Hutchinson reading the Times?

[Ben]

Jon's response (post #43) is so boringly typical of people who don't have the humility to acknowledge that they have just been educated on a subject they are grossly ignorant about. Despite pretty much everyone else having the nous to appreciate that the "criminal mind" has not "evolved" in 125 poxy years, and despite experts in psychology and criminology knowing this full well, Jon sticks his head in the sand and insists he must be right. Because we're all part of this huge conspiracy - Douglas et al included - to make Hutchinson the ripper.

The alternative is to argue that the characteristics of the criminal mind, the choices made, the influence of a changing society, the advances of technology, the progressions of forensic sciences, have had no impact whatsoever on the human brain and its decision making process.

None of that makes the slightest scrap of difference to the basic, fundamental propensity of human beings to come forward and tell lies voluntarily when they think it might advance their cause to do so. The Victorians weren't apes or cavemen, Jon. The human capacity for self-preservation hasn't changed one iota, and nor has the urge to act on it. If anything, modern advances in technology and forensics (and the fact that this trait is well-documented today) ought to act as a deterrent to modern offenders coming forward, and yet we know it doesn't.

The evidence that a 19th century killer had approached the police and posed as a witness to inject himself into the case working along with the police should be easy enough to locate given the extensive records of 19th century criminal cases in England.

Arguments such as these only play into the hands of those devilish "Hutchinsonians". Of course you're not likely to encounter evidence of 19th century killers injecting themselves into their own investigations. For that to happen, the police investigating those cases had to have recognised that one of the seemingly innocent witnesses (or one of the apparently bogus, publicity-seeking ones) was the real killer coming forward under a false guise, and out of self-preservation. But the whole point is that they would not have made this connection because there was no established precedent for such behaviour in an era when policing as an organized body was in its infancy. The reality, therefore, is that many unsolved murders from the 19th century may have been committed by men who came forward as witnesses.

The absence of records from the 19th century is more an indication that the "killer-witnesses" were getting away with it in an unenlightened era, than it is an indication that it didn't happen at all because the "human brain" was less "evolved" back then. If you found me a single instance of a 19th century killer behaving in the way I've described, and were able to demonstrate that Abberline would probably have known about it, I would no longer be justified in arguing that he was oblivious to the very possibility of Hutchinson being the culprit. At the moment, all you're doing is lending support to that argument.

The potential for a witness to waste police time has always been problem for the police. Though the tendency in the 19th century was to seek out a reporter. Publicity was their aim, and the press were always an easy target.

Yes!

Blimey, progress at last.

You are correct. Publicity-seekers have always been a problem for the police. It was well-known behaviour, unlike killers coming forward as witnesses, which according to you was unheard of in the 19th century. Can you now finally, finally, understand that if the police detected problems with Hutchinson's account, they were far more likely to dismiss him as a publicity-seeker (which had "always been a problem for the police") than accuse him of being the real killer? If, not, tough, because that's the corner you've just argued yourself into.

So, if I am being told that Hutchinson conducted himself in the same way as a modern killer is known to have done, then such a claim needs to be supported by sources.

I suggest you read my Casebook Examiner article, in which I expound several cases of serial killers approaching the police under the false guises of witness and informers. I'm not going to reproduce the entire article here at your behest. This thread is supposed to be discussing the contention that Hutchinson read the Times. Toddle off and find a Hutchinson-as-suspect argument if you want to lose another one of those.

[Wickerman]

G'Day Jon

What's your source for

And if it was a tendency then it didn't apply to everybody in all cases.

GUT

The press were known to pay for stories.
The suggestion has been made that Hutchinson sought payment from the police, though why the police need to pay an out of work labourer is not addressed.
Hutchinson was not missing work by helping the police so does not qualify for restitution.

If Hutchinson was looking for a 'shilling'? or so, the press were his best bet.

[caz]

If Hutch is put forward as a suspect, on the basis that a small number of caught offenders in more recent years injected themselves in the investigation, I think it ought to be decided whether the ripper would have done so 'just for jolly' or because he genuinely feared getting buckled if he simply kept his head down.

