Did Hutchinson get the night wrong?

[Rubyretro]

If he was never around when an horrific Whitechapel murder took place, I am certain a few people in the Victoria Home would recollect and start to think suspicious thoughts.

Lechmere - you are making out that Hutch and all those other men lodging at the Victoria would be sitting indoors every night, and that Hutch would only
be out on the nights of the murders thus drawing attention to himself.
However he worked regularly at different jobs with different hours.

You seemed quite convinced by my pub/Berner Street scenario. Any number of scenarios may have done. Here's another for Chapman :

At the beginning of the week Hutchinson takes his leave of the Victoria Home
and says " I'm fed up with looking for work round here ! -all those bleeding immigrants get all the best jobs...they're willing to work for nearly nothing !
So-and-so says there's lots of work to be had in X town, and better paid too -I'm off to try my luck..!"

(X town could be Romford, or anywhere else within walking distance).

Hutch gets a few days work and, his pocket full of money, decides to go back to Whitechapel to drink with his mates and visit a prostitute or two...he spends his last night in X town with his work mates, drinking " Don't think that I'll waste a kip here Maties..It'll take me 6 or 7 hours to walk it, and I'd rather sleep in my old Doss House and be fresh for tomorrow night...I don't feel like sleeping now ..there's a good moon as well ! Reminds me of my poaching days !"

And off he sets..a short way on he spots a cart on the road, setting off to get to Spitalfields market before dawn..he flags it down " off to Town mate ?
give an honest working man a ride will you, and i'll tip you this !"

So Hutch arrives in Spitalfields before dawn, and before his lodgings have opened, and wanders around a bit..not very long before he spots a lone prostitute and realises with excitement that if he was to kill her (he'd really enjoyed killing Polly) then no one would even know that he was in London !!
What's more Hanbury would be perfect -he'd dossed on the stairs of those houses before and never seen anybody !

After the murder he is on an adrenalin high at his own daring and cleverness
and feeling very crafty, decides to steer well away from his lodgings and spend the time in pubs, turning up at the Victoria at the hour he would of had he walked, and really really knackered.

So when the Police check where he was when the other murders were committed a) he was out of town b) other workers confirm that he had set off walking c) the time that he got back to the Victoria is consistant with the walking distance from X town d) other lodgers remember him knackered and moaning about the long walk and recounting an anecdote about it.

If the Police don't see him as a likely 'suspect' they would be willing to accept this -and without cctv cameras, how could they disprove it ?

I'm not saying at all that I DO think that it happened like this -only showing that there are loads of 'unsuspicious' reasons why Hutch might be away from the home, and they would be totally impossible to refute.

People were more social then. One minute you want him to be a gregarious charmer, next a recluse who knows no one. A recluse would actually also have attracted attention

–

I have never imagined Hutch to be a recluse !!!!!!

But Rubyretro, it isn’t credible to have the police think he was a liar, who placed himself at the crime scene, and was also placed there by someone else, to have followed the victim around, just to fade away uninvestigated.

Other people were also liars and fantasists -the bottom line is whether the Police thought that he had the right profile or not.

Also it didn’t fade out for several years. There were more murders that at the time, were chalked up to Jack the Ripper.

Maybe so, but if Hutchinson didn't do them (and the Police may have kept half an eye on him), then that is another reason for him to fade away..

[Fisherman]

Harry:

".I have simply tested with normal people standing at a distance of 30 metres ... Had them speak in a voice loud enough to be heard by a person standing with them,and listened from a measured distance of 30 metres.At no time could I hear the words they were speaking."

A voice "loud enough to be heard by a person standing with them", Harry, would be anything from 30 dB and up. That is the volume of the average whisper and you CAN hear that when you stand with the whispering person, right?
The bottom line here is that we do not know how loud the couple spoke, and any effort to establish this will be totally, totally moot. Therefore, what we may, can and should do is to establish if any form of normal conversation volume could be enough to allow for overhearing and picking up 30 meters away, and yes, it could be.
I have done tests too, and you may remember that 30 meters were no problem in my test, just as a full 50 meters were bridged by a raised voice. That, taken together with the words of an accoustic expert like Erling Nilsson and a psycholinguist like Raoul, effectively puts and end to this subject.

