Did Hutchinson get the night wrong?

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
Talking as if the Radio broadcast that i heard in the 1970s was not a figment of imagination[ which it wasnt] the quotation from either Reg H , or someone on his behalf said' My fathers biggest regret was , dispite all of his efforts nothing came of it'.
If that was a true reflection of Toppings beliefs, then it is clear that in his own mind he saw Jack, on the morning of the 9th, or that he saw Astracan on the morning of the 8th [ honest mistake] and because of the circumstances always believed he saw the infamous Jack the Ripper, and assisted the police all he could, even receiving a fee[ although Topping never said from where].
I believe Topping was the witness, and he saw a man that he described accurately, however I have to admit Fish could be right, and there is a chance that it was 24 hours out, no lying lies of George, just mistaken,
But having said all of that... i am still not converted. not yet......
Regards Richard.

[Fisherman]

Okay, Sally - I´m with you now!

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Sally – I answered your question first in post 394!

Fisherman, back to your 379 post...
I made enquiries with a weather expert. In 1888 there were two rainfall collection centres in the London area. One was at Crossness Pumping Station which was near Erith in south east London (then it was in Kent) – by the bank of the Thames.
The other was at St James’s Park, which is nearest one to Commercial Street.
I agree that sometimes the weather can vary over quite small distances. But St James’s Park is only about 3 ½ miles from Commercial Street.

[Lechmere]

I think this is a new angle...

Mary Kelly reportedly moved to London in 1884. She initially lived in the West End then lived with someone called Morganstone in Stepney, then with Joe Fleming in Bethnal Green. She then got involved with Barnett in April 1887 and they moved into Miller’s close early in 1888.
Yet Hutchinson claimed to have known her for three years – from 1885. Doesn’t tally, does it?

Given Hutchinson’s statement - giving her money, possibly stalking, ‘looking out’ for her, mooning around her turning – all of which may be true or a figment of his imagination, did Hutchinson have an unrequited crush on Kelly. That may explain his desire to ‘help’ the investigation. It may explain why he was missing for a couple of days - devastated.
Frankly this is a more plausible explanation for the various issues surrounding Hutchinson than that he ‘did it’. In my opinion.

[Fisherman]

Lechmere writes:

"I made enquiries with a weather expert. In 1888 there were two rainfall collection centres in the London area. One was at Crossness Pumping Station which was near Erith in south east London (then it was in Kent) – by the bank of the Thames.
The other was at St James’s Park, which is nearest one to Commercial Street.
I agree that sometimes the weather can vary over quite small distances. But St James’s Park is only about 3 ½ miles from Commercial Street."

Thanks for this, Lechmere! I have put the same questio to the meteorological services, and I hope to receive an answer within the next few days. I have also asked a thing or two more that could help a little.
I do not want to sound unrealistic, but 3 1/2 miles may mean an immense difference. We have had local rainfalls here in southern Sweden where I live, that have drowned very restricted areas, whereas they have left other areas more or less totally dry just the odd kilometre or two away. I don´t know how common this is, but it does happen.
In december, my oldest boy played a badminton tournament on a Saturday in a town that lies some eleven or twelwe kilomteres away from us (that would, admittedly, be twice the stretch of 3 1/2 miles, but still ...), and he cleared his way into the finals, meaning that we had to return there on Sunday too. During the night, there was a humonguous snowfall in our town maiking it a very tough task to make it to the motorway heading North, but once we got there, the plows had cleared it nicely. But I anticipated that the last few kilometres on small roads would be nigh on impossible to cope with - only to find out that not a flake of snow had fallen over the town where the tournament was held!

In conclusion, just like I wrote in my article, it will always be a very hard task to determine what amounts of rain fell over what particular street at what particular time. The differences may be very considerable - and they may not. In the end, we can only work from a general mapping, telling us that it was a rainy night, it was a cold night (forcing Cox home to warm her hands) and it was very windy!

