Framing Charles

[MrBarnett]

This is a meaningless statement, Gary. I would have expected better.

Lechmere did meet Polly on his route to work--that's not up for debate. The question is whether she was alive and inexplicably loitering as if waiting for him, or whether she was dead and sprawled on the pavement.

The mere fact that Lechmere was in Buck's Row at that time & place is perfectly explained by his commute to work. He has no case to answer.

Ah, but what about the blood evidence? The so-called 'fresh' blood evidence pointing to him having murdered Nichols is non-existent--which you have admitted (see--I do read your posts).

I'm obviously here and spending time looking at the supposed case against Lechmere, so I am approaching it in good faith. I don't dislike either Christer or Ed Stowe, because they are serious researchers and are willing to fight their corner. There are places on the internet where people even deny that Charles Lechmere and Charles Andrew Cross of the inquest are even the same person. I'm not endorsing that; I merely report the news.

I'm just seeing nothing whatsoever that implicates Lechmere. I have admitted that 'ma Lechmere' living near Berner Street is a 'fun fact,' but we see similar elements in other theories. I also recall an instance, some years ago, where there were attempts to implicate a lunatic named Hyam Hyams in the Whitechapel Murders. Much was made of 'coincidental' geography. He grew up on Mitre Street. The 'Thomas Coram' knife was found on the doorstep next to his uncle's home, etc.

But in the end, research done by two talented genealogists showed that the Hyam Hyams of the Stone asylum was not the 'Hyam Hyams' that had these geographic connections to the crimes. So these seemingly damning facts WERE just coincidences.

It might be worth keeping that in mind.




It's a matter of commonsense as well as the historical record that women solicited on Whitechapel Road--where they could expect to see pedestrians at all hours--instead of randomly wandering back streets hoping to find a client...even a client who announced under oath that he didn't like them and would have likely chase them off.

I’m not remotely convinced that Lechmere was even Polly’s killer. Coincidences abound in life.

What I’m trying to get at with Tomkins (for whom there are several coincidences that could be worked up into a suspect theory) is what his rather odd ‘I don’t like them’ tells us.

If I was in a witness box and I was asked if prostitutes visited my workplace in the early hours (assuming they didn’t) my answer would be along the lines of:

No! Of course not! What an outrageous suggestion!

Not:

I don’t like them.

[rjpalmer]

I always find that the medicos who saw the bodies and examined them in detail are the ones in the best position - by far - to comment on the practical medical matters. Consequentially, I work from the supposition that they were probably correct when making these kinds of calls. Reasonably, Phillips was quite aware about the moist surface of the neck and what that meant in medical terms.

That's admirable, Fish. But you don't think Swanson was basing his report on medical opinions? He describes the exact physical conditions of the corpse that can be found in Hebbert's notes.

And, correct me if I am wrong, but Hebbert does not state the victim died from a neck wound; only that she died from hemorrhaging. One unnamed detective stated his belief that the victim may have been smashed over the head. As I already noted, though rare, head injuries can cause someone to bleed to death.

As I say, I am planning on doing more research on this puzzling aspect of this most puzzling case.

Until then, good luck on your endeavors.

[Fisherman]

It's a matter of commonsense as well as the historical record that women solicited on Whitechapel Road--where they could expect to see pedestrians at all hours--instead of randomly wandering back streets hoping to find a client...even a client who announced under oath that he didn't like them and would have likely chase them off.

But I am not saying that Nichols randomly walked the back alleys in search of a client. Donīt you read what I am saying? It helps, you know, if you are to criticise it.

I am saying that the deals struck in prostitution hotspots such as Whitechapel Road were subsequently taken care of in the back alleys and dark streets where seclusion was on offer. Once you had engaged in such an affair, you WOULD find yourself in those back alleys and dark streets until you had made your way back to Whitechapel Road. And in the process of making your way back to Whitechapel Road, why would a prostitute not ask passing workmen for business?

So far, you have not managed to explain that. You have only managed to misrepresent what I am suggesting, and that is of course not half bad.

Itīs all bad.

[Fisherman]

The head was removed some time after the legs and the edges of the cuts had not had time to blacken.


How else can Phillips’ observation be explained?

Perhaps couldn’t tell the difference between dry, blackened flesh and moist (presumably) reddish flesh?

