Framing Charles

[rjpalmer]

HOW ON EARTH CAN THE SUGGESTED BUT UNSUBSTANTIATED ALTERNATIVE KILLER BE AS OR MORE LIKELY TO BE THE CULPRIT IN THE NICHOLS MURDER THAN CHARLES LECHMERE???

The answer is simple, if anti-climactic: because Lechmere had an entirely plausible and reasonable explanation for being in a darkened street with a dead woman at 3.40 a.m. in the morning, and people are going to assume that Mr. Alternative didn't.

[Abby Normal]

is there any evidence or testimony that anyone was seen around the immediate area of nichols body around the time lech "found" her other than the police walking there beats and Paul? i beleive there was the three slaughterman, but were cleared correct?

so then where is this phantom ripper?

imho there is the possibility that lech disturbed the killer who scampered off with no one seeing him, just trying to see if there was anyone else seen around at the time.

[barnflatwyngarde]

is there any evidence or testimony that anyone was seen around the immediate area of nichols body around the time lech "found" her other than the police walking there beats and Paul? i beleive there was the three slaughterman, but were cleared correct?

so then where is this phantom ripper?

imho there is the possibility that lech disturbed the killer who scampered off with no one seeing him, just trying to see if there was anyone else seen around at the time.

Abby, I have always thought that the site of the first murder was intriguing.

Why kill Polly there, right next to houses?
Why not take her further up the street away from the houses and with much less chance of getting caught?

I think that it's possible that Polly was killed there because it was close to the murderers bolthole, either a home or workplace.

When we consider the method of murder (throat cutting) and the fact that the murderer clearly had access to a knife or knives, and had the ability to keep them sharp, the three slaughtermen surely invite further consideration.

A degree of strength would be required to work in a slaughterhouse, and I assume that their work clothes would be splattered with blood.
No one would look twice at slaughterman outside their place of work grabbing a breath of fresh air.

If my recollection is correct, Tom Wescott in his book "Ripper Confidential", stated that the slaughtermen were not altogether at various points throughout the hours of Polly's murder, although I may have misrembered this.

[Bridewell]

So, Colin and Gut, let´s provide you with some answers before I take my leave for some little time.

First the good old "standing over the body" thing, commented on dozens of times already.

It does not matter whether Lechmere was standing over the body, a yard from it, two yards from it, five yards from it or seven yards from it.

It matters if you use the phrase "found standing over the body of a murder victim" because that was not the case. If he was first seen by Paul one, two, five or seven yards from the victim that is what should be said.

The theory I am proposing is one where Lechmere killed Nichols and conned his way out of it. In such a scenario, it would be deeply improbable that he would sit on top of Nichols while explaining to Paul that he had only just seen the body as Paul arrived. What Lechmere would do would be to DISTANCE himself from the body in order to give the impression that he was not in any way in contact with it.

Why would he need to do that if he was close to the body? He just explains that he's found the body of a woman and is checking for signs of life - which is what anyone would do if they found someone lying in the street.

The one question that matters in this context is this one: Was Charles Lechmere close enough to the body to have backed away from it in order to fool Paul as the latter arrived? That is actually the one and only question that needs to be considered. Lechmere need not have to be standing over the body to answer to the requirements for geographical viability. He only needs to be close enough to have pulled the kind of scam I am suggesting, and in actual fact, if he was intent on fooling Paul, then the longer he was able to step away from Nichols, the better.

He can be right over the body and give an innocent explanation. All he has to do in order to fool Paul is have an innocent explanation. No need to back away.

"The middle of the road" would be such a position, clear from the body, although I would say that "in the middle of the road" is much of a generic description, more meaning "out in the road" than "exactly at the middle point of the road". From wall to wall, Bucks Row was around 25 feet, and so if Lechmere was in the exact middle of the road, and if Nichols´s right side of the body was three feet put from the wall (which would easily allow for her hand to touch the gate, which it did), then there would be a distance of less than ten feet out to the middle of the road. And such a distance is covered in the fewest of steps, as you will know.

His distance from the body, while it should be accurately stated, is not that relevant to his guilt or innocence. If he's innocent he acts innocently and his actions are (as you acknowledged in your original Rip articles) capable of innocent interpretation. If he's guilty he just gives an innocent explanation. Waylaying the next bloke, as he did, would be a perfectly reasonable pretence for a guilty Lechmere to undertake, but so would being seen leaning over the body and making a great play of ostensibly checking for signs of life.

Colin tells us that being positioned in the middle of the road, waiting to waylay the next person arriving, is exactly what we should expect from an innocent person. The question then becomes what we should expect from a person who was trying to con his way out of a murder? Maybe to take up a position that signalled innocence? You see, the argument serves both sides equally well, and so the position Lechmere stood in could be indicative of innocence OR guilt.

