Evidence of innocence

[Doctored Whatsit]

Just to clarify, at no point was Lechmere interviewed by the police during the Ripper enquiry.

Er ....Lechmere arrives without warning at the inquest, is called to give his evidence without anyone knowing anything about who he is, and what he knows, he says he alone found the body and not PC Neil, he then calls PC Mizen a liar on oath, and no-one interviews him for further information....

Is that really a serious suggestion?

[SuperShodan]

Er ....Lechmere arrives without warning at the inquest, is called to give his evidence without anyone knowing anything about who he is, and what he knows, he says he alone found the body and not PC Neil, he then calls PC Mizen a liar on oath, and no-one interviews him for further information....

Is that really a serious suggestion?

Yes. That exactly what I’m saying. If you read my post you’ll see why he was never questioned.

[Darryl Kenyon]

Yes. That exactly what I’m saying. If you read my post you’ll see why he was never questioned.

Once Lech appeared at the inquest and gave his evidence [ if he had not been to the police before ] he became the most important person in the enquiry and possibly the number one suspect. Are you seriously saying that the police never ever questioned/interviewed him once ever ?

[JeffHamm]

Hi SS,

Lechmere only interacted with one Policeman, PC Mizen, who never took his name, address or place of employment. Once Lechmere walked off into the night he walked off into anonymity. So it would be interesting to know how the police contacted him for questioning. Answers on a postcard please.

The simplest explanation is that Cross/Lechmere went to the police at some point after hearing that the woman he found was indeed dead, and in fact horribly murdered.

Furthermore, why would they anyway, Lechmere was just some random passing on a message from a policeman who needed a hand in Bucks Row.

Both he and Paul make it very clear, PC Mizen was the first PC they came across. Mizen's statement that he was told he was wanted "by a policeman" is, in all likelihood, a mistake on PC Mizen's part. When he got to Buck's Row he was, after all, wanted by a policeman (PC Neil is there, PC Neil sends Mizen for the ambulance, etc). If the carmen said he was wanted, or needed, in Buck's Row, it is only natural for him to end up remembering the intended message as "by a policemen" even though they never said those words. Some have made a big deal out of this, as if PC Mizen is lying or Cross/Lechmere is lying, etc, but it has all the hallmarks of the sorts of misunderstandings that occur all the time.

We know that Lechmere was never interviewed as on the first day of the inquest the police still thought PC Neil had found the body. If they had interviewed Lechmere they would know this wasn’t the case. The police got Bucks Row badly wrong, they never even established who found the body.

Hmm, I don't know if we can be so sure about all that. PC Neil can only testify to his experiences and actions, and PC Neil never interacts with the carmen. That doesn't mean the police as a group don't know about Cross/Lechmere and/or Paul, only that, as we know, if we only hear PC Neil's experiences we would never hear of the carmen.

The police, by policy, did not care to divulge any information to the press. It was believed this would greatly hinder investigations. So if either, or both, of the carmen were known to the police and had given statements, PC Neil is not going to mention that because the carmen never enter into his experiences of the night.

Basically, I don't think we can draw inferences about what the police as a group knew with regards to the carmen based upon PC Neil's statement - because the carmen never interacted with PC Neil so they will never come up in his statement whether or not the police as a group know about the carmen.

Just to clarify, at no point was Lechmere interviewed by the police during the Ripper enquiry.

This, I think, is implausible. First, while it may have been technically possible for someone to just rock up and give evidence at an inquest, that would just be a recipe for disaster if it was allowed in anything but exceptional circumstances. Witnesses gave police official statements, the coroner called people to give testimony based upon those statements (under penalty of fines if they failed to show), so everybody at these inquests we can be confident had been interviewed by the police prior to their appearance.

Cross/Lechmere and Paul appear later in the inquest, which would be consistent with them giving statements earlier and requiring some time for the police to make inquiries in order to verify it. Then, as now, there are crackpots who give false statements to police, and cause all sorts of complications to investigations. These statements still need to be investigated (even if only to show they are clearly false statements) because any decent defence attorney will otherwise point to "all the other leads not investigated - clear sign of tunnel vision and bias by the police", etc.

What we do not know, however, is when they made their statements, or what the police did to verify them. However, their appearance at the inquests alone is almost proof in and of itself that both carmen were interviewed by the police before that in order to make their statements by which the coroner selected them to appear.

We've had quite a few discussions about this sort of thing with regards to Schwartz and the Stride case, and there are others who know the detailed workings of how inquests were run far better than I do, and I'm sure they will correct me if I'm misrepresenting what I take the overall theme of their comments to mean.

Finally, even if we go with the idea that Cross/Lechmere just happened to take time off work to appear at the inquest despite never having spoken to the police prior, it would be indefensible to argue that after that point the police didn't interview him.

- Jeff

[Aethelwulf]

The Lechmere triangle is very interesting to me in terms of ‘evidence of innocence’. If he were innocent I wouldn’t expect we could link him so easily to the crime scenes.

err..you can't

[Dickere]

Yes. That exactly what I’m saying. If you read my post you’ll see why he was never questioned.

