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

[Lechmere]

Sally
Thank you for those kind words of encouragement.
I think there is a good chance for a film script as it is grounded in reality and based on what happened.
I can't see Hollywood being interested in the standard old (top) hat fare again - been there done it. I can see interest in a grounded Jack the Ripper serial killer blockbuster, which would has more in common with what we now know as serial killer behaviour and life patterns.
Tumblety could have a walk on and off part to attract the US audience - the Yankee Dollar is essential in any enterprise.
I would not want Abberline portrayed as a drunk nor indeed as any sort of idiot, who would for example try to ingratiate himself with his superiors by misleading them in his reports about whether or not he interrogated witnesses properly.

[Fisherman]

I would not want Abberline portrayed as a drunk nor indeed as any sort of idiot, who would for example try to ingratiate himself with his superiors by misleading them in his reports about whether or not he interrogated witnesses properly.

If he tried it, he would not be able to pull that stunt anyway. His superiors all knew that all questionings were interrogations, that they all lasted the exact same time (they used an egg-clock), and that all witnesses were asked the exact same questions, no matter what they had witnessed.
"So, Mr Widepants, what was your first reaction when you saw the body?"
"Body? What body? I´m here about that stolen necklace. I saw the thief, see, and..."
"Yes, yes. Did you see anybody leaving or entering the murder scene?"

All the best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

Never missing an entry in the electoral register for about 3 years despite moving six times is I would suggest unusual nowadays – let alone then.
Having all eleven children baptised was not very usual.
A carman opening shops in three different premises while being a carman was unusual.
A carman leaving a tidy sum in his will was unusual.
Having over 100 records for such a humble person is unusual.

Yeah, but is any of that significant, Ed?

So Crossmere was a stickler for filling in his paperwork properly - it looks very much as though he was a conscientious, hard working chap who looked after his family.

As for the oft-cited 100 records, most of them are school records and their quantity is in part simply a consequence of survival combined with personal circumstances. A person living in the area and moving about a fair bit might easily accumulate a similar number - have you performed a control check to see just how rare it is?

Same can go for the electoral registers - really, it isn't particularly uncommon to find people who appear, year on year, regular as clockwork, whether they've moved about or not.

Credit to Crossmere for due diligence and all that, being a bit of a form-filler doesn't render him a suspicious character.

[MrBarnett]

Hi Lechmere

Anyone who has moved home will will be familiar with the procedure for informing schools, local authorities, utilities companies etc: you contact them and say, 'On such and such a day I will be moving from A to B'. That date them becomes the recorded date of your leaving one premises and taking up residence in the next. In the case of a school in particular this has to be done well in advance to ensure that there are places availamble for your children.

So the 12th of June would have been the date that Lech (or his wife) advised both schools would be their moving day. Lacking the attendance registers, we can have no idea whether Lech's kids had a day, or a week, off school to help them settle on to their new home.

MrB

[Sally]

Sally
Thank you for those kind words of encouragement.
I think there is a good chance for a film script as it is grounded in reality and based on what happened.
I can't see Hollywood being interested in the standard old (top) hat fare again - been there done it. I can see interest in a grounded Jack the Ripper serial killer blockbuster, which would has more in common with what we now know as serial killer behaviour and life patterns.
Tumblety could have a walk on and off part to attract the US audience - the Yankee Dollar is essential in any enterprise.
I would not want Abberline portrayed as a drunk nor indeed as any sort of idiot, who would for example try to ingratiate himself with his superiors by misleading them in his reports about whether or not he interrogated witnesses properly.

I think you're going to have competition from the new Barnett blokbuster currently in the pipeline, Ed.

He's got all the moves - and he was the boyfriend.

Alibi? No problem - this is the past as wished for, after all.

[Lechmere]

I may have slipped up and said he moved 6 times in 3 years - he has 35 or more electoral register entries despite moving six times and never missed a year.
They are the biggest single type of record not the school records - two of his kids died young and one lived with his mother and I haven't traced her records.
I haven't got a complete set for Lechmere but over a wide range.
I have conducted similar searches for many other people and invariably end up with big gaps.
I don't believe I suggested that his record keeping was a sign of guilt.
I have suggested it is an indication of his character - a man who is precise. In control - liking control. It complements my interpretation of his character.
It is also of course an indication that whenever he gave his family name he always used Lechmere and never Cross.

[Patrick S]

Patrick S:

I'm not asking you to play nice and I wasn't pointing out your parting shot as a complaint.

Okay, Patrick. However, I have seen far too much of people not playing nice out here (and I´ve participated in that myself too), and I´ve grown tired of it. I would love to have a nice, factual debate where everybody was willing to both proclaim points won and concede points lost gracefully. Sadly, that is not going to happen, I think, But I´m prepared to be surprised on that point!

