Evidence of innocence

[Herlock Sholmes]

I entirely agree, Mike. When Lechmere took the stand, what he knew was that Neil had found the body at around 3.45, that Mizen had just stated he saw the two carmen at around 3.45, that Paul had claimed it had been exactly 3.45 when he traversed Buck’s Row just before seeing Lechmere and that Lechmere knew at what time he had reached his work, which according to himself was at 4 am (and checkable). That was the truth as Lechmere would or, at least, could have known it. As both Neil and Paul gave a 3.45 timing, it would have been all the smarter for a guilty Lechmere to say that he left home around 3.35, just as you say, because that way he would be safe if Neil's timing was given credence over Paul's and he was safe if Paul was given some credence as well.

What might be telling to me, Mike, is the fact that Paul’s testimony paints a picture of him touching the breast (and then feeling a slight movement) while he was pulling the clothes down (Times of 18 September). That raises the question: where would he take hold of the dress to pull it down? What would be the most efficient way to pull a dress down?

I don’t know about you, or anybody else for that matter, but my answer would be that he would go for the hem of the dress. Which, if correct, would mean that the hem of the dress was on the chest area and would raise another question: if the killer is supposed to have covered the wounds, why would the hem of the dress be left so relatively far away from the hip area, on the chest? Because, wouldn’t the killer also go for the hem of the dress to pull it down? And why wouldn’t he have pulled the clothes down all the way over the legs, or at least, quite a bit over the legs, making it look even more like a woman who had just gone off in a swoon (i.e. without first being outraged or something alike)?

Cheers,
Frank

Seems the most logical way to me Frank.

Paul at The Inquest.

“Witness went with him, and saw a woman lying right across the gateway. Her clothes were raised almost up to her stomach.”

Its hard to see how this can be considered as being covered up by Lechmere or anyone by any stretch of the imagination. It sounds to me like the killer was holding up the skirt with one hand then dropped it when he’d finished or very possibly when he heard Lechmere walking along Bucks Row.

[Fisherman]

Or the person that fled the scene a minute or less before Lechmere found the body?

No, that is entirely a made up person to begin with, and so he cannot compete with Lechmere. His presence at the site is proven - and at a remove in time that is consistent with being the cutter. We also know that Nichols bled for so long a time as to make the proposition of another, earlier cutter, less credible.

To make the suggestion of a preceding killer as likely or likelier than Lechmere, it would require that the carman had facts attaching to himself that were not in line with being the killer. If, for example, we could see that he was unlikely to have been the killer in the other cases, that would promote the candidacy of another killer. But as you know,we instead have a picture where Lechmere seems to fit the other murders quite well.

So no, an earlier killer is not as likely at all. The suggestion is instead much unlikelier.

[Fisherman]

But it’s still being suggested that if Lechmere left the house at 3.30 then there was a sinister gap of time. It’s the old saying Fish “if my Auntie had b*****s she’d have been my uncle.”

But that is the precise case: If Lechmere left home at 3.30 and if the body was found at 3.45, then there IS a sinister gap. And bollocks.

We can discuss how mjuch we can invest in the timings til the cows come home, but that wonīt change that if the tiings given were correct or very nearly correct, they disfavor Lechmere.

[Fisherman]

Seeing that you're quoting Dusty here, Christer, I think you want him to answer, but on the off chance that you actually meant me, then I can only say that I was directing Jeff to where he can find Llewellyn saying that he was called by Thain around 3.55.

Cheers,
Frank

Aha. You spoke of articles of October 1, but presumably meant September, then? Anyhow, yes, Llewellyn is quoted pre inquest as having spoken of around 3.55. And then he said around 4.00 at the inquest, under oath. How this does not translate into 3.55-4.00 as the likeliest time gap, I fail to see.
What Dusty says is that we should put more trust in the 3.55 tining because it was information given closer in time to the deed. That may sound like a good idea up until the time we start discussing how Neil was quoted as saying that the neck wound bled profusely as he first saw it in the early reports. Thatīs where things get a tad awkward for many people.
The term for the process is cherry-picking, I believe.
And it is not of any minor interest to me that it may be that Llewellyn checked his clock before the inquest, realizing that it was a bit slow, and so he amended the time accordingly as he testified - under oath. He would be interested to be as exact as possible at that stage.

