Why is the possibility of Lechmere interrupting the ripper so often discarded?

[MrBarnett]

If I remember, the advantage of hobnailed boots is that they lasted much longer.
The PCs seemed to be wearing them, because Neil could hear Thain at the base of Buck's row.

Lech would spend roughly 1 hour each day just walking back and forth to work, and Paul would spend 30 minutes.
Cheap shoes would wear out very quickly under such a regiment.

Having functioning shoes was an issue for people back in the day.

Also very hard on his wooden cart, I would have thought.

[Mark J D]

[Deletion.]

[Newbie]

Did carmen wear hobnailed boots?

If I remember, the advantage of hobnailed boots is that they lasted much longer.
The PCs seemed to be wearing them, because Neil could hear Thain at the base of Buck's row.

Lech would spend roughly 1 hour each day just walking back and forth to work, and Paul would spend 30 minutes.
Cheap shoes would wear out very quickly under such a regiment.

Having functioning shoes was an issue for people back in the day.

[Newbie]

The frequent comments about blood flow from the neck linking directly to the timing of the murder are inaccurate and unhelpful. If the blood had stopped flowing, it would restart when someone lifted Nichols' hands up from the ground to check the temperature or seek a pulse. We know that CAL, Paul and PC Neil did this.

We also know that the police were not "pretty thorough" but very lax in contacting residents, as Inspector Spratling was forced to admit it hadn't yet been done, at the inquest as late as 17th September. We also know that there is a report from one resident, Harriet Lilley, that she heard suspicious voices, gasping and moans as a goods train passed by, and that was timed at 3.30 am, which is comfortably within the potential time scale.

I think we can be sure that CAL's comments about being able to hear if anyone had fled just in front of him were based on his experience of being able to hear Paul behind him. If not, what could possibly have made him think that? I also think that at about 3. 45 am in London's back streets, the only sounds he expected to hear were working men in hob nailed boots or policemen. He probably didn't even think about alternative footwear, but JtR in leather shoes or boots is a possibility.

I'm not absolutely swayed by the blood evidence: its a bloody mess, no pun intended.

However, it is not something to be ignored.

Did PC Neil first notice the blood flowing/oozing out of the wound (different newspapers use different verbs), or did he first raise her hand?
It seems like he first noticed the blood flowing/oozing out of the wound, and then touched/raised her hand.

From PC Neil's testimony reported in the Daily Telegraph:
"Deceased was lying lengthways along the street, her left hand touching the gate. I examined the body by the aid of my lamp, and noticed blood oozing from a wound in the throat. She was lying on her back, with her clothes disarranged. I felt her arm, which was quite warm from the joints upwards."

He might have not even raised the hand afterwards, but merely felt it. How long was this before Paul/Lech disturbed the body? We cannot be certain. The only time that is most likely precisely reliable is the 3:45 am time of Neil finding the body....probably a routine aspect of police procedure when encountering a dead body on the street.

The time of Paul/Lech encountered the body, and the time when the pair met up with PC Mizen is not as reliable.....Mizen probably backtracking and estimating, but not actually looking at his watch.

[Newbie]

If Lech was innocent, here might be what was running through his head:

he stopped and investigated the body well ahead of Paul, and might have seen the slash marks on the neck;
heard Paul's footsteps near the base of Buck's row;
thought to himself, "holy hell they might think that i committed the crime";
weighed in the balance what he should do: flee or wait and address the stranger;
decided to wait and address the stranger, but moved out into the middle of the street, pretending to have just arrived;
saw the stranger was fearful and trying to avoid Lech;
said to himself again, "holy hell this idiot is trying to pass me and might then inform someone later on as to my appearance and unknown purpose";
decided to physically block the idiots path in going around him;
went through a not so thorough examination (Lech just reportedly holding the hand & touching the forehead);
declared, in effect, that the investigation was over when Paul attempted further clarity, and then stated that they should seek out a police constable.

[Newbie]

That’s a bit too much smoke and mirrors for me, Newbie. I think it would have taken a few seconds for a guilty Lechmere to determine where the footsteps were coming from and approximately how far away they would be. We know that, if we assume for a moment he was guilty, he HAD estimated & decided that he’d have enough time to arrange the body, put away his knife, move silently to the middle of the road and wait for Paul before the latter would see or hear him.

Again, i am not disputing the already checked over the body and moved to the center of the road possibility.

However, how does one without visual information determine the distance of an event from oneself through sound? The only way is through the loudness or intensity of the sound waves reaching one's ears. The brain is making an estimate, based on what it normally expects. It is similar to one reaching under water for an object: our brains hardwired into expecting the direction of reflected light from that object to be straight. Initially, we misjudge its location. In a street that channels wave energy down its corridors better than most, so that the wave intensity diminishes less rapidly,
a mistake in estimated distance is to be expected.

For one, the same would be true of Winthrop Street: how many times do you think he passed down that street? Maybe never? Secondly, from the crime scene, through Wood’s Buildings, to Whitechapel Road would be some 85 meters less than through Winthrop Street to Brady Street.

Possibly never....all the more reason to suspect he might not go there.

Again, why would he have been running (all the way)? He would be the cool & collected, street-smart, quick-thinking psychopath, wouldn’t he? Or would he lose that abilities the moment he would have decided to get away instead of staying put? So, he would be able to think when to run, when not to, when to stop & look around a corner, when to hide, in short, what would be the best thing given the circumstances, etc..

I would agree....he would most likely walk, not run. Running would attract unwanted attention. So the time to get to relative safety would take a while.

What I said was that staying put and waiting for Paul to arrive at the crime scene took more than 20 seconds (the 20 seconds or so being only the time that Paul had to cover the last 30-40 yards to arrive at where Lechmere was standing). If you’d add your 5-10 seconds to process everything & make a decision, and add some more seconds to arrange the body, put away the knife, move to the middle of the road and wait e few more seconds for Paul to appear from the gloom, then you’d easily arrive at 30 seconds between Lechmere hearing Paul for the first time and Paul arriving where Lechmere was standing. Of course, in the scenario where he would walk away, he’d also have needed some seconds to assess where the sound was coming from and consider his options. And he then wouldn't have fled madly in any direction. He was a psychopath, remember? Cool as a cucumber and able to think on his feet.

I am not a psychologist, so i never openly use the label of psychopath or sociopath in the assessment of the killers actions. From my limited information, sociopaths are people more likely to act cool and calm and plan out their crimes, were as a psychopath has impulse control problems.

I image the killer was cool and calculating, so sociopath would best fit the mind of this killer....so in truth, my assumption is that the killer was a sociopath.

Again, who knows how long it took to perceive the approaching stranger, where he thought the stranger might be along Buck's row, and how quickly JtR processed the information and made his decision. We can go on in circles pushing this or that possibility. Lech decided to stay, guilty or innocent, and an innocent Lech could very well have decided to flee, using the information you are proposing. My purpose is only to suggest that staying with the body is a very valid option, given the circumstances Lech encountered - guilty or innocent.

We are however operating under the assumption that JtR was disturbed, and that the disturber quite possibly was Paul. If not, we can make a rough estimate as to the minimum time another hypothetical candidate might have slashed the throat....and then the time in which blood would flow from the neck goes up not by 30 seconds from the Lech as killer scenario, but by 4 minutes or so at minimum.

Maybe, JtR was not disturbed. In that case, Lech is off the hook. The general opinion is that he was disturbed from completing his denouement, and so Lech is a particularly interesting candidate.

[Newbie]

And if one then says that Lech was distracted by family problems, which outweighed the dangers of the street upon which he was walking:
not likely, but certainly possible.

However, you then would have to start coming up with a reason why Paul didn't consider Lech's footsteps as important information:
Paul, publicly stating that one walks down that street on their guard.

[Newbie]

And innocent Lech testified that he was moving (walking) towards the body and stopped in the middle of the road upon hearing the footsteps.
He did not state that he was stationary upon hearing them.

His brain would have been more distracted, not less, being occupied by that figure lying in the road.

Something is amiss.

[Newbie]

I disagree. A guilty Lech would be stationary and be able to hear much better if anybody would enter the street or was approaching. Plus, he would have had a very good reason indeed to be alert for such sounds. An innocent, walking Lechmere would make sounds himself and would have had very much less reason to listen for sounds. He was on his way to work; he’d passed through that street at that hour some 40 times before, so it was becoming routing by then, having him quite possibly think about & concentrate on other things than listening for sounds.

One remarkable feature of our brains is that it tunes out noises that are uninformative - particularly the repetitive sound of your hobnailed boots striking the ground while walking, while focusing on what is new.

This process is called sensory gating.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics...nic%20patients.

From an article on the subject:

Our brains are remarkably good at cancelling out all sorts of constants in our everyday lives. The brain is interested in changes that it needs to react or respond to, and so brain cells are charged with looking for any of these differences, no matter how minute.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20120508-why-your-brain-loves-to-tune-out

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20120508-why-your-brain-loves-to-tune-out

So, the brain of Lechmere/Paul, when walking in a dangerous, dark neighborhood would be filtering out its own repetitive footsteps and limited bland visual information, and be locked on to any new sounds coming from in front or behind.

The brain of guilty Lechmere would be flooded with new visual and olfactory information coming from the dead/dying body in front of him. He is far less likely to
pick up on the new information of Paul's footsteps in a timely manner than an innocent Lech, walking only 50 yards ahead.

Unless Lech felt perfectly safe walking down Buck's row early morning and was wrapped in his own thoughts, its simply not credible to think he was impervious to Paul's footsteps for over a minute until that last moment

And yes, he could have arrived earlier than he stated, noticed the figure, examined it for a bit and hearing the footsteps of Paul went back towards the middle of the road and pretended to just have discovered it....fearful of being blamed for a crime he did not commit.

I will respond to your other points when i have time.

[Doctored Whatsit]

Did carmen wear hobnailed boots?

A fair question, and one which, I suppose, we cannot be absolutely certain about. I believe that someone produced a photograph elsewhere on another thread, which suggested this. Personally, I admit to being guided by CAL's very positive statement that if anyone left the body after he got into Buck's Row he must have heard him. This suggests to me that he expected to hear only noisy footfalls at that time of day, and therefore based this judgement on his awareness of other footsteps, presumably Paul's, from some distance away behind him.

[FrankO]

I think you are making an assumption that contradicts a possible opinion you might entertain about what Lech noticed and failed to notice.

Innocent Lech could only just hear Paul's footsteps from no farther than 40 yards away, guilty Lech could hear them all the way up the street. My expectation is that both Lech's could hear footsteps as far as the intersection with Brady Street.

I disagree. A guilty Lech would be stationary and be able to hear much better if anybody would enter the street or was approaching. Plus, he would have had a very good reason indeed to be alert for such sounds. An innocent, walking Lechmere would make sounds himself and would have had very much less reason to listen for sounds. He was on his way to work; he’d passed through that street at that hour some 40 times before, so it was becoming routing by then, having him quite possibly think about & concentrate on other things than listening for sounds.

So innocent Lech is lying about what he heard; let's focus on guilty Lech. He might have stumbled on the body, examined it, knew the woman to be dead, heard the footsteps entering the street, feared that he would be accused of the crime and attempted a bluff by just going back a minute in time;

This is actually the sort of thing I see as a possibility for an innocent Lechmere. He noticed a dark figure lying on the opposite side of the street, went over to it to examine whilst hearing Paul enter Buck’s Row or behind him, and then realising the woman was possibly dead, he feared he would be accused of the crime and decided it would be better to silently move back to the middle of the street and wait for Paul (instead of being found ‘hovering over the body’).

or, he might have killed Polly Nichols and heard the footsteps entering the street. It doesn't matter, either party would ask himself the question, how far away are those footsteps? Being at first distracted, he could have easily imagined not having heard them at first. The initial part of Buck's row would be an excellent acoustic channel: narrow and aligned with a continuous formation of stone buildings with no alcoves or side streets, and a stone pavement. The intensity of sound waves traveling from the base upwards would not diminish appreciably in comparison to broader streets or open fields. So, there would be a problem in accurately determining distance based on the strength of the signal; and one's tendency would be to imagine the footsteps are closer than they actually are. So Lech would have thought that Paul was closer than he actually was, and decided to bluff it.

That’s a bit too much smoke and mirrors for me, Newbie. I think it would have taken a few seconds for a guilty Lechmere to determine where the footsteps were coming from and approximately how far away they would be. We know that, if we assume for a moment he was guilty, he HAD estimated & decided that he’d have enough time to arrange the body, put away his knife, move silently to the middle of the road and wait for Paul before the latter would see or hear him.

There also might be initial confusion on which way the steps were coming. I broached upon it a while ago: ears parallel to the street could not distinguish it easily, sound coming into both ears simultaneously from either direction, and Polly Nichol's body was aligned so that the killer's ears would be roughly parallel if he situated himself between her legs. The body was also aligned in the direction the killer might expect the unexpected traveler.....i doubt that was by chance, but that part doesn't interest us.

I don’t think we can assume to know how the killer was aligned, but, regardless of that, we shouldn’t think the killer would hold his head in one direction only, especially when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. If he was crouched between her legs when he heard them, then he would have been facing Brady Street, enabling him to hear much better sounds that were coming from that direction.

In my opinion, heading down Woods Buildings is not that big a difference from Winthrop, except with one caveat: how many times do you think Lech passed down that street? Maybe never?

For one, the same would be true of Winthrop Street: how many times do you think he passed down that street? Maybe never? Secondly, from the crime scene, through Wood’s Buildings, to Whitechapel Road would be some 85 meters less than through Winthrop Street to Brady Street.

In all likelihood running down streets you have never traveled before seems like panic - initially heading towards a PC where you didn't know exactly where he might be, but had expectations that he was somewhere ahead. Maybe, PC Neil cut up Court Street - no one can be exactly certain today.

Again, why would he have been running (all the way)? He would be the cool & collected, street-smart, quick-thinking psychopath, wouldn’t he? Or would he lose that abilities the moment he would have decided to get away instead of staying put? So, he would be able to think when to run, when not to, when to stop & look around a corner, when to hide, in short, what would be the best thing given the circumstances, etc..

As for your point that fleeing to the entrance of Winthrop and then the Wood's buildings would have been quicker than arranging the body and stealthily moving towards the middle of the street, i would disagree: one would take much, much longer. Lech would have had maybe 5 - 10 seconds to process everything and make a decision....you would need to take that into account, unless you think he fled madly in any direction at the first hint of an approaching sound.

What I said was that staying put and waiting for Paul to arrive at the crime scene took more than 20 seconds (the 20 seconds or so being only the time that Paul had to cover the last 30-40 yards to arrive at where Lechmere was standing). If you’d add your 5-10 seconds to process everything & make a decision, and add some more seconds to arrange the body, put away the knife, move to the middle of the road and wait e few more seconds for Paul to appear from the gloom, then you’d easily arrive at 30 seconds between Lechmere hearing Paul for the first time and Paul arriving where Lechmere was standing. Of course, in the scenario where he would walk away, he’d also have needed some seconds to assess where the sound was coming from and consider his options. And he then wouldn't have fled madly in any direction. He was a psychopath, remember? Cool as a cucumber and able to think on his feet.

Do you think the criminal entertained the possibility that the stranger would not notice the body, or having noticed it wouldn't be that alarmed or interested?
In my mind, that wouldn't be likely; to the killer, it would be like a stranger not noticing a building was on fire.

Indeed, he had to count on the stranger seeing the body, going over to examine it and then raise an alarm.

[MrBarnett]

The frequent comments about blood flow from the neck linking directly to the timing of the murder are inaccurate and unhelpful. If the blood had stopped flowing, it would restart when someone lifted Nichols' hands up from the ground to check the temperature or seek a pulse. We know that CAL, Paul and PC Neil did this.

We also know that the police were not "pretty thorough" but very lax in contacting residents, as Inspector Spratling was forced to admit it hadn't yet been done, at the inquest as late as 17th September. We also know that there is a report from one resident, Harriet Lilley, that she heard suspicious voices, gasping and moans as a goods train passed by, and that was timed at 3.30 am, which is comfortably within the potential time scale.

I think we can be sure that CAL's comments about being able to hear if anyone had fled just in front of him were based on his experience of being able to hear Paul behind him. If not, what could possibly have made him think that? I also think that at about 3. 45 am in London's back streets, the only sounds he expected to hear were working men in hob nailed boots or policemen. He probably didn't even think about alternative footwear, but JtR in leather shoes or boots is a possibility.