The subject of ambient noise is another topic, and I welcome any well underbuilt and expert acknowledged facts and suggestions that can be made along that particular line. But apart from this, I would say the subject on the whole is well and truly settled.

The best,
Fisherman

[harry]

Raoul,
Not to put you on the spot,but given the circumstances that existed,the very close proximity of the couple,and putting yourself in exactly the same position,how loud would you speak,and how far would the sound of your voice carry to be heard clearly.
I am not of scientific training.I do not understand the scientific explanations.I have simply tested with normal people standing at a distance of 30 metres(though I estimate the distance in Dorset street to be much more),Had them speak in a voice loud enough to be heard by a person standing with them,and listened from a measured distance of 30 metres.At no time could I hear the words they were speaking.I am willing to repeat the test with anyone who cares to come to my residence,

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"If Mary let punters stay for free in her room, she would have had men queuing round the block ! And why pay for a doss when you could just stay for free at Mary's ?"

You do it backwards again, Ruby. We have not established that he WAS a punter, have we? He may have been, and he may not. He said that he knew Kelly well after having been in her company a number of times. Abberline reported that he had occasionally given Kelly a "few shillings", and a few shillings (two? three? four?) seem much to pay for sex, does it not? If it was three shillings, it would equate to 18 times the price of the classical two-penny knee-trembler!

So let´s not do this backwards, Ruby. Let´s instead look at it unbiased: A man says he knows a prostitute, and sometimes give her some money. That is what we have. Does it make him a punter? No. Does it make him a friend? You bet!

There is no reason at all to suspect that Mary allowing a friend to crash with her on a cold night when he had missed out on his lodgings, would somehow escalate to long queues of punters standing at her door with the same purpose. That is just ridiculous to suggest. Likewise, there is nothing telling us to accept that Mary would take in sleeping guests for free on a regular basis, is there?
If you, Ruby, had a good friend knocking at your door at 2.15 one cold November night, telling you that he or she had been turned out from their home and had nowhere to sleep that night, what would you do? Would you kick that friend down the stairs, or would you take him or her in for the night?
Let´s say that you DID take that friend in - would that mean that you would take him or her in on a regular basis? Increase the household by one person, sort of?
You would not, would you?

And that´s how it goes: when a friend is in trouble, we help out. But we do not sign a contract, obliging us to stretch that charitability into forever, do we? Nor did Kelly have to do so - she would have known that Hutch had the Victoria Home to return to in the nights to come. And the money he had given her would have helped her to decide on a single night of charity, I think.

But this very simple solution, totally in line with the evidence, is "not feasible" to you. And I will tell you why - because you have already decided that the contact between Kelly and Hutchinson was merely one of sexual trade and nothing else.

When we shut down all other possibilities, we make ourselves an easy case. That is when we create Hutch the liar too, by the way, since we say that the loiterer and he must have been one and the same.

It does not work that way.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Hi Lechmere! I´d like to comment on your suggestion here if I may?

"I am not sure Hutchinson was there at all."

Nor am I. But I do opt for him being there on the morning of the 8:th.

"I am not sure he knew Kelly – certainly not for 3 years, due to her movements in that period."

This I find hard to understand. An aquaintance is something you make one time, and then you are done with that bit. No matter if that aquintance moves after that, you remain aquainted just the same. It is not as if you no longer know somebody because they move to another part of town, is it? Of course, you may not be able to meet that person as much, but that is not the same as not knowing him or her, is it?
I see no problems with Hutchinson making Kelly´s aquaintance the first time in 1885, and then referring to her as a friend for the following three years, even if she did not stay at the same place all of that time. At any rate, although she lived in various places, she may have plied her trade in roughly the same area throughout that time. That would mean that she could work up a clientele and stick with it. Just a thought!

"If he was there for 45 minutes I would suggest he was probably a peeping tom of some sort – perhaps with a distant crush on her.
I am inclined to think Hutchinson was a bit of a sad fantasist."

Mmmm - in no way impossible, of course. But I will tell you why this is not my take on it. It is due to Dew, to some extent. This is what he says:

"I know from my experience that many people, with the best of intentions, are often mistaken ... And if Mrs. Maxwell was mistaken, is it not probable that George Hutchison erred also? This, without reflecting in any way on either witness, is my considered view."

What I read into this, is that both Maxwell and Hutchinson were people of some stature and integrity. We know that Maxwell reputedly was a woman that gave an impression of total reliability, and we know that Abberline believed Hutchinson was an honest man. A picture emerges that differs a lot from that of, for example, Violenia - a picture of good, reliable, trustworthy, honest people. Add to this the remark of Hutchinson´s military appearance - that may well have pointed to a man that gave a strict impression.

If this all holds true for Hutchinson - and my hunch is that it does - then I suggest we take a look at his promenade from the opening of the archway, up the court. This may lead our thoughts in the direction of a peeping Tom, just as you say. But if this was Hutchinson´s true reason for making that short walk up the court - would he really tell the police about it? Would he admit to these few steps, if they were truly of a sordid character? Why not just say that he steadfastly endured his vigil outside the court throughout all of the 45 minutes? If he was truthful, he spent almost all of that time outside the court, and that is no place a peeping Tom would choose, is it?

This, you see, is why I think that his smallish excursion was not led on by an itch in his pants, but instead of a need to find out if there was any hope of seeing astrakhan man leaving in the near or immediate future. The combined details of what Dew and Hutch offer points to a straightforward, honest man - at least in my eyes.

The best, Lechmere!
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Fish it is really not feasible that Mary would let Hutch sleep in her room :

I have already explained that I think that Hutch saying that he had given
Mary money in the past was most probably a euphemism for saying that he had been a punter -since he was a man living hand to mouth doing casual work and living in a lodging house, and she had been living with a man with a fixed job, had her own room, and as an attractive prostitute could earn a few pennies quicker than him !

If Hutch was a sometime punter -so must many of the men in the area have been. A good many of these men must have lived precariously in lodging houses and could have found themselves out on the street for the night.
If Mary let punters stay for free in her room, she would have had men queuing round the block ! And why pay for a doss when you could just stay for free at Mary's ?

It is one thing letting your girlfriends stay in your room -not impecunious punters. Chances are she'd get raped, or be fighting them off all night !
I just don't think it plausible that she'd do this.

Neither do I think that it's plausible that Hutch was a simple 'peeping Tom' :
for one thing he couldn't be peeping at anything from his position in Dorset street, and for another, there was a coat hung over the window. I can't remember about the other window, but I do know that Bowyer was obliged
to move the coat to see into the room in the morning.

Far more believable is that he was waiting to check that she didn't leave the room, her ex boyfriend didn't turn up, and he waited long enough to give her time to go to sleep...alone..

[Lechmere]

Abbey Normal...
I am not sure Hutchinson was there at all. I am not sure he knew Kelly – certainly not for 3 years, due to her movements in that period.
If he was there for 45 minutes I would suggest he was probably a peeping tom of some sort – perhaps with a distant crush on her.
I am inclined to think Hutchinson was a bit of a sad fantasist.

[Fisherman]

Hi Abby!

Hutch himself says that his curiosity was awakened by the man´s relatively wealthy appearance, or something to that effect. That is the only explanation he offers for his interest. He adds that he was not fearing for Kelly´s safety, so he would not have hung around for protective reasons.
So why, then?

The best and most obvious bet, I think, would be that Hutch needed somewhere to sleep, and hoped that Kelly would provide that opportunity. He would have reasoned that the man in the astrakhan coat was a punter, and he would have had good reason to believe that this client would get his business with Kelly overwith and leave. After that, my guess is that he would pop the question.

Why did he not do so before, when he met and spoke to her? Well, she got the first words in, telling him that she needed money, and he would have known how she earned her profits. Thus there would not have been much of a chance that she would abandon her search for business and invite a pennyless friend instead. Best wait, and hope for the best.

If Kelly had not been approached by astrakhan man at that stage, Hutchinson may well have left Dorset Street, I think! But as the situation developed, he knew that if he waited for the man to finish his business with Kelly, she would then have some money, she would probably need some sleep too, and therefore he may get lucky. And so he started his vigil on that cold November night, looking down the archway, hoping for the man to come out.
When nothing happened, he went up the court to try and find some sort of sign that the deal was coming to it´s end, but since no such signs were to be found, he simply decided to give it some more time. After 45 minutes, he realized that this was not the average pay-per-shot client, but instead someone who could afford to hire Kelly for a longer time, perhaps even all night. And at that stage, it was bye-bye Dorset Street; better get some warmth by walking the streets than standing about freezing his butt off. And after all, it was a dry night, so walking the streets was not too bad an alternative.

That´s my best guess, Abby. Nothing fancy, just a cold and tired man hoping to find himself a place to sleep without paying for it. After all, what are friends for? And if he had passed on money to Kelly before, like he said he had, he would perhaps have felt that she owed him.

The best,
Fisherman

[Abby Normal]

Sally
I have gone through the process by which it is likely the police will have checked something out about Hutchinson, and the likelihood that they would have not dismissed him merely with a “thanks but no thanks, don’t call us we’ll call you.”
He does not have to have been suspect no 1 for them to have made various checks. The nature of checks is that if bona fides are not established for the subject, then more checks are made. This is not rocket science and even though the police force was not well established, it is a really basic point to make. The matter would tend not to be just dropped.

The fact is we have limited extant documentation relating to the investigation. Clearly nearly all has been lost, destroyed or stolen. This means that sensible deductions have to be made on what the police are likely to have done – based on:
• extrapolating from the official information we do have;
• the unreliable press reports and;
• common sense and knowledge of police procedures (even though they will drastically have advanced and become more sophisticated).

If suspicions occur to you now, then it is reasonable that they would have occurred to people then. There really is nothing new in any of the rationalisations which point to Hutchinson as the culprit, that a detective in 1888 could not quote easily have thought of for himself.
Such as the inconspicuous local man - well Hutchinson did not make himself inconspicuous did he?

This should tell you that walking around all night alone without an alibi would not clear him particularly when they dismissed him from the case.
If John Pizer had not bumped into a policeman on Holloway Road and engaged in conversation regarding the distant flames at Shadwell, do you think he would have been released so quickly?
If he had just walked around without seeing anyone he would have been in trouble.

Unless, as I have said, it was because they dismissed Hutchinson for reasons that also cleared him they would have wanted to know more. As I have said they may have dismissed him as it was established that he wasn’t there on that night as he was a day out, or any of a number of other reasons. In the absence of this it is fair to assume that the police would naturally have looked at him. Clearly if they did look at him, he passed the checks. I believe there is nothing in the official record about Violenia at all and he was checked (at least press reports say he was). The absence of records should not be used as an excuse for ignoring common sense.

Fisherman – I thought I’d throw the Abba record into the mix so you would be able to comprehend my point and I am under the impression that I have seen Ben suggest that all evidence relating to sound levels must have a Swedish provenance. Also I am afraid Abba are the only Swedish popular music ensemble I know about (take note Sally).

On the level at which Kelly pitched her voice...
I can quiet imagine a drunken screech. I can imagine her voice rising one minute and falling the next. One moment load and brash, then quiet and confiding.

If you have ever stayed in a town centre hotel you can hear drunken ’chucking out time’ conversations from some distance away, particularly if you are trying to get to sleep.
Also dare I suggest, some of our readers may have been out on a night excursion and been in the company of such a lady (not necessarily an ‘unfortunate’ as such I hasten to add) who had over indulged, and so be able to picture the possible scene with distressing clarity. Such things are... timeless.

Rubyretro – if Hutchinson was out every night there was a murder I am certain people would recollect. There has been a lot of talk here about how Hutchinson must have known the 9th was the 9th as Kelly was murdered and it was the Lord Mayor’s Show etc.
If he was never around when an horrific Whitechapel murder took place, I am certain a few people in the Victoria Home would recollect and start to think suspicious thoughts. The idea the Victoria Home was some anonymous dormitory is not the case. Just because it was large? It would have been like a self contained village – with communal recreation room sand communal eating areas. He seems to have been a regular there. People were more social then. One minute you want him to be a gregarious charmer, next a recluse who knows no one. A recluse would actually also have attracted attention – so you can’t win either way.
For casuals it would have been anonymous. But then he would have been asked where else he had stayed and so forth. The more he would have been unable to provide clear and easily verifiable answers the more they would have dug. My guess is that his background was easily checked, easily verified and he passed the checks. Such as who he was, were he lived, where he had worked.

Of course he could have bluffed his way thorough and still been the culprit. But he wasn’t a Peter Sutcliffe who was one of tens of thousands asked routine questions. Hutchinson briefly put himself right at the heart of the case and emerged without a shred of contemporary suspicion (save a couple of sceptical press reports). Any reasonable conclusion is that this strongly diminishes his chances of being the culprit.

“Even if they linked him to the 'loiterer', if they thought that he couldn't possibly be the killer, then they could simply think that he had embroidered the whole A-man story, but had followed a prostitute home (not a crime in itself), and so accorded his statement 'reduced importance'...before it just faded out when there were no more Ripper-like murders.”

But Rubyretro, it isn’t credible to have the police think he was a liar, who placed himself at the crime scene, and was also placed there by someone else, to have followed the victim around, just to fade away uninvestigated. You have just described the weakness of the Hutchinson case.
Also it didn’t fade out for several years. There were more murders that at the time, were chalked up to Jack the Ripper.

Hi Lechmere

The idea the Victoria Home was some anonymous dormitory is not the case. Just because it was large? It would have been like a self contained village –

I think it would probably been more like a hotel (for poor people).


But I would like to ask you and Fish:
Why do you think Hutch waited outside "for them to come out" for 45 minutes (regardless of the night or weather)?

-sorry if you have stated this already or if you think it too off the current conversation but I would really like to know what both your thoughts are on this?

[curious4]

Psycopath

For a really good portrayal of a psychopath changing suddenly from all-round nice guy to sadistic killer, I can recommend Hitchcock`s "Frenzy" with Barry Foster as the killer. It is an absolutely brilliant performance, old Alfred knew his psychopaths - and a good film as well.

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"I would imagine someone that the people working in the place found 'suspicious'
-a loner, some one talking strangely about the murders, weird packages,
someone mentally unbalanced, blood stains etc."

I think both you and I would be amazed if we were presented with the true number of persons that were investigated to some extent. And I also think that there would have been heaps of quite normal people among them.

"I will continue to say that it's very , very rare, and Abberline and his collegues
would not personally have had experience of this type of killer"

The policemen who investigated the Yorkshire Ripper had never seen something exactly like that before. The same goes for the ones who investigated Ed Gein, Kürten, Shawcross etc. They ARE rare creatures, but that does not mean the police go looking for orangutangs, not now and not then.
Look at Bond´s outlining, as he profiled his killer, Ruby! That should tell you a thing or two: "The murderer in external appearance is quite likely to be a quiet inoffensive looking man probably middleaged and neatly and respectably dressed."

The police, mind you, were no less aquainted with things like these - reasonably they dealt MORE with criminals!

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

"

Favourite Polce suspects mentioned later displayed mental illness, committed suicide, had already murdered, or were 'foreigners' and that reflects
Police thinking."

As do all the lodgers that were questioned

.

But what would the police have been looking for amongst the lodgers ?

I would imagine someone that the people working in the place found 'suspicious'
-a loner, some one talking strangely about the murders, weird packages,
someone mentally unbalanced, blood stains etc.

A clue as to what they were looking for can be found in the Police appeals
looking for the murderer of Johanna Yeates in England -I can't remember
all the details now, but one thing was "someone seeking to justify her killing".
Without a woman telephoning the Police, CCTV cameras, and forensics -the man arrested (who had been questioned as a witness and released) would never have been suspected. The first man to have been arrested was considered to fit the 'oddball'/loner mould by the Press and public 'a sort of modern A Man).

