A new critique of the Cross/Lechmere theory from Stewart Evans

[Lechmere]

I do know Wickerman.

I think unfortunately you are getting into a hopeless muddle.
I rather think that one problem with these discussions is that the Nichols case is not usually discussed and many are not that familiar with the finer details.

Neither I nor Fisherman would ‘claim the police knew nothing about the existence of Paul until Cross mentioned him at the Inquest’.

This is a perverse thing for you to suggest.

The police knew about the existence of Paul before they knew about the existence of Lechmere (as Cross anyway) - because Paul was published in Lloyds on the Sunday!

Let me spell it out clearly – these are the facts:
31st August – Friday – Polly Nichols murdered
1st September – Saturday – Inquest opened, PC Neil presented as discoverer of body
2nd September – Sunday – Afternoon – Lloyds Weekly Newspaper publish Paul’s story
2nd September – Sunday – Evening – Police press conference reiterates that PC Neil discovered body and that he had not been called to the scene by two men
3rd September – Monday – Lechmere appears at the inquest and in essence confirms Paul’s story

Lechmere must have voluntarily presented himself as the Paul story did not mention his name, address or workplace. The police initially denied the Paul story – as late as Sunday evening – and Lechmere appeared at the inquest the next morning.
The only thing that could conceivably have changed the police’s mind was the appearance of Lechmere giving his side of the story.
I am fairly sure that he must have turned up at a police station after reading Paul’s story and voluntarily given his statement.
The only other alternative to this is that he turned up unannounced at the inquest in the morning.
Those are the only possibilities.
There is no way the police independently located him.

[Wickerman]

Wickerman
Lechmere must have turned himself in at a police station on Sunday night.
The logical reasoning behind this has been gone into many times - I can repeat it if necessary.

In other words, you don't know.
And yet, you seem to think they were not able to locate Paul the very same way as they located Cross?

You have read the pre-inquest statements given to the police before the Eddowes & Kelly Inquests, right?
So you know that the police, somehow, located Charles Cross and took a pre-inquest statement from him, as was normal procedure.
So, you also know that the police knew about this 'other man' (Paul) whom he met before Cross spoke about him at the Inquest.

Which makes me wonder why you (& Christer?) both claim the police knew nothing about the existence of Paul until Cross mentioned him at the Inquest!

This is the false premise.

[Lechmere]

Someone asked if there were any other reports that alluded to Paul and his involvement.
So far as I am aware there are not, besides a truncated reprint of his first Lloyds interview.

However this report in the Echo of 20th September has often intrigued me:

The Whitechapel murders are as inexplicable as ever, and at present the utmost energy on the part of the police has failed to secure sufficient evidence to justify an arrest in a quarter where suspicion lurked shortly after the commission of the fatal outrage at George-yard-buildings. Inspector Reid, Detective-sergeant Enright, Sergeant Goadby, and other officers then worked upon a slight clue given them by "Pearly Poll." It was not thought much of at the time; but from what was gleaned from her, coupled with statements given by Elizabeth Allen and Eliza Cooper, of 35, Dorset-street, Spitalfields, certain of the authorities have had cause to suspect a man actually living not far from Buck's-row. At present, however, there is only suspicion against him.

This morning, Rosetta Anderson, a woman residing in Pearl-street, Spitalfields, made a statement to the effect that last evening a "curious and mysterious man," as Mrs. Anderson herself describes him, placed himself on her doorstep, looked around him, and behaved in such an eccentric manner that she thought he was a maniac. He intently watched every woman as she passed, but, observing that he was himself an object of suspicion, he suddenly darted out of sight up a court near. Mrs. Anderson believes that this man was the murderer. His appearance, in almost every respect, answered to the description of the foreigner seen talking with the deceased woman in Hanbury-street, on the morning of her death. The police are investigating the matter. Strange to say, his appearance tallies somewhat with that of the man already alluded to.

Paul lived very near Buck’s Row and an alley way at the end of Corbett’s Court led out into Little Pearl Street.

[Lechmere]

Wickerman
Lechmere must have turned himself in at a police station on Sunday night.
The logical reasoning behind this has been gone into many times - I can repeat it if necessary.

Mr Menges.
For what it's worth my feelings about Dew's memoirs is that they offer an invaluable insight into the feel and tone of the investigation. He wrote them 50 years after the events so naturally details will be awry.
You show me a latter day account by a policeman involved in the case that hasn’t got errors within it.

Dew gets details of the Nichols murder muddled up.
This is not surprising as he was with H Division, not J Division which led the Nichols investigation.
So far as Dew’s treatment of Paul (who is unnamed) is concerned this again is muddled.
That doesn’t mean that Dew is useless as a source on Paul.
I take out of it a remembrance that Paul was searched for and there was something of a question mark over him. No more than that.

[Wickerman]

Nope. Paul was not known to the police on the 1st, as you may have noticed ...

If he HAD been with the police on the 1:st, that would have meant that they picked him up on the night of the 31:st, before they even knew he existed. I mean, I know that some put a lot of faith in the Victorian police, but ...

Fisherman

Hi Christer.

I think that you and Ed. are following a false premise.

Reading what Cross told the Inquest, how do you suppose the police found Mr Cross?

He was not in attendance of the body when Neil showed up, and I don't suppose he gave his address or place of work to Mizen, so how did the police find him?

[Stewart P Evans]

For Information

For information, here are the two relevant pages from Dew's book -

No better illustration of East-End conditions at the time...

[jmenges]

Hi Fisherman,

You have said in the past that "Dew's recollections leave a good deal to ask for" and, at least in his recollections of the Kelly murder there is "no doubt" that his version is "slightly embellished". You also have said that to accept Dew's memoirs as reliable comes down to a "gut feeling" and it is "quite correct that Dew's story (re: Kelly again) can be legitimately questioned".

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=5185&page=3

Yet, in this thread you have cited Dew numerous times. Have your feelings regarding his reliability changed? Or are your doubts only confined to the MJK murder?

As you know, the accuracy of Dew's memoir has been called into question many times in the past so I'm curious as to your opinion of it today.

Thanks

JM

[Lechmere]

Maybe they didn't have access to it in those days when privacy from governmental interference was guarded against.
Or maybe it was another **** up.
Either way it doesn't change what the contemporary records state.

[Fisherman]

On a different note, I'm not quite sure why it should have taken the police so long to trace Paul. The electoral rolls for Bethnal Green would have been a good starting point, and I wouldn't have thought it would take a terrifically long time to go through them. In 1888, Paul is on page 28 of the South West Division.

It IS odd in a sense, yes. But Dew is adamant that the police appealed for him to come forward. Maybe he was not at his home address as they initially looked for him?
If they had his address as per the registers, there would be no need for the appeals, would there?

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

I doubt the coroner thought getting Paul to the inquest was much of a priority - in Mizen and Lechmere's accounts he is very much second fiddle in an uncontested aspect of the story.

[Jon Guy]

it IS nice, however, that you don´t fly into accusations about how I refuse to ponder other perspectives than my own. That has been the order of the day many times. So thanks for that

.. and likewise, thank you too, sir !!

[Jon Guy]

I don´t think so. The coroner may well have known that this was the case from the outset. The search for Paul would have commenced immediately as Lechmere contributed his part, and the coroner may well have known that he had not been located. And what you already know, you need not ask.

So this is easily explained. It takes a lot more of straining to believe in a 1:st of September bedhauling on Paul´s behalf!
I, for one, am not that flexible...

I don`t know, Christer. Baxter seemed to be quick to ask the Police about whether people like the Bucks Row observer and Ede`s man were ever traced.

[Jon Guy]

The coroner did not adjourn the inquest after Mizen´s and Lechmere´s appearance, Jon; William Nicholls, Emily Holland and the Monk woman were put on the stand before he adjourned it.

What makes you think that Paul would not have been fit into the actual development, as were Mizen and Lechmere? Why would the coroner want to keep Paul apart from those two testimonies, instead of fitting it in on the relevant spot?

Perhaps, the coroner was a gent, and allowed the two ladies to get their appearnces out of the way, and made Paul attend another day because he spoke to the press and didn`t take himself voluntarily to the Police.
After all, in the timeline of events Monk and Holland were before Paul, as they were nearly the last people to see her alive.

[Robert]

On a different note, I'm not quite sure why it should have taken the police so long to trace Paul. The electoral rolls for Bethnal Green would have been a good starting point, and I wouldn't have thought it would take a terrifically long time to go through them. In 1888, Paul is on page 28 of the South West Division.

[Fisherman]

it IS nice, however, that you don´t fly into accusations about how I refuse to ponder other perspectives than my own. That has been the order of the day many times. So thanks for that

Fisherman