Did Hutchinson Really Behave Like A Serial Killer?

[Crystal]

Thanks Ben, interesting.

[Debra A]

What do we actually know about Hutchinson - I mean, where was he born, etc? Can you point me in the right direction?

If there had been any clues at all as to Hutchinson's background there wouldn't be half the hoo ha there is on the 1911 signature thread.

[Crystal]

I'm not sure I see the point of you saying that and I'm not going to get into a silly argument about it. I was just asking. Fair enough?

[Debra A]

I guess my point would be that there are several experienced genealogists on these boards, some may even fall into the 'expert' or 'professional' class. if we had something as substantial as a birthplace as a clue, then throwing up signatures of random Hutchinson's from the 1911 census would have been a pointless exercise.

[Crystal]

You think? I think it might be a bit more complicated than that, actually. If only it was that easy to track people down!

[Debra A]

Yes, if only! I just wondered why you thought we were wasting our time and money researching random Hutchinson's born any old place?
You don't seem to have much faith in any of our casebookers skills.

Sorry for going off topic here everyone, I won't do it again.

[Crystal]

Yes, if only! I just wondered why you thought we were wasting our time and money researching random Hutchinson's born any old place? You don't seem to have much faith in any of our casebookers skills. Sorry for going off topic here everyone, I won't do it again.

No, that doesn't follow. If anything, it implies the reverse.

[caz]

Perhaps Caz can tell us how a serial killer will behave,then perhaps we can make a comparison.

No I can't, Harry.

That was the whole point of my introductory post, which you totally and utterly missed.

Serial killers behave in many mysterious ways, their atrocities to perform. All we know is that the ripper was out of step with the rest of society but always one step ahead. We don't know whether that would have included stepping into the limelight in person, or stepping as far into the shadows as possible.

So while we can't say that Ben is out of step to believe the very worst of Hutch, because anything is possible, it's the fact that anything is possible in the absence of any fresh information, that makes me keep all the 'innocent but flawed' options well and truly open alongside the one 'guilty as sin' option.

I'll come back at some point (probably not until April) to read the other responses here, but I had a couple of minutes and saw yours was nice and brief and easily addressed.

Love,

Caz
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[perrymason]

Hi Crystal,

Unfortunately, Hutchinson remains an extremely nebulous character, and the tiny amount of biographical information on him is thus far restricted to the contents of his statement, from which we "learn" that he was formerly a groom who was temporarily out of work and living in the Victoria Home on the Commercial Street, and that he had known Kelly for three years. None of this has ever been verified.

All the best,
Ben

G'day Ben,

Does it ever occur to you that for many potentially key sources like Hutch..Schwartz for one, I suppose Goldstein for another...Diemshutz and some of the International Club witnesses, ....the initial of the multiple witnesses that discover Mary Ann Nichols body...we have no verification for any of their statements.

For example,...Fanny never saw any of Schwartz's alleged incident, no-one saw Diemshutz arrive, we only have the first witnesses claim that he found Mary Ann. How do we know Liz wasnt being murdered or already lying there when Golstein passes the gates?

In that sense Hutch's story isnt any more problematic than any of the others mentioned..the only difference with him is that we know he is disbelieved within 72 hours. We dont know whether they believed Schwartz, we only know he wasnt mentioned or called at the Inquest. Was it Cross that was the first man to find Polly,...well, how can we be certain he wasnt the killer injecting himself into that case?

Since no-one corroborates Schwartz, and he places himself at the scene of a soon to be murder.....how do we know he didnt off her? No-one saw his story unfolding but him. Who says Goldstein couldnt have seen Liz lying there when he passes by the gates...its within the cut time frame suggested by Blackwell...oh yeah, his translator said so.

Hutch isnt a unique character in that regard...hes a witness who comes forth to tell a story that no-one can validate.

Its the story he comes up with that separates him from all the others....he describes the man down to a horse head tie pin, and he says he could recognize him. Lawende wasnt sure he could, Schwartz's story doesnt suggest he looked in the mans face for long at all.

So Hutch's is really the only story within the group of murders that made him a Police ID Tool, he would recognize the suspect again.... if he wasnt lying of course.

Thats why he has so much influence on the police initially....maybe the only witness to that date that says he saw the likely killers face well enough to remember it.

Best regards Ben.

[Ben]

Hi Mike,

Some valid questions raised there. In the absence of independent verification for most witness sightings, the police were compelled to use their own investigative abilities to seperate the wheat from the chaff. In consigning Hutchinson's evidence to the latter dustbin, as they appear to have done, one can't help but wonder about their reasons for doing so; whether he was dismissed as another publicity-seeking nuisance or whether they entertained any real suspicions against him in the process.