I'm not sure it can be both, and I'm not sure the latter argument works for the 19th century. If, in the unlucky event that Lewis had seen Hutch again and was certain he was the man she saw loitering, what then? With no cctv, no DNA, no fingerprint evidence, no blood typing, no nothing, apart from notoriously unreliable eye witness accounts, it would be Lewis's unsupported word against Hutch's that he had even been near Miller's Court that night. If he had claimed mistaken identity how the hell could the police have proved otherwise, or had a prayer of actually putting him at the crime scene? Even if they accepted the identification and Hutch admitted to being there, it wouldn't be enough to charge him with anything, since many men must have been near the various crime scenes and not come forward afterwards (eg Pipeman, BS man, Blotchy and scores of others we don't know about), without necessarily being guilty of anything.

There is a case for criminals to come forward in more recent times, because it became much harder to hind behind false identities, and advances in forensics could positively identify them at or near the scene, or with a victim, making it inevitable that they would be sought, found and expected to explain their movements. Not so the ripper back in 1888. What could they do without that little word evidence? No blood stains, no distinguishing features, no stashed innards, no confession, and in Hutch's case (in the gospel according to Ben) no alibis to worry about, because of his status as a lodging house dweller/nocturnal wanderer.

We are left with the 'just for jolly' argument, which would at least make sense of his attention-seeking behaviour in going straight from the cop shop to the papers with his 'likely story'. But that doesn't ring true in other ways, not least because it effectively put paid to his favourite hobby of slicing and dicing unwary unfortunates. We'd have to accept that he was ready to give up the game by that point to try his hand at something new - pulling the Astrakhan wool over the world's eyes, then disappearing from the limelight forever.

For me it's a stretch, but then I haven't invested an enormous amount of time and effort in arguing the (slim) case for the prosecution.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

If Hutch is put forward as a suspect, on the basis that a small number of caught offenders in more recent years injected themselves in the investigation, I think it ought to be decided whether the ripper would have done so 'just for jolly' or because he genuinely feared getting buckled if he simply kept his head down.

I'm not sure it can be both, and I'm not sure the latter argument works for the 19th century. If, in the unlucky event that Lewis had seen Hutch again and was certain he was the man she saw loitering, what then? With no cctv, no DNA, no fingerprint evidence, no blood typing, no nothing, apart from notoriously unreliable eye witness accounts, it would be Lewis's unsupported word against Hutch's that he had even been near Miller's Court that night. If he had claimed mistaken identity how the hell could the police have proved otherwise, or had a prayer of actually putting him at the crime scene? Even if they accepted the identification and Hutch admitted to being there, it wouldn't be enough to charge him with anything, since many men must have been near the various crime scenes and not come forward afterwards (eg Pipeman, BS man, Blotchy and scores of others we don't know about), without necessarily being guilty of anything.

There is a case for criminals to come forward in more recent times, because it became much harder to hind behind false identities, and advances in forensics could positively identify them at or near the scene, or with a victim, making it inevitable that they would be sought, found and expected to explain their movements. Not so the ripper back in 1888. What could they do without that little word evidence? No blood stains, no distinguishing features, no stashed innards, no confession, and in Hutch's case (in the gospel according to Ben) no alibis to worry about, because of his status as a lodging house dweller/nocturnal wanderer.

We are left with the 'just for jolly' argument, which would at least make sense of his attention-seeking behaviour in going straight from the cop shop to the papers with his 'likely story'. But that doesn't ring true in other ways, not least because it effectively put paid to his favourite hobby of slicing and dicing unwary unfortunates. We'd have to accept that he was ready to give up the game by that point to try his hand at something new - pulling the Astrakhan wool over the world's eyes, then disappearing from the limelight forever.

For me it's a stretch, but then I haven't invested an enormous amount of time and effort in arguing the (slim) case for the prosecution.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz
Great post as usual.

Not sure if the two are mutually exclusive, however. In hutchs case (as the ripper), perhaps the communication started as self preservation (throwing the police off with the GsG because he feared being IDed after being seen by witnesses) and then he found he got a thrill from it.

