Cross Theory II

[Jenni Shelden]

Hi Ed,
Just wondering...isn't it a fact that we don't know the work patterns at Pickfords? We don't know how many poeple started work at 4am and who was around before and or after this? We don't know the security arrangements? We don't know if the workers had to sign in? We don't know how well lit the depot was? We do not know Charles Cross' work pattern and if 4am was an ordinary start time, a iregularity or if he worked shifts?

Best wishes
Jenni

[Lechmere]

Pretty much - although there is some information to go on to help build a picture

[Patrick S]

Patrick

This account of his inquest testimony was published in the Times, but the other reports do not tell this aspect significantly differently:

They both crossed over to the body, and witness took hold of the woman's hands, which were cold and limp. Witness said, "I believe she is dead." He touched her face, which felt warm. The other man, placing his hand on her heart, said "I think she is breathing, but very little if she is." Witness suggested that they should give her a prop, but his companion refused to touch her.

I think you are correct that he touched a hand - while being observed by Paul - however, when asked to move the body, he refused.

So Lechmere said he took hold of the victims hand and also touched her face. In the instance of this murder, any blood he had on him accordingly had a ready excuse.
Lechmere’s refusal to touch the body was only in respect of Paul’s suggestion that they prop her up. I would suggest he did not want to prop her up as the neck wound, and the victim’s mortality, would have become obvious.

In my view, there are more logical reasons for not doing so. But, they don't fit your narrative, so we'll leave then out going forward.

If you want to talk about the real world, in the real world there have been serial killers who have been married and had children. In the real world there have been serial killers with steady jobs.
We have no idea whether or not Charles Lechmere was well adjusted.

Correct. We have no idea. Although, what we know of his life indicates he was well adjusted enough to live what was - to outward appearances - a completely normal life. So, again. The only reason you have to suspect that he was not well adjusted (in spite raising a family, working 20+ years for Pickfords, later becoming a green grocer, and dying of old age, at home, his bed) and thus a murderer is that he FOUND THE BODY OF POLLY NICHOLS. Again, WHAT ELSE DO YOU HAVE?

However in the real world most serial killers psychopathy is undiagnosed prior to their capture.
The ‘suspects’ who can tolerably be estimated to have been subject to psychopathic tendencies invariably have no history of this type of attack or cannot be reliably placed in the East End.

Undiagnosed and not acted upon are two different things. Since YOU are now the one dealing with statistical probabilities and what MOST serial killers do. MOST do not have stable work histories, raise families, blah blah blah. I've said it all before. Are you the only one who does not see the mental gymnastics one has to do in order to view Cross as JtR?

From the dry records we know that Charles Lechmere was from a broken home.
His grandfather, Chares Fox Lechmere, was the younger son of a wealthy member of the Herefordshire gentry. However his line of the family rapidly spiralled down the social scale and migrated to the East End, while their cousins lived in comfort in Fownhope Court (which was quite unlike Miller’s Court).
His father, John Allen Lechmere deserted his young family when Charles was a baby and started a new life in Northamptonshire.
Charles Lechmere had no male authority figure in his life until he was 9 years old, when his mother remarried, bigamously, a policeman who was only fourteen years older than himself. This was Thomas Cross, who was 9 years younger than his wife, Charles Lechmere’s mother.
Charles Lechmere’s only sibling, his older sister Emily, died of TB in July 1869. In December of the same year, Thomas Cross the twice over imposed authority figure (step father and policeman) also died.
In his later life Charles Lechmere exhibited an anal attention to detail and evidence of a controlling personality. That is why we have over 100 plus records of his life.

Charles Lechmere’s first child, also Charles Allen Lechmere, was born in March 1872. He seems to have been sickly and died in 1875. The unsolved murder of Harriet Buswell took place in Great Coram Street nine months after this birth.

Another of Charles Lechmere’s daughters was born in March 1888 a couple of weeks before the attack on Ada Wilson. This daughter also seems to have been sickly and died in October 1890.

