The Red Handkerchief...

[Wickerman]

In addition to which, there is nothing in the police statement to indicate he took a single step into Dorset Street until after the pair entered the court,....

No Ben.
Hutchinson does not say where he was in his police statement.
Even in the press statement Hutchinson does not say where he was when he heard the conversation and saw the red handkerchief.

It is you who prefer him to be observing the red handkerchief from way off up at Commercial St.

This is the same as setting up a straw man argument.
First you claim Hutchinson is too far away to observe what he claims, but rather than decide you have jumped to a wrong conclusion, you prefer to cast Hutchinson as a liar.

It seems quite obvious to me Ben that if the distance from Commercial St. to Millers Court is too far for this observation then clearly Hutchinson was not at that corner when he made this observation - that only stands to reason.

Hutchinson does not say where he was stood to observe what he did. However, from his police statement, coupled with the confirmation of Sarah Lewis, we can quite readily place Hutchinson directly opposite Millers Court on the south side, close enough to see and hear what he claimed.
Therefore, if he did stand momentarily on the corner of Dorset & Commercial St., as he claimed to the press, then it was for a brief moment, because Sarah Lewis placed him directly across from her while she also observed the same couple that Hutchinson was watching.

Woah there, either you're listening to the main press versions of Hutchinson's statement or you're rejecting them. It's all a bit picky-choosy at the moment.

Correct. It is far more arduous to analyze press articles than to throw them out for the sake of one or two errors.
We don't throw anything out Ben.

What we do is weigh what is written and judge the contents on a case by case basis. Rarely is an article totally wrong in every instance, for the most part we find correct & incorrect statements mixed together, so yes we have to be picky.

What should be outstandingly obvious is that if you really think Hutchinson was claiming to see the red handkerchief from Commercial St. based on his press statement, then why would Abberline not object to this 'unlikely' sighting?
Abberline's conclusion that Hutchinson was truthful surely would not include this long distance observation which you interpret.
So, there must be something amiss.

Either, it was possible to see & hear what he claimed from that point.
Or, he was not at that point when he saw & heard what he claimed.

And as Hutchinson does not say precisely where he was standing at that time, then it is perhaps the second choice above that is preferable.

[Ben]

Hi Richard,

I think its a fair possibility that our George was hanging around for the man to leave, not for any assault on the guy, but to call on Mary to seek refuge until his lodgings opened at 6,am

I'd be interested to see your source for the claim that the Victoria Home opened at 6.00am - to those not already in a possession of a weekly or daily ticket, of course. If he had one, he certainly didn't need to wait until 6.00am as pass-holders could gain access at any hour of the night. The assumption, therefore, must be that he didn't have one, which means he walked all the way back from Romford - some 13 miles - in nasty weather conditions, in the small hours of the morning, and with the certainty that his lodgings would deny him entry when he got back.

In order for Topping to have lied , and transform himself into someone involved in the case, he would have had to have been familiar with that person, and familiarize himself with the little known 'payment' allegedly given to the witness.

No he would not have done, Richard.

Toppy needn't have lied about about anything. His son, Reginald, only needed to have been told about Hutchinson by imprudent researchers who knocked on his door after blitz-phonecalling people with the last name "Hutchinson" living in the east end, and then worked a bogus story around what he learned in 1993, not 1888. No evidence that Toppy, who died in 1938, had anything to do with it.

That was absolutely all the ingredients required for a Toppy hoax. No prior knowledge of a payment (because there wasn't one), and no prior knowledge of Hutchinson's statement until Gorman Sickert and Fairclough showed it to him.

The fact that he shat out a brand new piece of nonsense about a bogus, impossible payment does not "coincide" with anything. He didn't have to "familiarise" himself with any report or gossip from 1888. Stories involving informants are popularly and historically linked to pay-offs, and despite the hilarious unlikelihood of it happening in this case, it was an easy and predictable story for a liar to weave into Hutchinson episode. Reg also speculated that Toppy was paid hush money in order to conceal his knowledge of Lord Randolph Churchill's involvement, which, much like the "pay-off" nonsense, played right into the imagination - and subsequently, the book - of the conspiracy theorists. The fact that one other deeply obscure and provably false paper also decided to to invoke the same "informant = cash payment" connection does not an "interesting coincidence" make.

In the absence of any trace of this 1970s broadcast (and frankly, if it existed, it would have been found by now), that too is inadmissible as evidence.

There is no evidence that Toppy ever "admitted" to being the witness from the Kelly investigation. His name appeared in a Royal conspiracy book, where he was accused of directly implicating Lord Randolph Churchill in the Kelly murder. That book was laughed out of town years ago, and discredited by its own author. Toppy is simply one of the many bogus components to that bogus theory, and is only revived today by those seeking, very unsuccessfully, to undermine the credibility of Hutchinson as a suspect.

