Was he lying?

[Geddy2112]

As I have stated, I don't have a dog in this fight, so I hope that I will not be considered a "Lechmerian".

It appears to me that the principle bone of contention is "If Lechmere was the perpetrator, why didn't he just walk away??"

Suppose that he did....but before he had gone too far he heard signs that Polly wasn't dead. What would he do? What would you do? Would you keep walking away from someone who could possibly identify you? While I can't speak from the point of view of a potential serial killer, I would imagine that he would be unwilling to incur the risk that Polly may live long enough to edict him. After a brief period of weighing his options, he returns to her body, retrieves his knife from his clothing and cuts her throat. Pure speculation.....but wait.....isn't that what Llewellyn said happened? That the throat cut was after the mutilations. On what basis, 130 years after the event, can we dispute the opinion of the only medical person to examine the body?

I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just looking at the facts...with a little speculation thrown in for good measure.

Cheer, George

I suspect the killer, Lechmere or not would be well aware of the 'attacks' he had made and thus would certainly know she was dead or not going to survive enough to identify him. I'm not in the camp the throat came last as surely he would have been covered in blood hand/sleeves wise and Robert Paul never mentioned anything of the kind. Of course unless Lechmere was NOT the killer.

[GBinOz]

I guess the question is; how reliable and credible was Dr Llewellyn?
Not necessarily in terms of his integrity; but rather his judgment based on his medical opinion.
On what basis do you question his medical opinion. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

If it was Dr Phillips then I would be more likely to negate his opinions as he was often wrong in his judgement.
Dr Llewellyn however I am not so sure can be as easily discredited.
Excepting opinions, who has proven Phillips was often wrong. I, for one, do not accept this as a given.

There is of course another option that would fit in with the medical evidence, the chronological timeline and the statements given by both Lechmere and Paul.

It is as follows...


Lechmere finds Nichols and Paul arrives less than a minute later. They approach and examine the body, and at least one of them believes she may still be alive.

They notice no wounds or blood...and so walk away in seemingly no great hurry and then alert Mizen that he's wanted in Bucks Row.

And then PC Neil finds her shortly after Lechmere and Paul leave the scene.

But what if when Nichols was found by the pair, that she had not yet received any cuts to the throat?
One of my previously expressed but unpopular proposals.

What if her killer had made her unconscious through strangulation and managed to incapacitate her. He lays her down and begins to attack her abdomen, but just then he hears Lechmere approaching and so has to flee and hide in the shadows.
Alternatively, it is Lechmere that is the attacker, and he hears Paul approaching, and is uncertain as to whether he has assured Polly's transition to the next life.

After Lechmere and Paul exit the scene, the Ripper then comes out of the shadows and walks over to Nichols and then attacks he throat twice to ensure that she is dead because he fears that he may now be identified by Nichols if she were to wake from her unconscious state.
Or, Lechmere lets Paul walk away, cuts Polly's throat and quickly follows after him, giving Paul the impression that they left together.

The question is... how long is the time gap BETWEEN Paul and Lechmere leaving, to the time PC Neil finds her?

If there's no time for it to have been another unidentified individual, then it may have been PC Neil himself....or a certain plain clothed Sargent who was also patrolling the area at the time.

Could Nichols have suffered her fatal throat wound/s AFTER Lechmere and Paul left?
Or just after Paul left?
And could the Ripper have been Pc Neil or the police sergeant?
I don't think so.

Just another idea to throw into the pot




RD

Hi RD,

While I always appreciate your out-of-the-box ideas, and we can kick around speculations, I'm not on board for Neil or the police sergeant as suspects. I also appreciate that my speculations may not be on board with many of our colleagues on this forum, or even your good self.

Cheers, George

[The Rookie Detective]

As I have stated, I don't have a dog in this fight, so I hope that I will not be considered a "Lechmerian".

It appears to me that the principle bone of contention is "If Lechmere was the perpetrator, why didn't he just walk away??"

Suppose that he did....but before he had gone too far he heard signs that Polly wasn't dead. What would he do? What would you do? Would you keep walking away from someone who could possibly identify you? While I can't speak from the point of view of a potential serial killer, I would imagine that he would be unwilling to incur the risk that Polly may live long enough to edict him. After a brief period of weighing his options, he returns to her body, retrieves his knife from his clothing and cuts her throat. Pure speculation.....but wait.....isn't that what Llewellyn said happened? That the throat cut was after the mutilations. On what basis, 130 years after the event, can we dispute the opinion of the only medical person to examine the body?

