An hypothesis about Hutchinson that could discard him as a suspect

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,

That's obviously nonsense about Lawende having a "built-in alibi" in the form of Levy and Harris.

Hi Ben.

Why would you use Lawende to back up an argument, when it is by no means certain that Lawende & Co. even saw Eddowes?
None of those three were convinced they saw the victim, and neither McWilliam or Swanson felt assured that they did.
Rather than use a 'what-if' to support another 'what-if', why don't you stick to what was established?

What's this strange, arbitrary "last person to see the victim alive" criterion for suspicion that you've decided upon, with the pretension of knowledge of actual police practices?

You can learn a lot when you are born into a police family, coupled with a natural interest in how they functioned.
You have an interest in maritime history do you not, would I be correct in assuming you have developed some knowledge?

How were the police in position to assess such a thing if they had very little idea a) if the witness was telling the truth about being there at all, and b) of the victim's time of death? According to your logic, the witness most deserving of police suspicion in the Kelly murder would have been Caroline Maxwell, whose claim, if correct, would make her the "last person to see the victim alive".

You are asking why the police would show an interest in 'the last person to see the victim alive'?
If you think I'm not correct, you can always ask a serving policeman.

Why would they suspect Caroline Maxwell?, she went on to buy milk after seeing Kelly, she came back to give hubby his breakfast. Maxwell's movements can be established by investigators.
The police need to speak with Hutchinson to establish his movements, hence the interrogation.

What of Israel Schwartz? There was never any reason to think that Hutchinson's alleged sighting occurred around the time Kelly was murdered (and who really knows when that was?), and yet in Schwartz's case, the doctors estimated that Stride must have been murdered within minutes of his alleged sighting.

So why does Hutchinson fulfil your "last person" criterion and Schwartz does not?

Any suspicion about a witness is developed by the investigator, from his attitude, his appearance, his manner - does he look nervous?, and if the investigator thinks something isn't right, they will investigate. In the case of Schwartz, they may have spoke to his wife to ask what time he came home, what he said or did, and his appearance at the time.
We do know he gave a statement to police, but we don't know if they had suspicions about him.
You are saying they didn't, I don't know how you can be so certain. We have no information either way.

Correction: Abberline afforded Hutchinson considerable police attention until he was dismissed as "another time waster".

You "believe" he was dismissed, even though there is no police record of this.
Your "belief" does not constitute a "correction".

I agree - hooray! He was believed at the time of the interrogation, yes, but that was before any attempt at verification could possibly have occurred. It was essentially a faith-based appraisal, and short of a crystal ball, that's all it could have been at that stage.

There was plenty of time to have witness statements checked, police pocket books checked. And of course the coincidental sighting by Sarah Lewis before the crime was committed.
The police only need to establish 'reason' to believe him, not 'prove' everything he says.

You're scaring me here, Jon

Are you even slightly serious in suggesting - and think very carefully about this - that the police considered Violenia a genuine witness who, despite providing his evidence in good faith, got the time wrong and/or accidentally identified the wrong suspect?

This is all we 'know' Ben.
"The result is not announced, but it is believed that he was unable to identify her. Subsequently, cross-examination so discredited Violenia's evidence that it was wholly distrusted by the police, and Pizer was set at liberty."

The fact is, the story he told did not withstand scrutiny.
Violenia gave a Hanbury St. address, so we can hardly suggest he was not in Hanbury St. It seems you are trying to insert interpretations into this story that are not accounted for anywhere.

They don't need to "progress".

They've done the job of the sorting out the nonsense perfectly well, and unless some evidence is provided that might challenge my observations

From what I read, your observations are based on nothing but guesswork. Yet, you choose to only accept "evidence" to prove you wrong.

You have it the wrong way around.
It is "evidence" that is required to form a theory in the first place.
This is what you are lacking.

[Ben]

Hi c.d.

You appear to be saying that since the police never considered Hutchinson a suspect (largely based on the fact that he came forward) that they never conducted the in depth investigation necessary to confirm that belief. Is that correct?

Yes, that's more or less it, although I would add that there was only so much "depth" that any investigation could have explored, even in the very unlikely event that he was considered a suspect.

