Evidence of innocence

[Abby Normal]

Harrison Barber.

Although we don’t know what Lechmere carried on his cart, there is some evidence to suggest it may have been horse flesh. They had yards/depots across London. You’ll remember the 1876 incident when a Pickfords driver named Charles Cross ran over and killed a child? That was just a few streets away from their Islington head office (in John Harrison’s hands at the time). As everyone knows, I can bore for England on this subject. Perhaps he carried tea or bricks on his cart. I do not know, but horse flesh would be my bet.

HB also had a large premises in Wandsworth, SW London. Taking that as a point in your geometrical shape would scoop up the Battersea body parts.

Thats right. Thanks Gary! I remember now. Interesting

[Aethelwulf]

I’ve said this before and I think it’s important. Lechmere finding the body isn’t exactly what happened. He was found standing near the body by a witness. It’s a subtle yet important difference.

Lechmere said he crossed from one side of the road to the middle to look at what he thought might be a tarpaulin and then realised it was a woman. Paul sees Lechmere in the middle of the road, where Lechmere said he was. Two people unknown to each other give stories that tally.

With Lechmere it is a case Nothing = Something

[Trevor Marriott]

except most of the anti lechers claim he must have been investigated and cleared.

Can you or any of them prove he wasnt ? whereby we can draw a proper inference fron the fact that the police didnt suspect him and on that basis must have interviewed him and then checked out his account

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[rjpalmer]

I’ve said this before and I think it’s important. Lechmere finding the body isn’t exactly what happened. He was found standing near the body by a witness. It’s a subtle yet important difference.

Imagine for a moment that CAL was merely an innocent bystander.

How, to your way of thinking, would he have behaved differently?

Do you agree that on seeing a woman in the road he might have turned and waited for a pedestrian that he heard the coming up behind him? Or do you instead envision him immediately screaming through the night and pounding on doors at 3.40 a.m.? After all, he didn't even yet know the woman was dead, did he?

What, in your mind, distinguishes his behavior from that of an ordinary citizen?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’ve said this before and I think it’s important. Lechmere finding the body isn’t exactly what happened. He was found standing near the body by a witness. It’s a subtle yet important difference.

If we’re talking about subtle differences Bob then he wasn’t ‘found.’ I deliberately stood there until Paul arrived. ‘Found’ implies that he was caught in the act.

So the question is….could he have simply found the body? The answer is…..absolutely. Can we absolutely prove that he did? No. Can we absolutely prove that he didn’t…..no.

So what is the evidence that he didn’t…….a non-existent point about a gap in time which requires the manipulation of times. So remove that and what’s left….nothing but obscure points about Lechmere having familiarity with the crime scenes (which I’d be impressed with if one of the sites was in Battersea and one was in Bermondsey and one was in Belgravia but not when they’re across such a confined area where Lechmere has lived for years) After that we have to resort to Lechmere acting with such suicidal stupidity at the crime scene that you wonder if it’s being suggested that he had some form of learning difficulty.

Again I have no problem with anyone considering Lechmere but it’s so noticeable how much effort it requires to get him into place as a suspect. Why this over confidence? It’s all down to Robert Paul of course.

[MrBarnett]

Can you or any of them prove he wasnt ? whereby we can draw a proper inference fron the fact that the police didnt suspect him and on that basis must have interviewed him and then checked out his account

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

So what happened to all the reports of such checking out? Or would they have just remained as notes in PC’s notebooks?

[SuperShodan]

Lechmere said he crossed from one side of the road to the middle to look at what he thought might be a tarpaulin and then realised it was a woman. Paul sees Lechmere in the middle of the road, where Lechmere said he was. Two people unknown to each other give stories that tally.

With Lechmere it is a case Nothing = Something

Why does Paul not see him before that ? It’s not possible to walk 80 or 90m up Bucks Row and not notice a man walking in front of you. The Lechmere version of finding the body just as Paul arrives is a fabrication. It couldn’t happen like that.
However, Paul could miss a man crouched by the body in the darkness.

[MrBarnett]

Lechmere said he crossed from one side of the road to the middle to look at what he thought might be a tarpaulin and then realised it was a woman. Paul sees Lechmere in the middle of the road, where Lechmere said he was. Two people unknown to each other give stories that tally.

With Lechmere it is a case Nothing = Something

Paul didn’t confirm that Lechmere moved closer to the body. Paul’s evidence would equally tally if Lechmere had stepped back from the body into the middle of the road.

[MrBarnett]

Well as to any other murders which it is said were attributable to Lechmere including the Torsos if the police had checked out his Bucks Row alibi which I belive they did, they would and should have asked his wife about his regular habits for example

Does your husband always go to work at the same time
How do you know that
How is he woken up (this would be an importnat question because the answer to this would negate the suggestion made by some that he could have got up and went out early
Does he ever go out on his own at weekends if yes
Where does he go
Do you know who he meets up with

As previoulsy stated there no records or anything in police memoirs to show that Lechmere was ever looked upon as a suspect and that the police did check his alibi and his daily movements.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

And there are no records to show he was ever checked out. If the police had taken the stance that as the finder (the ‘found’ finder) of the body he needed a thorough check out, wouldn’t there be a hint of it in a report somewhere?

