Lechmere The Psychopath

[Fisherman]

'The implication is either true or false, end of.'

It's false. And obviously so. CL wasn't 'caught in the act.' He stood in the street away from the body waiting for Paul to arrive on the scene. We can debate whether a killer would stay or flee but it's not debatable that he had every opportunity of doing so.

And so I'm being 'fallacious.' But wait, when I say that you are correct on something you say 'maybe I should stay,'

I'm sorry but this is fairly typical. Disagree with you and someone is using 'fallacious arguments,' or faulty reasoning. Agree with you and it's : now you're being reasonable. This attitude pervades the whole thread. You speak as though you are the only one who understands anything fully and everyone else is being wilfully dumb. I don't claim to speak for everyone here but I'm tired of it. Maybe I'm less patient than others here? You constantly talk down to people just for disagreeing with you.

The fact that there is no evidence that anyone at the time suspected CL should stand as it is. Yet you cite that it could be evidence of CL being a skilful liar. Not unless you have evidence that he was a 'skilful liar.' And you don't. Certainly not the differing statements during the completely fabricated 'Mizen Scam'.

'If he went to the police to hide that he'd been in place for 5 minutes before Paul arrived.'

If, if, if. Timings are notoriously loose all across this case due to, among other things, a lack of personal timepieces, policemen being late 'knocking up,' etc. There is no evidence to prove that CL spent any length of time with Nichols. With this kind of thinking though you could pretty much build up a case for anyone who was 'around' at the time.

You end with 'a partly open mind is better than a closed one, but...'

Utterly patronising. Yet again, disagree with you and someone is closed minded or just plain wrong!

And finally, on the subject of balanced viewpoints. Gathering together all the flimsy or largely non-existant evidence for CL as the killer you can still state that 'realistically, its game over.' Staggering!

'Never in the field of Ripperology has so much been claimed on so little by so few.'

To be honest, I think that it was 'game over' before it started!

Letīs single out the sentences that gives you problems, Herlock:

YOUR INITIAL STATEMENT: My point is that the presence of Paul has been used to imply that CL was somehow compelled to make his presence known and to follow a path that led him to the police i.e. that he was reacting to being almost 'caught in the act.'

MY ANSWER: "Used to imply?" The implication is either true or false, end of.

This now makes you go: " It's false. And obviously so. CL wasn't 'caught in the act.' He stood in the street away from the body waiting for Paul to arrive on the scene. We can debate whether a killer would stay or flee but it's not debatable that he had every opportunity of doing so."

So, what applies here? You say that Lechmere was not caught in the act, and use that as some sort of proof that you are right - he could have run.

But did I ever say that he WAS caught in the act? I really donīt think so.

What I said was that the implication was either true or false. And what exactly WAS the implication? Well you describe that yourself:

"...the presence of Paul has been used to imply that CL was somehow compelled to make his presence known and to follow a path that led him to the police i.e. that he was reacting to being almost 'caught in the act."

So the implication was Lechmere was somehow compelled to make his presence known by Pauls arrival, because he was ALMOST caught in the act.
Nota bene that the little word ALMOST enters here, courtesy of yourself.

So what we end up with is the possible implication that Lechmere was close to getting caught in the act by Paul, and that this was what made him stay instead of fleeing.

And that is therefore the implication that I say may be true and may be false: Lechmere was nearly caught in the act by Paul and decided to stay and bluff it out.

But you say that it cannot be true, no way. Lechmere could NOT have been nearly caught in the act by Paul.
And in order to make that a truth, you remove the little word "almost" and suddenly it all fits.

I hope this sorts out why I said what I said and makes it very clear that I was completely correct to make that observation, Herlock.

[Fisherman]

I read every single word of every post.
So now Doctors are infallible?

If that is not what you are saying then they make mistakes, yes?

And we are not talking of present day Doctors but those from 1888 with a far more limited knowledge.

Steve

Oh dear - you have now arrived at the final station in your arguing, and you want to portray me as somebody who claims that doctors are infallible.

That is what it has come to, right? Thatīs sad,

Raed my lips:

No, doctors are not infallible.

But a doctor who says that all the vital parts in an area have been attacked, and who have made a post mortem on the person they are commenting on, are indefinitely more likely to be correct than wrong.

And that is where your kind of questioning applies but in a reversed manner. You want to implicate that it is preposterous to say that doctors are infallible, something I have never hinted at at all.
And yes, it would be preposterous to say that. If I had said that. Which I never did.

But what happens if we apply your methodology to yourself:

"So now doctors get it wrong every time they make a judgment?"

That is the mirror image of your reasoning, applied to your thoughts.

How does that strike you?

Did you say that all doctors get everyting wrong? No.

But then again, did I say that they get all things right?

So please! You MUST elevate yourself above that kind of false premise arguing.

[Fisherman]

Is not using the wrong word getting it wrong?

Loose tissue is a defined anatomical term. It does not mean intestines.
A few posts back You posted:

colleced to a large degree in the loose tissues, which in my universe means that it was soaked into the heap of intestines and rested there.

Is the suggestion that the intestines are called soft tissues?


Steve

Thanks for writing this post! I have already pointed out to Joshua Rogan that I sometimes entertain the idea that what Llewellyn was speaking of was the soft tissues, not the loose ones.

It would to me be a very understandable mistake to make.

And now you have gone and proven that by making the exact same mistake.

Because yes, the intestines are represented amongst the soft tissues.

[Fisherman]

[QUOTE=Sam Flynn;420510]OK, so how "very" is "very"? I mean, if I sustained a long cut to my belly of two inches in depth, I'd say that was "very deep", and it would cut my omentum, but it should leave my intestines unscathed, and would be nowhere near deep enough to sever the great blood vessels of my abdomen.

If the wound is inflicted with a longbladed knife used with violence directed into the body, then two inches is not very deep. Otherwise, yes it of course relative. But that should not be used as an excuse for denying the obvious.

Why not? He could have punctured her cranium with the knife, jabbed the blade into her ears or eyes... lots of ways of attacking that particular "vital part". What's that you say? There's nothing in the evidence to back up my suggestion? Well, that puts you and me on an even keel, then.

Im afraid it does not, since I am 100 per cent certain that you - and the rest of the boards - know quite well that you are rambling now.
I wonīt make any further comment on this, but you are welcome to pursue this line of investigation yourself.

Besides, where in the evidence were the brain, heart, jugular veins and/or the carotid arteries ruled out as the "vital parts" in question?

They were ruled out by how Llewellyn qualified what he said by pointing out that getting at the vital parts showed that the killer had anatomical insights. That means that the killer revealed that he knew where the vital parts were situated within the body. And the areas attacked were the neck and the abdomen, so that rules out the brain and the heart, and the jugulars/carotids were severed as the result of the neck being cut to the bone, so there is no implication that they were specifically targetted - they will be severed if the neck is severed to the bone.

The only logical conclusion is that Llewellyn was speaking of organs you could not see from the outside, but where anatomical knowledge would guide you to them with the knife.

I know that you are trying to be clever here, Gareth, but I really think you are getting the exact opposite result. And I wouldnīt expect a number of posters to care about such a thing. But I WOULD expect you to do so. You used to, in the old days.

Get a sharp knife slicing into any one of those, and I'd say you'd have a pretty "vital" crisis on your hands.Again, nobody in their right mind would interpret "ALL the vital parts" as referring to the abdomen. Most of the truly "vital parts" are in the chest and head.

.... and since Llewellynd does not say that the chest and head were not struck, it may be that they were perforated like a Swiss cheese?

Technically yes. Practically no. And it is of course intellectually unforgivable to reason like that.
What makes me feel really bad is that I know that you agree, so the fact that you do it anyway says a whole lot about the lenghts to which you are prepared to go.
It makes me shudder.

[Fisherman]

Not so I am afraid.

A. There is no source to say he checked the whole environment for blood, it was after all still dark.

B. PC Thain describes blood which Llewellyn did not see as it was under the body.



If it was not absorbed it would form large clots, which Llewellyn does not describe.

However far more important is that the intestines are not loose tissue, as you well know.
To claim they are is to give a false impression.

May one ask why yet again do not answer the main issue, but rather prefer the semantics of soak.?


Not addressing the issue at all. Just the same tired argument repeated over and over.

No one is calling them liars, that is a term you have used. No one else has.
Back to the point, their knowledge was far removed from that of present day Doctors, who still make mistakes. Why do you find it impossible to admit Llewellyn may have as well?



Please Fish, in case after case the doctors gave opinions on time of death that no Doctor would now. It's not that they were incompetent or negligent they simply did not have the knowledge.


Yet another personal. Will you never stop.
It's not funny at all. Nor does the comment have any value or place this or indeed any debate on this forum.



