Evidence of innocence

[FrankO]

Hi Jeff,

I don't know if this has been previously considered, but what would the acoustics have been like in Bucks Row. A narrow cobbled street with tall brick buildings on both sides. Would it have been a little like an echo chamber? When Cross first became aware of the sound of footsteps could he have had trouble determining from which direction they emanated?

Hi George,

I think you’re right about the acoustics with regards to the stretch from the crime spot to Brady Street. To the west would be much less of an echo chamber, because the first 20 to 25 metres to the board school there was only a wall of perhaps 2 metres high on either side of the street and beyond the board school the street was about 4 times as wide as the narrow stretch. I, personally, don’t think it would have taken more than a few seconds for the murderer to assess from which direction footsteps would be coming, especially if they came from the east. But, of course, I could be wrong.

This, combined with the fact that Neil heard Thain pass the end of Buck’s Row about 120 metres away and, as Dusty suggests, Neil didn’t seem to have trouble determining Thain was east of him, makes it rather hard for me to imagine that Lechmere, if he was the killer, would only have heard Paul when he the latter had already covered some 50-60-70 metres down Buck’s Row. Whoever the killer was, he had every reason to listen for sounds while this wouldn’t necessarily/particularly be true of any innocent carman on their way to work.

When he heard the footsteps he took the time to pull down the clothing and, presumably wipe off the knife and his hands. Could he have had some confusion as to which direction to flee away from the approaching footfalls until he was visually spotted at a range of 30-40 yards?

Reading this, the questions that immediately spring to mind are: how could Lechmere be sure that Paul didn’t see him before he could see Paul and how could he be sure Paul wouldn’t have heard him move around the body and then away from it to the middle of the street? Because, after all, if he’d let Paul get so close to him that he felt he didn’t have time enough to leave, there would be every chance that Paul would also be able to hear him and perhaps even see him or at least see some dark figure moving.

Cheers,
Frank

[Great Aunt]

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for the invitation to review my re-creation. I only read this post this afternoon, but as it has turned out this evening has been perfect for experimentation. The 31st Aug 1888 at Bucks Row was bright and clear with 30% cloud cover. The moon was waning crescent, rose at around midnight, transited the meridian after sunrise and was 38% illuminated. This evening at Narooma the moon is waning gibbous just rising during the re-enactment but hidden by a small amount of cloud which gave only a soft glow in the eastern sky. There was zero other cloud in the sky and the stars were very bright. The moon was 93% illuminated so I decided to proceed with the re-enactment as I felt that a bright night in the east end of London in the late eighteenth century would not be as bright as that of a regional setting in Australia, and waiting for such a bright moon to clear the cloud would unduly prejudice the experiment. The were no lights on in my home or in the homes of the distant neighbours.

I had also decided to shift the re-enactment to my driveway which is a grey colour similar to that of cobblestones. I considered asking by 70 year old wife whether she would like to come and lie in our driveway in the middle of the night while I measured up some stuff, but then thought better of the idea. I used my full length Driza-Bone duster and padded it with towels to look like the shape of a woman. I used a white towel for the breast area to mimic Polly's white flannel chest cloth, and a light brown towel to shape the head and mimic Polly's hair colour. Total height of the body replica was about 5' 2". I laid this "body" on the south side of the drive with the head pointing east and laid out markers every 3 metres on the north side of the driveway, which is only 4 metres wide, so not quite authentic. My wife does not possess a bonnet so I substituted a black fedora.

Come 11PM I went to the garage and turned off the auto-light and used the time for eye adjustment to walk to our front gate, about 80 metres away. Our gatepost has the mail box on top which makes it about 5 feet high, and a little over a foot wide. I thought that, while the post is smaller than a man I would see how close I had to be to distinguish it's shape. At ten metres I could just make out the shape because I knew what I was looking for, and it is light grey in colour, but I would have serious doubts about being able to distinguish a man's shape standing any more than about 15 metres away in that light.

Back to Polly. At eighteen metres I couldn't discern anything. At fifteen metres I could just make out a dark shape contrasted against the light grey paving. This was both direct observation and the peripheral observation that would be available to a man watching were he was walking rather than the looking for an object in which I was engaged. I have to say that the shape did look like a tarpaulin on the ground. From fifteen metres I started walking straight at the shape. At twelve metres I started to see a faint white glow within the shape, with the glow being a little stronger at 9 metres and stronger again at six metres. At four metres I could just make out the light brown towel that represented Polly's hair and the arms started to take shape. I could not recognise the hat at all at this distance. At three metres I could see the shape of a person, but from this angle of approach I could not discern the shape of a dress until about two metres. With an angle of approach from the kerb directly opposite, I could see dress shape from about four metres.