But there is where we leave Toppy alone and get right back on topic.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Don't these Hutchinson debates become sprawling and repetitive.

Hutchinson does not say where he was in his police statement.
Even in the press statement Hutchinson does not say where he was when he heard the conversation and saw the red handkerchief.

Yes, he does, Jon.

He said he stood at the corner of Dorset Street, i.e. effectively still on Commercial Street. I'm afraid that on this point you're very much up against it either way, if your intention is cast Hutchinson in the role of a squeaky-clean honest-to-goodness witness. If you choose to accept the press account, and with it the only location we have for Hutchinson at the time of the alleged hanky-panky, you're stuck with the near impossibility of him being able to discern conversation and small coloured objects from that distance. On the other hand, if you wish to advance the baseless idea that he was a lot closer to the couple at that time, you lose the distance problem, but you're left having to explain Astrakah/Kelly's failure to notice Hutchinson at such close quarters and query his behaviour.

If you accept, as the police in 1888 did, that Hutchinson lied and was accordingly discredited, both of those problems disappear.

It seems quite obvious to me Ben that if the distance from Commercial St. to Millers Court is too far for this observation then clearly Hutchinson was not at that corner when he made this observation - that only stands to reason.

No it doesn't.

Because all you're doing is fiddling with Hutchinson's account, making it say what you want it to say, in order to make it more plausible. You may as well argue that "if the distance (..) was too great" for Hutchinson to have observed a flying pig in the sky, it "only stands to reason" that he was using exceptionally strong binoculars.

However, from his police statement, coupled with the confirmation of Sarah Lewis, we can quite readily place Hutchinson directly opposite Millers Court on the south side, close enough to see and hear what he claimed.

No.

No.

We can't "readily" place him there because there is not the slightest scrap of evidence from either his press or police account to put him there when Astrakhan and Kelly were allegedly outside the court, and it's impossible to accept that they didn't notice him had he been there. If Sarah Lewis confirmed any aspect of Hutchinson's account, it was when he was standing outside Crossingham's lodging house as 2:30am, just as a couple passed along Dorset Street towards its western end, when there was nobody in the court, nobody "passing up" the court, and nobody preparing to "pass up" the court.

It is far more arduous to analyze press articles than to throw them out for the sake of one or two errors.

But they're only errors (and the rest wholly accurate, apparently?!) according to you. But then you are advancing an extremely controversial, never-before-suggested sequence of events for Kelly's murder - far more controversial than the suggestion that a man behaving suspiciously at the scene (and then lying about it) might have been the killer. Nobody but you claims that Hutchinson supports Lewis to the extent that you do. I'm not having a dig here, you're entitled to believe what you want, but your decision to endorse Hutchinson's press account as accurate while dismissing as "errors" the bits that don't help his credibility and don't work well with Lewis, is a flawed approach. If his account was genuine, it shouldn't need as much "help" as you're giving it.

What should be outstandingly obvious is that if you really think Hutchinson was claiming to see the red handkerchief from Commercial St. based on his press statement, then why would Abberline not object to this 'unlikely' sighting?

He did.

That's the whole point.

The discrediting of his account coincided completely with the publication of his contradictory, heavily embellished press disclosures, suggesting very strongly that they played a major role in Hutchinson's disappearance without trace shortly thereafter. Mysterious non-existent Sunday policeman, implausible distances for seeing non-existent hankies, and a whole load more accessories to adorn the Astrakhan man may all have contributed in this regard.

The footpath alone is about 4-5 feet, the road, something between 12-15 feet across, in total merely from the photo alone we can see from building to building across the street, is in the order of 25-30 feet.

Ermm...no.

The average height of a woman in Victorian times was between 5 and 5 1/2 feet, and you only need to look at the woman on the extreme near left of the photo to appreciate that a lot of her would hang off the pavement if she lay horizontally on the street with her feet against the building. So the pavements were four feet at most, and that's being generous. Excluding the pavements, the road is certainly no wider that 12 feet, as can be judged from the man in the street at the centre of the photo. So feck knows where you're getting 30 feet from. And how are you excepting them to use the absolute full building-to-building distance (i.e. encompassing the full widths of the street and the pavements) anyway? Did all parties flatten themselves, pancake-like, to the walls?

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Gareth,

The fact that Sarah Lewis described Wideawake Man as located opposite the Court would seem to contradict this notion.

I meant "meaningless" in terms of being able to root someone to a particular location for any length of time and assume they must have stayed there, fixed to the ground, for the duration of their vigil, as opposed to accepting that they probably moved about a bit, especially if it was chilly.