Which isn't to say the police wouldn't have continued investigating Hutchinson's story as far as possible. Indeed, the evidence is that they did precisely that, with the result being that a "reduced importance" was quickly attached to his statement. The reason cited for this reassessment was that his failure to come forward in time for the inquest undermined his credibility, but since the police were aware of this fact when they interviewed him, that cannot have been the full story. Either he slipped up when on walkabout with detectives on the hunt for Astrakhan man, or it was noted that his press interview seriously undermined his original statement.

So in answer to your question, yes, there were "red flags that made the police suspicious"; not that he might be the killer, but that he might be another time waster. These suspicions were clearly absent at the time of the "interrogation", and only surfaced the next day in the light of "later investigations". They only "moved on" from Hutchinson after they discarded his evidence as worthless to the investigation.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Jon,

That's obviously nonsense about Lawende having a "built-in alibi" in the form of Levy and Harris. You may as well argue that Bonnie provided a "built-in alibi" for Clyde. No, I am not suggesting Levy and Harris were accomplices of Lawende the ripper, but for all the police knew at that stage, they could have been - thus enervating the worth of the "mutual alibi".

What's this strange, arbitrary "last person to see the victim alive" criterion for suspicion that you've decided upon, with the pretension of knowledge of actual police practices? How were the police in position to assess such a thing if they had very little idea a) if the witness was telling the truth about being there at all, and b) of the victim's time of death? According to your logic, the witness most deserving of police suspicion in the Kelly murder would have been Caroline Maxwell, whose claim, if correct, would make her the "last person to see the victim alive".

What of Israel Schwartz? There was never any reason to think that Hutchinson's alleged sighting occurred around the time Kelly was murdered (and who really knows when that was?), and yet in Schwartz's case, the doctors estimated that Stride must have been murdered within minutes of his alleged sighting.

So why does Hutchinson fulfil your "last person" criterion and Schwartz does not?

Abberline afforded Hutchinson considerable police attention for their suspicions of him to be merely "another time-waster", even you should see that.

Correction: Abberline afforded Hutchinson considerable police attention until he was dismissed as "another time waster".

Their suspicions are whether his story is true, in whole or in part, and if not, then.....
As it turned out, they believed him - hence, no suspicion attached.

I agree - hooray! He was believed at the time of the interrogation, yes, but that was before any attempt at verification could possibly have occurred. It was essentially a faith-based appraisal, and short of a crystal ball, that's all it could have been at that stage.

The police never said he "lied" (there's that word again), about being there.
Violenia wasn't able to recognise the victim, and his accusation against Pizer fell apart.

You're scaring me here, Jon

Are you even slightly serious in suggesting - and think very carefully about this - that the police considered Violenia a genuine witness who, despite providing his evidence in good faith, got the time wrong and/or accidentally identified the wrong suspect? That's your take on the Violenia episode? Really? You'll be the only person who thinks so. He happened to live on Hanbury Street, yes, but the police evidently came to the conclusion that he had invented his "sighting", possibly out of a morbid desire to view the body.

No offense taken, but what does surprise me Ben is that your arguments have not progressed.

They don't need to "progress".

They've done the job of the sorting out the nonsense perfectly well, and unless some evidence is provided that might challenge my observations - as opposed to what I'm getting here, which is yet more repetition - they will continue to do so. "If it ain't broke", and all that...

Regards,
Ben

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,

I’m afraid that’s just arrogant nonsense.
.
.
So where’s the evidence that Joseph Lawende was grilled as a suspect and thereafter exonerated as one? Where’s the evidence that Schwartz was viewed in that light? And what of Packer and Violenia?

Hello Ben.

Still struggling force a parallel I see.
Everyone familiar with this case knows Lawende was not alone, so has the built-in alibi, and neither Packer, Schwartz nor Violenia were the last to see the respective victims alive.
No parallels, hence, no argument, so nothing more to add.

The only suspicions Abberline were likely to have had regarding Hutchinson were that he may have been another fake "witness" seeking money or publicity, and the police had encountered more than their fair share of those during the course of the ripper investigation.

Abberline afforded Hutchinson considerable police attention for their suspicions of him to be merely "another time-waster", even you should see that.

