The Lechmere/Cross "name issue"

[Fisherman]

As usual you're wrong.

A brilliant defense there, John!

[caz]

Years and years, and still you don´t get it. Believe it or not, but you can lie SELECTIVELY. You can choose to lie about object A and not lie about object B, if that is the most efficient thing you can do.
You seem to reason that a person will inevitably lie about everything or not lie at all. That didn´t even hold true in kindergarten, did it?

Where do you get this from, Christer?

You were the only one being selective, by arguing that an innocent Lechmere would not have risked lying about his name (to protect his family, for example), while a guilty one would have - and did - risk lying about his name (to protect himself from his family).

It's the one lie I was talking about here (assuming it was a lie at all) concerning calling himself Cross. You argued that this one lie wasn't worth the risk of being found out and suspected of murder if he was innocent but was worth the risk of being found out and suspected of murder if he was guilty. I was just trying to fathom your logic, that's all. Same man, same lie, different motivation. Why was it only risky if this man had nothing to do with the Whitechapel Murders?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Thesis à la Caz: A serial killer cannot be protective about his family.

Eh? It was you who argued he would not have told the lie about his name to "protect his family" because he risked being suspected if the lie was found out! Yet you have Lechmere down as a man who did lie about his name (for whatever reasons) despite this very same risk.

This is what you wrote:

Would he lie to "protect his family"? It would involve a risk that he was found out. Guess where that would get him?

You really need to get your own story straight here, because it's bending under the strain.

But to you, both scenarios are equally risky? Yes? That is how you do the math here, Caz, is it not?

No, those were your scenarios, and you argued that the one where he only lied by calling himself Cross was the less risky of the two.

So was lying about the name Cross (for any reason) too risky in your book, in case he got found out, or not really risky at all? If it's the latter, then why did you originally argue that he would not have risked giving a false name to "protect his family" for fear of the consequences?

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

There are 100+ examples where he signed himself or was signed Lechmere.

I'm wholly unfamiliar with a process whereby a person's name can be "signed" by a third party. Did Lechmere suffer from a broken hand at some point in his life requiring someone else to sign his name for him then?

[John G]

John G: But he'd already been "pinpointed" as the person found with the victim. The police were aware of this, as were everyone who saw him at the inquest.

Not, though, his family and friends, in all probability. And those are the ones I am speaking of. Perhaps it was just his wife he wanted to keep out of the know, perhaps he worried about more people, it is impossible to know.

I also think you're putting the cart before the horse. If his family already suspected him of being a mad psychopath, then of course, he wouldn't have wanted them to know that he'd found a body of a violently mutilated victim. However, there's no evidence they did harbour any such suspicions.

But you don´t have to harbour any initial suspicions at all about somebody, to be a liability to that person. It would all be about minimizing risks, and to be proactive. It´s much like his going to the police, if he was the killer. That too is acting proactively - he would have prevented any suspicion BEFORE it arose.

And why target the next victim on one of his routes, if this was an issue he was concerned about? I mean, he could have started killing completely outside the Whitechapel district, in areas that he had no association with.

Not if he was going to kill en route to work. That would limit his options timewise. And he actually DID cloud his trail quite effectively if he killed, as I believe, Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes and Kelly. There was no logic to the overall geography, other than how it seemed the killer focused on a relatively small area. It is not until you find a person who ticks all the geographical boxes that you may make sense of the choices of murder spots. And Lechmere ticks them all.

But why wouldn't he have wanted his wife to know? After all he was treated as a witness, not a suspect. And what suspicions might arise? If he had any such concerns, why was the next victim on one of his "routes". Why did he continue to seek out victims in the Whitechapel area, where he lived?

And why kill on his route to work? Surely this was an insane strategy, considering he might turn up to work covered in blood and gore, which would be a bit suspicious. At the very least, he might arrive late, and that would also be suspicious.

It's correct that all of the victims were killed within a small geographical area, suggesting a local killer. However, this area was densely populated, so even on this assumption, there are still tens of thousand of potential suspects.

You have also said that he signed his name Lechmere on all known official documentation. But is there any surviving documentation from the Nichols case which he signed, such as a witness statement?

Finally, I believe Chapman was killed around half a mile away from Nichols, so a great many people might be associated with both locations, i.e. on respect of routes to work.

[Pcdunn]

I'm wholly unfamiliar with a process whereby a person's name can be "signed" by a third party. Did Lechmere suffer from a broken hand at some point in his life requiring someone else to sign his name for him then?

Possibly on census forms, though the American ones I've seen in researching Ancestry.com seem to have enumerators using a series of ditto marks for the surnames of children following the names of their father and mother.

