A Cross by any other name...smells like JtR?

[Fisherman]

I think of all the suspects so far Lechmere is the best. He's not a crazy character like Tumblety or Chapman he;s a normal everyman like The Ripper would be. And the theory involved the torsos too so I like it. Fisherman your article is a great read!

Thank you kindly, Sir!

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

He comes off as a guy who happened to pick the wrong time/way to walk to work...

On which of the murder days, Dane?

Charles Lechmere walked to job at around 3-4 AM in the mornings through an area which offered two relatively equally long east-westernly thoroughfares; Hanbury Street and Old Montague Street.

1. Emma Smith staggered home at around 4 AM, having been lethally injured on Old Montague Street (at the Brick Lane corner).

2. Tabram was slain 30 meters from Old Montague Street. The killing was approximated to have taken place shortly before 3 AM.

3. Nichols died in Buck´s Row, leading into the two thoroughfares, very close in time to the hour when she was "found" by Lechmere.

4. Chapman died in a backyard along Hanbury Street. Witnesses would have it that she died at a later hour, but George Bagster Phillips said that she had been dead at the very least since 4.30, and probably earlier than that, placing her alongside the other victims in time. Apparently, the police accepted Phillips´ version.

5. Kelly died in Dorset Street, a shortcut along the Hanbury Street trek to Broad Street and Pickfords. She is the hardest victim to assess a TOD for, but Prater claimed to have heard the "Murder!" cry shortly before 4 AM.

This means that we have all of these victims killed on or within thirty-something yards of the routes Lechmere logically would have used for getting to work, and they can all be logically placed roughly in the timespan I mentioned, 3 AM to 4 AM.
All of them.

That leaves us with Stride and Eddowes.

6. Stride died at around 12.45 to 1 AM - too early to be a victim claimed on Lechmere´s working trek. And she died not even die along that trek.

7. Eddowes died at around 1.45, also too early to be a working trek victim and also not along the trek.

But Stride died in Lechmere´s old quarters, and very close to 147 Cable Street, where his mother lived. And Eddowes died in a spot that was consistent with Lechmere using his old working trek route from James Street, where he had lived many years, to Pickfords, and not very far from the goods depot at all.

Now, both Stride and Eddowes were killed on a Saturday night, so Lechmere was off from work, and had an opportunity to visit his mothers place, where his daughter (one of them) also lived.

These are all the seven killings that took place between April and November of 1888 and that are counted among the Whitechapel killings. Each and every one of them fits a logical pattern of movement for Charles Lechmere. So he did not happen to have just the one killing go down in close proximity to himself - they all seem to have done.

Count the streets in the East End, Dane. How many are there?
Several hundreds of them?
Thousands of them?
Now, tell me: Just how big is the chance that these killings would all go down on the exact routes where Lechmere had reason to be? And at the approximate times he had reason to be there?
One in a hundred?
One in a thousand?
One in a million?
Or more?

Why did not either Smith, Tabram, Nichols, Chapman or Kelly die at 1 AM? Why does it have to be the two victims that were NOT killed along his working trek that did so? How big was THAT chance, statistically?

How many people moved on the streets at the hour between 3 and 4 AM? Lechmere met not a living soul before he came to Buck´s Row. He walked for ten-fifteen minutes, if we are to believe him, street up, street down, turning corner after corner - and not a single person was on those streets. Not one. The streets were totally deserted. Abandoned.
Robert Paul - who had a shorter trek to cover to Buck´s Row - said the exact same thing: the streets were deserted. Other witnesses confirm this - at these hours, the streets were virtually empty.

But with an innocent Lechmere walking his lonesome trek, what we must have is another man walking the self same streets at these very hours.
A somebody else, killing Emma Smith, quite possibly hearing Lechmere´s footfalls as he passed by.
A somebody else hammering away at Tabrams trunk as Lechmere may have passed by thirty yards away.
A somebody else snuffing out Nichols just before Lechmere turned the corner into Buck´s Row (she was still bleeding even after Mizen had fetched the ambulance and returned with it!)
A somebody else luring Chapman into the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street and possibly listening to the clippety-clop of Lechmere´s shoes from the street as he killed her.
A somebody else carving up Kelly in Dorset Street - which represented a short cut from Hanbury Street to Broad Street - as our cheerful carman may well have carried his lunch-pack past the premises on that November morning.

