OK whos your favored suspect/s and why?

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

This issue came up a couple of weeks ago in a discussion of who Schwartz's BS man might have been. Schwartz estimated his age as 30. I take it from what is said here that it's very possible that BS man could have been as young as 23 (or much older than 30 for than matter, but the candidates we were discussing were young).

Hi,

Yes. I still haven't gone over the paper in detail, and I may have made an error in my post above where I stated the ranges as +- half the amount. Rereading what I wrong, I shouldn't have halved things, so basically, if someone is actually 30, then less than half of the people will guess an age between 20 and 40! (less than half are within 10 years of the true age, so one would apply that error range to the guess as well). However, I'm sure the data is a bit more complicated, and the +- won't be equal in both directions for all guesses. Meaning, if someone estimated an age of 20, it's unlikely the true age is 10 years less than that, so the lower end probably bunches up as the estimates get younger. I'm being a bit pedantic here, but thought I would mention it all the same.

Anyway, I think most of the estimated ages we get from the witnesses are around 30, so an age range of something like 20 to 40 would probably be correct with about 47% probability, meaning - age estimates are pretty useless really. Even Long's estimate of 40 means the person she saw could be in their 20's with a reasonable probability. In the end, I wouldn't put much effort into worrying about how well a suspect's age corresponds to any of the estimates.

And heights and weights are pretty poorly estimated as well, and that gets worse when subjective descriptors are used (short, tall, stocky, stout, lanky, medium build, etc). All of the descriptions about the individual are probably consistent with someone of relatively "average" appearance, keeping in mind that "average" spans a great deal of different actual measurements.

What might be of more use, though I'm not sure of how reliable these sorts of descriptions are at the moment, might come from descriptions of the man's height relative to the victim. But even in the few cases we have of those I think it's subjective ("a little taller", etc), so again, those might appear more informative than they actually are.

Really, the take home message is that the details of the men described by the eye-witnesses are not as useful as they might "feel" to us. Our understanding of what constitutes "short" or "tall" and so forth is unlikely the same as what the eye-witness considered to be "short" or "tall", etc. So just because a suspect is known to be 5'6", for example, and someone describes the man they saw as being "tall" doesn't amount to information upon which you can say "Can't be him." Well, of course you can say that, but there's no objective reason for anyone to take you seriously.

- Jeff

[rjpalmer]

Hutchinson's description stands out, but his description is far too detailed to be reliable and either his memory is filling in gaps or he's over egging his description to the press (we see something similar in the Lloyd's article by Paul, who overstates his role and diminishes Cross/Lechmere's).

Hi Jeff. Your comment is not unreasonable, but I'm going to give you a little pushback by reposting something I observed back in 2008.


George Hutchinson Exonerated?

10-05-2008, 07:46 PM

I watched a crime documentary last week that reminded me of the George Hutchinson controversy.

It involved the kidnapping of Ben Ownby, a youth who was abducted in a rural area outside of St. Louis, MO.

In the hours following Ownby’s disappearance, a teenager named Mitchell Hults came forward, claiming that he caught a glimpse of a pickup truck speeding away from the school bus stop where Ownby was last seen. As with Hutchinson, he had noticed this truck before there had been any knowledge that a crime had occurred.

The F.B.I. interviewed Hults, and the agents later admitted rolling their eyes and looking at each other in disbelief when the young man began giving an extremely detailed description of the speeding pickup. In their words, it was “too detailed to be true.” No witness, in their experience, was ever this detailed. For one thing, Hults had little reason to have taken any interest in the truck, yet he was not only able to give the color and 'make' of the vehicle, he also described the truck's canopy, the shape of the rust stains around the wheel wells, and even the 2” x 2” square trailer hitch on the back tailgate. The only thing he couldn’t describe was the license plate number. One of the detectives openly called Hults a liar; to which the young man blurted out “I’ve never told a lie in my life!!” Others dismissed him as the typical publicity-hound witness that often comes forward during any major criminal investigation.

Despite their doubts, the police circulated Hults’ description of the pickup truck. The owner of a restaurant in St. Louis noticed the description, and thought it was very similar to a vehicle owned by one of his employees...a man who just happened to have gone home sick on the day the Ownby boy went missing. Curious, the man drove out to his employees’ apartment complex, where he noticed red dust on the tires of the man’s white pickup...which meant it must have been out driving on rural roads. To make a long story short, he then contacted the police who eventually discovered the kidnapped Ownby boy alive in the suspect’s apartment, along with Shawn Hornbeck, another youth who had been abducted four years earlier.