I’d hazard a guess that you were completely unfamiliar with the concept until you decided to fixate about all things Hutchinson,

Coming from someone who has only "fixated" on Hutchinson for the last, how many years?, that is quite rich.

Do try to think your arguments through more carefully – why would the 1888 police jump to the conclusion that Hutchinson might have been a serial killer posing as a witness when you insist that such behaviour is the “stuff of fiction”?

They wouldn't, and I never said they would.
Anyone who claims to have been with the victim just before her death is an automatic person of interest. Exactly what his role may have been is open to question, hence the interrogation.
You are the one who is pressing to put labels on him (killer, time-waster?), not me.

You are just claiming they wouldn't suspect him of being the killer, apparently because policing had not matured enough, which I am saying is a load of rubbish. Their suspicions will have been, "is his story true, and can it be verified?".

... the idea of the most wanted man in all history wandering into the police station requesting an interview with a detective must have seemed a very remote prospect indeed.

Here you go again.
Picking one specific suspicion, and then knocking it down, whereas I am not limiting their reasons for the interrogation, he was a natural person of interest. Their suspicions are whether his story is true, in whole or in part, and if not, then.....
As it turned out, they believed him - hence, no suspicion attached.

I suggest that since serial murder was an unknown quantity for the Victorian police, they were very unlikely to have anticipated a strategy of subterfuge...

So, if this Millers Court murder was the only killing, does that mean the police would be likely to see through any subterfuge?

No, he didn’t.

He lied about doing so, according to the police. He claimed to have been in Hanbury Street in the small hours of the morning when the Chapman murder was supposed to have been committed,...

Ah, so where was Violenia then, if not in Hanbury St.?
The police never said he "lied" (there's that word again), about being there.
Violenia wasn't able to recognise the victim, and his accusation against Pizer fell apart.
No-one said Violenia was not in Hanbury St.
Another 'assumed' parallel crumbles to dust.

Reviewing the above, I feel I should apologise to Jon for the rudeness and aggression in my post. I didn't mean to lash out so techily. I'm a bit deflated, shall we say, to see those arguments resurface again, but that's no excuse for hostility.

No offense taken, but what does surprise me Ben is that your arguments have not progressed. The parallels you offer (Lawende, Schwartz, Packer & Violenia) are nothing of the sort, never were, and never will be.

[c.d.]

Hi Ben,

I am glad you are not offended. I think I finally understand your position. You appear to be saying that since the police never considered Hutchinson a suspect (largely based on the fact that he came forward) that they never conducted the in depth investigation necessary to confirm that belief. Is that correct?

To me, its when the term "suspect" is used that things start to get complicated. Would it be better to say that there were red flags that made the police suspicious? And there are certainly gradations of suspicious.

The fact remains however that after questioning Hutchinson the police apparently moved on. There had to be a reason for that. Why would they do so? To me, it would seem that either they were incompetent or their suspicions were allayed.

The bottom line is that Hutchinson could have been the Ripper but then again so could any person that they questioned in the course of their investigation.

I guess it boils down to how much weight we are willing to give to the fact that the police moved on from him.

c.d.

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

"Since the comparison is what matters here, this questions belong here and not on the Lechmere threads."

Yes, but I would rather this thread didn't turn into a "comparison" between Hutchinson and Lechmere. That's been done on multiple threads already, as I'm sure you'd have spotted. As I said, I have no problem with the latter pulling the wool over the police's eyes as a general principle, but the current argument for his guilt - at least as I understand it - involves a "scam" and a "name change" that had next to no possibility of being overlooked.

Moreover, if subsequent investigation cast doubt on his story (as I argue it did in Hutchinson's case), it was not as if there was the option of him being dismissed as an attention seeker. His physical connection to the crime scene - which you often cite as a plus in favour of his culpability - also ensured that any inconsistency in his story would inevitably have resulted in suspicion that he might have been involved. Hutchinson had the option of being lumped erroneously into the same category as Violenia, whereas Cross did not.

But that'll have to be us Crossmere'd out for this thread.

Regards,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi c.d.

