Viability of Charles Cross as the Ripper

[Lewis C]

Although it could be said the memorandum is a load of posthumously written codswallop and it was a poor attempt to try and save face and make it look like the police knew a lot more than they actually did.

And the "Kosminski" referred to by Swanson has no reference to a first name, and so Anderson's suspect could have been another Kosminski entirely.

There were other Kosminski individuals aside from Aaron.

IMO authentic suspects should have included the likes of Chapman, Kelly, Le Grand, Bachert, Bury,. Morganstern, Sullivan, Donnelley, Silverman, Gehringer, Hanslope, Kidney, Barnett,Thompson, Goldstein, Schwartz, Lave, Hutchinson, and several members of the WVC... etc...etc...

But of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing.


We are now left with Lechmere, Maybrick and the wrong Kosminski

How far we've come




RD

Yes, but in my last post and the one of yours that I was responding to, neither of us said Aaron. If Anderson's suspect was a different Kosminski, Kosminski would still be a suspect.

Where you said "Memorandum" above", maybe you meant "marginalia". The latter seems to fit better with the rest of what you say. With both the memorandum and the marginalia, one can debate how much weight they should be given, but to fully reject the suspects mentioned in them, one would have to be pretty sure that those writings are baseless, and I don't see how anyone could objectively do that.

[Geddy2112]

Yes, post #2 is an excellent post by Fisherman.

One of two that makes much sense here

Hey I do not mind people changing their minds on suspects etc, I've said this before but surely since the reasons he claims Cross was NOT the killer have stayed the same there is something else going on here.

[The Rookie Detective]

I agree on Maybrick. With Kosminski, we do have Macnaughton mentioning him as a suspect in his memorandum and Swanson saying that Anderson's suspect was Kosminski. I think that's enough to make Kosminski a viable suspect.

Although it could be said the memorandum is a load of posthumously written codswallop and it was a poor attempt to try and save face and make it look like the police knew a lot more than they actually did.

And the "Kosminski" referred to by Swanson has no reference to a first name, and so Anderson's suspect could have been another Kosminski entirely.

There were other Kosminski individuals aside from Aaron.

IMO authentic suspects should have included the likes of Chapman, Kelly, Le Grand, Bachert, Bury,. Morganstern, Sullivan, Donnelley, Silverman, Gehringer, Hanslope, Kidney, Barnett,Thompson, Goldstein, Schwartz, Lave, Hutchinson, and several members of the WVC... etc...etc...

But of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing.


We are now left with Lechmere, Maybrick and the wrong Kosminski

How far we've come




RD

[Lewis C]

I agree.

The same could be said for Maybrick and Kosminski



RD

I agree on Maybrick. With Kosminski, we do have Macnaughton mentioning him as a suspect in his memorandum and Swanson saying that Anderson's suspect was Kosminski. I think that's enough to make Kosminski a viable suspect.

[Lewis C]

Bump up for this great thread.

Post #2 is a revelation


RD

Yes, post #2 is an excellent post by Fisherman.

[The Rookie Detective]

Cross is not remotely viable as the Ripper. There is zero evidence whatsoever that he was the Ripper. This crusade to finger a clearly innocent man is tiresome, annoying and in bad taste.

I agree.

The same could be said for Maybrick and Kosminski



RD

[John Wheat]

Cross is not remotely viable as the Ripper. There is zero evidence whatsoever that he was the Ripper. This crusade to finger a clearly innocent man is tiresome, annoying and in bad taste.

[Geddy2112]

Ooo many thanks..

Bump up for this great thread.

Post #2 is a revelation

I'd say it's GOLDEN. I'm off to fill my coffee pot and get back here as it looks like I'm going to need to edit a certain project as new information has cropped up. *rubs hands and cackles*

[The Rookie Detective]

Bump up for this great thread.

Post #2 is a revelation


RD

[Fisherman]

Today, Stig Engström, the so called Skandia Man, has been dubbed the killer of prime minister Olof Palme back in 1986. This owes mainly to Thomas Petterson, who wrote the book "Den osannolika mördaren" ("The unlikely killer") about Stig Engström in 2018, pointing Engström out as the killer of Palme.

Petterson says today that the main issue people have had accepting Engström as the killer is how he himself reported in to the police. This, people said, whould have meant that the police without a doubt would have investigated him in depth if it was called for: Since Engström was never investigated in depth, that meant that he could not possibly have been guilty, they reasoned.

