Evidence of innocence

[Fisherman]

The reason this was roundly rejected when Rubenhold suggested it is that people can't imagine a street smart woman like Nichols crashing on the pavement in a spot that would directly interfer with the path of a beat constable. It's not impossible, but its not plausible, either.

Sooner rather than later, Polly would have been run-in or moved off.

I see Ed Stowe is suggesting that Lechmere picked her up in the Whitechapel Road. This is not as damaging as Christer's theory of an entirely different punter having brought her into this darkened backstreet, but it does leave one wondering why a murderer would have brought a victim back to the very spot that he traversed at the same time every morning for months. Is that likely?

What you describe as my theory is one of a couple of suggestions I think work, R J. But that may perhaps not be ”damaging” enough for you?

[Mark J D]

... the main issue i have and have had from the beginning is not his killing along his work route, but killing on his way to/before work. it opens a whole lot of issues..blood being on him, how does he clean up, where at work does he stash his goodies, not enough time, would be late alot etc. to me it would make more logistical sense if he killed after work...

Of course, the problem with after-work killing is that in Lech's case a full working day might have him clocking off around 2pm Monday to Saturday, and he'd be walking back (maybe getting a lift part of the way on a mate's cart -- if that was allowable) while the sun was high and the streets were chocker. And with the likely regular 4am start at Broad St, he's gonna have to be cleansed, moisturized and up the apples by 8pm at the latest: not for him endless nights out boozing down the local and bitching about Juwes till the wee hours. (Possible cause of even more boiling rage from Lechmere the social descender...)

Having said all that, there are too many things we don't know, and which need to be researched to the extent still possible. My time in cement involved shifts that were rotated through three-week cycles of 'early, late, spare': 'early' (and 'spare') starting at 6am and 'late' starting at 11am. Call them 'Nichols', 'Chapman' and 'Kelly', if you like. To be honest, the idea of a shifting work rota is one of the things that's always jumped out at me from the '7th-31st-8th-30th-[??]-9th' murder pattern (and I'd sure like to know how Lechmere then got to Bradford to butcher poor little John Gill on a Saturday 29th...).

The various prior-to-work 'issues' you list can all be fitted into imagined arrangements and procedures; but none of those currently have actual knowledge they can be pinned to, so they're best kept out of an open forum dripping with hostility.

Bests,

M.

[Mark J D]

She’s still looking for money, though. Why not sit herself down in a doorway in the WR where she can doze and potentially meet a customer? Or call round at the knacker’s yard where men were working, in the hope of cadging a few pence, a cup of tea or something stronger?

Don't we know that at least one of the guys at work in Winthrop Street hated 'her sort'? Isn't that in the inquest testimony? Or did I dream it?

Plus, if its officially implausible that Nichols would have crashed in a back-street where a copper would find her (thread, passim), how is it plausible that she could get away with dozing in a doorway on a main road?

I'm not having a go at you, Gary. It's simply that I have to make a coherent picture out of all this.

M.

[MrBarnett]

Don't we know that at least one of the guys at work in Winthrop Street hated 'her sort'? Isn't that in the inquest testimony? Or did I dream it?

Plus, if its officially implausible that Nichols would have crashed in a back-street where a copper would find her (thread, passim), how is it plausible that she could get away with dozing in a doorway on a main road?

I'm not having a go at you, Gary. It's simply that I have to make a coherent picture out of all this.

M.

That has been blown out of proportion. Henry Tomkins tried to clumsily dodge the question of whether ‘women’ ever called at the yard. The obvious answer, if the didn’t, would have been an emphatic ‘NO!’, but Tomkins said something about not liking them or having nothing to do with them. This was the man who ran ahead of his mates to the crime scene.

There is nothing implausible about Polly having sat down and dozed off somewhere, and JTR, whose choice of victims was women just like her, having the good fortune to find her while he was walking through a dark backstreet. Some would have us believe he also found Tabram, Chapman and Eddowes asleep where they were murdered.

