The cross/lechmere theory - a newbie's thoughts

[Geddy2112]

This is how a debate on Cross should go…


Person One - Is it remotely likely that Charles Cross was the ripper?

Person Two - No.

Person One - Ok, thanks for that. What shall we talk about next.

Yes absolutely, but here we are some 10 plus years later.

[Newbie]

A. Requires that Robert Paul neither see nor hear Lechmere clean and put away a knife, move from facing west crouched over the body on the south pavement to standing in the middle of the road facing east. Some versions also throw in Lechmere lifting up the body to try to pull the skirts down. If Paul noticed any of this, then Lechmere's story would have been an obvious lie to Paul. By Paul's own testimony, he was initially afraid of Lechmere, which to any killer smarter than a paving stone, would have been interpreted as Paul knows he is the murderer and mustbe silenced.

B. Lechmere's testimony tells us nothing about whether Paul was walking slower, faster, or the same pace as Lechmere. Based on the distances to their work places, we would expect Lechmere to be walking faster.

C. Science tells us that is exactly the point that Lechmere would start noticing Paul's footsteps.

"On Friday morning he left home about half past three to go to work, and passing through Buck's row he saw on the opposite side something lying against a gateway. In the dark he could not tell at first what it was. It looked like a tarpaulin sheet, but walking to the middle of the road he saw it was the figure of a woman. At the same time he heard a man about forty yards away coming up Buck's row in the direction witness had himself come." - Daily News, 4 September 1888.

At the point that Lechmere identified that it was a woman, his visual perception load dropped significantly, which science tells us is exactly when Lechmere would be most likely to become much better at noticing auditory stimuli.

Then there is the well known phenomenon of auditory masking. where loader sounds mask softer ones. According to the Journal of Neuroscience, "neural responses to ... self-generated sounds are attenuated." That means that self-generated sounds receive less focus, making it easier to detect external sound sources, not that they are completely ignored. But "the responsiveness of auditory cortical neurons to external sounds is reduced not only during vocalizations but during a variety of behaviors, including locomotion". So Lechmere walking would reduce his perception of both his own footsteps and to "external sounds", such as Robert Paul's footsteps. People also tend to subconsciously synchronize their steps, likely to improve detection of other sound sources.

So what happened as Lechmere approached the body. He moved from the pavement to the street, changing the sound pattern of his footsteps, making Robert Paul's footsteps more distinct. He probably slowed his pace, which would also make Paul's footsteps more distinct. Auditory mask would drop - the volume of Paul's footsteps would increase as he got closer while the volume of Lechmere's footsteps would decrease as he slowed and stopped. And as noted, by stopping walking, Lechmere auditory responsiveness would increase.

So the science backs Lechmere in multiple ways.

A lot here Geddy,
I'll just focus on some things -
If you want me to focus on others, just say so.

A. He can't here Cross's footsteps ahead of him over 70 yards, but he hears the sound of Cross's rag wiping against the knife from 70 - 80 yards away?

B. You mean Cross's (he didn't use Lechmere) testimony?
Paul didn't see Cross under the lights of the Albion Brewery, so we can infer the minimum distance Cross was ahead of Paul once Paul entered Bath Street. We can also infer the distance Paul was behind Cross, once Cross spotted him. Taking those two things into account, Paul was traveling clearly faster than Cross.

(C: Part I) No doubt, if you want to hear something at a very low threshold, its better to stop and close your eyes. Once again, and I can't stress this highly enough, auditory masking is not a topic that deals with self generated, repetitive sounds and the minds ability to ignore them .... they deal with external sounds, like a vacuum cleaner, that make it difficult to hear other things. Was there a drill hammer going off on Buck's row around 3:40 am, and then stopped to enable PC Neil to hear Thain from some 140 yards away? The answer of course was no .... it was a quiet street, and the sound intensity of footsteps easily carried for 140 yards down Buck's row;
so we can dispense with any discussion on hovering around the threshold of hearing at half that distance.

But all this is needlessly academic, since we do have a sample:

Did his walking negate his ability to hear the hovering around the threshold type sound of Paul's footsteps? Well, no .... Cross did hear them while he was walking towards the body. If you want to say that the subconscious recognition of Paul's footsteps suddenly got transferred to his consciousness, I can only just shrug my shoulders.

Please provide me a link to research dealing with how repetitive self generated sounds might 'mask' the sound of a predator stealthily seeking up behind prey and i'll be sold.


(C: Part II ) Its an interesting idea of people 'subconsciously' synchronizing footsteps, but unfortunately your link took me nowhere, and when I googled it, I couldn't find what I wanted: two strangers in contact by footsteps that invoke some sort of auditory response in each, but well separated and not walking together, in which the stimuli triggers a synchronicity between the foot steps - subconsciously. No luck at all ..... please look up some actual studies conducted that I can review
otherwise, what you offered is meaningless.

