Jack The Ripper solved?

[Ben]

Hello Tecs, and welcome.

Regarding Hutchinson's alibi, it is unlikely that he was ever asked for one as he was apparently never grilled as a suspect. However, it may be significant that he had an essentially non-existent alibi for the generally accepted time of the murder - after 3.00 but before 4.00. He was, according to his press account, "walking about" the streets at that time, which could be neither verified nor contradicted. He had, in essence, a potentially convenient NON-alibi for Kelly's murder, despite apparently having loitered outside her home (and watched it) shortly before that murder happened.

All the best,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Ben:

There is not a single Hutchinson debate that you've started which I haven't finished, so what makes you think this one will be any different?

There is only one debate, Ben - and itīs sadly still unfinished. It should have been finished years ago, though.

I simply know where to find stuff when people pick Hutchinson fights with me out of nowhere.

Well, that would depend - you still have not managed to find any example of the police telling us that Hutchinson was a time-waster or a liar. Nor will you do so in the future. Meaning that I remain on terra firma when saying that what little there is, in terms of assessments of Hutchinsonīs honesty, both from the time before and the time after his story was graded down importancewise, is all in favour of him being an honest man.

And I say that is quite clearly not the case. You can't dislocate a discredited account from its author like that. It makes no sense. It's like saying Jack the Ripper is innocent but his knife is guilty.

Thatīs interesting. I cannot "dislocate" a discredited account from itīs author?

When did I "dislocate" it, Ben? I am very certain that the account is tied to George Hutchinson. It always has been and it always will be.
Ah - wait a minute! Now I see what you mean: I cannot state that an honest man can produce an account that later on suffers a diminished importance, is that it? An account that is discredited automatically carries with it a discrediting of the author, is that what you mean?

Then why donīt you say so? Did you think the "dislocating" thing would do the trick?

Anyways, it is not rocket science to realize that when somebody tells a story in good faith, only to later have it discovered that this somebody was mistaken, then only one of the two items, author and story, will be discredited. And that item is the story.

I feel pretty certain that you yourself have gotten the day wrong at some remove in time, misinforming somebody. Correct me if Iīm wrong. And I bet that somebody has you down as an attentionseeker and a liar nowadays. I mean, we cannot dislocate such a thing from you, can we?

Besides which, we know the reason for Hutchinson's discrediting - it was inextricably linked to the issue of his honesty and credibility, or rather his perceived lack thereof. That much is abundantly clear from the Echo report. If he was treated as a poor, date-confusing ninny, the article would have said so ...

But if he was perceived as a liar, the article would NOT say so, and Dew would cover up for him fifty years later. And not a single policeman would disclose it in their memoirs, and not a single paper would bring it up, the way Violenia was thrown to the wolves. It would be - how do you say? - dislocated from the story.

But for Dew, that is.

But we canīt trust him, since Iīve said that he got things wrong.

And if Iīve said so, itīs bound to be correct, since you think I am always correct, right?

...and Astrakhan would have remained a viable suspect, but neither of those things happened.

Eh - please tell me how Astrakhan man would have stayed a suspect if the police found out that Hutch was out on the days?

Indeed, but that's because the police only suspected Hutchinson's account of being bogus. They couldn't prove it so.

And they would still follow up on it, since they only suspected it to be wrong, but could not be sure?

I've proven conclusively ...

No you have not. Proof is not easily come by. You have proven yourself asinine, thatīs all.

Just try to appreciate, at least, that the number of people who believe Hutchinson was a liar and publicity-seeker utterly dwarf the number of people who share your "honestly mistaken" hypothesis.

What end would that serve? Why would I be interested in numbers like that? Thatīs your way of doing things, not mine. I rely on my own convictions, and when they fit the evidence better, it becomes a matter of flies and ****.

And no, there is nothing suspicious about Cross discovering the body. It was inevitable that Nichols would be found by an early worker, and Cross happened to be one of those, rendering his behaviour entirely unsuspicious.

Nobody says that it is the finding of the body that is suspicious. Other parameters are, though.

