Why Cross Was Almost Certainly Innocent

[rjpalmer]

What keeps nagging at me, though, is the notion that the police had every reason to get cleared up why Lechmere & Paul didn't tell Mizen that they'd examined the body. After all, the most obvious reason for doing so for them would be to get past Mizen and why would they want to get past him? Could there be any nefarious reason behind it, or was it just that they didn't want to loose time being taken back to Buck's Row?

I would find it rather odd if it ever turned out that the police didn't get this cleared up.

Hi Frank,

you will no doubt recall the following from Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, 30th September 1888

"Mr. Paul says that after he made his statement to our representative, which appeared in Lloyd's, he was fetched up in the middle of the night by the police, and was obliged to lose a day's work the next day, for which he got nothing...."

If the police fetched up Paul "in the middle of the night," and he lost a full day's pay (he must have normally started work around 4 a.m.) might this not suggest that the police treated him rather unceremoniously, and kept him down the nick with questions?

Sadly, we have no further details about this midnight welcoming party, but I don't get the impression from the above that the police treated Paul in a naive, blinkered, and trusting manner and I doubt Lechmere received much better.


RP

[Geddy2112]

* The witness gave his name as Charles Allen Cross of 22 Doveton Street, and said he had worked as a carman for Pickfords for about 20 years and and started his shift at the Broad Street station at 4am.
* Records show that the man living at 22 Doveton was a 39 year old carman named Charles Allen Lechmere.
* Thomas Cross became his stepfather when Charles was 8 and died when Charles was 20.
* Charles Allen Lechmere was listed as Charles Cross in the 1861 Census, when he was 11 years old.

According to the Pickfords website - "In 2012, a descendent [sic] of Charles Latchmere [sic] searched the Pickfords archive to find any reference to her relative. No records were found"

That could mean the records for Cross/Lechmere were lost. It could mean that the records were in the archive, but that his descendant could not find the records. It could mean that only the name Charles Lechmere was searched for and he was employed as Charles Cross.

The linked website for some bizarre reason talks about Charles W Lechmere a man with a different middle name, different age, different birthplace, and different address than Charles Allen Lechmere.

The witness who gave his name as Charles Allen Cross of 22 Doveton Street, and said he had worked as a carman for Pickfords for about 20 years and and started his shift at the Broad Street station at 4am was definitely carman Charles Allen Lechmere of 22 Doveton Street, the stepson of Thomas Cross.

Thanks, this is the problem though. There are contradictions in 'evidence' and a great deal of confusion on who worked where and what they were actually called. Coincidence maybe but it could allow the possibilty for the confusion between the two men or the one man with two names.

Surely if Lechmere worked for Pickfords then they would have the correct name. Or if his correct name was Cross then he never gave a false name at the inquest. I think Herlock stated correctly it's all very circular... and rather confusing.

Although the linked website appears to be run/ran by some erm.. I'll let you allow your own adjective here, there seems the possibility of Cross/Lechmere being two unrelated people and if so would completely ruin the 'on his way to work' Geographical 'evidence' we are told about. The 'Karen' does post a great deal of census/historical data to back up her claims, although as already mentioned she seems as we would put it where I'm from 'away with the mixer.'

[A P Tomlinson]

As a relative novice to the various fora and online discussions, I admit to not being fully up to speed on a certain matter regarding the suspicions over Mr Cross/Lechmere. Hoping some of the... more experienced members could help me out.

Given the volume of evidence that has been cited in claiming his guilt, am I to assume that this was all part of a "Cross is guilty!" bandwagon long BEFORE it was discovered that he had used his step-fathers name in court?
If all this evidence is SO OBVIOUS... it must have been all the rage before the name "Lechmere" crawled on set?

Were people like Christer bending time and redefining physics to re-tell the story of Polly Nichols' blood loss BEFORE that came out?
Was Eddy running "The House Of Cross" as a user group on Yahoo.com?

