Evidence of innocence

[jerryd]

Jerry d in da house! this thread just got a whole lot intersting! hi dude!!

i know this was for fish but ill give it a shot. well if what you say is true, someone did. why not lech? perhaps he loved the game? and he obviously had great knowedge of the area being a delivery man No? and was known to be on the streets late at night. perhaps he dumped the torso there as big FU to his copper step dad. and he had a cart

Hi Abby.

Always great to see you in here!

Knowledge of the area is one thing. Knowledge of the basement layout is another.

Have you seen the map of the basement of the building in question? It's HUGE with dozens of arched vaults, unfinished ground, planked walkways, debris, etc, etc.. To pick that spot would be very unusual for anyone unfamiliar with the lay of the land. It was dangerous to get to and hard to find. Especially in the dark. And even in daytime it was dark down there. To add to that, I found an article stating that pieces of the woman's dress were found scattered throughout the site. That in itself is very important in a lot of ways. In this post, it means it wasn't just find a spot and dump the body. The person had to spend some time down there (considerable time in my opinion) walking around.

Thanks for the response!!

[jerryd]

how bout this jer... lech is the only ripper suspect that agewise could also be torsoman?

I assume you're referring to the 1873 Battersea torso case?

A couple of things.

First, Lechmere is a person of interest (to Ripperology). As far as I know he was never a suspect in Police opinion at the time. I don't discount him as a POI, by the way.

Second, Dr. Bond was involved in the 1873 torso case yet he never included it in the latter series from 87-89. Was there a reason for this? He surely could not have forgotten about it.

Third, if we want to talk about possible early Ripper victims, such as Harriet Buswell (Great Coram Street Murder), Charles Hammond lived with the landlord of the house she was murdered in before he moved to Cleveland Street and started his brothel. The Cleveland Street Scandal was simultaneous to the Ripper Series and basically ended with the trial of Newlove and Veck on September 11th, 1889. The same day the Pinchin torso was discovered. What a diversion, eh?

Fourth, Frederick Wildbore would have been 17 years old in 1873. Possibly old enough if we include the 1873 torso. Remember, my feeling is that this wasn't a single man job. And the police felt that way too.

And last, the torso series from 87-89 are the exact dates construction was ongoing to build New Scotland Yard.

[jerryd]

Abby,

Not sure if you saw the map I provided years ago of Wildbore's most likely route home from his work at New Scotland Yard. He would have left the vault where he stored his tools (the other men moved theirs to another "safer" location) and the same vault the torso and leg/foot were found. He would have walked/carted down the road that passed directly by the dumping site of the arm found in the river at Pimlico, the Shelly estate, all the bridges that were possibilities to dump parts over and have them float down the river near Battersea, over the bridge and past Battersea Park to his home on Maysoulle Street. The other leg of Elizabeth Jackson supposedly floated the opposite direction than the other parts and ended up not even a block from his house on the shore of the Thames and was found by a gypsy. It was literally a trail of body parts from his work site to his home.

in the 1881 census, Richard Lawrence (referred to in the Whitehall inquest as Wildbore's mate or apprentice) was living one block from Camden Lock where body parts from the Rainham torso were found. In 1888 he was living just off Battersea Park. The question I think one has to ask is, why was the Rainham torso so spread out? I think most of her parts were disposed of near Battersea and floated down the river until grounded. But that could not have happened to the Regents Canal (Camden Lock) body parts. They had to be taken up that way and deposited. Richard Lawrence and Wildbore were two men that were constantly in that vault and knew their way around it.

[jerryd]

For your viewing pleasure.

This is the map of the vault provided in the newspaper. It looks simple enough to get a body to the "X", no? The red arrow is where the gate was that had the special string latch that the workers knew how to undo to get into the site.



This is the actual plan of the basement. Most of this was already built for the Opera House previously. In 1888, most of the basement construction was finished and they were up to the first floor if I remember right. The red arrow is the only entrance to the vault in question. In reality if you look, there were many, many vaults around the perimeter of the building and many walls in the interior. The purple arrow is where I have the torso located based on witness testimony of the drains and so forth. The orange line is what I feel would have been the trench dug for the sewer based on where the two red rectangles show the sewer lines entering the building. From the upper floor (street level) Wildbore said he knew a special way to walk down some planks to get to the basement and then into the vault. Once inside the vault he had to navigate over trenches dug for drainage and brick debris. All this in the dark with a candle. Even in daylight. It was stated that on the Thames side of the building if one scaled the wall to get over, they would certainly fall and be severly injured in the basement (not exact wording but close).

[Astatine211]

Battersea Mystery 1 - 05/09/73
Battersea Mystery 2 - 11/06/74
Tottenham Court Road Mystery - 24/10/84
Bedford Square Mystery - 29/10/84
Le mystere de Montrouge - ??/11/86 - Not Connected
Rainham Mystery 1 - 11/05/87
Rainham Mystery 2 - 16/07/87
Whitehall Mystery - 03/10/88
Elizabeth Jackson - 31/05/89
Pinchin St. Torso - 10/09/89
Lambeth Mystery - 14/06/1902 - Possibly Connected

If the Thames Torso Murders were a serial killer then I definitely consider the two Battersea torso's to be part of them. What's interesting is that until 1888 the Torso murderer effectively kills in pairs. Very few people know this but the Rainham Mystery consisted of two victims rather than one as a second left forearm was discovered. The only two major Ripper suspects who can be placed in London at the time of the two Battersea Torso's of 73/4 and were adults are Lechmere and G. Wentworth Bell Smith, who due to most the evidence against him being faked to implicate him, I don't consider a serious suspect.

This just leaves Lechmere as the only candidate for the both Ripper and Torso murders. What would be interesting to know is if Lechmere or his family have any connections to Doultons Works or Salamanca Alley in Lambeth, although I think it's unlikely the Lambeth torso is connected, Lechmere is still alive and free and a connection would be huge.

While Lechmere is the best bet for TorsoRipper, the alternatives of Wildbore being the torso killer or not being the work of a serial killer are definitely possible too.

[Fisherman]

Not bad at all, Thanks!

And thank you for the reply, although it didn't quench my thirst on naming Lechmere as the perpetrator of that crime. But that may be my problem. haha. There is not enough evidence out there at this time to have enough information to quench my thirst on anyone, yet.

I seem to survive on less liquid.

[GBinOz]

G. Wentworth Bell Smith, who due to most the evidence against him being faked to implicate him, I don't consider a serious suspect.

Hi Astatine211,

Which evidence are you referring to as being faked, Ripper or Torso or both?

Cheers, George

[Astatine211]

Hi Astatine211,

Which evidence are you referring to as being faked, Ripper or Torso or both?

Cheers, George

The case of Wentworth Bell Smith rests solely on what his landlord and landlady said about him. Part of their evidence was a statement where the lodgings date had been "altered from the 9 to the 7 August, to make it appear that it was the night Martha Tabram was murdered, and make Smith a more plausible suspect." If they were happy to change the date he stayed for me it invalids any "evidence" they claim to have. Forbes Winslow who handed the evidence to Swanson was known to be unreliable and altered the year of a letter sent to him. It's also likely the silent boots didn't belong to Smith. He also changed his suspect for the Ripper many times claiming to have definitive proof for every new suspect he had, usually a load of BS. On top of that the police seemed satified they had cleared him so as far as I'm concerned Wentworth Bellsmith can be ignored as a suspect. If the main piece of evidence provided by the sole testifiers has been tampered with then none of it can be trusted whatsoever.

Sorry for taking the thread off Lechmere but last thing I'll say is L. Forbes Winslow is essentially a more academic non-occultist version of Robert Donston Stephenson. The police sent Swanson to interview him about Wentworth Bellsmith and he immediately backpedaled. Wentworth Bellsmith found himself unlucky enough to be in the sights of an attention seeking lier.

[GBinOz]

Thanks for that information.

[Mark J D]

... perhaps [Lechmere] dumped the WH torso there as big FU to his copper step dad. and he had a cart...

Pondering Lechmere's life and work from this admittedly immense distance, I can't help thinking -- at least in one imaginary scenario! -- that PC Thomas Cross might have been the only good thing in Charles's horrendously injurious childhood: Lech actually named his first son 'Thomas'. In such a scenario (I have others...), the young stepfather's early death becomes another damaging event in the kid's life -- as does the fact that he himself, growing up to be of less than average height, is about five inches too short to follow him into the constabulary. We can read this as generating hatred for the contemporary police force 'not being proper police; not like he was; and I'll show you what rubbish you are...' This of course is slotted into the known picture of CAL's branch of the family already being the excluded, impoverished, black-sheep, social-descender line. I picture a boy Lechmere boiling with psychologically corrosive rage at being excluded from every part of the Establishment and its wealth, luxury and privilege through no fault of his own: the closest the kid ever comes to the birthright that should have been his is watching the trains from the Royal Mint across the way as they carry mountains of ruling class cash past the end of his street...

As for the cart, I'm still to hear a compelling narrative about how he'd get the torso pieces to the dumping spots. If he's dumping them from his work cart, how is he getting access to them during work hours?

M.

[MrBarnett]

Pondering Lechmere's life and work from this admittedly immense distance, I can't help thinking -- at least in one imaginary scenario! -- that PC Thomas Cross might have been the only good thing in Charles's horrendously injurious childhood: Lech actually named his first son 'Thomas'. In such a scenario (I have others...), the young stepfather's early death becomes another damaging event in the kid's life -- as does the fact that he himself, growing up to be of less than average height, is about five inches too short to follow him into the constabulary. We can read this as generating hatred for the contemporary police force 'not being proper police; not like he was; and I'll show you what rubbish you are...' This of course is slotted into the known picture of CAL's branch of the family already being the excluded, impoverished, black-sheep, social-descender line. I picture a boy Lechmere boiling with psychologically corrosive rage at being excluded from every part of the Establishment and its wealth and privilege through no fault of his own: the closest the kid ever comes to the birthright that should have been his is watching the trains from the Royal Mint across the way as they carry mountains of ruling class cash past the end of his street...

As for the cart, I'm still to hear a compelling narrative about how he'd get the torso pieces to the dumping spots. If he's dumping them from his work cart, how is he getting access to them during work hours?

M.

Hi M,

Apologies for not answering your income tax question - I don’t know the answer.

What I do know, though, is that CAL’s maternal grandfather was named Thomas. He was a butler to a prominent Herefordshire family and left a not inconsiderable estate which was split between his three daughters. It seems they didn’t receive the capital, instead they received income from the estate. The 1891 census shows Maria’s two sisters living in Hereford and being of independent means. Maria, in stark contrast, was living in the Ratcliffe Highway and selling cats meat.

Gary

[Mark J D]

Hi M,

Apologies for not answering your income tax question - I don’t know the answer.

What I do know, though, is that CAL’s maternal grandfather was named Thomas. He was a butler to a prominent Herefordshire family and left a not inconsiderable estate which was split between his three daughters. It seems they didn’t receive the capital, instead they received income from the estate. The 1891 census shows Maria’s two sisters living in Hereford and being of independent means. Maria, in stark contrast, was living in the Ratcliffe Highway and selling cats meat.

Thanks, as ever!

I have multiple scenarios -- inevitably, as we have so few good data points -- that I'm elaborating to see which ones come out near a verifiable reality. I'll have this new info absorbed into one in no time! There's already an alternative world in which the young lad has a burning hatred for the copper stepdad who turned up and took his one and only mother... (And once the guy was dead -- she found another one and *it happened all over again*...)

M.

[MrBarnett]

In 1887, Charles Booth carried out an economic survey of the residents of St George in the East. His researcher’s note against the entry for the Lechmere family at 20, James Street was ‘v.decent’. As you might expect, ‘v. decents’ were as rare as hen’s teeth in the area. I wonder how CAL was able to maintain a ‘v. decent’ household on a carman’s wages? With his old Ma’s help, perhaps, or did he already have a sideline selling horseflesh/cat’s meat?

[Harry D]

How difficult was it to procure your own private 'chop shop' for a commoner in overcrowded Victorian London? It would make sense if the killer owned a slaughterhouse or a warehouse of some kind. There was one theory that the Thames Torso killer might have operated out of a boat. Where was Lechmere taking these prostitutes back to be dismembered? Genuine question. I don't know how Lechmere in particular would've been able to pull off these murders based on his personal circumstances.

Also, as much as the overlap between the Ripper/Torso cases in 1888 & 1889 are used to establish a link, I think it equally raises a problem. Why would the same killer suddenly take to the street murdering prostitutes if he still had access to the bolthole at the time? I suppose there may have been a psychological trigger that we are not aware of, but it was seemingly sudden and short-lived.

[Mark J D]

... I wonder how CAL was able to maintain a ‘v. decent’ household on a carman’s wages? With his old Ma’s help, perhaps, or did he already have a sideline selling horseflesh/cat’s meat?

Is there any indication that Lechmere had gangland entanglements? I mean, the kind of stuff that involves access to dockside premises people don't go to; to income streams that never get declared; and to low-life helpers who could be sent out to muddy the witness-testimony water with garbage reports (*cough* Hutchinson *cough*...).

From what I've seen around, there's a possible link between Lechmere and a former pimp of Mary Kelly, which is the kind of thing that gets me constructing scenarios again...

M.