Give Charles Cross/Lechemere a place as a suspect

[Lechmere]

At the resumed inquest on 17th September, Inspector Spratling admitted that enquiries had not been made at all houses on Bucks Row and the Coroner this this error should be rectified.

[Cogidubnus]

"don't bother" ... " a totally revised post"

Totally revised? I originally was under the impresion that Bridewell was the one asking a question, and answered him. Then I saw it was you, and changed the name in my answer to Dave. How does that make my post "totally revised"?

Your original post at 9.45pm edited at 10.08pm...not the follow-up

The question I ask is a simple one - if you are correct that the police interviewed Lechmere´s wife, why did she not notice that they were calling her Cross?

She probably did...She must've known he had two possible surnames...she presumably had met his family when she married him...yes? So she knew his history...Otherwise you're casting her as some kind of a moron...I would surmise that Cross/Lechmere asked, when making his statement, which name he should use, and was told...so signed accordingly...

My experiences in life so far lead me to believe the simplest explanations are the best...

Dave

[Lechmere]

Lyn - the point about aliases is that when the police were aware of them they invariably recorded the different versions which is how we know about them. The Cross/Lechmere alias was discovered by researchers about ten years ago.

I see no reason why his wife would have known about the use of the name Cross. She married Charles Lechmere (Cross) several years after the death of Thomas Cross.
As a matter of interest Charles Lechmere's wife died in 1940 - I have met several of her great grandchildren who were children (not babies) when she was still alive and none know anything about their great grandfathers involvement in the Ripper case. This tells me that he kept his family in the dark as in the East End a Ripper connection equals bragging rights.

[Cogidubnus]

At the resumed inquest on 17th September, Inspector Spratling admitted that enquiries had not been made at all houses on Bucks Row and the Coroner this this error should be rectified.

Hi Lechmere...interesting...suggests the cops (unsurprisingly perhaps) hadn't yet got their act together and were treating this as a "routine" Whitechapel mystery death...

I know Wynne Baxter, originally a lawyer, was a real stickler for the dignity of his position as a Coroner (and all the procedural fol de rol that goes with that - you have to be English I think to appreciate what far-reaching powers a "Crowner", at a push, really has!)...

But after he'd gee'ed them up - presumably they did the business?

Dave

[Lechmere]

The police hadn't got into 'Ripper' mode by the time the inquest started - despite the press hoo-haa linking the Nichols murder to that of Tabram and Smith. The Chapman murder happened before the Nichols inquest was concluded. Events accelerated and I think the police investigation lost sight of earlier potentially missed clues - as still happens.
So I don't think the residents of Bucks Row were ever visited and Cross was forgotten about.
Anyway the police thought they had their man in Iscenschmidt (or whatever he was called).

[Cogidubnus]

Really?

So the coroner blasts the police, the press blast the police, the politicians blast the police, and the police don't make enquiries in Bucks Row? I'm sorry, but I find that hard to believe...

All the best

Dave

[Jon Guy]

Hi Lechmere

So I don't think the residents of Bucks Row were ever visited and Cross was forgotten about.

"Enquiries have also been made from the persons who reside in the locality".
Insp. Helson 7th Sept MEPO 3/140

Anyway the police thought they had their man in Iscenschmidt (or whatever he was called).

Well, he popped up on their radar on 11th Sept until just over a week later, on Sept 19th, and was mentioned no more.

[Fisherman]

Dave:

"Your original post at 9.45pm edited at 10.08pm...not the follow-up"

The question I´m asking is in what way my post was "totally revised", Dave. If you know of such a revision, then surely you ALSO know what it was about, and thus you should be able to tell me - and anybody else with any sort of interest in it - about it.

What I did was that I mistook your post for having been written by Bridewell. I therefore changed "Bridewell" to "Dave" and reposted it.
I am also having lots of trouble with my computer - it will sometimed not allow me to post, and then I need to copy my text, back down one page, returnt to the correct page, paste the copy back in and try again. I refuse to believe, however, that my computer is malicious enough to change my posts and send them to Casebook inbetween ...

"She must've known he had two possible surnames...she presumably had met his family when she married him...yes? So she knew his history...Otherwise you're casting her as some kind of a moron...I would surmise that Cross/Lechmere asked, when making his statement, which name he should use, and was told...so signed accordingly...

My experiences in life so far lead me to believe the simplest explanations are the best..."