Hults’ “too good to be true” description was, in reality, accurate & truthful and directly led to the case being solved, while the FBI agents who doubted it had to later eat their words. The city of St. Louis later rewarded Hults by buying him a new pickup of his own.

"Never say never."

[Dickere]

It's the exception that proves the rule.

[Lewis C]

Hi,

Yes. I still haven't gone over the paper in detail, and I may have made an error in my post above where I stated the ranges as +- half the amount. Rereading what I wrong, I shouldn't have halved things, so basically, if someone is actually 30, then less than half of the people will guess an age between 20 and 40! (less than half are within 10 years of the true age, so one would apply that error range to the guess as well). However, I'm sure the data is a bit more complicated, and the +- won't be equal in both directions for all guesses. Meaning, if someone estimated an age of 20, it's unlikely the true age is 10 years less than that, so the lower end probably bunches up as the estimates get younger. I'm being a bit pedantic here, but thought I would mention it all the same.

Anyway, I think most of the estimated ages we get from the witnesses are around 30, so an age range of something like 20 to 40 would probably be correct with about 47% probability, meaning - age estimates are pretty useless really. Even Long's estimate of 40 means the person she saw could be in their 20's with a reasonable probability. In the end, I wouldn't put much effort into worrying about how well a suspect's age corresponds to any of the estimates.

And heights and weights are pretty poorly estimated as well, and that gets worse when subjective descriptors are used (short, tall, stocky, stout, lanky, medium build, etc). All of the descriptions about the individual are probably consistent with someone of relatively "average" appearance, keeping in mind that "average" spans a great deal of different actual measurements.

What might be of more use, though I'm not sure of how reliable these sorts of descriptions are at the moment, might come from descriptions of the man's height relative to the victim. But even in the few cases we have of those I think it's subjective ("a little taller", etc), so again, those might appear more informative than they actually are.

Really, the take home message is that the details of the men described by the eye-witnesses are not as useful as they might "feel" to us. Our understanding of what constitutes "short" or "tall" and so forth is unlikely the same as what the eye-witness considered to be "short" or "tall", etc. So just because a suspect is known to be 5'6", for example, and someone describes the man they saw as being "tall" doesn't amount to information upon which you can say "Can't be him." Well, of course you can say that, but there's no objective reason for anyone to take you seriously.

- Jeff

Thanks, Jeff!

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff. Your comment is not unreasonable, but I'm going to give you a little pushback by reposting something I observed back in 2008.


George Hutchinson Exonerated?

10-05-2008, 07:46 PM

I watched a crime documentary last week that reminded me of the George Hutchinson controversy.

It involved the kidnapping of Ben Ownby, a youth who was abducted in a rural area outside of St. Louis, MO.

In the hours following Ownby’s disappearance, a teenager named Mitchell Hults came forward, claiming that he caught a glimpse of a pickup truck speeding away from the school bus stop where Ownby was last seen. As with Hutchinson, he had noticed this truck before there had been any knowledge that a crime had occurred.

The F.B.I. interviewed Hults, and the agents later admitted rolling their eyes and looking at each other in disbelief when the young man began giving an extremely detailed description of the speeding pickup. In their words, it was “too detailed to be true.” No witness, in their experience, was ever this detailed. For one thing, Hults had little reason to have taken any interest in the truck, yet he was not only able to give the color and 'make' of the vehicle, he also described the truck's canopy, the shape of the rust stains around the wheel wells, and even the 2” x 2” square trailer hitch on the back tailgate. The only thing he couldn’t describe was the license plate number. One of the detectives openly called Hults a liar; to which the young man blurted out “I’ve never told a lie in my life!!” Others dismissed him as the typical publicity-hound witness that often comes forward during any major criminal investigation.

Despite their doubts, the police circulated Hults’ description of the pickup truck. The owner of a restaurant in St. Louis noticed the description, and thought it was very similar to a vehicle owned by one of his employees...a man who just happened to have gone home sick on the day the Ownby boy went missing. Curious, the man drove out to his employees’ apartment complex, where he noticed red dust on the tires of the man’s white pickup...which meant it must have been out driving on rural roads. To make a long story short, he then contacted the police who eventually discovered the kidnapped Ownby boy alive in the suspect’s apartment, along with Shawn Hornbeck, another youth who had been abducted four years earlier.

Hults’ “too good to be true” description was, in reality, accurate & truthful and directly led to the case being solved, while the FBI agents who doubted it had to later eat their words. The city of St. Louis later rewarded Hults by buying him a new pickup of his own.

