Evidence of innocence

[Trevor Marriott]

According to Paul Begg, JtR the Facts page 46, Neil passed the slaughterhouse at 3:15am and saw Tomkins and Mumford at work. He then walked into and down Buck's Row. He did not see anything suspicious or unusual. At the same time Sgt Kirby also passed down Buck's Row. He too did not see anything to arouse his suspicions.

Had Neil been skiving one would imagine that Kirby might have noticed?

Cheers, George

But Kirby was not called as a witness at the inquest if as you say he was also in Bucks Row then he would have been called to give evidence to say he saw nothing or to corroborate the testimony of the other officers.

I also note that in The Times inquest testimony Neil states "he had not heard any disturbance that night and the furthest he had been was up Bakers Row to the Whitechapel Road and was never far away from the crime scene"

As to the cape issue I did read thatPC Thain allegedly made a detour to Harrison, Barber and Company, a slaughter-house on Winthrop Street, where his cloak had been left by the day constable. Now I have to ask how could that have happened, surely Pc Neil going out on night patrol would have needed his cape, even if he knew where it had been left he would have gone and retreived it as soon as he came on duty, and why would another constable have his cape they were all issued with their own numberd capes

The more these police officers account are closley scrutinized the more they give cause for concern as to their reliability

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Mark J D]

... you know what might be really cool for you on a rainy day if your so inclined is to do one for lech, include tabram with the c5 and use his house, his work place and his mums house and see what happens. my kindergarden version says all the murders fall within a triangle (or very close)of those three points. lol

'Very close'?

*Bloody* close, mate...

(And if we weren't treating Broad Street as a point object, we'd get poor Chapman in, too...)



M.

[Dickere]

If he hadn’t shown up though the ‘mystery finder’ would have been the man that everyone would have been looking for. Lechmere would have been at risk of running into Mizen or Paul sometime.

If he’s the killer he scarpers before Paul gets there.

I don't know, Herlock.

I can't understand him turning up at the inquest at all without it being asked of him. Would he really potentially give up some pay for no benefit to himself ?

He wasn't aware of Paul until it was too late to scarper I feel. And aside from that, he may have run into Mizen or another officer, and running wouldn't be a good look in the circumstances.

[MrBarnett]

'Very close'?

*Bloody* close, mate...

(And if we weren't treating Broad Street as a point object, we'd get poor Chapman in, too...)



M.

If you roll it forward to 1889 and move his mother’s house to Cable Street, you capture the Pinchin Street arch - and almost the Backchurch Lane catsmeat sheds.

[Abby Normal]

'Very close'?

*Bloody* close, mate...

(And if we weren't treating Broad Street as a point object, we'd get poor Chapman in, too...)



M.

Thanks Mark!
Very nice. I notice that none of the victims are very close to either his home nor work. as in he didnt want to kill too close to his home or his work place for obvious reasons (if he was the killer of course).

[JeffHamm]

But Pc Neil could not have been at the crime scene at 3.15am if he was passing by the slaughterhouse in the next street. at the same time

This is what Thain said "When I went to the horse-slaughterer's for my cape I did not say that I was going to fetch a doctor, as a murder had been committed. Another constable had taken my cape there"

Who was the other constable and how did that constable come to take Thains cape to the slaughterhouse? so we know that at least one police officer had gone to the slaughterhouse but for what purpose?

If you are going to pin Lechmere down to a time that suggests he was the killer you have to be sure of the other witness timings are safe to rely on.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Hi Trevor,

No, but he does say that 3:15 is half an hour before he found the body. And since his patrol of Winthrop would occur after he had previously patrolled past the crime scene, there's an argument for him having patrolled the crime scene area some amount of time before 3:15 (making his beat patrol time to pass the crime scene from pre-discovery to discovery a bit longer than 30 minutes). Whether or not he would have missed seeing a woman laying in the street on the previous round, though, is really the issue here, not so much the exact time of that patrol. If his previous patrol of the crime location was before 3:15, it means he patrolled more slowly than I've got him (though I've not worked out how much as I'm just thinking of this now as I type). My suspicions are, though, is that even at the speed that would suggest, he is still going to be up in the northerly part of his patrol (as currently he's quite near finishing that section that puts him out of view of the carmen), and so on the whole not much will change at that end. It might, however, influence some of the speculative stuff, like the dramatic Hollywood exit version I've shown, but all that is speculation anyway.

While I get your point that PC Neil's activities are not as well established as one would like, if we think his statements are so unreliable as to suggest his missing the body is sufficiently probable that we should start our "divergence of possibilities" at that point, then there is nothing at all we can do further, and the case becomes unresolvable since we're at a "well, if he missed it then ..." vs "and if there was nothing to miss then ...". The former, though, rules out Cross/Lechmere of course, so to test the Cross/Lechmere theory we really only need to consider the latter branch of that divergence. We certainly can't ignore it and act like things had to go along the "missed it" brank - it's just a possible branch, not a proven one after all.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

I don't know, Herlock.

I can't understand him turning up at the inquest at all without it being asked of him. Would he really potentially give up some pay for no benefit to himself ?

He wasn't aware of Paul until it was too late to scarper I feel. And aside from that, he may have run into Mizen or another officer, and running wouldn't be a good look in the circumstances.

I understand giving up pay but if he hadn’t gone to the Inquest then the police (and the Press for that matter) would have had an anonymous man who had been with the body alone when Paul arrived and who could have been identified by two people (one of who was a Constable) Someone that the Police would definitely wanted a chat with to say the least. How comfortable would Lechmere have been walking the streets with the very reasonable chance of bumping into Paul or Mizen at some point?

……..

Lechmere estimated that he’d heard Paul approach from around 40 yards away. Obviously this might actually have been a shorter distance or perhaps longer as he was only estimating but he still heard him first.

The only suggestion that can be made against this is the chance of him possible running into a Constable whereas waiting for Paul meant definitely running into a Constable. And even then why would a Constable have been interested in a man walking to work if he didn’t know there had been a murder and how could he have so soon after the event?

When you weigh up the pro’s and con’s of staying or fleeing there really is no contest in my opinion. Brazenness doesn’t come into it. A decision to stay would have been 90%+ certain to end in disaster whilst a decision to flee must have held a 10%- chance of ending badly. (Obviously these figures are just my own estimations) The decision was a no-brainier. Remaining screams innocent to me and most others I’d say.

[Mark J D]

... Very nice. I notice that none of the victims are very close to either his home nor work. as in he didnt want to kill too close to his home or his work place for obvious reasons...

Matey, if ya wanna know what really, really, *really* freaks me out, it's the fact that poor Chapman was killed 320 feet from the street out of which Robert Paul worked...

Yes, only 8 days later, Lechmere deliberately left a body at 'Y', an address they'd walked past together, and which was *100 metres away* from the street ('X') the other guy had been walking to...




Yeah, Druitt might have done that. Or Kosminski. Or Bury. Or Tumblety. Or hundreds of bloody others. Deffies. I mean, they're *all* gonna be heading straight for *the workplace of Robert Paul*, aren't they? A man who just discovered a man who just discovered a body...

M.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Frank,

I believe that I see the point you are making. However, Jeff measured the distance from the body to the gateway of the wool warehouse and found it to be 12 metres.

Not quite. I took a line from the body to east corner of the gateway, and found the point on that line that would put him in the middle of the street (the idea is that he starts walking diagonally towards what he's seen. And that point, in the middle of the street, is 12m from the body, the wool warehouse would be 24 m. So if he notices the "shape" at 24m, I could see him working out what it was at 12m. But that's the question, isn't it?

I thought this to be an inordinate distance to be seeing a shape in the dark. I have just done a re-enactment on a paved area at the rear of my home by placing a large red builder's barrow, turned over, at a distance of 12 metres. Time was shortly before midnight. I left on the light in the upstairs bathroom which provided some illumination through the window. At 12 metres I could not make out the barrow at all. At six metres I could make out a shape, but I was looking for it where as Lechmere would not have been doing so, and I was unable to identify it as a barrow. At about 3 metres I could see it was a turned over barrow. I am unable to accept that Lechmere would have been able to discern any form of tarpaulin at a distance of 12 metres. I seem to recall that Buck's Row was about 20 feet wide, i.e. about 6 metres, so I consider it reasonable that Lechmere may have discerned a shape from directly opposite on the other side of the road, and clarified that it was a woman at a distance of about 3 metres, i.e. from the centre of the road. This is important because Lechmere drew Paul's attention to a woman lying in the street, and I have satisfied myself that it was not possible for him to know that it was a woman from a distance of 12, or even 6, metres. Neil Bell said he was was "just approaching Essex Wharf when, across the road he saw "something lying in front of the gateway like a tarpaulin". He wandered across to the centre of the road and saw it was a woman." He cites his references as the Times account of the inquest and Home Office File Ref HO 144/221/A49301C, f. 8. I find this to be more reasonable and reliable than confused press accounts relating that the body was located in the gateway of the wool warehouse.

Cheers, George

Nice to see some recreation ideas being tested. Since we don't know all the conditions of the day, would probably have to do a bunch of these to get an idea of how variable things can be though (including different "observers", as we don't know if your night vision and Cross/Lechmere's night vision are similar or not, etc).

One question though, if the light you left on is in front of you at all, that's going to severely limit your ability to see the barrow even if the light is well above you and off to the side. If that's the arrangement, this sounds more like the situation that PC Harvey would have been in when he patrolled Church Passage and explains how he could have missed seeing JtR and Eddowes. You may get a very different result if your light source is behind you (and give yourself some time for your eyes to adjust too, of course, as anyone involved at the time would have had).

Anyway, in my view, these sorts of things are what we should be doing more of. And if people do try setting things up, it is really helpful to outline what the set up is, and the more details you can provide with exact positions (and even, if possible, how bright the lights are with a light meter, etc) then that really helps everyone know what was done. It's hard to understand results if one doesn't fully understand what they are the result of, after all. That's our problem with the case information; we don't really know all the details from 1888. We can at least work out all the details of things we do ourselves.

- Jeff

[MrBarnett]

I understand giving up pay but if he hadn’t gone to the Inquest then the police (and the Press for that matter) would have had an anonymous man who had been with the body alone when Paul arrived and who could have been identified by two people (one of who was a Constable) Someone that the Police would definitely wanted a chat with to say the least. How comfortable would Lechmere have been walking the streets with the very reasonable chance of bumping into Paul or Mizen at some point?

……..

Lechmere estimated that he’d heard Paul approach from around 40 yards away. Obviously this might actually have been a shorter distance or perhaps longer as he was only estimating but he still heard him first.

The only suggestion that can be made against this is the chance of him possible running into a Constable whereas waiting for Paul meant definitely running into a Constable. And even then why would a Constable have been interested in a man walking to work if he didn’t know there had been a murder and how could he have so soon after the event?

When you weigh up the pro’s and con’s of staying or fleeing there really is no contest in my opinion. Brazenness doesn’t come into it. A decision to stay would have been 90%+ certain to end in disaster whilst a decision to flee must have held a 10%- chance of ending badly. (Obviously these figures are just my own estimations) The decision was a no-brainier. Remaining screams innocent to me and most others I’d say.

And it appears to have screamed innocence to Paul and Mizen. So, what we have to ask ourselves is whether Lechmere would have seen it that way and whether, assuming he was the killer, he might have had the presence of mind to act accordingly.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Matey, if ya wanna know what really, really, *really* freaks me out, it's the fact that poor Chapman was killed 320 feet from the street out of which Robert Paul worked...

