Charles Lechmere interesting link

[FrankO]

No one has said that he was the one-and-only-guess-who person who didn't give his address.

You didn't, but Christer did, and only a couple of posts back. I have no problem with the notion that Lechmere didn't give his address at the inquest - he in all probability didn't - but I do oppose to the supposition that he was the one and only exception when he clearly wasn't.

All the best,
Frank

[Fisherman]

G'day Fisherman

But if as you postulate Lechmere somehow managed to avoid answering the question why didn't they pursue it?

The first thing any advocate or judge does when a question isn't answered is ask it all over again.

And how are we so certain that he didn't give his address.

What a judge will ask about again is a question to which he has not received an answer. And the coroner already HAD Lechmeres address, remember, so he may well just have let it pass and moved on to other matters.

How are we so certain that he did not give his address? Look at the inquest reports; all other witnesses are quoted (differently) in all of the papers as to what they stated about their lodgings.
Lechmere is quoted in one paper only, the Star.

Did he mumble, so that no other paper heard what he said? No, because the Star got is spot on, syllable for syllable.

Were they uninterested? No, because, albeit they could not hear very well what the witnesses said, they all tried to get the addresses and published them.

Conclusion: Lechmere said nothing about his adress, and the enterprising Star reporter asked to see the witness list, and copied the address from there. It is by far the best guess, as far as I can tell.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

You didn't, but Christer did, and only a couple of posts back. I have no problem with the notion that Lechmere didn't give his address at the inquest - he in all probability didn't - but I do oppose to the supposition that he was the one and only exception when he clearly wasn't.

All the best,
Frank

I was of course speaking about those who witnessed in an unprofessional capacity at the Nichols inquest, Frank. I hope you have read my later post, that will have clarified matters.

In that post, I also said that the important thing to do is to keep our eye on the target - I find that so often, it is contested that Lechmere presents many anomalies. Let´s not loose track of the fact that he actually does just that, time and again. It is important to the overall understanding of the case against him.
If you think I have been unclear, then that is unfortunate, and I will try to be very clear fortwith.

Why do you personally think he forgot/ommitted to mention his address? Coincidence? A will to safeguard his family? Or something else?

All the best,
Fisherman

[GUT]

Well where did the Star get bit from? The police perhaps is that the contention?


The argument just isn't with respect logical, they didn't ask his address because they already had it, but he didn't give his address for some nefarious purpose.


If as you say the coroner didn't ask again because he already had the address what did Lechmere gain other than a bit of public anonymity?

[Fisherman]

GUT:

Well where did the Star get bit from?

Reasonably they asked a clerk, who presented the address as it was taken down in the witness list.

If as you say the coroner didn't ask again because he already had the address what did Lechmere gain other than a bit of public anonymity?

Nothing at all. Nor was he after anything else, if I am correct. If I may, I would like to direct you to my post 130 on this thread, since it will give you a very exact picture of what I think was going on!

All the best,
Fisherman

[Cogidubnus]

So he freely gave his address to the clerk (from whom, if a reporter could, then the police or pretty well anybody else could obtain it). Not much suspicious anonymity there then...

All the best

Dave

[Fisherman]

So he freely gave his address to the clerk (from whom, if a reporter could, then the police or pretty well anybody else could obtain it). Not much suspicious anonymity there then...

All the best

Dave

I think you may have misunderstood slightly here, Dave. He did not give his address to any clerk - he gave it to the police and coroner as he joined the inquest proceedings.
The information he had given was then taken down in the witness list, serving the inquest and placed before the coroner.

The Star reporter would have noticed that all other unprofessional witnesses gave their addresses, and so he would have wanted to complete his own article by procuring Lechmere´s address too (or more rightly Cross´ address - he "unsuspiciously" gave a wrong name too). The reporter would therefore have approached a clerk and asked for it, and the clerk would have given it to him after having consulted the witness list.

You - of course! - don´t think there is anything suspicious about this.

