Deadly occupations and serial murder

[John G]

A few observations.

Henry Flower tells me that there was no animosity at all involved in the posts that arrived initially, but for Simons post.

And still they had Abby Normal react and speak about a knee-jerk reaction...?

I agree to a large degree - the normal outcome of proposing anything at all that may point to guilt on the carmans behalf is a knee-jerk "no!".

However, since I think Henry Flower is a balanced and clever man, I will accept that I may have overreacted to a degree.

Ever since the Lechmere theory was first presented by me and Edward Stow some five years ago, posters have asked why there is such an animosity towards the Lechmere theory. Normally, they are silenced by a flat denial that this is so.

One of the first reactions we had was from a very well established poster who accused us of having lined our own pockets with the money of the suffering descendants of victims of the Bethnal Green tube disaster, by having taken a small admission to the lecture we made in St Johns Church back then. It was said to be deeply immoral and it was added that we were being unforgivably cynical for not caring about the Lechmere descendants who would be distraught by our falsities.

Of course, the admission money went into the work of the Stairway to Heaven Foundation, funding a memorial for the tube victims, and of course we had contacted the Lechmeres well ahead of presenting out theory, and we had been told that they had no problems with it.

This was never asked of us. Instead it was predisposed that we were moneyhungry bastards with no conscience.

When the docu was presented, it was implied that the experts of it had been mislead and lied to. Much as it is good to keep a watchful ear towards the ground, one can actually take a less inflammable stance. But this was not done; it was par for the course to claim that the experts must have been lied to.

Things like these tend to colour my take on the criticism that is directed towards the theory and the unwillingness to take the simplest of matters on board, if they point to the carman.

If it had been found out that a certain brand of cigarette was prone to turn people thto sereial killers, and that Kosminski smoked that particular brand, I have little doubt that it would be called a breakthrough and the Kosminskiytes would be congratulated.

When I say that Lechmere has ties to the two occupations that are tied to violent crime, it is rejected, knee-jerk fashion.

Gareth says that the equivalent of the 20th and 21st century truckers were the victorian train workers. In a sense, he has a point - they hauled goods for long distances.
But would prostitutes work the trainyards? Would train drivers troll the rails, looking for women? Would they stop and pick up hitchhikers? Would they stop the train and sneak into houses, like Adam Leroy, only to then return to the train and sneak off? Could they take women into the trains and tie them up there, unseen by the ones tending to the steam engine fire?

I think not. And these are the points that we should address, since hauling goods long stretches is not interesting if it is not combined with the opportunitites to kill.

It is another matter that people working on trains are probably a category that is of interest in this matter anyway; they are transient, and they can spread a series of murders in a manner that makes them hard to discern. Other categories of interest will be travelling salesmen and people travelling and doing small works. The key is how these people are alone, they rule their own time, they are exposed to prostitution and hitchhikers (save the train personnel).

So we should take our eye of the term long-haul truckers and instead look at people working in the transportation sector, regardless if the stretch is long or short and regardless of what commodity they transport.

Dusty makes the point (seconded by Steve) that documentaries are notoriously untrustworthy or something such, and that may be correct. I can identify other sources that are much nore untrustworthy, like a number of posters out here.

Be that as it may, I am asked if I have checked the information, and yes, I have. The docu was factually based on FBI material from 2009 that can be accessed here:

https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2009/april/highwayserial_040609

If anything, the numbers are conservative in the docu. There is later material that speaks not of 500 unsolved freeway murders and 200 trucker suspects, but instead of 750 murders and 450 such suspects.