Michael Connor wrote an article implicating Cross, incidentally, which you may find interesting.

All the best,
Ben

[harry]

No Caz I didn't miss it.The question posed by you was'Did Hutchinson really behave like a serial killer',and my question was,perhaps Caz can tell us how a serial killer will behave.Perfectly logical question of mine,and not easy to dismiss easily and quickly.Many people who pose questions,lecturers,teachers etc,already know the answer,I thought you might have.Then you write 'no I can't',followed by,'serial killers perform in many mysterious ways',so it appears you can explain.Like to expand on these mysterios ways.

[caz]

He injected himself into the ongoing investigation because he realized he'd been seen by an indepedent witness...

Hi Ben,

Right, I'm back - finally.

In my post that began this thread, I was correcting your mistaken claim that Colin Ireland had delivered himself into the hands of the police - just like Hutch. If you can't even get your basic facts right, don't have a go at me. Just stick to whatever 'crucial point' you were trying to make by comparing Ireland the serial killer with Hutch the presumed innocent witness.

Ireland did not go to the police nor even contact them. He avoided the cops like the plague until they eventually found their way to him (which they would have done whether or not he had tried to spike their guns in advance) and even then he refused to say a word until they informed him that they had proof of his involvement in the murder of one victim, in addition to proof that he had been seen with another, on the journey home to where this one was murdered - at which point he confessed to five murders. Also, the 'independent witness' in this case, as you have chosen to put it, was not some fellow traveller who could not possibly have proved it was Ireland with the man, but a cctv camera.

So don't in the same breath accuse me of being the 'desperate, irritating and misleading' one here.

I have never, incidentally, claimed that it was most likely that he tried to avoid the cops like the plague.

Indeed not. If you read my original post again, you will see that was the very point I was making - ie that if you had been consistently choosing the 'most likely' type of suspect, he would not only have been 'most likely' to be familiar with the killing territory (which I agree with), but he would also 'most likely' have avoided the cops like the plague. This is 1888 we are talking about, remember.

The majority of serial killers operate within their own comfort zone, making Ireland a minority example in this case.

No - Ireland operated precisely within his chosen comfort zone. He wasn't obliged to go to one remote pub each time, to find gay strangers to kill. That was where he was most comfortable doing his thing.

Ireland was a hideous example for you to use, anyway.

Correction - he was your hideous example, not mine at all! I was just explaining to you why he does not even begin to compare with Hutch. I suppose he might begin to though, if Hutch walked from Romford each time to murder and then walked back again, using the Victoria Home as no more than the occasional bolt hole.

First, let us be clear that Papazian was not a serial killer. He murdered his gay lover with a claw hammer. He then wrote a diary expressing his "intention" to became a serial killer. I don't know where you could possibly be drifting with that comparison. If you're trying to pin the mantle of commuter killer on him, you'd obviously be wrong. Papazian lived in Hampstead, and he expressed his intention to kill gay men on Hampstead Heath.

No, Ben. Papazian did not make it to serial killer status. But it's a futile quibble and again you mess around with the facts, because he began outlining his plans to become a serial killer in his diary before going to the heath and picking up the man who became his 'gay lover' and first and only murder victim. I wasn't remotely implying that this one was a 'commuter killer', although he certainly didn't live in the middle of the heath itself.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Hi Harry,

Ways too 'mysterious' for me to fathom, that's all. We can only go by the documented facts regarding known serial killers and all their known behaviours.

We rule out known serial killer behaviours at our peril, but we also misapply at our peril those known behaviours to different murder cases at different times, in different places and circumstances, featuring different evidence and different known individuals.

Love,

Caz
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[Ben]

Hi Caz,

In my post that began this thread, I was correcting your mistaken claim that Colin Ireland had delivered himself into the hands of the police - just like Hutch.

It is not a "mistaken claim". By approaching his solicitor and admitting to being the man seen by an independent witness, he would inevitably have been brought to the attention of the police, and there's no doubt whatsoever that Ireland would have been fully aware of this. The salient point of comparison is that he realised he'd been seen, so he injected himself into the investigation with a claim to have been an innocent witness, deflecting suspicion in a false direction in so doing. He certainly isn't the first serial killer to resort to such a strategy, or variants of it, and his case serves to deal an almighty smack to those arguing that Hutchinson can't be the killer because he wouldn't have come forward pretending to be an innocent witness if he was.

The idea that the police would inevitably have arrived at his doorstep even if he hadn't come forward is a total non-starter. For proof of this, you need only tune in to Crimewatch and observe the various appeals to the public to help identify suspects caught on CCTV camera. Why would they do this if they knew that the camera recording would eventually result in the offender being identified and arrested for certain? Answer - because they have no such certainty, just as Hutchinson could not been remotely certain that Lewis would eventually expose him as the wideawake-wearing loiterer from 2:30am.

If Hutchinson was up to no good that night, he had only to fear that outcome, just as Ireland had only to fear the possibility that CCTV evidence would definitely lead to his imminent identification and arrest.

You say that Ireland "avoided the cops like the plague", as though this presents some vast dissimilarity with anything I've suggested concerning Hutchinson, but by approaching his solicitor and admitted to being the individual caught on CCTV, he would have known that police exposure was inevitable. Hutchinson may have wanted to avoid them like the very plague himself (unless he enjoyed some titillation from confusing the police, in which case, he'd have even more support from other serial killer comparisons), but if he felt that he his hand was forced by potential incriminating evidence, there was an incentive for approaching the boys in blue.

He wasn't obliged to go to one remote pub each time, to find gay strangers to kill. That was where he was most comfortable doing his thing.

I know, but he didn't murder and dispose of his victims there, thus rendering Ireland a flawed comparison for anyone arguing that Jack continually commuted into a tiny, localized East End hell-hole to murder and dispose of his victims. That clearly wasn't what Ireland did.

I was just explaining to you why he does not even begin to compare with Hutch

But you haven't explained any such thing. You've just come up with a few unconvincing excuses for invalidating the comparison, despite the fact that the broader similarity - as outlined in my first paragraph - holds true.

I wasn't remotely implying that this one was a 'commuter killer', although he certainly didn't live in the middle of the heath itself.

So why did you mention him then?

We rule out known serial killer behaviours at our peril, but we also misapply at our peril those known behaviours to different murder cases at different times

Ah, but most perilous of all is when we argue, unconvincingly, for the exclusion of a given example of a serial killer behaving precisely as theorized for an unsolved murder, whilst at the same time delivering up demonstrably flawed examples in a transparent attempt to bolster their own theory for the same unsolved murder.

Best regards,
Ben

[caz]

The title of this thread predisposes that we know what a serial killer is like.

Absolutely not, Bob.

It is entirely up to those who maintain that they know Hutch really behaved like one to support such a bold claim with fully documented examples that are a fair and reasonable comparison, taking all the case evidence into account.

The fact is we don't. All the profiling work that has been done has been done on the back of information gleaned from serial killers who were failures - they had all been caught. We have no idea what a successful serial killer acts like. Shipton showed us that. What profile did he fit?

You are absolutely right (except that I think you meant Shipman). I've said exactly the same thing and it just doesn't sink in with some posters. All I get is silly rabbit analogies* and such. The fact is we don't know how the ripper managed to stay one step ahead of those who were so desperate to catch him. We only know that he made no fatal moves, no fatal mistakes, no fatal errors of judgement.

*Originally Posted by Sam Flynn:

All rabbit stews comprise of caught rabbits. Some of today's non-caught rabbits may eventually end up in a stew, whilst others will live to a ripe old age. It largely depends on the skill (and luck) of the person hunting them as to which category they'll end up in.

I responded to Sam:

Can you not even bring yourself to acknowledge that the serial killers who make the most or biggest mistakes are also the most likely to get caught eventually?

And Sam came back with:

"Likely" doesn't mean that they are invariably caught - and neither does making mistakes. I've yet to meet anyone (serial offender or otherwise) who does not make them.

Anyway, it's not just about making mistakes - it's about general behaviour in all circumstances. No reason to suppose that, just because he was caught, the rabbit in my stewpot wasn't copulating yesterday, eating veg or having a crap in a field. It's how the overwhelming majority of them behave.

Now then. Imagine that all rabbits are deadly poisonous to eat except one variety - a very rare and tasty one called an SK rabbit. Nothing to tell them apart except that the SK secretly goes for a regular detox which keeps him edible. The only way Sam will ever get the right one in his blasted stewpot is if one of these rare creatures leaves a fatal clue to his secret detox missions.

That's why normal, copulating, veg eating, crapping in a field rabbits need not apply if Sam wants his analogy to be a fair and reasonable one.

Love,

Caz
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