If he's the killer he doesn't just turn up at the inquest, surely.

[JeffHamm]

Hi George,

Hi Jeff,

Your 12 metre distance of Lechmere's sighting of the body has been bothering me. I've looked at several newspaper accounts of his testimony and found no reference to his location in relation to the woolshed. Can you point me to that reference please? I found this account from the Morning Advertiser 4 Sep 1888: "As I got up Buck's row I saw something lying on the north side, in the gateway to a tool warehouse. It looked to me like a man's tarpaulin, but on going into the centre of the road I saw it was the figure of a woman.". It appears that Lechmere thought he was looking at a man's tarpaulin jacket rather than a crumpled sheet of tarpaulin. The tarpaulin jackets were most often worn by sailors, the origin of the term "Jack tar", but were also made for women. It seems to me that 12 metres is an inordinate distance to be able to distinguish, in the dark, between a man's tarpaulin jacket and the figure of a woman? I would have thought that said observation would have been more likely made from the middle of the road, about opposite the body, which would closer fit Paul's statement to LLoyd's of "where the body was".

When I suggested that Lechmere, if guilty, probably had knowledge of Neil's beat I was contemplating that he was planning his timing around this knowledge, as JtR was in Mitre Square. His plan of quietly leaving before Neil arrived would not have included and alarm being raised by Paul. In your opinion, would JtR have done some pre-murder research on police beats, or was he more likely a daring opportunist?

Cheers, George

I'm calculating his location by drawing a straight line from the body to the nearest corner of the wool warehouse, then selecting the point on that line that is in the middle of the road. That ends up being about 12m from the body.

Dusty (drstrange) refers to the reports that mention the wool warehouse with regards to Cross/Lechmere's position, but I'm not sure where those come from (will be one of the newspapers, just not sure which article). I've just incorporated his information into the calculations.

But 12m, or 40 feet, isn't really so far away that he couldn't make out the fact that it was a person. He sees Paul at 40 yards after all, and that's 3x that distance, and there are those arguing that the reason Cross didn't flee is because while Paul was more than 40 yards away, Cross still feared being seen moving away from the crime scene (but he has to move away and towards Paul, given Paul corroborates his statement that he's in the middle of the street, which is why that argument falls apart).

Again, without actually being there, though, I don't know if that distance is reasonable or not. It all comes down to lighting conditions and such, which are details we don't have.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

If he's the killer he doesn't just turn up at the inquest, surely.

If he hadn’t shown up though the ‘mystery finder’ would have been the man that everyone would have been looking for. Lechmere would have been at risk of running into Mizen or Paul sometime.

If he’s the killer he scarpers before Paul gets there.

[drstrange169]

>>Sorry, but I think I've heard enough.<<

It's become obvious, RJ that Bob's arguments are circular and self defeating, which is why there needs to be someone that can argue a cogent case against Lechmere.

[Abby Normal]

A bit off topic but I just wanted to answer a previous post by Abby.


The marauder and commuter profiles are fascinating. I think that Lechmere was clearly a commuter and that he was attacking women well before he moved to Doveton Street. I think from late 1887 and through 1888 there are women being savagely beaten, then knifed, then strangled and mutilated. This kind of progression is what I’d expect from JTR.

The killers MO is developing and by the time he killed Polly Nichols he had become good at murder. I definitely don’t think she was his first victim. It was too good a kill.

In particular, I don’t think a killer would start his career with a murder. I think he would likely start with assaults and work up. I see that in Whitechapel. Women beaten to death moving up to very efficient stealth kills.

Im at 23 attacks during the ripper period but these are just some that caught my eye. I’m not saying they are Ripper attacks, they just fit my idea of progression and assaults moving up to the Nichols murder, which I believe is his first strangulation and throat cut kill which is silent and deadly.


Emily Hosnell (Nov 1887) severely beaten.

Margaret Haimes (Dec 1887) severely beaten .

Annie Millwood (Feb 1888) repeatedly stabbed.

Georgina Green (May 1888) stabbed in the head, she managed to survive.


It would be interesting to see if any of these attacks occurred between his former address and his work at Pickford’s, and what time they occurred. My hypothesis would be that they would.

The Lechmere triangle is very interesting to me in terms of ‘evidence of innocence’. If he were innocent I wouldn’t expect we could link him so easily to the crime scenes.

Hi SS
Yes I agree there would have been earlier crimes and escalation. I think more than likely milwood and Tabram were early "botched" ripper crimes. and of course they fall within the Triangle.

I dont know much about the other three you listed, but will be interesting to see what you turn up.

[drstrange169]

>>It appears that Lechmere thought he was looking at a man's tarpaulin jacket rather than a crumpled sheet of tarpaulin.<<

Tarpaulins were used on Pickfords carts. There was a shed on the west wall of Broad Street station, for the specific storage of tarpaulins. I don't think there is any doubt that Cross meant a cart covering not a coat.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Abby Normal,

The Lechmere Triangle

I had briefly mentioned this idea in a response to Jeff, and im sure its probably been mentioned before somewhere concerning Lech, but wanted to expound on it a bit more and see others thoughts.

If you draw straight lines from Lechs house to his place of work and then to his mothers house (which is also near where he used to live) and back to his house it forms a triangle. All of the murders, including tabram and Mckenzie (and millwood) as well as the placement of the apron/GSG, fall within this triangle or right on the border. If lech was the killer, I would suggest this area was his comfort zone, as he knew it well, and that none of the murders fall far outside this zone as it would be areas he might not be as familiar and comfortable with. Its also interesting to note that nichols is the victim who was murdered closest to his house and also the first of the C5, but still a good distance away from where he lived-suggesting if he was the killer he didnt want to kill TOO close to his home.
Its simplistic laymans "geoprofiling" I know, but I find the idea somewhat intriguing.

Thoughts? Prayers? lol

I know his home address, and his mother at 1 Mary Ann Street, but I've never been entirely sure of where he's headed for work? I think it's somewhere around the train station west of Commercial, but that's a pretty large landmark. I think there's been debate as well as to where (as in what address) he would be heading too. I probably should get this information recorded though, so could you let me know what address you're using in your above triangle idea?

I've got Paul's home and work location though.

Anyway, without knowing where Cross/Lechmere's work address is, here's what I have:

C/L's home is outside the estimated area of interest, but his mother's location falls in a region of interest (90% are inside the green, around 85% tend to be inside the red region; 75% inside the area that spans out to the purple area; 50% are found inside the orange/yellow area, and 25% are inside the yellow area, including the white spot). So, roughly 10% commuters (outside the whole area indicated). The "hot spot", or yellow area, contains 25% of the offenders but comprises only 2.5% of the total search area. As one increases the search area by an additional 2.5%, you gain more, but you don't double it, the rate of gain drops off as you move out.

Again, this isn't about "identifying person X", it's about "this area has a higher probabliity of being associated with the offender's daily life" (i.e. residence, place of work, club, etc). It's about suggesting good areas to look at, not good "people" per se. Lots of people will be associated with the highest priority zone indicated.

As we can see, Paul in fact works in that zone. And Paul's residence is also inside the search area. In contrast, Cross/Lechmere lives outside the search area, but his mother does live in a fairly decent area (provided of course Stride is a victim of JtR; that area becomes far less interesting if she's not). I'm not sure where exactly to place C/L's work address though, so I can't comment on that.

As such, if we were just comparing the two carmen with regards to how well their anchor points correspond to the spatial analysis, Paul's appear to be the better fit.

Oh, I've only included the C5 here. Adding Tabram and Millwood doesn't change things much, and because their linkage to the series is more debatable, I thought this would be more middle ground. Also, I'm not sure which end of Mary Ann Street #1 would be, so I've put her location in the middle, but both ends of the street are in an area of interest, so it doesn't matter for us.

- Jeff

[drstrange169]

>> Just to clarify, at no point was Lechmere interviewed by the police during the Ripper enquiry. <<

To appear at an inquest you have to receive a summons. That's the way inquests work. Cross appears in the police records therefore he was interviewed by police. I've already detailed this in post 4502

[JeffHamm]

And again, this sort of spatial analysis is not about pinpointing "a person", there will be 1000s of people associated with the highest priority zone alone, let alone the entire search area. Personally, given other information we know, I wouldn't be surprised if the high priority zone is reflecting JtR's area where he drinks, and so the anchor point there I would not be surprised if it turned out to be his local. He could live in that area of course, or work there, I don't know. And again, only 25% of the time do offenders have an anchor point in that 2.5% of the search area, but that's still 10x better than chance odds (you would expect, by chance, 2.5% at best, and that would require 100% of offenders being found in the search are to begin with, which is also not the case).

The utility of this sort of analysis is help prioritise where to search, just like a list of associates with a victim (spouse, family, friends, work mates, etc), prioritises who to interview (but doesn't pin point the "where" for those people; this looks at the "where", but not the "who"). It is the investigation that helps narrow down the "who", and if an investigation, where real evidence connects someone to an offense, suggests someone unlike the profile, then the profile is ignored - or it should be. It's a search strategy suggestion, not a solution.

So if we followed the "search strategy as suggested", we would find Paul (at work) long before we would find Cross/Lechmere (at his mother's), and we would find Paul again (at home) near the end of that search, and at the moment, Cross/Lechmere would not show up again. (note, I'm talking finding their anchor points - obviously both of them walk through the area going to work).

- Jeff

[drstrange169]

I just tried that, Mitre Sq doesn't fall within the triangle by my reckoning, could you show us your triangle Abby?
I must say this reminds me of Ivor Edwards book. I think Dan Norder did an article in Ripper Notes years ago about all the crosses, symbols and signs people have drawn up about the murder sites.