Framing Charles

[Fisherman]

What I'd ask Trevor is whether he ever met a criminal who tried to pull a 'fast one' on the authorities, but retained his correct first and middle names, gave his actual place of employment, and his correct home address, so he could be later summoned to a legal hearing? The police must have received that information from someone. Who was it, if not Lechmere himself? If this was deception, it was certainly a funny sort of deception

In other words, what would Lechmere/Cross have hoped to achieve by this ruse? That's the weakness of the argument. The police knew where to find him: which is the main thing a criminal wants to avoid. He can be just as easily be thrown into a jail cell or strung up by the neck under the name Cross, Lechmere, or Horatio Hornblower.

The fact that Lechmere cooperated with the authorities has to count for something. At some point, he must have given the police enough details that they could lay their hands on him. He did not do a runner. He did not give a false address. He duly appeared at the inquest, and did not avoid it (unlike Robert Paul, who appears to have gone to ground for a spell).

'Cross' not wanting his legal name in the papers could be as banal as 'Lechmere' owing someone money. Why advertise your full legal name alongside your place of employment if you owe some bloke two pounds, and the police are fine with the name 'Cross'?

If you have been reading these boards for the last ten or so years, it is strange that you have managed to miss the explanation given for the conundrum you think you see.

Yes, Lechmere gave his real address and working place to the police. It seems he only gave his working place to the inquest, however.

Now, put your thinking cap on and ask yourself what would happen if the carman had said that his name was Charles Allen Cross, that he lived in 5 Rotten Row and that he worked in the bath house in Castle Alley - and if the police checked him out thoroughly.

Answer: They would find that he had a former stepfather by the name of Thomas Cross who had signed him as Charles Cross in 1861, and so they would probably ask him why he used that name 19 years after his stepfathers death. If he said: "To honour him", he would be in the clear. But that would only last until the address and working place were checked. When that happened, he would become a suspect and raked over the coals.

I trust you see how that works? If there is any risk of being checked out, you do not serve the police obvious lies. Its called self preservation.

However, you can take the chance not to mention your address before the inquest, and it seems he did just that. The mentioning of the address in The Star seems to be the result of an enterprising reporter asking a clerk about it. None of the other papers had a go at the address and so they arguably never heard it mentioned.

Now, the name: If he wasn´t going to try and con the police by swopping names, who WAS he going to con? The question answers itself: anybody who read the press reports and were served a story where a carman Cross, working for Pickfors, figured. No mentioning of Lechmere, no mentioning of the address he lived at.

They were the ones who would not be able to identify him: the public. Those who were not at the inquest. His family, his friends, associates, aquaintancies and so on.

And the overall question remains: Since he otherwise always said as it was when speaking to any kinds of authorities, that he was named Lechmere - why did he not do so when he was involved in a case of violent death? it can NEVER be a point in favour of innocence to do so. It is another matter entirely that we can always conjure up innocent alternative explanations to any such point, regardless of how many they are. And boy, is that what you guys do!!

[Fisherman]

There is no position to undermine.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

I´m glad you established that yourself.

[Fisherman]

He found a body on his way to work, a route he took every day. If he hadnt found the body somebody would have. If he had been 5 mins late, Paul might have found the body, someone had to find the body.

Did we see any other bodies turning up on his route to work? No we didnt.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

A perfect opportunity to take a look at Trevors work!

He found a body on his way to work, a route he took every day.

... and that body was still bleeding many minutes after his finding it, meaning that he fits the bill when it comes to the timing of the deed. Suddenly it is not about a triviality of finding a dead body, it is a matter of BEING FOUND by a body at a time that is consistent with being the killer. I am not sure that Trevoir can recognize the possible implications, but I am sure just about everybody else does.

If he hadnt found the body somebody would have.

But it is only the ones who find (or "find") a body at a time that is consistent with being the killer that are viable suspects. And those who find a body like Nichols´, with a neck severed down to the soine but that goes on to bleed for many a minute afterwaards are very much caught in the eye of the storm. If no other suspect can be identified, they will be the best bid the police has.

If he had been 5 mins late, Paul might have found the body, someone had to find the body.

Once again, nobody who finds a body at a stage that is NOT consistent with being the killer will come under suspicion. It is only the ones of Lechmere calibre that will.

Did we see any other bodies turning up on his route to work? No we didnt.

We? We know that he was willing to walk the Hanbury Street route, and Chapman was killed in Hanbury Street. Kelly and Tabram are also consistent with having been found along what must be looked upon as the logical routes to work for Lechmere.

