Evidence of innocence

[Fisherman]

When we talk of nonsense Fish don’t you think it’s nonsense to keep branding an unnamed killer as a ‘phantom killer in an attempt to ridicule the suggestion?” Ted Bundy was a phantom killer until he was caught and named.

Bundy WAS caught and named, yes. And so he is no phantom killer anymore. Nor are Ridgway, Gacy, Dahmer, Gein, Armstrong etcetera. But the phantom killer of Whitechapel remains a phantom killer.
One thing that should be weighed into the matter here - and you forgot to do so - is that when Bundy roamed the american society, there was no other suspect who could be pointed to. And so there was a certainty that there WAs a killer on the loose. This is not so in the Whitechapel case - we have a man who was observed alone in very close proximity to one of the victims at the approximate time of her death, and who is a very, very close fit geographically for all the Spitalfields murders, and so it is not as if it is any certainty at all that there was ANOTHER killer on the loose. The more probable thing is that the person of flesh and blood whose existence and geographical correlation to the Spitalfields murders is proven (unless he did not go to work on the other Spitalfields murder days) was the killer. It can never be a better suggestion that a phantom killer, a totally unestablished existence, is as likely a killer or even a likelier one than a person whose existence IS proven.
I am not ridiculing you or anybody else by pointing this out. I am merely establishing that before we can rule Lechmere out in any way at all, that phantom killer has to be found or at least his existence has to become a proven matter.

There isn’t a solitary piece of evidence that precludes a killer fleeing the scene just before Lechmere got there. He might even have heard Lechmere approach. Again isn’t it ‘strange’ that some are quite willing to suggest that Paul disturbed Lechmere but are quite unwilling to countenance the suggestion that Lechmere might have disturbed someone. This, though inconvenient, is 100% plausible and renders any blood evidence completely null and void. The only difference is that we can put a name to Lechmere and we can’t put a name to our unknown killer. Unknown killers exist.

Who is unwilling to admit that there may have been another killer? Not me. But I am certainly saying that he is nothing but a fantasy - yes, a phantom killer if you like - until we can prove that he existed. And I am saying that being observed at a murder site alone in very close proximity to the murder victim, thereqafter proving to be a geographical close fit for the rest of the Spitalfields murders is an exremely good reason to consider somebody the prime suspect of a case as long as no obstacle can be presented for him having been able to carry the murder out, and also as long as no other contender for the title as the killer can be identified or påroven to have existed.
And we both know quite well that there never was any obstacle identified for Lechmere having killed Nichols, just as we both know that there never was anybody else identified and revealed as the killer, with evidence to go with the identification.

It is - or should be - easy in the extreme. Five cases of murders. In four of them, no culprit can be revealed as potentially having played the killers role. In the fifth, one man is observed at the murder site in close proximity to the victim at a remove in time that is perfectly consistent with him being the killer. Moreover, he fits the rest of the Spitalfields murders geographically too.
Is it a hard question to answer, given that information, who is the prime suspect? Is it a tough call to make?

And no, he wasn’t found by ‘the side of a murder victim’ he was in the middle of the road.

Again, he was spoken of as both "where the body was" and as in the middle of the road - that was 24 feet wide. And we donīt know how long he had been there. That means that the problem of opportunity is solved. And that is ALL there is to it. If he was a foot from, two yards from or twenty feet from the body is of secondary interest. He could have killer her - THAT is of PRIMARY interest.

And no he wasn’t there at a time ‘consistent with him being the murder’ because a) we don’t know what time he actually left the house, and b) we don’t know exactly what time he arrived in Bucks Row, and c) we don’t know exactly what time Robert Paul arrived. So we have 3 unknowns from which we can only derive estimates. Yes, if you skew them a certain way a gap will appear but if you allow for a reasonable margin for error there are many combinations (the majority if I recall correctly) which result in no gap. I’m not saying that there couldn’t have been one (I’ve never said that) just that there’s no evidence that there was one. It can’t help but be noticeable to an outsider looking in that only one side of this debate appears to understand what an estimate is and to make reasonable allowances for it whilst the other side seems rather keen to tie these down to closer (and more favourable) times.

