Deadly occupations and serial murder

[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]

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.

[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.

[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]

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!

[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.

[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

[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]

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?

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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]

[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.

[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.