Evidence of innocence

[SuperShodan]

Absolutely. To be consistent with Cross/Lechmere's statement (which we have to consider as that comes from the innocence theory) and to be as least biased against the guilty theory then the shortest diagonal would be from the corner of the wool warehouse. And that would place Cross/Lechmere (the green dot) eastward, to about the 2nd e in metres but on the blue line. And of course, that shifts Paul eastward by the same amount, but the separation between "40 yard Paul" and "first spotted by guilty Cross/Lechmere" has to be increased to account for the increased distance guilty Cross/Lechmere has to travel towards Paul to get to where he's seen.

The guilty theory also requires that Cross/Lechmere is able to travel that distance without being seen by Paul to have done so. It also requires us to believe that Cross/Lechmere decided not to flee in case he was spotted by Paul, and so he decides to move towards Paul , which also requires him not to be seen.

So the explanation for not fleeing, he might be seen, is self contradicted by the fact the theory requires a guilty Cross/Lechmere to move towards Paul, which obviously raises an even greater risk of being seen!

The guilty theory is, therefore, logically irrational no matter what the distances are. Hence, given the guilty theory is logically irrational, but the innocent theory is not, this is evidence of innocence.

- Jeff

Moving the goalposts. Quite literally.

I’ll ask the obvious question. Why Paul doesn’t have sight of Lechmere earlier ?

If Lechmere is in the middle of the road adjacent to Nichols body “standing where the woman was” then that’s 130 - 140m up Bucks Row.

[drstrange169]

>>Dr Andy Griffiths, former head of Sussex Murder Squad.
“From a Police point of view, the person who finds a body in circumstances like this is always going to be significant to an enquiry. Certainly, in the modern age you couldn’t prosecute anyone with eliminating him [Lechmere] first... because obviously you’ve got somebody who’s been with the body very close to the point of death, and is possibly the person who causes the death, so is definitely a very significant person in terms of the investigation.”<<


It's worth talking about this.

First, I'm assuming he didn't really mean what he actually said.

If the killer was caught, confessed to the crime, their phone pinged them at the murder site at time of the murder and the killers d.n.a was found on the victim, It's hard to believe the police would refuse to prosecute him until they eliminated Lechmere. It's one of the many statements by Griffiths in the tv show that require an explanation. But, I understand the general thrust of what Griffiths was claiming, namely that Cross would need to be investigated.

It would be bizarre in the extreme if Cross was not investigated by the Victorian police.

He turned up to, presumably, Bethnal Green police station at sometime prior to the inquest, claiming to have found Mrs Nichols before Neil. He also claimed to have told a policeman. We know that the newspapers claimed Neil, Thain and Mizen had seen nothing of the two men at that stage, Paul's newspaper article was at direct odds with both Mizen and Cross's account and Paul could not be found.

For Cross to appear at the inquest something must have changed, some investigation must have revealed something that made Cross's story credible, which is why he was brought into the inquest during Mizen's testimony for Mizen to identify.

During Mizen's testimony and presumably before it, Cross's story was disputed. Clearly, this would have been the subject of an investigation.

Then a scant few days later another murder was committed at a spot Cross said he and Paul pasted on their way to work. Paul at that stage was still missing in action.

The idea that the police would not have checked on Cross seems one conspiracy theory too far.

[drstrange169]

>>I’ll ask the obvious question. Why Paul doesn’t have sight of Lechmere earlier ? <<

If you are asking about the period they walked from Foster to the corner of Buck's and Brady, watch the animation.

If you are talking about actually in Buck's Row, we don't know at what stage Paul saw Cross, it's never reported at the inquest, so Jeff can't put it in.

That's the kind of fictionalising Christer did in his book when he wrote, "When he (Paul) walked about a hundred yards down Buck's Row ... he noticed a man standing out in the street." disingenuously he told his readers that this was "the corroborated version". Who "corroborated" it Christer never tells us.

Kudos to Jeff for being more credible.

Here are the various reports on the inquest from the major papers.

".. on passing up Buck's row he saw a man in the middle of the road.."
" .. going to work at Cobbett's-court, Spitalfields, he saw in Buck's-row a man standing in the middle of the. As witness drew closer he walked towards the pavement.."
"As I was passing up Buck's-row I saw a man standing in the roadway."
"..he was passing along Buck's-row at a quarter to four on the morning in question, when a man stopped him."
"..passing up Buck's-row he saw a man standing in the middle of the road."

None of them say how far he was up Buck's Row.

The discredited Lloyds article stated,

"I passed up Buck's row to my work as a carman for Coven Garden Market. It was dark, and I was hurrying along, when I saw a man standing where the woman was."

Significantly NONE of the inquest reports say Cross was "standing where the women was". Meaning, like much of his Lloyds claims, after being grilled by police and under penalty of prosecution of perjury he changed his story.


>> If Lechmere is in the middle of the road adjacent to Nichols body “standing where the woman was” then that’s 130 - 140m up Bucks Row. <<

Since he wasn't the issue is not relevant.

[SuperShodan]

First, I'm assuming he didn't really mean what he actually said.

Absolutely classic. Thats laugh out loud funny. Don’t ever change Dusty.

[JeffHamm]

Moving the goalposts. Quite literally.

I’ll ask the obvious question. Why Paul doesn’t have sight of Lechmere earlier ?

If Lechmere is in the middle of the road adjacent to Nichols body “standing where the woman was” then that’s 130 - 140m up Bucks Row.

Moving goalposts is when you treat one theory better than the other, so if anything, I could be accused of "moving the goalposts" initially because I set them in favour of the guilty theory. They've just been placed to more accurately reflect the testimony. A true theory has no problem with doing that.

But, I don't know, it's the guilty theory that requires Paul not to see Cross/Lechmere earlier. I mean, if Paul has seen Cross/Lechmere from the point Paul enters Buck's Row (the first point it is even possible to catch sight of Cross/Lechmere), then Paul would have observed Cross/Lechmere move away from the body, and then pretend as if he was always just standing in the middle of the street. Well, that's just not going to work as cover for Cross/Lechmere. Paul would have reported all that movement. So the guilty theory requires that Cross/Lechmere somehow knows Paul hasn't seen him near the body (so why doesn't Cross/Lechmere flee again? Oh that's right, because he's worried he'll be seen fleeing - but he's apparently ok with potentially being seen moving away from the body).

It is according to the guilty theory requirements that Paul does not see Cross/Lechmere until Cross/Lechmere has moved away from the body and is standing quite a distance from it. That is part of the guilty theory explanation after all. So, I guess you need to explain why Paul has not seen Cross/Lechmere do that. My opinion is that requirement would be impossible to meet, and the reasoning for Cross/Lechmere to move towards Paul results in irrational arguments. Therefore, the guilty theory explanation cannot be seen as valid.

- Jeff

[drstrange169]

>>Absolutely classic. Thats laugh out loud funny. Don’t ever change Dusty.<<


Sigh, we're back to responding to the insignificant parts my posts and ignoring the the key points in them.

But since the key parts cast SIGNIFICANT doubt on Lechmere's candidacy, that's what the rest of us have come to expect from you and Christer, just misinformation, evasion and insults.

[SuperShodan]

Moving goalposts is when you treat one theory better than the other, so if anything, I could be accused of "moving the goalposts" initially because I set them in favour of the guilty theory. They've just been placed to more accurately reflect the testimony. A true theory has no problem with doing that.

- Jeff

I do enjoy your posts Jeff but after moving the times around we are now moving Lechmere 30m away from the body.

It appears to me that by Pauls arrival Lechmere has ascertained its a woman. I don’t see how he could possibly know this without getting close - she’s lying in the darkness. It seems their interaction begins with Lechmere saying “come and look at this woman”.

I would add that if Lechmere can tell it’s a woman at 30m then Paul can see a guy walking in front of him at 40.

[drstrange169]

>>Moving the goalposts. Quite literally.<<

Jeff's correct. Editing Baxter's quotes to make Lechmere appear guilty is moving the goal posts. Describing Paul as being about 100 yards down Buck's Row when he saw Cross as corroborated, is moving the goal pots.

Calling it fake news is probably the kindest thing one could say.

[drstrange169]

>> ...moving the times around we are now moving Lechmere 30m away from the body.<<

Yes to more accurately reflect the inquest testimony rather than someone's pet theories.

[Trevor Marriott]

Question to Dr Biggs
"In relation to one particular victim Mary Nicholls who had her throat cut and her body only subjected to minor abdominal wounds with no attempt made to remove organs can I ask how long it would approx take for her body to bleed out, if at all?" Dr Llewellyn ''There were no injuries about the body till just about the lower part of the abdomen. Two or three inches from the left side was a wound running in a jagged manner. It was a very deep wound, and the tissues were cut through. There were several incisions running across the abdomen. On the right side there were also three or four similar cuts running downwards. All these had been caused by a knife, which had been used violently and been used downwards. The wounds were from left to right, and might have been done by a left-handed person. All the injuries had been done by the same instrument. One could hardly describe what Dr Llewellyn said at the inquest of Polly Nichols as '' Minor Abominal wounds '' lets be sure when giving information about the murders its accurate as so people get the full picture and not something that lessons their impact , wether its relevant or not .