I, on the other hand, have said throughout that Lechmere´s aim would have been to keep his family, friends and aquaintances out of the know that he was the witness, since he did not want to arouse any suspicion amongst people who knew him and his treks.

It therefore applies that when this man does what he can to hide his address from the papers, this is totally in line with what I suggest. To me, it serves as an outright confirmation that Lechmere was obscuring matters in order to enable him to keep killing undetected.

There is even the fact that he went to the inquest in his working clothes and apron, something that goes very well to implicate that he hid where he was going from his wife and family.

And in a sense, I actually DO find all of this more than a tad suspicious.

In the real world, the one existing outside Ripperology with it´s hangups and biases, I can guarantee you that most people would have regarded this as decidedly suspicious, since it all hangs together and since it all points in one very clear direction.
But hey: Who wants to listen to the real world?

All the best, Dave!
Fisherman

PS. My post 130 on this thread is very informative about what I think was going on. You may wish to read it before you comment any further on all of this.

[FrankO]

I was of course speaking about those who witnessed in an unprofessional capacity at the Nichols inquest, Frank. I hope you have read my later post, that will have clarified matters.

I know, Christer, but my point was that Lechmere wasn’t the only non-specialist witness who did not give a home address.

There was Thomas Ede, who wasn’t at the inquest in his capacity as a signalman when he saw a suspicious man. He may have been on his way to work, but he was just an ordinary witness who saw a suspicious man with a knife in the street and followed him for some time and then lost sight of him. Then there was Fountain Smith, the brother of Annie Chapman and Henry John Holland, who, just as Lechmere himself, was on his way to work close to Broad Street.

Why do you personally think he forgot/ommitted to mention his address? Coincidence? A will to safeguard his family? Or something else?

I don’t know. Why did the others forget or omit? If he wasn’t asked (and he doesn’t appears to have been), then he wouldn’t have given it, so that’s a very feasible possibility, even for an innocent Lechmere. But, of course, if he was the killer, he may have done it to hide his involvement from his wife, family, neighbours. Although I don’t think it would have worked for his mother, who knew that Charles had begun working for Pickford’s when Thomas Cross was still alive.

All the best,
Frank

[Fisherman]

FrankO:

I know, Christer, but my point was that Lechmere wasn’t the only non-specialist witness who did not give a home address.

There was Thomas Ede, who wasn’t at the inquest in his capacity as a signalman when he saw a suspicious man. He may have been on his way to work, but he was just an ordinary witness who saw a suspicious man with a knife in the street and followed him for some time and then lost sight of him. Then there was Fountain Smith, the brother of Annie Chapman and Henry John Holland, who, just as Lechmere himself, was on his way to work close to Broad Street.

I think we may need to look at the percentages, Frank. How many per cents of the unprofessional witnesses in the C5 inquests forgot/omitted to give their addresses?

And then, when we´ve done the maths, we ask ourselves: Why did Lechmere belong to this very small fraction of witnesses? Or, more provoking: Why is it that the picture me and Edward give of this man always finds support in all these details?

I don’t know. Why did the others forget or omit? If he wasn’t asked (and he doesn’t appears to have been), then he wouldn’t have given it, so that’s a very feasible possibility, even for an innocent Lechmere.

Oh, I don´t think that the other witnesses regularly named their names, addresses and occupations out of the blue, Frank. I don´t know all about British legal procedures in 1888, but the phrase "state your name, address and occupation, please" is something that is asked at inquests and trials today, to establish the identity of the witness to the ones in court. I bet that this was requested at these inquests too, but I cannot be certain. Perhaps some other poster with better insight in the errand will enlighten us on the point?

But, of course, if he was the killer, he may have done it to hide his involvement from his wife, family, neighbours.

He certainly may. And what a VERY unlucky coincidence if he just forgot, as one of the very, very few...!

Although I don’t think it would have worked for his mother, who knew that Charles had begun working for Pickford’s when Thomas Cross was still alive.

