Joran Van der Hutchinson?

[Fisherman]

Claire:

" still fancy Fleming quite a lot"

In that case we are speaking of truly tall tales, as it stands

... but apart from that, Fleming is a very viable bet as far as I´m concerned. But not masquerading as George Hutchinson ...

The best,
Fisherman

[claire]

Oh, I agree, Fish...but in some ways, it is easier to say, oh, I used to work for a chap over in Romford than it is to prevaricate a workplace in the neighbourhood--but, as you know, I still fancy Fleming quite a lot, so I am very prejudiced in this regard.

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE]

There is also the possibility that, in a moment of rash thinking, he gave an occupation that was distant from his own...the 'ex' is crucial,

He waited a few days before coming forward, so I think that he thought about what he was going to say, before coming forward.

I agree that the 'ex..' is crucial. Groom was a specialised job as well..what could have made him change jobs ? I'd love to know !! Especially with Garry & Corey suggesting in thir profiles of the murderer , that 'he' would typically have begun by cruelty to animals.

Toppy wasn't an 'ex' plumber -he was just starting his long career.

as there would be no current employer to check that with, but if he said something that he might imagine the local coppers to know something about (eg. something in the building trade), they might ask questions...('oh yeah? who did you work for?')

I'm sure the Police did check, and there would have been clerks ledgers and witnesses , even if he was working casually..;he could afford logings, food and 'occasionally slipping Mary money' (according to him).

Following that train of thought, they might seek to ask about and discover that, in fact, they hadn't had anyone called Hutchinson working for them, but a man did match that description who went by the name of....whatever.

.
Well.;for 'speculation' that one is pulled out of a hat !

[Fisherman]

Claire writes:

"There is also the possibility that, in a moment of rash thinking, he gave an occupation that was distant from his own...the 'ex' is crucial, as there would be no current employer to check that with, but if he said something that he might imagine the local coppers to know something about (eg. something in the building trade), they might ask questions...('oh yeah? who did you work for?') Following that train of thought, they might seek to ask about and discover that, in fact, they hadn't had anyone called Hutchinson working for them, but a man did match that description who went by the name of....whatever."

Makes a lot of sense to me, Claire ...
... however, unless he was bold enough to state that all the people he had worked for had emigrated to unknown shores or passed away, mourned by no relatives or friends, ANY information on his behalf would be potentially subjected to a follow-up by the Met:
"U-huh, a groom; and who was your employer ...?"
"So, casual labourer - and you worked latest for...?"

A man leaving no footprints at all on the labourmarket would be a man the police took a VERY big interest in, I should think.

Still, this does not mean that he could not have thought along the lines you suggest out of rash thinking, of course.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Hi Ruby, and welcome back!

"please demolish my 'sketch' of Hutch point by point, and not just chuck it out 'wholesale'."

I do not wish to be rude in any way, Ruby, but I would urge you to ponder what Sarah Lewis said in her official statement to the police, preceding the inquest:

"Between 2 and 3 o'clock this morning I came to stop with the Keylers, at No 2 Miller's Court as I had had a few words with my husband, when I came up the Court there was a man standing over against the lodging house on the opposite side in Dorset Street ["talking to a female" - deleted] but I cannot describe him."

This is what the police had to go by from the outset - a man Lewis could not describe. Therefore, the Met must have reacted with surprise to the fact that Lewis was able to provide the man with a wideawake (not very much of a pointer) and a "not tall" description , hardly laying down much of a rule, and a "stout" addition - which could all be due to a roomy coat, some time later.
You see, Ruby, not only do we lack a description of Hutch - we also lack the same thing about the loiterer to a very large degree, and what little we have was not there from the beginning. Lewis´testimony is important only because she pinpoints a man loitering outside the court, not because it gives us much of an idea what that man looked like. My contention is that anybody ranging from 140 to 175 centimetres and weighing in between 60 and 100 kilograms, roughly, could correspond to this - and that is one hell of a spectre to cover.
Your own assessment of George Hutchinson is a good read, but it remains pure speculation, just as you say yourself.

"I believe that he was crafty and used information that the Police had to support his story"

More of the same, I´m afraid.

"obviously he had seen Lewis"

And again - it is in no way certain that "he" had seen Lewis, at least not if we are speaking of George Hutchinson, the confessed witness. If we are speaking of the loiterer, then yes, he would have seen Lewis in all probability. But to accept that these two men were one and the same is something we cannot allow ourselves to do, however.

