Charles Lechmere interesting link

[caz]

Caz
You refuse to accept that he may have chosen to call himself Cross as a educated risk, based on:
(a) he wouldn't be checked out further as he would have thought that his performance was convincing; and
(b) if he was checked out he would be able to bluff out a reason why he gave that name.
You also refuse to concede that there may have been a good (guilty) reason for him choosing to call himself by a name that he would not be readily recognised under.

Hi Ed,

And you're straight back to Coco the Clown with (a). If he took an 'educated' (more like dumb) risk that his name would be taken on trust with no checking out, he could have called himself anything he fancied.

If he was checked out (and you don't know he wasn't), how would he be able to bluff out a reason for giving any false name, including that of his late stepfather, if he had never used an alias in any other context?

I would concede a good (guilty) reason for him using a one-off false name if anyone could come up with one. So far, none of the reasons offered are nearly good enough. If guilty, he would have had much more to fear from the police discovering his lie (by making one simple enquiry at Pickfords) than from his illiterate wife somehow finding out that he was one of the many people who would stumble across a murdered woman during that period.

If someone gives a false name then obviously no one can vouch for them under that name. That is what happens. But do you know what? People still give false names.

Yes, if they have good reason not to give their real name, and good reason to think nobody will question them further. And with Cross it's only your hunch that he wasn't known at Pickfords by that name. He may never have been known there as Lechmere, in which case it would only have complicated matters if he gave that name and they decided to check it out.

The 'stupid' option would be not to come forward at all after Paul went to the papers.

Well Paul didn't go to the police; they had to find him. Had Lechmere followed suit, and had the police managed to track him down, would they have found any more evidence against him than they would have against Paul?

Was Blotchy 'stupid' for not coming forward at all after Cox gave her evidence?

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

But did Lechmere know this when he decided to go to the police and give his name as Cross? Surely he must have been prepared for the question (at the cop shop if not the inquest): "So, Mr Charles Allen Cross, where do you live and/or work?"

If so, why would he have given a name that nobody at home or work would have vouched for? And how could he have expected not to be asked for an address when delivering his testimony?

That would have been down to pure luck, or negligence on the part of the authorities. Had he been asked, he could hardly have got away with a "shan't tell and you can't make me".

Don't you think the odds are rather heavily against Jack the Ripper being the only bloody inquest witness during the period who was not required to give his address?

Love,

Caz
X

Can we please establish that Lechmere could never have banked on having all things going his way? He MUST have taken risks along the way, and he could not have foreseen what would happen next at every given remove in time.

What remains, no matter how sceptical we are, is that from all of the witnesses who were not there in a professional capacity, Lechmere was the one and only person who ommitted to name where he lived.

It may well be that this detail was something that did not occur to him as he decided to go to the police - it perhaps only dawned on him afterwards, and he could of course just have taken a chance by leaving out his address. If it worked, it worked. If it didnīt, he could perhaps just have told his wife and friends that it was odd that the papers spoke of 22 Doveton Street (which they may well never have done, see more on that later), since there was no Cross living there, claiming that the papers must have gotten it wrong.
There would always have been the risk that his scheming was interfered with, but that would not have prevented him from trying. And as it turned out, he seemingly got away with it.

Please note how the addresses given by various witnesses differ in the different papers. Walker, for example, was given as a resident of:
16 Maidwood street, 15 Maidwell-street and 16 Maidswood-road

... and so on. The papers got it very wrong at times.

Please note how Lechmere himself claims to have walked down Parson Street to get to Buckīs Row, but there is no Parson Street there. There IS however a Bath Street, and I very much suspect that Lechmere may have mumbled slightly so that Bath Street turned into Parson Street in the papers. So there would have been every possibility that IF he had given his address, it would have come out as 2 Duffton Street, 32 Loveton Street, 28 Laughton Street or something like that.

The main thing is to keep our eyes firmly on the target here: He did not give his address to the inquest, and that totally tallies with a wish on his behalf not to have it divulged to his family and friends that he was the witness. Which is exactly what we are saying.
It involved risks, it could have gone wrong, he could to some little extent control things by not speaking out clearly - but in any case, it worked out.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

The big question should be why didn't they ask his address?

Reasonably because they already had it, GUT. It would have been another thing if it was lacking in the police information, but it wasnīt.

