Joran Van der Hutchinson?

[Fisherman]

It does not matter in the least, Ben, that Hutchinson came forward in the way he did. Such a thing can at best be said to tally with what a few serial killers have done, and - and that is the whole and only point - it does not in itself point towards a propensity to kill!! How hard can that be to take in? You have used Violenia a lot before in your argumentation - was he showing the serial killer in him as he came forward? Packer?

Once and for all, what Hutchinson did means that one may take a legitimate interest in him - but he never did one thing or say one word that means that in itself pointed him out as a potential serial killer. Speaking to the police does NOT prove that you are a serial killer, nor does providing them with a strange story. If, on the other hand, you feel that it DOES, then congratulations - you have found the Ripper!

I´m outta here!
Fisherman

[Ben]

Being 22 years old, living in the neighbourhood, placing yourself on the spot of a crime, being discarded as a witness are all things that do not hinder Hutchinson from being a serial killer

Indeed Fish, but coming forward with a dubious account in an effort to vindicate your presence at a crime scene after recognising yourself in another witness account positively enhances those chances, in my view, and as I've explained in painful detail before, I believe this is the only explanation that satisfactorily accounts for the various "coincidences" in terms of timing, and corresponds pretty well with the beahviour of more recent serial killers. If Hutchinson had a history of a preoccupation with innards or anything of that nature, the chances are slim that we'll ever know about it, which is why it pays no focus on people's actions and behaviour in relation to the crime scene.

Quick plea here, can we leave the whole Hutchinson "being 22 years old" thing? You know I utterly reject this, so can I respectfully submit that we leave this as a point of contention?

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"The immediate priority in modern serial killer investigations, as far as suspects are concerned, is to ascertain who was at the scene of the crime, and who had good reason to be there. If these types were ruled out because little was known about them, and because there wasn’t any evidence immediately to hand to the effect that they were preoccupied with blood and guts, they’d be guilty of dereliction of duty and failing to learn from past cases.
Firstly, the expectation that the killer would convey outward and visible signs of bloodthirstiness is very naïve. Whatever the Whitechapel murderer’s identity, the chances of encountering a long and meticulously recorded life history are incredibly remote, especially if he belonged to the working class poor."

Please Ben; where am I saying that serial killers generally show their lust for blood outwards? Where? And if I dont do that, when did I deserve being dubbed naïve? Please?

What I said in my exchange with Ruby was that not one single trait of the ones she mentioned carries even the remotest evidence of being a serial killer.
That still applies.
Being 22 years old, living in the neighbourhood, placing yourself on the spot of a crime, being discarded as a witness are all things that do not hinder Hutchinson from being a serial killer - but none of them says one iota of whether he was that or not. Not one of them even remotely hints at it.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

The immediate priority in modern serial killer investigations, as far as suspects are concerned, is to ascertain who was at the scene of the crime, and who had good reason to be there. If these types were ruled out because little was known about them, and because there wasn’t any evidence immediately to hand to the effect that they were preoccupied with blood and guts, they’d be guilty of dereliction of duty and failing to learn from past cases.

Firstly, the expectation that the killer would convey outward and visible signs of bloodthirstiness is very naïve. Whatever the Whitechapel murderer’s identity, the chances of encountering a long and meticulously recorded life history are incredibly remote, especially if he belonged to the working class poor. Similarly, we’re very unlikely to find ourselves in a position to know whether or not Hutchinson ever harboured “a need to get back on women for having been taunted, a fascination with blood and guts, an inner voice that urges them to strike”. If the police in 1888 had limited themselves only to those with known tendencies in that regard, the chances of them overlooking the real killer were very strong.

Modern investigators are even more aware than this, which is why the investigative focus has been shifted to assessing the actions and behaviour of suspected individuals in relation to a crime or crime scene. Serial killers have been known to insert themselves into police investigations as “witnesses” for various reasons, often out of self-preservation, but occasionally just for their sheer bravado value of getting one over on the police. Hutchinson came forward shortly after Sarah Lewis’ evidence was made public knowledge, and the chances of this being a coincidence are incredibly slim, especially given the congruity of detail between the wideawake suspect and Hutchinson in terms of behaviour and movements, It seems likely, therefore, that Hutchinson had recognised himself in another witness report and came forward with an excuse that attempted to vindicate his presence there, just as Colin Ireland had recognised himself from CCTV footage, thus prompting him to come forward as a witness to lie about his reasons for being there.

Unfortunately, if Hutchinson was motivated by this concern, and really was loitering outside Kelly's home, he stands at least a reasonbale chance of having been the killer, since pre-crime surveillance has also been resorted to by more recent serial killers. Most people favour an "unknown local male", and I place Hutchinson in that large category. I just feel he has a bit more going for him as a suspect than the vast number of ULMers, of whom we know nothing.

The other factors, such as his residence in the heart of the murder district, and the fact that he generally fits the popular “unknown local” model are all supplementary to the above, and don’t individually constitute evidence of serial crime. If people have convinced themselves that Hutchinson was “22” and that he “went to the police under the impression that he could help out with a murder inquiry”, they’re welcome to those conclusions, but as I’ve stated several times, I believe the evidence points strongly against it.

Best regards,
Ben

P.S. Yes, it is clear from the available evidence that the police had no knowledge with regard to determining for certain whether or not Hutchinson was/was not lying or was/was not at the crime scene. Which means than any attempt to procure the necessary proof has the distinctly unenviable task of choosing invented scenarios NOT in evidence.

[Fisherman]

Vive la difference!

Thanks, Monty!

The best,
Fisherman

[Monty]

But (sic) it’s clear from the available evidence that the police had no such knowledge.

Monty

[Ben]

Well, here’s my theory with regard to the assumed Romford investigation.

The police, as we’ve discovered, will investigate as far as they can, but cannot always expect those investigations to deliver the goods.

Let’s say the police start asking around in Romford.

Result? Nobody saw him and nobody could verify his claim that he was there on the Thursday.

The authorities are now very doubtful about that claim, and add it to the various other doubts they were already harbouring. The Echo somehow got wind of this, and the result of the article of 13th November.

I think we can be absolutely certain that the authorities did not know the truth of the matter. They were left with their own suspicions, and some of them were outlined in the Echo article. If we accept this, we can also appreciate that there are no blanks to fill. We don’t need imaginary “construction sites” (?) or imaginary claims to have applied for Romford jobs, or imaginary Hutch-spotting “managers” to explain away both the doubt and ensuing lack of interest in Hutchinson.

They couldn’t prove that he lied.

They couldn’t prove he was mistaken.

Thy simply no longer trusted him.

And with the release of the heavily embellished and contradictory police versions, that mistrust could only have been fuelled. All of which make it more than understandable that Abberline may indeed have come to conclude “Bugger, I must have been wrong!”.

Nobody can realistically expect anyone to swallow any explanation “proving” Hutchinson was in the clear without providing evidence or even vague indications in support of their argument. We’ve had reams of invented scenarios, events, and people, and they’re all being used – with palpable lack of success – to rule Hutchinson out both as a suspect and a witness, and to compound the gaffe, these complicated imaginary scenarios are being touted as the “simple explanation”.

But it’s clear from the evidence that the police had no such knowledge.

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"I am very willing to keep an open mind, but Hutch fits perfectly what we now know of serial killers as none of the other 'suspects' do."

Does being a single man make him fit the picture of a serial killer?

Does being in the right age group make him fit the picture of a serial killer?

Does living in the Victoria home make him fit the picture of a serial killer?

Does being a man few people took notice of (and how on earth do we know that this applies in his case???) make him fit the picture of a serial killer?

Does his willingness to witness about his part in a crime make him fit the picture of a serial killer?

Does the fact that the murders stopped after he had become known to the police make him fit the picture of a serial killer? As far as I can tell, other serialists who have made contact with the police have gone on killing - it seems they (or at least some of them) enjoy the added spice.

I´m sorry, Ruby, but I cannot see one single thing here that points in the diection of a serial killer. Nothing. Nada. Rien.
McCarthy, Lawende, Schwartz, Cadosche, Best, Gardner - what about them? They all seem to have lived in the vicinity. They all were the right age. Some of them approached the police themselves. Does that point an almighty finger towards their flair for killing hoards of people? Does the bloodthirst lie in the address? Or in the fact that they spoke to the police?

I have managed to steer free from too much killing myself, although I was once "the right age" for a serial killer. I did not think much of it then; maybe I was just a lucky exception. Once, back in the 80:s, a young girl was battered to death with a stone on a hillside less than threehundred yards from my families summer house, but in spite of my being close when it happened and in spite of my age and my habit of passing through the streets of most large cities unnoticed, the question was never put to me how I was going to defend myself, given the fact that so much spoke against me and pointed me out as a lethal member of society.

Ruby, George Hutchinson was a man who went to the police under the impression that he could help out with a murder inquiry. There is the chance that he did it because he thought he could make a buck or two out of it, but in either case, we know that the police said thanks, but no thanks, and sent him on his way.

How many men throughout history do you think have gone to the police to offer testimony in criminal cases?

How many of these men do you think actually lived near the place where the crime they took an interest in had occurred?