The best,
Fisherman

[harry]

Fisherman,Re your last post to me.
It is not a simple case of getting days mixed up.Hutchinson states the trip to Romford,the late arrival back,the meeting with Kelly,Kelly's taking a man to her room,the wait outside Crossinghams,and the walking the streets of Whitechapel took place on the Thursday/Friday,8/9 of November.Distinct but consecutive events,each event a thread of remembrance to another,taking in time a period of a full day,or as near as makes no difference.You say the happenings took place on Wednesday/Thursday,7/8 November a full day before.Consequently if you are correct,then Hutchinson must have had a loss of memory of the period Thursday/Friday,in which he substituted,without being aware of doing so the happenings of a day earlier,and it must have been a complete loss of memory,in that in repeating the story to the press later,he was still of the opinion he was describing events that he believed had taken place on Thursday/Friday,8/9 November.Not a simple mixup of memory,but a total loss.

[Fisherman]

Harry.

"It is not a simple case of getting days mixed up."

Well, Harry, it is not necessarily a simple case as such, but still a case of mixing things up!
I think it is very reasonable to surmise that he did couple Romford, the late arrival, the meeting with Kelly, the wait outside and the walking of the streets to one and the same day. It would be a lot stranger if he distributed them over a small swarm of days.
After that, he mixed things up datewise, thinking that the 8/9:th was the day he did all this, whereas it was actually the 7/8:th. I have no idea to what extent he tried to fit the remaining pieces together under Abberline´s guidance, nor do I know what success he would have had in doing so. Maybe he just mixed things up, and maybe he simply forgot that he had been doing something that had not stuck very hard in his mind on one of the following days. I cannot tell what happened. But I CAN tell that these things DO happen, and judging by a post I produced earlier on this thread, quoting a prosecutor, they actually happen "all the time". That is all I need to see the relevance in Dew´s suggestion.

I can offer no more than this, since it is totally impossible for me to know how Hutchinson´s mind worked, if was weak on sequential memory, if he mixed or forgot etcetera. Until something surfaces to elucidate these things, we are all at a loss to provide what the exact reason for him getting it a day wrong would have been.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Hi Sir Robert,

You’re quite right that the Victoria Home was run at one stage by an ex-policeman. I can’t recall at present what rank he reached, whether detective of something a little less lofty, but I’ll check the relevant sources.

As for an investigation into his whereabouts and movements on the nights of previous murders, it’s worth reiterating Sally’s point that there’s no evidence that the police ever suspected Hutchinson. However, if they did quiz him along those lines, he would almost certainly have provided the same answer whether he was innocent of guilty: that he was in bed, asleep, at the Victoria Home on the nights of the other murders. This would not have been possible to verify. The lodging house could accommodate as many as 500 lodgers at the same time, and men would have been coming and going at all hours of the night on account of their differing, and often nocturnal work patterns. No lodging house deputy would have been able to recall whether one of the hundreds of lodgers made his appearance on a night that had passed several weeks ago.

The only time notes were taken on a particular lodger was when they were new to the home, and only then were they vetted to ascertain their “good character” or otherwise. It would not have been feasible, or even possible in my view, to write down every lodger’s name as they entered the exited the building. The paperwork required for such a task would have been of monster proportions. Even the daily and weekly passes were made of metal.

Best regards,
Ben

[Ben]

Glad you decided that your post of yesterday would not be your “last observation”, Lechmere!

“Also can you see that there is a big difference between being spotted momentarily with a victim just before committing the act, and being spotted hanging around for a lengthy period of time outside a victims house. The first is an ‘occupational hazard’, the second something that is inexplicable.”

Both are “occupational” hazards, but the act of allowing yourself to be seen in the company of your intended victim just ten minutes before the discovery of that victim’s body a few feet away, entails an infinitely greater degree of “risk” than allowing yourself to be seen alone, an hour or so before the murder, and with no obvious connection with the victim. I’m astonished that anyone can even contemplate arguing the reverse.

In any case, we only have it on discredited Hutchinson’s authority that he waited at that location for as long as he alleged.

“Unless he wanted to murder Mary Kelley specifically as he was acting under the orders of Sir William Gull... or something equally ‘likely’”

I hope that isn’t supposed to imply that you think there’s something “unlikely” about the killer engaging in pre-crime surveillance outside the victim’s home? Because, once again, historical precedent and other serial cases can be wheeled in to demonstrate otherwise. Ted Bundy, Dennis Rader and Robert Napper all adopted precisely this approach with some of their victims

“I think that a police force that had a witness come forward late in the day with a detailed testimony that put him adjacent to the crime scene, and then went on accompanied trawls through the neighbourhood, only to be dismissed soon afterwards, to turn out to be the culprit, would be useless.”

