So would he have run?

[Scott Nelson]

Did Cross have blood on him? Did he discard the knife somewhere, or did he keep it? If so, where?

[Lechmere]

Caz
You are obfuscating and mixing all sorts of things up there.
I said it was weird to start going on about what he might do if he was attacked by someone else.
That eventuality is not in the least bit relevant.
What is under discussion is whether it would be plausible that he – or any other possible culprit for that matter – would have turned his knife on someone who interrupted him but who had not literally caught him in the act, and who had not turned aggressively upon him.
I have observed that serial killers do not tend to do this – it is exceptionally rare. I think I have been told of one or two instances ever and I can’t remember them.
I am totally happy to dismiss any concoction you can come up with to suggest that any serial killer would probably turn on an interrupter with their knife. It just doesn’t happen that way.
This holds no implication for Lechmere’ ‘toughness’ or ‘bravery’. For all I know he was usually a cringing coward when facing a grown man.
Happily for Lechmere, Paul seems to have been a wimp anyway, maybe even more of a wimp that Lechmere. Who knows?

I haven’t said he would be free from bloodstains when he met Mizen.
I would suggest he was not awash with blood.
I would guess he would have had some traces of blood on him if closely examined. I would imagine he would be aware of that as well.
It has been suggested that the reason he took Paul to examine the body and play touchy feely with it was to give an excuse for blood being on his person, if need be – another one of those insurance policies.

Leaving the knife – quietly – somewhere between the gate to Brown’s Stable Yard and say the Board School would not have been that clever either, as it would sure to be found.
If he was stopped by Neil say just up Buck’s Row upon the cry of Paul, if he was found with blood on him and the knife was found between the body and where he met Neil – I’m sure you can do the Maths as could a Jury.

To avoid Paul crying out promptly you divided up Paul’s actions to give the impression of a lengthy elapse of time. It would potentially have been a matter of moments for Paul to see that she was dead – if he had tried to raise her (as he proposed). And to cry out – how long does that take exactly?
It isn’t whether Paul would have done it or not, is whether it would have been sensible for Lechmere to be apprehensive that he would.

I’m not at all sure why you think he wasn’t very bright to use a false name and carry on killing. He would have known that he hadn’t been unmasked.
Are you aware of any other serial killers who were taken in for questioning and gave their genuine details and carried on killing? I am. I guess they weren’t very bright either.

[caz]

I say that it's inevitable that he would have been tracked down as he would have been easily the biggest suspect.

But who would he have been at that stage? Just a man seen briefly in the darkness - darkness that prevented Paul from seeing the horrendous wounds to Nichols, even up close.

Paul would have been able to ID him...

Not if Lechmere had done more than threaten him with the knife. But really, can you see Paul accompanying the police on subsequent early mornings, hoping to be able to recognise the nasty man who threatened him, let alone positively identify him? And if he did point out the right man, so what? "Sorry, officer, he must be mistaken. My wife and employers can vouch for my good character and reliability, and I've walked to work around this time of day for twenty-odd years. I try to avoid the streets with the worst reputation for bad characters and have never been in trouble before. You can check."

He'd have been silly to walk down Buck's Row again after that night, unless a detour was out of the question. So what would connect him to the murder there, beyond Paul saying he thought this was the man who had threatened him in the darkness?

So what was the most sensible course of action?

Same as for - dare I say it? - Hutchinson, if he was Jack the Ripper.

Keep his head down, avoid being seen too clearly by potential witnesses and stay the hell away from the police.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Caz
This is a very weird line of questioning.

Not remotely weird, Ed. 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. Equally he would apparently have considered it stupid to risk walking swiftly away, dumping the knife at the earliest opportunity and pleading ignorance if stopped on his onward journey to work. According to you he'd have been free from bloodstains when facing PC Mizen, so if he had simply walked off down Buck's Row, how could he have been connected with the murder by the time Paul had seen Nichols, decided to investigate (assuming he would have done), realised she had been attacked (assuming he would have done) and raised the alarm (assuming he would have done)?

If Paul had walked up to Lechmere and attacked him then I guess he would have defended himself and possibly used his knife.

So your observation that this type of serial killer generally would 'never-ever' turn on an able bodied person was pretty meaningless, because you acknowledge above that it would depend entirely on the circumstances and the kind of threat posed by the able bodied individual concerned, and not on the nature of the killer himself. Clearly there would be no conscience involved, so why would Lechmere wait to ascertain whether Paul was harmless and could be spared, or might turn nasty and need to be dealt with?

If Lechmere (as the culprit) was wandering about one night and someone unexpectedly attacked him, and he had his knife on him, then yes he might use his knife.

Another small concession. That's good. So even serial killers who only prey on vulnerable women can and would turn the murder weapon on an able bodied person who posed a threat to their physical safety, whether the threat was immediate or concerned a future stretching of the neck.