How many of them would have been of an age where they could be serial killers (and we have such creatures in ages from the teen years and upwards through their fifties, at the very least)?

Finally, since these pointers are all pointers towards a sordid life as a serial killer, I take it that the major part of these men ended up on death row, unless they did a "Hutch" and fooled the pants of the police force?

Please, PLEASE, let´s be a little bit more realistic about this, Ruby.Being 22 years old is not incomparable with being a serial killer, but that is another thing altogether - most things are not incomparable with it, in fact. Musicians, ugly people, timid guys, geniuses, women with different hangups, school failures, big businessmen, warlords and photographers have at one stage or another all proven to be serial killers. But it was reasonably not being musicians, ugly people, timid guys, geniuses, women with different hangups, school failures, big businessmen, warlords and photographers that led up to the killings on their behalfs, was it?

What points serial killers out are things like a lust for mutilation, a wish to torment, a need to get back on women for having been taunted, a fascination with blood and guts, an inner voice that urges them to strike ... you name it. THOSE are the things that tell us that there is a potential killer about. And when you can point to one such single factor adhering to George Hutchinson, then yes, you have something that begins to look like the making of a killer.

But you don´t have that, do you? And if you take a look on what is being discussed right now, inbetween Garry and me, I think you may need to stay away from pouring kerosene all over my argument that Hutchinsonians have a propensity for jumping to untenable conclusions on extremely meagre information, or - as in this case - no information at all. It´s bad enough as it is.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Fish -first of all, I agree with you about the 'latest enquiries' bit, ruling Hutch out...but the big problem is that we have no way of knowing at all, what those enquiries were...so it's all supposition.

You can make up a scenario of Police enquiries in Romford and I can make up a scenario of the Police finding no other witness at all having seen A Man (a very remarkable 'person') and deciding that Hutch was not in London at the times of some of the other killings and that MJK was killed by the same person as Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes and(at least), that Hutch was not a raving mad Jewish butcher, that he volunteered to put himself under Police suspicion, and ergo he was a harmless fantasist but not the Ripper.

We can make up any sort of Police enquiries, and Press enquiries , that we like, but without knowing what they were, we cannot just 'accept' them, since we know that there have been very many Police mistakes made in the past.

Indeed, googling around about 'witnesses' to murders of serial sillers, what I found is that the Police now have a difficult job having witnesses come forward because the witnesses are frightened of being treated like a 'suspect'. The Police look upon witnesses as potential suspects, because they've learned from experience that serial killers do present themselves as witnesses,as some of them like to involve themselves in their own investigations ; it is a known Fact.

Did the Police never make enquiries about these Witness/Killers ?

I'm sure that they did, but they made mistakes, because serial killers are often 'bright' and make sure that they cover their backs.

In short, not knowing what form the Police/Press enquiries took, we can't take them as discounting Hutch as a Suspect.

So, what are we left with ?

We're left with a single man, in the right age group, living in the centre of the murder sites, with the GSG on a direct route between Mitre Square and his lodgings, of the type to go unremarked in the streets, placing himself at the site of the last murder at the right time, -and this being independently corroborated by a witness, patently lying, purporting to have had a personal link to the victim and (my personal opinion)offering up a Jewish 'suspect' when there is a strong Jewish link between the other murder sites, and the murders stopping once he becomes known to the Police.

I am very willing to keep an open mind, but Hutch fits perfectly what we now know of serial killers as none of the other 'suspects' do.

[Rubyretro]

Fish -first of all, I agree with you about the 'latest enquiries' bit, ruling Hutch out...but the big problem is that we have no way of knowing at all, what those enquiries were...so it's all supposition.

You can make up a scenario of Police enquiries in Romford and I can make up a scenario of the Police finding no other witness at all having seen A Man (a very remarkable 'person') and deciding that Hutch was not in London at the times of some of the other killings and that MJK was killed by the same person as Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes and(at least), that Hutch was not a raving mad Jewish butcher, that he volunteered to put himself under Police suspicion, and ergo he was a harless fantasist but not the Ripper.

We can make up any sort of Police enquiries, and Press enquiries , that we like, but without knowing what they were we cannot just 'accept' them, since we know that there have been very many Police mistakes made in the past.

[Fisherman]

I notice that I messed up the penultimate passage in my post to Garry, misspelling and leaving out things. It should read:

"And why do the Hutchinsonians hold this belief? Why not admit that there are other possibilities to interpret what the Echo said, possibilities that are judged far better by an active and experienced journalist like me? Because, of course, they immediately realize that an acceptance that Hutch was ruled out from the investigation by information that put it beyond doubt that his testimony was wrong, and that simultaneously showed that the error made provided no reason at all to change his status from witness to suspect, would more or less remove Hutchinson from the list of possible, or at least plausible, perpetrators. The illusion must not be shattered, cost what it may."

