Why did Abberline believe Hutch ?

[Abby Normal]

Hi,

Couldnt it simply have been that they believed Hutchinson but then after further investigations decided that the man he saw was not the killer?

Best wishes.

Hi Hatchett
perhaps, but highly unlikely IMHO. To determine that, they would have to have found Aman, investigated and cleared him. Which would have been found in police records or at least certainly in the press.

But even if they did find him I don't really see how they could have cleared him-the "witness" hutch said that he was alone with her for at least 45 minutes and could have been much longer, since no one saw him or mary leave.

[Hatchett]

Hi,

Couldnt it simply have been that they believed Hutchinson but then after further investigations decided that the man he saw was not the killer?

Best wishes.

[Batman]

Isn't worth noting that almost 100 years later a far better equipped West Yorkshire force seems to have gone into virtual meltdown over the Yorkshire Ripper investigation.

It is surely relevant to consider their investigations into Blotchey. Despite his distinctive complexion, and the fact that he would surely be the number one suspect for Kelly's murder if Astrakhan were rejected, he was never found. And the effort that went into finding him seems to have been even less than the effort put into finding Hutchinson's suspect.

It's like an overworked, under resourced police force simply gave up.

I actually see comparisons between Hutchinson and the Yorkshire Ripper Squad's mistakes.

Although the system they used for the YR murders was flawed, they did have Sutcliffe in there early on. He worked at the place that had been given the money found on a dead prostitute. They had his boot print and suspected a driver from the marks on it. They had his composite. What the system didn't do was bring people with multiple 'hits' to the front of the queue quick enough. He was being investigated (they paid several visits to him) and one detective was sure he had found the ripper... but when he went to report it...

... a hoaxer came in with tape and the lead investigator bought it on the basis that it had inside information. So anyone without a Geordie Accent was ruled out instantly which included Sutcliffe. So the detective was told to forget about that man. The lead detective was wrong. The tape had no inside info. It was all gleaned from newspapers. Its called the Wareside Jack case -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wearside_Jack

This IMO is like Hutchinson/Abberline. They have a witness and a good description of a red faced man from Cox seen going into MJKs room with her. He matches the description of Ada's attacker. He isn't a whole shot outside of Schwartz/Lawende's witness accounts either.

He should be a suspect at the very least right?

Yet look at what happens after Hutchinson shows up.

Manchester Courier
November 16, 1888
"The police are working diligently upon the clue furnished by George Hutchinson. Judging from a communication made by Mr. Galloway, a clerk employed in the City and living at Stepney, no reliance is now placed upon the statement made by the woman Cox, and the detectives rely almost exclusively upon Hutchinson's description of the supposed murderer."

Galloway thought he saw Blotchy and reported him there and then to an officer who decided not to go after them.

Interesting how they drop one suspect for a lead that went cold. Sounds familiar no?

It is worth noting the suspect Galloway saw was said to be a well known person in the area who was working in 'conjunction' with the police. Sounds sort of like a Vig. Committee member if you ask me.

[John G]

I do feel that there is a possibility that, in relation to Astrakhan man, the police simply gave up trying to find him due to inadequacy of resources. Yes, they may have started to doubt the veracity of Hutchinson's account for a whole variety of reasons, however, as Walter Dew's subsequent comments suggest, there doesn't seem to have been any proof that he lied.

I sense that by this time the Whitechapel force was pretty much in meltdown. It should be remembered that they probably had only a handful of detectives to commit to numerous murder inquiries and vicious crimes that occurred in 1888.

Even if we discount Eddowes, because she was the responsibility of the City Police, wouldn't the Whitechapel force have been primarily responsible for investigating the murders of Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Kelly and the vicious assault on Smith?

None of these crimes had an obvious suspect, which, as now, was pretty rare for the period. It should be remembered that prior to 1888, murder in Whitechapel was uncommon, and no doubt the vast majority of murders were quickly cleared up, i.e. because they happened in a domestic setting with an obvious suspect who may well have quickly admitted to the crime.

Isn't worth noting that almost 100 years later a far better equipped West Yorkshire force seems to have gone into virtual meltdown over the Yorkshire Ripper investigation.

And isn't the case that a force already stretched to breaking point would have to have followed up every lead, however insignificant it may have seemed? Mathew Packer is an obvious example of the media backlash that could ensue if even unlikely leads were not deemed to have been investigated.

It is surely relevant to consider their investigations into Blotchey. Despite his distinctive complexion, and the fact that he would surely be the number one suspect for Kelly's murder if Astrakhan were rejected, he was never found. And the effort that went into finding him seems to have been even less than the effort put into finding Hutchinson's suspect.

It's like an overworked, under resourced police force simply gave up.

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

“Circular reasoning, Ben. You start from the presumption of a guilty Hutch giving deliberately evasive answers (or not even being asked the questions) so his statement could not be shown to be the catalogue of lies you believe it was.”

No, it isn’t “circular reasoning”, and there is no “presumption”. I’m simply pointing out that if Hutchinson was lying, there were easy ways for him to escape being caught out if Abberline asked such questions as “What was Kelly wearing that night?”. If Hutchinson’s response to that question was consistent with the known evidence (no hat, red pelerine, whatever), then yes, Abberline might well have considered that a point in his favour, but only if he’d somehow ruled out the possibility of Hutchinson reading Mary Cox’s description of Kelly’s clothing in the papers and simply copying that, or having been with Kelly himself that night, albeit without any aspect of the Astrakhan story being true. Unfortunately, Abberline was in no position to rule out either possibility at the time of the interrogation.

“Wrong again, Ben, because of your total inability to grasp that Abberline would be trying to confirm Hutch was being truthful at the same time as looking out for signs that he was full of it.”

What’s the problem? If Hutchinson gave an account of Kelly’s clothing that was consistent with the facts, he was either being truthful or incorporating the known – and widely publicised! - facts into his own narrative to make it seem more plausible. One would hope Abberline was able to figure this out, and thus avoid using “clothing” as a means of gauging the extent of Hutchinson's honesty.

“Of course, he had no real need to invent a private conversation with her if he was playing the evasive card. She was dead. He could have said anything or nothing at all. Yet he made it tougher on himself in the event he was asked to describe her appearance and couldn't.”

It would have done, yes, and it would make him a lousy liar and probable publicity-seeker who wasn’t even there when he claimed to have been. But if he could describe the clothes because he had made it his business to look them up – in the way he obviously “looked up” Lewis’s evidence – then he would have no problem. Similarly, if he’d seen the clothes himself on a still-living Kelly, and wanted to conceal an altogether different reason for being in her company that night, no problem there either. In the latter scenario, it would have been a distinct advantage to include a private conversation that involved Kelly having a legitimate reason to be out and about and bumping into the spooky fictional man he wished to scapegoat: she was allegedly looking for money.

Might Abberline have asked about the clothing for other reasons, such as cementing identity? Yes, of course.

“But this totally ignores the alternative possibility, that Abberline believed him because he was able to confirm certain elements of the story under interrogation, either from information already in his possession or a minimum of enquiry.”

Any suggestions as to what these might have been, bearing in mind Abberline had only just met the man and had no time to investigate his claims between the end of the “interrogation” and the submission of the report? (And I don’t want to hear about any conveniently-lost-to-history red hankies being found in Kelly’s room, please!)

“Or that he stopped in full murderous flow to make a mental note of all the clothes in the room and guessed 'precisely' which ones she had been wearing earlier”

I don’t know where you get “all the clothes” from. We’re talking about room #13 Miller’s Court here, not Primark. No, I don’t consider it infeasible for the killer to have made a (probably post-murder) mental note of the clothes in the room, or to have assumed correctly that the clothes nearest the bed (or on it) were the ones she’d worn that night. If he was responsible for burning some of them, then he clearly paid them some attention. And yes, it is also perfectly possible that the killer had seen Kelly in the company of Blotchy.

“But a very reduced importance is very far from no importance at all, so unless this was merely the press making it up as they went along (surely they never resort to that? ), the police must have continued to consider the possibility, however slight, that Hutch really had seen the killer with his victim.”

Yes, and I’ve argued as much on several occasions. A sort of “yes, the evidence points towards this being probable bollocks and that is the official line we take, but maybe…just maybe”.

“Certainly on the part of the Echo hacks if they seriously believed the authorities had only just thought to ask why Hutch had not come forward sooner.”

But I never suggested anything of the sort, and nor did the Echo. You raised the very same issue on the other active Hutchinson thread (yep, they’re all the rage again), so you’ll forgive the duplicated response. The Echo made it quite clear that the authorities had come to view the late appearance of his evidence as a problem as a result of investigating the matter further.

“From latest inquiries it appears that a very reduced importance seems to be now - in the light of later investigation - attached to a statement made by a person last night that he saw a man with the deceased on the night of the murder.”

