The Red Handkerchief...

[caz]

Further to Ben's excellent and informed responses: why, if Hutchinson should have been viewed with obvious suspicion by investigators doubting his story, had no-one expressed the slightest suspicion concerning Hutchinson or his Astrakhan narrative when I began researching him in the 1980s?

Hi Garry,

I think this is a really important question; one which affects both sides of the debate, but one which is never satisfactorily answered by either.

At face value, there appears to be a paradox: those arguing today that looking up 'suspicious' in the dictionary ought to result in a photo of Hutch staring back, are then obliged to argue that he was merely treated as an ineffectual witness back in 1888 and explain why that makes perfect sense.

Others agree there could be several reasonable grounds for suspicion in both his statements and his behaviour, but can't readily see the police being so totally wrongfooted by his voluntary presence that this feature alone would have cancelled out every misgiving they should have had, and stopped them subjecting the man or his statement to further scrutiny - even if, as we are constantly reassured, they came to doubt the truth of his story. If today's suspicions about Hutch are entirely justified, how can an entire lack of suspicion at the time be argued for and justified? But that's what has to happen to keep him in the frame. The very fact that he came forward of his own accord (with this pile of unbelievable rubbish) is meant to have blinded the cops to any possibility that he was there and could have been involved in any capacity, eg protecting the real killer or acting as a lookout.

Clearly, if Hutch had presented at the cop shop with MJK's dripping heart on his sleeve and a maniacal glint in his eye, they wouldn't have been taken in for a tenth of a second by his belated good citizen act. So taking that as the extreme end of appearing 'suspicious', how far along the line to the other extreme - being completely believable - should we be placing him if we want the police to have been a) totally hoodwinked by his 'innocent witness' guise, or b) concerned enough, about this belated tale of a "last man in" after Blotchy, not to take Hutch's word for his own movements and motivations but to check them out?

And if the link between Hutchinson and Sarah Lewis was so obvious, how is it that this connection was seemingly never made by those policemen and journalists engaged on the case at the time?

Again, an important question. But this one in my view has a rather obvious answer. The link could not have been 'so obvious' or it would surely have been made by someone at the time - Sarah Lewis being the first that springs to mind. If she read the report of Hutch's account in the papers she presumably made the connection immediately but never blabbed it abroad or went back to the police to confirm he was indeed the same man she saw loitering. Had she done so, Hutch's real reasons for loitering near the crime scene would have become crucial again, especially if they had doubts about his suspect even existing.

If Lewis read all about it and didn't make the connection, however, just like nobody else seems to have done, then something must have suggested to her that Hutch was not the man she saw.

And that is the problem - those who were there at the time may have known something that we don't, which made Hutch incompatible in some way with Lewis's man. If no link was ever made by anyone, that would best explain why.

But then Hutch - uniquely - is meant to have made the connection and been motivated forward because of it, in which case he would have been expecting Lewis to make the connection once he blabbed to the papers.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Hi Garry,

I think this is a really important question; one which affects both sides of the debate, but one which is never satisfactorily answered by either.

At face value, there appears to be a paradox: those arguing today that looking up 'suspicious' in the dictionary ought to result in a photo of Hutch staring back, are then obliged to argue that he was merely treated as an ineffectual witness back in 1888 and explain why that makes perfect sense.

Others agree there could be several reasonable grounds for suspicion in both his statements and his behaviour, but can't readily see the police being so totally wrongfooted by his voluntary presence that this feature alone would have cancelled out every misgiving they should have had, and stopped them subjecting the man or his statement to further scrutiny - even if, as we are constantly reassured, they came to doubt the truth of his story. If today's suspicions about Hutch are entirely justified, how can an entire lack of suspicion at the time be argued for and justified? But that's what has to happen to keep him in the frame. The very fact that he came forward of his own accord (with this pile of unbelievable rubbish) is meant to have blinded the cops to any possibility that he was there and could have been involved in any capacity, eg protecting the real killer or acting as a lookout.

Clearly, if Hutch had presented at the cop shop with MJK's dripping heart on his sleeve and a maniacal glint in his eye, they wouldn't have been taken in for a tenth of a second by his belated good citizen act. So taking that as the extreme end of appearing 'suspicious', how far along the line to the other extreme - being completely believable - should we be placing him if we want the police to have been a) totally hoodwinked by his 'innocent witness' guise, or b) concerned enough, about this belated tale of a "last man in" after Blotchy, not to take Hutch's word for his own movements and motivations but to check them out?



Again, an important question. But this one in my view has a rather obvious answer. The link could not have been 'so obvious' or it would surely have been made by someone at the time - Sarah Lewis being the first that springs to mind. If she read the report of Hutch's account in the papers she presumably made the connection immediately but never blabbed it abroad or went back to the police to confirm he was indeed the same man she saw loitering. Had she done so, Hutch's real reasons for loitering near the crime scene would have become crucial again, especially if they had doubts about his suspect even existing.

If Lewis read all about it and didn't make the connection, however, just like nobody else seems to have done, then something must have suggested to her that Hutch was not the man she saw.

And that is the problem - those who were there at the time may have known something that we don't, which made Hutch incompatible in some way with Lewis's man. If no link was ever made by anyone, that would best explain why.

But then Hutch - uniquely - is meant to have made the connection and been motivated forward because of it, in which case he would have been expecting Lewis to make the connection once he blabbed to the papers.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi caz

I have often wondered if abberline initially believed hutches account because he just heard about Sarah Lewis waiting man from the inquest and did make the connection, however did not write it down. After all it's a minor detail, what with having just heard (or reheard)about suspects like blotchy, Barnett and bethnel green man from the inquest, and now hearing about another suspect in a-man from hutch, who he naturally would have put in the witness category.After all, all the connection does is confirm that hutch was there and a witness.

After hutches fruitless search with the officers and his subsequent blabbing to the press, abberline may have come to the eventual conclusion that he was just another pseudo witness out looking for a little fame and fortune. I can imagine one of the pcs reporting back to abberline on the results of the search with hutch and saying something along the lines that hutch asked about how much he would be paid etc.

One can hardly blame abberline and the police for never suspecting hutch if this is all they had, even if they did make the hutch-Lewis connection. Why would they?

In hind site with what we know now about serial killers and their propensity to communicate and or insert themselves with the police and the serious implications of stalking behavior we can look back and see that yes, considering all that we know about hutch, he is suspicious.

I find the argument that the police must have suspected him and cleared him or something else exonerated him before even being a suspect somewhat weak to say the least, especially since there is no evidence any of that.

[Fleetwood Mac]

In fact, her lights were out before 1:30, after she arrived home barely able to speak because she was so drunk, and sang to Blotchy Face for over an hour continuously.

I come from a part of the country where people like a beer - a mining village in the North East of England.

Believe me, if Cox walked up behind them and didn't realise she'd had a beer until Kelly turned round, then she wasn't that drunk.

Kelly was probably what we in this country call half-cut. Not drunk.

[GUT]

Unless Cox was half-cut herself.

[caz]

Hi caz

I have often wondered if abberline initially believed hutches account because he just heard about Sarah Lewis waiting man from the inquest and did make the connection, however did not write it down... After all, all the connection does is confirm that hutch was there and a witness.

After hutches fruitless search with the officers and his subsequent blabbing to the press, abberline may have come to the eventual conclusion that he was just another pseudo witness...

Hi Abby,

Yes, I could go along with what you say above, but not what you say next:

One can hardly blame abberline and the police for never suspecting hutch if this is all they had, even if they did make the hutch-Lewis connection. Why would they?

Think about it. If he was supposed to be 'just another pseudo witness', who had NOT seen anyone of that fancy, overworked description with the victim, disappearing together into the court, Abberline was not so daft that he wouldn't want to return to Hutch's stated reason for loitering near the crime scene for a good 45 minutes before allegedly buggering off to walk the streets for the rest of the night. This takes the Packer and Violenia episodes to a whole different level. Packer at least had legitimate reasons for being where he was, and doing what he claimed to be doing - selling grapes. Violenia apparently made his whole story up. A connection made between Lewis and Hutch would have confirmed he was there, but a witness too? A witness to what exactly? That's what the police would have needed to ask, given that Hutch had come forward voluntarily with a supposedly important witness account, that was not an account of anything without the character at the centre of it.

