Hutchinson's Sunday Sighting

[The Good Michael]

Then I am the authority you are looking for, Mike! I come from Skåne (Scania) a province that belonged to Denmark up to 1658, and so my accent is the most Danish accent you will ever hear from a Swede. The rest of the Swedes mock us as "half-danes".

An optimist would say, "Half-Swedes".

Mr Positive

[Fisherman]

Sister Hyde:

"jag har ingen snus längre"

And I thought OTHER posters were having serious problems ...!

All the best,
Fisherman

[Sister Hyde]

I want to learn Swedish, but with a Danish pronunciation. I like the sound of words being swallowed and scrunched up.

Mike

det heter "skaaaåne" ahahahah

Fish!! ok,... bara om du gör något för mig... jag har ingen snus längre och tjejen från svenska affâren i Paris är på semester til september

skojar bara

[Fisherman]

Then I am the authority you are looking for, Mike! I come from Skåne (Scania) a province that belonged to Denmark up to 1658, and so my accent is the most Danish accent you will ever hear from a Swede. The rest of the Swedes mock us as "half-danes".

If I can only work this out with Sister Hyde, you may be my second pupil. But you may NOT get into brawls with pupil number one; then you will never learn anything.

The best,
Fisherman

[The Good Michael]

I want to learn Swedish, but with a Danish pronunciation. I like the sound of words being swallowed and scrunched up.

Mike

[Fisherman]

Come on, Sister Hyde. Just this one pupil...? Please ...?

The best,
Fisherman

[Sister Hyde]

Fish, teaching swedish is MY job don't deprive me of the only work I like... annars...

[The Good Michael]

Fish,

Oj! Så VACKER!

XXXO

Mike

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"That's not what he said at all."

Nope. It´s just what he meant. "Andemening" is the Swedish word for it.

"He was talking specifically about Packer"

Yes indeed. And the only reasonable thing to believe it that he really had it in for Packer, and that he would NEVER look upon other witnesses that changed THEIR testimony in the same derogatory way. But Packer - he was a thorn in Swansons side! A true "skitstövel", as we say here in Sweden.

"Matthew Packer was discredited prior to his appearance at the inquest, unlikely Lewis, who nobody at the time even criticised, let alone discredited."

Explain to me, Ben, how Lewis COULD have been discredited before the inquest, given that she had not had the time to contradict herself before that? Make it a very good explanation, because I am having some serious trouble understanding how you can fail to see the obvious difference here. "Otroligt" is the Swedish term: unbelieveable.

"Nobody, then or not, lumped Lewis and Packer into the same category, as you are attempting to do now."

Ooopla, Ben "(Hoppla" in Swedish) - this is where you will be wrong - Lewis WOULD most certainly have been discredited by the police after her inquest efforts. It is the only reasonable deduction to make, as far as I am concerned. If I may remind you, Ben - you know zilch about what the police thought about Lewis AFTER the inquest. There is one indication and one indication only in the material, and that rests with Donald Sutherland Swanson.

Therefore:

"Again, nobody rejected Lewis’ testimony" is wrong. Nobody KNOWS what the police thought of it - but we DO know what they thought of the Packer parallel (has an extra "l" in Sweden: parallell).

"You repeat, I repeat, Fisherman."

Really? I thought I was the sole ("enda" in Swedish, not to be confused with "ända" - ass) repetitive poster and you the pedagogical beacon of light? That is how you normally phrase it.

"Anyone who expects any more specificity than this, and asserts that Hutchinson would not have moved about during that alleged 45 minutes with that tiny area, is either fantasizing or dreaming up yet more terrible excuses for dismissing the Lewis-Hutchinson connection."

Or, alternatively, presenting a method Abberline could (and would) have used to AVOID being kept in the dark. You see, Ben, back then, Abberline KNEW why Hutchinson was honestly ("ärligt" in Swedish) mistaken - and he did it because he asked the right questions. Very specific questions, as it were.
Have you ever come across the police-connected reasoning that they do everything to convict or exonerate? That, Ben, is not achieved by regarding a substantial area of a street as one and the same.

"Which coluration - dark or pale? Hutchykins gave both, remember? Which polar opposite version of the same account to you go for? I go for neither, myself."

Dark. At least as regards the hair, the eyes, the moustache - these features were dark and we know that Hutchinson spoke of a Jewish appearance ("utseende" over here). Piece that together and tell me that you may end up with blonde eyelashes ...? Yes?