And what happens when that somebody else finds that he wants to kill outside of Lechmere´s working trek? Exactly - he instead opts for the area where Lechmere would pass through after having visited his mother´s place. And not only that, he opts for doing that job on a Saturday - otherwise, Lechmere would reasonably not be around. And the whole thing about this somebody else is that he will only kill in potential proximity to Lechmere, geographically and timewise.

-Take the fact that Lechmere did not give his real name to the police.
-Take the fact that he was found standing by the freshly killed Nichols.
-Take the fact that he did not raise the alarm.
-Take the fact that Paul felt - of thought he felt - Nichols twitching as he felt her chest.
-Take the fact that Nichols still bled from her cut throat even after the carmen had left her, after Neil had arrived, after Thain had come and gone, and after Mizen had arrived and been sent for an ambulance - and after he had come back with that ambulance.
-Take the fact that Nichols had had her abdominal wounds covered.
-Take the fact that Lechmere - in an empty, silent street - did not hear Paul until he was thirty, forty yards away.
-Take the fact that Paul seemingly did not hear Lechmere walk thirty, forty yards in front of him. In a silent street. With presumably hard soles, as was the order of the day.
-Take the fact that Lechmere encouraged Paul to feel the hands of Nichols - but refused to help prop her up.
-Take the fact that Mizen claims that the carman said nothing at all about the woman potentially being dead, let alone murdered.
-Take the fact that Mizen says that Lechmere claimed that another PC awaited him in Buck´s Row, something that would have told Mizen that the boys were in the clear as per his colleague.
-Take the fact that Lechmere arrived to the inquest in working clothes - and an apron.
-Take the fact that he seemingly obscured his address from the inquest.
-Take the fact that Lechmere grew up without a biological father figure.
-Take the fact that he grew up bereft of a wealthy life, otherwise enjoyed by his relatives.

These things make for a very strong case against Charles Lechmere.

And once you have gone through them, do what the police regularly do when they have found themselves a likely suspect: Check out his routes and paths and timings, and see to what - if any - degree they can be found to confirm the suspicions ...

Lechmere seemingly "picked the wrong time/way to walk to work" on a regular basis.

All the best, Dane!
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Dane
Every suspect in this field would've regarded as innocent until proven guilty.

[Fisherman]

lynn cates:

Hello Christer. Thanks.

IF I were to discuss, it would have to be a new thread. And its parametres would need to be spelled out exactly--something like Was Lechmere brasen?

Many aspects of the Lechmere theory have been covered on this thread, as is always the case when he is discussed. A simple answer would not have derailed the thread in any significant manner.

Oh, yes, you might wish first to say something about the accusation of game playing.

I think we both alluded to playing games, Lynn. If you took offence - myself, I did not - then I´m sorry. I thought it a bit odd on your behalf to first state that my theory was flawed in a department, only to then refuse to qualify how. On this thread or on any other thread. It IS your prerogative to do so, but it is not very productive from a discussion point of view.

By the way, I did not "diss" (what a garish Americanism) your chap. I reiterated what I said a few years back that, from my perspective, I see no reason to see his name as sinister.

"All smoke and mirrors", eh? That is not dissing him? For the record, I do not see any reason to see his name as something that is proven sinister either. It is one of many, many things that is potentially sinister, and that carries possible indications of guilt with it. It´s not until you add the smoke and the mirrors that the sum breaks the donkey´s back.

The best,
Fisherman

[Dane_F]

That is certainly an interesting post Lechmere. Thank you for writing it.

At this time I am still iffy on Lechmere as a suspect. I have no idea where you live, I live in the United States and we have this thing called, "Innocent Until Proven Guilty." I just feel like with the above post it's much more of expecting the worst in a person instead of the best.

All of the listed arguments can be interpreted in either an innocent or guilty manor and I guess I just don't see enough to make me believe I should expect the guilty instead of the innocent in him.

I simply see a hard working, resourceful man who took care of his family, made something of his life, and left them better off than he was. He comes off as a guy who happened to pick the wrong time/way to walk to work and didn't want to be involved.

However, as I said, thank you for your post. I look forward to future developments with Lechmere. Maybe something will arise that will bring him back into focus for me.

