So would he have run?

[pinkmoon]

Hi Pink,

If they thought he was "our killer", they had little option but to let him "walk away" and keep him under surveillance. The evidence, however, suggests that he was dismissed as an attention-seeker once his evidence came to be doubted. He did not become a suspect as he ought to have been, and would have been, had it been registered that he was the individual seen by Lewis outside Miller's Court.

Hi Ben,if Hutchinson was our killer we have to accept that after the awfull mutilation of Kelly he simply stopped wanting to murder and mutilate women in other words he got better.

[Jon Guy]

Imagine, if you will, you are in the same situation, Caz - you walk, all alone, down a street when you see somebody lying, say, flat on his stomach, nose to the ground, on the other side of the street. You think "Whoa there, is that man ... dead?", and you feel very uncomfortable and intimidated by the situation, but you step out into the street to get a closer look, when luckily another man steps out through a door in that street, fifty yards away, and starts walking towards you.

I don´t know about you, but I know that I would feel relief; "Thank God, somebody to help out!" would be what I would think. And then I would call out to that person: "Hello! Sir! Could you help out? I think this man is in need of help!"

But that´s just me, of course! What would you do?

Would you stand still in the middle of the street, saying nothing, just gazing at the man coming at you?
And if he was walking on the pavement, and if you were standing in the middle of the road after having stepped out there in order to assess the situation, would you then silently approach the pavement, making it clear to the oncomer that he was about to have his passage blocked by you?

Hi Christer

Why shout and wake up the whole street at that time of the morning ?
Cross could see Paul was heading his way.

Did PC Neil blow his whistle ?

[Barnaby]

Fisherman,

I found your post in #249 to be incredibly insightful.

To be completely redundant with him but given others aren't addressing the issue, the acoustics potentially allowed both Cross and Paul to hear each other from far off. First, we know Paul heard nothing until he was basically on the scene. That must mean Cross had been there for at least a little while, no? Second, if Cross were innocent, upon first hearing footsteps, wouldn't he go to seek help in that direction?

What I liked most about the post, however, was the portrayal of Cross as an improviser, not a maximizer. That is, he wasn't a robot calculating the odds of being apprehended based on various strategies that he could employ. He heard someone approaching who may actually be a witness and in the few moments he had initiated a highly malleable plan of action.

[Ben]

Correct, if Abberline had any incline that Hutchinson was lying, or deeper involved than he claimed, any of the previous witnesses who were believed to have seen the killer (PC Smith, Lawende, Mrs Long, Schwartz) would have been brought forward.

No, Jon, probably not.

That isn't to say Hutchinson didn't fear that outcome if he was the killer, but no, there is no evidence of Lawende being used in suspect identity attempts until three years after the murders. We know Joseph Barnett was considered a suspect, albeit very briefly; was he paraded before Lawende? This is all very moot, of course, considering that Hutchinson was never considered a suspect at the time.

Abberline believed Hutchinson because his basic story checked out on several points, that can be established today.

No.

Abberline wrote a report expressing his opinion that Hutchinson's statement was true before there was even a possibility of checking out his "basic story". His opinion can only have been based on a personal impression, therefore.

The second confirmation that Abberline believed him is written in the press a month later, on 6th Dec. when the long sought 'Astrachan' was finally located.

This refers, of course, to your impossible contention that Isaacs was Astrakhan man and somehow proved innocent of the Kelly murder. Issacs was not, and could not have been, Astrakhan man even if the latter was a real person, which he almost certainly wasn't. I'm very disturbed to see you present this highly controversial notion, espoused by you alone and rejected by everyone else, as fact.

Abberline's "emotional outburst" was almost certainly a press concoction, and even if it wasn't, it communicates nothing about his interest in Hutchinson, or lack thereof. Isaacs reportedly lived in the area and threatened violence to all woman over 17; he was bound to attract attention from the police for these reasons, irrespective of any witness evidence.

Let's not have the Isaacs nonsense dredged up (again).

[Wickerman]

Hi Dave,I agree with you on this the police interviewed hutchinson at the time if they thought he was our killer would he be allowed to walk away I some how doubt it.

Correct, if Abberline had any incline that Hutchinson was lying, or deeper involved than he claimed, any of the previous witnesses who were believed to have seen the killer (PC Smith, Lawende, Mrs Long, Schwartz) would have been brought forward.
Just like Lawende was in the Sadler case, and (if accurate) the apparent Kozminski I.D. Hutchinson would have been subjected to the same scrutiny.

Abberline believed Hutchinson because his basic story checked out on several points, that can be established today.
The second confirmation that Abberline believed him is written in the press a month later, on 6th Dec. when the long sought 'Astrachan' was finally located.
Reporters published Abberline's emotional outburst on the arrest of Joseph Isaacs:
"Keep this quiet; we have got the right man at last. This is a big thing.”

As it turned out, it wasn't "a big thing" afterall, but this demonstrates Abberline's belief in Hutchinson for the entire month since the murder.
Under interrogation it was realized Isaacs was not the murderer after all.

[Ben]

Hi Pink,

If they thought he was "our killer", they had little option but to let him "walk away" and keep him under surveillance. The evidence, however, suggests that he was dismissed as an attention-seeker once his evidence came to be doubted. He did not become a suspect as he ought to have been, and would have been, had it been registered that he was the individual seen by Lewis outside Miller's Court.

[pinkmoon]

No - sorry but Hutchinson threads, in abstract, bore me to buggery, and in detail could be the death of me...I read them only in an attempt to keep my knowledge up to date...

I honestly believe he was nothing but an attention-seeker, as reflected by the revised police view of his evidence shortly after...even the great Abberline could be wrong once in a while...

All the best

Dave

Hi Dave,I agree with you on this the police interviewed hutchinson at the time if they thought he was our killer would he be allowed to walk away I some how doubt it.

[Cogidubnus]

I really don't care whether this is a Hutchinson thread, a Lechmere thread or an Ostrog thread. You have the need to believe that everyone likes to discuss Hutchinson. I don't hollow such infantile directives.

No - sorry but Hutchinson threads, in abstract, bore me to buggery, and in detail could be the death of me...I read them only in an attempt to keep my knowledge up to date...

I honestly believe he was nothing but an attention-seeker, as reflected by the revised police view of his evidence shortly after...even the great Abberline could be wrong once in a while...

All the best

Dave

[Lechmere]

Ben
I really don't care whether this is a Hutchinson thread, a Lechmere thread or an Ostrog thread. You have the need to believe that everyone likes to discuss Hutchinson. I don't hollow such infantile directives.
Just to correct you, the part of Paul's story that would have concerned Lechmere was the bit about him being seen standing where the body was, not that he was on his way to work. I hope that end your total confusion. But I doubt it.

[Ben]

Lechmere,

We know for a fact that Lechmere was the man mentioned by Paul in his newspaper story.

Yes, and he was doing something entirely unsuspicious - walking to work. If he was the killer and didn't want to be "mentioned", he could have fled the scene, as opposed to "bluffing it out", as you claim, and then killing another prostitute a week later along the same work route. This takes us away from the known behaviour of serial killers, who don't kill en route to work and never commit another murder so soon after "bluffing it out", with all the widespread publicity that act entailed.

Loitering outside a crime scene, on the other hand, is precisely what serial killers targetting strangers at their homes have been known to do. Similarly , the act of coming forward as a witness in response to incriminating evidence has historical precedent. Since Hutchinson meets both criteria, the suggestion that he may been responsible is a criminologically sound one. Yes, he was the man seen by Lewis, short of extremely unrealistic coincidence.

He could easily have moved to another anonymous part of London

He could have done, but he probably wouldn't have done if he wanted (a) to continue killing in an area in which he was familiar (see examples of other solitary killers who stayed put in spite of police scrutiny), and (b) avoid generating suspicion from possible colleagues, employers and acquaintances that would have resulted from suddenly departing the area after the Kelly murder.