Charles Lechmere’s second step father, Joseph Forsdike died in December 1889, exactly three months after the discovery of the Pinchin Street Torso, in a railway arch a few minutes lugging distance away from where he lived at 147 Cable Street.

So while Charles Lechmere may have been a well-adjusted citizen, there is enough material there to suggest potential psychological undercurrents.
And no, I don’t think he took a couple of months out of his law abiding life to kill and dissect prostitutes. There were unsolved deaths before and after the so-called C5.

That's great information I didn't know before reading it here. However, the unfortunate fact is that the life you describe here probably mirrors a high percentage of 19th century lives, in and around the East End, in New York, Paris, etc. Parenthetically, you just described the life of most of the United States founding fathers. I'm not aware of a serial killer among them.

Let's look for ANY reason to include Cross! You have this. He discovered the body (someone had to). He walked to work through the area. He and hundreds of others. WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU GOT!? Bullet your reasons to suspect him for dummies like me. Help me understand.

Although you have regularly claim (ha! A bit unconvincingly) that you ‘once suspected Cross’, you seem unaware of the points against him…

Suspected is a strong word. If I used it I was mistaken. I've been interested in him. Before learning about him, I could envisage him at the Ripper. It's known that some killers like to become involved involved, to help. As well, some become involved simply due to their proximity to the case. As well, there is no reason for me to lie about such things.

• Given the usual caveats about Victorian timings he had the time to carry out the attack.
• The culprit seems to have been disturbed (the abdominal wounds were covered - unlike other Whitechapel Murders).


• Paul spotted Lechmere very close to the body before Lechmere had raised the alarm.

Or he really did just find the body.

• There was a strange meeting between the two – with Paul thinking he was about to be mugged.

Based upon the street he was on! He said there were terrible gangs about. He made no comments whatsoever that Cross behaved in a manner that frightened him.

• There was the unusual touching of the body – unlike other Whitechapel Murders.
• They failed to alert any local householders and abandoned the body which they claimed they thought was unconscious.

They. So Paul was in on it too? As well, it's a dangerous business to assume guilt over otherwise explainable actions. I know if I were sleeping at three thirty AM and a guy knocked on my door by to tell me he found a drunk woman in the street, especially when he knows a cop is somewhere close by I'd be less than thrilled. But, fine. This is a minor point among minor points.

• There was disagreement between PC Mizen and Lechmere over what was said in their conversation. Mizen claimed Lechmere said he was wanted by a policeman.

This suggests what, exactly?

• Lechmere claimed he was late for work yet didn’t take the quickest route to work. When he left Mizen he went with Paul and avoided a route past the Tabram murder scene.

I once told a white lie to get out of sitting on jury. I once said I was late for work to avoid having to talk to a guy I didn't want to talk to. I once said I had eaten dinner to avoid eating something made by the wife of a friend I know to be a lousy cook. I once drove to work a different route because I wanted to see if an ex-girlfriend's car in her driveway or not. I didn't kill anyone any of those times. But let's revisit those actions in 100 years and see what they may suggest.

• Lechmere did not present himself to give a formal interview almost certainly until the Sunday, after the appearance of Paul’s newspaper story which put him next to the body.

Did he work on Saturday? Did he have a second job? Did his kid have a football game? Did he get drunk and forget. Was he ill? Did he have to attend his brother's wedding? Was he out doing early Christmas shopping? WE DON'T KNOW. And the police didn't seem to think this was an issue.

• Lechmere gave his name as Charles Cross – rather than the name he gave in every other instance that we know of in his well recorded life when he had any dealings with authority.


• Lechmere turned up to the inquest in his work clothes – giving a humble appearance and possibly indicating that he did not tell his wife where he was going (the Lechmere family were ignorant of their great great grandfather’s involvement in the Ripper case until recently).

Maybe those were his best clothes? Maybe his other suit was at the cleaners. Again. I mean, really?


• He seems to have avoided giving his address in open court at the inquest.
• He can be geographically linked to every one of the Whitechapel murder crime scenes and several other unsolved deaths, and also to the site of the Goulston Street Graffiti or apron drop.

I think that’s enough to be going on with.

It was said that a 5.30 time of death for Chapman definitely counted Charles Lechmere out.
I pointed out that there is no reason to suggest that he could not have carried out this murder if it did happened at around 5.30 am. That’s all. No one knows where he drove his cart – so to claim that he couldn’t have done it at that time is clearly ridiculous.

Again. The more hoops we just through the more we are fitting a suspect to the crimes. The crimes do not fit this suspect.
Equally he could have done it with an earlier timing – based on the doctor’s estimate.

As a matter of course I don’t put much faith in any of the eye witnesses – or ear witnesses in the case of Cadosch. That also goes for Schwartz and Lawende.

You would if they supported your theory.

PS I said there was no evidence that there was any blood spray in the Nichols case, but was in the Chapman case. However in the Chapman case it seems that an effort was made to ensure the spray went against the fence and away from the culprit.

If there was no evidence of spray Nichols but there was in Chapman that might suggest that the killer - committing his first such murder, if we abide canon - was himself hit by the spray. Learning his lesson, he took a different approach with Chapman.

Clearly no one can be written off from more than a century later. Just as we likely cannot prove anything. However, we can use common sense to say what's probably and improbably. To me, from what I've heard, it's improbably that Cross was the killer.

[Steve S]

I think Patrick has summed up my problems with the theory better than I can.....To my mind, Cross falls in a category with Mann,Hutchinson and Barnett..Yes,much more likely than Top-hatted Toffs, but nothing that isn't circumstantial..........

[Lechmere]

I would suggtest that at this remove you will have nothing better than circumstantial evidence against anyone.
Unless Patricia Cornwell is right.
In the Lechmere instance the case is based on the accumulation of circumstances - each of which could have an innocent explanation but when put together these repeated innocent explanations start to wear thin.

[Lechmere]

Patrick
You keep asking what else do I have? I listed quite a lot.
More than is proposed for any other suspect I can think of, most of whom are based around one or two factors.

As you seem to have once recognised, being found very close to a dead body and being fleetingly involved in the police investigation are in themselves traits that one might normally regard as grounds for suspicion.
You may seek to tell me that this criteria would fit most of the passengers on board the Mayflower, but I doubt this would be the case in the real world.

I find it somewhat odd that you accuse me of mental gymnastics over use of statistics when I haven’t quoted any statistics.
But let me simplify matters.
I can think of several serial killers off the top off my head who had seemingly stable family backgrounds, who had children and who had steady jobs.
I cannot think of any off the top of my head who were diagnosed as being psychopaths before their capture. It probably is the case that some have been – so I would not exclude the possibility. It is certainly the case that numerous serial killers have evaded capture (at least for their serial crimes).
So in the real world it is not that unusual for a serial killer outwardly be a normal family man, while it is unusual for it to be known at the outset that a serial killer as a psychopath.

Regarding Lechmere’s encounter with Paul and Paul’s impression he was about to be mugged.
Do you think that Paul would have entertained such fears if he had been approached by a woman, a dwarf, an old man or a boy? I would suggest not.
So it was not just the location – Buck’s Row – that precipitated Paul’s fears. Lechmere was a not a gang – he was a lone individual. It was a one-on-one situation. I think it is axiomatic that there was something about Lechmere’s demeanour, his body language or whatever, that, combined with the location and the hour, made Paul apprehensive.

I do not suggest that Paul was ‘in on it’, by agreeing to abandon a supposedly unconscious woman.
I would suggest that the meeting – with Paul fearing he was going to get mugged, established a hierarchy of dominance between the two and that he followed Lechmere’s lead – which can be observed in their subsequent interaction.
By the way they didn’t know there was a policeman near-by nor that they would definitely bump into one after they left Polly lying there.

The disagreement between Lechmere and Mizen suggests Lechmere lied to a policeman immediately after leaving the dead body. Or if you want to be kind to Lechmere you could believe that Mizen lied, or that he was mistaken.
The reason Lechmere would have lied – if he was guilty – was to avoid Mizen searching him and taking his details.

You also seek to excuse Lechmere by saying he may have told a white lie about being late for work. Maybe. Lying about such things in a major murder investigation is a little risky though if you are innocent. This is on top of the dispute between Lechmere and Mizen over the nature of their conversation and of course Lechmere eventually turning up and calling himself Cross.
I don’t expect your white lies will be revisited by anyone in 100 years’ time as I’m guessing you didn’t lie while being involved in a major murder investigation.

So you suggest perhaps Lechmere didn’t have any other clothes than those he wore to work?
Unlikely. I have a picture of one of his sons of a few years later dressed very smartly.
Also Charles Lechmere opened a business a few years later so he must have had more money than your average East Ender.
He also turned up wearing his apron. Was that part of his smartest outfit?

Regarding the supposed ‘eye-witnesses’. Most of their descriptions are so vague as to be able to fit Lechmere (I also have a picture of him in his later years) so I could employ them in support of this claim. However to do so would be a bit hypocritical on my part as I do believe them to be innately untrustworthy as evidence and I regard suspect theories based around claims that such and such a suspect fitted such and such a description as being thread bare.

You can abide by the canon in making Nichols the first. I put no faith in the canon.
The notion that all the blood spray from the wound to Nichols’ neck went onto the clothing of the perpetrator is a new one on me.
The proposal that not a drop went anywhere else is remarkable. His trousers must have been a real mess. He would have dripped blood all the way down the street – in whatever direction he fled.
I think this possibility can be discounted.

[Patrick S]

This conversation is no longer productive. We're rehashing old points. I'll conclude my end by saying this: I think that you have some unstated (at least on this thread) desire to believe Cross was the Whitechapel murderer. I say this because rational thought simply does not lead one to conclude that this man should even be a 'suspect'. You listed a fairly typical - for the time -background/family history and state that this is more than we have against any other suspect. While that seems reasonable you, it seems unreasonable - to me at least - as there is no suggestion that Cross was ever violent toward women, had some hatred of women, was violent toward anyone, was unstable, angry, ill humoured, lacking a sense of humor, ill tempered when his shoes weren't shined just so, nothing. Cross found a body. He was a witness. He testified at an inquest. You take circumstances and facts, view them through a lens clouded by the passage of nearly a century and a half, don't see all the answers, and see a killer.

Discussions like these are only interesting if they lead somewhere. This one has led me to no longer have interest in Cross as a possible JtR. Most of the facts that have led me to do so have come from you, on this thread. These same facts have led you to be rock solid your belief that Cross was the killer. Thus, we are finished. I appreciate all the information you've shared here. I wish you luck in your future research into Lechmere/Cross. I know you agree that no one can be certain of anything when it comes to this case. Thus, I'd be thrilled to learn more compelling evidence with repsect to Cross and would be happy to take a closer look at him should such evidence prove compelling. My opinion is that the facts as we understand them now are not only not compelling, they are completely uninteresting in terms of indicting Cross as anything other than a guy who found a body on his way to work.

Good luck.

[Sally]

Write the book, Ed.

It's the only way.

[Lechmere]

I keep being distracted and I think I may have given away the ending.
I think I mentioned it once but I'm not sure if anyone noticed.

[Lechmere]

Patrick
Just for the record, I did not say that Charles Lechmere's terribly (to you) normal and humdrum background was the basis for saying there is more against this man than other suspects.

[Scott Nelson]

Please go into his possibly setting up Paul for the Chapman murder a bit more.

[Lechmere]

Oh you are awful

[Scott Nelson]

I'm serious. It's an interesting scenario.

[Lechmere]

On a different thread - this one really was for Mr Lucky's theory.

[Damaso Marte]

For the life of me, I don't understand why people have such venom against the Cross/Lechmere theory. Is it because the progenitors of the theory are familiar posters and not distant historical figures?

I don't think Cross was the Ripper, but I think he's more viable than most of the other named suspects we discuss here. I certainly don't see anything in the facts entirely ruling out Cross.