The Darkness of Bakers Row

[Fisherman]

I’ll finish with a question that Fish forgot to answer in regard to whether there has been any deliberate editing or misdirection going on:


In Cutting Point on page 92 he says:

“Most papers speak of Lechmere saying that he left home at 3.30, but the time 3.20 is also mentioned in one paper.”


And yet on post # 138 on here he says:

“We must however accept that since the absolute bulk of the papers spoke of ”around 3.30”, that is by far the likeliest wording to have been given.”


So what has changed between then and now? What newspapers are available to him now that weren’t available then? Or was his abacus missing a few beads so that he couldn’t count properly?

How could this ‘absolute bulk’ not only have escaped his attention at the time that he was researching then writing his book but they were so well hidden that it led him to state the exact opposite?! He apparently had no problem finding and counting the one newspaper that mentioned 3.20 and was keen to mention it though. But this ‘absolute bulk’ apparently and very mysteriously eluded him.


Point proven.

Good night.

I dont understand why you would ask what has "changed between then and now". In both versions I make it clear that the likely thing is that Lechmere spoke of 3.30. I then add that there was also 3.20 mentioned. I could add that there is also one version where the "around" is missing in the 3.30 version (Morning Advertiser).

Why would I not give the full picture? Are you somehow reasoning that I am adding in a minute or two to the gap since 3.20 is mentioned? Or what are you on about?

This is getting more Kafka-esque by the minute.

[Fisherman]

Lets not blame Richard Jones too hastily. Fisherman has misrepresented the opinions of his own forensic experts, so why should we think he has accurately quoted Jones?

How about by viewing the video he did with me, which is where it is on record.

Again, you need to prove that claimed misrepresentation of any forensic experts. That is how these things are handled, not by making unsubstantiated claims.

[Fisherman]

Richard Jones clearly does not understand the English language. "Ooze" does not mean "running profusely". Let's not use a fallible human as a reference, let us use reputable references like the Oxford English dictionary, that by Collins, their thesaurus, and Roget's Thesaurus. I don't know Richard Jones' authority and qualifications, but they must be significantly inferior to the named sources above, which tell us that for a liquid to ooze, means to flow or leak slowly, to seep, a sluggish movement, or to pass slowly.

"Ooze" does have another meaning which can confuse the unwary. Dealing with qualities, it can mean to overflow e.g. he oozed confidence. Used of a liquid, it does not and cannot ever mean "running profusely". Presumably Richard Jones thinks that blood is a quality and not a liquid.

I did not say that ooze means running profusely. What Jones said was that he agreed with me that oozing can describe a lot of blood exiting a body, while not under heart pressure.
It also applies that Neil used "running" as well a "oozing" in his testimony, and that the paper reports from the day before the inquest describe him as saying that Nichols bled "profusely".
Of course, that wording is something that the naysayers argue that the papers made up all on their own. Because, don't you know, ooze can only mean to trickle very, very slowly.
It is called selective reading.

[Fisherman]

You're confusing Charles Allen Lechmere for his daughter, Mary Jane Lechmere. Charles did not grow up or spend his formative years on Pinchin Street. Mary Jane lived with her grandmother. at 23 Pinchin Street in 1881, when she was 6 years old, but by 1885, when Mary Jane was 10, they were living at 1 Mary Ann Street.

Or at least I could excuse you as being confused the last time you were shown to be wrong on this point.

Now it's you deliberately ignoring the facts. Again.



Ah, the Ley Line Theory resurfaces in all its nonsense. Again.

You do realize that the boogeyman who could leap over buildings to travel in a straight line, was Springheeled Jack, not Jack the Ripper?

The bloody rag was found just inside the fence of St Phillips Church. We don't know where, so you have to draw a cone, not a Ley Line.

Jeff Hamm has helpfully done this. (See the lines in blue).




The cone passes over hundreds of houses, one of which was Charles Lechmere's. It doesn't point at anyone's house.

There's no evidence that the bloody rag had anything to do with the Pinchin Street Torso.