If Lechmere noticed the shape at 15 metres and walked towards it, stopping in the middle of the road at between six and nine metres, I would be very hard to convince now that he could discern that the shape was a woman. Not so if he crossed from directly opposite, or two or three metres before he reached directly opposite.

Next I stood over and kneeled over the "body" at about body chest level, and I couldn't really argue about the fact that the carmen would have had difficulty seeing blood. I can't really comment on the visibility of a cut throat as Polly was described as having a dark complexion so I don't know what contrast there would have been between her skin and a throat wound.....and I don't even want to think about how I would do that re-creation.

Having repeated each re-creation six or seven times, I would offer the following conclusions for consideration:

. Lechmere's story of identifying the shape as a woman from the centre of the road is more believable the closer he gets to crossing opposite the body.

. Paul was no more than fifteen metres from Lechmere when he first saw him.

. Paul could not have seen Lechmere walking forty yards in front of him.

. The carmen's story of not seeing any blood or wounds due to the darkness is believable.

There is a marked difference in result between this re-creation and the previous due to, I believe, the contrasting colours. The barrow was red and was upturned on brick paving. The darker colour of the coat contrasting the grey paving increased visibility. Also, the original experiment was conducted on an overcast evening, the current on a starry starry night.

Hope this is of help Jeff.

Cheers, George

As Lechmere didn't say to Paul, "I think it's a woman" or "It looks like a woman" but "Come and look at this woman", it shows he got close enough to the body to know it was not a tarpaulin, a dead animal, a pile of clothes, or even a man. Lechmere got closer to the body than he wanted to admit.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Great Aunt,

As Lechmere didn't say to Paul, "I think it's a woman" or "It looks like a woman" but "Come and look at this woman", it shows he got close enough to the body to know it was not a tarpaulin, a dead animal, a pile of clothes, or even a man. Lechmere got closer to the body than he wanted to admit.

Cross/Lechmere describes walking towards what he saw until he recognized it was a woman. Once he got close enough to realise it wasn't a tarpaulin, but a human, the clothing would indicate it was a woman. He indicted he was in the middle of the street when this occurred, a fairly natural way to describe his position to the body though not as specific in details as an investigator might want to know (a specialist will want details a layman doesn't think to include). However, he wasn't asked specifically how far away he was at that point but may have been when interviewed by the police (which given how inquests work probably occurred prior to his giving testimony, but as some suggest he just showed up out of the blue, would have had to happen after he testified as the police would require a statement from him for their records). In short, we have no idea if he had any qualms about admitting how close he was in terms of feet and inches, but his testimony does not indicate any reluctance to describe where he was on that point.

- Jeff

[drstrange169]

>><*boggle*...><<

Writing pointless posts just to get my attention will get you branded as mentally impaired by our resident expert.

[drstrange169]

>>Even in daylight the gateway where Nichols was murdered is quite dark<<

One wonders, if the case against Lecjmere is so strong, why Lechmerians constantly feel the need to variously lie, distort and misinform.





Not only is the murder spot not dark in these photos, the other areas are actually the ones in shadow.

Commonsense, not a trait Lechmerians are known for, tells us that when a narrow street is sided by tall buildings either side, it will be in shadow most of the time.

The areas in the street that do not have high sides will be less likely to be in shadow.

[drstrange169]

>>Pemby has produced several worthwhile video simulations of the street.<<

Didn't Richard create that 3d graphic?

[drstrange169]

Using Richard's simulation (http://autumnofterror.com/Bucks/) this, approximately, Cross's view of the body when he heard Paul, according to his testimony.



Obviously not in these lighting conditions.

[GBinOz]

Hi George,

I think you’re right about the acoustics with regards to the stretch from the crime spot to Brady Street. To the west would be much less of an echo chamber, because the first 20 to 25 metres to the board school there was only a wall of perhaps 2 metres high on either side of the street and beyond the board school the street was about 4 times as wide as the narrow stretch. I, personally, don’t think it would have taken more than a few seconds for the murderer to assess from which direction footsteps would be coming, especially if they came from the east. But, of course, I could be wrong.

This, combined with the fact that Neil heard Thain pass the end of Buck’s Row about 120 metres away and, as Dusty suggests, Neil didn’t seem to have trouble determining Thain was east of him, makes it rather hard for me to imagine that Lechmere, if he was the killer, would only have heard Paul when he the latter had already covered some 50-60-70 metres down Buck’s Row. Whoever the killer was, he had every reason to listen for sounds while this wouldn’t necessarily/particularly be true of any innocent carman on their way to work.


Reading this, the questions that immediately spring to mind are: how could Lechmere be sure that Paul didn’t see him before he could see Paul and how could he be sure Paul wouldn’t have heard him move around the body and then away from it to the middle of the street? Because, after all, if he’d let Paul get so close to him that he felt he didn’t have time enough to leave, there would be every chance that Paul would also be able to hear him and perhaps even see him or at least see some dark figure moving.

Cheers,
Frank

Hi Frank,

After I did my re-creation I thought there was some clarification but now, with Dusty's evidence on the street lamps and the primary evidence provided by the Sep 7 article in the EN, my mind's a whorl.

If we take Cross's evidence that Paul was only 40 yards behind him, then Jeff's simulation shows that Paul should have seen Cross as he emerged from Foster St by the lights of the "great lamps outside the brewery". I had assumed that Neil's statement meant that the only light was at the Brady St end of Bucks Row, but if there were street lights near the Cap Factory or the Wool Warehouse gate, shouldn't Paul have spotted Cross as he passed under these lights, in which case he should have testified that he was aware of Cross walking in front of him. If Bucks Row was as well lit (relatively speaking) as indicated by the EN, I would think that Cross could have spotted Paul from the murder site in the back glow of the "great lamps outside the brewery".

The other question I have is, in every outdoor murder, excluding Stride but including Tabram, the bodies were left "on display", so why was Nichols covered up? If Jack had left before Cross arrived, wouldn't he have left Nichols on display as was usual?

Cheers, George

[Dickere]

>>Even in daylight the gateway where Nichols was murdered is quite dark<<

One wonders, if the case against Lecjmere is so strong, why Lechmerians constantly feel the need to variously lie, distort and misinform.





Not only is the murder spot not dark in these photos, the other areas are actually the ones in shadow.

Commonsense, not a trait Lechmerians are known for, tells us that when a narrow street is sided by tall buildings either side, it will be in shadow most of the time.

The areas in the street that do not have high sides will be less likely to be in shadow.

Common sense also tells us that discussion about whether a narrow street with tall buildings would be in shadow at 3.45am is pointless.

[SuperShodan]

Hi Frank,

After I did my re-creation I thought there was some clarification but now, with Dusty's evidence on the street lamps and the primary evidence provided by the Sep 7 article in the EN, my mind's a whorl.

If we take Cross's evidence that Paul was only 40 yards behind him, then Jeff's simulation shows that Paul should have seen Cross as he emerged from Foster St by the lights of the "great lamps outside the brewery". I had assumed that Neil's statement meant that the only light was at the Brady St end of Bucks Row, but if there were street lights near the Cap Factory or the Wool Warehouse gate, shouldn't Paul have spotted Cross as he passed under these lights, in which case he should have testified that he was aware of Cross walking in front of him. If Bucks Row was as well lit (relatively speaking) as indicated by the EN, I would think that Cross could have spotted Paul from the murder site in the back glow of the "great lamps outside the brewery".

The other question I have is, in every outdoor murder, excluding Stride but including Tabram, the bodies were left "on display", so why was Nichols covered up? If Jack had left before Cross arrived, wouldn't he have left Nichols on display as was usual?

Cheers, George

Perhaps the most crucial point in the whole Bucks Row saga. Not only was the body not displayed, nobody noticed the abdominal wounds, not even the Dr. They had been very well hidden.
Make of that what you will…

[Trevor Marriott]

The other question I have is, in every outdoor murder, excluding Stride but including Tabram, the bodies were left "on display", so why was Nichols covered up? If Jack had left before Cross arrived, wouldn't he have left Nichols on display as was usual?

Cheers, George

I can see no evidence that any of the bodies were "displayed"

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[SuperShodan]

Trevor can’t see something so it doesn’t exist. How would you describe this sketch of Eddowes, or what about Chapman with her meagre possessions placed around her, have you seen the Kelly photo perchance, and what about Tabram left legs akimbo in a public stairwell ?
Compare and contrast other victims with Polly Nichols. The attending physician doesn’t even notice 12 stab wounds to her abdomen, neither does numerous policemen and witnesses.
You don’t see any evidence of the bodies being posed because you don’t want to.

[Abby Normal]

As Lechmere didn't say to Paul, "I think it's a woman" or "It looks like a woman" but "Come and look at this woman", it shows he got close enough to the body to know it was not a tarpaulin, a dead animal, a pile of clothes, or even a man. Lechmere got closer to the body than he wanted to admit.

agree. ive broughtbthis point up before too. he must have gotten pretty close to determine it was a woman at that time of night.

[MrBarnett]

agree. ive broughtbthis point up before too. he must have gotten pretty close to determine it was a woman at that time of night.

A lot closer than his approximate location as proposed by Dusty with the help of Richard’s simulation.

[Abby Normal]

A lot closer than his approximate location as proposed by Dusty with the help of Richard’s simulation.

agree. he must have only been a few feet and bending down to get a better look wouldnt be out of the question. seems a natural thing to do.