Evidence of innocence

[Fisherman]

So what is your point ? You say yourself the police had Lech's address . They were the ones primarily investigating the murders . So much for hiding his ID

My point was in my former post (and in hundreds of post before it): Although the police had the address, Lechmere could still make it very hard for the public (wife, family, acquaintances etc) to understand that he was the man involved in the errand if he used a name he otherwise didn´t and combined that with keeping his address back.

[MrBarnett]

That reminds me of Harry D, who does not like how Lechmere´s seemingly innocent moves after Paul arrived may actually have been nothing but theatre. Harry says just about the same thing: whatever Lechmere does, he is still looked upon with suspicion.

It must be terribly frustrating.

His style of dress was considered noteworthy at the time. If he’d turned up in a Saville Row suit and a silk cravat, sporting a bejewelled gold watch chain, it would have been mentioned at the time and we’d be justified in wondering what it said about his financial position. If he’d turned up in a presentable, if rather old, working man’s sunday suit, nothing would have been said about it at the time and we wouldn’t be discussing it now.

I’ve asked Ed if the photos of CAL’s kids wearing v. decent clothes are available.

[MrBarnett]

My point was in my former post (and in hundreds of post before it): Although the police had the address, Lechmere could still make it very hard for the public (wife, family, acquaintances etc) to understand that he was the man involved in the errand if he used a name he otherwise didn´t and combined that with keeping his address back.

Why is this so difficult for people to grasp? The name Charles Allen Lechmere was integral to his identity, and, apart from one of his children, was unique to him.

It’s possible that there were people who would have recognised the name but who had no idea where he worked or lived.

[Fisherman]

His style of dress was considered noteworthy at the time. If he’d turned up in a Saville Row suit and a silk cravat, sporting a bejewelled gold watch chain, it would have been mentioned at the time and we’d be justified in wondering what it said about his financial position. If he’d turned up in a presentable, if rather old, working man’s sunday suit, nothing would have been said about it at the time and we wouldn’t be discussing it now.

I’ve asked Ed if the photos of CAL’s kids wearing v. decent clothes are available.

I know the pic, Gary, and I agree that the Lechmere kids look quite well catered for in it. I do not remember when it was taken, though, but it is later than 1888 so I can predict what comments you will get...

[Darryl Kenyon]

My point was in my former post (and in hundreds of post before it): Although the police had the address, Lechmere could still make it very hard for the public (wife, family, acquaintances etc) to understand that he was the man involved in the errand if he used a name he otherwise didn´t and combined that with keeping his address back.

Did it ever occur to you that he may have just wanted some privacy [ not because he was the murderer, but because he was that sort of person, ]

[MrBarnett]

I know the pic, Gary, and I agree that the Lechmere kids look quite well catered for in it. I do not remember when it was taken, though, but it is later than 1888 so I can predict what comments you will get...

Yes, they won the lottery in 1890. Before that they had the arse out of their trousers and couldn’t have afforded to rent a ramshackle shed in Backchurch Lane.

[MrBarnett]

Did it ever occur to you that he may have just wanted some privacy [ not because he was the murderer, but because he was that sort of person, ]

That’s a start. So you acknowledge the possibility that he may have omitted his name/address when giving evidence under oath in order to conceal something?

[MrBarnett]

Two of Lechmere’s kids in the early 1890s(?).

The boy was in the cats’ meat business for most of his life, I believe.

How many East End families could have afforded to have had studio portraits of their kids taken at the time?

[MrBarnett]

Two of Lechmere’s kids in the early 1890s(?).

The boy was in the cats’ meat business for most of his life, I believe.

How many East End families could have afforded to have had studio portraits of their kids taken at the time?

Perhaps that’s why CAL didn’t have a decent suit to wear at the inquest, his Mrs had popped it so she could pay for her kids to be photographed.

[Fiver]

A question for everybody out here:

How many of you, after having found a person lying on the ground in X Street and after having gone off in search for help as a result of it, would tell the first person you see "A person has been found lying on the ground in X Street" instead of "There´s a person lying on the ground in X Street" or "I found this person lying on the ground in X Street"?

Hands up!

Your hypothetical is irrelevant as it does not match what any of the witnesses claimed was said.

Charles Lechmere's version was:
"There is a woman was lying in Buck's row. She looks to me either dead or drunk." - Lechmere
"I think she's dead." - Paul

Robert Paul's version supported Lechmere's:
"I had told him the woman was dead." - Paul

PC Mizen's version was:
"You are wanted in Buck's row by a policeman; a woman is lying there."

PC Mizen's response is very odd in both the Lechmere/Paul versions and the Mizen veresion.

* In the Mizen version, he makes no attempt to find out what is wrong with the woman or why the other policeman wants him.
* In both versions, Mizen makes no attempt to identify the two witnesses.
* In both versions, Mizen doesn't ask any questions of the witnesses.
* In both versions, Mizen continues knocking up instead of going to Buck's Row.

[Fiver]

Not particularly, no, but he comes across as rather lacking in emotion - any emotion - as though it was a tarpaulin he had found on the street. I do find the initial interaction between the two men strange under the circumstances also - I would expect the finder of a body to wait to speak to the approaching person expectantly, even speaking before the second person fully arrived at the scene, but Lechmere chose to wait until they were side by side and felt the need to touch Paul making the contact between them very up close and personal. Maybe Lechmere still hadn't quite decided his next step ...

Initially mistaking the body for a tarpaulin is not a sign of lack of emotion. The human mind tends to shy away from the idea that they have found a body.

"Then I noticed that there was something unusual about the ground, but I could not tell what it was except that it was not level. I mean that there was something there like a little heap. But I thought it was only mud or something of that kind, and did not take much notice of it. However, I touched it with my whip-handle, and then I was able to tell that it was not mud." - Lewis Deimschutz on finding Elizabeth Stride's body.

There are other examples, such as the person who found the body of Elizabeth Short in 1947 initially thought it was a discarded store mannequin, In July of this year, Quebec police mistook a woman's body for a mannequin and threw it in the dumpster.

[Paddy Goose]

Hello Gut

Wonder if anyone from Pickfords read the paper (maybe a manager) and thought “Gee who is this Cross bloke who says he works here?”

Pickfords? No newspapers read there. Latest "research" indicates they were functionally illiterate, every one of em.'

[MrBarnett]

Hello Gut



Pickfords? No newspapers read there. Latest "research" indicates they were functionally illiterate, every one of em.'

Who knows. But I bet there were some people in Herefordshire who read of the discovery of Nichols’ body and had no idea they were related to the ‘finder’. If they had read his name was Charles Allen Lechmere they might well have spilled their breakfast Earl Grey.

[MrBarnett]

Two of Lechmere’s kids in the early 1890s(?).

The boy was in the cats’ meat business for most of his life, I believe.

How many East End families could have afforded to have had studio portraits of their kids taken at the time?

What do people think - do they look v. decent (in a STGITE context)?

[Paddy Goose]

But I bet there were some people in Herefordshire who read of the discovery of Nichols’ body

But no one at Pickfords.

Makes sense.