[Lechmere]

On a general point – Lechmere is an exception among the witnesses in wearing his work clothes.
Like the many other issues – such as his using a name that he is never recorded as having used before, or like the disagreement over what was said between him and Mizen, and so on, you can come up with alternative innocent explanations.
However as Fisherman pointed out you have to come up with a host of explanations to make him innocent.
Here we have a man – spotted by the dead body before he had raised the alarm, where alone among the victims the killer forgot to leave the abdominal wounds uncovered.
Then this man through no fault of his own got into a wrangle with the first policeman he met by that policeman mistaking what he said or deliberately lying to cover his own tracks.
Then he walked off on a route that was not the shortest route to work (past the Tabram and Smith murder scenes) even though he was late, but along another route that he preferred, which coincidentally took him past the forthcoming Chapman murder scene.
Then he went to the police, coincidentally perhaps, after Paul’s story appeared and innocently chose not to give the name by which he was recorded in over 100 records.
The police investigated him, found out his true name but unlike in other examples, just neglected to record his real name in their files.
After that he turned up at the inquest in his work clothes because (unlike Paul) he crammed in a few hours’ work before his appearance at the inquest.
He gave his address in open court but all the other journalists (apart from the Star's) didn't bother to record it.
Then by some quirk another murder happened close to his mother’s house and a torso was found a few yards from where he lived as a kid.

His apron wearing was commented on – that is how we know he was wearing it.

I didn’t suggest that his wife was ignorant about his past.
I simply doubt that the name of a long dead step father would be fixed in her head – given that he died before she married into the family and her mother-in-law had long been re-married to someone else.
I think Charles Lechmere’s family was conscious of their background. His children are virtually all named after his Lechmere aunts and uncles who lived mostly in the West End.
I don’t see that his children would have taken much interest in a step grandfather who had died before they were born and who was not related to them.

It isn’t an exaggeration to say that anyone has the right to call themselves what they please.
Indeed as it is often pointed out this case is littered with such people.
However only one (I think) – Charles Lechmere – remained unknown. And he is the guy found by the body who then ended up in a dispute with Mizen and so on.
The difference about Lechmere is that he chose to call himself by a name that he is never recorded as having used before.
If we only had a few records for his life then this could be passed over. But we have an extraordinary large number of records for his life in a wide range of sources.

It is disingenuous to say that the circumstances for each person using an alternative name is the same when it clearly was not.

In short it is an anomaly among many anomalies relating to Lechmere (the only twice discovered body, the only with abdominal wounds covered, the only person seen by a body before he had raised the alarm).

On the mother issue…
Charles Lechmere’s father left the family when he was a baby and set up with a new family in the Midlands
Until he was 9 he had no father figure. He lived with his mother and elder sister.
Then his mother married a policeman who was nearly ten years her junior.
So then Charles Lechmere had an outsider as an authority figure twice over – step-father and policeman – and who was only 14 years older than he was.
One might expect Charles Lechmere to resent his father for absconding but he chose to name most of his children after his father’s sisters. This suggests to me that he yearend after his missed Lechmere roots.
His mother I would suggest was a very important part of his life – given that she brought him up single handed until he was 9 and she also brought up his second eldest daughter (who lived all he life with his mother from what can be determined).
Until mid June 1888 (i.e. just before the murders started) Chares Lechmere lived within a very short distance of his mother.
The ‘Double Event’ – which took place earlier in the night than the other killings and were the only killings that preceded a non-working day – match a pattern of Charles Lechmere visiting his mother and daughter – killing Stride on the way home, being disturbed, looking for another victim (by following his old route to work to an area he would expect to be able to find a new victim) then dropping the apron on his way back (possibly via a diversion to his deserted workplace).

His mother was evidently a resourceful woman.
She supported her two children for a number of years before snaring a much younger second husband. Then when he died she snared a third husband (this time about ten years older than her).
In her later years she ran her own business as a horse flesh dealer.
Instead of ending up like the victims of Jack the Ripper through a series of potentially disastrous circumstances, she made a relative success of her life.

It is my belief that she was a dominating presence and she deprived him of control. I think being in control was important to him – as shown by the way he, for example, never missed an entry in the electoral register despite moving numerous times, by the fact that he got all his children baptised, by the fact that his children left their old school one day and started their new one next – without a single day off – when he moved address. By the way he managed to run several successful businesses despite being a carman and managed to leave a reasonable sum in his will when he died.
I would suggest that he was close to his mother yet resented the presence of other men in her life. For Charles Lechmere to have committed these crimes he must have been a psychopath, but I believe his relationship with his mother will have been the main catalyst.
And I would not be surprised if she suspected him.