Yes, I was referring to you when I said that people were making the whole Hutchinson business way more complicated than it needs to be. But don't take it personally...

I'm not offended; I just can't really see the logic in the accusation, considering that my position could not be any less complicated. The reductive essence of my argument is simply this: the complete lack of evidence for the proposed event means it probably never happened. That's what it boils down to. The "complicated" approach, on the other hand, is the one that uses pure speculation (Hutchinson was suspected of being the ripper) to support another piece of pure speculation (Hutchinson was exonerated of being the ripper).

You suggest that Hutchinson was able to to provide "answers" that "satisfied" police that he was not a serial killer, but how was "satisfaction" remotely possible when they had only Hutchinson's claims to go on? In order to be truly satisfied that a voluntary witness is not secretly a serial killer, they had to investigate those claims. As Harry points out, however, there was precious little that Abberline could have verified in that relatively short space of time between the moment he first learned of Hutchinson's existence and the penning of his report.

If the intention was to conduct those investigations at later stage, Abberline would have made reference to it in his report: "I'm of opinion that his statement is true, but I'm going to make sure he's not Jack the Ripper".

"But what would happen if they caught him in numerable blatant lies and inconsistencies?"

The same thing that happened to Emanuel Violenia when he was caught out in "blatant lies and inconsistencies" - he was discarded as a false witness who wasn't even at the scene of the crime when he claimed to be. The police had been deluged with fame seekers and money grabbers pretending to be in possession of helpful information to the ripper investigation, and the "interrogation" was for the purpose of assessing whether or not Hutchinson was another one of those. There was vast precedent for that type of behaviour, whereas there was no precedent at all for the most wanted man in the history of London waltzing into the police station.

I don't "want" Hutchinson to have been the ripper, no.

All the best,
Ben

[harry]

Simple it is if one understands that Aberline only gave an opinion of honesty,and this based on what information Hutchinson gave,little of which had been or could be determined to be correct,at that time.

For instance.Did AM exist?.At the time of w riting his report,Aberline could have no idea if he did e xist,and would not have been able to form an opinon until some effort had been made to find him,and this was central to everything.
Was Kelly out on the street as Hutchinson claimed?As there was no supporting evidence,how was Aberline placed to determine this.

Hutchinson made two claims only that could have been accepted that evening by Aberline.His precence outside Crossinghams,and his name and Address.

[c.d.]

Hello Ben,

Yes, I was referring to you when I said that people were making the whole Hutchinson business way more complicated than it needs to be. But don't take it personally because I also include pretty much anybody who regularly posts on the Hutchinson threads. I really can't keep straight on what people are actually arguing any more.

It seems to me that if, as you say, Hutchinson never became a suspect that it had to be for one of two reasons. Either the police were muy estupido or they had a reason for not going beyond considering him merely a person of interest. In other words, his answers satisfied them that he was not the Ripper.

You keep insisting that the police were so dumbstruck by his coming forward voluntarily that they couldn't see the forest for the trees. But that is simply your opinion and is not an ascertained fact. But what would happen if they caught him in numerable blatant lies and inconsistencies.? Does his "diplomatic immunity", if you will, protect him no matter what?

I know you want Hutchinson to be the Ripper. I stated in my post that that still remained a possibility so I don't know why you are taking exception to it.

The obvious conclusion is that the police did not consider Hutchinson to be the Ripper. Could they have been wrong? Sure. But that only means that they were human not that they were stupid.

Sorry, but I just can't continue to beat the dead horse that the Hutchinson threads have become.

c.d.

[Ben]

Reviewing the above, I feel I should apologise to Jon for the rudeness and aggression in my post. I didn't mean to lash out so techily. I'm a bit deflated, shall we say, to see those arguments resurface again, but that's no excuse for hostility.

[Ben]

“Why do people insist on making the whole Hutchinson business way more complicated than it needs to be?”

I do hope you’re not referring to me, CD.

