a clue who did it and a few throw names up. What is your basis for claiming there were other unexonerated suspects?

Madam Retro,
Regarding Resivo and for that matter Dahlmer, when they avoided police attention it was before the major crime had even been detected. Accordingly the police’s antenna was not so finely attuned. With Hutchinson, at least five terrible crimes had been committed and he put himself very close to the most terrible.

Of course Hutchinson conceivably could have been ‘checked out’, passed the checks and still done it, but it makes him less likely as a suspect in my view. In fact he must have passed muster.
However I don’t accept at all that if he failed some of the checks (i.e. if important aspects of his story couldn’t be verified) then the police will just have dropped the matter, shrugged their shoulders and said ‘oh well, we can’t prove his innocence so let’s just move on and forget about him’. That isn’t how it works. I think they would have followed him, staked him out and so forth.

[Rubyretro]

That’s it - ‘alibi disposal’ – I had forgotten the name for that term.

However Ben, your refusal to believe that Hutchinson could have been ‘checked out’ or would have been ‘checked out’ is one of the key things that to me undermines the proposition that Hutchinson was the Ripper. The ‘checking out’ – which could easily have been done – would either have exonerated him or initiated suspicion (although as we have seen the newspapers were savvy enough to suspect him anyway). If he was not exonerated it would have led to more checks and if unanswered he would surely be a named suspect. As he never got to that stage, he clearly passed his ‘checking out’ which tends to exonerate him. Not absolutely, as of course as mistakes are made.
The refusal of the ‘Hutchinsonites’ to countenance the possibility that he was ‘checked out’ and that he evidently passed his ‘checking out’ – although possibly in a manner which undermined his witness statement – demonstrates the weakness of their case – to me.

Personally, I think that he was 'checked out' and passed the checks. I've always thought that he did go to Romford because he wouldn't risk being caught out on a lie about something harmless. However, the Police were incapable of checking him out properly.

As you may know, I'm following the trial of Danilo Restivo, ongoing in Dorset
at the moment. He is accused of getting into the house of a neighbour and acquaintance, killing her by hitting her over the head, then cutting her throat, then mutilating her by cutting her breasts off and placing them by her head, lowering her jeans and knickers (but not sexually assaulting her) and arranging her arm over her lower body. He is accused of murdering a girl in Italy with multiple stab wounds, caused by two different weapons, and posing her body (albeit hidden). He had a habit of cutting girls hair without permission (a similar motivation to stealing organs ?) and was filmed by Police stalking women in a park, armed with a 6" knife. I think that Restivo is surely a man with a very very similar mind set to JTR, and it is really worth looking at the way he functioned and the Police investigation.

First of all, although he was the prime suspect in the case of the italian girl,
he simply moved to the UK and left his reputation behind him. Police today could find out all about him from the Italian police when investigating him -
however Hutch was an intinerant living in a lodging house, and had he
committed crimes elsewhere then moved and changed his name, then it would have been impossible to check him out further than information that
Hutch chose to give. The body of the italian girl was only found after the murder in Dorset, and it is only by DNA evidence that he can be linked to the
murder (despite all the circumstancial evidence).

In the case of the Barnett murder in Dorset, Restivo planned it in advance, and he planned an alibi. In the case of Restivo, he normally took a computer course at the time of the murder, and his computer was turned on at the start of the course by a teacher. It is only because computer forensic specialists
can prove that he himself only logged on after the murder, and there is a bit of footage from a surveillance camera showing him in the murder street at the right time, that he can be shown not to have been at his course when he said he was.

All these murders took an incredibly short time -both JTR's and Restivos.
I don't know about Barnett, but the murder of the italian girl took about 10 minutes.

If the Police looking for MJK's killer were convinced that the same person was responsible for the other victims in Whitechapel, and if Hutch had taken care to construct alibis to show that he couldn't have murdered the others, then
that would be a good reason not to suspect him of being anything other than a time waster.

Restivo had OCD and washed all the time. He didn't get blood on him in the Restivo murder, apart from on his shoes (although the crime scene was awash with blood) -he immediately went home and washed his shoes.
Today, DNA experts could find the blood -invisible to the naked eye- but they couldn't have in 1888. SO...what if that 'military appearance' mean't polished boots and clean, smart appearance ? Maybe the police -checking out Hutch- found that he was never seen with blood on him, and they couldn't believe that the killer wouldn't be spattered.

