Proof of identity

[Observer]

Hi

Speaking of alibi's surely the police checked Hutchinson's story of going to Romford.

Observer

[Ben]

He would have taken heaps of wotness statements, and if he was not surprised by what Hutch offered, there is every reason to believe that other officers on the field would have been of the same opinion - that the testimony could well have been right.

Clearly not, Fish, because they ultimately discarded his evidence as a viable ripper-sighting. There's nothing to support the opinion that if Abberline believed something, his colleagues and superiors would unthinkingly follow suit. What matters is that Hutchinson's evidence was not "used" in the long run. In order to discredit a witness, it isn't necessary to uncover an alibi proving that witness to have been elsewhere. Didn't happen with Packer. Didn't happen with Maxwell. Didn't happen with Violenia. Didn't happen with Mrs. Kennedy. No reason to think it would happen with Hutchinson.

Since you point me to some reaading, I will do you the same servie: Read Derek Osbornes dissertation on Hutch, and you will be provided with A/ an author that says the same thing that I do about Lewis´man and Hutch

And?

Osbourne's wrong.

There's nothing to suggest they "don't tally" at all. If you think Osbourne's conclusion was "nice and simple", it's clear that you either haven't read the full article or we have redically different notions of clarity and simplicity.

Someone who was up and about and who knew Hutch, in person or by sight.

Fabulous, and we just pluck his imaginary existence from frickin' nowhere, stick him in Hutchinson's company at 3:45am in the morning of 9th November in Banbury or wherever you want him to have been and suddenly Hutchinson's got an alibi? Oh, and a report detailing that alibi that also got lost or blitzed?

No evidence. Almost certainly didn't happen. Even if Hutchinson wasn't where he said he was that night, the chances of his 3:30am presence being recorded and verified by anyone is incredibly slim. Same with all the other thousands of solitary transient doss house inhabitants.

[Ben]

Hi Observer,

If he lied about it, it wouldn't have been plucked completely at random since Whitechapel High Street ultimately terminated there if you kept going and going. If he told the truth, then it may have been in the capacity of a hawker that he went there. It was fairly well-known at the time that hawkers living in West London would often sell their wares in Maidenhead and towns nearby while Eastenders went to Romford and other places to hawk, sometimes with a barrow, sometimes with a bag.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

"That's nothing to do with witness psychology."

Yes it has, Ben. Everything a witness perceives or believes he or she perceives belongs to witness psychology.

"it isn't true to say that Abberline wouldn't have been challeneged on any opinion he offered"

Of course he could have been. But the point I am trying to press is that he was a policeman whose experience came not from what happens at a desk but from real life. He would have taken heaps of witness statements, and if he was not surprised by what Hutch offered, there is every reason to believe that other officers on the field would have been of the same opinion - that the testimony could well have been right.

"No, I don't think my "option 2)" is an "obvious possibility".
I do.

Since you point me to some reading, I will do you the same service: Read Derek Osbornes dissertation on Hutch, and you will be provided with A/ an author that says the same thing that I do about Lewis´man and Hutch - they don´t seem to tally, and B/ a possible explanation to who the "not so tall" but stout man may have been, why his was there, and what role Hutch could have played. It all boils down to a nice and simple explanation. Of course with the usual lack of proof, but still with one explanation to the alledged sightings and testimony given - right or wrong.

"Who on earth is going to be so strategically placed as to provide him with a conveinent alibi at that ungodly hour?"
Someone who was up and about and who knew Hutch, in person or by sight. Really, Ben, it is not a scrap harder than that. With hundreds of thousands of people living in the East End and no Sandman putting them to sleep, we can safely assume that there were people in the streets at all times. And as you yourself say that you are swayed by what can be gleaned from the past, let me assure you that more than one nocturnal criminal HAVE been spotted and put away.

Those were the bad news. Here´s the good parts:

"Without knowing Hutchinson's specific height, I can't quibble with your: there may very well have been a marked discrepance in height between the man Lewis saw and the man we probably both agree that Hutch did not see..."

YES! I´ll have that one framed! And yes - I left out the latter part of the quote. Nothing I would like to have hanging on my walls, see.

and

"I think "Cross versus Hutchinson" is a somewhat less than productive avenue of debate"

I tend to agree - it´s just that I am slightly worried by the schizophrenic discrepance of believing a chosen selection of statements from a man you agree was not to be trusted, and who was very obviously discredited by the police as the investigation proceeded. I think some scepticism is healthy here.

