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

[Patrick S]

A question for you, Fisherman: On a scale of one to ten how confident are you that Lechmere/Cross was Jack the Ripper (10 being absolutely positive)?

Personally, I'm no more than a one or two on any particular suspect. I'm about a nine that it's someone totally unknown, his name appearing nowhere in association with the case, from 1888 up to now.

[Fisherman]

A question for you, Fisherman: On a scale of one to ten how confident are you that Lechmere/Cross was Jack the Ripper (10 being absolutely positive)?

Personally, I'm no more than a one or two on any particular suspect. I'm about a nine that it's someone totally unknown, his name appearing nowhere in association with the case, from 1888 up to now.

I normally say that I find it more credible that he was the killer than not. If I am to name a number - and most people would not, mind you... - I´d take the liberty to use a percentage scale instead, and say that I think that it would be fair to say that I am around seventy per cent sure that he´s our man.
As for the other suspects, none of them surpass ten per cent when it comes to me.

In the end, what selected Ripperologists think along these lines will have nothing at all to do with what´s the truth. You will get most people avoiding to answer that question, and some people who will rate other suspects highly on a percentage scale. And you will get those who rate Lechmere zero per cent, some out of conviction, some out of ignorance and some for the hell of it.

But you asked, and you have your answer!

All the best,
Fisherman

[Dane_F]

Fisherman, thank you for the response. The other points are certainly valid if you prescribe to that theory. I've actually read you make those points before, since I've been wading through pages upon pages of posts.

I don't intend to argue against them either since they fit the theory that you are suggesting and I have no theory of my own to defend. I am completely open and willing to accept logical conclusions.

I do not however accept that it is a logical conclusion that he gave his Cross last name with intent to maliciously deceive. I have listed one reason he could have used his Cross last name, you have listed another valid reason. Neither of those reasons end with him being the Ripper. He could have just as simply wanted to use Cross so he would not be bothered at home/work about it. No need to believe he did it because he was the Ripper and didn't want to get caught.

To answer your question, even if he was completely innocent, he was a man found standing over a dead body. He also didn't give a "false" name. He gave a last name he had every right to us. His actions do not speak of trying to hide himself because he was a killer. I'm sorry, that is too big of a jump based off of the Cross last name. If I suddenly find myself standing over a dead body I might say some things that people might question years later too. I think trying to prescribing motive to every action is not taking into account the most prominent motive of all - fear. He found a ripped body. He was afraid. He said things that 100+ years later we are curious about. I see no ill intent in that.

How do we know his wife wasn't aware of both last names? Certainly he would have talked about his step-father to his wife. How do we know co-workers didn't know his backstory or that his stepfather was a Cross? If I'm not mistaken his mother was still alive at this time correct? Would she have not put two and two together with who this Charles Cross was? The jump that he used Cross to hide his actions from his wife so he could "keep" killing is quite a big one to make. It seems far more likely that he either did it for the reason I suggested or he did it to keep the general public from bothering him and not his family from knowing he was ripping women.

I am curious, does Lechmere have any criminal history? Anything before or after?

[Patrick S]

I normally say that I find it more credible that he was the killer than not. If I am to name a number - and most people would not, mind you... - I´d take the liberty to use a percentage scale instead, and say that I think that it would be fair to say that I am around seventy per cent sure that he´s our man.
As for the other suspects, none of them surpass ten per cent when it comes to me.

In the end, what selected Ripperologists think along these lines will have nothing at all to do with what´s the truth. You will get most people avoiding to answer that question, and some people who will rate other suspects highly on a percentage scale. And you will get those who rate Lechmere zero per cent, some out of conviction, some out of ignorance and some for the hell of it.

But you asked, and you have your answer!

All the best,
Fisherman

Seventy percent. Interesting. That's likely higher than anyone else would rate any one individual suspect (with the exception of Cornwell, or others who gain conviction through their desire to sell books, etc.). I'm sure you've discussed this previously, but may I ask what led you to view Lechmere as a plausible JtR? What started the 'ball rolling', so to speak? Was the name issue what led you to suspect him initially?

