Lechmere versus Richardson.

[SuperShodan]

A post that speaks volumes about the poster I think. The ‘public’ (me) are ‘childishly servile’ whilst the intelligent, anti-establishment thinkers (you) just aren’t taken in. And of course it’s never the people with the theory who are biased is it? It’s always those that doubt. Despite the low manipulations that have gone on on these Lechmere threads in a transparently desperate attempt to shoehorn a witness into the killers shoes you still manage to place yourself on a high horse.

I have never suggested that the police are now, or have ever been, omniscient or anything close to it. But I also don’t believe that they are all Clouseau-like incompetents or moustache-twiddling Victorian villains. If it’s come to the stage where we’ve descended to criticising and mocking purely for the suggestion that the Police might have looked closer at Lechmere than we are aware of (due to the lack of records) then we have come close to the bottom of the barrel. They weren’t geniuses or idiots. They were men desperate to catch a killer and yet you assume that they wouldn’t have done their jobs with anything approaching diligence.

”To get Lechmere off the table at all costs” is a bit of a joke. I haven’t said that he should be off any table but what I have said is that there has been a colossal amount of exaggeration and manipulation to try and make him and his actions appear vastly more suspicious than they were when in actual fact nothing that Lechmere did on that night comes close to being suspicious and perfectly in line with a man discovering a body on his way to work yet you have people claiming he’s somehow the best suspect?

We’ve had a thoroughly invented gap of time (no wonder Scobie was impressed with Lech) we’ve had posters saying things like “about 3.30 could only have meant 3.30 or 3.31,” or that Baxter must have meant no more than a minute before 3.45. We’ve found that it’s apparently perfectly acceptable to suggest that Paul interrupted Lechmere but it’s a fantasy to suggest that Lechmere might have interrupted the real killer a minute or so earlier. We have an alleged killer 15 minutes from getting to work deciding to stop off and butcher a passing prostitute then loitering around so that he can show the body to a passerby, then go looking for a policeman hoping against hope that he wouldn’t detain him or take him back to the scene because there’s no way that he can lie about her being drunk because he has the other bloke standing next him. He then turns up to the Inquest but uses his Stepfathers surname but his own forenames and gives his address and place of work. But his aunty Nelly used to live near Mitre Square so he must be guilty. It’s way was getting real time.

John Richardson is a better suspect than Charles Lechmere because we don’t need to make things up.

The notion that Lechmere is somehow being shoehorned into being a suspect just isn’t just plain wrong, it’s actually quite silly.

Lechmere was found standing near the body very close to the time of death down a deserted back street by a witness. If this doesn’t make him a suspect then I don’t know what does.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that he didn’t find the body the way some often say. Lechmere didn’t merely find the body, he was found standing near the body by a witness. It’s a subtle but important difference. I think it’s crucial. It’s very incriminating in itself.

For example, it’s an error to compare Lechmere in Bucks Row to say Louis Diemschutz in Duffields Yard or Richardson in Hanbury Street. I see this often and it’s illustrates a fundamental and complete misunderstanding of what happened in Bucks Row. It’s more than an oversight, its just not having the wit to see the difference. Or perhaps just not wanting to.

Moving on, the chances of finding a freshly killed dead body at the exact same time as somebody else comes along and finds you must be billions to one. It’s takes a point blank refusal to face the facts not to see this.

So just to recap. ANYONE finding a body is such circumstances is automatically the prime suspect. Any modern investigation would seek to eliminate Lechmere from the enquiry.

So we’re not shoehorning Lechmere into being a suspect, it’s just basic common sense that he is one.

[Paddy Goose]

Good afternoon Super Shodan,

Okay, so you are of course implying the police did no investigation of Lechmere. None. Not one iota. They didn't even check to verify his employment at Pickfords. By any name. There was absolutely zero investigation of him.