Sorry about that.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Harry:

"From latest enquiries",does that mean enquiries made by the police,or enquiries made by the paper?"

I would imagine that the enquiry bit was on behalf of the paper, whereas the light shed by "later investigation" was the police´s doing. It makes less sense to - in the same sentence - speak about both enquiries and investigation on behalf of the police, since they would both add up to the same.

The best, Harry!
Fisherman

[harry]

Just one observation Fisherman."From latest enquiries",does that mean enquiries made by the police,or enquiries made by the paper?

[Fisherman]

There you are, Garry - now I have not only disappointed Ben, but you too!

I will try and be as diplomatic as I can about it. What I sense in the reoccuring discussion on the Hutchinson saga, is that there is no way that rationally thinking people of reasonable intelligence and tolerable levels of being read up on the details involved in the Ripper case could ever come to conclusions that are as far apart as the ones we reach over and over again. Things are simply stretched way too long on a number of issues, and those stretches are regrettably invariably predictable in each and every case.

Whenever there is an ever so small space, allowing for an interpretation being made pointing in the direction of George Hutchinson being a killer in disguise, then that interpretation becomes the one chosen by the Hutchinsonians (if I may). And that is understandable, though sometimes glaringly irrational.

What is less understandable is when the same sort of interpretation is made when no such space is at hand. If, in them cases, it had been suggested that perhaps there was a microscopic chance at hand to make the call, then fine. But my general feeling is that any such chance, real or merely perceived, is always blown way out of proportion, until it holds not only a position as an outside chance - it is in fact presented as the best bid! And much as I am in favour of any man´s right to hold an opinion of his own, I am not in favour of bowing to anybodys right to disrepresent the facts involved.

You say that you had expected more from me, Garry. Then I propose that you put what faith you have in me to good use, and ponder what I and a number of other posters suggest - that maybe the argument that the Hutch followers are overoptimistic about their stance might have something going for it ...

I have, for the moment at least, ended the debate with Ben. It went absolutely nowhere in the end.
I do not mind exchanging further with you should you want to, and I would like to bring up one of the issues you touch on, and try to show you my side of it - which is posed in a 90 degree angle to your perception.

"Hutchinson’s witness statement had clearly stimulated police suspicion before his newspaper interviews appeared in print. My feeling is that, like Packer and Violenia before him, Hutchinson was quickly viewed as persona non grata and investigators disregarded his subsequent newspaper claims irrespective of the reality that these disclosures placed him directly outside Mary Jane’s room at a time critical to her death."

To begin with, we need to scrutinize your claim that the statement had been subjected to suspicion before Hutch´s newspaper interwiews on the 14:th. We know that you´ve got a point - the Echo tells us this the day before: ”From latest inquiries it appears that a very reduced importance seems to be now - in the light of later investigation - attached to a statement made by a person last night that he saw a man with the deceased on the night of the murder.”

So, a very reduced importance is attached to the statement. What does that mean? To you, it would seem that the only meaning that could be read into it, is that the description that Hutch gave of Astrakhan man was not a reliable one - it was too good to be true, and therefore, it was suspected from day one that Hutch had taken the police for a ride. As the interwiews published on the 14:th strengthened that suggestion, Hutch was dismissed and let go.

This is not how I see things, and it is most certainly not the only way the wording in the Echo could be read. Nothing is said about what part or parts of the testimony it was that was getting questioned. Please keep that in mind.

Now, let´s get a bit theoretical, to show what I mean:

Hutch tells the police his story. Thereafter they go down to Romford, to pay a visit to a construction site, where Hutch claimed to have applied for job. They find that the manager denies this. On the other hand, the manager says, there was this fellow, answering to your description, that asked for a job on the day before...?
A journalist from the Echo has a beer with one of the officers in charge of the case, an officer that has been updated and therefore knows that it seems (it is still under investigation, mind you) that Hutchinson is one day off in his judgement. The journalist congratulates the officer on finally having got hold of a witness who can describe a probable Ripper in full detail, but the officer tells him that, no, it actually seems that they cannot put very much faith in the story they had been told any longer. The journalist tries to get details out of the officer, and asks him why he claims this all of a sudden. Well, the officer says, we have investigated things further, and we feel that we ought perhaps not trust the testimony given by Hutch the way we did before. After that, he says that he thinks that it will all be cleared up in the near future, puts his glass down on the table in front of him, and leaves.

