Any updates, or opinions on this witness.

[rjpalmer]

If it were possible, how would a contemporary interested newspaper-reading Man on the Clapham Omnibus have interpreted the Macnaghten Memorandum?

That the police kept a tight lid on their investigation, and we know very little about it. Sir Mel is mentioning suspects that your newspaper-reading man from Clapham has never heard of.

But tell me, Simon, have you dropped us a clue as to where you are headed? You earlier state that Abberline was gullible. You now state that Hutchinson did not exist. How does a gullible man interview a suspect that does not exist?

It's a puzzle with only one answer.

[rjpalmer]

Ben - The reason I keep challenging you on this is because you keep insinuating there is a great body of documentation where the police are discussing witnesses after November 1888. You frequently refer to "subsequent reports" (plural) and "police documents" (plural).

This may be your honest impression; I am just trying to ascertain on what it is based.

I imagine that most of the serious researchers here have either a fairly complete set of MEPO and HO files on the Ripper case, or at least access to Evans & Skinner's Ultimate Companion, that contain the cream of those reports.

Where are these discussion of witnesses that you are referring to?

I am looking; I am not seeing ANY discussion of Schwartz, Lawende, etc.


The only report you mention is the Macnaghten Memo. If you wish, by all means use the Abberconway version is well. You now have two versions of the same document. Is there any other report you have in mind?

And no, I don't accept your Abberline argument. You evidently believe Klosowski was a spitting image of Hutchinson's suspect and thus it a serious omission not to mention him in 1903. I demur. Klosowski was depicted as a man in a peaked cap; that's all that Abberline stated at the time, so no need to mention Hutch.

Further, Hutch's man was 35, spoke or at least understood English (with Kelly), and was dressed to the teeth.

Klosowski was 23, a newly arrived immigrant, impoverished and quite probably didn't even speak English, and certainly wouldn't have dressed in spats, etc.

So I see no reason why Abberline would have made the instant association. Further, even if I accepted this argument, I wouldn't state that this was proof that Hutchinson was discredited. There are other explanations. It could mean that, like Dew, Abberline believed Hutchinson was mistaken.

Because Dew does not state Astrachan did not exist; he states that he believes Hutchinson had the wrong night.

Let's face it, Ben; we are analyzing the same exact documentation. We disagree on its interpretation.

[Simon Wood]

If it were possible, how would a contemporary interested newspaper-reading Man on the Clapham Omnibus have interpreted the Macnaghten Memorandum?

[Ben]

I sense which way the wind is blowing.

Hopefully not in the direction of an extremely tedious debate over what constitutes a “document”, RJ.

As Abby has already explained, the “MM” most assuredly qualifies on that score, and since it was written by a member of the police after November 1888, it serves as a perfect example of what I earlier described as a “police document on the subject of witnesses, written after the murders”; something you wrongly claimed I was “codding” about even existing!

It was inevitable and predictable that you would then change the goalposts and claim that while the Mac memo is permissible as evidence, the Aberconway version is not. Of course, it should be apparent to all that the only reason you would create such a meaningless distinction is because the latter includes the detail about the “City PC”, which proved so destructive to your thoroughly erroneous and now totally debunked notion that Mac was only referring to in flagrante delicto sightings when he stated that “nobody ever saw the Whitechapel murderer”.

What are you suggesting we ought to conclude from the presence of the “City PC” detail in the Aberconway version only - that he made it up for the sheer shytes and giggles of it?

I’ll try to make things easier: whenever the senior police officials from the ripper case wrote and said stuff about the witnesses after 1888, their comments conspicuously excluded Hutchinson, which is an extraordinary thing if he continued to be treated as a valuable witness. Without any “discrediting” having occurred, he would have been the obvious “go-to” witness for any suspect comparison that might crop up in the future, head and shoulders above the rest; whereas the silence on the subject wouldn’t be an extraordinary thing (but rather an inevitable and entirely to be expected thing) if Hutchinson did NOT continue to be treated as a valuable witnesses, and was instead discredited, as reported at the time.

You’re still fixated on the idea that Abberline only referenced Lawende out of some obsession with Klosowski’s peaked cap, but this continues to be nonsense. If Hutchinson was still considered a valuable witness, Abberline would have seized on the golden opportunity to infer similarities between his new star suspect and the man vividly described by his star witness.

The fact that he didn’t seize on this opportunity, and instead faffed about with incredibly tenuous comparisons with peaked cap-wearing men, serves as irrefutable evidence that Astrakhan man was no longer considered a potential suspect.

But now we have some brand new nonsense about Abberline supposedly saving the really juicy (i.e. Hutchinson-related) stuff for Macnaghten. What do you suppose the former would have said? “Gosh, I wonder why I forgot to mention the star witness Hutchinson when enthusing passionately to the PMG about the likelihood of Klosowski being the killer?”.