Hutchinson could have skulked away unless he was overwhelmed by a desire to insert himself in the investigation.
Lechmere didn’t enjoy that luxury.

Yes, he did.

...by skulking away from the Nichols murder site as soon as he heard footsteps behind him.

Regards,
Ben

P.S. This is now a Hutchinson thread. I hope you're okay with that.

[Fisherman]

Caz!

The meaning "He would be acutely aware that he ran the risk that Paul would have noticed what was going on, and so he would feel at ease to let him pass."

... should of course read: "He would be acutely aware that he ran the risk that Paul would have noticed what was going on, and so he would not feel at ease to let him pass."

Sorry for that.

Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Your argument was that a guilty Lechmere would only have used his knife to attack vulnerable women, and never as a means of getting shot of anyone whose presence was unwelcome.

Caz!

I´d like to address this matter, since I think there are details in the given scenario that offer potentially useful information to us.

What I would like to point to is how the meeting inbetween Lechmere and Paul evolved. I will quote the Times of the 18:th of September in order to make my point, Robert Paul testifying:

He left home about a quarter to 4 on the Friday morning and as he was passing up Buck's-row he saw a man standing in the middle of the road. As witness approached him he walked towards the pavement, and witness stepped on to the roadway in order to pass him. He then touched witness on the shoulder, and said, "Come and look at this woman here."

Buck´s Row was around 25 feet wide. It was thus quite a narrow street. The accoustics of the street were very good - remember that it carried the sound of Thain´s steps up at Brady Street, 130 yards away, all the way down to PC Neil at a later stage. And Lechmere says himself that he would have been able to notice if somebody was down by Browns Stable Yard as he turned into Buck´s Row. And that would, as you will realize, not be a question of actually seeing such a person in the darkness - what Lechmere tells us is that he would easily have heard anybody moving around down there.

So, what do we have? We have Robert Paul walking down Buck´s Row on the northern pavement of the street. And we have Charles Lechmere standing in the middle of the street, awaiting Paul´s arrival. If we theorize that Paul was to walk on in a straight line and that Lechmere would stand still, then Paul would pass Lechmere with a distance of perhaps ten, eleven feet inbetween them.

If Lechmere wanted to alert Paul to the situation with the body on the opposite pavement, would he have been able to do so by simply saying "Hello there, mate - could you come over here and have a look? I think there´s a woman lying on the other side of the street."

I´ll answer that myself: Yes, he could easily have done so. He could have whispered, even, and Paul would have been able to get the message from ten feet away.

But what does Lechmere do? He closes in on the northern pavement and threatens to block the way for Paul! The latter realizes what is happening, and so he steps out into the street in order to be able to round Lechmere and get past him.

This is important, I think.

What reason could an innocent witness possibly have to choose to actually block the way for somebody arriving on their way westwards?

An innocent man, who had just realized that there was a woman lying on the opposite pavement, very possibly in need of help, would arguably make contact with the oncoming stranger as soon as possible. The moment Lechmere noticed Paul, thirty, forty yards off, he should have called out to him and alerted him to the situation.

Instead, our carman silently closes in on the pavement, making it clear to Paul that he is going to confront him for some reason, and Paul is very much intimidated by this, thinking that he is about to get mugged.

Then, when Paul tries to round Lechmere, the latter reaches out and puts a hand on Paul´s shoulder, and it is only thereafter that he tells Paul about the woman and asks him to come along over to the other side.

Now, Caz, imagine for a moment that Lechmere was the killer! What would be his main concern about Paul, given that Lechmere himself said that he would have noticed if something was going on down at Browns Stable Yard from 130 yards away?
Perhaps that Paul had been able to do just that? Exactly.

He would be acutely aware that he ran the risk that Paul would have noticed what was going on, and so he would feel at ease to let him pass.

He needs to know what Paul has seen or heard, and he realizes - if you ask me, Caz - that he may need to kill Paul too. He however knows that this would carry immense risks with it, and that he would be facing a much stronger and potentially much more dangerous opposition. But no matter what, he cannot afford to let Paul pass by.