There is also the fact that if the legs were taken off, say on the day before the head, then the surfaces of where the legs had been would be subjected to air. If the throat was cut but the head left on, then it is possible that the wound was closed, depending on the position of the body. The surfaces of the wound could well have been pressed against each other, not allowing for air to have an impact.

Any which way, I think Phillips is the authority here, and if he suggested that the throat was cut twice, then he needs to be listened to.

[rjpalmer]

It’s good to see you acknowledge the possibility that Lechmere may have met Polly directly on his work route. That would fit Christer’s theory very nicely.

This is a meaningless statement, Gary. I would have expected better.

Lechmere did meet Polly on his route to work--that's not up for debate. The question is whether she was alive and inexplicably loitering as if waiting for him, or whether she was dead and sprawled on the pavement.

The mere fact that Lechmere was in Buck's Row at that time & place is perfectly explained by his commute to work. He has no case to answer.

Ah, but what about the blood evidence? The so-called 'fresh' blood evidence pointing to him having murdered Nichols is non-existent--which you have admitted (see--I do read your posts).

I'm obviously here and spending time looking at the supposed case against Lechmere, so I am approaching it in good faith. I don't dislike either Christer or Ed Stowe, because they are serious researchers and are willing to fight their corner. There are places on the internet where people even deny that Charles Lechmere and Charles Andrew Cross of the inquest are even the same person. I'm not endorsing that; I merely report the news.

I'm just seeing nothing whatsoever that implicates Lechmere. I have admitted that 'ma Lechmere' living near Berner Street is a 'fun fact,' but we see similar elements in other theories. I also recall an instance, some years ago, where there were attempts to implicate a lunatic named Hyam Hyams in the Whitechapel Murders. Much was made of 'coincidental' geography. He grew up on Mitre Street. The 'Thomas Coram' knife was found on the doorstep next to his uncle's home, etc.

But in the end, research done by two talented genealogists showed that the Hyam Hyams of the Stone asylum was not the 'Hyam Hyams' that had these geographic connections to the crimes. So these seemingly damning facts WERE just coincidences.

It might be worth keeping that in mind.

What do you make of ‘I don’t like them’ as a response to the question of whether women ever called at the knacker’s yard?

It's a matter of commonsense as well as the historical record that women solicited on Whitechapel Road--where they could expect to see pedestrians at all hours--instead of randomly wandering back streets hoping to find a client...even a client who announced under oath that he didn't like them and would have likely chase them off.

[MrBarnett]

I’m curious as to whether Henry Tomkins did say this, RJ:

‘The man's answer: no. He had not seen any women in the back streets.’

First, because anything to do with horse slaughterers is of particular interest to me.

And secondly because if he didn’t, if in fact he gave a rather cryptic answer that can best be interpreted as ‘Yes, but I have nothing to do with them’, then you really aren’t playing fair.

[Fisherman]

What I don't think is probable is that the murderer known as 'Jack the Ripper' simply found a woman standing along a dark back street on what was his route to work--almost as if she was waiting for him-- and he started carving her up there and then.

Then again, who says she was just "standing there"? We know she staggered down Whitechapel Road, and there is every chance that she picked up a client there and took him into Bucks Row to do the business. This you agree with, apparently. Then, after the business was done, she would find herself in Bucks Row and perhaps she would start walking towards the Brady Street junction in order to take a right turn there and walk down to Whitechapel Road again.

How do we exclude the possibility that she, during this two minute walk (she was very drunk) met Charles Lechmere on his way towards the west? And if she did, how do we exclude that she asked him for business?

It is all very easy to say that Whitechapel Road was a centre of prostitution, but since when does that guarantee that all deals are struck there? That is the question you need to answer.

You are very quick to say that the extremely rare similarities inbetween the two murder series will probably be due to how two different men found different reasons to cut away abodminal walls, rip from ribs to pubes and take out hearts and uteri. There is no limit to your imagination in that case, but when you need to imagine a prostitute offering her services to a punter outside of Whitechapel Road, that imagination runs dryer than the Atacama desert.

[Fisherman]

This is a complex question, and more study is needed.

More study of what? The neck of the Pinchin Street victim?