I love a debate and I'm always honest when I come out on the short end. If you change my mind, I'll tell you, and I'll advocate for your position going forward. Up to now, you haven't.

That´s fair enough, Patrick.

In fact, the more I look at Lechmere, the less likely a Ripper he becomes. That's my honest opinion.

Once again, I´m fine with honest opinions. However, I asked you before about how you explain tha correlation between Lechmere´s logically trodden paths and timings and the murders - if you think he is a bad candidate, how do you explain this matter? I would love to hear that!

I have no doubt your honest in your feelings to the contrary.

Nor should you!

Thus, a debate. I'm a big boy and can take a few shots. You are passionate and informed and I'm open to changing my mind. Like agent Mulder, "I want to believe."

There will be no shots unless I am subjected to any shots myself, Patrick. And I know that you can take shots anyhow - so far, they have dripped away from you like water on a goose.

I find it a bit strange how people (not necessarily you) shy away from what they have ordered themselves: A grey man, a man with an occupation that would have allowed him to be in place at awkward hours when others slept. That is what has been asked for more than once on the boards.
Considering that this grey man has been garnished with a proven nameswop, anomalies a plenty, a set of disinformation and lies apparently fed to the police and a background that tallies with many serialsts, missing biological father figure and all, one would have thought that should go a long way to meed the requirements, but no - he won´t do for you (and many others).

Personally, I suspect that there are those who would prefer drinking poison to admitting that Lechmere is a good bid, and that will to a significant part owe to personal chemistry - or rather the lack of it.

I have had it suggested that men like Sickert and Blotchy would be equally good or better bids, and on a factual level, that is beyond preposterous. The fact alone that Lechmere was actually found standing right beside the body of a very freshly killed woman is enough to seal his role as a top contender for the Ripper title. And that´s before we add all other ingredients.

But such is human nature! Hunches we have are deemed better than other people´s facts. And that too is fair enough on many levels - many crimes have been solved after lucky hunches on behalf of investigators.
But it taints the overall picture of Ripperology when a man like Lechmere does not even have a place as a suspect on the boards, for example.
Likewise, to people watching this from the outside, many choices that are made here will utterly confuse onlookers with no preferences, hunches or agendas.

On Lechmere, there is always more to come! There is ongoing research, and all sorts of things coming up. I once predicted that anything that surfaced around him was more likely to clinch his role as the killer than to exonerate him. And that was before I "discovered" and wrote about the so called Mizen scam...

At the end of the day, we will almost certainly, as a certain poster (too) often expresses himself, never reach any consensus about who the killer was. Too much personal pride has been invested for that to reasonably happen.

But when the fog lifts, I am confident that Lechmere will count as top Ripper material. On a practical level, he is lightyears ahead of the others.

All the best,
Fisherman

Again, I don't disagree that Cross/Lechmere can be viewed as exactly what we've been looking for with respect to his access to area, etc. I'm with you on that point. My issues are with his behavior at the murder scene, and an MO that - to me - doesn't make sense (i.e. committing murder and mutilations on his way to work). Where you see suspect behavior, I see a no consciousness of guilt. Where you see a man with a plan, I see a man acting rationally (in his behavior with Paul at the body). Of course, the whole scenario is shrouded by 130 years, where the mundane can (and often does) become damning evidence of....well...something to hide. I grant you the name issue. You have converted me on that. It's odd and not so easily explained (again, from 130 years on).

I hope I've not seemed uncivil or prone to personal attacks. I have great respect for anyone who's done the amount of research that you clearly have.

[Lechmere]

Mr Barnett I think you are imposing today's procedures on 1888, when there were few utilities, local government was in its infancy, male universal suffrage was only just coming in, and universal education had only just been introduced.

[Lechmere]

Barnett wouldn't interest them Sally - he is an old school suspect, who was specifically cleared at the time and to increase his guilt a load of nonsense about him being a practiced fish filleter is invented (when he was just a porter and would never fillet due to strict demarcation).

[lynn cates]

East End prostitutes--they stun easily.

Hello Edward. I notice that you say:

"In my opinion this was because at that stage there was uncertainty over whether she was dead or had just fainted (hence Paul’s suggestion that they prop her up)."

Quite. But it was Cross [sic] who suggested she were dead, Paul thought otherwise.

"Witness [Cross] said, "I believe she is dead." He touched her face, which felt warm. The other man [Paul], placing his hand on her heart, said "I think she is breathing, but very little if she is.""

