You are Hutchinson and you're in trouble....

[John Winsett]

I'm sorry, but how is it a conspiracy theory to suggest that it was possible that he wasn't there? What, apart from his own statement, which even you concede was fabricated as per events of that night, makes you so sure that he *was* there? Or, should I say, what, apart from your own pet theory? There is simply no proof of Hutch's presence on Dorset-street; very tenuous suggestions that your Hutchinson was 'the' Hutchinson, and an astonishing lack of evidence for most of the supposition and postulation here.

I don't really like the tone of 'this site is beginning to be as if it's for the conspiracy theorists of 9/11.' I appreciate that you're hot on Hutch, as it were, but disagreeing or suggesting that he wasn't what he, or you, take him to be really doesn't make me, or anyone else, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. 'This site' was, and occasionally remains, a place for well-considered, evidence-based argument.

For the record, the only facts I believe are that Lewis saw a man hanging about, and that, subsequent to that becoming a matter for public record, a man calling himself George Hutchinson presented himself to police with an extremely detailed description of a man accompanying a woman whom the entire country had known to have been brutally murdered some three days prior. Now, it's possible he was covering himself. It's possible he ran into Mary and fancied framing someone. It's possible he made the whole thing up. But none of those possibilities are any more 'conspiracy theories' than poor old Toppy the Groom being a wily murderer of several women.

If you want to sling a noose round the man's neck, then so be it, but it's decent to entertain the alternatives.

I do agree it's possible it wasn't him, but the information before us, in my opinion, shows it was him. That's not a bad or good thing. If it was him, fine. If it wasn't that's also fine. The only advantage to it being him is that, with the eyewitness corroboration, it gives more credence to Hutchinson's statement to Abberline as being more truthful. Whether it is the truth or not it does at least verify part of his statement.
If it wasn't him, then what are we left with? A man with little description. It could be a future customer as you state, but where's the fun in that? In my opinion Hutchinson was not JtR, but he did kill Kelly.

[claire]

I'm sorry, but how is it a conspiracy theory to suggest that it was possible that he wasn't there? What, apart from his own statement, which even you concede was fabricated as per events of that night, makes you so sure that he *was* there? Or, should I say, what, apart from your own pet theory? There is simply no proof of Hutch's presence on Dorset-street; very tenuous suggestions that your Hutchinson was 'the' Hutchinson, and an astonishing lack of evidence for most of the supposition and postulation here.

I don't really like the tone of 'this site is beginning to be as if it's for the conspiracy theorists of 9/11.' I appreciate that you're hot on Hutch, as it were, but disagreeing or suggesting that he wasn't what he, or you, take him to be really doesn't make me, or anyone else, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. 'This site' was, and occasionally remains, a place for well-considered, evidence-based argument.

For the record, the only facts I believe are that Lewis saw a man hanging about, and that, subsequent to that becoming a matter for public record, a man calling himself George Hutchinson presented himself to police with an extremely detailed description of a man accompanying a woman whom the entire country had known to have been brutally murdered some three days prior. Now, it's possible he was covering himself. It's possible he ran into Mary and fancied framing someone. It's possible he made the whole thing up. But none of those possibilities are any more 'conspiracy theories' than poor old Toppy the Groom being a wily murderer of several women.

If you want to sling a noose round the man's neck, then so be it, but it's decent to entertain the alternatives.

[Rubyretro]

Please just tell me the facts that you all DO believe then...?...,...????

(this site is beginning to be as if it's for the conspiracy theorisists of 9/11 ? Don't tell me..?????????? Are we doubting that Hutch (whoever he was) was even present, now ?????).

[NickB]

Actually that's been the general opinion of a lot of experts in the field, not from this message board.

Yes even the Wiki says: “It is highly likely that he was the man Sarah Lewis saw ...”

But there is no evidence Lewis identified Hutchinson as the man, and it would be a simple matter to ask her to do so.

[claire]

But all this assumes that Hutch was anywhere near Miller's Court, and the point is that there is no contemporary identification of the attested lurker with Hutch the witness. This means that, irrespective of the level of punter-traffic (and I'm sure there was a fair bit; MJK wasn't the only working girl with accommodation in the area), there's at least a possibility that Hutch was not there at all. It's quite possible that he was just the sort of chap who fancied framing someone he'd a grudge against, or was after his fifteen minutes. Abberline may have noted that he believed him (because that's bound to be dragged out again), but police officers have been wrong on that score in the past--and the fact that Hutch appears, after his paid trawl around the neighbourhood, to have been quietly dropped hints that the Inspector may just have realised his error.