I completely agree.

But these are all side remarks. The real question we must discuss here is the age-old "He-would-never-have-stayed-put" one. Again.

I have commented on this issue a zillion times by now, and it still hasn´t gotten me any further than to Guts "after all he was a cold blooded psychopath who could con his way out of anything, or so we are told". As usual, the wording signals spite and disbelief; "we all know that the suggestion is ridiculous, nobody stays put at a murder site the way you suggest".

So how do we treat the matter? Well, I would suggest that those who really believe that this matter is a given and that no killer, regardless of his mental disposition, would choose to con his way out, actually lays down this "truth" when commenting on the matter. It would make things a lot simpler if you just said: No, he cannot be the killer, because it is impossible per se to do what you suggest he did". And then I can move on, accepting that you have chosen this route.

I can accept that a "cold-blooded psychopath" might act in the way you suggest. What I'm hoping your book will provide is evidence that Lechmere actually was a cold-blooded psychopath. Once that is in place it's possible to move forward and consider what a cold-blooded psychopath like him would have done in any circumstances in which he found himself.

If, on the other hand, it is just a matter of you thinking that it is less likely to whatever degree that he did what I suggest he did, then I would urge you to try and put the issue to the side and do what one must do when accepting that Lechmere MAY have fooled his way out: Look at where the rest of the evidence leads us.

We are then faced with how the four Whitechapel murders all took place along his logical working treks. And a statistician concluded in my book that for anybody else than Lechmere to just randomly choose four murder spots along the twentyish streets I suggested as his logical working treks is one in five million. Of course, that is based on mathematics alone and does not consider that the routes Lechmere used would have been routes used by many people traversing the area from west to east or vice versa. Then again, I did not weigh in that all murders were early morning hour murders. If I had, the odds would have been increased very much. The object of the exercise was never to find the exact number for how likely an alternative killer would be. It was instead to lay down that regardless of the exact number, we must accept that it would be a very, very large one.

This alone makes for a very good reason to look harder at Lechmere.

And when we do, all the other stuff crops up:

-The Stride murder was very close by 1 Mary Ann Street, where his mother and daughter lived.

-The Eddowes murder was in a spot that seems to have the killer moving from Berner Street to Mitre Square roughly along the old working route from James Street that Lechmere walked for many years.

-These two murders took place on a Saturday night, normally the only night off for a common working man, and so the fact that they were not on his working treks or on his working trek hours becomes logical. The Whitechapel victims and murder times are not interchangable with the St George/Aldgate victims and times, and that is in perfect line with how Lechmere may have killed on working days along his working trek whereas he killed in his old haunts in St Georges on his night off.

-Lechmere declined to help Paul prop the body up, although he was the one calling Paul to assistance.

-Lechmere gave an alias instead of his registered name at the inquest.

-Lechmere disagreed with the police over what was said on the murder night. Moreover, the version of what he said that was given by Mizen would (by sheer coincidence) have been the perfect scam to allow Lechmere to pass the PC.

-The rag in Goulston Street was placed roughly inbetween 22 Doveton Street and Mitre Square. It could have been placed in any other direction, leading away from further suspicion against Lechmere, but it was not. It lay to the northeast from Mitre Square.

-The rag at St Philips, found the day after the Pinchin Street torso dumping was also placed along a line leading exactly from the railway arch up to Doveton Street. If we allow for a three degree span, there were 357 OTHER degrees in which the rag could have been found. It could have been placed to the west, the north, the southeast... anywhere. 357 degrees. But it wasn´t. It was in a direct line from the railway arch to Lechmere´s home.

-The one and only time a torso victim was dumped in Whitechapel, it was dumped in Pichin Street. Pinchin Street was a street Lechmere and his family always returned to and it would likely have played a role in Charles´ formative years. There were a little more than a thousand inhabited streets in Whitechapel (and tens of thousnads in the East End as a whole), and the body could have been dumped in any of them, 99 per cent of which had no documented links to Charles Lechmere. But it wasn´t. It was dumped in Pinchin Street.

-Lechmere could have found Nichols at any time in her bleeding cycle - or way out of it. But he "found" her at a stage when she would go on to bleed for many minutes, making him a perfect fit medically.

-Robert Paul could have arrived at any time, together with Lechmere as well as many minutes after Lechmere. But according to Lechmere, Paul arrived at the exact stage to supply Lechmere with a makeshift alibi. By coincidence.

-Lechmere said he left home at 3.30, and so he should have been in Bucks Row at 3.37, not at 3.45.

Now, before you start supplying all of these things with innocent alternative explanations, let me just say that we really should not do so when we find so many parameters that NEED innocent alternative explanations. We should instead say "Okay, it looks like we have our man".

