So would he have run?

[Fisherman]

Jon Guy: I know, Christer. It was you who asked why he didn`t call out to the approaching Paul for assistance, instead of waiting for him to pass by.

You can call out in a soft voice too, Jon.

Paul was concerned about the gangs in the area and his actions are reasonable considering Cross may have been someone, possibly with nearby hidden confederates, waiting to turn him over.

Without knowing their physical builds (I`m waiting for Ed`s book to see the Lechmere photo), Paul was about 30yrs old, ten years younger than old man Cross. My money is on the thirty year old !!

What is of interest here is that Lechmere claimed to have seen Pauls fear shining through, and so he should reasonably not have kept quiet himself, but instead perhaps have calmed Pauls by reasserting that he had no bad intentions.

Paul might have bopped him one then, thinking Cross was making a pass at him ;-)

Yeah, well ...

Goes to show that Cross didn't know the true extent of what was going on with Nichols at this point.

... or that he couldnīt care less, Jon, knowing quite well that she was already dead.

The best,
Fisherman

[Jon Guy]

He did not need to shout, Jon.

I know, Christer. It was you who asked why he didn`t call out to the approaching Paul for assistance, instead of waiting for him to pass by.

Paul tried to pass him at armīs length, but Lechmere would not allow that.

Paul was concerned about the gangs in the area and his actions are reasonable considering Cross may have been someone, possibly with nearby hidden confederates, waiting to turn him over.

Without knowing their physical builds (I`m waiting for Ed`s book to see the Lechmere photo), Paul was about 30yrs old, ten years younger than old man Cross. My money is on the thirty year old !!

At that stage, Lechmere could have whispered in Pauls ear if he wished to
all friendly and gently say "Hello there! Could you help out here?"

Paul might have bopped him one then, thinking Cross was making a pass at him ;-)

On a separate note, if you yourself was to find somebody lying in the street, quite possibly in a very severe condition, what would you prioritize: the healt and condition of the person lying in the street, or an undisturbed nights sleep for residents in the street?

Goes to show that Cross didn't know the true extent of what was going on with Nichols at this point.

[caz]

I've explained to you an obscene amount of times now that if the police ever had the real Astrakhan man in their custody, there was no possibility of proving him innocent of the Kelly murder.

Ooh, just before I go...

So Ben, if Abberline had suspected Hutchinson after his interrogation, instead of believing him, and he'd ended up in custody, there would have been no possibility of proving him innocent of the Kelly murder either.

But haven't you always argued that Hutchinson had nothing to fear because even if he was a lousy liar and made a right old pig's ear of things the police could not have held him in custody, but would have had to let him go? Why would his situation have been any different from Astrakhan's?

I'll just leave that with you to ponder, because I have no intention of getting into another interminable Hutchinson discussion any time soon.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

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 ?

He did not need to shout, Jon. Paul tried to pass him at armīs length, but Lechmere would not allow that. At that stage, Lechmere could have whispered in Pauls ear if he wished to. It was dead quiet around them.

There is also the fact to consider that Lechmere said that the other man seemed to be frightened of him. Then why not friendly and gently say "Hello there! Could you help out here?"

Would it be cleverer to stand menacingly in the middle of the street, to block the way for the oncomer, to physically reach for him, given this?

On a separate note, if you yourself was to find somebody lying in the street, quite possibly in a very severe condition, what would you prioritize: the healt and condition of the person lying in the street, or an undisturbed nights sleep for residents in the street?

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Barnaby: Fisherman,

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

Hooray!!! Caz just told me that it would not be worth reading, plus that it pointed out that I lacked a life. Things are looking up, I must say!

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.

Itīs actually worse - he did not hear anything at all, until he suddenly saw Lechmere standing in the middle of the street. He could have stood there since Thursday morning for all Paul knew.

That must mean Cross had been there for at least a little while, no?

Yes, it goes a fair way to prove that, actually, at least to my mind. Keep in mind that Paul lived in Foster Street, running into to Bath Street, the route Lechmere would in all probability have used. And Paul lived some thirty, forty yards up Foster Street, so IF Paul had been just thirty, forty yards behind Lechmere, then he seemingly would have been so for a stretch of perhaps 250-300 yards, without the two seeing or hearing each other throughout. Also keep in mind that Lechmere claimed to have left Doveton Street at 3.20 or 3.30. It would have taken him 6-7 minutes to reach Browns Stable Yard, so he should have been there at 3.26 - 3.37, and not at 3.45.
This means that we have a time gap of 8-19 minutes to explain. The same time gap is the potential time frame in which Lechmere would have chatted up Nichols, followed her into Buckīs Row, punched her in the face, strangled or very nearly strangled her, and then cut away at her.
It was only after that Paul arrived, many minutes after Lechmere.

Second, if Cross were innocent, upon first hearing footsteps, wouldn't he go to seek help in that direction?

I would. You would. Caz perhaps wouldnīt. She couldnīt be arsed to put the question to herself.

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.

All we have on him speaks of a man who thought very quickly on his feet, and who provided solutions as best as he could as he went along. Some solutions were decidedly risky, but he was forced to make such decisions anyway. So he improvised, just like you say.

Thanks for you kind words, Barnaby - much, much appreciated, I can assure you.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Sorry, Fishy, but I have no idea. Some of us have lives (mine is horrendously busy right now), and I simply don't have the time or the energy or the patience to read through extremely long posts like the one I have quoted briefly from above. And judging from all your previous efforts to put forward convincing arguments, it would be extraordinary if you had succeeded here.

Love,

Caz
X

Nice. When you have no answer to give, you imply that I have no life, and that you know that my argument would not have been convincing in either case.

Really nice, that one, Caz! Very civil of you.

Suggestion: If you do not have the time to spare to do Casebooking, and if it equals having no life to you, then I have some seriously useful advice for you:

Go away.

All the best,
Fisherman

[caz]

Caz!

Iīd like to address this matter...

Would that be how you went about it, Caz?

All the best,
Fisherman

Sorry, Fishy, but I have no idea. Some of us have lives (mine is horrendously busy right now), and I simply don't have the time or the energy or the patience to read through extremely long posts like the one I have quoted briefly from above. And judging from all your previous efforts to put forward convincing arguments, it would be extraordinary if you had succeeded here.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Hutchinson was also a preliminary suspect because;
1 - He was the last person who admitted to seeing the victim alive.
2 - He had an interrogation with Abberline, though he did not describe his experience to anyone.

No Jon, he wasn't.

Emanuel Violenia was the last person who "admitted" seeing Chapman alive, but was he considered a suspect? No. He was considered a bogus witness who lied about the whole thing, including his self-alleged presence at the crime scene. Just so with Hutchinson, evidently. Hutchinson was interrogated as a witness (to determine whether he a genuine witness or a non-genuine witness). Neither discredited witness was "cleared" as a suspect because they were never considered suspicious in that way.

There is no evidence that Lewis's account of a wideawake loiterer was ever compared to Hutchinson, and even it was, it would not have "confirmed his basic story"; it would only have "confirmed" Hutchinson's presence on Dorset Street for the fleeting moment that Lewis saw him - not why he was there, not Astrakhan, not Romford, just his presence outside a crime scene. Good luck "clearing" a person who skulked outside Kelly's house before she was murdered, but had no alibi for the likely time of the actual murder.

Show me a more likely candidate and we can discuss that

William Gull? James Maybrick? Santa Claus? At least none of them were in prison at the time of the Kelly murder, as Isaacs very clearly was; and at least none of them were proven innocent of the Kelly murder, as Isaacs very clearly was (and which the real Astrakhan could not possibly have been, had he existed!) I've explained to you an obscene amount of times now that if the police ever had the real Astrakhan man in their custody, there was no possibility of proving him innocent of the Kelly murder.

No, there is no evidence that homeless thief Isaacs was capable of dressing anything like as opulently as Hutchinson's "Astrakhan man", and the overwhelmingly strong probability is that he couldn't.

Isaacs was of brief interest to the police because he was a Jewish criminal who lived in the area, and had a couple of nosy neighbours willing to spout a load of scaremongering (and possibly anti-semitic) bollocks about him. Had the same thing occurred in 1938 Berlin, I'm sure poor old Isaacs would have been sent straight to Dachau. If Abberline ever exclaimed within press earhsot that Isaacs's arrest was a "big thing" he was an idiot, but my strong suspicion is that he wasn't an idiot, and that the nonsensical press quote attributed to him was, well, nonsense.

[Wickerman]

... 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.

Ben, it's the same.
We consider Barnett a preliminary suspect because;
1 - the 'significant other' is always among the first to be looked for.
2 - Barnett described his interrogation to the press.

Hutchinson was also a preliminary suspect because;
1 - He was the last person who admitted to seeing the victim alive.
2 - He had an interrogation with Abberline, though he did not describe his experience to anyone.

There is no real difference.
Both preliminary suspects were cleared after their respective interrogations.

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".

No Ben, the basic details were provided at the Inquest.
Those details you choose to regard as "lies & fabrication"? (I think is how you described it). And this, without any precedent to back up your claim.
You don't like it, so you reject it, but it does not go away.
The collective statements all quoted from Sarah Lewis are sufficient for Abberline to give Hutchinson the benefit of the doubt.

I'm very disturbed to see you present this highly controversial notion, espoused by you alone and rejected by everyone else, as fact.

"Everyone", as in the context of "Everyone who has bought into the Hutchinson must have been lying" scenario.
Show me a more likely candidate and we can discuss that. No-one has offered any more likely candidate so our choices are somewhat limited.
I'll leave any pretentious claims of "fact" to your good self, I'll just stay with probabilities.

Isaacs reportedly lived in the area...

Lived in the area; was Jewish; the right age; the right height; moustache; gold watch chain; and appears to have been seen in that specific coat ("certainly answered the published description of a man with an astrachan trimming to his coat").
You can't accept it because your theory depends on Astrachan being a figment of the imagination.

...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.

Women were being threatened with violence every day, being kicked, punched, beaten, and thrown around, these were hard times. None of these scenario's produced a viable Ripper suspect, and in no way could this be described as "a big thing". Abberline knows there is far more to identifying the real killer than idle threats.
Abberline had something more incriminating on his mind.

[Sally]

Oh dear, I agree Sally.
I think there were fairly 'obious' Ripper crimes after Kelly.
I'm not sure what your mate's wittering on about though.

Not to worry Ed Old Bean - I'm sure it'll pass.

Take a couple of aspirin and have a lie down.

[Lechmere]

Oh dear, I agree Sally.
I think there were fairly 'obious' Ripper crimes after Kelly.
I'm not sure what your mate's wittering on about though.

[Sally]

Whoever was responsible for these crimes, I think we need to remember that context is important.

The 'awful glut' of Millers Court may be as much the consequence of opportunity as anything. Contextually, there is a world of difference between the opportunities afforded by a closed room with little chance of disturbance; and a risky pavement spot with a high chance of disturbance. What this killer was able to achieve was largely dependent on opportunity.

I don't think, therefore, that we need see 'Jack' stopping after Kelly, necessarily; nor that he should be excluded from having committed any subsequent murders [e.g. McKenzie] just because her mutilation was less severe.

[Ben]

Lechmere,

I do hope you're not seriously suggesting that it's a problem for Hutchinson's candidacy that there were no obvious ripper victims in that part of the east end after Kelly? Nah, you wouldn't be that silly; not when Crossmere's in precisely the same boat - living in the area after the Kelly murder, not dying, not being incarcerated etc.

Surely you wouldn't want to score such an obvious own goal as that?

[Ben]

Hi Pink,

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

Not necessarily.

In the 1980s, a number of experts in criminology and law enforcement assembled to review the case and conduct what is now known as the Ripper Project. An interesting extract from this document ran as follows:

"Generally, crimes such as these cease because the perpetrator has come close to being identified, has been interviewed by police, or has been arrested for some other offense."

Obviously, Hutchinson meets the criterion highlighted in bold.

As a hobbyist, rather than an expert, I would not feel at all comfortable disputing the experience of actual experts.

If Hutchinson was the killer and "stopped" for this reason, it would have been a self-imposed "cessation" to an extent, but then we have no idea how seriously he considered the threat of a subsequent recognition from Lewis, nor do we know if he had any intention of killing on a regular basis after the "awful glut" in Miller's Court.

We don't know the Kelly was the final murder. Alice McKenzie, who was murdered in Castle Alley, just a stone's throw away from the Victoria Home, remains a possible ripper victim.

Regards,
Ben

[Lechmere]

According to Ben he didn't simply move to another area of London because he wanted to continue killing in the East End, which is why he came forward to insert himself in the investigation and get well known to the police in the East End - when he had no need to. And in any case did he continue killing despite this?
Perhaps he became too mad - as Ben thinks that Hutchinson was also Fleming and not 6 foot 7 inches tall.