There are all kinds of solutions available at times. All we can do is to try and stay reasonably honest and true to the demands of veracity.

[Fisherman]

Did you give the 'whole and true picture,' Fish, when you suggested that Lilley was kept from the inquest because she was an untrustworthy publicity hound?

Do you give it now, claiming that this was ALL I did? You seem to forget that I have poibnted out that I do not consider myself able to decide whether or not Lilley DID hear something, although the time schedule tells me that it is n ot possible that she heard the murder. I thought I took great care to point that out? And now you take great care not to mention it. For whatever reason.

The media frenzy that we will see a week later after the discovery of Annie Chapman hadn't yet begun; it was still 'early days' so we can't give Harriet the same jaundiced glare that we will later use with Matt Packer.

It does not take a sewries of murders or a rasied intersst in them to produce a wish on peoples behalf to get a spot of publicity. The Nichols murder was qute a sensation, and the papers were full of it in the days leading up to Lilleys story. There were people speaking of blood-splatter accompanied hunts in the nearby streets in thee wake of the Nichols deed. So the phenomenon must be considered, like it or not.

And why would she have been brought before the inquest? Her account may have been of interest to the police, or to us, but as she couldn't identify the victim, nor help determine the cause of her death--which are the aims of an inquest.

Whom of the witnesses brought before the inquest COULD identify the killer? And why were THEY called if they could not? The inquests aim is to clarify why a person is dead, and Lilleys information, if true, would be of very high value in such a case. She would have overheard the murder. So donīt ask why she should have been called - ask yourself why you try to deny that she needed to be.

That's the 'whole and true' picture, isn't it?

It is. Now.

[SuperShodan]

What might be telling to me, Mike, is the fact that Paul’s testimony paints a picture of him touching the breast (and then feeling a slight movement) while he was pulling the clothes down (Times of 18 September). That raises the question: where would he take hold of the dress to pull it down? What would be the most efficient way to pull a dress down?

I don’t know about you, or anybody else for that matter, but my answer would be that he would go for the hem of the dress. Which, if correct, would mean that the hem of the dress was on the chest area and would raise another question: if the killer is supposed to have covered the wounds, why would the hem of the dress be left so relatively far away from the hip area, on the chest? Because, wouldn’t the killer also go for the hem of the dress to pull it down? And why wouldn’t he have pulled the clothes down all the way over the legs, or at least, quite a bit over the legs, making it look even more like a woman who had just gone off in a swoon (i.e. without first being outraged or something alike)?

Cheers,
Frank

(Oooops, I messed up that quote!!!!)



Absolutely correct, Frank. The only way he could have touched the breast while pulling her dress down, is if that was where the hem was placed. It would be quite possible for an ankle length dress to be pulled upwards so that the hem was at chest level, but the body of the dress still covered the abdominal wounds when allowed to fall onto the body. I think that her clothing was just dropped and left to fall into place, possibly, but not definitely, because the killer was disturbed. Whether this was due, for example, to the arrival of Lechmere, or maybe Paul, is open to debate.
[/QUOTE]




Might I suggest that a woman lying in the street with the hem of a dress being pulled up to the breasts might be a visual indication that something was wrong ?

[Fisherman]

According to David Orsam’s research there were 19 newspapers reporting on the Inquest on the 3rd September (he’s listed them all). 11 of them said that Lechmere said “about 3.30,” which is around 58% of them. 2 wrongly gave a time of 3.20 so if we dismissed those as we should then it’s 64%. So the majority said that Lechmere had said “about 3.30.”

Again…..therefore we cannot say that there is an unaccounted for gap of time. It’s a simple, inarguable fact.

It is nothing of the sort if the body was found at 3.45.

[FrankO]

Aha. You spoke of articles of October 1, but presumably meant September, then?

Ah yes, thanks for pointing out the mistake on my part, Christer. Of course, I meant September.

Cheers,
Frank

[Fisherman]

The Coroner: Did the other man tell you who he was?
Witness: No, sir; he merely said that he would have fetched a policeman, only he was behind time. I was behind time myself.

This doesn’t mean that he was late when he was leaving the house. He’d lost time by stopping to look at a tarpaulin which turned out to have been a body, then waiting for Paul to get there, then any examination of the body and short discussion on what they should do.