The communications escalted as did the crimes as he found he received increasing thrill by doing "more" and also realizing communicating was working by throwing off the police (self preservation) as a measure againt witness sightings--schwartz, Levy etc. the night of the GsG and Lewis the night of Kelly's murder.

And what ties hutch to both these communications? Both implicate jews.
The only intances in the whole ripper case that evidence directly implicates a jew.

[Wickerman]

The communications escalted as did the crimes as he found he received increasing thrill by doing "more" and also realizing communicating was working by throwing off the police (self preservation) as a measure againt witness sightings--schwartz, Levy etc. the night of the GsG and Lewis the night of Kelly's murder.

Hi Abby.
What makes you think the police were 'thrown off'?

And what ties hutch to both these communications? Both implicate jews.
The only intances in the whole ripper case that evidence directly implicates a jew.

But Hutchinson is not tied to the GSG, in any way.

Hutchinson never claimed to see the killer. In fact he claimed quite the opposite, that the man he saw didn't appear threatening at all.

The police will take a natural interest in locating & speaking with every person who associated with the victim right up to the last few minutes of her life. But it is the press who spun (implicated?), this witness sighting into a murder suspect, not Hutchinson, and not the police.

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

I don’t understand how you can argue that Hutchinson was less likely to come forward when he was more likely to get away with it. The reverse makes considerably better sense. If anything, the presence of DNA, finger-printing, blood typing, CCTV etc in today’s criminal world ought to make it less likely for serial killers to come forward and attempt a ploy that law enforcement are all too familiar with. And yet we find that, surprisingly, none of these factors have proved a deterrent to the modern serial killer. In 1888, however, these obstacles didn’t exist. There was no known precedent for serial killers coming forward as witnesses, and the habits of serial killers in general was a complete unknown. Hence, an 1888 offender was in a far better position to come forward with a fictional, self-serving witness account if he feared being implicated, i.e. by Sarah Lewis who almost certainly saw him that night, and could potentially recognise him again.

“No blood stains, no distinguishing features, no stashed innards, no confession, and in Hutch's case (in the gospel according to Ben) no alibis to worry about, because of his status as a lodging house dweller/nocturnal wanderer.”

In the research and knowledge of the period conducted by Ben, actually, but don’t worry about it. I’m sure we’ve had this discussion a great many times. Yes, I've repeatedly acknowledged that Hutchinson was unlikely to have been sent to the noose in the epically unlikely event that he was suspected of being the ripper, for the reasons you list above (for the full unabridged Gospel, see other threads). But this is based on what we known today – our knowledge and understanding of how the police operated - a knowledge and understanding that Hutchinson couldn’t possibly have had in 1888. He was in no position to know, for instance, that a positive ID from Sarah Lewis would not result in various other witnesses (Lawende, Schwartz, maybe even Ada Wilson?) being called in to look him over. If they all said, yes, that’s the smug, broad-shouldered, not tall but stout, wideawake-wearing bastard alright, he’d be in a lot of trouble, and he had every reason to fear exactly that outcome.

WE, however, know full well that (for whatever reason) the police were not arranging any such line-ups with earlier witnesses whenever a new suspect turned up, at least not at that time. The fact that it never happened to Barnett, for example, is very telling.

So yes, Hutchinson had every reason to fear Lewis’ evidence if he was guilty, and no, it would not have made less sense for a serial killer to come forward in the 19th century. It would have made more.

I share Abby’s confusion as to why you think Hutchinson could only have come forward either out of self-preservation or “just for jolly”, but not both. I’m not sure quite how that one entered the rule book, but I certainly don’t agree, and nor do the experts in this particular field, such as John Douglas. An offender coming forward for the primary purpose of self-preservation may also recognise the added benefit that such a manoeuvre may have on his knowledge of the investigation’s progress, which is obviously handy if his intention is to derail it. The same offender may also derive pleasure and satisfaction from knowing that he is duping his pursuers right under their noses.

