Are the reports in the contempory newpapers sufficient to discredit Hutchinson?

[Ben]

Thats all you have got, it's not all I have got.

Oh yes, he once made a lame attempt to dress up like a detective, which isn't so easy if you're a homeless thief.

but that didn't stop him from providing a repeat performance

He dressed up like a detective on more than one occasion?

If this is getting too much for you Ben, you only have to say so.
It was Hutchinson, not Abberline.

Yes, Jon, I accidentally wrote Abberline when I meant Hutchinson. That means I've lost the entire argument. Clearly this is "getting too much for me", and I'm bound to give up at any moment. You continue the onslaught and watch me disappear with the stress of it all...

Which is what he told the press

Yes, he told the press that he entered the court itself, but he didn't tell H̶u̶t̶c̶h̶i̶n̶s̶o̶n̶ T̶h̶e̶ ̶Q̶u̶e̶e̶n̶s̶ ̶H̶e̶a̶d̶ M̶u̶f̶a̶s̶a̶ Abberline.

Why not?

You THINK an accused murderer is going to come forward?
And you THINK the police will accept his story, as an honest citizen, no doubt?

Yes, to both.

If Blotchy was in a position to demonstrate his innocence in the form of a concrete alibi from, say, 1am onwards (which, for all Hutchinson knew, he was perfectly capable of providing), then no problem.

Have you ever bothered to ask why an interrogation of an eyewitness in a high profile murder case is to be written down?

I think you'll find they are recorded, actually. I don't know what the 1888 equivalent option would have been, but scribbling things down at furious speed doesn't seem like an option, and nor does extending the interview by hours in order for some poor copper to write everything down at "normal"" speed. If you're suggesting that every ripper-related witness had their interrogations fully transcribed, that would mean none of the transcripts have survived.

What a bugger, eh?

Cheers,
Ben

[Wickerman]

... If you're suggesting that every ripper-related witness had their interrogations fully transcribed, that would mean none of the transcripts have survived.

What a bugger, eh?

Cheers,
Ben

Well, thats one guess you managed to get right.

[Scott Nelson]

Hey, it kinds sounds now like you two guys aren't gonna meet up for a round at the local pub.

[Observer]

Hey, it kinds sounds now like you two guys aren't gonna meet up for a round at the local pub.

Sure they are, twelve three minute ones

[Abby Normal]

Sure they are, twelve three minute ones

HAHA. Now THATS funny.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Jon,



Jewish and about 30-years-old – that’s all we’ve got. Oh, and probably dressed in a manner similar to many others in his predicament, i.e that a lowly cigar-maker and essentially homeless thief. And maybe a moustache.



Yes, and he didn't get very far with that, did he?

It doesn't speak very highly for his abilities as a "confidence trickster" or fake detective. You mentioned that “someone” described him as “fancy-dressed”. Could you provide a source for this? It’s just that I don’t see any evidence that he “took pride in his appearance” or “dressed above his means” or “considered himself as some sort of Dandy”. None of that. We have but one instance of him dressing “up”, and only because he wanted to gain entry to the pier at Dover, where he could rob people. And guess what? He was crap at it. He was the proverbial giraffe in dark glasses trying to get into a “polar bears only” golf club.



Here is what Abby was referring to:

"I went up the court and stayed there a couple of minutes, but did not see any light in the house or hear any noise."

A somewhat crucial detail that Abberline decided to withhold from the police and only tell the press, for some reason (probably the one Abby suggested).

You ask whether it would have made more sense for Hutchinson to describe Blotchy and use him as a fictional suspect, instead of Astrakhan, if his intention was to deflect attention away from himself; and the answer is very obvious no.

If the whole purpose of Hutchinson’s decision to come forward was to legitimise his loitering presence outside the crime scene whilst deflecting suspicion away from himself, it would have made no sense to "use" Blotchy. Why? Because he was an ostensibly working class local, just like Hutchinson himself, not tall but stout, just like Hutchinson himself, and wore a wideawake/billycock hat, just like Hutchinson himself. Moreover, there was every chance that Blotchy – being a real person, and not a fictional one – might come forward and inform the police that he left the room much earlier than Hutchinson claimed to have seen him. A fictional character, by contrast, would never come forward (or get discovered) with his own version of events that drastically undermined Hutchinson’s, and all the better to make that character the well-dressed Jewish bogeyman that everyone wants him to be.

You say you have examples of opulently dressed men walking the very streets the ripper was known to haunt in the small hours. Can we see some of these please? And I don’t mean an obscure reference to a man with a bit of fur on his coat spotted near St. Paul’s. And I certainly don’t mean Joseph Isaacs!



Yes, it is.

Yes, it irrefutably is.

That is precisely what it is – that’s why the original statement itself accompanied the report. The fact that he talked about other stuff does not preclude it from being a report on his interview with Hutchinson. Any expectation that there must be a super-special mega-exciting, lost-in-the-Blitz "extra" report in addition to this is hopelessly unrealistic, in my opinion.

As Batman sensibly points out, it was most assuredly not the “prevailing opinion” that Hutchinson was telling the truth, and the evidence fully supports the contention that his statement was discredited shortly after it first appeared. Now, we can either go around and around in circles with that done-to-death argument, OR you can follow up the leads on Joseph Isaacs, about whom you are obviously very interested. Who knows? They might spark brand new debates!

All the best,
Ben

Hi Ben
yup.
But I would just add that Hutch probably never saw Blotchy, and if he did happen to peak inside marys broken window, probably did not get a good enough look at him to describe anyway.

I would venture he made A-man up from the descriptions he read in the newspaper and also possibly from a rich jewish man that he was jealous of.

I would also venture that if hutch was the ripper, that the GSG was written for the same reason, and I can see a hint of jealousy and anger in both.
It hasn't been lost on me that A-man and the GSG are the ONLY direct pieces of evidence that implicate a jew. It wouldn't surprise me if the same man was responsible for both.