Why Cross Was Almost Certainly Innocent

[Fiver]

I haven’t a clue about 7, 8, 9 and 10?

I can answer 8.

In 1857 a tiger escaped from a crate and grabbed a young boy. Charles Jamrach, the owner, managed to free the child.

The Lechmere "tie in" is that 3 decades later Charles Lechmere's children started attending school near the site.

No, you can't make this stuff up. HoL has descended into self-parody.

[Trevor Marriott]

Thanks Trevor. Mind you, part of me bristles when this topic appears because Fisherman invented blood flow as a "thing". Meaning, he created the idea that using witness statements about bleeding is informative as to the time of death. Personally, I can't think of anything (reasonable) more unreliable, but hey, I've been wrong before! Anyway, my doubts aside, the above clearly indicates that the concerns people have around Fisherman's adventures into forensic biology are well founded. My view is, leave it to the experts, but get the view of multiples experts before you leave it. Remember, the experts you hear from are the experts the person posting wants you to hear from. So maybe my endorsement should be viewed that way (and yes, of course, it should - but I think you would do well in this case to agree )

Hi Jeff
I totally agree with you and Dr Biggs has highlighted the different ways blood flow can be influenced

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

I can answer 8.

In 1857 a tiger escaped from a crate and grabbed a young boy. Charles Jamrach, the owner, managed to free the child.

The Lechmere "tie in" is that 3 decades later Charles Lechmere's children started attending school near the site.

No, you can't make this stuff up. HoL has descended into self-parody.

If I didn’t know that you aren’t given to just making stuff up I’d be assuming that’s exactly what you were doing. Unbelievable.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff
I totally agree with you and Dr Biggs has highlighted the different ways blood flow can be influenced

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Indeed. Even measures that are used to estimate ToD are subject to a wide range of influences that cannot be factored into the calculations of the estimate, which is why properly given medical testimony presents estimated ranges that span hours, or in some cases where bodies are found a long time after death, the ranges can be in terms of days or even months, but those latter extremes are situations unlike the JtR cases of course.

- Jeff

[Lewis C]

Let me see we have had to my knowledge... I'm certain there are many more.

1) Made up time gap.
2) Unknown time for Cross leaving home, added to unknown walking speed of Cross added to unknown route to work to equal a fact of time in Bucks Row.
3) Believing Paul over three sworn statements by Police referring to timings.
4) 'Confusing' opinions from a KC (wrong info fed to Scobie Doo.)
5) 'Confusing' opinions from two Professors regarding blood evidence and agonal breathing.
6) Not believing Mizen with regards to timing but believing him in regards to Cross lying.
7) Bagels
8) Tigers
9) Nichola Bulley
10) People who knew each other in real life are buried next to each other in the graveyard.
11) Doveton Street drains are blocked with human remains and should be dug up.
12) False Names which are not false.

Then there are my 3 favorites:
13) He wore his work clothes to the inquest.
14) He didn't want to touch Nichols' body.
15) He was seen near Nichols body. (The amusing part is that finding a body is more suspicious if someone sees you finding it than if you do it without being seen.)

[Geddy2112]

15) He was seen near Nichols body. (The amusing part is that finding a body is more suspicious if someone sees you finding it than if you do it without being seen.)

Ah yes indeed. If someone had seen Tomas Bowyer peering through the window does that put him in the same category.

16) Only suspect that can be placed at the scene of the crime.

Who made him 'suspect' status?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Ah yes indeed. If someone had seen Tomas Bowyer peering through the window does that put him in the same category.

16) Only suspect that can be placed at the scene of the crime.

Who made him 'suspect' status?

It was Derek Osborne in Ripperana 24 years ago. You may have forgotten but I posted a transcription of the article on here a while ago. I can post it again if anyone hasn’t read it?

[Geddy2112]

It was Derek Osborne in Ripperana 24 years ago. You may have forgotten but I posted a transcription of the article on here a while ago. I can post it again if anyone hasn’t read it?

I can remember it thanks, but yes how does he have the right to do that? A 'suspected suspect' surely, a possible suspect maybe... but to nail it on is poor form IMO.

[Lewis C]

Ah yes indeed. If someone had seen Tomas Bowyer peering through the window does that put him in the same category.

16) Only suspect that can be placed at the scene of the crime.

Who made him 'suspect' status?

If a suspect is anyone that has been named as a suspect by someone, there is a theory that Louis Diemshutz committed the murders in conjunction with 2 other men. And what about George Hutchinson and John Richardson?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Anyone is free to propose a suspect and present the case for that person but the problem is that some just can’t accept that they might not have solved the case. Once they have planted their flag in the ground they then feel honour-bound to defend their theory because they feel that to admit to even the possibility of being wrong might mean accepting that they aren’t the brilliant detective that they thought that they were. So we get people going overboard in defending a suspect when we all know that we don’t know who the killer was. They start to leave reason, common sense and fairness behind in an agenda propagated by bias. In close to 40 years interest in the case nowhere have I seen it taken to such lengths in the case of Cross. Some of the points raised in his favour are laughable if they weren’t such a sad reflection and what’s worse is that we have people using the ‘tactic’ of talking as if the case has been solved so that casual readers might accept this.

I couldn’t care less that Cross was ‘there’ and I’m tired of having this obvious fact repeated as if by some particularly unimaginative parrot. Every single person in the history of crime that found a body was ‘there,’ how many of them turned out to have been the killer? The fact that he used his stepfathers name and gained no advantage from it is about as notable as if we found out that he used to pull girls hair in the playground. Worst of all we get a 100% proven deliberate omission in both book and documentary purely to manufacture a mysterious ‘gap’ to create suspicion against Cross and to con a Barrister into believing that there was a case to answer against Cross. A Barrister that clearly did no background research himself but was fed spoonfuls of drivel by people with a vested in promoting this passer-by as a suspect. On and on it goes. Nothing that Charles Cross did that morning was even remotely suspicious. Everything that he and Paul did was absolutely normal behaviour for normal, fallible human beings. All that the evidence tells us is that Polly Nichols was killed a short time before Cross arrived in Bucks Row by an unknown man who did what all killers do after killing…he escaped rather than loitering around for a chat with Cross and the evidence very clearly tells us that he arrived at around 3.40 in comparison with the timings of the three Constable’s. We can answer the question honestly….could Cross have killed Nichols? Yes, it’s physically possible. Is there any evidence that points in that direction? No, there isn’t. Is there evidence against it? Yes, there is.

Who ever heard of a Ripper suspect with a tv channel and a fan club? It’s a crusade of misinformation, bias, ego and gullibility. Cross is an appalling suspect. Nothing (and I mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING) even remotely points to his guilt. He was there..he was there..he was there!!!

[A P Tomlinson]

I have posted below several questions posed to Dr Biggs a forensic pathologist along with his answers on this topic

Q. Evidence from the crime scenes seems to show a distinct lack of arterial blood spray. Now given the throats were cut, and in some cases, the carotid arteries were severed is there any explanation for the absence of arterial spray?

A. Blood loss could have been great if major neck vessels were severed. It is possible for much of the bleeding to remain within the body, though, so it would not necessarily result in a large volume of blood being visible externally. The lack of documented arterial blood pattern is not surprising as, despite being common in textbooks; arterial spurting is actually quite uncommon ‘in the wild’. Arteries, even large ones, usually go into acute spasm when cut, providing very effective control of bleeding (at least initially). The large arteries in the neck are quite well ‘hidden’ behind muscles and other structures, so they can be missed by even very extensive cuts to the neck. Also, even if cut, the initial ‘spray’ is blocked by the surrounding structures such that blood either remains inside the body or simply gushes / flows / drips out of the external skin hole rather than spurting.

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In addition to your coroners report, a consultant trauma surgeon at the hospital my Mrs used to work at pointed out that the angle of the blade and position of the chin can cause the cuts to "overlap" so a blade angled slightly upward with the chin being pushed down would effectively push the lower part of the wound back and cause the top of the wound to slightly overlap the bottom, which would force the flow of blood downward. Which would probably cause the blood to run into the clothing.
This was not a "gentle exercise in precision positioning" it was a violent attack requiring strength and determination to not only subdue and kill the victim, but also manouever her dead body about.
I still consider it a possibility that she was killed slightly further away and manouevered to the position by the gate, (her skirts being bunched up behind her making them difficult to pull down, may well have been the result of her being dragged but a yard or so by her feet.) and if the Police had had the opportunity to check the cobbles before half of the East End descended on the scene they may have found some of that arterial spray we allkeepwondering about.
It would also have likel got quite a bit of blood on the perpetrator, (depending on the position he was in). If for example, he lowered Nichols to the ground (with the result that the blood flowed into the back of her clothes, with very little down the front) his hands and cuffs would have "probably" been drenched in blood.

If the blood they reported in her clothes was due to "bleeding out" in situ, it's hard to correlate that with a wound that almost severed the head. "Bleeding out" should have been a fairly brief matter.

[rjpalmer]

I inadvertently misstated Dr. Jason Payne-James's name in my earlier post, so I apologize for that.

Here is a screen shot of his statement in the 'Missing Evidence' video and what I think it states. The exact wording of the last sentence is uncertain.

"The lack of blood at the scene strongly suggests she was strangled to death before she was cut. This removed any arterial pressure. Death from asphyxia takes a minimum of two minutes and a maximum of four minutes.

"Lack of wounds on her hands and arms suggests there was no struggle. This corroborates the [death by asphyxia?] hypothesis."

[rjpalmer]

Further, over on the 'Blood Oozing' thread, the poster David Orsam transcribed this back on 5-17-2017:


"Dr Payne James believes that the killer would not necessarily have had blood on his hands. Dr James has worked out that like the other victims Polly Nichols was strangled to death first. Without blood pressure there would have been no arterial spray. Polly Nichols’ killing was surprisingly bloodless."

At the same time, there is also a list on screen entitled:

"Forensic Pathology
Polly Nichols Murder"

Underneath of this heading is shown:

"Strangulation
Neck severed to the bone
Total of twelve injuries
Less extensive injuries compared to the other victims
2 minutes to kill
Dead before knife was used
No blood spray"

Then we have Dr Payne James in his own words on the murder of Nichols:

"I think there is always an assumption that somebody stabbed to death, there is going to be blood everywhere. I think it’s entirely possible that there wouldn’t necessarily be large amounts or indeed any blood necessarily obvious on that person...Although we know the carotid arteries were cut it would seem that that was after death so it may just leak out or dribble out or drain out around the contours of the neck in this case, over a period of minutes".

---

[Geddy2112]

Then we have Dr Payne James in his own words on the murder of Nichols:

"I think there is always an assumption that somebody stabbed to death, there is going to be blood everywhere. I think it’s entirely possible that there wouldn’t necessarily be large amounts or indeed any blood necessarily obvious on that person...Although we know the carotid arteries were cut it would seem that that was after death so it may just leak out or dribble out or drain out around the contours of the neck in this case, over a period of minutes".

---

Indeed, they we have recently been thrown the curve ball that Holmgren believes the the abdominal wounds came first. So let me think, difficult I know, if Cross was the killer in the time, according to Team Lechmere, it took Robert Paul to walk and get close enough to notice Cross 'in the middle of the road' from 50 yards away (10 secs, probably a lot less) Cross would have had to hear Paul, decide what to do, pull Polly's skirts down, cut her throat twice, wipe his knife and hands on a rag and store said knife and rag on his person, get up and back off to the middle of the road some 12 feet away and appear calm and collected some seconds after heavily slashing someone's throat.

Does that actually sound reasonably possible? I don't personally buy it....