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

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lechmere,

Harken unto Foggy Dew—

"Together the two men went to the gateway where the poor woman was lying. The newcomer felt her heart. His verdict was not reassuring.

"I think she's breathing," he told his companion, "but it's very little if she is."

"The couple parted, [one of the two men] promising, as he walked away, to call a policeman. [my brackets]

"All this was afterwards told in evidence by the carman. It never had the corroboration of the other man. The police made repeated appeals for him to come forward, but he never did so.

"Why did he remain silent? Was it guilty knowledge that caused him to ignore the appeals of the police?"

His third paragraph corroborates Robert Paul's original story.

Regards,

Simon

[Wickerman]

Wickerman
Think through your scenario and stop being reactionary.

You think he was fetched up and made to attend the inquest the next day because he had previously failed to attend?

I think he should have attended on 3rd Sept, along with Cross.

The fact he did not is consistent with Dew's recollections of Robert Paul being sought by police. It also is consistent with Paul's own claims (on 30th Sept.) of being hauled in by police and detained for some future appearance whereby he lost a days pay - he was in attendance at the Inquest on the 17th (the day he lost pay).

Therefore, both Dew's recollections and Paul's claim of being 'hauled in', occurred sometime between the 4th and the 16th of Sept.

This then suggests that the police & the Coroner knew of Paul as a witness 'before' he was slated to attend on the 3rd (for which he failed to appear?).

For them to 'know' of him, and for him to have been listed as a witness, means they had a statement from him before the 3rd.

***

So, to backtrack, Robert Paul reads of the discovery by PC Neil in the Friday evening press.
Paul then complains to a reporter (on the street?), and subsequently makes his way to a H Division police station to make a statement, either Friday or Saturday.
That is the hypothetical scenario that I see as consistent with the fragments of evidence we are left with.
Why did he change his mind? - possibly he thought he might be fingered as the killer? - or, that he heard he would loose a days pay for attending the Inquest?
Either way, he did not show up on the 3rd.

[Robert]

Jon, I think if Paul failed to turn up as summoned, he'd have been fined, unless he had a very good reason - yet he does not complain of a fine.

Lechmere, you said that Cross killed Chapman to smear Paul. Therefore Cross must have known where Paul worked. So why didn't he tell the police when they asked him, which they surely would have done before they started hanging around in pubs and buttonholing strangers on the street?

[Lechmere]

Simon
I think that's one for Mr lucky's thread.
Suffice it to say Dew can in my opinion be used for tone and maybe to substantiate an otherwise rarely reported matter but I wouldn't quote him in preference to a range of more reliable sources. As in the issue of Paul or Lechmere being left alone with the body.

[Lechmere]

Robert
you and wickerman keep stating what the police would or should have done.
how do we know of Paul's connection to Corbett's Court. What if he didn't work there?
we know from lechmere's testimony.

I repeat I go on what was Said.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lechmere,

Daily Telegraph, 18th September 1888—

Robert Baul, 30, Forster-street, Whitechapel, carman, said as he was going to work at Cobbett's-court, Spitalfields, he saw in Buck's-row a man standing in the middle of the road . . .

Regards,

Simon

[Robert]

OK Lechmere, so we have policemen who are so keen to talk to Paul that they knock him up in the night and interrogate him, thus putting to shame my "quick fire scepticism" (your post #170), yet fail to ask the last man known to have spoken to him (barring a Lloyd's journalist) if he knew where he worked.

Cross meanwhile was sure he knew where Paul worked, or sure enough to disembowel a woman in a house near to the putative workplace, in order to frame Paul.

Yes, it all hangs together nicely.

[Lechmere]

Well spotted that man
The hazards of posting 'on the go'.
I should have just said that Lechmere had told the inquest the street where Paul worked.
I had forgotten that Paul had mentioned the street as well.

[Paddy Goose]

I dont know much about Pickfords, did many people work there?

Jenni, enough crew to manhandle the Irish Giant



Pre-eminent among the most extraordinary articles ever held by a railway company is the fossilized Irish giant, which is at this moment lying at the London and North-Western Railway Company’s Broad-street goods depot, and a photograph of which is reproduced here. This monstrous figure is reputed to have been dug up by a Mr. Dyer whilst prospecting for iron ore in Co. Antrim.

Paddy

[Lechmere]

Robert
What on earth are you going on about?
Lechmere mentioned that Paul left him at Corbett's Court.
Paul was not at the inquest of course.

I would guess that Lechmere heard the police muttering about Paul - that it was fortunate that at least he (Cross) had shown up unlike the other guy who had slagged them in the press and then stayed snugly in his house, where ever that might be.
Then I think Paul would have receded to the backs of the Police's minds when... Chapman was found a few days later just 100 yards from where Lechmere says he last saw Paul.
Then I think there was a flurry of police activity that led to Paul bring fetched up on the night.
I am pretty certain that is what happened irrespective of whether Lechmere killed Chapman.
And if I hadn't suggested that Lechmere had done it I bet I wouldn't have heard a murmur and these wudda-cudda-shudda unsupported scenarios - this baseless conjecture - would have stayed unsaid!

I have no idea if the police tried looking for Paul in Corbett's Court nor do I know if they checked the pubs - it is unimportant to me.
What is important is sticking to what we do know and for me seeing if it fits a guilty interpretation of Lechmere's actions - and it does!

Wickerman
I dont know why you have this hang up about the authorities knowing about Paul.
the only reason they would have known about Paul prior to the 3rd - so far as any of the evidence tells us - is due to his story appearing in Lloyds on the evening of 2nd. Then we can plausibly add that Lechmere will have given a statement before his appearance - that will have mentioned an unnamed Paul - but the only credible window for his statement is on the night of 2nd.

[Lechmere]

Paddy
Are you sure that isn't Joseph Fleming having a crafty kip?

[Stephen Thomas]

enough crew to manhandle the Irish Giant

[ATTACH]15566[/ATTACH]

Blimey, and there's the Eddowes kidney and Mary Kelly's heart beside the lower left leg.

Case closed.

[Robert]

"baseless conjecture"

Well, Lechmere, what would you call your theory about Cross trying to implicate Paul, which goes : man murders woman, but is disturbed by second man. First man then murders second woman on second man's route to work, in the hope of persuading police that second man murdered first woman and then returned to the scene of the crime as an innocent passer-by!

[Lechmere]

My point Robert is that if we as accurately as possible recreate the sequence of events - from the moment Paul saw Lechmere near the body to, say, Paul's appearance at the inquest (employing along the way informed conjecture and rejecting baseless conjecture), then my submission is that Lechmere as the culprit can be slotted into the narrative quite easily.
Obviously the final stage involves greater use of conjecture but that is the nature of this field so please no tut-tutting on that score.
This is almost the only potential culprit where crime scene discussion can be engaged in.

By the way this highlights that conjecture is involved in all aspects of this case - not just 'suspectology'.
For example discussing the experience of Paul involves conjecture - and this is not explicitly related to the Lechmere theory. It is a discussion in its own right. But where possible I would stick to conjecture that can be backed up by sources. Rather than saying - 'oh I expect they would have done this or should have done the other'.

You seem to think that Lechmere should think in a totally logical manner. Slightly weird thinking and connections are common place with serial killers. Their minds - need I remind you - do not work in the same way as yours, I hope.

In any event, theoretically Paul could have killed Nichols, travelled west down Bucks Row into Brady Street and then seen Lechmere hurrying along. He could have then followed Lechmere back down Buck's Row etc etc.
I don't think this is a realistic proposition - besides anything else it doesn't explain the lack of posing of the body which is suggestive of the killer being disturbed. I just say that in case anyone runs with the idea that Paul really did do it!

I would guess that despite the fact that Lechmere was at Brown's Stable Yard before Paul, when confronted by Chapman's murder so close to Corbett's Court, the police would have thought of Paul.
Unless he had already been exonerated of the Nichols murder which would mean that he had been fetched up before the Chapman murder.
I just find that unlikely.
I think the police would only have come for Paul in the middle of the night and kept him all the next day for something serious.

PS Proverbs (of which the God fearing police may have been aware)
As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.

[Stewart P Evans]

Fanciful

A fanciful press depiction of the Cross/Paul encounter.