Hutchinson might well have made an initial beeline for the court entrance, but then shifted about the general area, including the area in front of Crossingham's - a mere hatchback's length away.

Good to see you back here!

All the best,
Ben

[richardnunweek]

Hi Ben,
We can repeat our arguments till doomsday, and get nowhere, and I have to admit I am fighting a losing battle , not only with you, but most of Casebook.
I guess its a case of my personal knowledge over a radio broadcast, v everyone else who never shared that experience.
I agree even if a tape did turn up, people would say it was invented by a enterprising producer, and that tale was carried forward many years and reproduced in The Ripper and the Royals in 1992.
I personally do not feel that Reg Hutchinson , and his younger brother , would tell lies concerning their long dead father, by saying they actually remembered the tale coming from his own lips, unless it did so.
Which would of course lead us back to all my [ Albeit] repetitive points, which I consider relevant.
I have been on Casebook long enough to realize my view will never be accepted, and it goes without saying I may be entirely wrong, but I can only state I am of sound mind, and although memory fades , in some cases never, and that broadcast happened .''It was my fathers greatest regret, that despite his efforts , nothing came of it'... words from that audio tape, allegedly spoken, either by the son of the witness, or someone quoting his words.
Its amazing how those words ,and the other quotation [ apparently from Mrs Maxwell] ''Her eyes looked queer, like suffering from a heavy cold'' have not been heard by any others on this site...
I guess it shows, how long yours truly has been involved with this subject...
Regards Richard.

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
Just to make it clear , that Maxwell quote, was in printed form not audio..
Richard.

[Varqm]

THE most plausible explanation for George Hutchinsons statement is between the lines....not 3, but 4 whole days before coming forward, only doing so after all the courtyard witnesses had been at the Inquest and it was over, and the story that was circulating about the witness who saw the wideawake hat man loitering and watching...he came forward only because he learned that he had been seen there by Sarah Lewis.

Whether he made up why he was there is up to you, or whether parts or the entirety of his story were concocted as well. But it seems that the most logical answer to his statement on Monday night was in some respects self preservation.

Cheers

Just thoughts on this.

1) No reports,as has been stated years ago, of any neighbour/friend/acquaintance saying they've seen
or Hutchinson is a friend of Kelly. My assumption is sensationalist newspaper would have look for more
info on this Hutchinson guy who suddenly came out with new info.

If they don't know him why would he care if Sarah Lewis has seen him.

2) The ripper might have been seen with Eddowes and Chapman before their murders ( at least to me in regards
to Lawende and Sarah Long) and he might not have cared being seen before he murdered.

3) The hysteria of that time was such that many witnesses came up with bogus info on the Stride and Chapman's
case for ex., a couple I think even came forward saying they were the ripper.
If all lying witnesses were there for self preservation, following your thought process, then almost all of them
are/were suspects.

4) You can't go to jail for making bogus claims in an investigation/inquiry at that time like what Hutchinson did.

It would have been great if we know what further investigations/inquiry they did on Hutchinson.

All in all when I weigh things it's hard to suspect Hutchinson for any crime. It's just probably the man loitering at 2:30 AM gives an impression of a tricky guy.

[Garry Wroe]

If they don't know him why would he care if Sarah Lewis has seen him.

Both Hutchinson and Lewis lived locally. It is entirely possible, therefore, that Hutchinson recognized Lewis on the night of the murder and feared that she might have recognized him when it finally dawned on him that she had become a police witness. This would explain the three-day delay in Hutchinson's coming forward, the sheer implausibility of the Astrakhan story as divulged to Abberline, and why Hutchinson made no mention of having seen Lewis during his Dorset Street vigil.

[Sally]

Dorset Street.

Fiona Rule says that Dorset Street was 24' wide - not sure what her reference is. White's Row, built at the same time (and by the same builders, I think) was 24' wide; so it's possible.

While we're at it, I've seen it suggested recently that Dorset Street wasn't really that bad - was quite nice, actually. Happily, contemporary sources tell us otherwise.

http://booth.lse.ac.uk/notebooks/b351/jpg/103.html

Black on the map, black on the ground.

[Ben]

Many thanks for posting that, Sally. Most interesting!

Hi Varqm,

The ripper might have been seen with Eddowes and Chapman before their murders ( at least to me in regards
to Lawende and Sarah Long) and he might not have cared being seen before he murdered.

I think he was probably less concerned, as opposed to entirely careless, and if he was Hutchinson, it probably owed to the fact that Long only glimpsed a rear view, while Dalston-based Lawende's sighting occurred in the City. Since the latter witness lived so far away, and the sighting occurred outside of Hutchinson's stomping ground, there was a reduced chance of a subsequent encounter on the streets. Not so with Sarah Lews, who, as Garry points out, lived in the same neighbourhood as Hutchinson.

