Sympathy for Hutch

[Ally]

[QUOTE=Ben;1437]Did. Did. Did.

It doesn't even get boring after a while, does it? I'm parroting you back becase you've been doing the same thing, hoping to "wear me" out or something.

No I've been arguing facts, you've been arguing fantasy. After the last 3 years of watching you stomp your feet and say "did did did" I am pretty sure you will not be worn out, but it's amusing to see how long the tantrum will last. And all your claims of "I can argue this forever" are an admission of the fact that you believe debate is no more than saying did, did, did, and you are proven right.

You've asked me to cite some examples of a pretty text-book and oftimes predicted trait amonst serial and one-off offenders, and I've done so. So has Frank. But because you're so annoyed at having cornered yourself into a view that you can't possibly justify, you've tried to come up with as many reasons as possible to invalidate those examples - unsuccessfully.

And the concept of the single, impotent no relation with women serial killer is also textbook and also wrong. And you haven't cited anything. Frank has. Kudos to Frank, he has facts on his side. I am not annoyed. Games don't annoy me, and the fact that I see your latest "play" is to parrot back the "cornered" comment that someone threw at you in another thread leaves me pretty convinced that this game is not your forte.

The propensity of serial killers to come forward is dependent upon existing factors that prompted them into taking such action in the first place. If those factors weren't there - in the shape of an inconvenient witness for example - of course there's no incentive to come forward. And yet some do it anyway, just for jolly.

More statements of psycobabble BS that makes a grand attempt at saying something, and falling far short. To some up: Serial killers come forward for reasons or for no reasons at all, but even still, I can't name one other than the one that Frank gave me. And here I thought you'd be burying me in a wash of names ...but nothing. Just babble about what serial killers are likely or not likely to do based on factors.

It's still makes little sense to speak of the "vast majority" of serial killers doing or not doing this or that. Very few behavioural traits are shared by the vast majority.

Yeah I'm still waiting for you to list "a number" much less a majority. One, while a number, isn't "a number".

[Ally]

Let's make it simple and directly related to Hutchinson. Hutchinson had absolutely no reason to go to the police. No one had pointed a finger at him, his name had not been brought up, the police had not officially questioned him at all and there was nothing linking him to the crime.

He voluntarily went to the police and placed himself at the scene of the crime.

In response to my assertion: You claim "a number of serial killers have approached police and placed themselves at or near the scene of the crime"

Ten's a number. Name ten. Ten serial killers who with no reason to interject themselves whatsoever, interjected themselves. Not bumbling first time killers, not sons of the victims, ten serial killers who evaded capture for many crimes, then walk into the police station and place themselves at the scene.

For absolutely no reason whatsoever. You've said there is a number. So name them. I'll check back in the morning, I'm sure you will need a little time to compile.

[Ben]

And all your claims of "I can argue this forever" are an admission of the fact that you believe debate is no more than saying did, did, did, and you are proven right

It's truly amazing, though, the extent to which people tend to become "debate committed" in Hutchinson threads alone. Nowhere else. You chimed in pages ago with a three-line broadside along the lines that I'm "wish-fulfilling" (I'm not sure why I'd wish Jack the Ripper to be a local nonentity, but whatever) and then when I tried to help out with a few examples you were after, I'm suddenly nasty suspect-touting Ben, and you come up with a load of trivilalities to try to negate those examples. Obviously it didn't work and you didn't negate them, and now we're backing and forthing; doing the copy and quote thing, fighting til page 10,000 etc. It's hypnotic, or seems to be.

And whoopy-doo, you're right - someone on another thread tried to claim I was "cornered". Wow, really really deflating to my self-image. Give him a greenie. Boy, do I feel "cornered".

Yes, I believe the single, impotent, no relatioship assumption is wrong. Not so the propensity of killers to come forward under false guises. That has historical precedent.

And here I thought you'd be burying me in a wash of names ...but nothing

Except the ones you ignored when I mentioned them or attempted, on rather spurious grounds, to dismiss as not fitting your far-too-specific set of criteria.

[GRISTLE]

My initial impression of Hutch was much the same as Kensei's. I saw him as the infatuated "friend" on the outside looking in. Obviously its a somewhat dramatized and romanticized view of Hutch and his relationship with MJK, but again my first inclination was to have sympathy for the man. Since reading the vast array of opinions about Hutch on Casebook I've since hardened my view and become rather skeptical of his timing and his overly detailed description of MJK's last date. With that being said, I still would not be overly surprised if Kensei's impression somehow turned out to be accurate; though I'm sure we'll never really know.