He is PROVEN to have been there at a time that is consistent with him having killed her. She bled for many minutes afterwaards, and that seals that deal effectively. The one reason that we cannot say that it proves that he was the killer is that the phantom killer may ALSO have been there at a time that is consistent with being her killer. His existence is unproven and he fits the bill as presented by Payne James and Thiblin to a much lesser degree, but he cannot be ruled out entirely.

What has suffered from ‘dementia’ Fish is this gap distortion. And distortion is certainly what it is. It’s the wilful stating of an unknown as a know to achieve a favourable outcome. It’s a non-point that should be dropped. And without this sinister gap we have no real reason for suspicion. The gap was and had been the opening gambit that sets the tactics in the debate. It’s been categorically refuted.

Without the time gap - and I am presuming you are referring to the suggestion that he would have arrived in Bucks Row many minutes before Paul, is that correct? - we STILL have him being observed standing alone at the murder site at a remove in time that is perfectly cnsistent with him having killed Nichols, and we STILL have him fitting the geographical profile for the Spitalfields murders very closely. That alone - and it is BEFORE we start discussing name changes, disagreements with the police, the refusal to help prop Nichols up, Pauls not saying that he heard or saw Lechmere before he arrived at Browns and indeed also the approximate time he gave for his departure - is quite, quite enough to make him the prime suspect and a very good suspect. The gap is of much, much lesser importance in that regard. it belongs to the overall picture that made Scobie say that a jury would NOT like him, but has much less impact on his status as the prime suspect and probale killer of Polly Nichols.

It is only if you claim that being observed all alone with a freshly killed victim of murder at a time that is perfectly consistent with being the killer, plus fitting the geographical profile for the Spitalfileds murders is completely trivial and something that should not carry any suspicion at all with itself that you can offer a position from which to fight a case against what I say. And if THAT is the kind of position you are going to take, you will look extremely ridiculous.
The one and only position from which you can present a reasonable case is by accepting to the full that there is a formidable case against Lechmere - but that there nevertheless exists a possibility that it was instead ... well ... you-know-who who did it.

[Fisherman]

No, that is not true at all. EVERY discovery of a dead body is unique. In Lechmeres case, we have a "finder" who does his "finding" ALONE,

So nobody as ever found a body alone ?

There is also the fact that in many cases of people finding murder victims, the real killer is subsequently identified, exonerating the finder - if the killer was somebody else. But that phantom killer of yours remain smoke and mirrors only.

So every time someone has found a recently killed person alone and the killer is not found that person is guilty of the murder. Diemschultz killed Liz then and P.C. Ernest Thompson killed Francis for instance

So we do not have just an ordinary case of someone finding a dead body, do we? We have a man observed alone by the side of a murder victim at a point in time that is consistent with him being the killer, and we have no trace whatsoever of another killer, nor will such a man be identified.

He wasn't at the side of Polly he was in the middle of the road.

In this kind of case, the finder will, unless there is reason to think he could not have committed the murder, become a suspect. on VERY good grounds! And that means that his person will be checked for geography, with the stance of the police that if he does not fit the geographical profile, he will be graded down in terms of the suspicions that rest on him, whereas if he DOES fit the geography, the suspicions will be greatly reinforced.

Yes this is true but the same could be said about Paul having ties to Whitechapel

The argument "somebody had to find her" has suffered badly from dementia for years now, Herlock, and we really should not even try to reintroduce it on a scene where it never belonged in the first place.

So that theory should not be looked at ? The jails would be full of innocent people

"Head and shoulders" above the other suspects does not cover it - he is above them from the kneecaps up!

The police at the time don't seem to think so, and as for the argument that they wouldn't have at least questioned lech . Well it is just my opinion but i find that virtually zero on a scale of one to a hundred

Regards Darryl

See my answer to Herlock.

[Herlock Sholmes]

It is not treated as gospel at all. What I say and have always said is that since we do not know the sources of the given times, some cuation must be exercised. That stands.

However - and that is a very important however - since we do have the "exactly 3.45" statement, that belongs to the overall picture. Just as we cannot "treat it as gospel", we cannot treat it as non existant either. And the fact of the matter is that it fits perfectly with what Paul said at the inquest, so there is no much wriggle room offered in that respect. Of course, we can always suggest that the source for the timing would have been way wrong, but since there is also Llewellyns timing to weigh in, and since that timing must also have been wrong - in the same exact manner! - the proposition that Pauls timings was more or less correct must remain a strong one.

A ‘possibility’ isn’t nearly good enough because the ‘possibility’ exists that he was wrong. He could have said ‘exactly 3.45’ to 100 different people and it still would come close to meaning that he was correct because we don’t know (we can’t know) how he arrived at that time. It might easily have been a clock that was a very few minutes out. Then of course we have to ask why his time is more reliable than the times of 2 Constable’s? These are simply unknowns.

Paul’s time is no more or less strong than Neil and Mizen’s. We can’t narrow down to suit. The timings don’t point to anything sinister and they certainly don’t prove anything.

[Fisherman]

Can someone help me here? I'm way out of my depth.

Can anyone see a reason why this guy thinks the brewery which, on my 1890s map, is located between the bottom of Robert Paul's road and the start of Buck's Row should be the same brewery with the same clock that Mrs Long heard three quarters of a mile away near the far end of Hanbury Street...?

Is he simply posting some kind of piss-taking word-salad? I can't tell, anymore. Genuinely.

M.

Oh dear.

R J? Any comment on this small matter?

[Fisherman]

I freely admit that I’m not an expert in Victorian breweries (their locations or whether or not that had clocks that chimed) but whatever clock we might consider wouldn’t you admit that it’s possible that Paul might have heard a clock chime 3.45 but it was actually 2, 3, 4 minutes earlier?

Of course he could. But R J made the point that it would have been THE SAME brewery clock, I believe.

[Fisherman]

You really don't comprehend how I did that recreation do you? It's clear you don't understand what it shows because what it shows it that your reason for shifting PC Neil, PC Thain, and PC Mizen's testified times (which now appears to be to anchor to Dr. L's time) is unfounded. Dr. L's testimony is also similar to the recreation's estimations, and the recreation doesn't change the evidence. It provies approximations for the terms "about" and "not far off".

Because you are still touting the idea that when Baxter says the body was discovered "not far off 3:45" that means he meant "at 3:45", which is not what he says. He's saying the carmen found the body at a time different from, but not by a large amount, from 3:45. The recreation suggests around 3:41, and by any reasonable and objective standard, that is "not far off 3:45".

If you are interested in truth, then you should stop changing Baxter's statement to try and make it sound like he's saying something that he's not.


- Jeff

If Baxter had said that the time was not far off 3.45, you would have a point.

But Baxter said that "The time at which the body was found cannot have been far from 3.45 a.m., as it is fixed by so many independent data", and that does not mean that he rules out 3.45, it means that he rules out any times far removed from 3.45. In essence, the further away from 3.45 we get, the less likely the time is to be correct. And the likeliest time to be correct is 3.45.

I am very interested in the truth, by the way. And very sure where I need not to go looking for it.

[Fisherman]

GBinOZ 7/7/2021:

"I have done some research and have found that there was a clock tower in the Albion Brewery. I haven't been able to determine if it was multi-faced or if it chimed. Apparently some Brewery clocks did chime, some only the hour and others every quarter."


If you have more precise information, by all means post it.

Some of the expansion to the Albion Brewery didn't occur until after 1893, but it is unclear what all was involved. We know Truman's brewery chimed in 1888, do you know for a fact that Albion's did?

By the way, the distance from the Buck's Row murder site to Truman's was about .5 miles as the crow flies, but the point is somewhat moot, since nowhere does Paul say how he determined the time; we only know that his estimation conflicts with that of every other witness, when properly evaluated.

Face it, R J - your point was shattered. Maybe we cant tell which brewery clock that shattered it, but shattered it remains.

[rjpalmer]

Paul definitely wasn’t going to see that clock in 1888.

Thanks, Gary. You may have missed my disclaimer in Post #5088:

“Some of the expansion to the Albion Brewery didn't occur until after 1893”

In the print you posted, it shows the older clock in basically same location—facing Whitechapel Road.

Only it's even smaller and lower!




My point remains the same. And what other clock is Paul going to see in this “massive complex”?

The map from 1890 shows "Brick Wall 14’ high" and "15’ pile of coal" all along his route, and it’s pitch black at 3.36 a.m. (my estimate)

[rjpalmer]

Face it, R J - your point was shattered. Maybe we cant tell which brewery clock that shattered it, but shattered it remains.

Shattered? Not at all, Fish. See the above post. Unless you can show this clock chimed.

Gary can say that all the timings should be taken with a 'pinch of salt,' which is wise enough advice, since it is truly a fool's errand to analyze these small commonplace discrepancies and pretend that it proves there was "missing time," thus pointing to CAL's guilt.

But if one is going to analyze the times endlessly and repetitively, as seems to be the case, then it becomes abundantly clear that Robert Paul is the odd man out. CAL, Mizen, Neil, and Thain all do the Doveton dovetail in perfect sync; it is only Paul's strange '3:45' that throws a spanner onto the dance floor.

And if you look at the Hanbury Street murder, which has probably been most carefully analyzed by David Yost and Phil Sugden, we see the same thing: all the accounts dovetail perfectly, with the exception of Elizabeth Long, who appears to have been late to the party.

So why is it impossible that both Long and Paul may have been misled by a common source, making them both around 5-7 minutes too late their estimates?

Long directly said she heard the chime of the brewery clock while in Brick Lane. It is assumed this is Truman's up the road.

We don't actually know on what Paul based his estimate, but we do know with relative certainty it wasn't from seeing a clock along his route. Thus, hearing a chime might be a possibility. It's 3.35 a.m. Deadly quiet. Why couldn't he have heard Truman's from a half-mile away? I'm not married to the idea, but is it impossible?

[Fisherman]

I find the torso links a little bit desperate to be honest.

Honesty is a good thing, so Iīm glad youre trying your hand at the discipline! However, I was very honest too in pointing out that there are no other cases of two serial killers in the same geographical area and in overlapping times and with eviscerations on the menu. And I was honest in pointing out that both series involved the cutting away of the abdominal wall in sections, an extremely rare feature - you are welcome to list the many examples you can find, of course! And I was honest in pointing out that victims from both series had their abdomens cut open from pubes to ribs. And had hearts removed. And had uteri taken out. And involved tolen rings. And involved prostituted victims.
So you see, we are two patently honest posters doing this battle. But I seem to be the only one equipped with real armory.

I believe you are so infatuated with Lechmere that you have to have his fictional career of terror covering the entire final quarter of the 19th century. Despite no evidence, whatsoever, for anything sinister. From what I've read on here, most of your followers have succumbed to gullibility and swallowed a map.

To me, gullibility equals being aware of a list such as the one above and siding with the ones who oppose/deny/dislike it. As for doing the old "He thinks Lechmere did all the victorian London murders"-jig, my feeling is that it is rather a dumb thing to say Honest? Possibly. But dumb nevertheless.
I think the carman was responsible for around a dozen murders or so, and I donīt exclude that it could be more. If you find that suggestion outrageous, then be aware that the alternative is that the many evisceration murders were in fact carried out by an array of eviscerators.
In my world, the likely thing when you have a string of evisceration murders in overlapping time and the same city, is that we are dealing with the same perpetrator. If the forensic evidence supports the notion, it is almost a watertight thing, even, owing to the rarity of this type of killer.
But you have two, three or thriteen Jeffey Dahmers lined up for us, I believe? And you are honest?

What does a modern day expert say about the pinchin street torso: 'However, the killer’s signature characteristics did not change, and the evidence demonstrates that the same person murdered Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes and Kelly. The murders of Smith, Mylett, McKenzie, the unidentified victim (this is the Pinchin Street torso), and Coles could not be linked through signature analysis to other cases.'

"A modern day expert"? I see. Well, other experts have disagreed over the years, like for example Richard Whittington-Egan, and so I put very little stock in such matters.

The above is from the Keppel paper. I'm not saying this is definitive, but who should we trust on this subject? An armchair hobbyist or someone who helped track down Bundy and was asked to assist on the Green River case? Someone who had the relevant skills, knowledge and experience to know what he is talking about, or an enthusiast?

Oh, donīt be shy - why not claim it IS definitive? Otherwise I may just point out that Keppel was a criminal profiler, a profesion that has proven itself unreliable in the extreme. But you should not pit Keppel against me, you should pit him against Whittington-Egan, who spent a lifetime researching the Ripper and Torso cases.
Refresh my memory, please - how much time did Keppel spend on these cases?
You see, that kind of stuff was never going to work in the first place. You could have PM:d me, and I would have told you in advance.

As a very small and humble aside, yes, I am "an enthusiast", and yes, I can be referred to as "an armchair hobbyist", I guess. But I have written numerous articles on the subject, I have writtena a book on it, I have made a documentary about the case, and I am a journalist who writes about old criminal cases over here is Sweden for a magazine with that particular scope. I am entertaining the hope that this has given me some amount of insight about the case, over-ambitious though it may sound.
How about you?

[Herlock Sholmes]

If Baxter had said that the time was not far off 3.45, you would have a point.

But Baxter said that "The time at which the body was found cannot have been far from 3.45 a.m., as it is fixed by so many independent data", and that does not mean that he rules out 3.45, it means that he rules out any times far removed from 3.45. In essence, the further away from 3.45 we get, the less likely the time is to be correct. And the likeliest time to be correct is 3.45.

I am very interested in the truth, by the way. And very sure where I need not to go looking for it.

You are transplanting a meaning that doesn’t exist Fish.

’Not far from 3.45’ simply (and only) means some time close to 3.45. ‘Close’ is not a definite. It means ‘near to’ or ‘not far away from.’ The independent data that he had was PC Neil, PC Mizen and then Llewellyn telling him that she hadn’t been dead long.

There is no ‘likeliest time.’ Any time between 3.40 and 3.45 is a possibility and is equally supported by what information that we have. Deliberately trying to narrow times down won’t work I’m afraid. It just creates the impression that this is a determined effort.

Not a single timing damages Lechmere in any way.

[Fisherman]

Hi all,

Given some of the claims that times are being shifted from the testimony, I just thought I would present the estimated times (to minutes, dropping the seconds as obviously that's a degree of precision we don't need to argue over) and the testimony that these estimations would correspond to:

Estimated Time - Event – Testified time (witness)
3:33 : – Cross/Lechmere leaves home – “about 3:30” (Cross/Lechmere)
3:39 – Paul leaves home (2m 25s walk based upon distance and 3.2 mph walking speed) – “left home about 3:45” (Paul; 6m interval corresponding to “about”)
3:41 – Paul and Cross/Lechmere meet & discover the body – “not more than 4 minutes” – (Paul) referring to how long before they meet PC Mizen, estimated interval 3m 48s and "not far off 3:45" Baxter's summing up
3:45 – PC Mizen with Paul and Cross/Lechmere – 3:45 (PC Mizen)

• PC Neil discovers Nichols – 3:45 (PC Neil)
• PC Thain is called to crime scene – “about 3:45” (PC Thain)

3:46 – PC Thain is on his way to the doctors
3:46 – PC Mizen heads to crime scene (the encounter appears short, so I’ve used 1 minute for the carmen to alert PC Mizen to the woman they’ve seen, etc)
3:49 – PC Mizeen arrives at crime scene 3m 18s later (calculated from distance and 3.2 mph walking speed)
3:47/3:48 – PC Thain arrives at doctors
3:55/3:56: - Dr. Llewellyn leaves (previous interval based upon Dr. Blackwell’s “time to get ready” from the Stride case)
3:58/4:00 – Dr. Llewellyn arrives at the crime scene.

Note, I've got 2 sets of times for Dr. Llewellyn as I considered two possible routes for PC Thain to have travelled to the doctors, and of course, the same 2 options are open for the Dr's trip to the crime scene.

Estimating times, like Paul's leaving home, is not chosen at random, it's based upon measuring the distance and using the average walking speed for an adult. I can't "fudge" those aspects of how these times come out.

There are 3 points, though, where I do have to estimate things, how long the carmen examine the body (I went with 30 seconds as they really didn't seem to do much), how long PC Thain might have stayed at the crime scene (or the possibility of an interval between PC Neil finding the body and then summoning PC Thain - I've set those at 0, so this is a version that works in favour of Christer as it means PC Thain cannot get to the doctor's any sooner than what I've set these at), and how long it takes Dr. L. to "get up, get dressed, etc". That is the trickiest one. In my time line for the Stride case, though, I worked out how long Dr. Blackwell appears to have required, so I'm using that as my best estimate for "doctor prep time" - it's not arbitrary to make it fit, it's a value I estimated from another case which I'm reusing here.

And that ends up with the Doctor leaving home at 3:55 or 3:56, and arriving at the crime scene at 3:58/4:00 (the differences reflect the shorter vs longer travel routes available), and those correspond to Dr. L's testimony.

None of the estimations are "shifting" anything, nor am I fudging anything or misrepresenting any statements. Almost everything falls within a couple minutes of the "about X" times. The largest discrepancy is Paul's "about 3:45" for his departure time. The estimation of 3:39 is a 6 minute difference, which I would suggest is acceptable given his qualified time statement.

Christer has presented his notions above, and he's got all of the police times in the 3:50s, and claims he has to do this to make Dr. L's testimony fit. I suggest that it is not necessary to shift the sworn testimonies of the police, whose job required them to be aware of the time (PC Mizen was knocking people up after all), it simply requires the assumption that Dr. L. didn't sleep in his boots.

- Jeff

"3.46. Thain is on his way to the doctors"

Guesswork, Iīm afraid. And again, if Thain left at 3.46, he would arrrive at Llewellyns practice at 3.48. Llewellyn said that he was called to Bucks Row by Thain at either approximately 3.55 or approximately 4.00. If we accept 3.57.30 as a Solomonic mediary time, then. Thain arrived nine and a half minutes too early.

And yes, we can use the times as juggling balls if we feel like it.

Itīs just that I donīt feel like it. I am not much of a juggler, and I recognize that there is a very bad risk that I would drop the balls. You are seemingly much less daunted by such a prospect.

[rjpalmer]

Didn't it used to be said that a Cockney was someone within six miles of the 'Bow Bells' because, presumably, one could hear the bells from that distance?

But it's ludicrous that Paul could have heard the Truman brewery clock from .5 miles away?

Maybe, I don't know. I do remember that there was some effort to ascertain what sort of chime this particular clock gave out (Westminister, etc) because one theory was that Elizabeth Long mistook 3:15 for 3:30. Somewhere someone must know.

[Fisherman]

What mattered to Paul was what time his employer thought it was when he arrived. A systematic error in a clock on his way there is something he'd learn to be pretty clear about, wouldn't you say?

M.

Ooooph. Itīs that logic again.

[Trevor Marriott]

Are you suggesting that LLewellyn made his call based on the brewery clock too, R J?

Elizabeth Longs story was - wisely - not prioritized over Phillips estimation in the eyes of the police and Donald Swanson. Consequently, ALL of her story is in doubt, the brewery clock included.

This thread dealing with the 3.45am issue is becoming boring and repetetive

If Pc Neil is to be belived that the body was not there at 3.15am, then she could equally have been killed between 3.15am and 3.45am so trying to pin the time of death to fit Lecmheres movements is a pointless excercise which you have to support to fit your theory

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk