All roads lead to Lechmere.

[Fiver]

eten
with all due respect. i just did. dahmer. yes most of the time they flee. some times they dont.

For Nichol's killer, fleeing was their best chance to escape.

For Dahmer, fleeing would have guaranteed he was caught.

Whoever killed Polly Nichols had the chance to flee and have nobody know who he was. Nichols was dead or dying. Her throat had been cut so she couldn't tell the police anything. And she did not know who her attacker was or where he lived. Staying was far riskier, it could mean identification and possibly even being searched, which could reveal bloodstains and the bloody murder weapon.

Jeffery Dahmer's victim was pumped full of drugs, but alive. He knew where Dahmer lived. If Dahmer fled, he had no chance of disappearing anonymously. If Dahmer had run, that would guarantee he would be identified and his crimes exposed. Running had no chance of saving Dahmer. His days as a free man were over unless he could talk the police into handing over the victim before they became coherent.

[Abby Normal]

Thanks Abby - I did clock Dahmer and now Kemper, and I shall read up about them - though from your brief explanation (including the kid with his hand in the cookie jar) the situation was different in that they could not choose to disappear anonymously as an option so they brazen it out. Dahmer may be different, I'll read around. I'm really looking for an analogous situation where the choice is stay and brazen it out or disappear anonymously. Thanks for the suggestions to start reading around this.

hi eten

thanks. should be interesting

[etenguy]

eten
with all due respect. i just did. dahmer.

Thanks Abby - I think you are referring to Konerak Sinthasomphone. Dahmer certainly behaved brazenly and I find it hard to believe he got away with it. For those who were unaware of the incident, like me until Abby pointed it out, the wikipedia version of events is below. However, Dahmer had more to lose than Lechmere, as the victim was alive and could have told the police once the drugs wore off, so a different and compelling motivation.

Three women, Sandra Smith, Tina Spivey and Nicole Childress, discovered the victim, 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone, after he had managed to escape from Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment, naked, bruised, bleeding from his buttocks area and heavily under the influence of drugs.^[2][3] Childress called 9-1-1;^[4] Balcerzak, Joseph T. Gabrish and Richard Porubcan were dispatched.^[5] Though the Laotian immigrant had been in the country for ten years and spoke English fluently,^[6] in his drugged and brain-injured state, Konerak was unable to communicate his situation to authorities or to the three women.^[7][4] Dahmer found the boy with the police and convinced them that the boy was his 19-year-old lover against the protests of the three women.^[8]

Smith recognized the boy from the neighborhood,^[4] and the three women reiterated their concerns to the officers but were told to "shut the hell up" by the officers, who seemingly believed the incident to be a domestic dispute.^[9] The three officers returned Konerak to Dahmer's apartment.

[etenguy]

eten
with all due respect. i just did. dahmer. yes most of the time they flee. some times they dont. kemper had heads in his car and pulled over for a cop instead of fleeing. talked his way out of it. theres numerous examples of this type of brazen behavior. ive personally experienced an almost exact act
of a criminal bluffing it out with me over someone he just attacked. kids caught with their hand in the cookie jar will often act like theyre the one whos the innocent witness and blame their brother. its not rocket science, eten, its an age old behavior of a criminal to act like a witness when caught unawares.

Thanks Abby - I did clock Dahmer and now Kemper, and I shall read up about them - though from your brief explanation (including the kid with his hand in the cookie jar) the situation was different in that they could not choose to disappear anonymously as an option so they brazen it out. Dahmer may be different, I'll read around. I'm really looking for an analogous situation where the choice is stay and brazen it out or disappear anonymously. Thanks for the suggestions to start reading around this.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby - I'm not sure one way or the other whether there is another situation like Lechmere's, but it would be interesting to find out how behaviours compared if there was. Fisherman speculates that Lechmere killed Nichols and chose to stay to front it out rather than flee when he heard Paul's footsteps approaching. It is a key decision if Lechmere is the killer. It seems counter intuitive to me that a killer would behave that way, but I am not a killer and consider myself mentally stable. Even if Lechmere was not entirely mentally sound, it seems much more likely to me that, if Lechmere was the killer, he would have fled under cover of darkness. His being there and seeking help from Paul fits, in my view, the scenario he describes of discovering the body. Any comparators might help, though of course forensics has developed so much since then the risk calculation would be very different now.

eten
with all due respect. i just did. dahmer. yes most of the time they flee. some times they dont. kemper had heads in his car and pulled over for a cop instead of fleeing. talked his way out of it. theres numerous examples of this type of brazen behavior. ive personally experienced an almost exact act
of a criminal bluffing it out with me over someone he just attacked. kids caught with their hand in the cookie jar will often act like theyre the one whos the innocent witness and blame their brother. its not rocket science, eten, its an age old behavior of a criminal to act like a witness when caught unawares.

[Abby Normal]

If Lechmere had we'd be surrounded people "proving" Robert Paul was the murderer.

actually if you or baron could put together a cogent argument, or at least a sentence, it would be a miracle.

[The Baron]

If Lechmere had we'd be surrounded people "proving" Robert Paul was the murderer.

Exactly, Paul should run away too.



The Baron

[Fiver]

Lechmere should have run away and didn't stop a second to look what was laying there, at least that will convince Lechmerians of his innocence.

Poor Lechmere, he didn't thought, not in his most wildest dreams, that after some 130 years, there will come a group of people accusing him of being the ripper.

And why is that?! Because he found a woman laying on the ground, gave attention to her to another passer, went with him searching and informing a policeman! All this point to his guilt according to Lechmerians.

Not only that, but because he did that, he is now the prime suspect for all the torso murders too.


Its beyond imagination!


He should have run away.




Tge Baron

If Lechmere had we'd be surrounded people "proving" Robert Paul was the murderer.

[The Baron]

Lechmere should have run away and didn't stop a second to look what was laying there, at least that will convince Lechmerians of his innocence.

Poor Lechmere, he didn't thought, not in his most wildest dreams, that after some 130 years, there will come a group of people accusing him of being the ripper.

And why is that?! Because he found a woman laying on the ground, gave attention to her to another passer, went with him searching and informing a policeman! All this point to his guilt according to Lechmerians.

Not only that, but because he did that, he is now the prime suspect for all the torso murders too.


Its beyond imagination!


He should have run away.




Tge Baron

[etenguy]

they all did of course. hehe.

but i know what youre getting at. off the top of my head dahmer did something similar by rusing the police after he had tortured one of his victims whom he then went on to shortly kill.

Hi Abby - I'm not sure one way or the other whether there is another situation like Lechmere's, but it would be interesting to find out how behaviours compared if there was. Fisherman speculates that Lechmere killed Nichols and chose to stay to front it out rather than flee when he heard Paul's footsteps approaching. It is a key decision if Lechmere is the killer. It seems counter intuitive to me that a killer would behave that way, but I am not a killer and consider myself mentally stable. Even if Lechmere was not entirely mentally sound, it seems much more likely to me that, if Lechmere was the killer, he would have fled under cover of darkness. His being there and seeking help from Paul fits, in my view, the scenario he describes of discovering the body. Any comparators might help, though of course forensics has developed so much since then the risk calculation would be very different now.

[The Baron]

Lechmerians first have to prove that Mrs Nichols was dead when Cross and Paul found her.


-Both of them didn't notice any blood.
-Paul detected what might have been a faint breath.

That means:

-It is not a proven fact that she was cut when Lechmere was there till he left her.

-Lechmere testified: "The other man, placing his hand on her heart, said "I think she is breathing"

Is a guilty Lechmere going to incriminate himself intentionally and tell the police and the jury that Paul thought she was still breathing ?!

That sentence alone set Lechmere free.


Lechmere is innocent, because we don't have any proof that Mrs Nichols was cut when he left her.



The Baron

[Abby Normal]

A number of people on this site have extensive knowledge of true crime beyond the Whitechapel murders. I just wondered, is anyone aware of any serial killer who was the person that discovered one of his/her victims? I am not aware of any, but my knowledge is quite limited.

they all did of course. hehe.

but i know what youre getting at. off the top of my head dahmer did something similar by rusing the police after he had tortured one of his victims whom he then went on to shortly kill.

[Abby Normal]

Did you even read what I wrote?

In the OP you claimed "Lechmere is found standing near Polly Nichols freshly killed body down a dark street at 03.45 in the morning - she has clearly just been killed."

Robert Paul disagrees strongly with your claim. He thought thought Nichols she was alive.

"He felt her hands and face, and they were cold. The clothes were disarranged, and he helped to pull them down. Before he did so he detected a slight movement as of breathing, but very faint." - Robert Paul Inquest testimony

Polly Nichols probably had just been killed - but that was not clear to Robeert Paul. Claiming that "she has clearly just been killed." is ignoring the evidence.

this is nonsense semantic mongering of the worse sort. of course if theres a slight detection of breath means shes just been very recently been attacked and yes killed. good grief.

[etenguy]

A number of people on this site have extensive knowledge of true crime beyond the Whitechapel murders. I just wondered, is anyone aware of any serial killer who was the person that discovered one of his/her victims? I am not aware of any, but my knowledge is quite limited.

[Fiver]

And he was still living at 20, James Street immediately before he moved to Doveton Street, I believe. That move would have been a significant upheaval for him.

Moving is a pain, but calling it a "significant upheaval" seems overstated. I doubt moving from James Street Doveton Street was much more of an ordeal than his moving from Mary Ann Street to James Street.