Criteria for plausibility

[Fisherman]

Tom W:

""WHOOOOSSSSH'! That's the sound of half the stuff you say going right over my head. "

So elevate!

"I'm starting to feel bad, like we're ganging up on you, so I'm gonna back off, because that's not my intention."

Why thanks - but I´m really not too intimidated, Tom, honestly!

"I frankly don't believe taking on an alias makes you a murderer."

Nor do I - I only think that it points to living a shady life on the shady side of society.

"If that were the case, the victims themselves would have to be looked at with suspicion."

Yes - because they lived shady lifes on the shady side of society! Prostitutes, thieves, murderers, con artists, pimps, people who owned loan sharks money ... that kind of people used aliases. An upstanding, honest carman did not.

The best,
Fisherman

[Tom_Wescott]

Everybody who favours a suspect is exactly as consistent as everybody else, Tom, and you know it

"WHOOOOSSSSH'! That's the sound of half the stuff you say going right over my head.

I'm starting to feel bad, like we're ganging up on you, so I'm gonna back off, because that's not my intention. And I was joking about the aliases. I frankly don't believe taking on an alias makes you a murderer. If that were the case, the victims themselves would have to be looked at with suspicion.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Garry Wroe]

Okay, then, Fisherman. Let’s look at what you wrote.

Finally, I do hope that you are not of the opinion that I have dubbed Lechmere the Ripper at this stage. I have not.

Yet we have your prior assertion to the contrary:-

And yes, Lechmere did kill Nichols, in all probability, the way I see things too.

And this subsequent confirmation of you position:-

Hmmm, let´s see here - do I think that Lechmere killed Nichols? Yes, I do.

As well as this response to a point made by Harry:-

I am treating Charles Lechmere as a killer and a liar, a man that wanted to stay away from the attention of the police.

So do you still maintain that you have not ‘dubbed Lechmere the Ripper at this stage’?

[Fisherman]

Tom W:

"you’re not entirely consistent."

Everybody who favours a suspect is exactly as consistent as everybody else, Tom, and you know it: Nobody will say "I found him" whereas they all will say "I MAY have found him". That, none too surprising, goes for Lechmere too, in my case.
Actually, I find some of the "consistency" on the boards boardering on pigheaded defence for useless theories, and if that is the consistency you find me lacking of, then I´m happy to accomodate you on that score.

"There you go with the name-change guilt thing. And if we want to compare aliases, Le Grand’s got Cross beat. So with even MORE aliases, and genuine suspicion against him to boot, are you now going to drop Cross for Le Grand? Of course not."

I don´t think it would be very useful to work from the assumption that the more aliases you use, the better bid you become for the Ripper´s role. I think we need to keep in mind that as long as nobody is on to you, you don´t need to use more than the one alias. Which of course seemingly implies that Le Grand wasn´t the brightest bulb in the box.
I am more kind of saying that the use of an alias as such is what tells the Charles Lechmere´s from the, say, Caroline Maxwells, law-abiding and witnessed-about honest people who would never dream of using aliases. Aliases were mainly for the underworld. I think you will find it hard to gainsay that.


"And yes, Druitt’s acquaintances thought him the Ripper. Or at least one did. Which is why HE’S agreed upon to have been a suspect. That’s what we’re talking about here, isn’t it? What makes a suspect? Contemporary suspicion is a key factor in that. It’s certainly not the be all, end all, but it’s a pretty good start."

Long as one remembers that there is a home straight after the start, I´m fine with that.

"What I mean is that I’d rather hear what others have to say about what they feel makes a good suspect, a bad suspect, and a non-suspect. Jonathan and us flexing our suspects is probably polarizing the debate."

Maybe so - but I think that a thread like this will be hard to entertain without using examples. I actually thought so yesterday too, and I suspect I will do so tomorrow.

There´s consistency for you, Tom!

The best,
Fisherman

[Tom_Wescott]

"I've never understood the perception that someone changing their name or taking on an alias is an indicator of homicidal guilt."

Whoa there! Let´s not move too fast here. I can´t recall having said such a thing.

Hi Fish. As Garry pointed out, as well as countless others over the last few years, you’re not entirely consistent.

Druitts aquaintances thought HE was the Ripper. Scores of people contacted the police, naming scores of other people the Ripper. If we cmpare this detail to the name-swop Lechmere furnished the police with, I think the latter is a lot more compelling as relating to guilt, to be honest.

There you go with the name-change guilt thing. And if we want to compare aliases, Le Grand’s got Cross beat. So with even MORE aliases, and genuine suspicion against him to boot, are you now going to drop Cross for Le Grand? Of course not. And yes, Druitt’s acquaintances thought him the Ripper. Or at least one did. Which is why HE’S agreed upon to have been a suspect. That’s what we’re talking about here, isn’t it? What makes a suspect? Contemporary suspicion is a key factor in that. It’s certainly not the be all, end all, but it’s a pretty good start.

"I'm not going to talk any more about Le Grand. "

No?

What I mean is that I’d rather hear what others have to say about what they feel makes a good suspect, a bad suspect, and a non-suspect. Jonathan and us flexing our suspects is probably polarizing the debate.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Fisherman]

Harry:

"None of the murder sites were such ,that to be suspect,a person had to be shown to have a direct personnel familiarity with all."

Well, Harry, the Hanbury Street backyard and the Miller´s court room would take at least some sort of knowledge, I think. But that does not detract from the sensibility in what you say - just about anybody who knew the Whitechapel area fairly well could have been aquainted with the sites.

That, however, does not mean that just about anybody who knew the Whitechapel area fairly well stands an equally good chance to have been the Ripper as Lechmere does. And there are three reasons for this.
1. One East-ender and one East-ender only was found at the side of Polly Nichols, and that was Lechmere. This means that he has the upper hand on all other East-enders in this respect. He was in place at one of the murder spots at the exact time the murder took place.
2. In spite of the amount of East-enders that would have been aquainted with the murder sites, not very many would have have reason to habitually move along the paths they made up. Lechmere´s way to work tallies very nicely with just about all of them, for some reason - and the Stride murder site is the icing on the cake in this respect.
3. The timing. Not only did the victims die along the paths that Lechmere would have used going to work. They also died at the approximate time he would have been there, for some peculiar reason. And once again, the Stride killing is a very compelling reason to point a finger at Lechmere. When a victim for once did not fit in with his working route and -time, what happens? Lo and behold, the victim is found along the ONLY other route we can link to Lechmere! She did not die up north, not way out west, not far east, no - she died, for some reason, in the exact area where Lechmere had his mother and daughter staying, where he had lived for many years and was accustomed to the premises, and where he would reasonably visit on weekends. And did the murder take place on such a weekend? I mean, if we count to eight potential Ripper deeds (Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes, Kelly, the Pinchins Street victim and MacKenzie), we can easily deduct that it would have been one chance out of eight that this particular victim died on a weekend. One out of eight, Harry, to make her a good bid for being killed by Lechmere. And she nailed it!

So, Harry, what does this all tell you? That any East-ender is as good a bid as Lechmere for the killings?

"The least plausible,(IMO.)idea,is that Cross was both seeking a victim,and intent of going to work that morning"

Please, Harry - we do not KNOW his intentions, do we? Of course he said to the police that he was en route to work, but if he was the killer and had made other plans (he could, for example, have made a deal with his employers to arrive later that day - just saying), do you really believe that he would have told the police about it? Do you think that, if he was the killer, he would have laid all his cards on the table, or do you think he would have avoided doing so? How do killers function? Do they feel hindered to tell anything but the truth to the police?

I am treating Charles Lechmere as a killer and a liar, a man that wanted to stay away from the attention of the police. You should try it too, and see what it produces. You will be amazed, Harry!

"When I state seeking a victim,it is because generally,that is what he did."

That is what you THINK he did, Harry. It is also what I think he did, by the way. But there can be no certainty, so maybe we need to be careful with the phraseology.

The best,
Fisherman

[harry]

None of the murder sites were such ,that to be suspect,a person had to be shown to have a direct personnel familiarity with all.The only criteria that I think needs to be established,is that a person have a good basic knowledge of the Whitechapel area,and to have abided at a distance which gave reasonable time to get into safe cover before a proper coverage by the police could be mounted..Most serious suspects comply with that criteria.The least plausible,(IMO.)idea,is that Cross was both seeking a victim,and intent of going to work that morning,and if killing Nicholls,did everything but seek safety.When I state seeking a victim,it is because generally,that is what he did.

[Fisherman]

Garry:

"Both quotations are contained within post 254 of your Lechmere thread"

To begin with, that thread is not my Lechmere thread. It was started by Versa.

