Joran Van der Hutchinson?

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"There's "lousy" time memory and there's implausibly catastrophic time memory, and if Hutchinson confused the date of the encounter, he would fall into the latter category, in my view."

Maybe so, Ben. I just wanted to point out that you and Abby were comparing apples to pears.

The best,
Fisherman

[The Good Michael]

Ruby,

I just got back from Kyrgyzstan yesterday where I walked around the city of Bishkek for 5 days or so, averaging about 18km of walking each day to various parts of the city. I am neither 22, nor am I a laborer or the son of a plumber. If I can walk that much, George could have skipped it.

Cheers,

Mike

[Ben]

Hi Fish,

There's "lousy" time memory and there's implausibly catastrophic time memory, and if Hutchinson confused the date of the encounter, he would fall into the latter category, in my view. But as my last post explained, this is the least of my concerns with the "different day" hypothessis.

Best regards,
Ben

[Rubyretro]

Walking back from Romford would be a pretty good hike...I can't see that it would slip his mind what day he did it on.

Besides which, Ben has already pointed out the 'amazing coincidence' of Mrs Lewis's 'watcher' doing the same thing as Hutch, at the same time, ...but on a different day !

[Fisherman]

Ben and Abby!

You both say that a man with an exceptional memory for details would not forget about dates. But that is confusing two sorts of memorizing - sequential and detailing - with each other. People with an eminent memory for details may weall have a lousy time memory, and vice versa. They are different things altogether.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"Please don't tell Caz..."

Deal, Ben - but you owe me one...!

The best,
Fisherman

[Garry Wroe]

Garry,

Cut the crap. We've gone over the plumber thing ad nauseum. You are full of BS. It gets sickening to have to read that kind of dig at someone.
Fisherman has been nothing but sensible, and when he gives a suggestion, you throw the plumber nonsense in. Grow up.

Mike

Hysterical Neurosis: Neurotic disorder characterized by violent emotional outbreaks and disturbances of sensory and motor functions.

Enough said.

[Rubyretro]

The important point to me,is that almost universally,Hutchinson is being viewed as a person who told lies.We just can't agree on the lies.I believe he told three truths,the first of being a resident of the Victoria Home,of being outside Crossingham's at about 2.30am the morning Kelly was killed,and of being an aquaintance of Kelly.

I'm with you Harry

[harry]

The important point to me,is that almost universally,Hutchinson is being viewed as a person who told lies.We just can't agree on the lies.I believe he told three truths,the first of being a resident of the Victoria Home,of being outside Crossingham's at about 2.30am the morning Kelly was killed,and of being an aquaintance of Kelly.

[Ben]

You would go and quote a sentence I completely bollocksed up, Fish.

I meant:

"It is incredibly unlikely that Hutchinson and wideawake were not the same individual"

Please don't tell Caz...

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"It is incredibly unlikely that Hutchinson was wideawake were not the same individual. "

It´s Freud, Ben, I´m telling you - them eight first words say it all ...

Garry, I´ll take Mikes advice and stay away from the plumbing business for now. But there is more to come in the near future. Stay tuned ...

The best,

Fisherman

[Ben]

Hi Fish,

Therefore, we do not know how long he stayed in place, nor do we know how "sinister" his "surveillance" should be regarded. Some or much of the tantalizing factor in it could owe to Lewis embellishing, since she full well knew what had happened to Kelly.

It’s worth remembering, though, that Lewis was far more preoccupied with the other man in her account – the man with the black bag – than she was with the wideawake loiterer, and as such, it doesn’t seem likely that she ever intended to place an unduly “sinister” slant on his movements and behaviour. She simply referred to his location and behaviour without adding any leading adjectives (such as “surly”!) as we might assume she would if her intention was to shift suspicion onto this individual. Instead, she clearly prioritizes the man with the back bag in the "suspicion" stakes.

To all,

It is incredibly unlikely that Hutchinson was wideawake were not the same individual. To suggest otherwise is to accept the extraordinary, inexplicable coincidence of two individuals standing in an exposed location in very poor weather conditions at 2:30am on the morning of Kelly’s murder, engaging in ostensibly the same activity of watching and waiting for someone. Even if we accept the vastly implausible “different day” hypothesis, the coincidence is still a stretch, given that the timing, location, and nature of the activity all remain the same in the two accounts. As Fisherman has already pointed out, Dew’s memoirs are littered with errors, and he was the only person to have offered the personal opinion that Hutchinson had confused the day of the encounter. And that’s all it was - a personal opinion, certainly not something that the police as a collective had come to believe, let alone prove.

It's also seems very likely to me, given Hutchinson's appearance at the police station so soon after the termination of the inquest, that it was Sarah Lewis' evidence that spurred him into action. The implication being that he recognised himself in her account and wanted to vindicate his presence near a crime with a superficially "innocent" explanation in order to pre-empt the possibility of being asked awkard questions before he had done so. Or else we accept another interesting, random "coincidence" of timing.

I agree with Abby Normal’s observation that a man with such an incredible eye for detail (oh, boy!) was very unlikely to confuse the ever so slightly significant detail that was the date of the encounter. And just what are the odds that his “date confusion” just happened to have resulted in him unwittingly placing himself the shoes of another person who was also standing outside the court entrance at 2:30 in the morning, and who was also seen to be “watching and waiting” for someone? In other words, on the day Hutchinson only thought he was doing all this, somebody actually was?

No. I'm afraid I can't possibly go with this as a credible explanation.