He used his stepfather's name, which only the Cross supporters find suspicious.

Flies and **** again? How do you know all this? How do you know how many people find it unsuspicious that he changed his name ON THAT OCCASION AND THAT OCCASION ONLY, as far as we can tell?

Answer: You donīt.

Having a work route that took him past the murder district is only suspicious if we had any reason to think Jack killed on his way to work ...

Yes. True. And the reason we have to think this lies in the fact that the victims were killed at the times he went to work. Wow- ROCKET science!!!

A connection to the cat's meat business is also deeply tenuous, and not a prerequisite if Jack had very little anatomical knowledge (hey, who fancies having that debate again?!)

Yeah. So finding out that Kosminski was tied to the butcher business or that Druitt worked extra as a surgeon would not be looked upon with any interest at all? Try Cinderella next time!
Besides, even if he did not need any surgical or butchering knowledge at all, it still stands that being exposed to it could have been what sparked the interest from the outset. "I wonder, if a donkey looks like that on the inside - would a woman be the same?", sort of.
Surely you can follow that train of thought? Yes?
And, not that these experts can challenge you, but nevertheless, contemporary and modern theorists alike have stated that they DO believe the killer must have had this knowledge.

So itīs still under debate. Unless you have proven your point about this conclusively too already? You seem to have presented other proof before, while the rest of us looked away, so I guess you may have decided this one too.

or that TumAnd "lied past the police"? Again, only those who have pre-decided Cross's guilt are convinced he did lie to the police.

Wow - a grain of truth, at last! Yes, only those who have predecided Lechmere as guilty are convinced he lied about this. Which is why I say that I very strongly suspect that he did, but I admit that it is not proven.

Thatīs how I do it - I would never say that Iīve proven something that I have not proven. That would be a detestable, unworthy lie, so I avoid it.

All the best, Ben!
Fisherman

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
What it all boils down too is ..If George H was telling porkies, then Kelly either met her death from Cox's man, an intruder, George Hutchinson, or from someone she met after Maxwell's sighting, or from someone who was in her room when she returned.
There is no other alternative.
If G H was telling the absolute truth, then the alternatives are.
Mr A was the killer
G H was the killer, moving in after the man left.
An intruder, when nobody was in the room except Mary
Or the morning alternatives.
There are other possibilities .
Mrs Cox was lying about encountering Blotchy.
Did she see Kelly at all ? [around midnight].
Was Hutchinson the only person that Kelly saw that morning, either on the streets , or at her door, or in her room.
We are left with any of the above scenarios, or a a mixture, to fathom over.
Something happened that night/morning for Mary to have met her death, and the only puzzle is What...?
Regards Richard.

[Fisherman]

Regarding Hutchinson's alibi, it is unlikely that he was ever asked for one as he was apparently never grilled as a suspect.
Ben

Come on, Ben - you know as well as I do that Abberline stated that he himself had interrogated the man. And much as that does not necessarily mean that he was regarded as a suspect, it certainly means that he WAS grilled. And that grilling will have encompassed all possibilities included, so Abberline may very well briefly have cast Hutch in the suspectīs role too, for all we know. So nothing is apparent here - at least not to discerning researchers.
What SHOULD be apparent, though, is that a process that makes itself worthy of the term interrogation will have involved some serious questioning, and - just like the papers reported - Hutch withstood this remarkably well, and chiseled out a role as a truthful man in Abberlineīs mind.
If he had - later in the process - been revealed as a liar, then a man like Walter Dew, Britainīs foremost detective and in the know of arguably more criminal matters than any other person of his age, plus very probably rubbing shoulders with the top men at the Met, would quite probably have known this. That being the case, he would not paint a picture of a very honest man, beyond reproach, in his memoirs.

The interesting thing about Hutchinson is that he was interviewed by the press and the police, he was interrogated, his story was shown to be of much lesser value than what was originally thought - and then not a living soul commented on or criticized him until modern Ripperologists (who never met the man and who never knew how he was assessed back then and why) took a shot at him.