So he blocks Pauls´ way, and stops him, physically so when Paul insists on trying to get past. Before this, he has pulled the clothing down over Nichols´wounds and hidden the weapon, so he prepared that way out for himself early on. But he cannot bank on it working and he has no real way of knowing whther Paul has noticed what was going on. But he realizes that if Paul has NOT noticed, then a bluff will be his best option to leave the street smoothly and silently. So he tries that option - and lo and behold, it works.

Once he stopped Paul, he would actually have been forced to take Paul to the body. Just saying "There´s a body lying there, but let´s just leave it" would not have been an option, and he realizes that if he can pull the bluff off, he will simultaneously be able to get an alibi for the blood. Thus the touching and the feeling.

The rest, as it is sometimes put, is history.

I do think that Lechmere´s blocking Pauls way and halting him tells us that he was undecided about what to think and do up til a very late stage. I have never heard of any parallel to his behaviour where an innocent witness waits until somebody arriving at the spot is within physical grasp before that witness shares his suspicions that there is need for immediate help for somebody.

Imagine, if you will, you are in the same situation, Caz - you walk, all alone, down a street when you see somebody lying, say, flat on his stomach, nose to the ground, on the other side of the street. You think "Whoa there, is that man ... dead?", and you feel very uncomfortable and intimidated by the situation, but you step out into the street to get a closer look, when luckily another man steps out through a door in that street, fifty yards away, and starts walking towards you.

I don´t know about you, but I know that I would feel relief; "Thank God, somebody to help out!" would be what I would think. And then I would call out to that person: "Hello! Sir! Could you help out? I think this man is in need of help!"

But that´s just me, of course! What would you do?

Would you stand still in the middle of the street, saying nothing, just gazing at the man coming at you?
And if he was walking on the pavement, and if you were standing in the middle of the road after having stepped out there in order to assess the situation, would you then silently approach the pavement, making it clear to the oncomer that he was about to have his passage blocked by you?

And if he disliked that, and tried to give you a wide berth, would you then change direction, throw your arm out and stop the man by placing your hand on his shoulder? Before saying anything at all....?

Would that be how you went about it, Caz?

All the best,
Fisherman

[Barnaby]

Scott,

To add to what Lechmere said, one would think that Paul and PC Mizen would have noticed if Cross was covered in blood. Small amounts, there is no way of knowing. If he was the killer then he most certainly had the knife on him. Had he disposed of it when he heard Paul coming it would have been found. So he had it through the exchange with Mizen. After the get-away, why discard it?

[Lechmere]

Scott no one knows obviously

[Lechmere]

Caz

You suggested Lechmere should have duffed Paul up a bit or threatened him with his knife.
I said that was nonsense as he would have been found.
You seem to think it was so dark that Paul wouldn’t recognise him. I say nonsense.

You say that if he threatened Paul with his knife yards from the freshly mutilated body of Nichols (oops) then he would be able to bluff his way out of it when apprehended. I would suggest that would be something Lechmere would be keen to avoid trusting to luck on.

What if he was found and he had the knife on him or some trace of blood?

Actually your suggestions are getting more and more far-fetched.

Are there similarities with Hutchinson?
Superficially.

We know for a fact that Lechmere was the man mentioned by Paul in his newspaper story.
We don’t know that Hutchinson was the man mentioned by Lewis and in fact no one at the time made the connection, so he had no reason to come forward as a result of Lewis’s testimony.

We know that Lechmere had to walk those streets as he had a steady job and family. He could take detours but it would not have been difficult for the police to check out all these routes.
Hutchinson was not in regular employment, had no family we know about and lived in a lodging house. He could easily have moved to another anonymous part of London.

Hutchinson was not found by the body. Lechmere was.

Hutchinson could have skulked away unless he was overwhelmed by a desire to insert himself in the investigation.
Lechmere didn’t enjoy that luxury.

In general I think Lechmere did endeavour to stay away from the police.