[MrBarnett]

Hi All,

One thing I am curious about is how the police contacted Lechmere to request his attendance at the inquest. If, as has been said, he gave them his home address and place of work, they presumably would have made enquiries there for a man named Cross. But according to the theory he was unknown by that name in either place. (Apologies if this has been covered a hundred times before).

I personally feel the most obvious reason he attended the inquest in his work clothes was that he went there straight from work. We know his working day began hours before an inquest would have convened, so he probably did a few early local trips and attended the inquest later that morning. I doubt that his employers would have paid him if he had not turned up for the whole day.

The suggestion that Lechmere in 1888 was well-to-do because decades later he owned a small shop seems somewhat flawed to say the least. I hope this is not one of the many 'pillars' that the Lechmere theory stands on. However, as it seems he had held down a steady, if not particularly remunerative job for a number of years, he may well have had a Sunday best suit at home. But why rush home and change if you are hoping to give your evidence asap and get back to work so as to avoid losing a day's pay?


MrB

[Ben]

but may I ask what led you to view Lechmere as a plausible JtR? What started the 'ball rolling', so to speak?

It's because of me, Patrick.

Long story!

[Fisherman]

Dane_F:

I do not however accept that it is a logical conclusion that he gave his Cross last name with intent to maliciously deceive. I have listed one reason he could have used his Cross last name, you have listed another valid reason. Neither of those reasons end with him being the Ripper. He could have just as simply wanted to use Cross so he would not be bothered at home/work about it. No need to believe he did it because he was the Ripper and didn't want to get caught.

True! But you have to find equally innocent explanations to far too many anomalies not to conclude that he was likely the killer, they way I see it. Each and every one of these anomalies can be explained away individually, but when we add them together ...

How do we know his wife wasn't aware of both last names?

We don´t. But we do know that todays Lechmeres do not know anything about any Cross connection. Not that it proves anything, but it is an interesting fact.

Certainly he would have talked about his step-father to his wife.

He could have, we can say no more than that. Would is another thing altogether.

How do we know co-workers didn't know his backstory or that his stepfather was a Cross?

Once again, we don´t.

If I'm not mistaken his mother was still alive at this time correct?

Very much so, yes. Incidentally, she lived very close by the Stride murder site. And she was a cat´s meat woman in the 1891 census, meaning that she had access to meat saws and knives an such things, quite possibly doing her bsuiness in her flat at 147 Cable Street, situated a stone´s throw from where the Pinchin Street torso was found in September 1889. And she and Charles had formerly lived in Pinchin Street.

Would she have not put two and two together with who this Charles Cross was?

Once again, we don´t know. It has been suggested that she may well have known or suspected him - but he was her son, nevertheless.

The jump that he used Cross to hide his actions from his wife so he could "keep" killing is quite a big one to make.

I don´t think so. He apparently did not want to hide his identity from the police, so if he wished to do so from somebody ese - and I think he did - there are not many to choose from.

It seems far more likely that he either did it for the reason I suggested or he did it to keep the general public from bothering him and not his family from knowing he was ripping women.

That is a very reasonable conclusion, yes - but then you need to move on to the other anomalies and explain them away, one by one. At some time, you need to realize that it cannot all be coincidences. At least I arrived at that stage eventually.

I am curious, does Lechmere have any criminal history? Anything before or after?

Not that we know of.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

It's because of me, Patrick.

Long story!

That´s not true, Patrick, so don´t pay too much attention to it. I was convinced by the sterling work Edward Stow has laid down on Lechmere, following this suspect in his tracks for more than fifteen years, together with some research and in-depth analysis of the material I did myself.