If a woman is lying dead, beaten to death and still bleeding, on the ground with a man standing over her, holding a piece of bloody lead pipe in his hand, it is easy in the extreme to find innocent alternative explanations:

-Maybe he was just passing by? Is there a law against passing by?

-Maybe he saw her on the ground, badly beaten and with a lead pipe by her side, and he bent down and picked the pipe up? Is there a law against picking lead pipes up?

And Shazam - he does suddenly not have to be the killer. But hands on our hearts, gentlemen: he HAS to be the prime suspect and the (very) likely killer!

In Lechmere´s case, it applies that if he was not the killer of Polly Nichols, then somebody else was. After all, she WAS killed that night.

Now tell me: since no such other killer has been identified, and since no other person was reported to have left the area by any of the people involved, how on earth can this alternative killer be as likely or likelier the killer of Nichols as the man we have on record as having all the points above suggesting that he was the murderer?

Isn´t it instead a case of how we should not rule out that there MAY have been another killer and that all of the matters that point against Lechmere MAY have been coincidences or unlucky flukes, each and every one of them, unlikely though it may seem?

If another murderer is somehow MORE likely than Lechmere - just HOW DOES THAT WORK????

I will leave you to provide viable answers to that question, and I will read them with much interest. But I will not parttake in the debate for now.

Okay, here we go: We must expect that there was another killer than Lechmere because....?

Come on now.

Lechmere's route to work. Also Paul's route to work. The route to work of anyone who lived in Bethnal Green and worked in Whitechapel or the city. How many people is that? Was Lechmere working on all the days when the various other murders took place? I suspect that's unknowable but what we can't do is say that the murder is on his logical route to work and, as he was the killer, he must have been working that day because that's conclusion led. I will read your book with interest. I'm hoping it includes evidence that Lechmere actually was a psychopath and that the conclusion of guilt for the Nichols murder doesn't rely on calculations based on an assumption that the approximate times given by the various witnesses are exact because I think that will be problematic. I'll wait and see. Guilty or innocent I do admire your dogged determination and your willingness to endure the slings and arrows with good humour. I wish you well - even if I don't always agree with you.

[Fiver]

There can be no "he must have "or she must have" decisions. What we have is a man who was found next to a murder victim who would go on to bleed for many, many minutes after he left her, and three other murder victims who fell prey in spots that must be described as perfectly logical choices for him to do his morning treks on. We either accept that such a thing makes for a good suspect or we don´t.

Nichols was the only victim found on a known route of Lechmere's to work. Chapman was found on one of many routes Lechmere could have taken to work, but she was killed long after he would have gotten to work. Tabram and Kelly were killed several blocks away from any logical route Lechmere would have taken to work. Stride and Eddowes were killed nowhere near any logical route of Lechmere's to work and were killed hours before Lechmere normally left for work.

[Fiver]

The theory is that he killed Stride in Berner Street, a lame stone´s throw away from where his mother and daughter lived - and that he fled the scene as he was disturbed.

Stride was killed about 3 blocks away from where Lechmere's mother lived, which is hardly "a lame stone´s throw away". Stride was killed a block off of Lechmere's most likely route to his mothers and about 2 1/2 hours before Lechmere normally left for work.

[Fiver]

Barnett was cleared by the police, was he not? And he was not found alone with a murder victim. Not is he recorded as having given an alias, or to have disagreed with the police.

Charles Lechmere was also cleared by the police, even though he was found alone with a murder victim and disagreed with PC Mizen. Even though Mizen never got Lechmere's name, Lechmere came forward voluntarily, which no doubt helped the police's impression of him. And then Chapman was killed while Lechmere was at work, which made him even less of a suspect.

But Lechmere has a heck of a lot more going for him, regardless of how we look upon things. And among it is the amazing thing that St Philips was exactly on the line between the railway arch in Pinchin Street and 22 Doveton Street.

The Pinchon Street killing was not done by the Ripper. There is no evidence the bloody rag found at St Philips had anything to do with the Pinchin Street Torso. Humans could not travel a straight line between Pichin Street and St Philips or between St Philips and Doveton Street - the streets don't let you do that. Hundreds of people lived along the roads between Pinchon Street and St Philips. We have zero evidence about what direction the person who dropped the rag at St Philips came from or what direction they left.

A torso was dumped on the exact street where Lechmere grew up and had numerous links to - Yeah, but the killer had to dump the torso somewhere, and why not in Pinchin Street?

Charles Lechmere did not grow up on Pinchin Street. His only link is that after Lechmere was a married man with his own household, his mother Maria married Joseph Forsdike and the Forsdikes moved to 23 Pinchin Street.

[drstrange169]

>>‘Alias’ is a loaded term. It suggests an attempt to conceal identity.
in this case we have a man using his stepfather’s name. Very different story. <<


I was going to say that, but I double checked there meaning and it can apply to innocent names like Lechmere's.