"If he was propped up, in the process her head would fall back exposing the vicious neck wound. making it blatantly obvious she was dead. Hence Lechmere did not want to prop her up.""

I can't understand this. If she were propped, surely Cross [sic] might have retorted. "My God, mate, look at that. Well, I told you she was dead. I was right."

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

compulsive

Hello Sally.

"So Crossmere was a stickler for filling in his paperwork properly - it looks very much as though he was a conscientious, hard working chap who looked after his family."

And that's my take. He seems to have a personality like mine, but I am no serial killer either.

Cheers.
LC

[FrankO]

FrankO: Is there a point in there, Fish?

Not really. There is some little recognition of the fact that I think that a number of the points made against Lechmere have a measure of desperation in them. Not that your point explicitly would be worse than many other ones. I just did not think it a very good one, if I may be so bold. Sorry.

Also if that’s the only thing that could link them to a murder and they had almost been caught?

That would depend on the perpetrator and the circumstances. A self-secure psychopath would be less inclined to be overly cautious. But it´s an academic discussion, methinks.

The point I was trying to make, Christer, is that I find it odd that Lechmere, the killer who’s able to come up with relatively complex & risky solutions, apparently wasn’t able to come up with a simple, important & efficient idea to lose the knife. I find that a striking oddity and for me another weakness, however small in your view, in the scenario you and Edward support.

Simple, yes. But efficient? Once the knife was found, it would be pretty obvious who had left it there, would it not? The phantom killer that is suggested as preceding Lechmere, for example - if he was there two minutes earlier, undisturbed, why would he yank his knife in under Nichols?

It wouldn’t matter why it was left there, Fish. Simply because, once it left the hand of whoever killed Nichols, the police would never ever be able to prove which person had held it in his hand.

I´d say that if Lechmere had done so, he´d be hard pushed to bring it back out unnoticed or to kill Paul with it.

Why would that be? He could very easily have directed Paul to one side of the body – the way he saw to it that he would be the one to do the talking to Mizen and that Paul was out of earshot at that point - and hid it on the side he would be on. Why would it be difficult to kill Paul with it?

It suddenly becomes a whole different ballgame in such a case, and I am not certain at all that it woud be a wise move. Are you?

Yes, I am, Fish.

There needn´t be, as I said. But I would be much interested to hear if there WAS.

Me too Fish, just as I would be interested to hear if there are examples of murderers who killed with the knife before the 1890s, who had almost been caught in the act and who didn’t lose the knife while they had taken other precautions to minimize getting caught after all.

Ah, an acknowledgement of sorts after all.

Of what, precisely...?

With what you wrote it seemed that you acknowledged that it wasn’t too smart not to lose the knife, but at the same time I suspected that it would turn out not to be the case. Which you have shown now…


All the best,
Frank

[Lechmere]

Lynn
You need to approach Lechmere's testimony from the perspective that he might not have been telling the truth with every syllable, as if he was guilty he would have coloured his story.
If one is judging whether someone is guilty it is usually sensible to treat their own account with a degree of scepticism.
I would suggest he would have lied about just enough to clear himself but stuck to the truth as much as possible, and he wouldn't have wanted to be too useful as he wouldn't want to be retained.

[Fisherman]

Again, I don't disagree that Cross/Lechmere can be viewed as exactly what we've been looking for with respect to his access to area, etc. I'm with you on that point. My issues are with his behavior at the murder scene, and an MO that - to me - doesn't make sense (i.e. committing murder and mutilations on his way to work). Where you see suspect behavior, I see a no consciousness of guilt. Where you see a man with a plan, I see a man acting rationally (in his behavior with Paul at the body). Of course, the whole scenario is shrouded by 130 years, where the mundane can (and often does) become damning evidence of....well...something to hide. I grant you the name issue. You have converted me on that. It's odd and not so easily explained (again, from 130 years on).

I hope I've not seemed uncivil or prone to personal attacks. I have great respect for anyone who's done the amount of research that you clearly have.

No, Patrick, you don´t come across an uncivil. These boards are littered with personal attacks, and you don´t even come close to it, so you can breathe out on that point.
I´m sorry to be persistent, but would you consider giving me an answer to my question about the geographical/time/murderplace point?

All the best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

He couldn't have thrown the knife as it would make a clattering noise.
He could conceivably have placed it under her clothing but as he was intending to bring the interloper to the body it may have been found there and the intention I suspect was to bluff it out that she may be comatose and a bloody knife would suggest something else.
I think the more natural impulse would be to stash it about his person.
If it was not Lechmere then he almost certainly must have unwittingly disturbed whoever did do it and that person did not abandon his knife.
As fisherman said it's quite possible that he felt attached to the knife.