Any updates, or opinions on this witness.

[Abby Normal]

Given Macnaghten's support for Druitt (or Ostrog for that matter), one wonders how much he really knew about the case.

And he came on much later after the murders. No wonder he went with a suspect on nothing more than rumor and innuendo, and names another suspect who it was physically impossible to have been the ripper.

[Sam Flynn]

Indeed, given Macnaghten’s support for Druitt’s candidacy, there was obvious potential for parallels to be drawn between the well-dressed, dark-haired Druitt and Astrakhan man, but it seems for whatever reason that this option was unavailable to him

Given Macnaghten's support for Druitt (or Ostrog for that matter), one wonders how much he really knew about the case.

[Ben]

He means that no one ever saw the murderer in flagrante delicto, standing over his victim with a blood-stained knife

Nah.

Sorry RJ, but Macnaghten most assuredly did not mean anything of the sort. He meant it in the obvious sense, as understood and accepted for generations; that nobody saw the ripper in connection with any of the crimes, whether inveigling the victims, making his escape, or in the act itself.

Macnaghten stated that nobody ever saw the ripper “unless possibly it was the City PC who was (on) a beat near Mitre Square”. Now, unless you’re arguing the there was a “City PC” out there somewhere who saw the ripper in flagrante delicto, I think we may rather comfortably assume that Macnaghten was not restricting his observation purely to sightings of the ripper in the act of ripping.

For what it’s worth, I agree entirely that Macnaghten’s “City PC” was “a garbled reference to Lawende”, but since this witness didn’t describe a suspect in flagrante delicto either, we are even more safe in the assumption that Macnaghten was referring to general sightings of the ripper in the context of his crimes.

What he didn’t say, very tellingly, was that “nobody ever saw the Whitechapel murderer (unless possibly it was the famed star witness Hutchinson, who vividly and painstakingly described the last person ever to be seen entering Mary Kelly’s room before she was butchered very horribly inside it).”

That’s the type of comment we might reasonably have expected from Macnaghten if Hutchinson’s statement hadn’t been discredited shortly after its first public airing. Indeed, given Macnaghten’s support for Druitt’s candidacy, there was obvious potential for parallels to be drawn between the well-dressed, dark-haired Druitt and Astrakhan man, but it seems for whatever reason that this option was unavailable to him; and that, as with Abberline and Klosowski, he had to make do with Lawende.

I (really don’t) wonder why?

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

You just wrote the same comment in two different ways. The meaning is the same

No, it isn’t.

No, it definitely and most emphatically isn’t.

In the actual quoted section of the article, Bowyer gave no indication whatsoever that he had seen anyone - instead he expressed regret that he hadn’t. If he had known that a killer was lurking in the court, concealed from view inside Kelly’s room, he would have prevented his escape.

But in the suspiciously unquoted portion of the article - the hearsay bit - we’re suddenly being told about a man inside the court at that time; a man you bafflingly want to have been Astrakhan, despite the fact that he should have been indoors in a dark room with Kelly at that time.

Yet some use this pointless? attempt at identifying the Ripper as evidence Hutchinson was not believed.

It is one of the many crucial pieces of evidence indicating that Hutchinson was not believed, which, while not insignificant in isolation, becomes considerably weightier when viewed in conjunction with the treatment of Hutchinson from mid-November 1888 onwards coupled with the subsequent reports and memoirs of senior police officials.

All those points have been addressed before

Good. So no point in addressing them again then. How are the Lechmere threads going? They look interesting. I’d check them out.

[Ben]

And so the hole is dug ever deeper, with Jon continuing to pronounce weightily but worthlessly on matters he doesn’t understand or know a single thing about; dismissing “evidence” presented in a book which, by his own admission, he can’t even be bothered to read; whether through laziness, tight-fistedness, or out of concern that actually taking the time to read something for once might interfere with his relentless posting, it becomes increasingly difficult to decipher.

You don't suggest I buy every Jack the Ripper book just because I have an interest in Jack the Ripper, surely?

The moment you discovered Hutchinson, you abandoned all pretence at having a general “interest in Jack the Ripper” in favour of bogging yourself down in the esoteric nitty-gritty of all things Hutchinson, thus rendering all the more inexplicable your refusal - with all the weak excuses that accompany it - to part with the most paltry of sums in order acquire a book on that very subject.

Great, so why pay for an hypothesis when there is no evidence behind it?