I don’t accept for a moment that Hutchinson came forward purely for thrill-seeking reasons, as this would leave the implausible “coincidence” of his coming forward almost immediately after the release of Sarah Lewis’ evidence hanging awkwardly, and without an adequate explanation (of the type that the “self-preservation” angle provides). Not that there is any reason to think that the act of coming forward compelled him to surrender the knife forever. Despite the conclusion of the 1980s “Ripper Project” that serials such as the one Jack was responsible for often terminate because the offender has come into contact with the police, I’m obliged to point out that it is by no means established that Kelly was the last murder. The McKenzie crime, for instance, was committed a stone’s throw away from the Victoria Home (with one of Castle Alley’s side passages leading into a likely rear entrance to that building).

Hi Abby,

I agree that the Jewish angle presents an interesting possibility where Hutchinson is concerned, and is certainly worth exploring. I think some people are very much in denial when they argue that Hutchinson wasn’t trying to infer (or encouraging his “audience” to infer) the murderous responsibility of Astrakhan man, who was surly, Jewish-looking, walked very softly (or sharp?), carried a knife-shaped parcel, and was basically a composite of various bogus (and some legitimate) witness sightings. The only reason Hutchinson claimed to have harboured no suspicions about him is that he needed to justify his loitering presence outside the court without inviting awkward questions as to why he failed to raise the alarm.

But who knows? Maybe the killer wasn’t a local nobody who behaved as known serial killers have behaved, and was instead a flashy, ostentatious, villainous Jewish dandy who swanned in and out of his murder zone (inexplicably unaccosted) with a twirl of his slight/heavy moustache? I know where my money’s not going, given those two options.

All the best,
Ben

[caz]

Hi Caz,

I don’t understand how you can argue that Hutchinson was less likely to come forward when he was more likely to get away with it.

Er, because in 1888 a serial killer was more likely to get away with it regardless than in 1988, with all its advances in linking suspects to scenes of crime. So if the ripper was seen by Lewis (not even with the victim or at the actual crime scene) he was less likely to feel any need to come forward, compared with his modern day counterpart, who, facing inevitable identification and interrogation, might feel compelled to get his story in first and deflect suspicion towards anyone he could claim was also near the scene.

He was in no position to know, for instance, that a positive ID from Sarah Lewis would not result in various other witnesses (Lawende, Schwartz, maybe even Ada Wilson?) being called in to look him over. If they all said, yes, that’s the smug, broad-shouldered, not tall but stout, wideawake-wearing bastard alright, he’d be in a lot of trouble, and he had every reason to fear exactly that outcome.

Yeah, so you've been saying since the dawn of time, Ben. But never once do you acknowledge that he was also in no position to know that his statement would not go down like a cup of cold sick (not least because he would have been painfully aware that he was coming forward very late, considering his 'friend' had been ripped to shreds, and had just avoided the inquest by the skin of his teeth), and that those various other witnesses would not be called in to look him over as a result.

If you are changing your tune and now arguing that Hutch would have been in 'a lot of trouble' had this happened (only if guilty of course), and this was what he was trying to prevent, then he'd also have been acutely aware of the need to give no cause for suspicion. But you usually insist he was unbreakable anyway, in an era when they had to catch a murderer in the act, or with incriminating evidence, or by extracting a credible confession.

I think it's time to come clean and decide whether the ripper had anything to fear from previous witnesses or not. Being seen with previous victims doesn't seem to have put him off murdering them shortly afterwards, and that's assuming he was actually seen at all. Either way it appears out of character suddenly to be spooked into the open and forced to tell a tall tale by some woman who may or may not have seen him hanging around Miller's Court; may or may not see him again; may or may not recognise him as definitely the man she saw; and may or may not report back to the police, who may or may not be able to track him down again with her help. Passing him again in the street at some point and having that light bulb moment would not help, unless she could alert the nearest copper in time to stop and question him. Failing that, she'd have to follow him herself in order to tell the cops later where they could find him.

I share Abby’s confusion as to why you think Hutchinson could only have come forward either out of self-preservation or “just for jolly”, but not both. I’m not sure quite how that one entered the rule book, but I certainly don’t agree, and nor do the experts in this particular field, such as John Douglas.