It is a reasoning that has a bearing on the case against Charles Lechmere too, of course. The exact same reasoning has been applied out here. Therefore, the story about Stig Engström and the Palme murder makes for useful reading.

A few examples of how the police missed out on Engström:

1. He was able to point out a few peopla as having been present at the site. These people, however, were all present at the site before the shots were fired. After that, numerous other people arrived at the site, but Engström was not able to identify any of them.

2. Engström claimed to have helped positioning Palmes body on the pavement, whereas the two women who actually did it said that they had done so alone. No Engström had been present. He was owhere even near Palme at that stage, and they did not see him before either.

3. Three people were asked to confirm Engströms presence at the murder site after the shots. Two of them categorically denied having seen him there, whereas the thrid said that he could have been the man who spoke to himself through a car window. However, another man testified that he had been the person speaking through the window, and so there was never anybody who could certify that Engström was in place after the shots were fired. Regrdeless of this, the police wrote in their report that Engström was in the clear since a witness had testified to the effect that he was at the site in the aftermath of the shots, meaning that he could not have been the fleeing killer.

This was the investigation into the murder of the prime minister of Sweden, an investigation that has cost tax payers around 50 million pounds. Engström injected himself into the investigation, he claimed to have run up the stept from Tunnelgatan in pursuit of the policemen who took up the pursuit of the killer - and he afterwards claimed that the people describing the fleeing killer as around 180 centimeters, wearing a cap and steel-brimmed glasses and a longish overcoat had probably seen Engströn dashing for the police and mistaken him for the real killer! Of course, Engström met the description in every respect. Noone at the site, however, remembered Engströn having run up the stairs a few minutes after the killer had done so...

The police will NOT always investigate people who are quite likely to be killers. Not even if they answwer perfectly to the description given by witnesses, not even oif it is evident that he has lied and not even if he has committed the most high profile murder in the history of a western democracy. Let´s keep that in mind. The argument that Lechmere coud not have been the killer of Polly Nichols because the police must have checked him out and cleared him is nothing more than a misconception based on faulty thinking.

[Fisherman]

Only if the 'exact' time given, is credible.

No, that is not how it works, I´m afraid. Paul claims to be able to give an exact timing, none of the others do, therefore Pauls timing must be regarded as being more likely to be correct than the others. At the end of the day, Paul may have lied, he may have been mistaken, he may be totally off the mark, but that does not matter as long as we do not know that any of these things apply. Until we do, Paul remains the source most likely to be correct, regardless of whom we compare him to.

Your question: "who should we trust when a conflict like this arises - an unknown carman or an experienced beat constable?" is best answered by saying "the guy who had a timepiece to check the time by. And that guy was by apparition Robert Paul. Understanding a clock is per se not all that hard. If you look at your watch when a robbery takes place in the street and find it to be 7 PM exactly, and if you know that your clock is correct, would you take a differing PC:s view over yours if he implicated that you were five minutes off? Although you had checked it thoroughly? Are "experienced policemen" more likely to understand what the clock says than you are?

You may (or may not) also note that when Paul says "I left home just before a quarter to four", that timing is in perfect line with being in Bucks Row at exactly 3.45.

You ask "How does Cross know that he is 'behind time' without a timepiece of his own, or at least a clock to look at?", and the simple answer to that is that he knew either from hearing a clock strike as he walked to work, or he had a clock at home that told him that he was late as he left. Neither of these possibilities mean that he would know exactly what the time was as he met Paul, though.

... and yes, these points make the rest of your post redundant. The conclusion is that you need not worry that the word "exactly" guarantees that Paul was on the money. But it DOES implicate that he was being more observant and wary of the time than any other player in the drama - which is the very point I have made all along.

That point, by the way, was not lost on the police either. In his September report, Swanson puts the matter down to 3.40, but one month later he has amended that to 3.45, if I am not much mistaken. The suggestion that the police had looked at the different parameters and come to the conlusion that Paul was most likely correct becomes quite tantalizing, don´t you think? After all, experienced policemen would know, would they not?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

No, it does not mean that you are right when you add "exactly" to a timing. But since Paul did say "exactly", it would be odd if he was not working from a timepiece, and therefore his timing becomes more credible than it would have been if he had said "I think it may have been 3.45 or thereabouts" or something such.

Only if the 'exact' time given, is credible.

PC Thain: Nothing attracted my attention until 3.45 a.m., when I was signalled by another constable in Buck's-row. I went to him and found him standing by the body of a woman.

This has a credibility issue:

Robert Paul: It was exactly a quarter to four when I passed up Buck's-row to my work as a carman for Covent-garden market. It was dark, and I was hurrying along, when I saw a man standing where the woman was.

Or does 'exactly a quarter to four' trump '3.45 a.m.'?
And who should we trust when a conflict like this arises - an unknown carman or an experienced beat constable?

The same question arises in the case of Dutfield's Yard - do we put more trust into a well regarded constable, to record and recall the time accurately, or the steward of a politically radical men's club, who claims to have discovered a murdered woman, when alone?
And before you let me know, consider that 'record' is just as important here as 'recall':

[TT1006] PC Smith: When I saw deceased lying on the ground I recognized her at once and made a report of what I had seen.

So Smith made a report of the event as he saw it, minutes after it occurred.
Common sense dictates the report would have included the time.
In comparison, when did Paul and Diemschitz give their recollections of the time? - hours later to some reporter on the way home from work in the first case, and more than 30 hours and many interviews later, in the second.

It really is not very hard at all. "Exactly" - makes a correct timing more credible but does not guarantee it. "Thereabouts" - makes a timing less credible that "exactly" does - but may nevertheless be more correct in practice.

So is this just a little less credible, than what Paul had said to the pressman on the day of the murder?...

[MA0918] Paul: I am a carman, and on the morning of the murder I left home just before a quarter to four. As I was passing up Buck's-row I saw a man standing in the roadway.

If Paul's 'exactly a quarter to four' quote did not occur, or was not available, would we still suppose that his recall of the time was more credible than Cross's?
Are we really going to send Charles Lechmere to the gallows, on the basis of a single word?

[DT0904]
Coroner: Did the other man tell you who he was?
Cross: No, sir; he merely said that he would have fetched a policeman, only he was behind time. I was behind time myself.

How does Cross know that he is 'behind time' without a timepiece of his own, or at least a clock to look at?
What is he relying on to let him know that he needs to get a move on - a sundial perhaps?

At the inquest, Cross speaks in a natural manner, without sounding artificially precise...

[DT0918] Paul: Not more than four minutes had elapsed from the time he first saw the woman.

The real problem here is that an effort is made to make me look as if I spread falsehoods and make claims that cannot be substantiated. But I don´t. I am not saying that Pauls "exactly" guarantees that he was right, the way that you try to lead on in your post. I am saying that it enhances the probability that he was right on account of how it seems he had made a check with a timepiece.

I'm not saying you're saying that - how could I be when I neither quoted you, nor paraphrased you?
In fact my post was not directed at you in particular, not was it only in regards to the Nichols murder.
My point was about the excessive power that the word 'exactly' seems to have, on the credibility of times given by witnesses, especially when contrasted with witnesses who give less precise sounding estimates. The later category seem to set themselves up for contradiction or exploitation - Charles Cross being the prime example.

It is basically two different ways of doing Ripperology. You either try to make your case as best as you can, going on the facts. Or you distort what people who do that are saying. Apparently, you prefer the latter approach.

Yeh, that'd be it.
However, let's have a look at how easy the system would be to game, using your superior method of highly rating the credibility of those who proceed recollections of the time with the word 'exactly', compared to those unreliable types who proceed with words like 'about'.

Hypothetical inquest scenario:

Charles Cross: On Friday morning I left home at exactly twenty minutes to three.

If Lechmere were really Jack the Ripper, that's all he had to say to prevent anyone supposing so.
Who would have known it wasn't true?

[Abby Normal]

so fish changed his mind. it happens as people learn and new things come to light. which is more than i can say for most people here.

[Fisherman]

All knowledge is about adjusting to the forthcoming facts, so we better change when it’ s called for...

As for Stride, one cannot be sure whether she was or was not a Ripper victim. We can weigh up the evidence and come to whatever conclusion we think fits the evidence best, but that´s as far as it goes.

[drstrange169]

I've been here since the 1990's, I'm well aware of others, not just you, changing their views. I've never had problem with that.

When it come to Mrs Stride I've never been sure whether she was or wasn't.