The best!
Fisherman

[Observer]

Hi

Why did Hutchinson name Romford as his place of destination on the 8th Nov 1888?


You don't need me to tell you this but Romford holds the key. Look to Romford.

Also, he told Kelly that he had spent all his money going down to Romford, If he had money on the morning of 8th Nov then surely he would have taken public transport to Romford, I doubt whether he would have walked all the way to Romford if he had money in his pocket. What were his options? Omnibus, train?

Observer

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

And that is what I mean that no other police official would have challenged Abberline on: if Abberline saw nothing strange in it, then such a thing probably only points out that witness psychology was not a deeply discussed topic in them days.

That's nothing to do with witness psychology. It's just basic assessment of witness evidence, and it isn't true to say that Abberline wouldn't have been challeneged on any opinion he offered. He may have been one of the senior detectives "on the ground", but there were superior (in terms of rank) investigators to Abberline working the case who would have been more then entitled to intervene if, upon recepit of a questionable witness account, they felt all was not well with it.

No, I don't think my "option 2)" is an "obvious possibility". I think it's a very remote outside chance. We've no precedent for false witnessses assuming the identities of suspects seen near the crime scene and them claiming to be witnesses themselves, but thee's precedent aplenty for offenders coming forward as false witnesses. As ever, I tend to be swayed more by what can be gleaned from past, and we have precedent for the latter, not the former.

And if you DO, I will claim that the null hypothesis shows ut that he probably never were anywhere else that in the Victoria Home.

And if you DO, I'll just demonstrate how obviously in error you are on that score. We don't place Hutchinson in Romford or Banbury at 3:30am in the morning of November 9th without evidence. Who on earth was so strategically placed as to provide him with a conveinent alibi at that ungodly hour?

Without knowing Hutchinson's specific height, I can't quibble with your: there may very well have been a marked discrepance in height between the man Lewis saw and the man we probably both agree that Hutch did not see....but that doesn't mean there's any compelling reason to think there was.

I think "Cross versus Hutchinson" is a somewhat less than productive avenue of debate, but suffice to say, a succinct and circumspect case for the latter being considered a more viable suspect has been laid out here, if anyone is interested:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=450&page=2

All the best,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Well, Ben, it is not as if I have been unaware that you would not lie down and die here...
Still, I think that much about Hutch has been very uncritically accepted by posterity, whereas other things have been scrutinized very closely, and my meaning is and remains that in a choice between an ascertained participator at a crime scene and an unascertained one, it takes more benevolence on my behalf to choose the latter as the more viable Ripper than I could possibly afford. Call me a mizer, but there you are.

Nice counter, though, with the question "Where did you get Romford from?", I have to admit that. Should have settled for Banbury there...

On the Abberline acceptance issue: I was not referring to anything other than Hutch´s physical description of Astrakhan man when I spoke of a testimony to good to be true. And that is what I mean that no other police official would have challenged Abberline on: if Abberline saw nothing strange in it, then such a thing probably only points out that witness psychology was not a deeply discussed topic in them days.

As for your offered choice between 1 and 2, I would prefer to use the second alternative. It means that I get to be described by you as not quite as ridiculous to begin with, and secondly: it is a very obvious possibility, no matter what you think of it. And I have never seen those who believe that Hutch came forward in response to the inquest material described as ridiculous.
Most posters - I think - regard the two letters before and after the double event, signed Jack the Ripper as false leads. We realize that the information in the letters could well have been given away in time for the letters to be hoaxes. There is not much reason to disregard such a possibility in Hutch´s case, Ben; fair is fair, news agencies, Bullings or not.

As for the "null hypothesis" it is of "null value", Ben. If you put a man in a burning room, take my word for it - he will leave it, null hypothesis or not. I am sick and tired of "null hypothesizing" in Kellys case, so please don´t drag it in here too. And if you DO, I will claim that the null hypothesis shows ut that he probably never were anywhere else that in the Victoria Home. Null hypothesis, my...

And, of course, deriving the fact that "not tall but stout" realistically only yelds men of 5,6 to 5,7, well, Ben... MUST I rule out 5,3? Is 5,2 ridiculously unrealistic? Or can you actually be described as "not tall but stout" if you are of these lengths? I think the answer is obvious to anybody, Ben. And that means that it becomes just as obvious that there may very well have been a marked discrepance in height between the man Lewis saw and the man we probably both agree that Hutch did not see.

The best, Ben!
Fisherman

[Ben]

That was a very short skiing trip, Fisherman.