If he had been a villainous liar and exposed as such by the police, and if that police had the knowledge that he was certainly in place in Millerīs court that night, what do we have?
A baldfaced liar and a crook outside a Ripper victims room, thatīs what we have. A morally unreliable man. A man that skilfully hid all that from the detective top dog throughout a serious interrogation, to top things off.

And the police would not have followed up on him, when they found out that they had been conned? They would just leave him be? And Britains most well-known detective would celebrate his memory in his memoirs?

You know, somehow I find this thinking a tad frivolous.

The best,
Fisherman

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
Fisherman sums it up perfectly.
''The interesting thing about Hutchinson is that he was interviewed by the police and the press, and he was interrogated, his story was shown to be much lesser value that was originally thought, and then not a living soul commented on, or criticized him, until modern Ripperologists took a shot at him''.
My view entirely.
The word 'interrogated' was used to describe Hutchinson's interview, and it is safe to assume that he was grilled .
Regards Richard.

[Lechmere]

Ben
I only just noticed your post 98, in which you dismiss the data collected by Booth’s team for the area, and dismiss Abberline’s opinions and the opinions of other contemporary sources. I suppose this goes alongside your refusal to take on board the rules and restrictions governing entrance to the Victoria Home in pursuit of your suspect.

But want I wanted to address was this:
I suggested that the image put up by Stewart Evans (post 55) was based on Hutchinson’s A-man and that the man lurking at the bottom of the court was probably representative of Hutchinson. I actually suggested it was probably an impressionistic image and was a composite of several statements. You replied...

Almost certainly not.
Firstly, Hutchinson's statement had been discredited several days prior to the publication of the Penny Illustrated Paper image in question, and secondly, the individual depicted bears no resemblance to the Astrakhan man as described by Hutchinson. No Astrakhan collar or cuffs, no black parcel, and completely the wrong type of hat.

And suggested the image was purely based on Mrs Paumier's account.

I would suggest in the image there is a hint perhaps of an edge to the collar.
While not having a parcel he has a bag.
Mrs Paumier didn’t see her man in Miller’s Court or even Dorset Street, but on the corner of Sandy’s Row and Widegate Street which is several hundred yards away.

But more importantly you say that Hutchinson’s statement was discredited several days before publication of the Penny Illustrated article (17th November 1888) as if to imply that this ‘discrediting’ was universally known about or accepted by the gentlemen of the press...

Hutchinson’s account was covered in the East London Advertiser of 17th November 1888. This is not an isolated report.
The Illustrated Police News included their famous depiction of the Hutchinson sighting on their cover of 24th November 1888. At the bottom right are ‘Before’ and ‘After’ sketches.

‘Before’ is the A-man going into Kelly’s lodgings. ‘After’ shows her desecrated body on the bed.
The Illustrated Police News used their Hutchinson inspired A-an image as a comparison to Deeming on 16th April 1892.

This image of Hutchinson, Kelly and the A-man was include in ‘Famous Crimes Past and Present’ by Harold Furniss from 1904.

[Sally]

Isaacs was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, he didn't kill anybody.

Oh, I dunno Jon. That photofit at the bottom there looks just like him...

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=20113

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
All sketches involving Mary Kelly have her in jacket/coat and hat/bonnet , which is precisely what Prater saw her in at 9,pm 8th .
Yet Mrs Cox describes her differently at 1145 pm when seeing him with Blotchy.
One wonders as the description of A man is shown to be accurate in at least one sketch , one asks would the description of Mary Kelly, seen with him apparently in Commercial street, be a true reflection of the clothing she was wearing?
Did the artist draw from Hutchinson's visual reflections..
If so, it would surely leave Mrs Cox'x version in some doubt, as we have again different clothing seen , but interestingly the same as Prater's version.
Regards Richard.

[caz]

Hi All,

It's not very likely that a red hanky was found in Kelly's room. Think about it. Hutch shows up three days later and claims his 'last man in' gave Kelly a red hanky of all things - and Abberline and co end up letting him and his account go, concluding he was just another clown who wanted a piece of the action? I don't think so. Hutch and that red hanky would have been wrung out thoroughly, to get to the bottom of how he knew she had been given one, if they had decided that his suspect either didn't exist, or wasn't in the room when Hutch said he was.