"Never say never."

Hi rj,

Nice example. I guess I should have said it's not impossible Hutch really did take in all that detail, and recall it (as your example shows does sometimes happen), only that given we don't have JtR apprehended and a details of his attire, etc, there's no way to make that comparison. In most cases, though, very detailed descriptions tend to be unreliable, so the odds are that Hutch's falls into that larger group, but as you say, it doesn't mean it must be in that group (rare events do sometimes happen, and maybe this is one of them).

Anyway, you are correct in pointing out that sometimes witnesses can be very detailed and accurate, although the research shows that is generally not the case.

- Jeff

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Hi rj,

Nice example. I guess I should have said it's not impossible Hutch really did take in all that detail, and recall it (as your example shows does sometimes happen), only that given we don't have JtR apprehended and a details of his attire, etc, there's no way to make that comparison. In most cases, though, very detailed descriptions tend to be unreliable, so the odds are that Hutch's falls into that larger group, but as you say, it doesn't mean it must be in that group (rare events do sometimes happen, and maybe this is one of them).

Anyway, you are correct in pointing out that sometimes witnesses can be very detailed and accurate, although the research shows that is generally not the case.

- Jeff

Splendid story, Jeff, but what are the chances of such an extravagantly-dressed man as the one seen by Hutchinson daring to walk down Dorset Street at 2 a.m., when police reportedly were too afraid to walk down it at night alone?

[Abby Normal]

Hi rj,

Nice example. I guess I should have said it's not impossible Hutch really did take in all that detail, and recall it (as your example shows does sometimes happen), only that given we don't have JtR apprehended and a details of his attire, etc, there's no way to make that comparison. In most cases, though, very detailed descriptions tend to be unreliable, so the odds are that Hutch's falls into that larger group, but as you say, it doesn't mean it must be in that group (rare events do sometimes happen, and maybe this is one of them).

Anyway, you are correct in pointing out that sometimes witnesses can be very detailed and accurate, although the research shows that is generally not the case.

- Jeff

yup. and in addition to the incredible detail of the mans appearance, he also apparently remembered multiple conversations and the detailed movements of all three of them. hutches aman story is bs.

[JeffHamm]

Splendid story, Jeff, but what are the chances of such an extravagantly-dressed man as the one seen by Hutchinson daring to walk down Dorset Street at 2 a.m., when police reportedly were too afraid to walk down it at night alone?

No idea, but Mary's alleged comment of "you will be comfortable" (or something like that), could indicate she was reassuring him that he was safe with her. Also, if the street was fairly empty at the time, where's the risk in his eyes? And also, those reports may not be accurate, given we have one person saying they heard the footsteps of a police officer on patrol that morning when it would be dark. Even if that was JtR leaving, the fact the witness thought it was the police suggests that hearing them was not so unusual.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

yup. and in addition to the incredible detail of the mans appearance, he also apparently remembered multiple conversations and the detailed movements of all three of them. hutches aman story is bs.

Hi Abby,

It could be bs. I suspect there is at least a grain of truth in it though, and while RJ's point that is possible he took in such details and recalled them later is valid, I still tend to think it more likely that his description is inaccurate. If, as an example, he hears of Mary's murder, recalls seeing her with someone that night and that he waited for her, he may have tried to reconstruct his memory of what the fellow looked like, and in doing so, created a false image. If so, and given the description we have, the truth may simply be the fellow looked a bit above the usual. That could tally with others who suggested "shabby gentile". Of course, that's pure speculation and I'm not pushing it. An alternative idea might be that given the police seemed to trust him for some time it may be that his description to the police was a bit less over-the-top and they told him not to give details of the man to the press, so he created a stage-villain type description? That way JtR would think they've got the wrong end of the stick. I'm just running with ideas here, obviously, but I don't think we can safely dismiss Hutchinson's account entirely without risking throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

- Jeff

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby,

It could be bs. I suspect there is at least a grain of truth in it though, and while RJ's point that is possible he took in such details and recalled them later is valid, I still tend to think it more likely that his description is inaccurate. If, as an example, he hears of Mary's murder, recalls seeing her with someone that night and that he waited for her, he may have tried to reconstruct his memory of what the fellow looked like, and in doing so, created a false image. If so, and given the description we have, the truth may simply be the fellow looked a bit above the usual. That could tally with others who suggested "shabby gentile". Of course, that's pure speculation and I'm not pushing it. An alternative idea might be that given the police seemed to trust him for some time it may be that his description to the police was a bit less over-the-top and they told him not to give details of the man to the press, so he created a stage-villain type description? That way JtR would think they've got the wrong end of the stick. I'm just running with ideas here, obviously, but I don't think we can safely dismiss Hutchinson's account entirely without risking throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

- Jeff

agree. i think part of hutches story is true too. like his initial encounter with mary and or waiting outside her place.