I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just looking at the facts...with a little speculation thrown in for good measure.

Cheer, George

Interesting post George.


I guess the question is; how reliable and credible was Dr Llewellyn?
Not necessarily in terms of his integrity; but rather his judgment based on his medical opinion.

If it was Dr Phillips then I would be more likely to negate his opinions as he was often wrong in his judgement.
Dr Llewellyn however I am not so sure can be as easily discredited.

There is of course another option that would fit in with the medical evidence, the chronological timeline and the statements given by both Lechmere and Paul.

It is as follows...


Lechmere finds Nichols and Paul arrives less than a minute later. They approach and examine the body, and at least one of them believes she may still be alive.

They notice no wounds or blood...and so walk away in seemingly no great hurry and then alert Mizen that he's wanted in Bucks Row.

And then PC Neil finds her shortly after Lechmere and Paul leave the scene.

But what if when Nichols was found by the pair, that she had not yet received any cuts to the throat?

What if her killer had made her unconscious through strangulation and managed to incapacitate her. He lays her down and begins to attack her abdomen, but just then he hears Lechmere approaching and so has to flee and hide in the shadows.


After Lechmere and Paul exit the scene, the Ripper then comes out of the shadows and walks over to Nichols and then attacks he throat twice to ensure that she is dead because he fears that he may now be identified by Nichols if she were to wake from her unconscious state.

The question is... how long is the time gap BETWEEN Paul and Lechmere leaving, to the time PC Neil finds her?

If there's no time for it to have been another unidentified individual, then it may have been PC Neil himself....or a certain plain clothed Sargent who was also patrolling the area at the time.

Could Nichols have suffered her fatal throat wound/s AFTER Lechmere and Paul left?

And could the Ripper have been Pc Neil or the police sergeant?


Just another idea to throw into the pot




RD

[GBinOz]

As I have stated, I don't have a dog in this fight, so I hope that I will not be considered a "Lechmerian".

It appears to me that the principle bone of contention is "If Lechmere was the perpetrator, why didn't he just walk away??"

Suppose that he did....but before he had gone too far he heard signs that Polly wasn't dead. What would he do? What would you do? Would you keep walking away from someone who could possibly identify you? While I can't speak from the point of view of a potential serial killer, I would imagine that he would be unwilling to incur the risk that Polly may live long enough to edict him. After a brief period of weighing his options, he returns to her body, retrieves his knife from his clothing and cuts her throat. Pure speculation.....but wait.....isn't that what Llewellyn said happened? That the throat cut was after the mutilations. On what basis, 130 years after the event, can we dispute the opinion of the only medical person to examine the body?

I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just looking at the facts...with a little speculation thrown in for good measure.

Cheer, George

[GBinOz]

I read through your experiment GB.

You conducted it with a moon that was 90 +% illuminated? Maybe I missed something.
The moon was far less bright on the night in question.

Hi Newbie,

I reported the status of the moon on the night I conducted the re-enactment, rather than waiting for a night that more closely represented the stage of the moon on the night of the murder. I had no means of approximating the exact conditions of the night of the murder, so I just did the best I could.

Cheers, George

[FrankO]

For goodness sake! How is it speculative that someone walking down a tough street is going to be more aware of their surroundings. Or are you arguing that it wasn't a tough street? Lechmere had no street smarts? ... okay!

We of course have Paul's statement about 'few people'; maybe Lechmere was one of the few, maybe he had bad hearing, maybe ....

You think someone moving away from the body surreptiously might take softer footsteps moving away .... no? He's not exactly going to be running to that spot.

As for the red part: He might have stopped walking when he realized it was a woman, he might have stopped when he heard footsteps behind him, he might have stopped when he turned to look back in the direction of Paul.

You say that there is no way of knowing what came first: see, stop, hear?

Here is what Lechmere says on the matter: moving towards the body, hearing & seeing are simultaneous, no mention of stopping:
"As I got up Buck's row I saw something lying on the northside in the gateway to a wool warehouse. It looked to me like a man's tarpaulin, but on going into the center of the road I saw it was the figure of a woman. At the same time I heard a man coming up the street in the same direction as I had done."

But lets check which order makes sense:

A. First stops in middle, then sees that it is a woman's body, then hears Paul's footsteps ..... why stop if you still don't know?
B. First sees that it is a woman, then stops, then hears footsteps ...... you now know that it is a woman and decide to stop?

