Evidence of innocence

[Darryl Kenyon]

If you ask me, I donīt. What I can be envious of is how the Kosminkiites, Druittists and Cutbushers need not go through the trouble of proving anything at all. Itīs all so very lofty: Anderson said it, so it must be right, MacNaghten said it, so who are we to doubt a MET bigwig, it was in the Sun, so it must be true. And then there is no need to even show that any of these gentlemen were within a mile of any of the murder sites.

Lechmere was at a murder site. Alone. With a victim. Who was freshly dead. The forensic pathologists tell me that she would likely have ended bleeding at around 3.48-3.50 if she was cut at 3.45. She bled until around 3.54. And Lechmere passed right through the killing fields on a daily basis. In the early mornings. On the Saturday evenings, he probaly didnīt - he was more likely to visit his old stomping grounds in St Georges then.


But he was not named by Anderson. He was not pointed to by MacNaghten. And he was not championed by the Sun.

He only has a shitload of very weighty circumstantial case-related evidence pointing in his direction, nothing more (see Scobie, James). Whereas the REAL suspects have nothing of the sort.

1- Your forensic pathologist may say that, others disagree. If you bothered to read Fiver's posts you would know that.
2- How do you know he was more likely to visit his old stomping grounds on a Saturday night. ? Crystal ball ?. How do you know for instance he just didn't stay at home with his wife. And what old Stomping ground did he have near Mitre Square ?
3- He was not named by Anderson etc I wonder why that is.
4- How do you know what circumstantial evidence there was against Kosminski for instance. Did Anderson/Swanson pluck him out of thin air. Crystal ball again . Can you get me one please

[bolo]

If you ask me, I donīt. What I can be envious of is how the Kosminkiites, Druittists and Cutbushers need not go through the trouble of proving anything at all. Itīs all so very lofty: Anderson said it, so it must be right, MacNaghten said it, so who are we to doubt a MET bigwig, it was in the Sun, so it must be true. And then there is no need to even show that any of these gentlemen were within a mile of any of the murder sites.

Druitt, Kosminski or Cutbush were contemporary suspects and are part of the official history of the case. They were mentioned by people directly involved in the Whitechapel murder cases and thus have a certain relevance, even though I never found them convincing candidates. Their cases are special because we not only have to deal with finding evidence for their guilt but also researching and interpreting the reasons for becoming suspects named by high-ranking officials. This is more than just suspect-based Ripperology, it has an impact on Ripper research as a whole.

Crossmere on the other hand is a new suspect that came out of current research and does not have the bonus of historical/contemporary authenticity. As I said before, I see some strong points in the theory but they obviously were not strong enough for the LVP police. This could be explained away with Victorian ignorance or the belief in criminal anthropology but also with the simple conclusion that the red flags raised by you and other theorists did not seem so red to Crossmere's contemporaries. Were they all biased, ignorant and unable to tell a harmless carman from a murderer, one that according to Crossmereites already was a fully-developed serial killer and dismemberer of female victims when Polly was found in Buck's Row? Maybe they were, even though what I've read about them does not really fit to that. We may never know.

[harry]

Well Mark,you may have spent time in Logistics,what has that got to do with police enquiries?.Then and now the 9-5 daylight period is/was considered the norm for follow up interviews,and where but at work,would Cross be during those hours.Even out on the round,Pickfords would have a good idea where Cross could be found.
So Cross gave a name he was known by at work,and his place of work.Nothing sinister or evasive in that.I give the name Cross Mr Barnett,because that was the official name by which he was known to the police at the time.
That aside,those who suspect Cross would be better engaged in showing evidence that places Cross at the murder scene at the time the killing took place.Regardless of any name given,that is the kind of evidence I ask for,and the kind that is always evaded by those who condemn a man who only found a body.

[rjpalmer]

Are you really comparing the resistance to The Five on here to that to the Lechmere theory?

That’s a question for Christer. He’s the one that suggested that people bashing his theory do so because they feel “threatened.”

