Joran Van der Hutchinson?

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

“Moreover, back in 1888, Dew was still a bit of a freshman. He was 25 years old, and not in a commanding position”

He wouldn’t have been as senior as the really senior people, granted, but if there was widespread acceptance or suspicion that Hutchinson may have been the individual observed by Lewis, I consider it highly doubtful that Dew would have been left out of the loop, as we might assume he would have been if he was merely a bobby on beat, for example. Consequently – and accepting that there are several errors in Dew’s account – I consider this a strong indicator that there was no such general acceptance amongst the police. You’re mileage may vary, of course.

I’m not nailing any firm colours to the mast, however. As you know, we’re already discussed the possibility that the Hutchinson-wideawake connection was made, and that Hutchinson was suspected as a consequence. As viable a possibility as this remains, it’s still a bit too “fill-in-the-blanks” for me. A bit too dependent on lots of conclusions drawn and consequent action taken, neither of which we have any evidence for. It’s no more prudent to assume that the police were infallible, dotting every “i” and crossing every “t”, than it is to assume they must have made errors, particularly when we’re dealing with a police force in its infancy.

The argument over whether the police made X or Y connection is ultimately a rather unproductive one. In the absence of any compelling evidence either way, we can only draw our own tentative conclusions. As it stands, and strictly speaking, there is no evidence that the police made the Hutch-wideawake connection and no evidence that such a connection was ever inferred until 100 years after the event.

“On the contrary, in fact, since it relieves us of the problem of having to accept two men standing opposite the court at the approximate same time.”

Surely it compounds the problem?

Surely, in that scenario, we’re compelled to accept that two separate individuals were standing outside the entrance to Miller’s Court at 2:30am on the night in question, both “watching and waiting” for someone? And we’d be wondering why “lean, tall” Hutchinson, on his identical mission to that of Mr. Wideawake, wasn’t observed by Lewis. Unless I’ve misunderstood the suggested scenario, I find this very implausible, and it still stretches that odd coincidence of Hutchinson’s account of his movements just happening to coincide with the behaviour of the wideawake man as reported by Lewis, and that Hutchinson’s decision to come forward with this information just happened to coincide with the release of Lewis’ information.

But if GWTH, was our man who are we to doubt his word, and integreity

Discerning observers, I should hope, Richard.

The crucial point here is that Hutchinson's identity doesn't alter the elements from 1888 that some consider "doubtful". It doesn't change the content of his statement, for example. And Toppy's "character record" comes from his family, and is necessarily biased.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Richard!

You write:

"I find it somewhat perplexing .that so little attention is made to witnesses statements, we are forever doubting the authenticity of the written word , made at the time , and everyone becomes, either a liar, a timewaster, or completely mistaken.
In the case of Dew , we too dispute his accounts, calling it the recollections of a elderly man.
We assume that when refering to a youth , he obviously was confused..."

Nobody would have been more delighted than me if we could always work from the assumption that the witness statements involved in the Ripper case were all correct. But we know for sure that Dew WAS mistaken in a number of instances. When it comes to Thomas Bowyer, we know that he was a pensionist with a history of having served with the army in India. He was allegedly born in Surrey around 1825. That makes him around 63 at the time. We have a contemporary, detailed drawing of him, showing that he looked anything but a young man.
But this is how Dew recalls him:
"I was chatting with Inspector Beck, who was in charge of the station, when a young fellow, his eyes bulging out of his head, came panting into the police station...The youth led us a few yards down Dorset Street from Commercial Street, until we came to a court..."

I think your approach to witness testimony - to believe it until proven wrong - is normally a very wise one, Richard, just as I think that too many theorists have chosen a diametrically opposing approach in many an issue. But when we have ample evidence to disprove the testimony given, then we must accept this. It is not to say that any 75-year old man is a bad witness - it is only to point out that we know for a fact that the 75-year old Walter Dew got a number of things terribly wrong.

