Why Did The Police Discount Hutchinson's Statement So Quickly?

[Fisherman]

Bewn writes:

"We must allow for it as a possibility, Fish - just a very remote one, in my view."

You judge it, if you can, Ben - I can´t.

" Even if you argue that Toppy was the witness, lied about everything, and became heavily confused about which lies he told in later years, that awkward coincidence remains"

Who said anything about Toppy getting confused? My suggestion is that Toppy could have, quite easily, changed Astrakhan man into something more Churchillesque TO MEET THE DESIRES OF THE PREVAILING FASHION. That would have been a very unconfused thing to do.
To go along with my suggestion, though, I also propose that Churchills entering the stage in Toppys story may well have had quite an early origin.

"citing one well-known example of an occasion in which protocol wasn't followed doesn't invalidate the fact that it is followed the vast majority of the time. On balance, therefore, I'm inclined to believe that the correct procedure - as outlined by Bob - was followed in the case of Hutchinson's statement."

And a very wise thing to do it would be, Ben - up til the moment when you take a look at the signatures and realize that procedures were not followed on this particular occasion.

"He didn't say any such thing in his initial commentary on the signatures"

He worded it differently by saying that a match could not be ruled out, later on revealing that this wording was the standard wording of his department when a positive hit on the lower end of the scale was at hand. This you have treated as if Leander was reeling from side to side in his judgement, which of course is not the case at all. What it reflects is up to every discerning poster to decide for himself.
That said - and not before - I will happily drop that particular subject too.

"you see, once again, we're getting back to that earlier concern I expressed that you may be allowing your "signatures conquer all" mentality to explain away all other objections to his second-hand hearsay claim to witness notoriety"

I see, Ben. I do, however, see other things than the ones YOU see. Among the things I see is the fact that one can be sure that da Vinci painted Mona Lisa without being impossible to convince that it was in fact Rafael who did it - if the proof is there to say so.
I also see that you are very inclined to speak of me as someone who will "explain away" things given the chance, and "fit" the evidence to suit me. Moreover I see perfectly well why you choose to do so, and I´d be very surprised if I did not share that vision with a good deal of other posters who think themselves entirely entitled to a conviction without being painted out as less trustworthy.

I do not NEED to "fit" the evidence, Ben. It fit itself when Toppy signed that protocol in a manner that leaves me with no grounds to question that he was the witness. And I don´t need to "explain away" anything; the ones who are faced with two signatures that tally are the ones who are left with that specific trouble.
Whether you or I relish the prospect of discussing the matter or not has very little to do with the factualities - they don´t change because we dislike each others wiews. But I will say that I am fully aware that it is useless to argue about it with you, and I will agree that there will come nothing good from such a thing, least of all for the other posters around.

"My own suggestion is that we return to the premise is this thread"

Gladly. My contribution abut the signatures was - as you will know - made in a reply to Garry Wroe, who brought the subject up. And the significance of the question will mean that it is going to surface again, whenever Hutchinson is discussed. Some topics will - at least to me - be of a mere academic interest, given this.
As for the core issue of this thread, I stand by my suggestion that the reason for the Hutchinson scenario being so apparently "hushed" may well lie in a mutual humiliated feeling on behalf of the police and the press that they had been led astray.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Irrespective of that, it still stands that we must allow for people to be lousy illustrators - such things are extremely common.

We must allow for it as a possibility, Fish - just a very remote one, in my view.

The latter may well have been an invention from beginning to end

Quite possibly, but it is rather too coincidental for me that the particular comparison alluded to just happened to coincide with the Royal conspiratorial musings of Melvyn Fairclough. Even if you argue that Toppy was the witness, lied about everything, and became heavily confused about which lies he told in later years, that awkward coincidence remains. Since I don't consider that coincidence to be a random one, I'm inclined to the view that Reg was responsible for the Churchillian nonsense, especially if there was the promise of public exposure and payment if he played along.

But this is all rather severely off-topic.

I have said before that this is the reaction of a paper that has been the subject of a prank

But none of the individual papers were the subject of a prank. They were simply printing information fed to them by the press association, as opposed to claiming a personal scoop as the Star did in the case of Packer. If it turned out to be a complete prank, the individual papers were perfectly at liberty to divulge as much without so much as a trace of egg on their journalistic faces. It wasn't their story, so they needn't have got upset it if it turned out to be nonsense.

Of course, none of that happened.

Instead, it would appear from the article provided by Garry that the "discrediting" process appears to have arisen from generalized mistrust, on the part of the police, of Hutchinson's story, as opposed to something that proved conclusively that he lied and wasn't there. Had the latter ocured, there was nothing preventing them from saying so. The Astrakhan-alibi scenario doesn't work for the same reason, as you pointed out.

