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Viability of Charles Cross as the Ripper

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  • perrymason
    Guest replied
    Hello all,

    Interesting points being made. I cant help but think that Cross, and Diemshutz, and Watkins share the distinction of being by the dead women before their death is known by others,...or help is sent for, or arrives.

    And I cant see any real reason to suggest suspect status for the other 2.

    Hutchinson supposedly is at the scene, not in it, or on it..or over a corpse, so its a different animal.

    edit: For some reason Davies and Annie slipped my mind, but of course he had that opportunity too, assuming she wasn't there when Richardson was. Sorry.

    Best regards all.
    Last edited by Guest; 04-01-2008, 06:58 PM.

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  • Monty
    replied
    Colin,

    My Mum is Scots and she never lets her English friends forget about the clearances.

    There is nothing more patriotic than a Scotsman in England, apart from a Scotswoman.

    Monty

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  • Septic Blue
    Guest replied
    Hi Dan,

    Originally posted by Dan Norder View Post
    Virtually everyone in the East End had an alias, especially when it was a matter of choosing between a foreign name and a more English-sounding name.
    Granted !!! And such practices were by no means unique to London's East End. I would think that it was commonplace throughout blue-collar society in all of Victorian Britain.

    Originally posted by Dan Norder View Post
    I don't think it's at all unreasonable for someone to use the name that fits more into the country in question when questioned by the police or in court.
    Nor do I !!! But, Lechmere is a Scottish name, and you would think that a typical Jock would want to boast of his heritage; especially in England.

    Originally posted by Dan Norder View Post
    If using an alias or having multiple names makes someone a suspect, then most all the other witnesses, victims and unrelated characters in the East End are equally suspicious.
    It doesn't !!! But it should raise the extra question or two.

    "Mary Ann Kelly" of "6 Fashion Street" gave an alias, and was free to go !!!

    Charles Allen Lechmere, aka "Charles Cross" must have assumed that he wouldn't get off that easily: Although it would appear that he did.


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  • Dan Norder
    replied
    Hi Colin,

    Virtually everyone in the East End had an alias, especially when it was a matter of choosing between a foreign name and a more English-sounding name. I don't think it's at all unreasonable for someone to use the name that fits more into the country in question when questioned by the police or in court. If using an alias or having multiple names makes someone a suspect, then most all the other witnesses, victims and unrelated characters in the East End are equally suspicious.

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  • Septic Blue
    Guest replied
    He appears as "Lechmere" on his 1849 birth certificate; his 1871 marriage certificate; his 1920 death certificate; as well as census returns of 1851, 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901(?). Likewise, his wife and eight living children (1891) are all recorded in various census returns as "Lechmere", while a ninth child who was born and deceased in 1888, was also named "Lechmere".

    His only appearances as "Cross", the name of his stepfather from age eight, occur in the census returns of 1861 (age 11), and during the investigation of Polly Nichols's murder (age 38). Why did he choose to identify himself to investigators, using an alias ??? An explicable alias: But still, an alias !!!




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  • Ben
    replied
    Hi Fisherman,

    If the killer felt compelled to do what he did, if he heard "inner voices" and so on, then who are we to say that he would have stayed off the killing for rational reasons?
    Well, as I'm sure you're aware, the actions and movements of a serial killer are dictated by a desire to evade capture in spite of whatever compulsion they have to kill. If the "compulsion" factor overrided everthing else, the killer certainly wouldn't evade capture for long. Even the more disorganised and "crazy" killers such as Ed Gein at least took the trouble to seek the opportune moment to visit cemeteries at night when nobody was around, for example.

    As for Hutch´s lying, a good deal of it is in the eyes of the beholder
    Not with regard to the description. That's just impossible. Serial killer Ivan Milat's eyewitness account was initially chalked up to "photographic memory" before common sense prevailed and it was discovered that Milat was the real killer.

    1. In what way is it illegitimate to stand outside the court where a female, perhaps a near aquaintance of yours, lives?
    I have plenty of near acquaintances, but if I discovered that one of them approached my home in the small hours of an inclement November night and sustained a "watching and waiting" sentinel outside it, I'd be a little freaked out. No, we can't be sure that he was in Dorset Street, but the fact that his 2:30 "waiting for someone to come out" allegation mirrored Lewis' description of a nocturnal loiterer doing precisely that at the same location and at the same time would tend to rule out the "random coincidence" angle.