[Geddy2112]

8th May 2008 - Fisherman -

No, Cross is not a very good suggestion as the Ripper. To begin with, at the inquest Cross stated that he heard the approaching footsteps of Paul from around forty yards away - but still waited for him to come up to the spot where Nichols lay. It was pitch dark - so dark that the two men did not see the blood running from her neck - and there must have been every chance to leave the scene unseen had he been the Ripper.
Also, if he WAS the Ripper, it would be a very strange thing to go looking for a policeman carrying the knife that killed Nichols on his person - for it was not found at the murder site.

I think that we can safely write off Cross as a contender.

The best,
Fisherman

If all this evidence is SO OBVIOUS... it must have been all the rage before the name "Lechmere" crawled on set?

Were people like Christer bending time and redefining physics to re-tell the story of Polly Nichols' blood loss BEFORE that came out?
Was Eddy running "The House Of Cross" as a user group on Yahoo.com?

Erm sometime after the 8th May 2008 I would suggest

[A P Tomlinson]

8th May 2008 - Fisherman -





Erm sometime after the 8th May 2008 I would suggest

Cheers Geddy.
I may print that and pin it on my cork board!

[rjpalmer]

As a relative novice to the various fora and online discussions, I admit to not being fully up to speed on a certain matter regarding the suspicions over Mr Cross/Lechmere. Hoping some of the... more experienced members could help me out.

Given the volume of evidence that has been cited in claiming his guilt, am I to assume that this was all part of a "Cross is guilty!" bandwagon long BEFORE it was discovered that he had used his step-fathers name in court?
If all this evidence is SO OBVIOUS... it must have been all the rage before the name "Lechmere" crawled on set?

Were people like Christer bending time and redefining physics to re-tell the story of Polly Nichols' blood loss BEFORE that came out?
Was Eddy running "The House Of Cross" as a user group on Yahoo.com?

Hello, A. P.,

There was a researcher on this website around 1999-2003 named Peter Birchwood who suggested, in a single post, that perhaps Cross should be examined on the principle that he had been spotted alone in Buck's Row with Nichols' dead body. The suggestion garnered little or no interest at the time, and Peter was unaware that the carman's birthname had been Lechmere.

Around the same time, April 2002, another researcher named John Carey published a very brief piece called 'Chasing Shadows - Charles Cross' in Ripperana, No. 40, which aimed some suspicion in his direction.

It wasn't until five years later, when Cross was identified Lechmere that he took off as a suspect in a series of articles penned by Michael Connor in The Ripperologist.

You can find all the citations for these articles on Charles Allen Lechmere's Wikipedia page (yup, he has one!).

[A P Tomlinson]

Hello, A. P.,

There was a researcher on this website around 1999-2003 named Peter Birchwood who suggested, in a single post, that perhaps Cross should be examined on the principle that he had been spotted alone in Buck's Row with Nichols' dead body. The suggestion garnered little or no interest at the time, and Peter was unaware that the carman's birthname had been Lechmere.

Around the same time, April 2002, another researcher named John Carey published a very brief piece called 'Chasing Shadows - Charles Cross' in Ripperana, No. 40, which aimed some suspicion in his direction.

It wasn't until five years later, when Cross was identified Lechmere that he took off as a suspect in a series of articles penned by Michael Connor in The Ripperologist.

You can find all the citations for these articles on Charles Allen Lechmere's Wikipedia page (yup, he has one!).

I've just been reading Michael Connor's piece. Good work.
Interesting to read that he felt both Cross and Paul may have had... Alarm Clocks! Which I thought interesting.
A quick bit of digging revealed that a company in America had been mass producing them for about 8 years by that time, I'm going to have a bit more of a dig and see when they first hit the UK, and whether they would be a realistic addition to the average East End Carman's boudoir.

Edit To Add: I'm now rather intrigued and keen on finding the 2007 piece by Osborne, "The Man Who Hated George Lusk".

[Mark J D]

"Thanks for that, I saw her picture, got scared and left..."

"I know what you mean."

-- Never far beneath the surface, is it, boys?

M.

[Herlock Sholmes]

"Thanks for that, I saw her picture, got scared and left..."