I'm not denying what Phillip's said. I'm questioning how we square his theory of death from throat slashing when the skin around the neck was found 'red and moist' some days later, in stark contrast to the black and dry skin around the hips.

If she was - for example - cut on one side only to bleed her out, then thereīs your answer.

The Ripper victims often had their necks cut clear down to the spinal column; you and Phillips seem to believe this was done in the Pinchin case, yet the murderer inexplicably didn't finish cutting off the head completely for another 2-5 days, even though he quickly removed the legs. And in doing so, he opted to make a brand new, clean and 'moist' incision, further down? Or equally strange, he cut the head off entirely and immediately (something the Ripper couldn't do), but the skin around the incision somehow stayed moist for days?

Those are very strange scenarios.

We can safely rule out the last suggestion, Iīd say. But why would it be strange if the killer left the head on the corpse? He left the arms on it. He only took the legs off initially. And as you are aware, a head is the important part for identification.
My take on things is that the killer emulaed shat he saw at the waxworks. They were the only spots where abdominal lids and taken away faces were on public display, and these very inclusions are present in the two series. Ergo, the diosmemberement was not a practical exercise at all, if I am correct, and so it may not be strange at all that he took the head off only when he dumped the body.

We know from Dr. Hebbert that the victim bled out, but I read a forensic article by pathologists in the UK, describing several case of people bleeding out from head wounds. Such an injury is rare, but a person can also bleed out from a cut to the femoral artery in the upper thigh. Since both the head and the legs were missing, we have no way of knowing that this wasn't the case with the Pinchin Street victim, but either possibility would align with the apparent 'fresh' cut to the neck, not made until some days after death.

Unless I can find an answer to these questions, I have to reject Phillip's suggestion.

I always find that the medicos who saw the bodies and examined them in detail are the ones in the best position - by far - to comment on the practical medical matters. Consequentially, I work from the supposition that they were probably correct when making these kinds of calls. Reasonably, Phillips was quite aware about the moist surface of the neck and what that meant in medical terms.

[MrBarnett]

No need to get sarcastic, Gary.

If Phillip's theory is correct, explain to me why the skin around the neck wound was 'red and moist' and why Swanson believed the head was removed some days later than the legs. Why did the wound appear so much more recent?

Unless you can give me a reasonable forensic explanation, then I would suggest your opinion is not worth any more than mine.

The head was removed some time after the legs and the edges of the cuts had not had time to blacken.


How else can Phillips’ observation be explained?

Perhaps couldn’t tell the difference between dry, blackened flesh and moist (presumably) reddish flesh?

[Fisherman]

Come, come, Fish. Play fair.

I am never anything but.

The women used the dark courts and alleys to conclude their transactions--not to solicit.

Yes, and I actually said so myself in my former post.

This is what we have been told by Inspector Moore, Abberline, and others. And you're the one that suggested Lechmere crept out of his house 45 minutes early; now you're suggesting he met a prostitute on his path to work, despite the fact that they solicited elsewhere, and you now have a missing 45 minutes to explain.

And YOU ask ME to "play fair"???

I never said that Lechmere left home 445 minutes before his normal departure on the 31:st. I said that he COULD HAVE left earlier on days when he sought for prey. And I said that because you tried to establish that there wqas only a "very narrow window of time" available to him, whereas the fact of the matter is that we donīt know that this was so.

Four Spitalfields prostitutes lost their lives inbetween early August and early November of 1888. For some reason, they all dies along what can be suggesrted as the logical pathways of Charles Lechmere. To me, what we are faced with if we accept that the carman was the killer, is that he didnīt stray far from the wuickest routes to work as he made his way through Spitalfields. He would have walked this route around 50 times before Tabram was killed in George Yard. That means that he would have been able to take in to what degree there were prostitutes in the alleyways and small streets as he passed. I feel pretty certain that he will have passed more than one couple engaging in transactions of sex as he made his way. It is not as if it is in any way likely that people passing along the routes he walked were guaranteed a prostitution-free passage.
We do not know if he had a thing about prostitution, if he disliked prostitutes and wanted them to go away and was willing to help out with that. But if this was so, then he was likely presented with many opportunities to get angry about it, and I fail to see why a prostitute who had served a client and was walking the back streets toward Whitechapel Road would not ask any passing working man if he was up for five minutes of fun. If you think that is too fantastic to have happened, you may be a tad unimaginative.
The Spitalfields Four - which I find is a useful label - were found along his logical routes to work, all of them. If you think that points away from Lechmere as the killer, then think again.