The risk would have been there that the coroner could have asked him to state his address, but he didnīt. And that was it - he got away with it.

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

GUT
Why didn’t they ask his address?
I presume you mean in court?
My guess is that in the hubbub and confusion he just got away with it.

Caz
My guess is that when he went to the police Lechmere was prepared to give the false name of Cross but his genuine address. I suspect he would have been ready, if need be, to give his genuine workplace as well.

We have already been down the false trail of ‘a name that nobody can vouch for’.
But did he know he was going to be summonsed to the inquest? Who knows?
We don’t actually know that he went to the police for a fact. He may have presented himself straight to the inquest when it opened, and given his statement there and then and been more or less immediately summonsed.

Did he know he would be expected to give his address and workplace at the inquest? Who knows?
All that can be said, with a fair degree of certainty, is that he didn’t give his address in open court.
That could have been an unintended slip or part of his cunning plan.

No one has suggested that he wasn’t ‘required’ to give his address.
Also I don’t doubt that if you trawl through every inquest report for all the Whitechapel Murders you will find at least one other non-specialist witness who didn’t give his or her address.
I don’t think the claim has been made that Lechmere was totally unique in this respect.

But to address your false trail again…
You think it was a dumb risk to take that his true name would not be discovered. But the facts speak otherwise as his true name was not discovered.
However the sensible option for someone in that spot would be to use a false name that could be explicable if push came to shove.
He could have just said that he respected his dead step father’s memory as an ex-policeman and didn’t want to drag his true family name into the case, and that he was worried about those brutish High Rip gangs.
We can pretty much say that Lechmere wasn’t checked out as his true name was not recorded in the internal police files that we have – the last being dated 18th October 1888 (from memory). If he had been checked out then it is sensible to conclude that his true name would have been revealed. If his true name was revealed it is sensible to conclude that the internal files would have given reference to it.
You may wish to dispute these conclusions but I would suggest that to do so would involve not very sensible arguments. But hey! That’s par for the course on Lechmere threads.

His wife wasn't married to one of the many (!?) people that you seem to think stumbled across ripped up dead bodies during this period. She was married to one specific, rare, discoverer or a rare and terrible event. So I think she would have taken a non-blasé interest in her husband’s involvement if she became aware of it.

Again you resort to the nonsensical argument that Lechmere innocently, only and solely, gave the name Cross in this very, and for him the most serious, brush with authority, just to be ‘helpful’ as he anticipated they might check him out at his workplace, where, via your unsupported hunch, you think he was known colloquially as Cross.

As you say, Paul didn’t go to the police – they found him.
But Paul was innocent. He actually had nothing to hide.
Same with Blotchy.
If you are guilty of something, and you cannot hide or disappear, is it best to wait to be find unexpectedly? Or is it best to control to situation and present yourself?
If you have difficulty with this question let me tell you that it is far more sensible to come forward.

[caz]

No one has suggested that he wasn’t ‘required’ to give his address.
Also I don’t doubt that if you trawl through every inquest report for all the Whitechapel Murders you will find at least one other non-specialist witness who didn’t give his or her address.
I don’t think the claim has been made that Lechmere was totally unique in this respect.

Ah, so not a sign of anything untoward then, more a case of the authorities not always requiring or making sure that witnesses stated their address in open court.

But to address your false trail again…
You think it was a dumb risk to take that his true name would not be discovered. But the facts speak otherwise as his true name was not discovered.

But that would equally have been the case if the name Cross had checked out at Pickfords. You don't know that it didn't, or wouldn't have done. He volunteered his slightly uncommon middle name, Allen, which he certainly didn't need to do if he was seriously intent on keeping his identity from anyone, but he never gets any credit for that. I've not even seen you address this potentially crucial detail. And he gave his correct home and work addresses.

We can pretty much say that Lechmere wasn’t checked out as his true name was not recorded in the internal police files that we have – the last being dated 18th October 1888 (from memory). If he had been checked out then it is sensible to conclude that his true name would have been revealed. If his true name was revealed it is sensible to conclude that the internal files would have given reference to it.

Yes, but if he had always been known as Charlie Cross at Pickfords, the police would have had little reason to delve any deeper.