In hind site with what we know now about serial killers and their propensity to communicate and or insert themselves with the police and the serious implications of stalking behavior we can look back and see that yes, considering all that we know about hutch, he is suspicious.

You made a leap there, Abby. You went from the tiny minority of serial killers who are known to have done this to arguing that Hutch acted suspiciously like these examples. All you can really do is speculate that the ripper could have been an early (if not the first) example, and pop Hutch in the frame as the witness who best fits this 'bogus witness' phenomenon. But is he the best fit? At least in Lechmere's case he would have had no choice but to become a bogus witness if he had killed Nichols and not had time to get clean away before Paul saw him hovering near the body.

I see nobody has come back on my observation about Hutch blabbing his story to the papers, knowing that if Sarah Lewis read it she would immediately make the connection if there was one to be made. This tends to fly in the face of the argument (made by Ben if I'm not mistaken) that Hutch did not mention Lewis to the police and hoped they would NOT make the connection, as it might then have become blindingly obvious that he had only come foward as a direct result of Lewis's inquest performance, putting him at the scene.

Lewis could so easily have read Hutch's account and gone skipping back to the police to announce that she had identified her lurker as the man who had come just too late to the party to explain his role under oath, as Lewis herself had done. If Hutch was hoping to avoid this scenario, talking to the papers actively invited it. And of course, we are asked to believe that his account was discredited for precisely those reasons - given too late, and not under oath at the inquest.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

I just cannot for the life of me believe that the police would not keep track of who was there and when as the murder went down. The task the police has from the outset in a murder case, is to piece the different bits together. They listen to all the the witnesses, and they are therefore the central unit who has access to all the material.
Sarah Lewis was considered an important enough witness to make it to the inquest.
George Hutchinson was a stellar witness, at least from the outset, and considered hugely important - he was arguably regarded as the most important witness that surfaced in the Kelly case up til the moment somebody noticed that something was amiss with his testimony.

So letīs do what the police did - letīs piece things together:

Lewis told the police that there was a man outside Crossinghams, who seemingly watched the entrance to Millers court at around 2.30, "as if waiting for someone to come out".
This testimony was judged important by the police. They would have been very keen to find out who the man was, placed directly outside the murder victims room at a remove in time that could well point to the man being the killer.

After that, Hutchinson surfaced and said that at the same time, he was standing in Dorset Street, watching the entrance of Millerīs Court.

There is no record telling us that the connection between these two persons was ever made by either police, public or press.

To us, the connection seems very, very obvious. We spot it immediately.

I would suggest that the police spooted it double quick too, and for the very same reason - it is extremely obvious and stares anybody witn an interest in the case right in the face.

To me, there can only be one reason for the total lack of records of the connection - it was found out very quick that there never was a connection. I also find it incredibly tempting to accept that the sudden lowered interest in Hutchinsonīs testimony is knit to this lack.

We know that Dew says that he would not reflect on Hutchinson as a witness; he instead speaks of him as a man with the best of intentions, but a man that apparently muddled the timings.

We know that there was a sudden loss of faith in Hutchinsonīs testimony being very important.

We know that it was however not abandoned totally - paper reports tell us that the Hutchinson track was followed up on after it was stated in the papers that itīs worth was considered dramatically diminished. The police still looked for Hutchinsonīs man anyway.

If the police had Hutchinson down as a liar and/or an attention seeker - would they waste further time on looking for Astrakhan man or would they drop him? The answer is obvious: They would drop him as quickly as they could.

But they didnīt.

Would Dew call a man that had been exposed as a liar/attention seeker a man with the best of intentions? Or would he instead be damning in his judgment? The answer is equally obvious: He would be damning.

But he wasnīt.