Did carmen wear hobnailed boots?

[Doctored Whatsit]

One other thing,


That means blood would be flowing out of the neck wound, at minimum, for 12 - 13 minutes, if Lech was not the killer.

And then the disturber either did not notice it, did not report it to the police, inexplicably turned around, or that the disturber was a resident. Since the police were probably pretty thorough in asking residents about hearing something, or poking their head outside for a bit, this is unlikely.

Or PC Neil was incorrect about his assessment of blood flowing;
or JtR / the disturber, was someone who could afford soft leather heels.

The frequent comments about blood flow from the neck linking directly to the timing of the murder are inaccurate and unhelpful. If the blood had stopped flowing, it would restart when someone lifted Nichols' hands up from the ground to check the temperature or seek a pulse. We know that CAL, Paul and PC Neil did this.

We also know that the police were not "pretty thorough" but very lax in contacting residents, as Inspector Spratling was forced to admit it hadn't yet been done, at the inquest as late as 17th September. We also know that there is a report from one resident, Harriet Lilley, that she heard suspicious voices, gasping and moans as a goods train passed by, and that was timed at 3.30 am, which is comfortably within the potential time scale.

I think we can be sure that CAL's comments about being able to hear if anyone had fled just in front of him were based on his experience of being able to hear Paul behind him. If not, what could possibly have made him think that? I also think that at about 3. 45 am in London's back streets, the only sounds he expected to hear were working men in hob nailed boots or policemen. He probably didn't even think about alternative footwear, but JtR in leather shoes or boots is a possibility.

[Pcdunn]

"The diagnostican is like a policeman, looking for clues to what is attacking a body. Suppose a policeman finds someone looking at a dead body, while a knife lies nearby. A conclusion can be made that these things are all connected. But further investigation leads to different clues, and the real culprit is found and arrested.
And it turns out that, sometimes, people just happen to find a body." -- from HOUSE, M.D.

[Newbie]

One other thing,

there was a discussion on the amount of time blood would flow out of the neck, given the trauma to that area.
Someone, who attempted thoroughness in analyzing the time component to the crime scene, posited that at minimum, JtR (if not Lech) was only 30 seconds ahead of Lechmere when he vacated the body, and stealthily headed off towards Baker Street; so, the time (at minimum) in which he severed the neck would have been only 30 seconds earlier than the time that Lech would have done it, if Lech were the murderer.

Once again, this does not conform to Lechmere's own testimony, in which he responded to a question of not hearing anyone on Buck's row once he turned onto it; nor to our expectations of the hearing capabilities of an average person in that location.

If you think JtR was disturbed during his post murder activities on Buck's row, that would mean Lech did not hear the footsteps of the person who disturbed him. And Lech testified that he could hear things all the way up the street (probably a correct assessment). So, assuming the disturber was walking towards Baker's street, since Lech & Paul did not report seeing/hearing him, that would mean the disturber was 2 - 3 minutes ahead of Lech, at minimum.

If Paul came across Lech & the body at 3:38 am (using innocent Lech's stated starting time and estimating), then Lech would have turned up Buck's row at 3:36-3:37 am. That means that the disturber, at latest, would have turned up Buck's row at 3:33 - 3:34 am. Although there is some dispute as to whether the killer slashed the throat before stabbing and carving the abdomen, i tend to believe that the M.O.
was to slash the throat first: this would immediately incapacitate the victim, & reduce the amount of blood in the abdomen area. So, go back another a minute upon being disturbed in which he cut the throat - this would leave at latest a time of 3:32 - 3:33 am in which the fatal cut was made.

That means blood would be flowing out of the neck wound, at minimum, for 12 - 13 minutes, if Lech was not the killer.

And then the disturber either did not notice it, did not report it to the police, inexplicably turned around, or that the disturber was a resident. Since the police were probably pretty thorough in asking residents about hearing something, or poking their head outside for a bit, this is unlikely.

Or PC Neil was incorrect about his assessment of blood flowing;
or JtR / the disturber, was someone who could afford soft leather heels.