Framing Charles

[MrBarnett]

Charles allen (small ‘a’) Lechmere seems to have known exactly what his name was from 1870 to 1911, except for when he stood before a Coroner - and then he got a bit confused and called himself Cross.

[MrBarnett]

You and others are making to big an issue on this name he used.

You have to accept that the authorities were happy for him to give that name and we see nothing about him being questioned, and we see no evidence of any suspicion against him. other than a 21st century mystery created by Christer and his wingman Edward Stow, in an attempt to bolster this deluded theory.

Let the poor man rest in peace.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

His name was a big issue to him. Deny it all you want.

[MrBarnett]

hi ast
i said the same thing along time ago, but it was rightly pointed out to me that lech saw nothing. if innocent all he did was discover the body. he didnt id a suspect or anything like that. i could see that that might make sense if it was someone like long or schwartz or lawende, but lech isnt a threat to any killer. if lech was innocent the only explanation for the name change i could see would be that he was known at work as cross and or he just didnt want to use the name he was more commonly known to keep his family from being pestered by the press, neighbors etc. . innocent explanations of course, but yet another discrepency that needs to be explained in lechs case.

Abby!

Have I laboured in vain?

There are at least two other sound reasons why an innocent (of the murder) Lechmere might have been unwilling to disclose his proper name in court.


Gary

[Abby Normal]

If Lechmere wasn't JtR maybe the reason he used the surname Cross rather than Lechmere was in order to protect his wife and children. He may have worried that if the murderer knew him and his family, they might have become targets. Therefore using a name difficult to identify, which he could technically use under oath, made sense to him to obscure his identity.

Nichols was the first of the C5 so JtR's type of victim and radius wasn't known by anyone. For all Lechmere knew there could've been a violent murderer living within half a mile of his family, who could've easily known his family. As has already been established on this thread, Charles Cross was an extremely common name whereas Lechmere was a very unique name, and if the murderer read the newspapers of the inquest, they would have known it was Lechmere who found the body if he used his real surname, and if they lived in the area there was every possibility they would know Lechmere's wife and children due to how unique the surname was. Maybe he was worried that JtR thinks he saw him putting him at risk. I'm kinda finding it difficult to explain what I mean so let me give a scenario.

You live in a remote large village, where your wife works and your children go to school, you find a body which has been brutally murdered. There is a high chance the murderer lives in the same village as you. Would you want your name being plastered everywhere as the person who discovered the body, possibly putting your wife and children in the sights of the murderer?

Maybe Lechmere's fears of his family being targeted by Jack weren't even outside the realm of possibility, there are many theories about if Eddowes was targeted because she claimed to know who Jack was and there are theories of premeditation in the murder of MJK.

hi ast
i said the same thing along time ago, but it was rightly pointed out to me that lech saw nothing. if innocent all he did was discover the body. he didnt id a suspect or anything like that. i could see that that might make sense if it was someone like long or schwartz or lawende, but lech isnt a threat to any killer. if lech was innocent the only explanation for the name change i could see would be that he was known at work as cross and or he just didnt want to use the name he was more commonly known to keep his family from being pestered by the press, neighbors etc. . innocent explanations of course, but yet another discrepency that needs to be explained in lechs case.

[Astatine211]

If Lechmere wasn't JtR maybe the reason he used the surname Cross rather than Lechmere was in order to protect his wife and children. He may have worried that if the murderer knew him and his family, they might have become targets. Therefore using a name difficult to identify, which he could technically use under oath, made sense to him to obscure his identity.

Nichols was the first of the C5 so JtR's type of victim and radius wasn't known by anyone. For all Lechmere knew there could've been a violent murderer living within half a mile of his family, who could've easily known his family. As has already been established on this thread, Charles Cross was an extremely common name whereas Lechmere was a very unique name, and if the murderer read the newspapers of the inquest, they would have known it was Lechmere who found the body if he used his real surname, and if they lived in the area there was every possibility they would know Lechmere's wife and children due to how unique the surname was. Maybe he was worried that JtR thinks he saw him putting him at risk. I'm kinda finding it difficult to explain what I mean so let me give a scenario.

You live in a remote large village, where your wife works and your children go to school, you find a body which has been brutally murdered. There is a high chance the murderer lives in the same village as you. Would you want your name being plastered everywhere as the person who discovered the body, possibly putting your wife and children in the sights of the murderer?

Maybe Lechmere's fears of his family being targeted by Jack weren't even outside the realm of possibility, there are many theories about if Eddowes was targeted because she claimed to know who Jack was and there are theories of premeditation in the murder of MJK.