    And although a number of serial killers have injected themselves into the police investigations of their own deeds, they more often than not refrain from doing so, statistically rendering Hutch even less probable as the killer.
    Fish, I don't mind you favouring Cross, but please don't ruin a good post with that last sentence, mate. Anyone who inserts themselves into a police investigation should be compared not with every serial killer out there, but with any serial killer who found himself in a predicament where such pre-emptive action was occasioned, like being seen loitering outside a victim's flat. If nothing of the kind happened, there's no need to "legimitize" their presence, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have tried it on if they were in that situation.

    Similarly, if you limit your suspects to what the majority do, you're pretty much ruling out every suspect. No serial killer does what the majority of other serial killers do in every endeavour they embark upon. Wisdom, instead, lies with acknowledging what an appreciable percentage of them do in relation to the number of serial killers we know about. That knowledge is what allows experienced investigators to flush out offenders on occasions, and in the case of killers coming forward under false guises, it is often anticipated.

    Good points, Dan, and more succinctly put than me.

    Best regards,
    Ben
    Last edited by Ben; 04-01-2008, 04:47 PM.

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  • Dan Norder
    replied
    Originally posted by Fisherman View Post
    I think, however, that by reasoning, Cross must be a slightly more credible killer than Hutch, for the simple reason that we know that he (Cross) spent time alone with Nichols, although the latter would in all probability not have noticed it...
    The argument for Cross as a suspect is similar to Hutchinson, in that they both can be placed at a crime scene, but for Cross most of the reasons people have suspected Hutchinson are missing:

    1) Cross' testimony was never doubted and/or later ignored by police. (While we don't know that they disagreed with his testimony as compare to deciding it was not relevant or helpful, certainly the possibility that they found errors in it is a key reason people have for suspecting Hutchison.)

    2) Cross' statement sounds very matter of fact and plausible, while Hutchinson's features some details that don't ring true.

    3) Cross had somewhere to go within the next few minutes (in this murder and theoretically in others if he were involved) and would be far less likely to cover up any blood, etc.

    4) Hutchinson by his own account was hanging around spying on someone who became a Ripper victim.

    5) Hutchinson only came forward after another witness testified to seeing a mysterious man hanging around the scene of the crime.

    6) Hutchinson's account featured a lot of details that could have easily come from previous newspaper reports, while Cross of course did not.

    7) Cross was introduced to the police early in the investigation and the murders continued without any sort of interruption afterward.

    Everything about Cross as a suspect applies at least equally, and usually more so, to Hutchinson. Hutchinson I think is plausible as a suspect, although of course there are plenty of scenarios that would explain his behavior without making him the killer (he may have been Kelly's pimp, wanting to stay in her room later, hoping to rob the man he says he saw with her, trying for a reward and inventing up details toward that end, and so forth). Cross as the Ripper is a lot more unrealistic, in my opinion.

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  • Fisherman
    replied
    Hi Ben!

    Hutch is Ben-country, so I will tread VERY carefully here!

    I will, however, say that the argument "It would be very strange for the real murderer to have continued killing after the degree of police exposure that Cross was subject to in the wake of the Nichols murder" is an argument that has been put forward numerous times. And I think that just as willing as I am to accept that it would indeed have been strange, I think - and hope - that this is a judgement based on rational reasoning. And such reasoning does not always apply when we deal with serial killers.
    If the killer felt compelled to do what he did, if he heard "inner voices" and so on, then who are we to say that he would have stayed off the killing for rational reasons?
    Moreover, serialists often display a treat of believing themselves invincible and undetectable, and if Cross WAS the killer, and if he WAS of a disposition such as this, then the whole thing may have boosted his ego instead of cooling him of.
    Rationality is all good and well - long as it applies. If it had applied to all serial killers, a good deal of them would still be out there instead of doing time in jail or getting lethal injections.

    As for Hutch´s lying, a good deal of it is in the eyes of the beholder, I think. I know your stance on his being a very exact observer, extremely rich in detail, but I think you must agree that different posters will ascribe a differing grade of untruthfullness to it all.