[RockySullivan]

I think of all the suspects so far Lechmere is the best. He's not a crazy character like Tumblety or Chapman he;s a normal everyman like The Ripper would be. And the theory involved the torsos too so I like it. Fisherman your article is a great read!

[RockySullivan]

Could the ripper have simply learned the police beats by following the detective on his first round?

im an idiot i meant to say constable or policeman not detective

[Abby Normal]

Hi Lechmere,

If he had been doing the job for 20 years he had some idea of how long things took. There were probably regular deliveries that could be relied on to finish within a certain time. And I would imagine as a long term employee he had a certain standing that would make it perfectly conceivable for him to have explained the situation to his superiors and arranged things to fit in with an appearance at court.

MrB

Hi mr. B
I agree. I think the most likely explanation of wearing the work clothes to the inquest is that he was planning on also working that day.

[GUT]

G'day Dane F

I just want to post and say that Lechmere, Fisherman, GUT, MrBennett, and nearly everyone else here I'm sure has more knowledge of the actual cases than I do or will most likely ever have.

Because of this my entire stance is based entirely off of making logical sense out of the information that other people bring forth. I respect everyone's knowledge of the case greatly and still feel as if I can be persuaded to believe any of them.

However, I do attempt to try to follow a logical thread without jumping to ungrounded or illogical conclusions. I am sorry if my stance at times contradicts other people's stance whom I greatly respect. I have spent a long period of time just reading these forums and I sometimes feel I know the people here. I do hope no one takes offense to my posts. I like to discuss and debate.

I've certainly not seen anything from you to offend and don't be afraid to say what you think. I must say that many hypothesis here I find strange and think that the facts need to be twisted to make them work, others I don't agree with but find intriguing because they contain elements of logic.

Cross/Lechmere certainly fits the second category, my biggest doubt is that I don't find it suspicious that he used a different name, [there is a not unreasonable explanation for it, and look at how many victims used different names] however I find it hard to accept that the police did not check him out thoroughly after all he gave his address and his place of work.

[MrBarnett]

Hi Dane,

I'm sure no one has taken offence at anything you have said.

MrB

[MrBarnett]

Hi Lechmere,

If he had been doing the job for 20 years he had some idea of how long things took. There were probably regular deliveries that could be relied on to finish within a certain time. And I would imagine as a long term employee he had a certain standing that would make it perfectly conceivable for him to have explained the situation to his superiors and arranged things to fit in with an appearance at court.

MrB

[Dane_F]

I just want to post and say that Lechmere, Fisherman, GUT, MrBennett, and nearly everyone else here I'm sure has more knowledge of the actual cases than I do or will most likely ever have.

Because of this my entire stance is based entirely off of making logical sense out of the information that other people bring forth. I respect everyone's knowledge of the case greatly and still feel as if I can be persuaded to believe any of them.

However, I do attempt to try to follow a logical thread without jumping to ungrounded or illogical conclusions. I am sorry if my stance at times contradicts other people's stance whom I greatly respect. I have spent a long period of time just reading these forums and I sometimes feel I know the people here. I do hope no one takes offense to my posts. I like to discuss and debate.

[MrBarnett]

Hi Dane,

It has been put forward that the wearing of the apron was part of an 'ever so 'umble' act designed to divert suspicion from Lechmere. My own view is that if he had turned up wearing his Sunday best suit and a clean collar he would have been even less likely to have aroused suspicion. At this point they were not looking for a serial killer, the most likely scenario would have been either a domestic or a client/prostitute dispute. How would turning up in soiled working clothes have helped?

MrB

[Lechmere]

Mr Barnett
In the cases where the police rounded up witnesses and took them straight to an inquest - the people were found on the spot. They did not have to seek them out. They did not have to engage in any sort of man hunt.

The simple answer to the question about whether Lechmere knew about any deliveries he was likely to have to undertake is that we don't know!
However we now the generality of what a carman's work entailed - particularly one working from a big goods station.
We know that they could not predict where they would go or how long the job would take and that frequently they had to wait for a very long time for their delivery to be unloaded.
We also have the example of Paul who was a carman.