Or, far more likely: “Pity none of our witnesses from 1888 aid the Klosowski cause particularly well. It’s such a shame Astrakhan turned out to bogus - he would have been ideal!”.

And should we similarly throw out Packer, Elizabeth Long, Joseph Lawende, and Israel Schwartz as witnesses because they are also not mentioned after November 1888?

Packer was discredited, just as Hutchinson was, perfectly accounting for the non-mention in his case.

Elizabeth Long didn’t see her man’s face, perfectly accounting for the non-mention of her.

Lawende was mentioned quite extensively, albeit rarely by name, and was evidently used in attempts to identity suspects.

Schwartz is an alternative candidate for the Jewish witness referred to by Anderson (which is obviously an entirely separate discussion for another time and thread.)

No. In other words.

By all means make an entreaty to Sue Iremonger, but I suspect she would be rather insulted at the insinuation that there was the slightest question mark over her original 1993 analysis.

All the best,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

Regarding "Toppy," it looks like Susan Iremonger is still around and doing document examination; I would think one could resubmit the signatures and see if there wasn't a mix-up. There might be a fee involved, but it would settle the matter once and for all.

I believe that Fisherman has already obtained the opinion of another expert, Frank Leander, whose views on the matter weren't exactly congruent with those of Sue Iremonger, if I recall correctly. Perhaps someone should get a third opinion but, personally, I think that the signatures speak for themselves.

[rjpalmer]

Regarding "Toppy," it looks like Susan Iremonger is still around and doing document examination; I would think one could resubmit the signatures and see if there wasn't a mix-up. There might be a fee involved, but it would settle the matter once and for all.

[Batman]

What's your opinion on the Thames Torso series? After all, one of the victims was dumped in Whitechapel.

The thing about the Thames is that it was turning up Torsos going back as far as historical records of the Thames, through to 1888 and through to today. Torsos and body parts can drift and wash up anywhere as was the case in the recovery of all of Elizbeth Jackson over several days.

Finding Torsos at sea and in major city rivers around the world happens. What is the general explanation? It seems that many criminals basically come across the same idea that if they want to dispose of someone and not have them identified, to remove the limbs and head and dump the torso is a way around it. Then you have predation on bodies in the river which end up removing the extremities.

Gangs members have often confessed to such things. Which seems a good explanation.

Out of all the Torso finds on the Thames/Whitechapel, four are most interesting. Rainham, Whitehall, Jackson and Pinchin. These were discounted as the work of JtR because of MO which we know today isn't a good reason to discount a connection. So the possibility remains it was JtR.

Elizabeth Jackson's wounds closely resembled the one at Rainham.

Whether the torso murders are connected or not remains to be seen, but given these cases are not unusual around the world, it's hard to ascribe one hand to them. The very nature of water being a place where bodies get dumped is nothing new and will still go on.

Pinchin seems the most interesting in terms of JtR.

[rjpalmer]

Ben didn't say "police reports" he said police documents-which would include the MM. which was pretty extensive.

Hi Abby. Here is the Macnaghten memo. 7 handwritten sheets:

https://www.casebook.org/official_documents/memo.html

Here is the total of Macnaghten’s remarks on witnesses in that document:

“No one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer; many homicidal maniacs were suspected, but no shadow of proof could be thrown on any one.”

That’s it.

Those are Macnaghten’s extensive remarks on witnesses.

From this you and Ben conclude there is a “glaring” omission of Hutchinson in the existing police documentation?

Seeing your memory is better than mine, can you point to any other police documentation filed after November 1888 that shows a similar glaring omission in a discussion of witnesses?

And should we similarly throw out Packer, Elizabeth Long, Joseph Lawende, and Israel Schwartz as witnesses because they are also not mentioned after November 1888? Or should we simply admit that the argument is a bad one no matter how many times it is repeated?


All the best.

[Macnaghten's only mention of a witness is the City PC in the Aberconway version, which was not an official police document. Swanson and Anderson allude to an unknown witness many years later, but this had to do with the identification of a specific suspect, Kosminski. Abberline mentions witnesses describing a peaked cap, because that is how Klosowski was represented at the time of his interview, 1903. Dew mentions Maxwell and Hutchinson, and thinks they were mistaken, but not dishonest. Not a heck of a lot of "glaring omissions" if you ask me].

[Harry D]

That's not what I said though. I said this 3km^2 area in the East End, called Whitechapel, in 1888 isn't somehow unique in poverty, at the time, before it, nor after it and none of these places because of poverty and crime have spawned more than one serial killer operating at the same time.

