So would he have run?

[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?

[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

[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

[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.

[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 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.

[Lechmere]

Scott no one knows obviously

[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?

[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

[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

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.