Evidence of innocence

[Harry D]

I’ve no idea. I was addressing the suggestion that his ‘circumstances’ somehow precluded him from having a ‘chop shop’.

Did Lechmere have the means to acquire a bolthole to lure prostitutes and butcher them without arousing suspicion, at any time during the Torso series?

And wouldn't it need to be located towards the West End of London, since that's where most of the torsos were dumped?

[Fisherman]

Did Lechmere have the means to acquire a bolthole to lure prostitutes and butcher them without arousing suspicion, at any time during the Torso series?

And wouldn't it need to be located towards the West End of London, since that's where most of the torsos were dumped?

First question: How could we know? The Lechmere family was wealthy and Lechmere himself left a neat inheritance - and there is such a thing as people having free allowance to premises.

Second question: If he could transport a body from the West End to Pinchin Street, why would he be unable to transport bodies from the Pinchin Street area to the West End?

Why make up problems that may well never have been there?

[MrBarnett]

Did Lechmere have the means to acquire a bolthole to lure prostitutes and butcher them without arousing suspicion, at any time during the Torso series?

And wouldn't it need to be located towards the West End of London, since that's where most of the torsos were dumped?

Possibly. Having a mother of independent means who ran horseflesh businesses makes it more rather than less likely I’d say.

I’m on my HB hobbyhorse again. Where were their main establishments? Whitechapel, Islington and Wandsworth. That’s Whitechapel near Pinchin Street, Islington near Camden and Wandsworth which could be reached by crossing Wandsworth - or possibly Battersea - bridge.

[Fisherman]

It should also be noted that the Pinchin Street woman was the one victim that was believed to have been manually carried to the dumping spot. That speaks of an eastern bolthole, not a western one.

[MrBarnett]

It should also be noted that the Pinchin Street woman was the one victim that was believed to have been manually carried to the dumping spot. That speaks of an eastern bolthole, not a western one.

And one not too far distant from Pinchin Street one would imagine.

[Mark J D]

And one not too far distant from Pinchin Street one would imagine.

Indeed. Surely a blitz of coppers visiting every house and backyard for quarter of a mile in every direction wouldn't have gone amiss...

M.

[rjpalmer]

It should also be noted that the Pinchin Street woman was the one victim that was believed to have been manually carried to the dumping spot. That speaks of an eastern bolthole, not a western one.

Swanson didn’t insist the torso was carried to the arch; he wrote that IF it was carried, it couldn’t have been more than around 250 yards maximum.

Clearly, all he was doing was setting the perimeters of the local inquiries, and, as we know, those investigations proved fruitless.

Some contemporaries theorized that the torso was deliberately left in the East End to disguise the motive, the murderer or manslaughterer knowing those with more imaginative minds would quickly lump it with the Ripper murder of the previous year. Criminals can be quite clever about using geography as a red herring—and perhaps no one is quicker to take the bait than a geographic profiler!

And again we see how the theories shift in order to fit the suspect. The Pinchin case must be a local yokel, but no such restrictions are placed on the Whitehall case.

[rjpalmer]

And Wildbore? Well, he said that he at first thought the torso was an old coat somebody had left in the gloom!

So if Jerry is trying to sell in Wildbore as the Torso killer, I know of one poster who would never fall for the idea ... (But don´t despair, Jerry - Caz may actually be completely and utterly wrong about these things)

Alas, Fish, unfortunately for your theories, the chronology works against your flippant dismissal of Wildbore.

Lechmere’s innocent and entirely believable account of thinking poor Polly was a tarpaulin had already been widely published in September—that is, just prior to the Whitehall case.

Thus, one might argue that Wildbore now had a precedent to model himself after—sitting at home, thinking it all over, he figured he could make a similar “innocent” discovery, just like that bloke Cross had done in Buck’s Row.

Thus, I don’t think your suggestion will lead to Caz or Jerry losing much sleep. And no doubt you’re a clever enough chap to have dreamed up this very possibility—-had Lechmere come after Wildbore instead of before him!

[caz]

...and a football fan would not say "We won" even if he was never on the pitch? A fisher would not say "We caught ten cod today" even if he only caught one himself and his friends the other nine? Or even if the friends caught ALL ten cod? A person would not say "We asked him to move his car" if he was in a party of five but did not ask himself, whereas a friend of his did?

Maybe you need to think before you post or WE will never get it right.

PS. Please show me where Paul said "We talked to Mizen". I think what he said was "We told him....", and I think that offers a very real possibility that he spoke as one of an entity and not about himself. As such, if Lechmere said "there is a woman in Bucks Row who may be dead", why on earth would Paul go "Yes, there is a woman in Bucks Row who may be dead"? The message was already delivered afgterf Lechmeres effort, right? Barnett was the guy with echolalia, not Paul.

Dear me, I just answered a post by "The Baron". I should not waste time like that, really.

Hang on, Fishy.

Your theory is that when Robert Paul gave that interview to the newspaper, he didn't know what the other carman had or hadn't said to PC Mizen, in which case it would have been an assumption at best. If he related any part of a conversation he wasn't involved in and didn't hear, he was lying by definition. And if Lechmere had been the killer, and had lied through his teeth when talking to Mizen out of Paul's earshot, then both carmen should have had some serious explaining to do. For a start, Mizen would have known if one of the men had not uttered a single word to him and been at a distance while the other did all the talking. "We told Mizen a, b and c", coming from Paul's interview, would not have cut it if only one man had spoken and he had said "x, y and z". When 'Cross' gave his own version of the same conversation at the inquest, and denied that Mizen was told he was wanted by another policeman in Buck's Row, that would have put the tin hat on it and proved to Mizen that both men were liars, who were trying to make him out to be the liar. Mizen doesn't come out of this smelling of roses, whichever way we view the evidence. It strikes me that he didn't want his own part in the night's events examined too closely, whether or not he suspected Paul or Cross of any wrongdoing.

Love,

Caz
X

[jerryd]

Christer, RJ, Abby and all.

A blanket reply to you. Sorry

I have said before and will say again, there is not sufficient, hard evidence that Frederick Wildbore and/or Richard Lawrence were responsible for depositing body parts all around London. Wildbore had no criminal record that I know about. If you read all the newspaper reports, and there are more than meet the eye in most discussions relating to these cases on the forums and even other places, the circumstances around the Whitehall case point to someone familiar with the construction of New Scotland Yard. Could that be Charles Lechmere? I guess it could if he had deliveries there and became familiar with the groundwork. Otherwise, I find it hard to believe someone would choose the very vault the workers originally, on purpose, picked to hide their tools due to it's "hard to get to" location in that basement, to dump the torso. There were so many other, less troublesome places to dump it and still keep it at New Scotland Yard, if the intention was to throw the finger at the police.

I have not held anything back regarding my research on this stuff. I post it as it comes to mind or as I find new information. With that, I can't direct you to everything I have posted (it's all over the place on two forums). My point here was to challenge Christer on this one particular case. Not in a combative way, I'm not like that, but to show that there are other, credible scenarios for this case (Whitehall) that maybe Charles Lechmere did not have a hand in. Now Christer, if Lechmere killed them and needed help disposing the bodies, we may need to talk about a book deal.

[Harry D]

First question: How could we know? The Lechmere family was wealthy and Lechmere himself left a neat inheritance - and there is such a thing as people having free allowance to premises.

Second question: If he could transport a body from the West End to Pinchin Street, why would he be unable to transport bodies from the Pinchin Street area to the West End?

Why make up problems that may well never have been there?

I thought that working out the logistics of the Torso/Ripper's geoprofile would be something worth exploring rather than glossing over with a flick of the wrist.

If the Torso killer was based in the East End, why were almost all of his murders dumped in a westerly direction, and only one on home turf? The Ripper obviously didn't mind crapping on his own doorstep (so to speak), so it's peculiar that he only chose to dump one torso in Whitechapel.

And if Pinchin Street held significance to Lechmere, why didn't he dump one there sooner?

[Fiver]

Where is the evidence that the remains were left along a twenty mile stretch of the Thames. This is an exciting new development.

It's not a new development. It should not be a surprise to anyone familiar with the case. As I said

"I am well aware there was no evidence of a cart near the Pinchin Street Torso. But that wasn't the only remains deposited by the Torso Killer. Clearly the killer had access to some sort of a vehicle, since they left remains along a 20 mile stretch of the Thames."

The first remains were found at Rainham. That's roughly 13 miles east of where the Pinchin Street Torso.

The parts of the Whitehall victim were found about 5 miles west of the Pinchin Street Torso.

Parts of Elizabeth Jackson were found about 6 miles west of the Pinchin Street Torso.

So the remains of the victims of the Torso Killer were found along a roughly 19 mile stretch of the Thames.

Or are you going nitpick about me rounding off to 20 miles?

[Fiver]

Abby,

If you suspect the combined torso/Ripper series extended from 1873 to 1889, that almost exactly matches the period of Maria’s marriage to Joseph Forsdike. They married in 1872 and he died in 1889.

Gary

That would make Joseph Forsdike a better suspect than Charles Lechmere, since Forsdike died about the time the killings ended, while Lechmere lived for 30 more years.

[Fiver]

We know that the torso murders involved elements that lent themeselves quite well for identification, moles, birthmarks, clothing with a name written on them, all things that a killer taking care to hide the identities of his victims would not have left with the dumped bodies.

The Torso Killer went of his way to hide the identities of his victims.

The Ripper did nothing to hide the identities of his victims.

Which make it likely they were two different killers.

[Fiver]

Lechmere is one of the very few suspects who can accommodate all of the torso and Ripper victims in combination.

Charles Lechmere is one of the very few people to have alibis for both the Ripper killings and the Torso Killings.

After that, we can of course speculate that there was a phantom killer who ALSO would have fit the bill if ever found, who would also have avoided calling himself by his registered name when attending inquests, who also would have disagreed with the police if he got tangled up in the investigation, who was also old enough to have done the 1873 murder, who also had a morning trek that took him past the killing fields, who would also have denied to help prop Nichols up if Paul had asked him and so on.

* Charles Lechmere gave his work and home address at the Inquest. He was not trying to hide his identity from the police, his coworkers, his neighbors, or his family.

* Charles Lechmere disagreed with PC Mizen. So did Robert Paul.

* Hundreds of men had a morning trek that took them past the killing fields. Including Robert Paul.

* The smart thing for the killer to do would have been to agree to help prop Nichol's up - it would have provided an innocent excuse for any bloodstains on his hands and clothes. This points towards Lechmere's innocence, hot his guilt.

You will probably ignore these inconvenient facts. After all, you've repeatedly dodged them before.