Yes, only 8 days later, Lechmere deliberately left a body at 'Y', an address they'd walked past together, and which was *100 metres away* from the street ('X') the other guy had been walking to...




Yeah, Druitt might have done that. Or Kosminski. Or Bury. Or Tumblety. Or hundreds of bloody others. Deffies. I mean, they're *all* gonna be heading straight for *the workplace of Robert Paul*, aren't they? A man who just discovered a man who just discovered a body...

M.

And depending on whether you believe the doctors estimated TOD or give substance to the witnesses the possibility exists that Chapman was killed well after Lechmere had started work.

[GBinOz]

Hi George,

Thanks for your reply. I see what you mean now, going by Jeff's 12 metres. I have a couple of remarks.

First, here I measured it to be around 17.5 metres or 57 feet from the pavement in front of the gateway of the wool warehouse to where Nichols lay, not 12.

Secondly, good that you did this re-enactment, it's always good to try things to see if something was realistic/might work or not. The obvious difficulty with this is, as Abby said, that we don't know how the actual ligthing conditions were (where was/were the light source(s), and how much ligth did it/they give?). While I accept your results, I think it might be interesting, too, to try and see how much light you need for the 'he noticed something as he was passing the gateway to the wool warehouse' to work. If that would be clearly too much light, then we might exclude it without scruples.

Thirdly, I don't want to nitpick, but Neil Bell's "approaching Essex Wharf" means that he wouldn't have reached Essex Wharf yet, and Essex Wharf was directly opposite where she lay.

Cheers,
Frank

Hi Frank,

The amount of light is the unknown factor. Neil testified that there was a street lamp at the end of the row" but didn't specify which end. It was his statement that prompted me to leave on a light in the house. I don't know how midnight in Australia in January compares to 3:45am in London at the end of August. Is there any twilight effect? Was there any light from the fire that was burning in the docks that night? The variable light experiment would require me to join the wallabies at dawn and I'm not sure how much enthusiasm could be elicited from my wife (or the wallabies) for that notion. I think the defining factor is Lechmere's testimony that when directly over the body he was unable to see that her throat had been cut. The possibility of discerning a tarpaulin that has managed to shape itself like a diminutive woman at 12, or worse, 17.5 metres in that level of darkness, to me, does not bear consideration.

Best regards, George

[Abby Normal]

Matey, if ya wanna know what really, really, *really* freaks me out, it's the fact that poor Chapman was killed 320 feet from the street out of which Robert Paul worked...

Yes, only 8 days later, Lechmere deliberately left a body at 'Y', an address they'd walked past together, and which was *100 metres away* from the street ('X') the other guy had been walking to...




Yeah, Druitt might have done that. Or Kosminski. Or Bury. Or Tumblety. Or hundreds of bloody others. Deffies. I mean, they're *all* gonna be heading straight for *the workplace of Robert Paul*, aren't they? A man who just discovered a man who just discovered a body...

M.

interesting Mark
oh I forgot to add earlier re your map on the Lech Triangle-I think Millwood was one of his early botched attacks and that was right near Tabram, the next victim in the series IMHO, and again inside the triangle.

[drstrange169]

>>The reports that mention the wool house gateway actually say that the BODY was lying in the wool house gateway.<<

If the body was in the wool warehouse gateway, why did he step into the centre of the road to get a better look at it? I know you are desperate, but a modicum of commonsense has to come into it.

[Mark J D]

And depending on whether you believe the doctors estimated TOD or give substance to the witnesses the possibility exists that Chapman was killed well after Lechmere had started work.

And if I ever need a definition of 'desperation', it will be a tale of how someone fought a measurement of geographical distance by citing a man who stuck his hand in the guts of a corpse and said how warm it all felt, and a woman who said a cadaver looked like someone she saw in the street but didn't pay attention to since there were often women there...

You wanna play those flat-earther games, be my bloody guest. *Things have moved on*.

M.