Framing Charles

[rjpalmer]

You seem to be disagreeing with yourself, RJ. One minute you’re suggesting CAL was probably too old to like a pint or two, the next you’re telling us you have personally known many 40-year-old boozers.

Not in the least. Where did I suggest Lechmere didn't like a pint? It's not a matter of drinking, it's a matter of staying up until 2 a.m. in the morning at the end of the workweek, if you're used to getting up at a "lark's fart." Anyway you slice it, you're having Lechmere pull a 23 hour day, made more palatable by a theoretical cat-nap. I'd be more inclined to accept this scenario if Lechmere was twenty, rather than forty. And perhaps getting drunk with dear old mum was an East End thing on a Saturday night, but my life experience was quite a bit different.

But, on to something more interesting:

Phillips was of the opinion that the [Pinchin Street] victim had died as as a result of blood loss from a ‘former’ incision of the neck that had ‘disappeared on the subsequent separation of the head.’

So we have a victim whose throat was most likely cut...

I think this opinion is on very unsteady ground, Gary.

Here’s what Donald Swanson wrote: “the dismemberment [ie., of the legs] had taken place at an earlier period than the head for the raw flesh had from continued exposure dried on the surface which presented a blackened appearance in consequence.”

We see confirmation for this in the notes of Dr. Hebbert: "the cut surfaces at the hips were black and dry, but the surface at the neck moist and red."

In other words, the legs were removed some days before the head was removed. By all appearances, the woman was murdered or even killed accidently (one suggestion was blows to the head) and her legs were then removed, probably to aid concealment. It wasn’t until days later, and only shortly before the body was dumped, that the head was removed…almost certainly to thwart any attempt at identification, as we see in domestic 'torso' cases.

How do you square this with street throat slashing cases akin to the 'Ripper'? It seems like a very different sort of crime. Why wouldn't her throat be black if she had her throat cut at the time she was dismembered?

Okay, I'm off for awhile.

P.S. I will be amused in the unlikely event that Lechmere's name is ever found on a list of teetotalers. His midnight visit to Ma Lechmere will then have been a prayer meeting. I suppose even in the East End there must have been respectable types that went to bed on a Saturday night, so as not to be late for church services in the morning.

[Abby Normal]

You seem to be disagreeing with yourself, RJ. One minute you’re suggesting CAL was probably too old to like a pint or two, the next you’re telling us you have personally known many 40-year-old boozers.

Of course it’s speculation, but there’s fair-minded speculation and there’s the other kind.

CAL’s age, the shift pattern we might deduce from his very early start on 31st Aug and the likelihood that Sunday was indeed his day of rest all fit very nicely with Saturday night being the one night in the week when he would be likely to enjoy a few beers. And the fact drinking a few beers was the chief please of most Victorian working men also fits nicely with his having done so.

We might also add the loyalty generally displayed by pub-goers to their ‘local’ - the pub where their mates drank - fits very nicely with his popping over to St Georges to do his drinking.

im fifty five and after a hard weeks work friday night i occasionally enjoy going out drinking sometimes till all hours of the morning. sure you can be tired but the adreniline to blow off steam kicks in, the energy of the bars nightlife etc. and thats without even being a serial killer out on the hunt.

Its a non issue.

[MrBarnett]

We'll have to agree to disagree. I've known many 40 year old laboring men who worked the early shift, and it was exceedingly common for them to hit the pub the minute the week's work was over, drink heavily for three or four hours, and then be home dozing in their arm-chair or bed by nightfall.

Let's keep in mind that either scenario is utter speculation, piled on speculation.

You seem to be disagreeing with yourself, RJ. One minute you’re suggesting CAL was probably too old to like a pint or two, the next you’re telling us you have personally known many 40-year-old boozers.

Of course it’s speculation, but there’s fair-minded speculation and there’s the other kind.

CAL’s age, the shift pattern we might deduce from his very early start on 31st Aug and the likelihood that Sunday was indeed his day of rest all fit very nicely with Saturday night being the one night in the week when he would be likely to enjoy a few beers. And the fact drinking a few beers was the chief please of most Victorian working men also fits nicely with his having done so.

We might also add the loyalty generally displayed by pub-goers to their ‘local’ - the pub where their mates drank - fits very nicely with his popping over to St Georges to do his drinking.