"I do love the "if I am correct". Great. In other words, if your wild speculations turned out to be true, we can arrive at X conclusion. It's yet another example of the "If my Aunite had bollocks, she'd be my uncle" brand of fallacy. You can try actual evidence for a change, if you'd prefer."

And that advice ("råd) comes from ...? Ah ...!


"The idea that there "must have" been some lost-to-history "exonerating evidence" for Hutchinson is purely speculative".

It is a theory, a suggestion. Naming Hutchinson the killer, THAT´S purely speculative.

You do have a lot of difficulties ("svårigheter" in my tongue) grasping some very basic and simple things, Ben. And it would seem that you have now tried to overcome it by speaking Swedish (well ...) Therefore, I have decided not to keep you in the dark when it comes to the finer points of this Northern language, and so I am offering you

FISHERMANS SWEDISH CRASH COURSE FOR HUTCHINSONIANS!

Here is lesson one, to soak up:

1/ Va? Kallar du Lewis en lögnhals din sälle? Denna fina kvinna, vars öde borde röra oss till tårar och vars vittnesmål står som en vårdkase av ljus. Skäms, tusenfalt skäms! (What? Are you calling Lewis a liar, you brute? This fine woman, whose destiny should move us to tears and whose testimony stands like a beacon of light before us. Shame, a thousandfold shame!)

2/ Det finns inte i bevismaterialet, tra-la-la! (It is not in the evidence, la-de-da!)

3/ Nänä - det där frågade Abberline inte om! (Oh no, no - Abberline did not ask about that!)

4/ Den där gatan var så smal att en myra kunde stå med tre ben på varje trottoar. (That street was so narrow that an ant could have stood with three legs on each pavement.)

5/ Det där begriper jag bättre än du. Jag begriper det faktiskt bättre än alla. Ingen skall komma och tro att de fattar det här lika bra som jag gör. Fan, vad ni är dumma. (I understand that better than you do. I actually understand that better than everybody else. Nobody is going to come here and try and tell me that they understand this as well as I do. Damn it, you are dumb!)

6/ Det där var inte vad han sade första gången. (That´s not what he said the first time.)

7/ Nej nej, nej - det var INTE vad han sade första gången. (No, no, no - that´s NOT what he said the first time.)

8/ Räck mig spegeln, är du snäll. (Hand me the mirror, please.)

9/ Oj! Så VACKER! (Wow! How BEAUTIFUL!)

10/ Vad hände? (What happened?)

These are all very useful phrases, and I am sure that you will be able to fit them into your efforts to communicate with me in Swedish. More to come, should you wish!

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

But here comes Mike again with his difficult-to-take seriously obsession with "Reggie" and his feigned indignation.

"Lack of information, doesn't mean people can just make sh*t up"

What are you doing then?

That's right. Compiling a big silly list of things of things the police "must have" known, despite the TOTAL ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE that any of them occured. Hutchinson's alibi? He didn't have one by his own admission. Between 3.00am and 4.00am on 9th November, he was walking about all night. This is a non-alibi, unless you're seriously arguing that someone was conveniently stationed somewhere on the streets in the smallish hours who spoke to him during that time frame, and who Hutchinson inexplicably neglected to mention. To posit the existence of such a person - and such an unlikely scenario - would most assuredly qualify as "making $hit up".

If Hutch had any prior record of crimes

Difficult to establish with any accuracy, really. This was 1888, not 2011.

Did Lewis identify him after she was asked to when he was paraded around

No evidence that she was "asked to" do any such thing. When you make pronouncements like this it is essential that you do so on the basis of some sort of evidence.

People like Deb and Chris had to scrape archives just to find George's father and son living in the exact same area. The police would have known about his father.

Now what are talking about? "George's father?" Or is this Ripper and the Royals again?

but the coat in thw window had astrakhan cuffs

Good one!

On no, wait, you're serious...

[Ben]

"Motbjudande irriterande nonsense" goes wrong where you thought it went wrong - a Swede say nonsens, not nonsense. And it translates into "detestable, irritating nonsense", to be exact."

Dammit!

I meant to write "fluffy pink gorilla", but since it's there now, I gues we'll have to settle for "detestable, irritating nonsense". Seriously though, I'm quite aware that "a Swede say nonsens", but Microsoft Word wouldn't allow it and kept auto-correcting me, and I forgot to ammend when I copied and pasted into Casebook. It's a great word, though - "motbjudande".