His wife wasn't married to one of the many (!?) people that you seem to think stumbled across ripped up dead bodies during this period. She was married to one specific, rare, discoverer or a rare and terrible event.

Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes, Kelly, Mylett, McKenzie, Coles, the torso cases - all had someone stumbling across their corpses.

As you say, Paul didn’t go to the police – they found him.
But Paul was innocent. He actually had nothing to hide.
Same with Blotchy.

Same with Lechmere then. If you can say that about Blotchy, I can say it about Lechmere.

Of course, if you had discovered that Lechmere had a blotchy face and ginger whiskers, it would have been a different story.

Love,

Caz
X

[FrankO]

It was normal procedure for non specialist witnesses to give their address in open court.

Thanks, Edward. And would this inquest procedure be the same with criminal cases?

Cheers,
Frank

[Fisherman]

Thanks, Edward. And would this inquest procedure be the same with criminal cases?

Cheers,
Frank

As such, Frank, an inquest into somebodyīs death does not concern itself with the criminal aspects. It has one purpose only, and that is to establish the cause of death.

Whether the witnesses in criminal cases did state their adresses or not is of little relevance to the issue at hand. We are dealing with the inquests into the deaths of the Whitechapel murder victims, and we can easily see that the normal procedure in these procedures was to state name and address.

If other legal procedures, perhaps in other times, were of a different character, then it is something that - interesting though it may be in itself - does not really touch upon what we are looking at.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Caz
When re-investigating a case like this it is often a sensible starting point to look for exceptions to the rule. Lechmere no giving his address is an exception to the rule.
It is of course your prerogative to ignore this.
I did address the Allen issue – I recounted all the varieties of how his name was recorded.

[FrankO]

Whether the witnesses in criminal cases did state their adresses or not is of little relevance to the issue at hand.

If the procedure was the same for both inquest and criminal cases, then it does have relevance, Fish, because also in criminal cases it was not uncommon for non-specialist witnesses like Thomas Ede, Fountain Smith, Henry John Holland and Charles Cross/Lechmere to state a work place or even just a profession instead of an address. In addition to the names mentioned above, it would support even further what Caz worded in her last post…

Ah, so not a sign of anything untoward then, more a case of the authorities not always requiring or making sure that witnesses stated their address in open court.

…, making Cross/Lechmere not-the-one-and-only-guess-who person who omitted his home address.

All the best,
Frank

[Lechmere]

No one has said that he was the one-and-only-guess-who person who didn't give his address.
But it is undisputable (but I guess the anti Lechmerites will dispute it as they feel the need to dispute the most blatantly obvious things) that virtually all non professional witnesses in all the inquests did give their address.
But it is also fairly clear that Lechmere did not.
But this simple observation cannot be simply accepted. Oh no. Never.

[GUT]

Reasonably because they already had it, GUT. It would have been another thing if it was lacking in the police information, but it wasnīt.

The risk would have been there that the coroner could have asked him to state his address, but he didnīt. And that was it - he got away with it.

The best,
Fisherman

G'day Fisherman

He got away with what?

[GUT]

GUT
Why didn’t they ask his address?
I presume you mean in court?
My guess is that in the hubbub and confusion he just got away with it.

G'day Lechmere

Yes I mean in the inquest.

I'll ask you the same question I asked Fisherman, what is it that he is supposed to have got away with here.

A witness in Court, and at an inquest, is there to answer questions, not make statements, if no one, coroner or counsel assisting asked his address what do you expect him to do, just blurt it out. That s simply not how it works.

Witnesses are often [maybe even usually] asked their name, occupation and address, some give a business address. If they aren't asked there is no opportunity to state these details.

[Fisherman]

G'day Fisherman

He got away with what?

A lot of things, actually, I have little doubt of that. But this time, more specifically, he got away with not giving his address before the inquest.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Witnesses are often [maybe even usually] asked their name, occupation and address, some give a business address. If they aren't asked there is no opportunity to state these details.

So are you suggesting that they asked all the other unprofessional witnesses about names and addresses and occupation, but not Lechmere?

The lengths to which people will go to absolve Lechmere from guilt never seizes to amaze me.

Is it not by far the more credible suggestion that ALL the unprofessional witnesses were asked about this, and that Lechmere - for some reason - avoided to state his address?

All the best,
Fisherman

[GUT]

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.