I did find group behavior, such as between friends, triggers synchronicitous responses, and I heard a study years ago in which the menstruation cycle between college roommates became synchronized - certainly that was not on a conscious level.

But, instead of going down that rabbit hole, just consider that for Lechmere testimony on this matter (& Paul's absence of mentioning anything),
Paul would have had to travel faster than Lechmere, by a good margin .... so, don't waste your time: although I would be interested in reading it.

[Newbie]

And there is this thing that bothers me in Lechmere testimony, he said:

"She looks to me to be either dead or drunk"

"In his opinion deceased looked as if she had been outraged and gone off in a swoon"


This is inconsistency, was he not decided what to say?! but more importantly how would he be able to tell what she looked like if he

Didn't notice her wide open eyes
Didn't notice the cut through her throat
Didn't notice nor feel blood oozing from the wound in her throat
Didn't notice the pool of blood where her neck was lying


Did he just base his opinion on the mere fact that she was lying on the ground?! Didn't he try to test the pulse in her neck?!



The Baron

It also concerns me a bit ... his looseness with language when he describes having discovered a dead / dying woman 4 minutes earlier.
Dead / drunk tells the policeman that one is just dealing with another alcoholic who died on the streets ..... even today not uncommon;
"You are wanted" .... although not uncommon vernacular, mislead Mizen on what happened. Mizen had lived and worked in the East end for a long, long time. He should have been aware of nuances in east end jargon.

Lech of course, had some knowlege in how beat cops of the area went about their business.

By itself, not damning ... but another WTF moment from CAL.


I thought about the eyes wide open bit in PC Neil's testmony... how dark was it? PC Neil used a lantern to discern the face.
Lechmere seemed to prefer that Paul not find that out, but it would hardly sink him if Paul did.

Lechmere certainly seemed to position himself over the upper portion - holding her hand,
compelling Paul to investigate the lower region.

If I were Paul, I'd be half watching the new guy to my left who I first spotted moments ago, next to the body.

In the end, Paul was the guy Lechmere had to convince, if he killed Polly Nichols and put on a bluff.

No PC was going to check him for a knife, as Christer suggests, unless he acted guilty.

[Newbie]

Yes absolutely, but here we are some 10 plus years later.

And Herlock with his usual auto response isn't shutting down debate.

I don't understand why?

[Geddy2112]

A lot here Geddy,
I'll just focus on some things -
If you want me to focus on others, just say so.

Hi Newbie, I think you mean Fiver since that is who you replied to.

[Newbie]

No, correct. His testimony states 'about 3:30am' there is no way we can be certain of the time he left home and Team Lechmere needs to be rather certain to prove the time gap which of course does not exist because we have no accurate timings, walking speeds, accurate routes. Too many unknowns and variables. About 3:30am could be anywhere from 3:25 to 3:35 realistically. We simply can't pinpoint times accurately so unfortunately all your fancy maths is kind of irrelevant. Sorry.



I don't insist, it's his testimony. However for the reasons above it's impossible to tell.



No of course not for the same reasons above. Once you take out accurate times the 'speed = distance ÷ time' things goes pear shaped. We also do not know the accurate distance here either so again I'm sorry but it's a pointless exercise to try and pinpoint times, distances and speeds.



Again, simply we do not know.

In establishing the speed Lechmere would need to attain to make it on time, its very simple.
He said that he left his house around 3:30 am, he knew that he had to make it to Pickford's by 4:00 am.
The distance that I'm satisfied with is 1.74 miles ... the section around Devonshire Park might be a bit different,
and the difference between going up Bath Street vs Darling might also slight vary,
and where on Liverpool street he entered the facility is not known;

but 1.74 miles, I'm happy with it.

The times are what Lechmere thought, and how far he had to go, and what time he had to get there.
We have no need to match them with PC Neil's, PC Mizen's or anyone else.
His sense of time is separate, independent, and it will influence the rate he feels he needs to go to make it to work on time.
People set a pace and pretty much stick to it on a long, pretty much uninterrupted walk.

1.74 miles/30 minutes : that's his average rate which pretty much corresponds to a constant, consistent rate that he would set.

Now, if you tell me he might have took a piss in some corner of Buck's row ..... that's possible.

More importantly, if you discovered that the Albion brewery did not have lights set up along Bath Street to prevent crime,
that would undercut somewhat the argument ... where he now would be roughly 45 yards behind Lech going up Buck's row.
Since you guys are fetched by the masking argument, okee doke! That works out well for you.
In my opinion, it still doesnt' work out.

Quite frankly, declaring that anyone's absolute time is impossible to know tells me that you misunderstand the argument.

And I'm not amused by the current effort to sweep every temporal aspect of the case under the rug and declare we know nothing.