It is interesting to note that after the Barnett murder, even though Restivo could have delayed returning home until after the body was discovered, chose to arrive (he lived opposite) at the very time that he knew that the victim's children would get home from school and discover the body. This mean't that when the children came running out of their house, terrified, he and his partner could go over and he became the first adult at the crime scene. This guaranteed that he would be interviewed by the Police as a
major witness.

The Barnett murder was in 2002, but it took until 2010 to arrest him (even though Police were convinced that he was the murderer and had him under surveillance 24hrs a day at one point)-because 'checking out' is very very hard to do.

I say that the Police in 1888 relied heavily on 'gut feeling' -they didn't believe that Hutch matched their killer, and they quietly dropped him.

ps: another interesting detail -the computer forensics expert in the Restivo
case, found that Restivo had saved and deleted two articles on the Barnett murder -one was 'Police looking for witness in the Barnett case' and the other 'Heather's friend's may hold clue to the identity of her killer'. So you see Restivo followed his own case, and was particularly worried about witnesses.
If Hutch were the killer, then I think that he was the same.

He also had saved the photo and info on an italian woman, missing in Italy in 2004.

[richardnunweek]

Good morning all,
Before Bob penned his excellent book , Hutchinson was never considered anything more then a witness, albeit a observant one.
And as far as I am concerned he was simply that, and until we have it on police record that he was ''kicked to the kerb'', all the quotes from the press as being ''Discredited'' are hearsay.
I still maintain that the mention of a payment in the ''Wheeling article'' is a almighty plus to Reg's father Topping being the witness, the amount matches.
Reg has quoted[ or words spoken on his behalf] ''It was his biggest regret[ Topping] that despite his efforts, nothing came of it''.
That really sums it up, we are really making such a big deal over this, he made a statement, he went on a couple of walkabouts, to no avail, and the investigation moved on.
What we should be asking is , did he see ''Jack'' or not?, and not paint this dark picture.
Regards Richard.

[babybird67]

WHO, discredited him?

Jon S.

He discredited himself by telling lies.

It was reported that the authorities asked why he delayed in avoiding the inquest. The sources are out there. If you choose to ignore them/disbelieve them that's your choice.

Oh and would you mind not being so patronising to me in future.

I have three degrees, two of them first class. I don't need you asking me if i can tell the difference between things, thanks.

[Ben]

Hi Lechmere,

There would have been a great many individuals who were suspected at some stage during the course of the investigation, but who were not exonerated. If you think that the Macnaghten three were the only un-exonerated suspects, I'm afraid you're mistaken.

his story clearly added up in a way that didn’t suggest he was a potential suspect

No.

His story clearly didn't add up, and this led the police to conclude that Hutchinson was probably a bogus witness, similar to Packer and Violenia. The whole idea of "exoneration" had nothing to do with the contemporary view of Hutchinson, because they could not possibly have "exonerated" someone they never suspected.

Hutchinson was discredited as a witness, not exonerated as a suspect.

There is a colossal difference between the two.

[Wickerman]

He was discredited.

WHO, discredited him?

Jon S.

[babybird67]

This is the kind of nonsense that proliferates these boards, show precisely where the police made such a claim, or admit you are promoting speculation as fact (do you even know the difference?).

Jon S.

He was discredited. People telling the truth don't get discredited. Ben has quoted the Police sources already regarding the witnesses which were known to the Police to be reliable and chosen for identification purposes. Garry has also referred to them.

[Wickerman]

....They knew he was lying about seeing Astrakhan man.

This is the kind of nonsense that proliferates these boards, show precisely where the police made such a claim, or admit you are promoting speculation as fact (do you even know the difference?).

Jon S.

[Lechmere]

Yes Ben – I don’t think the Police had many named suspects. They were baffled. The extant records indicate a distinct lack of named suspects. Which is why I don’t think Hutchinson became a suspect. To my mind, as he put himself in the maw of the police and they would have (in my opinion) checked out his story, his story clearly added up in a way that didn’t suggest he was a potential suspect. While this cannot completely exonerate him, it gives Hutchinson a higher level of ‘exoneration’ than most bods lurking around the East End.

[Ben]

“Maybe he was ‘checked out’ as a witness and so discredited but in a way that did not raise the prospect of him being a suspect. That seems the most likely outcome, because there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that he graduated to become a suspect.”

I agree 100%, Lechmere.

So the case for his possible culpability in the crimes is not undermined at all

“However Ben, your refusal to believe that Hutchinson could have been ‘checked out’ or would have been ‘checked out’ is one of the key things that to me undermines the proposition that Hutchinson was the Ripper.”

I never said he “wouldn’t” have been checked out. I just reminded you that the police were very limited in terms of what they could realistically “check”, and that whatever checking occurred in Hutchinson’s case, it was not in the capacity of a suspect. You’re simply jumping the gun when talk about the implications of Hutchinson being “exonerated”. In order to be exonerated, he first needed to be investigated as a suspect, but there’s no evidence that this ever occurred. As we’ve already gone round in circles discussing, it is very unlikely that the police ever even considered him a suspect.

“But my point is that if he was an unrequited suspect – where they couldn’t exonerate him but couldn’t prove it either, then he surely would be on the list with Ostrog”

Not this again. Lechmere, please reassure me that you don’t seriously think that Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog were the only suspects who were not exonerated by the police? This is not the case by a long shot. If Hutchinson was suspected (and those suspicions never confirmed), it was not remotely a guarantee that he’d end up on Macnaghten’s list.

All the best,
Ben

[babybird67]

But my point is that if he was an unrequited suspect – where they couldn’t exonerate him but couldn’t prove it either, then he surely would be on the list with Ostrog– or at least mentioned by one policeman in future years. They were not embarrassed by a surfeit of non-exonerated suspects were they? Whereas all we get is Hutchinson remembered by Dew as being someone who may have got muddled up over his dates.

We seem to be agreeing! I believe he was checked out as a witness but never graduated to being a suspect, partly because the Police did not have the experience we have now to compare the known behaviour of serial killers. They knew he was lying about seeing Astrakhan man. They couldn't know why...timewaster, publicity seeker etc is most likely what they put it down to.

Again with Dahmer – he was not linked with a murder at that stage was he – that is why it didn’t occur to those officers. It is not a comparable example.

The comparison doesn't need to be about murder. It's about situations where we would expect the Police to do thorough checks which aren't done. And this is when they had the capability to run a simple background check that would have taken how long?

[Lechmere]

But my point is that if he was an unrequited suspect – where they couldn’t exonerate him but couldn’t prove it either, then he surely would be on the list with Ostrog– or at least mentioned by one policeman in future years. They were not embarrassed by a surfeit of non-exonerated suspects were they? Whereas all we get is Hutchinson remembered by Dew as being someone who may have got muddled up over his dates.

Again with Dahmer – he was not linked with a murder at that stage was he – that is why it didn’t occur to those officers. It is not a comparable example.

[babybird67]

I merely state that in my opinion Hutchinson would have been ‘checked out’ and checked out fairly rigorously. It would not be an infallible ‘check out’ but it would have exposed certain obvious lies, if they were lies – such as the Romford story, where he worked when he did get work, where he lived and so on.

Quite possibly which is why I think he was discredited the more times he told his story and described Astrakhan man adding more and more detail that he cannot possibly have seen.

He would have been ‘checked out’ as a witness, and if that checking out was unsatisfactory then as a potential suspect.

I don't think the one follows the other.

Maybe he was ‘checked out’ as a witness and so discredited but in a way that did not raise the prospect of him being a suspect. That seems the most likely outcome, because there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that he graduated to become a suspect.

Yes exactly. This is what I think happened.

Hutchinson was a major witness - not a casual lead as Sutcliffe was nor an apparent by-stander where no apparent crime had been committed as in the case of Dahmer.

Dahmer was not a bystander! He managed to persuade the Police that a 14 year old boy half naked running the streets obviously drugged and in an utter state was his 19 year old lover. They all went back to Dahmer's apartment where the stench of Dahmer's last victim's rotting body permeated the environment, yet they found none of this suspicious enough to warrant a background check which could have save this child's life, and those lives of Dahmer's subsequent victims. It is so easy to assume a or b 'must' have happened or 'must' have been checked out because, with hindsight, we would expect it to have been.

Do you suppose that no one at the time considered Hutchinson a potential suspect? Perhaps if it occurred to a newspaper in Washington DC it might just have occurred to the police in the East End? I will make that presumption anyway...

I think they harboured suspicions about his motives, but were not in a position to do the sort of checks that could prove or disprove them and therefore dismissed him as a time waster.

Failing to pass the ‘check out’ would have led to his status changing from witness to suspect, just as the Washington Evening Star suggested.

Not necessarily. And again, even if he was, there is a big gap to bridge between harbouring suspicions and being able to garner any evidence to support them.