Whatever this “later investigation” turned up, it evidently undermined Hutchinson’s credibility to the extent that it suffered a “very reduced importance”. Perhaps it was revealed that Hutchinson’s explanation for his delay in coming forward (whatever it was) cannot have been true, or perhaps Abberline’s endorsement of Hutchinson’s statement didn’t sit well with his superiors? Alternatively, Hutchinson’s press disclosures might have been undoing, given their embellishments and flat-out contradictions (as well as a claim to have contacted a policeman, which could easily have been checked out and proved false). Or did he slip up somehow on his walkabout with police one night, as Garry once suggested?

Investigative development is not “poor reasoning”.

“So what went wrong on this one, for the 'authorities' to suddenly decide his explanation had been so poor that his entire story must now be in doubt?”

I don’t know, but it happened that way nonetheless, according to the best evidence. If you’re asking me to speculate, it is possible that Hutchinson attempted to explain away his earlier inertia by claiming he was nervous about reprisals from the presumed murderer, only to destroy that excuse by blabbing to reporters a day later. Alternatively, he may have claimed to have approached a policeman about the affair, only for it to be revealed subsequently that no such policeman existed.

“If Hutch's account really was discredited and put in the bin with all the other 'false scents', Mrs Cox's account must have gone the same way in the long run, assuming Blotchy similarly failed to feature among the senior policemen's major suspects as fingered in their various memos and memoirs.”

As you said on the other thread, to which I replied:

Cox did receive a mention in a police memoir - a favourable one. Nothing about her being discredited or lying or confused. If she wasn’t considered as important as Lawende and/or Schwartz, it may have been because she seemed to have followed Kelly and Blotchy from behind, and didn’t have as good a vantage point with which to view her suspect than the other two did. Additionally, her sighting occurred significantly earlier than Kelly’s generally accepted time of death, unlike Lawende’s, for instance, which occurred ten minutes prior to the discovery of Eddowes’ body.

“It is circular reasoning to argue that Hutch's account must have been totally discredited or the police would have recalled him as a witness for future identifications. Chance would have been a fine thing.”

But Hutchinson wasn’t even mentioned.

Anderson stated that the only person to get a good view of the murderer was Jewish. What about Hutchinson, who got a much better look? The “fact” that he was inaccessible for attempts at identifying suspects would have made no difference to that, and yet he is conspicuously absent from Anderson’s remarks. Similarly, Abberline had the opportunity to infer a link between dark-haired, moustachioed foreign Astrakhan man and dark-haired, moustachioed foreign Severin Klosowski, but he never made one – electing instead to infer tenuous parallels with witnesses who only saw their suspects’ backs, and men wearing “P&O” caps. This quite simply does not make sense unless Hutchinson was discredited, as contemporary records indicate. The other option is to join Jon and argue that Astrakhan was identified and then exonerated (which, quirky theories about Joseph Isaacs aside, is not even a possibility).

If the police genuinely believed Hutchinson to have been the star witness, it was pretty careless of them to have lost track of him completely, and I somewhat doubt that an excuse of “oh well, that’s him phucked off – we won’t find him again, so let’s settle for the witnesses who ARE around for identity parades, and pretend that brilliant, ripper-spotting Hutchinson never existed” was ever resorted to.

“So it would have been 'closed' to anyone who couldn't pay the going rate. Yes, I see.

Similarly the Victoria Home would have been 'closed' to Hutch without a valid pass.

Similarly, his "usual" place, if not the VH, would likely have been 'closed' to him if he didn't have enough money or a valid pass.”

No, that’s fairly obviously nonsense.

If you turn up penniless to a thriving pub in Soho on a Friday night, and are turned away because of your lack of funds, would you describe that pub as “closed”? No, clearly not.

“What evidence do you have that he had either sufficient funds or a valid pass?”

None.

What I do have is a press-recorded claim that he did not secure a bed at his “usual” lodgings that night because they had closed (and NOT because he had no money or pass). I also have the hideous illogicality of Hutchinson walking 13 miles in the small hours with the certainty that he had neither a bed ticket nor funds to pay for a bed at the other end. Sympathetic reaction? Nah, probably not. If you bend the rules for one lodger in 500, you’ll have to do the same for the rest.

“If you looked anything like Hutch's suspect, would you have hung around the district without changing your appearance?”

If you looked anything like Hutch’s suspect, would you have hung around Commercial Street when the ripper-scare was as active and as current as it was possible to be?

Me neither.

All the best,
Ben

[Scott Nelson]

Why was Isaacs described as a Polish Jew?

His father may have been, but not Joseph -- he was born in Whitechapel.

Further fuel to the possibility that Joseph was dropped as a Ripper suspect after December 7th, 1888 and his Leman Street Station cell mate, David Cohen, an immigrant Polish Jew, was fingered as a suitable substitute for Isaacs.

[harry]

Hutchinson first gave his account to someone at the police station.Aberline was informed and came to the station himself.It seems reasonable then, that Aberline,before facing Hutchinson,would have been briefed on what Hutchinson was claiming,and that was that Hutchinson was an eye witness ,who saw a male person go with Kelly to her room.Aberline questions Hutchinson,and I do not believe an experienced officer such as Aberline would have started the questioning with any preconceived thought of innocence or guilt,and later reports an opinion of honesty of Hutchinson.
Nowwhere,in any account that has been tendered of that evening,can I find information that relates to a suspicion being held by Aberline against Hutchinson,at the beginning,in the middle or at the end.That is,untill it was claimed on this thread.

[Garry Wroe]

As you rightly point out, Caz's argument, that they may simply have lost contact with him, is persuasive. I mean, wasn't it couple of years before the police's prime witness, Joseph Lawende, was effectively utilized, i.e in the identification of Kosminski? By such time, Hutchinson may have long disappeared into the ether.

The problem with the disappearing Hutchinson, though, John, is that it does not explain why the Echo dismissed his story the day after the Abberline interview. Nor does it fit with Walter Dew's recollections of events. More importantly yet, it is completely at odds with Anderson's assertion (with the implied confirmation of Swanson) of a Jewish witness being the only person ever to have had a clear view of the killer. Since this individual was almost certainly Schwartz or Lawende we can safely conclude that Hutchinson's gold star sighting of Astrakhan had gone the way of Violenia's and Hutchinson had been demoted to the status of worthless witness.

[c.d.]

C.D
Could Aberline reasonably have formed any opinion,until after he had listened to Hutchinson's account,and we know by Aberline's report,his opinion was that Hutchinson was truthfull.There was a suspect,Astrakan.You and I may doubt the truth of w hat Hutchinson stated,we may be critical of Aberline's opinion of truthfulness and the use of the word interrogation,we may cast suspicion Hutchinson's way. What w e cannot do is state Aberline had suspicions of Hutchinson.None is shown.
Hutchinson was a person of interest,always will be,and that is all.
Regards.

Hello Harry,

Abberline had no way of knowing whether Astrakhan man actually existed, all he had was Hutchinson's story which may or may not have been true. However, according to Hutchinson's own account he knew Mary and was the last person (discounting the possible fictional Astrakahn man) to see her alive. If that didn't set off alarm bells in Abberline's head then he was an extremely incompetent detective. Did that automatically make him a suspect? That is hard to say but it most certainly made him a person of interest and Abberline would have entertained suspicions until he got satisfactory answers. Apparently those suspicions were somehow calmed and therefore Hutchinson never became a suspect as far as we know.

What do I base my reasoning on? Well, where I live (Washington, D.C) there are always stories in the news about some woman being found dead under mysterious circumstances. A few days later the police will say that they are looking for her husband/ex-husband/boyfriend/ex-boyfriend/co-worker/neighbor. Always described as a person of interest who was last seen with the victim. A few days later an arrest is made and it is almost always somebody who knew the victim and was last scene with her. I have to believe the same was true in 1888 and Abberline had been around the block before. It is possible to have suspicions about a person of interest. They get questioned and checked out so that they never become a formal suspect. But the suspicions are there initially. I think that is how Abberline viewed Hutchinson.

c.d.

[Batman]

After the murder of MJK the lead detectives had to deal with a mass of data to get through. I see no reason why the Hutchinson/Abberline formation wasn't just how they dealt with the most immediate 'witnesses'/'tasks' etc. Like, oh here is this witness Abberline, he is yours, while Swanson was given the task of beating the bushes in the jewish districts to turn up a crazed Jew of Bond's profile. They might have just delegated it this way themselves. If we follow through with what happens after MJK, the Abberline/Hutchinson path doesn't go anywhere and the trail went cold, however for Swanson and Cox, they seemed to turned up some Jewish suspects they felt where interesting enough to spy on ... and even haul before witnesses if we accept the marginalia.

[Wickerman]

Isaacs wasn't a murderer John. Conman, thief, impersonator of many [including himself] yes; but not that. I'm not saying that the police didn't miss a trick with him in other respects, because it's certainly possible that he was involved in bigger things at the time; but not the murder of prostitutes.

Interesting that we have the same opinion on this at least.
A confidence trickster/petty thief has more the character of a sneak, and a coward, than a murderer, and one that mutilates on top of that.
I doubt he was the killer.
Abberline should have been able to see that too.

[Wickerman]

Hi Wickerman,

Thanks once again for your very informative reply. Assuming that it was Cusins who provided the alibi, I wonder how thoroughly this was investigated, and whether she may have even have got the dates mixed up. In fact, that's just what Caroline Maxwell seemed to have done in relation to her sighting of Kelly at 8.30.

Hi John.
Cusins providing an alibi is only a guess, there may have been another detail we are not aware of. Sadly we only have the press to rely on for how the story unfolded. In so far as the investigation of Isaacs, we are told:

"...it was said by the police that they wished the fullest inquiry as to the prisoner's movements on the night of Nov. 8. For that purpose he was remanded, but Detective Sergeant Record, H Division, said that so far there was no further charge against the prisoner."
Daily News 15 Dec. 1888.

The "wrong day" argument (in your quote) is being applied to anything and everything in recent years, it is almost as if there is some desperate attempt to avoid the story as it has been handed down to us. "Why", would be a good question.

Cusins was interviewed by the police during the house-to-house investigation which began on Friday afternoon and continued all weekend.
So perhaps not much longer than 24 to 48 hours had passed, that is all.

The "wrong day" argument might be believable if she were being asked to recall something last month, or a couple of weeks ago, but this happened a matter of hours before she was interviewed.

The fact thee most horrendous crime in living memory had just occurred on the very same night must anchor her memory down to the minute.

John, what were you doing at the time 911 happened?, well, I'm sure all the residents of Spitalfields were asking themselves the same question.
What was Mary Cusins doing the night Mary Kelly was butchered?
Listening to that heavy footed lout pacing up and down all night!!!

Confuse the night?, do you really think so.


On hearing of the murder, 11:00-12:00 on Friday everybody was heading for Millers Court to learn what all the fuss was about. But not Isaacs, for some inexplicable reason he headed off in another direction - according to Cusins, he fled and never came back.
If it wasn't him who was seen with Mary on the night of her murder, why take off?

[Sally]

I don't think she went out again either Batman. It's by far the simplest solution.

[Batman]

A simple solution is that she never went out after meeting blotchy and died about 1:30am.

Hearing screams of murder at 4am would have been pretty remarkable though... if anywhere else but Dorset St., in Whitechapel in 1888, where it happened all the time and nobody paid any attention.

Also there is no reason to believe MJK cried murder. Could be anyone seeing anything. Maybe someone in the court who saw a dead MJK through the window and decided they didn't want any part of what they seen. 'Oh murder!'... I'm outta here...

Hutchinson is just a post-inquest attention seeking through and through.

Lewis saw a man standing at the top of the court looking down. There is no reason to believe he was there for any longer than the time Lewis saw him. Five minutes waiting for a prostitute to come out who never did. Probably plenty people did that. Even those living there would stand at the top of the court and look out onto Dorset St. They are soliciting.

There is nothing preventing Blotchy with a drunk MJK going for a smoke outside to make sure the coast is clear either. Anyone could have walked into MJKs room once learned in the broken window latch trick. Goes back in, clothes on the fire, blitz attack on the bed.

[Sally]

Hi John,

Hi Sally, yes I'm sure your right. There certainly seems to be very little evidence against him, any certainty that he was Hutchinson's suspect, or even that Hutchinson was there that night. And is there any evidence that Hutchinson positively identified him?

Well, Isaacs was a very naughty boy, for sure; but evidently, there was nothing factual linking him to the Whitechapel Murders - just gossip.

There is no certainty that he was Hutchinson's suspect - in fact, it's fairly unlikely. We have a contemporary source telling us that he was in prison when Kelly was murdered for a start. Whether he was or not, he must have been able to produce a firm alibi for his movements on the night of Kelly's death. Had he really been Hutchinson's Astrachan Man, that might have proved a bit tricky.

What I do, however, find fascinating about Hutchinson is that, as unreliable as his evidence might seem, I just can't help feeling there's some truth to it somewhere! Maybe he was Astrakhan and he identified himself!

I'm not convinced, personally - mainly because Hutchinson's account can be shown to be highly and specifically derivative. The first press 'eyewitness' accounts of an associate of Kelly witnessing her meeting a well-dressed man in the street pre-date Hutchinson's account by days. They are remarkably similar to what he later presents as his own account.

Did he lie? Probably. Beyond that, it's all conjecture.