"How can you possibly say that 'it never enters the discussion?"

Because it emphatically does not, Ruby. The discussion we are having here rests on my statement that nobody stepped forward to confirm the presence of BS man or Longs man, and still the police bought both their stories. Nothing else.
The Fairclough Street race, if you will, involves two men and two men only, and none of them would have been BS man. Ergo, Schwartz, and Schwartz only spoke of BS. And even if Wolf Vanderlinden is correct in his reasoning, that does not mean that we add another witness who saw Longs man, does it? Ergo, Long and only Long spoke of her Hanbury Street punter.
Point pretty much proven, wouldn´t you say?

"The handwriting similarities could be read either way..since people learned to write in a rigid 'parrot fashion', following fashions of their time, there are big similarities"

Oh, come on, Ruby! The different George Hutchinsons around at that time and stage have been looked at, and they all wrote in wildly different fashions. It is all in the earlier threads on Hutch. The personal traits in handwriting are something that won´t wash off.
You wrote yourself that you were once a convinced Toppyist, more or less. Why was that? Obviously, you once made the decision that the signatures were almost identical.
Then what happened? You came to believe that the circumstances involved would not allow for an identification? But, Ruby, you had already made that identification yourself, had you not? After such a thing, you cannot work "backwards". No matter what you learn, what you think, who influences your thinking und so weiter, the similarities inbetween the signatures will not change one iota - they remain the same, and they force us to ask the very pertinent question:
If the witness was the killer in Dorset Street, how much of a chance is there that he would have used the name "George Hutchinson" if it was not his true identity? It would not have been a spur of the moment thing - the police must have checked his address at the Victoria Home for corroboration.
But let´s say that the name George Hutchinson was just as likely as any other alias, for discussion´s sake.
Next up - if we have a genuine George Hutchinson, whose son confirms that his father had stated that he was the Dorset Street witness - then we must theorize that this genuine George Hutchinson had realized that there was a man who had used the same name as he had, and who had come forward to testify as an important witness in the Ripper case. After that, the genuine George Hutchinson would have taken on the role of the witness, or his son would have come up with a false story along those lines. It´s either or, Ruby. There is NO other way around it, if we don´t want to realize that Toppy was the witness.

Now, such a thing would in itself be a tall tale to top Hutchinsons witness testimony. It would be quite hard to believe.
But that is not all, is it? On top of all this, we have the signatures, where one copies the other, "parrot fashion" as you put it. The two men have similar signatures, more or less! Now, how remarkable is that?

And the reason you offer for this is that the Victorians were all writing in the exact same fashion, more or less!

Well, Ruby, I suggest you turn to the "Hutch in the 1911 census"-thread under suspects, George Hutchinson, page 2 on this site. Then look up post 18, where Sam Flynn lists a number of contemporary Goerge Hutchinsons and provides their signatures – none of which look alike at all! They differ much, in the same fashion as signatures did in the 18:th century, in the 17:th century, in the 16:th ... and today!

After that, I´d be much interested to hear you repeat that argument ...

The best,
Fisherman

[claire]

There is also the possibility that, in a moment of rash thinking, he gave an occupation that was distant from his own...the 'ex' is crucial, as there would be no current employer to check that with, but if he said something that he might imagine the local coppers to know something about (eg. something in the building trade), they might ask questions...('oh yeah? who did you work for?') Following that train of thought, they might seek to ask about and discover that, in fact, they hadn't had anyone called Hutchinson working for them, but a man did match that description who went by the name of....whatever.

I expect to be disregarded. I'm quite enjoying becoming nobody. I hope one day to wake and discover I have just become part of my duvet.

[Rubyretro]

Thing is, Ruby, neither you nor me know if the description DID match Hutch, the reason being that neither you nor me have ever seen any description of him that stretches beyond "military appearance". So let´s not jump to conclusions here

Obviously it's all very sketchy (!) -but none the less I think that we can deduct a few things with near certainty : if Mrs Lewis described the man that she saw loitering as short and stout, then Hutch must have matched the description (even if he HADN'T been the man in Miller's Court, he still must have thought that he matched the description). If he had walked into the Police Station being very tall, or thin and sick, or very different to the description, then I think that the Police would immediately be wary and think that he was a fantasist..at least on a balance of probability, we can take Hutch as being 'short and stout'.

