A closer look at George Hutchinson

[Fisherman]

Reading expert opinions can sometimes require it's own expertise! Experts phrase things in ways that can sometimes sound very different to the untrained ear. For example, even if their opinion is on the "you may draw this conclusion safely ...", they will phrase things in terms of "it is highly probable" or "highly improbable" ... leaving the untrained ear to presume the expert is saying there is reasonable room for the alternative. Generally, that's not going to be the case and the expert is simply acknowledging that given the nature of any data analysis, nothing is 100%, and so we phrase things that way because we are trained to phrase things that way.

When an expert spends a lot of time pointing out that the data they have been given to work with is not sufficient (i.e. I would require original material, not images, etc), then they are indicating that what follows is not their expert opinion on the matter, rather, they are simply being polite and trying to suggest what such an analysis might show, if they indeed had the proper, and sufficient amount, of material to do an analysis upon.

Finally, it is not uncommon for people to think that experts will always offer an opinion of "yay or nay", but there is a third, often more common opinion that emerges, which is in between - that's the "equivocal" outcome, meaning it is unclear if the answer should be yay or if it should be nay, as the evidence could fit either of those. It's not sufficient to determine. So where he is talking about "can not be ruled out", he's indicating that such a phrase is an expression from the "equivocal outcome"; it can't be ruled out does not mean it has been ruled in. We are in that grey area of either is possible.

Given he clearly indicates that the material he working from is not such that he could (or will) form an expert opinion, and that he goes on to try and explain how saying "can not be ruled out" simply means that "there are obvious likenesses in certain respects", which is a far cry from saying "the similarities are such that we can be confident the same hand has a high probability of the being source of both signatures" (the latter being a phrase one might seen if an expert was of the opinion there was a match, the former being an indication of non-committal opinion).

I have no experience with handwriting analysis myself, but have lots of experience with expert opinions and how we phrase things (I'm an expert in some areas of research, most of which bear little relevance to criminology, but expert language is a function of how we're trained to talk about data, and analysis, and statements based upon the probabilities derived from statistical analysis and so forth, so I feel somewhat confident in sharing my thoughts here). Researchers are a funny lot, and we end up with idiosyncratic ways of expressing things that can easily be misinterpreted by those not dealing with data and statistical analyses on a day-to-day basis.

And also, that training, and how experts "speak", has changed since the 1800s of course. Experts were expected to speak in more definite language, but over time, things have shifted to use language that more accurately reflects the fact that even if the analysis leads you to be 99% sure, you cannot say definitely, because, 1% error means you're wrong 1% of the time after all, while definitely implies there's 0% room for error - that you cannot be wrong. In such a case, the expert would resort to describing things something like "In all reasonable probability the two items were written by the same hand", but if questioned by a defence lawyer, they would have to admit that "Yes, there is a 1% chance that the signatures were written by two different people", and it would be the jury that would have to decide if 1% was reasonable doubt.

- Jeff

If, as you say, a jury would have to admit that there must be a one per cent chance that two signatures deemed similar were by different hands, then the matter of how both men in our case also happened to use the exact same name when signing would put that self same jury at rest. It would go from a nearly certain call to a very certain one.

[Fisherman]

Lets look at Frank Leander's statements, not your interpretation of those statements.

Post 1255 - "”I wish to strongly underline your view that comparing research into signatures must be done using the original material and I/we would not have the possibility to write a full expert´s opinion on the material supplied. Under the circumstances, however, I would like to express myself thusly:

It cannot be ruled out that we are dealing with the same person - there is a number of matches of a common character (character of style, degree of writing skill, the spreading of the text, certain proportions), and, as far as can be judged from the copy there are also a number of matches when it comes to the shapes of single letters.

Against these matches one must pose differences in certain liftings of the pen (?), the proportions of the tch-group and the perhaps most eyecatching differences in the shaping of some of the letters; G (the ground-shape), r and n at the end of the signature.