"I know what you mean."

-- Never far beneath the surface, is it, boys?

M.

Have you actually looked into this woman? Found out what she is actually like? The things that she’s said about people? Her attitudes?

What is certainly noticeable Mark is that you scrupulously avoid discussing the details of this case. You just keep jumping in with snarky comments and digs trying to make it seem that any that disagree with the ‘Cross version’ is some kind nasty zealot with some kind of ‘issue’ bubbling beneath the surface. Why do you have to keep resorting to the same obvious tactic?

This is a forum for discussing the details of the case. Those that don’t rate Cross do exactly that on here. What is your contribution? Why don’t you try it?

[Mark J D]

Have you actually looked into this woman? Found out what she is actually like? The things that she’s said about people? Her attitudes?

"Thanks for that, I saw her picture, got scared and left..."

"I know what you mean."

-- Get in the bin. Both of you.

M.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Content-free.

[JeffHamm]

...
What keeps nagging at me, though, is the notion that the police had every reason to get cleared up why Lechmere & Paul didn't tell Mizen that they'd examined the body. After all, the most obvious reason for doing so for them would be to get past Mizen and why would they want to get past him? Could there be any nefarious reason behind it, or was it just that they didn't want to loose time being taken back to Buck's Row?
...
Cheers,
Frank

Hi Frank,

Interesting question. Obviously we can never know their reasons for not mentioning examining Polly to PC Mizen, but your question got me thinking on that. One idea that I came up with, and not claiming it is the best, goes like this.

Paul estimates that no more than 4 minutes pass between when he first saw the body and the time they found PC Mizen. Doing a quick measurement just now, the distance from the crime scene to PC Mizen is roughly 922 feet, which at an average walking pace of 3.2 mph would require 3m 16s. That leaves 44 seconds at most for them to examine the body (provided Paul's estimate of a maximum of 4 minutes is accurate of course). Given they discuss what to do and so forth, the actual examination of Polly can't have been more than minimal at best, perhaps little more than touched her face, and pulled down her dress, brushing her chest in the process.

Given that's hardly an "examination", at the time it is quite clear they didn't "know" she was dead (only perhaps wondered if she might be, but to me their statements sound more like they considered that unlikely at the time but now, knowing she was, are talking about it as if they were more confident than they were - that's common human behaviour after all).

So, as it appears they didn't really do much, it wouldn't necessarily occur to them to mention it as it is sort of subsumed in their saying they found her in the first place. It's only after they realise she was actually murdered, and have to give more detailed statements to the police of their actions, that those actions come out. That would also be why they are more concerned about getting on to work and getting past PC Mizen - they really thought it most likely she was just drunk and the police could take care of her.

One of the complicated aspects of dealing with statements over time, as more information becomes available to the witness, is that as they become aware of things they did not know at the time that new information influences how they describe what their thoughts were at that time! We have to try and look at what they say after learning more, and try and work out through their actions, what distortions might be in play. Obviously, we can never do this perfectly, and at best we can just hypothesize on what those distortions might be, and how large or small they are.

Anyway, while certainly not decisive, I think their failure to mention their examination, the probability that they spent very little actual time examining her, tend to point to the probability that at the time they really weren't all that convinced she was dead, and didn't really consider what little they did to be anything important. Paul's Lloyd's article shows all the signs of modifying the past to the present after learning that the woman he came across was dead, throat cut, and mutilated. Hearing that probably spooked him a great deal, and we're seeing his reaction and thoughts in response to the new information, not getting a description of his reaction and thoughts at the time of the actual event.

- Jeff

[drstrange169]

"That could mean the records for Cross/Lechmere were lost."

When I asked many years ago, Pickfords said there were no records of any kind for the period. I believe everyone else that got the same answer.

[The Rookie Detective]

Hi Frank,

Interesting question. Obviously we can never know their reasons for not mentioning examining Polly to PC Mizen, but your question got me thinking on that. One idea that I came up with, and not claiming it is the best, goes like this.

