Sympathy for Hutch

[Mr Poster]

Hi ho

The notion that GH was trying to wilfully paint a Jew or whaatever as guilty based on his perceptions o f what the police were looking for is made daft given that if he was jerked forward out of fear of Lewis and what she might have told the police, he must have been aware of what happened at inquest.

If he was there (not my speculation) then its alll getting bizarre because now not only did he leg it to the cops but he inconceivably went even farther and arrived at inquest to be in the same room as the women who's "might" recognise him could stick him in the gallows

He my have heard about the inquest from the street gossip but then he wouldnt have bothered his ass coming to the police at all to play his double bluffing game with the hangman as he would have been fully aware that th epolice and coroner were barely interested in Lewis and spent much more time thinking about Blotchy.

Assuming he STILL thought his trip to Abberline was the best plan to hide his guilt.....then he would have thought (given his razor sharp probability calculating mind) that Blotchy was the man to describe as that is what the inquest (the same inquest which let him think the girl who couldnt recognise him "might" have told the police something even though that something precipitated nota sign of the police looking for the GH lurker for over three days) virtually concluded based on the questions asked and time spent on Blotchy.

We all should have sympathy for GH but more so for logic and reason as it is those two that get tortured in GH threads.

p

[Chava]

Sarah Lewis's testimony:

When I went into the court, opposite the lodging-house I saw a man with a wideawake. There was no one talking to him. He was a stout-looking man, and not very tall. The hat was black. I did not take any notice of his clothes. The man was looking up the court; he seemed to be waiting or looking for some one.

"Opposite the lodging house" would not have meant across the street, but outside the lodging house. I remember that usage from when I was a child and I think that's what she must mean as the entryway to Millers Court was extremely narrow. If the man Lewis saw was standing in the street in front of the entry or any part of the alley, she would have had to push past him. But she doesn't say that happened. She simply says she saw someone who appeared to be looking up the court. Probably from right outside the doss-house. Could have been anyone. Could have been someone waiting for his mate to go in for the night. Outside the doss-house doesn't mean a lot.

Hutch says he stood in the court, which would mean either he was standing right outside Kelly's place, and blocking the entrance to where Lewis was headed, or he stood further up the court. Either way, he's not standing where Lewis puts her 'man in a wideawake'.

Another reason why I am not believing a word that comes out of Hutch's mouth!

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Chava,

Hutch says he stood in the court, which would mean either he was standing right outside Kelly's place, and blocking the entrance to where Lewis was headed, or he stood further up the court. Either way, he's not standing where Lewis puts her 'man in a wideawake'.

To be fair, Hutchinson doesn't say that he stationed himself in Miller's Court for the duration. Indeed, the fact that he claims to have seen one policeman pass the junction with Commercial Street, and that he saw a man enter a lodging-house whilst he was waiting for Mary indicates strongly that a proportion of his time was spent in Dorset Street itself.

Another reason why I am not believing a word that comes out of Hutch's mouth!

If the lodging-house dweller Hutch refers to disappeared into Crossingham's (East) - the entrance of which was, I believe, practically opposite the Miller's Court archway - then it's quite conceivable that he was the man seen by Lewis as she arrived. He might have been "waiting for someone to come out", as Lewis reports, or he could have simply been staring into space, grabbing a breath of fresh air before turning in for the night.

[Chava]

Hi Sam

In his original statement he says "I then went to the court to see if I could see them but could not. I stood there for almost 3/4 of an hour to see if they came out and they did not so I went away" It does imply that he was standing close to the court if not in the court itself. True, he could have retreated across the street. However all the really good embellishments about talking to a policeman etc don't come out in the statement but are reported afterwards. Probably while being interviewed by a reporter in a pub!

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Chava,

In his original statement he says "I then went to the court to see if I could see them but could not. I stood there for almost 3/4 of an hour to see if they came out and they did not so I went away" It does imply that he was standing close to the court if not in the court itself.

I have little doubt that he meant that he entered the Court at some point, and that he spent some time there. However, if my suggestion that the man he saw enter the lodging-house was, in fact, the same as Lewis's "Mr Wideawake", then Hutch must have arrived at Miller's Court after Lewis had entered the Keylers' lodgings. That would explain why Lewis didn't report spotting anyone skulking in Miller's Court when she arrived.

[Ben]

Hi Lars,

The notion that GH was trying to wilfully paint a Jew or whaatever as guilty based on his perceptions o f what the police were looking for is made daft given that if he was jerked forward out of fear of Lewis

Not really. He would have been taking advantage of a convenient generic scapegoat in an effort to deflect suspicion away from himself. That isn't daft at all. He needn't have attended the inqust, necessarily. He could have been among the masses that observed Lewis and the other witnesses enter Shoreditch Town Hall, or learned of her testimony via the same Bush Telegraph that allowed "Leather Apron" descriptions and rumours to spread through the district like wildfire.

You can't claim that a police interest in Blotchy somehow precludes an interest in the loitering wideawake man. That's akin to arguing than an interest in capturing Hitler automatically equates to a complete lack of interest in capturing Goring and Himmler.

something precipitated nota sign of the police looking for the GH lurker for over three days

How would he know that? From an article that announced "Police NOT Looking for Man in Wideawake"?

Still, delighted you've decided to re-establish communication with me and that, as I fully predicted, Hutchinson-related discussions are apparently set to dominate the "new" forums. It's as though we're all so irritated at the prospect of all those Hutchinson threads disappearing into a cyber black hole that we're frantically building them all up again.