Very good apart from 1 very small issue: It Never Happened.


Steve

One thing only needs to be pointed to, the final words "It never happened".

That is all. Nothing more. It tells the whole story and fixes the price that should be attached to your post: Not a penny.
Worthless.

[Mark Adam]

Hello Mark

Of course we can't categorically disprove him but nothing about CL says killer to me. In my (arrogant or otherwise) opinion.

Regards
Herlock

Hi Herlock

Thanx for the reply, at least i get to know some good arguments why CL is not likely to be JTR, makes me think....

I do not think CL's behaviour suspicious except for two occurances:

a.) Why did he first stop Paul to help him examine the body, but when Paul is ready to do so, he does not wanna touch it? How come?

b.) Why did he use Cross instead of Lechmere?

Altough i do belive that b.) is most likely to have an "innocent" explanation....

Concerning the arrogant - i did not mean to claim that you or any other posters are arrogant - i wanted to state that from reading some of the posts you get the expression that some are allowed to have an unprovable opinion and others are not.......but i did not want to call any poster involved an arrogant person, if it made the impression i do apologize....

[Mark Adam]

A very cogent observation, Mark. Bravo.

Thanx, i was just wondering, because as a medical engineer Iīm aware of how much blood a human body has (just have to simulate a dialysis device, that takes less time for blood washing....), and that the aorta is kind of high pressure environment... so I wonder where the blood in Nichols case had gone?

[Mark Adam]

Very little leaked out through the neck.

Some was found in the clothing, up around the neck and the upper part of the dress.

There was a patch of blood between Nicholsī legs.

The rest leaked out into the abdominal cavity. And it probably did so on account of a major leakage caused by the knife, meaning that the abdominal cuts came first - just as LLewellyn said. He also said that the blood leaked out of the arteries and veins and colleced to a large degree in the loose tissues, which in my universe means that it was soaked into the heap of intestines and rested there.

....but if the damage was as severe as you belive, and the abominal damage was done before the neck damage, why is there so little blood in the clothing of Nichols?
As the aorta is considered high pressure environment and given the damage that affected all vital organs, the opening must have been sufficient to let blood splash out of the abdomen, which would be found in the clothing or if performed standing in front of the victim on the killler? Or am I getting this wrong?

[Elamarna]

Oh dear - you have now arrived at the final station in your arguing, and you want to portray me as somebody who claims that doctors are infallible.

That is what it has come to, right? Thatīs sad,

Raed my lips:

No, doctors are not infallible.

But a doctor who says that all the vital parts in an area have been attacked, and who have made a post mortem on the person they are commenting on, are indefinitely more likely to be correct than wrong.

Can one ask if you really read and and understand what is posted sometimes?

In this case it was:

So now Doctors are infallible?

If that is not what you are saying then they make mistakes, yes?

That was a question first, with a follow up which made the point very clear . Yet you ignore both. And insist I am Portraying you in a particular light; When it is clear I am merely seek clarification of you view.

It's ironic considering how accusations are made that others twist words when this approach is clearly not mine.

But a doctor who says that all the vital parts in an area have been attacked, and who have made a post mortem on the person they are commenting on, are indefinitely more likely to be correct than wrong.

And that is where your kind of questioning applies but in a reversed manner. You want to implicate that it is preposterous to say that doctors are infallible, something I have never hinted at at all.
And yes, it would be preposterous to say that. If I had said that. Which I never did.

And I never said you did. Do you not actually read and comprehend what is actually posted?
Again a question, not an accusation.

But what happens if we apply your methodology to yourself:

"So now doctors get it wrong every time they make a judgment?"

That is the mirror image of your reasoning, applied to your thoughts.

How does that strike you?

Did you say that all doctors get everyting wrong? No.l

But then again, did I say that they get all things right?

So please! You MUST elevate yourself above that kind of false premise arguing.

And yet again it's turned to a debate on semantics.
Using statements no one as made on either side of the discussion.
Of course the advantage to sustaining a theory by such an approach is that nothing can be proved of disproved.

How truly useful.


Steve

[Jon Guy]

Baxter said that Bond agreed with Steve during his summing up...?
Wow.
Obviously the good coroner was way before his time.

I don`t mind being misquoted when it`s funny, Christer :-)

So, Jon, as I said, the need arises to choose between a medico who never saw the body coupled with a coroner with no medical training whatsoever, and a trained medico who saw the body and did the autopsy.