Why do you think the police did not investigate him in the least bit? Not then, not later in the murders, not ever. It is for the same reason as Mark states? That he being

a white Christian working man with a respectable job at a big company...

he got a free pass.

I never cease to be amazed at the way white anglophone attitudes to the police manifest all the irrational characteristics of a religion multiplied by an addiction. However much contradictory evidence is available about what the police are and always were, the fundamental faith is never impacted, and the craving comes back worse than before: they're sensible, honest, competent, law-upholding, fair-minded, dedicated, not at all the racist, misogynist boot-boys of private wealth and the violent state, and they definitely, definitely, definitely would have used hundreds of hours of scarce manpower to check out a white Christian working man with a respectable job at a big company...

Now, if the year had been 1988 and Lechmere had been black...

M.

Are you also on board with the blanket denunciation of all police from the beginning of time right till now?

what the police are and always were

Remember this includes the policeman in Christer's TV show. He is one of the

racist, misogynist boot-boys of private wealth and the violent state

What makes the policeman who received a fee to do the TV show different from all other white policemen from the beginning of time right up to this moment?

[Mark J D]

... Oh Okay, that includes Stewart Evans. And Don Rumbelow. it includes whoever the cop did the TV show for Christer. It's every white policeman who ever existed right up to today. Right now.

You really have difficulty grasping this stuff, don't you?

Sadly, there really is no way of helping someone whose reaction -- upon having their attention drawn to the historical and worsening catastrophe that is UK policing -- is merely to bleat some version of 'But what about Mandy's husband? He's such a nice bloke!' (Actual quotation.)

You characterized Lechmere thus-
>> a white Christian working man with a respectable job at a big company...<<

I certainly can't fault your ability to quote. Are you telling us all that what I wrote there isn't how Lechmere would have looked to the Met of his day? Not Irish, not Jewish, not Gypsy, not otherwise foreign, not indigent... Hell, he doesn't even have dissimilar ears and a wide neck, as per the latest criminal anthropology. Nothing to see there, Constable. Go back to not interviewing the residents of Buck's Row...

Correct me if I'm wrong, Mark, but didn't you also recently label Lechmere an anti semite on a discussion thread here on Casebook? I seem to recall reading that but I searched and can't find it.

Wasn't that a speculative scenario attempting to provide a credible rationale for known data and to suggest avenues for further enquiry?

Don't bother yourself: the answer is 'yes'. There have been others; there will be more. Eventually, everything will fit.

You really have difficulty grasping this stuff as well, don't you?

Answer at your convenience please.

Welcome to the kind of convenience that's made of white porcelain.

M.

[Herlock Sholmes]

But it’s OK to make up ‘aunty Nellies’?

But ‘Aunty Nelly’ wasn’t meant to be taken seriously Gary. I just don’t see the relevance of the location of his mothers house. You do, and that’s fine. As you said, we disagree on this particular issue. But on the ‘gap’ issue there can be no avoiding the fact that in the documentary and the book the massively important word ‘about’ was left out creating the opportunity for a gap.

[MrBarnett]

But ‘Aunty Nelly’ wasn’t meant to be taken seriously Gary. I just don’t see the relevance of the location of his mothers house. You do, and that’s fine. As you said, we disagree on this particular issue. But on the ‘gap’ issue there can be no avoiding the fact that in the documentary and the book the massively important word ‘about’ was left out creating the opportunity for a gap.

But it was Mike, it was meant to ridicule the significance of CAL’s decades-long connection to the handful of streets near Pinchin Street.

[Aethelwulf]

The notion that Lechmere is somehow being shoehorned into being a suspect just isn’t just plain wrong, it’s actually quite silly.

Lechmere was found standing near the body very close to the time of death down a deserted back street by a witness. If this doesn’t make him a suspect then I don’t know what does.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that he didn’t find the body the way some often say. Lechmere didn’t merely find the body, he was found standing near the body by a witness. It’s a subtle but important difference. I think it’s crucial. It’s very incriminating in itself.