Dr Biggs has previoulsy reviewed all the medical evidence in relation to all the murders so he is fully aware of the injuries to the victims. For those interested his full review of all the murders and the Thames Torsos can be found in my book "Jack the Ripper-The real Truth"

On another note the abdominal injuries to Nichols were not as severe as they were to some of the other victims so i belive minor abdominal wounds is the correct terminolgy.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Darryl Kenyon]

>>Dr Andy Griffiths, former head of Sussex Murder Squad.
[I][B]“From a Police point of view, the person who finds a body in circumstances like this is always going to be significant to an enquiry.

It would be bizarre in the extreme if Cross was not investigated by the Victorian police.

Indeed Dusty. I simply cannot believe that at the very least a cursory check was made on Lech at his place of work, or home, or both. As Griffith says - From a Police point of view, the person who finds a body in circumstances like this is always going to be significant to an enquiry.
This would be more so in Victorian times when there was no CCTV etc. Witnesses, their alibis and movements were often key to a court case.

Regards Darryl

[JeffHamm]

I do enjoy your posts Jeff but after moving the times around we are now moving Lechmere 30m away from the body.

It appears to me that by Pauls arrival Lechmere has ascertained its a woman. I don’t see how he could possibly know this without getting close - she’s lying in the darkness. It seems their interaction begins with Lechmere saying “come and look at this woman”.

I would add that if Lechmere can tell it’s a woman at 30m then Paul can see a guy walking in front of him at 40.

Thanks.

I don't think I did move times around. It's Christer who is moving times around. It's Christer who is saying that PC Mizen's reported time of 3:45 really means something like 3:50 (I forget what time he randomly seems to have chosen, but he's moved it nonetheless). What I did was stick to the testified times, and estimated others, and compared those estimated with the qualified times stated (about x) and found the estimates fell sufficiently close that those testified qualifiers would be acceptable if the estimate is correct. Even Paul's time of leaving for work at 3:38 I think I suggest, would be acceptably described as "about 3:45" given the vagaries of time keeping in 1888. But, if that time feels "moved", I suggest you count the number of testified times that Christer has moved, and you'll see that he's moved far more than my one, which I would dispute as being moved at all.

I've been trying to find some research on the accurcy of eyewitness's statements about the time of day. So far, no luck, but I'm sure it's out there. However, I have found research on the accuracy of eyewitness's estimations of a duration (i.e. I waited 5 minutes). And the short story, on average the testified duration overestimates the true duration (until estimating durations of about an hour, at which point people start to underestimate the duration). However, the variation around that average is huge! People are really quite rubbish at it.

I took their data and reverse engineered it, meaning I converted it so that I could take a given duration statement by a witness and work out the average "real duration" it represents. And also the range of real durations one would have to consider as "within the expected range of variation." I'll come back to this.

If, therefore, we think of estimating the time of day as being an estimation of the duration from the last time they looked at a clock, we could adapt that data to give us an idea of what degree of accuracy we might want to attribute to time of day statements by your average witness.

Here's a table that covers witness statements of durations from 1 minute to 60 minutes, and on the right we see the minimum, average and maximum "actual durations" associated with that statement.

We know the distance from Paul's home to the crime scene would require 2m and 25s for him to walk, so if he gets there at 3:45 to see Cross/Lechmere as Christer argues, then he had to leave home at 3:42:35. I suggested he probably left closer to 3:38:52, which is only 3m 43 seconds earlier (the 6-7 minutes that often gets mentioned is prior to Christer's 3:45 arrival at the crime scene, but 2m 25s of that is required for him to get there, so the difference in our suggested departure times is less than 4 minutes).

But if we go with 3:45 for Cross/Lechmere's discovery time, as Christer does, we have to ignore PC Mizen's testimony that the carmen are talking to him at 3:45, and ignore PC Neil's testimony that he was at the body at 3:45, and PC Thain's testimony that Neil summond him at about 3:45 and shift all those to be later by about 5 minutes. And Christer ignore Dr. L's statement where he says 3:55 and only goes with Dr. L's "about 4:00". We have to move 3 times, ignore one completely, and treat "about 4:00" as at 4:00 and I think he has argued for 4:05 (another 5 minute shift). Each of those multiple shifts is more than I suggest Paul is off by, and all are times by people whose job would require them to know the time, and to note the time when these events happened at the time (i.e. record that information in their book at the first opportunity). Paul, on the other hand, has no reason to take special note of the time this happens, nor to even think about it until he eventually hears of the murder in the press the following day. I know which I would hedge my bets on in terms of reliability. Christer bets on the other horse.

As such, I dispute I've "shifted" anything, but if I have, then Christer has done so more often than I have.

Anyway, have a look at this data. Take, for example, a statement where someone says "I waited 5 minutes".

On average, the actual true duration is 3m 37s, but the range required to capture 95% of the true durations that go into making up that average spans from 1m 38s out to 15m 06s! And 2.5% of people estimated something lasted 5 minutes that was actually less than 1m 38s and of course 2.5% of people estimated that something lasted 5 minutes when it was even longer than 15m 06s!

So if our estimation of the time of day is just estimation of the duration since we last saw a clock. How accurate someone will entirely depend upon when they last saw a clock.

When did Paul last see the clock before he ended up heading out the door to go to work? If you have an answer other than "I don't know", on what evidence are you basing your answer? (i.e. evidence, recorded somewhere; a guess based upon what I think he might have done).

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Ah, too late to edit.

I wanted to remove the bit where it says Christer ignors the 3:55, he doesn't always and that was my mistake. However, here is an example of what I was saying about his more frequent and larger shifts:
---------------------
Robert Pauls timing, however, CAN be checked to a degree - we can see that if the examination/ conference/trek to Mizen took around four minutes, as Paul suggested, and if he had arrived at the site at around 3.46, as suggested by how he said he was walking down Bucks Row at exactly 3.45 (strengthened by how he said at the inquest that he left home at approximately 3.45 or just thereafter), then he and Lechmere would have reached Mizen at around 3.50. And if the conference at the crossing of Bakers Row and Hanbury Street together with Mizens trek to the murder site took another logical 4 minutes, then he would have arrived at around 3.54, meaning that if we pair this with how Thain would have left for LLewellyn at around 3.53, we can see that it makes sense. Adding on how Llewellyn said 3.55 - 4.00 for Thains calling hi to Bucks Row, that too makes sense. In fact, every time offered in that end of the line makes sense - but ONLY if Lechmere found the body at 3.45. So there is the amount of independent data Baxter spoke of, and there are the only give times that CAN be checked.
------------------

Note, Christer has shifted PC Mizen by 5 minutes, he's shifted Thain by almost 8 minutes (I have PC Thain being summond at 3:45 by PC Neil, so he leaves the crime scene at 3:45 and change, the change being the time required to run to the crime scene to meet PC Neil in the first place). In this post he doesn't mention when PC Neil arrives, but, given he has Paul arriving at 3:46, PC Neil has been shifted by at least a minute. But since PC Neil says he pretty much immediately summons PC Thain, well, PC Neil appears to be shifted by about 8 minutes too.

Also, given that the recreation/simulation I presented, which requires none of those shifts in time, also recovers the 3:55 and 4:00 times for Dr. Llewellyn, Christer's claim that I've underlined is false, by demonstration, but this is what he offers as justification for those shifts in the first place. In my view, that seems a bit ... unsound.

Again, if you have a problem with my suggestion that Paul may have left a bit earlier (less than 4 minutes earlier than he would have to in order to get there at 3:45), then the guilty theory must really rattle your cage when you see shifts of 5 and 8 minutes. My single "shift" is based on the fact that Paul has to get there such that he arrives at PC Mizen at PC Mizen's non-shifted time. I shift less frequently, and by a smaller amount. So you must agree that is better, particularly given the basis for Christer's larger shifts is false, as I posted well before Christer's above post showing how Dr. L's 3:55 and 4:00 also get accounted for without these large 5 and 8 minute shifts. As such, there is no basis for his more frequent and larger shifts.

Or is asking for both versions to be evaluated on the same criteria just me "moving the goalposts" again?

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Allowing for a plus or minus when considering something that we don’t know for certain is not moving the goalposts. It’s a matter of considering all reasonable possibilities. I was also accused of moving the goalposts on Lechmere’s departure time even though I’d quite clearly included times (pre 3.30) which favoured the pro-Lechmere viewpoint. I can’t see why some insist on x when y is also possible? Basically it’s shoehorning.

[JeffHamm]

Oh, I forgot to mention, Christer says that Paul testifies at the inquest that he left home at approximately 3.45 or just thereafter. I've seen his testimony as saying he left home about a quarter to 4 (that's in the Times). I know the wording can differ between papers, but I don't ever recall a paper indicating that he left ... just thereafter.? What newspaper does that come from?

- Jeff