[Trevor Marriott]

Address?

The press managed to unearth it from somewhere, unlike the 1876 case when that Pickford’s Charles Cross’s address was never made public.

You and others are making to big an issue on this name he used.

You have to accept that the authorities were happy for him to give that name and we see nothing about him being questioned, and we see no evidence of any suspicion against him. other than a 21st century mystery created by Christer and his wingman Edward Stow, in an attempt to bolster this deluded theory.

Let the poor man rest in peace.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[MrBarnett]

But perhaps he didnt want to give his home address or it was agreed by the court that he should not give it.

From memory I think that he was one of the only main witnesses who didnt give a home address

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Address?

The press managed to unearth it from somewhere, unlike the 1876 case when that Pickford’s Charles Cross’s address was never made public.

[Trevor Marriott]

This isn’t a court of law. No ‘proof’ is required.

If you feel from what you know of CAL that it just didn’t occur to him that he should disclose what was almost certainly his legal name to the authorities, that’s your opinion.

I feel the opposite. Looking at how he used the name Lechmere throughout his life, it’s clear it wasn’t just a name on a couple of yellowing documents in a drawer - his kids used it at school, he advertised at least two businesses, not just as Charles Lechmere, but as Charles Allen Lechmere. There is little or no chance that he wasn’t widely known by that name.

A man who is a stickler for his middle name doesn’t have a one-(or two-)off memory lapse and forget his habit of using his legal name in formal situations when giving evidence under oath.

I think the legal position is that where someone is known by more than one name, the name that has been used more often in formal situations is considered their legal name. But it’s all a bit grey, there are examples of magistrates etc being confused by it all, so we needn’t get tied in knots about the legal position.

He gets married - his name is Lechmere. He records his kids’ births in the name of Lechmere; baptises them ditto; sends them to school ditto.

He opens a grocery shop as Lechmere and presumably displays that name above it; ditto a coffee shop.

But when he kills a child or finds a murdered prostitute in the street he feels it’s time to honour his stepfather by calling himself Cross and not even mentioning his legal name.

But perhaps he didnt want to give his home address or it was agreed by the court that he should not give it.

From memory I think that he was one of the only main witnesses who didnt give a home address

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Abby Normal]

That's the problem, though, isn't it?

Suspicion is in the mind of the beholder--it doesn't exist in the object.

Our suspicions against someone can be utterly frivolous and paranoid, or they can be legitimate and deeply insightful.

The Lechmere accusers have to convince us that their suspicions are the latter, and not the former.

Hi RJ
totally agree. subjective suspicion is the lifeblood of ripperology. or at least the suspect aspect of it.
which is why i keep an open mind and unless a suspect is ruled out (ostrog)or is a crackpot suspect (maybrick, royal conspiracy) i consider them a possibility, although i do rank them in my mind as which are the least weak.
one of my first criteria to even really consider a suspect valid, is whether or not they can even be placed in the area at all at the time. and then how many red flags they have (police suspicion, discrepencies , contact with victim etc.)

I dont consider myself a Lechmere accuser, more of a lechmere accuser apologist lol. hes in the frame for being Polly nichols killer at least, has discrepencies in his story and fits the profile of a local avg joe. (who IMHO the ripper surely was).

that being said, I still have somewhat of an issue with him killing on his way to work. I agree with the poster recently who noted it would seem more likely he killed after his shift was over, but hey, serial killers are opportunistic psychopaths who have been known to kill while even on the job. or maybe he was actually off on the murder days as i mentioned before, if they ever found work records that showed that, then he would really vault up my rankings.

at the very least he seems like bad news to me-killed a kid and callously left a woman in obvious need lying in the street... both times using a name he seemingly didnt normally use.

as wescott so succinctly put it-you could have a worse suspect. totally agree with that!

[MrBarnett]

Well said that man !

I agree - suspicions can be legitimate and deeply insightful. Such insights would be of little value in a court of law, but they are the lifeblood of Ripperology.

;-)

[MrBarnett]

That's the problem, though, isn't it?

Suspicion is in the mind of the beholder--it doesn't exist in the object.

Our suspicions against someone can be utterly frivolous and paranoid, or they can be legitimate and deeply insightful.

The Lechmere accusers have to convince us that their suspicions are the latter, and not the former.

This isn’t a court of law. No ‘proof’ is required.

If you feel from what you know of CAL that it just didn’t occur to him that he should disclose what was almost certainly his legal name to the authorities, that’s your opinion.

I feel the opposite. Looking at how he used the name Lechmere throughout his life, it’s clear it wasn’t just a name on a couple of yellowing documents in a drawer - his kids used it at school, he advertised at least two businesses, not just as Charles Lechmere, but as Charles Allen Lechmere. There is little or no chance that he wasn’t widely known by that name.

A man who is a stickler for his middle name doesn’t have a one-(or two-)off memory lapse and forget his habit of using his legal name in formal situations when giving evidence under oath.

I think the legal position is that where someone is known by more than one name, the name that has been used more often in formal situations is considered their legal name. But it’s all a bit grey, there are examples of magistrates etc being confused by it all, so we needn’t get tied in knots about the legal position.

He gets married - his name is Lechmere. He records his kids’ births in the name of Lechmere; baptises them ditto; sends them to school ditto.

He opens a grocery shop as Lechmere and presumably displays that name above it; ditto a coffee shop.

But when he kills a child or finds a murdered prostitute in the street he feels it’s time to honour his stepfather by calling himself Cross and not even mentioning his legal name.

[Trevor Marriott]

That's the problem, though, isn't it?

Suspicion is in the mind of the beholder--it doesn't exist in the object.

Our suspicions against someone can be utterly frivolous and paranoid, or they can be legitimate and deeply insightful.

The Lechmere accusers have to convince us that their suspicions are the latter, and not the former.

Well said that man !

[rjpalmer]

just seems a tad odd to me.and yes suspicious.

That's the problem, though, isn't it?

Suspicion is in the mind of the beholder--it doesn't exist in the object.

Our suspicions against someone can be utterly frivolous and paranoid, or they can be legitimate and deeply insightful.

The Lechmere accusers have to convince us that their suspicions are the latter, and not the former.

[rjpalmer]

TC was a distant memory by then.

This is laying it on a little too thick, though, isn't it, Gary?

We know nothing about the relationship between Lechmere and Thomas Cross, and what emotional attachment it may have held. Maybe young Charles resented the guy; maybe he was indifferent; or maybe the ten-year-old became deeply enamored of a powerful rough-and-ready copper who arrested the bad guys down by the docks, and thought of him with something akin to hero-worship.

If anything, the memory of his birth father, John Lechmere, may have been utterly distant, and the name nothing more than a formality for legal documents, with no emotional attachment whatsoever.

As you say, criminals use aliases. We all know that, and we see examples among those many consider to be more legitimate suspects--off the top of my head, Klosowski used 'Chapman'; Tumblety used 'Townsend'; Ostrog used a whole mire of names, as did Deeming. Even poor Kosminski gave the name 'Abrams' when fined for walking an unmuzzled dog.

The thing is, these men have known criminal records. (Koz, just barely).

Lechmere has none.

And the name 'Cross' can reasonably be argued to be a name he wore proudly as a teen (now I'm laying it on thick) and was the same name he used when he went to work for Pickford & Co., and thus its criminal intent is not as blindingly certain and undeniable as the Crown prosecutor want us to believe.

But names are odd things. I'll use a criminal example.

Ian Brady was born 'Ian Stewart,' but his birth mother fostered him out, and he was raised by a family called Sloane, so he became 'Ian Sloane' during most of his formative years.

It wasn't until his later teens that his birth mother (with whom he had kept contact) married an Irish fruit porter named Patrick Brady. 'Stewart/Sloane' didn't even particularly like the guy, but he wanted a job at the fruit market, and he started working there under 'Ian Brady,' just like dear old step-dad.

The name stuck, and that's the name he was known under when arrested for the Moors Murders.

I have no idea whether 'Stewart' aka 'Sloane' ever legally changed his name to Brady, or used it on legal forms, but someone here might know.

PS. Let me not forget Grant/Grainger, and the various incarnations of Charles Le Grande. Can we really lump Lechmere's use of 'Cross' with these?

[Trevor Marriott]

Just did, Trevor. And even if he WAS called Cross at work - something we cannot conclude at all - it STILL remains strange that he signed himself Lechmere with the police after a case of unlawful death. As has been pointed out to you, written on your forehead and tattooed on your forgetful behind, he NEVER used the name Cross otherwise in ANY contacts with any authorities.
Gabbing on about your own personal biased beliefs makes little sense when they are in conflict with the evidence, I´m afraid.

But that isnt a crime, and is not enough for you to suggest he is a killer., there is no conflict of evidence how many times do you need telling.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk