Witness statement Dismissed-suspect No. 1?

[Ben]

Hi Sarah,

I don’t have any serious objections to "date confusion" per se, but it clearly did not happen in Hutchinson’s case. As others have pointed out, a date that is marked by certain significant or calamitous events is very unlikely to be confused subsequently with a less memorable one. If Hutchinson was telling the truth about walking all the way back from Romford on the same day that Kelly was brutally dispatched (which was also the date of the Lord Mayor’s Show), he was very unlikely to become muddled as to the date. These were other extremely significant points of reference with which to fix the date beyond question. Many people remember, even today, what they were doing on 11th September 2001 – their mundane activities embedded in their memories on account of that date’s infamous significance. If such details can be recalled years after the event, it is inconceivable that Hutchinson could have misremembered the date of Kelly's murder just a few days after it happened.

As Jon has already pointed out, Hutchinson clearly referred to both “Friday” and the “9th”.

In addition, it is clear that Hutchinson’s presence n Dorset Street on the 9th November is corroborated by an independent witness, Sarah Lewis, who described a man watching or waiting to emerge from Miller’s Court at 2:30 – tying in precisely with Hutchinson’s own statement regarding where he was and what he did at that time.

The police apparently believed they were in possession of “solid grounds to dismiss his statement”, and these “grounds” were his failure to present his evidence when he had the opportunity to be interrogated in public about it under oath. Nothing to do with any date-disorienting.

I hope the above suffices as a brief explanation for the “resistance” you’ve noticed to the date-confusion theory.

All the best,
Ben

[Wickerman]

But according to Hutchinson, he did come forward earlier. He claimed that he told his story to a policeman on the Sunday before the inquest.

Hi Robert.
Maybe you should find a consensus on what constitutes "coming forward"?

According to others, speaking to a Constable on his beat but not appearing at the inquest is, "not coming forward".
Besides, we do not know what he said to the policeman, either way he had no apparent urgency on his mind.
See if you can offer a solution which doesn't include lying...

Regards, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

Hi Ben.

Unless you’re only kidding about Druitt - in which case, phew!

Oh, just sarcasm... there's nothing to tie Druitt to the murders either.

Please don’t keep going on about what you perceive to be “false accusations” levelled at Hutchinson. You cannot possibly know whether they’re “false” or not,.....

Of course I can, anybody can. These accusations have been invented in our era, mostly in the past decade or so.
Hutchinson was never a contemporary suspect, so don't try that one on!

Express an opinion, but don’t antagonise with haughty indignation.

Coming from you Ben, ...thats amusing

...The Echo communicated directly with the police and ascertained from them WHY Hutchinson’s account had been considerably discounted - because of the very late appearance of his evidence and his failure to attend the inquest where he would have been quizzed “under oath”.

That is not a reason, 'not appearing at the inquest' is the same as a 'late appearance' - so don't try make one observation, into two!

The police did not report to the press that Hutchinson was discredited. If they had, the press would provide a referenced opinion (Swanson, Abberline, Reid, etc.) "in quotation", which they did not do.

It is barely possible to take in so much detail

Assumption!

during a fleeting moment near a Victorian gas lamp

Assumption!

in poor weather conditions at night time,

Assumption!

...it is not possible to also notice a myriad of other tiny details pertaining to the man's appearance.

Assumption!

Assumption x 4 = Meaningless!

Common sense is urged when contemplating the suggestion that anyone can seriously notice and memorize the minute particulars of the man's upper body at the the same time as noticing and memorizing the minute particulars of the man's lower body.

This is a silly argument, what are you suggesting, a person had to go to college to learn memory retention?
Let me tell you this, we, in our couch-potato society have lost far more night-sight ability, and memory retention, than our recent ancestors had.

Hutchinson suggested that he "believes he lived in the neighborhood", that could mean he has seen him before, and dressed the same. Seeing him again on Sunday morning, and paying more attention again to this man's attire will only reinforce his recognition ability.
Hutchinson did see this man twice, once in daylight, once at night.

And a modern police force would most certain consider any claim to discern eyelash shade in darkness to be “unreliable”.

There you go again, you do not know the availability of light under these streetlamps. What we do know is that the light was more intense within feet of the lamp (umbrella effect) and greatly diffused the further away you get.
Directly under the light is quite sufficient for facial details.

What’s also nonsense is that idea that “His opinion is the only opinion we have on the matter, so we have nothing to contest it with”.

Nonsense? - ok Ben, who else knew the social class of men Kelly was normally seen with?
Barnett?, Maxwell?, Cox?, Prater?, Harvey? - what do they tell us?

Two newspaper articles is not sufficient to influence popular perception as to Kelly’s time of death.

- Morning Advertiser.
- Daily News.
- Echo.
- Star.
Four is only what I found to emphasize the point, want to look for more?

Only because, at the time of the alleged sighting, he did not look like the sort of man who would harm another. Nothing at all to do with any Morning Advertiser report.

Is this indignation surfacing again?
I think you had forgot that the papers conveyed the opinion across Whitechapel that Kelly had been murdered after 9:00 am Friday morning, which then offers support for Hutchinson being made aware via the subsequent rumor-mill that his friend had died late Friday morning.

Consequently, the man he saw at 2:00 am would not have been the murderer, in his opinion at the time.
You forgot, or had not realized, and this has annoyed you!

Suck it up Ben.

Incidently, nice to see you back..
Regards, Jon S.

[Jonathan H]

Montague Druitt is a generic fit for Lawende's description of the young man seen with Eddowes to close to the timing of her murder -- assuming he maintained the trim figure and neat moustache, which we see in his Winchester photos, into his early thirties.

[Errata]

as a 2 cents worth:

A: I have no idea what I was doing three days ago. Not even a little. I don't have a job, and I'm between semesters in school, so one day is pretty much identical to the next. It's why I have been posting more often recently. Absolutely nothing to do. No way to mark the passage of time. So if it happened, I could see how it happened. And I never know what day it is. It's been a chronic failing my whole life. Evidently there is something in the brain that says "this feels like a tuesday" and I don't have it. I thought today was friday. It is in fact, not friday.

B: I could see the police not giving his testimony as much weight if they felt his time was off. If say, the barkeep at the local pub said "oh yeah him... he was in here a couple hours that night drinking and mumbling about snotty women" (or some such). The cops could deduce that he had seen Kelly much earlier, and since she was seen later with a male companion, not the same male companion Hutch saw, that he did not see the killer. Which would make his testimony useful for tracing her steps that evening, but not much else.

[Fisherman]

Wickerman:

"Sarah.
How about the other statement to the Star?

"The story is told by George Hutchinson, a groom by trade, but now working as a laborer. He says :- "On Thursday last I had been to Romford, in Essex, and I returned from there about two o'clock on Friday morning,...."

Hi Jon!

To me, it does not matter at all whether Hutchinson said "on the 9:th" or if he worded it "On Thursday last I had been to Romford, in Essex, and I returned from there about two o'clock on Friday morning,...."

There is absolutely nothing telling us that Hutchinson was right, no matter what words he used. I am working from the assumption that Hutchinson backtracked AND GOT IT WRONG when doing so. Sort of "let´s see, I worked for Mr X on ... Saturday, was it...? Yes, that must have been so ... and then, I would have met my friend Mr Y on Friday, hmmm, yes, that must have been the case ..."

Now, if he got it wrong, then he may have ended up in a Friday morning meeting with astrakhan instead of a Thursday morning ditto. And as he full well knew that he arrived in the East end after having walked from Romford - those two events are connected to each other, meaning that he would not have missed out on that part - then if he was sure that me met astrakhan on Friday, he must have deducted that he walked from Romford on Thursday. One faulty decision leads another, thus. Quite, quite simple!

I don´t see why mentioning a weekday would in any way hinder Hutchinson having been wrong. It emphatically doesn´t. He MUST have tried to remember, and he MUST have been of the impression that his astrakhan meeting was on Friday, otherwise he would not have gone to the police in the first place, would he?

Ergo - he BELIEVED that he was in Dorset Street on Friday morning. And ergo, he must have accepted that this placed his walk from Romford on the Thursday.
But if he had been right, he would have seen Lewis, he would have seen the couple she spoke of, astrakhan man would have worn his clothes buttoned, astrakhan man and Kelly would not have stood outside the court in the miserable weather for three minutes, chatting about handkerchiefs and Hutch would not have spent his night walking the streets!

Incidentally, Jon, I know that you have been around for quite some time in Ripperology, and a good thing that is - you always provide good stuff with lots of knowledge and afterthought. Still, I don´t think that having been around for long necessarily leads you to the right conclusion in all questions, and I certainly don´t think that the quote from the Star in any way proves anything at all about Hutchinson´s schedule. You see, the whole point about muddling days is that we call a Thursday something ELSE than Thursday! If we HAD called it Thursday, we would not have muddled the days in the first place, would we?

All the best, Jon!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben (to Wickerman):

"Express an opinion, but don’t antagonise with haughty indignation."

This is your advice to Jon - but in your OWN case, you feel very free to express all sorts of "indignation" about my suggestion that Lewis and Prater may have lied. You find it heartless and nauseating and an obscenity to human thought, remember?

So why is it that you may cry your heart out over my lack of decency, whereas Jon and the rest of us may not speak up for Hutchinson being unfairly accused?