This all leads up to the inescapable conclusion that the police believed in Astrakhan man and kept searching for him, but not in the capacity of potentially being the killer. And this will have owed to Hutchinson having been proven wrong on the dates, I believe.

Dew says as much. And what happened afterwards is totally consistent with such a thing:
Astrakhan man went from being a red-hot bid for the killerīs role to becoming a man that had met Kelly on the night BEFORE she was murdered. And that meant that the police would very much like to see him and ask him about his encounter with Kelly, but they did not for a minute believe that he was involved in the murder. It also meant that the importance of Hutchinsonīs testimony was dramatically decreased, and his story was given very much less interest. It did not, however, mean that the police considered Hutchinson a bad guy - they instead regarded him as an honestly mistaken witness, a man with the best of intentions, as per Dew.

Finally, it of course meant that Abberline et al knew quite well that there could be no connection inbetween Lewisī loiterer and George Hutchinson. Which is why such a thing was never recorded or followed up on.

To boot, we have the fact that Hutchinson never said a word about standing outside Crossinghams - he instead placed himself at the corner of the court.

It all adds up this way - each and every bit and piece. And I like it that way.

The best,
Fisherman

[caz]

Sounds perfectly feasible to me, Fish. I doubt Hutch was able to learn what Lewis had said at the inquest before he went to the police with his own account. But even if he only came forward because he felt obliged to explain what she had seen, he could have been wrong about Lewis seeing him. There must have been plenty of men hanging round that court at night, and if Astrakhan Man had been invited back to Kelly's room the night before her murder, he'd still have been a person of interest, as you say, to be eliminated in case he had come back for seconds on the night that mattered.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby,

Yes, I could go along with what you say above, but not what you say next:



Think about it. If he was supposed to be 'just another pseudo witness', who had NOT seen anyone of that fancy, overworked description with the victim, disappearing together into the court, Abberline was not so daft that he wouldn't want to return to Hutch's stated reason for loitering near the crime scene for a good 45 minutes before allegedly buggering off to walk the streets for the rest of the night. This takes the Packer and Violenia episodes to a whole different level. Packer at least had legitimate reasons for being where he was, and doing what he claimed to be doing - selling grapes. Violenia apparently made his whole story up. A connection made between Lewis and Hutch would have confirmed he was there, but a witness too? A witness to what exactly? That's what the police would have needed to ask, given that Hutch had come forward voluntarily with a supposedly important witness account, that was not an account of anything without the character at the centre of it.



You made a leap there, Abby. You went from the tiny minority of serial killers who are known to have done this to arguing that Hutch acted suspiciously like these examples. All you can really do is speculate that the ripper could have been an early (if not the first) example, and pop Hutch in the frame as the witness who best fits this 'bogus witness' phenomenon. But is he the best fit? At least in Lechmere's case he would have had no choice but to become a bogus witness if he had killed Nichols and not had time to get clean away before Paul saw him hovering near the body.

I see nobody has come back on my observation about Hutch blabbing his story to the papers, knowing that if Sarah Lewis read it she would immediately make the connection if there was one to be made. This tends to fly in the face of the argument (made by Ben if I'm not mistaken) that Hutch did not mention Lewis to the police and hoped they would NOT make the connection, as it might then have become blindingly obvious that he had only come foward as a direct result of Lewis's inquest performance, putting him at the scene.

Lewis could so easily have read Hutch's account and gone skipping back to the police to announce that she had identified her lurker as the man who had come just too late to the party to explain his role under oath, as Lewis herself had done. If Hutch was hoping to avoid this scenario, talking to the papers actively invited it. And of course, we are asked to believe that his account was discredited for precisely those reasons - given too late, and not under oath at the inquest.

Love,

Caz
X

hi Caz
and thanks for the reply.