[drstrange169]

>> Flaw number two is tht we know that Lechmere DID touch the body. <<

Fair point, I forgot that.

>..we know from the East London Advertiser that Mizen DID proceed to knock people up, he and Paul did NOT disagree. Another useless effort on Dusty´s behalf, therefore.<<

No, Paul's accusation was one of a a serious neglect of duty. Mizen had motive to to minimise what he said and even potentionally invent a "policeman already there" story. Plus according to you, Mizen and Paul never spoke, so which fictional version are you going with today?

> >The carts were AT his work.<<

Killing on the way to work is a trait of serial killers? Most killers seem to kill in a general circle of familiarity not routes to work.

Are there many/any examples of serial killers killing minutes before they start work?

Plus, we have no evidence of Cross's actual route to work, so you are only dealing in your own invented stories again.

How close was Mrs Chapman's murder site to Paul's work again?

>>I know it is not good enough for you. But it is good enough for me.<<

When it come to accusing people of murder only actual facts and knowledge is "good enough".

[drstrange169]

>>imho there is the possibility that lech disturbed the killer who scampered off with no one seeing him, just trying to see if there was anyone else seen around at the time.<<

Thain saw two men in Brady Street, Neil said Whitechapel Road was quite busy, the Coville kid claims to have heard someone around the time and, of course, there was the talking heard in Buck's Row by the resident whose name I've momentarily forgotten.

[Astatine211]

is there any evidence or testimony that anyone was seen around the immediate area of nichols body around the time lech "found" her other than the police walking there beats and Paul? i beleive there was the three slaughterman, but were cleared correct?

so then where is this phantom ripper?

imho there is the possibility that lech disturbed the killer who scampered off with no one seeing him, just trying to see if there was anyone else seen around at the time.

Patrick Mulshaw testified he saw two police, constables head towards the murder sight. The second one was PC John Neil but the first constable was never identified and could've been at the murder sight before Lechmere found her, however Mulshaw was unsure what time it was when he saw them although it was before the body was found by the police.

Mulshaw also testified an unidentified man passed by and said "Watchman, old man, I believe somebody is murdered down the street". This man was never identified or found. This is unlikely to be the JtR as he wouldn't implicate himself like this and after being informed this, Mulshaw headed towards the body and there were police officers and the slaughter men surrounding it.

What this shows it there were at least an unknown to us police constable and unidentified man active around the crime scene at the time of the murder.

In fact, Mulshaw himself was only 60 yards away from the murder site as he was guarding some sewage repairs. Also in close vicinity to the murder site at the time of the murder were an unidentified Railway Yard Night Gateman and Night Watchman for the nearby Kearly and Tonges Warehouse.

So within the vicinity of the murder around the time of the murder there were at least 5 others, 4 of which whose identity unknown, showing there were definitely other people about.

1. Unidentified Police Constable who was heading towards the location of the body before it was discovered by John Neil.

2. An unidentified man who was walking away from the murder site shortly after it had been discovered by the police.

3. Patrick Mulshaw himself who was 60 yards away as a night watchman on Winthrop street.

4. An unidentified railway yard night gateman who was asked by police if he had heard any screams. Despite this gateman being in contact with the police, I have been unable to find his name.

5. An unidentified night watchman at the nearby Kearly and Tonges warehouse. I don't believe the police ever inquired with this person, which is a shame imo especially due to the recurring coincidence of the murders being nearby to Kearly and Tonges warehouses.

[drstrange169]

And, I just remembered, the two unidentified workers that appeared before P.C. Thain returned with DR. Llewelyn.

[John Wheat]

...still waiting for my complimentary copy.

Same here LOL

[drstrange169]

>>HOW ON EARTH CAN THE SUGGESTED BUT UNSUBSTANTIATED ALTERNATIVE KILLER BE AS OR MORE LIKELY TO BE THE CULPRIT IN THE NICHOLS MURDER THAN CHARLES LECHMERE???<<

Because the alternative killer/killers will have done it, of course!

It is truly a bizarre notion that the perpetrator/s can only be someone we know about. And that the only facts about the case are the one's we already know about.

It exactly that kind of distorted thinking that constantly dogs serious research.

[rjpalmer]

An unidentified night watchman at the nearby Kearly and Tonges warehouse. I don't believe the police ever inquired with this person, which is a shame imo especially due to the recurring coincidence of the murders being nearby to Kearly and Tonges warehouses.

Hello Astatine.

Do you have a source for this? Others have made this claim in the past, but research shows that K & T's warehouse up the street was not built until the late 1890s. It appears to be an error that has crept into the literature. There are indications the company may have purchased land in the area, with an eye on a future development.

Thanks.