What you forget - or supress - here is that a line drawn from the railway arch up to DovetonStreet passes EXACTLY over the church where the bloody rag was found. And that means that no matter how we try, we cannot get a more close fit with the suggestion of Lechmere being the rag dumper. It is impossible.

Suggesting that the line should be a cone does not help you either: that cone will be a very narrow one, and tellingly, it will involve the exact outline of St Phillips as it passes the church. It will not, however, extend beyond the building grounds of the church, not to the left and not to the right. And this is because the building grounds are an exact fit with the suggestion that Lechmere brought the rag to the site on his route home.

So no matter if we choose the line or the cone, we get the same result: a perfect fit with my suggestion. It should be noted though, that both choices are perfectly valid.

One reason that the naysayers will prefer the cone is of course that it will encompass more houses on its way northeast, and it can therefore be said that a number of properties, not just Lechmeres, will get in the picture. But it of course applies that what the exercise does, is to CHECK to which degree a man under suspicion fits with the suggestion that he may have deposited the bloody rag at the St Phillips building site. And as we know by know, there could not be a better fit, it is the vey rare perfect one. If we speak of the 360 degrees of a full circle, the line suggested ends up trashing the other 359 degree angles, and settles on the one and only degree angle that is in perfect line with the suggestion made. So it was a one in 360 chance.
If we are more generous and soak of two degrees, it was a one in 180 chance.

Finally, your pointing out of how the cone passes "hundreds of houses" on its way up to the threshold of Charles Lechmere tallies well with A P Tomlinsons earlier claim that anybody being at home in Bucks Row at the time of the Nichols murder should be looked upon as equally viable as a suspect as the man found all alone with the freshly killed body.

You can have a club, Fiver. But I won't join.

[Fisherman]

"Already I’m sure you’re noticing that the might have, could have, what if school of criminology plays a pretty major part in the case against Charles Cross." - Robert Jones

The whole case against Lechmere is built on assumptions, deliberate ignoring of inconvenient facts, rewriting the dictionary, and some outright nonsense.



Timings? You ignore the timings of PC Mizen, PC Neil, PC Thain, Coroner Baxter, and Inspector Abberline. The time gap exists only in your imagination. But if you were to give people the whole picture, they'd see how flawed your theory was.



You continue to ignore that Robert Paul's statements supported Charles Lechmere and contradicted PC Mizen. But if you were to give people the whole picture, they'd see how flawed your theory was.



The evidence shows that he identified himself as Charles Allen Cross of 22 Doveton Street, a carman who had been working for Pickfords for the last couple decades and whose shift started at the Broad Street Station at 4am. Who would ever suspect that he was the stepson of Thomas Cross, Charles Allen Lechmere of 22 Doveton Street, a carman who had been working for Pickfords for the last couple decades and whose shift started at the Broad Street Station at 4am. What a baffling mystery! Holmes himself would be stumped!

Charles Lechmere was not trying to hide his identity from the coroner, the police, the press, his family, his neighbors, his coworkers, or his employers.

Let me again mention another witness at one of the Ripper inquests. The surname on his marriage license was Lavender. The surname in the censuses for him, his wife, and his children, was Lavender. In a 1876 proceeding at the Old Bailey, his surname was given as Levender [sic] and it is clear from the court records that his friends knew his surname as Lavender. He appeared in city directories as Lavender. He was buried as Lavender.

But at the Eddowes inquest, he used the name Joseph Lawende. He never mentioned the surname Lavender.

Perhaps he "may have had reasons that were anything but sinister" to not use his "registered name"?

Its Richard, not Robert. And the quote you use belongs to the stance Richard Jones took long before he read my book. After reading it, my impression is that he has not become a firm believer in Lechmeres guilt, but he has certainly gotten a better understanding of the theory - and he used the word "fantastic" when describing it.

[Fisherman]

If people bled out as fast as you claimed, she was probably murdered after Lechemre and Paul left her body in search of a policeman.

