Hutchinsons statement....

[Sam Flynn]

So all we can say is that it seems that he was aware of the murder on Sunday. Before that, thereīs no knowing, only suggestions that cannot be substantiated.

As Michael suggests, it would have been practically impossible for anyone in Britain not to have heard of the Miller's Court murder, never mind someone who lived barely a three-minute walk away.

Hutchinson would had to have been in a coma not to have learned of it immediately.

[Sam Flynn]

Sam Flynn: I must disagree, Fish. The likelihood of something happening is pretty fundamental.

Indeed - I could not agree more. Se how do we establish the likelihood? By listening to your convictions? You see, there is no way we can assess the likelihood other than by way of guessing, and whatever guess we make, we may be way off the mark.

I'm not guessing. I'm suggesting that, given the extreme detail reported by Hutchinson, and the remarkable nature of his encounter with a friend on the very morning of her murder, it would be highly unlikely he'd make an error about the day on which those events occurred, especially given that only a comparatively small amount of time had elapsed in the interim

If we cannot establish the likelihood, we are left with accepting the "possibility" that he got it wrong, in combination with the many factors that seem to point in that direction.

We might recognise the possibility, but we don't have to accept it.

What are the "many factors that seem to point in that direction", by the way?

[Sam Flynn]

I can see all the arguments, but if you argue the fact that Hutchinsons statement was so precise, so detailed, albeit after a couple of days thinking about it....
Would he really get the date wrong?

That's precisely the point, and that's what makes it very unlikely that he was mistaken about the date.

[andy1867]

I can see all the arguments, but if you argue the fact that Hutchinsons statement was so precise, so detailed, albeit after a couple of days thinking about it....
Would he really get the date wrong?

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn: I must disagree, Fish. The likelihood of something happening is pretty fundamental.

Indeed - I could not agree more. Se how do we establish the likelihood? By listening to your convictions? You see, there is no way we can assess the likelihood other than by way of guessing, and whatever guess we make, we may be way off the mark.
I trust you realize this?

Merely positing "possibilities" without also taking into account the associated probabilities is not a sensible way to proceed.

Once again, I agree - so if you can establish the likelihood, we can move on. Can you?
If we cannot establish the likelihood, we are left with accepting the "possibility" (whatīs with the quotation marks...?) that he got it wrong, in combination with the many factors that seem to point in that direction.

Of course it's possible that Hutchinson mixed up the date, but how likely is it that he did...

That is what I am asking you. Weigh in his personality, his psychologica health at the time, the time span, the involved factors about what he did on the adjoining days and you may have something to work from.

...given the remarkable experiences he purports to have gone through that night?

Did you not see the article I posted? It involved a young woman who was raped - and who got the dates wrong in the same kind of time span that we are speaking about when it comes to Hutchinson.

Does this mean that the woman will mix the days up again if she is raped again? Most probably not - we normally do not make this kind of a mistake. But that is all we can say, we cannot establish some sort of percentage figure that is relevant in her specific case. We can say that people normally donīt do it. And we can also say that the one thing that can govern us in this respect is to look at the circumstances involved, and see if they are in favour of a mixing up of the days. Clearly, in Hutchinsons case, they are.
He missed out on Lewis.
He walked the streets all night, meaning that the weather would have allowed for it.
Kelly and Astrakhan stood outside the court for a number of minutes, and Hutchinson could hear them from far away.
Would they stand there in gale force winds and pouring rain?
Would Hutchinson be able to hear them in that sort of weather?

This is what we have to work from, these are the facts. Whatever ideas you have about Hutchinsons risk of getting it wrong is secondary to that evidence. You can say that we should not expect him to err in this respect, and you will be right. And I can say that we must accept that many people do anyway, and I will be right.

After that, itīs up to the facts.