As could be expected, I am asked whether people risk getting desensitized by buying a pork chop. I would not propose to know the exact answer to that question (but I can say that my daughter will not eat meat with bones and sinews visible, since it makes her think of dead animals), but I think Lechmere was involved in hauling a lot of meat at Pickfords, and that it involved large chunks and parts of animals. And I donīt think you need to handle it to become desensitized - it is the realization of how a living creature can be chopped into parts that lies behind this, as far as I understand, and not only the actual butchering. A far-fetched comparison is how the people in concentration camps in many instances have said that the dead people they rolled around in wheel barrels, stacked upon each other like dried branches of trees, became objects to them instead of real people.
That is what happens when you are exposed to such matters over a period of time - it looses itīs real context and is objectified. This is also why people in 1940:s movies put a hand to their stomachs and fell gracefully to the ground saying "Aargh" when they were shot. Today, we have scenes where the bellies are cut open, the intestines welling out and blood pouring down the bdies of people who depserately hold on to their innards before they die by having half of their heads blown away by a shotgun, all graphically described.
Desensitation. Objectification. It would never have passed before the 1990s, and it only does so because we have been slowly numbed by increasing amounts of violence in other films.

The docu on trucker killers is also conservative when it comes to identifying what it is that makes truckers serialists. It is speculated about a few things, but nothing is thrown forward as the determining factor. It seems, however, that there IS such a factor, and I would propose that a number of the serialists have actively sought out the trade on account of how they would be able to exploit it for their purposes.

Travelling the streets and roads alone, being exposed to prostitution, having the option to cage women and then to dump them - to me, that closely resembles the options open to Lechmere in the role of the Ripper/Torso killer.

He is tied to the transport business, he was the trucker of his age and he in all probability hauled huge dead parts of animals on an everyday basis.

If that is of no interest to anybody but me and Abby, then so be it.

"The trucker of his age?" Driving a horse and cart around Whitechapel is not remotely comparable to driving a lorry on a modern highway/motorway. They are so fundamentally different that you may as well compare an aeroplane to a submarine as modes of transport.


You need to cite authority to demonstrate that merely coming into contact with meat is correlated with an increased possibility of being a serial killer.

In any event, based upon this argument Louis Diemshutz is a better suspect than Lechmere. In fact, considering he discovered one of the C5 victims shortly after she'd been murdered- coupled with the fact he claimed not to have noticed the slit throat, despite striking a match, prodding the body with his whip, and trying to lift it up-I would say he's a better suspect than Lechmere. Which only goes to show that you can construct a circumstantial case against anyone.

[Henry Flower]

Christer, I just told my wife that someone had called me 'balanced'. She laughed so bitterly she nearly choked on her granola.

Anyway.

It's good to know that the facts in the doc have such a reliable source. All sorts of things float around the media / popular culture, and get repeated by people who haven't checked. For instance, one often hears otherwise well-informed commentators repeating the 'fact' that there is a well established link between serial murders and military service. When the actual facts and figures were studied, researchers found that out of a sample of more than 500 US serialists, only 7% had done any kind of military service, and even that 7% had served only briefly and some of them had never seen armed combat. Or to put it more persuasively (tactics!) 93% of US serialists have had no connection with military service at all.

I'll give you this, Christer, and it's purely a gut reaction, not based on any logical thinking on my part: given the choice between a man who works at a desk in an office 9-5 and then goes home to his family, and a man who spends his nights delivering goods around the East End on a cart, I'd put my money 75% on the carman.

But I'll say it again: I think you're building the roof before you've checked your foundations are sound.

But thanks for posting the material, it is certainly interesting food for thought.



So I have no problem with documentaries produced as entertainment products being questioned closely. And clearly neither would you.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Fisherman;424008]

A few observations.

Henry Flower tells me that there was no animosity at all involved in the posts that arrived initially, but for Simons post.

And still they had Abby Normal react and speak about a knee-jerk reaction...?

I agree to a large degree - the normal outcome of proposing anything at all that may point to guilt on the carmans behalf is a knee-jerk "no!".

However, since I think Henry Flower is a balanced and clever man, I will accept that I may have overreacted to a degree.

Ever since the Lechmere theory was first presented by me and Edward Stow some five years ago, posters have asked why there is such an animosity towards the Lechmere theory. Normally, they are silenced by a flat denial that this is so.

