Any updates, or opinions on this witness.

[rjpalmer]

A poor woman was butchered beyond belief the latest in a series of recent murders, [heaven knows when he will stop if not caught].

Darrly - Great point, but doesn't this very fact mitigate against Hutchinson being the murderer?


You see, one of the problems I have is that Hutchinson is being painted as both the Devil Incarnate --capable of Hanbury Street, Mitre Square, and Millers Court -- but also a man with utter ice in his veins, with the audacity of walking cooly into a police station, placing himself at the scene of the crime, and even leading plainclothes detectives on a futile search around East London for an imaginary suspect.

Truly a terrifying man. Imagine the arrogance and the mockery inside such a person. Utterly vicious but also vain and calculating. A Jack the Ripper in bold lettering.

And yet, after November, nothing. We are supposed to believe the same person that was this arrogant and audacious would then be content to emigrate to Australia, stay below the radar, and be happy polishing brass in a factory and raising three kids, or whatever he was supposed to be doing?

To me, the Hutchinson theory lacks an overarching vision of the criminal. At least the Druitt, Bury, Cohen theories, offer some explanation as to why this "Heaven Knows When He Will Stop" character did stop after November 1888. Yet the portrait we get of Hutchinson is far beyond any of these in cunning and vanity and yet he simply dissolves back into the herd afterwards. It seems wholly out of character.

[Wickerman]

..... My own personal opinion is that would be enough for any reluctant witness to come forward at the first opportunity if they thought they had relevant info.

But isn't that the question under discussion?
"Did he think he had relevant information?"

Why must we assume he did (in order to make him look bad?), when all the published information suggests otherwise?

This controversy continued into Monday, as the Times reported:
"The police are of the opinion that the murderer did his fiendish work in daylight".

And also: "Great difference of opinion exists as to the exact time the murder of Mary Jane Kelly took place".

"Whether a cry of murder was raised is open to question".
Daily Telegraph.

Rather than an early time of death being obvious to anyone over that first weekend, it can be easily shown the later time was more widespread in the press.
At best, there was considerable confusion.

[Darryl Kenyon]

But isn't that the question under discussion?
"Did he think he had relevant information?"

From an earlier post of mine - Daily News - 10 Nov - That last expression, however, suggests the question as to when the deed could have been done. Strictly speaking, the only answer to this is that nobody knows. The only things that seem tolerably certain are that at half-past ten on Thursday night she was alive and that at 11 o'clock yesterday she was found most foully murdered.
Times 10 Nov - None of those living at the court or at 26 Dorset-street, saw anything of the unfortunate creature after about 8 o'clock on Thursday evening, but she was seen in Commercial-street, shortly before the closing of the public-house, and then had the appearance of being the worse for drink. About 1 o'clock yesterday morning a person living in the court opposite to the room occupied by the woman heard her singing the song "Sweet Violets," but this person is unable to say whether anyone else was with her at that time. Nothing more was seen or heard of her until her dead body was found.
Pall Mall Gazette 10 Nov - If the following statement can be confirmed, it has a very important bearing upon the question, who is the murderer? because it fixed approximately the time at which the murder was committed. But so many stories have been invented for the sake of gain by the people who live in the locality since these murders became the sensation in the newspaper that it is difficult to ascertain whether they are accurate or otherwise.
Hi RJ I don't think I have said anywhere that I believe Hutchinson to be the killer

[Wickerman]

From an earlier post of mine - Daily News - 10 Nov - That last expression, however, suggests the question as to when the deed could have been done. Strictly speaking, the only answer to this is that nobody knows. The only things that seem tolerably certain are that at half-past ten on Thursday night she was alive and that at 11 o'clock yesterday she was found most foully murdered.

I agree, but you did not mention other reports from the same paper.

"Another statement made last evening by a woman, who asserted that the deceased had been seen by her alive and well, and in company with a man, at the Ringer's public house, at the corner of Dorset Street, at half-past ten yesterday morning."
Plus Maxwell's statement & that of M.Lewis.

Times 10 Nov - None of those living at the court or at 26 Dorset-street, saw anything of the unfortunate creature after about 8 o'clock on Thursday evening, but she was seen in Commercial-street, shortly before the closing of the public-house, and then had the appearance of being the worse for drink. About 1 o'clock yesterday morning a person living in the court opposite to the room occupied by the woman heard her singing the song "Sweet Violets," but this person is unable to say whether anyone else was with her at that time. Nothing more was seen or heard of her until her dead body was found.

True, but the Times also gave M.Lewis's statement, in two separate paragraphs, one of them being....
"A tailor named Lewis says he saw Kelly come out about 8 o'clock yesterday morning and go back. Another statement is to the effect that Kelly was seen in a public house known as the Ringers at the corner of Dorset street and Commercial street, about 10 o'clock yesterday morning, and that she met there her lover, Barnett and had a glass of beer with him. This story is also not substantiated."

Pall Mall Gazette 10 Nov - If the following statement can be confirmed, it has a very important bearing upon the question, who is the murderer? because it fixed approximately the time at which the murder was committed. But so many stories have been invented for the sake of gain by the people who live in the locality since these murders became the sensation in the newspaper that it is difficult to ascertain whether they are accurate or otherwise.

In the same paper, did you miss this?

[Sam Flynn]

In the same paper, did you miss this?

But you're missing the point. The picture was very confused, and time of death had definitely not been confirmed. Furthermore - whether they were spurious, commonplace or not - the papers were telling of two cries of "Murder!" which emanated from the direction of Mary Kelly's room not long after Hutchinson had left her with Mr Astrakhan.

There is no way that Hutchinson would not have come forward sooner with his very detailed story of his acquaintance and her mysterious pick-up with a stern face and a dodgy looking parcel. I wish you'd stop making excuses for him.

[Robert St Devil]

Not for the looney bin at all devil.
Or perhaps hutch as the rippers acomplice comes forward.

Hi Abby and thanks for the post. I believe Gareth is correct; the same man signed his name 3x. I know that I may suffer the same problem as he did; that being, not knowing how to connect some capital cursive letters to lower case cursive letters and just abandoning the cause and using standard text. Still, the closer I looked at the signatures that Simon posted, I couldn't help but wonder if the "eor" in 'George' resembled the "ear" in 'Dear [Boss]'. On its own, I would leave that alone as worthless speculation except "Jack the Ripper" also has a tendency of hanging the cross bar of his 't' off of the right side of the t's post. Just food for thought and open to opinion.

I still have the dialogue from a year or so ago rambling about, regarding what made the government believe that there may have been an accomplice to offer pardon. And, how some still held to the belief that the search should be for 'Blotchy/not Astrachan'. Just got to thinking if you consider George Hutchinson's story of "an affluent Jewish (possibly) man escorting a prostitute down one of the worst streets in all of Whitechapel after midnite and stopping to take in a laugh with her over his WANTED poster shortly before mutilating her" as full of it, then you are left with the man that Mary Ann Cox saw and the man that Sara Lewis saw.

[Sam Flynn]

Interesting idea about the "ts", Robert, but Hutchinson noticeably launches his "t" crossbar at the very top of the upright, whereas the "t" crossbars in Dear Boss start in the middle of the upright.

Hi Abby and thanks for the post. I believe Gareth is correct; the same man signed his name 3x. I know that I may suffer the same problem as he did; that being, not knowing how to connect some capital cursive letters to lower case cursive letters and just abandoning the cause and using standard text.

Quite so. I sometimes "abandon" the cause when writing, and what starts out with good intentions becomes a bit of a disaster

[Wickerman]

But you're missing the point. The picture was very confused, and time of death had definitely not been confirmed.

You're not paying attention.
There was no confusion on Friday - the day of the murder.
All the evening papers published stories of a late morning murder.

The confusion set in Saturday with reports of a cry of murder at varying times of the early morning.
Yet, the suggestion of a late morning murder continued.

On Sunday the "cry of murder" received support from the medical evidence.
How reliable was medical evidence given the debacle over Chapman's time of death?
Yet the stories of the late morning murder kept being repeated.
Continued confusion.

On Monday both sides of the story continued.

It was Sunday when Hutchinson had a change of mind and spoke to a policeman - why, is anyone's guess.
But we do see a possible reason in the press.

This is where you are being subjective...

There is no way that Hutchinson would not have come forward sooner with his very detailed story of his acquaintance and her mysterious pick-up with a stern face and a dodgy looking parcel.

Imposing your morals or conscience on another only demonstrates a will to justify the accusation.

The man did not come forward until Sunday, why?
1 - For fear of being implicated?
2 - Because he had not been convinced she died around 3-4:00 am?
3 - Because he only had bad experiences with police?

I wish you'd stop making excuses for him.

There you go again.
The assumption of guilt!
No-one is making excuses for a man who did nothing wrong.

His accusers need to show he did do something wrong, not whine about a lack of morals.
High or low morals is no indication of a serial killer.

[Sam Flynn]

There you go again.
The assumption of guilt!

It's your assumption of honesty that's baffling, given the extraordinary nature of Hutchinson's story and his bizarre delay in telling it. Personally, I don't think Hutchinson was "guilty" of anything more than bull$hit, to a greater or lesser degree.

[Darryl Kenyon]

The picture was very confused, and time of death had definitely not been confirmed.

That would be my reading of it Sam
Even if Hutch did believe she was killed at 8-9 in the morning the only thing which is certain is Mary was butchered in her room. The very room only a few hours earlier a man, who did not want to be recognized spent the best part of an hour with her.
Hutch could very easily assume that he spent the night there, and when Mary did come back to her room after her trip to the Ringers [left him sleeping there, he could have paid her an extra sixpence and after all what was there for him to take?], he killed her then. She was not, in any press report whatsoever seen entering that tiny room with any other person after Hutch's sighting.

[Ben]

Hi RJ,

I can only agree wholeheartedly with Abby, Gareth and Darryl here.

I’m afraid neither Liz Long nor Lawende (et al) compare in the slightest to Hutchinson in terms of a rational explanation for the late arrival of their evidence. The Hanbury and Duke Street witnesses were simply passing along, and had no connection with, or interest in, either the deceased or her small-hours companion. Hutchinson, by contrast, had allegedly known Kelly for three years, and took an active - almost inappropriately active - interest in both Kelly herself and her Astrakhan companion, rendering his failure to come forward all the more inexplicable.

Again, Hutchinson’s ultimate decision to change his mind and “get involved” just so happened to coincide with the end of the inquest; the chances of these two events being unrelated are very slim.

Returning briefly to the Ridgway issue, I guess we’ll have to agree to differ. I would suggest, since “inject” is obviously rather an emotive term and perhaps something of a buzzword in the world of criminal psychology, that we substitute it for “approached the police voluntarily pretending to a be a witness”. Gary Ridgway did precisely that, and the fact that he had already come under the police radar makes not a jot of difference as far as I’m concerned, especially not to the suggested and likely mentality, which was that “he was afraid police would come across his name during the investigation.”

Ridgway wasn’t the sole focus of the entire Green River investigation in the early eighties; he was simply one person of interest among a great many, and the event for which we was originally called in for questioning had occurred a whole year earlier.

So I don’t see how his prior police contact makes any difference to Ridgway’s likely motivation for coming forward voluntarily, pre-emoting (in his mind) the link with Christensen being made independently by the police, which would have resulted in him being dragged in as a suspect again. By beating them to the punch, and coming forward as a helpful informant, he “legitimised” his link to the victim before that it could be made independently and viewed as suspicious.

If Hutchinson was similarly motivated in the Kelly case, it would certainly make sense of a lot of things; his loitering presence as witnessed by an independent witness, his implausible story, and his decision to come forward the moment that independent witness’s evidence was released.

As for the percentage of serial killers who have come forward pretending to be witnesses or informants, I’m afraid I can’t help you, and the bad news is nor can anyone else, since I’ve never seen any statistical analysis encompassing all known serial killers in history. What I can tell is that it must be a sufficiently recognisable and recurring trait if experts in law enforcement and criminal psychology have correctly predicted it happening in some cases.

[Ben]

In response to the questions you posed several pages ago regarding Hutchinson’s motivation for loitering outside Crossingan’s IF he was the murderer, one explanation is that he was waiting for the Blotchy man to emerge, assuming the latter had fallen into a drunken slumber with Kelly some time after 1.00am, which would be perfectly consistent with Cox’s recollections.

Alternatively, he may have been conducting a measure of pre-crime surveillance, in common with almost all serial killers who have targetted victims in their homes.

Militating against the argument that this would represent too significant a departure from his “usual” M.O. is the fact that other serial killers have varied their strategies when it came to encountering victims on the street, versus attacking them in their homes.

If we’re prepared to make allowances for change in the killer’s “MO” regarding his chosen venue type, indoor versus outdoor (as opposed to assuming that a different killer was responsible in the Kelly case), it is only fair and logical to make similar allowances for the type of pre-crime approach he adopted.

Ted Bundy is one example of a killer who altered his approach to suit different circumstances. When out and about, he adopted a false guise to inveigle his victims into this company (similar to what Lawende’s and Long observed in the ripper case), but when it came to the indoor Tallahassee murders, he simply broke into the girls' rooms after monitoring the building from a vantage point, just as Robert Napper and Dannis Rader did.

I’m not sure what bearing the alleged three-year acquaintance has to do with the likelihood or otherwise of Hutchinson being a killer. It doesn’t make any difference if he was a close personal friend or simply a casual client, the fact that he took such an active and intrusive interest in her and “Astrakhan man” totally nullifies any comparison with Long, Lawende etc, in terms of seeking justification for the former’s failure to come forward earlier.

The notion that serial killers can’t “stop” is a very outdated one, wholly unsupported by evidence from other serial cases. Equally outdated is the idea that Mary Kelly was the ripper’s last ever victim. You mention Stephen Senise’s book, which makes an extremely compelling case for Alice McKenzie as a ripper victim. If Hutchinson himself was the killer, it would only reasonably follow that after such police exposure - coupled with the increased police vigilance serving to thwart further attempts, in all likelihood - he would have been compelled to “pause” at the very least.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Jon,

If you’re suggesting that the dormitories at the Victoria Home were accessible free of charge during the day, you’re most assuredly in error. They couldn’t have cleaned the rooms overnight with 400 lodgers sleeping in them!

The only noteworthy “coincidence” is Hutchinson’s “delay” only coming to an end the moment the inquest closed. So obvious is the causal relationship between the two that any alternative explanation should, in all circumspection, be discarded.

Your newly decided-upon theory, however, demands that Hutchinson only felt motivated into action after conducting an extensive press trawl, collating and stockpiling all available sources a la Jon, then randomly picking which time of death he fancied going with. Innocent witnesses emphatically do not think like that, Jon, nor do they typically have access to the wealth of newspapers, commonplace and obscure, that you can recall at the click of a mouse.

You even acknowledge now that there was “confusion” regarding the likely time of death, and that this “confusion” was reflected in the press. Does this mean that we’re making progress at last, and that you finally accept that “confusion” ought to have provided an even stronger impetus for coming forward, as opposed to withholding crucial evidence until he had decided which “confused” report of the likely time of death he wanted, quite arbitrarily, to go with?

If not, I sincerely hope that you never witness anything important.

You suggest Hutchinson refused to take the mysterious policeman’s “advice” (for which there is no evidence, I should add - the policeman or the advice!), because he was “working”. Great. Didn’t fancy telling the copper, though, did he? “I’d love to go to the police station, but I’m working, sorry. Bye”.

Whereupon both parties agree not to take the matter any further?!

Regards,
Ben

[Ben]

But then, disappointingly, Jon revisits his erroneous theory that Hutchinson was heading for lodgings other than the Victoria Home on the morning of the 9th.

Expanding on Harry’s excellent rebuttal to such obvious nonsense, all eyewitnesses were obliged to provide their addresses for the night of the witnessed event (for what are surely obvious reasons). The fact that the Victoria Home was given as Hutchinson’s residence informs us, beyond question, that it was his home at the time of the Kelly murder; otherwise a different or additional residence would have been listed. It’s that simple.

Some have gone so far as to assert - without a scrap of evidence - that Hutchinson’s press interview occurred at the Victoria Home. It is then claimed, in the most circular fashion imaginable, that because he referred - during that interview- to a a place where he “usually” slept, that “usual” place must be somewhere else, and that it was this mystery establishment, not the Victoria Home, that Hutchinson allegedly attempted to gain access to on the night of the Kelly murder.

Back on our planet, meanwhile, it is obvious that the press interview took place somewhere else, at a more sensible and less conspicuous location; the Princess Alice pub for instance, situated directly opposite the Victoria Home on Commercial Street, would have made an ideal venue.

In this infinitely more plausible scenario, the place where he “usually slept” would still refer to the Victoria Home, and when he claimed to have told a fellow lodger “here” about the events of 9th, he meant precisely that; “here” in the pub. He claimed to have told a bloke from the pub who happened to be a fellow Victoria Home lodger. Simples.

What relevance has the closure of the home, incidentally, if he had no money to get in anyway? Why did he cite “home closure” and not his lack of funds as his reason for “walking about all night”?

[Ben]

Lest there be any residual doubt that Jon’s theory regarding the supposed significance of “dashes”, “commas” and “hyphens” in Lewis’s inquest evidence hasn’t been totally debunked already, which it certainly has, let’s take a look at the Daily Telegraph’s coverage on 13th November:

Sarah Lewis deposed: I live at 24, Great Pearl-street, and am a laundress. I know Mrs. Keyler, in Miller's-court, and went to her house at 2, Miller's-court, at 2.30a.m. on Friday. It is the first house. I noticed the time by Spitalfields' Church clock. When I went into the court, opposite the lodging-house I saw a man with a wideawake. There was no one talking to him. He was a stout-looking man, and not very tall. The hat was black. I did not take any notice of his clothes. The man was looking up the court; he seemed to be waiting or looking for some one. Further on there was a man and woman - the later being in drink. There was nobody in the court. I dozed in a chair at Mrs. Keyler's, and woke at about half-past three. I heard the clock strike.

What woke you up ? - I could not sleep. I sat awake until nearly four, when I heard a female's voice shouting "Murder" loudly. It seemed like the voice of a young woman. It sounded at our door. There was only one scream.

Were you afraid ? Did you wake anybody up ? - No, I took no notice, as I only heard the one scream.

You stayed at Keyler's house until what time ? - Half-past five p.m. on Friday. The police would not let us out of the court.

What the above clearly demonstrates is precisely when and where the coroner chose to interject, and what is also clear is that he didn’t do so until after Lewis had completed her opening deposition. Lewis effectively provided an uninterrupted narrative until the coroner enquired “what woke you up”, which was after she had relayed the details involving the wideawake man and the couple.

She was most assuredly not “interrupted” when she mentioned the couple “passing along” (in a westerly direction along Dorset Street, away from the court), otherwise she could not have had a chance to relate the detail that the woman was “in drink”.

She mentioned a man standing opposite the court, and that a couple were “further on” from where the man was standing. Since Lewis was to the east of the man, and the couple were “further on” from him, it follows that the latter were to the west, beyond Miller’s Court, and ostensibly continuing west as evinced by the observation that they “passed along”.

Lewis made no mention of this couple at all in her police statement; would that really have been the case if she had seen them enter the court itself, despite her insistence that there was nobody in the court?

As has been impressed upon Jon far too many times, the couple referred to by Lewis did not, as a matter of certain fact, enter the court. The one single newspaper that said otherwise, contradicting all other sources, made a basic error; possibly confusing “passed along” for “passed up”. The latter doesn’t even make any sense since it wouldn’t have entailed any “passing”!

Continued bad luck for Jon, then, and his extremely unsuccessful efforts to identify Lewis’s couple as Kelly and Astrakhan. Even the timing renders this impossible, as does Hutchinson’s own account, which places him at the corner of Commercial Street, not leaning against Crossingham’s, when Kelly and Astrakhan supposedly went inside.