Evidence of innocence

[MrBarnett]

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?

Ah, so it’s ‘found’ now rather than ‘left’?

Where did the Rainham remains enter the water?

[Fiver]

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

This is clearly incorrect.

Michael Ostrog, John Pizer, James Sadler, Francis Tumblety, Thomas Cream, Frederick Deeming, Carl Feigenbaum, Robert Stephenson, William Gull, James Maybrick, Michael Maybrick, John Williams, Jacob Isenschmidt, Oswald Puckridge, Thomas Barnardo, and L Forbes Winslow were all old enough to have been the Torso Killer.

Of course there is no evidence that any of them were the Torso Killer, just like there is no evidence that Charles lechmere was the Torso Killer.

[MrBarnett]

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



* 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.

Where was Lechmere when Annie Chapman was killed?

[Fiver]

How difficult was it to procure your own private 'chop shop' for a commoner in overcrowded Victorian London?

The Public Health Act of 1875 required all slaughterhouses to be licensed and inspected. It would have been illegal to run one out of a private home, as well as unprofitable. A private home would not have had the proper space to process the meat, hooves, hide, hair, and bones, plus the needed equipment would have cost a fair amount. Neighbors also would have complained about the noise and the stench, so an illegal slaughterhouse had little chance of slipping under the radar of the authorities.

[Fiver]

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?

Cat's meat shops did not slaughter animals. They bought boiled meat from slaughterhouses.

[Fiver]

In a private exchange with Christer a little while back, I suggested (I won't bore you with the reasons) that Lechmere had lost his Pickford's job towards the end of 1888. He came back to me with, I think, mention of a later census form that suggested no change. Can I shyly ask if you've seen anything around that makes it possible this 1889 flux/upheaval involved Lechmere's job as well as his mother's activities?

M.

Fisherman is right about this point - the 1891 Census shows Charles Lechmere working as a carman and his son Thomas working as a van guard. The 1901 Census has Charles as a "Railway agent carman". There doesn't appear to be any sign of flux/upheaval involving Lechmere's job in 1888 or at any other time.

His second stepfather. Joseph Forsdyke did die in 1889, but Charles mother married him about 2 years after Charles Lechmere married his own wife.

[MrBarnett]

Cat's meat shops did not slaughter animals. They bought boiled meat from slaughterhouses.

By ‘chop shop’ we are presumably talking about somewhere secluded where the dismemberment of a human body might go unnoticed, not a slaughterhouse.

Cats meat shops bought horseflesh from wholesalers, some of those were slaughterers, others not.

[MrBarnett]

Fisherman is right about this point - the 1891 Census shows Charles Lechmere working as a carman and his son Thomas working as a van guard. The 1901 Census has Charles as a "Railway agent carman". There doesn't appear to be any sign of flux/upheaval involving Lechmere's job in 1888 or at any other time.

His second stepfather. Joseph Forsdyke did die in 1889, but Charles mother married him about 2 years after Charles Lechmere married his own wife.

When did Fisherman make that point?

[MrBarnett]

The Public Health Act of 1875 required all slaughterhouses to be licensed and inspected. It would have been illegal to run one out of a private home, as well as unprofitable. A private home would not have had the proper space to process the meat, hooves, hide, hair, and bones, plus the needed equipment would have cost a fair amount. Neighbors also would have complained about the noise and the stench, so an illegal slaughterhouse had little chance of slipping under the radar of the authorities.

That’s a point I’ve been making for a very long time.

You’ve missed out, though, that knacker’s yards were subject to a different set of rules. By 1889, Harrison, Barber was the only firm allowed to operate as knackers in the Metropolitan Area.

[Mark J D]

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?

-- I don't know how vital it is to give him a property over in the West End; but it does seem that he had meaningful family connections in that location...

https://youtu.be/w4GaHD0QrXA

M.

[Fiver]

When did Fisherman make that point?

Ask Mark J D. He's the one who said "In a private exchange with Christer a little while back, I suggested (I won't bore you with the reasons) that Lechmere had lost his Pickford's job towards the end of 1888. He came back to me with, I think, mention of a later census form that suggested no change."

[Abby Normal]

By ‘chop shop’ we are presumably talking about somewhere secluded where the dismemberment of a human body might go unnoticed, not a slaughterhouse.

Cats meat shops bought horseflesh from wholesalers, some of those were slaughterers, others not.

thanks gary.
i guess fiver likes arguing points no one is making. which is another reason ive stopped responding to his nonsense also

[MrBarnett]

That’s a point I’ve been making for a very long time.

You’ve missed out, though, that knacker’s yards were subject to a different set of rules. By 1889, Harrison, Barber was the only firm allowed to operate as knackers in the Metropolitan Area.

Have a read of this, 5er - especially the last sentence.

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/185289387.pdf

Its irrelevant to our discussion, though, because we are talking about cat’s meat, not meat produced for human consumption.

[Fisherman]

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.

And I didn´t insist either, since I wrote that it was BELIEVED that the torso was carried to the arch.

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

Which does in no way mean that the body was not carried to the arch. Unless YOU insist?

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.

Again, I am not insisting. I am saying that IF the body was carried to the arch manually - and that was the belief of the contemporary police - then that sugests that the killer was locally based. In the case of the Whitehall torso, no suggestion on behalf of the police about how the torso had been manually carried to the spot was put forward.

These were the views of the contemporary police, and they based them, as best as they could, on the case facts. They could not foresee that you would surface a century and some after to scold them for doing so.

[Fisherman]

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

To begin with, I did not dismiss Wildbore, did I? As far as I remember, I said that "Frederick Wildbore does look like a good fit for the Torso killer, based on the geography. There is also the fact that he would have been well aquainted with the layout of the vaults under the New Scotland Yard."

Far from being a dismissal - let alone a "flippant" one - this recognizes that the suggestion has at least some merit. I however do not think that Wildbore is as good a fit for the combined role of Ripper and Torso killer, which was exactly what I pointed out in my post.
Which post did YOU read?

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!

Eh - do you actually think that the tarpaulin suggestion and the old coat ditto are the only two examples in history of people mistaking a body for cloth of sorts? It is a very common mistake to make, for the simple reason that bundles of cloth are more likely to be lying around in public spaces than people are.

Maybe you agree with Caz, if you think it is so rare a matter? Maybe you think that Lechmere could not possibly have made up the story about the tarpaulin?

If so, just tell me, so I know where you stand. That of course predisposes that you know where you stand yourself, and going on how you regard my recognition of Wildbore as a viable person for the Torso killers role as a flippant dismissal of the man, I´m not all that sure that you are to be relied upon.