Then why not use the very simplest explanation here: the police did not know that "Cross" was not named Cross, but instead Lechmere. That is the simplest explanation by far, I´m afraid. Getting entangled in musings about the police being told a long confusing story about a person who swung like a pendulum between two aliases, and who had settled for using a name that he never signed his official documents with, but ONLY when speaking to the police in a murder inquiry - do you think THAT is the simpler explanation ...? And to boot, you think the police, given this confusion, would NOT find about his true name and use that in their reports?
How on earth could this be simple?

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Jon Guy:

""Enquiries have also been made from the persons who reside in the locality".
Insp. Helson 7th Sept MEPO 3/140"

...the focal point being the wording "the locality" and not "the street". Helsons report is dated ten days BEFORE Spratling admitted that all the houses along Buck´s Row had not been subject to inquiries. "The locality" here means the locality immediately connected to the murder spot, nothing else, I would say.

All the best, Jon!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

In fact, we need not feel in any way uncertain about how far the inquiries stretched before the 17:th of September, more than two full weeks after the murder of Nichols, since Spratling detailed it at the inquest on that very day:

"Witness added [Spratling] that he made inquiries at Green's, the wharf, Snider's factory, and also at the Great Eastern wharf, and no one had heard anything unusual on the morning of the murder. He had not called at any of the houses in Buck's-row, excepting at Mrs. Green's. He had seen the Board School keeper."

And this would be the "locality" that was spoken of on the 7:th. Spratling had called at one of the houses on the southern side of Buck´s Row, thus - that of the Greens, the family staying in New Cottage, who contributed the guy who washed away the blood after Nichols had been wheeled away. Thus, it would seem that not a single one of the other houses on that side of the road had been subject to any police interest up til that point, giving the killer a stiff fortnight´s head start in this regard.

The best,
Fisherman

[Jon Guy]

Hi Christer

Could be. Here`s the full sentence:

"Enquiries have been made from the persons who reside in the locality, watchmen who were employed in adjoining premises, P.C.`s on the adjoining beats and in every quarter from which it was thought any useful information might be obtained."


Noting that this was a complete internal Police memo to his superior, and Helson was the J-Div Inspector working closely with Abberline.

[Fisherman]

I know of the full sentence, Jon! It shows us that the police - Helson, at least, who was in command - was eager to cover his behind, and understandably so.
Of course the watchmen and PC:s were spoken to, but it should have been equally important to speak to the residents of the street, and this was not done, as per Spratling. And the mistake involves, for example, Harriet Lilley, living in 7 Buck´s Row, who spoke to the press as early as on the 6:th, I think, revealing that she had heard voices in the street at a point of time that would have been very relevant to the inquiries. And STILL the police, after embarrasingly having had this related to them by the press, did NOT speak to the people living in the houses lining the southern side of Buck´s Row.

The best,
Fisherman

[Jon Guy]

Even Swanson appears to have been under the impression that the residents of Bucks Row were questioned. Another official internal document:

"Coffee stall keepers, prostitutes, the night watchman in Winthrop St, a street parallel to Bucks Row, as well as the inhabitants of Bucks Row"

HO 144/221/A49300C
19th Oct 88

But, you are probably correct in that both Helson and Swanson assumed that Spratling spoke to the whole street.

[Garry Wroe]

I don’t know where you get your confident assertion that: “Paul would have stated that Cross had emphatically refused to touch the body”.

From the press report(s) which quoted Cross as having said, ‘I’m not going to touch her.’

We are left with your other confident assertion:
“What’s more, sadosexual serialists do not waylay, throttle, kill and mutilate victims just minutes before they are due to clock on at work. That’s the stuff of cheap detective novels – or staggeringly ill-conceived Ripper theories.”
We certainly know that they do these crimes while at work – so why not on their way?

Then it should be a simple matter, Lechmere, for you to provide examples of such.

[Garry Wroe]

I know I have told you that I think our exchange is over, but I could not resist this …

Well, Fisherman, I’m dumbfounded. I never saw that one coming.

IF, Garry, Lechmere was the killer, then he would NOT have told the truth at the inquest. I think we both can agree on that, although it is getting increasingly hard to find points to agree with you about. This one will be hard for you to deny, though: if he was the Ripper, then he lied at the inquest!

And if Elizabeth Long was Jill the Ripper she lied about seeing Chapman with a foreigner close to the Hanbury Street crime scene. If George Morris was the killer he lied about having been occupied with sweeping up at the time of the Eddowes murder. If Warren was part of a masonic conspiracy he expunged the Goulston Street message in order to protect the Brotherhood.

Anyone can hypothesize. Anyone can conjure something sinister from perfectly innocent events. But if you wish Cross to be accepted as a genuine Ripper candidate you’ll have to do a great deal better than proffer opinion masquerading as fact.