[Fisherman]

The part in bold above is what I'm addressing Fisherman, the murder was published in a handful of local papers on Fri, no less than 14 papers that had London distribution on Saturday, and the coverage continued Sun through Monday. Even if he was still in Romford, or Hartford Connecticut for that matter, he could not have avoided hearing about the murder in Millers Court. Its this fact that puts substantial doubt upon his whole story....why would someone who claimed to be a friend of someone who was horribly mutilated on Friday not come forward until 4 days later? If he was afraid too...then why did he come forward at all?

It is not for us to decide for Huchinson what he read and heard during the days leading up to his visit to the police - we cannot tell, itīs that simple. What I will say, though, is that his coming forward only as late as on the evening of the 12:th opens up for the possibility that he was not informed until late. In the Daily News, Hutchinson states "I told one policeman on Sunday morning what I had seen, but did not go to the police station. I told one of the lodgers here about it yesterday, and he advised me to go to the police station, which I did last night."
So all we can say is that it seems that he was aware of the murder on Sunday. Before that, thereīs no knowing, only suggestions that cannot be substantiated.

[Sam Flynn]

Therefore it is VERY much a question if it CAN happen, and not at all just a question of how likely it is to happen.

I must disagree, Fish. The likelihood of something happening is pretty fundamental. Merely positing "possibilities" without also taking into account the associated probabilities is not a sensible way to proceed.

Of course it's possible that Hutchinson mixed up the date, but how likely is it that he did, given the remarkable experiences he purports to have gone through that night?

[Michael W Richards]

"I think" is of course a powerful argument, but I tend to be a bit careful about it whenever it surfaces just the same.

Mary Kelly was killed on the 9:th of November. George Hutchinson sought out the police on the evening of the 12:th of November. He claimed to have seen Kelly with a man in the early morning hours of the 9:th, meaning that it was on the night of the 8:th of November.
Putting it in weekday chronology, Hutchinson basically returned to London after having left Romford in the late evening of Thursday, arriving in the East End at around 2 AM on Friday. That was when he withessed the meeting between Kelly and Astrakhan man.
He then went to see the police on Monday. So we are dealing with a spectrum involving five days, Thursday-Monday.
We do not know when Hutchinson found out about Kelly having been killed.

Now, imagine that Hutchinson mistook Wednesday for Thursday - he lived a vagrantīs life, and will have taken whatever working opportunities that came along, sleeping whereever the work placed him, and being willing to travel by night between different places. If he made this very simple mistake (compare by asking yourself when you had that cod for dinner last week, was it on Tuesday or Wednedsay? When was it Trump twittered "cofefe", was it on Monday or Tuesday?), he would have been inclined to think that it must have been Friday morning he saw Kelly instead of Thursday morning.

It is a very trivial thing to do, and I have never seen it questioned with such heat until it was mentioned out here. Out here, we get "He could not have forgotten".

Believe me - he could well have.

The part in bold above is what I'm addressing Fisherman, the murder was published in a handful of local papers on Fri, no less than 14 papers that had London distribution on Saturday, and the coverage continued Sun through Monday. Even if he was still in Romford, or Hartford Connecticut for that matter, he could not have avoided hearing about the murder in Millers Court. Its this fact that puts substantial doubt upon his whole story....why would someone who claimed to be a friend of someone who was horribly mutilated on Friday not come forward until 4 days later? If he was afraid too...then why did he come forward at all?

[Robert]

Hi Observer

This is a bit complicated, and you must remember that Chris was working at a time when a couple of very important sources weren't yet online. The results he came up with were quite reasonable, given the situation. Also, the main thrust of his article - that he had traced the family of Sarah Lewis - isn't affected by one or two minor genealogical quirks. It will basically depend on whether we believe that this Sarah Lewis was reliable when she told her family that she was THE Sarah Lewis.

I'll give my interpretation, which of course might be wrong.

When I emailed her, Debs at once made the same point as yourself - rather odd to go out in the night leaving a baby. However, I also have the birth cert of Emily Alexandra Lewis, born March 5th 1888, father Thomas Studley Lewis who I think was Sarah's brother. So it's possible to imagine Thomas's wife Caroline minding the baby, and even feeding it.