In short, to claim that there could be more than one serial killer because 'Whitechapel is unique' is just contradicted by the same poverty and crime being in numerous places throughout the world for the past century and a half. Most of this world still live in such poverty and plenty of those places have outrageous levels of violent crimes. Yet they don't produce two serial killers operating at the same time unless you have much bigger populations over vastly wider areas.

Producing two serial killers or more at the same time does not seem to be remotely connected to poverty or the amount of crime a place has. It has to do with area sizes and population densities. Simply the bigger the area and the more people it has, the greater the chances of more than one person operating as serial homicidal maniac. These figures are 400,000+ or more and in areas spanning virtually dozens of times the size of Whitechapel. 3km^2 vs 400km^2 or 1000s km^2.

Anyway, it's just a point to show that statistically, Chapman is a great candidate.

What's your opinion on the Thames Torso series? After all, one of the victims was dumped in Whitechapel.

[Batman]

Prey need predators. Besides, if you think that the social backdrop that spawned concurrent serial killers like Bonin and Kraft is no different from the awful privation and endemic thuggishness of the Victorian East End slums, perhaps you should think again.

That's not what I said though. I said this 3km^2 area in the East End, called Whitechapel, in 1888 isn't somehow unique in poverty, at the time, before it, nor after it and none of these places because of poverty and crime have spawned more than one serial killer operating at the same time.

In short, to claim that there could be more than one serial killer because 'Whitechapel is unique' is just contradicted by the same poverty and crime being in numerous places throughout the world for the past century and a half. Most of this world still live in such poverty and plenty of those places have outrageous levels of violent crimes. Yet they don't produce two serial killers operating at the same time unless you have much bigger populations over vastly wider areas.

Producing two serial killers or more at the same time does not seem to be remotely connected to poverty or the amount of crime a place has. It has to do with area sizes and population densities. Simply the bigger the area and the more people it has, the greater the chances of more than one person operating as serial homicidal maniac. These figures are 400,000+ or more and in areas spanning virtually dozens of times the size of Whitechapel. 3km^2 vs 400km^2 or 1000s km^2.

Anyway, it's just a point to show that statistically, Chapman is a great candidate.

[Abby Normal]

Agreed, and each one poisoned gradually over a long period of time.

agree with you and Harry on this one, and Abberline said the same thing.

[Abby Normal]

Yup, and as far as we know, he wrote in glowing terms of George Hutchinson, and this glowing endorsement is what made it into the introduction of The Trial of George Chapman by Hargrave Lee Adam (1930) which tips its hat to the trustworthy George.


I seem to have ruffled Abby's feathers, but I'm just trying to help the poor kid out, as she stumbles down the road to reason. There is nothing in the record to suggest Hutch was discredited...just speculation piled on speculation.


If I had to hire a detective, I would hire a gullible one. The worst he could do is waste time following a false lead; the skeptical detective, on the other hand, will throw away the most vital clue that solves the case, thinking it is just more horsesh*ite. RP

RJ

Yup, and as far as we know, he wrote in glowing terms of George Hutchinson, and this glowing endorsement is what made it into the introduction of The Trial of George Chapman by Hargrave Lee Adam (1930) which tips its hat to the trustworthy George.

wow-talk about desperation and clutching at straws!!

There is nothing in the record to suggest Hutch was discredited...just speculation piled on speculation.

yeah. like the contemporary news reports stating he had been discredited and his story was of reduced importance. lets just forget about that (like I said, your memory seems to be not up to snuff) and go with some second hand musings of a writer decades later.

[Sam Flynn]

Anyway, Batman, none of this has much, if anything, to do with the topic of this thread.

[Sam Flynn]

Basically, poverty and crime doesn't produce serial killers. It produces potential victims.

Prey need predators. Besides, if you think that the social backdrop that spawned concurrent serial killers like Bonin and Kraft is no different from the awful privation and endemic thuggishness of the Victorian East End slums, perhaps you should think again.

[Abby Normal]

Yup, and as far as we know, he wrote in glowing terms of George Hutchinson, and this glowing endorsement is what made it into the introduction of The Trial of George Chapman by Hargrave Lee Adam (1930) which tips its hat to the trustworthy George.


I seem to have ruffled Abby's feathers, but I'm just trying to help the poor kid out, as she stumbles down the road to reason. There is nothing in the record to suggest Hutch was discredited...just speculation piled on speculation.


If I had to hire a detective, I would hire a gullible one. The worst he could do is waste time following a false lead; the skeptical detective, on the other hand, will throw away the most vital clue that solves the case, thinking it is just more horsesh*ite. RP

RJ

I seem to have ruffled Abby's feathers, but I'm just trying to help the poor kid out, as she stumbles down the road to reason.

Thanks old chap, but I don't need your help-especially your delusions of Grandeur, patronizing tone, and faulty memory.