I'm not pulling these probabilities out of my hat. At the Nichols inquest, the workmen were asked by Baxter if they had seen any women in the back streets. One horse slaughter answered, "I don't like them." This infuriated Baxter who responded, "I didn't ask whether you liked them, I asked if you had seen them!" The man's answer: no. He had not seen any women in the back streets. This is just a snapshot in time, but Simon Wood also posted an account of a stakeout of these same backstreets by a journalist, who found them quiet and deserted at night.

So where did the prostitutes from Whitechapel Road conduct their business, R J? In Trafalgar Square? Where did the knee-tremblers take place; in Rotten Row? Outside Buckingham Palace? Why do you suppose Nichols was in Bucks Row at all? To sleep rough outside Browns Stable Yard?

By stark contrast, the same workman question by Baxter referred to women commonly seen soliciting on the Whitechapel Road.

Soliciting? Yes. Serving their customers, though - what about that? And do you really think that it was only in Whitechapel Road that a prostitute would work up the courage to ask a passing man for business?

Thus, I conclude that the most probable answer is that Nichols was either picked up on Whitechapel Road by a client, or was follow from same. Your scenario has Lechmere meeting Nichols by sheer accident near the exact time he would have been normally commuting. Theoretically, he could be the murderer, of course, but, if so, he has no case to answer, because he had a perfectly plausible reason for having been there at that moment, and he sought assistance from the first person who passed by.

Sorry, but that's how I see it.

Sorry, but I disagree, for reasons given above. Itīs not about questioning whether or not Whitechapel Road was a nest of prostitution, it is only clarifying that it was not by any means the only option open to the prostitutes. To admit that would be, whatīs it called...? Ah: Fair play.

[rjpalmer]

Wow!

Phillips put forward the possibility that the victim had bled out through the throat and the later cutting off of the head had obscured the throat cuts.

Again, I think it was you who claimed there was no similarity between the Pinchin Street injuries and the earlier ones.

In this case, it is Phillips who vindicates Christer. I’m afraid your rejection of Phillips’ opinion is not worth very much.

No need to get sarcastic, Gary.

If Phillip's theory is correct, explain to me why the skin around the neck wound was 'red and moist' and why Swanson believed the head was removed some days later than the legs. Why did the wound appear so much more recent?

Unless you can give me a reasonable forensic explanation, then I would suggest your opinion is not worth any more than mine.

[MrBarnett]

No. What I argued is that we don't know why Polly was in Buck's Row, but it was possible that she was merely headed to the locked gate, but was followed and attacked by someone who had seen her vulnerable condition. It's not proven that she was actively soliciting. You are not required to read my posts, but I also said that I didn't fully discount the account of Mrs. Colville/Caldwell's' children, and this could have been a far more messy murder than we assume. We weren't there. We do not know.

On the other hand, the standard assumption could be true: Polly could have regrouped from her alcoholic haze, picked up a client in the Whitechapel Road, and led him back to the gate, where he attacked her. This appears to have been the police opinion.

What I don't think is probable is that the murderer known as 'Jack the Ripper' simply found a woman standing along a dark back street on what was his route to work--almost as if she was waiting for him-- and he started carving her up there and then.

If Lechmere lacked this much emotive control, then I think we would see evidence of it in his known history. Instead, not a single crime of violence (on even non-violence) can be laid on his shoulders, nor any known history of mental illness.




The sins of the father, eh? I know more than one person that won't touch a drop due to dear old dad's drunken habits. Weren't there Temperance Societies all over East London?

Lechmere kept his job for decades. How do you know he wasn't a teetotaler and a deeply religious man?

I'm not going to make assumptions about him because you, I, and Abby enjoy a beer.

It’s assumptions that are being challenged by me. You don’t have to read my posts either. You are trying to twist what I’m saying.

It is perfectly plausible that on a Saturday afternoon/early evening CAL paid a visit to St Georges - for whatever reason. Whatever his drinking habits were/weren’t and however tired he was, it’s not ridiculous to say he might have done so. That was the position being pushed by Fiver and I was pushing back.