Think about it. If he was supposed to be 'just another pseudo witness', who had NOT seen anyone of that fancy, overworked description with the victim, disappearing together into the court, Abberline was not so daft that he wouldn't want to return to Hutch's stated reason for loitering near the crime scene for a good 45 minutes before allegedly buggering off to walk the streets for the rest of the night. This takes the Packer and Violenia episodes to a whole different level. Packer at least had legitimate reasons for being where he was, and doing what he claimed to be doing - selling grapes. Violenia apparently made his whole story up. A connection made between Lewis and Hutch would have confirmed he was there, but a witness too? A witness to what exactly? That's what the police would have needed to ask, given that Hutch had come forward voluntarily with a supposedly important witness account, that was not an account of anything without the character at the centre of it.

but so what if abberline came to disbelieve hutchs story? whats he going to do to disprove it? (hutch was probably there, lewis corroborates it). hutch just sticks to his story and there is nothing the police can do. he has nothing to go on to charge him with lying let alone murder. and again I believe his first inclination would be to chalk hutch up as another attention seeking "witness".

You made a leap there, Abby. You went from the tiny minority of serial killers who are known to have done this to arguing that Hutch acted suspiciously like these examples. All you can really do is speculate that the ripper could have been an early (if not the first) example, and pop Hutch in the frame as the witness who best fits this 'bogus witness' phenomenon. But is he the best fit? At least in Lechmere's case he would have had no choice but to become a bogus witness if he had killed Nichols and not had time to get clean away before Paul saw him hovering near the body.

IMHO its not really a leap at all. Serial killers do it, rare or not, and if hutch thought he was spotted by someone who may have known him its actually quite similar to lech. except that lech happened to find the body(quite legitamitely on his way to work) whereas hutch was engaging in stalking behavior.

I see nobody has come back on my observation about Hutch blabbing his story to the papers, knowing that if Sarah Lewis read it she would immediately make the connection if there was one to be made. This tends to fly in the face of the argument (made by Ben if I'm not mistaken) that Hutch did not mention Lewis to the police and hoped they would NOT make the connection, as it might then have become blindingly obvious that he had only come foward as a direct result of Lewis's inquest performance, putting him at the scene.

Lewis could so easily have read Hutch's account and gone skipping back to the police to announce that she had identified her lurker as the man who had come just too late to the party to explain his role under oath, as Lewis herself had done. If Hutch was hoping to avoid this scenario, talking to the papers actively invited it. And of course, we are asked to believe that his account was discredited for precisely those reasons - given too late, and not under oath at the inquest.

I'll come back on it!
I agree!! Eventhough killers have been known to go to not only the police but to the press, I actually find hutch going to the press with his story as a negative for his suspect candidacy. but a plus for him being a just a liar.
I can see him going to the police if he thought he needed to come forward because he thought he needed to explain his presence there and to offer up a bogus suspect to deflect suspicion away from himself (if he was the killer), but going to the press seems a tad too bold and perhaps foolish, possibly opening up a whole other set of problems for him if he was the killer, so I agree with you there.

[Fisherman]

Sounds perfectly feasible to me, Fish. I doubt Hutch was able to learn what Lewis had said at the inquest before he went to the police with his own account. But even if he only came forward because he felt obliged to explain what she had seen, he could have been wrong about Lewis seeing him. There must have been plenty of men hanging round that court at night, and if Astrakhan Man had been invited back to Kelly's room the night before her murder, he'd still have been a person of interest, as you say, to be eliminated in case he had come back for seconds on the night that mattered.

Love,

Caz
X

Thanks, Caz.

The beauty of the irony involved in the suggestion that Hutchinson himself was the only person in Victorian London to make the connection inbetween his own presence in Dorset Street and Lewisīman, is that it is quite apparent that old George would never have needed to go to the police anyway: If they, the public and the press were thick enough to miss out on the connection, they certainly would never be able to add make the intellectual leap that the loiterer could have been the killer. So basically, Hutchinson should never have rocked the boat in the first place ...

But of course, Hutch could not know that he was the only person around with the capacity to make the connection - he would (justifiedly) have banked on at least one person on Mother Earth doing the maths, and that would have worried him enough to send him to the cop shop.

Or so the story goes. Personally, I remain utterly unconvinced.

All the best, Caz!

Fisherman

[DRoy]

Fish,

Great posts Fish! Now that's what I'm talking about!

Cheers
DRoy

[caz]

but so what if abberline came to disbelieve hutchs story? whats he going to do to disprove it? (hutch was probably there, lewis corroborates it). hutch just sticks to his story and there is nothing the police can do. he has nothing to go on to charge him with lying let alone murder. and again I believe his first inclination would be to chalk hutch up as another attention seeking "witness".

Hi Abby,

Surely his first inclination was to identify potential murder suspects, not chalk up men near the scene as mere attention seekers, without even trying to establish why they were actually there and in a position to seek attention afterwards. This is of course in the event that he made the Lewis connection but Hutch's importance as a witness was subsequently downgraded. It's all very well to repeat Ben's assertion that the police could do nothing even if they suspected Hutch was involved in some capacity and had lied to them about who and what he saw that night. But then you'd have to disagree with Ben's other assertion that he'd have been in trouble if they had suspected him and paraded him in front of Lewis and every previous witness. Mind you, this supposes that he was seen by any of the witnesses and knew it. I do find it a stretch that Hutch - our local Gentile everyman - could have been Mrs. Long's Johnny Foreigner; Schwartz's broad-shouldered oaf; Lawende's Jewish sailor type and Lewis's lurker. So maybe you are right - the police couldn't touch him and he knew it. But then why would he have entered the lions' den in the first place if he believed they had no jaws or claws? Back to the bravado excuse then, and the only reason I can see why the killer might have repeated a pack of lies to the papers.

IMHO its not really a leap at all. Serial killers do it, rare or not, and if hutch thought he was spotted by someone who may have known him its actually quite similar to lech. except that lech happened to find the body(quite legitamitely on his way to work) whereas hutch was engaging in stalking behavior.

But the police apparently didn't consider Hutch's behaviour to be that of a stalker, despite his own admission to have waited for 45 minutes to see Kelly's flashily attired pick-up again. If this didn't ring alarm bells when he first said it, I doubt it would have rung them subsequently, or played a part in his supposed discrediting. Either this was reasonably normal behaviour for the time and place (and therefore we are wrong to look at it with 21st century eyes and conclude he was a stalker) or it wasn't normal or reasonable, in which case Abberline would have treated it accordingly during his interrogation.

I see way too many contradictions in the various arguments that make up the case for Hutch's guilt. If one argument holds up, another one falls. And every link in the chain must be solid or the case itself falls apart.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Fish,

Great posts Fish! Now that's what I'm talking about!

Cheers
DRoy

Glad to hear that, DRoy - many, many thanks!

Fisherman

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby,

Surely his first inclination was to identify potential murder suspects, not chalk up men near the scene as mere attention seekers, without even trying to establish why they were actually there and in a position to seek attention afterwards. This is of course in the event that he made the Lewis connection but Hutch's importance as a witness was subsequently downgraded. It's all very well to repeat Ben's assertion that the police could do nothing even if they suspected Hutch was involved in some capacity and had lied to them about who and what he saw that night. But then you'd have to disagree with Ben's other assertion that he'd have been in trouble if they had suspected him and paraded him in front of Lewis and every previous witness. Mind you, this supposes that he was seen by any of the witnesses and knew it. I do find it a stretch that Hutch - our local Gentile everyman - could have been Mrs. Long's Johnny Foreigner; Schwartz's broad-shouldered oaf; Lawende's Jewish sailor type and Lewis's lurker. So maybe you are right - the police couldn't touch him and he knew it. But then why would he have entered the lions' den in the first place if he believed they had no jaws or claws? Back to the bravado excuse then, and the only reason I can see why the killer might have repeated a pack of lies to the papers.



But the police apparently didn't consider Hutch's behaviour to be that of a stalker, despite his own admission to have waited for 45 minutes to see Kelly's flashily attired pick-up again. If this didn't ring alarm bells when he first said it, I doubt it would have rung them subsequently, or played a part in his supposed discrediting. Either this was reasonably normal behaviour for the time and place (and therefore we are wrong to look at it with 21st century eyes and conclude he was a stalker) or it wasn't normal or reasonable, in which case Abberline would have treated it accordingly during his interrogation.

I see way too many contradictions in the various arguments that make up the case for Hutch's guilt. If one argument holds up, another one falls. And every link in the chain must be solid or the case itself falls apart.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz
If abberline came to disbelieve hutchs story and does what you say try to establish why he was there. Hutch would just reiterate his story: I just came back from romford and no where to stay and I ran into Mary. what can he do? say Ok hutch I don't believe you. now what? parade him in front of the witnesses as you say. OK but surely by this point there would be something written down that hutch is a suspect. it never got this far-right?

Now from hutchs point of view (as killer): he finds out someone saw him. maybe they know him. uh-oh. he decides he should come forward as a witness to explain why he was there and provide a bogus suspect. again, how can they prove me wrong? they cant. and perhaps he knows as the killer that none of witnesses can either-they saw someone else or I know did not get a good look at me.

of course its a gamble, but in his mind its the best thing to do.

as for the stalking behavior-they did not see it as suspicious because at that point in police history they don't know of the seriousness of the implications. What we know now-we do and it is.

they never suspected hutch enough to take it to the next level. if he was the killer he fooled them. simple as that.

[Wickerman]

...
I would suggest that the police spooted it double quick too, and for the very same reason - it is extremely obvious and stares anybody witn an interest in the case right in the face.

To me, there can only be one reason for the total lack of records of the connection - it was found out very quick that there never was a connection. I also find it incredibly tempting to accept that the sudden lowered interest in Hutchinsonīs testimony is knit to this lack.

Hi Christer.

We don't have any written records from Scotland Yard about the Hutchinson/Astrachan scenario at all, good or bad.
It isn't just that no record exists concerning the Lewis/Hutchinson connection, there are no records about anything. So isn't it just as likely that the records you seek simply vanished along with all the rest?

It all comes back to that 'also missing' interrogation report of Hutchinson by Abberline. We have no idea what Hutchinson told Abberline, nor what Abberline asked Hutchinson.
The initial voluntary statement that has survived is only the tip of the iceberg, it formed a starting point for the interrogation, heaven only knows what other details surfaced during that face to face meeting.

We can't pass judgement on what we don't know, but 'what is not known' appears to be the main ingredient in the case against Hutchinson.

I think it is (as you say) very obvious that Abberline did see the connection (between the stories of Lewis & Hutchinson), which was one of the reason's he believed Hutchinson in the first place.

[Fisherman]

Wickerman:

Hi Christer.

We don't have any written records from Scotland Yard about the Hutchinson/Astrachan scenario at all, good or bad.
It isn't just that no record exists concerning the Lewis/Hutchinson connection, there are no records about anything. So isn't it just as likely that the records you seek simply vanished along with all the rest?

Official records - yes. But I am speaking of all the recorded material there should have been, meaning that I would have expected the papers to comment on the connection, just as I would expect the men in charge of the case to mention this item in their memoirs. I do not think that such an obvious connection would have been either missed or left uncommented on to the degree we are faced with.

It all comes back to that 'also missing' interrogation report of Hutchinson by Abberline. We have no idea what Hutchinson told Abberline, nor what Abberline asked Hutchinson.
The initial voluntary statement that has survived is only the tip of the iceberg, it formed a starting point for the interrogation, heaven only knows what other details surfaced during that face to face meeting.

Many! No doubt about that. Just like you say, we are deprived of the full meal after having been served that tantalizing appetizer.

We can't pass judgement on what we don't know, but 'what is not known' appears to be the main ingredient in the case against Hutchinson.

Thatīs very, very true. Of course, conjecture will always be used to fill in the gaps. After that, itīs all about the quality of the conjecture.

I think it is (as you say) very obvious that Abberline did see the connection (between the stories of Lewis & Hutchinson), which was one of the reason's he believed Hutchinson in the first place.

... while others think that neither Abberline, nor anybody else at the time, press, public or police, spotted the connection.

Both suggestions are conjecture. And as I say, itīs down to the quality of the conjecture after that ...

All the best, Jon!
Fisherman