So, one lurker--probably the killer, and Hutch minding his own, nowhere near the place, probably not even back from Romford or Ramsgate or wherever he was supposed to be.

[Rubyretro]

Caz -I thought that Hutch admitted that he was lurking for 3/4 of a hour at the same time as the man Lewis witnessed, and everybody naturally accepted that he was the same person ??

Do you think that there were 2 lurkers at the same time and Hutch didn't notice him or didn't think it was important to say ??

[John Winsett]

Hi John,

What's your definition of 'widely accepted'? A handful of message board users?

Do you know of anyone at the time - be they policeman, pressman, newspaper reader or witness - who expressed the opinion that Lewis's lurker could actually have been Hutch the star witness?

That's what is needed here, or it's nothing but idle speculation that they were 'probably' one and the same. Now Barnett had slung his hook and had no money for Mary, there could have been men going in and out of that court like a fiddler's elbow, hoping to avail themselves of her services - whether she was back on the game and up for it or scared stiff of Jack and out of bounds to strangers.

If nobody made any connection back then, between Hutch the lurker in the flesh and Lewis's lurker in her statement, maybe it's because they weren't the dead ringers some would like them to have been. And maybe male lurkers in and around the court were not an uncommon feature - only made remarkable by the murder committed there.

Love,

Caz
X[/QUOTE]

Hi Caz,
Actually that's been the general opinion of a lot of experts in the field, not from this message board. It's because it fits the time Hutch himself said he was there. I mean if he told the police he was there, then why would anyone discount it? So actually yes there is his statement to Abberline that he was there and it matches the time the lurker was seen.

So I guess you could say there is indirect evidence from himself that makes him the lurker. And it just happens to match up with an eyewitness.
Fiddler's elbow, that's outstanding

[caz]

Well Greg, you won't get any argument from me on that. Some will claim there are plenty of examples of MJK-type murders that were domestic in nature, or at least one-offs. But that ignores the elephant in the room: the massive coincidence of time, place and victim type, that saw two throat-cutting mutilators at work in quick succession on local unfortunates. So these same theorists then have to link MJK with the ripper series after all, by claiming her killer was directly influenced by Jack's work and/or took timely advantage of it to commit the perfect murder - a copycat who made his work look more ripper-like than the ripper himself managed to achieve - kind of like coming first, ahead of Jack, in a Jack lookalike contest.

The problems only get worse when it comes to deciding whether MJK's throat was cut by someone who was suddenly overcome with jealous rage and then had to see it through and do a complete ripper job on her, using the sharp knife he happened to bring with him, or the whole thing was cool, calculated and scripted from start to finish - ie as 'impersonal' as Jack himself in the execution.

One witness identified a person standing at the entrance to Miller's Court and it is widely accepted that this was probably Hutchinson.

Hi John,

What's your definition of 'widely accepted'? A handful of message board users?

Do you know of anyone at the time - be they policeman, pressman, newspaper reader or witness - who expressed the opinion that Lewis's lurker could actually have been Hutch the star witness?

That's what is needed here, or it's nothing but idle speculation that they were 'probably' one and the same. Now Barnett had slung his hook and had no money for Mary, there could have been men going in and out of that court like a fiddler's elbow, hoping to avail themselves of her services - whether she was back on the game and up for it or scared stiff of Jack and out of bounds to strangers.

If nobody made any connection back then, between Hutch the lurker in the flesh and Lewis's lurker in her statement, maybe it's because they weren't the dead ringers some would like them to have been. And maybe male lurkers in and around the court were not an uncommon feature - only made remarkable by the murder committed there.

Love,

Caz
X

[GregBaron]

MJK a solo effort?

Not sure if this is pertinent to this thread but I'm addressing the
theory that MJK was a one-off by someone other than JtR. Do you
really believe that there was someone else in Whitechapel 88 capable
of this sort of depravity? If someone other than JtR murdered Mary
and wanted it to appear like his work, why the overkill? To think
that Barnett or someone close killed her supposes that this sort of
savage mutilation was the proclivity of more than one. I just can't
buy this.....not many would be capable of such a level of degradation.
To me this is the murderer of Eddowes, the brutal mutilator, who simply
had the time to take it to the extreme. I don't care if one is a butcher
or living in the most decadent place on earth, few people are sick enough
to carry out such an atrocity. This is JtR's unimpeded climax and not
the work of Barnett or Fleming or even Hutch in a solo effort. It's too
vile and evil for a domestic or one-off IMO.............


Greg

[Abby Normal]

We seem to be getting a bit tied up with killings after Kelly. As has been proved in modern cases, serial killers can stop killing for lengthy periods of time, I believe in one case 15 years.