As for the quotation "So in all probability, we are not holding on to the same end of the stick after all! But we are apparently placing the noose around the same neck ...", it points to the fact that both me and Mr Lucky apparently finger the same man for the deeds. Others will try and fit that noose around other necks - it is a manner of speaking, and it is not the same as saying "I have conclusive proof".
The fact that it is a manner of speaking is perhaps best shown by the fact that the neck spoken about is no longer there. We actually cannot today "hang" somebody who was in his thirties back in 1888, Garry.

But let´s look at the post that set off this silly exchange!

My words:
"Finally, I do hope that you are not of the opinion that I have dubbed Lechmere the Ripper at this stage. I have not."

Your much upset answer:
"That's odd, Fisherman. I distinctly recollect your recent assertion that you were just about to place a noose around Cross's neck."

Now you know what I ACTUALLY said and what I ACTUALLY meant. So let´s move on to your next item of evidence for my guilt!

"And yes, Lechmere did kill Nichols, in all probability, the way I see things too."

Hmmm, let´s see here - do I think that Lechmere killed Nichols? Yes, I do. Do I find it probable that he did so? Well, yes - otherwise I would not have thought he was the killer, would I? Am I qualifying my hunch that others may disagree by stating that this is how I specifically see things? Absolutely, I do. Am I at liberty to hold this belief? I would think so.

No, nein, njet, sorry - I can´t spot the problem here.

If, Garry, you need a very specific answer to the question how much I invest in Lechmere being the killer, so that you have something more substantial to lean against the next time over, then why don´t you just ask?

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Tom W:

"which begs the question, 'How far can Fisherman tell?'"

Fishermen, Tom, spend a lot of time on the sea. And that means that they can see all the way to the horizon ...

"I can even tie Le Grand to spots where no murders are known to have been committed!"

Man - you HAVE been busy!

"I've never understood the perception that someone changing their name or taking on an alias is an indicator of homicidal guilt."

Whoa there! Let´s not move too fast here. I can´t recall having said such a thing. WHat I HAVE said, and what I will stand by is A/ that people in the East End who used aliases were more likely to be involved in the shadier sides of life than those who did not do so, and B/ that the fact that Lechmere, who was named Lechmere, actually also called himself Lechmere whenever the authorities put the question to him, but for one occasion: in combination with the Nichols murder.
If his postbox back home had "Lechmere" written on it, if his wife had changed her name to Lechmere as she married him, if his kids all called themselves Lechmere, if the census takers over and over again watched our carman scribble Lechmere on the forms they handed him - then why did he not simply say that this was his name when the cops asked him for it in relation to the Nichols murder?

"his associates thought he was the Ripper, the policeman who knew him for years thought he was the Ripper, and he had that human kidney on him, did he not?"

Druitts aquaintances thought HE was the Ripper. Scores of people contacted the police, naming scores of other people the Ripper. If we cmpare this detail to the name-swop Lechmere furnished the police with, I think the latter is a lot more compelling as relating to guilt, to be honest.
Scores of policemen, by the way, came up with a significant heap of Ripper candidates.
Both of these things are interesting and should be mentioned, but they do not amount to much when it comes to telling evidence. The question WHY the associates and that policeman harboured their suspicions needs a good answer to begin with, before we can assess how much we may invest in it.

As for the kidney, would that be Michael K...?

"I'm not going to talk any more about Le Grand. "

No?

The best,
Fisherman

[Jonathan H]

Jack as Jekyll?

I think that there are opposing views here of what plausible criteria means:

If you want to try and work out the best suspect yourself, from this distance, like an amateur detective (for that matter, Cornwall and Evans and Runbelow are arguably not amateur as detectives) and negate all of the contemporaneous police sources, then that's your right.

It's just that you would have to find evidence, or primary sources, that the police of the day had somehow missed.

Again, not impossile: for example, if the hoax 'Maybrick' diary had been real it would have been a spectacular find (but the provenance is self-servingly dubious, the handwritng does not match, and there are textual bits and piuces which strongly suggest it has been influenced by modern works).

Historical methodology, on the other hand, when you look at this subject afresh showsl, arguably, that modern, secondary sources have got the wrong end of the stick.

Sir Melville Macnaghten and Montague Druitt are not a sideshow let alone a footnote; they are the show.

They are not, of course, the whole show but the pair get top billing, followed by Littelchild-Tumblety, followed by Anderson/Swanson-Aaron Kosminski' (the drowned doctor solution, which led Edwardians to believe that it was not a mystery anymore, combined elements of all three of these real people).

