Hutchinson Content---Moved from MJK crime scene thread

[paul emmett]

I'm CONVINCED Mrs M wasn't mistaken! (For what that's worth!)Suz x

Hi, Suzi.

I think it's worth quite a bit, since as they say in PULP FICTION, "that's a bold statement." And I am surprised, most surprised, that three of us agree. What then do we make of Perry Mason's earlier contention that the only way Mrs. M could be correct is if that ain't MJK in the bed.?

And all this relates to time of death and GH kinda--although I think Michael's contention was on another thread. Sorry!

[perrymason]

Hi all,

I did say that here Paul, and I think its the only rational way to explain Mrs Maxwell, if she was correct. The body on the bed, identified by her lover and landlord as Mary Kelly, was dead long before 9:30 or 10:00am. There is not one medical opinion or estimate that has her death later than 6am, and she is in the rigor state when first examined.

Its the only way Caroline Maxwell could be correct based on the medical data, and since she talked to Mary,... for all we know a "g'day",... only twice in 4 months, and since her lover who has only been moved out 8 days identifies the corpse as Mary Kelly, I believe those speak to a likely correct Id by Barnett, and an incorrect one by Maxwell.

So, if you dont think Mary is on the bed, have at Carolines contention..but be wary, because another corpse on that bed but Marys, requires a conspiracy to keep the charade up.

To accept Caroline Maxwell means that you believe Mary wasn't the one found dead in 13 Millers Court, when they enter at 1:30pm.

Although that doesnt make Caz's art any less interesting.

My best regards.

[Suzi]

And there lies another thing......well 'SOMEthing'.....Call me conspiritorial................and I suppose we all are at times..... BUT there's always that possibility ........Miss Albrook or whoever........
I seem to recall that RIGOR was only setting in with what was left of Mary as the 'examination' started and that must have been long into the afternoon

Mrs M saw Mary with Mr Plaidy without a doubt (whatever day that may have been).........WHO Mr Plaidy was (and to be honest a plaid coat may have raised the odd eyebrow or whatever!) hasn't really been discussed.........I guess because he's sort of been bracketed with Mrs M

[paul emmett]

.

So, if you dont think Mary is on the bed, have at Carolines contention..but be wary, because another corpse on that bed but Marys, requires a conspiracy to keep the charade up.

To accept Caroline Maxwell means that you believe Mary wasn't the one found dead in 13 Millers Court, when they enter at 1:30pm..

Hello, Michael. OK, so, Katie bar the door, I agree. I was just waiting to see where the other two posters who were Maxwell fans fell in. And Suzi did.

I think the fire, the key, the "Oh, Murder" and the witnesses--all say it weren't MJK. Realizing my popularity right now, let me just do the witnesses. Three for; three against. For--Barnett. McCarthy, and, you forgot, Hutchinson. Against--Maxwell, Lewis, and an "unnamed woman." Let's look at 'em. For: Barnett, who I think is implicated in all this; McCarthy, who in a contemporary paper said that the body was mutilated beyond recognition; and Hutchinson, who nobody believes about anything. So, despite Lewis's lack of credibility and the no name of the unnamed woman, I think it's at least a wash.

There is more, but let's wait 'til others weigh in. Katie, do the barrin' ; protect us from the "C" word.

Night

[caz]

Against my better judgement...

Quote [by Caz]:
In the meantime he keeps Hutch doing the hot shoe shuffle with what the cops might already know about the killer and what they will instantly forget when Hutch fox trots down the cop shop to offer them a killer he knows nobody could have witnessed if he is the killer himself.

Where does this come from? When have I ever claimed that no witness had seen Hutchinson before 9th November?

Hi Ben,

You misunderstood me. Maybe you should slow down a bit and read a tad more carefully. I merely meant that according to your scenario, Hutch the Ripper is supposed to have offered the cops Mr A - an invented suspect who looks the polar opposite of himself. If Hutch is the killer he knows that nobody who saw him could possibly have described anyone remotely like his Mr A - a risky move if the police could be suppressing witness sightings by the bucketload of Hutch, and none of anyone resembling his Mr A.

No such problem if Hutch was never at any previous crimes scenes. He just makes up a suspect he thinks will keep the police happy. He neither knows nor cares who previous witnesses have seen - they didn't see him.

They may or may not have suspected him. I've addressed this over and over again, and I'm literally foaming at the mouth in anticipation of regurgitating it all again. Don't you understand? If they never suspected him, it woudn't be at all surprising. They had clearly exhibited a preference for suspects with some form of medical training or experience in butchery, and those who exhibited some sort of external menace. If Hutchinson met none of this criteria why should we expect an 1888 police force - with no experience of serial crime and its perpetrators - to jump to the immediate conclusion that he must secretly be Jack the Ripper waltzing into a police station requesting an interview?

On the other hand, how could they possibly have snared him had he been guilty and they did suspect him? Not very easily, given his solitary (and thus unverifiable) actions and movements on the night in question. What are we expecting - a mysterious and convenient alibi to appear out of the blue in one of those lost-in-the-blitz reports? Or maybe we're expecting a lodging house deputy to recall the movements of one of his 400+ lodgers six weeks ago?

Hi Ben,

It’s a wonder your semi-literate, working-class fiend (armed with his honours degree in Behavioural Science In An 1888 Police Station Setting) wasn’t able to think all this through and save himself a trip to the cop shop then, considering he had no alibi but wouldn’t need to produce one anyway if arrested later; met none of the criteria the police expected of the killer; and couldn’t have been snared even if the police had picked him up at some point, popped him in an identity parade and a dozen suppressed witnesses had picked him out with a resounding “Gotcha!”

But fair dos, your suspect does decide to come forward under false pretences to legitimise potentially incriminating evidence linking him to one crime scene - Miller’s Court. And it’s not what I consider to be an imprudent or shortsighted move, but what killers actually do that matters. I hear you.

But what you’re doing is to argue for a scenario on the basis of what you, Ben, consider to be the most likely and logical explanation for Hutch’s behaviour, ie that he was the killer. Coming forward then has to become what you, Ben, consider would have been the killer’s best option in the circumstances, and you can claim it was effective because the police never considered him as a suspect. You might think you know better than anyone else, right down to the small print, what the killer would have considered a prudent or imprudent move in Hutch’s shoes, but your guess is really no better than anyone else's.

No matter if everyone else in the world (including the vast majority of identified serial killers) thinks it would be a truly, madly, deeply imprudent and illogical move for any killer in Hutch’s shoes to make: it’s what they actually do (apparently), because they - in company with you, Ben - consider it to be their most prudent option. In fact your whole case revolves around your arguments for Hutch’s actions being prudent enough to avoid any suspicion falling on him at the very height of the ripper scare, while demonstrating today that he was quite clearly as guilty as sin.

Your scenario involves Hutch coming forward because he has the foresight and prudence to do so as a witness rather than wait and risk becoming a suspect later. Fair enough. If he is the killer he may well be thinking along these lines. But the reason you have repeatedly given for his fear that Lewis could identify him is his awareness that the police have suppressed previous witness testimony and could be doing so again.

This is where your layer cake of reasoning starts to teeter, because at the precise point where ‘suppressed evidence’ enters his brain, and he is meant to be having logical and prudent thoughts about how this might impact on Lewis’s sighting if he doesn’t come forward to ‘legitimise’ his lurking, he must simultaneously lose the plot and not see how it might similarly impact on the sightings of him at his previous crime scenes that he has no way of legitimising. (And you can’t pick and choose between the terms ‘description’ and ‘sighting’ if your argument is that Hutch comes forward because he doesn’t know what the hell the police might be suppressing.)

In short, you want him worried to death that suppressed evidence will place him at his latest crime scene, so he comes forward to place himself there, blind to the fact that suppressed evidence could then be used to place him at one or more previous crimes scenes.

At the same time you want him to have come forward secure in the knowledge that having no verifiable alibi is no problem, and that even if the fates are against him and he is suspected against all odds (and despite not meeting the expected ripper criteria) he can’t be snared anyway, regardless of what evidence the police may be suppressing that links him to one or more of his crime scenes.

So I’m back to asking what Hutch the Ripper (not you, Ben) would think he was gaining by going to the cops, or would lose by staying well away.

He is either genuinely scared, as you claim he would be, that one suppressed sighting could scupper him, in which case he would be literally cr***ing himself over a second or third sighting he has no way of legitimising; or he doesn’t actually believe any sightings could scupper him. Which is it?

You’ve got him dancing to your tune and doing a right old military two-step, haven’t you?

Where is your evidence that you would both be so perfectly in step with each other's thinking?

And you have the cheek to expect Andy to produce evidence that Monty could have come to the East End and seen Hutch performing this precisely choreographed dance of yours!

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Gosh, Caz, you're following me around all over the place!

If Hutch is the killer he knows that nobody who saw him could possibly have described anyone remotely like his Mr A - a risky move if the police could be suppressing witness sightings by the bucketload of Hutch, and none of anyone resembling his Mr A

Not true. Sarah Lewis had described a pale-faced "gentleman" with a dark moustache, felt hat and a black bag bothering her and a female companion on Bethnal Green Road on the Wednesday prior to Kelly's murder on 9th. In fact it was probably this descripion that prompted a least one newspaper to observe that the Astrakhan account agreed with other sightings of the supposed murderer. Then there's Liz Long's description of a shabby genteel "foreigner". I merely suggested that the more recent sightings from the "double event" had implicated not a foreigner, but an ostensibly working-class Gentile and that Hutchinson, if he was the killer, used his being seen at the crime scene as an opportunity to divert suspicion back in the direct of his virtual antithesis - a well-dressed foreigner, not a million miles from those pesky Jews that had interrupted him on 30th Sept (Just a thought!).

It's not a difficult concept to take on board; if he wanted to both legitmize his presence at a crime scene and deflect suspicion in a convenient and vulnerable direction, what better than the already existing generic scapegoat of a conspicuous wealthy foreigner?

It’s a wonder your semi-literate, working-class fiend (armed with his honours degree in Behavioural Science In An 1888 Police Station Setting) wasn’t able to think all this through and save himself a trip to the cop shop then, considering he had no alibi but wouldn’t need to produce one anyway if arrested later; met none of the criteria the police expected of the killer; and couldn’t have been snared even if the police had picked him up at some point, popped him in an identity parade and a dozen suppressed witnesses had picked him out with a resounding “Gotcha!”

But then this where we try to utilize our knowledge of other serial cases, such as it is. The ones that do insert themselves into police investigations do so for a variety of different reasons, and often under very different guises. Self-preservation is often an incentive, as it was in the Huntley and Code cases, but sheer bravado may also spurn them into into action. They may want to keep appraised of investigative progress, or have the opportuninty to say "It can't be me! I was cooperative, remember?" in the event that suspicion is ever directed their way, as was the case with prostitute killer John Eric Armstrong. If Hutchinson was the killer, any one of those considerations may have prompted him to come forward.

But what you’re doing is to argue for a scenario on the basis of what you, Ben, consider to be the most likely and logical explanation for Hutch’s behaviour, ie that he was the killer.

Why, no Caz. Wrong, Caz. I, Ben don't know for certain why Hutchinson came forward, but if he did so because he was the killer and was spooked by Sarah Lewis' sighting of him, we shouldn't be remotely surprised about it. It's a highly reasonable explanation for his coming forward as soon as Lewis' sighting became public knowledge, but yes, he may have come forward in reponse to Lewis without having killed anyone.

Coming forward then has to become what you, Ben, consider would have been the killer’s best option in the circumstances

Again, I've never said anything of the sort. I've simply referenced other cases to counter some of the less-informed hobbyist claims that "There's no way a serial killer would do that!". I've also outlined why coming forward may well have seemed like a good option in his position...whether it was or not. Nobody - not Hutchinson, you or I - could have known what the "best" option was at the time. Some killers are caught because they came forward under a false guise, indicating a wrong choice, but the fact that they did it anyway should be sufficient to counter any spurious claims about killers never doing this or that when the historical record clearly indicates otherwise.

It doesn't matter what you or I consider to be prudent or foresighted.

No matter if everyone else in the world (including the vast majority of identified serial killers) thinks it would be a truly, madly, deeply imprudent and illogical move for any killer in Hutch’s shoes to make

But that isn't the case, either, so you're on to a losing wicket with that one too.

If he is the killer he may well be thinking along these lines. But the reason you have repeatedly given for his fear that Lewis could identify him is his awareness that the police have suppressed previous witness testimony and could be doing so again.

Let's be clear about the nature of these "suppressed witness descriptions". Any member of the 1888 press-reading public would have seen what an "unsuppressed" description looks like and what a "suppressed" one looked like. At the Eddowes inquest, they only saw a suppressed description of a rough and shabby man. Come 19th October, and everyone was treated to the unsuppressed version, which included a heck of a lot more detail than that imparted briefly at the inquest.

A fuller description, mind, not "Red neckerchief, peaked cap, possibly called George Hutchinson". Obviously that was never going to happen. If the police were tipped off with a name, they'd track down the suspected individual way in advance of the full description being published. He didn't have anything to fear from "Ah, Mr. Hutchinson, just the man I wanted to talk to!", but he could have feared a fuller description from Sarah Lewis, because if she made a fuller description, she may have acquired a better sighting, and if she acquired a better sighting, the chances of her identifying him subseqently increased, and if her identification led to previous witnesses being wheeled in and all or most of them fingering GH, he'd have some 'splainin to do.

he must simultaneously lose the plot and not see how it might similarly impact on the sightings of him at his previous crime scenes that he has no way of legitimising.

It does impact upon it, but thanks to his proactivity, it would have impacted in a positive way. It would have laid the foundations for the preconception that here was a helpful witness. Get dragged in as a suspect after being clocked at close quarters in a close-knit locality, and that useful preconception is nullified.

So I’m back to asking what Hutch the Ripper (not you, Ben) would think he was gaining by going to the cops, or would lose by staying well away.

One of more of the following:

1) Self-preservation.

2) A desire to keep-appraised of police progress.

3) Bravado and arrogance that isn't remotely uncharacteristic of serial killers (nor is it remotely uncharacteristic for that bravado and arrogance to manifest itself in such a fashion).

4) To sow the seeds of an erroneous preconception as to his role if ever additional incriminating evidence was to surface against him. "I contacted you guys, remember?"..were John Armstrong's purported words.

5) Legitimise his presence (see 1).

6) Deflect suspicion (or rather sustain it) in a false direction (see 1 again).

You’ve got him dancing to your tune and doing a right old military two-step, haven’t you?

You've got yourself making laboured dance-analagies because you were stung by my suggestion that you favoured an upper-class suspect, haven't you?

Please try to put that behind you. I intended no malice.

[Chava]

Wading in...

Sarah Lewis describes a man wearing a widewake hat. Let's hypothesize that Hutchinson is known to wear such a hat. Let's further hypothesize that he was seen by other people in the area of Millers Court around the time of the murders. He may think it better to come forward with a ****-and-bull story rather than to wait for the police to come to him. At least he looks like an honest and open witness rather than someone who has to come up with an alibi--which clearly he can't.

Please note that I am not a Hutchinson Did It person. I am merely pointing out a reason why Hutchinson the killer might come forward rather than running like hell.

[Marlowe]

Ah, yes my Children...I see you need my help. :-)

Sarah Lewis was not describing Hutchinson!

She was describing (drumroll)....Blotchy!

Marlowe

[caz]

Hi Ben,

I’ve heard all these arguments a hundred times before. But you are still putting your own head on Hutch’s shoulders and insisting things like ‘he would have some explaining to do’ if previous witnesses had been called in and had identified him as a result of Lewis being able to identify him before he had come forward as a witness.

But whenever I remind you that coming forward at all in those circumstances would have presented the very real risk of the police realising he was Lewis’s lurking man (since your scenario demands that Hutch himself believes it and that's precisely why he comes forward, and is just lucky if the police don't actually make the connection), and therefore needing to eliminate him as Lewis's potential suspect, in addition to looking for the new suspect he was selling them, you instantly change tack and insist that Hutch would have considered it a risk worth taking because he would have known the police couldn’t snare him even if they did call in previous witnesses as a matter of routine (because of the Lewis sighting) and they identified him! I’ve never seen such flatly contradictory reasoning.

And you still don’t get it, do you? One more time and I’ll give up:

If Hutch is the killer he knows that nobody who saw him, Hutch the Killer, could possibly have described him, Hutch the Killer in a way that resembled his Mr A - a very risky move if the police could be suppressing reliable witness sightings of the killer, ie Hutch himself.

He cannot know for sure that the police are not suppressing some distinctive feature that they might recognise or look for the instant he showed up, and you cannot possibly know that Hutch didn’t have any such features. If you now say he would not have shown up if he had such a feature... I will not be the least surprised.

Quote [by Caz]:
No matter if everyone else in the world (including the vast majority of identified serial killers) thinks it would be a truly, madly, deeply imprudent and illogical move for any killer in Hutch’s shoes to make...

But that isn't the case, either, so you're on to a losing wicket with that one too.

Er, how can you possibly know that, Ben? Are you psychic now? Name one person (killer or otherwise; I’m not fussy) who actually thinks that a killer finding himself in Hutch’s circumstances would be acting prudently and logically by coming forward, rather than lying low or taking himself off to Romford or somewhere.

Even if you could find an actual killer who came forward after finding himself in Hutch’s shoes, you couldn’t say for definite that he thought he was being prudent or logical at the time (despite being caught in the end), because you flip-flop yourself between possibilities like self-preservation or simple bravado and arrogance being your suspect’s motivation.

I realise you are just covering all possible bases so you can deal with each objection to your hypothesis as it arises. But your overall case might benefit from actually taking on board one or two of the objections to your individual arguments (even if you don’t consider them to be fatal ones) and picking the motivation for Hutch that you consider most plausible and sticking with it.

If I were you I would probably stay well away from the ‘prudent/logical/fearful/self-preserving/suspicion-deflecting’ end and cultivate the ‘irrational/incautious/cocky/self-publicising’ angle, because there can be fewer objections if you just claim the guy was a psychopath, gagging to see if he could outwit the cops and keep them guessing.

But I won’t argue with you any more over the same old same old. You know my objections and I know how you deal with them.

You've got yourself making laboured dance-analagies because you were stung by my suggestion that you favoured an upper-class suspect, haven't you?

Please try to put that behind you. I intended no malice.

Hmmmm, yes, a bit like Tony Blair saying, “Please let’s move on” when he has been caught making things up.

I’m sure there’s not a malicious bone in your body, Ben (when you’re not accusing Hutch of the slaughter in Miller’s Court, that is).

But there’s also no sting in your tail when you make suggestions that can only have come from your imagination, and not from any post I have written since you arrived on these boards. So just before I move on, sting me properly if you can, and tell me which upper-class suspect(s) I favour, because I’m damned if I know. You can’t be thinking of Maybrick because you are well aware that he was no more upper-class than I am, and I don’t even consider him to be a suspect. I certainly don't favour Druitt, Sickert or a royal over anyone from the lower-middle or working classes and never have. So who can it be, since you obviously have the key to my private thoughts as well as to Hutch's?

Have a lovely weekend, and if you can’t take on board my friendly suggestion for improving your case against Hutch, don’t worry - I’ve put that behind me already.

Love,

Caz
X

[Chava]

If Hutch is the killer he knows that nobody who saw him, Hutch the Killer, could possibly have described him, Hutch the Killer in a way that resembled his Mr A - a very risky move if the police could be suppressing reliable witness sightings of the killer, ie Hutch himself.

Yes, but Caz, now you're the one putting your head on Hutch's shoulders. This rather obvious flaw in his idea may not have presented itself to him. In the 21st Century, we have grown up with cop shows etc that demonstrate that the police always keep stuff to themselves and don't tell the press anything. But In 1888 I doubt that would have occurred to Hutch or anyone. They probably believed that the cops spilled their guts to the coroner and the press. They didn't have the benefit of movies and tv shows and books where that point is made over and over.

Honestly, we'll never know why Hutch came forward if he was not in fact the genuine witness he presents himself to be. (And which I don't think he was!) He could be the killer. He could be an attention-seeker or some other kind of deluded wackjob who saw the whole thing in a dream and had to come up with some kind of 'real life' thing so he could tell the cops. One thing I'd like to find out, and that is how long he had been in Romford and whether he could any witnesses forward that would corroborate his account of his time there.

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

But whenever I remind you that coming forward at all in those circumstances would have presented the very real risk of the police realising he was Lewis’s lurking man...

In the scenario I posited, he would have been perfectly happy for the police to identify him with Lewis loitering man because he would have got his story in first. Coming forward as a witness is infinitely preferable to being dragged in as a suspect and then being asked to explain his presence. If they identified him with Lewis' man, it would probably have been a case of "Oh, that was just Hutchinson waiting and watching for Jack the Ripper to emerge". An 1888 police force were more likely to arrive at that conclusion than "Here's Jack the Ripper walking into a police station and requesting an interview".

None of that is contradictory reasoning. That's merely observing a tactic that serial killers have resorted to in the past for various reasons and suggesting Hutchinson might have done similarly. If we know that it happens, and have evidence of it happening, it doesn't matter how illogical and imprudent we think it is.

If Hutch is the killer he knows that nobody who saw him, Hutch the Killer, could possibly have described him, Hutch the Killer in a way that resembled his Mr A - a very risky move if the police could be suppressing reliable witness sightings of the killer, ie Hutch himself.

Not at all, because by introducing the "Mr. Astrakhan" fabrication/misdirection he'd be re-empahsising the importance of the witness sightings that either weren't of him at all (Lewis' Bethan Green Road man), or related to a description that didn't mesh up with the circumstances of the sighting (Liz Long), thus reducing the impact of any suspicion that might have been temporarily placed on Mr. Generic Local in the wake of Lawende's sighting etc. In other words, "Focus on the Jewishy Leather Apron-esque sightings because they were of the REAL ripper (like mine!), and don't worry about the gentile ones...because they weren't".

He cannot know for sure that the police are not suppressing some distinctive feature that they might recognise or look for the instant he showed up, and you cannot possibly know that Hutch didn’t have any such features

And you can't possibly know that he did (what a weird, weird argument!). As I've explained to you before, there is a difference between a description and a sighting. It is quite possible to see someone, remember their face and identify them subsequently without necessarily having the ability to deliver a good description. Hutchinson would have had more to fear from a good sighting than from a good description for obvious reasons.

But in an attempt to negate this equally basic concept, you're now positing the imaginary existence of distinctive stand-out features! Well...

Er, how can you possibly know that, Ben?

Easy, you said:

No matter if everyone else in the world (including the vast majority of identified serial killers) thinks it would be a truly, madly, deeply imprudent and illogical move for any killer in Hutch’s shoes to make...

You don't know that "everyone else in the world" thinks that, so of course you're onto a losing wicket by pursuing that argument.

But your overall case might benefit from actually taking on board one or two of the objections to your individual arguments (even if you don’t consider them to be fatal ones) and picking the motivation for Hutch that you consider most plausible and sticking with it.

I appreciate the suggestion, but it isn't as simple as that because I cannot responsibly impose "limits" on his possible motivations and restrict it to the one I like best. He might have been prompted by a number of the considerations I outlined above; arrogance, bravado, a desire for self-preservation and misdirection all have a historical precedent amongst serial killers whether they come forward under false guises or not.

...So does being ilogical and imprudent and "crazy", so I can't even rule that option out!

I don't need the "prudent/logical" argument to lend weight to the notion that Hutchinson came forward as the killer. Even if I said something like "Yep, he'd be completely bonkers to do that!" I'd need only refer to cases in which serialists have behaved in a similar fashion and the "bonkers versus prudent" angle is rendered irrelevant. Personally speaking, I don't consider it bonkers at all, and can see quite clearly why such a proactive measure as the one I've suggested may be considered quite prudent.

Have a lovely weekend, and if you can’t take on board my friendly suggestion for improving your case against Hutch, don’t worry - I’ve put that behind me already.

Thanks, Caz, and have a great weekend yourself.

Best regards,
Ben

[Marlowe]

Hi All,

In all probability, Cox and Lewis were both describing the same man.

A short, stout man, wearing a dark wideawake(billycock) hat. AKA - the man with blotches on his face.


Marlowe

[Ben]

Hi Marlowe,

It's possible, I guess, although the wideness of the brim is slightly (if not appreciably) at variance.

Billycock:

http://www.hatshapers.com/images/Dictionary/Dictio17.gif

Wideawake:

http://www.gentlemansemporium.com/store/media/001068_sm.jpg

Not quite the same, and yet not hugely dissimilar. In fact, a quick google reveals that the two are occasionally regarded as synonymous.

Of possible interest here is Ada Wilson's description of her attacker; 5"6' in height, wideawake hat and sunburnt complexion. Not a bad match for either Cox's or Lewis's suspect, and Rosacia is a medical condition that may cause a face to appear blotchy and sunburnt; exacerbated, rather than caused by, excessive alcohol consumption.

Best regards,
Ben

[Marlowe]

Thanks Ben,

It's odd, but I had originally written two fairly long posts saying roughly the same thing regarding how the two hats were frequently used interchangably. But both posts disappeared somewhere? lol....So I decided to post a short one just in case...

Anyway, I think the main point here is that some people used wideawake and billycock interchangably, whether or not they were technically the same. Probably Mary Ann Cox could just as easily have said "wideawake".

If so, then it changes the chess board positions of the knights...on that night.

New possibilites arise!


Marlowe

[perrymason]

Although I personally have no problem accepting that Hutchinson may have been involved with Marys murder is some form,as Ben has intimated, it would seem though that some still have a problem with a possible suspect or killer himself placing himself at a crime scene...as a witness.

Well...even though there are precedents for such occurrences, should you still be skeptical, you might just remember that Hutch did indeed put himself in Suspects shoes, not a Witnesses. Wideawake Man becomes odd but friendly after Hutch came in Monday night, switching the potential suspicious appearance of Wideawake outside a soon to be murder scene, to one of concern for Mary's safety.

Anyone that suggests after months of pressure to offer Pardons to entice information, that they suddenly gave in on Saturday the 10th, within 24 hours of Marys investigation commencement, and after learning of a suspect seen watching the courtyard, is kidding themselves. When that paper was prepared and signed, it was due to the fact that they now had a witness account of someone watching someone near a supposed Ripper crime scene, before the crime occurs. Sarah gave them a possible Accomplice or possibly even the killer himself,scouting,... and Hutchinson changed him into a witness friend of Marys, just looking out for her, after seeing her with the most lavishly embroidered suspect description in all of these cases,... the last man seen with Kelly.

To ask why was Abberline taken in disregards any humanity and the fragility of hope left in the man. To ask why wasn't Hutchinson a serious suspect himself..... after they dispensed with Astrakan, and reverted to Blotchy Man...who for the weekend, held the post of Suspect # 1.....is to me anyway, one of the most puzzling aspects of saga of the Police and George Hutchinson.

Best regards all.