This should keep us busy and internet-bound for the next year.

Best regards,
Ben

[perrymason]

Hi all,

Ben, on your last post, you mentioned police suspicion of Blotchy Man, and to my knowledge, he doesnt capture attention until they are forced to start again, after realizing Hutch had screwed them with Astrakan Trimming.

I think then it was a case of the last man seen in her company, and that wasnt Wideawake Hat. It was Mr B. Wideawake I believe was always seen as a possible accomplice....hence the Pardon offer within 24 hours..on Saturday.

Making my point attempt that Hutchinsons story Monday night changes the course of the investigation, and when it is steered back, it has now become the last man seen with her...as Astrakan would have been. They used that same criteria, but not that suspect loitering

They didnt even look at the accomplice angle anymore. And so Hutch succeeded in placing himself at the scene in order to readjust the suspect focus back to about 11:45pm.

My best as always Ben.

[Ben]

Indeed. Good points there, Mike!

[Chava]

With respect, Sam, 2 men loitering outside Millers Court at the relevant time strikes me as 1 too many! I am so leery of GH's testimony because it seems to embellish every time it appears. The original statement, which thanks to some genius here is available in pdf onsite, doesn't refer to policemen, or men seen entering the doss house or Kelly being 'spreeish' or anything. All that comes later when he talks to journalists. We ascribe all kinds of cleverness to GH, but I think the likelihood is that he was a not-very-bright guy. Why his statement is discarded, we'll never know. But I suspect that the police read his ever-increasing description of events in The Star and other papers and started looking hard and checking stuff out. This may have been the first serial killer they'd investigated, but they weren't completely without experience. 'Eyewitnesses' coming forward with ****-and-bull stories would not be unknown to them.

Also, look at Kelly's actions. She goes out hooking. We don't know where and we don't know if she was successful, but we do know that she was going back to her room at close to midnight with Blotchy-Face who had a pot of ale with him. May have been his own pint pot. May have been a jug for the two of them. At that point she's fairly drunk and she keeps the neighbours up for a while bellowing some awful song about flowers and mother's graves. She's still singing at 1.15 or so. However she has sobered-up and gotten rid of BF by 2.00 and is out finding herself another trick. There is nothing in GH's original statement to suggest Kelly is drunk. However by the time he's talking to the press, she's 'spreeish'. It's quite possible that Kelly needs the money and hooks all night to get it. But if that's the case why is she spending valuable earning-time sitting in her room with Blotchy Face singing her head off? If she can do that, she can tuck herself up all nice and warm in her bed and sleep off the effects of the evening's alcohol.

[Sam Flynn]

With respect, Sam, 2 men loitering outside Millers Court at the relevant time strikes me as 1 too many!

Not quite, Chava. One man loitering (Hutchinson), the other taking a breather before retiring to bed at Crossingham's (possibly the man both Hutchinson and Lewis claimed they saw). Hardly unlikely - especially given Hutchinson's press statement that he saw a man disappear into a lodging house, which - if it were Crossingham's - was directly opposite Miller's Court.

[Chava]

Yeah but it's his press statement! I'm not believing a word of it! By the time he gets to the reporters he's got an answer ready for everything and an embellishment to go along with it. If he saw a guy going into Crossingham's Rents, why didn't he say anything to the police?

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Chava

Yeah but it's his press statement! I'm not believing a word of it! By the time he gets to the reporters he's got an answer ready for everything and an embellishment to go along with it. If he saw a guy going into Crossingham's Rents, why didn't he say anything to the police?

Perhaps he did and it didn't get recorded. That police statement, when read aloud, probably lasts no more than a minute. You can bet your house that Hutchinson spoke for longer than that with Sgt Badham, who took the statement in the first place, and later with Abberline during the famous "interrogation" scene. It's very unlikely that the police statement contained every single detail of what Hutchinson told the police.

Like I say, I might not accept every atom of Hutchinson's statements, but I am prepared to believe that some of it was true. Of his embellishments - if such they were - his saying that he saw a nondescript man enter a doss-house is hardly in the same league as seeing a well-dressed chap sporting a watch-chain/large seal/red stone, is it? I'm loth to throw the baby out with the bath-water apropos Hutchy-boy.

[Chava]

Some of it might well be true, but the whole thing is so tainted for me that I can't believe him at all. His first statement might have taken ages to put together but it's a cogent description of events. However as he talks more, and as he learns more of what other people said, his statements change subtly to reflect what he's heard. For example if you read his statement's description of meeting Kelly, you'd think you were reading about a businesslike and focussed young whore who needs to turn a few more tricks because she's broke. But if you read the inquest testimony from Cox, you see a young woman who was very drunk and who acted as if she was very drunk and money be damned. She wasn't out earning her rent between midnight and roughly 1.10 am, she was home singing her head off and annoying the neighbours. When Hutchinson talks to the press afterwards, he says she was 'spreeish'. So that would mean a bit squiffy. However what he describes in the statement is not spreeish at all. The difference is that Hutchinson has found out a little more from press accounts and heresay and whatnot about what was said at the inquest. So he slightly tailors his story to reflect that. And it's the tailoring that concerns me! If he'd stuck to his guns and left it at that I would still have had a hard time believing his description of Mr A but I might have given him the benefit of the doubt.