Lechmere validity

[Fisherman]

In a world where one has decided come what may, that Mizen is telling the truth and Lechmere and Paul are not that may hold true; unfortunately for the Lechmere theory in the real world that is not the case.


Steve

And it still applies that the matters under discussion are not consistent with innocence, they are only not incompatible with it. Unless you claim that disagreeing with the police IS consistent with innocence? I would not rule out that you could do that.

[Fisherman]

Why not actually read it? Maybe you would see that my reply is fairly short, it's your comments which are verbose and take up the space.
The only person, clearly failing to understand the debate is you.


Steve

Why not read it? On account of the quality of your two preceding posts. I thought I said that?

[Fisherman]

Yes it is shameful, for we were not talking about which route was fastest, and you attempt to divert the discussion.

We were not discussing which route was more likely, nor have I accused you of saying a particular route is, that is the issue under debate.

So let me see it I get this right: You are allowed to point out that there were alternative routes, but I am not allowed to point out that would be illogical to use them? When you say that there were alternative routes, that is commendable and an important conbtribution to our understanding of the case, but when I say that he would not have been likely to use them, it is shameful.
Its good to get to know these things, so that I get a better understanding of how an honest debate should be conducted. Thank you!


Again, missing or maybe not actually understanding what we were talking about.

It was not which route he took? Or even why? The question was if he wanted to avoid Bucks Row, for a reason, which ROUTE could he have taken?

This is getting beyond a joke, and is actually very sad.

Once you present "alternative routes", the need to point out that they would not be any alternative to using Bucks Row on his everyday treks becomes urgent. It has nothing at all to do with any inability on my behalf to understand anything, and everything to do with a deep knowledge about how matters are argued out here.
Saying that you only meant to point out that he could have used alternative routes to avoid the police at a later stage is something that is totally unnecessary, we all know that this will have been so.


Steve

See the above in bold.

[Fisherman]

Missing the point that there had been no murder reported when they reached Mizen and that Emma smith said a gang had attacked her.

Must do Better Christer

Steve

I am doing ever so well. The point I made was a general one - murderers normally do not work on pairs or gangs, they are generally lone wolfs. This is so today and it was the exact same back then. So anybody who killed anybody else would do wisely to hook up with somebody else afterwards.

Can you see how this works, Steve? People trekking in each others company, looking like two carmen en route to work, would have looked like somebody who were quite unlikely to have been involved in any crime. Therefore Mizen will have had very little reason to suspect any would play on behalf of the carman - he seemed to be somebody who was walking to work with a fellow carman. If he had been alone, Lechmere would not have had the implicit kosher stamp on himself that Paul provided.
And this works regardless of what Mizen know or suspected. The innocent apparition of two carmen in company would do Lechmere no harm whatsoever. It also works regardless if Lechmere planned it to work or not.

I would have thought that this was basic, but perhaps it isn't to you?

[drstrange169]

Speaking of "the perfect lie to get passed Mizen" that Christer constantly claims, where is the data to support it?

What evidence is there that a guilty Cross needed to lie to get passed Mizen?

Whether you believe his story or not, Robert Paul's Lloyd's interview is telling in this regard. In that version, Mizen never stops Paul proceeding to work or searches him. So, from that, we know of a perception out there in the East End that a policeman will not stop or search you when you give them information, in which case Cross had no reason to lie.

I checked the Old Bailey records for 1887/ 1888 and I couldn't find a single instance of a policeman detaining or searching someone who was reporting an incident to them.

With Mizen we can see, if he was lying, how "the perfect lie" about being "wanted by a policeman" would directly help him, but with a guilty Cross, we have no evidence that he needed to invent a story to get past Mizen. Simply saying what he claimed in court was suffice, it seems, to get him on his way.

[drstrange169]

I've been away for a week and I see this thread has ballooned out by nearly a couple of hundred more posts in the meantime. Rather than waste typing answers to specific points, unless someone feels answers are required, I'll just state some facts.

Fact one: Mizen intentionally or unintentionally misled the jury.

He made no mention of the important fact that he saw two men, not one man at the corner of Hanbury and Baker's. At the end of his evidence Coroner Baxter had to correct him.

Fact two: Mizen was the only witness to have two parts of his testimony contradicted by two different people.

Fact three: Mizen entered the witness box after, at least, three major newspapers had printed a story accusing him of dereliction of duty.

Fact four: Mizen was between a rock and a hard place once he met the two men.

Police code tells us, to stop "knocking up," could be a punishable offense. On the other hand, failing to aid another officer was also a possibly punishable offense.

It may be coincidence or not, as the case my be, but it just so happens that Mizen claiming Cross told him "that he was wanted by a policeman in Buck's Row" was, to borrow Christer's phrase possibly, "the perfect lie" to get him out of trouble vis-a-vis the dereliction of duty claim. It could also help his story by pretending there was only one man there that night, turning it into a I said/he said argument.

The above facts are verifiable they are not speculation. They exist as data on the case.

The facts, as opposed to speculation tells us that there is, rightly or wrongly, a very large question mark over Mizen's testimony.

[JeffHamm]

Hi All,

Just trying to update a map of the locations involved, as it helps, I think, when discussing the "to'ing and from'ing" of those involved to have an idea where they were "to'ing and from'ing". The red dot indicates the crime scene location, the blue dot around where PC Mizen was located when Cross/Lechmere and Paul spoke with him, the dark Green dot is roughly Cross/Lechmere's home location, and the light green dot is roughly Paul's home location. I hope I've got those all correct now.

What I've been trying to locate is Dr. Llewellyn's home location. I think I've found it based upon the address, but I'm not sure if the numbering has changed since 1888 (in which case I'm wrong - hardly a novel event). I've marked it as the question mark to the lower left. Can anyone confirm if that is the correct location? The only other location of interest would be where the ambulance was located that PC Mizen was sent to fetch. I can't seem to recall anything indicating where he went to get it (the mortuary perhaps? Or would it have been the hospital? a police station?).

Anyway, would greatly appreciate any input and/or corrections to what I've indicated.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Ah. Now the idea that he mistook Nichols for a tarpaulin is indicative of guilt. I must say, this things is getting more entertaining. Obviously, you're required to add and make-up new bits. It's a bad look for theories, mind you. But, it is entertaining.

Hi Patrick S,

To be fair, I suspect Fisherman is presenting it more tongue-in-cheek than as a serious addition, hence the entertainment value. But I admit, it is hard to tell sometimes.

- Jeff

[Harry D]

Fisherman, the term "half-truth" is defined as
1 : a statement that is only partially true
2 : a statement that mingles truth and falsehood with deliberate intent to deceive

The case against Lechmere is built on them. If someone told you that a man was found with the victim, lied to the police about his name, and his work routes took him past the murder sites, it would be sound pretty compelling. However, when you unpack these statements you realise it's not the slam dunk it's made out to be.

"Lechmere was found with the victim" - No, he was found in the middle of the street. Robert Paul (the second witness on the scene, or the first, in your case) didn't know there was a victim until Lechmere went out of his way to approach him.

"Lechmere lied to the police about his name" - No, he gave his stepfather's surname which he may have used in professional circles. A lie implies that Lechmere meant to deceive, which is undermined by the fact he gave his first name, home address, place of business and voluntarily attended the inquest.

"Lechmere's work routes took him past the murder sites" - Wrong, they took him past Buck's Row & Hanbury Street. The second witness followed the same route. Annie Chapman's TOD could exclude Lechmere as the killer, unless he was late for work.

[Patrick S]

It is my favorite funny part of the whole drama, to envisage Kosminski, Druitt, Chapman, Sickert, Maybrick, Levy, Le Grand ... three hundred guys and the odd girl, all rounding the schoolyard building together, all carrying a bloody knife and all disappearing back home to their respective haunts after the strike, whereupon the innocent family father Lechmere walks down Bucks and says "Han on! Is that a tarp?" the way ALL innocent men mistake dead bodies for tarps.

Ah. Now the idea that he mistook Nichols for a tarpaulin is indicative of guilt. I must say, this things is getting more entertaining. Obviously, you're required to add and make-up new bits. It's a bad look for theories, mind you. But, it is entertaining.

[JeffHamm]

Why do you tell me to stop putting words in your mouth - after having said that I have claimed that then carmen searched adjacent streets? How does that work? And you HAVE said that you consider it impossible that the carmen did veer off, and you HAVE said that you think it proven that they were always in close company, have you not?

Or is that putting words in your mouth too?

I am quite fine with having it acknowledged that the carmen MAY have veered off, for the simple reason that we do not have the exact timings. If you had only agreed about that self-explanatory matter from the outset, we would have been good - but no, you had to protest, and you decided to add that I had claimed this for a certainty!