I don’t think it’s a psychologically accurate belief. There’s many reasons people might offer resistance.

[Fisherman]

1- Your forensic pathologist may say that, others disagree. If you bothered to read Fiver's posts you would know that.

Then again, I donīt bother to read them, partly becaasue he thinks that Albert Cadosch found Annie Chapmans body. And so on. He is not the most reliable of sources, to be blunt. Furthermore, without havin g read the posts, I think it is likely that the "others" who disagree with the two forensic pathologist professors, both of them extremely merited, may well be people who loftily say that people can bleed for ages. without specifying the inds of wounds they are speaking of. Payne James and Thiblin commented on Polly Nichols specifically, and they were very well read up on the specifics attaching to that very case. If they were to comment on OTHER cases, I am sure that they would expect OTHER bleeding times due to OTHER circumstances.

2- How do you know he was more likely to visit his old stomping grounds on a Saturday night. ? Crystal ball ?. How do you know for instance he just didn't stay at home with his wife. And what old Stomping ground did he have near Mitre Square ?

I donīt know that this was so, Darryl. I am merely speculating that somebody who has spent a long stretch of years in a smallish area will be aquainted with that area and likely to visit it when going for a pub crawl, just as he is likely to have friends in the area that he is likely to visit. Of course, it may be that he had a thing for Middlesborough instead, so I take your point.

3- He was not named by Anderson etc I wonder why that is.

My own suggestion woud be that he was not named by Andderson because Anderson did not realize that he was the probable killer. You may of course now say "Oh, and so YOU are a better detective than Anderson?" but that would be rther improductive since it would onbly make me tell you that history is crammed with examples of killers that renowned detectives failed to catch.
My recommendation would be that we donīt disallow ourselves or others to propose theories that the contemporary Met chiefs didnīt, because that would onbly serve to uphold the old misapprehensions that Kosminski, Druitt and Cutbush were all very good suspects. That stance has never led anywhere, and it is not likely to do so in the future.

4- How do you know what circumstantial evidence there was against Kosminski for instance. Did Anderson/Swanson pluck him out of thin air. Crystal ball again . Can you get me one please

How do YOU know what circumstantial evidence there was against him? If you donīt, then that tells us which evidence there IS against him - none. And if you want to play the old card "the men in charge would not have pointed a finger at an innocent man", you need to ponder the many examples of people who have been jailed and executed although they had nothing at all to do with the cases they were held resonsibe for. And while you are at it, you should also take a look at what contemporary police bigwigs, like for example Henry Smith and Melville MacNaghten had to say about the accusations against Kosminski. I for one find the idea that Anderson would have had damning evidence that they were not aware of more than a tad silly. In my view, they knew what there was and they sneered at it.

If you really want to know what circumstantial evidence I am aware of, I am happy to tell you about it. But it wonīt touch on Kosminski, but instead on another man altogether...

[Fisherman]

Druitt, Kosminski or Cutbush were contemporary suspects and are part of the official history of the case. They were mentioned by people directly involved in the Whitechapel murder cases and thus have a certain relevance, even though I never found them convincing candidates. Their cases are special because we not only have to deal with finding evidence for their guilt but also researching and interpreting the reasons for becoming suspects named by high-ranking officials. This is more than just suspect-based Ripperology, it has an impact on Ripper research as a whole.

Not only that, it has - and has had - a tremendous impact. Itīs not as if I am unaware of that. But I would have been a bit more impressed with it if all the bigwigs of the time had named the SAME killer.
I have read up on these men - and a fair few others - for forty years plus, and I am anything but impressed with them. And so I say that. There are those who dislike me doing so, but I have come to th conclusion that I will not be awarded two lives, and so I tend to spend as little time as possible on matters I find a waste of time.
Luckily, there are those who have researched Kosminski, Druitt and Cutbush in great detail and who have spent years on end trying to find useful evidence against them. Many of these researchers are people I admire greatly. There has been some sterling work done on these suspects, and the material has been gone over with a fine toothed comb. The outcome has not in any way convinced me that they are good suspects. To me, they are likely a burden, for the very reason that I suspect that they had nothing at all to do with the murder series, either of them. In fact, if I am correct on how the Thames Torso murders from 1873-1889 were committed by the same man as the Ripper murders, noone of the three could have been the perpetrator.
Respect is due to those who have researched these suspects in depth. I nevertheless think that they researched men that were not involved in the case.

Crossmere on the other hand is a new suspect that came out of current research and does not have the bonus of historical/contemporary authenticity. As I said before, I see some strong points in the theory but they obviously were not strong enough for the LVP police. This could be explained away with Victorian ignorance or the belief in criminal anthropology but also with the simple conclusion that the red flags raised by you and other theorists did not seem so red to Crossmere's contemporaries. Were they all biased, ignorant and unable to tell a harmless carman from a murderer, one that according to Crossmereites already was a fully-developed serial killer and dismemberer of female victims when Polly was found in Buck's Row? Maybe they were, even though what I've read about them does not really fit to that. We may never know.

Historical/contemporary "authenticity"? Does that mean that he was not a suspect back then? If so, I agree. But I would warn against thinking that such a thing would in any way take away from his viability as a suspect overall.
I would also warn against saying that the compiled evidence against Lechmere was not strong enough for the police back then. I am quite convinced that if they had had a chance to look at the whole case against Lechmere as it is presented today, they would have arrested him immediately and if he could not prove his innocence, they would have tried and sentenced him. The problem is that they in all likelihood never looked at him in retrospect, they arguably failed to investigate him in combination with the Nichols murder, and that was that.
What is apparent is that what I look upon as red flags in the Nichols case, was not looked upon in the same way by the police. Then again, some of it are matters that are recognized as VERY red flags today by many, but that were not picked up on until late in the process. The prime example is the so called Mizen scam, where nobody saw anything at all suspicious about the exchange between Lechmere and Mizen until some years ago. It was reasoned that the phantom PC was some sort of trivial mistake with no sisnister implications at all. Today, that matter has taken on another hue altogether.
I strongly suspect that one of the reasons for why Lechmere never came under suspicion lies in how the police repeatedly made a mess of the case. They failed to interview all the people in Bucks Row, they stubbornly claimed that they found the body themselves, they would arguably have had access to and missed out on the significance of Mizens notes from the evening, they were very late in understanding the full picture and so I suspect they were unlikely to to form any sort of suspicion agaisnt a man who had contacted them not once but twice, and who was seemingly able to set the record straight.
Lechmere was in all aspects the precise kind of man the 1888 police were unlikely to suspect. If a similar case ha gone down today, I believe the outcome would have been very different, although prejudice will always be a risk when assessing a case. Christie, a former volunteer copper, was believed over Evans more than half a century later, and even today, what category of people, what class, what colour, what background you have will sometimes color what kind of justice you get, at least to a degree.

[Fisherman]

That’s a question for Christer. He’s the one that suggested that people bashing his theory do so because they feel “threatened.”

I don’t think it’s a psychologically accurate belief. There’s many reasons people might offer resistance.

And resistance IS, Iīm sure, offered for many reasons. I never said that there is no criticism based on other factors, did I?

So maybe itīs you, not me, who needs to explain yourself? If, that is, you really think this is a topic that will yield a lot of interesting revelations and useful results?

[Doctored Whatsit]

I tend to think that this is in line with the suggestion that Charles Lechmere told Mizen lies.

I know that I quit this thread, at least partly because of the pointlessness of continually repeated ideas, many of which are based on little or no evidence, but the "Lechmere lied to Mizen" story should, I think be totally dropped, and I have temporarily come out of retirement to say so!

Abberline and his colleagues had detailed separate statements from CAL and Paul, plus the chance to discuss any issues with them, plus the opportunity to sort out any anomolies with Mizen afterwards. We have none of this information, and are guessing what might have happened. Armed with all of the information which we do not and cannot know, Abberline wrote his detailed 15 page summary of the facts on 19-9-1888.

"Charles Cross, carman, ..... was passing through Buck's Row ... he noticed a woman lying on her back ... he stopped to look at the woman when another carman, ... Robert Paul ... came up, and Cross called his attention to the woman, but being dark they didn't notice any blood, and passed on with the intention of informing the first constable they met, and ... they met PC 55 H Mizen and acquainted him of what they had seen." (I have excluded irrelevencies like addresses etc for convenience)

There is nothing half-hearted or vague about Abberline's report, no suggestion of "it would seem", "possibly" or "allegedly". He wrote with absolute clarity. It is crystal clear that the police have evidence which we do not have, and they have consequently reached the positive conclusion that the information provided by CAL and Paul matches the facts, and they obviously do not accept any allegations made by Mizen. I therefore respectfully suggest that if they reached that conclusion with all of the appropriate evidence, then we, with none of the evidence, should just accept their decision.

Now back into retirement!

[Dickere]

Perhaps the name and what he said issues have been exhausted.

Maybe people could be looking at other more concrete things to help.

For example, how does Lechmere sit with the non-C5 victims, does that help either way ? I know who was a victim is a debate in itself, but does CL become more or less likely due to any of their circumstances ?

[Fisherman]

I know that I quit this thread, at least partly because of the pointlessness of continually repeated ideas, many of which are based on little or no evidence, but the "Lechmere lied to Mizen" story should, I think be totally dropped, and I have temporarily come out of retirement to say so!

And so you did. Welcome back!

Abberline and his colleagues had detailed separate statements from CAL and Paul, plus the chance to discuss any issues with them, plus the opportunity to sort out any anomolies with Mizen afterwards. We have none of this information, and are guessing what might have happened. Armed with all of the information which we do not and cannot know, Abberline wrote his detailed 15 page summary of the facts on 19-9-1888.

The problem is that we have no idea how the statements looked, not how detailed they were. Iīm a bit fed up with the suggestion "the police were thorough and would not have missed a thing" argument, not least since we know that they missed Lechmereīs real name.

"Charles Cross, carman, ..... was passing through Buck's Row ... he noticed a woman lying on her back ... he stopped to look at the woman when another carman, ... Robert Paul ... came up, and Cross called his attention to the woman, but being dark they didn't notice any blood, and passed on with the intention of informing the first constable they met, and ... they met PC 55 H Mizen and acquainted him of what they had seen." (I have excluded irrelevencies like addresses etc for convenience)

There is nothing half-hearted or vague about Abberline's report, no suggestion of "it would seem", "possibly" or "allegedly". He wrote with absolute clarity. It is crystal clear that the police have evidence which we do not have, and they have consequently reached the positive conclusion that the information provided by CAL and Paul matches the facts, and they obviously do not accept any allegations made by Mizen. I therefore respectfully suggest that if they reached that conclusion with all of the appropriate evidence, then we, with none of the evidence, should just accept their decision.

Now back into retirement!

The police reached the conclusion that they did not need to take much of an interest in Peter Sutcliffe in, how many was it...? Twelve cases?
There is not a iot in Abberlines report that tells us anything at all about how deep the "investigation" went - if there even WAS one, which I very seriously doubt. What there will have been was the taking of a statement, but apart from that, there is not a sign of any deep digging or even shallow interest into Charles Lechmere. And we actually know that Swanson amended the time at which the body was found in his October report, telling us that Abberline could get things wrong in the same fashion that anybody can.

In a perfect world, everybody the police speaks to are autoatically innocent if the police take no further action. But I have never lived in that world myself.

Have you?

[Mark J D]

Maybe people could be looking at other more concrete things to help.

Amen, brother.

For example, how does Lechmere sit with the non-C5 victims, does that help either way ? I know who was a victim is a debate in itself, but does CL become more or less likely due to any of their circumstances ?

If we're stepping out of the C5, I think it has to be considered fairly striking that Tabram's murder site lies just 30 yards or so off to the left from what we have reason to consider the southernmost of Lechmere's two logical shortest routes to work...

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5171...7i16384!8i8192

Similarly, a Lechmere wanting to take the familiar Wentworth Street route home from Mitre Square would have passed jolly close to the Goulston Street doorway...

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5166...7i16384!8i8192

Going back to April 1888 and the murder of Emma Elizabeth Smith, we note that she too was attacked in the wee hours and at the north end of a street that was a left turn off Wentworth Street -- though at that time Lechmere was still living south of Commercial Road; we have no reason to think this would have been a sensible route for him then; and there are indeed differences in the attack as reported which make it difficult to connect it with the Ripper.

(Yes, yes, yes, I know: he's just an innocent man who found a body, and 2 million other people walked along that road every day.)

Bests,

M.

[Great Aunt]

I am starting to believe that Lechmere used the name Cross in his statements, etc. re Polly Nichols not to make himself unidentifiable to the police but to distance himself from the Lechmere name. Has anyone ever found anything in the newspapers or court documents that mentions the Lechmere name prior to or soon after the Ripper killings? Thank you.

[Darryl Kenyon]

I am starting to believe that Lechmere used the name Cross in his statements, etc. re Polly Nichols not to make himself unidentifiable to the police but to distance himself from the Lechmere name. Has anyone ever found anything in the newspapers or court documents that mentions the Lechmere name prior to or soon after the Ripper killings? Thank you.

In the Islington Gazette of 1876 when Lech fatally ran over the young boy, Walter Williams. The paper says about Walter's Father - He made inquiries, and he had reason to blame the driver, as he believed that he had not exercised proper care.
With Lech's Stepfather being a police constable perhaps Lech thought it prudent to use that surname as a sort of character reference [ He may have thought that with his stepfather being a police officer this may have had some form of pull if he was found guilty. Instead of say, if his Stepfather was from a gang of known criminals ].
Once he used that surname the one time before we know about when he was dealing with the police, and with the one time before also involving Pickfords. Perhaps he thought it best to use that surname again.
Regards Darryl

[Great Aunt]

I also have wondered whether his use of the Cross surname in the Nichols enquiry was to do with the influence it might have had with the police so I'm glad to see you have thought the same relating to the fatal accident of the young boy. He says he had been in the same employ for 20 years so it is possible some policemen may also have been .. Best wishes.

[Fisherman]

Anything is possible, more or less. However, I think it is vital to look at the timings involved in these matters.

Thomas Cross died in 1869, the year in which Charles Lechmere turned 20. Thomas Cross had therefore been dead for seven years when Charles ran over and killed the young boy. That is a long time.

Furthermore, Maria Louisa had remarried after Thomas Cross demise; in 1872, she wed Joseph Forsdyke.

The question is, of those serving a the Coroners Court in 1876, how many were likely to recall a lowly H division PC, dead since seven years? For the suggestion to make any sort of sense, it would require that Lechmere actually told the police and inquest that he was the stepson of a PC who had died in 1869. And even if he did, would that make the coroner and jury start cheering? I cannot see that happening.

Of course, once we move forward in time to 1888, we know that Thomas Cross had been dead for nineteen years at that stage. Would it really be possible to draw sympathy from colleagues who in some cases were perhaps only just born as their unremarkable colleague passed away? Who would regard the matter as a guarantee for Charles Lechmeres veracity? Again, it is not a if anyone would go "Thomas Cross? THAT Thomas Cross?", is it? No, again Lechmere would have to mention himself that he was once upon a time the stepson of a serving Whitechapel PC. And arguably, it would require that the people involved on the judicial side of the inquest looked Thomas Cross up in registers before they could have it confirmed, because reasonably, most of them would not have known or met Thomas Cross if indeed ANY of them had.

This of course does not have to mean that Charles Lechmere cannot have aspired to have people taking a shine to hime on account of his step ancestry - but it certainly is anything but a given thing.