Ruby, Jack was nothing new in the sense that people had killed before, eviscareted before, done mad things before. And some of these people would have been perfectly nice people on the surface; the Peter Kürten type, if you are aquainted with him. Jack was an unusual killer then, and he would have been an unusual killer now. One difference is that today, we make tv-shows and horror films about these guys, and portray them down to the slicing of meat from their victims. Before our time, though, such things were hushed by the media to a large extent, no pictures were about, no internet fed us the details. But the police had seen it all, more or less. I once again urge you not to "romanticize" Jack´s deeds, and not to infantilize the police.

I will continue to say that it's very , very rare, and Abberline and his collegues
would not personally have had experience of this type of killer -I doubt that Abberline had 'seen it all before'. A measure of the rarity of the Ripper killings is the fascination that the case still holds for us today. That's not 'romanticizing' that's just a fact. Lots of those 'tv shows and horror shows' are infact inspired by the Ripper killings

"

Why would they think that he'd been in her room ? -he never said so."

That passage owes to your post, worded: "... then they could simply think that he had embroidered the whole A-man story, but had followed a prostitute home".

I'm sorry : I never mean't to suggest that he could have been thought to have been in her room. I mean't that he was a single man with no outlet for his sexuality other than prostitutes, and she was a prostitute -his interest in her is not suspicious in itself.

I see no reason at all to believe that he must have been lying, Ruby. And the police apparently did not do so either, at least not from the outset. Abberline bought it.

Yes. I have explained why the Police at the time might not have thought that he was lying. I have also explained loads of times why I think he was.

[Fisherman]

Lechmere:

"Fisherman – I thought I’d throw the Abba record into the mix so you would be able to comprehend my point..."

Thanks, Lechmere. And I can assure you it served it´s purpose!

"I am afraid Abba are the only Swedish popular music ensemble I know about "

Amazing, Lechmere!
Roxette?
The Ark?
Cardigans?
No?
Bugger ...

"If you have ever stayed in a town centre hotel..."

I have!

"... you can hear drunken ’chucking out time’ conversations from some distance away, particularly if you are trying to get to sleep."

I have!

"Also dare I suggest, some of our readers may have been out on a night excursion and been in the company of such a lady (not necessarily an ‘unfortunate’ as such I hasten to add) who had over indulged, and so be able to picture the possible scene with distressing clarity. Such things are... timeless."

They are!

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Sally
I have gone through the process by which it is likely the police will have checked something out about Hutchinson, and the likelihood that they would have not dismissed him merely with a “thanks but no thanks, don’t call us we’ll call you.”
He does not have to have been suspect no 1 for them to have made various checks. The nature of checks is that if bona fides are not established for the subject, then more checks are made. This is not rocket science and even though the police force was not well established, it is a really basic point to make. The matter would tend not to be just dropped.

The fact is we have limited extant documentation relating to the investigation. Clearly nearly all has been lost, destroyed or stolen. This means that sensible deductions have to be made on what the police are likely to have done – based on:
• extrapolating from the official information we do have;
• the unreliable press reports and;
• common sense and knowledge of police procedures (even though they will drastically have advanced and become more sophisticated).

If suspicions occur to you now, then it is reasonable that they would have occurred to people then. There really is nothing new in any of the rationalisations which point to Hutchinson as the culprit, that a detective in 1888 could not quote easily have thought of for himself.
Such as the inconspicuous local man - well Hutchinson did not make himself inconspicuous did he?

This should tell you that walking around all night alone without an alibi would not clear him particularly when they dismissed him from the case.
If John Pizer had not bumped into a policeman on Holloway Road and engaged in conversation regarding the distant flames at Shadwell, do you think he would have been released so quickly?
If he had just walked around without seeing anyone he would have been in trouble.

Unless, as I have said, it was because they dismissed Hutchinson for reasons that also cleared him they would have wanted to know more. As I have said they may have dismissed him as it was established that he wasn’t there on that night as he was a day out, or any of a number of other reasons. In the absence of this it is fair to assume that the police would naturally have looked at him. Clearly if they did look at him, he passed the checks. I believe there is nothing in the official record about Violenia at all and he was checked (at least press reports say he was). The absence of records should not be used as an excuse for ignoring common sense.

