Did Astrakhan Man exist?

[DVV]

Smooth my dear.

[DVV]

Somtimes you're so much engaged and hot in ripper-related debates....
Sometimes you forget them...
Then when you come back with such a simple and relevant question to answer, you simply think : no, of course not, Astrakhan Man did not exist.
That is SO obvious.
Even to the Toppy-clan, I hope.

[Wickerman]

......There was a lone man standing in the dark street, just at the point where she wanted to turn into the Court. Briefly, she considered turning back....

Actually, turning back was the last thought on her mind.

Ruby, you appear to have forgotten what Sarah's principal concern was that night, where her true attention was focused,...what did frighten her...

You must remember Sarah Lewis provided more of a description of the Bethnal Green Stalker than she did of Hutch...

"...I passed by them and looked back at the man - I was frightened - I looked again when I got to the corner of Dorset St. I have not seen the man since, I should know him if I did...."

Strikes me as obvious where her attention was that night.

Regards, Jon S.

[Rubyretro]

Wickerman, which of these statements don't you agree with ?

-Mrs Lewis's main concern was to get to where she was going without being attacked in the street

-Mrs Lewis would be wary of passing any lone man in a dark quiet street, at this hour, and baring in mind the recent murders

-Mrs Lewis had an image of how she imagined the Ripper to look, in her mind
(more like Bethnal Green Man than Hutch)

-Mrs Lewis would look very hard at the lone man in Dorset Street, before
passing him to ascertain that he did not fit her image of the Ripper, and that his body language did not suggest that he was waiting to leap out on an unsuspecting passer by. She would try to see if there was a plausible innocent explanation for the man to be loitering there.

-If a person finds themselves in a dark lonely street with a strange man who could possibly be a threat, they will signal with their body language that they want no contact, they are minding their own business, and they will not look
directly at the person when they are within a distance to see facial expressions. This is because they will not want to meet the other person's eyes which could open the way for verbal communication, but also because they would not want to signal with their own expression fear, nosiness, or
complicity. They would try to keep at a safe distance.

-Because someone has not seen another person close up, and can't give more than a sketchy description, does not mean necessarily that they woudn't be able to recognise that person again from their way of standing moving, height, and corpulence. You may believe that you see a friend at the end of the street, before you are close enough to see their face, and
even if there is nothing noteworthy about their clothes.

- The man in Dorset Street would not be afraid to look at the woman approaching as he was in a physical position of power over her, and he wasn't doing anything illegal. No crime had yet been committed, and the man could still change his mind about murdering anyone. He would see that the woman was not showing any interest in him. He had ample opportunity to recognise Mrs Lewis, if he knew her.

-Once the murder had been committed, the woman has unwittingly changed status from a passerby to a possible witness to the crime.

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"Sarah Lewis did not make a “180 degree turn” in her testimony. She went from a non-description in her police statement to a very minimal description in her inquest testimony."

So it´s almost no change at all ...? Be a little bit realistic - she went from asserting the police that she could not describe the man in any manner whatsoever to suddenly knowing that he was shortish, stout, wore a wideawake - she could even tell that it was a black one, for Christ´s sake! - and that he was looking up the court as if waiting for someone.

Height and bodily construction, type of hat, the colour of that hat, and even a description of what he was doing AND WITH WHAT INTENT, thus - that is not a 179 degrees change or a 181 one in my book - it is an exact 180 degrees turn!!

I have said before and will say again that the police must have pressed Lewis, over and over again, for any possible detail she could provide: Was the man tall or short? Did he seem old or young? How was he clad? Did he seem respectable? Did she feel intimidated by the man? Could she say something, anything, about what he did as he stood there?

Does anybody have any objections against this? Is it not the only reasonable thing to argue? Lewis MUST have been quizzed intensely.

And for all of these efforts, the police drew a complete blank. Nothing, rien, nada - Lewis could not provide them with a single feature.

This, Ben, is her original statement. This is what the police, extremely eager to get any little piece of information to work with, got from Lewis. How do you propose that she suddenly was able to speak of hat fashions and colours and pin down the man´s actions and intents at the inquest? And why is it that the construction she comes up with tallies with Cox´s man, down to the hat?

The time has come to say farewell to the industrious Mrs Lewis and her loiterer, and instead bid an unidentified man of whom we can say nothing - appearancewise or actionwise - welcome back into the discussion.
If we are to conduct a discussion along the lines that it was more or less impossible for a man in an astrakhan coat and some fineries to have walked the streets of the East end, then why in the whole world would we swallow a man who we KNOW took shape between police report and inquest, who we KNOW goes totally against the original statement of the witness that offered him at that inquest, and who we KNOW may have been the figment of imagination of a witness that was ridiculed by the press?
What has it come to if we were to do our homework in this fashion?

"it is clear that Lewis suffered no diminution of importance on account of this minor discrepancy, in sharp contrast to Hutchinson."

This is demonstrably wrong and you must know it, Ben. If it was not, you must - MUST! - be able to provide evidence that PROVES that Sarah Lewis´testimony did not suffer that diminution of importance after her turnaround. Please do so, or refrain from stating things like this completely out of the blue.

I would also point to the fact that we have nothing at all showing that Hutchinson suffered any such diminution himself! His STORY was in all probability questioned and found to be lacking in some manner, but as I have shown over and over again, it seems that this did not tarnish Hutchinson himself in the least. And once again, we have Dew telling us fifty years later that Hutchinson was never disrespected, but instead honestly mistaken.
Who is there to tell us that Lewis was regarded as a honest witness? Noone.
Does something point to the opposite? Yes, the fact that she totally changed her testimony and that she was weighed and found way too light by members of the contemporary press. And it was not just her looks and demeanor that ensured this, for we can clearly see that the paper actually points to the evidence itself: "the evidence must be taken with the reserve that should attach to all such testimony".

So it´s all thumbs up for Hutchinson, who was never at any stage castigated for being a bad or unreliable witness, and thumbs down for Lewis, of whom we have only one judgement - and it spells catastrophy for her.

"We’ve already discussed the 19th November Echo report of a Birmingham suspect, whose “gentlemanly” appearance resembled a description supplied at “the late inquest”. This could only be a reference to Lewis"

No, it could not. You know full well that when this was expanded on, it was said that the gentleman in question was in company with Kelly. And that is all we need to question the veracity of your claim. Something is amiss, and none of us will be able to prove what it is. Meaning that any efforts along those lines are spelt pure speculation, no matter if it is you or I that perform it.

"There’s no evidence that Lewis was ever doubted, and very strong indications to the contrary."

You are backing down here a bit, aren´t you Ben? Some lines further up you boldly claimed that "it is clear that Lewis suffered no diminution of importance on account of this minor discrepancy", something that is not true. Once again, changing your testimony from white to black GETS you doubted. You don´t have to be Einstein to conclude that. To deny it, though, you really COULD NOT be Einstein.

For the longest time, George Hutchinson has been described as a liar who may or may not also have been a killer. Those have been the options offered. And for that same longish time, it has been laid down as a truth that his testimony more or less proved that he had been in Dorset Street on the murder night, since there was corroboration to be had from Sarah Lewis, pointing to a man watching Millers Court at the same time Hutchinson was there.

So Hutchinson, described more or less as a pillar of society and a totally honest man, and with a policeman involved in the investigation verifying this fifty years after the killings, has been called a liar and a potential Ripper.

Lewis, on the other hand, changing her testimony totally between police report and inquest to fit the description given by Cox, and delivering testimony at the inquest that was very much put in doubt by contemporary journalists who more or less mocked her, has not for a minute been questioned as to her veracity!