The best,
Fisherman

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
I find it somewhat perplexing .that so little attention is made to witnesses statements, we are forever doubting the authenticity of the written word , made at the time , and everyone becomes, either a liar, a timewaster, or completely mistaken.
In the case of Dew , we too dispute his accounts, calling it the recollections of a elderly man.
We assume that when refering to a youth , he obviously was confused, we dispute his account of his time spent at Millers court that morning , even suggesting he wasnt even there.
Dew made it clear that his accounts of 1888 may have been less accurate then he would have liked, but also states that his memory of the morning of the 9th November are 'crystal clear', and will remain with him for ever, as the worst experience of his police service.
Ben,
The identity of George Hutchinson will always be important, albeit mayby not relevant to this thread, I was just suggesting,that if Topping was not our man, and until we trace the real man, as we have no character record to base opinion on , it is free to speculate, all kinds of plots.
But if GWTH, was our man who are we to doubt his word, and integreity, or for that matter the late Reg.
Regards Richard.

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"Walter Dew suggested that Hutchinson may have mistaken the date of the Astrakhan encounter, but how is that suggestion remotely compatible with generalized police awareness that the key particulars of Hutchinson’s alleged movements tied in so amazingly with those of the man Lewis observed? It seems strange for Dew to have omitted the detail that Hutchinson’s date-confusion just happened to tie in with a man who fitted his location, time, and activity on the night of the murder UNLESS the Lewis-Hutchinson connection was never registered."

I think we need to take two things into consideration here, Ben. To begin with, we both know that Walter Dews book came out when he was 75 years old. In it, he turns Thomas Bowyer into a young fellow, he has Diemschitz entering the club crying: "The Ripper! The Ripper!", etcetera.
I think you will agree with me that if we are to sharpen the pictuce of what happened back in 1888, Walter Dew is not neccessarily the best tool for going about it ...
Moreover, back in 1888, Dew was still a bit of a freshman. He was 25 years old, and not in a commanding position. Therefore, we cannot conclude to which extent he knew about the discussions carried on at a higher level. That is to say that even if there was a discussion going on about whether Hutchinson was Lewis´loiterer or not (and frankly, it would be odd in the extreme if there was not), then that discussion need not have been one that Dew actively took part in.

But that is only one of my two points.

The other one would be to point to what Caz said in her post: If the police invested any faith in Lewis description, and if Hutchinson did NOT fit that description at all - if we, for example, have a shortish, compact guy in the wideawake, while Hutchinson was a lean, tall guy - then the police may immediately have opted for a quite logical verdict of identity disproven. And if THAT was the case, then we are dealing with a scenario where we have two different men in Dorset Street on the night in question, one put there by Lewis´testimony and the other by his own admission. And if so, then I see no problem at all with Dew´s suggestion. On the contrary, in fact, since it relieves us of the problem of having to accept two men standing opposite the court at the approximate same time. And if Lewis´man and Hutchinson were clearly not one and the same, and if we opt for believing in BOTH of them, we need an explanation to why Hutchinson did not say tell Abberline that he had shared the doorway with a short, stout fellow in a wideawake.
So, you see, Dew only becomes a problem if we accept that the police believed that Hutchinson must have been the man Lewis saw. And, of course, if we choose to believe overall in what old Walter said in his book - which is riddled with mistakes.

The best,
Fisherman

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Prior to Hutchinson, Caz, Packer was regarded as a witness who interacted with a supposed Ripper victim close in time and space to the site of her murder. Such were the absurdities of Packer’s case-related disclosures that he became discredited. Tellingly, however, he never came under police suspicion

I personally would never assume that someone that the police realized was fibbing to them would not then cross their minds as a possible suspect. He did spend some quality time at the Yard so we are not talking about snap decisions.

But Packer had an immediate and airtight alibi: his wife was in the shop with him when he "sold the grapes".

And obviously at 57 years of age, I think he'd be outside our suspicions as well.

[Ben]

To go over much trodden ground, it all depends who the real GH was

See here again, Richard, no.

Surprisingly little "depends who the real GH was". You'll be amazed at what little relevance the real identity of Hutchinson has to the present discussion.

Common sense points to Topping [ Flak helmet on]

Flak! Flak! Flak! Here I come, raining down with my ferocious (but necessary) FLAK!

You asked for it, Richard.

[Garry Wroe]

Prior to Hutchinson, Caz, Packer was regarded as a witness who interacted with a supposed Ripper victim close in time and space to the site of her murder. Such were the absurdities of Packer’s case-related disclosures that he became discredited. Tellingly, however, he never came under police suspicion.

Earlier still, Violenia claimed to have seen John Pizer threatening to stab Annie Chapman in Hanbury Street during the small hours of Saturday, 8 September. This, of course, placed Violenia himself with a soon to be Ripper victim at a time and venue critical to the subsequent murder. As with Packer, Violenia’s story was disproved. And yet, just like Packer, Violenia never came under police suspicion. Both men were simply considered time-wasters or publicity-seekers and thus undeserving of further time and effort. In short, they were excluded from the investigative equation.

Whilst such an approach might appear to the modern observer to be unprofessional to the point of recklessness, it most certainly prevailed amongst Abberline and his colleagues at the time of the Whitechapel Murders. This being the case, why is it so difficult to believe that Hutchinson was similarly dropped once his Kelly-related claims came to be viewed with ‘reduced importance’?

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

If you don’t see any mileage in the premise that Hutchinson was “madly, deeply, passionately in love with this feckless alcoholic prostitute” you’ll find absolutely no argument from me. This, to my mind, has always been a superfluous component to the argument in favour of Hutchinson’s potential culpability in the ripper crimes. If Hutchinson really did loiter outside Miller’s Court with the intention of dispatching Mary Kelly within an hour, we needn’t assume he did so out of a burning, jealous lust/love for her. Ted Bundy loitered outside the home of his Tallahassee victims and Dennis Rader monitored the home of the Otero family from a discreet vantage point, but neither of these offenders could be accused of harbouring a “passionate love” for their victims.

They simply watched and waited, as I contend the ripper did.

On the other hand, the “hoping for a freebie” explanation is just as problematic, if not more so. Even if we accept that he embarked upon a 13-mile trek from Romford in foul weather conditions in the certainty that his “usual” lodgings would have closed by the time he arrived back in Whitechapel, is it likely that this “hope” would have extended to a 45-minute futile vigil in the cold and rain, followed by more walking around for the remainder of the night once this “hope” was cruelly dashed, never popping back to see if the Astrakhan man had moved on? That’s a bit too much to take on board, especially when we’re also compelled to accept that Hutchinson never saw fit to ‘fess up to this innocent “hoping for a freebie” excuse when communicating with the police.

“or they had reason to doubt he was even there to witness anything at all, and concluded that he was just another publicity-seeking time waster. I am somewhat surprised, however, after all that has been said on this subject, to find you favouring the latter possibility”

If a witness account didn’t smell right, the most immediate and obvious conclusion (by far) to an 1888 police force deluged with money-grabbers and publicity-seekers was that the latest implausible offering clearly belonged to this group, Even if the bogus-seeming witness claimed to have been near the crime scene at the time of the murder, a la Matthew Packer, the knee-jerk reaction was highly unlikely to have been “Ayup, here’s another serial killer pretending to be a witness. That old chestnut!” There was simply no precedent for such behaviour, and the proverbial “chestnut” was brand new, in this case.

There is no evidence that the contemporary police ever made the connection between Hutchinson and Lewis’ loiterer, and indeed no evidence that such a connection was inferred until the 1980s at the earliest.

Walter Dew suggested that Hutchinson may have mistaken the date of the Astrakhan encounter, but how is that suggestion remotely compatible with generalized police awareness that the key particulars of Hutchinson’s alleged movements tied in so amazingly with those of the man Lewis observed? It seems strange for Dew to have omitted the detail that Hutchinson’s date-confusion just happened to tie in with a man who fitted his location, time, and activity on the night of the murder UNLESS the Lewis-Hutchinson connection was never registered. In which case, there’s nothing at all strange about Dew’s comments. Compare the press and police attention given to Astrakhan, Bethnal Weirdo and Blotchy as against the wideawake man, and it isn’t difficult to see why.

