Why Didn't the Police Have Schwartz and/or Lawende Take a Look at Hutchinson?

[Abby Normal]

Is he really all that different except for how he is dressed?

Obviously, H-Division didn't want Lewende's sailor description going out, but it did.

There isn't much of anything really about witnesses once the inquests are done and even then it seems some important witnesses are left out.

Hutchinson's vanishing seems no more mysterious when we ask about of the other witnesses except maybe Lewende because he had a look at Sadler.

If we claim Hutchinson was written out, then it seems to apply to all the others also. Quite a few them contribute to the archetypical peak capped dark dressed moustached short JtR.

None of the witnesses got a good look at the suspect.

Except hutchinson. Detailed account. Heard him talk, looked him in the face, thought he saw again, thinks he lives in the area, can identify.

Yet abberline says all the witnesses only saw his back. Even anderson said the only one who had a good look at the ripper was jewish, hence not hutch.

And abberline opts with the witnesses who saw a man with a peaked cap, basically every witness EXCEPT hutch.

After the walkabout two papers say hes discredited or greatly reduced importance.
Its clear whats going on here batman, after initially beleiving hutch, soon after abberline and the police came to view him as not a reliable witness.

INMHO though thats being too nice. They came to realize he was full of shite, like packer and violenia.

[Fisherman]

None of the witnesses got a good look at the suspect.

Except hutchinson. Detailed account. Heard him talk, looked him in the face, thought he saw again, thinks he lives in the area, can identify.

Yet abberline says all the witnesses only saw his back. Even anderson said the only one who had a good look at the ripper was jewish, hence not hutch.

And abberline opts with the witnesses who saw a man with a peaked cap, basically every witness EXCEPT hutch.

After the walkabout two papers say hes discredited or greatly reduced importance.
Its clear whats going on here batman, after initially beleiving hutch, soon after abberline and the police came to view him as not a reliable witness.

INMHO though thats being too nice. They came to realize he was full of shite, like packer and violenia.

Would a man who had been ascertained to be full of shite be described by Dew as a man whose honesty he would never call into question, Abby?

[Sam Flynn]

Is Dew, who described army pensioner Bowyer as a bulging eyed youth, to be trusted in his description of Hutchinson?

[Fisherman]

Is Dew, who described army pensioner Bowyer as a bulging eyed youth, to be trusted in his description of Hutchinson?

In short: yes.

[Sam Flynn]

In short: yes.

In short, why?

[Batman]

None of the witnesses got a good look at the suspect.

Lewende identified Kozminski the moment he saw him according to Swanson.

No one saw JtR in the act except maybe Schwartz caught the start of it.

As for which witness saw JtR. We don't know because he wasn't caught unless one accepts the case against Kozminski.

Except hutchinson. Detailed account. Heard him talk, looked him in the face, thought he saw again, thinks he lives in the area, can identify.

Best & Gardner description is thus...

The man was about 5ft. 5in. in height. He was well dressed in a black morning suit with a morning coat. He had rather weak eyes. I mean he had sore eyes without any eyelashes. I should know the man again amongst a hundred. He had a thick black moustache and no beard. He wore a black billycock hat, rather tall, and had on a collar. I don't know the colour of his tie. I said to the woman, "that's Leather Apron getting round you." The man was no foreigner; he was an Englishman right enough.

Why isn't that JtR? They got that she was wearing a flower. Gardner identified the body.

Yet abberline says all the witnesses only saw his back. Even anderson said the only one who had a good look at the ripper was jewish, hence not hutch.

So Lewende was dismissed also? This isn't a good argument. Plus in the same quote Abberline says 'all agree, too, that he was a foreign-looking man'. That's Hutchinson also.

And abberline opts with the witnesses who saw a man with a peaked cap, basically every witness EXCEPT hutch.

The choice is either the contemporary files on the case or a 15 year plus memory. What do you pick?

[Fisherman]

In short, why?