Yes, that would be the likeliest thing, going by my forensic experts. However, they did not say that the victim MUST bleed out in 3-5 minutes, they said - while both knowing that I am suggesting a bleeding time of at least nine minutes or so - that this would have been the expected outcome. And if Thiblin is correct in assessing that 10-15 minutes was the absolute extreme possibility, then if we have nine minute bleeding, we are taken into the extreme territory of 10-15 minutes, since any other killer than Lechmere must have used up a minute at the very least in leaving the spot.

How could it possibly look suspicious? Propping her up would be a perfect excuse for a guilty man to have an innocent explanation for blood on his hands or clothing. This clearly points towards Lechmere's innocence.

He had already touched her, so he needed no further excuse for any blood on his person.

The wounds were not covered up. You repeating this falsehood doesn't make it true. But that would require reading the actual statements of PC Neil and Robert Paul and you have never wanted people to have the whole picture.

The wounds were hidden from sight, the testimony of Lechmere "above the knees" and Paul "almost up to the stomach" proves that. Plus if they were not hidden, I find there is no realistic possibility that the carmen would be able to see the hat and how the clothing was hiked up and so on - but miss out on a number of gaping holes in the abdomen.

Even if the wounds had been covered, it doesn't even imply that Lechmere did it or that he was trying to con anyone. It's just something you made up to fit your theory.

You should understand that theories are not "made up" to fool people. Theories are suggestions, not lies. Surely you can see and understand why it is not appropriate to use your terminology?

Of course, once we see how you use the words "make up" about a theory, it is easy enough to see where all the blustering about lies and manipulation and so on comes from, and what value the accusations have.

Now, if you please, can we have that evidence that tells us that I do not agree or understand - or whichever it was - my own forensic experts?

[Fisherman]

A correction: I should not have written that the wounds to Nichols ´abdomen were covered up. I can only say that theyn were hidden from sight, Covered up implies that somebody manually did it, and tnat is not in evidence.

All we can say is that the inquest evidence tells us that the clothing was so far down that the carmen could not see the wounds.

It also applies that Fivers claim that ”The wounds were not covered up” is saying more than we may do. Fiver can not know that this was so, the material does not allow for that kind of a conclusion.

[Herlock Sholmes]

No, I am not saying that anybody is "afraid to face you" - it is you who are saying that. I know many people who say that they will not go anywhere near Casebook, and most of them support that take with how they feel that the debating climate is very hostile out here. That does not mean that they are afraid of anybody, only that they prefer to debate in a less fierce surrounding.

Debating isn’t hostile if people stop going to such lengths to defend Cross as a candidate as they’re defending their family honour. If the acolytes on social media avoid casebook it’s because on here they won’t be told what they like to hear - that everything that ever happened points to Cross’ guilt. They’ll be told the truth. That there’s no reason for suspecting him of being guilty and that simply finding the body isn’t evidence for, it’s actually evidence against.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I dont understand why you would ask what has "changed between then and now". In both versions I make it clear that the likely thing is that Lechmere spoke of 3.30. I then add that there was also 3.20 mentioned. I could add that there is also one version where the "around" is missing in the 3.30 version (Morning Advertiser).

Why would I not give the full picture? Are you somehow reasoning that I am adding in a minute or two to the gap since 3.20 is mentioned? Or what are you on about?

This is getting more Kafka-esque by the minute.

You’re not wriggling out of this one Fish. Not a chance.

What led you in your book to make the positive claim that most papers said that he left the house at 3.00? This isn’t a mistakenly omitted word it’s written as a statement of fact, telling your readers that it was close to certain that he’d left the house at exactly 3.00.

Because now, you’re saying that it’s obvious that most said ‘about 3.30.’ Why wasn’t this obvious when you wrote the above?

[FrankO]

Not so, Frank. In neither case would a gap be proven, although it would become more clear with the "around and "not far off" removed. But it is suggested in both cases. Which should not worry anybody too much, since it can always be argued that the gap MAY not have been there, something I agree about. But the two claims that he left home "around" 3.30 and found the body at a time "not far off" 3.45, are seemingly suggestive of how there was a time gap of some eight minutes. If he had said "around 3.34" and if the coroner had said a time "not far off" 3.41, there would not have been a time gap suggested - although it would not rule out that there was one anyway. Any other timings will either go to suggest a time gap or to suggest that he got to the murder spot sooner than expected.

