Kudzu. Alias a George Hutchinson Thread

[Chava]

Our George has been argued to death. But I'm sure there are still things that could be said about him so I thought I'd be the one to offend everyone and post a thread here. I just went though his statement again and noticed that he got the name of a pub wrong--it was the Queen's Head, George, not the Ten Bells! Also I could have sworn Abberline noted something complimentary to George in the margin, but I must have missed it in my scanning of the pdf.

So the facts as I understand them are these: Sarah Lewis sees someone standing at the mouth of Millers Court at around 2.30 am. He is wearing a 'wideawake' hat. He is of stocky build and not very tall. He looks as if he were waiting for someone.

After she testifies, George Hutchinson comes forward and gives a complete blow-by-blow of a close encounter with Kelly a couple of hours at most before she is murdered. He admits to hanging around the opening of Millers Court for 3/4 of an hour after he sees Kelly going in with a man. He is not asked whether he noticed Lewis going to her pal's place.

Neither Lews nor Hutchinson hear any noise whatsoever coming from Kelly's room. Not even one verse of 'Twas Only A Violet.. Hutchinson leaves around 3.00 am.

So Hutchinson is the man in the wideawake hat. Abberline believes him and cirulates his very detailed description. However shortly thereafter, this description is recalled and the police are back to square one. It's possible that whoever GH saw with Kelly came forward and provided himself with an alibi. However I find that unlikely, as no alibi in the world would clear him if he was known to be with Kelly during what had to be a critical time. So I believe that Hutchinson had to have been discredited somehow.

So my question is this? If the police were no longer relying on Hutchinson's evidence, how much of it did they discount and why? Did they just discount the description? I don't see how they could have done. As I've said above, if Mr A came forward all beamish saying 'it was I but don't tell the Missus!' they would have had to look at him for the murder and there's no way beyond his own denial to believe he didn't do it. He was there at the right time. He was there for quite a while.

Did they discover Hutchinson was mistaken as to the day? Possible.

Or did they get Sarah Lewis in and say 'is this the man you saw?' and she said no.

In fact either of the last two possibilities is very likely. However if that is the case, then who is the man seen by Lewis and why is he just hanging round?

[Ben]

Hi Chava,

I don't think Hutchinson was mistaken as to the date. Two loiterers, both at 2:30am, and both watching and "waiting for someone to come out" on different days is too much of a "coincidence" to take on board. It's also siginificant that Lewis never claimed to be able to identify the man subsequently. Hutchinson couldn't have known this, but Lewis stated that she "couldn't describe him" in her non-public police statement.

The timing of his statement in relation to Lewis' evidence suggests that he came forward - guilty or not - out of concern that he'd been seen near a crime scene at a time crucial to the murder. Whether the police ever came to suspect this is anyone's guess, but given the greater precedent back then for two-a-penny publicity-seekers and money-grabbers, it's quite possible that Hutchinson was simply dismissed as one of these.

[Chava]

He may well have been mistaken as to the date. However it doesn't look like he was ever a serious suspect and I don't understand how they cleared him so fast! He admits to being there at around the time of the murder give or take. Did they think he couldn't be guilty because he had come forward? What? Even if he was documented at every spike in the South of England during the time of the spree, it would have taken a while to check that out given that they didn't have computers etc.

[Sam Flynn]

Hmmm... the "Suspects/Hutchinson, George" part of the board is looking kind of empty.

Chava - could you PM Ally and ask her nicely to move this thread over there, where it best belongs?

New boards, clean start etc etc.

[Mr Poster]

Oh Christ

One of the disadvantages of reregistering is that the Ignore function has to be reapplied.......

p

[Chava]

HI Sam, I put it here because of the outcrop of GH postings on the MJK Crime Scene thread. It can be deleted or moved. Just somewhere to get GH away from the crime scene. (I called it 'kudzu' after all!)

Mr Poster, I have a helpful hint. Next time you should read the thread title before you open it up. That way you can save yourself from the extremely unpleasant effects of an overdose of bile.

Chava

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Chava,

HI Sam, I put it here because of the outcrop of GH postings on the MJK Crime Scene thread.

But the topic is clearly about George Hutchinson, and I'm mortified to think that an intelligent and noble poster such as yourself should sink to the depths of "tit for tat"

PS: I didn't grasp the significance of "kudzu", by the way - still don't! But that's just me being thick...

[Chava]

Hi Sam,

I didn't think of "tit for tat"! But it was getting heated over there, I've asked Ally to move it.

Kudzu exists in the southern US but it's making its way north. It was originally introduced, I believe, to keep weeds at bay. Little did they know that kudzu is itself a superweed that grows like no one's business and chokes every other green thing it finds. Now looking at that description, you might think I was a proponent of the 'GH Did It' school of thought. But I'm not!!

However GH discussions do have a tendency to grow quickly and take threads over. Hence 'Kudzu'...

[Mr Poster]

wasnt talking to you Chava as you would have realised if you go back through the threads...............

Oh wait.....you cant. I'll grant you a pardon then and save my bile for where it is truly appreciated.

And if you think its heated on the MJK thread thyen you havent been hanging round GH threads very long at all.

p

[Sam Flynn]

GH discussions do have a tendency to grow quickly and take threads over. Hence 'Kudzu'...

Thanks for the explanation! Just shows that it's possible for one to learn something new every day. I suppose the Brit equivalent of kudzu would be Japanese Knotweed, or "Wild Rhubarb". The latter sounds rather appropriate

[perrymason]

Chava,

As early as November 15th, after giving his description the evening of November 12th, George Hutchinson's suspect is replaced by Mary Ann Cox's Blotchy Man, demonstrating that the officials were interested in the last man seen with Mary Kelly, and they did not believe that was Astrakan Man...and hence, they had no reason to believe that Mary ever left her room after arriving home with Blotchy.

Thats why Blotchy Man becomes a real suspect, because discarding George Hutchinson's story left them with few alternatives. But they discarded it nonetheless, as did they the notion that Mary was seen alive that morning around 8am.

My best regards.

[Chava]

Perry, if that's the case, then they must have assumed the whole statement was made up out of whole cloth. Because he clearly states he saw Kelly in the street on the night she died and that would be after she was seen with Blotchy Face. I hold no brief for GH either way, but I'm not sure (1) Why he wasn't immediately a suspect and (2) How they discounted him so quickly. No computers in those days. Someone or something must have convinced them damn' quickly and I can't think what that was!

[Ben]

Hi Chava,

They might have suspected him at some point - we have no data either way, unfortunately - but it wouldn't be at all surprising if they didn't. There was really no precedent in 1888 for serial killers full stop, let alone serial killers who inject themselves into police investigations. Nowadays we have examples aplenty of both. If we take the 15th November as the first indication that Hutchinson's account had been discredited (as per The Star's assertion), it may be significant that his press disclosures were published at the same time. If the press versions seriously compromised his original verson of events, it may account for the apparent re-thinking of Hutchinson from about 15th onwards.

As for Kudzu, yes I was astonished at how prolific that stuff was when I visited Florence SC, in 2005!

All the best,
Ben

[Chava]

Hi Chava,

They might have suspected him at some point - we have no data either way, unfortunately - but it wouldn't be at all surprising if they didn't. There was really no precedent in 1888 for serial killers full stop, let alone serial killers who inject themselves into police investigations. Nowadays we have examples aplenty of both. If we take the 15th November as the first indication that Hutchinson's account had been discredited (as per The Star's assertion), it may be significant that his press disclosures were published at the same time. If the press versions seriously compromised his original verson of events, it may account for the apparent re-thinking of Hutchinson from about 15th onwards.

As for Kudzu, yes I was astonished at how prolific that stuff was when I visited Florence SC, in 2005!

All the best,
Ben

Ben, they were grasping at straws at that point. I wonder if they were retroactively suffering from Yorkshire Ripper Syndrome. In that case, the cops thought they were dealing with a man with a North Eastern accent. They discounted everything else. But if the Met could only have had YRS if they thought they had an idea of who they were looking for. And as far as I can discover, they didn't.

[Bob Hinton]

What to do?

Perry, if that's the case, then they must have assumed the whole statement was made up out of whole cloth. Because he clearly states he saw Kelly in the street on the night she died and that would be after she was seen with Blotchy Face. I hold no brief for GH either way, but I'm not sure (1) Why he wasn't immediately a suspect and (2) How they discounted him so quickly. No computers in those days. Someone or something must have convinced them damn' quickly and I can't think what that was!

The point is that even if the police did suspect GH of being a suspect what could they do about it? They could accuse him, he could deny it and walk away. I suggest in my book that Abberline did suspect GH from the get go, but pretended to go along with him whilst at the same time keeping a close eye on him. This tactic has in fact been used in recent times. There was a case in America where a ‘witness’ gave such a detailed description of a man supposedly hanging around a murder scene that the police officer in charge immediately suspected him. He pretended to believe him though and gave him a police escort to see if they could spot the ‘mysterious stranger’. Lulled into a false sense of security the ‘witness’ gave himself away a short time later.

Don’t forget GH was the only witness who had a couple of police officers as an escort over the following days. I believe that Abberline expected the killer to strike again, but of course he didn’t