There is but a longish answer to that question.

To begin with, the two matters are different in character. Dew may - or may not - have misremembered Bowyer. There hav been suggestions in the past that a boy may have been involved, running ahead of McCarthy and Bowyer. And much as Bowyer was described as a pensioner from the Indian army, it is not a given how old he was.
As Casebook states: "Thomas Bowyer has not been definitely identified in other records. Newspaper reports described him as a pensioned soldier, and say that he had travelled a great deal and formerly lived in India."

So that does not specify his age, and to make matters worse, the Casebook text goes on to say "Some press reports and Walter Dew's memoirs described him as a young man, but the contemporary illustration suggests he was middle-aged."

And so it was not only Dew who described him as a youth, there were papers that did the same which should give us a paus.

There was a sketch of him in "Penny Illustrated", and that sketch certainty points to an older man, but a sketch is a sketch, and we don´t know to what degree it was true to the original. In fact, we can´t even be sure that it depicted Bowyer - since we have other papers saying that he was a youth, something must be amiss.

There is also a sketch of McCarthy and Bowyer finding Kelly, and in that sketch, Bowyer looks much like a strong young man, so it´s not a given that Dew must have been totally wrong.

Conversely, the Hutchinson errand is one that is laid out in Dews text to a degree telling us that he remembered it correctly. And when we read that text:

"Then followed other information which further shook the police reconstruction of the crime.

The informant this time was a young man name d George Hutchison, who declared that he had seen Kelly at 2 a.m. in Dorset Street. She had been drinking. He spoke to her, and she confessed that she was " broke ".

A few minutes later he saw her again. This time she was in the company of a man, and the two were walking in the direction of Miller's Court.

This man had no billycock hat and no beard. He was in fact the exact opposite in appearance of the man seen by Mrs. Cox.

Hutchison described him as well-dressed, wearing a felt hat, a long, dark astrakhan collared coat and dark spats. A turned-up black moustache gave him a foreign appearance.

But I know from my experience that many people, with the best of intentions, are often mistaken, not necessarily as to a person, but as to date and time. And I can see no other explanation in this case than that Mrs. Maxwell and George Hutchison were wrong.

Indeed, if the medical evidence is accepted, Mrs. Maxwell could not have been right. The doctors were unable, because of the terrible mutilations, to say with any certainty just when death took place, but they were very emphatic that the girl could not have been alive at eight o'clock that morning.

And if Mrs. Maxwell was mistaken, is it not probable that George Hutchison erred also? This, without reflecting in any way on either witness, is my considered view. I believe that the man of the billycock hat and beard was the last person to enter Marie Kelly's room that night and was her killer. Always assuming that Mrs. Cox ever had seen her with a man."


... we may note that Dew was somewhat of a cynic at times. Note how he leaves the possibility open that Cox never even saw Blotchy, but instead made him up. No such distrust is attached to Maxwell and Hutchinson, where Dew takes great care to point out that he would not reflect on their honesty.

All in all, that makes quite a good case for Dew - who was there when Hutchinson surfaced and who was in the know - being correct about old George. Or young George, to be more precise.

Finally, there is of course the matter of how we should accept that a man like Dew is telling the truth until we can prove the contrary.

So that´s why.

[Fisherman]

Lewende identified Kozminski the moment he saw him according to Swanson.

Nope. A not named witness identified Kosminski, and Swanson certainly did not name Lawende (with an "a") as that witness. Furthermore, Lawende stated that he did not think that he would be able to recognize the man he had seen in Dukes Passage if he got to see him again, meaning that no real value could have been ascribed to whatever identification of the man he was asked to do in retrospect.

If we want "Kosminski" to carry value as a suspect, we must identify another identifier, one who was dead certain on account of having made an observation of the actual killer and not somebody who was sighted in close proximity to a murder site.

So we can´t do that, I´m afraid; we can´t attribute any factually based value to Kosminski as a suspect.

[Fisherman]

The choice is either the contemporary files on the case or a 15 year plus memory. What do you pick?

The peaked caps ARE in the contemporary files as is the hat Astrakhan man wore. The discrepancy is as contemporary as it can possibly be and Abberline being interviewed fifteen years on has absolutely nothing to do with it.

[MrBarnett]

There is but a longish answer to that question.

To begin with, the two matters are different in character. Dew may - or may not - have misremembered Bowyer. There hav been suggestions in the past that a boy may have been involved, running ahead of McCarthy and Bowyer. And much as Bowyer was described as a pensioner from the Indian army, it is not a given how old he was.
As Casebook states: "Thomas Bowyer has not been definitely identified in other records. Newspaper reports described him as a pensioned soldier, and say that he had travelled a great deal and formerly lived in India."

So that does not specify his age, and to make matters worse, the Casebook text goes on to say "Some press reports and Walter Dew's memoirs described him as a young man, but the contemporary illustration suggests he was middle-aged."

And so it was not only Dew who described him as a youth, there were papers that did the same which should give us a paus.

There was a sketch of him in "Penny Illustrated", and that sketch certainty points to an older man, but a sketch is a sketch, and we don´t know to what degree it was true to the original. In fact, we can´t even be sure that it depicted Bowyer - since we have other papers saying that he was a youth, something must be amiss.

There is also a sketch of McCarthy and Bowyer finding Kelly, and in that sketch, Bowyer looks much like a strong young man, so it´s not a given that Dew must have been totally wrong.

Conversely, the Hutchinson errand is one that is laid out in Dews text to a degree telling us that he remembered it correctly. And when we read that text:

"Then followed other information which further shook the police reconstruction of the crime.

The informant this time was a young man name d George Hutchison, who declared that he had seen Kelly at 2 a.m. in Dorset Street. She had been drinking. He spoke to her, and she confessed that she was " broke ".

A few minutes later he saw her again. This time she was in the company of a man, and the two were walking in the direction of Miller's Court.

This man had no billycock hat and no beard. He was in fact the exact opposite in appearance of the man seen by Mrs. Cox.

Hutchison described him as well-dressed, wearing a felt hat, a long, dark astrakhan collared coat and dark spats. A turned-up black moustache gave him a foreign appearance.

But I know from my experience that many people, with the best of intentions, are often mistaken, not necessarily as to a person, but as to date and time. And I can see no other explanation in this case than that Mrs. Maxwell and George Hutchison were wrong.

Indeed, if the medical evidence is accepted, Mrs. Maxwell could not have been right. The doctors were unable, because of the terrible mutilations, to say with any certainty just when death took place, but they were very emphatic that the girl could not have been alive at eight o'clock that morning.

And if Mrs. Maxwell was mistaken, is it not probable that George Hutchison erred also? This, without reflecting in any way on either witness, is my considered view. I believe that the man of the billycock hat and beard was the last person to enter Marie Kelly's room that night and was her killer. Always assuming that Mrs. Cox ever had seen her with a man."


... we may note that Dew was somewhat of a cynic at times. Note how he leaves the possibility open that Cox never even saw Blotchy, but instead made him up. No such distrust is attached to Maxwell and Hutchinson, where Dew takes great care to point out that he would not reflect on their honesty.

All in all, that makes quite a good case for Dew - who was there when Hutchinson surfaced and who was in the know - being correct about old George. Or young George, to be more precise.

Finally, there is of course the matter of how we should accept that a man like Dew is telling the truth until we can prove the contrary.

So that´s why.

Fish,

We did some work on Bowyer over on JTRForums. Debs found an army record for a very likely candidate who had spent much of his military career in India.