I'm simply following the evidence, which is that the police did not consider Hutchinson a suspect, and were therefore in no position to rule him out as one. That’s what the evidence informs us, and had it been otherwise, Abberline would have related any suspicions he may still have harboured in his internal police report. The ludicrous and “way more complicated” alternative asserts - on the basis of no evidence whatsoever - that Hutchinson must have been considered a potential ripper, and must have been ruled out as one; an argument that requires one baseless speculation to support another. I’m no longer bothered if people refuse to get their heads around the common sense reality that a police force new to serial killers (and new to organised policing, for that matter) would not have entertained the notion of the real Jack the Ripper requesting an audience with the police, but let us at least address the evidence – is there any to suggest that the police considered Hutchinson a suspect? No. Is there any evidence that the police exonerated Hutchinson as a suspect? No.

“The police, not being complete and total idiots, considered Hutchinson as a person of interest due to the fact that by his own admission he knew the victim and was the last person to be seen with her”

If it’s “by his own admission” it can’t be a fact, though, can it? I might claim to have seen a pig fly, but that's not the same as "admitting" to it. It’s just a claim, and claims can be both genuine and false. Since the police had no basis for accepting Hutchinson’s claim – not an admission, just a claim – to have been out and about on the streets of Spitalfields that morning, their first task was ascertain whether or not he was being truthful about that detail. Before they could even broach the question of “were you on the streets for murderous or non-murderous reasons” they had first to tackle “were you on the streets at all”.

“What matters is that his answers needed to satisfy the police which they apparently did. This also implies that the police (again not being complete and total idiots) verified his answers as best they could”

Not at all, you mean?

This is another point that gets lost on a lot of people. The “interrogation” occurred very shortly after Hutchinson first put in an appearance at Commercial Street police station, and Abberline submitted his report to his superiors very shortly after that. I would be fascinated to know what “answers” Hutchinson could possibly have been provided that could have been verified in the space of a few hours; how he was absolved of serial mutilation murder in that tiny time-frame; and why incompetent Abberline (as per this idea) failed to make any reference to these suspicions in his police report. The report did not even contain a reference to unresolved suspicions that voluntary witness Hutchinson might be the ripper. We don’t see, for instance, “I’m of opinion that his statement is true, but over the coming days, I’d better just check that he isn’t Jack the Ripper, the very monster we’ve all been seeking for so long”.

Sorry, but poor old Occam must be turning in his grave to discover that his razor has been so inauspiciously invoked.

Another important point is that any suspicions directed Hutchinson’s way were unlikely to be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction. “Where were you at the time Kelly was murdered, Hutchinson?”, “Walking about on my own sir”, “Ok, and what about your whereabouts for previous murders” “In my lodging house that sleeps 400 on an average night and doesn’t keep nightly registers of names from 5 weeks ago, sir”.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Jon,

“I repeat that state of affairs because that is simply the way it is.”

I’m afraid that’s just arrogant nonsense. But even if your comments were sincerely meant (which they aren’t), as opposed to being yet another unsubtle extension of your crusade to ensure that the ripper is a well-dressed medical man with a Gladstone bag (which it is), why would you “repeat” them? In the hope, perhaps, that I won’t do what I’ve always done when you resort to repetition, and respond with counter-repetition of my own? How do you envisage your strategy of repetition and attrition working out for you in the long run, incidentally? I’d be fascinated to know.

“In any murder enquiry, in the absence of any other direct witness, the two people who garner the immediate attention of police are, first the 'companion/lover/spouse', and second, any person who claims to have been with the victim around the approximate time of the death.”

So where’s the evidence that Joseph Lawende was grilled as a suspect and thereafter exonerated as one? Where’s the evidence that Schwartz was viewed in that light? And what of Packer and Violenia? Where is the evidence that they were ever interrogated as suspects, once their accounts were adjudged to be bogus? You won’t find any for the simple reason that eyewitnesses were not considered “automatic suspects”, just as they aren’t today. It’s perfectly simple – if you have the slightest smidgeon of evidence to suggest that the police considered Hutchinson a potential Jack the Ripper, provide it, or at the very least explain why Abberline failed to make any reference to these suspicions in his internal police report.

“All these circumstances are cause for Abberline to have suspicions, not solely as the killer, but the possibility cannot be excluded.”