[Geddy2112]

And Herlock with his usual auto response isn't shutting down debate.

I don't understand why?

To be honest there is not much to debate anymore, unless something new comes along. I'm more into the Lechmere threads (as mentioned a few times) because I wish to try and understand how a clearly innocent man on his way to work at the time and place he was supposed to be is fingered as being the most notorious serial killers of all time. I'm trying to not find the thing that proves he is guilty but rather more and more things to prove he was innocent.
I may be banging my head against the wall of course but there must be something somewhere out there that will finally put a stop to this nonsense. Herlock's motives are probably different to mine.

Enjoy your day!

[Geddy2112]

Once, the 4:00 am deadline was sacrosanct, and you hailed it as an irrefutable bulk work to Lechmere's innocence.

Now, you want to sweep all numbers under the rug and harrumph that we can't

Again I'm sorry I'm not sure you are talking to me but you did quote me. I've not mentioned anything about a 4am deadline. We can make assumptions, we can generalise but one thing we can't do with any certainty is pin point exact times in this case. If you do not believe Lechmere he could have left home at 2:30am, 2:45am or even 3:00am to go looking for a lady. I say that is very highly unlikely but the fact is we simply do not know and if we do not know we can't be certain with any timings in the case, it's impossible to be precise.
I asked my good lady three times for the time today without looking at her watch. Not once was she within 10 mins.

[The Baron]

It also concerns me a bit ... his looseness with language when he describes having discovered a dead / dying woman 4 minutes earlier.
Dead / drunk tells the policeman that one is just dealing with another alcoholic who died on the streets ..... even today not uncommon;
"You are wanted" .... although not uncommon vernacular, mislead Mizen on what happened. Mizen had lived and worked in the East end for a long, long time. He should have been aware of nuances in east end jargon.

Lech of course, had some knowlege in how beat cops of the area went about their business.

By itself, not damning ... but another WTF moment from CAL.


I thought about the eyes wide open bit in PC Neil's testmony... how dark was it? PC Neil used a lantern to discern the face.
Lechmere seemed to prefer that Paul not find that out, but it would hardly sink him if Paul did.

Lechmere certainly seemed to position himself over the upper portion - holding her hand,
compelling Paul to investigate the lower region.

If I were Paul, I'd be half watching the new guy to my left who I first spotted moments ago, next to the body.

In the end, Paul was the guy Lechmere had to convince, if he killed Polly Nichols and put on a bluff.

No PC was going to check him for a knife, as Christer suggests, unless he acted guilty.

That both Lechmere and Paul didn't notice the wide open eyes and the pool of blood under the woman's head tells me that at least one of them might be lying.


The Baron

[The Rookie Detective]

It also concerns me a bit ... his looseness with language when he describes having discovered a dead / dying woman 4 minutes earlier.
Dead / drunk tells the policeman that one is just dealing with another alcoholic who died on the streets ..... even today not uncommon;
"You are wanted" .... although not uncommon vernacular, mislead Mizen on what happened. Mizen had lived and worked in the East end for a long, long time. He should have been aware of nuances in east end jargon.

Lech of course, had some knowlege in how beat cops of the area went about their business.

By itself, not damning ... but another WTF moment from CAL.


I thought about the eyes wide open bit in PC Neil's testmony... how dark was it? PC Neil used a lantern to discern the face.
Lechmere seemed to prefer that Paul not find that out, but it would hardly sink him if Paul did.

Lechmere certainly seemed to position himself over the upper portion - holding her hand,
compelling Paul to investigate the lower region.

If I were Paul, I'd be half watching the new guy to my left who I first spotted moments ago, next to the body.

In the end, Paul was the guy Lechmere had to convince, if he killed Polly Nichols and put on a bluff.

No PC was going to check him for a knife, as Christer suggests, unless he acted guilty.

One of the key points associated with the combined reaction is that neither Lechmere or Paul gave any indication to PC MIZEN that Nichols had been ATTACKED; ergo, another individual had been involved at the scene.

Lechmere states "dead or drunk"

Finding a woman laying dead in the street through drink and/or a fall from having been drunk, is not the same as her having been outraged.

And yet, the mention of thinking Nichols had been outraged, then changes the dynamics of what Lechmere stated.

In other words, WHY didn't Lechmere OR Paul add the important crucial detail that they thought she had been outraged?

By only telling Mizen the words "dead or drunk' it nullifies Mizens response because he appeared to have no idea that Nichols was in ACTIVE distress and needed help.


So we have at least one of Lechmere and Paul who thought that Nichols may have been outraged, but NEITHER of them thought to tell Mizen.


Why?


There is of course another explanation that explains their lack of urgency to get help, the medical evidence based on the chronology of wounds inflicted, and why neither of them saw any wounds or blood...

Here's a little hypothesis to consider...

The Ripper overpowers Nichols after having followed her west along from Brady Street. The direction of travel (westbound) is corroborated by at least 2 witnesses who heard a woman calling for help outside their shop shortly before Nichols was murdered. As the Ripper lays her down he begins to attack her abdomen, whispering/chanting away as he works (whispering heard by a witness in the house yards away from the murder site)
A train then passes.
The ripper intiates the attack on Nichols abdomen, but Nichols isn't dead, only unconscious. The Ripper then heard footsteps approaching and so quickly walks west towards the board school and manages to hide just as Lechmere arrives at the scene. The Ripper waits and watches from the darkness as Paul then joins the scene within a minute of Paul's arrival.
The men check Nichols who at this point has NO neck wounds and is still alive but only just after having been strangled by the Ripper earlier.
The men see no blood because there isn't any at this point except for the superficial ones that the Ripper started but had to stop because of Lechmere approaching.
Nichols eyes are also closed at this point

The Ripper waits for Lechmere and Paul to leave and then he RETURNS to the body.
He then chooses to cut her throat to ensure that she is dead, and as he does so, Nichols feels the blade and reacts through an automated pain response and her eyes open as a result (this is backed up by neurological science whereby eyes can open as a response to suffering a great pain or shock at the point of death) Her eyes being open support this idea.

The Ripper is then frustrated that he doss not have time to continue his abdominal and genital mutilations because of being interrupted.

He then makes a choice to leave, possibly by vaulting over the wall beside the murder site and then carefully down and on to the railway track.

"the right track haha"


Either way, the Ripper leaves just before PC Neil arrives.


This sequence would support Lech and Paul entirely
This sequence supports the medical evidence
This sequence only requires a valid place for the Ripper to hide for the 2 to 3 minutes duration that Lech and Paul were there on the scene.

And so...

Nichols is initially attacked by being strangled and incapacitated and suffering superficial abdominal wounds

Then Lech and Paul have a 3 minute intervention

Then the Ripper needs to ensure Nichols is dead so she can't recover and later identify him. He therefore has no choice but to wait for Lech and Paul to leave and to return to Nichols to cut her throat to cover his back.

Its possibly his first kill and perhaps he never intended to cut anyones throat, because he was all about strangulation to achieve control and to stop the victims BP, so that he can then mutilate post mortem.

Maybe Nichols was a complete mess up and he had to adapt quickly by going BACK to Nichols to make sure she was not going to recover.



That would mean that the Ripper was with Nichols both before AND after Paul and Lechmere were on the scene.


Just a hypothesis of course.


Thoughts?


RD

[The Rookie Detective]

That both Lechmere and Paul didn't notice the wide open eyes and the pool of blood under the woman's head tells me that at least one of them might be lying.


The Baron

Or that all the above didn't occur until AFTER they had left the scene.

Nichols may have been strangled, made unconscious and had superficial abdominal wounds initiated...

but then the Ripper is disturbed by the sound of Lechmere approaching.

The question is...did the Ripper have anywhere to hide WEST of the kill site throughout the duration of Lechmere and Paul's intervention?

What if the Ripper felt he couldn't leave and abandon the scene and had to hide in the shadows in the hope he could finish Nichols off once Lech and Paul had gone?

it would have taken no more than a minute to step out from the shadows, cut Nichols throat and then leave just before PC Neil arrived.


Food for thought



RD

[The Baron]

Or Neil was the Ripper


The Baron

[Newbie]

Or that all the above didn't occur until AFTER they had left the scene.

Nichols may have been strangled, made unconscious and had superficial abdominal wounds initiated...

but then the Ripper is disturbed by the sound of Lechmere approaching.

The question is...did the Ripper have anywhere to hide WEST of the kill site throughout the duration of Lechmere and Paul's intervention?

What if the Ripper felt he couldn't leave and abandon the scene and had to hide in the shadows in the hope he could finish Nichols off once Lech and Paul had gone?

it would have taken no more than a minute to step out from the shadows, cut Nichols throat and then leave just before PC Neil arrived.


Food for thought



RD

Hello Rookie Detective,

I'd think that once having avoided Lechmere / Paul, he'd call it a day.
He had a chance to do more with Liz Stride, but quickly left.

Annie Chapman got two throat slashes .... that might have been his M.O. in his early shaky days.

[Newbie]

Or Neil was the Ripper


The Baron

He's preferable to Paul, Baron.

The air certainly went out of the balloon rapidly on that one.

Imagine a guy killing in the morning, and then seeking out the press in the afternoon to declare he was a witness!

[The Baron]

What makes Cross special, is that Mrs Nichols wasn't seen with anyone that night, until Paul spotted Cross near her freshly killed body.


The Baron