Tough one, that...

There`s no need to choose.
Why do we have to choose ?
These are historical facts. What we think about them today is irrelevant


(Loose) Fact 1 - Llewellyn apparently thought abdominal wounds came before throat cut. Although there is no mention of this at the inquest

Fact 2 - The Coroner thought Llewellyn was mistaken

Fact 3 - Dr Bond thought the throat cut was first.

[Elamarna]

Thanks for writing this post! I have already pointed out to Joshua Rogan that I sometimes entertain the idea that what Llewellyn was speaking of was the soft tissues, not the loose ones.

It would to me be a very understandable mistake to make.

And now you have gone and proven that by making the exact same mistake.

Because yes, the intestines are represented amongst the soft tissues.

Let me thank you in turn for the reply.

Why would it be an understandable mistake to make?
The idea that a doctor would use the term sort tissue when he meant intestines is somewhat unrealistic.

I have not made the same mistake as the one you propose, I am questioning if it is probable that a Doctor would refer to intestines as soft tissue. Not a confusion over the terms loose and soft.
Nice try but No.

And yes parts of the intestines such as the intestinal walls are commonly referred to as soft tissue, and are often the seat of what are called soft tissue cancers; the intestines as a whole are rarely referred to as such. I have never heard it used in 35 years of lab experience in those terms.


However yes I made a mistake, not in my knowledge but in the wording used.
It should have been is the suggestion that the intestines as a whole are often referred to as soft tissue.

As soft tissue covers just about any tissue that is not hard (bone) it is therefore a very vague term.
Of course that is the approach taken, make everything vague, and then suggestions cannot be disproved.

Steve

Interesting little point that the vessels in the skin, muscle and fat of the body wall would bleed downwards on the whole and probably become trapped in the intestines.

[Fisherman]

....but if the damage was as severe as you belive, and the abominal damage was done before the neck damage, why is there so little blood in the clothing of Nichols?
As the aorta is considered high pressure environment and given the damage that affected all vital organs, the opening must have been sufficient to let blood splash out of the abdomen, which would be found in the clothing or if performed standing in front of the victim on the killler? Or am I getting this wrong?

The thing to keep in mind is that there are numerous possibilities involved here.

The aorta is high pressure environment, yes. That is why I am saying that the neck dod not come first: there was no arterial spray on the ground, and there reaslly should have been if the neck had come first.

Alternatively, Nichols was first strangled, and so she could have been dead when she suffered the neck cuts, and that could perhaps explain the lack of arterial spray up at the neck. One should, however, keep in mind that the heart may well go on beating after strangulation for quite some time, plus even if the heart stops beating, some little pressure will normally be left in the vessels for a short time afterwards.

But letīs speculate that she was strangled, that the heart stopped beating before she had the neck cut and that the residue pressure inside the vessels had gone away. Even in that case, I would have wanted a lot more blood in the pool underneath the neck. Put a bottle of water on the ground and pull the cork out and you will realize why.

This was why the dearth of blood initially led LLewellyn to conclude that Nichols must have been killed in some other place and carried to the site.

Now, letīs return to your question about the aorta being cut inside the abdomen! Would it not produce an arterial gush of blood that left the abdominal cavity?
Quite possibly, yes, although it would hinge on where and how it was cut to an extent.

However - and this is the real point I am trying to make - if we look at what Llewellyn said about the perpetrator being to an exten versed in anatomy, since he had hit all the vital parts, we may be looking at another scenario.

For the aorta to produce a gush of blood when cut, it will take two things:

1. The heart must still be beating. And just as it can be reasoned that the small amount of blood at the neck and the lack of arterial spray up there could be due to the heart having stopped befpre the cut was made, the exact same thing applies here too. There WERE strangulation signs on the body.

2. There must not be an array of other vessels and organs that had been cut before the aorta was hit. And as we know, Llewellyn said that "all the vital parts" had been damaged, supposedly in the abdomen. So we may have a lot of blood leakage through many smaller vessels, arteries and veins alike, coupled with a shredded liver, a shredded spleen, shredded kidneys and so on. Consequently, the carnage may have offered no initial high pressure bleeding at all, and much of the blood could have exited before the aorta was hit, if it WAS indeed hit - the one thing that speaks for it is how Llewellyn said that the damage to the abdomen would lead to imminent death, more or less.

So there are some of the factors that we need to weigh in. I hope you are able to take it on board in your analysis.

[Fisherman]

Elamarna: Can one ask if you really read and and understand what is posted sometimes?

In this case it was:

So now Doctors are infallible?

If that is not what you are saying then they make mistakes, yes?

That was a question first, with a follow up which made the point very clear . Yet you ignore both. And insist I am Portraying you in a particular light; When it is clear I am merely seek clarification of you view.

It's ironic considering how accusations are made that others twist words when this approach is clearly not mine.

Once you infer that I believe that doctors are infallible (and that is what happens when you write "So doctors are infallibe now?), you must take full responsibility for that suggestion.

I care not about any qualifications you try to make afterwards; not when it is clear that it has led you to the above conclusion.

I realize that you now see that you overstepped the lines of decency and logic, and want to get out of the whole business, but it is a tad too late for that.

And I never said you did. Do you not actually read and comprehend what is actually posted?
Again a question, not an accusation.

Yes, I read what you write, and yes, I comprehend it - with the exception of when you do not express yourself fully intelligibly. This time over, you wrote "So doctor are infallible now?", and I corrected you.

And yet again it's turned to a debate on semantics.
Using statements no one as made on either side of the discussion.
Of course the advantage to sustaining a theory by such an approach is that nothing can be proved of disproved.

How truly useful.

If you make amense, and stop inferring that I would somehow believe that doctors are infallibel, then yes, I do think it is truly useful. If you persist, I agree with you, itīs time wasted for no good reason at all.

What you should not do is to speak of "semantics", because we all have it in black and white that you wrote "So doctors are infallible now?". Those are the "semantics" involved, they are yours and they are more than a tad wrong and shameful.

[Elamarna]

One thing only needs to be pointed to, the final words "It never happened".

That is all. Nothing more. It tells the whole story and fixes the price that should be attached to your post: Not a penny.
Worthless.

Again read what is posted in the context it is written.
The claimed in the part not reproduced in your post and to which I was replying:

"But you are probably right. When a medico looked into the abdominal cavity and saw that the liver, the spleen, the pancreas, the aorta, the stomach and the kidneys had been shredded, stating that "many a vital part had been damaged", they were probaly taking things too much at face value.
Shame on them. Amateurs. What did they know that you donīt know much better?"

My point was there is no record of Llewellyn seeing all these organs "Shredded"

Llewellyn made no statement that supports that view.

Pure invention.

Therefore it Never Happened.

It truly is amazing how one finds excuse after excuse not to answer issues and questions, and all done so transparently.

Steve

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock

Thanx for the reply, at least i get to know some good arguments why CL is not likely to be JTR, makes me think....

I do not think CL's behaviour suspicious except for two occurances:

a.) Why did he first stop Paul to help him examine the body, but when Paul is ready to do so, he does not wanna touch it? How come?

b.) Why did he use Cross instead of Lechmere?

Altough i do belive that b.) is most likely to have an "innocent" explanation....

Concerning the arrogant - i did not mean to claim that you or any other posters are arrogant - i wanted to state that from reading some of the posts you get the expression that some are allowed to have an unprovable opinion and others are not.......but i did not want to call any poster involved an arrogant person, if it made the impression i do apologize....

Hello Mark

Don't worry about the 'arrogant' thing. Threads can often get a little heated. It's probably mainly down to this form of non face to face debate. We're probably all guilty of stuff at one time or another.

On point a. CL said that he touched her hands. Maybe that was the limit to the amount of contact he wanted with a possible dead body? To be honest I don't know how I'd feel about handling a dead body as I've never been in that situation?

On point 2. We can't be sure why he used Cross instead of Lechmere. Proponents of CL the Ripper have implied that it's suspicious and shows that he had something to hide but I can't see any advantage gained as he gave his own address, 22 Doveton Street, at the Inquest.
Possible reasons could be; as his stepfather was a police officer called Thomas Cross he may have held him in high regard and used Cross in everyday life. Though he did use Lechmere in writing. But he could just have been told that that was the correct thing to do.
I've recently been talking to researcher Gary Barnett on the JTR Forum and he informed me that the Lechmere's were in their recent past quite a well-to-do family that had come down in the world. Maybe they didn't want the Lechmere name linked to the ripper investigation?
Alternatively, maybe he thought that Lechmere sounded a bit 'foreign' and was worried about discrimination?

Regards
Herlock