Why that order? Because that is how Macnaghten [anonymously] put it to the public, and he was there (see: Sims, 1907).

To C-4

Macnaghten conceded that he knew that Druitt did not kill himself immediately after his 'awful glut'.

But there was some kind of internal collapse which, if the 1899 North Country Vicar is talking about Druitt, then his confession to a priest precipitated his suicide because he was about to be sectioned, or even arrested and hung.

No, I don't think the body fished from the Thames was anybody but Druitt.

Henry Winslade must have been an honest man, I guess?

I do not understand your comment about Jekyll and Hyde referring to drunks rather than the mad?

We seem to be at cross-purposes.

In 1896, Major Arthus Griffiths, under his pseudonym Alfred Alymer, wrote a piece for Cassells magazine in which he asserted that the police were substantively nowhere on the Ripper case. Yes, they had several theories, one of which was that the murderer was a 'real life' Dr Henry Jekyll and Mr Edward Hyde figure; he had a dual personality: one civilized and the other savage. But there was no proof for such a theory.

Not two years later, Griffiths, in his 'Mysteries of Police and Crime', reversed himself in the book's introduction. He now claimed that there was a trio of promising suspects, one of whom was very like a Jekyll and Hyde figure (though the author does not make this comparsion explicity) even to the extraordinary coincidence that the real, likely 'Jack' was also an English, medical man.

From 1899 George Sims took this remarkable parallel with Robert Louis Stevenson's novella (1886) even further.

Dr Jekyll was a middle-aged, English, respectable, wealthy recluse who had no patients, and so apparently was the real Jack.

Jekyll has no family, only concerned friends who suspect the worst, and so did the real Jack.

Jekyll as Hyde was a notorious murderer who vanished into his lab and took his own life, as his other repellent personality had assumed total control and before he could be arrested, and so with the real Jack, who took his own life in a river, a 'shrieking, raving fiend', as the police and pals were closing to have him taken into custody.

Edwardian readers felt very comfortable with this Ripper solution (Sims had clubby, top police contacts) partly because it was so familiar; eg. similar to a classic blockbuster of the page and stage.

It is my contention that Macnaghten deliberately and deflectively clothed the young barrister Druitt in fiction, in fact borrowed a fictional from a handy classic.

It was not a completely contrived borrowing; for Druitt did have a 'Protean' madness if he could be both a 'barrrister of bright talent' and Jack the Ripper.

[curious]

Didn't John Richardson stop off at a crime scene on his way to work?

Case solved.

Now THERE is someone who should be researched thoroughly. Or has he already?

[Garry Wroe]

Didn't John Richardson stop off at a crime scene on his way to work?

Case solved.

[Ben]

Cross' home was located outside the area circumscribed by the crime scenes.

Cross' workplace was located outside the area circumscribed by the crime scenes.

The vast majority of serials are perpetrated by offenders who live and/or work inside the area circumscribed by the crime scenes. Now, people can either embrace or reject geo-profiling, but if they're going to embrace it, they have to accept that it argues very strongly against Cross as a ripper candidate. To make matters even worse, I can't think of a single commuter-type offender (already "very rare" according to expert opinion) who both selected and disposed of his victims in the same small area. The exceptionally rare commuters who select victims from a close-knit area (Ireland, Picton) dispatch and dispose of them elsewhere. This is merely to provide an outline of just how poorly Cross fares in terms of historical and geographical precedent with regard to serial crime. I wouldn't normally get too hung up on such a point, but the Cross promoters are seemingly anxious to "tie" him to as many crime scenes as possible.

[Garry Wroe]

Find it, copy it, paste it and we will talk about it, Garry. Promise!

Well, Fish, here's one example:-

So in all probability, we are not holding on to the same end of the stick after all! But we are apparently placing the noose around the same neck ...

Then there's this:-

And yes, Lechmere did kill Nichols, in all probability, the way I see things too.

Both quotations are contained within post 254 of your Lechmere thread, and there are plenty more besides. It would seem, therefore, that contrary to your recent assertion, you have 'dubbed Lechmere the Ripper'.

[Cogidubnus]

Not so fast!

Whoa there Colin...I spotted that, and so, therefore will all the rest! Linking Hutch with Toulouse and Vincent was slightly more than disingenuous!

Dave