Deadly occupations and serial murder

[John G]

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.

Oh dear, if you consider the C5 and Torso crimes then different things were done to different victims. The problem is, taking this approach, effectively focussing on superficial similarities, whilst completely ignoring enormous differences, you could link just about every crime in history!

[Elamarna]

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

curious

I honestly have no idea. It is possible from a practice point of view, the lock keeper opening the gates.
However probably they were multi manned. Still I think a better match than a Carman.

Steve

[John G]

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

Excellent point Steve. In fact, this might explain how the Torso perpetrator transported his victims.

[Fisherman]

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?

He was around twentyfour, Abby.

[curious]

I honestly have no idea. It is possible from a practice point of view, the lock keeper opening the gates.
However probably they were multi manned. Still I think a better match than a Carman.

Steve

Thanks, Steve. I agree with you. At this time, I can't twist carman any way that it corresponds with long haul trucker. Something might hit me later.

On the other hand, a bargeman who operated alone would be a decent match.

curious

[Fisherman]

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.

I am a journalist, Henry - I have spent my whole professional life investigating and checking sources. Without wanting to sound presumptious, it develops an instinct within you for what is right and what is wrong when it comes to purportedly factual information.

As for building roofs over potentially unsound constructions, I think most laymen will make their own calls about whether the foundation is sound or not.
In my case, I am quite happy to build that roof. I have very little doubt that we have our man.

[Kattrup]

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 normally don't bother much with Lechmere-threads - though I applaud the saintly patience of Elamarna and others who do - but the above statement is beyond the pale.

Nobody would take offense???


http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel...rtikel=6162624

Please. The argument is either disingenuous or incredibly ill informed.

[Fisherman]

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?

I am not saying that a horse and cart offered the same type of accomodation with a convenient bedplace as a truck does, Curious. That is not where I see the resemblance. I see it in how these men all drive their vehicles past prostitution, lowlife, scum and thieves, and how they all have a lot of time alone to brood over that clientele.
If you have seen the docu, you will also have noticed how not all truckers make use of their vehicles when engaging in criminality. Adam Leroy is mentioned in the docu, and he left his truck to look for open doors and windows where he could sneak in and abduct, rape or kill.
Peter Sutcliffe was also a trucker, who did not use his truck in his criminal activities. William Bonin was another such man.
It is how trucking as a profession seems to shape serialists for some reason.

Whether barges or trains can be seen as closer comparisons in the respect of hauling goods long distances than carmens carts is of no consequence in this context, as far as I can tell - itīs more about the opportunities offered by the surroundings than about hauling goods.

[Elamarna]

I am a journalist, Henry - I have spent my whole professional life investigating and checking sources. Without wanting to sound presumptious, it develops an instinct within you for what is right and what is wrong when it comes to purportedly factual information.

And yet some journalist still make mistakes, some still blatantly lie and the behaviour of some in the UK over the last 25 years has been truly sickening.

To suggest journalism gives one an insight into the truth is I feel highly questionable.

Steve

[Fisherman]

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.

A serious debate? Wow. Mouthwatering!

[John G]

I normally don't bother much with Lechmere-threads - though I applaud the saintly patience of Elamarna and others who do - but the above statement is beyond the pale.

Nobody would take offense???


http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel...rtikel=6162624

Please. The argument is either disingenuous or incredibly ill informed.

Thanks for this post Kattrup. Believe it or not I actually have a great deal of respect for Christer. I can only conclude that he is under a great deal of strain at the moment which, regrettably, is resulting in posts that range from the surreal to the absurd.

I can appreciate the pressure one must be under when you invest so much of your time and reputation on a single suspect. But sometimes you just have to let go and admit you were wrong.

You know, I'm very interested in the Wallace murder case, bit it's so complex that I've changed my mind umpteen times on what I think might have happened, and currently I'm none the wiser.

But perhaps that's how it should be with these great mysteries from a bygone age. Once you accept that we'll probably never find the answer things start to become an awful lot less complicated.

[Fisherman]

Oh dear, if you consider the C5 and Torso crimes then different things were done to different victims. The problem is, taking this approach, effectively focussing on superficial similarities, whilst completely ignoring enormous differences, you could link just about every crime in history!

Suerficial similarities like abdomens cut from chest to pubes, like abdominal walls taken away in large sections of skin and tissue, and removed uteruses, you mean?

Thatīs clever. Superficially clever.

[Fisherman]

I honestly have no idea. It is possible from a practice point of view, the lock keeper opening the gates.
However probably they were multi manned. Still I think a better match than a Carman.

Steve

It is a much worse match than a carman, actually. It is, however, an area I would closely watch for serial killers.

If Lechmere had been engaged in a union, he would have been a teamster. Just as todays truckers are.

A bargeman would not, for obvious reasons. But you are beginning to think in the kind of manner one must think when looking for serialists. There is hope!

[Fisherman]

Thanks, Steve. I agree with you. At this time, I can't twist carman any way that it corresponds with long haul trucker. Something might hit me later.

On the other hand, a bargeman who operated alone would be a decent match.

curious

Prostitutes and hitchhikers do not walk along riverbanks, Iīm afraid. The social implications of the truckers world are absent here.
However, a bargeman who left his barge and who was able to abduct or lure a woman to follow him onto the barge would be an effective serialist.

So the bargeman is - at least to my mind - much more credible as a serialist drawing upon his work to kill than a trainman.

But the overall best bid is the man who is exposed to the crowds in the street and the anonymity of a bustling city.

[Elamarna]

I am not saying that a horse and cart offered the same type of accomodation with a convenient bedplace as a truck does, Curious. That is not where I see the resemblance. I see it in how these men all drive their vehicles past prostitution, lowlife, scum and thieves, and how they all have a lot of time alone to brood over that clientele.

.

So it not the occupation at all just that he travels past certain sections of society on his route? Or have you left something out, or I missed something?


Surely the same applies to most people who lived and worked in Whitechapel. A.nd even to those who travelled through it to and from work.

Why do you assume Lechmere had plenty of time to brood Fish?
Apart from work, he lived a full family life did he not?
Why would he have more time to brood than someone in say street cleaning.
A nightwatchman, such as Mulshaw had far more time doing a 13 hour shift of doing very little.



Steve