Paul estimates that no more than 4 minutes pass between when he first saw the body and the time they found PC Mizen. Doing a quick measurement just now, the distance from the crime scene to PC Mizen is roughly 922 feet, which at an average walking pace of 3.2 mph would require 3m 16s. That leaves 44 seconds at most for them to examine the body (provided Paul's estimate of a maximum of 4 minutes is accurate of course). Given they discuss what to do and so forth, the actual examination of Polly can't have been more than minimal at best, perhaps little more than touched her face, and pulled down her dress, brushing her chest in the process.

Given that's hardly an "examination", at the time it is quite clear they didn't "know" she was dead (only perhaps wondered if she might be, but to me their statements sound more like they considered that unlikely at the time but now, knowing she was, are talking about it as if they were more confident than they were - that's common human behaviour after all).

So, as it appears they didn't really do much, it wouldn't necessarily occur to them to mention it as it is sort of subsumed in their saying they found her in the first place. It's only after they realise she was actually murdered, and have to give more detailed statements to the police of their actions, that those actions come out. That would also be why they are more concerned about getting on to work and getting past PC Mizen - they really thought it most likely she was just drunk and the police could take care of her.

One of the complicated aspects of dealing with statements over time, as more information becomes available to the witness, is that as they become aware of things they did not know at the time that new information influences how they describe what their thoughts were at that time! We have to try and look at what they say after learning more, and try and work out through their actions, what distortions might be in play. Obviously, we can never do this perfectly, and at best we can just hypothesize on what those distortions might be, and how large or small they are.

Anyway, while certainly not decisive, I think their failure to mention their examination, the probability that they spent very little actual time examining her, tend to point to the probability that at the time they really weren't all that convinced she was dead, and didn't really consider what little they did to be anything important. Paul's Lloyd's article shows all the signs of modifying the past to the present after learning that the woman he came across was dead, throat cut, and mutilated. Hearing that probably spooked him a great deal, and we're seeing his reaction and thoughts in response to the new information, not getting a description of his reaction and thoughts at the time of the actual event.

- Jeff

I think the reason why they didn't mention their examination of Nichols, was because they already knew she was dead.

Her eyes wide open, unresponsive and blood oozing from a severe cut in her throat.

If they already knew she was dead, then that would give them a reason to not tell the policeman about having examined her.

They must at the very least realized that Nichols was in some kind of distress

If they thought she was alive, you would expect them to have reacted with more intensity and urgency by calling for help or running to tell a policeman that a woman was dying in the street.

If they knew she was dead, it then helps their defense; because a dead woman on the street wouldn't have required urgent help the same way a woman who was dying would have.


RD

[JeffHamm]

I think the reason why they didn't mention their examination of Nichols, was because they already knew she was dead.

Her eyes wide open, unresponsive and blood oozing from a severe cut in her throat.

If they already knew she was dead, then that would give them a reason to not tell the policeman about having examined her.

They must at the very least realized that Nichols was in some kind of distress

If they thought she was alive, you would expect them to have reacted with more intensity and urgency by calling for help or running to tell a policeman that a woman was dying in the street.

If they knew she was dead, it then helps their defense; because a dead woman on the street wouldn't have required urgent help the same way a woman who was dying would have.


RD

Hi RD,

While we can never know what they actually knew, obviously, if they knew she was dead, particularly if they saw the blood from her throat etc, I would expect them to react much more like all the other people who found murdered victims, where they run looking for help (nobody else seems to casually walk off in case they find the police after finding someone they know is clearly dead and murdered). Their actions appear to me to be more in line of two people finding someone they think is just passed out drunk, or even just sleeping rough, (neither of which was uncommon) but perhaps in need of some aid.

Hmmm, actually I think there was one person who passed by Martha Tabram's body and did nothing at all other than went home to bed, or maybe it was off to work, I forget at the moment. But again, in that case I believe they didn't realize she had been murdered but just mistook her for someone sleeping rough in the stairway, and that is much more like the reaction of Cross/Lechmere and Paul.

- Jeff