Viability of Charles Cross as the Ripper

[Hellrider]

well to me, he is in the innermost circle of suspects likely to have been Jack The Ripper.

The reasons why:

1) he was a "Zero", an ordinary worker just like millions out there. Throughout the last 120 years the notion that the Ripper was an ordinary man has been brought forth from time to time. I remember having read a quote by some Ripperologist that, if the Ripper was called upon my God to step forward and give his name, everybody would be surprised.

2) concerning the contra arguments: he may not have been so quick in thinking because he was an ordinary man, not a professional killer, to think of some way to get rid of Paul as soon as possible. He probably was in panic because of somebody approaching, so he just did the first thing that came to mind. What about the blood on his hands? Well, he may have washed them somewhere...as in the Eddowes case maybe

3) he was ordinary enough not to arouse suspicion

4) nearly all the victims were of his generation, as he was 40 something years old I think to remember from the old board. Perhaps the hatred of women that he possessed was based on the deeds of a woman of his age

[FrankO]

Thanks for that link, Robert - hadn't read it yet!

Frank

[Robert]

Chris Scott did some important work on Cross, just before the crash :

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=3

[Dan Norder]

Derek Osborne proposed Cross as the Ripper more than five years ago, and wrote about his theory in articles published by Ripper Notes, Ripperana and Ripperoo. While Cross was at least in the area at the time -- so many supposed suspects offered by other authors cannot be shown to have been anywhere near the East End -- there just isn't anything incriminating about the man in the slightest, and it just seems highly unlikely that he'd be brought in to testify at the Nichols inquest on Sept. 2 and then go out and kill again on Sept. 8.

[Ben]

There's a possible paralell here with the case of John Eric Armstrong, a relatively recent prositute serial killer.

Armstrong called the police claiming to have discovered the body of murdered prostitute Wendy Jordan at Dearborn Heights. The police were suspicious of his "witness account", and it soon transpired that Armstrong was the killer. When it subsequently came to light that additional witnesses had seen him in the area before he claimed to have arrived on the scene, it seemed likely that he phoned the police in order to pre-empt those other witnesses coming forward and incriminating him. His defence was on the lame side:

"I’m not the bad guy, here. I called you guys, remember?”

I have my reservations about Cross as a viable ripper contender - such as why he would continue killing after that police exposure - but I thought the Armstrong case worth commenting on as a possible paralell.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Hi Barnaby!

To begin with, Charles Cross was actually not found standing over the body of Nichols - he was standing in the middle of the street as Robert Paul passed by, alerting the latter to come with him to take a closer look at the body. I know that Connor challenges this, but I think he does so with poor evidence - more on that later!

However, the answer to your question whether it would have been possible to commit the kind of mutilations inflicted on the victims, and afterwards go to job unnoticed, will be an answer that differs with the differing victims.
In Chapmans case, no, it would probably not be possible, since he would have had a considerable amount of blood on his hands. But in the Nichols case, I believe that he may not have had a single drop of blood on him as he left.

So, is Cross a viable suspect? Well, he is a man that we can put on the murder spot, and that means that we cannot rule him out. My own feeling, though, is that if he had been the Ripper, then the obvious position he would have been in as he first heard Pauls´ footsteps, would have been kneeling at Nichols´ body. And if so, he would have been faced with the task of tucking away a much bloodied knife (no weapon was found at the site, and the only obvious reason for this would have been that the killer brought his knife with him, away from the murder spot).
After having concealed the knife, he would then have risen from the body, and stepped a few paces out into the street, where Robert Paul came upon him. If this was what he did, I think we must accept that he did so because he did not want to arouse the suspicion that he himself was the killer.

If we accept all of this, it rises a question or two:

Cross heard Paul before he saw him in the darkness of Buck´s Row. That means he did not know to whom the sound of the steps belonged. And one good guess at that time in the morning would have been a policeman. And if a policeman found a man standing close to the body of a murdered woman, he would undoubtedly have searched that man, producing the knife – and that would have been it.

Now, let´s for theory´s sake assume that Cross for some reason actually knew that the steps did not belong to a policeman. Let´s make the assumption I threw forward earlier: that Cross realized that trying to make a run for it would have given him away.
Then why would he leave the murder spot in company with Paul, looking for a policeman? The obvious thing, since Paul knew not from what end Cross had entered Bucks Row, would have been to say ”You go that way, and I´ll go this way, and that will double our chances of finding a policeman swiftly. Of course, it would also provide the knife-carrying Cross with an excellent opportunity to escape.

All of this points – at least to my mind – very clearly to Cross NOT being the Ripper.

Since Connors tries to place Cross close to the body of Nichols in his dissertation, I think that the report from the inquest provides useful reading. These are the relevant parts:

"Cross, carman, said he had been in the employment of Messrs. Pickford and Co. for over twenty years. About half-past three on Friday he left his home to go to work, and he passed through Buck's-row. He discerned on the opposite side something lying against the gateway, but he could not at once make out what it was. He thought it was a tarpaulin sheet. He walked into the middle of the road, and saw that it was the figure of a woman. He then heard the footsteps of a man going up Buck's-row, about forty yards away, in the direction that he himself had come from. When he came up witness said to him, "Come and look over here; there is a woman lying on the pavement." They both crossed over to the body, and witness took hold of the woman's hands, which were cold and limp."

”Robert Baul [Paul], 30, Forster-street, Whitechapel, carman, said as he was going to work at Cobbett's-court, Spitalfields, he saw in Buck's-row a man standing in the middle of the road. As witness drew closer he walked towards the pavement, and he (Baul) stepped in the roadway to pass him. The man touched witness on the shoulder and asked him to look at the woman, who was lying across the gateway. He felt her hands and face, and they were cold. The clothes were disarranged, and he helped to pull them down. Before he did so he detected a slight movement as of breathing, but very faint. The man walked with him to Montague-street, and there they saw a policeman. Not more than four minutes had elapsed from the time he first saw the woman. Before he reached Buck's-row he had seen no one running away.”

Meaning what? Meaning that Cross WAS in the middle of the road as Paul approached. He (Cross) then took a few steps to the pavement, on which Paul obviously was walking. In all probability Cross had set or was setting foot on the pavement as Paul came up to him, since the latter chose to step out into the street to pass Cross, who in his turn reached out and touched Pauls shoulder, stopping him.

Another part of the testimony that is telling is that Paul says that he, alerted to the situation by Cross, felt her (Nichols´) hands and face, and they were cold. And if ew accept that the Ripper moved on from neck-cutting to mutilation as swiftly as possible – and the evidence existing points very much to this – then how could Nichols body have grown cold it the very short time transpired?

The best,
Fisherman

[Barnaby]

I just finished reading an excellent dissertation by Michael Connor, who proposed that Charles Cross should be considered a Ripper suspect. After all, he was found standing over the body of Nichols. Connor argues that Cross committed at least some of the killings (Tabram, Nichols, Chapman) on his way to work. My question is this: Is it possible that someone could commit such mutilations and then go to work, unnoticed?