Also you are forgetting that there are a myriad of reasons why a serial killer stops killing even if he wants to carry on, the main one being of course he could be dead! There were thousands of ways of dying in London from Typhoid to being run over by a carriage ( in 1892 over 3,500 people were killed in London by being run over, that doesn't include injuries!). He could have left the country, joined the Army or Navy, been murdered and so on.

Hi Bob
But since in this case we are talking about GH, do we know what happened to him after MK? i don't think we do, do we?

If he was unemployed perhaps he moved away to find work?

Thanks

[Abby Normal]

The fact that there were no more killings after Kelly rather nails for me the
argument that Hutch WAS JtR !

Imagine -Hutchinson becomes known to the Police as a witness placing himself at MJK's murder scene in extraordinary circumstances. He becomes
'famous' in Whitechapel (and via the papers, further afield to a certain extent) because he is seen marching around with policemen for a few days
trying to spot A Man. He gives interviews to journalists, and I would imagine that everyone in the Victoria Home or his local pubs, would be wanting to hear the details from his own lips. People were probably pointing him out
on the street. Prostitutes were probably gossiping about his story.

He could never risk being spotted anywhere near a Ripper murder site ever again ! He would never get away with inventing another 'innocent' story.
What's more -imagine if he moved elsewhere in the country and there was suddenly a ripper style murder ?

I believe that the JtR murders stopped, because Hutchinson made it impossible for himself to continue.

Hi Rubey
I agree that if GH was JtR then after MK perhaps he knew he had to stop for a long time. However, after the cooling out period he may have tried again with McKenzie and perhaps even Francis Coles.

I guess we would need to know where GH was after MK and Mckenzie and francis Coles.

[harry]

Hutchinson,if knowing of Maxwell's testimony,had a good reason not to come forward at all.Even if later questioned for some reason,and still offering the same story,he could say he hadn't come forward as he was of the opinion his sighting had nothing to do with Kelly's death,as she was seen with an entirely different person later the same morning.Perhaps he didn't know,but if he did he seemingly disregarded it for some reason.Was it because he (Hutchinson)knew it was false?Without knowing these things we cannot really say what should be done.

As for flight,when would be a good time.Without going back to his lodgings?What about the blood on his person,and any belongings at the Victoria Home?Would absence so soon after the crime be viewed as suspicious and reported?These things had to be considered.In the end ,guilty or not he seems to have made the correct decision.

[KatBradshaw]

Ineresting

I think what I would do, as in me, if I were a seriel killer etc is a bit disturbing to think about.
If I were to put myself in to Hutch's shoes what I would do would be dependant on a number of things.
1. I am the killer and I am of the Ted Bundy strutting nature. In this case I would stick around, suss out the situation and deal with it as need arises. After all, I am brighter than all the stupid police and can explain everything away.
2. I am the killer and I am of a more agitated nature. In this case I may stick around because I am too scared of not knowing what the police do and don't know.
3. I am the killer and I know I have somewhere else to go and my abcense won't cause suspicion, I am off!

[Bob Hinton]

Not really.

We seem to be getting a bit tied up with killings after Kelly. As has been proved in modern cases, serial killers can stop killing for lengthy periods of time, I believe in one case 15 years.

Also you are forgetting that there are a myriad of reasons why a serial killer stops killing even if he wants to carry on, the main one being of course he could be dead! There were thousands of ways of dying in London from Typhoid to being run over by a carriage ( in 1892 over 3,500 people were killed in London by being run over, that doesn't include injuries!). He could have left the country, joined the Army or Navy, been murdered and so on.

[Rubyretro]

If he was JTR there would have been more killings after Kelly

The fact that there were no more killings after Kelly rather nails for me the
argument that Hutch WAS JtR !

Imagine -Hutchinson becomes known to the Police as a witness placing himself at MJK's murder scene in extraordinary circumstances. He becomes
'famous' in Whitechapel (and via the papers, further afield to a certain extent) because he is seen marching around with policemen for a few days
trying to spot A Man. He gives interviews to journalists, and I would imagine that everyone in the Victoria Home or his local pubs, would be wanting to hear the details from his own lips. People were probably pointing him out
on the street. Prostitutes were probably gossiping about his story.

He could never risk being spotted anywhere near a Ripper murder site ever again ! He would never get away with inventing another 'innocent' story.
What's more -imagine if he moved elsewhere in the country and there was suddenly a ripper style murder ?

I believe that the JtR murders stopped, because Hutchinson made it impossible for himself to continue.