I was early on in this process of the meaning that he was the best suspect, but it was not until I analyzed the material, looking at it from a perspective where I accepted that Lechmere could be the culprit, that I was more or less convinced. His conning Mizen on the murder night was instrumental to me in many ways.

Incidentally, whenever Ben suggests something, I always carefully consider to go with the opposite. So far, it has yielded richly.

The best,
Fisherman

[Dane_F]

Thank you for the response Fisherman.

I would have to look at each individual anomaly to see if I come to the same conclusion. Is there a good place where someone laid out the exact points? I know you listed some above but I do not see him wearing work clothes as something shady and I assume the argument against him goes far deeper than his intent to possibly deceive his wife, who might have known all along of his step father.

The fact his mother was alive lends even more credence to his family knew of his step father. Surely at some point his wife and his mother would have talked about his family history. At least that is a far more logical assumption than his family kept everything a secret from his wife / children and for what gain? So later on in him he could ask ill women and use the Cross last name to throw suspicion off of him? Eh. That is a hard thing to accept.

They had his address and work. He was at the hearing. It seems likely that he was contracted to be there and the Cross name would have come up to someone. Yet, unless I'm mistaken, no where is it mentioned that this was some big revelation and they thought of it as suspicious actions.

I look forward to any information provided. To me the biggest two points to him being involved are him being found over the body and possibly lying about there being another PC that night.

[Fisherman]

MrBarnett: Hi All,

One thing I am curious about is how the police contacted Lechmere to request his attendance at the inquest. If, as has been said, he gave them his home address and place of work, they presumably would have made enquiries there for a man named Cross. But according to the theory he was unknown by that name in either place. (Apologies if this has been covered a hundred times before).

He would most probably have come forward on his own accord on Sunday night, being summoned then to attend the inquest the next day. All the legal implications have been covered on other threads.

I personally feel the most obvious reason he attended the inquest in his work clothes was that he went there straight from work. We know his working day began hours before an inquest would have convened, so he probably did a few early local trips and attended the inquest later that morning. I doubt that his employers would have paid him if he had not turned up for the whole day.

He didn´t turn up for the whole day. He was at the inquest. The witnesses were obliged to stay put throughout, from beginning to end.

The suggestion that Lechmere in 1888 was well-to-do because decades later he owned a small shop seems somewhat flawed to say the least.

Flawed? It is something we cannot prove, of course. But he sent all his kids to school during this period of his life, we know that much, so he did have some means apparently. To suggest that a man who worked continually for twenty years as a carman, and who was able to save up to open a shop of his own later would have had some money cannot possibly be flawed, can it?

... why rush home and change if you are hoping to give your evidence asap and get back to work so as to avoid losing a day's pay?

Because you are not allowed to leave the inquest during the proceedings. If the coroner finds reason to recall you, you are not supposed to have left. We have Robert Paul on record on this issue, who stated in the press that 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. He was then summoned to give evidence at the inquest on two different days." And we know he was only put on the stand one of them days - nevertheless, if you are summoned, you are there. The whole time.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Thank you for the response Fisherman.

I would have to look at each individual anomaly to see if I come to the same conclusion. Is there a good place where someone laid out the exact points?

Here´s an article I wrote for my paper, Sydsvenskan, in 2013. It has not got all the points, but a fair overwiew nevertheless:

Early on the 31:st of August 1888, the carman Robert Paul was on his way to work in Corbett´s Court in London´s East End. He was late; the time was 3.45 as he briskly walked down Buck´s Row after having turned into it from Brady Street. At the intersection between the streets he passed a gas lamp. There were a further couple of lamps along Buck´s Row, but none of them functioned, so the darkness deepened around Paul with every step he took. Having walked a hundred yards or so, and with the light from the gas lamp as a haze in the distance, he suddenly discerned a man standing still in the middle of the street. Robert Paul felt uneasy, and as the other man took a step or two towards him, Paul chose to step down from the pavement to walk round him. Then the other man stretched out his arm, put his hand on Paul´s shoulder and said:
- Come and have a look, there´s a woman lying over here.
At the entrance to Brown´s Stable Yard, a figure was stretched out on its back. The men crossed Buck´s Row to take a look.
The woman lying on the southern side of the narrow street was the 43-year old prostitute Mary Ann ”Polly” Nichols. The man that had stopped Robert Paul was also a carman, 38 years of age, answering to the name Charles Allen Lechmere. And the murder – for it was a murder – was the first in the series attributed to Jack the Ripper.
The Ripper murders were all knife slayings. They were so violent that they made Londoners presuppose that they were dealing with a complete maniac. They would remain unsolved. There were five of them according to traditional opinion, and they were perpetrated over a period of around ten weeks.
When the story about them is told, a number of elements are usually involved: the competent Victorian police, the dark labyrinth of crime-infested streets called the East End and the skill that allowed the killer to avoid the police net.
Those who dig deep enough into the case will discover that one of these elements was not really there. Sadly, that element was the police competence. It is a controversial view, but an inevitable one. The police force had no experience of serial killings, it was led by men who in many instances had peculiar qualifications for police work and it carried out its duties in an era when racism abounded and phrenology – the belief that criminality could be read into people´s differing physiognomies – was an accepted ”science”.
If the investigation had been handled the way investigations are handled today, then Polly Nichols would probably never have come to be regarded as the first Ripper victim. The killings would probably have ended there and then. A modern police force would arguably have concluded that the man Robert Paul found standing by Polly Nichols, was also her probable killer: Charles Allen Lechmere. But let´s return to Buck´s Row and find out what it is that points towards him.
At the inquest after the murder, Lechmere claimed that he had noticed that there was something – his guess was a tarpaulin – lying on the southern side of Buck´s Row. He had then walked out into the street. At that same stage, he heard somebody – Robert Paul – was approaching. But he did not notice Paul until he was some thirty-forty yards away.
And yet we know that a policeman during the same night heard his colleague´s steps from 130 yards away. Reasonably, Lechmere should have already heard Paul when the latter turned into Buck´s Row. The street was resting in silence and the shoes of that time had hard, loud heels.
Likewise, Paul should have heard Lechmere walking in the darkness some thirty, forty yards ahead of him. But he didn´t.
The conclusion is inescapable: Lechmere was in place before he admits to have been. And once he noticed the approaching Paul, he chose to bluff the newcomer instead of running for it, and attracting attention to his person.
They then went over to the woman together to feel her. Her hands were cold, but the face was warm, and as Paul felt her chest he discerned some small movement.
- I believe she is alive, but only just, he said. Let´s prop her up, he suggested. But Lechmere then said that he would not touch her.
The reason for this is easy to see: as long as the woman was lying on the ground, it could not be made out in the darkness that she had had her neck severed down to the spine, and it provided Lechmere with the opportunity to procure an alibi for whatever blood he could have gotten on himself. But the moment they tried to sit her up, what had happened to her would become obvious.
Paul now remembered that he was late. He suggested that he should go and fetch a policeman to send to Buck´s Row. This made Lechmere say that he too was late, and throw forward a proposal that they should seek out that policeman together. If he had the murder weapon stashed on himself – no weapon was found at the spot when it was searched later – one can understand that he did not wish to wait for a policeman. And Paul had seen him and could identify him, so running was no longer any alternative. Lechmere was forced to improvise.
Before they set off, Paul respectfully pulled the woman´s clothes down as best as he could. Before that, they had been pulled up to the hip region, leaving the legs bare. But the clothes had covered her belly completely, and therefore her other wounds had been hidden – she had had the stomach ripped open from the breast bone down to the pelvic region. So somebody had taken the time to conceal this by using her clothes. Only one person stood to gain something by such a thing: a killer that had not been able to flee.