All the best,
Ben

[richardnunweek]

Hi Guys,
The beast[ or one of them] has awoken.
To go over much trodden ground, it all depends who the real GH was, if Topping, then I would say he was being honest, at least cooperated with the police to assist.
If a unknown GH [ mayby even a false name] then he could have been anything Casebook wants him to be.
Common sense points to Topping [ Flak helmet on] I still maintain I heard Reg[ or Regs version] on Radio 18 years before 'The Ripper and the Royals' was published, so I have a edge on all of you.....How can I not believe it was GWTH.?
If I am wrong, then I stand to be corrected, and if I am wrong, who was George Hutchinson the witness?
Regards Richard.

[The Good Michael]

Caz,

You have just reawakened the beast!

Good luck.

Mike

[caz]

Blimey, Hutch was a man, standing around for ages in the cold and the wet (if he wasn’t lying about doing so) and, assuming he was Lewis’s lurker, looking like he was waiting for someone. Now we can either imagine that he was hoping for a freebie from a woman he knew, who was back on the game now Joe was gone and the rent arrears were getting silly (while she was still getting silly on the booze), or he was madly, deeply, passionately in love with this feckless alcoholic prostitute and about to rip her up in a rit of fealous jage, remove her heart and presumably pocket the money she had just been paid by whichever satisfied customer had got him so wound up while he had to wait outside for nearly an hour.

I know which one I find the more plausible, but it’s fine to explore possibilities when we know so very little about Hutch and what was making him tick when he told his story.

Hi Ben, All,

This was arguably the one murder, above all the others, that the police wanted to solve, and quickly, and I just don’t believe that Abberline and co would have dropped Hutch and his account like a hot brick without first being satisfied (not merely suspecting) that he had not after all witnessed and described the last man to enter Mary Kelly’s room before she was found carved up.

Ben, I see you have very sensibly narrowed the Lewis sighting down to two possibilities: the police either believed that she had seen Hutch, very close in time and space to this horrific murder (and therefore he had to remain a person of interest, particularly if their doubts concerned his claim to have been waiting for the man he described or for the reason he gave); or they had reason to doubt he was even there to witness anything at all, and concluded that he was just another publicity-seeking time waster.

I am somewhat surprised, however, after all that has been said on this subject, to find you favouring the latter possibility, because IMHO it leaves you with even less chance of pinning the murder(s) on Hutch. How could the police have had doubts about Hutch being Lewis’s lurker if that’s precisely who he was? Do you see the problem here? Why would they have entertained such doubts, never mind gone with them, when this was such an unmissable opportunity to put this individual close to the scene by his own admission, and while they had him in the palm of their hand, and to screw every last detail from him about his business there and who else he saw?

The fact remains that we have a witness statement tying a person that fits Hutch's description to a crime scene at the crucial time. We have a person admitting that he is that suspect, fitting the description, and with spurious story. We then have the spate of murders stopping.

No, there are no definitely ascertained facts here, Rubyretro. Quite apart from the fact that at least two, if not three more East End unfortunates would be murdered by person or persons unknown, and for no obvious motive, over the next two and a quarter years, we now have Ben quite rightly arguing that it’s entirely plausible that the police made no connection at all between Lewis’s full description of her lurker and the man in front of them calling himself Hutchinson and claiming to have been there in the same time frame. The most obvious explanation for this would be that he didn’t fit Lewis’s description, which could only have added to any doubts that he was actually there when he said he was. I can’t see him being dismissed as a ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ merchant if he bore even a passing resemblance to the lurker as described by Lewis - can anyone?

Love,

Caz
X

[ChainzCooper]

Preach it Michael, preach it
Jordan

[claire]

lol, so much for the ceasefire...and so much for this thread staying interesting. Now, I imagine it's back to the wild theories again, and so long to anyone who won't play ball? Pass the (red) hankie, then.

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"I personally relish reading people like Fish ... but I find Ben better informed and more convincing."

I´m sure you do, Ruby!

The best,
Fisherman

[The Good Michael]

Ruby,

Whatever. End of discussion.

Mike