As I wrote to Debs :

I think they told Emily Alexandra that Sarah was her mother. If the family then told that to Chris, and Chris saw the marriage on Ancestry where she gives her father as Joseph, and the 1911 where Ann is her 'sister' then all would have seemed OK.

I think Caroline was in an asylum in 1891.

It's complicated I know, and I've only mentioned a couple of the ramifications. I have five birth certs altogether. I can't seem to post anything on here - it's always too big or something - but if anyone wants to PM me their email I'll send them.

Chris's article is available here :

http://www.ripperologist.biz/pdf/ripperologist133.pdf

[Observer]

Sarah Lewis gave birth to a son John Walter Gotheimer on 8th August 1888. I have the birth cert.

That's an interesting fact Robert. So, in effect Sarah Lewis left her abode in the early hours of the 9th November and left behind her three month old baby.

[Robert]

Hi Phil

I think the pregnancy (can't remember how many months) was what a living family member told Chris when he was writing his Lewis article.

[Phil Carter]

Sarah Lewis gave birth to a son John Walter Gotheimer on 8th August 1888. I have the birth cert.

Thank you Robert. So where does her being "5 months pregnant" in November come from?


Best regards


Phil

[Robert]

Sarah Lewis gave birth to a son John Walter Gotheimer on 8th August 1888. I have the birth cert.

[Phil Carter]

Hello David,

If a Kennedy child appears 4 months after the event and not a Lewis.. then more consideration can be made to the woman being Lewis..Im not saying it proves anything though.
Re witness statements. The Met police Kelly file is one of the thinnest..if not THE thinnest, of the existing files. There is much missing.
As regards witnesses and their statements not coming to the Coroner's meet up is concerned..it is.as you say..at tge discretion of the Coroner with/without police request to withold evidence.
The Kelly murder was massive news. The missing facts I see are no other background information on Kelly from anyone except Barnett. For example. After the meet up with said Coroner..the Hutchinson statement came out. Now.. I just find it very very strange that for a person to know Kelly so well..not one person..not one of her drinking friends, either talked of or said that they had heard of Hutchinson.
Women talk about men. In pubs...often.
Just my thoughts. Nothing set in stone.



Phil

[Fisherman]

This is from the Los Angeles Times, January 6, 2015. I find it interesting because it involves the exact span of five days involved with Hutchinson too, and we have events on record that should have been very important to remember correctly for the fifteen year old girl in the story. It stretches over a weekend, just like Hutchinsons case. And we have the girl reporting something that happened on one day as belonging to the day before, just like Hutchinson seems to have done.

I know quite well that there are different circumstances involved - there will inevitably be - and so I hope that people will not use the argument "Oh, but this is another story". I KNOW that it is another story. But it is nevertheless a story where a person it subjected to a heinous crime, seeks out the police and reports it - and gets the day wrong.

As most people will understand, this is but one single example of the phenomenon. There are myriads of other examples out there.

George Hutchinson could well have made an error about the dates.

"Investigators released a sketch Tuesday of one of three men suspected of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a teenage girl in the San Gabriel Valley on Friday night.

A bald man in his mid-20s was among the assailants who grabbed a 15-year-old girl who was walking in West Valinda. The men forced her into a car, according to a release from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

The bald man, who weighed about 200 pounds and had a circular-shaped tattoo on the right side of his neck, sexually assaulted the girl while another man, also in his mid-20s, pinned her down.

A third man remained in the driver's seat, sheriff's officials said, and no details about his identity were released.

After the assault, the men drove south on Van Wig Avenue in a black, four-door Honda Civic from the 1990s with leather interior and tinted windows, sheriff's officials said.

The car's complete license plate number was not available, but sheriff's officials said it read in part "2WE."

Authorities initially reported that the crime happened Saturday about 6:30 p.m. Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Amber Smith said the victim confused the days of the week and that the incident occurred Friday.

The sexual assault was reported to the department’s Industry Station and the case is being handled by its special victims unit."