Nowhere does Lechmere say that he was late leaving the house for work so why should we assume something that wasn’t true?

The examination of the body would have taken around a minute or so. That amount of time in a 30 minute walk is not representative of being behind time. The likely thing is that both men were behind as they left home - or laimed to be. We know that Paul was hurrying along, and hurrying is very representative of being late.

[Fisherman]

I also agree, Jeff. In fact, here are the important parts of the 2 most elaborate versions of Baxter's summing:

From the Daily News of 24 September:
"She was first discovered by a carman named Cross on his way to his work. Paul, another carman, came up, and together they went to the woman. She was only just dead, if life was really extinct. Paul says he felt a slight movement of her breast, and thought she was breathing. Cross says her hand was cold, but her face was warm. Neither appears to have realised the real condition of the woman, and no injuries were noticed by them; but this, no doubt, is accounted for by the early hour of the morning and the darkness of the spot. Cross and Paul reported the circumstance to a constable at the corner of Hanbury street and Baker's row, about 300 yards distant, but in the meantime Police constable Neil discovered the body. The time at which the body was found cannot have been far from a quarter to four a.m., as it is fixed by so many independent data."

From the Times of 24 September:
"The deceased was first discovered by a carman on his way to work, who passed down Buck's-row, on the opposite side of the road. Immediately after he had ascertained that the dark object in the gateway was the figure of a woman he heard the approaching footsteps of a man. This proved to be Paul, another carman. Together they went to the woman. The condition of her clothing suggested to them that she had been outraged and had fainted. She was only just dead, if life were really extinct. Paul says he felt a slight movement of her breast, and thought she was breathing. Neither of the carmen appeared to have realized the condition of the woman, and no injuries were noticed by them; but that, no doubt, was accounted for by the early hour of the morning and the darkness of the spot. The carmen reported the circumstances to a constable at the corner of Hanbury-street, 300 yards distant, but although he appeared to have started without delay, he found another constable was already there. In fact, Constable Neil must independently have found the body within a few minutes of the finding of it by the two carmen."

The last sentence - which is notably absent in the version carried by the Morning Advertiser referred to by Christer - before turning to his "not far from a quarter to four" remark, is about Neil finding the body. Since we know Neil'd stated he'd found the body at about 3.45, there's indeed nothing incoguous about the 3.45 in "not far from a quarter to four" being a reference to Neil's finding of the body. In the Times, as we can see, the "not far from a quarter to four" is even represented as Neil finding "the body within a few minutes of the finding of it by the two carmen." Whether this is just another way of saying the same created by the reporter in question or the actual words that Baxter spoke, we don't and can't know, but it doesn't change the point that the 3.45 mark is a reference to Neil's timing rather than anything else.

Cheers,
Frank

The Morning Advertiser tells us very effectively how Baxter spoke of LECHMERE as the finder. The bit about 3.45 was what concluded a long listing of how Lechmere found the body and what he did. Therefore, suggestion that the 3.45 timing referred to Neil cannot be supported in any way. Instead, what Baxter points out is that some minutes must have told the two apart at the scene, putting Neil there LATER than 3.45. And as we know, Swanson, who had favored Lechmere at the site at 3.40 in his September report, thereby accepting Neils 3.45 timing, altered his view in the October report, putting Lechmere at the site at 3.45. And this alteration came about after Baxter had said the exact same thing at the inquest.

There is only one straight line in all of this. And if there IS a straight line, we need to follow it, unless we prefer crooked ones.

[Fisherman]

>>You have had your answers to each and every point. <<

The only answer you have offered to my actual questions is about the aforementioned Burglar and piss-taker, hardly you best moment. As everyone can see the bulk of your alleged "answers" were replies to post were I never asked any questions, and you wonder why nobody trusts you.


>> I also took the time to point to how you seem eager to call me a liar on very poor grounds, whereas you allow for youself to make very strange claims based on quotations that were never there<<

I've cited confirmation for every claim I've made, perhaps you could give us the same courtesy and list the "quotations that were never made". You have a habit of abusing most listers, but seldom backing your claims up with proof.

So there we are, that was what it was all about: If you do not get the answers you want to your questions, then you will not accept them. And for good measure, you cowardly throw in a hint at how I would be using false quotations, without providing any evidence at all that this would be so. Of course!

Anyway, that brings us to the end of this discussion, and as I always said, you were not truthful from the outset, claiming that I could not answer your questions. Of course I could, just a I always can. I am even prepared to force-feed you some of the answers, like how you "forgot" that Neils feeling for warmth was the starting point for Baxters observation about when LLewellyn arrived. You seemingly banked on how you wouldn't be taken to task on that score. Well, you banked wrong again.

This is how it always ends up, and it will not be any different in the future, I can assure you that. Calling me a liar and stupid does not alter that in the least - it is what you reflexively resort to when proven wrong, and so I consider it as an - albeit ugly and sordid - confirmation of your failure.

The foreseeable convulsions this will cause is something I am going to leave for the rats and vultures to scavenge on. I have no further need to do that work myself.

Cheers, Dusty.

[Fisherman]

I really wonder about you Dusty. You have a wafer thin grip on reality. I honestly think you’re on some kind of spectrum.
I’ve rarely seen such complete gibberish, it’s like you’re on planet Dusty and anything you make up in your head is reality.
I can’t believe I’m even replying to you, but for the record I have never mentioned burglars, and liking or commenting on somebody’s else’s post is clearly not the same thing as suggesting it myself.

For your information: The point I made was that if Lechmere had said that he heard another person fleeing the scene, then he would run the risk that there could have been somebody in the vicinity who was able to gainsay him. If, for example, Lechmere had said that there was somebody running around the schoolhouse corner, then how was he to know that there was nobody else at that place who afterwards would be able to refute his claim?

This is what Dusty took and remolded into some sort of mumbo-jumbo on acid. The way he always tends to do, as you have correctly noted.

[Fisherman]

Yes, it helps to read between the lines. It's nothing more than the old, 'Well, I'd love to stay and help, but unfortunately I've got an errand to run..."

One sees it at every roadside accident.

The problem is that we cannot ligtheartedly treat any such claim as fact, though. It would be jolly if we could, of course, but thatīs not to be. In fact, I much dread what would come from posters "reading between the lines"...

[Fisherman]

I’d say that it can’t be considered impossible that Neil might have missed the body on his previous round. I haven’t checked Steve’s book so I don’t know if there’s any level of certainty as to what side of the road he’d have been on? If he was on the opposite side, and with the area where the body was found being very dark, maybe he didn’t notice it or maybe he he just wasn’t being conscientious enough to go over and have a look? I don't know.

I think we can be certain that if he missed Nichols at 3.15, opening for the option of her having been in place since 2.45, then the body would not have been warm as Llewellyn checked it.

[Fisherman]

Seems the most logical way to me Frank.

Paul at The Inquest.

“Witness went with him, and saw a woman lying right across the gateway. Her clothes were raised almost up to her stomach.”

Its hard to see how this can be considered as being covered up by Lechmere or anyone by any stretch of the imagination. It sounds to me like the killer was holding up the skirt with one hand then dropped it when he’d finished or very possibly when he heard Lechmere walking along Bucks Row.

The "almost up to the stomach" reference needs to be pitted against a large number of OTHER references, like how it was claimed that the clothing was "over the knees" for example.

A logical explanation would be that Nichols lay on her garments, making it very hard to pull them down any further. This seems mirrored in how Paul tries to drag them down to the feet, but only gets them to the knees.

At any rate, "almost" to the stomach means "close to but NOT to the stomach", and so the sounds WERE hidden.

It has earlier been suggested that since it was the first murder (which we donīt know), the killer may have come up with the idea of posing his victim only AFTER it. Your suggestion now is that the killer was haapy fiddling around under the garments in Bucks Row, only to suddenly develop a desire to throw the clothing out of the way in order to allow him to cut in Hanbury Street.

The rather obvious inference is that this killer was much into cutting bellies open. The suggestion that he perhaps hindered himself to see what he did in Bucks Row, while there was never any reason for hiom not to get the garments out of the way, is not a good one in my view. It is along the lines of always presenting alternative innocent explanations, and I keep saying that such a thing is good up until when we need dozens of them. At that stage, if we havent taken stock of the indications, we are lagging seriously behind.