The carmen now left Buck´s Row and walked westwards. A couple of hundred yards from the murder scene, they ran into PC Jonas Mizen, who was in the process of knocking people up by tapping on doors and windows, a practice that was common amongst the police. Mizen would later at the inquest say that only one of the carmen – Lechmere – had spoken to him, and that this carman had told him that he was needed in Buck´s Row, where a woman was lying on the ground and where a fellow PC awaited his arrival.
But wait a second …?
There was no other PC in Buck´s Row, was there?
Exactly.
But if Lechmere was the killer, then he was still carrying his murder weapon on his person. Therefore he would have been anxious not to be searched, and determined to avoid being forced back to the murder site. That would have been why he invented a fictive PC, something that made Mizen accept that the carmen had already been cleared.
That is how easily the probable killer of Polly Nichols got past the police! And actually, there was another PC in place as Mizen arrived in Buck´s Row – PC John Neil had found Nichols on his beat a few minutes after the carmen had left her.
Could Lechmere possibly have known that Neil would be in place as Mizen arrived? Yes, that is an obvious possibility. He had probably picked Nichols up on Whitechapel Road, a known prostitute haunt. At that stage, the couple would reasonably have checked where the beat PC was before they sneaked up to Buck´s Row; prostitution was a crime.
The fact is that John Neil for a couple of days remained the man believed to first have discovered the body. But Robert Paul apparently had gotten word that Nichols had been killed, which was why he went to the press and gave a (probably well-paid) interview. It was published on the Sunday, two days after the murder and the day before the inquest. In the interview, Paul claimed to have found Lechmere standing ”where the body was”.
That was alarming news for Lechmere, and it arguably made him report himself to the police to provide his own version of the story, after which he was summoned to the Monday inquest. If he had avoided going to the police, then they would have had a situation where they knew a man had been standing by Nichols´ body at the approximate time of her death, only to later disappear. And Lechmere knew that both Paul and Mizen could identify him. Therefore he chose to come forward and present himself – but not fully. For he chose to call himself Charles Cross as he witnessed!
As a child, he had for a duration of around a decade had a stepfather called Thomas Cross, but there are no signs that Lechmere used his stepfathers name in any other context than the murder of Nichols. On the contrary; there are around ninety instances when the carman´s name is recorded in different official contexts. Every single name he writes himself Lechmere.
The secret about the name was unrevealed for more than a hundred years – it was not until some years ago that a genealogist made the connection.
The particulars Lechmere gave to the police where otherwise – apart from the name – correct. He stated 22 Doveton Street as his home address and he added that he worked for a Pickfords depot since an approximate twenty years. But when he witnessed before the inquest he added another anomaly to the false name: he did not state his home address before the jury, something witnesses normally do.
He said his name was Charles Cross and that he worked at Pickfords. But hundreds of men worked there, and without any home address he became unidentifiable to those who took part of the inquest proceedings in the papers. Consequently, his neighbours and his family could read about the murder without understanding that it was Lechmere who had found the victim.
But what about the police – surely they must have checked him out?
Not at all – a check in the registers, a visit at his home address or at Pickfords would immediately have disclosed that his name was not Cross. But Lechmere swiftly disappeared from the investigation, suspected of nothing at all. To be sure, a juryman did ask him if he had really told PC Mizen that another policeman was awaiting him in Buck´s Row, but this Lechmere denied. He added that he actually could not have said such a thing since there had not been any PC in Buck´s Row. This Robert Paul could of course confirm, and therefore everything pointed to Mizen having misunderstood things. And deeper than that nobody went – a murder inquest´s aim is merely to establish the cause of death.
Why then did the police fail to check Lechmere out? Well, they decided at an early stage that they were looking for a lunatic, very possibly a foreign such.
After the fourth Ripper killing, that of Catherine Eddowes, the detective Daniel Halse met two men in a street adjacent to the murder spot. His only measure was to establish that the men had legitimate reasons to be there. After that, he let them go. They were probably British, and they probably stated that they lived in the street or nearby, or perhaps that they were on their way to work. Exactly such a statement was also enough, as we have seen, for Charles Lechmere to gain a free passage from the inquest. He was British, he was a family father with eleven children, he was en route to his work. He was everything the Victorian police did not expect the killer to be.
And still, he was alone with a murder victim, a victim that may well still have been alive as Paul thought he discerned a small movement in her chest. When John Neil laid eyes on her, perhaps some three or four minutes afterwards, there was still blood running from her neck. And Mizen claimed the exact same thing, being in place a couple of minutes after Neil. The extensive damage she had suffered ought to have emptied her of blood quickly, it would not have been a matter of many minutes.
To tell the truth, Charles Lechmere should not even have been in Buck´s Row at 3.45 in the morning. For he claimed that he had left his home at 3.30, and to walk from Doveton Street to the murder spot is easily done in six or seven minutes. That means that Charles Lechmere should have left Buck´s Row well behind him long before Robert Paul turned into it. Therefore the time window is in place for Lechmere to have committed the murder.
All in all, a substantial amount of accusations can be raised against Charles Lechmere. But do we have something to check it against, something that can strengthen the case?
Yes we have, actually! We can take a look at the five Ripper killings, and we can add another knife slaying that may have been perpetrated by the same man, three weeks before the Ripper series. After that, we can compare the times and places the murders occurred at with Charles Lechmere´s route to work. When doing so, an amazing pattern emerges.
Lechmere had two roughly comparable thoroughfares from Doveton Street to Pickfords in Broad Street, where today’s Liverpool Street station is situated. They were Hanbury Street and Old Montague Street.
-On the 7:th of August, Martha Tabram was killed at the approximate time when Lechmere went to work. She died in George Yard, only thirty yards or so off Old Montague Street.
-On the 31:st of August Polly Nichols died on Buck´s Row – along Lechmere’s working route.
-On the 8:th of September Annie Chapman was murdered early in the morning on a working day, in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street.
-On the 9:th of November Mary Kelly met with her killer, early in the morning of a working day, in Miller´s Court, Dorset Street. And Dorset Street offered a short cut to Pickfords along the Hanbury Street route.
There are two murders left to account for, both of them on the 30:th of September, when first Liz Stride and later Catherine Eddowes were killed. Here is a deviation: Stride was killed shortly before one o clock in the morning. That was not a time at which Lechmere was en route to his job. Eddowes died a little less than an hour later, that too being too early to be tied to Lechmere´s working trek.
Nor did these victims die along Lechmere´s working route. Stride met her end on Berner Street, a couple of hundred yards south of the Hanbury Street/Old Montague Street area, and Eddowes fell prey in Mitre Square, that too being situated south of the Lechmere working trek territory.
These cases can, however, be regarded as confirmation of Lechmere´s culpability. For they took place on the night leading up to a Sunday, Lechmere’s day off. And the Stride case took place in the exact territory where Lechmere had grown up and lived for a long stretch of years. Furthermore, Berner Street was a thoroughfare to Cable Street, where Charles Lechmere´s mother and one of his daughters were living!
For a hard-working carman, there was only one real evening off, and that was Saturday evening. What could be more natural than to use that evening to visit your mother and daughter?
The Stride killing was different from the other canonical cases in the sense that her stomach was not ripped open. There is an obvious possibility that Lechmere was disturbed, and frustrated fled Berner Street. After that, he sought out Catherine Eddowes and killed her in Mitre Square – alongside his old working route from James Street to Pickfords! Lechmere lived in James Street until June 1888, when he made the move to Doveton Street. That means that he left his old grounds – and the close proximity to his mother – only weeks before the murders began.
The British police hunted the Ripper up until 1892. After that, scores of armchair detectives have tried to catch the illusive killer. Hundreds of suspects have come and gone, one more fantastic than the other. Lately, a theory that Vincent van Gogh was the killer has seen the light of day.
Many ripperologists have made a quid by throwing a speculation in along the rugged road that winds through the gas lit East End streets of the 1880:s. There now being a rationally functioning, everyday, grey suspect is not something all Ripper researchers have wished for.
They can find consolation in the fact that Lechmere actually has a glamorous family history, counting an archbishop and one of Admiral Nelson´s closest men. Lechmere’s branch of the family, however, had the bad luck of being hit by a waster, namely Charles´ grandfather, who threw away his fortune.
So, to top things off, Charles Lechmere had good reason to feel a strong urge for revenge as he wandered the streets of the East End together with prostitutes, pimps and robbers, carrying the insight that he was made up of another material altogether himself than they were.
Did that insight ultimately drive him over the edge?
Charles Allen Lechmere died at the age of 71, on the 23:rd of December 1920, in Bow, London, after having suffered brain hemorrhage two days earlier.