There is only one word for it: revealing. In the extreme.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Errata:

"as a 2 cents worth:

A: I have no idea what I was doing three days ago. Not even a little. I don't have a job, and I'm between semesters in school, so one day is pretty much identical to the next. It's why I have been posting more often recently. Absolutely nothing to do. No way to mark the passage of time. So if it happened, I could see how it happened. And I never know what day it is. It's been a chronic failing my whole life. Evidently there is something in the brain that says "this feels like a tuesday" and I don't have it. I thought today was friday. It is in fact, not friday.

B: I could see the police not giving his testimony as much weight if they felt his time was off. If say, the barkeep at the local pub said "oh yeah him... he was in here a couple hours that night drinking and mumbling about snotty women" (or some such). The cops could deduce that he had seen Kelly much earlier, and since she was seen later with a male companion, not the same male companion Hutch saw, that he did not see the killer. Which would make his testimony useful for tracing her steps that evening, but not much else."

I´m slightly annoyed with you, Errata, for not coming forward before with this information. As it stands, the delay may mean that you will not be believed ... Happened before, you know ...

... but on the whole, I am extremely grateful to have you step in and offer your thoughts! Yes, yes and yes again - there is NOTHING even remotely controversial in believing that Hutch muddled the days. That does not make it a certain thing that he did - but the possibility is a very open and uncontroversial one.

All the best,
Fisherman

[richardnunweek]

Hi Fisherman,
Was it not mentioned by Mrs Harvey that She had breakfast in Marys room on Thursday morning[ correct me if I am wrong?].
This being the case I would suggest that if she had taken a ''Toff'' back to her room just a few hours before, Harvey would have known about it?
Yet the latter makes no mention of it to the police , especially as the ''Toff'' allegedly makes another appearance , according to Hutchinson, twenty fours hours later.
Your theory of the missing twenty four hours is original, and worth discussion, but I would say the odds are against its probability.
Regards Richard.

[Fisherman]

Richard:

"Was it not mentioned by Mrs Harvey that She had breakfast in Marys room on Thursday morning[ correct me if I am wrong?].
This being the case I would suggest that if she had taken a ''Toff'' back to her room just a few hours before, Harvey would have known about it?"

I see your point, Richard, but all it amounts to is an either/or: Either she did mention the man to Harvey - or she didn´t. I don´t see how such a thing would come with any sort of guarantee.

I also think that we have to some extent bought a picture of astrakhan man as the most exotic man ever to have walked the streets of the East end. But we can´t tell how impressed Kelly was. She may just have thought he was perhaps a bit over the top, but nothing more. And even IF she thought him extremely different, she may still have spoken about waterlillies, catfood or the climate i France as she met Harvey. Nothing is written in stone here, Richard!

The best,
Fisherman

[Garry Wroe]

The Echo communicated directly with the police and ascertained from them WHY Hutchinson’s account had been considerably discounted - because of the very late appearance of his evidence and his failure to attend the inquest where he would have been quizzed “under oath”. The implication, of course, is that they doubted his integrity.

I would advise caution in this respect, Ben. My feeling is that investigators would never have dismissed Hutchinson merely because of the delay in his coming forward, especially if the intelligence he provided yielded a potentially reliable description of the killer. It doesn’t seem realistic to my way of thinking.

Nor does the notion of the police conveying sensitive case-related information to the press at this juncture seem plausible. The withholding of information in ‘the interests of justice’ had become a feature of the inquests, and newsmen were complaining bitterly of a police reluctance to impart even the most mundane of intelligence. In my view, such factors are symptomatic of a calculated police strategy designed to minimize the leakage of information into the public domain.

Hence I think it likely that The Star was fobbed off with the police explanation that Hutchinson had been dismissed courtesy of his failure to be interrogated under oath at the Kelly inquest. Or are we to assume that the police were incapable of conducting an equally robust interrogation of their own?

Palpably not.

Which means that the information given to The Star was a simple piece of misinformation calculated to satisfy the press whilst safeguarding the real reason for Hutchinson’s fall from grace.

[richardnunweek]

Hello Fisherman.
I agree nothing is written in stone, one could even suggest that it is entirely possible that such a man did exist on the Wednesday evening/ Thursday morning, I suggest that as Mrs Harvey said to Mary as she left the room Thursday evening ,''I will leave my bonnet then'' which could indicate that Mary had plans to look her best that night, Infact she was seen wearing the items that were burnt[ amongst others] ie, Her black velvet jacket and a bonnet at 9pm by Prater.
I only wish that we had that in writing, it would give a lot of substance to the wrong day theory.
Was Mary intending to meet a special person on Thursday night, someone possibly who she had met on the Wednesday[ Bowyer mentions a well dressed man Wednesday in the court] was it him Hutch.saw in commercial street at 2am on the Friday, as clearly Kelly was dressing up for someone.
Its all very confusing....
Regards Richard.

