The Statement of George Hutchinson

[The Good Michael]

Brad,

I agree with that. The interrogation of Hutchinson simply must include corroboration of his identity and his residence. We have trained professionals, not unlike document examiners, that questioned, probed and prodded, including the highly regarded, world-famous detective, Abberline. When professionals are involved with taking statement of and interrogating such a young and lower status man as Hutchinson, how are we to believe they did such a terrible job as to not only let a killer go, but never look back at him. Not bloody likely.

Mike

[richardnunweek]

Hello Crystal,
I am well aware of copyright, and i am a man of my word, i am sorry if the chatroom exchanges[ or lack of] are beyond your control, and if that is a public explanation, then fine.
Regards Richard.

[Ben]

Has there ever been a thread that has been filled with such ill will that contained such useless information. Really this thread tells us very little

I'm not sure quite what you mean, Brad.

Are you saying that information is only useful if it impacts on someone's suspect status? I find it rather astonishing that anyone can say that Hutchinson's original statement is "of little value", since the reverse is so obviously the case and no elaboration is really required to explain why (I dearly hope?). As others have noted, several of Crystal's observation do impact on Hutchinson's suspect status.

If we are trying to prove Hutchinson is lieing then it is going to take more then someone's opinion to convince me. I am going to take in account that the men who looked Hutchinson in the eye and took down his statement believed him

Crystal wasn't attempting to "prove" anything in her original analysis. The likelihood that he did not report the squeaky-clean unblemished truth is self-evident from the actual content. As we've already established, his statement was discredited very shortly after Hutchinson's initial appearance at the police station, with his "Astrakhan" suspect clearly dropping off the map at around the same time. Clearly this rather militates against the suggestion that he was the star witness for very long.

I've never really understand this habit people have of dismissing the subject of a particular conversation as "useless" or "not worthy of discussion/investigation" and then posting just to make that point.

Hi Mike,

that questioned, probed and prodded, including the highly regarded, world-famous detective, Abberline

It isn't my opinion that they did a "terrible" job, but on the other hand, we want to aviod putting Abberline on a pedastal he doesn't warrant. He was competent detective, certainly, but more experienced detectives that Abberline have been duped by criminals since. Hutchinson may have succeeded in pulling the wool over Abberline's eyes, yes, but then Abberline also believed that Klosowski the expert physician went on an organ-harvesting commission on behalf of an American innards-collecter, who then went to America himself after realising that he didn't collect enough innards in the East End.

Or...

He wasn't duped.

He did suspect Hutchinson, but wasn't able to rule him conclusively in or out.

In the above scenario, they wouldn't have let him go, but monitered him discreetly thereafter in the event of more murders, and of course, there weren't any for some considerable time.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Bob Hinton writes, concerning the third page signature from the police protocol:

"I’m not sure where the signature above labelled 1888 came from. Can anyone enlighten me?"

I hope, Mr Hinton, that you will allow me to ask you a couple of questions in connection with this!
To begin with, I know that you have authored a book in which the Iremonger investigation and your own thinking on the signatures involved are discussed. I do not, however, have the book in question - mea culpa - and I therefore would very much like to know:

- Do you in your book, based on your own observations, draw the conclusion that the police protocol signatures were not written by the same man that signed the wedding paper? And if so, which of the police protocol signatures did you use? All of them, two of them - or just the one?

- Since you clearly did not immediately recognize the signature from the third page, I would like to ask you what your verdict is on that signature in comparison with the census signatures and the wedding signature? Do you regard them alike or unalike - or somewhere inbetween?
My own stance on the question who wrote what in the protocol, is that I believe that signature number three is the one most likely to have been authored by the witness. The protocol consists, I believe, of two full pages of text, and a third page on which there is only quite a few lines. And when you sign a collection of pages concerning themselves with the same topic throughout, you normally sign on the last page.
That is what I feel the witness did. If I was to sign a bunch of papers myself, perhaps paper-clipped together, I would turn up the last page to supply my signature. And if there was only the odd line on it, it would make it feel very much superfluous to turn to the preceding page and add a new signature - anybody who puts his signature to a single line or two do not do so to confirm only those few lines, I think - they do so believing that they confirm the contents in their entirety. Just my five pence, but that is how I see things - to me, signature number three is our best bet, for these reasons.

- Do you have any clarification to offer on the Iremonger issue? Are you in possession of the details she used to reach her verdict?

Thanking you in advance,
Fisherman

[The Good Michael]

It isn't my opinion that they did a "terrible" job, but on the other hand, we want to aviod putting Abberline on a pedastal he doesn't warrant. He was competent detective, certainly, but more experienced detectives that Abberline have been duped by criminals since. Hutchinson may have succeeded in pulling the wool over ...

Ah, but these were professionals. Shouldn't I have complete faith in their methods? Would you or I have done a better job?

Mike

[Ben]

I'm exploring both possibilites, Mike, that's all.

It is possible that they suspected him at some stage, but just as possible that they didn't.

Welcome back, Fish!

Best regards,
Ben

[Bob Hinton]

Catch up.

Why is it believed that Abberline corrected GH's statement by writing 'Queens Head'?

[The Good Michael]

Bob,

Crystal said that the corrections matched Abberline's handwriting. At least I think that's what she said. I'm not wading back to look it up though.

Mike

[Ben]

That's correct, Mike:

"Abberline has also written on the statement of George Hutchinson. He signs for submission on page three of the statement, and also completes the endorsement on the back of page three of the statement....

The statement has, having been signed by Hutchinson and Badham, then been altered by Abberline. This is at the point where the original statement text in Badham's hand 'Ten Bell' has been struck through and altered to 'Queen's Head'."

(From Crystal's first post)

[babybird67]

being kicked from chat?

is it physically possible to be kicked from chat because the internet connection has failed, yet still be showing online under the "who's online" facility, perusing the message boards?

[Ally]

I am quite sure Crystal is a document examiner also. However, there are incompetent people in every profession, and we have no way of knowing what degree of competency she has. When you add that to her willingness to completely fabricate, lie and manipulate the truth, her conclusions are suspect.

However, for those who are willing to believe that she is competent and professional it must come as a relief that she has ruled out Hutchinson as a suspect completely by virtue of identifying him as left handed.

[Bob Hinton]

Alteration

That's correct, Mike:

"Abberline has also written on the statement of George Hutchinson. He signs for submission on page three of the statement, and also completes the endorsement on the back of page three of the statement....

The statement has, having been signed by Hutchinson and Badham, then been altered by Abberline. This is at the point where the original statement text in Badham's hand 'Ten Bell' has been struck through and altered to 'Queen's Head'."

(From Crystal's first post)

I just don’t see that Abberline did the correction. Here are some samples. The H in Queens’s head is quite a straightforward two vertical and one horizontal. Abberline’s H’s are much more florid. Abberline’s handwriting is much more flowing and practiced, he is quite at home with the pen.

The correction is much more stilted and hesitant.

[Brenda]

It appears that he had very little room to put in the words "Queen's Head" so maybe he just didn't have enough space for fancy flourishes.

[Ally]

Even without fancy flourishes, the lines of his H's CURVE inward every single time he writes them, in direct contrast to the H's alleged to be his.

[Fisherman]

Brenda writes:

"maybe he just didn't have enough space for fancy flourishes."

Maybe, Brenda. But the space afforded would not have had an impact on which way he bent the left hand leg of his "H", would it? It is bent the other way in "the Queens Head", producing a "bow" pointing to the left, whereas Abberlines left "H" leg "bows" consistently point to the right.

Fisherman