Did Astrakhan Man exist?

[Wickerman]

I’m amazed that people are still getting the wrong idea about Mrs. Kennedy, Sarah Roney. These were not aliases of Sarah Lewis. These were other women who had heard Lewis’ account and sought publicity by passing it off as their own experience. A reporter from the Star observed that: [B]“half a dozen women were retailing it as their own personal experience”.

Hi Ben.
I understood that reporter to mean other women were claiming to have heard the scream of "oh, murder", thats all.

Quote:
One woman (as reported below) who lives in the court stated that at about two o'clock she heard a cry of "Murder." This story soon became popular, until at last half a dozen women were retailing it as their own personal experience. Each story contradicted the others with respect to the time at which the cry was heard. A Star reporter who inquired into the matter extracted from one of the women the confession that the story was, as far as she was concerned, a fabrication; and he came to the conclusion that it was to be disregarded.
The Star, 10 Nov. 1888.

It seems like the topic was the scream to me, nothing else.
(..."oh yes officer, I heard a scream too", etc..)

Regards, Jon S.

[Ben]

Hi Jon,

No, it was in reference to Lewis' full story, not just the "murder" cry. Philip Sugden also touches upon this detail on pages 4 and 5 of The Complete History of Jack the Ripper and observes that "Mrs. Kennedy" was one of the women who parroted Lewis' account.

Best regards,
Ben

[Rubyretro]

Wickerman -
Whilst I too have read descriptions of Dorset Street with knots of people standing about gossiping, and people dossing on the pavement, they clearly didn't do this in pouring rain. I'm sure that there were a few people out, but far fewer than usual. It is perfectly possible that at the precise moment Mrs Lewis walked into the road, the loiterer was the only person there.

Likewise, Mary Kelly may well have trawled the streets all night for clients on
a dry night. However, I doubt that she went out after the pubs were closed
when it was raining hard -there wouldn't be many men to solicit.
Furthermore, she obviously earned money to drink -she didn't put it aside for her rent. She was already very drunk that night, and had carried on drinking with Blotchy, and the pubs were closed -I think that it makes more sense that she passed out in bed. Richard says that she was planning to go to the Lord Mayor's Show the next day, so she was not planning to stay in bed in the morning. She would have had at least Blotchy's money to eat with, and I think that she would have found lots of clients at the Show.

[Fisherman]

Wickerman (to Ruby):

"We have had a variety of sources describing the constant activity in Dorset St. & Flower & Dean St. These streets had much the same reputation and similar round the clock activity."

Maybe this was the normal state of affairs, Jon, I can´t tell. But we have Hutchinson on record! And he says: "I am able to fix the time, as it was between ten and five minutes to two o'clock as I came by Whitechapel Church. When I left the corner of Miller's court the clock struck three o'clock. One policeman went by the Commercial street end of Dorset street while I was standing there, but not one came down Dorset street. I saw one man go into a lodging house in Dorset street, but no one else."

And that means that he, by his own admission, saw two (2) people in Dorset Street during his whole vigil!

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"I really don’t see why, Fisherman. My observation on the “Who did Sarah See?” thread was simply an acknowledgement that the police asked questions as to the appearance of both the Bethnal Green man and the loiterer. My most post to this thread barring this one, however, emphasised that no “particular pressure was exerted on Lewis to expand on her sighting of the wideawake man”."

That means that the police took an active interest and asked careful questions about the clothing of a man that Sarah Lewis claimed to have seen on Wednesday only - for that was what she said in her police report, no mentioning of any Friday sighting there! - whereas they were not nearly as interested in finding out what a man, posting outside the court in the middle of the murder night.

Does that not ring ... well, somewhat strange to you? Or incongruent?

On a separate note, what do you make of the fact that the police report only mentions the Wednesday sighting? If Lewis had seen and spoken to this man (as had apparently too Mrs Paumier, Mrs Kennedy and Sarah Roney, whoever THEY were ...), then why is it that she does not tell the police that she had seen him very close to the murder spot on the murder night? Reasonably, if she had, the police would not have left it out of the report, so I suggest that we can quit safely conclude that she didn´t.
So why does this Bogey man suddenly make an encore on Friday?

"The suggestion that Hutchinson wasn’t there at all but merely “borrowed” Lewis’ account has been suggested before. It’s not amongst the very worst suggestions for Hutchinson’s behaviour, but still unlikely to my mind. I doubt very much that Hutchinson noticed that a witness account had described a potential suspect, pretended that he was the individual described and claimed also to have been just a witness himself. The important thing to consider here - and indeed in any aspect of the ripper case - is historical precedent: comparisons with other serial and murder cases. Certainly, I’ve never encountered any comparable example of such behaviour in other criminal investigations. In contrast, there have been cases in which the offenders have recognised themselves in witness accounts, and who subsequently came forward with false excuses for their presence there, whether they were identified by name or not. "

My personal hunch here is that the East end wold have been crammed with people who would have been ready to take a shot at making a guinea or two, even if it involved telling bogus stories to the police. But the more interesting part is how you think here, Ben. You reason that yes, somebody could have picked up on a testimony and tried to make money by casting himself in a role in which he never truly had gone on stage. But, no, this did not happen in Hutchinson´s case, since his coming forward corroborates that he felt a need to do so in ordet to save his back.
Somehow, Hutchinsons coming forward becomes some sort of clincher for you, and I really think it is nothing of the sort. Ironically, you regard him a liar, and that means that you must admit that he could have lied about even having been there. After that, we can add that Lewis testimony is a real tour de force as regards twists and turns - therefore, nobody can argue against a suggestion that she too may have been less than perfectly honest, to put it carefully. And that is what forms the background for the suggestion that we can conclude that Hutchinson´s and Lewis´ respective stories corroborate each other, and that Hutch must have come forward in recognition of this.