No, if that red hanky existed, it could have been given to Kelly just as Hutch claimed and then retrieved at some point, be the man customer or killer. Otherwise it was a red herring introduced by Hutch to add even more colour to his story. That wouldn't necessarily make the bones of the story untrue, nor would it make Hutch himself look particularly suspicious. It would have rung alarm bells, however, if there had been such an item in the room. His knowledge of it would have required an explanation one way or another.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Caz:

Otherwise it was a red herring introduced by Hutch to add even more colour to his story.

Ah, Caz - lovely linguistic touch, that!

It would have rung alarm bells, however, if there had been such an item in the room. His knowledge of it would have required an explanation one way or another.

But was not that exactly what he gave them? An explanation? I donīt really understand the point you are making here, Caz.

I like to think that the hanky was there, and as such, it underlined Hutchinsonīs truthfulness. Maybe we can even persuade Ben to admit that such a thing would add that value, who knows? And if it was NOT there, it could well be a truthful story just the same - the only difference being that it would make Astrakhan man a more likely suspect, having brought as much evidence as possible of his presence in the room with him when he left.

So my money is on the hanky being there.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

There is only one debate, Ben - and itīs sadly still unfinished. It should have been finished years ago, though.

Not here though, please.

If you're hell-bent on goading me into another long-winded and acrimonious exchange on the subject of Hutchinson, you should at least show some consideration towards the original poster, and pick a fight with me on an actual Hutchinson thread. I'll gladly "battle" with you for another million pages, going through the whole tedious routine of seeing who can write the longer posts, and who can deprive who of the last word, if you're really up for it. I'm depressed on behalf of anyone who wants to spend the autumn of their lives engaging in online stamina wars, but I’ll always oblige them.

Well, that would depend - you still have not managed to find any example of the police telling us that Hutchinson was a time-waster or a liar.

Yes, I have.

I've provided it a million times, and I will gladly provide it a further million. You must understand how easy it is for me to swat away the same spurious objections. The police informed the Echo that Hutchinson's account suffered a reduced importance because he did not come forward before the inquest, where his evidence would have been taken "on oath". This is inextricably linked to the question of honesty and credibility, and the clear impression is that this was doubted. No other interpretation of the Echo’s clear wording is even vaguely acceptable. The most insufferable and infuriating thing about your feigned indignation over the suggestion that Hutchinson lied (despite it being proven that he was suspected at the time of it, as I'm prepared to reiterate forever) is that you instead accuse Cross, who is considerably less deserving of "lying" accusations, as accepted by nearly everyone except the Cross supporters.

“I cannot state that an honest man can produce an account that later on suffers a diminished importance, is that it?”

Not if the reason given for that “diminished importance” is irrevocably associated with doubts about the honesty of that man, as unquestionably occurred in Hutchinson’s case, no. If the word “discredited” is used, as we know it was just a couple of days after the Echo report, that is further assurance that the “diminished importance” (actually “very reduced importance”) related to suspicions of dishonesty. “Discredited” is not a nice word, and it would be highly unusual to apply in cases that involve “honest mistakes”. In this particular case – and with reference to your unpopular revisionist take on Dew’s 1938 speculations – Hutchinson would not have been discredited, since Astrakhan would still, in your scenario, have entered Kelly’s room the night before her death, and thus remained a legitimate suspect.

“And not a single policeman would disclose it in their memoirs, and not a single paper would bring it up, the way Violenia was thrown to the wolves.”

He wasn’t “thrown to the wolves”. What a weird thing to say. Are you remotely familiar with the Violenia case? He was simply a bogus witness who was discredited on the belief that he was lying, just like Hutchinson, which is why neither featured in any police memoir in later years. What was the point? Their absence from any commentary on the witnesses should say it all. Had any senior police official been inclined to devote a section of their memoirs to “discredited witnesses” I’m sure we’d all be reading about Packer, Violenia, Hutchinson, Kennedy and everyone else, but there wasn’t much sense in doing so. There was only Dew, who was “a bit of a freshman” according to you, and thus would not have known why Hutchinson was discredited, only that he had been shortly after his first appearance, leaving him to speculate baselessly as to the reason for this.