Tough call, Frank. It can be seen both ways. And it can be argued that he did the best he could, accepting the risk that his mother would get suspicious. Then again, it could also be argued that his mother may have known (or suspected him) all along - the fewest mothers will give up their sons to the gallows.

Looking at it this way, we can´t even be sure that his own wife did not know or suspect him. The possibilitites are many, but that does not eradicate the implications that are there to point a finger at Lechmere.

Did you know, by the way, that they are buried in the same cemetery, Lechmere and his wife - but in different ends of it?

One wonders why - eleven kids and a long life together, being married for half a century, and then they split up.

There could be many reasons for this too, of course.

All the best,
Fisherman

[GUT]

G'day Fisherman

I just read post 130 again and t still doesn't add up, what does he gain by his friends and neighbours not knowing it's him? They were never going to arrest him and if he had told the police and/or dep clerk his address the police could come knocking at any time.

[Cogidubnus]

You and me both GUT

All the best

Dave

[GUT]

You and me both GUT

All the best

Dave

G'day Dave

It MAY be possible to make a case against Cross but the name and address, in my opinion, add less than nothing to it.

I should perhaps add that Fish and Wick are two people with whom usually agree.

[Fisherman]

G'day Fisherman

I just read post 130 again and t still doesn't add up, what does he gain by his friends and neighbours not knowing it's him? They were never going to arrest him and if he had told the police and/or dep clerk his address the police could come knocking at any time.

Hi Gut!

The people that live close by your side are the ones who on a day-to-day basis know what you do, where you go, what kind of man you are, if you look agitated, nervous, if you arrive home with a cut to your hand, if you seem very eager to clean up extensively - all the small parts that paint a picture of you, specifically.

Those people would be the ones you need to keep out of the know.

If, say, Lechmere´s wife had said to Lechmere some weeks before the Nichols murder: "Charles, did you hear about that awful murder in the George Yard buildings yesterday? A woman was stabbed 39 times! And wasn´t that the morning you walked Old Montague Street to work, since you dropped off that book to Mr James, who lives down that street? It´s eerie, that woman must have been killed just as you passed by!"

... then what sort of impact do you think it would have had on Lechmere´s wish to divulge to his wife that he was the Buck´s Row witness that supposedly found Nichols?

This is the sort of thing I am speaking of, and this is why Lechmere would not have minded giving the police his address. The police never mapped Lechmere, and apparently never took any deeper interest in him. But he would not want to take the risk that they DID look at him, and that he in such an instance had outright lied to them.

His wife and friends, however, my fictive Mr James included, would have posed a very great risk.

I hope you understand what I am speaking of now!

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

It MAY be possible to make a case against Cross but the name and address, in my opinion, add less than nothing to it.

So, basically, if you were the police officer handling the case and found out that Lechmere had hidden his true name from you and that he had ommitted to give his address in front of the inquest, you would not bother to ask about why he did this, since it would be a non-issue to you?
You would be so certain that it added nothing to the case, that you would just leave it?

See, if it was me handling that investigation, I´d be all over him like a rash, asking away about why he didn´t tell us that he was really called Lechmere. And I would have had 120 signatures in my hand by him and by people who had spoken to him, all saying "Charles Lechmere".

So what I would do, would be to point to these signatures and ask him "Mr Lechmere, Sir - when we last spoke, you claimed that your name was Charles Cross. I have since that stage found out that this is not true - your true name is in fact Charles Lechmere. Would you care to comment on that, Sir?"...

...and if he went "I used to have this stepfather called Cross, and ever since, I have taken a fancy to that name. Many people actually know me by that name"...

... then I would go "But it seems to me you always call yourself and sign yourself Lechmere when you approach any authority. Can you explain why you did not do so when approaching the police in this case?"

I would ask. I think that it would be incredibly stupid and potentially disastrous not to ask. I certainly would not treat it as a non-issue. I would want explanations. Good explanations.

Apparently, you wouldn´t...? Why is that?

All the best,
Fisherman

[GUT]

Mainly because he told the police his address.

And because I don't believe the police didn't make any inquires.