    Finally, one more thing: You say that we know that Cross had a legitimate reason for being there, implying that Hutch had not. That will earn you two counterstrikes:
    1. In what way is it illegitimate to stand outside the court where a female, perhaps a near aquaintance of yours, lives?
    2. We can not even be sure that Hutch was in Dorset Street at all, can we? Whose word do we have for it? His own, nothing else. What if he was a publicity seeker, and nothing else?

    Now, before you challenge me all to hard on these points, I will add that my picture of Hutch is much the same as the one you have. I do believe that he was there, and I do believe that his testimony was of crap value and I do believe that we must accept that the police ascribed no interest to it after the first stage.

    But that does not alter the fact that I favour Cross as a viable suspect, for the simple reason that we KNOW that he was there, and we KNOW that he was alone with Nichols (body). And although a number of serial killers have injected themselves into the police investigations of their own deeds, they more often than not refrain from doing so, statistically rendering Hutch even less probable as the killer.

    Jumping for shelter,
    Fisherman

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  • Ben
    replied
    I think, however, that by reasoning, Cross must be a slightly more credible killer than Hutch, for the simple reason that we know that he (Cross) spent time alone with Nichols
    Only if you use proximity to the crime scene as the chief or only criterion, Fish. Hutchinson's a better overall bet, I feel.

    It would be very strange for the real murderer to have continued killing after the degree of police exposure that Cross was subject to in the wake of the Nichols murder. More commonly, that sort of exposure is likely to stall a serial killer for some considerable time. Cross, in addition, had a legitimate reason for being where he was; he was on his way to work. Better than a claim to have loitered opposite a crime scene after a 16-mile footslog from Romford purely for the sake of idle curiosity. Hutchinson can be proven to have lied, at the very least, about some aspects of his account, but however much we might suspect Cross of fabrication, there is no evidence that he fabricated anything.

    Best regards,
    Ben
    Last edited by Ben; 04-01-2008, 03:37 PM.

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  • FrankO
    replied
    You can rest assured, Fisherman, my intererest is purely of the non-serious kind. I don't believe in an accomplice anyway!

    The best,
    Frank

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  • Fisherman
    replied
    I left him out since I only mentioned the people who actually found the respective victims, Frank. I know that many people take an active interest in him, at least as an accomplice, but I have never bought into it. I think it would be strange to place the fourth or fifth (or whatever) strike in your own backyard, if you have refrained from doing so before.

    The best,
    Fisherman

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  • FrankO
    replied
    Hi Fisherman,
    Originally posted by Fisherman View Post
    ...those you can put at a murder spot are of course interesting people.
    Although you didn’t mention him, the one who I’ve always found interesting in this (not too serious) respect is George Morris.

    The best,
    Frank

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  • Fisherman
    replied
    Barnaby writes:

    ”I suppose that I am attracted to Cross as a suspect because he can be placed at a murder scene.”

    ...and that is fair enough; those you can put at a murder spot are of course interesting people. But then again, Cross found Nichols, Reeves found Tabram, Davis discovered Chapman, Diemschutz happened upon Stride, Eddowes was spotted by P C Watkins and Bowyer had the bad luck to look through the broken windowpanes of Mary Kellys room.
    With the East end littered by corpses, somebody had to find them. And in all honesty, Diemschutz and Watkins are at least as fair game as is Cross ...

    I think, however, that by reasoning, Cross must be a slightly more credible killer than Hutch, for the simple reason that we know that he (Cross) spent time alone with Nichols, although the latter would in all probability not have noticed it...

    The best, Barnaby!
    Fisherman

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  • Barnaby
    replied
    Thanks for all of your thoughtful replies. I suppose that I am attracted to Cross as a suspect because he can be placed at a murder scene. Moreover I would like to believe that the police actually interviewed the Ripper and/or he interjected himself into the investigation (no evidence of this of course). But by using that logic, many of the witnesses then could be considered suspects. Given that Nichol's hands were cold I suppose that it is even possible that Paul could have doublebacked via a parallel street (is this possible?) and interjected himself into the case. Highly unlikely, of course.

    If we were to consider witnesses as suspects, where does Cross rank in terms of viability? Below Hutchinson?

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  • headcoate
    replied
    Hi, Hellrider!
    Her hands were cold. It had been some time since she had been killed and Jack was long gone then.
    Cheers, Jan

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