If all lying witnesses were there for self preservation, following your thought process, then almost all of them
are/were suspects.

I can't speak for Michael here, but I suggest the exact opposite occurred; that because the vast majority of lying witnesses were not there for self-preservation, but were instead seeking money or publicity, it is understandable that the should have police lumped him in that category, overlooking the possibility of "self-preservation" in the process. The crucial difference, however, between Hutchinson and the average two-a-penny fame-seeker is that he was almost certainly observed loitering near a crime scene shortly before that crime was committed.

All in all when I weigh things it's hard to suspect Hutchinson for any crime

Well, considering his behaviour in the context of other serial killers, it's far more of a struggle to convincingly rule him out, in my view.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

I personally do not feel that Reg Hutchinson , and his younger brother , would tell lies concerning their long dead father, by saying they actually remembered the tale coming from his own lips, unless it did so.

I'm afraid I do, Richard, and more importantly, the majority of serious researchers who were active and writing books at the time of the R&R publication were aware of Reginald Hutchinson, but chose not to feature him in their publications because they distrusted his claim to have been the son of the real George Hutchinson.

And I'm afraid I've seen no evidence of any similar claim from Reg's younger brother.

All the best,
Ben

[Varqm]

Thank you guys for the reply.

Again you can't go to jail for making bogus claims in an investigation at that time so it was a free for all,
or the sky was the limit.

We'll we have to weigh the possiblity of the police asking Sarah Lewis if the man she'd seen was Hutchinson.
Or that she knew him.To me they would have. Common sense, Simple detective work. What came of it we do not know. Hutchinson dismissed as a witness was telling. Added to that no reports of anybody saying Hutchinson was a friend or an acquaintance of Kelly. If she knew Hutchinson and/or recognize him as the man at 2:30 AM he would have been a major witness.

Hanbury Street was as much his stomping ground as Dorset. Both were near and near the market.I grew up in a ghetto-like neighborhood near a market with many alleys and byways.Lots of people come and go.I did not know the majority of the people even across the street in those alleys . I lived there
for years. The weight goes to, that they did not know each other and Hutchinson would have not cared.


If all lying witnesses were there for self preservation, following your thought process, then almost all of them are/were suspects.
The weight goes to they were just that, liers. The other possibility,for self-preservation is small,if only because of historical precedence.

[Varqm]

Also what's the main difference between Hutchinson and other bogus witnesses?

[Sam Flynn]

[Toppy] appeared in a Royal conspiracy book, where he was accused of directly implicating Lord Randolph Churchill in the Kelly murder. That book was laughed out of town years ago, and discredited by its own author.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, Ben. Just because the Bible makes up a great deal about King Herod, it doesn't mean that ALL it says about Herod should be dismissed out of hand.

[Ben]

Hi Varqm,

Again, I'm well aware that "you can't go to jail for making bogus claims in an investigation at that time". Whatever else Hutchinson might have been guilty of, he was at the very least suspected of "making bogus claims", and no, he didn't go to jail for it. Like Packer and Violenia before him, the indications are that he was simply discredited as a bogus witness - one who was probably after money and/or publicity, and who wasn't even there when he claimed to be. In other words, the possibility that he lied in order to conceal his true reasons for being at a crime scene was never considered.

For instance, there is no evidence that any connection was made to Lewis' description of the loitering wideawake-wearing man. Had one been inferred, the press would certainly have made reference to it, especially when Hutchinson's account was initially (and enthusiastically) reported in the press. We shouldn't be terribly surprised about that - the police were deluged with other aspects of the investigation, and there is no evidence that any latter-day student of the case suggested a wideawake-Lewis connection until the 1990s.

Hanbury Street was as much his stomping ground as Dorset. Both were near and near the market.

Yes, but there was a comparatively minimal risk in the Hanbury Street case, owing to the fact that Elizabeth Long only gained a rear view of the suspect. Not so with Lewis, who not only registered his face, but his apparent fixation with the entrance to Miller's Court, where Kelly would be murdered an hour or so later.

If all lying witnesses were there for self preservation, following your thought process, then almost all of them are/were suspects.

But I'm saying the exact opposite.

I'm saying that most lying witnesses do not come forward for self-preservation. I'm arguing that because the majority of bogus witnesses come forward in pursuit of temporary fame or money, the police may have mistakenly concluded that Hutchinson was simply another one of these, thus overlooking the important consideration that he may have come forward after realising he'd been spotted outside Miller's Court.

Also what's the main difference between Hutchinson and other bogus witnesses?

The fact that there is no evidence to indicate that any of the others were seen by independent witnesses at or near a crime scene scene at a time relevant to the murder.

All the best,
Ben