[Ben]

Hutchinson had absolutely no reason to go to the police. No one had pointed a finger at him, his name had not been brought up, the police had not officially questioned him at all and there was nothing linking him to the crime.

Unless Hutchinson was psychic, he could not have known any of this. He couldn't possibly have known what Sarah Lewis had seen, or if identification was imminent. If he was a member of the press-reading public, he would have known that Lawende's description had been suppressed from the official inquest record only to appear in full weeks later. Naturally, if the police had used that premeditated ploy with the last piece of witness evidence to date, what was preventing them from doing it again? There was nothing linking him to the crime (just the locality of the crime scene), but if previous witnesses were to provide a link to previous murders, he'd be in an awkward spot. And as should have been apparent to anyone with a passing knowledge of this topic, killers will come forward for reasons other than self-preservation; whether it be bravado, or a simply desire to keep appraised of police progress.

Ten serial killers who with no reason to interject themselves whatsoever, interjected themselves. Not bumbling first time killers, not sons of the victims, ten serial killers who evaded capture for many crimes, then walk into the police station and place themselves at the scene.

See, this is what I'm taking about.

You're expecting a ludicrous degree of specificity here. It isn't necessary. No serial killer mirrors another's actions to the degree you're honestly expecting. You may as well argue that if I can't name ten other gay quack herbalists with white dogs and a large moustache, Tumblety can't be the killer. And if I said "a number", there's obviously no reason to pluck the specific number "ten" from absolutely nowhee.

[Brenda]

Hutchinson is not one of my very favorite suspects but I got interested in reading this debate. Here is a link to an article from Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture you guys may find interesting.

http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/vol9is2/guillen.html

[Chava]

Let's make it simple and directly related to Hutchinson. Hutchinson had absolutely no reason to go to the police. No one had pointed a finger at him, his name had not been brought up, the police had not officially questioned him at all and there was nothing linking him to the crime.

Okay. He comes forward with an extremely detailed description of a man he has seen with Kelly on the night she died, very close to the time she died. That description is taken up by the police very quickly and as quickly it's dropped again. He is admitting that he is also onsite at the same time. So he must also be some kind of a suspect for at least a while. If what he says is true, then it is extremely public-spirited of him to come forward. I wonder why he waited until after the inquest and after Sarah Lewis described a man in the alleyway to do this.

So why does he come forward? Hutchinson's behaviour for me is one of the most puzzling parts of the whole case. The Ripper's behaviour is fairly straightforward. He likes ripping whores. He rips whores. He may or may not have murdered Kelly but if he did, he did it with the same cheerful elan that we see in the other murders. Sadly there have been many serial killers over the years. They all had the same objective and their motives aren't complicated at all.

However Hutchinson's motives completely escape me. If he comes forward, he risks putting himself in the frame as the man seen waiting 'for someone' in Millers Court. But selflessly he approaches the police with his information. But he's not all that selfless, because he waits a couple of days before he makes his statement. He's out on the street with no place to go. He doesn't have enough money to hire Kelly and her bed, but someone else does. He gets a (very) good look at that someone else and then hangs around waiting for him to leave because...? Kelly might let him stay the night? Kelly needs money and has told him so. There's no reason to believe she won't go out again after Mr A is finished and try and score another trick. Never mind, Hutchinson gamely grits his teeth and hangs around the alley. But he doesn't hang around long enough. If he had, he would have seen Mr A creeping back out again with his little parcel and a smirk.

One of the many things that prevent me from taking this gentleman at face value is this: Mr A, if he exists and if he is the Ripper, knows that Hutchinson has had a good look at him. Mr A, as I understand it, looks back as he goes into Kelly's and sees Hutchinson standing in the entry. As horribly brave as the Ripper is, he'd have to be mad to kill Kelly knowing that someone might be standing ten feet away waiting for him to come out. So OK, he waits for Hutchinson to leave. But how does he do this? The whole time Hutchinson is waiting in the alley, he doesn't hear a sound and he clearly doesn't see anyone peering out the window because I think he'd mention that. So it's a bit of a standoff. Hutchinson waiting out Mr A, Mr A waiting out Hutchinson. Lucky for Mr A, Hutchinson blinks first and leaves. Mr A has had the intestinal fortitude to avoid looking out of any window for 3/4 of an hour while waiting his opportunity to do what he came for. Maybe that's why Kelly was found in her nightgown. The Ripper was a one-trick pony. He wasn't used to having to entertain his prey for ages while waiting for her swain to piss off. He bored her to death.

All this to say, in my opinion, Hutchinson's account and his actions don't make any sense to me at all. He could be a liar, a murderer or a stand-up guy trying to help out in the murder of a woman he knew. He is a complete mystery to me.

[Brenda]

Killers DO tend to inject themselves into investigations, but as far as walking into a police station....old Hutch might have been an original in that regard. So both of you are right in a way.

[Ben]

Thanks for providing that link, Brenda. Very interesting reading.

And an admirably balenced summation of the problems with Hutchinson's testimony and possible motives, Chava.

Best wishes,
Ben

[The Good Michael]

Let me sum up the arguments here:

1.Ben says there are several examples of criminals coming forward to be helpful to throw people off the track.

2. Ally says that there are not several examples in which a culprit, before being suspected (as in the case of Hutchinson), came forward to the authorities.

3. Frank found one example of Ben's argument being true in 1948.

4. The conjecture that has been reconstructed many times is that Hutchinson somehow thought that he has being fingered by a witness who saw him outside the Court at about 2:30, and it wasn't until then that he came forward.

5. The other side of the argument is that there is no evidence that Hutchinson was ever named by anyone, or that he even thought he was being named as a lurker at the Court.

Point number 4 requires a burden of proof to be able to be able to connect it with point 1., therefore, Ally's argument, as much as I hate her being right,
is the stronger argument.

Agreed?

Mr. Construction

[Varqm]

The big point is the testimony of Sarah Lewis points to one man and one man only lurking/watching across a victim's residence an hour to two before her probable time of death. To admit to be that man or played the police that he was that man is hugely different from Frank's example . And add to that what was happening in the community of Whitechapel during his reign of terror was unique.
It's way a stretch.

[Mr Poster]

This is crazy!

Somebody has apparently stolen my profile and is posting remarkably good Poster posts about profiling and GH The Unlikely Suspect!! But they are calling themselves Ally and not poster.

gadzooks! Luckily for me, one can tell that they are not real poster posts as there are no lists.

But otherwise......remarkably good renditions. And it saves me oodles of time.

p

[Mr Poster]

hi ho Brenda

Killers DO tend to inject themselves into investigations, but as far as walking into a police station....old Hutch might have been an original in that regard. So both of you are right in a way.
Reply With Quote

They perhaps do (rarely) when they have been caught on camera, seen, have killed the neighbours, havent heard all the testimony at the inquest and DON'T live in a homogeneous seething mass of untraceable, unidentifiable, non-ID-toting GH flat cap clones.

What we know criminals actually do and in the overwhelmingly greater number of cases is to try and evade capture. Thats why police exist.

Now....on what basis do you think it is more likely that GH popped up at the cop shop after killing Kelly instead of doing what legions of felons try and do?

That being not being caught by doing nothing, or running away, or just vanishing off the radar?

Of course we also know that hoards of witnesses to crimes come forward late with their information for a plethora of good reasons.

Thats why programs like Crimewatch UK exist.

Is every person who rings that show with new evidence or information about 6 month old crimes guilty of the crime by virtue of their not having popped up whilst the corpse was still warm?

p

[kensei]

Whoa, I come back 24 hours or so after my original post that started this thread and find that it has exploded all over the place! (I live in the States and usually visit this board in the wee hours.) My main point was about Hutchinson's relationship to Mary, and whether he harbored romantic affection for her which I kind of feel that he did. On the other hand, when Mary asked him if he had any money, she may have really been asking if he wanted to purchase her services for a while because he was a regular client as well as an acquaintence, so who knows.

Someone critiqued my description of Mary's last client as looking like he was dressed for a "night at the opera." It was just a figure of speech, meaning way too well dressed for the East End and especially for Dorset Street. The fact that if Hutchinson's description was even a little correct the man would have been begging to be mugged is indeed obvious. The thought has crossed my mind- a bit melodramatic once again- that perhaps Jack the Ripper had really fallen into his character by that point, letting it go to his head, and mentally thought he had nothing to fear on those streets from lesser criminals because he was the most dangerous of them all.

[The Good Michael]

My main point was about Hutchinson's relationship to Mary, and whether he harbored romantic affection for her which I kind of feel that he did.

Of course he felt affection for her. She was young and beautiful, unspoilt by the ravages of time, excesses, and prostitution; an innocent having to make ends meet. Everyone loved the woman. Why, there were Davies (God rest his soul), Barnett, Morganstone, Fleming, and McCarthy. Probably Dew and Abberline as well, so why not Hutchinson? I mean there's certainly evidence that she was the lilac of Limerick, the dogwood of Wales, the fragrance of France, and the evergreen of England. All these reasons are why she probably wasn't a Ripper victim, but the result of infighting between one of thousands of beaus.

Mike