[David Orsam]

Possibly on census forms, though the American ones I've seen in researching Ancestry.com seem to have enumerators using a series of ditto marks for the surnames of children following the names of their father and mother.

Are you saying there might be signatures on census forms written by people other than those whose names comprise the signatures?

In which case, are you referring to fake signatures?

[John Wheat]

A brilliant defense there, John!

Thanks Fish.

[GUT]

Are you saying there might be signatures on census forms written by people other than those whose names comprise the signatures?

In which case, are you referring to fake signatures?

I think David (but only think, in part due to the mystery surrounding the 100+ records) that they in part comprise entries in things like census, and school enrolments and not actual signatures.

But on many occasions people have asked for a breakdown of these occasions without any information being provided that I have ever seen.

[David Orsam]

I think David (but only think, in part due to the mystery surrounding the 100+ records) that they in part comprise entries in things like census, and school enrolments and not actual signatures.

But on many occasions people have asked for a breakdown of these occasions without any information being provided that I have ever seen.

Oh yes, GUT, I'm sure there is no chance that anything close to 100 actual signatures of Lechmere have been discovered. No doubt there are birth, baptism, marriage and death records, electoral register records and, like you say, census and school records (with hardly any of these bearing Lechmere's signature)

But what I'm asking about is Fisherman's claim that the 100+ examples include documents that were "signed Lechmere" but not by Lechmere himself.

Does he just mean that the name of Lechmere is recorded or entered in these documents? Has he used the wrong word when he says "signed"?

[Sam Flynn]

Has he used the wrong word when he says "signed"?

Oh, why is there no monument
To porridge in our land?
If it's good enough to eat,
It's good enough to stand!
On a plinth in Glasgow,
A statue there should be
Of porridge made in Scotland
Signed "Oatmeal, O.B.E."

(Spike Milligan)

[GUT]

Oh yes, GUT, I'm sure there is no chance that anything close to 100 actual signatures of Lechmere have been discovered. No doubt there are birth, baptism, marriage and death records, electoral register records and, like you say, census and school records (with hardly any of these bearing Lechmere's signature)

But what I'm asking about is Fisherman's claim that the 100+ examples include documents that were "signed Lechmere" but not by Lechmere himself.

Does he just mean that the name of Lechmere is recorded or entered in these documents? Has he used the wrong word when he says "signed"?

That's what I think David, he has used the wrong word, (may be alangyage issue and not deliberate).

But still I'd like to know what they are, but the response has always been the Ed controls them.

[Fisherman]

I'm wholly unfamiliar with a process whereby a person's name can be "signed" by a third party. Did Lechmere suffer from a broken hand at some point in his life requiring someone else to sign his name for him then?

I was working from the assumption that your name can be signed by somebody else. Like when a hotel porter signs somebody in. At any rate, I have said before that some of the documents were signed by himself, while others had his name upon them, written down by officials, clerks etc.

It deserves saying that every time an official or clerk used the name Lechmere, it would have been on account of the carman giving that name, so the implications are the exact same - that was his official name.

PS. A quick search for the string "I will sign it for you" on the net, gave 57 500 hits...

PPS. The link http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com...r-name-have-i# Is also interesting. It speaks about the legal aspects of somebody signing someone else´s name - not "writing" the name, "signing" it.

[David Orsam]

That's what I think David, he has used the wrong word, (may be alangyage issue and not deliberate).

I think deliberate. I say this because I have engaged with him on this very issue in the past.

He told me in another thread on 30 June 2016:

"the signatures are not always in his own hand, something I have pointed out numerous times before. Son´me are written by himself, but in other cases, his name has been taken down by somebody who has asked him "And your name is...?"

When I queried this, he said:

"Somebody else SIGNED his name for him, David. It was a signature nevertheless, albeit not written in his hand."

I replied:

"I think you must mean that someone else wrote his name. You can't possibly mean that someone else signed Lechmere's name on Lechmere's behalf unless you are suggesting they forged his signature."

This didn't stop him for he replied on 1 July:

"The official documents have the carmans signature on them as well as his name signed by other people".

My reply was:

"his named signed by other people" is just a nonsense statement. There is no such thing unless you mean a forgery or Lechmere was unable to sign his own name.

And yet here we are again with Fisherman still telling us that Lechmere's name was signed on documents by someone other than himself. How does that work?

[David Orsam]

PS. A quick search for the string "I will sign it for you" on the net, gave 57 500 hits...

I will sign this letter of authorisation for you.

I will sign this delivery receipt for you.

I will sign this book for you.

I will sign this expenses form for you.

I will sign this certificate for you.

All examples of "I will sign it for you" whereby the signature is in the name of the person signing it to enable another person to do something or to have something.

"I will sign it for you" does not automatically mean signing something in the name of another person.