Anyway...

"I am not obsessed at all, Ben - just pleased to see that there is a contemporary source, top ranking in the Ripper case, who tells us that changed testimonies are unreliable and largely useless ones."

That's not what he said at all. His comments weren't anywhere near a generalized as you're making them out to be. He was talking specifically about Packer, who changed his testimony far more subtantially than Lewis - incorporating an entire interaction with the victim and a suspect at his shop, whereas before, there was nothing. This doesn't remotely compare with Lewis, who simply remembered some minor, trivial details once she had fully collected her thoughts. Matthew Packer was discredited prior to his appearance at the inquest, unlikely Lewis, who nobody at the time even criticised, let alone discredited. So your implications are to be rejected. Nobody, then or not, lumped Lewis and Packer into the same category, as you are attempting to do now. You just need Lewis to be wrong or lying in order to sustain your not-very-convincing "date confusion" hypothesis.

Even after Lewis appeared at the inquest and delivered what you bizarrely consider to be dramatically divergent testimonies, the police clearly continued to treat her a credible witness and even compared her evidence to later suspects, as we learn from an article in the Echo that dealt with a Birmingham suspect that supposedly matched Lewis' suspect (the other one) "in both appearance and manners".

"But no - she instead told the court that she actually had seen and was able to describe the man, clothingwise, including color of the garments and the color and cut of the hat he was wearing. She also suddenly was able to say that the man was not tall, but stout."

Whoops, there's that abysmal repetition again. So I'll just repeat my previous answer: Clearly nobody has any problem with the minor discrepancies between her police statement and inquest evidence. Clearly nobody has any problem with her impression of the man’s interest in the court. Clearly, nobody considers a black hat a “detailed description”, and so on. If anything, an earlier witness statement is likely to be less reliable than a later inquest testimony, especially if s/he was an unwitting or unwilling participant in an extremely traumatic affair such as Lewis would have been in the morning of 9th November, after a harrowing discovery and a sleepless night. Again, nobody rejected Lewis’ testimony, then or now, nor has anyone asserted – until you showed up – that her police statement invalidates her inquest testimony.

You repeat, I repeat, Fisherman.

If that's the game you want to play, let's keep at it for another hundred pages or so and we'll see where it gets you.

There is no evidence that Sarah Lewis lied.

There is no evidence that anyone at the time thought she lied.

There is no reason to think she would have lied.

"In the end, it matters little, though, as I think you will appreciate that the police MUST have asked Hutchinson about where he stood"

And Hutchinson provided the police with an answer - "to the court", which could be anywhere on narrow Dorset Street in front of the Miller's Court entrance. In other words, a very tiny ciucumscribed area. Anyone who expects any more specificity than this, and asserts that Hutchinson would not have moved about during that alleged 45 minutes with that tiny area, is either fantasizing or dreaming up yet more terrible excuses for dismissing the Lewis-Hutchinson connection. You can invent zero-evidence dreamed-up scenarios in which Hutchinson specified which pavement he was on, and that he rooted himself there like a stature for the full duration of his vigil, but you have absolutely no evidence.

"What - matters - is - that - the - eyelashes - were - a - logical - part - of - an -overall - coloration"

Which coluration - dark or pale? Hutchykins gave both, remember? Which polar opposite version of the same account to you go for? I go for neither, myself.

"They would all have known that it did not add up. His story and why it was dismissed, plus the incompatibility with Lewis´story would have been common knowledge back then, if I am correct."

I do love the "if I am correct". Great. In other words, if your wild speculations turned out to be true, we can arrive at X conclusion. It's yet another example of the "If my Aunite had bollocks, she'd be my uncle" brand of fallacy. You can try actual evidence for a change, if you'd prefer.

"deprived of the exonerating evidence that would once have been there visavi Hutchinson - could start to make a (bad and purely speculative) case for Hutchinson as the Ripper again."

Please don't keep going our of your way to make my puke with a mixture or profound irritation and horrified surprise, Fisherman, and do try to process the irony of your claim that the case for Hutchinson as the ripper is "purely speculative". Just try to remember what upsettingly poor excuses you have come up with in an attempt to make the suggestion appear bad. The idea that there "must have" been some lost-to-history "exonerating evidence" for Hutchinson is purely speculative, and yet you use this same pure speculation to dismiss Hutchinson as a potential suspect. The hypocrisy and irony of it all is truly depressing.