The only suspicions Abberline were likely to have had regarding Hutchinson were that he may have been another fake "witness" seeking money or publicity, and the police had encountered more than their fair share of those during the course of the ripper investigation. Might Hutchinson have been considered a “person of interest” in that sense? Yes, certainly, but you can dispense with the idea that the police of 1888 ever considered the possibility of a voluntary witness being the real Jack the Ripper.

“That is a mind-boggling statement to make.
You seem to be saying that, no-one has ever suspected that a killer could come forward posing as a witness to deceive the investigators?”

Your mind must be disturbingly easy to “boggle”.

I’d hazard a guess that you were completely unfamiliar with the concept until you decided to fixate about all things Hutchinson, and don’t forget there are plenty of ill-informed people, even today, who can’t quite get their heads around the concept of serial killers injecting themselves into their own police investigations. Take your lazy, unthinking hypocrisy for instance: first you claim that everyone, including yourself, is well acquainted with the concept of killers posing and witnesses, but then you insist that real offenders would not “walk into a police station bold as brass with some ****-and-bull story, that is the stuff of fiction.” Do try to think your arguments through more carefully – why would the 1888 police jump to the conclusion that Hutchinson might have been a serial killer posing as a witness when you insist that such behaviour is the “stuff of fiction”?

Nowadays, of course, the ghoulish hobbyist need only venture into the true crime section at Wasterstone’s for ready examples of this behavioural trait (and in doing so appreciate that it is based on documented fact, not the “stuff of fiction”), but for a nascent Victorian police force investigating a brand new phenomenon, i.e. serial murder, the idea of the most wanted man in all history wandering into the police station requesting an interview with a detective must have seemed a very remote prospect indeed.

“Precisely when did it first dawn on human imagination that a killer might pose as a witness to avoid detection?”

I have no idea, and happily, that’s your problem – not mine.

I suggest that since serial murder was an unknown quantity for the Victorian police, they were very unlikely to have anticipated a strategy of subterfuge that even modern investigators find taxing to take on board. Expert criminologist and investigator John Douglas observed that a number of offenders were likely to have slipped the net this way because their pursuers did not know what to look for. Do you have any examples of serial killers pretending to be witnesses that predated 1888?

“Violenia heard a man & woman quarreling as they walked along Hanbury St.”

No, he didn’t.

He lied about doing so, according to the police. He claimed to have been in Hanbury Street in the small hours of the morning when the Chapman murder was supposed to have been committed, just as Hutchinson claimed to have been in Dorset Street in the small hours of the morning when the Kelly murder was supposed to have been committed. In neither case was the claim ultimately accepted as accurate or truthful, and in neither case was the bogus witness ever treated as a suspect. Or do you have evidence – actual evidence, as opposed to two-fold speculation – to suggest otherwise? You are demonstrably clueless on the subject of Violenia, by the way, and it’s more than a little painful to see you suggest that Violenia was a genuine witness who had seen “another couple”. In actual fact, he identified the man as Pizer, and claimed he threatened to kill his female companion by sticking his “knife in her”.

Oh right, silly me. Both witnesses obviously tried to discredit their own stories......never thought of that!

Silly you, yes, but more for misinterpreting what I'd hoped was a simple observation regarding these two discredited witnesses.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Apologies if this has already been fished up...

this is interesting.

EDIT: he is already in The Suspect Guide.

http://www.casebook.org/ripper_media/book_reviews/non-fiction/cjmorley/87.html

[harry]

Sgt Badham w as the first to question Hutchinson.He could have taken a written statement and allowed Hutchinson to leave,then contacted Aberline.
Why didn't he? W as it because he(Badham) suspected that the truth was not being told. Most likely.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Hi Ben, speaking of Aberline, a thought occurred to me as a hypothetical:

George Hutchinson, the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, knew the Mary Kelly inquest was over and final and there would be no further sessions. He must have hung around up at Shoreditch Town Hall right till the end, or quickly heard the definitive news somehow. It's finished.

So all he had to do was fool the police when he went directly to them. He would not have to appear at an inquest because he knew there would be no further inquest sessions. Just as he had not been required to appear at any of the inquests into his other murders, some of which had several sessions stretching over a period of days.

Roy

Except that he would have to spend the next 48hrs with two policemen, looking for Astrakan man.