The idea you are driving out is that he might have seen the woman first, stopped for a split second, and then heard the footsteps ..... which attempts to get around the false notion that his own footsteps were masking the footsteps of the potential predator behind him .... who was traveling faster than him btw.

C. You see that it is a woman, then hear footsteps, then stop to turn around ...... this makes sense, but at the unavoidable cost of throwing out the masking sounds of your own footsteps theory.

D. The simultaneous seeing/hearing and then stopping .... which also makes sense

Toss out the Lechmere's footsteps masking Paul's footsteps theory!

The thing is that I think the part where Lechmere says he saw something lying on the opposite side of the street until he called Paul’s attention to it is actually – potentially – the most ‘suspicious’ part of the whole Lechmere story.

However, the more Lechmerians stress that Paul MUST have heard Lechmere walking in front of him, because, after all, they wore hobnailed shoes back then AND the street was an echoing chamber AND Paul was on high alert all the way down Buck’s Row, the unlikelier it becomes that Paul wouldn’t have heard Lechmere move around the body and then to the middle of the street. That’s the bottom line.

AND, if we’d turn it around and would assume for a moment that Lechmere was guilty, then we would have a man who we’d know would have had every reason to listen for sounds and be on high alert, but we’d have to assume then that he just didn’t hear Paul enter Buck’s Row, even though Paul would still have worn hobnailed shoes, Buck’s Row would have still been an echoing chamber and Lechmere would have had every reason to be on high alert.

If we’d throw in Neil who, according to you, wasn’t listening for sounds, but still heard Thain 130 yards away, it becomes even more of a miracle that Lechmere would NOT have heard Paul until it was too late for comfort.

But, according to you and others, he still DIDN’T hear him until he had covered some stretch down Buck’s Row. Or, of course, you say: oh well, he was a psychopath and upon hearing Paul enter Buck’s Row he decided to play a game, because that’s what they do.

That’s fine, of course, but I just don’t find it convincing – any of it.

And if we’d add, for instance, the fact that Lechmere stated at the inquest that he would have heard anybody walking away from the crime spot, had anybody been there, it becomes even less than convincing. What he stated, obviously, could easily have triggered the coroner or someone from the jury into asking: OK, but why didn't you hear Paul walking behind you, then?

Or the fact that Lechmere would have had no influence on what Paul would exactly say to inquest, police or journalist. He could not have known Paul would not state to any or all of them that he’d heard no one ahead of him during his entire walk down Buck’s Row.

And, of course, what also has to be taken into account is that memory and estimating distances aren’t infallible machines. So, we simply can’t claim that what an innocent Lechmere would have said would have been exactly what or as it happened.

Do you remember every little detail and order about a thing that happened to you two days ago? And, even if you would, would you include every little detail when recounting the event? I don’t think I would.

Also, if it would really have been so odd that Paul and Lechmere didn’t hear one another, then why did nobody back then & there pick up on it? At least Neil and some of the officers present that night would have known the lighting and acoustical conditions of Buck’s Row, wouldn’t they? And the police did have reason to be interested in Lechmere as he, at least, hadn't told Mizen that he & Paul had examined the body. Or are you saying that it wouldn't have interested the police to get that cleared up.

I have no illusions of convincing you into changing your mind, any of it, but it is how I see things and why what you and other Lechmerians have written so far doesn't convince me.

[Fiver]

BTW, if, as it seems here, that JtR's modus operandi was to choose only nights when the moon was dim,
one might consider including Martha Tabrum as a JtR victim, and exclude the others.

Some here were wondering why he chose certain days ..... as if he might have had free space in his schedule,
or that is when he was in the area.

It seems quite possible that he primarily chose dates based on how dark it was gettin at night.

If someone has verification on the moon phase for each date, please let me know.

There is this, which is similar, but not identical.

I agree that there seems to be a pattern of nights when it was fairly dark out.

[Fiver]

Again, it is your word against PC Neil .... he was there, you were not.

Nothing that I said contradicts anything that PC Neil said.

If you are arguing that Lechmere didn't have a very good sense of hearing,
and Paul just didn't bother to mention it .... for some reason,
you have the perfect right to stick to this position .... I guess it fits into the anything is possible category.

That is not what I said.

There are a lot perception variables that we don't have here. We don't know how good Lechmere's hearing was compared to PC Neil's. We don't know how loudly Robert Paul walked compared to PC Thain. Also, PC Neil would have been facing west, making it easier to hear PC Thain in front of him. Paul was behind Lechmere, making Paul harder to hear.

From Peter Whybrow, director of the Semel Institute for Neurosciences and human behavior at the University of California at Los Angeles:

“ The reason we can’t multitask hearing and vision is these two senses share access to a part of the brain, the association cortex, whose job it is to integrate all incoming information. In reality, this ability to shut out sound when we are focusing on a visual task is an asset."

The quote is from reporter Linda Carroll summarizing Nilli Lavie, a coauthor of a 2015 report in the Journal of Neuroscience. The Semel Institute for Neurosciences appears to be led by Helena Hansen.

"Dr. Peter C. Whybrow is the Judson Braun Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA." "Dr. Whybrow is an international authority on depression, manic-depressive disease, and the effects of thyroid hormones on the brain and human behavior." So Dr. Whybrow isn't an a authority on auditory matters, isn't part of the Semel Institute, isn't head of anything, and did not say the quote.

However, you would have more difficulty in explainnig why Lech finally heard the footsteps when he still was not only walking,
but occupied in examining visually the body.

There is a good reason why this would be the most unlikely time for him to actually hear the footsteps.

At the time that Charles Lechmere heard Robert Paul behind him, he had probably slowed or stopped walking and it was just after Lechmere had identified that it was a body.

"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.

[Herlock Sholmes]

See this is the huge problem and why I'm suspicious of Paul. If he had entered Bucks Row at 'exactly' 3:45am two things would have happened...
1) He would have bumped into PC Neil at the murder site.
2) He could not have been at the corner of Hanbury Street with Mizen and Cross.

3) P.C. Mizen would have lied under oath.
4) P.C. Neil would have lied under oath.
5) P.C. Thain would have lied under oath.
6) Cross could not have got to work by 4:00.
7) Under oath and after being heavily questioned by police Paul does not repeat the claim of being in entering Buck's at exactly 3:45.

Unless there was a conspiracy then Paul’s time was clearly an error Dusty, as most of us know. Typically though we get the majority of times ignored so that Cross supporters can focus on this 3.45 time. It helps in the invention of a ‘gap’ of course.

Three Constable’s quote 3.45. Paul said it took no more than 4 minutes between him meeting Cross and the pair of them finding Mizen. This would taken them back to 3.41. Clearly we can’t assume that all times were to spot on but it still gives us a discovery time of around 3.40.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'm surprised at how apathetic you are to the math.

He could have started 70 yards ahead, you say? And then gained 30 - 40 yards on Lechmere (which you conveniently leave out), over the course of Lechmere going 130 yards?

Lechmere would be walking at a a good clip of 3.6 mph.
He didn't notice this guy jogging behind him when he was 60 yards behind?
He didn't notice this guy jogging behind him when he was 50 yards behind?

When did he notice this guy? When he was still walking towards the body, visually focused on this unexpected event, conveniently in the middle of the street.

Do the math for Gods sake! Its a simple problem. Come back to me with an approximate speed that Paul would have to be traveling down Buck's row in this case.

Then go to your nearest gym and plug that number into the old tread mill.

Or you can argue against how I set the problem up.
One or the other! Simple hand waving exercises and getting miffed will not do.

BTW, a lot of the other stuff had nothing to do with the analysis, and the problem I just defined .... so I pretty much ignored it.

You complain that I ignore the maths but you ignore the other very obvious points that have been made. You can’t know how quickly either Cross or Paul walked. You can’t know how much noise Paul’s footsteps made and you can’t know how good Cross (or Paul’s for that matter) hearing was.

I don’t know how far apart they were anymore than you do but if we estimate 70 yards then all we are left with is Cross getting were the body was and crossing to the middle of the road. Factor in a few seconds of perfectly understandable but unmeasurable hesitation factor in that we don’t know how good Cross’s hearing was then we are left with him estimating 40 yards. (If his estimate was actually nearer to 50 yards [because it was an estimation] then either we only have 20 yards to account for or we have have Cross and Paul 80 yards apart.)

What we are getting is what we always get in any discussion with those followers of the ‘true faith.’ Ignore or obfuscate their way around the big issues then focus on trivia.

Cross as a suspect that doesn’t stand up to any form of proper scrutiny. There really should be no more talk of him. Supporters should concede that they are wrong and that they have deliberately manipulated evidence (and continue to do so) and language to form a case against a clearly innocent man. How has this gone on for so long?

[drstrange169]

See this is the huge problem and why I'm suspicious of Paul. If he had entered Bucks Row at 'exactly' 3:45am two things would have happened...
1) He would have bumped into PC Neil at the murder site.
2) He could not have been at the corner of Hanbury Street with Mizen and Cross.

3) P.C. Mizen would have lied under oath.
4) P.C. Neil would have lied under oath.
5) P.C. Thain would have lied under oath.
6) Cross could not have got to work by 4:00.
7) Under oath and after being heavily questioned by police Paul does not repeat the claim of being in entering Buck's at exactly 3:45.

[drstrange169]

"I'm trying to come up with various possibilities that can explain how Paul missed Lech on Bath street, while walking under the lights of the Albion Brewery ..."

There were no lights shining on Bath St. near Foster. That is just something Christer made up. When challenged about it he became very vague and referenced the fact there were lights at the front of the Brewery facing Whitechapel Road.

Just another of the Lechmere myths, I'm afraid.

[Geddy2112]

Paul, only needs to go at a rate of 3.4 mph to make it two work on time that day .... if he arrived at the entrance to Buck's row at 3:45 am, which is what he believed the time to be.

See this is the huge problem and why I'm suspicious of Paul. If he had entered Bucks Row at 'exactly' 3:45am two things would have happened...

1) He would have bumped into PC Neil at the murder site.
2) He could not have been at the corner of Hanbury Street with Mizen and Cross.

[Newbie]

Thanks GBinOz,

I'll go look at what you put together.

I read through your experiment GB.

You conducted it with a moon that was 90 +% illuminated? Maybe I missed something.
The moon was far less bright on the night in question.

It does seem to be unclear as to which path Lech took; but I agree, if he was to make out the body as a female, he'd have to come from directly across the street.

Case A:

Charles A. Cross, a carman, in the employ of Messrs. Pickford and Co., said that on Friday morning he left his home about half-past three. He reached Messrs. Pickford's yard at Broad-street, City, at four o'clock. He crossed Brady-street into Buck's-row. Was there any one with you? - No, I was by myself. As I got to Buck's-row, by the gateway of the wool warehouse, I saw someone lying at the entrance to the gateway. It looked like a dark figure. I walked into the center of the road, and saw that it was a woman.

* the gateway of the wool warehouse being someways down the street.

Case B:

Charles Cross: “I went down Parson street, crossed Brady street, and through Buck's row. I was alone.As I got up Buck's row I saw something lying on the northside in the gateway to a wool warehouse.It looked to me like a man's tarpaulin, but on going into the center of the road I saw it was the figure of a woman. At the same time I heard a man coming up the street in the same direction as I had done, so I waited for him to come up.”

* Northside in the gateway to a wool warehouse basically means across the street: the wool warehouse gateway being the gateway to Brown's stable yard.

BTW, the light on Buck's row seemed to be at the bottom of the street ... so no help in providing better light near the murder scene.

[Newbie]

Moon phases

* Note: 50 % of the moon illuminated provides around 10 % of the brightness of a full moon.


April 3rd 1888: waning gibbous moon: 55.6 % illuminated; 376,000 miles away

• Emma Smith’ murder

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


August 7 1888: waning crescent moon: 0.6 % illuminated; 385,000 miles away

• Martha Tabrum’s murder

August 31 1888: waning crescent moon: 36 % illuminated; 400,000 miles away, 50 % cloud cover

• Polly Nichols’ murder

September 8th 1888: waxing crescent moon: 1.7 % illuminated, 369,000 miles away

• Annie Chapman’s murder

September 30th 1888: waning crescent moon: 34 % illuminated, 392,000 miles away

• Double murder event

November 9th 1888: waxing crescent moon: 36.5 % illuminated, 375,000 miles away

• Mary Kelly’s murder

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 20th 1888: waxing gibbous moon: 92 % illuminated, 375,000 miles away

• Rose Myllet murder/accidental hanging

July 7th, 1889: waxing gibbous moon: 64 % illuminated, 373,000 miles away

• Alice Mckenzie murder

BTW, if, as it seems here, that JtR's modus operandi was to choose only nights when the moon was dim,
one might consider including Martha Tabrum as a JtR victim, and exclude the others.

Some here were wondering why he chose certain days ..... as if he might have had free space in his schedule,
or that is when he was in the area.

It seems quite possible that he primarily chose dates based on how dark it was gettin at night.

If someone has verification on the moon phase for each date, please let me know.