You don’t know what evidence there is for the hypothesis, because you haven’t read the book. And then when you feigned knowledge in a pathetic attempt to justify your refusal to obtain yourself a copy, you exposed your total ignorance on the subject by confusing a 2018 book with a 2015 article.

Given your parsimonious approach to the parting of such small amounts of money to enrich your knowledge, I guess I’ll be buying when we eventually go for that beer!

I would normally excuse your faux pas on the word 'hypothesis', Senise provides nothing more than speculation.

I’ll thank you not to criticise my use of the word “hypothesis”, which is precisely what Senise provided, and which you know absolutely nothing about. You can’t even be arsed to familiarise yourself with his most recent theory; instead choosing to attack the author for claiming “Shadwell GH” was the Ormuz crew member - something that he emphatically did not argue in “False Flag”.

...Which you would know if you had read the book.

If you wish to retain any semblance of credibility and avoid inviting any further ridicule, your options are very straightforward; either read the book and put the money where your ever-running mouth is, or have the good grace and humility to shut up about it until you have.

If Abberline had been interested in Bowyer's overnight activities it would have formed part of the witness statement on the 9th

This is embarrassing, hypocritical nonsense.

You’re the one forever gassing on about proper police procedure, reminding everyone that detectives would typically ask “interrogating” questions of their witnesses after listening to their initial narratives. According to your oft-repeated dogma, therefore, it is clear that Abberline did ask Bowyer if he had seen any suspicious strangers that night, but because the latter clearly responded in the negative, there was absolutely no need to mention it in the police report.

Had Bowyer seen Mary Kelly at that early hour, then just like Cox, we might expect an account to that end from Bowyer.

Your point being...?

The fact that there is no mention, anywhere, of Bowyer seeing Kelly at 11.45pm obviously means he didn’t see her around the time of the Mary Cox sighting; ditto 3.00am. It is abundantly clear that Bowyer did not see Kelly or a stranger at any stage relevant to any of the posited times of death.

That's what you say, I asked for what the doctors said, and the 'cry of murder' is already defunct as I explained previously.

The doctors said that the murder most likely occurred hours before Maxwell’s reported sighting, and the cry of “murder” is not in the slightest bit “defunct”.

Yes, and the word used was "murder", but no murder had taken place.

And what about those exceptionally rare instances in which a cry of “murder” is very shortly thereafter followed by an actual murder? Or more to the point, what policeman worthy of his rank (or sane human being worthy of his skin) would instinctively dismiss the two events as unrelated coincidence?

You’re quite sure that this press release was authorised by the police? Interesting. The 19th October report in the Police Gazette, in which the Smith, Schwartz and Lawende sightings appeared, was intended as their first official release, nearly three weeks after the “double event”; meaning that any prior publication of those sightings in a newspaper not officially endorsed by the police amounted to a wholly unsanctioned “leak”.

No, Lewis also saw a loiterer, and a suspicious looking gent outside the Britannia.
Whereas Prater also gave evidence that Kelly's room was in darkness, raising the important question as to whether Kelly was already dead, or out on the streets.
So no, those two witnesses are not duplicates.

Quite right, they’re not, but they provide mutual corroboration of a cry of “murder”. Maxwell and Maurice Lewis were not “duplicates” either, but they provide mutual corroboration for a later morning time of death. It was therefore essential to provide both witnesses at the inquest in order to demonstrate this corroborative element to the coroner, unless of course one of those witnesses was considered unworthy of inclusion at the inquest for whatever reason.

It isn't the coroner's place to corroborate testimony, merely ensure that reliable testimony is produced to the jury.

Yes, and if “reliable testimony” can be demonstrated to corroborate other “reliable testimony”, it was imperative to reveal as much to a jury. The idea that crucial corroborative testimony is withheld from the coroner and the jury because corroboration is somehow superfluous (in your wacky world) is the second worst piece of nonsense I’ve ever heard touted about the Kelly murder.

All the best,
Ben

[Varqm]

Fame/notoriety seekers or like the people charging for a view into the backyard of 29 Hanbury St.,locals trying to make a bit of money off the interest in the case/murders.

--

[Trevor Marriott]

Corroboration is done by the police. They have already investigated their stories and have provided a reliable (as best as can be ascertained) list of witness statements to the coroner.
It isn't the coroner's place to corroborate testimony, merely ensure that reliable testimony is produced to the jury.