Without wishing to cause any offence or antagonism, it seems that one or two posters here are latching onto hard and fast conclusions, nailing colours firmly to masts and relying heavily on sources which they don’t appear to have known anything about previously. Dew’s tentative guess that Hutchinson confused the date (he said the same about Caroline Maxwell), for example, is something I brought up earlier in the thread. It’s seldom accorded much attention, and even less credence, and yet it’s now being used to bolster claims made in early 1990s “royal conspiracy” books involving possible sightings of Lord Randolph Churchill.

I just feel a bit more caution is urged here.

The most likely reason that Hutchinson did not become a suspect after being discarded as a witness is because he was never considered one. If he was never regarded in the capacity of a suspect, he cannot be dismissed as one. Alternatively, if he was suspected and the records of this suspicion have not survived for whatever reason, it’s very unlikely that the police were in a position to progress from mere “suspicion” to concrete proof of guilt or innocence.

We DO know some of the reasons the police had for doubting Hutchinson’s account because they were outlined specifically in the Echo article.

Best regards,
Ben

[Abby Normal]

Abby Normal:

"that being said, you beleive that GH's A-man is probably more fiction than fact too?"

Yes. And no, not necessarily.

Here´s the thing: I lean more and more towards George Hutchinson not being identical with Wideawake man - I am everything but sure that he was even in Dorset Street on the night. We know that his story was not believed by the police, but we do not know why.

We cannot see any interest at all in George Hutchinson on behalf of the police after they had let him go. He was thus reasonably cleared from suspion attaching to the crime itself, the way I see it.

In his memoirs, Walter Dew suggests that Hutchinson was wrong on the day he was in Dorset Street. To me, this would help immensely in explaining what happened - if it could be substantiated that George Hutchinson was one day off, and if the police could ascertain or at least come close to ascertaining this, then we would have a very trivial story.
We would have a very good explanation to why Hutchinson did not turn from witness to suspect - because he was never even there.
We would have a very unsexy story, making it easy to see why the papers did not expand on it.
We would even get a neat explanation to why Kelly, who had been very much drunk and obviously prepared to drink more at midnight, suddenly was only a bit spreeish two hours later - because it was NOT two hours later, it was 22 hours before!

And how does my yes/no suggestion in answer to your question apply?

Well, we know that Dew does not say that it was positively proven that George Hutchinson was one day off - he only suggests that this may have been the case. And we know that George William Topping Hutchinson had told his son Reg about having met a man giving the impression of being like lord Randolph Churchill with Mary Kelly on the night she died. So evidently, if George William Topping Hutchinson was identical with George Hutchinson the witness - and I am totally confident that he was - then he held on to his claim of having met a very posh man in Dorset Street on the murder night. The conclusion that this man was Astrakhan man becomes unescapable.

So yes, placing Astrakhan man in Dorset Street on the murder night was bogus, it would seem. But placing him there on the night before was perhaps not bogus at all! He may well have existed - but in that case, it seems he was unrelated to the murder.

And if there was a disagreement inbetween Hutchinson and the police as to what night he was there, then Hutchinson may have felt less inclined to speak to all and sundry about his meeting with "Jack the Ripper". He may have settled for only disclosing it within a circle of very close friends and family, perhaps avoiding to add that the police never believed him.

Looking upon it like this, I think the bits and pieces fit together eminently. I even believe that I may persuade Richard, who has always spoken up for believing in Hutchinson, identifying him with Topping and looking upon him as a family man who would not lie to the police, much less kill. Maybe this is the simple solution to it all.

The best,
Fisherman

HI Fish
Of course its possible-and thanks for laying out your entire idea on this.

And we know that George William Topping Hutchinson had told his son Reg about having met a man giving the impression of being like lord Randolph Churchill with Mary Kelly on the night she died. So evidently, if George William Topping Hutchinson was identical with George Hutchinson the witness - and I am totally confident that he was - then he held on to his claim of having met a very posh man in Dorset Street on the murder night. The conclusion that this man was Astrakhan man becomes unescapable.

But isn't also reasonable to assume if he was not mistaken about the night and lied about A-man to the police (for whatever reason-weather he was the killer sending police in the wrong direction or not the killer but just lying for the attention) that he not admit his lie later to family but continue with the lie-hence the Churchill A-man like description?

I guess I just have a real hard time beleiving that someone who had such a great memory of the details of A-man would then not have the memory to correctly remember what night it was.

[The Good Michael]

So, Fish, Hutchinson was Toppy and he simply confused the night on which he sighted the Churchill lookalike? Perhaps this memory impairment also explains how he managed to forget that he was a plumber when submitting his police statement.

Garry,

Cut the crap. We've gone over the plumber thing ad nauseum. You are full of BS. It gets sickening to have to read that kind of dig at someone.
Fisherman has been nothing but sensible, and when he gives a suggestion, you throw the plumber nonsense in. Grow up.

Mike

[Garry Wroe]

In his memoirs, Walter Dew suggests that Hutchinson was wrong on the day he was in Dorset Street. To me, this would help immensely in explaining what happened …

So yes, placing Astrakhan man in Dorset Street on the murder night was bogus, it would seem. But placing him there on the night before was perhaps not bogus at all! He may well have existed - but in that case, it seems he was unrelated to the murder.

And we know that George William Topping Hutchinson had told his son Reg about having met a man giving the impression of being like lord Randolph Churchill with Mary Kelly on the night she died. So evidently, if George William Topping Hutchinson was identical with George Hutchinson the witness - and I am totally confident that he was - then he held on to his claim of having met a very posh man in Dorset Street on the murder night.

So, Fish, Hutchinson was Toppy and he simply confused the night on which he sighted the Churchill lookalike? Perhaps this memory impairment also explains how he managed to forget that he was a plumber when submitting his police statement.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.