For example, it’s an error to compare Lechmere in Bucks Row to say Louis Diemschutz in Duffields Yard or Richardson in Hanbury Street. I see this often and it’s illustrates a fundamental and complete misunderstanding of what happened in Bucks Row. It’s more than an oversight, its just not having the wit to see the difference. Or perhaps just not wanting to.

Moving on, the chances of finding a freshly killed dead body at the exact same time as somebody else comes along and finds you must be billions to one. It’s takes a point blank refusal to face the facts not to see this.

So just to recap. ANYONE finding a body is such circumstances is automatically the prime suspect. Any modern investigation would seek to eliminate Lechmere from the enquiry.

So we’re not shoehorning Lechmere into being a suspect, it’s just basic common sense that he is one.

I don't have a problem with Lech being a suspect. It is the utter nonsense BS fabrication that goes along with him that is just so stupid. Fictitious statements about his character, his dislike of Jews, domineering mother, his fantasy illness in October and so on. From being seen standing where he said he was, we have this quarter century reign of terror based on nothing. No evidence he even used prostitutes, which I think is a basic requirement in this case I think, or even owned or carried a knife day-to-day.

Yes a suspect, but cut out all the bull. It was you I believe (but may be wrong so apologies if so), that had Lechmere chalking up 23 victims/attacks. Pure fiction based on no character traits or known behaviours that this is even remotely possible.

[JeffHamm]

...

For example, it’s an error to compare Lechmere in Bucks Row to say Louis Diemschutz in Duffields Yard or Richardson in Hanbury Street. I see this often and it’s illustrates a fundamental and complete misunderstanding of what happened in Bucks Row. It’s more than an oversight, its just not having the wit to see the difference. Or perhaps just not wanting to.
...

I'm not quite sure I get the reasoning here as it sounds like you are suggesting that finding a body with nobody else around is less incriminating than finding a body when someone else is present? I can't see how person A's guilt depends upon whether or not person B is there?

Moving on, the chances of finding a freshly killed dead body at the exact same time as somebody else comes along and finds you must be billions to one. It’s takes a point blank refusal to face the facts not to see this.

Is this what you were getting at maybe?

Well, he found it at a time when the work day for many was starting (in that they were heading to work). If we're talking about finding a body in a secluded wilderness area, sure, but on a London street when people were beginning their journey to work, not so improbable. The police mention that Whitechapel, for example, was quite busy and if the killer had gone there they would have easily escaped. I believe PC Thain mentions having seen two other men heading towards Whitechapel earlier in his beat, so there were people about. It wouldn't entirely surprise me if someone else had passed down Buck's Row prior to Cross/Lechmere but unlike Cross/Lechmere didn't investigate the "drunk woman", but there's no evidence for that of course.

So just to recap. ANYONE finding a body is such circumstances is automatically the prime suspect. Any modern investigation would seek to eliminate Lechmere from the enquiry.

So we’re not shoehorning Lechmere into being a suspect, it’s just basic common sense that he is one.

While I don't think Cross/Lechmere is guilty, I do think he's worth looking into. As far as I can see, that looking sees nothing that raises suspicions.

- Jeff

[Mark J D]

A post that speaks volumes about the poster I think.

I should bloody well hope it does. I wasn't put on this earth to present a positon that isn't mine.

The ‘public’ (me) are ‘childishly servile’ whilst the intelligent, anti-establishment thinkers (you) just aren’t taken in. [...]

[[Entire paragraphs of pearl-clutching and over-wrought prose deleted]]

John Richardson is a better suspect than Charles Lechmere because we don’t need to make things up.

So investigate Richardson and present the biographical and geographical findings. And then we'll see if all the case consists of is people shrieking 'Lechmere can't be guilty because something something something Richardson'.

M.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The notion that Lechmere is somehow being shoehorned into being a suspect just isn’t just plain wrong, it’s actually quite silly.