The point being, Garry, that YES, the police believed that the testimony must be regarded with scepticism, but NO, that must not at all have owed solely to the description given by Hutch of Astrakhan man. There is every chance that external information, going contrary to what Hutch had said, had surfaced. Such information could - of course - have questioned each and every detail of the testimony, from Hutch being a former groom, over his walk to Romford, and all the way down to his walking the streets through the night of Kellys death. And I think that as we are totally aware that Abberline was of the meaning that Hutch was the real McCoy, and as we have no contradiction in terms on record until the 14:th (although something may well have come up during his PC-accompanied scouting for Astrakhan man), the suggestion that nothing in the testimony would have occurred odd to Abberline - something we have confirmed in writing! - until some EXTERNAL influence swayed him and the police, must be a very good suggestion, totally in line with the evidence.

I think this is an explanation that is totally superior to the suggestion that Abberline changed his mind without having anything else to go on than his gut feeling - for we KNOW full well that his gut feeling told him that Hutchinson had come clear. It is in the evidence material!

One pointer - and a very clear one - points to the Echo article disclosing very informal information having passed between police and press: No other paper had gotten wind of this. Most of them only did so much later, and that means that the OFFICIAL line of the police was not to disclose the details they were working on, implicating that Hutchinson needed to be dropped. So, at best, what could be had was exactly what the Echo printed.

So there you are, this is my perfectly simple suggestion of what happened. It allows for a very reasonable interpretation, and it does not marry itself to the idea that the only thing that could have changed the police´s mind would have been that Abberline suddenly thought "Bugger! I must have been wrong!", after having given the matter much thought before, then resulting in a diametrically different stance!

But the Hutchinsonians strongly believe that this must have been what happened, and they want to make me believe that the interpretation I make, with a quarter of a decade behind me working as a journalist, meaning that I know how papers function and how they phrase themselves, would be a much inferior interpretation, actually more or less proven to be wrong by the phrasing used by the Echo.

And why do the Hutchinsonians hold this belief? Why not admit that there are other possibilities to interprete what teh Echo said, possibilities that are judged far better by an active and expreienced journalist like me? Because, of course, they immediately realize that an acceptance that Hutch was ruled out from the investigation by information that put it beyond doubt that his testimny was wrong, and that simultaneously showed that the error made provided no reason at all to change his status from witness to suspect. The illusion must not be shattered, cost what it may.

The next time you are disappointed in me, Garry, please ponder things like these. The conclusions I have drawn from the discussions that have passed were not in one instance conclusions that I wished to draw. They have become unevitable, though. I genuinely believe that you are blinded to a very large extent.
I would much like you to give the detail discussed on the Echo article some long and hard afterthought, offering all the openmindedness you can find within you. After that, we shall see whether you and me may move along mutually productively in the discussion.

The very best, Garry!
Fisherman

[Garry Wroe]

Thanks for the information regarding Nairn, Fish. He appears to be one of those case-related protagonists who have fallen through the cracks somewhat. It looks as though I’ll have to do some reading.

In Hutchinsons case, you sense that the police would have been very alert in recognizing that there were deviations in his police report and the press articles, and that these discrepancies would have led the police to discredit him. They picked up on all these details, carefully picking up on each little discrepany, albeit they only appeared in a pair of papers - and they acted promptly on it

No, Fish. Quite the contrary, in fact. Hutchinson’s witness statement had clearly stimulated police suspicion before his newspaper interviews appeared in print. My feeling is that, like Packer and Violenia before him, Hutchinson was quickly viewed as persona non grata and investigators disregarded his subsequent newspaper claims irrespective of the reality that these disclosures placed him directly outside Mary Jane’s room at a time critical to her death. Hence if, as you state, investigators ‘ picked up on all these details, carefully picking up on each little discrepan[c]y’ and ‘acted promptly on it’, Hutchinson should and would have been re-interviewed by police. That he almost certainly wasn’t serves only to highlight a glaring investigative error that raises questions regarding strategy and competence. And if such a situation could have prevailed with Hutchinson, it introduces the possibility that investigators were similarly negligent with respect to Sarah Lewis.

Clearly, Fish, we disagree over the present topic of discussion, and that’s fine as far as I’m concerned. I am, however, somewhat disappointed by your earlier inference that my reluctance to concur with your viewpoint stems from an underlying belief in Hutchinson’s guilt. I might have anticipated such an accusation from certain other posters, but expected a little better from yourself. For the record, my position is eminently straightforward in that I merely follow the evidence. Should you wish to convert me to your way of thinking, therefore, present me with some tangible evidence in support of your argument. It really is that simple.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.