Only because the self-preservation argument makes little sense to me, and seems out of character with our fearless fiend; our reckless ripper. That only leaves the "just for jolly" argument, which at least might make sense if the latest bloodbath had left him jaded and wanting to leave the stage after making a dramatic personal appearance. Harold Shipman didn't use his own typewriter to forge a victim's will in his favour out of self-preservation or because he needed the money. And he should have been intelligent enough to appreciate it would be his downfall, when the woman's daughter inevitably kicked up a fuss about it. It was more a gesture of defiance ("I can do anything now and nobody can catch me") or a subconscious need to call attention to his incredible killing career ("I'm bored now, nobody has noticed a thing - let's see if this will wake 'em up").

I still think if that was the case with Hutch, he'd have wanted to leave his audience with something more than the image of a discredited witness who had had bugger all to do with the case. But maybe he was content to retire and live out his life without further drama. McKenzie's murder hardly put him back in the spotlight, if that was the aim.

Maybe the killer wasn’t a local nobody who behaved as known serial killers have behaved, and was instead a flashy, ostentatious, villainous Jewish dandy who swanned in and out of his murder zone (inexplicably unaccosted) with a twirl of his slight/heavy moustache?

If you are reduced to entertaining only one or t'other possibility, Ben, and nothing in between, I can see your difficulty in attracting and retaining converts.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

“Er, because in 1888 a serial killer was more likely to get away with it regardless than in 1988, with all its advances in linking suspects to scenes of crime. So if the ripper was seen by Lewis (not even with the victim or at the actual crime scene) he was less likely to feel any need to come forward”

I’m afraid that makes very little sense to me, Caz.

I don’t see how it can be argued that a significantly reduced chance of getting away with coming forward in the modern era (with all its advances in technology, and the fact that such behaviour is very well documented today), increases the likelihood of an offender trying it on. You may as well be arguing that an offender is more likely to come forward as a false witness today despite it being a near-inevitability that they will not pull off the stunt successfully. No, it makes considerably better sense, and on so many levels, for an offender to come forward and pretend to be a witness in an era where such pre-emptive manoeuvres were more likely to work.

It isn’t about a “need” to come forward. Nobody “needs” to come forward at all. The serial killers who have pretended to be witnesses introduced themselves to police despite the existence of other options, such as running away or sitting it out and hoping for the best. It’s not so much that they recognise an inevitability that they will be dragged in as a suspect if they don’t make the first move – they simply fear the possibility of it happening, so they adopt a proactive strategy accordingly. In Hutchinson’s case – assuming he was one such offender – he may have feared the possible implications of what would happen if HE was dragged in as a suspect, i.e. being compared to previous eyewitness sightings.

“But never once do you acknowledge that he was also in no position to know that his statement would not go down like a cup of cold sick”

But the same is true of every single serial killer who injected himself into their investigations. They came forward despite the possibility of their statements going down like a “cup of cold sick”, and indeed, that’s often precisely what happens – with the killer being snared as a consequence. With all due respect here, if you think that’s silly or imprudent or not what you’d do (or whatever), you’ll be better off taking that up with the serial killers themselves. Whether or not you think it’s a laudable strategy for trying to evade capture is irrelevant. All you need to take on board is the fact that it happens. Moreover, unlike his modern-day counterpart, Hutchinson would have known all too well that they police were very unlikely to entertain the idea of the real killer wandering into the police station, and that he had a vastly better than average chance of pulling it off for that reason, if no other. In the event, of course, his evidence DID go down like a cup of cold sick, but this merely led to him being discredited as a publicity-seeking or money-grabbing witness.

Serial killers will also come forward for the sheer thrill of duping law enforcement and being right under their noses. This is often a motivating factor, in addition to self-preservation. You often argue that is has to be one or the other, but you’re very wrong in that regard.