Hi Fisherman,

I think the answer is that people interested in the case understand that you are hypothesizing about an innocent man in the past who can not defend himself.

People here are intelligent. They are interested in many questions concearning the case and they are often frustrated because of the lack of answers.

This does not create a willingness to accept an idea with very little indications for someone having been a serial killer.

One of the first reactions we had was from a very well established poster who accused us of having lined our own pockets with the money of the suffering descendants of victims of the Bethnal Green tube disaster, by having taken a small admission to the lecture we made in St Johns Church back then. It was said to be deeply immoral and it was added that we were being unforgivably cynical for not caring about the Lechmere descendants who would be distraught by our falsities.

I think people do not appreciate it when others earn any money on something which has no value in their eyes. And the problem about the descendants is a serious problem. Yesterday I saw an article where a descendant of Lechmere declared the belief in Lechmere having been a vicious serial killer. I.e. on very little and contradictive data, Fisherman.

Of course, the admission money went into the work of the Stairway to Heaven Foundation, funding a memorial for the tube victims, and of course we had contacted the Lechmeres well ahead of presenting out theory, and we had been told that they had no problems with it.

So they "had no problems" with being the descendants of Jack the Ripper. Certainly that is a very naive view.

This was never asked of us. Instead it was predisposed that we were moneyhungry bastards with no conscience.

Dear Fisherman, that is not a problem for me. The problems I see is that the case for your carman is not even a weak case. It is no case. But you treat the witness who found Nichols as a serial killer. That is an ethical problem.

When the docu was presented, it was implied that the experts of it had been mislead and lied to. Much as it is good to keep a watchful ear towards the ground, one can actually take a less inflammable stance. But this was not done; it was par for the course to claim that the experts must have been lied to.

You are no liar, Fisherman. But you take the risk of becoming one or being percieved as one due to your belief in the Lechmere idea. You are very certain that Lechmere was Jack the Ripper. Have you ever actually considered that you may be wrong? Not just saying it, but really considered it?

Things like these tend to colour my take on the criticism that is directed towards the theory and the unwillingness to take the simplest of matters on board, if they point to the carman.

Since there are no historical indications that Lechmere was a serial killer. People are not stupid here. They do know the case and your arguments. And they do not agree with you. That is just a simple well established historical fact by now.

I would be happy for you if you were right. But sorry, your sources are no good sources for the Lechmere idea. They contradict your idea, and you need much more to establish the contradictions as consequences of historical murders, i.e. real murders in the past.

If it had been found out that a certain brand of cigarette was prone to turn people to sereial killers, and that Kosminski smoked that particular brand, I have little doubt that it would be called a breakthrough and the Kosminskiytes would be congratulated.

No. But if his cigarette brand was found at every murder site there would have been what I call historical indications. There must also be explanations as to why he left them there. And so on and so forth.

When I say that Lechmere has ties to the two occupations that are tied to violent crime, it is rejected, knee-jerk fashion.

You speak in the present but talk about the past. It would be better for you if you got a little distance to the past. You would see clearer.

Compare a truck driver in 2017 to a carman in 1888.

Many professions in 2017 has very little to do with professions in 1888. Society was very different. People here have also, correctly, pointed out to you the big differences. That is not at all any "reaction" but presentations of well established facts.

Gareth says that the equivalent of the 20th and 21st century truckers were the victorian train workers. In a sense, he has a point - they hauled goods for long distances.

But would prostitutes work the trainyards? Would train drivers troll the rails, looking for women? Would they stop and pick up hitchhikers? Would they stop the train and sneak into houses, like Adam Leroy, only to then return to the train and sneak off? Could they take women into the trains and tie them up there, unseen by the ones tending to the steam engine fire?

What is actually the point of these Woulds? It has nothing to do with Lechmere in 1888.

I think not. And these are the points that we should address, since hauling goods long stretches is not interesting if it is not combined with the opportunitites to kill.

