Chas Lechmere/Cross/Crass/Brass/Glass/etc

[Lechmere]

Ben
As you have raised nothing new, a response to your post is not necessary.

[Fisherman]

Mizen tells us Cross was in charge. - No he doesn't. One single quote from Mizen saying 'Cross was in charge' or anything like it

And no he doesn't claim that Paul did not speak to him either. Mizen not mentioning Paul at all, isn't the same thing as your claim that Mizen has said that Paul didn't speak to him.

You are of course correct: Mizen never said: "Carman Cross was in charge". Then again, you ask for one single quote to that effect, "anything like it" more precisely.

So letīs try the Echo!

"Police-constable George Myzen, 55 H, said that on Friday morning, at twenty minutes past four, he was at the corner of Hanbury-street, Baker's-row, when a man, who looked like a carman, said, "You are wanted in Buck's-row." Witness now knew the man to be named Cross, and he was a carman. Witness asked him what was the matter, and Cross replied, "A policeman wants you; there is a woman lying there." Witness went there, and saw Constable Neil, who sent him to the station for the ambulance.
The Coroner - Was there anyone else there then? - No one at all, Sir. There was blood running from the throat towards the gutter.
By the Coroner - There was another man in company of Cross when the latter spoke to witness. The other man, who went down Hanbury-street, appeared to be working with Cross."

I have a feeling weīve covered this ground before, but I am prepared to do so again. Now, "a man" spoke to Mizen, not "two men". It is not said in one single report from the inquest that two men spoke to Mizen, when you ask the PC. Lechmere of course says that this was so, but Mizen consistently tells us that "a man" did the talking - was in charge, in other words.
About the other man, all Mizen says is that he appeared to be working with Cross and that he went down Hanbury Street.
There is not a single instance in which Mizen claims that Paul said one single word to him.
All sources are in corroboration when it comes to Mizenīs stance - "A man", not "two men" came up to him and spoke.

Imagine Buster Keaton meeting Laurel and Hardy in the street. Laurel and Hardy goes up to him and Hardy says: "Thereīs a fire down the road", and Laurel fills in: "Yeah, and itīs the Warner Brothers Studio thatīs on fire".

After such an illustruous event, would Keaton say "There was this actor who approached me and told me that the Warner Brothers studio was on fire down the road"?

If the coroner would then ask "Was he alone or in company with somebody?", would Keaton answer "There was actually another actor who appeared to be in company with him - he went down the street"?

Is this a trustworthy version of how Keaton would tell the story? Why would he not say "These two actors came up to me and told me that the Warner Brothers studio was on fire." If that was what happened, surely he would tell the story that way?

Anybody who tries to reconcile Mizens story with that of Lechmere will arrive at the inevitable conclusion that it cannot be done. One of the men must be wrong.
And interestingly, if we choose Lechmere as the guy not telling the truth, then we can see that each and every deviation from how Mizen presented the case, would serve the purpose to conceal Lechmereīs true role extremely well if he was the killer.

Is that just coincidental, in each and every case? One by one?

Is it coincidental that Mizen says that Lechmere claimed that there was another PC in place - the exact thing that provided Lechmere with a chance to get past Mizen with no suspicion clinging to himself?

Is it coincidental that Mizen says that "a man" - not "two men" spoke to him - the exact thing that would allow Lechmere to feed him the extra PC lie?

Is it coincidental that Mizen says that the other carman went down Hanbury Street - the exact thing that would allow Lechmere to lie without being overheard by Paul?

Is it coincidental that the Lechmere seemingly ommitted giving his address in open court - the exact thing that allowed him to stay undetected by family and neighbours?

Is it coincindental that he called himself Cross - that also offered him anonymity?

Is it coincidental that Lechmere says that he DID tell Mizen the woman may well be dead, whereas Mizen says it was only spoken of a woman lying in the street - the exact thing that would disallow Mizen to see the true seriousness of the situation?

Why is it that all Lechmere says and does lends itself so well to an interpretation of trying to evade detection?

And why is it that all that Mizen says and does points in the other direction altogether?

The built-in anomalies absolutely and totally scream of a need for Lechmere to be looked into and thoroughly investigated - and still we have not a scintilla of information telling us that this ever happened. On the contrary, we have very clear indicators that it never did.

And now we have you claiming that Mizen did not point "Cross" out as the man in charge ...?

Wow.

The best,
Fisherman

[Monty]

Ben
As you have raised nothing new, a response to your post is not necessary.

Indeed, the points Ben raise still have not been addressed satisfactorly

Monty

[Mr Lucky]

I didn't ask for a load of waffle Fisherman, I asked for a quote where Mizen tells us 'Cross was in charge' to back up your claim that's what he said.

You cannot do this as Mizen never said such a thing, so why claim that he has ?

If you want to infer that Cross was in charge from what was said by Mizen then that's a different matter, but that isn't what you do. You claim that this is what "Mizen tells us".

Is it coincidental that the Lechmere seemingly ommitted giving his address in open court

Yawn, No, he did give his address in open court, it's clearly written as such in the Star 3rd Sept. 1888.

[Fisherman]

Mr Lucky: "I didn't ask for a load of waffle Fisherman, I asked for a quote where Mizen tells us 'Cross was in charge' to back up your claim that's what he said."

Not really - you asked for a direct quote or something to that effect. And thatīs what you got - a quotation from the Echo where it is quite clear that "Cross" did the talking. Ran the show, that is. You may have missed the final phrase: "There was another man in company of Cross when the latter spoke to witness."

The latter spoke to witness. The other man did not. So, very obviously, as far as Mizen was concerned, "Cross" was the man he dealt with, the man who put himself in charge.

It becomes another thing if we want to rely on Lechmere. I donīt, however.

So irrespective of your accusations, there is no load of waffle about here. There is just the plain evidence telling us that Mizen dealt with Cross and nobody else. Finding evidence coming from Mizenīs mouth that he also spoke to Paul - now THAT is something I would not set out to try and find. It is not there.

"If you want to infer that Cross was in charge from what was said by Mizen then that's a different matter, but that isn't what you do. You claim that this is what "Mizen tells us".

He does not do so directly. Nor did you merely ask for a direct quotation - you asked for that or something to that effect. And you got it.

"Yawn, No, he did give his address in open court, it's clearly written as such in the Star 3rd Sept. 1888."

... and in NO OTHER paper at all. Which is a nice pointer to what happened.

Now that youīve had my view, you can decide if you want to go on speaking about loads of whaffle or if you are looking for a serious debate. I will respond accordingly - and one of the options is no response at all.

The best,
Fisherman

[Mr Lucky]

Mizen tells us that "Cross" was the man in charge, not Paul - the latter did not even speak to Mizen, it was "Cross" who did so.

That's your claim. that Mizen 'tells us' this, that there is a quote from Mizen that says "Cross was in charge, not Paul, - who did not even speak"

There arn't any quote from Mizen saying anything like that. End of story.

This isn't a debate, btw, you have made a claim, and I'm asking you to back up what you have stated as fact , ie that 'Mizen tell us that Cross was in charge' with some evidence.

and in NO OTHER paper at all. Which is a nice pointer to what happened.

Yes, that when Cross gave his address at the inquest it was recorded in the Star, but not in the other papers, that is exactly what happened. Well done.

[moonbegger]

Is there the slightest of chance that Mizen , Crossmere and Pauls account are are all actually on the the ball , if maybe a little confused or suppressed ? here is a little bit of outside the box thinking

What if , as Paul initially claims in lloyds , he walks off ahead of Crossmere

so I went on and told the other man I would send the first policeman I saw. I saw one in Church-row, just at the top of Buck's-row, who was going round calling people up, and I told him what I had seen, and I asked him to come

Could he have asked the assistance of another PC or someone he thought was a PC ( not Mizen ) in Church Row ?

I saw. I saw one in Church-row, just at the top of Buck's-row, who was going round calling people up, and I told him what I had seen, and I asked him to come, but he did not say whether he should come or not. He continued calling the people up,

Crossmere then overtakes Paul unaware that Paul had actually spoken to someone .

Crossmere then comes across Mizen , a little further up the road with Paul a few yards behind. Crossmere informs Mizen of what he has seen , then as paul passes he throws out the fact that there is another copper there ( which he actually believes there now is). Mizen then attributes both what he see's and hears, along with what he just hears as all coming from Crossmere .

The Police , not too happy with Pauls (Lloyds) all to public condemnation of london's finest track him down and let him know how disappointed they are with him . Maybe there was a Copper who carried on knocking up and didn't give a rats arse ,or maybe it was not a copper but a security guard ..
Either way , when paul is thrown into the stand on the 17th .. he has a complete attitude turn about

The man walked with him to Montague-street, and there they saw a policeman. Not more than four minutes had elapsed from the time he first saw the woman. Before he reached Buck's-row he had seen no one running away.

It is almost like Paul has a gun in his back and being fed his lines , in particular no mention of the Knocking up Copper (or SG ) who failed to come to Polly's aid . The whole thing just does not sit right with me !

I know , I Know ,

I'll get me coat ,

moonbegger

[FrankO]

Finally an opportunity to make a long post! Here goes ...

I knew you were waiting for such an opportunity, Fish!

So I take it what you are saying is that it is unusual that anybody gets as lucky as Lechmere did if he was the killer? And I tend to agree with that too. He WAS lucky to get away with it.
On the other hand, he was unlucky too. If Paul had arrived two or three minutes later, Lechmere could perhaps have been done, having left the spot.

That’s indeed what I’m saying, with the important addition that all this luck involved just one murder. The getting away of Cross that you propose obviously was a risky one, yet all the things that could have gone wrong between Cross noticing Paul and Paul’s interview appearing in the press, worked out exactly right for him, without him having much, if any, influence on it. And that’s what’s too much luck for my taste.

And in the end, I donīt see why we should rule out a suspect on the grounds of him having had to be a lucky man for us to believe that he could have been the killer.

As you can see in my earlier post #27, I don’t rule him out and I wouldn't rule him out on only this point either.

We do not know for certain WHO the killer was - but we DO know that he was a man with considerable luck on his side.

I do believe the killer had a good deal of luck, but not sheer luck. In my view he took some precautions to minimize risk by, among other things, killing during the nightly hours of lull, 'working' his victims so that he would minimize getting blood on him, monitoring his direct surroundings and being able to stay unnoticed getting away from the crime scenes.

All the best,
Frank

[FrankO]

I think that whoever did it had tremendous luck.
If it was not Charles Lechmere then he missed him by a very short passage of time. Mizen, Thain and Neil said they saw no one. He must have slipped through unnoticed very luckily..

Why very luckily, Edward? If, for instance, he got away through Wood’s Buildings he could have checked Whitechapel Road before entering it (so Neil would not see him) and if he didn’t act suspiciously, he wouldn’t need much luck to get away clean.

All the best,
Frank

[Fisherman]

Letīs just put this one out of itīs misery, Mr Lucky.

"That's your claim. that Mizen 'tells us' this, that there is a quote from Mizen that says "Cross was in charge, not Paul, - who did not even speak"

No again, Mr Lucky, I have never said that there is a quote from Mizen that says these exact words. I am saying that what Mizen tells us at the inquest, allows us to infer that "Cross" was the man he dealt with, and who was thus in charge of the carman company.
Nothing else.

This has you completely off balance, and you start going on about me having claimed that there is an exact quotation from Mizen saying "Cross was in charge, Paul did not speak".

After that, you top it off by on your own behalf claiming that it is clear that Lechmere stated his address in open court. This in spite of our (hopefully) combined knowledge that the only we thing we can be certain of is that the Star printed his address while no other paper managed to do so, not even in any corrupted form.

What we have is the address in the Star. Why it is there is not a settled thing. It can be EITHER because the Star reporter heard the address and reported it with exactly the correct spelling, whereas not one other reporter was able to pick up anything of it, and it can be because the Star reporter got the address from a protocol, whereas the others did not bother to do so. What we CAN say is that if your version is correct, then the occurrence as such is completely unique in the Ripper inquest saga.

At any rate, I find it interesting that you think it a useful idea to state that I have jumped the gun by claiming that there is a direct quotation from Mizen speaking of Cross being in charge - something that I have not done - whereas you think it an equally brilliant idea to jump the gun big time yourself in the Star issue.

So, as I say, letīs leave it before it gets any worse. Itīs bad enough as it is.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Frank:

"That’s indeed what I’m saying, with the important addition that all this luck involved just one murder. The getting away of Cross that you propose obviously was a risky one, yet all the things that could have gone wrong between Cross noticing Paul and Paul’s interview appearing in the press, worked out exactly right for him, without him having much, if any, influence on it. And that’s what’s too much luck for my taste."

I think I have shown that he had BOTH good luck and bad luck, and I think yu will agree that if he was the killer, then there would have been a number of things he cursed along the way. But maybe you donīt oppose this - maybe you just think that these things should have had him caught. Well, they did not, if he was our man. And as for the elements of luck involved, I donīt think they should be hard to overcome for anyone. The Yorkshire Ripper, Gary Ridgway, Joel Rifkin etc, etc, etc were also very lucky to stay undetected. And that is what made the "prolific serial killers", whereas a lot of other guys who set out to be prolific serial killers too did not have the same amount of luck - and got caught.
We are billions of people on the planet. SOme of them will be luckier than others, and if Lechmere was the Ripper, then the element of luck that he had was not in any way overwhelming.
In my case, the luck involved is not as baffling as the lacking qualities of the police work, if it was what it seemed it was. Without that, he would have been caught.

But maybe you think we should write that down to luck on his behalf too?

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Frank:

"if he didn’t act suspiciously, he wouldn’t need much luck to get away clean."

There you go!

Fisherman

[Fisherman]

... ooooh, I get it, Frank - you were not speaking of Lechmere this time.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Moonbegger:

"I'll get me coat"

Donīt be too long, Moonbegger - you do have some fresh ideas and you think (way) outside the box.

But I would recommend at least a sobering five minute stroll ...

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

An excellent post Ben,

Quite on the money.

Cheers, Monty.

One does one's best!

All the best,
Ben