[The Good Michael]

My contention is that nobody living around the turn of the former century would have cast Hutchinson as a suspect in any book. They would all have known that it did not add up. His story and why it was dismissed, plus the incompatibility with Lewis´story would have been common knowledge back then, if I am correct.

It was not until the men who worked the case died away and the written material started to disappear, that we - deprived of the exonerating evidence that would once have been there visavi Hutchinson - could start to make a (bad and purely speculative) case for Hutchinson as the Ripper again.

This is good stuff. It is impossible that we today know more about Huthcinson than was known then. Utterly, irrefutably impossible. People like Deb and Chris had to scrape archives just to find George's father and son living in the exact same area. The police would have known about his father.

Other things we don't know that the authorities probably knew, even if they may have been lies

Why Hutch went to Romford
Names of people who corroborated Hutch's alibi
If Hutch had any prior record of crimes
How he looked (military appearance ala Reggie's photo, or short and stout)
His reputation
People he roomed with at the VH
What kind of lodger he was
Did Lewis identify him after she was asked to when he was paraded around

Lack of information, doesn't mean people can just make sh*t up, and that is the most sickening thing with Hutchinson. There is an entire coven of sh*t maker-uppers. It's the Republican Party in miniature

As for me making up stuff: The records don't show it becaus eit's kind of a sensitive subject for investigative purposes, but the coat in thw window had astrakhan cuffs. Prove me wrong.

Mike

[Fisherman]

Harry:

"I did not question whether there was a coat over the window when Bower looked in.Only when it was put there."

It was there in the morning. That means that a suggestion that it was there in the night is rather a legitimate one, especially taking into account that it would have helped keeping the room warm on that windy and cold night.

But of course - the coat may have been lifted down two minutes before Hutch stepped into the court and hung back up two minutes after he left. And if you think that makes my suggestion a very incredible and useless one ... Nah, I won´t even go there.

"As to who made the connection between Hutchinson and Lewis's sighting,it may have been me.Do not forget that Hutchinson was first mooted as a suspect on these boards.No books suggesting him had then been written.This was many years ago."

My contention is that nobody living around the turn of the former century would have cast Hutchinson as a suspect in any book. They would all have known that it did not add up. His story and why it was dismissed, plus the incompatibility with Lewis´story would have been common knowledge back then, if I am correct.

It was not until the men who worked the case died away and the written material started to disappear, that we - deprived of the exonerating evidence that would once have been there visavi Hutchinson - could start to make a (bad and purely speculative) case for Hutchinson as the Ripper again.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"Sounds like a deal, Fisherman, but it just means you lose your entitlement to moan at me the next time I feel like commenting on what you’ve posted to others. For instance, I might have to voice my distain the next time you dredge up the “date confusion” hypothesis, irrespective the intended recipient of your post."

Do you mean to say that you have respectfully refrained from commenting on it before ...? Seriously?

"Maybe in the hope that the message would sink in rather better that way. Where did I go wrong, by the way? I know that the extra “e” of “nonsens” was superfluous, but I couldn’t do much about that, as Microsoft Word kept auto-correcting it! What have I said, precisely?"

You mean you don´t know what you said...? Okey.

"Motbjudande irriterande nonsense" goes wrong where you thought it went wrong - a Swede say nonsens, not nonsense. And it translates into "detestable, irritating nonsense", to be exact. But I am at a loss as to why you prefer to insult me in Swedish - I am normally quite familiar with British insults and language too, so it´s just as useless to insult me in both.

"I don’t know why you’ve suddenly become obsessed with Swanson ..."

I am not obsessed at all, Ben - just pleased to see that there is a contemporary source, top ranking in the Ripper case, who tells us that changed testimonies are unreliable and largely useless ones.

"... but I can assure you that he never expressed any criticism of Sarah Lewis’ evidence."

No you can´t. You can only say - as usual - that there is "no evidence" of it. There is, however, evidence relating to the Packer case, that clearly tells us his mindset in errands like these.
Therefore, when you write: "Packer had contradicted himself before the inquest, in actual fact, and his evidence was discredited, unlike Lewis’", it would seem that yiou have not understood the full implications here at all. But I will point you to them!