Lechmere was a man. He had every opportunity to go out at night and drink at any public house and tell his wife he did so. This was a normal behaviour. He was not dependent on killing on his way to work.

Or was he tied to his wifeīs apron strings?

It is another matter that people working on trains are probably a category that is of interest in this matter anyway; they are transient, and they can spread a series of murders in a manner that makes them hard to discern. Other categories of interest will be travelling salesmen and people travelling and doing small works. The key is how these people are alone, they rule their own time, they are exposed to prostitution and hitchhikers (save the train personnel).

So we should take our eye of the term long-haul truckers and instead look at people working in the transportation sector, regardless if the stretch is long or short and regardless of what commodity they transport.

OK. So Lechmere suffered from a social fact stopping him from killing at a time preferred by him or he preferred to kill on his way to work. Why? Can you give me the motive explanation? I am willing to listen to you.

Dusty makes the point (seconded by Steve) that documentaries are notoriously untrustworthy or something such, and that may be correct. I can identify other sources that are much nore untrustworthy, like a number of posters out here.

It does not make the documentaries more trustworthy.

Be that as it may, I am asked if I have checked the information, and yes, I have. The docu was factually based on FBI material from 2009 that can be accessed here:

https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2009/april/highwayserial_040609

If anything, the numbers are conservative in the docu. There is later material that speaks not of 500 unsolved freeway murders and 200 trucker suspects, but instead of 750 murders and 450 such suspects.

As could be expected, I am asked whether people risk getting desensitized by buying a pork chop. I would not propose to know the exact answer to that question (but I can say that my daughter will not eat meat with bones and sinews visible, since it makes her think of dead animals),

but I think Lechmere was involved in hauling a lot of meat at Pickfords, and that it involved large chunks and parts of animals.

You think so. And how does that thinking make a dead man a serial killer?

And I donīt think you need to handle it to become desensitized - it is the realization of how a living creature can be chopped into parts that lies behind this, as far as I understand, and not only the actual butchering. A far-fetched comparison is how the people in concentration camps in many instances have said that the dead people they rolled around in wheel barrels, stacked upon each other like dried branches of trees, became objects to them instead of real people.

You now discuss parts of society in the past. It has nothing to do with the biography of Lechmere. Not on paper. In the idea only. Sources are lacking.

That is what happens when you are exposed to such matters over a period of time - it looses itīs real context and is objectified. This is also why people in 1940:s movies put a hand to their stomachs and fell gracefully to the ground saying "Aargh" when they were shot. Today, we have scenes where the bellies are cut open, the intestines welling out and blood pouring down the bdies of people who depserately hold on to their innards before they die by having half of their heads blown away by a shotgun, all graphically described.
Desensitation. Objectification. It would never have passed before the 1990s, and it only does so because we have been slowly numbed by increasing amounts of violence in other films.

Nothing about Lechmere in all this.

The docu on trucker killers is also conservative when it comes to identifying what it is that makes truckers serialists. It is speculated about a few things, but nothing is thrown forward as the determining factor. It seems, however, that there IS such a factor, and I would propose that a number of the serialists have actively sought out the trade on account of how they would be able to exploit it for their purposes.

So Lechmere wanted a cart to pick up prostitutes, put them in a box and kill them?

Listen now: The profession has nothing to do with Lechmere: You have said all the time that he killed on his way to work or on his way to his mother. Why this sudden idea about seeking a specific trade? If he wanted to use it for killing people he had no need to do that. You have said he was on his way to work. He had no cart with him.

Travelling the streets and roads alone, being exposed to prostitution, having the option to cage women and then to dump them - to me, that closely resembles the options open to Lechmere in the role of the Ripper/Torso killer.

Anyone who used a horse and carriage is what is needed for the dismemberment cases.

He is tied to the transport business, he was the trucker of his age and he in all probability hauled huge dead parts of animals on an everyday basis.

"The trucker of his age". That is impossible. There were no truckers in 1888.

If that is of no interest to anybody but me and Abby, then so be it.

Sorry.

Pierre

[John G]

[QUOTE=Pierre;424013]

Hi Fisherman,

I think the answer is that people interested in the case understand that you are hypothesizing about an innocent man in the past who can not defend himself.

People here are intelligent. They are interested in many questions concearning the case and they are often frustrated because of the lack of answers.

This does not create a willingness to accept an idea with very little indications for someone having been a serial killer.



I think people do not appreciate it when others earn any money on something which has no value in their eyes. And the problem about the descendants is a serious problem. Yesterday I saw an article where a descendant of Lechmere declared the belief in Lechmere having been a vicious serial killer. I.e. on very little and contradictive data, Fisherman.



So they "had no problems" with being the descendants of Jack the Ripper. Certainly that is a very naive view.



Dear Fisherman, that is not a problem for me. The problems I see is that the case for your carman is not even a weak case. It is no case. But you treat the witness who found Nichols as a serial killer. That is an ethical problem.



You are no liar, Fisherman. But you take the risk of becoming one or being percieved as one due to your belief in the Lechmere idea. You are very certain that Lechmere was Jack the Ripper. Have you ever actually considered that you may be wrong? Not just saying it, but really considered it?



Since there are no historical indications that Lechmere was a serial killer. People are not stupid here. They do know the case and your arguments. And they do not agree with you. That is just a simple well established historical fact by now.

I would be happy for you if you were right. But sorry, your sources are no good sources for the Lechmere idea. They contradict your idea, and you need much more to establish the contradictions as consequences of historical murders, i.e. real murders in the past.



No. But if his cigarette brand was found at every murder site there would have been what I call historical indications. There must also be explanations as to why he left them there. And so on and so forth.



You speak in the present but talk about the past. It would be better for you if you got a little distance to the past. You would see clearer.

Compare a truck driver in 2017 to a carman in 1888.

Many professions in 2017 has very little to do with professions in 1888. Society was very different. People here have also, correctly, pointed out to you the big differences. That is not at all any "reaction" but presentations of well established facts.



What is actually the point of these Woulds? It has nothing to do with Lechmere in 1888.



Lechmere was a man. He had every opportunity to go out at night and drink at any public house and tell his wife he did so. This was a normal behaviour. He was not dependent on killing on his way to work.

Or was he tied to his wifeīs apron strings?



OK. So Lechmere suffered from a social fact stopping him from killing at a time preferred by him or he preferred to kill on his way to work. Why? Can you give me the motive explanation? I am willing to listen to you.



It does not make the documentaries more trustworthy.





You think so. And how does that thinking make a dead man a serial killer?



You now discuss parts of society in the past. It has nothing to do with the biography of Lechmere. Not on paper. In the idea only. Sources are lacking.



Nothing about Lechmere in all this.



So Lechmere wanted a cart to pick up prostitutes, put them in a box and kill them?

Listen now: The profession has nothing to do with Lechmere: You have said all the time that he killed on his way to work or on his way to his mother. Why this sudden idea about seeking a specific trade? If he wanted to use it for killing people he had no need to do that. You have said he was on his way to work. He had no cart with him.



Anyone who used a horse and carriage is what is needed for the dismemberment cases.



"The trucker of his age". That is impossible. There were no truckers in 1888.



Sorry.

Pierre

A very good point concerning Nichols. It seems the argument now is, Lechmere murdered on the way to work or whilst visiting relatives, but if that's wrong, no problem, he was obviously the nineteenth century equivalent of a long distance truck driver and therefore murdered victims whilst in the course of his employment.

[Henry Flower]

A very good point concerning Nichols. It seems the argument now is, Lechmere murdered on the way to work or whilst visiting relatives, but if that's wrong, no problem, he was obviously the nineteenth century equivalent of a long distance truck driver and therefore murdered victims whilst in the course of his employment.