Yes, I have argued, and will continue argue, that Hutchinson would have been largely “unbreakable” in the event that he was suspected, but he certainly wasn’t to know that. He had no way of knowing that the police were not (at that stage at least) recalling witnesses from previous murders to look over brand new suspects. They didn’t with Barnett, at any rate. For all Hutchinson knew, he had every reason to fear that this type of treatment would be meted out to every new suspect, which could well have included him, if he hadn’t come forward voluntarily beforehand under the guise of an innocent and helpful witness.

“Being seen with previous victims doesn't seem to have put him off murdering them shortly afterwards”

And nor was it likely to have done, considering that the previous witness sightings occurred some distance outside his usual stomping ground; by Jewish witnesses from the City or in St. George-in-the-East, or by women who only saw his back. In addition, it was only after the Eddowes murder that it became known (to the paper-reading public, at least) that eyewitness sightings were being supressed. This would obviously have increased the killer’s fear-factor when it came to any subsequent sightings of him by witnesses, especially those that occurred close to home. We have no idea how intent he was on the task of grisly murder when the witnesses saw him, in any case. It was probably a case of: succumb to horrid and overwhelmingly strong temptation now, and deal with the problems later.

“Passing him again in the street at some point and having that light bulb moment would not help, unless she could alert the nearest copper in time to stop and question him.”

Or, if she were so inclined, point at him and shout “there’s the bastard”, alert an angry, twitchy mob and attract the attention of the police that way. Either way, the fact that Hutchinson came forward with his tale as soon as Lewis’ evidence was published tells us – short of the implausible “unrelated coincidence” argument – that he realised he’d been seen and wanted to “explain” his presence there.

“Only because the self-preservation argument makes little sense to me, and seems out of character with our fearless fiend; our reckless ripper.”

I don’t accept that the ripper was any more fearless and reckless than any of the serial killers we know about who have come forward out of self-preservation, and I see the “just for jolly” explanation as a likely additional motivating factor, rather than an alternative one. I quite agree that if he was there purely out of bravado, he wouldn’t have expected or wanted his legacy to be that of a mere discredited witness. It is more likely that he wanted to be remembered as the star witness who saw the real ripper close up, allowing him to get the last laugh for derailing the investigation from right under Abberline’s nose. That’s not how events panned out, of course, but he’d have settled for “discredited witness” over “hanged murderer” any day of the week. McKenzie’s murder may not have put him back on the Spotlight, but it would have given him personal kicks, assuming he was responsible.

“I can see your difficulty in attracting and retaining converts.”

I’m not trying to "convert" anyone to anything. If you’re suggesting that there is a lack of people interested in exploring Hutchinson’s potential guilt as a viable solution, or that there have been supporters of the Hutchinson theory who have since relinquished that support, you’d be wrong on both counts. Hutchinson does pretty well in terms of popular support, by which I don’t mean that supporters of his candidacy are in the majority. There is no such thing as a suspect whose likely guilt is accepted by the majority, and nor will there ever be. But he certainly fares better than most. The screenwriters of the Whitechapel series took to the internet – including, apparently, Casebook - when conducting research from their drama, and ultimately decided that Hutchinson was their suspect of preference. If anyone was in the business of “attracting and retaining converts”, they wouldn’t exactly have a hard time of it where Hutchinson is concerned.

…Which is really why people are better off having “problems” with other suspects, in my view.

All the best,
Ben

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
Is it the reason many are suggesting George Hutchinson, as a suspicious character, or even a killer, simply that after all these years we, cannot discover who the culprit was..and we are clutching at straws..?.
He has to be one of the worst suspects ever, far worse then Barnett, and he more or less has been dropped off the list, and quite rightly.
George Hutchinson was a witness , who came forward of his own accord, and was ''Interrogated'' and taken seriously, it is not certain what his motives were..but good old fashion citizenship should not be discounted.
I am sure the majority of Casebook would agree with this, and not see GH, as the bogey man of Whitechapel.
Lets trace the real killer..even if we are asking the impossible.
Regards Richard.

[Ben]

Is it the reason many are suggesting George Hutchinson, as a suspicious character, or even a killer, simply that after all these years we, cannot discover who the culprit was..and we are clutching at straws..?

No, Nunners, it is not.

