Lechmere's Behavior in Buck's Row

[Rainbow]

Imagine this scene in say Leman Street police station in early September 1888.

Abberline: Is there anyone we should bring in for questioning?
Reid: What about Cross?
A: But didn't he approach Paul? He could have run away if he was the culprit.
R: Possibly, but these killers can be cool characters, psychopaths even, and given the 'fight or flight' option experienced by soldiers through the ages, perhaps he turned to face the intruder and to take control of the situation.
A: Stuff and nonsense. No one would ever turn and face an intruder in such circumstances. You are making me guffaw into my pipe. And you say he might be a psychopath? Have you a clinical diagnosis to back up that circular argument? No, I'm not interested in interviewing Cross without the requisite doctor's note. Now get out of my office you idiot.

Patrick - you could walk into the role of Abberline in this little playet.

ha ha ha ha ha

[Sam Flynn]

And mind you, he's got an atrabilarious supporter...

That's a new word on me! Made my day.

[DVV]

That's a new word on me! Made my day.

My pleasure. Atrabilious wasn't enough for the specimen I referred to.

Cheers

[Barnaby]

Hello Barnaby. Thanks.

"James Kelly has been my fav for a long time but I wish I could put him at/around every murder scene like Cross can be placed!"

Or even in London.

"But who cares, his story makes the best screenplay that I hastily write!"

If it is romance you seek, I'd suggest Dr. Stanley. His is most poignant of all. If only his existence could be established.

Cheers.
LC

Oh I have to read up on this Dr. Stanley.... I love me some unfalsifiable Ripper suspects!

Seriously, I recognize the problem that Kelly can't be placed in London. It is one of (at least) two major weaknesses in Kelly as Jack. The other is what did he do in the intervening decades? But the location problem is the biggest.

[lynn cates]

location, location, location

Hello Barnaby. Thanks.

Quite agree.

Cheers.
LC

[Rainbow]

Robert Paul later gave his evidence to the resumed inquest in mid-September, some weeks after the murder. In this account the way in which the two men met could have an underlying hint of threat: “As witness approached him [Lechmere] he walked towards the pavement, and witness stepped on to the roadway in order to pass him. He then touched witness on the shoulder, and said, ‘Come and look at this woman here.’” Another way of behaving, and perhaps more natural, would have been for Lechmere to hail the approaching man in the darkness and reassure him of his intentions before he drew close.

[Lechmere]

Some people claim there is absolutely nothing odd about the Lechmere-Paul meeting.
However to me it is was very unnatural - but maybe I'm looking for guilt where there was none.

[Rainbow]

Lechmere was discovered near a body. The times he was on the streets corresponded with the times of other murders. His possible routes to and from work were close to other murder sites. In 1888 he should have been the prime suspect. That ordinary man in his sacking apron may have been someone quite different. At Polly Nichols’s inquest he claimed to have worked for Pickfords for twenty years. Who knows, he may have been travelling around the British Isles on a Pickfords van murdering and dropping bodies as he went

[Rainbow]

Some people claim there is absolutely nothing odd about the Lechmere-Paul meeting.
However to me it is was very unnatural - but maybe I'm looking for guilt where there was none.

because of those people , Jack hasn't been identified for 126 years now ..

[Lechmere]

Ha! Yes indeed.

[lynn cates]

discovery

Hello Rainbow. Welcome to the boards--if I have not previously done so.

"Another way of behaving, and perhaps more natural, would have been for Lechmere to hail the approaching man in the darkness and reassure him of his intentions before he drew close."

Perhaps. But would Lechmere have been aware of Paul's apprehensions?

Actually, this meeting does not look all that different from later discoveries, except that, in Lechmere's case, it had not been a definitely ascertained fact that she were dead.

Cheers.
LC

[Lechmere]

For someone who obsesses over slight differences in how wounds are described it is remarkable that you characterise this discovery as being 'not all that different' to other discoveries.

The meeting between Lechmere and Paul is the only one described in detail but it clearly wasn't 'normal'.
It was the only body where the finders touched it repeatedly and went into detail about touching it.
It is the only victim that was left and subsequently found by someone else.
It is the only victim where it wasn't realised she was dead

Apart from that - exactly the same.

[Barnaby]

If Cross wasn't the Ripper then surely he must have practically interrupted him, no? Why didn't he report hearing footsteps, etc.? Any estimate as to when a PC was last in Buck's Row prior to the murder? Was there time for Nichols to take Jack to this secluded spot, the murder and mutilations occur, and for Jack to leave early enough such that Cross would see/hear nothing? And if there was time, why not finish with the mutilations? Why hide them? To me this is more consistent with the killer being interrupted (along with the fact that she may have been still alive when Paul inspected her!). Cross should have seen or heard something, much like Paul observed Cross.

[Lechmere]

If it wasn't Lechmere then the logical conclusion is that he almost stumbled upon the killer without noticing it.

[Barnaby]

I agree that is the logical conclusion. He quite literally just missed the killer. So on a quiet street in the dead of night when footsteps can be heard for a good distance, why did he hear nothing? Jack obviously would have heard Cross as evidenced by his absence. But Cross reports none of this.