[Abby Normal]

There are certain things that really intrigue me about CAL. One is the character of his old Ma. Maybe wrongly, I have her pegged as a very strong character who would have drummed an abhorrence of ‘unfortunates’ into her son. And I’ve just discovered/realised that three close members of her family - two husbands and a daughter - all seem to have died in neighbours’ houses. What does that mean? I’ve no idea, but it’s odd and adds a little more interest to Maria Louisa, the bigamous horse flesh dealer who, as the daughter of a butler to a prominent member of the Herefordshire gentry, had been brought up in a lodge the grounds of a fine country house and yet was forced by circumstances to bring up her son in Tiger Bay.

Then there’s the Pinchin Street thing. That case always strikes me as a hybrid Ripper/Torso event. It could be a coincidence, but if it isn’t, if it was the Ripper doffing his cap/sticking two fingers up to the Torso killer (or vice versa) or a combined Ripper/Torso man saying ‘look at me - I’m both’, then the choice of the location where the remains were dropped might well have conveyed a message.

And that location fits very nicely (I don’t think it could be bettered) as somewhere Lechmere might choose if he was trying to convey such a message.

It was virtually opposite where he had lived as a boy with his old Ma and his PC stepfather, the house they had lived in was still there in sight of the arch; Frederick Street that had run behind where the arch was located had been one of the most notorious of the Tiger Bay streets when he lived there; the torso was dumped a few feet away from the Whitechapel/St Georges boundary. If he, a St Georges boy, was the WM, what other spot in London would have carried anything even close to the significance of that spot?

Answers on a postcard...

and the whitehall torso in the basement of NSY a ef off to his PC stepfather?

[Abby Normal]

Hello Abby - I assure you that I have no theory whatsoever that touches on what the carman Charles Lechmere may or may not have been doing on the night of the 'double event.' As I say, he has no provable alibi, but then neither does the majority of 'suspects' named over the years.

I was just voicing skepticism at the claim that the murders of Stride and Eddowes being earlier in the evening 'fit nicely' with Lechmere having Sunday off. It seems like a weak indicator, at best, and, indeed, I can't even quite follow the reasoning.

I suppose what is being suggested is that, since Lechmere would have the opportunity to sleep in, and it was Saturday night, he could have stayed out visiting and boozing until 2 a.m. in the morning.

Maybe so, maybe not--we might as well argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It could just as easily have been Cutbush or Druitt or Bury or Kosminski out on a spree.

I am more interested in the supposed 3-3.30 a.m. pattern in the murders of Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, and Kelly that Fish is seeing, that would indicate a man traversing the murder zone within a very narrow window of time.

But does such a pattern even exist? In at least two of those cases, and possibly in three, the time of death is far from certain. And how compelling is that pattern, if the same theorist is forced to admit murders also occurred two hours earlier, and one body--supposedly in the same series--was dumped two hours later?

It doesn't make it impossible that the same man was guilty of committing all seven murders, but it clearly weakens the supposed pattern that was pointing at him in the first place.

I don't think that is a particularly controversial position, is it?

Unlike 'Fiver,' I don't dispute that the Stride murder occurring close to Ma Lechmere's house is a 'fun fact.' If one believes, as Fish believes, that the Stride murder and the Pinchin Street case are connected to the Nichols murder, I can see why it would excite his interest. But isn't the geographical coincidence enough? Do we have to also pretend, as the 'Missing Evidence' documentary does, that the fuzzy and uncertain 'timing' of the murders is also suggestive?


R P

Hi RJ
yes to me it is. I often put myself in the shoes of the characters involved and pretend im there. its intriguing to me that on the night of the "work route" murders lech is there walking the streets in the dark, very close to the victims in location and time to when they were killed. I mean hes there..near. same with the "visiting ma lech/ double event murders" although admittedly there is speculation on that one--but again the timing and location of those makes sense if he was off on the following sunday. and explains the earlier than usual killing time.

Its like with Paul walking to work in the dark and lonely street, already on his gaurd, and seeing lech hovering near the body of polly nichols. its just all kind of creepy to me. and yes somewhat suspicious. Lech is very much in the frame for being the killer of Polly.

and to zoom out a bit, all this time/location proximity is more than we can say for any other suspect in this regard.

I just simply think hes makes one of the least weak suspects.

[Fiver]

>>Who’s Ma C? Is this a new addition to the ‘cast of thousands?’ ;-)<<

Her neighbours would have known her as Tommy Cross's widow. Particularly the one that witnessed his death certificate.

Some posters are uninterested in sharing information. Charles Lechmere's mother remarried in 1872 to Joseph Forsdike, so she would have been Mrs Forsdike at that time.