It is generally accepted - at least by those with half a clue about serial crime, and this series of crimes in particular - that the perpetrator was, in all probability, an unknown local man. Hutchinson was one such "unknown local man", but what sets him apart from tens of thousands of others fitting that broad description is that he can be convincingly placed loitering outside a crime scene an hour or so before that crime was committed, and it can be further demonstrated that he then lied about his reasons for being there, as other serial killers are proven to have done.

That doesn't make him a dead-cert murderer, but it makes him a reasonable suspect in the minds of those well-versed in criminology, and who aren't irritating keyboard warriors who base their thinking on hours of hours of studied animosity towards other posters, and who don't vie for a ludicrous alternative suspect suspect or suspect type.

You expose an appalling degree of ignorance when you describe Hutchinson as "one of the worst suspects ever". Nobody who is honest with themselves and wishes to be taken seriously thinks any such thing. But then I have to consider the consider the source: you, with your fascinating theory that the number "39" was spookily significant. What was it again? Martha Tabram was 39 and she was stabbed 39 times (scary-darey!), and Annie Chapman was killed on the 8th of September, so..so..yeah, if you add that to Polly Nichols' murder date of 31st August, and sort of add those two dates (31 + 8) you get 39.

Gosh, well, that sort of deductive reasoning pisses all over my suggestion that a local man with connections to a crime scene and possible connections to a victim might have done it.

I'm converted!

Feck me, I now understand how Bob Hinton felt when he had to sort all this nonsense out 10 years ago...

You see, this is the sort of painful stuff that presents itself as an alternative to the tentative proposal that Hutchinson might have been responsible, and then I'm the one who gets accused of "clutching at straws".

You are out of luck with your attempts to undermine this particular person of interest, and I don't take seriously the fact that you prefer Barnett. The latter was, after all, your favourite suspect for a period, and given how unconvincingly you argued your case during that time, it's little wonder that you abandoned ship. Perhaps you noticed the contradiction between your pleading insistence that we take absolutely everything and everyone at face value all the time, and your short-lived theory that Barnett was the killer (and should not, therefore, be taken at face value). That's when you found time away from bringing "Toppy" into every Hutchinson discussion going, regardless of his suitability for the thread in question - which is none at all considering he wasn't the real witness (and I dare someone to pick that fight with me here, just because I mentioned it briefly).

I am sure the majority of Casebook would agree with this

Err..

Good luck with that forlorn hope.

I'm far more sure that the majority think no such thing.

Regardless of how many people accept Hutchinson as a likely murderer, the number of people who accept that he lied are greater than those who believe he told the squeaky-clean accurate truth.

And where's does this silliness that he's been "dropped off the list" originate? Do please show me this "list", and in paper form - my bottom could do with a jolly good wipe.

You're a nice guy, Richard, and I'll probably regret writing this long after the editing facility has expired, but that really was a terribly ill-thought out post you wrote, mate. No offense.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Ben.
My post may well have seemed ''ill thought'' to many people, but as you know I have always stuck to my guns regarding our GH.
I started on Casebook about 16 years ago, and have been a regular over the years.however my posts are now few and far between, because I have become rather bored with the same repetitive posts, which we are all guilty of.
So I will not be posting very often again..but I shall remain a member of Casebook, just in case something more feasible crops up..
Till then ..happy hunting.
Regards Richard.

[Scott Nelson]

...irritating keyboard warriors who base their thinking on hours of hours of studied animosity towards other posters...

Kick his ass Richard. He's just a sniveling little 5-ft 5-in nerd.

[Ben]

Yeah, that's me, Scott - "Titch" they call me.

(Still not quite getting the height-centric theme to your posts).

Richard, I hope you'll continue to post, and by all means stick to your guns, but post #54 seemed badly out of character for you.

[Scott Nelson]

Ben, of course, is really 6 feet, 7 inches tall. That means his head is closer to the clouds than for most of us.

[Abby Normal]

Ben, of course, is really 6 feet, 7 inches tall. That means his head is closer to the clouds than for most of us.

Yeah about as close as Fleming. Not.