But much of what was obtained by the police, and produced as witness testimony at the various inquests was conflicting, and much of which should in my opinion have been clarified, it was not, and so we are left to deduce as best we can, as to who was telling the truth, and what accounts to believe.

If the police lied in some of their statements, which clearly some did, what chance do we have of believing civilian testimony.

Walter Dew in his book states ;

"As always happens in such cases, so many people were eager to give information. The majority were well-meaning enough, but some notoriety seekers made statements which were patently untrue, with no other object than to get their names into the newspapers.

I have never been able to understand the mentality of such people. Our job was big enough in all conscience without having to waste time exploring false clues."

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Simon Wood]

It would be helpful to first discover for whom Macnaghten wrote his 1894 memorandum.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Wickerman. Here is how I look at it. When Macnaghten states that no one ever saw the Ripper, he is simply making a statement of fact.

He means that no one ever saw the murderer in flagrante delicto, standing over his victim with a blood-stained knife, and thus none of the eyewitnesses, in themselves, could prove a suspect's guilt. He then qualifies this by acknowledging that the 'City PC' near Mitre Square was the best bet; which most take to be a garbled reference to Lawende, who is thus given the honor of being the 'super witness' we see in the Swanson marginalia. [Anderson and Swanson seem to be insisting that this man COULD prove guilt. As such, it is really no mystery why they would rely on Lawende, but I would just as not as soon "go there" in this discussion].


It would be foolish in the extreme to take Mac's statement, as some do, and try to use it as evidence that Hutchinson (and Long and Packer and Schwartz) were all discredited and proven to be liars, or that their accounts were otherwise considered without value. That's not what he is saying or implying.

What Macnaghten is actually admitting is that the police were just as much in the dark as we are as to which witness saw what, and he and his colleagues were quite willing to concede the murderer might have looked like Monty Druitt or even Michael Ostrog, because there was no witness, including Hutchinson, who saw the man in flagrante delicto .

Obviously this does not mean that we shouldn't consider Hutchinson, Long, Schwartz, etc. to be valuable from an investigative point of view.

[Wickerman]

Returning to the issue of the Lawende identification(s), it’s worth pointing out that the bearded over-fifty Sadler did not resemble Lawende’s man in the slightest. He was no better a fit in that regard than he was for Hutchinson’s Astrakhan man, but the police went ahead with the attempted identification anyway, if only to follow proper police procedure and tick another official box.

Yet some use this pointless? attempt at identifying the Ripper as evidence Hutchinson was not believed.
Sadler didn't fit either suspect description in possession of the police.

It wasn’t just the aforementioned identify parades that provide additional evidence of Hutchinson’s reported discrediting; it was the actual remarks on the subject from senior police officials that hammer home the final nails in that particular coffin. Unless they all suffered from very selective amnesia on the subject, the collective observations of Anderson, Swanson, Macnaghten and Abberline, when remarking on the subject of eyewitness evidence, all make very clear that the early press reports of Hutchinson’s “considerable discounting” were perfectly accurate.

All those points have been addressed before, nothing stands up to scrutiny.
Most officials chose their own type of suspect formed years after the case, none of which fit any suspect description that has survived.

[Wickerman]

My point exactly, Jon.

“If I had known the killer was there, I would have stopped him” was what he was saying in essence, whereas if he had seen an actual man in the court, he would have said “If I had known that the man I saw was the killer, I would have stopped him.

Regardless of the hearsay attributed to him, his actual quoted words make quite clear that he saw nobody in the court at 3.00am.

???
You just wrote the same comment in two different ways. The meaning is the same.
He had no way of knowing the man he saw was the killer. More especially as the prevalent rumors at the time was that she was killed in the late morning.
Remember, this was not a quote, Bowyer's comment was related by a reporter, so his precise words are not used.

[Wickerman]

Into a very deep hole of your own digging, as you continue to provide one bad excuse after another for not reading that which you’re critiquing. It’s a Hutchinson book, Jon, and you have a monomaniacal attitude towards all things Hutchinson, remember?

Oh, c'mon now modesty doesn't become you. You've been chomping at the Hutchinson bit for longer than I have.
You don't suggest I buy every Jack the Ripper book just because I have an interest in Jack the Ripper, surely?
Apply some discretion Ben, or at least permit others to do so.

The suggested identification was not proved, but merely hypothesised.