I'd hoped this discussion might have come to a close when we realised it wasn't hugely applicable to Cross, but since any mention Hutchinson seems always to result in reams and reams of long posts, I guess I'll oblige.

Lewis said "not tall but stout", Fisherman. 5"7' or 5"6 is irrefutably a "reasonable estimate" for the height of the wideawake man, according to Lewis' testimony.

And with Abberline´s experience backing it all up, I think we must accept that it was not likely that any other police officer would come along and point out that Hutch´s testimony was too good to be true.

Why not? Abberline's "opinion" was penned on the same evening that Hutchinson came forward; a few hours afterwards, in fact. He could not have investigated Hutchinson's claims in the time elapsing between Hutchinson sighning the statement and Abberline signing his report. Incidentally, yes, "newspaper versions or the claim that he had spoken to a policeman who obviously ignored the evidence" could well have "sealed it". It doesn't alayws require something more tangible and "big" for a witness to get ruled out. More often, the police use their collective abilities and discernment to seperate the wheat from the chaff and arrive at an educated consensus accordingly. That's what occured with Maxwell, and we have no reason in the world not to expect anything different with Hutchinson.

An alibi could of course have shown that he was STILL in Romford for the whole night between the 8:th and the 9:th, could it not? Or anywhere else far away from the East End

Yeah, but where are you getting "Romford" from? Hutchinson himself, and after cautioning me to avoid using anything in his testimony to support the idea that he was there at all. You can't place him in Romford or anywhere else outside the East End without evidence, and the null hypothesis (given that he lived there and didn't have private transport) is that he was probably in the East End (at the very least) around the time of the Kelly murder.

If you want to claim that Hutchinson was not the man with the wideawake, it is necessary to endorse one of the following questionable notions:

1) That the "coincidence" of Lewis' man "watching and waiting for someone to come out" and standing at the same location Hutchinson did on the same night and on the same date, and apparently doing precisely what Hutchinson claimed to have been doing...is just that; a random "coincidence".

Or 2) That Hutchinson, who wasn't there at all, learned or read about Lewis' testimony and "assumed" the identity of her potential suspect. Not quite as ridiculous as 1), but still a behavioural trait for which we have no established precedent whatsoever, and especially bizarre in light of his failure to state where he really was at the time of the murder itself.

Unless you subscribe to either of the above, it seems reasonable to infer that he was the man seen by Lewis, thus rendering him a superior suspect to Cross for the reasoned outlined by Dan, whose account was plausible and endorsed by the police, who was on his way to work and probably wouldn't have continued with a killing spree after such and intense and early police exposure.

And no, there is still no height discrepency. As I said: He allegedly stooped down to peer under the shadow of the man's hat which was "over his eyes", which would indicate a height similar to that of Mr. Astrakhan. Of course, if he lied about the encounter (hey, there's a thought!), it seems likely that the dimensions and heights in relation to Astrakhan were confused or invented anyway.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Coming over from a thread on Charles Cross, I move a discussion on George Hutchinson to this thread.

Ben writes:

”Lewis described her man not as "short", but as "not tall", in which case a height of 5"6' or 5"7' would seem a reasonable estimate.”

We do not know WHAT constitutes a ”reasonable estimate”, Ben – we simply couldn´t.
What we DO know however, is that people who think somebody is tall, although not extremely tall, do not verbalize it by saying that the person they describe is ”not very tall”.
”Not very tall” goes just as well do describe short as ”not very bright” goes to say ”stupid”. Let´s not take advantage of ALL possibilities offered by semantics, Ben!

Moving a bit further, you quote my words:

”No, something else came along, and that something may well have arrived in the shape of either somebody coming forward to claim the role of Sarah Lewis´ loiterer, or somebody who made it clear to the police that Hutch had been elsewhere during the murder night”

...and you write:

”Actually, Fish, they didn't need anything conclusive and decisive. Maxwell was dismissed just as Hutchinson was, but not because of anything concrete that proved her wrong or lying. It was merely a police consensus of opinion based on the totality of evidence. If nothing concrete was required to dismiss Maxwell, why should we expect anything concrete to dismiss Hutchinson?”