“please tell me how Astrakhan man would have stayed a suspect if the police found out that Hutch was out on the days?”

Please see above.

It’s really rather obvious.

“You have proven yourself asinine, thatīs all.”

Wow, Fisherman, the personal abuse and character assassinations are really coming thick and fast these days! What’s all that about? Until recently, we only had to put up with an aggressive, off-puttingly strident, bulldozer debating style, but ever since your Cross theory went down like a lead balloon, it’s suddenly got more sinister, and you’re really lashing out these days. Given the opprobrium you’ve received over Cross-gate, this is a good time for you to have a bit of a pause and a reassessment. I know you usually think it laudable to fight fire with fire at any cost and come out with all guns blazing, but it’s not the way forward here, and you’re not that old a dog that you can’t be taught new tricks.

“Thatīs your way of doing things, not mine. I rely on my own convictions, and when they fit the evidence better, it becomes a matter of flies and ****.”

Again with the insults.

It just won’t do, Fisherman.

Here you are, comparing all those who don’t share your convictions on Cross to “$hit flies”.

Nice man.

“How do you know how many people find it unsuspicious that he changed his name ON THAT OCCASION AND THAT OCCASION ONLY, as far as we can tell?”

Well, judging from the commentary we’ve seen on the issue – and there has been an enormous amount of it in a relatively short space of time (not so much now that the theory is sinking without trace) – it seems that everyone except you and a tiny, tiny minority of fellow Cross-supporters believes there is nothing unusual in his use of his actual stepfather’s name. They understand, moreover, that he didn’t want his real name used in connection with a Whitechapel murder investigation, and no, they don’t find that suspicious either.

But then anyone who disagrees with you is a $hit fly, apparently.

“Yes. True. And the reason we have to think this lies in the fact that the victims were killed at the times he went to work. Wow- ROCKET science!!!”

Nah, not rocket science, just appallingly bad circular reasoning. No evidence of any serial killer walking through their kill-zone and claiming victims on their way to work, but because Cross as killer couldn’t work any other way, that magically turns into evidence of serial offenders killing en route to work. At least that seems to be how your reasoning works (or rather doesn't!).

“Yeah. So finding out that Kosminski was tied to the butcher business or that Druitt worked extra as a surgeon would not be looked upon with any interest at all?”

No, not by me.

But grasp at whatever tenuous straw you find appealing. I’d suggest you conduct a little more research into the alleged cat’s meat connection before assuming he had a “hands on” role in the removal of cat guts. I for one am not seeing any compelling evidence there. And just briefly – because you’re not about to launch an “anatomical knowledge” debate – but there was more contemporary medical support for the opinion that the killer had little or no anatomical knowledge than there was for the idea that he had some.

“Yes, only those who have predecided Lechmere as guilty”

Which is just daft and ludicrous, especially as it’s a conclusion you jumped to last year, more or less. I’ve merely argued for a number of years that Hutchinson makes for a reasonable suspect, criminologically speaking, and have never said – or thought- that I’d pre-decided his guilt.

Finally, are you wanting people to read your posts carefully, or just skim them? Because I can assure you they’ll do the latter for as long as you keep eschewing the quote feature in favour of writing in that silly bold typeface.

[Wickerman]

Then who was the Ripper?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Why spoil your book?

[Wickerman]

Ben.
This is rather topsy-turvy, the last half of your paragraph is not consistent with the first line.
Any person who claims to have been the last man to speak to Kelly shortly before she was murdered, and who cannot provide an alibi for the 'assumed' time of death, is automatically a principal suspect.

Please confer with someone with police experience before you think to respond.

The end result being, only because Hutchinson was able to convince an eminent streetwise copper like Abberline would he be taken off the suspect list.
We have no idea what Abberline asked him, and likewise no idea what Hutchinson's responses to those questions were.