"It’s also unlikely that he would expose himself to such risk if he wasn't the man seen by Lewis"

Not at all, actually. He could have exposed himself to the risk of a thorough interrogation, of course, but apart from that, what risks were involved? The police could never have proven him the murderer for the simple risk that he was not. And an honest witness does not reason from the starting point "what if the think I did it?". Maybe some will make the reflection at some stage, but most people with an honest intent simply go to the police because they think that they have information to offer that may help to solve the case. And if you can, for one moment, bring yourself to reason along the line that Hutchinson DID see astrakhan man in Kelly´s company, and DID believe that he had done so on the murder night, then how would he have reasoned?
Exactly - he must have believed that he could have seen the killer! And what do perfectly honest men, who think they may have seen a murder victim with a suspicious man on the night of the murder do? Correct, they go to the police and tell them about it - which is exactly what Hutchinson did. And when they do so, they work from the presumption that the police will be thankful and start working to try and find the suspect. They don´t think that they themselves will be arrested and charged!

So there is nothing at all unlikely in his going to the police in another errand than your bacon-saving proposal! Myriads of witnesses who have seen murder victims have come forward and told the police about it, and that´s something society on the whole benefits very much from since it leads to myriads of captures too!

"You wish to play down the obvious and inescapable reality Hutchinson was Lewis' man because it pinpoints him at that location on the night of Kelly’s murder, and thus militates very against your very recently conceived and highly controversial opinion that Hutchinson confused the day."

Such things are for people playing games and hoping to score points, Ben. The only "wish" I have here is to try and look at all options and decide which one fits the bill best, given the nature of the evidence. At the end of the day, I want the truth, simple as that. And if that truth proves to be that Hutchinson was a masquerading Fleming, killing Kelly and the others, then I would be very happy to find out about it. I am much, much more interested in finding a solution than I am in being the one that provides it. I do, however, invest a good deal in trying to provide useful thoughts and angles as best as I can, and if anybody thinks I do a good job every now and then, it makes me happy. I am no stranger a person than that.

"As it stands, though, I’m not in the least bit surprised that you’re struggling so hard to find any support for your attempt to demolish Lewis whilst depicting Hutchinson as a “pillar of society”.

U-huh. I´m afraid I could not agree here. I think that the fact that Lewis loiterer was born inbetween police report and inquest is a very damning feature for her credibility, just as I think it very, very strange that her bogey man only participated on Wednesday in the same police report, whereas he suddenly went on stage at the murder spot on the murder night at the inquest. I also think her story about this bogey man looks very much like a tall tale when we consider that multiple sources provided the police with the, more or less, exact same story. I also think that the Daily News picture of Lewis is remarkable in this context. And really, I fail to see what MORE you need to start doubting Sarah Lewis veracity, especially given that you are prepared to believe that it defies common sense not to realize that Hutchinson was a liar and a potential killer, something you build on nothing but speculation. But each one to his own, Ben, each one to his own ...

"Clearly nobody has any problem with the minor discrepancies between her police statement and inquest evidence. Clearly nobody has any problem with her impression of the man’s interest in the court. Clearly, nobody considers a black hat a “detailed description”, and so on."

I have, Ben. And not having anybody on record thinking that Lewis is quite a dodgy character, does not equal nobody thinking so. There is always the possibility that people refrain from adding their thoughts along these lines, intimidated by the normal outcome of Hutchinson discussions. So I don´t really give these thoughts of yours any consideration.

"I’m amazed that people are still getting the wrong idea about Mrs. Kennedy, Sarah Roney. These were not aliases of Sarah Lewis. These were other women who had heard Lewis’ account and sought publicity by passing it off as their own experience."

Nobody can tell who "experienced" this story from the outset, Ben. Or cooked it up. It is - and was - always unsubstantiated. The man was not located, as far as we can tell.
But we CAN tell that Sarah Lewis asserted the police that she had seen him on Wednesday. And then she went on to tell the inquest that she had seen him on Friday too, on the murder night, mind you! "I´m telling ya, Mr Bogey man was there, Gov!"
Quite a gem, that Mrs Lewis!

"A reporter from the Star observed that: “half a dozen women were retailing it as their own personal experience”.

Well, Jon dealt with that appropriately, I see. Contrary to your claim, the ONLY detail the Star points out as a confabulated story, is the one about the murder scream. What Sugden makes of it is uninteresting in this context. It is much more interesting to note that you use the Star qoutation to try and dispell something the paper itself never even questioned in it´s article. It is deeply disturbing and not very useful to employ such tactics in a factual discussion. Anybody interested in the full article can see it on http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/star/s881110.html and make up their own minds what was discussed - and what was not.
Let´s just add that Elizabeth Prater firmly stated in the police report that she had heard the cry two or three times - whereas she said at the inquest that is was only ONE time. There was no second cry, she added.
Bogus, anybody? Unreliable witnesses, anybody? The Daily Mail spot on, anybody? Not you, Ben, I was asking the others - I know YOUR take on these utterly reliable women.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben!