'Stout' we can deduce -also with certainty- is 'muscle bound ' rather than 'fat' or even 'flabby'. You would not describe someone as being 'of military appearance' if they were fat or flabby, just for starters. Next he was working as a labourer, and had apparently humped barrels, and his story about walking back from Romford was accepted -so he must have looked fit and strong. I think that Jack London points out that most of the men employed doing physical work at the time originally came from the country, because generations of East Enders were too slight and undernourished to do undertake hard physical jobs. Also, living in the Victoria Home, I doubt that he had the means to get fat.

So now we have a short muscular chunky young man of approx 28 or 29 (Hutch's given age somewhere).

Then there is the interesting detail of 'Military Appearance'...what would spring to mind for you ? grubby ? slouched unkempt ? dreamy ? languid ? -or smart ? standing up straight ? dapper ? brisk ? fit ? You can disagree with my speculation if you wish, but I do not see how, in any way, the former adjectives could be made to gel with 'military appearance'.

There was another intriguing nuance to 'military appearance' at the time though...I see that soldiers had a terrible reputation for violence and drinking.. I believe that I read (and I will search for the sources if you force me to), that soldiers were un-welcome in alot of establishments, because of a reputation for getting drunk and causing trouble.So 'military appearance' might not be the most flattering description of a man, in this period. It might mean 'hard' and a 'drinker' (and this was a man working as a casual labourer on building sites, moving barrels in a pub, and living in a 'doss house' as a single young man).

Next, we can say a few certain details about Hutch the witness's personality ( which hold true whether he was the man in Miller's Court or not, and whether he was JtR or not) : he liked to be the centre of attention...going far beyond 'helping the Police' for any altruistic reasons, since he gave rather flamboyent descriptions to the Press, which effectively would have alerted a 'real' A Man to make a quick exit. He was also a fluent and articulate story teller -he took the Police in for some days, and he had the Press reporting his stories (and journalists are notorious for being cynical...again, it took them a few days).

Going back to Mike's original Post...watch Van der Sloot in an interview on Youtube, and you can see the similarities clearly..you can also see the similarities with Garry and Corey's 'profiles'.

I know, Fish, that it's easy to dismiss everything that I've said as 'Pure Speculation' -but please demolish my 'sketch' of Hutch point by point, and not just chuck it out 'wholesale'. I maintain that my 'sketch' adds up to a pretty good description of Hutch.

No, Ruby. It would have been much of a clincher. If Lewis was just steps away from Hutch on that night, then the same thing would apply the other way around. I fail to see why the police would shout blue liar if Hutch confirmed this.

Not at all -just like Van der Sloot, I believe that he was crafty and used information that the Police had to support his story; obviously he had seen Lewis, but he didn't waited to see if she testified before coming forward. I'm sure that there were were witnesses who had seen him before -but had never come forward. Or got the description wrong.

"Actually there is an independant witness story that saw two men chasing down the street, which corroborates Schwartz's statement."

Seemingly, yes. But what I said was that nobody but Schwartz swore to BS:s mans existence, and the two runners would have been Schwartz and Pipeman. No BS.
True. Doesn't prove that BS didn't exist though.

"

After reading Wolf Vanderlinden's Dissertation on the subject, he proved to me (anyway), that Mrs Long did not see the killer"

And a very good suggestion on Wolf Vanderlindens behalf that is - but once again, what I said was that the police accepted Longs story in spite of it being non-corroborated, and I´m afraid that stands no matter what you, me or Wolf Vanderlinden think about the inherent veracity of it. It never enters the discussion.

How can you possibly say that 'it never enters the discussion' ? You cast doubt on BS man -but the Police took Schwartz seriously -you can't pick and choose. I've said before -if the Police were so right about all their judgements, then they'd have caught 'Jack'..and we'd not be picking over every aspect of the 'evidence'. As it happens, Vanderlinden bases his arguments on what the witnesses actually stated in 1888 -that is, pure facts- and it was an eye opener to Me(I'd always assumed that there was no doubt that Cadoche had heard noises 'next door' -false !). I'm not going to digress here anyway -suffice to say that, if you take the Doctor as being right, every mystery of the murder in Hanbury melts away.

"Because somebody putting themselves in a position where they might become 'accused' would not lie about facts which have no ostensible bearing on their guilt or otherwise. Why the hell get caught out as a lier on whether you're a plumber or a groom ??"

Ah - progress! Why indeed?

No -I don't think that Hutch would lie on his trade (no reason to)..he was a Groom, and he wasn't a Plumber (by the way, a groom might have a 'military appearance' and horses were a major army resource -a 'Plumber' fits nowhere).

"If we are not annoyed by the fact that Toppys handwriting matches the Dorset Street witnesses ditto, this is a viable suggestion. But to clinch it, we need to ensure that all the people of the Victorian East end who were once apprentices and who followed up on that apprenticeship to once work in the trade they were apprenticed to, always took the straight route and never deviated from it in any fashion, no matter what external pressure was applied, no matter what internal conflicts with family or tradesmen arose, no matter what love affairs, pecuniar difficulties, changed conditions, criminality etc. occured along the way.

The handwriting similarities could be read either way..since people learned to write in a rigid 'parrot fashion', following fashions of their time, there are big similarities -but far from conclusive.

When I was a 'Toppy-ite' I used to make the same argument as you -and indeed, I believe that Toppy did do other things. Still, he was only 22, and it didn't give him enough time to be an apprentice in plumbing ( I can't remember what Garry said -I will check it if you wish -but it took years and money to be qualified. He simply didn't have the time to be 'Hutch').

The example that I've given before is -if I imagine that I followed my Mother into nursing, and took a long time and alot of effort to qualify, and then had a Family row and decided to see 'the Big City'..I certainly might take a cleaning job in a hospital to make ends meet. If I became mixed up in a murder enquiry, I would give my occupation either as 'Nurse', 'currently unemployed Nurse, getting by on odd jobs' or 'Cleaner'..why would I say 'Chef' ? or somesuch ? (bound to be found out as a lie, anyway).

If I was living in digs, ekeing out a precarious living, and cleaning in a Hospital..I'd surely be well placed to know if any nursing jobs came up..and take them. Why an earth wouldn't I, if I was qualified for the job, and it paid better for something less boring and strenuous, not take the nursing job ,?

As a casual labourer, Hutch was in competion from lots of unskilled strong willing workers..desperate to earn a crust.
There were loads of immigrants willing to work for very low wages.

Not so many Victorian young men could have afforded to follow a costly apprenticeship for the required time -being well placed in building jobs to know about any plumbers positions, and being so poor that he lodged in a doss house -why didn't he get any work as a plumber ?

Why would he say he was a groom ?

There are pirouhettes that we can do to bang Toppy (the round peg) into the square Hutch hole..but it is so much simpler just to drop the square peg into the square hole (and the same goes for the Wolf Vanderlinden dissertation, what's more).

[Rubyretro]

Thing is, Ruby, neither you nor me know if the description DID match Hutch, the reason being that neither you nor me have ever seen any description of him that stretches beyond "military appearance". So let´s not jump to conclusions here

Obviously it's all very sketchy (!) -but none the less I think that we can deduct a few things with near certainty : if Mrs Lewis described the man that she saw loitering as short and stout, then Hutch must have matched the description (even if he HADN'T been the man in Miller's Court, he still must have thought that he matched the description). If he had walked into the Police Station being very tall, or thin and sick, or very different to the description, then I think that the Police would immediately be wary and think that he was a fantasist..at least on a balance of probability, we can take Hutch as being 'short and stout'.

'Stout' we can deduce -also with certainty- is 'muscle bound ' rather than 'fat' or even 'flabby'. You would not describe someone as being 'of military appearance' if they were fat or flabby, just for starters. Next he was working as a labourer, and had apparently humped barrels, and his story about walking back from Romford was accepted -so he must have looked fit and strong. I think that Jack London points out that most of the men employed doing physical work at the time originally came from the country, because generations of East Enders were too slight and undernourished to do undertake hard physical jobs. Also, living in the Victoria Home, I doubt that he had the means to get fat.

So now we have a short muscular chunky young man of approx 28 or 29 (Hutch's given age somewhere).

Then there is the interesting detail of 'Military Appearance'...what would spring to mind for you ? grubby ? slouched unkempt ? dreamy ? languid ? -or smart ? standing up straight ? dapper ? brisk ? fit ? You can disagree with my speculation if you wish, but I do not see how, in any way, the former adjectives could be made to gel with 'military appearance'.