I think this was around the thirtieth time I mentioned this in this thread. Maybe it is time to let it go? We will not agree, but that does not necessarily mean that one part of the disagreement is a rotten liar. I would be wrong if I said that the timings given establish a gap or proves it (which was the claim R J Palmer falsely made if he was talking about me), but I am not doing that. I am saying that it seems to SUGGEST a time gap - and it does.

We indeed don’t agree on this, Christer. The way I see it, as I’ve said, a gap is only suggested if you leave out the “about” and “not far from” and considering that these timings were given in an era in which people seem to be thinking in quarters of an hour rather than a couple of minutes or 5 minutes at most, it’s quite useless to use only “3.30” and “3.45” to say that they suggest a gap. But that’s just my view and yours obviously differs. Even if we’d go by the “3.30” and Abberline’s “3.40” there could have been a gap. In fact, if we’re supposing that Lechmere did kill Nichols and he supposed to have met her close to the crime spot at 3.37, then I think 3 minutes would have sufficed for him to engage, attack, kill and mutilate her just before Paul would or could have arrived.

So, to me the whole gap thing is useless. It tells us nothing as it could go either way. So I, for one, think it’s a very good idea to let it go.

The best,
Frank

[Doctored Whatsit]

I did not say that ooze means running profusely. What Jones said was that he agreed with me that oozing can describe a lot of blood exiting a body, while not under heart pressure.

What you wrote was "Richard Jones agrees that oozing can mean running profusely .... does he not understand the British language?"

I said that it does not mean "running profusely", and used quotes from several dictionaries to demonstrate this.

Of course "oozing" can describe blood exiting a body while not under heart pressure. As there is no heart pressure the blood trickles or dribbles relatively slowly, and is not "running profusely", which is precisely what we have been telling you. This is what has been described by the police officers mentioned on this thread.

[Herlock Sholmes]

It is your choice if you want to call people disagree with you liars. As I said, it falls back on yourself.

And I dont have to lie or exaggerate at all ab out Lechmere.

He was found standing all alone by the body of a freshly killed Ripper victim.

Which isn’t suspicious in the slightest considering that he was the first on the scene. And ‘by the body’ is simply to hint that he was standing next to it. He was never seen next to the body he was seen standing in the middle of the road as you well know. There’s not a smidgen of evidence that he was ever closer to her than that.

The only person who claimed that he had only just arrived there before Paul got to the spot, was Lechmere himself.

A pointless addition added purely to create the illusion of there being another point against him. He discovered a body as a million others have done and we can’t find a single example of someone finding a body in the street who turned out to have been the killer. Why? Because killers flees the scene.

He kept his registered name from the police and inquest. The only times he seems to have done so, was in combination with two cases of violent death. In all other authority contacts that we know of, he called himself Lechmere.

This point is redundant. David Barrat has skinned it, de-boned it, eviscerated I and booted the rotting remains well into the long grass. That particular ship of fools had long since sailed but we all knew that anyway. As if someone would try and deceive the police by giving the police both of his Christian names and his full address is kindergarten nonsense. A desperate attempt to incriminate a clearly innocent man.

He disagreed with a serving PC over what he had told him on the murder morning. And the disagreements were all of a character that would help him pass the police by, if that was his aim.

As in many cases there is a disagreement on wording but not with Robert Paul. Of course you assume that the fault lay with Cross and that Mizen couldn’t have been in error.

He had a working trek that took him right through Spitalfields, where four of the victims were claimed (involving Martha Tabram).

Like a thousand others.

He gave a time approximation of around 3.30 for his departure from home, and the coroner have an approximation of not far off 3.45 for when the body was found. That suggests that there was around an eight minute gap, since he should have arrived there at around 3.37. To boot, it was only at the summation of the coroner that he said that the time had been fixed as per the above, and so it applies that if Lechmere was the killer, his given departure time of around 3.30 worked well with the initial belief that the body was found at around 3.40 - but not at all well with how this time was then fixed to not far off 3.45.