Was it Mumford who dropped Tomkins and Britten in it by saying they usually went to the pub for their break? Perhaps Tomkins had a lemonade and sat and read an improving tract in the public bar.

What do you make of ‘I don’t like them’ as a response to the question of whether women ever called at the knacker’s yard?

It’s good to see you acknowledge the possibility that Lechmere may have met Polly directly on his work route. That would fit Christer’s theory very nicely.

[MrBarnett]

This is a complex question, and more study is needed.

I'm not denying what Phillip's said. I'm questioning how we square his theory of death from throat slashing when the skin around the neck was found 'red and moist' some days later, in stark contrast to the black and dry skin around the hips.

The Ripper victims often had their necks cut clear down to the spinal column; you and Phillips seem to believe this was done in the Pinchin case, yet the murderer inexplicably didn't finish cutting off the head completely for another 2-5 days, even though he quickly removed the legs. And in doing so, he opted to make a brand new, clean and 'moist' incision, further down? Or equally strange, he cut the head off entirely and immediately (something the Ripper couldn't do), but the skin around the incision somehow stayed moist for days?

Those are very strange scenarios.

We know from Dr. Hebbert that the victim bled out, but I read a forensic article by pathologists in the UK, describing several case of people bleeding out from head wounds. Such an injury is rare, but a person can also bleed out from a cut to the femoral artery in the upper thigh. Since both the head and the legs were missing, we have no way of knowing that this wasn't the case with the Pinchin Street victim, but either possibility would align with the apparent 'fresh' cut to the neck, not made until some days after death.

Unless I can find an answer to these questions, I have to reject Phillip's suggestion.

Wow!

Phillips put forward the possibility that the victim had bled out through the throat and the later cutting off of the head had obscured the throat cuts.

Again, I think it was you who claimed there was no similarity between the Pinchin Street injuries and the earlier ones.

In this case, it is Phillips who vindicates Christer. I’m afraid your rejection of Phillips’ opinion is not worth very much.

[rjpalmer]

I may be misremembering this, but weren’t you offering the Rubenhold explanation for Polly’s presence in Buck’s Row a while back?

No. What I argued is that we don't know why Polly was in Buck's Row, but it was possible that she was merely headed to the locked gate, but was followed and attacked by someone who had seen her vulnerable condition. It's not proven that she was actively soliciting. You are not required to read my posts, but I also said that I didn't fully discount the account of Mrs. Colville/Caldwell's' children, and this could have been a far more messy murder than we assume. We weren't there. We do not know.

On the other hand, the standard assumption could be true: Polly could have regrouped from her alcoholic haze, picked up a client in the Whitechapel Road, and led him back to the gate, where he attacked her. This appears to have been the police opinion.

What I don't think is probable is that the murderer known as 'Jack the Ripper' simply found a woman standing along a dark back street on what was his route to work--almost as if she was waiting for him-- and he started carving her up there and then.

If Lechmere lacked this much emotive control, then I think we would see evidence of it in his known history. Instead, not a single crime of violence (on even non-violence) can be laid on his shoulders, nor any known history of mental illness.

His dad had been found at the yard in an alcoholic coma a few months previously.

The sins of the father, eh? I know more than one person that won't touch a drop due to dear old dad's drunken habits. Weren't there Temperance Societies all over East London?

Lechmere kept his job for decades. How do you know he wasn't a teetotaler and a deeply religious man?

I'm not going to make assumptions about him because you, I, and Abby enjoy a beer.

[MrBarnett]

I should have thought of this example straight off.

Two carmen out and about in the early hours of Sat/Sun in Spitalfields in 1904. Drinking plenty (one had 11/12 beers, the other had more) and brawling after work. One gets killed and the other gives evidence at his inquest before Wynn Baxter and at the OB trial. The first was a relative of mine by marriage, the second was my grandad.

If it were the case that men who worked long shifts were incapable of having a few pints on a Saturday night, the pubs would have been virtually empty. My speculation would be that Saturday night was the booziest of the week.

https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t19031019-name-88&div=t19031019-785#highlight

Perhaps they had generous bosses and they worked v. short shifts - or perhaps even after a long shift a livener or two gave them the energy to carry on boozing for several hours.