[Wickerman]

Splendid story, Jeff, but what are the chances of such an extravagantly-dressed man as the one seen by Hutchinson daring to walk down Dorset Street at 2 a.m., when police reportedly were too afraid to walk down it at night alone?

Because Aman was a crook like many who lived in the area. Criminals don't attack their own kind, Hutch said he had seen him in the area before.
It isn't that no-one was safe to walk those streets, the police were hated by many, the police either avoided it or patrolled in pairs, the local criminals victimized the police. Ordinary people passed through reasonably safe.

[Wickerman]

Hi Abby,

It could be bs. I suspect there is at least a grain of truth in it though, and while RJ's point that is possible he took in such details and recalled them later is valid, I still tend to think it more likely that his description is inaccurate. If, as an example, he hears of Mary's murder, recalls seeing her with someone that night and that he waited for her, he may have tried to reconstruct his memory of what the fellow looked like, and in doing so, created a false image. If so, and given the description we have, the truth may simply be the fellow looked a bit above the usual. That could tally with others who suggested "shabby gentile". Of course, that's pure speculation and I'm not pushing it. An alternative idea might be that given the police seemed to trust him for some time it may be that his description to the police was a bit less over-the-top and they told him not to give details of the man to the press, so he created a stage-villain type description? That way JtR would think they've got the wrong end of the stick. I'm just running with ideas here, obviously, but I don't think we can safely dismiss Hutchinson's account entirely without risking throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

- Jeff

I think Aman is a Red-Herring, he left before the murder, if we take all the statements into account. The press did report that witnesses were subsequently found who stated Kelly was seen out on the streets between 2-3 am that morning. Then of course we have Kennedy who saw Kelly outside the Britannia about 3:00 am.
Aman is just a distraction, he left the scene, Kelly left Millers Court, and Hutch left Dorset St.
It's the man Kelly was seen talking to outside the Britannia that we should be focused on - in my opinion.

[Losmandris]

I wonder whether on closer inspection AM was a lot more shabby than he appeared at a distance or in the dark. All that 'Gold' was just polished brass, those cuffs were scuffed and those shoes worn out. He could just have easily been a local man trying to project a certain image. Could have looked a lot different in the cold light of day.

This in my eyes may exclude him as a suspect. I would imagine the killer would have been more plain in dress, to more easily blend in.

[DJA]

AMan did not exist.

He resembled Randolph Churchill who had a residence in Brook Street,next door to Sir William Withey Gull's.

[Chava]

The man seen with Mary Kelly was described as 'A short, stout man [wearing] a longish coat [with] a blotchy face, and full carroty moustache' and aged 36.

The man who attacked Ada Wilson was described as 'Aged about 30, height 5 ft. 6 in.; face sunburnt, with fair moustache; dressed in dark coat ... and wideawake hat.'

The man seen by Lawende with Catherine Eddowes was described as 'Age 30 ht. 5 ft. 7 or 8 in. comp. fair, fair moustache, medium build, ... appearance of a sailor.’


I don't see how a 'short, stout man [with] a full carroty moustache' and aged 36, could be the same as someone 'Age 30 ht. 5 ft. 7 or 8 in. comp. fair, fair moustache, medium build'

I would point out that Ada Wilson was attacked six months before Eddowes was murdered, by which time the murderer's sun-burnt skin might have improved considerably.

Is there anything about Ada Wilson's assailant that makes you think he may have had the appearance of a sailor?

I'm afraid I don't follow your reasoning. Those descriptions are very similar in height, colouring and dress. The time elapsed between Ada Wilson's attack & Polly Nichol's murder isn't indicative either. Emily Jackson was the second Yorkshire Ripper victim. She was killed January 20th 1976. Irene Richardson was the third victim. She was killed February 6th 1977. The Yorkshire Ripper killed 3 women in 1977 & 1978. then there is a year before he kills in April 1979. He kills one more woman in 1979. then there's another year before he kills 2 women in 1980. As for the 'sunburned skin', that could have been psoriasis acne eczema or rosacea just to name the most common. And those conditions don't heal without quite a lot of medicine totally unavailable in 1888.