There was another intriguing nuance to 'military appearance' at the time though...I see that soldiers had a terrible reputation for violence and drinking.. I believe that I read (and I will search for the sources if you force me to), that soldiers were un-welcome in alot of establishments, because of a reputation for getting drunk and causing trouble.So 'military appearance' might not be the most flattering description of a man, in this period. It might mean 'hard' and a 'drinker' (and this was a man working as a casual labourer on building sites, moving barrels in a pub, and living in a 'doss house' as a single young man).

Next, we can say a few certain details about Hutch the witness's personality ( which hold true whether he was the man in Miller's Court or not, and whether he was JtR or not) : he liked to be the centre of attention...going far beyond 'helping the Police' for any altruistic reasons, since he gave rather flamboyant descriptions to the Press, which effectively would have alerted a 'real' A Man to make a quick exit. He was also a fluent and articulate story teller -he took the Police in for some days, and he had the Press reporting his stories (and journalists are notorious for being cynical...again, it took them a few days).

Going back to Mike's original Post...watch Van der Sloot in an interview on Youtube, and you can see the similarities clearly..you can also see the similarities with Garry and Corey's 'profiles'.

I know, Fish, that it's easy to dismiss everything that I've said as 'Pure Speculation' -but please demolish my 'sketch' of Hutch point by point, and not just chuck it out 'wholesale'. I maintain that my 'sketch' adds up to a pretty good description of Hutch.

No, Ruby. It would have been much of a clincher. If Lewis was just steps away from Hutch on that night, then the same thing would apply the other way around. I fail to see why the police would shout blue liar if Hutch confirmed this.

Not at all -just like Van der Sloot, I believe that he was crafty and used information that the Police had to support his story; obviously he had seen Lewis, but he waited to see if she testified before coming forward. I'm sure that there were were witnesses who had seen him before -but had never come forward. Or got the description wrong.

"Actually there is an independant witness story that saw two men chasing down the street, which corroborates Schwartz's statement."

Seemingly, yes. But what I said was that nobody but Schwartz swore to BS:s mans existence, and the two runners would have been Schwartz and Pipeman. No BS.
True. Doesn't prove that BS didn't exist though.

"

After reading Wolf Vanderlinden's Dissertation on the subject, he proved to me (anyway), that Mrs Long did not see the killer"

And a very good suggestion on Wolf Vanderlindens behalf that is - but once again, what I said was that the police accepted Longs story in spite of it being non-corroborated, and I´m afraid that stands no matter what you, me or Wolf Vanderlinden think about the inherent veracity of it. It never enters the discussion.

How can you possibly say that 'it never enters the discussion' ? You cast doubt on BS man -but the Police took Schwartz seriously -you can't pick and choose. I've said before -if the Police were so right about all their judgements, then they'd have caught 'Jack'..and we'd not be picking over every aspect of the 'evidence'. As it happens, Vanderlinden bases his arguments on what the witnesses actually stated in 1888 -that is, pure facts- and it was an eye opener to Me(I'd always assumed that there was no doubt that Cadoche had heard noises 'next door' -false !). I'm not going to digress here anyway -suffice to say that, if you take the Doctor as being right, every mystery of the murder in Hanbury melts away.

"Because somebody putting themselves in a position where they might become 'accused' would not lie about facts which have no ostensible bearing on their guilt or otherwise. Why the hell get caught out as a lier on whether you're a plumber or a groom ??"

Ah - progress! Why indeed?

No -I don't think that Hutch would lie on his trade (no reason to)..he was a Groom, and he wasn't a Plumber (by the way, a groom might have a 'military appearance' and horses were a major army resource -a 'Plumber' fits nowhere).

"If we are not annoyed by the fact that Toppys handwriting matches the Dorset Street witnesses ditto, this is a viable suggestion. But to clinch it, we need to ensure that all the people of the Victorian East end who were once apprentices and who followed up on that apprenticeship to once work in the trade they were apprenticed to, always took the straight route and never deviated from it in any fashion, no matter what external pressure was applied, no matter what internal conflicts with family or tradesmen arose, no matter what love affairs, pecuniar difficulties, changed conditions, criminality etc. occured along the way.

The handwriting similarities could be read either way..since people learned to write in a rigid 'parrot fashion', following fashions of their time, there are big similarities -but far from conclusive.