[rjpalmer]

Knock off for a siesta? We’re talking about starting at sparrow’s fart, working a long shift and still being able to get some shut-eye on a Saturday afternoon before paying a visit of a few hours to St Georges in the evening.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I've known many 40 year old laboring men who worked the early shift, and it was exceedingly common for them to hit the pub the minute the week's work was over, drink heavily for three or four hours, and then be home dozing in their arm-chair or bed by nightfall.

Let's keep in mind that either scenario is utter speculation, piled on speculation.

[rjpalmer]

And yet both Monro and Arnold put in a request for 100 extra PCs to patrol the streets of The East End. Not the banks of the Thames or Whitehall - Whitechapel Division.

"I am inclined to the belief that, taking one thing with another, this is not the work of the Whitechapel Murderer but of the hand which was concerned in the murders which are known as the Rainham mystery, the new Police buildings case, and the recent case in which portion of a female body (afterwards identified) were found in the Thames"

--James Monro, Sep. 11, 1889.

I think this is a case where words speak louder than actions. You can't get a more direct answer to what Monro believed than that.

Obviously an increased presence of uniformed patrols in the East End would have a tendency to calm the public, and mollify the wagging heads at the Home Office.

A detective's work requires a more discreet approach.

[MrBarnett]

I do have to wonder how relevant people's modern day work experiences (in our age of labor laws, unions, refrigeration, motorized vehicles, etc etc.) would be when theorizing the activities of an East End laborer in the 1880s. I doubt many of these blokes had the luxury to knock-off at noon and take a siesta, but I am open to persuasion if there is any actual record of this applying to Lechmere's case.

For years, I worked a schedule similar to the one that Lechemere supposedly worked, and the last place I would have been on a Saturday night at 1 a.m. is my mother's house.

Anyway, Lechmere was a forty year old family man with a steady work history. Painting the town red at the end of a long work-week becomes less and less appealing the older one gets. Could he have been there? Sure. Does it 'fit nicely'? We have no way of knowing.

Knock off for a siesta? We’re talking about starting at sparrow’s fart, working a long shift and still being able to get some shut-eye on a Saturday afternoon before paying a visit of a few hours to St Georges in the evening.

I wonder what % of East End working men didn’t enjoy a pint or two when the opportunity arose? And if they were ‘lightweights’ who weren’t up to doing so when they had to get up for work the next morning, then the evening before their day of rest would fit nicely.

[Astatine211]

Did they imagine there might be a second throat- cutting Whitechapel serial killer?

William Wallace Brodie - Strong circumstantial links to Whitehall Torso, Pinchin Street Torso and Alice Mackenzie. Definitely not Jack the Ripper as he was out of the country but to quote WWB himself he claimed to be "one of the Whitechapel murderers".

https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/persons-of-interest-or-actual-suspects/24386-william-wallace-brodie

[MrBarnett]

For the sake of brevity, let me just say that I reject the Pinchin Street case as being part of the 'Ripper' series for the same reasons that Commissioner James Monro outlined in his 7 page report to the Home Office, dated September 11, 1889. I'm confident you have read it.

The only thing I would add to Monro's arguments is that the victim's head being removed shortly before the body was dumped is highly suggestive of a domestic killing, where knowing the victim's identity will lead to the murderer. It is a common feature of such cases.

The victim's hands were well manicured and showed no sign of physical labor; in fact, it was suggested she was spent a lot of time writing with a pen--so we aren't likely to be looking at a drunken street woman from Spitalfields, despite that fact that some here wish to label her a prostitute.

I notice in your above statement that many of the features you attribute to the alleged torso 'series' do not actually apply to the Pinchin Street case. I realize you are using 'shorthand,' but it is rather deceptive to lump the various torso cases together as one 'series,' and then pick and choose various attributes from individual case to make a cumulative argument that they conform to the Ripper's alleged motivations. No organs were removed from the Pinchin Street victim; no sexual mutilations occurred (except accidently from the incision); nor was her throat cut (according to medical opinion); nor--do I believe--were any rings missing. (A newspaper report makes this claim, but Hebbert specifically states the victim had not worn a wedding band).

The main pitfall of the pseudo-science of 'signature,' is that human behavior is complex, and behaviors that appear similar--or even identical--can, in fact, spring from entirely different motivations. Thanks to hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution, we are experts at seeing subtle patterns. We are so good, in fact, that we see patterns even where they do not exist.

Welcome to the wonderful world of crime detection.

And yet both Monro and Arnold put in a request for 100 extra PCs to patrol the streets of The East End. Not the banks of the Thames or Whitehall - Whitechapel Division.

Phillips was of the opinion that the victim had died as as a result of blood loss from a ‘former’ incision of the neck that had ‘disappeared on the subsequent separation of the head.’

So we have a victim whose throat was most likely cut and the police being concerned that there might be more such cases in the East End.


Did they imagine there might be a second throat- cutting Whitechapel serial killer?

[rjpalmer]

I do have to wonder how relevant people's modern day work experiences (in our age of labor laws, unions, refrigeration, motorized vehicles, etc etc.) would be when theorizing the activities of an East End laborer in the 1880s. I doubt many of these blokes had the luxury to knock-off at noon and take a siesta, but I am open to persuasion if there is any actual record of this applying to Lechmere's case.

For years, I worked a schedule similar to the one that Lechemere supposedly worked, and the last place I would have been on a Saturday night at 1 a.m. is my mother's house.

Anyway, Lechmere was a forty year old family man with a steady work history. Painting the town red at the end of a long work-week becomes less and less appealing the older one gets. Could he have been there? Sure. Does it 'fit nicely'? We have no way of knowing.

[rjpalmer]

The Pinchin Street woman was part of a series that involved cutting from ribs to pubes (very, very unusual), that encompassed taking out sexual organs (very, very, very unusual), that involved taking out non-sexual organs (even more unusual) and that also involved cutting away the abdominal wall in large sections from victims (almost unheard of and unusual in the extreme). Further to this, in both series, rings were taken from the victims fingers, and in both series, there was a lack of signs of physical torture, something that should be expcted in the torso series at any rate (abduction murders and murders where the killer see to it that he has ample time alone with his victims in a secluded space will normally involve serious elements of torture).

I asked you in my former post how you explain why this would NOT be the work of a single killer.

Can I have your answer now, please? It is a much less trivial matter, as I said, and so I am interested to hear your view.

For the sake of brevity, let me just say that I reject the Pinchin Street case as being part of the 'Ripper' series for the same reasons that Commissioner James Monro outlined in his 7 page report to the Home Office, dated September 11, 1889. I'm confident you have read it.

The only thing I would add to Monro's arguments is that the victim's head being removed shortly before the body was dumped is highly suggestive of a domestic killing, where knowing the victim's identity will lead to the murderer. It is a common feature of such cases.

The victim's hands were well manicured and showed no sign of physical labor; in fact, it was suggested she was spent a lot of time writing with a pen--so we aren't likely to be looking at a drunken street woman from Spitalfields, despite that fact that some here wish to label her a prostitute.

I notice in your above statement that many of the features you attribute to the alleged torso 'series' do not actually apply to the Pinchin Street case. I realize you are using 'shorthand,' but it is rather deceptive to lump the various torso cases together as one 'series,' and then pick and choose various attributes from individual case to make a cumulative argument that they conform to the Ripper's alleged motivations. No organs were removed from the Pinchin Street victim; no sexual mutilations occurred (except accidently from the incision); nor was her throat cut (according to medical opinion); nor--do I believe--were any rings missing. (A newspaper report makes this claim, but Hebbert specifically states the victim had not worn a wedding band).

The main pitfall of the pseudo-science of 'signature,' is that human behavior is complex, and behaviors that appear similar--or even identical--can, in fact, spring from entirely different motivations. Thanks to hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution, we are experts at seeing subtle patterns. We are so good, in fact, that we see patterns even where they do not exist.

Welcome to the wonderful world of crime detection.

[Fisherman]

It should of course also be pointed out that there was no general wish for testifying people to present themselves by any name, since the very ground for the request was always going to be that the authorities wanted the testifyer to be identifiable fortwith.
That would go lost if people were allowed to use any name they felt like using on the day, and so the grounds behind the process would be compromised. I believe we may conclude that such a thing was never on the authorities wishlist.
It is another matter that people were allowed to assume and use aliases; they were, but the generosity of the authorities would not stretch to allowing for people to fly under the radar. If this was allowed, then there would be no purpose in establishing any names in the first place.

[Fisherman]

It was a double anomaly. He deviated from his normal practice when dealing with the authorities. And he deviated from the norm of witnesses revealing both names.

Look at this piece of ‘Legal Advice’ above given in the Weekly Telegraph on 4th August, 1888.

Yes, I am aware of this. And curious to see how our Danish friend will go about defending a stance that cannot be defended. It promises to be an interesting afternoon.