The sentence "That means that the police took an active interest and asked careful questions about the clothing of a man that Sarah Lewis claimed to have seen on Wednesday only - for that was what she said in her police report, no mentioning of any Friday sighting there! - whereas they were not nearly as interested in finding out what a man, posting outside the court in the middle of the murder night."

... should of course read:

That means that the police took an active interest and asked careful questions about the clothing of a man that Sarah Lewis claimed to have seen on Wednesday only - for that was what she said in her police report, no mentioning of any Friday sighting there! - whereas they were not nearly as interested in finding out what a man, posting outside the court in the middle of the murder night WAS WEARING.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

I really don’t know what you’re hoping to gain by continuing this “down with Lewis” charade, Fisherman. It’s obvious nobody’s buying it. I would be the first to admit that you “invest a good deal in trying to provide useful thoughts and angles” and this is very much to your credit. This is clearly not one such “angle” however.

“That means that the police took an active interest and asked careful questions about the clothing of a man that Sarah Lewis claimed to have seen on Wednesday only”

No, it just means that the police were taking the standard approach to interviewing an eyewitness, which naturally consisted of questions along the lines of “Who did you see?”, “What did he look like?” etc. If there was any preferential treatment accorded to the Bethnal Green man over wideawake, it may have been because the former was reported to have accosted a woman. That said, there is no evidence that the police were “not nearly so interested” in the loiterer. If, at that stage, Sarah Lewis really couldn’t describe her man at that stage (for the understandable reasons I proposed in a recent post), this was hardly something the police were in a position to exercise any control over.

Another fact that needs to be borne in mind by those anxious to pounce on any discrepancy in the evidence of the female Miller’s Court witnesses (just Fisherman at the moment!) is that their statements were taken on the morning of the murder after they were forced by the police to remain within the confines of the court. If you cannot accept that the harrowing realisation of a murder being committed just feet away from where these women slept (it could easily have been one of them, remember) could easily impair their ability to recall to memory the relevant details so soon after the event, then you’re not being very imaginative. The police clearly made allowances for this understandable outcome, which is why they called these women to the inquest in spite of what you consider, rather unreasonably, to be damning inconsistencies.

It seems more than likely that the Friday sighting (of the supposed Bethnal Green man) wasn’t mentioned at the time of the initial police interview because she was not, at that stage, under any particular impression that the Friday and Wednesday man might have been one and the same. As the days passed, however, she clearly convinced herself that they were, and this would amount to an understandable by-product of dwelt-on fear (both in general terms and of that specific individual) occasioned by the Wednesday encounter and the subsequent brutal murder of Kelly that occurred in the room opposite hers. Not everyone has the luxury of having time to concoct a story and only coming forward and making themselves known to the police with it when they consider in prudent, if not imperative, to do so for their own interests.

“You reason that yes, somebody could have picked up on a testimony and tried to make money by casting himself in a role in which he never truly had gone on stage. But, no, this did not happen in Hutchinson´s case, since his coming forward corroborates that he felt a need to do so in ordet to save his back.”

I thought I explained in sufficient detail why I “reasoned” this way. The reason being that there is at least some historical precedent for the “saving his back” premise, which is most assuredly not the case for the suggestion that he noticed that a witness account had described a potential suspect, pretended that he was the individual described, and claimed also to have been just a witness himself. There’s no evidence that anyone has ever done any such thing in the annals of true crime. This is why I prefer the former explanation for his behaviour, which also makes better sense in terms of his non-alibi, or rather his excuse for NOT Having an alibi, for the 3:30-4.00am period when Prater and Lewis heard the “murder” cry.

“Ironically, you regard him a liar, and that means that you must admit that he could have lied about even having been there.”

There is no “irony” about it at all, and here too I was under the clearly mistaken impression that my thoughts on this subject were well known to you. The “coincidence” (ha!) between Lewis’ account of the wideawake’s man’s location and activity and Hutchinson’s account of his own movements is so striking as to nullify completely any consideration that the man Lewis saw was someone other than Hutchinson. This only establishes his presence there, however, not his professed (and in my view, clearly bogus) reason for being there.

"It’s also unlikely that he would expose himself to such risk if he wasn't the man seen by Lewis"

Not at all, actually. He could have exposed himself to the risk of a thorough interrogation, of course, but apart from that, what risks were involved?”

My comment was in reference to the proposal that Hutchinson lied about being there and “borrowed” Lewis’ testimony to enhance his own. Obviously this wouldn’t apply in the case of “honest confusion” for the reasons you outline. I reject the latter proposal for entirely separate reasons, which, as you know, were discussed at length on other threads. Similarly, and try as I might, I cannot “bring myself to reason along the line” that Hutchinson was honestly non-mistaken either. A more obvious example of glaringly unsubtle invention than the Astrakhan description will be very difficult to find, in my opinion, but this too has been discussed in considerable depth.

“And really, I fail to see what MORE you need to start doubting Sarah Lewis veracity”

Well by all means go on “failing” in this connection, but it clear that the contemporary police did not share your opinion, and nor does any other participant to this thread, which is hardly surprising. But yes, each to his own. Your willingness to explore ideas and avenues is commendable, as I’ve said before, but offsetting this is a tendency on your part to cling to very quickly conceived “new ideas” with a bulldog-like inflexibility that the idea itself doesn’t necessarily warrant.

“Nobody can tell who "experienced" this story from the outset, Ben.”

Yes, we can.

It was Sarah Lewis.

This is precisely what was established, finally, after the police had filtered out the false female witnesses who sought to pass off Lewis account as their own. It is clear that the women concerned were parroting more or less the entire story, not just the “murder” cry, or else why would Sugden suggest that it was Lewis’ account that was being copied and not Prater’s, which also contained a “murder” cry? Obvious answer: because he was well aware that the account attributed to “Mrs. Kennedy” was suspiciously similar to Sarah Lewis’, and that the former must therefore have been one of the women referred to in the Star article who copied Lewis’ account. There is simply no other explanation that makes sense, and to accuse my reasoning (which mirrors Sugden’s exactly) as being “deeply disturbing” is “deeply” irritating. But continue that argument here if you’re intent on it:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=686&page=20

“Bogus, anybody? Unreliable witnesses, anybody? The Daily Mail spot on, anybody? Not you, Ben”

Nope, and not anyone else by the looks of things.

All the best,
Ben

[Wickerman]

...This is precisely what was established, finally, after the police had filtered out the false female witnesses who sought to pass off Lewis account as their own...

Hi Ben.
I acknowledge you suggested any debate on Lewis, Kennedy, Roney should be continued on the link you provided. Agreed, but in the context of discussing whether this Bethnal Green man was the same person as Astrachan, I think it belongs here, consistent with the title of the thread.

Digging back through newspaper reports it appears that Sarah Roney as a supporting source was located via Mrs Paumier the roasted chestnut seller on Widegate St.
Mrs Paumier told the press that she new of three girls who were accosted on the previous Thursday night in Brushfield St. She named one of the girls as Sarah Ronay, 20 yrs old.
Kind of awkward to suggest Ronay is parroting Lewis? - I don't believe it.

So, as Sarah Ronay was a referenced source, so a legitimate source, then we now have two, Ronay & Lewis.

Kennedy's story is so similar to Lewis' that it could easily be argued that Kennedy is the 'other female' who accompanied Lewis on Wednesday night. Therefore Lewis is the 'sister' who accompanied Kennedy.

Their statements, along with Mrs Paumier (Lewis, Kennedy, Ronay & Paumier) may all support the existance of Hutchinson's Mr. Astrachan.

Regards, Jon S.

[FrankO]

"Yes - and that still very much stands. What is your own feeling about this? Would the police be interested in a man that stood less than twenty yards from the place where a Ripper victim was killed, at the approximate time of the murder, or would they not? Of course, no time of death was established as Lewis gave her police testimony, but it would be a sure bet that the police did not exclude the possibility that the Ripper stuck with his habit of employing the small hours for his work.

How interested they would be, could or would depend on a number of things, Fish. We, with all our hindsight but just the words in black and white at our disposal, are very interested, but I’m not sure this would also be true for the people involved back then.

Like you said yourself in an earlier post (on another matter), the police wasn’t very popular back in 1888. Perhaps this was of influence to what she told them on the 9th. Another thing is that the seeing of ‘her man’ may have been overshadowed by her hearing of a scream in the court. After all, another woman also stated hearing screams at about the same hour and was therefore something directly linked to the actual murder. Seeing that Lewis apparently first told the police that she saw a man over against the lodging house in Dorset Street ‘talking to a female’, which was later deleted, perhaps the police put little weight in this sighting. Or, as you suggested yourself that she subconsciously registered the things she later added and that they only surfaced some time after giving her initial statement. Maybe on Friday she was still too shaken-up about the whole thing. Perhaps it was a combination of 2 or more of these possibilities.

It crossed MY mind, Frank. And the possibility of a match is not ruled out because of vagueness. Of course, there is too little in it to reach any certainty, but what there is, is spot on, down to the make and colour of the hat.

I understand, Fish, but your point was that she added the things to make ‘her man’ look like Mr. Blotchy, in order to spice things up and get a spot in the limelight. And that, clearly, didn’t happen. Apparently, it didn’t cross anybody’s mind back in those days that it was Mr. Blotchy she was describing.

Furthermore, I don’t think it’s so spot on. Where Cox said ‘short’, Lewis probably said ‘not very tall’ or ‘not tall’, which is not completely the same, and a wideawake isn’t a round billycock. As to the colour of it, only 2 of 9 sources stated it was a ‘black wideawake’, 1 put it down as just a ‘black hat, another wrote ‘dark wideawake’.

I’m not trying to nitpick here, but when you say ‘spot on’, I would translate that as ‘exactly the same’ and that’s not true. It’s close.

Then again, Frank, in order to reach the position from which you cannot see it as a coincidence, you have to fully accept that Lewis was on the money at the inquest. You have to set aside the original statement in favour for a SECOND statement that totally flies in the face of what Lewis professed to be able to say about the man as she was questioned by the police. You have to choose, in other words. Only the one option supports your thinking - and it is not the original one.

I have two remarks here. Firstly, even though I do find it a bit odd that those 4 elements didn’t end up in Lewis’ police statement, Lewis’ inquest statement doesn’t preclude her police statement. Secondly, regardless of anything Lewis may or may not have invented to spice her inquest account, the inclusion in her inquest statement of 'her' man looking up the court as if waiting for someone to come out is corroborated by Hutchinson’s own account. That, to me, is a key point.

I don’t believe this was due to coincidence, I don’t think Lewis and Hutchinson were in it together, nor do I believe that Hutchinson borrowed that aspect just to seem more credible as an attention-seeker. The very fact that he didn’t mention Lewis even suggests that he didn’t belong to this type of witness.

These are the three groups we may identify who call Hutchinson a liar. Notice that the two latter ones both work from the premise that he MUST have been there, since his story is corroborated by Lewis. We may all see, however, that he "must" nothing of the sort - he may just as well have used a potential knowledge of Lewis´ story to make up a tall tale in order to either gain attention or make money - or both.

Why not mention Lewis then? As you will have guessed, I belong to the third group, although I haven’t actually locked the door to the possibility that he was her killer and thrown away the key.

My own stance is that since Sarah Lewis claimed, unaware of any established time of death on behalf of Kelly, to have made an observation of a man outside Crossingham´s, the best bet is that she DID see a man there. It is a not very controversial suggestion, and as longs as we don´t look at Lewis´inquest testimony, the soundest deduction is that he was a common lodger standing outside his doss house.

As I see no reason to doubt her statement of having seen a man standing over against the lodging house, I don’t see this as a bet at all. This man may have been a lodger, but why stand outside in cold and possibly rainy weather? So, unfortunately, we have nothing to make any deduction as to what or who the man was.

As for Hutchinson, you know that my bid is that he was out on the dates, as witnessed about by the open coat of Astrakhan man, the walk in the streets all night in what would have been pouring rain and hard winds, the omission to mention a woman that we know was there (the police would have had her information in this respect confirmed by the Keylers) and the telling information offered by Walter Dew.

I have one remark here, Fish: with temperatures around or even below 5 degrees Celsius, I’m not so sure if it was (and is) normal to have your coat open, regardless of whether it was dry or not. Plus, of course, there was another good reason to keep it buttoned up: the thick gold chain watch with the red stone hanging from it.

The best, Fish!
Frank

[Wickerman]

....As I see no reason to doubt her statement of having seen a man standing over against the lodging house, I don’t see this as a bet at all. This man may have been a lodger, but why stand outside in cold and possibly rainy weather? So, unfortunately, we have nothing to make any deduction as to what or who the man was.

Back in the early 90's when the JtR A-Z came out I first read that the man Lewis saw "most researchers suggest" was Hutchinson.
Yet I still recall thinking that the way Hutch describes his surveillance he appeared to me to be on the same side of the street as Millers Court, not opposite, but I let that go.
Maybe the loiterer was not Hutch then afterall?

Regards, Jon S.

[FrankO]

Hi Jon,

This is from Hutchinson’s police statement:
“I went to the Court to see if I could see them but could not. I stood there for about three quarters of an hour to see if they came out they did not so I went away.”

And that is almost literally the same as what he told the press:
“I went to look up the court to see if I could see them, but could not. I stood there for three quarters of an hour to see if they came down again, but they did not, and so I went away.”

So he went to the court to look up the court. That much is said. Where exactly he stood and whether he stood at the exact same spot for about 45 minutes isn’t answered by his statements. One might, however, argue that the weather conditions were such that he would have walked about from time to time to warm up a little, maybe that he even stood inside the entrance to the court for some time to shelter against the elements.

I, for one, wouldn’t doubt what ‘most researchers suggest’ on account of the location where Lewis stated to have seen the loiterer.

All the best,
Frank

[Wickerman]

... One might, however, argue that the weather conditions were such that he would have walked about from time to time to warm up a little, maybe that he even stood inside the entrance to the court for some time to shelter against the elements.

Hi Frank.
Well thats what initially struck me, if as some argue the weather was bad, raining, then why would he stand out in the open at Crossinghams when he could stand inside the arch of Miller's Court, and next to the shop too.

But there again, I don't believe it was raining as bad as some suggest. There's a differrence between light showers and heavy rain which appears to have come down after 3:00 am.

Regards, Jon S.

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"I really don’t know what you’re hoping to gain by continuing this “down with Lewis” charade, Fisherman. It’s obvious nobody’s buying it."

There is nothing "for sale" as such, Ben. What is there is an alternative take on Sarah Lewis and her testimony that should have been there a VERY long time ago.
You wrote in an earlier post that you find my doubt "embarrasing", and you are of the meaning that I only make my call in order to be able to attack the Hutchinson believers and strengthen my own suggestion of him being honest.

That is a strange way to see it. What we have is two (2) sets of testimonies on behalf of Sarah Lewis, and anybody knows that in such cases, the first testimony is the one that one must lean against unless something comes to light to show that it is the wrong choice. And in this case, as the arguably baffled police heard Lewis change her initial statement totally, providing her man with a description and casting the Bethnal Green Road bogey man with a role at the murder night, NONE of which had been present in her police report. My guess is that they did not believe she entered that testimony in order to offer corroboration of the story of a man who was still waiting in the wings with HIS loiterer story.

After this, you CHOOSE to believe in version two - incidentally, the one that you more or less build your whole "corroboration" scenario on - and to boot things, YOU call ME embarrasing for doing things the universally accepted way by NOT believing a changed testimony over an unchanged and by doubting the veracity of witnesses that employ such a tactic.

Don´t you realize, Ben, that the only embarrasing path to walk here is yours? The "wait and see if anything better surfaces" path. The "discard original evidence if it does not suit you" path. The "Hutchinson the liar" path.

"it just means that the police were taking the standard approach to interviewing an eyewitness, which naturally consisted of questions along the lines of “Who did you see?”, “What did he look like?” etc"

Agreed - and Lewis answered "I don´t know" on BOTH these questions when it came to the so called loiterer!

"If there was any preferential treatment accorded to the Bethnal Green man over wideawake, it may have been because the former was reported to have accosted a woman."

There probably never was any such thing - the man has every trait of being an invention, a bogey man tale, and the police would have known that.

"That said, there is no evidence that the police were “not nearly so interested” in the loiterer."

And a good thing that is - for when the police starts prioritizing men who have been at a murder spot two days BEFORE the murder over men who have stood practically at the murder spot practically at the perceived time of that murder, something is very, very wrong. No matter how sinister Bethnal Green man may have seemed.

"If, at that stage, Sarah Lewis really couldn’t describe her man at that stage (for the understandable reasons I proposed in a recent post), this was hardly something the police were in a position to exercise any control over."

No. They could only ask her and ask her again to try and remember something, anything, about that man, present the fewest of yards and in close proximity to the spot. And when they did, Sarah Lewis stated that SHE COULD NOT DESCRIBE HIM. Not that she had intermittently forgotten, not that she could offer a little something - she COULD NOT describe him. Any "explanation" to this involves enormous risks of getting things wrong, just as it involves huge risks of the police being lied to. And that effectively ends the story, no matter how much we WANT to believe that Sarah Lewis could suddenly remember hat fashions and a posture that somehow suggested that her man was watching the court and waiting for someone to come out. This was not there at her initial interview, and that effectively discredits any effort on her behalf at the second interview that does not tally with it. I´m sorry, but that´s how these things work.

"Another fact that needs to be borne in mind by those anxious to pounce on any discrepancy in the evidence of the female Miller’s Court witnesses (just Fisherman at the moment!) is that their statements were taken on the morning of the murder after they were forced by the police to remain within the confines of the court. If you cannot accept that the harrowing realisation of a murder being committed just feet away from where these women slept (it could easily have been one of them, remember) could easily impair their ability to recall to memory the relevant details so soon after the event, then you’re not being very imaginative. The police clearly made allowances for this understandable outcome, which is why they called these women to the inquest in spite of what you consider, rather unreasonably, to be damning inconsistencies."

But those damning inconsistencies were not something the police condoned, Ben - they arose AT THE INQUEST, and not before! If the police had known that Sarah Lewis would offer wildly differing versions of what she claimed to have seen and magically give shape to a man she had professed not to being able to describe, I suspect it would have been "thanks, but no thanks" immediately.
And don´t forget that the other women got most things in ths same shape and fashion BOTH at police report AND inquest. All of them - but for the inventive Mrs Lewis. And no matter that a horrific murder had been perpetrated - that was something that happened AFTER Lewis´sighting of the man outside Crossinghams. When she saw him, he was just a man out on an East End street, nothing else. So why would she block HIM out, when she had no problems remembering the "far more sinister" Bethnal Green bloke, and the other bits and pieces she spoke of? I don´t buy it for a second.

"It seems more than likely that the Friday sighting (of the supposed Bethnal Green man) wasn’t mentioned at the time of the initial police interview because she was not, at that stage, under any particular impression that the Friday and Wednesday man might have been one and the same. As the days passed, however, she clearly convinced herself that they were, and this would amount to an understandable by-product of dwelt-on fear (both in general terms and of that specific individual) occasioned by the Wednesday encounter and the subsequent brutal murder of Kelly that occurred in the room opposite hers."

This is loose ground under your feet, Ben, surely you must realize this? You now suggest that Lewis may have "conviced herself" of an identification - something that does not cast your star witness in a very favourable light. We also know that this story was a tale that got wings at some stage. Who put the feathers on the bird originally, though, we do not know.

"The “coincidence” (ha!) between Lewis’ account of the wideawake’s man’s location and activity and Hutchinson’s account of his own movements is so striking as to nullify completely any consideration that the man Lewis saw was someone other than Hutchinson."

No. Simple as that: no. Hutch did not tally with the man Lewis described, FOR SHE DID NOT - COULD NOT!! - DESCRIBE HIM! The only man he tallies with was the one Sarah Lewis thought up in time for the inquest.

"A more obvious example of glaringly unsubtle invention than the Astrakhan description will be very difficult to find, in my opinion"

Yes, so totally, glaringly and utterly preposterous was it - that Frederick Abberline had no problems believing in it. That should have sent you back to the drawing board years ago, Ben. And me too - it took some time for me too, but that is history now.

"Well by all means go on “failing” in this connection, but it clear that the contemporary police did not share your opinion"

It is nothing of the sort. We don´t even know how much the police invested in version one à la Lewis, Ben. For all we know, they may have said "God, that Lewis woman is a cheeky character, ain´t she? But since the Keylers confirm that she was there, we´d better get her in place at the inquest and let her have her say".
Thing is, she did not have her say - she had another one altogether. And how much belief the police invested in THAT say is something you do not have the palest of ideas about. Not have I - but I bet they were none too happy about it, since it was not the goods she had sold to them two days before! So yes, I WILL go on not believing in it, until a reason to do otherwise surfaces. And I don´t see that coming. A THIRD testimony, perhaps...?

"This is precisely what was established, finally, after the police had filtered out the false female witnesses who sought to pass off Lewis account as their own."

Could you elaborate on this, and show me something that corroborates that this "filtering process" was made and resulted in what you suggest? Would it not be wiser to accept that the reason for Lewis attendance to the inquest lay not in her parroting the story, but in her confirmed presence in Dorset Street at 2.30?

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Frank:

"How interested they would be, could or would depend on a number of things, Fish. We, with all our hindsight but just the words in black and white at our disposal, are very interested, but I’m not sure this would also be true for the people involved back then."

Agreed on the whole, Frank. But IF the police took a liking to Sarah Lewis and thought her an honest and reliable witness, then it stands to reason that they would have been very interested in Lewis´man outside Crossinghams. As it stood, though, she had nothing to offer on his identity or appearance or actions, so in that respect, her testimony in the police report was of very little value; the man could have been the Man in the moon for all they knew. Thus far, that is!
But if they had been served the short, stout, wideawake-clad watcher of the court, then it would have been another story altogether. In such a case, they would have had a description that bore an uncanny resemblance to the man Cox had spoken of, and they would have been faced with a scenario where Blotchy enjoys a song or two in Kelly´s company and then leaves, only to take up a vigil outside the court, quite probably waiting for her to go to sleep ...
This sort of scenario is never even hinted at in any shape or form, though, in all probability meaning that there never was any reliance on behalf of the police visavi Lewis, part two.

"Like you said yourself in an earlier post (on another matter), the police wasn’t very popular back in 1888. Perhaps this was of influence to what she told them on the 9th. "

Perhaps so. It can of course not be ruled out that it played a role. Alas, it cannot be proven that it didn´t either ...

"Another thing is that the seeing of ‘her man’ may have been overshadowed by her hearing of a scream in the court. After all, another woman also stated hearing screams at about the same hour and was therefore something directly linked to the actual murder."

Yes, Frank, but we both know that the "murder scream" was quite an amusement park - the other woman (Prater) in fact claimed with some vigour in her police interview that she had heard two or thee screams like that - but at the inquest, she was very adamant that no second scream was there.
Oh, the ladies of the court - how they have us twisting and turning!

"Seeing that Lewis apparently first told the police that she saw a man over against the lodging house in Dorset Street ‘talking to a female’, which was later deleted, perhaps the police put little weight in this sighting."

Not, I would suggest, if they put any serious stock in Lewis. So you may well be right ...

"Or, as you suggested yourself that she subconsciously registered the things she later added and that they only surfaced some time after giving her initial statement."

I also added that these "subconscious" registerings leave us with VERY doubtful descriptions when they surface, Frank! Many, many times they are the results not of any true subconscious registerings, but instead of an underlying wish to please. They constitute VERY questionable material at the best of times! The sighting as such was also not made in any state of great mental affection or fear, reasonably. The one thing that may have had Sarah Lewis upset would have been the argument she had had with her husband, and as such, if it still affected her piece of mind, it may have helped to miss out on registering any details of the "loiterer".

"Furthermore, I don’t think it’s so spot on. Where Cox said ‘short’, Lewis probably said ‘not very tall’ or ‘not tall’, which is not completely the same, and a wideawake isn’t a round billycock. As to the colour of it, only 2 of 9 sources stated it was a ‘black wideawake’, 1 put it down as just a ‘black hat, another wrote ‘dark wideawake’.
I’m not trying to nitpick here, but when you say ‘spot on’, I would translate that as ‘exactly the same’ and that’s not true. It’s close. "

It is indeed close! And it may well BE spot on - for we don´t know in what context Lewis may have picked up on the details, do we? She had had two days open to listen to the rumours that did the rounds, and we know what happened to the "murder cry" rumour and the "Bethnal Green road bogey man" rumour, don´t we? Those stories got wings, and were related in seemingly quite similar fashions, but with small deviations. Could well be the same here, Frank, what Lewis related may have ben what she heard from Cox - or from somebody inbetween who in her (or his) turn had heard Cox.

"I have two remarks here. Firstly, even though I do find it a bit odd that those 4 elements didn’t end up in Lewis’ police statement, Lewis’ inquest statement doesn’t preclude her police statement."

It has been said that I sometimes think out of the box, Frank. But in this case this is not true. Those who choose to say that Lewis´second description of the man she saw is not very different from the first one, THEY think out of the box.
The adamant statement that Lewis could not, was unable to, did not possess the information to describe the man, means that her second testimony is totally different. There are details in it that reasonably could not have been "forgotten" at the first occasion when she was quizzed. A black wideawake hat and an intent staring up a court, as if in wait for somebody, do not arise from nothingness. The latter observation contains a registering of a rather complex set of actions, involving the fixing of the gaze of the man, his posture and a few more things, God knows what, though, since I cannot say how one mimics waiting for somebody to come out of a court. Can you?

No, the reasonable interpretation here is that Sarah Lewis was set on trying to make the impression that she had seen the actual killer. And how could she do that? Well, she could not say that he stood watching the court as if waiting for an opportunity to steal in and kill Kelly, could she? That would be ridiculous.
So what could she suggest? Exactly what she did, I´d say - she pushed the point that the man was watching the court, thereby implying that he had an invested interest in it, and then she added that she had come to the conclusion that he did so since he probably waited for somebody to come out, however THAT looks. Mission accomplished.

Now, imagine that you, Frank, on a dark night come home and find a man standing on the opposite side of the street from where you live. You take a look at him, and you come to the conclusion that he is actually watching your home. He repeatedly looks at his wristwatch while doing so, giving you the impression that he waits for someone or something. You notice that he is a shortish fellow, kind of stout and dressed in a white basaeball cap, although the other clothes he is wearing are of a very general type that do not evoke any special interest on your behalf.
Now, if the police had asked you about that man the day after, would you have told them "wait, I seem to remember a man standing opposite my home" and then, when asked about specifics, would you have added, in spite of the mans behaviour and apparition, that you could not say a single thing about him? Would all of the stuff you had taken in surface only two days later, the watching, the cap, the apparition, all?

"Secondly, regardless of anything Lewis may or may not have invented to spice her inquest account, the inclusion in her inquest statement of 'her' man looking up the court as if waiting for someone to come out is corroborated by Hutchinson’s own account. That, to me, is a key point."

But that means, Frank that Hutchinson COULD NOT have been there the day before! He could ONLY have been there on Friday morning at 2.30, since that was when Sarah Lewis in her second, very radically different statement, claimed that she had seen a man who seemingly was interested in the court. In this way, you tie yourself to the belief that Lewis MUST have been truthful since Hutchinson claimed he had been there, and Hutchinson MUST have been truthful since Lewis said she had seen a man watching the court at 2.30. You lock yourself to a corroboration made up by second hand testimony from a woman that was laughed at and scorned by the papers, a woman that participated in the bogey man charade and the murder cry charade (was the Bethnal Green street man real? Was the murder cry real? Was it two cries? Three? Did it come at 2 Am, 3 Am or 4 Am?).
Sarah Lewis - who MUST be seriously questioned - registered a man, or so she said, at Crossinghams, at around 2.30 Am on Friday morning. She did NOT see what he looked at, and she did NOT see what he was up to. This we know since she told the police so. After this, she starts telling tales, involving a description of her man and a reappearance of her bogey man from Bethnal Green Street near the murder spot on the murder night. Lewis is a witness that MUST be regarded as totally unreliable.

Then we have Hutchinson, who we KNOW told a story that was discredited, and how we KNOW was described by his contemporaries as a very upright citizen, who was not shaken by questioning and re-questioning, and who we KNOW was hailed by Dew as a man with the best of intentions - but mistaken on the day.
The corroboration is gone, Frank! It was just a smokescreen, a mirror image, a lost hope. There never WAS any man watching the court intently on Friday morning, and if there was, Sarah Lewis sure didn´t see him. The only man we have on record watching the court, would have done so on Thursday morning by the looks of things, a morning on which it was completely logical to wear an open coat and to walk the streets waiting for the morning light to break.

"As I see no reason to doubt her statement of having seen a man standing over against the lodging house, I don’t see this as a bet at all. This man may have been a lodger, but why stand outside in cold and possibly rainy weather?"

Ask the lodger Hutchinson saw! There were 300 lodgers staying in Crossinghams opposite Miller´s court only! He may have knocked on the door and stood waiting for the nightwatchman to open it for all we know. How controversial a suggestion is that?
It is not until he suddenly leans forward and starts staring up Miller´s court, "as if waiting for somebody" that he becomes truly interesting. And the man Lewis saw did not do this. She did not know what he did at all, and thus stated that she could tell the police nothing of him.

"I have one remark here, Fish: with temperatures around or even below 5 degrees Celsius, I’m not so sure if it was (and is) normal to have your coat open, regardless of whether it was dry or not. Plus, of course, there was another good reason to keep it buttoned up: the thick gold chain watch with the red stone hanging from it."

He was not exactly naked underneath, Frank. And the more important observation is, at least to my mind, that if you must choose when to open your coat and when to wear it buttoned up, then the choice was obvious in this case. And keep in mind that some people actually open up their coats just to display wealth - they enjoy showing off, some of them regardless if it´s careless.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Wickerman:

"Yet I still recall thinking that the way Hutch describes his surveillance he appeared to me to be on the same side of the street as Millers Court, not opposite, but I let that go.
Maybe the loiterer was not Hutch then afterall?"

That, exactly, is how I see it. Huchinson does not mention standing outside Crossinghams at all, but instead says that he followed the couple to the court (I went to the court) to see if he could see them, and that he "stood there" for 45 minutes. And if he wanted to take a look up that court in that dark night to see them, he would have stood his best chance doing so by taking a look from the entrance of the court, and reasonably not by going to Crossinghams.

The best,
Fisherman