Lechmere was found standing near the body very close to the time of death down a deserted back street by a witness. If this doesn’t make him a suspect then I don’t know what does.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that he didn’t find the body the way some often say. Lechmere didn’t merely find the body, he was found standing near the body by a witness. It’s a subtle but important difference. I think it’s crucial. It’s very incriminating in itself.

For example, it’s an error to compare Lechmere in Bucks Row to say Louis Diemschutz in Duffields Yard or Richardson in Hanbury Street. I see this often and it’s illustrates a fundamental and complete misunderstanding of what happened in Bucks Row. It’s more than an oversight, its just not having the wit to see the difference. Or perhaps just not wanting to.

Moving on, the chances of finding a freshly killed dead body at the exact same time as somebody else comes along and finds you must be billions to one. It’s takes a point blank refusal to face the facts not to see this.

So just to recap. ANYONE finding a body is such circumstances is automatically the prime suspect. Any modern investigation would seek to eliminate Lechmere from the enquiry.

So we’re not shoehorning Lechmere into being a suspect, it’s just basic common sense that he is one.

You are absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt attempting to shoehorn Lechmere and you’re even doing it in this post. There’s nothing incriminating about finding a body or being found standing ‘near’ one, even if he was in the middle of the road when he was ‘found.’ When people find murder victims they are usually either inside a building or in some area of countryside where there’s almost no chance of someone else arriving but in the case of these murders they occurred in the street and people walk down streets. So whoever had discovered the body of Nichols there would have been a reasonable chance of a second person arriving it’s not a billion to one, that’s ludicrous. If this discovery had occurred 4 or 5 minutes later then the second person would have been PC Neil, so would have been a billion to one chance that Neil arrived? This is not incriminating. It makes him worthy of interest of course. It makes it worth the Police’s time checking him out (whether they did or not) But of itself, it’s not incriminating in itself. You talk about having the wit to see the difference. There is no difference. He found a body like millions of others. Someone else arrived at almost the same time.

What is constantly noticeable though Bob is the embarrassed coughing and shuffling of feet whenever I mention the ‘gap’ and the curiously absent word ‘about.’ Absent in the book, absent in the documentary and absent in your article. Is that a billion to one type example of forgetfulness? Or is it a completely deliberate leaving out of a word to alter the meaning of a statement to allow for the manufacturing of a non-existent ‘gap?’ I think that we all know the answer to that one don’t we?

So….yes we can say ‘what if’ Lechmere had arrived at the scene earlier? He could have killed her? Correct but even then there’s a huge ‘but.’

If he’d left the house at 3.25 and arrived at Bucks Row at 3.33 and the murder took 2 minutes tops, why was he still there when Paul arrived? Did he fancy a cigarette and a quick read of the paper before moving on to works? And then we could ask ‘well he could have left the house at 3.00 or 2.30 for all that we know?’ True, but did he loiter around in Bucks Row on the off chance of a victim turning up? Or did he find one somewhere else and for some unfathomably bizarre reason bring her back to the spot that he himself passed everyday at that time on the way to work? No, all that we know is that we cannot construe a gap. Therefore this should never be used when discussing these events and the deliberate leaving out of ‘about’ should be acknowledged but of course it won’t be.

You are shoehorning. Lechmere deserved to be looked into. But there’s not a smidgeon about what occurred that morning that is suspicious.

[MrBarnett]

I don't have a problem with Lech being a suspect. It is the utter nonsense BS fabrication that goes along with him that is just so stupid. Fictitious statements about his character, his dislike of Jews, domineering mother, his fantasy illness in October and so on. From being seen standing where he said he was, we have this quarter century reign of terror based on nothing. No evidence he even used prostitutes, which I think is a basic requirement in this case I think, or even owned or carried a knife day-to-day.