I think maybe you're being slightly unfair to Fisherman there, John. As I read it (and maybe I was wrong) Christer could be saying that the same psychological conditions prevalent in long-haul truckers might also become prevalent in someone of Lechmere's profession: out late at night, in an unreal world peopled largely by the dregs of society, hauling bloodied sacks of meat around the east end, rather than home with the family. Being nocturnal, wandering the streets at night, it has an effect on the mind, or it can. I used to do it a lot. I found it plays strange tricks on the mind.

I'm thinking... Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.

Not that I think Lechmere was the killer, or that he was involved in butchery. I think Fish over-egged the pudding somewhat, which is probably why he receives an equal and opposite reaction.

[Fisherman]

Elamarna: Your comparison on desensitization is indeed far fetched, and some, not I because I understand the point you are trying to make, may find it offensive.
I say this based on my time as an elected local authority councillor in Barnet, some people take great offence at any mention of the camps, and it really not a dig at you just a general comment.

We come from different cultural spheres, Steve. In Sweden, nobody would take offence from a comparison made about the concentration camps of WWII. Then again, some here will take offence about being called tacticians when they offer their views on something.

I was trying to find a very clear example of desensitation, and I am sorry if I have offended anybody, of course. As long as my point is understood, something may have been gained, at least.

I would not think you made a dig at me in this context, thatīs for sure.

The actual data looks interesting I think several of us agree on that.
Views have been given on the comparisons, you don't agree , no problem.

In a sense, there is always a problem when people disagree. My problem lies in how trains are compared to freeway trucks in this context and so on. There seems to be an inability to grasp what is said in the material I linked to.

[Fisherman]

[QUOTE=John G;424016]

A very good point concerning Nichols. It seems the argument now is, Lechmere murdered on the way to work or whilst visiting relatives, but if that's wrong, no problem, he was obviously the nineteenth century equivalent of a long distance truck driver and therefore murdered victims whilst in the course of his employment.

This is a prime example of the pub-brawl level of discussion I asked not to have on this thread. Another example is your "So if I am not a vegetarian I run the risk of becoming a serial killer, he-he-he!"

I was hoping that you could take in and process how it has been established that there is a direct historical link between the opening up of abbatoirs and rising levels of violent crime. It has been academically proven, John. Making daft jokes about is will not cointribute to a useful discussion, Iīm afraid.

[Abby Normal]

Before I go - you identify three parts as crucial to the lorry driver/serialist:
"absence of family, a mobile private space, and the anonymity of huge distances."

We know that many serialists have families.

It seems the Torso killer - who was the same man as the Ripper to my mind - had access to a private space.

The distances the Torso man travelled were quite enough to allow for anonymous dumping with no other clue than that he was a Londoner.

If you have seen the docu, you will have noted that they have another list of factors:

The possibility to dump bodies away from home.
The secluded and soundproof locality offered by the lorry.
The many hours spent alone, offering time to brood on matters.

I never said that Lechmere was the exact copy of a long-haul trucker - I said he was his dayīs equivalent; a man working with the transportation of goods by a loading vehicle.

Not did I say that he was a butcher - my contention is that he did not need to be in order to be desensitised by handling dead animal parts. And it seems he did just that. It is not the anatomical knowledge I am after here, since I am fairly certain about where the killer got that.

all right mr Cryptic-that last sentence-dish! where did he get it?

[Fisherman]

I think maybe you're being slightly unfair to Fisherman there, John. As I read it (and maybe I was wrong) Christer could be saying that the same psychological conditions prevalent in long-haul truckers might also become prevalent in someone of Lechmere's profession: out late at night, in an unreal world peopled largely by the dregs of society, hauling bloodied sacks of meat around the east end, rather than home with the family. Being nocturnal, wandering the streets at night, it has an effect on the mind, or it can. I used to do it a lot. I found it plays strange tricks on the mind.

I'm thinking... Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.