[MrBarnett]

When I describe Mumford and Brittain as Tomkins’s mates, I should qualify that by saying that he was the odd man out, a newbie. The other two were from Essex as was the Barber family who ran the yard. Tomkins on the other hand, although born in London, had grown up and learnt his trade in Manchester. It seems his family did not return to London until some time between November, 1887 and April, 1888. And the ones who survived returned to Manchester in the early 90s. Henry, his father and two of his brother’s children died during the family’s brief sojourn in the East End.

[MrBarnett]

The LNWR Goods Station sign stood above a vehicular entrance/exit from/to Liverpool Street. There are photos that show vehicles passing beneath it. Of course, that doesn’t tell us where a carman would enter at the start of his shift.

[Trevor Marriott]

That has been blown out of proportion. Henry Tomkins tried to clumsily dodge the question of whether ‘women’ ever called at the yard. The obvious answer, if the didn’t, would have been an emphatic ‘NO!’, but Tomkins said something about not liking them or having nothing to do with them. This was the man who ran ahead of his mates to the crime scene.

There is nothing implausible about Polly having sat down and dozed off somewhere, and JTR, whose choice of victims was women just like her, having the good fortune to find her while he was walking through a dark backstreet. Some would have us believe he also found Tabram, Chapman and Eddowes asleep where they were murdered.

Does this look like a place anyone would have sat down and dozed off ?

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[MrBarnett]

Does this look like a place anyone would have sat down and dozed off ?



www.trevormarriott.co.uk

I think it’s unlikely, Trevor but not totally implausible. Where do you think an exhausted drunk might have crashed near the Whitechapel Road? I’m willing to bet that in your previous career you came across rough sleepers in all sorts of unlikely locations.

[Mark J D]

... I understand Cross/Lechmere's Mother lives somewhere near Berner Street, but I'm not sure where...

The family seems to have had a lot of addresses in that area -- and I mean a lot. I could be wrong, but I think she lived in Maryann St at that precise time. It's five streets south of Dutfield's yard, and two streets north of the Pinchin St viaduct. Oo-er.

... the trip to Mitre Square, followed by heading north east to GS (orange path and dot), is hard to understand...

Maybe I'm just too good at making up stories...

"Sh*t! Got carried away, there! And practically on mum's doorstep, too! Ditch the ripping! Abort! Abort! Oh, hell, what do I do now? Place'll be swarming with Juwes any minute... Got it! I'll do 'a classic' straight away, somewhere else, and people won't think this one was me! Uh, maybe down by ... St Botolph's! Yes: used to see them all there on my way to Broad St when I lived at mum's. Will there be any there on a Sunday morning? Bound to be, with Saturday night drinking coming to an end. And: it points well away from Doveton St. It's brilliant! Mitre Square is bound to be dead quiet at this time. And didn't some git of a nght watchman down there say he just wished he could meet the Ripper? Well, Mitre Square it is, then!"

-- And so Lechmere goes due west; boxes the compass; dumps the apron piece on his direct route back to Doveton St, and next thing you know every geoprofiler is telling you he lives in Sion Square because it's in the middle...

... the fact the murders all happen after the pubs have closed...

What?!?!? When did that start happening? All the months I've been re-researching this, I've never seen a single reference to a closed pub... Am I reading the wrong inquest testimony??

"About half past ten, Mary Jane and I went to The Gluepot to spend the fourpence; but the towels were up and he wouldn't let us in. So straight away, we ran round to MacAndrews' -- but there was a sign on the door saying they was closed for All Saints' Day..."

Seriously, mate: when did these pubs close??

M.

[Trevor Marriott]

I think it’s unlikely, Trevor but not totally implausible. Where do you think an exhausted drunk might have crashed near the Whitechapel Road? I’m willing to bet that in your previous career you came across rough sleepers in all sorts of unlikely locations.

Doorways or sheltered locations

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Mark J D]

Some would have us believe he also found Tabram, Chapman and Eddowes asleep where they were murdered.

I dig that: Eddowes, indeed, has that 45-minute window in which she could have curled up in the quietest, darkest corner.

But ... how would a potential killer know that Tabram was alseep on an unlit first-floor landing??

I'm also interested to hear about Chapman possibly being asleep. I've known since I was a kid that her time of death estimate is deeply problematic; and it annoys the hell out of me to see how people now ride the latest possible time as hard as they can simply as a way of fighting Lechmerians. But, for me, those late sightings and sounds and the doctor's numbers never made any sense. Knowing how exhausted, sick, bruised and in pain poor Annie was in her last days ('too ill to do anything'); and knowing as we do that she would soon have died from a terminal illness, I find it simply inconceivable that she was on her feet unsuccessfully soliciting for over three and a half hours before 05:30. I imagine Lech killing her in the standard slot before 4am (if in doubt, believe the potato...), as soon as possible after seeing Robert Paul going to work, and quite possibly after finding her kipping down in the corridor. If his cats' meat connections were at all formed by Autumn 1888, he may even have had dealings with the ground floor business and known the interior and backyard layout.

Shortage of good data points regretfully acknowledged.

M.

[Abby Normal]

The family seems to have had a lot of addresses in that area -- and I mean a lot. I could be wrong, but I think she lived in Maryann St at that precise time. It's five streets south of Dutfield's yard, and two streets north of the Pinchin St viaduct. Oo-er.



Maybe I'm just too good at making up stories...

"Sh*t! Got carried away, there! And practically on mum's doorstep, too! Ditch the ripping! Abort! Abort! Oh, hell, what do I do now? Place'll be swarming with Juwes any minute... Got it! I'll do 'a classic' straight away, somewhere else, and people won't think this one was me! Uh, maybe down by ... St Botolph's! Yes: used to see them all there on my way to Broad St when I lived at mum's. Will there be any there on a Sunday morning? Bound to be, with Saturday night drinking coming to an end. And: it points well away from Doveton St. It's brilliant! Mitre Square is bound to be dead quiet at this time. And didn't some git of a nght watchman down there say he just wished he could meet the Ripper? Well, Mitre Square it is, then!"

-- And so Lechmere goes due west; boxes the compass; dumps the apron piece on his direct route back to Doveton St, and next thing you know every geoprofiler is telling you he lives in Sion Square because it's in the middle...



What?!?!? When did that start happening? All the months I've been re-researching this, I've never seen a single reference to a closed pub... Am I reading the wrong inquest testimony??

"About half past ten, Mary Jane and I went to The Gluepot to spend the fourpence; but the towels were up and he wouldn't let us in. So straight away, we ran round to MacAndrews' -- but there was a sign on the door saying they was closed for All Saints' Day..."

Seriously, mate: when did these pubs close??

M.

Hi M
I beleive they closed at 1am back then

[rjpalmer]

But ... how would a potential killer know that Tabram was alseep on an unlit first-floor landing??

Simple.

Alfred Crow found her laying there after coming home from an aggravating shift, and, in a spontaneous fit of rage, went inside, got a knife, and killed her.

This is how serial-killers behave--compulsive, spontaneous. Think of the rage: "Why should that dirty woman have been allowed to go out drinking and sleeping and whoring while I was out working my arse off in the middle of the night? This is a nice building. She is turning it into a flop house!"

And the timings of the murders are oddly suggestive of an angry man killing women---not before he went to work...that doesn't make much sense....but after his shift, when he was forced to slog home in the wee hours, filled with resentment. Just like Berkowitz.

And, as a cabman, Crow knew the East End & environs like 'the back of his hand,"--probably better than any other suspect. He's mobile and he's out at night in the murder zone. He's also in his early twenties--the age when serial killers start, and George Yard is in the very center of the hot spot. Murderers usual kill close to home, at least in the beginning.

Further, that landing where Martha was found was pitch black. Liz Mahoney deposed that she wouldn't have seen the body, but Crow--in the darkest part of night--has the superhuman eyesight to suddenly spot her? And yet did nothing?

Clearly, Crow lied to the inquest. He knew she was there because he killed her. How could he have avoided getting blood on his shoes? An hour or two later, Reeves nearly fell in it!

I find Crow's deposition highly suspicious. He said he "didn't know if the woman was alive or dead." What? He didn't know if she was alive, but didn't think to tell anyone?

Further, Crow grew up in Ellen Court, Ellen Street---spitting distance from the Stride murder. He may have still visited the neighborhood and drank in its pubs in 1888. He also moved around a lot as a child--another bad sign. He was briefly enrolled in Forest Grove District School. In 1891, he's in Thrawl Street--that's one of the streets Francis Coles visited on the night of her murder, and he's living there. How many coincidences do we want to ignore?

A note on Ancestry says Crow died in 1892 (unconfirmed--I'm not finding it), which would explain the cessation of his crimes after 1891--unlike the other locals of interest.

Crow is your man. Solving crimes is easy as long as you're willing to write a novel.

[Mark J D]

Simple.

Alfred Crow found her laying there after coming home from an aggravating shift, and, in a spontaneous fit of rage, went inside, got a knife, and killed her. [...]

[snippage]

It's brilliant, squire!

Although ... shouldn't you have said 'went inside, got two knives, and killed her'...?

M.

[Abby Normal]

Simple.

Alfred Crow found her laying there after coming home from an aggravating shift, and, in a spontaneous fit of rage, went inside, got a knife, and killed her.

This is how serial-killers behave--compulsive, spontaneous. Think of the rage: "Why should that dirty woman have been allowed to go out drinking and sleeping and whoring while I was out working my arse off in the middle of the night? This is a nice building. She is turning it into a flop house!"

And the timings of the murders are oddly suggestive of an angry man killing women---not before he went to work...that doesn't make much sense....but after his shift, when he was forced to slog home in the wee hours, filled with resentment. Just like Berkowitz.

And, as a cabman, Crow knew the East End & environs like 'the back of his hand,"--probably better than any other suspect. He's mobile and he's out at night in the murder zone. He's also in his early twenties--the age when serial killers start, and George Yard is in the very center of the hot spot. Murderers usual kill close to home, at least in the beginning.

Further, that landing where Martha was found was pitch black. Liz Mahoney deposed that she wouldn't have seen the body, but Crow--in the darkest part of night--has the superhuman eyesight to suddenly spot her? And yet did nothing?

Clearly, Crow lied to the inquest. He knew she was there because he killed her. How could he have avoided getting blood on his shoes? An hour or two later, Reeves nearly fell in it!

I find Crow's deposition highly suspicious. He said he "didn't know if the woman was alive or dead." What? He didn't know if she was alive, but didn't think to tell anyone?

Further, Crow grew up in Ellen Court, Ellen Street---spitting distance from the Stride murder. He may have still visited the neighborhood and drank in its pubs in 1888. He also moved around a lot as a child--another bad sign. He was briefly enrolled in Forest Grove District School. In 1891, he's in Thrawl Street--that's one of the streets Francis Coles visited on the night of her murder, and he's living there. How many coincidences do we want to ignore?

A note on Ancestry says Crow died in 1892 (unconfirmed--I'm not finding it), which would explain the cessation of his crimes after 1891--unlike the other locals of interest.

Crow is your man. Solving crimes is easy as long as you're willing to write a novel.

hi rj
crow is about a normal witness as you could find. comes forth later to say he saw someone who he thought sleeping on the landing and didnt do anything because it was common. He had no reason to come forward if he was the killer, no one saw him there-- he was just trying to be helpful.
However, as someone who was near the body close to TOD, im sure todays police would have checked him out thoroughly.

fyi-CB entry on him says he was still alive in 1901.