Anybody who fails to see the skewed perspective this has provided Ripperology with will be at great peril to draw all the wrong conclusions.
This is not to say that Lewis could not have been right, nor is it to deny that Hutchinson may have been a liar and a killer - we have too little evidence to go by to be absolutely certain - but it is to point to the dire need of a reassessment of the bits and pieces involved.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE=Fisherman;175198]Ben:

"Sarah Lewis did not make a “180 degree turn” in her testimony. She went from a non-description in her police statement to a very minimal description in her inquest testimony."

So it´s almost no change at all ...? Be a little bit realistic - she went from asserting the police that she could not describe the man in any manner whatsoever to suddenly knowing that he was shortish, stout, wore a wideawake - she could even tell that it was a black one, for Christ´s sake! - and that he was looking up the court as if waiting for someone.

Fisherman -I refer you to post 225

By the way -how many colours were wideawake hats made in ? red ?
blue ? yellow ? polkadot ?

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"By the way -how many colours were wideawake hats made in ?"

Presumably a number of colours: black, grey, brown at the very least. So you see, it IS quite strange that Lewis was able to provide the ghost from her police testimony with a black wideawake.
I am not sure why you asked about the variety of colours. And I do hope you did not so so because you felt that the hat MUST have been black and Sarah Lewis made that guess. Such a thing would not improve upon her as a witness in any fashion, you see.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Fish -I asked about the colour only because black was surely the most common colour, and there is not anything strange about the hat being black.

Opposed to A Man's red handkerchief, the colour of which Hutch wouldn't be able to see in the dark, Mrs Lewis could easily have seen that a hat was black
from a distance.

I presume that she was not a professional police witness, and didn't think
that such a mundane thing as a black hat was worth mentioning at first, since when she saw the wideawake hat in her mind, she felt black was 'understood' in her description.

I am guessing that if any of us were given some coloured pencils and asked to
draw a victorian man in a wideawake hat, the vast majority would colour the hat black. That is because in photographic crowd scenes we've viewed, there are lots of black hats.

If Mrs Lewis had wanted to invent W Man as a Ripper suspct, she would surely have made him closer to A Man (we know the type of man she thought the Ripper was, because of her fear of BG Man) -he would carry a bag full of knives.

If she had wanted to base her description on Blotchy, then he would have had red hair and blotchy skin.

You still haven't commented on my post 225.

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"Fish -I asked about the colour only because black was surely the most common colour, and there is not anything strange about the hat being black."

Whoever inferred that a black hat would be strange? Why make the point? Do you not realize that the oddity in it all lies in Sarah Lewis goes from not being able to say a frickin´thing about her man, to suddenly being able to pinpoint even the colour of a hat she formerly did not even know was there? And if that hat was polka-dot, yellow or green does not belong to the discussion - the only thing that is of interest here is that Lewis suddenly was quite exact about a hat, sitting on top of the head of a man who she had emphatically professed to not being able to describe.

"You still haven't commented on my post 225."

Then let´s take care of that immediately, shall we! Here´s a snippet of your enjoyable text:

"It only took a few minutes really : Mrs Lewis kept the biggest distance between her and the Man, she didn't look at him and she scurried down the passage to Miller's Court, forcing herself not to look back..Hutchinson let her pass, stepping back into the shadows, expecting any minute for her to turn and greet him , but relieved and
astonished when she looked fixedly elsewhere -anywhere actually, rather than at him.
Which is why, when later, the policeman asked her again " what did this man look like ? " she had to say "I don't know , Sir -I couldn't get a good look at him".
Of course, later, when they'd asked her again, with questions like " tall ?" she could say " No, short " , " thin?" she said " no, stout rather" and what was he wearing ? " why -he was wearing what all the blokes wear round here Sir -one of them 'Wideawake' hats"..

Now, combine this with your latest post, where it says:

"I presume that she was not a professional police witness, and didn't think
that such a mundane thing as a black hat was worth mentioning at first..."

... and we arrive at a suggestion on your behalf that the police may not have asked Lewis to elaborate on the description of the man she saw. They apparently just resigned to her initial statement that she could not describe the man, and left her, satisfied that not asking a single question was the best way to go about interviewing a potentially very crucial witness in the Ripper investigation.

Is that it? Is that what you believe??

I can accept that Lewis may not have been "a professional witness", Ruby. But THE POLICE sure as hell were professional! They would NOT settle for waiting until the inquest in hope for more information about a man that stood twenty meters away from Kelly on the murder night! Lewis would have been quizzed very thoroughly about the man´s features and behavior in connection with the police interview, there can be no other option. And if she at that stage had been in possession of the information she later magically offered at the inquest, then it would have been in the police report!
If you do not realize this, you may need to look for another hobby. Creative writing, perhaps?

The best,
Fisherman

[Phil H]

With respect, Mary may have associated with many men who escaped notice. It must all have depended on who was around.

We know a Joe (not Barnett but often assumed to be Fleming) visited her, but we don't have detailed accounts of when and where. Joe B visited her earlier that night, but we don't have loads of locals verifying that fact - and he would/should have been known to them!

My objections to Astrkhan man are essentially the unlikelihood of his dress in that neighbourhood and at that time of day; and the minute detail of Hutchinson's description (which seems incredible). Incidentally, I like the idea that he was describing a tailor's dummy!!

As for Hutch himself, I have no view. I always assumed he was who he said he was - the "Topping" hypothesis arose during my long absence from Casebook and I have never really got my head around the issues.

To me, much depends on how we read his (claimed) relationship with MJK. I don't see him as close enough to gain access to her room, but if the name were false and he was actually (say) Fleming - assuming the latter was not the tallest man in the world - things might be different.

Phil

[Ben]

Good points, Phil and Ruby.

I agree that a tailor’s dummy seems a plausible source of inspiration for the creation of Astrakhan man. And Ruby, my advice would be not to take to heart that ludicrous playground taunt about creative writing.

Meanwhile, the embarrassingly disastrous attempt to discredit Sarah Lewis continues apace:

“Be a little bit realistic - she went from asserting the police that she could not describe the man in any manner whatsoever to suddenly knowing that he was shortish, stout, wore a wideawake - she could even tell that it was a black one, for Christ´s sake!”

Gosh, yes how amazing for her to have discerned that he had a black hat!

Wow. Superwitness.

Of course, the sighting occurred in darkness in Victorian London, and no doubt the majority of hats would have been black, but what astonishing attention to detail! Seriously, though, I’m glad Ruby appreciated the comedy value behind the faintly ludicrous suggestion that this in any way constitutes a “180 degree turn” from Sarah Lewis. Look, Fisherman, it has been pointed out to you before that the differences between her statement and inquest testimony are not only minor, they are trivial in comparison to Hutchinson’s statement, which besides containing a nigh on impossible description, was discredited owing to doubts about the credibility of the source, unlike Lewis’ evidence, for which there is not the slightest shred of evidence of doubt from any contemporary police source.

It cannot have escaped your notice that I am clearly not alone in this view, and yet despite this, you seem to have convinced yourself that you are the only one being “realistic”. The reality, however, is that the Echo articles provided here cast serious doubt on the validity of your article’s conclusions, and it seems you’re trying to obfuscate this with a doomed-to-failure attempt to pour scorn on Lewis’ testimony.

“I have said before and will say again that the police must have pressed Lewis, over and over again, for any possible detail she could provide”

There is no need for you to “say again” what you’ve said before, especially when it’s yet another zero-evidence assertion of the “must have” variety. No, there is not the slightest indication that any particular pressure was exerted on Lewis to expand on her sighting of the wideawake man. It is likely that her attention was at that time focussed on the “scarier” man in her own mind, whom she had passed on Commercial Street, and this preoccupation may well have distracted attention away from the seemingly innocuous loiterer in Dorset Street. Hence, when she said she couldn’t describe him, she probably couldn’t, but then as the anxiety subsided and she was able to distance herself from the event, she was subsequently able to recall to memory that the man was stout, not tall, and wore a black wideawake. That’s three very basic observations, unlike discredited Hutchinson’s 39 or so intricate details, most of which he couldn’t even have seen let alone memorized.

Another very conspicuous absence in this misguided quest to discredit the evidence of Sarah Lewis is a logical motive for her to lie about these mundane details. Mimicking Cox we can forget immediately. There’s no rationale for her to have done so, and Lewis would have known full well that Cox specified a blotchy face, carroty moustache and a billycock hat. A copycat attempt would at least have incorporated these elements and used “billycock” in preference to “wideawake”. In short, there is no logical reason for Lewis to have lied. She clearly didn’t lie, and equally clearly, there’s no evidence that anyone at the time thought she did.

“The time has come to say farewell to the industrious Mrs Lewis and her loiterer, and instead bid an unidentified man of whom we can say nothing - appearancewise or actionwise - welcome back into the discussion.”

You can do whatever you like, but don’t expect it ever to receive mainstream support. I suspect I speak for the vast majority when I say that Lewis’ description of the wideawake-wearing loiterer has always been, and will hereafter be, treated as reliable if non-sensational evidence. It doesn’t go “totally against the original statement” because, as Frank has already made clear, the nature of the discrepancy is so small. She was not “ridiculed by the press” either. One journalist made pointlessly disparaging remarks about her appearance (which frankly reflects more poorly on him), but even then there was no insinuation that she lied in her account.

“If it was not, you must - MUST! - be able to provide evidence that PROVES that Sarah Lewis´testimony did not suffer that diminution of importance after her turnaround”

It wasn’t a turnaround.

And no, I don’t have to prove an absence. You’re obviously another one who doesn’t understand about null hypotheses. Do you think “guilty unless proven innocent” is a laudable stance? Thought not. So don’t apply it here, please. You have made the claim that Lewis’ account was doubted and discredited by the police, and the onus of proof thus falls squarely on you. Obviously I know full well that you have no such proof, just I know there isn't the slightest indication that doubt was ever attached to her testimony.

“I would also point to the fact that we have nothing at all showing that Hutchinson suffered any such diminution himself!”

Whoops, there’s that unnecessary repetition of previously challenged dogma again, which means I’ll have to go back through the thread and discover where I addressed it previously. Here we go:

One of the main reasons cited for the discrediting of Hutchinson’s account was his failure to attend the inquest where he could have been quizzed “under oath”, and for failing to provide his evidence until three days after the murder. This reason is inextricably linked to the question of Hutchinson’s integrity. How can it not be? Quite simply, you do not “discount” a witness statement because of the failure of its originator to come forward prior to the inquest unless you entertain doubts about his credibility and/or motivation for coming forward.

This information was obtained directly from the Commercial Street police station in order to clarify some of the confusion created by other newspapers, and amounts to clear evidence of doubt on the part of the police as to Hutchinson’s credibility. That is unless, of course, we want to resist the obvious and inescapable inference expounded above.

As I’m prepared to reiterate until the pages of this thread number in their millions.

It’s thumbs down for Hutchinson, whose demonstrably implausible three-day late story was discredited by the police on the grounds of doubt as to his credibility, and thumbs down for Dew’s speculative 1938 musings, which despite being known about for many decades, has never been revived as a credible explanation (for understandable reasons) until you showed up. Did you really just say that Hutchinson was described as a “pillar of society”, or am I having terrible nightmares?

"We’ve already discussed the 19th November Echo report of a Birmingham suspect, whose “gentlemanly” appearance resembled a description supplied at “the late inquest”. This could only be a reference to Lewis"

No, it could not. You know full well that when this was expanded on, it was said that the gentleman in question was in company with Kelly.”

No, you’re wrong, and don't tell me what I "know full well".

Here’s what the Echo reported on 19th November:

“He was of gentlemanly appearance and manners and somewhat resembled the description given by witnesses at the late inquest”

No reference to the man being seen “in company with Kelly”. Clearly, the article was referring to Sarah Lewis’ evidence, and thus serving as a strong indication that her evidence was still being taken seriously at that stage. Thumbs up, then, for Sarah Lewis, whose testimony appears never to have been doubted by the police. The people who champion discredited Hutchinson over Lewis can be counted, to my knowledge, on two fingers – you, and some other bloke from Scandinavia who no longer posts here. The idea amounts to hastily conceived contemptible nonsense with no evidential support.

Regards,
Ben

[babybird67]

sometimes this place gets so surreal...

I wonder if I am losing my sanity.

So Lewis is now being discredited because she mentions the wideawake man was stout when she didn't in another source?

What about Hutchinson who brought in a whole barrowfull of different details in press reports that weren't mentioned in his official statement?

How does one example of this discredit one source, and yet leave the other a seeming 'pillar of the community'?

[FrankO]

Maybe the time has come for us to simply disagree, Frank?

That seems like a good idea, Christer, because I have a slight feeling that we aren’t going to agree on this interesting aspect any time soon. However, I’d like to comment on some of your points.

Some differences, yes - but this is truly glaring. I can buy it when somebody says "gray coat" once and then "blue coat" the second time over. But when somebody takes shape from nothing at all, I get very suspicious. And I feel quite convinced that this would have applied to the ones who investigated the case too!

In posts to others you’ve stated that the police must have pressed Lewis for any possible details, that she must have been quizzed intensely.

If we would follow your reasoning, with which basically is nothing wrong, then why is there, other than the mention of a black bag, no description in her police statement of the ‘suspicious man’ who accosted her and another female at Bethnal Green? He surely seems interesting, he is even characterized as 'suspicious'. Why is there only one sentence her police statement about this whole incident, while in her inquest statement about it is so much fuller?

"I don’t see why she would want to spice her testimony up with this bit"

Because it gave the impression that far from having noted what seemed an an unimportant man, she could/would actually have seen the short, stout man in the billycock that was to become the hottest bet in the Ripper hunt. But I´ve already explained that!

Reading Lewis’ account, I must say that the thought has never crossed my mind that it was Mr. Blotchy that she described at the inquest. Lewis’ description remains too vague for that, and the coroner, nor anybody else, seems to have made the connection. Nobody wondered why Mr. Blotchy was lingering outside the court after he had been with Kelly in her room not long before. So, if it was her intention to spice up her account the way you suggest, it clearly didn’t work.

One last remark for now, is that can’t disputed is that Lewis did state at the inquest that she saw a man standing opposite the entrance to the court looking as if waiting for someone to come out, and that this is corroborated by Hutchinson’s account. I can’t see this as just a coincidence or something Lewis and Hutchinson cooked up together.

All the best!
Frank

[Sally]

Black Cat??

Er.. So hang on a minute - are we to understand that:

A) Sarah Lewis was unlikely to have been able to observe the minute detail of a black hat;

whilst at the same time:

B) Hutchinson was likely to have been able to observe Astrakhan's spats, horseshoe pin, massive gold chain, red seal stone. Colour of eyelashes?

Red Hanky (Red again, hmm..)

How does that work then? Is it because:

A) Hutchinson was an honest Joe (no pun intended..) whilst Sarah Lewis was 'mistaken'?

B) Hutchinson was a reliable man whilst Sarah Lewis was an unreliable woman?

How baffling.

[DVV]

I wonder if I am losing my sanity.

So Lewis is now being discredited because she mentions the wideawake man was stout when she didn't in another source?

What about Hutchinson who brought in a whole barrowfull of different details in press reports that weren't mentioned in his official statement?

How does one example of this discredit one source, and yet leave the other a seeming 'pillar of the community'?

Well said and true, my dear.