It is very unlikely that Hutchinson lied about his actual presence there, since it would fail to account for the coincidence of detail with Sarah Lewis' account.

Returning, as I often do, to the Palme assasination in 1986, it was police procedure at that time to take down a written protocol of the events. And never is it of greater importance that this is done, than when the prime minister is killed!

Granted, but citing one well-known example of an occasion in which protocol wasn't followed doesn't invalidate the fact that it is followed the vast majority of the time. On balance, therefore, I'm inclined to believe that the correct procedure - as outlined by Bob - was followed in the case of Hutchinson's statement.

In the case with the signatures in the police protocol connected to the Kelly murder, we have a signature that has been matched to that of Toppy by a very renowned authority.

He didn't say any such thing in his initial commentary on the signatures, so if he changed his tune to eventually declaring them a "match" (he didn't), I'm not really inclined to trust him. Of course, another renowned authority examined the signatures and came to the conclusion that they didn't match. So no, I have no reason to believe they are "very much alike" at all.

But we're not doing this again, not here at least.

Therefore, if we accept that the writer WAS Toppy - and I do accept that - the simple and obvious truth is that no middle names or initials were written.

But you see, once again, we're getting back to that earlier concern I expressed that you may be allowing your "signatures conquer all" mentality to explain away all other objections to his second-hand hearsay claim to witness notoriety. The trouble with this is that as soon as you address an objection with "Yes, but the signatures match", I'll simply respond with "No, they don't" and observe that the original objection still stands on that basis. In that event, we'll end up having another repetetive signature discussion on the wrong thread, and I don't relish that prospect.

And how about that marriage certificate? Was it not common procedure to write all names on that too, seeing as it was a paper of legal bearing

Absolutely, which is why Toppy wrote his full name on his marriage certificate. "William Topping" has been chopped off for the purpose of the various comparison montages posted on the 1911 thread.

My own suggestion is that we return to the premise is this thread, which isn't concerned with Toppy signatures.

All the best,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Ben writes:

"They would have to be pretty atrocious illustrators to dredge up a figure from the English aristrocracy as an Astrakhan-man comparison when nobody even vaguely similar was described by George Hutchinson. By identifiying the Jewish-looking Astrakhan man as someone who ostensibly "lived in the neighbourhood", Hutchinson effectively invalidated any potential comparison between the suspect described and an English toff from the upper classes."

Been over this once or twice, have we not, Ben?
Irrespective of that, it still stands that we must allow for people to be lousy illustrators - such things are extremely common.
And, of course, it also belongs to the discussion that when we compare Hutchinsons original description of Astrakhan man with his later decision to use Churchill as a means to point out that he spoke of someone higher up the social ranks, it may well apply that Hutchinson perhaps never had seen Churchill - OR Astrakhan man. The latter may well have been an invention from beginning to end.
Craving logic from Toppy/Hutch (yes, yes, I know...) with such a background does not work to any significant extent, and dismissing Toppys mentioning of Churchill is something we just can´t do.
To my mind, the surrounding circumstances when it comes to the dismissal of Hutchinson in the Star speaks of embarrasment or annoyance on behalf of the press - I have said before that this is the reaction of a paper that has been the subject of a prank, and that does not wish to be the laugh of the press world. Reasonably, playing a prank on the police would be a risky thing to do, and therefore we may be dealing with something else, but the typical reaction is there. It is as if it had been found out that Hutchinson was an imbecile with a previous record of very flawed storytelling or something like that.
A development where the police were able to crack Hutch´s story or where Astrakhan man was found and cleared or something like that, is not a credible one, I feel - that would have made a good story in the papers, and they had invested heavily in Hutchinson and his story. Moreover, the papers were very eager to write about the Whitechapel murders. That is why I say that in some respect the papers - and quite possibly the police - were caught with their pants down in the Hutchinson affair, and they were none to eager to tell the story afterwards.
Consequentially, we may be dealing with a man (Hutch/Toppy) who said that he was there and who claimed that he had seen a very unexpected character with Kelly - but who may well have telling a load of crap.

And if this was what happened, we have a man who has claimed fame in the Ripper saga without any real reason at all. Therefore, his fictitious character - if that he was - may have gone through any sort of metamorphosis as he told the story. And maybe the Royal conspiracy (or any other surfacing thoughts along the line that the Ripper belonged to the top of society) may have had an impact on Toppys story as it was passed down to his children, many years down the road.