I think perhaps that underlying your confusion and resort to ridiculous comparisons is the very expression 'fight or flight'.
The 'fight' part need not necessarily literally mean 'fight'.
The expression is merely a short hand for describing the alternative human responses to a stress situation.
The expression provides these options -
- You either 'fight', turn and face head on the situation to control the event as much as possible, to figuratively fight it out. In military situations or even with football hooligans and such like the fight is literal.

Blimey, I never would have guessed all that. But then I'm just a confused girlie.

I know exactly what 'fight or flight' means, Ed. I chose to use both literally because we were discussing if Jack the Ripper would have used his murder weapon to extricate himself from a sticky situation (either with a witness or a mugger, as examples) or do a runner, and you were very much against either as a possibility - naturally enough, because your theory relies on Jacky Boy hanging around, inviting an approaching stranger to inspect his handiwork and then having to bluff his way from Buck's Row to the inquest.

While you may see 'staying and bluffing it out' as a kind of 'fight', or even a kind of 'flight', that's not what I was talking about.

And yes my guess would be that Lechmere would have had the name Cross up his sleeve for just this eventuality - I am sure I have already told you that.
But he wouldn't now what that eventuality might be would he, so he wouldn't be able to plan it very much in advance.
I would suggest that most culprits would have had a similar strategy in the back of their minds.

If that's the case, and he had never used the name Cross before, then he wasn't very bright, and I'm frankly amazed he'd have been capable of killing again and again without raising anyone's eyebrows. Did he seriously imagine the police would ask for a name, take it on trust and ask him for nothing more besides?

Love,

Caz
X

[Lechmere]

Oh, I've been caught out.

I say that it's inevitable that he would have been tracked down as he would have been easily the biggest suspect. Paul would have been able to ID him and he was compelled to walk those streets at that hour - and there weren't many people about the streets at that time contrary to what some people seem to think - so how long would it have been before he was caught.
Unless he resigned his job and abandoned his family.
So what was the most sensible course of action?

[Sam Flynn]

And I think you meant 'hanged'.

I'm not so sure, Caz. Ed knows a lot about the man

[Lechmere]

Caz
This is a very weird line of questioning.
If Paul had walked up to Lechmere and attacked him then I guess he would have defended himself and possibly used his knife.
If Lechmere (as the culprit) was wandering about one night and someone unexpectedly attacked him, and he had his knife on him, then yes he might use his knife.
But that wasn't what was happening was it?
In a scenario where he is attacked the other person has made the choice to initiate a violent scene. Lechmere would have no option but to defend himself - which could end in a ruckus.
In the instance under scrutiny - Paul timidly walking down Bucks Row, there was no such need.

I think perhaps that underlying your confusion and resort to ridiculous comparisons is the very expression 'fight or flight'.
The 'fight' part need not necessarily literally mean 'fight'.
The expression is merely a short hand for describing the alternative human responses to a stress situation.
The expression provides these options -
- You either 'fight', turn and face head on the situation to control the event as much as possible, to figuratively fight it out. In military situations or even with football hooligans and such like the fight is literal.
- Or you fly, you run you avoid the confrontation and put it off, you become the hunted, vulnerable to others; a cork bobbing in the sea, blown this way and that; a sprat running with the tide, to escape or end up in the mouth of a killer whale.

And yes my guess would be that Lechmere would have had the name Cross up his sleeve for just this eventuality - I am sure I have already told you that.
But he wouldn't now what that eventuality might be would he, so he wouldn't be able to plan it very much in advance.
I would suggest that most culprits would have had a similar strategy in the back of their minds.

[DVV]

Serial killers who target vulnerable victims generally never-ever turn on an able bodied person. Even an apparently windy passer by.

But "generally" only means generally, Lechmere.
And the Ripper murders are likely to have been committed by a self-confident person. Confident that he could manage to run away quickly if necessary, and/or confident that he could face any kind of trouble.
Whereas Cross in Bucks Row, assuming he was the murderer, proved unable to walk away although it would have been the best and less risky thing to do.

[caz]

Serial killers who target vulnerable victims generally never-ever turn on an able bodied person. Even an apparently windy passer by.
But this doesn’t mean Lechmere went all wobbly. It is a bit silly of you to put that spin on it.
Getting into a knife fight in the street is not exactly the action of a stealth killer is it now!

So what's the answer to my question then, Ed? If someone had tried to mug Lechmere on his way to work one early morning, and he had his sharp knife on him, what do you think his reaction would have been? Fight or flight? I take it even you wouldn't say 'bluff it out' on such an occasion.

The flighty approach that you repeatedly suggest would have been most un-Ripperish and utterly stupid.

So if Lechmere knew beforehand that fight or flight would not be options if he was disturbed, or nearly disturbed, in his horrible work by someone's approach, he must have been ready to go through the whole 'bluff it out' scenario, surely?

If he had threatened Paul with his knife then what?
It would soon transpire that there had been a murder.
Paul would probably come forward and say he had been threatened by a man with a knife.
There would be a big search for Lechmere. He would inevitably be found. He would be hung.

Inevitable? How? And I think you meant 'hanged'.

Love,

Caz
X

[Lechmere]

Caz
It’s not really funny at all.
Serial killers who target vulnerable victims generally never-ever turn on an able bodied person. Even an apparently windy passer by.
But this doesn’t mean Lechmere went all wobbly. It is a bit silly of you to put that spin on it.
Getting into a knife fight in the street is not exactly the action of a stealth killer is it now!
Knife fights tend to get noisy.
The girls’ blouse response would have been for Lechmere to flee like an utter shower at the approach of Paul.
The flighty approach that you repeatedly suggest would have been most un-Ripperish and utterly stupid.
It would have fatally endangered Lechmere’s neck should PC Neil have appeared from around the corner of the Board School just as Paul got to the body and uttered the traditional East End late night cry of ‘Oh murder’.

If he had threatened Paul with his knife then what?
It would soon transpire that there had been a murder.
Paul would probably come forward and say he had been threatened by a man with a knife.
There would be a big search for Lechmere. He would inevitably be found. He would be hung.
That wasn’t much of a suggestion Caz!

When Lechmere turned to face Paul did he anticipate that it was merely the first scene in a four act play?
I rather doubt it.
As they walked off it would have been quite possible for them not to have met a policeman on the way.
As it is they got past Mizen unscathed. Scene two passed with flying colours!
Then the inquest opened and the newspapers were full of the police version of events – with Lechmere and Paul altogether missing from the record. Hooray!
It was only Paul’s vanity exercise in Lloyds Weekly News that brought on scenes three and four.

There was nothing inevitable about scene one (at the crime scene) leading to scenes two through to four. That’s just how it worked out in practice.

[caz]

But was Charles Lechmere a windy carman?
Are there any ****-a-Doodles to suggest that we can sustain this blot on the escutcheon of the venerable family of Lechmere? Should their pelican crest be adorned with a white cockerel feather?

Of course there isn’t the slightest hint that he was windy.
In fact when Paul approached him from behind, after Lechmere had spied the prone body of a woman, he went up to Paul and displayed no hint of alarm. It was Paul who thought he was about to be mugged. If anything this is one ****-a-Doodle to suggest that Lechmere was not a flapper and that those frightful hundred yards of Boothoid blackness on Wentworth Street would hold no fears for him.

So the suggestion that Lechmere might have been windy and avoided the Old Montague Street route or that he gave the name Cross to avoid retribution from the dreaded High Rips or their ilk is baseless conjecture.
In contrast the suggestions that he was a careful and controlled person and that his mother was a dominant figure in his life are conjectures that have some basis to them.

Hi Ed,

Funny how this controlled, unflappable, non-windy killer of yours suddenly becomes a big girl's blouse in Buck's Row, and instead of walking swiftly away on Paul's approach, or alternatively using his murder weapon to threaten, wound or kill this genuinely windy "please don't mug me" stranger, he plays out a complex four-scene drama (scene one at the scene; scene two with a policeman; scene three down the cop shop; and scene four waxing lyrical at the inquest) because - according to you - psychopathic prostitute killers go all wobbly when faced with a live male to tackle.

So what do you think Lechmere would have done if someone had looked like they were going to mug him as he walked to work down one of these mean streets in the small hours? Fled incontinently one presumes. Used his knife to defend himself? Oh dear me no!

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Oh I see - "extremely" sound, just not quite sound enough for Fisherman to agree with.

They would have to be super fantastic MEGA sound for that to happen, presumably.



I never said anything about "cheating". He simply rejected your suggestion, and conciliated you with the obligatory salute to the co-theorist. That was my impression anyway, and I suspect others' too.

Like I said on another thread: I can´t be arsed to discuss garbage like this.

But hey, maybe Edward CAN - and then you will have found another butt-crack deep rift between us.

Fisherman
suddenly very tired of this

[Ben]

Not at all - Edwards arguments are extremely sound

Oh I see - "extremely" sound, just not quite sound enough for Fisherman to agree with.

They would have to be super fantastic MEGA sound for that to happen, presumably.

That cheating bastard - he tells me that he favours another explanation but think my explanation perfectly viable.

I never said anything about "cheating". He simply rejected your suggestion, and conciliated you with the obligatory salute to the co-theorist. That was my impression anyway, and I suspect others' too.

[Fisherman]

Nope. He passed by, and never stopped.

Conclusion: If you go looking for a night watchman, and pass him by (speaking to him as you do so) without stopping, then you have not gone looking for a night watchman.
It is only people you stop by that you can have gone looking for.

Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice. Maybe you should give it a rest, David. You are producing some pretty odd arguments now.

Then again, maybe you don´t worry about that.

The best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

Nope. He passed by, and never stopped.