If you are instead saying that he was not the one who found Tabram, Chapman and Kelly, you are of course correct. Does it prove him innocent in those cases. Eeeehr ... no. In fact, if he HAD found Tabram, Chapman and Kelly too, it would take a monumental idiot not to name him the killer. Then again, since it is supposedly not suspicious in any shape or form to be found alone by the side of a very recently killed woman who is still bleeding, I am sure that constable Marriott would send him on his way on every occasion.

You are truly a tolerant person, Trevor, I can´t take that away from you.

[Trevor Marriott]

A lengthy reply

What I'd ask Trevor is whether he ever met a criminal who tried to pull a 'fast one' on the authorities, but retained his correct first and middle names, gave his actual place of employment, and his correct home address, so he could be later summoned to a legal hearing? The police must have received that information from someone. Who was it, if not Lechmere himself? If this was deception, it was certainly a funny sort of deception

In this day and age it is almost impossible for a criminals true identity to not be discovered following them being arrested on suspicion of a crime. To ascertain their true identity they are placed on a computerised fingerprint machine and their fingerprints scanned. It only takes a short while for their prints to be checked and their identity revealed.

Of course if a person has never been arrested before then there will be no record of him on the system. Then it would take a manual check to ascertain if the details given are correct. If in such a case he gives false details he could be liable for a charge of obstructing the police.

I would suspect that the police in 1888 in the case of a murder would check the details of potential witnesses and any suspects to make sure they were not being misled. As you said Cross cooperated in every way, and despite what some say it has to be accpted that he did not ever come under suspicion and there is no reason to suspect him 132 years later.

With Cross all they had to do was to confirm his name and address and probably his work place which clearly they did that is why we see no evidence of suspicion against him, or any further ambiguites with regards to his names.

I dont know why it is so hard for some to not accept the obvious. There are more flaws in Christers theory than there are in The Empire State Building.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Astatine211]

I always thought the motive for him giving the surname Cross to the police and at the inquest to show his ties to PC Thomas Cross, his stepfather.

If you look at how much the police freaked out about the possibility of Cutbush being the Ripper due to mistakenly being thought to be a relative of police the same could go for Lechmere.

It seemed like having any potential suspects with links to the police wasn't allowed. The one time a police officer was accused was instantly swatted away as a vendetta. This would explain why Lechmere might not have been scrutinized more.

[Fisherman]

A lengthy reply



www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Once again, IF Lechmere had been checked out in any depth, they would not only have called him Cross in their reports. It is a given, I´m afraid, since the purpose of obtaining the names was always to make people identifiable.

Ergo he was never checked out in any depth. Ergo they never knew his real name. Ergo he withheld it from them.

You should try going with the evidence instead of against it, and you really need to leave architecture out of it. The Empire State Building is one of the best maintained skyscrapers in the world.

[Fisherman]

I always thought the motive for him giving the surname Cross to the police and at the inquest to show his ties to PC Thomas Cross, his stepfather.

If you look at how much the police freaked out about the possibility of Cutbush being the Ripper due to mistakenly being thought to be a relative of police the same could go for Lechmere.

It seemed like having any potential suspects with links to the police wasn't allowed. The one time a police officer was accused was instantly swatted away as a vendetta. This would explain why Lechmere might not have been scrutinized more.

Interesting though that take on things is, I think it would predispose that Lechmere told the police about it if they were to react. And if he had told them, they would have secured his correct name and given it in their reports. Consequentially, it would take that the police themselves coupled the common name Cross to Thomas Cross, a lowly PC, dead since 19 years. I find that unlikely.

[Fisherman]

On second thoughts, Astatine, there is of course the option that Lechmere could have told the police "My name is Charles Cross. My father was a PC around here by the name of Thomas Cross." Such a phrasing would not make the police realize that he could have been hiding another name. And as such, it may perhaps have worked as at least some sort of leverage for the police not to get too inquisitive.

[MrBarnett]

He rarely if ever forgot his middle name, though.

When he (or his wife) registered his kids at school, his name was given as Charles Allen Lechmere. Ditto censuses, BMD records, electorals etc, the Allen is almost always there. When he advertised his shop and coffee rooms it was there.

He doesn’t strike me as a man who was casual in the use of his name. He was CHARLES ALLEN LECHMERE and he knew it. What name do we imagine he had above his business premises, and what does that tell us about what name he was ‘known by’?

The coffee rooms, incidentally, were at 181, Campbell Road, Bow, and in 1879 a seemingly disturbed young man named George Allen went to the police and confessed to having cut his girlfriend’s throat at either 181 or 191 Campbell Road (he wasn’t sure which). It turned out it was neither. His girlfriend, who had dumped him, was alive and kicking.