Utter nonsense as has already been establish. It cannot be stated that when estimating one time is more likely than another. If this was actually the case then it would have to be stated that estimations are more likely to be exactly right that not. This obviously can’t be claimed (except by you of course)

Baxter’s ‘not far of 3.45’ can only have been due to the three Constable’s. That the body was found before their involvement. So before 3.45 and only a short time before. Using the English language, 5 minutes is a short time.

The wounds on the abdomen of Polly Nichols were covered as Robert Paul saw her, while in the other canonical evisceration cases as well as in the Tabram case, the wounds were left on display. This fits well with the suggestion that Lechmere may have conned Robert Paul. In no other of the cases could such a ruse have been suggested.

Robert Paul: “The clothes were disarranged, and he helped to pull them down.” So her clothes were pulled down in Paul’s presence and with Paul’s assistance. Nothing suspicious there. Another invention.

Lechmere examined and touched the body of Polly Nichols together with Robert Paul, but declined to help prop her up when Paul suggested this, saying "I will not touch her" or something along those lines. Which is strange considering he already had touched her. And it of course applies that if the body was propped up, the neck wound would become obvious. It is therefore in line with the suggestion of a ruse when Lechmere declines to help.

Cross said that he touched Nichols hands and felt that they were cold. This is much different to actually manhandling a body. Many people in that position might have felt exactly the same. As ever you are reading something sinister into perfectly normal human behaviour because it fits the script.

Lechmere said that he would have heard if there was anybody moving up at the murder scene when he entered Bucks Row. But he failed to note his hurrying carman colleagues steps until the latter was a mere 30 or 40 yards off. This is in line with the suggestion of a ruse where Lechmere DID hear Paul a lot earlier - and decided to con the incomer, covering the wounds, backing off and making for the middle of the road, whilst tucking away the knife.

You refer to this of course: “Witness did not hear any sounds of a vehicle, and believed that had any one left the body after he got into Buck’s-row he must have heard him.”

As it’s mentioned in the very same sentence where a vehicle is mentioned so it could actually be read as ‘I didn’t hear the sound of any vehicle and if anyone had left the scene in a vehicle I’m sure that id have heard them.’

Alternatively as it says ‘after he got into Bucks Row,’ he could simply have meant as he got nearer the location of the body. Witnesses often use phrasings which are less than crystal clear. You immediately go for a sinister plan of course but that’s to be expected from you.

What you also have to rely on is stupidity from Cross. What kind of unthinking dimwit would have dashed from the body to the middle of the road when he heard Paul arrive, without having a clue what Paul could or couldn’t see. How could he possibly have known that Paul wouldn’t have said to the police “I saw the bloke walk quickly from the body to the middle of the road.”

Herlock’s Maxim No 2 - “ A theory is usually weakened if it relies on the suggestion of egregious acts of stupidity by those involved at the time.”

Anybody armed with that kind of a suspect does not need to manipulate, lie, misrepresent or anything along those lines. The case makes itself, and to add or twist would be utterly stupid, because that would only detract from the extraordinary truth and facts.

And as I’ve just shown, and as others have shown, that kind of suspect is a poor suspect. A suspect with almost nothing going for him apart from the increasing hollow cry of “well he was there.”

Again since we are speaking about circumstantial evidence, it applies that each item CAN be supplied with alternative innocent explanations. Again, it is not until these alternative innocent explanations are proven that the case and suspicions go away. Again, the likelihood of somebody racking up this kind of a rap sheet in terms of circumstantial evidence items and still being innocent is either zero or close to it.

Yup. More biased nonsense,. There is no rap sheet. It’s a figment of your manipulation of the evidence. It’s about you viewing everything with the guilt Cross goggles on. Scobie only said that he had a case to answer because he was fed false information. There are innocent explanations because he was innocent. Prosaic (innocent) explanations are much preferable to fanciful, sinister ones that rely on the distortion of evidence.


This will change when the alternative innocent explanations are proven, or when examples of people who had tons of circumstantial evidence pointing to them without actually being guilty are provided.

But not before.

And that too is true. I don't deal in the lying and deception business for the simple reason that I don't have to, as per the above.

And that’s been proven to be untrue. Cross as a suspect is a complete con job. The framing of a man who did absolutely nothing to merit a scintilla of suspicion. Everything that he did screams ‘witness.’ I’ll say it again. Poor suspect. Bottom tier, above the nonsense ones like Gull, Prince Eddie and Lewis Carroll. No better than Hutchinson or John Richardson (and I still say that Richardson has more going for him as a suspect and he’s a poor one too.)

[Fiver]

That is your reoccurring mantra, Fiver, and it is untrue. For example, you make the claim that I don't understand what my forensic witnesses say. Then you claim that I would not have understood that Jason Payne James spoke for another likely bleeding out time than Ingemar Thiblin did, and you say that Payne James suggested seven minutes.
The problem with this is that Payne James never did that. He very clearly suggested three to five minutes, and this is the exact thing I have stated in my book and presented on the boards. Thiblin then concurred with Payne James, so they are both promoting 3-5 minutes as the likeliest bleeding out time, although neither man is ruling out seven minutes. Or nine, for that matter.

It's not a mantra. It's the facts.

You misrepresent the forensic doctors. They are college professors, not crime scene investigators. They told you they had little or no data. And they did not agree on 3-5 minutes. You asked some vague questions of Jason Payne James and Ingemar Thiblin, and interpreted them the way you wanted to.

For Jason Payne James:
Q. Just how quickly CAN a person with the kind of damage that Nichols had bleed out, if we have nothing that hinders the bloodflow, and if the victim is flat on level ground? Can a total desanguination take place in very few minutes in such a case.
A. Yes
Q. Do you know of any examples?
A. No
Q. Is it possible for such a person to bleed out completely and stop bleeding in three minutes? In five? In seven?
A. I guess blood may continue to flow for up to this amount of time, but the shorter periods are more likely to be more realistic.

You appear to have made up the word "desanguination". You don't even appear to understand that to "bleed out completely' and to "stop bleeding" are not the same thing.

For Ingemar Thiblin you claim that Thiblin told you that there is "not much empirical data to go on"' as to how long "a seeping bleeding" could last, but that "ten to fifteen minutes'" possible.

So Thiblin stated that he had very little data and estimated 10 to 15 minutes.

James stated he had no data at all and estimated 3 to 7 minutes, based on your prompting.

The two professors disagreed on time and admitted they had little or no information to base their estimates on.

So what you are doing is to claim things on my behalf that are simply not true. If they WERE true, they would make me look reckless/dumb/dishonest/misleading and so on and so forth, which may of course be the reason for your reoccurring misrepresentations of what I say. Or maybe you just were not able to read and understand what was said.

They are true. And you are quite correct about how your inaccurate posts make you look.

You are welcome to present where Payne James would have suggested another likely time of bleeding out that the he we can check and see how truthful your claim is. It is the absolute best way of checking things like these, and getting to the core of them.

I have posted it repeatedly. You ignoring the facts does not make them go away.

[Fiver]

No, I am not saying that anybody is "afraid to face you" - it is you who are saying that. I know many people who say that they will not go anywhere near Casebook, and most of them support that take with how they feel that the debating climate is very hostile out here. That does not mean that they are afraid of anybody, only that they prefer to debate in a less fierce surrounding.

You claimed that people on other boards were refuting me. Not that people were afraid to post on Casebook. You claimed that these unknown, unnamed, and possibly imaginary people were refuting me specifically.

So stop trying to weasel out of what you claimed.

[Herlock Sholmes]

You claimed that people on other boards were refuting me. Not that people were afraid to post on Casebook. You claimed that these unknown, unnamed, and possibly imaginary people were refuting me specifically.

So stop trying to weasel out of what you claimed.

The people that ‘won’t go near Casebook’ are the social media acolytes who don’t want to hear anyone tell them that Charles Cross clearly wasn’t Jack the Ripper and that they’ve been fooled by listening to certain biased people without researching the evidence. They have their own safe space for the gullible.