When I was a 'Toppy-ite' I used to make the same argument as you -and indeed, I believe that Toppy did do other things. Still, he was only 22, and it didn't give him enough time to be an apprentice in plumbing ( I can't remember what Garry said -I will check it if you wish -but it took years and money to be qualified. He simply didn't have the time to be 'Hutch').

The example that I've given before is -if I imagine that I followed my Mother into nursing, and took a long time and alot of effort to qualify, and then had a Family row and decided to see 'the Big City'..I certainly might take a cleaning job in a hospital to make ends meet. If I became mixed up in a murder enquiry, I would give my occupation either as 'Nurse', 'currently unemployed Nurse, getting by on odd jobs' or 'Cleaner'..why would I say 'Chef' ? or somesuch ? (bound to be found out as a lie, anyway).

If I was living in digs, ekeing out a precarious living, and cleaning in a Hospital..I'd surely be well placed to know if any nursing jobs came up..and take them. Why an earth wouldn't I, if I was qualified for the job, and it paid better for something less boring and strenuous, not take the nursing job ,?
As a casual labourer, Hutch was in competion from lots of unskilled strong willing workers..desperate to earn a crust. He would have been very well placed to find plumbing jobs; so why didn't he take thm ?

There were loads of immigrants willing to work for very low wages.

Not so many Victorian young men could have afforded to follow a costly apprenticeship for the required time -being well placed in building jobs to know about any plumbers positions, and being so poor that he lodged in a doss house -why didn't he get any work as a plumber ?

Why would he say he was a groom ?

There are pirouhettes that we can do to bang Toppy (the round peg) into the square Hutch hole..but it is so much simpler just to drop the square peg into the square hole (and the same goes for the Wolf Vanderlinden dissertation, what's more).

[claire]

Now then Fleetwood, here's a few questions for YOU :
Why do you think that Hutch is surely the 'favourite suspect' of modern times concerning JtR -and the one about whom the most suspect based books have been written ?

If there was "nothing" to connect him to the murders, it makes you wonder why intelligent people would waste time on him..

Could it possibly be that he is the ONLY suspect definitely placed at the 'scene of crime' at the right time..on a dark rainy night, in the early hours of the morning, standing staring at the room of a woman about to be murdered...and that as soon as he becomes part of the investigation, the murders come to an abrupt stop ?

that is unique amongst all the suspects.

.

Ah, the consensus approach...still doesn't mean it's true. Lots of intelligent people, at one point, believed the world was flat. We work with what we have.

As for 'as soon as he becomes part of the investigation, the murders come to an abrupt stop' could equally be said about Lewis, Maxwell, Cox, Prater, Barnett, Mrs Phoenix, Bowyer, McCarthy and a team of others whose names I either don't recall or don't know. It's a meaningless statement.

And, one little thing: he was not seen 'standing staring at the room of a woman about to be murdered.' He was on Dorset-street looking towards Millers-ct. Very different.

[The Good Michael]

Mac,

You misread my posts. I don't agree that Hutchinson is a good suspect. I was only looking at similarities between he and van der Sloot IF Hutchinson was the murderer of Kelly.

Mike

[Rubyretro]

Beyond that......there appears to be nothing connecting Hutchinson to the murders....only his claims of being knocking around outside...even he didn't claim to be the murderer.

So....we have a bloke who at best claims to be loitering.....and thta makes him a worthy suspect?

Now then Fleetwood, here's a few questions for YOU :
Why do you think that Hutch is surely the 'favourite suspect' of modern times concerning JtR -and the one about whom the most suspect based books have been written ?

If there was "nothing" to connect him to the murders, it makes you wonder why intelligent people would waste time on him..

Could it possibly be that he is the ONLY suspect definitely placed at the 'scene of crime' at the right time..on a dark rainy night, in the early hours of the morning, standing staring at the room of a woman about to be murdered...and that as soon as he becomes part of the investigation, the murders come to an abrupt stop ?

that is unique amongst all the suspects.

Garry listed all the points adding to a 'profile' of the killer, and demonstrated ably that Hutch matched all the points. We don't just have to believe Garry though..Corey, who's profile of the killer I agree with (even though Corey arrived at a different suspect than me), has listed points that would also apply to Hutch. Really not very distant from Garry's -but with a different 'label'.

Hutch was a liar (does anyone disagree?), and his statements to Police and Press do not bear scrutiny...yet someone's 'choice' of lies are extremely
revealing..

Surely the 'world was his oyster' when it came to an invented description of
the supposed man that he saw going into MJK's room ? Yet he chose a caricatural rich Jew toff portrait..I think that this does link him to the other murders where the killer would appear to wish to cause trouble for Jews by
making it appear as though a Jew was the culprit.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Mike.....

There was a boatload of people professing to be JTR.

To me....Hutchinson is in that bracket of people coming forward claiming to know something. That really doesn't make him a worthy suspect.

And.....reading Lewis's testimony....nothing interesting in coming forward claiming to be the loitering bloke.

Beyond that......there appears to be nothing connecting Hutchinson to the murders....only his claims of being knocking around outside...even he didn't claim to be the murderer.

So....we have a bloke who at best claims to be loitering.....and thta makes him a worthy suspect?

He's a non starter....unless something else linking him to the murders is discovered......

If you're going to go with Hutchinson....then surely you'd have to consider anyone claiming to see Kelly with a man as a suspect....perhaps Maurice Lewis diverting police attention by virtue of claiming to see her alive after the murder (now there's a theory for yer....and if it turns out to be him then I want me royalties)......

See....the difference is Mike.....there was a raft of willing and able cranks knocking around....hundreds of 'em....but not many convicted of dragging a woman down an alley and stabbing her.....so in the interests of narrowing the field...Hutchinson is in good company....whereas someone like Grainger is among the select few....big difference.....

[Fisherman]

Happens to all of us, Ruby .. well, most of us, anyways. There will be plenty of time to do battle in times to come, I´m sure.

Take care,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Grrrrr..Fish !

I have to go to work in a min, until late tonight..when all I really want to do is
reply to you straight away..

Pistols at dawn !

I'll reply tonight !

Ruby x

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"He came forward to identify himself , after a man matching his description was seen there by an independant witness"

Thing is, Ruby, neither you nor me know if the description DID match Hutch, the reason being that neither you nor me have ever seen any description of him that stretches beyond "military appearance". So let´s not jump to conclusions here.

"Well, it would have been a dead giveaway to his motivation in coming forward, wouldn't it -if he had mentioned Sara Lewis?"

No, Ruby. It would have been much of a clincher. If Lewis was just steps away from Hutch on that night, then the same thing would apply the other way around. I fail to see why the police would shout blue liar if Hutch confirmed this.

"Actually there is an independant witness story that saw two men chasing down the street, which corroborates Schwartz's statement."

Seemingly, yes. But what I said was that nobody but Schwartz swore to BS:s mans existence, and the two runners would have been Schwartz and Pipeman. No BS.

"After reading Wolf Vanderlinden's Dissertation on the subject, he proved to me (anyway), that Mrs Long did not see the killer"

And a very good suggestion on Wolf Vanderlindens behalf that is - but once again, what I said was that the police accepted Longs story in spite of it being non-corroborated, and I´m afraid that stands no matter what you, me or Wolf Vanderlinden think about the inherent veracity of it. It never enters the discussion.

"Because somebody putting themselves in a position where they might become 'accused' would not lie about facts which have no ostensible bearing on their guilt or otherwise. Why the hell get caught out as a lier on whether you're a plumber or a groom ??"

Ah - progress! Why indeed?

"I know that Garry PM'd me with the papers showing that Hutch was listed as 'scholar' and 'apprentice', at the family address, at the dates preceding the killings. Given that he later took over the Family trade (as did Reg , I think), his whole career logically follows."

If we are not annoyed by the fact that Toppys handwriting matches the Dorset Street witnesses ditto, this is a viable suggestion. But to clinch it, we need to ensure that all the people of the Victorian East end who were once apprentices and who followed up on that apprenticeship to once work in the trade they were apprenticed to, always took the straight route and never deviated from it in any fashion, no matter what external pressure was applied, no matter what internal conflicts with family or tradesmen arose, no matter what love affairs, pecuniar difficulties, changed conditions, criminality etc. occured along the way.

If we, on the other hand, keep the door ajar for such things and take into account that The Dorset Street witness and Topping Hutchinson for some reason shared not only their Christian names and surnames, but also their handwriting, then I would ever so humbly suggest that we may need to reevaluate the whole thing.

"just give me all YOUR written evidence to support your argument"

I don´t have to. All the written evidence we could possibly hope or ask for was put to paper 122 years ago.

The best,
Fisherman