[Fisherman]

Richard:

"one could even suggest that it is entirely possible that such a man did exist on the Wednesday evening/ Thursday morning"

Well, if you think he was there on Friday, one must conclude that he existed on Wednesday and Thursday too

Joking aside, Richard, Wickerman has suggested that astrakhan and the Bethnal Green man may have been one and the same, and if this was the case, then we DO have what seems to be something of a toff around throughout the few days of interest to us.

"... was it him Hutch.saw in commercial street at 2am on the Friday, as clearly Kelly was dressing up for someone."

Not if you ask me, it wasn´t, Richard - for as you know, I don´t think Hutch was in Dorset Street on the Friday.

"Its all very confusing...."

Not necessarily, no. It only becomes confusing when we place Hutchinson outside Miller´s Court on Friday morning. Nothing much tallies then, and we have to accept that he missed Lewis or omitted intentionally to mention her (which would have clinched his testimony) and that the meteorological bits and pieces are wrong etcetera. Take away Hutchinson and you take away the confusion. Place him outside Miller´s court one day earlier - same result; no confusion, no illogical bits and pieces, the right weather, sightings of people that do not swear against what we know, an explanation to Dew´s confidence in Hutch etcetera - all the confusion goes away the moment we realize that Sarah Lewis´man - if he was really there - was not Hutchinson. He stood outside Crossingham´s in the early hours of the 9:th, and I am quite sure that other men, scores of them, would have stood at the same spot at other occasions, throughout 1888, throughout the whole of the 1890:s and throughout our century. There is even a newspaper article speaking of three men standing outside Crossinghams, discussing the murder some days after it occured.
But we keep treating a square foot where Hutchinson probably never stood in the first place (he would have been on the other side of the street) as a surface that could only have been trodden upon by George Hutchinson inbetween 2 AM and 3 AM on Friday morning. And in doing so, we are ignorant and displaying a totally locked thinking.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Garry Wroe:

"I would advise caution in this respect, Ben. My feeling is that investigators would never have dismissed Hutchinson merely because of the delay in his coming forward, especially if the intelligence he provided yielded a potentially reliable description of the killer. It doesn’t seem realistic to my way of thinking.
Nor does the notion of the police conveying sensitive case-related information to the press at this juncture seem plausible. The withholding of information in ‘the interests of justice’ had become a feature of the inquests, and newsmen were complaining bitterly of a police reluctance to impart even the most mundane of intelligence. In my view, such factors are symptomatic of a calculated police strategy designed to minimize the leakage of information into the public domain.
Hence I think it likely that The Star was fobbed off with the police explanation that Hutchinson had been dismissed courtesy of his failure to be interrogated under oath at the Kelly inquest. Or are we to assume that the police were incapable of conducting an equally robust interrogation of their own?
Palpably not.
Which means that the information given to The Star was a simple piece of misinformation calculated to satisfy the press whilst safeguarding the real reason for Hutchinson’s fall from grace."

Heureka! Now THAT´S a post I like very much! The only little bit I would contest is the part about Hutchinson´s "fall from grace" - for we have no information at all telling us that there was such a fall. I believe that it was his STORY that was dropped, but NOT together with it´s originator. The Echo article discovered by Debs clearly shows us that the hunt for astrakhan man was still on a good many days after the Echo and the Star had gleaned that something was amiss with Hutchinson´s story, and police resources were not easily come by at the stage we are talking about. Thus a reasonable conclusion would be that the police awarded Hutchinsons story interest and believed in it at that stage - but the scale of the operation as such tells us that astrakhan man was NOT any main lead. To me, the explanation that he belonged to another night than the murder night is a very tantalizing one. And a man who had spent a longish time with Kelly on the 8:th would - at the very least - provide confirmation of Kellys movements on the night preceding the murder night. But more importantly, if Hutchinson´s story was true but belonging to the 8:th, then there was still the possibility that Kelly could have mentioned something to astrakhan man of her plans for the following day. He was of interest alright - enough interest to defend a small squad being set aside to look for him.

I totally concur with you about the value of what the police told the papers at this stage at any rate - they did NOT provide the full picture, and quite possibly they pounced on a VERY convenient reason - one readily at hand. It´s good to realize that I am not the only one who will not accept a late forthcoming as the sole reason for a police dismissal - the quality of the evidence guides, and NOT the time at which it arrives.

So we agree, Garry. What IS the world coming to?

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

I was a bit unclear there, of course; I don´t think Hutchinson´s story was dropped as such - but I do believe that it was dropped as being related to the murder night.

The best,
Fisherman