Matthew Packer was initiall interviewed by Sgt Stephen White from the police, ant the latter reported (MEPO 3/140/221/A49301C) that Packer claimed that he had neither seen nor heard anything suspicious the night Stride died.
After that, Packer was approached by Le Grand and Batchelor, self-proclaimed private investigators, and after having chatted with these gentlemen, Packer suddenly remembered that he had met Stride with a stranger and sold them fruit. The two detective subsequently took Packer to see Warren (or so they hoped), but only after having Packers brand new story told in the press.

Do you see the implications here, Ben? Can you understand why the police did not want to see Packer at the inquest? Exactly - because they now KNEW that Packer had changed his story from having claimed to have seen nothing, to claiming that he HAD seen Stride and sold her and a stranger in her company grapes, as hort time before the murder. And that - according to Swanson - rendered Packer´s testimony all but worthless.

I think it was very, very wise of Swanson to realize this. Packer most probably lied, after having been influenced and quite possibly treated by Le Grand/Batchelor.

And Lewis? Well, she told in her police interview that she had noticed a man that she could not describe in any manner whatsoever - no physical description and no deswcription of what he did, thus. And THAT story would have been what the police expected her to reiterate at the inquest. But no - she instead told the court that she actually had seen and was able to describe the man, clothingwise, including color of the garments and the color and cut of the hat he was wearing. She also suddenly was able to say that the man was not tall, but stout. And, miraculously, she was able to say exactly what the man was doing - he was staring intently up the court. And, lo and behold, not only this - she was ALSO able to discern an intent behind the staring: the man seemed to wait for somebody to come out.

If the police had known that Lewis was going to change HER story, just like Packer did, then they would have thrown her testimony out to, and on the exact same grounds - she changed her story radically.

So Packer had changed his story, and the police knew that BEFORE the inquest - and ruled him out.
Lewis ALSO changed her story - but contrary to Packer, she did not do it BEFORE the inquest, but instead AT the inquest. Thus the police were in no position to rule her out before it - but the Packer incident tells us that they certainly would do so after it. Thus when you say that there is no evidence that the police ever disregarded Lewis´efforts, you are wrong - for there is very clear evidence what the police thought of people who changed their stories radically. The police must have thought her a valuable and useful witness until she opened her mouth at the inquest. After that, nope. And what you are going to need if you still want to believe her is not any parrotlike repeating of the sentence "there is no evidence", since there IS evidence of A/ what Swanson thought about people changing their testimony, and B/ a very obvioulys changed testimony on behalf of Lewis. Therefore, the evidence that is not there, is in fact any evidence that the police put any stock at all in Lewis after the inquest - and there is no such evidence around. And we all know why, right?

"No sane individual would ever waste his time distinguishing between the "eastern" and "western" corner of the Miller’s Court entrance, as though the distinction counted for anything"

ANY sane policeman would do exactly that, Ben. In the end, it matters little, though, as I think you will appreciate that the police MUST have asked Hutchinson about where he stood, and it would be enough for him to say "On the Miller´s Court pavement" to turn your hopes and beliefs to dust. If you seriously believe that any police who could get exact positions described would instead hush their witnesses and say "Ah, knowing that you were in that street is enough, Sir - it ALL counts as "outside the court" since the street is so small and narrow" , then that is your business, but as I say - there are ways of finding out things like these, tehre are KNOWLEDGEABLE people to ask, so go ahead!

“spy-framkallande smuts” (is that right?)"

No - but it is hilarious! Keep it coming! Did you ever see that old tv show "Ello, ello"? There was a french gendarme in it, trying to speak British and he leaps to mind now...!

"Any detail of significance that was not included in the body of the statement was later included in Abberline’s report, and details of Hutchinson’s first ever meeting with Kelly is absent for some not-so-amazing reason."

Have a look at the report. Then estimate how much was said at the interrogation. After that, ask yourself why so much time as you expect was spent on idle chit-chat with no connection to the case.

"But the colouration didn’t suggest a “southern foreigner”. "

Matters - not. What - matters - is - that - the - eyelashes - were - a - logical - part - of - an -overall - coloration.

The best,
Fisherman

[Wickerman]

Sugden suggested the 'loiterer' may have been Hutchinson back in '94, however, Begg, Fido & Skinner in '91, suggested "most researchers" considered this same identification for the loiterer. I have not looked for the suggestion earlier than that.

Jon