Great, so why pay for an hypothesis when there is no evidence behind it?
You give yours out for free, I'm good with that.

Your criticisms of that hypothesis are based on outdated and thus inaccurate message board reactions to a three year old article, which don’t relate to the book under discussion.

I would normally excuse your faux pas on the word 'hypothesis', Senise provides nothing more than speculation.
There is no evidence whatsoever that G.H. the Witness was G.H. the Seaman. Therefore, it is pure speculation.
These boards are the place for speculation, it should be offered for free when there is no evidence behind it.
So, it doesn't matter how old the critique is, nothing has changed to firm up the connection, so it is just as relevant now as when written.

Firstly, experienced detectives are not generally so stupid as to only ask questions pursuant to whatever “prevalent theory” they happen to subscribe to. They are interested in ALL evidence that may have a bearing on an investigation. Secondly, even if they were the ninnies you’re anxious to depict them as, there was ample opportunity to reinterview Bowyer before the inquest, once this supposedly “prevalent theory” had subsided.

There's no point in beating your head against the wall. If Abberline had been interested in Bowyer's overnight activities it would have formed part of the witness statement on the 9th. It wasn't, so there is your evidence.

Had Bowyer seen Mary Kelly at that early hour, then just like Cox, we might expect an account to that end from Bowyer.
But, he provided no account of seeing Cox at midnight, or seeing Prater after 1:00, or more to the point, seeing Blotchy at all either coming or going. Yet you are insisting Abberline had to have questioned Bowyer about seeing anyone at 3:00?
The term, double standard, comes to mind, again.

Two doctors, attesting to a death that occurred hours before the Maxwell sighting, and two mutually corroborative witnesses who recalled a cry of “murder” in the small hours. Assertion proved. Thanks for coming.

That's what you say, I asked for what the doctors said, and the 'cry of murder' is already defunct as I explained previously.
So, where is this evidence?

Where is the evidence that the police knew from experience that cries of “murder” were common?

In the press - false cries of murder. Several reports were posted on Casebook where the police were called just to find it was another false alarm. Yes, and the word used was "murder", but no murder had taken place.

Blotchy’s description was published in the press along with the other inquest details; there was no sense in publishing it beforehand. How long after the Eddowes murder was the Lawende description published in the Police Gazzette?

What a witness said at the inquest is not an official suspect description.
The suspect seen by PC Smith in Berner street was published the next day - 1st Oct.

"A description has been issued by the police of a man who was seen in the company of the deceased about midnight on Saturday.

He is stated to have been about twenty eight years of age, 5ft 8in in height, of dark complexion, but having no whiskers. He was attired in a black diagonal coat, and had on a hard felt hat and a collar and tie. He was of respectable appearance and carried a newspaper parcel."

https://www.casebook.org/press_reports/st._james_gazette/881001.html?printer=true

That, Ben, is an official police suspect release. It is taken from an internal police circular issued across all stations.
No such suspect description was issued by the police concerning Blotchy.

I’ve told you already; Lewis and Prater.

They made very different statements, but both testified to a cry of “murder” in the small hours; just so with Maurice Lewis and Maxwell.

No, Lewis also saw a loiterer, and a suspicious looking gent outside the Britannia.
Whereas Prater also gave evidence that Kelly's room was in darkness, raising the important question as to whether Kelly was already dead, or out on the streets.
So no, those two witnesses are not duplicates.

If the coroner “needs to know if the victim was alive after 9.00am”, it was absolutely essential to obtain as much corroboration as possible. It would therefore have been absolute gold to find more than one witness to that version of events, and put them on the stand accordingly.

It’s as though the very concept of corroboration, and the obvious value it entails, is a completely alien one to you.

Corroboration is done by the police. They have already investigated their stories and have provided a reliable (as best as can be ascertained) list of witness statements to the coroner.
It isn't the coroner's place to corroborate testimony, merely ensure that reliable testimony is produced to the jury.

[Ben]

Being Scotland Yard men, they probably realized a man can grow a beard in under two-and-a-half years.

...and pawn his Astrakhan-trimmed coat.

Good point.

[Abby Normal]

Being Scotland Yard men, they probably realized a man can grow a beard in under two-and-a-half years.

Double post

[Abby Normal]

Where are your direct quotes from anyone who accuses Hutchinson of lying?

I guess it doesn't matter now....right.

Square up bitch!

Lol