All the best,
Fisherman

[MrBarnett]

Hi Fisherman,

Thanks for your interesting responses.

I still see no objection to the possibility of Lechmere, whose working day from what we know started at around 4 am, going in to work prior to attending the inquest some 5 or so hours later. This would seem to me the most logical explanation of his being dressed in working clothes. And unless he had attended as a witness at an inquest before, Lech. would have no idea whether he could slope off early after having given his evidence.

As for the schooling of his children being evidence of his financial status, I very much doubt they went to fee-paying schools.

I have yet to read your article below, thanks for posting that.

Best wishes,

MrB

[FrankO]

So being searched and being found with a bloody knife would be something to avoid.
Am I having to explain this?

I completely agree, Edward. Actually, the next best thing for the police to catching a murderer red-handed would be to find him with a bloody knife on his person shortly after he’d left a crime scene.

You suggest that Lechmere was a psychopath who was able to think on his feet. You have him think of and come up with a solution for everything, including the relatively complex and risky so-called Mizen scam. Could you explain why he failed to come up with the simplest and best solution to his most pressing problem: lose the knife?

He could easily have hid it under Nichols’ body or clothes or even laid it a couple of yards away from the body where he could quickly and easily retrieve it if necessary.

All the best,
Frank

[Fisherman]

Hi Fisherman,

... unless he had attended as a witness at an inquest before, Lech. would have no idea whether he could slope off early after having given his evidence.

Best wishes,

MrB

He would have been informed about that, as was Robert Paul. There would have been the need for him to find a stand-in for the day, as there was for Robert Paul.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

I completely agree, Edward. Actually, the next best thing for the police to catching a murderer red-handed would be to find him with a bloody knife on his person shortly after he’d left a crime scene.

You suggest that Lechmere was a psychopath who was able to think on his feet. You have him think of and come up with a solution for everything, including the relatively complex and risky so-called Mizen scam. Could you explain why he failed to come up with the simplest and best solution to his most pressing problem: lose the knife?

He could easily have hid it under Nichols’ body or clothes or even laid it a couple of yards away from the body where he could quickly and easily retrieve it if necessary.

All the best,
Frank

Me oh my! All kinds of arguments surface against Lechmere´s candidacy, don´t they?

It could be very, very easy, Frank. It was his knife. He killed with it. It could well have represented something very important to him. Many killers have had a fetish for their weapon. Most serialists use the same weapon over and over again, although this gives away that there is a serialist working. It would be smarter to use different weapons, but normally they don´t, do they? No, they cling on to their weapon of choice.

To hide it under the body? Hmmm. People tell me that since there is no precedent when it comes to killing en route to work, Lechmere could not have done it.
Is there a precedent of a killer hiding his weapon under a dead body to avoid detection...? Just asking - not that I would ever join the funny brigade and exclude it!

Incidentally, I don´t think that we must expect Lechmere to always have taken the best decisions from the wiew of a killer who wanted to get away with murder. If we were to do that, then we would not accept that he would kill out in the open street in the first place, Frank.

All the best,
Fisherman