Evidence of innocence

[The Baron]

What if Paul had been interrupted by Lechmere? He took off and lapped around, hoping Lechmere would ignore the body and he could finish the job. He wouldn't be the only serial killer to return to the victim. Only a psychopath would engage in such risky behaviour.

We know that there are inconsistencies in Paul's inquest testimony and his quotes to the press, and his attempts to frame himself as the good samaritan and Lechmere as a confrontational stranger could be seen as a deflection tactic. He also had to be tracked down by the police and summoned to the inquest.

Paul was a local carman, who would've been familiar with the geography of the area, and two of his work routes coincided with the murder sites.

To the gallows with him!

Agree Harry, Paul would make a million times better suspect than Lechmere!


Look at it this way, Lechmere found a body and noticed a man, he didn't see anyone there other than Paul.


Put 2 and 2 together, Paul is the ripper!




Better than Lechmere for sure!




The Baron

[Fisherman]

Agree Harry, Paul would make a million times better suspect than Lechmere!


Look at it this way, Lechmere found a body and noticed a man, he didn't see anyone there other than Paul.


Put 2 and 2 together, Paul is the ripper!




Better than Lechmere for sure!




The Baron

A lifetime of fishing has taught me what kind of bait to use when looking for the big ones. They won´t bite on anything.

Not everybody has that experience, it would appear.

[FrankO]

I don´t think we are going to get much further on the timings, Frank - whichever way we cut things, we must both admit that we canot be certain of how and when the minutes passed in Bucks Row. There are things I still dislike about your timekeeping, but I don´t think it would be productive to dwell any more on it, unless you feel so inclined. I would preferto wait until you read my take on things in the book, and then we can pick up where we left off now.

Although I’m a little disappointed by your reply, Chirster, I’m fine with leaving things as they are now until, someday, I’ve read your book. You do make me curious, as you seem to suggest that some lost ingredient in the whole Buck’s Row recipe is to be found in your book, although I think it’ll rather be a lost ingredient that should string the Torso and Ripper series together.

As to the Buck’s Row timings, I agree that neither of us can pinpoint the comings & goings of all those who played a part, and that things also depend on which of the timings you put more stock in. However, I think that doing such exercises and discussing them does give us a better insight into one murder or another, into what’s possible, probable or even impossible. In this case, it made me study Broad Street Station and see that Lechmere, quite probably, entered the Broad Street Station premises on either Worship Street or Appold Street or possibly Primrose Street or Skinner Street - but not Eldon Street. All of these entrances were close to the stables, Pickford’s order office and the time keepers’ office. But that’s probably for another time, too, or for another thread…

[Fisherman]

Although I’m a little disappointed by your reply, Chirster, I’m fine with leaving things as they are now until, someday, I’ve read your book. You do make me curious, as you seem to suggest that some lost ingredient in the whole Buck’s Row recipe is to be found in your book, although I think it’ll rather be a lost ingredient that should string the Torso and Ripper series together.

As to the Buck’s Row timings, I agree that neither of us can pinpoint the comings & goings of all those who played a part, and that things also depend on which of the timings you put more stock in. However, I think that doing such exercises and discussing them does give us a better insight into one murder or another, into what’s possible, probable or even impossible. In this case, it made me study Broad Street Station and see that Lechmere, quite probably, entered the Broad Street Station premises on either Worship Street or Appold Street or possibly Primrose Street or Skinner Street - but not Eldon Street. All of these entrances were close to the stables, Pickford’s order office and the time keepers’ office. But that’s probably for another time, too, or for another thread…

That issue - the entrance matter - has been discussed on numerous occasions, without any certainties coming from it. I think we would need contemporary sources to establish the full truth, and so far, those sources have not been identified as far as I know.

As for lost ingredients, I have found no such thing. Overlooked ones are another matter, though ...

[FrankO]

That issue - the entrance matter - has been discussed on numerous occasions, without any certainties coming from it. I think we would need contemporary sources to establish the full truth, and so far, those sources have not been identified as far as I know.

Even though I see good reason to think that Lechmere did arrive in time for work on the morning of the murder and why both an innocent and a guilty Lehcmere would have told the truth about that time, that indeed doesn't mean it happened and, having now read some of the discussions you refer to, I have to admit that the Eldon Street entrance has to remain on the table.

As for lost ingredients, I have found no such thing. Overlooked ones are another matter, though ...

"Overlooked" sounds good, too...

[Fisherman]

Even though I see good reason to think that Lechmere did arrive in time for work on the morning of the murder and why both an innocent and a guilty Lehcmere would have told the truth about that time, that indeed doesn't mean it happened and, having now read some of the discussions you refer to, I have to admit that the Eldon Street entrance has to remain on the table.

In a sense, I don´t think it would do much harm to the theory if we took Eldon Street off the table (although no such thing can be done so far as I can see). What we would get is a scenario where Lechmere supposedly used Hanbury Street every day, and what that would do would be to cast the Tabram murder into doubt, as to whether or not it was a Ripper strike. And the Tabram murder has always been the odd one out in many a way. So if we lift it out of the picture, we instead get a more or less perfect three canonical murders picture, with Lechmere passing by Nichols and Chapman and perhaps picking Kelly up in Hanbury Street, and then going to her room, a very short walk that would not take Lechmere out of direction in any significant way. Plus it would have the advantage that my ears would be spared another "You cannot PROVE he used Old Montague Street!"

Then again, if we allow for Eldon Street as an alternative entrance, Tabram suddenly fits the bill again. If the Eldon Street entrance was used by carmen en route to their Pickfords work, then it would have been a passing point that fit Lechmere´s old lodgings in James Street very well, and it may be that he always used it as he lived there - and that he used it after Tabram. The one thing we can tell with certainty is that Lechmere would have traversed Whitechapel/Spitalfields in an east-westerly direction in the early mornings, and so I don´t think that the question whether or not he used the Eldon Street entrance is something that materially changes the carmans´ candidacy.

It would have been another matter if it could be proven or suggested that Lechmere did NOT traverse the area in question but instead some other area, but that is not so.
The case against Lechmere in not built on the geographical correlation. The correlations is instead used to test whether or not the case as such is a viable one, in terms of geography. And it is, regardless of which door Lechmere used after traversing Whitechapel/Spitalfields.

"Overlooked" sounds good, too...

There´s a number of reasons for why the book is titled "Cutting Point".

[Mark J D]

That issue - the entrance matter - has been discussed on numerous occasions, without any certainties coming from it. I think we would need contemporary sources to establish the full truth, and so far, those sources have not been identified as far as I know.

My own hunt for plausible entrances and exits has been hampered by the difficulty of getting detailed maps of known date; but I did come across this photo from 1931.

https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/railwaymen-holding-an-unofficial-strike-outside-broad-news-photo/3310878?adppopup=true

Since it's a workers' strike, we may take it that the gate in question was operationally very significant. I'm guessing that this is down the west side of the Broad Street site: can anyone place it definitively and say if it's on an 1880s map as well?

M.

[DJA]

Broad Street railway station (England) - Wikipedia

[GBinOz]

Hi Christer,

I've just watched Ed Stow's latest Youtube video where he proposes that Lechmere may have brought Nichols from Whitechapel Road through Court St to where he killed her. If Polly was still plying her trade then Whitechapel Road would seem to be a more customer friendly location compared to Buck's Row, but if that was the case then the time for Lechmere to locate her in Whitechapel Road and for them to proceed to the murder site would need to be added to the calculations. Furthermore, the murder would have had to have been planned rather than an opportunistic encounter on a regular route to work.

A possibility that I have considered is that, as time passed, Polly may have abandoned her search for a customer and decided to sleep rough in the gateway and Lechmere, if he was the killer, found her and strangled her in her sleep. But that is pure conjecture.

Cheers, George

[Mark J D]

Broad Street railway station (England) - Wikipedia

Thanks. The most relevant thing available there seems to be this map...

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/broad_street/1896map.gif

Alas, I don't think it shows the best (western end) bits, which is where I think our 1931 big gate must be.

As a more general point, if anyone is reading: the (few) places I've worked that were related to logistics were all very concerned not to mix blue-collar and white-collar arrivals/departures -- and even more concerned not to have employees mixing with the public in anything except 'active customer service' contexts. I find it hard to believe that a society as super-stratified as 1880s London wanted a stream of carmen in boots and aprons and donkey jackets weaving their way through crowds of paying passengers. If Eldon Street contained the blue-collar clock-in/out desk as well as those in/out despatch control barriers (n.b. the 'time clock' as we know it was invented the day after Mary Kelly was buried), I wouldn't expect the workers to be arriving via Liverpool Street: I think they'd have a distant entrance that the ticket-buying public didn't need to see -- and they'd be told to get to it via a road the ticket-buying public didn't need to use. Think Appold Street or worse... If that meant any killer, I mean worker having to walk up to Skinner Street and go round, then who'd care? They weren't walking in works' time...

M.

[rjpalmer]

A possibility that I have considered is that, as time passed, Polly may have abandoned her search for a customer and decided to sleep rough in the gateway

Careful; those are fighting words.

[MrBarnett]

Careful; those are fighting words.

And in which case, JTR was either looking for an unfortunate on a deserted back street or he was indeed on his way to work and stumbled across her.

[MrBarnett]

[Mark J D]

Hi Christer,

I've just watched Ed Stow's latest Youtube video where he proposes that Lechmere may have brought Nichols from Whitechapel Road through Court St to where he killed her. If Polly was still plying her trade then Whitechapel Road would seem to be a more customer friendly location compared to Buck's Row, but if that was the case then the time for Lechmere to locate her in Whitechapel Road and for them to proceed to the murder site would need to be added to the calculations. Furthermore, the murder would have had to have been planned rather than an opportunistic encounter on a regular route to work.

A possibility that I have considered is that, as time passed, Polly may have abandoned her search for a customer and decided to sleep rough in the gateway and Lechmere, if he was the killer, found her and strangled her in her sleep. But that is pure conjecture.

Something that makes me prefer this route (orange line) over the ostensible route (yellow line) is that by both adding c.450 yards to Lechmere's journey and reversing the direction of his approach, it makes it plain that Robert Paul could never, ever have seen/heard him walking ahead of him. (I've put in a blue 'x' to try and show Paul's approximate '40 yards'...)

I don't know why The Stow prefers Court Street over Wood's Buildings -- though I gather the latter contained residential properties, and we know Winthrop Street had at least one watchman and a 24/7 horse-slaughtering operation in addition to the same number of houses as Buck's Row. Plus Court Street was probably a better route to see where the coppers were going. Aside from that, it's baffled me ever since I was a kid that poor Polly could have considerd that specific bit of Buck's Row a good place to take or find a customer. Something is still missing here.

Maybe the orange detour to the main road and all along one big block is an unnecessary violation of Occam's serial-killing Razor. Perhaps Lechmere proceded in the 'official' direction all the way down Buck's Row and, having scoped both coppers moving away from him, saw Polly soliciting at the undoubtedly better lit far end of Court Street. From a spot by the main road to the place where she was murdered is only c.180 yards...



M.

[Abby Normal]

And in which case, JTR was either looking for an unfortunate on a deserted back street or he was indeed on his way to work and stumbled across her.

hi gary
absolutely. ive often felt she may have gone into bucks row after not finding a client and decided to doze on the sidewalk and or up against a building/gateway. the time frames of her having just been killed recently when lech "found " her suggest it.