Nothing militates against how they could have, and we canŽt tell whether they did or not. Full stop. How hard can it be? Th story you ask for is one where Paul says "Hang on, IŽll just pop in here to see if... nope, no PC in that street", and that would have taken all of five or ten seconds.

Is it beginning to dawn on you now why I said "get real" in a former post? Just accept and move on, Jeff, that's what we do when we are proven wrong.

Again, where's the story? Describe how these side trips could have happened without resorting to discarding large bullks of evidence we have. We know estimates of time are error prone, no worries about questioning them, but I have always said that the evidence indicates these side trips are so improbable that we can safely conclude they did not happen. "So improbable" does not mean absolute proof, it does mean I''m drawing a conclusion, but it also means I'm accepting that conclusion could be wrong but only with a very small probability. You convert that to absolute proof, which is an entirely different thing.

So yes, you are putting words in my mouth.

And once again, you are fine with saying the carmen may have veered off. Great, so you evaluate those probabilities very differently than I do. So, put your money where your mouth is and tell me a story that includes a side trip that you think fits the evidence. I am not saying you believe they took this side trip, as you have clearly indicated before you don't, but you are claiming that, in your view, the evidence does not constrain us to the degree that I think it does. So fine, I'm willing, still, to reconsider how I evaluate those probabilities if you can present a story that includes a side trip that is not disconfirmed by the evidence we have - you do not need evidence that it happened, only show how it could have and not be exceedingly improbable based upon what we already know.

See, I think you can't do that because, .... the evidence we have is strong enough to discount those side trips. It constrains us so much there isn't room for them. But You think there is room within the evidence, so prove it.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Yes, the disagreement with Mizen IS inconsistent with innocence and consistent with guilt. It is however not INCOMPATIBLE with innocence.

No it is not. Mizen's testimony is the one that appears to be a factually incorrect recall of what he was told, so disagreeing with PC Mizen is more consistent with innocence.

And no, it is not only the finding of the body that makes him worthy of considering for the exact same reason, amongst others. People who disagree with the police the way Lechmere did automatically become of heightened interest when that happens. Surely you are not too blind to see that? It is a wording that is absolutely tailor-made to allow a person to pass the police, it is in total conflivŽct with what Lechmere himself claimed to have said, and that's it - once that happens, it must carry suspicion with itself until resolved.

PS. Saying that it was maybe innocent after all is not resolving the matter. I case you wondered.

There are far better and simpler ways for him to avoided the police in the first place. The focus on this is nothing more than to create confusion by ignoring the totality of the evidence and to find something that can be blown out of proportion. Each moment in time is not independent of the previous or the following, and as soon as one looks at the entire sequence of events, it is clear that all of the convoluted and improbable events and motives in the Lechmere/Cross as JtR theory are shown to be entirely disconfirmed by the rest of the evidence.

-Jeff

[Elamarna]

Yes, the disagreement with Mizen IS inconsistent with innocence and consistent with guilt. It is however not INCOMPATIBLE with innocence.

In a world where one has decided come what may, that Mizen is telling the truth and Lechmere and Paul are not that may hold true; unfortunately for the Lechmere theory in the real world that is not the case.


Steve

[Elamarna]

I see that you have added a whopper of a long post too. Can you tell me, is it along the same line of false accusations and failing understanding as the two I have answered? Oh, well, IŽll find that out at some later time, I have better things to do now.

Why not actually read it? Maybe you would see that my reply is fairly short, it's your comments which are verbose and take up the space.
The only person, clearly failing to understand the debate is you.


Steve

[Elamarna]

Shamefullly? Really? And where do I say that you think this suggestion of yours isn as likely or likelier than Bucks Row?

If I had claimed that on your behalf, it would not be nice.

Yes it is shameful, for we were not talking about which route was fastest, and you attempt to divert the discussion.

We were not discussing which route was more likely, nor have I accused you of saying a particular route is, that is the issue under debate.

Then again, I am not the one resorting to such antics. I am accused of it, like now, but the plain and simple truth bis that you have no basis for the accusation.

Watt I said and what I stand by is that Bucks Row is and remains the one logical choice of route on behalf of Lechmere, whereas your suggestion adds on a number of minutes to his trek, something that normally makes people avoid that kind of route.

Again, missing or maybe not actually understanding what we were talking about.

It was not which route he took? Or even why? The question was if he wanted to avoid Bucks Row, for a reason, which ROUTE could he have taken?

This is getting beyond a joke, and is actually very sad.


Steve