The reason is, of course, that you are dealing in apples and pears here, Ben. Not all witnesses give the exact same testimony to the exact same policemen under the exact same circumstances, and thus, allowing for a different approach in each and every case is a wise thing to do.
In Hutch´s case, for instance, we have Abberline stating that he believes in it, do we not? And with Abberline´s experience backing it all up, I think we must accept that it was not likely that any other police officer would come along and point out that Hutch´s testimony was too good to be true.
That leaves us with one convinced, top-ranking field officer in the case, and therefore I think that it would take some serious undoing. And I am not sure that the newspaper versions or the claim that he had spoken to a policeman who obviously ignored the evidence would have sealed it. In such a case, there would have been further interrogations (which, of course, there may have been) of Hutch, where he may have lost his credibility.
Another man coming forward to claim the role of Lewis´loiterer, or somebody giving Hutch an alibi would have been a certain clincher though. And there is of course no certainty that such an alibi would have covered just ” a fleeting moment in the small hours a specific November evening”, is there, Ben? When you assume that such would be the case, you once again take Hutch´s own words for good, but neither you nor me can do that based on any rock solid evidence, Ben, can we?
An alibi could of course have shown that he was STILL in Romford for the whole night between the 8:th and the 9:th, could it not? Or anywhere else far away from the East End, for that matter. And it need of course NOT have been provided by somebody staying at the Victoria Home, Ben! That of course also has bearing on your sentence ”The fact that the earlist indications of Hutchinson's discrediting came after those press disclosures lend support for the hypothesis.” Well, the same could just as well apply for an alibi.

You finish by writing:
”Similarly, the very idea that he wasn't there at all is offset by Lewis' evidence of someone "watching and waiting" at the same spot and at the same time that Hutchinson claimed to be "watching and waiting".”

And that, I guess, is where I speak about the long and the short of it – the only indications we have on the lenght of Lewis´ loiterer open up for a very obvious possibility that the man was of short stature, just as Hutch´s stooping points us in a very different direction regarding HIS length. It is not as if you have an obvious match, is it? And again, it is not as if Lewis statement was a secret, is it? We cannot even disprove a notion of Hutchinson sitting in the audience at that inquest, Ben!

As we crossed (excuse the pun) over from the ”Viability of Cross as the Ripper” thread, this was exactly what I had in mind when I said that I believe that Cross must be regarded as a more viable Ripper that Hutch. Of the first man we even have TWO names (Cross and Lechmere) and a certainty that he was present, of the latter, we have nothing but his own words that HE was present, we have a name that has rendered us helpless to find the guy for 120 years, and we have indications – pushed very hard by yourself - that we may be dealing with a liar.

The best, Ben!
Fisherman

[Ben]

Hi David,

To me, the handwriting of the signatures is identical with that of Sergeant Badham who wrote the report, who also writes his capital H's in the two differing styles. I raised this a few years back, and from memory I think Monty agreed, but Bob would not accept that anyone other than GH signed the statements

As Evans notes, he may not have signed all the pages, but certainly one of the signatures must have been Hutchinson's. My money's on the first one, which looks nothing remotely like Badham's own handwriting.

[Tom_Wescott]

Dan,

Thanks for pointing that out, I'd forgotten about that.

David,

I applaud you on your efforts. Goodonya whether it bears fruit or not!

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Dan Norder]

Regarding the signatures, Stewart P. Evans wrote in "Suspect and Witness - The Police Viewpoint" (from Ripper Notes #23):

A note of interest for the conspiracy minded readership is that Hutchinson's apparently genuine signature on the first page does not quite match those on the following pages. It could be a variant signature, or possibly he failed to sign the second two pages by mistake and the subsequent signatures were added by a police officer to cover the oversight (probably Badham himself).

[Monty]

Yep, faxing, thats all Monty is good for nowadays, faxing.

Monty

[Sam Flynn]

Is it not possible that Badham forgot to get the statements signed, and so did it himself?

I daresay it goes on, David, and there's no need to posit any sinister "Rough Justice" reasons either - errors can, and do, happen.

[David Knott]

The lead I had yesterday goes cold after 2002, but today I have found another of GTWH's descendents - I have sent her an e-mail and will let you know the result.

On the subject of signatures, I would make the following observation. The statement is signed three times, once at the bottom of each page. Each signature varies considerably from the others, to an extent that you would never normally expect, particularly as they must have been signed in quick succession. Two are signed George Hutchinson, and one Geo Hutchinson. The capital H's are all different.

To me, the handwriting of the signatures is identical with that of Sergeant Badham who wrote the report, who also writes his capital H's in the two differing styles. I raised this a few years back, and from memory I think Monty agreed, but Bob would not accept that anyone other than GH signed the statements. Is it not possible that Badham forgot to get the statements signed, and so did it himself? I know this isn't a view that everybody will readily accept, but I cannot see any other document with three such differing signatures all supposedly by the same person.