Yes a suspect, but cut out all the bull. It was you I believe (but may be wrong so apologies if so), that had Lechmere chalking up 23 victims/attacks. Pure fiction based on no character traits or known behaviours that this is even remotely possible.

I don’t recall anyone stating that Lechmere disliked Jews. Perhaps you can unearth that for us.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I should bloody well hope it does. I wasn't put on this earth to present a positon that isn't mine.



So investigate Richardson and present the biographical and geographical findings. And then we'll see if all the case consists of is people shrieking 'Lechmere can't be guilty because something something something Richardson'.

M.

Evasive, but ok.

You seem unable to understand the point that I was making. I don’t think that Richardson was the ripper. I’ve presented the findings in the first post. That is all that’s required. What I’ve said is that there’s more there to make anyone suspicious of Richardson than there is for Lechmere. I’m not interested in the geographical manipulations. It’s nonsense imo. You can put weight in it if you want to that’s up to you but the location of his mothers house is as relevant as his shoe size.

Im not ‘shrieking’ that Lechmere can’t be guilty. I don’t know who the ripper was and I’ve lost count of the amount of times that I’ve said that we cannot dismiss Lechmere with evidence. In fact there are relatively few suspects (almost none in fact) that we can entirely dismiss. It’s always going to be about likelihoods and to weight these up we look at for and against.

Is there anything suspicious about the time that he arrived - no.
Did he do anything suspicious when Paul arrived - no.
Did he try and avoid going for a Constable - no.
Did he act suspiciously around Mizen - there is a dispute on who said what but Mizen didn’t find him suspicious - no.
Did he avoid the Inquest or avoid being found by the Police - no.
Do we have any evidence of a violent nature - no.
Do we have any evidence that he consorted with prostitutes - no.
Is it likely that a man would butcher a prostitute 15 minutes from when he was due at work - no.
Is it likely that a man who hang around, potentially with blood on him and carrying a bloody knife, when he had the chance to escape - no.

And so Lechmere is an unlikely killer.

[Mark J D]

It seems that in 1901 Richardson, his wife and one child were living in a single room in Vallance Road. His occupation was originally recorded as ‘Market-Porter’ but the ‘Porter’ was scribbled through and ‘G L’ (General Labourer?) added.

So, living in one room and with a low-paying and precarious job by the look of it.

Very comfortable.

Meanwhile, we can imagine mad old Bible-thumping Mrs Richardson as a person experiencing poor and declining mental health ... and ultimately being abandoned to the era's non-existent medico-social safety-net and hurtling all the way down...

M.

[Paddy Goose]

You really have difficulty grasping this stuff, don't you?

What a very condescending thing to say to me.

Sadly, there really is no way of helping someone whose reaction -- upon having their attention drawn to the historical and worsening catastrophe that is UK policing -- is merely to bleat some version of 'But what about Mandy's husband? He's such a nice bloke!' (Actual quotation.)

I don't need your help. I don't bleap anything about Mandy because I've never heard that quote.

You said all police then and now. All. That includes Evans and Rumbelow. I am stating facts.

I certainly can't fault your ability to quote.

Again I am subjected to more of you talking down to me.

Are you telling us all that what I wrote there isn't how Lechmere would have looked to the Met of his day? Not Irish, not Jewish, not Gypsy, not otherwise foreign, not indigent... Hell, he doesn't even have dissimilar ears and a wide neck, as per the latest criminal anthropology. Nothing to see there, Constable.

I said nothing of the kind. You are putting words in my mouth.

Go back to not interviewing the residents of Buck's Row...

This is where Evans & Rumbelow come in. Two policemen who devoted a significant portion of their time to studying the Whitechapel murders and published the book Scotland Yard Investigates which I read. Towards the end they discussed the state of what has survived in terms of the case files and what is lost, which is the police notebooks. And of course, those notebooks are precisely where the details of any police inquires into Lechmere would have been.

