What was Kosminski is now Lechmere: how relevant is Scobie?

[Sam Flynn]

As usual out here on Casebook, we have a number of characters who make appallingly faulty statements and draw wildly wrong conclusions.

Oh, the irony.

[Fiver]

how would anyone be able to distinguish wet blood from dried blood on an apron, blood will be absorbed by the material and will dry quickly

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Charles Lechmere was a delivery driver for a general goods service. He shouldn't have been getting blood on his apron at all.

[Fiver]

You consider it misleading to provide a barrister with accusatory material and ask him to assess it. But it is nothing of the sort, least of all since it is spelled out extremely clearly in the documentary that this was the exact thing that was done. The reason for it should be obvious - to provide Scobie with all the material that has been written in the matter would be to subject him to years of reading, and it would never be a realistic thing to do.

Presenting accusatory evidence, but not exculpatory evidence is misleading someone. Especially when it is clear from Scobie's statements that much of the "evidence" was provably false statements or speculation presented as fact.

No competent prosecutor would bring a case to trial without studying what evidence would be provided by the defense. Scobie's mistake was thinking that the lack of exculpatory evidence meant that it didn't exist, when it had been deliberately withheld by the makers of the "documentary".

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Charles Lechmere was a delivery driver for a general goods service. He shouldn't have been getting blood on his apron at all.

I have never understood why so many people assume Lechmere's apron would have been bloodstained.

[Fiver]

And, interestingly, if we were to do it like that, then how is it that Phillips suggested timin in the Chapman case is rejected, whilst Killeens timing in the Tabram case is bought straight of, no questions answered?

Three witnesses contradict Dr Phillips estimate for the time of death. No witnesses contradict Dr Killeen's estimate for the time of death.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Presenting accusatory evidence, but not exculpatory evidence is misleading someone. Especially when it is clear from Scobie's statements that much of the "evidence" was provably false statements or speculation presented as fact.

No competent prosecutor would bring a case to trial without studying what evidence would be provided by the defense. Scobie's mistake was thinking that the lack of exculpatory evidence meant that it didn't exist, when it had been deliberately withheld by the makers of the "documentary".

It is obvious that Scobie was quite unaware of any of the numerous facts that speak in Lechmere's favour:


The timings really hurt him ... And the question is, where were you? What were you doing during that time? Because actually, he has never given a proper answer. He is somebody who seems to be acting in a way and behaving in a way that is suspicious, which a jury would not like... When the coincidences add up, mount up against a defendant - and they mount up in his case - it becomes one coincidence too many.


The timings do not hurt him!

There is hard evidence that in four of the six murders - Tabram, Stride, Eddowes and Kelly - Lechmere's job could not have placed him at the scenes of those murders when they happened.

In the case of Chapman, if the coroner's conclusions are accepted, that makes five, but in any case, there is no evidence that Chapman was killed at such a time as to enable Lechmere to complete the task and still arrive at work on time.

[caz]

Scobie was clearly told that Cross had left his house at 3.30. This created an entirely false picture that there was a provable unexplained gap of time. If that gap of time had provably have existed then it wouldn’t have taken a Barrister to have spotted it’s significance so it’s no wonder that Scobie felt that Cross had a case to answer. So naturally, being presented by ‘inaccurate’ information Scobie can be excused for arriving at an obviously inaccurate conclusion. Remove the imaginary gap and the case against Cross is exposed as a complete non-starter.

I wonder if anyone has contacted Scobie and asked him “would you still come to the same conclusion now that you know that Cross actually only said that he’d left his house at around 3.30 and that the body was likely to have been discovered at around 3.40?”

I think we all know the answer to that one.

Hi Herlock,

I'd want to ask Scobie a) why he didn't query how Cross himself could have given such an accurate time for leaving home, in an era when clocks were universally known to be less than reliable, and b) why the killer would have told the truth about when he left home, if it left him with a significant gap that he could - and should - have been asked to explain at the time.

I'm no barrister, but if I can see the problem here a mile off, I wonder why Scobie apparently missed it.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The timings really hurt him ... And the question is, where were you? What were you doing during that time? Because actually, he has never given a proper answer. He is somebody who seems to be acting in a way and behaving in a way that is suspicious, which a jury would not like... When the coincidences add up, mount up against a defendant - and they mount up in his case - it becomes one coincidence too many.

If the above is a direct quote by Scobie, why is he implying that Lechmere was ever asked to give 'a proper answer' regarding his whereabouts when any of the other murders were thought to have been committed? A jury 'would not like' the fact that Lechmere is somebody who 'seems to be acting and behaving in a way that is suspicious' - because he has 'never given a proper answer' to questions about the other murders, which he was never going to be asked about??

Is this a joke?

Lechmere alerted Robert Paul, followed by PC Mizen, to precisely where he was and what he was doing when Nichols was found. He could not have been more helpful in this regard when he attended the inquest, so what the hell is Scobie referring to here, if not the 'timings' of other murders, which Lechmere was never asked about, for blindingly obvious reasons? Would a jury not like the fact, and find it suspicious, that he failed to show up at any of the other inquests, to volunteer his whereabouts and what he was doing at the time? It's insane.

Love,

Caz
X

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I agree.

Scobie seems to be extraordinarily one-sided in that quote, which I transcribed from the documentary.