I obtained a copy of his death cert:

Death Certificate of Thomas Bowyer:

When/where: 22/4/1889 4, The Polygon (Clapham)

Name: Thomas Bowyer

Sex: Male

Age: 40 years

Occupation: Army pensioner late of the Field Artillery

Cause: Bright's disease exhaustion

Informant: Annie Bowyer, Widow, 4, The Polygon

His military service in India:

25/11/68 - 20/12/73
9/2/75 - 10/12/78
11/12/78 - 1/1/80 (Afghanistan)
2/1/80 - 8/3/85
9/3/85 - 20/4/85

[Sam Flynn]

There hav been suggestions in the past that a boy may have been involved, running ahead of McCarthy and Bowyer.

Indeed, but I don't buy such excuses. Bowyer was reported as being a servant in McCarthy's shop, and my guess is that Dew heard/read about this and assumed that Bowyer was some kind of shop assistant or errand-boy. If, as he claimed, he'd been at the station with Inspr Reid when Bowyer arrived, and had actually accompanied him to Miller's Court, he'd have known better.

And much as Bowyer was described as a pensioner from the Indian army, it is not a given how old he was.

No pensioned soldier who'd served time in India would have been a "young fellow", and what contemporary illustrations of Bowyer we have show him as full-moustached and distinctly middle-aged.

All in all, that makes quite a good case for Dew - who was there when Hutchinson surfaced

Was he? I think his memoirs clearly exaggerate his involvement in the Kelly case to the extent that I'm inclined not to trust them at all.

Finally, there is of course the matter of how we should accept that a man like Dew is telling the truth until we can prove the contrary.

Well, we know he wasn't telling the truth about Bowyer.

[MrBarnett]

Dew also has crowds screaming ‘Jack the Ripper’ at Squibby in early September.

[Batman]

Nope. A not named witness identified Kosminski, and Swanson certainly did not name Lawende (with an "a") as that witness. Furthermore, Lawende stated that he did not think that he would be able to recognize the man he had seen in Dukes Passage if he got to see him again, meaning that no real value could have been ascribed to whatever identification of the man he was asked to do in retrospect.

If we want "Kosminski" to carry value as a suspect, we must identify another identifier, one who was dead certain on account of having made an observation of the actual killer and not somebody who was sighted in close proximity to a murder site.

So we can´t do that, I´m afraid; we can´t attribute any factually based value to Kosminski as a suspect.

Lawende was used to try and identify Sadler as JtR. That pretty much establishes that he was being used by investigators as a JtR witness.

Therefore there is good evidence to suggest that Swanson was referring to the same witness but we don't even have to bring up Swanson and Kozminski to establish that Lawende is used to identify JtR because of Sadler.

That Sadler connection to Lawende identification means these ideas that JtR had not been seen or that Hutchinson must be ruled out because he describes a face and not the back, have to be dismissed as not good reasons.

[Sam Flynn]

Lawende was used to try and identify Sadler as JtR.

Possibly, but it's not certain that he was.

[MrBarnett]

Indeed, but I don't buy such excuses. Bowyer was reported as being a servant in McCarthy's shop, and my guess is that Dew heard/read about this and assumed that Bowyer was some kind of shop assistant or errand-boy. If, as he claimed, he'd been at the station with Inspr Reid when Bowyer arrived, and had actually accompanied him to Miller's Court, he'd have known better.No pensioned soldier who'd served time in India would have been a "young fellow", and what contemporary illustrations of Bowyer we have show him as full-moustached and distinctly middle-aged.Was he? I think his memoirs clearly exaggerate his involvement in the Kelly case to the extent that I'm inclined not to trust them at all.
Well, we know he wasn't telling the truth about Bowyer.

In Dorset Street parlance, the term shopman/assistant may well have been a euphemism for minder, as the following examples suggest:

1881

Daniel McCarthy/19/shopman
Henry Buckley/24/shopman

1901

William Maher/24/shop assistant
James Sullivan/18/shop assistant
George Burke/19/shop assistant

Some heavy dudes there. Bowyer was seemingly somewhat older and possibly not in the best of health in 1888.