Not that I think Lechmere was the killer, or that he was involved in butchery. I think Fish over-egged the pudding somewhat, which is probably why he receives an equal and opposite reaction.

Yes, this is what am saying, more or less - that is the link between todays serial killer trucksters and the victorian carmen I identify. Lechmere fits right into that picture. And more can be added, of course - he was two generations removed from rich gentry on the paternal side (Charles Fox Lechmere squandered the fortune a few decades before the murders) and from high-ranking people on the maternal side (Maria Louisa Roulsons father was a butler who inhereited a substantial amount of money from his employer in the mid 1800:s).

Social deprivation, anybody?

So we have a man who works in a profession that answers to todays truckers and their exposure to prostitution and low-life characters and their propensity to become serial killing (drastically put, but you get my drift), a man who can have suffered desensitation from his connections to the butchery and meat trade, a man who had a reason to be on the streets at nights, a man who knew that a few decades ago, he would have been able to rise high above the scum and prostitution of the East End, a man who was found standing close to a freshly killed (yes!) and still bleeding murder victim in the Ripper series and a man who gave a name he was not registered by and one we have no other record of him ever having used oficially himself, plus a man who disagreed with a serving PC over what was said between them on the murder night, and where the PC claims that the carman presented him with a lie that seems tailormade to take him past the police unsearched.
He is also of an age that allows him to be the Torso killer (working from 1873 to 1889) and he has access to transportation by means of his work. And he has logical ties to each of the murder sites in the Ripper series.

But Bury is a better suspect. And Diemschitz, not least.

It is the upside down of logic, the world behind the mirror. And it is as infuriating as it is laughable.

[Fisherman]

all right mr Cryptic-that last sentence-dish! where did he get it?

Look at what he did to the victims and you will have your answer. Concentrate on the 1873 Torso victim, Annie Chapman, Catherine Eddowes, Mary Kelly and Liz Jackson. Thatīs all Iīm saying, as you will know.

[Abby Normal]

Look at what he did to the victims and you will have your answer. Concentrate on the 1873 Torso victim, Annie Chapman, Catherine Eddowes, Mary Kelly and Liz Jackson. Thatīs all Iīm saying, as you will know.

the human venus anatomical museum?

So Lech started working as a carman approx 1868, the museum closed the exhibit in 1873, and the first torso victim was in 1873.

how old was Lech in 1873?

[curious]

After watching the documentary on killer truckers and reading this thread, I don't see any correlation between Lechmere's occupation and these long-haul truckers. To be fair, the trainman and bargeman suggestions also fall flat for me.

As I think I understand the positions, the trainmen and bargemen worked with other people and lacked the privacy that is central to long-haul truckers as killers.

The trainman and bargeman could have left their respective modes of transportation and attacked nearby residents, as some truckers have done as well as serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells -- who was not a trucker, but who hoboed on trains, jumped off at stops, killed then reboarded and was gone before the bodies were discovered, just as the truckers have done.

Even if trainmen and bargemen killed like that, they worked with other people who might have noticed their activities or blood stains, and the trainmen and bargemen lacked the privacy afforded to truck drivers, who use the cabs of their trucks for sleeping and hauling victims.

Which leads to a question: Was there an occupation in which cart drivers had their vehicles loaded then carried commodities out into the villages? Carters who might have covered several villages and been gone from home overnight? Didn't William Henry Bury's father haul fish -- I don't know how far? But wasn't he killed while hauling a load of fish for his employer? The elder Bury fell from his wagon and was run over by the iron wheels, wasn't he?

To be comparative with truckers, wouldn't the driver be required to have privacy in his vehicle? One reason given for truckers to become killers is also the long hours of driving, which allows truckers' minds to fester with their isolation.

If there were long-haul carters, then they could have gone through secluded areas for dumping bodies, which could have been hidden under the tarps that covered the merchandise they carried, and they would have long times of passing through countryside with time to mull things over.