[harry]

This insistance that we should use the name Lechmere AKA Cross,is just a blind to cover the fact there is no incriminating evidence to show that Cross killed Nichols.
Cross found her body,the injuries had already been inflicted.Yes,there is a remote chance that Cross was lying,but there is no EVIDENCE he was.None was or has been produced.One cannot presume or imply a possibility to be evidence of an actual occurance,and that is all there iswhen considering Cross.

[John Wheat]

This insistance that we should use the name Lechmere AKA Cross,is just a blind to cover the fact there is no incriminating evidence to show that Cross killed Nichols.
Cross found her body,the injuries had already been inflicted.Yes,there is a remote chance that Cross was lying,but there is no EVIDENCE he was.None was or has been produced.One cannot presume or imply a possibility to be evidence of an actual occurance,and that is all there iswhen considering Cross.

I agree Cross is a complete non starter as a suspect.

[MrBarnett]

There’s previous little evidence for anything. If you want hard evidence, choose another case.

There’s no ‘insistence’ that people use the name Lechmere. People can ignore the name anomaly if they wish - or deny that it exists. I just find covering it up by refusing to acknowledge the name Lechmere is rather unhelpful.

Let’s acknowledge the name his kids’ friends would have used when they called at 22, Doveton Street, let’s acknowledge the name the customers of Charles Allen Lechmere’s coffee and grocery shops would have used, not to mention the vicar, census enumerators etc etc. Let’s acknowledge the fact that Maria Louisa was a bigamist with a financial interest in concealing the Cross name.

My interest in Lechmere isn’t bolted on to his suspect status, although it obviously arose out of that. I just find him and family (especially his old Ma) interesting in their own right. I call him Lechmere because that’s what he consistently called himself, except on two occasions when he had reason to hide his real name.

‘I call him Cross and he’s a crap suspect who doesn’t deserve any attention’ is one possible approach.

’I call him Lechmere, I’m not really concerned about his suspect status, and I’m going to keep digging into his family background’ is mine.

[Trevor Marriott]

He rarely if ever forgot his middle name, though.

When he (or his wife) registered his kids at school, his name was given as Charles Allen Lechmere. Ditto censuses, BMD records, electorals etc, the Allen is almost always there. When he advertised his shop and coffee rooms it was there.

He doesn’t strike me as a man who was casual in the use of his name. He was CHARLES ALLEN LECHMERE and he knew it. What name do we imagine he had above his business premises, and what does that tell us about what name he was ‘known by’?

The coffee rooms, incidentally, were at 181, Campbell Road, Bow, and in 1879 a seemingly disturbed young man named George Allen went to the police and confessed to having cut his girlfriend’s throat at either 181 or 191 Campbell Road (he wasn’t sure which). It turned out it was neither. His girlfriend, who had dumped him, was alive and kicking.

The first line of his inquest testimony was recorded as

Chas. Andrew Cross, carman, said he had been in the employment of Messrs. Pickford and Co. for over twenty years"

Are these the actions of someone who has something to hide?

When he first went to work at Pickfords 20 years previous he was clearly using the name Cross which he was entitled to do so given the family situation at that time. That id how he was known as at Pickfords

So ambiguity now clarified, so we can safely say that there was nothing sinister about him using the name Cross-- Christer take note !!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[MrBarnett]

The first line of his inquest testimony was recorded as

Chas. Andrew Cross, carman, said he had been in the employment of Messrs. Pickford and Co. for over twenty years"

Are these the actions of someone who has something to hide?

When he first went to work at Pickfords 20 years previous he was clearly using the name Cross which he was entitled to do so given the family situation at that time. That id how he was known as at Pickfords

So ambiguity now clarified, so we can safely say that there was nothing sinister about him using the name Cross-- Christer take note !!!!!!!!!!!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

When his real name is Charles Allen Lechmere, it appears he is trying to conceal the name Lechmere.

You’ll notice he used his middle name (Andrew is an error) Allen. If he was being so informal, why offer that? It sounds like he was asked for his full name and it didn’t occur to him to give the same full name he had given to his kids’ school a few weeks previously.

If your kids are known as ‘Lechmere’ at school, their friends knock on your door and ask ‘Can Tommy come out to play, Mr/Mrs Lechmere?’ They tell their parents they’re going round see Tommy Lechmere.

He may have been known as Cross at Pickfords, but elsewhere he would have been known as Lechmere.

Have a look at some East End school registers from the time and count the number of times parents used their middle name. Very rarely. CAL was a stickler for providing his full ‘real’ name - except when he appeared before coroners.

It’s an anomaly.

[MrBarnett]

Bear in mind that CAL had moved from the area where he had lived as Thomas Cross’s son years before he moved again to Doveton Street. By 1888, Maria had been living with Joe Forsdyke for longer than she had with Thomas Cross. TC was a distant memory by then.