The Mizen scam

[Jon Guy]

Thain very likely called and retrieved his cape from the horse slaughterer’s yard on the way to get Llewellyn – further delay.
It seems very unlikely that Llewellyn got to Bucks Row before 4.10

It doesn`t matter if Llewellyn had to tune the glockenspiel and milk his fruit bat before he left the house, he arrived in Bucks Row within ten minutes.

Thain was sent running for the doctor even before Neal had made contact with Mizen.

[Fisherman]

Jon Guy:

"It doesn`t matter if Llewellyn had to tune the glockenspiel and milk his fruit bat before he left the house, he arrived in Bucks Row within ten minutes."

But Jon, the source you use here, the Daily News, says that "Dr. Llewellyn came in about ten minutes." "About" ten minutes would mean ten minutes, give or take the odd minute. And "within" ten minutes means ten minutes at the very most.

Furthermore, why would we not look at the other sources too? Thain clearly says that the process of waking the doctor up, waiting for him to get dressed and get his bag, and follow the PC back to Buck´s Row took some ten minutes. And that seems a very ordinary bid, if we work from the assumption that the route to his practice took five minutes - just like you say yourself - one way only. The doctor was presumably not standing ready on his doorstep as Thain arrived, was he?

"Thain was sent running for the doctor even before Neal had made contact with Mizen."

Yes he was - when Mizen arrived at Brown´s Stable Yards, he found Neil alone, meaning that Thain had taken off before that.
What we don´t know, though, is what time this happened. If we work from Paul´s given time - that the clock was 3.45 as he walked down Buck´s Row - then we get an arrival time in Baker´s Row/Hanbury Street for the carmen that lands around 3.49, since Paul said that it all took no more than four minutes, from finding Nichols to finding Mizen.
After that, maybe a minute was spent informing Mizen - 3.50. And then we have an uncertain factor; did Mizen spend time knocking people up afterwards, before going to Buck´s Row? We KNOW that he finished the business he had started. Let´s say that a minute was spent in the knocking up business - 3.51. After that, Mizen finds his way down to Buck´s Row, let´s give him three minutes to accomplish that - 3.54. And in my former post on the subject, I had Thain leaving Neil at 3.52.30. It tallies very well, thus. Please note that Mizen may have spent more time knocking up - Paul said that he continued that business with no visible effort to go to Buck´s Row. If so, he would have arrived even later by Neil´s side.

There are very many factors to weigh in, Jon - but having the doctor in place in Buck´s Row at 3.55 seems extremely improbable - and out of line with what Llewellyn said himself. At around 4 o clock, he was still in Whitechapel Road, getting prepared to go to Buck´s Row. Or perhaps even still sleeping, for all we know.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Jon Guy]

Christer

PC Neal`s testifying that Llewellyn was in Bucks Row in about ten minutes is all we need to know. :-)

[Fisherman]

Aha, Jon - you´re only after what you NEED to know. That, of course, is a different proposition on the whole!

Sorry for the disruption.

The best,
Fisherman

[icicle]

Fisherman said..

> I still say give me one single parallel example of an honest man who did such a thing! Aliases were used by shady existances, first and foremost. The local grocer was not Brown in one street and Higgins in another - unless he had a REASON..

Hi! I'm new here. Sorry for reviving a thread that has another 70 pages to go, but I have been wanting to say something about this since the issue was first raised.

I am now a respectable suburban housewife in the US, but in the 1980's I lived in Southwark. It was a hellhole, and I should think bore some similarity to Victorian Whitechapel.

I had more than one name. I had a birth name, an adopted name and a professional name.

Now I do not want to offend any police officers or relatives of police officers, there are, I am sure, many honest, hard working, respectable ones. I did not meet any of them in Southwark.

I have never broken a law in my life yet for five years I did not go unarrested for more than six months at a time. Merely being young, out at night and in Southwark is enough to put you under suspicion. Heaven forbid some mugger should attack you and lose a tooth in the process! It was a violent dangerous place and the police will charge the winner of any altercation even if they were sitting in the squad car watching it unfold from the start.

That is, even the innocent were considered fair game to anyone who thought he might obtain a conviction.

I soon realised my best plan for long term respectability, short of moving away (which I couldn't afford) was to let them keep trying to nail me for something using one ID while keeping the other ones clean.

And this they did. Taking many an unsuccessful pot shot at my professional name - also the one my London friends called me, while leaving the name family and officials used unmolested.

Five years later I am out of there with a clean conviction record on both names and a string of arrests on the other.

What I am saying is that it is prudent to have legitimate reason for more than one name when one finds oneself in hostile environments.

I still think he did it though. I know the words of a psychopath when I hear them.

And Fisherman, thank you for the quality of your research and your reasoning. The way you write, your phrasing, actually evokes the era in much the way Conan Doyle does.

[Fisherman]

Hi icicle, and a warm welcome to the boards!

Yours is an interesting post, and I have to admit that I had not given this particular angle much thought before. Of course, in a society where everybody is regarded as a potental criminal, there can be advantages to adopting a second identity. And - just like you example tells us - that does not necessarily mean that you don´t have clean rap sheet yourself!

So how does that hat fit our man? Well, he would almost certainly have approached the police himself, to begin with - he was not approached by them. So he was not avoiding the contact as such - he sought it. And he did so in a murder case, meaning that there was always the risk that the police would take quite an interest in him. Still, he did not give his true name, whereas he gave his true address and workplace. The address, however, he later kept from the inquest, it would seem.

The only deduction I can find is that he tried to stay off the map as regards his family and friends and aquaintances. As long as the police did not take an active interest in him, that was the danger area he needed to cover. And if he had used the name Cross on a regular basis, then he would NOT have stayed off the map in this respect. Therefore, I tend to think that none of the people close to him knew or had known him as Cross at any stage.

If he had had no qualms about coming clear about who he truly was, and have it reported in the papers, then he would have said that his name was Lechmere - and he would have added his address. That way, I could not sit here and speculate in a scam on that score.

"And Fisherman, thank you for the quality of your research and your reasoning."

Wow - thanks! I´m actualy blushing here ...

"I still think he did it though."

So do I, icicle - so do I!

All the best,
Fisherman

[icicle]

Thank you for that lovely welcome! Once I've finished this thread, if I still think he did it, which I probably will, I'll run through what I think was his reasoning every step of the way. Incldentally, I'm assuming Lechmere left home at the usual time or shortly afterwards and lied to explain the time it took to choose and stalk his prey - yet you seem to have him arriving at the murder scene 3.45am. I don't recall seeing a reason for that (I'm on page 57). Perhaps you explained this later.

[Lechmere]

Icicle

Robert Paul says he found Cross at 3.45.
Cross says he left home at 3.30 (or 3.20, there is some confusion on that).
It is a seven minute walk at 'normal' pace.
The extra 8 minutes provides plenty of time to pick Polly up on Whitechapel Road, walk around to Bucks Row and kill her.

It can of course be disputed that either of them had their timings right - but using the timings as given he has a perfect window of opportunity.

I used to drink around the Blue, the vile Aylesbury estate and in the 'disco pubs' on the Old Kent Road in the early to mid 1980s and managed to avoid ever getting arrested. I don't even recall being stopped by the police there!

[icicle]

Icicle

Robert Paul says he found Cross at 3.45.
Cross says he left home at 3.30 (or 3.20, there is some confusion on that).
It is a seven minute walk at 'normal' pace.
The extra 8 minutes provides plenty of time to pick Polly up on Whitechapel Road, walk around to Bucks Row and kill her.

It can of course be disputed that either of them had their timings right - but using the timings as given he has a perfect window of opportunity.

I used to drink around the Blue, the vile Aylesbury estate and in the 'disco pubs' on the Old Kent Road in the early to mid 1980s and managed to avoid ever getting arrested. I don't even recall being stopped by the police there!

Oh man, I lived on the Aylesbury estate. I think your description 'vile' is verging on the flattering.

I got attacked by a serial nutter named Mark Dixie outside that blue and yellow pub on the Old Kent Road just past the flyover, late 80's / early 90's. Bit of a Jack the Ripper himself, except I beat the living daylights out of him.

Anyway, Paul. I have Cross down as the buttoned up type. I think he'd be off to work on time every day, and although might lie about that time if he had a reason, I feel he would at least know it. Paul strikes me as the weasely sort. He was the one I heard somewhere describing the body as cold when everyone else said it was warm (deflecting suspicion is second nature to some) he blabbed to the papers yet the police had to drag him kicking and screaming, as it were, when they needed a statement.

I know the sort, I've met the sort. Gratefully leaving Cross to do the talking upon seeing Mizen on the horizon. Thinks of himself as a bad boy, and in truth if he shook my hand I'd count my fingers, so that is why I wouldn't put much credence in his estimation of the time. Probably thinks messing with the time puts him in the clear.

He was gentlemanly enough to pull Polly's skirt down though. So kind of sweet, in his way.

If we put Cross leaving his house at his usual time of 3.20am, does that give him time to kill within, say, five minutes of the train from South London?

[Fisherman]

icicle:

"Paul strikes me as the weasely sort."

That´s not a bad description, I think!

"Thinks of himself as a bad boy, and in truth if he shook my hand I'd count my fingers, so that is why I wouldn't put much credence in his estimation of the time. Probably thinks messing with the time puts him in the clear."

But how would saying 3.45 "put him in the clear"? Why would he need to BE put in the clear? He already WAS in the clear, since Lechmere himself said that he found the body himself. Pauls proximity in time when it comes to arriving at the spot would be the exact same no matter what time he gave.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

I got attacked by a serial nutter named Mark Dixie outside that blue and yellow pub on the Old Kent Road just past the flyover, late 80's / early 90's. Bit of a Jack the Ripper himself, except I beat the living daylights out of him.

Hello Icicle !

I'm very interested in your posts (welcome to the boards) and love your writing style...

Given the paragraph quoted above, I'm trying to picture you as a 'respectable suburban housewife' (an american one, too !) . Do you bake your own bread, have a white picket fence and wear a pinny now ?

I'm sure that I wouldn't like to try and burgle your house....

ps. Mark Dixie is my brother.

[icicle]

icicle:

But how would saying 3.45 "put him in the clear"? Why would he need to BE put in the clear? He already WAS in the clear, since Lechmere himself said that he found the body himself. Pauls proximity in time when it comes to arriving at the spot would be the exact same no matter what time he gave.

All the best,
Fisherman

You are, of course, correct, but who knows what he thought might happen? You are smart and probably cool in a crisis, I'm a bit on the slow side due to working memory issues, but also cool in a crisis. I know what it is like having to deal with an unfolding emergency in something of a brain fog.

In fact, I'm picturing Paul as my old mate Rick. Theres a dead body, he'll check for signs of life and pull her skirt down but then he'll want nothing more to do with it.

At some point I think Paul decided it would be best for him if the woman had been long dead by the time he got there and that was that.

Technically he wouldn't have needed putting in the clear, but trust me. It is instinct in a minor crook to put as much distance between himself and Evidence as he can. 'Blame' (he would be well aware) in that sort of social environment, is apportioned at random, evidence be damned. In my day people with middle class accents, like myself, were looked upon with suspicion by the police. In Paul's day, it would have been working class, and even at this far distance I can see, with an Englishwoman's nose for social distinction, that Cross / Letchmere is a small notch above, in the social scale. If Letchmere had decided to say he found Paul killing Polly, Paul would have found his life in the balance and he must have been well aware of this.

People posher than you will 'do you over'. That is what he fears.

[icicle]

Hello Icicle !

Given the paragraph quoted above, I'm trying to picture you as a 'respectable suburban housewife' (an american one, too !) . Do you bake your own bread, have a white picket fence and wear a pinny now ?

I'm sure that I wouldn't like to try and burgle your house....

ps. Mark Dixie is my brother.

I'm still trying to picture me as a respectable surburban housewife too My husband is the only one who ever managed that..

I cooked some toast the other day. It was such a milestone he took a picture.

Yes, you can shoot burglars here! I can't wait to bag a few, but for some mysterious reason there doesn't seem to be many..

[Rubyretro]

Yes, you can shoot burglars here! I can't wait to bag a few, but for some mysterious reason there doesn't seem to be many..

Are you on Facebook ? You could try saying that you were having a party and give your address ?...or rave ecstatically about a modest lottery win, which you have invested in brand new computers or rare antiques ? (just say that you're going on holiday, and give the dates..). it can't be that difficult to bag some...

But...much more interesting...back to your mate Rick. I promise you that I am not being sarcastic here -I am genuinely interested.

In fact, I'm picturing Paul as my old mate Rick. Theres a dead body, he'll check for signs of life and pull her skirt down but then he'll want nothing more to do with it.

At some point I think Paul decided it would be best for him if the woman had been long dead by the time he got there and that was that.

What would Rick do if he detected a pulse ?

[Fisherman]

icicle:

" It is instinct in a minor crook to put as much distance between himself and Evidence as he can."

Then Paul did about as bad as he could in this case, for he let himself be interviewed by Lloyds Weekly, and openly bragged about how HE had been the man who masterminded the whole operation. So we are dealing with a different creature here; an attention-seeker, a guy who likes to put himself in the centre of things - up to the point when the authorities take a look at hem. A lot meeker then ...

The best,
Fisherman