Even this comparison has the problem of passing through villages or where the carter and his passenger might have been seen together. . . Something that doesn't happen when prostitutes crawl the truck stops at night and climb into anonymous trucks parked there while most occupants are sleeping.

Let's see: We have Lechmere, who is supposed to have killed on his way to work, before picking up his cart, or while waiting for his cart to be unloaded (I think that is the argument for Annie Chapman if she were killed at 5:30). The photographs show carts lined up for unloading. The drivers would not have been alone and it could have been a social time, with rough joking, etc.

To me, they don't match.

But were there long-haul carters?

[Elamarna]

Elamarna: Your comparison on desensitization is indeed far fetched, and some, not I because I understand the point you are trying to make, may find it offensive.
I say this based on my time as an elected local authority councillor in Barnet, some people take great offence at any mention of the camps, and it really not a dig at you just a general comment.

We come from different cultural spheres, Steve. In Sweden, nobody would take offence from a comparison made about the concentration camps of WWII. Then again, some here will take offence about being called tacticians when they offer their views on something.

I was trying to find a very clear example of desensitation, and I am sorry if I have offended anybody, of course. As long as my point is understood, something may have been gained, at least.

I would not think you made a dig at me in this context, thatīs for sure.

The actual data looks interesting I think several of us agree on that.
Views have been given on the comparisons, you don't agree , no problem.

In a sense, there is always a problem when people disagree. My problem lies in how trains are compared to freeway trucks in this context and so on. There seems to be an inability to grasp what is said in the material I linked to.

Yes without doubt it is cultural. One has to be so careful with what one says here.

I prefer canal barges to trains as a comparison to trucking. Very similar in many ways, time away from home, isolation, mobile private bolthole.

I really am most interested in the connection to serial killers, I just don't see it transfer to Lechmere. I think we can happily agree to disagree here.


Steve

[curious]

I prefer canal barges to trains as a comparison to trucking. Very similar in many ways, time away from home, isolation, mobile private bolthole.

Steve

Hi, Steve,
This is very interesting. Were some canal barges operated by just one person?

curious

[John G]

Yes, this is what am saying, more or less - that is the link between todays serial killer trucksters and the victorian carmen I identify. Lechmere fits right into that picture. And more can be added, of course - he was two generations removed from rich gentry on the paternal side (Charles Fox Lechmere squandered the fortune a few decades before the murders) and from high-ranking people on the maternal side (Maria Louisa Roulsons father was a butler who inhereited a substantial amount of money from his employer in the mid 1800:s).

Social deprivation, anybody?

So we have a man who works in a profession that answers to todays truckers and their exposure to prostitution and low-life characters and their propensity to become serial killing (drastically put, but you get my drift), a man who can have suffered desensitation from his connections to the butchery and meat trade, a man who had a reason to be on the streets at nights, a man who knew that a few decades ago, he would have been able to rise high above the scum and prostitution of the East End, a man who was found standing close to a freshly killed (yes!) and still bleeding murder victim in the Ripper series and a man who gave a name he was not registered by and one we have no other record of him ever having used oficially himself, plus a man who disagreed with a serving PC over what was said between them on the murder night, and where the PC claims that the carman presented him with a lie that seems tailormade to take him past the police unsearched.
He is also of an age that allows him to be the Torso killer (working from 1873 to 1889) and he has access to transportation by means of his work. And he has logical ties to each of the murder sites in the Ripper series.

But Bury is a better suspect. And Diemschitz, not least.

It is the upside down of logic, the world behind the mirror. And it is as infuriating as it is laughable.

No, no, no. A horse and cart driver is not equivalent to a truck driver today. To argue such is quite surreal. And forget about the argument concerning different names-David's first class research has blown that argument apart. As for the ties to the Whitechapel murder sites, that arguments gone as well, considering just about the entire population of Whitechapel must have had similar links, i.e. on the basis that the murders were committed within an incredibly small geographical area.

I really would like a serious debate on this issue, but you must stop making such tenuous links.