The differences could be explained by H. being relatively young at the first writing occasion, the surrounding circumstances as available writing space, function of the pen and similar things. The signature at the top (the police report signature from page three of the protocol – my remark) is unquestionably the one that differs most at any rate.

In conclusion, you must see this as a spontaneous, personal comment from me and not as a full expert opinion, since such things cannot be done from a material like this!"

Post 1947 - "Semantics is a hard thing! I do not wish to embark on any further elaboration on the issue since I have only commented on a few pictures via mail, but in ”my world”, the expression CAN NOT BE RULED OUT belongs to the same parish as THERE ARE OBVIOUS LIKENESSES IN CERTAIN RESPECTS. But once again: It is not until you have an original material with a sufficient number of signatures to compare that you can tell what the indications are worth!"

Summing up, Leander repeatedly says that they do not have enough material to determine if the two men are the same. Some aspects of the signatures match, enough that the same man could have written all of them, but there are also significant differences.

Anyone who wants to look at what Leander said can easily do so, since I posted a link to the thread, as you may have noted. I also very clearly pointed out that there was disagreements.

What remains is that Leander saw the similarities, and that for the witness signature to have been written by somebody else than Topping Hutchinson, it requires that another man must have signed in a way that was similar to Toppings signature AND have either been named George Hutchinson or chosen to call himself by that name.

And the chances for that happening are and remain virtually non-existant. Meaning that we may safely assume that George William Topping Huchinson was the witness.

I don´t think there is anything to add to that.

[JeffHamm]

Lets look at Frank Leander's statements, not your interpretation of those statements.

Post 1255 - "”I wish to strongly underline your view that comparing research into signatures must be done using the original material and I/we would not have the possibility to write a full expert´s opinion on the material supplied. Under the circumstances, however, I would like to express myself thusly:

It cannot be ruled out that we are dealing with the same person - there is a number of matches of a common character (character of style, degree of writing skill, the spreading of the text, certain proportions), and, as far as can be judged from the copy there are also a number of matches when it comes to the shapes of single letters.

Against these matches one must pose differences in certain liftings of the pen (?), the proportions of the tch-group and the perhaps most eyecatching differences in the shaping of some of the letters; G (the ground-shape), r and n at the end of the signature.

The differences could be explained by H. being relatively young at the first writing occasion, the surrounding circumstances as available writing space, function of the pen and similar things. The signature at the top (the police report signature from page three of the protocol – my remark) is unquestionably the one that differs most at any rate.

In conclusion, you must see this as a spontaneous, personal comment from me and not as a full expert opinion, since such things cannot be done from a material like this!"

Post 1947 - "Semantics is a hard thing! I do not wish to embark on any further elaboration on the issue since I have only commented on a few pictures via mail, but in ”my world”, the expression CAN NOT BE RULED OUT belongs to the same parish as THERE ARE OBVIOUS LIKENESSES IN CERTAIN RESPECTS. But once again: It is not until you have an original material with a sufficient number of signatures to compare that you can tell what the indications are worth!"

Summing up, Leander repeatedly says that they do not have enough material to determine if the two men are the same. Some aspects of the signatures match, enough that the same man could have written all of them, but there are also significant differences.

Reading expert opinions can sometimes require it's own expertise! Experts phrase things in ways that can sometimes sound very different to the untrained ear. For example, even if their opinion is on the "you may draw this conclusion safely ...", they will phrase things in terms of "it is highly probable" or "highly improbable" ... leaving the untrained ear to presume the expert is saying there is reasonable room for the alternative. Generally, that's not going to be the case and the expert is simply acknowledging that given the nature of any data analysis, nothing is 100%, and so we phrase things that way because we are trained to phrase things that way.

When an expert spends a lot of time pointing out that the data they have been given to work with is not sufficient (i.e. I would require original material, not images, etc), then they are indicating that what follows is not their expert opinion on the matter, rather, they are simply being polite and trying to suggest what such an analysis might show, if they indeed had the proper, and sufficient amount, of material to do an analysis upon.

Finally, it is not uncommon for people to think that experts will always offer an opinion of "yay or nay", but there is a third, often more common opinion that emerges, which is in between - that's the "equivocal" outcome, meaning it is unclear if the answer should be yay or if it should be nay, as the evidence could fit either of those. It's not sufficient to determine. So where he is talking about "can not be ruled out", he's indicating that such a phrase is an expression from the "equivocal outcome"; it can't be ruled out does not mean it has been ruled in. We are in that grey area of either is possible.

Given he clearly indicates that the material he working from is not such that he could (or will) form an expert opinion, and that he goes on to try and explain how saying "can not be ruled out" simply means that "there are obvious likenesses in certain respects", which is a far cry from saying "the similarities are such that we can be confident the same hand has a high probability of the being source of both signatures" (the latter being a phrase one might seen if an expert was of the opinion there was a match, the former being an indication of non-committal opinion).

I have no experience with handwriting analysis myself, but have lots of experience with expert opinions and how we phrase things (I'm an expert in some areas of research, most of which bear little relevance to criminology, but expert language is a function of how we're trained to talk about data, and analysis, and statements based upon the probabilities derived from statistical analysis and so forth, so I feel somewhat confident in sharing my thoughts here). Researchers are a funny lot, and we end up with idiosyncratic ways of expressing things that can easily be misinterpreted by those not dealing with data and statistical analyses on a day-to-day basis.

And also, that training, and how experts "speak", has changed since the 1800s of course. Experts were expected to speak in more definite language, but over time, things have shifted to use language that more accurately reflects the fact that even if the analysis leads you to be 99% sure, you cannot say definitely, because, 1% error means you're wrong 1% of the time after all, while definitely implies there's 0% room for error - that you cannot be wrong. In such a case, the expert would resort to describing things something like "In all reasonable probability the two items were written by the same hand", but if questioned by a defence lawyer, they would have to admit that "Yes, there is a 1% chance that the signatures were written by two different people", and it would be the jury that would have to decide if 1% was reasonable doubt.

- Jeff

[Fiver]

If you want to see my posts where I present Leanders take (and I may have missed some of it, it took me an hour and a half to dig through ...) you will find it in the posts 1202, 1255, 1264, 1338, 1947, 1959 and 2309.

Lets look at Frank Leander's statements, not your interpretation of those statements.

Post 1255 - "”I wish to strongly underline your view that comparing research into signatures must be done using the original material and I/we would not have the possibility to write a full expert´s opinion on the material supplied. Under the circumstances, however, I would like to express myself thusly:

It cannot be ruled out that we are dealing with the same person - there is a number of matches of a common character (character of style, degree of writing skill, the spreading of the text, certain proportions), and, as far as can be judged from the copy there are also a number of matches when it comes to the shapes of single letters.

Against these matches one must pose differences in certain liftings of the pen (?), the proportions of the tch-group and the perhaps most eyecatching differences in the shaping of some of the letters; G (the ground-shape), r and n at the end of the signature.

The differences could be explained by H. being relatively young at the first writing occasion, the surrounding circumstances as available writing space, function of the pen and similar things. The signature at the top (the police report signature from page three of the protocol – my remark) is unquestionably the one that differs most at any rate.

In conclusion, you must see this as a spontaneous, personal comment from me and not as a full expert opinion, since such things cannot be done from a material like this!"

Post 1947 - "Semantics is a hard thing! I do not wish to embark on any further elaboration on the issue since I have only commented on a few pictures via mail, but in ”my world”, the expression CAN NOT BE RULED OUT belongs to the same parish as THERE ARE OBVIOUS LIKENESSES IN CERTAIN RESPECTS. But once again: It is not until you have an original material with a sufficient number of signatures to compare that you can tell what the indications are worth!"

Summing up, Leander repeatedly says that they do not have enough material to determine if the two men are the same. Some aspects of the signatures match, enough that the same man could have written all of them, but there are also significant differences.

[Fisherman]

Hi Jon!

I agree with you, Christer & Sam, I only need to look at my own signature over time to see the present & past are not identical, but neither are the differences of any major consequence. They can't possibly be expected to be identical in every aspect.

That is very true. Below are two links to signatures by John F Kennedy. They are in the same style, but there are major differences anyway. They even lean differently. But they are nevertheless the presidents signature.

https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:John_F_Kennedy_Signature_2.svg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_F_Kennedy_Signature.svg

The conclusion must be that finding differences can ALWAYS be done from signature to signature. The above signatures are much more dissimilar than the two Hutchinson signatures. But a trained forensic document examiner will be able to tell that it is the same originator anyway, not on account of the differences but by way of the similarities.

And the Ripper case is all about similarities, as is any case of serial murder.

[Fisherman]

all, thanks for providing the links to the sigs!
looking at the two sigs sam posted on post number 1517 i stand by what i said back then they dont look anything alike. not even close.
and again, with the 1888 sig not even matching the other two, its useless to compare.

yes full disclosure, i think hutch is a valid suspect. but i dont even care if topping was hutch, it does nothing to diminish hutchs validity as a suspect, as true crime history has taught us many serial killers were family men. so if they matched i would say it. they dont.

and the circs under which toppys son was found and interviewed about this are so dodgy it renders it all bogus any way.

There must always be such a thing as personal impressions, Abby, so you are welcome to your take. But that does not change the fact that a seasoned expert in document examination says that the signatures are likely by the same man, and he expects any forthcoming evidence to further prove that. And if I want to know if two signatures are similar, there is nobody better suited to make that call than a man like Frank Leander.

Once I couple his verdict with the fact that IF the signature on the witness testimony was written by another man than George William Topping Hutchinson, then that man did not only have a signature that was so close to Toppings that Frank Leander says they are a likely match, but he also either falsely chose to call himself by the same name as Topping had or he actually was baptized George Hutchinson. And that effectively seals the deal for me. And I am absolutely certain that any court of law would make the same reflections as I do, and pass verdict accordingly. There are coincidences and then there are coincidences, but this one ....? No.

If the man who signed the witness testimony back in November of 1888 was the killer, then we have the killers name: George William Topping Hutchinson. I am in no doubt whatsoever about that, least of all since the reason I sent the signatures to Leander for comparison, was that I genuinely felt that they were very, very close. And it turned out that this was not any mistake on my behalf.

[Abby Normal]

all, thanks for providing the links to the sigs!
looking at the two sigs sam posted on post number 1517 i stand by what i said back then they dont look anything alike. not even close.
and again, with the 1888 sig not even matching the other two, its useless to compare.

yes full disclosure, i think hutch is a valid suspect. but i dont even care if topping was hutch, it does nothing to diminish hutchs validity as a suspect, as true crime history has taught us many serial killers were family men. so if they matched i would say it. they dont.

and the circs under which toppys son was found and interviewed about this are so dodgy it renders it all bogus any way.

[Wickerman]

Interesting...

A copy of his signature I posted on the "Elusive George Hutchinson" thread...






And the alleged "Ripper" handwriting.


I agree with Christer that the writing is very, very similar.

IF we could prove this is the SAME George Hutchinson that turned up at the 11th hour to give an overly detailed witness statement, then the chance of him having very similar handwriting to the alleged Ripper correspondence would be a striking coincidence.

Of course, it doesn't prove that Hutchinson is the Ripper

But it may go some way to proving that Hutchinson was the fantasist behind the Ripper letters.

RD

I agree with you, Christer & Sam, I only need to look at my own signature over time to see the present & past are not identical, but neither are the differences of any major consequence. They can't possibly be expected to be identical in every aspect.

[Fisherman]

In defence of someone I rather enjoyed discussing these cases with, Ben had his own ideas and opinions...as we all do. But the snarky way he has been referred to is unfair. Recognizing subtle variances and character movements during a signature analysis is an art and is opinion based, it isnt a scientific verification. Its not a fingerprint.

Not fair? I will leave it to anybody who wants to read through the thread to see whether or not I told the story as it went down. It is easy enough.

[Wickerman]

So sayeth Michael, who has a habit of backing the wrong horse...

[Michael W Richards]

In defence of someone I rather enjoyed discussing these cases with, Ben had his own ideas and opinions...as we all do. But the snarky way he has been referred to is unfair. Recognizing subtle variances and character movements during a signature analysis is an art and is opinion based, it isnt a scientific verification. Its not a fingerprint.

[Fisherman]

Thanks Fish, appreciate your effort in digging this back up and pointing me in the right direction.

If I was to say "My pleasure" I would lie. But I am glad to have been of help, anyways!

[Tab]

This all surfaced in 2009, and there was a very long thread of more than 2000 posts. Basically, most of it became a brawl between a poster named Ben (who suggested that Hutchinson was the killer) and myself.
If you have the stomach for it, you are welcome to read the whole exchange. If I was to describe it, it basically went along the lines of my pointing out the similarities in the signatures and Ben saying that no, they were not similar in the least.
I then contacted Frank Leander, and he gave his view. Ben refused to accept that Leander said that the two were alike, and did all he could to dismiss Leanders claims. When he did, I asked Leander to clarify, which he did, and Ben denied again that Leander spoke of a similarity that pointed to a common originator. This went on to a time until I backed Ben into a corner from which he could not find any way out, since Frank Leander was able to tell that my take on what he said was the correct one. At this stage, Ben answered by claiming that Leander only said so because he had gotten very tired with me and had decided to "fob me off".

This is my picture, of course, and as I said, you are welcome to wade through the bog of that thread if you feel like it. It is called "Hutch in the 1911 census", and as I said, it is from 2009.

Enjoy.

Thanks Fish, appreciate your effort in digging this back up and pointing me in the right direction.

[Fisherman]

This is interesting. Are you willing to share images of the 2 signatures and the report from Frank Leander here?

This all surfaced in 2009, and there was a very long thread of more than 2000 posts. Basically, most of it became a brawl between a poster named Ben (who suggested that Hutchinson was the killer) and myself.
If you have the stomach for it, you are welcome to read the whole exchange. If I was to describe it, it basically went along the lines of my pointing out the similarities in the signatures and Ben saying that no, they were not similar in the least.
I then contacted Frank Leander, and he gave his view. Ben refused to accept that Leander said that the two were alike, and did all he could to dismiss Leanders claims. When he did, I asked Leander to clarify, which he did, and Ben denied again that Leander spoke of a similarity that pointed to a common originator. This went on to a time until I backed Ben into a corner from which he could not find any way out, since Frank Leander was able to tell that my take on what he said was the correct one. At this stage, Ben answered by claiming that Leander only said so because he had gotten very tired with me and had decided to "fob me off".

This is my picture, of course, and as I said, you are welcome to wade through the bog of that thread if you feel like it. It is called "Hutch in the 1911 census", and as I said, it is from 2009.

If you want a condensed version, then you may want to begin with post 120, where I first say that I find the signatures remarkable similar. A link will get you there: https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...ge8#post120474

If you want to see the signatures, post 567 is useful. It has the witness signature on top, followed by Topping Hutchinson wedding signature from 1898 and nine signatures by Topping from an inquest at the bottom. This is the link: https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...e38#post120474

If you want to see my posts where I present Leanders take (and I may have missed some of it, it took me an hour and a half to dig through ...) you will find it in the posts 1202, 1255, 1264, 1338, 1947, 1959 and 2309.

Enjoy.

[rjpalmer]

This might be of interest.

Follow these two links to posts by 'Sam Flynn' who made side-by-side comparisons between Toppy and the signatures on the witness statement:

JTR Forums Post 15:

Hutchinson and Kelly? - Jack The Ripper Forums - Ripperology For The 21st Century (jtrforums.com)

Or this forum, Post 1517:

Any updates, or opinions on this witness. - Casebook: Jack the Ripper Forums

Sam's suspicion is that Sue Iremonger was accidently given a wedding certificate that was actually filled out by the registrar, and not the original---hence her failure to identify the witness as "Toppy." He makes a good case.