But I am mocked when I so much as mention the term police notebooks here. Now I see why. Evans and Rumbelow are thought of as nothing more than

the racist, misogynist boot-boys of private wealth and the violent state

In reply to my question to you that you labelled Lechmere an anti semite you answered -

Wasn't that a speculative scenario attempting to provide a credible rationale for known data and to suggest avenues for further enquiry?

Don't bother yourself: the answer is 'yes'

.

Since, as I explained in my post, I can't locate where you said that, which thread. Could you please explain again why you think Lechmere is an anti semite? Or just let me ask you this- did it have anything to do with him relocating his residence from St Georges to Bethnal Green?

You really have difficulty grasping this stuff as well, don't you?

No I think I am getting the gist of exactly what you are saying. But again, you continue to talk down to me. To mock me.

[MrBarnett]

Evasive, but ok.

You seem unable to understand the point that I was making. I don’t think that Richardson was the ripper. I’ve presented the findings in the first post. That is all that’s required. What I’ve said is that there’s more there to make anyone suspicious of Richardson than there is for Lechmere. I’m not interested in the geographical manipulations. It’s nonsense imo. You can put weight in it if you want to that’s up to you but the location of his mothers house is as relevant as his shoe size.

Im not ‘shrieking’ that Lechmere can’t be guilty. I don’t know who the ripper was and I’ve lost count of the amount of times that I’ve said that we cannot dismiss Lechmere with evidence. In fact there are relatively few suspects (almost none in fact) that we can entirely dismiss. It’s always going to be about likelihoods and to weight these up we look at for and against.

Is there anything suspicious about the time that he arrived - no.
Did he do anything suspicious when Paul arrived - no.
Did he try and avoid going for a Constable - no.
Did he act suspiciously around Mizen - there is a dispute on who said what but Mizen didn’t find him suspicious - no.
Did he avoid the Inquest or avoid being found by the Police - no.
Do we have any evidence of a violent nature - no.
Do we have any evidence that he consorted with prostitutes - no.
Is it likely that a man would butcher a prostitute 15 minutes from when he was due at work - no.
Is it likely that a man who hang around, potentially with blood on him and carrying a bloody knife, when he had the chance to escape - no.

And so Lechmere is an unlikely killer.

There you go again, Mike. You’ve moved on from the absurdity of aunt Nellie, and now present us with your insightful opinion on geographical profiling being as relevant as shoe size.

And for the umpteenth time, we are not just talking talking about where his mother lived, we are talking about the area where he had spent most of his life up to 1889.

If, and of course it’s by no means certain, the torso was conveyed to the Pinchin Street arch on foot, then the killer must have been someone with access to premises nearby.

[MrBarnett]

What a very condescending thing to say to me.



I don't need your help. I don't bleap anything about Mandy because I've never heard that quote.

You said all police then and now. All. That includes Evans and Rumbelow. I am stating facts.



Again I am subjected to more of you talking down to me.



I said nothing of the kind. You are putting words in my mouth.



This is where Evans & Rumbelow come in. Two policemen who devoted a significant portion of their time to studying the Whitechapel murders and published the book Scotland Yard Investigates which I read. Towards the end they discussed the state of what has survived in terms of the case files and what is lost, which is the police notebooks. And of course, those notebooks are precisely where the details of any police inquires into Lechmere would have been.

But I am mocked when I so much as mention the term police notebooks here. Now I see why. Evans and Rumbelow are thought of as nothing more than



In reply to my question to you that you labelled Lechmere an anti semite you answered -

.

Since, as I explained in my post, I can't locate where you said that, which thread. Could you please explain again why you think Lechmere is an anti semite? Or just let me ask you this- did it have anything to do with him relocating his residence from St Georges to Bethnal Green?



No I think I am getting the gist of exactly what you are saying. But again, you continue to talk down to me. To mock me.

Paddy,

It was the coroner who picked up on the fact that the police did not go house to house in Buck’s Row and politely suggested they did so.

Gary