So if you live in Bethnal Green, you won´t kill in Whitechapel?

[Batman]

Batman, before this goes any further, it's only fair to tell you Fisherman had his own TV show, too.

Paddy

Lemme guess 'Witness to the Execution Chamber' Season 2, episode 4 - Zapruder's modified gun-camera.

[Paddy Goose]

Zapruder's modified gun-camera.

Angling with Fish it was called. In Sweetish

[Abby Normal]

Ad hominem, Abby.

Put your own personal prejudices aside. Both Anderson & Swanson named Kosminski as the suspect identified by a witness who refused to testify. That's a damn sight more going for him than Lechmere.

hi harry
yes as did McNaughton-that's why I have Koz in my top tier of valid suspects-even ahead of lech as a matter of fact.

but he did not get off on a technicality. after the fact wishful thinking by a known braggart. seen talking to a victim who the witness even admitted he wouldn't recognize again.
I wouldn't call that a lot more than lech who was seen near the victim freshly killed.

but I see your point-he is mentioned by three cops and is the only one where there is any shred of evidence. which is why, against my instincts I still have to put him up there. Rob houses book was excellent and also helped made me consider him.

[Abby Normal]

Or perhaps there were those who knew him by his name but knew little or nothing else about him?

exactly

[caz]

Fish's argument that Lechmere would not have been trying to fool the police in this way [because it wouldn't have worked had they checked - obviously] doesn't wash, because the police would not have known this, and he could hardly have explained who he was trying to fool and why...

Another point worth making here is that Lechmere would not necessarily have known if the police checked the records at Pickfords and learned that he had given them a false name in connection with his claimed discovery of the murder victim. For all he could have known at the time, the police might well have decided to keep this intelligence to themselves and to ask Pickfords not to mention it to the carman while enquiries were ongoing. No sense in alerting a potential suspect that they might be onto him, when they knew enough to keep a discreet eye on him instead. He must surely have realised that they might check, and what they would find out about him if they did. But he couldn't rely on them coming back to him and asking for an explanation for the false name, even if he had a convincing one up his sleeve. He could only cross his fingers and hope they wouldn't bother checking.

So the argument that he wasn't using a false name to hide anything from the police is specious, because - as we are constantly being asked to acknowledge - the very use of one would immediately arouse suspicions that the user has something to hide. How could Lechmere, under such circumstances, have had the first clue that the police a) wouldn't find out that he had used a false name; or b) hadn't already found out, within a day of his coming forward as Charles Cross; or c) were not keeping tabs on his movements to and from home and work, thanks to his own stupidity in giving them both addresses alongside a false name?

Love,

Caz
X

[MrBarnett]

Polly's death cert gives syncope resulting from blood loss from wounds in both the neck and the abdomen as the cause of death.

That's what Baxter put his name to.

Batman says:

"An open carotid artery will bleed out into a pool in seconds."

How many seconds, I wonder? If the neck wound had come first, would a subsequent abdominal wound have contributed to the victim's death?

[Sam Flynn]

would a subsequent abdominal wound have contributed to the victim's death?

Clearly it wouldn't have helped, but unless a major abdominal artery had been severed, the blood lost via the abdominal cuts would have been trivial compared to that lost via the horrific wounds to the throat, particularly the second one mentioned in Llewellyn's inquest testimony:

"On the left side of the neck, about 1 in. below the jaw, there was an incision about 4 in. in length, and ran from a point immediately below the ear. On the same side, but an inch below, and commencing about 1 in. in front of it, was a circular incision, which terminated at a point about 3 in. below the right jaw. That incision completely severed all the tissues down to the vertebræ. The large vessels of the neck on both sides were severed. The incision was about 8 in. in length. The cuts must have been caused by a long-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence" - Times, 3rd Sept 1888

[Harry D]

There is no way you can win, Harry. The sooner you realize that, the better and less space-consuming.

Quite right. No matter what rational arguments are made against Lechmere you will perform the necessary mental gymnastics and wild speculation to keep your little fantasy in tact. Truly a waste of time and space.

[Harry D]

hi harry
yes as did McNaughton-that's why I have Koz in my top tier of valid suspects-even ahead of lech as a matter of fact.

but he did not get off on a technicality. after the fact wishful thinking by a known braggart. seen talking to a victim who the witness even admitted he wouldn't recognize again.
I wouldn't call that a lot more than lech who was seen near the victim freshly killed.

but I see your point-he is mentioned by three cops and is the only one where there is any shred of evidence. which is why, against my instincts I still have to put him up there. Rob houses book was excellent and also helped made me consider him.

According to the aforementioned officers it was a technicality. The killer had been identified, the witness just didn't have the balls to testify against him.

[caz]

caz: He was only in Buck's Row because he was on his way to work, Fish. In fact, your entire geographical argument is based on this very point - his legitimate reason for being there at all and seeing the woman lying tarpaulin-like in the street! How is that not work-related? If he had not been going to work that morning, he'd have been scratching around for a sound reason for walking along Buck's Row, wouldn't he?

Is thinking about going to work work-related? Is laying out your working clothes the evening before work work-related?
The whole concept of somebody presenting himself the to the police as Cross when speaking about "work-related" matters but as Lechmere when discussing private matters sound bonkers to me. No matter where we place his working trek.

What in God's name are you on about, Fish? My argument is that if they knew him at Pickfords as Charles Cross, it would make perfect sense for him to have used that name in connection with a fatal accident while working [the child's death in 1876, assuming the same Charles Cross was involved] or the discovery of a murder victim on his way to work. Neither of those events happened while he was only 'thinking' about going to work, or making preparations before leaving the house, nor would he be needing to identify himself as one name or the other in connection with such circumstances. That would truly be bonkers: "I always go by the name of Lechmere when I'm undressed for bed at night and again when I wake up in the morning." Another thing is, if he was known as Cross to his boss and workmates, as is perfectly plausible, his wife would almost certainly have been aware of the fact, so it wouldn't matter whether he thought of himself as a Lechmere or a Cross at any particular time of day, or during any particular activity. I sign myself Caz here on the boards but am only known as Caroline outside ripper world. I only think of myself as Caz while I'm here on the boards. Make something of it.

This is the one question we need to ask ourselves:

If Charles Lechmere wanted to stay incognito to as many readers of the papers as possible, but at the same time feared that the police may pay him a visit to check him out, how could he optimize this?

Could he for example give a false address and working place to the police? A name that he had no connection to?

Once he had spoken to the police, that would decide how much of an effort he could make at the inquest to stay incognito.

How much was that? What could he say without having the coppers go "A-HAH!"?

Give it some afterthought, Caz. If you cannot work it out, don´t be shy to ask.

It is THIS that governs how "smart" he could be, what kind of learoom he had. Once you understand this, you may also understand who was the smart one back then, and who is the dumb one today.

This is assuming the police would have made Lechmere aware if they had any concerns about him as an honest witness 'once he had spoken' to them - or if they had no such concerns. You appear to assume they would have paid him a visit if they wanted to check him out, so he'd have known about it and been ready with a credible explanation for using a false name when asked for one. But that would by no means have been a given. He couldn't have satisfied them with any explanation if he wasn't asked for one. If they could have discovered his use of a false name without him knowing he'd been rumbled, what else might they have gone on to discover while he didn't even know they were looking? The false name would have been the least of his worries if it had resulted in the police watching him on his walk to work the following weekend. What credible explanation could he possibly have had up his sleeve when they arrested him standing over Annie Chapman, holding the knife he had been keeping up his other sleeve?

"You stupid constable! I was about to give this lady the kiss of life, after wresting from the real villain his shiny knife."

"Hell's bells, here's another compensation claim form for you. Use whichever surname you are more comfortable with. You'll not be bothered again."

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

That's because you don't understand what you are talking about. A coroner is a legal body, not a scientific one, that legally rules over a cause of death, by considering ALL the evidence and NOT just some of it. That means taking science, witness testimony, and the facts before him. If an inquest is held, then a jury then decides on the final verdict.

You are conflating scientific findings (medical examinations) with the court's overall decisions for which there are mechanisms, legally, to challenge such decisions, which the coroner can even do themselves, when new facts come to light. They might be slow to do this or quick or legal matters mean it never happens. Science is different. Science always considers new data and new facts and amends accordingly. Baxter caught up with the science after Chapman and revised Nichols, which was supported by Bond.



Neck cutting is not a JtR signature and never was. It is MO. A means to an end. Signature is what gets them the emotional satisfaction.

Case in hand. Neck was cut with Stride but emotional satisfaction not achieved. No signature.

What you are claiming is that Nichols MO was to be stabbed and mutilated around her lower abdomen and the signature was her neck slit. This was then reversed for all the others.



No, you have this very wrong. This isn't about changing MO and signature. That can happen and does with experimentation.

You have swapping MO and Signature. A very different thing.

So you are saying that I am of the meaning that the killer interchanged MO and signature? Why would you do that? I have certainly never done such a thing - it is something you have quite simply and unashamedly made up!

I do not think that cutting the neck (yes, Gareth - neck!) was part of the killers signature. I think it was a practicality. And whether it came forst or second has no bearing on that status as far as I´m concerned.

My suggestion is that Lechmere had cut Nichols abdomen as he noticed Paul approaching, and at that stage he decided to bluff it out. In order to be sure that Nichols was dead and could not communicate, he slit her throat (yes, Gareth, throat - I´m versatile!).

In the Chaman case and from that case on, he started out by doing this, having learnt from Bucks Row that it is a useful measure.

In neither case was it a signature.

Then again, I "do not understand what I am talking about", and so I am perhaps not allowed to disagree with you and point out that you have once again managed to get things backwards.

It was nevertheless an interesting exercise to have you estimating my qualifications of understanding things. So thanks for that, Batman. It made my day.

[Fisherman]

Throat cutting, please, Batman. Don't swallow Fisherman's bait

Speaking about neck cutting is a common things, Gareth. Maybe it was never a question about baits? Maybe he did what many others do, simple as that?

[Fisherman]

Ad hominem, Abby.

Put your own personal prejudices aside. Both Anderson & Swanson named Kosminski as the suspect identified by a witness who refused to testify. That's a damn sight more going for him than Lechmere.

"Him"? Which "him"?

Aaron Kosminski?

Some other Kosminski?

David Cohen?

P Hantom?

Maybe we should find the person supposedly identified as having done something we don´t know about, before we speak about a "him"? And let´s acknowledge that we can only say that this ID:ing person was Andersons baby - Swanson may well have had no personal conviction about this man´s possible guilt.

How that trumps Lechmere, I can´t say. It´s a foggy and possibly misleading bog of conjecture against a clear-cut presence at a murder site where the victim was freshly killed in combination with a number of anomalies that "a jury would not like", allowing for a prima faciae case.

Santa Claus, how about him? Do you believe in him too?

[Fisherman]

Good for you for not going with Fisherman on this one.

Homicide by persons unknown or something like that is the conclusion of these inquests. It's what the jury agreed on.

The details of Nichols death got revised for Chapman's inquest.

No, they did not. Baxter simply asked the question whether it was not more likely that the neck came first. He revised nothing, he offered a possibility.

[Sam Flynn]

Speaking about neck cutting is a common thing

On the contrary. If someone dies from a cut throat, that is invariably how it's described; indeed, I've heard of cut throats frequently, but rarely of a "cut neck". Google searches can be quite handy as a guide:

"Cut neck" - 466,000 matches (many of which hits relate to items of clothing with a cut neck)

"Cut throat" - 4,530,000 matches