The more I look at this, the more trivial it seems to have spoken of Randolph Churchill on Toppys behalf, and the less damning it becomes that Reg recalled it as he dealt with Fairclough. Once we realize that Toppy may have been the man who signed the police protocol without being the Dorset Street witness other than in a bogus story, we can also easily see the outlines of how Churchill entered the Ripper saga.
It all remains very fluffy and utterly unproven - no need to point that out to me! - but with a picture like this, the pieces fall in place nicely.

"as Bob Hinton observed, it was "police protocol" to include full names, or at the very least full initials, when recording statement signatures. There wouldn't have been much choice in the matter, unless a strictly hypothetical Toppy-as-Hutch deliberately wished to conceal them for some reason."

Returning, as I often do, to the Palme assasination in 1986, it was police procedure at that time to take down a written protocol of the events. And never is it of greater importance that this is done, than when the prime minister is killed!
And still, for some reason nobody wrote that protocol! It was forgotten, for some unfathomable reason.

In the case with the signatures in the police protocol connected to the Kelly murder, we have a signature that has been matched to that of Toppy by a very renowned authority. That means that the signatures are very much alike, at least in the two-dimensional version. Therefore, if we accept that the writer WAS Toppy - and I do accept that - the simple and obvious truth is that no middle names or initials were written.
My guess, in spite of Bob Hintons assertion, is that a search of this kind of material would turn up many more signatures where middle names or initials were left out. And the reasons for it would be many and differing.
And how about that marriage certificate? Was it not common procedure to write all names on that too, seeing as it was a paper of legal bearing?

The best,
Fisherman

[jason_c]

Hello Jane, Garry.
Obviously I am well aware of all the threads on the key, that have been discussed over the years, however when one looks at it, it would appear that the police simply could not figure out how to open the door, like Kelly and Barnett used to, although that seems madness to me.
If the door was locked with a key , it would have been mentioned as a significant point at the inquest, especially as her common -law told the police the key had been missing for some time.
I could understand if fingerprinting was a issue, and the police did not wish to touch the lock, but that obviously was not the case here.
Its almost if the police were wasting time away, two and a quarter hours at a crime scene without entry is absurd, awaiting bloodhounds as an excuse is sheer incompetance.
There has to be more to events that morning then we are aware of.
Regards Richard.

Agreed Richard.

I think Abberline admitted it would have been fairly easy to open the door after it had been explained to him. No hint from Abberline that the murderer used a missing key.

If he had, the investigation would have taken a very different turn.

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

To my mind, all of this has it´s origin in the naming of Randolph Churchill, and if Randolph Churchill was named by Toppy for the simple reason that his name was the first that sprung to mind when he needed to put a name to being high up society´s ladder, then there has never been any real and relevant reason to point either Toppy or Reg out as anything but bad illustrators.

They would have to be pretty atrocious illustrators to dredge up a figure from the English aristrocracy as an Astrakhan-man comparison when nobody even vaguely similar was described by George Hutchinson. By identifiying the Jewish-looking Astrakhan man as someone who ostensibly "lived in the neighbourhood", Hutchinson effectively invalidated any potential comparison between the suspect described and an English toff from the upper classes.

Just like Sam, I am quite convinced that Toppy was the witness; I think the signatures put it beyond reasonable doubt.

I think most of us have resigned themselves to your stance on this by now, so no need to keep reinforcing it!

The same applies to the suggestion that Toppy would have been asked to write his full name in the police protocol. To me it is quite obvious that he simply chose not to.

Although, as Bob Hinton observed, it was "police protocol" to include full names, or at the very least full initials, when recording statement signatures. There wouldn't have been much choice in the matter, unless a strictly hypothetical Toppy-as-Hutch deliberately wished to conceal them for some reason.

Best regards,
Ben

[richardnunweek]

Hello Jane, Garry.
Obviously I am well aware of all the threads on the key, that have been discussed over the years, however when one looks at it, it would appear that the police simply could not figure out how to open the door, like Kelly and Barnett used to, although that seems madness to me.
If the door was locked with a key , it would have been mentioned as a significant point at the inquest, especially as her common -law told the police the key had been missing for some time.
I could understand if fingerprinting was a issue, and the police did not wish to touch the lock, but that obviously was not the case here.
Its almost if the police were wasting time away, two and a quarter hours at a crime scene without entry is absurd, awaiting bloodhounds as an excuse is sheer incompetance.
There has to be more to events that morning then we are aware of.
Regards Richard.

[Jane Welland]

A couple of things...

Hi All

First, with regard to Mrs Cox's niece - points of similarity between this oral history and Hutchinson's witness statement are not necessarily surprising - since that very description was published in the contemporary press, which one presumes could be, and was, read by many - and in addition, circulated further by oral means. Thus points of similarity in this case may not be significant in terms of identifying the murderer.

Second, with regard to the key - I think to say 'it is' indicative of premeditation on the part of the killer of Mary Kelly if we assume he had the key (and this does seem likely) is a little too strong. It may be. That is one explanation - with very important implications. Another is, as Richard has pointed out, that the murderer took the key off the victim - she having found the key herself. We cannot know which it was - and I expect this has already been well covered by other threads elsewhere on this forum.

Jane x

[Fisherman]

Garry Wroe writes:

"virtually every detail has either been grossly exaggerated or distorted to the point of untruth – a perfect illustration, I would suggest, of the inherent unreliability of second-, third- and fourth-generation anecdotal evidence"

...and thus, it serves well to remind us that we ought to regard Reg Hutchinsons tale as a healthy helping from the same pile of garbage?

Possibly so. The trouble involved in such a stance, though, lies in the fact that once we allow ourselves to move with statistics - and statistics tell us that every time somebody succeeds to let the truth seep through the filter of time and mouth-to-mouth conveying of a story, there will be heaps of examples showing us that the original truth will end up somewhere between seriously flawed and quite inrecognizable - we give up every possibility to take any story at face value. It kind of resembles what happens when you sift for gold in a river - the few nuggets of gold will be totally outnumbered by all them pebbles.
And still, the gold is around!

When it comes to Reg´s story, I think we have TWO possible strains of alteration attached to it, and not just the normally suggested one; the one telling us how ridiculous Churchill is in the context, and how very apparent it is that it could not have been a coincidence that the Royal conspiracy was fed by Reg´s words.

The second strain of alterations is of course the long tradition of researchers agreeing on the oddity of the elements involved in the Reg Hutchinson story - this agreement has resulted in a reinforcement of the argument that it all MUST have been a load of crap from beginning to end, and it has provided Reg with a character that we have very little actual proof for: the greedy liar, prepared to go along with any suggestions from the equally sinister Fairclough, once it puts a little flesh on his wallet.

To my mind, all of this has it´s origin in the naming of Randolph Churchill, and if Randolph Churchill was named by Toppy for the simple reason that his name was the first that sprung to mind when he needed to put a name to being high up society´s ladder, then there has never been any real and relevant reason to point either Toppy or Reg out as anything but bad illustrators. That, though, has not stopped this particular tale from being the victim of precisely the thing you advice to take care of - years and years of building up a picture that may or may not be a true one.

Just like Sam, I am quite convinced that Toppy was the witness; I think the signatures put it beyond reasonable doubt. And that, of course, is why I also think we need to realize that there was at least a nugget of gold hidden among the pebbles in Reg´s washing pan. There may of course have been more gold in it than so, but it remains hard to prove.

The same applies to the suggestion that Toppy would have been asked to write his full name in the police protocol. To me it is quite obvious that he simply chose not to. Maybe the fact that he signed his wedding papers without adding his middle names has a bearing on the matter too.

The best,
Fisherman

[Garry Wroe]

Hi Richard.

You make some extremely pertinent points regarding Kelly’s door and the issues surrounding the missing key. For a more detailed analysis, might I suggest that you consult the relevant chapters here …

http://www.casebook.org/ripper_media...roe_full2.html

… and there are doubtless archived threads here on site dealing with the same.

To briefly address your questions, however, it is certainly true that Abberline and a retinue of onlookers stood outside Kelly’s room for quite some time whilst awaiting the arrival of the bloodhounds. At some point, the frame was removed from the window aperture and a number of photographs were taken of the crime scene. When finally the order was given to enter the room, it was discovered that the door was either locked or, as some would have it, bolted. It was at this juncture that John McCarthy fetched a pickaxe from his shop and broke open the door. Once inside the room, Abberline, according to a number of newspaper accounts, made a fruitless search for the missing key.

As an experienced detective, Abberline would have been perfectly familiar with the kind of spring lock clearly visible through the empty window aperture. Indeed, given that Kelly herself had during the preceding two weeks experienced little difficulty in reaching in through the broken window pane to disengage the bolting mechanism, it would have represented an example of rank incompetence had it not occurred to Abberline to do the same. And yet the door had to be forced, and, once it had, Abberline conducted a search for a key. The only possible conclusion to be drawn from such, I would suggest, is that the door was not only bolted, but locked, too. And since the only key to the room was that which had been ‘mislaid’ by Kelly some two weeks prior to her death, one can only assume that this was the key that was used on the mortise lock.

So, unless the reports of Abberline’s search for the key were in error, one is bound to conclude that the killer somehow came into possession of Kelly’s key and, after murdering her, used it to lock the door on departing the crime scene. And this, as you correctly observed, is indicative of premeditation.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[Garry Wroe]

Hi Sam.

Firstly, what I intended to write earlier was ‘some proponents’. So, apologies for that. I think it was the shock of seeing Johnny Rotten on TV a little earlier fronting a butter advertisement …

Anyway, thanks for your response to my earlier question regarding the narrative of Mrs Cox’s niece. As I stated, mine was no more than an automatic assumption. But you certainly make a good case in favour of the Jewish-looking suspect. I’m in two minds at present. It just reinforces my belief that everything Ripper ought to be checked, double-checked, then cross-checked. Much like one’s choice of candidate for butter adverts …

By the way, nice coster slang.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[Sam Flynn]

By the way, are you still of the opinion that Mrs Cox’s niece was referring to the Jewish-looking suspect, or might there be something in my admittedly intuitive belief that she was describing Blotchy?

Possibly, Garry - although there's more of Hutchinson's man in this description than Blotchy, I feel:

"She saw Mary... with this gentleman, a real toff. This night as they got under the lamp in the court they stopped. Mary's words were "all right love don't pull me along"...He was a fine looking man, wore an overcoat with a cape, high hat, not a silk one, and a Gladstone bag."

If you swap "respectable" for "fine looking", "high hat (not silk)" with "felt hat turned down in the middle", and "Gladstone bag" with "parcel with a kind of strap on it", it's practically the bogey-man himself! Even the tenor of the conversation under the lamp* is similar to the one Hutchinson claims to have heard. Either way, this "real toff" has more of Astrakhan about him than the ragged-trousered piss-artist carrying the 'top of reeb' reported by Mrs Cox at the time of the murder.


* albeit the lamp in Hutchinson's story was in Commercial Street, not Miller's Court.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Garry,
I am somewhat confused, are we absolutely certain that the window frame was removed? I believe that the entire window was boarded up before the scene was departed, leaving just a couple of burly policeman to watch over the scene.
The key mystery is still just that.
Could that lock be opened if one had access to the inside without a key?
If so why was the door not opened by hand?
If the door was locked by a key from the outside, would that prevent opening from the inside, without having that key?
If the former...Why force the door?
If the latter... if the killer had the key to room 13, he either took it off the victim, and locked the door on his way out, or he had the key that was lost according to Barnett all along, which if so would hint at premeditation.
We have to fully understand the key mystery, for it is obvious, that the police must have tried to enter the room via the window, before asking McCarthy to gain forceable entry,
Confusing....
Regards Richard.

[Garry Wroe]

I’m aware of that, Sam, thanks. By the way, are you still of the opinion that Mrs Cox’s niece was referring to the Jewish-looking suspect, or might there be something in my admittedly intuitive belief that she was describing Blotchy?

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[Sam Flynn]

For info, Garry, I'm a proponent of the "Toppy was Hutchinson" argument who doesn't in the least believe the bulk of the Reg Hutchinson story - at least, not as it comes across in The Ripper & The Royals.

[Garry Wroe]

Hi Richard.

The point of the ‘niece’ post was not to introduce a possible alternative to the scenario already associated with the Kelly murder, but rather to emphasize the extent to which established facts can be distorted via the process of oral transmission. We know, for example, that Mrs Cox heard no scream or happened upon Mary Jane’s body, and yet such claims were being passed on as ‘fact’ a few decades later. My post, therefore, was simply an illustration as to the unreliability of the type of oral history that is presently being accorded so much gravitas by proponents of the ‘Toppy was Hutchinson’ argument.

As for the piece of string, I take on board your observation that, had it existed, it would have been spotted by Abberline and colleagues as they waited outside Kelly’s room prior to entering the crime scene. But perhaps it was. As I argued in my book, even though the window frame was removed prior to anyone entering the room, ingress was only possible after John McCarthy broke down the door with a pickaxe. Then, once inside, Abberline conducted an extensive search for a key, the implication being that the door had not only been bolted, but locked via the mortise mechanism also attached to the door. If so, then maybe Abberline did try to disengage the bolt, as you suggest, and only ordered a forced entry once he realized that a key had been used on the door.

Hi Mike.

In point of fact, if you’d care to check one of my earlier posts, you’ll see that, if The Echo is to be believed, the authorities were viewing Hutchinson’s claims with some scepticism by 13 November – within twenty-four hours of the memo in which Abberline stated his belief that Hutchinson was a credible witness.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.