Evidence of innocence

[MrBarnett]

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.

What were his personal circumstances?

The following year his mother was selling horseflesh from a shop in the Highway. She later ran a corn chandlers shop in Wapping. In 1889, he was her only surviving child and she may well still have been receiving money from her father’s estate.

[MrBarnett]

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.

That’s a new one on me. The only possible former pimp of MJK that comes to mind is Johannes Morgenstern.

[Mark J D]

That’s a new one on me. The only possible former pimp of MJK that comes to mind is Johannes Morgenstern.

Non-expert that I am, I hate to risk injecting mis-remembered details into the mad whirl; but is 'Stephen Mayfield' a name, or did I dream it?

M.

[MrBarnett]

That’s a new one on me. The only possible former pimp of MJK that comes to mind is Johannes Morgenstern.

I should qualify that by saying that there does appear to have been a group of brothel-keepers operating down by the docks whom MJK must have known. One of them was a drover/horse dealer who had links to Romford. And there is a report of someone who was almost certainly Morgenstern carrying out a brutal punishment attack on three prostitutes in Limehouse (where the Breezers Hill/Pennington Street had moved to by 1890).

[MrBarnett]

Non-expert that I am, I hate to risk injecting mis-remembered details into the mad whirl; but is 'Stephen Mayfield' a name, or did I dream it?

M.

It’s Maywood. I’m glad you picked up on it. He’s a very interesting character. It seems he may have been running the brothel next door to her workplace at 79, Pennington Street and he moved to Limehouse at the same time as Morgenstern and Mrs ‘Buki’ (Boekee).

He’s the drover/horse dealer with Romford connections I mentioned earlier. He was also a fraudster, philanderer and, the evidence suggests, an arsonist.

Wrong thread for this, though.

I’m not aware of any connection between Maywood and Lechmere.

[Mark J D]

I don’t know of any connection between Maywood and Lechmere, though.

Again, somewhere or other I saw that Maywood's and Lechmere's kids went to the same school for a time. Also to be noted is that Lech named one of his daughters Mary Jane. Parents' Evening must have been quite a spectacle...

M.

[MrBarnett]

Again, somewhere or other I saw that Maywood's and Lechmere's kids went to the same school for a time. Also to be noted is that Lech named one of his daughters Mary Jane. Parents' Evening must have been quite a spectacle...

M.

Yes, indeed they did! Lower Chapman Street School.

Well remembered.

Judging by his kids’ school records, Maywood seems to have gone awol briefly in 1888/9 before turning up in Limehouse with Morgenstern, Boekee and Woodhouse/McCarthy.

[Mark J D]

Yes, indeed they did! Lower Chapman Street School.

Well remembered.

Judging by his kids’ school records, Maywood seems to have gone awol briefly in 1888/9 before turning up in Limehouse with Morgenstern, Boekee and Woodhouse/McCarthy.

Thanks again! You can see how my mind is working here: Lech's obtrusive repectability moves him way out of 'visibly deviant marauding psychotic lashing out at random' territory ... and into the 'merciless psychopath with an eminently plausible exterior' bracket that fits him nicely for *organised crime*...

M.

[MrBarnett]

Thanks again! You can see how my mind is working here: Lech's obtrusive repectability moves him way out of 'visibly deviant marauding psychotic lashing out at random' territory ... and into the 'merciless psychopath with an eminently plausible exterior' bracket that fits him nicely for *organised crime*...

M.

I’m not sure how organised the ‘Breezers Hill Mob’ were, or whether there was a hierarchy of any kind. Certainly Maywood was the one who seems to have left the East End with his pockets bulging. The timeline of 79, Pennington Street is very interesting. ‘Landlords’ came and went and returned but was there someone above them? Who collected the rents? There is a tenuous link between Breezers Hill/Pennington Street and the Jamrach family, the German wild animal dealers. John Miller, one of the landlords, was himself German and one of his many occupations was a ‘wire cage maker’. At one time there was a ‘menagerie’ between Pennington Street and the Highway, just across the road from Jamrach’s main premises. And, from memory, one of Jamrach’s sons married a woman whose family had run the Red Lion pub on the corner of Pennington Street and Breezers Hill - no. 79, PS where I seems MJK would later live/work.


This is (probably) well off-topic, though.

[Abby Normal]

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!!

yeah i hear ya. it was a a maze. makes you wonder if the killer lured his victim down there and killed and cut her up down there. as you infer, someone who worked down there. still i like the lech connection of his cop stepdad and a victim found in NSY.

[MrBarnett]

yeah i hear ya. it was a a maze. makes you wonder if the killer lured his victim down there and killed and cut her up down there. as you infer, someone who worked down there. still i like the lech connection of his cop stepdad and a victim found in NSY.

I’m with you there, Abby.

If it wasn’t someone who was intimately familiar with the site, then surely it was a message - two fingers up to the cops. And if the killer was into messages, the Pinchin Street location presents all sorts of interesting possibilities…

[Abby Normal]

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.

yes i remember and very intriguing Jer!! you need to write all this up in a dissertation. Or a book!

[Abby Normal]

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).

awesome. thanks Jer. let me just cut to the chase.. wildbore and lawrence were the torso killers?

[Abby Normal]

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.

hi harry
perhaps his mum had her cats meat shop nearby? ive always wondered if both series were by same man, torsoripper if you will, was when his chop shop wasnt abailable so took to the streets?

[MrBarnett]

hi harry
perhaps his mum had her cats meat shop nearby? ive always wondered if both series were by same man, torsoripper if you will, was when his chop shop wasnt abailable so took to the streets?

In early 1889, Joe Forsdike entered the St George’s workhouse and was said to be destitute. He died in the December of that year, his cause of death being given as senility and bronchitis(?) He died at one address in Cable Street and his burial record shows another address a few doors away. By 1890, his widow, CAL’s old Ma, was selling cat’s meat from a shop in the Highway. She would carry on her cat’s meat business from two shops in the Highway before moving to a third shop in Old Gravel Lane from where she sold corn.

In 1889, it seems there was a cat’s meat shop somewhere along Backchurch Lane in the short stretch between the Cable Street and Pinchin Street corners.

All this may be irrelevant to the PS torso, but to suggest that CAL’s circumstances precluded him from having access to any kind of a ‘chop shop’ is probably inaccurate.