When he says that the jury would not have liked Lechmere's allegedly suspicious behaviour, is he not aware that the jury would have been obliged to go by the evidence and that the evidence given in court was in Lechmere's favour?

But Scobie was not the only expert who appeared in the documentary and who sided with the 'prosecution' case against Lechmere.

One expert implied that if Lechmere had disturbed the murderer, he would have been able to see him escaping, that Lechmere could not have run away when he noticed Paul approaching, and that he had deliberately misled Mizen.

Another implied that Lechmere's job gave him an excuse to be at the scenes of the murders when they happened.

The thing about the documentary that irritated me most of all was the exaggerated way in which the narrator pointed to Lechmere's guilt in almost everything he said.

I found it entirely unconvincing, especially in relation to the murder of Stride.

[Fiver]

Hi Herlock,

I'd want to ask Scobie a) why he didn't query how Cross himself could have given such an accurate time for leaving home, in an era when clocks were universally known to be less than reliable, and b) why the killer would have told the truth about when he left home, if it left him with a significant gap that he could - and should - have been asked to explain at the time.

I'm no barrister, but if I can see the problem here a mile off, I wonder why Scobie apparently missed it.

Love,

Caz
X

And if this supposed obvious time gap existed, why didn't any of the police notice it?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

And if this supposed obvious time gap existed, why didn't any of the police notice it?

The documentary claims that Lechmere was wearing bloodstained overalls which the police did not notice, that no-one - including his employers - realised he was using a false name at the inquest, and that he tried to trick the police into not checking Nichols' condition; yet the police did not consider such conduct suspicious.

It is amazing how investigators can see everything so clearly now, but the police, who actually saw Lechmere and had the opportunity to investigate him, could not see it.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Some more quotes from the documentary, regarding timings:


'The coroner said she [Tabram] was killed between 2.30 and 3.30 a.m., placing her time of death very close to the time Lechmere would have been passing.'

Even though Lechmere did not leave home till 3.30 a.m.?


'The medical examiner estimated that she [Chapman] was killed at about 4:30 AM.
Again, Lechmere would have been passing close to the murder site within minutes of her death.'

Even though Lechmere was expected to be at work at 4.00 a.m.?


'If Lechmere had visited his mother that night, his route home would take him past the site of Stride's murder at the time of her death.'

How can we know at what time Lechmere would have left his mother's house?


'The final Ripper victim [Kelly] was back in Whitechapel at a time and place that once again fitted Charles Lechmere's daily routine.'

Did Lechmere's routine include butchering women in Spitalfields during working hours?


Is that the evidence against Lechmere that was presented to Scobie?

Is that why he said:

The timings really hurt him... And the question is, where were you? What were you doing during that time? Because actually, he has never given a proper answer... When the coincidences add up, mount up against a defendant - and they mount up in his case - it becomes one coincidence too many.

[Sunny Delight]

Some more quotes from the documentary, regarding timings:


'The coroner said she [Tabram] was killed between 2.30 and 3.30 a.m., placing her time of death very close to the time Lechmere would have been passing.'

Even though Lechmere did not leave home till 3.30 a.m.?


'The medical examiner estimated that she [Chapman] was killed at about 4:30 AM.
Again, Lechmere would have been passing close to the murder site within minutes of her death.'

Even though Lechmere was expected to be at work at 4.00 a.m.?


'If Lechmere had visited his mother that night, his route home would take him past the site of Stride's murder at the time of her death.'

How can we know at what time Lechmere would have left his mother's house?


'The final Ripper victim [Kelly] was back in Whitechapel at a time and place that once again fitted Charles Lechmere's daily routine.'

Did Lechmere's routine include butchering women in Spitalfields during working hours?


Is that the evidence against Lechmere that was presented to Scobie?

Is that why he said:

The timings really hurt him... And the question is, where were you? What were you doing during that time? Because actually, he has never given a proper answer... When the coincidences add up, mount up against a defendant - and they mount up in his case - it becomes one coincidence too many.

What coincidences? We don't know what route he took to work. We don't know when he visited his mother. Its all absolute nonsense.

[Fiver]

Some more quotes from the documentary, regarding timings:


'The coroner said she [Tabram] was killed between 2.30 and 3.30 a.m., placing her time of death very close to the time Lechmere would have been passing.'

Even though Lechmere did not leave home till 3.30 a.m.?

And Lechmere's walk to work didn't take him anywhere near George Yard. This is another lie by the "documentary".

'If Lechmere had visited his mother that night, his route home would take him past the site of Stride's murder at the time of her death.'

How can we know at what time Lechmere would have left his mother's house?

Killing Stride and Eddowes would have required Lechmere staying up 23+ hours or getting up 3+ hours early on his only day off. Dutfield's Yard was not on Lechmere's route home from his mother's house. This is another lie by the "documentary".

'The final Ripper victim [Kelly] was back in Whitechapel at a time and place that once again fitted Charles Lechmere's daily routine.'

Did Lechmere's routine include butchering women in Spitalfields during working hours?

And the place is blocks away from Lechmere's route to work. This is another lie by the "documentary".

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

What coincidences? We don't know what route he took to work. We don't know when he visited his mother. Its all absolute nonsense.

If he wasn't the killer, then he was the unluckiest person in the world, because he suddenly developed some sort of habit of always passing by as somebody was killed in those streets.

(CHRISTER HOLMGREN)