Hello Tecs, and welcome.

Regarding Hutchinson's alibi, it is unlikely that he was ever asked for one as he was apparently never grilled as a suspect. However, it may be significant that he had an essentially non-existent alibi for the generally accepted time of the murder - after 3.00 but before 4.00. He was, according to his press account, "walking about" the streets at that time, which could be neither verified nor contradicted. He had, in essence, a potentially convenient NON-alibi for Kelly's murder, despite apparently having loitered outside her home (and watched it) shortly before that murder happened.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

What SHOULD be apparent, though, is that a process that makes itself worthy of the term interrogation will have involved some serious questioning, and - just like the papers reported - Hutch withstood this remarkably well, and chiseled out a role as a truthful man in Abberlineīs mind.

Because of his body language and perhaps because of his outward and visible indications of being an honest an honest-to-buggery, thoroughly good blahwke, yes. Just as long as nobody is clinging to this as any sort of barometer for determining whether or not a "witness" is lying, because, as I pointed out a post or two ago, it counts for precious little according to the experts. Which is why I chuckle to myself when I hear people saying things like "Abberline was there, he looked him in the eye, so what he says goes" - it counts for very little.

Moreover, Abberline gave Hutchinson the temporary, short-lived thumbs-up before any investigation into his claims could realistically have occurred. We can absolutely dispense, for instance, with any consideration that Abberline was able to convert Hutchinson into a suspect and then exonerate him as one just a an hour or two after Hutchinson first introduced himself. Unless Abberline had a magic wand with which to determine guilt or innocence immediately, he couldn't possibly have exonerated him in so short a space of time.

If he had - later in the process - been revealed as a liar, then a man like Walter Dew, Britainīs foremost detective and in the know of arguably more criminal matters than any other person of his age

Oh...

You mean the bloke you explicitly cautioned me not to listen to because he was a "bit of a freshman" in 1888, whose book was "riddled with mistakes" and who got lots of things "terribly wrong"? I'm afraid you'll suffer from credibility issues if you persist in these complete U-turns. It was only yesterday, it seems, that you were dead against Stride as a ripper victim, but since you've latched on to Cross and found out his mummy lived near Berner Street, you've done a U-turn on that too. Not because you've reassessed the actual evidence connected with that murder, but because you've decided that your silly suspect theory works better if you include Stride. And you seem to think there's nothing preposterous about that.

Dew never said that Hutchinson was a "very honest man" or "beyond reproach" in his memoirs. That's just clumsy, immature exaggeration at work.

If he had been a villainous liar and exposed as such by the police, and if that police had the knowledge that he was certainly in place in Millerīs court that night, what do we have?

But if the police didn't think he was "certainly in place in Millerīs court that night", we have all the ingredients necessary for what actually happened, i.e that Hutchinson was dismissed as an attention/publicity-seeker a la Packer and Violenia, who wasn't even there. That may even be the favoured explanation by ripper theorists these days. Copy and pastes at the ready if you should even dream of repeating the criminally bad argument that Abberline "must have" registered a parallell between Lewis' loiterer and Hutchinson himself.

[Ben]

Any person who claims to have been the last man to speak to Kelly shortly before she was murdered, and who cannot provide an alibi for the 'assumed' time of death, is automatically a principal suspect.

Was Packer "automatically a principle suspect" in Stride's case?

Was Violenia "automatically a principle suspect" in Chapman's cases.

No, in both cases.

They were simply discredited witness who happened to make bogus claims to being the last witnesses to see the victim.

So bang goes any rationale for assuming Hutchinson was any different.

And as I've already explained, Abberline's short-lived clean bill of health was provided before it could be satisfactorily ascertained that Hutchinson was innocent of the crime. As such, it may be regarded as an absolute certainly then when Abberline wrote his report, there was not even a consideration that Hutchinson could have been responsible for the murder.

Also, should doubt linger, please see my comments with regard to determining guilt or innocence from body language, and how ridiculous and out-dated that is.