Fisherman – I thought I’d throw the Abba record into the mix so you would be able to comprehend my point and I am under the impression that I have seen Ben suggest that all evidence relating to sound levels must have a Swedish provenance. Also I am afraid Abba are the only Swedish popular music ensemble I know about (take note Sally).

On the level at which Kelly pitched her voice...
I can quiet imagine a drunken screech. I can imagine her voice rising one minute and falling the next. One moment load and brash, then quiet and confiding.

If you have ever stayed in a town centre hotel you can hear drunken ’chucking out time’ conversations from some distance away, particularly if you are trying to get to sleep.
Also dare I suggest, some of our readers may have been out on a night excursion and been in the company of such a lady (not necessarily an ‘unfortunate’ as such I hasten to add) who had over indulged, and so be able to picture the possible scene with distressing clarity. Such things are... timeless.

Rubyretro – if Hutchinson was out every night there was a murder I am certain people would recollect. There has been a lot of talk here about how Hutchinson must have known the 9th was the 9th as Kelly was murdered and it was the Lord Mayor’s Show etc.
If he was never around when an horrific Whitechapel murder took place, I am certain a few people in the Victoria Home would recollect and start to think suspicious thoughts. The idea the Victoria Home was some anonymous dormitory is not the case. Just because it was large? It would have been like a self contained village – with communal recreation room sand communal eating areas. He seems to have been a regular there. People were more social then. One minute you want him to be a gregarious charmer, next a recluse who knows no one. A recluse would actually also have attracted attention – so you can’t win either way.
For casuals it would have been anonymous. But then he would have been asked where else he had stayed and so forth. The more he would have been unable to provide clear and easily verifiable answers the more they would have dug. My guess is that his background was easily checked, easily verified and he passed the checks. Such as who he was, were he lived, where he had worked.

Of course he could have bluffed his way thorough and still been the culprit. But he wasn’t a Peter Sutcliffe who was one of tens of thousands asked routine questions. Hutchinson briefly put himself right at the heart of the case and emerged without a shred of contemporary suspicion (save a couple of sceptical press reports). Any reasonable conclusion is that this strongly diminishes his chances of being the culprit.

“Even if they linked him to the 'loiterer', if they thought that he couldn't possibly be the killer, then they could simply think that he had embroidered the whole A-man story, but had followed a prostitute home (not a crime in itself), and so accorded his statement 'reduced importance'...before it just faded out when there were no more Ripper-like murders.”

But Rubyretro, it isn’t credible to have the police think he was a liar, who placed himself at the crime scene, and was also placed there by someone else, to have followed the victim around, just to fade away uninvestigated. You have just described the weakness of the Hutchinson case.
Also it didn’t fade out for several years. There were more murders that at the time, were chalked up to Jack the Ripper.

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"Favourite Polce suspects mentioned later displayed mental illness, committed suicide, had already murdered, or were 'foreigners' and that reflects
Police thinking."

As do all the lodgers that were questioned.

"I think it is a huge eyeopener to watch TV interviews with Joran Van Der Sloot on Youtube -this is what the Police were up against with no benefit of modern case histories and forensics."

Ruby, Jack was nothing new in the sense that people had killed before, eviscareted before, done mad things before. And some of these people would have been perfectly nice people on the surface; the Peter Kürten type, if you are aquainted with him. Jack was an unusual killer then, and he would have been an unusual killer now. One difference is that today, we make tv-shows and horror films about these guys, and portray them down to the slicing of meat from their victims. Before our time, though, such things were hushed by the media to a large extent, no pictures were about, no internet fed us the details. But the police had seen it all, more or less. I once again urge you not to "romanticize" Jack´s deeds, and not to infantilize the police.

"Why would they think that he'd been in her room ? -he never said so."

That passage owes to your post, worded: "... then they could simply think that he had embroidered the whole A-man story, but had followed a prostitute home".

"I'm just suggesting that they thought that he WAS there,
lying -or partially lying- about A Man (embroidering to make himself more interesting), but a harmless person just the same..."

I see no reason at all to believe that he must have been lying, Ruby. And the police apparently did not do so either, at least not from the outset. Abberline bought it.

The best,
Fisherman