Again, I’ve provided you with more then adequate reasons for reassessing this view. It is very well known that other investigative bodies have unwittingly come into contact with real serial offenders, only to let them go, and it rarely has anything to do with them being “useless”. Policing in general was in its relative infancy in 1888, and even if they did come to suspect Hutchinson, this wouldn’t have achieved anything if they were not in a position to prove his guilt or innocence, which was the predicament of the Green River Task force in the 1980s when they suspected Gary Ridgway, but had to wait until the advancement of DNA technology before they could progress with those suspicions. They weren’t “useless” either.

“Given Hutchinson’s statement - giving her money, possibly stalking, ‘looking out’ for her, mooning around her turning – all of which may be true or a figment of his imagination, did Hutchinson have an unrequited crush on Kelly”

So on the morning of 9th November, Kelly was descended upon both by her murderer AND my her “possible stalker”? It just wasn’t her night, was it?! Seriously though, as Bob Hinton observed in his book From Hell, there needn’t be any mutual exclusivity between an “unrequited crush on Kelly” and possibly culpability in her murder.

“It may explain why he was missing for a couple of days - devastated.”

A “devastation” that only came to end as soon as the opportunity to present his evidence under oath, and have it compared to other witness accounts, had passed.

All the best,
Ben

[Tecs]

Hi Lynn,

Thank you! Yes, I think it was Sir Isacc, with whom I share a birthday....

It seemed appropriate as all of us, one way or another, are helped along by other people and their efforts.

Happy New Year!

Regards,

[lynn cates]

thanks

Hello Tecs. Thanks. You also.

And you are right about cooperation. Hope to see much of it on the threads this new year.

Cheers.
LC

[Sally]

Hi Lechmere

I think this is a new angle...

I think you'll find that this is not a new idea. I also think you'll find, if you read some of the pas Casebook threads regarding Hutchinson you will discover that there are others who also subscribe to the view that Hutchinson had a thing for Mary Kelly.

Mary Kelly reportedly moved to London in 1884. She initially lived in the West End then lived with someone called Morganstone in Stepney, then with Joe Fleming in Bethnal Green. She then got involved with Barnett in April 1887 and they moved into Miller’s close early in 1888.

With you so far...

Yet Hutchinson claimed to have known her for three years – from 1885. Doesn’t tally, does it?

Er, no. I'm not sure I follow that bit. Unless your understanding of the word 'known' is in the biblical sense. Looking at the rest of your post, perhaps that is what you mean?

Given Hutchinson’s statement - giving her money, possibly stalking, ‘looking out’ for her, mooning around her turning – all of which may be true or a figment of his imagination, did Hutchinson have an unrequited crush on Kelly.

Well, as I said, you're not the first person to wonder, so who knows?

That may explain his desire to ‘help’ the investigation. It may explain why he was missing for a couple of days - devastated.

Missing? Who said anything about him being missing? I thought he just didn't come forward for three days - for reasons best known to himself. According to him, he was at the Victoria Home on the Sunday.

Frankly this is a more plausible explanation for the various issues surrounding Hutchinson than that he ‘did it’. In my opinion

Why more plausible? I'm not saying that I think Hutchinson definitely 'did it' either; but I have yet to see an argument that explains to me why he couldn't have done it. I'm not entirely sure it's entirely implausible, either.

Why, for example, if he was as obsessed with unrequited passion for Kelly as your scenario suggests; couldn't he have done her in for the sake of jealousy? (for example). Oh yes, I know, that's a tired old argument - but it worked for Barnett - for a while at least, anyway.

Best wishes

Sally.

[The Good Michael]

The crush thing is too Hollywood. The Hutchinson as Ripper thing is too... True Detective. None of it really works.


Mike

[Tom_Wescott]

The crush thing is too Hollywood. The Hutchinson as Ripper thing is too... True Detective. None of it really works.

You think it's far reaching to suspect that a young man had the hots for a sexy loose girl? Since Hutch claims he knew Kelly, I'd say that unless he was batting for the other team, it's safe to say there was an attraction.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Fisherman]

Sally:

"I have yet to see an argument that explains to me why he couldn't have done it."

How about he wasn´t there on the night?

The best,
Fisherman