Presumably you believe that each of the horse slaughterers were similarly checked out. Their families were interviewed, their governor too to confirm there were only three men working at the yard that night. The local pubs to check out their highly implausible story of going out for their supper beer just as the pub was about to close etc.

A frenzy of police activity which was either never committed to paper or has been lost.

[Mark J D]

... A frenzy of police activity which was either never committed to paper or has been lost.

The same police who couldn't be fagged to speak to the residents of Buck's Row...

Yeah, they were *definitely* gonna send a man out to Mile End to ask Cross's sadly illiterate wife Mrs Lechmere to make her best guess about what time the old man rolled out of bed...

M.

[Abby Normal]

And there are no records to show he was ever checked out. If the police had taken the stance that as the finder (the ‘found’ finder) of the body he needed a thorough check out, wouldn’t there be a hint of it in a report somewhere?

Presumably you believe that each of the horse slaughterers were similarly checked out. Their families were interviewed, their governor too to confirm there were only three men working at the yard that night. The local pubs to check out their highly implausible story of going out for their supper beer just as the pub was about to close etc.

A frenzy of police activity which was either never committed to paper or has been lost.

exactly gary
even with hutch we have evidence that he was checked out, at least somewhat-Abberlines " I interogated him...." With lech-nothing. He might have been, we just dont have any evidence for it. Perhaps it was so early in the series the police werent on their top? who knows, perhaps they just missed it and or lech fooled them.
I just totally disagree with the old trope-he must have been checked out/investigated stuff.

[Mark J D]

... I just totally disagree with the old trope-he must have been checked out/investigated stuff.

We really must learn just to ignore all postings that reduce to "The police would surely have..."

M.

[SuperShodan]

exactly gary
even with hutch we have evidence that he was checked out, at least somewhat-Abberlines " I interogated him...." With lech-nothing. He might have been, we just dont have any evidence for it. Perhaps it was so early in the series the police werent on their top? who knows, perhaps they just missed it and or lech fooled them.
I just totally disagree with the old trope-he must have been checked out/investigated stuff.

Agreed.


The only policeman Lechmere spoke to was PC Mizen, and Mizen never took his name, address or employer. When Lechmere walked off into the night he walked off into anonymity. It would be very interesting to know how the police contacted him.

Furthermore, why would the police interview him anyway ? He was just some random and his pal passing on a message.

We can say for a fact that Lechmere wasn’t interviewed by the police as on the first day of the inquest the police still thought PC Neil had found the body. So did the press. So right from the very start Lechmere had disappeared from the investigation. We should bear in mind the police didn’t even establish who found the body. They got that important and basic facts utterly wrong. Bucks Row was a total fiasco of an investigation from start to finish.

The idea that Lechmere was questioned and eliminated is clearly wrong. Just like many modern investigations the police missed him. He slipped under the radar. I know this hard to grasp for some, but at no point during the entire Ripper investigation was Lechmere a suspect. Nor at any point in the investigation was he ever questioned.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Why does Paul not see him before that ? It’s not possible to walk 80 or 90m up Bucks Row and not notice a man walking in front of you. The Lechmere version of finding the body just as Paul arrives is a fabrication. It couldn’t happen like that.
However, Paul could miss a man crouched by the body in the darkness.

Have you walked along Bucks Row in 1888 Bob? Yet again you are stating your own opinions as fact as I was quite clearly possible.

Answer this….if Paul must have seen Lechmere as was walking along had he been there how come Paul didn’t see Lechmere until he got so close to the crime scene - less than 40 yards. I’m sorry but your only showing how you’ll constantly bend over backward and distort just to shoehorn Lechmere into position.

Recognise this…..

“Moving on, we have the issue of the timings of our two protagonists, Lechmere and Paul. Lechmere tells the inquest he left his home at about 03.30. Paul is very sure that he arrived in Buck’s Row at 03.45 exactly.There is a gap of around fifteen minutes between Lechmere leaving his home and being met by Paul in Buck’s Row.”

About 3.30 becomes exactly 3.30 for the fit up. Then of course Paul’s time is taken as exact because it creates the biggest gap - nice methodology - ignore Neil, ignore Mizen and trust the guy who exaggerated his own role in the Press.

Blatant manipulation of the evidence to suit.

Then you talk, again, about Lechmere being crouched next to the body.

Before we know it you’ll have Lechmere cackling “ I killed her” as they walked off to find a Constable.

Can we stop doing this?

[Herlock Sholmes]

We really must learn just to ignore all postings that reduce to "The police would surely have..."

M.

And we must learn to ignore all posts that

a) claim opinion as fact
b) claim to know the exact time of an obviously estimated time
c) claim to know what Coroners were thinking when we have no evidence for it.
d) claim that there’s something sinister about finding a body
e) claim that we can know what Paul must or must not have been able to see or hear in 1888 London
f) claim that Lechmere was the biggest moron in the history of crime by loitering around for Paul to arrive
g) claim that it’s no issue for a man to stop off and butcher a woman 15 minutes from work

That would be a good start because there’s only one side doing it.